Word of Salvation – Vol. 24 No. 33 – May 1978

 

Our Only Comfort

 

Sermon by Rev. P. G. Van Dam, M.Sc., B.D. on Lord’s Day 1

Scripture reading: Romans 8

Psalter Hymnal: 233:1, 2, 6; 230:1, 4, 5; 386; 406

 

Most of us know the need of comfort; of comfort which will give peace and hope in sorrow, in suffering and hardship, in uncertainty and despair.  No one knows that need of comfort better than our heavenly Father, for He loves us with a perfect love and knows our hearts with perfect understanding.  In His power and wisdom He is able to comfort and to encourage where the human mind and human words fail.

And that is the comfort of which Lord’s Day 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism speaks.  Not of the comfort of the human effort, not the temporary relief.  With Scripture the Heid. Cat. speaks here of the comfort which lasts.  The true comfort.  The comfort which lifts me up above my sorrow, my suffering, my hopelessness to see the Comforter: my Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ.

No, to know and to see my Saviour does not mean that I should now learn or pretend not to be influenced at all by sorrow, loss and suffering.  Nowhere would Scripture expect this of me.  But to know my Saviour does mean that I should not remain in my sorrow, as those in the world who have no hope.  I may not remain in my sorrow, for the Word teaches me to confess that “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s“ (Rom.14:8).  And our Lord is a living Lord, risen victoriously over the power of death!  In my hardships and suffering I must remember that they are the means the Lord uses to strengthen my faith, my trust in Him.  In my uncertainties and fear He wants me to remember that they shall not have me, that I shall not be overcome by them.  Because I belong to my faithful Saviour Who has assured me that “this is the will of Him Who sent Me: that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up at the last day.  For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life…!” (John 6:39, 40).

So, indeed, beyond my suffering, sorrow, hardship, loss, uncertainty, Scripture directs me to my Saviour.  And He is not a Saviour of the future only; already we have been saved (Eph.2:8).  Already “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).  And it is that comfort which we have in our risen Saviour which is the comfort of which Scripture speaks.  More than that, that comfort is the purpose for which God has given us His Word, the Gospel, which means: the good news.  Scripture is the message of comfort in Jesus Christ for all who are His!

Indeed, the message of the Word – yes, for the Word is a message, a proclamation for God’s people, and for me also the message of the Word reveals to me the great love of my God and Father, the purpose of the coming and of the sacrifice and of the resurrection of the Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, Who is now seated at the right hand of the Father, from where He rules the whole world for the sake of His Church (Eph.1:22 – 23), where He pleads for His people in their needs (Rom.8:34), and where He prepares a place for them so that where He is, we may be also (John 14:3).

The question however is: is it true that that message is my comfort indeed?  For while Lord’s Day 1 teaches me what Scripture tells me my comfort is, it is not that comfort for me unless it is the confession of my own heart also that, indeed, it is the Lord Jesus Christ and His love and sacrifice which are my comfort!  We could put this in different words also: true comfort is in the way of true faith in the Saviour only.  He only is the true comfort.  The strength of the comfort of which L.D.1 speaks is not in well- chosen words or in conveying thoughts of sympathy in the way the world makes an attempt to comfort.  The comfort of which L.D.1 speaks with Scripture is comfort in a very real sense: your comfort is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And, again, there is the question: do you confess that He is your comfort?  If He is not, you have no more comfort and hope than the unbelieving world has!  Then Scripture has nothing to offer you.  Only in true faith will I have true comfort. 

What is this true faith?  It is “looking to Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy of our salvation endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb.12:2).  Yes, this is my faith and my comfort: looking to Him, in the sure knowledge that I belong to Him, that I am His; His very own!  Once again: is that my comfort?  Have I truly seen Him, crucified?  Have I seen Him in His resurrection?  Him, my Saviour and my Lord? 

He saved me.  Not only from the wrath of God, from my guilt.  He also saved me in this sense that He made me His own.  A lamb is not saved from the lion if it is snatched out of the lion’s mouth; it is truly saved only if the shepherd takes it in his arms so that the lion will not again have it.  That is how Jesus saved His people; how He saved me.  Satan, who had almost devoured me, will not have me.  I will not go under in my grief, my hardships, my problems, my despair; not even in my death.  No, for I belong to my faithful Saviour.  And He rules the whole world for the sake of His Church, which is His body (as before: Eph.1:22-23).

This means that He also rules over my circumstances.  No, not in this sense that He will spare me suffering or sorrow or hardships or humiliation in this life.  But that I should time and again remember that I am His; never wondering whether I could hold onto Him, whether my faith is strong enough, but always remembering and confessing that He will hold onto me.

For behind the work of my Saviour for my eternal salvation is the love of the Father Who had chosen me to be His son (Eph.1:5).  Therefore, Jesus Christ died and redeemed me, and sent His Spirit to live in me from now on; the Comforter, of Whom Jesus said: “…He will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:14).  Declare ‘what’ to us and to me?  This: “All that the Father has is Mine” (vs.15a).  To declare, therefore, that it is true: we are His!  And what the Spirit convinces me of is true!  For He is the Spirit of truth Who “will guide you into all the truth” (vs.13).  And we know that that truth is the Word (John 8:31-32; 17:17).

Now why should all this be said?  Why should the Word itself be drawn into the picture here?

The answer is: only if I live by the Word will I know and confess that Jesus Christ is my comfort.  Yes, the Spirit of Christ comforts me.  But always only through the Word.  And we can observe this ourselves too; those who have always lived with the Word and by the Word find in that Word much more comfort than those who have lived with the Word only in a casual way!  Yet, no church, no minister can on their own provide for the need of comfort if those in need have not for themselves lived with the Word of the Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ.  And they have no other duty or mandate but to direct the hearts of those who are sorrowing, or suffering, or who are in distress, to the Saviour and Lord and to His Word.  But have those in need known His Word; in their lives confessed Him their only Lord, their Shepherd, their Keeper?!

To know the grace of the Lord we must pray that the Lord grant us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2Peter 3:18).  Only in the way of that growth will the Spirit appear to be our Comforter.  Christ is my comfort.  His Spirit the Comforter.  But only in the knowledge and in the faithful acceptance of His Word!  In the obedient acceptance of His Word!  Indeed my comfort in the Lord is a matter of obedience!

Usually we think of comfort in terms of feelings, sentiments, nice words.  But my feelings do not last; they are changing all the time.  But even if man cannot speak to my feelings and my moods, my state of mind, my sorrows, disappointments, fear, etc., the comfort is still there.  But it is not where I would like to find it, or how I would like to hear it.  My comfort is deep down, a matter of confession and of obedience to the Word of my Saviour!  “Come unto me… and I shall give you rest” (Matt.11:28).

Once more the question: do I want to come?  For my Saviour tells me: “In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  But I know this only if – and it is my sure comfort – only if I know Him!

For if I know Him, truly know Him through His Word, then I will also know that it is true when this same Lord now says to me: “..this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4-5).  But these words have meaning only to those who truly know Him, and who have confessed in their lives that Jesus is Lord; my Lord, to Whom I belong; in Whom I trust.  “My Rock and my Fortress, my Stronghold and my Deliverer, my Shield and He in Whom I take refuge” (Ps.144:2).

Again, are these the words of my own personal confession?  “He (God) is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1Cor.1:30).  Do those words speak to me?  Have I known and studied the Word of God long enough that the Spirit can indeed use those words to fill all the need I have of His comfort?  Yes, indeed, the Spirit has convinced me of the only way.  Have I obeyed Him; obeyed the Word?  That is the question of my comfort!

Have you, by the guidance of the Spirit, let Him “direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” (2Thess.3:5)?  The steadfastness of Christ, that is to say: have you seen how Christ endured, no matter the cost, no matter the depth of true suffering, to make you His own?  How much He sacrificed?  My true comfort: a matter of the obedience to the Word which reveals to me the Saviour.  My Saviour, too!  A matter of obedience to know and to confess Him!

But next to the command to know and to believe in Him, to confess Him as my Saviour and Lord, in Whom I live, next to that command Scripture directs me to another way to be assured of my comfort.  That way is mentioned in the second answer of L.D.1.  For me to truly know my comfort I must know just how great my sins and misery are, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery, and, finally, how I am to be thankful to God for such deliverance.

Already, we have considered, remembered and – hopefully – confessed at the proclamation of the Word this morning all that Jesus Christ has done for me.  How He became my Saviour, that He is my Lord and Keeper.  That therefore, nothing – not even death itself – will ever be able to separate us from Him anymore.  But a word must be said: thankfulness!

Yes, indeed, thankfulness.  If I remember that I was dead in my trespasses and sin, a child of wrath, living in darkness (Eph.2:1- 5), and how sorrow, despair, suffering are in fact symptoms of that death, wrath and darkness, and that Christ came to set me free from that death and gave me life eternal, instead of wrath, gave me peace with God and made me His child, brought me out of darkness into His light, yes, then my last word is not anymore sorrow, but it is thanksgiving.

Therefore, Christ does not want us to remain in our sorrow, to remain in the darkness of fear or of uncertainty or of despair.  Not to remain in them as symptoms of death.  For we live!  And we live to thank Him.  Yes, and that is the other direction of the Word to us who know the Saviour.  Not to sit down with our sorrows and hardships, for that often makes them only bigger!  But to get up and to thank Him!

The riches of a true faith are not shown any better than in the need and the desire to give thanks ‘right in the midst’ of sorrow, and fear and suffering!  Then to testify to the Saviour.  To testify that He is my Saviour now, at this very moment.  For I do no longer live in darkness, in hopelessness, in sorrow.  No, not really; I live in Him!  So often does the Word point us to the need to give thanks.  To mention just one place: “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus“ (Phil.4: 6-7).  Thanksgiving: the strength of our faith.  And in that thanksgiving we will find peace, as we just read in the letter to the Philippians.

“But

So then, to sum it up, as-it-were: in this is our comfort: “…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, God’s own people, so that you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.  Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy” (1Peter 2:9 10).  Our comfort is in our obedience to that Word: to confess and to proclaim it, in thanksgiving.

And then to be confirmed – in the way of glorifying the Lord and of thanksgiving to Him – in the assurance of those glorious words of Romans Chapter 8 of which we will only mention the last part:

“For I am sure that neither death, nor life,
nor angels nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come,
not powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

AMEN.