Hope for the Hurting
Country Music Song Titles:
1. If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t
You Dead?
2. I Went Back to My Fourth Wife for the Third Time and Gave Her a Second Chance to Make a First Class Fool Out of Me
3. You’re the Reason Our Kids are so Ugly
4. I’m Ashamed to Be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave
5. I Would Kiss You Through the Screen door but It’d Strain Our Love
6. I Wouldn’t Take Her to a Dogfight, Even if I thought She Could Win
2 Cor. 1:1-4 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia: [2] Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.[3] Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
A few years ago the psychology department of Duke University carried on an interesting experiment. They wanted to see how long rats could swim. In one container they placed a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He swam a few moments and then ducked his head to drown. In the other container they made the hope of escape a possibility for the rat. The rat swam for several hours before finally giving up. The conclusion of the experiment was just the opposite of our common conclusion. We usually say, "As long as there is life, there is hope." The Duke experiment proved, "As long as there is hope, there is life."
• All of us at some time or another are going to be hurt.
• All of us, at one point, will lose hope.
• It happened to the best of men and women in the faith; even some of the prophets in the Bible had lost hope at time; some of them were hurt and grieved because of personal loses in their lives, and at sometime in our life, it will happen to you.
Galatians 6:2 “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
• But truth be told, there are probably many here this morning dealing with unresolved hurt. Pain in their lives over something that is still lingering to this very day.
o the loss of a loved one.
o a broken relationship.
o a failure in the workplace,
o a moral failure in your life.
• unless hurts are dealt with, they will haunt you for the rest of your life.
• When we let the hurt linger, we open the door to resentment—resentment toward others, ourselves, even God.
• We try and resolve hurts in ways other than God intended. in things.
o Alcohol
o drugs.
o Shopping
o a cleaning binge.
o a drive,
o all kinds of different things.
• When you try and substitute your own method of resolving hurts, you will never resolve them, only postpone them.
Since all-night talker Larry King had heart surgery, he has received letters and gifts. No letter has affected him as much as this one. With a Bible was the following message, dated December 31: "Dear Larry, I’m so glad to hear that everything went well with your surgery. I want you to know that God was watching over you every minute, and even though I know you question that, I also know that one day it will be revealed to you. My prayer is that you remain open and God will touch your life as He has mine. Once I was a disbeliever. When I could not fill my life with basketball, I would simply substitute sex, liquid drugs, or material things to feed my internal shell-like appearance. I was never satisfied. I have finally realized after 40 years that Jesus Christ is in me. He will reveal His truth to you, Larry, because He lives." It was signed by Pete Maravich.
I. When you are hurting turn to God
When you think all is lost, remember: the Father is still on his thrown, the Holy Spirit is still in the business of saving souls, and Jesus is coming again.
Little Johnny was playing with his father’s wallet when he accidentally swallowed a quarter. He went crying to him mom, choking on the quarter. They took him to a doctor, who said that the quarter was impossible to remove without surgery, they consulted a specialist who was of the same opinion. Then came a man who said he could get the money out in a jiffy. He turned little Johnny upside down and patted him with great precision on the back of neck and, sure enough, the quarter rolled out. Everyone was amazed, the father said “You must be an expert!” The man replied, “No sir I’m just a tax collector.”
If your car needed to be repaired, would you go to your repair man or to your pastor to get it fixed? Now I’d be flattered, but I wouldn’t know what in the world was wrong with your car, let alone fix it. You would go to the repairman, wouldn’t you?
a. When you are hurting, and you need comfort, you need to go to the source of comfort.
b. There’s only one source, and that is God.
c. He is called the Father of compassion, and the God of all comfort.
d. God wrote the book on compassion and comfort, because He is the creator of it.
e. Lamentations 3:22-24? 22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."
f. Micah 7:18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. 19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
g. God doesn’t just have compassion, He designed compassion.
h. God does just comfort us; HE IS COMFORT.
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds In a believer’s ear! It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, And drives away his fear! John Newton (1725-1807)
II. He designed compassion.
a. Compassion is: sympathy for the suffering of others, often including a desire to help
b. Often times, we like to throw our own pity party. Anybody here ever do that before?
c. Oh, woe is me. My life is a disaster. Oh, if only I would just die. And the party goes on, and we like to share it with everyone we come into contact with. How are you today? Oh, I feel like I’m gonna die! My dog didn’t come to me this morning when I called, and I feel rotten!
d. We are willing to go and share our problems with others, but we ought to first go to God.
e. God designed compassion (He is the father of it), and as such, when we are hurt our first thought should be to go to Him.
f. Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
g. Psalm 116:5 The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.
h. Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
i. 1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
j. There can be no one who cares any more than God, because he created it!
k. He wrote the book, and He desires you to cast all of your anxieties, your hurts, your hang-ups—all of it on Him, because He cares for you!
l. Isaiah 30:18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
In his book, The Yoke of Christ, Elton Trueblood quotes a letter from a school girl who probes the depth of her soul. She writes, "I’ve been thinking much this year about the importance of caring, of the passion of life. I’ve often realized that it takes courage to care. Caring is dangerous. It leaves you open to hurt and to looking like a fool. And perhaps it’s because they have been hurt so often that people are afraid to care. You can’t die if you’re not alive. And then who would rather be a stone? I have found many places in my own life where I keep a secret store of indifference as a sort of self-protection." That’s a penetrating insight -- a secret store of indifference. We’re to care, because Christ cared -- even though it means a cross.
III. Not only is He the Father of all compassion, but He is the God of all comfort.
a. The word comfort is repeated ten times in 2 Corinthians 1:1–11 .
b. 2 Cor. 1:1-11 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia: [2] Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. [3] Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. [5] For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. [6] If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. [7] And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. [8] We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. [9] Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. [10] He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, [11] as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
c. We must not think of comfort in terms of “sympathy,” because sympathy can weaken us instead of strengthen us.
d. God does not pat us on the head and give us a piece of candy or a toy to distract our attention from our troubles.
e. He puts strength into our hearts so we can face our trials and triumph over them.
f. Our English word comfort comes from two Latin words meaning “with strength.”
g. The Greek word means “to come alongside and help.” It is the same word used for the Holy Spirit (“the Comforter”) in John 14–16 .
h. The greatest comfort you can have in life is knowing that you never face it alone. You may be in the darkest of valleys; abandoned by everyone else; nowhere else to turn, all hope lost, but you will never be alone.
i. In fact, you will have the number one person to have on your side.
j. Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, [1] I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
k. Who is David writing about here? GOD! God is always with us, and he will comfort us—he will come alongside and help.
l. As God’s children, we have His Spirit, who is always with us.
The problems with our pains and hurts come when we focus on them instead of the God who can solve them.
m. It is a proper focus that is required.
n. God is the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.
o. God never desired for you to walk this life alone.
p. He intended for Him to walk it with you.
q. That’s what life was like in the garden of Eden.
r. Yet because of our sin, because we rejected God, we now have a hole in our life that was never meant to be there.
s. When the problems come, and the pain comes, and the hurt comes, we don’t know how to deal with it. And we do our best on our own, yet we will never be fulfilled, the problems still come, the pain never disappears, and the hurt still lingers.
t. Isaiah 30:18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.
