Our Only Comfort

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Isaiah 51; Lord's Day 1
Psalters: 262, 329, 163, 203
  1. The idea.
    1. The Christian’s personal perspective of religion and faith is expressed in the word “comfort.”
      1. Before the fall into sin, and in heaven there was and will be no need for comfort.
      2. Religion is not to deliver us out of trouble, but it comforts us in tribulations (cf. John 16:33; 17:15).
    2. What comfort is NOT.
    3. Comfort arises from the knowledge of certain facts over against a contradictory experience.
      1. It is not just knowing facts; but grasping them by faith.
      2. This knowledge is derived from Scripture, and therefore there is the “comfort of the scriptures” (Rom. 15:4).
    4. The summary of the knowledge is found in our confessions or creeds - a concise and systematic explanation.
      1. This answers wrong interpretations and many challenges from the world.
      2. With a creed we are acknowledging that the Spirit has led the church of the past into the truth.
      3. It is also important to see that our faith is the historic, Christian faith.
  2. What must be known for comfort?
    1. First, faith and truth recognize a problem (we may not deny it nor excuse it).
      1. The only way to find a cure is to acknowledge that we are ill.
      2. It is essential that I know “sin” and specifically “my sin.”
    2. Second, redemption is the gracious gift of God taking us into His Son and putting on His Son all our guilt.
      1. We belong to Christ and are His responsibility.
      2. And He delivered us from all the power of the devil.
      3. And He preserves us as His possession, making all things subservient to our salvation.
      4. And He assures us of eternal life.
    3. Third, we must know how to show our gratitude for saving us: made willing and ready to live unto Him.
  3. Our comfort is experienced.
    1. Comfort does not take away our misery, but enables us to take it up, to bear it (I Cor. 10:13).
    2. Comfort is only experienced in the way of our constantly confessing that we “are not our own.”
    3. This tremendous comfort is an “only” comfort.