Share the Hope of Christ

The God of All Comfort

With the state of things today, a good question would be, “How do you find hope in the midst of turmoil?” Just in the past couple of weeks, I have being seeing more and more people noticing that something is going on. Wildfires are burning in the Northwest, catastrophic hurricanes are hitting the United States, causing unbelievable destruction. And that’s just in the past couple weeks. If you go back, we consistently hear rival countries making threats against our nation, we see violence in the streets, our rulers are full of greed and corruption. I could keep going…

So in the midst of all of this, where does our hope come from? How can we be comforted. Well, Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 that the God of all comfort comforts us in all our troubles. As Christians, we know that Jesus laid the foundation of the earth, that there is a God who created everything and we can trust that He will keep us in the midst of all this turmoil. We know that “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:30-31) As Christians, we have hope in Christ.

But for the unbeliever, how do they view all of this stuff going on? Where does their hope come from? Well, as I was at the fair recently, I talked to a couple teenage boys about this very thing. We talked about all of the turmoil in the world and I asked them where they could find hope in all of this. They didn’t have an answer. After talking with them a little bit about eternity and they admitted to being uncertain about where they would spend it, I asked them if they believed in God or Evolution. One said God, the other said both. On a side note, I don’t believe it to be a coincidence that when I asked them if they had thought about suicide, the one who said both was the one who said he had thought about suicide.

The truth is, most people in this nation would probably say they believe in Evolution. But many also believe in God. The problem is, you can’t believe in both. If the Bible is true, Evolution cannot be. And when you believe that you evolved from slime and you have no real purpose in life, then it is impossible to find any true hope in the midst of troubles.

Without God, when you look at all of the stuff going on, the only hope you have is a false hope. Without God, the only thing you can trust is yourself, your strength, your finances, your education, etc. But all of those things will crumble. So that’s where we (the church) come in. If you read on in 2 Corinthians 1, you will see that the reason God comforts us in the midst of our troubles is “so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”

So our job is to be a light in the darkness. That doesn’t mean you have to memorize the four spiritual truths and be an expert evangelist. Those things are great, but often times, your testimony is good enough. And it doesn’t have to be some crazy testimony where God saved you from a life of gangs and drugs. It’s as simple as this. You have hope, because you have Christ. You can stare these things in the face and fear not because you have a God that is over it all.

When I shared my testimony with those two boys at the fair, their eyes lit up. Especially the one who had said he had thought about suicide. They shook our hands multiple times and thanked us for talking with them about these things. Their eyes had been opened to the truth that there is a God who cares enough about them not to let them waste away in hopelessness.

So that’s what we need to do. Jesus said that we are to be the light of the world, and not to hide our light under a bushel. We’ve got to go out and shine it for the whole world to see. Whether you have a platform with much influence or just a couple people, you just have to remember, that they have questions and you have answers.

So let’s get out there and be the light, church! You don’t have to look hard for opportunities to open the eyes of the blind. And, as the judgment of God increases in this nation, our opportunities will grow that much more. We just have to be ready to comfort others with the hope of Christ, no matter how much stuff we ourselves are going through. Are you ready?