Comfort Food

As I said, I'm honored that my dad asked me to speak to you today.

But most of all, I'm honored to be standing in the same pulpit that he does every week.

And as we see great leaders, many of us would love to have the opportunity to spend time with them on a regular basis.

But having known some great leaders in my life, I can tell you that after you do spend time with them, you may not feel the same way.

That happens sometimes.

But uh being Pastor Robert's son, I spent a lot of time with him.

I can honestly tell you he is a great man of God.

And uh I feel so blessed to have him as a father, um, but I feel blessed to have him as a pastor as well.

And there's no other church I'd rather be at, and uh, and so I'm very, very grateful for his leadership over the church.

Um there are a few advantages to being Pastor Robert's son.

I thought I would tell you a few.

Um one time, for example, I was running a little bit late for work, and so I was driving um just just a little over the speed limit squared.

And and so I was going a little fast.

I got pulled over by a police officer, and he came to the window.

He said, Can I see you know your driver's license and your insurance?

And so I said, Sure, and I'm digging around for that stuff.

And um he said, Where are you going to that you're driving so so fast?

And I said, Well, I'm running late for work.

He said, Where do you work?

I said, Gateway church in Southlake.

He goes, You're killing me.

That's where I go to church.

So I thought, what a perfect opportunity.

I said, Well, if it makes any difference, my dad's the pastor there.

He kind of like threw the license back in the car.

He's like, get out of here, just go on.

He didn't he didn't get to give a ticket that day.

I've tried that a few more times and it doesn't always work, but that day it worked.

We're here in the holiday season, and some of you have been so kind to send Pastor Robert a uh gift card to Starbucks around the holiday time, and uh you might not know he doesn't drink coffee.

However, I do.

So those gift cards go straight to me.

And so if you're here today and you've sent Pastor Robert a gift card to Starbucks, I w thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I want to thank you.

If you haven't done that, I want to encourage you to step it up, be step up, be a good member, and go ahead and send him a Starbucks gift card.

If you have your Bibles today, I'd like to ask you to turn to Isaiah chapter one.

And uh if you must turn to two passages of scripture, if it's so ingrained in you that you must, you can turn to Isaiah chapter one and also Isaiah, you can put a marker at Isaiah 40.

We'll go there in just a little bit.

Uh I want to thank Amic and Cassie uh for that song today.

It was really incredible.

It was very beautiful.

I've titled the message today, Comfort Food, and I figured that was very fitting since we all just stuffed our faces full of comfort food.

Um, but you can be relieved.

I'm not actually going to talk about food, so I don't I feel like there's no reason to place condemnation after we all just probably sinned all week.

And so we had a great Thanksgiving, we ate incredible food, and uh so it was an awesome time.

But uh I want to actually talk to you about the comfort of the Lord.

And during the holidays is normally when we are seeking comfort from the Lord, and uh and during difficult times in our life, we're seeking comfort from the Lord, and uh, I do figure, hey, we come to church to get spiritually fed, so today we're talking about comfort food.

Um, Isaiah is the perfect place to learn about the comfort of the Lord.

Uh Isaiah, uh, in the book of Isaiah, he uses language uh such as uh, you know, the Lord says, Fear not, I am here, I bring comfort, uh, that we will run and not be weary, walk and not faint, that we will mount up with wings like eagles.

And so Isaiah really knew and understood the comfort of the Lord.

Isaiah lived in a very tumultuous time.

There was instability in the government, there was uh a poor economy, there was a feeling that the the nation of Israel had really turned from God.

And so Isaiah first spoke warning, and then he spoke about the comfort of the Lord.

And if any of those things are true today, if there's any instability in our government, if there's any weakness in our economy, and if there's any sense, if there's any hint at all that our nation is turning from God, we need to first hear the warnings and then feel the comfort of the Lord.

And I want to propose to you today that uh comfort, at least the comfort that is provided from the Lord, may not mean what you typically think it means.

And where you typically seek comfort may not be the place that you should be receiving comfort from.

And so that's what we want to talk about today.

If you're there in Isaiah chapter 1, we're gonna take a look at verse 2.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

But today I want to ask three questions about comfort.

We're gonna ask and answer three questions about comfort.

And the first one is, where do we go?

Where do we go to find the comfort of the Lord?

The answer is to God.

I know that seems obvious, but I think we'll learn in just a moment that that's not always what we do.

Isaiah chapter 1, verse 2, it says, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

Isaiah 1:2

This is the Lord speaking now.

I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know.

My people do not consider.

Here's what he's saying.

The ox and the donkey, they know where their home is.

If if you let them out during the day to free graze in a field, by the time the evening comes, they're gonna come back to their home.

They get it.

The ox and the donkey get it.

They're gonna come back to where they receive food, where they receive protection, where the master takes care of them.

That's where they're gonna return.

And he says, but the people of Israel, they don't know.

They don't even know to come back to God.

They don't even know to come back to me, or they know, but they won't do it.

Let me tell you something.

It is not a good day when the Lord compares you to an ox or a donkey and says that they're smarter than you.

But that's what he's saying.

He's trying to make it obvious.

It's so clear.

Even the ox and the donkey know to go to God.

But over and over we're seeking comfort in places other than the Lord.

If I were to ask you, uh if I were to poll each and every one of you personally, where do you go to find comfort?

Um, probably like me, you would have a really good Christian answer and you'd say, I go to God.

That's that's obvious, I go to God.

If, however, I were to give you truth, Sarah, and before I asked you, is it possible that your answer would change a little bit?

I know mine would.

Uh, you know, a lot of people uh would say, I find comfort in uh my job.

I find comfort in the security of my job.

As long as I have my job, then I'm secure.

I find comfort in that.

I find comfort in visa.

I find comfort in shopping.

If I if times get too tough, I just want to go out and go shopping, you know?

Some of us would find comfort in sports, or some of you even, uh not me, but some of you would say, I find comfort in exercise.

If I can go out and exercise, it clears my head, and there's it's come, there's comfort in that, you know?

So uh I said we wouldn't talk about food, but you know, sometimes we do find comfort in food.

Uh we have a whole category of food called comfort food.

And uh so we do we do find comfort in food.

And we don't sometimes realize how seriously we take food until it's taken away from us.

So a funny story: one time we were um at a restaurant, and this restaurant is known for having the best rolls.

Uh not like some restaurants where they make them like a week out and they come out and they're hard and crusty, and your kids are playing drums with them, and they're just not any good.

These rolls are just hot and fresh right out of the oven, and when they come to the table, they're still steaming.

And so we'd all been looking forward to these rolls.

Everybody was excited about it.

And the waitress finally brought the rolls, she set them at the table.

Like animals, we just we'd grabbed them up, you know, and we started eating our rolls.

And it seemed like at about the same time, we all noticed that each person at the table had a roll, but there was one left in the basket.

What to do?

And everybody was kind of looking at each other, trying to decide what to do.

And uh before anybody could do anything, the guy sitting next to me licked his finger and wiped it on the roll and said, That one's mine.

It was so frustrating.

But what was brilliant was the guy who was sitting across the table from him so quickly, as soon as he did that so quickly, he licked his finger, wiped it on the same roll, and goes, All right, you can have it.

So we can get that way about food sometimes, you know.

We can we can be arguing at the table sometimes.

That's just that's how it goes.

We find comfort in other places other than God.

I'm gonna read to you a scripture really quick in Isaiah 31.

It says, Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord.

That's exactly what we're talking about.

He's saying, You seek comfort in the strength of horses and the number of chariots because they are many, but you don't go to the Holy One of Israel.

You don't seek the Lord.

Over and over, we're seeking comfort in all these other places, and he's saying, I have it.

I have an unlimited supply.

All you have to do is come to me.

You see, Isaiah knew what was coming.

Isaiah was a prophet, and Isaiah knew that there was a great impending danger.

Isaiah knew exactly what was going on, and he kept warning the people.

You see, what would have happened?

The people of Israel were in exile at that time.

They still weren't living in the holy land that God had provided for them.

They had turned from the Lord, and they're living in exile.

It's as if they're in captivity because they can't even go back to their own home.

And many of them had taken Jeremiah's uh uh advice, and in captivity still, they had built homes and gardens, and so they they had become very comfortable where they were, and Isaiah keeps going, get up, depart.

God's calling us back to him, God's calling us back to Israel, God's calling us back to the Holy Land, get up, depart, and they wouldn't do it.

It's as if the prison door was open and they wouldn't step through it.

God had already provided a way for them to come to him, but they wouldn't do it.

They had grown comfortable in bondage.

We do that over and over.

We get comfortable in bondage.

We stay outside of God's will for so long, we get comfortable there.

We forget what it's like to be inside God's will.

And Isaiah said, danger is coming.

See, if the Assyrians conquered Israel, there's no more holy land.

Then the Assyrians would own it.

There's no land for Jesus to be born into, to minister, do his whole ministry, and then later be crucified.

It wouldn't exist.

Isaiah's saying, go back.

God's calling us back.

It would be like this in your life.

Say uh you're driving down the street and you're approaching a traffic light and it turns yellow.

Um obviously it's easier to just hit the gas and and buzz right through the light.

And so and so that's what you do.

There's no sense in stopping and waiting on everybody else until you hit the gas and you know you can make it.

So you hit the gas, and and uh about the time you're entering into the intersection, the light turns red, and and all you see ahead of you is open road.

I've made it.

I made it through.

But about that time, something catches the corner of your eye.

You look over just in time to see an 18-wheeler barreling into the side of your car.

That's what Isaiah said.

Danger's coming.

Don't get comfortable where you are.

God's calling us back.

Return to God.

Danger's coming.

How does that apply in your life?

What things are you realizing that I'm outside of God's will?

I'm outside of God's will and I'm not even listening to the warning signs.

I'm not even listening to God calling me back.

He's pleading with me to come back.

How does it apply to your life?

Second question we want to answer today is why do we go?

Why do we go?

Now, when I think of the word comfort, I think of things that are um soft, fluffy.

Uh obviously we we say comfortable, a form of comfort.

It makes me feel relaxed.

I think of uh taking time to relax, recuperate, re-rejuvenate.

Uh for me, comfort means my spot on the couch.

And it's it's my spot.

Everybody knows it's my spot.

Um the kids know this is daddy's spot on the couch, don't sit there.

Uh if they do sit there, I'm gonna sit on them, so they pretty much stay away from that spot.

And there's nothing better than sitting on my spot on the couch on a Sunday afternoon, watching football, uh fire in the fireplace.

It's just it's just comfort.

It just makes me feel better.

It's just comforting.

Typically, every time we talk about comfort, we're talking about our feelings.

Another thing that we say is we we uh associate comfort with pity or fragility.

We say, if if you're going through difficult circumstances, I feel so sorry for what you're going through.

I hope you feel comfort.

I hope you find a way to feel comfort.

I hope you can I hope you can find a way, even though everything seems like it's caving in on you, I hope you can find a way to feel better about your situation.

So we would typically say that comfort means without hardship.

So I thought, I don't know if that works.

I don't know if the comfort of the Lord means the same thing.

If that's what comfort means, then offering somebody the comfort of the Lord doesn't carry any weight.

I don't want it, I don't need it.

A lot of people can feel sorry for me in the situation that I'm in.

So I I don't understand.

If that's what God is offering, what does it mean to me?

Now, if you look up the word comfort in Webster's dictionary, it pretty much means exactly what we've just been talking about.

That's that's our version of comfort.

However, the word comfort that we our English word comfort comes from two Latin words.

And the literal translation of those two Latin words is with strength.

That's not at all the way I've been seeing comfort.

I think it's without hardship.

And we there's no way we can live our life without hardship.

That doesn't make any sense.

We can't live our life without hardship, but when we're with God, we can live our life with strength.

Notice it says with strength.

It isn't your strength, it isn't that you rest, rejuvenate, re-recuperate long enough to build up your strength.

It's that you're with strength because we serve a mighty God and He's all powerful.

And so when you're with strength, what do you have to fear?

See, say for example, uh that you have a friend who's not a believer, who doesn't believe in Jesus, and his mom passes away of uh cancer.

Um, if you were to offer the comfort of the Lord in the way that we typically view the comfort of the Lord, what is I gonna do for him?

Hey, take comfort in the Lord because he feels sorry for you.

Take comfort in the Lord because he feels pity for what you're going through.

God does sympathize and he does empathize and he does know what we're going through, but does that change his situation at all?

Or could you say, hey, take comfort in the Lord because we serve a sovereign God.

And Jesus already conquered the grave.

And I knew your mom to be a godly woman.

And because Jesus already conquered the grave, we can accept the gift that he gave to us, and you can be reunited with her.

See, that's comforting.

That's a totally different type of comfort.

I'm gonna read this to you.

This is in Isaiah chapter 51, starting in verse 12.

Isaiah 51 · chapter mention

It says, I, even I am he who comforts you.

Notice how he says, even I.

Typically, when we say even I, we we mean to say, uh, even I can even little old me.

You know, like, oh, even I can do that.

That's so easy.

It's so easy that even I can do it.

We're saying, even little old me can do that.

That's not at all what he's saying here.

He's saying, even I comfort you.

Even I, the creator of the universe, I take time to comfort you.

That's how important it is.

I, even I, am he who comforts you.

Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the Son of Man who will be made like grass, and you forget the Lord your maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth.

You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he has prepared to destroy.

And where is the fury of the oppressor?

Verse 15.

Listen to this but I am the Lord your God, who divided the sea, whose waves roared.

The Lord of hosts is his name, and I have put my words in your mouth, and I have covered you with the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, You are my people.

You're my people.

You belong to me now.

What are you so afraid of?

We have to get that.

You see, he's the creator, he's ruler of all, he's living, he's enthroned on high, he's all powerful, magnificent, unchanging.

He's omniscient, omnipotent, and he's the same God who stoops down to give strength to those who believe in him.

That's comfort.

That is true comfort.

See, we have to change the way we view comfort in order to receive the comfort of the Lord, and we have to change the place that we receive comfort from.

Because this is the only true comfort that you'll ever experience in your life.

We we change the definition of comfort to mean getting the things we want.

And God's comfort says, I'll give you what you need.

And as long as you continue to pursue what you want, you'll never get what you need.

That's what God can offer to us.

Sometimes our circumstances do get really tough.

But listen to this.

If you look at God through your circumstances, he'll seem so small.

He'll seem so small.

However, if you look at your circumstances through God, you'll see that he's so powerful.

He can change them.

You could define circumstances as the things you see when you take your eyes off of God.

Circumstances are the things you see when you take your eyes off of God.

Because he's so powerful, he can change anything in your life.

I heard a story about a man named Foster Walker.

He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

He's an older gentleman in his late 60s.

He walked into a convenience store that he goes to on a regular basis, and that day when he walked in, it happened to be being held up by a gunman.

And uh when he walked in, the robber turned and pointed the gun to him and said, Give me your money or I'll shoot you.

Apparently, Mr.

Walker's answer was not what people would expect.

He said, You just go ahead and shoot me.

I read my Bible and prayed my prayers today.

The robber was so dumbfounded, he let Mr.

Walker do his shopping, pay, and then leave, and then he continued to rob the store.

That's comfort.

That's comfort.

That's the true test.

If you can walk into a storm bag, go ahead and shoot me.

I've read my Bible and prayed my prayers.

I know who God is.

Go ahead.

So why do we go?

His strength.

It's because he's strong.

That's why we go to him.

The third question we want to answer today is how do we go?

I wouldn't tell you to come to my house without telling you how to get there.

So how do we go?

How can we go to God?

I know this answer is going to surprise you because it surprised me as I was studying.

Um, but let me explain it to you this way.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and so I told you what the two Latin words are for comfort, but I wanted to see what comfort was in the Hebrew language.

So here in Isaiah, over and over, it uses the word comfort, and that word comfort is the Hebrew word Naham.

Naham.

Now, over and over in the Bible, Naham is translated as comfort.

But there are 38 times where Naham is translated as a different word, and that word is repent.

How do we go?

We repent.

Isn't it unbelievable that the Bible draws a correlation between repentance and God's comfort?

That's exactly what happened with the people of Israel.

When they repented and returned to God, he said, I comfort you.

I comfort you.

You've come back in under the shadow of my hand.

I protect you, I comfort you.

I'm a sovereign Lord.

I'll take care of it.

I comfort you.

I want to show it to you.

If you're in Isaiah chapter 40, if you put a marker there, we're going to start in verse 1, or it'll be on the screens.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

Isaiah chapter 40, verse 1.

Isaiah 40:1

This is after the people of Israel have come back to the Lord and repented, and he says, Comfort.

Yes, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she She has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

This is what happens.

God speaks comfort to you when you repent, and your warfare is over.

The warfare is over.

Whatever your circumstances are, whatever the battle is, repent, go to God, the warfare is over.

You'll still go through hardship, you'll still go through hard times, but at least you'll know that He'll be with you.

And though you'll fight battles, the war is already won.

God already won the war.

So it says that their warfare is ended and her iniquity is pardoned.

Now, if you're like me, there's something that kind of stands out about this scripture.

And honestly, it was a very confusing scripture for me for a long time.

And so let me show it to you.

If you'll pull up verse 2 again, it says, Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

How could her iniquity be pardoned?

Yes, she receives double from the Lord's hand.

It seems to imply her iniquity is pardoned, yet she receives double punishment from the Lord's hand for all her sin.

It doesn't seem to make sense.

It doesn't seem to, there's there's no correlation there.

It doesn't seem to make sense.

And in order to understand it, we have to understand something about the Eastern culture at that time, because there was a saying that was commonly used, and it was to receive double.

To receive double or to be doubled over.

Or it was maybe that it would be said your debt was doubled.

So let me explain to you how it worked.

If you acquired a debt that was so great that there was no chance that you would ever be able to repay it, then what they would do is they would take a piece of paper and they would write your name on the piece of paper and they would write the amount that you owe.

And they would take that piece of paper and they would nail it to something like a community bulletin board that was at the gates of the city.

And everybody going in and out of the city would see your name and how much you owed, and they would know you could never pay it back.

It was used as a form of humiliation.

It was a deterrent for people because you would say, I don't want to be on that board with all those people, and it was used to humiliate those people who were on the board.

That here you acquired so much debt that you'll never be able to repay it back, and now here's your name.

You're blacklisted, here's your name on this board, and you you certainly won't be able to get a loan anymore because everybody can see your name up there.

So that's what they would do in that culture.

Now, if somebody wanted to pay that debt for you, then they would say, I heard you received double.

Somebody paid your debt, I heard you received double, or that it was doubled over, that your debt was doubled.

Okay?

So let me explain to you how that worked.

And um, let me let me explain it this way.

Let's say that uh I I had acquired so much debt I couldn't pay it back.

And there was my name on this piece of paper, Josh Morris, and the amount that I owed, and it was on the bulletin board.

Let's say my name was up there.

And let's say my dad was walking through the city or walking out of the city gates one time, something catches his eye, uh, he sees his last name, Morris.

So he walks over to the bulletin board and he sees that it's me, Josh Morris.

If he wanted to, out of care and love for me, he could pay that debt.

And the way that he would signify that he was going to pay that debt is he would take that nail out and he would take the piece of paper and he would fold it in half, covering my name and covering my debt.

And that would be called doubled over.

That he would take that piece of paper and he would fold it over, meaning that he would double it or he would double it over.

And then he would take that piece of paper and he would nail it back to the community bulletin board, and then he would write his name on the piece of paper to signify that he's the one who's going to pay that debt.

If anybody needs to know who's going to pay it, he's going to pay that debt.

And it's his name.

Let me tell you a true story.

You racked up so much debt, you couldn't pay it.

We all know the wages of sin is death.

It's a debt you can't pay.

And each and every one of us in here has our name on that board.

And your dad was walking out of the city one week.

And he saw your name.

And out of care and love for you, he paid your debt.

And he took that piece of paper, he doubled it over, and it covered your name.

It covered all your iniquity.

As if it was never there.

And he nailed it back to that bulletin board in the exact same way that Jesus was nailed to the cross.

And you know what he did?

He wrote his name on you.

You belong to him.

When you say, accept what Jesus Christ did for me, you belong to him.

He has his name all over you.

And you belong to him.

From that day forward, you belong to Jesus.

And in that, we can find comfort.

There's no other comfort like it.

That he says that I bought you, I paid the ultimate price, I gave my son for you.

And you now belong to me.

I'd like to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes.

If you're here today and you've never received that gift from Jesus Christ, you've never said, I receive the gift that you died for me and that you rose for me, then you can do that today.

In a moment, we're going to have prayer counselors along the front of the stage.

And you can come up here and you can pray with a prayer counselor.

They love God and they've been trained to pray with you.

If you need prayer for any other reason at all, we want to pray for you about that too.

Every service at Gateway consists of three things: worship, word, and prayer.

And this is the time where we pray, and we do this every week.

We pray for all sorts of things.

Just a few weeks ago, I was praying with the with the gentleman at the altar, and he said, I need reconciliation with my sister.

For years and years and years, she hasn't been open to talking to me and seeking reconciliation.

I need reconciliation.

So we prayed and we agreed together and we said, God, I pray that you'll go before before us.

I pray that you'll lead the way and that you'll go there and that you'll soften her heart and cause her to be receptive, to be reconciled.

He wrote me a letter and he said, That night I called her, and it was the most receptive she's been in 40 years.

We had a great conversation.

So, whatever your need is today, whatever you need comfort for, whatever it is that you're going through, we all go through circumstances, we all need prayer.

Come down here and agree with somebody today that God can change your circumstances, that He'll do miraculous works today.

So, in just a moment, I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna stand up.

And as soon as we stand up, I'd like to ask you to come forward and pray with somebody.

As soon as we stand up, just come forward and pray with somebody.

Father, I just pray right now, Lord, that you would draw every single person who needs prayer to come forward and pray, Father.

I pray that you would you would provide comfort for us, a comfort that we can't experience in any other way.

Father, I pray that you would comfort each and every one of us, that you would uh that you would be here, be present, and change our lives, Father.

I pray you would draw every person who needs to come forward in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.