Comfort or Calling? - Luke Hamlett

Alright, let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we just ask you today, Lord, to just come in the midst of this place, Lord.

I just ask you to just move my flesh out of the way, move me out of the way.

Move any spirit of nervousness out of here now, Lord, and any spirit of anxiety off of me and out those doors, Lord.

I just thank you, Lord, for today and thank you for the safe travels for the people that have been able to come here, Lord.

I just rebuke any evil plans of the enemy.

If there's any evil plans here to thwart what we've got going on for you today, Lord, I just rebuke that thought right now, Lord, in your name, Jesus.

Thank you, Lord, for the words, Lord.

I just invite your Holy Spirit to pour out of my mouth today, Lord, on these people, Lord, and allow their hearts to receive it.

It's in your most precious and holy name, Jesus.

Amen.

So the title today is Comfort or Calling.

So the Lord laid that on me earlier this week, the title of comfort or calling, and I didn't quite understand why.

And then lean a little bit into it later.

My wife and I had a few conversations that led me to some heavy conviction on my heart about my own personal comforts and what I put my comfort in.

And how they can block you from your calling.

Your own personal comforts can get in the way.

So comforts there.

The world's definition of comfort is a state of physical or mental ease.

That's the Google definition, or whatever you want to call it.

But comfort itself, you know, it's not evil to be comfortable or to get comfort, but we have such a distorted view of what comfort is.

We find what we think of comfort in this world.

Comfort can become captivity if we're not careful.

So captivity, God calls us in Psalm 46.10 to be still and know that He is God.

That one just keeps ringing back through for me.

Because what does that mean?

A lot of people would think, oh, well, that means they use it as an excuse and let the enemy tool it up in their head and allow them to be lazy.

To be still and know that he is God.

But that's not what he calls us to do.

Speaking of myself, idleness is the abdication of obedience.

He wants us to rest in him.

He wants us to study his word.

When he wants us to be still, he wants us to stop in our worldly view, stop what we've got going on in the world, and just spend some time with him.

Quit allowing the excuses of the world to step in the way of what we got going on.

And allow him to speak to our hearts.

Spend that time with him.

Build that relationship with him.

Abdication of obedience is idleness.

That's laziness.

That's the sinful nature of idleness.

And I'm not talking laziness as rest.

We do need rest, but our rest needs to be in him.

And it needs to be given by him too.

So rest, you know, true rest, I mean, if we're talking about real rest, a lot of us think that we're resting, but we're really not.

We go lay on our back, but we're worried about what's going on in the world, stress and anxiety, all that stuff we're carrying through.

We find comfort in the world.

So who here stays up too late stressing about things or doom scrolling on social media?

Yep.

So but we don't actually get enough rest.

What would we do if we replace that doom scroll with the word of God?

Instead of doom scrolling, we would get the rest that we needed because he's going to give us exactly what we need to be able to put our mind at ease and to be able to put us into that state where we need to get rest.

Alex, I don't know where you're sitting, but this is for you, bud.

There you are.

So I had that written down before our conversation earlier, just so you know.

Calling you out right now.

You know, we we build up, we build up all these worldly things that we think really matter.

The comforts of the world and whatnot, and we go can stay up all night worried about a football game.

Escapism, they call it.

A lot of people think they need to escape from their reality, from what you got going on.

Kids stress, work stress, and you just need to clear your head and get away from it.

What you need to do is clear your head and get in the word.

We go and get in the word, and the word is a living word.

It's like living water in us, and it will flow into us and flow into our spirit and give us exactly the drink that we need.

Or we find comfort in other things.

Like food, substances, alcohol.

That's all gluttony.

It's all the same sin.

It don't matter.

Some of us wear it around our belts.

Validation.

Comfort from outside sources, from wanting to be seen or wanting to be heard, wanting recognition.

Or even religion.

We look for comfort in religion, some people do.

They get all legalistic about it.

They want to make sure that, oh, I've checked all my boxes, now I'm okay.

I've done all these things, but yet on the inside are ravenous wolves.

Like Pastor Frank says, religion will get you straight to hell.

Comfort's such a funny thing because the the worldly view of what it is is such a broad term.

But the Bible doesn't see it that way.

See, the Bible kind of breaks down words and doesn't do what the English language does and give you these broad terms over what comfort is for everything.

The Bible gives you more words.

So it starts out in the Hebrew.

Miss Lauren, I know you love this.

The Hebrew.

So in the Old Testament, the word is nacham.

N-A-C-H-A-M.

Which means to breathe or sigh relief.

Or to console someone outwardly, or have compassion for them.

It also means to repent.

As a verb.

Nach on.

So to console or to repent.

You see, repent, which means a change of mind or direction in the English language, right?

That's the way we understand it, repent.

To change your mind or change direction.

When we repent, it means we have peace with our change of mind.

Whenever you do it in a notch on way.

Nachal means to be at peace with your repentance or to accept it.

I speak from experience here.

It's not easy to have that change of mind.

It's really easy to say you're not going to go do something.

Check that religious box.

Oh, I'm not going to do that no more.

I repent of that.

But at the same time, you're harboring in your heart the desire to do that very thing, to have that.

Right?

That thing that you should be turning away from and be at peace with letting go of.

That true repentance would be to actually change directions and be at peace with it.

So that's what nacham means.

That's the comfort that you get in the nachom comfort.

That brings me into conviction.

So who here feels uncomfortable with conviction?

Uncomfortable with it.

I got a bunch of liars out there.

Makes your skin crawl.

You feel like the preacher's calling you out.

Sorry, Alex.

You feel embarrassed.

We hear it all the time.

I feel like the preacher's speaking directly to me.

I ain't never going back there again.

As if the preacher has time to follow you around and spy on you.

Or you feel at peace whenever you get a new conviction, you immediately you realize that you're being guided towards repentance by God.

So those of you that weren't lying about your conviction, that's what you feel.

That's what I feel now.

Sometimes I still fight against it because I don't like it.

I still harboring that love for that thing that he's wanting me to get out.

I still harbor it in there.

So then you want to fight against it.

For me, it's like a burning sensation in my heart.

At first it was super uncomfortable, but now I just know that that's conviction whenever he's speaking to my heart.

I feel the burning.

When we're feeling convicted about something that's really deep into our heart, a lot of times we will choose to ignore that and go find comfort in some other thing.

I'm going to go into the word now.

2 Corinthians 1.

I'm going to read three and four.

2 Corinthians 1 here says, Comfort in suffering.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.

Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God.

But look here in verse 3 what it says.

Blessed be the God Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort.

A-L-L, all comfort.

So he's the God of all our comfort.

So just think about that, y'all.

If he's the God of all of our comfort, and we put our comfort, or what we think is comfort, into something else that does not align with the Word of God, what are we doing?

We're being deceived.

Sometimes our hearts are our own greatest deceivers.

We get to reap what we sow.

Even though a lot of times we even know that the comfort is counterfeit.

But we choose to do it anyway.

Sometimes it is a ploy of the evil one in his minions.

Try to make us think that there's true comfort in doing things without God.

Some of you didn't know that all comfort comes from God.

Didn't realize that those things that you didn't see as sinful weren't in alignment with God.

But in verse 4, you see here it says, right away after three, we're blessed.

But in four it says, Who comforts us in all our tribulations?

That we may be able to comfort those who are in trouble.

So God gives us comfort so that we can go and follow a commandment right here.

Paul says that we get this comfort so that we can go and comfort others too.

So we can go and be the hands and feet and go and comfort other people who are going through these tribulations in life.

There's nothing in this Bible right here.

If you've heard some version of the Bible, some version of preaching that is some kind of prosperity Bible, we can tell you right now that that is not the word of God.

We are going to go through tribulations.

Prosperity is on the other side.

Prosperity can be found in the Word of God, but not without tribulation.

We're going to go through suffering.

It says it right here in this word.

If you continue reading in to 15 through 15 through seven, you'll see it.

So helping people, we should be helping people find their comfort, edifying people.

Using the word of God and the Holy Spirit as our guide.

We're asked to help carry each other's burdens.

But that does not mean for us to go and take on their sins or to partake and sympathize with people either.

Sometimes edifying people looks like the cold hard truth.

Back to calling again.

So the title is comfort and calling, right?

So we find our comfort.

We should be finding our comfort in our calling.

Because right away here he goes from who gives us the comfort?

God, to a commandment.

To comfort others.

To serve other people.

That doesn't mean that we're all going to be teachers or preachers or evangelists.

But we are all called to follow Jesus and his commandments.

Now, Coach Chris, he said it best this week with the kids.

He handed out to all our flag football kids over at First Baptist Church these little stickers to put in their playbook arm sleeves.

I think Mr.

Tony has something to do with that, didn't he?

They came from here.

They came from Cowboy Church.

They did?

The stickers.

I saw they had a little cowboy church logo on them with a football field.

How convenient.

But they're those little playbook arm sleeves, they say love God and love people.

So those little play sleeves you put on football players, instead of having actual plays in there, because most of these kids can't read, they put love God, love people there to remind them.

How they should be treating people.

And that comes directly from one of my favorite verses, which is the greatest commandment, which is Matthew 22, 37, 38.

In Matthew 22, 37, 38, which is what Mr.

Chris spoke to the kids about here the other day was you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So this is in alignment directly with Paul and 2 Corinthians.

He was speaking to the church of Corinth.

Love God first.

He gives you comfort.

And then love other people.

We get to be representatives of Christ and to edify other people.

We get to lift the spirits of other people, and we're called to be in holiness, to drown darkness out of the light.

Or into the light.

To be set apart, to walk that narrow path.

To serve the Lord in whatever we do.

Again, we're not all going to be preachers.

But you can be a school teacher and serve the Lord.

Or a nurse.

Or a lawyer.

Or a farmer.

That's everybody here.

Insert your job title in front of it.

Whatever you can do, you can use it to serve the Lord.

And the Lord will use it, and He'll use you if you just trust in Him.

Ask Him, spend some time with Him, build a relationship with Him.

We're called a steward what God has given us.

Like Forrest Frank says when we make lemonade.

Ask yourselves, are you in comfort or are you in calling?

Are you comfortable with your life?

Or is there something missing?

Are you seeking out comfort to the world?

Are you comforting yourself?

Ignoring your convictions for the sake of your own pride.

Or are you sticking your head in the sand and not running to the Lord for his comfort?

If you're new to this, give Jesus a shot instead of the bottle.

He'll show you the truth.

Or are you just tired of the burdens and religious rules and you're looking for freedom and want to remove the shackles?

He can take those shackles off of you.

You just need to put your faith in him.

Practice that.

I can read it off my paper, y'all.

It's a verb as well, which means to call to one side, to come alongside, to encourage, to comfort, and to exhort.

Now the noun version of that word.

Which would be used to describe somebody, if anybody knows what or something knows what a noun is.

It's paracletos.

This is this one gets me.

Might have had my eyes sweating on the keyboard this morning.

One call to the side of another.

Comforter, helper, or advocate.

One call to the side of another, comforter, helper, or advocate.

That's paracletos.

So that's the noun version of comfort in Greek.

That's in the New Testament.

So Jesus' words himself, he calls it out.

If you read the old manuscripts in Greek, he uses that word.

That's what he's explaining as one called to the side of another.

So get in agreement with the Holy Spirit if he lives in you.

Become a parakletos.

Allow the Holy Spirit to guide your words and comfort others.

Teaching them and bearing witness for Jesus' work in your life.

And in return, you will be comforted too.

If I could get a guitar up here, Mr.

Ellis, if you don't mind, unless you're mad at me.

And not just on Sunday.

Read it for yourself.

Don't just have someone else read it for you.

God, He calls us to fold our hands in prayer.

It's okay to fold your hands in sleep, but make sure that you're getting rest.

He's the source of our comfort, and he'll help us in our time of need.

We need to spend more time resting on our knees and not resting on our backs.

Less time chasing the next meal and more time being fed by the word.

Allow the Holy Spirit who lives in you to guide you into real comfort.

Nacham comfort.

Guide it into our calling.

Turn the noun into a verb.

Step into comforting other people.

Loving other people, lifting up other people with the truth.

Let Jesus help you carry your burden.

I'm going to go into Matthew 11 now.

Verse 28 through 30.

It says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

Notice it says, Come to me all you who labor, so the ones who work and are heavy laden.

That means the ones who are carrying a burden.

A burden that was laid maybe by somebody else, maybe by yourself.

And he'll give you rest.

It says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

When you go back into verse 29, there it says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

That's a commandment, y'all.

Learn.

Study the word.

Learn more.

Don't just say stuck where you're at.

Be in constant pursuit of God's heart.

Follow his commandments.

Also, that first part it says, take my yoke upon you.

Can we display that photo?

Notice something about that picture.

Jesus isn't carrying that yoke by himself.

He's asking you to take his yoke, to pick up your cross, and to carry your own little burdens.

And he's the one, because it's a light yoke, because he's the one carrying the weight of it.

He's going to pull you along, but you have to go and put the yoke on too and join him.

Ask him into your heart.

He is good all the time.

Walk in his ways and follow.

Following Jesus means picking up your own cross daily.

Learning means studying the Word.

Study the Word and follow Jesus.

Listen to His commandments and see them out.

If you're one of those that's trying to comfort yourself today, give it away today.

Today is the day.