Well, good morning, my friends, and welcome to the Heritage Hour. I’m Mark Gonzales, your pastoral and soul care encourager here in Southwest Florida. And I’m so delighted to be with you on air, online, and in media ministry for about 35 years now.

So thank you for sitting with me at the feet of the Lord to listen for his heart to touch our hearts. Well, my friends, if you’ve been with us, you know we’re right in the middle of a brand new series. I’m calling The Abiding Presence Portraits of God. It’s an eight part series and we just finished one a few weeks back called The Soul Care Presence of God. or the soul care portraits of God, I should say, because I see portraits throughout all of the scripture, and I’m giving you so many, so you can get to know the heart of the Lord better and better.

So, as we get started today, let me just remind you that all of these broadcasts are archived on my website. They’re 27 minutes long, and my website is markpg.org. That’s markpg.org, and along with the broadcast, you’ll find other tools like articles that are published and books and videos and one-page guides, quick guides on various topics.

So yeah, check it out. I think you’ll enjoy it. That’s markpg.org. Call it Helping You Hear God.

Well, today, as we continue our journey through this eight-part series on the abiding presence portraits of God. We’re coming to number four of eight, and this one, this fourth one, really is kind of a partner with number three in particular. It’s a balancing point of the presence of God, how we understand his abiding presence. Can’t wait to unpack it for you.

So we’re going to take a deep dive into what I’m calling today how he is our comforting presence. Last week, we talked about how he is our holy presence. Before that, we talked about how he is our inner presence. And all of these are ways of describing how the abiding presence of God is manifested.

And so, as we get started, as is our custom, let just go before the Lord and ask him to speak shall we Well Lord I loving this series Lord I just learning so much more about you and your heart and your character and your ways Lord the reality of your abiding presence in our lives, like you tell us in John 15, you abide in us and we abide in you. We bear much fruit.

But Lord, how that is manifested is phenomenal to me. And I hope I’m I’m doing the topic and these truths justice and trying to unpack it for my brothers and sisters.

So be with us today, Lord. Open our eyes, open our ears, open our hearts to receive your truths as we sit at your feet and gaze in your eyes and let you speak to us heart to heart. we pray this in the powerful name of the lord jesus christ and by his oh by his precious cleansing and healing and transforming and empowering and forgiving blood amen amen and amen all right my friends uh well let’s just set the table i love to do that put things in context this abiding presence portraits of god series is highlighting how his presence is not just his omnipresence which we talked about in the first broadcast on this series it’s not just about his omnipresence but his manifest presence and now we’re looking at all the different ways that his abiding presence is manifested as our inner presence as i mentioned a moment ago that was the second broadcast it’s rooted it’s interwoven it’s a mysterious presence then last time and this is where the tag team thing here these this one that i did last week and the one this week they really need to go together to really get the bigger picture of how god deserves and desires our intimacy with him because last time we talked about how he is our holy presence in the sub portraits under the holy presence to describe that is how the scripture tells us that he uh he has a burning bush presence. And we looked at how Moses encountered the Lord. The smoking mountain presence as the children of Israel with Moses encountered the Lord.

His striking rock presence. Again, in the Moses story, we took a peek at that. And then we looked at his holy of holies presence and his throne room presence with Isaiah and the Damascus road presence. When Paul falls down, just like Isaiah fell down in the throne room of God when he saw a vision of him high and lifted up in the throne room.

The holy holy holy presence of God is absolutely indispensable in understanding in that context his comforting presence. You have his holy presence, strong, powerful, mighty, engenders a proper healthy fear of the Lord.

But yet, on the other seemingly side of the spectrum, and yet the same God, the same heart, the same character, not only is he our holy presence like we talked about last week, but he is our comforting presence that we’re going to talk about this week. And I have six sub-portraits of how his comforting presence is manifested in the scriptures, hence in our lives, and there’s so many other ways, but this will get us going. and seeing this beautiful portrait of the Lord as our comforting presence.

So let me take you over to 2 Corinthians. We’re going to go to chapter 1, verses 3 through 4, and then 5 through 7. Then we’re going to go to Matthew, and then we’re going to go to Psalms, and then we’re going to go to the Gospel of John to look at these six sub-portraits of the Lord. Here’s the first sub-portrait of how his comforting presence is manifested in our lives.

And I call it his merciful father presence. His merciful father’s presence. If you’re a note taker, this is the first of the six sub-portraits of how the Lord is our comforting presence. Well, 2 Corinthians chapter 1 puts it this way. beginning in verse 3, it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with a comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Did you see it? he is our merciful father presence the father of mercies and god of all comfort so let me just clearly state this that we’re not confused masculine comfort is biblical not adrift to femininity you know sometimes narratives pop up in a in a good-hearted zeal to for example wanting you know encourage men to man up man up be masculine no don’t fall to with this feminine stuff. Christianity is not just about being nice you know Sometimes you gotta fight sometimes you gotta speak up Sometimes you have to be strong You absolutely right I agree with that That is true We saw that in last week broadcast talking about the holy presence of God, all of the strong manifestations and expressions of the heart of God and His ways. I totally am on that.

But in addition to that, not in competition with it in any way, is that this holy God of the burning bush is also our comforting God. He is our comforting presence. And it’s so specific here. He is our merciful Father presence.

And that’s very masculine, my friends.

So don’t lose sight of the call to men to express comfort as the Lord may lead on any given occasion. In fact, Colossians 3.21 specifically says, Fathers, do not exasperate your children, for they will lose heart. When you are too harsh, when you are too cold, if you are emotionally absent, if you’re not expressive of gentle and comforting tenderness to your kids, you will exasperate them because you will be making them feel like they’re just cogs in the wheel of your family machine or just little robots or pets or something. they are not your little worker bees either.

Now, all of those things can be integrated into your parenting skills, but fathers, we specifically said, don’t exasperate your children with this emotional distancy or hardness. We’re to be father of mercies and one of comfort, just like God is with us. Hey, great example this week, by the way, I was a tennis teaching professional and I played tennis in college and uh so i’ve been watching the uh u.s open in new york all week and last week and there was a tremendous quarterfinal match a couple of days ago francis tiafoe uh playing a younger american they’re both americans and good players the up-and-coming uh young american uh was playing very well and man won the first two sets easily even had match points to beat tiafoe and a stunning upset, except he began to tighten up and he started double faulting. And Tiafoe came back and won that third set, won the fourth and the fifth for a stunning comeback.

But here’s why the sporting world is talking even more about that match. These two are very good friends. They even practice together a lot. And they were having this epic match in front of 28,000 people.

New York City quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, and Alex Mickelson, the young man, just has his collapse from the brink of the greatest victory and upset in his life. And what happened was when the last point played out and Tiafoe won, he jumped up with excitement and stuff as they normally do, and then you’re supposed to run to the net and shake hands and congratulate each other.

But Tiafoe, as he glanced over, saw that his good friend was so crushed. He started toward the net, but then he started going to his bench over there. And Tiafoe immediately stopped his celebration, ran quickly over to him and his friend, gave him a big bear hug. Mickelson did the same thing, and they just hugged and hugged, and he wept.

Mickelson wept in crushing defeat as Tiafoe was like our God of all comfort and comforted his good friend in this loss, just devastating loss and collapse in front of all these people in a world audience. And he held them and held them and reassured, I’ve been there. I’ve been there. It’s happened to me.

You know that. You’re going to be all right. It was a beautiful sight. masculine comfort masculine comfort is biblical my friends not adrift to femininity all right but here’s the second thing this passage tells us the lord is our comforting presence as our merciful merciful father presence but he’s also a fellow sufferer presence the next few verses verse five and seven it says for just as the sufferings of christ are ours in abundance.

So also our comfort is abundant through Christ. And then verse seven, and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that you are partners in our sufferings.

So also you are in our comfort. My friends, Jesus suffered it all. He knows what suffering is like. by the way the tiafoe michelson story could fit here as well tiafoe had had devastating losses in recent months himself in big tournaments so he knew exactly what his friend was going through for the first time on this biggest stage fellow suffers people in grief over the loss of a loved one are best comforted by those who have gone through that themselves than those who have not You know if you going through some very very difficult times and we all do and all different types God is going to give you the comfort that you need in that He understands that. He’s a fellow suffering presence with you.

But he also brings his comfort to you that you can pass on to others. In short, peace is not the absence of suffering. We live our lives trying to avoid suffering and pain and disappointment and stuff, dodging it as much as we can, denying it as much as we can, just survive. No, no, no. Peace is not the absence of suffering.

It is God’s presence in our suffering. He is with you, especially when you’re suffering. he is our comforting presence my friend our merciful father presence it’s also manifested as being our fellow sufferer presence but now let me just take you to a very explicit statement that the lord jesus gave us in matthew chapter 11 verse 28 this is a go-to verses 28 and 29 go to passage that’s filled with all kinds of insight, not the least of which that the Lord is not only our merciful father presence and our fellow sufferer presence, but he’s our comforting yoke presence.

Now I know that sounds a little sound, but hang in there with me. Let’s go to Matthew 11, 28, 29. You’ll recognize this passage if you’re familiar with your Bible at all. It’s a classic passage where Jesus himself simply and directly and clearly says this.

Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is comfortable and my burden is light. this is astounding what is he saying he says look i see you in fact we know from matthew chapter 9 and from the opening of the sermon on the mount when he saw the multitudes in matthew chapter 9 i think verse 35 36 somewhere in there it says that jesus saw with eyes of compassion He saw them as downcast sheep sheep without a shepherd And then in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew opens by saying that Jesus saw the multitudes and the first words out of his mouth after seeing the multitudes was, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. And then all the rest of the Beatitudes were the beginning of the sermon. On the mount.

Why?

Because he saw them with eyes of compassion as downcast sheep. Oh, look at you. You’re hurting. You’re so deeply hurting.

Blessed are the poor in spirit and all the rest of the Beatitudes. And here, come to me all who are weary, heavy laden. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.

Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. He’s masculine, and yet he’s using words like this to describe his heart. Compassionate use to describe his eyes. And he invites us to come.

And the yoke, I used to picture this as the big ox yoke, big wooden thing, and he carried part of it and then we carry the other half. There’s two oxen for it, you know.

But he’s the biggest oxen, so stay close to him and he’ll carry the weight. Well, that’s a good way to do it. You can do that.

But I’ve seen something deeper in that. I believe he’s describing the yoke as a gentle and humble heart kind of yoke. Rather than a big old wooden thing, it’s kind of like a warm muffler you can wear around your neck and on one side it says gentle and hard. The other side, humble and hard.

When you abide in Christ, when you receive his comforting presence, when you accept his invitation to come to him when you are weary, when you are burdened, when you are overwhelmed, when you are confused, when you are absolutely losing it and crashing out. He says, just come to me. I’ll hold you close. I’m gentle and humble in heart.

My yoke is a gentle and humble yoke, muffler, scarf, where I will hold you close. And that’s comfortable. And that’s light. Jesus is saying, rest with my yoke of a gentle and humble heart.

I just love that. You know, we’re living in a day when we get so agitated and so argumentative and so pugnacious in so many ways and warfare and all.

Now, yes, it’s true. There’s spiritual warfare going on. And yes we do need to man up in one sense and be steely spined in another sense and you know not be bowled over and not quit and not put our heads in the sand and not just flop over you know uh like we just weak and defensive no we need to stand strong but the weapons are of our warfare are not like the weapons of this world with arrogance and argumentative spirits and finger pointing and name calling that is not how we, quote, contend for the faith. We do the things that the Lord does.

There are times he’ll speak boldly, but there are many times when we will speak with kindness. The Bible says it’s the kindness of the Lord that leads to repentance. There is a comforting nature.

Some are on the mount, as I just mentioned. He opens with what? Comforting. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

And he goes on and on. Blessed are you. Blessed are you. He comforts first.

Then he affirms. He says, you are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. Those aren’t exhortations.

Those are attributions. Those are statements. Those are truths. You are this.

I made you this way once you came into the kingdom. That’s who you are. He comforts first. He affirms second.

You are lights of the world. You are the salt of the earth. You are with me. I’m with you.

I am in you. You’re in me. You’ve got all my power. That is you.

So he comforts, affirms. Then he does all the reveal. You’ve heard it said, but I say to you. You’ve heard it said, but I say to you.

The Pharisees have said, but I say to you. And he starts correcting some of the wrong narratives that are out there.

But look at the sequence. Comforts, affirms, then all the reveal. we like to reverse it with combativeness argumentation second corinthians 2 24 says the servant of the lord the servant of the lord that gets you a good start must not be quarrelsome but kind to all able to teach patient when wrong with gentleness correcting those that are in opposition that god may grant repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth that you might come to your senses and escape from the snare of the devil that they may be where they’ve been held captive by the enemy to do as well.

So there you have it. He is our comforting presence, our merciful father presence, our fellow suffering presence, our comforting yoke presence.

Now let me give you this one. Don’t let it throw you for a loop. it’s he is our protective mother presence mother-like to our way of thinking now i’m not getting into the whole you know the the father god as Mother of God? No, it’s mother-like. Remember, he made them male and female to represent the totality of his being, right?

And in this world, we have to have two genders to kind of help us differentiate somewhat.

But yet, that doesn’t exempt us from being comforting just because we’re male instead of female.

But he uses his metaphor to kind of give us a peek at that. Two of them. Look at this one in Matthew 23, 37. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jesus says, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her.

Oh, how often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. And you were unwilling. There it is. You got this one image of a hen-like mother in this particular time.

He gives us another one in Psalm 131. It’s a short Psalm. Verses 1-2 says this. It says, Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes arrogant.

Then in verse 2, like a weaned child resting against his mother my soul within me is like a weaned child You know when the Lord called me away from local pastoral ministry and then later when he called me away from regional ministry over a little over 100 churches here in southwest Florida to a new ministry in both cases, he didn’t tell me where we were going yet. He said, I’ll tell you that direction, destination to be named later, just like in Abraham. And during that time, he gave me this one. hey just lean against me and by the way wean wean child doesn’t rest against his mother for the milk he’s weaned it’s because he loves his mother he says son just just trust me love me i’ll take care of you is that cool or what so there’s this metaphor of a protective mother presence that he even gives us but then he’s also our watchful shepherd presence we’ve talked about this off and on in the Soul Care series and earlier. This circles back to our old unifying Soul Care theme.

Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in need He lets me lie down or makes me lie down in green pastures He leads me beside quiet waters He restores my soul How comforting is that He our watchful shepherd His watchful shepherd presence is part of his comforting presence. His soul care for us. I love that.

And we’ll go one layer deeper, hearkening back to our deeper dive theme, the five levels of intimacy with the Lord. The final one is about our union with him. Number four is about how he is our loving father or loving bridegroom. Number five is how he is our fruitful oneness.

These two deepest levels of the five. We don’t go too much. We stay up in the, well, he’s our merciful savior. And he is our gentle teacher.

And he is our gracious master. And we serve him and we learn from him and all those things. but go deeper, go into the heart levels. And in this last one, under this comforting presence, check this out, John 17, 23. We’re seeing how He is our comforting presence, our merciful Father presence, our fellow sufferer presence, our comforting yoke presence our protective mother presence our watchful shepherd presence and now his eternal love presence We have the love of God present within us once we get saved from eternity past He has existed to eternity future.

All of that. Look how this is unfolding in John 17, 23. Astounding here. Watch this.

Jesus says, I in them and you in me, Father, that they may be perfected in unity so that the world may know that you sent me and you love them just as you loved me. Wow. Eternity past, eternity future love, the father, son, and us. Is that comforting or what?

Wow. Lord, we’re so grateful for these powerful truths. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, but thank you for being our comforting presence in so many ways, but also being our holy presence. Wow.

In Jesus’ name, amen. Well, I’m Mark Gonzales, and I hope you’ll check out my website at markpg.org for more. Until next time, fall in love with Jesus, our comforting presence.