A pastor tells the harrowing tale of a deep dive into depression. It came out of nowhere. He relates that in the space of three weeks, his life, his marriage, and his family completely blew up. And understandably, he ended up in a deep depression. And he said it felt like he had climbed into a deep, dark, isolated, lonely cave. It's an awful story. It's one that happens quite often with pastors and beyond that to the people of God in general. Not always is it the result of some spectacular blow up like happened in this man's life. Sometimes it can be just because of doing the very thing that God called us to that our life falls into the pit of despair. That happened with Paul. That is exactly the situation and the set of circumstances which the apostle speaks to here as he explains that he was depressed. He was depressed, and the reason he was depressed is because the ministry imploded, as it were, under his feet. He was doing exactly what God had called him to in the place that God had called him to do it, in the way that God commanded, and nonetheless, the result of that was that he fell into a deep, dark, depressive state, and his soul was miserable before the Lord. But the good news is the Apostle Paul shares with us this morning from the Word of God that there are divine remedies. for our depression. I want us to think about that this morning. Divine Comfort for the Depressed, that's the title of our message. And the first thing that we want to think about is Paul's depressive state. There are four things that he says here in our text that outline and mark out this experience that he had. And the first thing that he says here in verse five is, our flesh had no rest. Our flesh. So often the case that the Apostle Paul, when he uses this supercharged word flesh, it often has to do with depravity, with our fallenness, and with all of its sinful appetites and desires. But here, that's not the case. The Apostle Paul is using flesh in terms of the human and creaturely condition. as a body that is weak and frail and vulnerable and subject to fatigue and the effects of distress. And he says about that flesh, it had no rest. It had no calm. It had no peace. It had no repose. And the verb governing that state is a very strong, perfect tense verb. It says had. It means this was a settled condition. He adds to it, troubled on every side. And it's very powerful how it emerges in the text because on the one side of Paul's statement it says, our flesh had no rest. And then the very emphatic and firm conjunction, but, sets forth a state of contrast. Instead of rest, he says we were troubled on every side. And that word for trouble is an ugly term. It means to be squeezed, pressed, crushed. And he said, it was experienced by him on every side. That language reminds us of a statement of the catalog of Paul's afflictions enumerated just a couple chapters before in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 8. He said, we were troubled on every side. And he catalogs that trouble. He says, we were perplexed, we were persecuted, we were cast down, always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus Christ, troubled. And he goes on to say there were external conflicts. Without were fightings. And the language here of without is outside of himself. He's talked about what was internal, what his soul and spirit and mind and heart were experiencing. And now he moves to the outside, to the exterior. And he says, without were fightings. And this, again, is a very intense term that means clash, conflict, quarrel. And whatever it is precisely, we don't know, but the sense of the term is that the pressures of life were so intense that the Apostle Paul calls them fightings. They weighed heavily upon him. And then he goes back inside again for one last description, as he said, within were fears. The same language that Jesus uses in Mark chapter 7 when he says, it's not what is without that defiles a man. He says it's what's from within. was from within the heart, the thoughts, the adulteries, the fornications, the murders, and so on. He's speaking about what's inside. And he said, within were fears. Not just fear, notice the plural. Within were fears. No rest, trouble, fightings, and fears. So why does Paul feel this way? Well, if your Bible's open, turn back with me to 2 Corinthians 2, where we get some insight into the historical circumstances of why Paul is feeling like he does. And the answer appears as we begin at verse 12. We catch hold of Paul's thought. He says, Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach the gospel, a door was opened to me of the Lord, and I had no rest in my spirit because I found not Titus my brother, but taking leave. He says, I went from Thinsen to Macedonia. So notice, our text begins in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 5, with the Apostle Paul in Macedonia. This just takes us back in the historical sequence and chain of events to the place that the Apostle was before he went to Macedonia. I'm having tremendous difficulty keeping my iPad on all of a sudden. Before he had made it to Macedonia, the Apostle Paul was in Troas. And I want you to see what he says here. Now this is a fascinating text altogether, but one of the things that the Apostle Paul had done as part of his travel plan was move from Ephesus with the intention of going to Troas for the purpose of planting a church. And notice that his prayers were answered because the Word of God tells us when he got there, a door was open. Now if you want to think about the New Testament teaching on church planting, study that word door. because it is rich in insight about how God moves and works to build the kingdom of God. But here, the apostle Paul tells us he went there for the very work of planting the church, and God answered his prayer, and it was an overwhelming answer. As he says, a door was opened into me. But guess what? Paul could not bring himself to minister. He said, I had no rest. in my spirit, the same language of 2 Corinthians 7, 5. And now we know why. Because as I found not Titus my brother. Now that key links back into another conversation. I know there's a lot of moving parts here, but just think with me about this. Before Paul had gone to Troas, he had sent Timothy with what we think is the letter of rebuke. Paul had been severely disrespected by the church of Corinth. And so he sent them a letter of rebuke because they didn't stand for him as they should have as an apostle of Jesus Christ. So he sent this harsh letter of rebuke to Corinth with Titus, and the plan was that they would sync up in Troas and build the kingdom of God. And because Titus wasn't there, Paul put two and two together. And what Paul began to think about was all of the kingdom work that he had engaged in in Corinth was for nothing. All the labor, the prayers, the preaching, the hardships, the dangers, the afflictions, everything seemed like it had come to nothing. And the result is because he didn't see Titus, whom he expected to be there with a message about how they had received that letter. He said he was so troubled in his spirit that he said, I just went to Macedonia. You already know what happened when he went to Macedonia because we just looked at it in chapter seven, verse five, where he tells us, when I came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. And so what the Apostle Paul is telling us, that here he is in the midst of the ministry, in the midst of doing what God commanded him to do, doing everything that he was supposed to do as a believer, and yet due to no fault of his own, because of the sins of others against him, he's in a spiritually, emotionally, painful, dark, depressive state. and he owns it, because in verse six, he says about God that he comforts those that are cast down. That's Kim Jong's language, but the New American Standard has depressed. He counts himself as a part of that group, and he expresses his own self-awareness. He says, I know what it is that ails me. I am depressed. He's been sinned against, and because of that, he experiences now painful despair, powerlessness, hopelessness, because of providential moral, spiritual, and existential problems. And people of God, this happens to us all. Broken relationships, Disloyalties, unfaithfulness, harsh words, gossip, defamation, lack of emotional and spiritual support. And one day you wake up and you realize you can't describe what it is that grips you, that you feel it's pain. And it's like Paul says, it just stuck. I had no rest. I had no calm. I had no peace. I had no repose. Now, if that's you this morning, there's good news. It's always helpful to start with what's true. I am depressed. I am in despair. I feel hopeless and helpless. I feel like I'm in a dark, lonely, isolated place. Being honest about a condition before the Lord, and even with others, is useful. Because if we don't know that, we don't know how to pray. We don't know what help to seek. But look what he says now in verse 6. He starts to shift away from himself to God. Nevertheless, God, and I want you to feel the power of that statement as it butts up against the end of verse five when he catalogs his miseries. Because the last thing he says in verse five is fears. And the first thing he says in verse six is nevertheless. Notice how he pivots from himself. And now we can all get chills on our spine because what? God's going to get involved. Doesn't that make you say amen? God's going to get involved. And notice what he says here as he begins now to take the spotlight off himself and to put it upon himself. He puts the bright light of truth upon this situation and he spotlights two things, who God is and what God does. And the first thing he says about God, he's the God that comforteth. This is an immutable characteristic of God. He comes down to the depressed and he brings them light and hope and peace and strength and joy. Reminds us of 2 Corinthians 1, where Paul opens the letter with this burst of praise. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. I bet you prayed that prayer. I bet you thought upon that verse. I bet you that's something that has gripped your soul in the most difficult moments of your life is that you took yourself back to this and you said, I know something about God. He's the father of all mercies. That's his character, his comfort, his encouragement, his consolation. But one commentator I think does us a favor when he says that this comfort is more than a tranquilizing dose of grace. Hear that again. He says, God's comfort is more than a tranquilizing dose of grace. He says a better word to use to understand this is a Latin word. Can you imagine? Fortis. Fortis, bravery, strength, courage, stiffness in the spine. He says this is what God is. He is comfort. He is the God of all comfort. And he is the God who brings not just strength, not just grace, but fortitude. To sustain our sagging spirits. You see, that's what we need, too, when we're in that dark, lonely, isolated cave. We need fortis, we need fortitude, we need resolve. And so this is what Paul says God is, and what he does is he comforts the cast down. Now, it's interesting that this word cast down is typically a sociological term in Greek. It speaks to your ranking, I guess you'd say, in society. And it would refer to those who are at the very bottom rung, the cast down. See, that image spotlights this spiritual and metaphorical use. It speaks of a place and a situation where misery has brought us low to the very bottom. It does this. It tells us this very soul-exalting thing, that God seeks out people who are low. God seeks out people who are at the lowest place, hopeless, helpless, despairing, and depressed. And he brings them fortis, strength, comfort, resolve, peace, hope. Now, listen to this quote from Charles Hodge. All the miserable are thus encouraged because they are miserable to look to God who proclaims himself as the comforter. I'm gonna repeat it again because it's too beautiful, right? All the miserable are thus encouraged because they're miserable. to look to God who proclaims Himself the Comforter. Are you miserable this morning? Do you have sickness? Do you have grief? Do you have financial strain? Are you worried about your job? Have you lost an opportunity? Is a relationship broken? You add to the list all you like. Have you been made low? Well, Charles Hodge, taking the words of Paul, says rejoice. Rejoice in your misery because it's just because you're miserable you can look to God in faith and find comfort. I don't know what sounds better than that. People of God, we need these verses because they remind us that our life is not always sunshiny, is it? There's real pain. There's real hurt. There are wounds that feel like they won't heal. but then we'll remember God, he gets involved, and his help is strength. So look now to the divine means of comfort, and I think it's very fascinating what Paul outlines for us, and there's virtually, what he says here is there's two means that he isolates for us, and the first is persons. Notice he says here at the end of verse six that God comforted those who are downcast, comforted us. Okay, so who's doing the comforting here? This is God in action now. Look at what God uses to bring comfort. God comforted us by the coming of Titus. Remember we said as we look back to chapter two that Paul's heart was breaking in Troas. He was trying to preach the gospel and hand out tracts and he couldn't do it anymore. Because Titus wasn't there? Because he believed Titus to be delayed because the church at Corinth had, well, just imploded spiritually and rebelled thoroughly and decisively against God. But here, now the story continues. It's as if Paul leapfrogs from 2 Corinthians 2.13 to 2 Corinthians 7.5, and scholars have long argued, what is it between those verses? No one knows, really. There's lots of different explanations, but this is the backbone of the narrative and the storyline. He leaps forward to 2 Corinthians 7.5, and then 7.6, after describing his woes and miseries, says, here's what God does. God's in action now. God's action is to bring Titus. And by the way, Titus is, well, I might use the phrase of an old pastor friend of mine, a prince of Othello. a prince of Othello. Titus is a disciple, and he was converted by the Apostle Paul very early on in Paul's missionary journeys. In fact, we read of him that he was with Paul as early as the Galatian era, which is very beginning of Paul's missionary journeys. And he says of him that he's his brother. What does that mean? He's blood bought. And spirit and dwell. I've come to accept the fact I don't have to agree with everybody about everything. I don't have to agree with you about a lot of things. But if we can agree on two things, you are blood bought and the spirit of God indwells you, we're going to be fine. Our differences are important, but they don't define us. What matters is that. And you find a blood-bought, spirit-indwelt person to come alongside you, God is shining upon your life. That's exactly what he says. God comforted us by the coming of Titus. You see, When God sends a godly person to you, a blood-spurred and dwelt believer to sit with you in your miseries, you're way beyond Job, right? Don't you remember Job's comforters? And I put that in air quotes. No, what does God use to come into that cave of darkness? Well, he brings a godly person. and they sit right down beside you, and hopefully they have the grace to shut their mouth, sit quietly with you in your pain, and listen to your heart. You know, sometimes we think that's not all that big of a deal, until it is. I remember years ago doing chaplain rounds in the ICU, and I saw a lady sitting outside of a, of a room and all the rooms had something like sliding glass doors where the patient was and she was sitting outside and she looked very distressed. Not uncommon in ICUs because there's a lot of stuff going on there. But, you know, I just walked up and I said, hey, I'm from Chaplain Services. My name is John. Is there any way I can support you today? And she looked up at me, and she said, yeah, you can sit down. Well, as a young chaplain, I was learning at that point that one of the things I was supposed to do was be quiet. I just sat there. I cannot tell you how long I sat there. I don't know. I don't remember. But I didn't ask her any questions, because I knew that there was a real issue here. And eventually, she told me. She said, I don't have the strength to get up and identify my son, who was crushed in an industrial accident and was dead. She couldn't get up out of that chair. But what words do you have in that moment? You don't have words, but what you have is your presence. You are blood-bought, and the spirit of God is in you. And you are bringing the peace of Christ. Well, eventually as discussion unfolded, I found out she was a believer. And so I just prayed with her. And I said, would you like me to go in with you? And she said, no, you've done everything I needed. Your presence is powerful. Your presence is powerful. When you go to people in the darkness of their cave, What you do is you take your faith with you, and the Spirit of God definitely going with you, and show up. Show up. Show them the love of God in Christ by offering your presence to them for as long as it's needed. Apostle Paul says this is what brought him out of his funk. He was comforted by God who brought his Titus. There's another thing that Paul says helped him, too, and you find it in verse 7. It's the continuation of the narrative after he got comfort by Paul. It goes on to say, and not only by his coming, so he's adding, right? Not only by his coming, that was beautiful and wonderful and helpful, but not only by his coming, but now notice what he says, that by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you. Okay, so that's a complicated statement, but basically what the Apostle Paul is saying is, first of all, Timothy was consoled, or rather, Titus was consoled by something. Titus was consoled. And the people who consoled Titus was the Corinthians. Remember, the very people the Apostle Paul sent that harsh letter of rebuke with. And because he didn't find him in Troas, he assumed that the whole thing had gone badly. But what he's telling us here is it didn't go badly. What he's telling us here is that when Timothy brought that letter, and they read that letter, and the Spirit of God worked through that letter, something happened. And you can see what happens because it's unfolded for us. And the rest of verse seven, when it says, he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, and your fervent mind toward me. What's he describing? Repentance. Genuine repentance. The fruit of repentance. Sincere change of heart based upon the experience of divine sovereign grace. And so the consolation that Titus had was the firsthand eyewitness account of how the Spirit of God brought real change to Corinth and healed that church spiritually. The apostle Paul says, when Timothy came and he shared that story, of repentance and the operations of divine grace, he was thrilled, and he says, I rejoice the more. So now you see the second thing that Paul looked to to help him and says, this is a divine means of helping the depressed, one, the presence of a godly person in your life who's willing to sit and listen, and second of all, dwelling upon the works of God and others. You might think, well, how does that help me? How does that help me? And the answer is because it stands as a reminder to us of what we so desperately need. Because sometimes in the isolation of our loneliness and fear and misery and hopelessness and helplessness, we begin to think that God's not involved anymore. But when we hear that God is moving powerfully and graciously and sovereignly in the lives of other people and bringing real repentance and renewal and change and spiritual transformation and sanctifying grace, we know he's gonna do that to us as well. And so Paul is comforted by Titus as he tells the good news of God's gracious operations and others. And so the apostle moves from darkness and depression and pain to rejoicing. God uses spiritual means to comfort the depressed. He comforted Paul by the presence of Titus, and he comforted Paul by the testimony of God's gracious operations in the lives of broken sinners. And it tells us one single message, and it's this. God comforts the depressed. So I don't know where you're at this morning, and maybe this isn't a sermon for you today. But it will be. It will be. Or maybe you have a friend in your life or a family member or somebody who's in pain. Well, you get to be a hope bearer. But if it is you, if you are miserable this morning, the Apostle Paul would tell you to do this. Cry out to God for his comfort. Ask him to send a godly Titus. to cheer you up with the news of God's sovereign and gracious operations in the lives of other believers with the hope, promise, and prospect that what he's done for others, he'll do to you. Father, we thank you for this testimony of the apostle who reminds us that even the godliest of men can become depressed and that there are real remedies for that. And so we thank you this morning for the testimony of the ways in which you work, but above all, of your very character. that you are the father of mercies and the God of all comfort. So Lord, help us to have the faith to believe these words and to apply them to our lives. And for all this morning who sit in pain and sorrow and brokenness and grief, we pray an extra special measure of grace unto them that they would know your healing mercies through Jesus. Amen.