Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] I like, on occasion, as I'm.
[00:00:15] As I'm singing and getting ready, like, mentally to come up here, just a thought will come into my mind. And most of the time I'm like, I'm going to save that. And I assume I'm gonna be able to strategically place it somewhere in the notes that I have written that is not currently there. But today I was like, I know for certain I'm gonna forget it if I don't say it at the outset. So I just wanna. I wanna remind you this morning, whether you're a member of Redemption Hill or not, or whether you're a Christian or you're not yet a Christian, that this is a place for sinners.
[00:00:47] I think sometimes, like, we forget that and we kind of come into church and when I say this is a place for sinners, for those of you who are like, you know, you're theologically minded, which is a wonderful thing to be like, your identity is a saint in Christ. I'm not talking about your identity as a sinner. What I'm talking about is the reality that you and I still inhabit a broken body in a broken world that's being mended by the grace of God that is yet to be fully mended at the return of Jesus.
[00:01:20] And that means that we all still experientially struggle deeply with this thing called indwelling sin and suffering. And so Sunday morning, the hope for Sunday morning is that this would be a place of rest and refreshment for you, that you could come in however you come in, happy or sad or angry or glad or after having just blown it last night or this morning, maybe yelled at your kid on the way here, maybe yelled at your spouse, maybe, whatever. Whatever. The thing is that you could come in here just like we did on Good Friday, as if you're walking into the finished work of Jesus Christ. The reason you can lift your hands and sing, despite how you feel, is because of the accomplished work of Jesus Christ on your behalf. The good news has really very little. It has nothing to do with your efforts. Do you understand that?
[00:02:12] Like, nothing at all. It doesn't matter how polished you are and how knowledgeable you are. Like you, your standing before God is completely and totally predicated on the work of another.
[00:02:22] And so your boast is in him, not in yourself. And so I just want to encourage that. However you feel this morning, tune in for the next few minutes. And then when I walk off the stage and we prepare to take the Lord's Supper and to take communion, to be Reminded that the gospel is for sinners, not minor JV ones like real. I've blown it. Sinner like us. Okay. All right. Acts, chapter eight.
[00:02:48] Let me pray and then we'll jump into four verses today.
[00:02:54] Father, we love you. We thank you so much for the greatest gift imaginable, the gift of your own son.
[00:03:02] You do not love us, Father, because of Jesus.
[00:03:06] Jesus is evidence of your love for us and the fullness of the evidence of your love for us. And we praise you for that God, that you are love, that in love you sent your son into the world, not to condemn the world, but in order that the world, wicked as we are apart from your grace, might be saved through him.
[00:03:28] And so, Jesus, we praise you that you're risen, that you're the King, that you're the Lord, that you're Savior, that your friend, that you've given us your very spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit, as our helper and the guarantee of our inheritance to come.
[00:03:45] Jesus, we praise you, that you promise you invite us to not be troubled, but to believe in God and to believe also in you. Because in your Father's house are many rooms and you've already gone to prepare a place for us. And you will come again and bring us to to you that we will be where you are.
[00:04:04] And we praise you for that. You're so good, God.
[00:04:08] You are our daily bread, Jesus.
[00:04:10] And God, we pray that you'd fill us and nourish us this morning in all of the ways that we need. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. Really glad you're here.
[00:04:21] So somebody pointed out to me, where's Will Cardoba? Will pointed out to me that I began many of my sermons by saying the word so. And I just did it. I told him, I'm not going to do that. And then I just did it. Now I'm hyper aware of it. All right, I want you to consider this question.
[00:04:39] What do you believe about God amidst the ambiguity of suffering?
[00:04:48] And I'll. I'm going to repeat the question and I'm going to be more specific with it to hopefully help it stick a little bit more with you.
[00:04:55] What do you believe about God in the midst of.
[00:04:59] Not before or after, but in the midst of tragedy.
[00:05:06] So when you get the call, as many of us have gotten, and you feel your stomach drop, you feel disoriented and you feel like this, this isn't real.
[00:05:21] In that moment, what do you believe about who God is?
[00:05:30] You could think about it. In other words, what do you feel as it pertains to God character. When you're in the thick of it, when you're in the midst of being in the thick of it, you're like, it's just all falling apart in that moment.
[00:05:48] What are you believing about who God is?
[00:05:54] Some common questions, at least that I've experienced in my own life while being in the thick of it is, can God stop it?
[00:06:06] If so, why doesn't he?
[00:06:11] Where is He?
[00:06:15] Why does it always feel as if he is so silent?
[00:06:20] Why don't I hear his voice?
[00:06:24] Why doesn't he like me?
[00:06:28] Does he even exist?
[00:06:31] These are actually reasonable questions to ask when you're in the thick of it.
[00:06:37] And you can say, you know, condemn other people for asking the question, but the truth is, you've asked the questions.
[00:06:44] You've all asked the questions. We've all asked the questions.
[00:06:49] I have said the words before. Pastoral confession. I have said the words before while being in the thick of it. Jesus is not working for me.
[00:06:59] Like, I've said those words out loud before.
[00:07:04] We all feel and think these things when we're in the thick of it.
[00:07:12] These are fair, reasonable questions. And the reason I bring this question up to you, what do you believe about God in the midst of the ambiguity of tragedy and oftentimes, well, not oftentimes tragedy.
[00:07:26] The most difficult thing about tragedy oftentimes is not the tragedy itself, it's the ambiguity that is directly associated with the tragedy. Will this ever change?
[00:07:38] Right, and this is where we find the church in Acts, chapter 8.
[00:07:46] So the church has just experienced so far the greatest tragedy of its existence, minus the tragedy that was the cross. That actually is our hope for salvation and glory.
[00:08:00] Stephen, innocent man, filled with the spirit of God, so in love with Jesus that Luke tells us that he had the radiance of an angel, he had the appearance of an angel, is unjustly murdered. It's tragic.
[00:08:24] This is what the church is experiencing, a tragedy.
[00:08:30] Stephen was a beloved deacon, he was a friend, he was a brother, and he had just been brutally murdered. And so there have been a lot of exciting things that have happened in the Book of Acts, like the Son of God, after being crucified on the cross and raised from the dead on the third day, appeared to many hundreds of disciples, and then ascended back to the right hand of the throne of God in heaven, where he now rules and. And reigns over all things. And then he pours out the person of the Holy Spirit upon the early disciples in Acts chapter two. And he transforms their hearts in such a way that Miracles and all sorts of things begin to happen. A lame beggar is healed and all these amazing things that happen, Ananias and Sapphira happens. And that's tragic, but it's a different kind of tragedy.
[00:09:17] Like, Stephen was a beloved member of the church, he's a deacon of the church, and he's murdered on.
[00:09:24] And so as we look through these four verses, I want us to notice, really I want us to notice how the church responds in the face of tragedy and what it all says about who God is.
[00:09:37] So how does the church respond in the face of tragedy, and what does it all say about who God is? But before we get there, we're going to do a little bit of a character study. Okay, so this character study is going to be on a man who, ironically enough, wrote most of the New Testament inspired by the Holy Spirit. It's amazing.
[00:09:55] This man goes on to be what would arguably be, and I don't think any of us would argue this, the most fruitful church planter of all time, the most fruitful missionary of all time, a pastor to pastors, A man who would so look like Jesus over the course of his life by the grace of God, though imperfectly, that he would say, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
[00:10:19] A man who would suffer for the sake of the gospel and ultimately die for the sake of the gospel wasn't always like that.
[00:10:27] This man has a story.
[00:10:29] And as any of our heroes go, if you've ever met a celebrity or a famous person and ever had. I don't think I have. I've met famous pastors, but that's not like famous famous. It's Christian famous.
[00:10:40] I've met some of those guys, and you have a conversation with them for any amount of time and you come to realize pretty quickly, like, that guy's kind of like, I'm kind of like that guy.
[00:10:49] He's not super impressive. The closer you get to people. There's only one person who gets more and more impressive the closer you get to him. And it's Jesus.
[00:10:56] He gets more beautiful the closer you get to him. Right? But none of us are like that. The closer you get to us, the more clearly you see our flaws and our foibles and our failures. And this is how the apostle Paul is, too.
[00:11:11] And so here's where we get to Acts 8:1.
[00:11:16] Right after the murder of Stephen, Luke tells us in verse 1, and Saul approved of his execution. Okay, so who is Saul and what does it mean? What does it say about him as a person? Let's humanize Paul Saul for a moment. What does it say about Paul as a person that he approved of the execution of an innocent man? Well, here's some of what.
[00:11:45] Some of what the Bible has to say specifically about Paul. Another way to interpret verse one that I think would be more precise to the original Greek would be that Saul enthusiastically, wholeheartedly approved of the murder of Stephen.
[00:12:02] So we think of approved as Saul was like, yeah, go ahead and do it.
[00:12:06] But that wasn't the attitude of Saul. In the midst of Stephen being murdered and killed or murdered, he enthusiastically and wholeheartedly approved of the murder of Stephen.
[00:12:19] Paul says this of himself in the book of Philippians, chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. This is after he is converted to Jesus, which we'll talk about in a few weeks. He says that he was formally, before Jesus, circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew, of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.
[00:12:49] This is who Paul was. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was a leader of the religious elite, and he was a persecutor of the church. First Corinthians 15, verse 9.
[00:13:00] He says also of himself. He says, for I am the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an Apostle Paul because I persecuted the church of God. So he was a persecutor of the way of followers of Jesus of the church. And in so doing, as we'll find out in chapter nine, Jesus says that you are a persecutor of me.
[00:13:22] Jesus is. We're so unified to Jesus as believers in him, that when his body is harmed, he's the one being persecuted.
[00:13:35] So this was Paul.
[00:13:37] Acts 8, 3, if you go down, just a few verses, says that he was ravaging the church, was ravaging the church. We had the opportunity many, many years ago, like, I don't know, 12 years ago, to go on an African safari. I was telling my kids about it on the way here.
[00:13:57] And while we were there in the African safari, were out with the lions and they take us by a group of hyenas. And while we're there, kind of we're in a very high Jeep. But as we're driving by the hyenas, we're watching the hyenas eat their prey.
[00:14:12] And it was a vicious thing to see, right? It was one animal tearing into the flesh and bones. They say their bite's so strong that they can Actually break through the bone of the animal that they were just ripping apart their food. This is the word picture that comes to mind when Luke tells us that Saul was ravaging the church.
[00:14:34] He was going from home to home and house to house and indiscriminately ripping families apart.
[00:14:43] Like, I don't know about you. One of my greatest fears in life is being separated from my family.
[00:14:49] I would rather die, which in that case would be separated from my family in a sense, than be physically on this side of heaven, separated from my family.
[00:14:59] And so he's going from house to house, and he is ravaging men and women.
[00:15:08] He's tearing them apart.
[00:15:10] The word ravage means to harm or damage or ruin or destroy. And so it is the word picture of a wild boar tearing apart a vineyard or its prey.
[00:15:23] This is the point that Luke is telling us in that as he was entering, he wasn't just entering one home, he was entering continually house after house after house, dragging off men and women and committing them to prison. Saul was a destroyer of family.
[00:15:39] And for many in the early church, he was a destroyer of life itself. It could be summarized to say that Saul at this time in his life was death personified.
[00:15:51] And the only thing so radical as to transform death personified is life personified, which is what we see in the life of Saul.
[00:16:04] Saul was. He was a bad man.
[00:16:07] So wicked, violent man, thought he was doing it in the service of God, but in so doing, persecuting God himself, the person of Jesus. So this is Saul. So how does the church respond to tragedy? Is this tragedy is taking place?
[00:16:24] Look at. Look at verse two. So chapter eight, verse two says, starts in this way.
[00:16:31] It says, devout men buried Stephen and make great lamentation for him.
[00:16:37] So there are two ways to interpret this that people disagree on. I'm just going to give both to you, and then you can decide based on your own study of Scripture. I'll tell you what I think. Two ways to interpret is that these men were Christians who stayed in Jerusalem with the apostles. So because of the persecution of Stephen and the ravaging of Saul, it says that the people of God, the church, were scattered. And we'll talk about that in just a moment. But while they were scattered, the apostles stayed put in Jerusalem, and there were devout men who stayed put in Jerusalem as well. So one interpretation is these were. Were Christians. Another is that they were devout Jews whose lives had been so touched through Stephen's witness that they made great lamentation over his death and would do so by the way great lamentation denotes this, like, outward cry. If you've ever been to a funeral and you've heard people wail over the loss of a loved one, that's what great lamentation sounds like.
[00:17:39] So they're making great lamentation over Stephen. And honestly, it really doesn't matter whether or not they were Christians or not, because the principle behind the text is simply this. The way that they were responding was an appropriate response.
[00:17:56] We several guys and I got to go to a conference in Orlando this last week, and it was wonderful.
[00:18:02] And one of the points that were brought up just kind of.
[00:18:06] It blew my mind, and it really warmed my heart toward the person of Jesus.
[00:18:11] And this is essentially what they said. They said, when Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane on his way to the cross, preparing to die in our place for our sins, he wasn't just going to physically die.
[00:18:23] He was going to bear the sins of the world. He was going to know sin and become sin for the very first time in his life.
[00:18:34] He never knew sin until he became sin.
[00:18:38] And that caused such distress to the human person of Jesus that he sweat drops of blood in the garden in anticipation of it. And I always thought about that, wondering, like, was Jesus afraid? Was he anxious?
[00:18:53] Those come with negative connotation. Did he not trust the Father? And the point being made was none of that was taking place. Jesus response by sweating drops of blood was the perfect human response in light of the circumstances he was in.
[00:19:08] That moment. If anything else showed how perfect of a human Jesus was.
[00:19:14] It isn't normal to be desensitized to tragedy.
[00:19:19] That is dehumanizing.
[00:19:23] We're so exposed all the time, every single minute of the day, to death, destruction, that we don't even feel it anymore.
[00:19:36] Jesus is the most human man there ever was.
[00:19:40] And so he weeps over the death of Lazarus appropriately.
[00:19:45] And again, the word weep needs to be expounded upon. Like he wailed loudly over the death of Lazarus, knowing he was gonna raise him from the dead, but still feeling in the fullness of his being the tragedy that is death.
[00:20:05] He's the fullest human. He had a perfect response by sweating drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane in anticipation of what he was about to endure on our behalf.
[00:20:16] Psalm 88, verses 14 through 18, says this. O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?
[00:20:24] Afflicted and close to death, from my youth up, I suffer your terrors. I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me. Your Dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me altogether. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness, or another way to frame that darkness has become my closest friend.
[00:20:51] End of Psalm.
[00:20:55] There's no like bow wrapped around that. There's no but God wrapped around that.
[00:21:02] Psalm 88 is a Psalm of lament.
[00:21:08] This is an appropriate godly, holy response in the face of tragedy and friends. I say this as a pastor, like, you're one of the greatest joys of my life.
[00:21:20] Some of you, in the midst of the tragedy you're experiencing, need to stop trying so hard and start lamenting, Even if the tragedy isn't extravagant.
[00:21:36] We're like, well, I haven't lost a child.
[00:21:41] My spouse didn't commit adultery.
[00:21:46] But pain is pain, and it would be wise and it would grow our affections for Jesus in relating to him as a person, not an idea, not a theory, but a living being.
[00:22:06] If you would take up the mantle of lamentation, stop trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It will not work.
[00:22:16] I talked about this a few weeks ago with our men, but it applies to our women, too. If you live long enough, one day somebody you love will be changing your diaper so you can be strong. And it's a good thing to be strong. It's a good thing to take care of your body. It's a good thing to do all of these things for the service of God and the people he's called you to love in your life.
[00:22:38] That's a good thing to do. Just don't put your hope in your strength, because all of our strength one day will utterly fail us.
[00:22:50] Your hope has to be in one stronger than you.
[00:22:54] And in that recognition of your hope being in one stronger than you, you're free to be as broken as you feel and to take that brokenness to the living Jesus who says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And to stop treating that verse again like an idea and start experiencing it.
[00:23:18] He can't be your rest if you won't come to him weary, like really weary.
[00:23:26] Does this make sense?
[00:23:30] Stop trying so hard.
[00:23:32] Heed the invitation to lament to God. Lament is a prayer of pain that leads to trust.
[00:23:40] And so whether these devout men were Jews or whether they were Christians doesn't matter all that much.
[00:23:46] Their response to the tragedy of Stephen's death was appropriate, wasn't condemned by God.
[00:23:57] So the first thing, the first response of the church in the face of tragedy is lament the second.
[00:24:05] Let me. Sorry, let me read this quote from Zac S wine. It's really helpful.
[00:24:09] He says, in this fallen world, sadness is an act of sanity.
[00:24:14] Our tears the testimony of the same.
[00:24:19] Your tears in the face of tragedy are evidence of your sanity.
[00:24:25] Of course you're sad. You know why?
[00:24:28] Because the thing you're walking through is really sad.
[00:24:34] It's not the way it was supposed to be.
[00:24:38] And one day, experience this verse for a moment.
[00:24:41] Jesus Christ will wipe away that tear.
[00:24:47] That's good news.
[00:24:50] And that hope, if you can imagine. I love cooking steak. I love it.
[00:24:56] And I season my steak with one thing because that's all it needs.
[00:24:59] Montreal steak seasoning.
[00:25:02] You take the Montreal steak seasoning and you put it on the steak, and then you massage the Montreal steak seasoning into the steak, and then you throw it on the grill at 375 and you cook it for like, 15 minutes, and it's glorious.
[00:25:14] And so America.
[00:25:17] So here's the reason I bring up that silly illustration to you.
[00:25:23] Lament isn't true biblical lament if it's only pain.
[00:25:30] But if that pain is massaged with hope, then it becomes biblical lament.
[00:25:39] So they didn't merely lament at the death of Stephen. Look at verse four.
[00:25:47] Verse four says, those who were scattered went about preaching the word.
[00:25:57] Isn't that amazing?
[00:26:02] They. There was lament. There was great lamentation over the death of Stephen. Sadness, tears, weeping, wailing. But it didn't end there, because the hope of the resurrection of Christ had been so massaged into their souls by the person of the Holy Spirit. In the face of tragedy, they lamented, and they went about seeking to advance the kingdom of God through the preaching of the gospel.
[00:26:33] Numbers 14 gives a strong contrast to what the people of God of the Old Testament did when they were scattered.
[00:26:43] So in numbers 14, it says, and all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt or that we had died in the wilderness.
[00:27:01] So that's pain without hope.
[00:27:05] I'm in the wilderness. I've been scattered.
[00:27:09] Things are uncomfortable. Life is hard. Tragedy is striking.
[00:27:14] Just kill me in my life. It's not worth it anymore.
[00:27:19] Take me back to Egypt. I'd rather go back into the slavery that you rescue me from than continue to follow you if this is gonna be the pain that I experience in doing so.
[00:27:30] But pain massaged with the hope of the resurrection of Christ leads these brothers and sisters to, in the midst of their scattering, going to far off lands that they never thought they would go to preach the gospel.
[00:27:46] They were, as one commentator said, gossiping the gospel.
[00:27:51] We have a tendency, all of us do, myself too, to gossip whenever life gets hard.
[00:27:59] And maybe we're not gossiping about a person.
[00:28:02] Maybe we're just complaining all the time about how life has come against us and we're the victim. And everything is so hard for me. And why would this be happening to me? Look at all of as if God is in our debt.
[00:28:19] But the hope of the resurrection by the power and person of the Holy Spirit, Eyes on Christ, who was rich and became poor, lowered himself and made himself obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, so that in him, you and I who are poor would become utterly rich beyond anything you can imagine.
[00:28:49] All of the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, forgiveness of sin, justification before God, sanctification by the Spirit, heaven as our future home, all of the adoption to God, with him as our Father and Jesus as our brother and the Holy Spirit as our helper, a future of resurrection and glory. All of these spiritual blessings have just been lavished upon you. And when those realities begin to take root in our heart, even in the face of tragedy, we lament.
[00:29:22] And as we're scattered, we're free to proclaim the good news to other people who don't have that hope.
[00:29:30] They went about proclaiming the Word. They went about preaching the word. I am consistently weekly encouraged by, by stories I hear of guests who come into our church and they say things like this. They're like, man, like, the people of Redemption Hill seem to really love each other.
[00:29:51] Or people hopping on slack and being like, hey, I was in HEB the other day and I was going through and I talked to somebody at the counter and I was able to share the gospel with them, or I was able to pray with them, or I was able to invite them to church. I literally hear stories like this all the time, and I'm so proud.
[00:30:04] Like, what an honor. It's such a joy to get to hear stories like that.
[00:30:10] And so the example of these Christians in Acts chapter 8 isn't one by which we look at and say, well, gosh, we just got to get better on one hand. It's such a joy to be able to look at that and say, like, man, like, by God's grace, many of us are, like, doing it.
[00:30:27] But it's also a great reminder to be reminded that in the midst of tragedy, we lament the Tragedy. And because of the resurrection of Christ, we go about and we proclaim the gospel. As they were scattered, they went about proclaiming the gospel. So in conclusion, I want to just end by reminding us of what it was that's happening. I think under. Not. I think it's happening underneath the text. Not explicitly stated in any particular verse in verses one through four.
[00:30:58] But you see it themed all throughout the Book of Acts and certainly all throughout the Bible.
[00:31:04] What was it that God was doing in the midst of all of this?
[00:31:09] So why was it that these disciples, these early Christians, were able to lament to God and then to go about and proclaim the good news of Jesus as they were scattered? And the answer, friends, is the faithfulness of God.
[00:31:27] It wasn't the faithfulness of the disciples.
[00:31:29] Because they were such good disciples, they went about doing these things.
[00:31:33] The good news for them and the good news for us. And what the Spirit of God used and still uses to cultivate in us affections we never thought we'd have.
[00:31:46] Like God, I just love you. I just can't wait to see your face.
[00:31:51] God, I'll go wherever you want me to go. I'll do whatever you want me to do because. Because you are my reward.
[00:31:58] Those kind of affections are cultivated by the spirit through a remembrance not of your faith or your trust, but on the faithfulness of God that undergirds it.
[00:32:12] Acts 8:1 is a fulfillment of Acts 1:8.
[00:32:20] Jesus says in Acts, chapter 1, verse 8. What does he say? You will be my witnesses.
[00:32:27] Where?
[00:32:29] In Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Jesus isn't giving them a command.
[00:32:39] He's giving them a promise.
[00:32:42] He's not saying, go and be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. And he's simply stating a fact. You will be my witnesses. Witnesses to my resurrection in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And In Acts, chapter 1, Acts, chapter 8, verses 1 through 4, we see the beginning of that promise coming to fruition. Why is that promise coming to fruition? Because God's faithful.
[00:33:08] He always, in every circumstance of life, keeps his promises, whether they wanted to or not. God, in his faithfulness, was going to scatter them.
[00:33:20] And he used very unconventional means to do so. Persecution, suffering, tragedy, death.
[00:33:31] This is the means by which God, in His providence and in his sovereignty and in his beautiful goodness, is using to bring about a plan so glorious that it's going to make that tragedy and every other tragedy on this side of heaven pale in comparison to it.
[00:33:47] The good news of Jesus is moving beyond the Jews into the Gentiles. And you and I sit in this room today because it happened.
[00:33:58] God.
[00:33:59] God is utterly and forever and always faithful.
[00:34:07] God always keeps his promises.
[00:34:12] Promise of the forgiveness of sins for those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
[00:34:18] Anyone who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead will be saved. So you're like, well, how do I know if my faith is good enough? It's not about your faith.
[00:34:28] It's about the promise.
[00:34:30] He made you a promise.
[00:34:32] And if he breaks that promise, then he's a liar.
[00:34:37] But he never breaks his promises.
[00:34:39] You believe in your heart. You're like, well, my faith isn't great.
[00:34:42] No kidding.
[00:34:46] Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you're saved.
[00:34:53] Doesn't matter how you feel.
[00:34:55] It's not based on how you feel. It's based on the promise.
[00:34:59] God is always faithful to keep his promises. When I got home last night, I don't even know what time it is. When I got home last night, I walked into my house and my kids and my wife had made me a sign that said, welcome home, Daddy. It was awesome.
[00:35:13] It was so sweet and awesome. And when I walked into the kitchen, my youngest, Hudson, was on the floor. And Hudson has an affinity toward me that I think none of my other kids had when they were her age.
[00:35:25] And so it's glorious. They all love me. It's not what I'm saying. I just mean, like, she really, like, really, really is into me. And so when I walked in the kitchen and she was on the floor, she kind of looked up at me and it wasn't this like excited type thing. It was like a deep rooted solace in my presence.
[00:35:43] And she began to kind of make her way over to me and I picked her up and she almost looked at me bewildered, like, I can't believe it's you.
[00:35:50] Right? And, and it really, the point wasn't her response.
[00:35:58] Just like our hope isn't about our faith, it's about the object of your faith.
[00:36:07] The one who always keeps his promises.
[00:36:09] And because he always keeps his promises, you can totally trust him.
[00:36:15] You can trust him in anything.
[00:36:18] It will not make sense to you. Of course not.
[00:36:22] Like the hardest words in the English language for Christians, myself included, is, I don't know, I don't know why this is happening to you. I don't Know why I was abused as a child? I don't know why my mom died when I was seven. I don't know why my dad did this to me. I don't know. And you don't either.
[00:36:44] And probably you'll never know on this side of heaven.
[00:36:50] But do you know what you can know that in the midst of it all, Jesus is trustworthy.
[00:37:00] He will come back.
[00:37:03] He'll wipe away those tears.
[00:37:05] Even the tears you didn't cry because you felt too dead. In two he'll eradicate evil forever.
[00:37:16] He will mend the world so that you and I will be able to inhabit a world like Adam and Eve before the fall.
[00:37:24] And you'll see his face.
[00:37:26] And it'll be the most beautiful side of your life. It'll be so transcendent and beautiful that you will change and I will change metaphysically.
[00:37:36] First, John says that we will be transformed.
[00:37:39] Like your whole being will be transformed.
[00:37:42] Because you'll see him as he is.
[00:37:46] That glorious God is faithful.
[00:37:51] And that's why you and I, in the face of tragedy, can have hope in the midst of pain. Because he's faithful. Amen.
[00:38:00] Father, we love you.
[00:38:02] God. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the hope of the gospel. We thank you that we can trust you. Thank you that our hope isn't about the extent or lack thereof of our trust. It is all about your faithfulness.
[00:38:16] It's all about your hold on us, your preserving of us, your keeping of us. You promise us that you will complete the work in us that you began.
[00:38:26] Because ultimately, God, it's all about your glory.
[00:38:31] So Father, we. We praise you for who you are. We thank you for the privilege it is to gather. And we pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen.
