Sermon: The Gospel Context for Grieving

Good evening friends.

We're doing a sermon on death and dying, and I've been asked to do two, two sermons. One tonight and ne one next week on grief on grieving. So the question tonight is how do I grieve the loss of a loved one? And the question for next week is, how do I help others grieve the loss of a loved one? And as I thought about that, I realized the answer to both questions is really the same. If you have been allowed and helped by God to grieve with hope,

as he has comforted you, you're going to have something to be able to help others to do the same thing. Paul says that in Second Corinthians chapter one, verses three and four, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies in God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we can comfort others in any affliction. So my two part sermon series this week and next week has two main points.

The first point is this, to grieve with hope, you must embed your grief in the past, present, and future grace of the gospel. That'll be the emphasis tonight, the second point. And here I'm quoting John Butler, who was one of the founders of the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation to grieve with hope. You must understand that grief is not about a process, it's about a person. We'll touch on that tonight and revisit that next week.

So before we read first Peter verse chapter one, verses one through nine, I'd like to ask you to pray with me again.

Father, son, and holy Spirit, you are our very life. You are our glory. You are our savior and king. You are holy love, lasting joy and blessed hope. Would you now open our ears to hear joy and gladness? Would you strike our hearts with the fear of the Lord? Speak Lord, for your servants are listening, amen. Let's read one Peter one verses one through nine. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who are elect exiles

of the dispersion in Pontus Galacia Cappadocia Asia, Bethia, according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance

that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading kept in heaven for you. Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this, you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory

and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him, and though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. This is God's word for us tonight. This is one of those passages which is a, a succinct, complete, beautiful gospel passage full of hope and rejoicing in anticipation.

But you notice right in the middle of this gospel passage, Peter refers to you have been grieved by various trials. The fact that he refers to being grieved by various trials shows that he's not speaking exclusively or specifically about the grieving of a lost loved one. Although certainly that would be included in in contrast to that Peter or Paul, rather in one Thessalonians four 13 says this, we do not grieve as others do

who have no hope there. Paul is talking about the Thessalonians grieving people who had died and that they were concerned about. The Greek word for grief is luo. And it's the same word that Peter uses talking about grieving in various trials. And Paul uses in grieving the loss of a loved one. And this reminds us that all griefs are about the loss of something. So what is grief here? I'm gonna use a definition from a, from a book

that I'm using with one of my counseling classes called the Gospel for disordered lives. And I think this is a really helpful definition. Grief is a whole person response of intense sadness or despair to a real or perceived loss of something or someone the person values. Let me read that one more time. Grief is a whole person response of intense sadness or despair to a real or perceived loss of something or someone the person values.

Now this definition would be especially true for the loss of a loved one. But again, the word for grief can be used of grieving a loved one or any other significant loss. The fact that Peter talks about being grieved right in the middle of much rejoicing is striking right before he says, you've been grieved by various trials. He talks about rejoicing in all these blessings that you've been born again to a living hope and you're being guarded by faith and so on.

And right after talking about grieving, he says, we're looking forward to praise and glory and honor when Jesus returns. I think the fact that he talks about grieving right in the middle of much rejoicing means that we're being invited to embed whatever grief we are experiencing, whatever we feel, a deep loss, a loved one, a a lost relationship, a lost dream or ambition, the loss of health, the loss of innocence. We're being in invited to embed that grief in the past,

present, and future grace of the gospel. Let's see how Peter does this past grace. First of all, he says, you grieve as one chosen by God. He says that when he talks about the elect, exiles elect means chosen. You've been chosen by God according to his foreknowledge in the scripture, foreknowledge doesn't just mean I know what's gonna happen ahead of time. It implies a relationship, it applies affection it, it implies love.

Uh, Jason just quoted this, but I'm gonna say it again. The great uh, theologian Gerhard's boss said, the greatest proof that God will never cease loving you is that he never began. So you grieve whatever loss as one eternally loved by God. Secondly, you grieve as one who has been sanctified in the spirit. That means you've been set apart from the world, the flesh and the devil. You've been set apart for God as Holy Third,

you grieve as one who's been sprinkled by the blood of Jesus. That means in your grief whatever you're feeling. And often when we grieve strangely enough, we often feel guilt. I should have known that, I should have done that. I should not have done that. And a lot of that is false grief. But whatever, whatever. When you grieve, you grieve as one who has been forgiven and washed clean. Fourth, you grieve as one who is the recipient

of great mercy. What is mercy? I think mercy is God's irresistible delight in forgiving and relieving the suffering of those whom he could justly condemn. It's his irresistible delight. He delights in mercy and you have been, if your faith is in Christ, you are the recipient of great mercy. And fifth, you grieve as one who has been born again past tense to a living hope, future tense through the resurrection. We all have many hopes, including maybe

that the whatever it was we lost, even if it's a loved one, will be restored to that or it will be restored to us. Paul talks that about our blessed hope. We long for fulfillment. We long for all our aches to be swallowed up. And that blessed hope is based on the resurrection. And it looks forward to the second coming. And Dane Orland said, for your deepest hope of restoration and fulfillment and peace, for that to be frustrated, Jesus would have

to come down out of heaven and be sucked back into the grave. So you grieve as one born again to a living hope. So those are some past tense gospel graces that we embed our grief in. How about present Grace? Peter says right now, God's grace and peace are multiplied to you. That was his opening blessing. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. That means God desires to increase exponentially his mercy and grace and peace.

Second, right now you are being guarded by God's power through faith. That means that God will preserve your faith and you will persevere and he will bring you all the way home to where there is no more grief, no more sadness, no more pain. Third present grace, right now you rejoice in many blessings. He talks about according to his great mercy, he's caused us to be born again. We have an inheritance. We're being guarded through faith

for a salvation ready to be revealed. And he says, you rejoice in these things. And we do that every time we meet together. We start out with songs of praise because whatever we're going through, it's surrounded by good things God has done is doing and will do. Fourth Peter says, you're grieving is not meaningless. It's not capricious, it's loving And perial. Did you notice that if necessary you've been grieved by various trials.

So that purpose, the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes, though it is refined by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Fifth present grace. Right now though you have not seen Jesus with your physical eyes, you do believe in him. Your faith may feel weak and wobbly tonight, but you do believe in him and you love him.

And loving someone is significant. I remember as a very new Christian some 50 years ago, I had just moved here and I was talking to a friend and I said, you know, I know God is real. I know Christ is real because I love them. And I said, I, I believe you could. I think you could believe in something that wasn't real, but I don't think you could love someone who wasn't there. So you love him. And then, and then Peter says,

and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. That means that sometimes God favors you and and pours out his spirit on you in such a way that you experience joy in being loved by Christ that you know is from beyond this world. And it's even beyond our comprehension. And our joy is inexpressible. It's full of glory. The great evangelist DL Moody talked about a time when he was very discouraged about his

ministry and he was walking the streets of New York City and he said he had experience of God's love that was so powerful, so

Immeasurable that he had to beg God to stop. So those are present grace, blessings. Couple, future grace. Peter says, you have an inheritance coming. It's, it's not far. It's around the bend. It's an imperishable body that you're going to experience that will be invulnerable to sickness or pain or death. It's a perfected spirit and it's a new heaven and a new earth. And he says it's imperishable. It can't ever be destroyed.

It's undefiled. It can't ever be tarnished or corrupted. And it's unfading. It won't grow old or it's glory or it's luster fade away and it's just up ahead. And brothers and sisters, as I said a minute ago, we all have a longing. We have a longing that we can't even hardly speak about. It's so deep. It's a longing for every question answered. Every ache swallowed up, every fear banished. And the moment you see Jesus, that will be yours forever.

So when Jesus returns in the future, you're not just gonna see glory. You're actually going to share in his praise and glory and honor. As CS Lewis says, you'll no longer be on the outside looking in, rather you will be embraced and enveloped in the infinite goodness, the infinite greatness, the infinite beauty and love of your savior and bridegroom. Those are just some of the past, present and future graces. And we are being called to take whatever our loss,

whatever our pain, and embed it in that looking back to what has God, God has done, looking up to what we need from him right now in which he is eager to give and looking forward to the great joy. So we're gonna move right to applications here. The first application I want you to look again at verse six.

Peter says, in this, all of this past gospel, grace, you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary. You've been grieved by various trials because of God's past, present, and future grace. God wants you to know tonight that your grief and everyone in here has some grief tonight. It may be small or it may be feeling like it's gonna crush the life out of you. Whatever your grief, it's for now. It's not for heaven, it's only for now.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. That's the great covenant promise. That's the the deepest and final joy. And then it says, this same God will wipe away every tear from your eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning we might add or grieving

nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things that passed away. So your grief is for now, but not heaven. And because of that, your grief is for a little while, not for a long time. I know it doesn't seem that way. It seems sometimes like this grief is gonna go on forever. I will never live again. And sometimes it's so bad that it seems like I think it's always been there and you just seem trapped by it. But, but Peter says it's a little while.

And Paul, Paul amplifies that in two Corinthians four 17. He says, this light, momentary affliction, including all your griefs, is preparing for us and eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. And he's talking comparatively, whatever your grief is compared to eternity, it's a snap of the fingers. Someone said that the worst, most miserable life for 85 years from Heaven's perspective will seem like an uncomfortable night in a bad motel.

But notice in second Corinthians, Paul is not just saying that this light, momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory. He's saying something better. He's saying that this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the griefs and sufferings. You endure on this earth by faith in Christ and your capacity for joy and your glory.

There will be peculiar glories that you will experience and your capacity for joy will be all the more enhanced by what you suffered here. So it's now not in heaven. It's for a little while, not a long time. And then finally, Peter says, he implies it's necessary. It's not meaningless, it's not capricious. He says, these griefs have come so that the tested genuine genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, which though perishable is refined

by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So that's the first application. Take your present sufferings your grief. I know some of you have lost loved ones in the last year or two. Some of you have lost, uh, a dream and ambition, uh, a child to waywardness your health, whatever, whatever that grief, embed it in the past, present, and future graces of the gospel. And secondly, and finally, and this is the second big idea,

and we'll revisit this next week. We're just gonna touch on it tonight, for you to grieve with hope. You must know that grief is not about a process. It's about a person. 1969, Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote a book called On Death and Dying. And the five stages of grief were launched into eternity. They're still being talked about denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Those may describe things that happen when people grieve.

But did you notice even in those two things, do you notice what's missing in the five stages of grief? One is grief. There's no grief there. The clean but painful sorrow and sadness over loft. That's loss. That's not one of the stages of grief. And more importantly, hope is not there as far as she could go, is acceptance, which is a weak and poor substitute for a radiant hope. Grief is about Jesus. Jesus is described in Isaiah 53,

and this characterizes his whole life and amplified at the end. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And not only that, he is the one who has born and taken your griefs and mine in his body on the cross. He is the the man par excellence. Who knows intimately grief. Here's how Charles Spurgeon describes it. Christ was the Lord of grief, the prince of pain and the emperor of anguish. He was preeminent among the sorrowful.

Others may sip at sorrows bowl, but he drains it dry. All men's sorrows, all your sorrows were his sorrows. His heart was so large that it was inevitable that he should become a man of sorrows. Christ's intimate acquaintance with grief should bring about in us. Spurgeon says, let us admire the superlative love of Jesus. Oh, love, love. What has thou done? What has thou not done? Thou art, omnipotent in suffering. Grief is about a person.

And we're called to go to that person. And in Hebrews four 15 and 16, this is what it looks like for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. We might say to suffer with our griefs, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are and yet without sin, let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Did you hear that Jesus sympathizes That word means He feels with us. He suffers with us until relief finally comes, all our weaknesses, including our griefs and sorrows. And he was tempted in every way that a grieving person is. He was tempted to self-pity. He was tempted to hopelessness. He was tempted to anger yet without sin. And he says, you can come to me to the throne of grace and you'll receive mercy. None of us has ever gray grieved in a perfectly sinless way.

There often is mixed in some self pity and hopelessness and anger. But Jesus says, I'll give you mercy. It's all washed away. You can grieve completely clean. And then he says, I'll give you grace to help in time of need. Sometimes when we're grieving, it's just a steady throb day after day after day. And other times you might be feeling like it's an okay day and then all of a sudden bang outta nowhere. Summer, some something triggers it, some memory,

some smell, some sound. And you find yourself weeping on the kitchen floor. In either case, Jesus says, come to me and I'll give you mercy, and you'll find grace. So as we close here tonight,

if you are grieving, go to him.

He's the man of sorrows. He's acquainted with all grief. And he is born your specific griefs. Go to him. He invites you. He says, if you're weary and heavy laden, whatever the, whatever the reason, come to me. It's a gracious invitation. So go to him. And then when you, when you come to him, pour out your heart to him, oftentimes we, we, it's almost like we're saying, Jesus, I'll get back to you as soon as I've stopped

thinking about this or trying to figure it out or or just feeling sad. No, no, no. Go to him and talk to him about it. Tell him your complaint. Tell him your sorrow. Tell him your grief. Lament. Pour out your heart. He's compassionate and powerful and he delights. He delights to give mercy and grace. So go to him and pour out your heart to him and then abide in him. Don't just make it a field trip to Jesus. Abide in him.

He's your refuge. He's the lover of your soul. And Jesus says, I will never leave you. I will never leave you. And he might say, so don't leave me. Come to me with your grief. I will never leave you. And then finally, go to him. Pour out your heart, abide in him. And this last part is hard. Wait for him. Wait for him. Be like David and say, even though right now, everything is so hard, so painful. But I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord

in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for him. We're gonna take a couple minutes quiet right now. And if you have sorrow or grief, he's here with us in this room. He's in you through the Holy Spirit. Just go to him, talk to him, pour out your heart, and then commit yourself this week to abide in Him and wait for him. So I'll, I'll close us in prayer after a few minutes and we will sing our final song.

So let's go to Jesus,

Lord Jesus Christ, adored by angels, enjoying the glory of heaven. You left home for us. You came to this sin broken world, and you became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And that doesn't mean you just became familiar with grief, but you took our griefs, the ones that we deserved and the ones we didn't deserve.

And Lord, right now, you sympathize, you feel with us. You suffer with us without, in any way diminishing your glory and joy in heaven. And you offer us mercy and grace, and you invite us to come and pour out our hearts and abide, and you promise us as we do that we will find rest for our souls. Lord, all we can say right now is hallelujah. What a savior. We praise you. Amen. Amen.