Book of Romans: Redemptive Suffering

[00:00:01] This life can be really hard. [00:00:05] Maybe you just said to yourself, thank you, Captain Obvious, but this life is hard for all of us in different ways and at different times. [00:00:16] As a pastor, sometimes I get a unique insight into the pain and suffering of this world. There have been many times that I've stood on this stage at a memorial for the young and the old. [00:00:31] Sometimes it's a young person whose life was just tragically snuffed out, and you're trying to step into those moments and bring some kinds of consolation to the people that are there. Sometimes it's a young person who got to that place in their life where they just felt like life is not worth living and they took their own life. [00:00:53] Sometimes it's for an infant that we never even really got the chance to get to know. [00:01:00] I prayed with people that have just been devastated by a diagnosis. [00:01:06] I've sat on the side of a bed and prayed for people that I loved and cared for that were almost unrecognizable because cancer was eating away at the inside of their body. [00:01:18] Prayed with people that have experienced miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage and long roads of infertility. [00:01:27] I've sat and listened to people as they've shared incredible accounts of abuse and trauma and tragedy. [00:01:37] And that's just other people's lives. [00:01:40] I have my own pain and suffering in this life, and so do you. [00:01:47] At the end of the sermon last Sunday, I was got done preaching, and it was a little more crowded at the 9, and there was only one seat sitting there in the front row. And so I made my way down there and kind of squeezed in there. And I looked to my left and a friend of mine was there, and she just had tears running down her face, and I just put my hand on her shoulder and I just said, are you okay? [00:02:09] And she said, I shouldn't have looked at my phone, but I just got a report about a friend of mine, and she was just broken inside. [00:02:17] And then we just sat there singing. Like all this beautiful singing and worshiping God like the. The sounds of heaven around us. [00:02:27] Well, this friend of mine was right in the middle of pain. [00:02:33] And I just thought, isn't this just the picture of this life? [00:02:38] There's beautiful things that God is doing in this world and around this world, but sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of deep loss and pain. [00:02:50] There's a picture that we've been looking at over the last couple of weeks. [00:02:54] And a couple of weeks ago in the sermon, what I wanted you to walk away with was to Remember that when we look at the purpose of your faith, the glory of the gospel, it's not that you would go to heaven with, but that the purpose of your faith is that you would actually bring heaven to earth while you live. [00:03:17] That's what Jesus has asked us to do. [00:03:20] But here's the deal, friends. [00:03:22] We live in this place, in the in between, in that overlap, there is tension that we experience in that. [00:03:33] Because we are over here living on this earth, and we feel the problems of this earth, the pain of this earth, but at the same time, we experience the promises of heaven and we see ways that God is breaking into this world. [00:03:50] Here's the harsh reality, friend, is that we all are going to experience suffering in this life. [00:04:00] And as I watch people go through suffering and experience it myself, oftentimes I think it's in those places of suffering that we can desperately seek the presence of God. [00:04:12] But I would also say that sometimes in those times of suffering, the presence of God can feel the most difficult to find. [00:04:22] How do we live? [00:04:24] How do we live in that in between? [00:04:27] How can we trust a God that says he's bringing to heaven to earth when we feel so much of the pain of this life? [00:04:37] As we step into this sermon talking about specifically suffering, there's some things that I absolutely need to say I don't want you to hear. [00:04:47] I don't want you to hear that we should try to measure or compare our suffering. [00:04:52] Because there might be some people in this room that would just say, you know, my life has actually been pretty easy. And there's some of you that would say, I barely feel like I can keep my nose above water. The pain and suffering is so there and so real. [00:05:08] And just because it's there and real for many of us, most of us, what I don't want you to hear is that we need to just dismiss. Don't worry about pain and suffering, just dismiss it as in. As inevitable in our life. You know, just buck up, little camper. [00:05:23] No, that's not how we're going to talk about suffering. [00:05:26] But we're also not going to try to sweep it under the rug and pretend like real pain and suffering doesn't exist in our life. [00:05:34] I feel like I want to strike the balance between normalizing the reality of pain and suffering in this life, in the life of a follower of Jesus. I want to normalize it, but I don't want to minimize it, and I don't want to sanitize it or pretend that it's not there. [00:05:55] Everyone suffers, but nobody Suffers exactly like you do. [00:06:03] It hits every one of us uniquely. [00:06:06] But there's some things that we often try to do in our life, in our humanity. When suffering comes our way, we try to avoid it at all costs. If we could, we would put bubble wrap around our life to try to keep pain and suffering away from us. And when pain and suffering comes to our life, we want to get through it as quickly as possible. [00:06:29] We try to minimize the damaging effects of pain and suffering in our life. [00:06:35] That's what we do. [00:06:37] But here's what's amazing, friends, is the Bible has a very, very different perspective on suffering than we often do. [00:06:48] In the book of Romans that we've been going through and we've been looking at Romans chapter 8 most recently talking about this idea of the indwelling spirit, God's power and presence that comes into our life to give us the capacity to be able to live the kind of life that Jesus lived, to live the Spirit filled life. [00:07:08] Romans talks about that over and over. But so interesting to me is that Paul often talks about suffering in the same context of talking about the reality of God's spirit living within us. Let's go back to a text that we taught way back when, Romans chapter 5. But I want you to hear how Paul marries those two topics together. [00:07:31] In Romans 5, verse starting, verse 3, it says, not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope. [00:07:43] And hope does not put us to shame because God's love. Hear this, friends. God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us suffering and God's love poured out in our life. [00:08:04] Why do you think that Paul would put those two topics right next to each other? [00:08:10] I believe that it's this. [00:08:12] I believe that when we are in those places of pain and suffering, it is in those places that we can become disoriented. We can wonder, does God really see me? It's in those places that we can feel alone and abandoned and forgotten. [00:08:30] That's why we need to know in those times, God has poured out his love into our life through the Holy Spirit. He says it again In Romans chapter 8, the chapter that we've been in this whole fall. [00:08:42] Starting in verse 15, it says, the Spirit that you received does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship and by Him. We cry abba Father. [00:09:01] Like the idea of daddy closeness. The Spirit himself testifies with our Spirit that we are God's children. [00:09:11] Now, if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co heirs with Christ. [00:09:21] If indeed what we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. [00:09:32] Paul makes it crystal clear. Again, the Holy Spirit testifies that we are sons and daughters of the King. [00:09:42] We are heirs, co heirs. But what that also means is that we share and what it means to be an heir and a co heir with Christ. We share in his sufferings and in his glory. Those things go together. God pours out His Spirit in our life so that we can know that we know that we are not abandoned in the midst of our suffering. [00:10:08] That's how we live here. [00:10:11] That's how we live in the in between between those problems, the pain and suffering of earth and the promises, the glory of heaven and this true reality that God is bringing heaven to earth. [00:10:27] And until we realize that that's what God's doing in, in the midst of the good and the bad and the things that we're experiencing in this life, we will not be able to believe the text. That is our main text for today. And it's just one verse, Romans 8:28. [00:10:46] If we don't get this, we will never know what the Apostle Paul knew. And here's what he says. Romans 8:28, he says, and we know, saying we know this is bedrock, this is foundation. We know this to be true. That in all things, all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his good purpose. [00:11:15] A couple things that it doesn't say, it doesn't say that all things are good. [00:11:22] That that would just be crazy. Not everything that is happening in and around your life there is real evil, there is real pain, there is real suffering. [00:11:31] And those things are not good. But the promise is that there is a purpose that God has in him bringing heaven to earth. There's things that he wants to do in you and through you that suffering can actually produce in your life. Suffering is a part of God bringing heaven to earth. It was in the life of Jesus and it's going to be in our lives if we choose to be a follower of Him. [00:12:00] So I want us to think just for a minute as we're walking through this life in the in between, and we're dealing with suffering in our life. What is God's posture toward us? How does God relate to us in our suffering? [00:12:15] Because sometimes, like I said, it just feels like God is a million miles away. [00:12:21] I feel lost. I feel abandoned by him. [00:12:24] But the promise of heaven is that God actually moves toward us. [00:12:29] He moves toward us in the pain, in this life. Psalm 34:18, the promise of heaven says this. The Lord is close. [00:12:39] He's close. He's right there. To who? To the brokenhearted. [00:12:43] When your heart is breaking, he's saying, I am right there. [00:12:46] And he saves those who are crushed in spirit. [00:12:51] God is moving towards you. [00:12:54] So when you feel like God is a million miles away, when you're in the midst of suffering, it is not true. He is actually especially focused on you in those times. He is right there. [00:13:09] Susanna Wesley, who was the mother of John Wesley, the famous revivalist, she had 19 children. [00:13:19] 19 children, yeah. She deserves a hand clap. [00:13:23] Susanna Wesley, there was one time that she was asked, of your 19 kids, which one do you love the most? [00:13:34] I love her response. [00:13:36] The one who is sick, lost, hurting, or forgotten. [00:13:44] That's the heart of a parent. [00:13:46] If you're a parent, you know you're only doing as well as your child. That is doing the worst. [00:13:53] That is your heart. You move toward the one you think about. They're on your mind. They might even receive more of your prayers than the ones that are doing better at that time. You, you move toward the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit. And so does our good Father. [00:14:12] But he doesn't stand back without empathy. [00:14:18] He understands what it's like to have walked through our shoes. [00:14:23] That's why we need to understand that God enters. Actually he enters into our suffering with, with us. We've got to look at the life of Jesus because he enters in to the suffering of this world. [00:14:37] When Jesus steps onto the scene at the very beginning of his ministry, the very beginning of the Book of Luke, he's baptized. And it says that the Holy Spirit was poured out on his life. He was full of the Holy Spirit. He begins his ministry to show us what. What does it look like to have the Holy Spirit empower you, to walk with you through the midst of suffering? This is what it says at the beginning of the Book of Luke. It says, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Day one, into the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. [00:15:19] That's day one. [00:15:21] Not a lot of honeymoon there. Stepping in to the pain and suffering of this world. [00:15:28] Think about, just for a minute, let's think about the temptations that he experienced. Turning stones into bread, enlisting angels to rescue you if you were to throw yourself off of the temple, worshiping Satan himself. [00:15:46] If I were to try to put those some common denominators of those three temptations, they would be this. All three of those are shortcuts. [00:15:58] And when we're in the midst of pain and suffering, what we so often want is we want a shortcut around it, do we not? [00:16:05] But Jesus shows us, in the midst of pain and suffering and temptation, you don't take shortcuts. I mean, wouldn't have been great. He's been fasting for 40 days to take stones, turn it into bread, eat it, nourish your body, nourish your flesh. You don't have to plant wheat, harvest wheat, grind wheat, bake bread, just make it, make it for yourself. Shortcut, you could have popularity, Jesus, if you were to throw yourself off the temple and angels, because everybody's going to see it and angels came and rescued you, it would be a spectacle. You would be so popular. [00:16:50] But Jesus says, no, no, no, that's a shortcut. [00:16:55] It's not about spectacle. [00:16:58] It's about becoming popular, becoming important through sacrifice, through suffering in this world. [00:17:07] That's the way of the kingdom of God. [00:17:10] And then Satan said, I know your purposes. Satan knows that this is the purpose of Jesus. He knew that this was why he come. He understands it better than we do. He understands that Jesus was trying to bring heaven to earth and to redeem all things. [00:17:26] So this is what he throws out to Jesus. You can have it. You can have all of this. [00:17:32] Just worship me. [00:17:36] A shortcut, Jesus, you can have it all. You can have the crown. You can be king of all things. [00:17:44] No cross. [00:17:46] And Jesus says, no, no shortcuts. We're going through pain. We are going through suffering. We're going through the darkness and the brokenness of the evil of this world. That is is the way of the kingdom. And friends, if it was the way of the kingdom for Jesus, if we follow him, it will be the way of the kingdom for us. There are no shortcuts around suffering in this life. [00:18:15] You know what's amazing is that God actually did good things in the life of Jesus through the suffering that he experienced through. Listen to what the writer says in Hebrews chapter 5, starting in verse 7. It says, during the days of Jesus life on earth, he offered up prayers and petition with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death. [00:18:41] I mean, you just read that and you can hear the sound of someone that is walking through suffering in this life. And it says, and he was heard because of his Reverent submission to the Father. [00:18:55] It says, son though he was, his identity as the Son was never in question. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered. [00:19:11] Friends, if we're going to follow Jesus, we've got to follow him through the suffering of this world. [00:19:18] Jesus was willing to enter the pain and the brokenness of this world. And when you're in the midst of pain and brokenness and you're crying out to him, you can say, I don't like this. You can say, this is frustrating to me. What you can't say is that Jesus, you don't understand what I'm going through. [00:19:36] Oh, friends, he understands what we're going through to the nth degree. [00:19:44] But he was the one that promised us the Holy Spirit. [00:19:48] The Holy Spirit is going to be the one that lives with us his power and presence and walks with us through the suffering of this world. [00:19:58] If you're going to follow Jesus, this is what it means. You don't get a choice whether or not you experience suffering in the in between, but you do get a choice on how that suffering is going to affect you. You get to choose what that suffering does to you. [00:20:21] What do we learn? What do we learn in this life when it comes to experiencing suffering? [00:20:28] There's a couple of things that I've learned to say to myself when I'm in the midst of suffering. [00:20:33] And one of them is this. I tell myself, don't waste. Waste this pain. [00:20:39] Don't waste it. I'm going to walk through it. I'm going to have to anyway. Lord, what do you want me to learn? How do you want me to grow in the midst of this? Don't waste this pain. [00:20:50] And then recently, I heard a pastor say this that had just all these horrible things had uncorked in his life, much of it to his own doing. [00:21:02] But here's what he said, and I've grabbed ahold of this. He says, I have resolved that I am gonna take more from this pain and suffering than this pain and suffering has taken from me. [00:21:14] Isn't that good before you, God? I'm resolving that. I'm gonna take more from this than this takes from me. [00:21:25] What are some of those things that we can take from. From suffering? What are some of the things that God can actually produce in our lives as a result of walking through difficult things? [00:21:36] I want to just name a couple of them. [00:21:39] One would be compassion. [00:21:42] When we walk through things, difficult things in this life, we tend to be much more compassionate toward people that may be experiencing the exact Same things that we have walked through. [00:21:57] When we walk through difficult things, it makes us compassionate. When we lose a spouse, when we lose a child, when we experience miscarriage after miscarriage and years of infertility, we become compassionate toward those who are walking through those things. When we get diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it makes us compassionate toward people who are also experiencing all kinds of mental illness in this world. [00:22:30] When we've gone through financial struggles and we know what it's like to have nothing and wonder where your next meal is going to come from, it makes us compassionate toward people who are walking in those same ways. There's ways that us walking through it, it just knits our hearts to people that have walked the same road. [00:22:48] The Bible tells us that we're to rejoice with those who rejoice, which oftentimes is the easy part. But it says we mourn with those who mourn. [00:23:00] That's what suffering does for us. It allows us to mourn with those who mourn and to do it well and to do it with empathy. I call those people wounded healers. [00:23:12] They've been wounded in their life through some form of pain and suffering. But as those wounds have healed, they use that wound to help heal the lives of other people. [00:23:27] God grows compassion in us through suffering. A second thing that I see happen in the lives of people that experience suffering is gratitude. [00:23:37] Suffering. It's just interesting how immediately suffering has the capacity to begin to sift out in our life what really matters. [00:23:47] When suffering hits our life, suddenly the little things that were bugging us tend to go away in our life. And we start to think about what is going to matter for all of eternity. If heaven is coming to earth, what's going to matter in the end? [00:24:06] And so many times it's people and experiences with people. We become so grateful for experiences that we have with people. [00:24:16] A conversation, just a simple conversation with someone we love. [00:24:21] Sometimes it could be just as simple as tucking your child in at night. [00:24:28] Sometimes that just seems like a chore. But sometimes in the midst of suffering, it becomes one of the greatest pleasures of life. [00:24:37] That simple hug that we give or receive from a friend can be so meaningful. [00:24:46] Suffering has a way of taking things that sometimes are just thoughtless. [00:24:50] We're not paying attention to them, and they actually become priceless. [00:24:55] And we get so grateful for those things. [00:24:59] It's interesting me, I. If you were here last week, I just kind of threw out at the beginning of my sermon some challenging things that were going on in my life. And one was something that my Son was going through. He and his girlfriend were traveling over in Europe. He was doing some work things over there had a lot of camera equipment and computer equipment. They got their car broken into. Everything that they had was stolen. [00:25:21] They were at a hot springs. All they had on were their bathing suits. That's all they had. [00:25:28] And it was so interesting to hear the story of how everything unfolded. Well, I get home in the middle of the week and I walk into the den and my wife is just putting down the screen of the computer. And she turns and looks at me and she's just got tears running down her face. [00:25:46] And I was just like, oh, Carmen, what's going on? [00:25:50] She said, I just talked to Josiah and Kenzie and my heart just sank. I was like, oh no. [00:25:57] She's like, no, no, it's really good. It's really good. And she just started to explain all the ways that God was showing up in and around their life and ways that they were seeing him and becoming grateful for things that they hadn't been before. It changed everything for them. Last night, yesterday my son got home and we were sitting around the kitchen table and I was just asking him all the questions about all these crazy things that happened in the midst. In the wake of that. [00:26:28] Here's the thing that stuck with me as he described it all good, the bad, the ugly. One of the last things he said is that Kenzie and I looked at each other when it was over and we said, we wouldn't change a thing. [00:26:41] We wouldn't change a thing. [00:26:44] And now I imagine that if you went back to the beginning of their trip and said, hey, there's two roads you can take here. One is going to be a very normal trip and one is going to be a trip where you lose everything that you own. They probably choose the trip that's normal, just like we would. [00:27:01] But here's the deal. [00:27:04] They wouldn't change a thing. [00:27:08] And some of you have those same testimonies. [00:27:11] You have walked through brutal, evil things in this life, but it has produced something in you that has caused you to say, I wouldn't change a thing. [00:27:23] I'm so grateful. That's the power of the Holy Spirit changing our lives from the inside out. We can be grateful even in the midst of suffering. [00:27:37] The last thing that I see God produce in people's life that is beautiful is this groaning. [00:27:48] Now, I hope you're there sitting, like thinking, how is that a good thing? [00:27:53] That does not seem like a good thing. No, no, no. Suffering is. Teaches us to groan. [00:28:01] If you Go through Romans, chapter 8. You will see there's a lot of groaning going on. [00:28:08] This creation that we live in, it is groaning because even the creation understands this world isn't as it should be. [00:28:17] The Holy Spirit is groaning and agonizing with us and for us, because the Holy Spirit knows that this world is not as it should be. [00:28:29] And Paul says that we groan too. We groan inwardly because we understand and know that this world is not as it should be. [00:28:41] What this helps us understand why groaning is so important is it helps us understand that the problems that we're experiencing here on earth, this is not the world that we were created to live in. [00:28:54] We were created to live in a place where heaven and earth were right on top of each other. God's presence over the creation, over our lives. We were created for Eden, but we live in a world that is very different than that. And groaning, groaning is just that reminder. It's that reminder to us that we were not created for the world as it is right now. And it's that groaning, that longing for heaven, that gives us hope. [00:29:26] That gives us hope in the midst of suffering. If you love suffering, there's something wrong with you. [00:29:34] But if you groan in suffering, it just means that you understand that this world is not what it's intended to be. I love how CS Lewis said it in Mere Christianity. He says, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most profitable explanation is that I was made for another world. [00:29:59] That's what groaning allows us to understand. We were made for another world. And God is bringing that world to earth. And eventually he will redeem all things. [00:30:09] Every tear will be wiped away. Every piece of pain that you've experienced will be redeemed. You were made for another world. [00:30:20] Here's the deal. [00:30:22] No one chooses to suffer. [00:30:26] You don't get to choose. You don't get to choose whether you suffer, and you don't get to choose how you will suffer. [00:30:32] But what you do get to choose is what suffering does to you. [00:30:39] Is it going to make you more or is suffering going to make you less? [00:30:45] Are you willing to resolve in the midst of suffering that I'm going to take more from this than it took from me? [00:30:55] But it still leaves the question in my mind, how do we function day to day in that tension between the problems of earth and the promises of heaven? [00:31:08] The Bible gives us an answer to that. [00:31:12] The Bible gives us a practice to help us understand how to live in the in between. And that practice is called Lament. [00:31:21] We need to understand and we need to practice lament. And I'm going to do my best job that I can to try to give you a visual way to understand what the Bible is talking about when it is talking about lament. [00:31:34] So here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I've done this kind of an illustration in different ways in the past, but this is what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to hold up your hand in front of your face and put me behind your hand. And if you choose not to do this, and I see you without your hand up, I will make you come up here and do it. I will. I will. [00:31:53] Here's what I want you to do. With your hand in front of me, I want you to focus on your hand. [00:31:59] The reality of your hand. [00:32:02] Now, with your focus on your hand, here's what I know to be true, is that I, out in the distance, am fuzzy. [00:32:10] You can't focus on me at the same time. [00:32:13] Now do this. Now focus on me. Take your focus away from your fingers and focus on me. [00:32:20] Now here's what I know to be true. Your hand gets really fuzzy. Am I right? [00:32:27] Okay, you can put your hand down now. Here's how this is going to help you understand. [00:32:33] Lament. [00:32:34] Lament just simply means that we put our focus on the problems of this earth. The real pain, the real suffering. We talk about it, we think about it, we name it, but at the same time, lament. We also look to the distance. We look to the promises of heaven, we look to the promises of God. And we can see that in the same time, two things can both exist at the same time. The reality of our suffering as well as the reality of good things that God is going to bring out of the suffering in our life. Here's my example. Imagine with me that you were at the crucifixion of Jesus. [00:33:16] Imagine with me that you were maybe one of his closest disciples. [00:33:21] Maybe imagine with me that you were his mother and you're watching what is taking place. [00:33:32] Unjustly arrested, unfairly tried, beaten, mocked, hung on a cross, naked before the world. [00:33:45] If you were standing there looking at that, if you were just focused on that, you would say, this is the most awful thing that has ever happened in the world. And you know what? You would be right. [00:33:57] That is absolutely true. [00:34:00] But let's just step back for just a minute. And if you were to look through your hand, through the cross, through the things that were happening there, to where we are today. Or even where the world was a month after that, where the disciples were a month after that. And you asked them, was that the most evil thing that the world has ever seen? They would say, oh, no, you're not going to believe what God did. [00:34:27] What did God do? As a result of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, he created a way for salvation for all of us so that if we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we can have heaven here on earth, Heaven breaking into earth in our life. [00:34:44] That's what was accomplished by that. Which one is true. When you're looking at the hand and you're looking in the distance, they're both true. [00:34:55] And that's what lament is. [00:34:57] Lament is us praying, talking with God about the things that are in our life that are difficult, challenging the reality of suffering. But we don't stop there. We also look past our hand to the character of God, to the promises of God, and we remind God and we remind ourselves actually who he is and what it is that he's promised to accomplish in and through the things that are happening in our life. Friends, that is what lament is. [00:35:29] It's how we live in that gap in that. In between. Between the problems of this earth are real, real problems and the real, real promises of heaven. [00:35:45] Here's your assignment. [00:35:47] I want you to practice lament this week. [00:35:51] Here's what I want you to do. I want you to look actually at the Bible and look at an example of a lament. There are several psalms. Actually, one third of the psalms are Psalms of Lament. Why are there so many? Because there's so many difficult things in this life, so many difficult things that the followers of God walk through. And they taught us how to do this. Look at Psalm 22, a Psalm of Lament, and here's what I want you to do. I want you to write down. Where do you see the writer of Psalm 22, looking at his hand, the challenging, suffering things in his life that were incredibly real. And where in that Psalm of Lament do you see him looking beyond his hand to the promises of heaven? Who God is and what it is that God was going to do in his life one day and do for him. [00:36:43] Practice lament in that way. [00:36:46] And then for extra credit, actually, not extra credit. This is part of the assignment. [00:36:52] I want you to write your own Psalm of Lament. [00:36:58] Write your own Psalm of Lament. [00:37:00] You can do it. [00:37:02] You can pray the Psalms that are. You can pray the Psalms of Lament that are in the Psalms. But you can write your own. [00:37:07] You can write your own. All you have to do is look at your life. Look at the things in your life, the hurt and the pain and the brokenness that you're seeing in this life. And you pray that out to God. You name it, name those things. Don't hold back. Pray the exact way that you don't think that you should. [00:37:27] Pray that honestly to God. [00:37:30] But don't stop there. [00:37:33] Remind yourself. [00:37:34] Remind yourself of the promises of heaven. [00:37:38] Because you know who God is. You know his character. [00:37:42] That's how we walk through this. In between, we lament the things that are in front of us and we think about the things that God has promised us. Hand in front of us. God at a distance. I'm going to close with this. [00:37:59] I just want to read the end of Romans chapter 28. Because I think Paul just does such a great job. And he wrote the Bible, of course. He did a great job of explaining the heart behind this. [00:38:13] Romans chapter 8. [00:38:15] Starting in verse 31, Paul says this. [00:38:19] What then shall we say in response to these things? [00:38:24] If God is for us, who can be against us? [00:38:28] He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? [00:38:40] Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? [00:38:47] It is God. [00:38:49] It is God who justifies. [00:38:52] Who then is the one who condemns? [00:38:56] No one. [00:38:58] No one can condemn Jesus Christ who died more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. [00:39:11] And then Paul just asked the question, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [00:39:20] What can separate us in the. In between? [00:39:24] Nothing. [00:39:26] Not trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or. Or danger or sword. [00:39:39] That's how we know God has promised to redeem all things. [00:39:47] That's the promise that we have. That's why Paul can say, for we know that in all things, God works together for the good, for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his good purpose. What's his good purpose? Bringing heaven to earth. [00:40:09] In your life and in the lives of people around you. [00:40:13] That's what we know. [00:40:16] Let's pray. [00:40:22] Jesus, I just. [00:40:25] Just want to say thank you. [00:40:27] That we can know that you understand the things that we are walking through. [00:40:34] You are not far off. [00:40:37] You can relate. [00:40:39] Holy Spirit, thank you that you will walk with us through this. [00:40:44] Thank you that you're our comforter. You're with us. You're our counselor. You help us navigate the wounds and pain of this life. You're our teacher. [00:40:54] You speak truth to our hearts and minds about who we are. [00:40:58] Thank you that you are with us always, Jesus. It's in your powerful and resurrected name that we give thanks and praise. And all God's people said amen.