On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent Podcast, we begin a new series by listening to Tim Challies as he helps us think biblically about suffering, sorrow, and the compassion of Christ.
We walk through Luke 7:11–17, where Jesus meets a grieving widow in Nain and raises her son, and we’re reminded of three simple, steady truths: death is strong, God is stronger, and one day death itself will die.
As we listen, we’re encouraged to trust God’s good purposes in our pain, to remember that Jesus draws near to the brokenhearted, and to anchor our hope in the future comfort and resurrection promised to all who are in Christ.
Topics Covered in This Week’s Podcast
4:01 Introduction
11:18 Death is strong
19:04 God is stronger
25:11 Death will die
Resources From This Podcast
Seasons of Sorrow, by Tim Challies
Tim Challies- Walking Through Deep Sorrow and Loss (Prior podcast interview)
Challies.com, Tim’s blog
Podcast Transcript
Chap: I am Chap Bettis, and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. How are we to think about suffering in trials? What does God’s word have to say? Would you like to hear from someone who has walked through deep valleys and come out on the other side? Hi, my name is Chap Bettis. I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent, and with this podcast we start a new series. We just finished a four-part series on biblical conflict resolution. I encourage you to check out that series if you haven’t, because all of us have conflict in our lives.
All of us also have suffering and trials in our lives. So with this podcast, we kick off a series featuring Tim Challies. Tim was recently at my home church in Providence, Rhode Island, and the Disciple-Making Parentministry co-sponsored a conference with my church that brought Tim in from Canada. We actually had too many- or smaller conferences- because on Friday night he spoke about suffering and on Saturday morning he spoke about technology, and he is well qualified to help equip the saints on both topics.
Why suffering? Well, because in November of 2020, his 20-year-old son Nick suddenly dropped dead on his college campus, and to this day, they don’t exactly know why. But Tim being the writer and blogged his way through his own grief and out of this came the resource Seasons of Sorrow. We talked with him about that on an earlier podcast, and I listened to the audiobook. And read it, which was read in Tim’s own voice- and man, it was quite moving- I thought it might be beneficial for you to listen in on the two talks that he gave to our church. Now this talk comes right out of scripture as he paints a picture of Christ’s love for the suffering. And then in the next podcast, he shares a little more deeply of the way that he and Eileen saw God’s goodness and lessons that they learned along the way.
Well, Tim is a well-known blogger who’s been blogging daily challies.com for over 20 years. He’s blogged over 15,000 posts, one every day. He hasn’t missed a day. He’s a well-known author, including the book I mentioned already, Seasons of Sorrow, as well as many other resources. He’s married to Aileen and he has three children: Nick, who’s in heaven, Abby, and Michaela. He also serves as a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Canada.
Well, before we start, I want to remind you that our ministry is dependent on people like you for our financial support. Over 80% of our budget comes from people like you: parents, grandparents, pastors, who see what the world is like, and they want to leave a legacy for the next generation. So I’d love you to consider becoming a monthly or even yearly donor. So head on over to thedisciplemakingparent.com/partner
And of course, the second resource that we always highlight is that we give away the audiobook of The Disciple-Making Parent absolutely free. Just visit our website, thedisciplemakingparent.com, and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and we’ll give you the whole audiobook for The Disciple Making Parent absolutely free. We’re on a mission to equip parents and grandparents to raise children who not only love the Lord and who are not only disciples, but also disciple-makers, taking the gospel to the world and standing as salt and light. So head on over to thedisciplemakingparent.com for your free audiobook. But for now, let’s listen in as we think about suffering and how much our savior cares.
Tim Challies: Yeah, it’s a heavy topic we have to cover this weekend. Just as I was coming here this evening, I was thinking about all the places I’ve been asked to speak about this subject. And last year was in Zimbabwe. They asked me to come speak on suffering and sorrow and the Christian life. A year before in Austria. I’ve been, I’m trying to think where else. It’s one of the universal languages, if you will, of the human experience, is the language of grief. And it’s just a universal reality that at different times, in different ways, God will call each one of us to pass through these seasons of sorrow, these seasons of grief.
So I think it’s healthy and good that we speak about it, understanding that as we speak about it, as we study God’s word, we’re preparing ourselves for times we will suffer or we’re equipping ourselves for these times in which we actually do suffer. So I hope there’ll be something here this evening that will be a blessing to you, perhaps to help you through something you’re enduring at the moment, or something you will pass through in the near future.
I’ll talk a little bit about what Chap mentioned earlier, that my son is in heaven. But it struck me only after he died that our church had just finished this expositional series going through the book of Job, just in the lead up to that. And you’ll look back now and see, Well, I can see how God was preparing us. We don’t want to get superstitious about these things or anything, but we do realize that in different ways, God prepares us for these times of sorrow and then equips us during them.
I once heard the story of a master builder who had been commissioned to construct one of those great cathedrals you see in England. If you’ve ever been in England, you know every big town has a huge cathedral. And this builder had being commissioned to construct one of them. And after he drew up his plans, he visited a quarry nearby where the cathedral would be built because he wanted to choose just the right stones for the foundations and the pillars and the buttresses and the spires. And as he wandered about that quarry, his eyes fell on a certain stone and he picked up that stone and he took out his hammer and he began to just rain down blows upon that stone. And if that stone had had a voice, I’m sure it would’ve cried out in pain and it would’ve asked why. Why are you doing this to me? And the builder would’ve said, It’s okay. Just bear with me for a moment because I need to shape you so I can fit you into this work of art that I’m building for the glory of God. And so if that stone could just endure the pain for a moment, it would come to see that the builder’s plan is a good one. If that stone would just be patient, it would see that this momentary pain is accomplishing something wonderful. And sure enough, when that cathedral was finished, the stone had been carefully placed right there on the walls of that building. And through the ages, that stone and the ones around it bear witness to the skill and to the wisdom of that builder.
And just like that, our God is building something wonderful in this world, through this world. God’s creating the kind of masterpiece that will showcase his genius, that will cause every knee to bow, that will cause every tongue to confess his name, and just as that builder carefully fits each stone into his building, God carefully fits his people into his plan in different ways. God prepares us for the work that he calls us, specifically us as individuals to do. God prepares some people by giving them great riches. God prepares some people by giving them rare talents, he prepares some people by giving them high positions, he prepares some people by giving them deep sorrows. Whatever God chooses to give, it falls to us to receive that, to accept that from his hand and to steward it faithfully. It falls to us, then, to trust the builder and to trust his plan to humbly, willingly accept whatever it is, whatever role that God has assigned to us specifically. So this evening, I’m speaking to each one of us in this room, of course, but I’d especially like to speak to those who have felt the blow of the hammer in their lives.
I’m sure in a room like this, many of you who know the pain of being fitted to a difficult calling. Maybe not a calling you wanted to receive, maybe not a calling you longed to have yet. God has called you to that. So I’m sure there are many in this room who are enduring these times of pain and sorrow and grief and loss and trial and suffering. And if you haven’t in the past then you will in the future. There’s no path through this life that doesn’t involve some measure of grief, some measure of sorrow. So as I speak, I want to call to call us to be submissive to God in our sorrows. I want to call us to trust him, even when we can’t see exactly what it is that he’s accomplishing through these times of real difficulty. I want to call us to be faithful. Be faithful to whatever it is that he’s preparing us for, whatever he’s equipping us to do. What I really want to help us do is connect the character of God and the sovereignty of God to our difficult experiences in this world, and then all that to our response to these difficult experiences.
And I’d like to do that first just by looking at a story from the Bible, a story from the life of Jesus, and considering a woman who has called to endure a very deep sorrow of her own. So we’ll go to Luke chapter seven, beginning in verse 11. I’ll just read a little passage there for you, to give you your context. I’ll just lead you through and make some observations about it that I think are very pertinent to each one of us. So Luke seven, beginning in verse 11:
Soon afterward he– that is, Jesus- went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
So what I’d like us to see are just three brief observations from this passage. The first is that death is strong. The second is that God is stronger, and the third is that death will die. To say it as a sentence, death is strong but God is stronger, and so death will die.
So death is strong. Our narrative here, just this little story begins as Jesus is arriving at the town of Nain. Which means we should picture in our minds- God has given us an imagination so we can use it for things like this- We picture Jesus and his disciples and a great crowd of people ascending this long road up a hill that leads to Nain, which was a little town, a little city upon a hill. And as Jesus draws near to the gate of the town, Luke says, A man who had died was being carried out. So as Jesus and this crowd of people are attempting to go in, there’s a crowd that’s streaming out a group of people who are mourning and weeping. They’re lamenting the loss of one of their own.
It’s important we understand in a time like this, in a climate like this, those who had died needed to be buried very quickly. And so this man who is being carried out had probably died that day, maybe during the night, and already it’s time to lay him to rest. So he is being carried out of the city on a bier, a kind of burial platform. Of course, we wonder who is this man? And so Luke tells us. One old theologian, he calls this what he thinks might be the saddest sentence in the entire Bible. He says, A man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
And so at the head of the crowd is a woman. A woman who’s just obviously staggering under the weight of her grief, and we learn this is not the first time that she’s been leading a procession from the town to the tombs because at some point in the past, she has lost her husband as well. And so now grief has followed grief and pain has been added to pain. First her beloved husband and now her only son, so twice now death does exercise its power in her life. And it’s left her bereaved, it’s left her brokenhearted.
Now, when she suffered the loss of her husband, of course it was her son who automatically became the head of the family, right? And he was given the responsibility to care for his mother. But now he, like his father, is gone, and so what’s left for her? Who’ll provide for her? Who’ll care for her, who will meet her needs? And then you’ve read your New Testament, you must think something like this as well. How will her community regard her now that she’s suffered these two great tragedies? Maybe they’ll treat her as if she must be a great sinner, right? She’s fallen under some kind of divine punishment that God would dish out these two great, tremendous losses in her life. So you think she must be tempted to echo Naomi and just say, “Call me Mara, for the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me.”
So here’s our scene, and this is the scene Jesus sees as he approaches the town of Nain, right? These people streaming out, this mournful procession, this terrible tragedy. And what does Jesus do? I love this. Jesus just goes wading right into it. He just goes wading right into the grief, right into the pain. Isn’t that like our God? Isn’t that like our God? You just go right into the midst of humanity, suffering, and sorrow, and sadness. Verse 13: And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her. And he said to her, “Do not weep.” So Jesus sees her, and Jesus has compassion on her. Now his compassion involves feelings, of course, but it also involves actions. And so he walks right up to her and he speaks and he says, “Do not weep.” Do not cry.
I think we need to make sure we’re catching just the craziness of this. Just imagine it. Jesus approaches a woman who’s enduring the most difficult trial of her life. Here’s a woman who’s in her absolute worst moment, and Jesus walks up to her and he says, Don’t cry.
It was just six years ago that my wife and I had to lay our son, Nick, to rest. Nick was 20 years old, a student at seminary, engaged to a lovely young lady, and his whole life seemed to be before him. And then just in a moment, the Lord took him to heaven. Nick had some sort of a heart failure. We still don’t know exactly. We never will know exactly what happened. But there in front of his friends, in front of his fiancée, in front of his sister, he fell to the ground and died. Just in a moment, he was suddenly and unexpectedly taken from us. No warning, no medical condition, no foreign substances, nothing like that. His heart just stopped and he was gone. So like this woman, we had to make this long walk through the cemetery, his friends carrying his casket just toward this hole that was yawning open in the ground. We had lost our only son. And I can tell you, nothing would’ve been more shocking. Nothing would’ve been more heartless. Nothing would’ve been more out of place than for some stranger to come walking up to my wife and to look her in the eye and to say, “Don’t cry.” Can you imagine? “Don’t cry.” But this is real. Our family has been broken. Our hearts have been shattered. How can you tell us not to weep? How could he tell us not to weep?
These could have been cruel words that Jesus spoke here, but of course there’s a difference between the words of Jesus and words anyone else can speak. And the difference is Jesus can follow his words with action. Jesus can actually do something to turn this woman’s mourning into laughter, to lose her sackcloth, to clothe her with joy. And we’ll see what he does in a moment. But first, I just want us to consider this. Aren’t we thankful that our God is compassionate? Aren’t we thankful that God promises he’s close to the brokenhearted? Our God promises he saves those who are crushed in spirit. Our God promises that he will not break a bruised reed. He will not snuff out a smoldering wick. Aren’t you thankful that our God is a God who says he shows compassion to his children? Just as a father shows compassion to his children, so our God shows compassion to his children, to those who fear him.
I have a friend who’s Muslim. We talk often about religion, faith, beliefs. His God is not compassionate. There are many things he seems to appreciate about his God, about Allah, but that is not a compassionate God. That is not a loving God. That is not a kind God. That is not the kind of God who goes wading right into our sorrows and speaks words of comfort. He is not the kind of God who promises he shows compassion to those who fear him.
Our God does. Our God draws very close to us in our sorrows. God’s compassion draws him near to us when we cry for his help. Our God is the kind of God who’s most present just when he’s most needed. He’s present by his word and he’s present by his Spirit, and he’s present by his people, and in this case, right here in this text, he’s present by his Son.
We’ve seen that death is strong. Let’s see, now, that God is stronger. Verse 14. And Jesus came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. So Jesus goes walking up and he tells the woman, “Don’t cry,” and he reaches out his hand and he touches the platform that this man is lying upon. Now, Luke wasn’t the kind of writer who was going to waste words, so why does he mention this one little fact that Jesus touches the bier? Well, the bier’s associated with death. And so, if you touch that thing, you become unclean, right? I’m sure you remember all those Old Testament laws about what happens when somebody touches a body or even touches something that’s come in contact with a body. And so Jesus, here he is, touched the bier. He should be defiled. He should be unclean. Yet Jesus touches it and he’s not defiled. So we start to wonder, Who could touch death but be untouched by death? Who could come into close proximity with death and be unaffected by it? There’s something going on here. When Jesus speaks again, he says, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
If you’ve ever seen a dead body- I presume most of us have, but one time or another we’ve seen one of our friends, or we’ve seen one of our family members laid in a casket and we’ve stood there and we’ve gazed at their mortal remains. We’ve done that, but I doubt any of us have looked intently at that body and said to it, “I say to you, arise.” We’ve wanted to, right? We’ve wanted to, we’ve longed to see color come back to their cheeks and warmth come back to their bodies. We’ve longed to see them sit up. We’ve longed to hear them speak out, but we know that our words would be futile. We may as well go out at the midday and tell the sun to set, we may as well go outside and tell the earth to reverse its orbit, right? We could command all day. We could plead all night. We could cut ourselves until we’re bleeding like the prophets of Ba’al, but nothing would happen. We’re powerless over death. We have no power. No power over death. What about Jesus? Verse 14, “Jesus said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak.”
See what Jesus does here? Jesus goes face to face. He goes toe to toe with death, and he shows who’s the master here and who’s the servant. He stares death in the face and he shows that he has supremacy even over death, even over that enemy. Because when Jesus commands, all must obey. When Jesus orders, nobody can resist. When Jesus speaks, even the dead hear, even the dead heed his voice.
I love how Luke describes this. He’s been talking about the young man, but in this case, he doesn’t speak about the young man. He speaks about the dead man right now. Luke knows as well as we do that dead men do not sit up and he knows that dead men do not speak. Dead men don’t do anything because they can’t do anything. And yet this dead man, this formerly dead man, he sits up and he speaks. And so we realize that the words of Jesus have power. They have all the power of Almighty God. Could creation disobey when God said “Let there be light”? Of course not. Could the deeps remain still when God said, “Flood the earth”? Of course not. Will history remain still when God commands the last trumpet to sound? Of course not. And this man cannot remain dead when Jesus tells him to rise. This world was created with a word. History will end with a word. Satan will be cast down with a word. Our loved ones will be raised up with a word. Death is overcome with a word. So death may be strong, but God is stronger.
And hear this: What Jesus did to this man who was physically dead, he’s done to those of us who were once spiritually dead. Without Christ, we were dead in our sins. We were as dead in our souls as this man was in his body. But what happened? God spoke. God spoke through the gospel. He enabled us to hear and so we praise God that the word of God was living and active, that it was powerful. That it was sharper than any two-edged sword. We praise God that it pierced to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and a marrow. We praise God that his word stirred our dead souls to life. We praise God that he has power over dead bodies and he has power over dead souls.
“Jesus said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise,’ “ it says in verse 14, “and the dead man sat up and began to speak.” That must have been a glorious moment. All the moments we could go back to and just be there as a fly on the wall to watch, wouldn’t that be a tremendous one to watch, to watch that moment as this dead man sits up and begins to speak? Can you imagine the shock? Can you imagine the exclamations? You just imagine the people dropping to their knees, just having beheld this power. God has done something miraculous in this moment. He’s demonstrated that even though death is strong, he is stronger, and it’s not even close. This is an elephant against a mouse. This is a mountain against an anthill. This is a battleship against a kayak. Death has power, but death only has the power that God permits it to have, and death only has that power for as long as God allows death to happen. We’ve seen death is strong, seen that God is stronger.
I want to show you just one more thing. I want to show you that death will die. Just one little line I think will be easy to overlook, but I really enjoyed just kind of figuring out where this line leads. It says this: “The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother.” I found that this line actually unlocked some beautiful treasures for us. I’ll tell you why. This line is a description of something that happened. Jesus presented him to his mother. So it’s a description, but it’s also a quotation. This line is drawn verbatim from the Book of 1 Kings. And in the Book of 1 Kings there’s another tale of another widow who lost her son hundreds and hundreds of years prior. So in 1 Kings, we learn about the great prophet Elijah. He’s going to the city of Zarephath where there’s a widow there who cares for him and feeds him. And then tragically, this woman’s son gets sick and he dies. And you might remember what Elijah does. He does something odd. He takes that child and he stretches himself out upon the child three times, and he cries out. He pleads with God for the life of this child. What happens? We read, “And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah and the life of the child came into him again and he revived.” What happened? “Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and gave him to his mother.” So we have this line repeated in this one story and this second story: “gave him to his mother.”
So what I think Luke is doing here is he is drawing this line backward from Jesus all the way back to Elijah. He’s making sure we know there’s a kind of connection here. This has happened before. This has happened before this in history. That’s what he’s doing now, is he’s setting this little story, this tale from the life of Jesus. He’s setting it into the sweep of redemptive history, what God’s doing in this world. He’s locating it as part of God’s plan and purpose for creation, for his world, for this universe. He ensuring we know these aren’t two completely isolated stories, but these are two chapters in the same story, and we know the story’s progressing because of the differences between them. Like this fact: Elijah can only do miracles through the power of God. Jesus does miracles through his own power. Elijah has to cry out. He has to plead with God, “Please help this child.” Jesus just has to speak a word. So we see this growth, we see this advancement in God’s plans.
Now, I think we can easily miss this connection, but I’d say the people here understood it. They understand some of what’s happening because verse 16 says they’re seized with fear and they glorify God saying “A great prophet has arisen among us.” So they seem to understand. There’s another prophet like Elijah right here among them, they understand even there’s a greater prophet than Elijah right there in their midst. And of course, from our perspective, we understand this is the one that Elijah was pointing to all along, right? Elijah is always a picture of Jesus, a picture of the one who would come.
And so the story then draws connections from the past to the present, draws a connection from what God has done to what God is doing. What God’s doing is he begins to unfold his master plan for this world, but then it also draws connections from the present to the future, from what God is doing to what God will do. The people say a great prophet has arisen among us and they say God has visited his people and so they know. They understand in that moment that God’s power and God’s presence is with them right here in a new way, in a pronounced way, in an undeniable way. They know that something unique, something powerful, something miraculous is happening right there before the very eyes. There’s no doubt in any of their minds in that moment, God has visited his people. God’s presence is right there with them in the person of Jesus Christ. And just as Christ has visited his people, we know he once again will visit his people on the glorious day of his return. So even though he was put to death, death could not hold him. It couldn’t hold that boy. It certainly couldn’t hold him. So he rose. He ascended into heaven, but the time’s coming when he’ll return. God will visit his people and never, ever again will we be parted in his presence. So surely through the resurrection of this young man, then surely through his resurrection, we’re meant to see the resurrection of all those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
So in this story, here’s this image of you and me opening our eyes to see the face of the one who saved us from death. Imagine that young man opening his eyes and seeing Jesus. Isn’t that what we long for? Close our eyes in death and open them to see the face of the one who saved us. Hearing this story is every widow having her sorrows soothed by the Lord himself, every brokenhearted mother receiving back from Jesus the child that she surrendered to the arms of Jesus. Here’s every grief being comforted, every wrong being made right by the one who defeated death in this man’s life. He’ll defeat death once and forever for all time. The one who brought comfort to this mother, he’ll bring comfort to all of his people.
So I began a few minutes ago by telling you about that stone that cried out in pain and bewilderment as it as it felt the blow of the hammer felt the blow of the builder’s hand as he prepared it to take its place in this cathedral. And you can be certain that the woman in this story, she cried out in pain like that, and I’m sure she wondered why God’s providence had directed that she of all people should lose her precious son. She got her answer, didn’t she? She got her answer and God raised him. God’s purpose in her tragedy is to testify through all the ages that Jesus Christ has power over death.
So for 2,000 years now, Christians like us have been telling this story. We’ve been reading this account, we’ve been understanding as we have today that even though death is strong, God is stronger. Ultimately death itself must die. Death itself has been put to death by Jesus Christ. And so I’m sure this widow, I’m sure this woman would say, she gets it. She’s content now that she understands the reason for her pain. We too experience times of pain and times of sorrow. And like that stone, like that woman, we cry out in pain and, and we want to know why. Why should I suffer in this way? Why did this happen? Why did this happen to me? Why did this happen to us? Unlike that stone, and unlike that woman, God doesn’t seem to typically tell us why, does he? God doesn’t reveal exactly why he calls us to undergo these losses, to in endure these trials, these difficulties. And so we suffer without clear answers. We suffer without knowing why, but we never suffer without hope because surely God is every bit as compassionate toward us as he was toward this woman.
And surely God has purposes in our sorrows just as much as he had purposes in her sorrows. Surely that that master builder is up to something in our lives just as much as he was in her life. And so the true story in the life of Jesus should encourage us that God is accomplishing something good, something glorious in our sorrows, even if we can’t quite understand what it might be. So I’m sure in a room like this, we have people who suffer with physical pain, maybe constant physical pain. We’d have people here who’ve lost a parent, brother, sister, best friend. We’d have people here who have suffered abuse, people who have experienced many miscarriages, people who may be grappling with that word, “infertile.” People’s children have turned away from the Lord, turned away from their parents. People have lost a son or a daughter, a brother or sister. There’s so much pain just in a crowd like this. Just imagine how much pain, how much sorrow is represented just by us in this room. So much pain. Yet we just have to believe that somehow even the pain you’re carrying is in some way God’s will for you. That somehow even this comes in some way from his fatherly hand, that somehow even this is fitting and preparing you for God’s own purposes, certainly believe that this pain is meaningful and precious to him, and somehow, in some way, God will make it all make sense. Somehow you’ll learn that in some way the showcases God’s glory.
Just as I wrap up, just one thing I want us to consider: How long was the gap between when that woman experienced her greatest grief and when she experienced her greatest joy? Just think about how long that stretch of time was. It probably wasn’t more than a few hours right from the time her son died- this moment of just abject grief- and when her son was resurrected, this moment of just tremendous joy. Probably just a few hours. And what I want to challenge us with is this: Is there really that much more time between the sorrows we endure today and the full and final comfort we’ll receive in that day? Is this time really that much? Because we’ve got this eternity stretching out before us, right? Endless ages in God’s perfect presence, endless ages of perfect joy, endless ages without a single pain, a single tear, a single loss. So with that in mind, 10,000 times 10,000 years, how long is this stretch of time between our grief and our joy?
When the Apostle Paul considered his pains and afflictions, and they were deep pains, they were terrible afflictions, he considered them all, and he said they were light and momentary, which seems shocking. But his words only make sense if he knew that what awaited him was glorious and eternal. So what Paul was doing is, it is like he was drawing hope from the future. It’s like by faith he was reaching into the storehouses of heaven. He’s just grabbing his great handfuls of joy, great handfuls of hope to sustain him here on earth in the present. Of course, his pains were weighty. They were momentous. They were hard, but he was convinced that that compared to the future, but compared them to all that was to come by that comparison, they were light and they were momentary. So don’t you see how long eternity must be? And don’t you see how great the glory to come must be? That would make even his greatest sorrows just fade away in the comparison. And we need to do the same. God calls us to do the same.
Shortly after my Nick died, I got an email from a gentleman who reads my material. And he told me he was now well into his nineties and he had lost his dear son, his firstborn son, more than 60 years prior. That’s a long time. That’s a lifetime that he’s been carrying that sorrow. But this man wrote me just to say, “I know my time is almost here.” Right? He knows that that reunion is finally imminent. In fact, it’s so close he can almost feel his son’s arms around him again, so close he can almost hear his son’s voice greeting him again. So close. So close now. When he’s been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, how long will that time seem between the day of his grief and the day of his joy when he finally sees God’s plans completed and when he finally sees God’s purposes perfected? Will he grumble and say that calling was so, so difficult when he is worshiping in God’s presence age after endless age? Will he claim “God, you were unfair to me to make me carry that for 60 years?” Of course not.
Now, our pains still hurt. Persecution still torments, our trials still agonize us. We still weep with the pain of it, and it’s good to weep. With the pain of it, that’s the right response to just how messed up and painful this world is. But by setting all of these trials, all of these pains, all of these sorrows against the backdrop of heaven, we can say, even as we weep, we can say this is light and momentary. Because the gap between the moment of our greatest grief and the moment of our greatest joy will in the end will prove to be just the briefest of moments, just like it was for that stone that was being fitted into the cathedral, just like it was for that woman who was grieving her son. So until then, bear your pains well. Receive them humbly. Steward them faithfully. Believe that somewhere in the mysteries of God’s providence, somewhere in the mystery of God’s much greater mind than yours, God means for you to have these that they come to you ultimately by God’s good and sovereign hand. Take these griefs, take these pains, turn them outward. Turn them outward into love for God and service for his people and God who has entrusted them to you. He’ll grant you his grace to bear them well all the way to the end. Death may be strong today, and along with it grieving and suffering and sorrow, but God is infinitely stronger. And soon enough when his plans, when his purposes are complete, death itself will be put to death. And on that day, we will live with him. We will reign with him and we’ll stand in awe of him. Together we’ll stand in awe of this incredible masterpiece that our divine builder has made. And together we’ll praise his name. Amen. Let me pray for us briefly and then we’ll transition.
Lord, you do call us to bear heavy griefs, and difficult burdens. And I know there are undoubtedly many in this room who are carrying weights that they don’t really understand. They don’t know why you’ve called them to carry these deep sorrows. It is my prayer that you would bless them this evening. It’s my prayer that you would equip them to carry this. It is my prayer that they would understand that in some way, you’ve entrusted these things to them, that they can choose to be faithful stewards of them.
Pray that we would bear our pains well, that we would put them against the backdrop of eternity and we’d be able to say, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if we only sort of believe it, we would be able to say, This will someday prove to be light and momentary compared to the wonderful eternity in your presence that is to come pray your comfort in your blessing upon us. In Christ’s name, amen.
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