HE HAS NOT FORGOTTEN YOU

Transcript

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Hello everyone. This is Pastor Dean Thompson with a word of hope. He has not forgotten you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Numbers chapter six, verses twenty-four through twenty-six.

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My brothers and sisters, on these sabot hours, I want to. Just to tell you that you are you have been on my heart and in my prayers.

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I know that some of you have been fighting illnesses this week. Your bodies are weary, your strength stretched thin. Some of you are lying in a hospital bed right now, wondering if God hears the prayer, the prayers that have been whispered softly and loudly and spoken loudly. Some of you are wrapped in heavy garments of grief because you're mourning someone you loved, someone you cannot stop missing. And some of you may have simply just simply looked at the chaos of this world. The news, the noise, the uncertainty, and just feel like your felt like your faith is wobbling beneath you.

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This message this evening is for every one of you.

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Over three thousand years ago God gave me Moses a specific set of words. And these words were not for Moses alone, but they are a living blessing to be spoken over his people in every generation. These words are not religious poetry, they are the very breath of God forming a promise over the lives of his people, over your life tonight, this evening. And I want to walk us through each walk us through slowly this special verse, this the ironic blessing. It begins with the Lord bless you and keep you. The Hebrew word for bless here is barak, and it carries the idea of God kneeling down, getting low to attend to your need. That is the posture of your God toward you tonight or this evening. He is not distant, he is not distracted by bigger problems, he has knelt down toward you. And the word keep, the Hebrew word shamar means to guard, to hedge in, to watch over with the vigilance of a shepherd who never blinks. It is the word used of the cherubim standing watch at the gates. It is intense, devoted, unrelenting protection. To the one who is in the hospital tonight, I want you to know that you are being kept. Those walls may feel cold, and the nights may feel long, but the one who made your body has not stepped away from your bedside. He is keeping you breath by breath, beat by beat. The same God who breathed life life into the first human being is sustaining you right now, and he does not grow weary. I want you to know that he sees your pain, he counts your tears, his blessing is not reserved for when you are well. It rests on you even now in your weakness, because his power is perfected in exactly that place.

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You are not forgotten, you are being kept.

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The second part says the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. When someone's face shines toward you, it means they are smiling at you warmly, fully with delight. This is God's expression toward you this evening. Not a furrowed brow of disappointment, not a face turned away, but a shining face, a smile. And paired with that smile is grace anon in Hebrew, which means undeserved favor, tender mercy, the kind of love that is given, not because you earned it, but because the giver is overflowing with it. There are moments when the absence of the one you have lost seems so enormous. It feeds, it seems to fill every room. But I want you to know that Jesus, who stood at the grave of his friend Lazarus and wept before he raised him, fully understands the weight of what you are carrying right now. He does not ask you to stop grieving, he is joining you in your grief, and his face is shining on you even though your tears, especially even through your tears, and especially through your tears. Mourning is not a sign that your faith has failed. That you loved, and he honors that love. There is coming a day, and the promise of God are certain. The promises of God are certain. When every tear will be wiped away, when death itself will be swallowed up, swallowed up in victory. Isaiah 25 verse 8, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 54. The separation you feel right now is not permanent, it is a comma, not a period. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and those who sleep in him will rise again. He is smiling at you tonight, grieving one, aching heart, wounded soul. Jesus is smiling at you tonight. The third part of the blessing says, The Lord turn his face toward you and peace. The word for turn here is Nasa, to lift up, to direct completely. God is turning his full, undivided attention toward you. And what he brings when he turns toward you is shalom. Peace. Not the absence of problems, not the silence of storms, but a deep, unshakable interior wholeness that the world can neither give nor take away. This is the peace Jesus promised in the upper room. When everything was about to fall apart, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I did not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. John 14, verse 27. He said these words on the night he was about to be arrested, tried, and crucified. If he could speak peace into that moment, he can speak it into yours. To the one who is discouraged tonight, who has looked at the headlines, at the brokenness, at the instability of everything around you, and felt the ground shift beneath your feet, you are not without an anchor. Hebrews chapter six verse 19 tells us that the hope we have in Jesus is an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. The world is not spinning out of God's control. He has not been surprised by any of it. He is still on the throne, and history is still bending slowly and surely toward his eternal purpose. The disciples were in a boat, in a storm, terrified, and Jesus was asleep in the storm, in the stern of the boat. Not because he was indifferent, but because he was unafraid, and he rose and spoke to the wind and the waves and said, Peace be still. Mark 4 39. It was not only the sea that needed to hear those words, it was the disciples. It is you tonight. He is speaking those same words over your anxious, storm tossed soul. Peace be still. So let us rest in him. Let us trust him, because he holds us and he holds tomorrow. Before you close your eyes tonight, would you do something? Lay down every burden you have been carrying this week. The medical report, the grief, the fear, the doubt, and place it consciously and deliberately in the hands of Jesus. He invites you, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

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Matthew 11, verse 28. That is not a suggestion.

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It is an open, standing, unconditional invitation from the Son of God. You do not have to have it all together to come to Him. You do not need to understand everything that is happening. You do not need to, you do not need the right words. You simply need to come weary, broken, confused, grieving, afraid, and He will do what He promised. He will give you rest. The Sabbath, even as we are going through the opening hours of this holiday, whispers the same truth. It has always whispered, you are not the one holding everything together. He is, Jesus is. So you can rest. It is finished. He has it. So may the Lord bless you and keep you tonight. May his face shine warmly upon your pain, your grief, and your fear, and may his grace be more than enough for every need you carry. May he turn his full attention toward you, to the hospital room, to the grieving heart, to the weary mind, and may his peace, which passes all understanding, guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. He has not forgotten you, he is still with you, and he is enough.

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Amen. God bless you, my brothers and sisters.