SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Fourth John Alliance Church Sermon Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: I'm Aaron Peters, the Executive Ministry Director of the Center.
SPEAKER_01: We're so glad you decided to join us today.
SPEAKER_01: Our desire is to become a community of people who practice the way of doors together and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit to live on missions to make the social and spiritual needs of the world around us.
SPEAKER_01: Each week we gather as a community to worship, learn from God's Word, and be encouraged in our walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In this podcast, you'll hear the latest message from our Sunday service.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you're listening from right here in Fort St.
SPEAKER_01: John or from afar, our prayer is that God will speak to your heart and strengthen your faith.
SPEAKER_01: Let's lean in together as we hear today's sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: Please remain standing for the reading of God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Sarah Lowen.
SPEAKER_00: This will tell you how old I am.
SPEAKER_00: I've been in this church for, well, I got baptized here 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: So it's been a while.
SPEAKER_00: So today's reading is Job chapter 2, verses 11 to 13.
SPEAKER_00: When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Namathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him.
SPEAKER_00: They set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.
SPEAKER_00: When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him.
SPEAKER_00: They began to weep aloud.
SPEAKER_00: They tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.
SPEAKER_00: Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.
SPEAKER_00: No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: This morning I want to invite you to turn to the book of Job, chapter uh one, if you have a Bible with you.
SPEAKER_02: If not, you're gonna see it all here on the screen behind me.
SPEAKER_02: Um as you are finding your way, I have a question for you just to get us going.
SPEAKER_02: Um, have you ever had a moment where you were speechless, where you weren't sure what to say?
SPEAKER_02: Uh I've yeah, I've had many of those.
SPEAKER_02: Um I uh was a youth pastor for 15 years, so I have lots of speechless moments in my past.
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, uh like the time we had a youth event called uh chicken bowling.
SPEAKER_02: Uh this game involves taking a uh frozen chicken that is um not wrapped anymore, and you have to throw it down a makeshift, just you know, almost kind of like a bowling alley.
SPEAKER_02: Um so it's just like everything that, you know, you would, I mean, it, you know, it's basically just like you would actually go bowling except chicken, uh, which um as the night goes on for the chicken starts to thaw out and starts to get all kind of floppy and everything everywhere, um, which gets really funny to watch.
SPEAKER_02: Uh however, this is an event where uh salmonella is a real possibility.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's uh it can happen.
SPEAKER_02: So armed with as much uh lysol as we can possibly buy from the store, we had to remind students multiple times that after every throw, you need to wash your hands.
SPEAKER_02: Like you can't just walk around with chicken hands the whole time.
SPEAKER_02: But both to my surprise and my horror, some interpreted that to mean I have to go to the wall that has a thicker kind of blue carpet in the gym, and I can just wipe my hands on that.
SPEAKER_02: I've watched many students do that.
SPEAKER_02: Um I was speechless.
SPEAKER_02: I did not know what to say.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, or the other time I remember we were actually playing uh, it was a game at a guy's event where the object was to um grab the leader from the other team and to take them to the other side of the building, and then that team had to try to get back to that side to find their leader and rescue him and these sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's pretty violent when it's only men.
SPEAKER_02: Um, they are all in.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of not, I mean, a two-hand touch.
SPEAKER_02: This is like a no-holds barred game.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so things start to unravel quickly.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you learn a lot uh in your time being a youth pastor, what to say, what not to say.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so but um well, one of the leaders was actually in a room with the door, and the team that was trying to get him back felt like, well, that door is kind of a minor inconvenience for us.
SPEAKER_02: So let's see if we can rectify that.
SPEAKER_02: And so they had their hands on the top, and the other team had their hands on the bottom of this door.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and before I could say a word, the door just splits in two and just rips completely apart.
SPEAKER_02: Speechless.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what to say, uh, but I know I better have something from my boss tomorrow because he's gonna be asking about the door.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, right?
SPEAKER_02: Like I've had speechless moments, or especially the time when I got a phone call from a leader of mine in our group letting me know that one of the students at the high school, a student that was good friends with some of our kids who were core to our group, took his own life the night before.
SPEAKER_02: And I found myself meeting with students all week who were impacted.
SPEAKER_02: One of those students was a young guy who was really close to him, heavily involved in our youth group, deeply invested.
SPEAKER_02: After a phone call asking him to meet up, we decided to meet at a park.
SPEAKER_02: We chose a bench that overlooked the stream.
SPEAKER_02: The water felt like it was moving as slow as time, even slower.
SPEAKER_02: And as he began to share, he just began to weep.
SPEAKER_02: What could I possibly say in that moment that's going to take away any of the hurt, any of the pain, any of the brokenness?
SPEAKER_02: If you're here with us this morning, we've been in a series called The Words That Form Us.
SPEAKER_02: And so we've been hearing from, I mean, different folks throughout the summer, sharing some of the words that they see in scripture that have been forming in their own lives.
SPEAKER_02: And today I want to walk you through a passage that is deeply forming for me.
SPEAKER_02: Deeply forming, both not only as a pastor, but as someone who has experienced pain and heartache, just like everyone else in this room.
SPEAKER_02: Like so much of my life, or or sorry, so much of life in general, we often feel the pressure to say the right thing, don't we?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: To have the right words at the right time.
SPEAKER_02: We look at people who know the right words at the right time and think, man, they are so wise.
SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad they're around.
SPEAKER_02: They can say those things.
SPEAKER_02: They're so caring, they're so kind and considerate.
SPEAKER_02: And don't get me wrong, this isn't a slight to any of you who are great with words.
SPEAKER_02: We need you in the church.
SPEAKER_02: We need you to be kind with your words.
SPEAKER_02: We need your wisdom to share the things that matter to Jesus and things that matter to us.
SPEAKER_02: We need people who are ready to offer gracious and kind words in the midst of heartache.
SPEAKER_02: But the reality is most of us, when faced with the pain of another person, don't have any idea what to say.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, we're more worried that we're gonna say the wrong thing than actually say the right thing.
SPEAKER_02: And I think subtly that keeps us away at a distance a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: We're almost afraid to dive in because we don't know what to say.
SPEAKER_02: When we hear the news of a friend who's going through a terrible, terrible health crisis, or like the loss of a parent or a child, or a friend, or a husband, a wife, a mom, a dad, or their spouse has said, I want out of this marriage.
SPEAKER_02: And our anxiousness about saying or doing the wrong thing, it has the potential for us to do nothing at all.
SPEAKER_02: We just sit back and watch.
SPEAKER_02: We wait for others who are good at that to step in.
SPEAKER_02: We wait for others to move while we stand still.
SPEAKER_02: Afraid to act, afraid to say, and not sure what's required of us.
SPEAKER_02: But this morning, here's what I want you to know that regardless of how great you are with words or not great with words, like a friend of mine says often, words are hard.
SPEAKER_02: Words are hard.
SPEAKER_02: That far more than any wisdom you might offer, far more than the words on your tongue in the moment of pain, that you could say that could bring some kind of a rest for the brokenhearted, that the way of Jesus means being present first.
SPEAKER_02: It means showing up, it means being available, that like Jesus, we would have the capacity to enter into one another's experience.
SPEAKER_02: That we would enter into the hurt, that we would feel what they feel, and in doing so that we experience the restorative, grace, and compassionate presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And so this morning I want to keep this really simple today, really simple.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna look at the life of Job, just at the beginning of this book, and we're gonna look at how his friends responded to him when he was in the midst of terrible crisis, unimaginable things.
SPEAKER_02: And then you and I are invited to do the same, to respond in a similar way, to enter into another's experience and just be present with them.
SPEAKER_02: To be there.
SPEAKER_02: So just to give us a little bit of an idea of kind of how this book came about, I want to do a brief walkthrough of Job here.
SPEAKER_02: And so maybe you've been a part of the church for a long time, and the story of Job might be pretty somewhat familiar, but just in case it's not, Job is actually found in the wisdom section of the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: That's something of a mystery book in lots of ways.
SPEAKER_02: And over the years, we don't really know exactly who wrote it.
SPEAKER_02: We have some ideas, but we're not sure.
SPEAKER_02: We don't even know exactly when it was written or just, I mean, who it was written to, and so you start to wonder why it is even in the Bible if we don't know those answers.
SPEAKER_02: But the church has continued to include it all throughout history because of the questions that it answers for us and what it says about who God is.
SPEAKER_02: And so it asks this deeply meaningful question that so many of us ask: How can a loving God allow suffering and still be sovereign?
SPEAKER_02: How can he allow heartache and still be in control, right?
SPEAKER_02: If God is sovereign, meaning if he has control over everything, if he has say over everything, how can he allow suffering and still be good?
SPEAKER_02: I have faced that question more times in ministry than any other question.
SPEAKER_02: How can God be good when I'm going through this?
SPEAKER_02: When I'm going through that.
SPEAKER_02: If you know anything more about this book, a lot of the book is demoned on a fire with Job, and they are talking and talking and talking.
SPEAKER_02: Here's a little bit of a spoiler.
SPEAKER_02: They do their best work when they don't say a thing.
SPEAKER_02: But it is a beautiful book, and it is a beautiful moment at the beginning of this book on how their love for Job and how just being present unfolds.
SPEAKER_02: And so let's have a look in chapter one.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna start right in verse one here.
SPEAKER_02: In the land of us, where there was a man named Job, this man was blameless and upright.
SPEAKER_02: He feared God and shunned evil.
SPEAKER_02: He had seven sons and three daughters.
SPEAKER_02: He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants.
SPEAKER_02: He was the greatest man, it says, among all the people of the East.
SPEAKER_02: So Job has been blessed beyond measure, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's no question about that.
SPEAKER_02: He has so much that he can be thankful for family, resources, servants.
SPEAKER_02: And on top of that, he is described as blameless, feared God, did what was right, honored God in all that he did, not perfect, but honored God in everything.
SPEAKER_02: But one day, though, God has a meeting, and we see with him there are the angels, and Satan is there at this meeting as the text goes on.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's important to remember here the writing style is kind of a narrative and poetry.
SPEAKER_02: And so rather than seeing this as kind of like a literal moment that happens all the time, it's actually trying to share a truth about who God is.
SPEAKER_02: So don't lose sight of that as we go through.
SPEAKER_02: It's easy to get maybe sort of distracted on some of that stuff, but um, but there's a truth about who God is that is being communicated here.
SPEAKER_02: That's deeply important.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 6 it says this one day the angels came to uh uh uh present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord said to Satan, Where have you come from?
SPEAKER_02: Satan answered, The Lord, from roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.
SPEAKER_02: This means I am looking for people that I could sway away from you.
SPEAKER_02: I am always looking for people that are vulnerable, that are in this place that I could just maybe twist them a little bit to get their eyes off of you.
SPEAKER_02: But it says, Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you then considered, if you're roaming anyway, if you're looking around, have you considered my servant Job?
SPEAKER_02: There is no one on earth like him.
SPEAKER_02: He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: So God in this moment offers him up and says, Have you thought about this guy Job?
SPEAKER_02: Have you thought about him?
SPEAKER_02: And then Satan says, This, does Job fear God for nothing?
SPEAKER_02: Satan replied, Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything that he has?
SPEAKER_02: You have blessed the work of his hands so that his flock and herds are spread throughout the land.
SPEAKER_02: But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.
SPEAKER_02: So, in other words, Satan says to God, the reason why Job is faithful to you, the reason why he is with you the way he is, isn't because of who you are, but because of what you've done for him.
SPEAKER_02: It's because of what he has, he says.
SPEAKER_02: That's the reason why he's with you.
SPEAKER_02: And he says, I would bet that if that stuff wasn't there, he would abandon you in a heartbeat.
SPEAKER_02: If that was gone.
SPEAKER_02: But it actually brings up for us this deep question of the soul that I think reveals a lot about our own selves and about God.
SPEAKER_02: Would a follower of Jesus still follow Jesus if they lost everything?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Would you still be with him if he was all you had?
SPEAKER_02: Because really, in the larger just scheme of things, he is all we have.
SPEAKER_02: He is everything.
SPEAKER_02: We could lose everything in an instant.
SPEAKER_02: It can be taken away in a moment.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: But just think about that, right?
SPEAKER_02: When we go through real pain, real loss, real grief, it can bring about this moment of crisis.
SPEAKER_02: We start to question if God is actually good.
SPEAKER_02: Instead of just thinking it, we're actually starting to really say it out loud.
SPEAKER_02: If God loved me, then why would he let this happen?
SPEAKER_02: And then that can lead us down this path.
SPEAKER_02: Well, if God isn't there for me in this, then why am I here at all?
SPEAKER_02: And we just start to move our hearts that way.
SPEAKER_02: How many of us have asked similar questions in moments of heartache or heard them from other people and didn't know what to say?
SPEAKER_02: Had no idea how to respond.
SPEAKER_02: So Satan says, if you take all the things away from Job that you've given him, he says, I bet he walks away in a heartbeat.
SPEAKER_02: I bet he just abandons.
SPEAKER_02: So look what God says in verse 12.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord said to Satan, very well, okay then.
SPEAKER_02: Everything he has is in your hands.
SPEAKER_02: But on the man himself do not lay a finger.
SPEAKER_02: So he says, You can have at everything he he has, everything that's important to him, but don't touch Job himself.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: It says, Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And over the next number of verses, Job's faith is really put to the test.
SPEAKER_02: Messengers start to come in, one after another.
SPEAKER_02: First, he's told that his oxen and donkeys are stolen.
SPEAKER_02: Then his sheep die from fire that falls from the sky, then his camels are stolen.
SPEAKER_02: All of his servants who are a part of these moments are all killed except the one that comes to share, to say anything.
SPEAKER_02: And if that's not enough to lose your livelihood, to lose everything that you have when it comes to your things and resources.
SPEAKER_02: Another messenger came and said, While your kids were having a meal, a great wind came and knocked down the house that they lived in, and no one survives.
SPEAKER_02: Job is told all of this in what looks like in the text a matter of moments.
SPEAKER_02: His whole world just absolutely turned upside down.
SPEAKER_02: Everything is gone.
SPEAKER_02: And in the midst of some of the deepest possible pain that someone could experience in their lifetime, Job says this in verse 20.
SPEAKER_02: It says he got up and he tore his robe and he shaved his head.
SPEAKER_02: This is what you do when you are deeply, deeply in this just I mean a state of pain and grief.
SPEAKER_02: You are mourning.
SPEAKER_02: And he just totally tears his robe.
SPEAKER_02: He shaves his head, then he fell to the ground and worshiped.
SPEAKER_02: And he says, This naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart, meaning into this world I came with nothing, and out of this world I will leave with nothing.
SPEAKER_02: He said, The Lord gave and the Lord is taken away.
SPEAKER_02: May the name of the Lord be praised.
SPEAKER_02: In all of this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing, it says.
SPEAKER_02: I bet things will be different if I go after Job.
SPEAKER_02: I bet he'd abandoned you then, right?
SPEAKER_02: So God says, okay, but don't take his life.
SPEAKER_02: You can go after him full board, but he has to live.
SPEAKER_02: And so it goes on to say that Job's whole body is covered in painful sores, from his feet to his head, and as he's sitting in ashes, which is this ancient practice of grief, he takes a broken piece of pottery and just begins to scrape the sores from his body.
SPEAKER_02: It is a grisly image.
SPEAKER_02: But it is an image of a man who's lost everything, who has nothing left, who feels like his entire world is gone.
SPEAKER_02: And so his wife comes to him in the midst of this and says this in verse 9 of chapter 2 Are you still holding on to your integrity?
SPEAKER_02: Curse God and die.
SPEAKER_02: She's gone.
SPEAKER_02: She is checked out.
SPEAKER_02: She said, Man, this is not worth what you're experiencing.
SPEAKER_02: Look at what he's done to you, look at what he's allowed.
SPEAKER_02: But then Job replies, he says, You are talking like a foolish woman.
SPEAKER_02: Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?
SPEAKER_02: In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
SPEAKER_02: How many of us in that moment might feel tempted to say something different than what we see from Job?
SPEAKER_02: Job has lost everything, his livelihood, his family, his health.
SPEAKER_02: He is an utter rock bottom, sitting in ash, scraping his body of the sores that are on it.
SPEAKER_02: Trying to rid himself of the grief that covers him.
SPEAKER_02: How do you respond to that?
SPEAKER_02: How do you respond?
SPEAKER_02: If you're Job's friends, what do you do?
SPEAKER_02: What do you do in that moment?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you found yourself in a space that feels similar when you have a friend or family member who's deeply hurting, someone who suffered unimaginable loss, and you have no idea how to respond, what do you do for somebody in that space?
SPEAKER_02: The next three verses gives us this beautiful picture of the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Something that I think is important for us this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 11 When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the uh uh Temanite, Bildad the Shuite, and Zophar the Namathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him.
SPEAKER_02: They set off from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.
SPEAKER_02: See, those friends hear of what Job has gone through.
SPEAKER_02: News of what Job had experienced would have taken some time to get to them.
SPEAKER_02: It wouldn't have been just a quick text.
SPEAKER_02: This would have taken a while.
SPEAKER_02: And so they decide to meet together and they make a plan that they would go together and they would comfort him, they would bring him comfort in this moment because they don't feel like there's anything else to give.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what else to give.
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I would not be surprised in the least if they were nervous, if they felt anxious, if they were a little like, oh man, I don't know what to expect when we get there.
SPEAKER_02: What are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: But I think it's important to notice something really wonderful here, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because these people were real people.
SPEAKER_02: They may have felt anxious, they may have felt fear, they weren't sure, but they went.
SPEAKER_02: They went, they had no idea what to expect, despite whatever fear they had or trepidation, they went.
SPEAKER_02: I remember early in ministry, three months in, getting a phone call that there was a family in our church that just lost their son in a real tragic way.
SPEAKER_02: And so my lead pastor who was there with me on the same call, we decided to hang up and and he's and he just said, Dan, let's go.
SPEAKER_02: And I just remember just the anxiety starting to pick up.
SPEAKER_02: Just this man, what are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: And I asked him, What are we supposed to say to a family who's just lost their son in a tragic way?
SPEAKER_02: What can we ever offer them?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Like internally, right?
SPEAKER_02: You know, like I was thinking, like, just give me a minute to get my head around what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_02: Let me get some kind of a plan together.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget, like right now, in the midst of my angst and just feeling so nervous to go.
SPEAKER_02: He just said, Dan, don't worry about that.
SPEAKER_02: Just go.
SPEAKER_02: Don't worry about any of that, just go.
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Like it is our job to go, he said, to be present.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember walking into that home, I didn't say a thing.
SPEAKER_02: I had no idea.
SPEAKER_02: What to say.
SPEAKER_02: But it's in those spaces that we bring the presence of Jesus with us when we have nothing else.
SPEAKER_02: That we remember that He is near to the brokenhearted.
SPEAKER_02: You showing up brings a physical reality to God's presence.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_02: It's in the hug you give, it's in the tears you shed, it's in the hands you hold.
SPEAKER_02: You bring a physical reality to the presence of God when you show up in those spaces.
SPEAKER_02: You and I are just meant to go.
SPEAKER_02: So these three guys, they do that same thing.
SPEAKER_02: They just go.
SPEAKER_02: They show up, and in verse 12, this is what they see.
SPEAKER_02: When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him.
SPEAKER_02: They began to weep aloud and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.
SPEAKER_02: And they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.
SPEAKER_02: No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was.
SPEAKER_02: See what they did here?
SPEAKER_02: They entered in to the pain.
SPEAKER_02: They entered in to the grief.
SPEAKER_02: To show that kind of just I mean, empathy is to enter into the experience of another.
SPEAKER_02: As Job grieved, they grieved.
SPEAKER_02: They grieved just as he did, as if it was them.
SPEAKER_02: And notice they just sat, they didn't say anything.
SPEAKER_02: They were just present with him.
SPEAKER_02: Not a word was said.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says, Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_02: Tells us that in Romans 12.
SPEAKER_02: You see, the invitation for you and me is not to have all the right words.
SPEAKER_02: Be encouraged.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to know what to say.
SPEAKER_02: You don't always have to know what to say.
SPEAKER_02: It's being present.
SPEAKER_02: Here's a quote from Craig Dijkstra.
SPEAKER_02: He says this presence is a service of vulnerability.
SPEAKER_02: To be present to others is to put oneself in the position of being vulnerable to what they are vulnerable to, and of being vulnerable to them.
SPEAKER_02: It means being willing to suffer what the other sufferers, to go with the sufferer in his or her own suffering.
SPEAKER_02: See, Jesus is asking you and me to enter in, to step into the pain of another, to be vulnerable and join them in the heartache they're experiencing without any expectation of knowing what to say.
SPEAKER_02: Without feeling that as the burden.
SPEAKER_02: Just to be present, to carry each other's burdens, because this is the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: This is what he does.
SPEAKER_02: This is what he did.
SPEAKER_02: He entered into our humanity with us.
SPEAKER_02: He came to be with us.
SPEAKER_02: He became like us.
SPEAKER_02: The promise of him coming wasn't that God will speak comforting words from far off and we can deal with everything else.
SPEAKER_02: It was God with us.
SPEAKER_02: That he would come and be with us throughout all of Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_02: It was him with us and not always talking.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know that, right?
SPEAKER_02: That Jesus has some beautiful moments where he does not say a whole lot, where he's just present, entering into our pain and sorrow.
SPEAKER_02: It's watching him cry at the tomb of Lazarus.
SPEAKER_02: It's the way he would touch those with just, I mean, a leprosy who hadn't been touched in years.
SPEAKER_02: Before Jesus said anything to the just, I mean, rich young ruler, he looked at him first and loved him.
SPEAKER_02: Even at the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, an act that did not require a single word, but just presence.
SPEAKER_02: Just making himself available to them.
SPEAKER_02: Throughout his entire ministry, Jesus modeled the power of presence.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't always offer immediate, just how many answers, but he joined in people's experiences.
SPEAKER_02: He empathized with them.
SPEAKER_02: He got down on their level.
SPEAKER_02: He listened to their struggles.
SPEAKER_02: He shared their pain.
SPEAKER_02: And his compassionate presence often made others feel seen and heard.
SPEAKER_02: Just him being there made a world of difference.
SPEAKER_02: Can I share something with you?
SPEAKER_02: I've been doing ministry for over 17 years.
SPEAKER_02: And I love that God has asked me to be a part of this.
SPEAKER_02: I love what I do.
SPEAKER_02: I love that He's invited me in.
SPEAKER_02: I am not, you know, I don't feel very adequate to do what He's called me to do, but I love that He's invited me in.
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I wouldn't know what else to do with my life.
SPEAKER_02: And I've walked into some deeply sad rooms over the years.
SPEAKER_02: Some heartbreaking spaces.
SPEAKER_02: The pain is like in the air.
SPEAKER_02: You can feel it.
SPEAKER_02: The tears, the brokenness, the heartache, loss of life, health.
SPEAKER_02: At times it's overwhelming.
SPEAKER_02: It's overwhelming.
SPEAKER_02: And I had someone close to me say to me a little while ago, they this was kind of them, Mr.
SPEAKER_02: Dan, you always know what to say in those spaces.
SPEAKER_02: You always know exactly what to say.
SPEAKER_02: And as much as that blessed me, you know what I have to say to them?
SPEAKER_02: No, I don't.
SPEAKER_02: I really don't.
SPEAKER_02: I really have no clue what often I could say that's gonna make anybody feel any better in the midst of that.
SPEAKER_02: I'm terrified that I'm gonna say the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_02: Terrified.
SPEAKER_02: Every space of pain that I find myself in, I want to be though the redemptive presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I just want to be where he is, to remember that everywhere I go, he goes with me.
SPEAKER_02: He goes ahead of me.
SPEAKER_02: He's meeting me in the room, he's meeting me in those spaces, and he's doing the same for you.
SPEAKER_02: You don't go by yourself.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is already there long before you've gotten there.
SPEAKER_02: You just have to join him in what he's doing.
SPEAKER_02: And often what he's doing is he is just present with people, just loving them as they are.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the ministry of presence is.
SPEAKER_02: It's not my presence or your presence, it's the presence of Jesus in the room.
SPEAKER_02: We are just joining him.
SPEAKER_02: We are bringing his love, his comfort, his compassion to broken spaces to remember that we can give the same comfort that we have been comforted with.
SPEAKER_02: Paul tells us that in Corinthians.
SPEAKER_02: For me, it's remembering the day that I got off the phone at 16 to tell my mom that a friend of mine was killed in a hunting accident.
SPEAKER_02: She didn't say a word, but we just cried together over the phone.
SPEAKER_02: It's even remembering at 19, facing a difficult time in my health, and finding myself asking the church one Sunday just to come up and just pray for me until the elders came up.
SPEAKER_02: And with the words from my mouth turned to tears, I was met with a tearful hug from an elder I did not even know.
SPEAKER_02: Or after learning about some painful things in my family history in my late 20s, I remember an hour-long car ride with a good friend of mine where he let me talk and he did not say anything.
SPEAKER_02: He was just present with me.
SPEAKER_02: Just allowed me to be.
SPEAKER_02: And as I look back on moments like that and so many others, I don't remember what anyone said, if at all.
SPEAKER_02: What I remember is who they brought with them.
SPEAKER_02: I remember experiencing Jesus in all of those spaces.
SPEAKER_02: And when I think back to that moment in that park, sitting next to that bench with this student that I love deeply, and him just weeping.
SPEAKER_02: I felt this pressure to, man, I should say something right now.
SPEAKER_02: But in that moment, I was reminded of this passage, and I remember hearing so gently from the Spirit to say, just be here.
SPEAKER_02: And so I just put my arm around his shoulder, we stared at the water, we cried, and half hour later we got up and I said, I'll call you tomorrow to make sure you're doing okay.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes that's all it is.
SPEAKER_02: It is nothing more than you going and saying, I'm gonna make myself available so that others can be comforted, so that you might be present with them, so that you might enter into their pain, but it takes vulnerability.
SPEAKER_02: It means you have to allow your heart to enter in, to be where they are, to weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna invite the band up at this time.
SPEAKER_02: You know, Jesus is inviting you and me to continue this ministry of presence.
SPEAKER_02: In the places that you find yourself this week and beyond, some of you, even as we sit here, are in a season where you feel like you are at the end of your rope.
SPEAKER_02: And you would want nothing more than even today for someone just to see you and notice you and be with you.
SPEAKER_02: Others of you in the room may know somebody else at your work in your home, someone else just, you know, maybe just I mean, far away, even, that is going through a difficult, painful time.
SPEAKER_02: And the invitation to you today is to say, How can I be present with them?
SPEAKER_02: How can I do as Jesus does?
SPEAKER_02: And not worry about what I might say or how things come out, but just simply make yourself available to them.
SPEAKER_02: How might that change where you work, where you live?
SPEAKER_02: If you went in with eyes that said, it's not about what I say, it's about who I am becoming.
SPEAKER_02: It's about the person that Jesus is forming in me that I take with me everywhere I go.
SPEAKER_02: How would that change the atmosphere of where you work, where you live, where you play, where you do all these things?
SPEAKER_02: Because what's important to remember is this beautiful poem that really captures the heart of this.
SPEAKER_02: This is written by uh Teresa Valvia.
SPEAKER_02: She says, This Christ has no body but yours.
SPEAKER_02: No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
SPEAKER_02: Yours are the eyes with which he looks, compassion on this world.
SPEAKER_02: Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
SPEAKER_02: Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
SPEAKER_02: Yours are the hands, yours are the feet.
SPEAKER_02: Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
SPEAKER_02: Christ has no body now but yours.
SPEAKER_02: No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
SPEAKER_02: Yours are the eyes with which he looks, compassion on this world.
SPEAKER_02: Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
SPEAKER_02: And so this morning, here's what I want to encourage you and kind of leave you with this one, or this just have a week for a practice here.
SPEAKER_02: That this week you might start to ask yourself this question, Jesus, where are you inviting me into the into the experience of another?
SPEAKER_02: Many of us know somebody who has something going on.
SPEAKER_02: What would it mean to them to invest deeply in them, even for half an hour?
SPEAKER_02: That you might presence yourself with them, that you might sit with them, weep with them, and be with them, knowing that you don't have to feel like you have to say much at all, but you can bring Jesus with you wherever you go.
SPEAKER_02: And so that is my challenge for you this week.
SPEAKER_02: But here's what I want to do just as we move to the last song.
SPEAKER_02: Before we do that, I'm gonna pray for you.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to pray that for those of you in this room who are in a season right now where you feel like I'm at the end of my rope, that Jesus would presence himself with you today.
SPEAKER_02: And that others in this room that we would notice one another, that we would start to look around the room and say, Jesus, who can I be with today that needs to experience your heart, your grace, your mercy, your compassion?
SPEAKER_02: Who's in this space?
SPEAKER_02: So let's pray together today.
SPEAKER_02: So, Lord Jesus, I thank you for your mercy and your grace and your compassion.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, I thank you for your word, that it is sharp and active, that it moves to the very soul of who we are.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus, thank you that you take that word, Lord, by your spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, and you want our spirit to hear it.
SPEAKER_02: Not just so we simply know more knowledge, not simply so we can say we've done that passage, but that we might consider what it means to follow your way.
SPEAKER_02: And not just think and consider, but to do it.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, I recognize this morning that there are those in this room who are going through painful seasons.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, even painful seasons in their health, in their marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, I think about those who are here today who who have a kid that's estranged from them, who feel they haven't seen a child in years, longing for them to come back to you.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, I think about others in this room who who are experiencing just such, I mean, hardships at work perhaps.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, I think about others in this room who are in a position of watching someone they love go through something difficult, but in turn, it's having a terrible effect on their own heart.
SPEAKER_02: So, Lord Jesus, I pray for each one that's here today who needs to feel your embrace.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, would you just presence yourself with them today?
SPEAKER_02: May they know that you are near to the brokenhearted, that you will never leave us, that you weep with us.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, may they experience just your presence, your kindness and your grace.
SPEAKER_02: Not that necessarily everything in the moment changes, but that this beautiful, just I mean, a promise is that you are with us in the midst of our pain.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, I pray for each one here today as well that may not find themselves in a season like that, but know of somebody in this room perhaps that's experienced that, or know of somebody in their home or at work or their neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, would you nudge us to be in spaces that you would be in?
SPEAKER_02: That we might find ourselves just like these, just like we see in this passage, that we might make a plan to go, knowing that you will meet us there, that you go way ahead of us, and that we can know that we bring your peace and presence into that room.
SPEAKER_02: And we don't have to say a word.
SPEAKER_02: We can just be present.
SPEAKER_02: So, Lord Jesus, may you mold us and shape us this week to be formed more and more like yourself.
SPEAKER_02: And so I just love you, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: I ask you now that you Holy Spirit that you would change and transform us.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, that the ways in which we are not yet formed to look like you, you would form us this week more and more.
SPEAKER_02: So, Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_02: And we ask these things in your name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.