SPEAKER_00: So as a church, we've been going through the book of John for a year.
SPEAKER_00: We got five chapters left, I think, six chapters left.
SPEAKER_00: We're in John 16.
SPEAKER_00: So what this means is it means we just travel passage by passage.
SPEAKER_00: So what's next week is just the next passage.
SPEAKER_00: And so what that means is oh oh this is like fall, everybody's coming back, there's no vacation, school started back, people get back to normal rhythm.
SPEAKER_00: And so, okay, so this is a this is a big church Sunday, and uh I can't control what's next, not like that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the passage this morning's on grief.
SPEAKER_00: You're going like, oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_00: Like kind of bring them back in, and everybody's showing back up, and we're gonna talk about grief.
SPEAKER_00: Um so Jesus is at this table in John 16, and it's the upper room, and it's really it's the last conversation with his disciples going into the weekend, the weekend where he is gonna be uh he's gonna be taken, he's gonna be isolated.
SPEAKER_00: His disciples are gonna completely desert him.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be beaten, he's gonna be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: This is his chance to sort of pass on last words.
SPEAKER_00: And he gets toward the end of that sermon to his disciples around this meal and this table.
SPEAKER_00: And he starts talking to them about grief.
SPEAKER_00: These disciples are about to know about this, they don't even realize they're about to know about it because they have this certain vision of their future, like you have a vision of your future, and so they have a vision of their future with their friend and their leader and their messiah, and that vision is about to vanish.
SPEAKER_00: And when a vision vanishes, there's grief.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're here and you know that feeling because you had a vision for your 20s, you had a vision for your married life, you had a vision for your student life in high school, you had a vision for that relationship with that girl or that guy, and you had a vision for Saturday, you had a vision for Saturday with your family, and that just didn't play out.
SPEAKER_00: You had a vision for a weekend with your loved one.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't play, that vision didn't play out like you thought it was gonna play out.
SPEAKER_00: So the vision could be big or the vision could be small, but when it vanishes in a big or small way, you experience grief.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you wouldn't call it that, but but that's what that's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're here, you don't want to talk about this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean you're going, oh man, I picked the wrong Sunday to show up.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just let's just talk about peace or love or something.
SPEAKER_00: But possibly you're here and you're in deep grief.
SPEAKER_00: Uh because you're sick or your mom's sick, or somebody died, or you've been rejected, or you've been isolated.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe you're surrounded by people, but you feel like nobody's interested in you.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart is broken, and you don't want to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't talked about it to anybody.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you could even forget about it for like a certain amount of hours in the day, and then randomly you're opening the refrigerator door and you're pulling out a yogurt, and all of a sudden you just feel all this grief because it's still there.
SPEAKER_00: Because we had a vision of what we thought would be, and then it vanishes, and then when it vanishes in some way, big or small, we feel grief.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this week, just sort of living in this passage we're about to read.
SPEAKER_00: I'll get to it, don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Monday and Tuesday, I was I was studying and just kind of in my office, and I was doing administrative stuff, and uh, I wanted to call my friend Jim, who passed away last fall.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to call him with a question, couldn't call him.
SPEAKER_00: And then I had uh this week I had a dream about my dog who died in the fall, who kind of just was my sidekick.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: Woke up, he wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: And and then I was doing that admin stuff, and I and I removed Stuart from the email list, our church email list.
SPEAKER_00: Um he passed away a couple months ago.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I just realized you know, look this passage, thinking about this passage and then thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not over any of that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, like at times I, you know, I just kind of put it to the side, or you know, I'm not over any of it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to think, oh, well, I should I should be.
SPEAKER_00: That was a year ago, that was 10 years ago, that was 30 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: How could I still feel grief for this?
SPEAKER_00: So I read a lot, and I was reading psychology articles and different stuff, and you know what the consensus was over and over?
SPEAKER_00: There's no timeline here on grief.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to put a timeline on it, you don't have to get over it in a certain amount of time.
SPEAKER_00: So later in the week, on Wednesday and Thursday, I was attending this conference downtown at the Fox, and I got invited to it through a friend, and it was uh it was on social entrepreneurship, or another term they kept using was philanthropic capitalism.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so what this means is like um startups uh that are capitalistic, which we're not, we're church, but startups that are capitalistic, um so meaning they want profit, and some of some were nonprofit, but they're interested in profit, but then also um they're for the good of society in some way.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just be honest, everywhere I looked around, um there were tighter genes, better looking people than me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody was hip or hipster and and really, really cool, and everybody was starting um like like the coolest restaurant and you know, the old fourth ward or something, or you know, I don't even know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just a cool, there's just cool everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going, man, you know, I mean, I'm not this, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I know we shouldn't compare, and then thinking about these verses, you're going, but there's even grief kind of this, kind of this comparison thing we always do, right?
SPEAKER_00: And these these verses helped me.
SPEAKER_00: Even this week, these verses helped me.
SPEAKER_00: So let's read them.
SPEAKER_00: John 16, starting in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: At this, some of his disciples said to one another, so Jesus has been teaching.
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by saying, In a little while you will see me no more?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus knows the weekend's coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's about to die.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to see me for a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: So what does he mean?
SPEAKER_00: You will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by this?
SPEAKER_00: And and because I am going to the Father?
SPEAKER_00: They kept asking.
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by a little while?
SPEAKER_00: We don't understand what he is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me?
SPEAKER_00: Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.
SPEAKER_00: You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
SPEAKER_00: So you can feel the context there, right to the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus knows he's gonna die, he's gonna go away, the world's gonna rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We got rid of the radical.
SPEAKER_00: We got rid of that radical talking about grace that's upsetting all the systems of merit in the world.
SPEAKER_00: We got rid of them, and we're gonna rejoice because he's gone, and you're gonna be grieving.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, You're gonna see me.
SPEAKER_00: A little while, you'll see me again.
SPEAKER_00: And so we feel the direct context for the disciples, and then the text kind of broadens a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gets a little metaphorical.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 21 a woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.
SPEAKER_00: So with you, now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
SPEAKER_00: So, one major question coming out of this for me was is like, why would his resurrection help?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He keeps referring to, we're gonna see me again.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so I'm going away, I'm gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: You see me again.
SPEAKER_00: So why would the resurrection help?
SPEAKER_00: For the disciples, that's easy, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're going, he died, he's gone, three days later, ta-da, I'm back, you don't have to grieve anymore, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like you know, a loved one dies, and then you're walking down the street, ta-da, there they are.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to grieve anymore.
SPEAKER_00: So the relief has been given.
SPEAKER_00: But what about us?
SPEAKER_00: What about us?
SPEAKER_00: Verses 21 and 22 begin to speak to us in this regard.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see in verses 21 and 22, and then we're gonna close with verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: Um, what we see in these verses, we see two paths for how we handle grief.
SPEAKER_00: And the first path is the path of separation.
SPEAKER_00: You might want to call it the path of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And so what this says is basically either you have joy that is based on your circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Circumstances are good, joyful.
SPEAKER_00: Or you have grief.
SPEAKER_00: Circumstances are not good, so I grieve.
SPEAKER_00: And when you're over in the grief, it's all about how do I get back over there?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you can't even see over there, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're you're so in the grief you can't even see over there.
SPEAKER_00: But all of this over here is if I can, whatever, then I can get over there.
SPEAKER_00: And there's this separation, right?
SPEAKER_00: So the world, a few sermons ago, we defined world as the path of self-salvation.
SPEAKER_00: You're your source of your own truth, you're your hope, you're your own hope.
SPEAKER_00: And so path of the world is self-salvation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in grief.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to get to joy, so I've got to handle the circumstances, I've got to get rid of them.
SPEAKER_00: So either maybe I have to escape it, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I'll just drink it down, I'll smoke it down, use chemicals, I'll work myself so I avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: I'll use sex to kind of just push it down.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe I just deny it and forget about it and pretend it's not there.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: All sorts of ways we cope to get grief pushed down so that we we can feel like, well, if I handle the circumstance, I get it I can get it to tip, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like a scale.
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, if I get I get it to tip enough.
SPEAKER_00: And this is because of separation.
SPEAKER_00: We feel like we have to handle it this way.
SPEAKER_00: But the remedy is on you.
SPEAKER_00: See, the world would say the remedy is on you because it's self-svation.
SPEAKER_00: It's up to you.
SPEAKER_00: You have to learn to balance it.
SPEAKER_00: And when the circumstances line up, then you'll be okay.
SPEAKER_00: So this week, uh, Christy and the girls were baking.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we believe in our house, we like to win over the heart of a teacher from the first day uh with a sugar bribe.
SPEAKER_00: And so Christy and the girls are in there and they are cooking cookies for the first day of school.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, these cookies can do it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're gonna win over the heart of the teacher, Christy's cookies, and then the recipe is called Barb.
SPEAKER_00: In our house, we just call them Barbara Bush's because it's a Barbara Bush's recipe for cookies.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how you feel about George H or George W.
SPEAKER_00: But Mama Barbara can cook some cookies, apparently.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she she's got it down, and so they're in the kitchen, and one year old, our little one-year-old girl, she's on the stool and she is just digging into the dough, reaching up and shoveling it straight to the chubby little thighs.
SPEAKER_00: So cute, right?
SPEAKER_00: Just straight down, then so great.
SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the girls was handling an egg and um and then got jostled or something, and it fell on the floor and broke, you know, splat, broke open.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that egg, that egg could have been a chicken, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that egg could have been a cookie.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't gonna be, right?
SPEAKER_00: An egg is, we know what an egg is, it's a fragile seed of life.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Bible says about you, says about me.
SPEAKER_00: You're a fragile seed of life.
SPEAKER_00: And and here's what happens is we when things go well, when things go well, joy.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We're not getting jostled, things are good.
SPEAKER_00: Like they noticed I lost weight, the project went well, I got the raise.
SPEAKER_00: The girl, she wanted to go out with me.
SPEAKER_00: I got on the team, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: The circumstances are good.
SPEAKER_00: Then you get jostled a little, like you didn't get noticed, you did get rejected, circumstances aren't good, and there's a little illness, right?
SPEAKER_00: A little jostle, and it just it just doesn't take much, and all of a sudden just splat.
SPEAKER_00: And and that's the moment where that vision you had, that vision vanishes, and then there's some grief.
SPEAKER_00: And the world says this.
SPEAKER_00: The world says, the world is the answer.
SPEAKER_00: But it's actually the world that jostles you.
SPEAKER_00: So the so the world is saying to you, uh, well, the world is the answer, you're your own answer, or some circumstances getting the scales of tip.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way, that's actually the way out of your grief, but that's actually what's causing the grief.
SPEAKER_00: And so the path of separation creates enormous pressure on us.
SPEAKER_00: Which only jostles us more.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus comes into this, and then he speaks these verses, and he says, There is life in the middle here where there is more to look at than circumstances that create joy or grief.
SPEAKER_00: There's something else to look at.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we get not the path of separation, but the path of integration.
SPEAKER_00: So six years ago when we had our first child, we went on the due date, which I think was June 10th.
SPEAKER_00: June 10th, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So June 10th, we show up to the doctor because uh we hadn't gone into labor yet, and we're we were nervous.
SPEAKER_00: We're nervous because we we had we had miscarried a baby before that, and so we're extra kind of nervous and anxious about this, and so we go into the doctor and we get to the doctor, and we didn't have a bag, we didn't have anything, and the doctor does some test and some fluid somewhere, some things too low or too thin or too something, and all of a sudden it's like you're going to the hospital, and off Christy goes, and then I run home to get the bag and get the dog settled and get everything kind of orchestrated.
SPEAKER_00: I'd show back up, and Christy goes on to push for seven hours, right?
SPEAKER_00: Seven hours.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it felt like for me, it felt like 27 for her, it just probably felt like 700 hours.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is that vacuum, right?
SPEAKER_00: That vacuum of time that develops when you're having a baby and you're in the hospital.
SPEAKER_00: And so at some point, Christy's sort of at the end of herself and her ability, and Josie's just in there, cozy as can be, and she doesn't want to come out.
SPEAKER_00: And and so we get that epidural and then push a little bit more, and whole body's just hurting, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not mine.
SPEAKER_00: Christy's whole body is just uh parts of my body are hurting from just like bending over, holding her hand.
SPEAKER_00: And so she's just hurting.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hurting a little.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh finally, finally, finally, uh it's just like all of a sudden the doctor's like, it's over.
SPEAKER_00: C-section.
SPEAKER_00: Boom.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I mean, just like we can't do with you know, we're risking something here, and all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom.
SPEAKER_00: So labor room into surgery room.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let me reread 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_00: A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.
SPEAKER_00: So with you, now is your time of grief.
SPEAKER_00: But I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is not saying the pain is gone.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, Christy comes out of that experience and whole body hurting.
SPEAKER_00: The abdomen's been cut open, she pushed for seven hours, the medicine wears off.
SPEAKER_00: You are hurting.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Like they cut over that open that abdomen, this little baby comes out, and they go over and they beat the living daylights out of that baby.
SPEAKER_00: That's my baby.
SPEAKER_00: Take it easy over there, and they're bopping and putting their finger in, all sorts of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens, right?
SPEAKER_00: You get back to the room, some pain's starting to settle in on Christy.
SPEAKER_00: But she has this baby to look at.
SPEAKER_00: Like, look at this hair.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look at her ears and toes.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There's something else to look at.
SPEAKER_00: The mother refuses to be focused on the pain because there's something much better to look at.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean the pain's not there.
SPEAKER_00: See, it doesn't mean the grief's not there.
SPEAKER_00: See, see, that's the difference between separation and integration.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're here the whole sermon, even up to this point, just sort of irritates you because you're going, you know what, it's just it hasn't worked for me.
SPEAKER_00: I've been doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Like I've been in the grief thing for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Like I've been showing up to church sort of like to do it because I think it's gonna kind of work, and it just has not worked.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't have all the answers.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say, I'm so, I'm sorry it's been difficult.
SPEAKER_00: But there is something greater for you to look at.
SPEAKER_00: I think it would be easy at this point to sort of think, okay, well, um, you got joy and you have grief, and when I grieve, then I I can't do the separation thing.
SPEAKER_00: I I have to do the integration thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then you actually grieve over your inability to integrate, and so then you separate more, and then you grieve more about your grieving, and you're just kind of like this downward cycle of, I'm just not even good at grieving.
SPEAKER_00: I can't even integrate out of my grieving.
SPEAKER_00: And the good news is this morning is that God comes into the suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to rate your response to grieving.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to analyze it, you don't have to chart your progress.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Because grace gives you the room to grieve.
SPEAKER_00: Because you are righteous.
SPEAKER_00: If you have faith in Christ, you are righteous, and your standing before God is sealed and secured, not on how well you grieve or how well you even live, you are secured by what he did for you.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, it means grace gives you room to grieve.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes into the grieving.
SPEAKER_00: And he takes our sin and takes it to the cross and gives us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: So we are battling separation and integration, but really the rescue is in the incarnation, the incarnate love of God into humanity, into suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't feel it.
SPEAKER_00: But even there's rescue in going, you know what, I don't feel it, and I don't even have to, because the rescue is outside of me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even have to rate the rescue on my feelings or my progress out of the grief.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so let's jump down to verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole bunch of verses in between.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna pick up on that.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of those are on prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So next week we're gonna talk about prayer, we're gonna look at those and a whole bunch of other kind of sections on prayer that he's been talking about in the last uh this conversation around this table at the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: But let's close with verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, you will have trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna lay out the two paths?
SPEAKER_00: But take heart.
SPEAKER_00: I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: So he promises this.
SPEAKER_00: In him you will have peace.
SPEAKER_00: And in the world, you will have trouble.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna be okay if you have faith in Christ because he overcomes the world, and it's not gonna be your victory.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna be how well you grieve or how well you work yourself out of that grief.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be because he has victory over all of suffering.
SPEAKER_00: You have to rate your grief.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does all this mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means you can grieve.
SPEAKER_00: It means you can grieve in little ways on little visions that vanish.
SPEAKER_00: And it can mean you can grieve in big ways over big visions that vanish.
SPEAKER_00: And it be it means you don't have to become manic over how well, how faithful, or you're being faithful enough in your grieving in these little ways or big ways.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to become manic over rating those and kind of grading them and charting them.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do that because grace gives you the room to grieve.
SPEAKER_00: And when grace gives you the room to grieve, there's space in your heart that's created, and that space that gets created is where joy can begin to be birthed.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because you're enough, it's because he's enough for you.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how the gospel comes into grief and rescues us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you that though we are not enough, you are enough.
SPEAKER_00: Though we are not enough even in our grieving, you are enough for us.
SPEAKER_00: Help us.
SPEAKER_00: Give us faith enough to trust that we are secure with you, our identities are secure with you, and we are loved.
SPEAKER_00: We are loved in our suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have to create more anxiety in our life based on how well we're doing in our grief, but in the pain, we have something else to look at.
SPEAKER_00: God help us with this.
SPEAKER_00: In little ways tomorrow, over little visions that vanish, and in big ways over big visions that vanish.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.