Walking With God Through Grief

The title of the sermon today is Walking With God Through Grief.

Let’s begin with our Sunday sermon check-in. We’re talking this morning about grief.

Raise your hand if you have experienced a significant loss in the last year.

Raise your hand if you have experienced a significant loss in the last five years.

Raise your hand if you have felt at any point like people expected you to have moved on from your grief by now.

Keep your raised if you would say that you struggle to understand where God has been in your struggle with grief.

Raise your hand if, despite this, you believe God is with you whether you feel Him or not, and that He wants to help you?

One last question: how many of you, if you’re not grieving now, you know someone who is and you’d like to be able to offer them Christian help?

I think He does too.

This morning’s sermon is titled Walking With God Through Grief. This sermon won’t cure you of your grief. But I pray that it will help you navigate the pathway of grief, because this text shows us how how to find God in our grief again.

There’s a series of six steps. Notice with me step 1: we mourn.

[SLIDE: WE MOURN]

#1: We mourn

We mourn. This is an important one. If you’re grieving a loss, you have to actually recognize you’re grieving a loss in order to get through it.

Some of you here this morning are grieving a loss of some kind and you’re not really admitting to yourself that that’s what’s happening. For some reason we’ve all gotten this notion that if you’re a Christian, you can’t really let yourself admit that you’re even having a bad day — much less going through the stages of grief. That idea is more Stoic than Christian.

But wherever that idea came from, it isn’t from the Bible. Look at how the psalmist allows himself to feel and express his grief. Psalm 77:1-4

Psalm 77:1–4 ESV

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

Just notice all the references to grief. He cries aloud to God.

God has wired us to deal with loss. Our emotions go through a process of sorts as we grieve. Sometimes people call them the stages of grief. Anybody know the first one? It’s denial.

You’ve heard that the first step to getting help is admitting that you have a problem? That’s true not just with addiction but with grief too. You must admit that you are grieving in order to make progress through the stages of grief. The fact that the Bible contains these psalms with all this depth of emotion and pain rising to the surface and expressing itself in weeping and crying out to God — that is God giving you permission to mourn what you have lost.

And not only is he grieving. God seems absent to him in his grief. He cries aloud to God. He seeks God. And yet, “When I remember God, I moan,” he says. “When I meditate, my spirit faints.” In other words, when I remember the past, when I think about the times you showed up, God — when I consider and meditate on those times in my life that you seemed so near and I felt your presence so strongly, he says, that only magnifies my pain. Because for all that, now you seem to be completely absent.

And yet, note this, verse 4. He seeks God. he doesn’t sense God. And yet, “You have held my eyelids open”, he says. He knows that God has been there throughout.

How many of you have been through something so awful and it seemed like God wasn’t there when you needed him, but looking back on it, in hindsight, you realize he was there all along, holding you up. How do you know that? Because you know you never could have made it to this point had He not been there.

Let’s feel free to actually mourn what we’ve lost. Give yourself permission. Jesus did. What’s the shortest verse in the Bible? Jesus wept. But not just that — just before his death Jesus, “Now my soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27 NASB).

But not just that. In the garden, just before He was arrested. What did Jesus say to His disciples? I’m facing hell on earth but I’m happy and joyful. No. He said, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch from Me” (Matt. 26:38 NASB).

We grieve. We cry and weep. We mourn. Christians mourn.

Step two: we question. We question.

#2: We question

Notice that his questions about God and his pain begin just with thinking about God and his pain. Verses 5-7: “I will remember my song in the night; and I will meditate with my heart, and my spirit ponders: Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again?”

Not because you’re demanding answers from God before you’ll trust in Him. But because you trust in Him — like the man said to Jesus before his loved one was healed, “I believe; help my unbelief”. I trust in you, Lord. I love you. I believe you’re with me. I believe you’re working all of this for my good and your glory. But I am confused and I need clarity.”

As the psalmist thinks about God, he becomes aware of God’s felt absence. And He gives expression to questions we may have ourselves but have never felt free to say them aloud. What questions? Look at verses 7-9: “Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? Has his lovingkindness ceased forever? Has his promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious, or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion?”

Thoughts about God turn to questions about God. You’ve been there before, Lord. Where are you now? He becomes aware of God’s felt absence and it drives him to question.

[SLIDE: OMNIPRESENCE]

THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD

= PRESENT AT ALL TIMES & IN ALL PLACES

Notice I say felt absence. Why do I say felt absence with the emphasis on the word felt? Because God is always with us. We just don’t always feel His presence. Do we know that? Yes. We know it from theology and we know it from Scripture. Theology reminds us God is omnipresent. What does that mean? Omnipresent means present at all times and in all places. We know it from Scripture. Scripture tells us, “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20 NASB).

God is always present, never absent.

But for various reasons we don’t always feel His presence. Why? Sin can block the felt presence of God. Anxiety and depression and other forms of mental illness can temporarily block the felt presence of God. Sometimes God Himself seems to be the one who temporarily removes His felt presence from us for reasons we won’t know this side of heaven. Not his actual presence. His felt presence. In other words, He’s there. But we don’t feel that He is there.

But here’s the thing. This is where the turn around begins for the psalmist. Look again at the questions he asks. Look again at verses 7-9. Note the words and the names.

He asks: “Will the Lord never be favorable again?”

Well, of course He will. Who are we talking about here? We’re talking about Yahweh, the covenant name of God. The God who extends personal, faithful love to us with complete and perfect consistency. That is His nature. That is what He does. If He stops doing it, He becomes someone other than who He is.

He asks: “Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?”

Well, no — of course not. It’s the very nature of God’s lovingkindness that He never withdraws from us. Jesus says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37 NASB). Church, once God has set His love on you, He never withdraws it.

He also asks: “Has His promise come to an end forever?”

A promise is unconditional with God. The very nature of a promise is that it cannot fail. Human beings have let you down and will continue letting you down. God is not a man, that He should lie. His promise is a promise and it has staying power.

This is where I think the psalmist begins to listen to His own logic. This is where he turns the corner. And in so doing, he shows us how to do so too.

We mourn. We question. Step three: we choose differently. We choose differently.

#3: We choose to think differently

If you’re familiar with Chuck Swindoll, pastor and author, he said this:

“The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it.”

He’s talking about our attitude.

I’m just going to go ahead and say that when I was a kid and particularly a teenager, I had a crummy attitude. When I think back over the my childhood and my interaction with my parents, attitude is the word that most often comes to my mind. Let this give you an idea of what my attitude was like as a teenager:

I felt like I had no nice clothes. Like none. I was incredibly stuck-up when it came to the clothes I wore. honestly felt like my life was so terrible because I didn’t have clothes that came from Structure. Never mind that a pair of socks at Structure was $20. Never mind that a pair of jeans was $40. And this was in 1997.

If you ever watch Seinfeld, there’s an episode where he gets a suede leather jacket and he pays some crazy amount of money for it because of how the jacket made him feel. He said, “When I wear this jacket, there is no social situation I cannot face, no challenge I cannot overcome.” That’s how I felt when I was wearing a brand new sweater from Structure — the kind that had the zipper about here going up to the collar. But when I was wearing something from Goody’s, man —

Now I wear clothes from Walmart or maybe Kohl’s and I like it. 17-year-old Dustin says to 43-year-old Dustin, “Dude, what has happened to your life?” But 43-year-old Dustin likes the fact that he can wear decent clothes and provide for his family. What made the difference? Age. Maturity. And attitude.

He says this about our attitude and how it impacts the course of our lives:

“I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress…” [Swindoll, p38]

What does this have to do with God and grief and the Bible?

At some point, we have to make the choice to think differently. Do we see this in Psalm 77? I think we do.

If you look at verse 10: And here I’m going to use a different translation. If you were to compare translations at verse 10, you’d see that there’s a wide range of difference between some of them. That’s not because some of the translations are changing the Bible. It’s because the original Hebrew is confusing. But here’s what I think it means and I’m going to read the NKJV here.

[SLIDE: PSALM 77:10 NKJV]

Psalm 77:10 NKJV

And I said, “This is my anguish; But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.”

After he mourns and he thinks and he questions — then he says this: “This is my anguish.” This is my lot during this phase of my life. I am going through a hard time. I am grieving. Life is hard and it’s been hard for a while. This is my anguish, he says. But then he says this: “But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High” (Psalm 77:10 NKJV). He is making a choice to think differently.

And in this case, how is the psalmist saying he’s going to think differently: it’s a phrase we might not grasp right away but it’s easily understood. He says “I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.” The right hand of God — it’s a picture of His power, His ability to redeem His people and rescue and bring them out of suffering. God feels absent right now. So what does he do? He thinks about the past. Not the good old days before his loss. He remembers the great and mighty acts of God recorded in the Bible.

We mourn. We question. We choose differently. Step four - we remember.

#5: We remember

He tells us what they are. Read through it with me, will you? Verses 11-15:

“I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on your deeds.”

Stay with me and notice what he does next. Verses 13-15: “Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonder; You have made known your strength among the peoples. You have by Your power redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph.”

Do you see what’s happening, church? His change of attitude is paying off already. His frame of mind is already shifting. Remembering God’s work in the past changes how He sees the present. The clouds are beginning to part and the rays of light are starting to shine through. The light of God’s truth is invading the darkness.

We mourn. We question. We choose differently. We remember. Fifth step - we worship.

#6: We worship

Read on with me and notice how he continues in verses 16-19a: “The waters saw You, O God; the waters saw You, they were in anguish; the deeps also trembled. The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth a sound; Your arrows flashed here and there. The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; Your lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea and your paths in the mighty waters.”

Do you know what great event he’s talking about? It’s the Exodus. The parting of the Red Sea. 400 years in Captivity in Egypt — God uses Moses to bring the Israelites out and make them His own people in their own land.

They flee and the Egyptian armies pursue. God tells Moses to lift his hand and the waters part — huge mountains of water, standing still and upright as tens of thousands of Israelites walk between them on the dry ground of the bottom of that ocean.

They cross over safely. The Egyptians come in behind them — but the waters don’t stand for them. They’re overcome, and God’s people are free. The psalmist wasn’t even around for that. But he’s been told by those who came before him — this is how God showed up for us. And He’ll show up for you too.

But here’s the thing — we may not get a parting of the sea. The waters may flood over us. No prosperity gospel — remember? God hasn’t promised that. Even the psalmist can say in verse 19 that though God’s way was through the sea, his footprints were not known.

But He’s still the same today that He was then. He still shows up for His people, even if we don’t see Him. And while the waters may cover our heads, we will be safe eternally. He will not let the water completely overtake you.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched. Nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Do not fear, for I am with you” (Isa. 43:2-3, 5a NASB).

We mourn. We question. We choose differently. We remember. We worship. Lastly, we are strengthened.

#6: We are strengthened

In 1 Thess 4:13, the apostle Paul says it is possible to grieve and to have joy at the same time. He says it is possible for the Christian, he says, to mourn and yet have hope.

1 Thessalonians 4:13 NASB 95

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

There is hopeless grief. And there is hopeful grief.

Hopeless grief — here’s an example. When I was in high school, a guy that was behind me by one year was killed in a car accident on highway 64 south of Morganton. He ran into a transfer truck head-on.

I went to his funeral a few days later. It was a gray, cool, cloudy October day. His mother got up, walked to the pulpit, read a poem, with complete calmness. It was eerie.

A few days later, she drove down highway 64 and at the place where her son died, she intentionally veered into oncoming traffic and was killed in a head-on collision.

That is hopeless grief. What is hopeful grief?

Hopeful grief is not positive thinking. Hopeful grief is not pretending you’re not sad. Hopeful grief is not a cheap platitude that says I’m too blessed to be depressed.

Hopeful grief says: I am in the depths of sorrow. But my God will bring me out of this. He is with me even though I cannot feel Him right now. He will not leave my side. Hopeful grief says with Psalm 73: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25-26 KJV).

We mourn. We question. We choose differently. We remember. We worship. And we are strengthened.

This is a process, friends. Those of you who have gone through loss — you know that coming out of grief is a messy thing and it’s slower than we would like. You know how the feelings of grief come out of nowhere and overwhelm you to the point where you feel like you’re drowning.

So I’m not saying that you follow this rule and you’re cured. I’m saying that you have to make this choice again and again — you have an episode of grief, you mourn, you weep, you get it out, you pray, you question, let your grief in the moment have its full expression.

But just like climbing a set of stairs, it’s one step after another, after another. And you begin to choose to think differently. Your feelings may not be there yet. It’s an act of the will. We mourn. We question. We choose differently. We remember. We worship. And we are strengthened.

Maybe this morning some of you need to admit you’re grieving for the first time. You need to mourn. You need to allow yourself to weep, to pour out your heart to God.

Maybe others of you need to allow yourself to question God. Not because you’re demanding answers from God before you’ll trust in Him. But because you trust in Him — like the man said to Jesus before his loved one was healed, “I believe; help my unbelief”. I trust in you, Lord. I love you. I believe you’re with me. I believe you’re working all of this for my good and your glory. But I am confused and I need clarity.

Maybe others of you need to choose a different way of thinking today. Maybe your identity has become all wrapped up in your grief. “I am a grieving person”, you think. It’s become your identity. Say with the psalmist, “This is my anguish; but I will appeal to the years of the right hand of the Most High.”

Maybe some of you need to remember. Remember the past faithfulness of God. Or maybe you need to worship. Guess what, that’s just what we’re about to do. Church, let’s take our grief to God. Let’s mourn and question. Let’s change our attitude. Let’s remember and worship, and be strengthened.