When God Hides

Transcript:

Good morning everyone. It's so good to see you all. Thank you for gathering this morning. I'm very excited to hear the word with you. Excited to have worshiped with you.

What a great time of worship. Thank you worship team, for leading us before the Lord. Turn your Bibles to Psalm 13. And as you're doing that, I want to just welcome all of our guests again, thank you so much for gathering with us. I'm so happy you are here.

I pray you're experiencing the presence of Jesus and the kindness and comfort of his people. If you are visiting with us, we would love to get to know you a little better. You will see a connect card in the seat in front of you if you fill that out and meet me in the lobby after the service. I'd love to talk with you and get to know you a little bit. But thank you for gathering with us.

It's our privilege to have you here this morning. We've come to look at Psalm 13 together this morning, and the sermon we're going to be working through is titled when God hides. We're going to be looking at a difficult topic this morning, a topic that's neglected a lot, and that's the mourning of God's people, sorrow and what we do with it. You know, in our culture, mourning and sorrow is something we avoid at all cost. We like to kind of present ourselves as always okay. And that's just not the case in the world that we live in. And so we want to look to the scriptures and see what do we do when it appears like God is hiding and we have sorrows surrounding us. So let's look right to the word of God. Psalms, chapter 13.

And it begins like this Psalm 13

How Long, O LORD?

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

[1] How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

[2] How long must I take counsel in my soul

and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

[3] Consider and answer me, O LORD my God;

light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,

[4] lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”

lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

[5] But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

[6] I will sing to the LORD,

because he has dealt bountifully with me. (ESV)

This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together.

Father, I pray now that in this moment that is set apart for your people, where we gather before your word, Lord, I pray that you would do a work that only you can do. Lord, we know you draw near to the brokenhearted, that you comfort those who are cast down and afflicted, that you are a God who moves towards us in our greatest need. And so, God, I pray this morning that we would feel that through your word and by your spirit. Help us, Jesus. Amen.

Praise is the most natural response we have to a faithful God. We respond to God in praise because God is faithful. That's the most natural response we have. When God is faithful, we respond with praise and God is faithful. You see, if given only a few words to describe God, and God is hard to describe, we can't comprehend him.

He's beyond our language. But if we did our absolute best, with all the words at our disposal, faithful would rise to the top again, again and again. God is faithful. We have a faithful God. Psalms 36 five declares, your steadfast love, O Lord.

It extends to the heavens and your faithfulness to the clouds. Faithfulness is over and above all things. Psalms 33 four says, for the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. God is faithful. Church, what can you really be certain of in this life?

The scriptures say, all flesh is like grass, its glory. The best we can do with our lives is like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls. What can you really be certain of, church the wealthy leave this life just like the poor. What can you be certain of?

The young turn old, the healthy grow weak. What can we be certain of? Even creation, the scriptures say, will wear out like a garment, the sun will dry up. What can we be certain of? Let's let the scriptures tell us.

Isaiah 40 28. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

In psalms 92, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever, you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting. You are Goddesse. God is not a man that he should lie. He remains faithful even when we are faithless. He is God, and he changeth not like the King James says, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God is faithful, church. We confess this, we believe this, we know this.

What are we to do then when this ever faithful God seems so very far away? What do we do in moments like the psalmist says here, when it appears like he hides his face from us? What are we to do then? Church? You see, the scriptures they implore us, they say, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

What then do we do with our sorrows? What do we do with our weeping? What do we do with our questions and our concerns? What are we to do when God's faithfulness seems more like an abstract theological concept rather than a tangible reality? Can we come before God even then, when there seems to be no declarations of his faithfulness, only unmet longings and sorrows in our hearts?

When we haven't walked through a red sea, so to speak, when we haven't seen a miracle and our prayers seem to go unanswered, when sorrow seems to be our portion day and night, like the psalmist says, when weeping feels far more natural than worship and protest than praise, what do we do then, church? Have we learned how to manage the sorrows in our heart? Or has our society told us, cover that up, hide that, put on the good face, Sunday best? Are we unfit to enter his presence when we come like that, broken and sorrowful? David says in psalms 42 three, my tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, where is your God?

The world will be able to bring that charge against us with the brokenness and the sorrows of this world. And if we are not prepared to mourn biblically and rightly, we may cower under the pressure. You see, David, he was a man after God's own heart. He loved God. He delighted in God.

He trusted in God. He composed songs of God's faithfulness, and yet he finds himself here coming before the Lord, brokenhearted, questioning God and weeping before the Lord.

See, King David, if you look at his life and you read the psalms, he teaches us a very important principle about mourning and approaching God. And here's the principle, and I want you to get this this morning. He teaches us that our praise is to be lifted to goddess and our sorrows are to be laid before God. You see, in times of rejoicing, David runs to the Lord, lifting up his praise. But also in times of mourning, he runs to the Lord, laying bare his sorrows.

David finds himself dancing before the Lord. And David finds himself weeping before the Lord. But David finds himself before the Lord. That's the key. You see, if praise is the most natural response to a faithful God, and God is faithful, if that's the most natural response, and we know how to do that, we know how to come into his presence when all seems right and God is faithful, if that's the most natural response to a faithful God, I also want you to know that sorrows are most naturally brought before a faithful goddess.

That's the most natural thing to do. Who else would you bring them to?

But we don't often bring our sorrows before God. But in psalms 13, David does this. He brings his sorrows before the Lord, and he shows us a pattern of how we're to do it. I want us to break up this sermon in two parts. Part one is going to be a deep longing that we see in David, this longing born out of the sorrows that he's experiencing.

And part two is a deeper faith. Let's look at verse one, deep longing. David says, how long, o Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

Now, David, in the beginning of this chapter, he asked six questions through verses one and two. And you can break them up, really into three categories of longing that you see David expressing through these sorrows. And the first deep longing we see here is so very important, and it's a longing for God, a longing for the divine. You see, in all of our hearts there's this divine longing. It's been put there by the Lord, and it can only be filled by God himself.

This divine longing to know God. We were made to know God and be known by God. That's why we were created. And within every one of us is this longing. The scriptures tell us it's in him that we live and we move and we have our being.

And in our passage we can see David's soul in anguish because he does not feel the nearness of goddess. He's in anguish. His soul is in torment because he doesn't feel the nearness of God. And so he cries out, how long, o Lord? How long will I feel separate from you and like you're far away?

Will you forget me forever? All of his sorrows are heaped upon him. David knew the importance of being near God. He knew how critical it was for him to be near God. It was David who said in psalms 73 28, but for me it is goddesse good to be near God.

I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. David knew he was created to be near God, to know God. It was David who said, as the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul. For you, o God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

David delighted in the presence of God. It was his greatest joy to be near God. And now he's in turmoil. Where is his God. There are many sorrows in this life.

So many sorrows I was considering. I was sitting in the back as we were worshiping. And just considering those of you that I know well and I've spoken to about your very personal sorrows. And there's so much sorrow in this life. But hear me, church, there's no greater sorrow than separation from God.

None greater than feeling distant from God. And not just from sin. That's the ultimate reason. But a longing for a new heaven and a new earth, a longing for God's kingdom to come. You see, there's this deep sorrow in the hearts of God, people.

A longing for his nearness. And I want you to hear this, this morning, that this is a unique sorrow, this sorrow for a longing for God to be near us, a crying out for Jesus to come. It's an important sorrow. It's not like other sorrows that we face. It's the sorrow of the waiting church that says, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

It's a deep sorrow. It's a sorrow built out of a desire to be near God. Consider that sorrow for a moment. Consider Jesus under the torment and the sorrow of the cross. Do you remember the story?

He cried out, but not for the pain of the nails and not under the shame of his nakedness, not other. The injustice of it all cried out, what? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That was the deepest sorrow Jesus felt on the cross, was distance from God. At that moment, the nearness with the father that Jesus had always felt, it vanished.

And he cried out, similar to David. My God, my God, where are you? There's no greater sorrow than to be far from God. And that's what David expresses here in this first verse. He feels the distance from God and he cries out, I want to be with God.

You see, all people will experience sorrow in life. This world is full of trouble. But the greatest hope for you and me is not the absence of all of our sorrows. We can't expect that in this fallen world. But the greatest hope for us is a profound longing for the nearness of God.

In the midst of all of our sorrows, a longing for God, a different sorrow. Many, however, grieve over their sorrows with no hope. They faced all of this earth's sorrows, the world's sorrows, with no hope. And that's because all of their longings are bound up here in the earth. And that's all they can do, is face their sorrows head on with more sorrow.

But, friends, when one has a heavenly longing, a longing for Christ to be near, a longing to see his kingdom come. When one wrestles with this heavenly sorrow, they're empowered to grieve, not as those who have no hope. They will grieve, certainly, but with great, comforting, sustaining hope. And so I tell you, this is an important sorrow. And I'd ask you, do you have this sorrow in your heart, a longing to be with Jesus?

Some of us are so overwhelmed with our other sorrows that we've forgotten this great sorrow altogether, the desire to be near God, to know God. So I ask you, is this sorrow in your hearts this morning, church, do you cry out, I want to be with Jesus Christ. Return, David. In verse three, he responds to this great sorrow with this prayer. And we see in the verses three and four how David responds to his concerns and sorrows in prayer.

But in verse three, he says, consider and answer me, O Lord, my God. And then he says, this, light up my eyes. See, David prays that God would light up his eyes. David knows indeed that God is near. David knows this, but his darkened eyes, he can't see God's nearness.

And all of his sorrows and all the brokenness of the world is making it appear like God is not there. His eyes are so earthly, focused on all his sorrows, he can't feel the nearness of goddess. It was David. We read it this morning. Ben did, in psalms 121.

One, he says, I lift my eyes up to the heels. From where does my help come? His help is not here right now. He doesn't feel like God is near, and he's looking to the hills. He's looking for a savior to ride over the hills.

But then he has a profession of faith. In verse two of 121, he says, my help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and earth. See, David, he lifts his eyes to the Lord, and he says this in the midst of his sorrows. Help me see you light up my eyes. I know you're here.

I know you're here. God, light up my eyes. See, David knows something very important, church. He knows how to preach to himself. He knows his flesh will believe a lie.

He's not afraid to expose these lies that grow in our heart, that God's not near you. Look at your suffering. How can God be near you? Yes, this is how David feels, like God is hiding from him. This is how he feels.

But this is what David knows. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. So David wrestles with this great sorrow of feeling like God is not there. And it's this sorrow to be near God that strengthens him to face all of his other sorrows. And I hope you see that connection there in your own life. Church, do not face the sorrows of this world without this heavenly sorrow.

Jesus is coming, and he will make all things right. Don't face your earthly sorrows without this heavenly sorrow, longing for the good kingdom who is coming. Look to the heels. The second longing David expresses is a longing for sorrow's end. Look at verse two.

He says, how long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? As I mentioned, all people in this life will have trouble and sorrows. Jesus said this, he said, in this world, you will have trouble weeping. It comes to every one of us. Notice David here, he asked this striking question, and it makes perfect sense when you're suffering.

But he asked the question, how long? How long, o Lord? You see, some sorrows lingerhead. Some sorrows, they seem to make their home in our hearts, don't they, church? They just settle there.

They find a comforting place there almost, and they just. They linger in our hearts. And this question of how long? It's an important question. How do we deal with this question of how long?

You see, some of us, I'm afraid, have stopped asking this question, and we've stopped asking it because we've subtly forgotten about the faithfulness of God. We don't really believe that he is indeed going to crest the top of that hill, that he is there, that he's ever faithful. This question of how long is a trust in God's faithfulness. We know that he indeed will come and help us and move on our behalf. No wonder, friends, if in your suffering you've just stopped asking this altogether, you've just started resting in your own strength.

I'll figure this out. The question, how long? Is a good question. David, does something important here? Notice what he does when he feels like God's not there.

And when he has this question of how long when his sorrows seem to overwhelm him. Notice he doesn't seek a foreign God now. So many of the other kings did. And the questions of their trouble and their sorrows, they just didn't have patience. They just didn't trust that God would be faithful, and so their eyes went somewhere else.

He doesn't bring a charge against God. He doesn't get offended by Goddesse. This is what David does. He draws near to God. He waits and he proclaims truth over his heart.

That's the pattern we see when David is in the middle of suffering, he draws near to God. He brings his sorrows before the ever faithful God. And there he waits. And then he proclaims truths over his heart. David will not let the presence of his suffering drive him from the presence of his God.

He won't do it. So what do we do with the question of how long? Church the answer is, it's simple and it's born in weakness, and we don't like to hear it. But what we do is we wait. Lamentations three says, the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Friends, I've learned that in the weakness of waiting, God's strength is made perfect. In the weakness of waiting, God's strength is made perfect. And when God's strength is made perfect in your life, it's greater than any strength you could ever have from hurrying through your trials.

The apostle Paul said this. He pleaded with the Lord multiple times. He had this sorrow in his heart, this suffering, this thorn in his flesh. And he said, he cried out to God, take this from me. This is what God responded to him.

But he said to me, God said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, Paul, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

When we don't know how to mourn, when we don't know how to handle our weakness, what we miss is the power of Christ.

We don't want to wait. We don't want the weakness of our suffering. But church, if we could see the power of Christ is magnified in our suffering, that there's purpose in the waiting, it would comfort us so much. You see, many of you this morning only feel the nearness of God through your praise. You only experience the nearness of God when you come before him rejoicing, and you equate your sorrows and difficulty with God's absence.

But, friends, I believe God is nearer to us through our sorrows than sometimes through our praise, nearer to us in our mourning than our rejoicing. Psalms 30 418 the Lord is near the brokenhearted and he saves the crushed in spirit.

I want you to feel the nearness of God even in your sorrows, because of your sorrows. And God's sovereignty is his goodness. That's what the apostle Paul says. He could rejoice in his sorrows because it magnified the strength of Christ. All things work for the good of God's people.

And this is not to demean sorrows, but it's to exalt the power of Christ. What the enemy meant for evil, God can turn for good. Your sorrow does not mean that God is far from you. So it's okay to ask how long. It's good to ask how long, because it roots our hearts in a faithful God who will respond.

So listen to me, friends. God is not burdened by your tears. He's not threatened by your concerns, and he's not offended by your questions. And he's certainly not distant because of your sorrows. I think we need to hear this.

As I was prepping this sermon this week, this is the very first thing I wrote down. Church. It's okay to weep. It's okay to long for deliverance. Everything doesn't always have to be presented as okay.

We know your instagram is not real.

We must learn to mourn properly in this sin fallen world. We must learn to bring our sorrows to Christ and to see his power made perfect in them. Our sorrows should not drive us from the Lord, but to him.

I know there are so many sorrows in this room, overwhelming sorrows, lifelong sorrows. And David had these. David had sorrows from every type, family struggles and wars and relation problems and problems with his kids. And David's heart was full of sorrow. But notice David's response to this longing for sorrow's end.

He says this in verse three. Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God, light up my eyes. And then he says this, lest I sleep the sleep of death. David pleads with the Lord to hear and to answer, to light up his eyes. He wants to see Jesus.

I need to see you, God, lest he sleep the sleep of death. And David here is praying about very real enemies, you see, who could, certainly, if God did not intervene, take his life. He was king, and there was hostile enemies all around. So there's a very real sense in this. When he says sleep of death, he's referring to, I'm going to die.

My enemies are going to conquer me. And all of this sorrow in my life will end because I won't be here. However, there's also this metaphorical sense in which David says this sleep of death. There's a sense in which this great sorrow that David speaks of causes him to be as a dead man. He's so overwhelmed by his sorrows, it's like a dead man walking.

Have you ever been there when you kind of move through life with this sleep of death upon you, there's no light in your eyes, only darkness. I've been there. I've walked in seasons of that. You're alive, but you're not alive. You're just overwhelmed by your sorrows.

There's no light in your eyes of the faithfulness of God. All you see are your sorrows. And David was very, very near there. But David knew what to do. David knew how to mourn.

You see, this sorrow that David experienced, it was deep and it was personal. Just consider his life. He had deep personal sins. Sorrow over that. He had devastating consequences from that.

He had deep family dysfunction. His very son rose up against him. He had the sorrows of ruling with wars and the enemies of the people of God surrounded him. David had so many sorrows in his life, and David feared that he would lose sight of his faithful God and the light of his eyes, Yahweh, that that would be darkened. And he knew if that happened, he could not face the sorrows of this life.

And to him, if that were to happen, he would be as good as dead. So David pleased with God, even in my sorrows, God, light up my eyes. Don't let me lose sight of you. Yahweh.

I pray for each of you whose sorrow might be at a place like this this morning. There's no light in your eyes, no goodness of God, no resting in his goodness, no counting on his faithfulness, just surviving in your sorrow. Oh, church, my prayer is that the glory of Christ would light up our eyes, that we would see Jesus, that we would desire to be near him, and that heavenly sorrow would sustain us through all of our earthly sorrows. David's third longing could be viewed as a longing for a new creation. Look at verse two, the end of verse two.

He says, how long shall my enemy be exalted over me? You see, David's plea for personal deliverance from his enemies is also a plea for his people. David is king. You see, if David's enemies prevail over him, they prevail over all of Israel. As goes the king, so goes the king's people.

And David knows this. If David finds favorite, if David finds deliverance with the Lord, so will his people. And so David fights for this. He cries out for this on the behalf of his people. He finds and seeks favor with God.

Isn't there a beautiful picture here? Church of Christ and his church. We are blessed because Christ is blessed. We have favor with God because our king, Jesus, has favor with Goddesse. He went before the Lord with his own righteousness, and now we are righteous in him.

But you see, David here, he feels the weight of the nations surrounding Israel. He feels the sorrow of that. And he longs for a day when all the enemies of God's people will be no more. He longs for a day when there's no more pagan nations and wickedness will be forever destroyed. A day when all people, people will worship Yahweh.

And he feels the sorrow of this. Look, I know we all have our personal sorrows, and we all experience them deeply, and everyone is unique in that way. But there's also a sorrow, I think, that we experience corporately when we look around at the world. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I have to not look at Twitter at all. I have to turn off the news, because if I hear one more report of wickedness and sin and brokenness, my heart just can't handle it.

It's too much. The world is groaning, and the sorrow of the effects of sin overwhelm us. And to be honest, what we do is we just black it out. We just cut it off from our thinking, because we can't even fathom the sorrow that's in the world. What the world needs is a new heavens and a new earth and a new king who rules in righteousness.

And that's what's coming. The apostle Paul, he speaks of this in Romans chapter eight. He says, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

There's so much sorrow in the world. In church, we cry out corporately, come, Lord Jesus. He's the only one who can fix it. Our king. There's coming a day when sorrow will be no more, when righteousness reigns, when our waiting will be no more, and our faith will become sight.

Don't you long for that day? I hope you long for that day. Set your hope on that day. There's sustaining power and looking towards that day, so, church, what do we do with all this sorrow, this longing for God and this longing for sorrow's end and this longing for new creation, all of these longings built out of sorrow. What do we do?

We do what David did. We draw near to God. We wait patiently on the Lord, and we declare his truths over our heart. That leads us to the second part, a deeper faith. This is exactly what David did.

Look at verse five and six. It says, but I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Something that's interesting with this psalm is that God never answers David.

There's no response back from God now. It ends on a confession of hope and faith. But the clouds don't part. God doesn't give David the answer. David is still left with the question of how long, but he's at peace and he's okay, and he's got a confession of God's faithfulness on his lips.

There's some important things here we can learn from King David's confession. Notice he says in verse five and six, he says really kind of two main things. He says, I have trusted, and he says, I will sing. I've trusted and I will sing. I think it's interesting that David's response to these deep sorrows.

David's response to the deep sorrows of his heart was through faith and with a song. Isn't that interesting? King David, with all of this disposal of the kingdom, with all of his chariots and all of the things he could have done to face his enemies, he responds with his sorrows by having faith in God and lifting a song to Yahweh. Such a simple thing, such honestly, a seemingly weak thing, a humble thing. What do you do, church, when you face sorrows?

What do you do? We don't like? I think to go this way, we often seek the stronger emotion, the more potent response. We're going to meet our sorrow head on, maybe anger or retaliation or some way where we can take back control. We don't want to ask how long and wait on the Lord.

We want this fixed. But David responds with faith and a song.

I think the truth is many of us can't humble ourselves enough to do this in our sorrows. This is actually very hard to do. Church. Hear me, Christians. We are a people of faith, and we are a singing people.

We're a singing people. Look at the scriptures all throughout. It seems like they sing at the most ridiculous times. But they sing, and God wired us this way. It's the overflow of a trusting heart, is what a song is when it's sung to the Lord.

Listen to me, church. I believe this is true. Satan trembles not before the proud, mighty, self exalted church, but he cowers before the faith filled singing church.

And I believe that's true in your personal life, too. Satan is more afraid of your faith filled song than all of your efforts to fix your sorrows. Don't miss the power of a faith fueled singing to the Lord that just responds with, this is my God. He will deliver me in the middle of your sorrows. Lift a song to the Lord.

There's been times in my life when I've done this, and I'll be honest, if anyone heard it, it sounded like the most pathetic, weak, feeble thing. How could that have any effect with the sorrow that I was going through? But it did. And it does.

Notice here in David's confession that he declares three things. He says, and he declares these through song and through his confession. But he says these three things. He says that he's trusted in the steadfast love of the Lord. He says that he will rejoice in God's salvation, and he says that he will sing, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with him.

And we can really see this kind of litmus test, if you will, for our hearts and suffering and our sorrows were to declare these three things. Remember these things, church. The steadfast love of God, the steadfast faithfulness of God, his love for us. Remember the love of God and how it's steadfast never wavers. Remember that in the middle of your suffering, remember God's salvation for us in Christ.

Remember that God has saved us in Christ, and that has implications that go so deep for your suffering. Remember God's salvation in Christ and remember God's provision. These three things equate to really God's faithfulness, his steadfast love, his faithfulness, God's deliverance, God's salvation, and our thankfulness in response to his provision. So in times of troubles, there's nothing that will bolster your troubled heart more than to remember you have a faithful God church. You have a God who has saved you and to simply have a thankful heart.

There are those in this room this morning that have deep, deep sorrows. And I want you to know that God is not far from you in your sorrows, that he's very near to you. Bring your sorrows to the Lord church bring your questions to the Lord. Bring your weeping to the Lord. Just come to the Lord.

Draw near to him, and as the scriptures say, he will draw near to you.

When King David's heart was left with deep longings, his lips proclaimed deeper truths. And when he endured deep sorrow, he stood still on deeper faith.

This morning, I. I spoke to a unique sorrow. And it's actually one of the only sorrows here that I hope you experience in this life. And it's a sorrow born out of a longing to be with God.

And I would ask you this morning, if you don't have that sorrow, I would ask you to come to the person of Christ. Certainly, you have all the other sorrows in this life that we all experience. But do you have a desire to be with God? I mentioned that you were made to know God and be known by God. You see, God loved us enough to meet us in the midst of our suffering and our sorrow.

And he sent his son. And you don't have to go through the brokenness of this life with no hope. There's great hope for you in Christ. And so if you don't know Christ this morning, turn to him. Turn to this God who loves you and has provided a way for you to be reconciled to him.

Let's pray together this morning. Father, we thank you that in Christ you have met all of our needs. And God, I pray for those this morning who are suffering under a heavy load. Lord, I pray for those who know you but are burdened down by all the weights of this world. Father, I pray that in the midst of their sorrow, they would not be overwhelmed and think that you are hiding and distant, but instead they would draw near to you in their sorrows, and they would see how your strength is made perfect and that you are there with them in the fire.

Bolster your people with this great truth from your word and God. I pray for those this morning that do not know Jesus. Convict them. Holy Spirit, stir their hearts with great desire. Help them fill their need to know Christ.

And I pray that they would look to Jesus and be saved this morning. Jesus, you were the man of sorrows, and no one was closer to the father than you. We know that you are near us in our sorrows.

Thank you. That you ultimately bore our sorrows and our grief on the cross so that we might have joy and peace eternal. Lord, we do ask how long, but we ask so with faith filled hearts, knowing that you are coming soon. And so your church says, even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.