Invitation Sunday: Where is God when it hurts

Devotional

Day 1: God Hangs on Gallows With the Broken

A starving boy struggles for breath on a Nazi gallows. A mother hears her dead son’s heartbeat in another child’s chest. Suffering never happens in isolation. Jesus enters the darkest corners of human pain, not as a distant observer but as one who binds his identity to the dying. His scars prove he refuses to abandon us to our anguish. When we ask “Where are you?” he answers by climbing into our suffering, making it his own. [01:28:11]

“He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down.” (Isaiah 53:3-4, NLT)

Reflection: What raw cry of “Where are you, God?” have you buried? How might his presence in the gallows reshape that memory?

Day 2: The Question That Unlocks New Life

A lame man spends 38 years blaming others for his paralysis. Jesus bypasses excuses to ask one piercing question: “Do you want to be made well?” Healing requires surrendering the familiar pain we’ve built our identity around. Christ’s power isn’t limited by others’ failures or our past – but he won’t override our grip on brokenness. The choice to release our old story for his new creation starts here. [01:10:04]

“When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be healed?’” (John 5:6, ESV)

Reflection: What familiar brokenness have you learned to manage instead of release? What frightens you about Christ rewriting your story?

Day 3: Beauty Grows Through Barbed Wire

A homeless man rummages through trash – his mother’s shattered dreams hanging over him like thorns. The cross transforms barbed wire into vineyards. Jesus takes the brutality meant to disfigure us and grows resurrection life through the wounds. Our suffering becomes soil where his beauty takes root when we stop asking “Why?” and start asking “Who?” – the God who let nails become his pruning shears. [41:09]

“We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you seen grace unexpectedly blossom through life’s thorns? How might your current struggle be sacred ground?

Day 4: His Heartbeat Drowns Out Broken Rhythms

A stethoscope pressed to a little girl’s chest reveals a dead boy’s living heart. When we receive Christ’s sacrifice, the Father hears Jesus’ perfect pulse resonating through our failures. Our crippled attempts at righteousness get replaced by his relentless rhythm of grace. Every stumble now syncs to his unbroken love, transforming our chaos into his cadence. [01:21:24]

“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26, ESV)

Reflection: What old rhythm of shame or performance still competes with Christ’s heartbeat in you?

Day 5: Suffering’s Shadow Can’t Eclipse Eternal Dawn

A concentration camp march forces prisoners to stare at dangling corpses. Yet joy becomes central when Christ enters our story – suffering remains real but loses its final say. Like a widow hearing her son’s heartbeat years after burial, believers walk through darkness clutching the promise: every midnight births a dawn. Our present pain is the prelude to an unending symphony. [01:23:16]

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” (2 Corinthians 4:17, ESV)

Reflection: What current “midnight” might Christ be preparing to turn into eternal sunrise? How does forever reshape today’s struggles?

Sermon Summary

The gospel names what every person already knows, life is a tangle of beauty and barbed wire. Isaiah 53 introduces the Servant as despised and rejected, a man of sorrows who knows the deepest grief, so the question where is God when it hurts does not meet silence. God steps into the suffering, and God steps under it. The cross carries two clear truths. He is the only God who suffers with his people, and he is the only God who suffers in place of his people.

John 11 lets Mary and Martha ask the honest line, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. The delay exposes raw expectations, yet it also shows that Jesus is not indifferent, he is present, he weeps, and he raises. The crucifixion itself answers the charge of indifference. The Servant is marred beyond human likeness, pierced for rebellion, crushed for sins, punished so others may have peace. Psalm 34 says the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and his nearness is not polite, it matches the dots. Like dominoes, Jesus lines his pain beside human pain until the pieces meet.

Sin shows up here not merely as bad habits but as missing the mark, becoming less than what God intended. Scripture pictures that inward deadness with images of blindness, lameness, and paralysis. John 5 brings the question that shifts everything, Do you want to be made well? Excuses come easy, but the question refuses to chase them. The call is to let go of the old story, with all its familiar protections and predictable misery, and receive the new story Jesus speaks, Rise, take up your mat, and walk.

Romans 10 promises that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and Ezekiel 36 names what that salvation feels like, a new heart and a new spirit. The exchange runs this deep, the Father puts the stethoscope to a believer’s chest and hears his Son’s heartbeat. Joy then moves to the center and sorrow to the edges, not because pain disappears, but because pain no longer gets the final word. And when the cry still erupts, Where is God, the witness of Golgotha and the witness from the camp both answer, Look at the gallows. God is there, and he will not forsake those who say yes to his new story.

Key Takeaways

1. God suffers with and for people [50:47] The Servant does not watch from a distance. He steps into human grief, and then he steps under human guilt. That double action means presence in pain and pardon for sin land in the same place, the cross. [50:47]
2. The cross bears sin in our place [01:02:27] Pierced for rebellion and crushed for sins, Jesus absorbs what justice demands so others may have peace. The exchange is not moral polish but a new standing, his righteousness for their record. Refusing it usually feels safer, because it means keeping the old story. [62:27]
3. Do you want to be made well [01:06:33] Jesus’ simple question exposes the heart more than the history. Familiar bondage can feel easier than unfamiliar freedom, so excuses pile up. Grace cuts through by personal invitation, not to shame, but to start a new story. [66:33]
4. Salvation gives a new heart [01:17:35] God does not tape up a cracked life, he transplants a living one. New desires, new power, and new peace come as gift, not as grind. The Father hears the Son’s heartbeat in the child who trusts him. [77:35]
5. God is present in the worst pain [01:28:11] The cry where is God meets a location, on the gallows, with the suffering. That answer does not trivialize horror, it locates hope inside it. Presence changes despair into endurance, because love is not absent when life is most brutal. [88:11]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[35:03] - Invitation Sunday and gospel for all
[36:56] - Shared suffering and honest questions
[39:06] - Where is God when it hurts
[41:09] - Beauty and barbed wire
[44:44] - Isaiah 53 read aloud
[50:47] - God who suffers with and for
[51:53] - Lazarus, delay, and lament
[58:36] - Cross brutality and empathy
[60:07] - Dominoes and nearness to brokenhearted
[63:12] - Sin means missing the mark
[66:33] - Do you want to be made well
[77:35] - Promise of a new heart
[80:57] - Heart transplant picture of grace
[88:11] - God present on the gallows

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading
Isaiah 53:1-6 (ESV)
Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

John 5:1-9 (ESV)
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Observation Questions

In Isaiah 53:3-5, what specific actions does the Servant take to address human suffering and sin?
How does the lame man in John 5:6-7 respond when Jesus asks, “Do you want to be healed?” What does his answer reveal about his mindset?
The sermon states that the cross carries two truths: God suffers with his people and for his people ([50:47]). How do Isaiah 53 and John 11 (Lazarus’ story) illustrate these truths?

Interpretation Questions

Why might Jesus ask the invalid, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6) instead of immediately healing him? What does this question reveal about the relationship between desire and receiving God’s grace?
The sermon compares Jesus’ suffering to “dominoes” lining up with human pain ([58:36]). How does Isaiah 53:4-5 explain the purpose of this alignment?
How does the cross answer the accusation that God is indifferent to suffering ([55:07])? What does it mean for God to be both present in pain and pardon for sin?

Application Questions

The lame man in John 5 clung to his “old story” of waiting by the pool. What “old story” (habits, excuses, or identities) do you struggle to release, even though it keeps you stuck ([13:21])?
The sermon says pain “no longer gets the final word” for believers ([23:16]). How could this truth reshape your response to a current struggle or grief?
Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be made well?” ([10:36]) confronts our resistance to change. What step could you take this week to actively say “yes” to His invitation for healing or renewal?
The cross shows God’s nearness to the brokenhearted ([59:17]). How might you intentionally lean into His presence—rather than isolation—when you feel overwhelmed?
The sermon describes salvation as a “heart transplant” ([20:57]). What would it look like to live as though your old heart has been replaced with Christ’s desires and power?

Sermon Clips

24s

“``He becomes a judge. Instead of a judge, he becomes your father, and he hears the heartbeat of Jesus Christ beating in you. All the good works can do nothing. If your good works was good enough, he would have been a fool to go to the cross. He went to the cross to suffer for you, and alongside of you. Because there was no other way.”

32s

“He knew the people around him. He knew the people that hurt him. He knew how to put the guard up and protect himself so he's not hurt again. That's the story of his old life. It's what he's familiar with, What he knows. You see why it's very hard. What Jesus was asking him was, do you want a new story? Do you wanna let go of your old story, and receive the new story that I have for you. Because this man's life would change forever.”

21s

“And what's the what am I trying to say with that? Jesus matched our suffering and then some. We connect with other people who suffers. He connects with you because he knows what it means to suffer. So when it says he is near the brokenhearted, it's for a very good reason.”

26s

“And then he recorded something in his book. He says there was an inner voice that spoke from the inside. And this is what spoke. He says, Eli, your question was where am I? He says, look up in the gallows, and that's where I am. He understood instantly that the Lord did not depart from that little boy. That he was present in the little boy's sufferings.”

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Invitation Sunday: Where is God when it hurts - Dan Melendez