How we doing, church?
Come on, can we give it up for Jesus this morning? Amen. Amen.
My name is Micah, Pastor Micah. And Pastor Charlie and Pastor Jill are celebrating 25 years of marriage this week; they've been celebrating. I had a pastor tell me one time that they don't even give people that long in prison for murdering somebody. So if you make it that long in marriage, you've really done something.
Come on, we are a note-taking church. So if you need a note sheet, we've got the host team handing those out this morning.
So we're going to jump right in. This morning, I want to talk with you on this topic of grieving. Say grieving with God. Can we smile? Smile, we're going to jump into this topic.
Many of us know how to grieve without God. You can turn to alcohol or Netflix, anybody? Binge-watch some Netflix. Maybe it's a late bowl of ice cream. We know how to grieve without. But how do you grieve? How do we? How do we grieve with God?
We're going to look at that this morning. But before we jump in, I know that there's some real weight in the room, some real burdens many of us might be carrying. And I want to let you know that we do have on our app a way to submit prayer requests. And there are actually real people on the other side that will respond. You can say anything. We have, if it's high-level care, emergency, we have pastors that will be notified. We will respond. And so I encourage you to submit that through the app.
We also have this spring, for the first time, we'll be launching a thing called Grief Share, which will be 13 weeks with video-based teaching and groups that will help if you need some tools for how to navigate grief. And so we're going to be talking about that.
But today, can we open in a word of prayer? We'll get started.
Lord, thank you. We can pause. Lord, we're not anxious. We don't need just some powerful words. Lord, we need your spirit this morning. Lord, we need you. Lord, we trust you. We look to you, Lord. It's in your name we pray.
And everyone said amen. Amen. Amen.
So three ways to navigate grief with God. We're going to jump in.
Number one, number one, in your notes. By the way, that's a lot of, I don't know who lets me preach. Those are a lot of notes. I was looking at it this morning. I'm like, dear Lord, that's a book. We're going to get through it. First service got through it. You think you can get through it?
Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I'm going to have to calm down on that next time. But we got some notes to go through.
Number one, number one way to deal with grief with God would be to acknowledge the pain with honesty. Just simple. Simply just acknowledging that there is grief, that there is pain.
I love in Psalm chapter 63, King David writes. He says, "Oh God," if scripture's on the screen, you can read it with me. Ready? "Oh God, you are my, my God." I love that. You're my God.
Why do we gather this morning? Why are Christians gathering all across the world today and over the weekend? Because we have a God. We can claim him not as just a God, but Lord, you are my God. You're my refuge. You're my strength in times of need. Lord, you're my God. I love that declaration right up front.
But then right after that, because you're my God, I earnestly search for you. My soul, say my soul, thirsts for you. My whole body—some of us have felt that before. Maybe you're feeling it right now in a season of grief. My body is longing for you to show up, to be what you claim to be. My body longs for you in this parched and what? In weary land where there's no water.
What a great picture for grief. A parched, a weary land where there's no water, a desert place.
Anyways, some questions I thought of as I was working on this message was, is it okay to grieve? Or another way of putting it, does it mean that you have a weak faith if you grieve? Is it weak? You should really just get over that by now. I mean, don't you know that, and we can just bypass grief. We don't need to lean into it.
Here's the insight in your notes that I want you. We're going to build on throughout this message, and it's this. God is not only okay with us sharing our grief; He actually invites it. He invites it. He doesn't need you to hide it, put a blanket over it, act like it's. He invites it.
In fact, I'll take it a step further. He experiences it with us. We have a God, Emmanuel, God with us, who's well acquainted with grief, with suffering. He knows what it's like. God knows what it's like to lose a child. God knows what it's like to walk with us.
I love scripture in Isaiah 53. It says the Lord is one who is acquainted with grief.
But what's the difference between sadness and grief? Point of clarification. Sadness is in a moment. I'm sad that I broke my arm, but it will heal, and my arm will be good again. I'm sad that I ruined my favorite pair of shoes. But I can go buy those shoes again.
But a working definition for grief in your notes is this: Grief can come from any area where we've experienced irreplaceable loss. It could be the loss of a business we can't get back, and it's not possible. It could be the loss of a relationship, a parent, a spouse that's irreplaceable at the end of a marriage. It could be the loss of a child. It's irreplaceable.
In fact, I love this quote from one great thinker, Richard Foster. He says, "Grief is love." Say love. It's in your notes. Grief is love that has nowhere to go. I really did love him, but he's not here anymore. My love has nowhere to go. I loved that job. I loved that house. It's not there anymore. I can't get it back. It has nowhere to go.
And so many of us are dealing with this, and when we feel this, we end up in this place that I want to call Grief Island. It's a lonely place. It's a little gloomy. It's a little heavy. Maybe you've been there. Maybe you're there right now. The clouds are lying low. There's always a little bit of a violin playing in the background, and it's difficult.
The thing about Grief Island is there's no way around. You can only go through it. Oftentimes, it feels alone. You feel alone. You feel like you're isolated, but there's no way around it, only through it.
And here's the truth. If you're not hearing anything so far, I want you to hear this, please. I believe the Holy Spirit wants us to hear this this morning, that it is okay to not be okay. God doesn't need you to act okay.
You know, sometimes people think church is fake, and certainly there can be components that happen in some churches, but, you know, oh, I know what they're really going through, and they're fake and fake. Maybe it's not fake. Maybe it's faith. Maybe, no, actually, I am in the middle of crisis, and I am falling apart, but I'm choosing to have faith.
God doesn't need me to ignore my pain, but I also don't have to stay there.
Here's the challenge. Here's the challenge with grief, though. Grief is often complex. It's complex. In fact, I want to just illustrate it this way.
In four stages of faith, we'll do S1. Oh, that looks great. I've been wanting to use this clear thing for years. I saw someone use it. I thought it looked so cool. Isn't this amazing?
Okay, can you see it? Okay, you see it, babe, over there? If you can't see it, it's because you don't have faith.
Okay. I don't know what you're saying to me, Pastor Micah. Draw low. Okay, draw low.
Okay. All right, well, so S1. Stage one, say stage one, is this simple, you could call it simplicity, it's simple faith. And not, by the way, not everyone starts here with God with a simple faith, but simple faith would be, you know, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, and I'm good, and everything's going my way, and the girl I like likes me back, and I made the soccer team, and things are working, and I love my youth group, and everything's good.
It's simple, say simple. By the way, nothing wrong with that; it's a great simple, but how many of you know, if we're living in the real world long enough, we can't, we don't usually stay there.
Something comes along that, whether we like it or not, could push us to stage two, feels like kind of a digression, but it's actually moving forward. It's this thing called complexity, or you could say it's complex.
And the thing about complex faith is, you know, the simple answers, the simple Bible verses that have worked for you, or they're not working anymore. Just information doesn't, your dad that was the one that's been bringing you to church and introducing you to God, cheated on your mom. It's complex.
That, you know, your sister, you've been praying for, yeah, man, we had the whole hope team pray, and pray for healing, and she didn't get healed. Say complex.
It's dark. It's confusing, and you need something more. But here's the deal: to move forward, there's oftentimes a wall that we have to deal with.
And this wall will show up, and many of us, we have one of two options. One is, this is what a lot of us do, I know I have, is we will try to run back to simplicity as fast as possible, and we'll even do it with good, you know, good thoughts and good, good, you know, intentions.
But it's, you know, it's the, you know, you lost your dad, and someone just says, well, it's okay, it's, you know, the Bible says that he's in a better place, and this life is short anyway, and the Bible says, Paul says, we don't have to grieve and mourn like those who have no hope.
And all that's true, and there's more. See, that we can use some of those things to jump right back to simplicity, so I don't have to deal with the grief. I don't want to feel those bad feelings, and I just run back.
Or option, say option two, we can move through the wall to this S3, stage three. And this is actually, it doesn't feel like a step forward; it feels like a step backward.
Because when you get there, you feel a little bit perplexed. Say perplexity.
Forgot how to spell perplex for remote, perplexed, and perplex. It's even worse than complexity, because complexity is like, I still love God. I know this stuff, but I'm struggling right now.
And the perplexity is, I have no idea what's going on. I don't know up from down, right from left. I don't know if God is real or not. I am perplexed.
And you're saying, Pastor Micah, that can be a sign of spiritual growth to get there? And the answer is yes. That's called wrestling with God.
And it's in this, what some scholars might even call the midnight or the dark night of the soul, that if we will lean into God, we can move past God just being something that I know about. I've learned the verse, I've learned the information, and it can move to transformation.
In other words, in your notes, this is what I want you to write down: I can move in this season, if I'll lean in, and perplexity. Christianity, after all, isn't just what we know. It's not.
I can move from what I know to who I know. So now, I don't have certainty about a lot of things. I'm confused. I'm not sure. But I'm not holding on to just the right answers. I'm holding on to the right God, the God that shows up with me in the middle of the fire and provides a way.
The God that even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the— even though, say even though, I am there, and it doesn't make sense, he will lead me, he will guide me, he will comfort me.
And so, I can go to this stage four, as for, if I, if I'll lean in, and I can get to this place of trust and love, where I don't have certainty, but I do have trust.
Another word for trust in the Bible is faith. Say faith. And I can learn how to start trusting the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all of your ways. Lean not on your own understanding. He will guide you. He will lead you.
I can learn how to trust. I don't have—look, the beautiful thing about stage four, love and trust, is I can become comfortable with paradox.
On one hand, I wish my dad was still here, and I can grieve that. But on the other hand, I still believe that God is here and he's good. I don't have to exchange one for the other. Both can be true.
On one hand, I wish it wasn't this way. But on the other hand, I know that God sees the beginning and the end. I don't have to hold on to one and let go of the other. It's complex. It's both and, and God right there can meet you.
And in this stage, we can grow in compassion. Be able to look at people and say, I know what you feel. I want to introduce you not just to the idea, but to the hand of God, to the help of God.
We can become unafraid of death. We're no longer paralyzed by fear, Lord. But I don't know what today holds or tomorrow. Or, Lord, there's a lot I don't know or don't understand, Lord. But I'm trusting you with not, listen, not just with my eternal life, but with my current life. Right? Right here, right now.
I remember several years ago, 2015, I'm praying. It's around December 2015. And I felt like the Lord told me that I should leave my job here at this church. I'd been youth pastor, my wife and I, for several years.
And go help my parents in Delaware that were struggling on almost every level. And I'm like, Lord, what? And so I feel this. And when people tell me God tells them something, and it's like a good thing, I'm always like, was that God?
Because God's always, he's only ever told me, like, hard things to do. I'm, like, kind of questioning, like, he told you to do. I mean, when God spoke to me, I'm like, Lord, I don't want to do that. Oh, no, I'm going to need faith.
So I told my wife, and we began to pray about it. And so we decided we have pastors. You know, pastors are real people you can talk to. And I went to my pastor, our pastor, Pastor Charlie, and said, Pastor, this is what we feel the Holy Spirit telling us.
But I believe that God, if it's really God, and it's not just the food that we ate or whatever, that he can speak to you, too. Like, he's big enough to, like, make this really clear, because we don't want to move.
And so he said, well, if you say no, like, you don't feel like God wants us to do that, I'll listen to you. You're our pastor. Or if you say go, we'll go.
So two months, about two months goes by. The longest ever, you're like, what is that? Did you forget? Like, what's happening? We're just waiting.
Finally, he calls me to his house and says, Micah, I feel like, in prayer, the Lord told me to release you guys and go help your parents. So we're excited. We're going to go. We got, you know, the Holy Spirit is on this. He's called us to go save Delaware.
I'm that ambitious. I'm like, I'm going to save everyone in Delaware. Okay? Everyone in Delaware is saved. Okay? You can mark that state off. We're going to do it.
And I'm just like, we're going to Delaware. We're going to win Delaware. And we're going to help my parents restore things. And we got there in July. We prayed up and with faith and all that.
And we, for two years, experienced loss after loss after loss after loss. With the ultimate loss being in February of 2017, we closed the doors of my dad's church.
The church he started when I was a kid. The church, my family, I didn't have a choice but to be there Wednesday night. Come on, if you grew up in church in the 90s, Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then again on Tuesday for choir practice.
You grow up in church, and we close the door, and everything has been lost. People that I grew up with that I thought were with us were not with us. You can just go through.
I remember in February, I'm in my car, and I feel like I can't breathe. You ever had a panic attack? I can't breathe. I felt like I'm dying. I'm pulled over. I don't know what's happening. Grief. Irreplaceable loss.
I came back. My wife and I, we crawled back here with nothing, with no money, with no—we lost everything. And I remember going with Pastor Charlie to Whole Foods and said, I don't know if I believe in any of this anymore.
This God I've been preaching and all that, he didn't show up for me. He didn't show up here. I prayed. You told us to go. The Holy Spirit confirmed all this. Why is this happening?
And I'm pouring out. And he looks at me. This is why, large reason why I'm still here, why we're still here. In that moment, he said, Micah, it sounds like you're being saved.
I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm bawling my eyes out in the middle of Whole Foods, and it sounds like I'm being saved?
What was he saying? He was, Pastor Charlie, rightly so, is pointing out when you get to a moment where you are finally desperate, where you are finally open, where you are crying out, it's in that moment that the Lord can meet you and rescue you.
I'm so glad that what's always been doesn't have to always be. Whatever you're carrying, whatever you're feeling, he can handle it. He wants to meet you.
So that leads us to truth number two in our notes is that if we're going to experience the help of God, we have to allow God to comfort us.
Allow God to comfort us. Jesus writes in Matthew chapter five, verse four, and he says, blessed, say blessed, are those who cry in Whole Foods, who are in the middle of this perplexity. I don't know what to do. I never thought this would be me. I never thought I would feel this way. I didn't see this coming.
He says, blessed are those who actually mourn because they will be what? Comforted.
Psalm 63, we've read David's cry out in the desert, the dry place, but a few verses later in verse eight, he says, but I cling to you. Your strong hand—whose strong hand? God's strong hand holds me securely.
Here's the question that I had this morning in my notes is how many of us have been refusing our comfort because we refuse to mourn?
We refuse to acknowledge the pain to allow God in. We'd rather hold on to bitterness.
We'd rather hold on to bitterness than hold on to faith in God. And is it possible that when we refuse to mourn, when we refuse to mourn, we withhold God's comfort?
This is the insight in your notes right there. We limit our comfort. Say limit.
When there is no real outlet for our grief and our sadness, it's okay to not be okay. God is not even just okay with your grief, with our grief; he invites it.
Remember, in 2019, I was with a counselor, her name's Ann, with a group of other pastors for 12 weeks going through a counseling program with her and shared some of my story, and I started crying a little bit. And I'm a man, so I'm like, no, I'm not crying, you're crying. Wipe away my tears.
She said, no, no, no, Micah, those are healing tears. Wow.
You know, if you're looking for a Bible verse to memorize, here it is: Jesus wept. Why? The death of his best friend, Lazarus. He didn't have a perfect little Instagram quote.
Listen, please don't be the kind of person, please. If you already have, you can repent right now, okay? But when someone's going through irreplaceable loss, grief, they don't need you to tell them how to feel about it.
I need space. I need space. I need to just—someone to sit with me, someone to cry with me. Jesus wept.
I love Psalm 34:18. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are what? Crushed in spirit. God saves.
Here's the truth in your notes. Grieving with God, it really just means I don't have to do it alone. It doesn't mean I won't grieve. It doesn't mean that I won't doubt or question.
It just means, here it is, with God, grief. If you live long enough, we'll be part of your story. But it doesn't have to be the whole story. It doesn't have to be the end of the story. Say, with God.
I love this about Job, the oldest story in the Bible. The most ancient story in the Bible is Job. And Job, it's not job, it's Job. Some of you have been calling it job. You're wrong. You're wrong.
It's the Kanye West lyric. When I thought Job was a job, you don't know Kanye, it's fine. I don't either. I've never heard of him.
Okay. And Job, what's the story of Job? It's the story of a man who lost everything. He lost his cattle. He lost his land. And for many chapters, it's not a short book. We learn what it looks like to grieve with—say with—God.
One, don't get mad at me, but I heard a comedian say, but the devil let Job keep his wife. He knew it would be harder. That's a terrible joke.
Listen, look, I don't like it either. I never would have come up with that joke. Some of you know. That's terrible.
But we learn how to grieve. Job shows us how to grieve with God. What does Job show us? He shows us in chapter one that we can praise God even in the middle of grief.
I love Job. Job's friends did a lot of things wrong, if you read the story, but we know what they did right. As soon as Job really went through losing all of his stuff, they sat with him for seven days and said nothing. They cried with him. They created space.
You know, Job chose to go through grief with God. And I love that because it's like the Bible's trying to point us to this reality. It's this human experience that we're all gonna have in the first.
The first story that shows up is a man that shows us how to do it with God. You know, in the end, you know how the story ends. Job receives what? Double everything.
Look, see, because why? Because grief, it's gonna be part of the story, but with God, it doesn't have to be the end of the story.
On the mountains, there in the valleys, he's there. When I'm sure, he's there. When I'm not, he's there.
Even though I can't feel it, you're working. Even though I don't see it, you're working. You never stop. You never stop. You never stop working. You're the way maker.
We love singing, you turn mourning to dancing, da, da, da, da. We're like, yeah, woo, I'm on day. It's a great song, turn mourning to dancing, but what about in your mourning?
I don't wanna dance. I'm gonna lay in my bed all day. I don't wanna talk to anybody, but with God, say with God, what's always been... just not have to always... just not have to.
His Spirit is a comforter. I love John 14, says, when the Father sends the comforter instead of me, and by the comforter, I mean the Holy Spirit. He will teach you much as well as remind you of everything I have told you.
Again, God is not just okay with our grief. He invites it, he comforts it, and the truth in your notes, like I've already said, is there's no way around it, but only through it, but you don't have to do it alone, which leads us to number three.
Because you already got the grief may be part of my story, but it's never the end.
Truth number three, say number three, trust that God knows. I wrestled with what this one would be, but as I've thought about it, at the end of the day, when I don't know, when I'm not sure, when I don't have the words, I have to trust that God knows.
In fact, this is what's in your notes there, is that God exists, I hope this will comfort you, he exists beyond time, before and after it, making him the only one who we can trust at all times.
When I feel it, when I don't, when it's right, when it's wrong, he's the one that exists outside of time, which means he's the only one I can trust for all, in all times.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He restores my soul, even in the valley. The shadow of death, I don't face it alone, he sees the beginning and the end, he knows more than me, he's with me, he comforts me.
I was talking to Pastor Fred about it this week, because this is a big topic, and I haven't experienced everything. I said, Pastor Fred, how did you get through losing your wife two years ago? I knew Debbie; she was amazing. I mean, how do you deal with that?
And so we started talking, I love what he said. Pastor Fred said, by the way, you might be thinking, well, that's Pastor Fred. We're human. Hello? We all struggle. We're all just trying to hold on to hope, Lord.
Know what he said? Pastor Fred says, the only thing, knowing that God knows is the only thing that has gotten me through. Knowing that he knows.
Grief Island is this place. Does anybody know? Does anybody see? Can anyone hear me? Does anybody understand?
The truth is, is God knows. God knows.
Here's the insight in your notes. Grief may never grow smaller, but we can always grow larger.
I'm not just saying that because it sounds good. It's true. The truth is, is when we get to this place of love and trust. The grief is there. Thanksgiving is going to come, and they're not going to be there.
Christmas is going to come, and that house that you've lived in, that you lost, isn't going to be there. Whatever it might be, the grief, the irreplaceable loss, it's not there, and that's going to be a part of the story.
But it doesn't have to be the whole story. There's more. We can grow larger than the grief.
Pastor Fred said, Debbie's memory in my life won't ever change. But her place in my life must.
What are we talking about? Here it is. Grief does not have to be memorialized in our lives. It doesn't need to be dealt with, or it'll deal with you.
But it doesn't need to be memorialized. Build a shrine and bow down to it every day before you leave the house. The person or the thing, it can have, and it deserves a rich place in your memory.
But it doesn't need to hold you down. It doesn't need to hold you down with the weight of grief.
With God. Say, with God. I can move forward.
I love this. Consider what the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 40. But those who trust in the Lord will become strong again.
The truth is, is we read also that Jesus bore the sins of the world on the cross in Isaiah 53. But he also bore the weight of our grief and sorrows, which means we're not designed to carry it.
That means I can carry the memory, but not the grief. If, if undealt with, here's what I'm getting to in your notes. And this is, this is the most important thing. Don't forget it.
If undealt with, if I don't allow God in, if I don't walk with God, if I don't deal with it, grief can ground me to my past and hold me from my future.
If, if, if, if I had gotten my way in 2017, I never would have come back to church. I didn't want to talk to God. I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to be a pastor.
If, if, if I had just stayed there and memorialized my grief and chained myself to the past and just sat in my anger and sat in my sadness, but with God, he can help you move forward.
You don't have to ignore it, but you can move with him. He can carry the weight. The weight's not going away. It's just placed in different hands.
And what's always been doesn't have to be. I can be set free.
John 10:10 says that the enemy came to steal, steal, kill, and destroy you. Destroy you. Kill your future. Kill your potential. Steal everything from your life.
But Jesus says, but I have come to give you life. So I don't have to stay here. Chain myself to the past. Live in my worst moments every day.
I can choose to say, Lord, on one hand, it never should have happened. And on the other hand, I'm trusting you to lead me.
On one hand, I'm sad. But on the other hand, I have joy in my heart. Because I know it's not the end of the story. I'm moving forward with you. I have faith with you.
Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. You are with me. You are for me. You're available through your spirit to help me.
And I wonder how many of us have been for years just talked to a guy in the first service. Came up to me and said, Pastor Micah, for 34 years, I've been grieving the loss of my brother who was shot and killed.
Today was the first time I felt relief.
How many of us have been, for years, chained to the grief? Not because we can't have it, but because we haven't dealt with it. And invited, here it is, invited God to walk with us hand in hand.
To show us how to live.
With God. Say with God. We have permission to acknowledge the pain. Say acknowledge.
Allow his spirit to comfort us. Say allow. And we can trust. We can trust that he knows.
Lord, thank you. Would you pray with me?
Lord, thank you. This is real. As many of us are that we're here. We're in the complexity. We're perplexed, Lord.
Give us ears to hear, Lord. We don't need to rush through it. No one's suggesting that we need to run through and just get over it, Lord, but we can.
However long it takes, hold hands with you in the middle. Love a relationship with you, not just information, but transformation.
Lord, we can trust you to lead us. Your word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our path. It might not show us the next five miles, but it shows us the next step.
Help us to walk with you. Lord, we love you. We praise you. It's in your name we pray. Amen, amen.
Would you worship with us, church?
Thank you. Well, the party continues tonight. Does anyone want to worship a little longer? Come on. We've got worship night tonight at 5:30.
If you have something on your calendar, I give you permission to move it and come to worship night tonight. It's going to be awesome. I hear Jesus is going to be in the room.
So some amazing things could happen tonight. Some healing could happen tonight. Come on. It's going to be awesome.
We also next week have a very special guest, Pastor Justin Daly from Action Church in Florida. A great church that we partner with doing amazing things for the kingdom.
We'll be here. You're not going to want to miss it. So be here next Sunday.
We also, if you have prayer, we have a hope team. We also have a prayer station over here. Those cards, we don't just put those up there and then throw them away. We actually take those and pray for them.
If there's something you want us to pray about, you can put a card on the cross. We have a hope team.
And then this is the last thing I promise, but I'm saving the best for last. Our youth ministry fires. Fire Escape has service this Wednesday, 6th through 12th grade.
Y'all are—it's a golf clap. What are you doing? It's 7 to 8:30. And we want to reach every student in Loudoun County with the good news of Jesus.
So please be out there. It's going to be great.
Come on. Can we pray as we close?
Lord, thank you so much for your love. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you that you're available. We love you, Lord. We trust. We trust you, Lord.
It's in your name we pray in everyone's name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
on Nov 10, 2024
