A few weeks ago we looked at regret. Today we look at a subset of regret, namely GRIEF, our emotional response to loss and death.

How does the basic truth of Christianity, the Gospel, inspire a different approach to grief? Let’s look at:
1) A Context FOR Grief
2) A Concentration ON Grief
3) A Confidence IN Grief

Sermon Series: Redemptive Failure| Fall and Rise of the House of David
Sermon Title: The Retreat
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 18.9-15, 31ff; 19.1-7
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A music video based on 2 Samuel 18: When David Heard, composed by Eric Whitacre, performed by 128-Man Choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1xeBvV1_iY

A Reflection Before the Service:
In 1644, Owen married Mary Rooke (d. 1675). The couple had 11 children, ten of whom died in infancy. One daughter survived to adulthood, married, and shortly thereafter died of consumption.

-- Of the great English Nonconformist scholar and church leader, John Owen (1616-1683), article on Wikapedia.com

I want to go over some old ground here, repeating what seems – in our culture, anyway – to need frequent repeating: entering into a life of faith, living a Davidic life, following Jesus, centering our life in the worship of God doesn’t exempt us from suffering. Christians get cancer in the same proportion as non-Christians. Believers are involved in as many automobile accidents as nonbelievers. When you hit your thumb with a hammer, it hurts just as much after you’ve accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior as it did before.

Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for
Everyday Christians (p. 194; 1997; Harper San Francisco)

We think the absence of pain is the goal, but God is known for allowing acute pain in service of deeper healing. Like a broken bone that must be reset, the parts of us that have learned to get by without an ever-present awareness of God’s compassionate and knowing care need to be broken afresh in order for us to be made whole again…

And when he does this, we need the old us, the one who is used to shouldering pain alone, to break down and dissolve, so that we can be healed and remade into someone who is ever expectant of and reliant upon our compassionate and faithful God.

-- Laura Andrews, “Then Comes the Breaking”; blogpost
on the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation
(CCEF) website; September 8, 2022

The Call to Worship: Isaiah 40.28ff (NLT)

Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of His understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.

But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

(Prayer)


This Week’s Bulletin:
https://parkroadpres.org/bulletins/

Keeping in Touch:
https://parkroadpres.org/contact/

Giving:
https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/57354

Church Website:
https://parkroadpres.org/

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