Livestream

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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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 a 128-man chorus: 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.


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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But if God can turn this evil in David to ultimate GOOD… then He can do so in your life and mine as well. Not all failures are redemptive but believers in Jesus Christ have a promise from God Himself that even our failures will be redeemed and will be used to set us free to love like Jesus Christ loved.

Today we look at the arena or workshop where God often performs His divine alchemy and changes the lead of our failings into the gold of Christ-likeness. That workshop is the WILDERNESS. David is in retreat and along with many of his supporters, he’s fleeing from Absalom into a place where no one cares to go – a place of pain and deprivation…where the believer sees his or her desperate need for God.

Today, the believer in Jesus Christ and the “wilderness experience”:
1) How’d it happened for David?
2) How it happens for us and what to do about it.

Sermon Series: Redemptive Failure| Fall and Rise of the House of David
Sermon Title: The Retreat
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 15.1-15, 23
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service:
Their heroic efforts at spiritual discipline manifested a deep respect for the example Jesus set. They withdrew into the desert to honor the God “incarnated in Christ.” The incarnation, in their minds, was not intended to spare them from suffering but to inspire them to choose suffering because through the incarnation suffering had become redemptive.

- Gerald L. Sittser, Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries (2007; writing about Christians from the 4th and 5th centuries who retreated into the desert)


The most wise, righteous, and gracious God often leaves, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to correct them for their former sins, or to uncover in them the hidden strength of evil and deceitfulness in their hearts. He does this so that they may be humbled and to raise them to a closer and more consistent dependence on Himself, to make them more aware of all future dangers of sin, and for various other just and holy purposes.

- The Westminster Confession of Faith; (5:5; 1647; modernized language


The Call to Worship: Psalm 145.4-10

Let each generation tell its children of Your mighty acts;
Let them proclaim Your power.
I will meditate on Your majestic, glorious splendor
And Your wonderful miracles.
Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue;
I will proclaim Your greatness.
Everyone will share the story of Your wonderful goodness;
They will sing with joy about Your righteousness.
The LORD is merciful and compassionate,
Slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
The LORD is good to everyone.
He showers compassion on all His creation.
All of Your works will thank You, LORD,
And Your faithful followers will praise You.

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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...if God can turn this evil in David to ultimate GOOD… then He can do so in your life and mine as well. Not all failures are redemptive but believers in Jesus Christ have a promise from God Himself that even our failures will be redeemed and will be used to set us free to love like Jesus Christ loved.

Today we look at the arena or workshop where God often performs His divine alchemy and changes the lead of our failings into the gold of Christ-likeness. That workshop is the WILDERNESS. David is in retreat and along with many of his supporters, he’s fleeing from Absalom into a place where no one cares to go – a place of pain and deprivation…where the believer sees his or her desperate need for God.

Today, the believer in Jesus Christ and the “wilderness experience”:
1) How’d it happened for David?
2) How it happens for us and what to do about it.

Sermon Series: Redemptive Failure| Fall and Rise of the House of David
Sermon Title: The Retreat
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 15.1-15, 23
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service:
Their heroic efforts at spiritual discipline manifested a deep respect for the example Jesus set. They withdrew into the desert to honor the God “incarnated in Christ.” The incarnation, in their minds, was not intended to spare them from suffering but to inspire them to choose suffering because through the incarnation suffering had become redemptive.

- Gerald L. Sittser, Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries (2007; writing about Christians from the 4th and 5th centuries who retreated into the desert)


The most wise, righteous, and gracious God often leaves, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to correct them for their former sins, or to uncover in them the hidden strength of evil and deceitfulness in their hearts. He does this so that they may be humbled and to raise them to a closer and more consistent dependence on Himself, to make them more aware of all future dangers of sin, and for various other just and holy purposes.

- The Westminster Confession of Faith; (5:5; 1647; modernized language


The Call to Worship: Psalm 145.4-10

Let each generation tell its children of Your mighty acts;
Let them proclaim Your power.
I will meditate on Your majestic, glorious splendor
And Your wonderful miracles.
Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue;
I will proclaim Your greatness.
Everyone will share the story of Your wonderful goodness;
They will sing with joy about Your righteousness.
The LORD is merciful and compassionate,
Slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
The LORD is good to everyone.
He showers compassion on all His creation.
All of Your works will thank You, LORD,
And Your faithful followers will praise You.


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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So, today, we look into this deeply troubled family and see in them some of the dynamics that continue to plague broken families (and ALL families are somewhat broken). Modern families, here in South Florida, still face issues of parent-child hostility, poor communication, sexual sin, distance, tension, coldness in relationships, and lack of forgiveness, warmth, and affection. These stories are relevant!

What, are the resources found in the basic idea behind Christianity – what do we find in the Gospel that we can draw upon to help us – to save us – from these issues that are so destructive? Is the message of Jesus and His great achievement… is there help in it for US and for people struggling with family brokenness?

Let’s look at:
1. A Homecoming Contrived
2. A Homecoming Complete
3. A Homecoming Current (Complex, Complicated)

Sermon Series: Redemptive Failure | The Fall and Rise of the House of David
Sermon Title: The Proud Father (and a Failed Homecoming)
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 14.12-14, 23ff
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service:
Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart.
-- St. Paul, the Apostle, Letter to the Colossians (CH 3, v.21)

The more I reflect on the elder son in me, the more I realize how deeply rooted this form of lostness really is and how hard it is to return home from there. Returning home from a lustful escapade seems so much easier than returning home from a cold anger that has rooted itself in the deepest corners of my being. My resentment is not something that can be easily distinguished and dealt with rationally. It is far more pernicious: something that has attached itself to the underside of my virtue. Isn’t it good to be obedient, dutiful, law-abiding, hardworking, and self-sacrificing? And still it seems that my resentments and complaints are mysteriously tied to such praiseworthy attitudes.… It seems that wherever my virtuous self is, there also is the resentful complainer.
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are the obvious signs that I have left home. And that happens quite easily. When I pay careful attention to what goes on in my mind from moment to moment, I come to the disconcerting discovery that there are very few moments during the day when I am really free from these dark emotions, passions and feelings.

Constantly falling back into an old trap, before I am even fully aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn't pay attention to me. Without realizing it, I find myself brooding about someone else's success, my own loneliness, and the way the world abuses me. Despite my conscious intentions, I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and very famous. All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a "distant country.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming


The Call to Worship: Romans 15.4-7, 13
For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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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So, today, we look into this deeply troubled family and see in them some of the dynamics that continue to plague broken families (and ALL families are somewhat broken). Modern families, here in South Florida, still face issues of parent-child hostility, poor communication, sexual sin, distance, tension, coldness in relationships, and lack of forgiveness, warmth, and affection. These stories are relevant!

What, are the resources found in the basic idea behind Christianity – what do we find in the Gospel that we can draw upon to help us – to save us – from these issues that are so destructive? Is the message of Jesus and His great achievement ...is there help in it for US and for people struggling with family brokenness?

Let’s look at:
1. A Homecoming Contrived
2. A Homecoming Complete
3. A Homecoming Current (Complex, Complicated)

Sermon Series: Redemptive Failure| Fall and Rise of the House of David
Sermon Title: The Proud Father (and a Failed Homecoming)
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 14.12-14, 23ff
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service:
Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart.
-- St. Paul, the Apostle, Letter to the Colossians (CH 3, v.21)

The more I reflect on the elder son in me, the more I realize how deeply rooted this form of lostness really is and how hard it is to return home from there. Returning home from a lustful escapade seems so much easier than returning home from a cold anger that has rooted itself in the deepest corners of my being. My resentment is not something that can be easily distinguished and dealt with rationally. It is far more pernicious: something that has attached itself to the underside of my virtue. Isn’t it good to be obedient, dutiful, law-abiding, hardworking, and self-sacrificing? And still it seems that my resentments and complaints are mysteriously tied to such praiseworthy attitudes.… It seems that wherever my virtuous self is, there also is the resentful complainer.
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are the obvious signs that I have left home. And that happens quite easily. When I pay careful attention to what goes on in my mind from moment to moment, I come to the disconcerting discovery that there are very few moments during the day when I am really free from these dark emotions, passions and feelings.

Constantly falling back into an old trap, before I am even fully aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn't pay attention to me. Without realizing it, I find myself brooding about someone else's success, my own loneliness, and the way the world abuses me. Despite my conscious intentions, I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and very famous. All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a "distant country.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming


The Call to Worship: Romans 15.4-7, 13
For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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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Today: the Gospel and the desire to see people pay for their crimes:
1) Anger in a Vacuum
2) Apathy and Vigilantism
3) Assurance of Ultimate Vengeance

Sermon Series: Redemptive Failure | The Fall and Rise of the House of David
Sermon Title: Domestic Distress
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 13:17ff
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service:
Two wrongs don’t make a right but three lefts do.
-Anonymous

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
-- Liam Neeson, playing the character, Bryan Mills,
in the 2008 film Taken directed by Pierre Morel


The narrator of the story refuses to idealize David, to set him above our common humanity in any way. Putting people on pedestals is a way of not having to deal with them (and the God who is working in them) in regular life. Telling a story theologically (as this story is told) does not mean dressing it up in Sunday best. It is absolutely essential that we acquire a sense of our common God-created, Jesus-saved, and Spirit-blessed selves that is unedited, unabridged, and unblinking. These final episodes in the David story make sure that we get the whole story, not just the so-called “inspiring” parts.
-- Eugene H. Peterson, First and Second Samuel (p. 190; 1999)

The Call to Worship: Psalm 103.1-6 (A psalm of David) (ESV)
Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart,
I will praise His holy Name.
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
may I never forget the good things He does for me.
He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle's!

The LORD gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly.

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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Today: the Gospel and the desire to see people pay for their crimes:
1) Anger in a Vacuum
2) Apathy and Vigilantism
3) Assurance of Ultimate Vengeance

Sermon Series: Redemptive Failure | The Fall and RIse of the House of David
Sermon Title: Domestic Distress
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 13
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service:
Two wrongs don’t make a right but three lefts do.
-Anonymous

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
-- Liam Neeson, playing the character, Bryan Mills,
in the 2008 film Taken directed by Pierre Morel


The narrator of the story refuses to idealize David, to set him above our common humanity in any way. Putting people on pedestals is a way of not having to deal with them (and the God who is working in them) in regular life. Telling a story theologically (as this story is told) does not mean dressing it up in Sunday best. It is absolutely essential that we acquire a sense of our common God-created, Jesus-saved, and Spirit-blessed selves that is unedited, unabridged, and unblinking. These final episodes in the David story make sure that we get the whole story, not just the so-called “inspiring” parts.
-- Eugene H. Peterson, First and Second Samuel (p. 190; 1999)

The Call to Worship: Psalm 103.1-6 (A psalm of David) (ESV)
Let all that I am praise the LORD; with my whole heart,
I will praise His holy Name.
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
may I never forget the good things He does for me.
He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle's!

The LORD gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly.

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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Sermon Title: The Child of Regret
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 12.13ff
Delivered by: Pastor T.J. Campo
Park Road Presbyterian Church

A Reflection Before the Service:
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

― William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

There's a valley of sorrow in my soul
Where every night I hear the thunder roll
Like the sound of a distant gun
Over all the damage I have done

And the shadows filling up this land
Are the ones I’ve built with my own hand
There is no comfort from the cold
Of this valley of sorrow in my soul

― Emmylou Harris, “Prayer in Open D” from the 1993 album Cowgirl’s Prayer

God does not desire suffering as an end in itself, I am sure. But all suffering is so expensive he will not let it be wasted. He will use it for his children’s growth. The first purpose of our lives must be, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” This is never a passive statement of endurance or of mere agreement to submit to whatever happens. It is a positive statement of the will to reach out for that which will bring glory to God. I am also sure that the greatest prayer we can pray is, “Whatever brings the greatest glory to God, I want it, even if it brings suffering and loss to me.”

― Anna B. Mow, Two or Ninety-two: For Youngsters and Oldsters and Those Who Care for Them (2001)

The Call to Worship: Psalm 106.47-48
Reader: Save us, O LORD our God,
And gather us from among the nations,
To give thanks to Your holy name
And glory in Your praise.
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
From everlasting even to everlasting.
And let all the people say,

People: Amen!

Reader: Praise the LORD!

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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