Biblical Directives for Godly Grieving, Part 2

Review of Foundational Principles for Godly Grieving

0:00 Last Lord's Day morning, I preached to you the first message of what will be a three-sermon series of messages on the theme, Biblical Directives for Godly Grieving, subtitled Gleanings from a Grieving Heart. Since the death of my beloved wife on September 20th, I have been seeking to grieve over her death in a way that glorifies God, honors her, and is consistent with the biblical doctrine of sanctified grief over the loss of a dearly loved one who dies in the Lord. By way of review, I began by asserting that there are three foundational principles that must be firmly grasped if we are to manage. And express our grief over the loss of a dearly loved one who has died in the Lord. That's the narrow focus of my concern in this brief series of sermons, three foundational principles that we must firmly grasp.

1:18 Number one, we must know and firmly believe what the scriptures teach concerning the present location and condition. Number two, we must know and firmly believe what the scriptures teach concerning the present location and condition. They are, according to the scriptures, in the immediate presence of Christ. They have been totally conformed to the moral likeness of Christ.

1:46 They have joined the company of all of the people of Christ. And they have entered into the promised rest of Christ. And we must know and firmly believe those realities. If we are to grieve to the glory of God.

2:05 Secondly, we must know and believe that our emotions are not to exercise ultimate authority over us. And we looked at the scriptures that clearly teach that. And thirdly, we must know and firmly believe that we have a responsibility to manage the direction and the focus of our thoughts in the grieving process. God holds us responsible for managing our thoughts in terms of their direction and their focus.

2:41 And again, I demonstrated this from the scriptures. And then with these foundational principles undergirding and supporting all that followed, I set before you five guidelines for the direction and focus of our thoughts that we might, by the blessing and help of the Lord, be able to achieve. And we must know and firmly believe that our emotions are not to exercise ultimate authority over us. And secondly, we must know and fully believe that our emotions are not to exercise ultimate authority over us.

3:04 But to grieve to the glory of God when we have lost a dearly loved one who has died in Christ. Here are the five things that we looked upon supporting them with many scriptures. We must think more upon what Jesus has gained than upon that which we have lost. Secondly, we must think more over our emotions.

3:30 and firmly believe that we have a responsibility to manage our emotions. And secondly, we must know and firmly believe that our emotions are not to exercise ultimate authority over us. our loved one has gained than of what we have lost. Thirdly, we must think of the hope that we share in common with the loved one who has gone from us. Fourthly, we must think of what God will do through us as a result of what he is doing for us in our grief. And fifthly, we must think of what we are gaining because of the loss of our loved one. If you are not here for that exposition, I commend the tape, the CD, if you've got a computer, download it from the internet. But I urge you to get these things firmly fixed in your mind and heart, because if you're a child of God, sooner or later you're going to face this situation in which,

Doctrine is for Dying and Death: Theology for Graveside Grief

4:26 As a child of God, you will want to glorify God in your grief, a grief precipitated by the loss of a dearly loved one. Now today, in this second message on the broad theme of biblical directives for godly grieving, I want to focus on the subject, Doctrine is for Dying and Death. Doctrine is for Dying and Death, or if you will, Theology is for Graveside Grief. You say, Pastor, that sounds like strange stuff. Well, it may, but it's not unwarranted. Doctrine is for Dying and Death, and Theology is for Graveside Grief. In the preface to his most helpful book entitled Concise Theology, subtitled A Guide to History, he writes, As I often tell my students, Theology is for doxology and devotion. That is, Theology

5:44 is for the praise of God and the practice of godliness, and with a shared conviction of this reality that Theology is for doxology. What we know of God and of his ways is to bring us to praise that God in his ways, and is for godliness. We are concerned with godly grieving, and I am asserting that Theology is for graveside grief, that Doctrine is for dying and for death. And surely, if the things revealed in the word of God that we call Doctrine and Theology leave us bewildered, we will not be able to do the same thing. We will not be able to do the same thing. And we will not be able to do the same thing. And we will not be able to do the same thing. And we will not be able to do the same thing.

6:32 But the ultimate reality of death, what use is it? But just the opposite is true. Those grand truths of the word of God that we call Christian doctrine, Christian theology, mined out of a careful responsible exposition of the various portions of the word of God related to any given subject, I say, Doctrine in its own right. Doctrine in its own right.

7:01 is for dying and for death, and theology is for graveside grief. Now, by the words doctrine or theology, I mean the teaching of the Word of God on any given subject addressed by the Bible, reduced to its distilled essence in a balanced way. So when I'm speaking of doctrine or theology, I'm speaking of the teaching of the Word of God on any given subject addressed by the Bible, reduced to its distilled essence in a balanced way. As time permits, I want to demonstrate that it is only as we understand and hold in the death grip of an active faith certain biblical doctrines or strands of biblical theology that we will be able to grieve in a God-honoring way and to grieve in a God-honoring way and to grieve in a God-honoring way and to grieve in a God-honoring way. over the loss of our dear ones who have died. What I'm saying is this. When God willing, in a short time, I will stand on the plotted ground in Pompton Plains this afternoon where the remains of my loved one have been placed.

8:21 I will grieve.

8:25 I've never been able to stand there without shedding profuse tears. But if I'm to grieve to the glory of God, my theology, my theology must be there before my mind's eye and must be held in the death grip of faith. That's what I'm saying. If I am to grieve to the glory of God.

8:49 Now, God willing, I want to look at three of those strands of theology or doctrine this morning and then another three next Lord's Day morning, God permitting.

Clinging to a Right Doctrine of God

9:00 So here they are. Here's the first. Clinging to a God. The right doctrine of God with the death grip of faith is crucial to godly grieving over the loss of a dearly loved one who has died in Christ.

9:20 Or more simply stated, if we would grieve to the glory of God, we must cling to a right doctrine of God. Now, I've used the term cling in a death grip. Yes?

9:36 All right.

9:38 Take the shorter one, Leslie. If we would grieve to the glory of God, we must cling to a right doctrine of God.

9:49 Now, when I use the term death grip, and I'm going to use it continually, I'm using it to underscore that these things must not be shelf doctrines to us. Things to which we may point when questioned about what we believe and say, Oh, yes, I believe that. It's there. It's there on page 17 of the 1689 Confession.

10:11 I believe that. When I say death grip, I'm referring to what we've all seen in some of those old B-Western movies. When the cowboy who's the hero comes to the edge of the cliff, and the Indian's coming after him, and he slips, and he's starting down the cliff, and he's going to be smashed into pieces at the bottom of the ravine, and lo and behold, there's this little branch sticking out through the rocks, and he grabs it, and he holds on, and he's done with what? A death grip.

10:42 He knows that to release his grasp upon that little shoot or branch of a tree is to spell his own death. What I am saying is that these are the doctrines which we as the people of God must hold with the death grip of faith if we are to grieve to the glory of God in the face of the law, in the face of the loss of a dearly loved one who has died in Christ. Now, what is the right doctrine of God? Whole volumes have been written by devout men who love their Bibles and love the God revealed in the Bible on the nature and the attributes of God. Often they have strived to divide His attributes, His characteristics into His communicable, that is, the kind of characteristics that human beings, beings may imitate and assimilate by grace, and the incommunicable, those that are peculiar to God Himself. And there are all kinds of approaches to the effort to set forth who the God of the Bible is. But I'm thinking at a much more elementary and simple level.

11:58 The Shorter Catechism asks the question, What is God? And the answer to question four of the Shorter Catechism is this. God is a spirit. Infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being.

12:17 Wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

12:26 And I would add two words to that.

12:31 Yes, God is a spirit. John 4, 24. Infinite, He has no bounds. Eternal, He always was and always shall.

12:41 Unchangeable, I am the Lord. I change not. Malachi 3, 6. What He has always been, He is and ever shall be.

12:51 God is a spirit. Infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His very being. And in His being, He is marked primarily by wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. To which I would add sovereignty and love.

13:13 That is, He is a God who can say of Himself,

13:18 Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He has pleased. Psalm 115, in verse 3. Or Daniel 4, 35.

13:30 Nebuchadnezzar, speaking of the God whom he's come to know in the strange providential dealings of God with him, he says, Now I know that this is the true God, and this God does according to His will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What are you doing? Or the God in Ephesians 1, 11, who is described this way, who works all things after the counsel of His own will. Works all things after the counsel of His own will. Or Romans 11, 36.

14:09 For of Him, in sovereign decree and purpose, and through His will, through Him in the execution of that purpose, in an all-embracing, sovereign control, of Him, through Him, and unto Him are all things to whom be glory forever and forever. And what I'm saying is this, that if we are to grieve in a godly manner, when God is pleased to take from us a dearly loved one, we will do so if we are, bound clinging to a right doctrine of God in the death grip of faith.

Job's Example of Worshiping the Giving and Taking God

14:55 And I want to illustrate this in a very special way from the life of Job. I want you to turn to the first chapter of the book of Job.

15:13 You'll remember the story, most of you. Job was a wealthy man. He and his wife were very fruitful. His parents, he had ten children.

15:24 And on a given day, verse 13 of chapter, when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house, there came a messenger to Job saying, the oxen were plowing in the asses, feeding beside them, and the Sabaeans fell upon them and took them away. Yes, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell you. And while he was yet speaking, there came another and said, the fire of God has fallen from heaven, has burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I only am escaped, to tell you. And while he was yet speaking, there came another and said, the Chaldeans made three bands and fell upon the camels, have taken them away, yes, and the slain of your servants with, the slain your servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell you. And while he was yet speaking, there came also another and said, your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house. And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the house. It fell upon the young men, and they are dead, and I only am escaped alone to tell you.

16:39 In one day, one messenger after another, all of your earthly possessions and earthly wealth wiped out, and then all of your children, all of your sons, they're gone. They're gone. What in the world does a man do?

16:57 But look what Job did. Then Job arose, rent his robe, and shaved his head. Those were the symbols of the most intense kind of grief. These were the pointers that a man was entering a period of deep mourning.

17:19 So he rents his robe, shaves his head, fell down upon the ground, and what did he do? It says he worshipped. He worshipped. He worships the God, this God who has permitted all of this devastation in a day, culminating in the loss of his own flesh and blood.

17:44 And he worships this God. And notice what the language of his worship was. And he said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. I had nothing when I came into the world.

18:01 Therefore, whatever I had was God's gracious gift to me. I came out naked. Therefore, all of my sheep and all of my oxen and all of my possessions and all of my children were God's sovereign gifts to me. I came out naked.

18:19 I'm going to go out naked. Whatever I have between the two states of nakedness is all of God's mercy and God's grace. And God's sovereign kindness.

18:32 Naked came I out. Naked I will go. Now notice. The Lord gave.

18:41 And the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of Jehovah.

18:51 The name of Jehovah is the revelation of the character and the being of Jehovah. And he says, I worship Jehovah as the giving and the taking God. He does not merely worship him as the giving God. His worship focuses upon the giving and the taking God.

19:19 And therefore it says, In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolish. There is no questioning of God at this point. There is no charging of God with unfairness. All that he had, including his children, were gifts of grace from the hand of a sovereign God.

19:44 And when God chooses to take them, he worships the giving and the taking God. His doctrine of God kept him stable in the face of crushing grief.

20:04 And as long as I have rationality, I shall never forget the morning in my study, shortly after God took my beloved. When I worshipped him for all that he gave me in that gracious woman, I worshipped him for all that he gave me. And I enumerated one thing after another that God gave me in her. But when I was able to worship him for taking her, my heart was free.

20:41 And it was safe. It was safe from all the accusations of the enemy concerning my God.

20:51 For I never deserved what he gave. It was all given in free, sovereign grace and wisdom. And the giving God has a right to be the taking God. And when we can worship him, because he is what?

21:09 Infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, truth, sovereignty, and love.

21:25 Our hearts are safe. Our hearts are safe. And God is glorified. And the mouth of the devil is shut who had gone to God in his very presence and says, Ha!

21:38 Job's a mercenary. Yeah, he doesn't serve you for naught. Look at all the goodies you give him. Take his goodies away.

21:45 And watch what he'll do.

21:48 The devil had to watch what Job did. He fell on his face and he worshipped. He kissed the feet of a taking God, knowing that nothing in that God had changed in his taking. My dear brothers and sisters, it is the most exquisitely blessed state of mind and heart to know that nothing in God changes in his taking.

David's Example of Worshiping God in Loss

22:21 He's infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, his wisdom, his sovereignty, and his love. And surely that was something of what David experienced in 2 Samuel chapter 12. 2 Samuel chapter 12. Do you remember the story?

22:46 The prophet Nathan has come and indicted David for his sin. With Bathsheba and with Uriah.

22:55 And God has said, because this sin is scandalous before the whole nation, he's going to take the life of the child who was the product of that adulterous relationship.

23:07 But David understood that often God's pronouncements of judgment are a backhanded call to mercy. Remember with Nineveh, the prophet goes and says, 40 days, Nineveh shall be overthrown. And the whole city falls upon its face. In penitence and cries to God.

23:26 And God averts judgment for I think 150 years. David knows that sometimes the pronouncement of judgment is a backhanded call for the display of mercy. So David fasts and David prays for days. And now we read in 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 18, it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died.

23:51 The servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead. For they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him and he hearkened not unto our voices. How will he then vex himself if we tell him the child is dead? If he carried on like this while the child still had breath, what will he do if we tell him the child no longer breathes?

24:10 The child is dead. But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived the child was dead. And David said to his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.

24:23 Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself, changed his apparel and came to the house of the Lord and worshipped and worshipped and worshipped. He said, God is worthy to be praised. Nothing in God has changed when he's taken the life of this child. And though we might say, Well, David had it coming to him.

24:52 It was divine chastisement. My friend David was no stoic, no heartless man. That was still his child. The fact that he fasted and wept and pleaded for seven days that God might spare the child shows something of the measure of his bonding and love for that little one.

25:12 But when God takes the little one and makes his will known, David worships. David worships in the house of God because he knows that nothing in God has changed. When God has taken away this dearly loved one. If we allow the death of a dearly loved one to cast the least shadow over the character of God and doubt his rights to do what he has done, his love that lies beneath and behind and surrounds all that he does, his wisdom that orders what he does, you allow doubts concerning God's love. You allow doubts concerning God's ability to do otherwise. His love in doing what he's done or his wisdom and there will be distance between you and God. I can't draw near to a God who is helpless, unloving, or unwise.

26:13 Can you?

26:16 A helpless, unloving, unwise God is repulsive.

26:22 You want to put distance between you and God? Entertain thoughts that he's something other than sovereign, something other than loving. And something other than wise. And you will succeed.

26:36 But when through your briny tears you can fall before this God and say, Oh God, thou art utterly, absolutely, and righteously sovereign. You do according to your will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. You are utterly, eternally, unquestionably loving for your word says in 1 John 4, 8 and 4, 4, 17 God is love. Love is of the very essence of your being.

27:09 And you are wise. You choose the best way to accomplish the highest ends.

27:18 You can embrace a God like that and say, You are my Father. Oh Father, let me weep on your shoulder. Father, let me pour out my broken heart into your ear. And you draw near.

27:34 To a God like that in the midst of your grief.

27:40 You hear me?

27:42 You allow the devil to put a slight gray question mark over the character of God because of the loved one he has taken. And it's all over as far as drawing near to that God and find consolation and comfort. We will distance ourselves from an impotent, unloving, unwise God. But we will never feel ourselves more desirous to draw near to our God than when we know Him to be utterly sovereign, loving, and wise.

Application: Faith Tested in Untimely Deaths

28:21 Even when He takes away from us the most dearly loved creature on the face of the earth. Now I know, and I say this by way of application, that our faith in such circumstances, our faith in the unchanging, unchangeable character of God will be tested in direct proportion to the degree of abnormality and untimeliness of the death of a dearly loved one.

28:53 We're all going to live but our 70 or 80 plus years when God takes an infant. There's something abnormal and untimely in that act of God. When with Job, God takes all of your children in the prime of life. When God takes a young man who is committed to serve His country, has had the finest of training, and lets his body get riddled with cancer in his brain, in his spine, and all through his vital organs.

29:29 It is untimely.

29:34 And it's in those circumstances that our faith is most tested.

29:41 But dear people of God, should untimely, abnormal deaths come to dearly loved ones, remember what you heard this morning. Cling with a death grip to the biblical doctrine of God. He is eternal, unchangeable in His being, in His wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, truth, sovereignty, and love.

30:10 And find your consolation in the embrace of that God in the face of those dark realities. Remember this was part of the problem with Martha. Lord, if only you'd been here, my brother hadn't died.

30:31 Your timing, Lord, was off.

30:36 But then her faith breaks through. But I know whatever you ask God, He'll give you. I know you can raise Him. But Lord, if only you'd been here, He wouldn't have died.

30:42 The reason He's dead is your timing was off, Lord.

30:47 I had to struggle with that.

30:50 Why didn't that oncologist way back when my loved one had an ovarian tumor and it was so bad, it was cancerous in the center, why didn't he do more than just order periodic CAT scans?

31:05 And I said, Lord, the reason he didn't is because you were ordering everything pertaining to the development of those tumors that would eventually take her home and I worship you. Now you're free. You still grieve. The tears still freely flow.

Clinging to a Right Doctrine of Man

31:28 But they're not tears that cause you to have distance between you and your God. Cling to a right doctrine of God in the death grip of faith if you would grieve to the glory of God. Secondly, clinging to a right doctrine of man with the death grip of faith is crucial to godly grieving at the loss of a dearly loved one who dies in Christ. Clinging to a right doctrine of man is, is equally vital to grieving to the glory of God.

32:11 Now what do I mean by that? Simply this. According to the scriptures, we must view ourselves as believers and those who have died in Christ in the light of that threefold biblical perspective that's true of us. We must see ourselves as originally created in Adam in the image of God, upright and righteous, with no internal disposition towards sin, no guilt, no pollution, no pressure of soul in the direction of sin.

32:45 We must view ourselves as we were in our original integrity, man as created. We must view ourselves as we are fallen in Adam, Romans 5, 12, wherefore as through one man sin entered into the world in death by sin for that all sinned, 1 Corinthians 15, 22, as in Adam all die, we must understand who we are as fallen and as fallen and sinful and polluted, guilty and vile, helpless to rescue ourselves. Death is part of that experience of our fallenness. Don't believe the modern scuttlebutt that death is an ordinary, natural part of life. It isn't. Death is the intrusion of sin.

33:41 Well, people say, well, everybody dies. Yes, but why? Not because death is a normal part of life. It's because death is this unwelcome intruder as the result of sin.

33:53 And if we would grieve as we ought, we must think biblically. Be not conformed to this world. Don't allow the world's talk to infect your mind. No, in Adam, we were upright.

34:07 We were right, sinless, righteous. In Adam, we sinned and fell and are in a state of guilt and pollution. But thirdly, as redeemed, we must think of ourselves as we are created, fallen, and redeemed in our union with Christ. Our sins are forgiven.

34:28 We are justified, regenerated, indwelt by the Spirit, marked for eternal life, but not immune from death. Death no longer as the wages of sin. Death no longer as God's sentence from the court with unresolved guilt. But death now as a discipline that frees us to go into His presence with our spirits and join the company of just men made perfect so that we can, if we're thinking biblically, even say death is, now our possession in Christ.

35:11 Oh, Pastor, where do you get that? Right out of my Bible. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 21. Wherefore let no one glory in men for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all, are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's.

35:44 One of the most amazing statements in all of the Bible. The last great enemy, that wretched intruder that rips apart lifelong relationships, that rips a baby out of the arms of its mother and its father, that rips a young promising son from the circle of the family and ships him back from Iraq in a car, in a box. Horrible last enemy. But this text says, death is mine if I'm in Christ.

36:20 Death is mine. Death has become mine. My servant. And all it can do in the language that I think I quoted a few weeks ago that I saw on a tombstone over in Scotland with one of the covenanters where death is likened as that instrument by which the saints of God are chased up to heaven.

36:44 Death is mine. Mine. And all it can do to me in Christ is chase me up to heaven.

36:53 That's why Luther said, he who does not die, face death with confidence is yet to become much of a Christian.

37:03 Look the last enemy straight in the eye and say, look, I know my God in the scheme of redemption has not yet purposed to put you down forever. You have been destroyed in principle. You have been destroyed in the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection. But God's allowing you some time to pick us off one by one and put us in a grave with physical death.

37:27 But that's all you can do and in so doing you chase our spirits up to heaven. When you can look at the last enemy that way death is yours. Death is yours. You don't need to talk in hush-hush terms about it.

37:42 We don't need to try to think it away and rationalize it away. We don't need to rationalize it away. We don't need to rationalize it away. We don't need to rationalize it away.

37:46 We don't need to rationalize it away. We don't need to rationalize it away and ignore it away. No. Death is stalking every single one of us.

37:54 It's wonderful to be able to look your stalker straight in the eye and say, look, Mr. Death, I know what you can do to me and what you can't do to me. You're mine. I'm not yours.

38:05 Isn't that wonderful?

38:08 I don't know. I don't hear any hallelujahs. So look death in the eye and say, I'm not yours. You're mine.

38:14 My Bible says whether life or death, they're mine. Mr. Death, you're mine to be taken, to be done with what you want. You're mine to do with me what my Savior says you can do and no more.

38:35 No more. That's why the text in Revelation 14, 13 says, Blessed, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth. Set the spirit that they may rest from their labors. Death is then a blessing a blessed experience for those who are in the Lord.

39:02 The act of dying may be horrible, painful, filled with ominous overtones. But at the end of the day, you and I need to think biblically and cling to a right doctrine of man in the death grip of faith. If we are to respond with godly grief, to the death of our dearly loved ones.

Application: Accepting Inevitability and Legitimacy of Grief

39:32 This is crucial because we will then, let me give several lines of application, we will accept the inevitability not only of our death but the death of our loved ones.

39:48 We will accept the inevitability. It is appointed unto men once to die. Hebrews 9, 27. Psalm 90, 10.

39:56 The days of our years are 70. If by reason of strength they are 80. I can remember my wife's again and again saying when people would say, oh but Mrs. Martin you've got so much more work to do and your husband and she would say, look, I've lived out my three score and 10.

40:13 I'm 73.

40:16 If by reason of strength for God's taken away my strength with the cancer, God doesn't owe me 80 years. I can't be arm twisting God to heal me. I've lived to see our 48th birthday. I've lived to see my husband's 70th birthday and she would start enumerating all the things she's thankful she lived to see and experience.

40:40 She embraced the inevitability of her death. Some of you haven't yet done that.

40:47 You've imbibed the American mentality. We're going to live forever in the golden years. There are going to be golden decades. I've got news for you.

40:57 I've got news for you. With the so-called golden years come the things that take you to your grave. If you don't believe it, switch places with my wife and me for some time. For six months when you get in the cancer world and see the people that come in and out of the doctor's office and out of the clinics and you recognize it's appointed unto men once to die.

41:26 A biblical doctrine of man will help us to embrace the inevitability of our death and the death of our loved ones and therefore our grief will be chastened by that reality and it will not be excessive as though God has allowed some strange and unexpected thing to intrude upon us. No! It's only strange and unexpected if we have just shoved it out of our minds and lived in a never-never land that we're going to live forever and have the good American life.

42:03 Furthermore, we will then acknowledge the legitimacy of grief and grieving in the presence of death. We will acknowledge the legitimacy of grief and grieving in the presence of death if we have a biblical doctrine of man. You see, our capacity to grieve is part of the image of God in us and in a very real sense our grief is a dimension and an expression of the depth of our love. I want you to look at two texts with me that clearly indicate this.

42:36 Our grief is an expression and manifestation of the depth of our love to those who have been taken from us. Turn to Acts when that noble godly man Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr. What happens? And it's interesting.

42:57 It's evident that Stephen knew he was passing immediately into the presence of Christ. Verse 60 of Acts 7. He kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge. And when he said this, he fell asleep.

43:15 And what were the words on his lips as he fell asleep? Verse 59. They stoned Stephen calling on the Lord and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Stephen was conscious that when the pummeling of the stones would be sufficient to take away his life, all those stones could do was chase him up to Jesus.

43:37 Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. So they were not foggy about his going immediately into the presence of Christ. But when he lay there lifeless and they came to take care of his lifeless body, what did they do? Look at Acts 8.2.

43:56 Devout men buried Stephen and made great mega lamentation or weeping over him. They made great lamentation. Why? Because they had no biblical view of where Stephen was?

44:15 No! But because they so loved him and the depth of their love was manifested in the depth of their lamentation and their grief. The same is true of our Lord Jesus by the grave side of Lazarus. You remember the story.

44:32 The Lord Jesus knows that in but a few minutes he's going to raise Lazarus from his grave.

44:40 He delayed his coming not because he was indifferent to their grief but because he was going to add to their joy in ways they never anticipated. But we read in John chapter 11 that the Lord says in verse 34 where have you laid him and they said unto him Lord come and see Jesus wept on his way to the grave side of Lazarus Jesus wept the Jews therefore said behold how he loved them behold how he loved them they read the measure of his love and the reality and measure of his grief. You see and when you have a biblical doctrine of man you're comfortable with your grief.

45:36 You're not embarrassed by your grief. You're comfortable with your grief and we need to be comfortable with one another's grief or we will have a climate in which it will not be easy to weep with those who weep. Are you comfortable with a grieving brother or sister? If not I'd be willing to say you're not comfortable with your own grief.

45:57 I remember sitting at the table during the pastor's conference which was just a couple of weeks after my loved one's home going and the men were talking about something that led very naturally to speaking of my wife and I sat there and wept shared my tears with those men and then I said this as they were about to leave because I felt they needed this lesson. I said now brethren you notice I've not apologized for my tears I didn't say excuse me I'm sorry. They said no pastor we're glad you didn't. I said I won't.

46:29 I would be untrue to who I am as a man. God made me a man in his image and though my emotions with my will and judgment and affections all fell in Adam and became stained and twisted and polluted they're being renewed and refined in Christ by the power of the Spirit and for me to weep and to show grief is to be fully human in Christ.

47:04 You see how critical a biblical doctrine of man is. But are we as created fallen yes but redeemed so that now my grieving can be the very occasion of the precipitation of a manifestation of corporate love among the people of God as we grieve with those who grieve and rejoice with those who rejoice. Never forget this. I told the men in the academy this time after time grace does not war with unfallen nature it only wars with sin.

47:44 Grace doesn't war with nature only with sin.

Clinging to a Right Doctrine of Christ: His Person

47:53 And so a biblical doctrine of man we will accept the inevitability of death we'll acknowledge the legitimacy of grief and we will embrace the certainty of hope. Hope as I said last week is a longing and confident expectation of a promised but yet not experienced blessing of salvation. A longing for and a confident expectation of a promised but not yet experienced blessing of salvation in Christ. And though I'll say more of this under another head of theology or doctrine I want to say this much now.

48:38 When we have a biblical view of man as created fallen and redeemed you may not be privileged to hold the lifeless body of your loved one but you will stand over the plot of ground where those remains have been placed. And when you've got a biblical doctrine of man that you're clinging to in a death grip there is a thrill that makes you want to shout and dance in the midst of the weeping of your grief. This grave won't hold her forever.

49:16 A moment is coming in human life in history when that grave will give her up. The voice of the archangel the trump of God the clouds that will envelop the entourage of Jesus when he returns. And that's why on her tombstone will be etched these words she sleeps in Jesus until his return when she will arise from this her resurrection bed. Hope when we're thinking biblically about man fallen created fallen but redeemed.

50:05 But then thirdly and finally for this morning theology is for graveside grieving.

50:16 Doctrine is for dying and death not only as we cling with the death grip to a biblical doctrine of God cling with a death grip to the biblical doctrine of God man but clinging with a death grip to a right doctrine of Christ is also crucial to godly grieving.

50:43 Would you grieve in the face of the loss of a dearly loved one who's died in Christ then I exhort you cling with a death grip to a right doctrine of Christ and a right doctrine of Christ is a doctrine of Christ that understands what the scripture says concerning his person who is he and his work what does he do as our redeemer. Question 21 of the shorter catechism who is the redeemer of God's elect and that question focuses not on his work but his person. The only redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ who being the eternal son of God became man and so was and continues to be both God and man in one in two distinct natures and one person forever. When I said doctrine is the teaching of the word of God presented in its distilled essence in a balanced way my dear friends that is the most profound non-inspired statement on the person of Christ that you can find. Who is the redeemer? Who is this Jesus whom I trust?

52:06 What is the nature of his person? Well the only redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ who being the eternal son of God became man and so was and continues to be both God and man in two distinct natures but in one person forever. Now why is clinging with a death grip to this doctrine about his person essential to godly grieving? Well let me answer that question.

52:41 If he is not truly God then how in the world can he either know about or do anything for my grief? I mean there's grieving people all over the world. This is one of the things that cured me very early of any thought of Mary being co-redemptrix unless you're going to make her God. How can Mary hear all the prayers of all the faithful all around the world all at once?

53:06 Any mother gets three kids hollering for something at once and she's ready to tear her hair out.

53:14 Holy Mary mother of God hear it. Wait a minute unless you're going to make her God how is she going to hear and sort out and attend? You see if Jesus is not fully and truly God I'm not the only saint on the face of the earth grieving who's lost a dearly loved one. There are millions of them where death has come and ripped their hearts open.

53:39 How can I know that among those millions I have him all to myself like I'm the only one grieving because he's God and God is in his essential being infinite eternal Christ shares in all the attributes of true undiluted Godhead.

54:03 Therefore if I have a redeemer who was and continues to be God then my grief I can go to him like I'm the only one on the face of the earth with a broken heart and say Lord Jesus I know you look upon me I know you see my tears I know you feel with me you wept at the grave side of Lazarus Lord Jesus and then you pour your heart out to him and you don't have the slightest question that he's paying complete attention to you and he knows the level and intensity of your grief because he is God. Because he's God he has power to go where no man can go. He created the psyche and all of the mysterious chemistry of the mind and the emotions and the affections and he can reach in there as God to every fiber of your internal life and he can bring the consolations of his own grace and presence and power. He can unravel the things that you can't unravel because he's God.

55:17 You see theology is for graveside grieving.

55:23 If he's not God forget it. It's an act of arrogant selfishness to think he's going to stop all that he's doing and pay attention to you.

55:33 But if he's God he can give all the attention to you as though there were none other and never be confused. Never have overload and say whoa whoa whoa three times today my son you've been bawling your eyes out and I'm getting a little bit overloaded here with trying to manage all of this. He's God and he brings to his work as our savior all of the power of undiluted divinity.

56:07 But he's also man. Two natures in the one person forever. He's true man and because he is true man my Bible says who in the days of his flesh he prayed with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death. As true man he knew what it was to wail as we heard last week in brokenness over Jerusalem.

56:37 He knew what it was to pray with strong crying and tears in the sanctified pressure of his human sinless will before the revealed will of God that he must go into the black hole of Golgotha and he wrestles in praise with strong crying and tears. Oh my father if it be possible nevertheless not my will but thine be done. It's so wonderful to come to a savior who's one of my kind. There at the right hand of the father is one of my kind.

57:18 He wept by a grave side. So when I weep there today I'm in fellowship with the man Christ Jesus and I'm comfortable with my tears because I know he is.

57:34 He is. You see a right doctrine of Christ is crucial my brothers and sisters if we're to grieve to the glory of God and not have some unbiblical notion that somehow if God's grace meets us we can stuff the tears and we can neutralize the tears only to have all of that stuffed emotion come out in funky ways that does not glorify God.

58:02 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself so to walk as he walked. He wept by a grave side. We imitate him when we weep by the grave side of those we've loved and lost. He did not force into some deep hidden caverns of his soul those holy human emotions.

58:23 He let them be manifested and so can you and so can I because of who he is. You see you got to cling to the death grip to a right doctrine of Christ who is true God and true man to natures in the one person forever. So I don't need to say now Lord Jesus in this I'm appealing to your divine nature. Lord Jesus in this I'm no I just appeal to Jesus.

58:52 One person and I have dealings with that person. You see theology is for grieving folks. Got all some of you say oh theology. Without that I think I'd be nuts.

Clinging to a Right Doctrine of Christ: His Work (Offices)

59:06 Some of you may say would be. I leave that to your judgment. But you see it's not only true with regard to his person it's true with regard to his work. Shorter catechism goes on to say what offices does Christ execute as our Redeemer.

59:24 This person who is both God and man in two distinct natures in one person forever that's our Redeemer. What offices does he execute as our Redeemer? And the answer is he executes the offices of a prophet priest and king both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation while he was among us and there at the right hand of the Father. And then the next three questions are beautiful.

59:52 How does he execute the office of a prophet? Christ executes the office of a prophet in revealing to us by his word and spirit the will of God for our salvation. How does he execute the office of a priest in his offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice to reconcile us to God and in making continual intercession for us? How does he execute the office of a king?

60:19 He executes the office of a king in subduing us to himself in ruling and defending us and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies. I tell you a right doctrine of Christ is just what you need in the face of the shattering grief of the loss of a dearly loved one.

60:42 You feel like everything's come apart. You don't know yourself let alone know what to do. You say Lord Jesus you're my prophet teach me. I believe your mind is to be found in this book Lord Jesus teach me teach me teach me to know myself to know what I should do to know how to handle this path on which I've never been called upon to walk before Lord Jesus teach me in my ignorance Lord Jesus succor me in my grief and in my pain be my high priest nurture me Lord Jesus you were among us every high priest is taken from among men in things pertaining to man that he might be able to empathize with man Hebrews 5 Lord Jesus I'm sure I've sinned in some dimensions of my grief forgive me Lord Jesus Lord Jesus succor me and uphold me and Lord Jesus in my vulnerability be my king to defend me from all of my enemies you see a right doctrine of Christ has everything to do with our grieving to the glory of God I mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago one of the most precious passages to me in these days is Isaiah 61 verse 1 the spirit of the Lord God is upon me for what Lord Jesus you said the spirit is upon you for what he quoted that very verse in his

62:11 first public sermon in Nazareth the spirit is upon me to open the eyes of the blind open the prison but also to bind up the broken hearted say Lord Jesus you knew what it was to have your heart broken in the days of your flesh Lord Jesus here's my broken heart you fix it I can't fix it Lord bring to him all of the empathy and sympathy of your true humanity bring to it all the power of your divinity what a savior to fix a broken heart he's perfectly suited to do it folks that's why I say if we are to grieve to the glory of God cling in a death grip not only to a right doctrine of God a right doctrine of man but a right doctrine of the Lord Jesus so you know what I gave you in brief compass I gave you theology proper anthropology and Christology that's what they call it in the theology books they give it big names but my folks that's for us in life where we live and when we stand by the open grave and when we're waiting for the undertaker it's in those circumstances that we need to

Conclusion: The Necessity of Doctrinally Robust Preaching and Catechesis

63:39 cling with a death grip to a right doctrine of God of man and of Christ now let me say in conclusion this morning you must never grow weary of preaching teaching and singing that is doctrinally robust you got me don't ever grow weary of preaching teaching and singing that is doctrinally robust because someone you love is going to die and you won't get much comfort when people keep repeating in your ears she's in a better place she's out of her pain I tell you my friends it takes more to keep you stable than those little platitudes it takes clinging to a God that you know is infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness justice goodness truth sovereignty and love it takes knowing that as man death is an intruder but death will not have the last word in Christ death is now mine I'm marked for resurrection and for eternal

65:08 life it takes knowing who my savior is not little bitties about praise and praise and praise and praise him for what praise him for who he is God and man in one person forever two distinct natures know what he does as my redeemer prophet to teach me priest to succor me and apply the benefits of his once for all sacrifice king to rule me and subdue all of his and my enemies and bring me home safely into his presence how often have I found myself singing the words of the two hymns that we sang at my loved one's memorial service be still my soul thy Jesus can repay from his own fullness all he takes away I tell you he took a lot away when he took her but she's a creature he's God and the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily all that I need sing John Ryland's hymn no good in creatures may be found but may be found in thee I must have all things and abound while God

66:37 is God to me that's the kind of doctrinally robust enmity that is your companion in the face of crushing grief and furthermore we ought to appreciate a fresh catechetical instruction and memorization there's a little preview in the adult class I'm going to go into a study of the Shorter Catechism you see how much it's helped us this morning I put in a little plug my final word you who are outside of Christ I pity you I pity you not only because your loved ones will not have this hope and confidence for you and have to be asking how shall I grieve to the glory of God while thinking of all the blessedness they enjoy all that they have gained as I said last week the cruelest thing you can do to your loved ones who will grieve over you is to die unconverted and they will have to discipline their minds not to think of the wailing and the gnashing of teeth and the horrors of hell into which you've gone my friend you children you young people if you have any

68:06 natural love for your parents go to Christ and get converted get saved don't strap your loved ones with the hopeless grieving that you died out of Christ plead with God to have mercy upon you let's pray our father we pray that you will take your word and these things that we've been privileged to contemplate this morning and make them fruitful and productive in all of our lives do it we pray for our good and for your glory amen