Biblical Directives for Godly Grieving, Part 3

Introduction: Recapping the Series on Godly Grieving

0:00 Our study in the Word of God this morning will be the third and the final message in this brief series that I have entitled Biblical Directives for Godly Grieving, Subtitled Gleanings from a Grieving Heart. As most of you know, it was on September 20th that my beloved wife of 48 years entered the immediate presence of the Lord Jesus as she crossed the river of death after her six-year battle with cancer. And since that time, I have been pleading with God to teach me how to grieve that loss in a way that honors Him, in a way that glorifies Him, and believing that the things that I... I have been gleaning from the Word of God would be of help to you that this was the most appropriate time to articulate them insofar as I understand them at this point in my pilgrimage.

1:10 I have been bringing you this brief series of studies in the Word of God. Now, I want to underscore again that the things that we are considering apply only to a child of God grieving, grieving over the loss of a dearly loved one who dies in Christ. The grief that a child of God feels and ought to feel when a loved one who dies out of Christ is of a totally different nature. And I'm not addressing that.

1:46 I am addressing exclusively what it is for a child of God to grieve the loss of a dearly loved one who dies in Christ. And I began in the first message by asserting that there are three foundational principles that must be firmly grasped if we are to manage and to express our grief in a God-glorifying way. We must know and firmly believe what the Scriptures teach concerning the present location and condition of the souls of the Lord. Those loved ones who have died in Christ.

2:31 Secondly, we must know and believe that our emotions are not to exercise ultimate authority over us. And thirdly, we must know and firmly believe that we have a responsibility to manage the direction and focus of our thoughts in the grieving process. And with those three foundational principles undergirding and suppressing, supporting all that is to follow, I then set before you five guidelines for the direction and focus of our thoughts that with the blessing and help of the Holy Spirit will enable us to grieve in a godly manner the loss of a dearly loved one who has died in Christ. We must think more upon that which Jesus has gained in their death than the loss of a loved one who has died in Christ. that which we have lost in their death. We must think more of what our loved one has gained in his or her death than of what we have lost in their death. We must think of the hope that we

3:41 share in common with that loved one who has been taken from us, even the hope and expectation of the return of the Lord Jesus. Fourthly, we must think of what God will do through us as he ministers to us in our grief. And fifthly, we must think of what we are gaining because of the loss of our loved one. And dear people, I'm serious about those matters. I have sat in my living room this week and preached them back to my own heart. And in these days I have found again and again the only way that I have been able to manage a grief that would otherwise utterly paralyze me is to preach to myself these realities of the focus and the direction of my thoughts based upon these wonderful realities taught by the Word of God. And then last Lord's Day, I entitled the second message, Doctrine is for Dying and Death. Subtitled, Theology is for Graveside Grieving.

4:59 And my purpose in those rather cryptic titles was to underscore the fact that we will not be able to grieve over the loss of our loved ones who die in the Lord in a God-glorifying way unless we have a clear understanding of and a firm grasp by faith upon some of the most fundamental doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is to say, that we are not able to grieve over the doctrines of the Christian faith. Fluff may make you feel good in days that are bright, but in the dark days of shattering grief, biblical and spiritual fluff will do you little good. It is the solid, substantial doctrines of the Word of God that become ballast to the soul when one is upon the turbulent seas of deep and traumatic grief. And I then sought to highlight three such doctrines. I said we must cling to a right doctrine of God with the death grip of faith. Secondly, we must cling to a right doctrine of Christ with the death grip of faith. And thirdly, we must cling to a right doctrine of man with the

6:13 death grip of faith. And if you were not here for those sermons, I can only commend them to you to get them through the Trinity. And I hope that you have a good day. And I hope that you have a good book service to get them out of the library, to get them over the internet, however you get them.

Doctrine 4: Clinging to a Right Doctrine of Union with Christ

6:28 I urge you sooner or later as a Christian, you're going to need to have these things stored up in your soul if you are to grieve in a manner that glorifies God. Now this morning, I want to complete the brief series by highlighting two more doctrines that are crucial to godly grieving. Two more doctrines that are crucial to godly grieving. more doctrines essential to a God-honoring grieving process in the light of the death of a dearly loved one who has died in Christ. So the fourth doctrine is this. We must cling with the death grip of faith to a right doctrine of union with Christ. We must cling with the death grip of faith to a right doctrine of union with Christ. Now, according to the scriptures, God's grand rescue mission enacted on behalf of helpless, miserable, hell-deserving sinners is called salvation. And the work of Jesus is a work of saving sinners. You remember the well-known

7:48 words announced to Joseph, When God is apprising him of why Mary is pregnant, she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Or the words of the apostle in 1 Timothy 1.15, This is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Or the words of our Lord, himself, in Luke 19.10, For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.

8:32 And the scriptures that tell us that God's grand rescue mission is a work of salvation teach us that every facet of that salvation, from beginning to end, has its unifying basis in the reality of union with Christ. Every facet of that salvation, from beginning to end, has its unifying basis in the reality of union with Christ. The cord that binds together every facet of that salvation, from election in Christ before the foundation of the world, to glorification at the coming of Christ, the cord that binds it all together is union with Christ. Listen to Professor Murray stating this fact in a most succinct way. Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. All to which the people of God have been predestined in the eternal election of God, all that is the truth of salvation, is the truth of salvation. All that is the truth of

9:51 salvation, all that is the truth of salvation, is the truth of salvation. All that is the truth of salvation, all that is the truth of salvation, is the truth of salvation. All that has been secured and procured for them in the once for all accomplishment of redemption, all of which they become the actual partakers in the application of redemption, and all that by God's grace they will become in the state of consummated bliss, is embraced within the compass of union and communion with Christ. From election to the procurement of redemption, in the work of Christ, to the application of redemption in our life history, to the consummation of redemption at the return of Christ, it is all comprised within the compass of union and communion with Christ. And so I am asserting that if we would grieve in a godly manner, in the face of a loss of a dearly loved one, we must cling with the death grip of faith to a right doctrine of union with Christ. And while there are many, many passages that point us to that doctrine, I want just for a few moments to direct your attention to the first chapter of Ephesians. For in this first chapter of Ephesians, in verses

Union with Christ in Ephesians 1

11:13 3 to 14, in this eulogy, this blessing of God for Trinitarian salvation, Jesus said, Ephesians, in the book of Genesis, chapter 18, after we have left salvation in us, there are no fewer than ten references to union with Christ, critical to every phase of that salvation from election to being sealed with the Spirit unto the Day of Redemption. And without attempting anything that would even approach an exposition, I want you to just hear, as I read and underscore, the phrase in Christ and in Him, verse 3, Ephesians, chapter 18, verses 6-7, and 8, verse 4, verse 11. Ephesians, chapter 14 verse 16, verse 18. Ephesians, chapter 14 verse 16, verse 17, verse 17.

11:51 Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love having foreordained us unto adoption his sons through Jesus Christ unto himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved in whom we have our redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence making known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times to sum up all things in Christ the things in the heavens the things upon earth in him I say in whom also we were made a heritage having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory who had before hoped in Christ in whom ye also having heard the word of truth the gospel of

13:21 your salvation in whom having also believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise which is an earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession unto the praise of his glory ten times in him in him in whom in Christ this is the great binding together of every facet of our salvation and while it would be impossible to give even a thumbnail of this massive and wonderful doctrine of union with Christ in this fourth strand of doctrine that I'm emphasizing as crucial to godly grieving there is one aspect one facet of union with Christ that has everything to say to us concerning godly grieving and we're going to look at it in some detail from first Thessalonians chapter four and what I'm

Union with Christ and the Dead in 1 Thessalonians 4

14:22 expecting is this that if you do not grasp any other facet of the doctrine of union with Christ and hold it in the death grip of faith when God takes a beloved dear one from you who dies in Christ this facet you must understand and you must hold in the death grip of faith if you are to grieve in a godly manner over the loss of that loved one first Thessalonians four in verse thirteen Paul tells us the purpose of this paragraph we would not have you ignorant brethren concerning them that all asleep he says we do not want your minds to be uninformed with respect to the state and condition and future state and condition of your loved one to have died in the lord we will not of all these things mira unresolved even the present future of pimps who have died in the lord we do not know but wait for us to come again in Jerusalem in july fifty to certain places ah and so this will not have more teaching of leadership or errors or ai and all these other things theaman says we should not take of all of thisอ would not have you ignorant concerning them that fall asleep. And why does he want to dispel the ignorance? Because he does not want them to grieve in a worldly manner. He wants them to grieve in a godly manner. Look at the text. We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall

15:43 asleep, in order that you sorrow not, even as the rest who have no hope. He does not say we want to dispel ignorance so that you do not sorrow. That would be to make them inhuman. No, he says, we do not want you ignorant of certain things to this end, that your sorrow will be consistent with what you are and what you possess and what those loved ones are.

16:13 You are the ones who have left you possessed in Christ. Only as you understand and grasp these realities will your sorrow be godly, as opposed to worldly, hopeless sorrow. And then he begins to open up the things concerning which he does not want them to be ignorant. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep, in Jesus, will God bring with him. You see, it does not appear that these Thessalonian believers had any question that their loved ones who died in Christ were in the presence of Christ, so that Christ could bring them with him at his return. The concern was not with respect to the state and condition of their souls or their spirits when they died. There does not seem to be any question of the state and condition of their souls or their spirits There does not seem to be any confusion there, any ignorance there. They had a well-grounded, well-instructed confidence that their loved ones were with Christ. That is, their spirits departed

17:27 and went to be with Christ, to use the language of Philippians 1. Their ignorance lay in another area. Let's read on. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. You see, the error seems to be that there was some teaching abroad among the Thessalonians that to be alive at the return of the Lord was to be a first-class Christian in the way the Lord would treat you at his return, and that somehow to be dead, and to have part of you in the grave was to render you a second-class citizen in terms of your relationship to Christ at his coming. And so he says, we say unto you by the word of the Lord, we that are alive, left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise, whatever notions you've heard and imbibed, they are false. The word of the Lord is, we shall not precede, we shall not go before.

18:42 We shall not receive preferential treatment of them that are falling asleep, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. Now notice the next phrase. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. And a marvelous phrase.

19:09 The dead in Christ. They are dead, but they are still in Christ. Their spirits are with Christ, and he shall bring them with him when he returns. But when he returns, what will he find in the grave?

19:30 He's going to find his dead ones that are still in him. He's going to find his dead ones who are still united to him. He's going to find his dead ones who are still with him. And so the apostle is underscoring for these Thessalonian believers that our union with the Lord Jesus Christ is not severed, even in the radical severing of soul and body in death, and the traumatic severing when we must place the bodies of our loved ones in the cold, damp earth, and consigned them to the worms and to decay and to fulfill the ancient dictum, dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return. We can look upon the spot where they are buried and say they are not severed from Christ even in the grave.

20:35 They are the dead in Christ. That is not referring to their spirits. Their spirits are very much alive with Christ. Therefore, he can bring them with him, but he's going to deal with the dead in Christ.

20:53 The dead whose union with Christ is not affected by the radical separation of soul and body in the experience of death and the traumatic separation from us in their burial. They are yet in Christ. The Shorter Catechism captures this. Question 37.

21:18 What benefits do believers receive at their death? The answer. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory and their bodies still being united to Christ do rest in their graves until the resurrection. The Old Catechism had it right.

21:48 Their bodies still being united to Christ do rest in their graves until the resurrection. And you see, child of God, this makes all the difference in the world in the manner of your grieving over loved ones who die in Christ.

22:16 To stand on the plot of Christ. To stand on the plot of Christ. To stand on the plot of Christ. To stand on the plot of Christ.

22:18 To stand on the plot of Christ. earth that holds their dead bodies and say, it doesn't affect their union with Christ.

The Body's Union with Christ and the Resurrection Hope

22:30 Now think of the Thessalonians. How did they come to be united to Christ? In what state were they when their union with Christ was effected? We'll turn back to chapter 1 and we get the answer.

22:46 Verse 4, They were transformed by the converting, regenerating grace of God. They were united to Christ in life, body, and soul. United to Him. For the scripture, remember, in 1 Corinthians 6 says your body is a very temple, a very sanctuary of God. And our bodies are united to Christ.

23:42 That's why Paul says it's unthinkable that you would join yourself to a harlot. Shall I take them? Members of Christ and join them to a harlot. Our union with Christ is a union of the entirety of our humanity, not just our souls or our spirit. We, in the integrity of what we are as psychosomatic beings, we are united to Christ when the gospel comes in power and we are regenerated, brought to repentance and faith and indwelt by the spirit of adoption. We, in the totality of what we are, are united to Christ. We, in the totality of what we are, are united to Christ. Therefore, when there is that radical separation of soul and body in the experience of death, and the spirit united to Christ goes into the presence of Christ, perfected into the moral likeness of Christ, and enters the rest of what of the body that lies there in the bed, waiting

24:43 for the undertaker, Christ is not abandoned. It is still united to Christ. And when it's placed in the earth, it is still united to Christ, so that when he returns, what he will quicken, what he will glorify, according to this passage in chapter 4, is the dead in Christ. And the souls are never said to be dead in Christ. They are alive in his presence.

25:15 It is the body that is dead. And that body is in union with Christ. And so united to Christ that it can no more remain in that grave forever than Christ could be contained in Joseph's tomb forever. For when he came forth, according to 1 Corinthians 15, 20 to 22, I ask you to turn to that passage. He came forth as firstfruits of those that sleep.

25:49 Verse 20.

25:54 The firstfruits of them that are asleep. And that never refers to the soul. There's no biblical doctrine of soul sleep, the kind of spiritual coma that people go into at death. No, they are very much alive in his presence. But they are said to sleep in Jesus when they die in union with Christ. And Christ is described as firstfruits. What's the imagery? You remember in Israel.

26:23 When God blessed the crops and they came to full ripeness, an Israelite would go out with his sickle and he would cut some sheaves from that ripened harvest and bring them to God as an offering, a pledge that the whole harvest that was yet to be reaped was indeed a manifestation of the goodness and favor of God to his covenant people. He did not send drought. Nor mildew or blasting or hail as he said he would do in the covenant curses. But he sent covenantal blessings and granted the early and the latter rain. And there the rain is waving in the wind out in the harvest, ready to be harvested. And when someone brought those few sheaves in his arm as firstfruits, it was pledged that the full harvest was yet to come. Paul says the resurrection of our Lord Jesus was firstfruits. It was the pledge that the full harvest was there, ready to come. Since by man came death,

27:32 by man came also the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam, in union with Adam all die, so in Christ, in union with Christ, shall all who are in Christ be made alive. And when the harvest is gathered, and it must, it is then that the words of the Lord Jesus Christ of the apostle will be wonderfully and gloriously fulfilled. Those words that he speaks later on in this chapter, verse 52, 53, this corruptible must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal have put on immortality, then shall come to pass. The saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Dear child of God, this is the great comfort and the great encouragement that disciplines and chastens and shapes the contours of our grief when we have lost those who have died in Christ. For we are confident

28:50 that when Christ who is our life shall appear, Colossians 3, 4, we shall also be manifested with him. In glory, not glory as a place, but glory as a state and a condition. For Paul says in Philippians 3, our citizenship is in heaven, from whence we wait for a Savior, who shall fashion the body of our humiliation, like unto the body of his glory. By the power wherewith he is able to subdue even all things to himself. I think I've quoted before the words of C.S. Lewis, if we could see ourselves now as we will be then. We would find it hard, we would find it hard not to fall down and worship one another.

29:37 Twice in the book of the Revelation, as John is interacting with an angel who is the medium of revelatory data, he falls down to worship that angel. Such glory is seen in that angel's presence. He falls down to worship. Here's a strict monotheist. Here is this man who worshiped the Lord Jesus, who was no idolater. But there was something so glorious about the angel. He was tempted to fall down and worship, and the angel said, no, no, don't do that. I'm just a fellow servant. Worship God. What a wonderful thing to stand, as I say, over the plot of earth that holds the earthly remains of our dear ones, and be able to say to ourselves, on the basis of an understanding of the biblical doctrine of union with Christ. What a wonderful thing to do. What's in the ground is still united to Jesus Christ. And because it is united, the virtue

30:46 and the power of his resurrection is latent in that decaying body. But it will become evident with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. And they will rise in splendor, sown in dishonor, raised in honor, sown in weakness, raised in power. Dear people, that's enough to make you shout through your tears when you stand on the grave plots of your loved ones. It won't dry up your tears, because the separation between you and that loved one is real. And it's exquisite. And it's indescribable. But it's a pain tempered and shaped and restrained by the confidence they shall rise, because they are united to Christ.

Comforting One Another with the Doctrine of Union with Christ

31:48 While they yet lie in that grave. If we take seriously the directive of verse 13 back to 1 Thessalonians, if we take it seriously, I'm writing to you. For what purpose, Paul says, I'm telling you, to this end, that you do not grieve, you do not sorrow, even as the rest who have no hope. And at the heart of our hope, it's not that the Lord in heaven will somehow take out a book and say, oh, I've got to remember, I've got one of my own down there. I better raise him up and give him a resurrected body.

32:39 He's united to them even there in the grave. I don't understand. I don't understand it either.

32:49 And it's in the faith, the death grip of faith of that blessed truth that enables you not only to keep your sanity, but as I said, to shout. And to bless God and to praise him standing over the grave of your loved one. If we're to grieve with a distinctively Christian kind of grief, we must cling with a death grip to the doctrine of union with Christ. And if we are to minister real comfort to one another in our deep grief, in the loss of our dearly loved ones, the words that we share with one another, our grieving, brothers and sisters, what should they be? Look at the end of the paragraph, 1 Thessalonians 4, 18. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Remind one another they're in the grave, but they're still in Christ. Let's remind one another. Take these very words, the dead

33:53 are still in Christ. And because they're in Christ, they'll get preferential treatment as his return. And there's very precise language in the Greek of sequential matters. Look at it. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven, voice of the archangel Trump of God. And he says the dead in Christ shall rise first then. First then. Paul said any notion you have that your loved ones who died in Christ will be second class citizens at the return of Christ. No, he says in sort of a backhanded way, we won't be second class, but we'll be second in line. First, he'll take care of those who are united to him and lie in their graves. Then we who are alive and remain, he'll take care of us. Comfort one another with these words. Remind one another

34:51 of the grand and glorious doctrine of union with Christ. If in love, he marked us out and gave us to Christ before the world began. The world had no being. We had no being. Yet the scripture says, As we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. And if when he came to earth, he took us into union with himself so that his life of obedience is credited to us as our head and representative and his suffering and his baptism of agony and forsakenness is on our behalf because he's united to us. And if when we are actually called out of darkness, into marvelous and light, we enter into a faith, spirit wrought union with Christ, that union will

35:47 not be terminated or suspended because the soul and the body are separated for a time. But that union abides and will become evident when he returns. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Then fifth and finally, if we are to grieve, in a godly sort, we must not only cling with a death grip to a biblical doctrine of God, biblical doctrine of man and of Christ and of union with Christ, but we must possess and practice.

Doctrine 5: Possessing and Practicing a Right Doctrine of the Church

36:28 And here I changed my terminology. Cling with a death grip didn't fit. We must possess and practice a right doctrine of the church as a body and a family. You want to grieve in a way that glorifies God, then you must possess and practice a right doctrine of the church as a body and a family. Now, contrary to the thinking of many, the church in its concrete, local, and specific manifestation is not an optional luxury from conversion to glory.

37:06 Rather, the norm envisioned in the New Testament is that everyone united to Christ, in saving faith, is to be united to a local assembly of the people of God to pursue growth in grace and service to Christ in the context of the ministry and discipline of that local assembly.

37:29 What happened at Pentecost is the paradigm for the rest of the New Testament. We read on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came in power, and three thousand are mightily wrought upon by the Spirit of God. And we read on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came in power, and brought to repentance and faith and open confession of Christ. What happened to them?

37:50 We read in Acts 2.41 and 2, Then they that received the word were baptized, and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and the prayers. That's the norm.

38:12 That those who are wrought upon in a saving way by the Spirit openly confess their attachment to Christ and become part of His visible local community of the people of God. And it is in that context that they grow in grace and they serve and they worship. That's the ordinary pattern of the New Testament. And as the doctrine of the church unfolds in the New Testament, there are many metaphors and analogies which define the essence of the church and the function of the church. The church is called a temple of the living God in 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and Ephesians 2. It's called a temple made up of living stones in 1 Peter chapter 2. It is called in another place, not just a temple of the living God, but the bride of Christ, Ephesians chapter 5. Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it that He might present it to Himself a spotless and glorious bride. But it is also described as a body and a household or family. And it's those

39:26 two analogies and realities that I want to focus upon and demonstrate their peculiar relevance when you are brought into a state of true, deep grieving as a child of God. And I'm saying if we are to handle our grief in a God-glorifying manner, that we must possess and practice a right doctrine of the church as body and as a family. As a body. What is that to mean in practical terms? Well, according to passages such as 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, which are two of the watershed passages along with Ephesians, 4, that highlight and expand and expound various facets of the church functioning as body, there's mutual interdependence, mutual feeling, care, communication. For example, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Let's turn to it. Paul, having stated this analogy and this reality of the church as body, he then goes on to expound, on some of the ways that this manifests itself. Verse 20.

40:51 But now they are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Or again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary. And those parts of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor. And our uncomely parts of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary. And those parts of the body which have more abundant comeliness, whereas our comely parts have no need. But God tempered the body, giving more abundant honor to that part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the body. The members should have the same care, one for another. And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. One member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ. And several of you are the body of Christ. And several of you are the

41:46 members thereof. You see what he's saying? That the church's body is not a noble metaphor that's up here on a shelf to be admired by theologians. No, he says it is a concrete reality there at Corinth. And it surely is every one of you who lives in his body understands some of these references. When one member suffers, all suffer with it. When one is honored, all are honored with it. There is interdependence. There is organic relationship. It is not wooden and lifeless and theoretical. It is alive. It is throbbing with the same nerve system and the same blood that courses through that body. There is interdependence. There is mutual feeling,

42:40 mutual empathy and sympathy. And then you have an emphasis, similar emphasis in Romans chapter 12, verse 5, with respect to the body. So we who are many are one body in Christ and severally members one of another. We have more than a mere paper relationship on the role of Trinity Church. We belong to one another. That's why Paul in Ephesians can say, lie not one to another, seeing you are members one of another. How incongruous, that my right eye would lie to me and cause me to do something stupid that causes me to lose my left hand. It's incongruous. It's unthinkable. We are members one of another. There is a real, vital,

43:33 organic, sensitive, empathetic, sympathetic interaction between the members. And then he uses the analogy of family. In Romans 12, verses 9 to 15, there is the emphasis on the church's family. Let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be without hypocrisy.

43:51 Abhor what is evil. Cleave to what is good. In love of the brethren. That term brethren, taking in males and females within the body of Christ, used again and again, emphasizes we are brothers. We are part of Christ's family gathered at his feet as he identifies that family. Who are my mother, my brother, my sister? Those who hear the word of God and do it. We are part of the family of Christ. And within that family, we are commanded in this very passage in Romans 12, to rejoice with them that rejoice, to weep with those who weep, to be of the same mind one to another. Family. The family

44:37 imagery is used again in passages where the church is called the household of God. First Timothy 3. If a man rule not well his own household, how shall he take care of the household of God? And in that concept of the church as family, where there's mutual sharing of joys and sorrows, mutual accountabilities with reproofs and encouragement. That's what the church is.

The Church's Role in Godly Grieving: Personal Testimony

45:06 Now, the point I'm making is this. If you and I are to grieve after a godly sort, then we must possess and practice a right doctrine of the church as body and family. This means that when we face, the death of a dearly loved one, and the crushing grief it brings with it, we are not to face it alone. If we've acted as part of the body, a real living, throbbing, active part of the body, entering into the mutual feelings of our brothers and sisters in brighter days, when our period of grief comes, we understand what the church is as body.

46:00 The church is as family. But if we've not possessed and practiced a right doctrine of the church, content to be a lone ranger Christian, content to be an island, content to be insulated and cocooned around our own lives, the day of crushing grief comes. And my dear friend,

46:23 what will you do? What will you do? You do not have the relationships that make it natural for your brothers and sisters to weep. You do not have the relationships that make it natural for your brothers and sisters to weep. You do not have the relationships that make it natural for your brothers and sisters to weep with you. When you do not have the relationships that make it natural and easy for your brethren to draw alongside and to share in the burden of that crushing grief.

46:56 And here I want to give testimony. When the Lord took my loved one, and I was trying to decide what shall I do after the funeral, I had a lot of counsel that given the lengthy period of her illness and the pressure of being her primary caregiver for so long. So many counseled me. You need to get away. Just get away. You need to get away from it all. I said, well, I listened to counsel. So I listened to counsel. And I made tentative plans to get away. And God providentially threw a monkey wrench in those plans. Her mother died. I had to take care of her affairs.

47:38 The place I was to go, somebody else had already booked in to the lovely cottage that I was to go. So it was evident. No, this is not God's time. And that was God's wonderful way to teach me this lesson. I didn't need to be away. I needed you, my family. I needed you, the body of Christ.

48:04 I needed your embraces. I needed to come into your homes and sit at your tables and share incidents that precipitated my tears and see your tears and mingle our tears together. God knows I needed this body. I'm not just a preacher who has a prominent place in ministering to the body. I'm part of the body who needs the life and ministry of the body to me. And I bless God for you. Your ministry has been no little part in the ongoing work of healing in my soul, that I feel relative measures of strength to face the coming days, that I feel comfortable in my own home. People say, you'll probably want to get out of your house.

48:53 I said, well, in spring, I'll probably get rid of it. I've got a lot of advice. But you see, the factor in all that advice that was missing was, Pastor, if you ever needed the body of Christ, it's now. And as you've opened your homes and opened your heart, it's been a wonderful lesson to me. Nobody told me to do that. As I say, I'm feeling my way along in all of these things. And I realize that because of my profile and my position among you, it wouldn't be the same with an ordinary person. In the life of the church, to be calling up people. But you see, if we together understand this, we'll take the initiative with the one who's grieving and say, John, Henry, I'm sure your evening hours are going to be crushingly lonely. Would you like to come and share our table, share the evening time with us, share our devotions with us? And as a body, you will

49:56 understand, look, we're here as a body to enter into the grief. And to the intense, shattering dimensions of the grief that comes with the loss of a very dearly loved one, son, daughter, mother, wife, husband, brother. It's been a wonderful lesson to me. And I thank God that he's hedged me up to it. I didn't read a book somewhere and I didn't have anybody tell me, but I was praying, Lord, teach me, teach me, teach me. What do I need to know? What do I need to experience? What do I need to experience? What do I need to experience?

A Plea to Unbelievers and a Call to Diligence for Believers

50:35 And this fifth heading that we must possess and practice the right doctrine of the church as body and family has become a very deep-seated conviction in the experience of these past ten weeks. Well, as I bring the message to a close this morning, I want to underscore again for you who are not Christians, if I made you jealous, you're going to have your period of grief. You kids right now, you're bopping along. Life is a big old party. But the time is coming when you're going to have grief.

51:21 A year, ten years, fifty. I don't know, but it's coming. You can't live in this world without experiencing one time or another shattering, gut-wrenching grief. What are you going to do? Have none of the consolations of the gospel, have we made you jealous to face life with all of its unknown, possibly tragic, and tragic consequences? Tragic experiences. You want to face that all alone? No Savior? No church? No consolations of these precious truths? No saving acquaintance with God and with Christ? No high priest to whom you can come and pour out your grief and your tears and your agony? You don't want to go through life that way, do you? Do you really? Do you really want to impose the cruelty upon your parents and

52:21 your loved ones, your pastors, your Sunday school teachers, that you're in hell? You want them to go to bed at night thinking of the groans and the cries with which you joined the rich man in hell? Is that what you really want to do? Are you so...

52:42 Loved ones, dawdle. Why do you go on unconverted? Why do you play with your souls? Go down before God today and say, oh God, I don't want to commit the consummate cruelty to my loved ones, to my mom, my dad, those who really love me. I don't want to commit the consummate cruelty to my own soul. Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. Save me by your grace. Change me by the power of your Holy Spirit. You need any other motive to go to Christ, to get right with God? I trust,

53:33 I trust you see the rationale and the reasonableness of what I'm saying to you. Because you know, in the world, do you think you're going to escape death? You have no knowledge of when that appointment with death for you will be. I plead with you to trust that God will use this brief series calculated to furnish the people of God for their periods of deep grief as the means to bring you to Christ. And my dear brothers and sisters, I remind you that if we're going to face these things with stability and God glorifying responses, we've got to be determined to stop playing games with understanding the word of God. You're not going to get a grasp upon the doctrine of God and of man and of Christ and of the church and of union with Christ, the kind that will enable you to face the deep crushing griefs of life, spending hours in front of your TV, dawdling over the sports page in the newspaper. Life is so pressured and crushed, you're going to

54:59 have to be ruthless to grab time by the back of the neck in order to do the kind of reflection and reading and praying and meditating, to have a soul that is well furnished with the doctrines of the word of God, that God has given us, among other things, doctrine, is for dying and for death, and theology is for graveside grieving. May God be pleased to take these things and to furnish us that in the coming days, as we shall, if the Lord spares us, together face more periods of intense grief, heart-rending separations, that we will glorify God in our grieving. Let's pray.

Prayer for Godly Grieving and Conversion

56:00 Our Father, we're so thankful that we need not grieve as those who have no hope. You have given us abundance of truth to act as ballast in our souls, to enable us not simply to chuck one another under the chin with empty platitudes, but to remind one another of your words, words that are true. Words that, by the blessing of the Spirit, can lift us out of the paralyzing effects of deep and crushing grief and enable us to press on and to live for our Lord Jesus. Bless, then, your word. Seal it to all of our hearts, and, O God, make it effectual for the conversion of some in this place this morning. We again pray for...

57:00 Dear Pastor Smith, as he now leaves with his family, and he must go into a setting where he cannot convey these consolations to others or even have them for himself, Lord, uphold him. Uphold him, we pray. Do for him what we cannot do for him, that he may return to us and bear witness that your grace was indeed sufficient. Hear us, we plead, in Jesus' name. Amen.