“Trouble Is Coming”
LAGRANGE BAPTIST CHURCH
January 20, 2008
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Dr. Wills came
to me right before he came up to pray and I had Dr. Wills in
seminary and he has told me numerous times just to call him "Greg"
but I just cannot do that, I don't know why, and he comes over to
ask me what passage are you preaching on, and so I sat there for a
second and said, "Well, I'm kind of doing numerous ones, let me kind
of give you the theme and then you can kind of go with it, so I kind
of felt a little bit bad there, but this morning, I want to kind of
walk through the beginning here about 6 or 7 passages of scripture
and instead of you just kind of following along with me in your
Bible, I've asked Craig to put these on the screen and basically
what I want to do, at the first part here, is just kind of establish
a theme that we see throughout the New Testament and I'm not saying
that none of us really believe this or embrace this, but I just want
to make sure we're all kind of on the same page as scripture shows
here, and then hopefully you will kind of understand why we did this
at the beginning as we kind of make sense of where we're headed
here. So, I'm going to
start off in Matthew Chapter 5, if you want to follow along you can,
if not it will be on the screen.
I'm going to start off by reading verses 10 and 11 because
Dr. Wills actually read a beautiful passage of scripture there and
there is an element I almost used a verse at the end of that one
that is kind of fitting with this theme, but just
kind of follow along with me and see if you can kind of pick out the
theme, because I'm not going to make a lot of comments as I walk
through these passages of scripture. Verses 10-11,
this is Jesus speaking here:
Mat 5:10
"Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:11
"Blessed are you when others revile
you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you
falsely on my account.
Matthew 13:20-21 This is in the
midst of a parable of the sower that Jesus explains to the disciples
and hear what he says here, kind of in the middle:
Mat 13:20
As for what was sown on rocky ground,
this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with
joy,
Mat 13:21
yet he has no root in himself, but
endures for a while, and when…
And if I had my
own Bible, I would just kind of circle or underline that word
because this is kind of the theme that we're kind of chasing after
here at the beginning part….
when
tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word,
immediately he falls
away.
John 15:20 -
this is Jesus once again talking to his disciples and he says this:
Joh 15:20
Remember the word that I said to you:
'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me,
they will also persecute you. . John 16:33
This is just before Jesus went to his death, and this is kind
of the same context that we see that I just read just a few minutes
ago there in Chapter 15, but verse 33 says this:
Joh 16:33
I have said these things to you, that
in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world." And if there is
a question that I would ask about this passage of scripture is this,
what is going to happen to the disciples that they would need peace,
and not just a real sentimental, Hallmarky, bumper sticker kind of
peace, but a peace that only can be found in Jesus Christ, what is
going to happen to these disciples as well as future followers of
Jesus Christ to where they are going to need a peace that can only
be found in Jesus Christ?
And he goes on and explains why they need this peace, look
what he says….
In the world…
(This world, the world that we all live in, in the world the
disciples live in) you will have
tribulation. Some translations say, "You will have trouble."
Now listen, I
know with the life, the death, the burial and the resurrection and
the ascension of Jesus Christ that there is kind of a tension that
we live in as followers of Christ right now in 2008 because of what
Christ did on this earth, because of the gospel, Jesus is reversing
the curse and he is in the process of making all things new, and so
we slightly little bit, glimpses of this truth in our life, in this
world, but we don't see it in its fullest expression.
We have this tension here and that tension simply is this,
that we will have trouble, we will have problems, we will have pain,
we will have hurt. That
is where we are living in this world.
Just as we have sung this morning so beautifully there is
coming a day where this will be gone, all of this will be gone and
that is at the second coming of Christ where he comes to establish
the new heavens and the new earth, but while we remain here,
understand this truth, there…will.. be…trouble. And so this
passage here is kind of central because as we get into the second
half of the New Testament, it is almost like the writers of the New
Testament are once again kind of reminding the disciples and the
followers of Jesus Christ, the early church of this truth, that you
are going to have difficulty, you're going to have hardship, that
life is going to hurt because I think sometimes as we read through
the second half of the New Testament, we see these early church
believers and followers of Jesus Christ kind of shocked at this. Let me show you
a few of them. Go to 2
Corinthians Chapter 1, look at verses 3 and 4:
This is Paul speaking:
2 Co 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
2Co 1:4
who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able
to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with
which we ourselves are comforted by God.
2Th 1:4
Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God
for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the
afflictions that you are enduring. The whole entire
Book of Hebrews is written to a believing group of people who are
suffering hardship, who are suffering pain, who are suffering hurt
and they are thinking about checking out of Christianity altogether
because this is not what I signed up for, this is not at all what I
expected. I mean, come
on, isn't God powerful? Isn't he in control?
Isn't he loving?
Does he not want good things for his followers?
So, why in the world has this happened to me?
And so the entire book of Hebrews is written to a group of
Christians that are questioning why are we going through this
difficulty. Look at James
Chapter 1, verses 2 and 3:
Jas 1:2
Count it all joy, my brothers, when (There's that word again
when) when you meet trials of various kinds,
It doesn’t say
maybe, it doesn’t say possibly, hopefully you won't, it says when
you meet trials. One last
passage, 1 Peter 1:6:
1Pe 1:6
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if
necessary, you have been grieved by various trials….
I think most of
us are pretty on board with what the theme is I'm trying to get
across here in these numerous passage of scripture, and I know this
is not the greatest news that you want to hear on Sunday morning,
January 20, 2008, and that is simply this, and some of you might
just to kind of plug your ears right now, but that is this,
trouble is coming.
If you find that your life is full of peace right now and things are
just wonderful and great, and things are just happening wonderfully,
you've got to understand this truth that is so explicit in the New
Testament and that is simply this….trouble is coming. Life will
bring pain; life will bring hurt.
Now, I know most
of us probably in this room adhere to this truth.
I think most of us probably give assent that this is a
reality; yes, I understand this, Lisle, yes, I've heard messages
about this, yes, I agree with this.
I'm on board with this, I see the evidence in the scripture
all through the New Testament, I see what you're talking about here,
but here's sometimes the danger and the problem is this, that we can
give mental assent to this truth, but when this truth collides with
our world, when this truth collides with our reality, when my mom
and dad split up, or when I get cancer, or when my child does not
turn out like I hoped and expected it to, when this truth collides
our reality, when it collides with our personal world, I think
sometimes we are taken back and we begin to ask some serious
question like, "Why? What is going on here?" Yes, I know this truth,
but goodness gracious, doesn’t God want good things for us?
Doesn’t he love me?
Doesn't he care for me?
Isn't he in control of all things? Is he not the most
powerful being in the world?
So we give some
mental assent to this truth, but when that truth collides our world,
I think it takes us back, I really do. I know I was 3 ½ years ago.
As most of you know, and maybe you don't know, my wife is
pregnant… she's not
gaining weight, alright?
It's kind of an odd question to ask someone, you know, you kind of
look at someone, I think she may be pregnant.
That kind of looks like a basketball in her stomach but I'm
not sure, and most of us, especially men, we're not going to go,
"Hey, when are ya due?" It's just not going to happen. First of all
we might get smacked around a little bit.
And you can pray for my wife.
I'm looking around looking for her right now, and this is the
crazy thing that is going on in the Drury home.
We've got a little, we got a golden retriever back in April
for Michael Bryan's birthday, and she's a female and I did not
realize she would go into heat so quickly, and she happened to go
into heat on Disciple Now weekend.
So, I'm out of the house, my wife is out of the house, and my
wife's mom is taking care of our three kids and a dog that is going
in heat, for cryin' out loud!
Now, we've got an underground fence, alright, that keeps
our dog in our yard, but it does not keep other dogs out of the
yard. [Laughter] And so
a little chocolate lab found its way into our yard and all of a
sudden our wonderful little Shasta is pregnant and I think she may
be giving birth to puppies as I speak right now, for cryin' out
loud! I mean, of all the
times to give birth to puppies, on Sunday morning, right?
So you can just be praying for my pregnant wife as she is
watching this fiasco at our house!
[Laughter] Oh, my
goodness! But just like
all of us in this room who are moms and dads, when we have children,
and I think I would say that most of us pray this, we pray that God
would do a great work in our child's heart, we probably pray for
their salvation, we might even pray for their future spouse, but I
think most of us in this room would probably have the single most
prayer that we pray that this baby would be healthy; this baby would
be whole; this baby would be complete, nothing wrong, no
complications whatsoever.
And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that prayer
because that's what I'm praying for this new child that we're having
here and that's what I prayed 3 ½ years ago for our little girl
named Kaye. And inside
your heart, and I think if we're all real honest here, if you are a
mom and dad, I think inside of us when we pray that prayer, there's
a little bit of something in us that says, you know, we expect
this from God, don't we?
I know for me, man, that was pretty much blown completely
wide open when God did give us Kaye, because I kind of expected that
God would give us a healthy girl, a whole complete, everything,
normal kind of girl. I
mean I've been serving the Lord for many years.
I mean Kathy has been an amazing follower of Jesus Christ, we
kind of get in the back of our mind that we expect this from
God. Now, I know some of
you guys are pretty unfamiliar with Kaye's story, because I don't
really talk about it a lot because: 1) I don't want to be labeled
the guy that always talks about the girl, you know, every
time you get around Lisle he's going to bring it up, and 2) To just
be real honest with you, and I talk more about this with my students
than I really have with you guys as a whole, to be real honest with
you, it's still very fresh and really raw.
Now, I know it's been 3 ½ years, but I don’t think it's
something that you just kind of get over.
And every time I see a 3-year-old little girl who has black
hair, guys, my mind and my heart asks the questions that your mind
and your heart would ask too.
I wonder how she would be?
I love Doug and
Jaime and we have a wonderful relationship, but every time I see
Lily, who was born about 3 days after my daughter, Kaye, was born,
every time I see her my mind and my heart cannot not ask the
question, "I wonder what Kaye would be like?" In case you
don't know, just to spare you all the details, we had a little girl
on May 28, 2004, and from the beginning there were some
complications that we just didn't know and just throughout that
entire summer we were in and out of the hospital, we saw all kinds
of doctors, neurologist, doctors that I didn't even know we had
doctors for, I mean, for cryin' out loud, it was just ridiculous.
They would come ink, poke all over her, say "Aw, we think she
might have this." They would label her, do this, go do these tests,
come back - everything's normal.
I mean it was just dumbfounding what was going on here.
We had no idea.
All we were doing were just praying, "God, please heal this precious
little girl of ours, please just heal her." And toward the end of
the summer of 2004, she got, because of her being in and out of the
hospital and that's probably the worst thing about the hospital is
you usually catch something while you're there, and that's one of
the reasons why the doctors were trying to get us out of there
quickly so that she could get home because it is inevitable, you're
going to get something, so while she was in one of those stints at
the hospital, she got RSV which is a respiratory infection, for some
of you that are unfamiliar with that, it is basically it is a cold
for a child, but when a baby gets it, it's kind of a big deal.
So she had to go in the hospital and spend about a week
there, about 7 days there just to kind of give her the proper kind
of medication, make sure she is getting oxygen and that kind of
stuff like that. So,
toward the end of the 7 days, I mean she'd gotten over it, but the
problem was that she could not breathe the amount of oxygen that she
needed in order to get her home off the oxygen.
And so to get her out of the hospital so she won't get
something else, they decided to bring her home with a big oxygen
tank. As a dad, that's
not what you want, to have a little tube attached in my daughter's
nose with tape and then we're carrying a little oxygen tank
everywhere we went. It
took us a little while to get use to this.
I remember one time, I can't remember whether it was me or
Kathy but we picked her up out of her little bouncy seat to go
change her diaper and we forgot all about the oxygen
tank, so here she's got tape on her face to hold the cords
together because she would just get her hands inside there and rip
it out all the time, so we would pick her up and go to leave, to
walk away and RIP, that came off of her just really fast, and
thankfully it happened so quickly that she didn't move at all, she
just kind of looked at you and just smiled, you know, not a big
deal, and as a parent, you're going, Oh, gosh! You felt like such an
idiot! But she couldn't
ever get her oxygen
level up so she had to come home with oxygen and she was on this
little monitor that monitored her oxygen as well as her heart rate
and one afternoon Kathy finally got some freedom, because she had
been in and out of the hospital for 3 ½ months, just craziness going
on in our home, and she got a chance just to kind of get away for a
little bit and when she did, I was there with the boys as well as
with Kaye and I just noticed that her monitor just kept spiking and
her heart rate kept going >200, like 225, 205, and I'm going "What
is going on here?" I mean this is the last thing that we need.
I've got to call Kathy and tell her, and she's got some free
time, so I called the pediatrician and they tell us we need to go to
Kosair, they don't know what's going on with her, so we get to
Kosair and a heart doctor comes in and does some tests and a little
bit later he walks into the room and this is what he says.
"Kaye has a very rare disease called pulmonary hypertension
and it is where in her lungs she has high blood pressure. And for a
teenagers or an adult to get this it is treatable by medicine, but
if you're born with this, she has about 2 years to live."
Two years to live.
I can still visualize that moment.
Dr. McOmber was our doctor who came in and talked to us.
I remember being in Kosair Children's Hospital, I can picture
it right now. And it's
almost a surreal moment, I mean, you almost feel like, 'okay, whoa,
what did you just say to me? My girl has at most 2 years to live,
that's it? Well, she
didn't make it 2 years.
October 31, 2004, Kaye got pneumonia and because of her condition
within her lungs as well as some issues with her heart, she wasn't
able to fight it and God took her home. Let me ask you a
question. Where to you
go? Where do you go?
I recognize that with a crowd this size, I guarantee you
there are some of you, maybe your situation is not exactly like my
wife and mine in 2004 but you're going through something that is
bringing about massive pain and massive hurt and it is causing you
to ask questions just like I asked, just like my wife asked about
God, His character, His goodness, His love, His care, His control,
His power…. Serious heart-felt questions that you're asking and
here's my question for you.
Where do you go?
Not to find answers, I think that's the wrong route for us, I know
it was for me, because the reality is simply this, I do not think,
and I think you can make an argument in Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, that
you will not find the answer that you're wanting.
You may get a glimpse of it, but you will not get full
disclosure in this world, so I'm not asking this question, "where do
you go to find answers?" I'm asking this question, "Where do you go
to find hope? Where do
you go to find an anchor for a soul that is just getting rocked by
waves? Where do you go to find a rock to stand on when everything
else is crumbling around you, where do you go? About a couple
of months ago, it was kind of one of those slower weeks in our
office and slower weeks in the student ministry, I think it was
actually the week right after Disciple Now, right before
Thanksgiving, and I sat down in my office, and I can't remember if
it was a morning or afternoon, but I just decided to watch a message
online there, and I chose to watch a guy named Louie Giglio, which
some of you probably are pretty familiar with him, maybe you're not,
but he's a huge man that is just doing an amazing job in the college
ministries and has this movement called "Passion" and really has
introduced a lot of college students to John Piper and encouraged a
lot of college students to go to third-world countries and share the
gospel and live for the glory of God!
A massive man
that God is really using in a unique way.
And there are a ton of messages, I don't know if you have
ever been online, but there are a ton of messages that Louie has
online there, and humanly speaking, I randomly chose this message
called "Life Hurts." And
as I watched this message, guys, I sat in my office and literally,
literally my heart was just screaming out.
Because Louie was able to put into words, which I was not
able to do - even now and during that 5-month period that we went
to, was able to put into words what exactly God was doing in my life
and what God was doing in Kathy's life, what exactly God kept
bringing us back to, bringing back to the forefront and that is
simply this…. The cross.
Where do you go to find hope when life hurts most, where do you go
to find an anchor for your soul, where do you go to find that rock,
I'm telling you, it's the cross of Jesus Christ!
That's where you go!
And this
morning, in the last half of our message here, just briefly here, I
just want to state the four reasons that he gave on this message
because it just spoke to my heart and I'm telling you guys, it was
just like my heart was just screaming going Yes! Yes!
Yes! And I pray
that this would be an encouragement for those who are here this
morning who are going through hurt or maybe have gone through hurt
and they are still dealing with it now because I'm telling you the
place that we go to get hope when life hurts most is the cross of
Jesus Christ. Let me show you
why, 4 reasons here:
1.
The
cross affirms God's love for you and me.
The reason why
we go to the cross is because the cross affirms God's love for you
and God's love for me.
If you've ever gone through a situation like this, guys, I promise
you one of the very first questions you will ask yourself is simply
this, "Does God love me? Does He give a rip about my situation?"
And this is why you ask this, is because we have somewhat of
a small knowledge of God here, we get this little knowledge of God
that God is powerful, that God is in control, that He has all these
things happening and it is by His will and by His power, we take
this small knowledge of God here, this little knowledge of God here,
and then when something that's tragic happens in our life, we start
making these conclusions: If God is really in control, if He really
is powerful, then why is He allowing this to happen in my life?
If He has the power to keep my parents together, then why
didn't he answer my prayer? Does he not care about me? If he has the
power to heal, then why did he not heal this? So we take this truth
about God and we begin to make conclusions about God based on our
feelings and our circumstances because if God didn't stop it, if God
didn't do this, if God didn't make it happen, then obviously God
does not care and God does not love me. Some of you are
sitting in this room going, "I never would say that."
Listen, I'm telling you when life brings about that kind of
pain, these are the questions that your heart is going to ask, and
the reason why we go to the cross is because it is where we know
that God loves me. We
don't go to our circumstances people, no matter if your
circumstances are great or they are horrible, that does not validate
that Jesus loves you! It
does not validate that God loves you.
Where we know that God loves us is at the cross. Let me show you
a few passages of scripture here, and these are going to be on the
screen also. One of them
is very familiar for everybody: John 3:16.
Listen to what it says:
Joh 3:16
"For God so loved the world,
(How do we know that? What proof do we have that
God loves the world?
This is the proof)
For God so loved the world that he gave
his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life. The foundation
that we can go to, to know that God loves me and that God loves you
is not our circumstances, but the cross of Jesus Christ.
Look at another one, Romans 5:8, another one we are very
familiar with:
Rom 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.
Where do we get
the affirmation that God loves us?
Right here at the Cross. Look at 1 John
4:10:
1Jn 4:10
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved
us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Hear me…. at the
cross we see evidence that God loves you and God loves me.
I wanted to ask permission of Kathy and I forgot to do this
and so I'm going to go ahead and share and then ask for forgiveness,
alright? [Laughter]
I don't think she would be upset, if she is here, just kind
of wave your hand. Okay,
no waving. It's just
hard to pick her out, even amongst 600 people here.
I do remember this, and she shared this, these are just
things that we keep journeying together as we process this whole
experience that we had for 5 months with Kaye, but I do remember her
saying this over and over again, when she was going through this
period of time she would pray and just ask, "God, please show me
your love, show me that you really do care." Because guys, and for
some of you in this room, you understand what I'm talking about,
when you are going through this period, you just don't sense it, you
don't feel it, you really don't believe God hears anything or
that he even cares about what's going on, because you pray and you
pray and you pray and you don’t see any kind of action or anything
really happening in these prayers.
And I just remember Kathy talking about just praying over and
over and over, "God, please show me you love me."
And it's interesting, God tenderly would always bring to her
mind the cross.
Why? Because it's at the
cross that God's love for you and me is affirmed.
There's the evidence…. Not in your circumstances, but at the
cross!
2.
At
the cross, and this is probably the one that you guys would probably
like for me to share a little bit more on, but because of our time
as well as the depth of this, we're not going to be able to deal
with this in full, but listen, God maintains control in the midst of
human freedom. At the cross we
see that God maintains control in the midst of human freedom.
If you were there that day, you would see an out of control
mad mob who were yelling that they free Barabbas and crucify Jesus.
And if you go ahead and look in Acts Chapter 2, you can see
at Pentecost when Peter is preaching his message he says "That you
men crucified and killed Jesus" but then in Acts Chapter 4, as Peter
is praying to God and giving him thanks and bringing glory to Him,
he says "God killed Jesus."
So, who's right?
They're both right. Hear
me! At the cross we see
how God maintains control in the midst of human freedom.
Now, why is that very important for us to understand and know
and see when we're going through something that hurts the most, it
is this. Because you
will think God is out of control. You will!
If He's in control, He can stop this.
If He's in control He can heal this.
If He's in control, He can make sure the cord is not wrapped
around her neck when she is born.
And the reason why you've got to know this, people, is this,
why pray then? Why?
If God's not in control, then prayer is just a little
therapeutic session that we have with God.
If the Devil is the one who does all the bad things in your
life and you're telling me this, that at that moment God
relinquishes control and says, "I can't do anything, the Devil's got
control here." That is a
lie, it is heresy, people!
It was just affirmed again this morning as I read Psalm 11,
and in that Psalm it says, and I'm probably going to butcher this,
when you go home today you need to read it, but in there it talks
about how things are just kind of chaotic in the world, righteous
and justice is not happening in the world as it should and there is
a question in the next line that says, "What should the righteous
do?" and in the very next line, I love this! It says, "God
still sits on His throne!"
Amen? He's not blown away with this, He's not freaked out! He
is in control! And you need to know that when life hurts most. 3.
God can use the worst for your good and His eternal good.
At the cross we
see that God can use the worst for good.
I mean, just bear with me.
Just think if you were a disciple in that time and you're
looking at what just took place on that Friday, you're watching
this, you're witnessing this.
And you're a disciple, and from their vantage point, from
their perspective, what do you see?
And this has got to be one of the most horrible days in your
life. Here's a man that
you spent 3 years with following around, listening to his teaching,
you're thinking man, this is the dude.
This is the Messiah.
This is the one we've all been waiting for.
This is the one the Old Testament prophets have been talking
about, I know He is! I
know He is! And then on that Friday they see their teacher, their
mentor, their leader, die!
Be murdered. An
innocent person, and for a disciple from their perspective, this has
to be one of the most horrible days of their life!
But now, January 20, 2008, we look back on that and that's a
beautiful site! We
actually call that Friday what?
Good Friday!
Because it's at that place that our sins were nailed to Jesus, and
from our vantage point, the cross is beautiful, Amen? It's
beautiful! And it gives
evidence to all of us in this room who are hurting, who are going
through pain that God takes the worst and brings about good. Now, here's the
danger, and guys I'm with you here because I've traveled down this
road, here's the danger, WE, we want to know that good now, don't
we? That's what makes it so difficult.
We've heard Romans 8:28, we've heard it probably spoken to us
and probably spoken to us at bad times and we wanted to punch the
person that said it to us because sometimes we want to give theology
and doctrine at just horrible times and situations, but we know that
verse, and Romans 8:28 says, "For all things will work for good for
those who love him and are called according to his purpose." But the
danger of that is simply this, is that we want to know what that
good is now, don't we?
How are you going to work this out, God, I've got to know right now!
And the reality is this, that you will be a very frustrated
person and a very bitter person if you keep trying to find
out what exactly it is that God is doing with this horrible
situation. Because that verse has given us this, and the cross is
telling us this, that we have evidence and confidence that whatever
situation it is that is bringing hurt and pain in your life, God
will bring about good.
That promise in Romans 8:28 is not just a promise that vetted itself
in Romans 8 there, it is a timeless promise and that promise was at
the heart of God when Jesus was crucified and that promise was at
the heart of God when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.
And those kinds of texts, guys listen to me, those kind of
texts can give you evidence, give you confidence, can give you a
hope that God has taken this tragedy, this pain, this hurt and He
will bring about good from it.
We may not know fully right now, but we know because of what
we saw at the cross, that He will bring about good.
God paints on a
canvas bigger than what we can see or understand.
If you look at the cross as a snapshot or just a little
portrait, if you just looked at the cross from that perspective,
then it doesn’t look like God's very loving, it doesn't look like
that God is much in control, it doesn’t look like that God's very
powerful at all, but if you take that portrait and understand that
God is painting on a canvas bigger than what we can see and
understand and that canvas is redemptive history, then at the cross,
that's a beautiful thing there.
Because we see how it all kind of fits together from Genesis
to Revelation. Because God does not just pain a portrait, God paints
on a canvas that is bigger than what we can see and understand. One of the
problems with Kaye was, we kind of found out about this later on,
and that was simply this, that she could not take a full bottle.
She couldn't do it, she would take about a half, and there
was some muscle tone issues there where her muscle tone was not as
strong and evident as a normal healthy baby and because of the
muscle tone issue she was not able to suck hard enough to where she
could take a whole bottle because she would just run out of energy,
so because of that, we had to put a G-tube in her so we could get
her home and be able to give her the rest of her bottle so she could
grow and be healthy. And
so it came a period of time toward the end of the summer that we had
some people, like a in-home nurse who would come and check on her,
and we realized that she wasn't gaining the kind of weight that they
would hope that she would be gaining so they wanted to kind of
fortify her milk and get some more weight on her, so we went to kind
of a feeding where it was almost every 3 hours that we had to feed
her. We had to get a
certain amount in so that's kind of how it averaged out there, but
for us to be able to get some sleep, we worked it out to where the
last feeding was at 12:00 and then the first feeding in the morning
would be about 6:00 so that would give us about a window of
opportunity between 4 and 5 hours if our other two boys didn't get
up at the crack of dawn, we would get about 4-5 hours of sleep
there. So I would do the
morning feeding. I would
get up, get her out of her bed, change her diaper, get the bottle
ready and I would sit there with her in my lap in the rocker, and I
would use those mornings as times to just pray over her.
And I'm telling you guys the Psalms were just like a
lifeblood for us during that time, they really were, and one of the
reasons why is because they are just so real.
They are able to express things that are going on in your
heart that you just cannot say, and I am so thankful for the honest
of which we see in the Psalms.
And there is one psalm that I would go to quite often and I
would just pray this over her almost every morning and I just want
to read to you a portion of it.
Psalm 92:
Psa 92:12
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a
cedar in
Psa 92:13
They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in
the courts of our God.
Psa 92:14
They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap
and green,
Psa 92:15
to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there
is no unrighteousness in him. So I would just
simply say this as I read this; I would say, "God, would you please
make Kaye righteous and may she flourish like the palm tree.
May she grow like a cedar in And guys, if God
just paints on a portrait and all of Kaye's life is just that
5-month span, here's the reality, this failed because she didn't
bear fruit in old age, she died at 5 months.
She wasn't ever full of sap and green, and I'm not so sure
that I could declare that the LORD is upright and that he is a rock,
and there is no unrighteousness in him.
And if I understand this because of what we see at the cross,
that God paints on a canvas bigger than what we can see and
understand, this is true, it is true because Kaye is planted by the
house of the LORD. Kaye
is flourishing in the courts of our God.
Kaye will bear fruit in old age, Kaye will be full of sap and
green. Why? Because it's
just not a 5-month period, it's all of eternity.
Listen to me! God
is painting on a canvas bigger than what you can see and understand.
And I know it doesn’t make it easy because maybe you want to
know all the answers right now, but here's the reality. God is going
to take this pain, he's going to take this hurt, if you are a child
of God, and bring about his good purposes and bring good in your
life. Trust Him!
"Every word of the Lord proves true," as it says in 2 Samuel,
our verse we memorized last month in December.
Because He doesn’t pain on a portrait, he paints on a canvas.
So, why go to the cross?
At the cross we see that God's love is affirmed and proven
and shown to us. At the
cross we see that God maintains control in the midst of human
freedom. At the cross we
see that God takes the worst and brings about His good and your
good. At the cross we
see that God paints on a canvas that is bigger than what we can see
and understand. So my
encouragement, my challenge to you is simply this: Maybe it is you
that is going through immense hurt right now, immense suffering, run
to the cross. Run
to the cross! He loves
you, and at the cross He proved that to you.
Maybe you're here this morning and, like I said at the
beginning, things are great in your life.
I know I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but this is
the reality because it's what it says in scripture.
Trouble is coming, pain is going to come, hurt is going to
come. We live in a
fallen world. Don't deny
it. Don't believe the
secret. You can't
attract good things to you just by thinking about them, come on,
please! Hurt and pain
are going to come and use this period that God has graciously given
you to prepare yourself for this.
Get into the Word!
Soak yourself in the cross of Jesus Christ.
Come to a fuller understanding of the gospel so that when
this comes you will not be shipwrecked, but you will have an anchor,
you will have a rock, you will have hope.
This morning as we close, we're going to do something a
little different and I've had to apologize 100 times this morning
because Craig Henry and these guys do an amazing job and I'm just
notorious about throwing things at the last minute, I really am, and
I'm working on that. I
gave you something that was way in advance one time, so I'm hoping
that gives me a little brownie points here…. [Laughter], but I don't
want us to sing our closing hymn.
I know it says in our bulletin we're going to do this, but
we're going to do something a little different.
There's a song that I would just like for us to, as the words
are coming on the screen, listen to, and I would just like for us to
just spend some quiet reflection time and ask the Spirit of God just
to speak to us, because I think this song is very fitting for what
we've talked about this morning.
So, I'm going to sit down and let's listen…. [Song Title: "Never Let Go" |