A Humble Perspective On Suffering

The Old Testament reading this morning is the 39th Psalm. I said, I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. I will guard my mouth with a muzzle, so long as the wicked are in my presence. I was mute and silent. I held my peace to no avail, and my distress grew worse. My heart became hot within me.

As I mused, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue. O Lord, make me know my end, and what is the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am. Behold, you have made my days a few hand breaths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath.

Surely a man goes about as a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil. Man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather. And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions.

Do not make me the scorn of the fool. I am mute. I do not open my mouth, for it is you who have done it. Remove your stroke from me. I am spent by the hostility of your hand. When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him.

Surely all mankind is a mere breath. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry. Hold not your peace at my tears, for I am a sojourner with you, a guest like all my fathers. Look away from me, that I might smile again before I depart and am no more. The New Testament reading this morning comes from the 24th chapter of Luke. I will begin reading in verse 13. that very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened while they were talking and discussing together Jesus himself drew near and went with them but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said to them what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk.

And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? And he said to them, what things? And they said to him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.

But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.

Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself so they drew near to the village to which they were going he acted as if they were going farther but they urged him strongly saying stay with us for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So he went in to stay with them.

So when he was at the table with them, he took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened that they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. You may be seated. Well, this is the last session of our Bible conference for this year. We have had a tremendous time around the world with Lance, and I'm just thankful for how he's ministered the word to us here, and frankly how he's ministered to some of us as we've spent time around the table with him and have gotten to know his heart and his life.

It's just been a really, really good weekend. Some of you haven't been here, you don't know Lance. I can tell you a little bit about him. He began ministry as the Senior Associate Pastor with John MacArthur. He was the pastor at the Bible Church of Little Rock, Arkansas for 15 years. Went back to California was involved in church planting planted Bethany Bible Church in Thousand Oaks California And now he is the vice president for the Expositor Seminary kind of headquartered in the church that he's a part of in Jupiter, Florida.

Lance is a good friend, and he's not just my good friend, but he's been a friend to all of us here as he's ministered the Word. So, Lance, we're anticipating God's blessing. Well, thank you, my dear brother. To know Tim Pasma is to love Tim Pasma. And it has been a joy to be with Tim and Becca, their family. What a joy.

What a wonderful church. It's been a real thrill and privilege for me to be among you as I brought the Word of God to you and as we culminate our Bible conference on this day as we open God's Word. If you would, please open to Psalm 39. Psalm 39. It has been read this morning to you. and so I won't read it again in its fullness, but we will go through it expositionally under the title, A Humble Perspective of Suffering.

A Humble Perspective of Suffering. That title and that idea of humble suffering has never been more acute in my life than in these days. You can read in Psalm 39 the phrase that King David gives to us and that is, life is a vapor. Life is a vapor. How true that is. You think to yourself one day that you have the whole of your life to live.

You are young and free and excited about the future and you presume your whole life is in front of you and that would be normal, of course, to think about and to anticipate. But none of us can measure life by its years, its decades, because the Bible clearly tells us that life is a vapor. You and I can presume that we are going to live to a ripe old age, that we are going to be married, if we are, for many, many decades.

And of course, that's natural to think about, because you and I presume that we are not going to be in categories of the shortness of life, the tragedies of life, the challenges of life I was the same way I just assumed that I was going to be living for many many decades and that I would presumably be married that I would have children that those children would have children and that I would die in that ripe old age with all of my children and grandchildren around me. And that's presumably what so many of us would assume about the way life would be if we were in charge. When I was just approaching the decade of my 50s, I saw how vapor-like life really was. and for the next decade and a few years even into my 60s, I've come to realize that life is not only a vapor, but life can be extremely challenging, and that suffering will hit me at an apex in the decade of my 50s. in 2009 just as the 50's of my life were dawning my stepfather died he wasn't someone that I lived with I didn't actually live with a father my parents were divorced when I was just 4 years old and I didn't even meet my biological father until exactly 40 years later when I was 44.

And so this man, my stepfather, had come into my life. My mother had been married four times and this being the fourth. He died at an older age, but it was the first in my family that I could recall where someone very, very close to you has now died. and after he died my own mother died she died on Christmas day of 2016 of a massive heart attack and she did not know the Lord she was a restless wanderer my growing up years were very volatile arguments silence spats uneasiness conflict All of those things were how I lived and how I grew up My sister and I were always having to duck and to evade the challenges of our mother because she was so angry and so distraught about life itself.

Not growing up with a father, seeing that stepfather die, and then believing that my mother who had actually become a Jehovah's Witness would maybe someday later repent and have her life transformed. I was very, very saddened when I was about to preach on a Sunday morning in California, and Christmas Day was on a Sunday that year, to get a phone call early that my mother had gone into a hospital in the Little Rock, Arkansas area where I grew up in the state of Arkansas and was told that somehow in some way she'd had a massive heart attack in the middle of the night and she had died. She was being treated for a blood clot behind her right knee and so it seemed routine, but either apparently that clot had been that which she succumbed with a stroke or a heart attack, it was very sad to me.

And I thought, well, possibly since these are a little bit older of persons, that my family wouldn't have a death for a long time to come. Thinking, of course, and knowing and affirming that life is a vapor, but you assume that that's probably true more so of other people. My wife was diagnosed with very serious cancer on December 2nd of 2017, just not too long after my own mother's death.

And in the midst of caring for her and all of her treatment for very serious non-smoker lung cancer. We had a sweet little baby boy who was born to our family from my oldest son, Calvin Theodore Quinn. He was precious. He was born a little bit early, but not too distressingly. And he was doing fine. He was in a NICU unit in a hospital that's only two minutes from my house.

We were rejoicing and the particular couple, my son and his wife, my daughter-in-law, had already had one son already and he was so excited about his little brother. And around day four of this little one's life, Calvin Theodore, unbeknownst to all of us, including even the medical care workers, They wanted to put a pick line into his little body to give him a little bit more nourishment and get his weight up a little bit, though he was very, very fine, doing well at four days of age. But unfortunately, the pick line that they used to insert into his little body was not properly sterilized.

And he became very, very sick. And two days later, he died. life is a vapor. He only had six days of life. It was crushingly hard. It's one thing, perhaps, to have certain family members die, but it's entirely another when one who is your own grandson and how you watch your own children deal with the death of a six-day-old baby. My wife was particularly jarred by that because of her own battle with cancer.

His death was in August of 2018, and Beth was doing well. My wife, we were having excellent scan reports. We were thanking God that even though there was such a dire initial diagnosis and a very bleak prognosis, the Lord was continually giving us wonderful days together that we could maximize because life is a vapor. But it did come to a place where around March 1st of 2020, even as COVID was just around the corner, that Beth began to feel very poorly.

And we discovered around March 15th that she had another form of cancer that the oncologist didn't know about and wasn't suspecting, a kind of cancer that was untreatable and fatal within two weeks. And so on March 30th of 2020 at 4.40 p.m., my wife died. And I was again reminded that life is a vapor. she was such an elegant and classy and godly woman.

She loved the Lord deeply, and she loved me, and she loved our children. We have eight children, five girls and three boys, and they now have their children. We have 12 of them, including that deceased child. And I would have otherwise assumed that Beth was going to be vibrantly alive and able to enjoy her children and grandchildren. All of them were around us within, oh, a few minutes.

And so it was again just a strange providence Why Because I assumed that we would be living together as man and wife for more than 33 and a half years. I assumed we'd have a 50th wedding anniversary. I assumed that we would watch probably our other children who had not yet had children have even more children and that we would have a grand brood. so even these children that have been born since my wife's death she's not been able to touch or hold or kiss or caress why? because life is a vapor it seemed as though that was such a crushing thing and it seemed as though just about every two years a death was just around the corner and yet I assumed that with the death of my wife things would slow down a little bit and death wouldn't be paying visits to our family but less than three months later I received a call from my niece in Arkansas asking me if I'd talk to her mother my sister my only sister.

I said, well, I tried to reach out to her. I sent her a message on resurrection that I just preached that had some personal references to my wife Beth, whom my sister loved. And I said, she hasn't responded to my communication. Is there something wrong? And she said, yes, she's in hospice care and she has about a week left in life. And I said, what?

How could that be? What are you talking about? She said, well, you know that my mom has smoked herself into very serious decline. And what you and I had not known was that she was also drinking herself to such excess that her liver has failed and she's basically drank and smoked herself to death. Not a believer. So I said, I'll be there tomorrow.

So I jumped on an overnight plane and I was there in the afternoon in Dallas, Texas pleading with my sister to repent and believe the gospel. She could not communicate. She was near death's door and she died one week later. Asking, even in her final days, if she could be given more cigarettes to smoke. Life is a vapor, my friends. It's here today and gone tomorrow.

It's very fast. When I assumed that the funeral service for my sister, which was actually conducted by me on what would have been her 61st birthday, was surely the end, at least for now, of some of this cascading, repetitious moments of funerals and death. And less than a year after that, my favorite aunt died. The one who I stayed with when my mother was so volatile and this aunt, my favorite aunt, became more of a mother to me than my mother was a mother to me.

And I received word, would you come and please do the funeral service of your aunt in Arkansas because she has died as well. And so, less than a year later, I was presiding over her funeral also. And I was reminded again and again and again that life is a vapor and I was thinking my stepfather, my mother, my grandson, my wife, my sister, and my aunt.

The decade of my 50s and in now to the early part of my 60s has been nothing but a challenge to see and perceive God's plans and God's ways. And then I came across Psalm 39. Look at it with me. Psalm 39. We've read it earlier, as I said, and Psalm 39 has become a precious psalm to me. I presume that you all love to read the psalms.

They are so heartwarming, so praise-conscious, and yet so also raw and real. and this is Psalm 39. David even talks about life as a vapor. And so when I was going through all of these death after death after death after death experiences with very close members of my family, I read Psalm 39 and it was mesmerizing. searching, soul-searching, and yet glorious all at the same time.

And when I read Psalm 39 and I looked at all of its constituent parts, I realized that this is a message that out of my own experience of all of these deaths in my family, it could be an encouragement to all of you. And so if I were to outline Psalm 39, I would outline it in this way, very succinctly. Be careful, be clear, be contrite, and be consistent. consistent.

That's really the message of Psalm 39. Be careful, be clear, be contrite, and be consistent. What do I mean? Well, let's look at the first three verses of Psalm 39 under that outline point, be careful. Now maybe you're going to say, be careful of what? And that's what I said.

Be careful of what? To what am I to be careful? And I think it's It's this, to be careful just to whom and just how you talk about life's difficulties. That's really the first three verses of Psalm 39. Be careful whom, to whom, and just how you talk to the people around you about life's difficulties. Notice what King David says.

He says to the choir master to Jeduthun a psalm of David. This is a song. David has written a song. And he says, I said, I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. I will guard my mouth with a muzzle so long as the wicked are in my presence. now whatever is going on in David's heart according to Psalm 39 he's saying something about his mouth his speech his tongue when he is standing around unbelievers that's clearly what needs to be interpreted here he says I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue Well, if you add that in the context of verse 4, O Lord, make me know my end, and what is the measure of my days.

Let me know how fleeting I am. Behold, you have made my days, verse 5, a few hand breaths, and my lifetime is nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath. surely a man goes about as a shadow. David is obviously thinking about the brevity of life. How short it is. How quickly life is here and then it's gone.

And I take that to mean that somehow, when David is around unbelievers, he's saying to himself, I better be careful about how I talk about life and death and about how quickly it is and comes. I better be careful when I'm around those who don't know God. I better be careful what I say. And I think that's very, very necessary and very good medicine for us.

For instance, just with myself, All of these deaths, all of these six deaths right in a row. When a father figure dies, and your mother, and your grandson at such a tender age, and your own wife, the wife of your youth, and your sister, your only sister, and your favorite aunt. When in rapid fire succession, these deaths occur in your life, there is a temptation, we all know it, to say something like this, God, this isn't fair.

I don't agree with what you're doing. And I think frankly that what's happening in my life and all I'm experiencing in this decade of my 50's is that you are arbitrary and capricious as a God. Have you ever known any unbelievers who might talk like that? mad, forlorn, irritable, volatile, angry at what they presume is not the goodness of God but His arbitrariness, His capriciousness.

Just talk to a normal run-of-the-mill person who's an unbeliever who's just experienced some kind of death that they do not agree was either necessary or right or best in the context of their life and just listen to what they say. So often you're going to hear those very words. This is not fair. This is not right. And maybe even going into a place of indicting God about His arbitrariness and saying what you are doing is unfair and I'm going to hold you eternally at fault for what you've done in my life.

I've heard those things. You've heard from unbelievers those very things. And I think in verses 1, 2, and 3, David is saying, I've got to guard my mouth. I have to guard my ways. If necessary, I've got to guard my mouth with a muzzle as the wicked are in my presence. now it doesn't mean that you don't have your own questions even as a believer it doesn't mean that you're always going to be on rosy street where you think that even with death being all around you and even though you believe God to be a good God that you still don't have any questions I've asked a thousand questions but when I'm around unbelievers I don act and talk like unbelievers And that what David doing Now it also doesn mean that when you lying in your bed and the night watches and your wife isn't there right next to you and your little baby has died and all of the people who are close to you and your immediate family are dropping like flies, that everything's rosy, everything's cheeky, everything's great, it's grand.

It's not. It's not. and David says in verse 2 I was mute and silent I held my peace to no avail and my distress what? grew worse in other words he was keeping it inside it was pinned up it's not as though we're playing a game here with unbelievers where we're telling them oh no everything's great the death of your people you don't need to worry about that This is okay. But David is saying, look, I need to respond to them in an appropriate way, but that doesn't mean that all my questions have immediately gone away.

My distress grew worse, he says. Verse 3, my heart became hot within me. And then just as honest and raw and real as he could possibly be, he says, as I mused, as I thought about it, as I laboriously worked through in the night watches all that was happening in my life. And we don't know exactly what was happening in David's life. We don't know if it was a problem, an issue, a person, a calamity, whatever it was.

But when he was around unbelievers, he kept his mouth appropriately shut. He was being careful of what he says, but that's only half the battle. And as I mused, he says, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue. And he did what you and I often and should do. And what is that?

I went to the Lord. I went to the Lord. And what was his state? well, I was being careful, but I also need to be secondly clear. I need to be clear. Clear about what? Here's what I need to be clear about, David says, about the true nature of man.

About how utterly short life is for mankind. And here's what he says. Look at verse 4. O Lord, Yahweh, make me know my end. I just read it a moment ago. What is the measure of my days? let me know how fleeting I am.

How transient I am. Behold, you've made my days a few hand breaths. What's a hand breath? What is that? Well, take your fingers on your hand and raise your hand. Everybody raise your hand.

Take your measurement from here to here. Maybe four inches? Five inches? six inches max, that's a hand breadth. That's the breadth of your hand. That's how long life is. Four inches.

Five. Six at the most. This is how short life is. It's a vapor. Sometimes the Scripture in the Old Testament says this is the length or duration of life. You ready?

That's it. A breath. A mere breath. It's here, and it's gone. And so he goes to the Lord. He doesn't go to unbelievers and trash the Lord.

He goes to the Lord and he says, you've got to make me the span of my life, the measure of my days, how fleeting my life is. I'm burning inside. I'm wondering. I'm pondering. Give me truth. Give me transparency.

Give me knowledge. Give me understanding. You've made my days a few hand breaths and my lifetime. It's nothing before You. It's like I was never around. And then He widens it.

Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath. boy how true that is oh I know there are the young people around us and they think they've got all of their life it's just ahead of me I can grab all the gusto I'm free I'm easy, I'm young I'm talented I can do whatever I want and then you even have TV preachers to tell them you can pray anything into existence. That's a lie. You can pray, but God is the one who brings everything into existence, and He also takes life away.

That's what David's learning. Surely a man goes about as a shadow, surely for nothing, verse 6, they are in turmoil. Man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather. And do you see that little phrase right there between verses 5 and 6? Selah. It's like a musical term.

It's like a term that speaks of a musical interlude. Where you have the music going, but the words are not being sung. And I presume that maybe Selah means something like this. Stop your singing of the words, and simply listen to the music and ponder what has been sung Ponder it Think about it Roll it around in your mind Muse upon it And here what you are musing upon I have to understand how short life is.

And then you start beginning to realize that if life is so short like this, maybe I ought to start maximizing every one of my days for Jesus Christ. Every day. Don't slough off. Don't take spiritual vacations. Don't be indolent and lazy. Don't presume you've got the rest of your life to live.

You don't. And God could cut it short. And He may. and often at times he does. You say, yeah, but that's my problem. I understand if David doesn't want to talk to unbelievers, he wants to be careful about that, but when it's just me and my God, and when I'm laying in my bed and the night watches, aren't I able to say, this is unfair? Well, in some ways, some of these psalmists seem to be doing that Lord how long how long how long will you not come to me how long will it be if you are not rescuing me well that's one thing and that in the psalmist's hearts are completely and totally understandable it's when you and I get to a place like this, God, you took my wife away and I hold you responsible.

As though he answers to me. I don't answer to him. I expect him to do whatever I want him to do. I expect him to do what I command him to do. You say, oh, I would never do that. Well, certainly not outwardly. we wouldn't be fine upstanding evangelicals if we said things like that out loud but sometimes in those night watches we may be laying on our bed thinking that very thing I hold you responsible I don't like what you've done I believe it's wrong, I believe it's arbitrary I believe it's capricious, I believe it's something that shouldn't have happened you shouldn't have taken that woman away from her children and from her grandchildren and you shouldn't be taking her away from me and for those others who love her and have ministered to her and have been ministered to by her.

This is not the right plan. That's why you've got to be careful. And you've got to be clear. You've got to be clear like David's clear. You've got to acknowledge this is how life is. This is how a short life is intensified. and so being both careful and clear you and I if we have that attitude like David is seemingly saying about himself this is what I'm thinking I don't tell unbelievers this but this is what I may be thinking and that's why the third point is this be contrite be contrite what do I mean? look at verse 7 and now O Lord for what do I wait? my hope is in you and then notice verse 8 deliver me from all my transgressions do not make me the scorn of the fool I am mute I do not open my mouth for it is you who have done it what has he done? verse 10 remove your stroke from me.

I am spent by the hostility of your hand. Oh, I see what's going on now. Verse 11, David's actually being disciplined by the Lord. Verse 11, when you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him. Surely all mankind is a mere breath. Oh, I think I'm beginning to understand.

I held my tongue in the ears of the unbelievers, but I grew worse because I needed a heart check. Though I wasn't telling the unbelievers that God was arbitrary, I think I was saying in my heart, even in those times of great despair, you're not good, God, at least not good enough for my tastes. And what the Lord had to do was to say, my dear David you have crossed the line.

You have crossed the line. And now you are to be disciplined. I'm going to chastise you as my son as your heavenly father and notice the words that David is contritely saying. Verse 8, my transgressions. verse 10 remove your stroke from me I am spent verse 11 rebukes for sin you know say whatever you want to say about David but he was raw and real and even in this moment he was acknowledging his sin like Psalm 32 right we read it like Psalm 51 we call them penitential Psalms.

Psalms of the penitent. Psalms of the sinner. Psalms of the one who needs to repent about our attitudes toward God And I think it probably true to say that one of the greatest struggles of the Christian life is to acknowledge that God is the Lord of both life and death He in charge of it He knows the rightness of it. He knows the timing of it. He knows that there is a plan and a purpose in His grand providence that sometimes even means the death of a child at six days of age.

And that's often where someone says, I do not agree with that. There is no good in a baby dying that young. No good in that at all. And if that's the kind of God you serve, and if that's the kind of God that you expect to be serving all of your life, count me out. Why? Because I'm using my own frame of reference.

I'm using what I think God ought to be. I'm assuming that God ought to bend to all my ideas and my wants and my wishes and my commands. And we've got the thing topsy-turvy. It's like the philosopher Voltaire who said God created man in His own image and then man turned around and returned the favor. Creating God in man's image. That's what we do.

That's what we do. If God doesn't come through for us in the way that we want Him to, then I'll reverse the process and I'll start questioning Him. You sit down here. You just sit down right here. I've got a huge number of questions for you. Is that what Job did?

At one point, Job says, I want a courtroom scene with the Almighty. I've got some questions I need to ask Him. And to which God responded when He ultimately responded and said this, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? You? Questioning me? You say, well, that sounds like that kind of arbitrary, capricious God who's catching one of His creatures up short and saying, Who are you?

Where's the love in that? Where's the fatherly nature in that? I tell you what, if you and I knew what God was up to in His plan and purposes for all of our lives, we would never question one thing. Not one thing. Because if we knew what He knew, and if we knew His compassion and His love and His plan and His purpose and all of the things that God knows that we do not know, we would never question one thing.

Do you know that in heaven, when we're all there together, there'll never be one question to God about anything because He knows all things and He's good. Psalm 119, 68a, God is good and does. good. And he's a wise heavenly father. And when he disciplines, like David says here, when you discipline a man, verse 11, with rebukes for sin, David's acknowledging look, you're the divine discipliner and you're doing it because you're rebuking me for my sin.

He's acknowledging that. It doesn't mean that the questions are out of line, but when you question the Almighty about His goodness and His plan and His purpose as though you think you ought to be in charge, you've crossed the line. Doesn't mean you have to know everything. Doesn't mean you have to agree with everything. And it doesn't mean that at times you might say, how long, oh Lord?

But you are doing it in a reverential way. You are doing it with a hesitation because you know that you are coming in prayer to the Almighty God who knows all things and who is also a loving Father. Be careful and be contrite because He's never sinned and we have. And then finally, number four, not only be careful, be clear, be contrite, but also be consistent.

Be consistent. Be consistent about what? Look at verse 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Hear my prayer. David's come to prayer.

And he says, Give ear to my cry. Hold not your peace at my tears, for I am a sojourner with you, a guest like my father's. I'm just passing through. Look away from me, that I may smile again before I depart and am no more. What's David saying there? What's he saying in verses 12 and 13?

When he says, hear my prayer, O Lord, he's at least acknowledging that God is higher than he is and that he's coming to God in prayer. He wants to be contrite. We know that from the previous verses. And now he goes right back to God and he says, give ear to my cry. I'm acknowledging I'm crying to you, God. There's nothing.

And God does not have a problem with you coming to Him with our tears. Believe you me, in the six deaths of these people, and particularly my wife and my grandson, I have come to God with many tears. Many tears. And that's what David is saying. But notice what he's asking God to consistently give him. Hold not your peace.

You know what peace is? Peace is that great Hebrew word, Shalom. Shalom. Peace, wholeness, tranquility, blessing. That's why when two Jewish people meet each other, and one says, Shalom! And the other says, Shalom Lachim!

Peace to you. And peace to you as well. Wholeness. I want you to live a holistic life. I want you to be blessed. And one of the ways to be blessed is what David is asking for.

Hold not your peace in my shalom. I want you. I need you. I'm coming to you as my heavenly Father. And yes, I'm coming to you in my tears. And I'm asking you once again to manifest your peace in my life.

I mean, when all is said and done, and with all the death and destruction around us, the mainspring of our lives is to know that God is at peace with me and that I'm at peace with Him and that He's going to continue to pour out His peace in my need. My tears. I'm crying. I need You, Lord. I can't do this without You. I can't respond as a Christian.

I can't be responding to the Lord Jesus Christ even in my tears if I believe I've been cut off from Your peace. Grant me peace in my turmoil. He says, I'm a sojourner with You. I a guest like my fathers It like that old song the world is not my home I just a passing through I a sojourner I'm a stranger in this life. I don't ultimately, because of my faith in Jesus Christ, belong in this sin-sick world.

I want to go to heaven. I want to be with Christ. when Philippians 1 came to my heart as my wife lay dying I had a new sense of understanding when Paul says to depart and be with Christ is far better you see when I think about my wife I try not to think about her in the sense of what I lost but of what she has gained. She's gained heaven. She's gained glory.

She's gained the removal of a sin sick body. And one day when she and I will be a part of the great resurrection of the dead and when our souls and bodies are reunited there's no more sin, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more sickness and her soulish dimension is experiencing that right now. People have asked me, how are you doing lately? How are you doing with all of this?

And I say, my wife's in Christ and she's with Christ and she would not give that up to come back and be with me at all. And I totally understand that. So Lance, get yourself off yourself. and your desires and your needs and your sorrows and your trials and your challenges and tests in life and get your mind on the truth that to depart and be with Christ is far better That's peace.

And then he finally says as we close, look away from me. Look away from me that I may smile again. He means look away from me in terms of your strokes, your discipline. look away from me in terms of your fatherly discipline that I may smile again. Smile again. I need your smile of grace. Grace and peace.

That's what we need to consistently ask God for. I mean, you've got to be careful. And you've got to be clear. And you've got to be contrite when your Heavenly Father is disciplining you. And when the discipline is over, you need to consistently ask for peace and grace. The smile of God's grace.

And He says, and Lord, do it before I depart and am no more. Let me ask you this morning as we close, do you know Jesus Christ? Do you know Him personally? Do you have a relationship with Him in the sense that you are asking Him to give you His smile of peace and grace even in the midst of your worst circumstances. Oh, I trust that it's true of you. Let's pray together.

Father, this surely is by King David a humble perspective on suffering. We don't know exactly what he was going through, but we know that he did go through it and he came out the other side with a plea for peace and grace for your loving smile Yes, his heart burned within him. Yes, he was doing something ultimately that he should not have been doing and he recognized his transgressions and his sin and he confessed them.

He was contrite and then he came back to where he should be. He was asking for more peace and grace, and you are so gracious to give it to us. Lord, forgive me for all of those times that I questioned your goodness or I besmirched your character in the night watches that this isn't fair or right or best or good. And thank you for your forgiving love. May it be ever ours for all of the trials in our lives. and let us, with a selah, when the words are not being sung but the hymn tune is there, let us silently acknowledge our sin and ask you for more grace and peace.

May it be so, and may there not be one person here who has not bowed the knee in humble submission to Jesus Christ. the great Savior of our souls, and the one to whom we will give an eternal account. May we love Him all the more as the one who knows all things, the future, and who knows what's best. In His name we pray. Amen.