Note: this transcript has been created using AI. It’ll likely contain some errors.

So, as I shared last week, we're starting this new series in First Peter, uh, life is exiles, proclaiming Christ in a Christless culture. Because whether we like it or not, we do not live in a day and age in the United States of America where being a Christian earns you a nice gold star. Uh, youth group culture is no longer as cool as it was in the 90s and the early 2000s. Sundays for most Americans is just a second Saturday. So we don't necessarily live in a Christian culture that many of us may have grown up with. So how do we stay faithful to the way of Jesus? How do we live our lives according to the way of Jesus in a culture that has no regard for him? And so that's what we're kind of going uh through together as a church family. And so some of you will know this story. Uh but four-ish years ago, Caitlyn and I did a hosting through Safe Families for Children. And we had this adorable little girl who's one year old. And that girl's mom was homeless. And so that led to that little girl living with us for around four months the first time and then another four months uh a year after that. And the first time we had her was like our second long-term hosting with Safe Families. And to put it lightly, that was an intensely difficult season of life for our family. I thought I had this really pure heart for the work that we were doing. Was feeling really charged up, inspired. My family and I, we love kids. We love and want to love the least of these that Jesus talks about in Matthew 25. And we had this face in our home. So, it was a no-brainer. But over the time of that hosting of those four months, I quickly realized that my heart was not as pure as I thought it was because I would find myself getting frustrated at the mom's lack of progress. I found myself getting frustrated at the long drives to York, which some of you are like, "York's not that far." Looking at Brian, who drives for a living, York feels far to me. I have to drive like three minutes to my favorite restaurant. Like, York feels far. Um, but I would find myself getting frustrated at visitations because then we would be there and have to figure out something to do while we're in New York City and there were just challenges with that cute little girl who would find herself in all sorts of trouble. And I found myself more anxious and angry than I care to admit. And if you've ever adopted or if you've ever fostered or you've ever even just watched somebody else's kids for an extended period of time, I think you might know what I'm talking about. And I wanted that mom to express more gratitude for what my family and I were doing for her. I wanted others to weep with me and to acknowledge the hard things that my family and I were going through. And I wanted people to help, but at the same time, I was too proud to ask for help. You guys ever feel that way? You want people to help, but you're too proud to ask for help. And I also wanted God to make things easier for us because, hey, we're stepping out in faith, doing this hard thing for the Lord, and he's making things really complicated for us. So what are you doing God with this? At which point it's like wait I thought my heart was pure. I thought my reasons for doing this were accur accurate and uh wanting to be a blessing. And those few months revealed new sinful parts of me as well as new passions for me. It wasn't all bad, but it revealed new sinful parts of me. And even though it was hard, God was already doing something in me that I couldn't see yet. And if you guys were paying attention when Sharon was reading, that's what First Peter 1:7 tells us, too. Is that what suffering does, what these trials do in our lives is they reveal the impurities of our faith. Hard things reveal the impurities of our faith. And I share that story because it reveals something that is not unique to any of us here. Is that every single one of us here will face suffering or we will face deep trials. I hope you guys know that. If you don't, I'm glad you're here today. And when we're going through suffering or difficulties, our natural question is, why is this happening? Have you wondered this? Why is this happening? And for first Peter's audience, they face suffering. Like we talked about last week, they face suffering because of their social status and newfound faith. They're nobodyies in Greco Roman culture. They're women. They're slaves. They're children. Again, clarify, women are somebody's. Just want to make sure we're clear. But in Greco Roman culture, women held no value. I'm sorry, ladies. It's sad. It's barbaric. It's one of the gifts that Christianity has given to the world that we say women have value. Because before Jesus came onto the scene, that was not the way the world viewed women. Same with children, especially if they were girls. And same with people who were disabled. Same with people who uh were slaves or in a lower social class. And these are the people that first that Peter is writing to in this letter. They're nobodyies. And at the same time though, they've been chosen by the God of the universe. But because of that, they're facing unjust treatment and sporadic persecution in modern day Turkey. And I can imagine them thinking to themselves, if this is what it means to be chosen, I'm not sure if I actually want to be chosen because life is getting so hard. But in first Peter, he addresses kind of two types of suffering. Number one, there's this like general suffering that we go through in life. Again, as Sharon read, verse six says, in all kinds of trials. So, that's just kind of like the normal hard things that exist in our life. Do you guys know what I mean by that? And that's what Peter is most likely talking about based on our passage for the for the day. But then also later on in around chapter 4, we're going to get to a very specific type of suffering that Peter wants us to process. And it is the suffering that goes along with persecution of our faith. So we're talking about though this general suffering that we go through in life. And my friends, this suffering that we go through in life isn't meant to be an anomaly. It's not an anomaly to Peter's audience. It's a given. And it's not meant to be an anomaly to us. It's very common, I think, for most of us in Western culture who still in regards even though you may feel like money doesn't go as far as it used to, we are still extremely wealthy compared to the rest of the world. We have brothers and sisters who live on less than $2 a day and are in ex genuinely difficult and heartbreaking circumstances. And at least in my experiences working with some uh international nonprofits, they don't struggle with suffering, I think, in the way that we do. I've I've never heard my friends in Zimbabwe talk about, man, I don't know if I can believe in God if suffering is a part of the process. I think this is a very us issue. But thankfully, God's word has some answers for us because suffering is going to inevitably come our way, my friends. So, I'm sorry if you were really looking for like a super exciting message today, which it is going to get exciting, I promise. But hang with me. So when suffering does inevitably come our way, we wonder, God, why are you letting this happen to me or to that person? Do you guys know that question? And that is a valid question to ask of God because there are real painful things that we go through as human beings. But a better question may be, God, I understand that this is really hard and difficult right now, but how do you want me to view this trial? What are your purposes behind this? because God's never promised us an easy life, friends. So, I'm I'm hoping that through this time that we will see that asking why certain things are happening is maybe not where we should land. Instead, asking God, what do you want to teach me through this? And so, in light of First Peter and the rest of the scriptures, I think it's good if we talk about the things that we can't do when it comes to suffering because this is an area of the Christian faith where things can get really weird. And so I want to talk about three way three things that we can't do together friends. So when suffering does come our way there I think can be three reactions and we have Christians with really good hearts and really good intentions who give away nice and easy platitudes like God works in mysterious ways. Have you guys heard this story? Have heard that platitude? Or God gives his toughest battle or his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers. Have you heard that one? Those may sound nice and maybe some of you have shared those with people. I trust that your heart was in the right place. But if I can tell you something, those are not really biblical and they're not really helpful to people who are suffering to give you true hope in darkness. If you're walking through a rebellious teenager, just hearing some vague thing of, "Well, God works in mysterious ways is like, yeah, but I'm weeping because this is driving our family apart." Like that's not a super helpful thing to hear. But other times, what we as believers can do is we can end up being like Job's friends. And if you're unfamiliar with the story, Job is the greatest man in the East. Thanks, Aubrey, for reminding me of this story actually just a week ago. But Job is the greatest man in the East. He has a terrific family, has 10 kids, he has vast wealth, cows, he's richer than Elon Musk, most likely. And in a single day, he loses everything. He loses his family. He loses his wealth. He loses everything. And his wife isn't very supportive. She tells him, "Why do you bother following God? You should just curse God and tell him to die." Is what his wife tells him. But later in the story, Job has three really good friends, and they come and they come to just mourn with him. And they start out on a great foot. They're weeping with him. They're in sackcloth and ashes and they're being great friends. But unfortunately, they start to overstay their welcome because they start to probe Job. They ask him, "What sort of sin have you committed against God for him to punish you like this? What have you done that God needed to take away your family, your wealth, everything? What sort of sin did you commit that God needed to do this?" They tell him, "You better get things right between you and God to avoid any more pain in your life." And if you know the story, you will know that's not the case. Job was a righteous man. That means he walked with the Lord. He didn't commit sin. He didn't sacrifice to other gods. He was a righteous man. He followed the Lord. God was not punishing Job in that story. Job was under a spiritual attack and his friends were the ones who were wrong. And at the end of Job, what God does is he rightfully rebukes his friends for failing to understand God's purposes and suffering. Because what Job's friends believed is that if you do the right things in life, you won't suffer. If you do the right things in life, you won't suffer is what Job's friends believed. And then they also believed if you do sin, you are going to suffer. And what Job's friends viewed, they viewed God not as a loving father, but as kind of a vengeful drill sergeant who's just looking for you to mess up. And what God says to Job's friends is, "You're wrong. You have not spoken the truth about who I am. My ways are not your ways." And then on the flip side though, there are people who want to a avoid pain or suffering at all costs. And Job's friends weren't just wrong about God. underneath their belief system was a real fear about who God was. Because if we can believe that good behavior ensures no suffering in life, if good behavior ensures pain-free existence, suffering then is always somebody else's fault. You guys know what I mean by that. If we can always tie suffering to something that we've done, it's easier to get behind. But if suffering is just something that happens to all of us, that's a little scarier. It's a little less comfortable. But what Job in the larger narrative of the scripture shows us is that suffering happens to every single one of us because we live in a fallen world. Jesus, Matthew chapter 5, he says God sends rain on the righteous and the fill in the blanks unrighteous. Bad things come to good people that have follow the Lord and love him and good things happen to bad people who hate the Lord. And so in our culture, what we try to do is we try to avoid hard things in life. You guys ever avoid hard things in life? Yeah. Me too. If we're facing a big decision or we're needing to have a big and hard conversation, our natural tendency is most likely to avoid it. We don't like those things. Why do we not like those things? It may introduce new hard things in our life. So, for instance, if you have this extended family that is really unhealthy and toxic, you may need to have a hard conversation with them about boundaries and about what they're doing to your own family. But you're scared to have that conversation because I've had to have conversations like that. It's scary because what may happen in that conversation is you may be misunderstood. You may be it may lead to even more hard things. It may lead to isolation. It may lead to breaking of relationship. So instead, what we do is we stay put because we're afraid of the change. Because we don't want hard things to happen to us. And so why do we do those things? Why do we give easy platitudes to people who are hurting? Why do we blame people for their own suffering? And why do we avoid hard things? And the truth is, we all like to be in control. We all like to be in the driver's seat. I'm sorry. If I've ever ridden with you in the passenger seat in a car, I've always thought, man, they're driving too slow or too recklessly. I'm sorry. That's a confession uh in front of all of you. But we all like to be in the driver's seat, right? We like to be in control. But oftent times what happens in suffering is suffering reveals that we actually don't have very much control in our lives at all. You guys know what I mean by that? Suffering reveals how little control we have in our life because we don't get to decide to have a cancer diagnosis. We don't get to decide to get into a horrific car accident. Those things by and large are outside of our control. And when we give these easy platitudes to people who are suffering, we try to stay in control of that situation because those platitudes really cost us nothing. They make you feel wise and spiritual because you may say God works in mysterious ways, but it really doesn't cost you anything. What would cost you is sacrificing and being present to that person to just listen and share how they're feeling. And my friends, I say this with love. If you've shared those statements before, I know that you had a good heart in sharing it. But please stop saying those things. They're not helpful to people who are hurting. So if you let people share though, if you ever talk to a person who is going through a really hard time and you let them share and they start crying, are you in control of that situation? No. You're wondering, "Oh man, what's going to happen?" You feel uncomfortable because people are crying. For whatever reason, we get very anxious and unwilling to just let people cry in front of us or we don't cry in front of other people. And so we put on this facade. my friends, we can cry with each other. It's okay. Or on the flip side, when we try to be like Job's friends, when we obey God simply to guarantee a good outcome, we try to stay in control. We become like one of my favorite characters in the New Testament. We become like the elder brother in the prodigal son's story. And things may go okay for a while. That elder brother, he was doing his thing. His younger brother had left. It's great. He's getting the entire inheritance himself. His brother's nowhere to be seen. and things are going okay for him. But eventually a trial comes his way. His younger brother comes home. His father now takes the inheritance that was going to go 100% to him as the elder brother. And now he's going to split it. He's not going to get as much money. He's not going to get as much land. And what does the elder prodigal son tell his dad? After all I've done for you, dad, this is what I get. This is how you're going to treat me. You may have wondered that God, after all I've done to serve you, this is what I get. You owe me a good life, God. My friends, if you can show me the passage of scripture that says that, that God owes us a good life, let's talk because you won't find it. And I know that's hard. I'm not trying to discount that. It's hard. And when we avoid these hard things though in life, we try to stay in control because we limit difficulties. In modern America, we dislike difficulties. I like talking about Door Dash because Door Dash is a great example of this. Why drive 25 minutes to the restaurant when you can pay somebody $5 to deliver it. You don't have to interact with them at all. You don't even have to leave your couch. They can just deliver the food right to you. We kind of avoid these harder things. I'm not saying Door Dash can be clutch sometimes, but you guys know what I mean. We dislike hard things in our life. So, we try to stay in control by limiting the difficult things that happen to us. But what happens in that is you never take risks. You never take steps of faith because that'll cause you to lose control. And the fact of the matter is this, all of us here are control freaks. Every single one of us. You may not think you are, but deep down depending on the thing, you will it'll be revealed to you that you are a control freak. And suffering just reveals them in brand new ways. And what happens if you continue to grasp for control and suffering? The suffering is going to become totally unbearable. And there needs to be a better way for us. And that's the way of the cross. Because here's the thing, we all cling to control in our own ways because we're fallen people. But what first Peter 1:7 wants us to reflect on is what does happen when the fire comes. What happens when suffering and difficult things comes into our lives? Verse 7 talks about how fire removes the impurities of gold. So when we go through hard things, does your desire for control get exposed? Does it get burned away? Or do you hold on to control tighter and tighter? And Peter says that that's what refining does. When gold is mined from the earth, it's not 100% gold, my friends. It's got all sorts of impurities in it. And so they have to consistently refine it in order to make what you may get at a jeweler's. And it exposes what's already there so it can be removed. And so then once the process of gold refinement is finished, what's left is purer than what went in. And it's all because the fire did its work. And in the same way, my friends, that's what suffering is for us. Oops, sorry. Thought there was a slide there. There was not. Ignore that. Suffering is this refinement process that God uses to help us to trust less in our control. And it asks us to trust more in him and his control. Suffering is a refinement process that God uses to help us to trust less in ourselves and less in our control and trust more in him and in his control. And so I understand that that may be hard. It's hard for me, my friends. I'm a control freak just like you. I obsess over things. I like things to be organized a certain way and it really destroys me when I see clutter. Just being real. And there are more serious examples of that. But we need to trust less in our control. That's what suffering does for us. But you may be thinking to yourself, man, I I don't know. I'm not necessarily convinced. But what I want to share with you guys is, do you guys think that God gives us a good reason to see why suffering can bring about good? I think there is. Because if you again were following along as Sharon was reading, 1 Peter 1:11 says, "The sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow." The sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. My friends, Jesus Christ suffered himself. Matthew 26, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. Maybe you're familiar with this story. It's Thursday. It's the night before he's going to be executed by crucifixion. And Jesus is afraid. He's taken his three closest friends up there and they keep falling asleep. The people that Jesus was hoping would encourage him, cheer him on in this incredibly dark time continue to be kind of tired and poor friends by falling asleep at that hour. And we would do the same. And so Jesus is afraid. But what's Jesus doing in that story? He's praying. He's talking to his father. And that prayer is actually quite simple. Jesus shares with his father that if it's possible, dad, take this cup. The suffering that is to come, take it away from me. Is what Jesus is asking God to do. But he doesn't stop there. The second part of that prayer is he says, "But not what I will, but what you will." Not what I will, but what you will. Have you ever prayed like Jesus where you've asked God to remove this hard thing from your life? We all have. I would encourage us though to pray that second part though, too. Not what I will, but what you will. And what Jesus does in that moment, friends, is Jesus gives up control. He does the thing that doesn't come naturally for us. He gives up control and he throws himself into the purposes of God. He entrusts himself to his father's will. But my friends, if you know the story, that leads to more suffering, not less. Because later on, after Jesus says, "Lord, I'm trusting your will for this." The King of Kings, the eternal son of God, he's betrayed by one of his own. And the God man who has the power to raise Lazarus from the dead allows himself to be stripped naked to be nailed to a cross and to be lifted up on lifted up for all to see. You guys ever think about how crazy that is that Jesus who had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead trusted God the Father's plan so much that he was willing to give up that much to control to endure that much humiliation and shame and suffering. And on the cross, that's what Jesus did. He gave up the control. He absorbed the just consequences of sin and evil into himself because God is holy and we are not. He gives up his spirit and he dies. And unlike the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son who only obeyed to get something, Jesus obeys and he's given the cross. But first Peter 1:11 doesn't say that Jesus just suffered. There's a second part with that, friends. It says there were glories afterwards. And what was that glory? Well, after dying on the cross, my friends, Jesus came back to life. I know we kind of say that all the time and you're maybe thinking like, "Wow, Anthony, give me something amazing and new from the scriptures." I'm giving you something new and amazing in the scriptures. There was a man who was died and three days later he's alive. If we can't get excited about that, friends, I don't know what can get you excited. And so, the power of sin had no hold on Christ. And for those of us who have faith in Jesus, the power of sin no longer has any power on us. And Paul says, when these perishable bodies die, we will be given imperishable bodies just like Jesus. So, if you're worried that heaven you'll just kind of be this weird ghost that floats around, my friends, you're not going to be a ghost that just floats around. You're going to be given a body just like Christ has a body. It won't have that creaky knee that you got. So, you can take heart if you have a bad knee or a bad back or whatever. My friends, God is accomplishing his mission of living with his people once again, just like in the garden. And the kingdom of heaven is spreading out through the work of the church. And one day, Jesus is going to return. He's fully ushering in the kingdom. He's going to defeat Satan and evil once and for all. And he's going to bring the new heavens and the new earth, where we will dwell with him, where we will see him face to face, where everything wrong will be made right. And that's the glory of the gospel. Did you guys catch it at the end that even angels long to look into these things? We get interested in angels and yet angels are interested in what's going on in our lives because they don't get to experience salvation. They're spiritual beings that serve God. They're in the throne room and they're jealous of what we get to experience because of what Christ has done. But my friends, this future glory that is guaranteed because of what Jesus has done, it only happened because of Jesus's suffering. And so if we are going to be people that follow Christ, that means we are going to have to join Christ in his suffering. And then so how should we actually live our lives then in light of Jesus's example and in light of what first Peter says? Well, number one, here's what we should do. Instead of platitudes that cost us nothing, we enter other people's pain because that's what Christ did for us. My friends, if you ever study different world religions, you will know that Christianity is unique because God didn't stay absent from us. God became flesh and dwelt among us. That's what John chapter 1 says. He entered into the human story. He experienced real pain, real suffering, real misery. And if we are to follow Jesus, that means we follow his example. We take time to weep with those who weep just like Jesus did at the tomb of Lazarus. And we don't just weep though, my friends. We can't just stay there. We step in to help in any way that we can. As I was sharing earlier, that difficult hosting through Safe Families, I can remember another host family mom. Her name's Janita. She's a very sweet brethren home woman. Not brethren home woman, sorry. Brethren woman. Get them confused sometimes. She dropped off this stuffing casserole for us. Did it have probably three sticks of butter in it? You bet. It's delicious. And Piper loves it, too. It's one of her favorite meals. So, it's been a Snively family tradition now. But Janita just dropped off that stuffing casserole for us one day. And she listened without judgment to us about our struggles. And she didn't say much. She's not much of a talker. But her casserole and her presence was enough for us. That gave us the assurance that we weren't alone in what we were facing. And so instead of platitudes that cost us nothing, we enter other people's pain because that's what Christ did for us. But number two, instead of obedience to gain God's favor, we obey because Christ obeyed on our behalf and he gives us God's favor. You and I cannot perfectly obey God. If you think you can, you don't have to come here anymore. Maybe you do actually because Jesus needs to do a work in your life. But I think you guys know what I mean. We are imperfect people who are always going to fail. You may feel like you're doing really good, but eventually you're going to mess up and not live up to your own standards. But the only person who has ever lived up to our standards and to God's standards is Jesus. And because he did that, we get to have his favor. And salvation is this gift that God gives. It's not something that we earn. But because we've received a gift and we know we're deeply loved, we want to reciprocate that love through obedience. My kids know that I deeply love them, no matter what. Even Jude says this thing. He's he's been on a tear some days lately, and he'll just remind me in these moments after we sit in timeout where he just says, "Daddy, I love you." And I said, "I love you, too, buddy." And then he's like, "No matter what." And then you're just stabbed in the heart. And on my kids' best days, they obey me because they know my love for them is secure and my purposes for them are good. And God's love is the same way. You are going to be radically insecure if you feel like you need to earn God's love because there's always going to be somebody who is doing it better than you. There's always going to be more spiritual disciplines you could be doing. God loves you, my friends. Just believe that. Like genuinely believe that. That God does love you. And because he loves you, that's why we can live changed lives. And then lastly though, instead of avoidance to hard things in life, we can trust that God can bring good through our suffering because that's what happened to Christ. And I know that's hard and I know there are hard things that we go through in life. But the resurrection gives us hope. The resurrection proves that our fing future ending is secure in Jesus. And so we don't have to try to protect ourselves from hard things. We don't have to avoid the difficult things that come in our lives or think that God's forsaken us. Jesus already was forsaken by God so that we wouldn't be forsaken. So my friends, we can trust that the resurrection proves that whatever we go through in life, God can bring something good from it. And so this week, my friends, I want you to know that with suffering, you really only have two options. With suffering, you only have two options. You can either number one, allow suffering to become unbearable, which I wouldn't recommend, or number two, allow suffering to push you into deeper joy in Christ. And that doesn't mean you need to just try harder. It doesn't mean you need to minimize your pain. But rather, if you guys will think with me of the God that Jesus serves in the Garden of Gethsemane, that same God who strengthened Jesus because left to Jesus's own will, Jesus wouldn't have gone to the cross, but he submits himself to his father's will. So the same God that strengthened Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is the one who's going to strengthen you, friends. like they're the same God. So the God that strengthened Jesus in that moment is going to strengthen you. And when I say this thing, deeper joy, that isn't this unrealistic call then to ignore your pain and ignore your suffering. Jesus doesn't want you to ignore your pain and suffering. If he did, when he saw Martha and Mary weeping because their brother Lazarus died, he would have just said, "Get over it, friends. I'm about to do something pretty crazy." Is that how the story goes? No. It's the shortest line in the Bible where it says Jesus wept. Two words, powerful reflection of who God is. So deeper joy isn't about ignoring our pain or ignoring our suffering. What deeper joy really means is smiling and trusting in Jesus while you are still crying and mourning. And Paul describes that feeling in second Corinthians when he says he's sorrowful. So he's sorrowful on this hand and yet he's always rejoicing. And it just takes a simple prayer, my friends, to orient yourself in that way. Not my will, Lord, but your will. And my friends, continue to stare into the glories of Jesus Christ like the angels do. Even angels long to look into these things, my friends. Angels long to look into what we get access to through Christ. They long to look into the glories of what Jesus has done for us and what he's going to do. Stare into the glories of Jesus Christ and remember just things like Jesus's amazing promise in John 16:33. He says, "In this world, you will have anybody fill in the blank? Trouble." Man, Jesus, that kind of stinks. The second part of that though is take heart for I have overcome the world. Christ is one. Christ is one. Jesus is the one who gets the final word. Not your suffering, not your circumstances, and not your control. Jesus gets the final word. And as we kind of prepare to sing to God one more time today, I want you to just take a reflective moment as we pray and ask yourself these two questions. That God, am I choosing control over you in this season? God, am I choosing control over you in this season? And then number two is when I am suffering, do I hold on to control or do I give it up like Jesus? And if you are a person who is going through a difficult season right now, my friends, come talk to me maybe after service if you haven't already done that to me. But there are also people in the back who would love to pray with you as well. They have new name tags as well, so you can easily find them out. Um, there are folks available to pray with you in the back. Or it doesn't even have to be them. If there's somebody that you trust that's a part of this congregation, go talk to them today. Share with them your heart. And if somebody comes to you, my friends, pray with them. Don't give easy platitudes like God works in mysterious ways. Listen to them, weep with them, and pray for them. And that's what the church is here for, friends. Not people who pretend to have it all together, but people who can be real with each other. And what you can do then is you can allow that person to speak truth over you and to encourage you to give up control and instead push towards deeper joy in Christ even through the tears. Even through the tears, guys, because God cares about those tears. Amen. Amen. All righty. I'm going to invite you to stand. Stand again, my friends. We're going to pray again as a family and just ask yourself this question. Am I choosing control over you in this season? And when I'm suffering, do I hold on to control or do I give it up like Jesus? Because I'm not inviting you to give up control just to give up control for control's sakes. I'm saying if Jesus is the one who did it and the resurrection came out because of it, you can trust that God is going to redeem all the broken things that happened to us, my friends. So, let's pray together. God, thank you. Thank you that you are not a God that is distant or far off from what we go through as human beings. human beings who live in a world where people get hurt, where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Lord, we thank you that your cross, that your resurrection reveals that there can be purposes behind suffering and pain that we don't know about. that God, we may not understand on the Friday that it happens, but three days later it may make the most sense in the world. And God, we may not always get that resolution that the early followers did. Lord, the resolution may come when we finally see you face to face. Because God, before you, all questions fade away. all worries that we had fade away because we will see you for who you are. We will experience you being good and faithful to us even when it was hard to maybe believe that down here. God, I pray that you would give us faith, give us belief, help our unbelief, help our doubts. God, give us the boldness like your dear friend Thomas who believed in you even though he had doubts. God, I pray that you would give us eyes to see, eyes to see your purposes behind our pain. Give us eyes to see the glory of the risen Christ. And that glory is that pain and suffering does not have the last word, but Jesus does. God, give us the eyes to see the glory of the new heaven and the new earth. Where our savior himself is going to wipe every tear from every single eye, which must be billions and billions of people who will trust you. God, give us eyes to see the glory for who you are. Lord, let us not grow weary of doing that, Lord. And even as we just sing this last song, I pray that we would be reminded that you are holy. You are set apart. Your ways are not our ways. But God, you are a good father. We can trust you because of what Christ has done. So Lord, I pray that you would bring conviction, that you would bring comfort where it's needed this morning, God. and that as we would sing to you, we would make a joyful noise even with some tears as well. So it's in Jesus name I pray. Amen. flows from your throne. You wear the crown of majesty.