Overcoming Grief and Loss

Talk it Over

Ps Len shared a great message today about Outlasting Loss. Take some time with your family or Village to chat about the following discussion questions.

What was your key take away from today’s message?

Discussion Questions:

Ps Len's shared a personal story about his niece's tragic death help to illustrate the theme of "Outlasting Loss". Do you have a story of loss in your own life. Take time to share this with your group.

Ps Len mentions three important lessons for the living.

• Our life on earth is brief.

• We have one main assignment.

• We are not immune from and don’t control every event.

How does knowing these lessons impact the way you live your life?

Ps Len talks about grief and the importance of grieving appropriately according to God's word. How can we grieve in a way that is both healthy and honouring to God?

What does the story of Ruth and Boaz's lineage, including Ruth's inclusion in the genealogy of Jesus, teach us about God's plan and the potential for redemption even in the face of loss?

Ps Len emphasises the brevity of life and the importance of completing our main assignment.

“You were not designed for this earth, you were designed for another place.”

How does this perspective on life impact the way we approach our faith and relationships?

“What we do today with Jesus, will determine what God does with us for eternity.” Discuss this quote from Ps Len.

TRANSCRIPT

Let me tell you about the headlines of Toowoomba Chronicle. It's April 2010, and it reads this. Court hears accused told his housemate of killing. The accused told his housemate and the police. He strangled his former lover out of revenge. The victim, Renee Peter Todd, was 26 years and two days old. Her ex had come to visit her in her unit in Kingaroy, and they had talked for a while, they'd even shared a drink, and then an old disagreement arose and re emerged a little after 2am on the 10th of April, 2010, after being strangled.

Rene was dead. Now, this is Rene. She's my niece and just that I can still remember how I felt when I first heard what had happened to her. There I was. She's the daughter of my brother John and Kim, his wife, and five years later there I was sitting in the Supreme Court in Brisbane with them. Can you ever imagine what it's like to sit with the family?

As they go through the retelling and reliving of the crime that's happened against their loved one. And we sat through two days of grueling testimony. They'd hoped for a murder conviction and, like, given the confession that was printed in the paper and everything. But it turned out to be a manslaughter charge at the end.

The family were reliving that loss day by day. All of us felt it, again, as fresh as it had just happened. I spoke to my brother this week and he said, I can still feel it. The moment you mentioned her name, what it's like. So I've seen the toll that it takes on those who are left to try

and pick up the pieces and attempt to make sense of it all.

So today we're talking about outlasting loss. You know, what's it like beyond that? Initial shock and horror. And it doesn't just go away in one moment, does it? It goes on. We're talking about lessons for living. What can we take out of death that is a lesson for life? In the ancient wisdom of the Hebrews, Example A.

We can learn what happens in the seasons and rhythms of life. And if we allow, we'll see how God teaches us some wonderful lessons. And we can read it in the scripture here, and it says for everything there is a season. Turn, turn, turn. You know, there's a time to be born. There's a time to die. There's a time to weep, and then there's a time to laugh.

There's a time to mourn, and then there's a time to dance.

What are the lessons we learn from loss? You know, experiencing loss is 100 percent our experience. There's not one of us in this room is not experienced or won't experience loss of some kind. I can remember being a pastor and coming back from a holiday with the family, only to find that my boss said, Oh, sorry, your job's not there anymore.

You know, well, how does that feel? You know, at that stage I was pastoring and working as well. And I needed that money to raise the family. Since then they've all been poor and on the street. No, thank God. He had a plan through all of that. And it works out in the end. It's really interesting what God will teach us out of life's lessons.

We're sad. Yes, actually, they're the saddest times. But they're times to learn. A lesson so important that God actually dedicates a whole book of the Bible to this. And we're going to be looking at this book today. One of the great mentors of the Bible. And it's a lady! Ruth. Not that Ruth. This, this is the book that inspired me in this message today.

We find the story goes back to the time of Israel before there were kings in the land and they had judges. And here we have Naomi. Naomi, it's the married to Elimelech. And from Bethlehem, famous town. Naomi means good and pleasant, gentle, lovely. It's a beautiful name, you know. And she wore it with pride, and she left with her husband, because there was a great famine in Bethlehem.

They went to the land of Moab. And Moab was one of the old relatives of Abraham, Lot's son. And both sons marry Moabite women. There's Ruth and Orpah, not Oprah, but Orpah. She's the other sister. And there were Israelites marrying Moabites, and in time they hoped to have some Vegemites. Oy, you know what happens.

Time, time will tell. But soon after, they are settled in the land of Moab, and their sons are married. A lima leg passes away. Naomi is still struggling with that loss and then, both her sons also die. We don't know how they died. The scripture doesn't tell us, but they're both gone now. And now we have a new wave of grief and loss coming over Naomi's life.

And she confronts it with her two daughters in law, now also widows. And she, she really doesn't know what to do. And time of famine now has ended in Bethlehem, so she... Thinks it over and says to her two daughter in laws, Go back to your Moabite families. I think the Beatles wrote a song about it. Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged.

Okay, anyway, enough of that. But Orpah says, okay, I'll go home to mum and dad and start all over again. Ruth says, no. Ruth is different. She finds faith in God and in her new family. And let's hear what she says right here in Ruth chapter 1 verse 16. Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go, I will go I will stay.

Your people will be my people and your God. will be my God. Wow. Step of faith for her. So, Ruth is different. Ruth finds the grace to move forward and she'll be glad she did. Because, at the end of this talk I'll tell you a little twist in her story that not many people know. It helps to make sense of everything that Ruth is going through and experiencing in her season of loss.

There is some sense. to it. God knows we don't, not often. So, but we can start to see that God can be trusted even in the deepest and darkest moments of our life. God knows all of us are going to face loss. 100 percent of us are going to face it. He even addresses in the Beatitudes, you know, Jesus gave those wise sayings.

And he says here in Matthew 5, 4, Blessed are those who mourn. For they shall be comforted. What does that mean? You know, when you mourn, heaven takes notice. That's what it means. You'll be blessed. Heaven will know what you're going through, and it'll be right for you at that moment when you're, you are mourning a loss of a loved one.

You're never at any time of your life more vulnerable to good or bad. It's a season to be careful. For the enemy will slip in and try and defame God in the midst of your suffering. He'll try and take away your confidence and trust in God. How come that happened to me? If you were really God, it wouldn't have happened, right?

No, there's more to it. It can cause you to blame people. It can cause you to be disappointed or distressed or depressed or anxious. blaming, bitter. All of these things can fall into place and cause your future to be mutated. You'll have a different outcome if you let that overtake you. Or it can be the cause of extreme improvements in your compassion and your sensitivity, your love more deeply, your care for others in life.

Which way will it go for you? In your loss, which is real. Some of you are going through it right this very moment. Some of you, unfortunately, will have to face it later. A time where there are lessons in, for the living, and you start to live far more intentionally. Now Solomon was once the wisest man. I'll say that.

So when there is a loss, there are more lessons to be learned, he says, in a memorial service than a party. Let's read what he said in Ecclesiastes chapter 7. It's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. How could that be, you know? Go to a feast and you don't have as much fun as a funeral?

What is it? Well, you've got things to learn. Each time you go to a memorial service is really not for the deceased, is it? It's for the living. You know, if we, like as a pastor, have conducted so many services like that, and if I can't see the people leaving in a better place than when they came in, I think I've failed in that service.

My job is to reconnect them to God and say, I'll be okay as I'm going out the door. Doesn't mean all the tears have stopped and everything's... So it's a time for learning lessons. For those services are not for those who are deceased, but they're for those still alive. The lessons are embedded every time we go to the memorial service.

And here's the lessons we want to learn today from those loss experiences. There's three that I'm going to give you because all godly things come in threes. Well, that's what they said at Bible college. Now here are three lessons that I want you to catch whenever you're going through loss. Would you remember this lesson number one, life is brief.

It's short, it's transient. I mean, look at what it says here. Just think for instance, where was the last 10 years of your life? How quickly has that gone? You know, some of your young people haven't got there yet, but 10 years just goes like that, doesn't it? If you realize that in the next 40 or 50 years, this whole room.

We'll be gone. Hmm. Not the room, but the people in it. 40, I mean, I'm younger than you, so I'll still be here. But all of you have taken a transition at one point. How long do we have? I asked Kev, you know. I wasn't talking about time. I was talking about life. What if we get taken at the point we didn't think we'd be taken?

What if our lifespan isn't that far out in the future? Are we ready for that? Whatever God says is enough.

This is part of the lost story, isn't it? The thing we're thinking about. Think, right now, we're travelling 107, 000 kilometres an hour. Did you feel it? We're on this spinning globe. You know, it's a little tilt. And it's going around the sun, 107, 000 kilometres an hour. It's faster than your spin cycle in your washing machine.

And you don't feel it, do you? But a couple more turns...

Now, I'm, you're glad you came to church today, aren't you? Man, that Pastor Len knows how to G you up!

Well, we've got things to think about. One of our worship team When we're doing the recent Bible plan on healing, he wrote this, Our lives are a blip when placed on the eternal timeline. He didn't want to be mentioned, but he plays drums and has tattoos. But the New Testament letter of James says it this way, Your life is like a vapor that appears today and is gone tomorrow.

And David in the Psalms in 144, he says your life is like a breath, like a passing shadow. Man, I'm getting depressed, aren't you? When you take 20, 000 breaths a day and you don't have to think about one of them, you think, you don't have to because it's automatic. God says I'll know how many you've got and we're not there yet.

So I'll just say thank you God for that last breath. There's a sigh. Another scripture says your life is like a sigh. Man, are you getting depressed? I hope not. There's lots more to it. It's like that. So when Pastor Len, why are you telling us all this? About the short time on earth? I'll tell you why.

You'll probably be surprised. And here it is. You were not designed. for this Earth. You were designed for another place. That's why this Earth is so short. This is why it has what it has in preparation for the big show. The big thing that's coming. Because we're not designed for this Earth, we look at this Earth differently.

And if we don't get that, we are looking at this Earth wrongly. And Christians are blessed to be able to have that eternal look that so many people miss out on. When they're going through life, they think it's just next week, tomorrow if we're lucky, hopefully not next year. You know, whatever's bad coming up.

Life is a stopping point. What is it for? Well, there's... Here's the second thing on our three lists. First of all, God gave us this pause, this little short life, because we have... One main assignment, just one. Why are you here? One main assignment. And I'll tell you what it is. He gives us just enough time for this assignment.

The most eternal decision. One time a man came up to Pastor Wayne Kediro. Thank you Wayne for the notes on this lesson. But you know what, he was asking Pastor Wayne Kediro this question. He says, I know you're a pastor, I want you to ask you a question. Absolutely, said Pastor Wayne. And the man said, You know, the Bible is so big, so many things in it.

If you could break it down into one sentence of what the Bible is about, oh, what would that be? And he said, absolutely. The book of John said, Pastor Wayne, is, says if everything were written about Jesus and written in one book or books, we wouldn't have enough libraries to contain. All that could be written about Jesus.

However, and then he quoted John chapter 20 verse 31 and he read it. He said, here's the real thing that the Bible's about in one sentence. These are written so that you may believe. That Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. And that by believing you may have life in his name. Not forever on this earth.

But forever starting now. Joining in with the eternal forever. Isn't that interesting? The Bible in one verse. You know, this life is not long enough for you to make one decision about Jesus Christ. Have you had enough time? The answer is yes. If you haven't made that decision yet, now is the time. Right now is the time to do the assignment.

Trust in Jesus. Have life. Forever. What we do with Jesus today will determine what God does with us for eternity. What we do today with Jesus will determine what God does with us for all eternity. God won't force that on you. We will have time to make that decision. For what? So we can be a citizen of the kingdom that lasts forever.

So this life is really a ministry space. A ministry space for us to deal with Jesus, to understand who he is and trust God to the end. Jesus said it this way. What does a prophet, a man, if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his own soul? That's a pretty simple statement. That's true. It's like having a college, friend at college, you know, he's got this assignment due and he says don't don't disturb me. I've got to get this in he works hard passes it into the Professor and and pretty soon after a few days the results come back and here are these notes from the professor great illustrations great citations great bibliography great F wrong assignment and we might think you idiot.

Why did you do that? But how about God looking at us at the end and saying, That was a great home you had, you know, a great car. You had some great friends. Wrong assignment, F. What if we go wrong? The best and most important decision, we got wrong. Have you completed that assignment? It's a good question. If you haven't, take the moment right now, ignore what I say next, and just take a moment to get that sorted out with Jesus, okay?

So why this whole thing about loss and what does it say to us today? There's three lessons. First of all, the number one life is brief. Number two There is an assignment that we have to fulfill in this life. Don't miss it. Don't miss it. No, no way Don't miss it. Have Jesus Christ and Lord of your life right now.

And then the third thing is this We're not immune from and we don't control every event. We're not immune from sin We get affected by other people's bad choices all the time. And our own. We're not immune just because we belong to Jesus. See, there's laws in this world. If I drive my car too fast, which I never do, and I come to a corner and I'm, the law of inertia seems to take over and those four wheels are screaming and trying to stay on track and ends up in the fence, I can't blame anyone else.

I disobeyed the laws, you see. And Jesus said it this way, God causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust, causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. This is a wild world with all sorts of rules on it, and we can't disobey them without consequence. And it's because of this, God says, I told you I'm not going to put this world right, I'm going to put you as lights amongst the perverse generation, so they can see there's another answer.

He's not going to pop us out of the world just because of what's happened to us. You're not going to be immune from it, from the laws of this world, and you won't be immune from what the sins of man do. It even happened to Jesus. He was only 33 years old. Think about it, 33 years old and your life is coming to an end.

Because of the sins of men, literally, they scourged him and put him on a cross. But did that thwart God's plan? No. No way, it was part of God's plan. The worst possible way to die, and yet it was all part of what God had in mind. Did Mary weep? She stood at the cross and said, Oh, it's alright, God's got it.

It's all under control. She wept until she couldn't weep anymore. Till Jesus, in his last breath, was saying to John next to him, There's your mum, look after her. From now on, absolutely, if you are in loss, you should weep. You should mourn, there's a time for that. When you mourn, heaven takes note. God cares and so Mary understood that she wasn't immune to the world's sin and the things that happen in life.

And here's a note about grief. Write it down. You've got to grieve appropriately according to God's word. When you grieve, grieve according to God's word because there is a way to grieve that is not according to God's word. Everything's going to collide when you're grieving. You're going to feel one way one moment and another way in the next minute.

It's going to come like a tsunami where you'll feel really overwhelmed and then it'll recede for a while and all of a sudden it'll rush back in on you. You won't know how to deal with it often but just hang on, press into God because at that moment you're actually vulnerable to the enemy. He wants to take that opportune moment to turn you off your faith and trust in God.

So, the devil wants to isolate you out there somewhere and think you've got no one to help you. No visible means of support? Well, the invisible means of support is there for you. It's like you want to say, just to everyone, leave me alone. I don't want to know anybody. God, get away. Oh, hang on. No, God, I need you.

You can come back, but not anyone else, you know. And eventually, we've got to press into the Lord. In the midst of those times of mourning, you're vulnerable. So press in to the Lord. Job had to mourn. We've been studying Job a lot lately. You know, just think of that day when he got the news. First of all, his goods were all stolen, his houses were being collapsed, and then he heard about his family, all the children perishing in one moment.

He broke out in hives and boils. He was so affected by it all. But you know what? He understood what it was to grieve, but not to give up hope. His wife said, why don't you just curse God and die? But let's look at what Job said in Job 13, 15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Though he slay me, nevertheless, I will argue my ways before him.

He's saying, okay, I'll accept that God's in control, but I'm gonna have a serious discussion with him about this. Gonna nut this sucker out, you know. There are times to get angry with God in the right way, respectfully, and say, God, what are you doing? And he'll say, trust me, I've got it. It's under control.

Well, one Sunday after church, there was a young guy out in the church here that we had one of the young adults in church at the time, and he'd gone through a loss of job, a relationship breakup. He was feeling totally out of it. Just recently came back to faith in Christ, and he was sort of giving me that why me speech, you know?

And I felt the Holy Spirit say, say this to him. And I thought, where's this coming from? Where's it going? And this is what God said. If this is as good as it gets, is that enough?

Think about your life right now. If this is as good as it gets, but you have God, is that enough?

He thought about it, perplexed about it, wondered, wondered and said, yes, that's true.

It's not to say we don't expect more. And we shouldn't expect more. Healing will often take a long time. It's okay. Absolutely normal. The body needs time to heal. When you suffer, please read something like this in 1st Peter 4 19. Therefore those who also who suffer according to the will of God, there's a way to suffer according to the will of God, because there's also a way to suffer that's not according to the will of God, shall entrust their soul to a faithful creator in doing what is right.

So the right will come out. If we entrusted to God, we've got to be patient with that. Now we're going to move on to talk a little bit more about suffering. If there is a way to suffer this not according to God's will and produces things like we become Less sympathetic, less compassionate, more opinionated, more bitter, and someone that would be galvanized against this or that.

Just look at the conflicts around the world today, how many of them have come about because whole people groups have felt this, you know, dissatisfaction of suffering not according to God's will. And so they go to war with one another to try and sort it out. When we can start to form these wrong kind of ideologies and spawned by vengeance and avenging this situation and that everything that goes wrong and God says, no, no, no, no, it's not what I want you to do.

Make sure when you suffer, you come to me, press into me. So there's gonna be a, a lot of suffering in our lifetime. I'm sorry you didn't want to hear that, but there's going to be, we're not excused from it. And we shouldn't expect to be. You say, why me? Why not me? Why should I be the lucky one out of everyone, billions of people in the world?

Why should I not suffer when everyone else can? So be careful when you grieve. Don't grieve as those with no hope. You see, death is a comma. It's not a full stop. Death is a stopping point so you can breathe in more and say, God, what is it you want me to learn from this life and to celebrate that life?

Never let a life pass by in a way that you're not better because of it. Never let someone pass away and you're not better for having known that person. Think about the ways we can respond to death and we can either shake our fist in heaven, or we can say, God, show me the lessons. Help me to appreciate that person and what's been sown into my life from them.

Can I encourage you to do your best to move from mourning into honouring the lost? As quickly as you can. Don't let it go into deep and dark pits of depression. We can say of that person was a gift to our life. Whether it was 10 years, 25 years, 50 years. However long it was. You see, we think about our life and we think we should be taken somewhere down here.

And God says, no, I've got a plan. I've got it. I've got it all understood. 26 for nay. It's too early. My opinion, her parents opinion. God says, I've got it covered. Trust me in that. You know, the way we get to honoring people helps us to heal. In the foyer out there, you'll see a lovely room. The founding pastors of this church were Ted Watson and Karen Watson.

We saw Nara up on the stage, her daughter, today. We celebrate their lives and we try to deal with their loss through honouring them. We've got the Watson Room, it's out there. We were meeting, some of the men were meeting there yesterday. It's used often for teaching and for meetings. It's a way of us saying, we're so proud.

of those lives and what they've sown into us. Today we're better people because of it, and so we thank God for that. How do you celebrate those who've gone before you? See, God sees the whole and we see just a slice, like in a mirror dimly. We don't see what's going on. So God's got it covered, but it doesn't feel like that sometimes, does it?

Fun story as we finish up, the two 85 year olds have been working hard to stay active and, and, and going on their vacation and holiday. And they're in a plane, and the plane crashed. 85, you know, sprightly people. Still had a bit of time, maybe, I don't know. God said 85 is good enough. He took them home to heaven, and, and here's St.

Peter, you know how the story goes. And he's bringing them in, and he says, Look, this is your new place, beautiful marble counters, and... Lounge chairs and TVs and everything you could possibly want. The best swimming pool in heaven. You can, you can swim like you never swam before. And there's the golf course, just down the road.

I mean, he says, how much does that cost? You know, the clubhouse. Said no, no, it's heaven. It's all free. So he goes over and sees this beautiful designed golf course You wouldn't believe all and you know, everyone gets a cart. It's all great Beautiful buffet and he's looking at the buffet and he's thinking.

Oh, how much is that? And he said no. No, it's heaven. It's free Everything's free here in heaven and he's thinking well where's the You know, the low calorie part of the buffet, you know. Can we get some veggies and roughage, you know? And he says, no, no, no. You can eat whatever you like in heaven and not even put on a gram.

Man, he says, takes off his hat and throws it on the ground, stamps on it and says to his wife, I could have been here 10 years ago if it wasn't for your bran muffins.

Well, there's a time for everything.

God has a plan. God didn't want us to to, sorry, didn't make us for this world. He made us for another one. I can't honestly tell you what heaven's gonna be like, but I can tell you this, nobody's gonna turn up and say, It's not as good as the brochure. No one's gonna say, Oh, I think I turned the wrong turn here.

They're gonna say, Wow, I couldn't imagine what you had in store for me up here. And it starts now with that joy that flows up in our hearts, not just for a better thing for us, but for everyone, to enjoy the presence of God. If we will trust Him, one day, when we take a look at the video of our own life, and play it back, we'll stop and say, Lord, thank you that you knew the beginning from the end.

Thank you that you had it under control, and right now it's okay. I'm okay because I'm with you. Let's quickly get back to Ruth. I told you a little twist at the end. A little twist at the end. Remember, Ruth found the grace to move on. It was tough for her and Naomi. In fact, when Naomi came back, they said, Oh, Naomi, she said, don't call me Naomi.

My name is bitter. I'm not lovely anymore. I'm bitter. But Ruth had grace and she moved on. Well, here's the thing. Ruth found a redeemer person called Boaz. Now let me tell you quickly about Boaz. Boaz was the son, his mother was named Rahab. Have you ever heard of that name before? Think Jericho, think about broken walls.

And she was the one the spies were hidden by. She was a prostitute, but she was also mother of Boaz. So Ruth marries Boaz, she has grace to move on. And they have a son called Obed. And Obed has a son and calls him Jesse, and Jesse has a son and calls him David. So here we have, when you go to Matthew's gospel, the first one in the book of the New Testament, what we call the New Testament, is the book of Matthew, and he lists the family tree of Jesus, and right there in the middle is that name Ruth.

Now if she'd have given up faith and grace at the time of her testing, we would be reading a different story. But instead she becomes part of a book of a... It's only a short one. Go home and read it. It's worth it. Great little love story. But it's about what we trust in the moment of our testing. Life is so short.

We have one assignment. You're not immune to the rest of things. Get that one assignment sorted out today. If you haven't already done that, do it. Do it. And God will bless you on every one of those days. Thank you for listening.