Think Bigger Series

Every person, every one of us must have a plan for sadness management. Sadness. Sadness comes on a scale. Some things are trivial or minor. I mean, you go to Starbucks and they get your order wrong. You might be sad or disappointed. Or you get on the road and there's traffic, or you have to go to a detour. That's sadness. But that's not anything like the difficult sadnesses that we experience in life. The sadness of a diagnosis, of a health challenge that you have, or a sadness of losing a marriage, or sadness of losing someone that you love. Those are just painful experiences.

As Christians, we have resources that we have access to that are so important and valuable. We're going to talk about those today. You just got to know, young people, if you're here today, you got to have a plan. Maybe it's the small sadnesses of life that you're practicing sadness management so you can deal with the bigger sadnesses of life.

I've been reading Cathy Joe's book. Her husband passed away and she wrote a book about grieving that's very helpful. Lorraine has written a book about grieving her son-in-law, Todd Beamer, was on that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11. I talked to Dave Risoldi. He says he’s been to seven funerals this year already and the year’s not over, he said.

This morning I was talking to Fay Sortore in the kitchen. And she says that passage you're reading this morning you're talking about, I'm here to hear what you're going to say. Because her husband, Eric… I knew Eric, but years ago he passed away. And I just appreciate what Fay said. Because she says, “Here's what we say. We say when the diagnosis or when we the tests come back and they're negative, we go, ‘God is good.’ Don't we? We say, ‘God is good.’ But what if the tests come back and they're positive because there's something within the test being positive

that we say ‘God is good’ because God is good all the time.” Amen?

We're going to see that in our passage today. I mean it's hard to grasp in the midst of sorrow. It's hard to grasp in the midst of pain in our lives. We must have a plan to understand how God fits into that bigger picture. Because the human element of our lives is so hard.

You know, I think of Harold Munro whose wife passed away suddenly last Monday night. I've just been grieving in my heart about that this week. And of course he's here today grieving the loss of his wife that he loved so much. I think we all need this passage in John 11. Because there has to be a way for us in our human element to deal with sorrow. It's painful. You know, when we get to heaven, there's no more tears, there's no more sorrow. We know that. But here on earth, there is. And it's hard to address. It's hard to live with sometimes. It's overwhelming. It's that broken heart experience that we have. And we know that we have resources in Christ that are so important.

So as part of your plan, I would suggest that you memorize some scriptures that talk about the resources you have in your relationship with the Lord that can help us. Because whenever we experience a loss, that loss is difficult. But there's a lot of times we think we have gains in our lives. Oh, we have this in our bank account. Or we have this in our job. And when those things are gone, we go, “Oh, man, it's a terrible loss.”

I want you to stand with me in preparation for this particular sermon. Would you stand up? I want to read a different passage of scripture than the one we're going to look at in John 11. I want to read this one from Philippians 3:7-8, which helps us deal with sadness management in our own lives.

It says – But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Hidden within those words are much of the secret that's going to be revealed in John 11 today. That we get to know Christ, and as we do, the pain is still there. the challenges are still there. I was talking to Mike and Charlotte this morning. It’s just comforting to be here and to be part of what's happening. It's a challenge.

There are other verses like Psalm 42 that I've memorized just to help me deal with sadness management. Which says – As the deer pants for streams of water, so my heart pants for you, O Lord. Psalm 27:4 says – One thing I ask of the Lord and this is what I seek: that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That God becomes this anchor, that Christ becomes this anchor in our lives that we can appreciate so much in the midst of the challenges and the misery or the sadness that we experience in our lives.