It Is Okay To Not Be Okay
1 Thessalonians 4:13
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.1
A passage often quoted at funerals or when believers have been notified of the death of a loved one. It is a passage I have posted, quoted, stated numerous times this past week.
Some of you here with us today are guests – you may have been visiting with us for a while or perhaps this is your first time here. I am so glad you’re here today and do not believe it is accidental or coincidental that you are here.
Others of you are members of our family here at First. You therefore are likely aware of the tragic news we received last Tuesday when our recently retired associate pastor, but still very active and faithful brother Dave Paxton was killed in an accident while he was in Mississippi on his annual cross-country motorcycle trip.
This is not a sermon today about Dave. In fact, he would be angry at me if it were. Not to mention that God is the only one deserving of a sermon on the Lord’s Day. Yet, Dave’s death has impacted us greatly here at First. It has impacted thousands throughout our state, nation, and even globally as he was certainly no introvert and knew and impacted people in churches and other areas wherever he was.
There is also no one here today who has not been impacted by the death of a loved one, a parent, child, sibling, cousin, or dear friend.
Our church family is not unlike any other, especially any other church family that includes multiple generations and families. Death impacts us and therefore grief comes crashing in like a tidal wave.
Death is not just a biological reality. Death should not be a political tool – though in a nation like ours where the culture of death seemingly reigns, it often is deployed as a tool, especially when it comes to political groups and activists doing whatever they can to justify the murder of babies within the womb or euthanasia of the aged, deformed, or those deemed as the Nazis determined in the mid-twentieth century “Life unworthy of life.”
Death is theological.
How we understand death reveals what we believe about life. What we believe about life shows how we understand truth. What we affirm as truth becomes a theological understanding as Christ stated “I am the truth.”
Thus, to avoid the conversation of death is more detrimental than entering into the wound.
And so we lovingly and carefully and slowly enter here crying out to God for help, for insight, for something to make all those songs we have sung remain singable and all those verses we have read to be as life- giving as we know in our mind they are.
Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica and addresses the grief these brothers and sisters are having. They have had church members die. Paul says “those who are asleep” referencing them. The church is a bit confused as they thought Jesus would return for them prior to anyone’s death. Then, some of them died. Now they are not only confused but concerned. And do not miss that they are grieving.
Grieving.
This is not only the natural response. It is the right response to the loss of loved ones.
Simply put this church is not okay. These people are not okay. You ask them “How are you doing?” which is exactly what I have asked some of you this week. It is what many of you have asked me. And you know what we all say? Something like “Well...I’m okay,” or maybe a little more honest “I’m not sure” or “There are others who need our prayers more” etc.
Listen to me – it is okay to not be okay.
Turn to someone sitting next to you and say “It is okay to not be okay.”
Larry McCarthy was preaching at The Moody Church on grief and he stated this regarding the grief that we feel. “Grief is the evidence of how significant the relationship is.”
Paul’s words to this grieving church, after chapters of instruction, rebuke for sinful encroachment in their fellowship, instruction for godly living, move toward this deeply right and holy theological reality.
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.”
Grief forces questions to the forefront you may have never asked before. Grief makes the heretofore accepted truths seem more shaky in some as the shock and hurt and fear and anger and tears and love and everything else within us wells up within us at the same time.
Dave and I attended the same seminary and both of us were studying to be student pastors. We attended a few years apart so we were not at Southwestern together, but we would often talk about the professors we had because we had the same ones. Dr. Phil Briggs was one of our
favorite and his witticisms were well-known. Dave used to keep a list of the little sayings he would say throughout a semester. He could’ve written a best-seller featuring these.
Yet with all the funny things Dr. Briggs would say, he was serious and wise. I remember one statement as a young student that has resonated with me since. He was talking about when couples experience the death of a child. He said especially with very young couples, it can be that which causes the marriage to fail. Yet, it can also be a time of growing together in grief that makes some stronger. It’s not a hard-fast rule, but his words were this – when grieving the loss of someone you love so deeply it is very difficult to help someone else going through the very same grief at the very same time for the very same person. He encouraged talk with those who love and grieve as they do, but are not in the deepest valley at the same time for it is so hard. This is one reason God’s family in the church is so important. In the age of presentation worship services that are more about the brand than the Word and likened more to concerts and TED talks than timeless truths church family health is often forsaken and when we find ourselves in the valleys of the shadow of death we have trouble finding a brother or sister to help us through.
It is okay not to be okay.
How one person grieves is not how another grieves.
Often when people are grieving they do what they can to suppress these feelings. Some people just jump back into the regular schedule, go to work, get busy in the yard, go through the routine because they are believing that will help them...but they are going so fast it just seems that they are running from grief and hope it never catches them.
Others go to a lonely place and disappear. A back room. A dark place of aloneness. Others leave them alone because they do not know what to do.
People tend to by nature do whatever we can to suppress feelings of grief.
Maybe that’s you.
Listen to me – there are no bad feelings. There are no wrong feelings. Did you hear that?
There are no bad feelings. There are no wrong feelings.
What there are, are bad responses to feelings. And we get that.
Here’s the thing. When you do whatever you do to suppress the feelings of grief you may be successful for a time. But you will only be successful in not feeling the pain of grief. Yet, there is a side-effect to that. You also won’t be able to feel the comfort of love. You will be numb. You will suppress good feelings as well as bad feelings because you cannot divide these.
Can we agree to eliminate the things our culture has promoted that are just wrong, not to mention unbiblical. Men who tell their sons to “man up” and not cry are giving terribly unbiblical and even sinful advice. Where does scripture say men shouldn’t cry? Right after it says “Jesus wept?” Nope.
How one person grieves is not how another grieves. To the person hurting today due to the death of a loved one, you will likely encounter well-meaning friends and family members who have a script ready-made for you regarding how you should grieve, how you shouldn’t, and when you should be “back to normal.”
No one knows how another processes grief other than God and God alone is the only one who truly can walk us through the valley well.
WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE UNINFORMED...
So, here are some insights from Scripture presented in GreifShare that I believe may help.
1. GOD REALLY CARES ABOUT YOUR PAIN
You may doubt this, and that is understandable, but listen to the truth. God really does care about your pain. In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 he is described as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction.”
He knows what you are feeling when no one else can.
He desires you talk with him about your hurts regardless how you word it. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah 2” – Psalm 62:8
2. GOD PLANS TO END YOUR SUFFERING
God has a plan to end suffering. He always has and it is now very personal to many of us. His Son Jesus died on the cross as part of his plan to end suffering.
a. WHY WE SUFFER
Sin infected humanity in the Garden of Eden and we are all carrying this depravity within us. Sin is not a new problem. Sin and death are partners. One led to the other. We sin. We suffer. Others sin. Seemingly innocent people suffer. This is reality.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,3 – Romans 3:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 4 Romans 6:23
This creates a seemingly hopeless reality for all of us. Sin is lawlessness – disobedience to God’s perfect law, his truth, his ways. It’s visible in others right? We can see the evil. We cansee the immorality. We can see the justified wrong in others, even in family members. But sin infects us ALL.
b. WHY WE HAVE HOPE
Because God cares. He is compassionate. He is graceful and merciful. He makes a way for those who have no way. He makes a way for those who have no way. And we are those who have no way.
God wants to rescue us. He wants to heal us. He wants to wipe away the pain of sin. He wants to redeem us. He wants this for his own glory and he wants this for our good.
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 5 Romans 5:8
And yes this salvation invitation is connected to our grief because it reminds us how much God loves. Truthfully his love is unfathomable.
But it is good.
7
While we grieve you may be thinking “But this acknowledgement of my own sin doesn’t make me feel better.”
It’s more than feeling better. We do not want you be uninformed brothers and sisters.
3. GOD’S PLAN TO HEAL
As a Christian, a child of God, a Christ-follower, you have direct access to the one who promises healing. Ultimate healing.
Our theology is challenged when grief overwhelms us. Yet, our God is not threatened.
God’s healing plan is God’s redemption plan.
Death is always a shock to us. It is. To me as well. This is strange though because we all know...we all KNOW that as Solomon stated in Ecclesiastes 7 that “death is the destiny” of us all.
Funeral homes exist. They do a great business. Cemeteries exist.
Death is real.
Yet it almost always shocks us.
Why?
Because the enemy works to keep us suppressing the reality of death in such a way that often we just say “passed away” or “gone on” rather than say “died.” The enemy of God would rather we falsely believe we will always have more time to get things right with others, to say the things we know we need to say, to do the things that are right, etc. It’s funny to think that one of the tactics of Satan is that lie that eternity is real...but here...and that we will always have time to get right with God.
But the Word of God says that is not true.
Oh there is clear indication that eternity is real, but our days here on earth are numbered. And...we don’t know the number.
Yet, God’s great love and providential grace provides us all the opportunity for the life that really exists.
Our loved ones who have died, whether after battling a long illness, in an immediate moment that no one saw coming, or in some way that shocks everyone have eternity written upon their hearts. And those who have accepted the gift of life, of rescue, of hope, of redemption, are home with the Lord even now.
1 Thessalonians 4:13
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.6
We do grieve and our grief is hard, difficult, but good because we do not grieve as others who do not have hope.
Do you have that hope? That security? That healing?
Footnotes
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (1 Th 4:13). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
2 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ps 62:8). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
3 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ro 3:23). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
4 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ro 6:23). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
5 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ro 5:8). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
6 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (1 Th 4:13). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
