[0:00] He's a Christian leader from the previous century, which is hard for me to say that.! I'm from the previous century.
[0:10] He and his wife experienced the loss of three of their sons. One was 18 months old and had emergency surgery and died on the operating table.
[0:31] One was five years old and he died of leukemia. One was 18 years old following an automobile accident.
[0:44] The death of a child, I think, seems the most unnatural. Certainly the hardest of deaths, death of any kind, of someone that we care about, that we love, is difficult.
[1:02] But for a child, it's like putting the period before the end of the sentence, even when the sentences barely started.
[1:12] We expect the elderly to die, but not the young. And when a parent has to bury their child, a part of them is buried with that child.
[1:26] His son was in his 70s and he carried around with him a picture of his child as a baby who died some 50 years before.
[1:38] We never really do get over the death of someone that we love. We never get over the sorrow of saying farewell.
[1:49] And the older we get, it seems the more often we're saying farewell. And the occasions get closer and closer together.
[2:03] But as believers in Jesus Christ, we do not sorrow as those without hope. Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians that we do have a hope.
[2:13] That this life is not the end. And on that day, there will be no more farewells.
[2:27] That will be finished. The question is, how do we know that? Jesus demonstrated the power over death.
[2:39] He himself is the resurrection and the life. He was raised from the dead himself. He is the commander over the cemetery.
[2:49] He is the one who conquered death and hell. And even during his earthly ministry, there were a few times, and a couple of them are recorded in the Gospel of Luke, where he raised someone from the dead.
[3:06] Kind of as a foreshadowing, a down payment toward an expectation that we all can have because of what Jesus Christ accomplished for us.
[3:22] One of those instances is in our text this morning in Luke 7, verses 11 through 17. And I want to start by reading a couple of the verses and then going from there.
[3:35] We're going to set a little bit of some background for us as we make our way through the text. But I hope that today would be a great encouragement to you as you perhaps face your own mortality.
[3:48] And then perhaps as you are having to endure the hardship of having said goodbye to someone that you love. Soon afterward, this is after Jesus had finished his Sermon on the Mount.
[4:03] He had come down into Capernaum. And there the centurion's servant was healed. And in a miraculous way, in a way where Jesus didn't even have to be with the centurion or his servant in order for that miracle to happen.
[4:21] After that event, Luke tells us that he went to a town called Nain. This is the only time in the scriptures, Old or New Testament, that we hear of this town called Nain.
[4:35] It's an unremarkable town. We'll hear more about it here in a moment. His disciples and a great crowd went with him. And this was now normal for Jesus and his ministry.
[4:47] Not just his disciples would be with him, but a great crowd followed with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out.
[5:03] Now, again, set a little bit of some backdrop for us. This is where Nain is at on the map. It is a nowhere little town, maybe a few hundred people, if that.
[5:17] When the text says that they were coming to the gate of the town, don't think of a walled city with gates. Think of a small village that has no wall at all, but maybe some sort of archway as an entrance to where the village would be, to where the village elders would gather.
[5:39] And here a funeral procession is going outside of that town. When I think of Nain and the reason why Jesus went, I think of a few places actually around here.
[5:54] Some of you may be familiar with a few of these. I had to pick one, and so this is the one that I picked. Down in Weir Township, which is south of Ludington off of US 31, and Monroe Road.
[6:14] There is a little collection of businesses there that are, I imagine, frequented by the people that are local to that area, would not be very many.
[6:25] It's kind of located between Pentwater and Hart, if you're going the back way into Hart. Or you might say it's between Ludington and Hart, but then it would be closer to Hart.
[6:36] Hart, it's just a little stop on the highway. If you happen to be needing some gas, and from what I understand, cheaper gas is available at this one particular gas station here.
[6:49] Let me zoom in a little bit for you. The three businesses that are there, the Pentwater Convenience Center. Some of you, are any of you familiar with this location? The Pentwater Convenience Center, where you can get that gas.
[7:02] And also, by the way, I only know this because I've been in this particular store. My wife and I like to go to Pentwater. We like to go to Pentwater and some other locations too.
[7:15] And I like to wear like an Ohio State Buckeyes sweatshirt and pretend like we're tourists. They just assume we're from Ohio. They don't know, and we're not telling them.
[7:28] But we have gone to this gas station a few times, and the times that I have been in there, almost every time I hear the pizza is very good.
[7:40] So if you happen to live near this and are wanting some pizza, go there. And then, of course, there's the Super Good Cannabis Store. I will admit, I've never been in the Super Good Cannabis Store.
[7:55] I don't know whether to recommend it to you or not. I've also never been in that particular Dollar General. I have been in others. My assumption is that if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all.
[8:10] So anyway, this particular location, if they would have had kind of a town center and a welcome area, they don't. But there are some other places around here that you can kind of picture.
[8:22] I think of maybe Branch between Baldwin and Scotville or Custer. There's some other places you could think of that would maybe perhaps fit that description of just a small out-of-the-way.
[8:36] The only reason you're stopping there is to fill up or to get a snack or buy a pizza perhaps. And we don't know.
[8:46] Actually, we kind of can put two and two together and understand why Jesus all of a sudden tells his guys, hey, let's go to Nain. Let's, oh, what's in Nain?
[9:01] Nothing's in Nain. There's a few people there, a handful of people there. That's about it. Of course, Jesus knows the reason he's going to Nain.
[9:12] He may not have told them right off the bat what the reason was. But as they arrive in town, this is not too far. It's six miles southeast of Nazareth.
[9:23] And probably 20-some, 26 miles or so from Capernaum where they were just before this. So it's a full day's journey on foot to get there.
[9:36] And they get there probably in the late afternoon when they arrive in the town of Nain. So again, as he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out.
[9:56] Behold is another way of saying, hey, look over there. Take a gander at what's happening here. And Jesus is coming into town.
[10:10] He's got a large crowd of people behind him. Maybe as many as the people that are in the town, that are in his crowd, they may even outnumber however many people are in this particular town.
[10:24] And they're coming and they're approaching the city. And as they do, a funeral procession is taking place. A man who had died that was being carried out.
[10:35] Let's meet this particular man. He is the only son of his mother. That's all we know about him. We don't know his name. We don't know his age.
[10:46] We don't know anything other than he is an only son. Now, when it comes to his mother, we also only find out one piece of really important information, and that she was a widow.
[10:59] So this is the second funeral procession where she has gone outside of the gates of the city to bury somebody that she loves.
[11:12] First her husband and now her only son. This is a devastating day for her for a number of reasons.
[11:23] One, a widow without any sons to care for her would have been left unprovided for, unprotected.
[11:34] It would have been heartbreaking for her. The next day as she would wake up, she would be all alone. She wouldn't know how to survive, how to take care of herself, how to provide for herself.
[11:48] That was gone. And in that culture, to be a sonless widow would have been a dangerous thing for any woman to face, let alone heartbreaking.
[12:02] They were carrying this man outside of the city, which was normal. They would normally take a dead body, someone who had died, and because of the climate, because of how hot it would be, they would have to bury them pretty much the same day, as long as it wasn't too late in the day, and then they would wait until the next day.
[12:26] But usually a funeral procession like this would happen sometime late in the afternoon or early evening. They would take the body of the deceased. They would wash the body. Then they would wrap that body in spices and sheets or pieces of cloth, whatever they could get.
[12:47] And then they would carry that body out on something called a beer, B-I-E-R. Sometimes the text doesn't translate that word.
[12:59] We'll see it a little bit later here. But it wasn't a coffin. They didn't use coffins back then. It was just almost like a makeshift stretcher, a couple of poles, maybe some material or some other supporting wood or some other kind of thing that would make it firm and stand up.
[13:20] And the pallbearers, because of the length that they would carry, would carry them on their shoulders. So they would have perhaps, as we do today, six pallbearers, and they would hoist them up on their shoulders, and then they would have this funeral procession out of town.
[13:40] And so that's what we see happening here. And a considerable crowd from the town was with this widow and her son who was to be buried.
[13:54] So there's two big crowds here. The one crowd that's following Jesus, he and his disciples, and then now this crowd that is coming out of the town as Jesus and his crowd is coming into the town, and they kind of, if you will, meet at the town gate.
[14:12] And so there's this big procession, and it probably would have been, if not the whole town, pretty close to it. Everyone would have known this woman, would have known about her predicament, and would have participated in this funeral procession as they would take the body outside of town where they would find some limestone developments, and they would make caves or find caves and carve out shelves for where they would take the dead bodies and just put them on that shelf in that cave.
[14:46] And then they would roll a stone or gather stones and pile it above or over the entrance so as not to allow wild animals in and destroy the bodies.
[14:58] And here they are. They meet in this chance meeting. Jesus just happens to be there.
[15:10] I don't think this is any kind of coincidence. This was Jesus' plan all along to meet this funeral procession and to find its way out of town.
[15:23] I don't know if, I'm sure if you've been around long enough, you've been involved in a funeral procession. In today's day, we do it with vehicles, right?
[15:34] We have the body that's loaded into a casket and into a funeral station wagon or some sort of larger vehicle that holds a casket.
[15:45] Then a procession of cars falls in behind and it's usually led by some sort of sheriff's department deputy or something along those lines depending on how far away the burial plot would be.
[16:00] I've been in a couple of them that were substantial in terms of how long the procession was. Some of you may have a similar experience. And if you're going especially out of town into even more rural areas, you will find it's more difficult to see this in town, but out of town to watch the cars that are coming the opposite direction.
[16:28] Many times they will slow down. Some people will even stop. Occasionally you'll see someone who will get out of their vehicle and a man would take his hat off.
[16:40] Someone may fold their hands in prayer as the procession goes by. But this is what's expected in that day.
[16:52] Actually, in that day, when a funeral procession would go by on foot, it was expected, it was a sign of respect, a sign of honoring the person who had passed and their family.
[17:04] To stop what you were doing and to join in with the procession. So you might have almost expected the two crowds to merge and form one even larger crowd as they would make their way out to where the burial place would be.
[17:26] But again, Jesus has something else in mind here. Remember, the text, verse 13 says, and when the Lord saw her, his focus was on the mother, was on her.
[17:48] When he saw her, and you can imagine she's toward the front of the procession, she would be leading the deceased as part of that procession. Jesus would have been at the front of his group and large crowd.
[18:04] And as they came to meet, Jesus saw her. It's more than just a visible, hey, there she is.
[18:15] It's a Jesus saw her. In the same way that when you're going through difficult times, Jesus sees you. He notices.
[18:27] He knows what you're facing. And he had compassion on her. The word compassion here is an interesting word.
[18:38] We might say something along the lines of, in translating this word, that his heart went out to her. That there was some physical reaction within him that caused him to have an emotional response to this woman.
[18:59] That his heart went out to her. Actually, the Greek word here for compassion is related to the word that we have for spleen.
[19:09] You guys have a spleen, right? And for them, it was their guts that would go out to someone.
[19:22] Not their heart so much. Their heart was, for the typical Greek or Jewish person, the heart was more of a mental or a center of a person's thought or will.
[19:36] Whereas the guts, the belly, where the spleen would be, that was the center of their emotions.
[19:48] For us, it's our heart, right? When we say, my heart goes out to you, we wouldn't say, oh, my spleen goes out to you. It just doesn't come out right.
[20:00] I can't see the Hallmark card. A little spleen drawn in there. I don't even know what a spleen looks like. But that's, that's, that's, this is, this is the most intense word for compassion in the Greek language that Luke is using here to describe the level of emotion, the level of Jesus and what he feels for this woman.
[20:30] Don't miss that. It's, it's more than just mental. It's more than just, oh, she's hurting. He, he gets it in his belly, in his heart.
[20:46] He hurts for her. And, and he tells her something that might seem kind of short or harsh.
[21:01] It's actually, better translated, stop weeping. It's an active, it's not that she hasn't started weeping yet. It's that she's already sobbing.
[21:13] She's already weeping. And Jesus is saying, stop it. Now, I don't know if you've ever been at a funeral or if you've been hurting and someone told you to stop crying.
[21:30] It's kind of a hard thing to hear. And I, I don't think that's what Jesus is saying here. I, I don't think that Jesus is saying, hey, stop crying. This person is in heaven.
[21:42] You don't need to cry. I, I don't think it's, hey, quit your crying because you're going to see him again. You know that. They're with the Lord.
[21:53] So don't shed any more tears. There's no more need for that. I don't think that's what Jesus is doing here. He himself outside the tomb of Lazarus and what is famously the shortest verse in the Bible, right?
[22:07] Jesus, what? Wept. It's appropriate. Not supposed to happen this way. I think this is Jesus telling her, I don't want you to miss what's about to happen.
[22:26] So dry your eyes. Clear away those tears because I don't want you to miss this. I want you to see what's about to happen.
[22:37] What is about to happen? He came up and he touched the beer.
[22:48] There's our word. He touched the beer. We might refer to it as a coffin, but they didn't have an enclosed casket. It's just a body wrapped up.
[22:59] Think of like a mummy even to the effect of something like that. That wouldn't be inappropriate to think of it in that way. Wrapped up and he's got some spices.
[23:10] It's probably early enough yet that there's not a stench to it. But he touches the beer. And the significance of that is that everyone in that crowd would have known.
[23:26] Jesus himself would have known. Certainly the disciples would have known. Everyone around would have known that when Jesus touched the beer it made him ceremonially what? Unclean.
[23:38] Because he touched something having to do with a dead body. Or did he? The family members that would have been involved in wrapping him in the spices and the shroud and the sheets they would have voluntarily said, okay, I'm unclean.
[24:01] The pallbearers would have said, yes, I will voluntarily be unclean for a week until I can after the funeral go and take care of whatever washings and whatever ceremonies that I need to do to once again be declared ceremonially clean.
[24:19] But Jesus comes up and he touches the beer and notice the pallbearers. It just stopped. And I wonder the reputation of Jesus has gotten out.
[24:37] Right? People would have known his name. I don't know that they necessarily would have known what he looked like because they didn't have social media back then or news programs and all of that kind of stuff.
[24:53] But certainly there would have been some reputation. And what is this crowd coming to meet us? Who is that? What was being murmured in the crowd, whispered in the crowd, if anything?
[25:06] They might not have known that this was Jesus or they may have guessed or but they just stopped. What do we do?
[25:16] What do we do? They're not going to be given too much time to think because Jesus is going to say and he came up and he touched the beer and the bearers stood still and he said, young man, I say to you, arise.
[25:42] Arise. That will stop a funeral procession. And it gets even more interesting.
[25:58] You know, we don't get and sometimes, you know, if this could have been a picture book, pictures of their faces when Jesus said, young man, arise.
[26:11] What's he talking about? What's he doing? And the dead man sat up and began to speak.
[26:27] I mean, the guy is laying there on the beer. Now think, he's on their shoulders and he's on like this stretcher-like thing and he's all wrapped up and he just sits up and I imagine, all right, what's he saying?
[26:50] Luke, Luke doesn't tell us what he's saying. And someone out here said, let me out and I'm thinking that might have been one of the first things he said. What am I doing wrapped up in all of this stuff?
[27:03] And I imagine Jesus kind of helping him kind of unwrap to a certain point and then to help him down out of the beer.
[27:14] To have the guys put the beer down on the ground and to have Jesus help him up and stand up and what's going on and he's a young man so he's probably saying something about being hungry.
[27:27] in all of that, I can imagine Jesus taking him by the hand.
[27:48] Maybe even having to help him walk because it's wrapped together and how does that work and he takes him by the hand and he takes the hand of the mother and he brings them together.
[28:13] What a reunion that must have been. Something that Jesus, I think, specializes in because it's a reunion that we're going to experience.
[28:34] One day, whether it's with a whole group of people at the rapture or it's by yourself on the day you pass from this life into the next and you're going to see Jesus face to face, the one who conquered death and hell and the grave and all of it and who's given us new life and we're going to be there and like the song says, I can only imagine what that's going to be like.
[29:16] Am I going to get to hug him? Am I going to just be falling flat on my face? I don't know. But I can imagine him stepping aside and taking me by the hand and said, hey, Rich, remember your dad for you.
[29:49] Do you remember your spouse, your husband, your wife? Jesus tells us that we're not going to be married in heaven and there's a part of me that's disappointed by that and like, he knows best.
[30:08] he knows how that will work but still, I can imagine that first sight.
[30:22] Hey, it's you. You look magnificent. That child that you had to bury hey, I missed you.
[30:47] And then forever being together. Forever. Forever. No more goodbyes.
[31:03] No more sorrow. No more missing you. This mother and son, they got a little foretaste of that.
[31:21] They would eventually live out their years and die of whatever natural causes would take them. But they would again be reunited in heaven.
[31:32] along with their dad. What a moment. All the people reacted in fear.
[31:53] fear. Who could do such a thing? Who could raise someone from the dead? So fear sees them all.
[32:08] And they glorified God saying, a great prophet has arisen among us. And you might say, well, they kind of sold Jesus short there because yes, he's a prophet, but isn't he more than just a prophet?
[32:20] But you'd forgive them if this whole miracle would have reminded them of Elijah and the raising of a widow's son.
[32:34] There's similarities there. That's why it would have reminded them of someone who was a prophet. Certainly there are differences. The way Jesus says the words, what he does, it's different than Elijah, but God has visited his people if they only really knew.
[33:00] God was right there face to face with them. And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
[33:14] again, we hear that observation from Luke a number of times throughout the text already. How much more famous can he be in that region?
[33:28] He is becoming very, very well known. Rightfully so. Now, from this text and this story, there are some observations you probably noticed that you haven't written anything on your notes yet.
[33:46] And you may be wondering, why am I holding these? Well, start writing right now. Some few observations here about what we saw in the text.
[33:58] If Jesus attempted to do something about this, what is a very common tragedy, but he could not. If he wasn't able to do anything, then we are all without hope.
[34:20] It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 15 in Paul's great dissertation of the resurrection. He defines the gospel, the importance of the resurrection.
[34:33] If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. if Jesus cannot rise again from the dead, if he cannot conquer the grave, what's the point?
[34:51] Why bother? Why are we here? This life without the promise of the resurrection, this life would be nothing more than a long, meaningless, funeral procession of despair.
[35:12] I read this sentence that I've written and I am immediately drawn to the old hee-haw song. You got gloom, despair, and agony on me?
[35:24] Some of you know what I'm talking about. Might be a little bit too comedic for this, but it still comes to my head, that's how my mind works. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
[35:46] What's the point? I want you to notice another thing about this particular story. All of the initiative was taken by Jesus. All of it.
[35:58] we don't even know if anyone in the crowd in the funeral procession knew who Jesus was.
[36:09] Certainly the people who were with Jesus and in that crowd knew Jesus and knew who he was and what he was capable of. But we don't know that.
[36:21] And his miracle that he performs here in raising this man from the dead was not in response to a request. There was no request made.
[36:33] Jesus, can you help me? We've seen that already a number of times in Luke's text where people are coming to Jesus to ask him for healing, to ask him to intercede on behalf of someone else who was sick or in need.
[36:49] None of that here. And certainly not in response to someone's expression of faith. Well, Jesus will heal you if you have enough faith.
[37:05] I'm guessing the dead guy didn't have any faith. Is that safe to assume the dead guy didn't have any faith? Is that I'm being silly when I say this, but you get where I'm coming from.
[37:17] Did even the mother have any faith? faith? She wouldn't have known what to have faith in. All she knew was her weeping and her son was gone and she was alone.
[37:38] It was only in response to the grief and to the human need. The compassion Jesus had for this woman and her circumstances.
[37:58] I want you to notice again, my thing is skipping all over on me. Here we go. There was no ceremony. No pomp and circumstance.
[38:14] There was no, all right everybody, let me have your attention here. Even when Lazarus was dead and buried for four days, when Jesus showed up, everyone stopped and had this expectation.
[38:30] Could it possibly be? He could have healed Lazarus when he's sick. What could he possibly do now? But every eye was on him. Not the case here.
[38:43] Is it just two processions meet? Jesus goes to the woman and tells her not to weep. He goes to the beer, he touches it, and he says, arise, young man. That's it.
[38:57] There's no formula. There's no even evident prayer. Luke doesn't record Jesus praying at all.
[39:07] He just gives the instruction. Now, I think it's a pretty good guess to say that Jesus had been praying up to that point.
[39:19] But not in a public way. Not in a way that at least Luke would recognize and be able to record for us. It's interesting. Jesus simply instructed the man to arise.
[39:34] there's a sense where this little miracle, and I say little miracle because it's just a few verses.
[39:48] It's just a little town of Nain, middle of nowhere. But he tells the young man to arise, and it's prophetic.
[40:01] Not pathetic, prophetic. the day of the rapture. What are we told is going to happen on that day?
[40:15] The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command. You know what word I think he's going to say? Arise.
[40:28] Arise. I don't know that. But it certainly would be fitting the circumstances, the setting, what's happening. The miracle was immediately evident by his sitting up and speaking.
[40:46] This was not some sort of animation. It wasn't twitching of nervous system or whatever. any of that. It's undeniable what had happened.
[41:04] One more observation here. This miracle serves as a parable. The miracle itself is not a parable. Let me make that clear. This actually happened.
[41:18] But it serves as a parable for us, for the task that we face as witnesses of the gospel. And it would be good for us to remember this. The sharing of the gospel is not the job of a salesman who persuades people to believe in Christ.
[41:35] That is not our role. That is never our responsibility. It is not what we're called to do. We can't.
[41:47] Someone putting their faith in Christ is equivalent to someone rising from the dead. They were once dead in their trespasses and sins and now they have become alive in Christ Jesus.
[42:02] We can't do that. All we can do is be faithful to share the message. And the Holy Spirit takes it from there and does the work, does the miracle, does the transformation.
[42:17] what we're involved in is nothing less than the raising of those who are dead in their trespasses and sins. We get to come along for the ride. And if you've ever been there when someone places their faith, their trust in Christ to be saved, it's a glorious thing to be a part of.
[42:36] But heaven forbid when someone says, and I have heard this before and I have been not polite to correct them, I have been quick to correct when someone says, well, I was saved by Rich a couple weeks ago.
[42:54] People will say that. No! I had nothing to do with that. It's all of God. Let me explain it to you one more time.
[43:09] Because we need to know, it's not about any human. What any of us can do or say to bring someone to faith in Christ.
[43:21] All we are is a vessel. It is God who does that work. So, a few lessons for us, again, from this story that I think it's good for us to remember.
[43:37] First, Jesus considers no person or place to be unimportant. you might even consider where this building is located to be in the middle of nowhere.
[43:54] We're just in between two small towns, two very small towns. Does Jesus care about us?
[44:05] does Jesus think that Scottville and Custer and in between is important and all the other little places in our area?
[44:19] No. He cares about you. Jesus considers no case or circumstance to be impossible. there's coming a day where whatever you're facing is going to be solved.
[44:39] It's going to be healed. It's going to be raised from the dead. It's going to be taken care of. Now, you may have to suffer before you get there.
[44:53] I want you to notice with this widow, she's been through some significant suffering already. She's lost her husband. She's lost her son.
[45:06] They're getting ready to bury him. And then Jesus intervened. It's kind of like what Peter wrote at the end of his first letter, 1 Peter 5 10.
[45:19] After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you into his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
[45:30] Don't you know that when you see him face to face in heaven, all of that will be true. You may have to face some suffering before you get there, and I would imagine the vast majority of believers world over will suffer because of what this life brings, the sin that we endure.
[46:03] But hold on. This life is so short in comparison to eternity. Thirdly, no suffering.
[46:21] Jesus considers no suffering or sorrow to be insignificant. He is God of sorrows, man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
[46:32] I'll show you a couple more verses here. I don't want to, oh, boy, it really skipped ahead. This is Hebrews 4.15 from the King James version, and as I read this, you'll see why I chose the King James version.
[46:53] For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Every other translation that I looked at uses the word sympathizes, which is the Greek word.
[47:08] The Greek word is sympathize. And we know what it means to sympathize with someone, don't we? We think we know. Here's the translation of the word.
[47:21] Touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Sympathize.
[47:32] Touched with the feeling whatever it is that you're going through. He knows the feeling. He knows what it's like.
[47:48] Lamentations. Sometimes we read a verse like this and we think, well, that's nice for something out there. Maybe someone else can benefit from this. I don't know. Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
[48:02] This is his loyal love. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.
[48:13] You know who they're new for? They're new every morning for you. For you. Whatever it is that you're going through.
[48:25] Whatever it is that you're facing. His steadfast love, his mercies for you, they never come to an end. They are new every morning.
[48:39] Great is your faithfulness. It's kind of the summary statement. He never forgets you.
[48:50] He sees what you're going through. He knows the pain. He feels it with you. and he's got a promise for you.
[49:03] That one day soon this life will be over and we'll be with him with our loved ones in heaven for all of eternity.
[49:15] For those who have placed their faith, their trust in Jesus Christ, we have this blessed hope, this promise of new life to come.
[49:27] no more sorrows, no more tears, no more pain. Let's pray. Lord, you are so good to us.
[49:43] we can sometimes take it for granted, take you for granted.
[49:56] We can sometimes read the scriptures and just kind of going through the motions is what sometimes we're guilty of doing.
[50:06] and we don't take the time to appreciate, to see, to understand just how much you care for us.
[50:27] How great is your love for us. Lord, I know there are many pains, many sorrows in this room.
[50:50] I can, in my mind's eye, go through and see the different faces and to know who's missing, to know who's there and I don't know all of it.
[51:11] Lord, I pray that for each person here that has experienced loss and someone that they love has gone on, they've had to stand beside a grave, they've had to hold the remains of someone they love in their hands.
[51:50] I pray that you would bring great comfort even today as they have been reminded once again of that pain and of that sorrow.
[52:03] Lord, we have a hope. This life is not the end. I pray that we would know that with every fiber of our being, the deepest part of our bones, that we would know this life is not the end.
[52:28] And there's a reunion coming, and we look forward to that day. We need the hope of that day. Lord, most of all, we need you.
[52:42] You. You're the promise giver. promise keeper. You are the promise keeper. And so we trust in you.
[52:56] You are our only hope. You are the only way. I pray, Lord, for those who have not yet made the decision to trust you as savior, that even today, there would be those who would say, yes, Jesus, today, I believe you died for my sin.
[53:23] I believe you rose again from the dead. And I believe in you. I trust you with my life. the hope that we have in life beyond this grave, life beyond this life.
[53:49] May we hold on to that dear promise. May we look to even this miracle at this little town of Nain.
[53:59] as a way to be reminded again, this foreshadowing, this down payment of the promise that you made.
[54:13] And we'll look forward to that day when we'll see you face to face. And you'll take us by the hand and reunite us with those that we love.
[54:29] again, Lord, we say thank you and we love you. We want to serve you with our lives. We ask all of it now in Jesus name.
[54:43] And all God's people said, amen. All right, guys. Thanks for coming. Have a great day. one. Thank you.