Heartless God

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. So welcome. It's good to have you here on this day. Mother's Day is one of those days that's filled with lots of gratitude, with flowers like that, restaurant meals, right? Not home-cooked too often, and long-distance phone calls. What does that say? Mom's a long ways away sometimes, right? So we've got all of that going on, on Mother's Day, and my question is, why is it just Mother's Day, right? Shouldn't it be Mother's Month, at least? Mother's Year? Yeah, I know, it should be Mom all the time. But, you know, we do have Pastor-Clergy Appreciation Month. We have No-Shave November for an entire month. Now, there is Women's History Month in March. I don't know if you know that. You've got to check these things out, right? But we don't have a Mother's Month. We don't even have a Mother's Week. We get a day for that. Now, you might be going, like, after you just saw this video, why on Mother's Day, then, are you preaching on this? It seems so depressing. It seems so down. And you might be right, but it might also be genius, okay? It might be genius to preach on this today, because I think mothers face this question as much as anyone when they see something happening to their children. Why? And how can I believe in God who would allow? And then you just fill in the blank with that, okay? So, we're going to start with the Bible passage that actually was read prior, but we're going to look at Psalm 103. But let's start with prayer first. Lord God, this day we do celebrate our moms, and we thank you, Lord, for all that they've done. We thank you, Lord, for all that they continue to do and the sacrifices they've made. We pray for them, especially when they're going through tough times, that you'd heal their hearts, that you'd bring them your peace and your love and protection, and to all of us. We lift up to all your churches, Lord, around this area. We thank you for so many of them that are preaching your gospel this day. We pray that you would bless them, Lord, because there's only one church, and we thank you for that. One church in this location, across this area, and it is your church, Lord. And we just pray that through us and through all of us together, that you would have a movement of your spirit, that your love and mercy and grace and the truth of who you are gets out. So when people have doubts, Lord, when people struggle, that they, well, they encounter you through your people. All this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You can follow along on our sermon notes in the Bible app. You can just search for Thrive Community Church using this zip, 33928, and you'll find it there. And all the notes for today's sermon are there. And it starts with Psalm 103, and these verses. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As the Father shows compassion to His children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. So in my last church up in Gainesville, Florida, we lived in a neighborhood called Brywood. And a couple of the families were members of our church as well there. And we met Doris Garrington, one of our neighbors. She is a member at the church I was a pastor at and a retired nurse. Her husband was a retired dentist faculty member at University of Florida. Wonderful family, three children, but they actually had had four. And after getting to know Doris for a while and actually walking with her through her husband's death, she told me more of the story of her fourth child that she had. And he died, her son died at a very tender age in her arms. And she is a nurse and her son dies from an asthma attack in her arms. And yet, through all of this, her faith grew. I'm sure she questioned, she had struggled, but there were people there around her, her family wrapped themselves around her. And she actually gained comfort in knowing there was a God who had created her son and a God who had redeemed her son, a God who is going to be there for her son and that one day she would meet him again. But I'm sure she struggled. And it was tough. It was tough. Now a couple of years ago in my neighborhood here, we've been here four years now, and about three years ago I was at the clubhouse pool and I was talking to some families there and I sat down with a mom who had a young toddler in the pool. And we sat and we started to talk. And then this young mom started telling me about the fact that she had another son who had about two years ago from that date...