Shownotes
- The reasons for God's grief and our own.
- Why grief is not only connected to death.
- Why our goal is not to make grief smaller or get past it quicker.
- The 5 Stages of Grief and how the Gospel speaks to each.
Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
Download today’s BIG 3 right now. Read and think over them again later. You might even want to share them with others…
Thanks for Listening!
Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Join us on Facebook and take part in the discussion! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of this page or right below. Also, please subscribe and leave an honest review for The Everyday Disciple Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Coaching with Caesar and Tina in discipleship and missional living. Discipleship and Missional Resources
Transcripts
We've been created in the image of God and like, God, we have the unique components of him, his personhood, we have minds, we have emotions and a will.
Caesar:So if God grieves then grief is a part of what it means to be human.
Caesar:Grief is normal grief in light of the truth of the gospel is good.
Caesar:Our goal is not to make grief smaller or help it go away quicker.
Caesar:It's to allow God to use grief, to grow us and make us more like Jesus, our emotions in grief mirror God's own heart and emotion serve to catch our attention and point us to the truth in situation and drive us toward the heart of God/the complexity of emotions that we feel while grieving are all an opportunity to understand God and his ways in a new, deeper sense.
Caesar:We don't only grieve the death of a loved one.
Caesar:We grieve sin and the effects of sin in our life and in our relationship.
Announcer:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple podcast where you learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Announcer:In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle, this is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors.
Announcer:Probably forgot to tell you.
Announcer:And now here's your host Caesar.
Announcer:Kalinowski.
Caesar:Hey, here we go again.
Caesar:I am glad to be back with you.
Caesar:Thanks for joining me today here on the Everyday Disciple Podcast.
Caesar:I gotta be honest with you.
Caesar:I'm sorta starting to let down and move my head in a little different direction.
Caesar:I'm pretty excited.
Caesar:Tomorrow, I'm leaving for just a few days of RNR, a little vacay with Tina.
Caesar:Pretty stoked about that.
Caesar:So maybe I'll tell you more about that on the next episode, how it all went, but, uh, whether it's supposed to be great, I'm pretty excited.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:I need it to.
Caesar:Hey, it's been a while since I've read a few reviews that have come in for the Podcast and I pulled these out of the apple podcasts or iTunes directory.
Caesar:Uh, might've missed these.
Caesar:Some of these came in just a while back.
Caesar:Well, here's one from schmuck 21.
Caesar:I think I might know who this.
Caesar:Headline here says real life relevant issues with application.
Caesar:Nice, very concise.
Caesar:Five-star thank you.
Caesar:It says, love these podcasts and how they actually touch on things that I can relate to.
Caesar:Can't wait for Monday mornings to listen to a new podcast for the week.
Caesar:The podcasts are very thought provoking and cover items that seem like they are often skipped out on by others, or they don't want to touch on those.
Caesar:You always have things that are relevant and can be applied to life.
Caesar:Also, the big three can take a bunch of information.
Caesar:And make it simpler and easier to remember.
Caesar:Awesome.
Caesar:Thank you.
Caesar:That's our goal.
Caesar:I'm glad that, that you feel that way and it's been an encouragement to you.
Caesar:Your review is also an encouragement to others.
Caesar:Thank you very much.
Caesar:Here's another one, it says blown away.
Caesar:Well, and it's also five stars.
Caesar:Thank you.
Caesar:Says, well, I'm caught up on all the podcasts.
Caesar:I'm blown away by the information.
Caesar:And I look forward to implementing many of the things I've learned along to see this kind of community, where I live, the kind of transformation that exhibits the power of God.
Caesar:I'm sad that I'm all caught up.
Caesar:However, the replayability of every episode is astounding.
Caesar:I'm pretty sure I can listen to each episode numerous times and still gather something new.
Caesar:Thanks for all.
Caesar:Well, thank you, Tammy 15.
Caesar:Thanks for that review.
Caesar:I wanna invite you all to drop us a review and a rating and some stars and all that, uh, especially I know a whole lot of you do listen on apple podcasts or through iTunes on your phone.
Caesar:Our analytics show us that's the.
Caesar:And so I know it's a bit of a hassle, but that would be a way of sort of paying it forward to others and also blessing me and my team.
Caesar:If you would just take a moment, you can even pause this podcast right now and go and leave a review that will help encourage others and pass the word.
Caesar:The other thing that really helps is if you like this, that you just go over to the Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash podcasts.
Caesar:Go to my website and grab the link for that episode.
Caesar:Drop it into your own Facebook feed or.
Caesar:Instagram or whatever, and pass the word along.
Caesar:We need each other.
Caesar:When you find things that are meaningful, please pass them onto your church.
Caesar:People in your small group, family members I'd really appreciate it and make sure to subscribe, subscribe to the podcast on whatever you listen to so that you don't miss an episode right there that we right there waiting for you every Monday morning.
Caesar:All right.
Caesar:Awesome.
Caesar:You.
Caesar:Now I recently received an email from some new friends I met while visiting a Missional Community in San Antonio.
Caesar:We had a great time and this member of their community wrote asking me to speak on the podcast about dealing with grief and also set an addiction and other hard relational situations.
Caesar:And as I, I love that idea.
Caesar:And as I thought, and prayed and researched how I might talk with you all about this, I realized a couple things, grief and addiction, and a whole list of other hard topics are a little too complex to talk about with any real depth, all in one addition to the Podcast.
Caesar:I also realized that as I decided to talk about grief today, and that's what we're going to talk about.
Caesar:Grief in light of the Gospel, that a true understanding of grief in light of the Gospel actually has a lot to say about these other hard relational situations that we experienced in life and in close community with others, grief comes in lots of forms and situations because loss and change in our life comes in all shapes and sizes.
Caesar:When we think of grief, we usually tend to focus, especially on the crippling grief that comes from death.
Caesar:But our lives are filled with daily mini deaths, losses and hurts, big and small, a harsh or critical word here, there, betrayal, rejection gossip, or maybe a relational stab in the back, that horrifying medical diagnosis that we never want to do.
Caesar:Relational separation or divorce, maybe a messy church split or a prodigal son or daughter losing our job list goes on and on.
Caesar:So today I'm going to talk about grief from a Gospel center perspective, and I think you see how it actually speaks into and touches a lot of these things that we experience in life.
Caesar:Now, growing up in my family, we were not taught to grieve.
Caesar:In fact, we were almost not allowed to.
Caesar:And my wife, Tina was sorta raised the same way.
Caesar:We weren't really allowed to show emotions unless of course it was you're happy, not too happy, settle down.
Caesar:And grief was primarily associated with just one thing.
Caesar:Someone's death.
Caesar:That's really the only category grief may be connected to at least the way it was displayed in my life.
Caesar:And there was this weird pragmatism connected to death and grief.
Caesar:Well, they're dead.
Caesar:You can't bring him back and they had a good life.
Caesar:We'll see them in heaven someday.
Caesar:And there's nothing you can do about it now.
Caesar:So why be so upset or angry or don't be too sad.
Caesar:That's kind of how it was.
Caesar:It was sort of a dismissal of what we were feeling and a pragmatism.
Caesar:Can I get past it.
Caesar:I want to start to uncover what the Bible says and how the gospel speaks into grief by going to Ephesians four.
Caesar:And we're gonna look at verses 25 to 30 and then a couple extras.
Caesar:And I'll give you a few thoughts that will kind of set us up for where we're going.
Caesar:So here we go.
Caesar:Ephesians four verse 25 says therefore having put away falsehood, meaning, believing false stuff, believing lies.
Caesar:Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor.
Caesar:For, we are members one of another.
Caesar:Now I got drop the break here.
Caesar:I love this because we talk a lot about discipleship being the move from unbelief to belief in every area of life.
Caesar:We also talk a lot about treating everyone like family, that because we're all creating God's image.
Caesar:We're part of that same.
Caesar:Right here at the beginning of this passage, we see kind of both being magnified by Paul, put away, having put away falsehood lies, speak the truth with your neighbor.
Caesar:for we are members, one of another, wow.
Caesar:Powerful goes on and says be angry, but don't sin do not sin.
Caesar:Do not let the sun go down on your anger.
Caesar:And give no opportunity to the devil and then jump into verse 29.
Caesar:Let no corrupting talk, commodity your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion.
Caesar:Meaning, you know, when it's time, when it's a good time, you want to be building upwards.
Caesar:But when it fits the occasion, not always, but when it's right, we're going to talk more about that, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Caesar:Wow, powerful.
Caesar:And then we'll get to verse 30 and do not grieve the holy spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Caesar:So now we get to this idea of grief, and you've heard this phrase before don't grieve the holy spirit, but you notice the context.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:We've just heard about putting away falsehood lies, deception, not believing the truth, and that we might be angry about things in life, but don't let it take you to sin.
Caesar:And then it says don't grieve the holy spirit of God.
Caesar:And then it goes on to for two more verses.
Caesar:And look what it lists off.
Caesar:Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with malice.
Caesar:Whoa, verse 32, be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave.
Caesar:You.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:That is so packed.
Caesar:Now here's a couple of huge takeaways from this.
Caesar:I want to point out in connection to grief in light of the Gospel.
Caesar:First is what God grieves we see in this passage is sin.
Caesar:Yeah, that's it's sin that God is grieving here.
Caesar:And sin is living in unbelief that leads to all forms of destruction.
Caesar:Remember that whole thing start off verse 25 with having put away falsehood that's lies.
Caesar:So then in verse 30, where it talks about do not grieve the holy spirit of God, it's spoken here in a context of fact, it's sandwiched near the middle of a huge list of sinsdon't lie.
Caesar:Don't sin in your anger.
Caesar:Don't steal, don't speak evil things.
Caesar:Don't be bitter or filled with wrath.
Caesar:Don't slander other people.
Caesar:See what I'm saying here?
Caesar:Well, why?
Caesar:Because it's sin that grieves God sin committed by us because of falsehood because of our unbelief about what is true about God and what he now says is true about us because of Jesus and also grieving sins committed against.
Caesar:Because of others, unbelief or false belief.
Caesar:That's what grieves God, sin, grieves God.
Caesar:And the second thing that comes to mind when I read all this is that we've been created in the image of God.
Caesar:Like God, we have the unique components of him and his personhood.
Caesar:We have a mind, we have his emotions and he has given us a will we have choice in life and how we respond to things.
Caesar:So if God.
Caesar:Then grief is a part of what it means to be human grief is normal grief in some way is good because God only does what is good and right.
Caesar:And perfect.
Caesar:And maybe as we go along, we'll see that grief is not sort of somehow good, but maybe in fact, it's a gift from God to lead us closer to him.
Caesar:And by the way, if sin is what grieves God sin in the effects of sin, is this the thing behind the thing as to why we grieve too?
Caesar:In other words is our grief over someone's death because of the effects of sin.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Death came into the world through sin.
Caesar:Is, do we grieve a broken relationship or when someone slanders us or gossips again?
Caesar:Yeah, we grieved the broken relationship, but that's because of sin, gossips, a sin, slandering people that sin think about that.
Caesar:What we grieve is what God grieves and that sin and the effects of sin.
Caesar:Now, this idea of a grieving God brings to mind.
Caesar:Isaiah's description of Jesus called the suffering servant.
Caesar:It says in Isaiah 53, 3 in reference to the coming Messiah, Jesus, it says he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Caesar:So it's not some just global picture of God grieving sin, but we see in the person who would have Jesus, who is God, he also grieved sin.
Caesar:My old friend co-leader at Soma Abe Massenburg has put it this way, said Jesus is the image of God.Jesus was the perfect human, the most complete man who ever lived the most accurate representation of the image of God.
Caesar:Since Adam Jesus is the image of God and he was acquainted with grief.
Caesar:So again, grief is a part of what it means to be human, but furthermore, Jesus is no stranger to the grief we experience.
Caesar:We often think about how Jesus identifies with us in our temptations or in our sufferings.
Caesar:Like looking first, Peter four, but how often do we really think about the fact that Jesus can identify with our feelings of grief and sadness and sorrow?
Caesar:The Gospel also tells us we're not alone in our grief.
Caesar:Jesus has walked in our shoes and is well acquainted with the full spectrum of grief that sin invokes.
Caesar:Good stuff.
Caesar:Thanks Abe.
Caesar:So think about the story of Jesus running into Martha on his way to Lazarus tomb.
Caesar:You can look this up in John 11.
Caesar:Here's what it says.
Caesar:It says now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet saying to him, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
Caesar:So see, there's some anger here when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, it says he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
Caesar:And that's grief and it goes on and says, he said, where have you laid him?
Caesar:And they said to him, Lord, come and see.
Caesar:And then we get the shortest verse in scripture, says Jesus wept.
Caesar:So the Jews said, see how he loved him.
Caesar:Jesus wept Jesus grieves.
Caesar:But why does Jesus grieve?
Caesar:Why does he grieve when he ultimately knows what's about to happen?
Caesar:If you follow the rest of.
Caesar:It's because Jesus is grieving the effects of sin when Jesus returns and establishes the fullness of his kingdom, there will be no more sickness, pain or death or mourning or crying.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Go check that out and revelation 21 and more or less, that's a summary of the effects of sin on humanity, sickness, pain, death, mourning tears.
Caesar:So here Jesus, the one who created all things and all of us.
Caesar:Is grieving, perhaps with a thought like this running through his head, thinking, this is not the way I created the world to work.
Caesar:This is not what I want for you.
Caesar:I think that's fair to think.
Caesar:That's probably his heart.
Caesar:That that's why he's weeping.
Caesar:That's why he grieves.
Caesar:There's plenty of other examples where we see Jesus grieving.
Caesar:Now death, it seems is perhaps the one area in which we still give ourselves permission.
Caesar:I kind of told you about my own upbringing.
Caesar:Death is so hard.
Caesar:It's so final it's.
Caesar:So at odds with the way God designed us humans to live, we are created to live forever.
Caesar:Scripture teaches that.
Caesar:Then when we experienced death, someone that we love dies, we can't help, but grieve that death really makes no sense to us because we weren't created for that.
Caesar:We were created for a life eternal.
Caesar:It's sort of instinctual for humans to grieve death.
Caesar:Now, my friend Abe goes on to say, but what about the other effects of sin?
Caesar:What about disease?
Caesar:What about broken relationships?
Caesar:What about corruption or economic and social inequality that we live in old fallen world filled with brokenness.
Caesar:The effects of sin are all around us and sometimes we find ourselves in situations where.
Caesar:No single person, sin is the cause of our pain and.
Caesar:Yet we are clearly experiencing life in a way that God never intended.
Caesar:So in reality, if we like our creator, God need to get to grieve sin and the effects of sin.
Caesar:Well then I'll bet.
Caesar:Life is full of opportunities to grieve.
Caesar:It's not just over the death of a lost one.
Caesar:Our life is full of grief.
Caesar:We may just not see that.
Caesar:So we know that our emotions are God given our emotions, mirror God's own heart and our emotions serve to catch our attention.
Caesar:When we feel sad, angry, upset, embarrassed, fearful, they catch our attention and they point us to the truth of a situation.
Caesar:Well, what's going on here, but they also drive us toward the heart of God.
Caesar:I want to suggest that.
Caesar:We don't stuff, our emotions that we let our emotions be gifts from God to catch our attention as to something's going on here.
Caesar:And it's an opportunity to understand truth and get to the thing behind the thing.
Caesar:Hey, so-and-so was not that impressed with your presentation or your idea.
Caesar:And I felt embarrassed or I felt angry or I felt mad towards them.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Let that emotion point out.
Caesar:What's going on here?
Caesar:Is that person's opinion of you so glorious, so amazing that if you don't have it, you wouldn't live or you have to get angry and then put them down.
Caesar:And maybe that leads you to sort of gossiping against them so you can feel better.
Caesar:I don't know.
Caesar:You see my point.
Caesar:So as our emotions sort of catch our attention and lead us to the truth about who God is, is grief.
Caesar:The same way is the complexity of emotions we feel and go through while grieving.
Caesar:All of it, an opportunity to understand God, his heart and his ways in a new, deeper sense.
Caesar:I think it is now sociologists and psychiatrists and people were really smart with all this stuff.
Caesar:Years ago, came up with what is called the five stages of grief, there is denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and accepting.
Caesar:And I found a pretty concise description of each of these five stages of grief online at medicine, net.com.
Caesar:Let me, let's briefly go through these.
Caesar:It'll help us understand what's going on and what God might be trying to catch our attention and point us to.
Caesar:So the first stage here they list off is denial.
Caesar:Denial is what you experienced when you first hear the news of a sudden loss, something which you had not expected and imagined you're shocked and stunned.
Caesar:You're not able to digest the fact that this has happened to you.
Caesar:Hence you deny the fact that it's ever happened.
Caesar:You try to absorb the information, but your mind just can't really fully go there.
Caesar:Stage two is anger.
Caesar:Anger is what you go through.
Caesar:Once you come to terms with the loss, be it of a person or a relationship.
Caesar:The deep sense of sorrow and resentment may also find its way in the form of anger, directed towards others, such as the one you lost.
Caesar:Or maybe your boss, if you lost your job or people around you, or maybe even anger towards God, I hear that a lot.
Caesar:Not everyone goes through this stage.
Caesar:Some people control their anger more than others, but often anger can make people feel unapproachable and sometimes people are okay with that.
Caesar:Like just leave me alone.
Caesar:I can hide a little bit here in this anger.
Caesar:Stage three is bargaining bargaining, and grief means you ask God to bring back what you've lost in exchange for something, you get a false belief that you can mend things through negotiation.
Caesar:It's like giving false hope to yourself and postponing the feeling of hopelessness you're most vulnerable and feel helpless during this stage.
Caesar:The next stage is stage four depression.
Caesar:So the earlier stages of denial and anger and our bargaining are full of activity in our brain.
Caesar:We're just, we're going a million miles an hour, trying to reconcile and understand.
Caesar:As soon as you realize you can't change things that you don't control things.
Caesar:Well, we kind of become quiet and begin to isolate ourselves from people around us.
Caesar:And we go into a shell.
Caesar:You feel alone and empty.
Caesar:Perhaps even when you're surrounded by your family and friends, nothing really seems to make you feel better.
Caesar:There's a sense of deep depression that kicks in and then stage five is acceptance.
Caesar:And that's when you come to terms with reality, and I would add, come to terms with truth.
Caesar:You accept that this has happened and you need to move on in life and you realize that there's nothing you can do to retrieve what you've lost.
Caesar:And so you try and start to move on.
Caesar:Author David Kessler says the five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with what or who we've lost their tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling.
Caesar:But they're not stops on some linear timeline in grief.
Caesar:Not everyone goes through all of them.
Caesar:Or in a prescribed order.
Caesar:And I agree with him.
Caesar:I don't think these five stages are linear.
Caesar:We can bounce around and back and forth between these five stages.
Caesar:Sometimes you feel anger first when something happens and then you might get into denial.
Caesar:And sometimes with denial there's defense, and then you might try to accept it.
Caesar:And that leads to depression because it's never going to change.
Caesar:And then you might get to start in a bargain.
Caesar:Let me see if I can fix this.
Caesar:So you see what I mean?
Caesar:It can just move around and bounce and not everybody moves through these things in the same way.
Caesar:No two people grieve in the same way.
Caesar:You've seen this in your own life and family, different people, experience loss and grief in the same situation.
Caesar:But perhaps in very different ways.
Caesar:Here's another quote from David Kessler.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:This is profound.
Caesar:He says, we think our job is to make the grief smaller grief.
Caesar:Doesn't get smaller.
Caesar:He says our job is to grow bigger around the grief.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:That really struck me.
Caesar:And I think the way I'd say this in light of the Gospel is our job or what we need in light of our.
Caesar:Is to gain a better understanding of the truth of who God is, how he created life to be and his heart and his hopes in connection to all of this, to the situation we're facing to grow bigger in the truth because of the pain and loss or anger we're feeling.
Caesar:That's how I'd put that.
Caesar:See, we may never fully move on from anger or move on from the pain.
Caesar:You may never fully accept things or want to accept things that have happened in a relationship or accept things as they are now, but you can move on toward the truth and move on from false beliefs, growing bigger, in a sense in light of, and because of the situation or loss you're experiencing, we have to choose that, but we get to, and here's the thing we can help others find truth.
Caesar:And move from false beliefs to truth and within truth, we find meaning we find hope.
Caesar:I think that is the way outta grief.
Caesar:Not necessarily that we don't feel those emotions, but out of the crippling effects of it to a bigger Gospel, to a bigger understanding of who God is, what he's doing, what he's done.
Caesar:And what's true of us out of that, we find hope for how we get to live.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:So since it is sin and the effects of sin that caused us grief and things like slander gossip, addictions lies a lot of the things we experience in life and Community that hurt us and destroy relationships can, and probably need to be grieved.
Caesar:Don't miss this think of situations or relationships that you still have, anger or bitterness or fear in.
Caesar:Have you grieved those situations and allowed the Gospel to speak into the anger or the denial, the depression, the pain.
Caesar:If we skip grieving, we may become stuck in one of the five stages and therefore stuck in the ongoing effects of that sin.
Caesar:And may in fact be sinning in our heart and our words or actions in light of this in light of whatever the situation.
Caesar:I think that's true.
Caesar:I can look at my own life and I can see areas of pain or relational loss, or maybe even loss of life, someone in my life that I really didn't allow myself to grieve, or I didn't grieve in light of the Gospel.
Caesar:And in some ways I'm kind of stuck in one of the five stages.
Caesar:I think the five stages of grief may help show us how a person or maybe ourselves views that situation, that loss or change in relationship.
Caesar:And it gives us insight into how the Gospel speaks to them, where they are at that moment.
Caesar:Meaning, which of the five stages they may be experiencing is going to necessitate us speaking truth and love to them.
Caesar:Maybe in a little different way.
Caesar:We're not just going to give platitudes or pithy Christian quotes, but we're going to take the time to be with people and listen well enough to know, are they in denial of the situation?
Caesar:Are they angry?
Caesar:And maybe it's going to lead them to sin.
Caesar:Are they trying to bargain?
Caesar:Are they stuck in a deep depression?
Caesar:See, each of those gives us a different window into their heart, into their experience, to how we speak the gospel.
Caesar:And maybe as a starting place, how can we apply the four GS to each of these states?
Caesar:Now, if you've never heard about the four GS, I want to tell you, wow.
Caesar:Mind blowing stuff from Tim Chester there for eternal truths about God that all start with the letter G it's why we call them the four GS.
Caesar:So it's God is great.
Caesar:Corresponding thought is so I don't have to be in control and God is glorious.
Caesar:He's the most glorious one.
Caesar:He loves us completely.
Caesar:So I don't have to fear others or what they think of me.
Caesar:God is good.
Caesar:That's the third one.
Caesar:He only does what is good and right.
Caesar:And perfect.
Caesar:So I don't need to look elsewhere for my satisfaction and joy and hope, and God is gracious.
Caesar:So I don't have to prove myself or earn anything.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:So those are the four GS.
Caesar:How might they need to speak to people's hearts who are grieving in the areas of denial, anger, bargaining, or depression?
Caesar:What if someone is really angry because let's say someone's gossiped against them or about them.
Caesar:And it's really a, it's a big situation.
Caesar:I mean, gossip is poison, right?
Caesar:Well, and they're angry.
Caesar:Can they control the situation?
Caesar:Are they great.
Caesar:And so therefore they have to control that and they have to go to every person in the world and build their own defense, or can they believe that God is great.
Caesar:So I don't have to control people or things, or is because that person that gossiped against them, they thought they loved me.
Caesar:I thought, oh, I love this person.
Caesar:What's going on.
Caesar:They, they made them so glorious, more glorious than God that it hurts so bad that now they're really, really angry.
Caesar:Looking at the situation and where a person is in their grief, which stage of grief they might be experiencing.
Caesar:Now gives us some insight.
Caesar:How about if they're in like a bargaining situation and so they're backpedaling?
Caesar:Well, I I'm sorry.
Caesar:I don't know why that happened.
Caesar:I guess that was probably my fault and they're, and they're really bummed out.
Caesar:And now they're actually starting to tell themselves lies in other people lies about a situation.
Caesar:Again, trying to control things or not believing God is great.
Caesar:And so they're trying to control it or they're not believing God is good.
Caesar:And then what he's doing in a situation is going to be good for us and good for his glory.
Caesar:And so we start to bargain and we try to well ok God.
Caesar:If you'll do this, then I'll never do this again.
Caesar:And that's trying to earn his love and his grace in our life.
Caesar:We're not believing his gracious.
Caesar:And so we're trying to prove something.
Caesar:So we bargain you see how that works.
Caesar:I mean, this could be exhaustive to learn more about the four GS.
Caesar:We've talked about it on a couple of episodes, go back and look at what causes sin and how to stop it.
Caesar:And we go deep into the four GS.
Caesar:And I think you'll see how they speak into these stages of grief.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:As I start to wrap up here and you're thinking about all that is grief.
Caesar:Something that God gives us then to help us embrace his love and truth in connection to more and more of life instead of just hurting or becoming angry or distant, or just stuffing something away or becoming complacent or just, I don't care anymore.
Caesar:I believe it is.
Caesar:I believe grief is a gift from God.
Caesar:It's not something that happens to us, but it's a mirror of God's own heart and it helps us to walk through and find the good news, the truth of who God is and what's going on in his heart in connection to the effects of sin that we might grieve the way he grieves and then move to accepting the truth.
Caesar:Move from unbelief to belief.
Caesar:Grieve helps us understand God's heart and glory.
Caesar:What he's really like and why, and it leads us to a Gospel response and way of living.
Caesar:And the Gospel is always good news.
Caesar:It's good news for us.
Caesar:And it's good news for those in our lives, our family, our community, our churches.
Caesar:All right.
Caesar:That's pretty deep.
Caesar:You might need to back this up and hear parts of this over, but as always, I want to leave you with the big three takeaways from today's topic I have nothing else.
Caesar:You don't want to miss these.
Caesar:Maybe you were at the gym or traveling and couldn't write them down.
Caesar:I've written these big three down for you, and you can get a printable PDF of them for free as a download, just go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash big three Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash big three.
Caesar:By the way, if you go to our website and look up the Podcast, the whole transcriptions are right there at the bottom of the page every week.
Caesar:So here's the big three for this week.
Caesar:First.
Caesar:We've been created in the image of God and like, God, we have the unique components of him, his personhood, we have minds, we have emotions in a will.
Caesar:So if God grieves then grief is a part of what it means to be human grief is normal grief in light of the truth of the gospel is good.
Caesar:Our goal is not to make grief smaller or help it go away quicker.
Caesar:It's to allow God to use grief, to grow us and make us more like Jesus.
Caesar:Number two, our emotions in grief mirror God's own heart and emotion serve to catch our attention and point us to the truth in the situation and drive us toward the heart of God
Caesar:the complexity of emotions that we feel while grieving are all an opportunity to understand God and his ways in a new, deeper sense.
Caesar:We don't only grieve the death of a loved one.
Caesar:We grieve sin and the effects of sin in our life.
Caesar:And in our relationships.
Caesar:Do you have areas of your life where you've become stuck in anger or denial or depression?
Caesar:The truth of the gospel can free you from those painful feelings.
Caesar:And then number three.
Caesar:Everyone experiences grief in their own unique way and timing giving those who are grieving trite answers or quoting our favorite scripture or Christian colloquialism to them may not be very helpful.
Caesar:Understanding which phase of grief they're experiencing can lead you to understand how to speak the good news of the Gospel to what they're feeling in that moment.
Caesar:People don't need our good advice.
Caesar:They need the good news.
Caesar:All right, that's it for today,
Caesar Kalinowski:And before I forget, I wanna invite you to get the everyday Disciple workshop.
Caesar Kalinowski:You can get immediate access to that right now.
Caesar Kalinowski:We've trained thousands of people in this powerful framework during our four day challenges, and now you can get it, and you can have lifetime access to it.
Caesar Kalinowski:Just go to everyday Disciple dot com.
Caesar Kalinowski:Slash workshop to get this simple and reproducible discipleship framework.
Caesar Kalinowski:You're gonna love it.
Caesar Kalinowski:It's everyday Disciple dot com slash workshop.
Caesar Kalinowski:All right, well, I gotta get going.
Caesar Kalinowski:I hope you'll join us again next week cuz we're gonna keep diving into discipleship and mission.
Caesar Kalinowski:And gospel fluency, and hopefully helping make this all a lot easier for you in your everyday life.
Caesar Kalinowski:I'll talk to you soon.
Heath Hollensbe:Thanks for joining us today.
Heath Hollensbe:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com and remember, you really can live with the spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.
