God is Sovereign and Sympathetic

"...God is not only sovereign but also sympathetic. It's not that 'He isn't sympathetic with us, has no idea what we're going through, but He's powerful so He can make it right!' It's not that 'He's not powerful can't do anything about what it is that we're going through, but He can feel our pain.' He is perfectly sovereign and perfectly sympathetic. The reality, according to Revelation 21, is that He will make this right. He will make what happened in Oregon, Connecticut, China and all the other tragedies that happened this week, he will make them right. He will bring with Him a new heaven and a new earth and He will make it right. As we walk through this and are confused and hurting, we have a sympathetic high priest who doesn't look back and say 'I bet that hurts, I don't know what that's like, I'm up here on my throne.' Instead, we have a sympathetic high priest who says 'I know. I know it's horrible, i know you've wept so much that there are no more tears to cry. I've done the same. I understand that you're so stressed out by this that you can't even eat, I've sweat blood before, I understand stress.'
You say 'God, I don't even want to wake-up, I'm fearful, I'm confused, I am completely overwhelmed.' and Jesus says 'I know what that's like. I'm not just standing up here on my high horse telling you to get over it. I've walked it. I know.' And so we have to make a choice to trust, to trust our perfectly sovereign savior, and our perfectly sympathetic high priest. We have to trust Him. Jesus once said in his ministry '...if you want to follow me you must eat my flesh and drink my blood.' At that point, a lot of people said "I'm out!" and just walked away. Jesus turned to his disciples and asked therm if they were going to leave too. Peter, one of the disciples, said "Where could we go? You hold the words of life."
You can run away from God in this, or any other tragedy in your life as an opportunity to run  from God. But, where will you go? Only one holds the words of life. There is nothing that my sympathetic savior, nothing that my perfectly sovereign savior, can't get me through..."

-Grant Nixon [Excerpt from sermon "Love Came" (12/16/12)]
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