Strengthen That Which Remains (Dr. Rachel Williams-Smith, 09/07/24)

I was not given a topic for today, and so I struggled and prayed over that a lot.

And finally, I settled on this one, you know, strengthen that which remains, and the scripture

verse that you already heard, how can I help?

Tell me what do you have in your house?

And she said, my servant, your servant has nothing at all except a small jar of olive

oil.

And when I heard the children's story, I was just smiling because I knew for sure that

the message that I'm sharing today, God did pick it.

And I'm just praying that whoever is needed, who needs it, will be blessed by it because

he knows where it needs to go.

So bow your heads with me while I pray again and invite God to speak through me.

Lord, these are your words that you've given me that come from your word, and I offer you

my mouth and my being so that you can speak through me to this congregation, Lord.

And I pray that you'll bless each person to hear in the language of their own hearts that

these words may go forth out of my mouth to accomplish that which you please and prosper

in the thing where to you send it, and that everyone here may be blessed in the way that

you intend.

For I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

I often wish, you know, I have doctorates and master degree and bachelor's and accomplishments,

and I often wish I could speak out of my victories and my strengths and my accomplishments and

my achievements.

And God seems to have me always speak out of my struggles, out of my weaknesses, out

of my current failures.

And so this is not one of those triumphant message of something I learned 25 years ago

and I've mastered and I have the victory, and I would tell you all how it works.

This is growing out of very current and real struggle, my message today.

And what God is speaking to me about in the midst of going through that struggle.

And so I share this message, Strengthen That Which Remains, because I am learning it in

the present, in the moment, because of what has happened in my life within the last month

or two.

So I'm hopeful that today this message will be a testimony of what 2 Corinthians 4 verse

2 Corinthians 4:7

7 says, that we have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile

clay jars containing this great treasure.

This is to make it clear that our great power is not, is from God and not from ourselves.

So whatever that comes out of here that may be a blessing, if there's any power of the

Holy Spirit, is because of him working through this cracked pot to share something of worth

of his glory.

And that's my prayer and blessing.

So on July 14 of this year, this summer, I lost my closest friend.

And it was a 30 year relationship.

She had been battling cancer for a year.

We had gone on a cruise to Alaska.

The university took some of us who had done some research on a cruise.

We spent a wonderful time together.

One of my particular joys was that I could get away with my husband and also that I could

spend time with my best friend and we did nearly everything together.

At that point in our journey as friends, we would talk nearly every day, sometimes several

times in a day.

And she was that person you could call.

She was an accountability partner.

She was the one person who always could understand when others did not.

She never condemned.

She was always there.

And in my mind and in her mind too, she was in a battle with cancer because when she came

back from that trip, she realized that something was wrong.

And finally, I was the one that was able to talk to her, talk her into going to the ER

to see what was happening because she couldn't eat and she wasn't being able to retain, you

know, hold fluids and like that.

So I was like, let's just go to the ER, cut things short and find out what's going on.

And I was there when the doctor came in and said, we found a mass.

She started on a journey, tried to fight the cancer.

And I believe that this was a journey she was going to overcome.

The initial steps, it worked, but it didn't work.

And they said, well, now we need to try a clinical trial.

She was in the middle of that.

She tried several other things and then a clinical trial.

And then it was like, it all of a sudden goes from over, like the battle, we're fighting

it to all of a sudden check.

You have weeks left to live.

Like they came in one day, she thinks she's in a clinical trial.

She thinks she's getting a report of how it's going to be.

And they end up telling her, you're not eligible for this trial to continue it.

You have weeks left to live.

We only have palliative care left.

Your cancer is systemic.

There's nothing we can do for you.

And so it's like she goes from check to within five days checkmate and she's gone.

And I had such a hard time believing it.

I was stunned by the loss.

And so I have struggled since then with that loss and many others of her friends have too.

Her name is Victoria Joyner.

For those of you who might know her, she was a professor at Oakwood, at Southern, at Oakwood

and then at Southern.

She was a radio host for 30 years.

She was loved and known by many.

And she was a light and inspiration to so many.

And many of my friends are struggling with this loss.

For me, I grew up in isolation due to religious extremism.

I grew up without association with people.

I grew up without going to school, being kept at home, being kept away from media and not

even having electricity and running water and all this because we believed, I came in

this morning, we're having a message on end times and it was like reminiscent.

We used to have a lot of messages on end time.

My father believed that Jesus was coming by such and such a date and there was always

the date setting.

And I wore a bonnet and a long dress along with my mother and we were separate from the

world because we were preparing for Jesus to come and therefore separating from the

world.

And I didn't have friends.

I didn't grow up like that.

I grew up in isolation.

And so to have a close friend like this was very meaningful and not much replaces that.

Not that I don't have a lot of acquaintance friends and associates, but to have a really

close friend was a rare thing in my life.

And so this loss was particularly hard.

Why did I come here today?

Did I come here today to talk to you about my loss?

No.

I come here today to talk to you about the fact that all of us are experiencing or many

of us are experiencing loss of some kind.

It may not be the loss of a friend to death like what I'm struggling with, but many of

you are struggling with loss too.

It could be the loss of a friend due to a change in relationship or location.

It could be the loss of a relationship due to a divorce or separation.

It could be the loss of an ability due to aging or an accident or some change that has

come in your life.

I remember the day I woke up going blind in one eye and I ended up finding out within,

you know, I was hospitalized, this and that when they said it wasn't the eye because it

turns out it was multiple sclerosis.

And I've experienced a lot of loss of ability as a result.

Those changes are difficult to deal with and many of us are dealing with loss.

And then there's the type of loss that comes from retirement.

You might be glad to retire, but it can be the loss of a status, a position, a daily

routine where people recognize you, you have a purpose, something you're accomplishing

and now the days may seem empty by comparison.

It could be a loss of something as simple, which is not simple, of a sense of a purpose,

a sense of a vision, a sense of a direction in life.

You're just out there floating.

Life doesn't make any sense anymore.

That too is a loss.

And the message that I want to share today is about dealing with loss.

What God is saying to me in the middle of my dealing with loss, it could be the loss

of a meaning, hope, a job, whatever it is.

But is there anyone here that can recognize and raise your hand to testify the fact that

you either currently are or have recently dealt with a sense of loss?

Just want to know who I'm talking to.

Okay, good.

It's definitely not good that you feel that way, but good that I'm not alone, that you

also have experiences and know what I'm talking about.

And so my message today, what loss does is it creates a sense of void, it creates a gap,

it makes a hole in the side of ourselves.

There's a vacancy that's unsettling and it hurts.

It results in a sense of emptiness and neediness, which is unpleasant to feel.

It can often create a sense of helplessness, which is distressing, and it creates a sense

of longing that is unsettling.

We find ourselves saying, God, why did you let me go through this?

Why did you let this happen to me?

Well, God doesn't always answer our questions directly, but he does speak to us and help

us through this.

And one reason why God allows the loss, the pain, the deficits, the gaps, the holes to

occur in our life is because as long as we have a need, as long as there's something

that's making us reach out or driving us to want to reach out, he can reach in and help

us.

One of the worst things that was ever pronounced upon a church was the Laodicean Church.

Remember, they had need of nothing.

One of the most dangerous places in our life can be when we don't feel the need for anything.

And loss does open us up to being needy.

And so what God is now saying to me as I experience this loss, as I move through the grief and

grapple with the void that's in me, it comes from 2 Kings, chapter 4, verse 2, the words

2 Kings 4:2

of Elisha.

How can I help?

And I'm hearing God talking to me.

How can I help?

Tell me, what do you have?

What do you have in your house?

Remember he came to the widow.

She had lost her husband.

She had lost her security and protection in life.

She was about to lose her freedom and her house.

She was about to lose her sons.

She had no protections left.

And in desperation, she went to the prophet and the prophet said, how can I help?

Tell me, what do you have in your house?

There are other examples of this type of thing being posed to individuals.

It's not obvious, but it's there in scripture.

In Moses, remember Moses had been the prince of Egypt.

He had had status and privilege.

He had had an adopted family.

He also had a birth family that he was beginning to connect with.

He had his Egyptian people that he knew and he was beginning to connect with his own people.

And then in a moment of passion, he acted in rage, killed someone, and he ends up losing

all of that.

He's a fugitive out in the desert.

He ends up in Midian raising sheep for 40 years.

And yes, he gets a wife and a family and so forth.

But I can only imagine his life felt empty and purposeless, his vision gone, him feeling

like God had forgotten him.

And yet God came to him one day and called him from the burning bush.

And he didn't focus on what Moses didn't have.

Instead, God said to him, Moses, what is in your hand?

Once again, what do you have?

What's in your hand?

And then there's a story of Esther.

You may look at Esther.

I know I did as a child.

Oh, Esther was a queen.

She was like, oh, this celebrity was able to.

I want to be a queen.

I can tell you one thing.

I never want to be a queen like Esther.

Imagine where you have no choice over who you marry.

You have no, the romance is not there.

If you read the scripture about how that went down, it's not the story that we were told

that she paraded in front of him and he said out of all those women, oh, she's the most

beautiful.

Read the story again.

It's an X-rated story.

It didn't happen like that.

She didn't get to choose, leading up to that, she didn't even get to choose her bath soaps

and her perfumes.

Ladies, how many of you would like someone to decide what you're going to wear, what

scents you're going to put on, what clothes?

None of us would want that.

And then she's married.

He picks her.

Wow, big deal.

She can't even see her own husband.

Okay?

And testified by the fact when the call came to her, she said, it's been 30 days and I

haven't seen her.

In other words, Esther had lost her home.

She had already lost her parents.

She had lost her home with Mordecai.

She had lost her freedom.

She had lost her independence.

She had lost her control over life.

And she had lost this great king of a husband that she supposedly had because she couldn't

even see him.

Lost, lost, lost.

And that indication of how helpless she felt is reflected in her words back to Mordecai

when he told her what was happening.

She basically said, there's nothing I can do.

You know, I'm a pretty prop in the kingdom.

I can't do anything.

And what came back as the answer, Mordecai's words challenged her to consider the one thing

she still had, which was a choice.

What do you have?

You are there.

You have a position.

You have a choice.

Yes, you can't control the outcome, but you still have that.

And she accepted the challenge and decided to go before the king.

And we know the outcome, but she didn't know when she went, whether that scepter would

be extended or not.

Another example I want to point out is Ruth.

In the book of Ruth, Ruth had lost her husband.

She had lost her family.

She lost her sister, her country, everything that was familiar to her because she decided

to go with her mother-in-law who had also lost everything.

It was finally returning back to her home country.

Naomi, in the story, the book of Ruth, if you go back and read it, from beginning to

almost the very end, Naomi mourns throughout that book what she doesn't have.

Her words are about what the Almighty has done, what he has taken from her, what she

does not have.

When you read that book, everything Esther says focuses on what she does.

Your people will be my people.

Your God will be my God.

Where you go, I will go.

In other words, I have one thing left, and that's you, and you're my connection to God.

And when she got to that country, instead of sitting in the house like Naomi did, she

got out there and she picked up sticks, wheat, gleaned the fields to support her and her

mother-in-law because that was the one thing she had left to do.

That's why I love the story of the grasshoppers.

Everything gone and they collect the grasshoppers.

I just like it.

Lord Jesus, thank you.

What do you have?

In the middle of your loss, God is coming to you and saying, but what do you have?

What is in your house?

What is left in your hand that I have provided for you?

Is God saying that I didn't experience a loss, that I don't need to grieve, that I have no

reason to feel empty, heartbroken, lost, confused, hurt, unsettled?

No, he's not saying anything like that, but he does have a blessing for those who experience

loss.

He says in Matthew 5, verse 4, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

And when God's blessings rest in our lives, even the worst things can become a victory.

So what I hear him saying is this, and this is from Revelation, verse 2, and this is the

title of our message.

It says in the Berean Standard Version, wake up and strengthen what remains, which is about

to die.

For I have found your deeds incomplete in the sight of my God.

Or in the New Living Translation, it says, wake up, strengthen what remains and is about

to do.

For I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

And what I hear God telling me is that you are still alive.

You are not finished.

Your work is not done.

Your battle is not over.

Your victory has not yet been won.

You still have something to finish, Rachel, that I've called you to.

You have your grandchildren to raise.

You have another book to write.

You have a job.

And I know all that factually, but when you're in the midst of loss, sometimes it doesn't

feel the same as what the facts are that you know.

And God is saying to me, and I'm sharing on to you, that we are to hear God saying to

us in the midst of what we don't have, what do you have left?

What is in your hand?

What is it that I have left you with?

What is in your house?

Loss and grief and loss can cause us to feel dissatisfied with what we have left.

I've had that.

I've always had that.

But now I've lost something that meant so much to me.

That marriage that I thought was going to work, it's gone now.

And it meant everything to me.

I thought, put everything into it.

I thought, sure, it was going to succeed and it's over.

And God is saying, yes, I know that you feel dissatisfied with whatever's left.

It looks empty.

It looks gray.

It looks out at the world and it's just like nothing left.

It feels like that.

But I want you to know you still have me left.

And there's also something else that I've left you with, whether it's a pot in your

house or a staff in your hand or a choice that you can make.

But there is something that I have left with you that you can use as a point in which your

faith engages with what I've given you so that you can move forward with me.

Strengthen what remains.

Don't cling to what's left, but strengthen what's left.

And there is a difference.

Sometimes when we experience loss, we find ourselves clinging to what's left.

Oh, I got to hold on to this child, this relationship, this picture, this love, this little bit I

have because I'm going to lose that too.

And so I'm hanging on to it, lest tomorrow it's gone too.

You got to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Don't cling to what's left.

Strengthen what remains.

Strengthen what remains.

Assess what you have and then choose to maximize that.

Choose to enhance that.

Choose to strengthen that.

Choose to build that.

Don't hang on to it as if it is your God because it is not.

I am your God, but I have left you with something to strengthen.

And why?

What's the reason?

Because your work isn't finished.

Your story isn't over.

I have left you with something by which you can finish the journey that I have given to

you.

In fact, because you have me, you actually have everything because I'm the source of

everything.

Remember Job?

He lost.

I'm not going to even ask you who's gone through a Job experience because whatever you've gone

through, I don't think it compares quite to what Job went through in that one day.

And then within a week, I guess, even losing his body, control of his body, sickness and

everything breaking out all over him.

Very few, if any of us, have ever gone through the degree, magnitude, and momentum of loss

that Job went through.

And yet after that was over, no, God didn't raise his sons and daughters and his servants

and cattle back to life.

He did not do that.

But he ended up giving him a sevenfold what he had before.

And what that implies is even though that relationship that he had that is now gone,

God gave him new relationships with which he could still find joy.

Okay?

God still restores.

There is in Ezekiel, where Ezekiel in the vision, he had nothing but a valley full of bones,

dry, broken, empty bones.

It doesn't get worse than that.

And the question was posed to him, son of man, can these bones live?

Everything's gone now.

There's nothing but bones.

And he said, I said, sovereign Lord, you alone know.

Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word

of the Lord.

This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones.

I will make breath enter you and you will come to life.

So I prophesied.

He did the one thing that remained, which was to speak the prophecy God gave him, right?

I prophesied as he commanded me and they lived and stood upon their feet in exceeding great

army.

Verse 10.

One other example I want to bring to you is that in Haggai, verse 2, chapter 2, it talks

about the older men who were standing there looking at the new temple that had been built

and after Solomon's temple had been destroyed and the Jews had been taken into captivity.

And then later they came back under Nehemiah and they tried to rebuild the wall and later

the temple.

And so they're looking at this new structure and it pales in comparison to the previous

one, right?

And so some of the new ones are looking and they're shedding tears because what they have

now does not in any way compare to or reflect what they had.

And yet the Lord said, the glory of this latter house will be greater than the former, says

the Lords of Hosts, for in this place I will give peace.

Why did he say that?

Because in that latter temple Jesus came to walk.

Jesus healed the sick.

Jesus cleansed that temple.

And the former temple in all its splendor did not have the creator of the universe walking

in its midst.

So no matter what you have left, no matter what it looks like, when we have God, we have

the source of all that gives us joy, all that gives us completion, all that gives us satisfaction.

Every relationship is unique and nothing can replace it, but fulfillment and joy are in

God, not in what we had in what we lost, whether it's relationships or possessions.

And if God, and God still has joy, friendship, love and fulfillment for you, even though

that may seem impossible, may be completely different from what you had, but he still

has something for you.

God hasn't died and he is the source of all that is perfect, good and beautiful.

God can give you what you need now, even though it may be different than before.

Isaiah 61 verse says, console those who mourn in Zion and the goal is to give them beauty

for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness

that he may be glorified.

In closing, this morning a friend of mine who's a counselor sent me this and he was

telling me how in counseling, one of the reasons why people have so many problems is they're

focusing either on the past or on the future.

They're either mourning over what they've lost and regretting the mistakes of the past

or they're feeling anxious about the future.

And he sent this to me to read, not to read, but I decided to read it.

I was regretting the past and fearing the future.

Suddenly my Lord was speaking.

My name is, I am.

He paused.

I waited.

He continued, when you live in the past with its mistakes and its regrets and I'll say

with its losses, it is hard.

I am not there.

My name is not, I was.

When you live in the future with its problems and its fears, its emptiness, what you don't

have, its lack, I am not there.

My name is not, I will be.

When you live in this moment, it is not hard.

I am here.

My name is, I am.

God is telling me that he is still here, that he is still the joy and the strength of my

life.

Words of a favorite song.

He moves all pain, misery, and strife.

He promised to keep me, never to leave me.

He'll never, never come short of his word.

I've got to fast and pray, stay in the narrow way, keep my life clean every day.

I want to go with him when he comes back.

I've come so far and I'll never turn back.

God is, God is, God is my all and all.

So my appeal is this.

Have you experienced loss?

Do you feel the void and the emptiness?

Are you struggling with that and maybe asking God what comes next?

My question to you is what remains?

What has God left you with that you can still use, that you can take, that you can grasp

a hold of and as your symbol of faith and trust in the one who is everything, move forward.

I have found in my life repeatedly that I've come to obstacles and limitations, stopping

points where I can't move forward.

And God always helps me to realize that he has one step, if nothing else, there's always

like one step, one thing that I can do.

One thing that I may not even want to look at but that's left that I can take a hold

of and do something with.

My question to you this morning is if you've lost, if you're empty, if you're struggling,

what's that one thing that he's left with you, even if you've turned your mind and heart

away from it, what is it that remains that he's calling you today to strengthen?

I'm not a pastor and I don't do calls to the altar, but I am going to invite you, if you've

heard God speaking to you today, if you hear in the words that have come to you something

of a call of God to your heart, and I just want to invite you to stand with me as I,

can I offer the closing prayer?

As I offer a closing prayer, I do want to invite you to have a stand with me.

Don't feel like you need to stand, but this is just if God has spoken to you.

Lord Jesus, thank you for coming to us in the midst of our grief and suffering.

Thank you for promising to comfort those who mourn.

Thank you for the promise that you would give beauty for ashes and the spirit of praise

in place of the garment of heaviness.

And thank you for challenging us to look beyond what we have lost, to ask ourselves what remains

and help us to see that with the eyes of faith.

May the former, may the latter glory, the latter joys, the latter blessings that you

still have for us be greater than that which was before.

Not because we haven't lost something valuable, not because we don't hurt, but because you

are the source of our joy and the beginning of all that matters and the end in the middle.

And you are God who is and we are thankful that we know you.

In Jesus' name, amen.