It’s All Right
Probably the most popular sermon I’ve preached in recent years is the Tapestry of Grace sermon. Even though I preached it over two years ago, I regularly receive comments from people on how it has helped and encouraged them. In that message I show how the greatest work of grace is the promise of Romans 8:28.
“For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”
The final work of grace in your life will be to produce a happy ending…a happy ending to all things. God does this by taking every event, each and every “thread” no matter how dark or coarse, and as a master artisan working at His loom of grace, He weaves each thread into the tapestry that is the story of your life in such a way that in the end you will be able to say, “nothing bad has ever happened to me.” This is the greatest work of grace; grace that reaches into the past and weaves even the bad in such a way that in the end it’s all good. It’s a revelation of the ultimate triumph of grace that enables us to say, “Everything’s going to be all right.” For the Christian those words aren’t an empty platitude, but a powerful confession of grace-based faith.
It’s all right.
Simple words and easy to say. But for a Christian who has the promise of God to back them up, they are profoundly powerful words. Even mysteriously powerful. I’ve learned there is something inexplicable about how profoundly comforting those words can be. So let me say them to you…
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.
I got an email this week from a friend who put my mind back on this topic. Let me share it with you:
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On my way to the airport, earlier this week, I popped in the “Tapestry of Grace” CD. I had some need of hearing the “everything is going to be all right” message within that sermon. As always, it proved a great blessing.
Then on the plane, I read the following passage excerpted from Madeleine L’Engle’s The Summer of the Great-Grandmother:
Then she turns toward me, reaches for me. “I’m scared. I’m scared.”
I put my arms around her and hold her. I hold her as I held my children when they were small and afraid in the night; as, this summer, I hold my grandchildren. I hold her as she, once upon a time and long ago, held me.
And I say the same words, the classic, maternal, instinctive words of reassurance. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. It’s all right.”
“Something’s wrong. I’m scared. I’m scared.”
I cradle her and repeat, “It’s all right.”
What’s all right? What am I promising her? I’m scared, too. I don’t know what will happen when Hugh [her husband] goes to the neurologist. I don’t know what’s going to happen to my mother this summer I don’t know what the message may be the next time the phone rings. What’s all right? How can I say it?
But I do.I hold her close and kiss her, and murmur, “It’s all right, Mother. It’s all right.”
I mean these words. I do not understand them, but I mean them. Perhaps, one day I will find out what I mean. They are implicit in everything I write. I caught a hint of them during that lecture, even as I was cautioning against false promises. They are behind everything, the cooking of meals, walking the dogs, talking with the girls. I may never find out with my intellectual self what I mean, but if I am given enough glimpses perhaps these will add up to enough so that my heart will understand. It does not; not yet.
How good is it to KNOW that He causes ALL things to work together for GOOD to those who love God? We all have some innate sense that it ought to be all right. But, only the grace of God allows us to know it and to know it when we most need to know it.
What a gloriously sustaining message!
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Amen.
It’s all right.
I’m reminded of a song by Bruce Springsteen that he wrote about 9/11, it’s called Lonesome Day. The lyrics go like this.
Once I thought I knew
Everything I needed to know about you
Your sweet whisper, your tender touch
But I didn’t really know that much
Joke’s on me, it’s gonna be okay
If I can just get through this lonesome day
Hell’s brewin’ dark sun’s on the rise
This storm’ll blow through by and by
House is on fire, viper’s in the grass
A little revenge and this too shall pass
This too shall pass, I’m gonna pray
Right now I gotta get through this lonesome day
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.
Let kingdom come I’m gonna find my way
Through this lonesome day.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.
There really is something about hearing those words — “It’s all right.” Not to analyze it too much, but in writing a song about 9/11 Bruce Springsteen can say “It’s all right”, but only if he weaves in some spiritual/Christian references like, This too shall pass, I’m gonna pray and Let kingdom come I’m gonna find my way. I’m sure he does this only by intuition and not consciously, but that’s the way artists operate…by intuition. What an artist my pick up by intuition — that with God everything can be all right — Christians can know with assurance from the Word of God.
It’s all right.
BZ
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You will notice there is now a function which you can use to email this blog to your friends. Why don’t you do that…it just might be an email rhema for them.
I’ve been working very hard this week on my Friday night message on death entitled, Death Is Not The End. I think it will be very helpful to you and answer some questions you may have had. I hope you are planning to be in church with us Friday night.