Look Up!

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: When you have hard questions about life, where do you find your answers? Where is your hope? Pastor Chris Brooks says:

Pastor Chris Brooks: As believers, we know some questions are too big for us to look within for answers to. No, the gospel doesn’t tell us to look within. It tells us to look up.

Nancy: We’re going to do some looking up today.

This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for November 11, 2021. I’m Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Over the last several days, we’ve been listening to some of the sessions from our Revive ’21 conference about a month ago. We want to give you a glimpse of the conference, or if you participated in that conference, either in Indianapolis or via the livestream, I think you’ll be encouraged by this opportunity to refresh these truths in your heart.

Our speakers have been inviting us to get grounded in a variety of ways. Today we’re going to hear from Pastor Chris Brooks. He’s a pastor at Woodside Bible Church in the Detroit area, and he has a daily call-in program on Moody Radio called Equipped with Chris Brooks.

In the first part of Pastor Brooks’ message at Revive ’21, he shared about the time that his family walked through an unthinkable tragedy. And then he opened God’s Word to show us how to find hope in painful times. Let’s listen.

Pastor Chris: Well, I know what some of you are thinking, How in the world did he get here? How did he make it by security? Well, I don’t want you to feel bad because that’s a question I asked myself as well.

When Nancy called and invited me to come and speak, I said, “I wonder what she’s thinking? Why did she invite me to come and speak to such an awesome group of women?”

And then the thought crossed my mind, Maybe she had called my wife and heard about my extraordinary expertise in the way women think. Then my wife quickly reminded me that was not the case.

I am blessed to be able to have an incredible wife and three strong, smart, brilliant, and beautiful daughters who in their own way have been preparing me for just such an occasion, unknowingly. I am here this weekend to take feverish notes so I can go back and lead them in shock and awe.

But of those three daughters, the one that maybe has trained me the most is my teenage daughter. That’s right. I am the father of a teenage daughter, Miss Zoe Brooks. You guys pray for me if you will.

I absolutely love my daughter. She is, again, strong. She is smart. She is brilliant. She is beautiful, and she is going to homecoming.

Now, nothing prepares a father for some young man who musters up the nerve to come and ask your daughter to homecoming. When he did, my first thought was to invite him to our elders’ meeting. But my wife told me that that was not going to happen.

So tomorrow, I get to go back home and see my beautiful daughter dressed up for her first homecoming. She is just weeks away from being sixteen years old. And with all due respect to the moms out there of a high school son, there is no teenage boy in America that I like right now. Not one of them. Not one of them. So you pray for my heart. Amen?

Then I thought, Well, the truth of the matter is that Nancy probably didn’t invite me because of my expertise in the way women think or even because of my teenage daughter. But she probably invited me because of another child of ours—my son.

My son Chris came into our family at the age of sixteen. We adopted Chris. From the day he walked into our lives, it was extraordinarily clear that he was gifted and creative. He knew how to play instruments from the bass guitar to the keyboard. He loved photography. He even had culinary skills. If you were to try Chris’ chili, you would swear that it should be bottled up and sold at restaurants.

When Chris came into our home, about a week or so into it, I sat down with him and said, “Son, what is it that you want to do when you grow up? What is your goal in life?”

He quickly responded, “Dad, I want to be a teacher. I want to be a teacher,” which would draw my heart some joy because I come from a family of educators.

My father taught at one of the prestigious high schools in Detroit for twenty-seven years. My wife, both of her parents were pretty accomplished teachers, both on the high school level as well as on the college level. So education is something we do in our family.

I told my son that it was going to be hard, but if he worked, I would do everything that I could to help him to accomplish his goal. It was hard. If any of you had to labor with a child who struggled to stay focused and motivated through school, you know what I’m talking about.

I can’t tell you how many times we had to talk to a counselor and negotiate another chance and another opportunity.

I can’t tell you how many times we had to have a “come to Jesus” conversation, and I had to remind him of what his goal was.

I can’t tell you how many times I had to fight for him. And sometimes fighting for him looked like standing against other people. But sometimes fighting for your child looks like you standing against them.

There were many days where we were totally optimistic. And there were many days where the goal seemed totally out of reach, and we were humbled, wondering, God, how in the world are You going to accomplish this?

But by God’s grace, Chris graduated from high school. Praise God! Then he went on to college. Praise God, He is faithful! And Chris accomplished his goal. He became a teacher in an elementary school in Detroit Public Schools. And man, were our hearts bursting with pride!

Now, this is just a parenthetical statement. But I want to start a movement, a petition, that says, “For every diploma and degree, the parents’ names should be written at the bottom along with the child.” Anybody signing that petition with me?

I looked at his diploma, and I said to myself, “Ain’t this something? Like you did this alone!”

Chris was living his dream. Chris was a librarian and also was teaching young kids how to read, literacy. He had the most happening library in Detroit. He got kids so excited by using themes and characters in books that he knew would get them excited about literacy and reading.

I loved to see him not only soar in the classroom but involved in the community, active in mentoring young people because he wanted to give back and to reach young people who had a similar story as his.

We talked often. As a matter of fact, when he moved out into his own apartment, it felt like success. I got a friend of mine who tells me that success in parenting is when your child and you can put your IDs on the table and they have different addresses. That’s the definition of success. So we had achieved success. But yet, we were close, and we talked often. He would call for wisdom and for advice and guidance.

And that’s why it was strange the first week of March 2019 when we had not heard from Chris for about a week. I’d ask my wife, “When was the last time you talked to Chris?” And she said, “About a weekend ago.”

We figured, “Well, he’s just busy,” because Chris does tend to overcommit himself. (I wonder where he got that from?) We prayed for him and continued on with our normal lives.

It was March 4, 2019—some dates you never forget. I was headed out to a leadership conference for my church—it was a retreat that we were going to gather together. I’m about halfway to the retreat center, a two-hour drive or so, about an hour into it, and I get a call from a 313 area code, but a number I don’t recognize.

Now, a 313 area code, for those of you may not know, is a Detroit area code. And normally, I don’t answer phone numbers that I don’t recognize. Anybody with me on that? Right? If you want to talk, leave a message. But this time I was compelled to answer the call, and I did.

I can’t remember all that was said. Honestly, after the first few sentences, my body went numb. But the police officer on the other end of the line said, “Mr. Brooks, I regret to inform you that earlier this week we found your son’s body, and your son is dead. We need you to come to the Medical Examiner’s office to identify his body.”

I couldn’t really comprehend what was being said. So I pressed a little bit further for details, but it was clear that they were describing my son whose body was found in an abandoned building. Ironically enough, an abandoned school building. He was clearly on his way to work, wearing his badge, having his tote bag with the files of his children in there from the classroom that he had been teaching literacy skills to.

I don’t remember everything that happened from there. I just kind of rolled home. If you’ve ever had a moment that just shocked you to the core, put you on the spin cycle of life, there are details that just seemed to fade or maybe were suppressed.

I just remember thinking to myself, How in the world am I going to tell my wife that our son, that her son is dead? How in the world am I going to tell my kids that their big brother isn’t here?

I called my dad, which, praise God for parents. No matter how old you are, you never outgrow the need for them. I called my dad. He is the type of guy who seems to show a sense of poise no matter what the situation. We had been through some difficult valleys before—none quite this severe—but I knew that I could call him. And he, as he always does, settled me.

So I went home, and I told my wife, and I told my children. We cried, and we wailed. I didn’t know whether or not I would make it. I didn’t know whether or not we would make it.

It seemed like the question that we were confronted with, though not audibly, but certainly, though not shared between us, all of us . . . you could see it on our faces, was the question: “Is hope dead? Is hope dead?”

It’s interesting that the theme verse for this gathering that we’re in is Colossians 1, verse 23: 

If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast [grounded, if you will], not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. 

“Not shifting from hope.” I found it very sovereign, if you will, very providential, that Nancy invited me to talk about what it means to be grounded in hope.

And maybe, like me, you can remember a time in your life where you were asking the question, “Is hope dead?” Or maybe tonight you are asking that question, “Is hope dead?” I want you to know two things.

Number one: I want you to know that God is big enough for the question. We don’t have to hide from God with the most important questions of our hearts. He knows our frame. He knows our frailty. He knows that we are mere clay.

And so for us to ask God is the right thing, because only He has the answer.

The second thing I want you to know is that the Bible predicted the questions. Praise God that you’re not the first person. I’m not the first person. We’re not the first generation to ask the question, “Is hope dead?”

First Peter is a book to deal with that question. First Peter is a book written to believers who are suffering—suffering various trials of many kinds. Suffering what it means to live life in the face of a fallen world. Dealing with the question, “Is hope dead?”

Some of you might be tempted to quickly answer the question, far too quick to answer the question. In a day where we have means to inform are theology, so often we give shallow and quick answers to deep and profound questions.

Before you are too quick to respond and say, “Well Chris, of course, hope is not dead,” let me give you some statistics on the matter.

Not only are we living in a day and age where teen suicide is on the rise, anxiety is on the rise, depression is on the rise—not just in total nationally but in every single state in our union this is true. We’re living in a day and age where mental health professionals are absolutely overwhelmed.

A recent Kaiser Family foundation study found that half of Americans have seen a mental health professional over the past year. It also found that 48% of Americans described “feeling down, depressed, and hopeless” within the last twelve months.

So let me ask the question again: Is hope dead?

If you’re looking at the broader culture, you have to admit that despair seems like it’s advancing, that it’s put some points on the board. It seems like the despair is the ethos of the day. Listen to the music. Read the contemporary literature and the nihilism, the sense and thought that, “There is no hope in life,” seems to be prevailing. And we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that this was simply a secular problem.

Recently I ran across an article in The New York Times, by the way, the most broadly produced and read circular publication in the entire world. It was an op-ed piece written on the question of despair and hopelessness.

It’s interesting, because my sense of asking the question, “Is hope dead?” came as a result of a single event. Maybe that’s true for you as well. Maybe it was a divorce. Maybe the loss of a child. Maybe the identification of a terminal illness. Maybe the loss of a parent. I don’t know what your event was, but it does not always come that way.

Sometimes it is a slow encroachment upon the heart. Such was the case for this op-ed piece journalist who wrote this: 

There’s no particular moment when I gave up hope. It’s been a gradual process. Once I did give up, despair sometimes overtook me, and I could not locate myself. Long denial, painful feelings insisted on being heard and noticed. I searched for something, anything, with which to distract myself—a goal, some direction, the promise of a worthy accomplishment, or at least averting amusement—anything to avoid the dissidence between my lifelong propensity toward optimism, and my growing sense of internal despair.

This is where the op-ed piece gets really sad. He says,

“Do I have hope now? Well, if hope means the expectation that someone or something is going to save us, then no. I am hopeless.

This describes the state of mind for so many in our hour, and maybe it describes you. In a sea of women that are gathered here tonight, maybe you have had this growing, gnawing sense of despair, hopelessness, wondering, Is life worth living after the losses that I’ve experienced? Wrestling and struggling in your heart, Should I continue on?

Again, I commend you to the Word of God because as believers, we know some questions are too big for us to look within for answers to. This is the doctrine of progressive secularism that we should just simply look within. But where has that gotten us? Only further confused and even more anxious.

No, the gospel doesn’t tell us to look within. It tells us to look up. “From which comes my help?” the psalmist said. “My help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth” (Ps. 121:1–2).

How many know that our God is faithful?

And so Peter gives us this letter, and I just want to spend a few moments looking at the first twelve verses of the first chapter of first Peter. If you could join me there.

Peter writes this letter, and it is an intimate letter. This is no theological treatise. This is no book that was written from an intellectual standpoint, distant somehow from the emotion of the moment. This is an intimate letter written from one man’s heart to the hearts of his friends that he knows are hurting.

He opens the letter by introducing himself and introducing his audience. Both are absolutely riveting. Looking at verses 1–3 together with me. It says:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

What phenomenal, poetic, and fantastic words. Like every epistle, Peter opens up by defining who the author is. There’s no confusion about who the author of this epistle is—it is Peter.

You know that Peter, don’t you? Peter, who was courageous, bold enough to stand against a battalion of men who came to capture his Savior.

You know that Peter, who was also a fool foolish enough to rebuke his Savior for saying that He was going to go to the cross.

You know that Peter, that man who could walk on water.

You know that Peter, who was so lacking faith that he denied his Lord three times.

Peter, who saw the resurrected King of kings, Lord of lords.

That Peter, who was a mixed bag.

I’m so glad he wrote this letter. And you know why I’m glad he wrote this letter? Because I am a mixed bag. And, news flash, so are you. We are a mixed bag of phenomenal moments of faith and low moments of doubt. We are all a mixed bag. If you find yourself on the mountaintop of faith one day and down in the depths of despair another, welcome to the world of Peter.

But what God proves over and over again is He knows how to write straight lines with crooked sticks.

What God proves over and over again is He knows how to take mixed bags like you and me, and when His grace is deposited within us, He can do extraordinary things through us according to His grace, goodness, and glory.

Peter wrote this, but he knew who he was. Even on his bad days, he knew he was an apostle of Jesus Christ. Do you know who you are? Well, if you were confused about who you are, like these first-century believers, Peter wants to tell us who we are.

Notice in the first verse, he gives who his audience is. Notice these words: “To the elect exiles of the Dispersion.” And then he names these wonderful cities throughout modern-day Turkey, what would have been known then as Asia Minor.

Oh, ladies, don’t miss the deep Old Testament imagery that is connected to these words: elect exiles of the Dispersion. If ever there was a paradoxical statement, it is “elect exiles.” Two words that are absolutely on the surface opposed to one another, that don’t seem like they go together.

Let’s start with the second word first if we could: exiles. What does it mean to be an exile? It means to be a stranger. It means to be a pilgrim. It means to be displaced.

This is what it is to be a Christian in this world. We are not fully at home in this world. And if you are fully at home in this world, then you may not be His, because if you are His, there’s something about this world that leaves you a little bit unsettled. You’re not going to quite fit in. The ethics of this world won’t match yours. The morals of this world won’t match yours. The longings of this world won’t be the longings of your heart because, after all, you are an exile.

Nancy: That’s Pastor Chris Brooks taking us through a passage in 1 Peter. He’s just getting into his main point, so tomorrow we’ll hear the rest of that message that he gave at Revive ’21. It’s a message that gave such hope and encouragement to those of us who were at the conference, and I know it’s going to do the same for you.

Dannah Gresh: Yes. You know, Nancy, as I listened to him speak that night, I thought, That right there, that is what it looks like to be grounded.

Nancy: Yes.

Dannah: No circumstance, no tragedy can shake your faith when your hope is in the Lord.

Nancy: And that doesn’t mean we don’t have times of great tears and great loss, but you saw that balance in this man whose family was devastated by this circumstance with their precious son. And yet his heart has been tethered to the Word of God and to the hope that we have in Christ. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Dannah: It truly is. I want to live like that, and we want you to be able to live like that, too.

That’s why we’ve made “Grounded” not only the theme of our Revive ’21 conference, but also the theme of our 2022 wall calendar.

Nancy: Yes, Dannah. I can’t think of a time in my lifetime when we have needed the hope of God’s Word more, the hope of the gospel, to keep us grounded.

And now as the holidays are upon us and we’re getting ready to start a new year, we want to help you get grounded in Christ each day, each month, and all year long. Our team has designed this beautifully illustrated, hand-lettered thirteen-month calendar.

It begins with December of this year, and then continues throughout 2022. Each month displays promises from God’s Word to fill you with hope no matter what situations you may find yourself facing this next year.

Dannah: Yes. And in addition to the Scripture quotes, I love it that you’re going to also find quotes from Nancy reminding you to stay grounded in the hope of Jesus.

When you give a donation of any amount to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, we would love to send you this calendar. It’s just our way of saying “thank you.” You can visit ReviveOurHearts.com to make your gift, or call us at 1–800–569–5959 and ask for that 2022 Wall Calendar.

As we end today, I’m thinking that when Pastor Brooks shared about his family in the message we just heard, he showed the audience some photos of those family members, and they were truly moving. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I invite you to visit ReviveOurHearts.com to see those pictures when you go to make your gift today.

Tomorrow, Chris Brooks is going to continue explaining what it means to be “elect exiles” and why that matters for our hope even in the midst of pain. I hope you’ll be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth challenges you to look up and find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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