God’s Love Over Sorrow Psalm 32:10; Deuteronomy 18:15–20; 1 Corinthians 8:1–13; Mark 1:21–28 

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you, from God, our Father, whose steadfast love surrounds us, and Jesus Christ, our Lord, who carried our sorrows to save us.

We’re going to talk about how God’s love is greater than our sorrow, and so we can be lifted up to rejoice again. 

It’s based on today’s introit, Psalm 32:10, Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

The sorrows of the wicked are multiplied, while the sorrows of those who trust in God are healed.

To understand this, we need a long-term perspective. 

It’s easy to see the here and now, but more difficult to imagine and anticipate the future. 

This is especially true when we’re hurting. When we suffer badly, our pain can be all we think about. It’s hard to see how it’ll ever change.

But it will. In Christ, it will, and for the better.

Jesus suffered greatly on the cross for us. But on the third day, everything changed for Him, that He might change everything for us.

Acts 2:24 says that God raised him up, setting him free from the agony of death.

As He has risen above suffering and death, so someday Jesus will raise His faithful ones, setting them free from pain and death forever. No more disease and dying, no more crying, no more viruses, no more vaccinations; we’ll be free of everything that hurt and hindered and bothered and dragged us down on earth. 

As Isaiah 35:10 and 51:11 say, Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. 

Revelation 21:4 promises us, He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

That’s our long-term hope and joy. For today, Jesus lifts up His faithful, those who trust the Lord; steadfast love surrounds them.

Christ’s love surrounds us, strengthening us to bear ours sorrows, and overcoming our grief. 

Romans 8: 31 promises us that nothing in all creation will separate the faithful from the love of God that we have through Christ, our Lord.

But the wicked have no such love or hope or joy. As our text says, many are the sorrows of the wicked. 

This is meant long-term, eternally. Their sorrows will be multiplied and increase throughout all eternity.

But that’s not God’s hope for humanity. Jesus died and rose to save the world from that fate which is worse than death.

And so the Gospel calls us all, every sinner, everyone of us, to denounce our sin, our wickedness, our evil ways, our worldliness, and embrace God’s love and grace for the world through His Son, and be surrounded by His steadfast love forever.

In our Old Testament, Moses promised the people that God will send the Messiah to be their Savior from sin and sorrow. He said, The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me from among you… to Him you shall listen.

From Scripture we know that Jesus has three roles, three hats to wear, so to speak: prophet, priest, and king.

In His priestly role, Christ is our forgiver. He fulfilled this role when he died for our sins, and as He presents Himself and His righteousness to God to count as our righteousness, to make us worthy of eternal glory.

In His rising and ascending, Jesus revealed His role as King over all, powerful over all creation, ruling at the right hand of God for the sake of His faithful people; and in coming again as judge of all, which is also part of His role as King of kings.

We see Jesus in His kingly role in our Gospel, as He drove out the demon who recognized Him as God’s Son. In healing the man possessed by the demon, we see Jesus in His priestly role, to heal our souls.

Finally, His third role is to be our prophet. As he is the King above all kings, and the Healer above all healers, so He’s the Prophet above all prophets. 

This is the role that’s emphasized in our Old Testament lesson, when God told Moses, “I will raise up a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth.”

Jesus spoke the words of God, directly. All other prophets of the Old Testament, and the apostles of the New Testament spoke God’s Word indirectly, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sometimes through visions or dreams. 

But when Jesus spoke, it was God Himself speaking, because He’s God’s Son in human flesh, the Word made flesh, John 1:14 says. This is what our Gospel is getting at when it says that Jesus taught with authority.

Jesus brought God’s Word to the world, and as God’s Son, personally fulfilled it. 

As Martin Luther so clearly saw, all Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, is about Him as our prophet, priest and king forever.

Since Jesus is the One who brought God’s Gospel to the world through His words and actions, especially His death and resurrection, and in the Gospel God reveals His love for the world through His Son, then its’ in Jesus and in His Word that God’s love surrounds us and uplifts us, as our sermon text promises. 

Sin and all it’s consequences would drag us down to be drowned in agony, but God’s love pulls us up from the depths of despair; His love and grace to uplift us is greater than the sin and sorrow that would destroy us.

With such an abundance of uplifting, victorious love at our disposal, let us reach out to lift up others with the Gospel, that God’s healing love would surround the whole world, His saving grace at work among the people of every nation.

In our world that seems so broken and divided, only the Gospel can truly heal and unify. It takes the Holy Spirit to heal hearts, and make them as one in God’s unifying love and transforming truth.

In our Epistle, Paul reminds the Corinthians Christians that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Worldly knowledge without godly love and wisdom, leads to worldly arrogance, which unnecessarily offends others, and creates animosity and division. 

Godly knowledge with godly love leads to Christ-like humility, through which we humbly reach out to our brothers and sister in love and truth.

As that love and truth is offered and received with faithful and repentant hearts, it overcomes the arrogance and disobedience to God’s Word that divides humanity, and brings people back together, to build us up as one in God’s Word, and in his Church.

This saves us from the eternal sorrows of the wicked that our sermon text speaks of, and heals us together in God’s righteous love, that we would rejoice as one.

All the grief and sorrow and trouble and discord we face in this world, all multiplied together amount to far less than God’s triumphant love for us though His dear and only Son. 

Every good and loving deed we do, that’s born of God, and shared with others, is powerful to help our fellow man, our brothers and sisters, to overcome their sorrow and grief, and live in godly love and joy. 

God’s love is over all and heals all. Let us share this redeeming love with all, that all may repent, receive, and rejoice! 

And as we do, may God’s peace, which passes understanding, guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, whose love surrounds forever. Amen.