Good morning.

So happy to be back with you this morning.

So, uh, I assume there may be some of you are here who were not here yesterday.

Just to catch you up a little bit, yesterday I shared the story about my experience of sorrow.

Um, my husband David and I have a grown son, who's 36, Matt, and we also had a daughter named Hope and a son named Gabe, who each just lived, uh, a very, a short time, just six months.

And so, um, we've, we've been to the grave and said goodbye.

And, um, so I, I, I know in this room there will be many of you who have done that, and then others of you who are maybe anticipating that.

Job.

[laughs]

[laughs] Now, so there's a couple of books that are there.

I went by the bookstore 'cause I wanted to bring over ...

I have a book called, uh, What Grieving People Wish You Knew, and, um, right now they're all gone.

But the 10 of those guys told me that the truck might arrive with more, even during my session.

So if a guy in green shows up back there waving at me, then I'll be able to tell you the truck has arrived, but otherwise it might later today.

So anyway, if you w- if you want more on the 10.

[laughing]

[laughs]

So we need to figure out what we mean when we use the word hope.

And of course, um, the Bible speaks about hope a lot.

One place it, it speaks of hope, especially in this term, in this idea of it being an anchor, we read in Hebrew 6, "We who have fled to him," meaning to Jesus, "for refuge, have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.

This hope, this hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls." And I wonder if there are some of you in this room who sense that you need that right now.

Uh, an anchor for your soul that perhaps feels assaulted, perhaps even adrift.

Something that can help us to live our lives at rest rather than being blown to and fro by every new circumstance that comes into our lives and seeks to throw us for a loop.

[laughs]

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Good evening, my new friends here in the tent and those of you who are in the relay sites and watching online.

Uh, my husband David and I have, uh, come from the humidity of middle Tennessee in the United States to enjoy the drizzle of [audience laughing] the Lake District, and we could not be happier to be here.

Uh, we're loving the beauty of the place and even more enjoying the people that we're getting to know and the friends that we are making.

So, so grateful for that.

I, I, I should apologize in advance for my Americanisms.

You need to know that I'm still just doing my best to speak the language properly, okay? [audience laughing] I'm trying.

[laughing]

That's it for me.

We began on Monday talking about four anchors, or ways we tether ourselves to Christ in the midst of loss and difficulty.

And then yesterday, uh, we heard five statements of Jesus that really make a difference to us in the midst of our suffering and loss.

And, uh, this morning, we're going to look at 10 ...

I'm really into the numbering this week.

Can you see it? We're gonna look at 10 misbeliefs, uh, that are, we often take hold of in grief.

And, uh, at, at breakfast this morning, we were talking about offending when speaking, and so I'm just really hoping I'm not offending today, but I think these are significant things that, uh, voices inside us and around us say that we maybe need to wrangle with a little bit, all right? Um, when we are reeling, especially from the death of someone that we love, I think we, we do tend to grab hold of some things because we are trying to make sense of it.

[laughs]

Yes,

exactly.

So we have this preferred outcome.

And so then we vigorously pour ourselves into praying that.

and maybe we become a broken record.

So I'd kind of like to alter the whole paradigm of that, to think about prayer more in terms of, I want to pray on something.

I want to pray about something.

Nancy can go

Yeah.

I mean, their ancestors, this is the whole reason that they are now in exile.

They were weighed and found wanting and judgment was at the door, right? But then we go, so what difference does Jesus Christ make in this picture? Because, you know, the truth is the writing on the wall of my life is she has been weighed and found wanting.

I mean, that's just the truth.

That's just the truth.

I mean, I can put on a good show for you guys today and for all that are watching today.

But, you know, if the truth is written, God would be completely justified to write on the wall of my life, weighed and found wanting and judgment is at the door.

forward

I said, no, you are exactly right.

No, no, no, no. Here's the real truth.

Don't tell anybody this, Cam, because this is just us, right? Yeah, yeah.

We're amongst friends.

I'm mainly here to learn.

And I have learned a lot from hearing how Murray and I do this, the same but different.

I mean, yeah, I'm feeling confirmed along the way.

So is now the time to take us there?

Well, since you've listened, you know that the first question I ask everybody, and it's a helpful way for people to get to know you and your backstory, I always ask, what was the first time ever teaching the Bible? Do you remember that?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

And I'm going to differentiate speaking from teaching the Bible because those two things I think are different because I've always been comfortable upfront speaking.

And I had written a book and I was out there speaking, but I remember the first time I just took a text and was invited to come and teach that text.

I titled the three talks, Faith, Hope, and Love from Hebrews...

I'm not sure, probably, you know, 10, 11, 12 maybe or something like that.

So you better start now.

Their presentation was recorded at our 2025 National Conference.

So you're here, I suppose, because you want to, you want to figure out how to better put biblical theology into action, whether that is in your teaching, your preaching, or maybe just your own Bible study, uh, or as you take in teaching and preaching.

And, uh, Ben and I are encouraged that there's so much in-interest in biblical theology because it has become so important to both of us, has helped us to make sense of the Bible.

The Bible is an amazing book, isn't it? [laughs] Forty human authors, one divine author, and when we see how this divine author has put together his book, the amazing coherence.

I mean, isn't that stunning? How coherent the message is of the Bible across all of these books.

And s-that means that as we get more familiar with the Bible, we want to grow in our ability to see how it connects to other texts, and not simply for curiosity's sake, but because we really want to dig down and get into the intended meaning and the most appropriate applications and implications of the text.

Now, I imagine when you've heard people do biblical theology, um, you've been intrigued, haven't you? When you hear it done well.

[laughs]