October 2, 2022 -Experiencing Victory in Times of Loss - Pastor Paul Vallee

How do we see tragedy in our lives? How do we move forward when our world comes crashing down around us? As we are about to discover, God does have a plan for good even in our times of trouble and despair. Robert Davison relates this powerful insight about the things we may consider sacred but have lost the true meaning of what faith is all about. "Sometimes the things we regard as essential to our faith, and fight desperately to retain -patterns of worship and congregational life – may, and indeed sometimes must, be taken from us if we are to rediscover the meaning of discipleship." People who are never challenged in their faith often grow weak, indifferent, and susceptible to life’s difficulties. Challenges have a way of causing us to reconsider our lives and see things in a different light. In Jeremiah 24, we find two distinctly different groups of people that God is evaluating. The one group is going through great loss and difficulty, while the other remains relatively untouched by what has transpired. How do we interpret our lives in light of what we are going through? Here in our text, we may be shocked at God’s evaluation.