God Knew

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, our sermon this evening deals directly with the character of God. In many ways the passage before us is connected to the next section, where God not only knows but also takes action to redeem His people. But I want us to focus on this passage together this evening because it highlights the character of God apart from and prior to any "action" as we would conceive of that category. We know that God is pure act, or maybe better pure actuality. He is divorced from the category of potentiality because He is entirely and completely what He is. Put yet another way, in God there is no distinction between what He is and what He ought to be. The two are one and the same. But as these matters relate to us, when God is silent and takes no action to ease our pain, it gets really easy to wonder if He has changed, if He has forgotten, if He is no longer interested — or if He somehow enjoys our suffering. Our passage tonight, then, is a reminder that God does indeed hear our cries, see our pain, and know our suffering. He will never forget His promises; He will never remain ignorant of what you and I are going through.