What does First B Jackson teach about grief and faith?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on grief and faith does not start at a safe distance. In the message on Romans 8:28-39, Pastor Ray named plainly that he was preaching those verses out of personal grief, leaning on them himself rather than simply explaining them. That honesty set the tone for everything that followed. The ground under Romans 8:28, that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, is not a promise that God authors pain or that suffering means something went wrong. It means God is sovereign enough to work even failure and loss toward His purpose, and that nothing in creation can pull a believer out of His love.
Pastor Ray walked through the logic Paul builds in verses 31 through 39. If God did not spare His own Son, He will not withhold what His people need. No charge against the elect can stand because God is the one who justifies. And Christ is not only the one who died but the one who was raised and who is interceding right now, at the right hand of God, for each person going through each specific thing. To get there, Ray read all of Psalm 44 alongside Romans 8:36, showing that Paul was not dropping in a random line about being counted as sheep for the slaughter but was calling his readers back to a whole prayer from people under real suffering who had not stopped trusting God.
In the Hebrews 11 message, Pastor Ray made the same point from a different angle. The great list of faithful people in that chapter is not a list of people who got easy roads. Conquered kingdoms and quenched fire sit in the same passage as being tortured, sawn in two, and dying without receiving the fullness of what was promised. Ray drew that list forward into this congregation, naming people from First B Jackson who lived and died by faith in recent years. The teaching here is that grief and faith are not opposites. The ancient witnesses and the people we have buried were all looking toward something God had planned that they could not yet fully see, and the promise is that together, across that distance, we will be made complete.
Taught from Romans 8:28 · Romans 8:31-39 · Psalm 44 · Hebrews 11:32 - 12:3 · Hebrews 11:39-40
The passage taught · Psalm 44
1 We have heard with our ears, God; our fathers have told us, what work you did in their days, in the days of old.
2 You drove out the nations with your hand, but you planted them. You afflicted the peoples, but you spread them abroad.
3 For they didn’t get the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your face, because you were favorable to them.
4 You are my King, God. Command victories for Jacob!
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- February 1, 2026 Nothing Can Separate Us Romans 8 shows that nothing can separate believers from God's love, even suffering, grief, and doubt. Pastor Ray walks through Romans 8:28-39.
- January 5, 2020 By Faith: People of Whom the World Was Not Worthy Hebrews 11-12 sermon on living by faith, honoring those who ran before us, and fixing our eyes on Jesus as we endure the race set before us.
Mentioned along the way
- March 13, 2022 He Comes Home Pastor Ray walks through Matthew, Mark, and Luke on Jesus responding to accusations that He cast out demons by Satan, including a look at the unpardonable sin.
- March 24, 2013 From John 18-19, Morning Praise (2) Palm Sunday sermon on God's sovereignty over suffering, tracing Job, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53 to the cross of Christ, showing why Christians can still say "blessed be the name of the Lord."