Calvary Chapel Staten Island

Guest (Female): What happens when faith and mental health meet for real? What’s up? I’m Grace Graber. Welcome to Breaking Through with Grace Graber, a podcast for honest conversations about anxiety, trauma, healing, hope, and the God who never backs away when life gets heavy.

We are going to talk about everything mental health. No pretending, no perfect answers, just real stories, real faith, and a reminder that you’re not alone. Get ready, you’re going to be absolutely obsessed. Breaking Through with Grace Graber, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to God In Our City, the daily edition. Your host and Bible teacher is Pastor Dave Watson. Pastor Dave has been the pastor of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island for 35 years. In addition, he is the co-founder and president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies.

To receive a special downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That’s calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Now here is Pastor Dave and our show.

Pastor Dave Watson: Welcome everybody. It’s Friday, the 11th of September 2026. Twenty-five years ago today, we were in the throes of what we call 9/11. This is Pastor Dave Watson, again. Thank you for joining us here on God In Our City, the daily edition.

We’ve been talking about 9/11 all week long. We’ve been working our way through Lamentations Chapter 3 because of the hope that we find there during difficult times. During Jeremiah’s 9/11, when Jerusalem was burnt to the ground and the temple that he so loved and appreciated, and maybe even was a priest in—his dad may have been the high priest—is destroyed.

So we’re talking about that. We’re working through it. I don’t know where you are tonight on 9/11. This is pre-recorded. I’ll be, God willing, at what they call the Postcards here on Staten Island, listening to the names being read, paying my respects. In the morning, I’ll be at the firehouse around 11:00. I’ll be at a local nursing home, just ministering and being with other people on this incredible 25th commemoration. It is hard to believe it’s 25 years.

We have some resources we want you to have. You might want to follow along with us with these resources. I think they’ll be helpful to you. We’ve been working our way through this text all week, but our message has been "Some Things Never Change." Our verse has been, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

We have a downloadable study guide. You can find that at calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Calvarychapelsi.org/gioc is a free downloadable study guide. You'll also find there a list of the classes for the New York Institute for Biblical Studies. We start this coming Monday. We would love to have you be part of what we're doing. If you're looking for a Bible class to take, to be part of, we encourage you to just go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc to find what we have.

Also, you can go to the New York Institute of Biblical Studies website, nyibs.net. And today probably will be the last day we offer them, but we want to send to you, free, the 9/11 commemorative challenge coin. I'm holding one in my hand now. It’s heavy, but on one side of it, it has a beautiful relief, a beautiful painting-like thing of the World Trade Center towers before 9/11 in terms of remembrance.

There are a couple of American flags there too and helmets from FDNY. On the back is "Never Forget the 343 Brave Souls" of FDNY who lost their life that day. These challenge coins we want to send to you free. There’s no gimmick or anything like that. You can order them at nyibs.net/gioc or call us at 718-720-5390.

We have a little bit yet to get to. I don't know where you were on 9/11. I don't know how it affected you, but I know it affected me immensely in ways I never thought it would. I came here in 1990 to be the pastor of Calvary Chapel. It was my dream, but before that, I had been in Manhattan working with a local church there and had on a regular basis gone to the World Trade Center just to get a vision of ministry here in New York.

Through my time here until 2001, I would go frequently. I’d go some to the World Trade Center. I would take people to the World Trade Center and just renew my vision for reaching our city. So maybe that’s the reason why I found it so personal. And also, you come to understand, for instance, in the fire department here, it's a legacy thing.

There are very few firefighters that I've met who don't have another relative in the fire department. In some ways, that's true with cops as well. So it’s a legacy thing. When you see what happened on 9/11, when you note the firefighters dying, 343, you recognize that it's a family thing.

In fact, we've had a number, a large number of kids whose dads died on 9/11 in both the fire department and the cops to join because it's a legacy thing. I'm not sure that's true everywhere else in America, but it's true here. So you understand how people were so affected, families were so affected.

But I've said enough. Let's get into our Lamentations again today, our lament. Lamentations 3:15 through 28. "He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel; he has made me cower in ashes. My soul is bereft of peace; I've forgotten what happiness is. So I say my endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord.

Remember my affliction and my wanderings and the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him."

Let's pray together. Father in heaven, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the incredible, life-changing truths in it. Help us, Lord, even now as we think about 9/11 to, Lord, in so many ways give ourselves again to you. Lord, help our audience today, some suffering Lord, trauma, some suffering Lord, hurt, some grieving still for a loved one who was lost in 9/11 or been lost since, or is sick now because of the 9/11 illnesses so many people suffer from.

Lord, minister to them, encourage them, help the families again tonight, even as they ring the bells about their dear beloved one, both here in Staten Island as well as in our city. And Lord, as we study your word today, may it, Lord, go deep in us. May it, Lord, help us better understand how we are to respond. And may we, by your grace, respond correctly.

Lord, you have been incredibly good to this city. Please protect it, Lord. Please protect it. Please keep it safe. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, we've worked our way through a couple of my "Cs" in my notes. We've talked about the circumstances of our hope and that it can be relinquished when we focus on what's happened to us, when we allow what's happened to us to overwhelm us, when it becomes our focus.

Then we talk about the confession where our hope is refreshed. The writer, Jeremiah, acting as a psalmist—because this is poetry, this is a Hebrew acrostic—as he's talking to us, he talks about the fact the steadfast love of the Lord, the *hesed* of the Lord, never ceases, that his mercies never come to an end. They're new every morning, and then he cries out, "Great is your faithfulness." That's his confession. You can almost hear him on his rooftop as he's watching the city burn, say that: "Great is your faithfulness."

And then the last C in my outline is the confidence. Our hope is restored. Our hope is restored. And the verses we're going to focus now on are verses 24 through 27. Verses 24 through 26 say, "The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

Powerful thought, isn't it? It is good that one should wait silently for the salvation of the Lord. He concludes that section by saying, "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth." But he's saying something very important here. The Lord is my reward. He says the Lord is my portion. The Hebrew word is *helak*. The Lord is my portion; He's my reward.

That’s what it's saying. Jeremiah is not looking for something or someone else. The Lord is enough. Therefore, he says, "I'm going to hope in him." Why? Because He's what I need. He's all that I need. I think the Lord in his grace strips us of so much of what we think is important. He strips us of so many things we think are important so that we're left with one important person, that one important person: the Lord.

The Lord is my portion. He's my inheritance. He's my reward. I'm not chasing after something God will give me; I'm chasing after God. I'm not chasing after the Lord who gives good gifts; I'm chasing after the Lord of the good gifts. I want Him. I want Him. He is my reward. In Him we find a place to put our hope. There is a person in whom we can hope.

That's the Lord. In Romans Chapter 15 and verse 13, we’re reminded, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Do you see what it's saying? That God's going to fill us with hope, with joy and peace, because He's the God of hope and thus we will abound by the ministry of the Holy Spirit in us in hope.

What are you going through today? What is a hope robber in your life? Is it a diagnosis? Is it more than a diagnosis? Maybe it’s your bank account. Maybe it’s your relationships that are around you. Maybe it’s something different. But what is happening that's robbing you of your hope? Listen, don't chase something, chase someone. Don't chase a portion, chase a person. The Lord is your and my hope.

It reminds us of Psalm 73:25 and 26. The psalmist says, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there’s nothing on earth I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." The Lord has put eternity, Ecclesiastes says, in our hearts. There’s an eternity-shaped hole. It can only be filled by an eternal person, and that eternal person is the Lord.

You and I will chase so many other things and come up empty. And the person that we need is not necessarily a physical companion in our life. It is necessarily the Lord and having a personal, deep, intimate relationship with Him. Do you have that?

Do you have that? "Oh Pastor Dave, I’m a Christian." That’s great. That’s great. But is the Lord your portion? Are you finding great hope, great strength, great peace in your relationship with the Lord, so it’s just you and Him, maybe even against the world? Is that the way it is for you?

Psalm 16, verse 5 says, "The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot." I choose the Lord. I choose to have Him as my portion. I choose to have Him as my lot. I choose Him. I choose Him, and it is my reward. So I would say it this way: instead of looking for peace, seek the peace giver. He is our portion.

Instead of chasing happiness, seek the happiness giver. He is our portion. Instead of searching for hope, seek the hope giver. He is our portion. Instead of chasing joy, chase the joy giver. He is our portion. Instead of seeking satisfaction, seek the only one who can open his hands and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Seek the Lord. Seek the Lord. Sometimes we have our devotions—I’m guilty of this—and we're running looking for a verse. All we're looking for is a verse to get us through the day. Well, instead of seeking the verse, seek the one who gave the verse. Seek Him. Seek Him in a personal way. You won't indeed regret it.

And then the Lord is my rewarder. It says here that God is the Lord. And it tells us there is this benefit to the Lord being God and being good. And He's good to the one waiting, to the soul seeking after Him. It's good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. So if I will seek Him, if I will wait for Him, it’s a good thing. And it says it's good to wait eagerly for His deliverance, for His victory, for His salvation, the salvation of Yahweh, the Lord. And do it in silence. Shut up. Don't say anything. Just do it in silence, quietly.

Quietly. In quietness, it tells us in Isaiah, in quietness you’ll find your strength. So I think he’s speaking to himself. I think Jeremiah is saying, "I need to shut up and stop complaining, and I need to focus on the Lord, even when it hurts." And then he says in Lamentations 3:27, "It is good for a man that he bear his yoke in his youth."

This refers to the chastening of the Lord. Lamentations 1:14 says it this way: "My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they were set upon my neck; he caused my strength to fail; the Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand." And Jeremiah has said it’s good if that happens to you in your youth.

What are our takeaways today? We've looked at the fact that our circumstances can be a great hope robber and that we need hope to endure. We’ve looked at the confession regarding the steadfast love of the Lord and His mercy makes us yell, makes us scream, "Great is your faithfulness," and therein we find our hope.

And then we note that our hope can be completely restored if we’ll make it all about the Lord, if what we chase will be the Lord. David will say in Psalm 63 as he's running—he’s running from his son Absalom. Absalom is chasing him. And what is his response to it? He’s found that the relationship that he had with his son is so now unfulfilling.

And he says, "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." Some things never change. Everything is subject to change, but someone never changes: our Lord, our Lord.

586 BC, Jeremiah suffers his 9/11, destruction of the place he loved, the city he loved. September 11th, 2001, we suffer the ravaging of our city and the death of so many people and the effect that goes on even until today. What do we do? Where is our hope? Where is our strength? Where is everything we need? It’s found in the Lord.

Our hope is in the steadfast love of the Lord, of His mercies that never end, of His faithfulness, His faithfulness, but most of all in Him, in His person, in who He is. After 9/11, I took some inventory of my own heart and I know that’s 25 years ago, that I felt like, you know what? I'm not where I need to be with the Lord. I need to take my game up.

Why? Because I need the Lord. If I'm going to minister through this, if I'm going to make it through this, I'm going to need a deeper relationship with the Lord. Maybe today you recognize that your relationship with God is weak and something needs to happen. I encourage you, I implore you, seek the Lord. Spend more time with the Lord now than you ever have before.

Read the Psalms and the prophets. Read the Gospels. Read Lamentations and listen to the voice of the Lord quietly. He'll meet you and He’ll meet your deepest need. Not necessarily with something from the outside, but with His very person Himself, His self, the Lord Himself.

Lord, please help these words to go down deep into my heart and my brothers' and sisters' hearts and help us to apply them to our lives. Help us to become, Lord, the people you want us to be for your kingdom and your glory. But Lord, help us and help, Lord, the victims of 9/11 even now to find the victory in the person and work of your son, Jesus Christ. We pray these things in His name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you so much for listening. Please take advantage of our study guides, only going to be up there today. Also, take advantage of the fact we have these challenge coins. All you need to do is call us. We’d be happy to give them to you, send them to you free of charge.

The challenge coins, we want them to be a blessing to you. Call us: 718-720-5390. 718-720-5390. Thank you for being with me this week, this week of 9/11. Please join us again Monday for another edition of the daily edition of God In Our City. God bless you.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to God In Our City with your host, Pastor Dave Watson. We hope the show was a blessing to you. Again, to receive a downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That’s calvarychapelsi.org/gioc.

Please check out Pastor Dave’s blog at nycshepherd.com. That’s nycshepherd.com. Please invite a friend and join us every weekday for another edition of God In Our City.

Guest (Female): What happens when faith and mental health meet for real? What’s up? I’m Grace Graber. Welcome to Breaking Through with Grace Graber, a podcast for honest conversations about anxiety, trauma, healing, hope, and the God who never backs away when life gets heavy.

We are going to talk about everything mental health. No pretending, no perfect answers, just real stories, real faith, and a reminder that you’re not alone. Get ready, you’re going to be absolutely obsessed. Breaking Through with Grace Graber, available now wherever you get your podcasts.