Northside Church - Sydney
Can I Keep Believing? Week 3: …when I see so much suffering in the world?
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. You know, one of the advantages of preparing sermons and sermon series in advance, as we try to do here at Northside, is that certain themes, certain topics are kind of rolling through your mind all the time. And when you know a certain topic is coming up, it becomes a source of your observations and your thinking. So when I was in Adelaide last week, I couldn't believe it when I bumped into a couple whom I'd not seen for more than 10 years, but immediately I knew that they would, or they could prove to be an appropriate opening illustration. And as we got talking with them, we sort of explained exchange, pleasantries, and then all I had to do was just to look at the husband of this couple and just simply ask the question, how many times was that all those years ago? And then you instantly, what I was talking about, you see, that couple, we had walked on not one occasion, not two occasions, but three occasions, we had walked together, the husband, the wife, me, and a group of family members and friends. We had walked across the beautiful lawns of the Centennial Park Cemetery in Adelaide with him carrying a little white casket and we laying those little pre-born babies to rest. And so instantly there was a connection, 10 years, didn't have to even, how many times was that? Not once, not twice, three times. Now it wasn't the most serious pastoral situation I've ever been involved in. It was tragic by any stretch of the map, but that's like, that's ministry. I mean, there are, I chose one from my previous church, could have chosen one of hundreds of this church, but that's one that you don't know personally about, others you would know about. And there was a couple deeply involved in the life of the church, they love God, but just one of hundreds of situations I've been involved in where, you know, the question, why comes up? Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why are people put through so much hardship? And of course, situations of suffering like the one I've just mentioned, which involved just a family, I mean, how do you compare those with the suffering of whole nations, whole countries, which suffer in indescribable ways through war, through natural disasters, through famine, through disease, and so on. The Christian author and apologist Lee Strobel, a number of years ago, he commissioned a survey in America in which he asked people this one question. If you could ask God a question, what would the question be? No prizes for guessing. The question that came in overwhelmingly was this one. Why is there so much suffering in the world? It's the theological question people love to get into. It's the source of a lot of talk and debate, but it usually ends up being an exercise in futility because there are no simple answers. And those who try to provide simplistic answers usually add to the confusion and add to the frustration. I've said many times from this platform over the years, the need to develop a theology of suffering, or at least to make some attempt to kind of understand what's happening, that's a prerequisite to survival as a Christian. Because this is the issue more than any other, in my ministry experience, which causes people to drift from the church. And in some cases, to lose their faith altogether, you see, people want someone to blame. And when someone to take the rap for all the bad things, all the nasty things that happen in this world, and usually that's God, let's lay it all on him, why the insurance companies, they actually describe. Don't they? Unexplained natural events as acts of God. And that probably doesn't help much in the debate. You know, given the reality and the inevitability of suffering, we need to move from someone to blame, to someone to believe. I mean, that's the journey that people should be taking. Now that takes a step of faith, a huge step of faith, but it's the key to making some sense of suffering, the suffering that is experienced by you and I. I remember many years ago, I was driving back from Wollongong, I've been down there preaching at the Wollongong Church of Christ, and I was coming up Mount Useli, and it was a very cold and very foggy night, and the fog, as I got higher, the fog was getting thicker and thicker, to the point where I actually considered pulling over, which is in itself a dangerous thing to do on a foggy night. But then I came up behind a truck, a large truck, and I could see from the sort of the, I guess it was the shine of his fog lights, I could see that he had massive fog lights on. And I knew if I could get close enough to that truck and keep my eye on those highlights, I would get through this, because he could see something that I couldn't see. And you know, the same is true in our understanding of why there is suffering and tragedy in our lives. We may not be able to make out the details. They may be obscured from our view, but there are some key biblical truths that can illuminate the pathway. If we are prepared to follow them, they will lead us in the right direction. They will give us guidance through the fog. That's it. You see, suffering in its various forms, as many of you have found, can actually strengthen our and deepen our trust in God. If we can believe, if we can believe certain things, certain foundational truths, and the most basic of these, and it will come up in just about any sermon that anybody preaches about suffering, the basic truth we need to get our heads around is God is good. Definitely think about that for a moment, okay? If you've ever had any doubts about that, I want to say tonight today, emphatically, and with all the conviction I can muster, God is good. You see, a solid conviction on this point takes care of any notion of God being some kind of angry, vengeful, vindictive sort of being who meets our punishment to unsuspecting people to teach them a lesson, get them back on track, to beat him into submission in some area that he wants them to comply in, or whatever. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people say, "Well, okay, God's so good. Why didn't he create a world where there was no evil and no suffering?" And friends, the simple answer is he did, he did do that. Genesis 1.31, "God saw all that he had made was very good, very good." Oh yes, there was always the potential for suffering and evil, but the creation as it was in the beginning, by the hand of God it was good. Bubble makes that very clear. We know why and where it went wrong, humankind exercising our God-given freedom of choice we made, some very bad choices right there at the beginning of time. So much of this world's suffering, not all, but so much of this world's suffering, can be traced back to people deciding to act in defiance of God's blueprint for abundant, compassionate, responsible living. You think about that. A lot of the world's suffering can be traced back to people losing sight of the blueprint for right living, for responsible living. The picture the Bible gives of first man, first woman in the garden of Eden, it's a beautiful picture. It's a picture of peace and harmony. They're in harmony with God, first man, first woman. They're in harmony with each other. They're in harmony with their environment, with nature. They're in harmony with their inner selves. It's a beautiful picture of harmony. But when given the choice to sin or not, they choose to act in defiance of God's laws and all of a sudden, a world that had been created good and beautiful becomes a world not only where there is the potential for evil and suffering, but there is now the reality of evil and suffering as part of the world's composition. What is by nature good always has been, always will be, that meanwhile suffering is part of the fog of life that we have to try to traverse, which leads to another assertion we can make, which serves as a light to guide us. It's one of the fog lights I was referring to. It has been for me. Here it is. Suffering is never good, but the outcome can be good. Suffering is never good unless you're a very masochistic person, but the outcome can be good. Some of you listening to me now are instantly resonating with that because you've been compelled to rely more deeply on God as a result of some of your suffering. You have developed an intense sense of empathy for those who suffer because of the experiences you've had in certain situations. You know you understand far better now what some people go through because of what you've been through. Makes you a more effective person in that way. Some of you have seen relationships deepened and family life strengthened because you've seen people gather around and support and uphold and encourage somebody who's going through suffering. You've grown as a person in your understanding of the ways of God and the gentle action of His Holy Spirit in your life, particularly in times of need and challenge and hardship. In essence, you become a stronger, more resilient person in Christ. Henry Newen, the renowned author and pastor, he died late last century in the 1990s. He once said this, "Unless one is willing to accept suffering properly, he or she is really refusing to continue in the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal and spiritual growth." It's a hard thing to grasp, but friends that like hardship of suffering is never good, but the outcome can be good if we grow through it. We need to remember that the most horrific thing that's ever happened in history. The death of the sinless Son of God, it doesn't get any worse than that. That event actually gave birth to the greatest event in the history of humankind. The greatest outcome, the reconciliation, the redemption of humankind. That's something we need to consider as well. Can we keep believing when there's so much suffering in the world where we can, if we're convinced, a day is coming when good will triumph over evil. I find that tremendously reassuring, and it's a very strong part of my own personal conviction. It makes some suffering a little easier to cope with knowing that there's a day coming when good will triumph over evil. The Bible speaks about this a lot. There was a time in my life, when I was obsessed by this whole area, I was rather preoccupied with themes like judgment, return of Christ, last days. I had all my proof text all neatly lined up. I tried to speculate on all the details. I could tell you a spiritual condition based on what you thought of Israel has ever a gift. Well you know what, today I'm less concerned about the details, but I'm more convinced than ever about the reality of these truths. A day of reckoning is coming, and our reading from Romans 8 brought so beautifully by Loretta. It picks up on this theme in a most remarkable and powerful way. Can I remind you of some of the verses? Look at this verse 18, "I consider," says Paul, "that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. All of creation waits with the eager longing for God to reveal his children. All creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so that's a big area, introduces foreknowledge as opposed to foreplanning." I'm going to go into that just now, yet there was hope. The creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God, for we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth. And of course, the apostle Paul confirms this theme in the book of Revelation, chapter 21, when he talks about the cessation of pain, of grief, of crying, even the cessation of death itself. Now, friends, these passages refer to God's ultimate victory, His eternal victory, but as I reminded us a few weeks ago, there's evidence all around us of the short-term victories in this life based on belief in God and trust in Jesus Christ, whatever there's courage in the face of fear, there's a victory. Whenever there is faith in the face of doubt, there's a victory. Whenever there's perseverance in the face of extreme disappointment, there's a victory. So we start to share in the victory, the eternal victory, even here and now, and that's possible through faith in Jesus Christ. Helen Keller, the blind author and political activist, who'd been through more than her fair share of suffering, she said this once, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of victory over suffering." And that's something that has been of incredible personal strength to me. And I guess I, in ministry, have the privilege of seeing that up close, because I'm dealing with people who are expressing victory over suffering all the time, and it just lifts your spirit. In the world, there's a lot of suffering, but there's a lot of victory over suffering. Can we keep believing even though we see so much suffering in the world? Well, friends, I believe we can if we can hold on to these assertions. And if we can believe, finally, for my purposes this morning, if we can believe God's son was without sin, but he wasn't without suffering. Now we're getting to the very core of the issue of suffering. You see, God's ultimate answer to suffering was not an explanation. It was an incarnation. That was His ultimate answer to suffering. Suffering is a personal problem. It demands a personal response, and God isn't some detached, disinterested, distant deity. No, no. He entered our world, and He personally experienced our pain. It'll pray you to Christmas. Jesus is there in the lowest places of our lives. When we're broken, God, I remember He was broken, like bread, for us. When we're despised or filled as spies, He was despised and rejected. When we cry and can't take any more, He was a man of sorrows, and He was acquainted with grief. Curry, Ten Boom, writing from the depths of a Nazi death camp in the Second World War, wrote this, "No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still. Every tier we shed becomes His tier." In the end, of course, Jesus identified with us in the most extreme suffering of all death itself, the ultimate identification. But it was no ordinary death. It was death with a specific purpose. And Peter picks up on this in his first epistle, "Look at this, for Christ died for our sins once and for all, a good man on behalf of sinners, in order to lead us to God." He was put to death physically, but made alive spiritually. Now, friend, do you think about that? If you have a chance to really think that verse through, there's a sense in which this one verse encapsulates all the different points I've shared in response to the question, "Can we keep believing?" If you dissect this verse, it's all there. God is good. He wants us. He desires us. That's the kind of being He is. Everything is never good, but the outcome can be good. A day is coming. The verse points to our transition from physical death to spiritual aliveness, spiritual and eternal life. And God's son being without sin, but not without suffering. It's all there. And there's even a reference to the resurrection which is at the heart of the Christian gospel, of course, because He lives. We shall live also. You know, preachers are always very mindful when they preach about suffering, that it's a very delicate issue, because some of you right now are involved in your own forms of suffering and pain and you've got real issues. And the last thing any preacher wants to do is sort of put up some trite simplistic answers, a few texts, a few verses and say, "Look, that's it. Just have more faith and it'll be all okay." It's much more complex than that. But friends, all I know is that I can pass the microphone around this room, and I'd be prepared to say something as well, and my wife, babe, would be too. There are people here who have consistently over a lifetime answered a very strong yes to the question, "Can I keep believing despite the suffering I see in the world?" It is possible to answer yes to that question, not because you've got all the answers, but just because it's better to press into God than to recoil from Him. It's better to push into His promises that they can't try playing the blame game and try to lay it on Him and have an existence where you feel as though you're battling Him all the time. Why are you doing this, God? What's going on? That's not where we're meant to live. The shortest verse in the Bible, "When told of the death of His friend, Lazarus, what did Jesus do? Jesus wept. Where is Jesus at a funeral, where is Jesus in the face of grief and pain and He's weeping along with us?" There are no short answers, this side of heaven, but there is an ultimate victory, and we share in that victory here and now, because whenever we exhibit the spiritual qualities that are available through Jesus Christ, we're sharing in the victory that will ultimately have its expression when there will be no more tears, no more death, no more crying, neither shall there be any more pain. Wow. Do you know this Jesus this morning? Do you know Him as your personal friend and Savior? You can.