Due to a recording error, this sermon has been re-recorded. In November of 1993, the entire nation of Great Britain was stunned by a single, grainy, mall security photograph. See two-year-old James Bulger had been abducted from the mall. And his abductors had repeatedly attempted to drown him and then thoroughly beaten him to the point of death and left his body on active railroad tracks. But it wasn't the gruesome nature of the crime that stunned the nation. It was the picture which showed little James' abductors leading him away from his mother. It was just two ten-year-old boys. And the nation said, why? Why? Johnny Erickson Tata writes in her book, When God Weeps About a Disabled Man, who was mentally capable, but physically had become disabled. He was able to live with his wife at home but had a specialized bed. He couldn't really speak. And so physically though he was unable, his mind was there, but one night while he was lying in bed, some ants discovered him. And unable to call out, it wasn't until the next morning that his wife would come in and find her husband covered. These ants were just doing what ants do, so she didn't blame the ants. She said, why, God? Why? And Tim Keller tells a story of a man who was backing out his car when his four-year-old daughter jumped out behind it. He didn't see her and he ran over her. And he said, she jumped up and ran around for a few seconds, repeating one sentence over and over again before she fell down and died. Why, daddy? Why? Why, daddy? John Nine's where we're going. It's page 1664 in your Pew Bible. And that is the question of the morning. Why, daddy? Why? All right, we saw last week, Jesus has just claimed to be the king of the universe, the creator of all that there is, the only self-existent one, and he's about to be asked the big why. So let's hear John Nine beginning in verse 1. As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? Neither this man nor his parents sin, Jesus said, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. These gods were, let's pray, Lord, there are people here this morning with hard questions, with real, deep suffering. Lord, we pray that you would meet us in this time, that we wouldn't come with philosophical platitudes or moral maxims, but Father, we need you to pray that you would meet us this morning. It draws to you and your name. Amen. Alright, we're going to do something a little bit different this morning. We've been cruising through the gospel of John taking on these narratives as they come, but we're stopping on sort of a subpoint this morning. As Jesus broaches this question from his disciples, I think it's something that really applies to the life of our church with various people going through difficult trials recently. So the whole question of suffering, with many people suffering now, would just want to take a week to pause here, we'll get back to the whole miracle next week, but for this week, let's take on this question that Jesus is addressing in what He says here. So if we're going to call this a, I don't really want to be overly philosophical here, but this is what the discipline and philosophy and theology call a theodicy questions, but just a big word for questions about people dealing with the problem of evil and suffering and wanting to get God off the hook, let me pose it this way. Theodicy basically has three major prongs, three things that are all true in the west pretty much, everyone believes, and they're problematic for the whole question of suffering. Here they are. First of all, most people believe that God is completely good. He's all good. If God is all good, there's no evil in Him that He only does good, He's only up to good. Secondly, that He's all powerful, He can do whatever He wants. He has nothing stopping Him. So He's all good, He's all powerful, but then thirdly, evil exists. That's the problem of evil. These three things, in order to resolve the problem of evil, why they're suffering, people normally have to break one of these three prongs, either they say God's not entirely good, maybe there's some other things going on there. There's some darkness to Him, and that's the reason that there's darkness in the world. Other people say, well, maybe He's not entirely powerful, maybe there are things that He can't do or is unable to do, He only has some power. Both of those are extremely scary to me. Just in terms of why would you worship a God if there's the darkness there, and then if He's not completely powerful, things are out of His control, His plan could be completely thrown off. But thirdly, people say evil exists, and in the east, sometimes the way they get around this is simply saying evil is just a charade, it's just sort of a facade, and you need to transcend it, mind over a matter kind of thing. Christianity is not going to say any of these three. It's not going to break any of these three in that way. So how is it that Jesus gets down to this? How does He address it? God is all good, He's all powerful, and yet evil exists. Where do we go from here? So that's the question this morning. What do we do with suffering? For those who like the blueprint in advance, it's our answer, Jesus' answer, where do we go from here? Our answer, Jesus' answer, where do we go from here? First though, let's deal with one potential objection at the outset. If you're new here, or maybe even if you've been here a long time, but somewhere along the way, you've suffered in such a capacity that you really just, you're going through the motions, but you just can't believe that God exists in line of what you've been through. It's been put this way about some people that suffering just proves that there is no God. That's how you feel this morning. Just think with me for a minute. If you think suffering proves there is no God, let's run with that promise. If there is no God, but there is suffering, understand what that means. It means that not only that there's no justice or hope for fixing it, but even more than that, I mean, how are things right now? I mean, ants eat people, and nature the strong eat the weak, and it deeply troubles us, but it's not a problem for nature. If there is no God, if suffering is just part of nature, then suffering is the way it's supposed to be. If there is no God, then we've got no reason to object to suffering, it's normal. I find that much, much more troubling, especially if the reason that you're thinking there's no God is because you have suffering. Having said that, let's get into what the disciples do here, because I think it's much more of the problem, especially in Christian circles. Look at this in verses one and two. They start playing the blame game. Who's to blame for this? You can see they're walking along. They see this guy suffering, and he's blind from birth. I mean, think about what that means and that's the society. To be blind from birth, there's not welfare. He's out begging. They can see in a moment's glance that this guy has a rough life, a life full of suffering. Think about that. They spend every day all day with Jesus. You've seen the things he's capable of, and instead of turning to Jesus and saying, what about this guy? Can we fix this guy? That's not the question they ask. The question they ask is, who do we blame for this? I mean, do you see what they're coming from? Do you see their grid? The way they're reading the world? I mean, underneath this, by saying who's to blame, instead of how do we fix this, what they're saying is, pretty much you deserve what you get. You know, he's getting what he deserves, just explain to us why he deserves it. That's the only problem here. So really, the thing that's so aggravating to me about this is, this is Christians walking along, ignoring people's suffering, or being able to categorize it in just sort of theologize it away. The disciples are theologizing here instead of doing ministry, instead of having real concern for this man. Let me put this a little bit differently. I'm going to say something that will sound heretical if the outset just track with me. The Bible is full, not full. The Bible has a lot of bad theology in it. All right, what I mean by that is God purposefully in multiple different places in Scripture has people espoused bad theology. They say things that are just wrong. It's part of the reason you need to be careful when you read the Bible, not to read at a context. You can't just grab on to things because like the disciples here, they come and they say something that is absolutely mistaken and Christ is about to rebuke them. But God uses the bad theology to teach the true perspective, what it is he actually wants us to understand. It's purposeful. So here come these guys saying this and they've missed the point. Look, they offer two mistaken perspectives, both of which have some element of biblical truth but are mistaken. They say, who do we blame? Mom, dad or himself basically is the problem outside of him or is the problem inside of him? Who's the blame? Now think of this like Adam and Eve and when God comes and says, who's sinned here? Adam passes the buck immediately, Eve did, and Eve points at the serpent says he did, they each, they play the blame game and pass it along, it's blaming somebody else, passing the buck to someone outside of yourself. At the same time, there's evidence biblically for blaming someone else to a degree. Look, and when the great, I'm sorry, when the 10 commandments and Exodus 20, the 10 commandments are given, one of the things that God stresses, He says, I will visit the sins of the fathers, the sins of the parents to the third and fourth generation. So right there, you can take this understanding and press it out that there can be circumcision or stances where the parents sins impact, you mean, it's just reality. I don't think anybody would object to that at the same time. The problem for the disciples in that regard is they don't understand in context because that verse goes on to say, but the grace of God abounds to the thousands. See God balances that idea that you are not simply a victim. You are not socially determined, but His grace can transcend that. And they miss that. So there's a problem on the outside blaming just the outside, but they also have the inside. You know, the whole question of His, He fought, did He sin in such a way in His mother's womb that He deserved this? Now listen, the Bible does say, you reap what you sow. There are consequences for that. It is Jeremiah 418. You know, you can be punished for your sins. The people are punished for their sins. Akin. Now remember the story of Akin when the nation of Israel fought this battle and they were supposed to give all of the booty, all that they gained back to God and instead Akin stole from it and he paid the consequences for his action. So there is a precedent for saying individual has particular sin and there are consequences for it. However, people read this like John Lynn and instant karma is going to get you. This is not simply karma. This is not, you reap what you sow doesn't stop there. There's greater biblical balance and that's the problem for the disciples here is they read too shallowly. They read scripture into shallow way. I mean, they should have just thought of what's the primary example in the Old Testament of suffering is Job. Everybody knows the story of Job if you're a faithful Jew. Remember, some of you will know some of you may not about Job in the Old Testament as this guy who basically has everything going for him. He's very successful. He's got great family and everything's going well and then all of a sudden in a brief period of time, he loses a ton of his assets, business, family members, his children are killed tragically and all of it falls swiftly. Now, we have the benefit of a third person perspective in reading the scripture of knowing, excuse me, that Satan has gone into God's presence and asked for permission to do this to Job. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that very troubling, very troubling. I mean, think about that. But Satan can come into God's presence and say, I need your permission, but hey, are you okay with me going after this guy? And God lets him. You know, it's like that scene when Peter is talking to Jesus and Jesus says, Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. You know, Peter had to be saying, I hope you said no, you know what I mean? This is not good news. If it's simply a de-outs that realize Satan is asking for you, that is a scary proposition. But it does affirm both the evils on the outside after you do things, but there also is suffering when you haven't necessarily done something wrong like Job says, I'm righteous. Now, let's talk about the main problem here is Job's friends. Build ad, elephants and so far, these guys that have been made fun of throughout church history. But let's get some things here. Let's back up and give them a fair shake. His buddies come to be with him after he has lost an incredible amount. And they find him mourning in sackcloth and ashes just sitting there. And let me tell you, they get one thing very, very right. They come and the first thing they do is just sit down and spend a week with him in silence. Now, before we move on to say these things about it, think about that. Just sit with somebody in silence for 10 minutes, it feels like an eternity. For an hour. But this was an entire week. And they got that part right just to come be with their friend as he was suffering. The problem arises when they open their mouths because it lets you know what they were thinking. I mean, if you sit there for 10 minutes, you know your mind's going to wander. And when they open their mouths, it lets Job know exactly what they've been thinking the whole time. And they basically say, it's your fault, admit it. I mean, you said you did something God's bad at you. That's why this was happening. But Job is adamant, that's not the case. This still happens today. I mean, think back with me. September 11th, Katrina, and then Haiti. There was one famous evangelical who came out and said, hey, this is because of people sins. This is because of sins of America and New York. And then the sins of New Orleans and what a debauched city it is. And then Haiti made a pact with the devil.
I mean, this passage calls that kind of thinking out directly. If you look and make that sort of equation, not only were Job's friends wrong, Jesus is saying directly here, you can't say that. Look back in John 5 with the man who was born, who was lame. Jesus deals with that. It was his fault in that case. But you can't say that it's too shallow an appraisal to make a one-to-one correlation. I don't just want to mock some guy who's done it today. We all do this. It's the default setting of our hearts. I mean, think about this. Think about this. If I told you, you know, next week, if the media came out and there was a press release announcement that that Tiger Woods or Charlie Sheen had to announce that they had some sort of terminal illness, what would you think? It was the first thing that would come to your mind if you found out Tiger Woods or Charlie Sheen had a terminal illness. I don't know about you, but the first thing would jump in there as well. I guess that's what comes with that way of living. And the Bible is calling that one-to-one idea out. You can't say that, but that's the way our hearts work. We want to categorize things so shallowly and stick them up on the shelf when that should not be an option. I mean, God's calling us out from doing that because what it does is it ignores our own sin and just says, somebody else over there, they're suffering because of this. Now, when my suffering comes along, I don't think of my suffering that way. But for them, that's clearly the case. I mean, look at verse 34. We're going to get there next week. With the Pharisees after this guy's been healed and they're interviewing him and he's talking to them about Jesus, he's pushing back on them a little bit and they finally just say, look, you were born in utter sin. They assume that he was born in sin. Either his or his parents, they assume that he's getting what he deserves. And implicitly, on the flip side, they assume they got what they deserve. That they weren't born in utter sin. And they should have known better. They should have known better. I mean, this is when, and we always quote Romans three. Romans three where Paul says, no one, no one does good. No one seeks God. No, not even one. That's not just a New Testament passage. He's quoting the Old Testament. He's quoting the Psalmist, both Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, say that exact thing. These Pharisees knew the Bible better than anybody in this room. They would have known that's what scripture said, but they didn't think it applied to them. And we're no better than the Pharisees. Let me tell you this. The reason that some of you in this room know Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 is because of the first verse. I can't tell you how often I hear Christians quote the first verse, especially when dealing with atheists. You know what the first verse says? The fool says in his heart, there is no God. And then Christians will cite that to call atheist fools. Well, if we know anything from last week's sermon, it's what we do every time we sin. We are fools. We act as though there is no God in our heart. We have no standing to point at somebody else and say, oh, you're more a fool than I am. We are equally foolish. And that's the problem here in this passage. That is the problem with suffering. We are too simplistic. We are too shallow. We say, oh, that's why I so and so suffering over there. It is not that simple. Joe Novenson has cited nine different reasons in Scripture, nine for suffering. It is more complex. It's not always a one to one. There are many different ways this can happen. And when you take those nine and begin to mix them, I mean, you get impossible different ways, this can happen. Brothers and sisters, don't give bad answers. Don't be simplistic. It's insulting to people's suffering. It's not what Christ did. He entered into people's suffering. No simplistic answers. Look at what Jesus says here. Jesus answered to them is neither. Hear that. Neither. It's not so simple. Think instead of how Christ responded. We're going to get to it in a few weeks. In John 11, he's at his buddy's grave. I mean, he's at his funeral functionally. In John 11, Lazarus has died. Jesus is getting ready to heal him. He's going to raise him from the dead. He knows that. And yet he's weeping. He's angry. It says, gut's boiling with anger. Why? Because this is not how it was supposed to be. Do you see that? Suffering is not how it was supposed to be. It's not God's intended design. We need to get that. It is incredibly important. All right, otherwise we'll begin to think some people are worse than others. That's why they're getting suffering. And the underlying assumption that the disciples is, you know, he was bad. That's why he got bad. If I'm good, God owes me comfort. You see that? If I'm good, God owes me comfort. This is the American lie. This is the American dream. Life, liberty, and happiness, we miss it. And when people talk to us about being overly comfortable, you know, it's it's like talking to a fish about water. We're like water. What's water? You know, ask a fish about water. It's all he knows. We swim. We drink it in. That's what we live in until suffering hits. And it calls it out. And then all of a sudden we say, whoa. Jesus deals with almost the exact same question. Luke 13. When, you know, these people are asking him, why are people suffering over here? Are they getting what they deserve? You know, and Jesus presses more, more difficulty, presses the knife. And he says, look, are these people worse sinners than you? Is that what you think? When that tower fell on 18 people and killed them in saloam, he's making a current events reference. He calls out some recent event where a tower had fallen and killed 18 people. And he said, were they worse sinners than you? Is it? There's no. Absolutely not. And the implication for that is you don't get what you deserve. Hear this. Hear it clearly. If you got what you deserve, if suffering was what you deserve, you and I would be in hell, literally. It would be death and beyond that. It would be spiritual death. That's what if we were getting what we deserved in our suffering, the full extent of it, the ultimate punishment, then it would be much more than we're getting. We need to remember that. You know, I love the answer that Dave Ramsey's made famous. You know, how are you doing better than I deserve? I think that's great. It's a reminder of grace. It is. How are you doing? I'm doing better than I deserve. It's almost reminding yourself. Now listen, that is not incredibly comfortable. That's not incredibly comforting. So let's go a little deeper because the Bible gives us a greater answer to that. All right, think about the life of Joseph. Back in Genesis, remember Joseph, he was somewhat of a cocky, arrogant punk. When you first pick up on him, he's a younger brother and he's telling his brothers he's going to rule over them. They get angry. He's sort of the favorite son and they sell him into slavery. His own brothers sell him into slavery. And then in the slavery, slavery existence, horribly betrayed as he is. He rises up through the ranks. He becomes the most faithful slave. The one who's overseeing the house. And then his master, Potiphar. Potiphar's wife accuses him falsely. He's falsely accused. Ghost of prison, wrongfully indicted. And suffers in prison for years. But then in his faithfulness, he kind of rises up to the prison ranks. He's faithful with these guys who go to the king. He's like, remember me when you go to the king and they forget him. For two more years, he rots in prison. Before they finally something happens, it reminds them he's there. And then the Pharaoh calls him in. He serves the Pharaoh. He rises up through the ranks there. Now he's second in command. Then his brothers come and his brothers who had betrayed him who had led to all this suffering. They come and they think he's going to kill them. And instead, what happens? He says to them, listen, Genesis 50, 20. This is the gospel and the Old Testament. You intended it for evil, but God used it for good. You intended it for evil, but God used it for good. Do you hear that? I mean, understand what that's saying. This is beautiful. That even though God did not design evil and suffering, even though he didn't, he didn't make it. He's not the author of evil. He's all good. He is so powerful. He is so good that he can take evil and turn it to good. That's incredibly encouraging. That God's not out to make us pay in that sense, but that suffering has a purpose. It's verse three when Jesus says, so that. Did you catch that? There's a purpose to our suffering. But hang on, hang on. All right, we need to have a caveat here. Because this is, you know, whenever suffering comes up, almost always, this one verse comes up. Christians don't do it. If somebody is suffering and you're thinking this verse, don't say it. And people always say this. Romans 8.28, Romans 8.28, you know, all things work for the good of those who love God. You know what? You know what? That's true. Don't say it. All right. Don't say it to them. It's horrible. It's horrible. Think about that. In the midst of suffering coming in and telling somebody that, let me help you understand this. Look, Proverbs 27. Now, one of the Proverbs says, If you utter a loud blessing early in the morning to your neighbor, Good morning! He will receive it as a curse. You understand that? You shout blessings at your neighbor early in the morning. He'll receive it as a curse. Why? What's that saying? Point. You can say the right thing in the wrong way or at the wrong time. And it becomes the wrong thing. See that? So even though Romans 8.28 is very true, and it's something I want you to know, before you ever get in suffering to be armed with it, to understand it, to have it pressed in, until somebody's asking that question, until they are ready to wrestle with that. Don't say it. Think it. Wrestle with it. Have it buried deep within your heart, but don't say it. All right. Let me tell you. When I was at seminary, there was a professor there who years before, his little girl, his 11-year-old girl, was walking down the sidewalk in a drunk driver, hit her and killed her. One of his colleagues, a fellow academician, came to him in the midst of his suffering and said, you know, this is a horrible tragedy. But I know God's going to use this. And he said, no! Don't tell me that! Don't tell me that! I mean, you're trying to comfort me by telling me that my daughter's death is going to be a tool for ministry. Those do not equate. Those do- that does not work out. That does not comfort me in my suffering. You understand that? It is not the thing to say it is heartless in their moment of grief. Those aren't equal things. It is true. God can use those tragedies. It's incredible. But do not say that. That's not how you enter in. It's important to understand God's sense of sovereignty. But what we're saying in that moment, I mean, the way it feels is much more like God is driving a car, haphazardly down the road, smashing into other people. And we're just along for the ride. You know, let me give you an example. When I was in high school, I had a buddy. You know, South Carolina growing up, you got your license at age 15. And if you took the test and passed it two weeks after your 15th birthday, at age 15, you could drive whenever you wanted by yourself. For testosterone-driven boys, that's trouble. I'm glad that's no longer the case. One of my buddies is driving in the road. He's got three guys in the back seat, which by the way was illegal. But hey, he's 15. He's got testosterone. He's not obeying the law. He's driving down the road. It's a two-lane road. Ditches on both sides. He comes over a hill. He's going way too fast. And they're sitting in the middle of the road with a left-turn blinker at a dead stop. There's a car waiting to turn into his driveway in this back road. And the reason he's waiting is because there's another car coming the other way. Now my buddy, Mike, Mike, because as a Mike is coming at it. He's got three options basically at this point. He can put it in one of the ditches. He can slam on the brakes and definitely slam into the back of this guy. Or he can do what he did. The worst option of the three. The most troubling one. He slams on the gas, throws it into the lane for oncoming traffic, putting himself at the mercy. It's stupidity of the other drivers. I mean, if that guy hadn't seen him in the review mirror and it turned left, everybody's dead. If the other guy had been unable to stop in time, everybody's dead. But in a moment of grace, God prevented that. Mike throws it in the other lane, whips around this car, whips it back into the right lane, keeps going. And he turns around. And in teenage hubris looks in the back seat and says, I just saved all your lives.
I saved your lives. What? You're the one who put it at risk. Are you kidding me? You're the one who almost got me killed when you tell somebody. God is working this out in the midst of their suffering. It feels like an impulsive teenage driver is at the helm in their life. Who wants that? Who can trust that? Do you trust what God is up to? No, not if it's like that.
We need to understand that is not. It's not that God's an impulsive teenager. He's a purposeful architect. Let me give you a little bit of a cheesy illustration, but one that I think works on this. All right, when I was growing up, really, really popular movie was Karate Kid. Okay, and Daniel's this guy moves from New Jersey to L.A., and he's trying to fit in, and he winds up befriending the wrong guy's former girlfriend, and a bunch of guys beat him up one night. What just so happens is they're beating him up outside as apartment complex. The manager there happens to be a kung fu master. I mean, what are the odds, right? But Mr. Miyagi shows up and saves Daniel. Runs off all five guys. Well, what do you think Daniel does? He says, you got to teach me. You got to teach me. Finally, he gets him to agree to teach him. Daniel comes out to Mr. Miyagi's house for his karate training. And guess what? It puts him to work. He's just paint this fence. Frustrated, but wanting to be training. Okay, maybe I got to do some labor first to earn his favor to be able to do this. So he starts doing this training. He's like, no, no, don't paint the fence that way. Paint it like this, and he's meticulous. Makes him paint a particular fashion which just aggravates Daniel all the more. He gets through a whole day of painting. Okay, come back tomorrow. Comes back the next day. All right, I got all this. You painted all these wooden fences. Now I want you to sand the wood and walkways all through his Japanese backyard. So all of a sudden, now he's got all these sanding to do all day. And again, meticulous fashion, particular way is to move his arms. He doesn't want to do it, but he wants to learn. So he does it all day. Third day is coming back thinking. There better be some training today. But he gets there. No, no, no, no, he's got all these cars. I want you to wax. All these antique cars, wax, wax a car. And again, a particular way he wants some wax by the end of the third day. Daniel is fed up. It comes to the end of the day. He's like, listen, I'm sick of being your slave. I didn't come here just to serve you. I came here to learn karate. I'm done here. We're done. And that's what Mr. Miyagi says. Show me sand the floor. You know, he starts to bend down. No, no, no, stand up. The motion reminds him of the motion. Show me sand the floor and starts punching at him. And he blocks the punches. Show me paint defense. And he does it. He blocks the kicks. Show me, you know, wax the car. And each of these things are blocked. And then all of a sudden Mr. Miyagi doesn't say anything. He just starts punching and kicking at them instinctively. Instinctively. Daniel just blocks them all. And the revolution hits. All of this suffering that he thought was just suffering actually was training him so that in the moment of crisis without thinking instinctively he would respond. And God has up to something. And the problem for you and me is we don't always have the revolution on this side of death. We don't necessarily know exactly what God's up to, but he's training us that in the moment of crisis we will respond as he calls us to with his flavor, his way of being, who he is that our character will reflect his. That's what he says so that the work of God will be displayed. Understand this. All right, my wife absolutely floored me, humbled me with this story she heard a couple of weeks ago. A writer she was reading said, look, you know, if you've got a couple of water and somebody jolt your arm, you know, bumps you and the water spills out and you're angry, you know, that somebody jolted your arm and you blame the circumstances. Listen, if bitter water comes spilling out of that cup it's not the circumstances that caused it. It's not the person bumping your arm that caused bitter water to come out. Whatever water was in that cup to start with is what spilled out and the suffering the circumstances just exposed what was already inside. You see that? When you suffer, God exposes your heart. We're more honest to who we are. And if bitterness comes spilling out, it shows us what he's up to. What's wrong with us? Our deep need for something else. So brothers and sisters, what comes spilling out of you when you get jolted? When you're going through the extremities of life? It's more honest to who we are inside. We didn't expect it. And the problem is not the circumstances. It's what's in our heart in the first place. Let me press that out because Paul does some things that are really aggravating. All right, track with me. Romans 8.18. You know, instead of 8.28, 10 verses earlier, Romans 8.18, Paul says, I don't consider these passing sufferings, this momentary suffering, worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. That's an aggravating verse. It's encouraging and yet aggravating. All right, I don't consider our present sufferings worth comparing. It seems annoyingly light. I mean, he says in 2 Corinthians 2, 4, these light and momentary afflictions. You're like, Paul, come on. What kind of shallowness is this in the face of my suffering? You start to think this guy's never suffered. And then you need to go and read 2 Corinthians 11. Paul's a list where he tells all the things that have happened. Remember, Paul was imprisoned. He got the 39 lashes. You know, one last shot of death. Five different times. He was stoned. He was in three different shipwrecks floating in open sea. He was attacked by bandits at constant threats. Paul's life was full of suffering. For most of the people in the room combined, wouldn't match up with what Paul had seen. And he calls it momentary and light. You understand he's not, he's not insulting your suffering. He is saying, yes, it is this bad, but I'm telling you, it's that good. Yes, your suffering is worse than you ever thought it would be. And yet the answer is that much better. Do you see what God is up to? CS Lewis brings us out in an amazing way in the great divorce when he says, he says, in the middle of suffering, people will say, no amount of pie in the sky can fix this. Don't tell me about heaven. If it's this bad, no amount of rewards in the future make up for this. CS Lewis, listen to this. And he says, when people say no future glory can make up for this. He says, they don't know that heaven once attained will work backward. And turn even this agony into a glory. Do you hear that? Heaven will work backward. I think about what he's saying. Not just that you got to get through this suffering, just kind of suck it up and let's get through it. He's saying your pain and your suffering will be redeemed. It will be transformed. How in the world? Think about it this way. Our pain far from being fake. A lot of other religions want to tell you it's just passing bad. You know, it's not very real. There are more real things. Listen, Jesus doesn't do that. The only religion where God comes down and enters into a fully human existence and suffers not just a human life, but he dies on the cross. Now listen, he was silent before his accusers, but every single gospel tells us that he shouted from the cross. Shouts of pain. Jesus went through real pain and your real pain brings shouts of discomfort, of incredible suffering. You're suffering matters. Now think about this when Jesus is raised from the dead. His resurrected body still has holes in it. Understand this God's plan is to eradicate evil. And in heaven for eternity without evil being present, there will be evidence that evil once was in the palms of his hands. Do you see that? If God so takes the pain and suffering into his own life and transforms into a glory, a statement of I have entered all the way in and overcome that. And now it's a mark of glory instead of one of shame or just pointless suffering. That's what he's up to. Let me help you get this. I want you to see this as a comfort to help us deal with this. All right, instead of saying Romans 8.28, all things work for good. I want you to think, think, not say. Remember, I want you to think Romans 8.32.
If God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? In other words, if God didn't spare his own son, the answer to the big why is not some logical, intricate. Here's exactly why you're suffering. That's not what God does. He says, I will take the biggest hit. If my son suffered, if I didn't spare him, know that I'm going to take care of you. Yes, you'll suffer. I suffered, but I took the big hit. You understand that the answer to the big why is Jesus took the big hit. Let's let me put it how Dick Lucas put it. And I heard that Tim Keller, when he was in town, quoted this last week. But Dick Lucas famously said, God does not give us a watertight argument for what he's up to. He gives us a watertight person. I want to put a twist on that. God didn't give us a watertight argument. He gave us a pierced person. Understand that. Understand what he's up to. That Jesus so enters our suffering and takes it for us, the majority of it. The big thing that would actually actually destroy us. All right, I want you to leave with this one image. This is the takeaway, all right. I love this. You're going to hear me use this a lot of funerals. Donald Gray Barnhouse, famous preacher from Philadelphia, when his wife died. He was driving back from the funeral in a Philadelphia snowy landscape. They're stopping a traffic light. And one of the kids in the back seat says, Daddy, help us understand what's happened to mommy. Now, I don't know about you, but that question scares me to death. If my son ever asked that or somebody asked that of me, that would, I mean, that knocks you back. But that's how suffering exposes. Do you really get this? In a moment of gospel brilliance, of God granted insight. Donald Gray Barnhouse turns around. He says, Son, you see that truck up there in front of us? They're at the stop light. The sun's coming in from an angle across this landscape. And it casts a big shadow. You see the truck? Yeah. You see a shadow? Yeah. Son, would you rather be hit by the truck or by the shadow? Well, the shadow, of course. And then he said, Mom, he said, he said, Jesus took the full hit of death so that all your mother had to do was pass through a shadow.
Yay, no, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil for you are with me. Jesus took the big hit. He takes the big hit for us, the full on hit of death. The answer to the big why is Jesus takes the biggest hit. And it's Simone Vaeson. It's as if God is holding our hand and pressing it tightly. And it hurts incredibly. But he is with us through this. That he walks us through the shadows. We are shadow walkers bringing the light of God. And if you think it's about your comfort, you miss everything. God is up to something so much more important than our comfort.
Do you trust him? I don't always understand what he's up to. But I trust him. That's great. Lord, we ask now that you would make real to us your presence in the midst of our suffering, comfort in a way that only you can and transform our suffering for your glory, that we would bring light to others and how we deal with it, that the water that spills out would not be us but you. Because you are up to something so much bigger than our comfort, so much bigger than the things that we would cling to. Let us be a light in this community, redeem us and change us in your name we pray.