This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Allyson is our senior pastor today's sermon is part 15 in the Offensive Christianity series. This message is titled The Truth About Suffering. It's taken from Job, chapter 40, verses one through nine. Now here's Pete with today's message. Our Father, we do come before you today grateful that you are the sovereign God of the universe. Grateful to know that there is a king in the universe, that there is a king who not only created by the word of his mouth, but who maintains control of this earth. And Lord, we declare that as a statement of faith based on your word today, even though Father of this world is so broken and there is so much that seems out of control. We come to you today, Lord, and we declare that you are almighty and that you are holy and that you are powerful and we are not. We worship you because you are the God who is merciful and the God who is righteous. In the midst of so much unrighteousness in this world, Lord, you know each one in this room and you know what we suffer and you know the pain in our lives. And Father, there is enough pain in here to sink a battleship today, Lord, Lord, if we were to talk and begin to talk about the hurt that we feel right this moment, we'd break out in tears. Many of us. So, Lord, we push it down, we press it down, we deny it, we act like it's not there, but Lord, so many of your people hurt and we come and confess that today. In fact, Father, so many of us hurt that it's hard for us to even think about the suffering that's in the world, the killing, the famine, the starvation, the oppression of one person to another, Lord, one country to another, Lord, we ask today that you would encourage us and keep us from cynicism and skepticism, remind us, Lord, that you are good and that you are kind because Jesus is calm, we know that's true. Because of His death, burial, and resurrection, we know that that's true and that our suffering is in the context of your plan for all people and for the ages and we long for the time when Jesus comes back and makes it all real, Lord, and makes it all good and cleans up the mess that is around us. So Father, we come to you today and we worship you and yet we ask Lord that you would work in our lives and in our hearts. Some of us, Lord, have had so much good and have so much good health and success that it's hard to relate with those who suffer and so we pray for a sensitive heart there, but we pray that you would teach us and give us the ability, Lord Jesus, to keep on the offensive as we live in this life in the midst of great pain. Be the teacher this morning, Lord, and even as we think about what's going on the day, we think about this week, we pray, Lord, for the elections that will take place, so we know you're sobered, we know you're in control and some of your people are running around upset and worried, Lord, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that as we vote, you would lead us in guidance. And now teach us and we pray these things as we study and as we think together in the strong name of our Savior Jesus. Amen. Well I am glad that you are here this morning and today we continue a series that we started before the last series, before the series, before that, and I'll bet you've even forgotten what the name of that series was, but the name of that series was offensive Christianity. And really the overall theme for the year is truth and as we study God's Word, we're going to be looking today at the truth about suffering, that's sort of the theme for the whole year, but today we're going to talk about continuing to remain on the offensive even in the midst of suffering. Now remember, and I need to clarify this, that as we talk about this theme offensive Christianity, many of us view, many people out there in the world view us as offensive enough and so this theme, this series, is not about how Christians can become more and more offensive, particularly because of what we see going on in our world. Christians are criticized a lot and they think we're pretty offensive just because of the things we say and then the things we do. I know you've been watching what's been going on in the news in Colorado Springs, how could you miss it? I was just out there recently speaking to some men who were in that church, spent some time with an elder in that church who was close to the pastor, the former pastor of that church and they're really good people. Pray for pastor Ted Haggard, he's fallen and he's fallen badly, but he hadn't fallen from grace. Isn't it nice to know that you can't fall from grace because we're held, we're preserved. We believe that and yet he's messed up big time and the church is suffering, he's suffering, pray for them. I mean there's 14,000 people in that church, how in the world could he lead a church like that? I don't know. Pray for them, they're very influential in that community, but when we mess up, the world looks at us and they say, see, you got like one radio talk show host said this week. He said, you Christians always say Jesus is all you need but then you go after something else. Ooh, that comes a little close to home, he's right. So we're offensive enough, thank you, we don't have to learn how to do that. The question is, how do we stay on the offensive? How do we follow Jesus in a hopeful way when things go wrong? How do we keep following Jesus and serve other people when your dreams don't come true? When you suffer, what's the, how do we do that? Well, I'm going to teach on that briefly before we sit before the table of our Lord Jesus Christ this morning, but we're going to have a friend come and talk. Many of you know Bev and James downward, Bev come forward. They've been in our church for a long time. She was our children's director before David got sick and many of you know about that and many of you have been so good as they have suffered and you have been amazing, you, James, Shelley and Danny. Danny became a member last week. He did. And I bet he was scared to death. He was scared to death. He was scared to death. He was scared to death. But he said I do. And that's right. He worked on I do. That's right. Talk to us. Tell us a little bit. Good morning. It is really a blessing to be able to be here this morning and I thank you on behalf of my husband as well. We thank you for this opportunity to share with you what God has been doing in our family. Many of you know that on July 26th, 2005, a little over a year ago, our youngest son, our younger son who was five getting ready to go into kindergarten, came down with a rare sickness that affected his basal ganglia. He lost his speech, the use of his hands and legs, and he suffers still to this day from extremely painful spasms and dystonia. After being in the hospital in Orlando for over a week, we were then moved down to Jackson Memorial Hospital, and we lived on the rehab floor for four months. The days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months, and now after a year my husband and I look at each other and we say, this is the death of a vision. What are goals for our son and what God's goals for our son are seemingly two very different things. My husband and I do believe strongly that God is sovereign, that he is in control and that he knows what he's doing, but it's still a sure hard accepting that our ways are not his ways, and that he is doing a different job. His timetable is always so different from ours, even though we would like for it to be ours. He doesn't always give us the reasons, the goals, or the objectives in life. He just wants us to trust and obey him. I have to admit, throughout my life, I've struggled with lots of things, but in this past year especially, I have struggled with a lot of inner conflict, just my mind and my emotions, played games on me with me, my fate, and doubting, but probably the hardest has been the hope and the despair. It's like a pendulum, and David still has these very, very painful spasms, and there's days that he wakes up and he seems pretty normal, relatively speaking, for our new normal, and then he crashes, and he's an excruciating pain, and you go from hope to despair, hope to despair all day long, and I think, Lord, when is this going to end? But the final point always is that I've got the faith, and the faith has come from God alone. While we were in the hospital, one of the nurses that was with us for the whole four months, she'd come in, give David IVs, and do all kinds of things. On this one particular day, David was just screaming in agony, and I was crying, and she walked in, and she said, where is your God now? And I looked at her, and I said, he's here, he's here right now. It doesn't mean that I'm not sad, it doesn't mean that I don't get mad, but he's here, and he gives a piece that passes all understanding, and you can have that piece too. It only can come from God. Well, James and I cannot adequately express to each one of you just the impact that you have made on us emotionally, spiritually, financially, and so many other practical ways. Suffering does, indeed, bring the church closer together. And what a testimony you have been to Jackson Memorial Hospital, really, to the whole Miami. The kindergarten class here made a big banner for David, and it had his name on it, and then underneath it said, beloved, and then the children had signed the back. And when it came in the mail, it was this huge tube. I unwrapped it for David, and his eyes just lit up, and I said, honey, this is your name, and this is what your name means, and he just loved it. So we hung it in the back of his bed, and this one doctor would come in, and he was the great, this man was awesome. He came in, and he was just seeing David, my beloved son, and he would just hold David and wrap him up, and I thought, you know what, an awesome thing, here's a man that doesn't even know the Lord, and then I would have the opportunity to say, this came from our church, so many other things came from our church, to help us to encourage us, people are praying all over the world. We don't even know some of these people, we would get things. So please be encouraged that you at Willow Creek were being missionaries to Miami, and many of you didn't even know that. Suffering either brings you closer to God, or it takes you farther away. I found living on the rehab floor, there's really no middle ground. I saw a lot of awful things, much worse than what we were going through. Because of us that were able to turn to God in our pain, and look to him instead of ourselves, did have that peace that passes all understanding, and what I found, those who couldn't do that, they got into the blaming, and it's the doctor's fault that they couldn't do this, and this didn't work, and that didn't work, and it was just a hopeless victim state. But like Jacob, I have to admit, I am very independent, and before all this happened, I really liked my life before. I thought things were going great. I loved the job here at church, I loved working in the preschool, and I thought, wow, all my kids were finally going to be in school, and everything was just going to be great. But I am learning, just like Job and Jacob, that God wants me to be 100% dependent upon him, and I'm learning my limits to know that in my weakness, he is my strength, to trust him even when I cannot feel the ground. And yet present, James and my family, we're in the middle of this, we are not over, David has a long way to go. And as a teacher, one of the things that I loved teaching, I taught for years, third through sixth grade, and I loved teaching writing as well as reading how there's a wonderful beginning and middle and ending to the story, how you can build a conflict, and then you can have resolution in you, the writer, you can decide how you're going to end your story. You can end your story with a wonderful resolution or a sad resolution, but it's up to you. And so I kept thinking that God was going to end our suffering by restoring our son 100% and that the ending to the David story in our family would be that David would live happily ever after, under God's grace, of course. But God at present has seen fit to restore David very slowly. And full restoration may, or may not, even happen until we get to paradise. But one thing that I do know, in 2 Corinthians 4, it says, don't lose heart, though outwardly we're wasting away, inwardly we're being renewed, day by day by day. And our light and momentary troubles, they're achieving us an eternal glory that far outweighs all this. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen, it's just temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Our story's not done, but yours isn't done either. And the truth of the matter is the Bible does indicate we're all going to go through suffering. That's part of being a Christian, that's part of being in a fallen, simple world. God doesn't always give you or me a neat beginning, middle, and ending to the story. But he does whisper to you, I love you and just trust me in the midst of your pain. I'm here and I have such a greater purpose for you, you will never know until you see me. Thank you. Those of you who know the downwards know that they're living that and struggling with that day in and day out, Lord, we do pray for James and Bev, Shelley and Danny and we pray for healing. And we pray that in the midst of their story now and their suffering that you would continue to help them live what Bev just said. Thank you for them, thank you for their witness to us. And now we ask you to speak to our hearts too, through your word as you have just spoken to us through Bev as we pray in Jesus' name. What Bev said was enough for a sermon, wasn't it? It was enough of a sermon today, unfortunately that's not all you're going to get, because I'm here and I have this job and I've got a couple of other things to say. I can't say it better. I can't say better than what she said. And many of you know that you are right in the middle of it right now, your story. The end of the story hasn't been written. And at your struggling, you're wondering, is the story going to get better? Is there going to be a happy ending to this thing? Or when is the happy ending going to come? When's it going to be good? When's it going to get better? How do we deal with suffering? And suffering is all over the place. I mean, that's been the reality, the origin of it. It's all over the place, isn't it? Where did it come from? Where did it come from? You guys suffer in so many different ways. Some of you are suffering physically or somebody you love is suffering physically. You know, it wasn't altogether certain when David was first in the hospital. And if his cries were cries of pain, we didn't know because he was in such a difficult state. We just didn't know what they were and they all are and they still are. And some of you are going through very painful things physically. And you know somebody who is. So you're struggling with that or you're struggling with emotional pain. That can be very much as painful as this, as the physical. We struggle in our marriages. We suffer in pain that we picked up at home of things that have been done to us. You know, one in five students in an Ivy League University recently were serving. And it was determined that one out of five of them were cutting themselves or burning themselves or inflicting pain on themselves. Now that's disturbing, but why were they doing it? Because of stress in their life and because of pain that they somehow had to get expressed externally. One of the members of our church just lost their brother recently, 40 years of age, struggling with that. Pray for that. Pray for Mark and Sabrina Beasley. Mark's sister died on Friday. Found her in a room dead. But the experiences of suffering are across the board in this room and add to that suffering worldwide. I mean, we see stuff going on all over the place, the killing, the abuse. We just see stuff that's just absolutely amazing. Where does it come from? If you believe that the earth just got here on its own by some sort of spontaneous combustion or creation of its own. Then you have to believe that evil was wrapped up in the creation of this world. I'm reading a Richard Dawkins book entitled The God Delusion. This is, and Dawkins is a British scientist, a brilliant mind, and he's intending that this become the atheist Bible. He's going to show you that it's okay to become a healthy, happy atheist. You don't need God. You're going to show you how. And that you can go out and enjoy the beautiful, created world and not be religious. I guess a big book is going to take me a while to get through it, but my question is, how does he deal with evil? And I've flipped through the table of contents, and I'll tell you later what he says, but I think in discovering the origin of evil, the atheist Bible, it says it comes from religion. I'll tell you, but I'm pretty sure that's where he's going with this. He also has a chapter on the theistic proofs for the existence of God. He's going to debunk them. That's what my professor said in philosophy 101, the first day of class. He said, how many of your Christians I raised my hand that I thought I'm in a secular school here, what am I doing? He said in three weeks, I'll prove to you, God doesn't exist. And then he took us through and defeated the theistic proofs for the existence of God, and I'm still a Christian. He didn't do it. He's not going to do it, but where does evil come from? There's no God. It came with creation, and you can talk about how beautiful creation is, too, but you've got to look at the dark side of it then, or all that's out there. It just happened. Evil just happened. They don't atheists don't like to talk about that. Christians understand that God created the world perfect, and righteous, and good, and the evil and suffering came into the world because he gave his people freedom to do whatever they wanted. He said, this is the path for life. Go down this way. If you go down this way, there will be pain and suffering and cursing. I will curse this world and God has. As they did, evil and suffering in this world come from a curse. You say, why isn't God going to do anything about it, who he has, and he will. When you think about suffering in all of the Bible, what one character besides Jesus, and you know, every answer in Sunday School is Jesus, what's about this big, furry, gray, and has a little tail, and the little kid said, well, I know it's a squirrel, but the answer here has got to be Jesus. You know? No. Jesus has suffered no doubt about it. But what other character in the Bible do we think of him when we think of suffering? His name is Joe. Yeah, when I first read that I said, job, why don't we read a book about, job, Joe, let's talk about Joe. Reader's Digest version about Joe, Joe was a wealthy man. He was a, not only a wealthy man, but he was a family man. He had a great family, a big family. He loved his family, would have listened to focus on the family today. He loved his family, and he lost it all, lost all of his wealth, lost his health, lost everything, except his wife, who blamed him. That was painful. And we're not going to go into that. But Joe's response, at first, was good, wasn't it? His response was, the Lord gives the Lord, takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. And then the trial went on, and on, and on, and on. Where you need to talk to somebody when a trial hits, when struggles come, when they, when they flash into your life, you need to get with somebody, you need to go to your community group, you need to talk to a mature Christian, you need to talk to somebody right away. But I, you also need to work with somebody through the process, because it's three months down the road. It's, if it should go on and on and on. It's processing this whole long thing out, trials don't get over real quick usually. And as the trial progressed for Joe, he had, he had the response, you, you and I would have, which was, why did this happen in my life? More specifically, what did I deserve? What did I do to deserve this? Can I be that bad? And if I'm that bad, and God is supposedly good, how do I work that out? How could God be good in this whole context with what I'm experiencing? Many of you have gone through that whole thing. And so Job's friends came, didn't they? They came and they sat there with Job as he complained and complained and sat there on the ash heap, literally scraping his boils. Have you ever had a boil? He had him all over his body. At least wanted to die. His wife suggested that. Curse God and die. Curse God, he'll strike you dead, you'll be out of your pain and my misery too. But Job sat there the whole time and his friends were there listening to him, finally they started talking. The whole book of Job is a dialogue back and forth. It's brilliant. You ought to read it. It's a brilliant book. And back and forth, back and forth, finally at the very end, God speaks to Job. But he speaks to Job, Job 40 versus one through night, speaks to Job because his friends were not good friends. They let him down. By the way, what did his friends say? His friends said, Job, you're going through this because you have sinned. And if you would just repent of your sin, all of this will go away. Have you ever had a Christian say that to you? Had him say it to me and I wanted to slap him in Jesus' name. I wanted to say, you heretic, I'm going to take you on the back and burn you. I got to get elder approval first, but we do that around here. That's heresy. It's heresy. Now that's true that God disciplines his sons and daughters. It is true. That is biblical. Hebrews chapter 12. But it's a statement of fact that every sin therefore leads to the judgment of God that's his heresy. But God listened for a long time and then the response to Job is surprise in Job 40 versus one. The Lord said to Job, well, the one who contends with the Almighty correct him, let him who accuses God. Answer him. Job had gone to the point where he said, God, I know that I'm not perfect, but I cannot connect a sin in my life with your judgment. I can't put this together. And so he appeared to justify himself in the eyes of his friends and even in the eyes of God. Then Job answered the Lord, I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once but I have no answer twice but I will say no more. He got one on and kept talking to him and said, hey, Job, by the way, were you there when I created the world? Did you help me out with that process? Job 38. Job says, no. Were you there when I harness the big animals and the whales, the Leviathan? We think it's probably crocodiles or whales or the big animals. Were you there when I controlled them, Job? Were you there? Were you there when I did all this incredible stuff in the world, Job goes, no. Then Job 42, one through six. God lays this out for about three chapters. And Job replied to the Lord, I know that you can do all things and I cannot. No plan of yours can be thwarted. You ask, who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge? Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, listen now and I will speak, I will question you and you shall answer me. My ears have heard you, but now my eyes have seen you, therefore I despised myself under a pen and dust and ashes. Who was right in this whole thing? How do we deal with suffering? What's a strategy? A lot of the things Beb said is absolutely right. I mean, everything she said is right and biblical, all I'm not saying is she had any heresy in that. We're caught up in an evil world, aren't we? A broken world and we will suffer just because we're caught up in a broken world. But we have to understand a suffering strategy. We need to learn what Joe didn't learn until much later when he wrote the book. Now here's homework for you today. Go back, by the way, don't you love homework? I love the story of the teacher who had just finished a unit on Warren piece and she said to her students, how many of you are opposed to Warren and they all raise her hand. She said, why? One of the kids, Johnny raises and he said, I hate war because wars make history and then some poor innocent kid has to memorize stuff about it. All right, we hate homework, but here's your homework. Go back and read Joe one and two, right? And you will learn what Joe had no idea was going on and that was he was caught up in a struggle. He was suffering not because he was bad but because he was good. There's a cosmic struggle going on, Satan roams the world like a prowling lion seeking someone to destroy and he came accusing Christians and God said, well, Joe is one of my godly guys. Check him out. He says, yeah, you take away his health. Take away his family. That's one thing. Take away his job. That's another thing. You take away his health. He'll curse you. He says, try it. You can do anything to him but kill him and look what happened. Joe had no idea that it was the swishing tale of the dragon, the evil one Satan that caught was catching him. That happens to you and me and sometimes God calls us to suffer. Not because we're bad but because we're his. Not because there is a one-to-one correspondence because of some sin in our life, gee, did I cuss? Did I lust? Did I forget to tithe? Did I forget to give to the building program now? Pastors always go through the guilt-inducing thing when they're building buildings and they get over and they get real gracious. You know, give or don't give. You know, the reality was like saying, I hate it when I interrupt myself but it was something about God, wasn't it? And it was something about the reality that I think it was this, this is where I was going. Sometimes we suffer because we're his righteous people and not because there's a one-to-one correspondence because of our sin. Paul said in Philippians, you were called not only a salvation but to suffer, there it is. God may have chosen you to show how to suffer, show the world, show Satan, show that Jesus is done but we need to understand that and we need to understand that we can fight like normal people. We can be honest. We can say, I'm suffering, just like what Ben, I don't have it all together. We can come to this church and not have it all together, isn't that good? How are you doing? I'm about ready to cry right now, talk to me after the service. Had people say that to me a lot of times, that's okay. You can come here and not have it all together because Jesus got it all together for you and across. And the more we act like everything's good, like we never sin, like there's no problems, the more we rely the reality of the gospel, suffer, suffer out loud, get in a group, tell the issues that are really going on, understand parents that sometimes you're suffering to show your kids how you respond. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American author wrote many, many great books and one time he was in Europe and he went by an orphanage and this little dirty, soren-fested kid came up and grabbed his leg and put out his hands and he knew he had to pick him up and so he did. Hugged him, put him back down and his little daughter rose, saw that. Years later, back in the United States, Rose set up cancer clinics for people who had nothing out of the very example of her parents. It isn't God going to do anything he has by sending Jesus, but war is one. We fight all kinds of stuff. You suffer a lot, I know. Is it he going to do anything? He has. He sent Jesus, he's died on the cross, but the cross is empty and so is the grave. That is our hope. And if the story is not completed to perfection in this life, it will be completed in the life to come. So we love each other and we live it out now and we suffer and we rejoice and we worship, God is good all the time and we cry, but he's in charge. And he may have called you to suffer, not because of what you did bad. What God's not angry at you, is he because he's paid for, Jesus paid for that on the cross, so you know you're not suffering because of what you did bad. You're suffering because you're a part of this world. And you might be suffering to show the reality of God to a skeptical, as our elders come forward to give you communion, let's take it to heart and let's pray. If you don't know Jesus, the real message for you today is that you can suffer to purpose or you can suffer for no purpose, but if you will embrace Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord as the only Savior, if you will invite him into your life, then you have an opportunity for a new story to be written with a great ending. The great ending is a new heaven and a new earth that the Bible calls heaven and that through faith in Christ you'll get to be a part of that and so will I because of Jesus. Embrace him, if you know him now, then I invite you to take this bread and remember he suffered for you. He is doing something about it, he did do something about it and when all of his people are in the kingdom, he'll come back. It's not if it's when. So as the bread has passed, remember his broken body, but remember that he understands what you went through and worshiped him or Jesus, we thank you for the cross for dealing with our sin on the cross and our brokenness and our suffering that one day when we get home we'll suffer no longer. We honor you now, meet us as we take of this community. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-8211.