The possible right, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exalt and hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulation, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance proven character, and proven character hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Amen, and amen, you may be seated, please. Hook, I mentioned Johnny Erickson wrote, tells the story at the beginning of the book of John McAllister, Paul strapping six foot three, man only in his thirties, his body had been attacked by the generative nerve disease, rendered him wheelchair-bound, and then finally, totally, in the bed, says his bed stands in the center of the living room, John is in it, night time is no friend, gravity is his enemy is the weight of the air settles on his chest, breathing is heavy labor, calling out as impossible. He needs to call out tonight, and the darkness and ant finds him, the scout sends for others, and they come, first hundreds and thousands, a noiseless Legion inches its way down the chimney, across the floor, secretly crawling up his urine tube, up over and onto his bed, they fan out over the hills and valleys of John's blanket, tunneling under and onto his body, he is covered by a black wriggling invasion. I'm across the ocean in England when the facts arrive at my hotel, relaying the story. John's wife, along with the nurse, found him in the early morning with ants still in his hair, mouth, and eyes. His skin was badly bitten and burned, pray for him the facts conveyed, we've never seen him so depressed. I sit by the receptionist desk and want to read the facts the second time, but can't my stomach stick. John is a Christian, his God can see in the dark. Why in the name of heaven? Why? This is a story about torn ligaments on a football field. This is in a polite refusal letter for financial aid from the college of your choice. This is in a heartache over a returned engagement ring. This is crazy. This is suffering, stalking a person down and ripping into his sanity. Is there anyone out there who can make sense of this? Suffering is everywhere, it's universal, AIDS ravages entire continents, terrorism spreads its tentacles further and further. Anywhere you go in the world, you will find hungry children. Anywhere you go in the world, you will find women who are used and abused and battered. Suffering is not an occasional visitor to Seven Rivers Church. Suffering sits in the pew every week. Suffering is the clothes we wear. It's not a season of life that visits us. There are always broken homes, broken relationships, broken children, broken marriages, broken jobs, broken bodies, always. Always they're suffering. Now this year, suffering has worn a more public face in our church. As we've seen the deaths of a number of women in our church that died rather young, even now in the life of our church as a young girl who's pregnant but already been told by the doctors that this pregnancy, if it if it goes the full term, will yield a child that will not live beyond the first couple of years, a couple of months of its life. Now when you talk about suffering, I want to say this, that I don't pretend that any words that I bring this morning can bring relief from such acute pain. For those of you who are particularly tender and raw with suffering right now in your life, I don't pretend that I have words that are going to make bodies hurt less or are going to allow grieving to go away. Very often people ask me when they're grieving, when will it stop hurting? And the answer is the same every time. Never, never. I remember the woman sitting in my office, bawling her eyes out. I just really met her. I didn't know her life story at all and she told me about, she told me she was crying because her son had died in a car accident and I assume that this incident had to be fairly recent. I said, tell me about it. The accident had taken place 15 years earlier, but the wound was still so raw, so fresh in her heart. It was as if it had been days earlier. Suffering, I don't pretend that I have words. And as a way of pastoral advice to you, when you encounter your friends who are suffering, be sparing with your words. Tears are usually more apt. Everybody's wince that the young mother who miscarries only to have some well-meaning person tell her, that's okay, you can have other children. We tend to be the purveyors of horrible counsel when people are suffering. We mean well. Tears are more apt. So this morning, though, I want to say, while I don't have words to sways your grief, I do know someone who can. I do know someone who can make sense out of your suffering. I do know someone who said, yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you. You will not go alone in that place. And I know someone who can work in you in such a way that in the depths of suffering, as has been the case for thousands of years, God's people can say, though the suffering was hard and though the suffering was bitter,
I am glad that I suffered. Because I got more of the one thing I need the most. I got more of Jesus. So let's go there. Take your sermon outline if you would, and we'll start with really first the problem of suffering. Before we start with the visceral, the pain, the heartache of suffering, we're going to start with the philosophical theological issue of suffering. That means you're going to have to think a little bit. Some of you have had four or five donuts and you're going to have to kind of gear up here to think through this together. It goes like this, doesn't it? If there is a good, if God is all good and God is all powerful, then why is there suffering? Suffering doesn't make any sense. And if there's a good and powerful God, there would be no suffering. And there is suffering, therefore there's no God. Or if he is, he's not all good, he's not all powerful. I mean, imagine if God was actually good and he really wanted to stop suffering, but he wasn't able, then he'd be an impudent God, wouldn't he? And if he was able, but he was unwilling, then he'd really be a malevolent monster. You know, the popular way these concerns is often phrased is why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Well, let's look at these thoughts together, the problem of suffering. The first thing we'd say is that last question is based on a wrong premise, isn't it? Why does God allow bad things to happen to what? Good people. Who are those people? None of them attend here. There's no such thing as good people. There's better people. There are people who are better than other people. But to be good, you've got to, someone has to establish the standard for what good is. If the standard is established by God, then God says there are non-righteous, no-not, one. All of them, all fall short of God's standards. In fact, what the Bible says is that we are cosmic rebels. We've all committed trees in against the creator of the universe who's given us all things. We've rebelled against them. We've been a part of a a cool, a race thing, overthrowing God. Look at Adam and Eve. He gave them everything. Every benefit, every good thing, and their response was we want to do life without you. They're our parents. That's our, all of us are guilty of that. Corporate responsibility for sin. We've brought the ill and harm on this world. Now, sometimes people say, wait a minute, are you saying then that if a baby suffers, born with a genetic anomaly, it's because of the baby's sin? No, that's not what I said. So listen very closely. Clearly, somebody gets hit by a tornado, is that because they sin, therefore, the tornado rumbled through that, that's not what I said. But I did say it is the responsibility of the human race, because of our rebellion against God, we broke the world and the consequences of a broken world fall on what? All of us. That's the way it works, doesn't it? When the left tackle grabs the face mask of the on-rushing Russia from the other team, that referee throws his flag and when they start the next play, it's not just the left tackle that has to back up 15 yards, is it? The whole team is penalized. That's the way it works. We are all responsible. The true question, the true wonder of wonders is this, why does anything good happen to miscreant like us? Why do we experience goodness? Is God unfair, far from it? God is merciful and gracious and kind. He doesn't give us what we deserve. Second observation is not only is there a wrong premise, but there's really a wrong argument here, a wrong conclusion, the notion that if there's suffering, then there's no God, when in fact I want you to understand the presence of suffering is an argument for the existence of God. If there was no God, there would be no suffering. There was no God, there would be no evil, because you have to have some measure that which is wrong, that which is evil, that which is suffering, there has to be an objective good. You can't have right or wrong without somebody who establishes the law, the line that divides good from evil, righteousness from unrighteousness. So if there is no God, then there is no evil. There is no wrong doing. If there is no God, the understanding, slavery, racism, none of it is wrong. Who says it's wrong? There's no standard that determines what's right or what's wrong. That's the problem our courts are having today, aren't they? In our country. Having divorced God, having divorced the notion of God from legislation, then if two men want to get married or two women want to get married, the courts can just throw their hands up in the air and say, why should anyone say that it's wrong? Because there is no standard. If there's no God, there's no standard for right or wrong, if there is no God, there is suffering. The presence of God, the presence of evil argues the existence of God actually. I told you that the thinkable. And the third point I want you to see is that the notion that if God was all good and all powerful, there would be no suffering, it's simply a false conclusion. In fact, God is all powerful and all good. Therefore, there is suffering because suffering is an expression of the goodness of God to his creatures. Just work that out for you with that one. It is manifestly clear that God allows all manner of things in this world that he doesn't like. He allows them to take place. God didn't fire the ovens at Auschwitz. God doesn't down a Scotch, a bottle of Scotch and get his car and plow into a family and kill them all, but he allows it. It really offers no comfort to say, you know what? Bad things that happened in this world, they're not God's fault. He didn't want them to happen, but he just couldn't do anything about it. An impotent God really is no comfort at all. I mean, he's a good-hearted old guy, God is, but I mean, gosh, with all these people running on doing evil, he can't stop them all. That's not only no comfort. It's far from the biblical description of God. The Bible says he is utterly sovereign over every event that takes place. There's not one random molecule in all the universe. Every event that takes place among men, God is in control over it, and he clearly allows things to happen that he's not pleased with. When Joseph's brother snatched him up through him in a pit and sold him into slavery to God to endorse that behavior, no, he says, men meant it for evil, but God worked it for what? For good. And in fact, because it happened, you're sitting in this church today because God saved the human race through Joseph's actions in Egypt, it didn't he? So God constantly allows evil for the good of his creatures doing that. It needed a better example than that. What do we do every week when we come here? We celebrate the evil execution of the Son of God. God didn't nail his Son to a cross, but what do we do every week when we come here? We call the suffering of Jesus what? We call it good. It was good. It was good that God allowed it. It was good that God ordained it. I'll say it was good. We sing about it. We celebrate it. We love it that God allowed the suffering of his Son in our stead. The suffering of Jesus was a manifestation of the goodness of God. We've got the totally reorient our thinking. After Columbine, the school massacre, Christian TV did a little special in which they interviewed a number of parents of students who survived the massacre. They either got away or they were wounded, but they recovered. The whole idea was look at the miracles that God did in Columbine High School when he saved these children. Now if you're a non-Christian, probably watching that program, what are you thinking? Why didn't they talk to the families of the kids who died? Where was God for them? Is God only good to the other groups that made it out of the building? This is the problem. We don't understand that God was just as good to the families of those who died as He was good to the families of those who spared because God never does anything but good for His own. He works all things together for good. The testimonies we more often need to hear is I was not healed. God is so good. My son did not live. God is so good. I lost my job and in it, I experienced the goodness of God. God gives to His children nothing but good gifts. Nancy Kennedy, by the way, her article in this day's Chronicle is fabulous. She quoted from Martin Luther. Martin Luther says, we're the people who pray for silver and God gives us gold. Only it doesn't look like gold to us. It looks like a lost job. It looks like cancer, but it's gold. We just don't recognize it as gold because God never does anything for His children but good so in all good, all powerful God ordains what? Suffering. Why? Because he loved her.
Johnny Erickson, whose book I mentioned was very popular in high school, head cheerleader, homecoming queen, you know, the bell of the ball in her high school. One of the most popular kids there, large public high school in Maryland, when she dove into a lake and injured her spinal column, such that she was made a quadriplegic. As she was in the chair, the first year or so of being in the wheelchair, her family brought into her house one day, a 16-year-old pimple-faced Bible-protein high school student. Steve Estes was his name. They thought maybe he could help Johnny, you know, think through why this had happened to her. Steve Estes said, you know, here I hear the most popular girl in the high school and I am this pimple-faced paperboy. I was not welcome in the circles of the popular that she ran in and now she's in a wheelchair and the worst thing I've ever happened in my life is like a hang nail and I walk into the room and Johnny Erickson says to me, hey, Bible boy, let me tell you something. I've got a question for you, is your God have anything to do with me being in this chair? Steve Estes said, if the faith didn't work right then it wasn't worth it wasn't worth a width. So he took a big swallow and this is how he answered, Johnny God put you in that chair. I don't know why but if you'll trust him instead of fighting him, you'll find out why if not in this life then in the next. He'll let you break your neck because he loves you. Why is there suffering because God is all good and he's all powerful and he loves his children and he will bring a severe mercy to them if it is for their good. Okay, Pastor, get your work cut out for us and I need to think about this a little more as point two. What's the purpose of suffering? How does God do good? How is an expression of his good that we would suffer? Well, I'll tell you few. The purpose of suffering, first of all this is that it would reintroduce us to the delight of dependence on God. How many of you find it to be the natural orientation of your heart to just wait on God? To trust God. To let God run your life and all the affairs. If you're honest, you know, the exact opposite. Again, Adam and Eve, God gave them everything and you know what did they do? God, thank you anyway. We can run our world and our life better than you can. We trust ourselves more than we trust you. Our bent is not towards dependence on God. Our bent is towards autonomy, self-rule, self-government, self-trust, arrogance and pride. And so what does God do? In his kindness, he brings us to dependence on him. In the Old Testament, there was a man named Jacob. Jacob was the Schema, wasn't he? Jacob could get the birthright from his brother. He could steal the blessing from his father. Jacob could come up with a plan to make anything happen. So God shows up one night and body slams Jacob, doesn't he? Literally. God comes, breaks his hip and makes him a cripple so that the rest of his life, Jacob will know what? I am needy. I am needy. Look at Peter. If all of them deny you, I will not deny you, Lord. I'll stand there whatever opposition and I will be loyal to you. And then he withers and falls in the face of a little girl. Peter crashes, he stails, he falls, he's leveled. When God levels you, it's his goodness to you because he's reintroducing you to the delight of dependence on him. When you find yourself flat on your back, then you're only able to do
what. You're only able to look up. You're only able to have how many have been brought to that place in our life. What we say, uncle, uncle, I give. I needy every hour, every hour I needy. I want to be independent. I want to work on my own. I want to do it without you, but I've got nothing without you. I need you. When I am weak, then I am what? Strong, that's what the Bible says. When I know that God is my only refuge and my only strength, then something wonderful is a foot. In my life, look at the apostle Paul, a thorn in the flesh. Why did he give me a thorn in the flesh? God begged and begged and begged God. Paul says that he takes a thorn away and God says, no, my grace is sufficient for you. You'll find that out. The only way you'll find that out is because I wound you. When God wounds you and makes you dependent on him, it is his mercy. Second, what's good for you and suffering, how to suffering for our gain that reintroduces us to the delight of a desire for God, the preeminent desire of our heart. Are you with me, still? Still there? What if I were to say this morning, you could have any, you could have the greatest desire of your heart. What would that be? I'll tell you what it is, it's more of Jesus. I'm not sure I would have put that on the top of my list. That's basically our problem is that we think we dream of good marriages and successful children and solid health and inadequate money and a rewarding job. All of those are good things but they're not the, they're not the best thing. They're not what our heart ultimately needs and craves. And God will allow our dreams to shatter. He will take away our wife. He will take away a job. He will give children that are not obedient. And all of us will lead, all of us will be led to discover that what? All the things we put our hopes in to find life in this world are not where life is ultimately found. The one thing I need is Jesus. What does Paul say? I have suffered the loss of what? All things. And I count them as but rubbish that I might have what? Christ. That I might have Christ in all. You don't know God is all you need until God is all you've got and when God is all you've got and you know that God is all you need. The problem in America is how often is God always God? Think of the little boy and now living in a cardboard box in Ghana is just the American missionaries. Why are Americans so miserable? They're the most blessed people on earth. Why are they always so unhappy? Because we have so much that we forget what we really need ultimately. What is the profit of man to gain the whole world? But to have an impoverished soul, suffering reintroduces us preeminent desire. I was made to know God, to have God. That's how suffering is good for us. Dependence on God, desire for God, and I'd also add the discipline of God. Whom the Lord loves, he what? Jason, listen parents, our children grow up alongings for the involvement of their parents. When you suffer, you know what you've got? You've got the involvement of your dad. This is the deepest longing of our hearts. Now how many kids really like that involvement? No discipline at the time seems to be profitable, the Bible says. But painful afterwards it yields the the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And yet it's a father's job to deliver the medicine the child needs. When you give your child candy, are you loving your child more than when you withhold candy because it wouldn't be good for them? What would you say? You're loving the child just as much when you would hold something they want, is when you give what they want, when you spank your child appropriately, you're loving just as much as when you applaud them appropriately, right? One of them is better received. Then the other but both of them are equally loving parenting. And so when God gives you suffering, it is equally loving as to when he withholds it from you. Both are the exercise of his wise and good parenting for the well-being of his children. When my older son was in second grade, he was, we had to bring him to the hospital for cancer surgery. It was horrible. The operator on him for six or seven hours, when they brought us to see him in the recovery room, I have never seen anyone so ashen I thought he was dead. His recovery in the hospital was horrible. When we finally brought him home after a week, we received a call from the doctor who said we didn't get the cancer, bring him back. Now the first time he went, he was willing to submit, whatever we asked him to do, it was necessary to get better. When it came time to put him on the gurney for the second surgery, he wouldn't go. What do you think my job was as a dad? To wrestle my son onto that gurney and pin him down while they took him away. In the mind of the second grader, what must he have been thinking? This man pledged to me. This man pledged to defend me. Why would he do me such harm? How could anyone who loves me allow this to happen to me? When in fact, in the most difficult moment of my parenting, I was doing the very well. The very best thing for my child. So when God who diagnoses the poison of sin and rebellion in our hearts sends plastic medicine to eradicate it, it's because he loves it. It's because he's that kind of father. It's because he's that kind of good. He will send his mercy. He will be unrelenting in the expression of his mercy even if it's severe. Well, let me say that suffering is not only for our gain, let me say quickly, suffering is for others gain quite clearly, isn't it? If they were to take bone marrow from you this afternoon to give to someone else who needed it, would that hurt you? Would it be good that you suffered? Yes, it would. It would be good. There are soldiers in Iraq, they are suffering. Their loved ones are suffering because they're there. Why are they there suffering? Are they there suffering for their good? No, their aim is to do others good, isn't it? It is a good thing to suffer for others good. So is suffering good? Yes, it accomplishes gain in our life. It accomplishes gain in others life. Again, the suffering of Jesus being the preeminent example. His suffering was good for us. But a third thing I want you to see is that suffering is not only for our gain and others gain, it is for God's gain. It is for the gain of God's kingdom. And it forces us to remember that our calling and purpose in this life is not the avoidance of pain and suffering, but it's the advance of God's kingdom. We have a major problem here. Most people go to church in North America to form an alliance with God and to solicit God's help to help them in their quest to have a life with the least pain and suffering possible. And yet the calling of the Christian is to a life of suffering. You have a direct contradiction. Jesus said, if anyone would be my disciple, he must do what? Deny himself. Take up his cross. That was an exactly cross with an implement of what? Of suffering. He must deny himself. Take up his cross and follow after me the whole calling of the Christian life is a life of suffering. You're called to suffer. That's what it's about. But in North American Christianity, we want a God who's available so that when we're sick, when we're ill, when there's problems we can call on him and he will deliver us from. We got it all wrong. God has no intention of delivering you from suffering, not in this life. It loves you too much.
Can you trust God to relieve you of suffering? No, you cannot. He has not promised to do it. One of the worst. Most of the disillusionment with God comes with people trusting him to do things. He has not promised to do. I promise you that he will not remove suffering until it is accomplished the end for which he sent it in the first place. He's that kind of God. He's that kind of good. He's that kind of determined. And the end of the day, if you could look at your life and say, my suffering glory to God, then why would you pray that it would end if the end of your life is to bring him glory? How is the church spread all over the world? It's spread through life. Suffering. Suffering. God's people have suffered for thousands of years. It is a calling to suffer. If you're in this place because you thought somehow to tie yourself to Jesus would lead to a life of less suffering. You know, CSL says you've made a grave mistake. If you want to suffer less, get a bottle of wine. It's a much better strategy. God does not intend to deliver us from suffering.
The church in China and the fastest growing church in the world. Isn't that glorious? They massacred the missionaries. They chased them out. It is illegal to be a Christian. House church leaders are constantly in prison and the church cannot be stopped. You know what they fear? The most in China that someday it will be legal to be a Christian because perhaps then the Chinese church will start to look like the Western church. That's what they fear the most. Marie Durant was 14 years old when she was arrested for being a proponent of the Huguenot faith. In southern France, a Huguenot was somebody who believed in tenants of the Reformation just like us. She didn't do anything wrong. She just believed wrong in the eyes of those who were in power. She was attractive. She was bright. She was married, married, great, married material. 14 years old. All she had to say was one word to be released. Abjure. I abjure. I recant. I withdraw my beliefs. She would not. They put her in a tower by the sea in a small cell and there she remained for 38 years. You could still visit her cell today where she etched on the wall, not the word abjure, but the word resisted. I resist. I will not recant. It then chills down my spine the faithfulness of God's people for thousands of years to say I will gladly suffer to the glory of my team. One final word. It's the last point. The perseverance of suffering. How do you actually make it if you're suffering? Well, can I just say quickly? You believe the gospel. You believe the gospel? What does the gospel say? The problem in suffering is that we think we're living a pretty good life and we start to suffer then we get ticked at God. I don't deserve this. People in this church have told me when bad things have happened. Hey, I raised my kids to know. I raised my kids in sunny school in church and to know God and now look at what happens in their life. What's the clear implication? It's God's fault. I did my part. There's a quid pro quo deal, right? Where's he? The gospel says that what do we deserve from God? What do we deserve? It's back up. What does God owe us? What do we deserve? Eternal damnation. Not nothing. We deserve wrath. We deserve the wrath of God. So what suffering could ever happen to anyone that they would say I've been treated unfairly? What we get is mercy and grace. So the gospel leaches out bitterness and replaces it with thanksgiving. Now some people when they suffer because they know they've been living a rotten life feel what? Guilty. I'm suffering because of what I did. God is after me with a switch. Listen, if you're in Christ, God is not after you with a switch. He already switched someone else for your sins. His own son. So the gospel takes away our anger. It takes away our guilt. It also takes away our fear. I'm alone in this. I'm going down. I'm going to drown. Nobody cares. Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Remember the disciples in the boat? The boats being swamped with water and Jesus is asleep and they wake them up and they say what? Master, don't you even care? Don't you even care? He left heaven and came here and hung make it on a tree and they ask him, don't you even care? The one who asks you to suffer has suffered in your place, has suffered more than you will ever suffer or ever know. He is the God who entered in. He is the God who weeps. He has earned the right to ask you to suffer. The key to suffering is this, is we have to remember the end of the story when we're in the middle of it. Because when we're in the middle of it, it looks dark and forevoting and awful and we want to throw in the towel, don't we?
Pastor told the story. It's true story of a wedding where this wedding was planned by the mother of the bride. There were gift registries all over the United States. There was 18 in the brass and woodwind orchestra. There were 24 bridal wedding attendants. There were flowers. There were pictures. There was proof through everywhere. This was her grand moment. Everything came together. Everybody was in the church. The singing was going on. The only ones left in the back were the bride and her dad. Suddenly they realized the bride really hadn't eaten anything that day. She really hadn't eaten the day before. She and her dad began to kind of just graze down the reception line. A couple of the green mints and the white mints and the pink mints and whether it was those candied almonds and there was also the mixed nuts and there was also the sausage with the little skewers in them. They got some of those and there was the ashymo river pate and there was shrimp with this bacon wrapped down awesome. There were some crackers and there was some dip and there was some veggies and all of this to be washed down with a little pink champagne. They said the by the time the singing was over and the bride and her dad appeared at the back row of the back aisle of the church. She looked like a hand grenade whose pin had been told. The room began to spin. The dress seemed awfully tight. It seemed awfully warm in there and she didn't make it to the front of the church until she or what's the polite way to say it. Spud. She not only holds the pastor and the wedding party but she primarily nailed her mother. The pastor said it took about an hour to get everybody out of what they're aware an hour and a half, everybody cleaned up, everybody and a lot of people left and they actually kind of went back into the fellowship hall in a very simple ceremony. The very stick bride was held. The whole ceremony by the groom and they said they're vows. 10 years later they gathered at a house, the 10th anniversary and they played the video and everybody laughed and laughed and laughed because as horrible as it was at the end of the day she got the groom. As horrible as whatever pathway God may ask you to walk in this life at the end of the day you will get the groom. The lover of your soul will take you into his arms for all eternity and whatever suffering you ever experience you will say I rejoice in it because I got Jesus. Let's pray.