God is Good
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God is Good – And Life Sometimes Stinks
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
These past few weeks I’ve seen and heard and witnessed and even felt a lot of pain…hurt…exhaustion in myself and many around me.
God is Good and Life Sometimes Stinks
Can both of those things be true at the same time?
At first it might seem that to say those two things side by side is sacrilegious…right?
And to be sure…it is because these things can be true at the same time that many people have trouble with the first one…that God is good. And I’m sure that you all have asked that question too. If God is good…why?
INTRO – A few things we all have in common w/ each other:
- All of us have a mother & a father.
- All of us are breathing oxygen right now.
- All of us need water to live. (half of you just got thirsty/half need to go to the bathroom)
- All of us will suffer in this life – Sometimes life stinks.
Lot of reasons for the suffering we go through:
1. We live in a fallen world. Paul said it this way Romans 3:10-18
Romans 3:10–11 (NIV)
As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.
Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips.
Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and wretchedness are in their paths,
and the path of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
In other words…we’re guilty. And we know that our sin…causes us pain…and our sin can cause other people pain as well.
2. We or someone we know and love can be victims of crime or torment or war.
Many people are the victims of local crime…the paper today...
People live in war zones & suffer b/c of violence.
Many of us remember where we were on 9/11/01.
Many Christians feel like their being pinned down for beliefs…and that might be in our country. Many other Christians around the world are not only, I guess you might say “persecuted” for beliefs, but they are also imprisoned, beaten, forced to live certain ways…or murdered for their Christianity.
Pakistan Illustration
....others
3. We all get sick or injured, many times in a lethal, life-altering way.
· We’ve got church members in battles right now w/ all sorts of sicknesses & diseases – heart issues, cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, addictions, etc.
But in the midst of all of this – through our tears – through our pain – through our agony & anxiety – one truth comes ringing through:
GOD IS GOOD! As the saying goes: God is good all the time, & all the time God is good!
EXPLANATION – Stand & read these verses out loud w/ me:
- Ex. 34:6
And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,
- Ps 23:6
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
- Ps 25:8
Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
- Ps. 27:13
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
- Ps. 145:9
The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.
Now we say those things…even repeat those things as true. And we even say them … with maybe a feeling of remembrance…good remembrance. Like you may have thought, “I needed to hear that....or I needed to think about that.”
Some, when they experience suffering on some level have difficulty.
So if it is true that God is good and that he is sovereign over everything, why does he allow suffering.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Here’s a truth that we don’t like to think about. Maybe we suffer at our own hands.
Now, in the world today…no one likes it when someone points out something that we’ve done wrong. Why? Because, we don’t like being told that what we might have done is wrong or that we’re living wrong. We don’t like being told what to do. Even when God says…here’s the best way to live…and the worst.
For many, they lose faith simply because they want to live like they want to rather than live according to God’s word.
Live by your truth.
You decide for you.
Truth is subjective. Your truth might be different than my truth.
Burger King says, You Rule.
Well, we don’t rule like God…and so when we do so, sometimes we suffer because of our own sin.
Now, not all suffering is because of our sin. We know that. Adam and Eve sinned and the curse of sin…a broken world…was a consequence.
Thus, it is callous to assume every individual suffers because of their own sin. Assuming people suffer because of their choices may lead to an uncaring and judgmental attitude, such as, “Well, you got what you deserved. I told you so. You should not have _____.”
This question of sin and suffering came up to Jesus, and we have one occurance recorded for us by Luke. Some were wondering, even asking Jesus, about group of people who had been brutally persecuted by Pilate. The question that was going around was, “What did these people do to deserve that horrible persecution…death?”
Jesus gave them an answer that really helps us with this question today. The people happened to be a Galilean. And so Jesus said, “Do you think that these Galileans who suffered were worse than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?
The obvious answer is no…Jesus then made a reference to eternity saying but unless you repent, you will all perish. ....the perishing he’s talking about is beyond what we suffer here.
The disciples asked him this at another time too. Jesus was about to heal a blind man that had been born that way. And the disciples asked…who was it that sinned …he or his parents…that he was born blind. John 9. Jesus then went on to say…this was not directly because of their sin. He then would go on to say that this is a dark world and he has come to bring light to it.
Suffering. Sometimes because of our sin. Sometimes simply because this can be a dark world.
So here’s what we have so far. God is good and life sometimes stinks.
…and sometimes life stink because of the way we live…the choices we make. Sometimes life stinks because the world is broken…its often dark.
But…as Jesus said…God is still Good and supplies light in dark places.
How do we respond to suffering? Whether it is from our own hands, someone else’s sin, or simply because of the nature of things now.
James, the half brother of Jesus, notices something and writes this for us.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Consider it joy??? James…but you don’t know what I’ve been through. What I’m going through. What I’ve done.
James was the brother of Jesus who denied Jesus. In then end James would be persecuted …ultimately to his death when he was killed at the hands those who wanted him to stop telling others about Jesus.
Consider it joy when you suffer.
Paul wrote this in his letter to the Romans
Romans 5:3–5 (ESV)
...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Again…joy in sufferings. Discipline is hard isn’t it? None of us liked it…or like it. But we know that when we discipline a child, it is so they will grow.
James and Paul says…when you sin and suffer, watch your perspective. Look at it this way…you now realize why you suffer…so change.
When you suffer because of the broken nature of the world…rejoice. Because this produces endurance…and here’s the picture of endurance.
You keep going because you know there something at the end.
Some of you endure diets because of a personal end goal. Some because of self imposed goal or sometimes because the doctor said they needed to see some health…so you endure a change of eating habits.
Some of you endure times in life that are crazy busy. Maybe because of school work, or house work, or work/work…because you know what’s on the other end. You endure because you have hope something good is coming even while you are suffering through something.
Some of you are enduring illness and sickness. This one is tough. You endure it because you know…no matter what happens…God is still in control and nothing in this dark world will keep you from Him.
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
We like that verse sometimes…and other times we’re not sure about how we feel about it because it is a reminder of the brokenness of this world. But we know the truth inside those words.
And as the church family, we are to help each other remember the truths about life. That God is good. And that there is darkness on this side of reality.
Let’s quickly look back at the first verse we read.
I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
Do you think Jesus experienced suffering?
Now there is an easy answer to this…and a more nuanced one.
The first one…and I think we all went there…the cross.
Right…I mean the cross was created by the romans to be a horrible terrible public way to die.
What other suffering do you think about?
He was challenged publicly about who he was. He was disregarded. He was despised.
There are some people from other religions who are amazed at Christianity. And one of the major reasons why is that we hold true that a “god” …and here we mean Jesus…would come to a broken world. A perfect God in a broken world. That would alone, in itself, be difficult…create suffering. And that this “god” would choose to live among his people to save his people…even in their present condition.
What do we call that? God coming to us…from perfection to imperfection. God bowing low…to serve his creation (think of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet). God coming to save both those who were waiting for him…and coming to love his enemies as well.
What do we call that? Love.
In His love God calls us to a few responses to suffering.
Maybe the suffering you’re walking through is because of your own sin…if so, what does Jesus, in His love, call you to do? Repent
And for all of the other suffering that is maybe leveled against us…that suffering that simply happens because this is a broken world…What does Jesus call us to do in love? Reach out. Carry each others burdens.
Repent and Reach out....and Remember that God is good.
God is good…and sometimes life stinks. But we’ll keep the right perspective on everything. Whether our suffering is through discipline, or through what the world gives us because we call ourselves Christians, or the suffering we walk through because the world is just not perfect (illness, disease, decline)…can we still look at things in reality?
Set your mind on things above…last week.
The things “above” are part of our reality too.
God’s goodness.
God’s love.
Christ’s forgiveness.
The Holy Spirit living with and in us.
The promise of the Kingdom that leads to hope.
The promise of eternal life with God.
Those are things that we’re moving towards.
We need to remember those things.
David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary and explorer who spent thirty-three years in the heart of Africa. He endured much suffering as he labored to spread the Gospel and open the continent to missionaries. This godly missionary once remarked:
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?...It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which HE made who left his Father’s throne on high to give himself for us.”