Suffering with a God who cares

Good morning, pursuit, family today. I'm gonna try something different normally. We would continue our line by line teaching through the Bible, but the Lord put on my heart to talk about a specific subject which we all have experience with. It's actually everyone's favorite subject, If you didn't realize it. What am I talking about? Well suffering, of course. Normally, I would ask you all to stand with me for the reading of the word of god, but, since we're going to be jumping around to a lot of different verses, and doing a subject oriented teaching, I would actually like to ask, for you all to bow your heads with me in prayer to prepare us for the what the word of god has to say on suffering. Insert prayer. Lord, I ask that you would guide us and open our hearts to help us understand each verse in context and to hear what you actually have to say about suffering, what it has to do with walking with you, what it has to ultimately do with your salvation, you provide. I pray that even if all I say Is rubbish, that your word stands? It serves to edify this body today. In, jesus name, I pray Amen. So before we begin, I actually want to share something with you that is pretty comical. When I was first writing this sermon, I was asking God daily to help me write the sermon to give me guidance. And understanding, and you know, even bring to mind my own sufferings so that I could Relate to everyone here through my own suffering. And the funny thing happened on the 2nd day. that morning, I prayed for him to help just like I did. Every day and later that afternoon, I broke my finger, I smacked it with a hammer, and right after I did that. I looked up and I said, God, this is not what I was talking about. When I said, I needed your help with suffering, but I guess long story short, be careful what you pray for. So as we look today at the subject of suffering. There are 5 main points. That i'm going to break down right 1. How and why suffering exists a k a, how can there be suffering with a good god. 2. Does god care about our suffering. 3. Can god understand our suffering and 4. What does god ultimately do for and with are suffering. And 5. How should we feel about suffering during our walk with Christ. So I thought I would start with what the world has to say about suffering. If you ask the world about suffering, they'll tell you that it should be avoided at all costs. And that it's always a bad thing. i mean, we're so concerned about suffering. Nowadays that we're even willing to warp truth to avoid it. And it also spills over into what the world thinks about god. So many times when talking to people about the existence of God, the most common, the objection I get is that well, if a good God exists, then how can suffering exist? To which My answer is well, the Bible says that In the beginning, there was no suffering in the garden of Eden. Imagine wouldn't that be cool to live at the time of Adam and eve in the garden? Imagine you fall off of a waterfall onto a nice sharp pointy rock, right? In the middle of your back then, you can just get app dust off go huh, then walk away. Yeah, in reality.It's more like I fall off my kitchen chair.And i'm screaming for loretta to call the ambulance, because I can't get up. That's party getting old I guess. But anyway, we can look back to Genesis 1:31 at the end of the sixth day, it says "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day" so you see, after he had created everything, including man, it was very good. So that tells us there was no evil, hence there was no suffering. So how did suffering actually enter creation then? Well, we can go to right after the fall in Genesis 3:16-19 where it says "To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” 17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you;

in PAIN you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” so there you have it, that is where evil entered the world. And because suffering is an outgrowth of evil, ergo that's also where suffering entered the world. And can't we all kind of relate to that? That we're the ones who create the suffering, not God, every time I look back in my life at the ways I suffered. It was either me or the sinful world. Itself, that created the suffering, not god. So now we know where suffering came in, but where does it go from here? We know we're doomed to suffer. The Bible makes that quite clear. Trust me, many times have I been in pain in suffering and thought back to myself, man what I wouldn't do to have a conversation with Adam before he bit that fruit. But that's not gonna happen. So We're stuck with it. Now on to the second point, does god care about our suffering. You would think since it's completely our fault that suffering exists that god wouldn't pay much attention to our suffering. And again, that's what the world would tell us as well, how many times have I heard "well If God didn't cause our suffering, he sure doesn't care about it? Cause if he cared about the suffering of the world, then why is there so much of it? But the truth is He actually cares deeply about our suffering. The bible goes into great detail about this. Here are just 3 sample verses for you from all different parts of the Bible. The show that god cares deeply about our suffering, starting with Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. That doesn't sound very much like a god who doesn't care about our sufferings. And how about 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 where it says "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." Would you look at that?So god, not only cares about our suffering, but he also comforts us during our suffering.So that we might comfort others who are suffering as well. We'll touch a little more on that aspect of it later. And finally let's look at Revelation 21:4 "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” so you see it's all throughout the Bible, not just in 1 or 2 books, but literally every book that it shows that God cares about our suffering. And I chose that last verse, because yeah, in the end, he's going to end all of our suffering. That's something i'm looking forward to. So now we know where suffering came from, and we know God cares about our suffering but can he understand and identify with our suffering. Well, let's take a look at that for a minute. We know he cares about all our earthly sufferings all the afflictions that the fallen creation and ourselves Levy upon us, but he notices one more thing that we actually don't notice until he points it out. There's a greater suffering one that It's beyond anything, that is in this world, one that we experience before coming to Christ? I'm talking about separation from god. I'm sure everyone has heard the saying that there's a god shaped hole in every man's heart. And do to that whole, we suffer more, then we can even imagine. This is the type of suffering that compelled god to come down as a man who experienced every type of suffering You could imagine and more

All to alleviate this suffering that we didn't even realize we were going through. I want you all to think about what Christ went through. I actually like the way Jordan Peterson put this So We're going to lay this out. Piece by piece, and i'm going to add a few things to it. Let's start with the obvious he was crucified. There is no more painful death, then crucifixion. Especially at that time now, add-on top of that that he was innocent. Then add-on top of that. That he was betrayed by one of his best friends. Now let's keep going. They released a criminal who deserved the sentence that he got knowing that the criminal was guilty. And that he was innocent.

And the people who did this to him they knew all this and We're the same people that he were helping and had welcomed him as king the week before and they were being manipulated by a tyrant who doubted truth, and Jesus was young. And now here are the parts that he doesn'mention, the very reason that he goes through this suffering, it's to save the people who are putting him through it from a worse kind of suffering that he himself has to experience. Which is the pouring out of the wrath of God and taking the sins of the world On his shoulders. So when we talk about whether our god can relate and understand our suffering, the answer is yes he can but actually, I think it's the other way around, I don't think we can understand his suffering. I'm going to read 2 verses about what he suffered.

The first actually comes from what we like to call the fifth gospel Isaiah 52:13-53:10 where he says 13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind— so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces. he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. And the second Psalm 22 1-21 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet— I can count all my bones— they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. Look at the way he puts that at the end oh, lord, do not be far off.Deliver my soul from the sword, and save me from the mouth of the lion.

Listening to that, that sounds pretty intense now I'm not saying all this to say that when you suffer that you should look to Jesus and just so you say, oh no, my suffering is nothing, because that's not the way God feels about it. God cares about even our earthly sufferings. He cares so much about our suffering that he came to save us from the ultimate suffering. But understand that no matter what suffering you're going through the God can relate, and he has compassion for all the suffering that we're going through and he wants to help us through it. And that leads us to the final question, what does God do with our suffering?

Does he just comfort us while we're going through it? Or like his own suffering, Does he use our suffering? Does he use it to do his will in the world and to bring us closer to him? As a matter of fact, that's exactly what he does. Remember, I think it was a little over a month ago. Now, when I preached my second sermon in colossians? Well, there was a verse in there that explained one of the ways that Christ uses our suffering to bring us closer to him. It was Colossians 1:25 where Paul says Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, i think of it this way when Christ came to Earth. He got to relate to us. Directly through the suffering that he experienced both on the way to and on the cross. And now, when we are outspreading his gospel, anytime we suffer in that process, we get to relate to him through that suffering. So that at least gives meaning to the suffering that we go through in the pursuit of Christ, but what about the suffering that we go through before we come to Christ? Or even just when we're not actively pursuing spreading the gospel well now i'm going to bring up one of the most famous bible verses that probably gets misquoted, not as in quoted the wrong way, but quoted at the wrong time In someone's life. You all know what it is i'll give you a hint.It's in romans. That's right Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Now people could argue that this verse also only applies 2 after you were saved, but, uh, I actually am gonna tell you guys a story that proves that utterly wrong as a matter of fact. This story touches on all parts of the subject that we have been going through today. So it was actually exactly fifteen years and one week ago today. My wife and I at the time, only had our older two children, and she was pregnant eight and a half months along with what was supposed to be our third child. I remember like it happened just yesterday. I was sitting in my living room playing video games with my Boulder, 2 kids Michael and Bianca and my wife to give some background my wife when she was pregnant with Michael and Bianca, she had something called prioclampsia, witch, cause an awful lot of stress and It actually caused her to have 2 Cesarean sections and have both Michael and Bianca early, so yeah, she was worried a lot of the time through this pregnancy. She would regularly go into the doctor's office to here. Dante's heartbeat to calm her nerves so much so that the doctors ended up telling her just anytime that you're worried, come right on up. And we'll let you hear his heartbeat without an appointment. So she came to me and said that she was worried something wasn't feeling right? And I told her I said, just go up and hear his heartbeat. And once you hear it, you know, you'll feel better and then just come home. I'll watch the kids. I'll play video games with them. We'll have fun and it was about a 1/2 hour later. Did I was sitting there playing video games with the kids and mind you? I expected her to just walk through the door at any moment. Saying, oh you know, I heard his heartbeat? Everything's fine and yeah, then the phone rang. And when the phone rang, I saw that it was the doctor's office and my heart literally sunk right through the floor. Because I knew she wouldn't be calling unless something was wrong. So I answered the phone and the panic in her voice was palpable, and she told me they couldn't find his heartbeat. So I immediately packed kids up, and we went up to the doctor's office and uh between the time of me leaving and getting there. They thought they found his heartbeat. Unfortunately, that was just the echo of her heartbeat. It's something that can happen apparently anyway so I will spare you the rest of the details of what happened thereafter, so needless to say had somebody walked up to me at anytime during that that I don't know, first year and read that verse from Romans, 828 out to me. They probably would have been visiting the ER themselves because during that suffering, I made all the wrong choices. I Was hurt terribly, of course, like, why wouldn't I be, but that hurt didn'come out right? It came out as anger. It came out as hate, and there was no one to hate or no 1 to be angry at because yeah, it was no 1's fault, it was just a terrible thing that happened and at the time remind you I wasn't a Christian. You know, I didn't know the things that I know now, right? And so I blamed the only person that I could think of that might have been responsible, I blamed god. So that obviously being the wrong choice led me. Down e terrible road, where I actually caused more suffering from my family. I became addicted to drugs for about 4 to 5 years. Almost, and there, it's only looking back that I can make these observations about what actually happened. If I look at myself before I lost Dante before my wife and I lost Dante, I was a prideful young man who thought I knew everything there's no way I would have heard gods voice. No matter how loud he screamed.

And and I know now that it wasn't God who took my son, it was the sinful world. The sinful fallen world that we humans caused , Me you Adam all of us, but despite that God used this suffering that I was going through to Bring my pride down to such a low place. He pretty much utterly destroyed it, where I could finally hear his voice now mind you, it took me another 7 years To actually fully hear what he was saying to me. I'm a little slow on the uptake as i have said before. But nonetheless, this is where it started. And the truth is, he still has been using it, he's been using it in so many ways ever since then, he's brought so much meaning and good from the most painful thing that's ever happened to my family And I. I mean, remember what I said Dante was supposed to be Our last child, Victor and Bella would never have been here. If we actually had him? I'm not saying that that's the reason that he passed. We already went through that, but it brings more meaning to his death. There's so many different things that I could point to That god has used for his glory and my good. especially my suffering. Even right now as i'm preaching the sermon, it's continuing to make his life and death, have more meaning. And remember what I said, it's only in retrospect that I noticed all this so if you're suffering through something and you can't point to any positive outcomes, or any perceived, meaning from what's happening to you it doesn'mean that gods not gonna use it.

I'm not making you any promises. I'm just telling you what it says in Gods word. And what I have seen in my own life, what happened to me? It's a perfect example of each one of the five points that we went through today 1 that the broken world is what causes our suffering 2. That god cares about our suffering 3. that god understands our suffering. and you might say, well, how can God understand the suffering of losing a child? Remember John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Right? I may have lost a son that I never met, but he gave a son that he always knew. And 4. That god uses our suffering for his glory and for our good. And 5. how are we supposed to feel about our suffering? And i'll tell you the way I felt back when this suffering happened. It was the exact opposite of how i should feel about the suffering i was going through. had I actually been in Christ at the time, when I went through this. I would have reacted completely differently I'm sure. not that there's any right way to react to when you lose a child. But. There is a better way than the way I reacted. So how should we feel towards suffering during our walk with christ. well there's a pretty obvious answer, if you look through scripture, actually we can look at James 1:2-4 where James says "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." And also 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 where Paul says "For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." So now, when I look at not just the death of my son, but the all the different ways that I've suffered in my life, I am guilty of not having this eternal mindset, it's mindset that this life is pretty much just a training ground for the life to come the truth is when I've suffered in the past. Over I treated this life like it was the only one I think it was the most important. And that's not the case. But not only are we called to endure our suffering, but to do it with joy, because it's what's growing, is closer to christ, and it's what's getting us ready for that ultimate life to come. You know, we always ask for an easy life. One without suffering, but the truth is, if we weren't to come up against the hardships of life, we would never grow. That's exactly what paul says in second corinthians, that this light momentary affliction, this is what's building us up getting us ready, making us more than we were before able to handle as he put it the weight of glory beyond all comparison, the way he makes it sound is as if we wouldn't be able to take that weight of glory, if we weren't put app against all these different hardships to grow through Christ, of course, because when we face hardships on our own, we dont grow in the way we are supposed to. I could tell you from my own experience that it was only after God intervened himself. That that hardship, the one I told you about, it actually caused me to grow in the right way. So in the end, we have a God who isn't responsible for but truly cares for and can truly understanding shares with us in and does great And amazing things with and gives meaning to and helps us to have the right outlook on our suffering. And if you're suffering today, without Christ, I invite you to not only take part in his suffering and to let him use yours, but it's even more than that suffering is only a little part of a huge picture of what it means to be a Son of God.

I'll end with this passage from Matthew 11:28-30 Where Jesus says "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”