Sermon Tone Analysis

We seem to have hit a stall as we are making our way the study of various Biblical Doctrines, for the last 3 weeks we have studied ‘prayer.’

Tonight we are going to complete the study of prayer.

I pray that when I preach it is not just knowledge or history but it is power from God that applies to our lives from the moment we walk out of this building.

With that in mind, I am constantly reminded that: People are hurting.

I look out here tonight and there are so many difficult situations that many of you have taken the time to share with me, and to share with our church family, and no doubt there are multitudes of others that have never been mentioned.

How do we deal with the negativity and the evil in the world?

· How do we deal with it when we are diagnosed with a serious illness that has no cure?

· How do we deal with it when a loved one calls and says that they have cancer and have 6 months?

· How do we deal with an accident that places a loved one in the hospital?

· How do we deal with a Hurricane that we see coming bringing disaster?

· How do we deal with death?

As Christians how do we come to reconcile the fact that we serve a God who is ‘all powerful’, ‘all loving’, and yet there are terrible things that happen in our world?

It’s a question that has been asked all throughout history, the question of “Theodicy.”

“If God is all powerful and if God is all loving then why does He allow this to happen in my life?” the assumption is that the Deity “Could” if the Deity “Would.”

Simply eliminate suffering.

Atheists will spout this off as a reason they don’t believe in God:

If God is unable to prevent evil, he is not omnipotent If God is not willing to prevent evil, he is not good If God is willing and able to prevent evil, then why is there evil?

With the question put in this way there is no satisfactory way of addressing it.

Most likely everyone here has asked this question at one point in their life?

There have been various attempts to answer the question:

· Augustine—the problem of evil must be seen against the background of the goal of every Christian, which is ‘the attainment of blessedness.’

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 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.

· Free will defense- evil and suffering exist because of the misuse of creaturely freedom.

God willed that we be creatures who would serve God out of choice, but as such we can also use our freedom to reject God’s authority.

God could not create us free beings who would always use our freedom for good.

At the risk of creating humans morally free there was the possibility that they would fall, and this is where evil began.

We are responsible for the evil and its consequences, God is blameless.

· Douglas Hall-“Suffering is intrinsic to our existence” Adam was created alone so that he could discover in the midst of the goodness of creation that it is not good to be alone.

Without the capacity for this recognition, how could we ever learn the joy of human fellowship?

Without suffering we would never truly understand love.

Without pain we would never truly understand compassion

Our suffering also derives from out necessary experience of limits.

We are not big enough or strong enough or wise enough or old enough or young enough, agile enough or versatile enough.

But without limits we would not know the meaning of creature.

You can look at philosophical approaches all day if you would like but the truth is while they may offer insights, for most they do not answer the question and they certainly do not take away the pain.

· Hauerwas- comes to the conclusion that There is no point to suffering and to go around with pious answers of suffering defeats the purpose.

Tim and Penny lost their son to Leukemia, they had worked through all the false reasons others had offered to explain why Jeremy was suffering- so they could grow spiritually; so that God could be glorified; so that their values would be made more Christ-like; so that love and community would be fostered among believers; so that they would know how to help others who suffer- all of which make God the ultimate sadist.“When

Tim and I realized that God wasn’t pulling strings to allow suffering in the life of Jeremy, specifically, we were freed to really love God.

Suffering is a result of the world we live in, God isn’t doing it

As these questions come up, we realize that in many aspects the church is in denial.

We sweep things under the rug and pretend they are not going on.

We talk a great deal about the power of faith.

We talk a great deal about the power of prayer.

Yet, the truth of the matter is that sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayers the way that we wish that he would.

Illustration: Hospital rooms, Prayer services

The Bible is full (around 65) of psalms that are songs of lament, protest, and complaint about the incoherence that is experienced in the world.

At least it is clear that a church that goes on singing “happy songs” in the face of raw reality is doing something very different from what the Bible itself does.

We have thought that acknowledgment of negativity was somehow an act of unfaith.

As though the very speech about it conceded too much about God’s ‘loss of control.”

We might think that these “Psalms of lament” may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith and failure, but for the trusting community their use is an act of bold faith albeit a transformed faith.

It is an act of bold faith on the one hand, because it insists that the world must be experienced as it really is and not in some pretended way.

On the other hand, it is bold because it insists that all experiences of disorder are a proper subject for discourse with God.

There is nothing out of bounds, nothing precluded or inappropriate.

Everything properly belongs in this conversation of the heart.

To withhold parts of life from the conversation is in fact to withhold part of life from the sovereignty of God.

Thus these psalms make the important connection: everything must be brought to speech and everything brought to speech must be addressed to God, who is the final reference for all of life.”

Times happen in life when we feel as though we have no idea who God is.

We have all gone through times in our lives when we pray for something that is so important to us, yet it seems as though our prayers do not get past the ceiling.

· Health of a loved one

· Something we long for with all of our hearts

· Something we feel that we need so bad

We pray and we try to live our lives to bring honor to God, but when the answer is either “no”, or “not now” it can be a very frustrating time.

We Have spent the last two weeks looking at the pattern of Prayer by Jesus, now I want to give you an example of Prayer by Jesus:

“Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.

On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation."

41He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.

And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow.

"Why are you sleeping?" he asked them.

"Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."

; ;

1. DESPERATE TIMES WILL COME

You may be here tonight and you may be on top of the world everything is going great; desperate times will come.

You may be here tonight and your entire world is crashing down all around you, you’re angry, you don’t understand, and you don’t know where to go from here; desperate times have come

No matter who you are tonight, desperate times will come.

It’s not limited to:

· The poor; The rich; The whites; The blacks; The car you drive; The house you live in

Each one of us will find a time when we are desperate.

Despite the fact that you may be doing everything right, desperate times will come.

Understand this: The fact that these desperate times come does not indicate that you brought them upon yourself.

Every act of suffering is not an indication of punishment!

In the case of Jesus- he did nothing wrong!

Illustration: What have I done, Why me, Why do I deserve this?

· Why are my parents divorced?

· Why do I have this sickness?

· Why won’t this happen?

· Why can’t I get this job?

“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

“

Jews generally believed in a direct cause and effect relationship between suffering and sin.

Jesus acknowledges the possibility that suffering may be the direct result of sin () but he denies that is always the case.

Prosperity Gospel Preaching!

“Love Jesus and you’ll be healthy and wealthy”

Paul in is a wonderful example of this being false.

Are they Hebrews?

So am I. Are they Israelites?

So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham?

So am I. Are they servants of Christ?

I am a better one

Paul says, in the eyes of the world I have done everything right, I am a religious, I am from a good family.

But let me tell you a little about my fairytale life: