Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Introduction:

Well, good evening, NEAR NORTH!

My name’s Dan Osborn, the campus pastor for the Saturday Night community here at Park.

Well, good evening, NEAR NORTH!

My name’s Dan Osborn, the campus pastor for the Saturday Night community here at Park.

Texting Setup.

May of 2015 was one of the best months of my life.

Courtney and I had just moved in to a new apartment in Bridgeport, I had just gotten hired here at Park, and we found out that Courtney was pregnant.

And I know it’s a bit cliche, but when I found out we were going to have a baby, in the SAME moment, I was unbelievably excited to be a dad…and utterly terrified about being a parent.

And so we waited a little to say anything to our families about it, and after a couple weeks, we had an appointment at the doctor to check in on our baby…to make sure the hormone levels were right…and that everything else was on track.

And I remember vividly, the nurse explaining to us that we would need to come back in a few days because she wasn’t seeing what she needed to see with the ultrasound…but that maybe it was still just a little too early.

For the next 4 weeks, we were going into the doctors office every few days so they could check Court’s levels again…and see if there was progress.

And we’d get really good news—that things were looking better, and then at the next visit, not-so-good news.

Courtney was definitely pregnant…but the doctor couldn’t find our baby’s heart beat.

In July of that year, we lost our baby through a miscarriage.

And the pain of that moment was so deep.

When it happened, I remember Courtney and I just sitting together—weeping.

And for many months—after that, I would walk in on Courtney crying as she was thinking about it.

And there was this strange mix of emotions for us as we were heart-broken..confused…and even angry.

I was confused and angry at God…because I wanted to know WHY this happened.

I wanted to know HOW he could let this happen.

Tonight we’re looking at one of the biggest, and maybe most painful questions people have about Christianity and faith in God.

“If God is good, then why do bad things happen.”

If God is good, why do bad things still happen?

For many of you, this question is hard…isn’t it?

Because there is something going on in your life that you are trying to make sense of.

You’re trying reconcile why a God who says he loves you would let you have Cancer…would not let you have kids…would let you watch a loved one die…or how a good God would allow endless gun violence in Chicago to simply continue…or let the terror in places like Syria go on…to allow a tsunami or hurricane or earthquake take thousands and thousands of lives!

How do we make sense of that, right?

And so you are asking this question because you have a painfully familiar and personal question…

If God is good…why do bad things still happen?

And I would suggest this is profoundly important for all of us to wrestle with it…because the reality is, how we make sense of suffering says a lot about how we view God and it makes a HUGE difference for how we endure through suffering.

Let me say that again…how we make sense of suffering…how we understand it…how we explain it…how we process it, makes a HUGE difference in how we endure through suffering.

So, we’re going to look at a story in the Old Testament that is asking the same question.

We’ll look at the book of Job in the Old Testament.

And as we’re looking at Job’s story we’re going see four truths…four ‘reminders’…that help us begin to make sense of suffering.

Because how we make sense of suffering makes a HUGE difference for how we endure through suffering.

And when we do this we’re going to get some clarity around the answer to our question tonight…If God is good, then why do bad things still happen?

Sound good?

Okay!

If you have a bible, would you open with me to the book of Job.

It starts on page, 417, if you have one of the house bibles.

If you need a bible, you can go ahead and raise your hand and we’ll get one to you.

Let me pray and we’ll get started.

Pray

Reminder # 1: We live in a broken world where suffering is a reality.

Broken World

In this first section of Job, we’re given the first reminder that will begin help us make sense of suffering so that we can endure through suffering…Here it is: we live in a broken world where suffering is a reality.

Look with me at v.1.

“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”

Job was a good man.

On top of this, Job was incredibly blessed by God with all that he had.

10 grown children…thousands and thousands of livestock, and enough workers to care for all of them.

Job was a good man living the good life.

But his life begins to radically unravel in v. 13…where everything good in Job's life comes undone.

One day, one of Job’s servant frantically comes up to him explaining that he had just come from the fields where he was working and another group of people had come through—killed all the servants and stole all his donkey’s and oxen.

And while he’s being told this, another worker comes up and tells him that another group has raided his fields, killed his workers, and stole his livestock.

This is everything Job owns.

Gone.

Put this in our world for a moment…his investments have failed.

His accounts have been emptied…his life’s work…gone.

What would it feel like to have every single safety-net pulled right out from under you all in a matter of minutes?

What would you be feeling?

What kind of panic would crash over you in this moment?

In a matter of moments, Job goes from having everything to having nothing.

And while he’s thinking through what’s happened, Job see’s one more worker running over to him.

He recognizes this one.

This worker came from the house where his son’s and daughters were.

And he begins to tell Job, that while his kids were having dinner, the house collapsed…and none of them survived.

And if that were’t enough, then Job loses his health as his body is covered with sores.

Three of Job’s friends heard about what happened to him and so they came to be with their friend.. Look with me at chapter 2:12, “But when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him.

And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.

And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”

Suffering is a Reality

Now, I know we can’t all fully resonate with everything Job experienced, right?

But every single one of us has seen real suffering at some point in our lives…whether it happened to us or around us…

But that brings us right back to our question, doesn’t it?

If God is good, why do bad things happen…Why is suffering a part of life at all?

In the book of Genesis, we’re given some clarity for why we experience evil and suffering.

In , Adam and Eve, the first people God created were in a garden.

They were given freedom to do what they wanted…but they chose to ignore what God commanded…and were disobedient.

And in the storyline of the bible, Adam and Eve’s choice to go against God, sets off a trajectory in the human experience so that we are now all affected by what they did.

But here’s the thing, this is not how God created the world to be…so it might even be helpful to view it this way…as a result of Adam and Eve, the world we now live in is a broken world…and suffering is a part of that brokenness.

Why am I telling you this?

Because when we understand that we live in a broken world…that this isn’t the way things are supposed to be…we can begin make sense of suffering!

And, this is the first thing we need to remind ourselves when we ask the question, If God is good, why do bad things happen?

That we live in a broken world, and so suffering is a reality.

It’s the reason Job experienced suffering…it is the reason we experience suffering…We live in a broken world, and so suffering is a reality!

Reminder # 2: We won’t always know WHY we experience suffering.

But the story of Job continues.

And it’s in this next section of Job’ story that we’re given the second reminder that will help us make sense of suffering so that we can endure through suffering…Here it is: we won’t always know WHY we experience suffering.

Much of what follows this first part of Job’s story is this long conversation that Job has with his three friends as they start looking for an explanation.

Look with me at , starting at v. 1, “After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

And Job said: “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’”

Job starts with mourning over what’s happened to him…and really says that the pain he feels is so deep, that he wished he had never been born!

And as he continues to talk with his friends, over the next 35 chapters, Job says he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong…so he can’t really make sense of what’ happened to him!

But his friends, subtly at first, explain that Job must have done something to anger God…otherwise, in their minds, these things wouldn’t have happened to him!

And so they spend a long time going back and forth with each other over this…And eventually Job gets to the point where demands that God either explain why all of these things have happened or just take his life because none of it makes any sense.

And you can feel the tension rise in Job’s questions as he cries out to God, with the resounding question WHY?! WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME? Friends, it’s the same question you and I have!

GOD, WHY DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?