Untitled Sermon (2)

My first real girlfriend was in 8th grade. It wasn’t much of a relationship, it lasted I think three months, as many young relationships do. I guess even that is kind of impressive for a junior high relationship…but I digress. I can still, to this day, remember the heartbreak when that first relationship ended. How many of you still remember that first heartbreak? The first time it hits you, it’s hard to cope with because it’s a completely new experience. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why God would allow such a thing to happen.

This is a question that, I think, many of us find ourselves asking at least at some point in our lives. To be sure, the story I briefly shared with you-the ending of a junior high relationship- is a relatively minor example of heartbreak in the grand scheme of things, but I think it’s one that many can relate to. Of course, the more serious evils of this world are on full display, and we are all too aware of them.

War rages on across the globe, primarily focused in Asia and Africa, but some are occurring here in the West. Our nation is a major participant and instigator in at least two of those wars. 795 million people are starving around the world, with 50 million in the US struggling to put food on the table on a regular basis. In our own country racial division, income inequality, and so on. On a personal level, many of us know in our own lives people fighting cancer or other illness; many of us have known financial struggles; nearly all of us have wrestled with broken relationships. I could go on and on listing the evils and brokenness of the world around us, but I would be here all day.

And so we may be asking ourselves: “Why does God allow these things to happen?” Put more pointedly, “if there exists a loving and good God, why is there so much evil in this world?” I’ve been thinking about this problem for the last 15 years. In seminary, I took every class I could in theology and ethics, in part to see if I could find an answer to this problem. I’ve read books, I’ve argued with God, and I’ve wept and prayed over the brokenness of the world. I’m here to share with you the fruits of the last 15 years…I don’t know.

What I mean is…I’ve never come to a completely satisfactory answer. I think we have some big pieces to a puzzle that’s too big for us to piece together. The pieces we do have, however, are important ones.

Perhaps the most important piece is the story of Joseph. Joseph, inheritor of God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is accosted by his jealous brothers and thrown into a well. Joseph, favorite son of his father, is sold into slavery. Joseph, the dreamer and interpreter of dreams is falsely accused and thrown into prison. That’s a whole lot of misfortune in one short life. I’m sure Joseph, inheritor of the promise, spent a lot of time wondering why God would let this happen to him.

Yet, through this series of unfortunate events, Joseph rises to become Pharaoh’s right-hand man. Through this series of unfortunate events, Joseph is guided by God to a position where he is able to save thousands of lives through his wise administration. It all comes together when Joseph’s brothers, themselves encountering famine in the land of their father, come to Egypt to get grain.

They come to Joseph not recognizing him, asking him to sell them grain so they don’t starve. Joseph tricks them into bringing Jacob, in his old age, to Egypt. When Joseph sees his father, he can’t hold it back anymore and reveals himself to be Joseph. His father, happy to see the son he long thought dead one more time, dies happily. Their brothers come to him, begging for forgiveness, and his response is the moment his whole story hinges upon: “though you intended to do harm to me, God intended good.”

This is one of the most important pieces to solving the question of evil. God turns evil to good. I’m going to try to keep this from becoming a theology lecture, but we as followers of Christ walk a thin line between two seemingly contradictory statements: God is sovereign, which means that nothing happens without God’s permission; and God is not the author of evil, which means that God does not cause evil things to happen. Again, without turning it into a theology lecture, I will say this: because of the way God chooses to use God’s power, God allows what we perceive as evil to happen for God’s good purposes. In other words, God turns evil to good. As Joseph said with regard to his own story: “While you intended to do me harm, God intended it for good.”

Consider the greater story of Scripture. In , we’re told that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of thw waters. What it really says is that the Holy Spirit hovered over chaos, and through the power of God’s spoken Word shaped chaos into order. From Genesis to Revelation, God wrangles chaos. From the very beginning, God was wrestling chaos, wrestling evil, and turning it to good. From the very beginning, and the book of Revelation (I know we’re not there yet! We’re not even done with Genesis!) shows ultimately that in the end all things will turn towards Good.

Consider Joseph’s story, where the full brokenness of humanity is on display. This was not a few bad things that happened to him, but an enormous amount of pain and suffering over the course of 30, 40, or even 50 years. He was beaten, thrown into a dry well, and sold into slavery (a better outcome than being killed outright, which was the original intention). In slavery, he excelled in his position until he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. In prison, he gained favor until he was eventually placed at the right hand of Pharaoh himself. Decades of unfortunate events, with God working behind the scenes and turning evil to good; we see it at every step, leading up to Joseph using the wisdom imparted by God to store away food for seven years so that many may be saved in time of famine. Not only does God save an entire nation through lifting Joseph up through the evils in his life, but Joseph himself grew from the arrogant, spoiled favorite son to a wise and humble (if still mischievous) man. God turned evil to good, on an individual and national level.

God doesn’t cause evil, but god uses evil

God doesn’t need evil, but god uses it when present

God is so powerful god turns evil to good

God wrangles evil and chaos

Evil into good

girlfriend

jesus

at the right time

freedom

God’s power to turn evil into good is freedom

This is the freedom Christ gives us

God is our reeemer, and God redeems everything

Maybe God is waiting to use us

Necessary evils