Why Suffering
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PRAY
It’s often said that only 2 things are certain in this life.
Death and taxes!
But something else is certain:
and that’s Suffering.
When we took to the streets of Worcester Park and asked:
‘If you could ask God one question, what would it be?’
About 70% of the answers were related to suffering.
Why is there so much violence?
- Why is there famine?
- Why hasn’t anyone got rid of cancer?
- Why is there disease?
or more personally,
- Why unfair poverty?
- Why did my husband die at 31?
- Why is my good husband suffering?
- Why is life so difficult?
- Why don’t you put a stop to all the wars?
- Why are there evil people here in this world?
- What purpose is there in suffering?
- What purpose is there in suffering?
- What purpose is there in suffering?
- Is my hip going to get better?
- Why couldn’t I get pregnant?
- Why don’t you stop all the suffering?
- Why do I have a disability?
- Why is life so difficult?
- Why do you allow so much trouble?
Sunday, 3 February 2019
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2. Questions about war and peace...
- Why are all these people getting killed in wars - Why don’t we have peace in this world?
- Can there be peace?
- Why don’t you put a stop to all the wars?
3. Questions about God...
- Is nature God?
- Who are you?
- Who am I?
- Are you there?
- Why is there so much conflict over religion?
- Do you exist?
- How can you answer some people’s prayers but not others?
- What do you look like?
Even those wanting to give an amusing answer to us were related to suffering:
Sunday, 3 February 2019
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4. Questions...why is God so unfair...i.e. I don’t get what I want?
- Why is there so much traffic?
- Why isn’t everyone equal?
- Why is the traffic so bad on Worcester Park High Street?
- Why couldn’t I get pregnant?
- Why is it that good people seem to be taken away from us?
5. Questions about the after life...
- What is the after life going to be like?
- Are you sure there is a Heaven?
- Will he try to keep us all alive?
- Where are people whom I love going to go when they die?
6. Miscellaneous...social/ cultural/ religious/ political
- Can you sort out Brexit in our favour?
- Was God having a laugh when he made Nigel Farage?
- Why is the traffic so bad on Worcester Park High Street?
- Is it going to rain on Monday?
- Why Brexit?
Suffering is a universal human experience.
Although it goes without saying that some do suffer far more that others.
what one person perceive as unbearable suffering will be insignificant to another.
Often this will be relative to the amount of suffering someone undergoes, or the cultural context we live or grow up in.
Despite it’s relative affect on us, it goes without saying that some do suffer far more that others.
The causes of suffering can be varied and vast,
disease,
natural disasters,
other peoples behaviour,
accidents,
the consequences to mistakes,
emotional traumas,
consequences to mistakes, emotional traumas, and so the list goes on.
and so the list goes on.
What is clear, is that suffering is a very real and painful reality for humanity.
But what is clear, is that suffering is a very real and painful reality for us all.
So we do want to ask God,
Why Suffering?
Why Suffering?
I’d like to propose 3 ways in which the bible helps us understand why God allows suffering in our world today.
1.Suffering shows us Who we are
1.Suffering shows us Who we are
For a moment imagine suffering was non-existant,
imagine the extraordinary selfishness and power that we would try and draw to ourselves.
Think about what limits or controls our behaviour.
Becasue if there was no fear of bringing suffering on oursleeves or others whatever we did,
then we would become really quite horendous people.
Think about what limits or controls our behaviour.
If there was no risk of causing suffering then image how fast we would drive our cars on residential roads!
The reason we don’t is that on the whole we’re afraid of hurting someone or ourselves.
We would steal from shops to have the best clothes or the latest gadgets if there was no fear of suffering,
becasue no fear of suffering means no consequences that we don’t like.
No police then to stop us,
no justice system to punish people.
In fact there would be no sense of wrong and right at all really.
War is only a problem becasue it bring suffering,
otherwise there is no real issue is there?
I can invade my neighbours house and take it for my own becasue it would cause no harm or suffering to him.
Of course this is all a nonsense,
becasue it stands to reason that the world cannot be like that.
If invade my neighbours house they will have to suffer,
they’ll have to invade someone else's and so on a so forth.
My point is this.
Suffering shows us who we are.
If humanity was totally and utterly and perfectly loving,
then there would be no need for most suffering.
I wouldn’t even consider doing anything that harms or upsets another person.
I wouldn’t argue with my wife,
get fed up with a parent,
bend the tax laws,
or take too many pencils from the stationary cupboard at work.
I’d never lie,
never say a word that offends another,
and so on and so forth.
But becasue we are all prone to push the boundries,
break the rules,
be a little or a lot selfish,
we do bring about suffering.
However small or large,
suffering shows us who we are.
Suffering is a by-product of an unloving humanity.
From the Hitlers of the world right up to the Ghandi’s of the world.
We all cause suffering in some way, at some level, at some time to others and ourselves.
That’s what the bible reading we had is all about.
In Isaiah, God is addressing the Israelites hundreds of years ago,
speaking through a prophet.
Did you hear what God was saying,
he was rebuking the Israelites for not being perfectly loving and obedient to the good moral law of God.
42v20-21
You have seen many things, but have paid no attention;
your ears are open, but you hear nothing.”
It pleased the Lord
for the sake of his righteousness
to make his law great and glorious.
is 42 20-
You have seen many things, but have paid no attention;
your ears are open, but you hear nothing.”
God’s perfect and glorious law, his design for the world we all live in,
His plan for a world without any suffering is great and glorious.
That’s what makes God happy, pleased,
That is what is right in his eyes.
But the Israelites have ears and eyes, but do not hear or see.
They aren’t obeying God’s perfectly loving standard,
And as a result, they will suffer.
But this is a people plundered and looted,
all of them trapped in pits
or hidden away in prisons.
They have become plunder,
with no-one to rescue them;
they have been made loot,
with no-one to say, “Send them back.”
is 42 22-
To not live up to God’s perfect and glorious and loving standards is to hand ourselves over to being plunder and loot,
we belong now to suffering.
We are trapped in pits.
It really is common sense isn’t it.
If I tell a lie, I’m likely to cause suffering to the person I lie too,
and then that causes our relationship to suffer as well, and so on and so forth.
I’m stuck in a pit.
Of course I’ll try not to lie again,
but as you will know from your own life,
however hard we try to live lovingly towards everyone else, we always fail.
Suffering shows us who we are.
Suffering shows us who we are.
However hard we try, we can’t always live perfectly and lovingly towards all others.
And that result in suffering.
But a little bit more is going on here than just interpersonal human relationship.
We’ll call them horizont
What about disease and human distaster.
What about suffering that is not related to somethng we have done,
or even that someone else has done?
The real the problem behind who we are,
is not actually how we treat one another,
but how we treat God.
You see, we only understand that suffering is bad and that love is good, becasue God made us that way.
When Jesus was asked to summarise the ‘law’ of God - the great and glourious law’ we heard about in Isaiah
So when we see His loving standards written down for us in the bible, we instictively know it to be right.
They are all through the bible, but let’s take the most basic summary of the good law of God.
In the OT we are given the 10 commandment,
10 OCMMANDMENTS - moral ones\
I dare asy if we lived by these then there would be a fairly suffering free world.
But we’re forggeting the most important commandmment.
Jesus said
the comandment that even that inbuilt maral compas we all have inside relies on is.
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
matt 22 37-
Love the Lord Your God with all your heart soul and mind.
The real problem behind who we are,
is not just that we don’t act perfectly lovingly towards each other,
it’s that we don’t perfectly love God with our heart, soul and mind!
And so suffering is not just a result of our actions against each other,
Suffering is now a result of our failure to love God.
And so, God also inflicts suffering upon humanity.
is 42 24
you cannot really have ‘no suffering unless humnaity was perfect - equally, suffering shows the world that humnaity is not the ulitmate answwr to everything. We cannont acheive anything we want, do anything we want, have anythign we want.
Becasue we have demanded it by our rebelion, rejection, or even just our ignorance of him.
For that will result in sufering.
have look at 42v24-25
It’s a visiouse circle.
Who handed Jacob over to become loot,
and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the Lord,
against whom we have sinned?
For they would not follow his ways;
they did not obey his law.
So he poured out on them his burning anger,
the violence of war.
It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand;
it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.
If suffering shows us anything, it is that humanity is not the be all and end all, the ulitmate, the hope, the peace. None of that is actually possibel with humanity. Suffering shows us we are limited.
Suffering exists in the world not becasue God cannot control it,
Not becasue God doesn’t exist,
And dare I say, God delivers suffering to show us the same thing. All suffering is a result of human sin and selfishness, but it is not all a direct result of a speciifc action.
But because it is the natural result of who we are as humanity.
In other words, we deserve it.
Suffering shows us who we are!
The Israelites were given over to suffering,
by God himself, becasue they continuously refused to follow his glorious and loving rule and law.
That’s what the word sin means
- any action that is not perfectly loving towards God.
Why Suffering, we ask God?
And as a result of all of humanity having sin in their lives,
Becasue humanity is sinful.
God hands us over to what is a logical consequence to our desire.
God wants a gloruious and perfect loving world,
but we just can’t and wont live lives that love Him with our hearts souls and minds
and love each other as we would love ourselves.
So you are not suffering with cancer, or you didn’t loose a loved one, or you didn’t loose your job becasue you did a speciifc thing that deserved that specific suffering. (although some suffering we all can see is a direct consequence of our actions)
No.
No.
Suffering is a much bigger pandemic that exists becasue we logically deserve and demand suffering in the world becasue of how we want and do act.
We have refused the God who loves us and wants a perfect world,
and so he gives us what we want.
In fact suffering is a sure sign that God is very much real and present.
1 - Suffering Shows Us Who We Are
1 - Suffering Shows Us Who We Are
A humanity that has turned our backs on the truth, righteousness and glory of God and his ways.
God is not mean and unloving
The second thing suffering does is:
Why suffering, but what shoudl we do about suffering?
2.Suffering shows Us we need help
2.Suffering shows Us we need help
A sheep will wander around a mountain side looking for grass.
It’s quite happy, doesn’t really need a shepherd.
That is until suffering comes.
It falls into a steep ditch or ravine.
Or the grass has run out and hunger sets in.
Suffering for the sheep not only shows the sheep who he really is, - ‘not very clever in the grande scheme of things’
But Suffering also casues the sheep to cry out for help.
Baaaaaaaaa! Heeeeelp.
Baaaaaaaaa!
Of course the sheep doesn’t really know who he’s calling to?
Another sheep comes by,
Baaaaaa,
But the other sheep can’t help - infact he’s more interested in himself anyway.
A group of sheep come by,
And to make themselves feel better they devise a plan to rescue the sheep involving great theories and plans.
They try and try and often think they have made great progress,
celebratory Baaa’s all around.
But as time goes on they all find themsleves in the pit, for different reasons.
But as time goes on they all find themsleves in the pit, so they convince themselves they are fine just as they are.
They are all stuck in a much bigger ravine.
Baaaa they now all cry.
You see if we faced no trials,
no suffering in this world, would we ever recognise we needed help from God?
To a shepherd who is always ready?
No-one calls for help unless they realise they need help!
We go to the doctors when we develop symptoms of something more serious don’t we.
We go to the doctors when we are ill,
Otherwise, we’d carry on without help.
fhwie
In fact I’m sure most doctors would prefer more severe symptoms were present for some diseases.
So the patient suffered more and came for help sooner.
Would we think a doctor who thought like that was mean and horrible?
No,
we would know the doctor is being loving and kind in wishing we had severe symptoms sooner,
so we were able to address the real issue.
And so it is with God.
have a look at our passage again.
42v25
So he poured out on them his burning anger,
the violence of war.
It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand;
it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.
Don’t mistake suffering for God out of control.
Understand that suffering is a loving God showing us that he cares.
The Israelites faced war and defeat not becasue God hated them, but becasue he loved them.
He wanted them to ‘understnad’,
he wanted them to ‘take it to heart’.
In other words to realise that we need to cry out to God for help in this life.
He created all things, he created you and me,
And he loves his creation enough to shock us through the symptoms of suffering to crying out to him.
And he is the shepherd, the good doctor who hears us when we cry out.
Lord help us,
Lord God, forgive us,
Lord God rescue us.
Suffering is a result of our sin in the world,
It shows us who we are.
We also now know that suffering is allowed and even caused by God in his love to get us to cry out for help.
And so finally,
As the world faces suffering, and so many cry out, all of us at some or many stages of our lives, we may not know who we are calling out to.
the logical question is, is God going to help us?
3 - Suffering Shows Us the Saving Grace of God.
3 - Suffering Shows Us the Saving Grace of God.
Go is a shepherd listening out for our cry.
The questions is,
Are we willing to accept that it is God Almighty from whom we need help.
Suffering is an unavoidable byproduct of human sinfulness.
It shows us who we really are.
Suffering ulimately shows us our limitations in salavtion.
We cannot do anythhing/everything becasue even if we get close we still die! We can do nothing to save ourselves. But worse, we canont save oursleves from God’s wrath at our anything adn everything attitude.
Suffering then ought to casue us to cry out for help from God.
He’s the only one able to save us.
But save us from what?
Heals us from all disease,
gives us money when we’re poor,
raises our loved ones back to life?
Surely experience tells us that’s not the case for anyone - even if we are true Christians.
No, he saves us from something ..bigger, something ..eternal.
The bible is very clear that we are eternal beings.
We have a consciousness a spirit that lives on,
that is more than just chemical brain processes that die when our bodies do.
No, we were created by and for the Almighty God, for all eternity.
So when he speaks of rescueing us,
he’s got something far grander,
far more miraculous,
But now, this is what the Lord says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush and Seba in your stead.
isa 43 1-
far more extraordinary than miracles of healing, or prosperity, or temporary happiness.
Have a look at 43v1-2
But now, this is what the Lord says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
Does that mean the Israelites could never drown,
or get swept away by rivers,
or get burned by fire?
Of course not -
God’s point and love is far more significant that that!
I have ‘redeemed you’ he says to Israel.
I’ve bought you at a price
- despite who you are, despite your sin!
That price God paid was Jesus,
God’s own beloved son.
The Israelites would have to wait a few hundred years to see how God would keep his promises to them.
For many would have died by fire or water,
But God’ promise to always be with them,
to not let the fire be their eternal end,
well that would be made possible in Jesus.
Jesus paid the price we ought to have paid.
Our sin, that brings suffering,
That God rightly cannot tolerate in his world forever,
will all one day have to be judged by Him.
And we will be found guilty.
Sentenced to an eternity of suffering without God’s love.
That is why to experience suffering in this world is not God being mean or harsh.
He’s the loving doctor that ensures we experience the painful symptoms of a far greater problem before it’s too late.
He is allowing us to experience a foretaste of an eternity without him,
In order that we might cry out to him,
In order that we might find his saving grace.
So if we do cry out to God, then he ‘redeems us’.
He buys us by the blood of Jesus.
The NT puts it like this in Romans 5v8-9
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
3.Suffering Shows Us the Saving Grace of God
3.Suffering Shows Us the Saving Grace of God
Jesus suffered the ultimate punishment form God,
Jesus suffered the ultimate punishment form God,
he died on the cross so that we don’t have to be separated from the God of Love,
he died on the cross so that we don’t have to be separated from the God of Love,
The suffering in the world shouts out to us
- God can save you from real and eternal suffering
- nothing and no-one else can.
Cry out to God,
Ask for his help and rescue through the death and resurection of Jesus.
And he will free you from eternal suffering,
And even now
- when you face terrible suffering,
you no longer live in fear and despair,
For the Christian has eternal hope,
We have the god of the universe with us in the flood waters of life.
We have Jesus our brother, our friend, our saviour,
Who suffered far more than we ever will for the sake of loving us.
We have hope,
We have peace in our hearts,
We have been adopted into God’s family,
A church family to belong to now,
God’s spirirt of reconciliation and peace in our hearts,
We are blameslss and holy now in God’s sight,
Oh the glorious joy of God’s grace,
That he saves us in Jesus,
Paid our price,
Suffered so that we in eternity no longer have to,
If we cry out to God, to the Lord Jesus to rescue us,
We belong to an eternity to with no suffering whatsoever,
With Jesus as our Loving Lord and King.
‘Why suffering’ we ask?
Well God would perhaps simply say,
Becasue I love you, and I want you to know ‘who you are’
I want you call to me for help,
And I want you to see and accept my saving grace in Jesus for all eternity.
Without symptoms of illness - we’d never realise we needed a doctor until it was too late.
Without suffering, we would never know we needed God, before it was too late.
Pray
But he heart of God’s inclusion of suffering on the world is truly revealed in his Grace.
We are limited, flawed, unable to save our selves.
We are left with no other choice but to reach out to God.
And he is only too delighted to welcome his children home.
- How do I talk to you?
- Why did he make everyone different colours? - What is the meaning of life?
- How would you prepare your siblings/ children for life?
- What are the origins of the testaments?
- Can you sort Britain out please?
- Why don’t the different gods take to sort out religious difference?
Sunday, 3 February 2019
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- How do I talk to you?
- Why did he make everyone different colours? - What is the meaning of life?