• Where Is The Church When It Hurts?

  Contributed by Sermon Central on May 13, 2012 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  Matthew 14:22-36

  Tags:  Comfort

WHERE IS THE CHURCH WHEN IT HURTS?

Where is God in the midst of the storm? One author answered that question with this incident: "In Washington and Chicago, as I talked about the special edition of Where Is God When It Hurts?, inevitably the interviewer would turn the question back on me. 'Well, where is God at a time like this?' Sometimes I countered some of the harmful things other Christian spokesmen had said, bringing guilt and judgment to a time that begged for comfort and grace. I talked of Jesus’ response to tragedies, especially in Luke 13.

"And then I told of a man who came up to me one time and said, 'Sorry, I don’t have time to read your book. Can you just answer that question for me in a sentence or two?' I thought for a moment and said, 'I guess the answer to that question is another question. Where is the church when it hurts? If the church is doing its job—binding wounds, comforting the grieving, offering food to the hungry—I don’t think people will wonder so much where God is when it hurts. They’ll know where God is: in the presence of his people on earth.'"

[Philip Yancey from ChristianityToday.com, From a sermon by Matthew Kratz, That Sinking Feeling, 9/10/2011]