So hey there, so good to see you, welcome to this place that we call DCC, and before we say anything else, happy Mother’s Day to you. If you are a mom would you please stand? We want to appreciate you today. Let’s give it up for all of these awesome women in our lives. Okay, so moms stay standing and now if you are a female of any age mom or not would you stand and join these moms. Here is why we always do this, because I know that every one of the mom’s standing right now and all of the rest of us in the room too want you to know that you are not less than because you are not a mom. So please stand up, I want to pray for all of the ladies in the room.
PRAYER: Thank you for mom’s, mother’s to be, want to be mom’s, women who have lost children, suffered miscarriages, struggled with fertility, are trying to adopt, stepmothers, foster mothers. Those of us who have lost mothers. Never knew our mothers or had less than desirable experiences with our mothers. Amen.
You can be seated. Okay, so here we are today continuing on in this series we are in called Distortion, trying our best to clear up this distorted image that in one way or another we all have of God so that we can see him and understand him as he really is. But before we jump back into that we want to make sure that we say hello and welcome to you if you are brand new. We want you to know not only that it is a big deal that you are taking a chance on us today, you also need to know that all of your story is safe and welcome here with us regardless of how it reads, you belong with us regardless of what you believe, and you have landed in a place of people who are exactly like you. Hope you feel that and experience that in your time with us today and that you want to come back and do this again with us real soon.
ILLUST> Back about 20 years ago I led my first mission trip to Poland. About 5 months before we would be taking a team of men over to do some construction work 2 or 3 of us went over to assess exactly what would be needed when we returned with the team. As a part of that trip I got to experience the World War II German concentration camp Auschwitz for the very first time. It was February, very cold, and there was about 6 inches of snow on the ground. Not ideal conditions to visit, but I don’t know that there would have been a better way for me to begin to understand what the prisoners there had to experience. As we walked the brick streets we were told stories of the roll calls where the Germans would make the prisoners who were barely dressed, many didn’t have shoes stand outside for hours. I couldn’t help but think about that as I trudged through the snow, with a cold wind cutting me in two. I walked through the buildings to see the photos of all of the faces of people who had died there. I saw rooms full of shoes, glasses, suitcases, toys, human hair of people who died in this place. I stood in the gas chamber where over 70,000 people died. I saw the scratch marks on the walls made by human hands as these innocent people breathed their last breath. I saw the gallows where so many prisoners were hung and died. In the end it is estimated that over a million innocent people died in that small concentration camp.
So, where was God in all of that? That’s a great question. Two weeks ago in this series, we talked about God’s heart for rescue and celebrated the 1,000 or so people that we have been a part of rescuing from human trafficking, today I want to focus on the millions who haven’t, who continue to suffer. There may be nothing that distorts our view of God more than the pain and suffering we experience in our lives and stories. How do we reconcile an all powerful, loving God with all the pain and suffering that is going on in our lives and all over the place in the world around us? That’s what I want us to dive into and talk about in the time we have left together today. So let’s do this.
If you brought a Bible we are going to be in Psalm chapter 69 today. If you would like a Bible to follow along in but don’t have one, they are on the back tables. Or you can just hit our app, the YouVersion app, or you can just read along with me off of the screens. Okay, so here we go, Psalm chapter 69 beginning with verse 1…
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. 2 I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. 3 I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
Save me God…I am up to my neck and the water is getting deeper. What is that in your life and story as you sit here today? Your health, school, your marriage, other relationships, your finances, your job…what is that for you? Don’t compare it or minimize it, what sucks most about your life right now? If it wasn’t there your life would be so much better. That place where there is fear, uncertainty, confusion, and pain. That place where you most need God to show up. If God is all loving and all powerful why doesn’t he take it, whatever it is, away? That’s a very natural and expected question. So, let’s start by admitting that a big part of our problem is this…
SUFFERING SEEMS INCONSISTENT WITH A LOVING GOD. ILLUST> There is a novel out called Night that is a book about life in the concentration camps in WWII. It describes a boy who was forced to watch the Germans hang innocent people on the gallows. Usually it would only take a minute or two for a person to die. Unfortunately, on one occasion, they hanged a 10 year old boy. His body weight was insufficient to bring about a quick death so instead he wiggled and squirmed for about 15 minutes before he died while the other prisoners including this young boy were forced to watch. As they watched in horror, someone in the crowd whispered where is God, where is God.
That is a legitimate question isn’t it? We need to be honest, so much of the suffering in our own lives and in the world around us seems inconsistent with a loving all powerful God. So what do we do with that? In his book Where is God When it Hurts Phillip Yancey says this…
“For centuries scholars have debated the question is earth the best of all possible worlds. The debate follows from the presumption that an all knowing all powerful, all knowing God naturally would have created a wonderful domain for his creatures. But look around at some of the features of our planet- cancer, the aids virus, downs syndrome, scorpions, and earthquakes. As Voltaire put it sarcastically if this is the best of all possible worlds then what are the others like. Much of the suffering on our planet has come about because of two principles that God built into creation: a physical world that runs according to consistent natural laws and human freedom.
Why wouldn’t an all powerful, all knowing, all loving God just create a wonderful domain for his creatures? Great question. Answer he did. We can’t forget that…Genesis chapter 1 and 2…God created something incredible for man and man messed that up. God set a wonderful world in motion and then here comes this thing called human freedom. By committing himself to putting the world in motion and allowing human freedom God allowed for the possibility of abuse. Think about water and wood. Water is useful to all of creation. Great stuff. Can’t live without it…it nourishes, refreshes and provides life. And yet…what it also has the capacity to drown us or to give us the capability of drowning someone else. Wood…bears fruit, provides shade, homes for animals, we use it to build homes and furniture. But as soon as you plant a tree in a world full of people look out. A free man at any moment can pick up a chunk of wood and kill another man with it. So is the real issue an unloving God or is it more the freedom that he has given us?
ILLUST> If we were to walk into an art gallery this morning full of Picasso’s paintings and somebody had broken in last night and trashed them all…we wouldn’t trash Picasso…we wouldn’t throw Picasso under the bus. We wouldn’t judge him on the basis of his ruined creation. It wasn’t his fault. So, here’s a question. Are we being fair to God in all of this?
Isn’t this a big part of our problem? Do you ever find yourself thinking this? If I were God, I wouldn’t do it that way. We all have those thoughts. I know I do. If I were God I would not have allowed all of my three best friends in life Robert, Craig, and Dave to die way too young. If I were God, many of you would not be going through what you are going through. I would intervene, stop things, change things up. In fact, I would intervene in the little things too. I would not allow my girls to get their hearts hurt by girl drama or boys either.
We assume that a loving God means certain things, things like intervening when he knows that bad things are coming our way. After all, it is what we would do if we were God. I think that is why God told us what we talked about in week 1…He’s different. Remember His ways are not our ways. It would probably be really helpful for us if we would remind ourselves of this. The first two chapters 3 pages of what God intended for the world to be and then people use free will choice…and then the last 1100+ pages in my Bible anyway is God saying I can’t stand the current condition of the world, I am not okay with your suffering and this is my plan to fix it. Okay so I get it, God has a plan to fix it, he’s working on it, but let’s be honest that doesn’t really help much in the midst of the pain. God I could really use some help now. Sound familiar? Yes, it does. So what do we do with that? Let’s keep reading…V. 13…
But I pray to you, Lord, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. 14 Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. 15 Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me. 16 Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. 17 Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. 18 Come near and rescue me; deliver me because of my foes.
So pain and suffering comes and just like David here we pray. What do we ask for? The exact same thing, answer, deliver, prevent, stop, turn, don’t hide or be silent, answer quickly, come near, make this go away, rescue me. I pray that exact same stuff for me and for you too. And guess what, sometimes nothing changes at all. In those moments it’s hard for us not to reach conclusions, conclusions like this one…
GOD OFTEN SEEMS UNCARING, INDIFFERENT, BUSY, AND FAR AWAY. My guess is that we have all experienced that. What is it that leads us to that conclusion? Isn’t it true, when things in our lives are not going as we want or expect them to, because God is not changing our circumstances in the way that we want him to. I don’t know about you, but when pain and suffering hits my life hard I have one simple objective, stop it. I need you to make it stop God.
One of the biggest problems that I believe that we all face is that we tend to forget that God gives us free will. The world around us consists of a bunch of free agents doing their own thing and making their own decisions. So much of what we see and experience in the world around us is not God’s will. In fact, it breaks his heart. God allowing us the freedom that he allows us actually puts him in a position to experience frustration and a broken heart. God rarely causes our suffering, but he does allow it and he always uses it.
ILLUST> Back when I went through Officer Candidate School in the Marine Corps in 1985 I had a tshirt with the Marine Corps emblem that said “no pain, no gain”. Why do we endure the pain of going to the gym and working out, training, breaking our muscles and our bodies down? Because the pain makes us stronger. We put ourselves through it because of what it does in us and for us. What if how we view the gym is how God sees the pain and suffering that exists in our lives and stories? What if what we really need most is a little more perspective from God on our suffering? Listen to this Romans 5…
3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Did you catch that? Suffering brings hope. Rather than God isn’t there, doesn’t care, is busy or distant, what if God is in it and intends to use it? Here is what I believe that God is getting to in Romans chapter 5, he seldom causes our pain and suffering but he is always right there with us in it and he never wastes it. He rarely causes it but he does discipline and will use anything and everything available to teach us. He allows us to experience the consequences of our own decisions to redeem us, expand us, and grow us. Our focus is on what the suffering is doing to us, God’s is on what it does in and ultimately what he will use it to do through us. Let’s finish this…
29 But as for me, afflicted and in pain—may your salvation, God, protect me. 30 I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. 31 This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hooves. 32 The poor will see and be glad—you who seek God, may your hearts live! 33 The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. 34 Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them, 35 for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it;36 the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there.
His circumstances haven’t changed but his prayer sure did. It is not longer God get me out of this. It is now God would you see me through it. This is huge. My trust of God in this and through this is more pleasing to him than any other religious act or sacrifice right now. We cannot allow the removal of the pain and suffering to be the sole indicator that God is actually there or really does care. There is more to the story. True for David and true for us too. At the end of the day here it is…
WE MUST SEE GOD THROUGH THE LENS OF THE CROSS. In week 1 of this series we talked about our confusion around the violent God we see in the Old Testament. Something about that feels wrong to us but have you ever thought about this? If God doesn’t step into and get involved with violence then he couldn’t get involved with the world because the world was already an intrinsically violent place. See, in asking any question about God the most important question to ask is where am I getting my picture of God from, what is my authority? John 1:1 says Jesus is God in the Flesh, Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, Philippians 2:6 he is equal with God, Hebrews 1:3 he is the exact representation of God’s being, John 14:7-9 If you have seen me you have seen the Father. The theological conclusion is simple. We can’t separate the two, we get an undistorted view of God in Jesus. Lock that in. God looks exactly like Jesus and we must see him through the lens of the cross.
ILLUST> About 4 years ago my good friend and mentor Craig McConnell had a violent allergic reaction to the chemo that he was taking to battle his Leukemia, So, that night Stacy, Spence, Stella, and I went to the hospital to see him. We walked into the room. I couldn’t believe what I saw. He was balled up in the fetal position with about 8 warm blankets over him shaking furiously with chills with a fever of 105.7 fighting through it alone. No one in the room, the lights weren’t even on. He was in so much pain that he really couldn’t talk. It was really hard for Spence and Stella to see him like that. They loved Craig like a grandpa. So we stayed for a while, prayed over him and then left. He later told me that later that night as he was crying out to God to take away the pain God told him to begin to pray for others he loved, so he began to do it the best he could in the midst of all of the pain. That seems so cruel to me. I don’t know how you do that unless you are able to see God through the lens of the cross.
Craig went to be with Jesus almost 2 years ago now. To this day sometimes I still struggle with this. Why didn’t God just intervene, heal and save Craig. It helps when I come back to this. He didn’t for his own son. That changes everything.
ILLUST> Not this past week but last week Thursday through Saturday was our annual Men’s Retreat. Before I say anything else about that, men of DCC what is your profession? Guys, I’m telling you, you don’t want to miss it next year. So anyway, about 160 of us are up on the mountain learning to fight for our own hearts and the hearts of the people in life we love the most and in doing that we watched several clips from the movie the Patriot. If you are not familiar with the story, it is the story of Benjamin Martin, a colonel in the Continental Army, who loses two of his sons during the Revolutionary War. I’m am going to spare you the gore but here is a photo of the first son dying in his arms fairly early in the movie. You can see the pain, shock, and disbelief. Later in the movie he loses his older son. Watch this…
****************ROLL PATRIOT CLIP****************
Honestly, I can’t imagine that pain. Two things immediately come to mind. First, if you have been through that, I am so so sorry. Second, if you want an undistorted view of God there it is. We all face things in life where we ask where is God in this. In those moments as difficult as it is I have to remind myself that he was in the exact same spot that he was in the night before his own son was arrested, beaten, and hung on a cross to die. See God didn’t just write the story that you and I are living in, he entered it himself and did the hardest thing that anyone will ever do, sacrificed his own son. He could have intervened. He could have stopped it, he didn’t. God not only watched his son die like Benjamin Martin. He watched him die while with every single breath that was leaving his son’s body he held and had the power to stop it. In those moments when life is falling a part and we begin to question where he is, why he won’t change things, and if he is good we need to keep coming back to that. God will never ask us to do anything, endure anything, go through anything that he has not been through himself.
Yes, our suffering can seem inconsistent with a loving God and God can seem uncaring, indifferent, busy and far away. We must not only see him through the lens of the cross but also remember that the cross is not the last word. The resurrection of Jesus is the last word. When we are suffering God is not a voyeuristic God looking down from heaven saying poor you, He is a God that is right there with you inside the pain. So, I’m going to pray and then we are going to stand up and sing one last song. Please don’t leave. Regardless of what it is that we face in your lives and stories today one of the best things for our hearts, one of the best things that we can do is to soak in and embrace the words of this last song. Let me pray for us.
