In class this week, we have dealt extensively with some of the classic responses to evil and suffering in our world. No one can deny that we face a wide of variety of trouble and pain in this world; it is the universal experience. Because we all experience a level of suffering and because we are all affected by evil in some way, we find ourselves asking the big question: WHY? Why am I in pain? Why did this happen? Why did God not do something?
Historical Christianity has offered two basic solutions that can be broadly categorized as the Arminian response and the Calvinistic response. From the Arminian view, evil and suffering come as a result of people who have complete free-will to do evil and inflict suffering on others. The universe itself operates, in a sense, “freely” as storms, earthquakes, and tsunamis occur according to natural laws. In this case, evil and suffering are due to a lack of God’s presence. From the Calvinist perspective, God has pre-ordained the events of this life. What happens to us, whether at the hands of others or as part of the natural order, come from the hand of God. He has in mind a greater good, and all things will work together for good. In this case, evil and suffering are from God, but for our good.
So, when people suffer, one of these broad systems is typically brought in to help explain why the person is experiencing their pain or trial. What I have found, however, is that knowing why, having an answer as to why we suffer, rarely helps alleviate any of the pain. Both systems have holes that leave us unsatisfied with the answer.
What is really needed in the midst of our pain and suffering is to know where is God when I suffer? Or put another way, how does God feel about suffering? And for me, this is the real beauty of the Bible. While the Bible provides only scant evidence about the source of evil and suffering, it offers extensive and conclusive answers to the question of how God feels about our suffering. The power of the Bible is in the revelation that God himself came, not only to suffer with us, but more importantly to suffer for us. Jesus Christ came as the full expression and revelation of God. And what did He do? He suffered and He died in order to proclaim to us how God feels about our suffering. When we look to the cross, we should see not only an incredible sacrifice, but the true heart of God; a God who loves us so much that He entered into our world to become like us. And like us, he experienced pain and suffering, but to the utmost degree.
So, if you, or someone you know, is experiencing pain or suffering, I want you to know that it’s okay to ask why. But in the asking, keep in mind that something greater is waiting to be discovered than an answer. What I pray you will discover is the One who came to be The Answer. In knowing Him, and experiencing his partnership with us in pain, we can find our way forward.
Did anyone else notice the disproportionately large number of Super Bowl commercials having to do with men becoming "real men"? The free pants ad was creative, if not a little disturbing to see so many guys in their underwear. But that was only the beginning. Soon, we had men needing to buy cars to reclaim their throne. And then, the ultimate show of your manhood was to buy soap for men, made ironically by a very non-manly company "Dove". Clearly, our culture is wrestling with what it means for a man to be a man. I say clearly because advertisers don't spend millions on Super Bowl commercials to be cute- they want business. So, the marketers to the masses tell us that what men really want is to know how to be manly.
Now, I'm not disagreeing with these ad captains. We certainly live at a time where gender identity and gender roles have been thrown into utter confusion, leaving men, and women for that matter, asking themselves "whom am I really?" So I agree with the need to define what it is to be a man (and what it is to be a woman, though I feel less compelled or qualified to speak on that half). My concern is that we not allow Hollywood or 5th avenue to define this for us.
In Ephesians, Paul speaks to the gender issue by sounding a clear call to men and women. Granted, this passage is specifically addressed to married couples, but I think his words give insight to all men and women, married or single. Paul writes, "And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her." In other words, the very same love that Christ showed the church (us) on the cross is the love we are to express to our wives. It's the way we are to live as men.
So, being a real man won't happen because we buy a new car, put on the pants, or even use the right soap. Do you want to be a real man, from God's point of view? Then be the first to die. Do you want to be a real man of honor in your marriage and your family? Be the first to sacrifice. Do you want respect as a real man in your workplace? Be the one who leads by serving. Die to yourself, sacrifice your self-rights, serve others before yourself. None of these acts will mean much to Hollywood or 5th avenue, but they will make all the difference in the world. Because when people see men behaving like this, they are bound to ask questions!
So get the car, wear the pants, use the soap. But in the end, the way to manhood in God's eyes is to become like Jesus, and give your life away. There is no more honorable, no more manly way to live.
I had an interesting experience on my way to classes in Minneapolis. My connecting flight went through Los Angeles and was scheduled to depart at 12:00 AM. As I arrived at the gate area, I was informed that our flight had been delayed. "Delayed" was actually a nice way of saying canceled, because our flight out wasn't until 8:30 AM. Yikes.
The reason I and my fellow passengers were given for this "delay" was that the pilot had called in sick. In all the times I have flown, I have never heard of a flight being canceled for this reason. In a city the size of LA, I found it hard to believe that Delta, the nations largest airline, didn't have another pilot available. Evidently, my fellow passengers felt the same way. Sure, I was upset and disappointed myself, but being in the back of the room I had the unique opportunity to observe the reactions of others.
In a word, I would describe their reaction as ugly, in all its forms. They turned ugly in attitude, but in other ways as well. The pitch of their voice became ugly, taking on that strained, agitated tone. The lines of their faces tightened and their features distorted. A group of normal, nice people suddenly became vicious and well, ugly. The airline had wronged them, their night and their flight was ruined, and so the poor gals at the airline desk received the venting of their fury.
It made me think about how often we react this way as humans. When something goes against us, or we feel wronged, we turn ugly. I'm not entirely sure why, because if we look at these situations, rarely if ever does this kind of response make the situation better. We think that by getting angry and lashing out we can change things for the better. We operate under an illusion of control whereby we can right the wrongs and vindicate ourselves. But does this ever happen? Doesn't a turn towards ugly always make for more ugliness?
On my eventual flight out the next morning, I listened while one gal, one who had been particularly irate towards the gals at the flight counter, recounted on her cell phone the horrors of her night- canceled flight, demanding that the airline bring her bag to her in the middle of night, finding a hotel, getting stuck at the hotel the next morning- evidently her ugliness had continued. Granted, I hadn't particularly enjoyed my night on the floor at LAX, but having accepted the circumstance as one beyond my control had allowed me to maintain a certain level of peace despite the long night.
All this causes me to reflect on what Paul says in the book of Colossians, "You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony." (3:13,14- NLT) When we react like this to the mistakes of others- sick pilots, irkesome co-workers, surely spouses- rather than turning to ugly, we can display the love and the acceptance of Christ.
Why in our world is it so difficult to make allowances for other's faults? We know our own, but when we see the faults of others, we lash out.
Don't do it. Please. It makes you, and me, look very ugly.
(I don't normally do this, but this is most of the text from my latest message. If you heard it, skip it- there's nothing new! But in case you don't got to EHA or missed last week, here's our first week of the series. Warning: It's kind of long! Read and enjoy!)
Ask anything- we invited you to turn in your questions and many of you did. Thanks for that. You turned lots of good questions! It was difficult to distill those down for our series here in January.
What I like about this series is the reminder to us that God is not afraid of hard questions. He is not afraid to be challenged with our hardest questions. That’s really important for us to realize at the beginning here, because many of you grew up in an environment where asking questions was highly discouraged. Brining up sticky points about faith or how the Bible worked was generally looked down on because it was feared that if we asked too many questions it might show that we weren’t really faithful. If we ask to difficult a question, it would show that we didn’t believe strong enough. We were told to just go along, don’t disrupt things, don’t challenge things, just trust.
But we need to know that God isn’t afraid of hardest questions. As you have heard me say before, faith is not belief in the absence of doubt, but belief even in the presence of doubt and uncertainty. It means saying, “God, I don’t have all the answers, but I’m following you anyway”
As another point of introduction, I want to make it clear that I am not the answer man. I heard a radio ad that said “You asked your hardest questions, and now Dr. So and So answers them! Tune in each week.” Nu-uh! If that’s all we have, is some guy answering our questions, we’re in trouble. You asked your hardest questions, and now we’ll turn to Scripture and ask God to answer them.
Some questions He will answer- you’ll come away with conclusions that will change your life. But some don’t get answered- yet even in the asking and wrestling, we’ll learn a great deal about God and our faith.
I will try to be clear when I believe God and His Word speak definitively on a subject, but I’ll also try to be clear when I think there’s uncertainty. People have asked the tough question about bad things happening to good people for thousands of years. And there’s no easy place in the Bible to turn to and say, “Oh, here’s why.” But even in the asking and wrestling, the struggling and seeking, God uses it all to help us grow.
My girls and there cousins were playing a game of “house”, when for some reason my youngest, Maddie, was pushed out of the room. She sat there crying, “they won’t let me in”. From a very young age, we know what it feels like to be on the inside and we know what it feels like to be on the outside.
So, our first question: Is God inclusive or exclusive?
Israel as God’s chosen people... Does this mean He excluded all other people? Is God inclusive or exclusive?
This is a great question because not only does it help us get to the heart of who God is, and if you’re here today and you’re not sure you believe in God, you’re seeking, this question, this issue may be a real stumbling block:
Christianity is so hypocritical- they claim to love everyone, but then they condemn anyone who believes differently than they do. Is God really like that?
Am I a part of the in crowd with God?
Do I really belong, or is God just willing to put up with me?
So in attempting to answer this question, we’re going to learn a great deal about God.
But we’re also going to learn about ourselves. This question also helps us know who we are to be- how we are supposed to act or treat others, because that certainly should be in line with God.
From the first glance, it would appear that God is fairly exclusive- picking the Jews, yet listen to what he says to Abraham in this first promise of blessing:
-Genesis 12:1-3
1 Then the LORD told Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you."
God blessed Abraham so he could be a blessing to all people. The reason he seemed to exclusively include Abraham and the Jewish people is so that through them he could include ALL people.
Listen to how this theme gets carried through the Bible. Peter connects the dots in Acts:
-Acts 3:24-26
24 "Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today. 25 You are the children of those prophets, and you are included in the covenant God promised to your ancestors. For God said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants all the families on earth will be blessed.' 26 When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you people of Israel, to bless you by turning each of you back from your sinful ways."
Here is the same promise, including the inclusive promise of all people, being applied thousands of years later.
And just so we don’t think this promise is confined to Jews, listen to what Paul writes to a large group of Gentiles (non-Jews) in Galatians:
-Galatians 3:7-9
7 The real children of Abraham, then, are all those who put their faith in God. 8 What's more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would accept the Gentiles, too, on the basis of their faith. God promised this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, "All nations will be blessed through you." 9 And so it is: All who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith
And just in case we haven’t quite got the picture yet, listen to Paul again in Colossians:
-Colossians 1:20-22
And through Him (Christ) God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in this physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
Here’s the truth we get out of these passages: God opens the door to everyone. No one is left out.
I know, you might make the argument, “Yeah, but Jesus said he’s the only way. (John 14) Isn’t that being pretty exclusive?”
Think of it this way: if Target had coupons for every person in town to get a free flat-screen HDTV and we didn’t get around to getting one, would we argue that Target had been exclusive? No, we would recognize that we made choices to not receive the offer.
This is a very important distinction: God is inclusive of all people, but not of all beliefs. He has provided a way and it is up to us to choose it.
We choose whether or not we will enter.
We must personally decide if we will walk through God’s open door and trust him with our lives. Peter even writes about this being a reason that God holds off the return the Christ-
II Peter 3:9
9 The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent.
Now, just in case you’ve been sitting there thinking, “Yes, I’ve walked through that door, but I hope so-and-so is listening! I can’t wait to give this CD to so-and-so. They need this!” There is actually an additional truth that we need to apply to our lives. And it’s this:
If God has included you, it is for the purpose of including others.
If you find yourself on the inside with God, it’s not so you can sit around and enjoy his blessings until you die. You have been blessed so that through you others will find the open door.
Listen to what David says about being restored to God. What is the purpose of his restoration?
Psalm 51,
12 Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. 13 Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you.
The purpose of his restoration is that OTHERS would return to God.
So, today we need to ask ourselves two critical questions.
Two Critical Questions:
-Have you entered God’s open door?
God’s got a better deal even than a free plasma TV. Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me. You can take that negatively to mean Jesus is being exclusive, or you can see it positively as Jesus I believe intended- I am holding open the way to life for every single man, woman and child- I am showing the way, full of truth and life- will you follow me?
-Do you live to bless and include others?
Blessed to be a blessing, or blessed because I deserve it?
What have you been blessed with? Do you use a skill, a hobby, your time, your resources, your wisdom and experience as a way to bless others? If you’ve been blessed, if God has included you in his wonderful plan of salvation, it’s so you can turn and do the same with your life.
Who could you include in your day, your week, in the hope that they too might one day walk through the open door and be included in God’s family?
“And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming” Luke 15. No matter where you are, your heavenly Father looks out the door and waits to see you coming. And when you turn to Him, no matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been, he opens the door wide to you and says, “Welcome Home.” May your faith be completely in him today.
Do you have an angel in your nativity set? Take it out. It doesn't belong there.
Oh, okay, there may have been an angel or two at the manger, but did you know the Bible never mentions any? At least, never one at the manger. Where the angels appear is rather out of place when you stop and think about it.
From the Biblical point of view, God has just become man. Jesus has been born and the world is about to meet the Savior. A choir of angels should be present to herald this awesome event, right? We may think so, but either the choir got lost or God had different plans.
You see, the angelic choir, or more accurately the angelic army showed up on a hillside outside of Bethlehem in front of some poor, nameless shepherds. If you know the Christmas story well, you need to stop and think about how strange this is: Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords is born, and the angels choose to be with...stinky shepherds. The head angel (choir director?) announces, "I bring good news of great joy for everyone! The Savior has been born!" And the choir belts out, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors."
We always hear around this time of year that Jesus is the reason for the season. That's actually not true. From God's point of view, at least, the reason for the season is YOU. When Jesus was born, God sent his angels not to worship Jesus, but to ordinary people like you and me. He wanted to make sure we knew that this moment was for us- good news of great joy.
Too often we think of worship as giving God his due- "Well, He is God so I guess I should do what He says. I guess I should go to church." Yet here at Christmas, God calls the shepherds to worship because of what He has done. I think you and I are given full permission to do the same.
On your journey, may you here God's angels sing over you- this is good news of great joy for everyone- including you. Live in the joy.
