Is God Really Good?

Well, hey everybody, it's great to see you.

Whether you're here in the room or joining us online, hiding from the rain, I'm honored to have you along for the ride.

We are in the second week of a series called Asking for a Friend, in which we're wrestling with some of the biggest questions that people, I think all people have, about God and faith and Christianity.

And if you weren't with us last week, what we did is that we asked the most basic question of all is there a God?

And uh, if you weren't with us, you should know that we looked at the universe around us, the humanity within us, and the resurrection behind us.

And we discovered that though God has not made doubt impossible, he has given us good reasons to trust him.

And then today we get to explore a question that actually may be more difficult to answer because believing God exists is one thing, but believing that God is good is something else.

I mean, and I know we sing that he's good, we just did, right?

And we say things like God is good all the time, um, but if we're being honest, sometimes, well, what we sing in church and what we see in the world don't really seem to line up.

We sing that God is good, and then someone we love gets a troubling diagnosis.

And we sing that God is faithful, and then we watch the marriage of someone that we care deeply about fall apart.

And we sing that God is powerful, and then you know, a flash flood destroys a community, or a family stands beside a grave that shouldn't have been dug for decades.

Like in those moments, God is good can begin to sound less like something we know and more like something we're desperately trying to convince ourselves to believe.

We we think, man, if God is both good and powerful, then why is there so much pain?

Like, why doesn't he stop it?

Why doesn't he answer the prayers?

Why doesn't he intervene before the worst things happen?

And those questions lead to other questions, like, is God unaware?

Is he unable to do anything, or is he simply unmoved by our suffering?

And again, these are not just abstract theological questions.

They become intensely personal when the diagnosis belongs to us, or when the person who died was someone we loved, or when we were the one begging God to do something and nothing seemed to happen.

I'm telling you, in my years as a pastor, I've discovered that this question, is God really good, may be the single greatest emotional obstacle to the Christian faith.

Like for some people, if there being honest pain doesn't merely make belief in God difficult, it makes belief in a good God feel almost impossible.

And so before we go any farther, I need to acknowledge something, especially given what's happened in our community last week.

And it's simply this nothing that I say today can undo what happened or make grief disappear.

Now I can't explain why one particular tragedy happened, and I'm not going to minimize something that shattered your heart with a theological explanation.

But that said, I do believe Christianity gives us something to hold on to when life stops making sense.

It's not an explanation for every tragedy, but it's like an anchor.

Something that won't eliminate the storm, but that can kind of keep the storm from carrying our faith away.

And in understanding that anchor begins with what just might be the most important thing that I say today.

God did not create the world this way, He has not abandoned us to it, and He will not leave it this way.

So God did not create the world this way, He has not abandoned us to it, and He will not leave the world this way.

And with the rest of our time together, I want to explore each of these statements one at a time.

And uh so to get us going, um, I want to explore a little bit where pain came from.

And in order to do that, we need to return once again this week to the very beginning of the story.

Last week we looked at the opening line of the Bible.

And as many of you know, the author writes this He says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And he goes on to tell us that God created the plants and the animals, and then eventually he creates human beings in his image and places them within creation and entrusts these humans with caring for creation.

And it tells us that when God surveys everything he made, he saw, and this is so important, it was very good.

This is the Bible's starting point.

Suffering and violence were not a part of God's original design.

Neither were things like cancer and abuse and racism and natural disasters and death.

None of that was a part of God's original design.

According to the Jewish tradition, of course, where we get the first half of our Bible, the world God created was initially characterized by something they call shalom.

Shalom is a Hebrew word that we usually translate peace, but in the Jewish tradition it means far more than the absence of conflict.

They would tell you that shalom is a state in which everything has a place and everything is in its place.

Which of course raises an important question.

I mean, if in the beginning there was shalom, what happened?

If God created a good world, how did it become this world?

And the author of Genesis answers that question by sharing the story of two people, a garden and a choice.

He records that God places the first humans in a garden, and that garden is filled with everything they need, and then he gives them the gift of an extraordinary amount of freedom.

He tells these people, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And I know it's tempting to focus on the one tree from which they were forbidden to eat, but don't miss the first three words God spoke.

He said, You are free.

The first people, they were invited to trust God and live within his design, or they could reject God and define good and evil for themselves.

And if you're wondering why God gave them that choice, that's a totally fair question.

I mean, why place the tree there at all?

Why create a world in which people could reject God and harm one another and introduce so much pain?

Wouldn't a good God create people who always did what was right?

And he certainly could have.

He could have created a world filled with creatures programmed to obey his every command.

And if he did, there would be no rebellion or betrayal or violence.

But if you think about it, there would also be no potential for love.

Like God didn't desire robots that would obey his every command.

He desired people with whom he could freely choose to love and who would choose to love him.

And love, by its very nature, must be rejectable.

Here's a fun example I shared a few years ago to kind of illustrate what I mean.

It was 22 years ago that I stood with Sarah Ann at the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.

And I flew her there for one specific purpose to ask her to marry me.

Apparently, even in my 20s, I was smooth.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah.

But anyway, in that moment, at the top of the Empire State Building, she had a choice to make.

She could say yes, or she could ruin an otherwise perfectly good trip to New York, right?

And unfortunately, she said yes, but imagine for a moment that Sarah Ann had not been given a choice.

Imagine that I had somehow programmed her or forced her to say yes.

I would have received her compliance, but I would not have received her heart.

She could be physically present without us having any sort of relationship, because relationships based on love require freedom.

And freedom always includes the possibility of rejection.

Said another way, love that cannot be rejected is not love.

And so those first people use their freedom to reject God, and unfortunately, humanity has repeatedly made that same choice ever since.

Every time someone lies or exploits or abuses or betrays, we use our freedom in ways that harm others.

And that's actually why much of what we call the problem of evil in our world is the result of human beings rejecting God's way.

And before you know we start blaming only the worst people for this reality, we should admit that we contribute to the world's brokenness too.

I do, and so do you.

But even that said, if we're being honest, human freedom doesn't explain everything that's wrong with our world.

I mean, it may help us understand much of what's wrong, but like what about things like cancer and earthquakes and birth defects?

What about things like genetic diseases and devastating storms?

Like, these aren't simply the result of someone making a selfish choice.

Something isn't only wrong with people.

It's almost like something is wrong with the world.

And as it turns out, there is something wrong with the world.

And the authors of the Bible describe the consequences of humanity's rebellion as extending far beyond the human heart.

Like when humanity turned away from God, the shalom, the peace that God intended, it was shattered.

And humans' relationship with God was shattered, and humans' relationships with one another was shattered, and something within each individual was shattered, and then something within creation itself fractured.

An early Christian leader named Paul describes it this way in a letter to Jesus' followers in Rome.

He writes, For the creation was subjected to frustration, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay.

He says, We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Paul says, creation is frustrated.

It's in bondage to decay, and it's groaning because it's not functioning in the way it was originally intended to function.

That describes the world in which we live.

Like our bodies break down over time, and cells mutate and storms form and the ground shakes and disease spread and everything is moving towards decay.

And before I go any further, I need to be careful here.

The New Testament authors never teach that suffering is a punishment for a particular sin.

So if someone you love receives a cancer diagnosis, it doesn't mean they did something to deserve cancer.

And if your home is destroyed by a natural disaster, it doesn't mean that God is angry with you.

Like Jesus repeatedly rejected that sort of simplistic explanation for suffering.

And all of us experience the consequences of that reality.

So sometimes we suffer because of the choices we make, and sometimes we suffer because of the choices other people make, and sometimes we suffer simply because we inhabit a creation that is groaning.

And I know that doesn't answer every question.

It doesn't tell us why this person became sick and why that person remained healthy, and it doesn't explain why the storm struck that community or why one family experienced more tragedy than another.

There's tons of questions still.

The authors of the Bible never give us a formula that explains every painful event, but they do clarify something important about God.

Pain was not part of his original design.

That's why when it hurts, it hurts to our core.

And the brokenness that we see in the world does not reflect the world God called very good.

And the grief we experience is not evidence that God enjoys watching us suffer.

Which brings us back to the first part of our anchor.

It's simply this that God did not create the world this way.

The Bible begins with the world untouched by death.

It was humanity's rebellion that introduced death into the story, and every generation since has lived in its shadow.

But now here's some good news.

Um, death was never going to have the final word.

Because the moment humanity's relationship with God fractured, he began pursuing a plan to restore everything that had been lost.

He did not stand at a distance as creation groaned, he stepped into the groaning himself.

In fact, in the same chapter where humanity rebels, God addresses the serpent who deceived those first people.

He tells them this.

He tells the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

It's a strange promise.

And at its most immediate level, it describes the ongoing conflict between humanity and the creature that had tempted them to distrust God.

But but Christians have traditionally seen something more here: the first whisper of God's promise to defeat evil through a descendant of Eve who would himself be wounded and yet ultimately crush the power of the evil that wounded him.

And as the rest of the Bible story unfolds, Christians believe that hope ultimately comes into focus in the person of Jesus.

You see, Jesus entered a world filled with everything we've been describing, and he experienced poverty and he was rejected by people he loved, and he had to watch his friends suffer, and he was betrayed and falsely accused and tortured and killed.

And this matters because Christianity does not present a God who watches human suffering safely from a distance.

It gives us a God who stepped into it.

Like when God saw the pain of our world, he didn't simply send us an explanation, he sent us himself.

And nowhere is that more evident than in something that happened shortly before Jesus' crucifixion.

I mean, many of you know the story.

Jesus had three close friends who lived in a village called Bethany, a few miles from Jerusalem.

Two sisters named Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus.

And as the story goes, one day Lazarus becomes gravely ill, and so the sisters send an urgent message to Jesus.

They say, Lord, the one you love is sick.

And the message was clear.

Like underneath it was an obvious request.

Jesus, come quickly.

You've healed strangers.

We've seen you do it.

Come help Lazarus.

He's someone you love.

But here's the weird thing about the story: Jesus didn't come.

He waited.

And by the time he eventually arrived at Bethany, Lazarus had been in a tomb for four days.

And when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him.

And her first words, it's so interesting if you read them carefully, they held both faith and heartbreak.

She said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

In other words, Jesus, you could have prevented this.

Like we asked you to come.

You knew what was happening, and you didn't do what we needed you to do.

Martha believed that Jesus loved them, and she believed that Jesus had the power to heal.

But what she had experienced didn't seem consistent with what she believed.

And here's what's so interesting: Jesus didn't rebuke her for what she said.

And he didn't accuse her of lacking faith or offer her some cliche about how everything's happening for a reason, right?

He simply received her grief.

And then later, when he saw Mary and those with her weeping, Jesus wept.

And the fact that he did reveals one of the most important truths about God.

He is not unmoved by our suffering.

The things that break our hearts break his heart too.

And Jesus did more than just weep.

I mean, earlier he had told Martha, he said, your brother will rise again.

And Martha had answered, I know he will arise again in the resurrection and the last day.

Like Martha says, Hey, I believe that God will eventually make things right.

I believe in a future resurrection, but future hope can feel painfully inadequate when the person you love is lying in a tomb today.

And then Jesus said something absolutely breathtaking.

He said to Mary, I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.

And notice that Jesus didn't merely claim to know something about the resurrection, he claimed to be the resurrection.

And then he walked to Lazarus' tomb and ordered the stone to be removed and called into the darkness.

Lazarus came out, and a man who'd been dead for four days walked out of his tomb.

And for Mary and Martha, it was the miracle they had wanted.

I mean, their brother was alive, their grief turned to joy.

But if you think about it, Lazarus' resurrection was temporary.

I mean, one day he would die again.

Jesus had postponed Lazarus' death, but he had not yet defeated it.

That was coming soon, and that was going to happen through another tomb.

And shortly after raising Lazarus, Jesus entered Jerusalem, where he was arrested and convicted and crucified and buried.

And then three days later, Jesus walked out of his tomb.

Just like Lazarus, but not just like Lazarus, because when Jesus walked out of his tomb, he would never die again.

Like at the cross, Jesus absorbed the worst human evil could do.

And then through the resurrection, he broke death's claim on the human story.

This is God's answer to the accusation that he has abandoned us to our suffering.

He entered it, he carried it, and through his resurrection, he defeated it from the inside.

But the cross does tell us what God is willing to endure to rescue the people he loves.

And the resurrection doesn't mean that Christians will escape suffering in this life.

I mean, we we know that, but but it does mean that suffering will not have the final word over our lives.

Martha was asking Jesus to postpone her brother's death.

Jesus was on his way to defeat death once and for all.

She was asking Jesus to add more years to Lazarus' life.

Jesus was preparing to offer Lazarus and all of us who trust him everlasting life.

And that brings us to the second part of our anchor.

And if you think about it, the clearest evidence of God's goodness is not that he prevents every wound, but that he was willing to be wounded for us.

The resurrection of Jesus wasn't the end of God's rescue plan.

It was the decisive turning point.

It was the moment God announced that death had been defeated and its days were numbered.

And in fact, and I love this, in a letter to early Christians, Paul wrote that Jesus was the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

First fruits, it's not a term we use today, but in the ancient world, uh firstfruits referred to the first portion of a harvest.

It was the first grain to come out of the ground.

And in the Jewish tradition, it was not only that, it was also the promise that more was to come.

And so when Paul calls Jesus the first fruits, he's saying that Jesus' resurrection was not an isolated miracle.

It was the beginning of a much larger resurrection harvest because he rose.

Those who are in him will rise.

He was the first to walk out of the grave never to die again.

But he will not be the last.

His resurrection was the decisive defeat of death and a preview for what is coming for all who belong to him.

And God's rescue will not stop just with us.

It's it includes us, it's even bigger than us.

Because the resurrection of Jesus was the first glimpse of what God intends to do, not just for people, but for everything, for all of creation.

And everything sin has fractured will be healed.

And everything evil has corrupted will be made new.

In fact, near the end of the Bible, there's this mysterious document called Revelation.

And it's written by Jesus' disciple John.

On and in this revelation, he describes a vision of that future, of that day.

And he says, He hears a loud voice from the throne in heaven saying, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them, he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

And then he goes on to say, He who was seated on the throne said, and look at this, I am making everything new.

And notice what God doesn't say.

He doesn't say, I am making all new things.

He says, I am making all things new.

And that means that God's plan is not to throw creation away and begin again somewhere else.

His plan is to restore what has been broken, to liberate creation from decay, to resurrect our bodies, to reunite heaven and earth, and to complete the work Jesus began when he walked out of his tomb.

And the authors of the Bible are also clear that the day is coming when evil will end and justice will be done and creation will be healed, and that death itself will die.

And that brings us to the final part of our anchor.

God will not leave the world this way.

In other words, the story is not over.

Rescue has already begun.

And because Jesus walked out of the tomb, the ending has already been decided.

And so kind of return with me to the question right at the top: Is God good?

In the world in which we experience and there's so many questions and there's so much pain, how can a good God allow it?

Is God good?

The cross and the empty tomb answer yes.

And I know we think, but why then do bad things still happen?

I mean, how come?

And I can't explain away every instance of suffering, but what I can't, when I can't understand what God is doing, I can look at Jesus and see what God is like.

And Jesus shows us a God who weeps with grieving people, a God who enters our suffering rather than watching from a distance, a God who allows himself to be wounded in order to rescue those he loves, and a God who walks out of a tomb to assure us that death will not have the final word.

This is the anchor that Christianity offers.

God did not create the world this way.

God has not abandoned us to it, and God will not leave it this way.

Or said another way, God's goodness is revealed by his presence in our pain and his promise to one day end it.

And that doesn't that doesn't mean that you have to pretend the valley doesn't hurt.

I mean, faith is not denying grief.

You can believe God is good and still tell him that something feels terribly wrong because something is terribly wrong.

You can have faith and still cry.

So if you're walking through a valley right now, you don't need to explain it.

You don't need to call something good that God himself calls broken.

I would argue you simply need an anchor.

God is with you.

And even when you can't see what he's doing, the resurrection assures you that he is not finished.

And I think there's there's something else too, because there are those of us who are not currently in a valley.

And I think that this teaching maybe has another implication for us.

I mean, if God moves towards suffering people, then followers of Jesus should too.

Practically speaking, when someone is hurting, our first responsibility is not to explain their pain, it's to enter it with them, to listen, to weep, to bring them a meal, to sit beside the hospital bed, to stand beside the grave, to be tangible evidence that God has not abandoned them.

Because until the day God ends suffering forever, the church should be one of the ways his goodness becomes visible now.

Before closing prayer, um I just want to give you a moment to let all that settle.

The band's gonna come and we're gonna listen to a song together.

It's a beautiful song, it's called Rescue.

And as you listen, um bring whatever you're carrying to your Heavenly Father.

Maybe it's the question that you can't answer, maybe it's the grief that you can't quite put into words, maybe it's like the prayer you're still waiting for God to give you a word on.

I mean, this this song isn't a promise that everything will be fixed tomorrow, but it can remind us that we are seen and we are loved and we've not been abandoned.

The God who stepped into our suffering has not stopped moving towards us.

So you don't have to sing, just take a breath and listen.

And after the song, I'll return to close our time in prayer.

You will you will you have been born, you will be short.

And that love has never changed.

So whatever you find yourself going through, just know that he loves you.

Even in the middle of the chaos, he loves you.

Um if you'd like to pray with someone before you leave, love some friends under the screen to the left.

Heavenly Fathers, we celebrate your goodness, your mercy, your grace, your love.

And at the same time, we just acknowledge that uh there are seasons that this life is impossible.

And in those moments, um, give us the courage to look past the chaos, to the empty tomb, to the cross where your love for us was affirmed once and for all.

And I pray that as we look to you, the peace that passes understanding would flood our lives and our hearts and our minds.

Thank you.

Thank you for who you are, and thank you for what you have done, and thank you for what you are doing.

It is in the matchless name of your son, our savior, Lord, and King Jesus Christ, we pray.

And everyone said, Amen.

Grace and peace to your friends.

See you next week.