I Was Just Wondering...? // How Can A Good God Allow So Much Suffering? (Mike Johnston)

Well, we, we thank you that you're a God of, of ultimate

help. You're a God who is our blessed

hope. Louie, just wanted to express

our gratitude for your presence with us this morning.

Thank you that you're here in a very real sense.

We thank you for your faithfulness to us in the past.

We thank you for all the huge blessings that you give us all

the time. And it's easy for us to take

those things for granted. But this morning we really want

to thank you for those things. I think you for especially for

your gift of salvation. Lord, want to pray this morning

for the older members of our congregation.

Lord, thank you for, yeah, their faithfulness.

We thank you for their wisdom. We just pray that we would all

kind of tap into that, into the godly wisdom that they have and

the, the wisdom that comes through experiencing life as, as

they look at it through a, through your perspective.

And Lord, thank you for them. We know there are many

struggling with health issues right now.

We just pray for them. Pray for reassurance from you

that you were there and that you do care.

And we thank you for that. We thank you for a chance to

give our offering and we present that to you this morning as as

an act of worship. Thank you for that.

LOL. We pray for our Sunday school.

Lovely. Thank you for all the work that

goes in every week that the teachers and the putting the,

the lessons together and the, the curriculum and trying to

figure out the best way to convey your truths to the kids.

And we just pray that all of that comes together this morning

to, to move them closer towards you.

Lord, thank you for worshipping Malayalam this morning and being

able to just hear how you work in, in through culture and

language and all of that. Your truths are, are supreme

and, and, and just the same everywhere because you are a

trustworthy God. We thank you for these things.

Thank you in Jesus name, Amen. I will hand over to Billy who's

going to introduce our speaker this morning.

Thank you, Dan Morning Church. I'd love to invite up Mike up

now. Mike Johnston.

Mike is one of the pastors at the Orchard Church in Tipoki and

a a great friend of mine. Back in my days when I was

working at Word of Life, each term I'd go over and have lunch

with Mike. He doesn't even use a pulpit.

We use a pulpit here. Sorry.

No, no, no, no, You're right. Yeah, we, we would, we would

catch up once or two and talk about ministry.

And even since I've I've gone full climate here at Hook

anyway, he's been a real good encouragement to me in ministry.

And earlier this year we were on the phone and I said to Mike, it

would be a great idea if we do a preacher swap.

We'll get bless each other's churches.

We'll get Mike over here, I'll go over to the orchard, preach

there. So we booked him in here and

he's thrown about 6 states at me to preach at the order and I've

turned them down. So I think we won this trade.

But we're looking forward to to hearing you speak this morning.

So I'll just pray for Mike and then I'll hand it over.

Yeah. Father God, we just thank you

for your goodness. We thank you for your word and

we thank you for Mike. We just pray that you would

speak through him right now as he opens the word and she is to

us and help us to just be receptive and open and ready to

hear your word, for you to speak to us through your word and

through Mike. We thank you for this time.

And in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.

Thanks, Billy. It's nice to hear him say that

we are good friends because every time he comes over to

Pookie, he just expects me to buy him lunch.

And I thought that was about it. So that's really nice.

Thank you. And we admire Belly.

There's something I really admire about the guy is that he

has looked exactly the same since he was 12.

Like, does this here even grow? I've never seen a change length.

It's incredible. It's a real gift.

Good score. Hey, good morning.

It's it's great to be here with you.

It's a real privilege to to come over here.

I've heard a lot of great things about Hukanui Bible Church and

all the people that have come over to the orchard from here

speak very highly of it. Just kidding.

There's only a couple of words of lifers, but yeah, it's it's

great to be here with you. There's been high praise for

this place. Some have said it's like the

Orchard of Hamilton, which is I just made that up.

Now. That's not true.

No one's ever said that, but it is great to be here.

I'm looking forward to to sharing with you from, from

God's Word this morning, this morning as we get into God's

word and we certainly will be spending time in here, but we're

not gonna be in one particular text.

Now, my understanding is you guys have have done an

apologetic series here in the past.

We did one at the Orchard a couple of years ago and we

titled our series. I was just wondering, and we

tried to address over a period of weeks some of those big hard

questions that we have probably wrestled with and still wrestled

with in our lives. And if we're not wrestling with

them, certainly people around us are.

And so we want to be equipped to be able to deal well with them

ourselves and with others. And so some of the questions we

covered were tough, but the one that I'm going to be talking

about is I spoke to Doctor Graham Blakey, who has many

years of experience. He's one of the elders at our

church, and he studied a lot of apologetics.

And he said this is the toughest 1.

And so very graciously, he let me do it at our church.

But it is the question of suffering.

How can a good God allow so much suffering?

We're just dealing with the light issues this morning, you

know, Keep it easy. But it's something that we're,

we're constantly aware of. We're always dealing with you.

You don't need an illustration to engage people with this

suffering is happening all the time all around us.

You look overseas, there's unrest, there's war, Russia,

Ukraine, you know, in the Middle East as a consequences, there's

poverty, there's there's fighting, there's unrest,

there's civil war going on all throughout Africa.

Pain and suffering is all around.

And then we don't need to look over there, just look at our own

lives. Suffering comes in lots of

different shapes and forms, you know, and different degrees.

I'm certainly very grateful that I have had a a wonderful life

that has been, you know, sheltered from a lot of pain and

suffering that I see in other people.

But it's all relative and we all have to deal with it in some

way. So.

So how do we answer this question?

We believe that that God is good and we see so much pain around

us. Now you might have a good answer

for this. You might be able to deal well

with suffering in your life, which is awesome.

I hope this can be an encouragement to you, but there

are gonna be people in your life around you that are struggling

with this, so hopefully it can encourage and equip and edify

you as we go through this. If not, it'll equip you to deal

well with others suffering. So maybe a little academic to

start with and, and we'll look at that, maybe a little

intellectual, but it is coming from an apologetic sort of

perspective. This guy here, Galileo, Galileo,

this old dude, he said these words.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has

endowed us with since reason and intellect has intended us to

forgo their use. And that's a a nice, polite, old

school way of saying use your brain.

God created us with this incredible ability to be able to

think and to reason and to understand and all there to say

that we will be approaching this intellectually.

There will be an academic side to it where we will seek to

understand how it is that there can be a good God and so much

suffering. What does some logic?

What are some arguments that we can come up with for that?

But there's also the other side. And I think Stephen Fry, famous

atheist, and you can hear it as he sees these words.

How dare you create a world in which there is such misery.

It's not our fault, it's not right.

It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a

capricious, mean minded, stupid God who creates a world which

with so which is so full of injustice and pain?

Now there's a lot wrong with that statement for those of us

who know who God is and what is like, and we could pick that

apart. But what comes through so

strongly in those words as the emotion?

There's this real pain, this herd there.

He looks around, He sees this suffering.

He sees this evil and this wickedness and this pain.

And unfortunately, he, the critics there to God, he's not

willing to take any responsibility for that himself.

But there's this emotional side to the issue as well.

And so when you're dealing with someone or perhaps when you're

going through things and you're emotional and, and it's hard

because you're just so upset at this thing, how could this

happen? You want to be able to deal with

it from that perspective too, and some people are fortunate

enough to be able to just have their cold, hard logic, no

emotions. My wife's like that.

I'm very emotional, so yeah, she gets sick of me crying all the

time. But we have to be able to deal

with this issue from an emotional standpoint too, So

we're going to do that. But the argument I think can be

put this way and has been by another old guy, Epicurus.

He said is God willing to prevent evil but not able?

Then is he impotent? Is he able but not willing?

Then is he malevolent? Is he both able and willing?

Whence then is evil? So Old English?

But what he's saying is if God is all loving and now all

powerful, there wouldn't be sin, but there is sin.

So God can't be one of those. And we're going to look at it

this way and we'll come back to this a couple of times this

morning, but God cannot be both all loving and all powerful.

And suffering continued to exist.

Suffering does exist. Therefore, an all loving, all

powerful God does not exist. That's the logic, that's the

reasoning that maybe not in those words, but the people that

we're dealing with out in the community that desperately need

God, this is what they think. I can't reconcile an all loving

God with the pain and suffering in my life and what I see around

me. So maybe there is something that

that you're struggling with right now, maybe there is

suffering that has recently happened that you can bring to

mind. We want to be able to approach

suffering not just in the now, but in the future with

confidence. And I I love the saying that our

pastor Nelly used once this idea, this image.

He claims it was his idea. I'm sure he got it from

somewhere else, but it's this idea of remembering in the dark

what you know to be true in the light.

And so you go into your room and you look around.

You see your beards there. There's the wardrobe, There's

the chest of drawers, your Miley Cyrus poster, and, you know,

clothes strewn across the floor. But then you flick off the light

and it's like you freak out and you Where am I?

What's going on with your dinosaurs?

Is there a monster under the beard as the floor lava?

You know, it's it seems silly to say it like that, but you want

to inform your minds. We want to grow in our knowledge

and our understanding and have a firm grasp of who God is.

Cause in those hard times when all is dark, we want to be able

to remember what He looks like. We want to remember who He is

and what He's done for us. And so when the good times

inform your mind, educate yourselves.

Build their foundation, their solid rock, so the wind

suffering comes. We can remember that God is

good. OK, fist up.

I'm gonna answer this question with a an idea with a hypothesis

that I firmly believe to be true, and then I've got 4 lines

of evidence to prove it to you this morning.

I believe that God hates suffering.

I believe he hates it. I'm going to show you four ways

from scripture why I believe this to be true.

Physically, God hates suffering. He is not the author of it.

If we turn and you might not have to we jumping around a bit

but it says in Proverbs chapter 6 verse 16 to 19 and this is I

Proverbs 6:16–19

think shows how much God hates suffering.

He says there are 6 things the Lord hates, seven that are

detestable to Him. Haughty eyes are lying tongue,

hands that shed innocent blood are heart that devises wicked

schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness

who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the

community. We see there that God hates

suffering. He hates evil and wickedness and

pain. If you remember back to the

flood story, He did that because of the wickedness that was on

the earth. He flooded the earth because He

saw all the pain, all the violence that was being done by

His crown jewel of creation to each other and he hated that and

He wanted to destroy it. He regretted that He had made

man because they had rebelled and turned from Him.

They had rejected His goodness and gone their own way.

I think we see very strongly that God hates suffering and we

see in the creation story that he what he created is very good.

That's the refrain we read right throughout the creation creation

story. After everyday he says it was

good, it was good, He gets to the end, it was very good.

We've got to understand where we're going through trial and

hardship and we have those those questions.

God is good. He is the author of only good.

It is his nature, his essence. He cannot do anything other than

good. We see that in the creation

story, God is a a God of love and generosity.

He is forever existed, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and perfect

joy and unity and community, and He created human beings capable

of enjoying that. He wanted to share His goodness

with others and So what he created was very good for us to

enjoy his generosity as we see in creation.

That's him showing off. That's him saying I am good,

enjoy this, enjoy me. And that means that what we

distorted became very bad. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, he wrote

the book Gulag Archipelago, and I think he words it really well.

He says that the line between good and evil doesn't run

between countries or states or political parties, but it runs

through the centre of every human heart and we have to take

responsibility. God created all things good and

we have distorted it. I think that's a great

definition of sin. Yeah, it's, it's missing the

mark, but it's taking the good and it's twisting it.

It's distorting it. Sin is a manipulation of the

good because sin isn't. It's not a an essence, it's not

a power, it's not a thing, it's not tangible.

God is good. He created good and we twist

that A a helpful image for this, I think, is a tree.

You picture a big, beautiful, coldy tree, strong roots, big

triangle, lots of branches and leaves.

It's a beautiful tree. That's like God's goodness.

When that tree starts to distort and and manipulate and rot,

that's like sin. You take sin out of the tree,

you've got a good tree. You take the tree away, you've

got nothing. Sin doesn't exist in and of

itself. It's a distortion of God's

goodness. Similar with the car.

You've got a hot pink R7. That's a cool car.

I don't know, cars. It's, it's Immaculate.

That's God's goodness, that's his generosity, that's his love.

That's all the things of God. And then the rust starts to

appear. That's us distorting it again.

You take the rust out, perfect car, take the car away.

There's nothing. So send us a a distortion of

God's good and we are responsible for that.

We can't look back to the garden and go, no, no, that was just

Adam and Eve. If it was me, I wouldn't have

done that. We all have that sin nature.

We all have that bent towards going our own way.

Pride. We all suffer from it.

So what God created was very good.

What we distorted unfortunately became very bad.

We see that in the fall in Genesis 3.

So as the argument goes, when it comes to God being all powerful,

we could say if he's all powerful, he could arrange a

world in which free creatures would always choose the good

option. But what we see in there is a

bit of a contradiction. You can't be free to only choose

one thing. Imagine taking the the kids out

there into a room and saying you guys have free will to choose

whatever you want. You can eat anything in this

room. Anything.

You have the choice. You've got broccoli, cucumber,

you've got parsnip, and you've got Brussels sprouts.

You can eat anything that choices yours.

That's not free will. God had to create free will in

order for us to be able to choose.

He didn't want us to be robots. God has created free

individuals, not human robots, who always carry out His plans

and purposes. We are free to choose.

For there to be genuine love, there has to be free will.

Now, Speaking of what God's plans and purposes are, I have

found this hugely helpful. What is God's will?

I put it to you that there are three aspects to God's will.

And this isn't to say that the Father has one will, the Son

another, Holy Spirit another, and he's not schizophrenic, He

doesn't change his mind. I think God has a very clear

will and he has communicated that to us and there's three

aspects to it. Firstly, this is prescriptive

will. This is what God makes happen.

This is something like the created order, the laws that

govern nature, that is happening as God prescribed, that is as

prescriptive will. That can't be changed.

I think it's really neat when you think of miracles, that is

super natural. God didn't do something outside

of what he already said in motion.

It's just an injection. It's not a change and the

created order, as an example, salvation and the availability

of it through Jesus Christ that he made that happen.

That is something that God prescribed.

It's as prescriptive will that all people can come to faith in

Jesus Christ. God's grace is sufficient for

all people. Salvation is available to all

that's prescribed. Christ's return.

There's gonna be a rapture of the Saints.

There's gonna be a seven-year period of tribulation.

Then there's gonna be 1000 year millennial reign of Jesus Christ

here on earth. That is going to happen.

That is his prescriptive will and amongst that, if God wants

something to happen, He can. He will.

You read through the Old Testament he has.

He makes his will happen. That is prescriptive.

The second part is his preceptive will.

This is what God wants to happen.

This is why we have this. You read through the Old

Testament. There are countless laws for the

Israelites to follow. That's what He wants them to do.

That is His will for them. If the Israelites were to follow

God's will and obey His commands, they would have been

prosperous. They would have represented God

well to the world. They would have invited the

other nations into right relationship with Him.

That's what he wanted, these precips.

When we read through the new Tisman, it's the same for us.

God's precept of will is that all would come to a knowledge of

the truth. It's this is God's will, even

your sanctification. So God has made it clear what he

wants for us to do, but he doesn't force us.

He has put these precepts in His word for us to obey.

This is what He wants to happen. And finally, there is his

permissive will, what God allows to happen, and that includes

sin, that includes suffering, that includes the pain that we

have to endure, but it also includes all the good, the good

that people who are in your believers enjoy.

Love first. John 4.

We see that God is love. When you look around people who

aren't believers, they get to enjoy relationship and community

and God's generosity and nature. They get to enjoy so much of

God's goodness, but they're ignoring the source, and God

allows that to happen. It rains on the just and the

unjust, so I think it's really helpful to understand what God's

will is. God hates suffering.

That's not what he wanted, but he does allow it and we'll have

a look at it possibly. Why So God hates suffering.

He is not the author of it. And I talked about how there's

an intellectual part and a in an emotional part.

And this little Choo Choo train I find so helpful.

And I probably use it too much, but hopefully it's the first for

some of you. And that is this, this train

fact, faith, feelings. We want to know what those facts

are. That's the idea of of knowing

the truth about God. So when the dark times come, we

can remember it. Know the facts of who God is,

what His will is for your life. Know the truth of His His love

for you, His generosity, His humility, His goodness.

That's the facts. Lead that drive the train.

And then we put our faith in there.

Just like we understand how how the universe works and, and we

live there by faith. It's it's not a far off distant

hope, but it's, it's a real tangible trust.

That's what faith is. And then let the feelings follow

that. I like the image of feelings

being like an elephant. Elephant Berg powerful.

You can sometimes have big powerful emotions.

Elephants can do so much good. They're big and strong, so they

can lift things. They can help with construction.

They're they're incredible animals.

But an elephant when lit run wild, can reek havoc too.

It can run through the jungle smashing things up.

And so I like to think of emotions as an elephant.

And our logical brain is sort of like the little Mowgli looking

Indian boy, you know, riding the elephant.

And the idea is that sometimes, you know, we need to try and get

control of those emotions so that they don't run off

somewhere and cause harm to ourself or others, but rather

direct it to be useful. Emotions are good.

Emotions are great, but they need to respond to the truth of

who God is. So he is not the author of

suffering. Let's remember that.

Secondly, He has a purpose for it and that's just this.

Blows my mind that in this pain and suffering that he hates, he

has made a way for it to be beneficial for us.

See us. Lewis puts it this way.

Pain insists upon being attended to.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our

conscience, but shouts in our pain.

It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

That's really interesting when you think of Stephen Fry's quote

and he's making these accusations about evil and

wickedness and it's not right. He's spot on.

But The thing is, when he sees the the evil and the wickedness,

he's, he's got to admit there must be an objective good.

If this isn't right, if we look around in the world and we can

agree this isn't the way it's meant to be, we can see the good

and we can enjoy the good. And we want that good without

all the bad. We have to acknowledge there is

an ultimate good if there is all this evil and suffering, and I

think that's such a good apologetic in and of itself.

This pain is not right and there is a good God who doesn't want

to, so we're gonna look at a few verses.

He has a purpose for it because it can increase faith.

In Romans chapter 5, verses 3 and 4, it says not only so, but

Romans 5:3

we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering

produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and

character hope verse 5. And hope does not put us to

shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

We can glory in our sufferings because it produces perseverance

and character. These sufferings, if dealt well

with, produce growth. We can grow to be more like

Christ. God is most pleased in His Son

and so the more like Him we are, the more pleased He is with us.

That sanctification we want to become like Jesus our Saviour.

James 1-2 to four talks about considering suffering as pure

joy because it produces perseverance and fish.

Peter, rejoice as you suffer a little while, cause your faith

is like gold. He has a purpose for it.

It can increase faith. It can also inflate comfort.

We see that God and 1st Corinthians 2 as the Father of

compassion and comfort, and He comforts us so that we may

comfort others. What a privilege to be able to

be equipped to comfort others who go through struggles because

we have been comforted by the ultimate comforter, Romans 818

and 28. We are to think of these

sufferings as nothing in comparison to the glory that we

will have. And then verse 28 where it talks

about all things working together for the good of those

who love God. So even in suffering you can

grow. You can grow in your faith.

You can grow in your dependence on Jesus Christ, not on

yourself. You won't be able to get through

yourself. It's about your faith in Jesus

Christ. And finally, it can induce

dependence. Psalm 99 says the Lord is a

refuge to the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

John 1633 says in this world you will have trouble that fear not,

I have overcome the world. We can depend on the one who has

overcome that can induce dependence.

So we looked at God being all powerful, but if he is all

loving, that says if God is all loving, he would prefer a world

in which evil does not exist. But that is a presumption that

that's that's what he would prefer.

If there wasn't suffering, how was it that we would grow?

How was it that we would rely on Him and look to Him and put our

faith in Him? Suffering actually presents a

unique opportunity to grow in faithfulness to God, who was

faithful to us all the way through it.

He never leaves us through those struggles.

This man, Job, Job says this at the end of his book, after God

has taken him on a tour of the universe and said, look at this.

Look at what I've done. Where were you when I created

the heavens? Where were you when I pulled

Leviathan out of the sea? I'm pretty sure there's a

description of a dragon at the end of Job.

And after he's done that, Job responds to God and says, I know

that you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be

thwarted. You asked who is this that

obscures my plans without knowledge?

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too

wonderful for me to know why there is suffering in the world

is beyond our understanding. And maybe I should have started

with that. It would have been a much

shorter message. God knows we can trust God.

He knows. That's the point He's making God

as far bigger. He's all knowing.

He understands the purpose of suffering.

But sometimes us and our three annoying friends that talk to us

for days on end, we don't quite get it.

So we need to know that God is a God that can be trusted.

He knows how it works, so trust Him.

The Third Point I want to make about why I think God hates

suffering, and this is incredible and we've remembered

this at the table this morning. He has stepped into it.

Now we need to have a right view of God.

This is the all powerful, eternal creator God.

He's outside of time, space and matter.

He doesn't need anything in and of himself.

He is perfection. He created this universe to show

off His goodness to us, and then He has decided to step into it.

The second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, took on a

human nature, became a man, and stepped into suffering.

I mean that is so powerful he entered into it despite himself.

This famous verses from Philippians 2.

Even though he is God, he didn't see that as something to be

grasped. But he did what needed to be

done. He stepped down into humanity to

deal with the problem of suffering, and he did that for

our sake. That Susan and 2nd Corinthians,

that he who knew no sin became sin for us.

That is just incredible. Knowing who He is and knowing

who we are, our sin, our rebellion, we are the cause of

all the suffering. He did that for us.

He endured the cross for us. He lived the perfect life that

we couldn't. He didn't cause any pain,

violence, suffering for anyone else.

He did it to solve the problem of suffering in us.

And John 316 he, he died for whoever believes.

He did it for our sake, for human beings.

Christ died for our sins, as you see in First Corinthians 15.

He enjoyed it for our sake and finally He enjoyed victory over

it. And this is the best part.

When you're going through suffering and you're struggling

and you want to shake your fist in God and go, where are you?

What are you doing about this? Why am I struggling with this

sin? You're shaking your fist at the

solution. He is the one who has victory

over sin and pain and suffering and death.

So don't run away from him. Run to him.

He enjoyed victory over it. The penalty for our sin was paid

for on the cross. The power of our skin is being

beaten daily with the help of the Holy Spirit, and the very

presence of sin will be done away with.

All thanks to God's generosity through His Son Jesus Christ and

His humility. He enjoyed victory over it,

Something that we can't do. We can complain about suffering,

we can deal with it as best we can, but it will continue until

He puts an end to it. Finally, Paul of Tarsus.

That's a little apologetics trick.

You know, he's the author of most of the New Testament, but

if you people don't think the Bible is authoritative, you make

it sound like it's a quote from somewhere else.

And this very wise guy Paul of Tarsus said very rarely will

anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good

person, someone might possibly dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this While we

were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That's from Romans 5, 7:00 to 8:00.

Just phenomenal what God did for us in order to deal with

suffering. And so that leads to the climax.

He will put an end to it. Like I said, we can't put an end

to it. We can only deal well with it

until He returns. He will come back for us.

John 14 three. He's his sister was disciples.

I'm going to prepare a place for you, and I will come back so

that you can be where I am. And 1st Thessalonians 417, it

says that the dead in Christ will rise first at the rapture,

then those who are alive will meet Him in the clouds, and

forever we will be with Him. God has not discerned us.

For Roth as a season First Thessalonians 5, He's coming

back for us. That is a sure hope.

Those are promises and God's word that you can hold on to no

matter how dark things are. He is coming back for us to put

an end to suffering. As he does this, he will put an

end to the pain and the tears. He's going to stop it.

Incredible promises and revelation 21 and 22.

He will wipe away every tear. There will be no more curse, no

more death, no more pain. Jesus says in Revelation 22

three that there will no longer be any curse and he will make

all things new. He says I'm coming back and I

will make all things new. It is Jesus Christ our Saviour

who is gonna return and put an end to suffering and and so

holdfast to him. I believe God hates suffering.

I believe there are four very compelling lines of evidence

that that is in fact true. And so I think the big idea of

this issue where, you know, how can a good God allow so much

suffering? Well, when you're facing

suffering, I would suggest that you focus on the solution.

Suffering is inevitable. We will deal with suffering, but

when you're in that, in that struggle, whether it's loss of a

loved one, whether it's the loss of Job, whether it's dealing

with illness or unfaithfulness, wayward kids, there's, there's

so many shapes and forms that suffering can take, but don't

run from God, run to him. Look to the solution which is

Jesus Christ all very intellectual, but this is a a

very real topic for me because about 11 years ago now my

parents went over to Kenya on a mission strip.

They went with BIFM college. It was a short term trip to a

village and an organisation called out quest.

And while they were over there the van full of people it rolled

and four people died in the crash.

A student from BCAA local guy and both my parents and it was a

shock when I heard the news devastated.

You know, you just cried for a week solid and then

intermittently from then on. And family weddings, kids,

births, you know, new grandchildren.

You reminded again of how much it sucks and the the pain and

the suffering that you feel through that time.

It's it's real and you can't just push it aside, but I'm just

so grateful that I have a God who can help me through that and

did help me through that. He was the source of comfort in

that time. There were times where I was

tempted to go, how could you allow this?

Why did this happen? Are you good?

And then I remember 100% he absolutely is good.

He hates suffering. He hated that my parents had to

die that way because death is a consequence of sin.

That's our problem and he solved that problem and I think we can

help ourselves by changing the language.

Let's I know there's some truth to it, but let's not say God

called them home or it was their time.

God wants to live with us forever.

No death. He hates death.

It's not his plan for us to die. It's not you've got a ticking

time bomb, your time's up now. No, he hates that.

That's a consequence of sin. He doesn't want that.

That's why he signed Jesus. And so I want to encourage you,

whatever it is that you're going through, whatever suffering you

struggle with, run to God, run to Him.

He is the comforter. Focus on the solution rather

than the suffering. Let me close by finishing in

prayer. Awesome.

God, you are incredible US so far above and beyond our

comprehension. What we do understand, the view

is, is only a small bit, but man, you are good, you are holy,

you are set apart, you are perfect.

And we know that we have sinned, we have turned away and and

rejected your goodness and we continue to do that.

But we are so grateful that you pursued us, that you sent your

Son Jesus Christ to die in our place and then conquering death.

We know we can look forward to a day where pain and hurt and

suffering will be gone, will be dealt with.

We thank you that through the struggle we can hold fuss to you

as a God of all comfort. Lord, help us to hold fast to

you. Help us by your Spirit to to

remember this and the hard times.

Help us by Your word to fill our minds with Your goodness.

Help us with each other, with the Church, to encourage each

other, support each other, to build each other up.

Thank you for giving us so much to help us in this in this

journey of dealing with suffering.

We thank you for this morning and the opportunity to worship

you together. You are so worthy of all our

praise. And so we thank you and your

Son. And now save his name, Jesus

Christ, Amen.