Faith | Discipleship at Messiah

“Why Does God Permit Evil?”

Posted on 2/7/13 by On the road with Jesus.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. -Romans 8:28 (NIV)

Some years ago, I sat in a doctor’s office and he told me he was an atheist because of the evil in the world.

There is perhaps no problem, no question which troubles more people about the Christian idea of God that this one: “Why does God permit evil and suffering?

A couple of months ago, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings, there was a lot of discussion of this. A full range of opinions from those like the doctor to those who suggested that somehow God willed this event were expressed.

Some people deal with this question by explaining it away—nothing is really bad. It’s just that we don’t have enough knowledge. If we knew all we would see that really it wasn’t evil at all, just shadows that add depth to a beautiful picture. In our world it is increasingly difficult to hold to that idea.

For others it is God’s will. We may not understand but we must simply accept it. Whatever will be will be. It is punishment for sin. He sends it for trial or testing.

More than 30 years ago, a Jewish Rabbi, Harold Kushner wrote a best selling book—Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. Churches all over the country studied it. His answer to the question was basically that God is limited in power and cannot prevent some things.

While it is true that many find comfort in some of these ideas the Bible says something different.

God is the creator and all powerful. So, in one sense, it can be said that God is responsible for evil in that He created a world in which it is possible. He gave human beings a choice and they made the wrong one. Since all creation is woven together and interrelated, as the weaving of a fine fabric, those choices affect everybody and everything. It is not just a spiritual flaw but even the natural order is affected. Read the creation account about how humans’ relation to the earth is changed. In short, we blew it and ruined everything.

But there is good news. God did not give up, abandon creation, us. He set in motion a plan to do it over, even better than before. The key in this plan is Jesus Christ. Through him God gives us a second chance to make the right choice—that is to trust God with our lives.

The good news is not that it is a cure for suffering and evil in this world but that God has a means for using suffering and evil to defeat itself (signified by the cross). God’s great power is shown in, not that everything that happens is good but, that God uses even evil to carry out His great plan.

Evil and suffering are a reality in this life, but God is not pleased, in fact, suffers with us. And He is doing something about it. A new age has begun, a new creation described by John (Rev. 21:1-4). The whole creation, Paul says, has been groaning, as in pains of childbirth…as we wait eagerly for…redemption. In the meantime: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ…(Romans 8:35-39).

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Where We Are

Posted on 12/11/12 by On the road with Jesus.

You must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. –II Peter 3:3

I was recently looking at the results of a national study on the “Beliefs, Preferences and Practices” of the American people. It is the first of its kind study in fifteen years. Several things in particular caused me to “sit up and take notice.” The first was that over four in ten Americans (42.3%) believe “God is the full realization of human potential.” More than one in four (27.9%) agree with the statement: “Everyone and everything is god.” When asked about religious preferences almost one in four (22.6%) answered “none.”

Another study by the Barna group and examined in a book by David Kinnaman, “You Lost Me,” deals with the mass exodus of young Christians from church.

These and other data paint a sobering picture of the state of Christianity and the church along with prospects for the future. In light of that what is a Christian to do? For some it becomes an exercise in spiritual “hand-wringing.” For others, the response is “We know the outcome.” Jesus said “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” So, let’s go merrily on our way to heaven and “to hell (literally) with the rest of the world.”

However, Jesus warned this would happen. And in that context, he gave us our orders: “Go and make disciples, followers of Jesus.” How can we do that in a world like ours? There is no easy answer. However, there is one thing we must do. Make sure our/my life models Jesus. Nothing so disarms the enemy, so attracts others to him. We see too many Christians (I use the word loosely) who disprove the good news. We have too many churches where it is not taken seriously and who settle for a thin religious veneer rather than transformed lives.

A former professor of mine, Dr. James Robertson, used to say (in his rich Scottish brogue) we need to “adorn the gospel.” He was saying we need to live so our living is good advertisement for God’s way. Everything else depends on God’s people being like Jesus.

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Thanksgiving

Posted on 11/20/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (I Thess 5:18)

Someone has said, “The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound.” It was that attitude that led Abraham Lincoln to proclaim the first official Thanksgiving Day in the midst of our country’s civil war.

Some people simply do not know how to give thanks. The London Times reported this story several years ago:

Thousands of letters sent each year to God end up in a sorting office in Jerusalem. According to the Associated Press, the letters arrive from all over the world in the city’s undeliverable mail department. “We have hundreds of thousands of letters sent either to God or Jesus Christ, and for some reason they come to Jerusalem,” said post office spokesman Yitzak Rabihiya.

In one letter an Israeli man asked God for 5,000 shekels ($1,000), to ease his poverty. Postal workers were so moved that they sent him 4,300 shekels.

“After a month, the same person wrote again to God,” Mr. Rabihiya explained, “but this time he wrote, ‘Thank you, God, for the contribution, but next time please don’t send it through those postmen. They’re thieves; they stole 700 shekels’.”

In the classic story, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” the Grinch expects cries and wailings after he steals all the village gifts and even food. Instead he hears them singing a Christmas carol. And he learns, “Christmas resides not in things but in the heart which is thankful. He could not steal their gratitude.”¹

In Joe Batten’s book, Tough Minded Leadership, he says that gratitude is “highest form of mental and spiritual health.” It creates humility. I defy you to maintain pride while thanking God. It also produces generosity and overcomes discouragement.

But most of all it leads to praise which honors God. In the last book of the Bible when God’s great plan is coming to its conclusion these word reverberate through all creation: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.” (Rev. 11:17)

My prayer for you and me is for a grateful heart.

¹Brett Blair, http://www.eSermons.com, November, 2003

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His Eye Is On the Sparrow

Posted on 11/15/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father…. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. –Matthew10:29,31

For those of us living in the NE corridor of the United States and the path of Hurricane Sandy, today we are either breathing a sigh of relief because we were spared or we are assessing the damage and trying to make sense of it all. And in the midst of a disaster like this we need perspective. As I have been thinking about it I just want to share what I wrote after the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Read it.

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Whom Shall I Love?

Posted on 10/13/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Love your neighbor as yourself Luke 10:27

” Few stories have so made an impression on the world as this. It has been called most practical of parables. Read the story

A lawyer asks the most important question―Jesus was often asked. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life? A difficult question, he thought. “Love God, Love your neighbor,” Jesus answers simply.

Now the lawyer asks what he thinks is an unanswerable question. “Who is my neighbor―whom shall I love? The theologian, Helmut Thielicke calls this ”theological fencing.” He says, “He is itching to slip like an eel from his grasp if this Jesus would reach out for his soul. He had rubbed his inner man, as it were, with soap. Countless people do that. Any pastor can tell you about these slippery souls….As long as a man has some pious questions to ask he doesn’t need to act.” To speculate and brood about theological questions to escape responsiblity is wrong!

This shows a basic misunderstanding of love. It has no boundaries to love except need and ability. “Love ‘like the sun, which does not ask on what it shall shine, or what it shall warm, but shines and warms by the very law of its own being’” (William Trench).

Jesus tells the story, the story most often called “The Good Samaritan.” A man beaten and robbed along the road and left for dead is helped not by the religious who pass by but by one normally an enemy to this man.

And Jesus asks, “Who was the neighbor to the man? A different question than the lawyer had asked, one which reverses the question. A neighbor is one who shows mercy, has compassion, one with a “big heart.” And we are reminded that, “Anybody who loves must always be prepared to have his plans interrupted.”(168).

To whom am I a neighbor? To whom are you a neighbor?

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We have found him

Posted on 10/2/12 by On the road with Jesus.

We have found the one -John 1:45

“The Exciting Discovery—“We Have Found Him”

Have you ever tried to tell someone of something that is so unusual, so different from the normal or expected that you knew when you told it you wouldn’t be believed.

Try to imagine John’s task—to tell of something so wonderful, so absolutely unique as to be unbelievable. Then read and watch as he lays the groundwork, then builds his case to prove that the creator becomes flesh and blood and lives on this earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:19-51).

He begins by calling some eye witnesses. First, he calls the most prominent and influential religious leader of his time—John The Baptist (called simply John by writer).

The Baptist has raised quite a stir with his preaching, baptizing and a group from the religious establishment has been sent to find out what he’s all about? Who could he be? Is he the one to look for? The one God has promised? Are you he?

To John’s credit, he makes sure they are pointed to Christ and not a substitute (himself). Do you know hard that would be. John is the most popular person around, with all the acclaim and success which goes with that. And he must now begin to point the crowds away from himself. He immediately begins to fade into the background. I am a voice only. He is greater than I am. Can you imagine a politician, a great religious leader downplaying his importance?
He tells his own disciples, the time has come, he has come. You are not to follow me but him. The faithfulness of John in doing his job is now clearly seen—“they followed Jesus.”

And immediately they become evangelists, that is, they began to tell others. “We have found him.” So the cycle begins all over. Those who find Jesus want to…must, tell others about Him.

“Hallelujah, I have found Him who my soul so long has craved! Jesus satisfies my longings; through his blood I now am saved.” (From the hymn, “Satisfied” by C.T. Williams)

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When God shows up

Posted on 8/16/12 by On the road with Jesus.

The priests couldn’t even carry out their duties because of the cloud—the glory of God!—that filled The Temple of God. -Message

When God Shows Up

Don’t you just love discovering stories like this in the Bible? I’m sure I’ve read this passage numerous times and went right past it like running past a spectacular view without even noticing. But today, I noticed.

Get the picture: the choir and orchestra with 120 trumpet blowing priests praising God: “God is good! His loyal love goes on forever!” God’s presence, glory so powerful, tangible as a cloud fills His house and the service stops as the priests “could not stand to minister.” When God shows up church ritual, routine takes a back seat. Those leading worship are simply overwhelmed and everything stops as the power of God takes over. Wow! And I don’t use that word very often, but Wow!

You think the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies were awesome. That’s nothing compared to the glory of God. God is present everywhere. God is especially present when two or three gather in His name. But there are times when God’s people are praising and worshipping Him that His glory comes. We don’t know when or where but we look for it. We long for it. And we prepare for it. And we “will never be the same” when we experience it.

The environment again—God’s people singing God’s praises. Let’s praise God with all that is within in us—heart, mind, strength.

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. –Psalms 103 (NIV)

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Abundant Life

Posted on 7/31/12 by On the road with Jesus.

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10 (NRSV)

          The bumper sticker said: “If you don’t think money can bring happiness, you don’t know where to shop.”
          I read about a church near San Francisco that recently advertised a “money-back guarantee”? “Donate to the church for 90 days, and, if you aren’t blessed, you can have your money returned.”
          As these two anecdotes illustrate, we live in a consumer oriented society. Someone has said, we chose “churches not so much to meet God and surrender to his revealed ways as to satisfy some personal need.”
            It is hard for a culture—materialistic, affluent, and self-indulgent like ours–to hear a Biblical text like the one this morning without distorting its meaning. “I am come that they might have life…abundantly.”
            On the other hand, in southern Mexico where believers are being persecuted, how does it apply to the widow and children of Presbyterian. lay preacher, Malecio Gomez, 32, killed in a hail of gunfire and whose body was hacked with a machete? In a world where a child dies of hunger every 5-6 seconds, 18,000 a day, what does it mean?
            It certainly does not mean security from illness, pain, death, or provision for everything we want. With almost monotonous repetition, John keeps telling us, not new things but confronting us with the choice to trust Jesus.
            For those who have trouble experiencing the reality of the abundant life or who confuse it with worldly goods and comfort, Jesus offers himself. It is about our relation to Him. We belong to Him and He is that life, the abundant life.

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The Growth Goes On

Posted on 7/11/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Night and day, whether he [the sower] sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows. -Mark 4:27

Do you every feel overwhelmed when you look around at how much work there is for the church to do and how few there are to do it? We regularly are bombarded with calls for help in some ministry. We wonder how in the world God’s work can every get done with our limited resources and leaders and workers.
A mental health worker, Dr. Darold Treffert tells the following story:

“Amy, 15, had always gotten straight ‘A‘s’ in school, and her parents were extremely upset when she got a ‘B’ on her report card. ‘If I fail in what I do,’ Amy told her parents, ‘I fail in what I am.’ The message was part of Amy’s suicide note.”

This attitude, belief that performance, accomplishment, production is the measurement of life saturates our thinking, fuels our living, gives us ulcers and destroys some of us.
          Someone has said that much of the nervousness and the lack of time is because “we have taken over control of our world.” We can and must do everything.
          In the church it is expressed in what someone has called “the atheism of technique—the belief that we can hasten the kingdom by using the right methods, trying some new gimmicks, and working our heads off.”¹In Jesus’ parable comparing God’s kingdom to “growing seed” we read these words: “Night and day, whether he [the sower] sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows,…All by itself the soil produces grain.”   In midst of human activities—good, bad, indifferent and in midst of human problems and cares God’s growth goes on.
          This gives us perspective about what matters. We can slow down. We have to time to pray. Look at Jesus. Humanly we would have expected him to be frantic, with all that needed to be done but exact opposite is conveyed.
          The late preacher, Helmut Thielicke wrote:

“Woe to the nervous activity of those of little faith! Woe to the anxiousness and busyness of those who do not pray!…In most cases today we do not sin by being undutiful and doing too little work. On the contrary, we ought to ask ourselves whether we are still capable of being idle in God’s name.”

Martin Luther put it this way: “While I drink my little glass of Whittenberg beer [“Pepsi,” the Methodist version] the gospel runs its course.”
It is about power—a tiny tree can split a rock as it grows.
This is not a not a parable about doing nothing. The seed is sown. There will come a day when you can’t produce. To see God carry out a plan quite independent of what we do or don’t do is the ability to be at peace.

^{1 Robert M. Johnston}

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Squeezed by Life

Posted on 5/29/12 by On the road with Jesus.

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?…How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? … But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. -Psalm 13

Do You ever complain?
Do you ever complain to God?
Get angry with Him?
How do you feel about that?

Did you know there is a whole group of Psalms that are characterized by complaining to God—Psalms of Lament.
Furthermore, there are other Biblical examples of holy people, God’s own people saying things to God we would never expect—complaining, accusing, etc. Listen to the great prophet Jeremiah:

He tells God he is suffering for Him, he has fed on God’s words, they were his joy and heart’s delight.
            I never sat in the company of the revelers,
              never made merry with them;
            I sat alone because you hand was on me
              and you had filled me with indignation.
            Why is my pain unending
              and my wound grievous and incurable?
            Will you be to me like a deceptive brook [“liar”-King James trans.],
              like a spring   that fails?

What we have here is the real life of God’s honest believer living in a world where we get squeezed by life and the practical example of how they have reacted. These people are human, fallible, struggling, yet believing.
I was introduced to Brian Sternberg years ago in a book by Philip Yancey called Where Is God When It Hurts. As I was working on this I did some research and came across the following from a sermon by R.J. Tusky just last month:

            Once upon a time, Coach Grant Teaff wrote a book called “I Believe.” It’s about a young man who was once the world’s greatest pole-vaulter. His name is Brian Sternberg.
            In 1963, Brian was a sophomore at the University of Washington. He was not only the world’s best pole-vaulter, but also America’s trampoline champion. Teaff says:  “Word around track was that Brian Sternberg was the most self-centered, young athlete to come along …in a long time.”
            Teaff tells how he watched Brian perform the day he broke the world’s record. He says: “The thing that caught my eye was his poise, self-confidence, and that he never smiled.”
            The next day at breakfast, Teaff was stunned when he read the newspaper headline: “Brian Sternberg Injured.” Brian had been working out, alone, in the gym. He did a triple somersault and came down on the trampoline …off-center. His neck hit the edge of the frame, snapping it and leaving him totally paralyzed, able to move, only …his eyes and his mouth. Brian was left a helpless, hopeless cripple, and …a very …very …bitter …young man.
            Five years later, Coach Teaff saw Brian again. It was at a convention for coaches and athletes at Estes Park, Colorado.
            Once everyone was seated, the auditorium was totally darkened. Suddenly, a movie projector lit a large, panoramic screen. There was Brain Sternberg …racing down the runway, executing that record-breaking pole-vault. Every coach and athlete in the room “oohed” and “aahed.”
            Then the auditorium went totally dark again …except for a single, brilliant spotlight, illuminating a single chair, with arms, on the, otherwise …bare, stark stage. It looked like some tractor-beam from a spaceship, locked onto that chair.
            Then, out of the stage-shadows, came a huge, nationally-known, football player named, Wes Wilmer. In his arms was what looked like a large ragdoll. Its long arms and legs hung limp at its sides and flopped this way and that, as Wes Wilmer walked across the stage. The ragdoll was six-foot, three-inch Brian Sternberg, all 87 pounds of him.
            Wes placed him in the chair and carefully, propped him up with pillows, so he wouldn’t fall over. Then, in a raspy voice, Brian Sternberg began to talk:
            “My friends-Oh, I pray to God that what has happened to me, will never happen to one of you. I pray that you will never know the humiliation, the shame…of not being able to perform one …single …human …act. Oh, I pray to God you will never know the pain I live with everyday. It is my hope and my prayer that what has happened to me will never happen to one of you. Unless, my friends …that’s what it takes for you to put God …in the center of your life.”
            The impact of Brian’s words on that particular crowd was absolutely electrifying. No one there will ever forget them.

            I read somewhere that it was said the place to go if you wanted encouragement is Brian Sternberg’s house.
            Brian, Joni Eareckson Tada (paralyzed in a diving accident) and untold multitudes more, squeezed by life find in Jesus Christ meaning and purpose. And they become shining examples of how life with God overcomes all obstacles.
            Brian once closed a Look magazine article this way: “Having faith is a necessary step toward one of two things. Being healed is one of them. Peace of mind, if healing doesn’t come, is the other. Either will suffice.”¹

¹ “The Spirituality of Suffering,” http://www.theaword.org

Filed under: Discipleship, Example, Faith, Grace, Obstacles, The Journey, Wholeness | Comments Off on Squeezed by Life

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