Tough Questions - Why does God allow suffering?

Good morning, church. It's great to see you all. Welcome to our Sunday service. If you've been with us over the last few Sundays, you'd know that we're looking at some tough questions. Those kind of questions that even as Christians, we're sometimes wrestling with, but particularly I think, people who are searching for faith, they're looking for God.

They're the kinds of questions that genuinely keep people from discovering God. They're kind of roadblocks to them. So we wanted to make a series where we carefully step through some of those tough questions. And the one that I'm tackling this morning is why does God allow suffering? And so suffering, it's part of everyone's lives, where we're all acquainted with it.

No one escapes it, whether it's through illness, loss, relationship breakdown, injustice. We've all experienced it, but to varying degrees and in different circumstances. And for us as Christians, the fact that suffering exists seems odds with the God that we understand and the qualities that he has.

So namely, we believe in a God who is a loving God. 1 John 4, 8 says, Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. So more than just a good God, we believe in a God who is loving, who loves us deeply. We believe in an all powerful God. Psalm 147:5 says, how great is the Lord?

His power is absolute. His understanding is beyond comprehension. We believe in a God that not only has the power to create everything in existence, but has the power to intercede into our lives. We believe in an all knowing God. Psalm 139:1,4 says, O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.

You know when I sit down or stand up, you know my thoughts even when I'm far away, you see me when I travel and when I rest at home, you know what I'm going to say even before I say it, Lord. So we believe in a God who really knows us better than we know ourselves. And so the logical go, if God is loving, then he wouldn't want us to suffer. If God is all well, then he has the power to end our suffering. And if he's all knowing, then he's aware of the suffering that exists in our lives.

So why does suffering exist? And so people often use this argument to suggest that our understanding of God is incorrect, so one of the qualities of God is not right, or that God simply doesn't exist. And that's often how the argument is posed. And for some this is more of a philosophical conundrum, but for others for most people I think it's personal. Why doesn't God help me?

Why doesn't God end my suffering? And there's a reasonably quote from a comedian actor called Stephen Fry. He's also a very outspoken atheist. He's well known for articulating the personal side of this. And he was once asked on a TV program if he had a chance to speak to God, what would he say?

And he replied with this. He says, how dare you? How dare you create a world where there is such misery. That'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 that is so full of injustice? And so what he has to say there is, he's confronting for us to hear. But, but he does really articulate the pain that people grapple with. This knowledge of who God is and the world that we see around us don't seem to line up and it's confronting. And so there are lots of things to say about this.

But I want to be clear up front. There are no neat answers to the problem of suffering. The Bible gives us these broad explanations of human evil and natural suffering. But other than that, there's no detailed explanation for why God allows it to be that way. But what we do see is God's response to suffering.

I do want to start by looking at some of those biblical explanations for why suffering exists in our world. I think they're really important for us to understand and comprehend on a deeper level. But I also acknowledge that there's a danger here in trying to explain suffering. We can diminish people's experience of suffering, suffering. And so I'd say, please don't look what I'm presenting here today as being a simplification of your suffering.

I'm not saying here are all the answers. I'm not saying it's not a big deal. That's not what this is about. Which is why I'm going to go a bit further. I'm going to go a bit further beyond the philosophical and look at how God has responded to our suffering, because I believe that puts everything else into perspective.

And start with some of those biblical reasons for why. So the first explanation that we're given is to do with free will. This is probably one that you're most familiar with. In Genesis 1:26 it says, Then God said, let us make human beings in our image to be like us. So all people are made in God's image.

And because of that people are distinct from all other creation, but not because of our physical appearance. Appearance being made in God's image is not to do with how we look. Instead it's to do with the qualities that God has given us. And so that means a lot of different things. It means that we have the ability to love, to be intelligent, to be creative.

It means that we also reflect God's nature in the fact that we have free will. So God chose to create the universe. He chose to create people. He chose to love people. God has free will.

And with that God comes the ability to determine our future. And so we have real choices to make. And the story of ancient Israel highlights that. So clearly they're forever flipping between obeying God and disobeying God, which leads Moses to implore the people to choose life. And in Deuteronomy 30, 20, Moses says to the people, he says, you can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him and committing yourself for firmly to him.

So the, the ancient Israelites there, they're given this choice to follow God or turn away from him. And, and Moses tells them what is required to make that choice. It's about loving God and obeying him.

And so this shows me that God has given people real freedom, right? Real freedom. Because that of course that decision would be meaningless if people didn't have free will. And so as people, we have the ability to choose everything about our lives, from those small things like what you're going to eat for breakfast, to the big things like whether or not you're going to choose to follow God. And history has shown us that people can use their free will to do and create beautiful things in this world.

Think of art, technology, the good food you eat, the entertainment you enjoy. All of those things come from people having the freedom to make real choices and be creative. But history has also shown us that free will has allowed people to inflict horrendous suffering and cruelty. Think of war crimes, human trafficking, the drug trade. All of those things come from people choosing not to listen to God's instruction.

So in giving us free will, God, he's given us true freedom. He's given us true freedom. That's something that you would expect a loving God to do, but it has a consequence in that people will also choose not to obey God.

Another aspect of suffering is what's referred to as natural suffering. So suffering that's caused by natural events such as disease and disasters, suffering that's not caused by people. So the Bible explains the reason for natural suffering as due to the fact that we live in a fundamentally broken world. So in the beginning, Genesis tells us that everything God created was good. All right, so, for example, Genesis 1:31 says, Then God looked over all he had made and he saw that it was very good.

So God says that everything he's created was good. Everything from, you know, sharks to volcanoes, those things that are sometimes dangerous and terrifying. God says, actually those things are good too. God's created this good, ordered and beautiful world, but nowhere does it say that it's safe. If you read through job chapters 38 to 41, you'll be struck by how God highlights these two dangerous creatures, the behemoth and the leviathan.

To make that exact point to Job, he says, God's world is good, but it's not designed to prevent suffering, which. So what the biblical story tells us, though, is that the first people were protected from this. They lived in the Garden of Eden. They lived in the fullness of God's presence. A place where heaven and earth overlapped.

It was a place where they had open access to God. A place where there was abundance, there was security, there was freedom. And in that place where heaven and earth overlapped, it appears that the people were free from natural suffering. They were free from the disease and the natural disasters. But it didn't remain that way.

We know how the story goes in Genesis 3. We read about how people, they rebelled against God. They chose to seize authority for themselves. And the result of that is that they no longer could live in God's presence. And so there's this rift between people and God that happens.

And it's in Genesis 3 that we learn that what lies outside the Garden of Eden is turmoil. It's toil, frustration, there's pain, there's death. And so the biblical view is that with this separation from God, there's a measure of decay is brought into our world. And these things that God originally created for good can now come into conflict with one another. Creation has this degree of independence from God.

You could say that it didn't have in the Garden of Eden. And so there's a simple way I've heard this explained is like this. God has created gravity, for example. Gravity is good because it holds our planet together. It keeps us firmly planted on the ground.

It keeps the planets in orbit around the sun. Lots of good things. God also created rocks. Rocks are great because they give us minerals. They're a firm foundation, they're a resource.

But those two can come into conflict with each other. Gravity can cause a rock slide that Destroys a town. Right, Just. That's a really simple example about how two things intended for good can come into conflict with one another. And that's natural suffering, that's natural suffering.

And so those are the two broad reasons that you'll find in the Bible for why suffering exists in our world. But I should point out that they don't answer all the questions around why God allows it to be that way. And so does that mean that logically we're wrong about God, you know, or that suffering proves that God doesn't exist? As it turns out, the argument that I presented at the start doesn't have the logical force that a lot of people think it does. That argument that a good God wouldn't allow suffering can be flipped on its head.

And there's a professor called Alvin Plantinga who's quite well famous if you're a follower of philosophy and religion. He's a leader in that space over the last 30 years. And he argues that the existence of suffering could only be used as evidence against God's existence if we could first show that God couldn't have good reasons for allowing suffering to exist. And so he's written a refute of this popular argument. It's over 60 pages long.

So I'm going to give you a very shorthand example from it which communicates, I think, the main point he wants to get across here. So one of the points it makes, and one that I personally found compelling, is that we ourselves, from time to time, allow some measure of pain in our lives for good reasons. So think, for example, of athletes who endure pain to achieve greater feats of strength, agility, speed. Think of how many of you would be familiar with the pain of medical treatment. But we go through that because we know that it has a long term good benefit for us.

Think of children in your life and think of how we, as they get older, we allow them a greater degree of freedom in their lives. And with that they no doubt make some unwise decisions. And with that comes pain. But we allow that to happen because we want them to learn from those experiences, to gain that independence. And so Dr. John Dixon, he's an author and a historian, he summarises this whole idea really nicely.

He puts it like this. He says the fact that we allow some small measure of pain for the sake of some small good ends means we can't rule out that God himself might have infinitely greater reasons for the greater measure of pain that he allows in our world. He then goes on to say that the point of that is that until we show that there could be no good purpose behind God allowing suffering, that popular argument doesn't have logical force. And so what I want you to take from that is that that argument that a good God would not allow suffering doesn't hold up logically. And so you can flip the whole idea on its head and say a good God would only allow suffering for good reasons.

And so if you want a full explanation, if you want to go deeper into that, you'll have to read Professor Alvin Plantinger's work for yourself. And so I've talked a lot about the philosophy to do with the problem of suffering. And while I think that the philosophical explanations, they're important, we need to grapple with those, understand them. I don't think they help in the midst of suffering. On that personal level, to the person who's dealing with that pain and that loss, the philosophy doesn't usually help.

To the person who's suffering, questions like, why is this happening to me? Why doesn't God step into my situation and remove my suffering? They still remain. What does help in those situations is knowing this, knowing that God has responded to our suffering. That's significant.

And he's done that in two really profound ways. And the first is that God has responded to our suffering by entering into it Himself as the person of Jesus. In his life on earth, Jesus experienced all the things that we experience as humans, including all the bad stuff. And the thought that God would step down from heaven to live among us is amazing in and of itself. But to think that he would willingly suffer is just a whole nother level.

And Isaiah 53:3 describes Jesus life like this. It says he was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised and we did not care.

And so the gospels, they confirm this by telling us about Jesus life. They tell us that he was born into poverty, he was a refugee. He experienced thirst and hunger. He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, he was betrayed. And then when he came to tell people about God's kingdom, he was despised.

He was rejected by so many people. And in the end, he was. He was mocked. He was humiliated, tortured, and left to die a very painful death on a cross. And so God willingly entered into that suffering.

And doing so, God is coming alongside us, and he's saying that he understands that he knows what we're going through, not because he's all knowing, but because he's been through it himself. Jesus was acquainted with deepest Grief is what Isaiah tells us. God gets it. And ultimately Jesus, he endured that pain, that suffering, and even death so that he could conquer sin and death for us. So Isaiah goes on to say this in verse five.

But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so that we could be whole. He was whipped so that we could be healed. And that's the second way that God responds to our suffering, by making a way to restore everything that has been broken. God takes all that is broken in this world and he makes a way for it to be whole again.

You know? And the way he does that is through Jesus. It's through his death and his resurrection. With Jesus, resurrection, God, he responds to our suffering by telling us where everything is heading. And it's an image that's best captured in revelation.

In chapter 21, verses 3 to 4, it says this. I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, God, look. God's home is now among his people. He will live among them, and they will be his people. God Himself will be with them.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. It's talking about a future time where there'll be a new heaven and a new earth is the place where God and people, they live together once more. It's a restoration of everything that was lost in the Garden of Eden, a place where everything that's broken will be restored. A place where everything that was lost will be reconciled.

That's how God has responded to our suffering. And really, that is the thought that I want to leave you with. The most important thing that I want to leave you with is that God has responded to our suffering and that he's done that in two really profound ways, by entering into it Himself and by restoring to us what has been lost. And I know that's not an explanation. No, it doesn't answer all the questions as to why God would allow suffering, but it's compelling, it's comforting, because it tells us what God is like.

It tells us that God is someone who would rather suffer than abandon us. It tells us that God is one who would rather endure suffering on our behalf. He's not distant and removed. He's here with us. And that tells me that whatever the meaning of suffering is, it must be consistent with that quality of God, that a God who himself would suffer in this world alongside us, out of love for us and for our good, you know?

And it leaves me in a place where I feel that I can trust God. That's what I bring it back to. I'm in a place where I can trust God because I know God's heart. It just reinforces for me that God is in fact good and that he therefore must have good reasons for allowing suffering to exist. Far from being capricious or mean minded or stupid, we can know with certainty what's in God's heart.

And we know for certain that he loves us so much that he would suffer from for us and even die on our behalf. And so for you this morning, this is an invitation to trust in God's wisdom. It's about coming before God and saying, okay God, I'm not in control. I don't have all the answers, I don't understand everything that's going on. But I trust you and I'm willing to walk with you through this.

And so to you this morning, if you're suffering or if you're walking alongside someone who is suffering, I would say look to Jesus. Look to Jesus and know that he understands your suffering, that he's experienced it for himself. And now he's here with you. He's here with you and he's ready to walk alongside you. He's wanting to offer you that peace and that comfort in that situation, to help you get through it.

Know also that he's made a way for everything to be restored. Jesus resurrection tells us that there is so much more to come, that there's a resolution up ahead for you, that there's a new creation that's awaiting you. And I'll leave you with that thought this morning. Let's pray.

Dear God, we just come before you, we with so many questions. We come before you with so much pain, so much suffering that we see around us, Lord. And we just come before you, Lord, just knowing that we don't have all the answers and that it frustrates us to see how the world is in so much pain and so much suffering. So we pray, Lord, that you would work through us to alleviate that suffering, that pain. That you would make a way, Lord, for what is lost and broken to be restored.

That you would work through us to make this world a better place. And to those of us this morning, Lord, who are in pain and suffering, Lord, I pray, Lord, they would experience right now your tangible presence amongst them, Lord. That Jesus, they would know that you are walking beside them, that you are there ready and waiting to lift them and carry them through this situation, offering them that peace that surpasses understanding, Lord, giving them that comfort that they probably weren't expecting to experience in such grief and pain. And Lord, we just come before you this morning acknowledging that we don't have all the answers, but we trust in your wisdom. And we declare that this morning, Lord, that we know what your heart is, that your heart is for good.

That you love us, Lord, that you love us beyond measure. And because of that, Lord, we trust in your wisdom. We trust that wherever this is heading, it's for good. Thank you, Lord. Amen.

Thank you all for listening this morning. I know for some of you there's lots more questions about this particular topic. There are some great resources that you can tap into. One of those is a podcast, which I love to listen to, two called Undeceptions. And there's an episode there called On Suffering.

I would recommend that you, you check that out. It covers some of the things I've talked about, but in lots more detail. We've also given over the years sermons that touch on all these topics in some aspect. So there's a sermon I gave on the Christian discipline of Lament. There's another one there on Contentment, looking at the Book of Job.

And more recently, Pastor Simon talked about the Man Born Blind, that, that unforgettable series, Encounters with Jesus. I'd recommend you check those out together. They'll give you this, this broader picture, this more complete picture of what this is.