Phone A Friend | Week 6 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

Hey, Echoes Church. Pastor Daniel here. What an honor it is to get to be with you wherever it is that you're watching this. Like pastor Josh said, this is not a normal service for us, and this is part of the reality of being a church plant that doesn't have a full time facility yet. There's some weekends that we just are at the the will of the school,

and, you know, it is what it is. And we pivot in in either way. We believe that God still has a word, and he wants to speak to us. And today is the final message in a series that we've been in for the last couple weeks asking

and answering the questions that have been on your heart. And today's a tough one. Today's a tough one, but it's a it's a very valid question. And the question I'm gonna try to answer this morning is, is God okay with my suffering? And

again, I wasn't raised in the church, but I remember when I started coming around church, there was this phrase that would get thrown out all the time or this saying that was a part of church where the pastor would get up on stage and say, God is good. And then the congregation would respond all the time. And then you say all the time, and then the congregation would respond, God is good.

I remember there's being seasons of life just being like, is that true? You know, I know I know it's something that we say. I know it's like this, you know, Christian platitude, but I think there's legitimate questions of is God good? Because it feels like there's times that life

is not that good. And I I vividly remember when I was, I don't know, 10 or 11 years old, my aunt had this really traumatic birthing situation where she ended up hemorrhaging while she was giving birth, and my uncle had to make this horrific decision where the doctors literally said,

we can't save both of them. We can only save the baby or your wife. Who do you want us to save? And he said, save my wife. They they did everything that they could. She eventually passed away. They saved my, you know, my cousin now.

And I remember sitting with his brother after his mom had died and him just sitting there going, how could God be good and this whole thing happened? Right? And I I think most of us sitting here today,

we, to some level, to some degree, have asked the question, is God okay with suffering? And if he's if he's powerful, why doesn't he step in and do something? And, I think my my attempt this morning is to try to show you what I think the scriptures give us as a solution and an answer to this, but I don't wanna try to tell you, hey. I'm gonna give you something that will completely holistically answer this because it's a it's a big question, and it's a question that's been asked since the beginning of time. There's actually a guy named Epicurus who was an ancient

Greek philosopher. And in 300 BC, he came up with what we now understand as like the it's called the problem of evil or the Epicurean paradox where he was talking about this idea from a philosophical standpoint. And his his essential logic or his his his progressive thinking became

if God is willing to prevent evil, but he's not able, then it means that maybe he's not all powerful. Right? But but if God is able, but he's not willing, then that means he's not good. And if he's both able and he's willing,

well, then why does evil exist? Right? And you get into, again, what's called the Epicurean paradox where you get you kinda get stuck in this rabbit trail of thinking of trying to figure out, okay, if God is is powerful and good, why doesn't he he do things? Why doesn't he step in and save people? Why doesn't he change circumstances? And and all of these are questions that, truthfully, we will never fully be able to completely wrap our head around. But, again,

here's my submission to us this morning is that I believe that Christianity really is the only worldview. It is the only perspective that actually makes sense of, gives meaning to, and offers a solution for the evil and the suffering that we experience.

Because the truth is is that we're going to walk through hard things, and we've gotta try to rationalize it somehow. We've gotta get our head wrapped around it from some perspective. My my submission to us, though I won't be able to fully articulate to you exactly why and when God allows certain sufferings and when he steps in in other situations,

what I can show you biblically is how I think, again, Christianity makes sense of, gives meanings to, and offers solution for the evil and the suffering that we experience. If you read the bible, you will see a theme all throughout it, Old Testament to New,

that there are people who have walked through hardships and have wrestled through this question. Again, you go back to the Old Testament. There was a prophet named Jeremiah that was known as the the weeping prophet, and he

he's anguished over what he sees coming, which is the judgment of his people, the the annihilation of the people of Israel. And he's pleading with people to change, to to change the behavior, to come back to God, but nobody will listen to him. And he's just he he's relentless in trying to plead with God going, why won't something change? We see king David

king David being absolutely heartbroken over certain seasons of his life, asking God throughout the Psalms, have you have you left me? Are you are you just forgetting me? Have you have you completely overlooked me? It seems like you're answering prayers for other people, but just not just not for me. And then you go to the New Testament and you you see who Jesus says is the greatest man who ever lived, John the Baptist, his cousin, his best friend, the guy that knew Jesus better than than any of us. We see him even in moments in prison

wrestling with, God, where are you?

How how come you've not done something and intervened in my situation? And if it was possible for all these guys to get there, I'm telling you, eventually, we will get there too. There's a story. There's a there's a psalmist that I wanna kinda show us this morning as we talk about this idea

of suffering and evil and the will of God and the plan of God and the purposes of God.

There there's a psalmist named Asaph that we don't we don't know a ton about, but he does write some of the most significant psalms that we have. And he wrestles with the same idea in Psalm chapter 73 verse 11. He says this. He says, what does God know?

He says, does the most high even know what's happening? He says, look at all these wicked people enjoying a life of ease while their riches just continue to multiply. He said, did my did I keep my heart pure for nothing?

Did I keep myself innocent for no reason? He says, get nothing but trouble all day long. Every morning brings me it brings me pain. And I just tell you today, if there's something that you're wrestling through that's difficult, if you find yourself watching this going, man, I'm I'm struggling trying to figure out where

where God is. For a lot of us, the greatest question that we have, the greatest obstacle to face is trying to get our heads wrapped around if if God is good, then how could he allow whatever has happened to you or whatever situations you've had to walk through,

how could God allow those things to happen? And, again, I wanna try to just wrap our heads around this idea a little bit. The first thing you gotta understand

is how and why God created us. K? God created you and I with this thing called free will. And and again, it's a whole other conversation. That's a philosophical rabbit trail to go down. Why did God have to give us free will? Because without free will, you and I would just be a a rock or a robot. And at the end of the day, God created us with a desire to eventually get us to a point that we were we would be willing to love him back.

But you gotta understand, God built into the the human design choice. And if love is a choice,

here's what we gotta wrap our head around, is that it means that suffering is a possibility. Right? That that if God gave us a choice to love, he also gives us the choice to to not love. And so if you're gonna get rid of if you're gonna get rid of the option to have have choice,

then you've gotta get rid of either you and I or you've gotta get rid of free will. But the problem is is this is the this is the tension that that we live in. And so often, what you and I choose when we're choosing other than God's best is that's what the Bible calls sin. And sin always leads to death. It always leads to pain. It always leads

to suffering. And outside of God removing us or removing choice, there really is no other there really is no other option. And and,

again, my submission to us a little bit is to go, hey. We all are in universal agreement that there are things in this world that are they're just evil, and they're wrong, and they're bad, and they're suffering that we can all agree that if we could do something about it, we would we would have it not exist any longer. But but I also, again, in that logic and in that train of thought,

my my submission to us is that if there is a god if there is no god, then who gets to decide what is evil or good? Right? And I think this is the I I was thinking about it this week kind of preparing for this. I don't know if you guys grew up with siblings, but, man, we we I'm one of five kids. I'm right in the middle. I'm the oldest boy, but I had two older sisters and two younger brothers. And I don't know how my parents did it. Right? I've got two teenagers and a newborn right now, and I I feel like we're drowning. I don't know how my parents dealt with it because we we fought like cats and dogs. Right? And there always becomes a point when you're fighting with your siblings where you're like, okay. I'm gonna go tell mom what you did. And then you go run, and then the other sibling tries to get ahead of them to make sure that they get to tell their plead their case before mom or dad first, and then you get into this whole back and forth of, you know, who did what, who said what. But the the mom or the dad has to sit outside of it, and it's what's frustrating as a parent is you have to sit there in the middle of all this and try to arbitrate what really happened knowing that both of them are telling you, you know, half a version of the truth.

But, again, outside of having a mom and dad that are arbitrators of right and wrong, who gets to decide who's right and wrong? And and, again, here's my my point to some degree, is that the the fact that we can agree that there's something wrong, that there's suffering, that there's brokenness,

I think it actually proves to us that there's there's a moral code that has been written on our heart. CS Lewis, the famous Christian author, at one point was a really staunch atheist. And the reason that he would have said that he was an atheist, he literally said that he rejected God because of all of the injustices

that he saw in the world. But eventually, what started to happen inside of him was him realizing that there was a bit of a logical contradiction built into that. Like, how how can you call something unjust unless you're acknowledging that there's a standard of justice? Right?

Our ability to call something unjust, it actually means that we're in agreement that there's some type of standard of justice. And and you and I have to begin to realize that maybe baked into the question of why is there suffering in this world

is the potential proof and evidence that points to maybe there's a God that's that's in the middle of all this. Now it doesn't solve the problem of suffering,

but it does begin to point to maybe that there is that there is a God. And if there's a God, then maybe there's a purpose to all of this. And as much as I I can't answer for you how and why God allows suffering in certain seasons, what I can promise you is that there's always purpose in suffering and that God is always working and doing things that we can't completely understand.

I ended up watching this show a couple months back on, I don't know, Amazon or Netflix or something, and they they follow these really traumatic injuries. And there was one that I was watching where this guy was in a horrendous motorcycle accident and his and his leg was completely disfigured, broken in multiple places. And they they followed the journey with the paramedics, and eventually they go and you meet with the surgical team. And it's it's pretty wild. They don't recommend it, especially if you're if you're squeamish. But I remember watching the show, and this guy's leg was broken, and the surgeons were talking about how they were gonna have to re break his leg

to actually fix it. And I was like, wait. Hold on. The doctors are going to re break his leg so that they can properly fix it. The doctors are going to intentionally

put him through pain, put him through suffering. Why? Because there was a better end on the other side of that. And, again, it's just one of those things that reframe for me that sometimes there's purpose in pain that we don't understand. It doesn't it doesn't justify it, but it begins to potentially explain that maybe

God understands pain, God understands suffering in ways that we don't, and that there's there's potentially an end at this whole thing that's different than what we can see from our limited human experience.

Now, again, here's my submission to all of us as we consider this idea of faith and where does God fit into all of this. So many of us will be tempted to build our our understanding and our foundation of God based on the circumstances of our life. But I think the scriptures implore you and I to build to build our faith on God's character,

not on our circumstances. Because our circumstances will tempt us to believe that God is not good. But the reason the scriptures are so important for us is because they reveal to us who God is and what his heart is for us. And God's heart for us as revealed in the scriptures is that he is unapologetically

for us, that he is he's working to restore all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his to his purpose. But again, there's still the question, why suffering? And then the other question that's that's right there with it that is often asked is why does bad why do bad things happen to

good people? This is probably one of the most important one of the most often questions that I get as a pastor. God Daniel, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? And nobody likes the answers that I give.

Because the truth is is that none of us none of us are actually good. And I think the hard part is that's part of the challenge with this is we we try to answer big questions about God with our understanding of morality.

But again, if you read the Bible, the Bible says that there's only been one time in human history where something bad has happened to a good person. And it was two thousand years ago when God himself became human, and Jesus actually walked among us. And we had,

for a limited period of time, we had one holy, perfect, good human, and his name was Jesus. And and what happened to him? The guy that was good was treated horrendously.

He was mocked. He was beaten. He was eventually stripped naked. He was he was hung on a cross. He was crucified. He I mean, it was a it was a barbaric treatment of Jesus. That that's what we did. That's what we collectively as humanity did to the only

good person. And so, sure, one time there was a bad thing that happened to a good person, but this idea that you and I are are good people, it it it fails to understand what the Bible says about about you and I. But again, I wanna show you even Jesus himself

hanging on the cross, Matthew chapter six verse 24, he says, my God my God, why have you abandoned me? Right? And it's not lost on me that Jesus himself asked the same question walking through a really hard situation saying, God, why?

And I don't know if you've been there, but I'm telling you, some point, all of us are gonna find ourselves in a place asking God, God, why have you let this happen? And I don't know what it is for you. I don't know what it is that's causing you to to question the goodness of God that's causing you to question

the reality of God being good and God being for you. But the truth is is it's part of our it's part of our human experience. And, again, I I wish I could just go, hey. Here's the three reasons why I can prove to you that suffering is and just make it all explainable, but but I can't. But what I can do

is I can show you what the answer is not. And so often, when we're trying to figure out why does God allow suffering, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people,

I think we often forget that the scriptures do tell us that it's it's not because God doesn't love us. Right? So so often we think it's be oh, well, God must not he must not love us, or maybe somebody did something wrong. And and so much of what Jesus did in his ministry was was fixing

people's incorrect thinking. There's a story where Jesus heals a blind man,

and everybody around him, even his own disciples, asking Jesus the question, was it his sin or was it his parents' sin that caused him to have this ailment? And Jesus was like, neither. It had nothing to do with sin. Right? Sometimes there's just brokenness in this world because of the the the sin that has entered it. And Jesus said, it had nothing to do with any of that. Right? And I can also prove to you that God that God is not allowing suffering because he doesn't love you. He's it's just part of this this broken human experience.

Again, this is why John three sixteen is like the verse for us as Christians. It's the gospel in one verse, but it also begins to show us God's heart for you and I. Says, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that that whoever believes in him shall not perish but will actually have

eternal life. That the reason that we can know for sure that suffering is not because God doesn't love us, is because Jesus literally said that God so loved you that he was going to send Jesus to die a horrendous death. And what he was going to start to do is he was going to usher in

the end that was going to come one day. And I just wanna remind us, whatever season we're in this morning, whatever whatever hardship we find ourselves in today, this is just a chapter of our story. It's not the conclusion. And as much as I can't reconcile why God allows suffering in certain seasons,

why God steps in and heals certain people and he doesn't heal others, As much as I can't reconcile that, what what I can do is I can promise you that there is a conclusion to this story, there's a conclusion to your story that is it is unbelievable, and in the end is worth the journey. And maybe

maybe God is doing something with pain that we don't understand, and maybe that it's it's death that is what is necessary for resurrection to come, and that that the breakthrough that we're we're believing for is going to come one day. I I wanted to share with you, here's what the conclusion of the story of this life is. Though we're not there yet, this is where the story ends one day. Revelation chapter 21 says, then I saw a new heaven. This is a vision that the the apostle John is having. He says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared, that this life had disappeared. He said, and the sea was also gone. And then I saw

I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven like a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, look,

God's home is now among his people. He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. And here it is, verse four. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.

And friends, as a Christian, as followers of Jesus, that's the conclusion to the story that we look forward to. That we know that there's a day that's coming, though we might not understand today

why God allows certain things, why he heals in certain moments and doesn't heal in others. We don't know those things. And I I so wish that I could just answer those questions for you. But it's it's part of the human plight of following God is we have to just be okay

not knowing everything. It's why this is a journey of walking by faith and not by sight, but our our faith is built not on our circumstances but on God's character. And the Bible tells us that God is good, and there's a conclusion to this story that we can look forward to.

But the truth is is we're we're not there yet. The end is going to be glorious, and I I find myself the older I get, the longer I've been on this earth, the more I look forward to the day where the new heaven and the new earth is is to come, and all all tears are wiped away, and sorrow and death and crying and pain are no longer a part of our human story.

But we're not there yet, and the truth is we have to live in this in between where we believe that that day is coming, and we are excited for the conclusion of this story to be here. But today is not that day. And for some of us, we're walking through the middle of the hardship.

And here's my encouragement to us. Even though you might not understand why God has allowed it, here's what's beautiful is I think, again, the scriptures remind us what to do with it And what you should do with your hardship, what we should do with our suffering, even when we can't understand it, is learn to take it to God and to bring it to God. And let let him process it with you, let him comfort you, and let him be the one that brings you the peace that surpasses all understanding.

The promise of scripture is not that you and I will walk through life without hardship. That the promise of scripture is not that we will not know suffering because the bible says that we will, but there is a peace that is available to us that surpasses all understanding.

There there's a hope that is available to every single one of us regardless of what it is that we're that we're walking through. I wanna show you what Asaph, the same guy we just read in Psalm 73 that's sitting there wrestling going, God, I I don't even think I can trust you. I don't see you anywhere. I I don't even know if you're good. I feel like I've wasted my life in following you. Eventually, if you keep reading in Psalm 73, you'll get to you'll get to this verse where he starts to kind of connect some of the dots. And this is these are some of the dots I'm hoping that you and I can connect this morning. He says in verse 16,

he said, when I tried to understand all of this, it troubled me deeply.

I'm telling you, there's a level of this whole thing trying to get your head wrapped around why why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Why is there suffering? Why is there evil? Trying to understand it. It should trouble us deeply. And then he says, it troubled me deeply until I entered the sanctuary of God.

It troubled me until I learned to come into the presence of God and begin to take take my big questions, take my hardship, and not run from God because of it, but to run to God with it. And then look what he says if you skip down with me to verse 26. He says, then my flesh and my heart, I learned that they may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. At no point did Asaph say, oh, I learned to like the suffering. I I learned to understand exactly what God was doing in the middle of hardships. That wasn't the connection.

But what his connection point was, the breakthrough for him was that if I learned to take this and I bring it to God and I process it with him, though my my flesh and my heart may fail, God can give me supernatural strength and he can become my portion forever. Friends, here's my invitation to us sitting here today.

Why does God allow suffering? I don't exactly know outside of us having free will and sin being a part of our human experience.

Do I wish that I could tell families that are walking through horrendous things, man, God's gonna step in and he's gonna rescue, he's gonna heal every time. I wish I could. I pray for that. I believe that God can. I I ask for God to every single time.

But I've also been on this journey long enough. I I I read enough of the Bible to realize that God knows things that I don't know. And there's sometimes purpose and pain that I can't understand, and there's sometimes that there's there's breaking that leads to better healing, and I've gotta trust

that God knows what he's doing. And the invitation for us is not to understand it all, but to submit to and trust the one that perfectly holds it all. And so whatever it is you're walking through, whatever whatever suffering, whatever hardship you have, let me encourage you, friend, don't run from God because of it. Instead, learn to run to him. God is not afraid of your big questions.

He's not afraid of your your doubt. He's not afraid of the the really big things Brett wrestling in and brewing inside of your heart and soul, but you've got to learn to bring them to God. Because I'm telling you, take God out of the equation,

suffering and evil is still a part of our world. And and there's really no logical explanation or reasoning for it outside of God. And again, my my submission to us is I think the Bible suffering is a is a is a theme line throughout the entire thing. And I still believe that Christianity,

Jesus, is the only thing that actually begins to make sense of. It gives meaning to and it offers a solution for the evil and the suffering that we experience. And though I don't always understand it, what I can say a thousand percent sitting here today is that God is good

all the time. And all the time, God is good. So I'm praying for you. I'm believing whatever it is you're walking through, it is temporary and you will eventually get to the other side of this. And we set our sights, we set our hearts

not on the things of this earth, but on the on the earth that is going to come. The the glorious kingdom that will come one day where death and sorrow and crying and pain will be no more. Amen? Let me pray for you. Father. God, I thank you. Lord, that there are people today who are asking the question,

why do you allow suffering? And it's it's not an intellectual pursuit. Pursuit. God, it's a deeply emotional one. And and they're not sitting back just having an intellectual philosophical conversation. There's something that they're wrestling through.

There's something hard that's going on inside of them. And God, I know because the scripture says that that when our hearts break, your heart breaks.

And that when we're broken in spirit, you draw nearer to us. And so, father, I'm believing that you will, even right now through the the lens of a TV, that God, you would actually begin to move.

You would move in the hearts and the lives of people. God, that your supernatural peace that surpasses all understanding would begin to invade hearts and homes today.

Jesus, above everything else, we we love you. We thank you that you made a way for us to look forward to a kingdom that's gonna come one day. And father, remind us not to set our hearts in this world, to not try to get too much out of this life, and to try to not wrap our head around everything, and instead put all of our hope, all of our faith, all of our trust in you who will never fail us. Jesus, we love you. It's in your name all God's people said. Amen.

That message was powerful and I hope it stirred something in you. Well, hey, I'd love to invite you back for promotion Sunday. It's gonna be a really fun weekend for all of our families. We'll have shaved ice, some fun things for the kids, and it's just a great Sunday to be together. So bring your family,

invite a friend, and come hang out with us. We'd love to see you there.