The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E07 - Suffering

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Why do bad things happen? And more than that, why does God let bad things happen? In this episode Joby examines the moment when sin entered the world, and foreshadowed the One who would make all things new. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” — Genesis 3:15

Hey, church family. If you got your Bible, Genesis chapter 3, one of the questions that probably every pastor or minister gets asked often is why do bad things happen or why does suffering happen? You know, why do things like we're going through right now with COVID-19? Why do those things kind of happen? If God is all loving and God is all powerful, then how come he doesn't stop these things? It's a legitimate question, the question of suffering. Now, I think, generally speaking, there are maybe four different reasons, theological or practical reasons why suffering exists. And today I want to talk to you about one of them. That's why we'll go to Genesis chapter 3. Now, three of them that we won't talk about, but maybe just for a second, sometimes suffering exists because of people's own sin.

I mean, it's just you did something and those things have consequences and so we suffer for them. Sometimes suffering exists because of other people's sin towards us. And then sometimes suffering exists because we have an enemy and he prows around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. But then sometimes, sometimes, especially in regards to like natural disasters, hurricanes, I don't know, viruses, things like that. It is because we live in a fallen and broken world. This was not God's initial intent nor designed. And he did send Jesus, and one day Jesus will return things to that state where they were,

where there is no crying and there's plenty of food for everybody and nobody's sick. But we see it right here in Genesis chapter 3. The Bible says this. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beasts of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Just in case you knew to Bible study, what we find out in chapter one and two, God says, let us create mankind in our own image, male and female. He created them in his image and likeness.

That word image and likeness, one is a masculine word, one is a feminine word, and what God is saying is, I am going to create humanity to bear my image and likeness, male and female. So it's not just the male that images God. It's not just the female that images God, but the male and female rightly image the one true God. And because God is a relationship, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in and of himself as a perfect love relationship. And not because God had any need whatsoever, but out of an overflow of God's love for God's self, he creates all of the cosmos and universe and everything that is, and he creates his image barriers to be in right relationship with each other.

And when God creates all of these things, he's a God of relationship. He's not a God of rules. In fact, there was only one don't. Just don't eat from that tree. And there was a lot of dues, subdue and cultivate, work this ground, eat from any of these trees, be fruitful and multiply. and then the serpent, God's enemy, our enemy,

comes up to the woman and begins to lie to her. And again, when the enemy lies to us, he often wants us to question or to doubt primarily three things, the word of God, the work of God, and the will of God. And so he says, did God actually say that you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the servant we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.

But God said, now the woman is going to quote God, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. By the way, God didn't say anything about touching it. This is classic fundamentalism where we try to add our own rules to the law of God. But the serpent said to the woman,

you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God. knowing good and evil. You see, essentially, what the enemy is trying to trick the woman with, it's an identity issue. You see, the reality is this, is that she knows that she had already been created in the likeness of God as a free gift. And what the enemy is trying to convince her of is, no, no, no, no, if you want to be like God, there's some stuff that you have to do. This is basically works-based righteousness right here.

You see, she didn't believe the good news that God had created her by his own grace, that she had to do something to be like him. And so, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, by the way, that's called lust of the flesh, and that it was a delight to the eyes, lust of the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise the pride of life. she took of its fruit and she ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate now this is one of the most condemning verses for masculinity in all the scriptures I mean for a long time I thought

Adam just got tricked and maybe maybe Eve made like an apple pie and didn't tell him about it and while she was getting tricked by the enemy he was out like you know shining his bass boat or shooting a bow or something manly but literally in Hebrew it means he was elbow to elbow with her which, by the way, the reason that we got into this mess to begin with is because the very first man couldn't stand up and act like a man.

I mean, at some point, when a serpent comes into your house and tries to talk to your wife, you put your foot on the head of that and say, you don't belong in this place. But not Adam. It's his passivity that got us into this. Then the Bible says, then the eyes of both were open and they knew they were naked. And so they sewed fig leaves together and made. themselves loin cloths. This is the very first religion, by the way. You see, what they said is

forget you, God. They rebel against God by disobeying him, and now they're going to reject God by saying, God, we don't need you. We've got this. By our own works, we will cover over our sin. And they sowed fig leaves together, and they made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day. and the man and his wife hid themselves in the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

Now, God is not calling to the man and woman because he does not know where they are. God is calling to Adam and Eve because God relentlessly pursues his rebellious kids. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, You know what happened to you? At some point in your life, because of your nature and nurture, you rejected God. You either rejected God through rebellion. You said, I do what I want with who I want, when I want.

Or maybe you rejected God through religion and said, I will be a good moral person and I will obey all the rules. And if I'm good enough, God, then you owe me. And essentially what you're doing, we're sowing fig leaves to cover up your sin and shame. And yet, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, God walked through the garden of your very only. life and he called you by name, where are you? See, when Reagan was real little, when we'd play hide and seek, she was the worst. She would go and hide in her room. She'd stick her head under the bed, her whole body to be out on the floor, and I would walk through her house and go, Reagan, where are you? Not because I did not know where she was, but I wanted her to hear my voice that when she was

lost, I would come looking for her. And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid. This is Adam. for the first time in human history, a human feels fear. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself and he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I command you not to eat? Now, do you know what God is doing here? God is tossing.

Have you ever played coach pitch with your kids? Coach pitch is like one step beyond tee ball. Tee ball, you take the ball, you put it on the tea, the kid hits it, okay? And before they get into machine pitch, and before they get into kid pitch, they get into coach pitch. And what the coach does is the coach, I was one of the coaches. You're about three feet in front of your kid. Your kid's holding the bat. He barely even knows which end to hold it up to, you know.

And you say, all right, buddy, take a practice swing. And he takes a practice swing. And then what the coach tries to do is he just tries to pitch that ball to that exact place where that bat was on the previous swing. What God is doing right here is he's giving. Adam, this opportunity to stand up and act like a man, to repent, to say, God, I need you, and I'm sorry. God already knows the answer to this question, and he just tosses up this softball, and all Adam's got to do is just crack this thing as God intends it. And he says, have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And look what the man says.

And the man says, the woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate it. Typical man move right here. Dup, blame, cover. That's what he does. There's only a few beings in all of eternity at this point. At this point, there's God, there's the man, there's the woman in this conversation, and Adam blames the other two. And then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done?

And the woman said, the serpent deceived me. It's not my fault, and I hate it. And the Lord God said to the servant, now what's going to happen? If you've got your Bible out, you see that this is in. So this is like a song that God sings. And God is going to curse the serpent, humanity, and all of creation as a result of sin. I think a lot of times, especially grace-based preachers like myself, sometimes we don't, we don't understand the severity of sin. And I don't just mean like our individual, I made a bad mistake last night.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm thinking oftentimes we don't understand the catastrophic nature of sin, of rejecting God, the source of goodness and life and light, and saying, forget you, God, I got this. Not only does it fracture our relationship with God and send us directly on a beeline for hell apart from the love and blood of Jesus, but it also fractured all of creation. And God says,

this curse because you have done this cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field and on your belly you shall go dust shall you eat all the days of your life i will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel we're going to come back to that verse and to the woman he said i will surely multiply your pain and childbearing and in pain you shall bring forth children, your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. You know what this means? You ever fight with your husband, ladies? Or how about this? Your husband ever telling a story, and you know he's not telling it right? So there's that thing in

you that wants to go away like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, quit telling the story. Let me tell it right for you. Did you know before the fall that wasn't there, that you were given to him to help him? Because for sure he needs help, but you have this desire in your you to lord that over him, that came from the fall. And to Adam, he said this, because you have listened to the voice of your wife. Let me stop there. Do you read that and say, Pastor, am I not supposed to listen to the voice of my wife? My answer would be like, no. You're supposed to listen to her heart. Fellas, you've ever been riding in the car and your wife's mad? She's looking out the window, and you say, what's wrong? And she says nothing? And you say, okay? You're not supposed to listen

to her voice. You're supposed to listen to her heart. And instead of protecting her, he was passive. And because of that, Adam, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. So when sin entered the world, not only was the enemy cursed, not only was the woman cursed, not only was the man cursed, not only was all of humanity cursed with the curse of the result of sin,

but the cosmos itself, the ground, the earth, was fractured. At the macro level, this is why we get like tornadoes through Nashville, out of nowhere, all the way down to the micro level, like a coronavirus that we can't even see, but gets in somebody and passes along and along and along and causes all of the havoc, and all of it is a result of sin. And then the man called his wife, his wife's name's Eve, because she was the mother of all living things. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothing them. I want you to notice what happens. God, in his perfect plan, he creates man and woman.

They join together. He says, this is very, very good. They reject him and they run from him. He pursues them, but because of his holiness and because of his justice, there will be curse for sin. But because of his love and because of his grace, when he kicks him out of the Garden of Eden, See what it says, that God made a garment, a garment. God made clothes. God says, hey, those figs leaves will not be enough. That your man-made effort to try to cover over your nakedness, your sin, and your shame, it will not be enough.

So I will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. And for the first time in history, blood is shed for the covering of sin. You see, if you remember, when God says to Eve, I will put enmity between your offspring and this enemy, this circle. and one day from your offspring Eve from your seed will come a man a God man and this enemy will bruise his heel and in the bruising of this man from your seed heel will create a crushing of that enemy's head and so when Jesus is on the cross and he says it is finished it was the fulfillment of the proto evangalion the first gospel that God ever speaks so

why do bad things happen and why do natural disasters happen because we live in a broken world. But I've got good news. I've got good news. That Jesus came not only to forgive and save sinners, but when Jesus returns and takes us with him, he's going to bring a new heaven and a new earth and all things will be made new. And for anyone who is in Christ Jesus, listen to me, this is as bad as it'll ever be for you. Now on the flip side, if you are not in Christ Jesus, if you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, this is as good as it'll ever get from you. But for those of us who have surrendered our life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, he's going to make us new,

he's going to make all things new. And in His glory, in eternity, in the new heaven and in the new earth, there are no tears, there's no pain, there's no food shortage, shortage, there's no virus, there's plenty of food, nobody walks with a limp or a swagger because he has made all things new. So 1122. When you look on the news, things may look dire, but I've got good news. Jesus gets the last word. Would you pray with me?

Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray for the people all over the world, but particularly at our church, Lord, that are experiencing the result of the curse. Lord, whether it's a tough time at work or job loss or they're trying to figure out how to make ends of meat or maybe folks that don't feel well. God, I pray that you would hear their prayers, Lord, I pray that they would let us know as a church so we could be your hands and feet so that we could reach out and care for and love our brothers and sisters as they are in need. And God, we hope and look forward to the day when you return. God, in the meantime, Lord, we pray that you, you would bring us healing in our land, whether it comes in a supernatural way that the whole world has to give you credit or, God, maybe it's through your general revelation, through doctors and medicine and technology. God, we don't care. And Lord, in the meantime, may we be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and supplication, may we make all I request known to you, and may the peace of God, which transcends understanding, guard our heart and mind in Christ Jesus. We pray it in His name.

Amen.