Sunday Sermon

 

Our Suffering

Isaiah 53:4

But he took our suffering on him and felt our pain for us. We saw his suffering and thought God was punishing him.

One of the most consistent misperceptions that I have run into over the years of ministry is the idea of hell. So many people do not understand what hell is and what its purpose is. When we begin to talk about hell people get scared and that is a reasonable response because hell is a terrifying place. Scripture tells us it is filled with pain and crying and suffering which should tell us this is not a place we should desire to be. In short, we could say that hell is the opposite of heaven but that would miss the deeper meaning of what hell is. First and foremost we need to know that hell is not punishment. People do not end up in hell because they have done wrong things that deserve to be punished. Yes, we have a God who does punish but the idea of punishment is to teach people that the things they are doing are headed in the wrong place. Israel is punished because they have not been faithful to the covenant with God they agreed to. God wants them to learn that unfaithfulness has a price. The Israelites learn this lesson from the time in captivity and are much more serious about keeping the law after the captivity. If hell is not punishment then what is it? Like I said it is kind of like the opposite of heaven in the fact that heaven is where God is and hell is where God is not. Hell is the place where those who have rejected God end up. The idea is that God wants us to choose Him and God goes to great lengths to restore the relationship we broke with God. It is our sin that condemns us to a place separated from God but Jesus comes and takes the price of sin on Himself and so instead of ending up in hell we are offered to stand in the presence of God as one of His children. Here is the thing though, God does not force us to choose Him. We can choose to live lives that do not include God but the price for that is that we will then spend eternity without God and that is a bad place to be. God is the source of life and healing and light and that means that all those things are missing in hell. Because we live in a state of grace where we do not grasp how terrible it is to be without God and we think we will be okay when we are truly cut off from God but that is why God wants us to know how really horrible hell will be. I address the issue of hell because I want us to know what an amazing God we have. There is no reason God should care about us and worry about us not ending up in hell but we have this God who does everything He can to keep us out of hell. We are told that Jesus traded the glory of God and humbled Himself and became human that He might take on our sin and so restore us to the God who loves us. Our God wants every person to stand in His glory and find the wonder and delight that will flow from God’s throne. Over and over God calls to us and wants to give us life instead of destruction but God will never force us to choose Him and that is even a really cool thing about who our God is.

It is often hard to understand God and what He is doing because we cannot see God and God is so much greater then us that we have no control over God. For me that is one of the things that draws me to faith in God. If we have a small God then what is the point of trusting that God can fix my broken life. I want a great big God who knows what is going on and is willing to do the things it takes to change me from a sinful man to being the righteous person both God and I mean for me to be. Based on who God is there are three things that we know about God and that every first year theology student learns. God is all-knowing, all seeing and ever-present which may seem like some big things but they really have a fundamental effect on our everyday lives. Because God knows all things we can be certain that God knows what is going on and is not confused by the evil we as human do. An all-knowing God also knows me and understands how to teach me and help me become what God longs for me to be. The same thinking goes along with the all-seeing and ever-present, it means that we have a God who sees what we need and is with us at all times. When this is taken in its totality, we have this God who calls to us and tells us how important we are to Him. All of this is to point out the idea that God does not want to punish us but wants to save us from the destruction that our sin brings. Celebrating the glory of God and giving God the honor He deserves is not something hard to do but it is a wonderful chance to stand in His presence and know about the God who is creator and maker of all things. Our God longs to set us free and so He gives us the wisdom that we need to live by and that should drive us to worship God and find hope in Him.

Lately I have come to understand the generosity of God and the power that lays behind that. A righteous God is a generous God and so we learn who God is by what God does. Because God is righteous it means God always does the right thing which tells us about God’s loving nature and how He works. God does not have to be generous but He is and that means instead of demanding that we stand condemned for our sin God pours out grace to give us time to figure out we need God. Our verse speaks to the same concept and tells us how generous God is and that we need a God like this. In the verse is says two things. First it talks about the pain and suffering God is willing to endure to fix our sin problem and we are told that we need to look at that pain and suffering and understand the God who will do that. If the phrase “he felt our pain for us” is not a sign to us about who God is then we are not paying attention. I go back to the concept that God is all-knowing and that God knows our pain. From that place we find that God knows our pain and wants to deal with it. After learning this it should be such a simple thing to fall before God and ask Him to fix us. The problem that many people have is that they want God to fix them but they do not want to accept the authority of God in their lives. The whole point is that God’s authority is part of the fix for our lives and so coming and bowing before God is the starting place for a life where God works in us to fix us. All of scripture is designed to teach us about God and to give us the wisdom we need to be the people God meant us to be. Let us get this straight, we have a God who is willing to take on our pain and all we have to do is accept His authority in our lives and God’s authority is part of the fix. Giving God glory for His generosity should be so easy. Knowing God is not easy but seeing what God does tells us who God is and helps us learn to worship and bless the name of Jesus Christ. Instead of avoiding human problems our God steps into them and has a plan to deal with our brokenness and part of that is God’s willingness to suffer for us. This is the God I want to worship and this is the God who I submit myself to. A God who is willing to go to the cross is a God who deserves our attention.

The second part of the verse is central to understanding who God is and our relationship with God. It talks about seeing what is going on but not grasping what God is doing. If we were to stand and watch Jesus die on the cross we would assume that God is punishing Jesus for saying He is God. What we see and what God is doing are two different things and if we don’t trust God we will not be able to have the faith we need. It is so normal to be in pain and call out to God and ask what is going on. David does this and Job does this and it is a normal human thing. When we are in pain we demand that God fix it right now but that is not how healing works. I have talked before about how we can think of God as a surgeon. The purpose of doctors is to bring healing but sometimes they have to do damage to set things right. A surgeon has to cause pain to get to the problem and make things work right. God does the same thing. To get past our broken lives God has to cut into us and that can be painful but it is not God punishing us but the exact opposite. This verse asks us to trust God not by what we see but by what we know is the nature of God. This verse challenges us to trust that God is at work even when we cannot see it. One of the points of the first part of the verse is to tell us God is at work in the most extreme ways and so the second part asks us to trust that God is working and to give God the glory and honor not because things are good but because God is at work in all things. Learning to trust God will help us come under His authority and we will begin to live by the principles and concepts God teaches us because we trust in a loving and righteous God. Let us learn the lesson of Thomas and trust in the God who speaks to us about our pain then does something about it. Our God is moving and He wants to give us the life we were meant to have.

The God of the Bible is an intervening God and because of that we have so much hope but it also means that God has lots of things to say to us. We do not have a God who is just going to let us be but we have a God who knows what needs to be done and God is doing it. This means God is at work in our lives but there is only so much God can do unless we let Him work in us. Our verse serves to tell us about a God who is willing to go to great lengths to deal with what is wrong in the world and our lives but we must trust that God enough to live by His ideas. God does not seek to punish us but to teach us and to train us and God is willing to suffer deep pain if that will bring us to Him. The Bible tells us we have a God who offers life to us but do we have the courage and strength to live as God calls us to?