Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you ever wondered why bad things happen to Christians?

When people come to faith in Christ, you often find that they expect that everything will go well with them.

I mean, they worship, believe in and call upon the name of God; the almighty one, creator of the heaven and the earth, God that raised Jesus from the dead, God that is control, God that cares for His children, God that gave us His most precious promises and chose us, called us out of the world into His Kingdom! God that calls himself our Father!

If God is for you, who can be against you?

Surely He must then cause all things to go well with you?

It is a very tempting thought and if true a “get out of jail free” card.

Just name it and claim it!

I have heard people talk about the treasure of heaven just waiting for anyone to ask for whatever they want….God loves you and will provide ANYTHING you ask and make all things turn out to your expectation.

There are people out there that teach that if things go wrong with you, there must be something wrong with your faith!

Is this what Scripture teaches?

Surely if this is right then there must be something wrong with the believer that is in difficulty?

Let us look at some Scripture passages that seems to support this :                              Luke 12:6 “Are not five sparrows sold for two cents?

/Yet /not one of them is forgotten before God.

     7     “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Rom 8.28 we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God

                                             John 14.13: “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

14     “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do /it./

Now let us be clear: We believe these passages because it is given to us by God himself!

It most certainly is in Scripture!

All of these passages, and many more like it, support the fact that God does indeed care for us, His children.

We can trust in God to provide everything we need!

…………….Yet….. believers still suffer, don’t they?

 

·        You sometimes hear of the most heart rendering stories: you hear of a family that lost not only one child, but the whole family in the Tsunami leaving only the mother to try and cope with her loss.

·        Christian friends of us waited years for a baby with many pregnancies not working out.

When they finally had a baby, he was born many weeks too early and after 6-7 months of struggling, until today has never seen the outside of the hospital, being confined to oxygen tubes without any realistic prospect of a normal life.

Yet these dear people pray every day for healing!

·        You hear of Churches that could barely make ends meet that got swept away in floods, you hear of people like my family and I that go through trials yet believing!

·        It might have happened to you: You pray and pray with heartfelt conviction that what you pray for is just.

The alternative to what you ask of God is unthinkable: how else can a young mother with a suffering child pray to God for deliverance?

She will pray ferverently, expecting God to answer her prayer.

Does she not love God more than anything else?

Does she not obey Him, work for Him, teach her children all about Him? Does she not need God more desperately now than at any other point in her life?

Does not the Bible tell her that God loves her and cares for her.

Does not the Bible say that all things work together for the good for those who love Him?

How can God not hear her prayer and bring about the miracle that she so desperately beg of God?.....

Then her child dies and the woman is thrown into a crisis with her faith.

The crisis of her faith is made so much worse by an incorrect theology.

If your doctrine of God is skewed, your faith is shaken to the core at the moment you need it the most!

I am not telling you anything new.

You know that things do go wrong with deeply faithful people,….. but it is not until it happens to you, that you suddenly are dumped into a severe spiritual crisis unless you are prepared for it.

In the mist of the crisis it is natural for the believer to beg of God this question: “WHY?”

You feel that you do not deserve it!

Why is this happening to me?

How can God allow this to happen to me?

What have I done wrong?

How can a loving God allow this?

Did God not know what is happening?

Does He not care?

Is He unable to help?

Am I really saved that He should care for me?

 

Can you see what I am saying?

Can you identify with these questions?

These questions are natural to ask when you are in trouble.

More often than not we don’t know why God does what He does.

*For who has known the mind of the Lord?*  *Or who has been His counselor?*

*Or who has ever first given to Him,* *and has to be repaid?*

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

To Him be the glory forever.

He is the source of all things.

His mind is not our mind and His ways past finding out!

You know, a number of years ago Francois was hit in the eye with a stick.

He spend 2 months in hospital with my family and this Church praying for  healing, yet Francois still lost his eye.

We probably never will understand why, but it does not matter that we don’t because we trust God to be supreme.

We trust God to hold Francois in His hands as He says He does!

Recently I was accused of something that seems unfair and I prayed to God for deliverance, for justice, yet I still am suspended for 6 months and in all likelihood might have to sell my surgery.

Where does God feature in this?

Why did He allow this to happen?

I don’t know why but I am not despondent about it because I trust God!

The outcome might not be to what I expected, but I trust in God that also this will be for my good!

I believe Him when He says that all will work together for the good for those who love Him!

I am in some way exited to see what God will bring out of this…but it is possible that I might never know why it happened!

My fellow believers, don’t be deceived: Job 5.5 reads: For man is born for trouble,

As sparks fly upward.

As sure as sparks from a fire flies upwards, as sure you can be that there will be trouble in your life!

Trouble in this life is part of the curse of sin.

Pain and suffering will be with us until our Lord comes and a new Heaven and Earth are set up!

Whatever the crisis is that you are in, your experience is no different from other believers.

The Bible does not teach that all will go well with God’s people: think of the prophets of the OT: they were sawn in half, thrown into Lions den, they were killed, mocked, thrown out of society, imprisoned, wore scruffy camel’s hair clothes and ate locust.

There was no glory for them.

No posh velvet cushions to sit on!

In the NT Jesus was crucified, all the apostles except John, were killed: they were crucified upside down, beheaded, killed with the sword.

They lived in exile, persecuted, in poverty, in prison.

Other believers through the ages also suffered tremendously: being burned on the stake, stoned, crucified, imprisoned, mocked, ridiculed, they lost property, friends, even their husbands or wives.

These people suffered for their faith, trusting God to care for them.

Apart from suffering for your faith, we are not spared the suffering the rest of humanity faces: we and they suffer from disease, cancer, the loss of a child.

We all die!

Sometimes we suffer more because we are unwilling to lie to protect ourselves!

So you see: the troubles you have and will experience are not unique.

But for the believer, there is a difference.

It is not that you are spared the tribulations of this world, but it is how you are equipped to deal with them that make the difference.

I think that Phil 4 gives you a good summary of what the source of your strength is: /The Lord is near.

6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses  every thought, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.//

// /

The knowledge that God is in control, that He cares for you, gives you that peace.

A peace that surpasses all understanding!

We have the Rock on which we stand: We know Who we have believed.

We know who we trust!

We have got the promises of the Bible we can hold on to.

You see: all of those passages we read earlier about how God does work everything together for the good of those who love Him, how every hair on our head is counted, that we can take our worries and fears to Him, ALL of these passages are *true*!

How then must you fight against the depression you feel when things do not go according to your plan?