WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?

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You won another prize, everybody? You won another prize today? Everybody gets a hug from the hospitality team on the way out today. What a good question. Why do bad things happen to good people? We're going to tackle, I think one of the most difficult questions that people ask about God, why do bad things happen to good people? It's a question that we find ourselves asking when we hear of a child who gets sick. When we hear of a marriage, it's maybe close to us that breaks down. It's when we lose a loved one prematurely. It's a question we ask when maybe we lose a job we thought was secure for a long time or when an innocent person suffers some kind of injustice. And underneath, that question is often another one, which is God, if you're good, why would you allow something like this to happen? And as human beings, we've all experienced moments where something didn't seem fair, didn't feel right. Moments where growing up in church, we would always hear this phrase. Let me see if anybody remembers it. God is good. And all the time. And we learn the phrase, but then there's moments in life when we put a question mark at the end of it and we say, God is good, right? Because he doesn't feel too good right now sometimes. Maybe it's everyday moments. Maybe it's it's men, the passage, I've actually been trying to be good. I've been reading the Bible. I've been praying. I've been going to my group and going to church, but I just I just don't feel happy. I'm going to run or maybe you're looking at global issues around the world, wondering, why are there so many children that are starving?

And and why are these wars happening? And why are innocent people suffering? If you've ever questioned the goodness of God, I believe this message is for you. The title of today's message is why do bad things happen to good people? Can we pray? Lord, we open up our hearts. We open up our ears and we are receptive to what you would speak to us through your word. We ask that you would help us understand what your word teaches on subjects that are challenging like these. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Any Christians brought your Bibles to church? Any Christians brought your Bibles to church? I love it. I love it. You can open up to John 16 and then a little bit ahead will be in Psalm 73. That'll be the main text. So in a few moments, we'll be in John 16 and then Psalm 73. So so today we're tackling this very difficult question. Why do bad things happen to good people? It's a question that humans have been asking since the beginning of time. In fact, when you when you kind of study back 300 years before the birth of Jesus, there was a Greek philosopher named Epicurious. Everybody say Epicurious. There's any pregnant women. Consider that name for your baby Epicurious. Epicurious came to these conclusions about the nature of God and good and evil. And he had two statements and one question. And here's what he thought. Here's what he proposed.

He said, if God is not able to prevent evil, then he's not all powerful. He said, if God is not willing to prevent evil, then he's not all good. And then he asked a question, which is, if God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist? And I think that. as a person who thinks in these days, you can ask yourself these types of questions. So today, as we look at the Bible, we're gonna see that pain and suffering and evil are not contrary to the Bible. They're actually central to the story of the Bible. In fact, Jesus himself in John 16, I think you guys opened it up to John 16, in John 16, verse 33, Jesus himself said this, he said, "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me." What does he say? "Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows." Pause, how many? Many what? Trials and sorrows, other versions say afflictions or troubles, but take heart, Jesus says, because I have overcome the world. And my main goal in today's message is to help you understand this one big idea. This is what we're gonna pack, here's the big idea today. Christianity makes sense of, gives meaning to, and offers a solution for the evil and suffering and pain that we experience. Now, in order to embrace this idea, I wanna give you a foundation in the scriptures.

The Bible doesn't avoid pain or evil or suffering. As you read the Bible and you read throughout it, you'll see countless expressions of people expressing anguish, confusion, maybe even rage because of suffering and pain. And a lot of times we even see the people in the Bible questioning God, just like I think, sometimes we do. Examples like the prophet Jeremiah, who's known as the weeping prophet, who was crying out to God over and over, and he was crying out to God specifically, specifically anguish because his people would not repent before God. They wouldn't turn from their ways. Many of us know David, right? David known as the Psalmist, known as a man after God's own heart, and often when we read some of the Psalms, they're very vulnerable, they're very open. The Psalmist, David, is open in saying, crying out to God and saying, "God, are you listening to me right now? "God, are you even there? "Where are you?" We hear this throughout, even in the New Testament. You might remember the story where John the Baptist, who by the way, was specifically, his purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus, right? And we see the story that when Jesus

is already in the scene, when he's already around, and with his cousin on the Baptist, and there's a moment where John the Baptist is wrongly arrested, wrongly accused, and he's basically in jail awaiting potential execution. And in his mind, John the Baptist is just thinking, of course, Jesus is gonna show up any moment. And yet this man, who's known as one of the greatest man's in all of history, finds himself wondering and questioning, 'cause he's about to be beheaded, and his question is, where are you? Another example, if we go to Psalm 73, let's go to Psalm 73. Another example we're gonna find here is actually an interesting psalmist named Asaph. Asaph actually has 12 psalms attributed to his writing. He was a poet and a prophet. He was actually known as a worship leader. He was a Levite in those times. And Asaph, as a worship leader, as a person who was leading in the temple, and who knew God and found himself in a close relationship with God, interestingly enough, as we read Psalm 73, we find him stumbling a bit in his faith. We find him like, even complaining to God, because he wasn't understanding what he was seeing. And so, Psalm 73, starting in verse one, Asaph writes, he puts, "Truly, God is good to Israel."

Everybody say, "God is good." Truly, God is good to Israel, to those whose hearts are pure. But ask for me. So he's saying, "Yeah, yeah, God is good." Yeah, yeah, yeah. "God is good all the time, all the time." "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but ask for me right now." And I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone. For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness. Okay, so Asaph is like, I'm having some trouble here. I'm kind of stumbling in my faith here, God, because I'm specifically really upset and annoyed that those bad people are having good things happen to them. He's complaining that the wicked, the ones who do wrong, they don't honor the Lord, seem to be getting blessed. And then look at verse 11, jump to verse 11. What does God know, they ask? Does the Most High even know what's happening? God, you see what's happening? Look at these wicked people enjoying the life of ease while their riches multiply. Now look what he says, Asaph says, "Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? "I'm living for you, Lord. "I'm staying away from all this crap that the world offers "because I know that you are better,

"but did I keep myself innocent and clean and pure "for nothing for no reason? "I get nothing but trouble all day long "every morning brings me pain." So we see Asaph basically complaining to God and opening up his heart and saying, I'm having a hard time seeing what's happening. The worship leader is asking himself, where is God? God, why are you letting this happen? So I want us to navigate some challenging and weighty questions today. And we may not have clear answers to all of them, but I want to challenge us to think a bit today. And I want to take these before the Lord because the Lord can handle our questions. Can I get it, amen? All right, all right, so here's a question. Here's a question that everybody asks. Question, if God is loving, why would he allow suffering? If God is loving, why would he allow suffering? If God is a good God, then why would he allow someone who didn't do anything wrong, go through what they're going through? Why would he allow this to happen? And I'm going to give you the answer. And I want you to truly think about this, OK? So what's the question? If God is loving, why would he allow suffering? Here's the answer, here's the answer. If love is a choice, then suffering is a possibility.

Now, follow me, follow me. If it's possible to love, it's also possible to hurt. Ask me why, ask me why. All right, let me try to explain this. The only way that love is possible is to have a choice to be able to choose to love. The theological term for this principle is free will. Everybody say free will. So free will. Free will is simply the ability to choose. So check it out. If you have the ability to choose to love, it means you also have the ability to choose to hate or not love. It means you have the ability to choose to do what's right, and you also have the ability to choose to do what's wrong. And that's what makes evil or pain and suffering possible. So the question is, then, why did God give us free will? Why? Because that's the only way that love is possible. If he didn't give us the ability to choose, then we could not choose to love. We could not choose to love him. So why did God choose to give us free will? So we could choose. Why? Because he didn't want rocks or robots. He wanted relationship with sons and daughters. It's all about relationship. God is love, and he wants us to receive his love.

And then he wants us to choose in our free will to love him for who he is. And in order for him to be loved by us, we have to have the freedom to choose love. The challenge is this. In order for us to have the freedom to choose love, we also have the freedom to choose evil. And so when we choose evil, we choose a free little word called sin. And the problem with sin is that sin opens the door to pain and suffering. So why do bad things happen? Why is there pain and suffering in our lives? Let me give you four theological reasons. And let me just say, I'm not saying this makes it easier. Because if you're going through it, you're going through it. But let me give you four reasons we experience pain. How many am I going to share with you? Four reasons we experience pain. Number one, simply the collateral damage of sin. Genesis 1 describes God's creation. And it says that God created. And everything he created was good. But in Genesis 3, it describes humanity rebelling against God, Adam and Eve, and what happens when they disobeyed and sinned and rebelled against God? Sin brought brokenness into the human experience. So when Adam and Eve disobeyed and rejected God and sin entered the world, they literally held the door open to sin from then on, until now, in humanity.

They held the door open for pain, for shame. They held the door open for strife and regret and suffering. Romans 5 says that sin entered the world through one man. And death came into the world through sin and through that one man. We now live in a world where relationships break. Bodies become sick, people make destructive choices, injustices occur, death touches every family. And these are circumstances beyond our control. It's the collateral damage of sin. Everything was cursed at the macro level from tsunamis that wipe out thousands of lives to the micro level, the rejection So why do we have pain? Number one, the collateral damage is in number two. Also you have pain because of your own sin and poor choices. I heard a guy say once, if you play foolish games, you'll win foolish prizes. Check it out, check it out. God will forgive us all of our sin if we repent truthfully and sincerely, but he doesn't necessarily rescue us from all the consequences of our sins. For example, sins like pride and selfishness and lust, that's not my granddaddy's problem. That's not somebody who hurt me, that the sin and pride and lust and envy, that's my own choice. Are you following me? Sometimes our pain is a result of our own,

poor decisions, our own sin. And many times we try to find other culprits, right? Like the person who says, "Pastor, pastors, please pray for me because the enemy's attacking my finances." And I'm like, okay, tell me about it. And then they tell me a little bit and I say, okay, well, I have some good news and some bad news. Your finances are being attacked, but it's not the enemy. It's you. Because you are buying things you don't need and you can't afford to impress people you don't know. And so you're stuck in a huge hole and now you're trying to blame the devil. Now I gotta go pray for the devil, poor guy. Getting blamed for all these things. (silence) Sometimes there are stuff inflicted wounds, our own sin. Okay, thirdly, thirdly, how does pain come into our lives? Other people's sins against you. Sometimes there's pain in your life because of others' people's sins against you. For example, it wasn't your fault that you were abused. It wasn't your choice to be rejected. Other people did some things and you were the target. Are you following me? Sometimes it's not my own sin, sometimes it's not just a collateral, it's just that somebody actually sinned against me. All right, number four, number four, there is also direct attack of the enemy.

This is spiritual. We have an enemy, the Bible is clear, who wants to steal, kill, and destroy. And sometimes the pain in my life, it may not be a personal choice of sin, it might not be that somebody sinned against me, it actually could be that there's a spiritual enemy who is attacked, it could be demonic attack, it could be demonic oppression, influence, or even possession. Pastor Virgil, are you saying you believe in demons? Yes, I do. And when you've been walking with people in crazy moments in crazy times, you will see and experience and know that ain't anything natural and it ain't from God. By the way, have you ever met anybody with an addiction? Have you ever walked with somebody or heard what they describe and talk about it when they say, I don't want to keep walking down this road anymore, but there is something in me. There is something in me that I can't control. What do you think that is? There's something that keeps pulling me and drawing me and it feels like a battle that I can't overcome. And it is, it's a spiritual battle. What do you think that is, oh, that was poor choices? I probably could have been a portrait that led there, but there's some spiritual attack there. And so these are some of the reasons we experience pain. And ultimately, going back to the beginning, it's because we have this thing called free will.

We have the freedom to choose to love or not love. We have the freedom to choose to do right or to do wrong. So check it out. For God to remove pain and suffering and evil, he would either have to remove free will or he'd have to remove us. So here's a question that people rarely ask but should because often people conclude, oh, there can't be a God with all of this junk and all this horrible stuff happening. I can't believe in a God. Okay, so if there is no God who decides what's evil or that evil even exists, if there's no moral standard, anybody grow up with siblings, brothers and sisters? Anybody? Yeah, how many of you know that siblings are? They're part of your fight life, right? And so what happens is when you're siblings growing up, you start nagging, you get an argument all of a sudden, either one or both, go to mom or dad saying, he did this, she did that, telling, I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell, who are you gonna tell? I'm gonna tell the one who has the authority. Are you following me? And now watch this, now watch this. Imagine if there were no parents, what would happen? What's that movie, what's that crazy movie, the kids that start killing each other? Lord of the flies, yeah. Like imagine, imagine if there's no authority then it's just rep, so check this out, check this out.

There has to be authority in order to have a standard. So if there is no God, there's no moral point of reference. If there is no God, who determines So check it out, if we're honest, we can't use the presence of evil or pain or suffering as proof that God doesn't exist. The reality is our belief that things are evil and wrong prove even more that there is a moral standard. It proves even more that God does exist. So some people make the assumption that if you suffer, then God doesn't love you. If you have pain in your life, God doesn't love you. And I will argue with that. And I will say that pain and suffering is an evidence of a lack of love. By the way, we see it every day. I'll give you an example. The surgeon who did surgery on my knee 10 years ago. He didn't hate me, he caused me some pain. At least I don't think he did, right? He didn't hate me. He did the surgery causing me pain, knowing that something better was coming. Are you following me? I worked as an occupational therapist in rehabilitation often. Sometimes when it was physical rehabilitation, along with my colleagues in physical therapy department, we would treat patients, and a lot of times, it was treating patients after procedures or injuries

in recovery and rehab, rehabilitation. And how many know there's a lot of pain? We would have to tell them the T and OT and the T and PT is not torture, it's not physical torture, it's physical therapy. But it's not that the therapist hates you and wants to give you pain. It's the therapist knows that something better is ahead. Are you following me? So there's gonna be pain and there's gonna be suffering, but there's something better coming. It's kind of like when you have a counselor, a Christian counselor or therapist, and often people don't realize that people often want to walk into their tomorrow, but they haven't closed the doors of their yesterday's. People want to walk in a free and healthy tomorrow, but they have a broken and undelt with yesterday. And so a lot of times to be able to walk into a healthy tomorrow, you have to walk into yesterday, and sometimes that's painful. You have to walk into some of that pain to be able to walk through it with the help of the Lord and be able to break through some of that pain. But a counselor or therapist is not trying to hurt you because they don't love you, they actually, they know that there's gonna be some pain, but wait, wait, wait, wait. They know that something better is coming. Are you following me?

And so parents, we don't discipline our children because we want to inflict pain on them or make them suffer because we don't love them. No, we want them safe, we want them off drugs, we want them out of jail. We want them as productive members of society. We want them walking with the Lord. You love your children so you do correct them and sometimes they're suffering or pain that they don't like and they don't want, but it's not because as parents, we don't love them. It's precisely because we want something better ahead for them. Amen? So the presence of pain isn't a lack of love. In fact, often the presence of pain is evidence of real love. And this raises the question we're dealing with today. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does someone who didn't deserve wrong have something so horrible happen in their life? So I want to address a little bit of a fallacy in this question because I didn't do it at the beginning, hoping that maybe somebody would catch it. I want to say something that might be difficult for you to hear, but it's biblical, okay? It's biblical. It's not me, it's the Bible. This question makes an assumption that it's actually a wrong thing, it's a fallacy. Why do bad things happen to good people? If we're talking about truly good people,

we can't be talking about ourselves. We cannot be talking about ourselves. Ask me why, ask me why. Because the Bible teaches that not one of us is truly good. Well, Pastor, I have a good heart. Yeah, baby, but you're a sinner. I'm a good person overall. Yeah, but you're not. Every one of us, our hearts lead us to do bad things. We've all hurt people. We've all done sinful things. We've all said things we shouldn't have said. We've all thought things we shouldn't have thought. Our hearts are deceitful, the Bible is clear on that. Why? Because all of us have sin, pause, pause, pause. Raise your hand if you've ever sinned. Raise your hand, that's right. And if you didn't raise your hand, you just sinned again. Attack on another one, baby. We all fall short of God's standard. Not one of us, the Bible says, is good. In fact, the only one who ever lived a truly good life, what was his name? Jesus, so going back to the question, why do bad things happen to good people? Well, truthfully, it only happened once. It happened once, where a good person had some horrible things happen to him, undeservedly. And Jesus volunteered for it. He says, I'll do it to take your place

because I love you and I believe something. That'll preach So what did God do for us God suffered for us think about this Jesus surrendered his position of glory in heaven To be born into poverty on earth as a human To be rejected by his family abandoned by his friends falsely accused wrongly imprisoned mocked Jesus the only one who actually was truly good Was beaten and tortured stripped naked hung shamefully on a cross the one who was good the spotless lamb who had no sin Became sin and took on the sins of the world and in doing so He was separated from the father after a lifetime of perfect intimacy with the father and that's why in Matthew 27 1946 Jesus says my God my God. Why have you forsaken me? Where are you father and why did Jesus do it? Jesus did it for us? He came and he suffered for us. He felt more pain than we will ever feel and at the same time the father watched his innocent son suffer for us and Here's something we need to understand in this world We will experience pain and suffering I'm sorry about bringing this truth to you today But here's something interesting no matter what that pain and suffering is God is still sovereign But that's hard to navigate because how do I get my rap my mind around that everything has to cross his desk Including my pain and my suffering it has to cross his desk because he is sovereign and This is where we have to hold on to Romans 8 28 and we know that all things Work for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose So here's the line. I want to give you today. Here's the line. I want to give you Sometimes God allows pain, but never without purpose never without purpose I don't have time to unpack the whole story, but do you remember the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis? Joseph was the young one of the younger brothers a Of Israel an interesting thing is all of his brothers his older brothers decided to sell him as a slave to Egypt Remember the story a little bit now. It's a crazy story because Joseph Honestly his life. I don't know if people have been through with Joseph's been through

He suffered domestic violence human trafficking slavery and false imprisonment By the way, that doesn't sound to me like that's the will of God But no, but follow me for a second Eventually those who know the story eventually know that as the years went by Eventually because of because of sovereign hand of God Joseph ends up as vice president of all of Egypt behind Pharaoh How does that happen a Hebrew slave ends up vice president? Behind Pharaoh and not only that then he has in front of him his older brothers who sold him basically Through him to the wolves to die sold him as a slave He has him in front of him begging him for food Then they find out who he is and they're thinking he's gonna kill us To which Joseph replies if you read in Genesis 50 verse 20. He says he says what you guys meant for evil God meant for good He was able to realize something better was coming Joseph was able to make this connection of saying I'm in the middle of God's will even when I'm in pain and suffering and It's hard to amend that So question so why does God allow suffering? I can't Directly answer every question to every personal situation. Why this why that? I don't know But I do know what the answer is not and the answer is not that God doesn't love you Because the Bible is very clear about his love John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son That whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life Love is not just what he does. Love is who he is God loves us so much that he took our misery. He took our suffering so seriously that he was willing to let his son take it for us Ask me why ask me why? because God knew something better It's coming He knew that it takes a death

to have a resurrection it takes a hurt to have a healing it takes some bondage to Experience freedom and it takes defeat to experience victory It's a blessing for forgiveness, freedom and victory. By the way, the Bible does not say things will get easier. The Bible does not say, "Oh, except Jesus and you'll never experience pain." No, no, the Bible is clear. Jesus was clear. You're going to suffer. You're going to have some pain. You're going to die, the Bible says. And the Bible says also that one day those who are in Christ, we will rise. And those who use our free will to choose to follow Jesus, who use our free will to choose to know and serve and love Jesus will one day meet him in eternal glory, will one day suffer no more pain, no more darkness and no more evil because we can believe that something better is coming. And Revelation 21 verse 4 says, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain, all of these things gone forever." Something better is coming. Imagine in the presence of God, no more loss. Imagine no more sickness or rejection or shame or death. Imagine no more funerals, no more grief, no more abuse, no more crying tears of pain. But, can I just remind you something? We're not there yet. We are still living in a fallen world, stained and affected by sin. A world where, because love is possible, so is evil. Because we have free choice, some choose right and life, some choose wrong and sin. So I admit it's hard to see and hear about people going through such difficult situations. Tell me about it as a pastor. We're usually in the highest highs of celebration moments, but we're also in the lowest lows. How do I say God is good to a mother who just lost her child? We've been in that situation on a few occasions. How do I help remind a person something better is coming when they just signed their divorce papers? There's pain, there's hurt, there's hard things we go through. How do you inject faith into someone who just got a diagnostic from the doctor? It's not good. Why did God allow it? I can't answer all those questions. We may understand a bit more later, like Joseph, or we may never know on this side of heaven. That's why, at any given moment, when something doesn't seem fair, it's easy to conclude, humanly speaking, God must not be good, or God must not be all powerful. But when you walk with Jesus, when you feed on His Word, when you learn to trust His presence, when you receive His comfort in the middle of your pain, somehow it brings the peace that doesn't even make sense in this world. Somehow, people come around you and you find strength with people, and over a lifetime walking with God, you begin to see His faithfulness, and you can eventually conclude, no matter what you've been through, God is good. God is faithful. I want to close off going back to ASAF. Remember ASAF in Psalm 73? How He said, "How He asked, does God even know what's happening? Did I keep myself pure for nothing? I've got all this trouble and nothing in the morning has nothing but pain?"

Look what He said after just walking with God, because you could tell He walked with God, and then He wrote in Psalms 73 verse 16. He says, "When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply." By the way, if you try to understand all this, if you try to reason all this, it's going to trouble you deeply. Till, he says, till, turning point, till, I entered the sanctuary of God. And then ASAF said, in verse 25, jump to 25, "Whom have I in heaven but you?" But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Asaph says, "I didn't understand it, and I didn't like it until I entered the sanctuary of God. I connected with my sin until I spent time with God, and it changed my perspective." So my message for you today is this. The problem of evil and suffering and pain is not contrary to the Bible. It's central to the story of the Bible. And more than anything else, the big idea today, here it is. Christianity makes sense of, gives meaning to, and offers a solution for the evil and suffering we experience in this world. So, practically speaking, what do I encourage you to do? First, just bring your honest questions to God. Can I tell you something God has not intimidated by your questions? Don't pretend like you're okay when you're not. Just bring your pain and your questions to God. Faith doesn't require you to deny your feelings, but it invites you to bring them into God's presence and walk with Him. Secondly, let others help you carry the burden. Like, don't do what many people do when they isolate and disconnect. That's the wrong thing to do. Sometimes we just need somebody around us that will listen to us, that will pray with us, maybe even cry with us sometimes. Because that's the power of being there for each other. And lastly, just determined to truly anchor your hope in Jesus, not in the outcome that you want. When we disconnect the outcome that we want with the reality that God is with us, we can be okay with the difficult situations and the hard situations we walk through. You may not know why, but you can know who holds your future. Why do bad things happen to good people? The Bible reminds us none of us are truly good. We live in a broken world where suffering and pain is real. And even Jesus, who was the only truly good person, sinless, experienced some really, really bad things. And he was honest with us in John 1633, in this world you will have many trials and sorrows.

But take heart, Jesus says. Why did Jesus say take heart? Take heart. I have overcome the world because Jesus always knows. Something better is coming. I want to pray two prayers to close off this message. Let's bow our heads, let's close our eyes. Father, in the name of Jesus, we bring you every pain and difficult situation and suffering represented in this room here today. You see the grief, you see the disappointment, the unanswered questions and the burdens that we carry and the pain that we suffer, Lord. I pray that you would do as your word says that you would draw near to the brokenhearted. I pray that you would strengthen those who are weak, I pray that you would comfort those who are grieving for whatever reason. And I pray that you would give us wisdom to face the difficult situations and decisions in this life. Surround us with the right people so that when we're in need of comfort and connection, we have you, but we also have the right people. Teach us to trust you, Lord, and to trust your word, even when we can't understand all the circumstances. And give us the courage to bring you our toughest questions. Give us the humility to receive help from you and from others and the faith to keep following you. Keep using our choice, our free will to seek you and love you. Help us remember that you will never leave us and never forsake us and that our hope is always securing you. And no matter what we're going through, we can always believe if we are in Christ, something better is coming. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.