[Sermon from Joshua House at Vineyard Columbus, Ohio] [Click HERE for the audio of the sermon.]

It has been said that an unexamined life is not worth living. And in the same way, I believe, too, that an unexamined faith is not worth believing. Last week we started a new series here at Joshua House called, “Questions to All Your Answers: Getting Beyond Bumper Sticker Faith.” The goal of this series is quiet simple: We want to examine what it is that we truly believe as Christians. In our ADD society we have a tendency to make everything simplistic. So we see these bumper stickers that take these great, marvelous, beautiful truths of the Christian faith, and boil it down to one short phrase:

• In God We Trust
• Everything Happens for a Reason
• Jesus Said It. I Believe It. That Settles It.
• Jesus is Coming, Everyone Look Busy
• Jesus is My Copilot

Our challenge for you in this teaching series is to take a moment’s pause and really ask yourself what it is that you truly believe and why is it that you believe these things. I know that many of you grew up in a Christian home, you went to church every week, you went to Sunday school, and memorized your Bible verses, and sang your cute little Christian songs. And as awesome as that may have been, maybe you have never examined your beliefs. And maybe you are today living a Christian life based on borrowed faith and secondhand convictions. Let me explain what I mean by that. As it often happens in Christian homes, the child will take on the faith of their parents. They accept and believe everything their parents do and teach simply because they have no reason not to. Some may question, some may rebel, but for the most part, you will take on the faith of your parents. That is, until you go to college. This is your first opportunity to leave home, step out and experience the joy and freedom of being your own person. But here is a disturbing fact: Statistics show that an overwhelming number of you who grew up in the Christian home will leave the Christian faith before you leave college. According to one source, 3 out of 4 teens that enter college as a Christian will leave their Christian faith before they leave college. 3 out of 4! And in my humble opinion, I believe that a big part of the reason is that there was never the internalization of your parent’s faith as your own. You’ve never owned your faith. You were living with borrowed faith and secondhand convictions. And the only way that you can begin to truly own your faith is by examining them and asking questions. What do you truly believe? And why do you believe these things?

And I know there are some of you here tonight where this is your first time at a church, or maybe it’s been a very long time since you sat in a church, and you are just really beginning to examine the Christian faith, still trying to figure out this Jesus thing. And if that is you, we are absolutely thrilled that you are here. Because many of us in this room here tonight, at some point in our life, were exactly where you are tonight. Seeking. Searching. Wondering. Doubting and yet strangely moved in our hearts by this person called Jesus. And again, we are thrilled that you are here. And as weird as it may sound, we need you here. We need you in our midst. We need you to keep asking those tough questions of us Christians. We don’t want you to believe something just because you think you’re supposed to. We want you to use your intellect. We want you to use your emotions. We want you to use your will. We want you to experience a deep sense of freedom in your journey of faith. But my challenge to you, if that is you, is to be thorough and complete in your examination of the Christian faith. And if you're serious about taking the Christian faith for a test drive, I would strongly encourage you to join a small group where we believe authentic Christianity is truly lived out. What we are experiencing here at Joshua House tonight, as awesome as it is, is just a small taste of what the Christian faith is all about.

So, we come back to this series, “Questions to All Your Answers.” God is not afraid of our questions. Let us ask the tough questions! Let us wrestle with God! Let us engage with God! Let’s do this together tonight.

Sharon's Story
It was two years ago this week that my mother-in-law, Sharon, my wife’s mother, passed away from cancer, just three days before her 51st birthday. The last days of her life were full of pain, mourning, sorrow, and even unexpected joy. But as she deteriorated quickly, not being able to communicate with us as we gathered around her, all we could do was to just be there with her. All her kids, their spouses, and grandkids had gathered to celebrate the life of this wonderful woman of God who loved Jesus more than anything in this world. As we gathered around her in the room, we mourned. We worshipped. We cried. We shared fond memories. And in our midst, she breathed her last painful breath and died, passing from this life to the next.

Two years later, while I still remember the night that she passed, what has lingered in my mind was a conversation that I had with her a few months before she died, not too long after the doctors had told her that she had cancer and that she had just a few months to live. We were sitting in a car, waiting for Angela to come back from the post office, and we began to talk. What can you possibly say to someone who has been told that they are going to die in just a few months? She was confiding in me about her internal anguish, and also that small glitter of hope that she was desperately holding on to: “Insoo, I think God is going to heal me!” And as she confided in me, her son-in-law, who also happens to be a pastor, all I could muster up was, “Sharon, God is in control!” And as I said those words, something in my heart just ached because while I knew in my heart of hearts that those words contained an undeniable truth, the fact was that truth was not enough at that moment. I took the easy way out. And I wish so much that I could have said something more.

Have you ever had that experience? Have you ever been with a person who was going to die? Have you experienced pain and suffering in your life or the life of someone you love dearly? No question about it, this world is filled with suffering, pain, and evil. Sometimes the suffering we experience is a direct result of our own actions, our mistakes, our sins. And other times, there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason. It seems random and pointless. So, how can it be that we Christians proclaim that God is in control, and yet we see so much suffering in this world?

• In the United States, 1.3 women are raped every minute.
• 1 out of every 3 American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. So in this auditorium right now, there are about 100 women who have either been or will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.
• The United States has the world's highest rape rate of the countries that publish such statistics. It's 4 times higher than Germany, 13 times higher than England, and 20 times higher than Japan.
• Every day, nearly 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That amounts to 1 child every 5 seconds.
• About 5.6 million (or 53%) of child deaths worldwide are related to under-nutrition.
• More than 1 billion (1 in 5) people live on less than $1 a day.
• Approximately 143 million children in the developing world (1 in 13) are orphans.
• The average person in the developing world uses 2.6 gallons of water every day for drinking, washing and cooking. This is the same amount used in the average flush of a toilet.
• Two thirds of all murders of children under the age of 5 are committed by a parent or another family member.
• Every year 1.2 million children are sold into sexual slavery.

We don’t have to search very hard to find agony, evil, pain, and suffering in this world. But God is in control. Then why the heck did Sharon die of cancer? But God is in control. Then why in the world did the holocaust happen? But God is in control. Then why did 9-11 happen? But God is in control. Then how in the world did he allow over a million Armenians to be completely annihilated in 1915? But God is in control. Then how can it be that mothers and fathers are killing their own sons and daughters. God is in control. God is in control.

And these are the questions that we will be addressing tonight in a sermon that I’ve entitled, “God is in control: Then Why is there So Much Suffering in this World?”

Let’s pray.

I recently came across a website, www.WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com. And they assert that this is the most important question we can ask about God. Why won't God heal amputees? It is a website run by someone who was obviously hurt by the church and those who profess to be Christians. The site basically exists to try to turn people away from the Christian faith. The website also had a forum where people would write in and share about their personal experience, mostly very painful and angry stories. The website had some 170,000 postings in some 8,000 topics by over 3,000 users. And in reading through the website, my heart just broke. One of the topics on the forum caught my attention. It was entitled, “How I decided that the Christian God wasn’t for me.” And here is how one person responded:

God sucks! Personally, I think god is worse than suck. He's like a kid with an ant farm and a magnifying glass. Sadistic, petty, and cruel.

Here is what another person wrote:

My family was never very religious. Both my parents had gone to church as children, and very much believed in Jesus and God, but they never took us. So around the age of ten or eleven I decided that on the face of it, there just wasn't enough evidence to make me believe that there was a god. I wasn't, and still am not, completely averse to the idea, but until something comes up to prove it I won't believe. Anyway, one day me and my very best friend, a guy I'd known since I was four years old, we bust our Atheist-cherries with each other. We're walking to class and I tell him how I was grounded for talking about how some stuff in the Bible didn't seem to make sense. And he looks at me and goes "Holy sh*t, you don't believe either? You're the first guy I've met I could talk to about this!" So we have a nice long conversation about how neither of us believe anymore.

And two weeks later, the guy is walking towards the field by my house to meet me and my other friends so we can all walk to school together, and gets hit by a semi. Killed instantly.

At first I was very, very, upset. How much more obvious could you get? We had doubted God, and God had done smoted the sh*t out of one us, Old Testament style.

But then, I started to think. We were kids. This God gave us curiosity and intelligence and rationality, and expected us to believe 3000 year old stories with absolutely no empirical proof for it. And for not believing, he murdered one of us.

It became pretty simple for me, then. The baseline was still, no proof, therefore no belief. But even if you took what happened to my friend into account, and used that as a cornerstone for belief, then the only God that was revealed was a vicious tyrannical murderer. And I refused to worship THAT on basic moral principles.

So...no longer Christian. I believe the term for me is either weak atheist or strong agnostic. Until there's a good reason to, I won't believe.

And on and on it went, one after another. People from all walks of life, people who are atheists, people who are agnostics, people who used to attend church as children, all of them coming to this website of refuge where they were able to vent their anger and frustrations about a God who doesn’t seem to care about the suffering in this world. People angry at a God who killed their friend because he doubted the existence of God. People disgusted at a God who refused to heal their mom or dad from cancer even though they prayed every day for God to heal them. People who simply could not believe that there is a God because of the atrocities we see in Darfur. I’m sure if this website was better publicized, I bet there would be thousands and thousands of more people writing in with their stories of anger and pain. I’m sure there are some of you in this room who can relate to this website all too well.

Truth of the matter is that one of the key reasons that people give for not believing in God is the presence of suffering and evil in this world. Here is how one person described why they don’t believe in God, when asked by Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Church in New York:

“I just don’t believe the God of Christianity exists,” said Hillary, an undergraduate English major. “God allows terrible suffering in the world. So he might be either all-powerful but not good enough to end evil and suffering, or else he might be all good but not powerful enough to end evil and suffering. Either way the all-good, all-powerful God of the Bible couldn’t exist.”

“This isn’t a philosophical issue to me,” added Rob, Hillary’s boyfriend. “This is personal. I won’t believe in a God who allows suffering, even if he, she, or it exists. Maybe God exists. Maybe not. But if he does, he can’t be trusted.”

In other words, "I just can’t put my mind around the existence of a God who would allow evil and suffering in this world. So either one, God doesn’t exist or two, he is not in control, or three, he just doesn’t care." Many intelligent, thoughtful, kind, generous, loving people come to one of these conclusions in their life and they choose atheism or agnosticism over the Christian faith because they believe that there are no other options than these three: There is no God, or he is not in control, or he simply does not care.

But what if there is another answer? What if there is a God and he is in control and he does care? What if God allows suffering to exist for a purpose? What if there is more to suffering than just pain? What if there is such a thing called “redemptive suffering”? What if the existence of pain, evil, and suffering in this world actually reveals that there is a God? What if?

This is heavy, fun stuff, isn’t it?

Let’s dive into scripture. Turn with me to Romans 4:18-5:8. If you don’t have a Bible, you are more than welcome to take come to the stage and take some from the side here. And you can keep them.

Romans 4:18-5:8
18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." 23 The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1. OUR STORY: THE CONTEXT OF SUFFERING
The passage that we just read can be broken down to three sections. We’ll take a look at one section at a time. So the first section, Romans 4:18-25:

Romans 4:18-25
18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." 23 The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

The book of Romans, written by Paul, is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It’s only 16 chapters long but there is enough in there to for a lifetime of wonder and amazement. It is a fascinating book. And in this passage that we just read, I believe that Paul is addressing the very question that we are asking today. And for Paul, the entryway for understanding the meaning of suffering is the story of Abraham. Paul is saying, in essence, that in order for us to properly understand suffering, we must understand its context. We must put suffering in its context. In other words, if you want to understand suffering, you must understand our story, the story of the Christian faith.

Let me explain. In choosing Abraham, Paul chose the founding father of Israel, the recipient of God's covenant and promises. Abraham was one of the great men of faith we find in the Bible, and it is in the story of Abraham that we find the story of our Christian faith.

Abraham and his wife Sarah received a promise from God that all the peoples on earth will be blessed through him. The epic story that is unfolding in this world would find one of its most important chapters in the person of Abraham. God was going to bless the whole world through Abraham and his offspring. What an amazing promise! But there was a problem. They could not get pregnant. They could not have an offspring. They tried again and again, month after month, year after year, and they just could not get pregnant. So, here they are now, Sarah was 90 years old, and Abraham is 100 years old. And Paul very kindly points out that his body was as good as dead. So, as Abraham and Sarah are examining their situation, they are having a difficult time understanding how this is supposed to play out. Abraham and Sarah experience tremendous suffering in the midst of the great promise of God. They have the promise of God but his hand seems nowhere to be found. Could it be that the suffering they are experiencing could have been a fluke? A mistake? A funny joke? Was it pointless?

I recently read one philosopher who wrote the following:

If a good and powerful God exists, he would not allow pointless evil, but because there is much unjustifiable, pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exist. Some other god or no god may exist, but not the traditional God.

At first, this statement may seem quiet astute and to the point. But if you reflect on it for just a moment, you will see that there is a major flaw in this argument. It asserts that the world is full of much pointless evil and suffering, and since the evil and suffering appears to be pointless to me, then it must be pointless. In other words, “I don’t see any point to the suffering. And since I can’t see it, therefore it can not exist.” A statement of post modernism of the truest form where the world evolves around the self. The logic simply does not hold up. Just because you and I can’t see a point to someone’s suffering, it does not mean that there is not a point. Here is how Keller boils it down:

If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways.

Have you spoken to someone who has experienced terrible suffering? Every single one that I have spoken to as a pastor and a friend would say that, though they are not grateful for the experience itself, they would not trade what they got out of it for anything. “The experience sucked. But I am a better person for having gone through it.” Keller goes on to say this:

With time and perspective most of us can see good reasons for at least some of the tragedy and pain that occurs in life. Why couldn't it be possible, that from God's vantage point, there are good reasons for all of them?

And that is exactly what Paul is saying in Romans. He gives us a context from which to understand suffering and that is the story of our Christian faith. Abraham and Sarah bore the promises of God in the midst of their suffering and yet without weakening their faith. Even in the midst of their suffering, Paul says that, "he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." In the midst of suffering, Abraham did not waver but chose to glorify God letting God be God! And this trusting, glorifying, and believing in God in the midst of suffering was credited to Abraham as righteousness.

This is our story. This is our heritage. In Abraham we find the story of the Christian faith taking shape and it is literally birthed out of suffering. In our Christian faith, suffering is not some side item, but it is in fact, a key ingredient. You take away suffering, and what you have left is something less than the authentic Christian faith.

In the first section Paul gives us a context for suffering. And now in the second section, he gives us the perspective in which we are to view suffering.

2. HOPE: THE PERSPECTIVE OF SUFFERING
Let’s read Romans 5:1-5:

Romans 5:1-5
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

The perspective of suffering is hope.

Have you ever hoped for something so much that it hurt? I mean, have you hoped for something with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, so much so that the wait for the fulfillment of that hope was actually too much to bear? Have you ever hoped for something like that?

I bet all of us in this room tonight can relate to that kind of hope. What are you hoping for tonight? Maybe some of you are desperately hoping for a job, not just any job but that one specific job that you just can't seem to stop thinking about. You spend hours daydreaming about what it would be like, thinking about the assignments and the co-workers and that nice office. Maybe some of you are hoping to be the next American Idol or to be on the show "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" Maybe you are hoping to beat your friend in a game of tennis because you got your butt kicked so badly a month ago. Maybe for some of you here tonight who are single, you are hoping for that someone special to come into your life. Or maybe you did find that special person already and you are now married, but you just can’t seem to get pregnant. Maybe for some of you here tonight, you are hoping for a breakthrough in health for you or for someone you love. And I bet there are some of you here tonight and you feel a sense of bitterness and maybe even anger as I bring up this hope, because your hopes have been crushed. You've hoped too much for too long and you've given up because it just hurts too much. What are you hoping for tonight?

Hope is to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment. One theologian says this about hope:

What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life.

Emily Dickinson writes:

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.

Beautiful! And yes, while we may all agree that hope may be that thing with feathers perched in the soul, I think we would all also agree that having hope is not an easy thing to do, especially in the face of suffering. You can't muster it up. You can't make it up. You can't fake it.

One anonymous author wrote this about hope:

Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.

And I believe that this is what Paul is saying here. He is saying that hope, this Christian hope, is a fruit of suffering.

Suffering → Perseverance → Character → Hope

It is the gift you receive for having endured suffering, allowing it to produce perseverance and character, which ultimately gives us hope.

Hope, as best as I can understand what Paul is saying here, is a byproduct of having lived through suffering. He is saying that there is a maturation process that happens in the Christian soul that can only happen when there is suffering in the equation. In fact, suffering is not merely a path for Christian maturity; it is the entryway. Suffering is the entryway to Christian maturity. Because suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope, this incredible hope, does not put us to shame, or as is translated in the NIV, hope does not disappoint us!

Martin Loyd-Jones says this about suffering: “There is no more important, and no more subtle test of our profession of the Christian faith than the way we react to the trials and troubles and the tribulations of life in this world.” He goes on to say, “A faith that does not help us when we need it the most is not the Christian faith; for this never fails.” This is our hope!

Suffering is the arena where mediocre Christians become giants of faith!

We can not decide if we will suffer or not. But we can decide how we will suffer. And that is where perseverance comes into play. For you see, not all suffering leads to hope. If suffering is to truly lead to hope, what is required is perseverance. So, tonight, if you are in the midst of suffering, instead of running from it, instead of ignoring it, instead of reaching for that quick fix with a spiritual Tylenol, why not stand there, fully embracing the suffering, and asking of Jesus, “God, what are you teaching me here in this place, in the midst of my battling cancer?” “Jesus, how should I respond to my not having a job or a spouse?” “Jesus, teach me how to stand here in my pain and in my loneliness!” “Jesus, teach me how to worship you in the midst of my suffering!” “I choose, this day, to stand and persevere in my suffering for the glorious hope that waits for me on the other side.”

Against all odds, can you dare to hope again tonight?

3. JESUS: THE REDEEMER OF SUFFERING
Now we come to the third and final section of the passage from Romans. Let's read Romans 5:6-8:

Romans 5:6-8
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In the first section, Paul gives us the context of suffering. In the second section he gives us the perspective of suffering. And now, in this third section Paul shows us Jesus, the redeemer of suffering.

The greatest news about suffering is this: There is a God, whose name is Jesus, and he is in the business of redemption. Jesus, he is the redeemer of suffering. And in that, we can have confidence tonight. It is only on that cross where we can find this world’s only hope for life. Real, abundant, full, whole, complete life. And this is only available to us because this Jesus, this redeemer of suffering, is a Man-God who knows about suffering in an intimate, first-hand way. He knows about each and every one of our suffering in an intimate way.

The Suffering God
Unlike any other religion in the world, we worship a suffering God. We worship Jesus, who was not merely fully divine, but also fully human. Jesus, in his complete divinity, took upon himself the sin of the world, something that only a perfect and infinite God can do. But not only so, Jesus in his complete humanity, suffered in his fragile human body, the sins of the world, and ultimately dies. Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. Both. Because one without the other is not enough. Because either he is just divine, being able to fully bear the sins of the world in his perfection yet not being able to sympathize with our suffering, or he is just human, who can sympathize with our suffering, but unable to do anything about it. We serve a God, a suffering God who was fully divine and fully human. But he did not just suffer. There is more.

The Resurrected God
Jesus conquered death. He not only died, taking upon himself the sins of this world, but he rose again from the dead. Being fully divine and fully man, he did what no one else could do. He died for our sins and then he rose from the dead. The path of death only goes one way. But Jesus conquers death by coming back from the dead. Nothing, absolutely nothing will separate us from the love of God.

Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus is a suffering God, he is a resurrect God, and he is also the redeeming God.

The Redeeming God
As Christians, we suffer differently than any other people in this world because of Jesus. Because of Jesus. We suffer not as the world suffers, but we suffer with purpose, we suffer with humility, and we suffer even with joy, because of Jesus. Because of Jesus. Jesus suffered and resurrected from the dead, and so is uniquely able to redeem all things, including our suffering.

And here is what redemption is all about: Redemption is not simply undoing what was bad. It is not simply going back and erasing all the bad things that we have experienced. It is not simply pretending that nothing bad happened. But redemption means that the suffering that we experience will somehow actually make our coming glory and joy infinitely sweeter. The radical love of God we have in Jesus will radically redeem every sorrow, every pain, and every ache. And so radical is this redemption that what we will ultimately experience as a result of the suffering, will somehow make our coming glory and joy infinitely sweeter for having embraced the suffering in our lives.

Suffering is the arena where mediocre Christians become giants of faith!

Jesus meets us at our worst, in our deepest sins, in our deepest sufferings, and he beckons us to come and be with him.

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I don’t know what you are all going through tonight. I don’t know what baggage you are carrying, or what scars you are hiding. I don’t know what you are running from, who you are running from. I don’t know your story. But here is what I do know: When Jesus enters your story, it will never be the same again because Jesus is uniquely able to radically redeem all things.

4. OUR MINISTRY: THE INVITATION TO SUFFER ALONGSIDE OF THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING
So Paul gave us the context of suffering so that we can understand how suffering fits into our story, the story of the Christian faith. Then he gave us the perspective of suffering, which is hope, because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope, and hope does not disappoint us. Third, he gave us Jesus, the radical redeemer of suffering, who enables us to suffer in a manner in which no other people can. But there is just one final point that I want to make tonight.

Paul, just a few years before writing Romans, wrote the following in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7:

2 Corinthians 1:3-7
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

And here, in 2 Corinthians, Paul invites us to suffer alongside of those who are suffering. This is our ministry.

My Story
There was a time when my heart used to break for the homeless and the poor. There was a time in college when I was so passionate about feeding the poor, that I would spend money that I didn't have to make sandwiches and take them to Lower Wacker in downtown Chicago, where many of them lived. There was a time I would sit with them, talk with them, worship with them, have Bible studies with them, and eventually I had a group of guys from my school that would join me in these weekly adventures. But then, something happened. Something got lost. Something died in me. It wasn't one specific event or time, but just gradually, very slowly, my heart stopped aching for the poor. I just stopped caring. I didn't want to talk to them. I surely did not want to feed them. Actually, they started to annoy me and bother me. And I was a pastor! What the heck happened to me? Where did my heart go? Where did my passion go? Where did my love go?

Then about two years ago, God broke me again and it caught me completely by surprise. I was at this big conference in Chicago and they were talking about the homeless, a topic that I was very familiar with. It wasn't anything particularly engaging or all that new or even interesting. After this man spoke for a few minutes about the poor, he showed this short video clip capturing just two minutes in the life of this little, homeless girl. The girl, who could not have been more than 2 or 3 years old, the age of my older son, was wearing this raggedy, old, yellow dress. It was dark and the street was like any street that you or I would walk through on our way to work or school. You can see next to this little girl was an older woman who was sleeping on the floor on a blanket, who I assumed was her mother. And the video clip, with no audio, was just this little girl in the yellow dress, meticulously unfolding her blanket on the street so she can go to sleep next to her mom.

For two minutes, she is trying her best to neatly place the blanket close to her mother. She unfolds the blanket. She straightens out the edges. She bundles up another blanket to use as a pillow, and she lies down next to her mom, in the middle of the street, to go to sleep. No one is helping her. No one is helping her. And as the video is about to come to an end, some guy wearing a suit, walks right by her. He never even notices her. And seeing that, God broke my heart and I just began to weep. I mean, embarrassingly so, I was weeping standing at the back of the auditorium. And I never cry. God just broke my heart again. I felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time. It was pain. It was sadness. It was anger. It was shame. It was compassion. It was yearning. It was love. It was suffering. At that moment, I believe God gave me the gift of feeling the pain that he feels all the time as he looks upon the suffering in this world. And this breaking of my heart again for the things of God, for the things that break the heart of God, it was life-giving for me!

God is calling each and every one of us to suffer alongside of those who are suffering. And I wonder, instead of trying to prove that God exists, or trying to justify Christianity to atheists and agnostics, I wonder if the biggest testimony of Christian faith might not be to suffer alongside of those who are suffering. I wonder what might happen to people’s hearts as we willingly and purposefully suffer alongside of them. I wonder how they would respond to a love like that.

As we come towards the end of our time tonight, I've asked Janara to read a story for us called "The Ragman" written by Walter Wangerin. Just listen and let God speak to you through this story tonight.

The Ragman (by Walter Wangerin, Jr.)
I saw a strange sight. I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for. Hush, child. Hush, now, and I will tell it to you.

Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: “Rags!”

Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.

“Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!”

“Now, this is a wonder,” I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn't disappointed.

Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

“Give me your rag,” he said so gently, “and I'll give you another.”

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver. Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then HE began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear.

“This IS a wonder,” I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.

“Rags! Rags! New rags for old!”

In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart. “Give me your rag,” he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, “and I'll give you mine.”

The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood - his own!

“Rags! Rags! I take old rags!” cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.
The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more to hurry.

“Are you going to work?” he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head.

The Ragman pressed him: “Do you have a job?”

“Are you crazy?” sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket - flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

“So,” said the Ragman. “Give me your jacket, and I'll give you mine.” Such quiet authority in his voice!

The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman - and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman's arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.

“Go to work,” he said.

After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he went with terrible speed. On spider's legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.

The little old Ragman, he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he sighed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.

Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope - because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.

I did not know! How could I know that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night, too? But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.

Light - pure, hard, demanding light - slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the last and the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.

Well, then I lowered my head and trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice:

“Dress me.”

He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!

The Ragman is here tonight and he wants to heal each and every one of us tonight so that we could, in turn, suffer alongside of those who are suffering. This is the invitation.

Suffering is the arena where mediocre Christians become giants of faith!

The only way that you and I can become passionate, mature, reproducing Christians is to not run away from suffering but to fully embrace it, and let it do what it is supposed to do in our lives, and that is to help us to see Jesus more clearly. To see Jesus more clearly! And it is our Jesus, our suffering God, our resurrected God, our redeeming God, who gives us this great promise:

John 16:33
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Let's pray.