09/24/2023 Midtown Church Elk Grove
SERMON SERIES: Don’t Save me. Good News for Skeptics.
How Can There Be A Savior And So Much Suffering
Pastor Tyronne Gross
Main Text: Romans 8:18-28 (NIV)
Other Texts- Romans 7:14-25, Romans 6:22-23, Romans 8:35-39, James 1:2-8
The Problem of Evil and Suffering
Biblical Background: The Bible is full of stories of People Coming Closer to God amid Suffering. (Hagar, Joseph, Daniel, Samson, and Paul to name a few). The Bible is full of stories of God intervening as a Liberator, Deliverer, and Healer for Suffering People (Exodus, Daniel, Esther, The Gospels, etc.)
How to Believe in God in a Broken World:
1.) Knowing We Suffer Because of Sin (Romans 7:14-25)
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
2.) Knowing We Won’t Suffer Forever (Romans 6:22-23)
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
3.) Knowing We Don’t Suffer Alone (Romans 8:35-39)
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 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.
Final Thought: Knowing We Can Get Stronger in Suffering
Romans 8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
James 1:2-8
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
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