Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 2, 2017 | Really? - Everything Happens For A Reason

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July 2, 2017 | Really? - Everything Happens For A Reason · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: What?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: You seem surprised to see me.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Dumb things smart Christians believe is the series we're in.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: I thought last week, you know, my favorite actor of all time said something like that once.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Life is tough, said John Wayne in Sans of Iwo Jima, but it's tougher if you're stupid.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Said it even better than that.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about stupid or dumb things that Christians believe this morning.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: We've come to everything happens for a reason.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: A perfect morning for moisture to get into the lighting over at Mulvaine Building and short out all the lights, so that's why I'm at the College Avenue building this morning.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: And if you're in the Mulvaine building right now, you're looking at me on screen.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: It's well, it's nice and dark there like it is over here.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Everybody can go to sleep this morning instead of just the folks in College Avenue building.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: So I was getting my coffee and donut, and the guy behind the counter this morning was explaining to him, you know, what exactly happened over there with the air conditioning dripping onto the wiring and all that stuff and shorting it all out.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, you know, Jim, he says with a twinkle in his eye, everything happens for a reason.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, figure out the reason for this, as I threw my coffee in his face.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't, I I I didn't, I didn't really.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: But this is a really common idea that there is a purpose for everything.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Four years ago, on April the 15th, 2013, James Costello was standing close to the finish line of the Boston Marathon when the bombs went off, and he was severely burned on his arms and legs and got trapped and all in him and so forth, spent months in the hospital where he was taken care of by a cute nurse named Krista DiAgostino.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: They fell in love, they got engaged in August of 2014, they got married, and Mr.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Costello posted the picture on his Facebook page with these words.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: I now realize why I was involved in the tragedy.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: It was to meet my best friend and the love of my life.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: James Costello certainly is not the only person to look for meaning in the events of life.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: I think we probably all do that.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: We look for meaning in the tragedies of life and the explosions of life, and we also look for meaning in the positive prosperity good things of life, such as when, you know, we're cured of a disease or something.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: In fact, as I've looked at this, I've found that this is a worldwide statement.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Everything happens for a reason.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: People all over the world, people of all religions and no religions, use this line: everything happens for a reason.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Everyone says it.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Muslims, of course, because they, of all people, believe that everything is predetermined.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even if you defeat them and they're in the moment of dying, they'll say, Insha'Allah, this is God's will.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And they don't just mean God's sovereign will, they mean Allah's desired will.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And so it fits that on the one of their websites they would say, everything happens for a reason.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: I may not understand it now, but Allah does, and that's all that matters.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem to fit the Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism as well, but they use it too.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Everything happens, eBuddhism.com.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Everything happens for a reason.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: That reason causes change.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it's hard, but in the end, it's all for the best.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And in the more progressive Buddhism here in the West, what I would call Oprah Buddhism, the word macro karma fits.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Deepak Chopra, who's known for his sort of progressive psychological Buddhism, puts it this way when he's talking about this everything happens for a reason if you think it does.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Oprah is famous for saying, I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we're not wise enough to see it.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: What may interest you is that even people who don't believe in religion at all use this line.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Atheists use it.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: There was a talk called on the thinking atheist radio podcast, everything happens for a reason.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes what they mean by that reason is physics.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Everything is determined.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: So we have to think clearly about this.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Everyone seems to say everything happens for a reason.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: When Christians say it, the reason we're usually thinking of is God.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Everything happens because God does it.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: When Muslims use it, they mean Allah.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: When New Age folks or Buddhists or Hindus use it, they're thinking of karma as the reason.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Atheists or non-religious people, the folks that you know who don't go to church and who don't really think about God much, they can say it too, but what they mean by it is like fate or superstition or something like that, or karma, or maybe physics.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm interested in this morning is when Christians say it, when we say it, what do we mean by it?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And uh and is that legitimate?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Does the Bible support that?
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Or should we stop saying it?
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, when Christians say it, sometimes it comes out like this someday everything will make perfect sense.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: So for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears, and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And what we mean when we say this is everything happens for a divine reason.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: God's doing it.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: I shudder, to be honest, when I come across well-meaning, sweet Christians who love God, who will go into the hospital and will say to a person who's taking treatment for cancer, for example, God must be up to something.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't make mistakes.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: You must be very special for God to trust you with this.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it good to know that everything happens for a reason?
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, for you to ask these people why they say this, and by the way, I'll confess this is one of the favorite verses in our family.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: When I was growing up, my mom said it all the time.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: We said it in family reunions, even to this day.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: This verse is probably the most common verse that said at a family reunion.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful verse.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's the greatest single verse in the Bible on what we call the providence of God.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: In theology, that's a subset of the sovereignty of God.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: The providence of God is the phrase that our founders used all the time to describe how God works in the world.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And the single greatest verse on that, the verse that people point to, if you ask them, why do you believe that everything happens for a reason?
6:49
SPEAKER_00: The verse is Romans 8, 28.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And we know this verse very well, don't we?
6:55
SPEAKER_00: In fact, say it out loud with me, and we know.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And we know that all things work together for good.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: To those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, the question I want to ask this morning with this wonderful verse is does Romans 8.28 teach that everything happens for a reason?
7:21
SPEAKER_00: So let me walk through this verse a little bit.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you won't mind that because it's such a famous verse.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: We'll take it phrase by phrase.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: First of all, let's look at the translations of this verse, if you don't mind.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: The translation you know the best is all things work together for good, which fits the Greek.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: The subject in the Greek is all things, and the verb is work, and then you have uh the adverb together, and then you have for good in the complement.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: And and King James Version, New King James Version, the Holman uh version, the English Standard Version, they all say all things work together for good, and that's a strong translation.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Those are good translations.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: An okay translation.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh New American Standard Bible, which in general is the most, oh, shall I say, accurate or literal translation from the Greek.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: In this case, surprisingly, adds a couple of words.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: It decides it in the New Living translation.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: The translators decided it was just, you know, who knows?
8:23
SPEAKER_00: If you just say all things work together for good, people may think that karma does it or something.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: So we need to put God in there.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And so they added a couple of words.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: God causes everything to work together for the good.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And the reason this isn't a bad translation, a terrible translation is Paul clearly has that in mind.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: He wants to leave that unspoken.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: It's obvious in the context.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: So this is a true statement that God causes everything to work together for the good.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: It's just an okay translation.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a believer in adding words.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, a weak translation is a translation that adds bad words that ruin the meaning.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: And there, unfortunately, we have the New International Version and the Revised Standard, which add the preposition in.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: In all things God works for the good.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So suddenly it removes God from somehow overarchingly dealing with all things.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Now there's all these things that happen, and just God just comes in, like, you know, like a cook or like uh, you know, a gardener or something, and decides to tinker around with all of the things that are happening and try to make them work out better.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: But but the the preposition in is not in the original.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: I think it strips the original, makes it quite weak.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I thought I'd throw that in.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Some of you like that, some of you don't, but that's why I think sticking with what you learned that all things work together for good is best.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And it's a, and this verse is quoted by me and by many of you as sort of a soft pillow for our hearts, as a comfort when hard times come.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that when we start walking our way through the verse, it's not so much a soft pillow for our heart, as much as it's a hard rock for our head.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: It's got some problems.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: One problem is that it seems way too sure.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Paul's so dogmatic when he says, we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose, goes the Holman.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: We know.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Paul, couldn't you have been a little less cocksure and dogmatic?
10:30
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't you have said, well, I know, or we think or we believe, but we know.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is it seems way too sweeping.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: We know that all things work together for the good.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Really, Paul?
10:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when when a business goes bankrupt, that the you know, that you've been setting up and working on your entire life and poured all your savings into?
10:57
SPEAKER_00: When a soldier dies leaving a couple of young children, that is included in the all things, really?
11:05
SPEAKER_00: When my son driving his car with the kids in it ten days ago uh uh gets gets smashed into by someone who wasn't looking, someone who turns out doesn't have any insurance?
11:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really?
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Does is that included as well?
11:22
SPEAKER_00: So so it seems way too sure and way too sweeping.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: So let's walk our way through and see exactly how this verse is somehow still a soft pillow for our hearts.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: And the way to do that is I'll just make four statements about the verse as we walk through it.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And the first statement, first thing that this verse tells us, which is so important, is that all things work together for good.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Work together for good.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Individual events, therefore, may be bad.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Individual events may be bad.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: But the whole thing works together for that's why the old picture of the tapestry, which is so confusing on this side, but in heaven, you know, is a beautiful tapestry.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: That's why, that's why those metaphors are true and work.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Because God can work all things together for good and yet allow individual things to not have, shall we say, a reason to not come from his hand.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you an example, a famous one from the Bible.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Joseph is a famous character in the Bible.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: More is written about him, more of his life than anyone else in the Old Testament, more than anyone except for Jesus and Paul in the whole Bible.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 37 through 50.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: And you know the story.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: His father's name was Jacob, and Joseph, being the youngest, was the favorite of his father.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And so his father gave him a special expensive jacket, a coat of many colors, which, unfortunately, Joseph wore, you know, all the time.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And so his older siblings were very jealous and envious and angry.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And then one day, when Joseph was far away from home and his brothers saw him and his brothers hated him, they decided to kill him and tell a lie to their father about how he died.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: But then the oldest brother said, no, no, no, no, let's get some money out of him, let's sell him into slavery.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: They threw him into a pit and then they sold him to Midianite traders heading down to Egypt, went back and told Jacob that an animal had killed him, and they found this bloody cloak.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Do you recognize it, they said?
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And Jacob's daddy's heart was broken.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, Joseph is heading down to Egypt, where he is sold to a rich man named Potiphar, whose wife takes a liking to him and comes on to him.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And Joseph turns her down, she gets mad, and as a result, she lies about Joseph.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: He gets thrown in prison where his life is extremely, extremely hard.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, as you know, he interprets the dream of none other than Pharaoh and becomes the second most powerful person in Egypt, i.e., the most powerful person in the world, and eventually saves the Egyptians and the rest of the world, the known world in that day, from starvation, because he manages the collection of food for seven years and then sells it.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: So he saves them, and most importantly, he saves his family, the 70 of his family, and the future nation of Israel, so that God's plan for Israel and the promise to Abraham is not ruined.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, here's what I want to say to you: that the individual events in that story, almost every single one of them, should not be said to have happened for a reason or are good somehow.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: The fact that Jacob gave preferential treatment to his son was not a good thing, it was a bad thing.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: The fact that Joseph wore the coat was not good, it was bad.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: The fact that the brothers were envious and angry to the point of murder was not a good thing, but bad.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: The fact that they sold him into slavery was a bad thing, and then that they went home and told Jacob they lied to their father and broke his heart, that was not a good thing.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: That was a bad thing.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that Joseph down in Egypt was lied about and thrown into prison was not good, but bad.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, so many bad things.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And yet at the end of his life, as Joseph stands there and meets his brothers again, the brothers who had conspired to kill him and then had sold them.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 50, verse 20 summarizes that whole play full of bad events and says, You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish the saving of many lives.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: God worked all those things together, those individual events for good.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Not all things are good, but all things work together for good.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't therefore decree or or cause everything to happen, does he?
16:10
SPEAKER_00: God allows free individuals to make foolish and sinful choices.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: But second, this verse tells us that all things work together for good, because behind them is a God who causes them to.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: And this was the logic, of course, behind the New American Standard and New Living translations.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: They wanted us to know, in case you don't couldn't figure it out, that things work together for good because God causes all things to work together for good.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And we know this is true, and this is such a comfort that God is a wise God and has come up with a grand design for history, and that God is a good God, and therefore this grand design is a good design which will end up in the best of all possible results, and God is a loving God, and so as you trust him as your Savior and you fit into that plant, he is the kind shepherd who will care for you, he promises to and will finally bring you home to the house of the Lord forever, he says in Psalm 23.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And God is an omnipotent God, so he can fit all of the events of history into his overarching grand plan.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: All things work together for good then, because behind them is a God who causes them to.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: And this God who causes them to work together for good causes them to work together for good.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And that good is not what we usually think.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: It's not comfort, it's not pleasure, it's not success as we usually define it.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: We find that in the context, that good is something that God cares about far more, and that is that you become just like his son.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: For if we gloss over the period at the end of verse 28, we read, we know all things work together for the good of those who love God, called according to his purpose.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: For those he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: You know it's true.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: That sometimes those things that would give you the most comfort are the things that would cause you to become least like Jesus Christ Himself.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: That sometimes good health is not as good for you in the process of becoming like Jesus Christ as is sickness, that sometimes bankruptcy can move you farther towards becoming like Jesus Christ than winning the lottery.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's why what God says is important when he says, I'm working everything in your life for good, and it'll be gradual as you go through life.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: But if with unveiled face you contemplate the Lord's glory, this is 2 Corinthians 3.18, then I will transform you into my image, into the image of Christ, transform as metamorphose you into my image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: This wonderful verse about how you gradually from stage to stage become more like Jesus Christ.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's the good end that he's looking for.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: And 1 John 3 tells us that finally when you see Jesus face to face, then you will Shazam.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: You will become the rest of the way.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: You will become just like Jesus.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: You will become Christ-like.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Dan Wallace is one of the most respected professors in America.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: He teaches Greek at Dallas Seminary and uh and finds and translates ancient manuscripts.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote this, which I thought was right on the money.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: He said, You've heard it thousands of times.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, everything will work out just fine.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: It's the eternal optimism that's born not in the crucible of reality, but in the wishful thinking of Hollywood make-believe, or a naive Pollyanish outlook.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: All of us know it isn't completely true.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: We know of children who were cut down by cancer, of drug addicts who came from good homes, and of family men who lost their jobs.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: We know of countless tragedies, yet we repeat this myth to our children.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Ancient Greeks and Romans uttered something similar, and the Apostle Paul also said something like this.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: The difference is that Paul, in Romans 8, 28, conditioned his statement with important qualifiers and defined the good as other than comfort and wealth.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: So all things, God causes all things to work together, together for good.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And finally, number four, all things work together for good.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Not to everyone, but to Christians.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: This soft pillow notice is not for everyone.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: It's for the good of those who love God, i.e., those who are called according to his purpose.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Some would interpret this to mean that you're not only a Christian, but you have to be loving God in the way you're living.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I take it in this case that he's meaning the same thing.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Those who are called are those who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: They have laid down their deadly working, their striving to become righteous in God's sight on their own, and they have trusted Christ, and therefore God says, I have called you, I'm going to make you just like my son.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, and not only that, I will promise you that everything will work together in the end for good.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh, let's get back to the question then.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Does Romans 8 28 teach that everything happens for a reason, that everything therefore comes from God's hand?
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Since God doesn't make mistakes, he must be up to something, that everything happens for a reason.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: And the answer obviously, otherwise, I wouldn't be wouldn't make it number five in this series.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, following good Christians don't judge, and God Godly homes guarantee godly children.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I don't believe that Romans 8 28, the one verse used to prove this, that it really teaches it.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, I would couch my answer like this.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Let me walk through it.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: Number one, I would say to someone who says everything happens for a reason, I would say, listen, what you believe about God is absolutely true, that he is omnipotent, that he can do anything he wants, that God is sovereign, he is in control, that he is wise, that he has a grand plan, that he is good, that this plan is good.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: What you believe about God Himself, that's true.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: But listen, what you believe about how God works, his providence, is not true.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: It's wrong.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: It lays evil at the feet of God.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Yes, some things, number three, do happen for a divine reason.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Say, take the death of Christ, for example, which seems so awful at the time, but we know that God predetermined and planned it.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Acts 4.27.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: It was man's fault.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: And then he flips and says, Well, but they did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Some things like the death of Christ, the crucifixion, happen for a reason we could add, say Job's trials.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: We know we Job chapter 1, verse 27 takes us to heaven, and we can see there was a reason.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: God and Satan sort of had a bet going on.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: The blind man in John chapter 9, there was a reason.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: God said this was to prove something.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Some things do happen for a reason, which is why Jesus had said the night before his death, you disciples don't understand now what I am doing, going to the cross willingly, but later you will understand.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And what they understood is that it happened for a reason to save the world.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: But listen, most events, most events that happen to you in life, while not outside God's control, do not have a quote-unquote reason.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: They are things that God allows but doesn't cause.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And they must not be blamed on God for their sources is Satan or man's free choices or nature that was bent and twisted by the fall.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Take the fall of Lucifer and a third of the angels.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go to God right after that happens and say, so this happened for a reason, huh?
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Tell me the reason.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Certainly wasn't a divine reason.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Or when Eve handed the uh the grapes or whatever it was to Adam to eat, and they disobeyed the one command God had given them.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be saying, well, this happened for a reason.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Buck up, no problem.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go to Adam and Eve after they get the news, after they see their son Cain with his bloody, with Abel's blood all over him.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go to them and say, well, buck up.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, God has a reason for this.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go to Noah and say, all these people who for a hundred years are ridiculing you.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: God has a reason for their disbelief.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Or Tower of Babel, or when Israel said no to going into the promised land because they believed the ten spies in unbelief.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Or you don't want to go to the prophet Nathan, who came to David after the baby was born.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: To confront him about the fact that David had slept with another man's wife, and then to cover it up, had killed Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, and now the baby's been born.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: It's been covered up for nine months, and God sends Nathan to confront David.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Nathan does not say to David, hey, this is tough.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: I've told you the baby's gonna die, but buck up, everything happens for a reason.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: You see what I'm saying?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to sin and the tragedies of life, do not lay those things at the feet of God.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And even when it comes to, say, tornadoes and whirlwinds, some years ago a famous TV evangelist talked about a, uh talked about one of these hurricanes that decimated part of the East Coast and said, now that happened for a reason, and and the reason was, and then he named a certain sin that was across the whole nation.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, it was embarrassing.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: It was embarrassing to other Christians because he somehow knew what the reason was.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: When the fact of the matter is, we live in a fallen world, and our world, in fact, Romans 8 is the chapter that talks about it.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Our world has an upset stomach and keeps on, you know, giving us tornadoes and earthquakes and storms and lightning that knocks down the one tree we had left in our front yard, you know, that kind of thing.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Because we live in a fallen world.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And when the disciples came to Jesus and said, they're always drawing lines, figuring out the reasons.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says to them at one point in Luke 13, well, hold it, what about the 18 people who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them?
27:21
SPEAKER_00: You think they were the worst sinners in Jerusalem?
27:23
SPEAKER_00: See, it's easy to somehow trace what happens to a divine reason.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: But in the Bible we read things like, whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the reason's not God, the reason is you.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Bad things reap a bad result.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Whereas good things will reap a good result.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Your actions, not God's actions, will influence your life.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Which is why God says in Jeremiah 18, if I speak concerning a nation to build and plant it, I make promises.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: But if it does evil so that it doesn't obey my voice, then I'm going to relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's not that God brought their disobedience on, God's responding to their disobedience.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Someone said everything happens for a reason, but sometimes the reason is that you're stupid and you make bad decisions.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Which you know is true.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: But when we say everything happens for a reason, we usually mean God is the reason.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that for me, one of the strongest verses on this in the whole Bible is one you need to consider.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: It's in 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 9, where God wants us to know that he's long-suffering and he's not willing, not eager, not wanting, not desiring for anyone to perish.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, hold it, you say.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't you have a decreed of will where everything happens fits into it?
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, yes.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: He says, but I have a moral will, a desired will.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And if if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, you're putting it off, you'll decide when you get to be old and decrepit and so forth.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: If something happens and you pass off this fair coil early, and then as a result, you go to hell.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: Don't be thinking that somehow God had a reason for that.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have a reason for that.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: That was your choice because God desperately is throwing you a life preserver.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to trust Him as your Savior.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: You simply must make that decision before it's too late, right?
29:28
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't want anyone to perish.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: So let me bring this to a close so we can celebrate communion.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I want to share with you why this is a big deal, real quickly.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Why everything happens for a reason.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it just sloppy thinking, but dangerous, even unhealthy thinking?
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, for one thing, sometimes it means you would call evil good.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Everything happens for a reason.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: No, no, it doesn't.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: That's evil.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: That's not something God's gonna take blame or credit for.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Don't attribute it to him.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Another thing is if you tell people, if people believe God, that God's behind everything, predetermined everything, then when my child suddenly is taken sick and passes away, I would get angry at such a God.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: I would say, God, that that that doesn't make sense.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: That's unfair.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And God would say, Well, I can understand why you would say that.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Or I get disillusioned and I lose hope because God isn't meeting my expectations, because God, if he is a good and kind and wise and just God, he should and he would operate in a certain way.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And so I would lose hope.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And I would even gloss over my own sin.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: You talk to someone with a with a with an addiction who believes that everything happens for a reason.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: If he believes sort of an Eastern religion, yin and yang, darkness and light are both in the whole God thing?
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Or Islam, where somehow God predetermines everything, including evil and sin, then you gloss over your sin.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Why should I change?
31:05
SPEAKER_00: After all, it's in the plan.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's why you lose compassion.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: That's why you do not see any of the dozen, two dozen Arab countries ever sending money to Haiti or anybody who else who crashes and burns.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Because in Islam, everything is predetermined.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets what they deserve.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: It's all insha'Allah.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And you'll lose compassion, or you'll lose action, and you won't work to change the evils in society.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Or you will obsess and try to guess at the reason.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: I know what the reason.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Somebody said to me today.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Someone said, you know, I used to be like this.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: If if the light changed as I was coming up to, if it was green, or I somehow suddenly got a parking place right next to the store, I'd be thinking, what did I do today?
31:48
SPEAKER_00: I must have done something good today.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, that God gave this to me.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, of course, you're embarrassed it doesn't work out that way.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: John Connolly was the governor of Texas in 1963, and he was riding in the limo with JFK and Jackie.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And so he was wounded in that hail of bullets that came from the shooter that killed John F.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Kennedy.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Sixteen years later, Governor Connolly ran for president of the United States.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't do very well, and he lost.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And when interviewed by the LA Times right after the election, and asked, so was did did did your surviving, you know, the shooting, did that have anything to do with it?
32:32
SPEAKER_00: He said, well, yes, it played a direct role in my running for the presidency.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: I felt I had no choice.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I felt like I'd been left here for some reason.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: I concluded the reason was that I should become president of the United States, replacing John F.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Kennedy.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: And of course it didn't happen that way, and that's what happens when you start guessing at reasons.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: You find that you find that you can't guess at the reasons, and they are hidden from you.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: So how should we respond?
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you something to do.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: The better, more biblical way is to call good good and evil evil.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And don't call evil an awful thing somehow.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't plant those at the feet of God.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Second, add Romans 8.37 through 39 to 8.28.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: 8.37 through 39 starts off.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: In all of these things we are more than conquers through him he loved us.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: These bad things, these evil things, those, that doesn't come from God didn't make that happen, but in it, I can become more of a I can become a conquer, for I know that God's love will be with me always, that nothing can separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: And say, instead of saying everything happens for a reason, say something like this.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, as you're in the hospital there with that cancer pain, I don't know why God allowed this terrible thing to happen.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: But I do know that God loves you and is working everything together for good.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: So you can trust and obey.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me, just to practice.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why God allowed this terrible thing to happen.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: But I do know that God loves you and is working everything together for good.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: So you can trust and obey.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Bow your head with me in prayer.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are the kind of God that we can trust, that we can love, the kind of God who promises us that you really are a kind shepherd.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And while you are in control of everything, there are so many things that you simply allow to happen.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And we have to trust you and become conquerors in it, knowing that you love us and you will eventually work everything out for the very best of all possible worlds.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Heaven.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Lord, as we come to the table this morning, we're reminded that here, more than almost at any other time, you took evil and you worked good out of it.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: The death of Jesus Christ was this horrible thing that happened as he hung there and suffered on the cross.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: And yet, as we take the bread and drink the cup this morning, we look beyond that tragedy to you and to the fact that this was for our salvation out of your love in Jesus' name.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Amen.