Suffering
Last Sunday I preached for the first time using Zoom - it was a strange experience for me. I am used to preaching - but to live and present congregations which tend to be a mixture of people of different kinds and at different places in their lives. I can lock eyes with them and speak to them.
I must admit that during preaching I struggled, it was intense and mentally exhausting. By the end I was not sure how I did - I was not concerned about the delivery etc - but rather the content - I was not confident I communicated what I intended. I listened to the message after and I was right - I miscommunicated on some important points. I think it was the challenge of the situation which meant that I did not choose my words and phrases well and so inadvertently miscommunited. I have been preaching for over 25 years and never felt the need to correct myself - this is a first, but I felt it was necessary. I do not want to misrepresent my Lord nor the Christian faith.
Here’s what I think I may have inadvertently and implicitly communicated…
1) That Jesus is only interested in His people and is indifferent towards unbelievers.
I think I may have communicated that notion by saying things positively and negatively in an unhelpful way. Eg, “If you trust in Jesus as Lord and Saviour He is committed to always working good through your suffering, if you’re an unbeliever your suffering is just tragic.”
It communicates, as noted above, an indifference towards unbelievers. This could not be further from the truth of scripture and the Christian faith.
“For God so loved the world He gave His only son …” (John 3:16). ‘The world’ means all people. God loves believers and unbelievers! That is crystal clear in scripture but it was not communicated through my message. In fact, God loves all people so much that He has done something about it - He has sent His Son Jesus who suffered “not only for our sins (Christians), but for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).
It is true that God does not love believer and unbeleiver in the same way, and the differences are significant. But it is also true that God's love for an unbeliever is greater than any parent's love for their children.
God arms are now wide open to all people. God makes His appeal through His people as they proclaim the gospel. Ino pther words, the proclamation iof the gospel is an expression of God's love to unbelievers. The gospel is a command and an invitation to everyone to come to God through Jesus for the total forgiveness of all sins made possible through Jesus death on the cross! Forgiveness is entirely free to all who believe because God Himself paid for it with the blood of His Son Jesus. God’s arms are wide open to all people so that whoever responds by turning back to Him via Jesus, Jesus will never drive away (John 6:37).
Although it was not my intention to communicate those specifics, (I was preaching on another subject) what I did preach undermined those specifics because I was careless in my use of words.
Careless communication
2) As noted above, I think I communicated something like, all suffering of unbelievers is only tragic whereas all suffering for believers counts for something worthwhile.
The truth of scripture is that there is an enormous amount of what theologians call ‘common grace’. That is, man, being made in God’s image, despite the fall, still reflect aspects of God’s image in countless good (though corrupted) ways. The upshot being, that unbelievers can suffer in such a way that is worth while, in a way that means something of great value. I certainly failed to communicate this. For example, the scriptures teach, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly die.’ (Romans 5:7). Paul is saying, such nobility is rare - but it does exist - of course Paul goes on to speak of how Jesus died for his enemies, his point is that Jesus love is greater than man’s greatest love, but the latter does not negate the former. People suffer and make sacrifices for others and there is great value and nobility in that and great good can come out of it.
There were two points I attempted to make …
- The unbeliever has no certainty, while she is suffering that her suffering is of value or worth. Often suffering seems pointless. Particularly at those times there is no reason to believe there was any point, purpose or good to come of it. This is tragic.
- Ultimately, all suffering for the unbeliever as an individual is futile. By ‘ultimately,’ I mean, in the final analysis. According to the scriptures, the unbeliever will finally be cut off from God, the source of all good forever. Their final and permenant state will be 'lost'. This is a terrible truth. There is no comfort in this, nor softening of the terrible blow. It is not that God sends people to what the Bible calls hell, but that people are heading there. That is why God sent Jesus, to pay the price and open the way back to God.
The difference, ultimately between a believer and an unbeliever is that the believer has turned back to God entered into a covenant with God Himself - what Jesus called, ‘The New Covenant’. That covenant contains a vast host of promises to all that are within that covenant. It is a covenant that anyone can enter into, but it is by faith.
Luke 22:20
