The Commissions of the Church; Why Suffering?

Sunday July 28, 2024

Preliminary considerations.

First: You will not fulfill the commissions without the personal desire to know God, love God, and love all mankind. Agape love loves his enemies and therefore all. 

1Co 13:4-8

You could become very knowledgeable at apologetics and faith as God’s messenger. 

Second: You must realize that faith journeys (believer and unbeliever) are never simply intellectual exercises. No argument or presentation, no matter how bulletproof, is going to save someone. We can only point the way. 

Third: I see the task of the ambassador of Christ as removing what others see as immovable barriers.

The Commissions from Christ: 

During the forty days Jesus gave the disciples several commissions (Mat 28:18-20; Mar 16:15-18; Luk 24:46-49; Joh 21:15-17; Act 1:7-8).

Alpha is a program that helps train for evangelism and offers a framework for setting up your own outreach.

https://app.alpha.org/us/dashboard

There are two areas of work in the fields before us: 

Exposing the blind faith of the skeptic - apologetics. Removing the negative assumptions. 

Exposing the truth of God and mankind: biblical instruction. 

Adding positive new knowledge. 

Before we begin to sow and water and till …

A faith journey is not simply an intellectual exercise. Understanding: Skepticism is here to stay (“Help my unbelief”). Love - belittling, condemning, judging are not the way of God and will fail. Some will fight back and persecute. Understanding: The skeptic stands on a foundation of faith and likely does not know it. 

Initiating: know your audience. How do you start? (1Co 9:15-27).

Be sincere. Knowledge and love of God and your neighbor are key. 

Removing the barrier of skepticism: How could a good God allow suffering? 

Philosophical problem: If a good and powerful God exists, He would not allow pointless evil. 

Problem for the skeptic: If evil appears pointless to me then it must be pointless. 

Hard nosed skepticism rests on faith, blind faith of the highest order. 

Almost everyone will admit that most of what they needed in life came through suffering; difficult and painful experiences. 

Evil as evidence for God: 

If anything, evil is more of a problem for the atheist. Where does he get the concept of good and evil; just and unjust? 

Lewis [Mere Christianity]: My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of “just” and “unjust”? … the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies… Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.”

The understanding that evil and suffering are painful, horrible, and mankind is best without them is a strong argument for God. 

Personal problem: Evil does not always turn out for good. 

While we easily say that God turns every curse into a blessing, but the pained widow or the young couple who lost a child will be hard pressed to find a silver lining. 

Jesus came to put Himself on the hook for human suffering. 

God doesn’t remove suffering and pain, but gives the means to face it with hope and courage, rather than bitterness and despair. 

Suffering is not in vain because of resurrection. 

Suffering is not in vain because God promises to make all things right and there is an end, a final state. 

While not an answer for why suffering, the suffering of Jesus proves that God loves us. 

Jesus was judged for sins and forsaken by His Father. A love and a pain that we cannot fathom and it was done for us. 

Christianity alone claims that God became a man in order to save us through incredible suffering. 

It cannot be that God does not love us. 

Pain offers us an opportunity for bravery, endurance, sacrifice that will all be rewarded by God who will clarify its justification. 

Heaven will work backwards and turn even that agony into glory [Lewis]. 

You can easily point out these principles and more to a skeptic who is wrestling with the problem of the existence of evil in the world. There are many more areas of skepticism. If we prepare ourselves with the proper applied truths, we will act as the lights of the world that Christ made us to be.