HOME

07.12.09

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

SERMON SERISE: QUESTIONS FOR GOD

SERIES 3: VOCATION/FAITHFULNESS IN LIFE & WITNESS

PART 5: WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN?

GENESIS 50:15-21; PHILIPPIANS 1:12-21

• Murphy’s Law
• History and Influence
• “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
• That is what we know as Murphy’s Law
• This law is named for one Edward Murphy, who was working on a project for the Air Force in 1952 to test the human tolerance for g-forces during rapid deceleration
• The meaning of the law, as it was originally stated, was that it was important to consider all the possible things that could go wrong before doing a test and act to counter them, which is a reasonable scientific approach
• The test Edward Murphy was conducting failed, however, and his scientific testing principle was instantly transformed into a fatalistic view of human life
• What was originally coined as a useful scientific principle to encourage researchers to consider all possible outcomes became a statement that declares that there’s absolutely nothing we can do to avoid the pitfalls of human life
• Over the years since 1952, a number of corollaries have been developed to broaden the impact of Murphy’s Law on human life
• Here are some examples:
• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong
• If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway
• If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent them, then a fifth way, unplanned for, will probably develop
• Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse
• Things get worse under pressure
• And (my favorite) Smile…tomorrow will be worse
• What Murphy’s Law succeeds in doing, if we buy into it, is this: it forces us to focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right and to expect bad things to happen to us
• It causes us to completely overlook the good side of life and encourages us to develop a negative and cynical attitude
• Most of all, Murphy’s Law causes us to ignore one of the most important teachings of the Christian faith, especially as we face difficult times: “In all things, God works for the good of those who love him.” (Romans 8:28)
• Murphy’s Law and the Christian Faith
• What does Murphy’s Law have to do with those of us who profess faith in Jesus Christ?
• Once we believe in Jesus, our faith acts as a buffer to prevent bad things from happening to us
• Once we believe in Jesus, life will be easy, we will always be happy, and nothing bad will ever happen to us again—Right?
• Wrong—in fact the exact opposite is true
• Living a Christian life isn’t easy—it’s a long and difficult journey
• Just because we’re Christian doesn’t mean we’ll always be happy
• In fact, we ought to be saddened by sin, by injustice, by suffering, by anything that plagues the human condition
• Just because we’re Christian bad things will happen to us
• Our faith will be tested, our beliefs will be seriously challenged, and we may even be persecuted because we don’t fit in with the ways of the world
• Christian faith is not a security blanket to protect us from the evils of the world around us
• Instead, it’s an arsenal from which we can draw to face and overcome the difficulties life brings to us
• The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, likens it to a suit of armor—6:13-18
• Our question today, the last in this part of the series, is: “Why is it that, when you try to live your life and be an example as a Christian, bad things keep happening to you and you never get ahead?”
• What this person is asking is the age old question “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
• Unfortunately, that’s a question we may never have a complete answer for
• This question is motivated by that security blanket mentality of the Christian faith I just spoke about
• But when God calls us to faith and calls us to follow, God never promises that the path of Christian faith will be easy, and God never promises that we will never have to face difficult circumstances again
• What God does promise is that God will be with us in all circumstances and that through faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we will have all we need to be victorious over those circumstances
• So the question isn’t “How can we avoid difficulties?” the question is “How can we overcome them and be victorious?”
• The answer to that question is this: “We can overcome any circumstance because we have the power of God on our side and God has the power to bring good even out of the worst of circumstances.”
• Overcoming Our Circumstances
• Joseph
• Before us today we have the stories of two people who found themselves trapped in the most horrible of circumstances, yet in the midst of their circumstances they had faith enough to see the hand of God at work in their lives
• Joseph was the eleventh of the twelve sons of Jacob and obviously his father’s favorite
• Motivated by jealousy over his favorite son status, Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and reported to their father that he had been killed by a wild animal
• He ended up in Egypt as a slave in the house of Potiphar, and all went well for him there until he was falsely accused of trying to seduce Potiphar’s wife
• That accusation landed him in prison for a very long time, yet through his behavior as a model prisoner, he gained the favor of the guards who provided him with special treatment
• When he was all but forgotten about in his prison cell, he was brought before Pharaoh who had heard that Joseph had the ability to interpret dreams
• After successfully interpreting a dream of Pharaoh’s, Joseph was set free and from there he began his rise to power as second in command over all of Egypt
• When famine hit the land, Egypt’s food coffers were well supplied because of Joseph’s wise management
• Ultimately, Joseph’s ten older brothers came to Egypt for food and they came face to face with the brother they had treated so poorly
• After playing games with them for awhile, Joseph revealed to them that he was their brother and convinced them to move the entire family to Egypt so he could take care of them
• Once their father Jacob died, the brothers were afraid that Joseph might retaliate for all the evil they caused him
• Yet, through it all, Joseph remained gracious
• Responding to their request for forgiveness, Joseph replied, “Am I in the place of God?  You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”
• Joseph would have had every right to be bitter
• Separated from his home and family for most of his life, suffering the pains of slavery and prison through no fault of his own would have been more than enough to motivate the best of us to get even
• Yet, as a result of his suffering, Joseph was able to see the bigger picture
• There was a purpose for all he had experienced—God had a plan for him
• To avoid the suffering and pain he experienced, he would have missed the blessing of God on his life and the blessing he brought to others through his faithful endurance
• Paul
• After his conversion experience on the Damascus Road, Paul dedicated his life to Jesus Christ and to the faithful preaching of the gospel
• His passion for evangelism took him on three missionary journeys, spreading the gospel through all of the known world
• But his life, too, was not without its difficulties
• As passionately as Saul persecuted Christians before his conversion, others passionately persecuted him after his conversion
• Paul details all of the hardship he faced in 2 Corinthians 11:23-29
• Despite all the hardship he faced, Paul continued to strive to glorify Christ in his living because he knew he was called by God to preach the gospel and be a faithful witness for Jesus Christ
• It was faithfulness to his calling that ultimately landed Paul in prison and facing the penalty of death
• Despite these dire circumstances, Paul remained joyful because even these dire circumstances provided him yet another opportunity to preach the word and advance the cause of Christ
• More than that, his imprisonment caused many other Christians to become bolder in their preaching of the gospel
• Some were doing it for their own glory to gain Paul’s place of prominence in the church, yet still Paul rejoiced because his suffering advanced the gospel of Jesus Christ
• In the midst of his pain, good things were happening
• If Paul was set free, he would continue his ministry, but if Paul were to die, he knew that others would step forward to carry the torch
• Either way, the ministry of Jesus Christ would continue and God would be glorified
• The Place of Suffering
• I think it’s wrong for us to seek to avoid the difficult circumstances that come into our life because to do so is to deny God the opportunity to work good through our circumstances
• To avoid the pain is to miss the blessing
• I also think that those who suffer more do so because of their faithfulness to Jesus Christ
• The amount of suffering we are able to endure is directly related to the amount of blessings from God that flow through our lives into the lives of others
• Those who are faithful in suffering are the most effective witnesses for Jesus Christ
• It’s easy to believe when life is easy, but the true test of faith is how faithful we remain when life gets hard
• One of the gifts God gave Joseph and Paul was the gift of perspective
• They were not narrowly focused on the details of their lives; instead they saw their life as part of the larger plan of God
• Instead of bemoaning their circumstances and asking ,”Why me?” they asked “What does God want me to learn from this and how can I use it to be more faithful to God?”
• We would do well if we could do the same
• Rather than seeking to avoid difficulties, we ought to take James’ advice and “consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds.” (James 1:2)
• Those trials provide us with an opportunity for personal growth, for developing a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ
• Those trials also provide God with the opportunity to bless us in ways beyond our imagining
• They also provide us with new opportunities and new tools for ministry, opportunities and tools we may never have if we managed to avoid suffering altogether
• Bad things happen for a purpose
• What we do with them is an important part of our faith and witness
• In every circumstance, God works for good
• It’s far better to look for the good that God is going to do, even in the worst of circumstances, rather than believe that “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.”