See The Light

Welcome to "That's a Good Question," the weekly video podcast where we explore the questions that arise from the Sunday sermon at our church. In this episode, our hosts, Pastor Jon Delger, and Pastor Nate Harney dive deep into some thought-provoking questions.

First, they explore the significance of calling this week "holy week" and why it's important for us as Christians to commemorate the events that took place during this week.

Then, they tackle a challenging question: How can we reconcile the existence of evil in the world with the belief in a good and loving God? Through their discussion, Jon and Nate provide insightful perspectives and practical ways to approach this complex topic.

Join us for this engaging conversation that will help you gain a deeper understanding of your faith and equip you with tools to navigate some of life's toughest questions. Don't miss this episode of "That's a Good Question" with Pastor Jon Delger and Pastor Nate Harney. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:26 Balance in serving
• 5:34 Holy Week
• 7:12 Problem of evil

Transcript

How does a loving God and a just God allow evil?
 Thank you for joining us on that's a good question a podcast where we answer your questions from last Sunday's sermon at Peace Church.
 We hope that these answers will encourage you and help you see the depth and beauty of the Gospel. Let's dive into this week's questions.
 Everybody Welcome to that's good question. I'm Pastor John. I'm here with Pastor Nate who preached this past Sunday at Peace church, and we're here to answer some questions about that sermon as well as about the Christian faith and excited to do so, so thanks everybody for your great questions. Here we go. Let's Jump Right In number one about the call to service in our family the church and the world. How do we know how to balance those things? Great question. How do we do that? We're supposed to use our time in our energy and all three of those Arenas. Yeah. So, how do we do that? Yeah, and I love those three that they brought out. So your family your immediate family if you're raising kids or I've I'll talk to people in our church who are taking care of an older a father a mother who needs extra help right now, so get your family and your church family you want to serve in the church and the fellow Christians that your fellowshiping with and then the world your neighborhood at work at school people who need to know Jesus or even just the broader church. Maybe they're not a part of your local church, but you can bless a Christian family that you know, yeah, that's that's the question. I almost think of right away.
 Had this great basketball coach one time where he said he said, you know, you'll be told to give a hundred percent and everything in all of your life. And he said I know what that means. It's excellence in everything but said in one sense you have only have a hundred percent of your time and of your energy and you actually have to kind of figure out how you divide it among all the different things and how you prioritize all that so it's it's really that question of how are we prioritizing? How are we doing that? I'll say two main things. Number one right there in the question is already half the battle to know that all three are important that we shouldn't just care for our family and forget about our church family or the lost that we're around. We shouldn't just care about the loss and not find ways to serve other Christians. In fact, Jesus says in John 13 that the world will know that we are Christians by our love for one another so actually when we're serving and loving each other as Christians within the church that's actually a testimony out to the world.
 We've all even heard of situations. I remember hearing one guy say, hey, my dad was a traveling evangelist and so he got to share the gospel with a lot of people but I never really had a dad around and you go that doesn't seem right and is one of the Pastoral pistols says if you don't provide for your family, then you're worse than an unbeliever. So I'm glad that those three categories are there. First of all second of all, I would just say that kind of the litmus test to know am I doing this well or not is first and foremost starting with the group that's not going to be served much by other people your family. Does your family feel cared for provided for and I've talked to people who have come to me and said, hey, I got four little kids at home my husband serving in the church right now, but I'm wondering if maybe for the next year or two can kind of my main Ministry. My main service be like really taking care of my kids. There's some special needs here. And there's a seasonals I say 100.
 Percent you in one sense, you're serving our church family by serving your family during one of those really tough Seasons, but then I've had other people who maybe all the kids are out of the house and they say hey, this is kind of my season for all my hobbies for all my travel for all my personal interests. Yeah, those things are great and God loves those things. But if you're not spending any time serving in the church, and you're not in just a crazy season, I would say you're probably not totally pulling your weight for what the local church needs and then I'd say on with thinking through how you prior to that one of the biggest things that's hardest for most Christians is how do I
 Get out there and serve the world. How do I meet Christians and show them the love of God so that hopefully it opens up great gospel conversations and to that I would just say hey find one or two creative ways. Maybe it's a gym membership, or maybe it's a serving on your school board or or even just for me. I I hang out weekly with a group of guys from my neighborhood and I didn't even organize that it was already kind of happening, but it's a good chance for me to jump in and get to interact with people who are a part of my church who are part of other churches and people who are just totally unchurch. So there's no perfect formula. Hey, it's 50% here 25 and 25, but you it's your job to look to the Bible use Godly wisdom and be honest with yourself. I mean if they're there could be those out there who I know who are totally neglecting their family right now and there could be those who are negle
 Seeing other callings their local church family or even their non-believing neighborhood next door because all their focused on is their own family. There's no perfect formula perfect answer but the fact that you're already grappling who has ever asked this question that your grappling with those three categories. I think you're totally on the right path. Yeah exactly. I totally agree with that. Yeah. I was thinking about it as in terms of kind of layers of I'm called first more foremost to be a Christian. Yeah than a husband a father the pastor. Yeah. So in that order all of those are important, I can't give up any one of those but all but they do have an order of priority. Absolutely. So yeah good.
 All right question number two. Why do we call it? Holy Week? All right. So great question. Yeah, so you've heard us say that this week that we're in right now this past Sunday was Palm Sunday. We're on Monday. The sun coming Sunday is Easter. We got Good Friday in there. So we often call this Holy Week. If you see on our Peace church Communications. We also call it Easter week because Easter week, but holy week is just kind of a traditional. Yeah language way that we
 Call this week, right? Yes, I think some people especially if you're new to peace. You might know that while we're an independent church. We're not a part of a formal denomination at this point and our church history, but we are a Reformed Church. That's our heritage and that Holy Week is language that reform churches have used for a long time to talk about this time between Palm Sunday and Easter. You know, when we talk about the word, holy a lot of times. We'll we'll simplify and say you're it's set apart. It's it's different and while every we want to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus all the time. And while we want to remember the crucifixion every day. This is a special time that we set aside to make sure that we're really focusing in on remembering the cross and the sacrifice Jesus made on Good Friday and remembering and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus on Easter and kind of Palm Sunday. Is this cool thing to just already start.
 To talk about it and prepare our hearts for this really exciting Easter week, that's coming. Yeah. Yeah, totally. All right third question and one that we can dig into fairly deep here. I think is this so and on Sunday in the sermon pasture. Now, you talked a little bit about the problem of evil. So the question goes like this. What passage is a scripture. Would you point people to when they ask this question? How does a loving God and a just God allow evil? So great question. They're asking specifically how do we talk about parts of scripture to talk about this you brought up this question? Yeah, I think a lot of us listening we're paying really close attention because so many people wrestle with this question. I know for me and as I talked with others this question becomes not just the abstract philosophical question of how can God be both good and in control and allow evil, but the question I think is more often asked just why would God let this happen to me right when suffering's happening when bad things are happening. Why would God let this happen to me? Yeah, and this is for many people and for many times and seasons.
 Life this has been the question, you know, there's there's so many things that I understand comprehensively about God but this is one of those I would say I understand it sufficiently. I know what I need to know but part of the point that I part of the reason I brought it up yesterday is because we're talking about how the disciples didn't fully even understand what was happening on that first Palm Sunday, but down the road it says once Jesus was glorified then they started recall and they could understand and so I compared that to that I think for many of us we will have probably times in our life where we have something that we don't understand and then maybe later in our life. We might be able to look back and start to be able to put the picture together of exactly why God would allow that I think of Genesis 50 and the life of Joseph he went through all kinds of horrible things that we want to wish on anyone but near the end of his life. He's able to look at his brothers The Men Who were
 Vehicles of so many of the hard things and kind of the the reason why he encountered so many hardships and he was able to look at them and say hey what what you meant for evil God used for good now, I want to be careful when I say that because I think in a lot of cases we won't be able to and this life look back and see oh, this is what God was doing with that and certainly as it gets more personal and more extreme. I'm not gonna sit down with somebody who lost a child and say hey, well, we're gonna see what kind of God's doing here. I'm sure he's he's doing something exciting here, you know, we're gonna talk about that a lot of those questions in our series on job that's coming up and how some of the best thing you can do is just sit and grieve with people when they're experiencing that and not try to provide all of the answers and explain every facet. So I'm not saying that at all, but what I am saying is we do know.
 Because we know God is good and we know he's powerful and we know he's in control and we know that evil is real and it does exist. We know that somehow that all makes sense in the mind of God. I'm not saying it's illogical that it has to be logical. If God does it. I'm not saying that it transcends God's understanding but I think it might in some forms transcend some of our understanding and we hear God say that his ways are higher than our ways we have to be humbled by that and realize we don't know all the answers. Now, here's the thing when people come to us with that challenge, let's just before we even go personal let's think of it philosophically so somebody brings you kind of the textbook response to that a couple of questions that I would ask them back would be to say do you know for sure that you are in a position to in an unbiased way and with not just sufficient but comprehens
 Of intelligence and understanding on this deep and wide matter you're able to say hey, I know for sure that these things don't line up because for you to be able to say hey, even if there was a God that I could look at him and say hey if you are good and powerful, there's no way that evil could exist. It's just a strong statement to be able to say I understand this so completely I have such such a grasp of this whole situation that I'm able to say if this if I can't figure out how this lines up then it can't line up. There's no room for personal air. There's no room for a higher being to understand something that me a finite limited person might not understand. I mean, I think of all the things that I understand sufficiently that I don't understand comprehensively, I mean all day long I drive a car and I know the basics of how a car works, but I have to
 my car in a shop when it breaks down because I don't have a comprehensive understanding and well, I think God has in his scripture. He has given us.
 a sufficient answer on this and even I think of even chapters like Romans 9 where there's asking really hard questions and there's certain points for God just says
 Who are you to try to fully understand the mind of God? He's saying I've told you enough but you right now you're not gonna understand everything and that's where faith comes in. So that's where you need to trust that and what's ironic about the faith topic is I would say the person who's saying hey, I understand this whole situation this question there. I would say they're potentially being arrogant but I would also say that they're utilizing a lot of faith. And in that response, they're saying I have faith in myself that I know so much more that there couldn't be there couldn't be a god out there who knows more than I do. I mean, I think that's a big that's a big step of Faith too faith in yourself, and I'm at a point and I've been at a point and I always will be where I'm much more comfortable putting that step of faith into the god of the universe rather than to my own understanding and knowledge. So that's philosophically personally. I just want to return
 back to that because we have to be so careful.
 Uh when somebody is going through the deepest darkest Valley, we as pastors. I know John you've walked with people through some of their hardest times and we don't go in and start trying to make sense of everything right there. It kind of like we said with job and what his friends missed in a lot of ways is sometimes the best thing you can do is not try to explain or figure out what's going on, but just be there with the person through their hurt and pain. I think a Jesus with the family of Lazarus when he came Jesus even knew that he was about to resurrect Lazarus from the dead but still he wept and mourned with the family because
 that's
 That's what you do. When when your fellow Christian is grieving you grieve with them your heart broken with them. And so I don't think actually most the time when people are dealing with the Deep Dark Hour of the soul that we need to try to explain things. But there's this point always where the two converge as one usually it's not right in the moment, but some time later let's say let's just tackle on the worst things ever the loss of a child. There's almost nothing that could be worse than that. I I can't even imagine it and actually I knew a young man who he passed away in a motorcycle accident and when I had my son for the first time I talked to his parents and I said, I don't know how I don't know if I can make it losing a child. I mean not that I would even Lose My Faith. I'm just saying I don't even it would be hard to imagine waking up and going the next day and they said something to me that stuck with me as they said, you know, God doesn't
 Give you the grace for situations you haven't encountered yet. But if you if this happens to you, God will give you what you need to get through it, but you don't need to go there in your mind before it happens. And that was a good word for me. But as I watched them grapple with this, they hit a point where they had to say.
 Okay, we're kind of coming out of where we just need to grieve and now we're starting to ask those questions. How could God let this happen and that's where the blend of the two comes where you might have to open up the scriptures and start to try to understand enough to be able to say hey God. I don't know. I don't know exactly what you're doing here. But I know you I know your character. I know your nature and I know you're good.
 I know you're powerful. I know you're in control.
 And I'd say the last thing as we can say I know that you know what I'm going through. I mean you think of a loss of a child. I mean our father and Heaven has literally experienced that situation he watched his son. Jesus die on the cross and the Wrath that Jesus received was worse than anything that any of us could ever experience or any of us could ever watch anyone else go through and so God the father knows what we go through God the son experience pain and suffering that we can't even imagine and God the spirit will be with us even when we don't fully understand. Yeah.
 Yeah, one of the other questions that I've asked.
 Sometimes when people are sort of going through that and they come to that point where they want to say. Well, I want to just give up on my faith in God because of this horrible thing.
 Sarah won't ask the Practical question of what does that get you what does that do for you? Practically? Does that actually help you in any way? I think the answer is no actually you've just given up the one thing that could give you. Hope of something better. Yeah, right the Christian hope is that The Narrative of the Bible is that God created everything good the human sin came into the world and broke everything but that God is redeeming it and one day it will all be better. And in fact, all of whatever is to come is gonna actually make it worth it through what we've been through and so if you give up on God and you then you give up on that hope and you're sort of settling and saying well this world is as good as it can be it's just bad. There is no purpose in life. My life has no meaning. My suffering has no meaning and that's a pretty hopeless desperate place to be so I think even practically believing in God just makes more sense when you're facing such terrible things not to mention that it's true and not to mention that you know, the scripture gives us lots of Hope as well. So
 About the biblical narrative too. When we think about evil and where it comes from God is the one who created everything good. We are the ones who screwed it all up Adam and Eve sinned and that's when everything got broken. So even practically if you want to think about how can a good God be in control and be good when everything is evil while the answer is because we sinned right and brought evil into this world. Yeah.
 You're right. You're referencing that. There's another tension, you know, we know God is completely Sovereign but it's clear from the scriptures that we have a responsibility for our sin and there could be somebody who says well, I don't understand how that could line up isn't that contradictory? And we see in Scripture that there are these paradoxes that we don't we don't fully understand it's difficult to articulate. I mean, you could throw the trinity in there trying to figure out how we can fully understand and articulate that but when we see that the scriptures teach that all these things are true and they they clearly don't directly contradict with each other but there's facets of it that I think we're always going to be exploring that's some of the fun of following Jesus and studying the Bible. You're always learning more and seeing a closer picture of what God's doing and how he's working. But yeah, you're totally right. There's human responsibility and I I
 Stand if somebody said well, how can God Hold Us responsible if he ultimately created us, but you could turn that question right around like how could you ask that question of the creator of the universe? It's very easy to just turn that around and that brings us right back to job. Right? Well, yes it does and and like you said it's one of the classic tensions Mysteries. Sometimes we call them in the Bible, which is God sovereignty and human responsibility. How can those two things exist at the same time? It's kind of like asking how can God be one and three at the same time but we know about God's sovereignty and human responsibilities that they do exist at the same time all throughout the scripture the most classic place we could point in the Bible is the cross of Jesus. I think of Acts chapter 2 Acts chapter 4 where God is is saying that he's the one who for ordained who predestined who planned for maternity past that his son was going to go and die on the cross for the sin of humanity and yet at the same time.
 Um Peter and his Pentecost sermon is is saying that you all he's talking to the Jews. He's talking to the crowd. He's saying you all are murderers you're responsible for crucifying the Son of God. So he's saying both of these things are true at the same time. God is Sovereign. He's in control. He planned that Jesus would die on the cross and at the same time the men who put him on the cross are all so responsible for their sin. So scripture just holds these two things intention, even if we don't know exactly how they fit together and I think the cross is a perfect place to end on this. We're getting ready for Good Friday, but the cross is another example of how we can look at God and say well, how could it be fair that you hold us? Responsible? Here's another question. How could it be fair that Jesus came when he had no sin when he is God himself and he comes in to be our substitute and take on our punishment and our place. There's just as much of a tension of how could that be fair? How could that work? But God is
 Able to work it out and he is able to say hey, you know what you created the sin but I'm gonna bring the solution and so there's tensions there's there's hard tensions and there's beautiful tensions that both of them were were just trying to understand more and more deeply we but like we talked about yesterday. We have faith that seeks understanding we have a starting place of faith and we know that even if we can't explain everything to the most comprehensive point we can trust that we have a God who understands and a God who we can count on even when we don't fully understand. Yeah. Amen. Awesome. Thanks Pastor May. Thanks everybody for your great questions. Keep sending them in each week. Hope you guys have an awesome Holy Week or Easter week. We'll see on Friday and Sunday.
 Thanks for listening to that's a good question. If you want to discover more resources from Peace church head to our website at peacechurch.cc. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review it helps us to get more gospel-centered family focused and Kingdom Minded resources to more people.