Sunday Sermon: "God is Not an Easy Button"

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"Year of the Bible" Q&As and Sunday Sermon

Here's the question and answer from yesterday:
What country is God going to give to Nebuchadnezzar? What country is he king of?
Ezekiel 29:19 19 Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am going to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will carry off its wealth.

And here's the question of the day:
Fill in the blanks: “Those who trust in the Lord are like _______________________________.” (Psalm 125)


And here's the Sunday Sermon:

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION: Please pray with me: Holy Spirit, as the Scripture is read, open our hearts and minds to hear the truth; shine your light into our dark places; convict us where our hearts have been hardened; and call us to respond with joy to your Word to us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

SCRIPTURE: 1 Peter 1:3-9
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

7 These have come so that your faith-- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.

SERMON-INTRO
I don’t know about you, but there are some days when I could really use an “easy button.” You’ve seen the easy button, right, on the Staples commercials? . . . those wonderful, magical commercials where just the touch of a button un-jams the copier and files the papers and makes the coffee and straightens up the office and makes the boss happy.

Especially as the holidays begin their approach in our daily lives and all the things that need to be done start to pile up, it would be so nice to have a little red button to push that would magically accomplish everything on our to-do lists.

I’m sure you can think back over your life and come up with a few places you wished you’d had an easy button—algebra in high school, learning, how to drive, asking the person you like out on a date for the first time, your first job interview. Even today, I’m sure you’d like to have an easy button to get the house clean and the laundry done and the kids to bed and pay bills, and to figure out what to do when the doctor gives you bad news and how to deal with a sick child or an aging parent.

I would LOVE to have an easy button around here at the church: preparing for sermons and Bible Studies and session meetings, finding volunteers, keeping volunteers, moving those dividers around downstairs, finding new elders, meeting the budget, finding new members, and helping our faith in and knowledge of God increase.

‘Staples has an Easy Button. But life does not.
Staples says, “That was easy.” But Jesus says, “This might hurt a little bit.”’

#1
Actually, what he said in John 16:33 was “In this world you will have trouble.” It’s a part of the human condition, this having “trouble.” Jesus also said, in Matthew 6:34, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

I probably don’t need to tell you these things. You’ve probably discovered them on your own. There will be broken relationships and lost jobs and tragic deaths and chronic pain and suffering all the days of our lives.

And it is in these terrible, painful, awful moments when we’re not sure how in the world we’re going to get through another day that we will REALLY want an “easy button.” In these moments, nothing seems better than a magical “easy button” that with one touch can erase all of the trouble and suffering.

It is also in these moments that we are tempted to wish God was like a genie in a bottle. We would love to be able to rub a magic cross to make God appear and grant us our three wishes.

But, as you may have already found out, it doesn’t work that way. At some point in your life, you may have been tempted to think that life would be a little less painful as a Christian. I’m going to guess that by now you’ve given up on that particular fantasy.

God is not an easy button; nor is he a genie in a bottle. Jesus says, “This might hurt a little bit.”

#2
So, recognizing that in this life we will have trouble of all shapes and sizes, Peter tells us, in his letter, that the sooner we learn to deal with the troubles we will all face, the better off we’ll be.
Trials and troubles, Peter says, come so that our “faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result” in God’s praise and glory. Trouble comes so that our faith will grow stronger.

Sometimes the trouble we face is our own fault because we’ve made dumb decisions; sometimes it’s not our fault at all, sometimes there’s just no reason. But we can always find a purpose in our pain—there is always the chance to strengthen our faith and bring glory to God.

We can always find meaning in our suffering because nothing happens apart from the will of God. So when suffering happens, there must be some meaning in it. Trouble and suffering can always be used for good because we know that, in all things, God works for the good of those who believe in him.

Peter says that, for a little while, we may have “to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” But in the long run, when our faith is purified and refined through troubles and trials, we will be “filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” because we are working out our salvation, which is the “goal” of our faith.

Jesus says, “This might hurt a little bit, but it will all be worth it in the end.”

#3
I have come to believe that God does not just want us to get through our suffering and get over it. I believe that God wants to transform us through the process of dealing with our suffering.
Though God might not want us to go through the suffering, I think he definitely would want us to use our time of struggling to take a step closer to him. It is when we struggle that we can fully appreciate, as Peter writes, what it feels to be “shielded by God’s power,” like a hiding place in the midst of a storm.

I also have come to believe that from our deepest pain can come our greatest source for ministry. Though we may feel terribly alone while we are suffering, we really are surrounded by other people who have gone through the same exact thing. What a gift we have to be able to share with those in their suffering—to say to someone, “I have walked a mile in your shoes. Let me show you where there is hope.”

And the hope that we have is in Jesus Christ, who conquered death. If Jesus can conquer death, surely the suffering we are enduring is like child’s play to him! We have hope because of his resurrection and the fact that, through him, we have been adopted into God’s family. We are now God’s children! We now have a share in what Peter calls “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for” us. Just as Jesus conquered death, so we too are conquerors, more than conquerors, in fact.

Jesus says, “This might hurt a little, but it will be worth it in the end. I will be right next to you the whole time.”

CONCLUSION
Mother Teresa, who surely knew her fair share of suffering and trouble in this world, is quoted as saying this: “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”

I think we can all relate to that, especially when the troubles and trials start to pile up. If we can only remember that God has claimed us as his own, given us new birth into his family, and a living hope in Jesus Christ, I think we can begin to see even our most painful suffering as seeds that can bring tremendous growth in our faith.

Jesus says, “Life might hurt a little bit, but it will all be worth it in the end. I will be right next to you the whole time. Believe . . . believe in the the hope I have set before you.”

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.