Where on Earth is Grace in Suffering?

We live in a world at war with itself. It is filled with beauty and incredible wonders perfectly designed for us to live in, enjoy and rule over (Genesis 1 & 2), yet we know from a thousand experiences that life on planet earth is not as it was designed to be. Since Sin & Death entered the world we experience life as a 'half life', a sinking cruise liner, a banquet on Death Row. We experience the joys and beauty of life much less than what it was meant to be, and have added death, decay, pain and suffering into the mix. (Romans 5:12-14)

More disorienting still, there is no distinction between a "good" or "wicked" person when tragedy strikes. Whether you believe in God or not, whether Christian or not, life is full of 'the good, the bad and the ugly'. We only have to look at Job, who was considered to be blameless and upright because as a sinner he had faith in the promise of the coming of Jesus, yet suffered immense loss and pain.

For years my parents took me back and forth to doctors and the children's hospital until finally my chronic renal failure rendered me close to death and needing a kidney transplant. What parent can make the slightest sense of watching their child spiral this way before them? Thanks to two blessed kidney transplants I have survived for decades but the disease and the treatments are killing me slowly. My husband and 2 daughters also bear the burden of this, along with my extended family and those closest to me.

Where is God in all this? Doesn't he care?  What hope is there?  What's he doing about this? After all he is God.

The temptation we all face is to put our hope in the various things this life has to offer.  Pastor Matt Richard wisely states in his sermon 'Hope in the midst of despair' that  "If we look for hope by how things are going in this life and how we believe things will be going in the future or if we try to derive hope from our past, we can end up hopeless.  Hope is then attached to things that are temporary and fading.... Hope must always have an object that it can anchor to.  Hope needs a source and hope is only as good as the source that it is in....  Christian hope arises only from the fact that God has mercy upon us and instils hope into us. Christian hope never has any other object or matter or foundation than simply the mercy of God, not our works, not our abilities, and not our feelings....  Hope must have an object and that object is God’s faithfulness shown to us in the person and work of Christ."  Homiletic Sources:  Sermon Studies On OT Texts (NWP) ~ Pericope.org

http://www.pastormattrichard.com/2012/07/hope-in-midst-of-despair-lamentations.html

We may not understand or be able to answer the questions to do with why these things happen, apart from the fact that sin is in the world, but we do have an assurance of hope that as painful as the situations may be, they are temporary and fleeting and God is our refuge and strength and because of his grace it will not always be like this.  Revelation 21:1-5a promises us this: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

So what is God doing about it?  The answer is that he already has done something about it.  It is the mystery of his grace delivered in his own suffering that is our help.  "The words ‘Only the suffering God can help’ come from Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison:  

The same God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34!). The same God who makes us to live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God, and with God, we live without God. God consents to be pushed out of the world and onto the cross; God is weak and powerless in the world and in precisely this way, and only so, is at our side and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us not by virtue of his omnipotence but rather by virtue of his weakness and suffering! This is the crucial distinction between Christianity and all religions. Human religiosity directs people in need to the power of God in the world, God as deus ex machina. The Bible directs people toward the powerlessness and the suffering of God; only the suffering God can help. (pp. 478–79)"  Taken from Jason Goroncy in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God http://cruciality.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/looking-for-god-%E2%80%93-a-short-reflection/

In the meantime we can bear the pain, because Jesus bore the pain and he suffers with us and for us.  In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul, who endured much, writes of God's words to him, “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).  It is because of God's grace, his plan of salvation, the death and resurrection of Christ, that we have a sure and eternal hope, and that we can bear all things, and look forward to the promise that in Jesus he makes all things new!

 

http://www.sevenstreamsofgrace.com/

Andrew Peterson 'All Things New'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SoND6QgM3Q&feature=related

Come broken and weary
Come battered and bruised
My Jesus makes all things new
All things new

Come lost and abandoned
Come blown by the wind
He’ll bring you back home again
Home again

Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
The dawn is upon you
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake  
He makes all things new
All things new

Come burning with shame
Come frozen with guilt
My Jesus, he loves you still
Loves you still

Rise up, O you sleeper, awake  
The dawn is upon you
Rise up, O you sleeper, awake
He makes all things new
He makes all things new

The world was good
The world is fallen
The world will be redeemed

So hold on to the promise
The stories are true
That Jesus makes all things new
(The dawn is upon you)

Words by Andrew Peterson
Music by Andrew Peterson, Ben Shive, and Andy Gullahorn

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Andrew Olsen for his input and edits and to Matt Richard for his wisdom and resources!  More of their work can be seen at  http://andrewolsenblog.blogspot.com.au/  and http://www.pastormattrichard.com/ 

The Law - a gift of Grace?

Romans 5:20-21

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace is a demonstration of God’s Love and so is Law! God’s love is demonstrated through a gift of Grace, that gift being the Law which exposes sin. It is a gift of grace because without it (the Law) we cannot know what is sin and therefore the Gospel has no meaning to us (why would we need saving if there is nothing to be saved from?).  

Why, then, was the law given?

It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. (Gal 3:19)

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)  
A friend of mine described it this way:

"The law was a gift of grace, not a method for grace. it was is a gift because (a) it reveals the inner nature of the Triune God, (b) it forms the society of extraordinary beauty [see Deut 4 below], and (c) it exposes our sinful nature and drives us to the gospel." (Andrew Olsen)                                            

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith." (Gal. 3:24)

Grace and Law are an outworking/demonstration of God’s love. The Law is not the same as Grace but one can’t be separated from the other. The Law was a gift of Grace. We are able to experience God’s saving Grace because he has given us the Law.

Romans 5:8

 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The law supposing I have all,

Does ever for perfection call;

The gospel suits my total want,

And all the law can seek does grant.

The law could promise life to me,

If my obedience perfect be;

But grace does promise life upon

My Lord’s obedience alone.

The law says, Do, and life you’ll win;

But grace says, Live, for all is done;

The former cannot ease my grief,

The latter yields me full relief.

The law will not abate a mite,

The gospel all the sum will quit;

There God in thret’nings is array’d

But here in promises display’d.

The law excludes not boasting vain,

But rather feeds it to my bane;

But gospel grace allows no boasts,

Save in the King, the Lord of Hosts.

Lo! in the law Jehovah dwells,

But Jesus is conceal’d;

Whereas the gospel’s nothing else

But Jesus Christ revealed.

Deuteronomy 4

⁵ See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. ⁶ Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’⁷ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? ⁸ And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

What God did in His law demand

And none to Him could render
Caused wrath and woe on every hand
For man, the vile offender.
Our flesh has not those pure desires
The spirit of the Law requires,
And lost is our condition.

It was a false, misleading dream
That God His Law had given

So sinners could themselves redeem
And by their works gain Heaven.
The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light

That lurks within our nature

Pg 14 Handling the word of Truth

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/s/a/l/saluushc.htm

Es ist das Heil uns kom­men her
Paul Speratus

Your grace and love alone avail
To blot out sin with pardon.
In your gaze our best efforts pale,
Develop pride, and harden.
Before your throne no one can boast
That he escaped sin's deadly coast.
Our haven is your mercy.

In God I anchor all my trust,
Discarding my own merit.
His love holds firm; I therefore must
His fullest grace inherit.
He tells me, and my heart has heard,
The steadfast promise of his Word,

That he's my help and haven.

 Pg 40 "Handling the word of Truth"

Pless-Excerpt from, From Depths of Woe I Cry to Thee. Luther

http://ematthaei.blogspot.com/2006/03/from-hymnal.html