Suffering and the Love of God

Introduction

I think that you will agree with me that whenever people suffer,

anywhere in the world, the biggest question they ask every time is

where is God? Where is He? Where is God in my cancer? Where is

God in my painful, heart breaking marriage? Where is God in my

depression? Where is God in the death of my 6 year old daughter?

Where is God in my career that’s hit a dead end? Where is God in my

unemployment? And the logic of our minds which are sadly clouded

in darkness is, “surely He doesn’t care. He can’t possibly care

because if He cared He would intervene and stop my pain”. In times

of deep pain and suffering it’s hard for us not to think, “Surely God

doesn’t really love me because love wouldn’t stand by and watch me

suffer.”

It’s hard for us not to think that way. But contrary to popular, we

don’t reason this way because we are so rational and clever, it’s

because we are by nature rebels against God and so our hearts and

minds are blind because we don’t know God. When you talk to an

Atheist, do you know what his number 1 objection to the existence

of God is? There cannot possibly be a loving God out there because

look at all the suffering. A great number of people who’ve turned

their back on Christianity and walked out of the church often say,

“look at the suffering”.

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I know a distinguished Professor of theology no less, who rejected

the faith saying, “No ways, look at the suffering”.

So I’m delighted that you are all here with us this morning because

we are closing our series called, “please God give me a sign”, with

the very deep and hard subject of the relationship between suffering

and the love of God.

The truth of the matter brothers and sisters frankly is, there’s

absolutely no way you are ever going to know reality to any

profound extent without being committed to listening to this Book.

Because it is in this Book that God the Author of reality has revealed

Himself. It is, at the end of the day, as simple as that. So it’s no small

matter that you are here on a Sunday morning and we are going to

talk about that in the coming weeks. But right now I invite you to

please take up your Bibles and open them up to John chapter 11.

While you do that I’m going to pray… The god of this age has blinded

the mind of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the

gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. I pray Father

as I preach Christ here this morning that you would make your light

shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory

of God in the face of Christ. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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God loves us by revealing His glory

Well, in John 11 we find the last miraculous sign that Jesus performs

in John’s Gospel, that of raising Lazarus from the dead after he had

succumbed to his battle with sickness.

The story begins with Jesus initially receiving the news of Lazarus’

sickness and this really lays the foundation for what is at the heart of

the rest of the story that follows.

So I want you to pay attention to some astonishing events in the text

here when Jesus receives the news that Lazarus is sick because it will

drastically shape your perspective on the relationship between

suffering and the love of God.

Have a look at the text with me:

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the

village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother

Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the

Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to

Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

Do you see how the sisters describe Lazarus to Jesus? They don’t

simply say Lazarus is sick, they say “Lord, the one you love is sick”.

You see, Jesus had a very close, tender relationship with Lazarus. So

we are not seeing a distant figure here in Jesus when He receives this

news.

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The sisters know how tight Lazarus and Jesus are. “It’s the one that

you love who is sick Lord”, they say to Him. And look at Jesus’

response:

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death.

No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through

it.”

That’s the message that goes back to Martha and Mary from the one

who loves Lazarus. That’s the comfort that Jesus offers them in this

desperate time of Lazarus’ sickness. The comfort is that the sickness

won’t end in death. Why? Because the purpose of this sickness is to

showcase the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified

through it… It’s very strange comfort isn’t it? Don’t despair Mary and

Martha because God will be glorified. Through this sickness, the Son

of God will be glorified.

Now John wants you to see that these strange words are not coming

out of the mouth of a distant-unaffected-strange person. Again, look

at how he describes the relationship between Jesus and the sisters

and Lazarus in v5, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

He loves these sisters and their sick brother. Jesus really loves this

family. We are told in v2 that Mary is the one who poured perfume

on Jesus’ feet. That single bottle of perfume was worth over a whole

years’ income.

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She poured it all on His feet and wiped His feet with her hair. What

an extraordinary display of love and affection that is isn’t it?

John hasn’t even told us that story yet… it’s still coming in chapter 12

but he mentions it here in order to show us this deeply loving

relationship this family has with Jesus. He tells us 3 times in the

space of 5 verses of their loving relationship. Mary is the one who

poured that incredibly expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet v2. Lazarus

is the one Jesus loves v3. Jesus loved all 3 of them v5.

But why is John being this repetitive and this emphatic about this…?

It’s so that you can clearly see what v6 is all about…

Now regrettably some of your Bibles begin v6 with the word “yet”.

That’s very naughty. With all due respect, that’s not what that

conjunction actually is in the Greek. “Yet” is the wrong translation.

That is why the latest NIV Bibles have now translated the word

correctly. The word is not “yet”, it’s “therefore”. Or “so”, “as a

result”. V5-6 then properly reads as follows, “Jesus loved Mary and

Martha and Lazarus. Therefore when he heard that Lazarus was sick,

he stayed where he was two more days”. Now you’ve got to know

that Jesus was a whole day’s journey away from Bethany where

Lazarus is. He was across the Jordan as we are told in ch10:40. That’s

why the sisters had to send the message to Jesus about Lazarus’

sickness in v3. Jesus wasn’t around. He was a whole day’s journey

away.

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So now wrap your mind around v5-6 again. Jesus loved these guys,

therefore he stayed away 2 more days. What is that therefore doing?

It’s showing that Jesus love is the cause of His absence. (During that

time of course Lazarus dies and His sisters grieve). Let me put it in

other words for you. When Jesus heard of Lazarus’ sickness, He

extended his stay where was for 2 more days, because he loved them

so much. That’s what the therefore, is there for.

What love is this? How can this be?

Well before we see how the text answers that question, there’s a

serious warning here for us. The warning is don’t let Hollywood

define love for you. Don’t let the internet define love for you. Don’t

let Cum books define love for you. Don’t let Jennifer Anniston and

Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts define love for you. Don’t even let your

own heart define love for you. If you do, you will continue to be

tragically wrong about reality. Allow God to define love for you…

You see the love of God allows Lazarus to die. The love of God allows

his sisters to go through one of the most painful ordeals imaginable,

that of grieving the loss of someone you love. The love of God allows

tragedy and suffering and grief to fall upon these sisters… the

question then is, for what purpose? V4… for God’s glory so that the

Son of God may be glorified through it. God’s purpose in Lazarus’

sickness is to showcase His glory because He loves Mary and Martha.

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Because of His love for them, His purpose is to reveal Himself to

them. Because of His love for them, His purpose in Lazarus’ sickness

is to put His beauty on display for them to see Him, to see His glory

and trust Him and find satisfaction and joy in Him. Look down at v14,

“So Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead and I am glad I was not

there… so that you may believe.’”

Jesus was absent by design not by neglect. He was absent because of

His love for them not because He doesn’t care... So do you see how

the world, Hollywood, Cum books and your own heart and all your

friends have all got it wrong? According to Jesus it is more loving of

Him to bring about grief so that He can reveal Himself in all His glory

in the midst of that grief than to prevent Lazarus from dying. I’ll say

that again: According to Jesus it is more loving of Him to bring about

grief so that He can reveal Himself in the midst of that grief than to

prevent Lazarus from dying.

It’s a massive paradigm shifting point that the Bible is making here.

God’s love for us is not mainly sparing us suffering and grief but in

showing us Himself. God’s love for us is not mainly sparing us

suffering and grief but in giving us Himself.

When we define love, I think most of us sitting here would agree that

love is doing whatever it takes to meet someone’s need isn’t it? My

wife agrees as well so when she wants to get me to doing something

for her, it usually starts like this:

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“Solanga, do you love me?” Then I think, “Eish, what does she want

now?” There’s a problem there and I’m still working on it. But the

point is we know that love meets needs don’t we? Now trouble

comes because what you think you need and what God knows you

need are often 2 very different things. So our prayers often go, “God I

know what’s best for me right now, please do it.” And God often

responds, “No you don’t. I do. And that’s what I will give you.”

What God knows that you don’t always think is that what you and I

truly need, what will truly satisfy us in our very souls more than

anything is God. Your deepest longing, what will truly satisfy you is

not more money. It’s not more comfort. It’s not more sex. It’s not

more pleasure. It’s not less pain. It’s not more shopping. It’s not

more alcohol. It’s not more business. It’s not more romance. It’s not

more movies and television. It’s not more wifi for more internet

surfing. It’s not whatever is on your bucket list. It’s not the fantasy

holiday. It is God. Your soul needs God.

With all these other things you chase you are trying to fill a huge void

in your life that only God can fill. God made you for God. And God

loves you so much that He will do whatever it takes to give Himself

to you because He knows that’s where your true satisfaction lies. He

will even bring about tragedy and grief to reveal Himself to you so

that you can feed on Him and drink of Him and truly trust in Him and

be satisfied in Him.

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The truth is that, we don’t see God too clearly and we don’t listen to

Him too well when life seems smooth and good do we? That’s why

C.S. Lewis once said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures… but He

shouts in our pains. Pain is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” To

awaken us to Himself.

Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Therefore He stayed

where He was 2 more days… Brothers and sisters I present to you the

love of God…

The Bible says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure”… So let us go back

then to this house of mourning so that we can see the glory of God

that Jesus promised to reveal through this sickness.

First He reveals His glory through His word.

Jesus is now just outside of Bethany. Lazarus has been dead for 4

days by the time He arrives and Martha rushes out to see Him while

Mary remains behind.

In tears and agony she says to Him v21, “Lord, if you had been here,

my brother would not have died. But I know even now God will do

whatever you ask.” She’s distraught and in pain. And remember

Jesus did say that the sickness would not end in death. But it did.

She’s been mourning for 4 days. He didn’t even come. Yes, He would

have arrived after Lazarus passed away because it’s a long journey

but He didn’t even come.

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Conceivably, He could have even healed Him from where He was just

like the official’s son in chapter 4. But He didn’t even come to the

funeral of the one He loved. Martha’s hurting badly.

Now don’t imagine for a second that Jesus is just a cold, unmoved

stone here. When Martha’s sister in v32 sees Jesus and says the

same thing to Him, we see Jesus outraged in His Spirit and troubled

in v33-35. The word translated as “deeply moved” in spirit in v33

literally means Jesus was snorting in His spirit. It means he was

outraged and angry. Jesus hates death you see and He hates the sin

that causes it far more than we do. Jesus is far more emotional than

me and you. v35 says Oh, He wept. And when they saw Him weeping,

they said, “see how He loved him.” Jesus is feeling an incredible

complexity of emotions here, much deeper than ours. He is no stone.

And that is a comfort for us in our grief. Jesus is no stone...

V23 Jesus said to Martha “your brother will rise again”. Now Jesus

doesn’t necessarily mean that Lazarus will come back to life just now.

He is being ambiguous here because there’s an important point to

which He is deliberately driving the conversation.

Martha responds in v24 by saying, “I know he will rise again in the

resurrection at the last day. I’m a Jewish woman. Come on. We know

that in the end the dead will rise. We know that’s what will happen

at the last day. You are not saying anything new or special Jesus.

That’s a basic Jewish Sunday school fact.”

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And right here is exactly where Jesus wants her because it is

precisely concerning this point that Jesus is going to reveal His glory.

V25 “I am the resurrection and the life Martha. People won’t rise

from the dead on the last day simply because that is what generically

happens on the last day. No, no, no. People will rise from the dead

on the last day because of me. You are in a sense staring straight into

the face of the last day. It is through me that the dead will be

enabled to rise to life again.”

It’s almost like Bill Gates saying about himself, “I am Microsoft”. Do

you see? Jesus is saying, “I am the one who brings resurrection

about. I am the one who ultimately puts an end to death, who puts

an end to tears, who puts an end to mourning, who puts an end to

pain and sorrow and grief. It’s all Me. Without Me, there is no resting

in peace. There is no resurrection.” The prospect of resurrection is so

bound up with Jesus that He can say He actually is the resurrection.

That is the glory of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ!

Have a look at the rest of v25. “He who believes in me will live, even

though they die.” The glory of God being displayed in Jesus’ words

here brothers and sisters is that whoever places his or her trust in

Jesus will live even though they die. And there’s no more appropriate

an occasion for God to reveal that glory than in a time of death and

mourning.

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It is in the time of death and mourning that you think most soberly

about the frailty of life and the prospect of your own death. It is in

pain and mourning that your stubborn heart is likely to be attentive

and probably more receptive to the word of God. That’s when you

ask “where is God? Where is God?” And so God in His wisdom brings

grief precisely for us to seek Him, precisely for us to listen to His

word and to put our hope and our trust in His glory as the

resurrection and the life. Precisely for us to find our peace and rest

for our souls in Him. If God doesn’t bring disaster into our lives

brothers and sisters you and I will laugh and joke ourselves straight

into hell because we would never see our need for Him...

One of the saddest things about the world we live in today is that the

reality of death is becoming more and more hidden and distant from

us. With the advancement of medical science the mortality rate is

decreasing today, especially among new born babies. A few hundred

years ago a man by the name of John Owen had 11 children but 1

actually survived beyond a few years. Imagine burying 10 of your

children? Today even the dead body of our loved one is kept far

away in a mortuary somewhere. In Jesus’ day the body was there

with you in the house. And there were no freezers then so the stench

of death would just grip the whole place. That’s why you had to bury

someone the next day. We organise specialists to take care of the

body and make it look pretty with make-up and so on.

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Back then the family had to prepare the corpse and wrap it up

themselves. Today we are having less and less funerals where the

corpse is on display for all to look at death, instead we cremate the

body and have a memorial service. During the ceremony, instead of

all of our emotions of pain and sorrow filling the venue with sobbing

and screaming and shouting, we now call the memorial service “a

celebration of life” where we try to laugh and rejoice over the good

times we had with our loved ones. We’ll shed a few tears today and

stop but in those days even the poorest of people had to hire at least

2 professional mourners so that when the family stopped crying for a

moment, the professional mourners would kick in and burst out a big

wail and get everyone crying again... Now I’m not trying to prescribe

how we should do funerals or memorial services, I’m just making the

simple observation that today we are becoming more and more out

of touch with death in our daily experience, so much so that we don’t

think about it much and so when we hear Jesus say “I am the

resurrection and the life” we don’t see and feel the weight of the

glory of God in that statement as we should. What happens to us

when we die doesn’t concern us that much anymore... And so in

wisdom, Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to a house of

mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny

of every man; the living should take this to heart.”

The hope of those who die is that they will live again if they placed

their confidence and trust in Jesus.

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Jesus says He is also the life. Meaning, v26, “whoever lives and

believes in me will never die”. There’s a sense in which anyone who

is living and believes in Jesus will actually never die. Death is not

death anymore for believers in Jesus. It is not condemnation for sin

anymore. It is not a destiny of eternal conscious punishment in hell

anymore. It is not judgement for rebellion against God anymore. We

don’t have to fear it anymore. Death is now but a gateway to living

forever with Jesus. Believers in Jesus will never die because they

have already been made alive to God through their faith in Jesus.

Do you see how Jesus has now ingeniously moved the conversation

from Lazarus to Himself? He’s moved Martha from despair to seeing

Jesus for the glory of who is and what He is all about. And that is how

Jesus loves Martha and Mary and that is how He loves us. By

revealing Himself to us.

And so He asks her and He also asks us today, “do you believe this,

do you believe this?”

And she reponds v27, “yes Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the

Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Immediately at this

point Martha moved from death to life. From being an object of

wrath to being an object of mercy. From the kingdom of darkness to

eternal life in Christ.

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This is why Jesus was glad that Lazarus died and He wasn’t there. For

the sake of creating faith in Himself because our deepest need is

Him... First, He reveals His glory through His word

And then

Secondly, Jesus reveals His glory through a sign that affirms His

word

So now the raising of Lazarus from the dead becomes something that

demonstrates what Jesus has just said about Himself. It’s the object

lesson to show in picture form as it were, that Jesus is the

Resurrection and the Life do you see? It is like the trailer of a movie,

it gives you a taste of what the movie to come is all about. The

returning to life of Lazarus is not the movie itself. So don’t see this

trailer and long for the trailer in your time of suffering. Nobody who

sees a trailer longs for the trailer. The trailer creates a longing for the

movie. Remember Lazarus is going to die again. So you kind of have

to feel sorry for Lazarus because He could have been in glory in

heaven but he was brought back from the dead for our sake. So that

we would see the trailer of the life-giving power of Jesus and then

come to Him in faith so that we can be part of the resurrection

drama to come.

But Martha still didn’t know that Jesus was going to raise Lazarus

from the dead so when Jesus said in v39 “take away the stone”; she

said “by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four

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days.” There were also cynical skeptics who said in v37, “could not

He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from

dying?”

Martha’s own thinking was “please don’t embarrass my family by

dragging out my brother’s decaying corpse”. Then Jesus reminds her

that he did say this sickness would not end in death. It would end

with the glory of God on full display. But when Lazarus died Martha

of course figured, “Jesus didn’t know what He was talking about. He

was wrong. The sickness ended in death”. But as it turns out God is

never wrong or mistaken, we are the ones who are always wrong

when we find reasons not to trust the things that He actually says.

Jesus deliberately waited until 4 days had passed because everyone

knew by then that Lazarus was really dead. Full decomposition was

now taking place. Because medical science was still primitive in those

days, there were reported incidents where people were thought to

be dead but then as you bury the body, you hear [knock, knock,

knock] hey I’m alive, let me out of here. There are still similar stories

like that floating around today. That’s why Jesus waited until the

body was actually rotting before, He yelled in a loud voice, “Lazarus

come out”. So when Lazarus came out, nobody thought he just woke

up from a deep sleep. When the rotting corpse was summoned by the

powerful word of God, it had no choice but to rise from the dead.

That is glory!

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God suffers for us to glorify us

But it was also something of a final nail in Jesus own coffin because

as soon as He raised Lazarus from the dead, there were those who

concluded from the evidence that this man is the Christ, the Son of

God but others who saw the dead man alive again concluded from

that evidence, “ja, Jesus is a political inconvenience”… Incredible isn’t

it? So they told on Him to the Pharisees. The parable that Jesus told

about the rich man who was burning in torment in hell is true isn’t it?

If you don’t believe the word of God, even if someone were to come

back from the dead you still wouldn’t believe. So the Pharisees

gathered the national executive council heads and examined the

political implications of all of this: “Jesus is now gaining a great

following with people who believe in Him and the Roman powers will

see Jesus as a threat to them and we are going to pay the price. They

will take away our cabinet seats and positions of power and our

fringe benefits and perhaps just smash our whole nation to pieces.”

So Caiaphas stood up in the board room as the Chief Executive

Strategist and said in v50, “You guys are dumb. You do not realise

that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the

whole nation perish.”

And then John makes a comment dripping with irony in v51 and

writes, “He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he

prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation and not only

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for the nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring

them together and make them one. So from that day they plotted to

kill Him”.

The irony of course was that they were playing right into the hands

of Jesus because Jesus would allow them to succeed in their plot to

kill Him because he was actually intending on dying in the place of

others. The way that He would be the resurrection and the life for us

all was by dying for us all and defeating death once and for all from

the inside through His own resurrection for us all…

Conclusion

People who don’t know God say we suffer because God doesn’t love

us. The truth is in fact God loves us so much that He allows us to

suffer so that we can see His life-giving glory and He loves us so much

that He ultimately suffered for us. Let us pray.

Father we thank you that even now as we’ve been listening to your word, you have

been loving us by revealing your glory to us. We thank you for all these signs in

John’s Gospel that have been pointing us to the eternal life that is in Jesus your Son.

We thank you that even in our suffering you are actually gracious to us because you

want us to see more of you so that we may find true life and satisfaction in you

through faith in your Son’s name. I pray that you will open the eyes of everyone who

was blind as they walked through those doors this morning and that you would

refresh and renew and encourage and strengthen the faith of everyone who is

trusting in you, especially those among us who are suffering right now in one way or

the other Lord. Give us more of you we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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