IDK :: What's up with Evil

Tonight, we are finishing our series IDK , where we’re discussing tough questions people have about God and faith. This last question is so big. I think it is the perfect way to finish this series as we head into the next series and to the end of this semester.

Tonight, I want us to look at this question: What’s up with evil? Or you might think of it like this: Can God be good and yet allow evil and suffering?

We have mostly been taught that if something is perfect, there is no evil or badness or deformity in it. We see perfection and goodness as polar opposites of bad and evil. We think that they cannot coexist. In the Christian faith, we believe confidently that God is perfect and good. And yet, our world—the world God is in control of—is full of suffering and evil. To most of us, this doesn’t make much sense.

Like Covid doesn’t make any sense. Racism is the worst. There are people starving and hurting. There are people losing loved ones for no good reason, and there are plenty of bad guys getting away with stuff.

Leaders: Share something personal from your life here and make sure it is digestible to your group but that it builds to the point of how confusing evil and suffering are in that for you.

I have prayed, have asked why, and looked in Scripture and books, I have not come away with a logical formula for how God is both good and allows evil. But I have learned a few things that give me peace and faith in our God in the midst of suffering. I want to share those with you. They are logical and they make sense, but they are not a clear-cut formula like 2+2=4. Life is messier than that.

So lets take a crack at figuring out what’s up with evil. So “Can God be good and yet allow evil and suffering?”

YES. He does and here are a few truths to help with that answer.

1. God is WISER and more PERFECT than any human can comprehend.

Isaiah 55:8-9
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Here, God is reminding humankind that we will never fully figure Him out. This may seem like a cop-out answer, but part of following God is joining in the mystery. I think God can be good and yet allow evil, because He is God. God is in such a higher authority than me. God is so much wiser and perfect than I could ever comprehend. It will take me all of eternity to discover His wisdom and perfection.

Many of you may doubt that God exists because you can’t logically figure everything about Him out. But just because something doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t make it untrue. Let me ask you this: would you worship a God that you had fully figured out? And if you have a fully figured out God, then wouldn’t you be God?

If you knew everything about God and how He thinks and decrees things to happen, then you would be of the same authority of God. Part of believing in God is knowing that you will not have it all figured out but will continue to trust in and depend on God.

In this passage from Isaiah, God is saying that He has purposefully kept some of His thoughts and plans out of our reach on purpose. But there are passages in which God has given us knowledge of Him

Psalm 18:30
30This God—his way is perfect;

the word of the Lord proves true;

he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

tells us that God and His will are perfect.

Psalm 136:1

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever.

tells us that God is good.

So I have knowledge of God. He has given us this book to tell us all that we need to know about Him. But he has not connected all the dots of how the universe works. He said, “Here is what you need to know. The rest is going to be a mystery to you for a little bit.”Somehow in God’s economy and plan for the world, He has allowed suffering and evil to occur. And yet, this does not rob Him of His goodness or perfection. And we can dig deep in Scripture and philosophy and figure out how, but in the end, there will be a moment where we just have to admit that God is wiser than us.

2. Our understanding of GOOD and EVIL is different than God’s.

But I do want to give you a couple more reasons how God can be good and allow suffering. And these are both biblical and seen as logical in the eyes of many people.

When we say “good and evil,” what do we mean exactly? What is good? What is evil? Those are words that are actually really hard to define. Something may be good to you and yet not good to someone else. Someone’s evil may turn out to be for someone’s good. Good and evil and bad are not black and white terms. They actually depend on the individual’s definition of good and evil.

This is clearly seen in the Bible in the book of Genesis. Genesis ends by looking at the dramatic narrative of Joseph. Joseph was raised with lots of brothers, and yet he was the favorite son of his father. And his brothers became jealous and sold him into slavery. He went from slavery to being second in command over the whole nation of Egypt. And then he was falsely accused of a crime and put in prison. And then he was let out and put back into power in Egypt. Up and down. Up and down.

And at the end of the story, Joseph is reunited with his brothers. These brothers were the ones who launched him into years of slavery and suffering, all because of jealousy. They treated him with evil, and he suffered because of it. And the brothers, when they saw him, begged him for forgiveness. And here is what he said:

Genesis 50:19-20

19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Now, God does not sit in heaven and laugh and smile when we suffer. But with every instance of suffering and evil, God is working it out for good. Look at Joseph. He endured a ton; he suffered. But God allowed that suffering and evil to happen for a greater good. Because Joseph was sold into slavery, he then was transferred to Egypt where he was able to save thousands of peoples’ lives. In God’s eyes, even evil and suffering lead to His good plan.

I want to show you one more verse here that is very popular yet often misunderstood. It is found in Romans 8.

Romans 8:28–29

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

In verse 28, it says that all things work together for good—our suffering, our hunger, our sickness, our tragedies, all the bad stuff. God says it works together for good.

But this is hard to believe. Right? Because our definition of good is different than God’s. Our definition of good is “what will make me happy and bring me pleasure.”

But that is not what “good” means in the eyes of God. In verse 29, He tells us what the ultimate kind of good is: to be conformed to the image of His Son. God’s standard of good is something that will cause us to look more like Jesus.

So when we look at the life of Joseph, all of the suffering He went through caused Him to depend on God more and have more faith. Thus, in the eyes of God, it is good. Now, God still mourns with us. And He hates our pain. But His ultimate purpose is to make us like His Son. And suffering and enduring evil bring us to be more like Him.

This is a silly illustration, but it reminds me of going to the dentist. I hate it. That noise of them scraping my teeth, and then the inevitible awkward question about whether or not I have flossed—no, I haven’t flossed. Duh!

And sitting in that chair with my mouth open and hurting … I hate it. But I know that it is beneficial to me and my health to do it. In that moment I suffer, but in the long run, I flourish. Same with suffering and evil. In the long term, God is working it out for good.

3. Suffering makes us more like CHRIST and causes us to see our NEED for God.

So we just learned this, but I want to explore it further. If life was all happy and good, why would you need God? I believe one of the reasons why God allows evil and suffering is because it causes us to reach out to God. We begin to depend on and trust in God’s rescue. If there were no suffering or evil, then we wouldn’t need rescuing. We wouldn’t need God.

I think we need to acknowledge that it is because of our sin and decision-making that our world is full of suffering and evil. Yes, Adam and Eve sinned to begin it all. But since then, all of us have continued in the bad habit of sinning. And our perfect world became a messy world full of sickness, drama, death, bitterness, and conflict. And we are responsible

Romans 3:23

23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Because of our sin, our rebellion, we have missed out on the world and life that God perfectly designed for us. And with rebellion comes the messiness of our world.

1 Peter 3:18

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

Jesus, out of love for us, came to suffer for us. Think about this: Jesus, in His perfection, left Heaven to come suffer and take evil upon himself. Lots of people, when they suffer, feel like God is distant. But it’s actually the opposite. God became a sufferer for us.

We are sinners. We are responsible for the tragedies in this world. We made this broken earth. But God took responsibility on Himself. God came to us and became a suffering servant for us. So now, we don’t have to continue in our suffering. We now have a purpose for suffering, to look like Christ, and one day we will be fully removed from suffering.

So when we do sin, and when we suffer through the loss of a family member or through a tough situation, know that you have a God who suffered for you and like you. And that suffering, that trial, that evil, should cause you to look to Christ.

PRAY

Then finish your time discussing what you guys learned and what that looks like in your lives.

Ask:

• Have any of you ever wondered about this?

• What has helped you be sure of this truth when you have thought about it?

• Of the 3 answers given which one had the biggest impact on you?

• Of the 3 answers which one do you still have the hardest time with?

• What does the statement “God is good and there is evil and suffering” mean in your own words?

• What is one question you wish we would have answered during this series that we didn’t?

Okay now go have fun :)