Why do bad things happen to good people?

00:09Pastor Ken:Welcome back to Real Talk with PK, where we talk about real life, real struggles, and the things that sometimes we just don't know how to talk about. Last week I had an incredible conversation with Ann Kita from New Hope Center for Grief Support, and we talked about grief, losing people we love, and how important it is that nobody has to walk through grief all alone. But that conversation leads us to another question that I have for us this week, and I believe it's one of the hardest questions that people ever ask about God. And here it is today. Why do bad things happen to good people? Today on Real Talk. All right, Well, welcome, PT.

01:16Pastor Ken:How are you tonight?

01:16Pastor Todd:I am doing good. I'm liking this new series that we're on interviewing people this month. It's awesome.

01:25Pastor Ken:We had we did have a guest scheduled for tonight's but they had to reschedule. So I thought I would carry the theme on what we've been talking about. Last week we talked about grief and how to handle grief, and tonight I don't know if you have you ever asked God why do bad things happen to good people?

01:42Pastor Todd:Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a good question.

01:47Pastor Ken:Yeah, it's a tough question.

01:47Pastor Todd:It's. It's actually something that when I was in school, we had to, we had to handle, you know, why is there, why is there evil in the world? If God created the world, God created everything in it, Why is there evil in the world?

02:00Pastor Ken:Right, right.

02:00Pastor Todd:And you know it. It just has. It's hard to explain, but it has to be there.

02:07Pastor Ken:Yeah, well, I hope that I can explain it tonight to you and I hope that you get something from this because next week I'm going to interview my nephew Eric, who's a minister and leads worship and and he has a a powerful but tragic story. And so I think this really sets his interview up with what I'm going to talk to you about tonight. So I want us to imagine sitting in a hospital room and a mother and a father have just received news that their young child has a life threatening illness.

02:49Pastor Ken:Now think about that. They've prayed, they believed, they tried to live their lives honoring God. And now they're sitting there asking the one question. And that is why God? Why God? Or imagine a husband who loved his wife faithfully for 40 years only to watch her slowly disappear through Alzheimer's disease. Or a family that loses everything in a terrible accident. And somewhere in the middle of all that pain comes the question, God, if you love us, why would you allow this to happen Now, You know, for more than 30 years, I've been in ministry, and I've learned something along the way, and that is this, that people don't always struggle with believing that God exists. Sometimes they struggle with understanding why a good God allows so much pain.

03:52Pastor Ken:And maybe that's where you are today. Maybe you've tuned into this podcast and you've prayed, but things haven't changed. You've trusted God, but life has gotten a whole lot harder. You've tried to do the right thing, but something terrible seems to happen all the time. And you're wondering, where is God in all of this? And just because life doesn't make sense, it doesn't mean God has abandoned you either. So I really want to talk to you about our feelings and why this seems to happen more and more and more in the day and age that we live in.

04:34Pastor Ken:Does being good protect us from bad things? People have asked me that Does being good protect us from bad things? So let's start with something that I think many Christians believe without ever saying it out loud. We sometimes think that if we live right, we pray enough, we attend church, we give generously, we treat people well, somehow we're going to be protected from tragedy. And I think almost like we've made a deal with God, right? God, I'll do my part and you make sure that nothing terrible happens to me, right? And but that's not what Scripture teaches us.

05:25Pastor Ken:And in Matthew chapter 5, verse 45, the Bible says Jesus says this. He says that the sun, God causes the sun. Listen what He says. Jesus tells us that God causes the sun to rise on both the evil and the good. God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. So in other words, being a good person doesn't exempt you from living in a broken world. And Jesus made something very clear in John chapter 16 verse 33. He said this, in this world you're going to have some trouble. And Jesus said, but I want you to take heart. I have overcome the world. Now I want us to notice what Jesus didn't say. He didn't say if you follow me, you'll never experience trouble. He said you will have trouble.

06:18Pastor Ken:And people don't like that verbiage. I don't necessarily like that verbiage, but Jesus said you're going to have trouble. Not that's not exactly the promise most of us want to hear, but He also says take heart. Now why? Why does Jesus say take heart? Because Christ has overcome the world. He's overcome the world. And I think sometimes we confuse God's goodness with our own circumstances. When life is going great, we say God is good. But when life falls apart, we begin questioning whether God is still good. How many have ever done that before? And here's the question.

06:59Pastor Ken:Is God only good when life is going the way we want it? Or is He still good when something around us seems to be falling apart? When everything around us seems to be just falling by the wayside, Is God still good? Now, I believe God's character doesn't change. I believe that, I preach that, and I do believe that circumstances change. But God's character does not change, though our circumstances might change. So God's goodness is not measured by the absence of problems in our lives. And I really want us to think about that. God's goodness is not measured by the absence of problems in our lives.

07:56Pastor Ken:On Wednesday night and our midweek meet up at CrossPoint, we have been studying the story of Job and I had to bring it into this this podcast because it's it's just been so powerful and Job really talks to us about how good people suffer. It's a story of a man who was righteous and upright. Now, if if we're going to talk about why bad things happen to good people, I think you and I need to look at Job because Job is probably, I think the greatest biblical example of this very question that I'm proposing to you tonight. So in Job 1:1, the Bible says Job is described as a blameless, upright, and a man who feared God and turned away from all evil. OK, now I just want you to think about that for a moment. He's a good man, He's blameless, he's upright. That means he does everything in God's sight that is good, OK? And he shuns evil.

09:07Pastor Ken:So now the Bible doesn't introduce Job as a wicked man who deserves judgement. It it introduces him as a righteous man. So yet in this very short period of time, Job loses almost everything. I mean, his possessions, his children, he had 10 kids. They all died eventually. His health. Can you imagine everything that you built, everything that you loved, everything that gave you life, a kind of sense of normalcy, gone in just a moment. Just poof, it's gone.

09:49Pastor Ken:OK. Then his friends show up and at first they do something right. They just sit with him in silence. They don't say anything. We talked about that last week with Ann, how sometimes we say too much. We try to, you know, input wisdom into people when it's not necessarily needed, try to calm them when we just need to sit with them and love on them. So Job's friends did actually do that at the beginning, but then they tried to explain his suffering. And their basic argument was this Job, you must have done something wrong. And they said, would God allow all this to happen unless you deserved it? And I thought when I read that, and I've been studying this for weeks now, I thought, man, that's very interesting. Because thousands of years later, people still think that way. They think that if something terrible happens to you, you, you and I immediately start asking, well, what did they do wrong?

10:49Pastor Ken:What, what mistakes did they make? Why would God allow this travesty to happen to them? But here's what Job teaches us, and it's a powerful lesson. Suffering is not always punishment.

11:07Pastor Ken:I'm going to say that again, suffering is not always punishment. I think sometimes good people experience terrible things that they absolutely do not deserve. And the remarkable thing about Job's story is that Job never receives a complete explanation of everything that's happening around or behind the scenes. I should say he he doesn't know that Satan asked to touch Job's life. He doesn't know the conversation. All these things are happening to him and he doesn't know what's going on behind. We do because we we read the story now we understand what what is happening, but Job has no clue. So Job asks questions, he wrestles, he struggles, and eventually he encounters God in a deeper way and so in Job 42 verse 5 and he says this.

12:02Pastor Ken:My ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. My ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Now Job's experience didn't give him every answer, but it changed his understanding of who God is. So what do you do when you've done everything that you know what to do and life still falls apart? What do you do then? Do you assume that God is punishing you? Do you assume that you have failed spiritually or can can you? And I recognize that suffering is part of the human experience. And you're like, whoa, time out, PK. I don't like that theology that doesn't mix well with me. But can I, can I, can I be real with you? This is called real talk with PK. You can be faithful to God and still experience devastating circumstances.

12:57Pastor Ken:I see it all the time. It's happened in our own life. I mean, my granddaughter just was diagnosed with diabetes. So now my daughter has two children, two kids with diabetes. And it was like, and this was just last week and it was a zinger that hit our family. Still, we're reeling. We, we still say God. Why? I mean, and, and I just want you to know that God doesn't get mad at you because you ask Him why He doesn't, He loves us. I think it's part of our human nature to ask God why Job did. And so but I want to focus on does everything really happen for a reason?

13:44Pastor Ken:And, and I wondered that, you know, with Leah's diagnosis of diabetes and all the shots that she has to take for the rest of her life, unless God does a miracle, which we are praying for and her little brother Sully, we are praying for a miracle for that. But does everything really happen for a reason? Right. And I, I think I want to try to tackle that with you because I hear that all the time. And sometimes we, we even say to ourselves, well, everything happens for a reason, you know, have you ever heard somebody say that to you? I know people usually mean well, but they're trying to encourage you, someone who is hurting, maybe you've gone through a devastating accident and they're saying, well, you know, sometimes these just these things happen. But I want us to think about what we're really actually saying. Are we suggesting, come on, listen to me. Are we suggesting that God intentionally causes every tragedy?

14:47Pastor Ken:That's what that's in essence what we're saying. We're saying, did God 'cause every accident? Did God call 'cause every act of violence? Did God 'cause this evil illness to befall me? And I think you and I, we need to be very, very careful because Scripture teaches that we live in a world affected by sin, human choice, choices, suffering, even death. And not everything that happens reflects God's moral desire He never intended in the garden. You can look in the garden before the fall of man. It was perfect, it was utopia, it was heaven on earth. He never, He never intended for sickness to come. But here's what I do believe. I do believe that God can bring good out of something He never called good. Can I say that again?

15:43Pastor Ken:God can bring good out of something He never called good. I'm believing that for my granddaughter and for my grandson because it's not good, but I believe God's going to bring something out of it. I mean, I'm talking to myself tonight. Romans 8:28. Paul tells us that God works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And I've read that 1000 times and but I want you to notice something. Paul doesn't say all things are good. He doesn't say all things are good. He says God works in all things for good. That my friend, is a tremendous difference because I think about Joseph.

16:41Pastor Ken:Joseph in the Bible was betrayed by his own brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, thrown into prison. Years of his life were stolen through terrible choices of other people. It wasn't his choice. It was his own family members, his own flesh and blood through him and and sold him into slavery. It's a man It's amazing. Genesis 50 verse 20 says you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. What, Like what he's telling his brothers, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for my good. Joseph never called his brothers betrayals good. He never, he never thought that that was good, but he recognized, he recognized that God was able to accomplish something, I think, redemptive despite the evil intentions of his family. So sometimes I think we're so desperate to find a reason for our suffering that we rush to explain it. I really believe that there is no explanation for what's going on in our family, but it is what it is. And, and maybe, just maybe we don't need to explain everything.

18:08Pastor Ken:Did you think of that? Maybe we don't need to explain everything. Maybe we need to recognize that even in a broken world, God is still able to work. And I think we forget that. And I think sometimes we might not recognize that that work is for years. He's working in us for years. And sometimes we may not even fully understand at the moment what all this means at all in our life. But God works all things for His good. God doesn't have to be the author of our pain to be the source of our hope.

18:51Pastor Ken:He doesn't. He does not have to be the author of our pain to be the source of our hope. And I want us to hold on to that because I think the enemy wants us to think bad of our God, ill will of our Father. Look what has happened to your life ever since you gave your heart over to God. Look at what all the things that are going on in your life, not for the good. He'll always whisper those things in your spirit to put doubt, anxiety, fear into you. So where is God when He seems silence? Where is God when you pray?

19:39Pastor Ken:The heavens seem brass. You don't know what's going on. Where is God when He seems silent? This is where I think, I think we can get real personal, deep personal here, right here, because I think it's one of the hardest things about suffering isn't always the suffering itself. I think it's the silence. I really do. We pray, we cry. You and I ask God for help, and it seems to be nothing. Crickets. Silence. Have you ever been there? I think most of us have. I know I have. And I think sometimes we feel guilty for even admitting it. And I think Christians aren't supposed to question God, right? We're taught that all the way through church as a child. We're taught not to ever question God. But have you ever read Psalm 13:1, have you ever, have you ever word read the words of David when he said, how long, Lord, how long?

20:52Pastor Ken:How long will you forget me? And he says forever. How long will you hide your face from me forever. I mean, that's David, that that's a man after God's own heart. And he's asking God why He seems so absence, absence from him. And I, let me tell you something here, having questions, and I've had lots of them having questions doesn't mean you've lost your faith. It doesn't mean that sometimes it means that we're trying to hold on to our faith in the middle of something that I think we don't understand. And I know people are struggling today in their faith. They're struggling at at the struggle that they're in. I get it. I understand that. Think about with me though, about Jesus and Lazarus for a moment.

21:45Pastor Ken:In John Chapter 11, Jesus arrives after his friend Lazarus has died. OK, so Mary and Martha are grieving her. Their brother died, and the both of them expressed to Jesus some painful thoughts. They said, Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. In other words, they're saying, Jesus, where were you when we needed you? Where were you when we needed you? And do you not know what Jesus does? He's a miracle worker, right? He's a miracle worker, but they're still asking Him, where were you now? He doesn't give them a long theological explanation that many people want today. He doesn't criticize them for grieving. And the Bible gives us, I think, one of the shortest and most powerful verses in Scripture.

22:46Pastor Ken:There were times in Bible college where, you know, a professor would ask you to, you know, memorize Scripture and they would always say, and you can't memorize John 11:35, Jesus wept. You can't that that's not you can't do that one right. But think about that for a moment. In John Chapter 11, verse 35, it says Jesus wept. Jesus wept.

23:13Pastor Ken:Now Jesus knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that He's God, right? And yet and yet He still entered the sorrow of people He loved. He wept with them. It's it's amazing. I think, I think we forget that we always run to the to the end of the story where He says Lazarus come forth, you know, brings him out of the grave. But before that Jesus is crying with Mary and Martha. OK, I you need to get that because God's compassion is not absent simply because suffering is present. It's real. It's real. And I think maybe somebody listening today feels like God has been silent to you. You've prayed about your marriage, no answers, your health, your children, your finances. You've asked God for answers and you're still waiting. I can't tell you why every prayer hasn't been answered yet the way that you hoped it would, but I can remind you that Jesus, the Jesus that we see in Scripture, is not indifferent to human suffering.

24:29Pastor Ken:He suffered likewise. So I want to tell you that God's silence does not necessarily mean God's absence, OK? Just because God is silent does not mean that He is absence from you, that He's just off on a cloud, doesn't care about you. That's not true. It's not true.

24:55Pastor Ken:So how do I keep trusting God when life doesn't make sense? Because I get asked that question too. How in the world, PK, am I going to trust God when it my life's a matter? It doesn't even make sense anymore, right? Well, I think it's because understanding suffering intellectually is one thing. Living through it is something completely different, right? I think it's easy for you and I to talk about faith when everything is going really well. But what happens when the doctor gives you a diagnosis that you weren't expecting? Or when your marriage falls apart, Or when you lose somebody that you love? Or when the future that you plan suddenly changes or it disappears, how do you keep trusting God then? And I think that we have to recognize something that faith isn't always having the answers.

26:01Pastor Ken:We talked about this with Ann last week. Faith isn't always having the answers. I think sometimes faith is choosing where to turn when the answers don't come. And I want to give you 3 thoughts on that. Number one, I want you to be honest about your pain. When we got the news about our Leah, we all cried. It was tough.

26:28Pastor Ken:We were honest with God, we just didn't understand. So you don't have to pretend that you're OK. You can cry, you can ask questions, you could admit that you're afraid, you can read the Psalms. God's people brought their grief, their confusion to Him all the time, even their anger they brought before God. So God isn't threatened by your honest prayers, OK? And He's not threatened by you being emotional.

27:08Pastor Ken:Number 2 is this. Don't isolate yourself in your suffering. This is a big one because I believe this connects directly to our conversation last week with Ann. I I thought about our conversation with Ann, and many people isolate themselves. And when people are hurting, they often pull away from everyone. I've seen it in the church. People are suffering. I don't see him in church. I'm like, what's going on? Well, I'm just trying to handle something on my own. No, that's not what the church is, is built like we are supposed to. When we when one suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice. The Bible says isolation makes it more difficult. So you need people who will sit with you, listen to you, pray with you if that's what you want sometimes Just remind you that you're not alone in this. Hey, we are with you.

28:05Pastor Ken:We're praying for you. My daughter Bethany got so many text messages, so many Instagram messages, people in our church. We're praying for you, Bethany. We love you. It's just it's, it's encouraging when you go through something like this that the people that you're are your friends are for you. Romans chapter 8, verse 38 and 39, Paul reminds the believers that neither death nor life nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Now I want you to notice that Paul doesn't promise the absence of suffering.

28:42Pastor Ken:He promises that suffering cannot separate us from God's love. And that's an incredible distinction there, that nothing, nothing that we go through on this earth can separate you and I from God's love. So you and I, we might not understand everything that God, God allows in our lives, but we can hold on to the hope, friends. We can hold on to the hope that His love has not abandoned us. He's right there with us.

29:16Pastor Ken:As we close this podcast today, I want to leave you with one final thought. We spent this entire episode asking the question, why do bad things happen to good people? And I want you to think about Jesus Christ for a moment. Now, you might listen to this and you're not even saved. I get it. But you believe that He came to this earth and you believe that maybe He was a prophet. OK, so I'm not just speaking to Christians, I'm speaking to anybody who is suffering. And if there was ever someone who didn't deserve to suffer, I believe it was Jesus. You think about His life: number one, He was innocent; number two, He was a compassionate person; number three, in the Scriptures, throughout the New Testament. He healed the sick.

30:17Pastor Ken:He he loved the rejected. He fed the hungry. He brought hope to people who had lost hope. And yet Christ was betrayed. He was rejected. The Bible says He was beaten, He was mocked, He was crucified. And the only truly sinless person, whoever walked this earth experienced unimaginable suffering like you and I have never known. And from the outside, it looked like evil had won. But three days later, in our faith, we believe the resurrection changed everything. What looked like, I think, the greatest tragedy that ever had fallen mankind, became the means of our redemption.

31:15Pastor Ken:Now, I want you to listen to this carefully. The cross doesn't explain every tragedy that happens in our lives. It does not. It doesn't tell us why a child gets sick. It doesn't explain every accident that happens to us. It doesn't answer every question about suffering. But it tells us something incredibly important about our God, that God is not a stranger to suffering.

31:46Pastor Ken:Did you hear me? God is not a stranger to suffering. He sent His only Son in Jesus, His Son. He entered into it Himself. Through His Son, God experiences our pain, and through the resurrection, He showed us that suffering and death will not have the final word. Thank God. And maybe the question isn't only God, why is this happening?

32:21Pastor Ken:Maybe another question we can begin asking is God, how do I walk through this without losing hope? And here's what I want you to remember today, friend. You may not understand everything that has happened to you, nor do I understand everything that has happened to me. You may never get the every answer that you're looking for, but you still can find hope and you still can find people who will walk beside you and you can still bring your questions to God.

33:05Pastor Ken:Because faith isn't pretending life doesn't hurt. Faith is trusting and learning to trust God even when life does hurt. So if you're listening today and you're going through some difficult seasons in your life, I want you to know something. You do not have to figure it all out right now. You don't have to pretend that you're strong in every minute of every day. You got it handled. You don't have to pretend that. And you don't have to be ashamed of the questions that you're asking God. Sometimes life doesn't make sense, friend. But don't allow what you don't understand to keep you from reaching for the help, the hope, and the love that you and I need. And if you know somebody who is hurting today, don't feel like you have to give them all the answers.

34:05Pastor Ken:I think sometimes the greatest gift that you can give someone is simply your presence. A phone call, a simple conversation, a listening ear, or just sitting beside them when words aren't enough and just put your arm around them and love on them. We may not have every answer to life suffering, but we can make sure nobody has to suffer alone.

34:33Pastor Ken:That is my prayer and my thought for you today.

34:38Pastor Ken:Can I pray for you, Father? Thank you, God, for this podcast. Thank you for the people who listen to it and those who will listen to this podcast. God and are going through some trials and tribulations and the questions are just flying off from their mouth God and they don't understand the why. I pray, Father God, that you just give us strength and wisdom and encouragement in this season of difficulty. Lord, we pray that your presence and your Holy Spirit would never leave us and it will never abandoned us and that you are always with us. And I thank you for that Father God today. So, Lord, be with us, guide us, protect your people and be with them through this difficult season that they might be facing this day in Jesus name, Amen.

35:30Pastor Todd:Amen.

35:34Pastor Ken:Well, friend, that's our conversation for today. And I hope that it encourages you, challenges you, and maybe helps you to look at life's difficult questions a little bit different. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Real Talk with PK Remember, life gets messy, life gets difficult, and sometimes life hurts. But we don't have to pretend. We can talk about it. We can walk through it together and we can keep moving forward. So until next time my friends, keep it real, keep the faith, and I'll talk to you next time on Real Talk with PK.