You know those topics that are taboo? The topics that polite conversations avoid? The topics that we’re all thinking about it, but we’re not talking about—especially at church? Yeah...we’re going there. Politics, sex, alcohol, suicide, hell, suffering. We’re talking about all of these “Elephants in the Room” and we might even tip some “Sacred Cows” that have been built up in the process. Now you might be thinking: “This is going to be uncomfortable.” You’re right. It’s going to be uncomfortable...and eye-opening, healing, necessary. There is no better, safer place to discuss these topics than church. So with that in mind...can we talk?

Suicide, depression, and self-harm are not “edge issues” that affect a few, select people. For you or someone you know, these so-called “edge issues” have sadly become their own worst enemy—the voice of depression or self-hate drowning out all else. How in the world do we address it? Does God’s Word give us any help, or are we alone with this pain that is getting worse with every passing day?

See, it is so good to see everybody. Thanks for joining us here on site for worship and online for worship as well. I gotta say, I'm happy to be back. I'm happy to be back. We've been out of town. Thank you, ladies appreciate it. We've been out of town for the last two weeks in North Carolina on a family vacation. It was awesome. And we had great weather. I got to do an obstacle course, Adventure Park kind of thing. That was crazy. It was really fun. I got to see my cousin Sarah, who lives out in Los Angeles. She came on vacation. So just an all-around awesome time. Actually, you know what, before I describe anything else, if you want to feel like you were there like you want to just be immersed in what it was like to be on vacation, just go to my wife's Facebook page. I think she recorded every single thing that we did via picture. There are like 700 pictures on there right now. So you can feel like you were there with us.

But for real, it was just a blast. Now that I'm coming back to the real world, I was just talking with some people about this before service. Now I have that panic moment where you feel like you need another vacation. Because you started getting all the emails and all the text, and you realize like, oh, yeah, there's real-life now. Like, I gotta get back to all this. But let me tell you, it was so fun. So restful, so recharging. And I want to say thank you to everybody for praying that we would have a safe travel and a good time down there. We did. We did. God heard your prayer. It was an awesome time. So thank you again for that. But man, I am excited to be back. For part three of the series, talking elephants and tipping cows, who's enjoyed the first two weeks of this series been good stuff, right?

So what we're doing, let me just, if you haven't been with us, just give a little primer of what we're doing. Throughout this six-week teaching series. We're talking about the elephant in the room, right? The stuff, the topics, the things that we try to avoid in the church. Or maybe we just kind of hit it real quick and hit it in a very churchy way, and then we just move on from it and act like nothing else happened, right? We're talking about those things. And that's what we've been looking at the first two weeks of this series. We're talking about elephants in the room. And in the process, we may tip a sacred cow or two, right like that. That may happen. And it has been happening. So week one, since I was going to be 600 miles away. I told Pastor Donnie if he would please preach on politics because that's a real just softball for him. Right? But he did fantastic. We talked about what politics and what political engagement is supposed to look like from a Christian, someone who's a Christ-follower, or someone who follows a king already. What does it look like for us to engage in politics? So that was week one of the series. In week two, I pre-recorded a sermon. We talked about hell, and we talked about what it was kind of like a q&a kind of format of a sermon. And so we talked about how we talked about the top 10 questions that we have regarding hell, and you know, is it real? And is it eternal? And is it conscious? You know, is it fire, and just all the different questions that people have around how we talked about those last week. And today, if it wasn't, if those topics weren't super, super light, and easygoing, we're gonna get even more into it today. But real quick, before we get into today's topic, I just want to remind you why this setup is normally happening. It is not what the stage looks like, alright, normally, we got the podium up here and stuff. But for this series, we've got the chairs because what we want you to imagine, as we preach these every single week, what we want to imagine is that you're sitting up here because we're not preaching at you this series. That's not what's happening. This is a discussion. We're not building a platform. This series, I cannot stress this enough. This series is not talking about where Cornerstone stands on all these topics. I don't care about that. I don't care about a stance. I care about the discussion. And what we're going to be talking about is a discussion about topics that can feel unsafe to talk about right about things good can feel kind of touchy and off-limits. This is not a "preaching at"; this series is a "talking with" series. We are not building a platform. We're having a discussion, and we're gonna have a discussion today about a very difficult topic, pain, suffering, tragedy. These are hard things to talk about, especially because I know for a fact because I know I know my church. There are people in this room. There are people watching us online today who it's not theoretical to talk about pain and tragedy and loss and suffering. It's very real. They're going through it right now. They're experiencing it, whether it's the loss of a loved one, whether it's a bad diagnosis, whether it is the loss of a job, they're in the middle of it. And so today we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about it and see what Scripture has to tell us as we deal with pain, loss, and suffering. If you're a note-taker, today's title for our sermon is When Everything Hurts, and the pain we're talking about today is a real pain. We're not talking about you got stuck in traffic pain. We're not talking about it rained before you got to mow pain, right like that. Nothing like that. What we're talking about is a real pain, real loss, real tragedy; we're talking about the loss of a child.

We're talking about a leukemia diagnosis. We're talking about things like Uvalde and Buffalo and the shootings that have been happening seemingly every other day in our country over the last month. We're talking about these things. And typically, typically, it can, it can be easy for churches, great churches, and portraits is like it can be very easy for us to on topics like this, have a very high-level churchy discussion about it, and then move on from it because we don't really want to deal with it. Right? We don't really want to talk about it. And this is what I would say, for some of us, that may be a good thing. And maybe a good thing because this is what I want to say from the onset. If your natural response to some of these things happening in our country, or, you know, within your friend group are, well, they had to come in. I mean, they had to come in, or your response to some of these things like these shootings are well, that's, that's God's judgment on our country, because of where we've been going down and what we've been doing. If those are like your knee-jerk reaction to these things, maybe it is best for you to avoid these discussions. I'm just gonna say maybe it is best for you not to say anything because those are not helpful. Not helpful and not accurate, right? They're not helpful, and they're not accurate. So maybe you should avoid the topic. But in this is, this is so important. But if you are someone who doesn't want to make a point, right? Everyone wants to make a point, right? Everyone gets up behind the keyboard and feels like a big man, a big strong man on the keyboard, and makes it a point on my Facebook page. If you want to make a point, go right ahead. But if you want to make a difference and actually talk about these things intelligently and biblically, that's what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about these things and look at pain and loss and suffering from a biblical standpoint and actually address this with care. So you guys ready? Ready? All right, let's hop in. Today, we will get into this now. What we're talking about today is commonly called the problem of evil. Has anyone ever heard that term before? Has anybody online in the chat heard about the problem of evil? If you've ever taken a philosophy class, like philosophy, one on one, they will talk about this, the problem of evil is actually the most often cited and the oldest objection to the Christian faith, the problem of evil. Let me sum it up for you. This is the basic gist behind the problem of evil. And the problem goes like this, okay, how can Christians address this fact that Christians would say there is evil, pain, loss, and tragedy in the world that all exists? But how do you reconcile that all that exists? If also exists an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God? Alright, that's the gist of the question. How in the world can Uvalde happen? If there is a God, who knew it was going to happen? Who loves the people who died and were powerful enough to stop it? Like, how do those two things coexist together? And it's a good question. Right? It's a good question. It's a reason it's the oldest objection to the Christian faith and the most often cited. In fact, it's the oldest book in Scripture; the book of John deals with this very issue. Why do bad things happen? How do we reconcile bad things happening? Tragedies happening? So we're going to kind of work from easiest answers to hardest? Okay, so the easiest way to answer this and to think about it is, first off, it makes sense that bad things and tragedy and loss and suffering happen in our world. Firstly, because we live in a fallen world. Like, I don't think that's up for debate. I think atheists and Christians alike can be like a meme, right? Like, yeah, our world is fallen. Like the natural state of the world is fallen. Listen to this. This is the book of Romans. This is the apostle Paul's writing. In the book of Romans, chapter eight verses 20 through 22. Paul says against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse, but with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children and glorious freedom from death and decay, for we all know that creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. Did you hear that? Not just mankind's creation itself is subjected to the curse of the fall to sin entering the world. We so often just think of it as something that affected mankind which it absolutely did, but sin and death affected Everything. Our universe now has an end. Our universe is dying. Everything is dying. Everything is coming to an end because sin and death entered the picture and when it did introduce, sin and death indicated even creation itself. So sure, some of the pain and suffering and loss and tragedy in the world, we can just chalk it up to, hey, we live in a fallen world now, sin or illness, sickness, diseases, death, all of these things, even natural tragedies, even natural disasters are a result of sin. Even natural disasters are the result of sin entering the picture. Did you know that's actually why Jesus performed miracles for one of the biggest reasons? Of course, Jesus did it to care for people. Of course, Jesus did it to prove to people that He was who He said He was. But do you know that the biggest reason Jesus performed miracles was to show that he had power over sin and over the effects of sin? Like you all are aware that Lazarus did die again, right? I mean, some dude running around the Middle East, 2052 years old, like he, he died again. So like, what's the point? Like, why did Jesus rise from the dead if he was just gonna die again down the road? Jesus was doing this. It's the same reason Jesus called the sees the natural state of things. That's why Jesus healed the blind and the lame and the sick, why he raised the dead to say, hey, look, all of these things are symptoms of the root cause of death, the natural disasters, sickness, illness, this is all symptoms of the main root cause sin. And if I can take care of these, I can take care that that's the main point of Jesus's miracles is to show that he had the authority to fix the real problem, sin, sin entered the world, and it didn't just affect us affected creation itself. So that's one aspect creation has just fallen. And so, of course, their sickness and pain in the world stink, but that's just how it is. The other side is that we have free will. Like mankind has free will. That's, that's not a shocking or controversial statement. God has given us free will and choice to be able to choose him to choose life or to choose death. Listen to how it's worded in the book of Judges. If this doesn't describe our current state of things today. I don't know what does is from the book of Judges 21, verse 25. And those days, Israel had no king. All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. To hear that all people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. If that doesn't describe us today, I don't know what does. Everyone just does what they feel is right. God has given us free will. And when sin entered the picture, it didn't just corrupt creation; it corrupted us. And so, with our free will, we can do things that do not glorify God and do not make us live up to what we were created to do, but actually harm people and harm ourselves. We can make those choices, and people sadly make those choices every single day. So like I said, those are kind of the easy answers, right? Easy answers that well; there's evil in the world because the world is falling. There's evil in the world because people can be evil. There you go. That's it. Right? That's kind of easy. But not Everything is that easy. Not Everything can be that quickly dismissed. You see, there are a lot of situations, and I guarantee there are people in this room again, like I said earlier, people watching online, who you're going through a situation that can't be that easily dismissed. You're like, yeah, I get all that. I get that, you know, there's pain and suffering in the world because of the natural fallen order of things and because of people's evilness, but man, I still don't get how God could allow this to happen to me. I don't get how God could allow my marriage to fall apart. I don't get how God could allow this to happen in my work. I don't get how God could allow my house to be taken away. I don't get how any of these things would still be able to happen. I've been trying my hardest. I've been trying to honor God, and it just feels like Everything is falling apart. Why didn't he intervene? And this is what I want to say whenever it comes to that. When someone is suffering, if you know someone who's suffering, you got friends, family, someone who was suffering, sometimes the best answer to their questions of why when someone's sometimes suffering the best answer isn't an answer. Just I don't know. Sometimes that's the holiest and godly thing you can ever say to somebody, "I don't know. I don't know why that happened. I don't know why you're going through this." Sometimes the best answer isn't an answer. Pastor Levi Lesko. He's a pastor at Fresh Sliced Fresh Life Church. They're based out of Montana. Amazing guy, amazing preacher, and pastor. His family, I believe it, was back in 2014. They were getting ready for Christmas. It was December 22. The wrapping presents around the Christmas tree. His little girl Linnea, who was five years old, started having an asthma attack, progressed got worse, and within minutes she was dead. Think about that for a moment. Like, don't try to block it out because you got little kids or anything like that, and you don't want to think about it. Really think about that for a second. This guy's five-year-old daughter had an asthma attack and died in her parents' arms while they were wrapping Christmas presents three days before Christmas. Like why? Is there one answer for that? One answer can you give at that moment? I don't know. I don't know. And that's sometimes, in fact, most of the time is, the holiest and most accurate answer we can give. Because we don't know. We don't know. We don't know why there's a lot of pain and tragedy and suffering. Sure, some of it can be easily explained. Sure. Some of it can be easy; oh, it's because of this or that. But there's a lot of it that we look at that, and we go well; if God is all-powerful, if he is all-loving if He is all-knowing, why didn't he prevent this? And the best we can say is? I don't know. I don't know why she died. I don't know why that happened.

That being said, what I want us to look at in the remaining time that we have together are the things we can know. Because I don't want this to be a big shrug fest where it's with Oh, no, we don't know; there's nothing that we can know. No, there are things that we can know, there are things that scripture points to that God points to in his word that we can look at, and we can take for ourselves, whether we are getting ready to go into pain, a season of pain and loss, we're in the middle of a season of pain and loss, or we're coming out of a season of pain and loss, we can hold on to these truths, and we can build on them, and they will not fail us. So that's what we're gonna do. In the remaining moments that we have together. Not trite talking points, right? Not things that sound good and look good as a caption on Instagram, but they don't actually work in your life. These are actual truths from Scripture that we can build on. So the first one that I want us to look at is this idea that our pain, our pain, can be great. And our God can be good. Like, those two things can and often do coexist at the exact same time. It's not, and or that is a dumb dichotomy. That's a stupid separation to make. God can be great. And our pain or a god can be good in our pain can be great. Those two things can coexist; they do coexist a lot, as a matter of fact. In fact, I would say that your in my definition of what is good is terrible. We're not good at defining good. Like we, we have changing definitions for what is good; depending on how we're feeling that day, depending on how old we are, and depending on how people talk to us that day, our idea of what's good changes all the time. Like if I'm sore, that's not good; I don't like to be sore. Unless I'm sore after a workout, then it is good because I'm like, Oh, good. I know that I actually like worked out enough that I actually feel it right. Our definitions are constantly changing. So it's better for us to trust God's definition of good than my definition of good. I don't want something that's constantly changing to build on. That's, that's a shaky foundation; I want something solid, I want something that will stand the test, and God's definition of what is good will stand the test. Mine will not. Right, mine will not. God gets to define what is good. So that means our pain can be great. And God can be good. And because that's true, that means that my pain and your pain don't get to be an indictment on God. Like it just doesn't. My pain doesn't get to indict God and go, Okay, I'm going through pain and loss and suffering. So you're not good. I'm going through some stuff right now that I thought you wouldn't allow happen to me. So now you're not as like loving as I thought you were. That's not how it is. My pain is not an indictment on God. I remember growing up watching all the Disney Channel original movies on TV, and all of these are in Channel series. And like you relate to the kids so much because you are a kid, right? You're watching like, "Man, those parents are jerks. Just let Timmy go to the conference. Like, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to stop? And this is so messed up." You like completely relate to the kid. Now that I'm older, I watch all those movies I used to watch. Like I watch The Sandlot. And I watch all these movies like. "Man, these kids are brats like someone needs to smack him upside the backside of the head, knock some sense into him like, right?" You. You started identifying with the parent. And it's so funny because whenever you were younger, you identify with the kids and their pain and their struggle. You're like, oh, man, I just I feel it. Like I feel what they're going through. And you get older, you're like, man, suck it up. Like, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. And you start relating to the parents, right? And so the pain that the kids are going through doesn't mean that it's not real anymore, as you're watching these things, but you suddenly realize oh, it's not an indictment, that they're like bad parents, that they don't know what they're doing that they don't actually love their kids. You have a different angle on it. And the same is true with us in such a greater way when it comes to our relationship. But God, my pain is not an indictment on him. I don't have his vantage point; the pain, the suffering, and the tragedies that I go through are not an indictment of how good God is. In fact, I would wager one of the most important decisions any Christian can ever make is as after you accept Jesus as your King; you make Jesus your King. And then you know, like choosing a spouse outside of those things is probably the best decision you'll ever make in your life, a one-time decision to admit that God is good. And just be done with it. To just knowingly say, "You know what, God, I'm getting ready to embark on the rest of my life. I have no idea what's coming my way. None. I have no idea what deaths are coming my way. What losses, what job changes, what stuff happening with my finances? Finances? I have no clue. But what I am saying right now, before I enter into any of that, is that I know you're good. I know it. I know you're good. And I'm going to believe that as I walk into all these seasons, and so Everything that I encounter is going to be filtered through that and seen through that lens." That's one of the best decisions you will ever make. It's a game-changer. Can we just declare it together real quick? God is good. One more time. God is good. Because he is, he is good. And you need to make that one-time decision and not question it with every high and low of your life. Oh, well, this didn't work out the way I thought God. Are you really there, God? Are you really good? Yeah, he is. Don't question that you notice that but don't worry about that. That's something that you can build on. Don't question the stuff that you don't need to. There's enough in life that's uncertain. That's not one of them. God is good in our pain is not an indictment on God. But to be able to admit that, to be able to say that and believe that for the rest of your life, it comes with needing to admit something. And the admission that we all need to make is that God is playing chess while we're playing checkers. We don't. We will say that we kind of believe it. But then whenever life starts playing out, we're like, God, let me help you out a little bit. You might want to move the King over here and take the pawn over there. Like we feel like we're giving them some advice on how things could be better. But man, the fact is, we're playing checkers, we don't know it's like, like me if you ever see me sitting down at a Cracker Barrel getting ready to like dominate at the little the big board, you know, by the fireplace, the checkers' board. Have you ever seen me sit down, getting ready to play? I am at most thinking one move ahead. That's the best I got in me, right like I am. I am sitting there praying to God that they moved their piece right here because I won't know what I'm going to do when they move it somewhere else. I don't know. I don't know where to go. On the flip side. Has anyone ever played chess before? Anybody? Anybody online? Okay. Those are all the smarter people in the room. Through for sure, smarter than me. Chess has always been over my head. I've tried to learn it before, and it was not happening. It just wasn't happening. And people who are good at chess can actually think a few moves ahead. Like maybe two, maybe three, where like, regardless of if you make any of these moves, they're already planning for it. They've got you. A chess grandmaster it's an actual title; someone who's a chess grandmaster is able to regularly think about 15 to 20 moves ahead. That's nuts. Like you whenever you think about that because it's not even just that they're thinking about the one move. They're able to think and analyze how that move affects the rest of the board in play. 15 To 20 moves ahead. Meanwhile, I'm over here sucking my thumb and trying to figure out my next move at checkers at Cracker Barrel, right? Like, we're not in the same universe. They're so far and so different from me. And I think about that. And then I read what Paul writes in Romans chapter 11. Listen to this. Listen to how Paul describes God's wisdom, starting in verse 33. "Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge? How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and His ways." Did you catch that word? Not how hard is it? Not how difficult how impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and His ways, for who can know the Lord's thoughts, who knows enough to give God advice? And who has given God so much that he needs to pay it back? For Everything comes from him and exists by His power and is intended for His glory? All Glory to Him forever. Amen. You see, that's the lay of the land. That's the situation on the ground. God is playing chess, and I'm playing checkers. He sees things; he's seeing moves that I have no idea about, especially now here. He really wants you to listen to it. On your best day, you're thinking one move ahead. On your best day, that's when the sun is shining, and you're feeling good. Everything's just hidden, right? That coffee was great this morning; your best day you're thinking, one, move ahead. When you are in the middle of pain, tragedy, loss, or suffering, you're not thinking about anything else. Nothing else, if you've ever stubbed your toe, if you've ever stepped on the Lego, my word, how bad it hurts, you've ever had any of those moments, it's, you can't be in that moment. Like you stub your toe, all you can think about is not losing your religion in that moment and saying something unforgivable like that's the only thing you can think about when you stub your toe. Because that's how pain works. It's instant. And it creates a moment that you feel like you can't escape, right? That's how pain works. And so, on your best day, you're one step ahead, in the middle of pain, loss, tragedy, and suffering; you're nowhere but that. And you can be stuck at that moment for days, weeks, months. And that's just where you're at. And you need to realize that you need to know that before you go in to realize you know what, I've got to be careful with the decisions I make. I gotta be careful who I run to, and my grief, who I run to, and my anger, because I am so consumed at this moment, I can't see anything else. You need to admit that you are playing checkers while God is playing chess and say, God, I'm going to trust you then in the middle of my pain in the middle of my suffering in the middle of all this, I'm going to trust you and trust the fact that I may be stuck at this moment. But I know you're in every moment. I know you already know how this is going to play out. And even though I can feel this pain, I can trust the fact that you are going to use this. So the question is, do you trust him? Do you trust him? Do you trust that there is more going on than you see? Because if that is true, if it's true that there is more going on behind even the worst day, you'll ever experience. If that is true, that is the ultimate comfort you'll ever receive. That even my darkest day has something that can come out of it that even in my darkest moments, God can work something out of it. Think about the fact that God can use anything to bring purpose to Everything.

Isn't that mind-blowing? That's the kind of God that we serve, a God who can use anything to bring purpose out of Everything. He can use anything that we go through, anything that we deal with, any suffering, any pain, any tragedy, and none of it ever has to be pointless, ever.

It can all be used for purpose, it can all be purpose-filled. Listen to this. This is from Genesis chapter 50, verses 19 through 20. I don't have time to read through the entire backstory. But this is

Joseph Mann, who at a young age was sold into slavery by his brothers, hated him, had hatred and jealousy for him, and sold him into slavery. Jason Joseph's life went like, up and down, up and down, up and down from this moment on, he's in slavery, but then starts to rise to power then gets thrown in prison rises to power again, it's just like ups and downs, mountains and valleys over and over and over again. And here, towards that where we pick up here in Genesis chapter 50, Joseph has reached a place of power and prestige. And his brothers come to him looking for help. They realize, holy cow, this is Joseph, this is our brother, who we tried to have killed who we saw in the slavery, they're terrified, he's going to do something to him, he's going to use his power to kill them, to put them in slavery. And this is what Joseph says instead, in verse 19, but Joseph replied, Don't be afraid of me. And my God, that I can punish you. See, you intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so that I could save the lives of many people.

Basically, you know, adjusted, just send guys a look, don't worry about it. You see, you were playing checkers. But God was playing chess. You thought you were thinking one move ahead. You had no idea what God was up to, though. You were just living in that moment. God has been living in every moment, and he saw exactly how he was going to use that act of evil and use it for good. And even though I didn't see it at the moment, I chose to trust him with the unknown. And this is what it's led to.

And that's the same decision that you and I can make today. To believe that God can use anything to bring purpose to Everything. He can use even the worst moments of your life. I've experienced this. I know this to be true in my own life. I've experienced

This is a truism of life, and you will learn more about yourself and about God in the valley than on the mountain. Every single time you can count on it the mountaintop moments, we think that it would be fun to just go from mountaintop moment to mountaintop moment. You don't want to be that person that you would be at the end of that. You want the person who is forged in the valley. And that's the only place that you learn certain things about yourself. And certain things about God, my, my dad's death is probably the most like, defining moment of my life and what felt like a negative way at the beginning, right?

He died whenever I was 31. And so I'm like, Man, if I if I live a long life, I'm now going to live like two-thirds of my life longer without my dad and with him. And we'd hadn't had Griffin yet. And so I'm like, Man, he's gonna miss his grandson and me, there's just all these things that I'm thinking about that are like hard and difficult and tragic. And I'm just thinking about the loss. But as time has gone on, and as I look back on it now, of course, of course, I wish my dad was alive. Like, of course, I wish that, but I see the purpose that's come out of it. And I see the things that I've learned about myself that I would not have learned any other way. I see the things I've learned about God and His goodness and His faithfulness and the way that he's a provider. I've started to realize God his Father in a way I never have before. All of these things are things that I wouldn't have experienced if it wasn't for walking through the valley. If it wasn't for the pain, the loss, and the tragedy. We learn far more about ourselves in the valley than we do on the mountain. There can be purpose in our pain. And we see that riddle through the pages of Scripture. Pretty much the entire Book of Psalms is one mountaintop moment, one valley moment, one mountaintop moment, and one valley moment. David talking about God is exalting me, and he's doing all these great things. He's blessing my family, and I love God. And then the very next one, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are my enemies surrounding me? I feel like a dead man. Like that's what it is. That's what the book of Psalms is over and over. It's mountain top, the valley mountain, top of the valley. But what you will see is that in all of those Valley moments, you see David reflecting on himself and reflecting on God in such profound, deep ways, and he learns things about himself and about God and about God's faithfulness in those valleys that he doesn't see on the mountaintop moments. You see it and all of those psalms. In fact, you don't even know if you're, if you're someone who you started a Bible plan at the beginning of the year, and you're like, This is gonna be here, 2022 I'm gonna read the Bible. And then you hit Leviticus, and you're like, I'm out. I'll see you in 2023. Well, better luck next year.

If that's you, and you're like you haven't been touching the Bible, can I encourage you to jump back into the book of Psalms, and something the early church did, the early church, the church we read about in the book of Acts, and the days of the early church fathers in the 100, and the two hundred, that's what they would use the book of Psalms, they would pray the book of Psalms, they would sing the book of Psalms, they would worship the book of Psalms, it's such good stuff in there. And I would encourage you to get in there, especially if you are dealing with pain, loss, tragedy, and suffering. There is so much that I know God wants to speak to you from that book if you read it if you take the time to dive into it. Because we see David's example, in that book, about how in the midst of our pain in the midst of our suffering, and our loss and our tragedy, God can bring purpose out of it. He can bring purpose out of our pain. And probably the best thing about that I can't even point to one specific Psalm or one specific verse. But it's just the overarching narrative of the whole book of Psalms that's so important and so powerful. It's what I want us to end today is the thought that prayer can pull purpose out of our pain more than anything else. That's really what the book of Psalms is. It's a book of prayer, of prayer to God of worship to God, but it's all talking with God. And if that's where you are today, you're in the middle of pain, suffering loss, and I know we've got some people going through it in our church right now.

If that's you, there's nothing better you can do the prayer. And I know it sounds so cliche, of course, the two answers for Everything in a church or Jesus in prayer, right, like Jesus in prayer, Jesus in prayer, but it's true. It's true. There is nothing better you can do than run to God when Everything hurts in prayer. I'm going to ask the worship team if they would come back up on stage.

As they do, I just want us to kind of end on this one note, thinking about what we were talking about to begin the problem of evil. Like why Why does God allow these things to happen? And you may be asking that very question in your own life. You may be thinking to yourself, Okay, God, why have you allowed.

Allow me to lose my job. Why have you allowed us to be on the verge of losing our house? Why have you allowed this sickness to ravage my family? Why have you allowed this person to take advantage of us? Why, why? Why? And that's the essence of the problem of evil. Why? Why is there evil in our world? If there's an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God, why can pain and tragedy happen? Not to just general people, but to me? Why can this happen? I'm trying to follow God as good as I can pass, and Brenda can tell you to. I talked to people constantly who this is the question they have. Like, I don't get why this is happening to me. I don't get why this bad thing could happen. I'm trying to follow God as good as I can. What I want to say to you, it's not your job to answer why bad things can occur.

Your job as a follower of Jesus Christ is not to answer why bad things occur but how bad things can be overcome. That's your job. That's my job. That's what we're supposed to do, not give people awesome explanations where they go. Oh, bravo. Very articulate. Very good point. Thank you for telling me why these things occur. No, our job is to model, through our love and through our life, how bad things happen but can be overcome. Do you want to know back whenever there was an Amish schoolhouse shooting? Do you guys remember that? Back? I think 2012. It's been about ten years now. There is that gunman when to the Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania Elementary School House, blockaded the door, and just started shooting kids indiscriminately.

Do you know how many people remember, like the why explanations that were spouted off on the news during the next days, where you had people coming in and trying to give an explanation of why this happened and why this happened. I guarantee you there's no one who can remember the whys that were given why this evil occurred. But everyone remembers how it was overcome. And that the families, the mothers and the fathers of the killed children, how they showed up for the shooters family, how they offered Him forgiveness, surrounded the shooters, mom with love made meals for him prayed for him went to their house. That's what people remember. And that's what the world looked at and was like, how? 

How are you doing this? How are you able to do this? What they did is they modeled how evil can be overcome. They didn't have an answer for why it happened. They have an answer for why God allowed that to happen. But they showed how when this stuff goes down how we can be the light of Christ in the middle of it. And the same thing can happen for you because I want to tell you, you got people watching you. You may not know it, but you have influence you've been given influence. People are watching you. And as you navigate the pain, the loss, and the tragedy tragedies in your life. People are taking note of how you overcome it. Well. Let me pray for you real quick.

Heavenly Father, I know we have people in this room. We have people watching online today who are going through it today's talk was not theoretical. It was very practical.

They're dealing with some stuff today, God and what I pray is that in the middle of these moments, they may not have an answer, but that they would have your peace. They would have your presence, they would have your comfort.

And God for the rest of us who aren't in a season of loss or pain or tragedy right now. God, I ask that You would help us remember your truth today that this wouldn't just be a sermon we heard one June back in 2022. But these would be things that we actually apply in our life, and we start building on so that when our time comes for pain, loss, and tragedy, which we know it will,

we'll be ready to handle it. And now, we may not be able to give a reason and an explanation for why this thing occurred. But we sure will be able to give an example of how we will overcome it through you.

God, we declare today that when Everything hurts, we're going to run to the only place we should to you. We love you, Father, we pray all this in your name. Amen.