SERMON NOTES

Hard Questions

If God is Good, Why do People Suffer?  

Life is  because God  us. (Gen. 2:15-17) 

God loved us so much that from the very beginning He gave us the greatest power given to anything created - the power to  to Him and His love. 

• Because of sin  is marred. 
• Because of sin physical  and death came into the world - both physical and spiritual death. 
• Because of sin we have relational . 

We live in a world that is immensely schizophrenic, one minute giving us a taste of  and another giving us a taste of . 

   is greater than this fallen world. 

God in His love doesn't leave us to ourselves to deal with this fallen world. He is at work in the midst of the difficulty for our . (Rom. 8:28) 

If God would love us so much to become one of us, take not only sin but also the punishment of sin upon Himself, can we not trust Him with the rest of life, even during the grief and anger of the ? (Rom. 8:31-32)

God's answer to the struggles and difficulties of this fallen world is . He came, and He is coming again. 

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his , becoming like him in his death. Philippians 3:10 

Jesus coming for us is only part one of God's answer to a fallen, suffering world. Part two of God's answer is Jesus  us. (Jn. 20:21)

Resources for this message you can use for more study: 

• The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, chapter 2 
• Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin, chapter 11
• "Why I'm not a Christian" sermon series by J.D. Greear