Q&A Genesis 40-41

All right, well, welcome back to a Q&A with a pastor. My name's Asher. I'm sitting down with Keith, and we're going to talk about what Keith talked about when he preached on Genesis 40 and 41 this past weekend. Keith, you seem to not so much struggle with this sermon as you were very careful with the words that you chose. I know that even in preparing for this sermon, you wanted to be precise about what you're saying. Why do you want to be so careful with how you talk about our triune God? Well, I hope I'm always careful. I didn't realize I normally struggle, so I'll have to go back and check those. But this one particularly because I wanted to make clear that God is sovereign over suffering, but not the cause of evil. God is sovereign over evil, but not the cause of evil. God is able to care for us. He is intimately involved in it. And evil is not out of God's control. And so the classical way of talking about this is that God permits evil. The major technical emphasis we have to make is that God creates everything but sin. He does not tempt us to sin. He does not cause sin. He has created everything but sin. And then everything after we sinned, he is still sovereign over. The reason it's very important to emphasize is, one, God cannot be culpable for evil. He is good. But we also want to make sure we're giving God his absolute right to be the sovereign king of all of history, of all the events. And it's just amazing that he is able to use our sin. This is one of the things that really blows us away, especially when you think about the cross. He's able to use all that sin to bring about our salvation. The sin of the pilot, the high priest, the crowd, the soldiers. So it's very important to make sure we have those distinctions. Now most people will say, oh, that's just unimportant theological hair splitting. But no. We need to make sure we're talking about God accurately. God has revealed himself, I think, very clearly. And we need to make sure we take the time and the carefulness to confess and talk about him properly. Yeah, I know that we all want to say that God uses evil for good and God uses bad things for his glory. But when we look at suffering, it brings about a different kind of emotion because everyone suffers, but everyone kind of suffers differently. But God has, you know, one wrath. And is it wrong for us to look at suffering as an effect of God's wrath? Do those two interact at all? I know you approached it briefly in your sermon, but how does our suffering interact with God's wrath? Yeah, that's a good question, because here we're getting into even more kind of fine-tuning of our grammar for God. Let me go back and just add this real quick. Sure. One extreme you could go to is that God doesn't know suffering is going to happen. He's surprised by evil. He's surprised by what we do. That's kind of the new open theism. Well, it's not really new anymore, but it was the new fad. That is just an uncomforting, an unscriptural theology. With regards to, is suffering a consequence of God pouring His wrath on them? As Christians, the answer has to be no, because God's wrath, in terms of the judgmental, damning wrath, in terms of that kind of definition of wrath, that is poured out on Jesus Christ. What he does now is punishment. But it's in the sense that he is trying to guide, direct, and move us out of sin and towards himself. So as Christians are suffering, they should feel some guilt. They should feel a hard corruption from God but they should find their security and their assurance in Christ who has taken on God's final wrath. I know that you kind of had I think like three categories of what we were talking about of this restoration I guess. You had God's wrath, God's discipline, and our suffering. So you're saying that Our suffering is a part of God's continual disciplining us, not in a negative way, but trying to bring us more in line with where he wants us to be. Is that kind of a right perspective? What we need to do is make sure we have that distinction between, as Christians, we have assurance in our salvation of Christ, and so we know that his ultimate final wrath, his judgment, is not going to be poured out upon us. But then we expect discipline. Because God is no longer going to pour his wrath upon us, we are his children. And therefore, he's going to discipline. So, we need to make sure those are two different categories. Now, when a Christian is wayward in denying God and denying his correction, he should begin to be afraid of God's wrath if he isn't repentant. Your assurance isn't in a moment long time ago that you once prayed a prayer. No, your assurance is in your obeying God's discipline. Now, just going along with the kind of non-Christian, the unrepentant person, should we talk about God's wrath with a non-Christian in the midst of their suffering? So if a non-Christian comes up to me, and not in a complaining way, but just starts telling me of all the things he's going through, and we have a relationship where he knows that I know that he is not a Christian, should I then tell him, well, the worst is yet to come? Or how do we interact with someone suffering if they're not a Christian? Because if they are a Christian, We can talk about the hope of Christ, but if they don't have that hope, how do we address suffering and God's wrath with them? Is that a perfect segue to talk about God's wrath? Yeah, because when you're about suffering with a Christian, you can affirm all things work for God's, for your good and God's plan, based upon Romans 8. With a non-Christian, it actually doesn't tell us in Scripture how to talk about suffering. I think you can affirm that God is good. in that this suffering is an effect of our sin. And so, they're not blaming God for the suffering as if he's unjust in bringing this thing about and causing and directing it. And I think, you know, depending on your relation with the person, depending on what they seem to be in a spiritual state, you don't want to crush somebody, but you also want to trust the gospel is the power of salvation. So, you It depends on how you want to present it. One, you could jump from suffering to final judgment. Or you could jump from suffering and give a testimony of how God used suffering for his good plan. So, you know, Mike states using his fear of death from 9-11, God used that to bring him to himself. So, there's two different ways you could kind of take the suffering. One is you could use it as an opportunity to present hope. In another way, you could take it as an opportunity to take them to the final suffering, which would bring fear, both of which bring the gospel forth. So, it really depends on the person, their emotional state, how well you know them, and what you think would work in terms of how you feel led by the Spirit to present the gospel in that way. So, you don't immediately go glim and doom? No. I mean, I think what we need to be is comforters. But we don't want to just say, oh, God loves you, God cares for you, you'll be through this. I think you have to give a real answer. That's why the sermon was so challenging. I was really trying to give a real answer to suffering. As a non-Christian, it is an opportunity for them to reflect upon the consequences of sin and how God is the correction and the answer for evil. The problem of evil is answered in Jesus Christ, the cross. You've got to take Him there. One thing I noticed about your sermon is that you didn't use any personal examples. You I don't even think you used an illustration or an analogy. Was this an intention or did you cut some things out because of time constraints or you were you intentionally make this non personal and why is that because everyone goes through the same thing and you didn't want to distract. Yeah, I wanted people to take the principle and apply it to their particular situation. You know, one brother asked, you know, you should have used some contemporary examples. You know, Johnny Erickson taught a highly recommended anyone read her work, listen to her online, watch her videos. She's just been a great encouragement to my wife and I in terms of someone who's a paraplegic who is loving and serving Christ with joy. It would probably be helpful to use some examples. I tried to model how I go from suffering to the cross. That was my main intention. So I tried to do that two different times in a very thorough way. I don't want to use personal examples because that distracts from people using, well, it can set me too much up as a model. I thought about using my wife, but I never asked her permission, so I just didn't. I try not to. I let the spirit take the principle and the truth when I'm preaching. I trust the spirit is going to apply it to everyone's particular situation. And just lastly, why should Christians be open about their own suffering with others? Does this fit into how you view church membership? fit into how you view accountability partners or small groups or discipleship groups. As we suffer in light of a fallen world, how do you think we're called to suffer together, even if we're going through different things? Yeah, I think this is a human inclination, and it's just more so since Darwin. I mean, it's survival of the fittest. We're supposed to show ourselves as fit, and so talking about our suffering is taboo. You're not supposed to talk about your weakness. Well, Paul says that Christ is glorified in our weakness. Jesus commands us in Scripture, all Scripture is written by Jesus, Paul wrote, rejoice with those who are rejoicing, weep with those who are weeping. You cannot do that. You cannot help the church weep with you and mourn with you and suffer with you and lift you up in prayer if you're not sharing your suffering. If suffering is meant to help you participate in the suffering of Christ, you can share that with the body of the saints by allowing them to participate in your suffering. We should all be doing this together. We're too individualistic, we're too Darwinian, even though most of our congregation, they're not evolutionists, but that little bit of philosophy that comes in, that little bit of worldview, it speaks its way in there. We don't like to talk about our weakness, and I think the gospel says based upon the descriptions that we're supposed to weep with those who are weeping, mourn with those who are mourning, and the idea that I would hope that we as a body suffer with one another and participate in the suffering of Christ with one another. The principle is that you have to share your sufferings. Let's transition wildly with this next part. I know that one thing you're excited about is we are basically establishing home groups within the church. Not that we want to always talk about suffering within our home groups, but what are you excited about with JPBC going towards Not so much a home group model, but allowing people to sit with one another in each other's homes and talk about godly things and heavenly aspirations. Yeah, it'll be an opportunity for people to talk about how the gospel is affecting them, which will help create that gospel culture. Those who are new to the program, we are trying to avoid programs in terms of you know, children's programs, adult programs. We have programs. We have Sunday school. We have Sunday morning. We have things we do. But the main goal we're trying to do is really create a gospel culture, where we are talking about the gospel. We're talking about our sin, letting the gospel heal and comfort and forgive. And I think home groups are a good way to establish that gospel culture. So when somebody asks you a question, my hope is that facilitator is able to take them to the gospel through that question. If someone shares their sufferings, you're able to take them to the gospel through that. The second thing I'm really excited about is I think this is going to help encourage, I hope this helps encourage a culture dependent on the Spirit because I'm hoping the Thessalonians are going to use a good chunk of time on prayer. So much more personal prayer requests, praying from the sermon, praying toward the next sermon. The evangelist is going to have a long list of ways we can pray to apply the sermon to our hearts and our own lives. So I'm hoping that those two things are accomplished through home groups. And I know there are different ways that we thought about breaking up the home groups. We thought about doing them age-wise, making sure that there's a right balance of the church. But our home groups are going to be broken up basically by area, right? We have a north, south, east, west, and then a center town. What was the thought process behind that? Is that because we're like a global congregation? We just didn't want people driving 35 minutes. Yeah, well, there is something about people driving 35 minutes. Is this because you're agrarian, and you just want to love your neighbor? Well, I think there is something to getting people who are living close to one another together to have fellowship. I think that's important. Because we have people who drive 45 minutes to church, and so they'll have to drive 20 minutes to someone else's home. That is important to me, to care for them. But more importantly, we wanted to make sure there was a mix. We actually moved people to make sure there was a mix between an older member, a middle-aged member, a younger member, a single, a couple. We wanted to make sure that we actually had a mix because, well, again, Paul prescribed older women loving younger women. I think there is something about the intergenerational ministry of a home group. that will help those people involved experience Christ in new ways through the intergenerational. Yeah. I was kind of upset that you weren't in my home group. Is that personal? No, you just live on the wrong side of the track. Fair enough. I'm not in a home group. My hope is that I'll be using that Sunday evening to do hospitality, visitations, and I may pop in on a home group every now and then. You're always invited to mine. I'm not sure where it even meets, but you're invited. I just want to get around you. It's in a home. It's in a home. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well Keith, I appreciate your time. Thanks for explaining how we can think about gospel things in light of our suffering. I know it was a difficult passage just because there's so much spiritual weight. We thank you that you take time to explain things clearly. This weekend you're going to be preaching on chapter 43 and 44 of Genesis, correct? 42 and 43, I hope. 42 and 43, yes. They get confusing and mixed in there. Yeah, we're actually going to look at that whole principle that God directs and controls all things. And he does it so that we reconcile. So, we're going to be looking at how Joseph begins the process of testing his brothers to reconcile with him. So, it's another long passage, but also another fantastic one. We start to see some emotion out of Joseph finally. All right, well, thanks so much, Keith. We look forward to it this weekend.