Genesis 6:6, Ezekiel 33:11, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 53:3, Romans 8:28-29

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That really difficult situation, that really tough thing in your life, is God happy that happened? Did he want that to happen? Now, at first you might say, well, of course God didn’t want that to happen. But I find the more that I talk with people who go through challenging times, I find that there are things that sometimes we say that make it feel like God wanted that bad thing to happen, or that God is happy that it did. And part of why then we struggle is because it seems like, well, why was God so cruel? Why did God want that to happen?

And here’s the thing sometimes people will say, they’ll say, okay, this happened because God wanted to do this, or this happened because God wanted to do that. And there becomes this sense of, okay, God wanted this to happen because of, you know, XYZ thing. He wanted to teach me or to grow me. And sometimes people will talk about God being in charge or God working all things for good. And so therefore something bad happens, well, God must have wanted that.

But Scripture is very clear. There are many things that happen in this world that God isn’t happy about, that are not things that God wanted or wants. For instance, if you look at Genesis chapter six. So this is where the chapter leads up to the flood. We’re told that

The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with sorrow. (Genesis 6:6)

When he saw the violence in this world, he was filled with sadness. This didn’t please God, this didn’t make God happy that there was all this violence. There are things that are happening, that were happening, in the world that God was very sad about. Or Ezekiel chapter 33, the verse first part of verse 11, the Lord says,

As I live, declares the Lord God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from their way and live. (Ezekiel 33:11)

God doesn’t want the wicked to die. And so when the wicked do, that’s actually something God is sad about. Or first Timothy 2, 3 to 4.

This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3-4)

God wants everyone to be saved. And so when there are some who do not believe in him, that’s not what God wants. That doesn’t make God happy. And so when you are going through something and you’re like, oh, that was hard. That was tough. You don’t need to see God as well, okay, but God wanted that bad thing to happen. Actually, Scripture describes God as coming close to us and often actually mourning with us. Psalm 34:18 it says,

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
He saves those whose spirits have been crushed. (Psalm 34:18)

And Isaiah 53, that beautiful chapter that paints this prophetic picture, what a Savior would be, describes the Messiah as one who

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man who knew grief,
who was well acquainted with suffering. (Isaiah 53:3)

See, your God actually meets you in those difficult things, and he mourns with you. He has sadness with you, God, when he sees the sin and brokenness of this world, he mourns that and he grieves that. And that’s actually what motivated him to carry out his plan to set things right. That motivated God the Son to become the man, Jesus. To die in this world. To take on himself our sin, our shame, our suffering, our sadness, our death. But then to come out the other side, to give us hope the other side of it. To give us the hope of his return that day where all things are set right and every tear is wiped away from our eyes, from the eyes of those who have faith in him.

Our God meets us, and he gives us hope the other side of our grief. So then how do we think about the challenging things in our life? Well, first of all, know that God meets you there and he grieves with you. And does God use these things? Yes, absolutely. See, something can be both something that is bad, that is sad. And yet God works something good out of it. And the good that God works, God wants that. He doesn’t necessarily like or is happy about the bad, but he uses it even for his good. That’s what Romans 8:28 is about.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose, because those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28-29)

He does come alongside and use even those bad things, those things that he mourns with us about. He will even use those things for our good.

Luke 9:51-56, Ezekiel 33:11

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I’d like to share with you a couple of verses from Luke chapter nine.

When the days were approaching for him to be taken up, Jesus was determined[g] to go to Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead of him. They went and entered a Samaritan village to make preparations for him. But the people did not welcome him, because he was determined to go to Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. “You don’t know what kind of spirit is influencing you. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s souls, but to save them.” Then they went to another village. (Luke 9:51-56)

The relationship between Jews and Samaritans was stressed. It was very challenged. They were adversaries. And we know that especially from the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus uses that in that teaching of that parable, how they were at odds with each other, Jews and Samaritans. Part of that was just a religious disagreement. The Samaritans refused to acknowledge that they were supposed to go and worship and go to the Temple in Jerusalem, and they had their own holy site that they worshiped at. And so here they learned that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. And the Samaritans in this village in our text say, no, we don’t want you here. And so that angers Jesus disciples. They’re angry.

Especially we hear James and John, this poor reception, how dare these people reject Jesus! How dare they insult Jesus and insult us? And so they turn to Jesus and they say, Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to consume these people? So in other words, should we have these people destroyed and wiped out for this insult to you?

When you and I face adversity and when we face hostile people, that might be our first instinct as well. Vengeance. Let’s get even. Let these people be destroyed. Let these people face damnation and even hell. That’s a scary thing to think or to say. And Jesus, he gives a stern rebuke to James and John here, who suggested such a thing. And he points out to them, you’re not being led by the right spirit. Do you think that this is a godly spirit that would lead you to say such a thing, to ask for these people to be destroyed? No, this is essentially demonic. This comes from evil spirits, from the devil himself. God would not want his people to have this kind of heart or attitude in them. God does not have that kind of attitude that seeks the destruction of people. He doesn’t want that at all.

Here and in other places, we learn from Jesus that he does not want people to be destroyed. He came with the mission to rescue and to save people. Even in Ezekiel chapter 33, we hear.

“I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from their way and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11 EHV)

What should our heart and attitude be? Well, Jesus lays it out here for us in our text. And really, there’s honestly a little bit of irony in these words that James and John speak in our text. Lord, should we send fire from heaven to consume them? Now they were intending, should we destroy them? But do you remember what took place on Pentecost? What came from heaven? Tongues of fire that came and rested on the disciples heads as they went out and preached and proclaimed Christ. And elsewhere the work of the Holy Spirit is compared to fire, and faith is referred to as a burning flame inside of a heart. So take those words in kind of an ironic way. Lord, should we call down fire to consume these people? Well, God does, in fact want that. He wants the Holy Spirit and the message of Jesus to come and be kindled in people’s hearts, so that they might have faith, and so that that faith might then spread and be shared.

So in a sense, it’s a good thing to say, Lord, send this fire from heaven, but not to destroy people. This fire from the Holy Spirit comes to rescue people. It proclaims and puts into us Christ Himself and the salvation that he won for us with his life. His perfect life lived for us in our place with his death upon the cross, where he paid for all sins with his resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit comes and gives those things that Jesus earned and gives them to us, and that’s the fire that we desire to be consumed with. Lord, please send us this fire of your Holy Spirit among us. Peace be with you.

Ezekiel 47, Acts 2:1-4

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Stop going to church. Stop going to church. I mean it. I know that’s a weird sounding thing for a pastor to say. And you might wonder, wait, am I actually watching this morning’s Peace Devotion? Because he just told me to stop going to church. But, but hear me out.

Stop going to church. Instead, gather as the church. Come together with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Come and worship. Come and hear the word. Come and celebrate baptisms, and take the Lord’s Supper as the church.

There’s this incredible privilege we have as Christians, as New Testament believers in the Messiah that sometimes I think we overlook. In the Old Testament, the place where God’s holiness was, really seen, was really location focused. You think about amongst God’s people in the nation of Israel, there was the Tabernacle first and then the temple. And within those holy places was the most holy place, and only a few people, and only in certain ways, and at certain times of the year, could even really come very close to God’s presence there.

But there were limitations to that temple. The temple was a great blessing because it assured the people that God was with them, and the sacrifices took place there that pointed ahead to the Savior. But there were limitations because it showed them that God was with them, but they were still limited access to God. And the people of Israel often they might have people going through the practices of the temple or of the tabernacle, but they were living in a way that was very different. It wasn’t fulfilling really what it was meant to do. And ultimately, all the sacrifices and things that happened there couldn’t really set people right with God.

But then Jesus comes on the scene in the New Testament and Jesus reshapes the temple not around a building, but he says that his body is the temple. And then when he dies on the cross, there on that cross, he pays for your sin and mine absorbs it. When he dies, the temple curtain is torn in two from top to bottom. Which assures us we have access to God, but it also does something else. There are these pictures in the Old Testament about God’s holiness coming out of the temple.

For instance, in Ezekiel 47, the prophet Ezekiel has this vision of water flowing out of the temple and bringing that which was dead, bringing it alive. Or you have Zechariah 12 that talks about all these normal things in our lives becoming holy now. There’s this idea that God’s presence now can break out into God’s creation and bring holiness out. And that’s what we see in the New Testament. You get to Pentecost. You have this moment where these people have these tongues of fire come above their heads, and fire signifies the presence of God. Now, instead of God’s holiness being a place or something we want to go to, God’s holiness comes to us and fills us. We become the church. The New Testament describes us as God’s temple.

So when you come to church, go to church, you’re not so much going to church, but gathering as the church, you’re coming together as people who are the temple of God hearing God’s Word and being built up in him. You come together as people who are baptized into Christ. So when God sees you and everyone around you, he sees people who look like Jesus, who are connected to his death and his resurrection. When you take the bread and the wine, the body and blood, you are connecting not just with God, but your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. You gather as the church and then you can go as the church.

Stop going to church, gather as the church, go as the church.