Transcription:

Hi, I’m Jon and I’m going to be answering the question, “why does God not care about me?” I know many would think that’s a weird question, but it’s a legitimate question these days.

People wonder, if God has the power to remove cancer, to save somebody, to prevent them from harm, to feed them, to provide a home for them, to provide a job, and yet he doesn’t, God has all power and yet he doesn’t do it, why is that a God that I would think is concerned about me or cares about me? There are all of these promises in scripture that God can and will provide and yet he doesn’t. I know there are people who struggle, who won’t publicly say it out loud, but would say that they don’t like God. They hate God. A God who can provide and protect and heal and doesn’t seems like a tyrant. Why would he do that, and why would he put requirements on people where if they perform well, then God will give them something? They have to earn it first. They have to earn that which he could freely give. There’s nothing preventing God from healing this world. There’s nothing preventing God from removing all pain and sorrow, and yet he doesn’t. That’s a struggle. We all feel that tension.

I know there are many who don’t like God. They play the game. They go to church. They sing the songs, but deep down inside, they’re angry. They’re upset. They don’t feel loving compassion coming from their Father. This is because you have been lied to. This is because you’ve been told something about the Bible that is just not true. God never promised that he would remove death, and sin, and sickness, and suffering, and crime now. This Earth is cursed. It’s been cursed since Genesis three. It’s been underneath this groaning and painful sorrow, and people have been suffering because of sin, not God’s absence, and just as much as you hate crime, and cancer, and death, so does God. The result of everything that we suffer in this world is the result of sin.

What God has promised and has been faithful to is his promise to rescue us from the very cause of all of this pain and suffering, which is our sin, and to rescue us from this world to go live in the new world, the redeemed world, the restored world, where there is no pain, there is no suffering, there is no crying, and there is no fear and anxiety. There’s only joy. There’s only love. There’s only beauty, and glory, and worship.

The confusion and the reason why most people hate God, if they’re willing to admit it, is that they assumed that God promised that if they did the right things and said the right things, then God would help them. We live in a cursed world, full of sin. Nothing in this world will be restored until Christ comes back. The hope that God has given to us as his adopted children is the gospel and his community, his church. The church is supposed to carry each other, to bear each other’s burdens, until we finally go home and God restores all things.

The greatest joy and hope we can have now is to look to the love of Christ and his promises, that he will save us, that he will redeem us, and then we take that love and we love each other, and we encourage each other, and we strengthen each other while we await our homecoming.

Most people are frustrated with life because somehow they’re missing out and it’s God’s fault. Somehow they could have more, but God’s preventing it. Sin is what’s robbing us. Sin, the sin stricken world, our bodies, and the infection of sin is going to destroy us to the point that we will die, and when we rise again in our resurrection, we’ll have new bodies in a new home with our King. That’s where our hope is. So while we wait, we offer people love and we offer to carry their burdens until Christ returns. That is the promise of scripture, and if anyone ever tells you that it’s God’s design or desire to abolish anything in this world, until he comes back, that’s just not what God has ever promised.

Look to Christ, wait for his return. That is his promise. I hope that encourages you.