Episode Details

Introduction

Twenty-two years ago tomorrow, nearly three thousand Americans died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Americans, and people the world over, were left wondering: where is God in all of this? Is God real? Does he have a plan? Why is there so much evil in the world?

Today, we continue to ask the same question. Where is God, and why does he allow all of this evil? Racial ideologies pit countrymen against one another. Abortion - though no longer protected nationally - seems to win more and more legal protection in many states. The transgender ideology being pushed by the elites in our culture seems to be taking root, with little thought to the long-term harm done to children and civilization . Lord, where are you in all of this?

The Scriptures, on the one hand, don’t answer one of our deepest questions: why did God allow the world to become this way? Why, in the beginning, did he allow Adam to fall? 

But while we can spend all day wringing our hands, trying to figure out philosophical questions like that, and getting nowhere (Deuteronomy 29:29 says that the secret things belong to the Lord), that won’t get us far when it comes to life. Rather, what we need are a set of beliefs - the Truth with a capital T - that will allow us to navigate and live in, have hope in the midst of the world as it actually is. We live in a world full of sin, pain, and death. Do we know why God allowed it? No. But we do know what he has done about it. And if we observe carefully, with ears to hear and eyes to see, what we will see is that “he does all things well.”

Text

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” 

The Recipients of Jesus’ Work

Before we get too far, let me lay some of my Bible-related assumptions out on the table. When I pick up the Bible, I assume that the most important thing I can see or learn is what it teaches me about Jesus. I assume this because that’s what Jesus in John 5:39-40.

39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

I also assume, based on John 1:14-18, that the eternal Word, the Son, took on flesh and became True Man - Jesus of Nazareth - in order to reveal to us what God the Father is like.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. 

I say these two things by way of preface, because this sermon is structured to help you see the truth about Jesus. My hope is that, in the end, all of the sermons I preach are serving that end. Even when we pause on the gospel of Mark in a couple of weeks and take up the first 11 chapters of Genesis, my fundame