WEBVTT
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Hello, and welcome to week two of the Half-Truth and Most Mised Verses in the Bible faith group.
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My name is Heather Helms.
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I am your host, and I thank you for joining us today as we look at chapter one of Half-Truth by Adam Hamilton.
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Everything happens for a reason.
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It is worth noting my commentary for today, and every day is rooted in the theological tradition of the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley.
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If you're not familiar with the Methodist theology, here are a few of the highlights.
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As Methodists, we believe our good God does not sin suffering.
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According to Wesley, it is entirely contrary to God's own nature and so destructive of his noblest works.
00:02:09.090 --> 00:02:13.729
We believe suffering is not punishment for sin or a judgment for God.
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We suffer and the world suffers because we are human and part of a system of processes and a physical environment where things can and do go wrong.
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And we also believe we serve a present God that is never distant and suffers alongside us in the midst of our brokenness.
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And he works in that brokenness to bring about good and strengthen our faith and obedience to him.
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So with that in mind, let's dive into chapter one: Everything Happens for a Reason.
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Most of us have heard this, and many of us have likely said it.
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This statement is true if in saying it, we mean that we live in a world of cause and effect, that our actions create consequences.
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Our choices produce results.
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The scripture reading for this chapter comes to us from Deuteronomy 30, verses 19 and 20.
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This day I call the heavens and earth a witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
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Now choose life, so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God.
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Listen to his voice and hold fast to him.
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For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
00:03:50.129 --> 00:03:56.530
In this scripture reading, we find Moses preaching to the Israelites about cause and effect.
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Here he is challenging them to choose life and to live under God's law of love, not only for God, but also our neighbor, which ultimately leads to life and peace for the entire community.
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However, when we use the expression everything happens for a reason, we're usually not talking about cause and effect.
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It's usually offered in response to suffering.
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We say it when something bad has happened and we're trying to help someone through a difficult time.
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When someone dies unexpectedly, we hear it must have been their time or it must have been God's will or part of the plan.
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While we're seeking to console, and others are seeking to console us by saying that God has a particular purpose for bringing about or at least allowing situations in which people suffer.
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This assumes that while we don't yet understand why it had to happen, that all events in our lives unfold according to God's predetermined and immutable plan.
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That since God oversees everything, whatever happens, it could be a personal setback, a natural disaster, or an untimely death, that this is reflecting the will and purpose of God.
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I would like to suggest at best everything happens for a reason is a half-truth.
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I also believe that while the heart behind this expression is comfort, it should probably be removed from the list of things we say to comfort people when they are experiencing a difficult situation.
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So upon examination of the notion that everything happens for a reason, there are a couple issues that we are going to explore together.
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And the first one is that that reasoning removes personal responsibility.
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And in the book, it gives some pretty extreme examples of extending this logic, such as, honey, I forgot your birthday.
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It must have been God's will.
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I don't recommend you using that.
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Or that cheating on your spouse is not your fault, that it was God's will.
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And so is the resulting suffering your spouse and family will experience because of your own actions.
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It also causes us to ask some very troubling question.
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Does God want children to die in school shootings?
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Does he want entire communities to be destroyed from natural disasters?
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The second problem with this notion that everything happens for a reason is that it makes God responsible for our actions, for every terrible thing that happens in this world.
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If this way of thinking is true, then every rape, murder, war, every child that dies of starvation, all these are part of God's plan.
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And that's the awful truth we must confront when we buy into the half-truth that everything happens for a divinely ordained reason.
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When we look at the Bible, we consistently find things that God doesn't want to have happen.
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If God controlled everything and everything you do, he wouldn't have told us not to murder, right?
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Because we just wouldn't murder.
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And if God wanted us to murder, then why command us not to?
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The Bible is constantly trying to give us guidance, but ultimately, you and I have been given agency.
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We make decisions.
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We decide to get drunk and drive, or we decide to bless other people and encourage them and lift them up.
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The third problem presented with this half-truth is that of fatalism and indifference.
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A fatalist thinks whatever is going to happen will happen.
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Whatever will be will be.
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And we are powerless to change it.
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If you're a committed fatalist, there is no reason ever to wear a seatbelt.
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If you're meant to die in a car accident, you will.
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Diagnosed with cancer, if you're a fatalist, don't even waste your time seeing an oncologist.
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To seek treatment would be resisting God's will.
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It was God, after all, who gave you the cancer in the first place.
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In fact, the entire medical profession would seem to be working against God's plan.
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But if sickness and suffering were God's will, then Jesus would not have walked walked on this earth, found sick people, and then healed them.
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Instead, he would have said, Oh, you know what?
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This is it's God's will that you're sick.
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Uh, God, God bless you.
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And uh, you know, good luck as you go about living with your sickness.
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God must be trying to teach you something or punishing you for some reason.
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But, you know, God is uh working through you with this sickness and must have some greater plan for you.
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But that's not what we see.
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Instead, Jesus stopped and he healed them because he didn't believe that sickness was God's will.
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And now here is where my disclaimer about the Methodist theology earlier comes into play.
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While Christians share a belief in God's providence, his governance of the world and everything in it, and that he is sovereign, that he has authority and rule, we often interpret these concepts in very different ways.
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Some tend toward a view of God as a micromanager involved intimately each day and every detail of the world's operation.
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This is Calvinism and theological determinism.
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Calvin believed that for God to be sovereign, meaning to be the highest authority and to have dominion over the universe, then God must will and in some ultimate sense cause everything that happens.
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If something happens that is not God's will, Calvin argued, then God does not, in fact, have dominion over everything.
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And this is the view that is referred to as theological determinism: the idea that all things happen according to God's plan and will, and that God is directing everything.
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This is very appealing to some.
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In a world where there is much uncertainty, where doubt and questioning are such a prominent part of our lives, one reaction is a retreat towards absolute certainty.
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In a world that seems so out of control, some find it comforting to imagine that every detail of life is being controlled by the plan and the will of God.
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Through this concept of theological determinism comes the notion of predestination.
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Predestination means that God has predetermined everything that happens, that life unfolds according to a script God has written long before any of us were born.
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One of the implications of this belief is that we have no choice about whether or not we will accept the grace offered by God.
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Before we were born, we were predestined to be either among the elect, the chosen, or the damned.
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This view is in direct opposition to the teachings of Wesley, the founder of Methodism.
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Through what Wesley calls provenient grace, which is a grace extended universally to all people, God works in human beings to make it possible for us to respond to God's love and mercy.
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It's our choice.
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And some of us choose to accept God's saving grace, and others will choose to reject it.
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But ultimately, this salvation was offered by God to all.
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And it is our God's will that all would receive it.
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This is similar to a parent who invites their children to make their own choices, even knowing they will sometimes make the wrong one.
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We see this picture of God emerge from the opening story of the Bible when God creates the cosmos.
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Have you ever wondered why God put the tree there to begin with?
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Perhaps it was meant to teach us that part of being human is having to make choices between doing good and following God's path or turning away from it.
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The tree illustrates the idea that being human being means having the freedom to choose either the right path, which is God's way, or the wrong path.
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But God does not determine which choice we will make.
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In fact, much of the Bible is about human beings misusing their freedom, turning away from God, and about God's work to clean up our mess.
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So on the opposite end of the spectrum from Calvinism is a theological philosophy called deism, which asserts that God follows a hands-off approach.
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In the book, Adam Hamilton uses the example of God as an absentee landlord who created everything and then stepped away to let the world run itself.
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In deism, we do avoid the theological problem of condemning certain people to hell before they are born that we see in Calvinism.
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However, deism makes no room for God to be at work in our world at all.
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If deism is to be true, then God did not liberate the Israelite slaves from Egypt.
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He didn't speak through the prophets or send Jesus to show us the way or save us from ourselves.
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God's spirit does not dwell within us, and God is certainly not involved in our lives in any way.
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So while deism does solve the problem of suffering, it negates so much of what Christianity teaches us that God does work in and through us, that God did send Jesus to save and deliver us.
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And God does, on some occasions and for reasons we may never fully understand, intervene in the world's affairs in miraculous ways.
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I submit to you that Calvinism and deism are both half-truths.
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The deeper truth, I believe, lies somewhere in between the micromanager that determinism suggests, and the absentee landlord of the deist.
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God gave us a brain, a heart, a conscience, his spirit, the scriptures, and the ability to interpret them as guides to help us select the right path.
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The reason most things happen is not because God willed them, but rather because of the decisions we make or the laws that govern nature and our interaction with them.
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God superintends.
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And God strengthens and walks with us.
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I believe we are called and empowered to be God's hands and voice in the world, and that it's our choice to accept that call throughout the Bible.
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God shows us what is good and what is required of us, but he also gives us freedom to walk in this path or away from it.
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And that choice is what makes you and I human.
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Paul tells us in Romans 8:28, we know that God works all things together for the good of the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
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But do you notice what Paul doesn't say here?
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He doesn't say God makes everything happen for a reason or that whatever happens was part of God's will and plan.
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Rather, he says that no matter what happens, however bad it may be, God will somehow bring good out of the situation for those who love him.
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That God takes what the enemy meant for evil and he turns it to good.
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Y'all, I don't believe that God gave my dad cancer.
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I don't believe God causes people to murder.
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And I don't believe it's God's will for someone to die in a car crash.
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But I do believe that despite these terrible occurrences, God has a way of forcing good to come from tragedy when we trust in him.
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So here are my final thoughts on everything happens for a reason.
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The Bible is full of stories of people doing what God doesn't want them to do, of tragedies that sometimes happen in this life, but also of God working to comfort, to heal, and to redeem.
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I believe God does not generally cause our suffering, but he does carry it through us and does bring something good from it.
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Somewhere between the micromanaging God who causes everything to happen and the absentee landlord God who is not involved in our lives, I see a picture of a God who grants human beings freedom and allows them to take risk.
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A picture of God who does not cause tragedy, but he uses it.
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Of a God who can directly and supernaturally intervene, but usually works indirectly through you and I.
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I see a picture of God who, through the power of Jesus' resurrection, gives us assurance that in the end, death has been swallowed up by victory.
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Amen.
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Consider joining us next week as we explore chapter 12 of the most misused verses in the Bible.
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I can do all things.
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And if you haven't already checked out last week's episode, where two or three are gathered, consider joining us for that this week.
00:20:40.210 --> 00:20:46.529
You can find all episodes on Facebook at the well at first umc.
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You can join us on Apple Podcast, TheWell, and online at thewell.buzzsprout.com.
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Hello, and welcome to week two of the Half-Truth and Most Mised Verses in the Bible faith group.
00:01:25.170 --> 00:01:27.010
My name is Heather Helms.
00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:35.650
I am your host, and I thank you for joining us today as we look at chapter one of Half-Truth by Adam Hamilton.
00:01:36.289 --> 00:01:39.409
Everything happens for a reason.
00:01:39.810 --> 00:01:49.890
It is worth noting my commentary for today, and every day is rooted in the theological tradition of the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley.
00:01:50.049 --> 00:01:55.409
If you're not familiar with the Methodist theology, here are a few of the highlights.
00:01:55.729 --> 00:02:00.689
As Methodists, we believe our good God does not sin suffering.
00:02:00.849 --> 00:02:08.849
According to Wesley, it is entirely contrary to God's own nature and so destructive of his noblest works.
00:02:09.090 --> 00:02:13.729
We believe suffering is not punishment for sin or a judgment for God.
00:02:14.289 --> 00:02:25.889
We suffer and the world suffers because we are human and part of a system of processes and a physical environment where things can and do go wrong.
00:02:26.129 --> 00:02:35.009
And we also believe we serve a present God that is never distant and suffers alongside us in the midst of our brokenness.
00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:43.090
And he works in that brokenness to bring about good and strengthen our faith and obedience to him.
00:02:43.490 --> 00:02:51.009
So with that in mind, let's dive into chapter one: Everything Happens for a Reason.
00:02:51.889 --> 00:02:56.370
Most of us have heard this, and many of us have likely said it.
00:02:56.930 --> 00:03:07.490
This statement is true if in saying it, we mean that we live in a world of cause and effect, that our actions create consequences.
00:03:07.810 --> 00:03:10.930
Our choices produce results.
00:03:11.250 --> 00:03:18.610
The scripture reading for this chapter comes to us from Deuteronomy 30, verses 19 and 20.
00:03:19.170 --> 00:03:28.449
This day I call the heavens and earth a witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
00:03:28.770 --> 00:03:34.849
Now choose life, so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God.
00:03:35.250 --> 00:03:38.289
Listen to his voice and hold fast to him.
00:03:38.849 --> 00:03:49.490
For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
00:03:50.129 --> 00:03:56.530
In this scripture reading, we find Moses preaching to the Israelites about cause and effect.
00:03:56.770 --> 00:04:10.689
Here he is challenging them to choose life and to live under God's law of love, not only for God, but also our neighbor, which ultimately leads to life and peace for the entire community.
00:04:11.569 --> 00:04:21.090
However, when we use the expression everything happens for a reason, we're usually not talking about cause and effect.
00:04:21.409 --> 00:04:24.769
It's usually offered in response to suffering.
00:04:24.930 --> 00:04:31.090
We say it when something bad has happened and we're trying to help someone through a difficult time.
00:04:31.409 --> 00:04:41.090
When someone dies unexpectedly, we hear it must have been their time or it must have been God's will or part of the plan.
00:04:41.889 --> 00:04:56.129
While we're seeking to console, and others are seeking to console us by saying that God has a particular purpose for bringing about or at least allowing situations in which people suffer.
00:04:56.449 --> 00:05:07.970
This assumes that while we don't yet understand why it had to happen, that all events in our lives unfold according to God's predetermined and immutable plan.
00:05:08.370 --> 00:05:21.409
That since God oversees everything, whatever happens, it could be a personal setback, a natural disaster, or an untimely death, that this is reflecting the will and purpose of God.
00:05:22.529 --> 00:05:29.330
I would like to suggest at best everything happens for a reason is a half-truth.
00:05:29.889 --> 00:05:45.009
I also believe that while the heart behind this expression is comfort, it should probably be removed from the list of things we say to comfort people when they are experiencing a difficult situation.
00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:55.569
So upon examination of the notion that everything happens for a reason, there are a couple issues that we are going to explore together.
00:05:55.810 --> 00:06:01.569
And the first one is that that reasoning removes personal responsibility.
00:06:01.889 --> 00:06:10.129
And in the book, it gives some pretty extreme examples of extending this logic, such as, honey, I forgot your birthday.
00:06:10.290 --> 00:06:11.970
It must have been God's will.
00:06:12.129 --> 00:06:14.529
I don't recommend you using that.
00:06:14.850 --> 00:06:20.529
Or that cheating on your spouse is not your fault, that it was God's will.
00:06:20.769 --> 00:06:27.410
And so is the resulting suffering your spouse and family will experience because of your own actions.
00:06:27.970 --> 00:06:32.370
It also causes us to ask some very troubling question.
00:06:33.009 --> 00:06:37.250
Does God want children to die in school shootings?
00:06:37.649 --> 00:06:43.730
Does he want entire communities to be destroyed from natural disasters?
00:06:45.089 --> 00:06:58.529
The second problem with this notion that everything happens for a reason is that it makes God responsible for our actions, for every terrible thing that happens in this world.
00:06:58.930 --> 00:07:09.970
If this way of thinking is true, then every rape, murder, war, every child that dies of starvation, all these are part of God's plan.
00:07:10.529 --> 00:07:20.689
And that's the awful truth we must confront when we buy into the half-truth that everything happens for a divinely ordained reason.
00:07:21.329 --> 00:07:28.370
When we look at the Bible, we consistently find things that God doesn't want to have happen.
00:07:28.850 --> 00:07:35.810
If God controlled everything and everything you do, he wouldn't have told us not to murder, right?
00:07:36.050 --> 00:07:38.129
Because we just wouldn't murder.
00:07:38.449 --> 00:07:43.649
And if God wanted us to murder, then why command us not to?
00:07:44.689 --> 00:07:52.290
The Bible is constantly trying to give us guidance, but ultimately, you and I have been given agency.
00:07:52.769 --> 00:07:54.529
We make decisions.
00:07:55.009 --> 00:08:03.490
We decide to get drunk and drive, or we decide to bless other people and encourage them and lift them up.
00:08:04.529 --> 00:08:10.610
The third problem presented with this half-truth is that of fatalism and indifference.
00:08:10.850 --> 00:08:14.689
A fatalist thinks whatever is going to happen will happen.
00:08:14.930 --> 00:08:16.449
Whatever will be will be.
00:08:16.610 --> 00:08:19.329
And we are powerless to change it.
00:08:19.649 --> 00:08:24.930
If you're a committed fatalist, there is no reason ever to wear a seatbelt.
00:08:25.089 --> 00:08:27.730
If you're meant to die in a car accident, you will.
00:08:45.410 --> 00:08:51.809
Diagnosed with cancer, if you're a fatalist, don't even waste your time seeing an oncologist.
00:08:52.129 --> 00:08:56.129
To seek treatment would be resisting God's will.
00:08:56.610 --> 00:09:00.850
It was God, after all, who gave you the cancer in the first place.
00:09:01.410 --> 00:09:08.049
In fact, the entire medical profession would seem to be working against God's plan.
00:09:09.730 --> 00:09:21.089
But if sickness and suffering were God's will, then Jesus would not have walked walked on this earth, found sick people, and then healed them.
00:09:21.569 --> 00:09:24.610
Instead, he would have said, Oh, you know what?
00:09:25.009 --> 00:09:27.250
This is it's God's will that you're sick.
00:09:27.410 --> 00:09:29.569
Uh, God, God bless you.
00:09:29.889 --> 00:09:34.210
And uh, you know, good luck as you go about living with your sickness.
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God must be trying to teach you something or punishing you for some reason.
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But, you know, God is uh working through you with this sickness and must have some greater plan for you.
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But that's not what we see.
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Instead, Jesus stopped and he healed them because he didn't believe that sickness was God's will.
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And now here is where my disclaimer about the Methodist theology earlier comes into play.
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While Christians share a belief in God's providence, his governance of the world and everything in it, and that he is sovereign, that he has authority and rule, we often interpret these concepts in very different ways.
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Some tend toward a view of God as a micromanager involved intimately each day and every detail of the world's operation.
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This is Calvinism and theological determinism.
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Calvin believed that for God to be sovereign, meaning to be the highest authority and to have dominion over the universe, then God must will and in some ultimate sense cause everything that happens.
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If something happens that is not God's will, Calvin argued, then God does not, in fact, have dominion over everything.
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And this is the view that is referred to as theological determinism: the idea that all things happen according to God's plan and will, and that God is directing everything.
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This is very appealing to some.
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In a world where there is much uncertainty, where doubt and questioning are such a prominent part of our lives, one reaction is a retreat towards absolute certainty.
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In a world that seems so out of control, some find it comforting to imagine that every detail of life is being controlled by the plan and the will of God.
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Through this concept of theological determinism comes the notion of predestination.
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Predestination means that God has predetermined everything that happens, that life unfolds according to a script God has written long before any of us were born.
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One of the implications of this belief is that we have no choice about whether or not we will accept the grace offered by God.
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Before we were born, we were predestined to be either among the elect, the chosen, or the damned.
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This view is in direct opposition to the teachings of Wesley, the founder of Methodism.
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Through what Wesley calls provenient grace, which is a grace extended universally to all people, God works in human beings to make it possible for us to respond to God's love and mercy.
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It's our choice.
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And some of us choose to accept God's saving grace, and others will choose to reject it.
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But ultimately, this salvation was offered by God to all.
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And it is our God's will that all would receive it.
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This is similar to a parent who invites their children to make their own choices, even knowing they will sometimes make the wrong one.
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We see this picture of God emerge from the opening story of the Bible when God creates the cosmos.
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Have you ever wondered why God put the tree there to begin with?
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Perhaps it was meant to teach us that part of being human is having to make choices between doing good and following God's path or turning away from it.
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The tree illustrates the idea that being human being means having the freedom to choose either the right path, which is God's way, or the wrong path.
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But God does not determine which choice we will make.
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In fact, much of the Bible is about human beings misusing their freedom, turning away from God, and about God's work to clean up our mess.
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So on the opposite end of the spectrum from Calvinism is a theological philosophy called deism, which asserts that God follows a hands-off approach.
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In the book, Adam Hamilton uses the example of God as an absentee landlord who created everything and then stepped away to let the world run itself.
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In deism, we do avoid the theological problem of condemning certain people to hell before they are born that we see in Calvinism.
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However, deism makes no room for God to be at work in our world at all.
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If deism is to be true, then God did not liberate the Israelite slaves from Egypt.
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He didn't speak through the prophets or send Jesus to show us the way or save us from ourselves.
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God's spirit does not dwell within us, and God is certainly not involved in our lives in any way.
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So while deism does solve the problem of suffering, it negates so much of what Christianity teaches us that God does work in and through us, that God did send Jesus to save and deliver us.
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And God does, on some occasions and for reasons we may never fully understand, intervene in the world's affairs in miraculous ways.
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I submit to you that Calvinism and deism are both half-truths.
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The deeper truth, I believe, lies somewhere in between the micromanager that determinism suggests, and the absentee landlord of the deist.
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God gave us a brain, a heart, a conscience, his spirit, the scriptures, and the ability to interpret them as guides to help us select the right path.
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The reason most things happen is not because God willed them, but rather because of the decisions we make or the laws that govern nature and our interaction with them.
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God superintends.
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And God strengthens and walks with us.
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I believe we are called and empowered to be God's hands and voice in the world, and that it's our choice to accept that call throughout the Bible.
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God shows us what is good and what is required of us, but he also gives us freedom to walk in this path or away from it.
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And that choice is what makes you and I human.
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Paul tells us in Romans 8:28, we know that God works all things together for the good of the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
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But do you notice what Paul doesn't say here?
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He doesn't say God makes everything happen for a reason or that whatever happens was part of God's will and plan.
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Rather, he says that no matter what happens, however bad it may be, God will somehow bring good out of the situation for those who love him.
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That God takes what the enemy meant for evil and he turns it to good.
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Y'all, I don't believe that God gave my dad cancer.
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I don't believe God causes people to murder.
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And I don't believe it's God's will for someone to die in a car crash.
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But I do believe that despite these terrible occurrences, God has a way of forcing good to come from tragedy when we trust in him.
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So here are my final thoughts on everything happens for a reason.
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The Bible is full of stories of people doing what God doesn't want them to do, of tragedies that sometimes happen in this life, but also of God working to comfort, to heal, and to redeem.
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I believe God does not generally cause our suffering, but he does carry it through us and does bring something good from it.
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Somewhere between the micromanaging God who causes everything to happen and the absentee landlord God who is not involved in our lives, I see a picture of a God who grants human beings freedom and allows them to take risk.
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A picture of God who does not cause tragedy, but he uses it.
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Of a God who can directly and supernaturally intervene, but usually works indirectly through you and I.
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I see a picture of God who, through the power of Jesus' resurrection, gives us assurance that in the end, death has been swallowed up by victory.
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Amen.
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Consider joining us next week as we explore chapter 12 of the most misused verses in the Bible.
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I can do all things.
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And if you haven't already checked out last week's episode, where two or three are gathered, consider joining us for that this week.
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You can find all episodes on Facebook at the well at first umc.
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You can join us on Apple Podcast, TheWell, and online at thewell.buzzsprout.com.
