The Sovereign and Suffering God - Linda Bailey
Why would a good God let his brand new church be hit with persecution, prison and death before it had barely drawn breath?
That is the question Linda Bailey sat with as she opened Acts chapter 8. The church was, in her words, still in nappies, its eyes hardly open, and suddenly it was struck with violence and grief. If this was God's mission, his message, his way of showing the world who he is, why would he allow it to be battered so early on?
This week at One Church we returned to our series in Acts, picking up from chapter 8 after our Mission Month break. Linda Bailey led us through the opening eight verses, where the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, gives way to fierce persecution, and yet somehow ends with great joy breaking out in a city. You can watch the full message in the video above, or listen to the audio version below.
A question that finds all of us
Linda began with the rawest version of the question: God, why would you allow this to happen? It is not a new question. We have been asking it for generations.
She noted that the Alpha Course recently wrapped up at One Church, a space where people are free to ask anything they like about God and faith. The single most commonly asked question, year after year, is this one. If God is all powerful and all loving, why does he allow suffering?
Linda called this question the great equaliser. Every single person experiences suffering. If you are not in a season of pain right now, you almost certainly have been in the past, and the world makes it fairly clear you will be again at some point.
When we come to a time of suffering or pain or challenge, we are forever changed. You never go back to being the same.
What struck her most is what happens next. Suffering, she said, can make us a better person or a bitter person. Two very different things. It can clarify who we are and what matters, and draw us to lean into God. Or it can turn us inward, convinced no one understands, asking what we did to deserve this.
The same storm, a different house
To get underneath this, Linda turned to Jesus' story of the wise and foolish builders from the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. One man builds his house on the rock, the other on the sand. The rain falls, the streams rise, the winds blow and beat against both houses. One stands. One falls with a great crash.
Her observation was simple and sharp: the suffering was identical for both men. The same rain, the same streams, the same wind. What differed was their preparation and their response, and that made all the difference to the outcome.
She has seen this play out in real lives. One person says, this happened to me, so I left the church, because how could I believe in a God who allowed it? Another person, facing almost exactly the same thing, says, how do people do this without God? He has been a rock and a fortress for me.
We are not passive in our suffering.
This was a key turn in the message. Yes, we live in a fallen, broken world. Things are done to us that we do not control, do not approve of and never wanted. But we are not passive in how we respond. There is always an opportunity to respond, and our response matters.
Three ways to read your pain
Linda then drew a fascinating contrast between three different cultural scripts for suffering.
The Western script tells us suffering is terrible and must be avoided at all costs. Nothing good comes from it. Control your life so you can sidestep pain, grief and hardship, because this life is the best there is and ultimate happiness must be found here and now.
The Eastern script says something almost opposite. Drawing on the travel writer and essayist Pico Iyer, who has lived for long stretches in both Western and Eastern cultures, Linda described a view that accepts suffering as the way of things. You embrace it, you do not complain about it, you let it humble and strengthen you, and you get your heart ready for it. Iyer once met a Zen trained painter in Japan, in his nineties, who said suffering is such a privilege because it moves us toward the essential things and shakes us out of short sighted complacency.
I was definitely brought up in the Western culture. That is so foreign to me, that you would want to embrace it because it is a blessing.
And yet Linda could see the truth in it. She recalled a phone call telling her that her father was gravely ill. She lived three hours away, with a family and a busy job and a full life. The moment that call came, she cleared the calendar and went to be with him. She does not remember what she missed at work. She has never regretted going. The suffering clarified what was important and showed her where her real priorities lay.
She also drew on Tim Keller's book on suffering, which makes a striking claim. Cultural anthropologists say the secular Western culture may be the worst in the history of the world at helping people face suffering, because in a secular view suffering has no meaning. It cannot move you toward a goal, it can only destroy your goals. It is not a meaningful chapter in your story, just an interruption to it, or the end of it.
A God who is both sovereign and suffering
So we have the Western view and the Eastern view. But Linda reminded us that we gather on a Sunday because we are after something else, a Christian perspective that brings something new to both.
The Christian view does not pretend suffering is not real. Acts 8 is honest about it. The believers buried Stephen and mourned deeply, even though mourning openly for someone executed that way was not permitted. Their grief overflowed the rules. As Christians, Linda said, we are not exempt from suffering. We live in the same broken world. But our perspective is different.
She illustrated this with a conversation at a party, where someone outed her as a Christian minister and the talk turned to religion. An intelligent, successful man told her that all religions are basically the same. You worship the same God by different names, you are all heading to the same heavenly place, you just pray and worship differently along the way.
Having just listened to a podcast by John Lennox, the Oxford mathematics professor who has spent his life as an ambassador for the gospel, Linda channelled her inner Lennox. She acknowledged the similarities she could see between religions, then offered her own conviction gently.
The difference for me with the Christian God is that there is nothing we can do in order to seek that place. God has done it for us. He came and he suffered in our place so that we could get to that place.
She quoted Lennox directly:
A Christian then is not a person who has solved the problem of suffering, but one who has come to love and trust the God who has suffered for them.
This is the heart of it. We worship a God who has suffered for us, and so when we come to our own seasons of suffering, he understands, he comes alongside, and he is empathetic toward what we are walking through.
Linda anchored this in Tim Keller's observation that one of the most amazing things about Christian teaching on suffering is that our God is both sovereign and suffering.
He is sovereign. Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. God has a plan, even when we cannot see it. But Linda was honest that, on its own, that truth would be too much to bear. Too powerful, too remote, as if God were a puppet master.
The wonder is that he is also a suffering God. He went to the cross. He knows pain, rejection, betrayal, torture, hunger, thirst and death. He did it to die for our sins and take our punishment. And that, Linda said, means two things when you suffer. If you trust him, you are not being punished for your sins, because Jesus already was. And he understands what you are going through personally, which means he is with you.
From persecution to great joy
Here is the part that makes Acts 8 so remarkable. The chapter opens with persecution and ends, just eight verses later, with these words: so there was great joy in that city.
In a stunningly short space of time, the believers who were scattered did not stay silent. They kept stepping into what God had called them to do, relying on the Holy Spirit. Philip went to Samaria, proclaimed the Messiah, and the city saw healing and freedom and joy.
Linda was careful to name where that power comes from.
That is not our power. That is the power of God through his Holy Spirit living in us, that such change can happen.
And she was equally careful not to over promise. Change does not always come quickly, even for the most faithful. It is a process. Suffering is real, and it is not to be laughed at or looked down upon. We need to process these things honestly. But God is with us, he has a plan, and he understands what we are going through.
One way to live it out this week
Think about a place of suffering in your life right now, or one you carry from the past. Rather than asking only why it happened, ask a second question alongside it: how am I responding, and what kind of person is this season shaping me into, better or bitter? Then bring it honestly to the God who is both sovereign and suffering. You do not have to tidy it up first. Open your hands, tell him what you are carrying, and ask his Holy Spirit to give you what you need to endure. Trusting him does not mean you have solved the problem of suffering. It means you have found someone who suffered for you and stays alongside you in it.
A prayer for your week
Sovereign and suffering God,
we come to you with what we are carrying,
the grief, the pain, the questions we cannot answer.
We come because you are powerful and majestic,
the maker of the whole world and the rock on which we can stand.
Thank you, Jesus, for being willing to suffer,
not only so our sins could be forgiven,
but so that we would know you understand.
Holy Spirit, fill us and give us exactly what we need.
Grant us your grace, your peace and your healing hand,
and help us to trust you, whatever comes.
Amen.
Personal Reflection
When suffering has come into your life, has it tended to make you a better person or a bitter person? What made the difference?
Which cultural script for suffering, the Western one, the Eastern one, or the Christian one, has the strongest grip on the way you actually react when life gets hard?
What would it look like this week to trust a God you cannot fully understand, rather than waiting until you do?
Small Group Discussion
Read Acts 8:1-8 together. What stands out to you about the way persecution and joy sit side by side in these eight verses?
Linda called the question "why does God allow suffering?" the great equaliser. Why do you think this question reaches everyone, regardless of background or belief?
Look at the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7:24-27. The storm was the same for both. What do you think made the real difference between the two houses?
Linda said we are not passive in our suffering. What is the difference between the things that happen to us and the way we respond to them?
Discuss the three views of suffering described in the message: the Western, the Eastern and the Christian. Where do you find yourself most often, and why?
What does it mean to you that our God is both sovereign and suffering? Which of those two truths do you find easier to hold on to, and which is harder?
John Lennox said a Christian is "not a person who has solved the problem of suffering, but one who has come to love and trust the God who has suffered for them." How does that reshape what trusting God in hard times actually looks like?
Spend some time sharing where each of you is carrying suffering at the moment, and then pray for one another, asking the sovereign and suffering God to meet each person exactly where they are.