Hope Church Nashville Podcast

This past Sunday, we began a new teaching series exploring the problem of evil and the resulting suffering it produces in our world. Questions about why God allows human suffering are some of the most personal and emotionally challenging that we face as apprentices of Jesus. When we explore the Scripture, we see that God consistently empathizes with the pain caused by evil and knows that it may even cause us to question him. Yet, in that pain, we’re reminded that we worship a God who is not the author of evil but the author of its remedy. And that remedy is the cross of Christ and the empty tomb, which makes way for the New Creation.

This past Sunday, we reflected on the spiritual practice of silence and solitude that we find in the life of Jesus and the wisdom that it can offer us in a culture of busyness and noise. When we examine the life and ministry of Jesus, we find that he “often withdrew to solitary places to pray” (Luke 5:16) and that solitude was a place of strengthening and preparation for his public ministry. As we regularly practice solitude, we will discover what Jesus knew: that it creates space for prayer, frees us from the urgent and expected, and clarifies our calling.

This past Sunday, we explored the story of Deborah in the book of Judges as a case study of God “choosing the weak to shame the strong.” Deborah is a female prophetess in a patriarchal society, an unlikely candidate to be used by God to free the people of Israel from Canaanite oppression. Nevertheless, God powerfully uses Deborah to deliver his people. As we examine her story, three great truths are revealed about the character of God: he sees the unseen, he goes before us, and he desires our praise.

This past Sunday, we reflected on the reality that God has given each of us unique experiences and giftings, and through the Spirit, he has qualified each of us for a unique ministry. So often, we focus on all the ways we aren’t equipped to do the ministry God has called us to. Or we simply wait on God to bring about the transformation he is inviting us to actively bring about with him. The truth is, we can only fully embrace the transformed life and ministry that we are called to when we accept that it is God who prepares and qualifies us for it.

This past Sunday, we closed out our time working through the book of Genesis and reflected on the Joseph story as a summary of one of the book's main themes: God’s sovereign control over creation. Despite all that Joseph endured in his life, he was able to view his trials and triumphs through the lens of God’s glorious purposes. As followers of Jesus, we are called to adopt the same lens as Joseph, setting our vision on God’s goodness and sovereign purposes and allowing ourselves to release the pain and bitterness from the evil we have endured.