Wrestling with Doubt: Why Do the Innocent Suffer? | October 19, 2025

If God is good and powerful, why do bad things happen? This week’s sermon concludes our fall series Wrestling with Doubt, Finding Faith by looking at one more unavoidable, unanswerable question (and this one’s a big one): Why do the innocent suffer? 

This week’s sermon explores the problem of suffering, challenges common assumptions about God, and shares a hope rooted in Christ’s promise that love and life have the final word.

Today’s Scripture readings are Genesis 1:26-31, Psalm 139:7-18, Romans 5:1-8, and Luke 13:1-5. A small part of this sermon is borrowed from my 2019 sermon Using Your Time, for which I found helpful this 2013 reflection from David Lose.

Here’s the service livestream from Living Hope and the sermon podcast audio.

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Five weeks ago, we started this series on wrestling with doubt and finding faith by asking, “Is There a God?”

That’s the fundamental question, right? If there’s not a God, then what are we doing here?
What are we doing here in church, in worship, and what are we doing here on a cosmic level.

We looked at science and religion and the evidence of creation around us, and I said there’s no definitive answer, there’s no way to prove God exists, but it is plausible and reasonable to believe in a Creator.

We can’t prove God, but we also can’t disprove God. So, as Christians, we choose to have faith, we choose to believe God exists.

But as important as it is to wrestle with whether or not there’s a God, I wonder if today’s question might be more important, if more people wrestle with this one.

Because what good does it do to say God exists, if God doesn’t help me when I’m suffering? Is God powerless? Does God not care?

There’s a church word for this question—ready for your fancy theological church word of the day?

Theodicy.

And of course, we can’t solve theodicy. There is no easy answer I can offer you, but I think at some point we all wrestle with these questions.

One of the hardest funerals I’ve been involved in was a baby named Thomas. He was born with a rare and fatal genetic disorder, and he lived just three months. I feel like week after week in this series I’m bringing up examples of children dying, but I think for many people, that’s the biggest argument against God, because you can’t argue a three-month-old did anything to deserve his fate.

If God is good, and God is powerful, and if God is loving, how can an infant die? Why do the innocent suffer?

We can’t answer the theodicy question. But we’re going to wrestle with it a bit this morning, because I don’t think the reality of suffering needs to destroy our faith in God.

Adam Hamilton writes,

“Doubts about God often arise when our experiences in life do not align with our expectations of God. Suffering often leads us to ask questions about the things we’ve been taught, or simply assumed, about what God does, and how faith works.

When life does not align with our assumptions about God, we can lose faith altogether. So let’s examine some of the assumptions Christians and non-Christians often make about God and how God is and is not at work in our world.”

Sometimes people assume God will protect us from harm if we have faith—or if we have enough faith. Think about Scripture passages like Psalm 91, which says, “Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”

That’s a beautiful statement of faith, but if you go through life thinking nothing bad will happen to you because you’re a Christian, well, let me know how that’s working out for you.

Isn’t it interesting that that’s one of the verses the devil quotes to Jesus, trying to convince him to jump off the temple to prove he’s the Son of God? Have enough faith and nothing bad will come to you!

But bad things happen to faithful, Christian people all the time! Jesus himself was arrested and put to death. He suffered on the cross. And it’s not because he didn’t have enough faith.

We don’t get to judge people by saying if they had more faith they wouldn’t suffer. And we don’t have to carry the weight of thinking everything is our fault because we don’t have enough faith. Faith doesn’t protect us from suffering.

Another assumption we sometimes make is to assume suffering is a punishment from God. And again, there are Bible passages to point to.

Proverbs 3:12 says, “The Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” I’m a father to two kids, and because I love them, I do discipline them.

This week we’ve been working a lot on if you throw a toy, you don’t get to play with that toy anymore for a while. And that feels like suffering in the moment. Or sometimes you need to take a break from something you want to do if you’re not following the rules. I might even raise my voice.

But I don’t hit my kids. I don’t hurt them as a way of disciplining them. God’s character is love, mercy, and justice. Scripture talks about God’s lovingkindness over and over.

Sometimes, yes, the Bible does describe suffering and tragedy as a punishment from God. A big part of the Hebrew Scriptures is the prophets warning the people that if they keep going on the path they’re on, if they keep rebelling against God, they’ll be sent into exile.

But at the same time, the whole story of Job is an argument against the idea that all suffering is God’s punishment. The very first verse of Job says he was “Blameless and upright…feared God and turned away from evil.” Job’s suffering is clearly not a punishment for his sin.

In today’s Gospel reading, someone asks Jesus about a tragedy that’s happened. A group of Galileans were killed by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and then as a deliberate religious attack to add insult to injury, their blood was mingled with their sacrifices.

That’s certainly sinful on Pilate’s part. It’s evil. But the people aren’t asking about Pilate’s sin; they’re asking if these Galileans did something to deserve what happened to them, and Jesus says no. They weren’t worse sinners than all other Galileans.

Then he brings up another example: What about a group of 18 people, killed when a tower fell on them? No, Jesus says, they didn’t deserve to die that way any more than anyone else did. We could say the same thing about so many tragedies today, victims of earthquakes or car crashes or cancer.

If what’s happening to them is punishment for sin, then we all deserve it and the question becomes why is God so unfair as to spare some of us from punishment.

But again, we need to let go of the assumption that God’s goal is to punish us. God offers forgiveness; God offers grace. And when God disciplines, it’s going to be consistent with God’s grace and love. Ultimately, Jesus bears the punishment for human sin, not us. The cross is the proof of God’s love.

So if God’s not causing suffering, why do bad things happen? Can we let God off the hook?

Sometimes, we can come up with good explanations for disasters. From a faith perspective, we know some tragedies do happen because of sin. When there’s a shooting, we can point to the sin of the shooter.

That doesn’t explain why one person survives and another dies, but there’s at least a reason why the tragedy happened.

Or when Jesus talks about a tower collapsing – if that happened today, perhaps there’d be a wrongful death lawsuit. Maybe the contractor cut some corners, didn’t let the mortar set long enough. We don’t need to blame God for human shortcomings.

Even natural disasters are sometimes explainable. We say God is in control, or as insurance policies put it, sometimes there are “acts of God” but Genesis 1 says God has given us humans control over an awful lot of things. We are told to fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over creation.

As Hamilton says, “What a terrible risk God took in giving humans the authority to rule over the earth, to manage this planet, and one another.” We see that risk in wars, famines, sometimes in wildfires caused by human actions, caused or exacerbated by broken systems and systemic failures. Our actions and inactions have consequences.

Psalm 139 says our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelously designed. But they can be abused. If I smoke, is it God’s fault if I get lung cancer?

But even if I ate much healthier than I actually do, bodies aren’t made to last forever. God doesn’t cause cancers or dementia. Bodies wear out. Maybe that part is God’s fault, but that’s the world God made.

Sometimes bad things happen. That does not mean they’re God’s will. That gets tricky, because as I said last week, nothing can stop God from ultimately accomplishing God’s will. God’s will, God’s eventual plan for the redemption of the world is going to be done whether we’re faithful or not.

I can’t tell you exactly how to reconcile our free will with God’s cosmic plan, other than to say I believe eventually all theological questions come down to free will. As the Psalmist says, God’s thoughts are too deep for me to comprehend. I don’t get it.

But I’m ok living with some mystery, and accepting God set up a world that allows for both random beauty and random destruction. Everything does not happen for a reason. Not everything has a purpose.

And yet, God does act in the world. Romans 8:28 talks about all things working together for good. That does not mean all things are good. That does not mean God causes every specific thing to happen.

But it does mean God can bring good out of evil. God can tie together threads to make a beautiful design. Sometimes we can look back and see God at work.

And God promises to be present with us when we go through times of suffering. Psalm 139 says, “If I go to the farthest ends of the earth, God is still there with me. If I go up in the heavens, or down into the depths of the earth, or to the farthest limits of the sea, ‘even there [God’s] hand shall lead me, and [God’s] right hand hold me fast.’”

The Christian story is all about God coming to be with us. God enters into this world in the person of Jesus Christ, coming to be with us in this world, in this beautiful, broken, chaotic world.

When Jesus ascends into heaven, he promises us the gift of the Holy Spirit to be our comforter, our encourager. We live that out as a community of faith, supporting one another in times of need.

That’s why we have funerals, why we have prayer chains, why we’re gathered here today as the Body of Christ.

Hear the promise of faith: If you’re going through a tough time today, you are not alone. God is with you. Your siblings in Christ are with you. And God will never abandon you.

Most importantly, God promises suffering will end. Death and pain don’t get the last word. We talked a few weeks ago about the promise of heaven, the promise of eternal life, the promise that this world is not all there is.

Hamilton writes, “Christ’s resurrection at Easter is God’s ultimate rebuttal to suffering—to evil, hate, sin, sickness, cruelty, tragedy, and death. These do not have the final word. The final word belongs to love and life and joy and peace that come from God.” “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God.” We know the end of the story, even if the journey is rough.

As Christians, we don’t deny the reality of suffering—and no one would believe us if we did. Suffering is real. Whether or not we blame God, whether or not we believe in God, this world is broken.

But we choose to live in the light of the resurrection. We have a hope to hold on to, a hope to share with our neighbors in their times of suffering. And as we live for a while in the mystery, we work to make this world a little less broken, in Jesus’ name.

And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen

Read more of this sermon series:
– Part one: Is There a God?
– Part two: The Good Book?
– Part three: Who’s In and Who’s Out?
– Part four: Why Do the Innocent Suffer?
– Part five: Does Prayer Work?