What would you do if you were God? This sermon explores why God doesn’t always pull us out of suffering — and why that’s actually an act of love. Drawing from Matthew 16 and the lives of Job, Joseph, David, and Jesus, we discover that faith is forged in the furnace of pain, and that confessing Jesus as Lord means trusting him even when it hurts.

What If You Were God?

Imagine for a moment that you held the power of God. How would you handle the world’s suffering? Would you rescue people from pain? Most of us would. And yet — that impulse, however compassionate it feels, would cheat the world of some of its greatest stories of faith.

I Would Have Pulled Them Out

Consider the pattern throughout Scripture:

• Job — I would have pulled him out of suffering, and cheated millions of a portrait of perseverance under impossible pain.
• Joseph — I would have pulled him from the pit and the prison, and the world would never have seen how God turns betrayal into purpose.
• David — I would have rescued him from Saul’s madness, and the Psalms — those deep, honest prayers wrestled from darkness — would never have been written.
• Jesus — I would have pulled him off the cross, and cheated the world of a Saviour and of eternity itself.

God didn’t pull them out. He held them through it — and used it.

Who Do You Say I Am? (Matthew 16)

In Caesarea Philippi — a city surrounded by temples to pagan gods, with the very “Gates of Hades” carved into the hillside — Jesus asked his disciples the question that still confronts us today: “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered boldly: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” On that confession — that Jesus is Lord — the church is built. Not just on Sundays. Every day.

When Jesus is Lord Gets Complicated

Immediately after Peter’s great confession, Jesus announces he must go to Jerusalem to suffer, be rejected, and be crucified. Peter rebukes him: “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

Jesus responds sharply: “Get behind me, Satan. You do not have the mind of God, but merely human concerns.”

Peter’s love for Jesus became a stumbling block — because he was offering a shortcut around suffering. Jesus refused every shortcut, including those offered during his own temptation in the wilderness. There are no easy paths in the kingdom of God.

Taking Up the Cross

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save their life will lose it; whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24–25)

Confessing Jesus as Lord is more than a moment at baptism. It is a daily decision — to live differently at work, at school, with neighbours, in suffering. Even an atheist, watching from the outside, noticed: Christians carry a peace that cannot be found anywhere else.

Wrestling Like Peter

We all wrestle. We ask why we must go through suffering, buried in waves of pain and uncertainty. Those prayers are real and appropriate. But the deeper question is: do we want a way out of suffering, or do we want to truly see and meet Jesus in the suffering? There is a difference. And it is in the wrestling that faith grows deepest.

What God Has Actually Done

The answer to every “I would have” is found in what God did do. He gave Adam and Eve a choice — and when they made the wrong one, he provided a solution through generations of redemptive history, culminating in the cross. He did not take the easy road. He sent his Son, allowed him to suffer, and allowed him to die — so that we could have salvation.

So now the question becomes: not “I would have”, but “I will surrender” — because of what Jesus has done.