Sermons/Discussions

“Why Christians Suffer: Part 5”

Sermon: Epiphany 3 year A

The Rev. Matt Kennedy

The Church of the Good Shepherd

This morning I'm going to return to the series we started before Christmas on the purpose of suffering in the life of the believer. If you'll remember we stopped right before I had the chance to lay out the fourth of three principles that apply to all Christian suffering. As you can see in your insert the first three principles are: 1. Suffering is never random. God has a plan for your life and sometimes suffering is part of that plan. 2. We said that Suffering is always intended for your good. In fact the benefits that flow out of suffering are greater than if you'd never suffered at all. 3. Suffering in the life of the believer is either for the purpose of discipline or for the purpose of discipleship. And in my last two sermons I gave some ways you can know which is which (i.e. when you're being disciplined and/or when you're being trained). This morning I want to lay out the fourth principle. This one is going to be the most counterintuitive of the four. In fact, it defies logic. But the scriptures and the experience of countless believers, some of us in this room included, tell us that it's true: Suffering in the life of the believer is designed and intended by God to produce joy.

I'm basing this principle on many texts but the primary one is found in Romans chapter 5 verses 1-5, if you have your bible with you please turn there or grab one from the pew. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

"Not only so but we rejoice in our sufferings." This is very similar to what James says in James chapter 1:2, "Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds." James, like Paul in Romans also goes on to say that we should rejoice because suffering produces perseverance which ends, he says in a kind of maturity that makes believers, "complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:4)

According to both apostles then, not only can believers rejoice, experience joy, in the middle of suffering but suffering produces or results ultimately in a state of joy.

Before I go on I should make a distinction between happiness and joy. Most people use those words interchangeably, but they aren't interchangeable. You can have great joy and not be happy. And you can be very happy, and have no joy. When I came downstairs on Christmas morning when I was six years old and saw a whole pile of presents waiting under the tree; I was happy. When I was sixteen and I woke up on my birthday and saw that my dad had given me a new car; I was happy. When I had to quit my highschool basketball team because I injured my ankle and got to work instead as the cheerleader manager; I was happy. When I graduated from high-school and got accepted to college; I was happy. But in each of these cases, that feeling that we call happiness only lasted for a short time. After a while the novelty of the gift, the thrill of being able to lift heavy things for pretty girls or my interest in the studies wore thin and I was no longer happy. Happiness is a feeling. It comes and it goes because it is based on things that come and go.

Joy is not a feeling. You can feel it, but It's not a feeling. It is much deeper than that. Joy doesn't come, usually, from things that pass quickly. It comes from things that last. Families, friendships, marriages. Emma and Aedan bring me joy. They don't always make me happy, but they do bring my life joy. My relationship to Anne brings me joy. We're not always happy with each other, but we do have joy. Joy is a lasting and pervading sense of peace and security that's not subject to the ups and downs of circumstances. Happiness is tied to circumstances, joy is not. Joy is tied to things, people, relationships that last.

That's why the deepest and greatest source of human joy is God. God is eternal. Jesus, God the Son, is eternal. He died once, he'll never die again. And God is personal. He is not a thing or an object to be studied or handled, he's a Personal God who not only knows you like your friends, family, children and spouse knows you, but if you accept him as your Lord and Savior, he sets up his home in the very deepest parts of your soul. And once he's there, he'll never leave you or forsake you. Whether you're rejected by the whole world or loved, God will be with you. Whether you're popular and well-liked, or isolated and alone, God will be with you; neither life nor death nor Satan himself can separate believers from the love of God. God is personal and God is eternal.

That's the joy, he's the joy, that all people on earth desire but only believers know. As Paul says "since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." (5:1-2)

But then Paul goes on to say that believers, not only have joy in our relationship with God, the "grace in which we stand," and joy in the fact that that relationship will last forever, "the sure hope of the glory of God," but we also rejoice, experience joy, in our sufferings; suffering is not in itself joyful, yet the fact that God is there in your heart pouring out his comfort and giving you this core sense of peace and security results in joy even in the middle of suffering. Not happiness, but joy.

And that sense of joy only increases the more suffering you experience. Look back at the passage and let's walk through it: in verse 3. "Suffering" Paul says "produces perseverance" which is the ability to bear up, to stand firm, under pain. The more you suffer, the more you're able to bear suffering. That's perseverance.

"Perseverance [produces or reveals] character," suffering strips away the unnecessary, the dross, and reveals your core, your heart. If you have Jesus Christ living there, then the suffering in your life only serves to make his life more visible in yours. Suffering makes the Christian more Christlike. As Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, we're like clay jars full of gold. The more we're cracked and broken, the more the treasure inside of us, Christ, is revealed and established. Christian character becomes more evident and more firmly established through suffering.

"And character" Paul says, "[produces or results in] hope". He's talking about a particular kind of hope; a hope that only a believing Christian can have; the sure hope that comes to you after you've been to the very depths of suffering and pain and realized that there's a bottom, that there's an end, that the Power of God living in you is more powerful than the pain in the world and that despite that pain you have Christ and you'll live with him now on this earth and in glory forever and ever.

"Hope" as Paul says, does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Suffering produces joy because suffering clarifies the core truth of our faith, that in Jesus Christ, God himself has come and made his home in our hearts. And that home is a stronghold and a fortress that will never fall. As Jesus says, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world."

I remember my life getting to the point where things were completely unbearable. It started off small. First my girlfriend, actually my fiancee, the joy of my life, went to France and got hooked up with some guy named Jacques. Well, I said to myself, I can't trust women, I'll have to just look to my family. That's the only thing I can really count on in this life, people related to me by blood. And I began to find a little joy. About a month later, I get a call from my mom who tells me through tears that my dad is leaving her and they're going to get a divorce. My family, my bedrock was crumbling.* I decided at that point that the only person in this world I could rely on and trust was me. I tried for several years to live for myself and to myself. I did what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it and I didn't let myself care about anyone more than I cared about myself. Probably the saddest moment of my life came when I realized finally in that pit, that I was not enough. My inner core was revealed and there was nothing there. If I was all I had, then I really had nothing.

It was then that Jesus, whom I had known about but never known, began to make his way into my life. I'll never forget the moment I knelt down and asked him to come into my heart. It was as if suddenly there was someone else there. That empty void that had come to cause me so much despair was no longer empty. God made his home in my heart. The painful circumstances in my life continued to be painful. It was not a happy time. But there was a new strength in the core of my heart that made the pain not only bearable but allowed me to experience joy for the first time in my life.

Since then, each trial and each experience of suffering has resulted in a growing recognition that the One who lives in me is more powerful than the world. Through Jesus Christ I avoid the depths of despair and experience not happiness but a joy that increases with each painful trial as Jesus' power becomes more evident in my weakness. I'm far from alone in this. Joy in suffering, this fourth principle, is the common experience of every believer from the Apostles on down to this day, to you and I in this room. In this present life that well of joy, while increasing, is always paired with suffering. One day, the bible tells us, Jesus will return and establish and new heaven and a new earth and sin and suffering and death will be no more and this joy inside of us will well up and overflow unhindered by sorrow. And on that day we'll see that the joy we experience here and now is only a seed of the eternal joy to come.

Until then, if you are not a believer you can try everything this world has to offer, everything, but you'll find, ultimately, that true joy escapes you. There is only one thing, one Person, who can bring joy out of suffering, and bring meaning to the pain in this world. That person is Jesus Christ. With him you have life. Without him you have nothing. AMEN

* They ultimately decided to work it out and today they remain happily married.