Welcome to the sermon podcast of Trinity Church of Portland Oregon. This week, our message is from Hebrews 11:35-37 as well as numerous other scriptures and is titled “Sing For Joy Afflicted Saints” and was preached by our guest preacher, Sean Demars.Our sermon this morning is intended to help us all to be more faithful Christians in the face of affliction through looking at the life and ministry of Paul. There are five primary truths related to affliction that we must remember. We are to expect affliction. We must also expect many kinds of affliction. We can expect fruit to come from our affliction. We must communicate our affliction rather than trying to suffer alone. Finally, we must expect justice for our affliction because God will render exact and perfect justice at the end of the age.
Transcript
Family, it feels somewhat strange to introduce a guest who is so familiar to us that he feels like family. But for those of you who don’t know who our guest is this morning, Sean Dumars, our extended family, I’m just going to give you the 30,000-foot bio. Sean Dumars is a faithful husband and father. He is a faithful friend. He’s a faithful pastor. And he is a faithful preacher. And so, family, would you help me welcome our extended family, Sean Dumars, as he comes and he preaches God’s Word to us. Father, we do thank you for our brother and friend. We pray, O Lord, in God, that as he opens up your Word to us this morning, that you would give us the help of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, to illuminate the text, and to, most importantly, take your truth and push it deep into us, so that today we
would walk away saying, did not our hearts burn within us? So God, we pray that you would speak to us this morning. Speak through our brother and friend, Sean, this morning. In Christ’s name, amen. Amen. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, we really do feel like friends that are as close as family because of this cool relationship the Lord has given our two churches. In light of that, the saints from Sixth Avenue send their warm greetings. I have a Diet Mountain Dew in my hand, because I heard you guys aren’t really big on coffee around here. You’re more soda people. So I just figured I’d try to contextualize. You know, we actually found the mountain that this comes from. It’s in North Alabama. In light of our church’s close relationship and how I do feel like family whenever I’m here, I wanted to give you guys just a little bit of an update about our church and about
my personal family. So many of you know that our church burned on the first of this year, and we’re still not back in there. The insurance company is trying to short us about a million dollars, and it is not a fun thing to try to get that out of them. So if you can be praying for Sixth Avenue Community Church, pray that the Lord’s will come to pass. When we first got there seven years ago, the church didn’t have the gospel, but we had a building. Now we have the gospel, and we have no building. That’s infinitely to be preferred, you know? So I think overall we’re doing okay. Secondly, our family has been trying to adopt and foster for the last five years, and the Lord seems to have shut every door. On my way up here, my wife texted me and said, we may have a baby within a month.
So be praying for that, that the Lord’s will would come to pass, and that He would do what He deems right there. Yeah, thank you so much. We’re going to have some Bible verses that are going to be showing on the screen behind me. This is somewhat atypical in my preaching, and I’m thinking in your preaching too, Thomas, right? But a lot of those verses are going to be there, is because we’re going to be doing a lot of.. Listen, you.. Who here did Awanas? Do you remember Awanas? Right? Okay, so some of y’all. You got the crown with all the jewels. Some of y’all might be like the Bible Samurais, and you can flip to some obscure passage in Zechariah like really quickly, but I think it would probably just be easier for us to track by reading the scripture on the wall behind us as we go along.
Expect Affliction
So let’s start by reading Hebrews chapter 11, verses 35 through 37.
Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated.
— Hebrews 11
(ESV)
My aim in this sermon is a simple one. I would like to, by God’s grace, help us all to be more faithful Christians in the midst of affliction. My aim in this sermon is to help us be more faithful Christians in the midst of affliction. In order to do that, we’re going to look at the life of Paul. We’re going to look at the life and the ministry of Paul, and we’re going to look at the way that he handled affliction.
We could have gone other places in scripture. We could have certainly looked at the life of Jesus, and we are somewhat going to look at the life of Jesus. We could have looked at the life of Job. We could have gone many places, but I think Paul’s ministry is particularly clear in the way that it expresses affliction in the New Testament. It’s like you get a front row seat for what it looks like to be a minister of Christ and suffer for the sake of his name. So we’re going to be looking at a portrait of Paul, and we’re just going to be digging into God’s word. I know this is a topical sermon. I was expecting to hear some boos there. I don’t know. Thomas is a faithful expositor. I’m expositional preaching all day. That should be the normal steady diet of the church, but occasional topical sermons are
actually really good and useful, so that’s what this is going to be. I have five points for you if you are a note taker. Here they are. Point number one, expect affliction. Point number two, expect many kinds of affliction. Point number three, expect the fruit of affliction. And this one kills me. I wish I could have gotten an expect on this, but I couldn’t make the alliteration work. Point number four, communicate your affliction. If I would have sent this to Thomas in advance, he could have got me. Express your affliction. Dang it, man. It didn’t even take, did you see that? It didn’t even take him a half a second. I literally thought for like 20 minutes, give me an E, Lord, give me an E. And then finally, point number five, expect justice for your affliction. Point number one, expect affliction. The Bible, church history, my own experience, they all bear witness over and over and over
again that affliction is part and parcel of gospel ministry. Now listen, don’t tune me out. When I say gospel ministry, I’m not just referring to the official clergy of the church. If you are a saint of God, you have a ministry. You have been given the keys of the kingdom as members of the church. You’re called to serve one another. You’re called to evangelize a lost and dying world. You’re called to bear witness to the light, to be the salt and light. You have a ministry. So what I’m saying is, is that scripture, church history, my own experience, your experience, they all bear witness over and over again to the idea that gospel ministry will always come with affliction. And yet, every single time I experience affliction, I am genuinely surprised by it. You know, I am what theologians call an idiot. Like I just can’t get it through my thick skull.
Listen to this verse. This verse is the kind of verse that I need to like tattoo on the inside of my eyelids so that I can just see it every time I close my eyes. Listen, 1 Peter 4, 12, Beloved, do not be surprised. You hear that, Sean? Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Peter says, don’t be surprised. It’s not strange. It’s normal. And then it happens to me and I’m like, I’m so surprised. This is not at all normal. And maybe you are the same way. Maybe when you’re slandered, you’re surprised. When you’re abandoned, you’re surprised. When you’re accused or insulted for the name of Jesus, you’re surprised. When your own sin leads you into affliction, you’re surprised. When your health afflicts you, when family issues afflict you, you’re surprised.
So here in point one, I just want to give you the wisdom of Bob Newhart. If you’re under 50, you may not even know who I’m talking about. You know, he has this really great way of giving people counsel on how to avoid things that are going to cause them pain. It’s so wise. He says, stop it. Just stop it. So like, if you are surprised and caught off guard by affliction, just stop it. It just, it has been promised to you. The path to glory, according to the upside down calculus of the kingdom of heaven, requires you to pass through the corridor of affliction all the way through the final door leading through death and then out into light. But you don’t get to skip that. There’s no fast forward button through the affliction. Here’s how the psalmist says it. Psalm 34 and 19.
Yeah, it’s up there. Good job, guys. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, many, not few, not God. I had a really hard childhood, so I think I’ve kind of filled up my affliction quota for this life. And it’s not for the unrighteous. It’s for the righteous. I love the way Paul talks about affliction in Acts chapter 20. He doesn’t just have a theology of affliction, but he has received a direct revelation from the Lord about his own affliction, as if God were whispering in his ear, hey, Paul, listen, buddy, I love you. Okay, I called you. You’re going to serve me. It’s going to be incredible. You’re going to be so thankful. But I do want you to know that affliction is going to be waiting for you around every turn in this journey. This is what it says, Acts 20, 23. The Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction await me.
Affliction was not something that caught Paul off guard. Now, you might be thinking, well, the Holy Spirit hasn’t whispered in my ear. Well, no, but the canon is closed. You have God’s word. You receive good teaching. You can just see it all over the New Testament. Just because he was an apostle does not make him unique. Affliction awaits us at every turn. We must not be surprised. I love the way Paul uses the language of destiny when speaking about affliction as he writes to the Thessalonians. He says this, for you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you, it’s not like he told him once, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction just as it has come to pass and just as you know. Now, I’m about to repeat myself again for like the third time, but to repeat myself
Many Kinds of Affliction
is no problem for me and it’s beneficial for you. Expect affliction. The student is not greater than his teacher. The disciple is not greater than his master. If Jesus suffered affliction and if Paul suffered affliction and if the psalmist suffered affliction and if Abraham and Isaac and Jacob suffered affliction, if all the saints of God throughout all the annals of church history have suffered affliction for the name of God, do not suppose that you will not suffer affliction, that you will somehow be the one to avoid this. Point number two, expect many kinds of affliction. They say that the punch that hurts the worst is the one that you least expect. When enemies of the gospel afflict us because we are championing the name of Jesus, because we’re carrying out the great commission, when they afflict us, it hurts. I’m not going to say it doesn’t hurt, it hurts.
But there’s something about it that you expected, you knew, you saw it was coming, it’s just part and parcel of the Christian life and you’re like, yeah, of course people who hate Jesus are going to afflict me because I love Jesus and I’m trying to get them to trust in Jesus. That just feels normal, but what do you do, how do you feel when affliction does not come from the world, but it comes from within the church? When it’s not the enemy who afflicts you, when it’s the friend, when it’s not the sinner or the pagan, but it’s the Christian. Paul had to deal with this in his own ministry. This is how he put it in Philippians 1.17. He says the former proclaim Christ, these are preachers. They proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
Paul says that there are these guys out there and like their whole mission in the preaching of the gospel is to bring me pain. Do you have a category for this? Do you have a category for a saint in your denomination, in your city, in your family, maybe even in your own church? I’m not trying to create an atmosphere of suspicion. I’m trying to create an atmosphere of realism. Do you have a category of a saint in your denomination, in your city, in your church who might somehow, some way use ministry or a ministry platform to afflict you? If you’re a younger Christian in this room and this has not happened to you yet, let me just go ahead and get out in front of this. I promise you it will. I promise. 100%. Listen, if you make it to the end of your life and I’m wrong about this, I’ll be happy
to hear and I told you so. I just don’t think it’s going to happen. This is going to happen and when it does, it’s going to be a very strange experience. But at least you’ll have a category for it. Let me be clear, having a category for it doesn’t make it hurt any less. You know, it’s like, I remember getting ready to go be a missionary. Where we were going was going to be really hard for like 50 different reasons. And I was doing a lot of studying on the sovereignty of God and suffering, you know? And then we got down to the mission field and like in the first week, my daughter almost died of a fever. I got malaria. A whole bunch of crazy things happened. We uncovered a pedophile ring a little bit later. We got kicked out of our village. Our teammates went home and it hurt so bad.
And I remember thinking, it shouldn’t hurt like this. I have all the theology. Friends, the theology doesn’t take the pain away. It just gives you the ability to endure the pain for the glory of Christ and for the sake of the Great Commission. Now let’s go deeper. Let’s get a little more complex. Not only do you need to have a category for different kinds of affliction, like it may come from someone who’s supposed to be a friend in the church. What if the affliction that comes your way comes to you via Satan under the sovereign control of God? This is a little bit of a lengthier passage. If you want to turn there, you’re welcome to. It’s still going to be on the board behind me or on the wall. It’s 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 7 through 10. Paul says, Paul is, of course, speaking of these special revelations he received from the Lord.
He says, That language of harassment is the language of affliction. And Paul says, it’s from Satan. Satan is harassing me. Satan is afflicting me. And we all go, well, yeah, duh. That’s kind of his MO. He hates God. He wants to attack God. He hates us. We’re created in the image of God. We’ve been called by the name of Christ. We literally have the name of God as our name. He hates us. Of course, he’s going to harass us. But then he says this, to keep me from becoming conceited. Okay, that doesn’t make sense. Why would Satan send a messenger to keep Paul from being conceited? Paul wants, I mean, Satan wants Paul more than anything to be conceited. Well, then he says this, Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. Now why would he plead with the Lord?
But God said to me, he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. So it seems like Paul understands this affliction to be from Satan. Yes. Don’t want to change that in any way or compromise it. But it seems that he understands God to be superintending this. God is using Satan to create humility in Paul so that he can be maximally effective for the sake of the gospel. And then Paul says this. Okay. In light of that, God, in light of your sovereign plans for my suffering, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ. Then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong friends. I hope you believe in a sovereign God, completely sovereign, a hundred percent sovereign, not
The Fruit of Affliction
halfway sovereign, which by the way, doesn’t exist. It’s like a square circle or a single bachelor. I hope you believe in a 100% God who is superintending your afflictions for your good. Point number three, expect the fruit of affliction. This point is very simple. Picking up where we left off in second Corinthians 12, I want you to see that your affliction is a grace that is going to make you a more faithful, more fruitful, more humble, more holy Christian. We all listened to that JC Ryle quote at the beginning of the service. When Thomas read that, I was like, once again, Thomas has shown me something that I needed in my sermon that I did not realize. I mean, he captured more eloquently than I ever could. What I just said, your affliction is a grace that is going to make you a more fruitful,
more faithful, more humble, more holy Christian. Consider Paul’s logic in second Corinthians chapter one, verse six. He says this, if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. And then he goes on to say in the same, in the same pericope, the same chunk of texts that is only by receiving comfort in the midst of our affliction that we are then equipped to comfort others in the midst of their affliction. Do you see that? If it is your job description as a Christian to comfort other Christians who are in affliction, Paul says, then you yourself need to pass through affliction and be comforted by God. That’s how you train that muscle. Because God wants you to be able to love your brothers and sisters in Christ well in the midst of their affliction, he allows you to go through affliction and then he comforts
you perfectly. And then you go, okay, I think I get it. Now let me try to do for others, Lord, what you have done for me. In second Corinthians chapter four, verse 12, Paul says this. So death is at work in us, but life in you, friends, this is like the Christian ministry in a nutshell. Death is at work in us. Life is in you, mom. Do you understand how this relates to your mothering? You literally give of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, you could say those the same thing, spiritually. There’s a part of you that dies as you give yourself to your children. That’s gospel ministry. That’s the way it goes. You literally give of yourself. Dad, same thing, church members, same thing, pastors, same thing, missionaries, same thing. I didn’t have dengue fever when I got to the jungle, but I got it so that I could serve
those who were there who needed the gospel. Do you see what I’m saying? Death is at work in us. Spiritual death, mental death, not like you’re going to lose your salvation, but there’s a sense in which you die to yourself. You take up your cross and you die. Spiritual death, mental death, physical death, that is at work in us so that those whom we love in Christ might live. Deacons suffer. Pastors suffer. Church members suffer. Missionaries suffer. Deacons suffer for the sake of others. Or consider this angle. Consider how suffering makes you a more obedient saint. Listen to David, the shepherd king, in Psalm 119. Before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now I keep your word. How did this affliction help David to keep the word of the Lord? I think the answer is that it gave him a better, deeper, truer understanding of God’s word.
I think you see this in Psalm 119, verse 71, just a few verses later. He says, it is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. What the psalmist is saying is that there is a sense in which I cannot, in this body of death, on this side of heaven, in this fallen world, fully learn the statutes of God unless God uses affliction to massage the truth of those statutes down into my bones. There’s something about affliction that takes our understanding of God’s word and it moves it from superficial to profound. From intellectual to experiential. There’s a family in my church, and I’m going to try not to cry when I tell you this. The husband was a nominal Lutheran. The wife was a Christian, but she had just been living a very, very, very superficial Christian life. She was at a squishy church.
She had never received any discipleship. And then all three of their children died. And he got saved. And now her whole life is consumed with Christ. Christ used to be what she had time for if there were any time left over for the things that really matter. And now Christ is all of her life. It is good for her that she was afflicted, that she might learn your statutes. You might be wondering, if she were here, would she say the same thing? Oh, you better believe it. You better believe it. She would jump up here and she would say, it was only through this great and terrible, awful affliction that I never would have wanted in a million years that I came to see the truth of God’s word experientially at a deeper, profound gospel level. Affliction is the means by which God massages the truth, the true truth of his word down
into our souls. This psalm, of course, written by the shepherd king, it points us forward to the true and better king, the final shepherd king, Jesus. And would you believe it, that the Bible says that Jesus also learned obedience through affliction. Not in the same way that sinners do, but as a human, it says in Hebrews 5, 8, this, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. So if David and Paul and Jesus learned obedience through affliction, friends, how much more will you? So let me say it again, because to repeat myself is no problem for me and it’s beneficial for you. Your affliction, your God ordained affliction will make you a stronger, healthier, happier, holier Christian. It will help you to be a better comforter. It will help you to be more tender in your exercise of authority. It will make you more humble and sympathetic to those who are suffering.
Communicate Your Affliction
It will make you more obedient and it will deepen your experiential understanding of God’s word and so much more. Friends, we should be able to say, God, I thank you for your affliction in my life. Point number four, communicate your affliction, communicate your affliction. We’ve done a lot of theologies so far and that’s good, it’s necessary, it kind of lays the foundation. Now let’s try to get practical, okay? I have, I think, seven sub-points for you. These are going to be fairly quick. Point number one, communicate your affliction. This one’s pretty simple, don’t be a stoic. This can happen with women, but men, I’m really, really talking to you right now. Do not be a stoic. Don’t think that the only way to handle suffering and pain in this life is to deaden it, to mute it. That, my friends, is not at all biblical.
Let me say it another way, do not hide your suffering. Do not be the couple in the church or the member of the church who only shares about their suffering after you’ve come out the other side of it. I just want to bear witness to the Lord. We kept it a secret and we fought it on our own for years and then he finally delivered us. Okay, well, praise God, but you know, you didn’t have to do that. And you did choose the harder route. And you may not have succeeded like you did if it wasn’t for the grace and kindness of God to you in your pride. My all-time favorite comedian is a guy named Norm MacDonalds, you’ve probably never heard of him. Norm MacDonald died of cancer a few years ago and he didn’t tell anyone that he had cancer before he died.
No one, no one but his son, no one knew. He’s very famous, had lots of friends, Chris Rock, David Spade, all these guys, didn’t tell anyone. After he died, his friend said, this was classic Norm MacDonald. This was his perfect final bit. Maybe they’re right. Maybe that was genius for Norm MacDonald, but for the Christian, hiding our affliction is not an option. And I’m going to show you that from scripture. Listen to the way that Paul writes to the church at Corinth. He says, for we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction that we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. So men, let me speak to you for a moment. There might be a masculine impulse in you that is more carnal than biblical that says, I need to play my afflictions close to the chest.
I can’t let people see me in my weakness like this. I can’t let them see me suffer. That is not a biblical vision of authority and leadership. Note here that Paul does not merely communicate his affliction. He communicates it at length. He communicates it fully. He says we were utterly burdened. I just got through reading with my children, a book about a guy in a POW camp, Louie Zamparini. The book is Unbroken. Have you heard of that? All these POWs, they would write home and they would say, things are great here. Don’t worry about me, mom and dad. Okay, I can understand why you might want to do that. You don’t want your family to worry, but that’s not what Paul does here. He says, I don’t want you to be unaware. I want you to be aware. I want you to know that we are afflicted and he doesn’t sugarcoat it.
He says we were utterly burdened. He says we were despairing of life itself. Consider perhaps as a further rebuke to your Stoicism, Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 7, for even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn, fighting without fear within. Guys, he says we were afraid. We were afraid. There’s something in us that says, if I’m a leader, I can’t communicate fear. I have to lead from a position of strength. Friends, being dishonest is not a position of strength. Paul has zero qualms with saying we were utterly exhausted and terrified in the midst of our affliction. He doesn’t think, oh, well, now people aren’t going to follow me. They’re not going to listen to me if I communicate these things. When my family was on the mission field, we would send home newsletters and we tried to,
in these newsletters, try to give people a well-balanced update about our lives. So we would share the good things and we would share the hard things. We would share about the dysentery and the parasites and being kicked out of the village and all these other things. And on more than one occasion, we had some friends who received these letters write us and say, hey, maybe tone down some of that stuff. You don’t need to share all the afflictions that you guys are going through. And I would just say, oh, how come? And they would say, well, it’s just not a good look, you know. You want to lead with the positive things that God is doing as if the affliction were somehow outside of God’s sovereign plan for our missionary work. And so I would just say, you know, I think I’m just going to do what I see in the New
Testament, you know. Point number two, communicate confidently. Point number one was communicate your affliction. Point number two, communicate confidently. Going back to Psalm 3419, we only read the first half of that verse. Here’s how the second half of the verse goes. We’ll read it all though. It says, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Out of them all. Not some of them, not halfway deliverance, all of them. Or listen to how Paul says it in Philippians 119. This is a heck of a thing for a guy who’s in chains, who’s about to go to Rome and be executed. This is a heck of a thing for him to write and for God to preserve for us in his holy word. For I know, not, Oh, well, you know, maybe I hope the Lord might, it could possibly know.
For I know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. Now it is crucially important here, brothers and sisters, that you understand what Paul means when he says deliverance, because it may not be what you think it means. When Paul means when he says deliverance, he does not mean that he will necessarily survive this imprisonment. You know that because just a few verses later in verses 20 and 21 of the same chapter, it says this, Paul writes, it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, listen, whether by life or by death, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. So according to Paul’s understanding of deliverance, he can very much die at the hands of the Roman
empire and still be delivered. And if you’re thinking, well, that doesn’t sound like much of a deliverance, then you just don’t know what he means when he says to die is gain. In other words, Paul says, even if I die, I will, in my death, bear witness to the glory and majesty and supremacy of Christ in the gospel, and my mission will be fulfilled. That is deliverance. That is confidence. Subpoint number three, communicate hope. This one’s a little different than the communicate confidently point. The point about communicating confidently, that’s about like the pathos or like the emotion of your communication. This is more about the logos or like the logic of your communication. Here’s how Paul communicates hope in second Corinthians four, verses eight and nine. He says, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed.
Just a few verses later, starting in verse 16, he says this, so we do not lose heart. That’s the language of hope. We don’t lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day. And then he says one of the most audacious things I think in all the New Testament, for this light, momentary affliction. What do you mean light, Paul? What do you mean shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, naked, hungry, enemies from within, enemies with the Gentiles, enemies wherever you go, persecuted in every possible way that you could imagine, this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us in eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. Oh, Paul has a logic to his hope and we should too. Point number four, communicate dependence.
As you are communicating confidently and hopefully and cautiously, please be clear that your confidence is not in yourself. When you communicate your confidence, be clear that your confidence is not in yourself. Or to say it another way, don’t make yourself the hero of your own story. You ever met anybody like that? Whenever you’re talking about ministry stuff, somehow it always comes back to them and what they’ve done and how they’ve served people and what they’ve had. It’s just such a photo negative of the way these conversations are supposed to go. You know, you should be communicating that you are utterly dependent on the Lord. Going back one more time to Psalm 34, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Who delivers? The Lord. Not the government, not educational institutions, not your favorite preacher or podcaster. The Lord.
Well, listen to the way Paul says it in 1 Thessalonians 1, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit. How were these Thessalonians able to receive the word in the midst of affliction with any semblance of joy? Paul says it’s the joy of the Holy Spirit. If you manage to walk through your affliction with joy, do not assume that you just have this wellspring that’s naturally flowing up out of your own heart. If there’s a wellspring of joy in your heart in the midst of affliction, it’s because the Holy Spirit lives in you and he’s supernaturally giving you the ability to do that. Now obviously, friends, we are dependent on God, but scripture also says that we are dependent on one another, and we should make sure that we communicate that as well.
Listen to 2 Corinthians 1, verse 11, so short and sweet. Paul says, you also must help us by prayer. Paul’s not a hyper-Calvinist. He doesn’t say, God’s sovereign, he’s going to deliver me, I don’t really need anybody else, I don’t really need anything else, you know, God’s got me covered. No, Paul understands that God ordains the means as well as the ends. Yes, God is sovereignly going to make sure that the gospel goes out to all the nations, but the way that he’s going to do that is by raising up people to take the gospel to the nations. Yes, of course, God will deliver all of us from our afflictions, but one of the ways that he does that is through the prayers of the saints. And Paul knows that, and he says, hey, guys, listen, we’re going through it, I need your help. It’s one of the reasons why right as I started this sermon, I shared with you two personal
requests from my own life and ministry. I need your help. Your pastors need your help, your deacons need your help, your ministry leaders need your help, your children’s workers, they need your help. If there’s going to be any kind of deliverance through affliction that is going to come their way, they need your help. Guys, prayer in the local church is so important. If you’re here and you’re a visitor, and you were thrown off a little bit by like how long that second prayer was, let me just tell you that in due time, you will come to love that, you will love that prayer more than anything else. I mean, just, brother, thank you so much for leading us in God’s word. I felt so helped by that. And the thing is, when we do that kind of corporate prayer on a Sunday morning in my
church, in this church, and many other churches around the world, we really, truly are helping. Do you believe that? When you pray for a missionary in China, God actually hears you. And He actually delights to listen to your prayer and then to respond and do good in light of what you have requested. Friends, we need God’s help to believe this, that our prayers actually do work, and that God actually uses them to deliver the saints in the midst of their need. Subpoint number five, communicate love. One of the things that you see in Paul’s writing is that, guys, now listen, this is one where if you want to come up to me afterwards and argue this, I could go either way. I think it’s true, that’s why I’m saying it, but it’s more of an intuition after having spent so many years reading Paul, studying the way he interacts with churches.
So I don’t know that I could prove this one as much as I could prove everything else, but I want to try it out with you and you tell me what you think. I think one of the things that you see in Paul’s writing is that the more he is suffering, the more he communicates love. Isn’t this just kind of the natural human experience anyways? I have a buddy, his dad was in the hospital, his dad was super stoic, never really said I loved you, didn’t hug, you know, that kind of thing, and he said that his dad on his deathbed finally grabbed him and said, I love you and I’m proud of you. There’s something about suffering that breaks down the barriers, the unhealthy, unbiblical, sinful barriers that keep us from communicating affection. So there’s something about suffering and affliction that brings those walls down a little bit.
Just listen to the way Paul talks to the Corinthians. The Corinthians, not the Ephesians, not the Thessalonians. This is the church where he’s like, okay, Titus, tell me one more time, what’s happening again? All right, I got to write another letter. You said there’s incest? Incest? They’re not excommunicating people? Wait, wait, you’re telling me that people in this church are denying the resurrection? Church at Corinth. For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you. Here’s how he says it to the Thessalonians. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. To the pastors and aspiring pastors in this room, I hope you talk to your people like
this. I hope you say, I love you. I love you so much. You’re very dear to me. I say I love you to so many people who don’t say it back to me. That’s okay. It’s not going to stop me. Also, this isn’t in my notes, which means I might get in trouble, but let’s go there, huh? When I think about the story of Trinity in light of this verse, I just cannot help but praise God for Thomas Terry. It says we were ready to share not only the gospel with you, but our very own selves. Now, of course, there are other people in this church who have done this. They’ve shared the gospel and they have shared themselves, but I just know Thomas the best and I know what it cost him to walk away from his music career and to come here and to shepherd
this church. Thank you for setting the example for me and for so many other shepherds who know this story to set the example of what it looks like to do this. Thank you, brother. Sub point number six, communicate joy. By joy, I emphatically do not mean manufactured, superficial, easily falsified happiness. I mean joy, unbreakable. You can’t lose it because it’s rooted and grounded in the finished work of Jesus Christ. He went to the cross. He paid the price for our sins. He was buried. He was buried. He was dead for three days. He suffered the wrath of God. He was raised again on the third day. He ascended to the heavens. He’s sitting at the right hand of the father and he has guaranteed that we will make it home to be with him forever. We will, I got to keep it together. We will just bask in the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ forever.
Every tear will be wiped away. No more suffering, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more regret, no more broken relationships, no more addiction, no more slavery, no more prostitution, no more pain. It’s all going to be done. Joy. In Corinthians 7.4, Paul says in all of our affliction, and it is a substantial affliction. If you had a little trouble finding a parking spot this morning, I’m sorry for you, but that’s not what this verse is referencing. In all of our affliction, I am overflowing with joy. I am so worthless at this. I mean, I am just, I read this and I just come under extreme conviction, overflowing with joy. Come on, Paul, help us, Lord. Our joy in the midst of affliction will give our ministry more power than anything else. There is something about somebody who’s going through suffering and yet they have joy in
the midst of that suffering that gives their ministry a supernatural power. You may be looking for like a new resource or like a new way to do this or to do that. And you think, oh, well, maybe this will increase my ministry, ministry efficacy. Maybe, maybe, but maybe not. But the one thing that I guarantee will increase your ministry efficacy, whatever it may be, is the way that you suffer to the glory of God. That has the ability to, to adorn the gospel and to give it power in a way that I can’t even begin to comprehend. You see it in the Bible. First Thessalonians chapter one, verse six, Paul says, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord for you receive the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit. Paul says there was something about the way that you watched me suffer affliction and
joy that then empowered you to suffer affliction with joy. So point number seven, commend yourself. The second Corinthians chapter six, three through eight says this. We put no obstacle in anyone’s way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. As servants of God, we commend ourselves. That is, there is a sense in which you should be able to commend your ministry. It’s not prideful. It’s not boastful. You should be able to stand before the Lord and say, my ministry, whatever it may be your ministry to your children, your ministry as a deacon, whatever your ministry may be, you should be able to say, I can stand before you and say, God gave me this ministry for the good of the church and for the glory of his name. But then listen to what Paul says.
Expect Justice
He says, how do we do is how do we commend our ministry? By great endurance in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labor, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, by genuine love, by truthful speech and the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. Point number five, expect justice for your affliction. This point is going to be very short. One of the ways that you can endure afflictions is by meditating on the promise from God’s word that he will repay with true heavenly justice those who afflict you for walking in righteousness. Second Thessalonians chapter one, verses six through seven, since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.
Friends, I’m not saying this should be the first instinct that you have spiritually when you’re afflicted. Your first impulse when someone afflicts you should not be to be like, God’s going to get them back. Your first instinct should be, how can I love my enemy? How can I serve them? How can I pray for them? Nevertheless, if the affliction persists, if the enemy pursues, you can take comfort that God is a God of justice. Now listen, oh what a precious gospel we have. You were supposed to be the one that God brought vengeance on because you were his enemy. You were at war with him. In many ways, you were afflicting the saints of God. This promise that when Jesus appears that he’s going to be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, you were supposed to be on the other side of his divine sword.
That sword was supposed to bring down the wrath of God on your head. But instead, Jesus was afflicted for you. He suffered the wrath. He went to the cross. He deserved none of the affliction. He deserved all of the blessing. And yet he suffered the greatest affliction that anyone could ever suffer. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He calls that out in identification with the psalmist because that’s what it feels like to suffer the wrath of God. To be cut off from the Father. To be covered in sin. He who knew no sin was made to be sin. Why? So that we might become the righteousness of God. So that we might not have to suffer that eternal affliction. As you’re suffering these temporary afflictions right now, just know one day they’re all going to give way and then there will be no more affliction.
Not because you deserve it, but because Christ has been kind and he took the affliction for you. Friends, if you’re here this morning and you don’t know Jesus, I just don’t know how you have any hope for tomorrow. I mean, let me just be really honest. There’s a point when preachers preach the gospel, especially in our circles, where they try to like wrap everything up. They try to take the main point of the text and they try to bring it around to Calvary and the cross. And this is supposed to be like the big crescendo and then there’s supposed to be this gospel call to unbelievers in the room where there’s this big oomph. I am not doing that right now. I am being 100% sincere with you when I say, if you do not know Jesus, I do not know how you will make it tomorrow.
Or the day after that, or the day after that. Because this world is so full of suffering and affliction and pain and sorrow and brokenness. And I just don’t know how you make it another day. If you think that there is no satisfaction on the other side. The French existentialist Albert Camus, at one point he said, the only honest question in philosophy is why we don’t just kill ourselves. Because life is suffering and sorrow and pain and then we die and nothing comes after it. Why do we endure? Why do we keep going through this if we don’t have to? Well friends, you don’t have to. Rather than taking the coward’s way out, you can take the gospel way out. You can know that your affliction is ultimately serving a greater purpose and that one day it will give way completely to joy and glory with God forever.
If you have any questions about what that means, about how to escape this burden of a life and to have joy forever with Jesus, just find anyone else in this room who’s a professing Christian and they will talk to you about it. Come find a pastor. Come find me. We will talk to you about what it looks like to know Jesus. As we close, in a minute our musicians are going to come up and lead us in a song of response and I’m sure it’s a great song, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this song as I was working on the sermon and I want to read these lyrics to you because I think this is the power of good hymns. They just feed our soul so well. They take what we see in God’s word and then just drive it home. It goes like this.
Afflicted saint, to Christ draw near. Your Savior’s gracious promise here. His faithful word you can believe that as your days, your strength shall be. Your faith is weak. Your foes are strong. And if the conflict should be long, the Lord will make the tempter flee that as your days, your strength shall be. Should persecution, rage and flame still trust in your Redeemer’s name? In fiery trials you shall see that as your days, your strength shall be. When called to bear your weighty cross or sore affliction, pain or loss or deep distress or poverty, still as your days, your strength shall be. So sing with joy, afflicted one. The battle is fierce, but the victory is won. God shall supply all that you need. Yes, as your days, your strength shall be. Let’s pray. What a precious promise we have from you, God. Help us to believe it.
Help us to live like it’s true. Forgive us for when we fail to believe it and strengthen us again by your Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.