SORROWFUL BUT ALWAYS REJOICING

Two days ago a precious girl I have known all her life died tragically and prematurely. I cannot even imagine the inconsolable grief that her family and friends must feel at this moment,

It caused me to think about how the very things in this life itself that make you happy, will eventually make you sad. The birth of this girl, the pleasure of her company, watching her grow into such a good and decent woman are among many things that brought such joy to her family and friends, and now her death has brought so much sorrow.  Oh how I have discovered this the past four years in my own life as I get older and have experienced my own loss of so many things that once made me so happy. Nothing that brings happiness on this earth can sustain itself.

Nevertheless Paul makes the astonishing statement in 2 Corinthians 6:10 that what marks his life and can mark ours as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” Perhaps there are those of you reading this right now who resonate in your own experience what the apostle Paul was speaking of. Only a Christian can actually be happy and sad at the same time. I call it happy sadness or sad happiness. It seems so paradoxical, but oh what a precious experience for the believer! 

I do  not glibly claim that this experience is simple or that we can even put it into adequate words, what it means to be joyful in sorrow; but in our experience we know it can ring true. Much like the Macedonian Christians, who in loss of property, mopersecution, extreme hardship and poverty, "their abundance of joy...overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part"(2 Corinthians 8:9-10). 

I think we all who are believers understand and have experienced this. When I lost all that mattered to me and weeping with sobs of inconsolable grief with all the loss I can certainly tell you that did not look or feel any way like joy.  But, the joy that has manifest and endured through my sorrow is the foretaste of a future joy in God which I hope. We are promised that there will someday be an experience of joy in its complete fullness, John writes that it will be an experience that we will know where "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). 

Jesus Himself, who suffered incomparable grief and loss, was sustained by “the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). This does not mean that he felt in the garden or on the cross all that he would feel in the resurrection. But it does mean that He hoped in it and that this hope was an experienced foretaste of that joy. 

I have learned that true joy does not come in the experience of sorrow in itself . Is it no wonder why so many of us have a huge disconnect when some preacher or Christian glibly tells us to rejoice when we are so sad, hurt, broken, lonely, grief stricken, and depressed. They expect us to put on a happy face and find joy somehow in the sorrow itself. At least for me, it always has been unrealistic, shallow, it has never worked, nor is it helpful. But I have learned a secret; the only way that joy can come in my sorrow is  in the anticipation of future joy. 

When I am suffering I have many times looked to the Word of God, the promises of God, the person of Jesus with my future hope in Him and His promises and His grace to lift me with joy out of and above my present sorrows. Oh how often doing this in my tears and it has for brought joy to me. 

The best example I can give is when my father went to war twice in Vietnam when I was a little boy. He was gone for over a year each time. Whenever I would get sad, scared about him getting killed, or lonely about his absence, I would think about his future return, and the thought of his return would bring me present joy in my sorrow. So I was able to be sorrowful but rejoicing at the same time. 

The fact is that we groan here in this life and in this world, waiting for the redemption of our bodies and for the removal of all our sins (Romans 8:23). This groaning and grieving is godly if it is molded by our joy in hope of future glory (Romans 5:2-3). The delight is subdued by all the pain, but it is there in seed form. It will one day grow into a great vine that yields wine of undiluted delight. 

So let us learn to embrace whatever sorrow God appoints for us with joy. 

Let us not be ashamed of tears. After all, God says that He keeps our tears in a bottle "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.Are they not in your book? " (Psalm 56:8). 

Let us sow our seeds in tears and do our work in tears. 

"Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping,bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy,bringing his sheaves with him."(Psalm 16:6-8). 

Let the promise encourage you in your present sorrows that joy will come with the morning "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5). 

Let us learn to be looking not only at our sorrows, but looking to Jesus and remembering his kind, merciful, and loving nature and promises in order to be, 

“sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” (2 Corinthians 6:10) 

Let us through our tears, the comfort, and joy God brings us, serve others in their sorrow by giving them comfort and joyful hope. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."(2 Corinthians 1:3-4) 

May God help you to sustain and shape your grief with His joy, His power, and His goodness this day and every day in your present sorrows. 

Sorrowful but always rejoicing, 

Pastor Bill