Joy In Our Sufferings

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Introduction: Justification by faith, peace with God, and permanent access to God in His grace, results in a forward-looking joy. We rejoice in the sure promise of the glory of God. But salvation’s joy doesn’t just look forward to heaven, it survives and thrives despite all the fiery trials faced on earth. That is the message of verses 3-5. When you understand salvation by grace, through faith, in Christ Jesus, then you not only understand your future, you have a God given understanding of your present trials and tests. Tonight, we think about a God given joy that exists in suffering. We think about a joy that can look right into the reality of our troubles and still know that it is blessed. I. TRIALS TEST THE REALITY OF OUR FAITH We must never forget the word “we” in this passage. Everything that he says only applies to people who truly have salvation in Christ, who have truly believed. These things are not true of everyone who professes faith in Jesus, are true of those who truly have faith in Christ. **As we have said on many occasions and as the Bible makes abundantly clear, saving faith is not just intellectual assent. Saving faith is a God given understanding that is expressed in trust. One of the acid tests of saving faith is how we respond to trials. Do they develop us, do our lives demonstrate the presence of a saving faith, or do the troubles of life destroy what we called saving faith? **You see this in the parable of the soils. ESV Matthew 13:20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. We have all seen it at one time or another. There is someone who professes faith in Christ; they show great joy at the time of their profession, they have had a powerful experience. Then the troubles come. And troubles come in all different forms. Financial Relational Circumstantial Before you know it that person not only loses joy, they walk away from their profession altogether. They didn’t lose genuine salvation, rather the troubles of life and their response to those troubles simply revealed that they never had salvation. Their faith was not that God given faith that brings salvation. This is a real test of what you “have”, whether it is real or not. Does it let you down when you are in your time of greatest need? Do you really have the living God or a god of the imagination? II. TRIALS TEST THE NATURE OF OUR JOY Now we must be clear here. When talk about what characterizes Christians, we must never leave the impression that it is a perfect experience. No, Christians do not suffer perfectly. But Christians are perfected through their sufferings. And what we read here is the PATTERN of those who have truly believed. Saving faith TRIUMPHS over trials in the end. And so, it is the pattern of Christians that they are characterized by this unique joy. A. WE HAVE JOY IN OUR SUFFERINGS Thlipsis is the word, “afflictions”, “distresses”, “troubles”, and “tribulations”. Persecutions are included here, but also all the troubles and trials of life in a world affected by sin. We have joy, not only with heaven in view, as we consider our future, but with the present in view, because we view the present through the eyes of God’s truth, through the eyes of God’s promises. And even when the present is sorrowful, when its troubling, hard, afflicting, believers still know the joy of God because they are not in the dark. And mark that. 1. HE DOESN’T BECOME NEGATIVE AS A RESULT OF THEM 2. HE DOESN’T SIMPLY PUT UP WITH THEM

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• Joy