Harbor Church - Mid City

Joy in Suffering
Philippians 1: 12-21, Mid-City 7/4/09
In 1994, South African photojournalist Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. I am about to show you the picture—personally, I think it is one of the most riveting photographs I have ever seen.  Let me tell you the story, then I’ll show you the picture.  Kevin Carter was taking pictures of famine victims in the Sudan at a feeding center.  He got overwhelmed by the poverty and needed a break, so he took a walk in the open bush.  He then heard a soft, whimpering noise nearby and saw an emaciated child crawling towards the feeding center and before he could take a picture a vulture landed right behind the child waiting for his next meal.  Here is the picture.
This image, which so powerfully captured the horror of famine-stricken Sudan in the early 1990s, drew international attention to both Sudan's suffering and to Kevin Carter's career as the New York Times ran it on the front page and it became the icon of Africa’s agony. But with           Carter's fame came the questions. People wanted to know—what had happened to the child? After snapping his camera, what had Carter done to help the dying child?
Painfully, Cater admitted that after spending about 20 minutes framing the shot, he had simply walked away.   Within two months of receiving journalism's most coveted award, the 33-year-old photojournalist parked his pickup truck near where he had played as a child, attached a garden hose to the exhaust pipe, and breathed in the fumes. And in his suicide note left next to him in the truck he wrote, “Depressed…without money for rent…money for child support…money for debts…I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses and anger & pain…of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen.”  I'm really, really sorry…The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist...."
Suffering suffocated him.  Suffering in his own life, suffering all around him, suffering with guilt, to the point that he says, “The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy doesn’t exist.”  Some of you are thinking, “I thought we were in a series on joy. We must be taking a week off.”

Well, let me tell you another true story.  And let me quote this man.  “I have been in prison, been flogged…been exposed to death again and again. 24Five times I received…forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen…in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.”  That, my friends, is Paul, in 2 Cor. 11.  Here is a man who knows suffering, and yet somehow, in his suffering, he has the exact opposite experience as that of the photojournalist who committed suicide.   Suffering erased Kevin Carter’s joy; suffering exponentially expanded Paul’s joy.

My friends, every single one of you will suffer.  The question isn’t if, but rather when and how you will suffer.  Even Michael Jackson’s family, with all their money, suffers, as we saw this week.  The question isn’t if, but when and how you will suffer.  And when you suffer, one of 2 things can happen:  your joy can be erased as in Kevin Carter’s life or expanded as in Paul’s life.  I long for your joy, and mine, to be exponentially expanded when we go through suffering.  

To do that, we must develop a theology of suffering before we get into suffering.  See failing to have a theology of suffering and getting into suffering is like being 16 and making out with your boyfriend in the backseat of a car without having your standards set.  It is over, in both cases.  See those who suffer well—those whose joy is expanded rather than erased in suffering--are those who have a theology of suffering heading into suffering.  Now, if you currently find yourself in the midst of suffering or even just coming out, well, better late than never.  And cheer up—more suffering is on the way, so this will help you get ready.

Well, my friends, Paul had a theology of suffering that expanded his joy in suffering, we need it.  So let’s figure out what his theology of suffering was.  At its core, his theology of suffering was built around 2 pillars that you have got to have if you want suffering to expand rather than erase your joy:

(1)  God uses your suffering to make the world as it should be
V13 says that “it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard.”  See some translations have a more literal translation which reads “it has become clear throughout the whole praetorian guard.” The praetorian guard is the elite fighting force of Rome.  Actually the Praetorian guard was featured in the film Gladiator if you watched that.  If not, think Navy Seals.  And what our text says is that Paul was in chains—literally, the practice was to chain the prisoner to one of the praetorian guard so that he did absolutely nothing alone.  None of this Alcatraz where the guy is in there picking away with a makeshift knife at the wall.  It was maximum security that was as demeaning and demoralizing as you can get and it was to ensure that prisoners who were awaiting trial & execution did not escape and were completely demoralized.  And in v18 Paul says, “Yes, and I will continue to rejoice.”

 What?  What cause does he have to rejoice?  How could your life possibly be any more miserable?  Here is what causes him to rejoice--He knows that God is making the world as it should be through his suffering.  See Paul catches a glimpse of 2 things that God is doing through his suffering.  

(a) People who otherwise wouldn’t have heard the gospel are getting saved.  Look at v12—Paul says his suffering is really serving to advance the gospel.  V13 he tells us how—God has given me access to the whole Praetorian guard.  Think about God’s strategy.  This is an elite fighting force that no one had access to.  So how would they be reached?  God chose to do it by chaining them one-by-one to the most effective evangelist that he ever created.  Talk about a captive audience.  They would rotate through several times a day and each time Paul would start sharing the gospel.  And one by one they get converted and start spreading the good news of Jesus to, as our text says, the whole Praetorian guard.   But that wasn’t the only way God was using Paul’s suffering in the world…

(b) v14 says  “B/c of my chains, most of the other brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously & fearlessly.”  Because of my chains.  See Paul says b/c of my suffering, others followers of Jesus are getting bolder and more courageous and fearless in sharing the gospel.  Why?  B/c they see that my chains have no hold on me.  They haven’t touched my joy.  In fact, just the opposite, they are increasing my joy b/c my joy is rooted in the gospel and the gospel is going forth.  The Praetorian guard is being reached with the gospel, others are sharing the gospel more fearlessly, so I rejoice.  My joy is expanding b/c of the way that God is using my suffering to advance the gospel and make the world more beautiful.

Paul isn’t the only one.  I could give you story after story throughout history of how God has used suffering to change the world.  In fact, this was so true in the early church that Tertullian, who lived toward the end of the 2nd century famously said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”  Please, keep killing us, because shedding our blood is like casting seeds of the gospel.  Suffering is the very thing that exponentially expanded the church in its early development and really has every since.

Or what about the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.  When Queen Mary—bloody Mary—assumes the throne, her goal is to stamp out Protestantism in England.  She is going to restore the country to Catholicism by killing & exiling the protestant leaders.  She kills some 300 and exiles more than 800 bishops.

Thomas Cranmer was the Archbishop of Canterbury, which was the highest ecclesiastical figure in England.  So she went right to the top.  Mary wanted to get Thomas Cranmer to recant his protestant faith.  The Jesuits were sent into his cell every day to woo him into Catholicism.  After 2 years, Cranmer, who was around 70, began to weaken.  He had a nervous breakdown and signed the first of 6 recantations denying his protestant faith and each successive recantation was stronger than the first.  Mary sent it back 6 times and each time the old man, weaker, signed his name.  He did this b/c it was tradition that if a heretic recanted his life would be spared.  Once Mary got the 6th recantation, she still refused to give him his life.  There was a trial, he was found guilty of heresy, and sentenced to death, despite his recantation.  On the day of his execution in a famous church, he was to publicly recant his faith.  The old man stood up on the platform and said how sorry he was for the foolishness of his life and the thing that troubled him the most was when he said, “I said these 6 recantations and I never believed them.”  He said, “this right hand, which signed the recantation, will be the first to burn.”  In front of the entire crowd the old man stuck his hand out and burned his hand off.  With his death, he became a martyr and Protestantism spread like wildfire.  Historians argue that his suffering—and the way that he suffered at the end—did more to ignite the Protestant Reformation than all of his writings and previous ministry.  Then Mary went after 2 others.

Hugh Latimer (d. 1555)—protestant bishop of Gloucester & Nicholas Ridley, the protestant bishop of London.  See they knew that God has a way of using suffering to transform the world and as they were being burned at the stake,  Latimer shouted to Ridley, “Play the man, master Ridley, for this day we shall light a candle in England that shall never be put out.”  And that is exactly what happened.  They light a candle that has never been put out and that burned so brightly that the Protestant Reformation exploded throughout England, then West to America, then all over the world.  My friends, suffering is one of the central ways that God transforms the world.  And b/c of this, it expands our joy.  B/c we know that God somehow takes our suffering and uses it for his purposes.

Now let me caution you.  You will never know fully how God is going to do this.  You know the little cliché that you hear when something bad happens, “Well, everything happens for a reason.”  True, but often we don’t know the reason, and when we think we do, remember that you actually only know of fraction of the reasons---not reason--that God ultimately has in store.  Paul, in this case, caught just a glimpse of why he was suffering.  The Praetorian guard were saved and his brothers were encouraged to share the gospel more fearlessly.  Latimer, Cranmer, & Ridley had a vision for how God might use their suffering, but they didn’t actually see it happen.  Yet, Neither Paul, Latimer, Cranmer, or Ridley knew how God would use it in my life and yours.  On this side of the Jordan, you just have to know that you will never know fully “the reason” that you are suffering, but….

TRANS:  here is what you do know:  God will use your suffering to make the world right, and knowing that helps expand, rather than erase, your joy in the midst of your suffering.  But it isn’t just that God uses your suffering to make the world as it should be, but God uses your suffering to make you as you should be.  That is the 2nd major pillar that is needed to build a theology of suffering that will enable your joy to expand in suffering rather than be erased.

(2)  God uses your suffering to make you as you should be
V19—“Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.”    So Paul says this will happen for my deliverance.  Commentators point out that the word deliverance is the Greek word for salvation—soterian.  See this word soterian is translated everywhere else as salvation, but the NIV translators, which is what we’re reading from, are trying to give you the functional equivalent in our time rather than the literal translation and they were afraid that modern readers would confuse this with a salvation by works sort of mentality.  So, they went with deliverance.  But, every choice has its strength & weakness.  In this case, the weakness of using deliverance is this—it gives you the impression that what Paul is primarily talking about his conviction that God will get him out of jail.  Down near end of paragraph it looks like that seems to confirm that.  But what Paul is driving at here is not so much his conviction that he will be delivered from jail or suffering, but his conviction that salvation is being worked in him through his suffering.  That God is making Him like His Savior.

Here is why this matters.  Some of you are here this morning and you are kicking the tires of Christianity to see if it is something you want to buy into.  One common complaint I hear from skeptics is this—“All Christians ever talk about is salvation & heaven, but what about the hear & now.  How does this impact my everyday life?”  Well, if you understand the richness of the term salvation in the Bible, I think you’ll see that it applies to both your life here and now and the after-life.  Let me explain.  

See salvation, in the Bible, saves you from sin in 3 ways in the Bible:  sin’s penalty (past), sin’s power (present), & sin’s presence (future). When salvation is used in the past tense, it means to be saved from the penalty of sin in a once-and-for all way.  Sometimes it is used in present tense in an ongoing way b/c we are being saved from the power of sin and sometimes it is used in a future tense to communicate that eventually we will be saved from the very presence of sin.  You know, when the lion & lamb lie down together and the world is made right.  Here, Paul is it in a present tense, saying that I rejoice b/c I know that suffering is saving me in the present, I am experiencing the joy of my salvation now as Jesus is making me to look like Him, refining me, making me more like my Savior.  It isn’t just that he is changing the world through my suffering, but he is changing me.  And that expands Paul’s joy.

But I want to be careful here b/c I don’t want you to leave here thinking that joy is an emotion.  That joy is something that you must feel.  That when you begin to suffer—whether it is physical, emotional suffering, loss of a loved one—whatever it may be, that you must feel joyful.  No.  See joy isn’t an emotion.  Rather joy is a fruit—a fruit of the Spirit.  See the Bible says that the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy.  It is a fruit that the Spirit cultivates.  So The more you are in the Spirit, the more you are in joy, regardless of how you may feel.

That Spirit—the Holy Spirit—is the Spirit of Jesus, which means Tasting joy means experiencing Jesus.  Period.  And to experience Jesus means to experience the full spectrum of Jesus’ emotions in a broken world.  It means weeping over a broken city as He did over Jerusalem; it means  crying out with anger against injustice as he did with the moneychangers in the temple; it means celebrating at weddings as he did in turning the water to wine.  And it means picking up your cross and suffering as he did—with joy.  

See my friends here is the real crux of a theology of suffering.  To have joy in suffering means to be in the one who suffered with joy.  Period.  Joy isn’t an emotion—it is the fruit of Jesus.  He’ll show you the way of joy.  Paul knew this, which is why the climax of his theology of suffering is V21, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”  See Paul’s joy is Jesus Christ.  So death has no hold b/c it will only give him his heart’s desire—Christ unfiltered.  Christ straight up.  Yet, until then, to live is Christ.  And as I am living, when I suffer, my joy expands, b/c I know I get more of the suffering Savior who is near to the brokenhearted.

Trans:  Use Mars Hill Video of Charlotte Elliot

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