Our Sorrows and Joys
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Worse and Better
Many years ago, as a young Christian, I listened to some tapes from the All Souls Tape Library of a series of talks by John Stott entitled “Tensions in Christian Experience.” I think one of them was on sorrow and joy. Recently, I have been reflecting on this, and I want to explore with you this thought: It is not just that you become a Christian and your experience is both sorrow and joy (almost as a static tension that is just there in your life); rather, as you grow in age and in grace, the sorrows become more sorrowful and the joys grow deeper. Far from the life of faith, gradually steadying to some calm midpoint between sorrow and joy, the sorrows deepen and yet are infused with stronger joys. It gets, if I may put it loosely, both worse and better.
I think this statement may be true in at least four ways. Each of them will have been true for Paul.
First, as I grow in grace and simply as I grow older, I walk through more of the shadow of death. The apostle Paul had the sadness of John Mark withdrawing from the missionary team in Pamphylia (Acts 15:38). In his old age, Alexander the coppersmith did him great harm, and he had the misery of watching his former colleague, Demas, deserting him because he had fallen in love with this present world (2 Tim. 4:9, 14). You and I grieve over more and more troubled relationships—perhaps the shadows of a miserable marriage envelop you; the darkness of a crushing sickness or a horrific accident creeps over your soul; the disillusionment of someone’s moral failure or scandal saps your energy; the unfathomable horrors of a suicide tie their tentacles around your memories; the sharp pains of being hated without reason bleed your life away. In these and other ways, the shadows of death deepen as you and I walk through more of the valleys of deep darkness.
And yet, as the shadows deepen, the promises of God shine their light ever more brightly. We grow more sure that Jesus really will raise up on the last day every single man, woman, and child whom the Father has given him (John 6:37–39). No darkness can stop him. Satan can lie and murder all he pleases, but Jesus will keep his promise. Precious relationships may be healed. Paul saw John Mark restored to much usefulness (2 Tim. 4:6). Sometimes there is wonderful forgiveness and restoration. But even if there isn’t, Jesus keeps all who are his. The most horrible sickness on earth cannot stop him. There is no accident outside of his providential wisdom and love. Moral failure cannot defeat him. Hatred cannot disable his power or blunt his love. And so even as the shadows fall, the precious assurances of the gospel shine joy into the troubled heart.
Promises Shine Bright Against Shadows
Second, many people grieve more deeply than ever due to disillusionment with a church, whether it is their own or another’s. The older we grow, the more we see how Babylon has infiltrated Zion. We come up close to the party spirit that disrupts the harmony of a church. We weep as we watch false teaching bring death to a church or denomination. We sorrow as we watch immorality dirty the purity of Christ’s church. We hear words of harsh self-righteousness in a church. We watch, sorrowful and helpless, as some cause divisions in a church, contrary to the gospel. The older we get, the more we see and feel the sorrows of Christ’s church.
And yet, as these sorrows press in on our souls, the promises shine more brightly. Christ will build his church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Babylon will be destroyed, and Zion will triumph. We see anticipations of these events when a church recovers from some needless split: relationships are mended, wrongs are forgiven, and harmony is restored. We take comfort when an impenitent church that surrenders to false teaching withers and dies and when a church nourished by the word of God grows in faith and love. We rejoice as we experience the delights of fellowship in a faithful church. And so, even as disillusion dims the lights of our hearts in a troubled church, the glory of Christ shines ever more brightly.
Third and most simply, as we grow older, we know more of death. Just death. Full stop. More people we have known die. We go to more funerals. We sit by more loved ones on their deathbeds. We stand more often at the graveside.
And yet again we hear more often the words “I am the resurrection and the life" as they ring out hope in Christ in the face of the greatest sorrow. The cold of a corpse lies side by side with the warmth of the gospel. We know, as we have never known so deeply, that one day Jesus will raise from the dead each one who is his.
God’s Triumphant Grace (Our Sorrows and Joys)
Fourth and perhaps most acute of all, as we grow older, we sorrow more for the darkness of our own sinful hearts. Paul never forgot that he had viciously persecuted the church (e.g., 1 Tim. 1:13). We remember our own moral failures more, and even old memories return to us with their ugliness. We despair more deeply of our own miserable lack of growth in godliness. I say to myself, have you learned nothing whatsoever in your many years as a follower of Jesus? How can your heart still be so full of self-pity or self-protection, overflowing with covetousness or lust, driven by self-will, or enervated by weariness in doing good? How stubborn my sins are, how resistant to the workings of the Holy Spirit of God! And so I weep for my sins, and I do so more than I did when I was younger.
And yet again I see more of God’s triumphant grace. I know in experience what I have known in theory for many years, that where sin abounds, grace super-abounds (Rom. 5:15–21). The Holy Spirit pours into my heart the assurance that the Father himself loves me, even me in all my sin and shame (Rom. 5:5). And the love that God has for me from all eternity works in me the stirrings of the steadfastness of Christ (2 Thess. 3:5), so that—to set it at a very basic and unimpressive level—I do not give up. I fail and I weep. But the more I weep for my sinfulness, the more deeply I rejoice in the beauty, the power, the majesty, the truth, the light, and the love of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps we should expect to be sorrowful, even more and more sorrowful as the years go by. I weep more than I ever did. And yet my tears are soaked through with an ever-deepening joy in Jesus, so that tears of sorrow and tears of joy become inseparably joined. And one day all the tears of sorrow will dissolve into pure and endless joy.
Image by Wix
Christopher Ash is a writer in residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge. He previously served as a pastor and church planter and as the director of the Proclamation Trust Cornhill Training Course in London. He and his wife, Carolyn, are members of Cambridge Presbyterian Church, and they have four children and numerous grandchildren.
SCRIPTURE
But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, and in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
When anxiety was great within me,
Your consolation brought me joy.
18. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
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