Sunday, May 18, 2025 AM

The Prayer for Trust, Patience, and God’s Goodness

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day that you've given, the week that you have arranged this time, that you have chosen for us to be here and to hear this word from you. We thank you for your love for us.

We thank you for your patience and your long-suffering towards us. We thank you that you continually, faithfully do all that you desire and that all that you desire is good. We ask that you would help us to trust you today, that you would build us up in our most holy faith as we look to our Savior Jesus Christ.

It is in his name that we pray, amen. I invite you to open your Bibles to the very end of Acts 20. We're quickly moving into Acts 21 this morning. The title of the sermon is Willing Sorrow. Are we willing to go through sorrow?

And who is the one who wills sorrow? The context and conclusion of Paul's last words naturally leads us to consider the sorrow of the saints and to ask the question that perhaps we feel is impermissible to ask, but why would God willingly bring such sorrow into the lives of his own people?

Why would the saints also willingly endure? There have been many sorrows already in the life of the church as we read through the book of Acts. In the early decades, we have the martyrdom of Stephen and of James in Acts 7 and Acts 12, much suffering by the hand of persecutors that we read about in Acts 8 and 9.

And, of course, when we correlate this with 1 Thessalonians 4, we hear that many of the saints have already fallen asleep. They've already died in Christ. And so there are many sorrows attending the saints as they are trying to follow Christ.

And this passage is an excellent one to think about that interaction, the saints trusting in the Lord and yet the Lord arranging sorrow in their lives. Now, we're going to read the bookends to this passage.

So we're going to read verses 36 through 38 of chapter 20, and then I'm going to read verses 12 through 14 of chapter 21, and we'll fill in the middle as we go along. Okay? So if you're able to stand, I encourage you to stand with me in honor of the reading of God's holy word.

Verse 36 of Acts 20,. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. Then they all wept freely and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more.

And they accompanied him to the ship. Chapter 21, verse 12. Now, when we heard these things, both we and those from that place pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem. And Paul answered, What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart?

For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. So when he would not be persuaded, we ceased saying, The will of the Lord be done. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Do we ever choose sorrow? Do we ever choose sorrow? Perhaps at times we prefer the haunting beauty of the lament and the eulogy, the lonesome ballad, the forlorn folk tune, a brokenhearted love song.

They all have their place. Seventy-three of the 150 Psalms feature some form of lament. Lament. I don't believe our hymnals are that heavily proportioned. I know Christian radio music is not. Perhaps we do choose art that explores sorrow and perhaps that helps us find some meaningful ground on which to bear our own personal pains.

But do we ever choose sorrow as a course of action? I will choose this way of sorrow. Well, sometimes we do, don't we? Because sometimes it's simply unavoidable. We make hard choices. We know that some choices are sorrowful now, but we trust that they will be far better later on.

And of course, sometimes we choose the greater and disastrous sorrow later so that we may avoid it in the now. Do we ever choose sorrow for others? Do we make that choice for them knowing it will cause them sorrow?

Of course we do. How often do parents choose the course of action they know will cause their children sorrow, but they do so in love and in hope? And a trusting, maturing child will be willing in the sorrow given that his parents have willed it and their will is dependably good.

Now, if we parents who are corrupted by sin, often selfish, often lazy, and prideful, if we can discern enough by God's providence and grace that we ought to cause sorrow to our children, in some cases for their good, calling for their simple trust in the midst of complex trials, how much more is our Heavenly Father wise and true and good in His willing of sorrow in our lives?

Just how worthy is He of our simple trust in the midst of complex trials? We see something of that here in Acts 20 and 21, that God wills the sorrow of the saints. He wills our sorrow in Christ for good and His glory.

And we need to be willing in sorrow, meaning that we need to be trusting God in the sorrow. No one ever is entitled to self-centered flourishing. There's no fine print somewhere that says, you deserve to be happy on your own terms.

And when we think about the man of all men and what it means to be made in the image of God, what it means to glorify God, and we think of Christ, we remember His prayer in the garden, His sorrowful prayer in the garden, not my will but yours be done.

That's difficult, and we need to pay attention to it. It's not something you want to pay attention to, not something that I have wanted to pay attention to, something you would rather avoid. But that's the thing about sorrow.

When it comes, that's the thing that makes it so difficult to bear. You didn't ask for it. It was pressed upon you. You have no way out. All you have in front of you are sorrowful choices, and which one does God want you to take?

But aren't we sometimes resentful that God put us there in the first place? Let's think first of all about God's warnings of sorrow. And for that, we're going to look at verses 1 through 11, and then we'll come back to God's will of sorrow in those bookends that we've already read.

I listened to this account from Luke concerning the journeys of Paul and the purpose of the journeys of Paul in chapter 21, beginning in verse 1. Now it came to pass that when we had departed from them and set sail, running a straight course, we came to Kos, the following day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara.

And finding a ship sailing over to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. When we had sighted Cyprus, we passed it on the left, sailed to Syria, and landed at Tyre. For there, the ship was to unload her cargo.

And finding disciples, we stayed there seven days. We told Paul through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem. When we had come to the end of those days, we departed and went on our way. And they all accompanied us with wives and children until we were out of the city, and we knelt down on the shore and prayed.

When we had taken our leave of one another, we boarded the ship and they returned home. And when we had finished our voyage from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, greeted the brethren, and stayed with them one day.

On the next day, we who were Paul's companions departed and came to Caesarea, and entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. Now, this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied.

And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. When he had come to us, he took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus says the Holy Spirit, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of Gentiles.

It just seems like the farther that Paul goes on his journey, the more difficult it gets to keep going. More and more of his saints keep on upping the pressure to not go to Jerusalem. They warn him more and more.

It becomes more difficult to continue the closer he gets. This obedience, however, that Paul is engaging in, is one in which he is not seeking to promote himself and say, Hey, everyone, look at me doing a difficult thing.

It's something he's doing for the sake of Christ and for the gospel. I don't know if you've ever seen the show, The Hot Ones, where people eat increasingly spicy hot sauces on chicken wings while they're being interviewed.

And they go further and further until they can barely function and talk, but they hope to get to the end so they can promote their projects, and it becomes a great big commercial for them. There's no necessary connection between being interviewed and eating hot sauce.

There is a necessary connection here for Paul and his obedience. It gets harder for him to go further in his obedience, and the further he goes in his obedience, the sadder everyone around him gets. And that's a hard row to hoe.

Now, let's think about the plenteous warnings that Paul receives. All along this trade route, we read about in verses 1 through 3 and verses 7 through 8. Now, Paul has already come a long way on this third missionary journey, as we call it.

The final leg is 400 miles, and it takes weeks for him to accomplish when all the stops are accounted for. Four regions and six stops are involved. In Asia, there are the islands of coasts and roads. In Lycia, we have the Gentile port of Pitara.

As they pass through the region of Phoenicia, they go to the south of the island of Cyprus, where Paul and Barnabas visited on his first missionary journey. And then they come to the province of Syria.

They stop first at Tyre, and then the Jewish port cities of Ptolemais and Caesarea. Now, all along the trade route and along the journey prior to even this passage, Paul has been warned by the saints through the Spirit about the coming suffering and imprisonment that awaits him in Jerusalem.

Now, it's interesting that there's a contrast going on here in that Paul is visiting cities that are named after Roman emperors or ancient emperors. Ptolemais, named after Ptolemy. We have Caesarea, named after Caesar.

But here he finds the saints who have bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, to his Lord. There's a different kingdom at work, and there's a different covenant at work. Paul is heading towards Jerusalem, and the closer that he gets, the more assured of suffering he becomes by warnings from the saints, by the Spirit.

But all the places he goes, he sees the saints. They are all throughout Macedonia. They're all throughout Asia. He finds them in Lycia. He finds them in Syria. There's plenty of saints on Cyprus there, in Phoenicia.

They're just all over the place, and the saints are all over, and yet he's heading for Jerusalem. It's an interesting interaction as the gospel goes to the islands and the coastlands while the old Jerusalem fumes in envy and is ready to murder Paul, the apostle.

The kind of jealousy that exists, we might put it this way, the old Jerusalem held its thousands, the new Jerusalem its 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 and thousands of thousands, and the jealousy is real. It is not mere happenstance that the islands and the coastlands are the brightest with the love and the praise of Christ while Jerusalem broods with menace, ready to kill Christ's servants.

And all the places that Paul preached, was there any place more difficult for Paul, more dangerous and more opposed to the gospel than Jerusalem? He had rough times in Ephesus and Thessalonica and Corinth for sure, but the struggles that he faced there didn't hold a candle to Jerusalem.

What goes on here? To put the missionary journeys of Paul into their biblical context, you can think about the language of the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 41, near the end as God is describing the condition of His servant, a lowercase s description of Israel, of Judah, those who have been called to keep old covenant with Him.

And He looks among them for faithfulness somewhere. Oh, they can say, we do our fasting. Oh, they can say, we do our sacrifices. Oh, they say, we do all the ceremonial tidbits of the law. But He says, I'm not looking for sacrifice, and it's not the fast that you keep that I've commanded.

I'm looking for faithfulness. I'm looking for a faithful servant. And in verse 28 of Isaiah 41, He looks and there was no man. Jeremiah says much the same thing in his prophecies. I looked among them, but there was no counselor.

Somebody, somebody be faithful. Somebody step up. Who, when I asked of them, could answer a word? No. Indeed, they are all worthless. Their works are nothing. Their molded images are wind and confusion.

So the attention is not upon that lowercase s servant. He was unfaithful. But verse one of Isaiah 42, behold, my servant, capital S in your translations. Look at this servant whom I uphold, my elect one in whom my soul delights.

I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles, to the nations. He will not cry out, nor raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench.

This is all prophecies fulfilled throughout the Gospels. He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged till what? Till he is established justice in the earth and the coastlands shall wait for his law.

Here is the new Lord, Jesus is Lord, not Caesar. He's the one who reigns and has the authority, not emperors and not the Sanhedrin. Christ has the authority. Thus says the Lord God who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it.

I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness and will hold your hand. I will keep you, he says to the servant, he speaks to the servant, the Messiah. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people as a light to the Gentiles.

And so Jesus comes and says, this is my body. This is my blood. I'm the covenant being in Christ. That's everything. And so he comes and he's the new covenant, not for the Jew first, but also for the Gentiles, for the nations.

And this opens blind eyes, verse 7, brings out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord. That is my name and my glory. I will not give to another nor my praise to carved images.

Behold, the former things have come to pass and new things I declare before they spring forth. I tell you of them saying, I'm talking to you now about a new covenant. Sing to the Lord a new song, a new song for a new covenant, because it's a new thing and is praised from the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth, from all over the place, places like Macedonia, places like Lycia, places like the islands.

You who go down to the sea and all that is in it. Think about those who are living in Corinth with seaports on either side of them. You coastlands, you inhabitants of them. Isaiah is promising that the new covenant preaching the authority of Jesus Christ will go out to the coastlands and the islands.

So let's not kid ourselves when we read the geography lessons of Acts and the missionary journeys of Paul, we are seeing the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah concerning the spread of the new covenant.

Look how much bigger New Jerusalem is, which is why the angel said to not measure the walls of the rebuilt city in Zechariah. Don't measure those walls. No, Jerusalem will be without walls. It's far too big to be contained by measured brick and mortar walls.

Well, verse 11, let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Cedar inhabits, let the inhabitants of Selah sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains, let them give glory to the Lord and declare his praise in the coastlands.

So when we read about Paul's missionary journeys, they are historically accurate, they are inspiring, they are encouraging, they're interesting when you begin to study the route that he took, and you can go trace it on an atlas, and it's all very informative and encouraging.

Perhaps we see an example of courage in the walk of Paul and his obedience, but also what we are seeing is Jesus, the risen Lord, working out His new covenant, building His kingdom through the preaching of His gospel to all the nations.

Now, Paul is getting warnings all along the trade route, but he continues because the gospel must be preached to the nations, and he's getting warnings from the Christian family all along the way. So as Paul travels to the center of the old covenant, brick-and-mortar Jerusalem, he is confronted all along the way with evidence of the new covenant, not just the places but the people.

Think about the people he's encountering. We have a couple of signs here that says, look at the better way of the new covenant. First of all, we have the Spirit's sign of prophecy. All throughout this passage, you read about those who are prophesying and telling Paul by the Spirit what's going to happen to him when he gets there.

And in the laying of the foundation of the church, the gifts of prophecy and apostleship were indispensable. Ephesians 2, 19 -22 says that Christ is the cornerstone, and He builds His church with the foundation of the prophets and the apostles.

Foundation is laid, brothers and sisters, and now we're being built upon that foundation. And in Daniel 9, the finalization of Messiah's week and the judgment of Jerusalem, the prophecy is sealed up, Daniel 9 -24.

So I'm saying this because we're seeing the evidence of prophecy in the new covenant here in this passage in Acts 21. This is not to say that we're to be running around prophesying just like they did in Acts 21.

Why? Because it's part of the foundation. Further, Jesus said this. He said that the prophets began with Abel, and then in His capacity as Messiah, He would continue to send prophets to Jerusalem until such time that Jerusalem was overthrown.

He puts a stop date on it, Matthew 23, verses 34 -36. That's how He puts it. And the correlation of the new covenant dawn and the old covenant doom has already been made. That connection has been made by Joel and Peter in Acts 2.

It's enough to say as you read through here and you see many people prophesying and saying, Paul, don't go there. You're going to be under all manner of duress. You're going to be arrested. You're going to suffer.

You're going to be imprisoned. They're going to hand you over to the Romans. And they're prophesying and telling him that that's all very good. That's a signal of the new covenant. The foundation is being laid just like the plan is.

As we see that, we can rejoice in seeing that the new covenant, the Spirit is indwelling the living stones of the new covenant temple scattered all over the known world as Christ is building His new temple, quarrying living stones from the nations.

But also, there's something else that although prophecies may cease, there's something that lasts forever, and that's called love. Think of the Spirit's fruit of love in verses 5 and 6 and 8 and 10. These saints, they embrace Paul.

They host Paul in their house, in their homes. They gather with Paul. They travel with Paul. They pray with him. When it says they take their leave from them, that means that they were embracing, that they were saying kind, encouraging words as they were parting.

All of this expression of love from the saints. What a contrast to how Paul is treated by his ethnic brethren when he shows up in Jerusalem. What a contrast. Jesus said that you are my disciples. They will know you by your love for one another.

Love is the perennial flower adorning the new covenant garden of the last Adam. It ever springs. The love of these Christian families, their love expressed in fellowship and in their farewells, their prayers, their hospitality starkly contrasts with the haughty zeal and careless rage of the temple lights that is soon to be unleashed against Paul.

Now, these warnings were plenty, and they were personal. They were personal. They came by the Spirit, but notice that these are not commands. Paul is not being commanded by the Holy Spirit, don't go to Jerusalem.

He's actually obeying the Spirit by going to Jerusalem. He's obeying Christ by going to Jerusalem. So, we see that Paul is being obedient. Chapter 20 of Acts, verses 22 through 24, Paul says, and see, I now go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there.

Paul is bound by the Spirit to go, and all along the way, the Spirit is saying, sorrow is coming, suffering is coming, you're going to suffer, you're going to be imprisoned, things are going to go very badly for you when you get to Jerusalem, but Paul is going there because he's bound by the Spirit to go.

This is very important for us to recognize. There's no divine prohibition to him going, there's just warnings. We're going to come back to that. Now, what about Paul's beloved fellow saints? They don't want to see him suffer by the hands of the temple Jews and be handed over to the Gentile authorities, which was, by the way, this is the most common manner of Jewish persecution that we read about in the New Testament, that they would use the state to persecute followers of Christ.

This is still a common approach for all deeply religious opposition to Christ. Muslim radicals use the state to persecute Christians. Hindu radicals use the state to persecute Christians. Leftist radicals use the state to persecute Christians.

Now, the saints don't want to see Paul suffer in this way. They don't want to see him imprisoned. By every measure that they can make, losing Paul would be bad for the church. They don't want to lose Paul.

That doesn't make any sense. They don't want to see him suffer. They've already snuck him out of Damascus. They snuck him out of Jerusalem. He's already been miraculously healed from stoning. He's been released from prison.

Let's keep him going. And they're doing the right thing by warning him. They're desiring good things by warning him. I mean, there's no special spirituality or holiness prize for embracing a status chokehold.

It's a good thing that the state becomes more tyrannical. It's a good thing that the church suffers more. We want that. No. When Jesus said, I send you out as sheep among wolves, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, it's not the same thing as saying, be deer in the headlights and lemmings on the ledge.

So, we're not supposed to be encouraging tyranny because that makes us better Christians. That makes no sense. The saints are not wrong to warn Paul of the coming tyranny causing him sorrow and tribulation.

God warns us. God warns us about things He wants us to go through. Jesus warned His apostles of coming sorrow and tribulation at the end of the Old Covenant. All the writers of the New Testament said that that was the coming trouble.

Jesus personally warned Paul of sorrow. I will show him how much he must suffer for my sake. That didn't mean that in the warning that that was a prohibition from suffering. Warnings are not always the same thing as prohibitions.

Often they go together, but not always. Simply because we are warned about suffering and difficulty and problems does not mean that that is saying, don't do it. Maybe we ought to do it knowing what's coming.

Jesus warns us of sorrow in our service to Him. In Luke chapter 12, verses 51 through 53, a passage that is something that the saints in that generation knew a great deal, and we know a great deal in our generation.

Luke 12, verse 51,. Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. From now on, five in one house will be divided, three against two, and two against three.

Father will be divided against son, and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

He goes through all these typical and critical familial relationships to point out that when Jesus Christ and His glory and the loyalties that we owe Him come into the family mix, that new lines are drawn.

And for some folks, a loyalty to Christ above family is of great offense, and there's just no recovery of the relationship after that. But Jesus said to expect it. Now, He doesn't give this warning and say, therefore, don't make me too much of a priority.

I mean, don't go overboard. Do whatever you can to keep the members of your family and extended family happy. By no means disappoint them in any fashion. He doesn't say that. He says, count the cost. Count the cost.

Sorrow is coming. God's many warnings about sorrow being part of our loving service in His name. This is not His apology for poor working conditions. He's not bringing His hands and promising to try to make things better for us.

This is God's will for us to embrace. When we read the bookends of sorrow earlier, the end of chapter 20 and then verses 12 through 14 of chapter 21, these passages make the pain and difficulty of Paul's choices real to us.

So, we see them falling upon Paul's neck and weeping and embracing him and kissing him. He's saying, why are you breaking my heart by weeping in this way? Don't you understand? And yet we see that Paul continually entrusts himself to the sovereign will of God for his life.

This Jerusalem journey is God's will and Paul's clarity on that point. Doesn't it help the saints in verse 14? So, when he would not be persuaded, we ceased saying, the will of the Lord be done. They were brought comfort by Paul's certainty and commitment.

We are to also find such peace in God's will, even in sorrow. Why is that? Because, first of all, God's will is sovereign. Paul didn't really have a choice in the matter. He says, I am bound. He says, you're saying to me, I'm going to be bound, clapped in irons.

You have no idea I'm already bound. I'm already the prisoner of Jesus Christ. I'm already restrained and constrained by God to do this. Paul had, as an apostle, he had particular revelation and responsibilities regarding the sorrow, and he knew that this was God's will and God would bring it about.

In this, God's warnings of sorrow indicate His will of sorrow for us. Now, just what kind of a God do we serve? We have to have that straight if we're going to understand God-willing sorrow for us. Isaiah 46, verses 9 through 10.

Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.

And what is His pleasure? Is His pleasure our personal goals for self-satisfying happiness? No. Isaiah 48, 11, for my own sake, I will do it, for how should my name be profaned and I will not give my glory to another.

As we read through the Scriptures, as we go from Job's mortified silence before his Creator to the clay's determined shape before the potter, the Scriptures thoroughly and unapologetically remind us that God determines, God decides, God decrees, God designs.

Man, we depend on God. We're derived from God. We declare His glory and His goodness. We defer humbly or we die hopelessly, and that is man before God. And if that's shining a little bit too much light, that's the way all of us feel.

There is no comfort on the first burst of light of God's sovereignty upon us, but we are to stay there and humble ourselves and find peace, that God has everything in hand. That God is thoroughly good and thoroughly sovereign should be of great comfort to us in our sorrow, that He wills our sorrows.

Remember that God warned first and then willed also the sorrow of death for sinning against Him. In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die, and they surely did. God warned and He willed the woe of wrath upon His people Israel for covenant transgressions.

God willed the sorrows of Christ, His sufferings upon the cross, His death. God willed that, and Christ says in the garden, not My will but Yours be done. Remember that Christ sorrowed over Jerusalem.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! He wept over Jerusalem. He mourned Jerusalem and also willed her destruction as the king. Christ sent His servants into sorrow. Matthew 23, verses 34 through 36, we mentioned this earlier.

He says, therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias and of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Surely, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. He mourns their refusal and rejection of Him and says, I am sending My servants into the fray, knowing you will kill them, knowing you will stone them, knowing you will imprison them.

I know what you're going to do to My people. And Paul was one of those. Paul was one of those. James was one of those. Stephen was one of those. Peter was one of those. And Jesus sent them into Jerusalem, knowing the sorrow that it would create in their lives and the lives of those who love them.

Why? It was good. Many were saved. Many were plucked out of the fire. Many were brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ because servants went into the places that were most difficult and preached the gospel that was most brilliant so that those in darkness would see the light and come to faith in Jesus Christ.

And as the old covenant Jerusalem kept killing and drinking the blood of the saints, it became very, very clear there was a breach between the new and the old covenant temple, a breach between the new and the old covenant Jerusalem that was absolutely irreparable.

There would never be a merger. There would never even be an alliance. And that is so important because by doing this, Christ assures the union of Jew and Gentile in Him as inseparable. There's going to be no peace between the temples, only peace in Christ.

No mixing of old and new covenants, only our coming together in Christ in the new covenant. It's incredibly clarifying. Christ also sends us into sorrow for reasons that we may not comprehend in the moment.

He sends us as sheep among wolves. He sends us as the crucified and risen among the dead. We know that there are many joys of family, and there's also sorrow when we make Christ more important than family.

There are the graces of the church, and then there's sorrow in the breaches of sin. There are blessings of life, and there are sorrows in the throes of death. Let's remember this, God wills even our deaths for our good and His glory.

We need to learn these lessons. If we balk at the difficulties of our good and heavenly Father that He arranges in our lives, what of our deaths? James chapter 1 reminds us, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be complete and perfect, lacking nothing.

That is so difficult. In sorrow when trials come, you have a very distinct sense that given the chance, you would have completely avoided it, but you were not afforded that chance, and now it's on you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Sorrow is on you. It's all you can deal with, and the temptation is to not let patience have its perfect work. The temptation is to resent God who brought this to you, which is why James says in the same chapter, verse 16, do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

Don't be deceived. God is not evil. He's not doing evil. He's not tempting you to sin. This trial, this struggle you're going through is good. Verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

Of His own will, He brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. So here, the last verse, Acts 21, verse 14, here in our passage, the saints had to content themselves with God's will, so we must be content as well.

That means resting in Him. That means finding peace and comfort in His will. There's a kind of sorrow that is exceptionally sad that comes from restlessness. Discontent. There's a kind of sorrow that is filled with hope, knowing that, yes, there is loss and there is grief, and yet, and yet, I know that ultimately this is for the good.

Sorrow is not a stranger in Zion, but it is not the same sorrow that Adam knew, the same sorrow that he met on his way out of Eden. This sorrow is not absent from the New Jerusalem, but it is not the same sorrow that paved Israel's exile into Babylon.

The sorrow that we have is sorrow that is atoned for. He died for our sorrows, and one day we will be raised without sin and loss itself will lose its tears. And while joys and sorrows by God's hand water our day's journeys by His grace, we remember that Christ is all our horizon.

Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this example that we have in the life of Paul where his dear friends, his brothers and sisters in the faith are so filled with sorrow, and even Paul's own heart was breaking at the coming separation and difficulty that obedience to Christ brought to his life and their lives.