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We live in a world filled with sorrows. But, in the midst of any pain, any trial, or any hurt, Christ is Lord, and Christ can and will bring joy out of sorrow. Join us as we examine these truths.
Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.
May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you. We live in a world that's filled with all kinds of sorrows. And there's reasons for that. Sometimes we're the ones who caused them.
We did something dumb. Be honest, we've done that. We've done something foolish. We've done something that invited sorrows into our own life. We suffer for things that we've done. There are times though that we suffer when others have caused damage and harm to our life when they've sinned Against us or done something that wounded or hurt us or betrayed us.
Sometimes we suffer for other people's sins and then there are other times Where it doesn't seem like anyone really caused it other than just the general natural effects of living in a fallen world. When pains and tragedy strike our life, there doesn't seem to be any causal relationship to your sin or someone else's sin anything specifically connecting to the cause of your pain other than we live in a fallen world and We can experience sufferings of all different varieties because of it.
For instance depression when it comes upon a person Because of different chemicals in the brain or because of different genetics or because of different circumstances. Sometimes it doesn't seem to have a causal relationship to anyone else.
Unexpected medical issues that can come upon you. Maybe you're healthy. Maybe you exercise. Maybe you run lots of miles. I know a man who who bikes 15 miles a day and Kovat almost took him out and yet I don't like 15 miles a day.
I've had Kovat four times and I've dominated it. Sometimes we suffer and we don't know why. There's innumerable examples of this. But the thing I'd like to remind us of as we get started as God is with us in our sorrows.
He's the one who sees us. You remember in Genesis where Hagar who's in this awful situation. She runs away. She goes out into the middle of the desert and she's Sorrowful, she's on her knees ready to give up her life and give up the life of her son and God Appears to her and says I am the God who sees you.
Which means in our suffering we are not alone. He notices us. He's with us. He's a man. You well God with us. Not only with us in our suffering but willing to take the suffering we deserve himself on his own head and With that God has a plan for sorrow.
He is not aloof to sorrows. He is not an uninterested deity sitting in some corner of the universe looking down at us with a grin like stinks to be them. No, he's a God who enters into our pain and has a plan for our pain.
We see that in the passage that we read earlier from Isaiah 61. It's perhaps the best example of of God having a plan for in dealing with the pain and the suffering of his people. I'd like to read a few verses from that one more time just to remind us and I'm gonna accentuate certain syllables.
To make sure that you hear. What's going on in this passage? The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. Jesus claims that as for himself in the Gospels. He said this is this is about me. Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim Liberty to the captives freedom to the prisoners. To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord in the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn.
To grant those who mourn in Zion giving them a Garland instead of ashes the oil of gladness instead of mourning. The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting so that they will be called the oaks of righteousness.
Now I grew up in the south and we have like hundred and twenty year old oaks and they are solid and they are strong. And they are they're this royal regal trees that stand there, especially the red oaks.
They're beautiful. God is promising that through your pain through your suffering. He will grow you strong. To be able to stand the test of future Suffering and he will do it in a way that brings you joy and gladness and mirth and delight the pleasure.
Christ himself is promising these things for his people and he did not give. God did not give these promises in a vacuum. He gave them inspired the author of Isaiah to write them down because these things are true in Christ.
Now you have to remember the context right of the Israelites, especially the Judeans where Jesus visits them. They know sorrow out of all people on earth. These people knew sorrow. They were people who had a king from the Davidic line and that King was deposed.
There were people who sinned greatly against God 700 years before Christ came and the Assyrians almost wiped them out. Because after that they started sacrificing their children to idols. God did wipe them out through the Babylonians and they never got a king again.
They never got national sovereignty again so that through Babylon through the Greek Empire through the Persians through the Seleucids through the Romans through the Itamians through all of that for suffering they had 600 years of being an orphan among the empires of the world.
Had no place no land no King and If that's not bad enough if we learn from history in the book of Maccabees not an inspired book. But it is a history book that the priesthood was also perverted 200 years before Christ came so they had no king.
No priest and there were no prophets. The three anointed offices of Israel that were to that were agents of their joy that were meant to help them Love God and love him. Joyfully were gone. They were a bleak depressed and dejected People it is to that people that God promises that he will bring them joy.
It is to that people that he promises He will bring them delight and he will give them the garland instead of ashes which is a sign of repentance and sorrow. He will give them the garland of victory of delight in Christ and in Christ alone and the same is true for us Today that in our sorrows what we will see from our text this morning is that we can find delight in Christ and I'll go even a step further can communicates possibility we must find joy in Christ if we be his.
Now let us remind ourselves of where we've been. We're in the travel narrative in the gospel of John 15 and 16 is the travel narrative and Jesus and his disciples have left Jerusalem. They've left the Kidron Valley.
They're heading to the garden. Which is an ironic thing. Because it was in the garden where pain and sorrow was unleashed upon the world and it is through the garden that Jesus will reclaim its pleasure.
Because he's a good king who will redo the failures of his people. So today we're gonna see how Does Christ crush our sorrows and how does he bring never-ending joy? If there's ever been a practical message that will affect your life on a day-to-day basis.
Here's the passage. How can you have joy in Christ? Well, we're gonna look at five things today. We're gonna look at Jesus's promise. To overturn our sorrows. We're gonna look at the disciples confusion over this.
We're gonna look at Jesus's sovereignty over this. We're gonna look at the reality of sorrows. Jesus is not denying that we will experience pain. He's not overlooking it. But even in the midst of that he promises never-ending joy.
Even in the midst of pain, so if you will turn with me to John 16 16 through 22. We will read our passage this morning. We will pray and we will get about the business of having never-ending joy. So let us read a Little while and you will no longer see me and Again a little while and you will see me.
Some of his disciples and said to one another what is this thing that he is telling us a Little while and you'll see me and again a little while you will not see me and because I go to the father. So they were saying what is this that he says a little while we do not know what he is talking about.
Jesus knew that they wished to question him and he said to them. Are you deliberating together about this that I said a little while and you will not see me and again a little while you will see Me truly truly.
I say to you that you will weep and lament. But the world will rejoice. You will grieve but your grief will be turned into joy. Whenever a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when she gives birth to her child, she no longer remembers the anguish.
Because of the joy that a child has been born into the world therefore you to have grief now. But I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and no one will take your joy away from you. Let's pray Lord Jesus.
We are easily distracted Lord we are easily broken over consumed by The cares of this life. Lord it takes only an aggressive driver to ruin my morning and Lord it's true for all of us. There are so many petty things That rob us of our joy.
Lord help us to be a people who remember That no one can take the joy of Christ away from us. No one has that power. Help us to remember the joy that you have given us. Help us to remember how you crush our sorrows and Word even in pain even in trial even in brokenness.
Lord help us To not give ourself excuses to sit down in melancholy sadness. Lord help us to be a people who fight for joy who beat our hearts into submission and who refuse to Accept glum as an acceptable reality.
Lord we ask these things on the basis of your word and the promise that you will give us never-ending joy. Lord we ask by your spirit that you would help us to fight for that to rest in that to rejoice in that In Christ's name.
Amen. There's a phrase that Jesus begins in this passage and he says a little while. Now it's not just a turn of a phrase as it were that word a little while actually shows up in the Prophets Exclusively in the Old Testament and it's used in two different Contexts the first it's used in the context of judgment in a little while the pain and the punishment and the and the Consequences for your sin will be poured out upon you an example.
This is Hosea 1 4 and The Lord said to them name him Jezreel for yet a little while and I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
Set word a little while is communicating near proximal judgment. Psalm 37 10 also communicates this yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more and You will look carefully for his place, but he will not be there.
Now these passages are communicating an urgency in God's judgment that's going to be poured out upon the wicked. Sometimes the wicked are are not Masquerading as the people of God and sometimes the wicked are within the people of God as in the house of Jehu.
But that's not the primary meaning for this passage judgment. Although it is a secondary meaning because as we've been understanding in the Gospels 40 years after Jesus rises from the dead. Judgment is going to be poured out on the house of Israel on the house of Judah.
Their temple is going to be burned to the ground. Their city is going to be raised which doesn't mean elevated. It means leveled and Their station is going to be taken their house is going to be left to them desolate.
Matthew 23. All of the covenantal woes that have been stored up since Adam is going to be poured out on that generation. That's what Jesus says in Matthew 23. Matthew 24. He says these things will happen in this generations 40-year window.
We know the context of judgment is there but Jesus is not talking in this passage About the Jews who will be judged. He is talking about his people who quickly soon in a little while Will come into the greatest joy that's ever been recorded in human history.
This is a passage that's talking about the blessings that are going to be poured out in near proximal time on God's people. By taking the crushing weight that they feel in their hearts and Putting it on him.
It says a little while and you will no longer see me and again a little while you will see me. He's promising here that he is going to overturn their sorrows and he's Identifying for them a roadmap of what the next 72 hours in their life is gonna look like he says in a little while.
What does he mean by that? He's saying you're not gonna see me in a little while. He's talking about his arrest when Judah or Judas and and the temple guards come and arrest him and take him to Caiaphas where they have this kangaroo court where they beat him and bludgeon him and where they mock him and spit in his face and Jesus is saying you're not gonna see me when I go into that moment.
Only Peter sees him and he denies him three times in the midst of it. Then they're gonna take him before Pilate where the Jews yell crucify him crucify him. We have no King, but Caesar. He's gonna be taken to the Jewish puppet King Herod who's gonna mock him and ridicule him.
Then they're gonna pin Jesus to a Roman cross by carrying him up the hill of Calvary or helping him carry the cross up the hill. They're gonna pin him down to the cross. They're gonna murder him on that hill and they're gonna bury him in a tomb where his disciples will not see him.
In a little while you will not see me. Jesus says I will be gone and the disciples are broken over it and In a sense we get something of the character of God here. Because in order to give them the greatest joy that he's ever given them He first inflicts them with his absence.
He removes himself from them to give himself more fully to them. He leaves them alone. So that they'll never be alone. He took the full weight. By giving them a extra weight for a season. Sometimes God does this.
When God is getting ready to give you freedom and joy and a particular thing. Sometimes he gives you more. Sometimes he gives you a weight. Sometimes he pours out things upon you in a season of your life before he's going to bless you because he's teaching you about resting and trusting in him.
The disciples Self-sufficiency could not help them when Jesus was in the tomb. They had to learn To wait and trust on God and God does this in our life as well. When I became a Christian. I Don't need to get into the whole story, but my life fell apart and I was upset.
I Was like Jonah cursing the little plant outside the city. I was like God I became a Christian. Why are you not blessing me now? Why does my life feel like it's filled with cursing right now and what the Lord was teaching me in that bitterness is That he is all I need.
That it's not me not my power not my working not my ingenuity not my mind. It's him. He had to cut out of me the cancers that had accumulated in me over 20 years. And he had to put himself in me so forcefully through pain and trial that I would never question him.
Sometimes God leads us to more pain as he's taking away our pain. Sometimes he leads us to more Agony as he's taking away our agony and he does this with the disciples. He allows them to walk through darkness.
Because he is going to give them light forever more. So we learned something of the character of God. He says I'm going away and he admits that sorrow has filled your heart and he's letting it happen for their good.
He says it's better that I go away and they're like, I don't agree with you and he let them feel that way. He was going away so that they would have him in full. Because had he stayed with them they would have him in part.
But when he goes and he's already told us this. When he goes when he dies when he resurrects from the dead when he stays with them for a few days and gives them that temporal Joy, it will be eclipsed by the coming of the Spirit of God who will not just bless those 12 men.
They'll not just bless the larger discipleship community of 70 but you and I 2 ,000 years removed get to know Jesus in the same way that Peter and Paul and James and John knew Jesus not physically but spiritually because of the Spirit and Jesus said that that is better.
Because that's permanent joy not temporal joy. Again, you and I Have many sorrows in this life and Jesus never once placate you in that and says that that your life is gonna be awesome. That little song everything is awesome in the Lego movie Is foolish.
He says you will have many troubles in this life. You will. You will have trials you have pain. You'll have moments that bring you to your knees that cause you to weep. You'll have moments where you feel like you're all alone and you're by yourself.
You'll have moments where the person across from you looks like your enemy. You'll have moments where Everything seems to be falling apart around you. He does not say that you won't have those things you will.
But what he does promise is that medicine is not the cure. Therapy is not the cure. Exercise is not the exercise is good. He is saying that the cure for our sorrows is not in temporal physical Means it is in him and him alone.
He is the cure to all of our sorrows all of our sins. When Christ died upon the cross He took all of our shame all of our failure all of our brokenness so that as we rest in him and rest in the deliverance that he has given us it cures us of Our sorrows.
The reason we don't live in joy often is because we choose not to. Because our sadness is giving us something that we enjoy. We have to wrestle with that. He promises that when he was raised. That he would give us a never-ending joy.
Look at the disciples they can face anything. They're hungry, but they have hope. They're overjoyed in periods and when they were being beaten and when they're being jailed and whenever they're being in prison.
They're conquering as they're being conquered. Because they understand who Christ is and they understand who the Spirit of God is and it calls them To have so much joy that they turn the Roman Empire upside down.
You and I have never been treated like Paul. We've never been beaten within an inch of our life three four times. We've never been a. Maybe we haven't. Maybe there's someone here has been arrested. I Worked in a jail.
I tell people that I was arrested for seven and a half years and got time served. But Paul was in jail. What is he doing? He's singing. James and John are beaten with an inch of their life. What are they doing?
Are they pouting? No, they're singing. They're praising. They said we've been counted worthy to suffer for Christ. You see over and over and over again in the New Testament as they suffer their joy increases.
Because they know who Christ is in Fact when they were being fed to the lions. The crowds are saying look at how they love one another. Look at the joy on them as they're being murdered for their faith.
There was a scene in in Fox's Book of Martyrs that was so compelling to me because it seems so foreign to our modern understanding. A mother and her child were standing in front of in front of the lions and they choose the child to be fed to the Lions to motivate the mother to Abandon Christ and the child for a moment whimpered and the mother said to her child.
Don't you whimper. Christ is better. Where did we lose this. Where did we lose this kind of joy that invades every aspect of our life so that even if we're not comfortable. Even if we're broken we can see the magnitude of the shining light of Christ and his gospel is better than our pain.
Where did we lose this? In our comfort ridden society with all of our toys and gadgets and distractions. I get that our Life brings us many things that confuse us. We're not alone in that the disciples were confused.
Look at what it says in verse 17 and 18. Some of his disciples then said to one another What is this thing that he's telling us a little while? You will you will not see me and then and again in a little while you will see me and because I go to the Father so they were saying what is this that he says a little while?
We do not know what he's talking about. How many of us can identify with the disciples? We have the account of what is going on and how many times do we say I don't know what he's talking about. We have the end of the story that they were confused about and we are confused when we suffer.
Every time when we suffer and we say God why me? We are confused because at the end of it. Someone today before service said I'm better than I deserve and it reminded me. What do we deserve? Really? We deserve hell for our sin we deserve torture for our sin and If all we go through in this life is a few trials and tribulations and pain.
They're not even worth comparing to the glory that would be revealed on the day of Christ. Where have we lost our joy? Where have we made the cares and the concerns of this life so much more palpable and powerful than the power of Jesus Christ?
The disciples are confused over their sorrow and it pervades the gospel of John. John Does one or does two things. John does everything well because the Spirit inspired it, but there's two things I'm gonna highlight today that John does.
Well, he highlights the confusion. When it comes to Jesus and he highlights Jesus his absolute clarity the confusion. Nicodemus confused. He comes at night. He's the teacher of Israel and he has no idea what Jesus is talking about.
He's confused. The woman at the well has no idea what Jesus is talking about. She's confused the paralytic in John chapter 5. Jesus comes up and he is confused About even who he is when he's talking to Jesus when Jesus walked on water.
His disciples were confused when he said you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. The crowds were confused when the disciples saw him in his transfiguration. They want to build a tent to Moses and Elijah.
They were confused when Jesus healed Lazarus or when he was going back to heal Lazarus. They were like, why are we going back there? You're a public enemy number one. Every time Jesus speaks it seems like that he's perplexing his people for a purpose.
Because he's leading them to great joy sometimes. The simple answer that straightforward doesn't accomplish. What a perplexing Confounding answer will do. Jesus is constantly perplexing and confounding his disciples to teach them to stop resting in their human ability to understand and to rest in him and.
We get confused as well when our mind is reeling when our ideas are running together. You ever been in a moment where you've got a million ideas happening and depression and anxiety and confusion. Are the partners that are sparring against your brain and you have no idea?
What God is doing or what he's talking about. This is how the disciples felt in this moment. They we don't know how long this conversation lasted. It couldn't have been more than 30 minutes, but they are walking in deep confusion.
They have no idea what God is doing. They can't see the forest for the trees. All they know is Jesus saying he's gonna remove himself from them. They have no idea that he's going to ascend to heaven and give them the Spirit of God.
To give them the greatest joy that they've ever seen. They have no idea and this teaches us something from our perspective. We can't see more than the moment that we are living in. The disciples on Thursday could not possibly imagine what was going to happen on Sunday.
They thought it was over and that is the same for you and I. The suffering you're going through today looks sovereign to you, but it is not sovereign. God is the one who is sovereign. You cannot see all of the things that God is going to do.
When I look back at the time when I became a Believer in Christ and all of the pain and all of the suffering I looked at that in that moment. Is it it was the realest thing in my life and now looking back on it?
I see God's plan God's purpose his intention and I would not trade it. I would go through it a hundred times over again because I know what God did with it. That teaches us. That our perspective is too small.
That God is the one who is sovereign and he's the one who's leading his people. He is the one who brings light on Sunday morning after the darkness of Friday evening. He is the one who brings clarity to the confused.
He's the one who brings knowledge to the ones who are dull. For us today as we are people who struggle with pain and struggle with depressions and anxieties and brokenness and rejections in all manner of things.
We have to remember What God has said and who God is. God is sovereign. God is good and God is great and there is joy in his resurrection. If you know that God is all-powerful and that God is all good.
Everything you're going through right now is a part of his plan to sanctify you and bring his blessings into your life. All joy all Grace multiplied peace. All the promises that we read every single week are yours even in your suffering.
Because you serve a God who is sovereign over all things and you serve a God who can be praised in all things. Find your comfort in his work and his resurrection and his ascension and the spirits indwelling get your eyes off of your Circumstances because they're not God.
God is God and he will work for the joy of his people. Now Jesus proves this. In the way that he speaks to his disciples. Jesus knew that they wished to question him and he said to them. Are you deliberating together about this that I said a little while and you will not see me and again a little while you will See me again.
Like I said earlier. He is proving that while the disciples are confused. He's not he's not confused about anything. He has absolute clarity. Look at all of the different examples of this in the Gospel of John.
He knew Nathanael before he even met him. He knew the heart of man without even having to meet them. John chapter 2. He knew how many husbands the Samaritan woman had before she told him. He knew how long that the invalid had suffered 38 years before he even spoke.
He knew that he was going to be betrayed by Judas before he left the disciples. He knew that Peter was gonna deny him three times before Peter peeped a word of Rebellion and he knew what the disciples were thinking over and over and over again.
We see that Jesus is the one who knows and if Jesus is the one who knows why don't we trust him? You and I don't know anything. You don't even know the next word. I'm gonna say and Then the next one and then you don't know.
Why would we trust our opinion on anything? Why would we trust our perspective on pain? Why would we trust our? position being so limited in our knowledge of anything when it is God who knows Everything and he is all good and he can take your life and make your life whatever he wants for your good and for his glory.
Why do we give credence to our perspective so frequently and fail to notice his. When he's the God who sees us knows us. Understands us. He knows our struggles and he's been there and he even went to the cross.
For you and by giving you his Holy Spirit. He has brought you into the same relationship with the same intimacy as Peter and James and John and all of the Apostles. You know Christ because of his spirit.
Don't trust your perspective. Don't trust your knowledge. Don't trust your pain. Don't trust your suffering. Don't trust the thing that was done to you or the word that was said about you or the or the gossip or the this or That don't trust those fleeting things that are lying to you.
Trust in the perspective of Almighty God who says that he will complete the work. That he will bring all good things to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Stop trusting you. You're not trustworthy.
Your perspective isn't God's is. He doesn't placate them. He says truly I say to you that you will weep and you will lament but the world will rejoice. He is not saying that that like that. Maybe some of the prosperity preachers say that if you just have enough faith and you're gonna have your yacht.
You're gonna be your Maserati. You're gonna have your watch. You're gonna have your this. You never hear that. That's foolishness. Jesus never does that. He never looks at them and says you were gonna be pain-free.
He says in your pain, you will have the pleasures of Christ. He does not say that you will not have pain. The sorrow is going to come for these men these disciples. But he's gonna overturn it. If you remember what happened in the Gospels Peter was afraid of a little girl and he denied Christ in front of her.
He had great sorrow and confusion the disciples they all scattered and they abandoned him because they had great pain and great confusion and great sorrow and What was it? Who was it that? Overturned the world after the resurrection you have men who were weak and who were frail and who were broken and then after the resurrection.
You have lion-hearted men who turned the entire city of Jerusalem Samaria Judea and the Roman Empire upside down. What happened? It wasn't them. They were weak. They were scared of little girls. It was Christ and his resurrection power and the Holy Spirit's indwelling that changed these weak-men into lion-hearted Apostles who turned the world upside down.
Why do we doubt? That the same power that rose Jesus Christ from the dead now lives in us. That he wouldn't take us in our weakness and turn us and make us and have me give us courage and give us joy.
Why do we sit in our depression so long and in our sadness so long when his work? changes us. Their lives are a living testimony. That Jesus's work changes you. Why do we live so glum and filled with so many cares and so many worries?
Why do we become so aggravated? I'm speaking to myself. Why do I get so aggravated so easily? Why do we labor so little in Jesus's kingdom. When we have the same Spirit who rose Jesus from the dead. When I look at the earliest Apostles and disciples.
They were joyfully ready to give everything for him. They sold all their property. They were working every day of their life. They were in each other's lives. They were building. They did not treat Sunday morning as an event that they needed to attend and Jesus was never part of their life.
He was all of it. How did we come as a society to treat Sunday morning as the apex of our spiritual endeavors? That if we can just come to a Sunday morning service, then we've accomplished it. He didn't die for your hour.
He died for your life. He didn't die for your for the crumbs that we offered him he died to have everything and When you give him everything what you will realize is is that he will give you great joy.
See when I teach my children this when we pray when we pray with our hands open God can put things in them. But when we when we pray like this and our lives look like this. We're clinging to our idols and our things and our brokenness.
And what can God put in your hands then? What made the disciples joyful is that they gave everything for Christ. We're so afraid to give anything to Christ that we live our lives like this. Is it any wonder that we have little joy?
Because we're so busy holding on to things that really aren't ours in the first place. I'm gonna be honest With some of these things. This is not just a Shepherd's Church thing this is a an American church thing where churches all across the country are struggling with their budgets because We don't have a vision for the kingdom.
We have churches that are closing down because pastors don't have a vision for the glory of Christ. We have a Sunday school class that has three people in it right now, and I'm and my wife or two. Why are we?
Why are we not involved and consumed? With Building Jesus's kingdom. It's not that we don't have opportunity. We live in, Massachusetts. We can bond together people and We can see his kingdom built in ways that will they will have to write history books about.
There's opportunity here if we have the joy and the desire to see his kingdom built. When we understand and recognize who Christ is in his resurrection and in his ascension. We will be like the Apostles and we will be all in what I'm pleading for the church in America and what I'm pleading for our church to recognize is if We're not all in it's because we have not yet seen how beautiful Christ is.
There is opportunity for us and I want to read to you before we close. This never-ending joy that he brings. He compares it to a woman who's in labor. Who forgets all of her agony because she has this child.
He compares it to a joy that can never be taken away. Even in the greatest trials and in tribulations and in pains and in sufferings. It cannot be taken away. And here's an example from history of that Patrick of Ireland.
Have you ever heard of Patrick of Ireland? He's not the guy on the Lucky Charms box. Patrick of Ireland was was captured in his home and taken into slavery. He was arrested he was tortured and beaten.
He escaped he got back home and then the Lord put it on his heart to go back to the people who beat him and the people who Enslaved him so that he could tell them the gospel of Christ. All the pain and suffering that he went through and God sends him back into it.
And you would think that he would be better about it and you would think that he would say, you know what God? That's not a part of my life plan. That's not a part of my making sure that I stay safe tomorrow.
Look at what Patrick says about his own faith. I want to read this to you. It's astounding as he faces punishment and torture and all these things. He says I arise today. Through God's strength to pilot me.
God might to uphold me. God's wisdom to guide me. God's eyes to look before me. God's ears to hear me. God's word to speak to me. God's hand to guard me. You see how God's How who God is is working itself into every aspect of his life?
God's way to lie before me. God's shield to protect me. God's host to save me from the snares of the devil. From Temptations of vices. From everyone who desires my ill afar and near alone or in a multitude.
I summon today all these powers before me and against the evil. Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul. Against the incantations and false prophets. Against the black laws of Pagan dumb.
Against false laws of the heretics. Against craftiness and idolatry. Against spells of women and smiths and wizards. He was facing some spiritual warfare. Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today against poison against burning against drowning against Wounding so that reward may come to me in abundance. Christ with me. Christ before me Christ behind me. Christ on my left and Christ on my right.
Christ when I laid down and Christ when I sit down. Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me. Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me. Christ in the eye that sees me and Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today through a mighty strength. The invocation of the Holy Trinity through a belief in the threeness through a confession of the oneness. Amen in the greatest suffering that Patrick had ever known.
He had the greatest joy because he knew something That was greater than his suffering and that is the beauty and the lordship of Jesus Christ. Dear brothers and sisters. This is not a secret formula and this is not just for happy people who have a disposition towards towards friendliness.
Know Jesus Christ. Know the power of his resurrection. Know the beauty of your Savior. When your pain accost you throw it down and turn your face to Jesus. He will lift your head. He will give you joy and I don't care what you're going through.
I do care what you're going through but it will not stop you from having joy because Christ is better and bigger and he triumphs over it. There is joy for anyone who turns to Christ. Amen. Let's pray Lord God.
We live in a world that seeks to constantly take our joy or one of the great Skills of the enemy is to try to attack us where we're weak. Our flesh cries out for us to Love the things that are poison.
The world craves the things that hate God and yet in the midst of it Lord through all the pain and sadness through all the persecution through all the diseases through all the back aches and through all the Things that in anyone in this room could list down on a piece of paper that has accosted them.
There is joy to be had in Christ. You are greater than our pain. You are more beautiful than our than the ugliness that we feel. Lord, I pray that everyone in this room Would be so fixated upon their Lord Christ and who he is in his resurrection that Lord the people of this world would look at us and be confused by us because they would see us as the most joyful people that have ever lived.
Lord we are not angry. We are not bitter. Lord fill us with your spirit so that we will be a people who magnify you through our joy and Lord make us stubborn that when our Depressions and anxieties attack us Lord.
Let us never be okay with that and let us fight it and Let us kill it. It's in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.