Our joy is our sorrow unmasked. So let me first say, our indomitable joy in Jesus in the midst of suffering and sorrow is the flavor of our message. And that the selfsame well from which our triumph and exaltation rises will be filled with our tears. So we will end this writing with this truth – “it is well with my soul”. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into our being, the more joy we can contain. Is not the cup that holds our sorrow the very cup that is being burned in the potter’s oven? And it is not the word that soothes our spirit alone, it is also the very wood, the very word, that was carried to Calvary.
When we are joyous, look deep into our heart and there shall be found only that which has given us the richness of bittersweet things experienced for which we have no regret. When we are sorrowful, look again in our heart, and there shall be that truth we are weeping for and mourning over that can bring repentant delight over particular sins, that others may be forgiven who have come to see through the ministry of God's Word, through God's Spirit, and through God's people, the joy of returning to the Father. There is no struggling in our crying. We are now faced with situations that highlight the fragility of life, and the burden we are to carry for every soul truly lights a fire with us. The truth of our testimony must quicken our pace and strengthen our resolve, to bring the word as it is life eternal to those who will hear and who unexpectedly realize that perhaps time is not as unlimited as they once thought it was. With the word they can reason to move forward intentionally with a newly found perspective. Life is suspended in time as we encounter moments of sorrow and joy. It is in the sanctuary, in the scales of mercy and truth, where we empty self and find balance between our sorrow and our joy. It is here where the treasure-keeper lifts us to weigh His gold and His silver.
God has a people who will live with joy as great sorrow comes and will cope in times of terrible suffering, even as we support others who are suffering and sorrowing, not yet knowing the joy of peace. That is why the Holy Spirit is teaching us truth, hard truth, that we may live what we have learned. We will walk with joy in sorrow for Christ’s sake. We will cry, we will laugh, and we will spiritually and truthfully worship God. This is God making perfect those inner character qualities. Our every joy, our every sorrow will be based upon spiritual realities. That is why the Feast of Tabernacles is taught to us, that we may not base life on material conditions. It hearkens us to remember that God’s people must be wilderness minded. We are to ignore the false substitutes for joy – worldly good times based upon worldly motives. These sources do not produce joy, they don't, at least in the biblical sense. Such substitutes as self-pity, unthankfulness, pouting, are worldly weeds to choke out fruitful seed. God’s people think biblically, not confrontationally, we do not kick against the sorrow.
Jeremiah 30:11-17
God has built into the world, sorrow as a natural result of sin, especially for the believer who has the Holy Spirit convicting him and a conscience that can be triggered by God's Word...look what's possible. Jesus does not promise to exempt us from sorrow. But when we embrace the truth of the word of God there is this power deep inside that in the midst of trials and agony and tears, produces joy. Joy that denies sorrow is neither hard-won, nor true, nor eternal. God’s people are never to hide their heart from sorrow. We have hope enough to remain open to expected encounters with joy because we are a people of the promise. A people shaped in the image of the God whose very Being generates all joy in the universe, yet who also weeps and grieves its brokenness. So we, God’s children, are also at liberty to lament souls being lost, even as we simultaneously rejoice in the hope of their's and our coming restoration. As the dead breathe out the last breath, we who are dying to sin, breathe out sorrow, to breathe in joy. And in the very now that is, our hearts cross with Jesus as he was a man who bore our grief, and carried our sorrows for the joy that was set before him.
Because, in truth we reason with God to receive the revelation of His determination for things to come, we come together in the experience of knowing the sorrowful time and events that are now, yet always rejoicing. The people who are seeking God look up often to the stars to see the greatness and the grandeur of God over their heads like galaxies of hope. We are to help them taste from the plate. And in the truth we put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, imprisonments, labors, deprivation, hunger by showing purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand toward all. In the patience of God’s timing our spirits will not be broken. We will be the paradox to the world. Through dishonor and slander, we will show honor and praise to God. As dying daily, they will behold God’s grace as we live because Christ is our life. As punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet being and making many rich in faith; as having nothing, yet possessing everything, we will continually abide in the power of the Holy Spirit, speaking the truth. We are a tiny movement following a crucified and risen King. Brothers and sisters, there will be countless times that our hearts will break. But we are known by God, and that is what counts. God has a work for us to do. And we do nothing for earthly comfort or ease.
We sorrow because our kinsmen are perishing in unbelief, cutting themselves off from Jesus. We strive to share the truth as it is the truth, praying that they respond to the wooing of the Holy Spirit. Possibly it is that we are not yet pleading with them with the grace of tears that they may see the tracks of pain in wanting so badly for them to believe and be a follower of Jesus with us. We want us all to have eternal life. We want us to be with Christ forever together. We can hardly bear the thought of losing any. It makes the stones on the breastplate exceedingly heavy on the heart. The world has never seen such a display of love as will be expressed in the midst of sorrow by God’s elect. For we know that we are the fruit of our Lord’s sufferings. We thank God for the strength of the truth. For it is by His goodness that the sentiment of our sorrow is turned to repentance, rendering “godly sorrow” that creates in us an intense hatred of sin and a strong determination to purge ourselves from any and all fellowship that yields to works of darkness. Sound wisdom, sanctifying our influence, confines us to faith. We are as stars in the constellation of promises with weeping sparkles of hope for this time, sorrowing in the expediency of his absence that we may bring to Christ his due compensation, and are to be so satisfied with it that we patiently wait, and quietly joy in his soon appearing.
The truth teaches us expressly that this sorrow is changed into joy. Not exchanged for joy, but actually transmuted, so that the grief becomes joy, the cause of sorrow becomes the source of rejoicing. Wherein is the essence of our joy? What were it to us if Christ saved all the rest of mankind and we be not redeemed unto God by his blood? We might have been glad from sheer humanity that others should be benefited, but what would have been our deep regret to be ourselves excluded from the grace. Now how blessed is the joy that we are not excepted. Our hearts know joy because of his atoning agonies. What a peaceful joy to know that through Christ we are reconciled to God. By the putting away of sin, by the salvation of his chosen, and by the vindication of his Father, our joy is uttermost secured beyond anything that was known before or since; for here the very heart of God is laid open to His justice and His love. Our joy is our Christ of God. We must proclaim the word...we must attend the Word.
We expect suffering, sorrow, but Jesus is the joy of our consolation. This joy is to work holiness in us as we develop a keener sense of accountability for those around us. We will not be deprived of this joy. It will be the means of our loving them more, praying more for them, and seeking more their good, and we will be the better qualified to do them real service and to lead them to our Lord. We know we will have to bear a little persecution, hard words, and the cold shoulder, but it will serve us to become more like him. We are fully persuaded that the truth of Christ is the joy of our triumph. For we make known all the full truth of a matter. That’s why the world’s joy will be turned into sorrow. Even so will it be that the wicked will curdle into grief. The wine of their transgression will sour into the gripping vinegar of remorse, and will dissolve the souls of those who would not come to reason with God in truth. Joy does not protect us from sorrow, but it certainly enables us to benefit from sorrow. It softens it, sweetens it, and helps us to focus on the hope that endures in the midst of every sorrow as God proves again and again that He is alway with us. The depth of our spiritual awakening is very much connected to the amount of darkness and pain we will go through. God’s souls that evolve to the elect will endure a lot of suffering and much sorrow. We study the truth, that we might know the darkness, that we might become the light for others.
Suffering is universal, sorrowing is individual. Both are a strengthening and purifying experience when combined with faith. The suffering teaches us obedience. The sorrowing teaches us humbleness. When we suffer because we sin, we repent. When we sorrow because we sin, we repent. By both we are drawn closer to our Jesus. Our joy of sorrow is real in the very depths of our soul. This joy gives us “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,” to keep our heart and mind through Christ Jesus. Having the joy of sorrow proves the reality of our faith, and we make our conviction attractive to others. Because of Jesus we have a matter for joy, a motive for joy, a measure of joy and because of Christ we have a greater remainder of joy yet to be realized. We have a heritage of joy that as yet we have not entered upon; but it is ours by a covenant of blood, the covenant of perpetual obligation, and none can break the sacred settled inheritance. God’s people are a joyfilled people, a blessed people. We be numbered among them! Jesus enters into our sorrows. And Jesus creates our joys. Our eyes grow dim in his absence, and our sorrow is long even before the troubles actually come, but in our readiness for his return our faces are lighted with joy. We accept our sorrows as coming straight from God. Therein is why the bitterness concerning our trials is but a shadow of what the worse could be. Jesus, on the cross, felt untold numbers of deaths as he died as one. Our sorrow will be for many that they will not come soon enough to fear God in wisdom. When we hear His truth not believed, when some undermine His invitation to come, when we see those forsaking the unity of truth, we sorrow. And the time is soon that we will not be able to go to meet them. The more we love, the more the cost of sorrow. Jesus knows that ours is not a causeless grief. He justifies our sorrow because it touches him. He will remove it. We have to go meet the bridegroom. So, we are to joy in the ones who come now.
The Word of God empowers much adaptability to the peculiarities of all His people. You ever notice how a specific text is meant specially for you. God’s word is the key that unlocks every aspect of our lives. The key is perfectly fitted for the individual to touch the out-of-the-way, singular, special, peculiar, idiosyncrasy of sorrow. We’ve read where Jesus said, “and ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” Christ’s words make it effectual and that covers the sorrow and covers all our wounds; for though we do not see him again just yet, yet he is still seeing us. His Divine Spirit can now so effectually apply the comforts of the Word that it shall not be said, we ought to rejoice, but, we shall rejoice. Notice how Christ deals with the inmost core of our being, our hearts. Do we not know what this experience is, beloved brothers and sisters? I pray we do. Sometimes, we cannot tell our joy, it is too deep; it is so excessive that words and noise of any kind seem quite out of place. So, we want to get alone, and in the silence of our soul to sit still before the Lord, and just take in the full draughts of His love and hearing him say, “I will see you again, and our heart shall rejoice.” God’s people have different pleasures, higher joys than the world.
Many who cannot see the truth today are not because they are blind. It is because they live where light is being rejected. But what is worse is that when presented with light, they declare that there is no such thing as light, for they say that they never saw it. Here the sorrow becomes locked in the bosom. Bitter ought to be our regret that ever we should have wandered from the path of right. But all is turned into joy when we know that now the Savior has finished the atoning work. It is so in our joy that we are given the Holy Spirit for if Jesus himself was here we could not all get at him. So we are content with present joys as we prepare to be with him. We will be under very severe afflictions. The more the enemy persecutes us, the more deep, the more high our joy becomes. We will sing in our sighs and rejoice in our mournings; only let us wait and be patient. It is well with my soul...
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