Triumph in Trouble

Well, good morning, Cornerstone. It's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. And such a gratitude that fills my heart as I see what God is doing here in this church and What a blessing it is just to see you in your new facility and to be able to worship together as one body, one service, and just so thankful for all that God is doing, thankful for your pastor and for his friendship and for the partnership that he's had with us through the years as he served us in many ways, coming to our family retreats and filling in and being a blessing to our body.

And so my heart is just filled with a lot of gratitude to the Lord.

And as you think about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I trust that, even as you have opportunity tonight to vocalize those things that God has been doing in your own heart, I'm sure that there are many blessings that you can thank the Lord for. I won't be here tonight, so I'll just give you my list ahead of time. I'm thankful for my family, and I'm especially thankful for the incredible gift that God has blessed me with and my wife Karna, 25 years of marriage, and grateful for the 4 precious gifts that God has given 2 boys, 2 girls.

We also have a little foster baby that's in the nursery this morning.

Thankful for him. Especially thankful for my church family as you are with your church family. oftentimes I think about why God placed me with this body of believers, and I realized that I don't deserve the church family that I get to pastor week in and week out. And their example of love for Christ and His gospel work is an encouragement to my heart week in and week out.

And I think all of us would resonate with this final Person of thanks, and that would be our Savior. That above all, we are grateful for Jesus Christ for the work that he did on our behalf on that cross. We're so thankful for who he is. His person, he's gracious, he's beautiful, he's glorious, he's faithful, he's merciful.

And we're thankful for all that he did. His work of death and resurrection, and he did all of that for wretched sinners like us sitting here gathered together to worship Him. And as Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, he said, in everything, give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. And I'm sure it's easy to be thankful when life is going well.

Maybe life is going well for you right now. Marriage is doing well, the kids are staying in line. The family finances are OK. In fact, they might be growing.

There are no major health issues, there's no significant trials that have weighed down your life. But what happens to that heart of gratitude when God drops a trial, right smack in the middle of that season of peace? How do you remain thankful, even in the storms of life? These trials come in all different shapes and sizes.

You might be easing back in your recliner of life, and all of a sudden, a rock comes crashing through the window. And these trials are like that. They all come in different shapes and sizes. And let me ask you this morning, is there a rock in your life?

Is there a trouble? Is there a trial that you're facing? And if so, what is your heart response to that difficulty that God has sovereignly placed in your life right now? Maybe your trouble is in the form of a stressful situation.

Maybe financial stress is causing you to pull out your hair because there's not enough money at the end of every month. Or maybe it's in the form of a relationship that for some reason has soured, and you're thinking about this hurt and this pain that this relationship has brought into your life. Maybe it's in the form of suffering. You suddenly find out about a death an accident.

You go to the doctor for a routine checkup, and he calls you back the next day and gives you some news. Maybe it's just the daily frustrations and pressures of life. Some of you men might feel stuck in a dead-end job that you've got to face every day. Some of you might feel like you're stuck in a dead-end marriage.

You look in your rearview mirror and you see flashing red lights or you come home to a house full of squealing, crying, shouting children, and you've got a massive headache. What's your trouble this morning? There should be some notes inside your bulletin, and if you look on the back, there's a little box there. And what I want to encourage you to do is just to write down your trouble.

What is that one trial that is causing you to take your focus off of God and onto that trouble? And whatever it might be, I want you to ask yourself this question. How do I handle this trouble? How do I deal with this difficulty, this trial that God has sovereignly placed into my life?

And as God's people, there are only one of two paths that we can take. We can take the path that really is directed by our own will, our own flesh. It's our own path. It's really the path of pride and sin.

We can get angry with God, we can get angry with other people, we can allow anxiety to paralyze us. We can try to ignore the trouble or run away from it, run to escape his pleasures to drown out the voice of that trouble, we can blame others. And whenever we take this path and trying to deal with that trouble, it always leads to the same place. Our lives become more despondent, and we become miserable without hope.

That's one path we can take. The other path is to take God's path. The other path is a path of unflinching loyalty and trust in God. It's a path of childlike dependence in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and by God's grace, we can trust him.

By God's grace, God can transform our hearts so that we would have a different renewed perspective, and even desires to follow God to be faithful to his word. where that path leads? It ultimately leads to joy. It leads to peace.

It leads to the type of soul satisfaction that God desires for us to have, even though we're right smack in the middle of a horrific storm of life. I want to give you biblical hope this morning. And I want us to turn our attention away from those troubling rocks that have come crashing through the window of our lives. And for the Lord through His word to just place his hand gently on our cheek.

And to turn it off of that trial and onto himself. And as God's people, we have hope, we can find triumph in the midst of our trials. As we look to the Lord, let me just pray for us. Our Father, we come before you now.

And Lord, we admit that our lives are frail. Lord, we are prone to wander. Lord, we feel it prone to leave the God we love. And so we ask Lord, that you would take our heart, seal it, bind it close to you.

Through the precious work of our Savior, and through the faithful promises found in your word. And Lord, I pray for any in this room who are just going through a difficult season of life. Lord, whatever it would be, God, I pray that you would meet them right in the middle of their brokenness. And Lord, that you would lift up their countenance, that you would instill in their heart, your joy and your peace.

Oh God, do this, Lord, you're faithful. I pray you would do that, Lord, and may we all leave here this morning encouraged. May we all leave here with a renewed perspective on the things that are happening all around us that despite the hurt, the difficulty, the tension, the pressure, Lord, that we would stand firm because of Christ in us. We love you, and we thank you in your name.

Amen. You have your Bibles open to Philippians 4, Philippians chapter 4. And we'll be looking at verses 4 through 7. And as you're turning there, just to give you a little bit of background on the book of Philippians, it's referred to as Paul's epistle of joy.

It's one of the major themes of the book, the joy of the Lord in the life of the believer. And it's dealing with the attitudes of the Christian life, attitudes that reflect the character of Christ. And the church needed this. It was a healthy church, and yet it didn't.

Avoid the struggles that we face as believers, there were troubles within the church. There were several women, Yodi and Sittaki, who had a conflict. And what was bad about this is it didn't just stay private, it went public. And now these two women are feuding and it's a public feud.

And not only were there internal struggles, but there were also external struggles with persecution about them. And knowing their difficulties, Paul closes his letter with the series of rapid fire instructions that sum up how this is how you can handle your struggles. And then in a sense, it summarizes Paul's heart for them. We look at verse 4 there.

And he says, rejoice in the Lord always again, I will say rejoice. How do you find triumph in the midst of your trouble? Here is the first answer, we are to rejoice. That word comes from the root word joy, it means to be joyful.

And what's interesting about this word is it's a continual command. Paul is saying, look, Christians in all situations and all circumstances, here's what I want you to do, rejoice in the Lord. And to make sure that they didn't miss it, he says, and again, I will say, rejoice. So what is this joy?

What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? Well, Christian joy is unique. Some people think joy is equated to happiness, and that's not right. It's not true.

Joy is different from happiness. Why? happiness is based on the circumstances of life. Whereas joy is not based on the circumstances of life.

Your joy meter doesn't move over when things are going good and it moves down when things are going bad. We tend to be victimized by our circumstances. We can be taken hostage by our troubles so that when life is good, we're emotionally good. But when life is sour and bad, we're emotionally sour and bad.

And this is not what Paul's talking about. True Christ-like joy is not based on the circumstances of life. Joy, Paul is speaking about is based on a right relationship with God. Christian joy is not affected by anything in this life.

Why? Because it's rooted, it's grounded in the character of an unchanging eternal God. Because God is the source of this joy, and he never changes. And his joy is infinite, and it's an eternal joy.

We always have that possibility of rejoicing in the Lord. Here's my definition of joy. Joy is the sense of overwhelming peace, contentment, and love in the heart. And here's the key, it's based on the person and work of Christ.

If we can get our hearts grounded in who Jesus Christ is and what he's done for us, and we can live in that truth and rest our souls in the soil of the gospel. What emerges is joy. Peace, contentment, love. Because of what Christ has done.

And this is why Paul commends it. Why do we rejoice? Why? Someone might say, Well, John, that seems insensitive.

Because I know some people that are really going through a very difficult season of life. And how can you just walk up to them and say, hey, rejoice in the Lord. The answer is because Paul is commanding us not to rejoice in our difficulties, not to rejoice in the difficult people that God has surrounded our lives with, but notice he says rejoice in the Lord. Paul commands us to rejoice in the unchanging eternal sovereign and good God, who is in control of his universe, and God rejoices all the time.

There is never a nanosecond in history, where God's joy just stops. So because our rejoicing is in God, this can be a present and continual reality for every believer. And if we're going to do this, let me just give us two big hooks to hang our rejoicing on, two big hooks, especially as it relates to adversity and difficulty. And the first truth is this, God is sovereign.

God is sovereign. I'm sure you're well aware of this doctrine of God's sovereignty. And what that means is that God is in total control of everything that enters into your life and mind. Everything that happens in this universe, God has it all under his control.

Isaiah 46:9 and 10. It says this, remember the former things long past, for I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, things which have not been done, saying, my purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. Isaiah goes on to say that he holds the The universe in the span of his hand. If God had a hand, the entire universe that he made would fit right there in the span in the width of his hand.

And check this out, God's sovereignty is not just generic, it's not just about generalities. But he controls the very atoms and the very molecules that he made. Jesus says this very interesting statement, Matthew 10:30, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. As I look around this congregation this morning, some are easier to count than others.

But imagine that The very hairs of your head are numbered. Who spends time in the morning counting hairs? And yet Jesus' point is that God's sovereignty is down to the very specifics of life. Even down to the number of hairs.

On our head I have a friend who's a missionary to the Czech Republic and Just loves the Lord, loves the gospel. And he was preparing to go to seminary. And the church where I served with him, we had a policy that any young man that was heading down to seminary needed to go down debt-free. And he had school loans that he needed to pay off and this was the summer before he was to enroll at the seminary in the fall.

And he's working hard, construction worker, to pay off these debts. Well, up in the area where we used to live up in Spokane, Washington, we had these stores, this grocery chain called Safeway, I think we have those down here and remember they used to have those cards, those little cards, and you, scan it and you get all the discounts, right? And he had one of those cards. And for some reason, that summer, the Major League Baseball team in Washington, the Seattle Mariners had this Promo And it went something like this, that if any Seattle Mariner hit for the cycle, which is a single, a double, a triple, and a home run, They would draw a number, right?

Just randomly, of anyone with that Safeway number card, and that person would get free groceries for the entire year. Well, guess whose number got picked? Think about all the intricate details that needed to go into this plan of God. God allowed that Seattle Mariner that summer to hit a single, a double, a triple, a home run.

He's probably thinking, man, I'm, I'm a gift to baseball. He has no idea that this is being used of God. to help a young man get to seminary so he could get on the mission field. That's the sovereignty.

Our God is about. He won that promo. He called Safeway and said, look, I don't need the groceries. Can I just get money?

And they said, sure. And it was enough money for him to pay off the remainder of his school loans so that he'd go to seminary that fall. That's the power of our God. And brothers and sisters, nothing can steal our joy when we realize that every circumstance that enters into your life and mine is there, not because God fell asleep, not because he turned his back for a split second, and chaos entered in.

No, it's there because he sovereignly allowed it to be there. Our author Margaret Clarkson writes, the sovereignty of God is the one impregnable rock to which the suffering human heart must cling. The circumstances surrounding our lives are no accident. They may be the work of evil.

But that evil is held firmly within the mighty hand of our sovereign God. All evil is subject to him, and evil cannot touch his children, unless God permits it. And if it weren't for this truth, our trials would hold us hostage, and we would be a people without any hope. As you look at your trouble this morning, ask yourself, Can I trust God's sovereignty with this?

Am I willing to just place my confidence in God's perfect, all wise sovereign plan? That's the 1st big hook. It's a big one. Here's the 2nd big hook.

And it's the truth that God is good. I think the sovereignty of God would be a very frightening thing. If God were not a good God. We would have a hard time trusting.

In this mean spirited and yet all powerful God, we'd be like little frightened children cowering at the dinner table with a father that could just explode in anger at any time. And yet the Bible teaches us very clearly that The God who is sovereign and there's also our God, who is good. Psalm 34:8 says, Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

Psalm 105, for the Lord is good. The Lord is good. His loving kindness is everlasting, and his faithfulness to all generations. This is the essence of our Heavenly Father.

His heart is filled with infinite goodness. Especially, especially for his children. And he's given us this incredible promise to cling to, that reminds us of what he's gonna do. Today, tomorrow, the next day.

And we all have probably heard this verse Romans 8:28, we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. What's the good Some Christians want to believe that the good of Romans 8:28 is, God, you, you're gonna take away this trial. All right, so I'll just keep trusting in you and eventually that good will come out, this trial will be removed, and I'll be happy again. And yet that's not the good that Paul is talking about.

The answer is actually found in Romans 8:29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son. The good that Romans 8:28 is talking about is looking ahead to Romans 8:29, and it's conformity, it's becoming more and more shaped and transformed into the likeness of Christ. That's the good.

The good of God is not in our comforts. It's in our conformity to Christ. And the way God does that, is he brings this transformation about through trials. Oftentimes for believers, what stands in the way of us becoming more conformed to the likeness of Christ, Are those things that usually rise up from our hearts to the surface when we're in the middle of the trial.

It's those idols, it's those sinful desires, it's those cravings that we hold near and dear to our heart, more than Christ. And therefore, God sends a trial. And why does he do it? To get those things out of the way.

To strip those competitors for our first love. Knowing That good awaits us in the end. If you're a Christian this morning, this to be true. That the greatest and most joyful moments in all of life, the greatest and most joyful moments in all of life, without question, occur when we are walking humbly with Jesus Christ.

It's when we are abiding in the vine. It's when we are fellowshipping, when we're communing with Christ. Nothing compares to the joy, to the satisfaction that we have in our souls, when we are walking with our Savior. And brothers and sisters, if God must use a trial to get us there, then what, that's a good thing.

If you ever doubt God's goodness towards you in times of trouble, There's a place we must look to secure our hearts from drifting away. Asking questions like, God, Are you really good, God, do you really care? God, don't you see the struggle that I'm going through? And let me direct your attention that if you ever find yourself in your heart drifting and questioning the goodness of God, look no further than Calvary.

Because His grace and His love. are seen at Calvary in the most exquisite, in the most deep, in the most intense manner. And Paul writes in Romans 8:31 and 32, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

He who did not spare his own son. But delivered him over for us all. How will he not also with him freely give us all things? If God did, The most difficult thing he could ever do.

which was to send his beloved Son to this earth, to take on human flesh and blood. Why? Why did the incarnation need to take place? Because Jesus needed a body in order to die.

And he orchestrated sovereignly this plan for his son on this mission to die, to eventually get to that cross. And on that cross, and you see the agony that this caused Jesus as he's wrestling in prayer with the Father in the garden, and there's sweat pouring down his face, maybe even blood, because of the intensity of his prayers. He even asked Father if it's possible to remove this cup from me. Because he knew what awaited him.

And yet he went to that cross. To put the Father's glory. And the Father's holiness, and the Father's love on display. And God is willing to do that for you.

He saved you by the precious blood of His Son. Paul's logic then is, won't he do the easier thing? Won't he give you everything you need in the middle of your trial? If God sacrificed His holy Son, For you.

Don't you think he'll give you these lesser gifts? Don't you think he'll give you other resources to carry you to strengthen you, to help you? Do you believe that this morning? Will you cling tightly to The loving goodness of God, in the middle of your trial.

And this is why we can rejoice, why we can rejoice. And note the last word in verse 4, rejoice in the Lord, always, always. All the time. This makes sense now because our joy is not dependent on circumstances.

It's not dependent on how people treat us. It's dependent on an unchanging God, who bids us to come. For the grace and the mercy to help in our time of need. And God is always faithful.

He's always eager, he's ready to bless. And therefore our joy can be always. Will I rejoice in the Lord despite this trouble? That's the first answer.

Rejoice. Here's the second answer. Respond, respond. And there's 2 ways that we need to respond at times in the middle of trials.

Look at verse 5, let your gentle spirit be known to all men, the Lord is near. Sometimes the trouble in our lives is caused by people. In fact, I would say the majority of our trials are people related, they're relational difficulties, people who hurt us, people who sin against us, people who don't like us, maybe even people who persecute us, and people can make life very, very difficult. And Paul knows this, he's just confronted two women in the church, call them out publicly in his letter.

They were causing each other pain and suffering. And here Paul calls them to peace. So how do we respond? How do we respond when the trial occurs through people?

He says, let your gentle spirit be known to all men. Let your gentle spirit, that, that word is hard to define, but I would, I would define it this way, it's gracious forbearance, gracious forbearance. One commentator says, it's a humble, patient, steadfastness which is able to submit to injustice, disgrace, and maltreatment. And this is the character of our Lord.

at any time. Jesus could have Just thought a thought. And instantly all of his persecutors, all those who mocked him, all those who mistreated him, all those who blasphemed his name, just with a thought would have fallen dead in an instant. In fact, in the garden when he's arrested, And Peter pulls out the sword.

Jesus says, don't, Peter, I can call down legions of angels. And then he doesn't do anything And in 1 Peter 2:23, it says, and while being reviled, Jesus did not revile in return, while suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. And brothers and sisters, that becomes the pattern for us when we are mistreated, when we are treated unrighteously, when we are insulted, when we are reviled, We put on a gracious forbearance, a gentle spirit.

With whom?

He says, to all men, let this gentle spirit be known to all men. Why do you just think right now, is there, is there anyone In your relational network, people that. That you become bitter towards. That you have an unforgiving spirit towards.

That you just want to avoid. Because that hasn't been dealt with in your own heart. And here Paul makes his absolute statement. Let your gracious forbearance, let your gentle spirit be known, not just to those people that like us, that we like, we get along with.

But also for everyone, to all men. Including strangers, crazy drivers. Those contentious people that cut in line. Maybe your IRS agents, cranky store cashiers, bossy bosses, whining children, and possibly on occasion that spouse that comes home riding a broomstick.

Now why, why, why do we need to have a gentle forbearance? He says, the Lord is near. I don't have the time to go into the different views on what this means. It could be spatial that God is near to the brokenhearted, to those who are Christian spirit, it could be temporal that God is near in time, and I think it's relating to the latter that Jesus is near his coming is soon.

James 5:8 says, you to be patient, strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near. And so because he's coming, and when Jesus comes, what's gonna happen? He's gonna take every tear, every hurt that you have, and it'll all be wiped away, it'll all be taken away. All wrongs will be made right.

And therefore, we can have a gracious forbearance. Why? Because we like Jesus will continue to entrust to him, and trust to the Father. That righteous judgment.

As you think about your trouble, if it happens in the form of a person. Let me ask you, can you have a gracious forbearance? And we're not talking about a neutrality of heart. We're not talking about, OK, I just won't think bad thoughts about them anymore.

I'll just avoid them. That's not what he's saying. This is a proactive grace. Can you have that?

Look at the 2nd right response to our trouble. Verse 6, be anxious for nothing. The second way we respond to our trials is without anxiety. Do not be anxious.

What is this? I want to note that anxiety is not the same thing as grief and sorrow. God grieves. It says about Jesus that he was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

That's not what anxiety is. Anxiety is a contingent of the heart that shakes our trust off of God. It takes our confidence off of the perfect character of God, and it places it in ourselves or in people or in circumstances. And that's the key difference.

You can be broken, you can be weeping, you can have tears streaming down your face, night and day filled with sorrow because of some tragedy or some burden that you're carrying. And yet at the same time, Have that heart free. From the burden of anxiety. Because when we trust that God is in sovereign control, Of all the pain and the suffering that enters into our lives, when our joy is rooted in Christ, when we know that this is happening for our conformity to the likeness of Christ, when we rest in these truths, and eliminates the need to worry.

And yet I, I know, I admit that I find my life at times can be like Martha in Luke 10 who was worried and bothered about so many things. And mine is racing and just trying to figure out all of these trials and struggles and pressure points of life in ministry. And pretty soon my heart gets weighed down. With anxiety The root of an anxious heart.

is really an unwillingness to trust. It's an unwillingness to trust in the sovereignty and the goodness of God. In other words, the reason why We don't lay down our anxiety is because of our pride. When we worry, we challenge God.

We question, we say, God, I don't know. Are you really good? Lord, maybe your goodness missed this this one time. Or what are you doing?

I don't deserve this treatment, Lord. No, God is good. He knows our needs. He's in absolute control of every detail of our lives.

Which is why he eliminates the need to worry. When do we obey? He says, be anxious for nothing, no search, no situation, no circumstance, no person in life can legitimately justify our worry. So he says, be anxious for nothing.

So he's told us, here's the first answer, Christian, rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, always, and then respond, respond with a gracious Spirit, maybe those who have hurt you and respond without anxiety. And let's look at the third answer, look at verse 6B requests. Request, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, that little tiny connector that word but be anxious for nothing but connects the command of be anxious for nothing with the rest of this verse.

And what he's saying is, look, fight anxiety.

Don't be anxious. But here's what you should do, pray. Fight anxiety with prayer. A wonderful example of this was a missionary that we know, a nurse who's given her life to, helping, the cause of the gospel in Zambia.

And she came home one night. And as she put her keys into her, her door, Two men jumped out of the bushes with AK-47s. And they demanded that she enter into the house, and that they could ransack her house. And what her instant response was?

She turned around, she faced these men, and she just closed her eyes and she just started praying. And she prayed for God's protection, she prayed for God's will, she prayed for the salvation of these two robbers. And it showed it so shocked these men, they didn't know what to make of it, and they just ran off into the bush. And that's a perfect illustration of this verse in action.

When you feel threatened, when your heart starts to stir with worry and anxiety, here's the answer, just start praying. And note the various forms of the word for prayer. There's prayer, that's just a general word, reverent address directed towards God, there's supplication. What's that?

That's a humble cry to God for the fulfillment of needs. And then he says, it's with thanksgiving, it's with thanksgiving, and the implication is that we're to pray with humility and submission to the perfect will of God. And the final word requests, which is an interesting word, these are specific, definite requests made to God. So that when we pray for help, we are praying specifically, we're praying definitively.

And we're asking God, To help us As you look at your trouble, let me ask you, have you, have you spent time Have you committed your heart to pray? Over that trouble. If you ask the Lord not just to take it away. But for the strength, for the perseverance, for the joy, for the peace.

That only he can give you, even in the middle of that difficult circumstance. When do we do this? He says, but in everything, but in everything by prayer. That's contrasted with the anxious for nothing.

And then in everything by prayer. So whatever it is that's causing that trouble. Give it to the Lord in prayer. And notice what happens, the result in verse 7.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. What an amazing promise. When we rejoice. As we rejoice in the Lord, as we respond as we request God for help in the middle of the difficulty, look at this promise, he says, and the peace of God.

What is that? This is the actual peace that God has in and of himself, the very calm, the very tranquility that characterizes the very nature of God will be ours. And it says, it surpasses all comprehension. It's gonna be such an overwhelming piece.

that we will look at it and it'll just stun us. It'll amaze us. It'll cause people around us in the middle of our difficulty as we walk in the calm and the tranquility of the Lord, the peace of God, they will be dazzled and amazed. That's what it's talking about.

Back in 1999, you probably heard about this or read about this. In the country of India, there was a veteran missionary by the name of Graham Stains. His family had been there for years, 34 years, operating a medical clinic for lepers. Reaching people for the sake of Christ.

And in January of that year, he and his two boys, 10-year-old Phillips and 7-year-old Timothy, Went to a, a Christian camp in a remote area. But this was a dangerous area because it was populated nearby with militant Hindus. When the militant Hindus heard that the missionary and his two sons were there in their area, they came in the middle of the night. The missionary and the boys were sleeping in the car.

There's no hotels that they could check into, they just slept in the car, which is a common thing. And they surrounded the car. They began to douse the vehicle with gasoline, and they lit it on fire. When Graham and his two sons tried to get out.

The wild mob kept them in. And as the flames torched the car. They danced and shouted. Justice has been done.

The Christians have been cremated Hindu fashion. Even after the car was torched, the mob stayed for over an hour just to make sure that the missionary and his boys were truly dead. His wife Gladys, and the daughter did not go on that trip. 2 days after the murders, lepers dug the graves for the family.

While Gladys stains consoled them. As they wept. And she said shortly after the tragedy. God has given me peace.

And I have never questioned his wisdom in allowing this tragedy. That's a peace. That's the peace that surpasses all comprehension. And this is what God Gives us This is what Jesus promised us in John 14:27, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives, do I give to you.

Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. So God Gives us, that's what he's eager to bless us with. And notice what it does, it guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. It's a very vivid term it's picturing a soldier on the inside of a city, guarding the walls from the inside.

He's a century. And this promise simply tells us that God's peace will stand on the inside of our mind, inside of our hearts, and it'll guard our minds, it'll guard our hearts and protect it. From any enemy assault, any enemy attack. To steal away that piece.

Would you like to have that in the middle of your difficulty? You don't have to earn it You don't have to pay for it. You simply have to trust it. You have to trust Christ, his person, his work, the one who gave his life for you.

And every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies belongs to the children of God, because of the generous love, goodness, kindness, mercy of our Heavenly Father. Whatever trouble you're facing right now. God's pathway holds the answer. We rejoice.

When we respond with a gracious forbearance, when we respond without anxiety, when we request God in prayer, when we simply submit our souls and our hearts to God, this is what God does. And he loves us so much. God loves you. He loves me so much.

That he's so eager to bless us. With goodness, with joy, with greater conformity to Christ, that he won't just sit there and allow our lives just to ping pong back and forth from ease to comfort to pleasure to peace, whatever. No, God's love is so great that he allows difficulties in our lives knowing the fruit that's gonna be born through that trial, knowing that there will be idols and sinful desires that come floating to the surface that he can refine and take away. That our souls, our lives, would cling to Christ, that Jesus would become so valuable to us in the middle of that trial.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:9. My grace is sufficient for you. Quoting Christ, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

So that when Jesus Christ is the believer's greatest joy, It honestly doesn't matter. It doesn't matter the trials, difficulties, they don't matter. What matters, and what we've become passionate about is to make Christ look great. It's to bring honor and glory to his name.

And all the while, he feeds our soul peace and joy, and contentment and love. Let me just close with this true story about a woman named Mabel. It's given by a man named Tom Schmidt who met Mabel in a state-run convalescent hospital. He writes this, the state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place.

It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days, it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for 4 years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the place one gets used to.

On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless. As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror.

The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek.

It had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled cons constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this site, they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was 89 years old, that she had been here bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone for 20 years.

This was Mabel. I don't know why I spoke to her. She looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw, but I put a flower in her hand and said, Here's a flower for you. Happy Mother's Day.

She held a flower up to her face and tried to smell it and then spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although garbled, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, thank you. It's lovely, but can I give it to someone else?

I can't see it, I'm blind. I said, of course, I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one. I stopped the chair, Mabel held out the flower and said, Here, this is from Jesus.

That is when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital.

For 25 years, she got weaker and sicker and then the cancer came. Her 3 roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their beds, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was overpowering. Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next 3 years.

Her first words to me were usually an offer of candy from a tissue box in her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I, when I would pause, she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word for word. On other days, I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory.

She would often stop in mid hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain, except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns. It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say. During one week of final exams, I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in 10 different directions all at once.

The question occurred to me, what does Mabel think about hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it's day or night. So I went to her, and I asked her, Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here? And she said this, I think about Jesus. I sat there and thought for a moment about the difficulty for me of thinking about Jesus for even 5 minutes.

And I asked, what, what do you think about Jesus? She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote. I think about how good he's been to me. He's been awfully good to me in my life.

I'm one of those kind who's mostly satisfied. Lots of folks wouldn't care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I'm old fashioned but I don't care. I'd rather have Jesus.

He's all the world to me. And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn. Jesus is all the world to me, my life, my joy, my all. He is my strength from day to day.

Without him, I would fall. When I am sad, To him I go, no other one can cheer me so when I am sad. He makes me glad. He's my friend.

Brothers and sisters, when Jesus Christ. It's the world. He is our all. When he is our life, our joy.

It doesn't matter Circumstances don't matter, situations don't matter, that trouble on your paper, it will not matter. What will matter most is Christ. And when he is our joy. His strength and His peace will fill our hearts to overflowing.

I pray that the reality of that truth would be ours, in our experience to the troubles, the trials that God gives us, that we would triumph in Christ through that trouble. Let's pray. Our Father, we stand amazed. You are a great God.

And you are a good God. Your goodness to us has been bound up in the most precious gift, the person and work of Jesus Christ. No greater gift, no greater gift can we ever imagine. than to know Jesus.

To have him as our nearest and dearest friend. Father, we thank you so much for your faithfulness. Lord, you have been good to us. You've been good to us, to those that don't deserve an ounce of your goodness, and yet you lavish us day after day after day.

With good and great blessings. Oh God, I pray That you would turn our hearts away from those things that can steal our joy, that can take away the contentment that we have in you. And Father, that we would be a people convinced that Jesus Christ is our greatest joy, that we can rejoice in the Lord always. And again, we will say rejoice.

So Father, I pray that you would do that. Lord, I imagine that there are folks in this room who are just broken. Lord, whose tears have been their food day and night, who need a word of encouragement, who need their hearts just lifted up. I pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit.

Taking the truths of Christ and precious promises in this word would be a soothing balm to their aching hearts, that they would be lifted up and encouraged. And that their gaze would not be on the trial, or tribulation or even themselves, but that the gaze would be on our glorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Oh God, may you do that. Father, thank you for this church and for all that you're doing.

Thank you for your many blessings upon this dear group of saints. Father, may you continue to use them for your name's sake here in this community, locally as well as globally abroad. Father, thank you, Lord, that you've blessed us with financial means. And Lord, as we give now, we pray, Father, that our hearts would be cheerful, eager to give.

Lord, may we be joyful givers. Thank you so much again, Father, for being such a great, being such a great, faithful, merciful, loving, loving, sovereign, and good God. We love you and thank you in your name.