Fellowship in the Word

Bil Gebhardt: You can have joy in the midst of sorrow. In fact, that's what Jesus did. He rejoiced an awful lot. He also wept. Jesus is on the cross, and he cries out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and he did it in the context of the joy set before him.

So he had joy even in the agony, in the sense of the cross. That's kind of an amazing thing. The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 6; he said when he described what the Christian life would be like, he said, "as sorrowful, yet rejoicing."

Jason Gebhardt: Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bil Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bil Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: When it comes to suffering in this world, there's a lot of confusion in the Christian community about how do you approach that. There's one group that basically says the only reason you ever suffer is because you lack faith. And that if you have enough faith, you'll never suffer. So every disease will be healed, if you're suffering relationally, that'll work out fine, if the idea is something more than that economically, God exists to make you wealthy. The whole idea behind it is your faith will make everything better for you.

So the problem with that view is, well, first of all, it's not true. That's a bad problem. But secondly, you end up feeling guilty because now you don't have enough faith. So not only do I have something I'm suffering about, but I also have the experience that I simply don't have enough faith. Then there's the other group that basically says that no matter what you're going through, just keep smiling. Just smile. Just embrace it all, enjoy it.

Now, that's not exactly scriptural either because there's a time to mourn and a time to dance. Mourning's not walking around with a smile painted on your face, pretending this is not suffering, this is not pain. It's not like that at all. Then there's one other view, and I read that this week, and the fellow said that well, the key is anytime you suffer, you put yourself in the stages of grief and really get mad and angry and especially at God, give him the business. And the writer said and he's a big boy, he can take it.

That's not what scripture says. That's not what the Bible teaches us how do we approach suffering. So that's what I want to talk about today. I'm in a series practicing the presence of God in our lives, and I want to talk this week about this idea of suffering and what we need to do as we go through it. And so I want you to open your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1.

Now, verse 6, the context of this is very clear. Peter is writing to a group of people who are suffering. They're suffering because of their faith; they're suffering because of oppression. This is Peter trying to minister to people who find themselves suffering. So notice he starts in verse 6 and he says, "In this you greatly rejoice." And you're going to hear that all morning now. In this context of suffering, you need to greatly rejoice. He said, "even though for now, for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials," and they certainly had.

He said, "so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." And though you have not seen him, you love him; and though you do not see him now, you believe in him. You greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. Notice a lot of joy. A lot of rejoicing. He said, "Yeah, that's the key. If you're going to suffer, you need to do it in the context of rejoicing."

That's interesting to me, how this whole thing plays out. The other thing that I found in the Word of God is, you might not understand this, you're commanded by God to rejoice. Like the Ten Commandments. This is one of them. You must rejoice. It's my command to you. Now, because it's a commandment, you have a choice. You can either choose to rejoice or choose not to, just like with every other commandment in the scriptures. It's up to you. But he says you're going to have to be able to rejoice.

Now, what you're going to find is that if this is true, then joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive terms. You can have joy in the midst of sorrow. In fact, that's what Jesus did. He obviously rejoiced an awful lot. He also wept. Jesus is on the cross, and he cries out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and he did it in the context of the joy set before him. So he had joy even in the agony, in the sense of the cross. That's kind of an amazing thing.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 6; he said when he described what the Christian life would be like, he said, "as sorrowful, yet rejoicing." So these aren't mutually exclusive terms. A Christian, even in the midst of their sorrow, should be able, in a sense, to rejoice. Now, please don't mix this up. He's not talking about "don't worry, be happy." That's not what he's saying. This isn't happiness. Happiness is an emotion. Happiness is an emotion, and it's always circumstantial.

So when anybody you know, saved, unsaved, doesn't matter. Everybody has happy moments. When the circumstances are good, you're happy. Joy has nothing to do with circumstances. It's not an emotion. It's much more of what I would call an attitude. And it has a prevailing attitude as what the scripture says you and I should be able to have here. We should be able to rejoice. Eleven times in the Old Testament, God gives us this command: "Rejoice in the Lord." And that's going to be important as we go on. Rejoice in the Lord. That's the source of which you'll be able to rejoice.

Hannah, who we looked at a few weeks ago, in chapter 1, Hannah is totally in dismay. She's discouraged. She's depressed. In chapter 2, it says she's rejoicing. David talked about his own issue of despair and then, in chapter 32 of Psalm, the book of Psalms, after a year of not confessing his sin of adultery with Bathsheba, he finally confesses his sin and he says that I shout for joy in the confession of his sin. So the context again is there, no matter what happens. And it applies to everybody, not just them.

Go with me to Habakkuk, Habakkuk chapter 3 and verse 17. I'll give you a little more time. Habakkuk. Yes, it's in the Bible. Habakkuk realizes just what's coming, a terrible, terrible situation for the nation. Verse 16 of chapter 3, he says, "I heard and my inward parts trembled. At the sound my lips quivered. Decay entered my bones and in my place I tremble because I must wait quietly for the day of distress." This is anticipating something awful is going to happen. He knows it. He said, "This makes me sick. I know what's coming."

So then he says this, verse 17: "though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, and though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle or stalls." Now, that's total collapse of your culture. No cattle, no sheep, no food, no olive oil, no wine, everything has failed, the culture is completely collapsed. He said, "Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord is my strength and he has made my feet like hinds' feet; he makes me walk on my high places."

And so what he ends up saying here is that even in the midst of the worst possible scenario, I'm going to rejoice. Which tells me and you, even in the worst possible scenario, we can rejoice. That's what the Bible says. Now, I don't know how you think or whether you think it's that way or you even confuse happiness with rejoicing. But for the believer in Jesus Christ, if you don't rejoice, you don't have joy in the midst of circumstances, you really doubt God's providence. He's provident; you doubt that. God couldn't be behind this.

You also doubt God's promises. Well, they don't work now. That's not working now in these circumstances. You see what ends up happening to us is we end up, in a sense, stealing our own joy. Robert Morgan says, "When we make up our minds to rely on him day after day, in storm and sunshine, our burdens are lifted even if our circumstances for the moment are unchanged or deteriorating. Standing on his promises, our spirits are elevated, with our emotions lifted upward as our perspective shifts toward God." That's where this whole thing works.

Some time ago, not long ago, I was finding myself in a difficult spot emotionally and psychologically. So immediately, I decided I wanted to go to Psalm 42. And I needed to look at that again afresh to really understand how does this work with me. So I invite you to open your Bibles to Psalm 42. And in it, we're going to see how, in the midst of this, how do you get joy out of something like this? Now, if you look at the superscription on this, it says "for the choir director, a Maskil of the sons of Korah." That means you're supposed to sing this. Now, we don't sing Psalms like this. We only sing the first couple verses.

Well, the Psalmist did. He said, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When," he said, "shall I come and appear before God?" He knows he's always saying this; I know I need God now. And as I went through that, I understood that as well. He said—now notice—"My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all day long, 'Where's your God?'" That's a terrible, awful, horrible day and night. The Psalmist is depressed. The only thing I've taken as food are my own tears. Wow.

He says, "These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me." This is one of the real keys in this. The Psalmist says, "How do I get out of being stuck in sorrow without joy? I need to start remembering." He said, "That's what I have to do. I have to remember in some way." And so if we skip over and then look at verse 5, it says, "Why are you in despair, oh my soul?" That was the question I asked myself. Why are you in despair? Why have you become disturbed within me?

See, I don't know about you, but this applies to all of us, not just to the pastor. What am I saying there? I should know better, shouldn't I? Shouldn't that be the case? Is that case with you? You ever find yourself with an attitude in your life and you know better? You know this is not what a believer should be like. You know that. But it doesn't change it. You still feel it. So he says, "Why are you in despair, oh my soul? Why have you become disturbed within me?" He says, "Hope in God for I shall praise him for the help of his presence."

There's the first thing you have to remember. He's present. He's right here. Notice most of the time we suffer, we suffer alone. And when we suffer alone, by the way, we trick our minds and we say stuff—here's one of our favorite words: nobody. Nobody cares. Nobody. There's nobody to help me. Nobody. God's like, "Hey, I'm right here. I'm right here." You see, he's starting to remember this. He said, "Wait a minute; I've got this idea for help of his presence."

He said, "Oh my God, my soul is in despair within me; therefore, I remember you from the land of Jordan." He said, "I can go back in my life. You see, I can go back in my life and see what you've done." And that helps me. If I go back in my life and see from the time I became a believer in my early 20s, how God has guided our lives and guided my life the whole time. That's an important thing for me, in a sense, to look at the presence of God and to understand God's purpose in my own life. And so that's exactly what happened.

He says in verse 8, "The Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime and his song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life." He starts singing praise now. You see, because of the loving kindness of God and again my favorite word in the Hebrew Bible, "hesed." It's God's grace, love, loyalness, everything wrapped into one word. He said, "God, you gave this all to me." He says in verse 9, "I will say to God my rock"—now watch—"why have you forgotten me?"

Notice this problem; he goes from euphoric back to reflection. "Why have you forgotten me?" Ever ask God that? Ever been in a position you say, "God, it feels like you forgotten me"? By the way, could God forget you? No, he can't. Okay, by his very nature, he never said, "Wait, oh, I forgot all about Bil. I wonder how he's doing." You see, but that's what he felt like. He said, "Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of my enemy?" Verse 13 again: "Why are you in despair, oh my soul? Why have you become disturbed within me?"

You see, that's a very good question to ask yourself. What is going on with me? Why am I feeling like this? And he says, "But I've got to remember some things. I have to remember your presence in my life. I have to remember my past with you." You see, that's what I have to remember. And the key to this idea of joy, by the way, 11 times in the Old Testament it's commanded: "in the Lord." "Be rejoice in the Lord." You see, if you don't do it in the Lord, you're not rejoicing. It's just that simple. That's not biblical joy. You're just hoping for happy circumstances. But we rejoice, he said, "in the Lord."

And what do we have in the Lord? Well, the first one's in this Psalm, and that is his presence. Turn back one page and look at Psalm 41 and verse 12. Here David's writing and David says, "As for me, you uphold me in my integrity, you have set me in your presence forever." Realize that, no matter what you do, no matter what you become, no matter what you are, you're in the presence of God. And the Psalmist understands it; David says, "And I'll forever be in your presence." There'll never be a time—Jesus in the New Testament says, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Never."

I will not do that. So you have his presence. Turn with me back to Psalm 19 for a moment, Psalm 19 and verse 7. We have his presence and we also have what is called his precepts. Psalm 19's a famous Psalm. David again; he's going to tell us all of the advantages and all of the blessings of the Word of God. Like what are all the things the Word of God can do? And that's what David starts telling us in Psalm 19. So in verse 7, he says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, it restores the soul." In other words, when my soul needs restoration, he says the law of the Lord, can restore my soul.

So the answer for me when my soul needs restoration is in the Word of God. And if you know what to look for in the Word of God, it becomes very, very helpful. He said, "The testimony of the Lord is sure, it makes wise the simple." I kind of love that verse. You see yourself in there? I do. You see, if I have wisdom, guess where it came from. It came from the Word of God. On my own, God says you're kind of simple. And that's the truth. So he says the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Then he says this: "The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart."

Pequad is the Hebrew word, precept, principle. Notice that the principles of the Word of God can put joy in my heart. It can give me a context of joy. Again, because it reveals all those things about God and all those things about me. He said, "That's the key to this, the precepts of the Lord." The third one, go with me to a famous passage, Romans 8, verse 28 in the New Testament. Romans 8:28.

Verse 28 says, "And we know"—by the way, some of us don't know this, and I know you don't know because you told me you don't know. "Well, I didn't know that." And 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. The ultimate providence of God. Notice Paul doesn't say everything that happens is good. Not only good stuff's ever going to happen. You know that wouldn't be true. We are sinful people living on a cursed planet. A lot of bad stuff happens. It'll happen all the time. It'll happen until there's a new heaven, new earth.

So he says, "But we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God." Sometimes you get to see that happen. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you might be in glory before you understand, how did that all work? How did those things which weren't good work together for good? But every once in a while, you get to find something out that isn't good, but you see it at work for good.

Jason Gebhardt: You’ve been listening to Pastor Bil Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you’d just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That’s oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today’s broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

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