Joy Inexpressible

1 Peter chapter 1, 6-8, if you want to follow along with me, this will be our text today. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. So you may be seated. so we've already discussed that Peter wrote this letter to exiles who are dispersed in Asia Minor and he's writing to them to warn them of a fiery trial that is coming he'll say later in chapter 4 don't be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you but what Peter wants to do is prepare his people in a couple of ways one is he wants them to know how to behave while they're in their trial, while they're in their exile. He wants them to know, basically, here's how you ought to act.

You have to know what rules to follow in life. And then secondly, and maybe more importantly, he wants to tell them what type of attitude they should have in their heart. And the attitude they have in their heart is actually what's going to be the impetus behind their behavior. So your behavior is always driven by your thoughts, your attitudes, it's driven by your beliefs.

There's no such thing as acting your way into the right thinking. I think that we can sometimes force ourselves to have some habits that may help us out, but ultimately, human beings do what we want to do. We do what our heart desires to do. We do what we think we're going to do. And so the way to live a life that's pleasing to God is to have your thinking renewed by the Word of God, which was authored by the Spirit of God who has the power to give you a new mind so that you might please the Lord Jesus Christ.

So here in verses 6 through 8 there was a few principles that we were going to go over and we're going to look at a number of different passages of Scripture that all are going to, for the most part all of them are going to cover all the different principles. So I want to give you the principles and then as we go through different passages I want to look at them. The first one is that trials are going to come and they're going to grieve us.

So the point is, don't let anyone tell you that trials aren't bad things. We don't pretend trials are good things, even though we're going to talk about the fact that we have to rejoice in them. We don't pretend that they're good things, though. They're still bad things when some of these afflictions come to us. We don't rejoice about evil, but we'll rejoice in the trial that God's giving us.

And we'll look at that in a little bit. But they definitely grieve us. It says in verse 6, you have been grieved by various trials. And things make us very sad. Things are very difficult. And when we're in this life, a lot of the afflictions and the trials that we face, they are things that we will not encounter in glory.

These are things that we look forward to the day they won't happen again. So although we're going to talk about rejoicing in them in this world, we want to think about them rightly. We don't want to rejoice that evil was done just because God did something good with the evil. We rejoice in God doing something good, but not in the evil itself. Secondly, trials prove our faith similar to the purification of metals, and we'll look at that in a minute.

So thus we rejoice in the future and the present. So we not only rejoice in the future when there will be none of these afflictions, when the curse will be lifted, when all tears will be wiped away, but we're to rejoice in the present even before we get there. We are to act as people who really have that future hope, the living hope. And finally, Christ is going to hold us fast.

He is the object of our faith. and he is also thus the object of our love and our joy he's the source of those things as well so turn to Psalm 119 verse 119 which it would be the only chapter of the Bible I think that has 119 verses or has at least that many so if I just said verse 119 you should be able to know where to go but Psalm 119 verse 119 says all the wicked of the earth you discard like dross. Therefore I love your testimonies. So God spurns and trods upon his enemies.

Ultimately he discards them like dross. So first notice the scope of God's judgment. All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross. It says Proverbs 15.3 tells us the eyes of Yahweh are in every place keeping watch on the evil and the good. there is no escaping the omniscient one even as we were talking earlier God's omnipresence ought to scare people it is not a comfort to the wicked whatsoever the fact that God is everywhere and sees everything and knows everything should frighten everybody to salvation, it should frighten them to flee to a savior Proverbs 25.5 tells us take away the dross from the silver and the smith has material for a vessel.

Take away the wicked from the presence of the king and his throne will be established in righteousness So in Psalm 119 the psalmist was speaking of God purification and one day he going to rid the world of all evil and the curse will be lifted and his righteousness will be established on the earth So although we see traces of God's righteousness on the earth, we see it in fellow believers, we see it in God's goodness that he performs throughout the earth. when God establishes his righteousness finally on the earth after death has destroyed the last enemy to be put under his feet we will have a king whose throne is established in righteousness because the wicked has been taken away in the same way that dross is taken away from silver so the dross, so if you don't know about metallurgy the dross is the impurities in the metal So gold or silver has dross, and when you want pure gold or silver, you heat it up to a really high heat and it melts. And when it melts, these impurities, these things that aren't really gold, kind of come to the surface because they're lighter. They're not like the heavy metal.

And then the silversmith or the goldsmith is able to, well, not with his hand, but with a utensil, he can scrape that stuff away from the top, and then he can just discard it, Because that's trash for him. He doesn't have anything to do with it. And then he has this pot of gold that is now more pure gold than it was before. And he'll do that repeatedly.

And he'll keep getting more and more dross each time. So he can purify gold and purify silver. So the dross is the impurities which obscure the true purity and beauty of the gold or silver. So just as elements are put to the fire and the pure remains, the wicked flee when no one pursues. So how much more when the heat is on? Right?

So when the heat comes on, the wicked are going to flee. But when the heat comes on, the righteous are supposed to withstand it in a sense, and their faith will be shown to be true. So the silversmith has no need for the dross and cast it aside like garbage. and so the Lord is going to discard the wicked but not his people so the point here is that we have this purification that we're about to read about a little more deeply turn to Psalm 12 6 and Peter I think is drawing on all of these analogies that are given in the Bible about purity about metals being purified when he says though you've been grieved for a little while your faith more precious than gold that perishes will be tested by fire.

In Psalm 12.6, a little more about the dross. A little more about purity. It says, The words of the Lord, the words of Yahweh, are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. Each time the fiery trial comes upon the silver, it's made more pure. so you have your pile of silver it's got some amount of impurity you put it in the pot you heat the pot whatever the process is you pull the dross away and you throw it away so let's say you had 80% silver and 20% junk once you take that stuff that came to the top away now you might have 90% silver and 10% junk in it and so your silver has become more and more pure well you do that 7 times and all of a sudden you're going to have more and more purity each time and so when you think about your own life when you think about who Peter was writing to and Peter is ultimately writing to us as well think about each trial that God has taken you through in your life since you became a Christian think about the difficulties that at one point you faced and you it may have even scared you to the point where you thought God doesn't love you it may have scared you to the point where you thought well maybe I'm not even a Christian it may have been so difficult you couldn't imagine ever overcoming it and then you got through it eventually the Lord carried you through it and then think about some of the subsequent trials that came and how now you're more capable of withstanding some higher heat and now there's more purity hopefully that you have that allows you to deal with life and to do the things the Lord wills.

So even though each time we go through a trial in this world, impurities will be found, those impurities were there the first time too. You just didn't see them. So while you're being sanctified and you feel more sinful the longer you go sometimes, it's actually just God's revealing your sinfulness to you more. That sin was always there. The dross that is pulled off on the seventh time that the silvers heated up was there the first time.

But it was so deeply embedded it couldn't come out. And there was so much other junk around it that it couldn't even bubble to the surface. So you had to remove those things first. And most of you can see that in your own Christian life. When you first got saved, there was a few sins that were really obvious. They were external.

They were the easy things to get rid of because you just knew you shouldn't do it. And it was obvious and it was external. but as you are a Christian for longer and longer you'll start to notice that your sins are internal more often that you learn how to put on a good face how to show up at church and wear a nicer outfit and look happy and look like things are going okay you learn how to control your voice when you're angry or when you're being rude or like Brother Roberts prayed about when we're using cutting remarks at people we learn how to outwardly start to look more Christian. But it's inwardly where all that sin is deep-rooted in our hearts that needs to come out.

And these trials bring those things out. These trials test our faith In Psalm 11 God tells us a little bit about his graciousness in verse 5 where he says Yahweh tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Let him rain coals on the wicked. Fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. for Yahweh is righteous he loves righteous deeds the upright shall behold his face but Yahweh tests the righteous Spurgeon said our Lord about this verse our Lord in his infinite wisdom and superabundant love set so high a value upon his people's faith that he will not screen from them those trials by which faith is strengthened you would never have possessed the precious faith which now supports you if the trial of your faith had not been like unto fire you are a tree that never would have rooted so well if the wind had not rocked you to and fro and made you take firm hold upon the precious truths of the covenant grace worldly ease listen to this American church.

Worldly ease is a great foe to faith. It loosens the joints of holy valor and snaps the sinews of sacred courage. Thus it is well that Jehovah trieth the righteous for it causeth them to grow rich toward God. So if your goal is to know God better, if your desire is to get to know our Lord Jesus better, which if you're a Christian, it should be your desire, then what you really want is you want trials.

I was listening to a sermon where a young guy asked another guy if he'd pray for him that he would be a good preacher and get to know the Lord and be able to be a good pastor. And the guy prayed that the Lord would send him nothing but affliction. And the guy said, that's not what I asked you to pray for. And he said, yeah, it was. because that's how those things come.

That's the old joke, don't pray for patience, because something will happen to force you to start exercising patience. But God grows us through these trials, as Spurgeon said, in His infinite wisdom and superabundant love. Turn to the New Testament, Philippians chapter 1. Continue to just prove briefly here that trials are a part of our life. We know this.

We've been through a little bit of this already. Philippians 1, though, Paul says in verse 27, Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. this is a clear sign to them of their destruction but of your salvation and that from God listen for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake it has been granted to you not only to believe in him which we just read about in the Confession 3, paragraph 5, right? But that you should suffer for his sake.

It's actually a gift from God to suffer as a Christian. Chapter 2 of Philippians, verse 17. Paul says, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial offering of your faith. So Paul's saying, even to death. I am glad and rejoice with you all. So here now we have the rejoicing.

Likewise, you should also be glad and rejoice with me. So we said in 1 Peter, Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. So the trials, the result of the trials is joy. and I will dare say that we are supposed to have the rejoicing and the joy in the midst of the trials. Because if your mind is renewed, you don't see the trials the same way you would if this was your only life.

If this was your best life now, you should complain about trials if this is the only life you have. The fact that you know those trials are sent by the infinite wisdom and superabundant love of God for your good and for His glory, that you might be sanctified, and also that those trials are proof to you of your salvation. Your rejoicing in the trial is actually the way you let your enemy know you're condemned and I'm not.

So knowing that one day these trials will be over, knowing that one day God's going to bring you home, and Him giving you the confidence of that because of the affliction you face, that is godliness. I remember when we were first planning Covenant Bible Church. It's not that long ago. It seems long ago. I remember the very first day that we got together and we constituted this church.

There were some trials that day. I have to admit, I was honestly just a little bit kind of shocked by it all. I was still trying to process what happened. And Lindsay's over there like, this is great. this is because we're trying to do something for God and we're facing difficulty. I was like, what a great attitude. I wasn't still sure what it all meant, but that was the attitude that Peter trying to tell us to have and that Paul tells us to have and that Jesus tells us to have as well In 2 Thessalonians more encouragement to the believer in chapter 1, verse 4, Paul's writing, he says, Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

Paul boasts about their steadfastness of faith in their persecutions and afflictions. And he says about their afflictions, and their faith in the affliction, he says, this is evidence of the righteous judgment of God. That you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering, since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you.

While you're suffering in this world, now you might be suffering any number of things. We have a flooded basement once in a while. We have allergies. There's things that happen. But one of the ways that we are going to suffer, the people in this room, if you're a born-again Christian, is you're going to suffer persecution from wicked men and wicked women in this world.

You're going to lose money. you're going to lose status, you're going to lose a job you're going to have to leave a neighborhood you're going to lose friends, family, whatever it happens to be something is going to happen that's a little bit more affliction than I didn't feel good one day and God is going to repay the wicked and that is part of how you endure your suffering because while you're suffering at the hands of an evildoer when you think about God one day punishing that evildoer it should bring you comfort first of all to know that evil is going to be done away with and it should allow you to be able to think I guess I can endure this because God is going to avenge me I don't have to avenge myself vengeance is mine says the Lord I will repay but also it should bring you to compassion for the very evildoer who is doing the very thing that they do by nature that you once did by nature as well. When you were by nature a child of wrath and you followed the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience, when you did those very same things, remember, if God had ended all evil then, you'd be in hell right now. So it should drive you to compassion for that non-believer, but it should also just bring you comfort that you can endure the affliction with patience.

In Romans 5, verse 2, we are told that the afflictions will actually bring patience to us. Romans 5, 2-5 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So that's easy to say. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. But then he says, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

Verse 11, more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of rejoicing going on. But part of the thing that we're rejoicing in is in our present suffering. it's not the oh now I'm grieved by it which we ought to be grieved by evil if something evil happens I'm grieved by it but we are also to rejoice that God even counted you worthy to suffer any dishonor for the name of his son Jesus Christ it's a gift from God and when you suffer that way one of the ways it's a gift is it's assurance that you're his child it's a reminder that you're his he's stamped his name on you it's never going to be removed your name's in the book of life and not a hair of your head's going to fall if he doesn't permit it but sometimes he permits it and it's still for your good when that happens if God was finished with you you'd be dead so the fact that you're still here means God's still growing you and sanctifying you and changing you He tests the righteous, but the fire destroys the wicked.

So we need to rejoice in all of his doings. In 2 Thessalonians 3.13, he gives us a little clue as to what we're supposed to do while we're dealing with this. He says, as for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. And I think that's the hard part. when even the church of God betrays you, when everywhere you look there's unfaithfulness, what I read this morning on my phone on a website, half of all U.S.

Christians believe sex outside of marriage is okay. That's half of all people that call themselves Christian. Now that may include some people we wouldn't even think of as Christian, But there actually isn't like a Christian organization, even fake Christians, that should believe that. But when you are here, don't grow weary of doing good. When you're dealing with this, when yet again somebody betrays you, when yet again things aren't going the way you want, don't grow weary of doing good.

When the kid's not behaving, when the wife isn't submissive, when the husband's being harsh, when people aren't getting saved while you're out preaching, as your body ages and aches, as you fall and scrape yourself, and everything that happens to you that you struggle with that's difficult. Don't grow weary. and doing good, because that's how we show people who God is. Your faith is more precious than the gold that perishes.

So gold is tested by fire, Peter said, right? But he even says gold perishes. So the gold lasts through the fire, but gold is still going to be gone. There's no hope for it, it's not alive. But your faith is more precious and it will not perish. Turn to Hebrews 11.

I want to remind you what faith is. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. But what did Peter say about the people in verse 8? He said, though you have not seen him, you love him. So we have the tested genuineness of our faith, which is through the trials we face. It's more precious than gold that perishes and it's going to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Christ.

And he says, though you have not seen him, Jesus Christ, you love him. He says, though you do not now see him, you believe in him. So your faith is your belief in what you do not see. Romans. Romans chapter 8 reminds us of this. I'll give you a moment to turn there.

I like to give you time to turn. There's a few times I'll quote the verse because it's maybe a quick reference. Sometimes it's because I'm just saying it out of my head, so I'm not turning there either. But I'd like you to see the verses yourself. Romans 8, speaking of that which we do not see. For in this hope we were saved.

Verse 24, excuse me. For in this hope we were saved. Now listen, Paul's trying to explain something here. He says, now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? It's almost kind of an emphatic, like, who does that?

He says, but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. So there's your patience, your endurance. So listen, one of the hardest things about enduring affliction in this world for the Lord Jesus Christ is that you can't see him. We are very oriented to our sight. Most people here, if I said, would you rather be blind or deaf, you'd say deaf in a heartbeat.

We are very oriented to our sight. It protects us like crazy. You can't drive if you're blind. There are so many things we do in our world that really we can't imagine doing blind. we are very feelings oriented people if we can't see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it it doesn't even exist to us so when you're in the middle of affliction and the only experience you're feeling at that moment is the affliction you're experiencing the betrayal of a loved one you're experiencing the hurtful remarks of someone who you thought was on your side you're experiencing the pain of seeing your child be prodigal and do things that you would have never taught them to do when you're feeling those afflictions it's very hard to grasp onto the unseen it's unnatural for us we naturally gravitate to the seen this is why the second commandment is don't make any carved images God was a lot more sure of and I think concerned about the fact that we'd heap up false gods that we could touch and taste and hear and smell and control than he was about whether we'd kill each other and commit adultery and all the other things.

And I'll tell you what, it's a lot worse to commit idolatry than adultery. Just so you know. The Ten Commandments are kind of in an order. And you could pretty much say that's the order they should be in. Violating God is far worse than violating your neighbor. they're both violations of God but God is first He deserves our worship He deserves us to not make idols to try to make ourselves be comforted and feel better in our affliction and that's what's hard people want their little trinkets people want the little thing they hold on to when things are hard I hold this maybe you hold a cross even you want to cling to Jesus Christ is what you want to do.

And if holding on to something physical maybe reminds you of that, that might be okay. But you want to be sure that you're clinging to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ only. He is the only hope you have. Though you don't see Him, you love Him, it says. And though you don't now see Him, you believe in Him. So Peter, remember who Peter was.

Peter was an apostle. It was like the first requirement at being an apostle. You had to have seen Jesus, right? I mean, that's the whole point. You had to see Jesus. You had to see the risen Christ and the pre-risen Christ.

And so here's Peter telling these people, and I think he's praising them. I think Peter is giving them praise. So these are not Jews that hung around and then spread out. These are people that hadn't seen Jesus. And Peter's saying, hey, though you did not see him, you believe in him and you love him. And I think he wants to remind them, you believed in him without having seen him the first time.

You came to faith without having got to touch him. You didn't see the holes in his hands or his wrists like Thomas had to see. You didn't see him on the cross. You didn't see any of the miracles. You didn't see the thousands of people fed by the bread. You didn't hear him speak.

You didn't see the empty tomb all the stuff Peter experienced And Peter reminding them hey you didn need that stuff to believe in the first place and you don need it now And he say in his second epistle that the pure word of God is actually more sure than all those things that he saw with his own eyes. So that's what we have. We have the pure word of God to tell us who Jesus is and what he did.

And so thus we can begin to start to contemplate what it means to have joy inexpressible. And so turn to Hebrews 12. Brother Mike quoted this verse for us already today, so it's already on our minds a little bit, I hope. We want to get this idea now that what is joy inexpressible? And that's what I titled the sermon. I'm not the best titler, and so I just picked a phrase.

But I just kept gravitating to what does it mean for joy to be inexpressible? It's the only time in the New Testament that this word was even used. So there's not a lot of other words to look at in other passages to see how else it was used. But in Hebrews 12, I want to first establish the fact that God is joy. In Hebrews 12, verse 2, it says, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

So Jesus Christ endured affliction for the sake of joy set before him. He's our example. And he is always our example. We should always look to his life to see what he did. 1 Chronicles 16, more joy. 1 Chronicles 16, this is also in Psalm 96.

So if you don't know, 1 Chronicles 16 is actually quoted in Psalm 96. And so you'll find this in both places. But it's translated differently in 1 Chronicles 16.27 than it is in Psalm 96. But in 1 Chronicles 16.27 it reads, Splendor and majesty are before him. strength and joy are in His place. God is, He's pure joy. So when we talk about even the attributes of God, and we talk about it being a God without passions, we talked about that last Friday in our men's group, and when we say He's a God without passions, we don't mean He's a God that doesn't have affection.

What we mean is that His passions are not moved. They don't change. He has perfect, never-ending, infinite, eternal joy. And His joy is constantly and perfectly in Himself. In Jude 1.24, we see that, Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy. So it's a benediction to Jesus Christ.

It's Jesus who's able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless because you're a sinner, and the only way you're going to be presented blameless before anybody is if somebody else comes along and pays for your sins and grants you his righteousness, and that's only Jesus Christ. But it says, even after he does that, he does it with great joy. I think some of us sometimes get the impression of this God that hates sin a lot, which is right, and he hates it so much, and he's sickened by it.

Jesus vomits people out of his mouth for their sin in Revelation. It's a pretty graphic depiction, actually. And we get this idea that Jesus was sitting there, and God the Father said, hey, would you save some of these people? And he was kind of like, yeah, I guess, if you're going to make me. And he goes and does it, and it's like, here they are. And now they're saved, but he still kind of hates them because they're still sinners and it's still hard for Him to like them even.

And that's not our God at all. Jesus Christ, with joy, saved His people. And Jesus Christ loves His people. And Jesus Christ joyfully obeyed His Father, submitted to Him in a council decision that was made eternally. It's not like they really were sitting around chatting about it anyway in the sense that I just described. Jesus Christ does everything with joy because he is the purity of joy.

And when Jesus Christ decided to save sinners through the redemption that only he could offer, it wasn't begrudgingly. And when he saves a sinner, Jesus Christ knows that he grants them regeneration, he grants them faith in Jesus Christ, and he knows that they're going to be sanctified and it's going to happen at the pace it happens. And Jesus Christ doesn't look at you any different today than he looked at you a week ago if you're a Christian.

The day that you were saved and the day that you die and go to heaven, however much more practical holiness you have, Jesus doesn't love you anymore. In fact, he never loved you any more than he always has. He's chosen to set his love upon you in eternal love. And so God has great joy. In Psalm 16, it says, You make known to me the path of life. in your presence there is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Look at Zephaniah 3.17. This verse should cause Christians to be seriously joyful and seriously comforted. Yahweh your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. So he's going to save. So we're talking about Jesus here.

He saves who? He saves sinners, right? He became the very thing he hates in order to drink the cup of wrath of God for all those who he would save And then it says he will rejoice over you with gladness He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is pure joy. and Jesus Christ rejoices over his people with singing he exalts over them that is love that is great love John 15 Jesus was talking to his disciples he says I've spoken these things to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full I think sometimes I think we can just always fall into different ditches.

Let me put it that way. I think we get excited because our country is getting stupid about God and talking about God's love too much. So then all we do is talk about how sinful we are and how much God hates sin. And then we forget to talk about things like God wants us to have great joy. We forget to talk about God's love. We don't balance things out by just teaching the whole counsel of God sometimes.

So I think sometimes we can hurt people when we do that. So I think it's right to talk about everything that God talks about in His Word. He is perfect, and He's laid it out in a way for us, and this is why it's the sixth week of this church, and we're on 1 Peter 1, 6-8, because we're just going verse by verse, trying to see what God has to say through 1 Peter. and in 2 Corinthians 7 verses 4-7 Paul says I'm acting with great boldness towards you I have great pride in you I'm filled with comfort he says in our affliction I am overflowing with joy head down to verse 7 talking about Titus he says and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me he says so that I rejoice still more just trying to show you that the Bible is full of rejoicing Philippians 3.1 I think we pass over some of these verses like the greetings grace and peace to you, may mercy and peace be multiplied to you we pass over some of these phrases sometimes and we don't think about the significance of greetings.

In chapter 3 of Philippians, after telling everybody about all the difficulties that they faced and being poured out as a drink offering, Paul says, Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. Paul's saying rejoice in the Lord in the midst of circumstance. Where was Paul when he wrote Philippians?

He was in prison, right? he says to write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you he's saying it's safe to rejoice it's safe in the middle of affliction to rejoice in the Lord and rejoice in all that he has done and all that he's doing Habakkuk 3 17 and 18 Habakkuk writes though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vines the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls yet I will rejoice in Yahweh I will take joy in the God of my salvation this is the attitude of the man of God this is the attitude of the woman of God this is the attitude of any child of God no matter what your age no matter what's going on we do all things without grumbling or disputing without whining, without complaining, without arguing. We rejoice in Yahweh. We rejoice in the God of our salvation.

Romans 12, Paul says, Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. I think there's a pattern there that when you start to struggle with this, you pray. And when you pray, if you've been taught to pray, one of the things that you ought to do when you pray is praise the Lord and worship Him. Every prayer shouldn't be, God, give me this.

In Jesus' name, amen, walk away. If your every prayer is, God, here's the list of stuff I want, and then you just tack on, in Jesus' name at the end, because you think it's some formula rather than the method we pray because we actually pray through what he's done, you're not really praying. Your prayer should be worship of God, exalting in him and exalting his name and praising Him and rejoicing in who He is.

And if you're praying in the midst of your suffering and in the midst of your difficulty, and if you're in the habit of praying in that way where you begin with adoration and exaltation of God, you will find yourself rejoicing just even through your prayer in who He is. No matter how bad things get for you in this world, if you thank God for what He's done for you and your prayers, in that moment, there's always somewhere worse you could be and for everybody here no matter how bad it gets in this world if you're a Christian you're doing better than you deserve so we rejoice in our sufferings we saw in Romans 3 not only that we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance we want to run the race we want to run it well We all have goals. We all have aspirations.

We want Covenant Bible Church to grow. We're not like crazy numbers people, at least I hope not deep in our hearts, but we think more than the small group we have now is a decent size for a church We think we live in a city of 1 million people that we ought to be able to find at least 100 Reformed Baptists that want to follow the 1689 God may have to put us through some fire before we're ready to actually care for people. We need to be sanctified.

Or maybe it's the people that come that will be the fire. Who knows? Maybe we're the fire for someone else. God's always working in His people's lives. And so we have great hope that we will be prepared for the future as the silvers purified seven times, right? Each time you're purified through your affliction, you're becoming better equipped for all that God has planned for you.

For all the things that today, if you encountered it, you would have just dropped dead, or you would have utterly failed, or you would have sinned egregiously before God, and before maybe a man as well, or another person, a woman. But now you're prepared for situations you weren't prepared for five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen, whatever it was, and that's because of the fires of affliction. Very few of us have a testimony that says, during this time of great prosperity is when I grew the most in the Lord.

That's when I grew closest to Him. We tend to trust in our riches. We tend to trust in our comforts. It's when nothing's working that we stop sometimes to pray, not when everything seems to be going well. but what's exciting is that the joy is inexpressible so I stand here and I try to tell you about God and I can tell you all sorts of things about God and I can tell you that I'll always fall short because telling you about God is inexpressible and the joy that we receive is inexpressible and it's better than what can be expressed because it's based on an infinite God do you understand what I'm saying? because God is incomprehensible to us because God is bigger and better than we could ever imagine we can't come up with words to describe him it's one of the reasons we don't draw pictures of God it's one of the reasons we don't make images of him out of wood or hay or steel or silver or gold because we'll always fall short and when we try to even express the joy that we actually have in God it's unutterable I don't remember what it says in King James you want to shout it out if you have but it's unutterable or unspeakable I think might be the King James unspeakable inexpressible we can't even express it it can't be communicated and one of the implications of that is it must be experienced I can't tell you about the joy of the Lord that I have you are going to have to experience it yourself and some of you fight it some of you like the misery some of you like an excuse to complain Spurgeon said he who has a complaining spirit will soon find a reason to some of us that's where we live we're more comfortable complaining about how bad things are than rejoicing that God is actually sanctifying us through the difficulty in Philippians 4.7 Paul writes, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

God's peace surpasses all understanding as well. If you look at all the things we know about God, what you'll find is that everything about God surpasses our understanding. The moment you understand God is the moment you've created an idol. God is incomprehensible. It's irrational to even think that you could understand God. As soon as you've created a God, you can understand you've created a God.

In which case, you do not have a God if you've created him. So God's joy that we have is inexpressible. The peace surpasses all understanding. And in Psalm 11.7, I want to go back there, and then we're going to go to 1 John, and then I'll stop in a minute. But in Psalm 11.7, it said, For Yahweh is righteous. right after it said Yahweh tests the righteous it says Yahweh is righteous he loves righteous deeds the upright shall behold his face and yet we know that God's invisible and no one has ever seen God but in 1 John and Peter reminds us that we haven't seen God but in 1 John chapter 3 verse 2 John tells the people, he says, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.

So we're going to be changed. He says, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. the cacophony of analogies in the Bible of purification of refining gold and silver and what that applies to the believer's life is overwhelming so what you take home today is this that you're going to suffer but even though you haven't seen Jesus with your eyes you have experienced him and you've seen him in his word and if the Holy Spirit has opened your eyes to understand who he is you rejoice and even if you don't feel like you can express it, even though if you don't know how to express it or maybe the suffering you're facing is so great it's hard to even express it outwardly, you rejoice in your heart that God will one day do away with all the evil and that in the meantime he's doing a work in you that He knows how to do perfectly.

Let me pray. Father in heaven, we are grateful that your word today is true. That we can rely on it. We pray that you would grant us the faith to believe what you have written, Lord. It is easy to say things like, yeah, the next trial that comes, I'm going to be joyful. I'm going to practice this thing that I just preached.

And yet, Lord, we fail so miserably, especially when we try to do it in our own strength. So help each Christian here to rely upon your Holy Spirit's power. I pray Lord for the people who are not Christian that you would open their eyes to faith in Christ for the first time that even today we would celebrate the salvation of the people in this room who have not yet believed I ask this in Christ's name Amen