Daily Devotional By Desiringgod Ministry – John Piper Ministry 15 January 2025 | Topic: Sorrows Are Normal for Now
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Sorrows Are Normal for Now
What to Expect on Your Journey Home
Restore: New England | Burlington, MA
As I thought about this conference of young professionals, and the opportunity to speak to you about “what to expect on your journey home,” my mind went back twelve years.
My wife and I were deeply embedded in a community of young adults at Bethlehem Baptist Church in downtown Minneapolis. On January 10, 2013, that community gathered for the funeral of a five-month-old. His name was Henryk. His father, Michael, and mother, Emily, were our dearest friends. They had found out at an ultrasound the previous April that something wasn’t right. Henryk survived his birth in July but clearly was weak. We didn’t know how long he’d live, whether just hours, days, weeks, or even months. He made it five months and died in January.
For my wife and me, and many of our closest friends, this was our first unshielded adult encounter with the pains of life in this fallen age. Tragically, some encounter those in childhood. Others are shielded as children, and many even as teens and college students, but sooner or later, the sorrows and suffering of the real world come crashing in.
I’ll read you a small section of the eulogy I gave for Henryk:
For many of us, especially us younger adults around Michael’s and Emily’s age, this was our first (or one of our first) awakenings to how messed up things really are in this world. This was one of our first up-close encounters with what it means that the creation is cursed and subjected to futility because of sin, and that the place we live is not yet the home we long for.
For many of us who love this family, the problem of pain has gone from being theoretical to being intensely personal. We’ve caught glimpses of God’s goodness in the midst of wave after wave of disappointment and sorrow, but we are learning the tough lesson that in this world, God’s goodness toward us rarely means ease, and often means great hardship. If this world and this life were all there is, we would be on the brink of despair. The tensions God is lovingly creating in our hearts in this fallen age are meant to be resolved in an age to come.
We’ve learned that saying “God is good” doesn’t mean that he makes our lives easy, but often that he makes them hard, but not joyless.
Some of you have already had a first up-close adult encounter with deep sorrow or suffering. If you haven’t, it’s coming. And if you have, more are coming. My task this morning is to point you to what to expect on this journey home, as we live in a world that is “not yet the home we long for.”
Prepare for Suffering
Probably no book in the New Testament better prepares us for suffering than 1 Peter. I’d like to take us to several passages in 1 Peter, but I want to draw from one especially at the beginning of the letter as we seek to sketch a theology of sorrow and suffering. Turn with me to 1 Peter 1:6–9:
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, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
This message has four parts, based on 1 Peter 1:6–9 and a few related passages we’ll draw in. Here’s the summary:
Sorrows and sufferings on this journey home are expected, designed, limited, and rewarded.
1. Suffering Is Expected
You will have sorrows and suffering. You’ve had them, or have them now, or they’re coming. Peter writes to Christians who “have been grieved by various trials.” And this is not a fluke or aberration of normal Christianity; this is normal Christianity in this world, on this journey. We are grieved by various trials. We are sorrowful, and we suffer. So, Peter says, we should expect sorrows and suffering. First Peter 4:12–13 says,
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
Because sorrows and suffering will come, Peter wants us to prepare our hearts and be sober-minded (1 Peter 1:13). Don’t assume suffering and debilitating sorrows won’t come to you. Assume they will. Expect them.
So, he says in 1 Peter 4:1: “Since . . . Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking.” Arm yourselves! Christ suffered; why won’t I? We expect it on this journey home; we are not naive, not surprised. Expect opposition to a life of faith. Think it not strange to have sorrows and suffering here, but think it strange when we don’t.
Brothers and sisters, infants and children will die. Friends and family in the prime of life will be cut down. You may get cancer or a terminal disease. You will experience broken relationships, whether breakups or divorce, or estranged family and dear friends. There will be insults, opposition, and ostracism for your faith. It’s coming. Sorrows are coming. Suffering is coming. Will you be surprised?
‘Various Trials’
Did you notice that 1 Peter 1:6 says “various trials”? “You have been grieved by various trials.”
You will encounter many sources of suffering and sorrow in this life in a sinful, cursed world: disease, loss, disappointment, natural disasters. And you will experience the effects of your and others’ sin. And in and behind it all, 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” He wants to eat up your faith, devour your soul. He’s happy to do it through comfort or pain.
In particular in 1 Peter, there is verbal opposition or persecution. Like your Savior, you too will be rejected by men (2:4, 7). You will be slandered (3:16), reviled (3:9), maligned (4:4), insulted (4:14) — which Peter sums up as when, not if, they “speak against you” (2:12).
Writing about the suffering of 1 Peter, Tom Schreiner comments,
Notice how Christians were maligned, criticized, and rejected for not following the societal ethos of their day. In the same way today, many are astonished that we have such a restrictive sexual ethic. Many contemporaries think we are detrimental to society, and many in the Roman world thought the same thing about Christians. They oppose us because we don’t approve the sin that is celebrated in many quarters.
So what did the persecution look like? The maltreatment Peter talks about consists of verbal abuse and presumably included unjust discrimination in everyday life. Even though they weren’t experiencing physical abuse, they were genuinely suffering.
If the main issue in 1 Peter is verbal abuse, why do I keep saying, more generally, “sorrows and suffering”? We’re going to see that 1 Peter 2:19 mentions “enduring sorrows while suffering unjustly.” What if you’re just enduring sorrows, with no unjust suffering? What about the many debilitating sorrows of life in this cursed, sinful world?
My answer is that anything that puts an obstacle in the way of your faith — not just verbal abuse, but any sorrow, any suffering, anything Satan would be happy to use to devour your faith, any threat to your joy in Jesus — can be addressed and overcome by how Peter would have us expect and respond to verbal opposition. He himself says “various trials.”
“Joy and sorrow are not equals in Christ’s economy. Sorrow is real, and joy is deeper and more enduring.”
The main trial in all kinds of trials, whether persecution or life’s many sorrows, is this: Will you set your hope on the grace that is coming to you in Jesus, or will you be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance? Will you look up and forward, or start to look down and back? Will you keep going with a foretaste of the joy and glory to come, or will suffering cause you to retreat to where you found joy in the past, like a dog returning to his vomit, trying to carve out broken cisterns that can hold no water? That’s the battle in Christian endurance.
So first, you will have sorrows and suffering on this journey home. They are to be expected.
2. Suffering Is Designed
God appoints your sorrows and suffering. Did you see that word necessary in 1 Peter 1:6? It says, “. . . now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.” What’s meant by this necessary? Necessary says who? The answer is God. He deems our griefs necessary. He has designs and purposes that he means to fulfill and accomplish necessarily through sorrows and suffering.
We tend to think of tests as unnecessary. Think of tests in school. They don’t make you smart, but they demonstrate what you already know or don’t. But that’s not how the tests work here in 1 Peter. Tests don’t only reveal what’s there; they also produce, form, shape, solidify, grow, and extend the good — and purge the bad. Verse 7 says we are 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.” The test makes your faith better. With gold, fire burns away the impurities and makes the gold better. So, by God’s design, the various trials actually do something; they produce something; they work something in us.
Our sufferings are not random or superfluous. They are God’s will, his design. Even as we grieve and suffer, God is working out his wise plan.
Here’s an example: 1 Peter 4:1–2 says,
Since . . . Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
Peter is not talking about sinless perfection here, but he is saying that someone whose faith has been tested has been changed, purified. They have ceased from the deep-seated pattern of sin and human passions and have now tasted the joy of living for God. Previously, faith had come, but some human passions had not yet been addressed and overcome. But in the one who has suffered and kept the faith, those passions have been dealt a significant defeat. They have been unseated from how deep they ran in the soul.
The various trials we endure are necessary for purging our lives of sin and its miseries, especially at the deepest levels of the soul. We do not endure in theory. We endure in practice. And the enduring not only proves who we have been; it also produces who we will be.
So, very practically here, when sorrows and suffering come on us along the journey home, we need to grieve them, suffer them, own them, and receive them. God doesn’t mean for us to suppress them and pretend like they are not there. Receive life’s sorrows and sufferings as filtered lovingly through God’s fingers. Humble yourself in them. He has purposes in them for you — for your good, for his glory and honor, for the good of others.
So, on this journey, sorrows and suffering are expected. They will come. And they are designed by God. He lovingly appoints your sorrows and suffering, with purpose, as necessities, for your good.
3. Suffering Is Limited
God gives joy in and under and beyond your sorrows and suffering. Sufferings are “limited” in multiple ways. First is that phrase “for a little while” in 1 Peter 1:6:
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials . . .
Brothers and sisters, you will have sorrows and experience suffering, designed by God, and it will be “for a little while.” Your trials, however severe, however long, will not endure forever. They are “for a little while.”
Peter says this again in 1 Peter 5:10:
After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
And he says in 1 Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”
God has his appointed timing for the sorrows and sufferings of his people. They are “for a little while,” and he has his “proper time” of rescue. They are limited in that sense. Typically, his sense of timing is different from ours. Sometimes, we suffer longer than expected, till death. Sometimes, it’s shorter than anticipated.
But for the Christian, our sorrows and suffering are limited in their duration. In Christ, we will not suffer forever. We will not have sorrow forever. Our sorrows will turn to joy. He will wipe away every tear. And, get this, there is another limitation: the sorrows and sufferings of this life are not as deep as the joy God gives us to sustain us in them. Now we pick up at 1 Peter 1:9, written to suffering Christians:
Though you do not now see him [Jesus, risen, glorified, and seated at God’s right hand in heaven], you believe in him and rejoice [that is, now] with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory . . .
Literally, it says, “You rejoice greatly with joy inexpressible and glorified” — because the source of your joy (Jesus) is inexpressibly great, and he is glorified at God’s right hand.
So, sorrow not only ends and gives way to joy. But we have joy now, inexpressible and filled with glory now (the glory of the risen Christ), in and under our sorrows, that enables us to endure.
Joy and sorrow are not equals in Christ’s economy. Sorrow is real, and joy is deeper and more enduring. Jesus was a man of sorrows who endured the cross for the joy set before him (Isaiah 53:3, 11; Hebrews 12:2). And Paul was a man of sorrows in his own way, and yet he spoke of being “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). He doesn’t say “rejoicing, yet always sorrowful.” The always goes with the rejoicing, not the sorrow. The sorrow is real and often deep; the joy is deeper, and forever.
Christian joy can handle sorrows — all the way down, in their fullness — and sustain us in sorrow, because our joy is more ultimate.
But how does it work? How do we endure? That brings us to our last point.
4. Suffering Is Rewarded
God will honor your endurance through sorrows and suffering. There is a remarkable pattern in 1 Peter, and across the Bible, of suffering leading to glory:
- 1 Peter 1:11: “the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories . . .”
- 1 Peter 4:13: “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
- 1 Peter 5:6, 10: “Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you. . . . And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
But let me end with one passage that gets at the dynamic in our souls. And it puts us onto following the example of Jesus. First Peter 2:18–21 says,
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
You see that phrase repeated twice: “this is a gracious thing.” Literally, it reads, “This is grace.” This is grace when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows. This is grace when you do good and suffer for it and endure. What does that mean?
This is God’s grace at work in your life when you have sorrow and don’t give up but endure — grace when you suffer and don’t give in but endure. And when, mindful of God, you endure sorrows and endure suffering, God will see that and recognize it. He will honor it. He will reward it. It will not go unseen and unaccounted by the all-seeing, graciously rewarding God. Not one drop, not one ounce, not one moment of your sorrow and suffering will be wasted.
But Peter here tells us not only that God will reward endurance through sorrows and suffering, but how we are to endure. The key phrase is “mindful of God.” It’s not just endurance. It’s endurance that is “mindful of God” — mindful of him in our thoughts, mindful of him in our hearts, mindful of him in our prayers, mindful of him in our conversations, in our complaints, in our hopes, in our joy, in our looking to the reward. Is that how you endure — through consciousness of God?
Peter has one more clue to give us about being “mindful of God,” when he talks about Jesus. First Peter 2:21–25 says,
To this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
One thing, among others, meant by “mindful of God” is “continue entrusting yourself to him who judges justly.” Or as 1 Peter 4:19 says, “entrust [your soul] to a faithful Creator while doing good.”
When you do good and suffer for it, and you endure, being mindful of God, this is grace in the sight of God. When you do not repay evil for evil, mindful of God, he will repay you. When you do not repay reviling for reviling, entrusting yourself to him who judges justly, he will repay you.
Brothers and sisters, this is the true grace of God: not sorrow-free, suffering-free living, but sorrow, pain, opposition, suffering, reviling, and all the while, mindful of God, being upheld and kept and enduring like Jesus in it — and being spectacularly rewarded for it, like Jesus. This is what Peter says at the end of his letter: “I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it” (1 Peter 5:12).
The grace of God for the journey home is, in the words of John Piper,
Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.
The true grace of God for your journey home is not ease and comfort, but many sorrows and suffering here — expected, designed, limited, and rewarded — endured in faith, mindful of God and Jesus Christ, and with inexpressible and glorified joy. Which leads to boundless, uninterrupted bliss when we’re finally home.
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