Daily Devotional By Desiringgod Ministry – John Piper Ministry 27 November 2024 | Topic: Countless Dangers, Continual Joy
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Countless Dangers, Continual Joy
How Is That Possible?
In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the killed and wounded are approaching one million people. Israel is now fighting wars on two fronts with Hamas and Hezbollah. Earlier this week, China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in decades. Boko Haram killed 26 Christians as they worshiped in Burkina Faso last week, and a hundred others. Over half of Sudan’s 46 million people suffer from acute hunger because of civil war. Civil wars rage in Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Haiti, and at least ten other nations. One hundred million people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes, including forty million refugees, 40 percent of which are under eighteen.
In the United States, since 2017 there have been half a million opioid-related deaths. Our mayor said last week of the encampments in our city that there is housing and help available, but “these encampments are in place because of fentanyl.”
Our Anxious Age
Those are some of the reasons we would call ours an anxious age. But I mention them for two other reasons. One is to draw attention to the fact that if every one of those crises were to go away tonight, the real-life, close-to-home reasons for anxiety would be just as great.
You are one heartbeat away from death every moment, and you have no control over God’s decision about how long you live (James 4:15). The pain in your chest might be a heart attack. The ache in your hip might be bone cancer. The email you are about to open might be your pink slip at age 55. The phone ringing might be the death of your parents — or worse, their divorce. The note you’re about to open might be that your twenty-year-old daughter has decided she is not a Christian and finds better community with her LGBTQ friends. Most of our anxieties do not come from world crises.
But the other reason I call attention to the global crises is that they describe the world in which the Great Commission is going to be finished. Most of the unreached peoples in our day live in cultures that are hostile to the gospel. They are not waiting with open arms. But that is the world in which the mission will be finished. Jesus said,
You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9–14)
The love of many will grow cold as they succumb to rampant anxiety, fall away from the faith, and betray fellow Christians. But the mission of King Jesus will be completed, because amid the fear and coldness there will be white-hot, joyful, fearless lovers of Jesus. Anxiety will not rule them. Joyful, risk-taking love will rule them.
Countless Dangers, Continual Joy
The title of my message is “Countless Dangers, Continual Joy — How Is This Possible?” You can open your Bibles to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. We will be moving around in this absolutely amazing letter. Forty years ago, Don Carson wrote a book on 2 Corinthians called A Model of Christian Maturity that began like this:
I love the apostle Paul. Some people cannot understand my love. They find Paul angular, merely intellectual, intimidating, even arrogant. My response, firmly stated, is they do not know him. . . . Arguably, the most intense chapters in all of his writings are found in 2 Corinthians.
I too love the apostle Paul. I love him. There is no one in the history of the world, besides Jesus, whose capacity for joy in affliction I desire more than Paul’s. So, what the title of this message really means is, “Paul’s Countless Dangers, Paul’s Continual Joy — How Did He Do That?” Of all Paul’s thirteen letters, 2 Corinthians deals with suffering and afflictions more than any of the others. And 2 Corinthians contains more language for joy and gladness and contentment than any of the others.
Litany of Paul’s Afflictions
So, first, let’s take a deep breath and try to get into Paul’s skin and feel some of his dangers and afflictions. I think that is a biblical thing to do because Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” Paul had a body. You have a body. So, remember him as if suffering with him. What we are illustrating now is the phrase from the title “Countless Dangers” — or you could say, “Countless Afflictions.”
Second Corinthians 1:5: “We share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings.” Abundantly!
Second Corinthians 1:8: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.”
Second Corinthians 2:4: “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.” If you love, you will weep. If you haven’t yet, you will.
Second Corinthians 4:8–10: “We are afflicted in every way . . . perplexed . . . persecuted . . . struck down . . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus.” I omit the resilient words. We are focusing now on dangers and afflictions.
Second Corinthians 6:4–10 (again omitting his hopeful words, as we focus just on his afflictions):
We commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger . . . through . . . dishonor, through slander. . . . We are treated as impostors . . . as unknown . . . as dying . . . as punished . . . as sorrowful . . . as poor . . . as having nothing.
Second Corinthians 7:5: “Our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within.”
Danger on Every Side
Second Corinthians 11:23–29 is the list to end all lists. He calls himself a madman (verse 23) for competing with his adversaries this way. He says,
. . . far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.
That’s 39 lashes with a whip. When it’s over, your back is flayed and bloody and takes — what? — a month to heal over. Then it happens again. Same back. And then again. Same back. Same skin. And then again. And then once more — 195 stripes. Was the scar tissue such that he could barely move in the morning?
Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city [Minneapolis?], danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
Don’t miss the modifiers: greater labors, more imprisonments, often near death, frequent journeys, many sleepless nights, daily pressures. There was no significant letup. No sabbatical. No retirement.
Replete with Weaknesses
One more passage, 2 Corinthians 12:7–10: “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. . . . For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.”
This description of countless dangers and relentless afflictions of every kind — not only persecutions but physical maladies like ours (it was a thorn in the flesh) — is breathtaking. It was a life of almost continual danger and unrelenting affliction of one kind or the other.
Sometimes, when I hear professing Christians who have just been diagnosed with a disease or suffered a terrible loss or experienced a calamity say, “Where is God? Why would a good God let this happen?” I ask myself, “What Bible do they read?” I usually hope that Christians who talk like that have only had a momentary lapse of faith. And I give them the benefit of the doubt. But it is troubling, because Paul suffered probably more than any of you in this room will ever suffer (and I’m not minimizing your pain), but he never responded like that.
How did he respond?
Miracle of Paul’s Joy
That brings us to the second part of the title of this message: “Continual Joy.” If Paul’s dangers are countless, and his afflictions are unrelenting, at least they are natural. We have categories for them. We understand what they are. We understand how they happen. We can imagine them happening to people today. They’re not mysterious. But when we consider Paul’s response to these afflictions — namely, his continual joy — we are, at first, simply at a loss. There is nothing natural about this. This appears, by all human reckoning, inexplicable. If the dangers and afflictions are breathtaking, the joy is incomprehensible, mysterious, unfathomable. It is beyond all ordinary human experience. If it is real — and it is — it is supernatural. It’s a miracle.
So, let’s take another deep breath and try to get into Paul’s skin again, to feel some of his continual joy — not his recurrent joy, not his intermittent joy, but his continual joy — just as unremitting as the afflictions. This will be harder, and perhaps impossible, for some of you.
Abounding Comfort
Second Corinthians 1:4: “God comforts us in all our affliction.” Not in some of it — all of it. Not after it — in it.
Second Corinthians 1:5: “As we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” The very Christ for whom he suffers gives him comfort in suffering.
Second Corinthians 4:16: “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away . . .” I’m sure the aging process for Paul was much quicker than it is for us. He had none of our medical advantages. And his adversaries cut him no slack because of his age. But he did not lose heart.
Second Corinthians 6:10: “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing . . .” This is one of those paradoxical statements that is deeply embedded in the ethos of Bethlehem College and Seminary and Desiring God. Sorrow and joy are not only sequential for Paul — sorrow and then joy — but simultaneous: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” It’s even in and during the sorrow.
And notice, he doesn’t say, “afflicted yet always rejoicing.” Affliction is something that happens to you. But sorrow is a response to affliction. It is a feeling. And we usually think of the feeling of sorrow as so contrary to rejoicing that they cannot happen simultaneously. But Paul says that for him they do: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”
Second Corinthians 7:4: “I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.” That is probably the most astonishing, counterintuitive verse in the whole book. “In [not after but in] all our affliction [not some but all], I am overflowing [not clinging by my fingernails but overflowing] with joy [hyperperisseuō].” Remember the breathtaking list of afflictions! How is this possible?
Second Corinthians 8:2 (a description of the Macedonian Christians, but a description of Paul’s own experience): “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” Severe affliction. Extreme poverty. Overflowing joy. It’s as if the poverty and joy were one spring of generosity.
Well-Pleased with Weakness
Here’s one more passage. In 2 Corinthians 12:8–10, Paul prayed three times for his painful thorn to be removed. You see the Lord’s response in 2 Corinthians 12:9, and then Paul’s response. The Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Then Paul responds,
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly [hēdista, from which we get the word “hedonism”] of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content [eudokō, “well-pleased”] with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)
In summary:
- Abundant comfort in all our affliction
- Not losing heart while physically wasting away
- Always rejoicing even while sorrowing
- Overflowing with joy in all our affliction
- Abundance of joy in affliction and poverty
- Boasting gladly in weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities
On any ordinary reckoning, this is inexplicable not only because we don’t know how it can happen with any natural explanation, but it is also because we are not sure what it is. What is joy if it can exist — indeed (as 2 Corinthians 7:4 says), overflow — simultaneously with sorrow? Do we even know what we are talking about?
I think it would be a colossal mistake to reinterpret the words “joy” and “gladness” and “rejoicing” in 2 Corinthians as though they were not feelings, not emotions. To try to make them something like committed or faithful or loyal or devoted — and so solve the paradox of “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” by saying “rejoicing” is really not an emotion, not a feeling — is to go against all ordinary usage. The Bible does not try to trick by using strong emotional language when it doesn’t refer to emotions and feelings. No. Joy, gladness, rejoicing (chara, euphrainō, chairein, hēdeōs) — they are all feelings, and they are a good feeling. Everybody wants them. Christian joy in affliction is a real, deep, glad, good feeling.
Pain in the Night, Joy in the Night
So, our last question is this: How can that be?
I’m going to try to answer that question by weaving together my experience with Paul’s many-layered answer in 2 Corinthians. I think if I can weave Paul’s answer into my experience, it may feel more emotionally compelling than if I simply point to the verses.
Many of you know that my mother was killed in a bus accident in Israel in 1974 (it will be fifty years in December). She was 56. I was 28, married, with one two-year-old son. It helps to know that I was probably a mama’s boy growing up. I was an only son with one older sister. My father was away from home two-thirds of every year — a traveling evangelist. So, my relationship with him was one of deep respect, great admiration, and a really happy connection. But it wasn’t like the emotional bond with my mother. She was there for every little crisis that seemed so big.
My parents were leading a tour in Israel. The phone rang on that December evening in 1974, and my brother-in-law said, “Johnny, I’ve got really bad news.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “Your parents were in a bus accident outside Bethlehem, and your mother didn’t make it. And your dad is seriously injured and in the hospital.” When I hung up, I told Noël what I knew, pulled Karsten off my leg, went to the bedroom, knelt down, and cried like I never had before or since, for a long time.
This was, by any measurement, sorrow. Great sorrow. Really sobbing sorrow. This is what Paul meant by the word “sorrowful” in 2 Corinthians 6:10, when he said, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” And because of that experience, I know, and I testify to you, not only because of what the Bible says, but because of what God did that night, that it is possible to experience simultaneously great sorrow and great joy. It is true, as Psalm 30:5 says, that “weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” We can use the word “joy” that way. But it is also true — and this is the message of 2 Corinthians — that while weeping lasts for the night, joy too lasts for the night.
As I wept, my heart leaped with joyful thankfulness and hope — thankfulness and hope. I prayed, “O God, you have been so good to me to give me such a Bible-saturated mother for 28 years. Beyond all my deserving. She was so attentive, so patient, so caring, so diligent, so upright, so happy. What more could I have asked?” All the years of blessing poured out through glad thankfulness as I sobbed.
And then there was the hope. I thought, She’s home. She’s home. Second Corinthians 5:8 says, “away from the body and at home with the Lord.” She has not come into judgment because she was in Christ, a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ died for her: for her sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him she might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). And that mangled body (death certificate: “lacerated medulla oblongata”), that precious body that bore me and nursed me and hugged me, will be raised gloriously: he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise her also with Jesus and bring her with me into his presence (2 Corinthians 4:14).
This nobody was a queen of heaven, “as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, [she lives]; . . . as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:9–10). All God’s promises find their Yes in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). And she was in Christ. God’s word to her, and to me, was not Yes and No. It is always Yes in him. Every promise will prove true for Ruth Piper. Not one shall fall to the ground. Not one.
I could say to my dad, “Hang on, Daddy; hang on. God has work for you to do. It is true for her, and it is true for you right now in your hospital bed, and it is true for me in my sobbing: ‘This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal’ (2 Corinthians 4:17–18).” I was, in that night, a sorrowing wreck, and a very happy son — “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”
Countless dangers, relentless afflictions, and continual joy is indeed possible because all the promises of God — all of them! — are Yes in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). And they will remain Yes forever, through all the global crises, through all the personal weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. So, you can say with Paul, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
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