Joy in Affliction is grounded in Christ

Here is the question: What determines whether that joy is going to be ours or not? Because you may be thinking, You know, I don’t really have that joy. I have afflictions, and I tend to grumble about them. I’m angry at God, and I become grumpy, and I just don’t have any joy. How can I have joy? I need to have joy. I’m called to have joy. What causes it? I would say this to you. The question is this: As you suffer your afflictions, are your eyes on the world and all that you have lost? Or instead, are your eyes on the beauty and the glory of Christ, and the privilege to know him and to suffer with him, and to realize all that you have gained and will gain in him? That will make all the difference in the attitude that we are called to—an attitude of joy because of the Word we have received.

This word for affliction—the verb form— was what was used for the grapes being put in a winepress. They would be crushed so they would burst. And when they burst, the wine would come out. And the Bible speaks of the wine that gladdens the heart. God will often do that to us. You will ask, Why is God crushing me? Because he wants to change our whole orientation. And he wants to get out of us that which he desires for his glory. It may be that he wants us to know what real joy is all about, which John Lillie describes it this way: It is a joy that springs only from God’s presence and his operation in the soul, which perhaps is never in this world so pure and deep and full as when a Christian is enabled to suffer faithfully for Christ’s sake and the gospel.

You say, Is this really important? Let me prove to you how important it is that we should receive the Word of God, following the example of Christ and the apostles and Christians who have gone before us. So yes, we have affliction—but because of the Word, we have a joy inside us. How can I know that it is so important? Because when our Lord Jesus met with his disciples in the upper room for that last occasion before he went to take the cross, this was the final topic on which he touched. Here is how Jesus’ farewell discourse ends: In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world (John 16:33). And so, they received a word that was through men. It was a word from God. It was a word they received in affliction—and yet with joy through the Holy Spirit. And finally, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1:7, it was a word that made them an example for others to follow. That is what he says they were: You became an example (1 Thessalonians 1:7)—“to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.”¹

Richard D. Phillips