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Intro: The Situation
1) vv. 22-24 – Paul and Silas suffered for casting out the python.
A) “The crowd joined in attacking them”
B) “the magistrate tore the garments off them”
C) “beat them with rods” and “inflicted many blows upon them”
1) cf. 1 Thess. 2:2; 2 Cor. 11:25
D) “they threw them into prison…into the inner prison”
1) Dark, subterranean dungeon. No light or ventilation. Cold.
E) “fastened their feet in the stocks”
2) v. 25 – “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God”
A) What they were not doing:
1) Complaining
2) Cursing their persecutors
3) Plotting their revenge
4) Begging for mercy
B) QUESTION: How can we sing in suffering?
How do we sing in suffering?
1) What this is NOT:
A) Stoicism
1) Detaching yourself from emotions and external circumstances, then you can’t be hurt by them.
2) Apathy
B) Toxic positivity
1) Ignoring the problem.
2) My car is on fire, there’s smoke coming through the dashboard, and you just slap a smiley face sticker of the check engine light and ignore the problem.
C) If these were the solution, then Jesus would have failed the test.
1) Jesus was not sitting under an olive tree in a lotus position, serenely detached from the reality of the cross.
2) Matt. 26:38-39 / Mk. 14:34-36 – “My soul is very sorrowful, even to the death.”
3) Lk. 22:44 – “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
4) Matt. 27:46 / Mk. 15:34 – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
D) POINT: You’re allowed to hate the fire.
1) Grieve over the cancer diagnosis.
2) Mourn the loss of your loved ones.
2) Let your suffering be a thermostat.
A) How does a thermostat work?
1) When it gets really hot in your house, the thermostat kicks in and turns on the air.
2) When it gets really cold, the thermostat detects this and kicks in and turn on the heat.
3) The thermostat is the trigger for the solution.
4) Our grief and suffering have the ability to trigger our turning to God for his presence and comfort.
B) 1 Pet. 1:3-6
1) This is not a picture of suffering THEN joy.
2) It is a picture of joy IN suffering.
3) And suffering is the thing that triggers the joy.
C) Suffering wasn’t just a hurdle that Paul had to jump over to get to the joy of the Lord. Suffering was the conduit through which this joy flowed into him.
1) Luke’s car broke down in Chattanooga. Bummer.
2) God’s people stepped in. Amazing!
3) Lily said, “I love being a Christian!”
4) God’s people have always been amazing; but this suffering was the thermostat that kicked on the joy of the Lord.
HOW can we sing in suffering?
1) Suffering can lead to Sanctification (to be made holy). To make us more like Christ.
A) James 1:2-4 – Suffering acts as a refiner’s fire. You have to blast that metal with blinding heat to melt it and separate the impurities so they can be scraped away to have a more pure metal on the other side.
B) CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain – “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our paint. It is his megaphone to rouse us.” Our pain is the thing that triggers the thermostat to kick on and turn us to God.
C) This is what suffering does to our hearts.
1) Our comfort allows us to be shallow, arrogant, and self-reliant. We think we’re pretty good.
2) But when you turn the heat up it’s time to grow.
2) Suffering exposes our idols.
A) Def. An idol is the thing you rely on for fulfillment and happiness in life. It is the thing you cannot live without. The ultimate thing.
B) Question: How do we act when those things are threatened or removed?
1) If you lose your job and feel sad, that’s normal grief.
2) If you lose your job and feel suicidal, then your job has become an idol, and your entire sense of worth and survival are wrapped up in your career.
3) The suffering is what exposed that idol.
4) This is why it’s positive: Would you rather discover that idol now and have a chance to fix it, or on Judgement Day when it’s too late?
C) Heb. 10:32-34
1) You’re standing on the street watching a mob break down your front door, loot all your most valuable possessions, steal your life savings, and burn you home to the ground.
2) The Hebrew Christians joyfully accepted it. QUESTION: How can they have joy in this suffering?
3) The suffering activated the joy like a thermostat. It caused them to bring to the front of their minds that their lives were not all about their stuff. And then, they thought about, “What is our life about?” Oh! It is about my eternal possession in the presence of God. And guess what…looters can’t touch that.
D) John Newton (author of Amazing Grace), “I asked the Lord that I might grow” (1779); 5th stanza:
1) Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
2) Intent to aggravate my woe;
3) Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
4) Blasted my gourds, and laid me low. (Ref. Jonah 4:6-8 – he took Jonah’s comfort and shade to drive us to him).
3) Suffering can glorify God.
A) Acts 16:25 – “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them…”
B) When we suffer, we have an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is and to SHOW the faith that we say is real. We get to display God’s supremacy, his infinite greatness, and his ultimate worth to the universe.
C) e.g.
1) If you lose your health, your wealth, your freedom, your family, and anything else you might have in this life like Job did…
2) And you can still find joy in the Lord…
3) Then the people around you will hear that song.
D) When you suffer, you either become a living billboard for faith in God, or worldly despair.
Conclusion
1) What is the thing that God wants from any of us more than anything else? Our faith. To trust him. Anybody can say they have faith.
A) Summarize James: You tell me about your faith with your words. I will show you my faith by the way I trust God even when I’m chained up in jail.
B) Charles Spurgeon (suffered from severe gout) – “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”
C) Jesus felt terrible in Gethsemane, but he ended his prayer by saying, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
2) Read Acts 16:22-25.
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