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Sorrows Surprised by Happiness · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: An interesting question today from Agnishka, which I think is
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  Speaker 1: the Polish form of Agnes, who writes in today about
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  Speaker 1: the complexity of Christian emotions. Pastor John, I want to
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  Speaker 1: begin by expressing my deep gratitude for the work that
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  Speaker 1: you do and the impact you've had on the broader church.
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  Speaker 1: Your teachings have been a source of encouragement in guidance
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  Speaker 1: too many, including myself. I recently read your book Battling
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  Speaker 1: on Belief, a book you published in two thousand and seven,
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  Speaker 1: and a particular passage stood out to me. You wrote
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  Speaker 1: this quote, Despondency is not a common word today, but
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  Speaker 1: I think it captures what I mean. It is not
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  Speaker 1: depression per se, because depression denotes a clinical condition in
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  Speaker 1: our day, but it is more than simply having a
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  Speaker 1: bad day and feeling temporarily gloomy in the evening. Between
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  Speaker 1: those two, there is a broad terrain of unhappiness where
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  Speaker 1: too many Christians live their lives. Beneath much of that
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  Speaker 1: experience is unbelief in the future grace of God and
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  Speaker 1: its foundation in the person and work of Christ. This
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  Speaker 1: made me wonder if your views on this topic have evolved,
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  Speaker 1: especially given your personal experiences I recall you mentioning a
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  Speaker 1: season in your life when you were deeply affected by
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  Speaker 1: an emotional state that was hard to understand, even to
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  Speaker 1: the point of sobbing without a clear cause. Reflecting on
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  Speaker 1: those experiences, have your thoughts on unhappiness, its roots, and
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  Speaker 1: how Christians should approach it? Has it changed? Also? Looking
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  Speaker 1: back at battling unbelief, do you still agree with the
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  Speaker 1: perspectives you shared, or have your views shifted in lat
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  Speaker 1: of more recent experiences or understanding. I greatly value your
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  Speaker 1: insights and appreciate your time and considering these questions.
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  Speaker 2: I have to admit that my memory is simply not
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  Speaker 2: good enough to know all the ways I have changed
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  Speaker 2: over the past fifty years in my thinking. So let
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  Speaker 2: me mention a few ways that I think I have
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  Speaker 2: changed in my thinking about happiness and unhappiness in the
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  Speaker 2: Christian life, knowing that there may well be others that
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  Speaker 2: I don't remember. I would mention one, I have changed
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  Speaker 2: particular exegetical views about texts that I didn't get right.
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  Speaker 2: Number two, I think my emphasis has changed in some regards.
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  Speaker 2: And three, I think I've changed in talking a little
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  Speaker 2: more with a little more complexity about that emphasis. So
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  Speaker 2: here's here's an example of the first one. The particular
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  Speaker 2: exegetical mistakes that I have made and had to correct
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  Speaker 2: when I wrote Future Grace, which from which Battling Unbelief
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  Speaker 2: was taken. Second Desaloni in two thirteen, I misinterpret in
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  Speaker 2: the Book of Future Grace it goes like this, God
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  Speaker 2: shows you as the first fruits to be saved through
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  Speaker 2: sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the Truth. Now,
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  Speaker 2: one of my main arguments in Future Grace and Battling
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  Speaker 2: Unbelief is that belief in the truth, that is glad
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  Speaker 2: trust in God's promises is an essential means of sanctification.
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  Speaker 2: It's a central argument in the book, and I use
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  Speaker 2: this verse to defend that position because it says we
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  Speaker 2: are saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in
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  Speaker 2: the truth.
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  Speaker 1: But I was.
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  Speaker 2: Careless, because it is perfectly clear in Greek that belief
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  Speaker 2: in and the truth does not modify sanctification. It modifies
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  Speaker 2: we are saved. It says we are saved through sanctification
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  Speaker 2: by the Spirit, and we are saved through belief in
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  Speaker 2: the truth. I didn't get it right. I was using
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  Speaker 2: a text to say something true, and the text didn't
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  Speaker 2: teach it. A student pointed that out to me.
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  Speaker 3: Praise God for students, right, they said, but it's genitive,
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  Speaker 3: Pastor John, and that goes with I looked at him
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  Speaker 3: and said, oh my goodness. So when the second edition
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  Speaker 3: of Future Grace came out, we fixed it. You won't
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  Speaker 3: find that mistake in the newer editions. My view of
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  Speaker 3: sanctification did not hang on that one verse. We are
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  Speaker 3: indeed sanctified by belief in the truth. It says that
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  Speaker 3: in Acts twenty six eighteen. And I didn't get that
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  Speaker 3: one wrong. Everybody agrees there. But and that one verse
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  Speaker 3: did not argue for my position, and it didn't argue
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  Speaker 3: against it. It just didn't address the issue that I
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  Speaker 3: was dealing with. So over the years I have had
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  Speaker 3: to make some exegetical corrections. Then, besides that, there have
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  Speaker 3: been changes in emphasis and complexity, and those two are
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  Speaker 3: so interwoven that I think it would be helpful just
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  Speaker 3: to take them together. I think it's fair to say
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  Speaker 3: that the last couple of decades I have increasingly emphasized
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  Speaker 3: suffering as part of the Christian life, especially as it
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  Speaker 3: relates to happiness in Jesus, and I have increasingly called
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  Speaker 3: attention to the complexity of our emotions, as suffering and
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  Speaker 3: happiness go and in hand. I think that's an emphasis
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  Speaker 3: that has increased. Emphasizing suffering as part of the Christian
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  Speaker 3: life has meant drawing attention not only to Jesus being
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  Speaker 3: a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but especially
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  Speaker 3: to Paul's sorrow and anxiety and godly grief and despairing
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  Speaker 3: of life and anguish of soul, and being afflicted and
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  Speaker 3: crushed and persecuted and struck down and reviled and slandered
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  Speaker 3: and beaten with rods and lashed one hundred and ninety
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  Speaker 3: five times with whips and stoned, and going without food,
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  Speaker 3: being cold, toiling late at night, experiencing sleeplessness. All of
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  Speaker 3: those come straight out of his epistles. I didn't make
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  Speaker 3: any of those up. They're just stunning, stunning descriptions of pain.
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  Speaker 3: These sufferings are not what only objective states of physical pain,
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  Speaker 3: which they most emphatically are, but are emotional states that
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  Speaker 3: most people would consider incompatible with happiness or joy or
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  Speaker 3: gladness or satisfaction or pleasure or contentment.
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  Speaker 2: So most of us grew up. I surely did thinking
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  Speaker 2: that emotional states of misery and emotional states of pleasure
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  Speaker 2: happen sequentially. Weeping last for the night, joy comes in
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  Speaker 2: the morning, first the one, then the other at Psalm thirty,
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  Speaker 2: verse five. But what I have been emphasizing in recent
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  Speaker 2: years is that both Jesus in Matthew five eleven and
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  Speaker 2: twelve and Paul throughout his writings insist on the complexity
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  Speaker 2: of simultaneous unhappiness and happiness. And it doesn't help to
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  Speaker 2: try to say that the pain isn't the kind of unhappiness.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't help to say that the joy is not
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  Speaker 2: a kind of happiness. They are. If you want a
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  Speaker 2: contemporary witness to this reality, listen to these words. Listen
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  Speaker 2: to these unbelievable words. And if they had been written
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  Speaker 2: by a twenty year old, you'd say, well, wait till
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  Speaker 2: she lives long enough. But if it's written by a
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  Speaker 2: seventy two year old who's been paralyzed for fifty years.
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  Speaker 2: Here's what Johnny Erickson says in page one ninety five
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  Speaker 2: of the Practice of the Presence of Jesus. I cannot
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  Speaker 2: make my heart feel grateful, but there are times when
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  Speaker 2: I am lying in my bed in miserable pain, and
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  Speaker 2: I look up and near tears, I whisper, God, I
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  Speaker 2: am so happy? How is that possible? I do not
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  Speaker 2: rejoice in my horrible pain. Far from it. I rejoice
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  Speaker 2: in the abundant outpouring of grace that God gives in
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  Speaker 2: response to that pain. He hears my plea, sees my
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  Speaker 2: yawning need, and fills it with grace that is commensurate
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  Speaker 2: to my pain. Actually, since He's so generous, he feels
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  Speaker 2: my need to overflowing. The result is that I am
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  Speaker 2: stunned and surprised by sheer happiness end of quote. So
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  Speaker 2: sheer happiness in miserable pain, not just after it. In it,
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  Speaker 2: she says. So, I would say that the effect of
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  Speaker 2: this shift of emphasis and complexity has had for me
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  Speaker 2: is one to make me pursue joy as something profound
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  Speaker 2: and miraculous and real and deeply different from almost all
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  Speaker 2: the silly, big smile kind of happiness you see in
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  Speaker 2: entertainment and advertising, and tragically in many evangelical worship services. Second,
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  Speaker 2: the change in emphasis has caused me to focus more
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  Speaker 2: on the all satisfying glory of Jesus the way Paul
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  Speaker 2: speaks about it and Philippins three eight and on the
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  Speaker 2: fact of hope as a huge essential for Christian joy.
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  Speaker 2: We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God
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  Speaker 2: Romans five to two. And third, this change has caused
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  Speaker 2: me to return again and again to the absolute sovereignty
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  Speaker 2: of God, to split the red sea of hopelessness that
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  Speaker 2: we see in front of us. Again and again. This
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  Speaker 2: change in emphasis has caused me to see Christianity increasingly
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  Speaker 2: as a very radical thing, and has made me more
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  Speaker 2: than ever not want to play religious games as I
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  Speaker 2: approach eternity.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, sorrow's surprised by happiness. Thank you, Pastor John and
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  Speaker 1: thank you Johnny. I know Johnny listens to this podcast,
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  Speaker 1: So thank you Johnny for your faithful testimony over these
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  Speaker 1: many decades. I learn joy best from those who suffer most,
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  Speaker 1: and so you are a very precious sister in Christ
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  Speaker 1: who has taught me a lot about joy from your
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  Speaker 1: words and from your life. Thank you, sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
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  Speaker 1: Those are the words of Tewod Corinthians six' ten in The.
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  Speaker 1: Bible we didn't talk explicitly about that Text Tewo corinthians six',
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  Speaker 1: ten today but it's implied really throughout this, entire episode
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  Speaker 1: sorrowful yet, always rejoice saying joy in. The sorrows if
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  Speaker 1: this concept seems odd, to you or if it's new,
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  Speaker 1: to you SEE the apg book on pages three ninety
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  Speaker 1: one to three ninety four to learn more about how
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  Speaker 1: that works In the, christian life including a Story From
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  Speaker 1: pastor john's own life when tragedy struck him in nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: SEVENTY four i don't want to. Miss, that well WHAT
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  Speaker 1: if i told you that sexual purity is an act
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  Speaker 1: of love? For? Others this. That's Next I'm. Tony rank
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  Speaker 1: we'll see You. On monday