The second Corinthians chapter 6 like to read a section Beginning in verse 4 and with God's Word open before us. Let's seek the Lord in prayer and let's all pray. Oh Lord as we open now thy word We pray that thou wilt grant us the help of thy spirit May each one discover this word to be a living word to their souls today and And may we indeed be prepared spiritually for the remembrance of Christ. I pray, dear Lord, that you'll grant to me thy power. I pray that the preaching of thy word would not be with cunning words of man's wisdom today, but may it be in the spirit and demonstration of power that only thou canst give. I am mindful of my unworthiness of this power, dear Lord. And yet I am also mindful that thou hast called me to this task. And so I look to thee for grace, I look to thee for cleansing, I look to thee for the help of the Holy Spirit, and I pray, blessed Spirit of God, that thou wilt indeed empower me, and may it please thee to grant me strength of heart and mind, clarity of thought and speech, and especially unction from on high, that Christ may be glorified, and that thy people may be blessed. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Second Corinthians chapter six, we begin in verse four. This is the word of God. Let us hear it. But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings and fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold we live, as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things. Amen, we'll end our reading in verse 10. We know the Lord will add his blessing to the reading of his word for his namesake. I want to call your attention in particular to the opening words in verse 10. As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. I like the interpretation that Charles Hodge provides for these verses in his commentary. He notes how the apostle maintained his consistency and integrity under all circumstances, through honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report. He was always the same, preached the same doctrine, urged the same duties, maintained the same principles, whether his preaching was approved or not, whether it secured admiration for him or brought down reproach on him. He was remarkably consistent. Another commentator refers to these verses as a catalog of contradictions. They certainly teach us that the Christian life is far different from the life of the unbeliever. The Christian life, you see, is a supernatural life. It begins supernaturally through the new birth, and it's maintained supernaturally in the power of the Holy Ghost. Let me read for you, if I may, a very vivid account that a well-known preacher gives for the seeming contradiction in our text in verse 10 that tells us that the Christian is sorrowful yet always rejoicing. He explains his experience of this statement. This is under the heading of a sermon that he preached, the final heading, actually, in this sermon. That heading is called Pain in the Night, Joy in the Night. He notes, so our last question is, how can that be, that being sorrowful yet always rejoicing? How can that be? He goes on, 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, this is this preacher now continuing, many of you know that my mother was killed in a bus accident in Israel in 1974. will be 50 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, brother, I've got really bad news. I said, OK. 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 my wife what I knew, pulled my two-year-old son 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 and verse 5 says, that weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in 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, 2 Corinthians 5.8. To be absent from the body is to be present, literally at home with the Lord. She has not come into judgment because she was in Christ, a new creation. 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, 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. I was in that night a sorrowing wreck and a very happy son. Sorrowful. yet always rejoicing. After having read that message, having that text so impressed on my heart, it occurred to me that that text really provides for us a good way for us to view Calvary's cross. Having illustrated for you something of the experiential meaning or application of that text through that preacher's experience, I would like, in the moments that remain in preparation for our time of communion, to show you how the cross of Jesus Christ should affect us the same way. Sorrow and joy through the cross of Christ. That would be the title of my message. Sorrow and joy through the cross of Christ. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Let's think first then on sorrow through the cross. And let's consider the factors leading up to the cross that include the cross of Christ and should lead us to sorrow. We can begin by remembering the animosity that Christ received from his adversaries throughout his time in this world. John 1, verses 10 and 11, we read these familiar words. He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. He came unto his own and his own received him not. And my, don't the gospels demonstrate that throughout the course of the narratives that they record? Came to his own, his own received him not. They not only didn't receive him, but they despised him. So in Isaiah 53 in verse three, we have this familiar prophetic statement. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Oh, we may sorrow this morning over the truth that those verses speak about us. They apply to anyone and everyone who, by nature, is a descendant of Adam. No one can take exception to these statements by John and by Isaiah. This is where we start, by nature. As fallen and sinful creatures, we despise and esteem him not. We receive him not, but instead reject him. And over the course of his earthly ministry, he encountered constant animosity. In spite of all the good that he did, the healings he performed, the truths that he taught, still he was treated with contempt. The Gospels record numerous instances of the scribes and Pharisees trying to trap him in his words, looking diligently for ways to dismiss him and to do away with him. One group after the other would approach him and attempt to trap him in his words. So we read in Matthew 22 and verse 34, but when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him. One group after another, each with a common aim and desire to find a way to trap him, to dismiss him, to do away with him. We may sorrow this morning over such twisted attempts to rationally explain him away. And when you meet up in this present world with skeptics and cynics and unbelievers who deny and despise him, call to mind that such were we and such would we be still, but for the grace of God. And just as his own disciples sorely tried his patience due their slowness to believe, so may we sorrow over the way we must try his patience by our slowness to believe. I'm reminded of that scene following the transfiguration of Christ. When coming down from the mount, Christ met up with his powerless disciples. who were unable to help the distressed father with his demon-possessed son. We have that account in Matthew 17. Can we not sorrow over the way Christ's words must at times apply to us when he says to his own disciples, Matthew 17, verse 17, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. I don't know of any statement in the Gospels that kind of show Christ's patience wearing thin with his own. But we go a step further as we draw nearer to the cross. We can sorrow over our own prayerlessness, the way the disciples were prayerless even at a time when Christ sought them to watch and pray with him. So we read in Matthew 26 and verse 38, One hour. Oh, we may then sorrow over the mock trial that he endured once he was arrested and taken to Caiaphas and then to Pilate and then to Herod and then back to Pilate. Throughout that time they sought for a crime to assign to their predetermined sentence of death. And my, what a struggle they had, trying to find a couple of witnesses that could agree to a false story of some kind. Oh, they worked very hard at it. We've seen something of this phenomenon in our day, haven't we, by a practice to utilize the law in order to defeat a candidate running for president. I don't know that I had ever heard the term lawfare until this recent campaign season? How much worse when lawfare was being utilized to put the Son of God to death? And can we not sorrow over the cries of the crowd that called out for Christ's crucifixion Luke 23 and verse 20, Pilate, therefore, willing to release Jesus, spoke again to them, but they cried, saying, crucify him, crucify him. And in John 19, beginning in verse 14, and it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour, and he saith unto the Jews, behold your king, but they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he them therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus and led him away. Oh, we may sorrow this morning over the way that angry mob spoke for us. Can you, have you, identified yourself with that angry mob? Can you not hear your own voice with theirs, calling out for Christ to be crucified? And so he was crucified, and now we at last arrive at the cross. We may certainly sorrow over such a torturous death for an innocent victim, having already been nearly scourged to death by the Roman whip, and having already been humiliated by being spat upon, and having a thorn of crowns pressed into his brow, now we must have nails driven into his hands and feet, now we must be suspended between heaven and earth, being subjected to the pain and torture of struggling just to breathe. The words of Lamentations chapter one and verse 12 come to mind. And please note in this prophetic statement the sorrow of our Savior. So we read in that verse, Lamentations 1 and verse 12, is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? I can't deny that I look at a text like that and it smites my heart. There's a hymn that I've been listening to a lot lately. It could be described as a lamentation hymn. Whenever I hear a hymn with a message that meets me where I am, and is embedded in a beautiful instrumental arrangement that stirs my emotion. That's the kind of hymn that can move me to tears. I love and I need those kinds of hymns. This hymn begins by asking the question, have I a heart of stone so cold and dark within that I can view the Savior in anguish for my sin and never sorrow feel for all he sacrificed Have I a heart of stone to watch the bleeding Christ? The next stanza asks another question in a similar vein. Have I no eyes to see that I can stand so near and watch the Savior wounded but never shed a tear? Can I but coldly gaze upon his painful loss? Have I no eyes to see God's lamb upon the cross? This lamentation is followed by a prayer, a prayer that we do well to make our own. As I behold the blood and view the crucified, the piercing thought overwhelms me, t'was for my sin he died. Lord Jesus, make my soul to feel thy suffering on the tree. Lord, break this heart of stone. Lord, make my eyes to see. Oh, we may sorrow this morning over our lack of sorrow, for such a sight as the sight of one dying for our sins. And we should sorrow most of all over the fact that it was your sins and mine that nailed him to that cross. So these are some of the factors that should lead us to sorrow. But note again the words of our text, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Can that be? Can we rejoice in the midst of all these factors surrounding the cross of Christ that lead us to sorrow? Well, this leads to my next consideration and my final one. We've considered sorrow through the cross. Let's think finally then on joy through the cross. Joy in the midst of sorrow. And we made joy, first of all, in the truth that all this animosity and all the sorrows and sufferings of our Savior was all according to divine design. None of this caught our Savior off guard. He knew from the moment he arrived in this world where he was headed and why he was here and what he would do. When we read the title of Christ in Revelation 13 and verse 8, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, we are reminded at once that the cross of Jesus Christ was the plan for the ages. Jesus, as I say, came into this world knowing full well why He had come and what awaited Him during His earthly ministry. And there are statements in the Gospels that make that very clear. Once Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, we read these words in Matthew 16 and verse 21, from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. Rather interesting to note, that's kind of a pivotal moment in the gospel account, that first we come to see Christ for who he is, Peter's confession, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and after Peter and the disciples come to the truth of who Christ was, then, and it is beginning at that point, that he begins to explain his mission to them. of how we must be killed and be raised again the third day. This mission of Christ, I suggest to you, was never out of his mind. He looked ahead to it with resolute determination to see it through. He refers on one occasion to his mission as being a baptism. So we read in Luke 12 and verse 50, but I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straight until it be accomplished? Well, there's no doubt about what's in view there. His baptism, you could say, is a reference to his immersion into his passion and sufferings that he knew was ahead and how he was compelled, how he was straightened, how he was just dominated by his mission to see that matter through. Earlier in Luke's gospel, we read in chapter nine in verse 51, and it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. We'll deal with that in due course when we get to Luke chapter nine in our studies of Luke's gospel. I've always found it interesting to note that after that statement, chapter nine, verse 51, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. From that point forward, we have the account of Christ making that final journey to Jerusalem, recognizing that the time would come and was upon him that he would be received up. So our sorrow is accompanied by great joy when we remember that all that Christ encountered and all that he endured was not due to some plan gone awry. That, you know, is what his disciples thought at first. But that plan was entirely in keeping with what had been planned in eternity past, before the foundation of the world was even laid. In that plan, a people was given by the Father to His Son, upon the condition that He would redeem them by His life and by His death. These people are referred to over and over again in Christ's high priestly prayer found in John chapter 17. So we read in John 17 in verse 2, this is Christ now in prayer, as thou has given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him. Oh, if ever there was a verse to vindicate the doctrine of election, of people being given to the Son, don't hesitate to go to John 17. You'll find that a point of emphasis there. Verse 6, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Verse 9, I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. I wonder this morning, are you among those that were given by the Father to his Son, Jesus Christ? You can tell whether or not you're among those people simply by whether or not you believe in Christ. If you believe in Christ, then your sorrow for sin is accompanied with joy that Christ is the Savior of sinners because He's the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Sorrow is also accompanied with joy through the knowledge that all that Christ did was motivated by love. I love the statement that John makes in his gospel. John chapter 13 and verse 1. We read, now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. He loved you, you see, all the way to Calvary's cross. What he did was motivated by this love. Though it was such great agony and sorrow for him that he would sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane and would ask his father that if it were possible to let the cup of his sufferings pass from him, yet he would see the matter through. He would go to Calvary's cross. We should note that we draw our joy from the fact that the love of the Father is also behind the plan of redemption. That really is the message, you know, of John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. We should note from the words of our text that when it comes to sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, there is a Christ-likeness to those words. A number of references I've already cited refer to Christ's sorrow. I call one such reference to your remembrance again just now. It's in Isaiah 53 in verse 3. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. So no doubt that he was characterized as a man of sorrows, and that's not really hard to perceive or to perceive why. when you consider the sin-cursed world into which he moved and ministered. But note now the words of Hebrews 1, verses 8 and 9, a clear reference to Christ and to his anointing. We read, but unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Here is a man of sorrows, yet anointed with the oil of gladness. I would add the words of Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 2. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. That phrase, despising the shame, means that he counted the shame, the humiliation, the torture, the pain of Calvary's cross. He counted that all to be a thing of little consequence. when compared to the joy that would come as a result through all that would be accomplished by his atoning death. There's a sense, you know, in which we are to imitate Christ in this. Paul shows us how in 2 Corinthians 4, verses 17 and 18, and these are really remarkable words when you consider all that Paul endured. He writes, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. That's really incredible, isn't it? Our light affliction, which is but for a moment. Are you kidding me, Paul? I mean, I've read the catalog of everything you've endured. I've read the account of your beatings and your imprisonments and the time you were in shipwreck. I've read the accounts of how you were treated and mistreated and maligned and abused and arrested wrongly. I've read all that, and this is light affliction, which is but for a moment. Oh, Paul, where did you ever go where you did not experience such affliction? But Paul's not speaking merely in terms of some kind of ideal. No, he tells us how this is done. And this becomes an important key, I believe, to knowing joy even in the midst of sorrow. When he goes on to write, verse 18, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. how light or how heavy, how long or how short your afflictions may seem to you depends entirely on your ability by faith to see the unseen things that are revealed in God's Word, which includes Christ and his salvation. And to the degree that I can see him, and see who he is and see what he's done, and know how I benefit from it, to the degree that my vision by faith is focused on him, to that degree, my afflictions, though very real, will be light and transient in nature. But if I fail to see him, If I am so glued to this world that all I can see is what the carnal eye beholds in this world, all your afflictions will be anything but light. They'll be heavy. They'll be unbearable. And they'll seem to go on endlessly. So important then, isn't it? that we learn to see the unseen things that are eternal and don't fasten too much reality to the things of this world. They're the things that are transient and will be done away with in the end. Now these elements that we're about to partake of this morning are designed to remind us of our Savior's sorrow. They also remind us of the things over which we sorrow. We sorrow for our sins that nailed our Savior to a tree. But while we sorrow, we rejoice. We rejoice in the plan of the ages. We rejoice in the love behind that plan. And we rejoice in the interest we've gained in that plan of salvation. So as we partake of these elements this morning, let's indeed sorrow over the things we should sorrow over, but in our sorrow, let's also remember that we're to be and we have good grounds for always rejoicing, even in that sorrow. Let's close then in a word of prayer before we distribute the elements. O Lord, as we bow in Thy presence now, we thank Thee for the plan of the ages. We thank Thee for the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. We thank Thee for the love behind that plan. We thank Thee that by Thy grace we have gained an interest in that plan. We know that there are many, O Lord, that pass by a suffering Savior, and it means nothing to them. Lord, it would mean nothing to us were it not for Thy grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. So, Lord, we ask Thee now to draw near to us. We ask Thee now to bless us as we partake of these elements. May we indeed, O Lord, contemplate the things over which we can and should sorrow, but O Lord, may we in our sorrow also be found rejoicing, rejoicing in Christ, the Savior of sinners. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.