Every friend of Jesus should be joyful in suffering, and not at any time go around with a long face, moaning and groaning. God can give to everyone joy in suffering so that we can rejoice in all things and at all times.
This sermon is based on Philippians 4:1–9 and was delivered at Campbelltown District Regional Mission Uniting Church on Sunday, 11 October 2026.
Introduction
It’s A Mystery!
There is a funny scene played by Geoffrey Rush in the 1998 romantic comedy and period drama Shakespeare In Love (1998). In the scene, Rush utters an unusual but memorable line.
Rush plays the character, Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre, a business with a cash flow problem. He is making his way from the theatre to the local market when a ruthless moneylender, Hugh Fennyman, and his henchman appear at his side and propel Henslowe back the way he came.
FENNYMAN (played by English actor Tom Wilkinson): This time we take your boots off!
HENSLOWE: What have I done, Mr. Fennyman?
FENNYMAN: The theatres are all closed by the plague!
HENSLOWE: Oh, that.
FENNYMAN: By order of the Master of the Revels!
HENSLOWE: Mr. Fennyman, let me explain about the theatre business. (they stop) The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. Believe me, to be closed by the plague is a bagatelle in the ups and downs of owning a theatre.
FENNYMAN: So what do we do?
HENSLOWE: Nothing. Strangely enough , it all turns out well.
FENNYMAN: How?
HENSLOWE: I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
LAMBERT (the henchman): (dumbly) Should I kill him, Mr. Fennyman?
Perhaps it’s the way Rush utters the phrase, “It’s a mystery”, that makes the line so memorable. He utters this fatalistic axiom with a naïve optimism that is endearing. It is as if to say, in the midst of the chaos of life, just believe it will all work out well enough in the end and it will.
The character Henslowe could perhaps afford a little optimism. In the London of 1593, even though all the characters in the story find themselves in the midst of a plague, and Henslowe is desperately in debt, he has employed William Shakespeare as his playwright. Shakespeare is a genius and is on the verge of producing his famous play Romeo and Juliet.
Henslowe believes it will work out well for his theatre because the odds are in his favour. He need only remain at peace and ride the storm of debt and plague.
“It’s a mystery” may be endearing as an expression of optimistic fatalism, but placing your faith in Jesus and living a Christian lifestyle offers a better approach to suffering.
What & Why?
The question of suffering often keeps people from placing their faith in Jesus because it is hard to remain optimistic in the midst of suffering. It is easier to adopt a fatalistic outlook, which is to bravely at best or naïvely hope things will just work out well in the end. How to not only endure suffering but maintain joy in its midst is one of the reasons it is hard-to-describe the experience of being a friend of Jesus.
Every Christian should be joyful in suffering, and should not at any time go around with a long face, moaning and groaning. God can give to every Christian joy in suffering so that we can rejoice in all things and at all times.[1]
Before I explain how, let us pray:
Your word, O God, is a feast all its own.
Let your Holy Spirit open our minds to your call to listen,
for we know your holy Word
heals and reconciles your people. Amen.[2]
Strange Joys
In regards to suffering, it is fair to say the friends of Jesus experience more than others. There is the natural suffering everyone experiences from trials and temptations, pains and sorrows, violence and chaos. But for the friends of Jesus, there is additional ‘suffering’ experienced when we are challenged for our beliefs and choices. There is also suffering from being misunderstood.
In view of such, why would anyone want to be a friend of Jesus? That is a fair question. But is optimistic fatalism a better alternative? Is it really better to just believe it will all work out well in the end? Not at all.
The friends of Jesus experience joy, a strange kind of joy to those looking at us from the outside, sure, but we experience joy in ways the fatalist could never understand.
Joy in Beatings
Joy can be found in the midst of violence. For an example, consider what is written in The Acts of The Apostles,
They summoned the apostles, beat them, commanded them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and released them. So they went out from the presence of the Sanhedrin rejoicing, because they had been considered worthy to be dishonoured for the sake of the name. (Acts 5:40–41)[3]
At that time, the first Christians were in Jerusalem and being led by the apostles, with Peter being foremost among them. Being followers of the way of Jesus, the Christians were not a separate religion but merely a sect within Judaism —not unlike the difference between the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions or between the Uniting Church, Church of Christ and Hillsong denominations. Same same but different.
Religious differences were handled a little differently then. The apostles were debated, challenged, threatened, then beaten for their faith in Jesus, even though the Jewish religious leaders could not argue against their belief that Jesus was the promised Christ of God.
In this instance, the apostles discovered there is joy to be found in being beaten for their faith in Jesus. They found truth and power in their belief, and thus strength in their conviction.
Joy in Being Cast Out
Next, we discover there is joy to be found in exclusion. We find in The Gospel According to Luke,
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. (Luke 6:22)
Jesus was here speaking to His disciples, some of whom later became apostles and leaders in the early Church. He promised they would be cast out of their communities, yet they would find blessing in their exclusion. How would they find this blessing? The apostles did not know it at the time but it becomes easy to find joy in exclusion when you know the insults and slander that goes with it are ultimately powerless. And we know they are powerless because Jesus Himself was slandered, insulted, and excluded, yet overcame all of that when He rose from the dead.
There is joy to be found in being cast out because those excluded for their faith in Jesus and Christian lifestyle find greater joy and inclusion when forming community with each other.
Joy in Correction
There is also joy to be found when one is corrected:
Happy is the human being whom God reproves; and you must not despise the discipline of Shaddai. (Job 5:17)
The Book of Job, found in the Old Testament, is thought to be the oldest book in the Bible. That means, from the very first self-revelation of Almighty God, people have always understood our Creator cared enough about us to lead us in a positive and flourishing lifestyle. To find the path to that lifestyle, however, will involve correction.
There is joy to be found in correction and discipline when we appreciate it is an act of love from a caring parent-figure, and that it leads to a free, full, and forever life for us.
Joy in Being Hated
There is also joy to be found when we are hated:
Blessed are you when people hate you… (Luke 6:22)
Like moths to a light, people are drawn to signs of life. This is because we are all painfully aware of the curse of sin and death, even if we cannot always name it. We are all suffer its consequences.
Naturally then, we are all looking for the path to a flourishing life. In this pursuit, we can be so committed to its signs, we latch on to whatever we think and feel is true, and become zealous for it. We are intolerant of and reject those who disagree with us.
By placing our faith in Jesus and choosing to live a Christian lifestyle, we will naturally find ourselves at odds with those still trapped in sin and death. To justify their beliefs and actions, some will hate and oppose us for our beliefs and choices.
There is joy to be found in being hated because it is better to be right with God than right with those enslaved to sin.
Joy in Loss
Our next strange joy is found in The Book to the Hebrews,
For you both sympathised with the prisoners and put up with the seizure of your belongings with joy because you knew that you yourselves had a better and permanent possession. (Hebrews 10:34)
The Book of Hebrews is one of the later books of the Bible, so is written some time after the early Church had begun developing. It had endured much persecution by the time of the writing of this book.
From its early days in Jerusalem, while the first Christians were noted for the sharing of their resources (Ac 2:41–47), they also experienced the forcible taking of their resources.
Whether they gained or lost, this experience pales in comparison to the joy of knowing Christ (Php 3:8–11). Also, the acts of loving one’s neighbour can ‘open our eyes’ to the plight of others, such that we learn we can get by with much less than we have.
There is joy to be found in the loss of our possessions because the friends of Jesus learn to be defined by their faith rather than what we possess or achieve.
Joy in Poverty
Next, we discover there is joy in poverty. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul the apostle described the Christian experience
as grieving, but always rejoicing, as poor, but making many rich, as having nothing, and possessing everything. (2 Corinthians 6:10)
It is true of the human condition that the more one has, the more one wants. Possessions can often be a crutch and a slippery slope to self-reliance.
Entangled by sin and the curse of death, the world is not fair nor are people created equal. Even Jesus recognised there will always be the poor among us (Mk 14:7). If you want to eradicate poverty, you must first create justice: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does Yahweh ask from you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic 6:8) Yet sin works contrary to justice, always. Human solutions are always fallible because we are fallen.
It is one experience to lose and fall into poverty, it is another to be born in poverty. In both cases, there is joy to be found in poverty for even when we are without resources, we may enrich others out of the abundance of our faith.
Joy in Suffering
In another of his letters, Paul described another strange joy he experienced:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings on behalf of you, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ, on behalf of his body which is the church (Colossians 1:24)
It almost sounds heretical for Paul to suggest Jesus’ crucifixion was not enough for the Church. I believe what he meant is that for God’s Kingdom to come, as we pray in The Lord’s Prayer, the Church, its leaders, and its people will necessarily suffer for its sake.
Consider the example that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, governments worldwide restricted the Church from meeting face-to-face, even though it is the clear command of Christ that we love one another (Jn 13:34)! We were not given an opportunity to come up with solutions for how we might avoid contamination during our assemblies, just told “No more public gatherings!” One might think our rights were trod upon.
This was an example of our beliefs and choices being scorned, our lifestyle being misunderstood.
The friends of Jesus WILL suffer for placing our faith in Him and choosing a Christian lifestyle because until He finally returns, Heaven comes to earth, and the day of judgement is endured, the world remains enslaved in sin and under the curse of death.
There is joy to be found in these strange sufferings because it is much easier to endure suffering when the purpose for it is obvious and natural; it is much harder to endure suffering when we do not know why we must endure it. The friends of Jesus know why we suffer: “narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it” (Mt 7:14).
Yes, our family, friends, and neighbours will find it strange that we find joy in all of these circumstances, yet it is precisely such signs of life that will attract them to the good news about Jesus Christ. Do not be shy in finding joy in suffering!
Now What?
On this, Paul the apostle wrote,
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be made known to all people. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4–7)
The sad truth is not many Christians are joyful in times of suffering. They are neither Spirit-filled nor Spirit-taught Christians. This is why I prefer to the term “friend of Jesus” to the term “Christian”.
Here’s a fun fact for you: originally, the term “Christian” was an insult directed at those who followed the way of Jesus at Antioch (Ac 11:26). Roman historian Tacitus noted this when he wrote in his history of the Roman Empire (Annals, 15.44, ca. 56–118 ad): “[they are] a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians”.
If contemporary Christians were to learn to be labelled a “Christian” was originally an insult, their coddled sensitivities would likely result in fewer people in our churches!
Despite this supposed insult, the followers of Jesus at Antioch became a thriving congregation. And many Antiochan Gentiles converted to faith in Jesus, under the leadership of Barnabas and Paul.
In contrast, before His death and resurrection, the first followers of Jesus were called “disciples”. Yet, on the night of His betrayal, Jesus called those disciples “friends” because they learned from Him, obeyed His commands and took up the mission from Him (Jn 15:14–17).
The friends of Jesus are able to rejoice always, as Paul encouraged, because the joy of the Lord is our strength. This is not mere wishful thinking on the part of Paul. He wrote this encouragement to the friends at Philippi. When he was visiting with them, he was beaten by a mob and thrown into jail for healing a young woman possessed by a demon (Ac 16:16–34). While in jail, Paul and his coworker Silas were praying and singing hymns when an earthquake shook the jail. As a result of their joy and peace even in the face of harsh treatment and natural disaster, the jailer and his household placed their faith in Jesus and were baptised.
Paul could encourage others to rejoice always because he knew firsthand that in whatever circumstance you are suffering, there is joy to be found. The friends of Jesus follow the apostle’s advice, we do not worry and, through prayer with thanksgiving, we present our requests to God.
When you do these things, the peace of Christ, which we do not always understand, guards your heart and mind from the debilitating effects of suffering. You will find strength in its midst because, in your suffering, God is with you. Whether you feel His presence or not, this is a promise made to us and one in which we can trust.
Ask Not Why, But What
Whether you are a friend of Jesus or not, we all experience suffering. I and my family can certainly attest to that. For over two years now, I lost my career, I have undergone surgery for root canal and prostate cancer. I am recovering from two frozen shoulders. This has put significant pressure on my wife and my children. I believe I know why all of this is happening; what I am uncertain of is what to do next.
There is no peace to be found in the “Why?” question but there is joy to be found in asking “What?” What does God want you to do in the midst of your trial or temptation, pain or sorrow, violence or chaos, challenges and misunderstanding?
There is a way for you to enrich the lives of those around you —whether your family, friends, or neighbours— if you will but let God guide you through the narrow gate and along the difficult road that leads to the life that is free, full, and forever, promised by Jesus for His friends.
Conclusion
There certainly are some strange joys the friends of Jesus will face in this world that is enslaved by sin and under the curse of death: there can be joy in beatings, joy in being cast out, joy in correction, joy in being hated, joy in loss, joy in poverty, and joy in suffering.
You might be thinking, “But I don’t want to go through those things!” And who does? But the fact is we all face suffering, in one form or another, multiple times throughout our lifetime. At least the friends of Jesus can, with courage and confidence, face the suffering because we experience joy!
Every friend of Jesus should be joyful in suffering, and should not at any time go around with a long face, moaning and groaning. God will be with you in suffering so that you can rejoice in all things and at all times. His peace will guard your heart and mind if you avoid worry by instead, through prayer with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Endnotes
[1]Sermon adapted from an outline provided by Maze Jackson, “Some Strange Joys of a Christian”, ed. Maze Jackson, Golden Nuggets 5 (1969).
[2]Reprinted by permission of Westminster John Knox Press from Feasting on the Word® Worship Companion, ©2015.
[3]Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are taken from The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA, USA: Lexham Press, 2012).
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