Through many tribulations

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 7

Jeremiah 31:23-25  +  Acts 14:8-23  +  Matthew 10:24-31

All Christians would do well to memorize the Apostle Paul’s words that you heard in the second lesson this evening: We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. And we would also do well to remember the context in which he said it. He didn’t speak those words in a vacuum. He spoke them to the brand new disciples he had made, the new Christians in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. In his journey through those cities he had been nearly worshiped as a god, spoken against by Jews and Gentiles, pursued, persecuted, plotted against, and stoned nearly to death. The man who had just experienced those things encouraged the Christians with the words, We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

Tribulations. Troubles. Afflictions. Distress. These things affect all human beings, because we all, as sinners, live under the curse of the creation. But Christians are guaranteed a special helping of tribulations, even “the great tribulation” of these last days of the world. After all, the disciple must be made like his Teacher, and the servant like his Master. To hope for a comfortable life on earth as a Christian, to hope to be loved and treated well by the world is to hope to be different than Christ, and that’s neither Christian nor safe.

No, We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God. But that’s the thing. We do enter the kingdom of God through those tribulations. We do get through the valley of the shadow of death. And the glory of that kingdom far surpasses the pain of the tribulations, just as life far surpasses death.

And through the tribulations, the name of God is glorified, in that Christians give a powerful testimony through their willingness to suffer tribulation for the name of Christ. Imagine if St. Paul had shrunk back from preaching the Gospel in Lystra or in Derbe for fear of the Jews or for fear of the pagan Gentiles in order to save his own skin. Then all his former preaching about Christ would have been contradicted by his fear and cowardice, and everyone would have seen Paul as a fraud and Christ as a joke.

But he didn’t shrink back. He confronted the tribulations with the same faith that he had been preaching to the people of Asia Minor. He suffered, but he was helped through the tribulations to continue his God-given task of preaching the Gospel of Christ, until the final tribulation, the moment of his death, when he was helped even through that tribulation to enter the kingdom of God.

Until that final tribulation comes upon you and me, we have the promise of God’s continual help and refreshment in the midst of the other tribulations, just as Jesus wasn’t willing to let His 4,000 disciples faint along the way home but provided refreshment for them in the wilderness, as we heard on Sunday, just as God continued to provide for Israel in captivity, keeping them safe and well fed, sending prophets like Daniel to encourage them and to guide them, sending helpers like Cyrus and Darius and even Queen Esther herself until He brought them safely back to the promised land.

In the midst of these many tribulations, Jesus assures us that not a single sparrow falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

So the fact that we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God can’t mean that God doesn’t care or that He likes to see us suffer. It means that He is carefully and lovingly molding us into the image of Jesus, both inwardly and outwardly, both in our behavior and in our treatment in the world. So let us bear those blessed marks of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God that, through these many tribulations, we will finally enter His kingdom and be rescued from every trouble and tribulation as we who have resembled Jesus in humility will also resemble Him in glory. Amen.