Hi, my name is Mary Lynn. I'm a wife, mother, and grandmother, and Women's Ministries Coordinator in Seattle, Washington. I've been a ministry partner with Desiring God for 14 years. You are listening to the Ask Pastor John Podcast with John Piper. Thank you, Mary Lynn, for that. We're going to chat with her in just a moment.

But first, today's question comes to us from a listener named Matt, who emailed us this. "Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for taking my question. I know you often talk about joy inside of suffering, like Paul did, and that leads me to my question. In Psalm 30, verse 5, the psalmist says joy is found on the other side of suffering, weeping lasts the night, but joy comes with the morning.

But Paul's testimony in the New Testament claims that he found joy together with his suffering. He said this in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 10, talking about being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. So does joy follow suffering, or is there joy inside suffering? And did something change in the new covenant?" My mother was killed in a bus accident in Israel in 1974.

I was 28 years old. My brother-in-law called me and told me that my mother was dead and my father was seriously injured and might not make it. That's all he knew. He would keep me posted. I hung up the phone. I told Noel what he told me. I went to the bedroom, knelt down by the bed, and wept for a long time.

And in my weeping, simultaneous, not sequential, I was rejoicing. The weeping was owing to, of course, the overwhelming pain of sorrow and loss, massive loss, of one whom I so, so cherished. The joy was, "Thank you that I had such an amazing mom. Thank you that you gave her to me for 28 years.

Thank you that evidently she didn't suffer very much. Thank you that she is in heaven and not in hell. Thank you for countless kindnesses she showed me growing up. Thank you that my father is still alive. Please save him. Thank you that I will see her again. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for us and covering her sin and my sin and his sin.

Every sweet memory that tumbled to my mind made tears flow more and joy taste sweeter. So beyond any shadow of a doubt in my mind, it is not double talk to say sorrowful yet always rejoicing, sorrowful yet always in the very sorrow rejoicing. That's not stupid. That's not double talk.

That's simultaneous reality. I've tasted it. And yet it is just as true that my night of weeping would give way in due time to a tearless joy. That's what I think the psalmist means when he says joy follows sorrow. There are waves of sorrow and pain and loss that break, big waves that break over the unshakable rock of Christian joy.

And these waves submerge the laughter in the surging, feel it, the surging surf of weeping that wells up unbidden from your heart. But they don't dislodge the rock. And the waves recede in due time and the rock glistens again in the tearless sunlight. Now nobody should pay any attention to anything I just said, unless there's some good biblical basis for it.

Experience doesn't settle things for us. So let me test what I just described as my experience with some scriptures. So Psalm 30, verse 5 says, "God's anger is but for a moment, his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." And Psalm 126, 5 and 6 says, "Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.

He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him." So clearly there is an experience of tears followed, followed, so sequence, by shouts of joy. And Matt wonders if there's a conflict between this and 2 Corinthians 6.10, which says, "We are sorrowful yet always rejoicing." So tears followed by shouts of joy in the Psalms, sequential, and joy in, always in, sorrow in 2 Corinthians, simultaneous.

So Matt wonders if the difference is because one is before Christ, before the new covenant, he asks, and another comes after Christ, after the work on the cross. Is that why there's a difference between the Psalms and 2 Corinthians? And the answer is no, that's not why. We know that because the same sequential reality that the Psalms described is experienced in the New Testament.

So let's look at a couple of those, because even as we look at the sequence, we find that even in this sequential description of sorrowful, then joy, there is also joy in the sorrow. So let's take John 16, where Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy." So that's sequential, because I die and then live again, and then he makes the comparison, you're going to have joy.

But here's what he says, "When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come." This is the analogy he's making. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So sorrow in the anguish of labor pains, followed by joy.

Now anguish is not owing to unbelief. The anguish is owing to pain. Even the season of pain gives way to the baby in the arms and brings a season of tearless joy. But even in the cries of labor pain, there is what Paul calls the joy of hope. He says in Romans 12, 12, "Rejoice in hope." And in Romans 5, 2, he says, "Rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings.

So he puts the two right together in verse 2 and verse 3 of Romans 5. We rejoice in our sufferings, our labor pains, you might say, because all Christian suffering is like giving birth. God makes it bring an eternal weight of glory, he says in 2 Corinthians 4. So there is both sequential and simultaneous sorrow and joy.

Paul gives another example of sequential and simultaneous sorrow and joy. When Christians had died in Thessalonica, Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep," that is, those who have died, "that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope." So clearly they are grieving.

They're grieving over the loss of the loved one. But the day will come when those tears no longer flow like that. That's sequence. There's the overwhelming grief and loss and weeping, and then the season comes where that's over. But even now, until that day of tearlessness, the tears are not like those who have no hope.

And I take that to mean that Paul said in Romans 5, 2, "We rejoice in hope." The hope of glory does not contradict the tears that are flowing at the very same time of the joy of hope. It doesn't even dry the tears, not immediately. But our joy is unshaken, immovable by the tears.

The rock of joy is submerged in grief, but it is not dislodged, overthrown, or removed. Here's one other passage that may give the key to how there can be both sequential and simultaneous experiences of sorrow and joy. John describes the age to come in Revelation 21, 4 like this, "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." So here he says that there's sorrow-joy sequence between this fallen age and that perfect age.

Here joy—I mean, here suffering and pain, and there joy. This is the age of tears and mourning and crying. In that age, all tears wiped away, no more crying, no more pain. But notice, tears are correlated with death. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

And crying is correlated with pain, nor crying, nor pain any more. So I take this to mean that Christian tears and Christian crying are not owing to loss of hope, nor owing to the dislodging of unshakable joy. Rather, tears are owing to death, and crying is owing to pain.

We cry because it hurts. There's real pain in the world, physical pain, emotional pain, and there's no stopping the tears, right? When they come, they come. You don't say, "Oh, I'm not supposed to have these." No, it hurts. And hurting and joy are not opposites. They're not contrary. They can exist at the same time.

That's what creates the sequential experience of sorrow and joy. Christian joy doesn't mean we don't feel pain. And when we feel it, tears come. We don't decide for them to come. They just come. And the psalmist is saying, "They will be wiped away." And Paul is saying, "They may for a season submerge the shining face and laughter of the boulder of joy in Christ like surging waves do, but they don't dislodge the rock of joy." We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.

Yeah, thank you, Pastor John. I appreciate that clarity. And before we go, today I want you to meet my friend Mary Lynn in Seattle. She joins us over the phone. Mary Lynn, thank you for your time today. You are a gift to the ministry of DG. We met in Seattle in March of this year as your city was closing down for the pandemic.

It was surreal. It was memorable. It was an unforgettable trip, all made possible by your heroic efforts on the ground to coordinate some in-person DG events for us so I could teach on technology. And it only happened because of you and your husband, and DG's own Peter Hedstrom played a big role in that too.

So it ended up being a pretty amazing trip overall. So on the one hand, you roll up your sleeves, you physically serve DG in the Seattle region, but you're also a ministry partner by financially supporting the ministry. Mary Lynn, talk to us about why. Why do you support Desiring God?

We truly love the ministry. All of Desiring God's resources have been the quintessential for all seasons ministry to us. And I would start by saying if I'm needing a spiritual or emotional pick me up, it doesn't take long to scroll through and find an article that's going to redirect my thoughts and even my emotions toward Christ, toward the gospel and eternal things in a way that refreshes my soul.

And I think I would say in a way that's so far removed from duty rather that really makes my returning and rest to a faithful Savior a true delight. And it has simultaneously met the needs of our whole family. It's been a unifying force, honestly. We have a family group chat and every one of us five has at one time or another posted a DG article with a must read written above it.

And it becomes a shared experience as a family, a shared growth. And when someone close to us has had questions, we look it up on DG. Or if we've set up a weekly prayer time with friends, we have chosen to listen to sometimes an hour sermon if we have the time, sometimes just a quicker look at the book or an APJ.

We actually did look at the book for our small group weekly for a year. And if we're driving in the car with a 15 or 20 minute drive time, we can fit in a quick listen and honestly, it just changes the whole day or maybe the conversation that we are having.

But invariably, there's just the perfect thing and I can find something on point and priceless in about two and a half minutes. Well, you clearly make good use of DG resources. I appreciate that. And that's one way a lot of people can help DG is getting our resources into the hands of a lot of people in their lives who need them.

Mary Lynn, what would you say to those who are listening right now to the podcast who are not donors to the ministry? Maybe they've been blessed by DG resources for years and now they're beginning to realize the expense of the ministry and are now starting to consider the part that they could play in helping us make and spread new resources around the world through a gift, even a small reoccurring monthly gift.

To them, Mary Lynn, what would you say? I would say one of the greatest blessings you can give yourself is to support Desiring God Ministries. I call it the best kept secret, the ministry that for years, it never occurred to me how my financial input was needed for them to flourish and add to their resources.

And yet I was being given riches from their work almost daily. And now the more genuinely godly people at Desiring God, I get to know and love. And the more I hear about their outreach around the world, the more of a joyful privilege it is to give abundantly. Thank you, Mary Lynn, for everything you do for the ministry.

It's a lot. And if you'd like to join Mary Lynn and join us so that we can make more DG resources and spread them around the globe, you can join us right now. Go to DesiringGod.org/donate. That's DesiringGod.org/donate. We appreciate it. I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you on Monday. 1.20 Page 2 of 8 1.20 Page 2 of 8 1.20 Page 2 of 8 1.20 Page 2 of 8 1.20 Page 2 of 8