State of the Church 2025
Introduction
There is a sense in which we are living in quite an unusual circumstance, in quite an odd set-up. In many ways, our church community has never had it so good. We are a growing, industrious lot, grateful for the blessing of God, and the general disposition of our community is in fact quite a cheerful one. At the same time, and in the same community, there are hardships, difficulties, and significant afflictions. Some are coping with widowhood. Some have severe medical challenges. Others have to deal with the fact of having been wronged, or treated roughly, by a brother in the faith. Still others are managing the long-term challenges of elder care.
Think of a woman who lost her son in the waning days of World War 2 . . . and then three days later Germany surrendered, and her entire city erupts in joy. There is a real difference between misery spread across everyone, as in a time of famine or flood or other disaster, on the one hand, and individual affliction in a time of prosperity on the other. We know that we are to weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. Our instructions are clear. “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15). The challenge is . . . all at the same time?
I bring this topic up because many of us have been in this position, and I anticipate more and more of us will need to navigate this reality as well. And so long as it continues, this will need to be done individually . . . for the most part.
The Text
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:18-19).
Summary of the Text
In order to deal with this peculiar sort of affliction, that of suffering in the midst of joy, we need to remind ourselves of the scriptural emphasis when it comes to any sort of affliction. Paul calls these afflictions “the sufferings of this present time” (v. 18). In talking about this, he gives us his own personal calculation when he says, “for I reckon.” This is his calculation. He says that there is a glory coming, a glory that is going to be revealed “in us,” and when he sets that glory alongside our present sufferings, his conclusion is that they were not even worth the effort it took to set them alongside one another. The afflictions are in us now, and the glory will be in us then, and the former will be completely swallowed up by the latter. He then addresses how that future reality is to be a comfort to us now, in the present. That will happen—that day when our sufferings cannot be compared to our glory—when the sons of God are manifested. In context, he is talking about the day of resurrection, the day when our identity in the risen Christ is made fully apparent to the entire world. The comfort comes in the fact that this hope before us is something that we wait for with an “earnest expectation” (v. 19). Having that hope before us as an earnest expectation gives us something to hang onto in the time of our distress. “There will come a time when I won’t even be able to remember any of this.”
The Nature of This Sort of Affliction
Those who are in the midst of this kind of suffering need to recognize a few things about it and need to take good care to guard their hearts against a maudlin self-pity or resentment. Remember that in the very nature of pain, it will be isolated and lonesome. Toothaches are not a shared experience.
A big part of this isolation is found in the nature of the case, and there is no need to find fault with others. While it is true that “no one else knows what this is like,” it is also true that they are not supposed to. God did not assign this to them.
As God offers comfort in the midst of the trial, do not clutch at it like a drowning swimmer. Take on the comfort gratefully, as a diligent student, and put it in your notebook. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:3–4). You are not just being comforted, you are being trained. You should be taking notes.
You are living in the school of hard gratitude. Now this gratitude in the midst of affliction is not a happy happy joy joy sort of thing, not at all. Remember the Pauline juxtaposition. “As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing . . .” (2 Cor. 6:10). And what did Jesus do when He picked up the bread that represented His body, and He took it in His own hands and tore it. What was He doing at that moment? He was giving thanks (Luke 22:19). This is why we are instructed to give thanks in all things (1 Thess. 5:18), and for all things (Eph. 5:20). This is a hard-headed gratitude, not a hard-hearted and sullen ingratitude.
Just as there is a sense in which the affliction is yours alone, so also is the wisdom and the sanctification and the blessing that comes from it are yours alone. You alone know the plague of your own heart, correct? “What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house . . .” (1 Kings 8:38). This means that you alone can know how God ministered to you there. You alone have that white stone. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Rev. 2:17).
Help from the Outside
Having urged those who are going through this sort of trial to learn how to bear their own burdens (Gal. 6:5), it is now time to remind everyone else to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). This is not either/or, but rather both/and, and it is the part of wisdom to know and understand when and how this is to be done.
Look for ways to provide practical help—meal trains, school pick-ups, financial support, or child care. The chances are pretty good that you are far more eloquent with your hands than you are will your words.
Job’s friends did well, at least initially. For the first week, they were silent. Where words are many, sin is not absent (Prov. 10:19). Be genuinely wary about volunteering too much about how you “know what it’s like.” You probably don’t, and even if you do, they probably already know that.
You are there to provide sympathy, which is not at all the same thing as untethered empathy. There have been many comforters who have been little more than well-cushioned stumbling blocks.
Don’t overpromise and then underdeliver. “Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint” (Prov. 25:19). Don’t be loose and free with “if there is anything at all we can do . . .”
Eschatological Orientation
And so we return to our text. All of us who are Christians are anchored in and with the same hope. We share that one hope, and we share it all the time. Our current afflictions are not worth comparing to the realization of that hope. But at the same time, these afflictions, which will dwindle to nothing at that day, are certainly weighty enough for us now. They are plenty heavy in the moment. And so remember, these are mobile afflictions. They have feet. They work through the body at different rates of speed. They do not happen to all of us, all at once. They come, first to one, and then to another. When they come to us, it is to remind us of our hope—who is Christ. When they come to our brother, it is to remind us of our hope—who is Christ.