How Is Affliction Good for God's People? | January 4, 2026 PM

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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.

Psalm 119. We're going to look at 2 verses

here tonight from this portion of the scripture in the, the

message does come from these two verses.

Not typical of how I would normally preach, which would be

dealing with one passage in particular.

But we're going to see these verses illustrated in Acts

Acts 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 in just a moment. So I want you to notice verse 67

and verse 71. So we'll read 1.

We'll skip down a few. Psalm 119.

Verse 67 The psalmist writes here, before I was afflicted I

went astray, but now have I kept thy word.

Verse 71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I

might learn thy statutes. I want you to think about this

question tonight as we move forward in the in God's word.

How is affliction good for God's people?

How on earth, how on earth in your life is affliction good for

you? I want you to think about that

tonight and you can be seated, please.

Affliction. What is affliction?

Affliction could probably be defined in this manner.

It would be circumstances involving pain, emotional or

spiritual or physical. Affliction is anxiety, trouble,

stress, or it could be the state of experiencing pressure or

persecution from without or self-inflicted affliction,

foolish, living, sinful, living affliction.

We saw this word in these two verses tonight, verses 67 and

71, and we can find this word and several other places in the

Word of God. Affliction.

Know this tonight that affliction of itself is not

good. I think we would all agree with

that, and we would believe that affliction alone by itself is

not good. Anxiety, pressure, stress,

mistreatment of of towards you or a poor decision, sinful

decisions in your life that reap consequences is not good.

But God, the one who's sovereign and providential over the

affairs of the lives of his children.

But God is not limited in being able to use affliction to work

for our overall spiritual success if he is in the

equation. If Christ is in your life, God

is not restricted from taking your affliction and as Romans

828 says, using it for good. And that good is always Christ

likeness. And so I want us to turn our

attention to Acts chapter 4, Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention Acts 4 · chapter mention

And I want us to look at a group of people who experienced first

hand how their affliction came with God's grace.

That's the title of the message tonight.

Afflictions come with grace. Afflictions come with grace.

Let's pray our Father in heaven, your people have gathered here

tonight. Not for me.

They've gathered here tonight to fellowship with one another in

Jesus name and to come under the influence of the Word of God,

who is our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we might go out into a

world here in a moment and to continue being salt and light in

our homes and our communities and on the job.

I pray, O dear God, Holy Spirit, that you would meet the need of

your people here tonight and that your word would speak and

that your word would change hearts and encourage the

believer tonight. I do thank you for this moment.

I do thank you for the Word of God, which is a lamp unto my

feet and a light unto my path. The Word of God that spoke the

earth into existence, that reveals who you are to us.

The Word of God that reveals who we are, The Word of God Jesus

Christ, who brings us to you and sanctifies you and will take us

all the way home. And so, Lord, this is your

moment to speak with your people in Jesus name, Amen.

In Acts chapter 4, the membership of the church at

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Jerusalem illustrates how their affliction was used for their

spiritual success. So to give some context to the

verses we'll read in a moment, the apostles from the church at

Jerusalem were being persecuted. They were being afflicted for

what? For obeying God's will, for

declaring Christ. In verse 3, which we will not

read, we would see that verse 3 tells us that Peter and John,

these two apostles, they were arrested for preaching Christ.

And then in down in verses 17 and 18 of Acts 4, these verses

inform us that before they were released from jail, the

establishment of Jerusalem threatened them with future

arrest should they continue to publicly preach Christ.

I would say that this is an affliction.

Would you? Yeah.

OK, so the apostles were after further declaring Christ, they

gathered with their church, which is a proper response.

After they were threatened, they and further declared Christ,

they went and gathered with their church and reported the

affliction that they came under, that they were arrested and then

that they were before they were released, they were threatened.

If they continue to preach Christ, they would be arrested

again, or else. And so this brings us to Acts

Acts 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 and verse 23. I want us to notice the details

of verses 23 through 34 as these two church members gather with

the church and tell them what happened to them.

Verse 23, in being let go, they went to their own company.

That would be their group of disciples, their very own local

church in Jerusalem, and reported all that the chief

priests and elders had said unto them.

And when they heard that, when the church heard that, they

lifted up their voice to God with 1 accord.

In other words, when they heard this news from these two fellow

brothers in Christ, they prayed. They prayed as a church and

said, This Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth

and the sea, and all that in them is who by the mouth of thy

servant David has said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people

imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up,

and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and

against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy

child Jesus, whom thou has anointed.

Both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people

of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand

and thy counsel determined before to be done.

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings.

So they were saying, God, you knew that Christ and His Church

would be persecuted. And here it is, it's happening.

They're saying this to the Lord. Verse 29 And now Lord, behold

their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants us the church,

that with all boldness they may speak thy word.

Give this to continue to give this to Peter and John boldness

by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and

wonders may be done by the by the name of the holy Child

Jesus. They said, Amen.

Verse 31 Here's what happened. And when they had prayed, the

place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they

were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word

with of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that

believed were of 1 accord and of one soul.

Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he

possessed was his own. But they had all things common.

They loved each other, and with great power gave the apostles

witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

And catch this tonight, Church, this phrase at the end of verse

33. And great grace was upon them

all. Neither was there any among them

that lacked for any. For many, as were possessors of

lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things

that were sold. Nowhere in Acts chapter 4 is it

Acts 4 · chapter mention

recorded that the members of the church complained about what was

now their affliction. You said that their affliction,

I thought it was Peter and John who were afflicted.

No, catch this tonight. That when the Peter and John

came to their church and and made the affliction known to the

church, the affliction became the burden of the church.

The church had to bear this burden with the rest of the body

of Christ, Peter and John. And so there is not recorded

that they complained. Neither is it recorded that the

church members plotted revenge against the establishment of

Jerusalem. But what our passage does reveal

is the church responded to their affliction with prayer to God.

That's how they responded to all of this in verses 24 to 31.

We saw here at the very beginning of their prayer that

their prayer consisted of worship.

Worship. They acknowledged the sovereign

rule and Providence of God over the situation, not just over the

situation of of people being arrested now and people being

threatened for preaching Christ, but the situation that now

affects the church. They worshipped God.

They acknowledged his sovereignty in verses 24 through

31 and then in 29 and 30. They're praying then consisted

of asking for Holy Spirit induced boldness to continue in

the will of God. They didn't come to God and say

Lord, make the affliction, make the persecution stop, make it go

away. We don't, we don't want this

anymore. May they never find us.

May nobody ever be arrested again.

That is not exactly what they said, but they asked for the

Spirit's help to continue to do the will of God, which is to

continuing to magnify Christ as a church.

In other words, the church prayed according to God's will

that Christ would continue to be exalted instead instead of

subdued and and hushed. And so the Bible says some of

these famous words here in verse 33.

And when they had prayed, and when they had prayed according

to God's will that Christ would be glorified, that's always

God's will, that we would be like Christ, that we would

respond like Christ, that we would shine his lights for

Christ, that we would be savory and holy like Christ.

When they had prayed according to God's will, the Bible says to

us in verse at the end of verse 33, they experienced God's grace

in a time of thriving as a church in spite of their

affliction. This wasn't peacetime.

This was in spite of their affliction, in spite of the the

overshadowing threat that people could go spend time in jail or

prison or worse. What is grace?

We do need to be reminded of this once in a while because

even I can forget what grace is. Grace is God's power to do that

which I cannot on my own to do that.

What is the that the will of God.

Grace is God's power to do that which I cannot do on my own.

God's will cannot be carried out on our own.

Grace is an absolute must have you and I couldn't even come to

to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ without the grace that

comes through the gospel. And that is the will of God,

that we come to Christ through the gospel.

And so is the rest of the Christian life lived out through

the grace of God. And so grace was experienced by

the church when they submitted to God's will, when they placed

faith in the plan of God, which was to declare Christ, to

magnify Christ, to start churches where Christ can be

declared and magnified and in effect and change people's

lives. But when we don't come to God in

our affliction, we will fail to experience the grace that God

can give in our affliction. When we don't come to the Lord

in our affliction, we are the ones who will miss out on what

God can enable us to do if we did not come to Him so.

But with this church, grace produced boldness within the

membership to function according to God's plan.

And again, God's plan was that they would preach Jesus Christ

and that they would fellowship in ministry and in prayer

together, and that they would continue in the Great

Commission. This church experienced the

boldness that only the grace of Almighty God can produce.

So how was affliction good for God's people in the Church of

Jerusalem? Well, God providentially used

their affliction to provoke them to wholeheartedly depend on Him.

Let me say that again. God providentially used their

affliction to provoke His people to come unto Him and depend on

Him for the grace that they needed.

Therefore, their dependence on God's grace caused them to do

their part to declare Christ and do the work of the ministry to

one another. In other words, the affliction

was out of their control and that's exactly where God wanted

it is that the affliction that they would not be so focused on

the affliction and trying to control the establishment at

Jerusalem, but that they would acknowledge the sovereignty of

God and they would submit the problem to Him.

And then the grace of God would come down and they could face

each other and continue being the church to one another while

God over here would could take care of the affliction.

It was good for the church to be afflicted because God used it to

develop their Christ like character.

Affliction isn't good, but God can take affliction and use it

for His purposes. And the purpose in our lives is

always Christ like character. The character of Christ is that

we would love, enjoy, worship, trust and obey the Father no

matter what. Let me say that again.

The character of Christ, the mind of Christ, the life of

Christ is to love, enjoy, worship, trust, and obey the

Father no matter what. So let's notice an additional

example please, in Psalm 107. Psalm 107.

An additional example, Psalm 107 is often viewed as, and it is

the truth as a Psalm of Thanksgiving, giving thanks and

praise to God for what He has done in the lives of His people.

Psalm 107. I want us to see secondly

tonight that God uses afflictions in our lives to work

for our spiritual character development.

God uses afflictions in our lives to work for our spiritual

character development. And so I want us to notice that

we could go to any, any section of verses in Psalm 107, but I

believe the Lord wants us to look at verses 33 through 38.

Notice with me verse 33, Speaking of God.

He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the water

springs into dry ground, a fruitful land into Baroness for

the wickedness of them that dwell therein.

He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground

into water springs, and there he maketh the hungry to dwell, that

they may prepare a city of habitation.

And now, and sow the fields and plant vineyards, which they may

yield fruits of increase, He blessed them also, so that they

are multiplied greatly, and suffereth not their cattle to

decrease. So we see here I want to ask

this question. Why did the Lord lead His people

to such dry, barren and difficult locations?

It was not because of the wickedness of his people that

the land was dry and barren, but it's because of the wickedness

of those who live there already. And but God led his people into

a dry and barren place. Why did God do that?

Is the Lord cruel and unkind? Was he judging them for

something in particular? His very own people?

Was he judging them for something in particular?

Or maybe did the Lord God mess up his directions?

Oops, I meant to tell you to go that way, but here we are.

I want us to see here the answer to this question in the middle

of verse 36. He did this that they may

prepare a city of habitation and sow the fields and plant

vineyards which may yield fruits of increase.

And he blessed them also, so that they are multiplied greatly

and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.

The Lord in loving, merciful Providence led His people to

these geographical locations. In order for them to develop and

grow in spiritual character, they needed to learn to stop

complaining and begin experiencing God's grace to do

His will. What was His will in in passages

like these? God's will was for them to work

hard and build a place of habitation.

It was God's will for them to develop character.

God's will was for them to plant fields and vineyards.

God's will was for them to grow in spiritual character in a

difficult situation and just let God be God and bless their

humble diligence. God was bringing them into a

place where they had no other choice but to get to work and

trust God and learn how to get their hands dirty and learn how

to see God produce fruit in their humble obedience.

He brought them to, if you will, a a, a broken birdhouse and had

them figure out how to fix it so that they could be good at

building birdhouses. If you will, God's will was for

His people to learn what it meant to cry out to Him for

helping grace and experience his miraculous blessing.

Brother Chucky taught this morning or preached or taught,

taught, preached, right. He was going back and forth on

that on from Mark chapter 6 and how Jesus would have passed by

Mark 6 · chapter mention

his disciples. It wasn't that Jesus was going

to miss his disciples. He wanted his disciples to learn

what it meant to cry out, to humble themselves and get a hold

of the Lord Jesus Christ and let Him do for them, but that they

what they were trying to do for themselves.

He wanted them to be in this situation, to provoke, to induce

if you will, their faith. God's will was for His people in

these afflicting circumstances. It was for them to take their

eyes off of their weaknesses and learn to concentrate on Him.

God's will was for His people to stop bowing down and submitting

to their afflictions and and crumbling and folding to their

afflictions and to learn to bow down to Almighty Sovereign God

and trust His grace and to grow in spiritual character

development. And it's important to note why

this is the Thanksgiving Psalm. It's important to note that

multiple times throughout Psalm one O 7, the people of God

offered praise and Thanksgiving after they realized that God

used this for our good. I mean, notice that here in

verse one it says, Oh, give thanks O to the Lord, for He is

good for his mercy endureth forever.

Verse a Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness

and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

And that is said at least I think three more times in this

passage. And that always came after they

saw what God did in their affliction.

They gave thanks. They came to understand that it

was a loving of God to allow them to be afflicted because of

what it did for their relationship with Him.

The very last verse of Psalm one O 7 verse 43.

At the end of all of this, whoso is wise and will observe these

things, even they shall understand the loving kindness

of the Lord. Church Christian, in your

affliction God is loving you. He's loving you.

He's not letting you stay who you are.

He can take the affliction and use it to form you into His

image. Go back to Psalm 119, please,

where we started tonight. Psalm 119.

Affliction of itself, affliction left to itself, if you will.

Affliction upon which God's hand is not, is not good, but God

intends to use it to be good for us.

Your affliction not only works for you, but it works for God,

meaning God is in charge. Your affliction has to submit to

your loving heavenly Father. Verse 67 it says again, before I

was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word.

The psalmist recognized through his affliction that prior to it,

before it, he was wandering away from practicing God's presence,

from living in desperation for his Creator before the

affliction. But although the psalmist

affliction was bad, he recognized and experienced that

Almighty God was able to use it for His good.

In this particular stanza of Psalm 119, the writer is

expressing the affliction of being lied about, his integrity

being threatened. But in verse 71, he recognizes

that in God's sovereignty he was using this affliction to draw

the psalmist into his presence and meditation on the truth on

the Word of God, which would be later seen as the Lord Jesus

Christ, the Word of God. He says in verse 71, It is good

for me, it is good for me that I have experienced this

difficulty, this affliction, this pressure.

There's anxiety, the stress that I might learn thy statutes, the

word of God. You see, when God is in the

equation of your life, affliction works at the pleasure

of God's providential, omniscient sovereignty in the

lives of his people. The writer's affliction, it

humbled him. He, he could not control these

people. He could not control the

situation. And so he had to humbly put it

in God's hand, or can I say this, Acknowledge and recognize

that it was actually always in God's hands.

His affliction exposed his weaknesses and his spiritual

character, and therefore God took the affliction and

graciously used it for the psalmist's spiritual advantage.

How is affliction good for you? How is affliction good for me?

How you find your home life, your marriage or seemingly

prolonged state of singleness afflicting your spirit.

Your older age is an affliction to your spirits, your mind and

body. Your poor or questionable health

experience is an affliction to your entire person.

How you compare your economic situation to your neighbor is

afflicting your mind and your spirits and your perspective on

life. Your past, far removed or

recent, is an affliction to your mind, your memory, and even your

relationships today, your past, your extended family members

have made decisions that afflict your relationship with them.

Put a strain, put a stress, put an anxiety on your relationship

with them. How can these types of things be

good for us? I want you to know this tonight,

Believer that one of the greatest things the Lord can do

is take a mess brought against you or a mess you brought on

upon yourself and lead you into a specific or lead you into a

specific trial designed just for you.

So He can providentially use it all to help us become more

humble and more enduring and more dependent upon and more in

love with, not ourselves, but with who He is.

That you might learn His statutes, that you might learn

His Word, That you might learn of Christ.

He draws you to Himself while you are being afflicted.

This is the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, That

because Christ is in the equation of your affliction, God

uses it all to make us what we ought to be.

Listen, the good news for the believer in the affliction is

that Christ is the grace. Jesus Christ is the grace.

Jesus Christ is not just the good news for the lost to come

to Christ. And I think we get thrown off

when we just preach that salvation is about going to

heaven, going to heaven. No, salvation is about Jesus

Christ reconciling our relationship with our Creator

for the here and now and for the after, which is a guarantee.

And so as we think about salvation is for heaven, we

forget to realize that Christ is the good news.

In the midst of your darkest day, He's the light on your

darkest day, He's the good news. He's the hope in your

affliction. Believer, He's not just to be

worshipped in heaven to come, He is to be experienced right now.

Christ is the grace, the living and breathing Word of God.

Thy statutes, thy word, Christ. God's will is not always that

the affliction goes away, but His will always is that we come

to Him and experience the grace of Christ.

Jesus said this in Matthew Chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

Come unto me, all ye that labor in are heavy laden, and I will

give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn

of me and I that I, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye

shall find rest for your afflicted soul, If I might add

the word. For my yoke is easy and my

burden is light. Sounds like Christ is the

answer, not just for the lost, but for you right now in the

midst of your affliction. He's the answer.

Get to Him. Get to God every day and

especially in your affliction. Know this tonight, that God uses

afflictions in our lives to draw us to Himself so we thrive in

the grace found in Christ. Are you experiencing God's grace

in the middle of your affliction?

Are you learning to pray? Are you coming to love Christ

more than coming to love what He loves others?

The Father? Are you learning to trust God?

Have you learned to stop complaining about where you are

and begin learning commitment, hard work, grit, endurance?

Psalm one O 7. Are you submitting yourself to

your sovereign, faithful and loving God who is working to

help you? Think like Christ?

Are you? Will you in your dark day?

Could be tomorrow, could be next week, could be here as we speak

tonight and are you letting your church family and pastor be the

help in your life that Christ set them up to be the church is

a grace. You say how the church is the

body of you can say it's OK, it's doctrinally correct.

Christ, the body of Christ, He's not here physically.

He's here in spirit, but this is his representation of him.

Are you attached to the church? I don't have, I don't know who

my pastor is. I don't have a pastor.

I don't know who my group of disciples are.

I just, I don't, I don't know. Are you attached to the church?

The church is a grace. You stiff arm the church.

You stiff arm, how God wants to help you.

You say, I I don't need to belong somewhere.

I just, I go, I float and I go and I go everywhere and we're

all God's children. But but who's your pastor?

Who are you accountable to? Who's there on your dark day?

I don't know. We'll join a church and

experience God's grace, submit to his plan.

And there's the grace that you can have in your dark day.

God knows the plans that He has for you, and He won't allow the

afflictions to destroy you, but rather to work for your

spiritual success in the days that are still in front of you.

There's a story of a boy who, and about the month of January,

expressed his desire to potentially join the high school

cross country team. And so with that in mind, as

spring came along, his father began to take him on hikes every

other day after work or any given time.

And they, they would hike for, for a couple miles and go up and

down terrain. And they would always get to the

top of this Cliff. And the boy's father would have

him try to to just push the boulder that was on the Cliff

and try to push it over the Cliff.

And the boy never understood why they hiked every other

afternoon, nor why he had to push this boulder that was going

nowhere. Finally, at the end of summer,

upon the boy insisting why they always did this, the dad told

his son months later at the end of summer, Son, look at your

arms. Look at your legs.

Look at the muscle that has come to be in those parts of you, how

they gained muscle and he gained endurance.

And the father said, consider how much that he and his son had

grown in their relationship during that time.

Then his dad added, now you're prepared to endure high school,

cross country and thrive. And you know, son, from all of

this, I'm your biggest supporter.

Affliction come comes with grace.

Afflictions come with grace that is found and drawing closer to

Christ. Christ is your greatest

supporter as He uses your affliction to shape your life.

Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of

Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing

to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us

know by contacting us at [email protected].

Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,

MA. May the Lord bless you as you

grow in His Word.