Romans 5: Suffering: Mar 3, 2007
The Role of suffering in the life of Hope March 3, 2007
j
Big Idea: When we are sure of God’s love, suffering can make us more like Jesus.
Text: ROMANS 5:1-11
When I was about 16 years old, and a new Christian, I had heard that the fastest way to grow as a Christian was to experience “trials and tribulations.” I knew that I had far more character defects than the average person, I was also very competitive, so I earnestly prayed that God would send me many trials and many tribulations so that my growth as a Christian would be quickly accelerated…
I earnestly prayed this prayer a several times and not long thereafter I fell into the deepest depression that I had ever experienced up until, or since, that time. I was a carefree, kid growing up. I hardly ever studied, almost never felt guilt--even when I was doing “bad things.” My life was dominated by sports and friends and having fun. I had no idea what depression was. But after praying that God would send me trials and tribulations, I entered into this deep valley of despair. Nothing external had changed in my life, but I felt as though God had turned his face from me, and as a result I no longer felt the presence of God in my life. I was in great anguish.
Emotionally, it was the most difficult time of my life. I have suffered emotionally since then through the loss of a relationship, through failure, but I have never been as low as when I was 16 years old.
And during this time of deep inner suffering, someone who didn’t even know me sent me a card, and in that card were the words of Romans 5: 3-5, where Paul says…
3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
This morning I want us to look at this text and examine the role that suffering plays in the life of a child of God.
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 5:
In verse 1 we read:
Peace and Hope
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we [a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
In Romans 1 and 2 Paul describes how we human beings have turned from the living God from whom they were made as a result experience confusion, despair and breakdown.
As we saw last week, in Romans 3 we see how God has intervened and bridged the gap between us and God through the faithful work of His son Jesus Christ, who, as we explored last Sunday, bore not only our sin but our shame on the cross, so we could live with out shame and enter the living room of our Father in heaven.
We saw how Christ allowed himself to be excluded from the his family, the Godhead, so that we could be included by God… and we become people who can walk into the living room of God, and experience the embrace of God… when we put our faith, our trust in Jesus Christ faithful work on the cross…
Paul says, 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, wehave peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
Paul says through this trusting the faithful work of Jesus Christ on the cross we have peace with God.
Peace in this context means peace in the “objective” sense of being in harmony with God. As a result of being in harmony with God, we may experience subjective peace in our heart, but here Paul is talking about the fact the objective fact that if we in relationship with Christ we are no longer living in hostility with God; we have been reconciled to God and therefore have peace with God.
And Paul says:
And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
One of the most important themes in the book of Romans (as we see in chapter 4 and 8-11) is that God is raising up people to be part of his family, people who are the true spiritual seed of Abraham, the true children of God.
And one of the signs, according to Paul in this text and others is that if we really are children of God we will suffer…that’s Paul we rejoice in our suffering because it’s a sign that we are children of God… that God is at work in us… Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:12 that all who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer…
There are some people who preach a “health and wealth” gospel. They preach that if you give your life to Jesus Christ you will become healthy, and you will become wealthy--and escape suffering. Preaching that kind of gospel may appeal to a lot of people, because most people want to be healthy and wealthy, but unfortunately that is not Gospel according to Jesus Christ.
People who promote the “health and wealth” gospel may say to you’re if you’re are sick and not experiencing healing, “The reason that you are sick and are not experiencing healing is because you do not have enough faith.” The “health and wealth” preachers people may say, “Just believe, just believe, just believe, just believe!”
Or if you are not financially prospering, the “health and wealth” gospel preachers may encourage you to muster up more faith and to name and claim whatever it is that you want and claim it.
I remember as a new Christian noticing that a Christian woman who was part of a family of modest means had a photograph of a Cadillac taped to her refrigerator at (level). I was curious and I asked her, “Why do you have this photo of a Cadillac taped to your refrigerator?”
She said, “I am naming and I am claiming it.”
And “health and wealth” gospel people will say, “If you are not healthy and wealthy, you just don’t have enough faith. If had you faith, you would be healthier and you would be wealthier.”
This false gospel, this “health and wealth” message, leaves some people feeling that if they are not healthy and wealthy, they must lack faith.
Paul, in contrast to this pseudo-gospel, says that one of the evidences that you are really trusting and following God is that you experience suffering. Paul says in Romans 5 we rejoice in our suffering because it’s a sign we’re children of God, 2 Timothy 3 “All who are godly in Christ Jesus will experience suffering.”
So suffering is not a sign that we don’t have enough faith, but suffering is a sign that we do have true faith in God. Abraham our spiritual ancestor, featured in Romans… suffered because of decision to follow God… he follows the call of God right into a land of land that is experiencing famine... as did Moses’ decision to follow God led to suffering as did Ruth’s and Esther’s Jesus.’ And at some level, every true follower of God will suffer. Paul says all who are godly in Christ Jesus will experience suffering.
And so part of the reason Paul says that we rejoice in our suffering is because if we suffer, it is a sign that we are the children of God.
Sometimes followers of Christ suffer because they find themselves out of synch with the values of the world. Paul in Romans 12 if you are a child of God, live like it. Don’t be conformed to the values of this world. And because we’re out of synch with the values of the world we may experience suffering.
A boss who pressures us to lie for him, or her, for the company, if we respectfully say we can’t do that. We may suffer. A partner that we are not married to urges to compromise our bodies sexually in ways that outside of God’s plan, and you say, I’m going to wait, I’m going to star over sexually and from her out I’m going to save my body till in a marriage covenant with someone… we may suffer in some way.
Also, as followers of God, we voluntarily give our lives to others in self-giving service.
Mother Teresa once responded when asked how much should I love, she said, “Love till it hurts.” And we can voluntarily suffer as we give our lives away in service.
The Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis was once asked by someone of how much money should I give away. I think the person was thinking professor will likely say tithe your money… give the first a tenth to God… Lewis said give until it hurts… which means the tenth is starting point… but if you up end making far more money that you need to live on, give until there are certain things you can’t, because you’re so generous…
Shane Claiborne in his book the Irresistible Revolution says,
· I know there are people out there who say, "My life was such a mess. I was drinking, partying, sleeping around ... and then I met Jesus and my whole life came together." But me, I had it together. I used to be cool. And then I met Jesus and he wrecked my life. The more I read the gospel, the more it messed me up, turning everything I believed in, valued, and hoped for upside-down. I am still recovering from my conversion. I know it's hard to imagine, but in high school, I was in the in-crowd, popular, ready to make lots of money and buy lots of stuff, on the upward track to success. I had been planning to go to med school. Like a lot of folks, I wanted to find a job where I could do as little work as possible for as much money as possible. I figured anesthesiology would work, just put folks to sleep with a little happy gas and let others do the dirty work. Then I could buy lots of stuff I didn't need. Mmm ...
But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn't fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first…
We are called to a life of service, compassion, and generosity. If we that we’re not born that way, if we meet Christ we are re-born that way… Even though I believe that the great life of service, compassion, and generosity is the greatest life in the world… it involves suffering…
The children of God will suffer because they march to the beat of different drummer; suffer because like Jesus we become people of self-giving sacrificial service to others…
And then we can involuntarily suffer because we experience some kind of loss… Followers of Christ don’t in some protective bubble… we suffer like others… we love someone who doesn’t love us back, we don’t accepted in grad school, or we don’t get a job we want, we lose a baby, a grandmother, a beloved pet… we get sick, we’re in conflict with some, we experience some kind financial reversal.
Paul says, “As followers of Christ, we glory in our suffering, we rejoice in our suffering.” Paul does not say, “We rejoice for our suffering.”
There are certain things we should not rejoice for: we should not rejoice for sickness, we should not rejoice for having our heart broken, we should not rejoice for getting laid off work…
But Paul is saying that we rejoice in the midst of our suffering, giving thanks to God in the midst of suffering and trust God in the midst of suffering… because our suffering may be a sign that we truly are the children of God…
And Paul says that we rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering can produce perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope.
James and Peter also write that we rejoice in our suffering because suffering refines our character like gold in the fire…
Suffering can make us bitter, it can also make us more beautiful.
When the late well-known CBC television journalist, Barbara Frum was asked as her career was winding down “who are describe your favorite interviews?” Frum said the people who, I interviews that were most precious to me were the ones with people who had significant suffering. She listed some names of famous people like Nelson Mandela (27 years in prison), Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and then she named some people whom I did not recognize because they were not famous, but who had suffered. And Barbara Frum who far as I know was not religious said, “These people who had gone through suffering had this humility and this depth of soul about them.”
I was with someone recently who gave me permission to share part of his story. This has person has gone intense suffering which I won’t elaborate on… He said, it has been hard, but it has made me less focused on my “status”, my career and financial curve and more on God, it’s has made me less judgmental of other people…
There is something about suffering… that can deepen our character and opens us up to God.
Think of a time when your soul was deepened, when you were opened up in a new way to God, it may have been through beauty but it may have been through suffering…
Gerald Sittser, the author of the wise and sensitive book, A Grace Disguised, in a tragic accident lost three generations in his family (his mother, his wife, his daughter). Gerald Sittser knows what it is to experience catastrophic loss.
And based on his own experience of suffering and the observation of others, Sittser writes, “The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering. Suffering enlarges the largest capacity for anger and depression, despair and anguish, all natural and legitimate emotions when we experience loss. Once enlarged, the soul is capable of experiencing greater joy, strength, peace and love…” Suffering can deepen our character and expand our souls for God…
Paul says suffering leads to perseverance, perseverance to character, and then character to hope. And when we suffer, not only do we test and develop our perseverance and character, but we become people of hope…
Suffering can enable us to become people who trust in God more deeply and when that happens we become people of hope.
We can demonstrate hope by trusting for some kind of deliverance…
Sometimes when we suffer and we cry out to God, we are delivered miraculously. God can be glorified in his deliverance of us. I have a friend in Boston who in the past week was telling me about how her colleague who is not a Christian has been experiencing chronic back pain for a long time. For some months now she has been on medication to alleviate the pain in her back, but none of it has worked.
This friend was telling me recently by phone that she felt led to ask this colleague, not a Christian, if it would be okay if she prayed for healing for her. The colleague said that would be fine. My friend was praying in the quietness of her heart that God reveal yourself to my colleague by healing her. Then my friend prayed out loud for her that God would heal her back. The next morning her colleague said, “The pain in my back is completely gone. I believe that God has healed me. I want turn back to God.”
I find that God often dramatically answers prayers of people who are the verge of believing, or who are new in their faith, as way to bolster their hope…and that he often allows people of more mature faith to go through suffering and it gives them an opportunity to demonstrate their hope in the midst in suffering.
We can demonstrate our hope in God can by trusting God to deliver us we can also demonstrate our hope in God by trusting God to sustain us in the midst of their suffering.
Joni Erickson was an attractive teen-ager who grew up near Chesapeake Bay in the Baltimore area… One summers day as a high school student she dove off floating dock in Chesapeake Bay, not how shallow the water way. She hit her head on the sandy bottom of the bay, broke her neck and became up a quadriplegic, unable to use her hands and feet. She often prayed and had other “faith healers” pray that she would be healed. But she was not healed and Joni Erickson would later say that God could have done a miracle in healing me, but he has done another miracle—he has enabled me to fit in this wheel chair and smile.
Sometimes we can demonstrate our hope in God by trusting God to deliver us. At other times we can give testimony to God’s presence in our life by demonstrating that, even though God has not given us a certain kind of deliverance or provision that our heart longs for, we trusting to sustain us in our pain…
Perhaps some of you are saying in our heart God, “I’d prefer the deliverance thank you very much!”
I remember talking to someone in our home who was not a Christian and we were discussing how some times God allows a person to experience suffering to refine their character and make them better people… She I have no desire to become “A great person, I’d much be an ordinary person, but free from stress, suffering…
Paul would say as he does in 2 Cor 4 that our light and momentary suffering are working for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all… Light and momentary suffering meaning our suffering in this, eternal weight of glory being the life to come…
If our existence is simply a dot… simply this life… As serious as Paul can seem, Paul says eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die… (If this is there is, Paul would don’t sacrifice and invest in this church building with it’s eternal focus, buy yourself a time share or least watch the time-share presentation and take the free trip to Vegas… live for the dot)
But we are everlasting creatures… and if this case we will rejoice in our suffering because through God will make us more Jesus Christ in way that will not mark our life her e on earth, but our life to come… Live for the line and rejoice in your suffering…
5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Paul frames his discussion on suffering in the context of God’s love for. Why does some people become bitter in suffering and other become beautiful. I don’t know the full answer to that. But one the reason why some people become beautiful because they know someone, that God loves them and whether they Romans 8:28 or not they some God is mysteriously working out his loving plan through the suffering…
And so the basis of our hope in God in the midst of suffering comes partly through a subjective sense in our own heart that God loves us, as the Holy Spirit as Paul says in our text, pours out a sense of God’s love in our hearts.
But, not only do we have a subjective sense that God loves us, we have objective evidence. Paul says in verses 6 and 7:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We have objective evidence that God loves us as we look at the cross, we have subjective evidence that God loves us as the Holy Spirit pours out in our heart a sense of God’s love for us.
God sent his Son to die for people who refuses to worship him which is the idea When Paul says, “While we were still sinners….,” Paul demonstrates the greatness of God’s love for us. ..
To make sure we don’t miss this point, Paul re-enforces this point in verse 7 with the analogy, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.”
A righteous person is a person that we might respect, but a good person is someone that we might love. Very rarely will a person give his or her life for someone they merely respect, but occasionally a person will die for someone they love. E.g. A parent might die for his or her child, a person might die for their spouse…
The extraordinary quality of God’s love is seen in that while we were sinners, i.e, still in rebellion against God, Christ died for us…
Does respect us all the time, I don’t know, maybe, we do some pretty stupid things… but I know… because we were still in rebellion against God, in Christ died for us…
We are reminded of God we come to table…
On the night Jesus was betrayed he took bread and broken…
From the cross I love you, I love you… and from don’t you that I love I am who says but demonstrates I can bring good, eternal good out of suffering…
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
j
Big Idea: When we are sure of God’s love, suffering can make us more like Jesus.
Text: ROMANS 5:1-11
When I was about 16 years old, and a new Christian, I had heard that the fastest way to grow as a Christian was to experience “trials and tribulations.” I knew that I had far more character defects than the average person, I was also very competitive, so I earnestly prayed that God would send me many trials and many tribulations so that my growth as a Christian would be quickly accelerated…
I earnestly prayed this prayer a several times and not long thereafter I fell into the deepest depression that I had ever experienced up until, or since, that time. I was a carefree, kid growing up. I hardly ever studied, almost never felt guilt--even when I was doing “bad things.” My life was dominated by sports and friends and having fun. I had no idea what depression was. But after praying that God would send me trials and tribulations, I entered into this deep valley of despair. Nothing external had changed in my life, but I felt as though God had turned his face from me, and as a result I no longer felt the presence of God in my life. I was in great anguish.
Emotionally, it was the most difficult time of my life. I have suffered emotionally since then through the loss of a relationship, through failure, but I have never been as low as when I was 16 years old.
And during this time of deep inner suffering, someone who didn’t even know me sent me a card, and in that card were the words of Romans 5: 3-5, where Paul says…
3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
This morning I want us to look at this text and examine the role that suffering plays in the life of a child of God.
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 5:
In verse 1 we read:
Peace and Hope
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we [a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
In Romans 1 and 2 Paul describes how we human beings have turned from the living God from whom they were made as a result experience confusion, despair and breakdown.
As we saw last week, in Romans 3 we see how God has intervened and bridged the gap between us and God through the faithful work of His son Jesus Christ, who, as we explored last Sunday, bore not only our sin but our shame on the cross, so we could live with out shame and enter the living room of our Father in heaven.
We saw how Christ allowed himself to be excluded from the his family, the Godhead, so that we could be included by God… and we become people who can walk into the living room of God, and experience the embrace of God… when we put our faith, our trust in Jesus Christ faithful work on the cross…
Paul says, 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, wehave peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
Paul says through this trusting the faithful work of Jesus Christ on the cross we have peace with God.
Peace in this context means peace in the “objective” sense of being in harmony with God. As a result of being in harmony with God, we may experience subjective peace in our heart, but here Paul is talking about the fact the objective fact that if we in relationship with Christ we are no longer living in hostility with God; we have been reconciled to God and therefore have peace with God.
And Paul says:
And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
One of the most important themes in the book of Romans (as we see in chapter 4 and 8-11) is that God is raising up people to be part of his family, people who are the true spiritual seed of Abraham, the true children of God.
And one of the signs, according to Paul in this text and others is that if we really are children of God we will suffer…that’s Paul we rejoice in our suffering because it’s a sign that we are children of God… that God is at work in us… Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:12 that all who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer…
There are some people who preach a “health and wealth” gospel. They preach that if you give your life to Jesus Christ you will become healthy, and you will become wealthy--and escape suffering. Preaching that kind of gospel may appeal to a lot of people, because most people want to be healthy and wealthy, but unfortunately that is not Gospel according to Jesus Christ.
People who promote the “health and wealth” gospel may say to you’re if you’re are sick and not experiencing healing, “The reason that you are sick and are not experiencing healing is because you do not have enough faith.” The “health and wealth” preachers people may say, “Just believe, just believe, just believe, just believe!”
Or if you are not financially prospering, the “health and wealth” gospel preachers may encourage you to muster up more faith and to name and claim whatever it is that you want and claim it.
I remember as a new Christian noticing that a Christian woman who was part of a family of modest means had a photograph of a Cadillac taped to her refrigerator at (level). I was curious and I asked her, “Why do you have this photo of a Cadillac taped to your refrigerator?”
She said, “I am naming and I am claiming it.”
And “health and wealth” gospel people will say, “If you are not healthy and wealthy, you just don’t have enough faith. If had you faith, you would be healthier and you would be wealthier.”
This false gospel, this “health and wealth” message, leaves some people feeling that if they are not healthy and wealthy, they must lack faith.
Paul, in contrast to this pseudo-gospel, says that one of the evidences that you are really trusting and following God is that you experience suffering. Paul says in Romans 5 we rejoice in our suffering because it’s a sign we’re children of God, 2 Timothy 3 “All who are godly in Christ Jesus will experience suffering.”
So suffering is not a sign that we don’t have enough faith, but suffering is a sign that we do have true faith in God. Abraham our spiritual ancestor, featured in Romans… suffered because of decision to follow God… he follows the call of God right into a land of land that is experiencing famine... as did Moses’ decision to follow God led to suffering as did Ruth’s and Esther’s Jesus.’ And at some level, every true follower of God will suffer. Paul says all who are godly in Christ Jesus will experience suffering.
And so part of the reason Paul says that we rejoice in our suffering is because if we suffer, it is a sign that we are the children of God.
Sometimes followers of Christ suffer because they find themselves out of synch with the values of the world. Paul in Romans 12 if you are a child of God, live like it. Don’t be conformed to the values of this world. And because we’re out of synch with the values of the world we may experience suffering.
A boss who pressures us to lie for him, or her, for the company, if we respectfully say we can’t do that. We may suffer. A partner that we are not married to urges to compromise our bodies sexually in ways that outside of God’s plan, and you say, I’m going to wait, I’m going to star over sexually and from her out I’m going to save my body till in a marriage covenant with someone… we may suffer in some way.
Also, as followers of God, we voluntarily give our lives to others in self-giving service.
Mother Teresa once responded when asked how much should I love, she said, “Love till it hurts.” And we can voluntarily suffer as we give our lives away in service.
The Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis was once asked by someone of how much money should I give away. I think the person was thinking professor will likely say tithe your money… give the first a tenth to God… Lewis said give until it hurts… which means the tenth is starting point… but if you up end making far more money that you need to live on, give until there are certain things you can’t, because you’re so generous…
Shane Claiborne in his book the Irresistible Revolution says,
· I know there are people out there who say, "My life was such a mess. I was drinking, partying, sleeping around ... and then I met Jesus and my whole life came together." But me, I had it together. I used to be cool. And then I met Jesus and he wrecked my life. The more I read the gospel, the more it messed me up, turning everything I believed in, valued, and hoped for upside-down. I am still recovering from my conversion. I know it's hard to imagine, but in high school, I was in the in-crowd, popular, ready to make lots of money and buy lots of stuff, on the upward track to success. I had been planning to go to med school. Like a lot of folks, I wanted to find a job where I could do as little work as possible for as much money as possible. I figured anesthesiology would work, just put folks to sleep with a little happy gas and let others do the dirty work. Then I could buy lots of stuff I didn't need. Mmm ...
But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn't fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first…
We are called to a life of service, compassion, and generosity. If we that we’re not born that way, if we meet Christ we are re-born that way… Even though I believe that the great life of service, compassion, and generosity is the greatest life in the world… it involves suffering…
The children of God will suffer because they march to the beat of different drummer; suffer because like Jesus we become people of self-giving sacrificial service to others…
And then we can involuntarily suffer because we experience some kind of loss… Followers of Christ don’t in some protective bubble… we suffer like others… we love someone who doesn’t love us back, we don’t accepted in grad school, or we don’t get a job we want, we lose a baby, a grandmother, a beloved pet… we get sick, we’re in conflict with some, we experience some kind financial reversal.
Paul says, “As followers of Christ, we glory in our suffering, we rejoice in our suffering.” Paul does not say, “We rejoice for our suffering.”
There are certain things we should not rejoice for: we should not rejoice for sickness, we should not rejoice for having our heart broken, we should not rejoice for getting laid off work…
But Paul is saying that we rejoice in the midst of our suffering, giving thanks to God in the midst of suffering and trust God in the midst of suffering… because our suffering may be a sign that we truly are the children of God…
And Paul says that we rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering can produce perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope.
James and Peter also write that we rejoice in our suffering because suffering refines our character like gold in the fire…
Suffering can make us bitter, it can also make us more beautiful.
When the late well-known CBC television journalist, Barbara Frum was asked as her career was winding down “who are describe your favorite interviews?” Frum said the people who, I interviews that were most precious to me were the ones with people who had significant suffering. She listed some names of famous people like Nelson Mandela (27 years in prison), Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and then she named some people whom I did not recognize because they were not famous, but who had suffered. And Barbara Frum who far as I know was not religious said, “These people who had gone through suffering had this humility and this depth of soul about them.”
I was with someone recently who gave me permission to share part of his story. This has person has gone intense suffering which I won’t elaborate on… He said, it has been hard, but it has made me less focused on my “status”, my career and financial curve and more on God, it’s has made me less judgmental of other people…
There is something about suffering… that can deepen our character and opens us up to God.
Think of a time when your soul was deepened, when you were opened up in a new way to God, it may have been through beauty but it may have been through suffering…
Gerald Sittser, the author of the wise and sensitive book, A Grace Disguised, in a tragic accident lost three generations in his family (his mother, his wife, his daughter). Gerald Sittser knows what it is to experience catastrophic loss.
And based on his own experience of suffering and the observation of others, Sittser writes, “The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering. Suffering enlarges the largest capacity for anger and depression, despair and anguish, all natural and legitimate emotions when we experience loss. Once enlarged, the soul is capable of experiencing greater joy, strength, peace and love…” Suffering can deepen our character and expand our souls for God…
Paul says suffering leads to perseverance, perseverance to character, and then character to hope. And when we suffer, not only do we test and develop our perseverance and character, but we become people of hope…
Suffering can enable us to become people who trust in God more deeply and when that happens we become people of hope.
We can demonstrate hope by trusting for some kind of deliverance…
Sometimes when we suffer and we cry out to God, we are delivered miraculously. God can be glorified in his deliverance of us. I have a friend in Boston who in the past week was telling me about how her colleague who is not a Christian has been experiencing chronic back pain for a long time. For some months now she has been on medication to alleviate the pain in her back, but none of it has worked.
This friend was telling me recently by phone that she felt led to ask this colleague, not a Christian, if it would be okay if she prayed for healing for her. The colleague said that would be fine. My friend was praying in the quietness of her heart that God reveal yourself to my colleague by healing her. Then my friend prayed out loud for her that God would heal her back. The next morning her colleague said, “The pain in my back is completely gone. I believe that God has healed me. I want turn back to God.”
I find that God often dramatically answers prayers of people who are the verge of believing, or who are new in their faith, as way to bolster their hope…and that he often allows people of more mature faith to go through suffering and it gives them an opportunity to demonstrate their hope in the midst in suffering.
We can demonstrate our hope in God can by trusting God to deliver us we can also demonstrate our hope in God by trusting God to sustain us in the midst of their suffering.
Joni Erickson was an attractive teen-ager who grew up near Chesapeake Bay in the Baltimore area… One summers day as a high school student she dove off floating dock in Chesapeake Bay, not how shallow the water way. She hit her head on the sandy bottom of the bay, broke her neck and became up a quadriplegic, unable to use her hands and feet. She often prayed and had other “faith healers” pray that she would be healed. But she was not healed and Joni Erickson would later say that God could have done a miracle in healing me, but he has done another miracle—he has enabled me to fit in this wheel chair and smile.
Sometimes we can demonstrate our hope in God by trusting God to deliver us. At other times we can give testimony to God’s presence in our life by demonstrating that, even though God has not given us a certain kind of deliverance or provision that our heart longs for, we trusting to sustain us in our pain…
Perhaps some of you are saying in our heart God, “I’d prefer the deliverance thank you very much!”
I remember talking to someone in our home who was not a Christian and we were discussing how some times God allows a person to experience suffering to refine their character and make them better people… She I have no desire to become “A great person, I’d much be an ordinary person, but free from stress, suffering…
Paul would say as he does in 2 Cor 4 that our light and momentary suffering are working for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all… Light and momentary suffering meaning our suffering in this, eternal weight of glory being the life to come…
If our existence is simply a dot… simply this life… As serious as Paul can seem, Paul says eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die… (If this is there is, Paul would don’t sacrifice and invest in this church building with it’s eternal focus, buy yourself a time share or least watch the time-share presentation and take the free trip to Vegas… live for the dot)
But we are everlasting creatures… and if this case we will rejoice in our suffering because through God will make us more Jesus Christ in way that will not mark our life her e on earth, but our life to come… Live for the line and rejoice in your suffering…
5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Paul frames his discussion on suffering in the context of God’s love for. Why does some people become bitter in suffering and other become beautiful. I don’t know the full answer to that. But one the reason why some people become beautiful because they know someone, that God loves them and whether they Romans 8:28 or not they some God is mysteriously working out his loving plan through the suffering…
And so the basis of our hope in God in the midst of suffering comes partly through a subjective sense in our own heart that God loves us, as the Holy Spirit as Paul says in our text, pours out a sense of God’s love in our hearts.
But, not only do we have a subjective sense that God loves us, we have objective evidence. Paul says in verses 6 and 7:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We have objective evidence that God loves us as we look at the cross, we have subjective evidence that God loves us as the Holy Spirit pours out in our heart a sense of God’s love for us.
God sent his Son to die for people who refuses to worship him which is the idea When Paul says, “While we were still sinners….,” Paul demonstrates the greatness of God’s love for us. ..
To make sure we don’t miss this point, Paul re-enforces this point in verse 7 with the analogy, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.”
A righteous person is a person that we might respect, but a good person is someone that we might love. Very rarely will a person give his or her life for someone they merely respect, but occasionally a person will die for someone they love. E.g. A parent might die for his or her child, a person might die for their spouse…
The extraordinary quality of God’s love is seen in that while we were sinners, i.e, still in rebellion against God, Christ died for us…
Does respect us all the time, I don’t know, maybe, we do some pretty stupid things… but I know… because we were still in rebellion against God, in Christ died for us…
We are reminded of God we come to table…
On the night Jesus was betrayed he took bread and broken…
From the cross I love you, I love you… and from don’t you that I love I am who says but demonstrates I can bring good, eternal good out of suffering…
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
posted by Shigematsu at 1:00 PM
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