Sermon Transcript
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only in that, but we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character. And character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled by God— to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. For if because of one man’s trespass death reigned through that one man, which more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Some of you have heard, uh, all or part of my journey of faith, but for those of you who haven’t, for, for a long time, even though I considered myself a Christian— and I probably, I probably was, I probably was— I had, I had somehow missed grace. I thought whenever I sinned I would need to give God time to cool off before I could speak to him again. Or similarly, like karma, if I had been especially sinful, I felt I needed to do something good to make up for it. And if you had asked me, what about grace? I would have said, well, grace is what gets me into heaven.
You know, since I believe in Jesus, I get to spend eternity in paradise. But what I also thought though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time, was, you know, while God may let me into heaven because of Jesus, he may not be very happy about it. Like I show up at the pearly gates and he kind of rolls his eyes and he says, well, I guess I’m supposed to let you in because you’re carrying the Jesus card, but I’d really rather not. And in the meantime on earth, I thought God’s acceptance and love for me fluctuated with my behavior. You know, such was my view of grace for many years until one day, probably my most sinful day ever, and I was beating myself up in my prayer time with God.
I was saying things like, I’m the worst. I don’t know why you would even listen to me. You know, no one is as bad as my— as, as I am. But as I was praying those kinds of things, there was also some kind of truth floating around in my head. Um, it wasn’t an audible voice, it was just like an awareness, and it was saying, Dan, I love you and look at you the same as I did before today happened.
I love you the same now as I did then. So I responded, I’m like, no, that can’t be the case, you know, let’s talk about today, God. Did you see what happened at 10 AM, noon, 2 PM, 4 PM? Like, I am the worst, you shouldn’t even be listening to me. Which I thought I had proved my point pretty well.
You know, I laid out the evidence of how bad I was, so clearly I can’t be as loved as I was before. But there was still this awareness that was there arguing back. It was saying the same, I love you and look at you the same as I did before today happened. And so frustrated, I said, no, that can’t be true. I’m really the worst.
You know, but it still didn’t go away, and back and forth we went. Me saying I’m awful, this awareness saying that you’re loved. It seems like this went back and forth for a long time, and still I was finally so fed up that I literally yelled out loud. I was by myself, so, you know, it’s not that weird, I guess. I yelled out loud, but I don’t deserve that, God.
I don’t deserve for you to love me and look at me the same way as before. Today happened. And as soon as I said that, I knew I had lost the argument. It’s like dominoes fell inside my head. Something clicked that had never clicked before.
And now this truth floating in my brain said, I know you don’t deserve it. That’s why it’s called grace. If you deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace. I mean, it might be wage or compensation, something that you earned, but the only way it can be grace is if you haven’t earned it, if you don’t deserve it. That’s what grace is.
It means God’s favor, his love and acceptance of us, it— they don’t fluctuate with our behavior. It’s based on grace. That had never clicked before, and I almost didn’t believe it. It seemed too good to be true, so I actually, I started going around asking other Christians if they knew about this. I’m like, does anyone know that God will accept you and be pleased with you apart from your works just by sheer grace?
And, uh, and most people, they were kind with their answers, but, uh, they basically said, that’s pretty much the whole point of Christianity, Dan. Like, that’s why Jesus is so great. Like, you have status with God, favor with God, inclusion with God, not because of what you’ve done, but because of what he has done for you in Christ. Martin Luther, the famous 16th century reformer, said it like this: For who is able to express what a thing it is when a man is assured in his heart that God neither is nor will be angry with him, but will forever be a merciful and loving Father unto him for Christ’s sake. That is the glory of the gospel.
It is God’s unending blessing and mercy to us in Christ. I never tire of hearing it or talking about it. One time I was explaining this to one of my students when I was working in college ministry, and the student was dealing with his own guilt and shame. So I, you know, shared all of his guilt and shame has been taken away because Jesus absorbed it on the cross, and now we are highly favored by God because we have Jesus status. Whatever Jesus deserves is now what we receive from God, you know.
So God is always for us. He’s always working for our good, you know. It’s the kind of thing we talk about often at Bridges. But then this student asked me, he said, so God is always for me, Never against me in Christ? Yes, I said.
You mean to say that God never condemns me but only blesses me? Yes, I said. This kid’s getting it. Great. Then he asked, so why is life so hard?
He actually worded his question a little differently. Um, I just don’t think I’m allowed to say that in church. But his question was, if God is for us, why all this suffering?
We’re in the 5th week of our Romans series, and so far we’ve studied one chapter per week. For the first 4 weeks, 4 chapters, Paul has laid out the gospel, what Jesus has done for us on our behalf, taking the punishment we deserve, removing our guilt by paying for our sins, justifying us, validating us, giving us— Jesus giving us his worth, giving us his righteousness, giving us his favor with God, that we will always be in God’s good graces because Jesus earned it for us. We have confidence therefore that everything’s going to be okay. In each of the first 4 chapters, Paul has reiterated that message in some way, and he actually does it here again in chapter 5. It’s, it’s the second half of the passage.
He gives another proof that what Christ has done is enough to restore all the brokenness in the world. He says, you know, the actions of one man— that’s Jesus— can fix everything because this is his idea, the actions of one man broke everything. He draws on a central piece of Christian theology, you know, that the world hasn’t always had problems. The world was perfect at the beginning. Our earliest ancestors didn’t experience suffering.
The world was a paradise. But then Our earliest ancestors broke it. Adam and Eve, you know, chose to reject goodness, beauty, and truth, and when they did, there’s this terrible plague called sin that entered the world. It’s like a virus in the systems. It has infected everything.
And ever since Adam and Eve, all the rest of us have willingly participated in this disease called sin that has plagued the earth. But Paul’s point is, if one guy at the beginning of time, if If one guy at the beginning of time can break it through his sin, then one guy, Jesus, can restore everything through his righteousness. You know, it’s another reason that we can be confident that everything’s going to be okay. In Jesus, we have healing, redemption. He is the cure to this virus, which is great news, but we still have our question.
If Jesus is the cure, and especially if we’ve taken the cure, we believe in Jesus, we’ve been saved by him, you know, we’re showered with only God’s favor, then why all the pain, suffering, and sadness? Shouldn’t that be over? That’s the question. That was my student’s question. And here at the beginning of chapter 5, as if Paul anticipates what we would ask, he responds.
How are we to understand suffering? So as we look at this text today, we will see what the reason for suffering isn’t, one benefit of suffering, and then how to get that benefit. What the reason for suffering isn’t, one benefit of suffering, and then how to get it. So first, what the reason for suffering isn’t. It isn’t that God doesn’t love us.
Paul makes one reason for our— takes one reason for our suffering off the board immediately and definitively. The reason for our suffering isn’t because God doesn’t love us. His point is, if we know anything, we know that God loves us. We know that he cares. And how do we know that?
Says the cross, that Jesus went to the cross for us. Verse 8, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Even though we had set ourselves up as enemies to God because we participate in sin and darkness— I mean, we’ve chosen to be God’s enemies— yet Jesus still died that we might be reconciled to him. He willingly chose to endure arguably the worst form of execution that humanity has ever conceived so that we may be forgiven. And especially with Good Friday this week, when we reflect on Jesus’ work on the cross, it’s worth pausing to contemplate the brutality of the cross.
If you’ve never seen Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, this is a good week to watch it, to see what Jesus went through for you. From the scourging beforehand, the whips with the pieces of bone in it that tore his flesh off, to the crown of thorns that pierced through his skull, to being nailed through his wrist to a plank of wood and hung up like a piece of meat, to little details like the Romans intentionally not smoothing out the splinters on the wood that they used for crosses so that every time that people were hanging on crosses hold themselves up to breathe, these splinters would puncture in their skin. It was horrendous.
Crucifixion was so gruesome that the cross as a symbol for Christianity, the cross was not used in art or decoration until, until all the generations who had ever witnessed a crucifixion were no longer living. No one who had ever seen a crucifixion in person would hang a cross around their neck as jewelry, for example. You know, it’s like hanging an electric chair charm on your necklace. We don’t do that. So the cross didn’t show up artistically until no one living had memory of what the real thing was like.
It was too awful Since then, we’ve made it palatable. It is not palatable, yet that is what Jesus did for us willingly, even joyfully. Hebrews 12 tells us that for the joy set before him, Jesus went to the cross. For the joy set before him, he went to the cross. What could be joyful about that?
It’s the least joyful thing we’ve ever conceived.
The joy of the cross was that he would get us, that we would be together with him again. Because on the cross, he would absorb the separation between us. He would bear our guilt so we could be free. He would suffer the judgment for every sin ever committed in the history of the world for those who would believe, so that there would be no condemnation for us. And Paul’s point is, if he did that for us Especially if he did that for us when we had set ourselves up as his enemy.
If he’s done that, then he loves us. That is settled. The cross is so shocking, so staggering, that it breaks through any doubt that we have about his love for us. No matter what we’re dealing with, no matter how hard life is, no matter how tempting it might be to believe Well, I guess God doesn’t love me. I guess that God doesn’t care that I’m going through all this.
God must hate me. God must be against me. No matter how strong those thoughts are, the cross is stronger. If he endured that for you, and he did, then he loves you, period, the end.
The reason for our suffering isn’t because he doesn’t love us. If he didn’t love us, he wouldn’t have done the cross. He loves us, full stop.
So if that isn’t the reason for our suffering, what is?
How did I answer my student? If we know God loves us and we know he’s all-powerful, then why suffering? Seems like if he loves us as much as he clearly loves us, and, and he can do anything, then the one thing he would certainly do is to prevent us from experiencing pain and tragedy. Because we do that for the people that we love. You know, for instance, we protect our children for at least— from at least some of the darkness that’s in the world.
I mean, not all of it. We understand some struggle is necessary for our children to grow. We know if we remove all obstacles from their path, they won’t be prepared for the world. They won’t turn into the whole people that we hope for them to be. So we allow our children to have some struggles, but we certainly protect them from the really bad stuff.
So why doesn’t God do that if he loves us? How do we respond to this? Well, if you’re not familiar, this is not a new question. People have grappled with this question for as long as there have been questions. It’s called the problem of evil, or more philosophically, it’s called theodicy.
How can a good, all-powerful God allow evil and suffering? Theodicy. We’ll respond a couple of ways. First, we’ll respond academically, but before that, I’ll say if you’re currently in a season of pain and suffering, the academic answer won’t help you that much. It won’t provide much comfort.
Even though it is technically true, I doubt it has ever made anyone feel better. Other answers will make you feel better. But it goes like this, the academic answer: underneath our question of how could a good God allow pain and suffering, underneath that is an assumption that there can’t be a good reason for it. Since we can’t think of a good reason for whatever tragedy we see, we conclude there isn’t one, and therefore we’re angry with God for allowing it, or we doubt his love. If you really loved me, if you really loved them, you wouldn’t allow this.
But what that assumption misses is the possibility that God may have a good reason that we simply don’t know about. Just because we can’t figure out a good reason does not mean that there can’t be one. And if God really is infinitely wise, if he knows every possibility of everything that could ever happen He knows far more than we could. If all that’s true, then it’s entirely possible that He has a reason that we simply can’t fathom. That’s possible.
You know, to over-trivialize it with an illustration, this is a trite example. You’re not going to like it to start with. We’ll come back around to it. It is comparable, though on a much smaller scale, comparable to when we take our infant babies to the doctor for them to get shots. The babies have no way of understanding how vaccines work, why they are important, how the shot may help them.
They don’t know any of that. All they know is they’re upset when they’re pricked with the needle. And of course they are. If they could talk, they’d protest, but they don’t have words, so they scream. If they did have words, they might question our goodness, our love.
They may ask, if you love me, how could you let this happen to me? But we have knowledge that they don’t. We know there is a good reason for it. We know we are up to something. We know we are working for their good even though they can’t understand it.
Now, the reason why that’s a trite illustration and we push back on it, of course, is because the problems in our world or even the problems in our lives are much more serious than getting a needle in the arm for a quarter of a second. I mean, the questions we have are about genocide. Unspeakable cruelties which are not comparable to a measles shot. That’s fair and true. What’s also fair and true is even though the problems in the world are much bigger, God’s knowledge is much bigger still.
And whatever distance there is between, you know, our knowledge and say a child’s knowledge whatever distance that is, it is nothing compared to the distance between our knowledge and God’s knowledge. If we have 100 times more knowledge than a child, God has 100 trillion times more knowledge than us. And the only way we could know for sure if he had a good reason or not is if we knew what he knows, which we don’t. If we had all his comprehensive knowledge, if that was the case, and yet we still said, how could you allow this? Well, then we would at least be on equal footing to debate.
But we aren’t even close. We simply don’t have the information to make a legitimate case against God. As long as there is even the slightest possibility that he might have a good reason for it, then our accusation against him loses its teeth. Now, like I said, if you’re currently in a difficult season, that’s not much of a comfort. Even though it prevents us from, you know, confidently accusing God of wrongdoing, it doesn’t make us feel much better.
What will comfort us is saying like a child, I don’t know what you’re up to, but I trust that you love me. I know that you love me because of the cross. On the cross, not only did Jesus suffer, but he suffered for us. He took the pain of the world onto himself in order to redeem it. You know, one day he will set all wrongs right.
He paid an enormous price to make it possible by swallowing up all the evil and suffering of the world. So whatever else we don’t know, we can at least know that God loves us. He’s up to something for our good. And telling ourselves that will help. Trusting God will help.
Hanging on to him in the midst of the fire will help. And we’ll come back to how to hang on to him in the midst of the fire later. For now, we’ll move on to one benefit of suffering, only one. And we have to be careful not to say this is the reason for suffering, because we don’t know all the reasons. We just said that.
God’s knowledge far exceeds ours, and he likely never has only one singular reason for anything. He’s tying together trillions of plot lines from billions of lives. We, we cannot know everything he’s orchestrating, and it’s not particularly helpful to try to figure it out. But we do know one benefit of suffering. It’s not the reason for suffering, it’s a benefit of suffering.
And one benefit of suffering is richer and deeper wholeness of our character and soul. Suffering forms us in a way that nothing else will. If you meet someone who is exceedingly kind, patient, graceful, empathetic, slow to anger, abounding in love, you know, the people Those, those are the people who have almost always endured great suffering. The fire didn’t end them, it refined them. And they recognize it themselves.
They will say, I am who I am because of what I went through. Now they will add, they’ll add, they’ll say, I would never choose to go through that, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else. But I wouldn’t be who I am today without that. So they say, in a surprising way, in hindsight, they’re kind of grateful for it. The verse— the verses from our text are, we rejoice in our sufferings, rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that sufferings— suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
Have you met those people full of grace and compassion, tenderness and mercy, patient, kind, slow to anger, generally at peace in their hearts? They don’t lose their temper. They remain respectful and encouraging of others even when others aren’t encouraging of them. Have you met those people? Almost always they have endured great suffering.
It’s like we can’t become that without it. Maybe there is some other path to becoming that kind of person, but we are not told what it is in Scripture. In Scripture, it happens through pain, loss, tragedy. It happens exclusively through that. And the people who have been through it will tell you the same thing.
If you don’t know any of those kind of people in your own life, I would recommend a book to you titled A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sitzer. A Grace Disguised, Jerry Sitzer. He tells the story of losing his wife, mother, and daughter in a car accident, and he is rest— he is left to raise the rest of his children by himself. So he’s honest with the grief and the pain, the difficulty. He’s showing up for his kids when he’s totally broken himself.
He admits like he has lost much, but then he adds that he has also gained, gained a deeper awareness of God’s grace. He says the tragedy actually enlarged him. The grief didn’t go away, it became part of him. But it also made more of him. If you are in a difficult season right now, I recommend that to you.
Grace Disguised, Jerry Setzer. He outlines the process of his journey. But I’ve known plenty of people with similar stories. They’re facing terminal illness, bankruptcy, divorce, suddenly disabled. Life will never be the same.
They will always carry some amount of pain. But, but also They shine brighter. They say they wouldn’t be where they are without that suffering.
That’s what we would want from our suffering. I mean, if we’re going to go through it either way, we may as well get some benefit out of it.
So the question is, how?
Because not everyone comes out of suffering brighter. You’ve probably noticed that too. Some people get worse. Some people get bitter, resentful, always feel slighted, jealous of others who have it better. They blame those around them for their difficulty.
They kind of turn inward. Instead of being gracious to those around them, they become spiteful, and they may not even have as big problems as the other people who are shining brightly. But they are angry, kind of at everyone, it seems. So what makes the difference? How do we avoid being the type of people who turn inward and bitter?
How can we be the type of people who are refined by the fire and come out lovely?
How to get that is hoping in the right place.
You know, most of us in suffering will hope for something. We really can’t live without hope. We’ve got to see some light at the end of the tunnel to keep going. But not all lights are equal. Not all lights will refine us.
Some lights will actually add to our disappointment. So, you know, for instance, if our ultimate hope is better circumstances, if it’s, you know, a job if we’re unemployed, if it’s a better marriage, or if our health is failing, If our ultimate hope is better circumstances, if the— if comfort is the thing that we need, we need it, we need to have comfort to feel content, well first what happens if we don’t get it? If we need the job, the marriage, the cure in order to be okay, if we believe that’s the thing that will make or break us, and we don’t get it, well, then we sink lower. We don’t get better, we get bitter. And second, even if we do get it, I mean, that’s nice, it’s a blessing for sure, we would thank God, but pretty soon we will then encounter some other circumstance that also knocks us off balance.
There will be another problem that until it is resolved, we still won’t be okay. If we need comfort in order to be okay, we will always be chasing it. If that’s where our ultimate hope is, I mean, we’ll never be transformed into the kind of people who are merciful and kind, patient, cool under pressure, gracious to everyone. We’ll be anxious because we’ll need more and more and more comfort. We’ll get this little piece and we’ll need another one.
We won’t be changed for the better. The right place to hope during suffering, the right light at the end of the tunnel, is to find and experience more of God, wanting him more than wanting anything else. From our verses, this is 3 to 5: We rejoice in our sufferings. Well, great, that sounds wonderful. How do we do that?
Knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope. Okay, but what kind of hope? What am I supposed to hope for? Get out of these circumstances? No, hope does not put us to shame because this is what we’re hoping for: God’s love has been poured into our hearts.
It’s hoping for experiencing more of God. That’s where to hope. Because if we get to the place where everything else has been taken away, you know, all the comfort is gone, but we have God and we experience that he’s enough even when we don’t have anything else, If we can get to that place, it changes us. We won’t fear any longer, for instance, because what is there to fear? I mean, if we’ve already been at a place where we have nothing and yet we still have plenty because we have him, well then we won’t fear losing anything else because we know we still have the one thing which we actually— who we actually need, which is him.
That’s what you want to find during suffering, is him. In that way. You want to find the treasure that even when everything else is gone, you still have enough. So hope for that treasure. Hope for him during your suffering, and you will come out brighter.
Someone taught me, uh, long ago— I was in a difficult season asking for prayer. It was hard to hear, but It’s been super helpful. Person advised, when you’re desperate because you’re in a season of pain and suffering and you really want it to end, it’s really bad, this person said, don’t simply pray, get me out of this, God. Don’t make your primary concern getting out of the pain. Instead, he said, pray, finish this, God.
God, whatever you’re up to in my suffering, don’t let me out of my suffering until you’re finished doing whatever you’re doing. I don’t want to miss what you have for me. I’d rather have whatever it is that you’re doing in me than to escape from this pain. God, I’d rather have more of you than comfort. God, I’d rather have more of you than fame or recognition.
God, I’d rather have more of you than the promotion. I’d rather have more of you than a better marriage. I’d rather have more of you than a cure.
That’s the kind of hope that refines us in suffering, and it does not disappoint. Because God’s love has been poured out for us on the cross, and it has been poured out in us through his Holy Spirit. You put your hope in him, not what he can do for you, not hoping that he’ll change your circumstances. Hope that you’ll have him and you’ll be transformed. It’s Isaiah 40, right?
Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not grow faint. Those who wait for the Lord, not those who wait for Him to do something for them.
It’s those who wait for Him, want more of Him more than they want anything else. Hope for that. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that you are a treasure big enough to carry us even when we have nothing else. And we sure would like to find that treasure without needing to go through suffering.
But Father, if we need to go through suffering to find you as bright and glorious as you really are, then we receive it, Lord.
May our ultimate hope be in you, and may we be transformed as a result. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
