Rejoicing and Suffering

This is an exegetical sermon on Romans 5:3-5 titled, Rejoicing and Suffering and explores how we might suffer well for the cause of Christ. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on June 4, 2006 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.

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::The Resolved, Sunday June 4, 2006

Duane Matthew Smets (elder)

“Rejoicing and Suffering”
Romans 5:3-5

Romans 5:3-5 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 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.

Introduction

Last Sunday afternoon my wife Amy returned from being gone for five days in a little town in Colorado called Dolores. I was there a couple years ago when we drove out there for thanksgiving. The town has one street with like 3 stores, 2 restaurants, a couple motels and a wal-mart. Other than that is just acres and acres of land filled mostly with farms and mountains which paint the background scenery. She was there for the funeral of her grandpa, Reuben licensure, who died at the age of 88.

Reuben like most people who live out there was a farmer. He built his house with his own hands. Half of it was made with railroad ties from an abandoned railroad because he didn’t have enough money to buy wood. All their life, Reuben and his wife were poor. They never had a lot of things and they hardly ever traveled. Two of their three children died before them. Their only son rick died at the age of 36 of brain cancer and the medical bills forced them to sell off almost all their land and animals. A year ago their oldest daughter died of spleraderma. and all this past year, Reuben, Amy’s grandpa had been suffering from melanoma which had spread throughout his body, making it difficult for him to even get up or down and he had to get oxygen through a tank hooked up to his nose.

During this past week Amy was telling me about some of her grandpa’s final hours and about some of the things people said about him at his funeral. Reuben was a Gideon. Gideons are those people who are always handing out bibles and putting them in the drawers of hotel rooms. Reuben said that sometimes he did not feel like he was a good witness for Christ, but often his friends and other people would ask him how he could be so happy and joyous when times were so hard and then he would tell them about the gospel. he drove the local school bus and one of the people at the funeral remember him being the funniest bus driver and how he would give all the kids candy bars at the end of the week if they had been good on the bus. Reuben was known among his community as a joyful man.

I first met Reuben at Amy’s sister’s wedding, then I saw him at our wedding and then lastly at thanksgiving the other year. And almost every time I would look at him he would be smiling or making some silly joke. Even hours before he died he called his wife, Eva, Amy’s grandma, to his bedside and made some funny comment to make her laugh one last time. At his funeral Eva said that they went through many grey times together but not once did he ever complain.

It’s amazing. And here is my question, what I want to try and answer tonight: how can this be? How can a person have such joy in the midst of suffering and hardship? How can we know there is even a God when there is so much pain and sorrow and evil and death in this world? And if there is a God why does he do such a thing? How can this be? How can there be a man like Reuben licensure? How do you and I become that type of man?

Rejoicing in the hope of glory

the first chapter of the second book by the apostle peter in the bible says that this book is unique in that it is not just the words of men but that God himself created it through the hand and the voices of various men through history so that we might have as chapter 1 verse three says, “…everything we need for life and godliness.” tonight’s text in Romans looks reality square in the eye and answers some of the deepest and hardest questions of the human spirit and puts us on a light path which lead to the celestial city of glory.

Let’s read the text. last week Justin preached from the last part of verse 2 which says, “we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” and that verse is like this amazing beacon of light which shines out into the future saying that we, those who put faith in Christ, have been given an assurance…a hope that we will one day see the king, the almighty God in all his glory. All that we have ever long for…beauty, love, wonder, all excellence, we will finally find in full. We will sit down at a feast with him and thousands of other saints and we will drink choice wine and our hearts will be warmed with a merriness that does not end. The thought of it cannot but make you smile and want to be there now. What joy! Oh for the glory of God. Verse 2 is such a happy verse because it states what is in store for the saints of God, glory.

So Paul has just highlighted the greatness of what Jesus Christ has secured for those who trust in him…a wondrous joy intoxicating destination. Now in the next three verses, the ones we look at tonight, Paul is taking on some huge objections and turning them on their head and explaining why God does things the way he does and how we know there is any truth to all of this. There is a stark contrast between verse 2 of last week and the verses this week. We turn from looking at the bright distance of the glory of God to the dark caverns of what we as humans experience on the path to that glory.

Let’s begin. Verse two starts out “more than that.” This is just a simple way of saying “and not only this.” so, not only do we rejoice in the hope of glory (verse 2), but, keep reading, “we rejoice in our sufferings.” Let’s stop right there. First let’s talk for a moment about these two words “we rejoice.”

“Rejoice”

Last week just talked a little bit about this word “rejoice.” It means to exult or to boast in. It is something that makes you very happy. Something you talk to other people about. For example, some good friends of our just had a baby and Amy and I got to go see them last week. The moment we walked through their front door they were holding the baby with smiling faces saying, “This is our daughter Cailin.” They were rejoicing in their newborn child. To rejoice in something is to treasure it. You value it greatly because of the joy that it brings you.

“We”

And there is not only the word rejoice here but this little word “we.” Paul, our human author of Romans says, “We rejoice.” Who is the “we” here? The we are the ones who have embraced everything he has been talking about. So the we are the ones who put their faith in Christ, the ones who have peace with God, the ones who are headed for glory.

“We rejoice”

Now, by saying “we rejoice” he is doing something interesting. It sounds like a descriptive statement, like “I am rejoicing” and he is, but he is also doing something else with the word “we” here. By setting it up this way he is making a direction or a charge. He is setting forth an expectation and is really telling us to rejoice. He is telling us that the Christian life is to be one of joy. Saints, those who have hope of glory, which stand in grace, who put faith in Christ and who have peace with God will rejoice. They will not be able to help it if these thing are truly a reality in their lives. Joy is expected, it is the natural outflow.

And that’s scary. It’s scary because the Bible teaches that there are a lot of people who may call themselves Christians who really are not and here Paul sets up joy as a personal test for the authenticity of our own faith… maybe it is just me but I can almost sense a negative gut reaction against that statement. We don’t like our authenticity to be questioned. And when someone says “where is your joy?” I hear the responses, my own voice in my head saying “you don’t know how it feels, you don’t’ know what I’ve been through.” And that is the objection that Paul takes on in these verses tonight. And Paul is one who knows those types of feelings and experiences better than most of us do. When he says that we as Christians are to “rejoice in our sufferings” he is not speaking about something he does not know about.

Listen to 2 Corinthians 11:21-27 “am I speaking as a fool…am I talking like a madman…with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship, through many sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” Paul comes to us tonight in Romans telling us to rejoice in our sufferings as one who experienced much suffering in his life.

Rejoicing on the path to glory

So, so far we have rejoicing as what “we” as Christians are to be like and we have Paul, one who has experienced intense suffering and he says “we rejoice in our sufferings.” This is an odd thing. Don’t these two things seem opposite to you: rejoicing and suffering? You don’t rejoice in suffering. That is a time for sadness and depression and is a time when you have good reason for it. Right?

“Our sufferings”

Let’s look at this. “Suffering,” it could also be translated “affliction.” It is real. Paul assumes the Christian will experience it since he says “our sufferings.” We may not be suffering now, but there is a time when it will come. The “our” in “our sufferings” is the Christians. Christians will suffer. He states in 2 timothy 3:12 that “all who desire a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer.” It is to be expected.

And what is this suffering. It is the whole array of difficulties and hardships and sickness that is meant by this word. It could be sufferings from loss of health or from broken or strained relationships. It could be sufferings from stuff from your job, or from disappointments of all kinds. It could be suffering from some accident or natural disaster or from a verbal or physical assault. Or it could be from everyday inconveniences like traffic jams, tests, or when your bathroom floods like ours did a few weeks ago.

So here is the question, “how do you rejoice in that?” the answer from eastern philosophies or religions like Buddhism or Hinduism is to pretend that your sufferings are not real. To empty yourself and become one with the world around you and you will escape suffering. Pop culture philosophy says you should just try and escape it by getting a better job or by getting high or drunk or by finding some new guy or girl to hook up with that will make you happy. The gospel answer is to embrace suffering because God has a purpose and design in it. There is something very important that God wants to teach us about ourselves and about him when we go through hard things.

And yes, as a side note it is God who is the author or designer of our suffering. Isaiah 45:7 says, “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the lord who does all these things.” Ecclesiastes 7:14 says, “in the day of prosperity be joyful and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other.”

So again, the question is “how do you rejoice, worshipping God, in the midst of a storm, in the midst of suffering?” Here is Paul’s answer, by “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.” Paul’s answer is a chain of cause and effect relationships of what the experience of suffering does to the Christian internally. Suffering to endurance to character to hope.

“Endurance” and “character”

Let me say some things about endurance and character and then we’ll talk about hope and the Holy Spirit. Endurance, sometimes translated in Bibles as perseverance and character or proven character as you may have it. Both of these words come from a similar picture, the picture of metal going through a fire. Endurance or perseverance is when someone puts a piece of metal into a fire in order to strengthen it. When you put steel in the fire it heats up and the result is that it ends up being stronger and tougher to break.

Proven character is when something is put in the fire to be tested to see if it is real or authentic. If it just melts away, like a beer can in a bonfire does, it does not have a proven character like endured steel.

So when Paul says that suffering produces endurance in the Christian he is saying that God intentionally brings about trials and difficulties in order to make our faith unbreakable like steel. Going through the fiery tests of trouble causes us to look to Christ and his power and sufficiency and love and wisdom. And it teaches us to not give into bitterness and resentment by complaining and being unhappy but rather to rejoice in all things. As James 1:2-3 says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” Endurance or perseverance in the Christians is a patience and stability that only comes as a maturity after going through some hard times.

John Calvin says, “For the lord sometimes so depresses and strains for a time his people that they can hardly breathe and can hardly remember any source of consolation but in a moment he brings to life whom he had nearly sunk in the darkness of death.” We are so up and own at times and God wants to bring us to a place where we steadily trust Him and walk with Him because we know that nothing else can bring us satisfaction.

And how about proven character in the Christian? This testing of metal to see if it is real? What is the comparison being made here? Surely the all-knowing God knows whether or not we are real… so the proving or testing is for us. In causing us to suffer God is convincing us that we really are the real thing, that our faith is in fact genuine. It has been tested and tried and proven to be true. An old Greek scholar named Marvin Vincent says character is “state of mind which has stood the test.”

there is a sense in which life can happen and cause you to doubt everything and for whatever reason God enables you to hold on and when you come through it there is a realization that occurs…”I really do believe. I know these things to be true.” In character God proves that adversaries do not hinder the glory of the faithful.

“Hope”

Endurance, an unbreakable faith. Character, a proven faith. And then “hope.” We’ve talked a lot in the last couple months about hope. About how hope is not wishful thinking but a reasoned assurance that something will in fact take place. The word “hope” here in this chain adds some new things to our understanding. first, we begin with hope, that first outplay of faith which recognizes that God is real, that Christ and his cross does save, and that there is beauty and glory to be had…that verse 2, where we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Here we see that between now and that glorious end there is suffering. Suffering gives endurance which gives proven character which gives more hope.

So hope is something that can build or grow. We have said it is a certainty or an assurance and not wishful thinking and now by putting it in this chain of cause and effects we learn that our certainty or assurance can become more and more.

After suffering and endurance and character has happened our assurance that we will in fact reach glory by trusting in Christ, increases. I get that not only because verse 2 begins this passage with hope and verse four here ends with it, but also because of those next few words “hope will not put us to shame.” If hope did put us to shame we would be disappointed and embarrassed for believing in something that really wasn’t true. Thus to hope not putting us to shame means that this whole thing about God and the gospel is real.

If you have a hope that resulted from suffering this phrase “will not put us to shame” is a reward. It says our suffering is not in vain and it will not last. God will not be shown to be untrue and his promises will not fail. We will reach glory and we will sit down at the table with Christ seated at its head. Like Romans 15:13 says, “The God of hope (will) fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Rejoicing by gift of the Holy Spirit

Lastly tonight is an additional reason Paul gives for why we can have hope for glory and that is this phrase, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Paul’s first reasoning was the design of suffering. Why rejoice in suffering? His answer was that suffering produces endurance which produces character which produces hope. It is sort of an outside looking in answer. Now Paul answers the question of how? How do we rejoice in suffering? Many times when people are suffering they will ask where is God? And to answer this Paul turns internally.

“The Holy Spirit who has been given to us”

I struggled here of whether or not to do a whole separate sermon on this topic. Because this is huge and really important and is one of the main roles of the Holy Spirit of God. But I decided not to for two reasons. One, this idea is so connected to with the surrounding verses. It is part of this tight chain of reasoning and we want to be careful that when we preach we don’t just read a verse and then jump to some other part of the bible or start talking about something else as if those words were just a spring board or something. The second reason is that we are going to talk a lot about this issue of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer when we get to Romans 8. It may take us a few years to get there but we will get there.

So what I want to give you is some brief remarks about it then we’ll put everything together. Here is what I want to say. The Holy Spirit is God acting in a way where he gives you a sense of his presence and power. Let me break that down. The, only one, Holy Spirit, God Himself, acting. What is he doing? Pouring out. He is acting in a way so that he makes himself known. Where? In our hearts. The seat of our person, where we have an ability to feel and sense things. Romans 2 taught us that our hearts are by nature corrupt and that God changes them by his Spirit so that we may see the glory of God in the gospel and find security in it.

So what does that mean? It means that yes; there is a subjective, experiential element to Christianity. There is an experience of the gospel. First we become convinced of some things in our heads: God is real. I am messed up. Christ did something about it. He is what I need. I put my faith in his person and work on the cross and his
Resurrection.

Then life happens. The pain and suffering that happens in life. And despite ourselves we feel a steady presence. A security. A sense of God in with us. Here telling us its okay, he is in control, he is powerful, and this suffering will end. He loves us, we can trust him. Christ is all we need. Keep going. Find comfort in me. Take my strength for your weakness for my yoke is easy and my burden light. And that my friends is joy! We may have sorrow and we may have pain but we are not alone. God has not abandoned us but poured out his Spirit into our hearts. He is God with us.

Conclusion

Here is how I want to conclude tonight. I figure that everyone here is in one of three places as you sit back and think about your life. One you are doing great. Really happy. Enjoying life and God’s beauty in it. You are living out the gospel and things are good. Or maybe you are in a place that is not super good but not super bad, you are just going. Doing what you do and living life. Or three, you are in the thick of it. Grief and weariness are friends you know too well and you’ve had just about enough. I figure all of us fit in one of those three places.

So here is my application. If right now you are in the fire and you feel it consuming you…hold on. God is doing something inside of you that you are not even aware of. He is making your faith strong. He is making you into steal that you might be a source of strength and stability in endurance. He is proving to you that you are in fact his child. One that he cares about no matter what. He is proving your character. Draw deep from the well of the Holy Spirit. This pouring out is a water metaphor. Open up and drink freely of God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness and love. There is no condemnation. God accepts you as you are and is with you and will be until the end.

If you are in one of the other two places, where things are going well or just so so. Then here is my instruction. Store up God’s word in your heart. Take this teaching of Romans 5:3-5 and graft it into the root of your being because a day will come when you will suffer. Hard times will happen and when they do you need something firm to keep you in place and this is it. Get a hold of this teaching now so that when the storm comes you will not have built your house upon the sand and have to scramble to get back up on your feet. Plant this away inside your soul so that you may be strong and have much joy.

I began this sermon tonight by talking about Reuben licensure. A man who suffered a lot throughout his life but had much joy. How did he become such a man? God wrought endurance and character and hope in him and he had is eyes set on the prize of glory. May God grant us the grace to be the same kind of men and women here at the resolved church? Let’s pray.