Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

Why God's people suffer

by Skip Ryan

December 10, 2000

Romans 5:1–5

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“Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:1–5).

This passage undeniably focuses our attention on a very practical concern of Christian living, the issue of tribulation, suffering, difficulty in the Christian life. It is remarkable that Paul picks up this subject after four chapters of dealing with strong, meaty, doctrinal truths. But now he comes to apply the truth in a very particular way—our suffering.

C. S. Lewis said that “all arguments in justification of suffering prove bitter resentment against their author,” and I do not want to give you an excuse for bitter resentment against me. And I don’t want you to blame me for anything that I am going to say. So I am going to speak God’s Word to you and not my own opinions.

I am glad to tell you, therefore, that I am not going to give you a sweet homily on suffering—three points, a poem, and a prayer. No, I am not going to do that. Rather, I am going to look with you at this remarkable passage which starts out talking about the solid, deep truths of the Christian faith that shape our lives as Christians, and one in particular—justification by faith.

Paul’s point is this: By bringing together justification by faith, which he begins with, “Therefore having been justified by faith” (Romans 5:1), together with tribulation, proven character, hope, and the rest of it, Paul is implicitly making an extremely important statement. He is saying that doctrine and life go together, that great teaching, great truths of the Christian life are not just up there in the stratosphere, nice truths to think about. No, they are utterly and completely practical. Do you know that the most important thing your church can ever do for you is teach you these truths? Why? I promise you that these truths will rearrange the furniture of your life. They are very practical, and as we get a hold of these truths, God uses them in our hearts and in our minds to begin to move around all the movable parts inside of us and to rearrange those parts for our good and His glory. Truth bears on our living.

Paul’s point is that if we understand the truth of the teaching of justification by faith, we will have some tough times in our lives. He is also going to say in this very passage that we will have tremendous joy. But we will suffer.

This is the common theme in all of scripture, if we understand who God is. The more we understand who God is, the more we need to expect that there are going to be issues in our lives that we will have to deal with that aren’t always easy. Other passages confirm this truth: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).

Now I tell you, if you ever hear a preacher who stands up and preaches a sermon in which he says, “If you become a Christian, there will be no more suffering in your life,” you have my permission to throw your hymnbook at him. It is simply is not true. No, the apostle Paul says that Christians’ response to suffering is not to pretend that it doesn’t exist, but it is actually to rejoice in the midst of it. That is what he says right here in this passage, “Rejoice in it.”

I am reminded of the elderly lady who was complaining a little bit about some of the difficulties she was having in her life, and her pastor came to her and gave her a loving and gentle rebuke. She said, “But, pastor, when God sends me tribulation, He expects me to tribulate a little!”

Do you know what the apostle Peter said? He said, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation” (1 Peter 4:12–13).

Wow, what a statement!

What suffering is not

It is important that we understand that what we are talking about here in our response to suffering doesn’t mean stoicism. It doesn’t mean a stiff upper lip. It doesn’t mean grin and bear it. No, he says, “Rejoice in the midst of your sufferings,” not in spite of them. Stoicism is to rejoice in spite of your sufferings, not in the midst of them.

Our response is not masochism either. Believe me, you shouldn’t go out looking for suffering. “Oh, I guess I should be a good sufferer for Jesus. So I’ll go look for suffering.” No, it will find you. I guarantee it. You don’t need to find it. Don’t go looking for it.

And, third, let’s not pretend that we are happy when we are not so happy. Sometimes the rejoicing here is something that we need to work on with God’s help and grace. But there are going to be times in our lives when we shouldn’t put on a happy face. We shouldn’t be artificially happy, but we should instead learn how to rejoice deeply. There is a difference, a big difference.

How do we rejoice in suffering?

Now how can we rejoice in the midst of difficulty, according to what Paul says? How? Because we have inside information. Because we know something others don’t. Because we’ve got an inside track on something God is saying and is doing. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones said it this way: “We have a knowledge of an insight into God’s purposes and methods with respect to us.” Isn’t that amazing? Because of God’s revelation in His Word, we have an inside track in knowing what God is doing. We understand that God intends suffering to do something in our lives, to produce something. And Paul says what suffering produces is perseverance, and perseverance then produces character, and character produces hope. That is what he says right here.

The chain of fruitful suffering

Let’s look at that wonderful chain of things that happens to us according to God’s sovereign and providential disposition in our lives. Perseverance—literally that means “to abide under or to stay with the pressure of something.” You know, when you are under pressure, you want out from under it. But perseverance means “to stick with it.” Steadiness is a good word.

It is like when you break a horse. Some horses, when they are being broken, bolt and panic and fear. Some stand still and quiver. Some Christians panic under trial, and they bolt. But some Christians learn to stand still. We may quiver, but we hold our ground by God’s grace, because suffering steadies us as we stay grounded in Christ and His gospel.

Tribulation produces perseverance; perseverance produces proven character. What is that? Literally that is the idea of something being proven “reliable.” It is really what Paul is after in 2 Corinthians 4 when giving a kind of personal testimony. He says, “We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed” (verses 8–9).

Engineers test the metal in a bridge at various times when they are building it to make sure that the bridge will be able to eventually hold the weight that it is intended to. That is precisely how God uses suffering in our lives. It tests the weight of our faith for its reliability.

The apostle Peter says, “Your faith is more precious than gold” (1 Peter 1:7). Well, how do you test the purity of gold? Under fire, where all the dross is burned out of it. Proven character is like gold refined in the fire of perseverance and tribulation.

“Tribulation produces perseverance; perseverance produces proven character; proven character in turn then,” Paul says, “produces hope. And hope does not disappoint,” literally, “does not make ashamed.” We are not ashamed of the hope that we have in the midst of difficulty when it is Christ who is the One giving us that hope. Hope gives confidence, boldness, not arrogance, not cockiness, but confidence in the midst of stress and difficulty.

Have you ever noticed that in the fire of tribulation those who are actually in the very middle of the fire are the ones with the most resilience, the most buoyancy? All around them there may be people saying, “Oh, my gosh, this poor thing, this awful thing is happening to this person. Oh, my gosh, why is God allowing this to happen? Oh, this is terrible.” And on and on they go. But the person in the middle of it is often, very often by God’s grace, buoyed up, confident, hopeful, not arrogant, but deeply and profoundly hopeful.

How? If you analyze that, you can analyze it right along the lines of what the apostle teaches us in this passage. Here is what I mean: a person who has that kind of hope in the midst of tribulation is a person who has inside information, right? What is that inside information? They know something about their past, something about their present, and something about their future.

Know the past

What do they know about their past? It is right there in the text. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). They know they were justified. Here is that great truth. Here it is, that massive, huge, wonderful frame for our lives. Nothing is bigger, nothing is stronger than the justification of God for us. “To justify” from God’s perspective does not mean “to make an innocent person righteous.” It means “to declare the innocent righteous,” not “to change a person’s character.” What do we call changing a person’s life in Christianity? Sanctification, right? Up until now Paul hasn’t talked about that at all in the book of Romans. He has talked about the bedrock truth to make sanctification possible, which is justification, which is not something God does in us; it is something that God declares about us. God declares that we are given the righteousness of Christ. God declares that in terms of the Law, we no longer bear the penalty of the Law as if we have committed the crime. Instead that penalty has been borne by another, by Jesus on the cross out of love.

Not only does Christ get what we deserve, we get what Christ has merited. And what has Christ merited? God’s favor, God’s love. Why? Because He is perfect. Because He never sinned. He is perfectly righteous. We get the righteousness of Christ in this great exchange that we call justification. Not only did Christ take my place, but I took His place. Jesus got my sin and paid for it, and I get Jesus’ perfect righteousness, and I don’t pay for it. That’s the amazing truth of justification. That is our past. That is a past worth having, isn’t it?

Know the present

What about our present? Well, here it says that there are two words, two great words here that describe our present—peace and grace. In terms of our status, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace. We no longer are at war. Or better yet, God is no longer at war with us. Later in Romans 5, it uses the term that we were once God’s enemies. “Now we are no longer God’s enemies.”

Do you remember that picture of V-J Day in Times Square with the sailor kissing his girlfriend? Do you remember the celebrations? Some of you remember. Some of you were there perhaps or alive at the time, and you remember the celebration when World War II was over. When war is over, there is a party. When God’s war is over with us because of Christ, we are free; we are set free to enjoy the reality of peace with Him.

Also, our present is described in terms of the grace in which we now stand. Interestingly enough, most of the time in the New Testament when the authors talk about grace, they speak of grace as something we receive. We are given God’s grace. But here, grace is something that we stand in. The idea is that grace is something firm and sure. It is immovable. It is rock-solid, steadfast, unwavering, unchanging, never eroding.

Paul wants us to live in security, not in what our own efforts can accomplish. If we live in the security of our own efforts, we will inevitably be insecure, because we will inevitably fail before God. Every man, every woman will inevitably come short of God’s standards and short of what God expects. We even do that in our relationships with one another. The strongest, most admirable person you know is going to fail and fail you at some point.

But in grace we are secure in God. It comes from God’s grace. God’s grace cannot fail. So in all of the uncertainty, all of the shifts that produce tribulation in our lives, we know that we have inside information. We know that one thing does not change; we are held by the finished work of Christ, and we stand on the Rock that cannot be moved.

I love the way the New English Bible translates Romans 5:2. It says, “We have been allowed to enter the sphere of God’s grace where we now stand.” Sphere is a good term. The environment of God’s grace is all around us. It is above us, below us, beside us, before us, behind us. The sphere of God’s grace is where we are if we know that we belong to Him.

Know the future

We have a past, we have a present, we also have a future. We exult in the hope of the glory of God.

Now hope is an interesting word in the Bible. You know how you and I use hope? “Gee, I sure hope that my team wins. I sure do hope that my kid gets an A on that exam. I sure do hope ________.” Fill in the blank, right? That kind of hope is wishful thinking. It is, “Maybe we can think it might happen, but we are not sure.” In the Bible, hope is used almost as a synonym for a the word “certainty.” It is called a certain hope, in fact, by the apostle Peter. Possibility isn’t in view, chance isn’t in view. When we are given a hope in the future by Christ and His gospel, then we know it is going to happen.

I love the J. B. Phillips translation of these couple of verses. “Since it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace. And here we take our stand in happy certainty of the glorious things He has for us in the future.”

What is the inside information that you’ve got? What do you know about your suffering? It is short. It will not last. And it does not compare to what God is storing up for you, to the riches of the glory of His grace, to the weight of glory that He is preparing to give you.

As Jesus says in John 14, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (verse 3). This is our happy certainty, inside information.

Samuel Rutherford, a seventeenth-century Scotsman, was a great man and outstanding Christian. During his lifetime Scottish Christians were being persecuted by the official Church of England. On his deathbed Samuel Rutherford was summoned by the king of England to answer charges and to renounce his faith and demonstrate his loyalty to the Church of England. This is what Samuel Rutherford said to those who came to bring him the message from the king, “Go, and tell your master I have a summons from a higher court, and ere this message reaches him, I will be where few kings and great folks ever come.”

What is the inside information? This tribulation will end, it isn’t all there is, and we are very soon going to step into glory that will make it all seem very light. Therefore, we can rejoice in the midst of it because we know what it is doing. It is causing the love of God to be poured out in our hearts.

God: “I love you.”

When you suffer, some people say, “Oh, God doesn’t love me.” No, just the opposite. When you suffer, God is saying, “I love you, My child.” “He disciplines those whom he loves,” the author of Hebrews says. Peter says, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing so that at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation” (verses 12–13).

The apostles were eager to share the sufferings of Christ. They weren’t masochists looking for it, but they were eager to share Christ’s sufferings. Why? They knew that to the degree that they shared the sufferings of Christ, they would share in His joy. Paul’s great affirmation is that the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Dear brothers and sisters, that love of God is, if I may put it this way, to be absolutely, experientially your privilege to know. You are to live in the love of God, even in the midst of difficulty. Why can Paul say that? It is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If God loved you when it was evident that you didn’t deserve it, if God loved you so much that He gave His Son to be His justification on your behalf, that Christ died for you on the cross and took your sin and gave you His righteousness; if He has done that out of love, then will He not love you in the midst of all of the vicissitudes of this life? That is his argument, from the greater to the lesser.

May I make this personal? Many of you have asked over the years with such love and care for me and my family about our Bekah, so maybe in the context of this, it is a good time to give you just a little bit of an update about her. Bekah is now thirteen years old. We have three teenagers, so y’all pray for us, please!

Bekah is one and a half years old developmentally. She has no speech. She walks and plays and loves to play games and listen to her music videos. But we have soberly realized that she will need assistance all of her life. She is in a wonderful special education program in the public schools, and she has many, many special friends in the church for which we are very, very grateful. Thank you, thank you for your love for our Bekah. We look forward to Bekah being a part of our family team until she is grown.

Sometimes at the end of the day we all end up in Bekah’s room. Chris, my seventeen-year-old, loves to pick her up and throw her around, and we sometimes have some wonderful laughs and prayers together in her room at the end of the day. One time not too long ago we were doing that, and all of a sudden it got a little quiet in the room. It was one of those pauses. Then Chris said, “You know, Bekah is the glue of our family.” It is really true. Humanly speaking, she is our glue. It is a wonderful thing.

But the thing that amazes me the most about our life with Bekah is my wife and her relationship with her daughter. I have never seen anything like it. Never. Call it mother’s love. I don’t know. Call it whatever you will. They are best buddies.

Some of you also know that that hasn’t come easily for Barbara, that there have been times when she has grieved deeply over not having a normal child. My wife grew up in a very intellectual family. Her father was a professor of law at two major universities. She has prized intellectual achievement all of her life, and God gave her a speechless child.

My wife keeps a journal, as many of you know. Years ago she wrote the following passage which I have shared with you before. Barbara is describing a situation where friends on the East Coast had just learned that their newborn son was not going to make it. He was going to die. So Barbara writes this in her journal:

When Walter called to say that it appeared that Jesse would not ever be able to sustain life on his own, my feelings were a mixture of (1) sorrow that they did not have a son to hold, to nurture, to feast their eyes upon; (2) sadness that sin and death occasion pain and separation; and (3) envy, envy that they could grieve and go on, that they would not be saddled, as we are saddled, with the perpetual care of a handicapped child.

I shrink from writing these words. I see that they are dripping with self-pity. And self-pity is the prison-house of mirrors from which there is no escape. But I need to be honest about the realities, the ongoing challenge of coping with Bekah, for there is no doubt that our lives would be simpler and easier without her perpetual care, her messes, her nocturnal risings.

But I am again reminded that love comes in many guises and disguises. God’s posture toward us is love. He does that which is the most loving to His children, yet so often it does not feel like love. Ironically, His having entrusted Bekah to me often does not feel like love. It feels like a burden. It feels like a hand holding me down so that I can’t get enough air. It feels like unceasing sorrow. But those are feelings. And feelings are not to be trusted.

What I know to be true about God is that He is love. That love proceeds from His hand to me in all things, even hard, painful, humanly inexplicable things, that Bekah is His love-gift to me, disguised at times as weight, heaviness, sorrow, toil, and weariness.

God knows me better than I know myself, and He knows my need of a child like Bekah or any other painful episode, even though it occasions me grief. And I know that when I stop raging against Him, that He is with me, even as I rage, that He can comfort me when my tantrum ends with inexpressible comfort, the comfort of His presence, the comfort of His promises, and the comfort of His love. I rage like a child while He waits as a Father to gather me in His arms and whisper, “Peace, child, be still. I will never leave you or forsake you.” And so I pour out my heart before Him. I throw accusations to the heavens. But when I am done, invariably He is there. He is there. He is there. And in His presence and in His love I am safe and sane once more.”

How do you suffer in the midst of tribulations? You go on the basis of the inside information you’ve got. You already know that God’s love has been poured out for you at the cross. You already know that He has done everything for you. That is what justification means.

How are you assured of that love? You are assured of it when you survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. How do you know the love of God when you suffer? How? You know it as you see from His head, His hands, His feet, that sorrow and love flow mingled down. How do you rejoice in your tribulation? When you take your suffering to the Cross, and you see there love so amazing, so divine, demands your soul, your life, your all.