Text: Romans 5:1-11

It is not fun when we are confronted with our sin. At first we might feel insulted. We might get defensive. We might think, “Who is this person to tell me that I’ve sinned?” There was a time when Peter was confronted with his sin by Jesus. Peter tried to tell Jesus that he wasn’t going to suffer and die. Jesus replied, “Get behind me Satan!” That must have been hard for Peter to hear. And yet, that was one consequence of his sinful thinking. He needed to be rebuked by Jesus. He might not have appreciated that rebuke at that moment, but later on he would understand. Jesus needed to suffer for our sins. As Christians, we too need to suffer. Today we see that we are to Rejoice in Our Suffering. First, we don’t want to let that suffering lead us to doubt God and second, we want to let it lead us to the joy of Christ.

Part 1: Don’t let it lead you to doubt God

As we consider these verses from Romans chapter 5, it also good for us to look at the example that the Apostle Paul used in the previous chapter. In Romans chapter 4, he talked about the faith of Abraham. Paul stresses that Abraham was not saved because of any action that Abraham did. Abraham was saved because of God’s grace through faith that was worked in him by the Holy Spirit. Abraham was given the promise of the Messiah. Abraham was told by God that one of his descendants would be a blessing to all nations by saving them from their sins. Abraham believed this promise of a Messiah and God credited Abraham with the righteousness that the Messiah would eventually win.

In order to further emphasize that Abraham was saved by God’s grace, Paul mentions that Abraham was credited with righteousness before God told him that he and his household were to be circumcised. This is important because some people in Paul’s day thought that the act of being circumcised was necessary for men to be true followers of Christ. They had turned circumcision into a works-righteous act that needed to be done in order to be saved. Paul pointed out that Abraham was credited with righteousness before he was circumcised. Righteousness and faith are gifts of God worked in us by the Holy Spirit. Besides these very positive gifts, we see in our text for today that suffering can also be a gift from God that serves a good purpose.

Paul tells us, “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:3-5). God allows suffering to come into our life because of our faith in him. He has a reason for doing this. His goal is to lead us closer to himself. He wants us to trust in him. As we trust in God, we persevere through those hard times. Our Christian character grows and we dig deeper into the truths of God’s Word. Our hope in Christ is strengthened and we look to him for the forgiveness that he won on the cross.

This doesn’t mean however that everything we suffer is sent directly by God. Sometimes we suffer as a result of our own sin. Our sins can have terrible earthly consequences. Our sins can lead to all kinds of stress in our lives. If we fail to make good use of God’s gift of time, then we can get very stressed out as deadlines approach. If we tell lies about others to get ahead in this world, we will suffer because our relationships will be destroyed through our actions. The suffering we endure because of our sins can remind us that we need God’s forgiveness. After God shows us his forgiveness, he won’t necessarily take away those earthly consequences of sin because those consequences are a reminder of our terrible sinfulness and our need for a Savior. He can even use sinful suffering to help us.

That fact points us back to Abraham once again. God had promised Abraham that he and his wife Sarah would have a son. However, it was taking a long time for God to fulfill his promise. Abraham and Sarah began to doubt that God would fulfill the promise. Abraham and Sarah thought that they had a plan. They let their plan become more important than God’s plan. At the urging of Sarah, Abraham had a son with Sarah’s maidservant, a woman named Hagar. Abraham and Sarah thought that they had a solution. Actually they had sinned against God. It wasn’t long before they noticed suffering in their lives as a consequence of their sin.

Hagar began to look down upon Sarah because Sarah was unable to have children. When she found out she was pregnant, Hagar no longer treated Sarah with respect. Sarah began to mistreat Hagar and Hagar ran away. God had to step in and deal with this sinful situation. God got Hagar to go back and submit to Sarah. God also had to remind Abraham that Hagar’s son was not going to be the son that God promised to Abraham. God reminded Abraham again that Sarah would give him a son. God certainly did not approve of this sinful situation but he used the consequences of it to remind Abraham of his promises.

There are plenty of times that we can cause our own suffering through our sinfulness. But sometimes God simply allows suffering to come into our lives because it is part of his plan. Abraham and Sarah suffered because they were unable to have children for such a long time. However, that was part of God’s plan. When Abraham and Sarah sinfully gave in to their doubts, many terrible things resulted. We all have different trials that we face in this life. For some of us it might be some terrible illness like cancer that we have to deal with. For others of us we might struggle financially because of unemployment. God allows this things to come into our lives. The question is: how do we react to this suffering?

Also, because of our Christian faith, there are specific persecutions that we will suffer. If we stand up for what God says about Creation, we will be ridiculed in science classrooms where the religion of evolution is king. Or what if we stand up against some of the sins of our society? What if we tell our friends that men and women living together outside of marriage is sinful? What if we tell people that drunkenness is wrong? We will be treated like we are old fashioned and out of touch with reality. We will be mocked because of our faith. The sinful reaction to the suffering we face would be to doubt the truths of God’s Word. The devil wants us to just give up on God and join in the ways of the world.

Doubting God’s plan and his love for us is sinful behavior that we don’t want to fall into. We will have all kinds of suffering but we don’t want to let it lead us away from God. Rather we want to let that suffering lead us to the joy that we have in Christ.

Part 2: Let it lead you to the joy of Christ

Suffering is a reminder that we are completely unworthy of any of God’s grace. What we rightly deserve because of our sins is eternal suffering that is far worse than anything we are going to endure in this life. A part of the benefit of suffering is that it is intended to keep us humble. We recognize our unworthiness and we flee to Christ for the forgiveness that only he can offer. Paul describes God’s grace and our unworthiness in a few places. He says, “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6) and also, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8) and then, “when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). 

In those sections, Paul said that we were ungodly sinners who were enemies of God. By nature we wanted nothing to do with God. We wanted to stay in our sins. We were hostile toward God. In spite of that, because of his great love, God sent his Son Jesus to die in our place. Because of that death, we have been reconciled to God. We now have a good relationship with him. We are credited with righteousness just like Abraham was credited with righteousness. Suffering reminds us that we trust in God alone for this righteousness. We love him above all things.

God gave Abraham some suffering to remind him of this very truth. After God blessed Abraham and Sarah with a son, God asked Abraham to sacrifice that son. God asked Abraham to show that he loved God more than he loved his son Isaac. Think about the suffering that Abraham must have gone through. How could any loving parent even think about sacrificing their child? What must have Abraham thought about as they traveled for days to reach the mountain where they were going to offer the sacrifice? Did he cry a little bit as he asked Isaac to carry the wood for the sacrifice?

Through that suffering, God was teaching Abraham a very important lesson. He was teaching him to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Abraham passed the test. He was about to sacrifice Isaac when the Angel of the Lord stepped in to stop him. In the book of Hebrews we read that Abraham’s faith was very strong through that event. His faith was so strong that he believed that God could have even brought Isaac back to life if he had gone through with the sacrifice. Think about the perseverance, character, and hope that suffering produced in Abraham.

When we look at Abraham we have the blessing of knowing how everything turned out. We see God acting in his life in very specific ways. We don’t have that benefit with our own lives. God doesn’t tell us all the little details about his plan for our lives. However, he does tell us that he is going to work all things for our good. Illnesses and financial struggles can remind us that we need to rely fully on God. He is in control, we are not. Perhaps if we had perfect health, we would fail to look to God as the great physician of body and soul. Perhaps if we had great wealth, we would fail to give back some of that wealth to God. God knows what is best for us.

We can certainly rejoice as we endure any suffering in this life. If we endure persecution because of our faith, we know that Jesus endured far more as he traveled the path to the cross to save us from our sin. Suffering reminds us of our sinfulness and it points us toward everything that Jesus did for us. We rejoice that we are united with Christ through faith. Our faith unites us with him in his death and we are raised up to live that new life of faith. We persevere in our suffering, our Christian character develops, and we firmly have our hope in eternal life.

Conclusion

Just like we don’t like being confronted with our own sin, we also don’t like confronting others about their sins. We are afraid that they might attack us. We are afraid that they may no longer be our friends. However, any suffering we endure for confronting sin is a very good kind of suffering. It is part of the cross we bear for being a Christian. We stand up for God’s Word and his law. We do this so that we can share the wonderful gospel message when people repent of their sins. When we suffer for our faith we certainly don’t want to doubt our God because of that suffering. Rather we let that suffering point us to the greatest suffering. Because of Jesus suffering, we can certainly rejoice in our suffering.