STANDING FAST IN TIME OF TROUBLE
Preached at Emmanuel, Workington on Sunday, 19th February 2006
Preached at Emmanuel, Workington on Sunday, 19th February 2006
Reading: Luke 12 vs 1-32.
Text: Romans 5 v 3, “We Also glory in the tribulations.”
In view of two bereavements in the early hours of Thursday, 9th February, I decided to provide a Ministry of Comfort this morning. Also a fortnight ago were asked for pray for a young man of 22 living in Whitehaven and suffering from cancer who used to attend our Friday Club. He died that day. Last Monday, front page of the local paper featured the deaths of 3 young people.
Someone asked me. ‘What is God saying to us?’ Surely, the Lord is reminding us of His absolute sovereignty in our affairs. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away! No one can retain his spirit on that day He requires our soul of us, for none can resist God! Death reminds us yet again that the Lord, He is God!
DID PAUL GO OVER THE TOP?
DID PAUL GO OVER THE TOP?
I have chosen as my text the staggering words of Romans 5 v 3: “We also glory in tribulations.” Paul is listing the benefits of the Gospel, the blessings experienced by those who are justified by faith. At this point, he seems to go over the top and to claim too much for the Gospel: “we also glory in the tribulations” as though life’s troubles are a blessing!
Advertisers will tell you that it is a mistake to claim too much for your product. If they make excessive claims for their product it creates disappointment in people who buy it. Paul claims to glory and rejoice in tribulations. Is that your experience in the Christian life? Does it enable you to glory in tribulation? Surely not! Christians suffer what others suffer. If we are honest, we must disagree with Paul, with Scripture and with God’s Spirit that inspired him.
Let us not be too hasty. Jesus said something similar: Matthew 5 v 10f, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Jesus taught that it is an honour to be persecuted for Christ’s sake!
So perhaps Paul has reasons for claiming that the Gospel causes us to glory in tribulation! He must have good reasons! Let’s hear him out. What is his case?
THREE COMFORTING GOSPEL BLESSINGS -
In Romans 5 vs 1-2 Paul lists 3 blessings of the Gospel: those who are justified by faith have peace with God; have stability in the grace of God; have hope for the future. Peace, stability and hope are immensely comforting!
Whatever troubles we face in life, if we have peace with God, we are blessed infinitely more than the world that is at enmity against God. Life is all about God! Having peace with God is what really maters in life, whatever goes wrong!
2nd, believers have access by faith into this grace in which we stand! In the storm do you stand? The trials of life threaten to overwhelm us and sweep us off our feet! The Gospel gives us stability; if we live by faith and not by feelings, we may stand in God’s grace against all the wiles of the devil. As when a tornado his the Sea of Galilee, Jesus stood in the boat, while the disciples clutched at the boat for dear life! It stabilizes us to know that the Master is in complete control!
3rd believers “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Hope has to do with the future. The troubles of life leave us without hope; we can’t face the future! Paul says, his Gospel gives us certain hope! That gives direction to life and meaning to all we do! We know where we are going! We await Christ’s return and the glory of His everlasting kingdom!
Those 3 things - peace with God; stability in God’s grace and hope in the glory of God - make a world of difference to the believer in time of trouble! That’s a good start, Paul!
TRIBULATION PRODUCES CHRISTIAN CHARACTER
Next, Romans 5 vs 3-4, Paul says that “tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance produces maturity of character and character produces hope – hope in God, trusting in God! So in the troubles of life, the Gospel produces a Christ-like character in believers! That is a marvelous thing! It is definitely true that without affliction, we would not make much progress in becoming Christ-like! So tribulation has a sanctifying and maturing effect on us.
So Jesus Christ is our example; we must endure afflictions as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. He endured ‘for the joy set before Him’! And we must follow in His footsteps. We are getting nearer to glorying in trouble!
But to be honest we need something supernatural to attain such Christ-likeness that we glory in tribulation.
BACK TO CONVERSION – THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!
Here it is! In Romans 5 vs 5-6 Paul says that this hope learnt through affliction “does not disappoint.” Christian hope produces joy, not sorrow! How come? Paul explains: “ because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who was given to us.”
When was that? When was the Holy Spirit given to us? At conversion! If we give our testimonies based on our felt experience, we will miss many wonderful things about our conversion! As Paul has told us, when we first believed in the Gospel of God and in His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, though we knew it not, that day God justified us! God logged our faith for righteousness because He imputed the righteousness of Jesus Christ to us!
Now then, also on that day, though we knew it not, that day God gave us the Holy Spirit! All believers receive the Spirit at conversion! What does this Spirit do? He leads us into all truth! Supernaturally, the Spirit sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts and fills us a knowledge of the love and compassion of our God!
Hey, but I’m in trouble and screaming inside! The bottom’s fallen out of my life! I’m not coping! How can the Holy Spirit possibly shed abroad the love of God into my desperate heart? Paul tells us, Romans 5 vs. 6-8 ! “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” And Paul repeats himself: “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
BACK TO CALVARY IN ORDER TO BE FILLED WITH THE LOVE OF GOD!
It all goes back to the cross of Christ! Calvary is the key to Paul’s case! The blood of Christ makes for our peace with God, our stability in the grace of God, our hope for eternity! Remembrance of the cross makes us more Christ-like day by day! And now the Holy Spirit uses the cross of Christ to persuade us of the love of God!
Friends, we cheapen the love of God these days and take it for granted, as if God had to love us! It cost Jesus Christ everything to set His love upon us! In the day of trouble, know that it cost Him far more than it ever costs us! He took our flesh and represented us before God and became our scape-goat, our sin was transferred to Him and He, as the Lamb of God, bore the infinite wrath of God which we had incurred!
Never man loved as Christ love! No one has ever loved you like that! No parent loves like that! Though a parent die to protect a child, no parent can die to blot out the sin of a son or daughter! No wife, no husband loves as Christ loves us and gave Himself for us! Christ’s love is unique!
He loved us when we were ungodly; while we were yet sinners! Husbands are attracted to their wives; we were not attractive to Christ, yet He died for us! My friends, sit down, kneel down and contemplate the dying love of Christ. Open a Gospel and read the account of the death of Christ until tears flow down your face! It may be that, at last, the Spirit of the living God will fall afresh upon you and shed abroad the love of God in your heart.
He first loved us! We love Him because He first loved us. The cross demonstrates the extent of His love! The cross reveals the extent of our sin! Do you find the cross hard to resist? How can we not be affected, be touched by the cross of Christ? It is beyond human explanation, but Paul assures us that the Holy Spirit uses the cross of Christ to persuade us of the love of God even while we were still sinners. And once the Spirit has persuaded us of that, we are never the same again!
THE CROSS MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE
The cross of Christ makes all the difference to us in the day of tribulation! In South Africa I was asked whether the Asian Tsunami was a judgment of God. I replied, as have others, that the amazing thing that day was not the terrible death toll but that all the world was not wiped out! That is what we deserve. As Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish!” Sure, we have nothing to complain about when things go wrong!
But God sent His beloved Son into the world to take our flesh and dwell among us! At Calvary’s cross, God set Him forth as a propitiation by His blood – for He bore the wrath you and I deserved! His blood purchased us for God! What love! What unspeakable love for unworthy sinners!
And that makes all the difference in the day of trouble! Nothing, no tribulation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! All things work together for good to them that love God! So in the day of tribulation, the believer who dwells on the cross and is filled by the Spirit with the love of God, though he/she hate the affliction, yet he/she rejoices in God to be counted worthy to suffer with Christ! With Jesus Christ we say, though with tears and strong crying, “Not my will, but Thine be done!”
And without our striving, a miracle takes place within our hearts! In the midst of tribulation, we glory in God! Like Paul in the Philippian gaol, who sang hymns at midnight, unable to sleep because of the pains of a Roman lashing, so also we learn to rejoice in God in all our trials!
So we also glory in tribulation; we glory in God in the worst of troubles. People may ask, How did you cope? And we answer, I remembered the cross of Christ and the love of God filled my soul. Glory be to God!
