Romans 5:1-8
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Do You Want to Be a Stronger Christian?
Back when I was in college, I worked on a dairy farm during the summer. I’d wake up at 3:00am to go milk the cows. That early morning milking was always tough. You’re barely awake. Half the time you’re bleary eyed and grumpy just for having to get out of your warm and cozy bed so early. The other half of the time it feels like the cows are grumpy; they refuse to go into the stall, they kick off the milking machine, they slap their manure-soaked tail across your face, which was always a special treat.
My boss was often in the parlour with me. He was a Christian too. He knew I was studying to be a pastor, so we’d talk about Jesus occasionally. On one of those days when the cows were extra-ornery, he just threw his hands up, turned around, looked at me with disgust in his eyes and asked,
“Pete, did you pray for patience today?!? ‘Cause you know the Lord’s gonna test you when you do!”
It was too early in the morning for me to fully understand what he was saying at the time. I get it now; it’s a lesson I carry with me to this day. His point was that people aren’t just born patient. You don’t just have patience one day and then you can put up with anything that happens to you for the rest of your life. Patience is born out of suffering. Patience is something you develop over time and with (often painful) experience.
It’s the same thing with anything you want to get better at. You want to play the guitar? Your fingertips are going to ache. But then you develop calluses and it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. You want to get better at math? You twist your brain into pretzels until you have a headache, but then you understand the formulas and algorithms. You want to get better at sports? You work out until you’re stiff and sore until you do it enough times that running a mile doesn’t make you want to die. You want to get promoted at work? You tackle progressively more difficult tasks. No one will just hand you the job if you don’t have any experience.
There are no shortcuts to progress or growth, and that holds doubly true for your faith.
Do you want to be a stronger Christian? Be careful what you wish for! There is one way to become a stronger Christian, and that’s to suffer. Paul said,
Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance [produces] character, and character [produces] hope. And hope does not put us to shame.[1]
Isn’t that what we’re all after? Isn’t that where we’d all like to be spiritually? Wouldn’t you want to be such a strong Christian that when you get that piece of bad news you don’t crumble and melt into a mess of tears and despair? Don’t you wish that you could just take adversity in stride and say, “I know that God will see me through, that he will use even this for my good, that even if the worst case scenario happens I can let it roll off my back like water off a duck because I have that much hope in the Lord”?
That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? But that’s not reality and that’s not where any of us start. In fact, when suffering comes, it’s often the opposite, isn’t it? My day is going just fine but then I hit the speedbump – I get bad news or something’s not working the way I wanted it to – and then I get irritable or impatient or discouraged.
Why does it have to be that way? I thought Paul said that suffering produces perseverance. I have plenty of suffering. Why don’t I feel like I’m persevering?
Luther had an interesting answer to that question:
Whatever tribulation finds in us, it develops more fully. If anyone is carnal, weak, blind, wicked, irascible, haughty, and so forth, tribulation will make him more carnal, weak, blind, wicked and irritable… Those speak foolishly who ascribe their anger or their impatience to such as offend them or to tribulation. Tribulation does not make people impatient, but proves that they are impatient. So everyone may learn from tribulation how his heart is constituted.[2]
That’s a blow to the ol’ ego, isn’t it? How many times have I blamed my impatience or irritability on my circumstances – too little sleep, too much stress, too little support? Too many times. Instead, Luther would suggest that we should use suffering – trials, tribulation, affliction, adversity, whatever word you want to use – we should use it kind of like a stethoscope to evaluate the condition of my heart. If I am irritable after adversity, it’s not that adversity made me irritable. It’s that I already was irritable; I just didn’t have occasion to show it. Adversity provided the occasion to demonstrate the weakness of my heart.
Ok. So if Luther says that suffering just amplifies and magnifies what is already inside of me, then that means that that I need to become spiritual, powerful, wise, gentle, humble, etc… to begin with. Then, when suffering comes, my wisdom and generosity and humility will shine through. It’s as simple as that!
There is some truth to that, but it begs the question, how do I become spiritual, powerful, wise, gentle, humble, i.e. a strong Christian…?
The Apostle Paul has an answer that takes all the credit and all the power out of your hands, and puts them where they rightly belong, in the Lord’s hands. Paul does this over and over again in the beginning of chapter 5. He says, “We have peace with God.”[3] Peace sounds nice. Where did that come from? How did we get it? “We have been justified… through our Lord Jesus Christ.”[4] We didn’t justify ourselves. We didn’t make peace with God. He made peace with us through Jesus.
Paul holds out all these appealing qualities that we’d all love to possess – perseverance, character, hope – but he makes it clear that they don’t come from us. We don’t pull perseverance out of thin air. We can’t pull ourselves up by our bootstraps to the hope of the glory of God in heaven. That’s something God accomplished for us and in us.
That’s why Paul is careful to explain:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.[5]
God looked at you, and he saw a hopeless mess. He saw someone who would crumble and melt – whose knees would buckle – at the first piece of bad news. God looked at you and he saw someone whose default reaction to adversity is irritability and impatience or despair and fear. God looked at you when you were powerless and sinful, and he loved you. There were no redeeming qualities about you, but in love God decided to redeem you anyway.
And it was that incredibly rare, unique, once in a lifetime sacrifice that Jesus made – not for a righteous or even a good person, but for you, a sinner – it was that sacrifice that gives you peace. That’s where peace comes from. That’s how we got it. God gave it to you, though Jesus.
And it’s a peace unlike anything in this world. It’s not a peace between people. It’s not even necessarily a feeling of peacefulness or calmness in your life. It’s a peace with God and that is so much better. When we were powerless, when we were still in sin, we were at war with God. There was no peace, no hope, no way to persevere or pull through. There was only death and condemnation to look forward to. But now, because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we have peace with God. Our sins are forgiven. We have access into this grace in which we now stand.
This peace is not a fleeting feeling that we only experience when everything is just right. It is a present reality that doesn’t depend on you or the circumstances of life around you. It is a peace that is guaranteed to you by grace through faith in Jesus. This peace is a gift from the God who loves you, so that even if the sky starts to fall and you are losing your mind in fear or worry or guilt and shame you can at least hold on to God’s love and know that that will never change.
And the good news is that the longer you hold onto that love and the more storms you weather in life, the more Christian character you will develop as God pulls you through adversity and suffering. The longer you hold onto that love and the more storms you weather in life, the more confident your hope will be and the stronger you will be in your faith.
Do you want to be a stronger Christian? Be careful what you wish for! Buckle up, because you will face adversity. But if you remember the peace you have with God – this peace that comes from Jesus that no circumstance in life can change – if you remember that peace, then you can be sure that you can stand up under whatever adversity you face, because you do not face it alone. You have the unconditional love of God that sacrificed his Son for you and continues to pour out his Spirit into your heart to fill you with perseverance, character and hope in him.
Be gracious, O Lord, when we waver in our faith, and bring us again to embrace the unchangeable truth of your Word with penitent hearts and steadfast faith. Amen.
[1] Romans 5:3-5
[2] Martin Luther’s Commentary on Romans, pp. 90,91
[3] Romans 5:1
[4] Romans 5:1
[5] Romans 5:6-8