Trust and Trials

Main idea: The Apostle Paul describes four reasons being justified by faith enables you to trust God in trials.

1. You have an established peace with God (Romans 5:1).
2. You have constant access to God’s grace (Romans 5:2a).
3. You can have joy over your future glory (Romans 5:2b-4).
4. You are saturated with the love of God (Romans 5:5).

• Automated Transcription

• 0:13
  just want to remind us the second service, we always have our live stream going, and there are some of our members who are at home, not able to come because of different health reasons and challenges we're facing. We want to remember them, to think of dot sign. We're praying for her. I see, oh, she's right over there. She's with us, not at home today. You got to come with us. Yeah? Other people like Judy Adams, you read about in the Yeah? Like, give dad a hand. I'm glad she's here today. It's great. Yeah, yeah. There's different people who are are not able to be with us, and they would love to be here with you. And so we want to remember them and pray for them, and if you know them, reach out and encourage them. So we're really glad that you can do that in person with doubt and others here today. So I get to preach this morning. Brian was on the schedule, but he is really sick, and so he's going to try to do it anyway, but he's just up all night coughing, couldn't stop coughing. And so we can pray for him in a minute, that God would give him strength in this trial of his health. So I get to preach today, and I just want to remind us, as we get into this topic of Romans, five, trusting God, because of his justification of us by faith, His love for us, where have we been going? We've been doing this trusting God series talking about God being in control, being sovereign. Ian rush preached several weeks ago from Isaiah 40 and I would encourage you to go back and read that chapter. God is in control of all the big things in the world. He is sovereign. He's the king of kings. There's no big thing, no detail that is outside of his control. Josh Gilchrist preached the following week from Psalm 147, God is sovereign over the little details he is in control. And then we saw John pleasant, preached from Psalm 119, 65 through 72 that God is good, and he does good. God is in control of all things, and he does good. He is good. And then Dan preached from Romans, 1133, 36 that God is wise. He knows all the possible outcomes, and he has chosen what he has chosen, because he is perfect and wise. He knows the best possible outcome for His glory and for our good, for the good of his people. Then last week, Dan talked about how God uses loving discipline from Hebrews 12. God disciplines every child he receives, not to punish us, but so that we'll share in the fruit of righteousness, so we'll become like him. He wants us to know him better and be like him, and so He lovingly cares for us and disciplines us through His providence and divine action. And so we want you to be confident that God is in control. God is good. God is wise. He knows what's best he wants, what's best for you, and God is love. God is committed to doing what is best for his people and to doing what is best for his glory. We've been following what Jerry bridges teaches so well in his book called trusting God, and he defines God's sovereignty as his constant care for and his absolute rule over all his creation for His own glory and the good of his people. God is constantly caring, absolutely ruling over everything for his own glory and for our good. And so today, as we look at Romans five, I want you to be encouraged by these truths, that God is a good, wise, loving, sovereign God that we can trust. So please stand with me. Turn in your Bibles to Romans five. We're gonna read Romans five, one through five. We're gonna see that we can trust God, because He justifies us by Faith gives us peace and grace and hope and love. Romans, five, verse one, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus, Christ, through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope and hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, 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. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together, God, we come before your sovereign, glorious throne, and we worship you. You are a good, wise, loving God. Thank you for giving us peace with you through Jesus Christ. Thank you for making us righteous when we were wicked through faith in Jesus. Thank you Christ for your sacrifice on the cross that shows us that God loves us. Thank you for giving us grace in which we can stand. Thank you for giving us a future hope that is sure and wonderful and glorious. Thank you for how you use our affliction now to work, work in us what is good and pleasing to you. Thank you for your love that's poured out in our hearts. God, we ask that these truths would be emblazoned on our hearts and our minds, that they would strengthen us, that you would strengthen us to trust you. I do know the trials that each person in this room is going through, the temptations to see. In the afflictions, the difficulties, and I pray that each of us would be strengthened to trust you, to believe the gospel, to rest in you, Christ. I pray for anyone here who doesn't know you, that you would open their eyes to believe in you Christ, to flee from the wrath of God that is coming and to find peace through Jesus Christ, God. We pray for our sister churches around the city. We think especially of three crosses over on assembly. We pray for Corey gage and for Dave Hammond, and for the other Dear brothers and sisters there that you would strengthen them, to love you, to glorify you, to trust in you, make your name known through that church. We think also of Princeton Avenue Church with Aaron badly and Jess Colvin and all the other dear sisters and brothers there that we pray that you would strengthen them, help them to please you, to love you, to preach you faithfully, to trust in you. God help each one of us in our spheres where we live, to glorify you. We pray for our brothers and sisters around the world today, this morning, as our teams are around the world, God that you would strengthen them, use them for your glory. Help them to be an encouragement. Pray for Tim and Leslie as they go out. We pray for Brian that you would strengthen him. Help him to trust you in his trial he's in and God. We thank you for your goodness. Please speak to us right now by your word. We pray in Your name, Jesus, amen may be seated.
  
  6:17
  How can we trust God in the midst of trials? All of us who know Christ have faced different kinds of trials, right? We're constantly facing different things, whether it's Temptations to sin, physical suffering, people around you, afflicting you different kinds of brokenness. This passage, Romans five, one through five is really helpful, no matter what you're going through, to strengthen you to trust God. I've experienced that personally a lot of different points in my life. There was one point in 2015 though, where this passage became especially precious to me. I thought I had a kidney stone. My abdomen was hurting really bad, and my doctor said, Go get a CT scan see if it's a kidney stone. And then I found out that I had cancer. And so I'm a fairly healthy 35 year old, and then now I'm like, Oh, am I gonna die? And so for a few days, it was kind of scary, but also, like, the peace of God and the comfort of God, when you don't know if you're going to die or not, it's very overwhelming. It was to me anyway, like you're like, I don't think I'm ever going to want to sin again. I'm going to see Jesus face to face. Is going to be amazing. And then a couple days in, I found out, oh, this is a treatable cancer. It's testicular cancer in my abdomen. They can give me chemotherapy. I'm going to be okay. And so it kind of changed from this, like, massive mountaintop experience trial to like a more like, felt like I had, like, a low grade fever for three months, just kind of a, you know, a little bit of misery, but not nothing too terrible, at least for me. Anyway, it was probably harder for my wife thinking about what might happen and taking care of our kids while I was not doing great. But in that time, I was challenged by Romans five to rejoice in my sufferings, although they were small, relatively and it wasn't a huge thing, but it was, it was suffering, and I had to rejoice. Sometimes it's harder with that low grade. This is not going to kill you, but it's a little bit miserable kind of trials. You know, you have a rebellious kid, a spouse and who you're not getting along very well with, a difficult parent, your job isn't that great, or it's not providing for you like you'd like it to or your back is hurting all the time, or your legs aren't working right, or whatever it might be. We all face those little trials or big trials, afflictions, temptations. How do we trust God in those trials? We can be tempted to think, God, are you mad at me? Do you love me? Did I miss something on that repenting of my sin and being forgiven bit Are you like punishing me for some sin I did? Is that why I'm suffering we can doubt God's love when we're going through these trials, big or small in Romans, five shows us we can trust God. Paul gives us four powerful reasons that being justified by faith enables us to trust God in trials. Four reasons why being justified by faith enables you to trust God in trials. Look at what we see here. We have an established peace with God. We have constant access to God's grace. We can have joy over our future glory. We are saturated with the love of God. So four powerful reasons from this passage. And I want you if you don't remember anything, I say, remember this passage. Remember these five verses. Remember these gospel realities, no matter what you're facing. These can strengthen your heart to trust God, to trust His love, to trust him, no matter what you're going through. So first, let's look at verse one. We have an established peace with God. You have peace with God if you're in Christ. He says, Therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You might think, Well, why do I need peace with God? I didn't know I was at war with God. When it says, You have peace with God, he's implying that there was there was a problem before there was hostility. But the reality we see in Romans is that every single human being, until they come to repent and trust in Christ is at war with God. If you turn back a few pages to Romans. One, we see that there's this good news that comes because there's bad news Romans. 116 Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. This announcement of victory of Christ, for it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. You. What do we need to be saved from? Why is there this good news? Well, look at verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. And as you read through the passage, it shows our unrighteousness, as we deny God, rather than giving thanks to the creator for all that he's done, we worship and serve His creation instead of him, we reject God. Every single one of us, from our infancy, are sinners. Romans, 323, it says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's not one of us other than the Lord Jesus Christ, not one human being who has escaped this problem of being an enemy of God. Colossians, 121, says we're alienated from him, engaged in hostile deeds. We are God's enemies because of our sin. Whether you feel like that's your motivation or not, that is the reality. We are all God's enemies facing his wrath. What is God's wrath like? Think back to the flood. What did God do at the flood? With his wrath? He destroyed the entire Earth with the flood. What did God do in the time of Noah, I'm sorry, in the time of lot with Sodom and Gomorrah, he sent down fire from heaven to destroy those who were engaged in hostility against him. What did God do with the angels? He kicked them out of his presence. God is who sinned against Him. God is a holy God, and he is going to pour out His wrath on his enemies. We need peace with God. This is a desperate need that every human has. And you might be thinking, well, is that really talking about me? Am I really hostile to God? Look at Romans 129
  
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  we see that all of us have been guilty of unrighteousness of not meeting God's standard Romans 129 they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give heart, give approval to those who practice them. That's all of us before we met Christ. We all deserve God's wrath. We are His enemies because of our sin. Romans 623 says the wages of sin is death. Right? We deserve death to be separated from God. And so this news in Romans, five one is good news. He says we have been justified by faith. Since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God. If you're Ukraine and Russia in a war and they're trying to negotiate a treaty, you're thinking like, can I get what I want if I keep fighting, or should I give up and accept the terms of the treaty? If you're Gaza and Israel, you're deciding, am I going to keep fighting or not? Anytime they keep fighting, it's because they think they're going to get something that they that they want if we are or because they think that it's not they can't give up and give into the terms that are being offered to them. With us fighting God, is it? Can we win? Are we going to get something from God if we keep fighting him? No one who's an enemy of God is going to stand in the end. We will not stand. We will be laid flat by his wrath. And so there's a desperate need for peace with God. And so Paul makes it really clear in Romans, how are we justified? Look at Romans, 322, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus, Christ. For all who believe, that is how God has made his righteousness known. It's through faith in Jesus. It's not by doing good deeds, it's not by works, it's not by cleaning up our act. It is by faith in Jesus. So we are justified by faith. What does justified mean? He declares you righteous. He says you are righteous. He makes you right with him. He gives you relationship with Him. That is what we have. If we put our faith in Jesus, we have righteousness. Peace with God. What is that? Peace with God? It's this relationship where we we have peace with our relationship with Him is flourishing, like when you plant a garden and there's the right and there's the right kind of soil and the right kind of water and sunlight, and there's tomatoes and raspberries and zucchini and pumpkins and strawberries and plums and all this stuff growing. That's flourishing when your car is humming and it's the engines purring and everything sounds great, and the wheels aren't about to fall off and the brakes are working great. It's It's flourishing when all your kids are getting along well, and you and your wife are so happy with each other and and the checkbook has lots of money in it. Everything's great. It's flourishing. God is saying, with our relationship with Him, we have peace. All those other circumstances may not be great, but with God, we can have peace if we've been justified by Jesus. What does it say that Jesus did to be to justify us, to make us right with Him. Romans, five, eight, right? It says, God demonstrates His love. He shows His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Holy. God gave His holy Son, infinite perfect, to die in our place on the cross, to take the wrath of God so that we can be made right with God. We can have peace with God. Jesus died in our place, and Paul is showing them, all you have to do is believe, trust in Christ. Rest in Him, submit to Him. He makes you righteous. He makes you at peace with God. And so you can trust God in the midst of trials, if you put your faith in Jesus, because you have peace with God, you have peace. Yes, maybe you're. Back hurts, or you're worse. You're dying, or you people that you love hate you, or you don't have enough money, or things are going really poorly in all kinds of aspects of your life. But if you have trusted in Jesus, you have peace with God. You have a relationship with God, and nothing that's happening to you is him giving you his wrath. He's not punishing you. Yes, he might be purifying you, disciplining you, helping you, but God is not mad at you. He's not angry at you. He's not punishing you. You have peace with God. This is an objective kind of peace. It's faith. It's through faith in Jesus. You're forgiven, declared righteous. This is not dependent on you. It's totally dependent on him. It's objective peace with God. So you can have experiential peace, remembering this peace you have with God, you can remember, even though everything around me is not going well, it is well with my soul, because I have peace with God, because I have Jesus, because I'm his child. What is God's attitude towards his children? It's the same attitude he has towards Christ. How does God the Father treat God the Son? He loves his son. He delights in His Son. He's pleased with his son so much so that he spoke from heaven and said, This is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. That's how God feels about you. If you're in Christ, he feels the same way he feels about Christ. If God could be hostile to Jesus, His beloved Son, then he could be hostile to you, but he cannot. And so you can trust God. If he's not angry with you, you have peace with him. If you're in Christ, nothing that you do can change that. It's what Christ has done that makes you right with God and your trust in Him. So I encourage you, if you haven't trusted in Christ, now is the time. Today is the day you don't need to go any longer as God's enemy. You can trust in Him. You can submit your life to Christ. You can believe that He died on the cross for your sins and rose again. He wants to have peace with you, you need to repent of fighting against him and trust in Him. And everyone sitting around you who knows Jesus, we would beg you, consider Jesus. He's amazing. Trust in Him. He can forgive you, just like we sang. He is good, he is wise, he is loving, He is in control. So we see, first, you have an established peace with God. This is a reason to trust him in the midst of him in the midst of trials. Secondly, we have constant access. You have constant access to God's grace. Constant access. Look at verse two, through Him, through Jesus Christ, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We have access. That word access is like if you're in a ship. Back before we had airplanes, we used to take ships everywhere, right? And so if your ship was gonna go somewhere, it had to go into a port, like where there was a bay, where there was access. You can't just go anywhere you want and just pull up and get off the ship, right? You gotta have access. Or if you're an army attacking another city, you gotta have access to the city. If there's a moat around it and a big wall and people shooting arrows, then there's no access. But if you break that wall down, or you get across the moat, then you have access. This is access to something better. This is access to God's grace. We have access and we stand in His grace. Both of these verbs have and stand are both in the perfect tense, which means it's a it's a completed thing with ongoing results. We have access to God's grace continually. It's ongoing. It's a state that we're in with ongoing effects. We stand in God's grace. We're in up to our necks in God's grace. He is for us so we can trust him. We're standing in his grace. We're not standing in our own performance. We're not standing in how good we did yesterday. How many times we had a quiet time last week? How many times many times we didn't blow it and get mad when something didn't go right? We're not standing in us. We're standing in God's grace. What is his grace? It's his favor, his, his being graciously disposed towards us. He is now and forever more graciously disposed toward us. It's God's favor towards us. His, love, God's riches at Christ's expense, it's what God gives us of himself over and over. It's Grace. It's not something we deserve. It's something he gives us freely because of how great he is. Turn over to Romans eight. We see examples of God's grace. Romans eight, verse 31
  
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  What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all. How will He not also with Him, graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, who is to condemn Christ. Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised, who's at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. He is for us. You see what it says there. He's given us Jesus, his son. Is he not gonna also graciously give us all things? If he's given you Christ, is he gonna hold back now something else you need, like I gave you Jesus, but now I can't give you that grace for that trial. No, you are standing in his grace. You have access day after day, moment by moment, to his grace. So what does that mean when you're facing that physical trial, when someone's mad at you, who you love, when things are difficult, when you're facing that temptation over and over to sin, and you're like, I don't want to be tempted that way anymore. What does this mean? You are standing in grace. If you've trusted in Jesus, you are in His grace. He's not mad at you. He loves you, and he wants to help you. He wants to give you grace. Grace. Take some of that grace, some patience for my kids that are fighting, some trust to not worry about having enough, some endurance for the pain I'm going through. Some comfort from God that He loves me and accepts me, even though these people reject me. You can take that grace. You're swimming in it. You're swimming in grace all around you. God's given it to you. You're standing in it, you have access to it all the time, and so you can trust him. He saved you by grace, and he's going to keep sustaining you and causing you to stand by grace, like Paul says in Galatians three, are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? His point is, we were saved by grace, and now, day by day, with each passing moment, we're standing by grace as we receive Christ, Jesus, the Lord we walk in him, Colossians, two, six, right? It's Grace. God is giving us grace to stand in, to live by. And so that is what you need to remember. As we go through afflictions. He's giving you grace. And so the point of the affliction is, so you can take advantage of more grace. You can debit your account more, because you see, I need this, God, please give me grace. I need this. Give me grace. He wants you to know Him better, to experience his comfort, Grace His Holiness, Grace His forgiveness, Grace his acceptance, Grace all the grace he gives. He wants you to experience that multi colored grace that He gives for all those different kinds of trials. That's why James says in James says in James one two, consider joy when you encounter various trials, right? God's giving you different kinds of grace for different kinds of trials. You can have joy in your trial because God gives you grace. So we have peace with God. We stand in His grace, constant access to his grace, and then we see, thirdly, we can have joy over our future glory. You can have joy over your hope your future glory. Promises of God, these are another reason why we can trust God in trials, because we have joy in our future glory. Look at verse two, the second half, he says, and we rejoice in the hope of glory. Literally, we exalt, we boast. We boast in Christ, in the hope of glory. What is hope of glory? That word hope is not like, I hope it rains in Spokane in the summer like it rained last week one time. That was pretty impressive. Maybe the only time we get all summer, right? Or like, I hope I don't get a bad back when I go to silver wood and I ride those bumpy rides. That's not really a very good hope. I hope I don't get fat from eating too much ice cream. You know, these are hopes based on lies. Probably right, they're not even true. Hope in the Bible, is based on something God has said. When God says something, does it happen? Did God say, Let there be light and there's like, wait for it, wait for it. Let me try again. That didn't work. I work out, let there be light. No. When he says, Let there be light, it comes. There's light. When God says something, it happens. This is hope based on what God has promised, we have hope of the glory of God. What has God promised? Philippians, 321, he's promised to transform the body of our humble state and to conform you with the body of His glory, our bodies afflicted and riddled with pain and dying. From the moment you're born, you're moving towards dying. And it hurts. It's painful our bodies with remaining sin, tempted to sin, tempted not to trust God, tempted to doubt, tempted to forget that he loves us and to go after other things. Instead of him, he will transform those bodies into glorious, perfect bodies with no sin, no death, no sickness, no suffering. When we see Jesus face to face first John 32 says, We will be like Him, because we'll see Him as He is, we are going to be like Colossians. 34 says, When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, you'll be like Him in glory. You'll be with Him in His glory, He will transform us to be like Him. That is our future hope, and we rejoice in that hope and the suffering we go through now it's preparing us for that. He's using it to prepare us for that moment of seeing him. What is Christ going to do? He's going to reign forever in the millennial kingdom, in the new heavens and new earth. He's going to reign from the throne of David. He's going to destroy all sin, destroy all rebellion against Him. We're going to serve Him and love each other perfectly. That's what we're looking forward to. That's the hope of our glory, hope of the glory of God. We're going to see His glory, all of his glory and radiance, and we're going to be like him. We're going to have the capacity to love God with all of our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to never fail at that. What a glorious day that would be. That's our hope. We see here in this passage, this this past peace with God. We've been secured by our justification to be at peace with God. We have a present grace. We stand in grace we're standing in, and we have a future hope and joy and exaltation. But then you look at verse three, and it's kind of like we know when you're playing the music, and music is building, and it's all beautiful, and all of a sudden there's like, what happened there? Like a little dissonance, what happened here? I get the first part, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Yeah, the glory of God. That's exciting. Then the second part, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Whoa. Hold on a second, Paul, are you sure about that part we rejoice? In our sufferings, we boast in our sufferings.
  
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  It's parallel there. He's saying, we hope, we rejoice in the hope of glory of God, and we rejoice in our sufferings. See the parallel statements there? Why? Thankfully. Paul explains himself. He says, 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 is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who given to us. You see the connection here. He starts with hope, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and he ends with our suffering produces character and hope. And so we see it's really about this hope, this future glory. What is the connection between our suffering and our future glory, the glory of God that we're going to see and we're going to become he's using our suffering now to give us more confidence in His promises, and to prepare us for those promises, to make us like him. Look at what he says happens, our suffering, our tribulations, our afflictions, primarily other people, persecuting them, trying to kill them, but also physical sufferings, relational suffering, all kinds of suffering, temptations, that suffering produces endurance. It produces perseverance. Like, if you're a runner, like my son, likes to run a lot, and I try to run alongside of him. I go a lot slower than him, but you build up endurance in your muscles. You run right when you play in musical instrument, like a lot of people were doing up here, you get muscle endurance, like your lips get endurance for playing that saxophone, or your fingers on the piano, or you get endurance from practicing over and over and over. How many hours do they spend practicing those instruments? A lot, right? It's a lot of hours building up muscles. How many hours do runners spend, or swimmers, if they're like, really high level. They spend hours practicing over and over and over. What are our trials doing? We're exercising the muscles of faith. We're using our muscles to trust God. Yes, I'm justified by faith in Christ, and He loves me now. Peace with him, and I'm standing in his grace. We're trusting him. We're having to trust again and again and again that what he says is true, and he's strengthening us to keep trusting him. What does that continual endurance, perseverance, trusting produce? It produces character that's proven character. It's like when you have a steel and you temper it. You know about tempering steel? I was learning from Google AI this morning a little bit about tempering steel. It was very in it was very insightful. So when you get something really hot, then eventually, like, there's changes that happen chemically inside that metal. So it gets breakable. Like, yesterday, I was changing the valve cover gasket, and when I put the bolts back in for the valve cover, that's the thing on the top of the engine, I over tightened one of them and snap broke right off. Like, oh, it was going so well. But what's happened is that bullet has gotten hot over time, and it's gotten weaker. Weaknesses are built up in it. So tempering takes that metal, that steel, that's gotten weaknesses, and it heats it to a certain temperature, not so high that it builds more weaknesses. It heats it to a certain temperature, low enough that it gets out those weaknesses and strengthens it. Sometimes it makes a little bit softer, but it strengthens it and tempers it. What does God do in us? He gives you trials, in his wisdom, in His goodness, in His love, in His sovereignty, that are perfect. For getting that impurity out of you, for purifying you, for getting out of you the things that are that are not pleasing to Him, that are not like Christ. He's making you like Christ. That's what Romans 829, says, right? He's predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son. That's God's goal, is to make you like Jesus, because that's the best thing for you. What could be better for you or for me than to be like Christ? Nothing he wants you to have what's best for you. So he heats up your life. He gives you that trial, that suffering, that affliction, that's just enough to keep on strengthening you, tempering you, making you like him, not so hot that you're destroyed by it, and not short enough where it doesn't do anything in you like he's gives it to you long enough. And like Dan said last week, I think it's not like you can think, okay, if I learned my lesson fast enough, God, get me out of this thing. It doesn't quite work like that, right? Like He's sovereign and knows exactly what he's doing. We don't always know. We can't like kind of maneuver, like, I put the quarter in the machine enough, it'll it'll stop. No, this guy's not a machine. You can put a quarter in, right? He's our good sovereign father. He's the potter. We're the clay. He knows exactly what you need. So a lot of times when we're in suffering and trials, we're like, Oh, why is this happening to me? Why did I break the bullet off? Why are my kids fighting again? Why do I have a bad back? Why? Why this? Why that? Why do I don't have more whatever we all have these things we complain about, but God knows what we need. We're complaining against him. He loves us. He knows how hot it needs to get in your life, to purify you, to make you like Christ. So that's what he does, because he's good. And so Paul says, rather than getting angry about it and complaining, he says, We rejoice in this, in the afflictions. We rejoice in our sufferings. And that's what stood out to me in 2015 and what I need to keep remembering, because this. So easy to complain, so easy to say, why God? Why are you doing this? But God wants to use my suffering and your suffering to cause us to have proven character, to temper us. What does that do? It gives us hope. How does that work? Listen to second Corinthians, 416, and 17. Therefore we do not lose heart. But though our outer man is decaying, that our inner man is being renewed day by day. Momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. He's changing us. He's making us like Christ, and the more he makes you like Christ, the more confidence you have in Him, and the more trust in him you have that hope gets stronger, and he's preparing you like read Philippians three. He's laid a hold of you to make you like Christ. And all that suffering, all that obedience, all that trusting him and letting in him is it's preparing you for that resurrection. He's preparing you right now for what you will be. He's not just leaving you static at where he saved you. He's growing you to make you more and more like Jesus, so that when you see Jesus, then that then the work is completed, but he's bringing you there through your suffering, through your trials, through your afflictions, producing a new and eternal weight of glory, far beyond all comparison, your hope, your confidence. I've sat and talked to some of you even recently. You have confidence in God's promises as you're suffering. That's a beautiful, glorious thing that encourages other people's faith. That's what God wants to produce in you. Is confidence in him, hope in Him and what he's going to do in you, hope, confidence in His love and His faithfulness to keep his promises. Will God keep his promises? Yes. Will God complete the work he started in us? Yes. Are we going to see Jesus face to face and be like Him in His glory? Yes. So now we rejoice in our suffering. There's this false teaching in the prosperity gospel. If you believe in Jesus, you'll be healthy, wealthy and prosperous, and everything will be great. Everyone will bow down and just love you and think you're amazing, your 401 K and your stocks will always shoot up, and all your kids are going to be amazing, and your spouse will think you're amazing, and it'll just be great. You just gotta just just believe it and just say it, just declare it. It's this gospel teaching that it's like, once you believe in Jesus, it's just all, everything's perfect, everything's glory. Right away. What did Jesus say, though, in the gospels, if anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Was Jesus describing the health, wealth and prosperity gospel? No, he was saying, you're gonna get persecuted. They're gonna try to kill you, and they might actually kill some of you. It's gonna be hard, but follow me, and that's that's the thing that each of us are doing. We're following Jesus. We see that he's worth it, even though, in this life, we get to rejoice in suffering, not all the time. We're Americans, and there's a lot of really pleasant, fun things happening in our lives, but we still have suffering. We still have temptations. God's keeping us. He's showing us that we need him. He's helping us to love Him, to know him better. He's working in us what he wants to do. Second, Timothy 312 says, Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted. God is going to bring trial and testing, because he wants to temper and strengthen our faith. He wants to make us like Christ. So he's going to keep doing that work.
  
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  And we see the fourth benefit, the fourth reason that being justified enables us to trust in God and trials, we are saturated with the love of God. You are saturated with the love of God. Look at verse five. This is the hope that our testing and character and and perseverance produces this hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. If I put my hope in the Seahawks or the mariners to bring me glory as one of their fans, I might be disappointed. I might not, but it's not a very it's not a very sure thing. If I put my hope in, I'm gonna put some stock in Starbucks. I'll buy that. I'll put my hope in apple. Maybe it'll work out. Maybe not. I don't know. Like you might be disappointed you put your hope in other people treating you well. Maybe they're great. Maybe they're not. Like there's a lot of things we put our hope in, but if you put your hope in God, in His love, in his sovereign care for you, in his promises and his word. Through the gospel, you will not be disappointed. And that's the confidence we come to as we suffer. We're convinced more and more God is faithful. He keeps his promises. He's not going to disappoint us. We're not going to see Jesus in the end and be like, Oh, really no. We're going to be like, Wow, this is amazing. I can't believe it. What was I doing my whole life thinking that something else was better than him at different moments, like he's gonna show us that He's amazing. He's doing that now we have a hope that is not gonna disappoint us. What is this hope? It's He's poured out His love in our hearts. God has given us himself. What is love? Love gives someone what's best for them. What is the best thing for you and I? God Himself. Could he give us something that would be better than himself? No, there's nothing better than him. What is the lie of the world in our sin? Oh, if you had that, that might be a little better, you could go over there and no, what God has for us is always what's best for us. So we remember. His love. He is the best thing for us. What does he give us? He pours out His love in our hearts. He saturates. He pours out to overflowing, so much so that it's just overflowing his love in our hearts, him loving us, caring for us, giving us himself in our trials. We think, God, I would be okay if my kids didn't fight as much, or maybe if I didn't get tempted to sin in that particular way, or maybe if I had it easier here at my job, there's all these things we think about that might be, we might like better, and God's like, No, you're going to have that, but I'm going to give you myself. You're going to know me better. It's going to be okay. It's actually better for you, because you get to know me. So rather than God taking away our suffering and our affliction, he gives us more of himself to enable us to endure, to trust Him, to make it through the trials, to have peace, to have trust, to have love from him. And this understanding of our justification by faith, it's huge, because if you don't understand that, you're thinking this bad thing is happening in my life, God must hate me. I guess I blew it. I guess I didn't get it right. Maybe I didn't say the right words in the prayer. And I right words in the prayer, and I messed it up somehow. Now I'm in trouble like no God has justified you. Declared you righteous through faith in Christ. You belong to Him and the suffering that's happening now, it's part of the plan for him to give you more of himself, to love you. He's poured out His love in your heart. How has he done that? What does it say in this verse, God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. What did God do to pour out his hearts and pour out His love on us? He gave us Himself, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. He gives them to us to live in us, to change us, to give us a heart that loves him like Ezekiel 36 says, to purify us, to give us a desire to know Him more and to serve Him and to be like Him. The Holy Spirit shows us the glory of God in Scripture. He helps us to believe the Bible. He shows us the glory of Christ in the gospel. He helps us to trust. He empowers us to love each other, to show each other love. He is amazing, and he's giving us himself. He's the guarantee. What does Ephesians 113 and 14 say? 14 say? It says that the Holy Spirit has been given us. We've been sealed by him as a guarantee of our inheritance. How do we know that Jesus' promises are true? He said, I'm going to go and make a place for you. I'm going to come back. He says, For a little while, you're going to have trouble in the world, but with me, you're going to have peace. It's like I'm coming back for you. How do we know that's true. He gave us the Holy Spirit. He's giving us the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit in us. How do you know, if you trusted in Jesus, he's giving you the Holy Spirit. It's a gift he gives at the point of salvation, and he helps you to know that God loves you and to trust Him and to believe His Word. And so what is the answer for us, as we go through trials, how can we trust God more. We need to reflect on, meditate on, bask, soak in the truths of the gospel. Think about that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life. Think about the gospel. Think about how you have peace with God. You are at peace with God. It is well with your soul. You are standing in his grace. He's given you grace day by day, grace to love other people, grace to obey Him, grace to say no to sin, grace to trust Him, grace to endure the trials, even though they're hard and they hurt. He's given you grace, and you have a future hope of the glory of God that he's given you, and he's preparing you for that future day by day, through trials, he's giving you, he's tempering you, he's purifying you, and He loves you. He wants you to remember that he's given you himself. How can you trust God and have joy when you lose your spouse, when they die, you have the Holy Spirit with you, reminding you that God loves you, and even though it hurts and you miss your spouse, he's with you and He loves you. How can you trust God? When you lose a child, you know that he loves you. He's given you his spirit. Jesus died on the cross for your sins. God's showing you that He loves you. You don't look at your circumstances and say, Oh, I lost that person I loved. Maybe God hates me. Now, you look at Jesus, who God gave on the cross, and say, Yeah, God loves me. He knows what it's like to lose somebody. He can comfort me. And there's hope, a future hope of glory. He's with me. You can trust him. What can you do when you're being tempted to sin? Remember his peace, remember his grace you're standing in. Remember the future hope of glory and pursue purity because of Christ, who's working you. He's giving you his Spirit himself. He comforts us those little trials every day when we're tempted to complain and armchair quarterback it like, come on, God wouldn't be better if we did this instead of that? Like that person driving in front of me right now when I'm already late, my car breaking down. Ian, I got that bill I got to pay. Now that person's mad at me, that kid's not really cooperating with my plans. Like all these things happen, and we can start complaining. We forget that God has poured out His love in us through the Holy Spirit that He's given us, and he's with us. He hasn't left. He didn't take a bathroom break and leave your life for a while, while that bad thing happened. Him. He's right there with you. He wants to sustain your trust in Him and sustain you and love you through it, and purify you and give you more of himself. So I encourage you think about the trials you're facing, the Temptations to sin, the difficulties, the afflictions, the situations where you're saying, God, where are you? Keep crying out to Him, but trust that you have peace with him. If you trusted in Jesus, you are standing in his grace sufficient. Grace sufficient for every situation. He is enough. His love is enough, his comfort is enough, His Holiness is enough. His forgiveness is enough. His future hope of the glory of God is enough to sustain us. His presence with us now is enough. God gives you himself. He says, I'm with you for me. That was one of the most precious things going through trials, and the cancer was a small trial compared to other trials with relationships and family and kids. Those kinds of things are way harder, I think, at least for me. But the thing that gave me comfort and gives me comfort now, because I don't know what the next thing's coming isn't as you preach a sermon like this, you're like, Okay, something bad can happen. Now, you know, does God prepare me for something that I'm not going to like? But the thing that he keeps showing me is he is with us. Jesus is saying what I said in Matthew 2820 Lord, I'm with you. Always that part that's real. He's with us. And that is the most precious thing, no matter what trial you're going through to know that Christ is with you, Holy Spirit is with you, the Father is with you. So you can trust because he loves you and he's with you. Let's pray God, we thank You for Your Word that fills us with hope and confidence in you and your future promises to us. Thank you, Christ for loving us. Thank you for giving yourself on the cross to die in our place. Thank you for raising from the dead and guaranteeing our future hope of the glory of God that we will see you reigning forever perfectly we will reign with you. Thank you for the peace we have through Christ. Thank you for the grace that we stand in day by day, moment by moment. Help us to repent of complaining, to repent of doubting your love, to repent of forgetting about you and making it about ourselves. To repent of thinking that we know better God. Thank You that You are good. We can trust you in trials. Thank you for the foundation of the gospel. That's not only our foundation, but that's the fuel for every day. Help us to keep trusting you and standing in your grace. Amen.

Nathan Thiry

Nathan Thiry is the Growth Groups & Outreach Pastor at Faith Bible Church. He enjoys biking and outdoor activities, and has a passion to see the gospel spread throughout our community and the whole world!

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