Or, Enduring the Process Romans 5:3-5 May 1, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

Peter blessed God that the elect are born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). Paul wrote that because believers have peace with God they exult in hope of the glory of God. Those who are spiritually dead have false hope at best, if they have any hope, and if they could understand what they were up against, they would be terrorized by what gives Christians hope.

Hope is a gift of God. Christian hope is the real deal. Hope works. Hope holds up. True hope is more than getting through the commercial break of a Hallmark movie.

How do we get more hope? Can we get more, or more vertebrate hope? Yes, we can. Yes, by God’s grace we will. We will graduate one day from needing hope, but it’s a required class for all His people.

Almost out of nowhere Paul brings up suffering, except it’s not really out of nowhere if we pause to think about what hope is good for. Hope is the end of Romans 5:1-2, and here again in 5:3-5. The “not only but also” starting verse 3 says, in effect, Wait, there’s more. Peace with God gives us hope, and so do problems. Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and things going badly.

There’s no command to be found here. It’s teaching, and actually more reminding, since we are “knowing,” already aware of how it works. More than reminding, it’s rejoicing, of the leaping/exulting sort. This is a doctrine of trials, even a doxology of trials, glorying in the hope (and glory) that God brings about in our sufferings.

There is a process that makes us more hopeful (verses 3-4) and a presence (verse 5) that makes the process effective.

Enduring the Process (verses 3-4)

When I taught through Ecclesiastes a number of years ago I emphasized what I understand to be Solomon’s theme: enjoying the process. It’s about finding joy in our toil under the sun, which is only possible by fearing the Lord (see Ecclesiastes 2:24-26). Here in Romans 5 it’s more than just vanity and striving after wind, it’s double-double toil and ouch. It requires endurance.

“Not only but also” (οὐ μόνον δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ) coordinates two rejoicings that may not seem obvious. We rejoice in hope and we rejoice in trials, which produce hope. Peace with God is a hope-giver, so are circumstances that are not peaceful. We exult in sufferings.

Sufferings, beloved, are more than one. There are numerous sufferings in one’s lifetime, there may be numerous sufferings at the same time. The translations vary in how to express this cocktail of problems: afflictions (HCSB), tribulations (Tyndale, NASB), sufferings (ESV). At its root the idea is pressure. Depending on the direction these either squeeze in or weigh down, or both.

What causes pressure? If you stick your head in a vice and crank that’s pressure, and don’t do that. Sin causes suffering so don’t pull the granite slab onto yourself. There’s also pressure just from living with gravity in a fallen world; things fall on us or we fall on things. There are also evil actors, spiritual and human, and they seek to crush God’s people (see Psalm 94:5).

Peter wrote that there is no credit if we sin and face the consequences bravely. Beyond that, though Paul adds no qualifications and provides no pietistic measuring stick. Jesus taught that being slandered is persecution (Matthew 5:11), though we can acknowledge it’s not the same as being stick-and-stoned to death. Being beaten and robbed hurts more than being canceled online, so we might be slower to build monuments for social media martyrs. Yet pressures and burdens and pains, words and more, all count.

The pressures might come from those who are abandoned to their lusts and are surprised you won’t join them (as in Romans 1:18-32, see more i[...]