Romans 5:2-5: When It Just Doesn’t Turn Out Right

INTRODUCTION

In an article in Christian Century (February 11, 2011), Pastor Diane Ross tells about how she had received a call a couple of weeks before from a woman in her congregation. The woman had been coming to church with an older gentleman, a friend of the family. He couldn't drive anymore, so she had volunteered to take him to church. She had said it would help her be more regular in her own worship attendance. When she called, she was excited. She wanted her pastor to officiate at her wedding in May.

“I'm 60 years old and I'm getting married for the first time!” she told her pastor. She couldn't believe her luck. She had gotten re-acquainted with an old friend, the son of the man that she brought to church. And they had decided to get married.

A week after this call, the pastor learned that the woman was hospitalized with complications from a cold. On Thursday night, she had a stroke. On Tuesday, she died.

When her pastor arrived at the room of the woman’s mother to plan the funeral, the mother’s first words were: “It didn’t turn out right.”

Pastor Ross comments, “Some people talk about the ‘sovereignty of God’ as if God has orchestrated every single blessed and tragic small and great thing in the world. They say that very single solitary thing that happens is part of ‘God's plan,’ as if God is pulling all kinds of strings all over the place. I believe in the sovereignty of God, but I'm not sure that's what it means. I think that somehow, in the end, God will work everything for good, that there will be a time and a place where there is no more crying and no more death, where every tear will be wiped away, and where we will cast our crowns before the throne of the Lamb. In the meantime, sometimes, ‘it just doesn't turn out right.’”

Sometimes people say things like: “Everything happens for a reason,” or “God has a plan,” or “God’s in control,” or “Whatever happens is for the best,” or “It must be God’s will.”

Maybe you have said—or thought—such things. Some Christians believe that God micromanages the universe, so that everything that happens, happens according to God’s script—as if we are simply players in the play that God wrote before the beginning of time.

But that’s not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that many things happen that aren’t God’s will.

It’s not God’s will that people are terrorized in wars started by wicked men.

It’s not God will that people starve to death.

It’s not God’s will that tsunamis and earthquakes take thousands of lives.

It’s not God’s will that people kill, and cheat, and steal.

It’s not God’s will that babies are born profoundly handicapped—to grow up and go through life with terrible burdens.

It’s not God’s will that little children are tricked into becoming sexual playthings of wicked men.

Bad theology blames all the trouble in the world on God.

The idea that everything is according to God’s plan is a terrible stumbling block to faith in God.

God loves us. And God weeps—as we do—at the tragedies that befall humankind.

I hope I can tell you something from God’s Word that will help us to think about the sorrows that we all experience—and even sorrows that are worse than anything anyone in this room has had to endure.

Part of the problem is that God has created a world that is free.

God could have created a world of puppets instead of people. Then he could just pull the strings and we would all do what he wanted us to do.

But then we could have no choices. It would be a world without love.

I suppose that God could have created a natural world that would have no earthquakes, no floods, no droughts, no germs, and no accidents.

God is omnipotent—he could have made a world in which he would control everything like an author controls all the events in his story. But that would be a world with no freedom, no love, no faith or courage.

Not only are humans free in our world, so nature is also free. If everything in nature was an expression of God’s will, then the whole world would be simply a part of God.

But the world is not God. The world is also free, and things happen because nature is not scripted by God but free to develop and change.

Did you know that God also grieves? Paul begs the Ephesian believers: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30).

God is also sometimes disappointed. In Genesis 6—this was the time before Noah’s flood—we read, “When God saw the wickedness of mankind was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of people’s hearts was only evil continually, he was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.”

Jesus wept over the fate of Jerusalem. Jesus wept at Lazarus’s grave. Jesus weeps today as he views the sorrows of our sad old world.

A few weeks ago a young white man visited a Bible study at Mother Immanuel Church, an African-American Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The church members welcomed him, and after enjoying their hospitality for an hour, he took out his gun and shot 9 of them dead. Do you think God did not weep?

A few months ago in Iraq ISIS fighters challenged four brothers—the oldest was 15—to renounce Christ. The boys said, “No we love Jesus; we have always loved Jesus; we have always followed Jesus. Jesus has always been with us.” The terrorists demanded, “Say the words to renounce Jesus!” The boys said, “No, we can’t.” And the terrorists sliced their throats. Do you think God did not weep?

Do you think that God did not weep when people were buried alive in the earthquake in Nepal a few weeks ago?

Do you think that God did not grieve with you when your dear one died?

God sent his Son into the world was so that he could experience solidarity with us humans in our sufferings.

Jesus experienced disappointment, hatred, injustice, betrayal, mockery—and the most horrific death wicked men could devise. He even experienced the feeling of being abandoned by God!

Jesus understands. He sympathizes. He walks with us. He holds our hand as we go through the dark valleys.

Now that I’ve laid out the problem—I hope I won’t disappoint you by admitting that I don’t have the answer to why there’s so much trouble in the world.

Some people say that the Bible gives us the answers to all our questions. But that isn’t true. Scripture is not a sun; it is a lamp. The Bible tells us truth from God.

The Bible tells us what we need to know to live for him—to live a life of faith and service to others.

But  we have to live with questions.

But God’s Word does give us some ways to look at evil and sorrow that will help us to keep believing that God is good. We can believe that he loves us and that he can make things come out for the best, after all.

That is what the “omnipotence of God” means. It means that God can bring good out of evil. He can bless his people even in this world of sorrow.

And he has another whole new world in which to make up for the sorrows of this one.

I have read whole books about this problem. I don’t have time to tell you what is in those books.

But I would like to bring one scripture to your attention that will help us to begin to think about the subject.

It is in Romans 5, beginning in the middle of verse 2:

We rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope,

and hope does not disappoint us,

because God’s love has been poured into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

I. How can St. Paul say, “We rejoice in our sufferings”?

A. The word translated “rejoice” is kauchaomai, which is usually translated “boast.”

But boasting in English usually means bragging or advertising oneself.

So our translators used the word “rejoice.” Paul isn’t saying that whenever we suffer, we are bubbling over with happiness. He is saying that when we suffer, we can have a triumphant, rejoicing confidence—in God!

Because we suffer, God can achieve good in our lives that would not be otherwise possible.

B. Then Paul writes: “…and suffering produces endurance.”

Can you imagine what you would be like if your life had been always easy. Suppose that, as a child, you had always been given whatever you wanted. You would have been a “spoiled child.” You would have been obnoxious.

Suppose that you had never had a disappointment, only and always success?

How would you have developed the inner strength to deal with your troubles now?

The Greek word translated here “endurance” is hupomone. The lexicon gives these meanings for the word: “patient endurance,” “steadfastness,” “perseverance,” and “fortitude.”

Suffering can break us. Or it can make us stronger—if we hold fast to God and never give up.

Do you remember roller skates? (Children don’t have roller skates any more, but we did.) A little boy had been given a pair of roller skates. He was trying hard to stay up on them, but he kept falling down.

A well-meaning grownup said, “Why don’t you take a break and try again later?”

But the boy answered, “I didn’t get these new skates to give up on!”

That little boy was learning something that day besides how to roller skate. He was learning patient endurance.

C. Next, “…and patient endurance produces character.”

The word translated “character” is dokime. It means “a proof,” or “tested character.” So the meaning is that patient endurance produces tested character or the quality of being proved.

In Japan, every May 5th is Boys’ Day. Each house with a boy in it flies a big cloth fish on a pole high over the house. It’s like a windsock. The colorful fish stretches out in the wind. Each family flies a fish banner for every boy in the house.

The fish is a carp. The Japanese admire carp because carp swim strongly against the current. They want their boys to be strong and brave and swim against the current.

Even a dead fish can swim with the current. To be a faithful Christian, you have to learn to swim against the current. Tested character means to swim against the current.

Whenever we suffer—whether from sickness, injustice, or disappointment—we have an opportunity to prove the reality of our faith.

Trouble can make us bitter. Trouble can make us give up on God.

Or trouble can drive us to God. Trouble can make us cling to God.

You and I have seen examples of both.

I knew a useful young Christian, who I admired. But he forsook the faith because, in adversity, God didn’t answer his prayer. He never—as far as I know—has gone to church again, or even called himself a Christian.

Trouble made him give up on God.

Or trouble can make us cling more tightly to God.

If you want to know whether God is real, don’t go to someone who’s had an easy life. Go to someone who has suffered and clung to God through it all and who still has bright faith.

That person will help you believe that God is real.

D. So “suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.”

Trouble sweeps away the false hopes, the things that used to distract us.

When the prospect of worldly success is gone, when we know that we will never be rich or famous or beautiful or brilliant, then we are set free to put our hope in God.

Troubles make us long for heaven.

Tears wash away the dust of this world from our eyes so that we can see more clearly the Heavenly Country—our Eternal Home.

“Hope,” in the Bible, is not wishful thinking, like “I hope it doesn’t rain on our picnic,” or “I hope my back gets better.”

Hope, in the Bible, is “an anchor for the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). Hope is confident, sure, expectation that God will fulfil his promises.

II. Last of all, the apostle writes, “And hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”

A. If I can respond to my troubles with thankfulness and praise, then I open my life up to God’s Spirit, who can pour God’s love into my heart.

At the very center of our experience as Christians is the knowledge that we are loved by God.

B. In Victor Hugo’s great book, Les Miserables, Hugo writes, “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves—say rather, loved in spite of ourselves” (Book 1, chapter 4).

But as wonderful as it is to be loved by another human being, it is even more wonderful to have the conviction that we are loved by God.

To have the conviction that you are one of God’s treasures, that Jesus loves you so much that he endured death for you, and that he loves you still, even though you are a flawed and sinful and broken human being, and that he will love you to the end—if you can be convinced of that, there is nothing better in all the world.

C. A young pastor visited one of his elderly parishioners. She was old and very poor. She lived in a shack. It stank. The windows were few, dirty, and cracked. She had lost her husband and both of her children.

Her pastor didn’t know what to say. So he asked her, “What can I do for you, Mrs. Jones?”

“Pray with me, pastor,” she said, and added, in a way that the pastor would never forget, “…and let it all be praise.”

D. The greatest thing in the world is to have God’s love poured into your heart:

…to have the assurance that God loves you…

…to have the assurance that God loves you—and will never let you go.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes it just doesn’t turn out right.

Don’t think there’s an answer for all our questions—not in the Bible or anywhere else.

But Jesus said, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Come to Jesus every day—in the morning, during the day, in the evening, and in the watches of the night—and bring to him your anxieties…your pains…your disappointments.

I often use a prayer that contains these words:

Give me grace, I beseech thee,

to understand the meaning of such afflictions and disappointments

as I myself am called upon to endure.

Deliver me from all fretfulness.

Let me be wise to draw from every disposition of thy providence

the lesson thou art minded to teach me.

Give me a stout heart to bear my own burdens.

Give me a willing heart to bear the burdens of others.

And give me a believing heart to cast all burdens upon thee.

(John Baillie, Diary of Private Prayer, day 27, morning)

Give your troubles to Jesus—and ask him to use them for his glory …for your good…and to help you serve others.