Christian Hope Increases Through Hardship

PRAY & INTRO: What is hope in the Bible? It is the future-facing aspect of faith. Hope is a confident expectation of what God will accomplish; it is waiting on the Lord with certainty, knowing that He is faithful to fulfill his promises. That is Biblical hope.

Therefore, what we see from God’s word today is also that…

Christian hope increases through hardship.

For those justified by faith in Jesus, hardship does not lessen hope in God. Instead, Christian endurance through suffering reinforces to us the supremacy and sufficiency of our faithful God, further confirming the unshakeable certainty of our hope.

That’s what Paul explains in vv. 3-5 of Romans 5. Let’s read verses 1-5 to review and move forward in our text for today.

Romans 5:1–5 ESV

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 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.

A couple of weeks ago now, here’s a how we summarized the emphasis from Paul in the first two verses:

When God has declared us righteous by faith, believers are blessed with assurance of the benefits of being in Christ, causing us to boast in the hope of future glory in God’s presence. (verses 1 & 2)

The past activity of God to declare us righteous by faith (through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus)…

… assures us of present benefits from God making us right with him (we have peace with God and positional standing in grace)…

… leading to our joyful boast in a guaranteed future where we will glorify God in his presence forever.

Paul now presses forward to reveal how this uniquely Christian hope only increases through hardship.

Christians therefore boast even in hardships that, through endurance, produce Christlike character in us, leading to still greater assurance of unshakeable hope in God. (verses 3 & 4)

“Not this alone” is how Paul begins this next sentence. There’s even more to this hope, even more in which we can boast as Christ’s people. - In addition to boasting in sure hope of future glory, we can boast in suffering (afflictions - in trials and persecutions) because becoming more like Christ through hardship only further confirms assurance of our present standing, because God enables us to persevere by his grace, and therefore solidifies hope that our sure trajectory is future glory.

The flow of Paul’s thought has gone something like this:

Christ’s Righteousness —> Through Faith We Are Declared Righteous —> Peace with God & Access into Grace —> Boast in Hope of Glory

This first element of the list is essential to understanding everything Paul teaches here. Jesus maintained his righteousness while accomplishing righteousness for us. In other words, Christ’s perfect life and perfect obedience made it possible for him to be a perfect substitutionary sacrifice, paying our penalty for sin, satisfying God’s righteous wrath against sin. And the resurrection vindicated his righteousness and his deity, and it vindicated his purpose and power to forgive and restore to God those who have faith in him. Although we have no righteousness of our own, his righteousness is imputed to us, and thus through faith God declares us righteous. He is our certain hope of glory.

As we said, now Paul continues to further explain the practical impact in our present lives.

Hope of Glory —> Boast Even in Afflictions —> Through Endurance Produce Christlikeness —> Increases Certainty of Unshakeable Hope

Hardships need not hinder hope. Rather, for the one united to Christ, knowing we are at peace with God and stand in his grace, we can endure through hardships, by which we are sanctified, and such Christlike character only serves to increase hope in God’s promise to bring us home to his glory.

When we hear Paul talk like this, though, we naturally ask the question:

Why would anyone boast in afflictions with joy and gratitude?

This word for sufferings means distress and affliction that causes pressure and pain. It is tribulation and oppression. We are not talking about something that is pleasurable as we endure it. We are talking about discomfort, stress, and exhaustion… which can be physical, mental, economic, and social.

When we think of the concept of enduring afflictions with our minds set on something beyond our immediate discomfort, we might jump to our contemporary idea regarding exercise and fitness: “No pain, no gain.” Without the strain of effort our muscles do not grow in strength; our bodies do not increase in endurance without running the hill, even in the heat; our skill does not improve without repeated practice and correction of mistakes.

And there’s probably something to that here, since Paul says “knowing that,” which is key to this whole thing. Knowing here means to be cognitively aware of what is taking place. Knowing means being able to see beyond the immediate circumstance to the goal and benefit. There is a goal at the end of enduring these afflictions, which is furtherance of our hope of glory.

Even so, boasting in afflictions seems like a bit of a stretch, especially where boasting is used positively and not negatively. To boast in the hardships we have endured could be a pretty crass and unchristian vanity, honestly. So what is Paul getting at, since he certainly isn’t talking about sinful bragging?

Let me repeat something once more from a couple of weeks ago about this boasting. When Paul uses the word “boast” in a positive way, he is reclaiming something for the glory of God that man’s sin has twisted into a debase bragging about his own qualities and achievements. For Paul, the one who has faith in God rightly boasts only in elevating the character of God and the achievements of God.

Think of boasting here then as a joyfully confident proclamation of truth, which should mark every believer, even regarding our trials. We can proclaim a joyful confidence in God through our afflictions because God is using them as a means to produce a benefit in us for his glory.

So even in this situation boasting in afflictions is more about the God who providentially controls the trials we face and who is sufficient to see us through, in order to produce godly character and further our hope. And that is exactly where Paul is heading with this. The first step is that…

When we endure through hardship, the testing of trials produces proven character.

“suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character”

This word for endurance means a steadfast continuance through opposition and struggle, with a patient expectancy. Again, endurance implies that there is opposition and struggle, and such opposition and struggle comes from without and from within.

Paul tells his protege, Timothy, that “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12). We can expect trouble for us from those who oppose God and the things of God. Such opponents may not always realize that they are in fact grappling against God. They don’t recognize that trusting in themselves and refusing to submit to God proves their enmity with God and puts them in direction opposition to God.

So by being on God’s side, you will be opposed. But Jesus tells his disciples that the world hates you because it hated him first. Remember that the world does not love you because you are not of the world (Jn 15:18-19). You are in Christ. You belong to him.

Now even though we are his, and our sinful flesh no longer has dominion over us, that sin is not yet completely gone, either. We look forward to being completely freed from sin as an aspect of our hope of future glorification. Our salvation has begun with justification (right standing with God) by faith in Christ Jesus. Being united with Christ, our salvation continues by our sanctification as God’s Spirit in us makes us more like Christ. And our salvation will reach its completion when we are finally glorified, freed from all sinful impurity, remade into God’s perfect design for those who will glorify him completely and forever.

One thing we need to understand and remember, then, is that perseverance/endurance in faith does not mean perfection. Spiritual endurance does not mean being mistake free with no moral failures. Endurance means that God is giving us the grace to keep going. Perseverance is empowered by God’s preservation of us.

Endurance means that God is giving us the grace to keep going. Paul himself sets an example for us in other texts, such as his clear declaration to the Corinthian church about his own experience with difficulty. We do not know for sure whether the thorn in the flesh he speaks of in the context was an outward opponent or an inward thorn of ongoing struggle, but Paul was clear and certain of this:

2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Endurance means that God is giving us the grace to keep going. Perseverance is empowered by God’s preservation of us.

Paul’s point is that God enabling us to endure produces a maturity of tested character which will further enforce our hope.

See, the test is necessary for proven character. An unexamined and untried character cannot be a proven character, which is what this means: a character that is proven to be dependable and reliable.

You wouldn’t say that anything is proven to be reliable and dependable if it has never been tested. The first bridge ever built across the mighty Mississippi at St. Louis was the Eads Bridge, named after its designer, James Eads. Andrew Carnegie insisted that such a large bridge needed to be constructed of steel, which was, as of yet, not being produced in the quantity needed, and steel was also untested on such large scale. When the bridge was finally completed in 1874, Carnegie put on a show and had an elephant cross the bridge, trying to reassure the public of its reliability. But the real test for the bridge was of course the Mississippi itself. Eads Bridge has withstood some massive flooding events. It still stands, has been further reinforced, and continues to be in use to this day.

When we’re not talking about a bridge, but about a person’s proven character as it is tested and endures through affliction, we develop a picture of growing and strengthening stability and dependability.

Picture a tree whose roots grow stronger and dig still deeper due to the storms that have come its way, whose trunk is wide and established, and whose branches are mighty and hold firmly to this core.

Again, what is the point that Paul is coming to about the proven character of the Christian who endures hardship?

Such growth in Christlike maturity yields greater hope in God.

James describes the process this way:

James 1:2–4 ESV

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Like our image of the tree, James’s words for perfect and complete denote maturity.

For Paul, then, the Christlike character that is forged through suffering produces still greater hope in God.

Tom Schreiner explains: “Why does tested character spark hope? Because moral transformation constitutes evidence that one has really been changed by God. Thus it assures believers that the hope of future glory is not an illusion. There is a pattern of growth in the here and now, however imperfect, indicating that we are changing. Believers, then, become assured that God will complete the process he has begun (1 Cor. 1:8; Phil. 1:6).”

Hardship does not lessen hope in God; instead, Christian endurance through suffering reinforces to us the supremacy and sufficiency of our faithful God.

Therefore, we gratefully rejoice in afflictions because we know God is trustworthy, we know he is in control of all situations, we know that his grace is sufficient to see us through and to grow us in maturity, and that such will only serve to strengthen our assurance of hope that we belong to him and will be with him forever.

And on top of this, God has given us his Spirit as further confirmation. Paul says in verse 5…

And we know this hope will not put us to shame because we presently experience God’s love for us in Christ Jesus through the indwelling Spirit he has given us. (verse 5)

Now verse 5 is interesting and significant because it can stand alone as a thought, but it is also connected to both what comes before and what comes after. What I mean is that this reference to the Spirit who seals and sanctifies ties back to the reason and the means by which we endure. So too, God’s love poured into us by the Spirit is explained in the subsequent verses as the unique love that God displayed through Jesus.

As that aspect will be a primary emphasis next time, we’ll focus on the elements of this verse on its own and as it ties backwards to this Christian hope which grows through enduring hardship.

First, we know we will be unashamed (we will not be disgraced, humiliated and dishonored) at the future judgment because of what Christ already completed in the past, giving us our present justified position. What’s more, this hope is progressively more fully confirmed as we experience the transformation of God at work in us, refining us through fire. We did not emerge from hardship as incinerated ash but purified, and that encourages us of our standing in Christ and thereby increases our hope.

Now Paul adds even more reason that this hope does not put us to shame, as he says “because”… because God has poured out his love (demonstrated in Christ Jesus - the word for poured out that Paul uses can also refer to the shedding of blood, which he undoubtedly does on purpose as a connection to this abundant expression of God’s love, connected directly to the shedding of his own blood for us, v. 9). But God has here poured out his love in Christ Jesus into our hearts. We are to picture the love of God not only being poured out for you (Lk 22:20) but also into you.

And how do we know, in our present experience, that this hope-inducing love of God has been poured into us? Because it is through the Holy Spirit that God has given us to indwell every true believer.

The fact that the Spirit of God—God the Holy Spirit—dwells with and in God’s justified people is incredibly mysterious and wonderful. But don’t let it confound you only; let it also well up in you as gratitude and joy that returns in praise to God for sealing you and continually sanctifying you by his own Spirit.

Although the Spirit’s presence may sound subjective, and it is in the sense of being invisible to the eye, but in a more important sense it is an objective reality that we have experienced and are experiencing, especially as we know God’s love in us as he continues sanctifying us through trials, and manifest his love to others through us. The Holy Spirit’s work in us further assures our hope in God.

So here’s what we’ve heard from Paul today: Instead of making us hopeless, when ongoing dependence on God allows us to endure and sanctifies us through suffering, we are only more assured of God’s love for us and presence with us by His Spirit, giving us greater hope in God.

As we conclude for today, let me remind us of something essential for our understanding and our living that comes to us from these verses in their surrounding context:

Conclusion: Remember this, please, Christian. And live it.

Our endurance and our growth in godliness and our hope of glory are based upon God’s work for us and in us. In other words…

Our hope is sure because salvation is God’s work.

And here again I refer to salvation in its past, present, and future aspects. Our salvation has begun with justification (God making us right with him) by faith in Christ Jesus. Being united with Christ, our salvation continues by sanctification as God’s Spirit in us makes us more like Christ. And our salvation will reach its completion when we are finally glorified, freed from all sinful impurity, remade into God’s perfect design so that we will glorify him completely and forever. All of this is God’s work for us and in us.

Now of course this doesn’t remove our responsibility to keep responding to God in trust and obedience to live by the Spirit and not the flesh. But it does cut out self-condemnation: We care deeply about growing away from our sin—not because of guilt, but because of grace. We desire to leave our sin and grow in God’s holiness not to be accepted but precisely because God has already accepted us in Christ Jesus. Assurance of hope in God by the Spirit cuts out self-condemnation.

It also cuts out trust in self-effort. Knowing that we cannot do this sanctifying by our own effort is precisely where we must be for the Spirit to do his work. We pour ourselves into knowing and believing the God who has poured his Spirit into us, which will lead to obedience. Assurance of hope cuts out self-effort and leads to walking in the Spirit.

Paul lays out a process by which hardship in the Christian life only reinforces our hope in God, flanked on either side by the work of God to accomplish this in us. We live and move and have our being in grace. We live and move and have our being by the Spirit. Because our hope is in God is why Christian hope increases through hardship.

Let this final word from Peter rest on you. Now that may seem a little unfair to Paul as we are studying Romans, but Paul would say that it’s all God’s word anyway, so if he had 1 & 2 Peter, he’d quote Peter too.

1 Peter 5:10–11 ESV

10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

PRAY

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