Eternal Weight of Glory | Romans 5:2–5

Paul talks about standing in the "grace" of the gospel. But now he talks about rejoicing in the suffering we face. Why? Because of the work suffering does in our lives.

How do we redeem the last two years as a church? How do we redeem the suffering, the loss, the death? On one hand it seems that the church is divided. We are divided by how to respond to our government, how to respond to the virus, how to respond to vaccines. This division is going deep, even into our families.

Why is our response to the results of sin and evil to run to the very sin and evil that created the suffering in the first place? Why do we respond to the horror of death by seeking comfort in the sin that made death a reality?

Why do I blame God for the suffering that my sin causes and embrace the very sin that caused the suffering to begin in the first place?

This is one of the biggest incongruities of man. We blame God for the results of our own sinful decisions.

In contrast to this, Paul says instead we should embrace the glory that God works through us in suffering:

In space there are these phenomena called a black hole. Most of have heard of these. A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape. According to the general theory of relativity,[3] it starts existing when spacetime gets curved by the huge mass of a collapsing star. There is a sphere around the black hole called the Event Horizon from which nothing can ever leave and where in fact time itself slows to nothingness.absorbs all the light that hits it. It reflects nothing, just like a perfect black body.

Because black holes are very hard to see, people trying to see them look for them by the way they affect other things near them. The place where there is a black hole can be found by tracking the movement of stars that orbit somewhere in space. Or people can find it when gas falls into a black hole, because the gas heats up and is very bright.

Astronomers have found evidence of supermassive black holes at the center of almost all galaxies. In 2008 astronomers found evidence that a supermassive black hole big enough to put four million of our suns into it near one of the stars of the constellations Sagittarius in our Milky Way galaxy. The weight of this black hole is so massive it presses everything into itself.

That's unimaginable power. It's amazing what gravity can do. With gravity you can make an atmosphere that sustains life, or you can crush solar systems like a meat grinder.

2 Cor 4:17 Paul said that God is working in us an eternal gravity of glory. The weight of the glory God is working in us and through us for His glory. So how do we live a life that if being transformed into the likeness of Christ. Last week, we talked about putting on the armor of God. And we began yesterday our 21 days of Prayer. Let's press a little deeper into our disciplines and ask God to help us start

How Do We live in the Gravity of God's Glory?

We Allow The Pressure to Produce Endurance

The Word translated to Endurance has a place in the Greek world. It actually held a prominent place in the list of Greek Virtues according to Hauck. The word is active, not passive. It wasn't a passive endurance that "held on until help could come" but rather a courageous endurance that manfully defied evil.

True Christian Faith, faith that grows requires that I strive against evil.

Veneetha Rizner talks about sufferirng this way:

“I realized like Peter, that there was nowhere to go, because only Jesus had the words of life (John 6:68). I cried out asking God to help me to trust him, to reconnect, and to find hope in what seemed like impenetrable darkness. I needed peace and I couldn’t find it anywhere besides Christ. It was then that my faith radically changed. I found an inexplicable peace and hope that I had not experienced before — my easy trouble-free life had not yielded anything but an enjoyment of the present. But suffering was producing something unshakeable.

Suffering is a catalyst that forces us to move in one direction or another. No one comes through suffering unchanged.”

Paul concurs. Life is about suffering, but the Christian life is about suffering well. How we face suffering is what separates the Christian form the world.

We Allow the Weight of Endurance to Produce Character

The second aspect is Character. Character is as A. W. Tozer notes “the excellence of moral beings.” A person’s character is the sum of his or her disposition, thoughts, intentions, desires, and actions.

Character is not what we say we believe but what we show we believe. This is how suffering produces character. As we face trials we will prove ourselves to either be people who cling to God or people who reject God.

Proverbs 17:3 ESV

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.

Christian Character is the result of a believer clinging to Christ and walking with Christ in the midst of trials. Where trials help us endure, the also help us seek him.

Jerry Bridges notes:

“So often we try to develop Christian character and conduct without taking the time to develop God-centered devotion. We try to please God without taking the time to walk with Him and develop a relationship with Him. This is impossible to do.”

So if I am going to develop godly Character then I must focus on developing God-Centered devotion. I do this by prayer, reading the word, seeking his direction and help in the midst of the storm. It’s not about bargaining with God but rather walking with him.

The reason is as we walk with him we begin to exhibit his habits and his characteristics.

God “rubs off” on us.

We allow the Stress of Christian Character give us HOPE

Finally, as we grow in Character we begin to get Christian hope. Not a hope that focuses on God’s provision HERE, but rather his promises hereafter. Why so many fail to persevere is because they think more about this world than they do the next.

ACCORDING TO BULTMANN Christian hope is a hope that is fixed on God, it embraces at once the three elements of expectation of the future, trust, and the patience of waiting.

Paul speaks of this hope in Eph. 1.

Ephesians 1:3–10 ESV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In this passage Paul of God’s sovereign purpose for all the world. Paul notes throughout his epistles the idea of the fullness of time. God is working all of human history to his prescribed purpose.

RC Sproul notes:

“Even though we live in a period that some have described as the post-Christian era, we know that God has purposed to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ”

Here is the hope for us; God is in control. Nothing in all of human history has ever or can ever thwart God’s plan to seek, save his people and to bring his glory to every corner of the earth. This universe is destined for glory and Christians are foreordained to participate in and witness to that glory.