As we light another candle on the Advent wreath, we invite you to join us in a profound exploration of hope in suffering. We ponder on Romans 5:1-5, reflecting on Jesus' suffering and its implications for our relationship with God, and how it births hope in our own sufferings. We tackle the challenging question of why God permits pain and how Jesus, through his own suffering, understands our struggles. Let us reassure you that suffering is not without purpose - it builds character and endurance, like fine wine being preserved in the cellar of affliction, as Charles Spurgeon poignantly expressed.
Navigating the stormy seas of suffering, our course then veers towards the shores of healing and endurance. We extend our hearts in prayer, holding up those in the throes of pain, including our pastor friend bravely battling stage four cancer, and the church friend mourning a beloved mother. We delve into the significance of praying for healing and empathizing with others in their grief. Amid the twinkle of Christmas lights, we unwrap the gift of finding joy and hope in Jesus. This episode is a comforting embrace, a light in the darkness, a reminder to all navigating difficult times that we are in this journey together. So, come, let's share this path and find hope amid suffering.
As we light another candle on the Advent wreath, we invite you to join us in a profound exploration of hope in suffering. We ponder on Romans 5:1-5, reflecting on Jesus' suffering and its implications for our relationship with God, and how it births hope in our own sufferings. We tackle the challenging question of why God permits pain and how Jesus, through his own suffering, understands our struggles. Let us reassure you that suffering is not without purpose - it builds character and endurance, like fine wine being preserved in the cellar of affliction, as Charles Spurgeon poignantly expressed.
Navigating the stormy seas of suffering, our course then veers towards the shores of healing and endurance. We extend our hearts in prayer, holding up those in the throes of pain, including our pastor friend bravely battling stage four cancer, and the church friend mourning a beloved mother. We delve into the significance of praying for healing and empathizing with others in their grief. Amid the twinkle of Christmas lights, we unwrap the gift of finding joy and hope in Jesus. This episode is a comforting embrace, a light in the darkness, a reminder to all navigating difficult times that we are in this journey together. So, come, let's share this path and find hope amid suffering.
Hello and welcome back to Real Life Community Church's Real Friends podcast, colin the Advent series.
Speaker 2:The Advent series. This has been fun and I hope it's been helpful to our listeners. Mainly, our goal in this is just to help our church keep Jesus at the center of the Christmas season.
Speaker 1:So easy to say that we want to do but so hard to do. So we hope, which is the first. You know the theme of the first week of Advent. It is our lowercase H. Hope that this helps you.
Speaker 2:So today our text is Romans 5, 1-5.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get into it. 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 hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Knowing the 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.
Speaker 2:What rich words you know. Our passage today interestingly starts with yesterday's topic, namely the hope of forgiveness. In Christ, we have been justified. We have, in other words, right standing with God because of what Jesus accomplished at the cross. That's right. So through Jesus we have right standing with God. But today we see in the same text another facet of our hope, namely hope in suffering. So, Matthew, I know you are familiar with that classic Christmas song that says it's the most wonderful time of the year.
Speaker 1:No, I won't start singing. I appreciate that, and so do our listeners.
Speaker 2:You know, for many people those words ring true. Yet I am quite aware, very mindful, that for some this season actually seems to accentuate pain, loss, disappointment or suffering. Just this year we lost my grandfather. It was very close to him and though you know, he lived to a ripe old age and lived a very full and godly life, and even though we know that he's with the Lord, which is, you know Paul says, is far better than being here in this old body, it's still. You know, this Christmas season is still. There's going to be an element of sadness and a bitter sweetness to the holiday season.
Speaker 1:You know, the Bible says to have all this hope and joy and everything else, but it also says to grieve with those who grieve more and with those who mourn, and so you're supposed to. This is a time of year where you can really feel that you know both those feelings at the same time.
Speaker 2:That's right and you know, when we look back to Jesus first advent, his coming to be God with us, emmanuel, here's what we know. Many people argue, and it's the lifelong debate about if God is so good, why would he allow evil and suffering? Well, I don't think I'm going to solve that debate. Can you solve?
Speaker 1:Oh, well, well, yeah, oh, I've got to completely figure it out, something philosophers have never been able to do. I got to figure it out. We'll hit on the next. You know some other episode.
Speaker 2:No, I don't know. So I love what Tim Keller says about this. By the way, what are we four episodes in? And I haven't mentioned Keller yet. Yep.
Speaker 1:So here here's your Keller gift for the holiday season.
Speaker 2:But Keller, in trying to grapple with his question, you know he says I don't know why God allows evil and suffering. But I know what the reason is not. It's not that he doesn't care, it's not that he is aloof to our pain and suffering. And the reason we know that is because Jesus entered into our suffering. As a matter of fact, he suffered more than any of us will ever suffer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and on top of the fact that he was the only one who didn't deserve any of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's. There's great hope in knowing that Jesus suffered, because when we're going through trials and tribulations and disappointments, we know that we have a Lord who can identify with those things. We know that we have a Lord who, can you know, who sympathizes with us in those struggles, in those sufferings. And so Jesus does not always get us around, you know problems, but he gets us through problems, he walks with us. And I love Psalm 3418. It says the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and he saves the crush in spirit. That great news.
Speaker 1:Oh, it really is. Especially thinking about your example and we can try to celebrate as best we can on our own and think about your grandfather had a you know, I'm sure, a very, very wonderful life and yet that doesn't, by recognizing that by itself probably doesn't bring you know, enough joy. We need, we need God, we need to lean on God.
Speaker 2:Charles Spurgeon said something years ago. He said that God keeps his best wine in the cellar of affliction. And as I look back to the times of suffering in my life, I know that those are the times that I felt perhaps the closest to God. So if you're going through this Christmas season and you feel the weight of suffering, just know God is with you. He is near to you, he is near to the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit. But there's more hope when it comes to our suffering. If I'm going to suffer, I don't want that suffering to be meaningless. Yes, you wanted to have a purpose. That's right, and the great news is that the Bible teaches us. Our text today teaches us that actually God has a purpose in our suffering. It's one of the most quoted verses in the New Testament in the church today is Romans 828. It says that we know that those who love God and are called according to his purpose, that he's working all things together for our good and building our character, building our endurance.
Speaker 1:like the previous, you know, other times we've talked about purification and, I think, just forcing us to re-remind us of our need for God. We had a hymn in church recently. You know, if I didn't have a problem, I wouldn't know that God saw. I mean there's a number of different facets to this.
Speaker 2:Did you notice in the text you just read that it says suffering produces endurance, endurance, character, and character actually produces hope. So we have hope in suffering, but suffering actually produces hope itself.
Speaker 1:So do you think it's talking about a different hope here, a hope that you know we have the hope in Jesus coming and maybe we have a lowercase h hope here, and that we know that we are being built up, even in our own character, for our walk through this life?
Speaker 2:and this holiday season. That's a great point. If you go back to the text before that last part of the verse, it says through him, we also have obtained access by faith into the grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and scholars tell us that what that really means is that we are boasting, we are longing for the glory of God that will be revealed to us in Christ's second coming, his second advent. And remember, just as a reminder, in the advent season we look back to Jesus' first arrival or advent, and then we look ahead to his second coming, which has been promised to that second advent.
Speaker 1:Right, when all of our suffering will be alleviated, we won't need it anymore. We won't need to lean on God so much, as we will be with God or God will be with us, yeah Well we will be a day where suffering will be completely alleviated.
Speaker 2:So we boast in the hope of the glory of God in our trials now. They produce a hope because the more we suffer, the more we long for the day when suffering will be eradicated. And we have that great promise that one day every tear will be white from our eyes. Glorified bodies, matthew. No more sickness, no more pain, no more aching back.
Speaker 1:I take that my left knee is a little tweaked right now. So yeah, glorified left knee even would be great. There you go, yes.
Speaker 2:You're not hard to please, you're not asking for much.
Speaker 2:Well, let's close on a very serious note here, because, matthew, you and I both know that there are many people and, I would assume, people who are listening to this episode who are going through a time of suffering, and this Christmas season is really tough for them.
Speaker 2:You know, I just received news last week that a dear friend of mine, a pastor that I served with for many years, was just diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I'm just like wow, he's actually a little bit younger than I am. Just yesterday, one of our church members, faithful members, his mother passed away, and so I just I'm quite aware that this year, this time of year, is going to be a struggle for many people, but even in the midst of all that suffering, we see, as we look back to Christ's first coming, we see the glimmer of hope, and then we look ahead to the hope that we have in the future, where there will be no more death, no more suffering, no more pain, no more evil, no more sin. Matthew, would you mind just to close this in a prayer for those who might be suffering right now?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. First, heavenly Father, I want to lift up, you know, a pastor's friend who has a stage four cancer. We pray for healing. We know that all things are possible with you. If that is not according to your will, that the healing should come in this life, we know that the healing will come for him in the next life, and so we pray for the family, for endurance, strength, for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the same for our church friend who just lost his mother, a real matriarch of the family.
Speaker 1:As I understand it, it's going to be, it's going to feel devastating for a time for everyone. And you know, help, remember that while we want to lift them up, we also want to remember to grieve with those who grieve and mourn, with those who mourn, and simply be sad with them. Even as you help us, lord, through your Holy Spirit, you know, feel and remember that deep down we have a baseline of joy, of hope, to get back to our theme of what we've been talking about. So, to all those who are suffering, those we've mentioned and so many haven't, we pray all these things and that you are able to find hope in Jesus, both through this holiday season and beyond. In Jesus' name I pray this Amen.
Speaker 2:Thank you, matthew, and thank you to our listeners, and we trust that you will feel the closeness of God in your suffering. God bless you. Join us tomorrow as we continue to talk about hope.