Life is Hard — But That’s a Good Thing (09/11/2022)

Peace and Tribulation in Romans 5

Well, he's back there hiding. Don't call on me. Don't call on me. Anyway, I just want to tell you that Ben Mitchell is what I want to be when I grow up. He's smarter than I am. He's prettier than I am.

I want to be like him. Here's Ben Mitchell. Now, this has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you all putting up with me the past few Sundays. It just kind of took it over, so I hope that's okay. But I have been enjoying it, and I appreciate you guys so much for just the encouragement and comments and things afterward.

I'm very excited to have Dad back as of next week, but I'm hoping to be able to kind of wrap this study up that we've been looking at the past three weeks and then the first part going back a few months, of course.

And so we're just going to jump right into it because I'll be pushing the clock for sure if I do want to, like, totally get it done. So we'll see what happens there. We're going to be in Section 4 of this study we've been looking at again.

Overarching theme has been peace and tribulation. How is that possible? How can we attain peace even when we're going through the toughest points in our life? It's an interesting coincidence that we're trying to wrap up this theme on the 21st anniversary of 9 -11.

I mean, it's just one more great example of the severity of tribulation that we as humans can go through. I mean, the families, the specific families involved with that, obviously it was a global thing, but the specific families involved with that to this day are going to be experiencing tough times just because of those memories.

And so how do we grapple with that? How do we get through that? So the first section of this study we looked at was all about the mourning phase of the tribulation that we go through. We looked at that in detail.

The second section though was really important because that was getting past that and understanding that we as believers in the Lord have not only a higher standard set before us, the apostles laid before, well, Jesus himself, but also the apostles.

Not only do we have that higher standard, but it's a target that we can shoot for and can hit. It just takes a relationship with the Lord in order to do that, but it is possible. So that was great. And then the third section, which we wrapped up last week was how do we go from point A to point B, that being the mourning phase to living up to that higher standard and attaining the peace in tribulation.

And as we discussed week before last and last week, one of the biggest ways that we can do that is by just shifting our focus to the greatness of God, being lifted by his greatness and trying to achieve or attain that peace even in the toughest times we're going through.

Life Is Hard, But It Is a Good Thing

Now, today, the following section is gonna be focused on the idea that the tough times that we go through, while they are certainly tough, we've illustrated that numerous times over the past few weeks and talked about the fact that it's okay to go through those times and to go through the mourning phase and all that kind of stuff.

All that is baked in there, but the tough times are actually a good thing. That's gonna be what today's section is all about because that's where we grow in our wisdom and our trust in the Lord. That was illustrated in those examples.

We looked at Lamentations, Job, a couple of different Psalms. We looked at with every trial that we face, it's going to bring more peace for the next trial that we'll be faced with because they are going to keep coming as long as we're on this earth.

And that, again, is promised, especially for believers in the Lord because we were told by several of the apostles, Jesus himself, that we were going to face persecution simply because of the fact that we are followers of him.

So we know we're gonna be faced with it, but with every tribulation that we face, it allows us to experience even more peace for the next one. So because of the fact that trials and tribulations, they permeate everything, every part of this life at practically every level, we refer to a lot of them as kind of everyday problems, so to speak, but they can also be some of the toughest moments that we'll ever face while we're living on this earth, you know, in this life.

Job obviously gives us an explicit picture of what that can look like. But this particular study, as we've been going through it, has been intended to give us some encouragement to get through any form of trouble, whether it's the everyday battles that we face or the really, really particularly tough times that we may face or may have faced in the past and that we're still, that we still recall to mind, just like I mentioned a minute ago, so many of those families over 20 years after the fact surely are still grappling with the tribulation that was gone through then.

We looked in our last section, as I mentioned a second ago, at the greatness of God, how that can lift our spirits during the tribulation, bring peace during those times in life. In this section, as I already mentioned, we're gonna be incorporating that, that aspect of it, the greatness of God, the awesome objective truths that are God's greatness, but we're going to be infusing this new component that brings it all even closer to home because it's directly related to our individual relationships with the Lord.

And that, of course, is the fact that as we go through the tribulation, we might ask why. Well, one of the immediate reasons why we can see why we may go through the tough times is because we grow closer to Him.

We yearn to cling to Him more so than ever when we go through those times. So this section, this is the fourth section here, it's all about the fact that life is hard, but that that's a good thing. And we'll illustrate why, because just like with the overall title, peace and tribulation just doesn't seem to mesh, but it can, and it does for those of us who walk closely with the Lord.

Justification by Faith and Peace with God

So we're gonna start in Romans chapter five. I really could have ended the whole study with this particular passage, but as much as it would have been perfect as a conclusion, I think it's great for setting the tone as well, especially for this particular section here.

So Romans five, starting in verse one, it starts by saying, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So right there is the target that we're striving for, that we're shooting for.

There's the peace that is attainable and that we can grab and take advantage of, benefit from, rejoice in, regardless of how tough life can be. So it's interesting, or it's great, as you'll see in a second why it's interesting as well, that this passage starts with peace because we'll see in a second that there's more to it than just that.

In this particular passage, verse one, again, we discover right off the bat, it's by the fact that we have been justified by faith, that we have peace with God through Jesus. Again, it's just really setting the tone here.

Verse two, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So it starts with peace and now it is segwaying into the rejoicing that can take place within this as well.

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We'll look at that word hope in just a minute. But now we learn that in Jesus, we have access, by faith of course, into the grace that makes it even possible for all of us to be standing here worshiping a holy God in the first place.

Because if it weren't for that, as we discussed in Dave's Sunday school lesson this morning, God hates all of the workers of iniquity. Without this grace, we would be within the same batch of evildoers that can't even come close to worship, true worship.

And it just doesn't work in terms of trying to worship a holy God that, as Dave said this morning, is repulsed by sin to the point of hating the workers of it, not just the thing itself. You have to listen to a recording of that to get into the deep stuff there, but it was awesome.

And so we go into the rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. Now it's interesting here, the Greek word in verse two for glory, doxa, it means the magnificence or the excellence, the preeminence of God, a thing belonging to God or a thing belonging to Christ or the absolutely perfect inward or personal excellency of Christ.

So put a pin in that for just a second, because we're going to see this word again, the same English word again in a minute, but it's going to be a little bit different there. So that's what that word means when it says that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We rejoice in hope of his excellence, the excellence of God, the magnificence of God, the perfect inward or personal excellency of Christ, specifically, that's what that word glory is talking about there in verse two.

Now it's about to tell us here in verse three, though, so we started with peace. Now we're at a point of rejoicing in that hope, but now in verse three, it's going to tell us that though we are as believers in Jesus entitled to peace, it is something that we get to have at any point we want it.

We are entitled to it from the moment that we receive the Lord as our personal Lord and savior, we are from that point forward entitled to peace every second of the rest of our lives, if we want it. But while that's a fact, it's also a fact, and by the way, we have that we're entitled to it again, because we're justified by faith, but while that's a fact, it's going to come with some tough times as well.

That is also a fact. Verse three says, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also. There's that word glory. We're going to take a look at that in just a second, but listen to the phrase here. We glory in tribulations also.

It started with peace. It segued into the rejoicing that can take place because of our position in Him, the ability to rejoice in the hope of His glory, but we glory in tribulations also. So they go hand in hand.

Again, there's this paradox that for the most of the world does not work. You cannot have a peaceful season in life when you are going through tough times as well. It's one or the other. But for us, they go hand in hand.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that we have tribulation or tough times at every moment of our lives, but it means that, yeah, we're going to have peace in the good seasons in life, but we can also have it in the toughest seasons of life as well.

We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience. Now, the word tribulation there, I'm not going to go into all the detail of breaking it down, but just a quick glance at my notes from when dad was doing Romans 5 not that long ago, he broke down all of the Greek words for this particular passage, and this word tribulation is implying pressure.

So when we go through these times, it's a time of immense pressure that is being placed on our lives for a specific purpose. We talked about this a lot last week. We may not know what that specific purpose is in the moment, but the fact that we are being tested, that we are, that that pressure is being applied to us is telling us something.

It's telling us that something is coming, that there is something around the corner that we are being prepared for. There's a purpose behind the pressure being applied to our lives. That's what that word tribulation means, knowing that pressure, knowing that tribulation worketh patience.

Now, again, the Greek word in verse three, because it starts by saying we glory in tribulations also, that Greek word is different than the Greek word that's used in verse two when it talks about the glory of God.

What this word means, I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it. It's like four syllables, the Greek word. Starts with a K, so there's that. It means just to glory in a thing or to joy in a thing, to rejoice in a thing.

And let me see here, Romans, it's interesting because Romans 5 .11, so if you go down just a little bit further, the exact same Greek word is used again, but it was translated differently in our English Bible.

It says in verse 11, and not only so, but we also joy in God. That word joy is the same Greek word that's used here for glory. So, you know, it's not the glory that's talked about in verse two is specific to God.

This word here, when it says that we glory in tribulations, it's simply telling us that we rejoice in tribulations. We have joy in tribulations. Again, we rejoice in the hope of God's magnificence, as we learned in verse two, His majesty, His excellence, but we also rejoice or have joy in tribulations knowing, and how is that possible?

So how can we rejoice in the tribulations we're going through? Well, we get things in perspective, and we remember the fact that that pressure is being applied on our lives for a specific purpose from the hand of God himself.

We can have joy in those tribulations or rejoice knowing that that tribulation works the patience that we need to wait on what we joyfully expect, that being His glory. So it tells us numerous times, we rejoice in the hope.

That word, as we've heard dad talk about so many times, it's a little bit different than kind of the connotation it carries for us today. It means, it doesn't mean like I hope something happens, but it probably won't.

It means that we can joyfully expect for it to happen. So we go through the tribulations, we go through these times where this immense pressure is being applied on our lives, and yet we can rejoice in it because of the hope of the glory of God that we know is coming, that we joyfully expect to come.

Verse four says, in patience, experience. So we have the tribulations that work patience. Now we have the patience, which bring experience. The word patience means to have like a cheerful endurance through, again, the times of tribulation.

When that pressure is being applied, we can cheerfully endure that time, but that's something that we grow in. In other words, every single time we go through a particular point where the pressure's being applied, it is bringing a new level of that endurance that we didn't have before.

And we can actually, it can be even more of a cheerful endurance every time we go through it. So tribulations to patience or cheerful endurance. From that, we get to experience. So that's what verse four says, in patience, experience.

And this word experience implies kind of a battle testing that comes with it. In other words, like, yeah, we, you know, even in the English, the English word experience, we gather that this implies that we are learning how to handle what we're going through more and more every time we do it.

And so that's great. That certainly ties in there, but the Greek word is even stronger because the Greek word for experience there means to be tested in battle. So these tribulations we go through, I mean, it's no easy going thing.

I mean, this is literally a form of battle that we are experiencing, but that battle is testing us, that pressure is testing us so that, as we said last week and probably the week before that, and as dad has said numerous times as well, so that we can be the person that we're meant to be when we meet Jesus for the first time.

So that patience or that cheerful endurance brings us to a point where we are tested in battle. We are being prepared for a thing that is yet to come, greater battles that we'll face later. And then it ends with experience then leads to hope, experience, hope.

And of course that hope is the same word in joyful expectation. It's not something we're hoping for that probably won't happen. It's something that's going to happen. We can joyfully expect for it to happen because of our position in the Lord.

So now we've come full circle and this is how we know that the tribulations just right off the bat serve a purpose as well. Remember, the whole point of this section is life is tough for sure, but it is a good thing.

Those tough times in life, when they come, it's a good thing. And it's a good thing because these tribulations serve a specific purpose. One of which, there are multiple reasons and we'll cover a couple more of them in just a bit, but one of which is exercising our patience, that cheerful endurance, so that we can ultimately have the hope that keeps us going for crying out loud.

I mean, it's that hope, that's one of the main ingredients that can get us through some of the toughest things we ever may experience in life, that joyful expectation. And then it ends in verse five of this, or I'll be ending it in verse five here.

And hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. So again, those five verses right there sum up the entire study, all of the sections that we've covered, all the passages in those just short five verses, we can start to see that life is hard for a reason, but a good reason at that.

Now we might not understand it in the short term, but those tough times, those tribulations bring patience. Again, that's a virtue that every human being desperately needs, but certainly those that are saved, that are believers in Jesus, because that patience says a lot about our character.

It's an attribute or a virtue, if you will, that allows us to be prepared for the greater battles that are yet to come, that cheerful endurance. We might not understand it, but you know, in those times, but that's what's happening.

That pressure is being applied. One of the reasons it's being applied is so that we grow in our patience. And of course, as we saw in that verse, that patience brings experience. And that experience in a roundabout way, that kind of being tested in battle is also what allows us the wisdom that we have to move through life.

So we're being tested in battle. It's like we're getting toughened up for future battles, but we're growing in wisdom for sure as well, in terms of how to handle life as we move through it. And like we saw, it ultimately ends with that joyful expectation of the fullness of our salvation, the Lord coming back, this phase of our eternal lives being over when tribulation is kind of all around us at any given time, and His return when we'll face it no more.

Jeremiah's Lament and God's Mercies in Lamentations 3

Now, in the first section of the study, so going way back, we started the study with talking specifically about the mourning phase being sad, literally just the phase of life or the phase of the tribulation that we may go through where we are literally just sad that it's happening around us, because it is hard, it's super tough.

We spent the whole first section of the study just talking about that and looking at a lot of examples in the Old Testament of the Old Testament saints going through those times. And we looked at Lamentations 3 at that point.

Now, in that section, again, this is going back to January when we did this, but back in January, before that big gap occurred, we looked at Lamentations 3 and we read the first 18 verses of Lamentations 3.

And we stopped there at verse 18 for the purposes of that section, because that is the passage that focuses on Jeremiah's mourning or lamentation of the tribulations that were happening to him in his life.

And back then, back in January, I told you guys, eventually in this study, we're gonna pick this passage back up because the tone totally shifts beginning at verse 19. And so it took way too long to get here, but this was ultimately where I wanted to be because it's a pretty bleak atmosphere in those first 18 verses.

And yet in that same context, it's about to get so wonderful. And so what we're gonna do today is we're gonna pick it back up in 19, and we're gonna see how Jeremiah, within that same context of his very, very explicit lamentation, reminds us that the tough times are there for a good reason, which of course is what we're focusing on today.

Let me see here. You know what? I'm gonna do something real quick. This'll be, it'll take just slightly more time, but I think it'll make it even better. Let's start at verse one. Let's do Lamentations 3, verse one.

I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned. He turneth his hand against me all the day.

My flesh and my skin hath he made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out.

He hath made my chain heavy. Also, when I cry and shout, he shut it out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone. He hath made my paths crooked. He wasn't to me as a bear lying in wait and as a lion in the secret places.

He hath turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces. He hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.

I was a derision to all my people and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness. He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with the gravel stones. He hath covered me with ashes and now has removed my soul far off from peace.

The very thing that we're striving for here in the study. I forget prosperity and I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. That's what we covered in detail a few months ago. And again, pretty bleak little passage there.

That is Jeremiah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit telling us exactly how he was feeling toward God. That it was God that was there making Jeremiah his target practice for the wrath and the punishment that was raining down on the people of Israel at that time.

So with that context in mind, now let's go to verse 19. Verse 19 of Lamentations 3. Remembering mine affliction and my misery. Everything that he just talked about. Remembering those things, the wormwood and the gall.

My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me. Now that's an interesting little phrase right there because in the section we're talking about tribulations will come, life is tough, but it's a good thing.

Well, there's another little one you can add to the list. One thing that tribulation does for any person that goes through it is it can be a very humbling experience. For whatever reason that may be necessary at that time for us, that could be a good reason why we're going through it in and of itself.

And that's what happened to Jeremiah here. He was humbled. Verse 21, this I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. So what he's about to go into is what he recalls to his mind. And then this is what gives him hope.

The crux of our entire story, our entire study rather, is right here in this next verse we're about to read. There's one thought, one thing that we, so bring it closer to home just for a second. Again, this is for our benefit as well.

Jeremiah is going through it, but put ourselves in his shoes for a second. Or simply just put ourselves in whatever battle we may be facing in this moment. There's one thought, one thing that we can recall to mind, which is what Jeremiah is about to, when we are sinking in the mire, as David expressed, to crowd out the hopelessness that may threaten to drown us in overwhelm, that gives us hope in those darkest moments that we may go through.

In those moments, we can recall to mind that, verse 22, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Is that not crazy?

That that passage that a lot of us quote, or we hear that a lot. There's like the little wood boards that are made that you can see it in the little stores that have that on there. I'm not making fun of the one we have, Ash.

It's a great thing. But you see that around, like this is a passage, or this is a phrase rather. His mercies are new every morning. We hear all the time, but what we don't often remember is that this, at least one of the places where this phrase is found, is right in the middle of one of the most bleak, explicit lamentations that any saint of God ever expressed, wrote down under the inspiration of the Lord that was there for us to learn from later.

It's right in the middle of all that. In one of the darkest moments of Jeremiah's life, he says, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.

Great is thy faithfulness. It's like, wow, when you get to this point in this passage, it's like, talk about a tone shift. That's why I wanted to go and reread those first 18 verses again, because it's easy to forget that that's right where we were a second ago.

Jeremiah is calling to mind the mercifulness of God, which he's contrasting with the wickedness that his very people have been indulging in. Of course, the punishment was there for a reason, right? That Jeremiah was having to endure himself because the people collectively were being punished for the sins of the evils that they were indulging in.

Now, despite their gross misbehavior, which of course, as we well know, has been a running theme for a long time, up until this point for the Israelites, by the time we get to Jeremiah, God's mercies, despite that, God's mercies and compassions fail not, as Jeremiah just told us.

Now, this mercy manifested itself in at least two ways in this passage. Number one, his mercy, his compassions that are new every morning, they manifest themselves with the individual, within the individual relationships that God had with those closest to him.

Thank Jeremiah for a second. You know, this is the man of God. So those mercies, those compassions were new every morning for Jeremiah on an individual level, but they were there. They were new every morning collectively for the nation of Israel as well, because what happens when they are being punished for the, again, gross misbehavior that they were indulging in, God would be there to save a remnant of them.

His mercies were new for them by way of saving a remnant of his people during those times of destruction, when a lot of them were just totally getting wiped out, whether by the foreign nation that was coming in or by plagues or whatever it may be.

Times of destruction. And that remnant is what kept the nation alive and why the Israelites are still with us to this very day. The nation of Israel is still with us to this very day. He is faithful to his people, even when they are deliberately disobeying him.

He may wipe out a lot of the ones that just do not care about him in any sense of the word or in any sense of the laws and the rules that were put before him. They had no desire to follow him. And a lot of them would be punished to the utmost when these foreign nations would come in, such as the Babylonian exile, which was what the context of this book of Lamentations is in, but he would save a remnant.

He would be faithful to his people. So his mercies and his compassions are new every morning in both of those senses on an individual level for those closest to him, but also for his people as well. Verse 24 says, "'The Lord is my portion,' saith my soul.

"'Therefore will I hope in him.'". So again, here's that phrase, that great phrase again, and it's not so different for us now who rejoice in the hope of his glory, just like we looked at in Romans a minute ago.

It's certainly not a coincidence that this was a theme throughout the Old Testament as well, the saints going back to that hope in the Lord to get them through these times. And then Paul not only reaffirms it in the passage we started with in Romans, but he puts a stamp on it like it is something that, well, I mean, it kind of goes back to the thing I said last week of some of these things are almost like a superpower that we have that the rest of the world, that the heathen world will never get to experience because the peace that passeth all understanding is supernatural.

The hope of his glory, that magnificence, that excellence, his preeminence, these are things that are meant to be called to mind, as Jeremiah told us, but also as Paul told us in the New Testament as well.

Our hope in him is a great way to put things back in perspective for us when times are tough and experience that peace that, again, passes all understanding. So that's how we can tap in to that superpower, if you will.

Verse 25, the Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. There's another familiar phrase there that we've already seen in Isaiah in our last section last week. There's those that wait for him, that word wait, that Hebrew word for wait is used in several other passages as well.

And it's not like we're just sitting around waiting for something to happen. There's an eagerness to it. It's almost like an active form of waiting. It's the same Hebrew word here. There's an eagerness behind our waiting for him.

And it says the Lord is good to those who do that. Verse 26, it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Okay, so it is good that we go through tribulations as Jeremiah is now telling us because those tribulations work patience, which work experience, which work hope, but that tribulation according to Paul comes first.

So in that domino effect that Paul laid out for us in that Jeremiah is, you know, obviously Jeremiah was way before Paul, but as he's kind of alluding to here, that hope is kind of a big part of it, but we get a very specific kind of linear order of events from Paul, the patience, the experience, the hope, but it starts with the tribulation.

The tribulation comes first in order for us to experience those other wonderful things. And Jeremiah is reminding us here that patience, that quietly waiting on him, as he put it, and our hope are a good result of the tough times.

Another good reason why life is tough for us here on earth. Verse 27 says, it is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he hath borne it upon him.

He putteth his mouth in the dust. If so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him. He is filled full with reproach for the Lord will not cast off forever. Remember, these are the things that Jeremiah is recalling to mind as he's going through this tough time in his life.

The Lord will not cast off forever, but though he caused grief, and I mean, we got a good taste of the grief that he can cause in those first 18 verses where Jeremiah was not holding back his feelings about what he was going through, though he caused grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercy.

So it's another call back to that wonderful verse we looked at a minute ago. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men to crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most high to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approved not.

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass when the Lord commandeth it not? Who is any person to go and say that something is coming to pass and question why that thing is coming to pass when it is coming from the very hand of the Lord.

When we were looking at the first 18 verses several months ago, and then we kind of did a review a couple of weeks ago of that. We talked about the fact, we kind of teased this passage that we're now in that Jeremiah, despite the fact that he's going through such a horrible time, even he understands that it all ties into the sovereignty of God later in the same passage.

And then here we are. Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass when the Lord commandeth it not? Verse 38, out of the mouth of the most high proceedeth not evil and good. The Hebrew word for evil there is ra, which literally means evil.