Find Hope When You Are Suffering
- 4 days ago
- 19 min read
Romans 5:1-5 NIV
[1] Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, [2] through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. [3] Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; [4] perseverance, character; and character, hope. [5] And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.1-5.NIV)
When I was growing up on the mean streets of South Lanarkshire in Scotland in the late 1980s/early 1990s, longing for something better but not sure if I could dare aspire towards it, a local rock band from Glasgow by the name of Gun brought out a song that became a rallying cry:
This should be heaven
But this feels hell
So hold your head high, ‘cos you know I'd die
For better days
That longing for something better, something just beyond the horizon, that special something that always lies just up ahead, is both the promise and the desire that drives us forward.
Even during the Second World War, with her country under near constant Nazi bombardment, Dame Vera Lynn sung these famous and unforgettable words:
There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see
The problem is – and I learned this on those mean streets pretty quickly - no-one can promise or guarantee you that tomorrow will be any better. For many, it literally is a vain hope. That’s why so many turn aside to depression and anger and frustration and become involved in crime and other awful activities.
They can’t see a tomorrow, so they ruin their today.
Hope is the drive to keep moving forward. It’s what we need to get out of bed in the morning. Lose it and our life is over long before we die.
But that hope is severely challenged by suffering. We feel it wax and wane when we are confronted with a challenging present which makes us lose sight of our future.
For every human being, and particularly for every Christian, hope is essential. But how can we hang onto it when the chips are down and life is hard?
That’s where these verses are so important. They help us to understand what is happening when we suffer.
Now, we must set one thing straight. These words were not spoken into a vacuum. Far from it. Paul the Apostle, a man not exactly unfamiliar with suffering (2 Corinthians 11:23-33) wrote these words to a church that was at the very epicentre of a rising, and particularly brutal, persecution.
Paul himself would later be martyred.
So these words are not just idle philosophical, psychological, theological whim.
No. They are fact. This is how we will make it through suffering.
This is how we retain our hope.
And it’s not a trick. It’s not an illusion. We are not engaged in some cruel act of self-deception.
This really is a completely concrete, totally reliable framework to make us more resilient and hopeful even against utterly impossible odds.
For example, being hounded to your death by a ruthless pagan empire.
There are three very simple elements to this framework.
Our family home still has a land-line phone. We still have it because, rather strangely, our broadband deal was cheaper. We are very rarely called on the land-line, except for one specific type of call:
Junk calls.
Often robo callers or cyber criminals, the third type of call we often receive are cold sales calls.
These have one transparent aspect that always gives them away: they always talk of the benefits, but they are very reticent to talk about the costs. The reason why they do this is so very simple: they are not interested in you benefitting from them; they are out to benefit from you. They appear to be offering you a service, but they want you to serve them. That’s why it’s always good to press them on how much they want you to pay, and then put the phone down when the price is too much. And if they are vague, opaque, or have lots of hidden fees, don’t even consider it.
Of course, if you follow that advice, you will never go clothes shopping or buy food in a restaurant or buy tickets for a major sports event in the USA. Hidden charges are how they get you.
Maybe you approach these verses the same way. There are three very big benefits here that form the very basis of our resilience and hope. They are three things every Christian has and should build their life upon.
But maybe you are looking for the snag or the trap or the small print or the hidden charges.
There aren’t any. This really is what it claims to be.
The first of these pillars is The Perspective of Hope.
The Perspective of Hope
Romans 5:1-2 NIV
[1] Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, [2] through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.1-2.NIV)
Perspective really matters. How we view things changes how we think of them and respond to them.
Let me give you an example.
When my daughter was very small and still in her stroller, we were hanging out on the city of Glasgow before a big football match. The Scottish national team was playing at Hampden Park, a few miles from the city centre. Scotland fans – a group known as the Tartan Army – had travelled from far and wide to watch the game. They were filling bars and restaurants in the city. They were loud, boisterous, bedecked in team shirts and kilts, and were singing and chanting loudly when we passed a group of them on a street corner.
At first, my wife was intimidated by them. After all, they were much taller than her and had already been drinking for several hours.
However, I had watched football matches with the Tartan Army when I was a student and I knew they are completely harmless, provided you aren’t English at least, so I insisted we walked straight through the middle of the group.
Sure enough, they lived up to their reputation. They let us pass. The only comment we got from them directed at my Filipina wife was ‘Haw hen, cute wean’, which in Glaswegian translates as ‘Hey Missus, your kid is cute’.
And that was that.
My wife saw them as a bunch of noisy drunks who could potentially be trouble. In reality, they were just loud football fans who meant no-one any harm.
Our perspective on our pain and suffering matters. If we see it as terminal and permanent, we will give up and turn aside to depression. If we see it as someone else's fault, we will blame them and live in bitterness and anger. If we see it as a situation we need to escape at all costs, we will turn aside to corruption.
Paul gives us here four perspective-altering blessings every Christian has that make a serious difference to how we see our situation.
Firstly, we have been justified through faith. That is, it is not our faith that justified us, but our faith in Someone who justified us. Faith is the conduit for the justification. We don’t come home thirsty, walk into a kitchen and say we need to drink the pipe. No, we drink the water that comes through the pipe.
In the same way, we receive justification from God through faith on Him to justify us.
What this means is that we are not righteous. We are sinners. But because of Jesus we are declared righteous by God because of what He did on the cross. As Paul explained earlier to the Romans:
Romans 3:22-24 NIV
[22] This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.3.22-24.NIV)
In every other religion on the planet, good standing with a deity or entrance into their version of paradise is earned by you. You have to do good works to get there.
However, the problem with that is not everyone can do good works, and no-one is clear how many good works you need to do, or which good works could balance out which bad works.
In essence, trying to get into heaven that way is like an archer trying to hit the bullseye of a target while blindfolded, and while both archer and target are moving at high speed down opposite ends of a highway – or, more accurately, an unrestricted autobahn in Germany.
It is just impossible.
But because of God’s grace in sending Jesus Christ to die for us, we inherit His righteousness and are saved – only if we have faith in Him and His declaration that we are righteous.
If we believe that somehow we can become righteous on our own, or that we need to ‘top up' what Jesus has done to become righteous, then we don’t believe in Jesus and will not be saved.
This is the basic message of the Gospel.
But what could it mean for a church facing persecution like the one in Rome, or us, as we face our suffering?
It removes the uncertainty about our future. Because of Jesus, we are saved. Not because of us. Our eternity is secure, and we did nothing to secure it except believe in Jesus.
In a world of uncertainty and fear, the most important aspect of our life is secure, and that makes an enormous difference to how we see our life and the situation we find ourselves in.
Secondly, we have peace with God through Jesus.
Romans 5:1 NIV
[1] Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.1.NIV)
If there is one thing that makes our suffering so much worse than it needs to be, it’s a strained or broken relationship. Our relationships are the safety net onto which we fall when life blows us off our perch. If that safety net is damaged or broken in any way, it creates anxiety when hard times come because we don’t know if we can fully trust it when we fall.
One of the major reasons for anxiety or even neurosis in people who are suffering is because they know that their safety net is not in a good state. They have damaged relationships with their friends or family or their work colleagues to such an extent that they know their safety net is not up to the job.
More fundamentally, and more seriously, their sin has damaged their relationship with God.
If there is one relationship that we need to be intact to help us when hard times come, it is our relationship with God.
After all:
Psalms 61:1-3 NIV
[1] Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. [2] From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. [3] For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.61.1-3.NIV)
Psalms 91:1-2 NIV
[1] Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. [2] I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.91.1-2.NIV)
But if you have made God a stranger, if you haven't spent to time with Him, if you have lost touch with Him, if you aren’t even sure of His love for you, where are you going to go? Where will you take shelter? Where is your stronghold?
Is it drugs?
Alcohol?
Therapy?
Mindfulness?
Meditation?
Some of these might help you for a while, but the reality is that having a relationship with the Sovereign God of the universe is the only way you will ever make it through your suffering. The only way to fix that relationship and know peace with God is through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross:
Colossians 1:19-20 NIV
[19] For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/col.1.19-20.NIV)
So we need to have peace with God. Without it we are weak in the face of pain. We lack resilience. We lack purpose.
We lack hope.
But we can only have that peace with God through Jesus. No-one else.
The third pillar is grace through faith.
Romans 5:1-2 NIV
[1] Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, [2] through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.1-2.NIV)
Grace is critical to surviving through pain. We need people to stand with us, to accept us regardless of who we are and what we gave done, to show us that we are not alone.
Grace is that undeserved favour, that unmerited blessing. This is what we read elsewhere:
Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV
[8] For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— [9] not by works, so that no one can boast.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/eph.2.8-9.NIV)
When we suffer, it is quite possible that at least some of our pain is self-inflicted. The bitterness of being unable to forgive ourselves makes things a whole lot worse. The grace of God brings us His saving forgiveness, but it also enables us to see ourselves as God sees us and forgive ourselves.
Grace is an essential weapon in our struggle against suffering and pain. If we neglect it, we only make things worse for ourselves.
The last pillar is our hope in the glory of God.
What this means is that our main desire is not for comfort or wealth or fame or even for our suffering to end, but to live for the glory of God. We seek to bring Him fame, renown and praise. Whether that causes us to be exalted or extracted from suffering is immaterial. We seek His Kingdom, not our own.
As Paul wrote to the Philippians:
Philippians 1:20-21 NIV
[20] I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. [21] For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/php.1.20-21.NIV)
If we live for the glory of God, we are not afraid to suffer or to die, provided we suffer and die bringing glory to God.
This last fourth pillar neutralises any threat the world has over us to manipulate us to its way of thinking. It seeks to warp our spirituality by tempting us with our glory or our comfort or even our life. But if these things have no hold over us because we were living for God’s glory, then we become stronger, more resilient, and even defiant in the face of threats and persuasion.
There is something very striking about these four pillars. What you see is essentially the call of the Gospel. It is what the Gospel calls us to believe and who the Gospel calls us to be. It is the message of the Gospel that makes us strong to face our suffering. There is no other message like it. Neither will there ever be.
Do you want to be strong and resilient in the face of your suffering and pain?
Believe the Gospel and follow Jesus Christ.
So the perspective of hope is one that is shaped by Gospel truth and Godly obedience.
Having a right perspective and set of values is essential when we go through hard times. It is so important to realise that suffering is not permanent, that eternity is way longer than our suffering, and that living for the glory of God is what matters the most.
But perspective is not enough.
Paul here – who, we must remember, was suffering himself – then goes on to explain The Process of Hope.
The Process of Hope
Romans 5:3-4 NIV
[3] Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; [4] perseverance, character; and character, hope.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.3-4.NIV)
Many of us will have had the painful experience of coming through rehabilitation following an injury or illness. It isn’t at all easy. Your recovery is fifty percent physical and fifty percent mental. You need to have the right mindset to make it through gruelling hours of painful exercises and the frustration of not being able to do the things you once did with ease.
It is not fun.
But when you are in rehabilitation, the people advising you – your doctors and therapists and nurses – are all rooting for you. They are not out to harm you, no matter how it might feel. They are out to heal you. They know you are enduring pain and frustration. But that pain and frustration has to be endured so that your injury will heal.
They might cause you pain but their intentions are good.
But this is not true of everyone.
There are many who are out to destroy us, as Joseph observed of his own brothers:
Genesis 50:20 NIV
[20] You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/gen.50.20.NIV)
When people deliberately set out to harm and destroy us, it’s way too easy to react with vengeance and reprisals.
But what Paul wrote here flips the script entirely. He stated that the intent to harm us is neutralised by God’s use of the suffering to grow and mature us. He saw our suffering producing perseverance – that inner grit and defiance that refuses to give in. He also saw that perseverance forming character, as we become stronger and more resilient and cast aside anything that would drag us down (see Hebrews 11:1-3). That perseverance and character work because they produce hope that God will justly and righteously reward us.
I don’t know if you have ever seen someone moulding clay. They do things to that clay that we would not want them to do to us as human beings. They slap it onto the potter's wheel. They shove it and prod it and poke it and strike it. They form it whether or not the clay likes it.
We would instinctively react and rebel against someone doing that to us.
But God is. He is using the pain from your suffering to form you into someone who will hope in Him and glorify Him. He is using your pain to loosen your hold on the things of this world and tighten your grip on Him.
You are on the potter's wheel. He is making you into something special.
And sometimes that forming will be painful. That is very true. But the process of hope is not just about getting you from ‘A' to ‘B' in the shortest and the easiest time possible.
Instead, it is about the character that forms in you in the process, and the growth in your faith and hope in God.
That what Peter wrote about when he penned these words:
1 Peter 1:6-7 NIV
[6] In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. [7] These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/1pe.1.6-7.NIV)
No-one who is either mentally or spiritually healthy will enjoy suffering. It’s called suffering because it’s painful. But just as an athlete endures pain to become fitter, so we endure pain to become better. God works out His purposes sometimes through our pain.
But at the same time, I want you to see the incredible beauty of this. The world and the devil come against us to destroy us. God uses their painful attacks to strengthen us. They aim to tear us down; God uses their very worst attacks to build us up.
Even when they think they are winning, they lose.
That is the splendour of God’s purposes and the end result of the process of hope.
So we have seen how the perspective of hope in suffering is rooted on the Gospel, and the process of hope in suffering is only ever for our good (Romans 8:28).
We now move on to something equally as beautiful: The Persistence of Hope.
The Persistence of Hope
Romans 5:5 NIV
[5] And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.5.NIV)
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NIV
[21] Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, [22] set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/2co.1.21-22.NIV)
Ephesians 1:13-14 NIV
[13] And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, [14] who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/eph.1.13-14.NIV)
When you buy, or sometimes even rent, a house, you need to pay a down-payment to guarantee that the property will be paid for. That down-payment is, of course, a deposit. The deposit provides assurance that your intentions are serious and you will pay the balance. We have even stayed in hotels that demand a security deposit to guarantee that you won’t trash the room.
Deposits are important. They build and engender trust.
They offer security.
Now, these verses speak of God’s astonishing grace. God should not need to provide us with any assurances. His Word should be enough:
2 Corinthians 1:20 NIV
[20] For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/2co.1.20.NIV)
Yet God condescends to our groundless worries, our fears and our anxieties by providing us with evidence that He can be trusted.
He leaves a deposit.
Not in monetary terms. God does not leave us a whole heap of money in escrow as evidence of His sincerity.
No, He does something even more invaluable.
He leaves Himself as security. He gives us His Holy Spirit to assure us that He will keep His promise and lead us into Heaven:
Ephesians 4:30 NIV
[30] And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/eph.4.30.NIV)
1 John 4:13 NIV
[13] This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/1jn.4.13.NIV)
That is really special.
It is an absolute, one hundred percent, ironclad guarantee that God will come through for us, that our suffering and our pain will not have the last word, that there will be an end to it, and that end will be utterly glorious.
There are many hopes that disappoint us.
I hoped my sports team would win their league this year. They didn’t.
I might hope that the weather will be good. I live in Scotland. It probably won't be good.
I can hope a situation might turn out a certain way. It might not.
I can hope that medical results will have the outcome I might want. They might not.
I can hope that physical therapy or a new medication regime will work. It might not.
This world is often full of disappointments, some of them more painful than others.
But what these verses teach us that hoping in God never disappoints.
Why?
Because when we hit hard times and He isn’t conveying us up to heaven in a chauffeur-driven chariot full of feather down pillows driven by mighty angels, we know that He is working for our good in the suffering, even if we can't see how. And we know for sure that at the end of the suffering, eternal joy awaits:
Revelation 21:3-5 NIV
[3] And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. [4] ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” [5] He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rev.21.3-5.NIV)
Despite all the pain and the suffering, we endure, not stoically as if this was the best it was ever going to get, but because one day soon it will get better, so gloriously better, and that better will last for ever, so long that all our suffering here on earth will be gloriously eclipsed.
Hang on, dear suffering servant. Your joy will always outlive the pain.
Conclusion
Romans 5:1-5 NIV
[1] Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, [2] through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. [3] Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; [4] perseverance, character; and character, hope. [5] And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/rom.5.1-5.NIV)
These days, searching the internet to look up our ailments, either by search engine or by AI, has almost reached endemic levels. It bothers doctors. Sometimes we are not qualified or experienced enough to fully understand what we read and we scare ourselves unnecessarily. Sometimes we don’t have symptoms, but when we read of an illness or condition, we imagine that we do.
And this can be obstructive for those who are treating us.
Maybe these verses seem like that. We are reading a diagnosis of our problem. We wonder just how much it will help us. Sometimes knowing what's actually wrong can help; at other times it doesn’t because even if we know, we still feel the pain.
However, when you suffer, only half of the battle is physical. The other half is mental and spiritual. Understanding both what you are going through, why you are going through it, what is happening while you are going through it and whether or not it is final can all help.
Of course, we don’t always know all four.
But at least we know that our tears are neither wasted nor forever.
We have seen the perspective of hope given to us by the Gospel, which reveals to us God's nature and enables us to settle the most fundamental, most vital relationship we have – our relationship with God. It helps us become more resilient by focusing us on the things that matter the most and turning our gaze from the things that do not.
We also saw the process of hope – hope in even our darkest, most painful suffering, caused by those who only seek our harm, can be turned around to work for our good by building our character and strengthening our hope.
We also saw the persistence of hope – that it endures because it is personally guaranteed by God Himself.
I am fully aware that facts are no blanket. They don’t keep us warm at night. Neither are they medicines that heal our pain.
But they help us correct our perspective and our mindset when trouble comes. They strengthen our mind so that the rest of our body does not become weak.
The truth sets us free.
These verses contain the truth about our suffering and pain.
And that truth might be just the spark we need to find our way out of the darkness.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I thank You for these core truths. Help me to apply them to my life so that my thoughts are correct and my spirit is strong when trouble comes. I want to live for Your glory, even when it’s hard. Show me how. Amen.
Questions for Contemplation
How does the Gospel change our perspective of our suffering?
What key truth does the process of hope show us? How can this help you when you suffer?
How can we be assured that God will not let us down? What did God do to assure us of this? What difference does this make for you?
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