One of the things most people agree on about God is that God loves us. So, one of the biggest questions we have about God is why, given that God loves us, there’s so much suffering in the world.
There’s no doubt that there is. We see it on TV every day. In fact, we see it among our friends and neighbors every day. We all know someone who’s going through something pretty tough in their lives right now, whether it’s a health issue, a financial issue, a family issue, or something else. In fact, for some of us, the someone we know who’s going through that is us, ourselves.
It does not seem right. It does not seem fair. Even we don’t specifically blame God for the suffering, we think, “Why does God not stop it? After all, God is all-powerful. God sees everything, and God can do anything. If God loves us, and God sees us suffering, why does God not do something about it?”
Well, that’s a question that people have been asking for thousands of years, and I’m not going to give you the answer this morning. I think it’s interesting, though, to look at what Paul says about that in our reading from Romans today.
Paul talks about suffering, but Paul does not address whether our suffering is fair. Paul tells us that, rather than complain about the unfairness of our suffering, we should boast in our sufferings.
What’s that mean, to boast in our sufferings? Well, it does not that we’re supposed to make sure everyone knows how much we’re suffering so we can get sympathy for ourselves. That’s a temptation, you know. I’ve done it, usually to Wanda. I’ll get sick, and I’ll want Wanda to know how bad I feel so she’ll give me some sympathy, maybe do a few things for me, that sort of thing. When we were first married, that sort of thing would work sometimes. Now, I get sick, and Wanda just says, “stay away from me so I don’t catch it.”
That’s not what Paul’s talking about when he says we should boast in our sufferings. What Paul says is that, instead of thinking of suffering as unfair, we should look at the benefits of suffering.
That’s kind of a hard concept for us to deal with, especially when we’re in the middle of something. When we’re having serious health problems and don’t know how we’re going to come out of them, if we’ve lost a job and have bills to pay and don’t know where the money’s going to come from, if we have a family member who’s going down the wrong path and it seems like there’s nothing we can do about it, it’s pretty hard to hear, “Well, hey, look at all the benefits you’re going to get from your suffering.” When we’re in the middle of suffering, we just want it to be over, and if we cannot make it be over by ourselves, then we want God to do something to make it be over, and we want God to do it right now.
If we can look back on times we’ve suffered in the past, though, we can see that what Paul says is true. Paul does not say we should look forward to suffering or that we should be happy about it, but Paul says that we can boast in our suffering because of what suffering leads to. He says that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
If you think about some of the things you’ve suffered in your life, you know that’s true. If we’ve gone through tough financial times before, that helps us get through tough times now. If we’ve had a serious illness or injury in the past and beaten it, that help us put up with a new physical problem. If we went through life never having a problem, never having anything go wrong, we’d not be able to handle it when something bad inevitably did happen to us. Suffering produces endurance.
Endurance produces character. When we know we can endure our problems, whatever they are, we’ll be able to do the things we need to do to work our way through them. That does not mean our problems will magically go away, but it does mean we’re more likely to be able overcome them, because we won’t let ourselves give up the way we would if we’d not endured suffering before. Endurance produces character.
That character, that belief that somehow, in some way, we’ll be able to work through our problems, leads to hope. Hope does not mean that we’ll get everything we want, of course. Hope means believing that, if we do what we’re supposed to do, God will do what God does, and things will go the way they’re supposed to go. Hope means trusting that, no matter what happens, God is in control, and trusting that, in the end, God always wins.
The thing is that this endurance, this character, this hope, all starts with suffering. But why? Why do we need to go through all that in order to get our hope and our trust in God?
Listen to what Paul writes next. He says, “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly...God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
When we’re in the middle of our suffering, we often feel weak. We feel helpless. We feel like there’s nothing we can do. It’s at that moment that Christ comes to us. It’s at that moment that we become reconciled to God. It’s at that moment that God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
When you think about it, it has to be that way. If God never allowed us to suffer, if we never had to endure anything, would we really appreciate what Christ did for us? Would we really believe and accept that God’s in control? Or would we start thinking that we’re the ones in charge? We’d start feeling like we’re the ones with the power, like we’re the ones in control. If we never suffered, we’d never need to depend on God’s strength. We’d think we could depend on our own strength. If we acknowledged God at all, we’d feel like anything that God gave us was nothing more than we deserve, and start demanding more, rather than beginning to understand that everything we have is an awesome gift from our incredibly loving God.
By allowing us to suffer, God allows us to see the truth about ourselves. God allows us to see that we’re not in charge, that we’re not powerful, that we’re not strong. Then, when we see how weak we are, God comes to us in the form of Jesus Christ. God comes, and God’s love is proven to us through Jesus’ death.
At the time when we can do nothing for ourselves, Jesus comes and does it all for us, by dying for us, by taking the punishment for our sins. Then, having done it all, Jesus does even more. Listen to what Paul writes: “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”
God, through the death of Jesus Christ, took away our punishment for our sins. That’s an incredible thing, an incredible gift. It’s a greater gift than we can imagine. God, though, wanted to do still more for us. So, Jesus was resurrected from the dead, so that we can have our relationship to God restored. Not only do we get to escape punishment, we get to feel God’s love, to feel God’s presence, to have the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts and be saved for eternal life.
It’s so amazing the way God works. We wish we never had to suffer. We do everything we can to avoid it. Yet, it’s only because of our suffering that we can even begin to appreciate the incredible love and grace of God. It’s only when we feel weak and helpless that we can recognize God’s great strength. It’s only when we feel lost that we can be reconciled to God and be saved.
None of this takes away the pain of suffering when we’re going through it. None of it makes suffering easy or pleasant. If you’re going through a tough time right now, I’m not trying to minimize what you’re feeling or tell you that you should not feel it. Pain is pain, and suffering is suffering, and I’m not trying to pretend otherwise.
Even so, we can still do what Paul says. We can boast in our sufferings. Not because we want them, but because we know God comes to us in our suffering. God comes to us, and we can live in God’s presence. We can rely on God’s love and God’s strength. That’s a hope that will never disappoint us.
Is suffering fair? Maybe not, but neither is God’s love. We can never earn it or deserve it. God just gives it to us, as an incredible, undeserved gift.
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