Trials and Suffering
Hal Molloy · Jun 6, 2004
Trials & Suffering (2004), No. 22
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/482623845088

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, open your Bibles to Romans chapter 5. We're going to finish up this passage that we started two weeks ago. Romans 5, starting at verse 1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations, also knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience experience and experience hope. And hope makes not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us."

Two weeks ago we asked some questions with respect to this passage and with respect to tribulations and we say, hey, does every believer really glory and rejoice in tribulations? I had to go through these questions myself in these last two weeks. And how do you live your life so that you glory in tribulations? And what was our answer here? How do we live our life that we glory in tribulation? Okay, I've just seen how effective the teaching was two weeks ago.

And what is it? Yes. John is it? Yeah. Romans 8.28 says, All things work together for good to those who love the Lord. Okay. And that's absolutely true. But what's our response to that?

And so you have Romans 8.28 that says, All things work together for good to them that love God. And how does that, how do we appropriate that? into our life. I mean, it's truth, but are we walking in that truth?

So it's resting, and it's by faith, right? It's by simple trust and faith. Yes, John? Exactly right. Okay, and sometimes you don't have a clue as to why. So we live the Christian life by faith and tribulation. So here comes coronary heart disease and I mean it's bang. So you can respond one of two ways. Either you rest in Him or you rest in self and trust in self.

And we looked at What does it mean in glorying in our tribulations? And just as a review, it says that we have this hope in the glory of God. And hope, we saw in verse 2 in Romans 3, was this absolute certainty. And the absolute certainty has a source. And the source of our absolute certainty is who He is. Right? So the source of hope, and it's not our hope, right? Remember, it was not our hope. It was the hope that comes out from who and what God is. And that's the only absolute certainty we have in this life.

And it's His glory. So we're to rest upon it. Right? We're just to rest, to trust, walk in dependence upon who He is. And the result is we can rejoice. We can glorify. What does glorify mean? When we say we glorify the Lord, what does that mean? Give Him His due. If God's glory is His essence, then to glorify Him, you mean to reveal His essence or to show His essence? Okay, to show His essence. Could we use honor? Honor, okay. Okay. Homage? Homage, okay. And all of those are fine. One way I think I look at it is just to magnify His essence. So, glorifying God is just to magnify who He is.

Okay, so that we rejoice in this hope and here comes the tribulations, right? And as the passage says, not only so, but we are glorying in the tribulations also. And the reason why we're glorying in the tribulations is because our focus is on Him. And so it's independent of our circumstances in life. If our focus and our rest and our trust is in Him, then we're going to be glorifying Him. We're going to be glorifying in our tribulations, right? without a heartbeat. Here comes the tribulations and we're going to be rejoicing in those tribulations because we're rejoicing in Him. And the circumstances in life are not going to deter us from that focus. Okay, as we look at this passage, there's a couple of words that I just want to go through.

Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, and the rest of the verse says this, knowing that tribulation works patience. Now, how in the world does tribulation work patience? Now, if you have a New American Standard, I believe that the word is produced, that tribulation produces patience. How in the world does that happen?

But notice that it says, knowing that. There's something that we're to know. In our class, we've looked at the word know in terms of gnosco, know. Like in Philippians 4.10, where it says, that I might know him, and the power of His resurrection. That's a gnosko-no. And a gnosko-no is to know experientially, to come to know. This word here for know in Romans 3 is the word oida. It's a different word for know. It's oida.

And this word is to know factually, categorically. have full knowledge. So if we say six times eight is what? We how do we we know that, right? We know it factually, we know it categorically. So that's all we know. So this knowledge here is a categorical knowledge, it's a factual knowledge that God is going to take tribulation and work patience, or produce patience. How does He do that? And how do we categorically know that? I'm not going to give you the answer. John?

In my own life, I've seen more than once that God can take something bad and turn it around for good. Okay. So you've experienced that, okay? But this is not experience, right? This is factual knowledge. This is categorical. We know. I put an example here in terms of knowing experientially versus knowing factually. It's interesting.

In John 8.55, the Lord is talking to the Pharisees. The Pharisees are always coming at the Lord. always trying to trip him up, attack him, etc. And here's what he says to them. He says, you have not known him, that is the father, you have not known him, and it's Gnosko, you have not known him in terms of known him experientially, or a knowledge, that there's no progress in your knowledge of Him. So you have not known Him experientially or begun to know Him.

But look what He says. Christ says, but I know Him. I categorically, factually know Him. And He uses this word, oida. OK? This is difference in knowledge. So Christ knew Him perfectly. The point that I'm trying to get at is that our knowing factually and categorically is based upon the character of God. Is that we know Him and so it's a factual knowledge because of who He is.

So then we can rest on the fact that tribulation that God is using tribulation to work or produce patience in our life. Now, what's patience? What we need to look at is this word, work. Notice that it says, tribulation works patience. So the question is this, is it tribulation itself that works patience? In other words, if you have tribulation in your life, by definition, that's going to work patients.

So we need to look at the word work for just a minute. The word work, if I can summarize it, means just to bring about a result, to produce, and I think the New American Standard uses produce, or bring about. to produce or bring about a result. Now, look at the text for a moment. Go back to Romans chapter 5 and verse 3.

It says, Not only so, but with glory and tribulation, also knowing that tribulation works patience. So you see the word work there. Now in verse 4, The word work is implied two times. So the word work is written once in verse three, but it's implied two other times in verse four. And so you can look at verse four and say patience works or produces or brings about experience. And experience works or brings about or produces hope. So it's implied in the Greek.

How does that happen? How does that occur? Don't you think that a lot of times when we get that tribulation, initially we might try to deal with it from the flesh? And depending on how long that might take for us to realize, that's not going to work.

That the Lord convicts us. Yeah, it doesn't happen. And maybe it takes years, and maybe it takes, you know, a few years. But finally you come to the point where you realize that without the Lord dealing with it, through you, it's never going to take place. And I think that's the patience. that dependence on the Lord and understanding that you just have to let Him do it. You can't do it. Okay. So there is a matter of trusting and resting by faith. Okay. Bob?

Probably no better example of identification for it, is there? I mean, the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ, who we're identified with, left this throne. And that was, in essence, a tribulation that Bill, I mean, was identified with patience because he knew what was before him, not the timing thereof, but yet the task that was at hand. And then all of the events leading up to the cross really was trial and tribulation, but the essence of that was patience demonstrated in the Lord Jesus Christ in the sense that the Greek verb hoitis, imperfect here, surprised me actually. But yet to trust that as a fact is a whole different ball game than to trust it experientially. Because when we trust it experientially, we're trying to put a yardstick on how we're doing identifying. The question is, do you believe it or don't you believe it? Right. Exactly right. And that's the key. And that is the key. As I indicated, the work is his work and it's purposeful. He's got a purpose.

God is not whimsical. God is not capricious. A week ago Friday, he didn't say, I think I'll zap out with a coronary heart disease here. He didn't do that. He had a purpose. Did I have a clue as to what that purpose was? Not one clue. My mind and my thoughts were to be riding a 500-mile bike ride in the state of Oregon. I mean, that's where I was, but that's not where he was, and that was not his purpose. And his purpose was to have me in that hospital. And as I lay there, I say, Lord, I'm supposed to be there, right?

And so it's an interesting process that you go through. And then you say, Lord, I know you have a purpose in this. I don't have a clue, but I categorically know you've got a purpose in this. And you don't know what it is. And I'll tell you at the end of this class, really, normally, normally I have found in trials and suffering and tribulation in my life, you don't have a clue as to why, and the Lord doesn't tell you why, but you have to trust Him. You just have to trust and rest. And you never see why.

But sometimes, sometimes He gives you just a little glimpse of what He's doing. And this time, He gave me just a little window in terms of what He's doing. So it's God who's working in us, and He's the one that is appointing us to trials, to tribulations. And if you remember, when we went through First Thess, he appoints us to these trials. It's a divine appointment to every one of these.

And we're his ambassador. We represent our sovereign. We represent the country from which we come. And it's not here. Right? Because our citizenship is in heaven. And that's what we represent as an ambassador. So we're appointed to. And so then the tribulation works patience. Remember patience. We've looked at that many times. One of my favorite words. Hupo mone. Hupo means under, mone means to abide, to abide under, to endure. And so, you know, we've talked about it before.

Normally, what's our response to trials, to suffering, to circumstances in life? Normally, what's our response? Lord, why me? And then on our very next breath, we say, Lord, take it away. Take it away. Right? We don't want to deal with it. So, when we have circumstances in our life, in our family, in our workplace, wherever it is, our prayer to the Lord is, resolve this. I don't want it. as opposed to saying, Lord, it's there for a purpose, and that purpose, you want me to abide under that, to endure under it. He doesn't want to take it away. Okay, as we go on. Here's the question. The question is this.

How does tribulations in our life work or produce patience? The $64,000 question. How does that happen? So here comes the trial, here comes the tribulation, here comes the suffering in our life. How does that produce patience? First of all, we have to ask the question, whose patience are we talking about? Our patient? Let me ask you a question. How's your patience doing? How's mine doing? Do you have patience? So whose patience are we talking about? So the question is, what's the source of patience? That's the only source of patience, is the Lord.

It doesn't come from us. We ain't got it. So it's producing God's character, Christ's character in us. Okay. Very true. Very true. Okay. Through the Spirit. So it's His patience. So here comes the trial. And what does He want us to do in the trial? Trust Him. But the whole Christian life, the whole Christian life can be summarized, right?

Like in Colossians 2.6, as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so what? Walk ye in Him. How have we received Him? By faith. So as you received Him by faith, so walk in Him how? By faith. That's all He wants us to do, is to walk in Him. Walk by faith. And then, as we walk by faith in the trial, in the circumstance, then here comes the patience. But it's not our patience, but it's His patience that is being lived through us. Okay? It's His very patience. His staying power. Staying power in every circumstance, in every trial, in every tribulation in life. And as we go on in this passage, it says impatience works or produces experience, and experience works or results in hope.

And do you notice that there's a full circle? that we started out resting in hope, and now we've gone full circle to come back to hope. Now, I've gone through this passage before here, and I don't know how many of you were here, but we start out rejoicing, glorying in hope. And the source of hope is the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who He is.

And in verses 1 and 2, it says we have access into God's grace in which we stand, in which we are entrenched. So we are entrenched in God's grace, never ever to be taken out. So as we go through life, as we go through circumstances in life, You know, we will never, ever be taken out of God's grace. We're entrenched.

It's our position, our position... What can we say about... This is a positional truth. What can we say about positional truth? Never changes. It's immutable. And what else? Versatile. Irreversible. Irreversible. Okay. We did nothing to earn it. Okay. Very good. We did nothing to earn it. We did nothing to earn it. Okay. Very good. And for how long is it? Eternally. Eternal. It's an eternal truth. It'll never, right? So it'll never change and it's eternal. And it's irreversible.

So we're rejoicing by faith. in Him, and we're beholding Him. And here comes the trial. Here comes the tribulation. And it says we are also rejoicing in our tribulation, or in our trial. Why? Because we haven't taken our eyes off the We're focused on Him. We're just resting and trusting in Him and in the hope of His glory and in the absolute certainty of who He is. So it doesn't matter what the circumstance in life is. It doesn't matter what the trial is. It doesn't matter what the sickness is.

Right? Or the illness. But we're trusting, we're just resting in Him. Lord, I don't have a clue as to why. You do. And I leave it there. And that produces patience, the staying power. The staying power is his staying power. The source is not us. The source is him. And then patience produces tried character.

King James says what experience. Experience. New American Standard says what produces what that that patients produces what perseverance. So, the word experience is this word, we've looked at this, the two words for testing, and when we went through James chapter 1 verse 13, we were talking about temptation, and we looked at the word temptation, pirazo, versus docimazo or docimas. And when we looked at it, we said temptation, or parasmas, was a solicitation to sin, and it's with a view to failure. is a test with a view towards approval. That one is approved. And Dakimas has to do with trying, trying something. Like you take gold ore and you try it. You try it by how? By fire. And the fire takes off all the impurities, right?

And so I just happen to have an illustration here. And what you're left with is the pure gold. So this is pure gold. Now, I don't think it's worth very much. It's very thin. But this is pure gold. So you start off with this ore and you put it to the test by fire. and you wind up with the pure stuff. And so when it talks about experience, or this word experience, or tried character, it's the pure stuff. So help me to understand when it says tried character, and it's pure, what is that tri-character?

It's his character. It's who? He's the only one that's pure, right? It's his character. So, it's his character being manifested through us. We don't, in and of ourselves, we don't have this pure character, this tried character. So it's not your character, it's not my character, it's his. But it's His manifested through us. And that's how God reveals His glory through us. Isn't that incredible? What have we done in this whole process? What was our role in this whole process?

To rest. Just to simply walk by faith. in everything else he does. Produces patience, the trite character, so that his patience is manifested through us, his very character is manifested through us. Isn't that a wow? And we come back to full circle. And as it says, an experience works or produces hope. And so now the question is this. In our Christian walk, Does God have us just going around in a circle? Right? I mean, from hope to rejoicing, and trials and patience, character back to hope, and here we are, just in this circle. Yes and no. Okay. Yes and no. So what's happening in this what appears to be a circle?

As we, by faith, just rest and trust in Him, independent of the circumstances in life, and we're beholding Him, something's happening. We're being transformed, right? into His very image. And as we trust in Him, we're coming to know a little bit more about Him. And so there is that growth, if you will. There is that spiritual growth. So He doesn't have us going around in a circle, but as Nancy says, yes and no. And here's the no. is that as we start out as a brand new baby in Christ, in terms of our new birth, I don't know, can you all see the bottom of the screen here?

Our new birth. is that we're rejoicing in the hope, the absolute certainty of who He is, and then here comes the trial, here comes the circumstances in life, and we are to be rejoicing in those trials and those circumstances, and that works, produces, has a goal to produce patience. His patience manifested through us, and then that patience works a tried character, or that which is approved. That which is pure. His character.

So others see Christ. And this is the way that the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ is made known to the world. There is no other way that the glory of Christ is ever made known to the world except through you and through me. Right? An unbeliever cannot understand the glory of Christ. An unbeliever cannot pick up the Word and understand the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the only way the world can ever see Christ is through you and through me. Now, do you work hard at that? What's our responsibility? What does the Lord ask us to do? OK, rest, behold, just walk, right? Just simply walk by faith, right? That's it.

Here's a wonderful part, and that's this. the last part of this passage in chapter 5 and it says and hope this absolute certainty of who he is maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us and what it's saying is that we will never be ashamed we'll never be disgraced as to who God is in our life. Never ever be ashamed, in terms of his absolute certainty, because God's love, it says, will be shed abroad. And the word therefore, shed abroad, means to be gushed out. that as we rest and trust in Him by faith, that His love will gush out of our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And others are going to see that love. And then here's the neat part, that His love will energize our faith. How does our faith grow? Our faith does grow. How does it grow? Well, it gets energized by His love. And if you want to quickly turn to Galatians chapter 5, verse 4, take a look at it. I'll start at verse 2 just to get things in context. Galatians chapter 5, starting at verse 2.

Paul writes, Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. So there's no works that you can do to either satisfy God or please God. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever you are justified by the law." So how are we justified? By faith, not by the works of the law. And if we're trying to justify ourselves by any kind of work, any kind of work of any law system, look what it says.

It says, you are fallen from where? Well, hold it. Hold it. I just put up a picture. I just put up a picture and we just said that we are in God's grace, right? Never to be taken out. It's eternal. It's irreversible. It never changes. It's immutable, Margaret said.

So what does it mean? That we're fallen from grace. OK? Conditionally. And notice what it says. It doesn't say we've fallen out of grace. Out of grace. It says we've fallen from grace. So, conditionally, we've fallen from walking by faith in God's grace to walking by faith in some law system. So the fall is conditionally from grace to a law system, conditionally, never positionally. But look what it says further, in verse 5, For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith, and now I've got the wrong scripture verse, 5-6.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision. It doesn't matter in Christ. But the only thing that avails is what? Faith. But faith which works or is energized by love. And so here's the thing, is that our faith, as we go, if you will, full circle, and we experience, in going full circle here, that the love of God is shed abroad, or gushed out of our hearts, that very love energizes our faith, and our faith grows. And our faith, in terms of who He is, grows. That's how faith grows. by us being energized by His love. So now let me give you just a little window in terms of how this works. As I went into the hospital and and that we're going to do this angiogram, I say, well, let's see.

Lord, here's the spectrum. I don't know. They won't find anything. I'm in good shape and ride my back foot racquetball, and I've got this acid reflex for years, and I've got these chest pains for years. Or, maybe I really do have a problem, and maybe I'm going to have to have a full bypass. How many bypasses can you have, Bob? How high can you count? Or, you know, something in quadruple. Or there's something in between.

And as I'm laying there and I'm being reeled in to the operating room, whatever, procedure room, saying, well, Lord, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. I'm just trusting you in this because I know, I know categorically that you have a purpose in this. And I don't have a clue what it is, but I'm just going to leave it there. And so after the procedure was over, they wheeled you up into your room. And I had a roommate.

His name was George. And after I was there, I developed a hematoma, and they had to press it and put sandbags on it. where they put the catheter in, it started to swell. It became inflamed. And then it started to bleed. And that's an artery. And there was quite a bit of blood, and I'm laying in this pool of blood, and they're putting on all these pressure devices at 100 psi or whatever it was. I don't know what it was, but they pump up this thing. And there's two nurses, you know, there for an hour, two hours, I'm not sure how long. And I'm talking to them and conversing with them, not realizing that my partner in my room is hearing every word and listening. And after this was over, several hours later, I had to lay still for 14 hours. I couldn't move my leg, or I couldn't lift up.

And so my roommate comes over and introduces himself and says his name is George. Hey, George. And he starts telling me that he's a professor of psychology. I said, oh, that's interesting, George. I said, you know, this much I know about psychology, that psychologists really understand the problems with man. They understand selfishness. They understand greed. They understand envy and jealousy. And I just went down through the list. I said, but the problem is, They don't have a solution. And I expected him to be very defensive. And he says, you're right. And I was surprised. He says, you are right. We don't have a solution. I said, wow.

We were discussing things all through the night. Because they wake you up every hour, take your blood pressure, you know, they poke you. And so, anyhow, I said, Lord, please, I hope no visitors show up on Saturday morning so I can talk to George. And no one showed up. So we talked for three hours. And, in bottom line, George said this. And I don't know if I can say it.

He says, Al, I've observed a couple of things about you. Number one, that you have this tremendous peace about you, independent of all the problems that you had last night, independent of your artery opening up, and just had this tremendous peace about you. And I sense that you love me.

As a church, let me set things straight with you. Number one, it's not my peace. It's the peace from the Word of Jesus Christ. Number two, it's not my love. It's His love for you. And so, at any rate, that's kind of where we left it. And so he wants to get in touch, he wants us to come down there and spend some time with him, etc. So it's interesting how the Lord will put trial or or a circumstance in your life, just to reach one person, just to talk to one person about the Lord Jesus Christ. Is it worth a coronary heart disease problem? You betcha. I don't care. It doesn't matter. And it's like I told the Lord, whatever it takes, Lord. Here am I. Whatever it takes. Let's close.

Father, we are just so thankful for your love for us and your grace. We thank you, Father, for your wonderful words here, the fact that we can categorically know that you are working in our lives, that you are the one that allows trials and tribulations and suffering to come into our life. And you have a purpose, Father. We just thank you that you are a purposeful God. And we don't understand, Father, your ways, because your ways are not our ways, and your thoughts are not our thoughts. Because we know that as high as heaven is above earth, so are your ways above our ways.

But Father, we Thank you for the way and the truth and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our very life. And we thank you, Father, for trials and suffering that comes into our life, knowing that you're going to work them for the good, that you're going to use them to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ through us. And we give you thanks in Christ's name. Amen.