A while back, I learnt Tae Kwon Do (TKD for short) – the biggest Korean martial art. It was good fun, but it was also lots of hard work. We trained ourselves to be able to take all kinds of punishment and, though we hoped never to use it, how to dish it out in return. Lots of sweat and tears went into practice; often, if you wanted it to pay off, it had to hurt – and hurt a lot. As we’ll see, following Jesus, strangely enough, isn’t too different to TKD.
In the book of Romans, Paul explains the following:
- We were cut off from God’s favour and under his judgement
- God acted in Christ, taking the punishment we deserve on himself in our place.
- We need only trust God and his chosen King, Jesus to be saved.
- We’re promised a share in God’s blessings if we trust him.
Now in Romans 5:1-11, Paul begins to show us what this all means:
The gospel and suffering:
1) God loves us so much that he’d die in our place:
“While we were still weak, at the right time,” Christ died for us, “the ungodly” (5:6). A person will rarely die to save another – even a ‘good’ person (5:7). But we lived our lives set against God, and Jesus died for us (5:8).
2) Jesus will return to judge the world; he will punish sins:
But he has made us right before him – he’s taken our punishment already. So, we don’t need to fear being condemned – we will be saved from God’s anger when Jesus returns (5:9). We have the certain hope that he’ll raise us to life (5:10), so we rejoice! (5:11)
3) We are no longer facing God’s anger:
We have received grace from God (5:2). “Grace” is a tricky word that’s often misunderstood – it really means undeserved kindness. Therefore, God has been kind to us, even though we don’t deserve it, by forgiving our sins. Even though we were such corrupted sinners, the Bible says we will share in perfect life with Jesus.
4) We rejoice in our sufferings:
This world fights against God, as we saw in previous weeks. We’ve been made God’s friends, so, obviously, the world would fight against us. Yet, we shouldn’t be dismayed by the sufferings of today; we, instead, rejoice in them. Not only do these pains prove that we are friends of God, but they also have a purpose: they teach us to endure (like all those knuckle-push-ups-on-concrete I did inTKD to train for breaking roof tiles) (5:3). This endurance teaches us character, so we can stand tall in the face of suffering (5:4). This character makes us look to our eternal destination, focusing on the hope God has given us (5:4). And we can be sure that God will keep his promise (5:5). But here’s where the rubber hits the road: is this your experience of the Christian walk?
Do you suffer for who you trust?
Perhaps there’s a reason God’s kept you from suffering; but Paul seems to think that, more often than not, there would be other things at play. The word “rejoice” in Romans 5 could also mean “boast” – that is, tell others about the great things our God has done. If you’re not suffering, one reason may be that you’re not telling others. By no means should you seek suffering, but you should expect it and you will likely see it yourself if you’re living for Christ.
Does your suffering produce character, endurance and hope, or do you become disheartened?
Every Christian feels the ups and downs of life; emotions are no measure of your spiritual wellbeing (in fact, you should not judge your faith by your feelings). Suffering makes it hard to stand firm for Christ, but it should never stop you from telling others about him. If you’re having a hard time, pray about it, talk to mature Christians about it, pray with them, and read the Bible to remind yourself what you’re looking forward to. Don’t give up!
This is a hard passage to match the hardness of following Christ. I said before that Christianity is similar to TKD – but there is one point of major difference. Pain in TKD eventually leads to a black belt and some bragging rights; suffering in Christ leads to sharing in God’s glory, in a new creation, free of suffering and free of sin, forever. So rejoice in your sufferings and give glory to God!