Why Christians Have Problems: Romans Series #14

In the desperate days we are living in, Christians need to have spiritual steel and Christ-center concrete in their lives. We need to have an anchor of faith to grip the solid rock. Many Christians are being blown about by the winds of circumstances and are being scattered by the storms of calamity. They are being swept away in floods of affliction. They seemingly do not have an anchor that will hold them in the storm. God wants us to be strong. God doesn’t want us to fold up and give up. God wants us to look up and stand up. God wants us to have a foundation that is sure.

The Book of Romans provides a foundation for our faith, a sure word for an unsure age. Would you like to have rock solid faith? Would you like for your anchor to hold? God is in the business of building strong saints. When God gives us salvation, he’s not finished with us, He is only beginning with us. The Bible says in Philippians 1:6, “He who hath

begun a good work in you will perform it.” Thus, being saved does not mean we are now the finished product.

In Romans 5:1-5, we read, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate in hope of the glory of God. ³ And not only this, but we also celebrate in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; ⁴ and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; ⁵ and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

When God saved you, what does God give you as the byproduct of that salvation? Is it peace or is it tribulation? The answer is yes. We read about the peace of God in verse one, “Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But in verse three, we read, “And not only so, but we celebration in our tribulation.”

When we are saved it is wrong to believe that we receive peace without any problems, no heartaches, no tears and no disappointments. When God builds into us a rock-solid faith He is going to mix in some tribulation.

I. Our Conversion Attracts Conflicts (Rom. 5:1-2)

In Romans 5:1-2, Paul is writing about our conversion, being justified by faith. He is talking about peace with God and talking about access by faith into this grace, “wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

Yet, when we move to Romans 5:3, we read “and not only so, but we celebrate in our tribulations.” The word “tribulation” means pressure. It is translated here tribulation, but it was used when you would crush grapes to get wine, the same word. It was used when you would crush olives to get oil.

God wants to build into our character through the wine and the oil of His strength and His love. As a result of His ultimate goal, God will allow pressure or bring pressure into our lives because without pressure, God cannot make us strong saints. We need conflict though we do not want it or seek it.

A diamond is a lump of coal that’s been under pressure for a long time. We need to understand the ways of God that when you are having trouble and heartache and disappointment, God is over it all. The word “luck” does not belong in the Christian’s vocabulary. And the word “fate” does not belong in your vocabulary. God is watching over it all. You may not be able to understand it. Where reason cannot wade, there faith must swim. But you must understand that God is over all and when you come to Jesus, you’re going to come into conflict and pressure.

Now this conflict and this pressure may come from Satan, life itself, or it may come from God. Satan will bring conflict to cause you to stumble, God will bring conflict to cause you to stand, but you’re going to know pressure as a Christian.

A. From The World To Conform

Some of this pressure is going to come from the world. In Romans 12: 1, we read, “Don’t be conformed to this world.” The minute you come to Jesus, this world is going to begin to bring pressure on you to squeeze you into its mold and you will feel that every day in the entertainment world, in the business world, in the social world and in the political world. There will be incredible pressure upon the child of God.

B. From The Flesh To Corrupt

Additionally, there will be pressure come from the flesh. When we are saved, we receive a new nature, but the old Adamic nature is still there. We feel it and know it. The Bible calls this “the flesh.” From time to time, we have a civil war within us.

When you come into salvation, you’re going to find out that the world will be working on you to squeeze you into its mold. Additionally, you’ll find out that inside there is something that rises up within you and there is raging in you a conflict, a civil war.

In Galatians 5:17, we read, “the flesh resists the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to another.”

As we live for Christ, there be the conflict with the world, conflict with the flesh, but there will be also conflict with the devil himself.

C. From Satan To Compromise

After we come to Christ, we will come to understand the power of Satan. If you find yourself not having much difficulty with the devil, it could be because the devil and you are traveling the same direction. When we turn around, we will have a collision with him. We move from collusion with him to collision with him. After our salvation there will come a season or seasons when Satan will come to fight you. Just as Satan came against Jesus, he comes against me and he will come against you.

Conversion brings conflict. Sometimes, conflict like you’ve never known. You may get the idea that you’re not even saved because here you’re sailing along and then one day you give your heart to Jesus and bang here comes the world, here comes the flesh, here comes the devil against you. The Bible calls that tribulation or pressure.

D. From God For Character

Additionally, not only will it come from Satan to cause you to stumble, but it will also come from God to cause you to stand. God himself will bring tribulation and pressure. The Bible says, whom the Lord loves He scourges and disciplines. Temptation and testing and trials are a part of life. It’s a false gospel that articulates when we come to Christ there will be no adversity, no misfortune, there will be no persecution and no pain.

II. Conflict Advances Consistency (Rom. 5:3)

Let us read, “knowing that tribulation brings perseverance.” The word “perseverance” means consistency. When the pressure comes and the crisis comes, it does not make you but reveals what you’re made of. The same sun that melts the ice, hardens the clay. Conflict teaches endurance and persistence.

Do you want strength? Victory? Prosperity? Contentment? How about patience? Endurance? Consistency? We will not have victory, prosperity, strength and contentment without patience, endurance and consistency.

You will never learn much of anything worth learning if you don’t have consistency, endurance, and patience. If you want to learn how to play the piano, you’re going to have to learn the scales. If you’re going to learn Greek, you’re going to have to study the verbs. If you want to lose weight, you’re going to have constancy.

If you want to build character, you’re going to have to persevere, you’re going to have to endure. There is no instant maturity. Conversion brings conflict and conflict is meant to teach consistency. The Bible calls this perseverance.

A. Retreat Because Of Pressure

What do we do when the conflict comes? Some people just retreat. They just run away from conflict. They wither physically or emotionally. They buy a plane ticket, they take a pill, they turn up a bottle, they take a needle or they take a gun.

B. Resent Because Of Problems

Others, when conflict comes, they resent. I mean, since they gave my heart to Jesus Christ, they develop a grudge against God. They become cynical. They don’t retreat, they resent.

C. Resign Because Of Pain

Next, other people resign; they just cave in. They give up. They lie down on the field and surrender their shield and give into discouragement and despondency.

D. Resolve Because Of Promises

But what is God’s plan? God’s plan is not for you to retreat. He does not want you to resent, not to resign but to resolve by faith that you will follow Him.

If you really have faith when trouble comes, you will endure. Faith is not receiving the things you want nearly so much as it is accepting from God the things He gives. Tribulation works perseverance. What you need to do is to get a bulldog grip on almighty God and be like Jacob and say, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

III. Consistency Adds Character (Rom. 5:4)

In Romans 5:4, we read, “and perseverance, proven character.” God wants to build into us character. God wants to build into you, Rock-solid faith. God is building his saints with spiritual steel and spiritual concrete. Do you see, reputation is what others think about you. Character is what God and your spouse know about you. There is a huge difference between being a character and having character.

A. Character Bulit Through Trials

Character has the essence of gold tried by the fire. God is going to put you in the fire of affliction. Why? The faith that cannot be tested, can’t be trusted.  When God leads you through the fire, you will find out how much dross there is that needs to be burned out of your life.

The time that I have grown the most and the time you will grow the most, is not when everything has been going fine, but when the challenges come our way. When you think back about those times when you grew the most in the Lord and most likely they were times when you were going through sorrow and pressure and trouble, Somebody wrote these lines, “I walked a mile with pleasure, she chatted all the way. But left me none the wiser for all she had to say. I walked a mile with sorrow and not a word said she. But oh the things I learned from her when sorrow walked with me.”

B. Character Built Through Transformation

God is in the transformation business. God did not take away evil. What God does, he transforms us. God didn’t stop crucifixion, but He just gave us Easter. God’s method is not necessarily the method of substitution. Most of us want God to give us health instead of sickness. We want God to give us wealth instead of poverty. We want God to give us friendship rather than loneliness. We just want God to substitute the bad for the good. Yet, God is in the transformation business.

God took Paul’s weakness and he transformed it into strength. He took his suffering and transformed it into glory. God wants to build into us character.

A person asked a businessman, “How do you become a success in business?” He said, “Good decisions.” Next, the person asked, “Where do you learn how to make good decisions?” He said, “Experience.” The person said, “Thanks. Where do you get experience?” He said, “Bad decisions.”

There are times when God places us in the furnace of affliction and God is going to build character in our lives. You can be instantly spiritual, but you cannot be instantly mature. All of us are young once, but we can be immature for a long time. I have often thought what it would be like of all the Christians came to church one Sunday dressed according to their spiritual maturity. A lot adults would come wearing diapers and carrying rattlers.

If you will stay in the fire, God knows what he is doing. Most of us just want to get out of the fire too soon. Yet, when the person who is refining the gold, he knows it’s pure when he can see his face reflected in it. What God is looking for is his character, his likeness reflected in our lives.

IV. Character Activates Confidence

We read in Romans 5:4, “and character hope.”

What does the Bible mean when it says “hope?” It doesn’t mean maybe so.

A. Rock-Solid Faith

When the Bible uses the word “hope” it means rock-solid faith. For example, the second coming of Jesus is called the blessed hope. That doesn’t mean the blessed maybe. He is talking about hope as an anchor of the soul.

B. Anchor For The Soul

In Romans 5:19, we read, “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast.” What good is an anchor without a solid rock? You may say, “I want rock-solid faith.” Here is the formula: conversion brings conflict, and conflict teaches consistency, and consistency brings character, and character brings confidence.

When we have gone through the fire, we have the testimony that God has not failed us. God has kept His Word to us. You know that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you know what hope is? Hope is faith in the future tense. Faith believes God not only for the present, but it believes God for the future. Hope can see heaven through the thickest clouds.

Paul says, “and perseverance character, and character hope “and hope maketh not ashamed.” What does that mean, “maketh not ashamed?” It means God will never disappoint you. He cannot fail. He will not fail. We need to get a bulldog grip on the things that really count. No one ever has or ever can put his faith in Jesus and be disappointed or ashamed that he did it. When you know Jesus and when your feet touch those chilly waters of death, and when the winds are blowing, your anchor will hold. You will have a rock-solid faith. That’s what hope means. Conversion brings conflict, conflict teaches consistency, consistency builds character and character enables us to trust God in the darkest storm. “Which hope we have is an anchor of the soul.” The Apostle Paul in the Book of Ephesians talked about those who were lost, and he talked about them being alienated from the life of God without hope in this world. Aren’t you glad there is a concrete hope! Not a maybe but a certainty!

 

 

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