Month: September 2012

Sovereign Joy

/ adamrenken / Leave a comment
One of the most common topics of discussion between myself and others, both Christians and non-Christians centers on the topic of God’s sovereignty and suffering/evil.  Usually the conversation goes something like this:

Me:  Yes, one of the greatest sources of my joy as a Christian flows from truly believing that God is in control of all things
Them:  You mean to tell me that God was in control of the slave trade to America? God was in control of the Holocaust?  God was in control of 9/11?
Me:  Of course
Them:  If God is in control of that, then God is most certainly NOT good, and I want nothing to do with that “God”
Me:  Obviously those are horrible, horrible events in history.  What I want you to consider, however, is that if God is not in control of those things, what hope would the families of those affected by those awful events have?  If God is not sovereign over bringing about difficulties, pain, and suffering, then God is not sovereign over bringing about resolution, healing, and peace.  What good would prayer be to a God who does not have the ability to answer it?

Depending on how that conversation went, I would likely want to walk through some scripture from there.  The question that must be answered is – “If God is good, what is His good purpose in suffering and hardships?”

Paul begins Romans 5 with a declaration of our salvation in Jesus Christ, and then immediately turns to say that we will have suffering in this life as a Christian.

Romans 5:1-5 – “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”

So suffering should produce in us hope. 

We see this explained again just 3 chapters ahead in Romans 8:18-25 – “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

We are God’s creation, we are a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:17).  Part of God’s purpose in suffering is to show that our hope is not in this world, but in Christ.  

God’s plan is to use our suffering as a means of comfort to others.  2 Corinthians 1:3-7 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.  If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”

Let me put this into context.  Let’s say you have an auto accident and lose a child.  If someone comes up to you seeking to comfort you, would you rather be comforted by someone who has no children and therefore no true understanding of the pain you’re going through or by someone who has lost a child themselves and knows EXACTLY what you’re going through?  What if you lose a loved one to a long drawn out battle with cancer?  Would you rather be comforted by someone who has never gone through that, or by someone who themselves has been through the pain you are going through?  It’s not to say that you would not be appreciative of any efforts, but certainly you would lean more heavily on the person(s) who know what you’re going through, right?
Many of you struggle with coming to terms with past sin in your life, and the sin that you’re still battling today in your life.  My encouragement is not to make light of your struggle, but to put perspective on it.  Who you are in Christ is meant to be an encouragement to those around you who have similar pasts / struggles.  Someone who has had an abortion can comfort and encourage someone who has had an abortion in a way that I never could.  I can comfort and encourage a man who struggles with past relationships / immorality like no woman can.
If you have truly been saved, then Christ is in you; God, the Holy Spirit has made His dwelling in you.  Therefore, when you are able to comfort those around you because you have been through similar suffering and hardships, that is the will of God, and literally God in you comforting those people.  That is beautiful when it happens, and exactly what God desires.
In Romans 8:35-37 we are told – “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  As it is written,“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Bolded by me for emphasis)
Christ did not end tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword (violence).  Clearly those things still occur in the fallen world we live in.  We are the means of God to redeem those things.  More than just causing tribulation and suffering to cease, God uses it to accomplish a good purpose – strengthening faith, securing hope in Christ alone, and creating the means by which we can demonstrate God’s mercy and love to others.  This is how God causes all things to work towards good for those who love God, who have been called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28). 
Here’s my encouragement to you today.  Your circumstances in life are never going to be exactly how you’d like.  More than that, you are assured of difficult times and suffering in this life.  Our hope as Christians is that God has demonstrated his great love for us in Jesus Christ dying for sinners, and has promised that everything is working towards good for Christians who are called according to His purpose.  Therefore, as a Christian, know that whatever your lot in life today, God is not surprised by it; God has a good plan for you EXACTLY where you are.  Trust Him.  He has earned our trust in fulfilling every one of His promises to us in Christ, hasn’t He?  He bore all our sin on the cross, that we would be reconciled to Him for eternity.  He died that we would know His steadfast love and everlasting joy.  Know that He loves you, and seek His kingdom and righteousness in whatever situation you’re in.  In doing so, you will have the answer to how God is good and is sovereign over suffering.  In doing so, you will be able to find joy in the sovereignty of God today, and in the days to come. 
Grace and Peace,
Adam

A Hope That Never Fails

/ adamrenken / Leave a comment
Brothers and Sisters,

I spend a lot of time these days thinking about you.  I see evidences of God’s movement in the church as a whole around me, and that is cause for great joy in me.  At the same time I know that there are times in my own fight for faith where my hope in Christ is threatened.  There are times when you struggle to maintain your faith at all, let alone hazard any consideration of spiritual growth.  We all have those times.  I am reminded that we have an enemy that prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet 5:8).  These times of struggle will come for every Christian and I want you to know that you are not alone; you share the company of every true Christian that has ever lived.  I have spent hours, days, and seasons where I have been in such seeming darkness that I could not imagine that I was a Christian, let alone an object of God’s love.  Yet even in those seasons, God has sustained my hope in Him.  So, for a reason that is known only to God, I feel a great burden to encourage you and share with you that the greatest love of God experienced by myself, as a Christian, has been the means by which God works to hold you, to reach out to you, to draw you back to Himself.  If you are reading this, then consider that even this perhaps as a means by which God’s love is reaching out to you, reminding you of the gospel and His great love for you.

Sometimes I have wondered why I did not grow up in a home with two parents who loved Christ.  I wondered why after following Christ I had so much sin left in my life, even though I loved God greatly and hated my sin.  I wondered why God seemed to allow me to see clearly His glory from His Word giving me great joy and at the same time allowed me to fall into periods where I felt no joy at all. I wondered why God allowed me to see non-Christians flourish in happiness around me and to see non-Christians have gifts of marriage and family while I still did not.  These things I would call to mind and begin to lose hope.  My guess is that if we went around a room, many of you would have stories of much greater darkness and struggles than my own, where your hope in Christ has been challenged to an even greater degree.  I am not naive to think my experiences are unique.  In times of struggle, questions seem rise up from within.  How can a God who loves you allow this to happen?  How can you muster up any affection for God when life is not what you would have it be?  How can you preach the gospel to the world when you struggle to preach it to yourself?  How can you think about being salt and light to a dying world when the greatest darkness you see is in your own heart?  Satan would have you languish in those thoughts, but we have been given the Truth to combat his lies.

Lamentations 3:1-24 – “I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.  He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.  He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.  He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.  He drove into my kidneys  the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.  He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.  He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”  Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!  My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”  
Let me bold enough to say that if you have never anguished over your sin and lack of joy in salvation, you are no Christian.  I say this not to out non-Christians, but to dispel any notion of pridefulness that might rise up to suggest that one Christian’s struggle for faith against sin is “greater” than another’s.  We are all broken jars of clay; our hope is rooted not in our strength, but in our weakness.  Jesus came to seek and save the lost, He is our great physician – a healer of those who are sick, not of those who believe themselves to be well.  So for you, my brothers and sisters who are battling today, who are struggling against sin in the fight for faith – be encouraged; Lamentations 3:31-32 – “the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;”  

Consider today that God knows you better than you know yourself.  Every ounce of your sin, past, present, and future was known by Jesus when he took your sin upon Himself.  His love for you is not contingent upon your actions, it is contingent upon who you are in Christ; an adopted son of God, an adopted daughter of God – clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus.  Now if God so loves you, to reconcile you at infinite cost to Himself – will He now cast you off because of your struggles?  No, the love of God to us was not a moment in time on a cross, but eternal past, present, and future.  

“God Himself is eternal, and God is love; therefore, as God Himself had no beginning, His love had none. Granted that such a concept far transcends the grasp of our feeble minds, nevertheless, where we cannot comprehend, we can     bow in adoring worship. How clear is the testimony of Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.” How blessed to know that the great and holy God loved His people before heaven and earth were called into existence, that He had set His heart upon them from all eternity. Clear proof is this that His love is spontaneous, for He loved them endless ages before they had any being.

The same precious truth is set forth in Ephesians 1:4,5, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him. In love having predestinated us.” What praise should this evoke from each of His children! How tranquilizing for the heart: since God’s love toward me had no beginning, it can have no ending! Since it be true that “from everlasting to everlasting” He is God, and since God is “love,” then it is equally true that “from everlasting to everlasting” He loves His people.”  – A. W. Pink

Brothers and sisters, do not lose hope as you encounter trials in your faith.  The God of love, who loves us with a love beyond our understanding, has a good purpose for us in all things.  Romans 8:28-39 – “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If you are struggling in your faith, find hope in the words of the Master, our Lord Jesus Christ Matthew 5:3-10 –

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

May we all finish this life not confident of our own success, but in the success of Jesus Christ for us.  May our strength not be rooted in our power, but the surpassing power of God at work in us.  May we never hope in this world, but hope always in the One who overcame the world.  Every other hope is fleeting, but there is a Hope that never fails in the love of God in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross.  Tetelestai, it is finished.  God’s love extends over all our sin, over all our suffering, to reconcile us for all time to God.  His grace is enough, therefore let our hope be in Him.

I love you all, and my prayer and encouragement for you is the same as Paul’s was to the church at Ephesus:  Ephesians 3:14-20 – “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”