5/2/26 Long Suffering: When Life is a Drag

Romans 5:3-4 “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.”

Let’s ask the question now that we have an understanding long-suffering is for those of you who missed that that was last week’s teaching, let’s ask the question is long- suffering even biblical. According to what we learned last week long- suffering involves patience because it is a development that requires perseverance. Here in Romans 5 there’s a lot here to chew on. Paul, develops the structure here quickly saying when we run into problems and trials. If you’ve listened to this ministry even for a few weeks I would hope that you know by now that I frequently teach that the motivational speaker driven theology on Christian networks is not Christian and not biblical. Paul immediately tells us there are problems and there are trials in the Christian life and notice how he develops this with endurance to achieve a goal that leads to another goal and what those goals are to be derived from.

Paul declares you will run into problems and trials. Many of us have issues with this because let’s be honest there’s anything that we will run from its pain and while some of us are distributors of stress and contention and drama eventually it takes its toll in our mental health. Let’s consider trial just what is it biblically is Paul referring to here?

In the GR: thlípsis (“compression, tribulation”) carries the challenge of coping with the internal pressure of a tribulation, especially when feeling there is “no way of escape” (“hemmed in”). Yes you have heard this definition before actually this year from me. Is there a precedent for this biblically? Can we look at the lives of others that we read about in this sacred text let’s see trials & see trials? Let me quickly pass through this because the issue is obviously-Trials

Biblical Character Context Example of Longsuffering

Jeremiah       Prophet during the decline of Judah Endured persecution and rejection while faithfully delivering God’s messages

Joseph           Sold into slavery by his brothers Showed forgiveness and compassion towards his brothers despite their betrayal

Job                 Faced immense suffering and loss Maintained faith and trust in God throughout his trials

Ruth              Left her homeland to follow her mother-in-law Demonstrated loyalty and selflessness towards Naomi

Old Testament speaking these are just four of the multitude of examples as to How trials are entirely biblical let’s look at a few view examples

Biblical Character       Example of Longsuffering

Job             Endured immense suffering while remaining faithful to God

Paul            Endured trials, persecution, and hardships for the sake of the gospel

Joseph       Showed forgiveness and longsuffering towards his brothers who betrayed him

Let’s focus on job because his trial is probably the most commonly preached on because let’s be honest he’s doing everything he’s supposed to do and then live caves in on him. He lost loved ones, his health, his reputation, his fortune, his business and his friends were shown to be less than genuine. So let’s not ask if anyone can relate to this but can anyone relate to portions of this?

Remember he is a man of God And a man of incredible influence in his culture. And the question we want to ask is why? If we look at job and we look at ourselves and then we look to the Lord and we ask why? Paul declares the reason in our opening verse in the book of Romans 5. There is a benefit to dealing with long-suffering the means though by which that goal is achieved is through long-suffering, the need for patience.

Some of us have dealt with circumstances and hardships they just keep coming and you’re asking God to serve as a shield for you that this collapse it is occurring in multiple avenues good to take a break and give you a chance to catch your breath because your faith is starting to fail. Again I will go back to a previous message from this very year in which we talked about testing. This testing was discussed under the subject of the refiners fire. The challenge is your faith and
Paul isn’t the only one to speak on it.

James 1:3-4 “For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

Notice the commonality, endurance has to grow. According to James long-suffering here mentioned as endurance is entirely essential to our faith. Job had a monumental collapse in multiple areas of his life, his faith was being tested and he refused to give in to the notion that the Lord had abandoned him, or that the Lord was in any way wrong for allowing these collapses to occur. Much of this has to do with humility as well and the recognition of who we are when compared to our creator. Can you relate to Job? Are there times when you have no one to console you? Or other times when your circumstances indicate being abandoned by God?

Let’s go back to Paul and look at the first line.

2 Corinthians 1:6 “Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation!

Some of us you little help here because of the way this is structured it is for our comfort? And somebody make logical sense out of that? How can we be comforted when we are weighed down with troubles? Seems like an oxymoron seems like a contradiction but it isn’t because the last two words mean everything. Notice that in spite of being weighed down with troubles that salvation hasn’t gone anywhere. These troubles are not a condition of the loss of salvation. Just
as it was with Job the salvation issue or as many people put it God being mad or as people who don’t know a lick of theology state it’s karma. First of all God does not invoke trouble upon us if he is dissatisfied with our performance. Second karma has not a single thing to do with being a Christian and a follower of Jesus Christ.

Now let’s move to the conclusion of verse 6-

For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer.”

There is the word again endure. Notice the context the same things we’re suffering from in other words your case probably isn’t that unique. But again there is a goal too long-suffering. When the world is falling down around you and you’ve done all that you can do I wanna take you back to the very first area of Romans 5: 3 where Paul says rejoice.

He says rejoice because all you have left is to go through it. The only choice you have in the matter is whether or not you’re going to cling to your salvation in Christ Jesus as you endure and let patience reaped the reward of relying on your salvation because you are of come to the point where God is the only one that can pull you out of this.

I’m not sure if you’re listening to me I’m not sure if you can hear me. You see when you’ve done all you can do then it’s time to let God do what he can do it’s time to stand back and let him show off you are a child of God! And then my God who is the savior of the world who is the king ready to reclaim his throne who has overcome the world has fooled dominion authority and power in my life and I’m just going to sit back and walk through this minefield as he leads me and let him show off just how awesome he is!