Recharge Bible Study: Tenacity

Romans 5:1-5

‘Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And let us boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but let us also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’

Suffering produces perseverance

One of my favourite books is Michael Rosen’s ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ (you can take the girl out of primary teaching but…). In fact I often describe it as being one of the books that has been the most influential in my faith in recent years. For those of you not familiar with the story, a family set out on a bear hunt but their adventure is plagued with challenges, from long swishy grass to roaring rivers and even a snowstorm.

When we’re faced with suffering – our muddy field on the way to finding the bear – we have a choice about how we face it. We can sit down, our journey stalled by the struggle ahead, or we can pull on our wellies and squelch on through. That journey through the difficult bits takes us through new experiences. We learn that we can swish through fields of tall grass, stumble through dark forests or beat a path through a howling snow storm. We discover skills we didn’t know we had and levels of energy or strength we hadn’t realised we were capable of. As the story goes, ‘We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’ve got to go through it.’ Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds us that we know that suffering produces perseverance. It’s those moments, when we press on knowing that the goal is worth more than the struggle to get there, that suffering produces perseverance: tenacity, persistence, holding fast, refusing to give up.

When setting out on the bear hunt, the one thing that makes it easy to wade through the river carrying your shoes and your picnic high over your head, is the rich grassy fields on the other side. Just get across and you can dry off in the sunshine as you wander through those fields. This Romans passage offers a similar point to focus on: ‘Since we have been justified through faith, let us have peace with God through Jesus.’ Whatever the obstacle on this journey is, we can be assured that it’s not a result of a damaged relationship with God. That’s all sorted. We have been justified through faith so we can have that peace with God. Not the peace of God, which he gives. But peace with him. The kind of peace you feel when you’re out for a walk with a really good friend - no hard feelings between you, no awkward uncomfortable silences, just peace.

On the sunny days when you’re strolling happily through the fields, faith is easy. But there’s nothing like walking through a muddy field in wet shoes to make you realise just how much you did need those wellies after all. I’m sure those of you just back from the summer festivals can relate? Similarly, we come to a much greater realisation of our need for God’s strength and provision when we find ourselves facing a challenge that we’re not sure how to overcome.

Maybe that’s what pain is for? To push us to find a deeper understanding of who God is.

Perseverance, character

From an idyllic start, Job’s story in the bible goes downhill fairly quickly – the upright man with his blossoming family, vast farmstead and successful business. Job suffers unimaginable loss in a very short period of time and his wife and friends are quick to offer advice. But Job shows immense determination to worship God through it all. As more and more of his securities are stripped away he becomes more and more committed to seeking God.

Despite his wife’s insistence to turns his back on his faith, Job’s tenacity is rewarded when God reveals himself in full technicolour glory, making all Job’s practical struggles pale into insignificance in the light of his Lord.

I’ve always liked Job’s story up to this point; the reassurance that however rubbish things are in life, God is greater. Significantly so. But the story wraps up so hastily after this point. God restores everything Job has lost and they all live happily ever after. While I’m sure Job was happy with his new home, business and even family, there was surely some level of remaining grief, at least for the children he had lost? But it also leaves me wondering what change Job’s friends saw in him as a result of this experience. Can anyone persevere through such adversity and be left unchanged? Is it really possible to stand face to face with God and not come away different? I wonder how the 43rd chapter of Job would describe its leading character if it existed?

Paul tells the Romans that suffering produces perseverance which, in turn produces character. The trials that we face and the way that we face them shape who we are. It’s why people who survive serious illness often leave their careers to focus on family or to work in a different field. And why people who suffer significant loss find a different sense of value in people, time or physical things. Or why it’s often the hardest moments which prompt people to explore faith. Knowing what our values are – what we really consider to be important – shapes our thoughts and behaviour: our character.

This grace in which we now stand

To put it another way, those who have suffered and survived greater loss than they ever imagined possible emerge from that experience with a fresh understanding of the grace of God – the Romans passage calls it ‘This grace in which we now stand.’ As William Newell wrote, in his study of Romans, there are a series of things which ‘gracious souls’ discover. To see personal change in even some of these areas sounds like character development to me:

• To hope to be better is to fail to see yourself only in Christ.
• To be disappointed with yourself is to have believed in yourself.
• To be discouraged is to have unbelief in God’s purpose and plan for you.
• To be proud is to be blind as we have no standing before God in ourselves.
• Lack of blessing comes from unbelief rather than failure of devotion.
• Real devotion to God comes not from our willpower but from our discovery that God blesses us even while we are unworthy and un-devoted.
• To preach devotion first, blessing second is to reverse God’s order and preach law rather than grace. Law presents our blessing as dependent on our devotion whereas God’s grace offers undeserved, unconditional blessing.

Persevering through suffering, in whatever form we experience it, eventually drives us to shift our focus away from self, with its disappointment, discouragement, pride and unbelief, and to look to God’s grace and blessing. Our character is developed through our realisation of who we are (and are not!) in the light of who God is and how unreservedly he loves us. Job’s response is fairly extreme – ‘My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you, therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.’ I’m not suggesting we’re aiming for self-loathing, rather a clarity about the significance of God and the insignificance of our own ego.

Character, hope

It’s that shift in focus which leads to Paul’s final transformation in this passage. Character produces hope. As our character develops it becomes more and more founded on who God is, and less and less about our own personality. That’s where we find hope. It’s a hope in God’s bigger story. This God who created us, justified us through his own sacrifice and has a plan which goes way beyond anything we could imagine in this earthly life. A hope which knows that however hard the process might be, it doesn’t depend on our capacity to handle it. A hope which has confidence because we know God’s love and have his Spirit – this hope won’t disappoint.

So let us ‘boast in the hope of the glory of God.’ This means knowing we have a certain hope. It means we know we stand in his grace. It means our focus is shifting away from self and more towards God. It means our character is being shaped by knowing who he is, and it might mean we’ve gone through some difficult stuff to get there. But this hope ‘Will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’