This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. Welcome to our daily drive-time devotions. Romans chapter 5 this week is what we're walking through together. This is our second day. We're looking together today at Romans 5 verses 3 to 5. Question as we begin. Are you going to have problems? Problems in this life? The answer is a resounding yes. If we're to have joy in our lives, we have to deal with that yes. We have to deal with that fact. And there are a lot of ways of dealing with that fact. Some people try to find joy by ignoring their problems, pretending they don't have problems. I wish. Joy instead is recognizing how God uses our problems. In order to make progress, I have to understand God's process when it comes to joy. Otherwise, all the time I'm going to be confused. God, what are you doing in my life? Why are things happening this way? We have to understand God's process of joy while we live in this world. Romans chapter 5 verses 3 to 4 talk about God's process. They give us the picture of the assembly line for joy, for hope in our lives. It's an assembly line that may be one that you didn't quite expect. Let me read those verses, Romans 5 verses 3 and 4. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he's given us. These verses talk about God's assembly line for hope and joy in our lives. And notice it starts with the fact that we're all going to face sufferings in this world. Step one in this assembly line for joy, for hope, is get a problem. You think you can complete step one? No problem. We all have problems. Are you going to have problems? Yes. And in order to have joy in your life, the Bible tells us that God uses those problems. The very problems that we think can steal our hope, can steal our joy, can actually give us hope and joy. Now there's three facts about problems just to remind ourselves of real quickly. First, problems are inevitable. Everyone has them. No one can escape them. Life's daily quizzes and periodic final exams, somebody has called them. If you refuse to see that you're going to have problems when they happen, you're going to always be asking, why me? Well, the truth is, why not you? Problems are happening to everybody. No one can escape problems. Problems are inevitable. Problems are also unexpected. There's various kinds of problems. They come and you never know when they're going to hit you next. It's interesting that the New Testament word for trials, for difficulties, gives us our English word for pirate. And problems are sort of like that. They ambush you from unexpected directions and unexpected ways, unexpected times. They're unexpected. But a third truth to remember about problems is, problems are used by God to grow us. Now I say that not to minimize our problems, but to recognize God's power. I'm saying that God uses problems to develop and grow us. Now, saying that God uses problems to develop and grow us is very different from saying that problems are good. They are not. God is good. And our good God can use even the evil problems that are thrown into our lives to develop and grow us. One of the most common questions that I hear is, why does God allow problems and sufferings at all? That's a good question. God could obviously stop all of it if he wanted to, or else he wouldn't be God. There has to be a reason that he's waiting. The reason is, he's waiting for some of the imperfect, evil people in this world who've not yet come to know him to get to know him. God could close the books on this world at any moment, but I'm glad he's waiting. I'm glad he waited long enough for me to come to know him, and I'm glad he's waiting long enough for some of my friends to come to know him. But while he waits, we live in a world where there's evil. We live in a world where there are problems. In the meantime, while we live in this world, instead of just letting the problems of this world overwhelm us, throw bad on us, God takes those very problems and uses them to develop hope in us, the ability to look forward to the future. Now, how does he do that? Well, step one is you get a problem, but that's not all. Step two is you practice patience. So these verses tell us, growth requires both problems and patience. If problems alone were enough, we would all be very, very spiritually mature by now because we all have a lot of problems. It takes patience. It takes time for the problem to work in us. Some problems can be solved very easily, but many just can't be. It just takes time. Now, let's just slow down a minute here because this is the crucial step that we often miss, the patience step. There are three ways that we short circuit this perseverance, this patience step. We try to do it through escape, through denial, and through blame. We try to do it through escape. We try to short circuit patience by running away. Have you noticed when you run away from your problems, you keep running back into the same problems? Oh, the names change, the circumstances change, but you keep running into the same problems. You can't run away. Escape doesn't work. Denial doesn't work. You can't pretend that your problems don't exist. Some people try. We have this amazing ability to lie to ourselves and some people hide behind anger and others hide behind their work. Some hide behind optimism. That's one of my favorite places to hide. I'll just admit it. I can remember when Shondell and I were facing infertility, waiting for children. God eventually did bring children into our lives, but while we were waiting, it was one of the most difficult spiritual journeys of my life. And on the outside, I acted like, "Hey, everything's okay. God's in control. I got this," and didn't talk much to people about it. But on the inside, I was dying. In fact, when I would go to visit somebody in the hospital during those days, I would intentionally go and park in an alley and go through a back door so I didn't have to walk by the hospital nursery. I used to think that hope meant you wouldn't admit that a problem hurt. That's not hope. That's denial. You don't deny that you have problems. You don't escape from your problems, and you don't use the third way that we try to not be patient, and that is blame. You become convinced somehow that you're the only one with real problems and you blame everyone else somehow, that they don't have as bad a problem as you do, or you blame them for the problems that may have come into your life. You know, a healthy attitude of heart and mind is that others' problems are as bad or worse than your problems, especially if you live in Orange County. That's a healthy attitude of heart. You may not see how bad they are, but everybody's hurting. Everybody has problems, and the person you're trying to blame has problems. You have problems. That's just a place to hide. We need to be patient in the face of problems, and to be patient in the face of problems requires trust. It requires remembering that God is in control, and that trust doesn't come easily. You trust God in the midst of a problem by depending on his truth. Trust is always built on truth. If you and I were convinced, really convinced, of how truthful the Bible is, we'd spend more time reading it. If I could see how much hope the Bible really gives, I'd spend more time with it. When you feel hungry, you eat. When you're tired, you sleep. What do you do when you feel hopeless? I'll tell you what many of us do. We feel hopeless, so we get in our easy chair, we get the remote control in one hand, and we try to channel surf our way to hope. I've checked. There's an animal channel. There's a cartoon channel. There's a comedy channel. There's a sci-fi channel. There is no hope channel, and we're trying to find hope through entertainment. It's like a person with a heart attack sticking a lollipop in their mouth. As good as it might taste is not going to solve the problem. The truth that energizes the trust that enables our hope is in the Bible, and as you and I practice patience by trusting God in the midst of the problem, a third thing begins to happen in God's development process, growth process through our problems. He begins to develop our character. Along with patience, then comes character. Problems don't defeat us. They develop us when we trust in God. You know, when I was a young Christian, and problems came into my life, the question that came to my mind was, "Lord, what are you doing to me? I'm a Christian. Why are you allowing this to happen to me? " I got a little older as a Christian, learned a little more of the Bible, and then the question in my mind was, "Satan, what are you doing to me? Evil one, why are you trying to ruin my life? " But then I grew a little more as a Christian, and the question changed again, and the question now sometimes when my perspective is right is, "Lord, what do you want to do in me? How do you want to grow me through this problem? " Character emerges out of the fire. You find somebody with great character, I'll tell you this, they've had to endure some great trials. That character didn't happen in their life by accident. It came through perseverance and trust, and then as God develops character, the result of that is the fourth and final part of God's assembly line of hope. You begin to enjoy hope. You realize that hope is a direct result of character, and so hope can happen in the darkest places of our lives. I mean, just look at the symbol of our faith. It's a cross, an instrument of execution, and that symbolizes our faith. That says that God understands our pain and that he can transform our pain. I'm thinking of that old story about a guy who walks up to a Little League game, and he walks to one of the kids at the fence and says, "Hey, son, how's it going? " And the kid looks at him and says, "Well, we're behind 18 to nothing. " And the man says to the little boy, "I bet you're discouraged. " And the little boy says, "Why should I be discouraged? We haven't even gotten up to bat yet. " In many ways, we haven't gotten up to bat yet. This world is often a terrible place where unfair things happen, but that is not the end of the story. It's not even the beginning of the real story. Lamentations chapter 3 verses 21 and 22 says, "But I have hope when I think of this. The Lord's love never ends. His mercies never stop. " And verse 5 of these verses we just looked at tells us that God has poured his love into our hearts through his Spirit. That is a Niagara Falls kind of pouring. Once it starts, it never stops. It is overwhelming, and the results of it affect everyone around you. God's overabundant love. As we pray together today, do you have problems that you're facing? You've got one in your mind right now. Let's pray these verses that we just looked at together back to God, thinking about the problem you're facing. Bring the problem before God right now. In your mind, think about, "Okay, this is what I'm facing. It might be a big problem. It might seem to be a little problem, but it's what's in your mind right now. " And say, "God, help me," as these verses say, "to rejoice in my sufferings. Not rejoice in the fact that I suffer, but rejoice because I know that suffering produces perseverance. That you are affecting my heart and life even through this suffering. And God, I rejoice because I know that perseverance produces character. And God, thank you that character produces hope. I am grateful that in your assembly line of hope and joy you use even problems. And I know that your kind of hope does not disappoint us because you've poured your love into my heart through your spirit. Thank you for giving me yourself to help me, to be present with me as I face this problem. In Jesus' name, amen. " Well, tomorrow we're going to be looking together at some of the most amazing verses about God's love in all of the Bible. Romans chapter 5 verses 6 to 8.