Normal context of life

We're always threatened with tribulation. We don't rejoice in hope without any trouble. That's what we like, isn't it? We like to rejoice in hope, then you have trouble. We rejoice IN SPITE of; in fact even BECAUSE of the tribulation and that's what Romans 5 is about:

[1] Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
[2] By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
[3] And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
[4] And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
[5] And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Job 5 says, [7] Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

Job 14: [1] Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. [2] He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

I mean, that's the first book in the Bible ever written and it started out with that viewpoint.

Man cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. Didn't say he's admired and smelled and perfumed and thought of. It says he's cut down. Your life is like a flower--it's just, "Whack!" Your life is a shadow. He's here, he's there, he's nowhere, explains Richard Jordan.

Trouble, friend, is the normal context you're going to live in. Paul says we're patient in tribulation.

Romans 12:12: [12] Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;

Tribulation works patience, so tribulation has done its work. It's taught you that there's no other place to go than the truth of God's Word.

What is it that makes you be patient? Patience is something that sustains you; keeps you there. Paul doesn't just tolerate tribulation. He says, "God takes this tribulation and makes it serve you."

It's important to understand what the hope is. When he says we're rejoicing IN hope, that's telling you that your joy is based IN hope. Hope is the rock in which joy is rooted. It's the soil out of which the rejoicing comes.

Our joy comes out of our hope. The ground of our hope and the goal of our hope are all in Christ. What's the goal of our hope? Victory.

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Paul says tribulation is designed to work patience and is actually the context for Believers to apply the Bible doctrine that gives them the capacity to gain experience. This is why unbelievers often don’t get why a loving God allows suffering.

Tribulation will teach you that you better stay by the doctrine because that’s all that works. The only thing going to work in your life is who God’s made you in Christ, and when you stay with that, and you have that patience just to stay with the truth, you get some experience and that experience gives you hope.

You know, I’ve asked myself this question many times: "Why would I want to know about all this information in Scripture if I never had a time in my life when I needed it and could see it live in me?" And all of a sudden, when you think about it that way, the tribulation isn’t tribulation so much.

The justice of God can give you peace, but it can’t give you patience. He can give you access, but He can’t give you experience. Patience comes from the experiences of life. You develop persistent fortitude; the unwavering endurance by just sticking with the Word.

In Galatians 2:20, Paul says the only thing you’re ever going to learn in life, you’re just going to learn it at different, deeper levels, is, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."