Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 189
TRANSCRIPT
We live in an instant world. How many of us get upset when Amazon takes more than two days to deliver our recent order? We also get frustrated if the website we are going to takes more than two clicks to open our page. Or we get upset when the webpage we want takes more than two seconds to open. Some of the best things of God don’t come to us quickly. In this podcast we are going to “attempt” to address the power of perseverance.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. I like things that go fast. I drive a Mazda Miata and I love driving with the top down and letting the wind flow over my bald head. I also have a motorcycle that I love to take to the racetrack, where I can legally ride over 120 miles per hour. Cindi and I also have a 25-year-old boat that can still get up and go. I love things that go fast.
Building Godly character does not happen fast. It is built through a multitude of little decisions over a long period of time. When we look at what is going on in the body of Christ today, we are seeing the results of lacking Godly character. We are seeing several people who are in leadership positions in the body of Christ who have made bad decisions due to this lack of character. I have heard integrity defined as what you do when no one else will know. God loves His people enough not to allow their hidden behaviors to remain hidden. We are seeing that God is exposing sinful behavior in the body of Christ, beginning with those in leadership exposing their lack of character.
Our verses for today are found in Romans 5:3-5. “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” The definition of perseverance is the steady persistence in a course of action or a purpose, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement. This verse says that perseverance develops through tribulation. Lovely, right? But notice that perseverance is not the goal, but perseverance produces character. I really want to skip the tribulation and perseverance part of this verse and just jump straight to character. But unfortunately, it does not work that way. In order to get character, you have to persevere through tribulation.
Trials are not meaningless; they develop endurance and ultimately character. I go to the gym and lift weights to keep myself strong and healthy. Lifting weights actually breaks down the muscle so that as it heals, it becomes stronger. The same is true of trials and tribulations. These last two and a half years Cindi and I have been going through a time of trial and tribulation. In July of 2023, Cindi fell while water skiing and crushed a disc in her back. This required surgery to insert rods in her back and a cage to replace the crushed disc. We had this surgery in early 2024. The recovery time for that surgery was 3 months of no activity. Once she recovered from that surgery, we realized that her left ankle was very painful. We went to the doctor and discovered that her ankle had a broken bone in the ankle joint, probably broken during the same water-skiing accident. In December of that year, the pain in her ankle got so severe that we had to have another surgery to put a screw in her ankle to fuse the broken bone and reinforce the ankle joint. The screw caused quite a lot of pain for the next year. During all of 2025, Cindi was able to only walk for short distances, which made her unable to exercise in any way. After that year, the doctor said that the bone had fused and he wanted to remove the screw to see if it would make walking more comfortable. We had the screw removed in January of this year, and we are waiting to see if the pain in her ankle will now go away. This is a long story to say; we have experienced a 30-month trial. As we look back on the last two and a half years, we have realized in a very practical way that God provides the necessary strength to endure when human strength fails. James 1:2-4 says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” The only way you can count trials as joy is by knowing that God is using them to perfect and complete you.
I love 1 Peter 5:10. Let me take a few minutes to walk through this verse and unpack it. It is very powerful for our growth. It says, “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” The first thing you will notice is that it does not say “if you suffer.” It says, “after you have suffered for a little while.” Suffering is part of this life. We will be afflicted by difficult things in this life. The definition of suffering is to undergo evil or to be afflicted. This verse says that after you undergo evil and are afflicted for a little while. I love how straightforward God is with us. I was raised in an environment that said that once you got saved, all of your problems would go away. This verse goes directly against that idea. I interpret this verse to suggest that all people, Christians and non-Christians, are going to suffer in this life. You know people who are believers and unbelievers who are being afflicted, right? It is a common condition in this life. The good news for Children of God is that our Father God is going to use that suffering to bring about good in our lives.
The next amazing part of this verse is that it says that the God of all comfort…. will Himself meet you and do incredible things in your life. It is not a job that God delegates to one of His angels. No. He assigns this job to His only Begotten Son, Jesus. It is that important that He sends Jesus to meet us and bring about wonderful things in our lives. When you are walking through suffering, you can know without a doubt that Jesus is walking through that situation with you. Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you go through deep waters I will be with you.” We can count on Jesus to go through the deep waters of life with us, giving us what we need to overcome.
So, what is Jesus going to do with our suffering? He is going use that suffering to “perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” These words used here are construction words. I am not a builder, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express once. Just kidding. My son and I remodeled a house several years ago. In the remodeling process, we began the renovation by tearing down or removing the old. We had to tear up the old tile floors and remove cracked sheetrock. We even had to remove a few walls to enlarge the kitchen. This tearing down process relates to what suffering does in this verse. Suffering reveals the things that need to be replaced. When we suffer, our fleshly human ability cannot sustain us and begins to crumble. That is actually a very good thing because then Jesus can come along and replace those faulty, old, ineffective methods of our flesh with His character.
The word “perfect” means to mend what has been broken or rent, to repair, to complete, to strengthen, to make one what he ought to be. After we have suffered for a little while and our fleshly strength is gone, then Jesus comes in and mends or repairs what was broken, He completes us, making us what we ought to be. I remember one of the floors that my son and I tore up looked pretty good on the surface, but when we put a level on it, the floor was unlevel. Then, when we tore it up, we discovered why it was unlevel. The foundation of the floor had shifted during the 60 years since the house was built. On the surface, you really didn’t notice that the floor was unlevel, but once we got to the foundation, it was obvious. Once we mended what was broken, the new floor was outstanding. When you try to build on a faulty foundation, what is built will not last. That is why Restoring the Foundations ministry is so important. People try to build on a faulty foundation using counseling or therapy and wonder why what they have built doesn’t last. Once the foundation of their life is restored, then they are able to build a wonderful and beautiful life on that solid foundation.
The next word in this verse is “confirm”. This word means to make stable, place firmly, set fast, fix or strengthen, to make firm. This word means attaching or fixing something firmly on the right foundation. When we replaced the wall between the kitchen and the dining room in our house, we firmly attached the new wall to the foundation. We confirmed the wall so that it would be solid for many years to come. That is part of what Jesus does with suffering. He uses suffering to tear down the old, and then He confirms the new things in our lives. He places them firmly on His solid foundation. And what he confirms will be stable through the storms of life. What is going on in the world today, even in the Christian world, is so unstable and can cause people to be swept away from the firm foundation. That is one of the reasons why we must allow Jesus to firmly plant us on His foundation.
The next word in this verse is “strengthen”. This word has a very deep and hidden meaning in Greek. Not really. It means to strengthen or to make strong. Jesus replaces our weak and failing fleshly ability with His strength. Jesus said in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” In the midst of suffering, His strength becomes very real. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, My power is made perfect in your weakness.” The trial that Cindi and I have been going through is more than we can humanly handle and keep going with the calling of God on our lives. Since our human strength is ineffective to handle this trial, we have been forced to rely on His strength, and His strength is more than enough. Have we done this perfectly? Heck no. God does not expect perfection but dependence on Him.
The last word in this verse is “establish you,” which means to secure to the foundation, to found, to make stable, to attach firmly. This is the process of placing us firmly on a solid foundation. Matthew 7:24-27 talks about building your house upon the solid rock rather than on the shifting sand. This is a picture of what is being described here. Jesus builds this new house on a rock-solid foundation. He makes us stable and establishes us on the rock of His truth.
Let’s go back to our verses for today from Romans 5:3-5. “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” The word character carries the meaning of being the standard that other things are compared to. It is like the proof that is used to show the counterfeit. Godly character proves the worthiness of the Gospel. That is why a lack of character is so detrimental to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead of proving the value and worth of the Gospel, a lack of character proves just the opposite.
PRAYER
Father God, thank You for helping us in our weakness. Thank You that in the midst of the suffering and trials that we will go through in this life, You are at work in us to form Godly character. Would you remind us through the Holy Spirit that when we experience the sufferings of this life, You are not punishing us, but rather You are developing us into the image of Christ. Lord, I pray for all those who are listening today who are going through a time of suffering and trials. I pray that they would not give up hope. Would you help them to remember that perseverance produces character, and character produces hope?