The Holy Spirit groans with us. He intercedes for us in our helplessness. And not only that, we know that God is going to turn everything into good. And if he’s sovereign, then we have hope. And if we have hope, we have patience. We work in the midst of hardship, in the midst of difficulty. But not only do we have patience, but we also have the love of God to help us which nothing can separate us from. We are people in love. Guard that relationship. That love is more precious than all the pain that your ministry will bring. It gives you the strength to embrace the pain of ministry.

We’ve been making our way through the second half of Romans 8, and have gone over the first three of six words: frustration, groaning, and fellowship. We now come to the fourth word: sovereignty. And that’s in verse 28. “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.” God is in control. He’s sovereign, and he works even the greatest tragedies into something good.
In verse 37, after listing a huge set of problems in the previous verses, he says, ‘In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.’ So this is another reason why we are not bitter in the midst of our suffering: he’s turning it for good. We accept that in faith. So when the apostles heard that their task was made illegal, the first thing they did was to get to their group of friends. And the friends got together and they prayed. But their prayer is most interesting. They made just two short requests: consider their threats, and help us to proclaim your word with boldness, and demonstrate your power with signs and wonders. Those are the two short requests they made. The rest of the prayer is an affirmation of the sovereignty of God—of how God worked through history, how people rose up against the Lord and his anointed, and then finally, how everybody who was somebody in Jerusalem—the Jews, the Gentiles, the Romans, the Pharisees—everybody got together, and they killed Jesus. But what they did was what God had already predestined to take place, so that the greatest tragedy became the greatest triumph in the history of the world.
So we believe that God is sovereign, and you know in 1983, when we had the big riot that started off the war in Sri Lanka, this is the passage that God gave me that sustained me through total confusion that we are going through in our country. We knew that God will work through us in the midst of this, therefore we have to keep working. That’s why after reflecting on the sovereignty of God, the disciples requested and said that they wanted to continue to do their work to proclaim the word with boldness.
This brings us to the fifth word: patience. And we go back a little bit. If God is sovereign, we look at life with hope. Even hope is faith in the dark times when things are not going well. But because we know that things are going to be well, we have hope. And if we have hope we have patience. Verse 25, ‘If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.’
In the Bible, the word patience, there are two words for patients, macrothumia, which has more to do with people being patient with people, and hupomone, which is often translated as endurance, which has more to do with circumstances. Hupomone is used here. Now, hupomone is an active word. It’s a word that is almost one of triumphant fortitude. It’s a word that Leon Morris in his commentary says is used on the battlefield. When things are going tough, we try to see what we should do. How can we get out of this situation? How can we solve our problems? It’s an active word, it comes from the battlefield, where Christians are working. You see God is working. We don’t defeat ourselves and adopt an attitude of resignation: what can we do, this is God’s will. Or as people say, this is my karma. No, that’s not what we say. We say God is working for good. Therefore, we have hope. Therefore, we must join him, dressed by hope, and we work.
There was a Japanese professor, who in the middle of his career, went blind with a detached retina. And when he was getting blind, he wanted to find out the mystery: why did this happen to him at the peak of his life? He could not agree with what his religion said, that he was suffering for things he had done in his previous life. So he started looking for an answer. Somebody encouraged him to look at the Christian answer. And he began to read the gospel. And he came to the place in John, where the disciples asked why a man had been born blind. And Jesus said, “It was not because his parents sinned, or because he had sinned, but he had been born blind so that the works of God may be revealed.” And he said, “Could the works of God be manifested through my blindness? Then that is the answer. I will use this blindness.” And he became a Christian. He became an evangelist, and later went to Scotland, did his theological studies, and became a theological professor at Kobe Theological college. That’s Christian patience. God is working, and I will work knowing without giving up: triumphant fortitude in the midst of difficulty. So, that’s our fifth word.
So we have frustration, groaning, fellowship with the Holy Spirit, sovereignty, and because God is sovereign, patience.
Now I want to tell you one more word. And that is the word love. That’s our great source of joy.
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Nichols, like Sproul, wrote this biography that people may discover the depths and riches of the God who is not only holy but is “holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3). Therefore, as we reflect on the life and ministry of R. C. Sproul, let us give glory to God, not R. C. Sproul. Dr. Sproul understood that his life was a temporary stewardship testifying to the grace of God in Christ Jesus, who alone deserves all the glory (Revelation 4:11). 

In the midst of rising cultural hostility toward Christ and the widespread theological confusion within the church, how can Christians remain faithful to the Word of God? The life and ministry of Dr R C. Sproul (1939-2017), pastor, professor, author, and the founder and president of Ligonier Ministries, is an exemplary model of covenantal faithfulness, doctrinal precision, and convictional passion. In a word, he remained faithful to the Word of God. The life of Dr Sproul is beautifully portrayed through a chronological outline of the major moments and convictions that shaped him in Stephen Nichols’ biography, R. C. Sproul: A Life. This biography is warm and personal, enlightening and thought-provoking, as Nichols interweaves apt anecdotes to highlight Sproul’s theological convictions. Nichols draws the reader behind the public ministry, giving us an insight into the man and the motivation behind the ministry. It is this personal perspective that made the experience of reading this biography so sweet.
Not only is the biography warm and personal, it is also packed with theological conviction. Sproul’s most famous book, The Holiness of God, arose from a deeply personal awakening to God’s holiness during a midnight trek at the chapel of Westminster College in his second year of college. Nichols quotes Sproul recounting this episode where he had a sudden epiphany of the grandeur of God, an “awakening to the biblical concept of God that changed [his] whole life after that” (p. 49).
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It’s important to remember that we are all a work in progress. That others have laboured had in us than we’ll ever know. And that men cannot be changed by giving the right answers, by guilt or beating them with the truth. We have to be patient as we call on the one who changes people from inside out to do his work. But we can be patient with others because God is very patient with us. Just look at how Jesus was patient with the disciples. Even after his death and resurrection he still has to seek them out. He still has to go for Thomas and Peter. How many times do you think God has sought you out?

The work of discipleship is both easy and hard. It is clear and messy. Straightforward and yet deeper than we imagine. It’s possible to say that person is sorted now only to find yourself dealing with the unthinkable. Easy to tick a box too early and assume growth. But the fact that we are lifelong disciples means none of us have arrived yet and it won’t be that easy discipling others. The problem comes when we start hearing the kind of answers we want to hear. We assume people who give the right answers to theological questions are ready for the next level of discipleship; leadership and teaching opportunities. We figure out if they understand predistination surely they can lead young people. They get the trinity then they can disciples others. They have read far and wide on God’s sovereignty, get them a new believers class to teach.
But perhaps instead of focusing on the answers people give we should focus more on the questions we ask. We need to be careful that people aren’t telling us exactly what we want to hear which happens a lot. We need to ask our questions in way that let’s people know it’s okay to speak their minds. In an environment that doesn’t make people feel foolish if they get things wrong. One thing I’ve learnt from many of us in Africa is that we hate to look foolish so we would rather guess or pretend to know than say something that makes people laugh at our intelligence. Perhaps that’s why question and answer sessions don’t work very well with us. You may have to draw it out and be vulnerable in a more friendly environment. And when you ask questions the last thing you want is to make us feel like we are in an examination setting. We hate that. So what kind of questions should we ask?
One I would say questions that lead us to the heart more than the head. You’ve probably heard this saying that there’s always a question behind the question. That’s the question you want to get to. If someone is asking all these hard theological questions about God’s sovereignty in suffering answering them theologically is not enough. You need to also get behind it all and see what exactly is it that they are struggling with.
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