Any test that comes into your life that makes your life harder and therefore can cause you to doubt the goodness or the

power or the wisdom of God is a tribulation over which this verse says you should exult.

As Christians, it is certain that our faith will be tested.

So what assurance does God give us

that our faith will emerge stronger?

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper opens Romans 5, 1 to 5 to offer hope-giving reasons for exulting in our tribulations.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church

on November 14th, 1999.

How are we to understand trouble in the Christian life?

How are we to understand suffering and tribulation and how are we to respond to it?

And Paul answers, we are to understand it as gracious, God designed help for our faith and hope and we are to exult in it.

Now, that I do not say lightly.

All the more not in view of this brochure that's in your worship folder, right? This is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

And if you just briefly glimpse at this, like the last paragraph on the front page.

You read this.

Christians who aren't killed are often subjected to brutal torture and brainwashing,

attempts to force them to recant their faith. In some

parts of the world Christian women are brutally raped to break their

allegiance to Christ while children are sold into slavery for as little as $15, for example today in

Sudan.

Thousands more languish year after year in prisons or labor camps.

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