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Romans 5:1-5
5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we1 have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith2 into this grace in which we stand, and we3 rejoice4 in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
[1] 5:1
[2] 5:2
[3] 5:2
[4] 5:2
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5 as we continue our study in Romans. It's also there in your worship guide. Yesterday, I went to go visit my oldest daughter, who is a freshman at Auburn, and I got to watch Auburn's big, big win against their their archrival, Georgia State. When we were there, Caroline, she took us for a tour of of campus, and so we know we got to see her dining hall, we, went to the recreation building, and rock climbing towers, and, the gym, the heated pools, like a jacuzzi for like 40, all of this.
Joel Brooks:And I realized as I was watching where all my money was going and what it was paying for that, she's not being prepared for life. She's being prepared to go on a cruise. That's essentially what the college experience is now. It prepares you to go to Disney World or to go on a cruise, and it only got worse after we toured the campus, because we then went apartment shopping or hunting. And, at Auburn, they don't have that many dorms.
Joel Brooks:So after your freshman year, you have to get an apartment. And so the first apartment we went to go look at, no lie. The first thing they showed us is, okay. So here are all the tanning beds. I was like, excuse me?
Joel Brooks:Yes. Here's the tanning beds. Here's the sauna. Here's one of our 3 heated pools. And don't worry, we keep them heated even during the wintertime, so you can swim outside even then.
Joel Brooks:And, and here's our gym and just going on and on. Finally, at one point, I said, like, is there like a bed and a desk? Because that's really all I'm looking for. I don't need all of this. And I just kept thinking, so this is what's supposed to prepare my daughter for life.
Joel Brooks:And it's not. I mean, because once those things are gonna be taken away from her, and they will, how's she going to cope? That's what actually Paul's gonna talk about in the first five verses I wanna look at this morning, is what happens when all of those things you've kinda leaned on for your happiness, what happens when they go away? In other words, what happens when real life hits you? Although college is not preparing my daughter for real life, Paul is.
Joel Brooks:So Romans 5, verse 5 verses. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame.
Joel Brooks:Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to
Collin Hansen:us. This is the word of the Lord. It's with you, Lord.
Joel Brooks:If you would pray with me. Father, we thank you that you have poured out your love to us through your Holy Spirit. We pray now that your Holy Spirit would open up your word to us, that we might hear from you, that we might become more like you. I pray that the joy of Christ would be ours. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So in the first couple of verses here in chapter 5, Paul describes what a Christian is. So in case you've completely zoned out for the last 5 or 6 weeks, Paul is gonna summarize it for you here. And what I love about his summary is he doesn't just tell you what a Christian is.
Joel Brooks:He describes, if you're a Christian, what has happened to you, what is happening to you, and what will happen to you. He uses the past, present, and the future tense in describing what it means to be a Christian. So the first thing he does is he looks at the past, and he says, a Christian is someone who has been justified by faith. And that's a drum that, you know, Paul has just been beating for a while now, hasn't he? After I preached last week, somebody came up to me and they said, so, how many different ways do you think you're gonna have to preach, that were justified
Jeffrey Heine:by faith alone? It's like, I don't know,
Joel Brooks:because Paul's gonna keep on keep reminding us of this. We're justified by faith alone. And by that, he means this. You are justified or declared righteous, not because of anything you have done, but because of the faith that you have in what Christ has done on your behalf. That's what he means by justified by faith.
Joel Brooks:And then he says, as a result of this, we now have peace with God. This isn't the peace of God that he talks about in other places. We now have peace with God. That means our hostilities with God have ceased. And we're actually gonna look more at that next week.
Joel Brooks:So that's what being a Christian was. That's how you became a Christian here. And now we look at our present tense Christianity. Verse 2. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace into which we stand.
Joel Brooks:Paul now talks about our standing before God. He says, don't worry. You're you don't stand on thin ice in your relationship with God. You stand on solid ground. You have access.
Joel Brooks:And as Christians, this word access should just cause us to leap for joy. Because this means we can now approach God without any fear of rejection. This is why when Jesus taught us to pray, he didn't tell us to, you know, when we pray to address God as, oh, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, ruler of the universe, we beseech thee. He said, no. When you pray to God, say, our father.
Joel Brooks:You approach God just like a child approaches their father. That's the kinda access we have. If I'm in a meeting, and no offense, but if any of you call me when I'm in a meeting, I'm just gonna ignore it. Some of you know that from firsthand experience. You're like, well, you never pick up your phone.
Joel Brooks:Well, if I'm in a meeting, I'm not going to. But I will answer for my children. My children always, if they call, always say, excuse me, I've gotta take this. My children have access. If I'm sitting on the couch and I'm watching a game, and one of you come up and wanna snuggle up next to me, it's gonna be awkward.
Joel Brooks:We're gonna have some words, 911 might be called. I mean, depending, we're like, I don't know how it's gonna go. But you don't have that access. My children do. As a matter of fact, not only can they sit next to me and snuggle up to me, I want it.
Joel Brooks:As a father, that's what I want. I want my children to use that access and they have no fear of rejection. And Paul is saying that's what we have with God. We get to enjoy that type of relationship. Now Paul talks about our future.
Joel Brooks:And he says this. He goes, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. In other words, our hearts are filled with joy. That's what it means to rejoice. Our hearts were filled with joy and hope of the glory of God.
Joel Brooks:And I think what he is talking about here is someday we will rise again. We will have resurrected bodies, and we will bask in the glory of God. He is talking about our future resurrection, and there lies our hope. And so there, Paul, he describes what a Christian is. Let me summarize again.
Joel Brooks:To be a Christian, well it means that you are declared righteous because of faith in Jesus. That you now get to approach God just like a child approaches their father. And you are filled with joy, because you know someday, you will get to stand in His presence in your resurrected body, and you will bask in his glory forever. It sounds pretty amazing, doesn't it? And then Paul, he goes full on shopping network infomercial right here.
Joel Brooks:He he essentially goes, but wait, there's more. There's more. That's what verse 3 is. He goes, not only that, there's more. He says, we but we rejoice in our sufferings.
Joel Brooks:Not only that, we also get to rejoice in our sufferings. In other words, Paul is saying, all the joys that I just described to you over here, the past, present, future, that's Christianity. All those joys here, you get to take with you into suffering. They don't leave you. But you have those same joys as you suffer.
Joel Brooks:Now, Paul here, I mean, he's real about suffering. He doesn't say that we ignore suffering or we're stoic in suffering. Actually, I believe Christians can suffer more than anyone, because God has given us the ability to take it on. We're uniquely equipped to handle suffering. And so I see Christians suffering even more and even taking on the sufferings of others.
Joel Brooks:We're honest about the sorrows and the hurts in the world. That doesn't mean we don't have joy in the midst of them. I mean, I look at Job. He was honest about his sorrow. He didn't ignore it.
Joel Brooks:He wasn't stoic about it. He's yelling up at God. He's crying out. He's ripping his clothes off. And yet, you read in all of this, Job did not sin.
Joel Brooks:You read the Psalms of David, and they read like Johnny Cash lyrics. I mean, really, you read through them, and it's just full of heartache, sorrow, sin, all of these things. But then also, he finds a way to find joy. And sometimes he has to remind himself of that. He actually has to command his soul.
Joel Brooks:Rejoice, my soul. He's reminding himself. Despite all this heartache, rejoice, my soul. So we're real about the pain, but we find joy in it. When I was in college, I was talking to my college pastor and we were talking about my future.
Joel Brooks:This was almost 30 years ago, so the future was bright. I mean, I'm full of energy and life, I'm healthy, I'm living in Athens, Georgia, which is like heaven on earth. I'm dating Lauren, knew we were gonna get married. I mean, things were great. And my pastor, he looks at me and he says, Joel, I I don't really know what your future holds, but I only I do know this, You will suffer.
Joel Brooks:It's like, really? That's you know, I was kind of hoping for the, you know, God's got a wonderful plan for your life route. Or maybe, every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. That's kinda what I was hoping for. Not the, I don't know what's gonna happen in your life, I only know you're going to suffer.
Joel Brooks:But he was right. I don't know all of you that well. But I do know this about each one of you. You are either just coming out of suffering, or you are in the midst of suffering, or you are about to enter into suffering. But you will suffer because every person suffers.
Joel Brooks:I know it's just what you wanna hear. Right? But you will suffer. And so the question is this, not whether you will suffer, but how will you suffer? When suffering comes, are you going to waste it?
Joel Brooks:Or are you gonna allow God to use it in your life? Now, let me define suffering for you. And I'm gonna define it as generically as I possibly can. Suffering is this, it's what happens when favorable conditions for your happiness go away. Suffering is what happens when favorable conditions for your happiness go away.
Joel Brooks:And as I look around this room, I know that some of you have suffered because the favorable conditions for your happiness have gone away. Some of you have lost a parent this past year. Some of you have lost a child, and I can't even imagine what that is like. Some of you have lost a marriage. Others of you have lost a job.
Joel Brooks:Some of you have lost that deep friendship that you enjoyed for so many years, and you're not sure what happened, but it's gone. You've suffered. Some of you have lost the hope of having a child of your own, or perhaps you have a child and that child over the last year has turned angry and has started rebelling. And of course, every day that goes by, you begin to lose some of those conditions, some of those circumstances, that you depended on once for happiness. I mean, as as you get older, I mean, I haven't already looked back, you lose your health.
Joel Brooks:You lose your eyesight. You lose your hearing. You lose your ability to even sleep without pain as you get older. I wake up so sore. I I I go to a gym where they do group fitness and, just a few weeks ago I'm moaning and I'm groaning, you know, Lauren's working out with me.
Joel Brooks:I'm like, gosh, my 47 year old body just does not want to do this. And, she goes, Joel, you're 48. I was like, see, Alzheimer's is already set in. Like, my body, my mind is already breaking down. And then our our, you know, overly peppy coach, he goes, age is just a number.
Joel Brooks:And I'm like, oh, please. Put that on a bumper sticker. That doesn't that's not real life though. You you tell me that in 50 years, this age is such a number or just a number. It seems to be a number that's indicative of when you die.
Joel Brooks:Because as I have seen that number go up, people tend to die and their bodies tend to break apart. It's more than just a number. As we get older, the conditions for our happiness, they begin to fade. We lose them. What happens when those favorable conditions are gone?
Joel Brooks:As I look back at this past year, who hasn't suffered? I mean, during a global pandemic, it certainly seems like favorable conditions for our happiness are gone. So the question is why does God allow this? Well, I think God allows it for this reason. He allows suffering into our lives because there is something of greater value than a life without pain.
Joel Brooks:He allows suffering into our lives because there is something of greater value than a life without pain. He's gonna use suffering in our life to teach us something, to give us something. And let me just say at the start here that suffering for the Christian is never a punishment. It is never punitive. And you need to cast that thought outside of your mind.
Joel Brooks:All of your sins were fully paid on the cross. You don't have to pay for any more of them. So don't ever think, you know, God gave you cancer because you had an affair. Or that, God, He won't allow you to meet someone and get married because He's judging you for not trusting him enough. Or don't ever think that any sin, any sin that you have is somehow gonna result in God just up there with like the lightning bolt just like wanting to throw it down on you.
Joel Brooks:That sin isn't punished by God there. It was punished on Jesus. He took it. He bore it. So the suffering you have, it's it's for a different purpose.
Joel Brooks:It might be corrective, but it's not punitive. He wants to give you something of greater value than a life without pain. He wants you to depend on him. He wants you to hold on only to him because from him in his presence will flow joy. When I was younger, my mom, she would always talk to us about Corrie ten Boom.
Joel Brooks:And, actually, I used to think that Corrie ten Boom, she she would say whenever I would not eat a meal, there was complaining about the food, she'd be like, well, Corrie ten Boom wouldn't complain about that. She'd eat it. And so I didn't know anything about Corrie 10 Boom except for she apparently ate everything. I I had no idea, you know, that she was actually a famous Christian author. She lived back in World War 2.
Joel Brooks:She was in a concentration camp, wrote a book called The Hiding Place. I later came to realize that it wasn't just about her eating everything. But, when I went finally later in life and I read through the hiding place, there's one line that just really sticks out. And she wrote this. She goes, I never knew God was all I needed until he was all I had.
Joel Brooks:I never knew God was all I needed until he was all I had. When God takes you through suffering, he's teaching you that he is all you need. Sometimes, by painfully ripping away all the other things you had. Now, in verses 3 through 5, Paul is going to explain to us exactly how God uses suffering. So let's walk through that.
Joel Brooks:1st, Paul says, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Suffering produces endurance. The word endurance, it means, perseverance. It also has this notion of single mindedness. When you suffer, things begin to, to get you get clarity.
Joel Brooks:Things come into focus. You know, when you're running a race or whenever you're training or preparing to run a race, in order to keep you running, you have got to want something more than just wanting the pain to stop. You've got to want something more than just wanting your legs to keep burning or your lungs to keep burning. You've got to something want something more than just the pain to stop. That's why as you're getting, you know, the last mile of your race, people are all lined up and they're chanting, you know, t shirt, cold beer, t shirt.
Joel Brooks:They're thinking, that's what you want. They're hoping that will get you across the finish line. But there's gotta be something you want more than just a pain to stop. And what happens is you focus on that one thing. You become single-minded.
Joel Brooks:Suffering removes distractions. It realigns your priorities. It gives you endurance. Next, we read that this endurance then produces character. This word character means testedness.
Joel Brooks:It's the word used to describe metal when it has been put through the fire and it melts. And the impurities or the dross is siphoned away. And what Paul is saying here is your suffering is like a furnace. And it's designed to melt you in order to get rid of the impurities. And when you come through it, you will be purer and you will be stronger.
Joel Brooks:So suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, that testedness. And next, Paul says that this character produces hope. But not just any hope. It's a hope that will not put us to shame.
Joel Brooks:It's a hope that's not gonna disappoint you. It's a hope that's not gonna embarrass you. You see, when you go through the furnace, all of your false hopes are gonna be burned up until this final one true hope remains. You know, we all have many many hopes. We hope for good health.
Joel Brooks:We hope for a meaningful job. We hope for a meaningful job with good hours and good pay. We hope to be married. We hope to have, you know, the ability to travel, to have fun adventures. We hope for deep lasting friendships.
Joel Brooks:We hope to be part of a community or part of a church that will never disappoint us. All of us have many hopes, and every one of them will at some point fail. They're all false hopes. It's actually pained me this past year how often I have failed people. I've I've been a false hope for some people, and I have failed people.
Joel Brooks:But every one of those hopes will eventually disappoint. And what suffering does is it comes along and it reveals all of your false hopes. And as these hopes, false hopes are being revealed, it is painful. I know that earlier I defined suffering as the favorable conditions for your happiness, or happens as when your favorable conditions for your happiness go away. But you could also define suffering as this, suffering happens when your false hopes are revealed.
Joel Brooks:When that thing you have been putting your hope in, you finally realize is a false hope, suffering. Suffering happens when God and his mercy throws us into a furnace in order to burn out these false hopes Until that one true hope remains. The hope that won't disappoint. The hope that won't put us to shame. And that is the hope of Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:Now don't make the mistake that I have made so many times, and I see Christians making all of the time. You go through the furnace. You're suffering, all of your false hopes are being burned up, and they're being burned up in order for you to grab hold of that one true hope. But what I've seen Christians do time and time again as these false hopes are just being consumed in front of you, is you reach out for another false hope to try to pull you out of the furnace. And you pull that into the furnace and more suffering, more burning.
Joel Brooks:And you're like, I grab onto another false hope and I bring it in. There's more suffering and there's more burning. And you just keep grabbing false hope after false hope instead of clinging to the gospel. There's a lot of places I could go in scripture for this, but one of the stories that pops out to me is in 1 Samuel 1, in which you find a married couple named El Cana and Hannah. Hannah.
Joel Brooks:And, Hannah could not have children. She was barren. Which is a very difficult thing to walk through in our day. It was devastating in this day. Because you felt like an absolute total failure.
Joel Brooks:Your clan, your tribe depended on you to produce not just children, but sons. So she failed her tribe. And she failed also her husband. And so she just felt the weight of this and she just went into deep, deep despair. And so her husband, Ilkana, comes up to her.
Joel Brooks:And he says what, at first, you think are just such sweet and comforting words. He says, Hannah, I'm sorry that you can't have kids, But is not my love worth more to you than 10 sons? And at first, you're like, oh, what a husband. It's terrible words. That was terrible comfort.
Joel Brooks:Because all he did was say, yes, a false hope was being revealed here and you were it was being burned up and you were suffering. Now, let me replace it with another false hope. Let me replace it with myself. Elkanah will most certainly disappoint his wife. What he should have done in that moment is said, I am so sorry that you're going through this.
Joel Brooks:Let us together look to the Lord. Is not the love of the Lord worth more than a 100 sons? Because the Lord is the one person who will not disappoint. Hear me, there's a temptation when you see some of your friends who are suffering for you to step in and try to become their false hope. Don't you do it.
Joel Brooks:Don't become their false hope. Point them to the one true hope. And when you are suffering, don't try to reach out for another false hope, another false hope. Remind yourself, these things are being burned up. What will remain?
Joel Brooks:What will survive the fire? And you cling to Jesus. Now Paul ends this section by telling us why this hope we have in Jesus will not disappoint us. And can I just say that his answer surprises me? It surprised me as I was studying it.
Joel Brooks:As I've been studying through Romans, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. And it takes me a lot to kind of grapple with Paul and to to understand, but eventually, I feel like I can I can get to do this? But when I came to this section here, I was honestly just surprised. It wasn't hard to understand, it was just surprising. Because it certainly seemed like Paul was building up to talking about the resurrection.
Joel Brooks:How can we endure suffering? How do we know we have a hope that won't disappoint us or put us to shame? Because after we've gone through all this suffering, we will be resurrected. And indeed, that's what he talks about in his other letters. You go through his other letters, and that is the point.
Joel Brooks:We go through this suffering, but then we have this resurrected body and we are with God in glory. But that is not what he says here. Verse 5, he says, and hope does not put us to shame because God God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Now, this is the first time Paul mentions the Holy Spirit in the book of Romans, which is odd. It's remarkable.
Joel Brooks:Because, I mean, he is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus constantly. He's God, God, God, Father. I mean, all those names of God are all throughout the but he has yet to mention the Holy Spirit. He intentionally withholds mentioning the Holy Spirit until here. This is how he introduces the Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:And he introduces him this way. You wanna know how you can endure suffering? The suffering that will come? The Holy Spirit. He's going to come and pour the love of God in your heart.
Joel Brooks:And I know that, you know, objectively, we know that happens as Christians. Yes. We become a Christian. The Holy Spirit, he comes. He fills us.
Joel Brooks:I don't think Paul's talking about something objective here. I think he's talking about a subjective feeling. This is something That's the language he's using. How the Holy Spirit pours the love of God. Just lavishes.
Joel Brooks:Just just a waterfall pours the love of God. Floods our hearts. In other words, when you are suffering, the Holy Spirit Spirit just washes over you. And I think in that moment, God is whispering in your ear through the Holy Spirit, you are mine. I love you.
Joel Brooks:You are my child. I am with you. I know this is hard. Trust me. He sends the Holy Spirit in us, washing over us, pouring over us the love of God.
Joel Brooks:So during those times of suffering, we feel God's love and His presence in a unique and powerful way. Do you feel that when you suffer? If not, perhaps, just perhaps, it's because instead of going to God, you just pull in another false hope. Quit pulling in false hope after false hope after false hope. You have access to your father.
Joel Brooks:He sends his Holy Spirit. Think of the man who wrote this, Paul. No one here wants a conversion like Paul. You you don't want that. You know, on the road to Damascus, you know, God appears to him.
Joel Brooks:Jesus appears to him. But do you know the words that Jesus said to him? He says, Jesus Jesus he goes, Paul, I will show you how much you must suffer for my name's sake. That was the invitation. Can you imagine if I did an altar call like that at church?
Joel Brooks:Come forward all of you who want to suffer. That was Paul's invitation. I will show you how much you must suffer for my namesake. Do you think Paul regretted it for a moment being a child of God? No one talks about joy more.
Joel Brooks:No one suffered more and no one had more joy. They are not mutually exclusive. And Paul would go on to say, I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. And I count it as rubbish, in order that I might gain Christ. Or you might say, In order that the love of Christ, the love of God might be poured or lavished on me through the Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:And this is what is available to all of His children. Pray with me. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the gift of your spirit. We thank you that you pour your love upon us through your spirit.
Joel Brooks:Lord, we thank you for the suffering that comes our way because it means you have something greater greater in store for us. It's worth the pain. Expose our false hopes. And, Lord, I pray that we would cling only to you. We pray this in your name, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.