Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
We're going to go ahead and look into the word of God here this
morning.
If you have your Bibles, turn there with me to Romans Chapter five.
We're going to continue our series looking at the Book of Romans.
The title of this whole series is Theology Matters.
And we're going to be talking today specifically about the benefits
or the blessings of our justification.
Now, we need to go back and look at that word justification before
we move any further, because this whole chapter, Romans chapter
5, is all about what we have in.
In our justification, what we have in our salvation.
Romans Chapter four, if you go back, probably for most of us, it's
on the same page or one page back.
The very last word in Romans chapter four is justification.
And that's right where it picks up in Romans chapter 5, and
it says in Romans chapter 5, verse 1, therefore.
Now, if you've been here for any amount of time, when you see
that word therefore in scripture, you need to read reference
back to see what it's talking about.
And we know it's specifically talking about that word justification.
What we've been talking about in Romans Chapter four, what we've
been seeing in the concept of salvation, it says therefore being
justified by faith.
And so we know that we're justified by faith.
There's a lot that we could talk about just in those words, justified
by faith.
Justified means this declared righteous.
Now, in the context of Scripture, we're talking about the
fact that God can declare a sinful person righteous by faith.
Now, why does that matter?
Why does that mean anything to me?
Because I cannot justify myself.
The Bible says here in the Book of Romans and throughout the
whole scripture that we are falling short of the glory of God
because of our sin.
There's the universal problem of sin.
But the Bible says that because of faith in, as it says in
verse one, Jesus Christ, because of faith in Jesus Christ,
we can be justified or declared righteous.
Now, what did Jesus do for us?
Most of you know that Jesus came to this earth.
He lived the perfect life.
He died on the cross for our sins.
He's conquered death through the resurrection, and he's ruling
and reigning today.
And so the Bible says because of who Jesus is and because of what
he has offered to us, that when we place our faith in him, we
are justified.
We are declared righteous not because we're good people, but because.
But because God is perfect and because of the work of Jesus Christ.
And so it's justification by faith.
Now, what are the results of this justification?
Well, I could just say here this morning, we all go to heaven.
Now let's close our Bibles and go home.
But that's just the start of it.
That is a beautiful thing, that we are granted everlasting life
in our forgiveness.
John 3:16.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting
life.
And so there is beautiful messages there throughout scripture
that we have everlasting life, that we are gonna be with our Savior
for eternity because of our faith.
But there's so much more than that.
There's so much more to that.
And that's what Romans chapter five is all about, telling us what
we have in our salvation.
And so the therefore is specifically talking about salvation.
Chapters one through four have talked about that.
And now he goes, hey, God.
Therefore, because of all this, we are justified by faith.
And it says here we have peace with God.
The very first blessing that we see in salvation is the fact that
we have peace with God.
Now this is different than the peace of God.
Before we came to Christ.
The Bible says that we were not at peace with God.
We were actually enemies of God.
You could look to Ephesians chapter two to tell us what we were
all about before we came to the Lord in salvation.
It says in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1.
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein in time past you walked according to the course of
this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom
also we had our conversation in times past in the lust of our
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
And.
And we're by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
And so the Bible says that before we are justified, before we
are saved, we are enemies of God.
We are partnering with evil.
We are living in the flesh.
We are fulfilling the lust of our flesh.
And the Bible says that after we are justified, we now come to
peace with God.
A place that we don't wanna be in is a place where we are not at
peace with God.
We don't wanna be there because if we are not at peace with
God, we face the opposite of the blessings of salvation.
We face the judgment and the wrath of a holy and righteous God.
And so before we come to Christ, we are deserving sin and
we are deserving death.
And after we come to Christ, guess what?
We still deserve sin and death.
But there's a difference.
Now God declares us righteous and we are at peace with God.
We are reconciled to God.
We are brought back into the right state in which God had originally
ordained us all to be in in fellowship with Him.
And so it says here that we that are justified by faith have
peace with God.
And so many times we overlook that statement.
But I'm going to tell you here today, you can't have the peace of
God, as Philippians chapter four says, the peace of God which
passeth all understanding.
I think all of us as believers enjoy that and think about that and
celebrate that.
But the truth of the matter is that we could not have the peace
of God if we were not at peace with God.
And there's a lot of people in this world today that are seeking
the peace of God, but yet are not willing to come to him in faith
and experience peace with God.
And so we must have that reconciliation with God and that
fellowship with God so that we can walk in the peace of God in our
lives.
And so justification number one brings us peace with God.
This is the first benefit because the price is paid full.
Jesus says it is finished.
It is paid in full by the work of Jesus on the cross.
God's justice towards us is eternally satisfying.
There's another passage of Scripture in First John that says
that Jesus is the propitiation.
What does that mean, the propitiation of our sins?
It means that God's wrath is satisfied.
Not in judging me now as a sinner, but God's wrath was poured
out upon Jesus on the cross.
Jesus paid the price completely for us.
And so that is the blessing is that we don't have to pay for the
sins that we commit to Jesus paid that sin for us.
And so now we are at peace with God.
If you go a little bit further In Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians
chapter 2, verse 14 tells us, for he is our peace.
Who hath made both one and have broken down the middle wall
of partition between us speaks of this, that Jesus Christ is our
peace.
He is the prince of peace.
Even if you go back another verse, it says, but Now Ephesians
chapter 2, verse 13.
But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made
nigh by the blood of Christ, says this.
We who were separated from God were far from God.
We were not going to save ourselves.
We were not going to find God on our own.
But the blood of Jesus Christ brings us close to him.
It brings us an opportunity to know him, to be close to him, to
have a personal walk with him.
And so Ephesians 2 tells us that before we were saved, we were
enemies of God.
Before we were saved, we were partners with evil.
But it's because of the blood of Jesus Christ, because of his sacrifice
for us, that we can know him and be close to him and have peace
with Him.
Some of you know what it's like to not have peace with somebody
in your life.
Some of us who are married understand that there's those times
in our life where we wish.
We wish we had peace with our spouse, but because of some sort
of conflict, maybe there's some difficulty there, there's some
division there.
And as God ordains it, we are to walk in fellowship.
And so therefore we have to get right.
What is causing the divide?
That's the same thing when it comes to our relationship with God.
There's going to be times in our life where we allow certain issues
in our life and certain struggles in our life and certain
sins in our life cause a division.
And therefore we lose completely the understanding of the
peace of God that we have in our life because we have allowed
ourselves to get to that place where we've drawn a divide between
the Lord and our own lives.
And so I want to tell you here this morning, having peace with God
is an important, vital aspect of salvation.
We're going to move a little bit further here and we're going
to see what it says.
It says, so therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the only way that we can find this type of peace.
But verse number two, it says, by whom?
That's Jesus.
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace.
So the Bible says here that another blessing of being born again,
another blessing of the justification would be this we have
access to God, access to God, that we can know him in a personal
way.
There's a passage of Scripture that I love to go to when we're talking
about this idea of having access to God.
And that is found in the book of Hebrews.
If you want to see that with me, you can.
Hebrews, chapter four.
We're going to look at what the Bible says what our access really
looks like when it comes to knowing who God is and knowing his
love for us.
We know that all of this is only through Jesus Christ.
We're reminded that verse by verse, Verse one, we remember we
can only have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Number two, we can only have access by faith because of Jesus
Christ.
And so in Hebrews chapter four, we're reminded of this great
high priest, Jesus, who understands our struggles, who understands
our pain, who went through all the temptations that we had.
But we're gonna see that there's a difference in his response
and our response.
Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14.
Seeing then we have a great high priest.
Now, back in the Old Testament, the priest was the one
who connected man to God.
We know that in the New Testament in our lives today that
it is Jesus who connects God to man.
Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
So Hebrews chapter four is talking about Jesus.
Here we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens.
Jesus, the Son of God.
Let us hold fast our profession.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our faith.
For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities.
So what does this mean?
We have someone who can sympathize with our struggles, but
was in all points tempted, like as we are.
But the distinction is this, yet without sin.
So we could sit here all day and say, you know what I've been
through with what you've been through.
I struggle with what you struggle with.
I can understand your pain, but the truth is that I didn't handle
it so sinlessly.
But the Bible says that Jesus went through all the things that
we've gone through, but it says he faced it without sin.
And therefore, what's the response to that?
Verse 16.
Let us therefore, because of this, let us as believers come boldly
or confidently unto the throne of grace to go before the Lord.
Why?
That we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
All of us find a place in need sometimes.
Some of us are struggling, some of us have struggled, some of
us will struggle.
And the Bible says that access to God is not just coming to him
when everything is going well.
It's actually coming to him when things are going well, coming
to him when things are difficult, coming to him when things
feel overwhelming.
It says that we can come to him and find mercy and grace to help
in time of need.
God is there for us.
He cares for us.
He wants to have that relationship, he wants that two way
communication, he wants that fellowship.
And that's a beautiful thing that we have in salvation.
Because I could look at justification just as a ticket to
heaven, but it's more than that.
It's knowing that we have a relationship with God and He cares
for us and he wants to communicate with us and he wants
us to walk in fellowship with Him.
And so the second benefit or blessing of salvation would be that
we have access to God.
So verse two, he says, by whom also we have access by faith into
this grace.
Point number three, justification brings us grace from
God, not just in salvation, but in every element of our life.
Folks, when we think about that word grace, we're thinking about
something given to us that we don't deserve.
And everything that we have in Christ is grace because it's not
what we deserve.
The blessings, the protection, the love, the forgiveness, the compassion,
the presence, the access, everything that's listed here is
a grace of God.
Folks.
We get to rest in the grace of God.
Resting in the grace of God means this.
When I fail, he doesn't kick me out.
When I struggle, he doesn't turn away.
And so the thing that sometimes we think about is grace
only in the context of going to heaven.
And that is certainly the case.
But we have to access the grace of God in every element of
our life.
Folks, I don't know about you, but when I look at the news, when
I deal with my circumstances, when I wake up in the morning, I
am in desperate need of the grace of God.
Why?
Because I fail so often, my perspective is this, hey, you know
what?
It's not worth it.
It's not even something that's gonna bring me any benefit.
So you know what?
I'm just gonna give up.
But the Bible says that there is no reason to give up because we
have the grace of God in our lives.
And so it says in verse number two, we have access by faith into
what an amazing grace it is.
We sing Amazing grace.
Truth is, is that sometimes we forget how amazing that grace really
is when it comes to knowing God.
Look at your life.
And many of you say, well, look at my life, Pastor.
It's pretty difficult.
And I can understand that through the human perspective.
Our lives can be difficult.
But if we really sit back and think about the blessings of God,
I guarantee you, you'll have opportunities to thank God for that
amazing grace.
And so it says here that we have access to him, we have grace
in him, and it's where we can stand.
It says we can stand in that grace.
It's not about just realizing it, but the Bible actually says in
the New Testament that we are to grow in this grace.
Now, a lot of times people think that means that I need to love
God more so that he can give me more grace.
But the way that I understand Scripture, and maybe the way that
you understand Scripture, is that God's grace is abundantly and
infinitely poured out upon us in salvation.
And how could he prove his love any more than dying on the cross
for your sins?
Think about that for a moment if you're ever questioning whether
or not God loves you.
It says in Romans, chapter five, verse eight, which we're going
to get to in a little bit.
But God commended or demonstrated his love towards us
in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
That's the greatest demonstration of love ever throughout
all of history that we sin against our Creator.
The Bible says in John chapter one that Jesus created us, that we
are created by Him.
The light of God was shown abroad in the world and we rejected
him in our sin.
And so he says, okay, I created you, you sinned against me,
but I still love you enough to give my only begotten Son for you
and die on the cross for your sins.
That's the greatest act of love.
So anytime in your life that you doubt whether or not God loves
you, what should we do?
We go back to the cross.
We go back to what he did for us.
And so what we can see here is this.
We can stand in that grace.
Standing in the grace of God says this.
I know that I'm not enough, but I know that he is enough.
I know that this struggle is really big today, but he's bigger.
I know that.
I'm so confused right now, but his wisdom is stronger than my confusion.
His certainty is bigger than my doubt.
And folks, if you're struggling today to reconcile something
in your life when it comes to the love of God, go back to his grace.
Stand in his grace.
So what we see there in verse number two is that we can stand in
that grace.
But then we see number four, that justification doesn't just bring
us peace and access and grace, but it also brings us joy.
Look at it there in verse number two, it says, and rejoice
in hope of the glory of God.
The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Philippians says that we are to have joy in all situations.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
And again I say rejoice.
That's Philippians 4.
4.
One of the elements of the fruit of the Spirit is joy.
The Christian's life is to be characterized by joy, not circumstantial
happiness.
Because circumstantial happiness is this.
Hey, I go into work today, I get a raise.
Great.
It's okay to be happy for that.
But can we have biblical joy when we go into work and we don't
get the raise?
Actually, the opposite.
Can we have joy?
Circumstantial happiness is me going to the doctor.
Now, some of you know this.
You know, you go to the doctor, you sit down, and they look
over your numbers and they go, hey, everything's good.
Your numbers are good.
You're tracking in the right direction.
That's circumstantial happiness.
Yes, that's good.
Amen.
It's easy to praise him in those moments, but are we willing
to praise him when we go to the doctor and they don't say the
same thing?
They say, hey, things aren't looking so good.
This test isn't coming the way that we want to see it.
So we need to have another test.
Are we willing to say that I can have joy not because of what's
happening to me, but because of what has already happened to me
in Jesus Christ in salvation?
Folks, the Bible says that it is joy that characterizes the Christian
life.
Joy, love, truth, all these aspects that God imparts to us, we
as Christians are supposed to live out.
So he says, rejoice in hope.
We can talk about that word joy over and over again today.
But what I'm gonna tell you here today is that many Christians,
and I can say by way of testimony in my own life that I have
fallen into this category.
Many Christians have allowed certain things to happen in their
life to cause them to lose what we would call lose our joy.
Someone steals our joy, takes away what we thought was something
that was a blessing in our life, and we can say, you know what?
I no longer have joy as a Christian, folks.
I can understand that from the human perspective, but from the spiritual
perspective, we have no reason to say that we've lost our joy because
nobody can take away what we have in Jesus Christ.
The Bible says in the Book of Matthew that those things that we
have in this earth, moth and rust can corrupt, people can steal,
but nobody can steal what you have in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, that gives us the joy of our salvation.
Even the psalmist said, restore in me the joy of my salvation,
folks.
That's sometimes the prayer that we need to pray.
Sometimes we need to pray the prayer of lord, restore that joy
of my salvation.
Let me see it from the biblical perspective.
Let me see it from the eternal perspective.
So many times we can get into the rut of complaining, discontent,
bitterness.
And the Bible says, no, rejoice in the hope that you have.
And that brings us to point number five.
Justification doesn't just bring us joy, but it brings us hope.
That's what we see there in verse number two.
It says, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
What an amazing thing that is, that we can have hope.
Now, again, we need to define this word hope, biblically speaking,
because our world teaches hope like this.
I'm gonna cross my fingers, I'm gonna hope that this happens,
but I'm not sure about this.
So there's no certainty in the world's hope.
It's guessing.
But what the Bible says is that there's something else, a different
type of hope.
This type of biblical hope is certainty.
Some have defined it this way, a confident expectation that God
will keep his word, trusting in God, hoping in him, knowing that
he will fulfill his truth in my life.
And so hope is not guessing.
Hope is certainty.
Knowing that we have him, knowing that he is with us, knowing
that he gives us joy, knowing that he gives us everlasting life.
It's confidence in knowing that God is truthful and he will
always be truthful.
So we see those five things there.
We see peace with God.
We see access to God.
We see grace given from God and where we can stand.
We see joy that God gives us despite all of our difficult circumstances.
And we see hope, confidence.
And so if we were just to stop there, that would be enough.
That would be great.
That would be amazing.
All of this only makes sense to those who have been justified,
though.
We can't impart these two verses, verses one and two, to someone
who does not trust in Jesus Christ as Savior.
This is for believers.
This type of confidence, this type of peace, this type of joy,
this type of grace.
This type of access only comes to those who have trusted in Jesus
Christ.
We see that there in verse one.
Being justified by faith, they have peace with God through Jesus
Christ.
Through Jesus we have faith.
And through Jesus we have grace.
Through Jesus we can stand in joy and hope.
And so we get to verse number three.
And so all of us today would probably to some degree agree with
verses one and two.
We would say, yes, I have all those things.
And we're not tempted to doubt that when everything is going well.
But I'm going to tell you that Verse number three kind of changes
the script a little bit here.
You guys remember that infomercial?
Maybe they still have it out.
They say, but wait, there's more.
Right?
Just for 1999, you get this.
But wait, there's more.
That's kind of what Paul is going to say here in a second.
He says, but wait, there's more.
After all of what I've told you about all these blessings, there's
more blessings even better than what we just talked about.
And then Paul's going to start talking about something that we don't
in our human nature understand.
Verse three, he says, and not only.
So that's the King James way of saying, hey, there's more.
There's more blessing.
And I wish I could tell you that he's going to say, everything's
going to be okay.
You're not going to have any struggles in this world.
And that's what.
If we were writing this, that's what we would want it to say.
But Paul says this, I need you to follow me here this morning.
It says this.
But.
But we glory, boast, get excited, for we glory in tribulations.
Also.
He says, hey, there's all these wonderful blessings of salvation
and all these great things that you can have.
Joy, hope, peace, confidence, access, all of these things.
But then he says, we also glory in difficulty.
That's not what we're used to hearing when it comes to the Christian
life.
But what Paul is telling us is the complete scope of what it means
to walk in faith as a believer.
We know that in the book of James, it says we count it all joy
when we fall into diverse or different temptations.
I've always heard it said this way.
Well, the author doesn't really mean that we get excited about
difficulties.
He's just saying in comparison to living the unsaved life.
No, no, no, we're inserting something there that's not there.
He says, have joy, glory in tribulations.
Now, how on earth can a Christian glory in difficulty?
How can a Christian count a joy when he goes through a trial?
Well, he's going to tell us here.
He's going to explain how we can have the type of hope that's
described in verses 1 and 2.
In the midst of difficulties, it's easy to have hope when all things
are as they should be in our eyes.
But Paul explains that this is what he's about to say.
This type of hope is a greater type of hope.
The Christians hope is greater than the world's hope.
The Bible says that even later on in 1 Thessalonians, it says that
we don't even have to sorrow like other people's sorrow.
There's a greater hope in our lives than just, hey, everything's
working out the way that I want it to work out.
And so if we rely on God through tribulation, or another way
that you could say that is through trials.
And trials can come from different forms, they can come from
different angles.
But he says here, if you are able to rely on God through the trials
in faith and stand in grace, this is what's going to happen.
This is the process of spiritual growth.
He says, knowing, knowing, having confidence in knowing that
tribulation worketh patience.
Now, patience isn't a word that we want to hear.
We want to reject patience.
Our flesh wants to reject patience.
Why?
Because the Bible says that patience is one of the elements of
the fruit of the spirit.
So walking in the spirit, we love patience.
Walking in our flesh, we hate patience.
You want to have your flesh tested?
Go wait in line for an hour somewhere, okay?
None of us want to wait.
None of us want to be patient through a trial.
But the Bible says here that this word patience is not just the
type of patience that we're talking about.
When you go to an amusement park and you're waiting for an hour
to ride a two minute ride and thinking, trying to justify in your
mind that it's worth it, okay, this is not that type of patience.
The world's patience is this.
Just sit back, you know, twiddle your thumbs, just sit here
and wait.
But biblical patience is more than just waiting.
Biblical patience is endurance through something.
Okay?
We know that because In Hebrews chapter 12 it says to run
the race of life with patience.
Now, if biblical patience was just sitting there and not moving,
how could we run the race?
Okay?
So running the race with patience, or another word that we
could use is endurance.
And so if we rely on God through trials, he teaches us and
produces in us endurance.
Pushing through the trial, pushing through the difficulty, and
not in our own strength, but we know that it's through the strength
of God in our lives.
That's what it's gonna say there in verse number five.
It's only given to us because of the love of God.
It's only given to us because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
But what I'm gonna tell you here today is that we as Christians
can say it's okay to go through trials.
And because it teaches us endurance, think about anyone trying
to do anything worth it in this world, it doesn't just come
naturally.
Even professional athletes that are gifted by God to do wonderful
things, practice, everybody goes through that sense of discipline.
And so what we can see here in this case is that he says, if you
want to grow as a Christian, if you want to be a mature Christian,
if you want to be able to pursue, go through those difficulties
trusting in God, and it will produce patience and it will produce
endurance.
So he says here, knowing that tribulation worketh patience or manifests
or displays patience, another thing that you could see here is
this verse number four.
And it's kind of like a chain here.
Actually, some commentators call this the golden chain of Christian
maturity or Christian growth.
One virtue builds upon another virtue as we grow in the pattern
of Jesus.
So he says, with patience or endurance comes experience.
Now, it's not just having experience.
Like, hey, I've went through this.
The idea would be this.
We experience the power of God and it manifests or it reveals our
character.
So we have more experience in these trials, and through these experiences,
we.
We can have our character tested.
We can have more what we would say a public testimony for what God
is doing in our life.
What is character, by the way?
Character is who you are and what you do when no one's looking.
Character is what's really going on in there.
Because my reputation is this, okay?
My reputation is what people think about me.
And I can kind of skew my reputation.
Some of you know what I mean by that.
You can talk a certain way in front of people, make sure you're
on your best behavior around people, but that's not character.
That's not what he's talking about here.
Because I can say something in front of someone.
I remember back when Silas was going through his issues there when
he was born, and people were asking me how I'm doing, and frankly,
I wasn't doing great.
But what do you say?
Well, I'm doing great.
We're doing fine.
Just because I say that I'm doing fine, just because I say that
I'm trusting in God, that doesn't necessarily mean that I am.
You know, there was that idea in my mind.
Maybe if I can just say it enough, it'll actually start to happen.
But it wasn't until I said, lord, give me the strength to be
able to see this from the biblical perspective, the Christian
perspective, the eternal perspective, that I was able to say
truly that God is good, that he's got us no matter what.
And so what is he saying here?
He's saying this.
It's not about, like when someone comes and asks you, hey,
how you doing?
I'm doing all right.
Well, that.
So maybe everyone thinks that you're doing okay.
So it's not necessarily your reputation, it's your character.
It's what you believe when no one's looking.
It's what you do when no one's looking.
It's in that deepest part of your mind that you sometimes question
whether or not God is going to get you through this.
Going through trials and allowing him to get you through it
allows you to understand that and have that biblical character
that you can say, you know what?
I know that God is going to do this because he did it before and
he'll do it again.
And that's what we're seeing here in this passage.
He says that going through these trials, trusting the Lord gives
us endurance.
It gives us experience.
We can have bad experiences and we can have good experiences.
In this case, it's talking about proof of character, character
of God working out in our lives.
And so he says, patience, experience and experience, hope,
expectation, confident expectation that God is going to
keep his word.
So what he's essentially saying is this.
If you follow this golden chain of spiritual maturity, as you
trust in God during the trial, he's gonna give you more endurance.
As you trust in God in the trial, he's gonna give you more experience,
he's gonna give you more to play back on in your life.
And ultimately the benefit or the end all be all would be that
we grow in our expectation that God is going to keep his word,
hope, confidence in Him.
I know that's not necessarily what we want.
We all wish we could start with just complete hope in him in
every way.
But the reality is that most of you that have gone through the
trial, you don't enjoy going through that trial.
But when you saw God's hand through that trial, you can go back
and say, yeah, I know that God was with me through that.
It's an evident thing.
It's a beautiful thing.
It's something that strengthens our faith.
It's something that strengthens our character, something
that strengthens our endurance.
And so I think all of us, maybe, maybe I'm making a conjecture
here, but I think that most of us probably want to grow in our spiritual
maturity, but many of us, and I'm not judging because I've been
here, many of us don't wanna go through what the Bible says is
that difficulty to grow in our spiritual maturity.
How many of us want, how many of us wake up in the morning saying,
lord, if you send things my way, I'm gonna give you praise no
matter what.
We look at.
Sometimes we look at people in the Bible and we think of those people
as like movie characters.
Elijah, Elisha, Paul, Peter.
And we say, oh, yeah, of course they went through those things.
But, yeah, that's not.
No, these are real.
The Bible says these are real people in real places with real emotions,
with real faith, and they were able to endure.
Did they all end with being retired on a beach with, you know,
a bunch of money to sit on?
No.
Some of them died for their faith.
And we in America feel like that's the worst thing that could
ever happen.
Persecution.
We gotta stop persecution.
I agree with that, folks.
But at the end of the day, look back at the early church.
The blood of the martyrs was the seed of evangelism.
Persecution is actually something that we can grow in.
Persecution doesn't stop the church.
If persecution stopped the church, the Roman Empire would have
won.
But I'm going to give you a little secret.
The Roman Empire didn't win.
The church spread.
The church is all over the world today.
There are people getting saved.
In countries that say that there's no churches, there's people
still getting saved.
Why?
Because the power of God is bigger than any persecution of this
world.
There's been people that have tried to burn Bibles.
There's been people that try to stop churches.
But the Bible says here that those difficulties are all part of
it.
Those difficulties are there so that we can further the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
And I pray, I pray every day that God continues to spare our country
from persecution.
I pray every single day that God would give us the freedom to
assemble.
But that is not a guarantee.
Look at history.
It's a very relative small span in time that there is freedom
to worship, and yet we just live in it like, hey, you know what?
It's what we expect.
It's what we've always known.
It's what I've always known, but I've only been alive for, like,
a handful of decades.
What about those people that are living in another country?
They can't meet like we meet.
What about those people that lived five, 600 years ago that were
being burned at the stake as a martyr for what they were believing.
And you know what?
They weren't.
They weren't wavering.
They weren't wavering on what they believed.
They were saying, you know what?
Put me on a stake and burn me as a martyr.
I am confident that this is true.
How can we have that type of hope.
How many of us, if we were put to the fire, would be able to say,
yeah, I stand by this no matter what.
Some people like pastor, don't speak it into existence.
I don't believe in that kind of stuff.
Okay?
God has ordained it to be so.
Okay, so what we're going to see here in this case is that hope,
verse 5.
Hope maketh not ashamed.
What does that mean?
Means this.
This type of hope never disappoints.
This type of hope never lets us down.
This type of hope never fails.
You know what fails?
Man made hope, man made love, man made emotions.
Now, what we can see here in this case is that in verse five,
he says, okay, what type of hope?
It's the hope that doesn't fail.
Why?
Because of the love of God.
Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the
Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.
And so this hope allows us to know the love of God, to show the
love of God, to grow in the love of God.
It helps us understand that God loves Me no matter what.
This is how God's love is communicated to us through the power
of the Holy Spirit, indwelling us and comforting us and teaching
us and convicting us.
That's the way that God shows His love.
That's what it says here.
It says, and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is
shed abroad in our hearts.
How?
How does God show us his love?
Well, we know by dying on the cross for our sins.
But how does he show me love today?
Because it didn't stop on the cross.
God's love didn't stop on the cross and say, I loved you back then.
I did everything I need to do and now I'm done with you.
Right?
Is that how.
Is that how a good marriage works?
Like, I love my wife on our wedding day?
But that's it.
It's good.
Now we're good.
I don't need a lover now.
No.
God continues his love for us.
And it says it right here in verse 5.
Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the
Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
So the Bible says that God proves His love daily through the
relationship that we have with him and through the work of the Holy
Ghost, the Holy Spirit.
What's the work of the Holy Spirit?
Conviction.
We often don't think that conviction is a way that God shows
He loves us.
But when God shows He loves us by showing us that we're wrong, it's
him demonstrating his Love so much that he would say, hey, I don't
want you to continue on in this.
Often we don't think of conviction as God's love for us,
folks.
We have to, have to, have to be so sensitive to the conviction
of the Holy Spirit.
I was just talking about this today in my Bible study.
There are days when I'm not sensitive to the Holy Spirit and
I'm just doing what I want to do.
And I'll let the chips fall where they may.
But there's other days when I'm walking in the Holy Spirit by
just the things that I say, by the way that I say the things that
I say, that I feel convicted, that I say.
I got to get that right.
I can't be that way.
I could be doing the right thing in the wrong way and totally
miss the boat.
And so the Bible says that the conviction of the Holy Spirit is
the way that God shows His love for us.
He doesn't want his child to go further in that sin, convicts
our heart.
Another way that the Holy Spirit works, we know that he's the
comforter, right?
The comfort of the Holy Spirit is a beautiful thing in our lives
that shows us that God gives us that peace that passeth all understanding.
But remember, we can't have that peace with God, or, excuse me,
the peace of God, unless we have the peace with God.
And so at the end of the day, we see that the comfort of the Holy
Spirit is also a way that God shows His love for us.
The teaching of the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is a teacher.
He's going to lead us to all truth.
The teaching of the Holy Spirit, right?
When you're reading the Word of God and something jumps off the
page for you, that's the love of God.
He's speaking to you.
And so we see here this morning that the love of God is shown
to us not through giving us an easy life.
It's there to show us that he's with us through this world and
that he's there with us.
And he's concerned with our hearts and he's concerned with our
ways.
And so ultimately, this is how God's love is communicated.
A lack of awareness of God's love can often be credited to constantly
rejecting the Holy Spirit in our life.
When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, when we are walking
with the Holy Spirit, we are often never tempted to believe that
God loves us.
It's when we drift away from the conviction of the Spirit, it's
when we drift away from the teaching of the Word of God, when
we start doing our own thing, that we're tempted to think that
maybe God doesn't love me.
Maybe the situation that God's brought me is showing me that he's
not real.
We have to go back to see.
No.
It's when I'm walking in fellowship with him that I can't
be distracted away from the truth, that I can't be questioned
when it comes to my love for Him.
And so everyone who is a believer, we're gonna see this later
on in Romans chapter 8.
Everyone who is a believer has the Holy Spirit indwelling them.
But not every Christian lives in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Not every Christian walks in the Spirit.
Not every Christian is filled with the Spirit.
Why?
Because we want our own path.
And so what we can see in Romans chapter five is this.
It's a dying to self, a yielding to the Spirit.
And when we do that, we're able to go through the trials of
life with patience, with experience, with hope, trusting in
the hope of Jesus Christ, trusting in the fact that he loves
us, trusting in the work of his great sacrifice for us.
So the benefits of being born again.
Well, justification brings us peace with God.
It brings us access to God, brings us grace where we can stand.
It brings us joy, it brings us hope, it brings us endurance, it
brings us experience, and it brings us expectation.
These are all things that we have to think about when it comes
to our Christian life, folks.
We are selling the power of God short when we think that I trust
in God.
I'm a Christian now by name.
And now everything just stays the same, folks.
Our life is supposed to be transformed, transformed.
A new life in Christ, a different way of thinking.
Yeah, I understand.
I am the first to admit that thinking like Christ does not make
any sense in this world.
Loving my enemy does not make sense.
Loving my neighbor as myself does not make sense.
Giving to the Lord does not make sense in the world standard.
But when we look at it from God's standard, it makes all sense
to give it all over to him.
Romans chapter 12 says, to give your bodies everything, a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable
service.
It's only reasonable that we give him everything.
And so how many of us say, I've been here, Lord, I'll give you
this, this, and this, but you can't touch this.
This is off limits.
This is me.
This is my thing.
And I'm gonna struggle with this on my own.
I'm Gonna go through this on my own.
I'm gonna fight my own battle.
Folks, that's such a misconception of what God wants from
us.
He wants us to know him and be known by him.
He wants us to go into the throne room of grace.
Yesterday, my son's not here.
He's not gonna hear this.
He probably won't watch the live stream.
Okay.
Yesterday, we were over at some folks house.
My son's 10 years old, and I hear clunk.
And he fell off these steps, these brick steps, and he hit him.
I didn't know what he hit.
And he's 10 years old, right?
So I'm like, I never baby him, but he looks up and he's crying,
and I just.
I ran.
I just, like, ran.
I was like, he's 10 years old.
He can handle himself.
But I ran to.
It wasn't like, I didn't sit there and think about it and go,
well, I wonder if he's really hurt, you know, he'll rub some dirt
in it.
He, like, took over in my.
In my heart, like, I ran.
Nothing could have stopped me in that moment.
I picked him up like he's a baby, and I'm, like, holding him.
And I thought about that for a second.
I thought about, like, when I fall, God doesn't sit there and go,
well, I wonder if he can handle it on his own.
He wants to help his children.
He wants to come and grab them.
I don't care how old you are.
God wants to wrap his arms around you and love you and give
you that peace and strength.
I couldn't.
I remember back when Silas was going into.
Well, actually, when he came out of surgery, it was one of the
hardest things I ever saw in my life to see my child, like, crying.
I couldn't stop him crying, you know, Inconsolable.
And he wasn't crying just because he didn't have food.
He was crying because they just operated on him for, like, nine
hours or whatever it was.
And everything in me, I wanted to take away that pain from him.
I want.
I couldn't, though.
I couldn't take away that pain from him.
I wanted to.
And sometimes in our life, God loves us.
And God loves us so much, but he doesn't take the pain away from
us, because many times the pain that we're facing is because
of a decision that we've made.
And so it's not because he's sitting there and going, hey, you're
going through pain.
And I'll Take away.
Sometimes God does take away the pain.
Sometimes God doesn't take away the pain.
I don't know why.
I don't know why even he chooses to heal certain people and
not heal other people.
But at the end of the day, the promise is not that he will take
away all of our immediate pain.
The promise is that he'll be there with us through it.
And ultimately the healing will be there when we're with him
for eternity, folks.
When we think about this world as being so long, 100 years in comparison
to eternity is nothing, folks.
We're going to be with our Savior for eternity.
No more pain, no more, no more tears, no more suffering, no more
separation, folks.
That's what we're living for.
And so the eternal perspective is this.
I go through a trial now, but Paul says it so wonderfully.
He says, the little trial that I'm going through now is nothing
in comparison to the glory that I will experience with being
with my Savior.
And I can tell you, if Paul could be here today, if any of our
loved ones that have gone on to be with our Savior could talk
to us today, you know what they would say?
It's as simple as this.
I believe they would say it's worth is worth it all when we see
Jesus.
And I'm going to tell you here today, there's struggles.
I know there's struggles.
I'm not overlooking the struggles.
Come on, we all know that there's struggles.
But I'm going to tell you this, and I think that you guys will
understand this.
Saved people and unsaved people are going to have struggles.
Doesn't mean that unsaved people go perfect lives.
They don't have perfect lives.
The truth of the matter is though, the hope that we can have
as Christians is that we can go through the struggles of life.
Why is there struggles of life?
Because of sin.
We live in a sin cursed world.
So the difference is that a Christian is going through the problems
saying, I've got something better, I've got someone bigger.
And so that's the blessing of salvation.
Yes, we'll be with him one day.
But it's not just saying one day everything will be okay.
It's saying that because one day everything will be I'm okay right
now.
And so what we can see here in Romans chapter five is that he says
there's many, many blessings of being born again.
And we're going to go further in Romans chapter five in the next
coming weeks and it's going to talk more about the love of God,
it's going to talk more about why there's struggles in this world.
He's going to talk about a guy named Adam.
Right by one man's sin entered into the world and death by sin.
But there's what the Bible calls as the second Adam.
Just as one man allowed sin to come into this world, so there was
one man who came to pay for the price of all of our sin.
And that's what we're gonna talk about further on in Romans,
chapter five.
So I'm gonna ask if you're able to stand with me this morning,
every head bowed, every eye closed, as the music plays here.
I know we've talked about a lot this morning when it comes to
this area of justification and my job this morning, I believe from
the Lord, from the Word, that my job this morning is to tell you
exactly what we face when it comes to our justification, when
we're saved.
We're not saved from all the problems, at least the immediate
problems.
We are saved from the biggest problem, and that is sin.
And so we must see salvation for what the Bible calls it.
And I would venture to say that when we really, truly dig deeper
into what salvation really is, it's better than we could ever imagine.
Folks, I love you, I love my children, I love my family.
But there's no greater love than what God has shown to you.
And that is the greatest act of sacrifice, that is the greatest
act of service, that is the greatest act of sanctification, that
he sets you apart.
When you believe in him, you are now set aside for a specific
use.
God, the Creator of the universe, the One who knew no sin,
the One who is eternal, the One who had no beginning and has
no end, wants to know you and have access to a relationship with
you, and you have access to relationship with Him.
The beauty is this, that we can know him and talk to him and
fellowship with him and rest in his grace and walk in his grace.
Folks, you cannot overemphasize grace enough.
Grace is needed in every element of our lives, in our homes,
in our workplaces, in our.
In our hobbies, in our physical strength, everything.
Grace is a necessity.
And so here this morning, the challenge for me, the challenge for
you is, are we thanking Him?
Are we resting in that grace?
Are we resting in the benefits of being born again?
Are we allowing the Holy Spirit to work his work in our life?
Have we been tempted to think that God, maybe, maybe, just maybe,
doesn't love me like he loves somebody else?
Am I willing to allow the Holy Spirit to work in my life?
Am I allowing the conviction of the Word of God, the conviction,
conviction of the power of God to change the way that I act, to
swallow up my pride?
The Bible says die to the flesh, not just curb it, cut it out
here and there, die to the flesh.
God is serious about what he says.
So here this morning, if any of this has spoken to you, maybe,
maybe you're the one going through the trial right now and you're
dealing with it.
You don't know how to deal with it.
The Bible says in James chapter one, the same passage that
says, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations.
He says to go to him if you lack wisdom, go to him and he'll
give it to you.
Ask of him for wisdom and strength in the midst of the trial
so that you can say, I glory in my difficulties because my difficulties
bring me to a place of endurance, my difficulties bring
me to a place of experience, and my difficulties bring me to a
place of expectation and hope in my Savior, to be my Savior in
my life.
And so here this morning, if you need to come forward and talk
to him today to get things right with him today, maybe just
to thank him for that immense infinite grace, come forward this
morning.
The steps are open.
But if you need Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you want to trust
in him to experience true justification, true declaration of
righteousness in your life, not by works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing
of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost, not by works that
we have done.
So can we say this morning, hey, it's not about me becoming a
better person.
It's about me trusting in the greatest person, the person of Jesus
Christ.
If you need Jesus this morning, we've got some folks up
here that can lead you in the word of God to show you what it means
to know him as your Savior.
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation working hearts
and lives.
We thank you for your love and your grace work in hearts today in
Jesus name.
Amen.
As the music plays, some have already come Follow as the Lord leads
here today.
Foreign thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist
Church podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
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You can also eat email me directly at Josh Massaro middletownbaptistchurch.com
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Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.