Linda's days are mostly good, but nights are difficult for her - discomfort, confusion, etc. Please pray about that. I apologize for the lack of information, but there is not much to say. I am encouraged at times and I have concerns at times, but things are fairly steady at present. Linda has two doctor's appointments this week, Tuesday and Thursday. She has been off the IV antibiotics for several days, but the pic line is still in. We hope that will be removed this week.
We know that there is purpose in our suffering. We both feel very much like it is our suffering, though she has the far more difficult role. The message today at church was the second of two messages about the ways suffering brings us to a closer relationship with Jesus. So, it is included here.
Intimacy with Jesus
Romans 5:1-5
How would you define the word, “intimacy?” You would almost certainly think of it in terms of a relationship with at least one other person. You would most likely not say, “a close relationship.” You would be more likely to say something like, “intimacy implies a really close relationship.” Often today when we hear people talk about an “intimate relationship,” they are referring to a physical relationship. That is not necessarily improper, but if you hear that term used in that way on television, it most likely is describing an improper relationship – that is, a physical relationship outside the bounds of marriage.
Of course, intimacy can also be inappropriate on an emotional level if you are married and you have an intimate emotional relationship with someone of the opposite sex other than your spouse. But if you are married, you are a blessed man or woman, indeed, if you can characterize your relationship with your spouse with the word “intimacy.” We can absolutely have intimate relationships outside of marriage that are not improper, but you are more likely to hear women, rather than men, talk about intimate friends. I have a good friend named Jimmy, but you will never hear me say that we are intimate friends. Ain’t happening!
But, oh, that we could say we have an intimate relationship with Jesus, no matter who we are, no matter what our age is, no matter how long we have been following Jesus! We are going to talk a lot about an intimate relationship with Jesus this year here at Grace Community Church. It is my heart’s desire that every single one of us in the room today will be more intimate with Jesus at the end of this year than we are today. In fact, this time of the year always excites me to the possibilities of a better relationship with the Lord.
Last week was actually the beginning of our quest for increased intimacy. The topic of last week’s message may surprise you, though, if you were not here. The title of the message was “Called to Suffer.” Believers experience two types of suffering. One is the result of persecution because of our willingness to indentify with Jesus. All committed believers will suffer persecution, according to 2 Timothy 3:16. The other type of suffering we experience is the suffering that is part of the human experience, whether we are believers or not. All humans suffer, but for the believer, that suffering is mitigated, it is softened by the cross of Jesus. We saw that in several places last week in the book of Romans.
Our text this morning, also in Romans – Romans 5:1-5 to be exact – will continue the explanation of how suffering draws us closer to the Lord. If you were not here last Sunday, you missed some of the most encouraging bad news from the book of Romans that you could ever hear. Let me encourage you to download last week’s sermon off the Internet – it will make today’s text and message even more meaningful. Let’s get to it, Romans 5:1-5. Would you please stand as we read God’s Word together?
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 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.
3 More than that, 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.
The outline for today’s message is quite simple. We begin with, Intimacy with Jesus:
I. Through relationship
Now, that may seem almost like a rehash of the introduction, and it is self-evident, to be sure, but this is no ordinary relationship we read about in Romans 5:1. Look again at verse 1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Last week, we discovered that the wrath of God is continuously being revealed through death, through futility, and through moral degradation. When we learned about death, particularly from Romans 5, beginning in verse 12, we learned that death is more than a cessation of life on this earth – it involves judgment and condemnation – unless one has a personal relationship with Jesus. What does that involve?
To be related to Jesus, one must recognize that he is a sinner, and that not only is God’s wrath aimed squarely at him, but that he deserves the judicial wrath of a holy and righteous God. There is good news, though. On the cross, Jesus, Who was perfect and had never sinned, took the wrath that God had for me upon Himself. If I am to escape the wrath I deserve, I must first repent of my sin, which means to agree with God about who I am and to turn my life and any hope of heaven over to Him. Second, I must believe that Jesus died for me, and I must accept His death on the cross as payment for my sin. That’s what “faith” in Romans 5:1 is all about – repentance and belief in Jesus. And when you believe, God’s judgment is no longer upon you – you have peace with God.
The peace spoken of here feels really, really good. But it is not a subjective, or, “feely” kind of peace that is described. It is more of a legal standing that we have with the great Judge of the universe Who knows all about us. In our day, just as in every day before our time, there are those who believe that they “deserve” to go to heaven. But you have to know something – when you stand before the Judge of the Universe, He has all the evidence needed to condemn you. Not just your actions and your words, but your thoughts, your motives, the whole works. Peace with God is a big deal! And even though this peace is akin to a legal standing, I have to tell you that if you go to court for a crime that you committed, and it is a crime that carries a stiff penalty, you are probably going to get pretty excited if the Judge says, “Well, you are guilty, but I am going to extend mercy – no punishment.” It is not the kind of thing where when your spouse asks how your day went that you will say, “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot – I was guilty of a crime that carries a 10 year prison sentence, but the Judge let me off.” No, your spouse is already dancing with you!
If we are going to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, it begins, simply, with relationship. Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior? If so, you are privileged to grow closer to Him:
II. Through persistent grace
There is a certain mentality in our society that has a great deal of confidence in “self.” “Just give me a chance – I’ll show ya! All I want is a fair shake.” Well, we have already seen that the wrath of God was being poured out on us and we were heading for judgment and condemnation until Jesus got in the way of God’s wrath. And it was God’s grace that saved us – a gift He gave that we could not have earned if we could have put our best day ever back to back ten million days in a row. It was grace, all grace.
For many believers who taste of God’s grace, there is an unfortunate tendency to think that God starts us off with His grace and then we are responsible to keep up this Christian life that He gave us. Oh, it is not that we think we have to do good works in order to stay saved, but we must work for our rewards – it’s up to us and God is watching to see how we will do. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This life began with grace, it is engulfed and permeated with grace, it is lived moment by moment because of grace, and it will end with grace. Look again at verse 2: “Through Him (Jesus) we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
We have access by faith – to Whom, or, to what? One would expect this access to be to God, as through prayer. It is true that we have access to God because of Jesus – 1 Timothy 2:5 tells us, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” In other words, we do not need a priest to approach God on our behalf – Jesus does that, and because of His efforts, we have direct access to God.
But that is not the truth found in Romans 5:2. We are told that we have access to grace – and aren’t you glad? Can you think of anything you have done as a Christian that would have gotten you into real trouble with another person if you had sinned against him or her in the way that you sinned against the Lord? Can you think of something this past week, in fact, that would have been really bad news in your relationship with Jesus had it not been for God’s grace? His grace never stops forgiving us, strengthening us, wooing us. In fact, it is more than clear that intimacy with Jesus would not be possible apart from His persistent grace. In other words, intimacy is more a result of His work than our work.
Now, this does not mean we do not pursue Jesus. Indeed, intimacy between two people is impossible without both parties making an effort to build the relationship. We will talk more this year about what we can do as believers to pursue Jesus, but we will never get anywhere close to where we want to be until we rest, or believe – that’s the faith spoken of here – until we believe that without Jesus’ persistent pursuit of us, intimacy with Him is impossible. When we swim in the ocean of God’s grace rather than being content to get our feet a little bit wet, we reap the benefits of the relationship that was begun in verse 1. So, what is our response to this great news?
We rejoice! “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.” The word, rejoice, is a powerful word in the Greek. It means boasting and exultant rejoicing – the kind of rejoicing that you shout about. And it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? We belong to Jesus, and when we fall flat on our face, He doesn’t show His frustration and quit speaking to us – He responds to us in forgiveness and grace! Is it not true that the more you know about God’s dealings with you through grace, the closer you want to get to Him? You will also want to bring glory to Him, because you realize that all the good that is in you comes from Him. Glory to His name! “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Intimacy with Jesus is a possibility because we are justified and forgiven through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is also possible because God’s grace is persistent, pursuing us every step of our lives. But there is another path to intimacy that is a bit more difficult to understand – it is the path that leads:
III. Through suffering
Whoa! That’s a change of pace, is it not? I mean, we have been talking about justification, and forgiveness of sins, and salvation, and intimacy, and access, and faith, and grace, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, and now, suffering? What word does not seem to fit? As we look at things, suffering is out of place, but as God looks at things, not so at all. In fact, we can see glimpses in our relationships with one another here on earth. Just this past week, Linda and I had some wonderful late night intimate talks that we rarely had before our particular call to suffering. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at Romans 5:3-5: “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings.” WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! We rejoice in our sufferings? It's not possible, is it, that the Greek word for rejoice is the same word used in verse 2, where we boast, we rejoice exultantly, we shout about the glory of God? It is, indeed, the same word. Not that I expect any of you – any of us, I should say – to fully follow the Lord’s instruction here, but let me show you how this would work if we really rejoiced in our suffering.
Let’s say the transmission in your car starts slipping. You take it to the shop, hoping against hope that the transmission fluid and filter just need to be changed. When you go to the shop to check on your car, the mechanic says, “Your transmission is shot. A new one will cost you about $2,400.” If your response is a Romans 5:3 response, you will say, “Yes! Thank You, Lord!” Then he says, “Can’t say that I have ever seen this reaction before. Are you actually excited about this? Most people think $2,400 is a lot of money.” And you say, “You better believe it is a lot of money, and I don’t have a penny of it, but this is a wonderful opportunity for me to grow closer to Jesus!”
That seems silly, doesn’t it? Is it? Look again at our text:
3 More than that, 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.
OK, so no one here is likely to jump up and down when you face a financial or medical crisis. But, we are told to rejoice in sufferings. This is not the only place in the NT that such a command is given, is it? James 1:2-4 says,
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Hmm. Those words have a familiar ring, don’t they? Trials build character, don’t they? Well, they can, but our response will go a long way in determining how beneficial they are to us. In this passage in James, the purpose of trials ends with maturity – not a bad place at all, and exactly where God wanted them to end in this text. In Romans 5:3-5, there is an even greater end in sight than maturity, but that’s where it begins.
Paul says we should rejoice in suffering because suffering produces endurance. In fact, suffering takes us to a place that we would never choose to go on our own. When I was in seminary, I heard a lot of guys griping about reading books that were less than scintillating in style, but contained important content. I would usually ask them, “Would you ever choose to read this book on your own?” NO! “Does it contain information that you will likely need some day?” Skepticism was often expressed at this point, to which I would reply that you never know how God may use this information in your life.
It’s that way with trials. We would never choose some of the things that come our way, but we learn endurance when they are forced upon us. This word means, in fact, to endure under pressure. If we endure long enough, character is built. How much is character produced or increased in us when everything goes our way? We almost always determine a person’s character, or lack thereof, by how he or she acts in and responds to trials and suffering. Character is discovered and developed under fire. And to what does a tried and tested character lead? Hope!
Some of you have heard me say many times that whenever you see the word, hope, in the NT, you can know that it refers to a firm assurance of eternal life. It is a looking forward to the new heaven and the new earth where we will be like Jesus and where we will be in perfect communion with the Lord.
Consider this progression for a moment. We start with trials, we build endurance and character, and we end with a settled expectation of perfect eternal communion with the Lord. Instead of trials destroying our hope as one might expect, they actually serve to increase our hope! You might say that one of the purposes of trials in our lives is to make us homesick for heaven. Anyone know what I am talking about? Yeah, those of you who are on my side of the hill! No matter what your age, trials serve to draw you closer to God, to build intimacy in your relationship with Jesus. “Intimacy” is what the last phrase in verse 5 is about.
“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.” No, indeed, we will not be ashamed of our relationship with Jesus, because our treasures are being sent ahead to heaven – we have a sure hope, and the evidence of that is God’s love that is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. With the involvement of the Holy Spirit, the entire Trinity is at work building our relationship with the Lord. God the Father has saved us through the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit gives evidence of that work by pouring God’s love into our hearts.
Remember in verse 1 how we said that peace with God is more of a legal standing than a subjective feeling? Well, verse 5 is all about personal relationship, about intimacy. The Lord loves you more than you can imagine. In just a few verses beyond our text in Romans 5, Paul will say that even while you were a sinner, before you had any desire for God at all, Jesus died for you. He is calling you to intimacy, but you have to respond to His call in order to experience a closer relationship with the Lord.
Intimacy with Jesus – through relationship. Is Jesus your Savior? Have you committed your life to Him and accepted His death on the cross as payment for your sin? If so, you have experienced God’s grace. And you are the recipient of His grace day in and day out. His grace woos you to an intimate relationship with Him. Amazingly, the trials that we face and would love to avoid point us to Him. Even through our tears the reality of our future life with Jesus becomes clearer as we endure suffering that is borne of a personal sovereign design.
There is more than one way we could respond to this text, but let’s focus on that which obviously calls for a response that can only be made with supernatural help. You don’t need to close your eyes, though you can if you want to, but I would like for you to think of a particularly difficult trial that you are experiencing in your life right now. I am not going to ask you to get up and dance a jig, but I will ask if you would give thanks to the Lord for this trial. Tell Him you trust His Word, and that you know this suffering is for the best. Tell Him you want to be intimate with Him and that you realize suffering will serve to bring you especially close to Jesus, because He knows about suffering and responds to you in a special way when you suffer. Thank Him again for saving you and for His grace, and for pouring His love into your heart.
Romans 5:1-5
How would you define the word, “intimacy?” You would almost certainly think of it in terms of a relationship with at least one other person. You would most likely not say, “a close relationship.” You would be more likely to say something like, “intimacy implies a really close relationship.” Often today when we hear people talk about an “intimate relationship,” they are referring to a physical relationship. That is not necessarily improper, but if you hear that term used in that way on television, it most likely is describing an improper relationship – that is, a physical relationship outside the bounds of marriage.
Of course, intimacy can also be inappropriate on an emotional level if you are married and you have an intimate emotional relationship with someone of the opposite sex other than your spouse. But if you are married, you are a blessed man or woman, indeed, if you can characterize your relationship with your spouse with the word “intimacy.” We can absolutely have intimate relationships outside of marriage that are not improper, but you are more likely to hear women, rather than men, talk about intimate friends. I have a good friend named Jimmy, but you will never hear me say that we are intimate friends. Ain’t happening!
But, oh, that we could say we have an intimate relationship with Jesus, no matter who we are, no matter what our age is, no matter how long we have been following Jesus! We are going to talk a lot about an intimate relationship with Jesus this year here at Grace Community Church. It is my heart’s desire that every single one of us in the room today will be more intimate with Jesus at the end of this year than we are today. In fact, this time of the year always excites me to the possibilities of a better relationship with the Lord.
Last week was actually the beginning of our quest for increased intimacy. The topic of last week’s message may surprise you, though, if you were not here. The title of the message was “Called to Suffer.” Believers experience two types of suffering. One is the result of persecution because of our willingness to indentify with Jesus. All committed believers will suffer persecution, according to 2 Timothy 3:16. The other type of suffering we experience is the suffering that is part of the human experience, whether we are believers or not. All humans suffer, but for the believer, that suffering is mitigated, it is softened by the cross of Jesus. We saw that in several places last week in the book of Romans.
Our text this morning, also in Romans – Romans 5:1-5 to be exact – will continue the explanation of how suffering draws us closer to the Lord. If you were not here last Sunday, you missed some of the most encouraging bad news from the book of Romans that you could ever hear. Let me encourage you to download last week’s sermon off the Internet – it will make today’s text and message even more meaningful. Let’s get to it, Romans 5:1-5. Would you please stand as we read God’s Word together?
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 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.
3 More than that, 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.
The outline for today’s message is quite simple. We begin with, Intimacy with Jesus:
I. Through relationship
Now, that may seem almost like a rehash of the introduction, and it is self-evident, to be sure, but this is no ordinary relationship we read about in Romans 5:1. Look again at verse 1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Last week, we discovered that the wrath of God is continuously being revealed through death, through futility, and through moral degradation. When we learned about death, particularly from Romans 5, beginning in verse 12, we learned that death is more than a cessation of life on this earth – it involves judgment and condemnation – unless one has a personal relationship with Jesus. What does that involve?
To be related to Jesus, one must recognize that he is a sinner, and that not only is God’s wrath aimed squarely at him, but that he deserves the judicial wrath of a holy and righteous God. There is good news, though. On the cross, Jesus, Who was perfect and had never sinned, took the wrath that God had for me upon Himself. If I am to escape the wrath I deserve, I must first repent of my sin, which means to agree with God about who I am and to turn my life and any hope of heaven over to Him. Second, I must believe that Jesus died for me, and I must accept His death on the cross as payment for my sin. That’s what “faith” in Romans 5:1 is all about – repentance and belief in Jesus. And when you believe, God’s judgment is no longer upon you – you have peace with God.
The peace spoken of here feels really, really good. But it is not a subjective, or, “feely” kind of peace that is described. It is more of a legal standing that we have with the great Judge of the universe Who knows all about us. In our day, just as in every day before our time, there are those who believe that they “deserve” to go to heaven. But you have to know something – when you stand before the Judge of the Universe, He has all the evidence needed to condemn you. Not just your actions and your words, but your thoughts, your motives, the whole works. Peace with God is a big deal! And even though this peace is akin to a legal standing, I have to tell you that if you go to court for a crime that you committed, and it is a crime that carries a stiff penalty, you are probably going to get pretty excited if the Judge says, “Well, you are guilty, but I am going to extend mercy – no punishment.” It is not the kind of thing where when your spouse asks how your day went that you will say, “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot – I was guilty of a crime that carries a 10 year prison sentence, but the Judge let me off.” No, your spouse is already dancing with you!
If we are going to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, it begins, simply, with relationship. Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior? If so, you are privileged to grow closer to Him:
II. Through persistent grace
There is a certain mentality in our society that has a great deal of confidence in “self.” “Just give me a chance – I’ll show ya! All I want is a fair shake.” Well, we have already seen that the wrath of God was being poured out on us and we were heading for judgment and condemnation until Jesus got in the way of God’s wrath. And it was God’s grace that saved us – a gift He gave that we could not have earned if we could have put our best day ever back to back ten million days in a row. It was grace, all grace.
For many believers who taste of God’s grace, there is an unfortunate tendency to think that God starts us off with His grace and then we are responsible to keep up this Christian life that He gave us. Oh, it is not that we think we have to do good works in order to stay saved, but we must work for our rewards – it’s up to us and God is watching to see how we will do. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This life began with grace, it is engulfed and permeated with grace, it is lived moment by moment because of grace, and it will end with grace. Look again at verse 2: “Through Him (Jesus) we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
We have access by faith – to Whom, or, to what? One would expect this access to be to God, as through prayer. It is true that we have access to God because of Jesus – 1 Timothy 2:5 tells us, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” In other words, we do not need a priest to approach God on our behalf – Jesus does that, and because of His efforts, we have direct access to God.
But that is not the truth found in Romans 5:2. We are told that we have access to grace – and aren’t you glad? Can you think of anything you have done as a Christian that would have gotten you into real trouble with another person if you had sinned against him or her in the way that you sinned against the Lord? Can you think of something this past week, in fact, that would have been really bad news in your relationship with Jesus had it not been for God’s grace? His grace never stops forgiving us, strengthening us, wooing us. In fact, it is more than clear that intimacy with Jesus would not be possible apart from His persistent grace. In other words, intimacy is more a result of His work than our work.
Now, this does not mean we do not pursue Jesus. Indeed, intimacy between two people is impossible without both parties making an effort to build the relationship. We will talk more this year about what we can do as believers to pursue Jesus, but we will never get anywhere close to where we want to be until we rest, or believe – that’s the faith spoken of here – until we believe that without Jesus’ persistent pursuit of us, intimacy with Him is impossible. When we swim in the ocean of God’s grace rather than being content to get our feet a little bit wet, we reap the benefits of the relationship that was begun in verse 1. So, what is our response to this great news?
We rejoice! “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.” The word, rejoice, is a powerful word in the Greek. It means boasting and exultant rejoicing – the kind of rejoicing that you shout about. And it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? We belong to Jesus, and when we fall flat on our face, He doesn’t show His frustration and quit speaking to us – He responds to us in forgiveness and grace! Is it not true that the more you know about God’s dealings with you through grace, the closer you want to get to Him? You will also want to bring glory to Him, because you realize that all the good that is in you comes from Him. Glory to His name! “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Intimacy with Jesus is a possibility because we are justified and forgiven through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is also possible because God’s grace is persistent, pursuing us every step of our lives. But there is another path to intimacy that is a bit more difficult to understand – it is the path that leads:
III. Through suffering
Whoa! That’s a change of pace, is it not? I mean, we have been talking about justification, and forgiveness of sins, and salvation, and intimacy, and access, and faith, and grace, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, and now, suffering? What word does not seem to fit? As we look at things, suffering is out of place, but as God looks at things, not so at all. In fact, we can see glimpses in our relationships with one another here on earth. Just this past week, Linda and I had some wonderful late night intimate talks that we rarely had before our particular call to suffering. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at Romans 5:3-5: “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings.” WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! We rejoice in our sufferings? It's not possible, is it, that the Greek word for rejoice is the same word used in verse 2, where we boast, we rejoice exultantly, we shout about the glory of God? It is, indeed, the same word. Not that I expect any of you – any of us, I should say – to fully follow the Lord’s instruction here, but let me show you how this would work if we really rejoiced in our suffering.
Let’s say the transmission in your car starts slipping. You take it to the shop, hoping against hope that the transmission fluid and filter just need to be changed. When you go to the shop to check on your car, the mechanic says, “Your transmission is shot. A new one will cost you about $2,400.” If your response is a Romans 5:3 response, you will say, “Yes! Thank You, Lord!” Then he says, “Can’t say that I have ever seen this reaction before. Are you actually excited about this? Most people think $2,400 is a lot of money.” And you say, “You better believe it is a lot of money, and I don’t have a penny of it, but this is a wonderful opportunity for me to grow closer to Jesus!”
That seems silly, doesn’t it? Is it? Look again at our text:
3 More than that, 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.
OK, so no one here is likely to jump up and down when you face a financial or medical crisis. But, we are told to rejoice in sufferings. This is not the only place in the NT that such a command is given, is it? James 1:2-4 says,
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Hmm. Those words have a familiar ring, don’t they? Trials build character, don’t they? Well, they can, but our response will go a long way in determining how beneficial they are to us. In this passage in James, the purpose of trials ends with maturity – not a bad place at all, and exactly where God wanted them to end in this text. In Romans 5:3-5, there is an even greater end in sight than maturity, but that’s where it begins.
Paul says we should rejoice in suffering because suffering produces endurance. In fact, suffering takes us to a place that we would never choose to go on our own. When I was in seminary, I heard a lot of guys griping about reading books that were less than scintillating in style, but contained important content. I would usually ask them, “Would you ever choose to read this book on your own?” NO! “Does it contain information that you will likely need some day?” Skepticism was often expressed at this point, to which I would reply that you never know how God may use this information in your life.
It’s that way with trials. We would never choose some of the things that come our way, but we learn endurance when they are forced upon us. This word means, in fact, to endure under pressure. If we endure long enough, character is built. How much is character produced or increased in us when everything goes our way? We almost always determine a person’s character, or lack thereof, by how he or she acts in and responds to trials and suffering. Character is discovered and developed under fire. And to what does a tried and tested character lead? Hope!
Some of you have heard me say many times that whenever you see the word, hope, in the NT, you can know that it refers to a firm assurance of eternal life. It is a looking forward to the new heaven and the new earth where we will be like Jesus and where we will be in perfect communion with the Lord.
Consider this progression for a moment. We start with trials, we build endurance and character, and we end with a settled expectation of perfect eternal communion with the Lord. Instead of trials destroying our hope as one might expect, they actually serve to increase our hope! You might say that one of the purposes of trials in our lives is to make us homesick for heaven. Anyone know what I am talking about? Yeah, those of you who are on my side of the hill! No matter what your age, trials serve to draw you closer to God, to build intimacy in your relationship with Jesus. “Intimacy” is what the last phrase in verse 5 is about.
“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.” No, indeed, we will not be ashamed of our relationship with Jesus, because our treasures are being sent ahead to heaven – we have a sure hope, and the evidence of that is God’s love that is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. With the involvement of the Holy Spirit, the entire Trinity is at work building our relationship with the Lord. God the Father has saved us through the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit gives evidence of that work by pouring God’s love into our hearts.
Remember in verse 1 how we said that peace with God is more of a legal standing than a subjective feeling? Well, verse 5 is all about personal relationship, about intimacy. The Lord loves you more than you can imagine. In just a few verses beyond our text in Romans 5, Paul will say that even while you were a sinner, before you had any desire for God at all, Jesus died for you. He is calling you to intimacy, but you have to respond to His call in order to experience a closer relationship with the Lord.
Intimacy with Jesus – through relationship. Is Jesus your Savior? Have you committed your life to Him and accepted His death on the cross as payment for your sin? If so, you have experienced God’s grace. And you are the recipient of His grace day in and day out. His grace woos you to an intimate relationship with Him. Amazingly, the trials that we face and would love to avoid point us to Him. Even through our tears the reality of our future life with Jesus becomes clearer as we endure suffering that is borne of a personal sovereign design.
There is more than one way we could respond to this text, but let’s focus on that which obviously calls for a response that can only be made with supernatural help. You don’t need to close your eyes, though you can if you want to, but I would like for you to think of a particularly difficult trial that you are experiencing in your life right now. I am not going to ask you to get up and dance a jig, but I will ask if you would give thanks to the Lord for this trial. Tell Him you trust His Word, and that you know this suffering is for the best. Tell Him you want to be intimate with Him and that you realize suffering will serve to bring you especially close to Jesus, because He knows about suffering and responds to you in a special way when you suffer. Thank Him again for saving you and for His grace, and for pouring His love into your heart.
2 comments:
Thank you, thank you, Brad, that was a beautiful sermon and from the heart of God. Continually praying for Linda and you. Love,
Eva
Dear Brad and Linda!
I pray for you all the time and love you lots!
:) PattyC
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