WWUTT 1222 We Rejoice in Hope of the Glory of God? (Romans 5:2-3)

Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And more than that, we also have meaning and purpose in our suffering. We have assurance in our faith.

We have reconciliation when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand the

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of Romans, Chapter 5. And as with yesterday,

I'm going to begin by reading the first 11 verses. This is Paul writing to the church that was in Rome.

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, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time

Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

So several times over this particular section, Paul continues to expound upon the benefits of God's grace that we receive by faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. We start with, therefore, since we have been justified by faith.

That's the summary of the previous chapter, the argument that Paul was laying down, that we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone, not by our works.

And using Abraham as our example, he was justified before even a work was given to him to do, which was the covenant of circumcision.

Before he did that, he believed in God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

So he was made righteous by his faith. And so likewise, just as Abraham did, we believe in our

Lord Jesus Christ and we are justified, declared innocent before God.

Our sins are forgiven. And what confidence we have knowing this, according to God's word, we have not only salvation by faith, but we have assurance of that salvation by faith because of the work that Christ has accomplished, not because of what we do.

See, you are saved by works, but it's Christ's work that you're saved by, not your own.

Right. It is good news to hear that we are saved by faith in Christ and not by our works.

In fact, I can't remember if I said this yesterday or not, but what we read here in Romans 5, 1, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, that's the gospel.

If anyone ever asks you, give me a brief definition of what the gospel is, you can answer with that definition.

The gospel is we are justified by faith in Jesus. See, that's good news.

The word gospel means good news. Justified means that we're made innocent before God by faith.

We believe in Jesus who accomplished this work for us, and we receive all the benefits of his grace and righteousness simply by believing.

That's good news. That is the gospel. It is not by our works. If it were by our works, that would not be good news because we would constantly be laboring and never feel like that.

We've arrived. Never be sure that we had ever done enough to merit our salvation.

Our works are never enough. As it says in Isaiah 64, 6, even our best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy

God. So, we cannot do enough good things to merit our salvation before God.

But even if you were somehow convinced of that, even if you were convinced, I can do enough things in order to be saved.

I mean, there's a lot of people that believe that way. A lot of folks think that they can do these works, and these works are therefore going to be the, it's going to be what earns me salvation.

I am saved because I do this. Okay, there's a lot of people that think that way. But even if you were to convince yourself of that, you would still never have confidence.

You would never be sure that you were saved because you would always be wondering, did

I do that right? I had a friend that was this way when I was in high school. I think in four years of high school, he might have been baptized five or six times.

But he was constantly stressing about whether or not he had done it right, and he would even ask, did the pastor do it right?

Like, did I get baptized by the right pastor? So I think he was even baptized by two or three different pastors.

Well, it would have had to have been because, I mean, you go to a Baptist pastor, and most of them are not going to baptize you twice.

I don't know. I might be speaking presumptuously there. There could be several Baptist pastors that would do that.

Hey, what difference does it make to them? You're baptizing the same person three times. That's three baptisms.

Yay. There's three baptisms we're able to mark down in our ledger now, even though it was the same person.

Anyway, that's a rabbit trail. But yeah, he never had assurance of salvation because he always thought it was by his works.

He had to do something. And have I done this right?

I better do it again so I don't die having done it wrong. And then I stand before God, and he's telling me, sorry, you didn't do that right, so you're not saved.

See, this is what belief in our works does to us, and it really messes us up.

We're never going to have confidence in salvation. And for some people, it goes so far as leading to just outright heresy.

That's why I can do this in order to be saved in the faith is no longer upon Christ. The faith is in man.

And that's really what salvation by works comes down to justification by works.

Even if it's justification by faith and works, the faith is in man. It's not in Christ.

And so the gospel message is that we are justified by faith in Jesus.

I remember when I can't remember how old I was. This could have been after I was out of high school, but really trying to understand what the difference was between Protestantism and Catholic.

I was still in high school when I came to this or when a pastor helped to show me this because I couldn't figure out why are we not

Catholic? I never was Catholic, wasn't raised Catholic. Neither of my parents had ever been

Catholic ever in their life. So I didn't really know what the difference was between Protestant and Catholic, except that we didn't do the mass.

We didn't believe the pope was the head of the church or that he was carrying on the line of Saint Peter in some sort of apostolic succession.

I knew that we didn't believe any of that. But what really was the difference between Protestant and Catholic? Why wasn't

Catholic just another denomination? And it was a pastor that helped me to understand this by showing me

Romans four through Romans five one. So in Romans four five, especially where it says to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

The one who does not work but believes his faith is counted as righteousness. And then taking me through through Romans four and getting to Romans five one.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith and the Catholic Church doesn't believe that, in fact, in their own catechism, they say that if anyone believes that you are justified by faith alone, that person is anathema.

They are cut off from the church. They don't actually have salvation if they believe that we are saved by faith in Christ alone.

So that was really the greatest contrast between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.

So that made a lot more sense to me. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't have the gospel. That's why we avoid them.

That's why we don't tell anybody to go to them. That's why if you know somebody who is Roman Catholic, you should share the gospel with them and try to get them out.

They have denied the gospel that we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone and not by our work.

So since the Roman Catholic Church does not have the gospel, we can't have any partnership with them. We should not think of a person that is in the

Roman Catholic Church as being safe there. There may be Christians there. They are few and far between Roman Catholic Christians.

But if a person is truly growing in their faith, they're reading the word of God and they understand the doctrines of the

Catholic Church and comparing the two and seeing that they don't line up, then as a person is maturing in their faith,

I would hope that what's going to happen is they will leave Roman Catholicism, recognizing that that church from the top down does not have the gospel.

They are apostate. The gospel is not there for the gospel is that we are justified by faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. And because we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God, peace with God, not hostility.

We're not under the judgment of God. We are not enemies of God. And then Paul is going to go on to expound upon that as we go through Romans chapter five here.

But we have peace with God. Previously in our sin and in our rebellion, we were under the judgment of God.

But now by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we have peace with God. And Paul describes this in Philippians four as a peace that surpasses all understanding is surpasses all understanding because it's like beyond our comprehension.

This isn't the kind of earthly peace that we're looking for. We strive for the reason why you go to a psychiatrist, maybe to find peace.

The reason why somebody dabbles in new ageism or some other kind of pagan religion is so they might find an inner peace.

Somebody who wants to get in touch with nature so they may find peace. Somebody who just wants to pay off all their bills and not have debts anymore so that they can have peace.

Right. I have peace of mind. I can relax a little bit more. Or maybe they want a little bit more money in their bank account.

And now I have peace. I have security. We talk about peace as a resting, relaxing thing that is in the body or in our psyche.

I'm not worried. I'm not stressed. I am at peace. That's the way that we think about peace.

But when the Bible talks about peace, especially in the New Testament, where we're talking about peace, we're talking about something that is beyond our human experience.

It's something that you can only know by faith in Christ, by trusting in his word, by knowing it according to the promises that we have written for us here through the prophets and apostles in the

Bible. It is the peace that we have with God, knowing that by faith in Christ, we're not under the judgment of God.

The judgment of God, the wrath of God that would be coming upon us because of our sin that has been satisfied by the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ on the cross on our behalf.

You think of the song in Christ alone, such a wonderful hymn that we sing in in our churches, probably your church, a lot of churches, even churches that don't believe in substitutionary atonement.

They probably still sing in Christ alone, but but you have a doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement that comes into that second verse there where it says, and on that cross is

Jesus died. The wrath of God was satisfied. That's even as such a controversial line that there are many popular

Christian artists recording this song who will skip the second verse of in Christ alone. Lauren Dagle, if you go to her music video of in Christ alone on YouTube, she skips that second verse.

Owl City, who's not really a Christian artist anyway, but he did cover a version of in Christ alone.

He skips that second verse. They don't talk about on the cross. When Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied because that's not positive and encouraging, trying to fit the whole

Caleb mantra. It's not positive, encouraging to talk about that. And so we're going to skip that verse.

We're not going to think about God is being full of wrath. We're only thinking about love. He's only a loving

God. And as I've said before, yes, God is love, but that's not all he is. He is a righteous judge who feels indignation every day, according to Psalm 711.

So we do need to know that God is going to pour out his wrath on the ungodly.

In fact, Paul started the book of Romans that way, talking about I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes salvation from what he explains it two verses later from the for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of man.

So what do we need the gospel to be saved from? We need to be saved from the wrath of God that's coming against our unrighteousness.

The only way to be made righteous is to believe in Jesus. For just as Abraham believed

God and it was credited to him as righteousness. When we believe Jesus, we are justified.

His righteousness is credited to us and we have peace with God. And it's knowing that peace, an eternal peace, a peace that that is from heaven on down to us, knowing that kind of peace is upon us because of faith in Christ.

You will experience peace everywhere else in your life. Now, we will still have struggles, we will still have stresses, we will still be depressed, we will still feel anguish.

Those kinds of things are still going to happen. It's not that this peace that we receive means that that that we're never going to experience depression again.

But when we go through those hard times, we see that there's meaning and purpose in it.

And it also doesn't lead to despair that would overwhelm us and overtake us, maybe even lead to our own destruction.

Because we know, according to the promises of God, that when we die, we don't perish.

We don't perish under the judgment of God, but we live forever with God. It gives us something to look forward to.

We're hopeful for this. So we don't languish, we don't perish in the struggles that we have here on this earth.

But knowing that we have peace with God, we look forward to the life that is to come, life forever with him in glory.

This life is not all there is. And whatever we experience or go through here on this earth, we don't take it with us either.

So the struggles and hardships and maybe even ailments that you face and deal with, all of those things are done once we get to glory.

For our lowly bodies will be transformed to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, as Paul says in Philippians chapter three.

So we look forward to that. When we struggle here on this earth, it makes us long for heaven all the more.

Because it's the stuff that we deal with here is not going to be there. And that's such great news, even looking at what's going on in the world around us right now.

I mean, that's kind of an evergreen comment. Anyway, stuff is always messy. Stuff is always bad.

Even if we're not watching the news and seeing, you know, all the chaos that's happening in other countries or in our own country, in our own major cities and stuff like that.

Even if we don't see that stuff in the news, there's still probably some great serious stuff that's happening in your life.

That's so great. It doesn't matter what's going on in the rest of the world. You're dealing with this right here. So, yeah, it's bad that all this other stuff is happening in the rest of our nation.

But I'm going through this. This is what I'm facing right now. And that's what you have to be.

That's what consumes you all day long, every day for weeks at a time. You're looking for a resolution.

And it just feels like there's no end to this. Seek God, cling to him.

Do not despair. Know with confidence that your sins are forgiven and you have peace with God.

This life is not all there is. It makes you long for God all the more.

God, please take this away from me. You can have all this world. Give me Jesus, right? It just makes you long for Christ.

It makes you long for that reward, that glory that is coming to us for those who believe in Jesus.

And it's knowing that there is a peace about us, even though we're going to go through hardship and struggle and things are going to get really difficult.

Sometimes people will turn on you. You will. You'll have enemies in places you didn't know that you were going to have enemies.

People you thought were going to be with you for the rest of your life turn out to not be your friends at all.

Or when you, you know, you've always got friends around you until you hit this trial. And then where is everybody?

Where's the help? Where's the support that you thought that you were going to get? And now you've hit this trial and there's no body, nobody to be found.

You know, we're all going to go through stuff like that. But those kinds of things make us long for heaven more.

I don't want this world. It's not happy for me. Joy and peace and purpose and meaning and life forevermore.

That's found with Christ. So give me that wherever Christ is. That's where I want to be.

And that's what Paul is laying out here in this particular paragraph. So let me read this again and we'll kind of bring this to a conclusion.

We'll pick it up here again tomorrow. So in verse two, 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, looking heavenward, looking to those things that are to come the promises for us in Christ.

Not only that, Paul says, verse three, 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 because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Peter said in first Peter chapter three, verse 14, even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed.

If you suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. And Jesus said the same thing in the

Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. Blessed are you when others persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

We share in these sufferings that prophets went through, that the apostles went through, that Christ went through.

And so sharing in these things, we know that we are blessed. We don't despair in this because it's producing something in us.

Great. Even in the, in the time that we go through the suffering that we're in here on this earth, it's making us more like Christ.

We're sharing in the sufferings of Christ. And we also long all the more for his kingdom, where he is that we may dwell with him forever.

We'll pick up studying this paragraph again tomorrow. Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly father,

I pray that as we've looked at these passages today, we are reminded of the goodness that has been shown to us in Christ and that we don't despair, but that we cling to Christ.

Maybe even after listening to this lesson today, we still feel an anxiety in our spirits, but I hope that it is something that causes us to cling all the more to Christ as Peter will go on to say, and first Peter chapter five, casting all our cares upon him because he cares for us.

Meet us in our needs. Meet us in our difficulties and our struggles. Remind us that you are there.

Give us your peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding guarding our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus, that we may not despair in the circumstances that we're in, or even as we're watching the news and we're seeing stuff that's going on in the world around us.

Let us not lose our hope for hope does not put us to shame.

God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy spirit who has been given to us.

We love God today and let that love be the thing that carries us through everything we do today and the rest of our week.

We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with pastor

Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

.com and click on the gift tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our