Romans chapter 5. Actually, we are going to begin
in chapter 4. And my introduction this morning
is going to be the best kind of introduction that you could
have. My introduction is going to be
the Gospel. Beginning in verse 25, Romans
4.25, Christ was delivered for our offenses. Christ Jesus delivered
Himself bearing the sins of His people. He was delivered for
our offenses. And by paying the wages of sin,
which is death, Christ Jesus made full satisfaction for His
people, for our sins. He was delivered for our offenses. And then it says, "...and Christ
was raised again for our justification." When He rose again as the head
and representative of His people, when Christ rose from the grave,
He was legally discharged. He went into that grave bearing
the sin of His people. He came out of that grave discharged,
acquitted, and justified. And every one of His people came
out of that grave the same way. We came out of that grave with
Him justified. And Christ's resurrection testifies
to that very fact. It testifies to us that we were
justified, fully atoned for, our sins put away, made righteous
when Christ was delivered up for our offenses. That's what
it testifies. And brethren, you who've been
given faith to believe on the Lord Jesus, You've been freely
justified through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. What's
that mean? What does that mean? It means
God justified you. That's what it means. God justified
you. The judge who passes the sentence
came and justified you. That's what it means. Man, what
a courtroom that is, isn't it? When the judge takes your place,
and says, I'm going to bear their offenses, and I'm going to make
restitution for their offenses, and I'm going to die for their
offenses, and be raised again for their justification, to show
them I have justified them. Isn't that something? Listen
to Scripture. It says, God is just. Isn't that something? Good. God
is just. We got a just judge that shall
do right all the time. How do you know? because he's
also the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. He did the
justifying, brethren. Look at Romans 8, verse 33. Here's
what it means. It means nobody, no one can ever
charge you with sin. Not ever. That's true of a believer.
Nobody can. Look at verse 33. Romans 8, 33.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God that justifies. Who is He that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. Alright, back in our text,
Romans 5, 5. Therefore, having been justified
by faith. And I'll tell you, I know we're
justified through God-given faith. We receive the justification
Christ accomplished for us. I almost want to make that faith
right there a capital F. Therefore being justified by
faith, by Christ. Faith was delivered up for our
fences. Faith was raised again for our justification and being
then justified by faith. You know what we have? We who
believe by God-given faith, we have peace with God. We have
peace with God. Peace with God. That means, believer,
God has reconciled you to Himself. This is something beyond you
just having a feeling of peace in your heart. That's wonderful.
We love that. We have that. But it's even better
than that. Because I don't always have peace
in my heart. But here's the fact of the matter.
I always have peace with God. I always have peace with God.
When Abraham God called him to himself and showed him this wonderful
good news. You know what he called Abraham?
The friend of God. You know what he calls every
believer? You believer. You know what he calls you? The
friend of God. The friend of God. That's because
we have peace with God. Our great peacemaker has made
us one. That's what this peace is. Listen
to Ephesians 2.14. He is our peace. Christ is our peace who hath
made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition
between us. When He took that law out of
the way and nailed it to His cross, it was done. And when
He did that now, He made us one with God and He made us peace.
He made us at peace, at one with God. And then look at this, verse
2. By whom also we have access by
faith. Access. We have access by faith. Christ has given us free access
into God's presence at all times, brethren. Ephesians 3.12 says,
In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the
faith of Him. When Emma comes home every day,
she walks home, she does not have to question whether or not
she can come in that house. She walks in that house with
boldness and confidence. You know why? She's my daughter. She's welcome there all the time,
anytime. That's the believer in Christ. We have boldness and access with
confidence by the faith of Him, by what He's done for us. Oh,
I see so much sin in me and I see so much Emma goes off to school. She
gets in trouble at school. She does something that's not
wrong at school. When she gets home, she's going to be troubled.
She's going to be troubled in herself that she can't come into
that house and she's not going to be welcome in that house.
But you know what? That's not going to change the
fact she's welcome in the house. Because I'm still her father
and she's still welcome in the house. That's for us, brethren. We may have sin and be troubled
with our sin. But we have access by the faith
of Christ, by His faithfulness, by what He's done, by God being
well pleased with Him. We have access. Don't look to
you to have confidence and boldness to enter. Look to Him. Would
you dare say this? Would you dare say, well, God
loves me because I'm so good. God's opened the door to me because
I am so righteous all the time, every day. I've put away my sin
and I'm holy and I'm so good that God just can't help but
receive me. Would you say that? You wouldn't say that, you that
know God. But you know every time that
we try to find some boldness and confidence by looking at
ourselves, that's exactly what we're looking for. He says, don't
look there. We have it by the faith of Him.
By the faith of Him. Alright, verse 2. It says, and
we have access into this grace wherein we stand. When God gives
us access through faith in Christ, you know what He makes us to
know? He makes you to know that we stand where we have always
stood before God in Christ. We stand where we've always stood
before God in Christ. And you know where that is? That's
in a perpetual, never-ending, never-changing state of grace. Of grace. You know what grace
is? Grace means that God did not
look at your person. He didn't look at your person.
He didn't look at your character. He didn't look at your heart.
He didn't look at you. And He didn't look at your works. He
didn't look at your righteousness. He didn't look at your holiness.
He didn't look at your righteousness. Because we didn't have any to
look at, for one reason. But He didn't, just regardless
of that, He didn't look at us without respect of persons. God
said, I love Him. I rejoice in Him. He is my child. That's grace, brethren. And everything
that He's ever done for us has been because we stood in that
constant state of grace. And because that's the fact,
that it wasn't by our character or our works, Because it's not
by our person or our works, brethren, it's by the personal work of
Christ. And because that's the case, we cannot change that grace,
nothing we can do in our person can change it, and nothing we
can do in our works can change it. That's why when we sinned
in Adam, our works was what Adam did. And it was sin, it was transgression
against God. And when we were born of Adam,
our character was Adam's character. It was a polluted, sinful ranch
of sin. But it never changed this constant
state of grace we were in because it had nothing to do with our
character and our works to begin with. He shows you, you have
a perpetual standing in grace. Alright? Then look at this. And
this is another fruit of this justification. We rejoice in
the hope, in hope of the glory of God. Let me rephrase that. We rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. Hope is a confident expectation. And here's what our hope is.
It's God Himself. God Himself. Look over at Jeremiah
17. The glory of God is God Himself. You can't separate God from His
glory. Look here, Jeremiah 17, verse 7. Oh, I'm blessed, or have a blessed
day, and all these things men say. Here's what a blessed man
is. John 17, 7. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. Do you see that? Whose hope the Lord is. Now look,
for, here's why he's a blessed man. He shall be as a tree planted
by the waters, that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and
shall not see when heat comes, but her leaf shall be green,
and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall
cease from yielding fruit. That's because our hope is God. Our hope is God. We rejoice,
we joy, we glory in the hope of the glory of God. Our confident
hope is that by God's grace, we shall behold the glory of
God. We shall behold the glory of
God. We're going to behold the glory of God, that glory of God
in this free justification in Christ, this glory of God in
this peace we have with God, the glory of God in giving us
this access with God, the glory of God in giving us this peace,
this perpetual standing of grace, the glory of God in constantly
making our hope to be God alone. We're going to behold that glory.
We're going to behold it the day we convert it. We're going
to behold it in every trial. He's going to bring us to behold
that glory of God. We're going to be brought to
behold it at the end, in glory, in Christ, right there in His
presence. We're going to behold it because
what we saw this morning is Christ prays for us. Father, I will
that those who gave me behold my glory, which you gave me.
And we're going to behold it because He loved Him from the
foundation of the world and He loved us in Him. We're going
to behold that glory. And the reason we have this hope
in us is not because of something we did. It's not by anything
we did at all. Paul said, Christ in you is the
hope of glory. Christ was formed in us by His
grace, and that's when we started to hope in God alone. That's
when our hope became God alone. And that's why we're going to
continually hope in the glory of God. We're going to rejoice
in the hope of the glory of God. Now look at this. Immediately
when Paul says that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,
immediately after he says that, verse 3, he says this, and not
only But we glory, we rejoice in tribulations also. Not only
do we joy in the hope of the glory of God, we joy in tribulations
also. Why did he say that right after
he said we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God? If you'll
read the Scripture sometime, you'll find that hope is connected
with tribulations. A lot in Scripture. A lot in
Scripture. You remember last Sunday we saw
God shall bring all His children through the fire. And God said
when He brings them through the fire, by the fiery trial, God
promises, they shall call on My name. And I will hear them,
and I will say it is My people, and they shall say the Lord is
My God. That's that hope. That's that
glory of God that we hope for and that we have a confident
expectation to behold and that we're going to behold. He's going
to bring us to call upon His name and He's going to hear us
and He's going to say, that's my people. And we're going to
say, oh, He's my God. He's my God. We're going to behold
this all through this life of faith. And one day, one day,
brethren, we're going to behold it. Oh, we're going to behold
it. Verse 3 through 5 teaches us
now in detail how God brings us to cry. How He brings us to
cry out and say, the Lord is my God. He's going to show us
in detail how He does it. And when we're brought to that
point, when we're brought to cry out, the Lord is my God,
because of what He's done in this tribulation, it makes us
to know, brethren, it makes us to know that tribulation, the
tribulations that God gives us, are one of the greatest blessings
God could ever give us. Paul ranks it right here with
free justification. He ranks it with peace with God.
He ranks it with access to God. He ranks it with this grace wherein
we constantly stand. He ranks it right here with the
hope of the glory of God. You know why? You know why he
does? Here's what I want you to get
from this message. Because tribulations are used of God to give us a
more confident expectation, a more sure hope of this constant glory
of God. Every time, that's what we end
up with. I'm going to show you that. First of all, look at here.
We glory in tribulations knowing. That's important. This is what
we know. This is what we know. We're going
to see here how we know it. We don't know it the first time
we experience tribulations, but that's why God doesn't give us
a very hard trial at the beginning, because we're just a baby and
we don't know this yet. But ever so often, the trial
increases. And we learn this and we know
it. And He'll increase to make the trial a little heavier. And
we know, when it's over, we know this. We know it better. And
He keeps doing it. We know it better. And He's preparing
us for that great trial one day when we cross the Jordan. We're
going to have to know this when we come to that river, aren't
we? That chilly river, that river of death. We have to know this.
And we know this by what he shows us here. We know this. Verse
3. Knowing that tribulation worketh patience. Tribulation here means
pressure. That's what it means. Pressure.
It means to be pressed down. It means, it signifies the threshing
of corn. That's what it signifies. We're
talking about heavy trials. Heavy trials. You know, this
is just a fact. You can't look at a trial somebody's
going through and say, well, that's not a heavy trial. Because
it's heavy to them. It's the heaviest trial they
ever had. Because that's how God deals it out. So that it's
just what's needed for them. We're going to see that in a
minute. But here's, you've seen a combine in a cornfield. What
that corn, what it's doing is it's going through that corn
field, it's chopping down that stalk. And when it chops down
that stalk, it's bringing the corn, the actual corn, it's bringing
it into the bin, the vat, and it's taking the stalk and all
the leaves and all that, and it's putting it, separating it
somewhere else. That's what it's doing. And then it goes, there's
a threshing machine, or a threshing floor. That's where it's pressed
hard, beaten hard, and when it's beaten hard like that, it starts
to bounce and starts to bounce and what happens is the husk
and the all the chaff and all the stuff that you don't want
it becomes dislodged from the fruit and it becomes separated
from the fruit and it's usually they have some sort of conveyor
or something like that whereas it goes down there's a little
space and what happens is is either the corn drops through
no well usually the husk and all that drop through and the
corns too it keeps going so then when you get through you just
got the fruit That's all you got. The husk and the chaff and
all that's gone. That's what tribulations are
for. That's what they're for. They're
to press us down and to separate us. Because our old man and all
the things our old man loves, the sin and the cares of this
world and the putting our wisdom and our understanding and thinking
we're wise and being proud and false brethren, brethren that
aren't true and a false church in this world. All of that, brethren,
is the chaff. All of that is the stalk that
has to be separated. That inward man where Christ
dwells in you and you dwell in Christ, That's the seed. That's
the fruit. That's the corn. And then your
brethren in whom Christ dwells, there's the fruit. His church
where his gospels preach, there's where he's... That's what's needful.
That's the needed thing, the desired thing. And so God sends
the trial to thresh us to separate the corn from the husk. to separate
the unwanted from the wanted. And he says here, in this tribulation,
works. It works. It works. And here's
what it works in you. It works patience. This is not,
this is not, you don't get rattled. That's not what this is. This
is endurance. It's endurance. It is a, and
it's endurance particularly by submission and reliance upon
God. That's what it is. Look here,
he says, we glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation, being
under this pressure, this threshing, works patience, it works endurance,
it works reliance upon God. Turn over to 2 Corinthians 1.
2 Corinthians 1. And hold your place in 2 Corinthians
1 and in Romans 5. We're going to go back and forth
here a little bit. 2 Corinthians 1. Here's tribulation. Here's this trouble right here.
Tribulation, verse 8. Verse 8, We would not, brethren,
have you ignorant of our trouble, our trouble, our tribulation,
which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed. That's what
tribulation is. We were pressed out of measure,
above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. Now
here's the patience, here's the endurance that it works. Verse
9, But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, Here's the
endurance. That we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God which raiseth the dead. There's the endurance.
It brings you to not trust in yourself, but in God that raises
the dead. God that brings you through the
trial. God that is able to keep you and hold you and separate
you. It makes you to endure relying upon Him, looking to Him. So
the heavy trial comes. And it comes and it presses down
on you. And it works tribulation in you, making you cease trusting
yourself, making you patiently endure by submitting to God,
relying upon God, looking to God, waiting on God. And then,
back in Romans 5, he says this, and patience works experience. Patience works experience. Verse
4. Patience, experience. Patience, endurance, and tribulation. It makes us experience proof. That's what the word is. Proof. It makes us experience proof
about ourselves. About what we are. We learn everything
by experience. Everything we learn, we learn
by experience. Everything. Everything. When did you learn
that when you're walking on rocks, you need to pick up your feet?
When you stumped your toe. That's when you learned. When
did you learn that you don't walk out in the yard barefooted?
When you stepped on briars and stickers. That's when you learn. You learn by experience. And
what happens here is we're proven. It's proven to us. It's proven
by experience to us, brethren, what we are when the tribulation
comes. What do you do right off the
bat? Tribulation comes. We don't like it. We don't like
it. And so we start trying to get out of it. And we start trying
to, and we start murmuring about it. And we start complaining
about it. And we start looking at our understanding. And before
long we just, we've just got ourselves all messed up and all
caught up and all tangled up. And now every bit of that, every
bit of that dross and that, all that vileness and that baseness
and the weakness, every bit of it is just boiled up to the surface. And you get to see exactly what
you are. And it's proven to you exactly
what you are. Exactly. That's what it's for. That's
what it's for. And then what happens is... Let me show you this through
Paul. Turn back over there to 2 Corinthians 1. Look at verse
8. Paul said when that trouble came,
he said we were pressed out of measure. He said above strength. And here's what happened. In
so much that we despaired even of life. We despaired even of
life. Do you remember over in 2 Corinthians
4, he says this in verse 8. He said, this is speaking of
the inward man. We're troubled on every side,
yet not distressed. We're perplexed, but we're not
in despair. Not inwardly. But this trial
began to work in Paul to the point where he saw proof, thorough
proof, He didn't have any strength whatsoever. He despaired even
of life. That's what it shows you. That
everything about us is vile and wretched and without strength
whatsoever. So that we despair even of life. Despair even of
life. Lord, don't you even care that
we're going to perish? Despairing of life. But then
trouble brings us to patiently endure, to rely upon God, and
we experience the proof of God's ability. Look at 2 Corinthians
1.10. He said, Who delivered us from
so great a death and does deliver us. How did He experience that?
He had experienced the death. And he had to find out he had
the spirit of life in himself, that he had death in himself.
And he had that sentence of death in himself that he might find
out God delivers us from so great a death. And He does deliver.
Continues to deliver. When that happens, you know what
you experience? It's proven to you that God's
wise. That He's wise. Because God sends
you just the right trial, just the right weight, just the right
time to separate you from just what you need to be separated
from. Peter was standing there with the apostles and they were
all doing this. They were all sitting there saying,
I'm going to be greater than you are when we get to heaven.
Think about the things I've done. I was called before you and I
guarantee every reason they gave was something in them. And that's
why they thought I ought to be the greatest in heaven. And Peter
steps up and he says, he's basically going to show them why I ought
to be greatest in heaven. Lord, I won't ever forsake you. These are going to, I won't.
Why? He's strong. He's strong and
he's proud of his strength. He pulled that sword out that
day, that fisherman's knife, and he went after an armored
soldier with a full-sized sword, with his little old fisherman's
knife, and chopped his ear off, because Peter ain't gonna forsake
him. Peter's strong. What does Peter need? You know
what? When we're like that, you know what we are? We're so weak. We're so weak. Because we're
looking to our strength. We're looking to our strength.
Now what's got to happen? We got to be made truly weak.
We got to be made truly weak. We got to be made to see we are
truly weak. So here's Peter. He's strong
and bold and courageous and nobody's going to turn him from forsaking
the Lord. You know what the Lord did? He sent a little harmless
maid. A little maid. And she just asked
Peter a question, aren't you one of Christ? And he denied
the Lord three times. This big, bold, courageous man
who stood up to an armed soldier, cowardly wilted in front of this
little maid. And at Rooster Crow, the Lord
looked at him and he went out and he wept bitterly. He wept
bitterly. Satan sifted him, desired to
have him to sift him his wheat. When Satan sifts you, what Satan's
wanting to do is, he's wanting to take away everything that's
good and leave nothing but the husk. That's what was happening
when Peter was going, I won't forsake you. I won't leave you. This world will look at that
and say, oh, that's a strong believer. He's strong in faith.
The Lord looked at Peter and said, Satan has sifted you. There
ain't nothing left in you right now but a husk, boy. I got to
do something for you. I got to pray for you and intercede
for you so that your faith don't fail. In other words, I got to
bring all that husk out of you and separate it from you so you
see you don't have any strength. Because when you get to the point
where you don't have any strength, that's when you'll be strong,
when you're relying all together on Christ alone. That's when
you'll be strong. And that's what the Lord did.
And when you get through with that, you know what you learn?
The Lord was so wise. He was so wise in sending me
that trial. And you learn. Peter said, he
said, you younger, you submit yourselves to the elder. And
then he said, no, no, yea, all of you be subject to one another.
Don't put the elder on the pedestal. You elders, all of you, young
and old, you all be subject to one another. Be clothed with
humility because God resists the proud and He gives grace
to the humble. Cast your care on Him. He cares
for you. And we experience in all this,
we experience our unbelief and we experience His faithfulness
and His power. The apostles were sailing along
and the sun was shining and they were all up front together. They
had each other. They were enjoying the sunset
smooth, calm waters and just having a big time. And they weren't
even with the Lord. They were separated from the
Lord. He's back in the back of the ship by himself, asleep.
So the Lord sent the trial. He sent the trial. The storm
came and it raged and the waves were coming into the boat. The
storm was crashing. Everything was going on. And
here are these faithful men. These men are just so faithful.
Going to be strong and faithful. And they cry out. and charge
the Lord with not even caring about them. Do you not care that
we perish? You don't even care about us.
We're going to perish and you don't even care about us. You
see, if He had left them up there on the front of the boat, basking
in the sunshine and enjoying themselves and enjoying their
own company and enjoying their faith and their walk and their
doing and their it all, He wouldn't have cared for them. But because
He cared for them, He sent the storm and He brought them to
Him, to where He was. And showed them, you have little
faith. You have very little faith. And
then He said to that storm, He said, He rebuked the wind. You know, if you rebuke the wind,
if I rebuke the wind, you all are going to look at me and say,
Clay is a dummy. What is he doing? Christ rebuked
the wind. He rebuked the wind and said
to the sea, peace, be still, stop your blowing, stop your
raging. And the wind ceased, and the
wind, and there was a great calm, and they feared exceedingly. There's what the trial's for.
They feared exceedingly. They reverenced Him exceedingly.
They bowed down exceedingly before Him. And they said, what kind
of man is this, even the wind and the sea obey Him? You see
what a good end He brought to that trial? We experience His
grace is sufficient in the face of our utter weakness. Paul had
that thorn. First the Lord took him up there,
showed him the third heaven. He comes down from the third
heaven. He said, I saw things it's not lawful to be uttered.
And do you ever notice the Lord didn't let him utter what he
saw? But you know what he did utter? What he learned through
the thorn. He told us what he learned through
the thorn. So the Lord gives him the thorn.
A messenger of Satan to buffet me. To smack, to to co-cock me
right in the face. And he prayed three times for
it to be removed. And he was utterly weak. You
remember the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane? He prayed three
times. Three times. Because he experienced
everything. The feeling of our infirmity.
He experienced it. He experienced it. And the Lord
God didn't take the cup away. He sent an angel and strengthened
him. And when he sent that angel and
strengthened him, it says he prayed more earnestly. And he
was still in an agony and his blood was still dropping to the
ground, but he prayed more earnestly. He prayed in that hope of the
glory of God. He prayed, Thy will be done. He prayed an earnest prayer. And that's where He brings us.
He brings you to be utterly weak in yourself. And Christ, who
was in that garden suffering, who knows what you're feeling,
who knows the feeling of your infirmity, who knows exactly
how you feel right now, believer, and who knows how sufficient
His own grace is, because He's experienced it Himself. He sends
forth His grace into your heart, that angel of grace into your
heart. making you see Him, making you
see who He is, making you see His power, making you see His
wisdom, making you behold Him. And by His grace, He shows you,
My grace is sufficient for you. Always. You always will have
sufficient grace and it will always be sufficient for you.
Always. What's the trial? You look at
some of the trials men have gone through, your elder brethren
have gone through, and I think to myself, I think, I could not
go through that. Right now I couldn't. And I certainly
couldn't if I was just left to myself. But when I get there
and He gives me that weighty trial, He's going to give me
sufficient grace to go through it. Because that's what He does. And you're going to come to death
one day and you see believers who die and they have so much
grace about them, they take it, there's just such a graciousness
about them. They teach you while they're
dying. How did they do that? He gives dying grace. He gives
it. when you need it. He don't give
it before the end. He gives it when you need it.
And when we get up in the mornings every day, whatever it is we
need, whatever grace we need that day, He's going to give
it that day. But He's not going to give grace
that we're going to need tomorrow today. We don't need it yet. We haven't got to tomorrow. He's
going to give it to us right today when we need it. And He's
going to show you it's always sufficient for you. Because when
you're utterly weak, Paul said, when I'm weak, when I'm so weak
that I can't trust myself, I can't look to myself at all, that's
when I'm strong, because then I'm just looking to Him. He's
my strength. I'm just looking to Him. I can't
stand to hear this thing that the world's saying. They've been
saying it for ages, but I hate to hear it, and the young people
are all taking it up now and saying it. To your own self be
true. I wish you would be true to your
own self and admit, I can't trust myself. I don't have a thing
in me to trust and look to. If you ever brought there and
see that your trust is God, then you will have some strength.
You'll have some strength. And do you know what it brought
him to say? It brought him to say this. Paul said this. Most
gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that
the power of Christ may rest upon me. If that's what it works,
if that's what He brings me to see, that His grace is sufficient,
rather than glory in peace and ease and rejoice in that. You
know what I'm going to rejoice in? Not while it's going on,
not hoping to have the trial, but every time the trial is over,
you rejoice in that trial. You say, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. And you know
what it does? While we say that, it makes us
experience who our Savior is. Who our Savior is. Job said,
I heard of you. I heard about you with my ear.
You come in here and you hear about Him. And then He makes
you see Him with your eye. With the eye of faith, you really
see Him. With the eye of experience. Proving to you who your God really
is. Brethren, after he brings you
through that trial, and you look back on all your sinfulness in
it, and all your horrible way you acted, and the things you
thought, the things you said, the things you did, and all that,
but when he makes you to rely upon him, knowing I'm not going
to get out of this trial, I have to patiently endure, I have to
patiently rely upon him. He proves to you who He is, that
He's wise, that He's long-suffering, that He's gracious, that He's
merciful, that He's powerful, that He's faithful, that He's
loving, that He's good. He proves all this to you. And
when you're brought out of that trial, brethren, you always look
at that trial and you always say, I would not change anything
about it. But you lost your dearest loved
one. I wouldn't change it though.
I wouldn't change it though. God showed me who He is. I wouldn't
change it. At all. At all. I take pleasure
in infirmities, and reproaches, and necessities, and persecutions,
distress for Christ's sake. Because when I'm weak, then am
I strong. That's why He says we rejoice
in tribulation, knowing these things. Now look at thirdly.
Experience, when He brings you this and shows you all this,
experience works hope. Experience works hope. When He
proves this, it works hope. We're right back where we started,
aren't we? He said we hope in the glory of God. And He says
now He brings us here, He brings us to hope. Look back at 2 Corinthians
1. 2 Corinthians 1, look at verse
10. First of all, He said we had
to We were pressed out of measure, above strength. There's the tribulation.
He said we despaired even of life. We experienced what we
are, proved what we are, but we had the sentence of death
in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God
which raised the dead. There's patience, endurance,
relying upon Him, submitting to Him. And here's the experience
again, who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver.
And now here's the hope. And in whom we trust, He will
yet deliver us. He will yet deliver. He delivered
me from that trial. You know what that makes me know?
He's going to deliver me from the next one. He delivered me
from that next trial. You know what that makes me know?
He's going to deliver me from the next one. He's delivered me from
every trial. He's delivered me from the trial
right now. You know what that makes me know? He was going to
deliver me. He will yet deliver me. He makes
you to see hope. He makes you to have hope of
future deliverance. Now remember this. In our text,
Paul began speaking of this work in tribulations right after speaking
of our rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. Right after
saying we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Now look
over 2 Corinthians 2 and verse 4. Here's what he's done through
that whole trial. Here's why we rejoice in hope. Here's how we brought this hope
and how we rejoice in hope. This is what he's done in all
this process. 2 Corinthians 4 16. Look at the second part there.
Our outward man perishes. That's what he's done. Our outward
man perishes. That old man, it perishes. Our
flesh, it perishes. Yet, the inward man is renewed
day by day, trial by trial. Look at this now. For, because,
here's how it happened, because our light affliction, our light
affliction, our little trouble we have, which is but for a moment,
Every one of them are just a moment. And when this life's over, we're
going to realize it was just a moment. And it was a light
affliction. And here's what it did. It works
for us. It works for us. That's what
he said. Tribulation worketh patience,
patience worketh experience, experience worketh hope. It worketh
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. It shows us something eternally
more weighty and eternally better. It shows us the glory of God.
And then what happened? Verse 18. While we look not at
the things which are seen, that's what He had to turn us from,
but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. That's the hope of the glory
of God. That's where He brings us to. He brings us to have a
renewed, an increased, a new affection, a new hope in us because
He's turned our eye of faith. He's turned us from the carnal
eye, from the temporal, and He's turned our eye of faith to that
which is unseen. If we hope for that which we
see, why do we even hope for it? The hope we're hoping for
is unseen. It's eternal. And so He does
something eternal in our hearts to take that old man of flesh,
make him perish and make that inward man be renewed so that
you look at that which is not seen. That's the rejoicing and
the hope of the glory of God. And that's why, not only do we
rejoice in that hope of the glory, we rejoice in these tribulations
also. Because they brought us there. And they increased it.
And they keep on increasing it, brethren. And that's what He's
doing, all in every trial. And here's how. Here's how this
hope doesn't leave us ashamed or confounded. This is why it
doesn't. Look at verse 5. Romans 5, 5.
Romans 5, 5. And hope make us not ashamed. Before, you know, when you're
walking in your flesh and all these things like that, you're
full of shame. And that you'll be ashamed of.
But when He brings you this hope, you're never ashamed of hoping
in God. And this word, ashamed, means
confounded. When you're in your flesh looking at things that
are temporal and walking in your wisdom and your strength and
all those things, you're confounded. You're confused as you can be.
And you know you are. You can't see God. You can't
hear God. You can't read God in the Word. You can't. You just
might catch a glimpse. That's it. But when he brings
you here to this good hope you're not confounded anymore. It makes
you not ashamed. It makes you not confounded.
Why not? Here's why. Here's why. Because the love
of God is shed abroad. It means poured out in abundance. It means just poured out. in
abundance into our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
unto us. So that in this whole process
when He pours His love into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, He
gives us a more confident hope that we've been reconciled to
God by the death of His Son. And we'll now be saved by His
life for Him making us to experience His love for us. That's what
He's done. That's the love He's talking about. Here's what He
does. When we're totally weak from
the trial and our outward man, he fills our inward man with
this hope. Here's what he reminds us of.
Verse 6. He says, the love of God should
have brought on our heart because when we're so weak, we're brought
to this trial, we're utterly weak. He reminds you when you
were without strength. When you were without strength,
you think you're weak now? When you didn't even have God's
presence. When you were nothing but this weakness. He said, in
due time Christ died for the ungodly. This is the love he
sheds abroad in our heart through this trial. And he says, for
scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perventure
for a good man some would even dare to die, but God commendeth
his love for us. His love. That while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now
been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through Him. For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more,
being now reconciled, being now friends, we shall be saved by
His life, by the life of His Son. That's what He showed us
in every one of these trials. This is the love of God shed
abroad in our heart. So all of this being proven to
us by His love and grace through tribulations, all of this, Showing
us that we're freely justified by Him. Showing us that we have
peace with God. Showing us that we have access. Showing us that we have a perpetual
standing in grace. Showing us that we have this
sure, confident hope that we will always behold the glory
of God. Having all of this, you know
what it brings us to? Here's the love of God shed in
our heart. This is what the trial brings you to right here. This
is what I hope does not make you ashamed. Look here, verse
11. And not only do we glory in those
things, that free justification and that standing and that access
and that peace, not only do we glory in those things, but we
joy in God. We joy in God Himself. Until you've experienced this,
until it's been proven who God is to you in the trial, until
all you've done is heard about Him, you rejoice in the doctrine
of justification, you rejoice in the doctrine of peace and
grace and all that. But when He brings you right
here, we rejoice in God. We rejoice in God. Because it's
by Him, our Lord Jesus, that we have now received reconciliation. We know right now, I'm as one
right now with Him as I'll be then. The only difference then
is, I won't have this body of death. I won't have anything,
world, or nothing to interrupt it. I'll be one with Him fully.
And that's why He says, He says they'll call on My name. Do you ever get in trouble and
call out, oh, justification? Do you ever get in the trunk,
oh, gracious standing? Oh, access? We rejoice in God. Oh, my God. Oh, God, my Savior. Oh, Lord,
my righteous. Oh, Lord, my peace. Oh, Lord,
my faith. Oh, Lord, my grace. Oh, Lord. They'll call on my name, and
I'll hear them, and I'll say it's my people. And they'll say,
the Lord is my God. The Lord is my God. He's my God. God makes our salvation and our
hope to be God Himself. That's what He does. That's what
the trial is for, brethren. He said, I'm going to bring you
to cry out, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. Amen.