I hope you enjoyed those songs. I certainly did. They all speak
of our hope in trial, which goes along with the text of our sermon
today from Galatians chapter five. If you want to turn to
Galatians chapter five, I want to read just the first six verses
again of Galatians chapter five. The verse we want to focus on
today is verse five, and I've entitled today's message, Hope
to the End, Hope to the End, which is a quotation from 1 Peter. We'll get to that in a minute,
but before we do, let's pray. Gracious Father, thank you that
your will is always good, your ways are holy, righteous in all
that you do. And we know, Lord, if you send
something to us as your dear children, for Jesus' sake, that
we should welcome it. And in fact, as your dear children,
we do welcome it, even though it's painful at times. We know,
Lord, that it is for our good. And therefore, we know it is
sent by you for your glory and our good. And we can trust you.
We pray, Lord, you'd open your word to us today so that when
we hear it, we would look out to the Lord Jesus and take such
consolation in his great work of salvation, in our present
difficulties in this life, and looking for his eternal reign
and glory and our joining together with him. In Jesus' name we pray,
amen. Hope to the end from Galatians
chapter five, verse five. Let's read the first six verses.
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ
shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole
law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are
justified by the law, you are fallen from grace. For we, through
the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For
in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love." And if you were to read the entire
chapter, we're not going to do that right now, but if you read
the whole chapter here, what you see is that this chapter
is talking about the contrast between the works of our flesh,
our own attempts to earn favor and righteousness before God
and the works of the Spirit. which point us to Christ's obedience,
which did actually obtain favor and righteousness for us before
God. We're not to depend on what we
are, not to depend on what we've done, not to look for something
someday we'll be, so that we will find ourselves a reason
in ourselves to find assurance before God. All those things
are works of the flesh. Instead, we're to look away from
all that we are and find our all before God in Christ, according
to God's Word. This is the testimony of Scripture
that for Christ's sake, God has forgiven His people, that His
blood has paid the price of their sins, His obedience has established
their everlasting righteousness, And all that he did in his one
offering has perfected them forever, sanctified them forever so that
no more needs to be done or can be done because God sent his
son into the world to do all for his people when they were
without strength. There's several lessons from
this scripture, but let's look at the first verse here. It says,
stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free
and be not entangled with a yoke of bondage Don't be entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. So the first thing you see here
is that we are set at liberty because of the Lord Jesus Christ,
set at liberty. Freedom. Freedom is something
that we, as I mentioned last week, we highly value. Men will
do about anything to be free when they feel like they're enslaved.
And if they can't be free, then they spend their days in sorrow. and frustration and anxiety,
always looking for a way to be free. This is the story you see
over and over in slavery, in prisons, when people are in debt,
when they are convicted of a crime, when they are threatened with
the conviction of a crime. All those things bring us into
bondage and fear. And nothing does that more than
when, by God's grace, we see our condition before Him in ourselves
And we're made to despair because our condition is so grave and
our strength is so impotent, so weak, we can't do anything
about it. But we're set at liberty by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
set free from sin and from the bondage to God's law in order
to try to make God happy with us by what we do. Our freedom
is by Jesus Christ. It's because of His death and
we're set free from the guilt of our sins. That means before
God we have no guilt. We have no guilt. God doesn't
see our sins, and we're set free from the condemnation, the judgment
for our sins because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only are we
set free, but we're clothed in the very perfections and righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have on us, by God's gift,
the beauty of his Son. the beauty of his son in our
nature who fulfilled God's law by his own obedience and did
it in his obedience unto death. Now these things are things we
talk about every week, I believe. I don't think there's a week
that goes by that we don't speak about these things because this
is the gospel. This is our only confidence before God is that
he would accept us and receive us for Christ's sake because
of what he thinks of him. If the truth of that ever becomes
a necessity to you, and the revelation of it ever is given to you by
the grace of God, by His Spirit, then you will understand what
freedom is. And until you do, you are not free. And we'll be
constantly looking for something else. You won't be able to trust
God. You won't be able to come to
Him and confess your sins. You won't be able to have rest
in the presence of God. You'll always be anxious, always
looking for something. something in life, something
someday that's going to make you happy, something that's going
to fulfill that desire you have for something you can't define
what. And by God's grace, you will not be allowed to find satisfaction
in this life until you find it in the Lord Jesus Christ. But
when you do, then you'll be free. And until you do, you will not
be free. But with Christ, God is completely
satisfied. He's well pleased with His Son.
And it was by God's eternal purpose to set up His Son for His people,
to make His Son their substitute. The Lord Jesus became their surety.
He took all their obligations and he fulfilled them too by
becoming what they were and suffering what they deserved. They were
sinners. He became sin for them and he fulfilled all righteousness
for them. This is the declaration of the
gospel and there's nothing more comforting than that we come
to God and at all times we are accepted by God for what he sees
and what he received in his son. Can you find comfort in that? I hope you can. I hope that you
won't find any comfort until you find your comfort in that.
Now, this liberty that we have in Christ is really two-fold.
It's what Christ did, but it's also the application of it to
us by the Spirit of God. If you look at 2 Corinthians
3, it says in verse 17, Now, the Lord is that Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The Lord
Jesus Christ dwells in us by His Spirit. The Spirit of God's
Son, it says in Galatians 4, 6, comes into our heart. The Spirit of Christ, it says
in Romans chapter 8 verses 9 through 11, is given to us. The Spirit
of Christ. And if we're without the Spirit
of Christ, we're none of His. But when Christ comes to us,
as He said He would in John 14 to His disciples, He says, I
will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. I won't leave
you as orphans, comfortless. I will come to you. and not only
come to us, but dwell in us by His Spirit. Christ Himself, according
to Paul, lives in me. The life that I now live in the
flesh is not my life, But His life and my life is His life
in me. This is the revelation of God's
word. The life of Christ is our life.
Jesus told Martha and Mary in John 11, I am the resurrection
and the life. Whoever believes on me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
on me shall never die. Why? Because Christ is our life.
So it's Christ in us. And where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there's liberty. In 2 Corinthians 3, continuing
on to verse 18, he says, But we all, all of those who have
been given this liberty by the Spirit of God to see Christ,
we all with open face beholding as in a mirror or a glass the
glory of the Lord, which is His glory in the work of Christ,
in the person of Christ, we're changed into the same image.
In other words, we're not made to look like what we are. We're
made to look like what He is. Even from glory to glory, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord. So here we see all of grace,
don't we? The Spirit of the Lord gives us liberty by showing Christ
to us, and we live in that view of Christ, and in looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ in His saving work, we're changed into
His image. That's liberty. That's nothing
like the law said. The law said, do this and live. If you fail, if you fail to do
one thing of all that God has required, then you die. And if
you do obey and continue to obey, then you'll live. But if you
don't, you're cursed and cursed forever. That's bondage. always
trying in futile despair to produce something in myself or something
someday that God will be able to look at and say, there, now
I can see he's a true Christian. Now I'll respond to him because
he did the right things. He committed himself, or dedicated
himself, or was sincere enough for all the things we try to
work up in ourselves. Every requirement we hear of
God, our natural response is to try to produce it, to think
the burden of that is on us. Jesus, in so many places, taught
his people, look, come back to me for what I've required from
you. And that's where you'll find
it, always in him. He told the woman at the well, if you knew
the gift of God and who asked you for a drink, you would have
asked him and he would have given you living water. It's all in
Christ. And so God always points us to
him. And that's the way we receive the truth of what Christ has
done to ourselves. That's the way we experience
this liberty. Look at Romans chapter 8, the way this is put
there. Romans chapter 8, in the first
verse, he tells us we don't have condemnation because of Christ.
Romans 8 1 there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus to be in Christ Jesus means that that
God looks upon you in his son he looks at us and he sees what
his son is and what his son has done and he treats us as he treats
his son because he gave us to his son made him our federal
head and And all that he did was counted ours as our in obedience
and as a substitute for us. So there's no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus because God has received him.
He's justified and he justified his people in him. But listen,
who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. We don't
live our lives depending upon what we are. We have no confidence
in the flesh according to Philippians 3.3. We worship God in the Spirit
and we rejoice in Christ Jesus and we have no confidence in
the flesh. What do we do then? We walk after
the Spirit. And how do we walk after the
Spirit? Well, what does the Spirit of God do? He points us to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Remember in John 6, 63, Jesus
said, the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they
are life. The words that I speak to you,
Jesus said, they are spirit and they are life. There's an inseparable,
vital, living connection between the words of Christ concerning
what he did for his people in obedience to the will of God,
what he accomplished, their salvation, and the spirit of God and our
life. The Word is given, the Spirit
with the Word, and the truth of it is given to us, and in
that we experience this life. We have life before God. And
so he says here, we don't walk after the flesh, but we walk
after the Spirit. The Spirit of God comes to us
through the Gospel. We understand it by the Spirit
of God, we believe it by the Spirit of God, and we receive
to ourselves by the Spirit of God the truth of what we are
in Christ. And then we have liberty. There's
no condemnation. Verse 2. For the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and death. Now what this is, what is the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? Well, it's the
Gospel. John 6.63 again, the words that
I speak to you, they are spirit, they are life. The law of the
spirit of life is that principle that by what God received from,
required and received from Christ for His people, we live. And
in hearing this by the Spirit of God, we live upon it. It's
the experience of what Christ has done for us, applied to us,
received in this God-given faith. The Spirit of God comes to us
in the time experience of our lives and applies the work of
Christ to our heart and gives us faith in Christ as our sin-atoning
Savior and our risen Lord. And so the application of Christ's
blood to us is by the Spirit of God in our own personal and
spiritual circumcision, our own spiritual life, our own spiritual
creation, our own spiritual birth, our own spiritual baptism, all
these things speak of the actions of the Spirit of God to immerse
us in and connect us to in a living union with the Lord Jesus Christ,
depending upon Him and what He did. Now, in our experience,
how does this work out? It always comes to us in our
experience by the prompting of circumstances and the application
of the Word of God. And so we see this, that it results
in this whenever we face any difficulties in life, we immediately
turn. Where am I going to look to?
Who am I going to look to for help? Who am I going to call
upon for help? And if God has taught us from His Word concerning
Christ, we're going to come to God not because of what we are
or will become someday, but because of what God thinks of His Son.
And that's the only way. And we're going to find comfort
in that and rest in that. And we'll have confidence, and then
we will hope for the result, the effect of what God has given
His people for Christ's sake. It will be the fulfillment of
His promise to His people. And that's the hope of Christ's
righteousness. So the law is fulfilled in us
according to verse 3 here in Romans 8. He says, for what the
law could not do, In that it was weak through the flesh. God's
law couldn't give us life. God's law couldn't take away
our condemnation. God's law couldn't make us righteous.
couldn't justify us, therefore give us life. What the law could
not do, in that it was weak through our flesh, God sending His own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
sin in His flesh. And we were joined to Him in
God's eternal election, and therefore we were counted with His righteousness,
counted as having offered a full propitiation for our sins in
His blood, and therefore we're joined to Him by His Spirit.
In verse 4, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. How
is the righteousness of God fulfilled in us? How is it? How is righteousness
fulfilled? Well, we have to understand what
the fulfillment of righteousness is. It's life. the righteous
live, the wages of sin is death. So if we're going to receive
the reward of righteousness, which is everlasting life, then
we have to have this righteousness. And that righteousness is obedience
And perfect obedience to the law is required to live. And
so the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us when God comes
to us and gives us His Spirit and points us to Christ, who
is our righteousness. And we live because we've been
made righteous by the work of Christ. by His death on the cross
and His obedience in that death. That was an obedience of love
that fulfilled all the law. And so God counts that as ours.
And having been made righteous before God in the court of heaven,
He sends His Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, from His throne
on heaven, sends His Spirit to give us life in our soul. And
then we live by this life in our soul and we live on Christ
by faith. We take from Him and receive
from Him and feed from Him and drink from Him. And we look to
Him and call upon Him. This is walking in the Spirit.
And this is what we do by God's grace. And so then the righteousness
of the law is fulfilled in us because the life, the reward
of righteousness is given to us because Christ's obedience
is our righteousness. And this is all by the work of
the Spirit of God in us because of Christ's work for us. Now,
if you look back at Galatians chapter 5. We once were in bondage.
We once were slaves. We were slaves to unbelief. Slaves
to unbelief because we were dead in sins. We couldn't see. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God. Jesus told Nicodemus, you cannot
see the kingdom of God unless you're born from above. Born
the second time. Born of God. Born of the Spirit. Born of heaven. Given the Spirit
of God. The life from God. Because of
Christ's righteousness. Until that happens, we can't
see. We can't believe. We're slaves of sin. And in bondage
to sin and unbelief. And then God comes and he gives
us this freedom, this liberty because of Christ's work for
us. It pleases God in the experience of our life to bring this freedom
to us. And when he does, he breaks the bondage of our sins so that
we're able to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 6.17
says, you were the servants of sin, but you've obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine. which was delivered to you. We've
obeyed from the heart in believing Christ, and that was the gift
of God's grace. We believe by grace. It doesn't
come from ourselves. This grace and the faith God
gives us are all of God's work because of Christ. And so, in
Galatians 5, stand fast. Hold your ground. Christ has
conquered this. He's given you rest in the eternal
inheritance he earned by his obedience and his death for his
people. Stand on it by faith. Stand on
it. You're at liberty. You're sons
of God now. You've been set free. Your debts have been cleared.
All the things you owed have been paid. And God has given
you His Spirit to know that you're God's sons. You're no more slaves,
you're sons. And so you've been set free.
Stand fast in that. Don't get yourself under this
yoke of bondage, thinking that you have to somehow perfect yourself
or make yourself holy, acceptable to God. We do that in religion.
We go to church, people look nice, they tell us what we're
supposed to do. We see other people doing it, we try to match
them, we try to do that in order to be like them. And we're in
bondage. That's not the way to start.
That's not the way to begin. That's not the way to end. That's
not the way to live our lives. That's bondage. But freedom starts
with what we are, sinners, helpless and under the wrath of God, but
looks away to Christ and sees all done in him and accepted
by God. And that's freedom, seeing that
we're free in Christ. And so he says, stand fast in
that freedom. Don't be entangled by what men
try to do. What God does here in the next
few verses is He contrasts now, as I said, the flesh and the
spirit, the works of our own personal obedience with the works
of Christ in our righteousness. The reward given to those who
try to be obedient to God and earn righteousness on earth versus
the reward given to us because of the work of Christ. Those
things are contrasted here. And the fruit of looking to Christ.
What fruit is produced by that? Well, we'll see that in a minute,
versus the fruit that's produced by living under this bondage. So he says in verse 2, So the
first principle was that we're set free by Christ from sin and
from the condemnation of it, and from our own efforts to earn
righteousness and favor before God. The second principle here
is that this liberty that's from Christ is not by our own obedience. He says, if you are circumcised,
Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify to every man that's
circumcised, he's a debtor to do the whole law. Christ has
become of no effect to you, whosoever you are justified by the law,
you're fallen from grace. So that's the second principle.
The liberty we have in Christ is not by something we did. You
don't get it by doing. You get it by a gift of God's
grace. It's given to you. Faith is given
to you so that you can see it. You're desperate. You're under
the sense of your sin, the guilt of it, the shame of it, the condemnation
of it, some sense of your own helplessness. And then God convinces
you of Christ's righteousness. He convinces you that the judgment
God had toward you has been carried out in full. And all the enemies
of your soul have been judged in that judgment, in the judgment
of Christ. And so those three things come
to you by the grace of God. The Spirit of God convinces you
of your sin. and helplessness of Christ's
righteousness and the judgment accomplished. And all this is
spoken of in John chapter 16. The work is Christ's and His
alone, and our liberty is not by our own obedience, but it's
by what Christ has done. So that's the second thing. And
we see that here. We receive this freedom because
of God's Spirit giving it to us. We see that Christ earned
it. It becomes our possession when God gives us His faith.
It was ours in heaven before it's ours on earth when God gives
it to us, when it pleases him to create us new in Christ Jesus. But then he says here, if you
are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And then,
to everyone who is circumcised, he's a debtor to do the whole
law. This third principle is that all who attempt to make
themselves holy before God because of what they do, Those who try
to come to God that way make their own works important and
make the death of Christ meaningless. That's the most horrible thing
you could possibly... To set Christ's work aside and
try to put your work on the altar, the altar of your own making.
That's idolatry. That's the height of blasphemy.
The height of unbelief and wickedness is to do that. All who attempt
to do that, according to Paul, if you're circumcised, if you
try to do anything in order that by your obedience you can gain
favor with God, then Christ profits you nothing. You're a debtor
to do the entire law, to pay your full debt and to fulfill
all your own righteousness. But then he goes on. He says
in verse 5, but we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of
righteousness by faith. Now, when it says the hope of
righteousness, we think about hope as this. I hope it happens. I hope it comes to pass. I hope
Brother Bob gets well. I hope I get that job. I hope
people like me. I hope I have a lot of money.
We think a lot of things like that. It's kind of a wish, isn't
it? I wish this, I wish that. But here the hope of righteousness
is not a wish that we someday will be righteous. That's not
what this is talking about. It's not even a waiting to become
righteous. Because we are already in Christ,
we are already righteous. The hope of righteousness is
not expecting to be righteous, Faith teaches us that in Christ
we are righteous, you see. So what is the hope of righteousness
then? Well, we already possess righteousness when we're looking
to Christ. He says we're justified by faith.
It doesn't mean that our faith causes God to justify us. It
means that the justification Christ accomplished for us is
known to us, we're persuaded of it, and we receive it in our
own personal experience when God gives us faith. Faith doesn't
make God do something. Faith allows us to enter the
truth of what God has done. Faith allows us to stand upon
the truth of what God has declared and what Christ has finished.
That's what we have. We have a possession of righteousness
in Christ by faith. And so that righteousness of
faith, the righteousness which is of faith, is not a righteousness
we produce or establish by our faith. It's a righteousness which
Christ has established and produced by his obedience. And it's his
experience in his life that we're looking to, not our own. And
this faith allows us to hope. But what is this hope? Well,
I want you to look at Romans chapter 5, because this is helpful
to explain what hope is. Hope is not like what we think
of hope. Hope for us, in our common usage
of hope, is a wish for something good to happen that hasn't happened
yet. We're looking forward to it in hope. We have an optimistic
outlook that things are going to be good. Most people live
that way. When you don't have that optimistic
outlook on life, people get discouraged, so much so that they despair
of life, because they have no hope. They have nothing that
they look forward to, and so they have no hope, no expectation
of good to come. But here in Romans 5, it tells
us these things in slightly more detail. He says, Romans 5.1,
therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
When God gives us faith and we see our justification in Christ,
what's the result of that in our experience? It's peace and
joy. I thought that when I look at
myself, I see no reason why God would accept me. Every reason
why He would reject me. No reason for expecting blessings
from God, but every reason for expecting trouble and cursing.
And when I experience trouble, I think, yeah, this is what I'm,
I'm getting what I deserve. And the worst is still yet to
come. But when we're justified by faith, God teaches us, no,
look away. Look to Christ. See in Christ
the Savior for sinners and put your trust in Him. And when God
enables us to do that, then we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 2, by whom also, by Christ,
we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.
We come to God, this is the access, coming to God through the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 10.19 he says, Therefore
come boldly to the throne through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to God through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
our access. It's Christ. It's His blood. So we come, we
have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. You see that? We rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. You see, when we see that God
has set Christ up for us, and that He's done all for us, and
God has raised Him from the dead, exalted Him, and given Him glory,
we see something significant. We see that God has accomplished
His will for His people as sinners, and their salvation is all done
by what Christ has done. And we rejoice in hope of the
glory of God. the glory of God. We see that
Christ has entered into glory. That he's received the reward
of his righteousness. He's entered into his everlasting
inheritance and possession. But he didn't do it for himself,
he did it for his people. So that his inheritance, our
lot, is in him, in his inheritance. Like the Israelites, they had
an inheritance in Canaan. God gave them a lot, a piece
of land with boundaries. He says, this is your lot, this
is your part of the inheritance in Canaan, in Israel. In Israel,
you have a lot, an inheritance. In Christ, the believer has a
lot, an inheritance. God has given it to us. All these
things were given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
2 Timothy 1.9, who saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his mercy and grace
in Christ, which he gave us before the world began. And so we have
this hope of glory. We expect, we look forward with
eager anticipation and confidence, not because of what we find in
ourselves, but because what God said Christ has accomplished
and obtained an eternal redemption. Eternal freedom from sin and
an eternal liberty in the presence of God so that we stand in His
presence with confidence and rest because Christ is everything
to God for us. Can you understand that? Can
you? Are we persuaded of this or do we think somehow that I
have to hold back a little bit of this joy, a little bit of
this love, a little bit of this dedication to God because somehow
things are not quite right between me and God because I haven't
made up my part. Or do we see that God has done
all in Christ and we say, I could never do anything. I couldn't
bring the smallest part. to earn any favor or peace or
joy in the presence of God. Any acceptance there. No access. Christ has to be everything.
And so we rejoice when God gives us his faith. We rejoice in anticipation,
confident expectation of the glory of God. to glory of God. We're going to see His face. Revelation 22 verse 4. We're
going to see His face and when we awaken His likeness, then
we'll be satisfied. We shall be like Him when we
see Him as He is. All these things are the anticipation
of the believer because of what Christ has done. And look on
in Romans chapter 5. Not only, in other words, not
only do we look forward to this glorious reward of Christ given
to Him for His people and given to them with Him, this reward
we can't describe, eye hasn't seen, ear hasn't heard, God has
revealed it to us by His Spirit, this heavenly reward, this eternal
life, all things are yours in Christ. Earth, heaven, things
present, things to come, life, death, all these things are yours
because you're Christ. as from 1 Corinthians 3, 21 through
23. But here he says in verse 3,
and not only do we look forward in anticipation with confidence
and eagerness to the glory of God, but we also, because of
this View the beatific vision, if you will, of all that God
has given us in Christ because of that, and because our confidence
is not in us, but it's in Christ's acceptance for us. Therefore,
what do we do? We glory in tribulations also. Isn't that amazing? Trouble,
afflictions, all kinds of afflictions, bodily afflictions, afflictions
of our mind, Afflictions of our spirit and soul, all these things
are trouble. And trouble is always with the
believer. Trouble is with everyone, but
not in the same sense. Read Romans 7. The apostle Paul
was afflicted. This struggle, this warfare between
his old man and his new man, between his flesh and his spirit,
between the mind of Christ that God had given to him in the new
birth, in looking to Christ, and that other mind, that carnal
mind, those things are constantly at war in the heart of a believer.
So much so that rest seems almost impossible. That's trouble. He says we glory in that. Why?
Because we like hurt? We like pain? We like trouble?
No. It's not because we glory in
the sufferings. When you're getting a spanking
from your dad, you're not saying, man, this is great. No, this
hurts. Hebrews chapter 12 says, no chastening
for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. If it wasn't grievous,
it wouldn't be chastening. But God disciplines us, not to
inflict pain, but to correct us and bring us into the full
knowledge and intense dependence upon Christ. And so we glory
in tribulations because of the effect that tribulation has. Because the work, the operation
of God, it's a gift from God to us in order to bring us to
Himself, strengthening our faith, purifying our faith so that we
see Christ more clearly. You see? So we glory in the work
of God in us, Because the tribulations we experience, especially those
tribulations of this warfare in our breast, because of the
conflict of sin and the new man always wanting to serve God and
still always failing. Wanting to know Christ, never
quite feeling like we've got a grip on things. wanting peace,
and somehow peace seems elusive, and joy, all these things, it's
a struggle. It's a struggle. And when we're
in the struggle, we cry out, Lord, who's going to deliver
me? And the answer always comes from
heaven. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Don't you know
that? He says here, we glory in tribulations
knowing that, listen, tribulation works patience. What is patience? Patience is enduring in waiting
for the blessing that God has promised. Remember Abraham? 75.
Your name's gonna be changed from Abram to Abraham because
you're gonna be the father of many nations. And he goes on,
86, I don't know what's gonna happen. God must want me to have
a son by my slave woman, Ishmael. Nope, that wasn't it. No, this
is not your son. You're going to have a son through
Sarah. So all this time, a hundred years old finally, the blessing
comes. He waited in patience, enduring,
because he saw, by God's word, that the thing was sure and certain.
He was fully persuaded that God was able to do what he promised.
And so he waited in patience. Patience is enduring under trouble
in submission to the will of God in all kinds of circumstances. It says, patient endurance in
submission to the will of God because of the word of God as
our foundation and stay. And so, tribulation works patience.
In James chapter 1, he tells us that this is the reason trouble
is given to the believer, to do this. In James chapter 1.
He says, verse 2, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall
into divers or different kinds of temptations, knowing this,
that the trying of your faith works patience. What are troubles? What are temptations? Trying
of our faith. Why does God try our faith? To
work patience in us. This is the common thread through
scripture. How many times did the children
of Israel fall into trouble because of their sin? The Old Testament,
that's almost the whole account of the Old Testament. And Romans
chapter 7 picks it up as a warfare, not on the outside, but on the
inside. And the weakness we find in that struggle. And yet we
have this view of the glory of God, and we're rejoicing in that
glory. We see Christ has done it all.
We come to God by Him. And yet we need fresh flow from
the river of this grace of God by His Spirit to be able to lay
hold on this. And so that's what this trial
does. It causes us. It's like what
fire does to gold. It purifies the gold. The gold
comes out more pure from the fire. And it shows that the refiner
is faithful to subject that gold to the flame in order to remove
the impurities. And our faith has impurities.
We have unbelief. And God discovers those through
trouble. And then we flee to Christ when we have no hope.
We say, like Jehoshaphat did in 2 Chronicles 20, this enemy
is too great for us. We have no power against them.
And we don't know what to do. And then God says, stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord. That's always the answer.
Who's going to deliver me? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. And here, that's what trials
do. They try our faith in order that
our faith might be purified and we might have this patience of
faith. And then he says, and patience,
experience. Think of, we don't think of experience
as it's used here. When we say experience, we mean
I went out and I did a zip line thing. Man, was it a blast. That's
an experience, right? I went on a roller coaster or
I was chased down by a bear and barely escaped. Now, that was
an experience. That's not the kind of experience
he's talking about here. Think of it this way. Experience here
would be like if you subject something to a test and you prove
it by that test. Is it gold or is it something
of the metal? Well, let's subject it to a gold
test. We'll put it on the scale here with a piece of gold. Which
one's heavier? Ah, that one's light. Well, it must not be pure
gold. You see, the testing of our faith produces impatience,
but it leads to an experience, a proving of our faith as genuine. So think about experience here
as God faithfully proving that our faith is His work and that
it's genuine. That's what trouble does. Because
in trouble, we don't say, man, nothing's going my way. Doggone
it. It seems like everything. My boss is against me. The world
is against me. My wife is against me. My kids
are against me. Nothing's going my way. Whine, whine, whine.
That's the result of unbelief, right? discontent, complaining,
murmuring. That's the evidence of unbelief.
But faith says, no, this is all from God. And even though I find
this welling up, this complaining, this discontentment, this whining
always welling up inside of me, I look to Christ and I see the
hope of glory in Him. And it causes me to have patience.
The faith that I have, because it's God's, points me to Christ
and leads me to Christ. And God proves that it's His
faith. It's genuine, therefore, because it's in Christ. And that
experience, that proving, does what? It leads to hope. Hope. Hope means this confident
expectation, eager anticipation, that what God has promised will
come to pass. Abraham expectantly looked for
a son. Through that son he expectantly
looked for righteousness by the Lord Jesus Christ. God was going
to receive him and he expectantly looked, Abraham did, for an eternal
inheritance. This world was a strange place
to him. He was a pilgrim in it and he
looked for a city which has foundations and God said, You see, that's
my work. All through the troubles of his
life. Remember what Jacob said at the end of his life? In Genesis
49, in verse 18. What did Jacob say? Right in
the presence of his children. He says, I have waited for your
salvation, O Lord. throughout his life, not just
back then when he first heard the call or saw that dream of
the ladder from heaven to earth, not just then, but all through
the trials, every trial of his life, found Jacob in his sin
and his weakness and brought him to clinging to Christ. And
he looked back and he says, my whole life could be characterized
by this, I have waited for your salvation, O Lord. Because that's
what hope does. Hope gives us this expectation
that because God received us for Christ's sake, He's going
to finish the work. He started it. He's going to
finish it. He's going to give us what Christ
earned for us. That's the expectation of faith.
And it's a glorious thing, isn't it? And so we wait for the hope
of righteousness. Go back to Galatians chapter
5, and I'll finish this up. So, notice in verse 5, very carefully,
Through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by
faith. We wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. But how? Through the Spirit.
It's the Lord's work, isn't it? It's not ours. Not our work at
all. It's God's work. You see how
Paul and the Spirit of God guide us to attribute all of the work
in our salvation to the Lord? In Psalm 119 it says this, My
soul fainteth for thy salvation, but I hope in thy word. My soul
here in this life now, I'm fainting because the way is weary, my
sin is great, and my strength is impotence. but I hope in your
word. I look forward to you fulfilling
what you promised. Lord, do what you have said.
Give me this life. Give me this faith. Strengthen
it. Cause me to love you and love your people. and to serve
you with my whole heart, and to look for your salvation. Do
in me what I can't do. I hope in your word." And there's
so many verses we could turn to, to look at this. Just open
your concordance and look for the word hope, and you'll find
them. It'll delight your soul. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your goodness
to us, your faithfulness. You always do what you say, and
what you said and do is always holy and right. Even in our trials,
Lord, we know that you do right. We pray that you would uphold
our faith, you would purify our faith, that the Lord Jesus Christ
would be clearer and clearer to us, and our need for him would
be greater, and our dependence upon him more intense, and our
rest in him more delightful, and our satisfaction more at
rest, and he would be constantly on our minds, especially in trials,
so that we might know this peace that passes all understanding,
and we might hope to the end. for the grace that is to be brought
to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your word. Our hope is in what you said.
We trust what you said. We have but one hope, that you
will do your will, fulfill your promise in Christ to your people,
and that you would treat us as you treat your elect, your redeemed. You would look to Christ for
us, and so we come to you through our only Savior and our only
hope, the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.