Romans chapter 5. Now, I'm just going to make a
couple of points as we get into the sermon a little later. And for the sake of those points,
I'm actually going to start my reading in verse 23. Verse 23
of Romans chapter 4. Now it was not written for his
sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom
it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences and was raised
again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not
only so, But we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation
worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope maketh not ashamed,
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which is given unto us. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. I believe I have a good message
for you this evening. And that doesn't say anything
about the preacher, but everything about the message that this weak
vessel has in his mind. A good message is a message which
speaks to our hearts of the Lord Jesus Christ. A good message
is a message which reminds us of the great truths of the gospel
and the accomplishments of our God on our behalf. A good message
is a message which is brought by God the Holy Spirit to speak
to our souls to encourage and comfort us for the challenges
that we face. And I believe that this is a
good message, which I trust the Lord will bless to our hearts
today. I've called this sermon. It's
interesting. It seems that sermons nowadays
always have to have names. I'm absolutely certain that wasn't
how it was in times past. I don't know whether ministers
got into the pulpit with a title for their sermon, as if it was
like a name that they were giving to their little boy or their
little girl. But nowadays people seem to want to have a title
for their sermons. Maybe it helps, Barbara, when
you're keeping notes that you've got something to write at the
top of the page. Multiplied Blessings. There you are, Multiplied Blessings.
That would make a nice Christian name for a little girl, wouldn't
it? Hello, Multiplied Blessings. Multiplied Blessings, because
it seems to me that the Apostle Paul would have us understand
that these things of which he is speaking are not merely theoretical. They're not merely truths which
undergird and provide a foundation for our understanding and our
faith and our trust in God. They are definitely that. and
they are solid truth, they are worthy to undergird all our faith
and our belief. And yet Paul is eager, it seems
to me, having established these theological principles in the
first few chapters of this letter to the Romans, he is eager to
show how these truths have an application in the lives of God's
people. And truly they have. Isn't that
the wonderful thing about the gospel? If this was just theory,
if this was just textbook stuff, we could learn it. We could learn
it by rote like people do to pass exams. But this is lively. This gets into your heart, into
your soul, into your life. And we prove these things to
be true. because we find the Lord to be
faithful in them to us in our lives and in our life's experience. So it seems to me that the Apostle
Paul would have us reflect upon the multiplied blessings that
come to the Lord's people through this great work of justification,
through this great blessing of righteousness, imputed and imparted
to sinners like us. It has a consequence, it has
ramifications in our lives that will flow to us and touch us
and have effect and have meaning as we live in the light of the
truths that we have been shown here in the scriptures. God's
justifying righteousness doesn't come alone. It comes. It makes us what we are and it
enables us and it blesses us with more and more of God's goodness. These outcomes flow from that
righteousness which is given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. and they flow to such individuals,
to such people as we are. Sinners, yes, but sinners who
have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, brought into
peace with God, then enabled to enjoy a personal relationship
with God in the great truths of the things that he has accomplished. And so we're going to reflect
upon God's promises this evening. God's promises to us because
of what he has made us and because having made us what we are, he
delights to bless us, he delights to do us good, he delights to
show us mercy, he delights to enrich us in this life and to
reveal things of himself. And let us remember, lest we
forget, let us remember that all we have all that we have been given from
God. is by the Lord Jesus Christ and
his faithfulness on our behalf. Everything that we have comes
from Christ. We're going to think about the
promises of God, but we're going to remember that all these promises
come to us because of the Lord Jesus Christ and his faithfulness
on our behalf. All the promises of God in him
are yea, and in him are amen. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ
that these promises of God come to us. All that we'll ever know
of God's grace and his mercy and his love are revealed to
us through the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man. We have no ground
upon which to stand other than that righteousness of God imputed
to us by Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. No other righteousness
save that righteousness of Christ, that righteousness of God as
Christ himself is revealed to us as the Lord, our righteousness. So it is that the Apostle Paul,
when he speaks, and he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
he always speaks almost in hushed terms with respect to the loveliness
of the Saviour. And when the Apostle Paul speaks
to us of the blessings that we have He is constantly reminding
us that these blessings come to us because of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So he uses phrases like the love
of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So here is the revelation
of something amazing, that God has a love for sinners like us,
but that love comes to us in Christ. A little bit later, we
didn't read the verse tonight. I did wonder about going further
down in the passage, but I wanted to limit it to the first few
verses here because I didn't want to miss anything. But a
little bit later in verse 8, in the same chapter 5 of Romans,
we're told there, God commendeth his love towards us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So the revelation of
the love of God comes through Christ. It comes to us because
of the Lord Jesus Christ's death on our behalf. And so Paul can
say that the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And if we're speaking about God's
choice of a people of our eternal election, that too is in Christ. We are chosen in Christ. The
grace and the purpose of God towards us is in Christ. He speaks
of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. If we would know
what it is to be redeemed from the curse of the law, to be redeemed
from that judgment, to be bought again, it is right and proper
for us to remember that it is in the Lord Jesus Christ that
that redemption is fixed and certain. We are approved in Christ. It is as we are in Christ that
that approval of God is shed upon us. We are sanctified in
Christ. These are biblical phrases. We
have obtained salvation in Christ so that all of the blessings,
all of the promises, all of these multiplied blessings that we
have is because of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man and what
he has done for us. So Paul says in Ephesians chapter
1 and verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places. in Christ, in Christ and that
position is what is of the utmost importance. Whether we are thinking
about eternal covenants, whether we are thinking about the revelation
of Christ in his humanity, what Scripture calls the mystery of
godliness, Christ come in the flesh, whether we're thinking
about the eternal ages yet to come in glory and the manifold
blessings that God has prepared in his magnanimity and grace
to bestow upon the church and his people. All of these come
to us because of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's right, therefore,
that he is central to our focus when we come together to worship. We praise the name of Christ
and we lift up the Lord Jesus Christ in our midst. And these
multiplied blessings that we have before us now in these few
verses that begin chapter five are the multiplied blessings
that I just want to reflect upon for a little while. It's interesting
to see the way in which The Apostle speaks of these things and he
says that we are blessed in the Lord Jesus Christ, through our
Lord Jesus Christ in this opening verse. And then he goes on in
verse 2 to say, by whom also we have access. by faith into
this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. And then he goes on in verse
three to say, and not only so, you see what he's doing here,
he's building up, he's building as it were layer upon layer upon
layer, all of these strata of blessings that multiply to us. And the Apostle Paul is saying
that therefore being justified, having this righteousness, having
this standing with God, having this peace with God, all of these
other blessings flow to us in Christ. Because we have been
placed in Christ, because we are in Christ in these covenant
purposes of God, all of these things become our inheritance. All of these things are freely
bestowed upon us. This God, who has given us the
very righteousness of God in Christ, will not limit that,
but rather bestow multiplied blessings upon His people for
the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, and for the love that He has
towards us. and we have peace with God through
and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, in his person, in
his work, in his representation, in his substitution, is where
all of these blessings that we're about to consider are to be found
and are to be had. When a preacher says, come to
Christ. When a preacher says, look to
Christ, when a preacher says, go to Christ, he is showing us
where all of these blessings are to be found. And I just think
it's lovely that the Apostle Paul, right at the beginning
of this book of Romans, takes these young believers from the
city of Rome and takes them to the blessings that are theirs
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, to begin in these opening
verses of chapter 5, and what an interesting word to begin
a chapter with, is it not? Therefore. Therefore. Now, if
you use the word therefore, what does it usually mean? It usually
means that what you're about to say is in some way contingent
upon what you've just said. You've made a point, and then
you say, now having made this point, therefore, nah, nah, nah,
nah, nah. And you go on with what it is
that you're going to say. So therefore is a joining word. And sometimes we need to remember
that when we come to understand the doctrine that we have before
us. This, therefore, of chapter five
reminds us that this passage, this passage of the multiplied
blessings, is dependent upon what we've
just read in chapter four. It comes to us because of what
we've just had in chapter four. We're building upon the foundation
and the structure that has already been laid. When the Apostle Paul
wrote the book of Romans, he didn't put chapter headings in
there. He didn't come to the end of
chapter four, put a full stop and say, chapter five, like we
would pick up in a book. That just wasn't there. In fact,
it's relatively, well, relatively recent. Depends how old you are,
I suppose. But it goes back. to the 13th
century. So it's quite old. It's quite
old. The 13th century was when the chapter headings were put
into the manuscripts and the text of the scripture. A man
called Stephen Langton, apparently, I looked it up to see where the
chapter headings first started. And he was an archbishop in England. And he in his lifetime and decided that
it would be good to help people understand if he could put the
passages of scripture into chapters and then they would be able to
find those passages more easily. I think actually the verses came
even later than that. So it was just chapters initially
and then verses were brought a little bit later. But that's
just to remind us that The chapter headings aren't inspired. The
word of God is inspired, but not the chapter headings. And
therefore, when we read... See, there's that therefore word
coming in again. Therefore, when we read these things, we need
to be aware of the context and the place in which we are coming
to the passage. Why am I mentioning all of this?
Because I want us to realise that when we talk about being
justified by faith, And that is such an emotive term, that
is such a powerful phrase in the Christian circles in these
days. But when we talk about that,
we need to understand what we mean. I am absolutely certain
that you would say that you would go to war, you would go to battle
for the sake of upholding justification by faith. And that's right, but
we need to know what we mean by that. And that little word,
therefore, helps us, or that big word, therefore, helps us
to realise what it is our justification is founded upon. And that's why
I read the end of chapter four. The Lord Jesus Christ who was
on him that raised up Jesus, our Lord from the dead, who was
delivered, verse 25, for our offenses and was raised again
for our justification. All right, so Christ was raised
again for our justification. What that's talking about is
the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ's death The Lord Jesus
Christ's death is that great work by which sinners are reconciled
to God, not the individual's faith. So when we're talking
about justification by faith, we need to understand that we're
not justified by our faith. we're justified by the death
and the validation or verification of that by the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ testifies to that righteousness being granted
to us. So when we come to this opening
verse, we need to realise that we are not justified by our faith,
but rather God's righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to show you something
else, if I may. See that little comma behind
the word faith in that opening verse. You see, the grammar and
the commas and the punctuation, they need to be carefully thought
about in the Word of God too, because these things have been
put in to help us to understand, to help us to read and understand.
But sometimes they're not the most helpful. Because if we were
simply coming to chapter 5 and reading this, we would think
that that meant, therefore, being justified by our faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But there's a better
way of reading that. And it's recognising that our
justification comes from that which has been spoken of at the
end of chapter 4. and that our peace with God is
what we then receive because of our faith. Indeed, sometimes
we should think about that rather as being read like this. Therefore
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see the difference there?
You understand what I'm saying? Therefore being justified, which
is what Paul's been talking about in chapter four and showing that
it's because of the death and the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ and because of that great work upon the cross that
the righteousness of God is imputed to sinners and the promises of
God come to us, therefore being justified, By faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, sometimes
when some versions of this verse have been written, they've actually
been written like this. Therefore being justified through
our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, we have peace with God. Now, I don't want to undermine
your trust in our authorised version. I simply say this, that
let us realise the importance of that word, therefore, because
it's throwing us back into chapter four. So when we come to read
this, don't let us think that it's our faith that justifies
us. Rather, let us realise that our faith is what enables us
to receive the multiple blessings that come from our justification
and that righteousness which is granted to us by God the Father
through the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord our righteousness. So
Paul is speaking to the Romans and he's speaking to us, of course,
also. He's speaking to these Roman
believers of the privileges and the blessings that we have in
the Lord Jesus Christ that flow to us through faith in these
great truths that we have had revealed to us in the theological
principles that he has left us in chapters four, particularly
chapter three and chapter four. And we need to realise it because
the peace that he's now going to speak about, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That peace and the love
and the election and the knowledge of that, the redemption that
we have in Christ and the blessings that flow to us from a knowledge
of that redemptive work of Christ, the experience of salvation,
the sanctification that we have And indeed, the word that's used
in here is approval, that approval that we have. These are gifts
of God to us in Christ received by faith. They're all free gifts. There's nothing dependent, nothing
contingent, nothing conditional upon us. But that's the whole
point of the multiplied blessings. They come to us. We don't have
any knowledge of them. They're there. They're real.
They're ours. This is our inheritance. This
is the blessings that God has for his people in Christ. They're all there. but we cannot
touch them, we cannot experience them, we cannot have any knowledge
of them until by faith we are brought into the experience of
salvation and redemption and sanctification and peace with
God. So the justifying work is the
work of Christ and then by faith we enter into the promised blessings
that flow from that foundational work which is Christ's. And Paul
begins here, this catalogue of blessings, these multiplied blessings
that he would have us concentrate upon, and they flow to us in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, he says, being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he continues, by whom? By whom also? That is, by Christ. So we have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a great reconciling work. That's the fact that the Lord
Jesus Christ has made peace between God the Father and sinners who
were at enmity. Enmity just means an enemy. That's
the same word. They were enemies of God. Well,
where's this peace coming from? Who has brokered this peace treaty,
this truce that has taken place, this reconciliation between a
holy God and a sinful people? The Lord Jesus Christ. and we
are justified by him and then by faith we have peace with God. We begin to experience the benefits
of that great work of justification. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also We have access. And here is a word of entrance,
a word that speaks of an open door. Access. Access into the
presence of God. We have come to God in the person
of Christ. We stand in the court of glory. We stand in the presence of God.
by this entrance. Here is the means by which we
are called to enjoy the sweetness of communion with the divine
persons. We are given access, but how
could we possibly stand in the presence of God in our own nature,
in our sinful state and condition? God is a purer eyes than to behold
iniquity. How can he look at me? I would
not for a moment try to stand before you and say that I'm not
a sinner, that I'm not stained and tainted and besotted with
the passions of this flesh and the lusts of this flesh because
that's the reality. And if I know it to be true,
you can be absolutely sure that God knows it to be true. His
all-seeing eye knows everything and there's not a thing that
goes on in this little head of mine that isn't perfectly open
to the view of the holy God. And why am I not simply blotted
out from his presence? Why am I not consumed like a
feather in a volcano? Why am I not simply destroyed
and put into oblivion in the presence of the holy God who
needs nothing? who is all-powerful, all-glorious,
unchanging, and in no way requires anything that I can do for him. Why would he put up with me at
all? And yet here it is, access into
his very presence, into the very courts of glory, into the very
throne of his magnificence and majesty. access by faith, entrance
into a blessed understanding and insight. This is what we
might call enabling grace. This helps us to see and understand
something of these great privileges and blessings that God has for
his people in Christ. Grace that enables us to stand. Listen, Not only to stand, but
to stand with a boldness before Almighty God. To stand boldly,
not as a quivering wreck, not as a craven fool, not as someone
who is at any moment waiting to be blotted out. No, to be able to stand in the
presence of God upright, confident, bold, that God is at peace with
us and we are at peace with God. Knowing that all of the goodness
of God, all of the promises of God, all of the blessings of
God are ours. and that we are the inheritors
of every good and perfect gift that God Almighty in his omnipotence
can find to bestow upon any individual. His love for Christ is his love
for us. His passion for Christ is His
passion for us. His goodness to Christ is His
goodness to us. And we are so united to the Lord
Jesus Christ that everything that Christ has is ours in Him. And we can boldly take this access
into the very presence of God. and there obtain these promises
for ourselves. We rejoice in these things, and
we ought to, we ought to. We rejoice in them because this
is the ground and hope of our expectation. We are confident
that these things are so because God has promised it. He has promised
it in His Son. And in His Son, we are because
of His mercy towards us. A promise of glory is set before
the children of God. Heaven, with all that it contains,
is prepared for us. For some of us, it may not be
very long until we're entering into the reality of that experience.
This is amazing. You know, sometimes we look forward
to things in this life. I know. maybe a family visit
or an opportunity to see the grandchildren or something that
we're looking forward to happening, a holiday or some new possession
that we're going to take. But these things are little things
and we look forward to them with an anticipation. We are going
to glory. We are going to heaven. We are
going very soon to be rubbing shoulders with angels and seeing
those people that have gone on before us, those that we love,
those that we care for, and to be able to stand with them in
the mighty congregation of the Lord's people as the very Bride
of Christ and have bestowed upon us untold blessings. And they're ours, and they're
just out there. They're just out there. And we
have confidence that these things are so. We believe these things
to be true because they are all predicated upon this glorious
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, our intercessor. And so we were
reading, I think, just on Sunday or a couple of Sundays ago from
1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 10, when it says there that the God
of all grace hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. The God of all grace, every blessing,
multiplied blessings, has called us unto his eternal glory by
Christ Jesus. Verse three says, and not only
so. Here's another layer getting
laid upon us. Not only so, He says, by whom also, and then
not only so, the apostle builds blessing upon blessing. And he
is telling us that even until the reality of those things dawn
upon us, until we enter into the fullness of these experiences,
even although we have got trials and troubles in this world, and
we continue to feel the weaknesses of this flesh, and the weaknesses
of the challenges that come upon us because of the continuing
presence of sin in our flesh, Nevertheless, in the teeth of
the hardship and the tribulation that believers know, we still
trust in the overarching providence of God. because we believe that
God is in pursuit of his own gracious promises. God is bringing
those promises to bear upon his church and his people. And this
glorious end can never be taken from us. And the Lord our God
is working all things together for our good, even the things
that causes hardship and trial and trouble in this world at
the moment. We began this passage by saying
that we are justified, therefore being justified. That's our state,
that's our condition. We are justified, eternally justified
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It always has been so. Christ
was as that lamb slain from the foundation of the world and those
who are in Christ in the eternal covenant, they are justified
in Christ from even before we were born, even before this world
was created. I was listening to Todd Nybert's
sermon earlier today that was preached recently, I think at
one of the conferences down in Danville. And he said, I thought
it was good, he said that the world was created, the world
was created in order for the blessings of Christ to be bestowed
upon God's people. That's the reason why everything
is in this world. That's the reason why it stands
as it does, so that these promises, these multiple promises of God
can flow to the people of His love and His choice. And these
are God's promises to us. Nothing is going to divert Him.
Nothing is going to distract Him. Nothing is going to make
Him forgo these promises that He has made. And in the overarching
providence of God, we see that these gracious promises are being
pursued for the blessing and the benefit of the people to
whom they come. This is our glorious end that
is in view as the Apostle here speaks. So justified we are,
justified fact. It is a fact but it is a fact
with consequences that come to us as comforts from our God in
order to equip us for the trials of life. So here are tough experiences
that come along and meet us. Maybe it's separation from someone
that we love. Maybe it's someone at work who's
giving us a hard time. Maybe it's the frailty in this
body that we feel. Maybe it's challenges as we grow
up and we're learning who we are and finding out about ourselves. Maybe all of these hardships
and trials and problems that we experience in this life come
together and they just seem to overwhelm us from time to time.
But here's the thing. If a tough experience has a good
conclusion, Is it really that bad? If it teaches us something
good, if it leads us into some blessing from the Lord, then
can't we say, that was hard in the experience, but I can see
the value of it. I can see the wisdom of God in
bringing me through it. I can see and I can understand
why the Lord might do this for me. And so it is that even the
trials of this world are designed by our loving God to do us good,
to enhance our experience of Him and our understanding of
Him and to enrich our relationship with God. So Paul can say, you know what? Because we are justified, because
we have the righteousness of God, because we are in Christ,
we glory in our tribulations. Now that's an unexpected concept. We don't naturally react like
that to hardship and trouble. We don't say we glory in these
things which causes pain and causes hurt, but that's the reality. Because the Lord uses, he sanctifies
these troubles. In fact, they've sometimes been
called the sanctified use of afflictions. That's a good little
phrase for you to remember. The sanctified use of afflictions. The afflictions that come into
the life of the people of God, they are sent for good ends and
good purposes. Now, a man that I always like
to refer to is a man called Robert Hawker, and he was a preacher
of bygone days, early 1800s, and down on the south coast of
England. And he wrote this, and I liked
it, so I thought, you know what, I'm not gonna try and paraphrase
that, I'm just gonna bring it and read it to them. So here's
the paragraph from Robert Hawker concerning the sanctified afflictions
that come to the Lord's people. It says this, a child of God
when by faith he is brought into the knowledge of his adoption,
receives all his exercises with a different aspect from men of
the world. Do you understand what he's saying
there? The difficulties that we face, the challenges that
we have, when we've been brought into the knowledge of our adoption,
we receive all our exercises with a different aspect from
men of the world. For afflictions, of what kind
soever they be, passing through the covenant, come out with an
altered property. like the waters of the earth,
which by running over certain minerals, take with them the
qualities of healing. And I just thought that was so
lovely. That when we are brought into
a knowledge of these multiplied blessings flowing to us from
God, we can see that even in the trials, there's a sweetness.
And as Paul could say, we glory in our tribulations. Patience
is what he first enumerates. Patience or long suffering. And
that's one of the nine given fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians
5. Holy Spirit graces bestowed on
the people of God. and graces which are then exercised
in the teeth of the conflict and the hostility that we encounter
in the flesh. Tribulation works patience, he
says. Tribulation is a tool. to exercise this grace of patience
which comes from the Holy Spirit, which is a fruit of the Holy
Spirit in the life of the Lord's people. And tribulation is sent
in order to exercise that gift of grace, that patience in the
part of the Lord's people. It excites it, it exercises it. The presence of grace, of course,
shows us that we have an interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so that trial that we face, that tribulation, whatever it might
be, it becomes an enabler to us. It becomes a facilitator
to lead us to a closer relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Patience enlarges experience. I don't think that any of us
would doubt that. If you think that going through
hardship, going through trial, going through experience doesn't
leave a legacy of understanding, then you haven't experienced
much in your life. But when we've experienced hardship,
when we've gone through trials, We know that there is an enlargement,
there's a deepness, there's a maturity comes as we experience the trials
of this life. If someone loses a child, they
go through dark places, valleys that others of us can't really
understand. And from then on in, their life
is different. Their life has been changed.
They've seen things. They've experienced things. And that might be something else.
That might be a disease that we've had. That might be an illness
that we've experienced or gone through. That might be the loss
of a spouse or a loved one. But these things enlarge us. They enlarge our experience and
they prove the faithfulness of God to us. The faithfulness of God in the
life of his church and in his people. And also as our experience
of God thereby deepens, so our hope is increased. Our hope is strengthened because
we have found God to be faithful in that experience that if we
had known about that experience before it happened, we would
have recoiled from it. But having gone through it, having
been led through it, we see the faithfulness of God in it. And
that deepens our hope of the promises of our God and the certainty
of them. And Paul says, these are the
things that flow to us as the multiple blessings of that justification
which we find in the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse five, talking then
about that hope. He says, this hope maketh not
ashamed. That's a lovely phrase. It makes
us not ashamed. We're not ashamed. We're not
ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not ashamed of these hopes
that we have, this faith that we have. We're not ashamed of
our beliefs in Christ because he's taught us that they work.
He's taught us that they're true. And the world may mock, the world
may come and say, oh, that's just nonsense. That's just make
believe. That's just something that you've
got as a crutch to see you through the experience. Well, don't knock
it. But it's true, it's true. And while the flesh may doubt,
and while human wisdom may challenge these things, God the Holy Spirit,
gifted by Christ to his church as the comforter of his people,
validates these things in our experience. And we find the reality
of these things. Tribulation worketh patience. Patience works experience. Experience works hope. And hope maketh not ashamed. This is the blessing upon blessing
upon blessing that comes to us in Christ. God loves us. Christ has died
for us. He has reconciled us to himself. He has won our souls and he evidences
his faithfulness to us in our lives and in our life's experience. God's love, of course, is the
fountain. It's the beginning of all our
blessings. and the elect are loved everlastingly
with the same love to them that the Saviour has from his Father. And hence it is said to be shed
abroad. Verse five, and hope maketh not
ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. That love of God which forged
the very purposes of God, to bring a righteousness to us that
would reconcile us to Him and enable Him to grant us all the
blessings of His love and grace and mercy to us. All of these
blessings, and they're shed abroad abundantly, plenteously in the
lives of His people to such that our cups run over. So let us conclude. Our standing
is that we are justified by the righteousness of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's just a fact. That's just
the way it is. That's the promise of God to
us. We are justified. We are perfect
in Christ. We stand before God as the product
of His love. It's what His love has done for
us. Father, Son and Holy Spirit combining together and from that
great work of justification, where God the Father willed it,
God the Son accomplished it, and God the Holy Spirit applies
it to our hearts by the gift of faith, so all of the blessings
flow to the church and people of God by faith. It's witnessed
in the eternal grace and purpose of God the Father to unite himself
to a chosen people everlastingly. That was God's will. It is manifested
in the accomplishment of God the Son in securing our redemption
from sin and law and judgment as our surety and as our substitute. And it is distributed for our
comfort in this life and in this world and for our enjoyment by
God the Holy Spirit. What a team. Father, Son and
Holy Ghost bringing all these multiplied blessings to people
like you and like me. What an incredible message this
is. What a truly astounding gospel
this was that the Apostle Paul preached to the people at Rome.
No wonder he could say, I'm not ashamed of this. This is the
power of God unto salvation. Multiplied blessing. free justification,
perfect righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ and everything
that flows from it to his church and people. I started off by
saying that was a good message. I hope you agree with me that
it has its blessings for us as we by faith receive these great
truths. Amen.