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The River ChurchSermons

Righteousness

The Blessings of Righteousness

Chuck Lindsey · Sunday, 22 June 2025 · Romans 5:1-11 · 54:07 · 8,450 words

Romans S9 · 5:1-11 Grand Blanc

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Romans 5 is the focus, showing that life’s purpose is found in relationship with God. The sermon explains that believers are justified by faith alone, reconciled to God through Christ’s sacrifice, and given peace and constant access to Him. It emphasizes that God’s love was shown when we were still sinners, and those who trust Christ are completely saved from judgment. The message calls listeners to recognize their need for Christ and accept His invitation to a restored relationship.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

trouble 42 access 24 forever 25 relationship 30 produce 17 heaven 26 hope 34 continual 10 crush 12 perseverance 7 powerless 7 evidence 10

Topics

Salvation 8 Hope 5 Suffering 5 Faith 4 Grace 4 Prayer 4 The Holy Spirit 3 Justification 2 Sin 2 Atonement & Sacrifice 2 Love 1

Scripture referenced 23

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 5 1:38 Romans 5 1:43 Romans 5 1:54 Romans 5 7:32 Romans 5:1 7:35 Psalms 84:11 22:54 Romans 5:2 25:49 Romans 5:3 27:07 Romans 5:3 27:40 Romans 5:3 31:19 Romans 5:3-4 32:00 Romans 5:5 38:01 Romans 8:9 40:51 Romans 8:5 41:04 Romans 8:6 41:15 Romans 8:6 42:05 Matthew 22 44:34 Romans 8:7 46:32 Romans 8:8 47:54 1 Corinthians 1:18 48:57 Romans 8:9 50:02 Romans 8:10 50:38 Romans 8:11 51:35

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 10 lines, 0:41. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

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Thanks again for joining us, and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

Well, good morning. Good to be together with you this morning.

We're so thankful to gather each week.

Man, what an incredible week it was this past week with our VBS going on.

It was, I want to just thank all of you that volunteered your time to help us with VBS.

It was incredible.

And Katie and her team did an incredible job.

And VBS for us is an outreach to our community.

That's the purpose.

We want kids to hear about the love of Jesus Christ.

And so that's the goal.

And so we had just an incredible week being able to do that.

And just thank you for your work in that, those of you that helped us with that.

And those of you that prayed for that, thank you.

Well, this morning we turn our attention to the book of Romans.

So if you've got a Bible, Romans chapter 5 is where we are.

This is where we're going to be this morning.

Romans chapter 5.

We've been making our way through the book of Romans.

And we come to such a wonderful passage of Scripture today.

And we'll get there in just a moment.

But Romans chapter 5 is where we're going to be.

But let's first, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Let's ask Him to speak this morning.

And I would encourage you to personally ask the Lord to speak to you.

He is faithful to do that as we ask Him.

So let's pray together, okay?

Lord, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your word.

Thank you for the truth of your word.

Thank you for the promises.

I pray that, Lord, you would help us to hear you today.

I pray that, Lord, you would speak.

And I pray, Lord, that our focus, our attention today

would move from the things of this world and this life

really to the things that are coming.

We pray, Lord, that you would bless your word and the teaching of it.

In Jesus' name I pray.

All right.

Well, I want to ask you.

If you were asked, what is the meaning of life?

Have you ever been asked that?

What is the meaning of life?

What's the point?

What's the purpose of life?

And I think if I had to boil that down,

what life really is all about,

I would summarize it with one word.

I would summarize it with the word relationship.

Right?

So relationships are what life is really all about.

Secondarily, I would say the blessings that come,

come out of those relationships.

Would you agree with this?

Let me give an example, right?

It's definitely not accomplishments.

We know that.

I mean, a person could, you know, invent something,

you know, world-changing or life-changing.

They could build something amazing.

They could be the best that there ever was at a thing,

win all of the awards or whatever.

And if they don't have anybody in their life,

if they have no relationships,

no one that loves and cares,

for them, no one they love and care about,

it really does not mean much.

Life is about so much more than accomplishments

or how about money, right?

You can have all the money.

You can have all the things you've ever wanted,

but without people who love you,

without people who know you,

money means nothing.

It's not important.

True wealth, we all know this,

is not things, it's people, it's relationships.

It's not fame that makes real life.

Many celebrities are very poor, right?

Very, very poor in real things.

It's not the pursuit of continual enjoyment

that is the purpose or meaning of life,

vacations and experiences and whatever.

That is not ultimately fulfilling.

If a person does not have meaningful relationships

in their life,

all of these things can leave you completely empty.

They are not the point and purpose of life.

But by contrast,

you can take a person who has very little in life.

They don't have any major accomplishments to speak of.

They may not be known really by very many people.

And yet they can be extremely wealthy

because they have loved ones in their lives, right?

Real friends, real family,

people that genuinely love and care for them.

The value of life really revolves around

the relationships that we have.

And everybody realizes this

at the end of their life.

Everybody looks back and they don't go,

man, I wish I would have worked more.

I wish I would have bought more stuff.

I wish I would have accomplished more.

Everybody looks back and says,

man, I wish I would have spent more time

or I'm thankful for the amount of time

that I spent with the people I know and love.

I would say I am an extremely wealthy person.

Not in money, not in possessions,

in relationships.

There are so many people.

I have real relationship with, right?

People I genuinely care for.

People that genuinely care for me.

So many of you are among those people.

I feel so full, so rich

because of the relationships in my life.

I'm wealthy in those things,

if that makes sense, right?

The tremendous blessing of my parents.

Both of my parents know and love the Lord.

My wife's parents know and love the Lord.

Their sibling, you know, her siblings,

I mean, we're just, we're very wealthy.

They're an incredible treasure in our lives.

My children are beyond words.

I'm such a wealthy man in regards to my five kids.

Each one, just a gem in my life

that is so unique, each one, right?

Such a treasure.

And then my granddaughter,

don't even get me started, right?

Did you want to see a picture?

No, I'm just kidding.

And then my wife, you know,

just a treasure beyond words.

Better than the best.

I could have ever prayed for,

asked for, hoped for greatest gift,

this side of heaven.

But at the top of that list is the Lord himself, right?

The relationship with the true and living God.

Life is real life because of him, right?

It is meaningful.

It has purpose.

It has hope because of him.

And so today what we're exploring really

is all of the blessings

that come out of the relationship

that we have with him.

So take a look, Romans chapter five,

beginning in verse one,

it says, therefore,

having been justified by faith.

So that therefore,

anytime you find a therefore in the scriptures,

you should stop and ask what it's there for, right?

We are continuing a thought.

We've been for weeks,

we have been talking about just over and over,

showing that we are never ever saved

by our own human effort or our goodness

or our good deeds that are done or our religiousness.

We are never saved by these things.

The only way anyone will ever be saved,

we've showed this over and over.

The only way anybody will ever be justified,

completely forgiven of all sin

and given heaven forever is by faith alone.

That's it.

It is by belief in who Jesus is,

is and what he did.

A person is justified,

forgiven forever by faith.

And so now that we've talked through this,

now that we've spent,

you know,

four entire chapters going through this,

now that we know this,

the question becomes,

okay, now what?

Right?

What now?

Now that we know we are justified by faith,

well, what happens next?

And so Romans now takes us into the what now?

Okay.

And so we're told,

man, we're told that there are such good things

that come from simple faith in Jesus Christ

and his sacrifice for us.

Such good things come from relationship with him.

And so let's start there.

To be justified by faith,

it means so much more than just that you are going to go to heaven when you die.

It's so much more than that.

That would be enough though, wouldn't it?

Wouldn't that be enough?

If it was just that you had heaven when you die,

wouldn't that be enough?

Like it'd be enough for God to simply say,

okay, I'll let you have heaven,

but that's as far as it goes.

You get heaven,

you stay on one side though,

and I'll be over here on this other side.

You know, I'd be like,

that seems fair.

You know, that seems fair.

It'd be enough for him to say,

I forgive you,

but I won't be near you.

I won't hear you.

Just that would be more,

more than I deserve.

But that is not what he does.

It's not what he does.

He does not just give us heaven.

In fact,

he gives us himself.

He gives us himself,

both here and then.

He gives us himself.

Look at verse one.

having been justified.

Notice that that is past tense.

It means that for you who have believed on the Lord Jesus,

this is a done deal.

You have been justified.

You have been completely forgiven forever.

But it's also passive in the Greek language that it was written in.

And what this means is that it is something that you did not do for yourself.

You did not justify yourself by coming to church or by praying a prayer or by being baptized or by communion or by whatever it is.

You did not justify yourself.

It is passive.

It is something he did for you.

It's something he did for me.

He justified me.

I did not justify me.

That is an impossible thing for a human being to do.

We cannot justify ourselves.

It could not have been me that justified me.

I didn't do anything to make myself clean before God and neither did you.

I didn't do anything to make myself acceptable and neither did you.

I didn't do anything to be deserving of heaven and neither did you.

That's what we've showed for four chapters of Romans.

It was given to us as a gift undeserved by God.

Now, not only though, right?

Again, that would have been enough.

Not only was the forgiveness of all of my sin given to me and not only was heaven given to me as my forever home,

but it doesn't end there because God gives us himself.

Look what it says.

Verse one, having been justified by faith, we watch this, have peace with God through.

Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Oh man, I pray this will get from your ears into your heart today.

When we come to Jesus for salvation, our sin is completely forgiven.

And it is because of this that we now have peace with God.

It's something we have now.

It's written in present tense.

You have it.

It's yours.

It belongs to you.

If you're trusting Jesus Christ for salvation, you have this.

And not only that,

it's essentially the way it's written.

You have it forever.

It's not just something you have now.

You do have it now, but you also have it forever.

It is peace with God.

And the word peace means to join back together two things.

It's the word that's used for fixing a relationship.

And we all know what this is.

You have two people, broken relationship.

What does it take to bring them back together?

It takes forgiveness and repentance, right?

To bring two people back together.

And when they come back together, this is the word peace to join two things back together.

So hear what this is saying.

The complete forgiveness of my sin, your sin allowed God to join us back together with himself in relationship.

The Bible is clear that it is sin that separated us from him.

Sin is what broke the relationship.

It split us up.

By the way, sin always breaks relationship.

It always does this.

It breaks all the relationship.

It breaks all the relationships around us all the time.

Friendships, marriages, relationships with children, like all of it, right?

But it's been sin that has broken the relationship between you and God.

And then once that sin is removed, now forgiveness is given.

Relationship is restored.

And that's what verse one is saying, that we have been justified.

And so now we've been joined.

You've been justified.

Now you've been joined back together with God.

You've been reconciled.

The relationship has been repaired.

And the way that this happened was, verse one, through our Lord Jesus Christ, not through

human effort, not through what you've done, not through what I've done.

It is only through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through Jesus means it is through what he did.

It was through his sacrifice that our sin is forgiven.

Nothing else can do it.

His sacrifice alone is what did this.

But then also notice what the Savior did.

The saved person calls Jesus.

Did you see it?

It is through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This tells us that this is only true for those that count Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and King.

Can you say that?

Is he your Lord?

Is he the master?

Is he the owner?

Can you say that?

If you cannot say that, danger.

You are an unsaved person.

If you can say he's the master, he's the owner, he's the king, he's the one in charge.

I belong to him.

If you can say that, good news.

You are a saved person.

The Bible says no man can say that Jesus is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit of God.

It means you can't say it and mean it apart from the Holy Spirit of God living within you.

And so this forgiveness and this, you know, the subsequent joining back together,

this is not universally true for all people.

It applies to those who have turned to Jesus Christ as Lord.

So is he your Lord?

Is he your God and Savior and King?

Then you have not only been forgiven, you not only have heaven to look forward to,

but also you've been joined back together in relationship with God through what Jesus did.

And get this, it doesn't end there because this piece means that you have all the blessings

and benefits of real close relationship.

So because there's no separation, there can be closeness and blessing and all that is

what it means to be close to someone.

Look what it says.

Verse two, through whom, so through Jesus, through his work, also we have access.

What does this mean?

Are you ready?

Access means to be brought near, to come near.

You have access to God himself.

Please understand, this does not mean that God is off somewhere in heaven and that you

will get like a couple of passes to go see God.

You will see God a few times in the year, right?

It's not like, you know, that's what we think of when we think of access.

Oh, I get like a backstage pass access, right?

Like I get to go and it's not like that.

Like heaven, he's going to be off over here and you get like a pass once a year to go

see him.

No, no.

The word access in Greek is in the perfect tense, which means it is continual.

So because you've trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, repenting of your sin to God

and believing in his sacrifice, your access to God is going to be off over here.

You have access to God right now and forever.

It's continual.

You have access to God right now, right now, in this moment, every moment, at 2 a.m.

when you're wide awake and can't sleep.

You have access to God at all times and it will not change.

It is continual for you forever.

Not because of anything you've done, but because of everything that he has done.

It's continual.

It never expires.

Now the word access, as I said, it means to bring near.

And so God is telling you that you have continual access forever to him himself to be as close

to him as you want to be.

If you feel distant from God, realize you can be as close to him as you want to be as

close as you want to.

If we draw near to him, he always draws near to us, but you can be as close to him as you

want to be forever.

And that is all I want.

I mean, it's hard for us to really grasp what this means, but the Bible says,

I has not seen nor ear heard, nor is it entered into the heart of man, the things that God

has prepared for those, watch this, who love him.

If you love him, you cannot even imagine what is coming for you, what the blessing of heaven

is really going to be.

It's hard to comprehend how amazing it will be to have total access to God himself, to

be continually close to him.

You know, the closest thing we have here in this life, right, is, is the marriage relationship.

That's like the closest.

And then, and then the, the parental relationship, right?

In the marriage relationship, you know, my, my wife has continual closeness with me that

no one else has, right?

So there is no distance.

There's no separation.

There's nothing hidden or secret or guarded, right?

No walls up, uh, just total access at all times in the same way, right?

My, my children, they have a closeness with me that no one else besides my wife has,

right?

They have total access to me as their dad, no distance, no walls up.

I mean, imagine what this means for you and the Lord.

You can't begin to understand how wonderful this is.

Heaven is the word that we try to use to describe it.

It's heaven to be so close to God.

And this is what heaven really is.

Heaven is not gold.

Gold is pavement in heaven.

It's not pearls.

Those are two by fours in heaven.

You know, it's not worth anything to anybody.

It's not silver and stones and gems and everything.

Heaven is him.

It's closeness to him forever.

And this is why the Bible says that heaven is for those that love him because heaven

is him forever.

And if you don't love him, he's not going to force you to be with him forever.

Well, you don't love me.

You don't want to be near me.

Well, that's what heaven is.

It is near him forever.

And so he won't force anyone to be.

He won't force anyone to be with him forever who does not love him.

But understand, if you've turned to him for salvation, you have access to him right now.

You can cultivate this closeness with the Lord right now.

He withholds nothing from you.

Do you know this?

The Bible says it.

He withholds no good thing from those who walk upright with him.

He doesn't hold anything back from you.

You can draw near to him now, every day of your life, all day of your life.

You have total access to the only true God.

Right now, we have peace with God, which gives us continual access to him.

It's described.

Look at verse 2.

Access by faith, by believing.

Do you believe that you have access to God?

Into this grace in which we stand.

Grace is the summary of all that God gives to us.

Grace is like the word that is over everything God has done.

It's his love.

It's his forgiveness.

It's his mercy.

It's his kindness.

It's his help and his counsel.

And his encouragement.

And all of these things.

On and on we could go, right?

And so this means that we not only have continual access to God,

but we also have access to all that he gives.

What do you need today?

You need encouragement?

You need strength?

What do you need from God?

You have continual access into the grace.

Into everything God provides.

Everything that he gives.

Again, Psalm 84, 11.

No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

He holds nothing back from you.

What do you need?

Now, before we move on, notice the words,

this grace in which we stand.

And this is talking about how you stand before God.

Please hear this.

It's talking about what God sees when he looks at you.

What does God see when he looks at you?

Does God see you as an innocent person standing before him

or as a guilty person standing before him?

What would you say?

If you stood before God today,

would God look at you,

a person standing before him,

would God look at you and say,

you are a guilty person before me?

Or would God look at you and say,

you are an innocent person before me?

There is no middle ground.

Which one?

How would he see you?

Well, that's what this is referring to.

And let me answer the question for you.

How would God see you?

Here's the answer.

How you stand before God is entirely based on

whether or not you have turned to Jesus Christ for salvation or not.

How would you stand before God?

How would you stand before God?

How would you stand before God?

That's it.

If you have, listen,

then though you are not sinless right now,

we all know that,

and you won't be this side of heaven,

God would say you are innocent.

You stand before him innocent because of his grace,

not because of anything you've done.

You stand before him as perfect.

You stand before him as sinless because of his grace,

because of what Jesus has done to forgive your sin.

But if you have not turned to Jesus Christ,

it doesn't matter how much you've done,

how much you've gone to church or what you've given

or how you've, you know, whatever you've done.

It makes no difference.

God would say you are guilty.

You stand before me as a guilty person,

no matter what your church time,

your service hours have been,

or how good you've tried to be.

You would be guilty before God

and you would stand before him as guilty.

And this is because you have rejected the way

that God has created for you to be saved.

And so I ask again,

how would God see you if you stood before him right now?

Right in this moment,

if you died and you stood before God,

how would he see you?

Well, here we're told that it is only by grace

that you can stand before God as innocent.

Do you realize this?

That's such good news that it's only by grace

and it's not by what you do.

It is simply by believing.

This only happens as you repent of your sin

and you believe on Jesus Christ for his work for you.

Well, when this is true of you,

when this is your story,

when this gets into your heart,

it can only happen.

It can only cause joy.

And that is what the end of verse two shows.

Look what it says.

And look what saved people do.

Saved people rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

These truths, when they get into your soul,

they cause your soul,

the soul of the child of God to rejoice.

Like, God, you are so good.

I rejoice in this hope of being in the presence of God

here called the glory of God.

I don't know about you.

I can't wait to be with him.

I can't wait to be with him.

Now, listen, I don't have a death wish.

I'm not hoping I die, right?

I love my life.

I love my wife.

I love my kids.

I love my family.

I love, I love it.

I don't want to be away from them.

But also, I can't wait to see him.

I can't wait to be with him.

I rejoice at the very thought of being together with him.

And this is true for all saved people.

We want to be with him.

We love him.

We can't wait, right?

Well, believe it or not, there's more.

Salvation, not only is for our future,

but it actually affects this life right now in very, very real ways.

Hear that, though, before we go into verse 3.

Hear it again.

To know these things will affect the way that you live right now.

The trouble that you go through in this life.

Real quick, anybody ever had any trouble?

Just want to ask real quick.

Okay.

Just making sure that this is relevant before we go into it.

Otherwise, I'd be like, you know what?

Just everybody go home because it doesn't, you're all no trouble.

Okay, good.

Well, look at the trouble you go through in this life going to change

the way you go through those things if you know these things.

So look at verse 3.

And not only that, watch this.

We, but we also glory in tribulations.

You are not going to like this verse for a second.

Okay, hold on.

The word glory means to celebrate.

It's talking about celebrating trouble.

In our lives, you say, what?

Right?

I don't celebrate trouble in my life.

Quick question.

How many of you would say you love going through trouble?

You can just go ahead and lift up your hand.

You love trouble, love going through it.

Difficulty, pain, suffering, just your favorite thing.

Weird, right?

Okay.

I thought I'd have more hands.

No, no, I know I wouldn't.

None of us like going through trouble, but there is an aspect of suffering and difficulty.

And trouble that I strangely welcome.

I don't want it.

I don't ask God to give me trouble, but there is something about it.

I strangely welcome because it does at least three things in me.

The first thing that trouble does is it changes me and I need to be changed.

Do you know this about yourself?

You need to change.

I need to change.

I used to think I didn't need to change.

I was arrogant and needed to change right now.

I know for sure.

I need to change, right?

So, so trouble makes me different.

It makes me more dependent on him.

It makes me rely on him.

It changes who I am.

Trouble changes my crazy view of myself that somehow I am strong or I am good or I am capable

or I know more than I think I do or whatever.

It changes all of that.

It forces me to admit that I am not, not what?

Not any of those things.

I'm not smart.

I'm not able.

I'm not strong.

I'm none of those things.

And so I have to lean on him in ways I otherwise wouldn't.

That's what trouble does to us, doesn't it?

To the believer anyway.

And so in that way, I'm actually grateful for trouble because what it does in me to

There's a second reason I'm grateful for trouble and that's because trouble teaches me.

It teaches me about him.

Have you not learned more about who he is through your difficulty than you did in the

good, good times in the good things, his faithfulness, his reliability.

His power, his love for us, his mercy, his kindness.

It is often expressed here.

This so deeply in the times of our trouble, we are like little kids in need and he just

pours out and we're like, man, I've never felt God so close as when I went through this

thing.

There's a reason for that.

We're in deep need and he meets that deep need.

He just pours out of himself.

And so as strange as it is for me to say it, difficulty is something I don't want.

And yet I am thankful for, and there's a third reason and that's this, right?

So trouble changes me, trouble teaches me, but also trouble speaks for me.

What do I mean by this?

It's often through our trouble, through our suffering that others begin to hear him, that

other people begin to see him in your life.

You maybe have tried to share over and over and over.

Nothing's getting through.

They see you go through trouble and trust him and suddenly they're hearing the Lord.

Suddenly they're seeing him.

How many people have learned about who he is through the trouble of his people?

And the answer is countless, countless numbers of people.

And so this is what Paul is describing in verse three when he says, and not only that,

but we glory in tribulations.

We're celebrating trouble because of what it does in us.

And by the way, lest we think that Paul's just talking about annoyances when he says

trouble, the word there means to crush.

Right?

So Paul's not saying we celebrate being slightly bothered, slightly uncomfortable, slightly

Paul says we celebrate being crushed because what happens is when we are crushed, people

begin to see him.

So the stuff that crushes you and I reveals him.

Well, look what the rest of verse three and four say.

Again, we don't like this, but knowing, and I would ask you, do you actually know this?

Knowing that tribulation crushing produces perseverance.

And perseverance, character and character hope.

Here's the question.

Do you actually know this?

Do you believe this?

Do you believe that crushing tribulation produces something in your life?

Something real in the life?

Listen, your suffering is not random.

It's not random suffering.

It's not just things happening.

God takes that suffering and he, because God is good and because he loves you and because

he is always in control, he will take suffering.

He will.

He will turn trouble in your life into something that is good and useful and beneficial, both

to you and to others.

It's called perseverance.

Crushing produces perseverance in a believer's life.

Well, what is perseverance?

It's a word that means to continue.

It's the word for steady.

And so it refers to all the pressures of life, all the troubles of life, how it's so easy,

you know, easily can crush us, right?

Throw us and shake us.

But instead of running and instead of failing and instead of falling and whatever could

happen during our crushing, instead, there is a steadiness because of the Lord.

It's not our strength.

In fact, we're always overwhelmed.

We have no strength.

It's his strength.

It's a steadiness.

It's a continuing in the Lord and in the things that the Lord created us to do and to be.

And so you suffer, but you continue.

You continue to love the Lord.

You continue to worship the Lord.

You continue to trust the Lord, even when your life is falling apart.

And people look and they say, man, you should be a mess.

And here you are worshiping.

Here you are helping other people in their trouble.

I don't think there's a greater witness than that, honestly.

I don't think there's a greater witness than for you to suffer and to worship the Lord and help others in their suffering.

I don't think there's a greater witness than that in this world.

I don't think it's really a witness for us.

I don't think it's a witness to have all the things and trust the Lord and be just worshiping and celebrating with no trouble in our lives.

I don't think that's really a witness to anybody.

I think it's a witness when you're suffering, when you're being crushed, and yet you continue and you're steady and you worship and you love and you serve and you give and you continue.

It's so powerful.

Well, perseverance, that continuance, also produces something else.

It produces character, it says, in us.

It's a word that means.

It's tested and approved.

Tested and approved.

And it refers to the person that's gone through difficulty, come out the other side of it, better rather than what?

Better rather than bitter.

And when I say better, I don't mean that you're a better version of you.

I mean you're more like Jesus.

You go through trouble, you either come out the other side more like Jesus or more like you.

Right?

Listen, you're all lovely people.

But you don't need to be more like Jesus.

You need to be more like you.

You need to be more like him.

And when you go through trouble, you come out the other side of it.

As a believer, you can come out the other side of it more like Jesus, more sure of him, more trusting in him, more confident in heaven, less care for the things in this world that just don't matter, that aren't important.

You're changed.

So, crushing produces perseverance or continuance.

That continuance produces character, tested and approved.

And then that character, watch what happens.

That testing produces a wonderful blessing.

And that blessing is called hope.

Now, the word hope I love.

It's one of my favorite Greek words.

It means to expect coming good.

To expect coming good.

That's a good word.

What a thing it is in this life to have real hope.

Lasting hope in this life.

Expecting real coming good.

Something actual, real is coming.

How different it is to live this life with real hope.

A hope that does not disappoint, we're going to see in just a moment.

And so, let me ask you a question.

Knowing this, would you celebrate trouble in your life, great difficulty, things that crush you, would you celebrate that if you know it produces all of that?

If it creates all of that in you, would you then celebrate the trouble?

Or would you rather say, you know what?

Lord, I'd rather have it easy.

I don't really want to be deep in my hope and trust in you.

I'd rather have it easy.

Which would you choose?

Well, good news.

It's not up to you.

The Lord already, he'll decide for you, okay?

But listen, this hope that is produced is not some pie in the sky, hope it's going to be nice today kind of hope.

This is a real hope.

It's not a hope that says, man, I sure hope things are going to go well.

This kind of hope that is produced in us through trouble.

This kind of hope that is produced in us through trouble.

This kind of hope that is produced in us through trouble.

This kind of hope that is produced in us through trouble.

This kind of hope that is produced in us through trouble.

This kind of hope that is produced in us through trouble.

This kind of hope that is produced in us through trouble is a certainty that comes through an eternal guarantee.

Look at verse 5.

Now, this hope, this hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Please hear this.

Your hope in heaven with him is not going to disappoint you.

Meaning, you are not going to take your last breath and find out that you accidentally trusted in the wrong thing.

It's not going to happen.

Like you invested in the wrong stuff.

You're not going to take your last breath and go, oh man, I should have gone with something else, you know.

Your hope is real.

It's a real coming reality for those that love him, that know him.

You are not going to take your last breath and go, oh man, I should have gone with Islam, you know.

I should have trusted in Mary.

Jesus Christ is the only sure foundation.

He is the true and living God and only Savior.

You are not going to be disappointed.

And so, you don't need to take my word for it.

Because you have faith.

You have two evidences.

If you're a born-again believer, you have two evidences within you that prove that this is true.

What are those two evidences?

Well, we were told.

The evidence that this is true is that the love of God has been poured into your heart.

Is this true?

You feel the love of God for you as a believer?

If you're like, no, I would say you need to go before the Lord.

You may not know him.

Because it says here, he has poured his love into you.

And so, you love him, the Bible says.

Though you haven't seen him, you love him.

That's true of his people.

We love him.

Because he first loved us.

If we do not love him, we do not know him.

To know him is to love him.

The only people that hate him are the people that don't know him.

Could you hate someone who is so wonderful?

And then there is the second evidence, which is the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you.

This is evidenced.

You say, how do I know if the Holy Spirit of God is living in me?

This is evidenced by a desire to be holy.

Notice he is not called.

He is not called the fleshly Spirit of God.

Notice he is not called the human Spirit of God.

It is the Holy Spirit of God.

You want to be holy.

That is evidenced inside of you.

You may fail, but you want to do what God wants you to do.

To be holy.

To be pleasing to him.

So, if you have these two things,

these two things are evidence that your hope is not misplaced.

It's real.

If you don't have either of these,

a love for the Lord,

a sense that he loves you,

and a desire to be holy,

a desire to please the Lord with your life,

then, again, you're not a saved person.

And I know that based on Romans chapter 8, verse 9,

which says anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ is not his.

You don't have the Holy Spirit of God living in you.

You're not born again.

You don't belong to him.

And so, notice that verse 5 said that the love of God has been poured out.

So, I want to talk about his love for just a moment.

The depths of the love of God for us.

Look what he did in verse 6.

It says, for, this is his love, okay?

Here is his love.

When we were still without strength, Christ died.

What does this mean?

Without strength is a Greek word that means to be powerless.

Entirely incapable.

You say, powerless to do what?

To save ourselves.

Powerless to do right.

Powerless to please God.

Completely incapable of pleasing God, of doing right.

We were entirely, utterly powerless to keep the law of God to save ourselves.

We were.

We were so lost.

We were so sick with sin.

We were under death's penalty and power.

The condemnation and hell.

So separated from God.

And it was in that moment, verse 6 says, look what it says, in due time, at the right moment.

That's what the word means.

At the right moment, Christ died for the ungodly.

Please hear this.

He died for us when we were entirely powerless to do anything.

We did not deserve anything good.

We did not deserve anything good.

Entirely undeserving.

Utterly incapable.

That is when he decided to die for you.

You say, wait, if he's God, didn't he like, maybe he like looked way far ahead and he saw that I was going to do good things and said, you know what?

I want that kid on my team.

I'm going to put him on the team.

Had God not died for us, there wouldn't have been one good thing.

You say, what's the proof of that?

The Bible says it.

There is none who seeks God.

There is none who does.

No, not even one.

The only way we do good is because of him living in us and him working through us.

That's the only way we do good.

If God had not done this, if he had not filled us with his spirit, if he had not died for us, no good would be done by any of us.

It is impossible to please God.

The Bible says, apart from faith in him, impossible.

No one does good.

And so God decided when you were his, when you counted him to be your enemy.

Here's what it says.

Who did he die for?

It says the ungodly.

Literally, the word means godless.

The ones who worshipped themselves.

They worshipped nature and false gods and whatever, you know, desires they had.

He did not come to die for the pretty good, the decent, the almost theirs.

He died for the godless, the powerless, the unable, the incapable, the rotten, the sinful, the wicked, the selfish.

The rebellious.

When we were not seeking God, when we were godless and worshipping ourselves and our desires, that is when he loved us.

That is when he gave himself for us.

How amazing is he?

Did you know that I'm in the Bible?

Did you know this?

Actually, I'm in several places in the Bible.

But in Matthew 22, I'm in the Bible.

Jesus tells a story about a king who throws a feast for his son who is getting married.

Jesus says that all the invited people refuse to come.

They were all, they all had, you know, they were too busy.

They were too important.

They had too many things going on.

So they couldn't come to the feast.

So the king tells his servants, okay, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to go into all the places nobody wants to go.

They're called the highways.

They're called the outskirts.

They're the rough places in the city.

And it's where all the unimportant people would be.

It's where the homeless people would be.

It's where all the people that are strung out.

It's where all the places you don't want to go to, right?

It's all those places.

The king says, I want you to go to those places.

And I want you to invite every single person you find.

I told you I was in the Bible.

Those people accepted the invitation.

Those people came.

They did not have the right clothing.

And so they had to be given the right clothing.

And each one of them accepted the invitation.

And they came in and they enjoyed the presence of the king forever.

That's my story.

That's my story.

I'm also the blind man.

I'm also the leper in the Bible, the idol worshiper, the demon-possessed person, right?

I'm all those people.

I'm every one of them.

But this story from Jesus, right, tells you and I something.

He came to die for the ungodly.

He saves those who know that they are ungodly.

If you think you're okay, you're not okay.

If you think you don't need to be saved, you're unsaved.

If you think you're fine, you're not fine.

You need God's mercy.

You need to be saved.

And so he does this.

He does this because he's not like us.

Look at verse 7.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die,

yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

Listen, as people, this would be a huge, it'd be an impossible ask, really.

It's possible that someone might die for a family member or someone that is very deserving, right?

A parent might die for their child.

A husband or a wife might die for their spouse.

But dying?

Dying for someone random, a random good person, me or them, that's rough.

I don't know that I'm doing that.

And if I was, I certainly would take the time to determine whether or not they were deserving of this sacrifice, right?

I wouldn't just be like, you know, I ain't dying for no criminal.

I ain't dying for no thug.

I ain't dying for somebody that isn't deserving of this, right?

They better be very deserving.

And I'm certainly not dying for someone that after I die for them, spends the rest of their lives,

that I just saved, spends the rest of their lives denying my existence.

And yet that's the very thing people do all day, every day.

God is not like us.

He is infinitely greater.

Look at verse 8.

But God demonstrates or proved his own love toward us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

He died for undeserving people, ungrateful people.

Again, can we talk about that for a second?

People who, even though he died for them, they spend their entire lives denying his existence and defaming his name?

The audacity of the human race is astonishing to me.

Imagine someone pushing your child out of the way of an oncoming car only for themselves to be hit and killed.

And then you spending the rest of your life, not only not grateful for what they did,

but spending the rest of your life, not only not grateful for what they did,

but spending the rest of your life, acting as though nothing ever happened and that person never even existed.

Human race, that's us as people.

This is what the unsaved person does.

You want evidence of it?

1 Corinthians 1.18

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

Is the cross, is the message of the cross nonsense and foolishness to you?

You are perishing.

You are lost forever.

If it is foolishness to you, it's because you're lost that it's foolishness.

This is all just nonsense.

This is all just religious nonsense.

I don't need any of it.

It's for weak people.

It's for stupid people.

It's for people that can't save themselves.

Sure is.

But if it's foolishness, it's because you're perishing.

But this is where God proved his love for us.

When we denied and rejected him and did nothing right and did not seek him,

when we were entirely unlovable, undeserving,

when we counted him our enemy,

when we hated him,

he loved us and gave up his life for us.

And so here's the question.

This is what Paul is getting at.

If God was willing to do all of that when we were enemies against him,

what will he do now that we know and love him?

Much more than having now been justified by his blood,

we shall be saved from wrath through him.

If you have turned to Jesus Christ for salvation,

if he is your Lord, do you realize how saved you are?

Do you realize how saved you actually are?

He has saved you completely forever.

You will never be judged.

You will never be condemned.

You will never be sentenced.

You will never have to pay for your wrongs.

It's all been paid forever by Jesus Christ.

Do you realize how saved you are?

For if when we were enemies,

we were reconciled to God through the death of his son,

much more now, much more having been reconciled,

we shall be saved by his life.

Think about it.

If God loved you and saved you when you hated him,

when you counted him your enemy,

what about now?

That you love him.

I know you're not perfect.

How much more does he love you now?

If he gave up everything to get you,

how much more does he give now?

If he gave up everything when you denied and rejected him,

what does he give now that you know and love him?

Again, no good thing does he withhold from his people.

He gives himself entirely to us.

And all of this is the result.

Please hear this of what Jesus did.

As we close with verse 11, look what it says.

Not only that, but we also rejoice,

in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ,

through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

It is through him, through his sacrifice on the cross,

that, catch this, we have received.

It's past tense.

It's already done.

We have received the reconciliation.

We have been forever reconciled to God.

You're like, I don't know if I make it.

Are you trusting Jesus Christ?

That was God trying to get your attention right there.

Lord, you've been forever.

Forever reconciled to him.

The relationship with him has been forever repaired.

Again, do you realize how saved you actually are if you're trusting Christ?

But as we said before, this is only true for those that love him.

And so if you do not, he will not force you to be with him forever.

This is true for all those that see their need,

that know that they are ungodly,

that know they are undeserving.

The spiritually homeless will accept his invitation.

If you will accept his invitation,

are you spiritually homeless?

Is that you?

Then turn to the Lord this morning.

Accept his invitation today.

Repent of your sin to God and believe.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you, Lord, for your goodness and your kindness and your mercy.

We thank you, Lord, that it is not by our works,

not by our effort, but by your work.

I pray for anyone watching.

I pray for anyone here that Lord sees themselves finally as spiritually homeless.

I pray, God, that they would turn to you now and find,

home in you, Lord.

I pray that, Lord, they would turn to you in repentance

and in belief in what you did.

We love you, Lord.

We give ourselves to you.

We thank you for giving up your life for us.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen.