Romans 5:5-11
Introduction:
Happiness vs. Joy
Text: Romans 5:5-11
Theme: Hope, love, and salvation give us Joy in God through Christ.
Verse 5-6 –
Because of Jesus, and after trials and growth in Christ, we have hope born in us. And this hope, the kind bred from faith in Christ through suffering, will not put us to shame like other hopes might.
I have a lot of hopes.
I have some high hopes: I hope that the government oppressing North Koreans and threatening the world is dismantled without need for war. I hope that our country finds peace within itself.
And I have some more realistic hopes: I hope that our home in WV will sell next year. I hope that Jenni will get to be put on day shift.
And I have plenty of small hopes too: I hope it snows for Christmas. I hope for wind to come and blow all the leaves out of my yard so I don’t have to rake again.
But most hopes have the possibility of putting you to shame, especially how we use the word hope these days. We often use the word hope more like “I wish this would happen.” But hope, biblically is when you have a confident expectation in something yet future. I do have hope that our home in WV will sell and that Jenni will go to day shift. That the evil government in North Korea would dismantle itself feels more like a wish to me, but we’ll see.
But of course, I could be right or I could be wrong about all of that. My hopes could put me to shame.
However, the hope that I have and the hope that comes through Jesus does not put us to shame. God is faithful. He will keep His promises. And we have assurance of the promise of salvation through God’s love which is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us.
Our relationship with God and His love assures us that our hope is not a shameful one.
And our assurance in the power of God’s love is strengthened by this: while we were still weak (i.e., had no spiritual power whatsoever to save ourselves), Jesus Christ died for us – even when we were ungodly.
God’s love is unconditional – how else could the Son of God come to save powerless and ungodly people, if God’s love was conditional. And this kind of love is what is poured into our hearts, bringing us a hope without shame.
Verses 7-8 –
God’s remarkable love is compared to the love of man.
Even for a righteous person, it is not common that a person would choose to die. For most people, even for Christians – though it doesn’t have to be – death is a frightening idea. And selflessness and noble ideals might not hold up in a real scenario where someone good is about to die, unless you die for them.
You might try to rescue a righteous person, and so die in the attempt, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about you know you will die to save that person, not merely a risk. Could you choose certain death for yourself to save someone you knew to be a good person? Probably a lot of people think they could, but when the rubber meets the road, that’s a different story. However, perhaps there are a few in here who could do such a thing. I think many parents for their children would, at least.
But what about for an evil person? What if this person has murder in their hearts? And they lie, they steal, they’ve treated you badly, they’ve treated your family badly. They don’t say nice things to you. They stand for and do the things you hate. Could you die for such a person? I don’t know about you, but I will say with honesty that I don’t think I could. Not in a certain trade. Maybe if I saw them in a fire I might take the bold venture to rescue them. Maybe. But boy, choosing certain death for such a person? Beyond me. I’m sure when the rubber meets the road, I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it.
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
That bad person I just described: that was all of us. Before Christ, and even after Christ, we have harbored dark thoughts in our hearts, spoken lies, treated others badly, honored things that were evil, and said unkind things. We haven’t perfectly honored God in our lives, and prior to Christ, didn’t do it at all. We didn’t love Him. We ran from Him. Doubted Him. Probably spoke badly about Him and His Son. Took His name in vain. He said “be loving and pure” and we said “no thank you I will lust instead.” Complaining constantly, betraying others, despising God.
Sure, we weren’t Hitler or Kim Jong Un, we weren’t serial killers, but we certainly weren’t worth Jesus dying for us, that’s for sure! And yet He did. Even while we were still weak and ungodly. Such is the love of God towards us. Higher and greater than any human love on earth. Our hope will never put us to shame.
Verses 9-10 –
In these verses are three key terms describing what Jesus accomplished for us by His death, burial, and resurrection:
“justified” – to be held guiltless, to be accepted as righteous. Justified means our sin debt has been paid, and obedience to the law has been credited to our account. God holds us guiltless and accepts us as righteous. In God’s holy court, you have been vindicated and when God looks at you, He sees His Son’s righteous deeds.
“saved” – to be delivered from something bad. We are saved in a few senses. We are saved from the tyranny of sin, sins slavery over us. And we are saved from the wrath of God. We will not be punished by Him. The time changes here – we have been justified by his blood, we shall be saved by him from the wrath of God. The wrath of God will come in the future, and we have assurance that we will be saved from it on that fearsome day.
“reconcile” – to have our relationship with God restored. This comes about when we have faith in what Jesus did for us. Once we were the enemies of God and now we are His friends.
Jesus accomplished all of this by His death for us, how much more then shall we be saved by His life?
“He ever lives to make intercession for the saints.” He is in heaven praying for and defending us. He is watching over us, leading us, guiding us, and directing us. He teaches us and directs His angels concerning us. If we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son Jesus, then how much more shall we be saved by the fact that Jesus is alive today? He lives and He will be there when the wrath of God comes. We won’t be touched by it.
Verse 11 –
The salvation brought to us by Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and life leads us to rejoice in God through Jesus.
We have been reconciled with God, we can and do rejoice! Our confident hope in God, the assurance of His love in our hearts, the completeness of our salvation in Christ, and the fact that Jesus lives today, leads us to rejoice.
Christianity is more than a duty or a set of ideas. It’s an opportunity for joy.
*story of bus driver in middle school: “laughing is sin”*
It is OK, indeed the Bible encourages you to be happy. We have good reason to be happy.
*Goodness of God*
*Goodness of things He’s given us*
*Goodness of our relationship to Him*
*Goodness of our hope*
Sorrow doesn’t come over righteousness; sorrow comes because sin and death are in the world. If there were no evil, there would be no sorrow.
Joy is not God’s enemy, sin is. X2
*Facebook post from friend “I’d rather live my life free and go to hell, than live my life a slave and go to heaven.”*
– No, you just don’t get it at all if you think like that. Happiness and the carefree life are not found in sin. Sin leads to regret, family’s fighting, people feeling betrayed. Sin is a cancer in our universe which is the reason that everything, including us, decays. Living a life that is open to sinful acts isn’t a carefree and free life; it’s a life being destroyed by momentary excitement. Submitting to God and pursuing all the things that He calls good, that is true freedom. That’s where true joy will be found.
When someone says “I’d rather live my life free and go to hell, than live my life a slave and go to heaven.” What they are really saying is ‘I’d rather enjoy my life now and pursue my own interests than try to live by a set of rules that I find boring and unappealing.”
But here is the thing: if you find love, kindness, family, godly music, joy, and things like that boring and unappealing, then you have a problem. People who say things like that just don’t understand who God is and what God stands for. It’s the things that bring sorrow and destruction that God opposes, not good things.
And so, we Christians can rejoice in God. We have abundant reason to rejoice. If we aren’t rejoicing, it is probably because we have become distracted by a bad thing or are thinking incorrectly in some way, or worrying when we should be submitting our concerns to God to take care of.
We rejoice in taste, fresh air, beautiful sights, wondrous music, but above all – we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ who has reconciled us to the wonderful and good creator of all of these things.
Application:
Hope, love, and salvation give us Joy in God through Christ.