6/13/21 Romans 5:1-5 “From Suffering to a Better Life!”

10 Jun 6/13/21 Romans 5:1-5 “From Suffering to a Better Life!”

6/13/21   Romans 5:1-5      “From Suffering to a Better Life!”

I have been reading a book about the early history of this country from a Christian perspective.  I read that one of the reasons the Jamestown settlement failed was they lacked God in their lives and community.  They had a miserable time and most of them died.  The settlers to the north in the Plymouth area faired much better.  Oh, they had it tough also and many died due to many things.  But they did one thing that they didn’t do at Jamestown.  They prayed.  They always had church.  Like it or not, this country was built upon the teachings of Jesus Christ.  When the pilgrims were in their darkest hour, out of the woods came a Native American who spoke English.  He helped them in many ways and helped keep the peace among everyone for a long time.  It has been an interesting read.  Anyway, this got me to thinking about just how spoiled we are in today’s world.  We take so many things for granted.  We have food.  We have healthcare.  We have every modern convenience.  We even have churches.  Unfortunately, most of them are near empty because they are not teaching the basic tenets of Jesus Christ.  Unknown to just about everyone, we have spiraled downward into the quagmire of the Jamestown mentality.  We don’t need God.  We don’t want God.  We are greater than God.  Unless we change our ways, this country will go the way of the first Jamestown settlement.  But the good news is that all is not lost, yet.  Jesus Christ is the great miracle worker.  He can save us yet, but He needs your help.  Today we are going to look at some really good news in Romans.  Let’s see if we can have our faith and hope in the right place.

Joel Pankow tells us that true peace, faith and hope with God comes to us when God says to us, “you are one ugly person. I can’t stand to look at you. Your breath stinks, you’re out of shape, and you aren’t worthy of me. Here, take this outfit of righteousness – put it on. Keep it on. Take these works of my Son. Take this holiness of Christ. Take this faith from the Holy Spirit. Take this love. Let me love you.” When we realize that God loves us as a gift of mercy and accepts us based on Christ, it gives us true peace. It’s kind of like when you get married to a fellow Christian. You both vow to stick together with one another for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, til death do you part. If you both take your vows seriously, there’s some permanence there. It means you can kind of let your hair down around one another – relax. There’s something comforting about being able to be grumpy around my wife, voice my innermost thoughts around my wife. We’re committed to each other, and we don’t sweat the small stuff and it’s all small stuff. Standing in the grace of God – in a similar way – is a completely liberating experience. It’s as if all the pressure to be here in church – to die – to live – is lifted from us – when we’re saved by grace. If God married me by grace, then He’ll keep me by grace. Even though I’m still am a sinner, I don’t have to fear that God is going to reject me for one slip of the tongue or one evil thought that crosses my mind. He won’t reject me if I’m overweight, if I’m grumpy, or if I have an attitude problem. By faith He still accepts me even if I’ve been divorced, committed adultery, or even parked in a handicapped spot. I don’t have to understand women like James Dobson does. I don’t have to be as confident as Tony Robbins. I don’t have to be as happy as Richard Simmons. If He married me because of Christ, He’ll keep me because of Christ. That’s what grace and forgiveness are for. That’s what peace is all about. Our God is a perfectionist – but He’s a gracious and forgiving perfectionist.  Please remember this in your life.

I would like to begin by talking about how you can have peace because you have been justified.  What does this mean?  I’m going to try to keep it simple here because we can get bogged down in terms like justification and sanctification.  Basically, what this means is that if you are justified by God, then you have been saved.  It is the moment you were saved.  That is basically all this term means.  Technically, this is all this means but personally it means much, much more.

I remember when I first came to Jesus.  When I was justified.  When I first became saved.  I will never forget how on top of the world I felt.  It was the greatest feeling I’ve ever had and I’ve had some good ones.  It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  If you are someone who has already come to Jesus, then you know this feeling.  I want you to think about how it was when you first came to Christ.  Hang on to this for the next few moments.  If you don’t remember when you first came to Christ because it was so long ago, then just remember how much you love Jesus.  If you have never invited Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, then do so now.  Also try to remember the best you have ever felt in your life.  No matter how good it is, it will never be as good as when you first come to Jesus.

This is because when you are saved by faith, you suddenly have a new life.  The old one is gone.  Physically, you are the same, sort of.  When I first came to Jesus, I remember that I could stand straight for the first time in my life.  All my burdens, all my troubles, all my anxiety were taken away.  They were replaced by the hope of Jesus.  I wouldn’t trade this life I’ve had in Jesus for the last 30 years for anything.  Nothing comes close.

This is part of God’s grace for you.  There is nothing you can do to earn this.  You can spend your life working for the church and you will not get one iota of grace for all your efforts.  It’s hard for us to realize this.  In this country, except for the modern communist movement, we have been raised to work hard for everything.  It is very hard to stop this mental attitude and let Jesus take over.  But by all means let Jesus take over.  You will never be the same in a very good way.

So, we have this faith in God.  He in return gives us His grace in all things.  Stay with me here.  This, in turn, gives us hope.  It is the hope of the glory of God.  This means that everything in the Bible is true.  You will have a place in glory, heaven, that is so unbelievable that we cannot even begin to describe it.  You will have the very being that made everything in the universe as your best friend, your leader, your spiritual guide.  Everything you could ever hope for is right there in the form of Jesus.  When you live your life like this, then it just doesn’t get any better.  Do I hear an Amen!

Before we go on here, I would like to clarify what this is because there are some of you who might be saying something like this.  “That is just fine, Pastor, but I’m still having lots of problems.”  Maybe you don’t have a job.  Maybe your health is really on the blink.  Maybe a loved one has died.  There are many things that happen in life that we surely don’t want to celebrate.  No matter who you are or what you do, life still happens.  Satan is still in charge of this world and bad things will happen.

We are told here that we are to glory in our suffering.  I think that this is one of the hardest passages in the Bible.  How in the world are you to find glory when your whole world has just fallen apart?  Being a pastor, I have found many people where this has happened.  We have go back to what I just said.  This is life.  I have also found very few people who find glory in these tragedies when they are happening or just happened.  When you are in the very middle of such a terrible downturn, it is very hard for you to see the glory.  That is why you should pay close attention now when you are not in deep crisis.

Now is the time to learn to find glory in all situations so that when bad things happen you will eventually find your way through it with Jesus Christ.  I have found very few people who can do this in the middle of a crisis.  However, I have found many people who find the glory after the crisis.  What I’m trying to say here is that you need Jesus to hang on to while the crisis is happening.  You do this through prayer or a Scripture or a real Christian friend.  Then when everything passes, you will see where God has worked here, there, over yonder and everywhere while you were suffering and unable to notice.  It is then that you will find the glory of God and you will be rejoicing.

You need to do this because every time you do, you gain perseverance.  I hope you are beginning to see this flow a little.  Suffering produces perseverance.  Perseverance produces character.  One of the things parents like to do is to protect their children so they don’t have to suffer. I think that this is just a natural thing to do.  But we all know that we cannot protect them from all suffering.  I used to work with teens at the churches and I loved it.  However, teens are very good at creating their own suffering.  As they go through this phase, they seem to go through crisis after crisis.  Mostly, these crises are only for them and no one else.  When they get older, they will see that there never really was a crisis but that is a whole other thing.  Many of them condemn themselves to these minor crises and they suffer for it.  And it’s real suffering.  Other teens don’t do this as much.  All of this produces perseverance which in turn produces character.  It seems that God made them this way so He could build their character.

Even as adults we go through many crises which can cause suffering and then more character.  Here’s a quick question for you.  Are you the same person you were 10 years ago?  20 years ago?  30 years ago?  Physically you sort of are but not spiritually or even mentally.  Whether you know it or not you have been shaped by suffering.  Whether you like it or not you are who you are due to suffering.  We may not like suffering.  We may even hate suffering but it is very important as to who we are.

So, we have suffering, perseverance, character and all this produces hope.  Isn’t God great?  All this ties together for your good.  One of the things we strive for in life is hope.  Do you remember the first time you were on your very own?  Maybe you were in college.  Maybe you were just married.  Maybe you were off in the army or navy or air force for the first time.  You wanted hope and the suffering you had brought you to hope.  We suffer the carnage of wars in the hope that we can have a better world.  God is always there to offer you hope in any and all situations.

But this offer doesn’t last.  Do you remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke?  The rich man was burning up in the heat from hell.  Across a great chasm from him was Lazarus who was in the luxury of heaven.  This great chasm cannot be crossed.  You will either end up in hell or heaven and there will be no communication between.  It was too late for the rich man.  But Lazarus had to hold on to his suffering which gave him hope and he ended up in the right place, heaven.  This is where Jesus wants each and every one of you.  He wants each one of you to know right now that this hope for a future that is far, far beyond good is yours.  Hang onto it with both hands.

I don’t know if you have ever noticed this or not but when God gives us good things, it seems like they never end.  He gives and gives and gives.  Just when you think He is done giving, He gives some more.  Well, here we go again.  We started all of this with suffering or maybe something else that isn’t pleasant.  We ended up having this awesome hope that could only come from Jesus Christ and what He did.  We should know that Jesus is never done and He isn’t done here yet either.  He has poured out His love for you through the Holy Spirit.

This means that this hope you have will never disappoint you.  That is because you have God living right inside of you right now.  Jesus has given you the Holy Spirit to help you, to love you as never before.  If you have the Spirit living in you, then you can have the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. This is how I can say that you don’t even know what love is without Jesus, through the Holy Spirit living inside of you.  The same can be said about any of these fruits.  People who don’t know Jesus as their personal Savior, say they have these things but what they have isn’t even close to the real deal from Jesus.

I have given this challenge to some of the churches where we have served.  I would like you to go to Galatians 5:22. Here is the fruit of the Spirit.  I know that none of us has a full tank of these fruits.  We could all improve.  In your prayer time, pray for one of these fruits that you seem to be lacking.  Keep praying on it for several weeks.  When you start to notice a difference, then move onto another fruit.  You will be surprised as to what happens.  I have had people tell me about how their lives were changed and always for the better.

And that is what the whole Bible is all about.  It’s about you having a better life.  It’s about Jesus showing you the path to His side and in heaven.  You have a God who loves you so much that He makes it so easy to come to Him.  Please don’t hesitate.  Join with Jesus today and begin a most wonderful journey.  He is waiting for all.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.