Right with God - Romans 5

If you've been with us over the last few weeks, you know, we're in a series looking at the book of Romans and we're asking the question, how are we made right with God? And we've gone on a bit of a journey over the last few weeks. We stepped through the first four chapters of the book of Romans and in this we've seen chapter one, Paul sets the scene for why he's bringing this up at all. He says all humanity is trapped in sin and needs to be rescued. In chapter two, he extends and he said that includes everyone, including the religious people.

Everyone falls short. In chapter three, we looked at where that rescue actually comes from. Paul says rescue has happened through Jesus, through his death and his resurrection, and that is what makes us righteous. And then he extends that and shows us the purpose for why that's being done. In chapter four, it's so that God can create this multi ethnic family based on faith, people from all nations coming together.

And now we're invited into this new family of people. We're invited to become part of something so much bigger, a whole new way of life. This is a what sometimes people call a new humanity that we're living in. And this new way of life, it stems from a new reality. A major event has happened.

There's been this permanent transition. It's one that Chris told us about this morning during communion. There's this major event is the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And the new reality that people are living in, it's one where they know now that they are justified by faith. Those first four chapters were building towards making this point.

Justified by faith creates this new multi ethnic family of believers. And so this teaching that we are justified by faith, this is a central pillar of Christianity. Justification means that when we believe in Jesus, we're made just. It's as simple as that. We become completely acceptable in God's sight.

We're treated as as if we are a perfect person. Right? And that answers the question that the series posed at the start. How are we made right with God? And this is how Paul puts it back in Romans 3:22, he says we are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.

And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. And so in the following chapters, in five to eight, as the chapters we're going to cover in the rest of this series, Paul wants to show how this new reality should shape every part of our existence. And what he starts off with and what we're going to look at this morning in chapter five is how faith brings joy. One of the ways that justification by faith shapes us is that it should bring joy. And what brings joy or happiness.

This is an interesting thing to think about and this is where I want to start. Before we get into the verses in chapter five, you might have heard of the World Happiness Report. This is issued by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. And it does seem to make headlines every year when they reveal who's at the top of the charts, who's got the highest ranking, what are the happiest countries to live in. And so I've shown you there just the top five countries that are on the list.

Finland seems to top this list year after year, at least I think the last five years in a row. Australia, they're coming in pretty Strong at rank 15. Good on you, Australia. This is actually pretty remarkable. There's 147 countries on the list, by the way.

So, you know, people living in Australia are considered to be living in a happy country. And the findings there, they're based on these six criteria. So they're listed there in the columns for you. There's social support, there's levels of gdp, the Gross domestic product, essentially a measure of how wealthy a country is. There's life expectancy, freedom, generosity, things to do with corruption.

And what this is telling us is that things like a high income, a long life, those social support networks, they contribute to a person's sense of wellbeing and by extension they make you happier. And that's a good thing, you know, to have that sense of well being, to have that happiness in your life, those are good things. But the problem is that this is based on things that are not always within our control. It's based on finite and temporary things. And so some of those things actually depend on the actions of other people.

And just because you live in one of those countries doesn't guarantee you're going to be happy. So you can lose your health, your finances can disappear, you might lose significant people in your life. Happy circumstances come and go. That's just a reality of life. And so as we get into Romans 5, what I want you to see is that Paul has discovered a different source of joy.

It's one that isn't based on the finite or the temporary. It's one that isn't based on happy circumstances. So let's read it together. I'm going to start. In chapter five, verse one, he says this.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ, our Lord, has done for us. Because of our faith. Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand. And we can confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory. So if you've been following along in our series on Romans, Paul makes the point that this point that you'd be familiar with by now, it's that we are made right with God.

We are justified by our faith. And he makes it again here. And that faith gives us two important things, he says. One is peace with God. So Jesus helps us to see that actually we were once at war with God.

This is an idea that Paul was making way back in chapter one. He says, the whole world is trapped in this cycle of hurt and injustice and we all contribute to it. And that causes hostility between us and God. But when we put our faith in Jesus, that hostility is removed and there's peace. We receive peace from God.

That's one thing that faith gives us. The other is joy. Paul says because of our faith, we also have joy. And that joy comes from an interesting place. It comes not from our present circumstances, but from looking forward to.

To the future, specifically to a time when we will share in God's glory. So he's talking about that future time when heaven and earth are reunited. This is a place we get to experience the fullness of God's presence and power. It's a place free from death and suffering, a place of purpose and belonging. I think this would be like a really beautiful place.

Because of our faith, we joyfully look forward to that time. That's what Paul says. And in this he's given us a different source of joy. A different source of joy. One that comes from our hope in God's love and promises.

And if that's the case, Paul argues that joy should then persist throughout our life, even in suffering. He goes on to say this in verse three. We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials. We know that they help us develop endurance, and endurance develops strength of character and character, our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment.

For we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

So verse three. There Paul says, we can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, right? We can have joy in the midst of suffering. The Amplified puts it like this. It says, with joy let us exalt in our sufferings and rejoice in our hardships.

It's the sense that we can feel triumphant even in suffering, that we can have a sense of joy even in distress, in the face of pressures and troubles. So Paul isn't talking here about enjoying something that's painful, that the source of the joy is not in the problems and the trials themselves. The source of the joy is knowing what God's going to do, right? God is going to develop something in us. God is bringing about something good despite those bad circumstances.

And Paul describes a bit of a progression here. He starts off by saying that the problems and trials will develop endurance in us. So the more we experience the stresses of life, the greater the capacity we have to keep going. Patience and perseverance, they're being built up in us. And the suffering is making us stronger.

It's making us more able to persevere through the next trial. And I think naturally, actually that's not the case, right? Problems and trials tend to have the opposite effect on people in this world. Problems and trials, they produce irritation. There's a cynicism about the world, a pessimism about the future.

But here Paul is talking to people who are justified by faith, right? They're living in this new reality where they have a hope for the future and they know that God will come alongside them through their problems and trials. That's the difference here. From there, Paul talks about endurance, developing a strength of character. So the amplified says there that this is a proven character.

This is a spiritual maturity. In other words, by enduring those problems and trials, the authenticity of your faith is revealed. Those that truly believe they are justified by faith and they're living in this new reality, it brings with it this ability to endure, and it will refine them. It will refine them. So think of one Peter once said, and that's a good example, it says, these trials will show your faith is genuine, is being tested as fire, tests and purifies gold, the strength of character that's being developed, it's like gold.

It's being refined by the fire. The trials, they're burning away all those other qualities that are not of God. Things like that, irritability, the cynicism, the pessimism that might otherwise result from those trials, they're getting burned away. And from that strength of character, the third part there is we strengthen our hope of salvation. So if you think about all the things that we would otherwise put our hope in, those things like we talked about at the start, the good health, the good job and the income, other people in our lives, problems and trials, they have A way of proving that those things aren't worth putting your hope in.

But those things often do let us down. But out of a strength of character, a spiritual, we see a spiritual maturity. So we start seeing more clearly that the one thing that won't let us down, that doesn't change is God's love and his promises. That's what you should take from this. And throughout this process that Paul describes here, I think it's important to point out that he's not describing stoicism.

People sometimes, I think, mistake the Christian response to suffering to be stoicism. You know, to the Stoic, detachment is the ideal. It's a fault to become involved with afflictions, problems, hardships, especially those of other people. The Stoic says, don't let it get to you. Don't break down.

Just don't care about those things so much. And so to be a stoic, you're required, I think, to destroy the part of your heart that cares for things. And so I think I've seen Christians adopt a similar thinking to this sometimes. I've seen Christians talk like they have some sort of immunity to suffering, right? I've heard people say things like, when you come across hardships, just praise harder.

You know, you're never sad, you never feel down if you're a Christian. But that's. That's not the Christian response at all. You don't ignore or suppress your sorrow. I don't think that's helpful or necessary.

And those views don't fit with other biblical examples that we have. I think Job is actually a really good example of that. He suffered. He lost his health, he lost his family or everything he owned. He lost everything, right?

And in response, he rips his clothes, he shaves his head, he falls to the ground, he mourns. He mourns for those things. He was full of so much sorrow and pain. And it says in that through all this, Job did not sin. So his expression of sorrow and anguish, it wasn't sinful.

So Job, good example, he wasn't a stoic. So coming back to these verses, verses three to five, there, Paul's point here is that we can rejoice because problems and trials are not purposeless. And we can see God using those experiences to develop something important in us. It's something that leads to a strengthening of our hope in salvation and perhaps because allowing suffering at all seems at odds with a good and loving God. In what follows in the next verses, Paul makes the case for how we can know with certainty that God does In fact, love us despite the suffering we might experience.

So continuing on from verse 6 says this. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though some might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. So Paul's making an interesting contrast here between human love and God's love.

And he makes the point that we can comprehend someone's dying to save a good person, right? Someone we're close to, someone who's from our own family, someone we might think is a righteous person. You know, that's. That's a huge sacrifice to make. Yes, but it's one that we can understand that makes sense.

That's human love. That's human love. Loving those that love us back, that's normal, but it's also limited. It's also conditional. But dying for someone who isn't good, who might even be our enemy, that's not something people ever do, right?

Paul is saying, actually that's what God did for us while we were still sinners, creating this hurt and this injustice in our world. He chose to die for us, right? Jesus died for his enemies, for people who were not righteous, who did not deserve to be saved. And Paul says he came at just the right time. Just the right time.

He didn't wait for us to improve. He didn't wait for us to repent. Actually, while we were still at our absolute worst, he died for us. And this is hard to comprehend, I think, you know, Paul is describing here a love like no other. It's limitless, it's unconditional.

It goes so far beyond what we have, a frame of reference for what we've experienced in this world. And Paul says if God would do that for us, then we can know for certain that we can trust in his promises.

Verses 9 to 10 it says this. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son, while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son. So now we can rejoice, rejoice in the wonderful new relationship with God who, because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. So if Jesus was willing to die for us while we were still his enemies, then there should be no Doubt that he's also going to come through to save us.

Paul's kind of saying here, the hard part has been done. Jesus took on all that hurt and the injustice in the world, and he let it kill him. And I don't know what that would have been like, what that would have cost, but that should give us confidence as we look forward to the future. And not only that, but in the present moment, we now get to experience a new relationship with God, one where we calling God our friend. That's the new reality that followers of Jesus are living in.

And again, it's something that Paul says should bring joy.

So at the end of this, where we're given a clear understanding of what biblical joy is all about, Paul is essentially saying this. He says joy. It's an attitude God's people adopt not because of happy circumstances, but because of their hope in God's love and promises. And Paul's given us a lot of examples of God's love and promises in these verses. He reminds us that Jesus, death and resurrection have allowed us to have peace with God.

He reminds us that we get to look forward to one day sharing in God's glory, even in problems and trials. God is developing something important in us, a strength of character and a maturity. He reminds us that we get to experience a new relationship with God here in the presence. We get to call God our friend. All right, so Paul is saying that those things are so amazing, they're so fulfilling, they're so transformative that they should bring us joy.

They should bring us joy. And so take note there of what ties all of those examples together. All of them are about what God has done for us. None of them depend on our circumstances. And at the start of this, we did look at the things that people normally look to for joy and happiness.

You know, things like having money, being healthy, or having freedom, the kinds of things that are good to have. But they're finite, they're temporary. And Paul has discovered here a different source of joy, one that isn't based on the finite or temporary. It's based on what God has done for us. And that's why Paul talks about having joy even during suffering.

Right? That's sometimes a really hard thing to comprehend, having joy even in suffering. But if joy depends on God's love and promises, then it can persist even in the harshest of circumstances. It's a kind of joy that can never be taken away from us. And so for you this morning, this is something that I'd like you to deeply consider and Meditate on is that joy is the sign of and mature Christian.

This is a. This is a call this morning for you to reflect on your baseline attitude and ask, am I joyful? Am I joyful? Paul gives you here a way to test that. He says that even when you encounter problems and trials, you should be joyful and take a moment there just to reflect on how problems and trials have shaped you.

Do you find yourself becoming more irritable, more cynical, more pessimistic about things when you come across trials? Paul says that for the mature Christian, those problems and trials should be building something else in you instead. An endurance, a strength of character, hope. And if you're thinking that those things aren't being built within you, Paul also shows you here how you can get that, how you can build that in yourself. He says, think about how utterly amazing it is that you were made right with God through your faith in Jesus.

You were justified by your faith. Meditate on that future where you're going to share in God's glory. Thank God. Thank God for that new relationship that you have with him, where you get to call him your friend. What Jesus has done for you can never be undone.

And no matter what circumstances you're in, that future day of his return, it's still coming, right? There is nothing on this earth that can take that away from you. And that's why joy can persist. Even in hardship, your circumstances, they don't get the last word. The injustice that you've endured, the loss that you've suffered, it doesn't get the last word.

Even the things that you've done, the hurt that you've caused, the mistakes that you've made, that doesn't get the last word either. Jesus does. Jesus does. And he says that for you there is forgiveness, there is salvation, there's hope, there is a future. So my word to you this morning is focus on those things.

Meditate on them. Think deeply about what they mean. Because I know that through that, joy will mark you as a Christian. Let's pray.

Dear Lord, I just want to thank you so much, Lord, that we can have joy. I want to thank you so much, Lord, for those amazing things that you have done for us, your love and your promises in our lives. I want to thank you, Lord, that you have made a way for us to be saved through Jesus, death and resurrection. We're justified. We're made right with you, God, because of our faith in Jesus.

I want to thank you, Lord, that you have made a way to end that hostility, that you bring us peace in our lives. I want to thank you so much, Lord, that you call us a friend to the president, Lord, that we would look to those things, that we would think deeply about what those mean and how transformative those things are in our life, Lord. And I pray that if we're not feeling it this morning, Lord, if we're feeling like joy is a distant place, Lord, that you would help us to come to that place through the power of your Holy Spirit, Lord, living inside of us, that you would just open our eyes, open our minds, Lord, to understand what it means and also open our hearts so that we can feel it, Lord, that it actually changes how we behave and how we act, Lord, that we have this baseline of being joyful even in the midst of suffering, even in the midst of hardship. Lord, I pray that in your name this morning, Amen.