The purpose of the daily grind Romans 5:1-5
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now 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.”
The experience of salvation can be summed up in these three sentences, we are justified from sin, all of us will experience some form of tribulation and yet, we have the hope of heaven and all that entails. And it’s this hope that keeps us faithful.
I We’ll begin with justification.
Romans 5 is Paul’s explanation of justification and in the first eleven verses we’ll see the basis of our justification while in verses 12-21 we find that justification is the source of tremendous blessings in this present life.
If there were one word that could sum up the message of Romans it would be the word "justified." Justify was a courtroom term and it means "to render a favorable verdict or to vindicate." And here as I said it means to "be acquitted or pronounced and treated as righteous." So, when someone is justified, he is not only declared to be righteous but he actually becomes righteous because he receives the gift of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.
The problem is, many of us get hung up on the word justification because it’s not a word we use every day. Justification simply means that someone has been declared just or righteous. It is a legal term that means a guilty person has been acquitted. I think of the thief on the cross who was the last person saved while Jesus was on earth. The thief was dying on a cross and he couldn’t do anything or give anything or even share a word of testimony. If anyone could be considered hopeless from a human standpoint it was him; but Jesus saved him and listen, he was just as saved or justified as you or I.
You see, justification means that the guilty have been declared righteous in the sight of God. This means that when I arrive in heaven either by death or rapture my life will no longer have the trappings of my sinful past; but I’ll be clothed in righteousness.
I like how John Piper describes it,
“When you look up into the sky on a clear night you can see what is called the Milky Way, the name of our galaxy. It has about 200 billion stars in it. You can see maybe a 40-millionth of them on a good night. The disk of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across (about six hundred thousand trillion miles) and 2,000 light years thick. Our sun will take about 200,000 years to make a circuit. And besides our galaxy there are, some estimate, 50 million other galaxies.
Now, the God we are talking about made this universe with a simply command. He spoke and all the galaxies came into being and He holds them all together by the word of his power. This God is so great that any attempt to portray his greatness falls infinitely far short. But what we can see and feel is this: that if such a great God is angry at us, and has such indescribable power to back up his anger, then we are in the worst of all possible conditions. Nothing could be worse than to be opposed by the wrath of infinite power.”
And the only hope that any of us have is if God provides the way of reconciliation, which He did, when His Son Jesus paid the price for our sin on Calvary. And the really good news is that He not only saved us but sanctified or declared us to be holy. And the result is, we have absolute peace with God and He is no longer angry with us because His anger was poured out on Jesus at Calvary.
So, when someone repents of their sin and receives Jesus as their Saviour, they’re fully justified whether they’re served Him fifty years or repented on their deathbed.
I like Paul’s verb tenses in the first verse because he speaks as though everything is in the past. He says, “having been justified by faith, we have access by faith into this grace.” In verse 3 he says, “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations.” So, because we’ve been justified, we’re recipients of God’s grace and He gives us the strength to endure whatever tribulations He allows us to go through.
Paul has just spent the previous chapter talking about Abraham, who was the father of our faith and we’re told that Abraham was declared righteous by God not because of his "works" or anything he did but because he believed God. And because Abraham was declared righteous by believing God, we can do the same.
Righteousness is not something we do but it’s something we receive. That is why it is called a “gift” in the Bible. We don’t earn gifts or they’re not gifts but gifts are simply and thankfully received.
Another interesting aspect of righteousness is that it’s perfect and that tells us that we can’t grow in righteousness because it’s perfect. We can grow in faith and we can grow in love but we cannot grow in righteousness because once we accept Jesus’ free gift of salvation we become as righteous as we will ever be. Listen, no matter how bad you messed up yesterday or last week, you are still the righteousness of God today.
Listen to two verses from Hebrews, Hebrews 10:10 says, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” And then in Hebrews 10:14, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” So, if God through Jesus’ sacrifice has made you holy and perfect then nothing and no one can ever take that away.
I love the words of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 where Paul says, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
Verse 11 gives all of us hope because it says, ‘And such were some of you.” You see, faith is not given to the holy and self-righteous but to those who were saved from sin. I’m not saying we all have had to wallow in the depths of filth and immorality but we need to realize how sinful we really were. I believe that since we were lost in sin that if we lived long enough, we would all be capable of the most filthy sins imaginable, but “we were washed, but we were sanctified, and we were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
And the way we receive our cleansing is through faith and our faith is in Jesus and all that He’s done for us. Faith is hard to explain but there’s also a simplicity to it as well. It’s impossible to understand for someone who is convinced they have no reason to believe but it’s easy for anyone who’s consciously reaching out in faith.
Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Simply put, the biblical definition of faith is “trusting in something you cannot explicitly prove.” This definition of faith contains two aspects: there’s intellectual assent and trust. Intellectual assent is when we believe that something is true. Trust is actually relying on the fact that the thing we believe is true. A chair is often used to help illustrate this. Intellectual assent recognizes that a chair is not only something to sit on but it’s been designed to support the weight of anyone who actually sits on it. But trust is actually sitting on the chair.
I was visiting a lady from our church in the hospital one time and she told me her roommate was having a terrible time because she was afraid, she was going to die. I asked her what she said to her and she said, “I told her she needed to just have some faith.”
Biblical faith is never faith in faith, as if we were believing for the sake of believing because faith can never be stronger than the object on which it rests. Since our faith rests on the Lord Jesus Christ, the essence of our faith means we’re committed to following Him wherever He leads. Sometimes this means He might lead us where we would rather not go.
In Hebrews 11 we have what’s called the faith chapter and it lists all kinds of people who’ve done great things for God and in this chapter, we also see men and women who were living under tremendous pressure, often with the whole world against them; but they lived by faith in the God who cares.
The problem is, we often get hung up on the first part of the list like Enoch, Noah, Joseph, Moses or David and we have a tendency to put them in the category as being super spiritual. And when we do that it’s easy to assume that the life of faith is restricted to certain very “unusual” people. We assume we can never be like them because they weren’t like us but listen, they were made of the same stuff as we are.
Listen to the last half of the list where the people were ordinary and nameless. It’s in verses 35-39, “Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mocking’s and scourging’s, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise.”
These were people through the ages who lived and died for their faith.
Listen, anyone can believe when the sun is shining, when we have lots of money in the bank, when our surgery has been successful, when our marriage is going well and our kids are well behaved. But it’s much harder to believe when the economy doesn’t look so good, when one of our children is sick or in total rebellion or if we lose our job. We need faith in God all the time and not just when things are going our way.
I was just reading in the book of Daniel about his three friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego where these three refused to bow down to the image of King Nebuchadnezzar. When they were told they were going to be thrown into the fiery furnace, they said “If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
It really gets me where they said, “But if not” because they were saying, if God wants to deliver us that’s great; but if it’s His will for us to die here, then so be it. They were completely trusting God to deliver in whatever way He wanted.
Faith that is never put to the test is only theoretical. We can say we believe but it’s only when our faith has survived the flames of trial that we know it’s real.
I had pastored for about fifteen years and constantly preached about the need to have faith in God, because I believed He not only loves us but wants what’s best for us. And then one day, my faith was really tested.
I had been having problems for years with my blood pressure but none of the doctors I had visited could understand the problem. After many doctors and various medications for blood pressure they finally discovered my kidneys were diseased and during an exploratory test to find out how bad they were, my kidney was punctured and they weren’t sure if I was going to live through the night.
I knew what was going on and yet, I felt totally at peace. I remember saying to the Lord in the intensive care unit, “I’ve had a great wife and two good kids, I’ve also had a good ministry and if it’s all over then I’m ready to go.” And I rolled over and went to sleep.
Many people seem to agree with the little boy who said, “Faith is believing what you know isn’t true.” Or they think faith is the opposite of rational thought, as if faith is nothing more than positive thinking or wishful dreaming. But faith is simply taking God at His word.
I had just done a funeral and was visiting with the family afterwards when a young woman approached me and she pointed to a cross around her neck and she said, “See, I believe in the same thing as you.” Somehow, she thought that wearing a cross was an expression of her faith. If all your faith is, is some kind of belief that gets you through the day then you don’t have faith at all. James 2:26 says, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead."
I’ve had people say to me, “I admire your faith. I wish I could believe the way you do.” But what they really mean is, I wish I was as simple as you because then I could blindly accept theres a God and that He has a purpose for the universe.
Some who profess faith are a like the White Queen in Alice through the looking glass. "I can't believe that!" said Alice. "Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
That's how many see faith, isn't it? Faith is what you resort to when you run out of evidence; it’s the epitome of wishful thinking.
But listen, our faith is not blind faith at all but our faith is rooted in the word of God. Through faith we simply see God's word in a way that the non-Christian never can. And if we’re not in the word every day then our faith will always be weak.
If you don’t read your Bible and pray every day then Satan has you exactly where he wants you. You see, scripture is nourishment for our souls and prayer is our only method of defence.
I remember when I first got saved and wondered how much time I should spend reading the Bible and how many people should I be praying for and I started reading Christian books to find out what famous believers had done. I read about Martin Luther and John Knox and others God had used to shake the world and found out some of them got up at three or four in the morning and spent several hours searching the word and praying and I decided, I was going to do the same and the next morning I got up at five A.M. and sank to my knees in prayer; and I’ve got to admit, that was the most uncomfortable position I’ve ever slept in.
So, the big question many of us have is, where do I start and I always tell people to start simple. Start with five minutes in the Bible and pray for three people.
I shared this with a friend one time and he said, I’m going to do something better than that; I’m going to memorize the entire gospel of Luke and he got down to verses 3 or 4 in the first chapter and then he quit. And then he decided he was going to write out his own copy of the New Testament and he started again with the book of Luke. He wasn’t a very fast writer but he got about half way through the first chapter before he quit. You see, what he really needed to do is what we all need to do and that’s to start simple and grow. Start with five minutes and then pray for three people.
Now, if you’ve never read the Bible before, start with the book of John and when you read it; underline every word that Jesus says and then when you’ve finished; go back and just read the words you’ve underlined. This will get you familiar with Jesus and what He has to say.
And if you’re like the rest of us you’ll find reading the Bible grows on you. In the beginning is the medicine stage where you do it because it’s good for you; and then it’s like bran flakes, it can be dry but nourishing and then it becomes like dessert and you can’t wait to get some more. O.K. so, read it every day for five minutes.
And then pray for three people. Pray for their spiritual needs, pray for their health and then pray that they’ll do well at work, at school or whatever they do. And listen, if you don’t make a little list of people and things to pray for, I’ll guarantee that your mind will go blank and you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that you’re not the praying kind. Prayer is a discipline and a list will keep your mind from wandering.
And as you grow in the faith, you’ll find yourself praying for your family, your friends, your pastors and hopefully for a few non-Christians as well and then don’t forget to pray for your own needs as well.
And you also need to find the right time for you; which is not to say you can’t pray anytime but if you don’t pick a specific time then you’ll end up with no time at all. For some people, it’s in the morning and for others it’s just before they go to bed. No matter when you do it, like Nike says, “Just do it.”
Do it, when you don’t feeling like it, when you’re sad, when you’re busy, when you’re tired, when you’re feeling good, when you’re stressed, when you’re not motivated, when you’re on vacation, when you’re not sure and especially when you find yourself making excuses to avoid praying…just do it.
And listen, the Bible says, people prayed kneeling, standing, sitting, lying on a bed, face down on the floor or like Jonah in the belly of a whale. So, whatever helps you feel you are expressing a sense of humility before God; do it.
So, first read you’re Bible and pray and then second, you need to be a witness for Jesus Christ because that’s the one job He gave all of us to do. Jesus said, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” And that’s an interesting saying because if we were fishing for fish, the fish wouldn’t want to get out of the water because that’s where fish are comfortable and if we’re fishing for men; that means we’re actually trying to save them from drowning.
The best way to explain the gospel to anyone is to simply share what happened to you. Tell them how you heard the gospel and what affect it had on you. Some might believe and be saved and others might say, “Well, that’s just how you see things.” But listen, we aren’t responsible for how people respond; we’re simply responsible for sharing it.
So, first we need to have personal devotions; and then second, we need to be witnesses of our faith and third, we need to be faithful in fellowship.
As Hebrews 10:25 says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." God tells us that we need to get together for fellowship if for no other reason then there’s sense of encouragement as we see others who are enjoying the same faith and enduring the same struggles we are. Listen, sitting at home listening to a service on the radio or watching it on television is great if you can’t get out but there’s no substitute for fellowship.
I think the greatest example we have is the Lord Jesus; in Luke 4:16, it says, "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read." Did you get that? It says, ‘as was His custom.’ The synagogue was the Old Testament version of the church and that was where Jesus was found every Sabbath.
Listen, God gave us the church so, we can come and learn how we can be useful to Him, and the church is also the place where we support missions which is how we reach out to the rest of the world.
So, there’s personal devotions; and then there’s the need to be witnesses and then the need to be faithful in fellowship and then finally, we need to be faithful in giving.
I know that as soon as I mention money some people get turned off because they think, that’s all the church wants, just another name on the roll and another offering. But listen, the Bible mentions money over 800 times and in all of Jesus' parables, more than half of them speak about money.
As a matter of fact, when Jesus spoke to a religious crowd in Matthew 23, He said: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. (and then get this, He said) You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” In other words, you should have tithed while showing justice, mercy and faithfulness. One wasn’t to be a substitute for the other.
I remember the first year I was saved and I heard a sermon about honoring God with our tithe, which simply means giving Him ten per cent of whatever He gives us.
I was a new believer working part time at a Bible store and my job was in a back room where I rewound and cleaned Christian films that had been rented to churches. I was only making about forty dollars a week.
This preacher was encouraging us to put the Lord first in our lives, beginning with our money and he showed where the scripture taught time and time again how we need to tithe. Well, I was convinced that this was something I needed to do and I fully intended to do it; but not until I was making a lot more money. In the next couple of days, the Lord worked on my heart and convinced me that if I wasn’t faithful in the little things then I wouldn’t be faithful in the big things either. I remember saying, “Lord, I’m only making forty dollars a week and it’s costing me more than that to live.”
Well, I wrestled with this for a couple of days and then on Sunday I put four dollars in the offering plate and do you know what; I’ve never given it a second thought since that day. I have been tithing and then some ever since and God has always provided much more than I’ve ever needed.
I heard a sermon, years ago about the parable of the Good Samaritan and in this parable; the priest and the Levite had the attitude, "What's mine is mine and I'm going to keep it!" The thieves had the attitude "What's yours is mine, and I'm going to take it!" But the Samaritan was the one Jesus commended and his attitude was, 'What's mine is yours, and you can have it." The fact is, "Everything we have belongs to God; we are simply stewards of all He’s given us and one day we’ll give account of everything we’ve been entrusted with.
So, whether you have devotions or not; that’s between you and God; whether you tell others about Jesus and what He’s done for you, that’s totally up to you and whether you join a church and support the work of the ministry that’s completely your business. But if you really want God’s blessing on your life then you need to be obedient to the things, He makes clear in His word.
So, we’ve been justified by faith but that doesn’t mean we’ll never have problems because not only do we still have a sin nature but we’re living in a sinful world and as long as we’re here we’re going to have trials and tribulations of one form or another.
II Tribulations
“3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now 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.”
So, we’ve been saved by the grace of God and there’s nothing we could have done do to save ourselves and there’s nothing we can do to keep our salvation either.
I’ve led a few people to Christ on their deathbeds and I never knew if they were sincere or if they were just covering the bases knowing they were about to die. If they’re repentance was genuine then the Bible says they’ll be in heaven.
So, salvation is absolutely free but Paul tells us that each and every one of us who live for Jesus are going to experience some kind of tribulation in life. And in verse 3 he encourages us to glory in our tribulations. The word glory means to rejoice or to boast in something. This doesn’t mean we need to walk around with a big stupid grin on our face but we are to see our circumstances as part and parcel of the will of God.
In Acts 16:14-40 we see Paul and Silas in jail and many assume they’re tied to a rack but rather than feeling sorry for themselves they set their minds on praising God. Their praise was a testimony not only to the other prisoners but when God miraculously freed them, He used their message to reach the jailor and his family as well.
A true believer will have his focus set on God and learn to praise Him even in difficult times because he knows God has a purpose for everything that happens; and that He will use all of our circumstances to contribute to our grow and maturity in Him.
The good news is that tribulation is never an end in itself but as verse 3 says, “we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts.”
Martin Luther wrote that "Whatever virtues tribulation finds us in, it develops more fully. If anyone is carnal, weak, blind, wicked, or proud tribulation will make him more carnal, weak, blind, wicked and irritable. On the other hand, if one is spiritual, strong, wise, pious, gentle and humble, tribulation will make him more spiritual, powerful, wise, gentle and humble."
John MacArthur said tribulation has the underlying meaning of being under pressure and was used of squeezing olives in a press in order to extract the oil. In scripture tribulation is most often used of outward difficulties, but it can also refer to emotional stress as well.
In John 16:33 Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
In all of our lives, tribulation can come in different forms. Some might suffer for preaching the gospel while others might experience health problems, financial stresses, problems in the home or the workplace while others wrestle with emotional problems. Tribulations can come in many different forms but they will come.
The Greek word for tribulation means to be burdened, troubled or under severe stress and we all experience some kind of tribulation in this life.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not despairing. We are persecuted, but not forsaken. We are struck down, but not destroyed." So, tribulation comes to make us not to break us.
We tend to forget the purpose of tribulation that in verse 3 where it says it produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope and our hope is in the love of God which has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
So, tribulation may not be pleasant but it’s part of the process of spiritual growth because it produces character and this results in hope which gives us a positive perspective on life because we know that God loves us and has a reason and purpose for everything that happens.
Listen, when we get excited about our tribulation, we defeat Satan’s plan because he wants nothing more than to see us struggling in defeat; but when he sees us praising God it takes away the only power he has.
I heard of a young believer who asked his pastor to pray for him because he felt he needed to be patient. They knelt down together and the older man began to pray, “Lord, send this young man tribulation for breakfast, problems for lunch and suffering for supper.” I’m sure the young guy thought that’s not what I wanted but this was exactly what he needed.
Here are three good examples of handling pressure from nature. First there’s the teabag and someone said, “People are like teabags; you never know how strong they are until they’re put in hot water.” When we place a tea bag in hot water, it’s still a tea bag but the hot water reveals what was in it. Or think of a Rose Petal, it’s nice to look at but when it’s crushed it gives off a beautiful scent. Or even a water-saturated sponge, if we push down on it, water runs out and we can see what was inside. So, God uses tribulation in our lives but He also knows how much we can handle and He carefully measures any tribulation that comes our way. The good news is this section doesn’t end with tribulation but with hope.
III Hope
So, the reason we can rejoice in our troubles is because we know their purpose is to help us to grow in faith. We don’t realize it but God every irritation in life to teach us perseverance and perseverance produces character and character produces hope. Hope means “a strong and confident expectation.”
Our concept of hope is far superior to that of the world. The worldly crowd will say, “I hope it doesn’t rain. I hope my favorite sports team wins or I hope I get a raise.” They’re simply wishing for the best but our hope is based on the promises of the Word of God.
Conclusion
Dennis Fisher wrote, “One of my earliest childhood memories was watching snails in our backyard flower garden. I was fascinated by this little creature with a shell, a slimy little tummy, and tiny eyes that turned like periscopes. But what really seemed unusual was how slowly a snail travels.
How slow does a snail go? One study clocked a snail at 0.00758 miles per hour—or 40 feet in one hour. No wonder we use the phrase moving at a snail’s pace to mean “slow.”
Although a snail does move at a “sluggish” pace, one virtue it does possess is perseverance. The great 19th-century preacher Charles Spurgeon wryly observed, “By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”
According to Paul, tribulation produces perseverance and God’s plan is for all of us to be persevering in the faith. Someone said, “Faith, at its core, is deep-rooted in the expectation of good things to come.”
