6.12.22 Romans 5:1-5 / Trinity Sunday
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God. 3 Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, 4 and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. 5 And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.
There’s Beauty in the Complexity of the Trinity
The Trinity is a complex and yet a simple doctrine. Three Persons. One God. How can this be? We don’t know, but we still believe it and profess it. It’s what separates us from the Jewish religion and the Muslims. Yet it’s so much more than just a doctrine. God describes each person of the Trinity in a unique way, a way that makes us appreciate what each person of the Trinity does. In today’s text Paul draws this out for us.
When we think of God, we initially think of POWER. Most people would agree with that. God is powerful. It’s that power that trips people up, because power brings responsibility. People look to you for help in times of trouble. Think about the responsibility that comes with being President. In response to the Uvalde shooting many people were saying that they wanted government officials to “do something.” So President Biden and other government officials went to the mike and vowed to do something about the school shootings. But then you get to the question of what exactly you want them to do. If they try to do too much, it usually ends up infringing on our rights. If they do too little, then they run the risk of being accused of not caring. The first one to blame usually ends up being the President, even though he may not have much he can do in the situation. He’s supposed to be limited in his power. He’s not supposed to make the law. That’s the legislation’s job.
God is not limited in His power. He can do anything He wants, this is true. But He still respects our humanity. He doesn’t over-rule our decisions - good or bad - by divine fiat. Yes, the God who walked on water can upend the laws of nature, but He usually tends to let the world roll according to the laws He set in place. So if bad people want to do bad things, He usually lets them. He lets us be evil and do harm, simply warning of the Final Judgment. This is what angers people about God. When you listen to the atheists of today, you sense a lot of anger at God as they describe death and destruction in our world. George Carlin was a popular comedian twenty years ago who used to go off on God for how bad this world was. If He’s all powerful, then why doesn’t He use His power to stop wickedness and sin and death in this world? It’s because of this that God has an uphill battle in order to win us over and save us when we are born with a natural anger at God because of His power.
Paul shows us what the Triune God does to win us back. (And that’s a neat thing in and of itself. God doesn’t NEED us in order to complete Himself as God. Yet He chooses to do His work in order to get us back.) Look at the last verse of this text. Paul writes that, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.” Paul pictures us as an empty vessel that is lacking love, but in other verses he shows how it’s even worse. We are filled with anger and hate towards God. So God comes and pours love into our hearts, the seat of our emotions, in order to conquer our hatred of Him.
The verb “poured out” reminds me of baptism, where water was used in the name of the Triune God, and the Holy Spirit was given to us. The Holy Spirit is just full of love. So when the Holy Spirit is poured into our soul, God’s love is poured into our hearts, the seat and center of our emotions. There are some people in life who are just very loving people. They smile a lot. They give out hugs. They will bend over backwards for you and act so happy to see you. Those are the type of people who make you happy to be alive. They are so nice that they make it almost impossible to hate them. When the Holy Spirit moves into our souls, He brings love. But this love is not just an emotion or a feeling. This love is connected to Jesus. You can’t have the love of God without Jesus.
What did Jesus do that shows us love and gives us love? Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus created a way for us to be declared “not guilty,” to “justify us.” In love, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world. God blamed Jesus for our sins and found a way to pay for our sins, by putting on flesh and dying in flesh. So the Holy Spirit points us to Jesus on the cross and says, “God doesn’t hate you. God loves you. He sent His Son, Jesus, who went through this awful sacrifice for free, for you. You don’t have to earn it. Believe it, and be at peace with God!” This love of God gives us the peace of knowing our sins are paid for. God isn’t holding a grudge. God already made a judgment. He declared Jesus guilty, and in so doing declared the world NOT guilty.
The Muslims don’t have this Jesus, so they don’t have this love. They believe Jesus got down from the cross prior to His death. As a result, their religion is a system of do’s and don’ts, admonitions to submit to Allah and kneel before him. That’s it. The Jews who reject Jesus don’t have this mercy and forgiveness either. They have shadows of forgiveness in their rituals, but no actual mercy. Only Jesus gives us a gracious and merciful God. Get rid of the Trinity and you get rid of Jesus, and then you lose salvation and grace, and you no longer have love. Even though Jesus died for all and God wants to be gracious to all, many don’t get it because they don’t want Jesus.
So it’s interesting how Paul writes this. Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. Paul pictured grace as a place in which we stand. Think of trying to gain access to a house or a hotel room, or maybe even a bank vault. You need a key or a code to get into it. You can’t break in. When you’re in the house you can lock the doors and feel safe and lie down to sleep at night. You can turn on the air conditioning or the heater. The house that we live in is grace. It’s a place of undeserved love, where we enjoy God’s gifts of forgiveness and mercy and salvation.
What’s it like to live in grace? Imagine winning a contest and being invited to a party of someone rich and famous. There’s a group of people over here, another group of people over there. You get there, but you don’t really feel like you fit in. So you go in the basement and just kind of hang out down there because most of the people at the party are much more popular and well to do than you are. Whereas you were excited to go at first, you soon felt out of place. That’s not how the house of grace works. We all realize we are unworthy to be there. There are no distinctions and there is no jealousy, because we are all just beggars saved by the same grace. Once we’re in, we are all treated like family, no matter where we came from. We all realize that none of us deserve to be there, so we’re happy to see anyone and everyone in there.
How do we get in? Jesus creates an access point, a porthole of sorts, through which we gain access to grace. The Holy Spirit leads us to the cross of Christ and says, “Here is your free ticket into grace. Come on in! The Father welcomes us. The cross has broken down the wall of sin between you and God. Jesus died for the world. Jesus died for all sinners. That includes YOU. Come on in!” We enter into God’s grace through faith. We don’t have to earn our way in or prove ourselves worthy to enter. The very nature of grace makes it impossible to enter by works.
What do we do now that we’ve been admitted into God’s grace? We rejoice confidently. Paul says it twice. We rejoice confidently. We have a hard time doing that in a sinful world. When the Packers were beating the Seahawks in the NFC Division championship game back in 2015, there was about 3 minutes left. My son texted me that they have a 98% chance of winning. I still wasn’t ready to celebrate. Sure enough, the unthinkable happened. You never know what can happen in life. That’s how some people view God. “I hope I’m saved. But I’m just not sure. I won’t rejoice until I get there.” That’s not how God wants us to think. He is GOOD with His Word and promise. He doesn’t lie. When it comes to God’s grace, we don’t have to worry about His grace failing or God changing His mind. He wants us to rejoice even now.
How? We rejoice confidently for two reasons. 1. on the basis of our hope for the glory of God. What does that mean? When Jesus raised Lazarus He said that He was showing them the “glory of God.” If you see someone in all their glory, it means you see them in their beauty. What could be a more beautiful thing than having God smile at you and say, “Welcome home”? This is our hope as we live in a sinful and dying world. Since Jesus already died and was raised from the dead, God promises us that ALL of our sins are paid for. He promises us that Jesus sits at the right hand of God yet today and intercedes for us. He promises us that whoever believes and is baptized WILL be saved. Not MIGHT be saved, but will be saved. We can rejoice CONFIDENTLY, because Jesus already completed His work. Even though we sin daily, we are still saved by grace, not works. Someday we will see the glory of God in heaven, and since we live here and now in God’s grace, we know we will be admitted to heaven because of God’s grace. So while we wait in grace, we rejoice confidently. Grace gives us confident joy.
There’s one more reason we rejoice confidently. Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, 4 and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. Living in grace doesn’t mean that we live without pain and suffering. It’s the exact opposite. But by grace we learn from our suffering. We learn patience. We learn endurance. We learn to stick with it. Suffering toughens us up and enables us to focus all the more on God’s grace and mercy, going back to the cross again and again, praying to God for strength. Grace gives us character. It keeps us from becoming entitled and fickle in our faith. We don’t give up at the first sign of trouble. We still live at peace, no matter what the circumstances, knowing God has us in His hands. We rejoice even in suffering because we know that God has a good purpose in it, to make us stronger in the faith. Instead of giving up, we become all the more hopeful as life becomes worse and worse. The Holy Spirit speaks to us and says, “Don’t panic! You’re loved. You’re still forgiven. Keep praying. Keep clinging to Jesus. Keep waiting. It will all become clear in the end.” We know that there’s an end to it, and we wait for it patiently. Grace changes our entire outlook on life and death.
Just recently America was exposed to a behind the scenes look at how Johnny Depp and Amber Heard used to live. It wasn’t pretty. By the eyes of the world these two were beautiful people with beautiful lives in a beautiful house, but the trial exposed their house was anything but beautiful. It was an ugly place to live, filled with anger and violence.
When you enter someone's house for the first time, you might be nervous. Are people welcoming you? What does it smell like? Is there a place to sit? Do you feel safe or in danger? I think there was an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry went to his girlfriend's house, but she had a bunch of cats and her place was full of cat hair. He didn’t date her too long after that.
A lot of people can say, “I believe in God.” We live in His house that He created. But we don’t like what we see down here. There are people suffering and dying down here. It stinks sometimes. It’s dangerous down here. So some assume that if there is a Creator, He must not care or He must be evil. They never find out who the true God is, and they die in despair. So they refuse to look at the Bible and find out more about Him.
Today Paul opens up to us the beauty of the complexity of the Trinity. It’s more than just a doctrine. God the Father sends the Son to die for the sins of the world. The cross gives grace, an undeserved love and forgiveness that we have in Christ alone. The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and shows us the love of God in Jesus. The Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, work together within Himself to bring us into His house of grace. This house is full of forgiveness, mercy, and hope in the death and resurrection of Jesus. As Paul describes for us the work of the Triune God, he brings calm and love and peace and forgiveness as we live in the grace of Christ. It’s a happy place to live, a confident place to live, in peace. Amen.
