The last twelve days have remarkable. Like you I’ve been fascinated at how closely contested our presidential election has been. Can you imagine what the last twelve days have been like for vice-president Gore and governor Bush? On election day the networks first called Florida for Gore, then they said it was too close to call, then they called it for Bush, and then they said it was too close to call again. If there’s anything vice-president Gore and governor Bush haven’t experienced the last twelve days it’s a sense of assurance. Neither of them has been sure of much of anything.
Can you imagine what it would be like if our relationship with God was like that? Imagine if being right with God was based on some sort of voting system, perhaps our bad actions counting as "no" votes and our good deeds counting as "yes" votes. Imagine never knowing whether we’re going to make it or whether it’s too close to call. Imagine when we die and the angels meet us at the gates of heaven, some of the angels demand a recount, so suddenly all of heaven is mobilized for a hand recount of our good deeds and bad deeds. Will we make it? Well it’s still too close to call!
A lot of people think the spiritual life is like that. Because of this many people live under the constant uncertainty of whether they’ll make it or not. And like our two presidential candidates, these people experience no sense of assurance, no security.
I’m sure glad the Christian faith isn’t like our electoral process. Instead God offers people a sense of assurance about how they stand before him, and it’s that assurance I want to talk about today. We’ve been in a series since September through the New Testament book of Romans called GOOD NEWS FOR OUR TIMES. So far we’ve looked at Romans chapters 1 through 4, as we’ve explored the good news about God’s integrity. We’ve seen that the entire human race has joined in rebellion against our creator. We’ve seen that we can’t earn restoration with God; we can’t rely on being religious or rituals or ceremonies, but God invites us to come as undeserving people who find restoration with God on the basis of what Jesus did, not the basis of what we’ve done. Today we reach a major transition in Romans, as we move from the good news about God’s integrity to the good news about God’s love. This new section covers chapter five of Romans to chapter eight, and the theme of these chapters is how God’s love enables us to live the way we were made to live.
Today, in Romans 5:1-11 we’re going to find FOUR ASSURANCES GOD GIVES US WHEN WE DISCOVER HIS GRACE. We’re going to talk about these four assurances, and then we’re going to experience them together by worshipping and celebrating communion together. But let me give one warning about this section of Romans: We have a tendency to read these verses as individuals, as though Paul were only talking about my personal relationship with God. As 21st century Americans, we have a tendency to envision the spiritual life as a solitary life consisting of me and Jesus. This is part of the effect of the 18th century Enlightenment on American culture, and it’s shaped how we understand the Bible more than we realize. But the emphasis in the verses we look at today is on us as a community who follow Jesus together, not on me or you as individuals. In fact the singular pronoun "me" doesn’t occur once in this section, but the plural pronoun "we" and "our" occurs 24 times in the 11 verses we’re going to look at today. So the emphasis here is on the assurance we experience as a community as we worship together and follow Jesus together as a congregation.
1. Assurance Of Our Future (Romans 5:1-2)
The first two verses are a transition from chapters 1-4 into this new section about God’s love. The phrase "we have been justified by faith" (v. 1) sums up everything Paul’s said so far in Romans. Remember "justification" in Romans doesn’t mean making excuses or setting the margins on your computer word processor, but it’s a legal word that means to be acquitted or made right with someone. The human race’s alienation from our creator has been answered, and this answer is justification, where we as guilty criminals who have broken God’s holy laws are acquitted of our crimes.
Because we’ve been made right with God through Jesus, we now have peace with God. This isn’t talking about having peaceful feelings or tranquility, but an objective state of peace (Fitzmyer 395). Before trusting in Christ, we were at war with our creator, constantly asserting our independence from God with our words and actions. But when we’re justified, the result is a restoration of a relationship, a relationship of peace.
This state of peace opens the door to a whole new reality, a new reality called "grace." The terminology used in these verses was also used in ancient Greek to describe sailors had been at sea for months, yearning to see land again. Back then, before we had radios, global positioning satellite software and so forth, sailors basically relied on maps and luck. This same imagery was used in that context to describe what happened when sailors finally found dry land and were able to stand on solid ground once again (Dunn 248). Before receiving peace with God, we’re captive to tides of sin and waves of evil. But now when we’ve made right with God through Christ, we find solid ground to stand on, a solid ground called grace, a solid ground that finds ourselves in God’s favor. We’ve entered permanently into a new reality, this shoreline of grace, and now we stand secure, no longer tossed to and fro by our failures and sins.
And because of this new reality of grace, Paul says, "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." Notice again the word "we" here; Paul’s talking about us as a community, not me or you as individuals in isolation from each other. The word Greek word "rejoice" here combines the ideas of jubilation and confidence into one word to describe "joyful confidence" (Moo 302). The new reality of grace creates a surging confidence in God that wells up in joyful worship.
Our church vision statement says that we see worship as "celebrating Christ’s presence" among us. Each week we come to worship anticipating an encounter with God that’s life changing. That’s what Paul is talking about here: a joyful confidence in God where we stand on the shoreline of grace. Our joyful jubilance is focused on the hope of God’s glory.
And the glory of God here is our restoration to the purpose God originally designed us for. The Bible claims all human beings are made in the image and glory of God. Our rebellion against our creator obscured that glory, so now we fall short of God’s glory, failing to achieve the original design we were created to fulfill. So the hope of God’s glory is a confident expectation that God is restoring us to the position we were made for, that we’re back on track to fulfill the divine destiny God originally made us for (Dunn 249; Fitzmyer 396).
It’s in this final phrase of v. 2 that we find our first assurance. WHEN WE ARE RIGHT WITH GOD WE RECEIVE ASSURANCE THAT OUR FUTURE IS SECURE.
As we gather in worship each week, together we celebrate the fact that God is restoring us to the divine purpose he created us for. We’re a work in process--that’s for sure--but he’s changing us, shaping us, molding us, restoring us. We anticipate our restoration to God’s glory. We’re like an ugly table that’s discovered to be a priceless antique, and God is restoring us, stripping off the old, ugly varnish, sanding the rough edges. We can have confident assurance that this is what God is doing in our lives, that our future is as secure as an anchor.
But notice again the emphasis on "we" here. When a person tries to live the spiritual life alone--just me, Jesus and my Bible--that person will lose this sense of joyful confidence because it’s expressed corporately and experienced best in community. It’s only as we worship together, serve God together, build relationships together, and live as a community of God’s people together that this assurance becomes strong. When we try to do it alone our assurance fades. We need people around us who are in this same process to build the confidence that God is in the people restoration business.
Once we enter into the new reality of grace, we can be sure that our future is secure.
2. Assurance in our Suffering (Romans 5:3-4)
But our assurance doesn’t stop there. Look at vv. 3-4. Often painful problems threaten to crush our hope. Things like broken relationships, financial ruin, terminal illness, and life changing failures threaten shatter our hopes and drain our joy. You know what that feels like, and so do I.
But Paul says that even in the midst of these painful circumstances, we can find cause for rejoicing. We don’t rejoice because we like pain or we relish suffering, but we rejoice because we know what God is producing in our pain. Suffering produces perseverance. The word here for "perseverance" means "to bear up under difficult circumstances" (Louw and Nida 25.174) It’s spiritual fortitude that gets stronger in the midst of suffering (Moo 303).
Perseverance is the distance runner who keeps running despite the cramps until she gets her second wind; it’s the medical student who retakes the class after she’s failed; it’s the entrepreneur who starts another business even though his previous business failed.
This perseverance results in a tried and true character. The word for "character" here focuses in on the fact that it’s stood up to testing, like a precious metal that’s been refined by fire (Cranfield 1:262). And this tried and true character results in more hope, an even greater sense of confidence that God is restoring us to the glory he made us for.
You see, when we have the kind of knowledge Paul is talking about, our suffering actually becomes evidence that the process of restoration has already begun.
Just as an antique table probably doesn’t like being stripped of the old varnish and sanded, we recoil from the pain that comes our way. Yet it’s this very process that evidences the fact that our restoration has already begun. God is already stripping away the old stuff, sanding down the rough edges, and applying new coats of varnish to restore us to our divine purpose.
So here we find the second assurance. WHEN WE ARE RIGHT WITH GOD WE RECEIVE ASSURANCE THAT GOD IS WORKING IN THE MIDST OF OUR PROBLEMS.
Our problems become God’s tools for restoring us. But remember, this is talking about us as a community, not just me and you as individual Christians. Notice the emphasis still on the plural pronoun: "we rejoice" and "we know." When we isolate ourselves in the spiritual life, we have trouble remembering what this passage is saying. We need other followers of Jesus to remind each other that this is what God is doing in our problems.
A lot of people come to church to fix their problems. We come to church to find healing for our broken marriage or hope for a rebellious child or freedom from our addictions. But some problems have no solutions in this life. Some marriages never get better, some children never return, some diseases don’t get cured, and some addictions plague us for life. Christians don’t suffer any less than non-Christians.
Instead, the church exists to help us discover what God is doing in the midst of our pain. We help each other identify the rough edges God is sanding away; we help each other see the new finish God is applying. We remind each other that God is working in our problems, and that this in fact is evidence that we’ve entered into the new reality of grace. As a church, we have several ways to help you discover what God is doing in the midst of your problems. That’s really what our Stephen’s Ministry is all about. Our Stephen’s Ministers are trained volunteers who come beside church members who are going through painful circumstances to walk with them. They’re not trying to fix people or do counseling, but they simply walk as a spiritual companion to help people discover what God is doing in the midst of our pain. It’s interesting that a Christian psychologist named Larry Crabb has recently come to the conclusion that most of us don’t really need a therapist; we simply need spiritual friends who an help us see what God is doing in the midst of our problems. That’s really what our Stephen’s ministry is all about.
Now not everyone is going the kind of pain that calls for a Stephen’s Minister. Most of us are going through the normal problems that go along with real life. We deal with stuff like auto accidents, lost paychecks, unreasonable bosses, and so forth. For us, simply having authentic relationships with other followers of Jesus Christ reminds us that God is working in our problems. We can nurture these kinds of relationships by being in one of our church’s small groups or attending our Adult Bible Fellowship.
When we’ve entered into the new reality of grace, our problems provide proof that God is restoring us.
3. Assurance of God’s Love (Romans 5:5-8)
Next Paul begins to zero in on God’s love, which really serves as the theme for all of chapters 5 to 8. Paul describes two different components of love here: the subjective and objective components. The subjective component of love is our actual experience of God’s love. Paul says we actually experience God’s love when we enter into this new reality of grace. When our feet are on the solid ground of grace, God floods our lives with his love by giving us the Holy Spirit. The word "pour out" here means "to cause to experience fully" and it has the idea of abundance and fullness. Like life giving water is poured out on parched dessert during a storm, God drenches our hearts with his love when he sends his Holy Spirit to live in our hearts. This flood of love starts the moment we trust in Christ, and it continues flowing for the rest of our lives.
But the objective component of love is what anchors our experience into reality. This objective component of God’s love is Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. God demonstrates his love by allowing his son Jesus to die on the cross. We’re amazed when a person gives up his or her life for a good person. We memorialize people who sacrifice their own lives for other people, whether it’s a child, a spouse, a combat buddy, whatever. We honor police officers and firefighters who lose their lives in the line of duty, and so we should. But God goes even further than that, because God demonstrates his self-sacrificial love by sending Christ before we even considered returning to God. The cross of Jesus Christ is the timeless objective proof of God’s love (Dunn 256). The cross anchors our experience of God’s love in objective reality, and when we’re not feeling love, we simply look at the cross to be reminded.
Here we find our third assurance. WHEN WE ARE RIGHT WITH GOD, WE RECEIVE ASSURANCE THAT GOD LOVES US NO MATTER WHAT.
Once we enter into this new reality of grace, God’s love floods our hearts and the cross of Jesus takes on new meaning. We feel God’s incredible, unconditional love, and we see it when we think about the cross.
Notice again the emphasis on the corporate nature of this assurance. It’s not "my" heart but "our" hearts together that are flooded with love. It’s not just "Christ died for me" but it’s "Christ died for us." It’s as we are living in community with other followers of Jesus Christ, worshipping together, giving together, serving together, bearing each other’s problems together that we come to appreciate this incredible love. We experience God’s love far more in community than we do in isolation.
This is why we celebrate communion each month, to remind each other of how the cross is the ultimate expression of God’s love. When we enter into this new reality of grace, we receive assurance that God loves us no matter what.
4. Assurance of Reconciliation (Romans 5:9-11)
This leads Paul to picture our new relationship with God in a new way in vv. 9-11. Since Jesus has enabled us to be right with God by dying on the cross, how much more will we be saved?
Paul’s saying that if we’re right with God now, then when God’s judgment on the human race finally comes at the end of the age, we can be sure that we’ll be safe and secure. Then in v. 10 we find a new way of describing our former condition outside of grace. Not only were we powerless, ungodly, and sinners, but we were also enemies of God. Because all humans have locked their arms together in revolution against the creator, the entire human race has declared war on God. We declared our independence from what we perceived as God’s tyranny over us, and as a result we became God’s opponents, enemies of God.
But through Jesus, God has provided reconciliation. While "justification" was a legal term to describe a guilty criminal being acquitted of his crimes, the term "reconciliation" is a relationship term that describes former enemies being brought together in friendship. Because "reconciliation" comes from the realm of friendships, people didn’t use this term to describe people’s relationship with God because it was considered too arrogant and boastful to think of God being our friend (Moo 311).
God has abolished what stood in the way of our relationship, he broke down the enmity through the cross. So now we’re God’s friends, if you can imagine that.
Here we find the final assurance. WHEN WE ARE RIGHT WITH GOD WE RECEIVE ASSURANCE OF GOD’S FRIENDSHIP.
Why on earth would the creator of the universe, the God who made the galaxies, want to be our friends? It’s too amazing to even think about, too ridiculous to even consider, yet this is the very thing God has accomplished through Christ.
We’re going to sing a new song this morning called "Redeemer, Savior, Friend." Now I can think of God as our Redeemer, the one who delivers us from our slavery to sin, who breaks the power of addictions and failures, the one who sets us free. And I can think of God as Savior, the one who comes to our rescue when we’re drowning in our own failures. But to think of him as Friend defies logic, to think of him wanting to enter into a personal relationship of sharing, of give and take. Yet once we enter into this new reality of grace, we receive assurance that God sees us as his friends, as incredible and unbelievable as it sounds.
Conclusion
I’m so glad our relationship with God isn’t like our electoral process. We don’t have wait for recounts or supreme courtroom rulings. God invites us to enter into a new reality, the reality of grace, and we enter into that new reality by trusting his Son. Once we enter into this new reality, we receive assurance: Assurance that our future is secure, assurance that God is working in the midst of our problems, assurance that God loves us, and assurance that God sees us as his friends. The Bible pictures this life of assurance as a corporate life, a life of the congregation worshipping, serving, learning, growing, and so forth. As we exist in community we experience these assurances in our lives, celebrating them, sharing them with each other, joyfully anticipating what God is bringing about. But as we separate ourselves from community, as we get our priorities out of whack because of business of life, and as we find ourselves trying to live the Christian life in isolation, these assurances begin to wane and falter.
When World War II ended in 1945 there were a handful of Japanese soldiers in the Philippines who didn’t believe the war was over. One of those solders was a guy named Hiroo Onoda, who had been the commander of an elite group of Japanese guerilla soldiers. When the war ended, American airplanes dropped leaflets through the Philippine jungles that said, "The war is over. Come down from the mountains." But Onoda thought it was a trick, a disinformation campaign, so he stayed in the jungles…and for thirty years he didn’t come down. It wasn’t until 1975 that Onoda finally was convinced that peace had finally been established and the war was really over.The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ mark the decisive victory in the human race’s rebellion against the Creator. Through that death God offers us terms of peace, access to a new reality of grace that we’ve been talking about today. God created the church to be a living witness, a new community that embodies this new reality of grace, so when we worship, service, and love together we reflect this new reality to the rest of the world.
But many people in our culture today are like Hiroo Onoda. Some have never heard what Jesus Christ accomplished, and still others think that it’s too good to be true. So they stay huddled in their caves of sin, powerless to change themselves, captive to their sins and failures, without hope. Some of you here today have never come out of your cave of rebellion and entered into the new reality of grace by placing your faith in God’s Son, Jesus. And for whatever reason you’ve found yourself here today, among a congregation of people who are filled with assurance, a community that has entered into the new reality of grace. You feel awkward, because you know that many of the people around you have experienced something you haven’t. I want to assure you that you’re in the right place, that this is a church for people like you, for people to hear about this new reality of grace. Come out of your cave today, and join us by faith, so you too can find solid ground through Christ. Stand with us accepted and assured, full of assurance that comes as a free gift of God.
Don’t be like Hiroo Onoda and let your war keep waging for another 30 years.
Sources
Cranfield, C. E. B. 1975. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Publishing.
Dunn, James D. G. 1988. Romans. 2 Volumes. Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 38 A and B. Waco: Word Books.
Fitzmyer, Joseph. 1993. Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible Vol. 33. New York: Doubleday.
Moo, Douglas. 1996. The Epistle to the Romans. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Schreiner, Thomas. 1998. Romans. Baker Exegetical Commentary. Baker Book House.
Stott, John. 1994. Romans: God’s Good News for the World. InterVarsity Press.
