A New Hope

Our scripture reading for this morning will come from Romans chapter 5, verses 1-5.

Romans 5:1–5

! If you don't have a Bible, it will be up on the screens.

There are also some Bibles in the back if you want to grab a hard copy.

I didn't write down what page it's on, but Romans chapter 5, verses 1-5.

Romans 5:1–5

Romans chapter 5, verses 1-5.

Romans 5:1–5

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through Him we also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

And hope does not put us to shame,

because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us.

This is the reading of God's Word.

We are talking today about hope.

And I just think that song captures so much.

The psalmist that wrote that was capturing so much of our condition of so many times a situation feels like,

God is not even there.

Has He hidden His face from me?

And we just recall to mind who God is and what He's done for us.

And that gives us hope.

Today we're talking about hope.

So we're taking a break again from Ephesians.

Next week, Corey will be back, and we'll be picking back up in chapter 5.

But today we'll be discussing, really, this passage.

As I was trying to think about what to preach on,

I've been reading a book called The Hiding Place,

which is the biography of Corrie Ten Boom, if any of you familiar with that.

And just the hope in the midst of suffering in that book,

along with just some other things.

So I work with uni students,

and you may have heard some statistics about how mental health in uni students,

where they are today.

And there's a statistic that would say that over 40% of Gen Z battle with depression

and feelings of hopelessness.

Over 40%.

And so these things are just on my mind a lot.

And this passage in Romans chapter 5 has actually just been a big personal help to me

Romans 5 · chapter mention

in times when I feel like I need hope.

There is actually a global foundation that has been tracking hope,

what they would call the Hope Index.

Since 2014, it was a global project, and then it included studies here in the UK.

It assessed various dimensions of hope, like expectations for a better future,

one's ability to, or perceived ability to achieve that future,

and the motivation to overcome challenges.

Then COVID happened, and newer studies started happening based in the UK.

There's a company called 5654 and Company

that started publishing statistics in 2022 on the Hope Index.

And again, it started really with COVID as they were trying to measure where people are.

And all this is found in the Office for National Statistics here in the UK.

These newer studies that began in the UK,

they suggested that fluctuations in hopelessness were influenced by factors like economic conditions,

political developments, and societal changes.

So coming out of COVID, the numbers were like below 40% of people felt hopeful for the future.

And today that number is closer to 66%.

It's a massive jump in just a few years.

And one of the things I think this tells us is just as human beings,

we view hope in light of our circumstances.

If things are going well, we're more hopeful.

If things are going bad, we feel less hope.

But that's not the biblical view of hope and what Jesus has for us.

So we come to this passage in Romans chapter 5,

Romans 5 · chapter mention

where we're talking about, Paul is talking about sufferings.

And look what he says in verse 3.

He says,

But we rejoice in our sufferings.

Rejoice in our sufferings.

This is one of those times where you're like,

Paul, have you lost your mind?

What do you mean rejoice in your sufferings?

Now, my wife and daughter will tell you that I'm prone to hyperbole.

Okay?

And a lot of ministers, we'll just call it out,

we can be prone to hyperbole.

Dramatic effect sometimes.

Sometimes it's just, that's what we're feeling and thinking,

is this what Paul's doing?

Saying, like, he's just being super spiritual and saying,

we rejoice in our sufferings?

To be quite honest, this sounds like something someone would say who hasn't suffered.

You know what I'm saying?

Are you out of your mind?

But we know Paul is one of those people that suffered a ton.

I mean, in fact, he has different places in Scripture

where he talks about some of the suffering he's gone through.

And one time he casually just throws in there being shipwrecked.

Doesn't say much about it, but just shipwrecked.

And I was thinking about that.

Do you know how scary that would be to be shipwrecked?

Shipwrecked?

Back in those days, there's no Coast Guard.

There's no radar.

People aren't coming to help you.

Shipwrecked.

I mean, he faced anything from physical suffering

to emotional suffering with planting the churches

and trying to be a minister.

This is a man who knew suffering extremely well.

And he's saying that we rejoice in suffering.

That word rejoice,

some of you may have translations of your Bible

that actually translates the word to boast.

We boast in our sufferings.

Now, that seems like a weird word.

It kind of has a negative connotation.

And our vocabulary to boast is like to highlight one's successes.

Right?

But in a sense, what Paul is saying

is that suffering can highlight what God is doing in our lives.

It puts a spotlight on different things

where God is going to say,

I am there, I am with you, and I am working.

For those who are in Christ,

it is not to our shame that we're suffering.

But instead, it is a place that God walks with us

through these things.

So he says,

We rejoice in sufferings.

When we suffer, we know that God is up to something

and that we are assured it is for our good.

And then he goes on to explain what he means.

But we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance.

Okay.

Suffering produces endurance.

All right.

Endurance.

It means a patient steadfastness.

We might even describe it as someone that's solid.

He's really solid.

Or she's really solid.

Meaning they're not just blown and tossed by the wind.

It's a steady ability to persevere through the storms.

A few Sunday nights ago,

we talked about give us this day our daily bread

and how that can even be a little bit of like coming to God

and just saying,

Give me exactly what I need to make it through today.

That's when we do that day after day after day

through suffering,

it produces this perseverance and endurance

that provides a steadfastness to our lives.

I mean, even the world would say something like,

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Right?

I mean, so even some general wisdom,

kind of,

we can see this a little bit,

that through suffering,

I learn to endure.

I learn to persevere.

It's like, okay,

I've seen that to be true.

I'm listening, Paul.

Maybe you're not crazy.

Suffering produces endurance.

And then he goes on to say,

And endurance produces character.

This word character is a really interested word

that it basically means that you've been tested

and approved to be true.

It's this idea,

the same concept of the refiner's fire

where metal is heated up

and the impurities are taken away

so that what's left is more pure.

That's the same idea here.

Something that is tested and approved.

So he says,

As we endure,

character is built.

As I endure,

I become a deeper,

weightier person.

As I endure,

there's more substance to me.

A person of character.

It's like, okay,

this is making a little sense.

As we endure,

it produces a maturity.

A person of substance and weightiness.

And then he says,

And character produces hope.

As I grow and mature,

I learn to hope.

Now this word hope has the idea

of a confident expectation.

It's not like wishful thinking,

but this is a confident expectation.

Now one of the things that we can be tempted to do

is we can be tempted to look at our lives

and say,

All right,

suffering is not going away.

This problem hasn't necessarily gone away.

I'm not promised that it will go away.

So how can I have a confident expectation

if I can't be assured that the problem will go away?

Well, hope says that we know there is a future

that God is working for our good.

A confident expectation,

not a wishful thinking.

And one of the things that we also,

like as I was studying this passage,

every commentator that I read,

every sermon that I listened to,

everyone agreed that Paul is not talking about

the hope of heaven

or the hope of when Jesus comes back.

That is certainly true.

But he's talking about hope now.

He's talking about that now in Christ,

having been declared righteous,

it says in verse 1,

justified by faith,

we have peace with God

and access into this grace in which we stand.

It's talking about now.

We have hope now.

No matter how hard life is,

no matter how great the suffering is,

we have hope now.

All right.

Many of you have faced suffering before

and you're like,

all right, time out.

Stop right there.

I have learned that the more I hope,

the more disappointed I'm going to be.

So I've learned,

this is the quote we say,

I'm not going to get my hopes up.

Right?

I'm not going to get my hopes up.

We put this self-protection on

where it's like,

yeah, if I just,

if I'm hope,

hoping is kind of like for those people

that want to bury their head in the sand

and avoid reality.

And we start letting that dictate the way

that we view truth.

But look at the next verse.

It says,

a character produces hope.

And then Paul says,

and hope does not put us to shame.

One translation says it does not disappoint.

You could also translate it as,

hoping does not dishonor us

or disgrace us.

In other words,

we're not going to look like a fool by hoping.

That's a promise that Paul is giving us here.

We don't have to be afraid to hope.

We don't have to worry about getting our hopes up

because they're just going to be dashed.

Nothing's ever going to happen the way

I think it should happen.

We start letting our experiences dictate

what we believe is true and not.

But this passage tells us

that we don't have to be afraid to hope.

We don't have to hedge our bets.

We don't have to try to minimize losses

and disappointments by self-protection.

That is not what God teaches us.

How?

How does hope not put us to shame?

How do we,

how is like hoping,

really hoping,

deep down hoping,

not going to make me look a fool,

not feel like an idiot?

Why was I believing that would happen?

How can we believe this?

Look at verse 5.

And hope does not put us to shame

because God's love

has been poured into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit

who has been given to us.

Because God has poured His love

into our hearts

by, through the Holy Spirit,

we don't have to be afraid to hope.

When it talks about God's love here,

it's talking about

the knowledge of God's love for us.

We know God loves us,

therefore we can have hope.

This word poured out,

the good old King James version

says shed abroad.

It's this idea of love being gushed out,

poured out liberally.

It's one of the things that

a lot of commentators

really put their finger on

and says,

this is not just little sprinkles of love here,

but this is an inundation

of God's love for us.

God has poured out His love

into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit.

This word here

about God's love being poured out

through the Holy Spirit

is the same word used

in Acts chapter 2

Acts 2 · chapter mention

when it talks about

the Holy Spirit

being poured out on the church.

This incredible pouring out

and gushing out

inundation of God's love for us.

That is what we can experience

in our hearts

when we recognize

who God is

and what He has done for us.

The Holy Spirit

helps us to experience

God's love for us.

That everything the Bible says

about God's love toward us

is true.

So if we're walking

with the Lord

and walking in the Spirit,

God's love for us,

that knowledge,

will just be poured out

into our hearts

and we will understand

experientially

how much God loves us.

Now, many of you may be like me.

I had a friend one time

that said this

that I thought was very insightful.

He said,

because of how my parents loved me,

I don't really have a hard time

understanding that God loves me,

but I do have a hard time

believing He likes me.

I do have a hard time

believing that I don't just

disappoint Him all the time.

Paul is telling us

that the Holy Spirit

has been given

to each one of us

to help us know

that God loves you,

He likes you,

He wants you in His family.

He's not looking for an excuse

to kick you out.

And because of this,

we can have hope.

As we meditate on God's love for us,

what He did for us in Jesus,

what He does for us

on a daily basis

because of His character.

I mean, just even as we were

praying earlier,

it was just praying

like the very air we breathe

is because God loves us.

The rain we'll experience

later this week

is because God loves us.

Our atoms don't rip apart

within us

because God is holding them together

because He loves us.

Are we convinced of that?

And if so,

you don't have to be afraid to hope.

You don't have to self-protect

and hedge your bets.

I can believe that God loves me so much

that whatever I'm going through,

He is working on my behalf

right now.

A lot of times,

suffering can feel like

He's abandoned me.

Even the psalmist said that.

Has God hidden His face?

Has He withdrawn His compassion?

That's what the psalmist

in Psalm 77,

that's what He was facing.

I feel like you're not here, God.

But then,

I will recall

the Lord's great love.

I will recall

what He has done for us.

I will recall

His mighty hand

and outstretched arm.

I will recall

who He is

and what He has done.

How do I know

that He loves me?

How do I know

that I can have hope?

Because He didn't spare

His own son,

but gave Him up

for us all.

And because of that,

we can have confidence

that He's not going to withhold

any good thing.

If He gave us Jesus

to come live the life

that we couldn't live

and die the death

that we deserve to die,

if He did that for us,

what in the world

would He withhold from us?

We can have hope

because God loves us

and He doesn't withhold

from His children.

J.I. Packer

in his great book

Knowing God

says this,

every single thing

that happens

to the believer

expresses God's love to him.

Every single thing

expresses God's love

and comes to him

for the furthering

of God's purpose for him.

Over and over

we see in Scripture

the things that

what Satan intended for evil,

God used for good.

He is working on our behalf

to make things good.

So we have the promises

of Romans 8.28

that says,

and we know that

for those who love God,

all things work together

for good

for those who are called

according to His purpose.

I can hope

because God loves me.

He really, really loves us.

He loves you

more than you love yourself.

And all these things

in your life

that would cause us

that stress

of maybe even hopelessness,

maybe it's a broken relationship,

maybe it's financial difficulties,

maybe it's problems at work

or uncertainty

about your future,

maybe things just look grim

and you just can't see

very far out

to see clearly

of the direction

that you're going.

God cares more

about those things

than you do.

Do you believe that?

It says He knows

the numbers of the hairs

that are on our head.

Now I don't have

many of those left,

but He knows

which ones are still there.

He takes care

of the little birds,

the sparrows,

the most inconsequential beings.

He takes care

of all of them,

clothes of the grass

and the grass of the field.

Will He not take care of us?

Now we might think,

how can I hope

when I can't have confidence

that such and such will happen?

I can't have confidence

that He's going to

just fix everything

in my life right now

like I want it to,

like I want Him to.

That could point to the fact

that we're hoping

in the wrong thing.

We're not hoping

in the thing

that can really bring us

soul satisfaction.

I mean,

I was just reminded

of the story

in the Old Testament

of Shadrach, Meshach,

and Abednego.

You know that?

And the fiery furnace.

I always heard that

as a little kid.

They say this.

They're telling the king

who's threatening

to throw them

into the fiery furnace

for not bowing down

to the idol

that was made.

And they said,

our God,

whom we serve,

is able to deliver us.

But if He doesn't,

we still will not

serve your gods.

And it's this idea

that God may not

come through

in this situation

exactly like I would

want Him to,

but He's got a better plan.

And then we go on

to see that

the king

talks about

they threw them

into the fiery furnace

and he says,

did we not bind

three men

into the fire?

but I see four

unbound men

walking around

and one is like

the son of the gods.

There's four in the fire.

And even though God

may not save them,

He does,

but even if He doesn't

save them for the fire,

He is with them in it.

And that is our greatest good.

Even if He doesn't deliver us

from this specific trouble,

I can still hope in Him.

He is going to work

for my good

and He is present

with us

in the fire.

If eternal life

is having a relationship

with God,

like Jesus said

in John 17 verse 3,

John 17:3

then the greatest thing

that we can ever experience

is God's presence.

And so sometimes

our greatest

and deepest joys

will be found

in suffering.

I said this,

I think I,

yeah,

I'm pretty sure

I said this

a few weeks ago

when we were

in the Sermon on the Mount

talking about daily bread.

I had a friend

who told me one time,

Kelly and I

were going through

a pretty hard season,

some suffering

that was pretty great,

and one of the things

that he was asking me

some questions,

and I was giving

some answers

that maybe

were a little bit like,

I'm kind of trying

to avoid all the heartache

that I probably feel.

I'm trying to skirt

around it a little bit.

And my friend said to me,

trying to avoid suffering

is a great way

to avoid Jesus

because sometimes

the greatest ways

we experience Jesus

is in the middle

of our suffering.

everything that we've

been talking about,

about the ability

to have hope,

is true for all of those

who are in Jesus Christ.

This passage starts out,

therefore,

since we've been justified

by faith,

we have peace with God

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And if all that's true,

that we have peace with God

and access.

That word access

in verse 2

is like the idea

of someone being

introduced to royalty.

Someone has come

on your behalf,

introduced you to royalty,

and therefore,

you now have access

to royalty.

That's the word picture

that is given there

for access.

Through Jesus,

we have peace with God

and access to the creator

and sustainer

of the universe.

And if all that's true,

how will not all these

other things be true

for us?

That we don't have

to be afraid to hope.

As you look throughout

the Bible,

it talks so much about hope.

In the Old Testament,

this same concept of hope,

this same word in the Greek

for hope,

is used to refer to hope,

trust, and refuge.

Us going to God

as our refuge,

to hide in Him.

That is a great word picture

for hope.

That we're going to Him

to be under the shadow

of His wings.

It's not a passive thing.

We're just sitting around,

twiddling our thumbs,

hoping that, you know,

God does something

in the situation.

It's an active hope

where I'm saying,

God, I'm running to you.

I'm trusting you.

And it could be

just one of those things

that you have learned

to take one,

put one foot

in front of the other

and just pray,

God, I need you.

God, I need you.

And when you see Him

answer those prayers

and come through for you

in ways you couldn't

have even anticipated,

it builds our faith.

It's an active hope,

awaiting,

a trusting in the refuge

that He provides.

Sometimes we feel like

the Lord has forgotten us

like we just sing about

in Psalm 77.

But for the Christian,

if your story

is looking like a tragedy,

that just means you're not

at the end of the story yet.

There is more to be told.

There is more that God

is writing in your story

because He's going to

make all things new.

He's going to make

all things right.

And in the meantime,

He's going to walk with us

and give us His presence.

I feel like this is

one of those times

that you need to quote

the Jesus Storybook Bible.

Is anybody?

Are you all familiar

with the Jesus Storybook Bible?

Any of you?

where it talks about

how God loves us

with a never stopping,

never giving up,

unbreaking,

always and forever love.

Because of that love

that has been poured

into our hearts,

we don't have to be afraid

to hope

because God is working

on our behalf.

Even right now.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you

that you care about

all the things in our life

more than we do.

We come to you

with our requests

and many times

we don't even know

what to ask,

but you've given us

your spirit

that translates those things

to ask for the things

that we should have asked for.

So many times

we're focused

on our circumstances

and we can be like

the rest of the world

that our hope fluctuates

with if things are going good,

our hopes are up,

things are bad,

our hopes are down,

I mean,

just even the sun

not being present

for a few days,

that mood can change

the way we hope.

We're just,

we're prone to let

our emotions

and our feelings

and even untruths,

falsehoods,

dictate the way we hope.

And I pray, Father,

that you would help us

to understand

the way that you love us

and as much as you love us,

it guarantees

that you're working

on our behalf

because you said you are.

We're just taking you

at your word.

We're not making this up.

But help us

to experience that love

that many of us,

we have in our heads

and we need it pushed down

into our hearts

and we ask you

to help us

to experience

that love

that you have for us

in Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus,

we thank you.

Without you,

we have no hope,

but we have you,

therefore we have hope.

Help us to not be afraid

to hope,

Lord God,

because hope

does not disappoint

because your love

has been poured out

into our lives.

And we pray these things

in Jesus' name.

Amen.