I've got to say this is probably one of my favourite passages of scripture. It definitely was when I was a young adult going through uni and I don't think it's sort of I think if anything, other passages have sort of been raised up in that time as well, but this one hasn't lost its shine. It's a wonderful passage of scripture and it's good to be back and to be sharing in Romans with you. Those of you who were here a year ago, beginning of last year, we looked at chapters one to four. We did get through all those chapters in five or six weeks. My hope this term in six weeks is to go from chapter five to eight. There's a lot of rich stuff here. We'll see how we go in six weeks as I prepare week by week, but we're gonna do chapter five in two weeks and probably chapter eight. So the rest we're gonna churn through reasonably fast, but we'll see how we go. Last year, the blurb, a little sort of summary I gave for Bob to put on the website for Sermon Audio was this. Paul has been gripped by the gospel of God. So much so, he calls it my gospel. and he's not ashamed of it at all. In fact, he's eager to preach it. This gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. It concerns Jesus, God's son, and in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. This is good news because in his mercy and grace, God, who is just, justifies sinners like us. Come and hear what the Lord has done for all who are loved by God and called to belong to Jesus Christ. Having declared the just and justifying grace of God for sinners, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul goes on in Romans 5 to 8 to speak of the fruits of our justification and the sure hope we have in Christ. We now have peace with God and nothing can undo that. Not suffering, nor sin, nor death, nor the law. In Christ Jesus, we now stand in the grace of God and nothing can separate us from his love. That's where we're headed in these next six weeks. And whilst it's not the whole story of these four chapters, it'd be hard to do that in a couple of sentences, isn't it? But I think it's a helpful framework, a helpful context for us to study these chapters in. Having been justified, that's how Paul starts Romans 5, we'll get to it in a moment. We now have peace with God. No wrath, no fear, no guilt, no condemnation. We have peace with God. And there's a lot that meddles with that, isn't there? And tries to disrupt or destroy that peace that we have with God. Would that be a fair statement? Is that your experience? And so I think in light of that, Paul spells out for us in these next few chapters just how the gospel of God, which is the power of God for salvation, is far more powerful than anything that's going to try and disrupt the peace we have with Him. You can't undo the work of Christ. And so Paul assures us, anything that puts the doubt in our minds of where we stand with God, Christ is more powerful than that. One commentator, Douglas Moo, I think I mentioned last time, I like him just because he's got a great last name, but he writes good stuff too. He notes how chapters five to eight, this is a second section of Romans, how I see it, it's bookended with suffering. In Romans 5 we've got suffering there, we rejoice in our sufferings. And in Romans 8 it talks about the groanings of creation and that we suffer and groan with creation. I'd actually like to add with Mu that together with suffering that it's also bookended with a love of God. Both of them come out at the end of Romans 8 and here in Romans 5. But what we see here in Romans 5 is that there's a goal or there's a fruit of suffering. Perseverance, character and hope. And in chapter 8, the fruit of suffering is that we are conformed to the image of the sun. And all of that serves to strengthen and assure us of God's love. It assures us of our justification and our salvation all the way up to glory. When you read Paul's letters, He's a pretty logical and objective sort of guy, isn't he? Very straightforward, very linear in his argument. I like him because that's how I think. But he's not void of affection, is he? He's not unaware of the more subjective struggles in the Christian walk, the issues that we as believers might have in our faith and in our justification. He's not just a great theologian, he's a great pastoral theologian. He's aware that the justification which has been declared over us and stands over us, anyone who believes in Christ, he's aware that that justification can be somewhat hidden to our senses. We might know it theoretically, we can read it and say amen to that, but do you always feel completely justified? Is your conscience always totally clean and free from guilt? Do you ever wonder when bad things happen, what you've done to deserve them? What God might be punishing you for? Do you ever question why it is you still sin? And does that sin ever cast a doubt in your mind about your salvation? They're the sorts of things I think Paul is addressing in these chapters. Can we be sure of our justification? Yes, we can. No one nodded then. How can we be sure? Well, I think Paul explains it in these chapters. Nothing can stand in its way. Our justification is secure, namely, not because of how we perform, but because it's been established and secured in Christ. And he's been raised, and as we read in the beginning of Romans, he's been declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. That's the purity of our justification. Christ's death and resurrection. Not our performance, not how we feel. And so when we do doubt and wobble and wonder about it all, we need to look. We need to look to Christ. And in these coming chapters, as we're going to see this term today, suffering doesn't shake our confidence in our justification. Instead, it produces sure hope. Neither does death, the rest of chapter 5. Grace now reigns instead of sin and death. In chapter 6, sin is not going to get in the way or shake our justification. We've been set free from slavery to sin and have now become slaves of righteousness. Chapter 7, the law and our conscience informed by the law, that's not going to threaten our justification. Because it's determined not by my ability not to sin, but by Christ. We now live by the Spirit. And not even the sinful passions of the flesh, which we struggle to put to death, to mortify, not even that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Because we now live by the Spirit of adoption. We are children with God. We're in His family. And nothing can separate us from His love. As Douglas Moove says, what God has begun in Christ, having justified and reconciled us, he will bring to a triumphant conclusion and save us from wrath. Is that the sure hope that you have in Christ? That's what this next term is all about. culminating in that great conclusion of chapter 8 that many of us will know well. In all these things, all that stuff that goes against us and cause our doubts to rise up within us, in all of these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor present things, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, nothing, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now if that doesn't whet your appetite for the coming weeks, I don't know what will. So as I encouraged this last year, in light of that, would you pray and consider with me about those you might actually like to invite here? There's a few spare chairs, we can make room, we will make room. I've just been doing some reading lately and just been encouraged in the fact that the Gospel, what we have in Christ, what we've received, and that which we preach and hear, these are not just nice stimulating thoughts and ideas that sort of, hey, it's nice to fill our minds and keep us from going into dementia. This is the Gospel of God we're hearing week by week here. This is the power of God for salvation. And we need to hear it, don't we? About how many more out there need to hear these same truths? The Father, through His Son and by the Spirit, has brought about a whole new state of affairs through the Gospel. It's not just ideas, not just information. He's changed the way we relate to Him. He's changed our life. And who is there that doesn't need to hear that? We are now at peace with God, as we're going to hear this morning. More than just us here. So please, think about, pray about, speak to, act upon it, who you might like to invite to hear these great things. Right, into Paul in chapter five. As I said, Paul's a great theologian. He's a great pastoral theologian. He's also, if you read any of his letters with more than just a cursory glance, he's a very logical thinker and writer. And you'll find out that there's connections and conjunctions, all these little words everywhere. I think it was Luther that said the gospel's contained in the prepositions, all the little words. And this morning we kick off with a conjunction. Therefore, and you'll probably know the little saying, whenever there's a therefore, you've gotta work out what it's there for. What's it telling us? Well, it's saying because of this, then that. As a result of what I've just been saying, this is the result of it, okay? It's important, and we could spend some time looking over chapters one to four. You can go back and listen to them. You can go back and look at your notes. Reminding ourselves how the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, but also the righteousness of God is being revealed in the gospel. There's no one righteous, not even one. All are fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by grace through faith. The same faith, justifying faith that Abraham had, faith in God, which is credited to us as righteousness. There's a snapshot of chapters one to four. Paul does it much better than that. He just sums up in a simple phrase, therefore, since we've been justified by faith. That's his summary of chapters one to four. Since we've been justified by faith. In other words, as one writer puts it, chapters one to four speak to the means of our justification by grace, through faith, on account of Christ's atoning sacrifice. And chapters five to eight, what we're looking at this term, speak more of the fruit of our justification. Since this is now the case, we have been justified. Lock that in. Now because of that, all of this takes place. All of this is now how it is with us and God. We have peace, we have joy, we have life in the Spirit, eternal life, and all of that, sonship. And these chapters tell us how the fruit of our justification, which is really the heading for this morning, the fruit of our justification, how that fruit gives us assurance, how we can be sure of our justification and salvation, especially when all these things like sin, the law, and suffering, and the conscience plant seeds of doubt. Well, in this little passage, we have within the first couple of verses, three fruit of our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, the first fruit, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He quickly moves on to a couple of others. Through him, we've also obtained access by faith into his grace. So another fruit is access into grace, in which we already stand. And thirdly, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. They're not three optional extras that come with justification. If you want the beefed up version, you can have a bit of peace with God on the side. It's not like the 70 inch wheels you get on your car or the extra bit of Bluetooth. No, this comes as a whole package. This is the fruit salad of justification, the fruit of justification. Justification is not a lone, single aspect of our salvation. It comes with a whole package deal. We are justified by grace alone, but the justification we have in Christ is never alone. It comes with a whole bundle of salvation, past, present, and future. Blessings and gifts of God. It's as though Paul's anticipated the question from his audience, well, so what, Paul? Okay, we've been justified. God now declares us righteous in his son. The faith that we have in God is credited to us as righteousness, but so what? What does that mean for me now, in my life today? To which Paul says, what does that mean for you now? Well, you've got peace with God, you've got access into grace, and you're rejoicing the hope of glory to come. Let's take a look at each of them one at a time. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So in the judicial sense, we've been justified. But not only have we been made righteous by God, as far as a stern judicial judge, okay, I declare you justified. We've actually now got a whole new relationship with God. He's not a distant, stern judge from afar. He's now our Father. We are now at peace with God. Now you might have never felt you were not at peace with God. I don't know. It depends on your background. But let me tell you, God has not always been at peace with you. That might come as a shock. But if we zip down a few verses to verse 6, we'll see just how it was, how we were with God before the Gospel, before faith. If we glance over those verses, and note how Paul includes himself in this here, this is how we are described prior to being in Christ. In verse 6, we were weak, incapable of changing our situation, we were ungodly. Verse 8, we were sinners, under his wrath, in verse 9, and enemies of God, verse 10. How's that on your CV? They're not the kind of words or descriptions that sort of evoke the notion of peace in your mind, are they? Weak, ungodly, sinners, wrath, enemies. Not very peaceful. That is what we were. But now we have peace with God, since we've been justified. Not enmity, but peace. Not hostility with God, but friendship. No longer estranged or at war, enemies, but reconciled. If we look at those same verses in verses six to 11, we can see how we are now described in light of Christ's death for us. We're loved by God, verse eight. We're justified by his blood. We've been saved by him from his own wrath, verse nine. And we've been reconciled to God, verse 10. and as it is with all the gospel and it is all and only by grace through faith in Christ. But in him and through him and by his death, verse 10, we've been reconciled to God. We have peace with God. Have you ever been at odds with someone? Estranged, perhaps, or maybe in direct opposition, and then you've actually come to be reconciled? Whatever barrier there was, whatever issues you held against them or they held against you, have just been dealt with and put aside and forgotten, forgiven, and you're at one. Not just, oh, look, we'll tolerate each other and hope to never run into each other in the street again, but actually genuinely reconcile. It's a wonderful thing when it happens. Sadly, it's so rare, even in the church. But this is what's happened with us in Christ, with God. We were enemies, we were shaking our fists at him, crucifying his son, ungodly enemies of God, but now we have peace with him. Justification may well be a word that's used in the courtroom, it's a legal term, but in and with that word, with our justification comes relational peace with God. What is it James tells us concerning Abraham? Paul's just used Abraham in chapter four as the model and father of those who share his faith, faith which is credited as righteousness. James tells us in James 2, 23, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. And he was called, what? A friend of God. Now we might think to speak of friendship with God as something, maybe a little trite or unholy. God's holy father, you can't call him friend. James hasn't got a problem with it. Goliath doesn't have a problem with it. Since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God and so together with Abraham, we could actually call ourselves friends of God in the right and holy sense of that word. So let me ask you a question. Do you have peace with God? Let me answer it for you. If you confess Jesus Christ as Lord and believe God raised Him from the dead, you do. You have peace with God. You may not feel like it all the time. Sometimes you may still shake your fist at Him or at least raise the eyebrows and say, what do you want about here, Father? But God is at peace with you because of His Son. and therefore you can have peace with God. We may not feel like it all the time, and most likely when we don't, it's probably because we're looking at ourselves and our own performance, or lack thereof, and we've forgotten that our justification and the peace we have with Him is not based on us, but based on Christ. So if I can say it ever so gently, get over yourself and look to Him. the author and perfecter of your faith, the one who has bought peace with the price of his own blood for you. Know that you have peace with God. I think sometimes we tiptoe around the edges with God a bit like Jacob did with Esau. Can you remember after a while, Jacob, he was a rat bag really, wasn't he? He was a deceiver. He deceived his brother, betrayed him. He took his blessing. And then one day he hears, well, Esau's around the corner. You're going to come face to face with him. So what did he do? Well, he tried to buy his way into Jacob's favor. He sent a whole lot of things ahead, a whole lot of gifts. He prayed to the Lord, please deliver me from the hand of my brother. We're told when the brother Esau was coming that Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. So much so, he divides everything he's got and says, well, we'll have two camps so that if he comes and attacks one, at least half of us will be safe. And then he wrestles with God that night, still desperate for blessing. And when Esau and Jacob finally meet, he himself went on before them, before all the people trying to at least contain the damage, maybe, bowing himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother. Think we can be like that with God, can't we? Full of fear, wondering what he's gonna do, shake his fist at us and slam us. But he saw Wren to meet him. Like the father runs to the prodigal. Same sort of thing, isn't it? And embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him. And they wept. And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, who are these with you? And Jacob said, the children whom God has graciously given your servant. And then there's all this whole company come to him and all the gifts that he's given. And Esau said, what do you mean by all this company that I met, all the ones that have gone on before? I wanted to find favor in your sight, my Lord. He tried to buy his favor. We do that with God, don't we? But Esau said, I have enough, my brother. Keep it for yourself. We can't buy the favor of God. He's bought it for us in the blood of his own son. Because of that, we have peace with God. Together with that peace, we've also obtained access to God, access into this grace in which we now stand. You know, as I said before, you can sort of be at peace with someone and hope you never run into them again. You can have peace with someone and never want to be near them. That's not true peace, is it? In some situations, the peace we have after a certain disruption, after a certain argument, the peace we have is only because we can remain at that distance. We can never meet with them again. The moment you bump into each other and spend more than five minutes together, that peace quickly comes undone. It's not how it is with God. The peace we have with Him is not from a distance, nor is He someone we can simply approach every now and then. When the time's right, when we're feeling in a good mood and we think He's in a good mood, you've got to pick your moment sometimes with your husband or wife, don't you? Or your kids. No, we have access by faith to God in this grace in which we now stand. which when we look elsewhere, such as Ephesians 2, we hear those great words, but now, those great gospel words, in Christ Jesus, we who are once far off have been brought near in Christ, and through him we now have access in one's spirit to the Father. Or in Hebrews 4, since we have a great high priest in Christ, let us then draw near with confidence, with full assurance to the throne of grace. Now, we don't just rock up to Buckingham Palace on a whim, do we, and get an audience for the Queen. We've had a hard chance of getting past the gates, wouldn't we? If we're lucky, we might see her from a distance and wave to her. If we're quick enough to get the front row when she's visiting a town or a country, we might be lucky enough to see her up close, maybe even shake her hand. But that's not how it is with God. We don't have to wait till there's an invitation to have an audience with Him. We now have access to the Father. in grace, always. God's grace is not like the petrol in our cars. We need a top up every now and then so we can keep on going. And nor does it cost nothing one day and then the price cycle moves on and goes up to $1.75 and all of a sudden we've got to do a little bit more works righteousness to get near to God. We are standing in this grace now. And again, back in Ephesians, Paul says he's lavished the riches of his grace upon us. It's like we're swimming in it, not just standing in it. It's not something we wander in and out of depending on our behavior or how we feel. God's grace doesn't dry up like summer rain. It's more like a river constantly flowing, the river of life, the fountain of life flowing freely. Jesus said, I'm going to prepare a place for you in my Father's house. And I'll take you there. And in Ephesians again, Paul tells us we're now seated in the heavenly places with Christ, in Christ. We're there in the Father's house. And the Father has said, make yourself at home. This is now your home. Not just your own room, but you've got access into my chambers. With me, in grace. We don't have to come like Jacob did to Esau, trying to buy off his favour. No, we stand in his grace now. It's his gift to us. And we can come to him in all of our weakness, in all of our worries, in all of our wobbles, and find mercy and grace in our time of need, knowing that as we approach him, we already have peace with him. such is the fruit of our justification in Christ. We have peace with God, we have access to him in this grace, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, or rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Now, if you've got an older version, you might not have the word rejoice yet. You might have boast or something like that. The word translated often now rejoicing is actually more like boasting. It means what we take pride in, what we brag about, what we glory in. It's the same word Paul used back in chapter three after he declared that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are now justified by his grace as a gift. We've done nothing. He's done everything. So what then becomes a boasting? Rejoicing, same word. The word's boasting in chapter three. Well, it's excluded because we've got nothing of ourselves to boast about, nothing to be proud of, nothing we can claim as our own regarding our salvation, our justification. But we can rejoice, we can boast of Jesus Christ, we can boast of the grace of God, and here we rejoice or boast in the hope of the glory of God. And whilst I want to quickly move on to the rest of it, because it also says we boast or rejoice in our sufferings. We'll get to that in a moment. I do want to just take a moment here and pause. Do we truly rejoice? Do we take pride in the right sense with confidence and conviction in the hope of the glory of God? because we won't ever rejoice in our sufferings, the next verse, if we don't first rejoice or boast in the hope of the glory of God. A couple of years ago, I think, when I was here with you before Romans 1 to 4, we looked at Paul's prayers. The first one we looked at was Ephesians 1. One of Paul's prayers there is that we might know the hope to which we've been called. Do you know the hope to which you've been called? The sure hope, the hope of glory, God's glory. Friends, this world, this life is not the main event. And glory in heaven is some consolation at the end of it for those who trust in Jesus. That's not how it is. As much as the world, the flesh and the devil might want us to believe otherwise, this world and all of its desires, everything in it is passing away. Even these bodies will perish, much as we try to preserve them. Our savings, our money, our possessions, they'll all be burned up, they'll come to nothing. But the Word of God lasts forever. The children of God will be raised imperishable. These mortal bodies will put on immortality in the twinkling of an eye. The love of God and all that's done in that love, whoever does the will of God, abides forever. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? My dad's in his 70s and recently had a scare. He's been a smoker all his life and the last couple of months, his breathing's become increasingly less and less or more struggling. He's breathless. A week or two ago, he thought he was a goner. He said to one of his friends, I'm done for. He's not a believing man. But my mom said that night after going to the doctors, he prayed, maybe the first time ever. He's got some scans and tests and he's now taking antibiotics for pneumonia. But it scared him. And we just heard last night that they had some more tests and it's not looking as he thought maybe it was just pneumonia. Now he's got some lesions on the lungs and he's got to deal with that and work out next week what the doctors are going to do. He is scared. Really scared. Scared enough to pray. Scared enough to give up smoking, just like that. Because his only hope in life at the moment is this life. He's got nothing more. And that's looking rather tenuous at the moment. And he's going to have to come to terms with that like we all do. My prayer is that all of this might cause him to seek a greater, more lasting hope. I don't know if that prayer earlier on is going to save him. I know Christ can. But if his prayer is simply to get better, that's something a bit different. And it's not faith, is it? Hopefully it's the start of something. Friends, the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that's going to be revealed in us, to us and in us. And I know that can be easy to say when I'm standing here fit and young and healthy, reasonably so, but we need to be able to say it now and know it now so that when we're not so fit and young and healthy we can still say it. We need to preach it to ourselves day in and day out so that when the time comes when all the doubts come and we wonder is this the end, we know it's not. It's a bump in the road and actually this is the beginning of eternal life in glory. Not the consolation, but glory. We need to rejoice and boast in the hope of the glory of God now so that we can then move on to verse three and rejoice even in our suffering. because we know that they themselves have their own fruit. If you've ever had the opportunity to be with a loved one or a brother or sister in Christ in their last days, who know the hope of the glory of God, it is a beautiful thing. The peace and the calm that is there, the joy even, without fear. Since we've been justified by faith, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. It's all linked to our justification. If we don't know that, we won't rejoice in hope, nor will we be able to rejoice in our sufferings. Tim Keller writes helpfully, I think, on this passage. He's got a little commentary which is called Romans for You. It's for everyone. It's not just a scholastic commentary. On its own, it sounds a bit weird, doesn't it, to rejoice in our sufferings? It's a bit masochistic to find pleasure or gratification in suffering, but that's not what Paul's saying here. In effect, Keller says this, not only do we have these joys of peace and access into grace and hope of glory, but those joys remain joys even in our sorrow. And they even help us to find joy in our sorrow. This is all fruit, remember, of our justification. When we're living by faith in Christ, and therefore we know where our justification lies and that we're secure in Him, not in ourselves, then when we experience and endure sufferings, we can do so without guilt, without fear, without doubts. Most of us at some time or another, and most people in general, When we go through trials of varying degrees, especially the more painful and trying ones, we will ask that great perennial question, why me? Sure, we will ask that at some time or another. But behind that question, even if it's just a throwaway, oh, why am I going through this? Behind that is actually a deep conviction that either we don't deserve to be going through this, We haven't done anything to deserve it, or we think we haven't, as though someone else who is suffering the same thing does deserve it, and we don't. Or we do actually believe we deserve it, but others seem to get away with it, so why should we be the ones that God's making an example of? But when we know we're justified by faith in Christ, by the grace of God, that question can pass us by so quickly. Because it's not about what I've done and therefore God's punishing me. Our suffering is not God's judgment upon us for sin. Christ suffered for that. And there's no double jeopardy. We can know when we suffer in this life that what we're experiencing is not God's judgment upon us for sin. Suffering therefore doesn't need to cause guilt or doubt to rise up or fear within us. Paul's not saying here that we actually enjoy suffering. What he's saying is that we know that suffering produces something beneficial and we can trust God in that. We're not just to endure suffering as Christians stoically and saying, it's okay, in the end there's glory in heaven to come. As true as that might be, we can rejoice in our suffering because as Keller puts it, we can look through the sufferings to their certainties. Yes, they will end, but actually the suffering itself produces its own fruit. That's what Paul says here. We rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces something. It produces endurance or perseverance, a fortitude, a single-mindedness that we would not develop if it wasn't for that suffering. It helps us focus on what really matters, doesn't it? What really lasts. Not the suffering, but love. Glory. It helps us prioritise things. And that perseverance produces, or endurance produces character, a proven and tested character. Would you ever go to a surgeon who's never been tested? Who'd gone through something before? I guess they've always got to do it once, don't they? First time. But when you go through an experience, there's something that comes out of you that's proven and tested, isn't it? And therefore we can know God's faithfulness through the suffering. It produces a character in the people of God. It refines us and our faith. It teaches us and it trains us and develops our character so that we can stand all the more in a sinful, fallen world, suffering world. Do you want to see your children or your grandchildren develop some resilience and character? Self-esteem, well-being is the word these days. Well, let them suffer. Not in a cruel or intentional way. There's some suffering that goes on through abuse and other things. It's just evil. We don't need to create that sort of suffering for people to grow character. That destroys people. But neither do we need to rescue ourselves or our young ones from every stress and strain in life. If we bubble wrap them or wrap them up in cotton wool, they will never have a backbone. They'll never have any true, tested character. And ultimately, they'll never have any hope, according to what Paul's saying here. Because suffering produces perseverance, produces character, and produces hope. And this hope, this hope is not some wishy-washy, I hope I win the lottery one day kind of hope. This hope does not put us to shame. If I had time, I'd read a great passage. Well, if I read it anyway. I'll go quickly for the next last bit. Forsyth in his book on prayer and suffering at one point, page 17, if you've got the book. He says, the joiner, carpenter, working with wood, when he glues two boards together, keeps them tightly clamped until the cement, till the glue sets. And there's outward pressure that's put on that until it sets. But when the pressure's no longer needed, he unscrews it, and there's this great bond. So it is with the calamities, depressions, and disappointments that crush us into close contact with God. The pressure on us is kept up until the soul's union with God is set. Instant relief, if we were given that, would not establish the habit of prayer. although it might make us believe with a promptitude too shallow to last, or to make it the principle of our soul's life, that is, prayer at any depth. A faith which is based chiefly on impenetration, that is, if you pray and straight away it's all answered and everything's great, might become more a faith in prayer than a faith in God. If we got all we asked for and it would come soon to us, we would soon treat God as a convenience or the request as magic. Instead, we're given these trials and sufferings that bond us closer to God. Because in it all, suffering produces perseverance and character and hope, which does not disappoint us. Not some chance, not some lottery winning type of hope. This is a sure and certain hope. Not because we as Christians, because of our faith, okay, we've got a higher probability of getting the glory. No, we can be sure of it. Why does this hope not disappoint? Because it's not grounded in chance. It's not grounded in probability or luck or anything that might take place in the future. The hope we have here in Christ is grounded in the love of God. It's grounded in the love of God, Paul tells us, that has already been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, past tense. So the hope we have today and the hope of glory for the future is actually established and secured in the past, in God's finished work of the cross of Christ. That's why it's a sure hope. since we've been justified by grace, through faith, in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus by his blood. We have peace with God. We have obtained access into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice, we boast in the hope of the glory of God. And all of that is as sure and certain as the love of God that has been shown to us in Christ dying for us. Let's pray, then we'll sing. Father God, what love you have for us. What hope you've given us in your Son. That we would be at peace with you. That we would stand in grace and have access to you every moment of every day. and that we can be absolutely sure of all of this because of your son. And Father, as we've said at the beginning, these are not just things to think over, these are things which change our life, change how we live, how we relate to you, and how we relate to one another. So Father, we pray that your word as it comes to us and abides in us would accomplish all that you've sent it to do. And so transform and conform us into the image of your son, even through the sufferings that we endure, as we trust in you and rest in him. We ask in his name.