Now turn in your Bibles to Romans 5. This morning we continue our study in the book of Romans in the first five verses of the fifth chapter. Romans chapter 5. Let's stand together and hear this portion of the Word of God. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope. Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. This is the very word of God. Amen. Our Father, we pray that you would do a miracle today in us. Show your power, Father, by your resurrecting spirit, by your regenerating force that can only come by your power and by your sanctifying influence that you bring into our lives. Father, we pray to do transforming work today by your word. We pray the enemy not to have any inroads today, but the truth, only the truth be pressed in and we receive it with a resounding amen of soul and spirit. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Please be seated. Well, as we get into these first five verses of Romans 5, let me ask you this question. What does anybody want out of life? What do you want out of life? I'm talking about just about anybody in life. Somebody said personal peace and blessing or personal peace and affluence. It's really what people want out of life. What is the greatest blessing in the world? What would be the thing that we would want more than anything else? I would say blissfulness, peace, hope, joy, all of that. And it seems to me that even unbelievers would say, if I had a choice between a million dollars in blissful joy, real joy, real happiness, peace, And the most amazing blissfulness that you could ever receive, I think I would choose that over a million dollars. I really think most people would rather, a lot of rich people, you know, they're miserable. I was talking to one of the brothers in the church, and he knows some of the billionaires, oftentimes Christian billionaires, and their families are very upset with each other, et cetera, et cetera, lots of, you know, lack of peace, et cetera. And I would say that most very rich people would much prefer peace, joy, and these things that are spoken of here. And to have that peace here and in eternity. And the idea is that everything is going well, everything's okay. Your heart is at peace in this life and into eternity. So again, this morning is, the question I want to bring to you from the outset is, do you have peace? Do you feel peace? Do you have this joy? Do you have this confidence? Do you have this position? Do you have this hope? Again, as much as you can be honest when it comes to these sorts of questions, it would very much benefit your souls. I tell you it would. Do you have peace? Are you at peace? Do you have that hope? That's the question that we want to begin with. But chapter 5 assumes everything that's already occurred in chapter 3 and 4, and begins with these words, therefore having been justified by faith. So it begins with what? Believing in Jesus, as he's presented to us in the Bible, that Jesus, the very Son of God, is our prophet, priest, and king, that he is Lord indeed, as we spoke of last time. that God has raised him from the dead. There's been a very successful venture in bringing about our salvation. He pulled it off and we believe it. We look back and see what Jesus did and said, Jesus did it. He's got the victory and I believe it and I receive it. And now once you have that faith, once you believe these things, once you hear this gospel message, or maybe the hundredth time and you say, yes, amen, that puts me in a better mood this morning. It's good to remember these things, you know. You come back and say, I believe these things. I say amen to these things. When you confirm it by your own testimony and by your own internal knowledge and faith, Then here we find that we are justified by this faith. Now I want to focus in on the Greek for a moment. I'm going to give you a Greek lesson and hopefully it won't be that difficult. I think it's important to know Greek. This is probably one of the most important Greek verb tenses you'll ever come upon in all of your study of the New Testament. So it's important, you know, not every, you don't have to look at every single Greek tense in every single sentence in the New Testament. But this one, absolutely, this one stands out. So you need to know something about this Greek. To know this Greek, you're going to be encouraged by Greek. Most people aren't encouraged by Greek. We taught our children Greek for years, and they never seemed all that encouraged by it. But this morning, you're going to be very encouraged by your Greek lesson. This Greek verb, what is this Greek verb? You can look it up online. It's actually very easy to look it up online. I go to BibleHub. You know, right there you get all the Greek tenses. You just gotta put your cursor right on the verb itself in the Greek, and it'll flash in what it is. It'll give you the entire scenario of what kind of Greek verb tense you're looking at here. And this one is the aorist participle passive. The aorist participle passive. What does this mean? Passive, first of all, having been justified by faith. The whole idea of having been, the passive tense, implies that you didn't do anything. You didn't declare yourself righteous. You didn't do it. Somebody did it to you. That's the passive. Passive means that you are the recipient of something. You receive that. Having been, that's the passive tense. Next, the aorist. What's the aorist? Well, it's a past tense. but specific to the Greek. You see, Greek is very precise, not like Hebrew. Now I think there's a reason why. God determined that the Greek language would be predominant throughout the entire Roman Empire. Not so much Latin, but it was the Greek that really spread across the entire Roman Empire. Very intelligent, very thoughtful sort of language with a lot of precise tenses. Well, that's because God wants to convey his truth of the Old Testament in a precise language. And that's what we get here. The Aorist is the idea that something has happened in the past and it is a completed action. It's not something that continues to happen. It's not as if it happened and it continues to happen. No, something already happened. And that is you have already been justified. Boom, done. That's it. So the people to whom he's writing, the believers to whom he's writing, they receive this word that you have already been. It's already happened. You've already been justified. So you see how important the Aorist tense is here. And of course, that's according to faith. by faith, genuine faith in Jesus Christ. This faith in the promises of God, faith that your sins are forgiven. This means that you have been forgiven, you've been justified. You're not entirely sanctified, we get that, not entirely achieving any kind of sinless perfection, but you have been accepted as righteous. You are a saint, your sins are forgiven. This is your new identity in the Lord Jesus Christ and all through Jesus. You see there in verse one again, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our sacrifice, our advocate, our propitiation, our blood covering, the reconciler between God and man. He bore the curse for us on the cross. Jesus Christ has accomplished all of this. We would not be in this state. We could not be justified. We could not be considered righteous. We could not be forgiven before God had it not been for Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. Amen and amen. Okay, so that's the first five words that I wanted to touch on. But now we have five fruits or consequences that flow from this faith. So let's look at that. That's the message this morning, five fruits or consequences of this faith. And you can, I'm not giving you notes this morning because you can just actually go back to the text and find them so easily. They're just right there. So be encouraged, receive these wonderful fruits this morning in your life, saints of God. The first of which is that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's number one. number one blessing that we have received by faith having been justified being now in this position we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and this is One of the most important things, in fact, it may be the most basic or core aspects of who we are as believers. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because you know what? The thing that bothers people, the thing that bothers all of us is probably guilt. But guilt is tied in to what? To the fact we are not right with God. That's the issue. So at root, our problem is our relational breakdown with God himself. We lack peace with God by nature. That's where we start out. So we have this lack of peace with God, and that's the source. That's the root source of all that guilt and that shame and that depression and all wars and angst and despair and all the curse of the law that's come down upon us and the sense of condemnation and every attempt to self-atone. There's so much sadism and masochism and all this psychological and emotional distress is rooted in this lack of peace with God. Now, of course, we'd want to transmit it or transfer it constantly into the horizontal. It's the problem with relationships, problem with this, problem with that. No, at root, everything flows, all of these problems, all of this psychological angst flows out of the fact that we are in a cosmic interruption of relationship with the living God. Now, I've used this illustration before. It's the illustration of estrangement, the idea of being estranged. And we've seen this many times, many times, and I've used this illustration, but there's an estranged marriage relationship. And a marriage relationship is a covenant relationship. It's a very close-knit relationship. We understand these things. And that's the fundamental kind of relationship we have with God. We were in covenant relationship with God, but that's all broken. It's broken at the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. So that's a broken relationship, and it's a cosmic estrangement. We understand what estrangement looks like in human relationships. It's extremely disruptive in the spirit of those who are caught in such a difficult situation. Now multiply that estrangement in the horizontal, it might not just be a marriage, it may be with your parents, it might be with a child or whatever. We've heard of situations with, you know, a pastor wrote his biography and we were reading of this where his son left his home, got married and never spoke to his father again all the way until he died at like 89 years of age or something like that. Just a horrible, horrible condition where relationships break down in the horizontal. But I'm saying multiply that by 10,000 and you'll understand the situation with natural man. Once there's an estrangement, there's a lack of peace in the heart. There's a constant sense of this disruption in your life and you can't get beyond it. It affects everything about you, especially if it's a close relationship. But with God, it's much more of a serious problem. It's a cosmic estrangement between God and man. Think about this, God is offended with me. God has it in for me. Think about that for a moment, God. with whom I should be in a loving covenantal relationship. Now we're at enmity, one with another, God and enemy, God infinitely estranged from man. This estrangement sours everything. It's extremely disruptive in the spirit of those who are caught in the middle of this horrible situation. Psychologically, emotionally, it throws everything off. It impacts every relationship. Think about what damage it does to the human psyche. Horrendous. You see, fundamentally, we are relational creatures. We've been created with a relationship with God and then to have relationship with others. That's who we are. We're created for covenant, to be in family, to be in church, to be in covenant relationship with God. We are not Robinson Crusoe. Now remember, Crusoe was disturbed because things were not right with God. That was his main problem. Putting him on an island really brought it to the surface because wow, Robinson Crusoe had a problem with God. And he found the Bible and made it right with God. It was a beautiful story. And that would make Robinson Crusoe one of the best stories ever. Isaiah 57 and verse 20 says, the wicked are like the troubled sea. when it cannot rest. Their hearts are so troubled. There's so much, you know, so much things that need to be suppressed and so many things that need to be quelled and so much distress and depression and potential despair and so much is just there within the heart of the wicked person. The waters are casting up mire and dirt. There is no peace, says my God for the wicked. So that's Isaiah 57, 20. That's the condition of those who are without God. I was working through the children's story, Heidi, again this weekend, spending a little bit of time with it, because it is a very much a Christian story. And the author, I think, really nailed the problem with Grandpapa, because here's what we read in the original. After the death of his son, that is Heidi's father, the grandfather never spoke to a living soul. Suddenly he moved up to the Alp to live there at enmity with God and man. That was the problem with grandfather and he's separated from the church and it's a big deal when eventually he comes in tears and breaks down when he reads the prodigal son he comes home and he walks back into the church and I just get chills to think about the restoration that happened in the church and restoring covenant relationship with the body of Jesus's people in the church way up there in the Swiss Alps. It's a tremendous story, but it begins with this problem. And this is the problem we all have. It's not just grandpa and papa that had the problem. It's all of us by nature, brothers and sisters. We live at enmity with God and man, but primarily we have a problem with God. But here's the good news. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Breathe a sigh of relief. Absolutely. Now peace with God, reconciliation in the absolutely most horrendous cosmic disruption of relationship that ever existed. Now we have peace with God, reconciliation with God. That estrangement's been solved. We watch these movies where children and their parents are separated over 20, 30 years. A marriage has been broken over 20, 30 years, but the couple comes together after 25 years of all of that horrible estrangement. And by God's grace, by God's grace, it's always a Kendrick's film, right? Because we know it's gonna take a Kendrick to pull this one off. It's the Kendricks that'll step in and say, yes, but the story ends very well. And we can hardly wait till the end because there the tears are coming down after 25 years of estrangement. Praise God, they've forgiven each other. They're restored to each other. All that hatred and bitterness just dissipates. And it doesn't happen very often, but the tears just flow for five years afterwards. I mean the tears just flow and flow and flow. Why? year after year, after year after year. Why? Because we've restored that relationship. And that's what happens when Jesus steps in. The sacrifice on the cross to reconcile us, to break down that barrier that existed, that six trillion mile barrier that nobody could get through, Jesus broke it down for us. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus for a moment. Praise Jesus, amen, amen. But now that everything is okay with God, it's all right, you know what I'm saying? When everything is right, it's okay. It doesn't matter if eight billion people in the world don't like me anymore. God loves me. God has made peace with me by the crucifixion of his son on that cross, and everything is okay with me now. It doesn't matter if you're hated by everybody else in the world. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter a whit. You're right with God. God loves you. God sent a son for you and you believe this and you have an overwhelming peace like a river. that just comes in like a flood and overwhelms your soul to the point that you're okay. Maybe you lost all of your children and your wife on some ship out in the ocean, but it's okay when peace like a river flows over my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. Why? Because everything is right between you and God. That's why. Peace with God. Everything's okay now. And now you can love your enemies. We talked about this before the meeting. Everything's cold in a room or whatever it is. You know, there's just a lot of walking on eggshells. There's a lot of fear. Perfect love hasn't cast out the fear yet. So there's this sort of nervousness and walking on eggshells. Everything is cold in the room, but you are loved. You are so loved. And you are so ready to love others. and your heart is so warmed with the love of God, and it just flows over, it doesn't matter how many icebergs are in the room, your heart is on fire with the love of God, and it pours out over everybody else in the room. Hallelujah, peace with God, peace with God, praise God. That's the most beautiful thing in the world, amen? So beautiful, so beautiful. Let's move on to number two, second blessing that flows. Second blessing that flows is we stand in this grace. We stand in this grace. It's the rock solid basis for our confidence in life. Verse two, through Jesus, also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. Standing in grace. The Bible has a couple other verses that tie in to it directly. Ephesians six, be strong in the Lord. In the power of his might, having done all to stands with the standing that happens, but we're standing in the Lord. In 2 Timothy 2 as well, be strong in the grace. Be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ. Therefore, you must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We don't cut right to, hey, we're in the army, stand strong as a soldier. No, you stand in the grace first. Stand in the grace, strong grace. Hold to strong grace. Absolutely. This is a tough grace. This is a robust grace, powerful grace, a grace that does stuff. It upholds us. It gives us backbone in the battle. I want to answer the question with a lot of scripture just for a moment, because I think this is super helpful. Study grace. We don't bring all the grace passages together very much. I want to do that just for a moment. What's so amazing about grace? Somebody wrote a book called, What's So Amazing About Grace? So let's talk about what's so amazing about grace. Grace is truly amazing. The first thing that's obvious by grace, you are saved when you are dead in trespasses and sins. Grace actually raises the dead, Ephesians 2.4. That's tough grace. That's strong grace. That's grace that does stuff. That's grace that does miracles. That's grace that does even more powerful things than creating a universe. That's tough grace. That's amazing grace. That's what's so amazing about grace. Grace is powerful, Acts 4.33. God's grace is sufficient in that his power is made perfect in our weakness. 2 Corinthians 12.9. Grace produces spiritual life, 1 Peter 3.7. God makes grace abound towards us such that we would abound in every good work, 2 Corinthians 9.8. By grace, we are comforted and established in every good word and deed, 2 Thessalonians 2.17. So it's not a flabby grace. Don't settle for a flabby grace, nobody. No, no, we need a tough grace here. The flabby grace puts a hand on the convert's head and assures him on a daily basis, now, now, You need to be okay with not being okay. And then it leaves you high and dry when you're going through the fire of trial. That's the problem with flabby grace. No, no, we don't want that. We want a biblical grace. We want tough grace, strong grace, absolutely. The graceless heart is powerless, lifeless, godless. And that fake grace doesn't really do much of anything at all. It enables sin, affirms some kind of resignation to defeat. It affirms faux grace, fake grace, affirms a resignation to defeat. Oh well, I guess we're just going to have to lose for the rest of our lives. That's a faith in a faux grace, totally unacceptable for the Christian. Oh no, oh no, we're winners. We're more than conquerors through him who loves us, absolutely. That's what grace does. The real grace of God reigns in life. And where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Grace wins the war. We stand in grace, Romans 5.1. This grace, as it were, shoves steel rods through the backbone of the warrior who finds himself strong in the Lord and the power of His might. Grace is actually strong enough to equip us to the business of denying worldly lusts and living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, Titus 2.12. The grace of God brings about a powerful salvation to all men, Titus 2 again. Grace saves us and calls us with a holy calling, 2 Timothy 1.9. Grace is a gift, unearned, gratuitously offered, but what does it offer? New life, righteousness, redemption, adoption, justification, forgiveness, Ephesians 1. We are justified and redeemed by God's grace, Romans 3.24. We studied that a little while back. And the redemption price releases us from the vain life of sin and iniquity, 1 Peter 1.18. the curse of the law, Galatians 3.13, and the curse of death, Hosea 13.14. There's no condemnation now to those in Christ Jesus who have a confidence in this grace and that peace and hope that flows from it. So we stand in this grace, brothers and sisters, we stand in this grace in the context of fire and war. Now, this is where Paul's gonna go at this point. He says, you gotta have a tough grace, stand in the grace, because here we go into the Christian life And to be honest with you, the Christian life is tough. Anybody realize this? Has anybody come to realize the Christian life is tough? It doesn't matter who you are. In different ways, shapes and forms, this Christian life is hard on us. We had a hard week. I had a hard week. I had a really hard week. We were at prayer meeting Wednesday night and what was it? Three or four people. It sounded like everybody was having a hard week. and we came to God in prayer, we were really challenged. Sickness, physically. I could hardly move. I had to get in the car to come down and meet with Danny Craig and I had to crawl into the car by getting down like this and just kind of working my way up into the seat so I didn't break my neck. It was a hard week physically, emotionally, spiritually, such hard times. The important thing is we made it. by the grace of God. You see, that's the point, we made it by the grace of God. We're a little bloody, we're a little scraped up, but we got through it by his grace. He sustained us along the way. And somebody, when I was referring to this before the sermon said, good, you've got through the practicum, now you can preach the sermon on it. But he sustains us by his grace. He gives us the strength and the hope, the life and the peace by his grace. And so now we're strong in this grace, brothers and sisters, to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. We stand in the grace. What is it? To stand in this realization of our peace with God, our reconciliation, our forgiveness, the reign of grace to eternal life and infusion of spiritual life into us. And we find God's grace sufficient, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, It's empowering, it's life-giving, it's sanctifying, it's strengthening. It enables the life of Christ in us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. So as Paul goes on, he says, we are going to face these tribulations and trials in our lives. And sometimes we wonder if we're going to make it. There are many who give up, they throw in the towel, but we're not going to, but why? because of the grace of God in us. That's why. Now, I think we have to be realistic about our tribulations. We shouldn't act as if they don't exist or blame them on others or whatever it is. There might be certain things that the ungodly do to avoid the idea that there are tribulations in this world. But as Christians, of course there are tribulations in this world. We see for the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 1, it seems like he's hanging on his last thread. There's been a few times where I have been down to my last thread, where I just didn't know if I was really going to survive. But again, by the grace of God, all the energy I had was to cry out, help me God, help me now, and God steps in, he helps me and gives me more grace, that I would just continue on, but that we are afflicted, we're burdened beyond measure, we're above strength so that we despair even of life. We feel the oppression of the enemy. And some of you have been in torturous and oppressive conditions, spiritual conditions perhaps, like Richard Wurmbrand in the torture chamber of a Romanian prison for 14 years. That's a long time. And I think you understand, some of you understand the emotional, spiritual, physical, psychological pressures that just keep coming, and they come, and they come, and you've been tormented beyond all belief by God's purposes working out in your life. And it varies per person, but it turns out that we go through unimaginable sufferings, demonic attacks, psychological abuse, sometimes because of our faith. And I don't think we get a free pass as American Christians. We're gonna go through the Romanian communist experience as often as they have gone through it. Maybe not everybody to the same extent, but the Christian life is shocking. Oftentimes we're very much shocked. It's not a life of comfort and ease. Jesus said this. He said, in this world, you will have tribulations. You as my followers would have tribulations. but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. The devil comes after us, the world tempts us, the church is on fire most of the time, and it just goes on that way from here to heaven. As Brother Josh preached a number of weeks ago, Acts 14, we must, we must, absolutely we must, it is necessary that we go through many tribulations as we enter the kingdom of God. So if you are a Christian at times, you're going to find life to be downright brutal. That's the word that keeps coming back to me, especially with some of the things that I personally have faced, especially on the spiritual level. It's just, I think the word brutal really applies. Can anybody else agree with me? At times, not maybe all the time, but at times, it is just downright brutal. And brothers and sisters, join the club. Maybe we can get together for a little group session offline later, but we experienced this. But here's the question, will the grace of God sustain you? In the trials, will it sustain you? You think God's love will sustain you? See, these trials really do test the strength of God's love and God's grace for us. Now, metallurgists, they study steel and aluminum and titanium to discover different forms of strength. Tensile impact compressive endurance strengths on steel. Now the fire will oftentimes strengthen the steel. That's why they work hard in the steel. But this fire, these trials that we go through, they test the tensile strength of God's love for us in our lives. That's what they're doing. These trials and tribulations, they will test the impact strength of God's love. An impact has to do with an immediate, sudden, shocking impact that comes, you know, that steel bar gets yanked super hard all at one time. That's called impact strength. And there is a testing of the love of God in our lives when we go up against that moment in our lives where we would never have expected it, but it's that 400-foot tsunami tidal wave that hits us. We didn't expect getting the phone call. It hits us. It's an impact on our lives. And the trial itself tests the impact strength of the love of God to sustain us in our lives. The compressive strength is the constant pressures of satanic abuse that just presses in on us day in and day out. It's called compressive strength. Then there's the endurance strength, what metallurgists call the fatigue limit. And I want to talk to engineers for a moment. Once a year or so, I like to bring an illustration for engineers because there are a few here. You gotta speak to engineers as well as children and others. So engineers, what is the fatigue limit or endurance limit? It's the stress level below which an infinite number of loading cycles can be applied to a material without causing fatigue failure. But here's the problem. Metallurgists have discovered that all metals will fail eventually. It doesn't matter how many megapascals they provide for in a tensile strength, it doesn't matter. Here's the quote, if enough stress cycles are performed, even the smallest stress will eventually produce fatigue failure for any metal. But not the love of God. But not the love of God. The love of God in us is enough to handle anything. Absolutely anything. It doesn't matter. At 800 megapascals, a pressure far greater than a titanium bar could handle, 10,000 megapascals, whatever it is, the love of God will survive a billion cycles of stress upon it in your life and mine. Let's move on to the third blessing. The third blessing that flows is that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. That's the second part of verse two. Now here's the issue. Much of what we deal with in life is inglorious. It's inglorious. Have you ever felt inglorious? This week sort of felt that way for me. Felt like I was dragging along a path of broken glass with a bad back. avoiding the landmines, dealing with physical, emotional challenges, confessing our own sins, encountering failure after failure in our work, our ministry. And the criticism to compliment ratio went from your typical five to one to 20 to one. You know what I'm talking about. It's just hard. So inglorious. Man, I did not feel glorious. this weekend. So what I'm saying is, friends, someday the war will be won, okay? Our battles will be over. We're in it right now. We're in the middle of it. Anybody in the middle of it? We are in the middle of it right now. But one day it's gonna be over. And we have a hope in this victory, absolutely. And there will be an infinite glory that will replace the finite and gloriousnesses that we have had to deal with for these 40 years or 50 years or 70 years. Listen to this, be encouraged by Watts, Isaac Watts. Listen, I love this hymn, it's one of my very favorites. The saints in all this glorious war shall conquer though they die. They see the triumph from afar by faith's discerning eye, or they seize it by the eye. When that illustrious day shall rise and all thy armies shine, God, in robes of victory through the skies, the glory shall be thine. Does that help you? Does that encourage you? That the saints in all this glorious war shall conquer though they die? But they're seizing the victory by the eye. Are you seizing the victory by the eye? Close your eyes for a moment. Can you see it? Can you see it? I know you're in a bloody war. I know you're coming out a little bit scarred and bloody from the week. I get it. But friends, we're almost there. Just seize it with the eye. Only five more valleys, only 10 more battles. Just close your eyes. Seize it by faith. We are winning. Jesus has won. We are winning and we will have the ultimate victory. We're very close to the most amazing victory, eternal glory. Seize it with the eye. That's the hope. That's the looking for it. Put on the helmet of salvation. 1 Thessalonians speaks of as the helmet of the hope of salvation. I think it's a little bit better. Because what is that? That's surrounding your mind, encompassing your head, your thought life, with this constant hope, this constant confidence that we're heading for victory. We're almost there. Jesus is with us. We can't but win, and it will be the most glorious win, and we will celebrate this win into the eons of eternity. And don't allow the devil To get in there with despair or discouragement, you've got to have the helmet of the hope of salvation on all the time. Are you with me? It's got to surround. That's why I think it's the head. Because the head is the mind. And the mind is constantly being assailed by Satan, who's trying to challenge it. Trying to say, no, it's not going to work out. This is going to be a disaster, etc. No! We're going to maintain a constancy of hope in our minds concerning our final destiny. So be the happy warrior, the rejoicing warrior, the optimistic warrior, though yes, blood streaming down your face, still rejoicing in hope. And number four, in fact, here, this is hard in some sense. All of this is a miracle, amen? This is all a miraculous work of God in us. But number four, we actually glory in the ingloriousness of our tribulations here and now. That just doesn't make sense, though. How do you glory in ingloriousness? Well, that's what we read in verses three and four. Not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces three things, perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope. So we have these three things produced. So the tribulations engage a process. in which the grace-filled life will abound with these things. Patience, perseverance, that's the first thing. Endurance, steadfastness. A lot of people have said, I don't really wanna pray for patience, perseverance or endurance because then my faith will be tested and God will stretch my enduring capability by putting me through increased trials and tribulations. That's gonna happen inevitably for any of our lives. But the natural inclination is to shrink back. It's to look for ways around the trial. Avoidance of the tribulation, getting out from under, complaining about the trials, blaming others for the trials, or just getting bitter about it. That's not gonna work. For the Christian, that doesn't work. No, God's grace is sufficient to take us through the fire. And the reason for this, this is God's way. This is the best way for us. We have to trust that God has a good end in mind. So as a Christian, we're okay with this. God sets us through trials and grace. It's trials and grace, it's a twofer. We don't just get the trials, we get the grace. So it's trials and grace that take us through. and produces this perseverance. Jesus calls for this as well. He says over and over again, he who endures to the end shall be saved. That endurance through the tribulation, essential for the Christian life, as our Lord tells us. Okay, so perseverance. Then secondly, these produce a proven character. So the character itself, the backbone is toughened and faith is strengthened. Steel is toughened as if it's an unbreakable sort of metallic thing that's forming in our back. And so we've been characterized now by a toughness in the fire. We went through a thousand degree trial and we came out tougher. Well, then we went through a 3000 degree trial. It was scary at first, but we came out tougher, tougher than ever. Then we went through 10,000 degrees. and we came out tougher than ever. What's the conclusion here? What does fire do to us? What does fire do to us? It makes us tougher. It strengthens us. It enables us to be stronger than ever to the point that we can just say, bring it on. It's just gonna toughen my faith. It will strengthen my character in the process. Then thirdly, that proven character produces more hope and hope does not confound us or consign us to depression, dishonor, shame, et cetera, pessimism. No, no, hope just makes us even more optimistic, happier warriors. As we proceed, our eyes, they shine brighter and brighter in the trials of our lives because we are not crushed, we are not devastated. We're not overcome by our trials. But as my brother said, we are more than conquerors in all these things. Those sheep to the slaughter, those sheep all hacked up, tossed into the slaughterhouse, those subjected to great tribulation, breathtaking distresses, seemingly relentless persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword. In all these things, we proven to be more than conquerors through him who loves us and we know it and we begin to act like we are more than conquerors through him who loves us even in the torture chambers of the communist prisons of our lives finally the fifth blessing is verse 5 it's the confirmation of the love of God in our hearts the The conclusion as we come through this, brothers and sisters, is that we must be loved by God. To have survived this fire, we must have been loved. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. To be loved by God is the highest blessing in the universe. And I know I mentioned this, but think about the person hated by the whole world. Think of somebody like John Wycliffe. John Wycliffe had no friends. in any high places anyways. Basically John Wycliffe versus the whole world by the time he died. They dug up his bones and burned his dead bones at the end. because they hated him so much. So if the whole world hates you, though you be hated by the entire world, though you be hated by your church, God forbid that should ever happen, or hated by your family, your father, your mother, I hope that never to be the case, but it's okay. It's okay. God loves you. You're at peace with God. Everything's gonna be okay. One thing that martyrs and suffering saints testify to, if you read enough of the martyrs' testimonies, you're going to see this over and over again. The love of God is really best demonstrated to us when we go through fire and water. That's where you're going to experience it. That's where Richard Wurmbrand realized just how much he was loved. I don't know why we don't experience as much as much when we're sitting on the beach in the Bahamas. But for some reason, for some reason, God demonstrates his love for us mostly or to the greatest extent when we go through the fire and water. Listen to Isaiah 45. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Saba in your place. Since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored and I have loved you. Therefore, I will give men for you and people for your life. So brothers and sisters, it's the love of God poured out upon you and me, powers us to do the impossible, enables us to love our worst enemies. Richard Wurmbrand in his book, Tortured for Christ, describes a pastor who was tortured, came in bloody beat up, They threw him on the ground, all in a wretched condition. There he was, writhing in pain. And all they could hear him say, he just muttered it such that they could hear it, just barely hear it. Here's what they heard him say. Please, please do not curse the communists. We must pray for them. We must pray for them. That's the power of God's love in us. That's it. It comes in like a river and it overwhelms us. To be loved by God, to be at peace with Him. Nothing better in the whole world, nothing better. Amen and amen. Oh, Father God, we thank you for your grace. Wow. Your grace to help us in time of need. God, your grace to forgive us, your grace to receive us, your grace to give the ultimate gift for us, your grace to empower us, your grace to enable us, your grace to keep us, your love to hold us and to give us everything we need in the fires and the waters of our lives. Father, help us to rejoice very much in the hope that we have to rejoice, Father, to know that you so love us and you've prepared something for us that is far beyond our wildest expectations. And Father, that we would glory in our trials, even, our tribulations, just to know your love, to know the peace of God that passes all understanding, that flows over us like a fountain, and that love, that infinite love that pours out over us like the Niagara Falls. Father, help us to know this more, even as we transfer over the fire and the water of our tribulations that you have assigned for each of us. Bless us Father, strengthen us by your grace, help us to stand and to be more full of all of that hope and joy and wild expectations of the great things you have laid up for us in Jesus and to know his presence and to know his love even more and more and more. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.