We read the word of God this evening from Romans 5. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. Not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, Even so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death, Even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus far the reading of the holy and divine scripture we consider as our text tonight, verse five, and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle is continuing his subject that he who is righteous by faith shall live. He has established that we are righteous by faith, and now he is establishing that we live. We live free from wrath, We live free from the law, and we live free from death. And because that's true of us, because we live, we also have hope. That's true, you understand, of the one who believes in God, who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and who by that faith is justified Abraham believed God, and his faith was imputed to him for righteousness. And so too, if you believe in God, who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, your faith is imputed unto you for righteousness. That one who believes in God, who raised Christ from the dead, he is the ungodly one, whom God justifies, whose sins God forgives, and to whom God imputes righteousness without works. They broke in all God's commandments. The Apostle says later on in the chapter, the law entered that sin might abound, so that where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. That one, I say, has hope. He stands before God at peace with God and the object of the unfailing grace of God. You can't have that peace. You can't have that hope. If you introduce man's works into his standing before God, then all of man's peace and all of man's hope simply evaporates like a drop of water on asphalt in the middle of the desert. We are freed from fear and from bondage and from wrath and from the law and from sin and from death, being justified by faith. God then has brought us into a whole new relationship with himself in Jesus Christ. We are members of his covenant. We are children of the living God. We are heirs of eternal life. And we stand as sinners in that position. Always we stand as sinners in ourselves before God. But as sinners whom God has freely justified, those sinners stand before God at peace with him. They are the objects of His grace. They receive from God grace for grace. Where there is despair, where there is anxiety, where there is doubt, it's because that truth that we stand before God only as righteous in Christ, where there is despair and doubt and fear, I say it's because that truth is not believed. and always there will be fear and despair and doubt but to the ungodly sinner who is justified freely by God's grace he has peace with God and he has hope then too the Apostle says we hope in the glory of God that hope isn't a vague feeling that hope isn't a pious wish, that hope is a firm conviction, a firm expectation, and a very deep longing for what God has promised and the knowledge that what God has promised, God will give. We hope We hope in the glory of God that we will see Him and that we will be like Him. And you understand because the Christian has that hope, the Christian can also stand in the world in the midst of his tribulations and he says, I glory in these tribulations too. Not because he's a sadist. Not because he's a weirdo who glories in that which causes pain. Not because he is one who is drawn to what repels others. No, he glories in the tribulation because of the fruit of them. That fruit is precious indeed to him. Those tribulations work patience and they work experience or provedness and they work hope. From hope to hope the Christian goes all through this life because he's justified by faith, not by works, and he has peace with the living God. Now that hope that we have in Christ is still the apostle's subject. He says that hope does not make ashamed. The apostle now is not interested in so much the content of that hope, for he has already explained that. We hope in the glory of God. We will see God. We will be like God. But he is interested in this truth about that hope. that that hope does not make the child of God ashamed and that's the theme of this verse too an unashamed hope that's what we have in Christ let's notice first of all what that unashamed hope is let's notice why that is that way and let us know how we have that an unashamed hope the Christian now as that mysterious and oftentimes inexplicable creature whom God has made by His grace the Christian who believes in God, who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and who is justified by that faith, that Christian has hope. That is simply a fact about a Christian. a Christian without hope is no Christian a Christian is without hope because a Christian does not have faith and not having faith that one is not justified and not being justified they have no peace with God and so they have no hope in God either I say a Christian Christian has hope the very faith that God gives to him that faith whereby he is implanted into Jesus Christ, that faith draws out of Jesus Christ all his hope. So the Christian has hope. And that hope that he speaks about in this text, that hope that does not make a shame, that hope is the very same hope he talked about earlier. We hope in the glory of God. As we stand in this world, and as we stand in our tribulations, especially, as we stand here, we say, I shall see God. I'm a member and shall walk in a celestial city. I have part in that everlasting inheritance. I will have peace and rest from my labors when all of this weary night is finished. I shall see the glory of God. I shall stand before Jesus Christ. I shall be justified and enter into my eternal home. I have hope. I have hope that I shall share in the glory of God. That's the hope he's talking about. A Christian doesn't only have hope in his life, If we only have hope in this life, we are of all men most miserable. The Christian with his hope always reaches past the grave. He reaches past the end of the world and he reaches into that which is eternal and unmovable and unshakable. He says we have a hope. We hope in the glory of God. And that hope is the Christian's expectation that God will give that to him. He doesn't doubt it. He doesn't say like a little boy says when he goes to the store and he sees a new bike and he says, well, I hope I get that bike. It's a kind of wish on that child's heart. No, the Christian in his hope expects that that's what God will do for him. And that Christian then too expecting that that's what God will do for him, the Christian has a deep, deep longing for that. Lord give to me what thou hast promised or to put it very concretely Lord I want to go to heaven take me to heaven that where thou art I may be also the Christian is never satisfied with this life he's not satisfied with its treasures he's not satisfied with whatever portion that God gives to him in this life he always reaches that which God has promised he has hope and I say to be a Christian is to have that hope I do not say that the Christian always lives consciously in that hope very often when you look at him and you hear him talk and you observe his life You would seem to say he's very satisfied here. He loves his wife. He has a good job. He takes care of his children. He comes to church. He labors at the school. And the Christian appears as though he's satisfied here in this life. And maybe in his own consciousness, he doesn't always live out of that hope. He lives very often in the earth. His desires are here below. His purposes sometimes don't extend any farther than the horizon of the earth. He doesn't frequently come to that state of which Christ says that we possess our souls in patience. so that he's ready to die every day. He doesn't come to that state very often. He doesn't come very often to that state of which the Apostle Paul spoke when he said, I'm in a strait betwixt two, whether to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, or whether to remain here with the church, which is more needful for you. He doesn't come there very often. His hope, very often, is like his hatred of sin. The Christian in his heart hates sin. He doesn't love his sin. And yet when you examine you and say, oh, I can hardly tell that he hates sin. And so too of his hope. You can look at him and you can hear him talk and you can visit with him and you say, I can hardly see that he wants to go to heaven. And so the Lord uses tribulation. He doesn't use prosperity to do this. It may be the Lord's will that for a time the child of God has a relatively easy time in this life. But too, as it is Christian to have hope, it is also Christian to have tribulation. You can't be a Christian in the world and not have tribulation. That's true, first of all, from this point of view, that the Christian, even when the Christian experiences disease and setback and pestilence and famine, and trouble in his life, the Christian always experiences that as part of the coming of God's kingdom. As God's kingdom is moving through time and history, and God's kingdom moves through the world in which the child of God inhabits, God's kingdom shakes that world. And the child of God is a participant in that shaking. And so he too must undergo famine and pestilence and disease and trouble in his life. Those things we would say which are common to men, but also you cannot be a Christian in the world and not have tribulation because the Christian has within him Jesus Christ and the world hates Jesus Christ. So Christ said about the world, they hated me, they'll hate you too. The servant is not greater than his master. And so the Christian has tribulation in his life. To be a Christian and to have hope, that Christian also must have tribulation. The Christian is like a tree that God plants in Jesus Christ. And if you give that tree a fair and easy life, it grows weak and spindly. But if you beat on that tree with storms and winds and you shake that tree, then it sinks its roots down more deeply into Jesus Christ, and its trunk grows stronger, and its limbs grow stronger. And the strength of the Christian is hope. I hope in the glory of God. But it's one thing to hope. It's another thing if that hope puts you to shame. Take that little boy who goes to the store and he sees that bike. He comes home and he boasts to all his brothers and sisters, I'm going to get that bike. He goes to school and he says, I'm going to get a new bike. And he hopes in that. His birthday comes around. He gets a pair of socks for his birthday present. And you would say he's utterly disappointed and ashamed. Or you're going to go on a very long journey, and you plan that for months and months and months. While you're planning that journey, you're boasting of the beauty of the place you're going to go. It's almost like Eden, you say, and it's beautiful beyond description, and you'll be captivated by all the sights that you're going to see. And you plan and plan and plan, and then you travel there, a very long and hard journey, and now you've arrived there, and you trudge the last couple of steps to your destination, and you come over the hill and you look, It's nothing but a wasteland. And you're embarrassed, and you're disappointed before all those to whom you boasted about the glory of the place that you're going. The Christian hopes, and the apostle says, that hope doesn't make ashamed. Ashamed here means to disappoint. Ashamed means here to fall short of what is promised. Ashamed means here to embarrass the hope that the Christian has that he will see God, that he will participate in a glory that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, that he will enjoy being in the very presence of God. That hope that the Christian has does not make ashamed. Christian, when he goes to heaven, doesn't matter how hard his life was here on the earth. If she's a woman, her husband could be a brute, callous and uncaring, so that she lives for 50 years with that man. It's a man you could have a wife who's completely unbelieving. So that you live in a mixed marriage all your life long. Could be a child whose life is one that began with abuse and ends with abuse. The child of God could suffer famine and pestilence and sword and nakedness and disease. The child of God can be hounded from one end of the creation to the other so that he loses his name and he loses his place in the world and he loses ultimately his life and the Christian will never come to heaven and say it wasn't worth it. What a disappointment. What an embarrassment. that I denied myself for this, and I lost my family and friends for this. Hope does not make ashamed. The Christian has hope. He has an unashamed hope. That's often how you can tell that someone has no hope. They will not suffer. They will not suffer in the world. They will not deny themselves. They will not lose their name and their place in society. They will not become the objects of the ridicule of the false church and of the world. They will not suffer. What is the source and explanation of their utter failure to suffer? They have no hope. Their horizon doesn't ascend any higher than the horizon of the universe that God made. Their horizon does not reach out into the eternal. They have no hope. And they have no hope because they have no faith. And having no faith, they have no peace with God. They fear Him. And they absolutely refused to receive from His hand the suffering, the tribulation that belongs to the Christian in this life. We have hope. And you must understand when the Apostle says in the text, in unashamed hope, he does not simply mean this, that when you get to heaven, Your hope will not disappoint you. That's not what he means. The thought isn't this, that the Christian, all through this life, goes through this life and he suffers as a Christian. He suffers the loss of all things. He denies himself. And really as he's losing his things, as he's being the object of the ungodly world's hatred of him, and persecution of him, as his family is leaving him and abandoning him and calling him a radical. He doesn't say, when I get to heaven it's going to be worth it. But now I'm embarrassed. Now I'm ashamed to suffer as a Christian. No, he means now. As the Christian walks through life, and as he is the object of the hatred of the world and the loss of all things, he is unashamed in his hope. He's not embarrassed before the world to lose his name. He's not embarrassed before the world to lose his family. He has an unashamed hope. so that in the midst of all those things that testify of death and condemnation. And often the world will look at the suffering Christian that way. He'll look at the Christian and say, where is his God? Has God abandoned him? He's not loved of his God. Christian says, no. I have an unashamed hope right now. And the question is what is the ground for that? Does the Christian have any ground for that unashamed hope? So that he denies himself really without any ground. And the answer of the Apostle is no. He says our hope does not make us ashamed. because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. The ground of the Christian's unashamed hope is that he has the love of God shed abroad in his heart. That's the, you might say, the firm and solid foundation of the entire Christian life. There is the testimony of all things that he must go through There's the testimony of his sin that speaks of death and condemnation. There's the testimony of the hatred of the world. There's the testimony that the appearance of things might have so that while he's losing all things, it appears that he has been abandoned by his God and he has another testimony. That testimony is the love of God for him. That's the thought of the Apostle. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. That means God's love for us. The Apostle is not saying as we go through tribulation and as that tribulation causes hope to blossom up within our hearts and to sink its roots deeply down into Jesus Christ that God sheds abroad in our hearts a love for God. That's not the thought at all. the thought is in this that as the child of God goes through tribulations and as it appears that his love is restricted to things on the earth that God then as it were turns his desire toward God that's not the thought the thought is this as the child of God goes through tribulation and that tribulation causes a hope to well up within him, that's because there is a testimony from God to him. And that testimony of God is I love you. I love you with an everlasting love. I love you with the love whereby I chose you out of the world in Jesus Christ. I panted after you, and I desired to have you, and I will have you. No man can take you away from me. The love of God where there's unbelief and where there's disappointment and where there's anxiety and fear and hopelessness has really one explanation. where there is earthly mindedness and carnality, and a lack of contentment that has one explanation. There is no testimony in that heart of the love of God. He says, our hope doesn't make ashamed, so that as we lose everything, we're not embarrassed by that. our hope doesn't make a shame because there's the love of God in our hearts he says it's poured out that's really the the language of the apostle here not spread abroad but poured out and that looks at the heart of the child of God as a vessel and God takes that vessel and God fills that vessel with his love And that love as it fills up that heart, that love displaces all other things. Where then that heart there was fear and there was trepidation and there was hopelessness and there was despair and worry and anxiety and carnality and worldliness. God pours his love out and he displaces all those things with that love. So that he fills the heart of the child of God with the testimony of his love. That's why the Christian isn't ashamed. He loses everything. He is not ashamed. He's not ashamed of his confession. He's not ashamed of his God. He's not ashamed of the truth. because God testifies to him that he's beloved of God what does the apostle say in another place? I bow my head and I pray that you with all the saints might be able to comprehend the love of God in Christ Jesus that's what keeps the Christian That's what, as it were, draws the Christian heavenward. That explains everything about the Christian. When that love of God so lays hold on him and so fills his heart, he cannot do anything but walk the way that God gave him, toward heaven, to confess God's name, to lose, to deny himself that's why your hope doesn't make ashamed and that testimony is nothing other than the testimony of the Holy Spirit Himself you might say something like this this is so important for the child of God that he knows that God loves him that God does not you might say use an instrument God does it himself he says our hope doesn't make us shamed because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. And that is not a corruption. In fact, it's an explanation in a sound one of the apostles' language to say this, the concrete form that the love of God takes in our hearts is the Spirit himself. The filling of the heart of the child of God with the testimony of the love of God is the filling of the heart of the child of God with the Spirit of the living God. It's only because He's in us. You would say God pours out His love when God pours out His Spirit. Assurance assurance is not manufactured do you know what I mean by that? manufactured? there are those who think it is the height of pastoral piety that when a child of God comes to them and says I don't have the assurance of my salvation and what do they immediately do? they say well Do you love your wife? Do you love your children? Do you love the church? Do you confess the truth? What are they doing? They're trying to manufacture assurance. See? See those things over there that you do and you can testify that you love those things? That's no basis. There's no basis in that for Christian hope. Christian hope isn't something that comes through a logical step. A Christian has faith, and faith produces good works, and I produce good works, and therefore I must be a child of God. It's not that at all. Simply not how it comes. Assurance is strictly the work of the Holy Spirit. God gives him to us for this purpose and this is his office to assure us that God loves us. Holy Spirit himself fills up our hearts with the knowledge that we are God's and that's the engine the Christian life It's only because you know that God loves you that you ever repent You know that right you never repent if God you don't know God loves you Those that walk in their sin and those that Lift themselves up and they say we have no sin Those who won't be sinners before God or those who just continue on in their sin Why is that They don't know that God loves them. They don't know his love. They don't have any testimony in his heart When that love of God lays hold on someone's heart I that love of God changes the whole direction of that person the knowledge of the love of God is the explanation of all the Christian's steadfastness in suffering all of his experience and all of his patience all comes out of that knowledge that God loves him there's no Christian and there's no Christian life and there's no Christian patience, and there's no Christian hope, apart from that knowledge that God loves me. That hope, and you would say, too, our steadfastness and our patience always has to have a basis. The basis can never be me. It can never be my faithfulness, it can never be my goodness, it can never be my repentance, it can never be my believing. The basis of all our hope is the love of God. And you understand you can't divorce that from the truth of justification by faith alone. It is only where that truth is preached So that by that means ungodly sinners are justified. And by that justification those ungodly sinners are placed in the standing place of peace with God. It's only where that truth is believed and that truth is preached that that testimony also comes. that God loves the one that He justified apart from that truth justification there is no testimony there's only one testimony apart from that truth you're a sinner and you must go to hell but where that truth is preached that God justifies the ungodly and that God justifies those ungodly sinners freely by His grace and that God does that because He loves them only then and only there does the Holy Spirit say in the heart of the child of God God loves you and that knowledge is the rock of my whole life simply stand on it I don't take my stand on my repentance. I don't take my stand on my works. I don't take my stand on my going to church or my loving of my wife or of my raising of my children. I don't take my stand on anything other than that testimony of the Holy Spirit that God loves me. And on that testimony, as I walk through tribulation, my hope is not ashamed. Amen. Father in Heaven, we thank Thee for such an unashamed hope. We thank Thee for the testimony of Thy Holy Spirit through the Gospel that we are justified and that Thou dost love us. And Lord, knowing that we are beloved of Thee and having peace with Thee, may we through all our tribulations stretch out in hope for the perfection that is to come. We ask this, Lord, all for Jesus' sake. Amen.