Hope Does Not Disappoint

Alright, chapter 4 verse 1 says this, What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is... But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.

So that's what justification by faith is. It's two things. It's what David just said there when he quoted from the Psalms, right? Having your sins forgiven. Blessed is the man whose lawless deeds have been forgiven. Right? Justification means your lawless deeds have been forgiven. But it's more than that. What else is it? Not just, you know, having your slate wiped clean. That in and of itself would be wonderful. Think of all the lawless deeds that you have done. And to know that those lawless deeds have been forgiven, wiped away, forgotten. Right? But is that it? Is that all there is to being justified? What else did he say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as what? Righteousness. To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as?

Righteousness. It's one thing to have your sins forgiven. It's wonderful. It's something else entirely to not just have your sins forgiven, start over, blank slate, you know, go back to square one. Now you're on your own. Try to fill up your slate with righteousness. No, that's not what it is. The righteousness of Christ himself has been given to you. Now, do you understand that? Not only have you had your sins forgiven if you're in Christ, You have had the perfect righteousness of the perfect Son of God. Obeyed the law perfectly in every way. That righteousness, that perfect record, has been taken from him and given to you. Yeah. This is what it means to be justified by faith. It means that God looks at you, and when he sees you, he sees.

The righteousness of Jesus Christ. All the obedience of Jesus Christ, yours, credited to you, his righteousness given to you. Of course, all your sins forgiven. But more than that, overlaid on top of you, imputed to you, credited to you, given to you freely as a gift, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So that when God looks at you, he sees not what you are, because I know what I am, And he knows what I am, and he knows what you are. He's not fooled. This is not some kind of trick. But in his mercy, he sees Jesus. That's what it means to be justified by faith. That's what you get when you believe this gospel, right? So what is the fruit of that? Look at chapter 5, verse 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, right? So he's speaking to Christians.

who have been justified by faith, they've had Jesus Christ's righteousness given to them, credited to their account, their sins wiped away, their sins covered, forgiven. Jesus Christ's righteousness given instead of that, right? His righteousness. Therefore, having been justified by faith, what? We have peace with God. Peace with God. There is nothing more important for you to have than that. Because if you're, what's the other option? You either have peace with God or what? You're either at peace with God or you're what? You're at odds with God? You have God at odds with you? You're the enemy of God? Those are the only two options. There's not this, this is not a bell curve, you know, where some people, a few people over here, you know, are really good, so God's at peace with them. And there's some people all the way over here on the other end, you know what a bell curve is, right?

that are like really, really bad, and they're the enemies of God, and everyone else in the middle is just average? You know? No. You're either at peace with God, or you're an enemy of God. But what does it say? Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Of course. You heard what justification by faith is, right? Your sins forgiven, lawless deeds wiped away. God's righteousness, Christ's righteousness, the perfect obedience to the law given to you, then of course, of course now we have peace with God. There's nothing left to fight about. There's nothing left for God to pour out his wrath on you for. Because Jesus bore it, right? In his own body. That's what it means for him to die. That's what the broken body and shed blood is about.

We deserve to be crushed and broken. He steps in and is crushed and broken for us. And now God is at peace with us. We're at peace with him. We have peace with God because we've been justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says this, verse two, through whom, through Jesus, also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we, what? Stand. Think about this. That word stand, right? This grace in which we stand. That means we are established in this grace. We're standing there. We're settled there. We are firm. This is not, we're not stumbling. Stand is the opposite of stumble in this.

way of talking, right? We have not been introduced into grace in which we tentatively kind of wobble. We've been introduced into this grace in which we stand. Jesus Christ has put you in a right relationship with God, where he looks at you with favor, with love. And then he says this, and, end of verse two, We exult in the hope of the glory of God. Now, think about that. What does exult mean? Is that a word you use often? There's the word exult, which is spelled with an A, E-X-A-L-T. That's not this word. That means to lift something up, right? This is E-X-U-L-T. This is a word we don't often use. This means to boastfully rejoice.

To boastfully rejoice. We actually do this a lot. We just don't use this word. But the things we do this for are really silly. Things like sports and, I don't know, politics. We exult. Oh, we get very excited. And we spill it out, right? This is a joy that can't be kept in. So that's why I say a boastful rejoicing. Not a proud. I don't mean boastful by pride. I mean we can't stop talking about it. And so what does it say that we exult in? Because of all this, we exult, we boastfully rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Now what does that mean? There's probably at least three things that that can mean. It can mean we rejoice.

We get very excited. We bubble over. We boastfully rejoice in the hope of seeing the glory of God. And that's true. We will someday, you know, the veil will be pulled back. We'll see clearly the glory of God. And that is the one thing that is eternally satisfying to your soul. Could be that. It could be that we exalt, we rejoice as we hope in sharing in the glory of God, right? What it means to be glorified. When everything's done, we will share in the glory of God. We'll be changed in such a way that we reflect his glory perfectly. It could mean that, and that's certainly worth exalting about. But here's what I think it means. I think it means we exalt in hope of receiving, how can I put this, the favor or the praise or the acceptance of God.

Now here's, let me show you why I say that. If you go to John, you can just, I'll read it to you. John 5, 44. Listen to this. Jesus says this to the Pharisees, okay? Who don't believe in him, right? And he says this, how can you believe? How are you even able to believe, okay? When you receive glory from one another. and do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God. Think about that. What does it mean to receive glory from one another? To seek glory from one another, right? Well, that means to want the praise of men, the acceptance of men, right? Favor with men. To seek the glory from one another is to want to be seen and approved by men.

And Jesus says, how can you believe? There's something in the way of your belief. There's something that actually keeps you from believing. Well, what is that? It's that you want to be seen and approved by men. You want to hear the praise of men. And so, of course, you can't believe. That's what he's saying to these people. Perhaps there are people here right now who are exactly the same. The thing you most care about is what will people think of you? What will people say? about you, what will people say to you? People, men. But then he says this, how can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? So these things are parallel to one another. Either you're seeking the glory from men or you're seeking glory from God. And that sounds weird, doesn't it? What do you mean God is glorifying us? Well, that's not exactly what it means.

This is about favor, acceptance, praise even, where either the thing that drives you is hearing from your friends, or people who aren't even your friends, maybe complete strangers, whatever, people, men, women, whatever, hearing from them, hey, good job. Hey, you're great. Hey, I like you. It's either that or hearing from God, good job. Well done. I love you. You're mine. Right? I accept you. It's one or the other. And our lust for this, for men, for praise from men, keeps us from wanting the praise from God. And this comes out in all kinds of ways, doesn't it? So that's what I think he's talking about. He says the same kind of thing in John 12. He uses the same words, just translated different. I thought it was in John 12.

John 12, 42. Same group of people, the Pharisees. Nevertheless, many even of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing him for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval. It's the word glory. They loved the glory of men rather than the glory, the approval of God. It's the same thing. So, go back to Romans 5. Look at this. We exalt in hope of the glory of God. What does that mean? I think what it means is we exalt in hope of the smile of God, the approval, the praise, as it were, of God. Now think about that. Is that enough to make you boastfully rejoice? Are you even afraid to even go there? Are you afraid that that's presumptuous? You know what I'm saying?

How can I be sure that I will come face to face with God and he'll say to me, good job, well done. He'll smile at us. He'll accept us. He'll approve of us. We hear that kind of talk and we think, well, that's just crazy presumption, right? But it's not crazy presumption if you understand what it means to be justified by faith. It is what justification by faith gets you. It gets you the smile of God. Do you think God smiles at Jesus? Does he approve of Jesus? Does he accept Jesus? Does he welcome Jesus? Is he really, really happy with Jesus? Is he or not? Yeah. Well, what does it mean to be justified by faith? Do you believe justification by faith or not? That's the question. If you do, then you exalt and hope of being approved by God. Right?

So many of us, this is not the way we are. We're Eeyore. We live under this gloom, this cloud, always expecting, always just assuming that God just doesn't like us very much. We've all had relatives, I suppose, who there was no doubt that they loved us. But there was always doubt that they liked us. Or maybe that's the other way around. Maybe you're the one who loves but doesn't like them, and that's the way they feel about you. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about, right? And this is what we think of God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't doubt that he loves me, just kind of in that family way of having to put up with me. But he doesn't really like me. He doesn't accept me.

He doesn't approve of me. No thought of exalting, boastfully rejoicing in the expectation that God actually likes me. That's a weird way of putting it, I know. It sounds trite. But what else would we say? The approval of God. Do you hope to receive that? And by hope, I don't mean, you know, you get out your phone and you have a picnic. And you look at the weather forecast and it says 99% chance of rain. And you say, oh, I hope it doesn't rain. Not that kind of hope. I'm pretty sure it's going to rain. I hope it doesn't. I'm pretty sure God really doesn't like me at all very much. But I hope he likes me. That's not the kind of hope we're talking about. Because this is not actually founded on you. It's founded on Christ. Okay, keep going. Verse 3.

But wait, there's more. Right? See what he says in verse 3? And not only this, and not only this, but wait, there's more. Not only this, but we also exult in our, what? In our tribulations. Where did that come from? There's that word exult again. You see it? So we boastfully rejoice in the hope of being approved by God. That makes sense. And not only that, but wait, there's more, right? We also boastfully rejoice in our tribulations. What does that mean? So having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, right? Okay. And so what are tribulations to us? Well, what we think is that tribulations, it could be anything, okay? Any kind of tribulation. It's not...

like end of the world type stuff. It could be. Some of you have experienced massive tribulations. You know, life changing tribulation. It could be that. But life is full of all kinds of tribulations. Of all shapes and sizes. And when we experience these tribulations, what we tend to think is, oh see, I knew it. I knew it. God actually hates me. Right? God doesn't like me. He's actually kind of mean. And I'm a sinner, so this is of course what God would be to me. He would be mean to me. Because I'm a sinner. I deserve it. God is angry with me. This tribulation, no matter how big or small it is, this is me getting what I deserve. This is God being angry with me and pouring out his wrath on me, even. This is how we think of tribulation. But that's not how we should think of tribulation. Why?

Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. And so therefore, we also exalt in our tribulations. Because now everything's different. Everything's different now. If you understand that you've been justified by faith, and therefore you have peace with God, and you have this hopeful expectation of being accepted and approved by God, right? Then bad things... It's not that everything, all the bad things go away, but they're coming from the hand of God, the God who loves you. Look at what he says. We also exalt in our tribulations. How does that work? He tells us, knowing, if we keep this in our mind, the tribulation brings about what? Perseverance. What if I don't want perseverance? Do I have to have perseverance? Can I just?

get through life without perseverance, because then I wouldn't have to have tribulation. Well, that would be bad. Why? Knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance brings about what? Proven character. Proven character. Character that you only see under stress. Character that you only see under tribulation, right? It's one thing to have unproven character, but that's not really worth much. What matters is proven character. And character is only proven when you have to persevere under tribulation. So tribulation creates perseverance. Perseverance, proven character. And then what? Proven character produces what? Hope. How does character produce hope? Character produces hope because justified by faith means that you've been given to your account.

the righteousness of Jesus Christ, but God goes deeper than that, right? He actually changes you. He actually starts working in you and changing you. And when you see that, that's that proven character, when he sees that, when you see that the Holy Spirit is at work in you, this calls out hope from inside of us, okay? Hope. And he says what? Hope does not disappoint. So this approach to tribulation here that he just takes for granted, he says this is how, if you understand you have peace with God, if you understand you've been justified by faith, this is how you deal with tribulation, right? He's taking this for granted. This comes from hope. This hope does not disappoint. You're already at peace with God. You've been justified by faith. God is at work in you.

And why is it that hope does not disappoint? Well, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. So there's things going on outside of us. There's things going on inside of us. God declares us righteous, even though we're not. And then he starts working righteousness in us by the Holy Spirit, pouring out the love of God into us, changing us, putting us under pressure. Giving us perseverance, which creates character, which gives us hope. How do you think about your tribulations? How do you think about that? How do you process that, right? With dread? With cynicism? Oh, here it comes again. Yeah, I knew it. I'm just waiting always, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things are pretty nice right now, but I know they won't continue this way because I know what usually happens. What usually happens is things are nice and then they're not.

And so all the good things, it's just like all the TV shows. Everything's great and then you know that it's not going to be. And that's my life. And so I'm going to be stoic about this. And that's how I'm going to deal with tribulation. I'm going to be stoic. Does the word exult sound like stoicism to you? This is not stoicism. This is rejoicing. This is all over the Bible, right? Count it all joy. When you fall into various trials, James says, why? Because God's at work. Because the tribulation that comes to you does not come to you as the wrath of God. It doesn't come to you from your judge. Now God is the judge, isn't he? But what else is he? He is your savior and your friend. He's your father. You remember what Hebrews says about discipline and fathers, right?

Who gets disciplined? According to Hebrews 12, the son whom he what? Loves. The son whom he accepts. That's who gets disciplined. Because why? Because discipline produces fruit. The fruit of righteousness. Holiness. That's what Hebrews says. It's exactly the same thing. So we have to rejigger the way we deal with tribulation. Brothers and sisters, we have to. We have to think about tribulation in light of what? Having been justified by faith. Peace with God. If we have peace with God, he's not giving you hard things because he's at enmity with you. He's giving them to you because he loves you. Now he's going to prove this to us because he knows we don't believe it. That's what he starts doing in verse 6. We're thinking, no, wait, hold on a minute.

I don't deserve any of that. This can't be right because I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm ungodly. I know I still chafe under God, you know, under his law, under his word. How can this be true of me? Because I know me. Verse six, he's still working on this point. For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. We're always thinking about this, you know, I earn. There's an exchange. I do good things, God pays me. I do good things, God pays me. I do good things, God pays me. You know? What did we just read in Romans 4, right? Remember that? You do your work, the boss pays you, right? And it's not because he's doing you a favor. He might be doing you a favor, depending on how hard you've worked. But you earned it.

Let's say you worked hard and you earned it. Is that what it is like with God? No, it's not to the one who works. It's to the one who does not work, is what Romans 4 says, but who believes. We're always thinking about this exchange. So, okay, I'm willing to buy that this is true of good people. That, yeah, there are good people who should expect. God to approve them. They should expect that when tribulations come, God is at work. Well, I'm not one of those people. I'm helpless. I'm weak. I'm ungodly. Well, yeah, exactly. For at the right time, well, we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. And he says in verse 7, for one will hardly die for a righteous man.

Though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. We can imagine that. We can imagine the hero dying for another hero. That's what fairy tales are made up of. But this isn't a fairy tale. Verse 8. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. How does this work? Who does Christ die for? Which ones does he pick? When we go to the pumpkin patch, you're going to go to the pumpkin patch? Take your kids to the pumpkin patch? And you look at the vast sea of pumpkins, right? Ugly, weird, bad color, wrong shape, perfect. That's the one I'm going to get. Is that how God chose us? Passes over the ugly ones and chooses the nice ones?

You're not nice. You're not pretty. Not many noble, not many well-born, not many wise, God chose. Weak things, helpless, ungodly, sinners. That's who God chose. And it's really weird how we think, therefore, we're better than others. By definition, if you're a Christian, you are better than nobody. God chose the ungodly and the helpless and the weak and the sinners. That's what Jesus says, right? It didn't come for the righteous, but for sinners. Then he says in verse nine, well, verse eight, read it again. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. You see this argument? He's saying, look, God did the hard thing. The hard thing is that while you were a sinner, Christ died for you. Nobody dies for sinners, you know? Maybe a good man, maybe a righteous man, maybe you could think of somebody, but no, you're a sinner. He's done the hard thing. While you were a sinner, Christ died for you, right? So then, come on, how much more do you think now that you have been justified, meaning declared righteous,

Accepted by God. Now that you have been justified by his blood, of course we'll be saved from the wrath of God through him. Which means what? It means your tribulations are not you experiencing the wrath of God. Because you won't experience the wrath of God. If there's anything in you that recoils against that and says, no, no, no, that means I can be lazy. And, you know, Hate God's law and not want to obey him. You're giving me an excuse to do that. If that's where your mind goes, go back to square one because you don't understand justification by faith. That's not what justification by faith does in you. It doesn't make you lazy. It doesn't make you want to sin more. It makes you love God. Look what he says. We'll be saved from the wrath of God through him.

Verse 10, for if while we were enemies, another if then statement, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And so listen, were you an enemy of God? Ungodly, helpless, weak, sinner? And yet now you've been justified by faith? You've been given the righteousness of Jesus Christ and have all your sins forgiven? What makes you think he's not going to see this through? What makes you think you won't be saved? You're an enemy and you were reconciled to God. That means you're not an enemy anymore. You've been reconciled to God. So again, this is how we think. I think a lot of us, especially coming out of...

Whatever churches we all used to be a part of, right? Where things are always easy. Things are always superficial. Things are always shallow. Sin is never talked about. Okay? And we, our conscience, like, revolts against that. And we don't want that anymore. It's like, it's like saccharine, you know? It's sickening sweet. And it makes us kind of nauseous, right? You understand? And so we think, okay, the opposite of that must be always thinking that God is against me. That's what godliness is. That's not. So godliness must mean God is always against me, and I'm always feeling like God's against me. And if I get any kind of glimmer of hope, oh, no, no, no. I'm going back to, you know, megachurch, seeker-friendly, shallow, you know.

No, no, no, no, no. True godliness means understanding that I'm totally depraved. Understanding that I am an enemy of God. Are you an enemy of God? Are you an enemy of God? You want to say yes, don't you? Are you totally depraved? You want to say yes, don't you? Now some of you, I suspect, are in fact enemies of God. And some of you are in fact totally depraved. That's what we all are coming into this world. You understand? That is what we are. That's what he said. Right? But does salvation mean anything? Are you now an enemy of God? If you're justified by faith, are you an enemy of God? Yes or no? You were. But now you've been what? And reconciled to God. Reconciled. Reconciled. No longer an enemy. Okay? Is God at work in you or not?

Do you have the Holy Spirit or not? Has he changed your heart or not? Is he changing your heart? Okay, yes, it's a process. Is he changing your heart to make you love him more? So are you totally depraved? When he looks at you, is he a nitpicker? Is your view of God that the only thing he really sees is the minor little point that I missed? Is God like your father? I mean, your dad? Because that's how many of us dads are, isn't it? All we see is the one thing that was wrong. Is that how you think of God? What God sees is everything that Jesus did. So if you're reconciled, then of course you'll be saved by his life. You're reconciled by his death. You're going to be saved by his life. But wait, there's more. Verse 11. And not only this.

Okay, not only this, but wait, there's more. But we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. So remember, we exalt in hope of the glory of God, we exalt in our tribulations, and now we exalt in God. This is very personal, all right? We exalt, it's one thing to exalt in, to have this. boastful rejoicing, right, in knowing that God will approve me. It's one thing to exalt in knowing that, yes, these tribulations are going somewhere and they're guided by the hand of a good God who loves me, with whom I am at peace, not receiving punishment, discipline, yeah, but not punishment, right? But it's another thing to exalt in God, boastful rejoicing in God himself. That means We are friends. That means we love each other. We love each other. I love him. He loves me. I love him. He loves me. We love each other. And so I am, you know, I'm not flat. I'm boastfully rejoicing in God himself, his person, his character, who he is. I actually love him. We've been reconciled.

Think about this, okay? Have you been justified by faith? Have you been justified by faith? You understand what it means? Not you working, but believing in him who justifies the ungodly, right? Have you been justified by faith? Well, then you have peace with God. All of your tribulations that come to you come from God's hand for your good. So have you been justified by faith? Do you have peace with God? Do you look for expectantly to hear, well done, good and faithful servant? I see Jesus when I see you. I accept you just like I accept, I love you just like I love Jesus. That's what God says, all right? Do you have that? Do you have the love of God poured out within your heart by the Holy Spirit? I don't take that for granted.

All right? You shouldn't either. Is this true of you? Is this true of you? If it's not, if you have any doubt about that, this is not something that you should leave in iffy land, okay? You should come to God. He loves to accept sinners. And if you think, well, yeah, I'm too much of a sinner for him to save. Oh, yeah. He's met his match in you. Now you're just proud. And God resists the proud. So you're creating your own. He delights to find enemies and reconcile them, to find sinners and die for them. This is what he does. Okay? So if you do believe that you've been justified by faith and you have peace with God, where's the exalting? Where's the exalting? Where's the boastful rejoicing? Is your life a gloomy cloud?

Even though you think, yeah, yeah, I know. I'll go to heaven when I die. Yes, yes, yes. Well, this is all present tense here, not just when we go to heaven when we die stuff. Do you exalt in hope of the glory of God? Do you exalt in your tribulations? Do you believe that God is in your tribulations bringing you to glory through them? Do you exalt in God? You know, God commands us to raise our children, right? You guys are having a class on child training. Yes, God commands us to raise our children. It's a wonderful thing that our children are in the church, that your children are growing up in the church, right? But you know how it is. Familiarity breeds contempt, okay? Yawning is the opposite of exalting. You know what I mean? And it's so easy for just us and even more easy for our children to yawn at these things. You've heard them. You've heard this over and over again.

Yeah, whatever. Nothing new. You know, it's like a visit to the principal's office in Peanuts. You guys don't watch Peanuts? Okay. Charlie Brown going to the principal's office. And that's all this is. But it's not. This is your life. This is your life. So, may God help us. These things are true. Let's pray.