Romans 5 Series: Hope Does Not Put Us To Shame

Hope Does Not Put Us To Shame

It’s been few weeks, but today we return to our series in Romans chapter 5. In the first 5 verses of this rich chapter in this rich book of God-exalting, heart-inflaming doctrine - we’ve been exploring the gifts that come to us, as Christians. these are gifts guaranteed to every justified sinner.

Last time we were in verses 3-5 and exploring the gift of suffering. And that sounds very strange - SUFFERING as GIFT we RECEIVE in our salvation? To borrow the title of a Christian book from many years ago: “Suffering is the gift nobody wants.” Well, it may be a gift that we would never THINK to want - and, many people, in fact use the very existence of suffering as an excuse to REJECT the very existence of the loving, sovereign God of the Bible.

The reality is - rejecting God because of pain - doesn’t take one ounce of the pain away. The Bible tells us that suffering is inevitable in this world of sin. Rebellion against God has brought suffering and decay and death into God’s GOOD creation, from the day of Adam and Eve in the garden, until now.

Paul says, in v. 3: “We REJOICE in our sufferings” … and then he goes on to tell us WHY - Why we can rejoice in, or ‘glory in’ … even ‘boast’ - in suffering. It’s because of what suffering DOES. We don’t boast in our pain … suffering is not a good as an end in itself. Suffering is worth glorying in - because God uses it to PRODUCE something in us.

Last time, in this chapter, we saw what suffering produces - vv. 3-4, “… suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope ...”. There are three links in the chain:

1) suffering works endurance in us - So when you have trouble in your life - there’s pain that threatens your faith - that very suffering - shapes us into runners able to do more than a 100 yard spring - develops our lungs and stamina and turns us into runners who can persevere, press on through the trouble and complete the marathon of life in this world.

2) That endurance develops in us ‘character’ - or ‘testedness’ - like the gold nugget that is dug out of the ground, still caked in dirt - refined by fire, all the dross and impurities burnt away - until it gleams. The furnace of affliction does that in every Chrisitan life - burns away the crud and leaves you gleaming. You are authentic - I know I belong to Jesus Christ, because the suffering hasn’t pushed me away from Him - It’s driven me to my knees before Him.

3) And that character - that proven testedness produces hope - that’s the third link in the chain - the hope that leaves you clinging to your Saviour - knowing that this pain I’m walking through is not for nothing - God is using this very valley of sorrow and heartache to shape me - He hasn’t forgotten me, He is refining me because He loves me … so my hope in Christ grows and I can - yes, even REJOICE and boast in my sufferings in Christ.

Now having dealt with all of this blessing - the three linked chain of blessing that suffering produces in the life of every Christian - there is a potential for misunderstanding here that we need to deal with before we go on in this fifth chapter of Romans. When you read verses three and four and put the links of the chain together - “… suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope ...” - if you aren’t careful, you could come to the conclusion that ‘HOPE’ only comes at the end of the chain. In other words: First you have to get the endurance built up, then you have to make it through the fire … THEN - and ONLY then - you can get to the hope. Hope comes last.

That’s a wrong understanding of what Paul is saying here … and it’s a deadly misunderstanding. That’s why we are spending this morning, focused on this gift of suffering again.

The truth is that NOT a ONE of us would be able to persevere through the suffering … unless we ALREADY had the hope that the God of the universe loves us and is unwaveringly committed to bringing us through. What gets us THROUGH the suffering IS HOPE. Hope isn’t just the last link in the golden chain - that makes it complete … Hope is also the atmosphere - the air you breathe in as you are pressing on in the marathon you

Hope is the oxygen in which the refining fire burns - hot enough to burn away the impurities, but not so hot that it destroys ....

We start with hope … We suffer in hope … and we are rewarded with more and stronger hope.

Back to our text: v. 4, “character produces hope ...” and then v. 5 begins: “… and hope does not put us to shame ...”. When Paul says that ‘hope does not put us to shame ...’ He’s not just pointing forward into the future - obviously if we endure our sufferings and grow in them by hoping in Christ - we will NOT be put to shame on judgement day - when we enter into eternity. But that’s NOT what he’s focusing on right here - ‘...hope does not put us to shame ...” - that’s in the present tense.

That’s the point I want to explore with you, this morning.

HOPE DOES NOT PUT US TO SHAME … NOW. What does that mean?

1 PRESENT HOPE PROTECTS AGAINST SHAME

Paul is saying here, If you have turned from your sin and self and put your trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ as your ONLY hope - then you will NEVER be put to shame in THIS life. There is suffering here; there are trials … here, there will be temptation to fall into shame.

Let me illlustrate from the life of Paul, himself. Turn to 2 Timothy 1:9-12,

2 Timothy is the last of Paul’s letters in our Bible. He writes this letter to his protoge from prison. He’s feeling old, he’s been abandoned and rejected by people he thought he could trust, he’s got nothing - even requests that, when Timothy comes to visit him - he brings his cloak - doesn’t even have a jacket. He can see the end of his life on the horizon - he’s not getting out of prison and this is how his life is going to end … behind bars for the gospel. Could there be circumstances MORE depressing … more shameful - than this?

But Paul isn’t depressed:

End of v. 11: “I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher (a preacher and apostle and teacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is what he’s referring to) ...” - verse 12, “which is why I suffer as I do. But I am NOT ashamed ...”.

I am STUCK - right here in the middle of these trials and rejections and sufferings, with no light on the horizon, humanly speaking. But I am NOT ashamed.

I’m not ashamed of where I am … I’m not ashamed that I have exchanged the admiration of society’s movers and shakers for their scorn and hatred. I am not disappointed that my earthly life looks like it’s going to end in execution for my testimony for Jesus Christ. I am NOT ashamed of any of my sufferings … WHY?! Verse 12 continutes: “For I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.”

Don’t miss what he’s saying: “I’m not ashamed now - in the most shameful of circumstances - because of the HOPE I have, as a Christian - NOW; not that I will have at some vague point in the future. I have this hope NOW.”

Remember - Paul is writing to Timothy, a young man who is just getting established in ministry - looking at his mentor - imprisoned, chained, facing execution for no good reason … “Is that where my Christian faith is going to take me? Is that going to be MY end, too?!” “Why does God allow His faithful servants to end up in such humiliating places - if the Good News of the Gospel is true?”

Paul knows the wrestling that will naturally be going on within Timothy’s mind and heart, that’s why he presses him, in v. 8: “Don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord nor of me his prisoner”. And if you look at the end of 2 Timothy 1, you’ll see that he comes back to the same theme. He refers to a Christian brother, named Onesiphorus: 2 Timothy 1:15-16, “You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains ...”

In other words, when others are turning away from Paul and the Gospel in shame … Onesiphorus is a man who so clearly sees the full reality of what salvation in Jesus Christ means - that he isn’t put off by Paul’s imprisonment. he goes to him often and ministers to him - there in his chains.

Back to our text in Romans 5:5, “Hope does NOT put us to shame ...”. In fact,the person who understands their salvation in Jesus Christ, will not only NOT be imprisoned by shame … he or she will REJOICE in those very sufferings - boast in them - GLORY in them. Paul makes this point again in Romans 8:37, No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

That’s what HOPE in Christ does - RIGHT NOW, in the present.

And throughout history, the saints and martyrs have known that gift of indesctructable HOPE - even in the very middle of devastating sufferings - Stephen, the first Christian martyr - rocks pelting him, falling to his knees about to die … to all the world looking as though God was declaring the verdict that He had abandoned this servant of Jesus - Stephen was not ashamed - he was dying in hope: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit … Lord do not hold this sin against them.”

Present hope in Christ - does not put us to shame.

2 THE GIFT THAT GUARDS OUR HOPE - THE LOVE OF GOD, POURED INTO OUR HEARTS

So, where does that abililty to live in unashamed hope come from? How can I boast unashamedly in my sufferings?

Verse 5 again: “… and hope does not put us to shame ...” (WHY?) ... “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Here’s the answer - “God’s love has been poured into our hearts ...”. This is an amazing statement that we far too easily read right past, without being struck with appropriate awe.

It’s an amazing statement - It’s also a strange thing to say: If Paul had said, “… Hope does not put us to shame, because God LOVES US” - we could understand that. If he said, “Hope does not put us to shame because God has given us His love ...” - that would make sense, too. But, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts ...” - what does that even mean?!

Well, to understand it, you need to know that it’s the same expression used in Acts 2, in connection with the promised coming of the Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost.

Acts 2:17, Peter is quoting the prophecy of Joel, hundreds of years before: ““ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams ...”

Don’t miss the word, “pour out”

Acts 2:33, Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

Again, the word, “poured out” - the Greek word is ‘ekxew’ - ‘POUR’ - It paintsa picture. This is not a picture of God carefully measuring out His love to us - and giving it to us with an eye-dropper - Precisely 5 drops of love for you ...

No, “Shedding Abroad” as the KJV translates it - the Greek word carries the idea of GUSHING - like a tropical rainfall - drenching with God’s love.

It may be like a waterfall pouring down, but this is no out of control gushing. “God’s love has been poured INTO our hearts.”

This is an unhindered, unrestrained, lavish gift … but it’s precise. It gushed directly into our hearts - permeating every part: God’s love the waterfall and our hearts the sponge - filled until they overflow with His love.

Don’t miss that God’s love is poured into our hearts - that’s important. The heart in the Bible is the very centre of our being and understanding. This isn’t JUST feelings - but it does INCLUDE emotions and feelings. Biblical Christianity is far more than simply intellectual understanding and the affirmation of the right ‘facts’.

God idn’t create us to be Vulcans, like Spock on Star Trek: “Yes, Because of Christ - it is logical for me to believe that God loves me.”

NO - the love of God has been ‘poured into our HEARTS!” - at the level of EXPERIENCE and ASSURANCE.

Do you see how much we need this gift of God’s love to strengthen hope when we are suffering?

When you are in the middle of a storm … the suffering is great - the darkness will not lift … you know the Bible is filled with God’s promises - “The Lord is a shepherd - leads His people beside still waters, makes them lie down in green pastures ...” You know that the LORD of the universe prepares a banquet table for His own in the very presence of their enemies.

You don’t doubt God’s existence - you’ve seen too much. How many times have you seen Him answer the prayers of others -you’ve seen lives changed.

Oh, but when the world seems to be against you: your circumstances don’t change, the cancer treatment doesn’t seem to be working, the grieving heart is still heavy

The Lord of the Rings – Frodo and Sam are on the perilous journey to take the ring back to Mordor. They have faced every conceivable kind of danger already and based on what they’ve been through already - they haven’t arrived at the destination yet – there isn’t a lot of promise that they ever will.

They reality of the danger they are in has fully sunk in by now and the two friends are discussing where they are in the story they’ve become part of.

Sam remembers how he used to think that people in tales went looking for adventure because their lives were dull. But he says reflectively to his friend, “that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered.” Then he starts telling the story about their own adventure, out loud. Frodo listens for awhile and enjoys it … but then he stops his friend:

“We’re going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the WORST places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point, ‘Shut the book now dad; we don’t want to read anymore.’”

.... this is the doubt that threatens your hope: “Do the promises of God apply to ME?!” “Am I just stuck in a bad news story of a life - where the trials and troubles are going to get worse and worse until they take me down?!

Or, am I really His child - saved by the infinitely precious blood of Jesus Christ and indivisibly united with Him for eternity - so that no matter how bad things look right now, no matter how black the sky above is today … the clouds will break - they MUST break - and my life is on a sure and certain course to sunshine and eternal glory?!”

Paul’s answer to that threat is not an argument; it’s an experience. “Hope does NOT put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

This is how the present hope we have in Jesus Christ leads us to assurance of glory in the future. You suffer - and in the midst of suffering, you recognize: “God hasn’t abandoned me.” In fact, I sense his sustaining love … and that gives me more confidence that the King of the universe really calls me His own.”

3 THE HOLY SPIRIT - AGENT OF GOD’S GIFT OF LOVING ASSURANCE

Third thing I want you to see from our text this morning, is that this experience of the love of God is poured out THROUGH the Holy Spirit. This is important, so I want to spend the rest of our time focusing on what that means for our hope.

Verse 5 again: “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, WHO HAS BEEN Given to us.”

This is gift. This experience of the assurance of the love of God is NOT YOUR WORK. It is a work of God in you. It isn’t something you work yourself into, it’s not a state of ecstacy that you sing yourself into - by finding the right song and singing over and over again with intensity until you ‘feel the love of God pouring into you.

At Maranatha, we are a church made up of people from many different denominational backgrounds. Some of you come from charismatic backgrounds - and we love our charismatic brothers and sisters in Christ -

I appreciate their concern that Christianity isn’t just about a head full of intellectual facts - If your faith doesn’t impact your heart - then

But one of the areas I’ve seen too many of them get themselves off track, is when they have become so focused on ‘getting that experience of love and powerful assurance’ - that they have forgotten this experience is gift - NOT worked up from down here.

The sovereign God pours out the PERSON of His Holy Spirit into our hearts as a gift guaranteed to us when we are justified - declared righteous by faith, alone, in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. As chapter 5 of Romans begins: “Therefore since we HAVE been justified by faith, we HAVE peace with God … (Verse 2) … We HAVE OBTAINED ACCESS by Faith into this grace in which we stand … We DO rejoice in hope of the glory of God that is guaranteed as our eternal vision .… AND (verse 3) … we rejoice in our sufferings .… BECAUSE … verse 5 … God’s love HAS BEEN POURED INTO our hearts through the Holy Spirit who HAS BEEN GIVEN TO US.”

It’s already DONE - if you are a Christian.

Yesterday was Elijah’s birthday. If I tell him ahead of time that I’m giving him a present because it’s his birthday and he’s my son … do you think I am more likely to give him that present if he begs me for it … scrunches up his face in a show of desperation for the gift, if he sings to me over and over again that he NEEDS the birthday present I’ve promised him? No! It’s my pleasure to give him his gift and if I said the gift is coming - it’s on its way. It’s settled.

So stop trying to sing long enough, raise your hands high enough, or get down on your face on the ground low enough … stop trying to GET the gift that God has already promised to give.

ONE MORE thing I need to say about this gift of the Holy Spirit:

John Piper rightly points out: This experience of the love of God - has factual and objective content. This Holy Spirit worked experience is delivered through knowledge of Christ crucified and risen. We need to ‘get’ this.

The Bible is clear - Jesus is clear that the Holy Spirit is sent into the world to glorify Him. John 16:14, He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

That means the Holy Spirit’s main passion in the universe is to magnify the beauty and glory of the Son of God … Not to give you an emotional ‘high’ or warm tingly feeling inside - for it’s own sake.

If the Holy Spirit has been poured out to glorify Jesus - then it follows that being my filled with the Holy Spirit - is NOT like an impersonal charge of electricity, sent to give me a ‘buzz’ … it IS an experience of love that increases my understanding of the love of God that was worked out in history in the work of Christ on the cross.

The Holy Spirit IS God and He is devoted to glorifying God the Son.

Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999) The Love of God Has Been Poured out within Our Hearts

If the Holy Spirit works like an electrical impulse and just causes us to have a happy buzz in the middle of the night with no thoughts of Christ filling our head, then Christ would no more be honored than he is by a vivid high on heroin. The ultimate reason that the experience of the love of God is mediated (or delivered) through the knowledge of the historical work of Christ on the cross is that the experience is meant to give us joy and to give Christ glory. But Christ would get no glory unless our experience of the love of God is a response to the story of the love of God in the work of Christ.

That is what Paul is getting at when he goes on in vv. 6-8 of our chapter. We’re going to deal with those verses next week, but what I want you to see right now is the connection between verse 5 and verses 6-8:

Verse 5 says that the experience of God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Then, the very FIRST word of verse 6 is a connecting - a linking word: “FOR”. Verse 6: “FOR while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.”

The love of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit … FOR … For what?! For … TRUTH - FOR Historical, objective DEMONSTRATED facts. See that in v. 8, “but God SHOWS - IN HISTORY - His own love for us in that - while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Wait a minute: So which is it? Is the love of God an act, demonstrated in history, by the death of Jesus Christ - for us to recognize and accept as truth and think about? OR is the love of God an assurance poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit for us to EXPERIENCE and feel and be assured of in the face of doubt?

Preacher, are you speaking out of both sides of your mouth? Which is it: Experience or historical Fact?!

The answer is: BOTH. BOTH. And my plea to you this morning is this: “WHAT GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER - DO NOT SEPARATE.”

Too many Christians have fallen off the pathway of truth into error - by choosing ONE OR the OTHER and missing the link between verses 5-6.

I’ve already mentioned some in the charismatic movement who are always looking for an experience. “I want to know the love of God - give me a new experience, I want to feel the love flow out on me.”

That’s not the temptation that most of us wrestle with. We are sober, theologically driven Baptists here. “I’m not going to be led away by fickle feelings and shallow emotionalism”

“Some Christians are so afraid of experience that we wouldn’t touch that stuff with a ten-foot pole. Give me history. Give me confessions and catechisms and systematic theologies! Give me the facts and nothing but the facts.”

That’s where most of us tend to be. Oh, but do you see how both sides settle for LESS than? Less than full Biblical Christianity that God intends for us to enjoy?”

God’s intention is for us to embrace

God intends us to be assured of our rock solid unassailable hope - by experience - an experience of God’s love for us. And I want us to know that experience in ever-deepening fullness. Oh, how I want that for us as a church.

But that experience of God’s love doesn’t flow to your heart by skipping past your head. The Holy Spirit saturates your heart with the love of God by taking the FACTS of verses 6-8 … He brings them into your mind, He opens your eyes to the wonder of God the Son dying your death and rising for your life … He gives you eyes to see the beauty of the Suffering Son of God as the supreme display of the Love of God

… and then the Spirit takes the truth you understand in your head … and He drives it down deep into your heart until it saturates every corner and you see what you could never understand before: Not just that God LOVES

… but that He. LOVES. ME.

Oh, do you see the Triune God - at work to bring you hope and assurance - The Father sending; the Holy Spirit pouring out the love into our hearts - and doing it by magnifying the Son’s work on the cross for you?

When all three persons of the Trinity are fully engaged in giving you hope - then let me ask you, Christian - you who are suffering right now and feeling the cold wind of circumstances dragging your spirit down and threatening you to believe that you have been forgotten … how could you EVER be put to shame

CONCLUSION

Henry Venn was an English pastor a couple of centuries ago. He died in 1797. He was a powerful influence in the Clapham Sect - which was a group of evanglicals in the Church of England who fought against the slave trade and for reform of the penal system and to reform labour laws that had allowed workers to be exploited - They took seriously the Bible’s teaching that all humans are created in the image of God and should be treated as such. William Wilberforce was the most famous member of the group - and Henry Venn is seen as its founder.

I want to quote from a letter he wrote to the Countess of Huntingdon. He wrote it just after the death of his wife, who died very young, leaving him with five young children. He was living in the blackest night of suffering grief. But listen to what he says to the Countess:

“I am now a living witness of the truth you so strenuously maintain, and of the necessity of that truth in our miserable condition here below. Did I not know the Lord to be mine; were I not certain His heart feels even more love for me than I am able to conceive;

were this evident to me, not by deduction and argument, but by consciousness, by His own light shining in my soul, as the sun’s doth upon my bodily eyes, into what a deplorable condition should I have been now cast!

Don’t miss what he says here: He knows the Lord has more love for him than he can even conceive … not by deduction and argument, but by consciousness - a ‘shining in his soul as the sun’s light shines on his bodily eyes.’

He goes on:

I have lost all that I could have wished for myself, in the partner of my joys and my cares; lost her when her industry, ingenuity, and tender love and care of her children were all just beginning to be perceived by the two eldest girls, and to strike them with a sense of the excellency of such qualities. I have lost her, when her soul was as a watered garden, when her mouth was open to speak for God, and He was blessing the testimony she bore to a free, full, everlasting pardon in the blood of Jesus. Nevertheless, I can say, “All is well, Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth; at all times, and in all things, let Him do with me as seemeth Him good.”

Then comes this powerful testimony:

Were there no Holy Ghost now to strengthen me mightily; were there nothing more than a dependence on the word of promise, without an Almighty Power to explain, impress and apply it, how would my hands hang down, and my knees be so feeble, that I should faint and fail under the weight of the cross! But, on the contrary, I abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost given unto me. I rejoice in tribulation, from the experience I now have, more than I possibly could in a less severe trial. The Man of Sorrows is to me as rivers of water in dry places, and gives songs in the night.”