Romans 5:3-5

English Standard Version Chapter 5

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and 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.

Outline Preparation:

How has the author organized the text? (Romans 5:1-11)

Romans 5: 1-3

The position of our faith: Justification by faith

Therefore-peace with God through Christ (reconciliation)

Reconciliation sandwiches this passage in verse 11.

Obtained access

Our confidence; our boast; our rejoicing is centered on God and what He has done

The journey of our faith: Transformation

Our confidence; our boast; our rejoicing in life’s challenges

Suffering brings about endurance

Endurance brings about character

Character brings about hope

The end goal of our faith: Hope

It does not disappoint,

does not put us to shame

Enabled by God’s love poured into our hearts

The presence of the Holy Spirit helps us to know His hope.

2. How is the meaning of the text informed by the context?

Immediate context:

Before-Abraham our forefather was not justified by works, but by faith

The promise given to Abraham was realized through faith.

After

Romans 5:6-11

Christ died for the sinner, which brings about reconciliation

Romans 5:12-21

Sin came into the world through Adam. This death became a curse to all men because of sin.

Grace has come into this world through Jesus Christ and the free gift of salvation that He offers to all.

Sin reigned in death, but now grace reigns through righteousness which leads to eternal life.

Context of the whole book:

Before Romans 5-The need for justification through faith because of sin.

After

Romans 5-8: The results of justification by faith in terms of both the present experience and the future hope

Romans 9-11: Paul’s sorrow that many fellow Israelites have not embraced the gospel. The theological implications of this.

Romans 12-16: How the gospel should affect the believer’s everyday life.

Historical Context:

Paul is writing this letter on his third missionary journey in Antioch.

He writes at times to the Jews, and at times to Gentile believers. There is perhaps a mixed congregation in Rome that Paul is writing to.

Writes this in Corinth, Greece- He expresses his intent to visit as soon as he delivered the contribution to Jerusalem.

He writes this to say that BOTH Jew and Gentile are in need of justification by faith.

3. Main Idea (or Aim) that Paul is communicating to the Romans?

The end goal of our sufferings is knowing the hope of God which does not disappoint.

4. What are a few ways your text relates to or anticipates the gospel?

Jesus has come and has justified us—he takes us as who we are.

God’s amazing love to die for us as the sinners and broken people we are.

Jesus gives us peace through Jesus Christ-he reconciled us to God.

We were enemies, but He has brought us and made us friends.

Jesus gives us access to God (He is the way, the truth and the life)-it is by faith and grace

We can rejoice and have confidence in this life, thanks to God.

5. What is your primary argument in this talk? Implications and/or applications.

Argument: Trials are never something we embrace readily, but with biblical hope as our end goal, we can embrace sufferings as a way to know this hope that does not disappoint.

Applications:

Christian: As the believer rejoices in their sufferings, it will produce endurance, character and hope which helps us to stand strong, experience God deeper and develop resilience in a broken world.

Non-Christian: Jesus Christ will never delude the non-believer. With all of life’s trials, trust in His everlasting love and you will experience hope that goes beyond this world.

6. Preaching Outline

The position of our faith: Justification by faith.

Justification-

Our God who is perfect and glorious cannot possibly take us as we are. We are wretched with sin. How can perfection and beauty live together? It can’t.

He takes us just as we are.

NLT-we are made right in God’s sight.

Therefore-peace with God through Christ (reconciliation)

Reconciliation sandwiches this passage in verse 11.- both the beginning and the end

He not only takes us as we are, but he restores that relationship with Him.

Adam and Eve were created to have this perfect glorious relationship with God in the perfect beautiful Garden of Eden, but it was spoiled when Adam and Eve tried to do things their own way. Eve was led to the tree in the middle of the Garden by the snake, who deceived her. She ate from the only tree that God told them not to and told her husband to as well. This perfect relationship was broken. But God through Jesus brought us back to Him.

Obtained access

Now I can know Him! God promises abundant life.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Through Him we can obtain access to not just salvation, but God calls us friend.

We can cry out to Him as our Father—-go to Him with our most intimate needs, worries and desires and He can take it!

He wants to have that relationship with us. He calls us friend.

Our confidence; our boast; our rejoicing is centered on God and what He has done

Indeed we have a new life, so this new life is one we can rejoice, that we have been called out of darkness, out of a place of being abandoned by God to a great place of belonging, where we can boast about all that God has done.

When Josh was a child, he was curious and ran away. We were so worried that what if he was lost. We searched and searched for him and eventually found him with a big smile on his face. He never once felt abandoned. He knew that we would come looking for him. How much more is God’s love for us. When we were lost, he searched for us. When we were not sure if He was there for us, through some disappointment we question God’s faithfulness, He was there! So we can boast about that. We can rejoice. We can be proud of what He is to us—-because of Scripture and what He says to us.

We can celebrate, or delight in the fact that we have this new life.

Illustration

The journey of our faith: Transformation

Our confidence; our boast; our rejoicing in life’s challenges

Paul takes this confidence and this boasting to the next level—Not only that

what about in our sufferings?

Sufferings here can be translated into: distress, oppression, tribulation, anguish, persecution, burdened. or in the verb form—What are we troubled by?

It can also be-anything that burdens the spirit.

Singleness, a conflict with a friend or co-worker, a disappointment (something that you feel like God promised, but doesn’t come to pass), marriage trouble, infertility, finance issues-how will God provide?,

Suffering brings about endurance

Suffering is the cause, but what is the effect—HOpe. It is a journey of transformation.

A journey has many twists and turns. It is never straight. There are winding paths where perhaps we can nausea from the whiplash of the unpredictableness of our lives. there are stormy weather that affect how we can see the road ahead. It can seem blurry. Or its also the seasons of life that we endure-summer where we are flourishing and winter where our relationship with God seems dead. In the winter seasons, we can know that we are still growing, things are just dormant for now. We need to reframe our journey as being transformative. The twists and turns and seasons are all for a purpose—that we can see it through the eyes of eternity. Need to see things as how we are being formed in Christ, rather than this is hard.

For we know—-it is head knowledge right now, but how does the end result of hope actually move into our heart so that we can know what Jesus has done for us, but also tangibly allow it to infiltrate every area of my life. The Greek word for know is oida, “to have seen something in the past becomes to know in the present.” It means not only having the knowledge in your head but also being able to comprehend what that means in your head.

Illustration here.

Suffering will develop in us endurance or perserverance

Of course, this is hard and this is difficult. but endurance means a patient enduring, literally to abide under.

We are to hold out or bear up under difficult circumstances. Literally means remaining under pressure without surrendering.

Once when I was young, I wanted to run a marathon. I wanted to learn what it meant to endure. I kept going when there was pain, when there was rain. What for? All for the prize of saying I had finished a marathon. Press in even when there is pain and tears and keep on doing it without surrendering or giving up.

When Greek translators rendered Hebrew words for hope, they infused hypomone with expectation and trust in God, grounding perserverance not merely with human determination but in confidence that God can deliver His people from threatening situations. it means we need to have both active resistance and confident waiting. We need to hold fast to who Jesus says He is. Need to have confidence in the Lord. We need to know that maybe in our inner self we do not have the reserves to hold fast to Jesus, but it really is through God’s sustaining power.

Going through a hard time, I needed to wait. But I doubted God’s character many times. I memorized Scripture that helped to anchor me.

We need to be anchored in Christ and His character even when things get hard. We need to be faithful under pressure but also have the conviction that in God’s will His purposes will ultimately prevail.

Endurance is the pathway to hope.

Endurance brings about character

As we go through all of this, can we say that our Christian character has stood the test?

We can say that I Peter 1:6-7 that the testing of our faith produces gold, that though it is tested by fire may be found to give praise and glory to Jesus Christ.

Gold is mined, but in its raw formed it cannot be used as jewelry. It must go through a process of refinement. Gold must be melted to remove the impurities. As we go through the furnace of affliction, God is producing in us character that will prove to make us like pure gold. He shapes us and makes us so that we can reflect His beauty.

Dokime conveys proven experience and strength gained through life’s trails, which translate into character. Others will be able to see Christ in us as we respond to circumstances in a way that will reflect Christ and the way He will respond.

When a justified person endures trials, she emerges stronger in character and integrity, gaining a deeper knowledge of God’s presence and strength. Character is the tested and proven inner substance, like gold, that results from faithfully walking with God through difficulty.

Character brings about hope

The end goal: Hope

It is confidence that is grounded in tested experience. Those who go through long seasons of trials know that it is only God who can sustain. That is where real hope comes from—-God, His character and His power to sustain us.

Biblical Hope is described as: good (2 Thess 2:16); blessed (Titus 2:13); living (1 Peter 1:3). Heb 7:19-a better hope. It is the anchor for our souls during the storms of life Heb 6:18-19

It is eternal-gives us eternal life with God. Hope of an eternity spent with God.

It does not disappoint,

Human hope-is the expectation, uncertain, confident or anguished desire for a good outcome. It is based on trusting myself. It is based on how good I think I am or my own desires.

But biblical hope does not put us to shame. It rests entirely on God’s character and action not on human achievement or circumstance. It is an anticipation of what will come, it is not merely a wish.

Biblical hope means having a life reoriented towards God’s priorities and knowing that when we seek Him out and His will, He will not abandon us. He has saved us, justified us, brought us back to His side, He calls us friend so that we can have hope for this life and for an eternity. Our life on this side of heaven is for His purposes and when carried out under His will, it will help us to experience hope on this side of heaven.

Enabled by God’s love poured into our hearts

The presence of the Holy Spirit helps us to know His hope.

Conclusion: Hope does not disappoint, because as we know Jesus more and more in this journey, we know that He is with us and He is faithful. There are many things that we will not understand in this life, but we will know Jesus better, and that should be our heartcry.

300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon Seeing down into the Valley (Deuteronomy 34:1–8; 1 Corinthians 13:12; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 John 3:2)

Dim enough is the vision here, but there “we will see him just as he is” (