faith brings hope

Justification

Good morning today I will attempt to preach from the topic of perseverance through faith. I will be lifting the first five verses of the the fifth chapter of Romans for a reading but i would like to concentrate the bulk of the sermon on that third and fourth verses.

Romans 5:1–5 NIV84

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Prayer- lord i come humbly before you seeking your blessing and your power . asking you to allow me to speak your words with boldness and conviction , that something I say will strengthen a saint or bring someone to the altar asking what must I do to be saved.

I got this !

In these five verses Paul the author of Romans gives us several theological terms and subjects. He gives us the backbone of his theology which has become our theology. I am not trying to go all deep on you but in order to understand the sermon we must understand what Paul is saying. Paul teaches about Justification, sanctifcation, Glorification, Peace ,perseverance, faith love and hope, all of these terms are found in these five verses. theologians have written treatises about these terms. There are courses and seminars devoted to these terms and their meaning in the Christian experience.

However, folks have Down through the years , these concepts have been under stood on an instinctive level by those who followed Christ , you see big momma never had a doctorate in theology, never attended seminary but instinctively she could say You can’t make me doubt him because I know to much about him.

If i can have a few minutes what i would like to explain to some is what Big momma knew, and why she was right to believe what she believed. Paul start s off with therefore , and as we have discussed before whenever there is a therefore , then you have have to look to what has become before. The 4th chapter of Romans is Paul explaining justification through the walk of Abraham.

If I had to give you the short version Justification is the process of being made right with God. As with Abraham is it our faith the makes us right with God. But with us it our faith in Jesus Christ that makes us right with God. because I have faith in Jesus , God no longer considers me an outsider but one of the family. Because I have faith in Jesus christ, I am justified before God. Not my righteousness but his righteousness. Because I am justified then I have access to God. I can go to God and get strength, I can go to God and get healing, I can go to God and have peace. And all the time I am getting closer to God , becoming more like Christ and that is the process of sanctification becoming more like Christ. And because as i get closer to becoming like Christ I am reaching the point when i am like Christ and that will be the time of Glorification. When I and you share in the glory of Jesus Christ. but that is a life long battle that I nor anybody living has reached .

Peace

This justification gives us peace with God, I didn’t say peace of God. Peace of God is when God quiets the storms in your life so that you can operate in your daily schedule. You know when you have one those moments, one of those days or one of those seasons. When you say that won’t nobody but God. You see that is the peace of God.

But when you have the peace with God you have access to peace of God.

In the greek it originally meant putting something broken back to together. Won’t God do it.

But Peace with God is when God does not treat you as an enemy. When you are not on God’s bad side , and the only way to have peace with God is to be right with God. that is why both jews and arabs greet you the term peace be with you, knowing that if God is with you who can be against you. The only way to right with God is through Jesus. I am the truth and the life the only way to the father is through me.

And the only reason we have peace is because of our faith!

Faith is that active trust and belief in God acted on by being obedient to God.

Faith is more than knowledge , faith is action and obedience , you must act on your faith for it to real. Otherwise you are no different than those demons who believe in Jesus Christ, but they don’t obey and follow Jesus Christ. Dare i say that there are some demons in church . And don’t you know there may be some demon in some of us.

And because of that faith not only are we counted righteous, not only do we have peace with God, but we have access to God and his mercy. Our faith allows us to to believe in the promises of God. One thing we know God cannot lie. If he said it he is going to do it.

Three T’s

which is when you understand all that you can began to understand verse 3 which says we can have joy in our troubles. For trouble produces patience and patience character, and character hope.

Pastor are you crazy , are you telling me I should be happy to be going through what I am going through. Are you telling me that God wants me to go through this storm.

What i am trying to tell you is that God wants the end result. God wants you you to be as Christ like as you can possible be. And if you have that faith in Jesus , in you have the trust in the word of God, then the stuff you are going through is making you stronger.

you don’t have joy in your troubles but you can still have joy in God even though you are going through troubles.

Do you think that God had to let the Hebrew boys go into the fire, God could have intervened before they went in the fire.

Do you think Daniel had to go into the loins den, God could have intervened before then.

What about Job, did he have to go through all of that suffering.

Did Jeremiah have to be thrown in the pit some times we have to go through to become.

Did Paul have to be shipwrecked 3 times

metal is placed in the furnace to remove the impurities ,sometimes we have to go through to get rid of that stuff we are holding on too.

Rick Warren say that

God provides test and trials to help develope our character. because character is what we are, and God is only interested in what we are not what we do. because what we are is the only thing going to heaven, Your titles, your popularity, your money want transcend this mortal realm but who you are will be with you for eternity.

So God provides test, Satan provides temptation and people provides trespasses. All three are here .

God allows us to face trials. And God always provides a way out. We might not like it ,may not see it but God will provide a way out of his test and trials.

Now Satan tempts , and in temptation we always have a choice. it may not seem to be a good choice, but we always have a choice. It is up to us to make the right choice. When Jesus was tempted it was the word of that allowed him to defeat temptation. We too must be cognizant of the word of God so that we too can beat back the enemy. However, in order to use the word of God you must know the word of God.

We spend 3 hours in front of the Tv and 3 minutes with the word and we expect to grow, nah player in don’t work like that. The reason you submit to temptation is that you are word weak, or weak in the word of God.

Out of the three T’s Trespasses probably give us our worst time of it.

while you can’t see God and you can’t see Satan, you can see those people who trespass against us. These are your friends who betrayed you, lovers who hurts you, church folk who deceived you and family members who hurt you. These are the ones who are hardest to come back from, these are the ones that test you religion. these are the one that jesus forgive them your trespassers as god forgives you yours.

These are the ones that put you to the test. But that is where grace and mercy comes in, and not just god’s grace and mercy but your grace and mercy.

But here is where God is doing his best work. here is where the spirit of God is reshaping you into a Christ like creature. here is where your mind is being transformed, here is where you are becoming a new creature in Christ. because when you are able to forgive trespasses, forgive your neighbor give love to your neighbor. Then you are becoming more like Christ.

And no matter , how dark it looks , no matter how hard it gets, you still have hope. Hope that God is making a way, that midnight might be rough but joy comes in the morning.

Sometimes you have to wait for joy A mother will suffer morning sickness, discomfort, weight gain, labor pains all for the finished product of a baby.

God is putting us through al of our trials, all of our temptations, all of our trespasses to get to the finished product. sometimes you go to go through to get to, but hold on be steadfast.

And our hope is not some fanciful wishing (like all that Lotto wishing that went on last week) , but hope that it will happen, hope with certainty that God knows what he is doing, and I might not understand it but the Lord will work it out.

I might have to suffer but through my suffering i will be steadfast, i will hold on . i will wrestle with the angel, and i won’t let go until I am blessed.

I have hope but i am confident in my hope my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ and his righteousness.

Don’t get this thing twisted my hope unlike that Lottery i can’t be disappointed , because if he does not do another thing for me , he already done enough. Already blessed me, already kept me, already birth me raised me ., watch over me , everything i have he gave me, and everything I am he made.

because i have been justified, i am being sanctified and i wait on the day when i will be glorified. but until that day comes .

I will be faithful, I will have joy, i will have peace because God loves me.

I know he loves me because he gave his only begotten son

but he didn’t stop there when I put my faith in jesus he poured out his spirit, and the holy ghost stays with me , Spirit of God is with me.

So when i am unable to help myself the spirit of God helps me

when i am unable to pray to the father the spirit prays for me

When I am unable to know what to do the spirit speaks to me.

I have been loved by the father and I can’t turn back now.

yeah i can boast , praise him even when I am going through!

God is good all the time and all the time God is good

he a provider

he is a healer

he is a comforter

he is what he said he is

and what can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus

nor height nor depth

life nor death

not sickness,

hunger

danger

not tribulations

nothing can separate me,

I don’t care what you say

you can’t make me doubt him because i know to much about him

that is why I love him so he’s been so good to me