God's Salvation, the Believer's Joy

A man by the name of John Bunyan, you may have heard of, wrote a book about four hundred years ago, something like that, called "The Pilgrim's Progress". It's a wonderfully imaginative and visual allegory of the journey of someone coming to faith. It's a made up person by the name of Christian, married to a woman, his wife, Christiana. And the book is just a process of someone wrestling with, understanding, coming to terms with the good news of Jesus. It's a book that I highly recommend any person read, any Christian, especially—I've got a few imaginative creative minds that I'm thinking of that would really love some of the allegories that he uses.

At one point in this allegorical story, there's a scene where the pilgrim's wife, Christiana, making her way from the city of destruction into the heavenly city—that's the progress, or the pilgrimage rather. As she gets nearer the heavenly city, she sees a man standing with a rake in his hand. And he is raking—as I think that would have happened in the times of John Bunyan—through the mud to see if he can find anything of value, sort of on the banks of the river. And as he is raking through this thick mud, there's standing near him the person of Jesus Christ, holding out a beautiful golden crown. And with his eyes fixed down, with his hands on that muck rake, he doesn't see this treasure that is right in front of him, as he is trying to find treasure in the mud.

The picture becomes a metaphor of Christ holding out the blessings of the gospel, and a person oblivious to that blessing, seeking a treasure in something they will never find—seeking in the mud and the muck and the mire of this world the great treasure that only Jesus Christ can give. Now this is not just for non-Christians. I believe it's a picture of many Christians and how we may live our Christian life as well. Perhaps aware that there are treasures beyond our imagination offered to us in faith in Jesus Christ, but at some point, taking our eyes off that treasure and beginning to look down and around us, and we're looking and we're looking and we're looking, raking around in the mud.

The apostle Paul, in his great essay—his great letter explaining from beginning to end the gospel of Jesus Christ in the book of Romans—early in his letter, Paul speaks about the fact that mankind, in and of themselves, do not know the way of peace. They keep striving in all sorts of ways to ultimately try and bring this, or find this themselves, but it always ends up as a disaster. And what we're going to read now in Romans 5 is a bit of a turning point, where the shift gets focused now, not on mankind and the brokenness of mankind, but on the grace, and specifically in Romans 5, the glory of the good news of Jesus, of the gospel. So we're going to read, if you have your Bibles with you, from Romans 5, and we're going to read from verse 1 through to 11.

Romans 5 verse 1. The apostle Paul writes, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And this 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."

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God? For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, how much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life?"

"More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." So far, our reading. Now, if you read this and you've been working through the book of Romans, this change, this turning point, is like stepping onto a mountain range and just seeing the majesty, the pinnacles of God's grand plan for salvation of those He loves. It's a picture as of someone coming onto that mountain range and seeing a vast panorama of beauty before them. As they see the beauty, they just want to throw up their hands in the air and say, yes.

Yes. How magnificent this is. We've been reading Romans 1 through 4, and it says there is no peace for those who try in their own power to find that crown of glory. And it says, Romans 5 verse 1, "We have been justified by faith, and now, therefore, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ." Paul is beginning to explain the privileges of the gospel, and for him, it results in joy.

So the way in which Paul brings this joy out in these verses is by the use of the repetition of the word "joy". Now a few weeks ago, we looked at Philippians, which is marked with joy. Here is, again, just a snapshot of joy coming out through the gospel. We see it in verse 2, where he says, "We rejoice." Now that is from the root word "joy".

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Verse 3, we rejoice in our sufferings. And then at the end of our passage, verse 11, Paul says, "We rejoice in God Himself through our Lord Jesus Christ." And so we're going to take that thread throughout this passage—the thread of rejoicing—and investigate that this morning as we look at how God's salvation becomes the believer's joy.

So the first point we look at this morning is that the believer rejoices in a victory, the victory of God. Paul says we can boast in this, that through Him we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So the object of our rejoicing is in the glory of God. Now, when Paul the apostle says "we hope" in his letters, he's not talking about this idea of wishful thinking—saying, you know, I hope it's a rainy day tomorrow, that we have, you know, a bit of rain for the farmers, or if you were to ask a Christian, you know, "Are you going to heaven?"

And they say, "I hope so." It's not that sort of hope in terms of uncertainty. Hope in the New Testament is a certainty of something that hasn't been fully experienced yet. And so Paul is saying, because of the reality of Jesus Christ, because He really lived, because He really did those things that made Him astonishing to the people around Him, because He really died, because He really was risen three days later from the dead—because of the reality of Jesus Christ, we have a hope that is sure, even if we don't experience the power of that in its fullness yet. We are able to rejoice in the certainty of a future where God will welcome us into His kingdom when we stand before Him at judgment day.

And for the Christian, this is a moment of great hope. This is a moment of great joy, because verse 3 says, "We rejoice in the hope of that glory, of God's glory." And this is, in my opinion, the thing that non-Christians never think about: God's glory. And that makes sense, right?

Of course they wouldn't, because they don't believe in God. I would say, in fact, religious nominal Christians also don't think or are concerned with God's glory. In fact, it's a very powerful way to test the genuineness of your own faith—being concerned with God's glory. Because once we have understood the gospel, we become so enamoured, we become so moved by God receiving honour, God receiving worship, God receiving praise, because we realise it has always been Him.

From beginning to end, He has done this incredible thing in our salvation. Why is it a good test of the genuineness of our faith? Because the effect of sin has made us seek glory for ourselves. The problem of this thing called sin, at its core, isn't that we think too little of ourselves, it's that we think of ourselves too much. And Paul says, as he reaches chapter 5 in the book of Romans, the first sign of someone who has truly come to understand and believe the good news is that they rejoice in God getting the glory.

Rejoicing in God's glory indicates a transformation of the heart. And again, Paul has spoken about the shame of sin. He says that when we were to stand before God to give an account of our lives, we don't have a leg to stand on. We have not a single excuse. Romans 3:27 says, "What becomes of our boasting?"

In anything, in anything pleasant or nice that we may have done, what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded in light of God's supreme requirements of us. We fail the test. Even our greatest efforts, even our best days fall short. And we have the title "sinner" written on our documents. But then Paul goes on to explain how we may boast in the certainty of God's glory.

Because Jesus—He who is the one, the manifestation of the glory of God, God's glory made flesh—this Jesus has come to take our shame and to give us His righteousness, His goodness. Listen to this. Romans 4:24. For the Christian, righteousness will be counted to us who believe in Him.

"He was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification." Righteousness is credited to us. My friend, when you grasp that, when you understand that, you have grasped the power of the gospel. When you understand and believe that Jesus Christ died for you so that you may live this righteousness—this righteousness of Christ swapped with our unrighteousness, His holiness for our unholiness—when we grasp that, we will be like that person that sees that panorama of the mountains and say, "Yes."

This is amazing. And all I can do is rejoice in the glory that I am seeing in all of it. I rejoice in God's glory because I have tasted it. Now, this is something my mum asked me actually this week. What is glory exactly?

If you were to try and explain it, try and define it, what is that? Well, John Piper is asked this question, and he says it's like trying to describe beauty. Give me one sentence that describes beauty. We can say something is beautiful, but explain to me what beauty is. Where do you begin with something like that?

But perhaps we can reverse engineer this to what God's glory is. We get a glimpse of the glory of God in the book of Revelation, which is a great insight into, sort of, the behind the scenes of God's kingdom—what's happening behind the scenes as the plan of God is being worked out. And in Revelation 7, we see the angels at the end of time singing and praising God. And they say this: "Salvation belongs to our God."

How can salvation belong to anyone? Salvation belongs to our God, and to Him praise and glory, wisdom and thanks, honour and power and strength. All of that belongs to God. And you get this image of a victorious King who has a treasure, a treasure chest, a war chest that he has won full of treasures. And in that chest is strength.

And in that chest is wisdom. And in that chest is honour and beauty. All of that He has won through this thing that He has done for His creation, for His humans. He has saved us, and therefore He deserves all of that: the wisdom, the praise, and the glory. Now, in a way, it's understandable that someone who has found this certainty for their forgiveness, this certainty of their salvation, would rejoice. It makes sense.

Right? We, of course, would be happy to be saved. Even if you're a non-believer, you can understand that logic. Perhaps even as a non-Christian, you could say, "I kind of wish that I had that." But if that is understandable—that we can rejoice in the victory of God—what Paul then says next is the opposite and is almost incomprehensible.

Paul says in verse 3, "We also rejoice in our suffering." How is that possible? Who wants to give me an amen to that? Yes. Whoo.

Suffering. So what's going on here? It's the second point. The believer rejoices in refinement. God reveals that suffering has a purpose.

It has work to do, and we understand that from this passage that shows us that it produces something in us. Verse 3: "Knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope." And so what God wants us to understand is that for Christians—those who have placed their trust and allegiance in Christ—times of suffering is actually times of development. And it has to do with His glory.

The end result is that He receives more glory. When I was a young boy—and sorry to become mum again—growing up, we every once a year, usually during the school holidays, we would get out all the brass and the silver in the house. And mum is a Dutchy, and like all Dutch ladies, she collects those spoons. They're collectible spoons that all Dutch ladies collect. And so out would come the brass, and we would polish.

The whole day. It's a beautiful day. It's usually summer, and we want to be playing cricket in the street, but we're going to polish the brass and the silver. As we would go through this, you'd first coat the brass or the silver with that brass polish and let it dry a little bit. And then that grainy sort of paste, you would start rubbing, and you would rub and it would turn very, very shiny underneath.

They became beautiful. In a way, suffering does the same thing. Suffering as a Christian is in part the process of God polishing us. Under the same sort of pressure—and I knew the pressure that my mum's right hand could give—under the pressure of that friction, God is producing something in us that would not have been there without it. And the light thing that is reflected from that beautiful gold brass is just glorious.

And I think, in the same way, Christians that have gone through suffering in noble ways, for noble purposes, the glory of God is reflected back. Now, this is a hard thing for believers, or people, to understand—especially if we're young. But this is the great thing about our church, which has got a few grey-haired people in here. Grab them for a coffee. Talk about hardship. Talk about tough times.

And you'll see that through times of trial and difficulty and suffering, how God has polished grace into their lives. So I want to say for us younger ones, don't overlook those grey-headed folk in our church, and for our older folk, it's also an encouragement to share God's work with others, to talk openly, to talk warmly about those things—not necessarily always the good old days, but the moments of God's hard polishing in our lives. But back to the question: how does suffering lead to hope? How does suffering lead to rejoicing?

Well, it sharpens us. It plucks us out from our narrow lives, our perspectives that are so self-absorbed. Feeling that polishing heat of suffering makes us look up instinctively. We look up and we look out. And we ask, "What is going on here?"

And I want to say again, this is not just a Christian phenomenon. I've got non-Christian friends that when they are going through hard times, or when they see hard times, they will come to me as a pastor and say, "Why would God do this?" They're not Christian. They don't believe in God, but they will ask, "Why is God doing this?" Of course, the fact is that they do believe something is out there.

Something transcendent is bringing them up out of that self-absorption, and God often does it through suffering. When we experience suffering, we look up and out, and we hope to find a heavenly Father who loves us, to give us hope even in hopeless-looking situations. But if a Christian experiencing suffering clutches out at the Father, the next question is: how can we be sure we will reach Him? And that assurance we find in verse 5. Paul says, "This hope won't put us to shame because the Father has poured the Spirit into our lives."

That is one of the greatest bits of good news you'll hear. Friends, our hope is that all that is beautiful and all that is glorious about God, every bit of hope that we have in times of suffering, is not from us thinking, "I'll just have to be very mature about this struggle. I'll just have to have a very good mindset about life, a bit of good perspective." No. It is actually the work of God that gives you that hope.

It is actually God Himself coming into our souls that gives us the patience, that gives us the perseverance, that gives us some sort of optimism about the situation. It is from beginning to end, God, so that He may get all the glory. It's as though in that moment where the Spirit is in us, heaven's reality is coming into your soul, because the Holy Spirit—the hope of heaven's glory—is already present in us. And wisely, God then uses suffering to polish up this hope, to remind us not to lose our heads, not to be so consumed with us, consumed with what's around us, to keep raking around in the mud, but to look up, to see the crown, to take it.

So the believer rejoices in refinement. And then lastly, the believer rejoices in God's love. If the first reason for rejoicing is utterly undeserved—that the hope of God's glory shown in His grace, His victorious salvation—and the second reason for rejoicing being completely unexpected—rejoicing in suffering—then the third reason for rejoicing is absolutely unparalleled. Here is something that at the end of the day, nobody but a Christian can do. Verse 11.

Paul says, "More than that, we rejoice in God through the Lord Jesus Christ." Now you'll notice something very interesting here. We haven't read or worked through verses 6 to 10, but Paul is building that whole passage—verses 6 through to 10—to conclude with verse 11, that we rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. From these verses, we understand the kind of God our God is. And the conclusion is this: God is worthy of all honour, glory, and praise because of the depth of His love.

We rejoice in God, God, for who He is Himself and who He has shown Himself to be, and He is known as the God who loves bad people. Verse 6, this is what He says: "It was when we were weak and ungodly." Verse 8, "When we were still sinners." Verse 10, "While we were His enemies." I mean, He's just building it up.

He's just making it: weak, firstly, we're like, "Yeah, I can understand weak." Ungodly, well, "Yeah, I guess I'm not a god." Sinners, okay, that hurts a little bit. We were enemies. We were enemies of God, and He loved us.

And it doesn't come out as clearly in our English versions, but in the original Greek, this is what the word order looks like. He's just building and building. Verse 7. He writes, "For a righteous person, one will scarcely die, end of the sentence, though perhaps for a good person one might dare even to die. But God showed His love for us in that while we were still sinners, for us, Christ died."

The whole time you're thinking, we need to die. We're the ones that deserve this. And then He just changes it around, and it is for us. Jesus has died. Paul builds up the logical conclusion that to die for a friend who has been good to you is one thing.

To die for an enemy, to die for a criminal, that is truly shocking. And the most shocking of all is that the perfect Son of God should die for individuals who have set themselves up against Him. Now, again, I think in our sort of warm fuzzy world, where we tag people in all sorts of cute videos of puppies and babies playing on Facebook—in our world with all these sorts of warm fuzzies—we can understand this idea of people making sacrifices. But let's just focus here on exactly what is being said.

Imagine the most hard person that you have come across in your life. The most evil person you have personally known. The person that may have hurt you on every occasion when you've been with them, and they've sought to do you harm every time. And perhaps, hopefully, you haven't had that sort of person in your life. But imagine that sort of person.

Now, imagine at their most unrepentant, at their most malicious, while they are still swearing at you and spitting in your face, they are about to get hit by a bus, and you jump, pushing them out of the way, so that they may live and you die. Well, God's grace in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is that dumbfounding. Friends, in this life, you may never entirely be sure that God loves you by simply trying to interpret your life's circumstances to guarantee His love for you. Your depression, your mental health, may make it impossible for you to even come close to feeling anything like a loving emotion. Your hardship, your brokenness, all of that may make God's love for us not always immediately plain.

How can God love me when I've been through this? And so if we are dependent to believe in a God of love because of good things that happen regularly enough in our lives to make us believe that, well, we'll never be Christians. We'll never spend that eternity with God if we are willing to believe in Him by having a good enough life to reflect that. And Paul is saying that there is a place, a moment, a time where you can be eternally sure of the love of God, and that is the day that Jesus died. How do I rejoice in the love of God? For the simple reason that Christ died for us.

And preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "Whenever we gaze at the cross, we ought to be obliged to say, 'Does God love me more than He loves His Son?'" Think about it. That He would give His Son, Jesus, for me. Can you imagine any circumstance in which any parent sitting here could love anything or anyone more than their child and be willing to give them up? Can you imagine that they could conceivably love anything more in this world than they love their child?

Of course not. But God so loved the world that He would give His Son. And when that is the kind of God we are being shown—the God who loves His enemies—then when we, from time to time, climb that mountain of glory, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we survey it, and we pause, like we do now as we come to the table.

Then surely we will stand on a mountain and say, "Yes, this is glorious. There is nothing in this life better. I am putting down my rake, and I will accept the crown." Is this true for you this morning? Are you rejoicing in the glory that God has won?

Or are you the man with the rake while this crown of gold is waiting there for you to receive? Are you still scratching around in the mud? Lift up your head. Untangle yourself and grab the treasure that is yours freely. Do you know how the pilgrim's wife, Christiana, responded to this vision of this poor man?

She said in her heart, "Oh God, deliver me from the muck rake." Friend, come and find deliverance in Him today. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we are just humbled. Again, Lord, with that same awe that we will experience seeing a beautiful view, seeing the majesty of power, and we see this incredible power again displayed for us in the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

Lord, for some of us, we might be going through those sufferings, those trials, that pain. For some of us, we need to hear that we can rejoice even in this suffering, because we know that Your glory will be reflected more in that. We know that through that You will polish us and refine us, so that Your face may shine in us. So Lord, we pray for those who are going through hard times, that You will give strength, because we are comforted by the truth as well, that even in those trials, Your Spirit has been poured into our hearts—the Spirit of the living God who understands the mind of God, who reminds us of Your promises, of Your truth.

Lord, that same Spirit is in all of us who believe, and so, Lord, I pray for Your Spirit to speak so clearly, to remind us so visibly. Every time there is doubt, Lord, that You will give comfort and assurance. Help us to see our acceptance. Help us to understand that what we have in Christ, what we have received in eternal salvation, is not worth comparing to the sufferings that we are going through. And then, Lord, for those of us who have become dull in our affection and our love for You, who have become blase about the message of Jesus Christ.

Those who have been Christians so long, who think we have got it right enough to be worthy to be Your people. Help us to realise with painful clarity that we were enemies. That in and of ourselves, we would never ever have amounted to deserving Your love. But thank You, God, that You've loved us anyway. Thank You, Lord, for the work of Jesus Christ—His life and His death—that is as real to us as these people sitting around us.

I just pray, God, for Your work to be done in us, in whatever capacity we find ourselves this morning. Restore us, renew us, forgive us. For those that are putting their trust in You again, perhaps after many years, or for the first time, Lord, I pray that You will give them a special measure of Your grace. Be close to them, God. Let them know of Your love and Your forgiveness.

Give them strength to overcome the things that will be hard for them. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.