The Lord’s Day Morning

September 10, 2006

Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas

Amen. Now, if you have your Bibles with you, turn to Romans, chapter five, and we’re going to read in a moment the first eleven verses of Romans, chapter five. This is a portion of Scripture which calls upon us to rejoice, as the choir has just been saying and singing and preaching to us in that wonderful rendition.

Ligon has been beating us husbands down to the ground over these past few weeks, so tribulation we’ve got aplenty; and I thought maybe we ought to think about rejoicing in our tribulation! But before we read the passage, let’s pray.

This is God’s holy word:

Amen. And may God bless to us the reading of His holy and inerrant word.

John Bunyan, in his marvelous allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress, of the seventeenth century—most of us are familiar with Book I, the story of how Christian makes his way from the City of Destruction to the Eternal City—but in Book II, the story of Christiana, his wife, tells the tale of how she makes that journey from the City of Destruction. And along the road she meets a man with a muckrake, and he is searching for something in the ground. His eyes are downward, oblivious to the fact that above his head is a crown of gold that he does not see. And Bunyan is depicting, perhaps, some of us this morning. We are the children of God. We are the heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ; but we are always looking down to the ground, and we fail to see the crown of gold that hangs above our heads.

Paul has been describing in these opening chapters of Romans how "There is none righteous; no, not one; for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"—both Gentile as well as Jew. And from 3:25 to the end of chapter 4, he has been expounding to us, drawing particularly from the life of Abraham the doctrine, the sweet doctrine of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone: that the way of salvation, the way of the gospel, the way of reconciliation, the way to the forgiveness of sins is by faith in Christ alone; that

And as he comes to chapter five, he’s now building on that truth: that we are justified by faith alone. And drawing some of the implications of that - the fruits, if you like, of justification - what does it mean to be a believer? What does it mean to trust in Jesus Christ? What does it mean to have our sins forgiven? And he tells us that, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And not only peace with God, but we have access to God. We stand in this pathway that leads to fellowship and communion and rapport with Christ, so that we walk with Him and we talk with Him along life’s precious way.

But he wants us to see three particular truths, all of them prefaced by that tolling bell: "We exult..." or "We glory in..." or "We rejoice in..."—three things.

I. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
We rejoice first of all (and you see it there in verse 2)...We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. If we are justified by faith, if we are believers, if we are trusting in Jesus only for our salvation, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not the kind of hope that we often speak about when we say "I hope so"—but hope in the New Testament sense: the hope of certainty, the hope of confidence, the hope of assurance that Jesus is mine – "Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!" We hope in the glory of God, that one day we shall see Him.

He begins with the end. He begins with the last things. He begins by telling us where we’re going—those of us who know and love and trust in Jesus Christ alone. We’re heading for the beatific vision; we’re heading for that glimpse of God’s glory.

Glory is the Bible word for the weightiness of God. The Hebrew word for glory from which the New Testament word is drawn is a word that literally means to be heavy; and from that, it develops a meaning of its own—that there is a weightiness, that there is a significance to God, so that glory becomes synonymous with the divine name itself, the divine presence...what God is in and of Himself. And it takes your breath away.

And Paul says one of the consequences of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone is that we rejoice and glory and exult in the hope of the glory of God, that one day we shall see Him. "Blessed are the pure in heart," Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "for they shall see God." It was what Jesus prayed for in His high priestly prayer, in the upper room prior to His execution:

"...That they might be with Me where I am, that they might behold My glory."

That was the longing of Jesus’ heart, that those for whom He would die, those for whom He would shed His blood.... Those whom He would draw to Himself in union and communion by faith would be brought to where He is, beholding the same vision and seeing the same glory—the glory of God in all of its splendor.

There’s a point in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius...forget the theology...it’s Cardinal Newman’s description of a soul passing through Purgatory, so forget all of that for a moment! When the soul is brought to glimpse the glory of God at the moment of the beatific vision, how do you describe that, musically? What orchestration, what chords, what sounds to describe the beatific vision? And Paul is almost struggling for words here to describe the hope of the glory of God, because that’s where we’re going, that’s where we’re heading. Peter and John and James had already seen a little glimpse of it on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus shone, and even His garments shone like the brilliance of a lightening flash. And Peter, as he recalls it later, writing his second epistle, says, "We were eyewitnesses of His majesty." We saw His majesty. We saw His beauty. We saw His glory.

That’s the crown that hangs above your head, Christian.

We glory in hope of the glory of God.

II. We rejoice in tribulations.
    And then in verse 3, more than that:"And not only this, but we also exult in tribulations."
Paul is using a technical word here. He’s using a word that he probably picked up from Jesus’ own preaching, when Jesus says, "In this world you shall have tribulation", meaning that in this fallen world, in this world between the two advents – the first and second coming of Jesus – in this world that is cursed, in this world that is decaying, this world that is groaning and travailing in birth, waiting for the regeneration of all things – in this world you will have tribulation. There will be losses and crosses, there will be trials and difficulties, there will be problems and heartaches.

And you see why Paul begins with the last things? Because if it is true, if we have an assurance, if we can be confident that we shall see God in the face of Jesus Christ, then what are tribulations? And what are trials? What are the problems of this world, but obstacles that we pass through to get to where we are going: the glory of God?

And so Paul—now, catch this, because he doesn’t say we grin and bear the tribulation with a stoicism that is born out of gospel grace. But he says we glory, we rejoice, in tribulations because if glory is where we are heading, then the tribulations are part of the process by which God molds us and shapes us and hews us into Christ-like characters and natures, so that Paul can say that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope doesn’t disappoint, because the Holy Spirit is shed abroad in our hearts.

Isaac Watts said of the Puritan, Richard Sibbs: "Heaven was in him before he was in heaven." As they listened to this man preach and teach, they discerned and glimpsed something of heaven as he passed through the trials and tribulations that life brings his way. They saw something of the glory exuding from his personality and demeanor. Heaven was in him before he was in heaven.

Or, the story of the lady who asked her pastor to pray for her that she might be given patience. So he closed his eyes and put his hand upon her shoulder and said, "Lord, send this woman trouble"...because through trouble, patience comes. Or, what George Whitefield said, that God puts burrs or thorns in our beds to keep us awake, lest, like the disciples in Gethsemane we fall asleep instead of watching and waiting.

He fits us for heaven, you see, prepares us for heaven: the sickness, the cancer, the loss of that loved one that wrenches our hearts even to think about, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

It’s like C.S. Lewis says, isn’t it? When builders come to the house [or the church!], and first of all it’s a hole in the wall, and then the wall is down, and then the ceiling is down, and then there’s dust everywhere. And what you thought was just a minor little extension is actually a rebuilding of a brand new mansion, because God intends to come in and live in it Himself. He’s making a temple for Himself to dwell in. And thus Paul can say we not only rejoice in hope of the glory of God, knowing where we’re going, confident and assured in Christ—

But we rejoice in tribulation, also.

So, what tribulation do you have this morning? And you all have them...trials and difficulties, and losses and crosses...and God has ordained from the very beginning for the church that death is the way to life, and the cross is the way to victory, so we glory in tribulations.

III. We rejoice in God.
    But not only that. In the third place, you see that (in verse 11) we glory (or exult, or rejoice) in God. Not only in the hope of glory, not only in tribulations, but we rejoice in God, because these trials and these problems and these difficulties and these heartaches are to be viewed from the perspective of the over-ruling providence of God. Because what does it mean when we complain? (And we are past masters at complaining!) It means that we’re complaining about providence; it means that we’re complaining about God. So Paul says we rejoice in God, because He is my Father; and He is my Father who loves me with a love that will not let me go.

In the verses between verse 3 and verse 11, Paul expands in words that partly form an explanation of what kind of love it is that has laid hold of us, and four or five times in the course of that description he describes the kind of love that has laid hold of us. It is the kind of love that has died for us. While we were ungodly, while we were helpless, while we were sinners, while we were enemies, Christ died for us. He sent His Son to bear our sin and our guilt upon Himself. He sent His only beloved Son, that instead of punishing us, He unleashed His unmitigated wrath that sin and guilt deserve, not upon us, but upon His own Son. "He made Him to be sin for us...who knew no sin, that we might be reckoned the righteousness of God in Him." While we were still sinners, while we were still rebelling, still ungodly, still without strength, He died for us.

You have to ask the question, Spurgeon says. You have to ask the question: "Is it possible that God loves me more than He loves His own Son?" And you look at the cross. When you look at the one bearing shame and scoffing rude...does He love me more than He loves His own Son? That’s the kind of God we have. That’s our Father in heaven. That’s the extent of His care and His provision. We glory in God because at the very heart of the sovereign God there beats a heart of love for His people, for the likes of you and me: a love that will not let us go; a love that, having begun a good work, will add all of the finishing touches.

Walt Disney once gave a piece of paper to a young lady in need. She died a relative pauper, unaware of what the paper was. It was a share certificate that in actual fact would have made her a millionaire, but she did not know it and did not realize it. And sometimes, my friends, that’s the way we live our lives as Christians: like the man with a muckrake in Pilgrim’s Progress, looking for something on the ground and unaware that over our heads there hangs a crown of gold that enables us to rejoice in tribulation, and to rejoice in tribulation knowing that a sovereign, wise, caring Father molds and shapes every aspect of us, so that this morning we can be absolutely certain and confident that we can rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

So look up. Look up! With joy! With joy! With joy that God’s covenant word will never be broken.

Our Father, we thank You for the comfort of the Scriptures. Write it now upon our hearts, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.