All right, today we're gonna finish up the three part message. This is part three called the results of righteousness. The results of righteousness from taken from our overreaching theme this year is through that all things we have, all things that we are, everything that God has provided for us comes through the person of Jesus Christ, that through Jesus we have everything. So the message is, the last few weeks have been all along that vein, but we started a, called a sub-series from Romans 5 verses one through two.
And this will be the results of righteousness part three. I'm gonna take my jacket off today. Last week I was sweating up a storm. And who knows what's gonna happen today?
So as we, if you remember in Romans 5 it says, therefore having been justified by faith. So this is talking to believers that have already, already saved, you've been declared righteous. And the way we, we're not gonna go back through, but you are declared righteous through faith. And when you receive Jesus, it's not based on what you do, that God says you're righteous, you can stand before me, you have right standing before me, that you're innocent, guiltless and fallist, no matter what you've done in the past, no matter what you might do, that you are eternally righteous.
And you have that because of your faith in Jesus, not because you did something good, or that if you do something bad, it's not based on your good or bad works, it's based on your trust in him. So having been made righteous through Christ. So having been justified by faith, so if you see the word justified, it just means to be declared righteous. Having been justified by faith, we have peace.
That was the first thing we looked at. We have peace with God. We said that because Jesus came, that he reconciled there was a difference between man and God, that we were at odds. We were actually God's enemies.
And while we were God's enemies, Jesus came and did the work to settle the score, to settle the difference and to return us into a place of favor and friendship with God. That we have peace with God. God's not angry with you. And we talked about that God signed a peace treaty in the blood of Jesus, that he went ahead and signed it before you even knew about it.
And then when you receive reconciliation, is when you sign it with your mouth by saying, yes, I believe in Jesus. And that God is no longer angry with you. He's pleased with you because of what Jesus did. He looks affectionately toward you.
And it says in Isaiah that we have eternal, or everlasting peace is what he brought in. So it's not a temporary peace. It's not a temporary ceasefire. It's a permanent ending of the war.
And then number two, we said that we're not only to have peace with God, but number two that we, last week we talked about having access by faith into the grace in which we stand. And the point last week was that if we're accessing grace in which we stand, we have to be standing in it and we're to access it. And so often what happens is because we go back into a works mentality in our walk with the Lord, according to Galatians, we fall from grace. And if you fall from that higher position, you can't access those higher things that God has hidden for you, mercy and grace and the time that you need help.
And the God's there to help you with that. And then so this week, number three, and I kind of want to point this out, is that all these things, remember, are through Christ, that we have peace with God because Christ came. We have peace with God because Christ came. We have access by faith into the grace in which we stand because Christ ascended.
Because he's now ascended at the right hand of the Father, because he's the forerunner who has entered behind the veil. We have access into the place that he now is. We're, matter of fact, we're seated with him. So we have peace because he came.
We have access because he left. And now we rejoice in hope because he's coming back. Peace because he came, he descended. Access because he ascended.
And now we have rejoiced, we can rejoice in hope because he's returning again. And so everything in this passage is through Christ. Like it's about him, it's because he came, it's because he left and it's because he's coming back. Like apart from him, we don't have a chance.
And so number three is this, is that we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Whoa, I gotta get practice drinking water. Who put a hole in my lip and didn't tell me? So yeah, Christendid.
I never know what she does when I'm asleep. Yeah, the black eyes, I'm like, where do the bruises come from? Like I wake up, she's like, oh no, just don't know where. So this says, so the passage we're gonna get to, and I'm gonna cover in a minute, that rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.
I believe it's talking about the second coming of Christ. We're gonna get that in a minute. But to rejoice in hope, rejoice in hope, hope in the world is different than biblical hope. Hope in the world has an element of uncertainty.
It's more like a wish. Like in sales, when I go up to something, hey, you're gonna sell a car today, and they say, well, I hope to. And then we say, what are you on the hope system, or you're gonna actually do something today. But there's this element of doubt.
So there's something that we could call false hope, commonly known as a diet. There's uncertain hope. It's what the Buffalo Bills have today. Like they hope that they're gonna win, but they're uncertain.
There's not that certainty there. But biblical hope has a certainty to it. It's a confidence, hope is this. It's the confident, favorable, joyful expectation of a future good, confident, joyful, hopeful, expectation of a future good.
That there's a certainty with it. You know, a lot of times we approach hope, like, you remember my kids love this movie when they were growing up, dumb and dumber. Like my daughter Caroline's best friend Casey, they were like Lloyd and Harry. They, that was their alter egos.
So I watch this movie a lot. But you remember when Lloyd Christmas goes up to Mary, and Lloyd's like snaggle tooth, and Mary's beautiful. And he even gets it backwards, because he's so nervous. He says, is there ever a chance that a guy like you, would ever like a girl like me?
And she goes, not very good. And he goes, when you say not very good, is it like one out of 100? She goes, no more like one out of a million. And he gets the big smile on his face.
So you're saying there's a chance. Like he's the eternal optimist. One out of a million to Lloyd Christmas was a chance. Well, biblical hope is a million out of a million.
There's no chance that it won't happen. Because when God's word gives us a promise, it comes to pass. So if Lloyd could hold on to a one out of a million, you can hold on to a million out of a million or a billion, whatever number you want to put, it's that certain. It's going to come to pass.
It says that we rejoice in hope. See, anybody can rejoice after the game's over. So tonight, somebody, either the bills or the chiefs, are going to be rejoicing. Oh my gosh, yeah, the Eagles.
Yeah, see, God say chiefs. Oh, bills, my bad bills. Yeah, got the bills on the mind. Got the bills.
I don't even consider the Eagles a team. I guess they're better than the birds. Ravens, Eagles, they're all like in the same category to me. Yeah.
Like buffaloes, like strong. But when your team wins, Eagles, right? We'll achieve. Like when the team wins, it's easy to celebrate.
Because it's over. When your kid gets the award at school, it's easy to celebrate. When the person you vote for wins, it's easy to celebrate. But what the Bible tells us to do is to celebrate now in hope.
When hope is for you. How about now? I do not like handheld mics. We'll do it.
Now, we all know. Hello, hello, hello. Barely on. Devil.
Devil, I'm talking to you. How does that work? Anyway, I can talk loud if need be. Let me get another drink of water.
There we go. Now we're cooking. That's right. So it says to rejoice in hope.
So in the Christian life, without hope, faith has nothing to grab onto it. Hope is seeing with your heart what you cannot see with your eyes. It's that God's word says something that begins to create a picture in your mind or in your heart that you can see with eyes of faith, but you cannot see it with your physical eyes. And because I can see something that God said is true, now my faith can step in and believe in it.
I can believe the thing that I can see that can't be seen. See, when we look at 1 Corinthians 13, it says that we prophesy and part, we know and part, and when that which is perfect to come, that which isn't part of what we're done away with, and it says certain things remain. It says now remains faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.
Well, order is important in the Bible. If love is mentioned last and love is the most important, faith is mentioned second which puts it higher in order than, or I'm sorry, hope is mentioned second, which puts it higher in order than faith. Faith requires hope. Like without hope, faith can't grab anything.
And so God wants through his word for you to be able to see and in order that you can believe the thing that you can't see. And so that he says, I want you to rejoice in hope. We're talking about rejoicing in something that hasn't taken place yet, because God's word says so. And so we're going to look at three things.
So to rejoice means this. You know, when I hear the word rejoice, I don't even like this word because I'm not going to try to sing, but we just had Christmas, right? And the song, oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel, you remember that song? And every time I hear the word rejoice, I think of rejoice, rejoice.
You know, it's something like choir singing it, oh, Emmanuel, you know, has come to you, oh, it is, right? Oh, you know, that. Like, and that's, I'm not a singer, obviously. But that's what I think of when I hear the word rejoice.
It's like some choir singing rejoice, you know, and, oh, that's not the word. What is the word? But here's, here's some other translations. The new American standard says, celebrate.
I can identify with that. Like this is talking about having a party, the message pastor, Seth, just for you, says the shout praise. Like you can imagine when the super bowl's over tonight, it's a party. It's a praise party.
They're shouting. This is what he's talking about. So I want you to celebrate in hope of the glory of God. Like this is a big deal.
Not walking around with your mouth, you know, hanging on the ground. Pick up your lip, you know, celebrate. It means to be happy with, to be full of joy, to take pride in, or even, it means to brag, or to boast. Now, boast can be, this word can be negative too, if you think of Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says, for begracie, you say through faith, and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
Okay, that same word. It means that you're, if you were saved by what you do, you could brag on you. But who were bragging when here's Jesus? Because all this happens to him.
So he's talking about rejoicing, celebrating, shouting praise, because of something that hasn't happened yet, but you can be so confident in it that it's going to happen that you can celebrate today, even though it hasn't been cliched. Like that's what God's wordles do. And so in context, there's three things in Romans 5. This word rejoices, it appears 38 times in the New Testament, five times in the book of Romans, and three times in this passage.
So in this Romans 5, Paul hits it in Romans 5 verse 2 and verse 5 and chapter 5, 3, and then also in verse 11. And so we're going to look at these three things today that talk about rejoicing in hope. And so the first one is going to be the prospect of Christ's return that we have. So if anybody know what a prospectus is, you ever heard of what a prospectus?
So if you go to buy a stock, before you buy a stock in a company, they're going to give you a prospectus. It tells you about the risk involved. It tells you about the management structure of the company, but it also gives you the financial outlook of what to expect. Hope is a positive expectation.
Like when God gives you a prospectus, called his word, it lays out his management style. It lays out his outlook for the future. It's all, and it's all, it's all, it's all, it's all, it's all, it's all, it's all, it's all looks good. See, unfortunately, a lot of times when people talk about the second coming of Christ, they use it in a negative way to get people to get saved.
Like I don't fear the second coming of Christ, because I'm the bride and the groom, the bride groom is coming for me. He's coming for you. When I was dating Kristen, you know, she lived in Winchester. I lived in Cumberland.
Well, I lived in Ridgely. And she was so hot that she's hot now, but she was, she was hot then too. She's really hot now. Now I would say that I went to her house every night, like I went to her house every night because I was so in love with her.
She says I went to her house every night because I didn't trust her. Like some, you know, you know, like there's, there's truth intention. Like there's probably a little truth on both sides of that equation. But sometimes like I did most of the driving, but occasionally she'd come see me.
And when she'd come to see me, I'd look out the window and I'd look out the window and I'd look out the window. Did she hear ya? Check my watch. Now we didn't have cell phones then.
I had a swatch. You remember, it was plastic. Plastic. And it was multi-colored.
And I'd check my swatch. She's two minutes late. I wonder if she hooked up with somebody. Maybe she don't love me and ya.
You don't know. You're mind playing games. And then you'd see the car. Oh, she's here.
Right. There was hope. There was expectation. But it had an element of doubt in it.
Because I didn't know. I wasn't 100%. The hope that we have for the return of Christ has zero doubt in it. It's something that I don't even have to worry.
Is it going to happen? I don't have to worry if I'm going to be there. I don't have to worry if I'm going to be part of it because God's word gives me that confidence. I can count on it.
It says the pressure. So I'm going to rejoice in pressure. And then the third thing I'm going to do is rejoice in the person of Jesus. And so as we work through, I'm not going to read it all now just for a second time, but we'll read through Romans 5, we're going to read verses 1 and 2, and then we'll also read verses 3 through 5, and then we'll finish up with verses 10 and 11.
So the prospect of Christ's return, and you see how this all pertains to Christ again, the prospect of Christ's return. The pressures in life that produce Christ's character in us. That's what happened. I don't want to get to have myself, but we run from that.
The reason we stay where we're at is because we run from the pressure. The person of Christ who restored us to friendship and divine favor with the Father. It's all about Him. So we can rejoice because of these three things.
All right, let's start. Romans 5 verse 1, the first prospect of Christ's return. We rejoice in the hope. So it says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
All right, we read that. So I believe, here's why I believe this, because what Paul says in Titus 2, I believe the hope, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. It's a future event. It's something that hasn't happened yet.
It's 2, 11, I believe it's what Paul is talking about in Titus 2, 13, when he calls it the blessed hope. Actually that word blessed in the New Testament means happy. It's a hope that it's not depressing. It's a happy hope.
It's something I'm looking forward to that's good. Remember, it's a confident expectation of a future good. It's not a bad thing. The return of Christ is only bad if you don't accept Him.
And then it's really bad. Then you end up on this side of the church. Right? No, I understand.
Not really. That's not theology. That's like just kidding. Let's see it says, the grace that rings salvation has appeared to who.
All right. So right when Jesus came, Jesus is the person of grace. Pastor Seth preached a few weeks ago about grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. So when Jesus came, the person of grace, it appeared to everybody.
When Jesus died, it said, for God's who loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that, who so ever believes? I do not believe in limited atonement. I do not believe that Jesus only died for the people that would one day believe in him. He died for everybody.
He's the propitiation for our sins and not our sins only but the sins of the whole world. He's paid for all sin. He paid for the sin of all people, but it's up to you to receive it. It says the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to everybody.
But grace teaches us. Grace doesn't teach the unbeliever. See, it appears to everybody. You receive saving grace.
Remember we've talked about the multi-dimensions of grace. They're saving grace, but here's another dimension of grace. Teaching grace. Teaching grace is for us.
Teaching grace is for the believer. Teaching grace is to mature you and your walk with Lord. It says, teaching us, and a lot of times we stop at verse 12, but you got to read verse 12 and 13 together. So what does grace do?
Grace does not excuse him. So grace is not an excuse to live a sinful life. Grace is not an excuse to live the way you want to live. Grace actually enables you to live in a way that's holier than you could ever live when you try to do it on your own.
It teaches us this, denying ungodliness, worldly lust, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking. See, it's not just living. It teaches us to live while we're looking. See, a lot of times people want to pull this verse and say, grace teaches you to live this way.
It does. It's living this way while you're looking. See if I'm not looking, I don't really have the, it minimizes the reason why I should live that way. If I'm living, if I'm looking for the return of Christ, it's going to affect the way I live.
See when I knew Kristin was coming to my house, I didn't leave it a mess. I might have lived a mess all week. I might have not put my laundry away. I probably didn't clean the sink.
I probably had dishes in the kitchen. But when I knew she was coming, my behavior changed because I was looking forward to her coming to me. And this says that the grace teaches us to live a certain way, to live righteously, deny and godliness, deny worldly lust, to live righteously and godly in the world while we are looking for that blessed hope, that happy hope, the glorious appearing of our great god and savior, Jesus Christ. See, I'm looking for it.
And because I'm looking for it, I'm living a certain way. There should be a change in my behavior because grace not only teaches me, it enables me to do the very thing that it teaches. And while I'm living that way, I should be looking. See what happens is we get looking at the wrong things and all of a sudden our living changes.
I get looking at my neighbor, I get looking at social, whatever you get, social media, looking at things and all of a sudden my looking affects my living. And grace wants you to do both. See we can be confident that Jesus is coming. First thessalonians, chapter 4 says this, he says, I don't want you to be, he says brethren, I don't want you to be people that have no hope.
Now in context this is talking about, he says I don't want you to be like those that don't have hope in context of those who have died prematurely. Believers that are dead. He said I want to give you some hope. But there's hope in here for us too.
It says brethren, I don't want you to be a great, lest you sorrow like others that have no hope. He said himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of an archangel with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ for wise first. Now I grew up in a Baptist church, right? I'm a born again, original Baptist, now Pentecostal, whatever you want to call me.
But as a Baptist, we love this verse. Matter of fact, we developed a little Baptist theology on verse 16 to the point where we used to say the Methodist would be the first people to go to heaven because it says the dead in Christ will rise first. That was Baptist theology 101. Not written, no, it really wasn't.
It really isn't. If you're a Methodist, it was just a joke. Now it said those that died first, those that are dead in Christ, those that sleep some places. When Jesus returns, it says he will descend with a shout with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God.
And when that happens, those that are dead are going to rise. And they're going to be in the clouds with him. And it says those of us who remain, the rest of the believers on that day, it says we will be caught up with them to meet them in the clouds and him in the clouds. And so shall we always forever do what?
Be with the Lord. It's a certainty. It's something we can look for. We can celebrate the wind even though that particular part of it hasn't happened yet because the authority in the certainty of God's Word says it will occur.
If you're saved, the return of Christ should be a big deal. Like he's coming back for his bride. You're going to not only be reunited with loved ones that have passed away, but you're going to be reunited with the groom. You're going to be with him forever.
It says in 1 John chapter 3, I'm going to give you a lot of scripture today and I encourage you to go back and read it. 1 John chapter 3 verses 2 and 3 say this. It says, be loved. So here's what else.
Here's what else we get to look for as if that's not good enough. The wrinkles go away. The sagginess goes away. Everything that's hanging due to gravity gets lifted.
Right? Forget getting the face left and the body left and the anti-aging cream. When he appears, we shall see him and we will be like him. It says, we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
And the basis is in his resurrected, perfect body that exists outside of time and space. In an instant, you're brought up to meet the Lord in the air and you're changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. Your vile body becomes like his glorious body. It says in Philippians 3 21.
Like that's good news. Again, John stresses us. He says, everyone who has what? This hope.
How many have that hope? He says, if you have that hope, purifies himself as he is pure. See, if you have that hope, you just raise your hand, then your life better show by the way that you live that that hope is in you. You will not get condemnation for me.
I don't deal in shame and condemnation, but I deal in encouragement and instruction. You need to live as if that hope is for today. See, when you go back to 1 Thessalonians 4 that we just read, when you flip the next page, the 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 2, it says, the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. Like you need to live every day as if it could happen today.
We need to live with hope as it could be today. I rejoice and celebrate, not that it's going to happen a thousand years from now. It might happen before we leave. Like you don't want to be the last person sitting here if it happens right now.
You don't want to be. So we celebrate. We get excited. Like the second coming of Christ is a big deal.
But not only are we rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, but we're doing this. I want to read this from the NASB because it uses the word celebrate, which I think is better. But we rejoice in tribulations. If you've got here more poor mouthing in tribulation than I do rejoicing.
See, there's no Bible verse that says, go around and sulk and peon moan and be disgruntled and complain in tribulations. It says, rejoice in tribulations. Let's read it. Let's read it.
Romans 5, 3, 3, 5. It says, okay, so it says, rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And then Paul says, and not only that, there's more and not only that, but we also celebrate in tribulations knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, perseverance, proven character and proven character hope and hope does not disappoint because the love of God is shed abroad within our heart by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. There's a lot there, but let's break that down.
It says that we celebrate in tribulations. Tribulation bless you. Jesus. That's my, for those of you who are here, that's Indian.
You say Jesus. It says we celebrate in tribulations. I love this word. You notice it's tribulations plural?
That means if you've been through one, it's not over. There's probably another one coming. So get used to it. It's life.
I also like the fact that in the Greek, this is a hard word to say, plebsis. Remember, this is tribulations is a feminine word. Like the source of tribulation. Take it for what it's worth.
I didn't write the Greek language, but it's feminine. They must have knew something that I didn't know. Because according to my wife, all tribulation starts with a male species, but this is Bible. Now come on, it's Bible.
It says we celebrate in tribulations knowing there's a problem. We don't know what the Bible says. Because we don't know the outcome and the purpose of tribulations, we jump off the ship before we get to the place that God needs us to be. Because we need to know something.
This is not even knowing that comes by experience. This is not gnoshko. This is not the knowledge that comes through experience. This is precise and correct knowledge.
This is knowledge I know that comes from perception that I believe God will give you the revelation of this, that through his words you'll begin to understand the truth of what I'm telling you today. But if you don't know it, you're going to short circuit the process. It's not going to happen. The reason I say pressure is when it says tribulation, because this word tribulation means oppressing in.
It means pressure. It's like a pushing and oppressing. See, a diamond is not made without pressure. So you can have a lump of coal and that coal can eventually become a diamond.
But if you pull the coal out too soon, guess what it still is? It's coal. It takes pressure and it takes heat. It takes 725,000 foot pounds of pressure per inch to make a diamond.
It also takes 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit in addition to the 725,000 foot pounds of pressure. It's pressure and it's heat. But the result is something that's invaluable. Something that's permanent, at least till the time when all the elements in the earth melt, when this place gets dissolved.
It's as permanent as it can be today. He said that we should celebrate in tribulations knowing that tribulation produces what? Perseverance. See, this is where most Christians swipe left.
Your spiritual swipe lefters. We live our life on social media doing this, right? If I don't like the video that I see, what do I keep doing? I keep swiping up, right?
If I get an email that I don't want to read or I get a friend request or I wouldn't say Tinder, it would be what the dating app is. Whatever the dating app is, I don't know. I don't know. What is it?
How about go fish? Like Christian dating or something? No, but what are you doing? You're swiping left.
Swipe left. Swipe left. And what happens in the church today is when you don't like, I don't like what that pastor said, or I don't like the counsel that they gave me or I don't want to stay here in the midst of this problem, but here's what I need to tell you. In the midst of the problem is when you need to stand fast.
What happens too often is this, when the pressure comes and when the heat comes, we're scrolling. We're swiping. But God says no, you need to stay put because unless you stay put, the process that I want to use to produce Christ in you doesn't happen. Paul says I travailed until Christ be formed in you.
Christ was in them, but he had to come out of them. He needed to be formed in all parts of them. You have Christ in you, but Christ still needs to be formed in you. It's a process.
The process doesn't take place when you get on the bus. See, you know, I'm just going to try another church and you get there and you get hurt and you get but heard again and you get but heard again and you get but heard again and you get not heard. Well, you're still but heard at the end of the day. You need to stay and get your butt healed.
Like stay here or stay there wherever you're at. This is prophetic. I believe in butt healing, not butt hurting. You're going to get your butt healed here, but it doesn't heal unless you stay.
You got to know that when pressure comes that the next step is perseverance. Perseverance means steadfastness. It means constancy. It means patiently enduring.
And when I persevered through that thing, look what gets developed. It says tribulations bring perseverance. Perseverance. I like the new American standardness.
Proven character. A lot of translations just say character. It's actually proven character. It's no.
I didn't just see a blip on the radar where you exhibited a little character in your life. I'm seeing that you're staying here. You're persevering. God's changing you.
Over time, I see proven character in your life. Like it doesn't happen every time you jump around. Jumping around just makes you tired. It wears you out.
If I had a dollar every time I heard somebody say, oh, I'm just going through it. I'm going through it. See, there's too much grumbling, complaining and pouting instead of celebrating, rejoicing and shouting. What?
Ryan, that's pretty good. Like, oh, I'm just going through it. I'm just going through it. Oh, my gosh.
I'm going through it. Shout. How about this? I'm going through it.
I'm going through it. But I'm staying put and God's developing character in me. I'm rejoicing because I'm going through it. I'm not rejoicing for the thing I'm going through.
I'm rejoicing for what the outcome is going to be. But as long as I jump ship, oh, man, I'm still going through it. And you meet the same person 10 years later. Oh, I'm still going through it.
Oh, man, I am. I am ever going through it. See, the process is that you get through it and then the next thing comes and then you get through that and then the next thing comes and then you get through that. You weren't meant to go through it your whole life or the same thing.
Like insanity. Let's go back. He says, proven character and proven character what produces hope. See, if I deal with pressure in the right way and I persevere and I surround myself with the body of Christ, that's nothing.
You try to deal with your issues in isolation. You need the body of Christ around you to surround you to persevere. When you persevere, godly character, proven character gets produced. And when I have character, now all of a sudden I have hope.
See before, I had hope in the return of Christ, right, in Christ's return. But now I've got hope that's produced because of character. It's different. It's different.
It's a different dimension of hope. This hope doesn't come because of God's words saying Christ is coming. This hope comes because I stayed put. God developed me.
I persevered. Now my character has increased and now I've got hope. I've got confidence that the next time it happens, I know what God did the first time and if God did it the first time, God will do it the next time. And then when I persevere again, it develops more perseverance, more character, greater hope in my life, that when the next thing comes, I now have hope again.
And do you see the cycle? Or I can jump ship and have no hope? I'm still going through it. Like I could retire on been going through it.
I'm not diminishing the fact that you're going through it, but pick your mouth up. Pick your head up. Pick your attitude up. It's about time we walk around like we got hope.
It says hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God has shed a brought in my heart by the Holy Spirit. Who was given to us? I can have confidence in God's ability to change me because the love of God is in me. See when I understand that God loves me, then I realize that everything in my life, although it's not sent by him, he can actually use it to form in me the thing that he needs to form in me because he has my best interest at heart.
That's what God's love does. It gives me confidence. I know God's not trying to hurt me. God didn't send it.
What did Paul do? Paul said unless I be elevated because of the revelations I received, a messenger, I said a thorn in the flesh was given to me. God did not give him the thorn in the flesh. He said, after he said I got a thorn in the flesh, he says a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet me.
He said, I plead with the Lord three times and the Lord said this. He says, my grace is sufficient for you. Paul goes on to say, he says, I will then glory. It's the same word rejoice.
I will rejoice. I will glory in my weaknesses because when I am weak, then I am strong. I will take pleasure in my infirmities that the power of Christ can rest on me. Paul wasn't a mealy-mouthed Christian.
He went through it. He went through it like this. He persevered. He went through stuff.
But I believe he was the most developed Christian probably in the last two thousand years. Like he went through it because he went through it. God created character in him. God gave him hope.
So much hope that God gave him revelation to give us hope today. Don't think because you're a believer that you're isolated from tribulations. John 1633, Jesus says, in this world you will have, well, I know that's not the gospel I was told. The B of down in the mouth complaining, pouting.
What's it say? B of good cheer. Other translations say B of good courage. Like you can face this thing.
You don't have to face it like, oh my gosh, I'm going through it again. I don't know what I'm going to do. Just can't take much more of this. Well, first thing you can do is stand up and celebrate that God is doing something with it.
See, the thing that the enemy meant to harm you, God's using it as a mechanism to release his grace of sufficiency that empowers you to live above that. Second Corinthians chapter four tells us this. Remember I said that tribulation means to be pressed in. It says we're hard pressed.
That's the verb form of the same word, bleeps us. We're hard pressed on every side, but look, we're not what? Crushed. See pressure coming, tribulation coming, every direction.
Have you ever been there? Yeah, I'm there. This message is for me. I'm there.
Every day. I'm there. But regardless if it's coming from every direction, we're not crushed. Like we're the piece of coal that doesn't disintegrate into a billion pieces, it's formed into a diamond.
It got actually create something out of something that was meant to destroy. He turns it back into a way to develop something really great in you. He says our light affliction, he actually calls the thing you're going through light. It's light, like it's not heavy.
But look what it does. It's not heavy, but it produces in you an eternal weight. Like that thing's light, but what God's producing in you is heavy. It's glory.
It's glorious. Glory. Why we don't look at the things we're seeing but the things that are not seen because the things that are seen are what? Temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal.
See without hope, if I'm only looking at the thing that I can see, it looks like disaster. But I need to be able to start looking with eyes of faith, to where with my heart eyes, I can see the thing that hasn't happened yet and have confidence in it because God's word says it so. And I can stand here and I can face that thing with good courage, with good cheer knowing that God's doing a work in me. But that work never happens.
I'm not a specialist on addiction. I didn't go to school for addiction. I've never been an addict. Some of you have formal, former addicts.
But one thing I've seen over the years, we've been doing this a little over 10 years, that when somebody gets into addiction and they're in that addiction for a period of time, it's almost as if their development stops at the time they got into the addiction. So, so, so for instance, if you started as an addict at 18 and now you're 35, when you get free, mentally you're still somewhere and emotionally back at 18. Right? That's not the point, but I think the same is true spiritually.
When I deal with pressure incorrectly and I jump ship and go to some other source to numb me from what God needs to use in me, I actually stay at this level my entire Christian life. And until I get back here and stay put in and persevere, then and only then do I start growing in the Lord. First Corinthians chapter, I think it's four, one. Second Corinthians one.
It says that God is the God of all comfort. It says, bless me the God and Father of Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy is the God of all comfort who comforts us in. Look at this. All.
It's us in all tribulation. So there's nothing you're going through. The word comfort pericletos is the same word as the Holy Spirit. Remember Jesus said, I'll pray the Father and he'll send another comforter.
This is the same word that the God of all comfort comforts us in all tribulation. So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble. That word troubles the same as the word tribulation. It's just translated two different words, but it's the same word.
See what happens. See, instead of staying put and getting healthy, right, getting your butt healed here, we jump ship and try to comfort somebody with comfort that we don't have because we left here. See we see people in need and we leave unhealthy and try to bring comfort to them, but we don't have it because it's here because the God of all comfort comforts me in all tribulation. And once that happens, now I've been equipped to go out.
But until I receive his comfort, I don't have the capacity to release that into somebody else's life. See what happens a lot of times, we can get in the sake of trying to do good for somebody, we can crash our own plane. And so I encourage you to stay steadfast, to persevere. See that the God of all comfort comforts us.
What's it mean to comfort? He comes alongside. See, I'm not going to cosign your suffering, but I will come alongside you. I'm not going to like, oh man, I'm going through it.
Oh man, my life sucks too. Oh yeah, I talked so and so the other. Oh yeah, they're life's awful and boy, they're going through it. Oh, did you hear about so and so they're going and what do we want to do?
We want to commiserate in our tribulation. God didn't call us to commiserate in tribulation. He called us to comfort, to bring comfort to those that are going through it. But I can't adequately comfort you unless I've let the Holy Spirit comfort me.
Talking to somebody today. James says a very similar thing. He says, count it all joy when you fall into what? Various trials, various troubles, various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith does what?
Producers patience. A lot of people use this verse out of context. Well, I prayed for patience. I prayed for patience.
Let me give you a different light on this. If I joined the Marines and I went through marine training and I went to the end of the what's the special forces of the Marines called? Okay, that. Just say I'm like the sniper of all sorts.
I've done all the training, right? I know how to shoot. I could kill you with a big pen, whatever. I'm that guy.
I've got the training, but I don't have any combat experience. So everything I need to be successful is in me, but it's not been pulled out of me yet. But when I get in the fight, I now unconsciously begin to release the thing that I already have. See what happens.
The reason you can count it all joy when you fight various trials is this. Patience is a fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love and the love is split into joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, all those. Patience is a fruit of the spirit.
The spirit is where? In me. If the Holy Spirit is in me, what is already in me? Patience.
Do I need to pray for patience? No. Why would I pray for what I already have? I don't need to pray for patience.
But when I experience a trial, the patience of the Holy Spirit is. Do you know how persevering? You know what? You know how persevering the Holy Spirit is?
He didn't leave you when he had a good reason to. He had every reason in the world to leave you in the dust. He had every reason in the world to swipe left when you said I need help. But he didn't.
He's the most persevering person in the universe. You have that in you. You have his capacity to have patience to persevere. You don't need more patience.
What you need to do is rejoice when you get in a trial because now the battle draws out of you what's already in you. See the word it says produces a better word is this. Employees. Trials employ patience.
So think of it like this. Patience is in me on the unemployment line. It's waiting to go to work. Put me in, coach.
Like patience is on the sideline. Put me in. Put me in. And then the trial comes.
And when the trial comes, the purpose is to draw patience out of me, to actually grow me in character. But what do I do? I run. And where does patience stay on the sideline?
See the reason you can be joyful in it is because through it, God takes the thing as Joseph said, the thing that was meant for harm, God used it for good. And God can take every attack of the enemy, turn it around and use what was meant for evil to develop you to the level that he wants you to be. All right. We'll close with this.
We'll make it quick. Anybody ready to celebrate? Man, I am. Come on.
The return of Christ, right? The prospect. The outlook. The hope that Jesus is coming back for me.
He's coming back for you. To change the way that we live. I should live with hope, but while I'm living with in that hope, I should be living as if I have that hope. Like the two should be similar.
I need to rejoice in the midst of pressure. Not because the pressure is great. Like the pressure's awful. I don't like it.
It stinks. It doesn't mean you gotta like it. Hebrews 12 two talks about running the race. Let us run the race with endurance.
that has run the race with perseverance is the same word. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy, where was the joy, set before him, endured the cross despising the shame. Jesus went through it, but he went through it, looking ahead to the joy that was at the end, and actually hated the thing that he was going through. He didn't like the cross, nobody would.
It was awful. You at a lesser level can do the exact same thing. You can hate the thing you're going through, but you can look ahead to the joy that's in the future, knowing what the outcome is going to be like the game's over. And you can persevere through that.
Number three is there's the person of Christ who restored us to friendship and to find favor with God. Not gonna spend a lot of time here, but look, when somebody wins tonight, somebody's gonna be the MVP. There's gonna be a winning team, but there's gonna be a standout. There's gonna be a Super Bowl MVP.
And I wanna tell you today on Super Bowl Sunday, Jesus is the MVP of all MVPs. He's the one that settled the score. He's the one that reconciled the difference. He's the one that while we were enemies of God, he died for us.
When we were sinners, he loved us. When there was a debt we couldn't pay, he reconciled that difference between God and man. He brought us back into a place of friendship and divine favor. Reconcile, we talked about it two messages ago, but when it says in 2 Corinthians 5 and 19, it says that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting or not accounting their trespasses against them.
That God was in Jesus, drawing you, drawing not just believers, but the whole world. He went ahead and brought the entire sinful world into a place of friendship with him, signed in blood with the name of Jesus on one side of that peace treaty, just waiting for you to sign the other side. But the wrath is gone. If you don't receive while you're alive, there will be wrath later.
That's a reality. Romans 5 verses, let's just read a couple verses in Romans 5. It says that God demonstrated his love toward us while we were sinners. When we were a sinner, which means once you've been made righteous, this whole other teaching, you're no longer a sinner.
You were a sinner because of what Adam did. You inherited it. But when you inherit what Jesus did, you become righteous. Sinner was your old nature.
Righteous is your new nature. It says when you were a sinner, Christ died for you, much more having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Next verse. It says, for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled.
Remember, when you were God's enemy, Jesus restored the friendship. He restored it. When you were, like you were still shooting. You were still fighting God.
You were still his enemy. And he went ahead and signed the peace treaty. Before you even decided to give up. It says when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God to the death of the sun, much more now.
If he did that then, if he did that when you were still the enemy, how much more now that you're on his side? Wow, having been reconciled, we saved by his life. And not only that, but we also, here's another one. We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have received the reconciliation.
See, I not only rejoice in hope because he's coming back. See, I can rejoice in the prospect of the second coming of Christ. I can rejoice in the fact that the pressure that I'm going through is creating Christ-like character in me, proven character. But more than anything, I can rejoice in the MVP of all MVPs.