Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
And our text tonight will be verses one through 6, Romans
chapter 5, verses one through 6. Grateful that we can be here in
the middle of the week and be encouraged by one another and
helped and fed by God's Word. It's just what we need in the
middle of the week. A lot of things we're going
through, a lot of things we might need.
And so we just trust God's timing and His Providence when
with His Word because that's how it works.
How many times have you gone to the Bible and you open it up and
it you read just what you needed for that moment in your life?
That's God, friend, that's the Lord.
His word is alive and He knows exactly where you are.
He's not looking for you. He knows exactly where you're at
and His word is timely. So Romans chapter 5 is where
we'll be tonight. Most of us have considered a
good church as one that, as many of us have said, is a gospel
preaching church. Many of you have probably used
that description of a good church before a gospel preaching
church. Well, let me ask this.
What exactly is a gospel preaching church?
What is a gospel preaching church?
What do we mean when we say that?
That would be a description of a good church?
Is it a church that does a good job at faithfully preaching the
gospel so sinners get saved? That's part of it, indeed, of
course. Is it a church where the gospel
is the only aspect of God's word that is preached?
How do you save people spiritually profit from their
gospel preaching church? I mean if it is just the gospel
to the to the lost being preached well, why do I do?
How can saved people profit from that kind of gospel preaching
church? Well, the gospel, which means
the good news of Jesus Christ, is not just for sinners, but
also for the Saints, which a St. is someone who is saved.
Someone who is in Christ is not someone who lived a pompous
moral life, if you will. It is a saved person.
If you're born again tonight, you're a St. according to the
Scriptures, you're a St. And so the gospel is not just
for sinners, but for us. And so you might think, well,
how we're saved, we need the gospel.
Still. A church must faithfully preach
the gospel of our Lord and Savior to its saved membership
because the gospel is to influence and change every
facet, every nook and cranny of our of our lives.
It is not just to take us from death unto life, but it's to
take us from death unto life into sanctification, into the
image of Jesus our Savior. Thus, churches who don't preach
how the gospel effects their lives are typically filled with
Saints living in carnality and defeats.
They're living in carnality, worldliness, fleshliness, and
therefore defeats in their born again life.
But churches like ours who do preach how the gospel effects
their lives can be seen to be filled with Saints living in the
glorious victory of our risen Savior.
So that's a gospel preaching church.
A a church that preaches the gospel to the lost, yes, but
preaches the gospel even to us to learn how to live in light of
the gospel or because of the gospel taking root in our lives.
The very letters of the whole, the very letters the Holy Spirit
inspired the the apostle Paul to write unto the churches they
contain how the gospel of Christ that saved them was to then
transform them. I mean, that's the majority of
what the Apostle Paul writes in his letters that we have here in
the New Testament is how the churches are to live because of
the gospel, how the gospel is a a typing of format or template
that they are to apply in every area of their.
And so such is the case with the letter known as the book of
Romans, where I believe God wants us to be tonight.
Romans teaches us that God is righteous in all that he does,
He's sovereign, He's just, he's right, He's holy in all that he
does. And Romans teaches us whom God
has justified, that we are to live the Christian life the same
way we got saved, by faith. We are to continue to live the
Christian life the same way we got saved, and that is by faith,
in other words, by faithful obedience to the Word.
That's how we're to live the Christian life.
And no, it's not about we cannot get saved again.
We're eternally secure. But as we obeyed the gospel, we
obey the God of the gospel, and that's called faith.
OK, so let me ask this. Does the gospel teach us
anything other than how to get saved?
Does the gospel teach us anything other than just how to
get saved? We understand that we should
glory and have joy in the fact that we are saved.
But can we still glory and celebrate victory in Jesus and
have joy and tribulations and in hardships, in difficulties and
afflictions also? Can we still glory in the gospel
the same way as when we got saved?
Can we still glory and still have the same spirit in
tribulations, in the drama, in your life, in afflictions and in
hardship also? Well, if so, how?
So? How does the gospel teach us to
glory in tribulations? The gospel does not just teach
us how to get saved, it teaches us more than that as well.
So let's look at our text, verses one through 6 of Romans
chapter 5. Paul writes here and we'll see
the word therefore beginning in verse one.
And he's referring back to the doctrine of justification by
faith that he just laid out for us in chapter 4.
OK, so in light of all that, in verse 1, he says therefore the
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. I don't want to rush through
that. I mean, that's amazing.
We have peace with God. We're justified because of the
Lord Jesus Christ by whom? The same Lord Jesus Christ also,
we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and
rejoice in hope of of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that
tribulations do this. Tribulations worketh patience
and patience, experience and experience hope and hope maketh
not ashamed or disappointed, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly. Want to preach a message
entitled We Glory and Tribulations?
Also, yes, it's a title. That's a question for editing
purposes. OK, there's a question mark
there. Or for your notes.
We Glory and Tribulations also is the title.
Tonight. Let's pray one more time.
God, thank you for your word. God, I pray that you just take
it now and help us tonight. God, you know what we're going
through, what we've been through, and the storm that's
ahead. And so, God, I pray you'd use
this for our edification in Christ's name, Amen.
We see in verses 1 and 2 that we glory in the gospel of Christ
because we've been placed in right standing with God by
faith. And I think that's easy to
understand. We glory and we we celebrate the
victory that's in Jesus because Jesus Christ has placed us in
right standing with the God of all of eternity.
And we have come into right standing by faith.
We have believed the gospel. We were drawn by the gospel and
we gave into the gospel. OK, so we placed our faith in
Jesus Christ. So we have been justified.
The gospel teaches us that we have been justified because of
Christ. And as was just mentioned,
Romans chapter 4 is where Paul really gets into dealing with
the doctrine of justification. And so we're not in Romans 4
tonight, but what is the doctrine of justification?
What does it mean, church, to be justified?
And so this is what happened to us the moment we got saved.
This is what happened to us. The doctrine of justification is
the act of God whereby he declares the believing Sinner
righteous in Christ on the basis of the finished work of Christ
on the cross. It's nothing we've done.
That was all God's work, a work that would have been impossible
for us to do. Let me read that again.
Justification is the act of God whereby he declares the
believing Sinner righteous, guiltless if you will, nothing
held against you by God, because we're in Christ, and it's all
happened because of the finished work of Christ on the cross, Him
taking your punishment. God declares us righteous.
We're justified. Some have summarized the
definition of justification or being justified as God the
Father viewing me just as if I'd never sinned.
That's amazing. It's hard for us to see people
that way, and so that's hard for us to really fathom and
understand. God really views me just as if I
had never sinned. The justification of our souls
absolutely could not have occurred apart from Christ the
Son of God, living a sinless life and dying the sinner's
death. Justification is not something
we work for or that we grow into.
It's not something where God says, OK, you'll be justified as
you as you continue to come along and, and, and to obey me.
No, it's, it's something that we could have never done brought
about on our own. It's something that
instantaneously takes place when we get saved.
It's something nothing we grow into.
It's instantaneous upon our faith in Christ alone.
The gospel also teaches us that we have peace with God.
We see here in our verses verse #2 by whom also we have access
by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope and
the glory of God. We have access and we have peace
with God. The gospel also teaches us that
Christ allows us to have peace with God.
The Bible teaches in verse 10 of this same chapter, Romans 5,
verse 10. For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, the Bible
teaches that prior to justification we were enemies of
God. The Bible also says this in
chapter 8 of the same book, verse 7.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is
not subject to the law of God, and neither indeed can be so,
this meant that we were completely separated from God.
There was no relationship, there was no peace before we were
justified by the power of God. But Christ has allowed it to be
so that we are brought back into a peaceful relationship with
God. Therefore, because we were
enemies of God, we didn't belong to Him, and therefore we
couldn't obey Him, we couldn't love Him, we couldn't follow
Him. Sin literally stood between US
and knowing God. Because we were enemies, we were
at enmity with God, but upon our faith in the finished work of
Christ on the cross, we have peace with God through Christ
alone. Peace with God.
Here's a basic definition for having peace with God.
I am in good standing with God the Father because of Christ his
Son. I am in right standing with God
the Father, not because of me, not because of some religion,
not because of some degree of morality, but because of the
perfect life of the Son of God, and the death that satisfied the
wrath of God. Jesus says in John 14, six, I am
the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father. Christ says, but by me it is
good to be in good standing with God.
I mean, if there's anybody you want to be right with and all of
your life and all of the universe, it is God.
And if you're here tonight and you're lost and you're dead in
your trespasses and sins, God has positioned you and he's
giving you an opportunity even this hour to be drawn to Christ
and be saved because the gospel is being preached.
The book of Romans makes it very clear that the gospel preached
is how God draws lost sinners to himself.
So if you're here tonight, this message is also for you, so stay
tuned. So the gospel not only teaches
us that we have peace with God because of Christ, but the
gospel further teaches us that we have access to God's grace
because of Christ. The very shedding of the blood
and and death of Jesus Christ has granted all who are saved
unlimited access to the Father. When Christ died, he tore the
veil into through which the Jews could only get a glimpse of God.
And when Christ died, he tore down the wall through which no
Gentile could even get a glimpse of God.
Having access into God's grace means, according to a gentleman
by the name of Rain Hummel, who runs a Christian camp in New
England. Here he says this, this is, this
is what having access to God's grace means.
You can be as close to God as you want to be, but you have to
be in Christ. You have to be in Christ and you
can draw as close to God. You can become as intimate and
close knitted to God in a relationship as you choose to
be. God wants to draw you ever
closer. But it is US who also must step
toward God in our daily relationship and lifelong
obedience. That's what it means to have
access to God's grace. You can get as close to God as
you want to be because of Christ.
Because of Christ, thus we believe we are eternally secure
in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit uses the word
hope in verse 2 where He says wherein we stand.
We stand in this grace and rejoice in hope of the glory of
God. The word hope is used multiple
times in the book of Romans. As you read Romans, I think
you'll find it at least 6 to 12 times just in this one book, The
word hope. Hope is a theme of Romans.
Hope is a theme of the gospel. The world has a definition for
hope that is different than God's definition.
And so the world's definition for hope would be maybe
something like this, simply desiring something to be true.
When you ask maybe a Catholic, if they know for sure that
they're right with God and that they'll go to heaven when they
die, often their answer is, well, I hope so.
I, I hope so. You ask a child if we're having
pizza for dinner tonight, they say, well, I hope so.
They're desiring something to be true.
And the answer's no, we're not because we already ate.
I would love for that to be true.
But anyway, desiring something to be true.
This is the kind of hope as I mentioned, a religious person
has. I hope so.
But the biblical definition church catch this night.
The biblical definition of hope is this, possessing A secured
assurance in which we currently live and our promise to further
inherit hereafter. It is a secured assurance that
we have right now. It's not a maybe.
It's not I wish. It is a secured assurance we
have right here in this moment as we sit and gather in this
place tonight in which we currently live and our promise
to further inherit and experience even more when this
life is done and we get to heaven.
That is what hope is. It is a is, it is a confidence
and a risen Savior and he's already alive.
We don't have to hope. He's alive, He's alive.
He's seated on the right hand of the throne of God in heaven.
So Jesus Christ literally is our hope right this moment and shall
also be in our death. This is why we glory in the
gospel of Christ, because he has placed us in right standing with
the Father. And so therefore we glory in
this. What does it mean to glory?
Glory it is it is living in celebration of the victory that
is in Christ. We are in victory.
We have victory in Jesus. He's conquered sin, death, hell
and the grave and we celebrate this, I mean this also through
our souls that we don't have to maybe guess if we're right with
God or heaven is our home. Christ has placed you in right
standing with God. There's nothing else you need to
do to get more saved. Christ gets you all the way in
by your faith. We celebrate this.
We glory in Christ. Amen.
And so. But the Christian life isn't
always an ocean of calm waters, is it?
The Christian life isn't always a smooth, glassy sea.
In fact, the Christian life can be filled with various
tribulations and storms. Christ said in this life you
will have much tribulation, but fear not I have overcome the
world, so how can we still glory?
When people we love, admire, or trust break our hearts, how can
we still glory? When the Doctor gives us
troubling news? How can we still glory when we
are tempted to hate ourselves because of sinful choices we've
made? To be bitter against yourself.
How can we still glory when we don't know how our finances are
going to make it or how far they're going to bring us?
How can we glory in the midst of legitimate persecution for
believing the gospel? How can we glory in tribulations
also? How does the gospel teach us to
glory in tribulations is the question tonight.
And so secondly, we'll see in verses 3 through 5 that we can
also glory in tribulations by faith because we are anchored by
the gospel of Christ no matter what.
Let me say that again, we can also glory in tribulations by
faith because we are anchored by the gospel of Christ no matter
what. Notice verses 3 through 5.
And so we it says in verse 2 that we glory in the hope that
is in salvation in Jesus Christ. And verse 3, and not only so,
but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulations
worketh patience and patience, experience and experience hope.
And hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
So let's look at these 3 verses. Brother Anthony's going to put
on the screen here in a moment a picture.
And how many of you know what that is?
The whole picture. What is this?
Well, there's just one here who knows what that is.
You guys don't know your state flags.
You don't sit at home looking at these all day.
OK, This is the Rhode Island state flag.
My my native land. OK, All right.
And so on this photo here of the Rhode Island state flag, we have
an anchor, an anchor in underneath it.
It has the word hope. And so this is just a visual.
I'm not preaching on the state of Rhode Island.
I'm not complimenting the state of a Rhode Island.
I'm not saying anything like that.
It just gives you the perfect picture of what I what I believe
this passage is speaking about tonight.
Hope is common, commonly symbolized by an anchor.
OK, so I want you to think of an anchor.
I want you to try real hard to visualize a gold anchor.
OK, OK, so an anchor. Let's define an anchor, shall
we? Class.
Just in case you're wondering what it is, an anchor is a
massive double sided hook made out of corrosion resistant
metals such as stainless steel, galvanized steel, or high
tensile steel. An anchor provides water vessels
with stability, security, and hope, while the intent is for
the vessel to remain relatively stationary upon the water's
surface. So when an anchor is deployed
into the water and sinks down into the sea bed, the hooks will
penetrate into the seabed of the of the seabed and drag until the
thickness builds up sufficient resistance there on the seabed.
It could be muck and mire and sand and dirt.
It can it can take grip of a solid rock of a stone there at
the seabed. Whatever it is, it'll pull all
of that along until there's sufficient resistance built up
within the seabed. So in order for resistance to
build up enough on the seabed to make the vessel relatively
stationary, the vessel the the the boat or the water on top of
the on on the surface, there needs to be pointed into the
wind that might be blowing above the water surface in order for
the anchor to do its job, to dig into the seabed or the lake bed
or what what have you. In order for the anchor to do
its job, wind needs to have some influence on the water vessel.
That ship needs to be pointed toward the wind and maybe those
sails or or or what have you there are gently being blown to
tug that anchor beneath the surface for it to get its grip
and to do its job. In order for Christ, our anchor,
to do His job in your life, He uses the winds of tribulations
blowing against your life for you to discover further that He
truly provides stability, security, and hope.
That you further find out that that not only is He the
salvation of your soul, but He is the guardian of your life.
And He does much more for you than just holding you eternally
secure in His salvation. You discover that He works, that
He's stable, that He's secure, that your hope truly is in the
right place. And so this is proven when the
anchor is dropped, we can glory in Tribulations Church because
the same Christ who saved our souls, justified us, gave us
peace with God, gave us access to all.
His grace is also working to strengthen our confidence in the
hope we already have in Him. This is the gospel.
This is the good news. Tribulations prove that our
hope, that our confidence is in the right person, it's in the
right foundation, and it is the gospel that teaches us this.
We are justified. He has given us peace with God.
He's given us all access into His grace.
God uses tribulations to strengthen a few things in your
life. The Bible says the end of verse
3. Knowing that tribulations
worketh patience and patience, experience and experience hope.
So let's consider patience for a moment.
God uses tribulations to strengthen our patience toward
Him. He uses tribulations to 'cause
that anchor to go deeper into your life and making your
patience more active in your life.
Patience represents our level of trust in God.
Patience is easier to come by when we trust something or
someone to do their job. Isn't that true?
Patience is easier to come by when we are completely trusting
in someone else or something else to do its job.
But we won't really know how much we trust God without
tribulations. We won't really know how well
that anchor holds and that chain holds without tribulations.
Tribulations, they actually expose where we don't trust God
so that he might prove that Christ is in fact an anchor that
can be trusted for matters that are actually smaller than
salvation, matters that are smaller than the work of
salvation. And so tribulations expose our
heart. They expose where we're at.
You can tell what's in a tea bag when it's dropped into hot
water. And God uses tribulations to
really show us what's really in our hearts.
God uses the strengthening of our patience or trust to provide
us with personal experience. Patience leads to experience and
to provide us with personal experience with the anchor.
I'm telling you, I wouldn't want to get on a ship where there's a
captain who's actually never tried out the anchor.
I wouldn't want to listen to him.
I don't want to want to stay on his ship if I asked him.
Have you ever used an anchor? Have you ever tested this
anchor? Well, no, I haven't, but I know
in theory that it should work, right?
And So what God is doing within tribulations is opening a door
of opportunity for you to grow in your own experience and
further experience with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our church is blessed to have several tradesmen in the
membership and even here tonight, electricians, plumbers,
welders, carpenters, etcetera. You know, you probably attest to
this. Tradesmen typically don't have a
lot of respect for inspectors who have no experience in their
trade. And typically the inspector,
he's been hired, he's maybe making it's an entry level job,
perhaps maybe there. And he's been trained to learn a
book, he's trained to learn a manual.
He's trained to know what what the codes are and where this
should be positioned and the angle that that actually needs
to be at. And all the work you did over
here that actually is not allowed to go into that room and
you need to bring it over here instead.
And he walks in, he has no experience doing what you did
and you have a lot more wisdom and knowledge about the work and
what actually is functioning properly.
But all he is doing, all this is to him, your electrical work,
your plumbing work, your welding work, all it is to him.
He understands it barely. Just in theory.
He knows enough to come in and tell you that the book says, OK,
this is OK, this is wrong, this needs to be better, right?
Is that true? Is that typically?
Do you guys love Inspection Day? Brother Jay, Brother John, can I
get a witness? They have little to no
experience in their trade. It's God's plan for every one of
His children to have first hand experience with Him so they can
be effectively used by Him and helping others.
God doesn't just want us to know about Him in theory.
He doesn't want us to just know in theory that yeah, that anchor
should work and that we understand biblical things just
from a textbook level. He wants us to have personal
experience knowing that He does in fact work when we glory in
our tribulations by faith. The one of the some of the the
worst Christians, if I might say, are the Christians who know
how to be critical. And they know how to be critical
because there's a lot of things about the Bible that they know
in theory, but they don't understand where you're coming
from. They don't have any experience
with God. It's all, it's all academic.
They're, they understand deep theological truths, but they
have very little experience in going through hardship, trusting
God, having victory over addiction, seeing somebody
saved. They have little experience in
this. And so therefore they have no
empathy, they have no patience, they have no grace, they have no
understanding. They, they don't even know how
to bring you, you from point A to point B because of a lack of
experience. God, we need to glory and
tribulations because God is giving us a gift.
He's handing you experience. He's letting you experience that
He is a sure and steadfast anchor.
Understand that God's will for every Christian is for us to be
servants of Christ, that we are to represent him in ministry to
people. We cannot accurate accurately
represent Christ to others if we don't have much confidence or
experience with him. The greatest servants of Christ
are the ones who have experienced the faithfulness and
they've experienced the integrity in the security, the
hope of Christ. The anchor can can give in the
tribulations of life. Listen, tribulations.
They take believers from Bible theory to actual experience with
God, and tribulations provide a more superior education than
Bible seminary or Bible college does.
Tribulations provide superior preparation for ministry because
it is there in the tribulations of life where the Bible become
goes from theory to real, from theory to real.
We can glory in tribulations also, church, because God uses
all of it to reinforce the faith we placed in our anchor, Jesus
Christ on the day of our salvation.
He's reinforcing your faith. He's strengthening your faith.
He's trying to get to show you that that anger can go deeper.
It's not just there for show. It's there when you need a
crisis, there as you need him. And he's, he's on board the
ship. He's in your life, but he's not
just there to look pretty. He's there to be used in your
life and to help you become even more stable and have depth in
your life as a Christian. And it's tribulations where that
happens the most. Glory in tribulations, Be
thankful for tribulations. Rejoice in the Lord in
tribulations because this is what He's doing.
The good news of our tribulations is the same good
news of our salvation, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
Tribulations, friend, of course they are the bad news, but
Christ is the good news. We can glory in tribulations
also because Christ is present and at work beneath the surface
of our lives. You see, you and I, we are
simply passengers on the secure ship of grace, sailing upon the
waters of life. And when we came aboard, we were
actually right to assume that everything on the ship of grace
functioned properly, including the anchor.
That was a right and safe assumption.
I haven't been on many ships. I haven't been on many boats,
but the ones that I have gotten aboard, I just assumed that
everything worked properly. It's called getting on by faith,
not understanding all the insurance and outs.
I'm not the captain of the ship, but I assume that everything
works properly, including the anchor.
Our Savior is the anchor that we deploy by faith into the water
to work beneath the surface. The faithful word of God is His
gospel. The faithful word of God of his
gospel is the foundation of the sea.
The sea bed produces when the anchor goes to work.
Christ wants to dig in further to the implications of the
gospel in your life, and the anchor uses the winds of your
tribulations blowing against the ship to prove that the reality
of the gospel will hold you secure no matter what.
The wind is used, the tribulation is used for your
advantage. That's only possible with God.
That's not too possible with the unsaved.
Yes, they can grow in maybe some some grit and maybe some
character in life for sure, but they can't come to know that
Christ holds them fast. They can't come and draw closer
to God in a love relationship with Him because they're at
enmity with God. Their tribulations can humble
them and get them to consider a greater purpose in life, like
coming to know the Lord. But this is how God takes the
tribulations of life and uses them to your advantage.
Tribulations don't change the fact that you're justified.
Satan wants you to think in the midst of your tribulation that
God has lost track of you. We're just watching.
I was watching a short documentary the other night,
the, the the Fitzgerald ship and the Anderson ship on Lake
Superior in Michigan. And many of you know about that.
I believe Cassandra's grandfather was on Anderson that
night. One of those ships there, the
one of course, that did not go down, the Fitzgerald went down.
And one of the things that was the first thing to go was the
radar system in the midst of that storm on Lake Superior.
God's radar system of you doesn't break.
He, he knows exactly where you are.
In fact, he's behind you. He's above you, He's beneath
you, He's before you. That is where the Lord is.
But Satan wants you to think that God has lost track of you
in the storm. And Satan also wants you to to
believe that God doesn't love you either.
It's amazing. Tribulations don't change the
fact that you're justified. Tribulations don't change the
fact that you have peace with God.
Tribulations don't change the fact that you have access into
God's grace. God uses tribulations to prove
to you even further that Christ has always been the correct
object of your faith and you can only come to find that out when
you let him use those tribulations to prove that.
In the same book, Romans chapter 8, we know these verses, verses
35 through 39, the Holy Spirit says through Paul, who shall
separate us from the love of Christ?
Who hears Christ? But who?
Who shall separate you? God doesn't know him.
Whoever that is that you think can separate you from the love
of Christ, shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for
thy sake. We are killed all the day long.
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
But nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through Him
that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate you from the
love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Nothing can separate you, and it's the tribulations where
you've really, really come to realize that nothing can conquer
God's grace in your life. He brings you into a deeper
understanding of soteriology. People think I have a deep
understanding of soteriology because I study my Bible from
cover to cover. OK, but it's still theory.
You won't come to understand the depths of His eternal security
until you go through it. Verse 5 at the beginning helps
us understand something else as well.
The Bible says here, and hope maketh not ashamed.
Hope, hope maketh not ashamed. The anchor maketh not ashamed.
Brothers and sisters, tonight we will not be disappointed, which
is what the word ashamed means. We will not be disappointed by
the faithful integrity of the anchor.
Christ will work. Christ will work.
Christ our Savior will work in various tribulations.
It's not just certain ones, it's not just something to a certain
degree. He will work in any tribulation
in your life. The psalmist says in Psalm 119
verses 116 and 117, he says, Uphold me according unto thy
word, that I may live, and let me not be ashamed.
There's the word again, or disappointed of my hope, which
was the word of God is hope. Hold thou me up and I shall be
saved. This is a resolve in the
psalmist heart. Hold on me up and I shall be
safe. I know I'll be safe if you hold
me up, God, and I will have respect unto thy statutes
continually. He's saying here that in the
difficulty of life, I believe you will hold me up, God, and I
know that on the other side of this, I will have a greater
respect for you in your word than I did on this side of the
tribulation. And that's what God wants in
your life, to have a deeper fear in reverence for Him, have a
deeper understanding of His ability in your life.
Is there any assurance to be had prior to any upcoming
tribulations That gives us confidence that God has our best
interest in mind. God has your best interest in
mind with what you're going through.
We're talking about God here. We're not talking about someone
who's unsure of themselves, someone like us who doesn't
always have the best interest of others in mind.
Is there anything we can be assured of before the storm
comes that he has our best interest in mind?
Listen friend, if you're not in a tribulation right now, there,
there's one coming because God wants to do this in your life.
It's nothing to be afraid of. It's not going to be oh man,
God's got 1 coming for me. Glory and tribulations.
Also, the definition of love is having someone else's best
interest in mind. God has already settled and
proven His love to us. It's already settled.
So that brings us to our last point tonight, verses 5 and 6.
The Bible says and hope maketh not ashamed.
We're not going to be disappointed with the anchor
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
We see 3rd and lastly tonight that we can also glory in
tribulations because God's love for us was settled when Christ
died for us. God already proved He has our
best interest in mind when He sacrificed His only Son on the
cross for us. It's finished.
It's proven the love God has for us was settled on the cross
while we were still His enemies. We weren't like we we weren't
pleasing to God and He still died for us.
Christ was completely intentional in His choice to die
on our behalf. God knew what He was doing.
He laid Himself down on the cross.
I imagine this, if I may please, that as the soldiers in Christ
approached the cross, there was some sovereignty about the Lord
that the soldiers realized they should probably just let Jesus
go. And there's the cross.
They let Him go and he just put himself on it and crawled all
the way on it and got himself settled on that cross for us.
There wasn't a get down there. It was let me do this and he
laid down. That's what I imagine the Bible
doesn't say or describe that. That's exactly how it happened.
But he laid himself down for, oh, he loves you.
He has your best interest in mind.
And God already proved He has our best interest in mind
because He poured out His love in our hearts.
When the Holy Spirit came in at salvation, He emptied it.
Nothing left. He poured it out into our
hearts. And This is why we have a love
for Him we didn't have before we were saved.
He poured it into us. He had to pour His love into us.
That's how sinful and enmity we were with Him.
He had to pour His love into our hearts.
One of the clearest signs, I remember asking this to a man
who just had gotten saved several years ago that we were
discipling. And I said, what's one thing you
think has changed since you got saved?
He said, I want to read the Bible.
I didn't have that desire before I believed on Christ.
I I love his word that didn't exist before the Holy Spirit
gave you a love for God. Christ poured out his innocent
blood for us with no intention to regather and take it away
from us. Christ literally died to not
only save our souls, but the Bible says here to make us
godly, to make us godly. And I'm almost through tonight.
This is the gospel to the Saints.
He died not just to take you to heaven, but to make you godly
even before you get there. And that work will be completed
in heaven and perfected. You see, tribulations are not a
retraction of God's love commitment, but a means to
reinforce and mature confidence in His love for us.
A godly Christian is one who has it settled in their heart that
the love of God is good enough for them, therefore, they don't
need to go looking for satisfaction by any other means.
Tribulations are a means through which God reinforces our
confidence and hope in Him and thus makes us godly and mature
believers who look like Jesus Himself.
Consider the words to this hymn called He Will Hold Me Fast.
When I fear my faith will fail, Christ will hold me fast.
When the tempter would prevail, He will hold me fast.
I can never keep my hold through life's fearful path, for my love
is often cold. He must hold me fast.
Those He saves are His delight. Christ will hold me fast.
Precious in His holy sight, He will hold me fast.
He will not let my soul be lost. His promises shall last bought
by Him at such a cost. He will hold me fast, He will
hold me fast. He will hold me fast.
For my Savior loves me so He will hold me fast.
So how can you glory in tribulations also in the same
manner that you got saved by faith.
It was by faith you confessed you were a Sinner in need of
Christ. It was by faith you asked Christ
to save you and he did. Perhaps you're here tonight.
You're saying, I don't think there's ever been a time in my
life where I literally asked Christ to save my soul.
There's been times where I asked him to to save my body.
There's been times where I asked him to to heal me, different
times where I've been laid up in the hospital bed or at home.
I just and he did. He healed your body, but that
doesn't mean you're in right standing with God.
You need to ask Christ to come into your soul to heal you from
sin and he'll do so by faith. It is by this same exact faith,
the same exact faith faith that you can believe and assume that
God has your best interest in mind and tribulations also
because he does. What's God's best interest for
all of us You're wondering I'm closing here.
Forget this. What is God's best interest for
all of us? Christlikeness.
So that's it. That's pretty big.
That's pretty good. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God to them who are the
called according to his purpose. The good is Christ.
All things work together for your Christlikeness, so take
this home with you tonight. Christlikeness is the guaranteed
good news in the midst of the bad news of your tribulations.
It's about for prayer. If the Lord has spoken to you
tonight about how you're weathering the tribulations,
would you respond in prayer to Him?
We don't. We don't need a piano to talk to
the Lord, although it is nice and it might set the mood, but
just grab a hold of the Lord tonight in prayer.
Are you in the middle of a tribulation, In the middle of a
hard time? As we speak tonight, talk to
God, acknowledge that this is what He's doing in your life.
Patience, experience, hope, patience, experience, hope.
Maybe you're not at the moment in a tribulation, but if any
Christ like character is going to develop in you, there's a
storm coming. Yes, the Gospel teaches us more
than just how to get saved. We're justified, forgiven by
God. We're at peace with God.
We have access to His grace. Our hope is Christ no matter
what. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.