Romans 5:1-5
Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
Two donkeys were walking around in Jerusalem, and one starts up a conversation saying, “You know, just the other day, I was walking down the main street of this city, carrying Jesus on my back. And it was amazing. People were shouting and singing, why they were even throwing palm branches and even their own cloaks down on the ground for me to walk on! But it didn’t last. Today, nobody remembers. Nobody recognizes me.”
The other donkey says, “That’s the way it is. Without Jesus, you’re nothing.”
The third purpose for which we were created was to become like Christ in character. This is what it means to be fully formed in the image of God. Unfortunately, it is our suffering that produces perseverance, that leads to good and godly character. But it is imperative that we remember that we can only do that with Christ. Good thing he promised, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Let’s review. We were planned for God’s pleasure, that’s the purpose of worship. We were formed for God’s family. That the purpose of fellowship. And today we are talking about the purpose of discipleship. We were created to become like Christ. Romans 8:29 says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” The words I want to emphasize there are “conformed to the image of his Son.” That is a statement about the kind of character that we are supposed to end up exhibiting as we grow in spiritual maturity.
That was the original plan, from the dawn of Creation when God said, “Let us make humans in our image.” It’s written in Gen. 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” All humans participate in possessing the image of God. But in those who are not born again in Christ, that image is marred, sometimes beyond recognition. And in those who are born again in Christ, that image is now being polished to more and more authentically reflect the character of Jesus Christ.
You know what God uses to polish our character? Prayer and Bible Study, yes those are obvious and very important, and also the iron sharpens iron principle of fellowship, in which we spur one another on to love and good works. Without those we probably wouldn’t be able to understand or accept the other tools God uses, or even believe that God really is working all things together for our good.
There are 3 more tools that Rick Warren wrote about in his book and I have to agree. They are Troubles, Temptations and Trespasses. Troubles teach us to trust God, Temptations teach us to obey God, and Trespasses teach us to forgive as God forgives. Because God is the sovereign Lord who dearly loves his children, he doesn’t create or cause troubles, but he does sometimes allow satan to torment us. Satan means to harm us, but God uses these circumstances to teach us things.
Troubles teach us to trust God. John 16:33 simply states “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus is so honest. He doesn’t sugarcoat his message or fool us in to following him with empty promises of prosperity or trouble-free existence. He says it will be like taking up a cross and going to your execution. You will have trouble. But I do love the reassurance that these troubles do not have to overwhelm us or defeat us.
2 Corinthians 1:4 gives thanks for the God “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” The comfort comes from God. The trouble comes from elsewhere, often the devil. Paul specifically teaches the purpose of troubles in 2 Corinthians 4:17, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” This may be where the “no pain, no gain” expression finds reinforcement. It also tells us that we will be rewarded for enduring our troubles faithfully. What our eternal glory will be is, to fully reflect and shine with the noble, holy, loving character of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
In 2 Cor. 7:4 Paul shows us that he definitely practices what he preaches: “I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.” How would you like to be a person who can have joy beyond measure in the midst of all your troubles? This is the man who justifiably asked God to remove a “thorn in the flesh” that troubled him, but ended up accepting that trouble and hardship as ordained by God, for Paul’s own good, to keep him humble.
God is far more interested in who you are than in what you do. He cares most about your character. You are not taking your career, your money, your possessions or even your old physical body to heaven. But you are taking your character to heaven, that will be united with your new physical body that is immortal. That is going to be the eternal gift you are, to God and to everyone else in heaven. And the faster you grow and develop godly character while here on earth, the more useful you are to God in proclaiming his glory and doing the works he has prepared in advance for you to do, so that more people get saved, because of your ministry.
So, when trouble comes, don’t despair, take it as sifted through the loving hands of God and specially designed to train you up in righteousness and shape your eternally secure character. When trouble comes don’t be afraid to ask for help either. Even Jesus wanted his friends with him, in the garden of Gethsemane, when he experienced great sorrow and agony about the troubles that were soon to come.
And that event is the greatest illustration for how we ought to respond to any trouble. Just as Jesus cried out in agony, so that he even sweat drops of blood, it is ok for any of us to tell God we don’t like what He’s asking us to endure. He already knows that anyway. He understands that we are but dust. God’s use of our troubles will be a great success when we respond as Jesus did, saying, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” That is an expression of ultimate trust! And that is ultimately what our troubles are meant to do, teach us to trust God no matter what.
Besides troubles, another thing that happens to us that God turns into a useful tool for character development is temptation. Troubles are an attack from the outside. Temptations are more about what’s going on inside, around our desires. Trials are allowed by God and the result He desires is that we draw closer to him. Temptations are the devil’s efforts to draw us away from God through disobedience. Temptations are allowed by God so that as we resist them, we learn to obey God rather than the sinful nature.
Trials are an attack that needs a response of trusting faith. Temptations are more of a process. According to James 1:14-15 “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, (or hatched a plan) it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” First there is a natural desire. It can even be a good desire. God gave us desires to meet our needs, so that we would act on meeting our needs. But there are supposed to be boundaries between legitimate ways to meet our needs and sinful ways to meet our needs.
Even Jesus was tempted. The famous three in the wilderness were all satan’s efforts to get Jesus to take illegitimate shortcuts to complete his mission. The bread. Feed yourself, don’t trust God to take care of your physical needs. The pinnacle of the temple, force people to believe in you through this kind of undeniable demonstration. The third, you don’t have to go to the cross to beat me. I’ll give it all up if you just acknowledge that it is mine to give by worshiping me. If Jesus had succumbed to anyone of these, he would have been out of step with God’s will and would have nullified his role in the plan of redemption. God would have forsaken him truly then, as he would have proven that he is not God’s Son. But thank God that did not happen!
Temptation is looking for shortcuts across the legitimate boundaries or ignoring the boundaries. The temptation is just there. It’s part of the environment. And satan has been working overtime to provide modern culture with infinitely more, and more powerful temptations all around us, thanks to modern technology, and especially the internet. But just because it’s there doesn’t mean you’re sinning.
And for the born-again believer, sin is always an option, not a requirement. Nobody can make you sin. It is always your free will to choose whether you sin or not. The non-Christian is a slave to sin, but not the Christian. We are set free and we are given the power to overcome and live victoriously, if we so desire.
1 Cor. 10:13 is the classic text to encourage us to resist sin: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
Temptation will always be there. But that doesn’t make you sin. The sin happens when you willfully decide you don’t care about the boundaries that God put in place. That’s why every temptation is a test of our love for God. If we love him, he will obey him, as Jesus said. So, every time we give in to temptation, it is a failure to love God more than anything else.
You want to know what the way out usually is? It’s not building hedges and setting up fences or having accountability partners keeping track of your every move. Those things can be really helpful and somewhat necessary to get you started. They can keep you from giving in to temptation. But they can’t stop you from wishing you could get away with it.
Temptations lose their power to lure you in to sin when you think about Jesus. He loves you, you know. When you turn to him in praise and worship you will be meeting your deeper spiritual needs and able to respect the boundaries he set in place. Often, it’s a matter of saying, praying, thinking, and acting on, “Not my will, but yours O Lord. I can wait on you to provide for my legitimate physical needs. And anything illegitimate, I don’t need.”
Yes, the Bible says to resist the devil and he will flee from you. I have found that the best way to resist the devil is to turn to God’s Word as Jesus did, and rely on it as absolutely true. That’s the beginning and essence of worship, enjoying God by believing his Word! Of course, the devil does quote Scripture too. It can be twisted. So, you also need to, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” When you do that, you will be learning to obey what God says about the issues that tempt us. And obedience is always an expression of godly character because he only asks us to act as he would in any given situation.
The third thing that God uses as a tool to develop godly character in us is our need to forgive those who have sinned against us. That’s probably the hardest one for us to learn. Troubles just happen, like accidents. Can’t blame anybody. We deal with it. Temptations are our own fault. We only have ourselves to blame. We grow up. But trespasses are somebody else’s fault! We can place blame! We can demand justice! The whole legal system under which we live is based on the moral correctness of seeing justice done and seeing evil punished.
God himself laid down the law and prescribed the punishments that fit the crimes, everything from offering the correct sacrifices to atone for sins, to retribution that pays back four or five times more than what was stolen, and even up to and including the death penalty for very serious offenses. One of which is Exodus 21:17 “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.” It doesn’t seem fair of God give us all that law and instruction and then ask us to forgive people who ought to suffer the consequences of their bad behavior.
But I believe that Old Testament law was given to us so that we would know just how horrible we are as sinners. And the effort to apply and enforce such laws has only served to demonstrate that a legal system is not the cure for sin. Society still needs law and order. But the threat of punishment does not really prevent crime as effectively as we might have hoped. Evil still happens.
So, having given us all that, so we know just how evil we all are, God then gives the best solution, the only solution that works. In the ultimate move of turning the other cheek, God sent his only son into the world to satisfy the demands of justice by living a perfect life and bearing our sins in his own body on the cross. In this, God himself set the example that he wants us to follow.
Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Zechariah 7:9 says, “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.” It seems that true justice involves, includes and requires mercy, for God himself is merciful. Thus, to mercifully forgive is to respond to trespasses that way God does. To forgive is to exhibit the holy and noble character of God in response to trespasses.
Justice is not really ours to give anyway. It all belongs to God, along with vengeance. Is it really not enough justice for us that the unrepentant sinner will spend eternity suffering in the fires of hell? Do you really have to be given the chance to add the tiny bit of punishment we could add compared to that? And what about the repentant sinner who asks our forgiveness? Is it really not enough justice for you to hear them say, “You were right. I was wrong. What can I do to make it up to you?”
And lastly, if you really wanted nothing but justice, you wouldn’t be alive today to hear this message. Because God’s justice demands death for any sin. That’s why Jesus died in your place, because he is merciful! And mercy triumphs over justice. So, then, when we find ourselves able to forgive, we will be expressing the character of God, spreading the light of the gospel in this dark world. And that’s why you exist!
You were created to reflect God’s character! As our text of the morning says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” That’s mercy and grace in action to forgive us our sins, so naturally God requires that we forgive others, just as we have been forgiven.
“And” because we have been forgiven, knowing that it is a gift of god’s loving grace, not something we earned “we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,” What? Glory in our sufferings? Yes! This earth is not our heaven. The life we live here is boot camp, a training ground of hard work that fits us for heaven. “Because we know that suffering produces perseverance;” That is, as we endure suffering, we grow stronger to keep our faith in Jesus, no matter what. Then, perseverance produces character.”
That is, we learn to react to every trial with faith in God’s provision, react to every temptation with a deep desire to obey God’s word and react to every trespass with a heartfelt compassion to forgive. That’s the character of Christ on display in how we live out our lives. That produces hope! In other words, as we persevere and grow in Christ, we become more and more sure of our salvation, our certain hope, the definite outcome of our life in Christ. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Praise the Lord!
Listen link: www.lcepc.org then look for “sermons” tab.
Two donkeys were walking around in Jerusalem, and one starts up a conversation saying, “You know, just the other day, I was walking down the main street of this city, carrying Jesus on my back. And it was amazing. People were shouting and singing, why they were even throwing palm branches and even their own cloaks down on the ground for me to walk on! But it didn’t last. Today, nobody remembers. Nobody recognizes me.”
The other donkey says, “That’s the way it is. Without Jesus, you’re nothing.”
The third purpose for which we were created was to become like Christ in character. This is what it means to be fully formed in the image of God. Unfortunately, it is our suffering that produces perseverance, that leads to good and godly character. But it is imperative that we remember that we can only do that with Christ. Good thing he promised, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Let’s review. We were planned for God’s pleasure, that’s the purpose of worship. We were formed for God’s family. That the purpose of fellowship. And today we are talking about the purpose of discipleship. We were created to become like Christ. Romans 8:29 says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” The words I want to emphasize there are “conformed to the image of his Son.” That is a statement about the kind of character that we are supposed to end up exhibiting as we grow in spiritual maturity.
That was the original plan, from the dawn of Creation when God said, “Let us make humans in our image.” It’s written in Gen. 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” All humans participate in possessing the image of God. But in those who are not born again in Christ, that image is marred, sometimes beyond recognition. And in those who are born again in Christ, that image is now being polished to more and more authentically reflect the character of Jesus Christ.
You know what God uses to polish our character? Prayer and Bible Study, yes those are obvious and very important, and also the iron sharpens iron principle of fellowship, in which we spur one another on to love and good works. Without those we probably wouldn’t be able to understand or accept the other tools God uses, or even believe that God really is working all things together for our good.
There are 3 more tools that Rick Warren wrote about in his book and I have to agree. They are Troubles, Temptations and Trespasses. Troubles teach us to trust God, Temptations teach us to obey God, and Trespasses teach us to forgive as God forgives. Because God is the sovereign Lord who dearly loves his children, he doesn’t create or cause troubles, but he does sometimes allow satan to torment us. Satan means to harm us, but God uses these circumstances to teach us things.
Troubles teach us to trust God. John 16:33 simply states “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus is so honest. He doesn’t sugarcoat his message or fool us in to following him with empty promises of prosperity or trouble-free existence. He says it will be like taking up a cross and going to your execution. You will have trouble. But I do love the reassurance that these troubles do not have to overwhelm us or defeat us.
2 Corinthians 1:4 gives thanks for the God “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” The comfort comes from God. The trouble comes from elsewhere, often the devil. Paul specifically teaches the purpose of troubles in 2 Corinthians 4:17, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” This may be where the “no pain, no gain” expression finds reinforcement. It also tells us that we will be rewarded for enduring our troubles faithfully. What our eternal glory will be is, to fully reflect and shine with the noble, holy, loving character of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
In 2 Cor. 7:4 Paul shows us that he definitely practices what he preaches: “I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.” How would you like to be a person who can have joy beyond measure in the midst of all your troubles? This is the man who justifiably asked God to remove a “thorn in the flesh” that troubled him, but ended up accepting that trouble and hardship as ordained by God, for Paul’s own good, to keep him humble.
God is far more interested in who you are than in what you do. He cares most about your character. You are not taking your career, your money, your possessions or even your old physical body to heaven. But you are taking your character to heaven, that will be united with your new physical body that is immortal. That is going to be the eternal gift you are, to God and to everyone else in heaven. And the faster you grow and develop godly character while here on earth, the more useful you are to God in proclaiming his glory and doing the works he has prepared in advance for you to do, so that more people get saved, because of your ministry.
So, when trouble comes, don’t despair, take it as sifted through the loving hands of God and specially designed to train you up in righteousness and shape your eternally secure character. When trouble comes don’t be afraid to ask for help either. Even Jesus wanted his friends with him, in the garden of Gethsemane, when he experienced great sorrow and agony about the troubles that were soon to come.
And that event is the greatest illustration for how we ought to respond to any trouble. Just as Jesus cried out in agony, so that he even sweat drops of blood, it is ok for any of us to tell God we don’t like what He’s asking us to endure. He already knows that anyway. He understands that we are but dust. God’s use of our troubles will be a great success when we respond as Jesus did, saying, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” That is an expression of ultimate trust! And that is ultimately what our troubles are meant to do, teach us to trust God no matter what.
Besides troubles, another thing that happens to us that God turns into a useful tool for character development is temptation. Troubles are an attack from the outside. Temptations are more about what’s going on inside, around our desires. Trials are allowed by God and the result He desires is that we draw closer to him. Temptations are the devil’s efforts to draw us away from God through disobedience. Temptations are allowed by God so that as we resist them, we learn to obey God rather than the sinful nature.
Trials are an attack that needs a response of trusting faith. Temptations are more of a process. According to James 1:14-15 “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, (or hatched a plan) it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” First there is a natural desire. It can even be a good desire. God gave us desires to meet our needs, so that we would act on meeting our needs. But there are supposed to be boundaries between legitimate ways to meet our needs and sinful ways to meet our needs.
Even Jesus was tempted. The famous three in the wilderness were all satan’s efforts to get Jesus to take illegitimate shortcuts to complete his mission. The bread. Feed yourself, don’t trust God to take care of your physical needs. The pinnacle of the temple, force people to believe in you through this kind of undeniable demonstration. The third, you don’t have to go to the cross to beat me. I’ll give it all up if you just acknowledge that it is mine to give by worshiping me. If Jesus had succumbed to anyone of these, he would have been out of step with God’s will and would have nullified his role in the plan of redemption. God would have forsaken him truly then, as he would have proven that he is not God’s Son. But thank God that did not happen!
Temptation is looking for shortcuts across the legitimate boundaries or ignoring the boundaries. The temptation is just there. It’s part of the environment. And satan has been working overtime to provide modern culture with infinitely more, and more powerful temptations all around us, thanks to modern technology, and especially the internet. But just because it’s there doesn’t mean you’re sinning.
And for the born-again believer, sin is always an option, not a requirement. Nobody can make you sin. It is always your free will to choose whether you sin or not. The non-Christian is a slave to sin, but not the Christian. We are set free and we are given the power to overcome and live victoriously, if we so desire.
1 Cor. 10:13 is the classic text to encourage us to resist sin: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
Temptation will always be there. But that doesn’t make you sin. The sin happens when you willfully decide you don’t care about the boundaries that God put in place. That’s why every temptation is a test of our love for God. If we love him, he will obey him, as Jesus said. So, every time we give in to temptation, it is a failure to love God more than anything else.
You want to know what the way out usually is? It’s not building hedges and setting up fences or having accountability partners keeping track of your every move. Those things can be really helpful and somewhat necessary to get you started. They can keep you from giving in to temptation. But they can’t stop you from wishing you could get away with it.
Temptations lose their power to lure you in to sin when you think about Jesus. He loves you, you know. When you turn to him in praise and worship you will be meeting your deeper spiritual needs and able to respect the boundaries he set in place. Often, it’s a matter of saying, praying, thinking, and acting on, “Not my will, but yours O Lord. I can wait on you to provide for my legitimate physical needs. And anything illegitimate, I don’t need.”
Yes, the Bible says to resist the devil and he will flee from you. I have found that the best way to resist the devil is to turn to God’s Word as Jesus did, and rely on it as absolutely true. That’s the beginning and essence of worship, enjoying God by believing his Word! Of course, the devil does quote Scripture too. It can be twisted. So, you also need to, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” When you do that, you will be learning to obey what God says about the issues that tempt us. And obedience is always an expression of godly character because he only asks us to act as he would in any given situation.
The third thing that God uses as a tool to develop godly character in us is our need to forgive those who have sinned against us. That’s probably the hardest one for us to learn. Troubles just happen, like accidents. Can’t blame anybody. We deal with it. Temptations are our own fault. We only have ourselves to blame. We grow up. But trespasses are somebody else’s fault! We can place blame! We can demand justice! The whole legal system under which we live is based on the moral correctness of seeing justice done and seeing evil punished.
God himself laid down the law and prescribed the punishments that fit the crimes, everything from offering the correct sacrifices to atone for sins, to retribution that pays back four or five times more than what was stolen, and even up to and including the death penalty for very serious offenses. One of which is Exodus 21:17 “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.” It doesn’t seem fair of God give us all that law and instruction and then ask us to forgive people who ought to suffer the consequences of their bad behavior.
But I believe that Old Testament law was given to us so that we would know just how horrible we are as sinners. And the effort to apply and enforce such laws has only served to demonstrate that a legal system is not the cure for sin. Society still needs law and order. But the threat of punishment does not really prevent crime as effectively as we might have hoped. Evil still happens.
So, having given us all that, so we know just how evil we all are, God then gives the best solution, the only solution that works. In the ultimate move of turning the other cheek, God sent his only son into the world to satisfy the demands of justice by living a perfect life and bearing our sins in his own body on the cross. In this, God himself set the example that he wants us to follow.
Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Zechariah 7:9 says, “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.” It seems that true justice involves, includes and requires mercy, for God himself is merciful. Thus, to mercifully forgive is to respond to trespasses that way God does. To forgive is to exhibit the holy and noble character of God in response to trespasses.
Justice is not really ours to give anyway. It all belongs to God, along with vengeance. Is it really not enough justice for us that the unrepentant sinner will spend eternity suffering in the fires of hell? Do you really have to be given the chance to add the tiny bit of punishment we could add compared to that? And what about the repentant sinner who asks our forgiveness? Is it really not enough justice for you to hear them say, “You were right. I was wrong. What can I do to make it up to you?”
And lastly, if you really wanted nothing but justice, you wouldn’t be alive today to hear this message. Because God’s justice demands death for any sin. That’s why Jesus died in your place, because he is merciful! And mercy triumphs over justice. So, then, when we find ourselves able to forgive, we will be expressing the character of God, spreading the light of the gospel in this dark world. And that’s why you exist!
You were created to reflect God’s character! As our text of the morning says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” That’s mercy and grace in action to forgive us our sins, so naturally God requires that we forgive others, just as we have been forgiven.
“And” because we have been forgiven, knowing that it is a gift of god’s loving grace, not something we earned “we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,” What? Glory in our sufferings? Yes! This earth is not our heaven. The life we live here is boot camp, a training ground of hard work that fits us for heaven. “Because we know that suffering produces perseverance;” That is, as we endure suffering, we grow stronger to keep our faith in Jesus, no matter what. Then, perseverance produces character.”
That is, we learn to react to every trial with faith in God’s provision, react to every temptation with a deep desire to obey God’s word and react to every trespass with a heartfelt compassion to forgive. That’s the character of Christ on display in how we live out our lives. That produces hope! In other words, as we persevere and grow in Christ, we become more and more sure of our salvation, our certain hope, the definite outcome of our life in Christ. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Praise the Lord!
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