The story is told of a pastor who died and was waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him was a man dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans.
Saint Peter says to the first man, “Who are you, so that I may know whether to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?”
The man replies, “I’m Joe Cohen, cab driver, from New York City.”
Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the cab driver, “Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The cab driver goes into heaven with his robe and staff, and then it is the pastor’s turn.
The minister stands up straight and booms out, “I am Joseph Snow, pastor of Saint Mary’s for the last 43 years.”
Saint Peter consults his list. Then he says to the pastor, “Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Just a minute!” says the pastor. “That man was a taxi driver, and he gets a silken robe and golden staff. How can this be?”
Saint Peter responds, “Up here, we reward according to results. While you preached, people slept. While he drove, people prayed.”[a]
On this Trinity Sunday, we are going to look at what Paul says about the Trinity from Romans 5:1-5. More specifically, we are going to examine what Paul says about the results of the right stuff, the results of the righteousness that comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ. Listen for God’s word to you…
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
In this brief passage, Paul tells us about no less than four results from the right stuff. The first result is that we have peace with God.
Do you know how many armed conflicts are taking place in the world today? This week I checked out a web site called http://www.warsintheworld.com. Recently they noted that there are “77 worldwide outbreaks of crisis concentrated mainly in North and Central Africa and in the Middle East and in Asia.”
However, nations and people groups are not the only ones who need peace. Individual people need peace in their personal relationships as well. Researchers at Tel Aviv University conducted a twenty-year study of relationships in the workplace and how they affect a person’s health. In 1988, the researchers recruited 820 adults and asked them detailed questions about their workplace conditions. At the start of the study, the participants ranged in age from 25 to 65 and they worked in a variety of careers.
For the next twenty years, the researchers tracked the participants. By 2008, 53 of the workers had died. The study found that those who died were significantly more likely to have reported a hostile work environment. Surprisingly, the greatest source of stress came from the employees’ co-workers, not their bosses. The workers who reported little or no social support from their co-workers were 2.4 times more likely to die during the 20-year study than those who said they had supportive bonds with their co-workers. The article concluded that the findings “add evidence that having a supportive social network decreases stress and helps foster good health.”
Unfortunately, a 2011 survey provided evidence that workplaces are becoming less supportive and less civil. The American Psychology Association study found that 86 percent of nearly 300 workers surveyed reported incivility at their job, including rudeness, bad manners, and insults.[b]
We need peace between nations. We need peace between individuals. However, more fundamental than world peace or relational peace is peace with God, and that is precisely what Paul says we receive through Jesus Christ. Imagine what greater peace there would be in the world and in our personal relationships, if more people were at peace with God.
I may have told you about the Rabbi from Jerusalem I met on a cross-country flight a few years ago. I asked him what he thought the solution would be to the conflicts in the Middle East. I expected him to say, “The Arabs need to get out of Israel,” or “The Palestinians need to get out of Israel.” However, he did not say that. He actually said that a right relationship with God is the only solution. It is only as we look to God and find peace with him that we will also find peace with each other.
A second result of justification, of having God’s right stuff in our lives, that Paul notes here is that we are standing in grace.Jesus Christ has introduced us to a privileged position of acceptance before God the Father.
The word for “access” in verse 2 is an interesting one. It is προσαγωγην. William Barclay says,
It is a word with two great pictures in it.
(i) It is the regular word for introducing or ushering someone into the presence of royalty; and it is the regular word for the approach of the worshipper to God. It is as if Paul was saying, “Jesus ushers us into the very presence of God. He opens the door for us to the presence of the King of Kings; and when that door is opened what we find is grace; not condemnation, not judgment, not vengeance, but the sheer, undeserved, incredible kindness of God.”
(ii) But prosagoge has another picture in it. In late Greek it is the word for the place where ships come in, a harbour or a haven. If we take it that way, it means that so long as we tried to depend on our own efforts we were tempest-tossed, like mariners striving with a sea which threatened to overwhelm them completely, but now that we have heard the word of Christ, we have reached at last the haven of God’s grace, and we know the calm of depending, not on what we can do for ourselves, but on what God has done for us.
(i) It is the regular word for introducing or ushering someone into the presence of royalty; and it is the regular word for the approach of the worshipper to God. It is as if Paul was saying, “Jesus ushers us into the very presence of God. He opens the door for us to the presence of the King of Kings; and when that door is opened what we find is grace; not condemnation, not judgment, not vengeance, but the sheer, undeserved, incredible kindness of God.”
(ii) But prosagoge has another picture in it. In late Greek it is the word for the place where ships come in, a harbour or a haven. If we take it that way, it means that so long as we tried to depend on our own efforts we were tempest-tossed, like mariners striving with a sea which threatened to overwhelm them completely, but now that we have heard the word of Christ, we have reached at last the haven of God’s grace, and we know the calm of depending, not on what we can do for ourselves, but on what God has done for us.
Because of Jesus we have entry to the presence of the King of Kings and entry to the haven of God’s grace.
A third result of the right stuff that Paul mentions here is that we boast in the hope of the glory of God.Christian hope is not an uncertain thing. Often, we use the word “hope” in its weakest form. We say things like, “I hope so-and-so is going to come over for dinner,” when we are not certain at all. However, for the Christian, hope is attached to something rock solid. Our hope is in the glory of God. We serve a risen savior, one who has been through all the agony of suffering and death, but who has come out on the other side. Because of that, we can be sure that if we put our faith in Jesus, we will one day see the glory, the brightness, the luminosity, the splendor of God.
Rome is a place that I would like to visit some day. It is on my bucket list. If I get to Rome some day, I would especially like to visit the Catacombs.
Stuart Briscoe writes,
If ever you have the chance to visit the catacombs in Rome, those tunnels under the ancient city, where many of the early Christians were buried, you can see the symbols of faith on their tombs. Three common symbols appear: the dove, the fish, and the anchor. The dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The letters of the Greek word for “fish,” ichthus, stand for the words Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior. The anchor came from the idea that as Christians were going through difficult, insecure times, their hope anchored their souls.[c]
Because of what Jesus has done for us, through his death and resurrection, we have a hope that is anchored in a secure future.
Peace, grace, joy, hope and glory–it all sounds wonderful does it not, until we get to the fourth result of the right stuff which Paul mentions.
We boast in our sufferings.
The word for “sufferings” here literally means “pressures.” Remember what Jesus said in John 16:33? “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Jesus promises us that we will face trouble, pressures, sufferings, in this world. If our savior experienced these things, then we can be sure that we will too. However, in the midst of our sufferings, he also promises peace.
Peace, okay, but how can we boast in suffering? Here Paul introduces a linked chain of ideas. We can boast in suffering, first, because suffering produces perseverance.
Somebody asked Winston Churchill one time, “What most prepared you to lead Great Britain through World War II?” For a period of time, Great Britain stood virtually alone against Nazi Germany as it dominated the Western World.
This was Churchill’s response: “It was the time I repeated a class in grade school.”
The questioner said, “You mean you flunked a grade?”
Churchill said, “I never flunked in my life. I was given a second opportunity to get it right.”[d]
Did you know that after the Second World War, Churchill failed to be re-elected as Prime Minister? Yet, he came back years later and served as Prime Minister a second time. Churchill knew something about suffering that produces perseverance.
Paul says we can boast in our sufferings because suffering produces perseverance and perseverance produces character. The word for character that is used here is also used of metal that has been passed through the fire so that everything base has been purged out of it.
The ancient method of refining or trying silver was to place the solid mass of metal in a clay crucible which was then placed in a clay or iron furnace and melted into a liquid. As the liquid boiled, the impurities in the metal would rise to the surface and be skimmed off. That which is skimmed off is called dross. The refiner would continue the process several times until no dross remained. If the refiner could see his reflection in the liquid silver, he knew the process was complete.[e]
Just so, through our suffering, God produces perseverance and perseverance produces godlike character. Furthermore, Paul says, character produces hope. We can be sure of our future status before God when we see him working his character in our hearts in the present. We can be certain that hope will not disappoint us because we have the love of God in our hearts at present as a guarantee.
The word that is translated here as “boast” has also been translated as “rejoice”.
A friend of mine by the name of Tim Hansel received a gift from a friend years ago. It was a framed saying that contained this statement: “Until Further Notice: Celebrate Everything!” However, when Tim received the gift in the mail, the glass in the frame was cracked. Rather than replacing the glass, he decided to leave the frame as it was, because he thought it was a parable of life. Tim went through great physical suffering throughout his life as a result of a mountain climbing accident, but somehow, he was able to rejoice through it all and his joy was contagious.
We all go through tough times in life. There are experiences that crack the glass and skew our vision of life, of ourselves, and God. However, in the midst of those cracking experiences comes God’s message to us in Christ: “Until further notice: celebrate everything!” That is God’s message to us today, no matter what tough times we are going through. Jesus has already experienced the worst for us on the cross. Because of what Jesus went through, we can be sure there is no pit so deep that Jesus is not deeper still. Furthermore, he came up out of the pit. He was raised to life and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Therefore, if we put our faith in Jesus, we can be sure he will raise us up too. That means that no matter what depths we may be in right now, we can rejoice.
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