17 Apr Indestructible joy

Romans 5:1-11

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Happy Resurrection Sunday. If you haven’t been to church for a while, let me welcome you to church. It is good to see your face. Tonight, I want to talk about joy. How can we have indestructible joy? And what I mean by joy is different from happiness. Christian joy is unique. Christian joy is not based on circumstances. Christian joy is based on the unchangeable truth of what God has done. It is very different from what we know as happiness. What the world calls happiness is getting control of our life, so we keep our circumstances favourable. Do you know that there is a website, www.happiness.com? On this website, they list out five top components for happiness. It says that if you have these five things in place, you are happy.

Let me list it out for you:
1. Be in possession of the basics (food, shelter, good health, and safety).
2. Get enough sleep. Maybe that’s a word for some of you. The reason you are cranky all the time is you need to sleep more.
3. Have relationships that matter to you. The implication is, do not have relationships with those who do not matter to you. Avoid any kind of relationship that might hurt you (toxic).
4. Take compassionate care of others and yourself.
5. Have work that interests and engages you.

I am sure many of us nod our heads to this list. It makes sense, right? But let me tell you, this is ridiculous. Because it tells us that happiness is dependent on us having what we want in life. Happiness is dependent on us having favourable circumstances. But what about those who don’t? What are we going to do with people who do not have enough food, shelter, good health, and safety? What are we going to do with those who need to earn money for their family and do not have engaging and interesting work? Are they doomed to no happiness? Yes, they are, according to the definition of happiness in our culture today. But here is the good news. Happiness might not be available to them, but joy is available to them. And this is what is being offered to us today. The indestructible joy that does not depend on circumstances. So, we can be poor or rich. We can have plenty or lack. We can be in a good health or sickness. We can be safe or in danger. But we can always have joy. And this joy is available to us for free. How many of you want that?

Tonight, we celebrate the most famous death in history. This is the one death that has been celebrated for thousands of years. Why? Because the man who died did not remain dead. If he remains dead, then no one would celebrate his death. But the good news is he overcame death. He died on Friday, but he was raised on Sunday. And with his resurrection, he purchased for us indestructible joy that the world cannot offer. Now, if you are not a Christian, you might think that this talk of resurrection from the dead is crazy. But let me tell you. Deep inside your heart, you want it to be true. You want to have joy that does not depend on circumstances. You want the resurrection of Jesus to be true. You want the blessings that come with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But you don’t know it. And tonight, I am going to appeal to you that you can have it. It is available for you the moment you put your trust in Jesus.

Our passage for tonight is a series of affirmations and blessings. There is not a single command in it. So tonight, I will list out for you the seven blessings of Jesus’ death and resurrection and how all these blessings give us the indestructible joy that our hearts long for. Are you ready? Let’s get into the text.

1.      Peace with God

Romans 5:1 – Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The pursuit of peace is a universal human obsession. All of us desire peace. When we hear what happened between Russia and Ukraine, we grieved. When we hear there was a senseless mass shooting, we grieved. We know that there is something wrong. We want peace. And peace is offered to us. But pay attention to this verse. It does not say peace for everyone. But this peace is only for those who have been justified by faith. In other words, if you have not put your faith in Jesus, this peace is not for you. This peace is only for you if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Let me tell you what happens when you put your faith in Jesus: you have peace with God. Why peace with God is very important? Because the primary reason why our life is such a mess is that we have sinned against God. We rebelled against God. And not only do we sin against God, but we were also born as sinners. From the moment we were born, we were enemies of God. None of us was born good.

Let me give you an example. I know that every parent thinks that their baby is beautiful. But let me tell you something about your baby. It does not matter how cute they are, your baby is a sinner. Someone should write that down on a hallmark card. “Congratulation for bringing another cute sinner into this world.” If you work with kids, you know this well. Why do some kids love to bite other kids? Have you ever wondered? Do they see their parents fight for the TV remote and bite one another? I hope not. Why is it that their favourite words are “no” and “mine”? Have you ever met an unselfish baby? No. From the moment they were born, they demanded your attention. “Look at me, feed me, or I am going to make your life miserable with my fake cry.” And this self-centeredness does not stop with them. It continues to affect us. You don’t believe me? Let me prove it to you. What is the first thing you look at when you look at a group picture? How do you decide between a good and bad group picture? Let me tell you the answer. You. And it does not matter if everyone in the picture looks bad. As long as you look good in that picture, you post that picture. It does not matter if everyone looks good in the picture. If you look bad in the picture, you delete that picture. All of us were born in sin. This is the reality of our hearts. We were born with the inclination to rebel against God and that is why our greatest need in life is to be reconciled to God.

But here is the thing. Peace and forgiveness are not free. There is no such thing as free forgiveness. We understand this. Imagine a human judge, and someone brings a convicted, serial murderer before him. The serial murderer says, “Judge, I am really sorry for what I have done. I promise I will change. I promise I won’t do it anymore and I will dedicate the rest of my life to doing what’s good for other people.” And the judge says, “Oh, okay. I can see how sincere you are. If that’s the case, you can go free. You don’t have to pay for what you did.” What would we do? We would be enraged. We would want the judge’s head. Why? Because we cannot have a society where crime goes unpunished. We want justice. Am I right? The same with God. We can’t have a universe if we don’t have justice. God cannot simply say, “Let there be forgiveness” and there is forgiveness. No. Justice demand that there is a price to be paid for every wrongdoing.

And the good news of resurrection Sunday is that Jesus came to reconcile us to God. Jesus came to do what we cannot do. Jesus came to save us from our sins. Jesus lived the perfect life that we could not. He obeyed all the requirements of God’s laws. And he died at the cross for our sins. Jesus took upon himself the punishment that you and I deserve for our sins against God so that when we put our faith in Jesus, we are reconciled with God. We have peace with God. Paul says that when we put our faith in Jesus, we are justified. And the word justified means that God treats us as if we have never sinned. Not because God is soft on sin but because Jesus has paid the price of sin. Yes, we still have many weaknesses and sins but in the eyes of God because of what Jesus has done, we are perfect and blameless. Justified means that when we put our faith in Jesus we are as blameless in the eyes of God today as we will ever be in a trillion years from now. God is no longer angry at us. We have absolute peace with God because of what Jesus has done. And this peace is not a subjective feeling of the heart. This peace is an objective reality that Jesus’ death and resurrection have accomplished. So, get this right. Some of you might wonder why Christians celebrate the cross of Jesus Christ. Because the cross of Jesus Christ is the reason, we can stand justified before God. There is no peace with God without the cross. Peace with God without the cross of Jesus Christ is a placebo. It is not a cure. It is worthless. But true peace with God is available for us for free. There is nothing we can do to deserve it. Jesus has purchased it for us. All we must do is put our trust in Jesus. It is not something we must earn. It is something that has been done for us. That’s why it is called the gospel. The gospel is not good advice, it is good news.

2.      Access into God’s grace

Romans 5:2 – ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

We not only have peace with God, but we also have access into God’s grace. And the word grace is here used to describe a privileged position of acceptance. When we put our faith in Jesus, we are not only forgiven but we are adopted into God’s family. We are given the favoured status as God’s children. We are not only free to go, but we are free to come. It means that we always have free access to God’s presence. Look at the language Paul used. He said that “we have also obtained,” and this is a perfect tense. Which tells us that our access to God’s grace is forever. It is not a once in lifetime access; it is lifetime access. We do not fall in and out of grace with God. Once we received his grace, we have forever access to his grace.

But notice the source of this access. Paul says that it is through him, through Jesus Christ, we have this forever access. It means that we are unfit to enter God’s presence on our own. We need someone to bring us in. Let me give you an illustration that I stole from Tim Chester. Let’s say that you are in London, and you want to meet the Queen of England for a chat. So, you plan to go to Buckingham Palace and knock at the door of the palace and say, “Hi, I would like to meet the Queen of England.” And you also hope you can tour around the palace and check out every room. So, you go to the palace and knock at the door of the palace. The guard at the door says, “May I help you?” “Yes, I come all the way from Sydney, Australia, and I wish to meet the Queen of England. And it would be lovely if I can also take a tour around the palace and check out every room. And if the Queen doesn’t mind, I would like to stay over for a night in one of the rooms.” “May I know your name, sire?” “I am Yosia, son of Mr and Mrs Yusuf.” “Well Mr Yusuf, I cannot find your name on the list. I am sorry but I have to ask you to leave the premise at this instant. Or else I’ll have to call the security.” They would kick me out of the palace. Agree? Don’t laugh at me because you would be kicked out of the palace as well. Your last name is not better than mine.

And this truth is also once true for someone. Do you know who that is? Kate Middleton. There was a time when Kate could do exactly what we did, and she would be kicked out of the palace. Kate would not be accepted into Buckingham Palace. But today it is very different. Today they cannot kick Kate out of the palace. Kate can say, “I would like to meet the Queen of England.” “Who are you?” Do you know Kate’s answer? “I am with him.” Who is the “him”? Prince William. Because Kate is with William, every door and room that was closed to Kate before, she now has full access to enter it anytime she wants. What happened? Kate experienced a change of status. Kate is no longer an ordinary woman, but she has a special status because she is with Prince William. This is what happened to us when we put our faith in Jesus. Jesus did not only give us peace with God, but he also gives us his favourable status. We have forever access to God’s grace.

3.      Hope in the glory of God

Romans 5:2 – ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

I love it. The way the Bible uses the word hope is different from the way we use the word hope. When we say we hope for something, what we are saying is that we expect that things will turn out a certain way but there is no guarantee for it. But when the Bible uses the word hope, it communicates the idea of certainty. Certainty in the promises of God. And God promises us that there will come a day when every corner of the earth will be filled with the glory of God. It promises us a day where everything wrong will be made right. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantee that one day God is going to restore all that is broken in this world. Including our body. How many of you ever injured yourself while you are sleeping? Last week, Martin told me that he woke up from sleep with a sore neck. If you have yet to experience it, don’t worry, your time is coming. A day will come when moving from one sleeping position to another position will strain your body and make you sore when you wake up. It does not matter how often you go to the gym, that day is coming for you. It’s a natural law of the universe that we cannot escape no matter how hard we try. It is called aging. But I have good news for us. There will be a day when we can sleep and wake up with no pain. A day will come when there will be no more back pain, aches, cancer, AIDS, COVID19, or any diseases. That day is guaranteed for us. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

4.      Rejoice in sufferings

Romans 5:3-4 – ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

Jesus’ death and resurrection radically change the way view sufferings. Paul says that we rejoice in our sufferings. And this is not masochism. This is not, “Suffering! I love it! Bring it on!” No. But there is a divine rationale why we can rejoice in our sufferings. We rejoice in suffering because suffering produces endurance. We know this. There is no endurance without suffering. We cannot have a fit body without pain. In order to have a fit body, we have to work out. We have to endure pain. Suffering produces endurance. And endurance produces character. Our ability to endure suffering produces character in us. Character is not produced overnight. Character is a result of making consistent little choices every day for a long time. And character produces hope. How? Because character makes us more confident of the hope we have in God’s promises for our future. God who is faithful in our present suffering can be trusted for the future. We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that sufferings are used by God for our good.

There was an ancient tribe in Japan that was renowned for its pottery. What they would do is that after they created a magnificent, beautifully painted vessel, they would smash it against a rock into hundreds of pieces. Then they would join the hundreds of pieces back together with melted gold sealing the seams. The restored pottery was so much more precious than it was before it had been broken. And this is what God is doing in our lives. God uses sufferings to smash us to pieces so that he can fill the broken places in our lives with himself. I know this to be true from scripture and my own experience. It is in the days of pain and suffering that I experienced the tender sweetness of God’s love toward me. I was talking to a dear friend of mine recently and she shared how 2021 was a very hard year for her. She went through many heartbreaking moments. But she also said that 2021 was a very sweet year for her. Because it was during the times when she was in so much pain and felt extremely weak that she tasted the sweetness of God’s love for her. Do you see what happened? Sufferings lead to maturity and glory. This is why rejoice in our sufferings.

5.      Certainty of God’s love

Romans 5:5 – ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The gospel gives us the certainty of God’s love. And this certainty is both subjective experience and objective reality. Let’s talk about subjective experience first. The reason hope does not put us to shame is that God will never let us down. His love for us will not fail. How do we know? Because God has given us the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit pours out God’s love into our hearts. In other words, the Holy Spirit gives us the certainty of God’s love. The Holy Spirit makes us deeply and refreshingly aware of God’s love for us. Martyn Lloyd Jones puts it this way. Imagine a father walking along the beach with his little boy, holding hands. The little boy knows that his father loves him. But suddenly, the father stops, picks up the boy, embraces him, kisses him, and tells him how much he loves him. Does doing that makes the father loves his son more? No. The little boy always knows that his father loves him. But it allows the little boy to enjoy his father’s love. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts. The Holy Spirit enables us to taste the sweetness of God’s love for us. The love of God is a subjective experience.

But the love of God is not only a subjective experience, but it is also an objective reality. Romans 5:6-8 – ⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Listen. How do you measure love? The degree of love is measured partly by the costliness of the gift to the giver, and partly by the unworthiness of the beneficiary. The more the gift cost to the giver, and the less the recipient deserves it, the greater the love is seen to be. The greater the gap, the greater the love. Are you with me? Let me put it this way. Every one of us loves a hero story. Especially, if that hero dies to save those whom he loves. That’s why I cried when Iron man died in Avenger’s endgame. “I love you 3000” and everyone in the theatre is weeping. If you don’t weep, you don’t’ have hearts. We love that. We love the idea of sacrificial love for our loved ones. And Paul says that the world has vocabulary for it. A person might die for the sake of another good person. We can love and sacrifice for those we love. But God’s love is different.

Paul says that the recipient of God’s love is weak, ungodly, and sinners. And later Paul uses the word enemies as well. Weak, ungodly, sinners and enemies. These are the description of those who received God’s love. I know we don’t like to hear this. We like to hear, “You are a good person. You are amazing. You are awesome. You deserved to be loved.” But Paul says, “You are a rascal. You are so bad, so evil, so weak, so undeserved to be loved.” That’s who we were. And we need to embrace it. Let me tell you why. Because the greater awareness of the magnitude of our sin, the greater awareness of the gap between us and God, the greater grasp we have on the magnitude of God’s love for us. Let me tell you a story. One day, Jesus was having dinner at the house of Simon, one of the religious leaders. Simon liked Jesus. But then a prostitute showed up and wept at Jesus’ feet. She anointed Jesus’ feet with ointment and wiped them with her hair. Simon said, “Jesus, don’t you know who she is? Why do you let her do that to you?” Jesus replied, “Simon, let me tell you a story. There were two men who owed money to the same master. One man owed $500,000 and the other man owed $5,000. Both men cannot pay the debt and the master cancelled the debt of both. Which one will love him more?” Simon answered, “I guess the one who was forgiven of $500,000 debt.” Jesus said, “You are right. Those who are forgiven little love little. Those who are forgiven much love much.” Do you know what Jesus was saying to Simon? He said, “Simon, you like me. But this woman loves me. Do you know why? Because you think that your sin is little. You think you are good. But this woman thinks her sin is much. And as a result, she is overwhelmed with love at her forgiveness. Simon, the reason you do not love me much is because you don’t know what a sinner you are.”

And the same is also true for us. Maybe the reason why we are not electrified by God’s love is we do not know how unworthy we are. We do not know what a sinner we are. Imagine a terrorist murdered your one and only child. And rather than having him executed, you took his place. He lives and you died. That’s insane but that’s what God did for us. God loves us when we were at our worst. And not only that, but he also shows his love for us by giving us the most costly gift, the life of his one and only son. So here is what the gospel is. The gospel is: God gives the best gift (Jesus Christ), paid the highest cost (death on the cross), for the least deserving (his enemies). And he did it without our consent. Jesus died for our sins when we did not even know of him. This is what separates God’s love from human love. Human love is object-oriented. Human love looks at the worthiness of the recipient. God’s love is subject-oriented. God’s love does not look at the worthiness of the recipient but it is predicated on who he is. God does not love us because we are lovely. God loves us to make us lovely. So, God has given us subjective and objective reasons to trust his love amid suffering. This is why we can rejoice.

6.      Assurance of salvation

Romans 5:9-10 – ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Here, Paul is giving us the “much more” argument. This is an argument from the greater to the lesser. Right now, if we have put our faith in Jesus, we have been saved from the penalty of sin but we have yet to be delivered from the presence of sin. That day is coming, and we rejoice in hope for that day to come. And when that day comes, God will judge everyone. And the wrath of God will be poured out on all who rejected Jesus. And here is Paul’s argument. If we have been made right with God by the blood of Jesus, surely Jesus will save us from the wrath of God on the day of judgement. Why? Because the death of Jesus has reconciled us to God. And our reconciliation happened not on one side but two sides. It was not only us who were hostile to God, but God was also hostile to us. We sinned against God and God was angry at us. What we deserved was the wrath of God. But here is what’s shocking about the gospel. If we were the ones who were wronged, we would expect the other party who initiated reconciliation. Right? But the gospel is shocking because the party who was wronged was the one who initiated reconciliation. God was the one who initiated our salvation by sending Jesus to die for our sins. Our reconciliation cost God the death of his Son. But the good news is that Jesus did not remain dead. Jesus was resurrected and lives forever to intercede for us.

And here is Paul’s argument. If God took the initiative to reconcile us to him at the cost of Jesus’s death, surely he will not abandon us now that Jesus is resurrected from the dead. In other words, if God has already done the difficult thing, we can trust him to do the lesser thing. If God saves us his enemies by grace, what makes us think that he will fail to keep us in his grace? If we did not deserve his love in the first place, how can we lose his love? If God has forgiven us while we are his enemies, how much more will he accept us on judgement day when we are his child? Do you see Paul’s argument? The death of Jesus proves Jesus’ love for us. The resurrection of Jesus proves Jesus will finish what he started. Jesus’ blood secures our forgiveness. Jesus’ resurrection and life guarantee our salvation. He will not stop in the middle. He loves us with perfect love. 10 billion years from now, he will love us as much as he loves us the second that we believe. Jesus’ death and resurrection assure us of our salvation.

7.      Rejoice in God

Romans 5:11 – ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is the reason we can have indestructible joy. So, let’s put it together. Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have peace with God. We no longer have to be scared of God. God is our perfect loving father. Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have forever access to God’s grace. We are always welcomed into God’s presence. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we hope in the glory of God. We know for sure that a day will come when everything wrong will be made right. Everything will be beautiful. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can rejoice in our present suffering. We know that God uses sufferings for our good. Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have the certainty of God’s love for us. We have the subjective experience of God’s love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and we also have the objective reality of God’s love through the fact that Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have the assurance of salvation. If God reconciled us to him while we were his enemies, surely, he will not fail to save us on judgement day. He who began the good works in us will complete it in the day of Jesus Christ.

And listen. In all of these blessings, do you know what our contribution is? Nothing. God is the one who does all the work from beginning to end. He is the active doer. We are the passive recipient. This is why we rejoice in God. We rejoice not in our privileges but in God’s mercy, not in our possession of him but in his possession of us. And God does all of it through Jesus Christ. All the blessings of God come through the death and resurrection of Jesus. I love the way John Piper puts it. “God paid the price of his son to give us the prize of himself.” In other words, the prize of the gospel is the person who paid the price. God is the one who paid the price, God is the one who received all the glory, and God is the prize of the gospel. And there is nothing that can take God away from us. Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is why we rejoice in God.

This is the indestructible joy that God has in offer for us. And it is ours the moment we put our faith in Jesus. We can rejoice in God at all times because we know that God will not fail to keep us. God sees us in our worst and he thought we were worth it. And he uses suffering to shape us for our good. Because of Jesus, we have joy that does not depend on circumstances, indestructible joy. The question is, have you put your faith in Jesus? Have you trusted him as your Lord and Saviour? If you have not, I implore you to put your faith in Jesus. He loves you. He died for you even though you are his enemies. And all these blessings are yours the moment you put your faith in Jesus. So tonight, realize the magnitude of your sin. Realize how bad of a sinner you are. Look at the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And rejoice in what God has done for you. Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What is the difference between happiness and joy? Give some daily life examples.
2. Why can’t we have peace with God without the cross of Jesus Christ?
3. How can we rejoice amid sufferings? Share your story.
4. Read Romans 5:6-8. What stands out the most for you in these verses?
5. Out of the 7 blessings of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which one speaks the most to you?
6. Take time to rejoice in God through prayer. Each member prays a short prayer praising God for what Jesus has done in relation to their answer to question 5.