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Welcome to the live big broadcast with Derek Greer. We believe this teaching from God's Word will empower you to live a full, impactful life in Christ. Let's dig in. Paul begins this verse speaking by the Holy Spirit. And he says therefore, which means here, consequently. And it connects this chapter to the preceding four chapters that came earlier. And in the earlier chapters, we see that all have sinned. And the only way to experience salvation is by grace, through faith in Christ alone. A famous theologian said this. Whoever is not satisfied by Christ alone insists upon something beyond perfection. The only problem with complete perfection is that it cannot be improved upon, not even by God. So if we complain that God did not give us 101 ways to receive salvation, we ought to be grateful that at least he gave us any at all. One way is better than no way. And often our complaints about that is really a display of ingratitude. Therefore, having been justified, what does justified mean? Just as if I'd never sinned. By what faith? This is trusting in the finished work of Jesus as the complete and sufficient atonement for all the sins of humanity. And because of that, we have peace with God. First Colossians says 1:21. We who were once enemies in our minds, we who rationalized, we who defended, excused our own wayward ways and even promoted that of others. We almost broke our thumbs, our fingers liking and sharing and commenting in support of things that break God's heart. But the Bible says, despite our background, we have peace with God. He knocks on the door of every heart with acceptance, unconditional love and security. Don't mishear me. God disciplines those he loves, but he will never abandon, he will never abuse. He will never throw away even one of his trusting children. Now, here's the deal. You may walk away from God, but God will never first walk away from you. He said, all this is done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because at the cross, the penalty of our sins was paid on full. And on top of that, not only were we freed, we were made brand new. 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says it this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. God did not give us new hands. God did not give us new feet when we came to the altar. If you had bunions before you came to the altar, you had bunions after you left the altar. God does not immediately change our bodies. He came first to give us a new heart. Back to Romans 5:2. Through whom? Still speaking of Jesus, also, we have access. Say with me, access. Access by faith. This is not as the world teaches faith in ourselves. This is not as some of our liberal friends teach, by greater faith in humanity. No, it says we have access by faith in Jesus, who gives us access to God and what we discover in these scriptures. How many have experienced a little bit of the presence of the Lord a couple moments ago? Yeah. Because of the cross, no matter where you are or what you're going through, you can lift your hands in worship and have access to the very presence, counsel, and energy of the living God, which is the highest privilege anyone could ever experience. It says we have access by faith. Again, not faith in who we are, but faith in who he is. How many of y' all feel a little bit. A little bit of Sunday school going on right here? We're going back to some of these old truths. They're gonna help you. Right here. We have access by faith. Watch this. Into this grace, into a relationship not of bondage and fear, but a relationship of acceptance, a relationship of favor, a relationship of even friendship with God. And then the Bible says it's in this relationship that we stand. So how do you know if you're standing in grace or by grace? If you realize you don't have to prove yourself worthy of God's love, If you realize that he loves you because of who he is, not because who you are, you're standing in a relationship that's built on grace. If your relationship with God is not based on your goodness, but on his goodness. Our good works are a result of our relationship with God. But never confuse them with being the cause. Never put the cart before the horse. You will never do good enough to merit or deserve God. But because God has loved you with undeserved, unmerited love out of gratitude, we can't help but do right and try to love right. But it's a response to love, not to earn his love. And what happens sometimes with church folk, they start thinking God loves them because they're better than other people. They start thinking that God loves them because they tithe or because they serve. Listen, I tithe and I serve because he first loved me. It's a response to the love he first gave me. But there's nothing I can do to ever earn that love. While I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. And if he loved me back then, when I was doing all that, will he love me any less right now? And then he continues. And Paul's not just saying this because he has some lofty idea to present. He lived this thing. He and Silas were in Prison beaten back, bloody, bent over in the stocks, hands and feet locked together. But at midnight, the other prisoners could hear him praise. Because he. It wasn't just a message or a preaching. It was something on the inside of Paul. He. He said, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Despite his circumstances, the truth that God had placed on the inside of him made him happy. How can you be happy when your children are acting crazy, when your spouse is acting crazy? How can you be happy when you're all alone and you want somebody in your life? How can you be happy when they beat your back bloody? Because you have a hope that's not in this world, it's not from this world, so the world can't take it away. And he said, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God when we finally realize that God is not our enemy. And we begin to utilize and not just worship when we come to church, but in our cars. And in that difficult moment, we lift hands and we worship the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. And we have access to his presence, his support and his wisdom. We begin to excise again an infinitely compassionate, all good, all wise, all powerful and loving God. And if we realize who we were really accessing, it would only make sense to rejoice. And then he says this, and not only he says, unless you think I'm being too pie in the sky. He's about to spend the next two verses focusing on real world applications of the truth we just covered. And if a truth only works in a book but not in life, it's not the truth. It says, and we rejoice in hope. As bad as he was beaten in that prison, he still had hope. As bad as you feel that you've been beaten up in that situation, you can still have hope. The reason we rejoice is not just because we're happy flappy people, but because we have a hope that's beyond this world, beyond our situation, even beyond our ability to fully understand and grasp it all. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And he's speaking of, when he speaks of glory, he's talking about the weight of God. And yes, we rejoice when we get to heaven and abide and by. But watch this next clause here. So we rejoice in the glory, we rejoice in the days ahead of us when we will be changed in an instant and we will be like him and the troubler will cease from troubling and we will Be in the express presence of God and able to understand it and comprehend it on a level like never before. But then he said, we're going to rejoice in the hope that's ahead of me of where I'm going and all that I have in glory. But we also glory and tribulations. You see, there's no heaven and there's no tribulations in heaven. He said, yeah, we rejoice in the hope of glory, but we also rejoice or glory in tribulation. And what he was saying is, I'm excited about heaven, but I can also rejoice in the rotten here and now, the death of a loved one, a divorce, separation, loneliness, illness, injury, loss of a job, money problems, trauma, or just the stuff that comes with being human. David says, watch this. In Psalms 23, he prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Our enemies are not in heaven. They're here right now. And God is saying that in the midst of the right now, he could prepare a table for you. That man, a table. I mean, you can have a banquet laid out with joy, unspeakable, full of glory, right here and right now, in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. If you take your faith straight seriously, you can experience it right now. He said, we also glory not just in the future, but in tribulations, the stresses of this life. Yes, I'll be glad when I get to heaven. But Paul is telling me we have reason to shout now. When I gave my life to Jesus over 20 years ago, actually, 40 years ago, forgive me, I'm making myself younger than I am. My attitude was this. And God has honored this every day since it was God. If you can't help me in this life, it would be naive for me to trust you the next. So I would say, God, I know you're out there beyond the stars, but I need you underneath the clouds. I need you right where my feet are standing and into the issue and situation that I'm in. And what I want to tell you, he's proved faithful every single time. But we also glory in tribulations. Knowing meaning. You can't just wish this. You gotta know this. This must become a guiding truth for your life. Knowing that tribulation, watch this produces something. Tribulation produces perseverance. The devil means it for evil. But God is God, and he knows how to turn it around and work all things together for good. So here's the deal. Don't quit. You're already in pain. You've already Been hurt, You might as well hang on and do what's right so you can get your reward for it. My scars in life are just reminders of when life tried to break me, but fail. And he continues. He says these truths are not just pie in the sky. These are truths that God can work out in the here and now. He says we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulations produce perseverance. Then he says, and then perseverance produces character. This is important. Only the Holy Spirit can help you do this. Tribulation will make most people bitter. Having to persevere under strain will make most people complain. But the Holy Spirit is in your life to take the stresses in your life and use them to make you better. Saint Augustine said this. He said God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to allow evil to exist at all. Why? Because God knew no matter how difficult it might be, he would always make it worth it. He does not promise us ease, just that in the end, it will be worth it. Like the mother pushing out the baby. And I don't want to speak lightly of it. Never had a baby, but I've watched it. And as painful as those nine months were, as painful as those contractions and the stretching of the body, when she held that baby in her arms, there was a light in her eyes. There was a. It was worth it on her face. This life, we labor and travail, but we are pushing out a future. We are pushing out an eternal reward that will bring eternal light to our eyes and brightness to our faces. And we will look back and say every day, every moment of this was worth it. Knowing that tribulation, every tribulation, is just another opportunity for the Holy Spirit to what, Produce perseverance? A few years ago, I wrote a book entitled When God Stops. It's a good book. If you haven't read it, get your copy. And in this book, I told a story. It's an urban legend, but is an urban legend with a punch. There were these businessmen that were shipping cod from the US to China, and they discovered that after the long journey to China, the flesh of the cod would become mushy and they'd become lifeless and the cod would be tasteless. So they huddled and they thought about it, and they decided, you know what? I think I might have a solution. They decided to add a catfish to the shipping tank, which, though it's not really a natural enemy of the cod in the little urban narrative, they said it was a natural enemy of the cod and because it was an enemy. The cod would spend its entire journey avoiding catfish attacks. And because of all the energy he had to expend staying out of the jaws of the catfish. The codfish arrived in China agile and in peak condition. There are people and circumstances in your life that God allows to keep you fresh and in peak form. And if that catfish of a situation was not there, you become mushy and weak. But God has intensely allowed that catfish of a situation to swim around your circumstances in your life, to keep you on your toes, to keep you sharp, to keep you moving forward, to keep you crisp, and to keep your flavor in life. And to perseverance, character. Apart from just, you know what we're born with, Our DNA muscles grow by stressing them, putting them in action against an opposing force or weight. And each time we take our bodies, we go to the gym and we do the work we're supposed to do. Each time we take our bodies through this cycle of damage and repair. The body in response is resilient. And what it does is it creates bigger and stronger muscles. So you be prepared for next time. But here's the deal. Our character grows through the same process. There's some hurt, but we exercise the muscle of forgiveness. We've expected it by now, but then we work the muscle waiting. We trust, but then we better. We often have a little bit of doubting, but then we have to flex the muscle of trust. Knowledge and wisdom may be power, that's the whole saying, but only character built like this will bring you respect. But we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces what? Perseverance? The Holy Spirit. Watch this. You might not be strong enough, but the Bible says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, not yours. The Holy Spirit is strong enough to provide you with the ability to hold on as long as you need to. And perseverance builds character. Iron is heated before it's molded and shaped. And because God knows what you're made of, he lets it get hotter than you think you can bear. And in that moment, that's when he reaches in to reshape you. And then finally, after you come out of the heat, you come out a little bit different. You have a little bit less presumption since you've been boiled beyond your ability to resist. Now you finally have a little greater sense of humility. A writer said, if pain doesn't lead you to greater humility, you. You've wasted all your suffering. And then the character, the final thing. Hope. There was A cruel study that was done in the 1950s called the Hope Experiment. And in this experiment, a wild group of rats were placed in a jar that was half filled with water. And the lab technicians or the doctors, whatever, they left the rats to swim until they drowned. And all the rats drowned by around the 15 minute mark. So after they did this first part, they watched all the rats drown and they said, okay, that means that these wild rats, you know, they could last about 15 minutes. But then they took another group, I guess that was the control group, and they placed this other group in water. But right at the 15 minute mark, the technicians or the scientists reached in, took the rats out one by one, dried them off, held them for a moment in their hands to warm them up, and gave them a little rest. And then after a couple moments, they were put back in the water. But watch what happened. Instead of drowning in 15 minutes, they swam, all of them, for over 40 hours and some 60 hours. One salvation experience changed their entire perspective. And when God has brought you out the last time, There's faith for the next time. You say, why am I going through what I'm going through? Because God's trying to build you up for what he ultimately has for you. But there's some giants in the way. There's some hot water in the way, there's some circumstances in the way. And he has to build into you the capacity to see beyond. 15 minutes. A capacity to see beyond. Listen, I'll just last today. But he wants to build into you a capacity to trust him that if I hold on, God will do it again because he's done it before. I hear light bulbs going off all over this room or going on. And character produces hope. You develop hope for this time because of last time. Do you hear me? I said, you develop hope for this time because of last. When you were going through last time, you were saying, why, God? Why? But you developed hope last time for this time. And it wasn't. That last time wasn't painful because God helped me survive yesterday. I'm still alive today and I can face tomorrow, come what may. You hear what I say. And character produces hope. Here's what I know. I've seen too much. Seen too much. I've seen too much. I've been down and out too many times not to trust him this time. You know, a pile of a dozen opinions will never equal one experience. You might have your opinion about whether or not I'm going to get out or you going to get out. But let me tell you something. Something I experienced last time. And because of last time, I know what's going to happen this time. And then he continues, he says, now, hope. He's talking about hope received because of what God did last time. He's not talking about mindless and naive hope, but he's talking about the type of hope that has a track record now, hope. This type of hope does not disappoint. This is why I read my Bible. Not because I'm trying to be a Bible nerd or goody goody. No, I read my Bible because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Meaning if he did it before, he's the same and he'll do it again. If Jesus could turn water into wine, don't tell me what he can't turn around for you and for me. He will turn your mess into a message, your trial into a triumph, your test into a testimony, and your pain into gain if you will just trust him now. Bible Hope. Hope built on the promises of God. And what God did with the Israelites when they faced the Egyptians, what they did, what he did with King David when he faced Goliath. My hope that's built on real life experience of people on the earth that were frail, made mistakes just like you and me. If you put your hope in a God or the God of the Bible, you will not be disappointed. Now, I have put my hope in people. I have put my hope in things. I've even put my hope in myself. And I've been disappointed over and over and over and over again. But what I want to tell you today, if you put your trust in him, it may at times get hard. But every example in the Bible, it was worth it. In the end, Job went through, but the Bible says he received. He said, consider the end of Job. That's what James said. Consider the end. See we talking about, how did that happen? That's the beginning in the middle. It's not exciting, it's hard in the middle and the beginning. But say, consider the end of Job. He received double for his trouble. God will get back to you everything you lost if you trust Him. Now, hope does not disappoint. Watch this. Because the love of God has been poured out not just a trickle, but a gusher in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is what given to us. What he's saying here is the Holy Spirit comes on the inside and he says, I loved you so much that I gave my only begotten Son. That's whosoever believe in him should not perish. But have eternal life. I loved you so much, I put your sins on my son. My son bore it. But on the third day, he got back up again. And when God pours out his love, what he's saying is, there may be seasons of pain and discomfort, but we're followers of Christ. And as we follow him, even in these seasons, yes, Friday is tough, but Sunday is coming. There will be a getting up again. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. You hear what I'm saying? And there cannot be resurrection without some dying. Sometimes there cannot be resurrection without a little bit of pain. Sometimes he is the getting back up again. And if you want to know that aspect of his character, you got to hang on. You got to go through your own Gethsemane. You got to go through your own season where people are mocking you and nodding their heads at you, wagging their fingers, saying, your problem is your fault. God doesn't love you. He's forsaking you. You in that situation, because God don't even like you. But he stood there and he listen. They didn't just nail him and it was done. He was nailed and he hung. And sometimes in the pain, you got to hang in there. And he hung in there until he said, it is finished. He did not leave that cross until he was done. And you're not to leave your situation until you are finished and done. Now, this type of Bible hope. I'm talking about the type of hope where an old man has a baby, 99 years old, has a baby, all because God promised. Matter of fact, I think the miracle with Abraham and Sarah was not so much. How do I say this? I digress. I'm trying to say it wasn't just that they had a baby. It was that they could do the stuff to make the baby. And God can renew your strength. Like an eagle. So this is it. I'm done. Now, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is what given us. So let the water rise in your life right when you think you're going under. Right when you think, I'll never come out of this thing, I'm done. His love and mercy will scoop you out. He will hold you and warm you in his hands. He will dry you. But here's the tough part. Here's the tough part. Here's the part that only disciples and people that follow Christ can really understand. But after he dries you and he holds you, comforts you and warms you, gives you a moment to catch your breath and rest. Then in his wisdom, watch this. He places you in it again and everything in you wants to get mad. Everything in you says God. Why God? How? But he's building character and character is building hope. So when we're going through stuff, we're in water over our head. You need to calm down and remember how he brought you through last time. Anything God brings you to, he has a plan to bring you through. So I want to close with this. He did it before, he'll do it again. He's done it for others. He'll do it for you. But you just need to trust him today. Give God a Hallelujah and a praise. Thank you for joining us. Until next time. Remember, you have what it takes in Christ to live big. We also invite you to partner with Derek Greer Ministries in bringing the life changing and impactful teachings of God's Word to the world. Get started by visiting Derekreer.com by clicking the link in the description.