Romans 25: What Justification Brings (5) (Rom 5:5-8)

Shame and Hope
I want to talk about the relationship between our hope for the glory of God and His love.
 
After describing the chain reaction that suffering starts , Paul explained how Christians have assurance of their hope. He said, 
 
“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” (Rm 5:5)
 
First, Paul talks about ‘shame.’ As we truly live as Christians, we may often face shameful situations. People might mock us because of our hope for resurrection. They might make fun of us because of the gospel we proclaim.
 
In fact, proclaiming the gospel to non-believers can make us feel ashamed. We are to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus to those who think of it as scientifically impossible. And, it’s natural for us to feel ashamed when we say something that listeners don’t think makes any sense.
 
When we follow God’s ways and not the ways of the world, people around us may think of us as weird because of our lifestyle. They may not agree with our thoughts or the decisions we make. So, we may feel ashamed of following Jesus’s steps and proclaiming the gospel in the world.
 
So, Paul said this, 
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” (Rom 1:16)
 
Paul said that he wasn’t ashamed of the gospel like many Christians he knew who were ashamed of it and hesitated to proclaim it. Then, how can we continue to be devoted to preaching the gospel despite this sense of shame? Paul said that it’s possible when we put our hope in God. He said, “hope does not put us to shame” (Rom 5:5a)
 
Before Paul was killed, he wrote to Timothy, 
“Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God… That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.” (2 Tm 1:8, 12)
 
Paul had to face a lot of persecution and shameful situations while proclaiming the gospel. Like Jesus, he was mocked, publicly beaten, and imprisoned. Even though Paul knew that he would undergo severe hardships because of the name of Jesus, he never stopped proclaiming the gospel.
 
Even when people made fun of him, Paul wasn’t ashamed because he put his hope in God alone and in what God will give him on the last day.
 
In other words, his hope for the glory of God made him unashamed and gave him the power to overcome and rejoice in the suffering he faced because of his faith in Jesus. That’s the hope we should have as Christians. It’s essential for us to continuously hold on to the hope for the glory of God because it makes us unashamed when the world makes us feel ashamed.
 
We can not only endure, but rejoice when we’re put to shame for sharing the gospel because we know that the shame we may feel in this world is momentary, and that the end will be glorious.
 
God’s Love, the Strongest Foundation of Our Hope
Then, how can we hold on to this hope? What’s the foundation of our hope for the glory of God and His eternal kingdom? Paul said that that’s God’s love.
 
He said,
“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” (Rm 5:5)
 
In this verse, Paul explained the relationship between our hope and God’s love. According to Paul, God’s love is the strongest foundation of our hope.
 
The reason the hope we have in Christ is certain is that the foundation of it is God's love for us—the love that’s everlasting, unconditional, and unfailing. Nothing in the world can separate us from this love.
 
About Jesus, and about God’s love for us, Paul said, 
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rm 5:6-8)
 
Although love is an abstract concept, we can measure its size to some extent through two questions.
 
       First, how much did the one who loves sacrifice for the object of that love?
       Second, how much did the receiver deserve the love?
 
The greater the sacrifice the one who loves pays and the less the receiver deserves it, the greater the love is. Right? Then, we can understand how great God’s love for us is from these two criteria.
 
First, what God sacrificed to love us was His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. There’s no greater sacrifice on earth.
 
Second, when God lavished His great love on us, we didn’t deserve it at all. Romans 5:6-10 explains who we were when Jesus laid down His life on the cross for us.
 
Verse 6 says, “When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6), verse 8 says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8), and verse 10 says, “while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10)
 
From this, we know how undeserving we were to be loved by God. We were powerless and ungodly. We were sinners and even God’s enemies.
 
However, even when we didn’t have any right to be loved, Jesus died for us and we were reconciled with God through His death. That’s how much God loves us. His love doesn’t depend on who we are, but on who He is. He is compassionate, gracious, faithful, and abounding in love.
 
Then, how can we doubt God’s love? Even though we can never fathom how much God loves us, we can certainly know that His love is the greatest love we can ever experience. There’s no greater love.
 
And, God’s love is the most important foundation of our hope for the glory of God because we know that God, who sacrificed His precious Son to save us, will never give up on us, but will protect us and lead us to His kingdom with His amazing love. .
 
When we undergo suffering and are put to shame for our faith in Jesus and for proclaiming the gospel, we must remember God’s love that completes our hope and far outweighs our suffering and shame. Then, we can rejoice in suffering and continue to follow Jesus Christ with unshakable hope for the glory of God.
 
Experience God’s Love Through the Holy Spirit
The question is how we can experience God’s love in our lives.
 
We know God’s love for us both objectively and subjectively. Both of them are important. First, we know from the Bible how much God loves us. The Bible tells us that God sacrificed His Son Jesus and that Jesus gave His life for us. God’s love was proven and clearly shown to us on the cross. That’s how we know God’s love objectively.
 
However, what’s more important is that we really experience His love in our daily lives. There’s a huge difference between knowing and experiencing God’s love.
 
I grew up in a Christian family. Since my father was a pastor, I began going to church at a very young age. In church, I listened to the story of God’s love and the crucifixion of Jesus many times. In my head, I knew that God loved me. The problem was that it didn’t actually change my life because I didn’t really experience His love in my life.
 
However, during DTS, I experienced God’s love profoundly. I came to the realization that all the things I had known about God were true. His love was real. That experience of love completely changed my life.
 
And, I know who allowed me to experience God’s love at that time. It was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit opened my heart, made me realize my sinfulness, and helped me experience God’s love.
 
Paul said, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rm 5:5)
 
It means that through the Holy Spirit, we can really come to know how much God loves us. Through the Holy Spirit, God’s love has been poured into our hearts. That’s how we can experience God’s love everyday in our lives. And, that’s why we should continue to pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
 
I hope that every one of us comes to know the depth of God’s love for us through the Holy Spirit so that we can put our hope in the Lord who loves us. I hope that through God’s love we can always experience victory in this world without being ashamed of the gospel and overwhelmed by the suffering we may face because of our faith in Jesus.