Man, I'm excited to be, uh, with you guys this morning, wherever you are. Uh, whatever campus or online or, or here at Lincoln Road, if you don't know me, my name is Gray and I get to hang out across town at the Hunt Club. And so, uh, I get to work over there and, but it's always an honor and a privilege to be over here and to be with everyone, uh, online or at our other campuses.

We are continuing our series in, uh, the book of Romans. And, and as I was preparing and thinking back of everything that we've talked about, there was one word that kept coming to mind, and it was this word weighty. Like we have talked about some, some weighty things over the past several weeks. I mean, you think about several weeks ago, uh, when Kyle talked to us about God's wrath. You know, I think about like the, the first time guest that week. Hey, welcome to Venture, God's wrath is on you. You know, um, you know, but we got to unpack that. And we talked about on the other side of God's wrath is God's mercy. And then Blake talked to us about, then he talked about, uh, the righteousness of God and, and how we don't add up and we never could. And that is terrible news. And that is heavy. But on the other side of heavy and on the other side of, of that weighty thing is, is a, a weighty and heavy good news is that we have God's, God's grace. And, and so we, man, we have just talked about some heavy and, and, and some weighty things. Not even things but truths. But, but, but, but we've got to talk about 'em.

But, but here's my fear, uh, for, for all of us, and, and even especially for me, is as we unpack these truths that we'll forget that although these are obviously, I hope, great and true for eternity. In other words, the gospel obviously impacts our eternity. And eternity is pretty important because that's where we're gonna spend eternity, you know? But, but it also, the gospel's also good for us right now. And, and this morning the Apostle Paul is literally gonna take everything that we've talked about to this point, and he's going to anchor it to, to an experience in our life. And listen, it doesn't matter if you're a Christ follower. It doesn't matter if, if someone promised you lunch, it doesn't matter why you're here, if you're just kicking the tires on faith and Christianity, if you're deconstructing, reconstructing, constructing for the first time, the thing that the Apostle Paul attaches this to in our life, the experience, everyone will experience it. And so he, he's gonna say, Hey, look, it's, it's good for eternity, but I don't want you to miss that. It matters.

Now, now to set the stage, I need to share something with you. Uh, this past week, this past week was my wife and i's, um, four year anniversary. Okay? Now, well, you can celebrate. Hang on now if you should. There's not a wedding anniversary, okay? Alright. Wedding anniversary's 18. Alright? She's, she's singing over the hunt club. Got you baby. Uh, 18, 18 years there. But, but this is actually her four year anniversary of climbing a fourteener. Now, if, if, if you don't know what a fourteener is, it's a mountain that's over 14,000 feet. To give you some point of reference, east of the Mississippi i e where we live, uh, the highest thing is just over 6,000. And this was 2019, I had told her, said, Hey, you gotta prepare for this. You, this is, you know, this isn't a joke. You can't just show up. You need to, you need to break your pack in, break your boots in. You need to be running, you need to be doing stadiums with your pack on and your all the things. And as time approached, she had done absolutely none of it. And, but I, but I wasn't, I wasn't too worried though because because my wife is gritty. Like we get stuff done. Like I knew she'd get to the top. The question was, 'cause that's what I was worried about. Uh, like if we go all the way out there, we better get to the top. Uh, but, but the question was, was how much she was going to have to suffer. Like what was it going to cost her?

And so we fast forward, we do a, we have to do an approach hike that's like nine miles, and it's all uphill. We get this beautiful meadow, and there's like this glacier lake, and, and there's peaks all around us. And, and, and the next day. But we had planned to like, stretch it over four days. That's just not the way I'm wired. I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm here. We, we got a summit. And, and so, uh, so I was like, Hey, let's go next. Let's go that morning. We get up early, let you know 3:00 AM start this summit. And and she's still doing good at this point. But, but as day breaks, we're on the side of this mountain and, and we stop, take a water break. And I'm just taking in the view. And, and as I turn to my right, I see my wife in this position. And, and, uh, and I said, Hey babe, what, what are you doing? Now? She knows, she has, I asked permission to tell all this, right? Um, I get to sleep at the house tonight. And, and, and I said, babe, what are you doing? And she said, she's, and you know, she's winded. She's like, I just, just, um, she's just, just, lemme take like a, a 15 minute nap. We can't take a nap up here. Like if you go to sleep, you're gonna be in a coma. Like it's not lack of oxygen, you're tired, all of it. So we summit, everything's still kind of good. Get the top, take pictures, it's great. We come down and, and, and we, we stay the night at our camp. And then we go and we head back down, uh, the next day, back down to the car, about eight or nine miles back down, Hillam. And I go ahead over at this point now, I'm carrying my pack and her pack. So I've got one on the front, one on the back. I've, I've, I've left her because I felt like that was in the best interest of both of us. And, and so as, as I get to the car and I'm there, I don't know, 30 minutes and, and I look back and here comes, here, comes my wife with her trekking poles. And I mean, and she's just, she's struggling. I said, I better go up there. And I didn't take a picture. Um, but as, as I get up there, she's crying and, um, and we, we, we get back down and, and the cost was high. It cost her, it cost her a toenail. Uh, it cost her, 'cause she didn't break her boots in. It cost her what she says was a strawberry all the way down her spine. It was about three inches. Um, uh, because she didn't break her pack in, uh, I, I think her and God had some conversations about mountains and me. And, um, and if you ask Lauren to describe that, she would say, she would say that she suffered through it. That she suffered through it.

Now, I know that you don't have to go climb a mountain to experience suffering, do you? And that is the exact emotion though, or not even the emotion, the, the experience that the Apostle Paul says, listen, what I'm about to tell you, it matters when it comes to suffering. I'm talking about the stuff that rattles your soul.

I remember the first time I experienced suffering as a, as a young student pastor. It was, it was Halloween night. Laura and I were at home by ourselves. We didn't have juah yet. And we get a phone call from a couple students and they're like, Hey, there's an accident. Uh, we think that it's pretty bad, some of our students. And so they come over, we load up, we're living in Fairhope at the time. We drove out, drive over to Foley, and then as on the way over there, we find out that it's three of our students and find out that one walked away unscathed. We find out that one broke his back, and we found out that that one died in the arms of his buddy that walked away. And they're asking all the questions, all the questions that come with that. And we get to the hospital, and I was the chaplain of the football team, and all the coaches are outside, and, and I feel like they're looking to me for something, and they're all just standing in a circle. And then we go, we go in the, the waiting room, and there's students everywhere and, and, and they're, they're, they are weeping and wailing. It's heavy. And they go back to the rooms and meet with the parents. I'd never experienced anything like that. But what I know is, is that's the kind of suffering that we all will experience on some level. Maybe it's relational, may maybe it's, it's unmet expectations. You had all of these dreams of what your marriage is gonna look like, and now you're divorced and you're sharing kids. Maybe it's trauma or tragedy, but we're going to experience suffering.

And, and the Apostle Paul, this is what he's gonna tell us. And, and you may, you may balk at this, and that's okay, but, but he says there's a way for you to have joy or rejoice even in your suffering. And when I say, I say joy and rejoice, I'm not talking about happiness. If you think about happiness and sadness and those, those, those surface level emotions, those are like biological, what the apostle Paul is talking about, that thing that goes all the way down to your soul, that's where joy resides. And he's gonna tell us that there's a way to experience the suffering in this world. There's a way to experience it with your joy intact.

So if you have your Bibles, I want you to flip to Romans chapter four. The apostle Paul is gonna set this up. He's going to, he's going to explain this through to a, through a process called justification. Here we are. This is another weighty word, another like theology, theological word, like how does this apply to my life? And, but what he's gonna show us is that justification paves the way for us to experience joy in our suffering, right? So you gotta, we got, we gotta, we gotta wrestle through this to get to the end, but it, it's us being justified. And here's what justification means. Blake, Blake wrapped it up last week talking about it. He said that that justification is just being declared innocent or being declared not guilty to be pardon. And in Romans chapter four, where Blake ended last week, this is what he says, uh, this is what the apostle Paul says, he was delivered over to death, talking about Jesus for our sins, and was raised to life for our justification because Christ was crucified. And because he resurrected, then now you and I, we have the opportunity to be justified, to be declared innocent, not guilty. And it's through that justification that we can experience joy even in our suffering.

So Romans chapter five, the apostle Paul continues and he says, therefore, and that's like in light, literally of everything that we've talked about to this point. He 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. And we boast that word boast is rejoice. And we, we boast or rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

There's three stepping stones, if you will, in this justification process that allows us to get to the point where we experience joy. And the first one is this, is that we have peace with God. Verse one. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God. Now, this is not the peace of God that Paul talks about later. See, in fact, you can't have the peace of God until you have peace with God. Peace with God is a legal standing before a holy God. It is a legal standing before the judge of the universe where he slams the gavel down. And he says, no longer do I count your sins against you. This, this is the wrath of God being taken away. This is the hostility of God being taken away because of our sin. And Paul says that, Hey, you, you need to know this. The justification means that you have, you have peace with God.

Now, think about this in, in light of, of suffering. That means that when you're suffering, God's not punishing you as a Christ follower. When you are in Christ, he's not punishing you. If you're outside of that relationship, the any punishment that God has for us was placed on Christ on the cross. So he's not punishing us. And that, that, that is a, that is a game changer. And so the the first step, you know, is, is that, that we have peace with God, not because of anything we've done, but placing our faith in what Christ did on the cross. In his resurrection, we have peace with God.

So he says, therefore, since we have, we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom, here's the second thing. We have gained access by faith into the grace in which we now stand. He said, now, now because of your legal standing before a holy God, before the judge, now you have access to grace. This word access is like introducing, being introduced. Like, like, like if you, if you didn't have the clout to get in somewhere, but, but you knew somebody that did, you know, I know a guy, you know, and, and that person serves as the introduction. And he says, but, but now you've got somebody introducing you to, to the grace. And this word grace in this context is all about the favor of God. And so if peace with God is a legal standing, this is all about relationship.

I think about this verse in particularly that word access. Um, in 2021, my son and I, Judah, we got to go to, uh, the College World Series and, and see Mississippi State play. And, and we were there for game two and three. And it was an incredible experience that the tickets we bought, uh, were like in the nosebleed, like, you know, in the outfield. And, and right before game two, there was a rain delay. And, and we had some friends that were kind of up in the, you know, the high class section, the club level, and a little, uh, buddy that he played ball with. And I said, Hey, you know, since there's this rain delay, let's go see if we can run them down. And, and we walk up there, you know, I, I don't know any better. And, um, and the first thing the dad says to me was like, how'd you get up here? And, and because the, I later found out because the security was kind of disheveled, they weren't paying attention. And, uh, he wasn't asking that like in a rude way. He was like, man, how'd you get up here? And, and I was, oh, well, we just walked. And, um, and I, I'd already told you, I was like, Hey, whatever you do, act like you belong. And, and so, uh, so we, we get up there, man, there, we, you know, it's like, there, there's all kinds of stuff, a lot more than what we were experiencing, all kinds of access. And, and even the dad's like, Hey, dad, Prescott's right there. And he's like 15 yards away. And I was like, oh. And he goes, well, he's not taking autographs, he's not giving autographs or taking pictures. And I was like, Hey bud, I hear you, but all he can tell me is no. And so I said, Judah, come on. So we go down there and I say, Hey dad, I'm gonna walk up real quick. I say, Hey man, I know you're trying to lay low, but if you could, man, just, just take a picture of my son real quick. He's like, yeah, man. Took a picture. When I get back up, all the kids want me to take him down there. I'm like, nah, you better go ask your daddy. You know, tell him he's scared is what it is. And, um, anyway, and so, so we had all this access.

And then at some point, the game hasn't started. His little buddy comes to me and he goes, he goes, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray, they got Judah. And I was like, oh, man. And I, I was like, there goes the access. And I, I said, we mean, they got him. He's like, we went outside to go, you know, hang out with the common folk. And we came back and they wouldn't let him in 'cause he didn't have an armband. And, uh, I was like, uhoh. And so I, I'm going over there, and as I'm going to find my son, he comes walking by and he's like, fast walking, like head down, like no eye contact. And I get him, and he's frustrated and, and kind of flustered and, and is like, Hey, but you know what happened? He's like, I went out. They wouldn't let me in. And then this, this man just said I was with him and they let me in. And I, and I said, that's weird. And, and so and so he got to come back in. And so we, we ended up getting to watch the whole game there. But the whole time I had a thought going through my head, and Judah had a thought going through his head. Judah's thought was, we're gonna be arrested, right? That he didn't understand. My thought was they're gonna kick us out.

And what the apostle Paul is setting up here is because we have been declared innocent and then granted this access to his favor. We don't have to live like that. Amen? Amen. There is nothing, nothing you can do that makes God walk away from you. He's not, he's not mad at you. He hasn't abandoned you. We have full access to his favor.

And then he continues through him. We have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And here we go. We boast or, or rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Now, now this word, uh, one boast means rejoice. He says, hope in the, in the glory of God. Now, two chapters, previously we had fallen short of the glory of God, but because of justification, now we place our hope in the glory of God. And this word hope is not wishful thinking, okay? This is not, I hope the saints go to the Super Bowl, right? That's wishful thinking, alright? Like, we, we, I, yeah, that's good, you know, uh, but, but that, that's wishful thinking. What this is, this is being certain of what is to come. This is a certainty. And he says that, that because you have legal standing, innocent because you have access to his favor relationship. And we have this certainty that come hell or high water, that ultimately we're gonna be with him for eternity.

Now, let, let me, let me simplify this, okay? 'cause we gotta, we gotta move. Peace with God means God is not against you. In fact, on all of our campuses, on the count of three, we gotta, we gotta do this in a hurry, okay? On the count of three, I want you to say, God is not against me. You ready? All of our campuses hunt club, you better show up. Here we go. 1, 2, 3, God not against me. Good. Louder next time on club. And so there's God is not against me, alright? Access to grace means that God is for me, which is awesome. But it's not just that He's for you. And he's back in the, in the, in the stands clapping for you. But he is also with you. Okay? So let, let, let's say that everywhere, okay? On the count three, God is, you're gonna say, God is for me and God is with me. 1, 2, 3, God is for me. God is with me. And then the, the hope of God just means that the previous two, that he is not against you and he's for you, and He's with you are always true. They're always true for eternity.

Then we get to get to the suffering and being able to rejoice in suffering because it does not happen outside of justification. And the Apostle Paul, he continues, he says this, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory. Again, this word means rejoice. We also glory or rejoice in our sufferings. Not, not because of our sufferings. That that's masochistic. He's talking about in the, in the midst of what's going on in their life. We still have our joy intact because we know, and here we go. He sits off this chain reaction, suffering does because we know that suffering produces perseverance. And that word perseverance, I want you to think about being like, like single-minded, like focus. And and you know this, if you've been in a part, a part of your season of your life, man, when when you feel like everything's coming unravel, man, you get focused and you start throwing away stuff that doesn't matter. That's what perseverance does, is it, it it removes all of the distractions. And then, then it reveals if we placed our hope somewhere, it doesn't belong. And he says, perseverance character. And this is, this is a spiritual composure. It's football season. And and you guys know that, that a team that goes to a national championship that's been there before has a different level of composure than one that's never been there. It's what? It's what In, in James chapter one, Jesus', half brother James, he says that he, that that perseverance creates maturity and brings us to a place where we're, where we're lacking nothing. And so this, this character, this spiritual composure begins to develop and then character hope. And then he goes on to say, this hope doesn't disappoint. It doesn't put us to shame. We, we can trust it. We can build our lives on it. And, and I love what, what Hebrews chapter, chapter six, verse 19. It says that our, that our hope becomes, our hope in him becomes an anchor to our soul. And it allows us to, to even end the, the worst times, still have joy. And, and think about this analogy with, with with the anchor. It's not that you don't, you're not happy and sad and, and everywhere in between, if you, if your soul is the boat and the anchor is going down to the bottom, think about the wind and the waves. And those are all the emotions, man. But the boat, your soul is solid.

We could sum it up this way because we are justified. We can trust God In our suffering. We know that He's not against us. We know that his favor is upon us. He's, he's for us. And, and he's with us. But we can also trust him with our suffering. Meaning that we know that it's not going to be wasted. That God is working something. At the very least, he's building spiritual composure. He's, he's growing our hope in him.

You know, the tagline for this series is reconstructing your faith. And, and a lot of the conversations that I've had with people who are deconstructing their faith, and a lot of the, the high profile people that have done that through the years, it comes back to this. There was some level of suffering. And because of that, it, it caused them to begin to ask questions. 'cause that's what suffering does, right? We begin to ask the question, does my, does my faith really matter when I need it the most? And Paul says, absolutely.

This past week, I, I had a conversation With a, the daughter of a good friend of mine who on Tuesday, uh, will be a year that she passed away, Ms. Christie. And, um, Ms. Christie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016. Um, beat it was in remission for four years. It was actually on about the four year mark that they, it went to have their, you know, checkup. And, and it was back. And it, over the next couple years, it, it came back with, with a vengeance. And, um, and when I think about this, this passage, when I think about, you know, rejoicing in our suffering, knowing that suffering, you know, creates opportunity for perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope, I can't help but think about Ms. Christie. So I reached out to her daughter Lauren. I said, Lauren, this is what we're doing. This is what I'm talking about. And I I can't get your mom outta my mind. I had no idea, to be honest at the time that we were at that point, four days away from the anniversary of one year anniversary of her death. And I said, just tell me, gimme, gimme some words. And this is what she, she texted this back to me. She says, man, she has always had the most positive outlook. She was not scared to die for the glory of God. Every result that came back worse or not the result or answer we wanted on this side of heaven, she would literally pray, listen to this. Okay, God, I see you writing a bigger story. In other words, God, I trust you in my suffering and with my suffering. She said, I see you writing a bigger story. Lauren goes on to say, and her mindset the whole time was hope. She told me he's going to heal me on this side of heaven or this side of glory, or on that side of glory. And then she said this, this is the daughter speaking. That's the hope of the gospel. The confidence that's hope, certainty of what God is going to do, the confidence that God has, that God has me no matter how deep the waters, that's somebody that's been tested.

I went back yesterday, I, I was the, the, the beauty of technology. And I was like, oh man, I have all my text messages from Ms. Christie. And I went back just all the way back to 2016. And every time I would text her, Hey, I'm praying for you. Love you guys. God's got this. We're, We're, we're good. He's working something even in her text messages. You can, you can, You Can feel it.

This morning. I don't know where you are when it comes to suffering, but I can tell you this, it will wreck you if you don't have a relationship with Christ. If, if you want to experience joy to be able to say, Hey, we were rejoicing our suffering. That's what Paul was saying. It's like, Hey, not only do we rejoice, 'cause all these good things that God did for us, but you need to know that even in the midst of the worst things that could happen, we're still rejoicing because we know, we're able to see through our suffering, through our certainty of what is to come.

And let me just say this. You, you may, you may sit back and scoff at that and go, that's ridiculous. And I, the only thing I want to ask you, and I don't, I don't mean this in a, in a, in a rude way at all. I just wanna ask you this simple question. How is what you're using working for you this morning on all of our campuses as, as our teams come? And we're, we're gonna sing in just a moment. First thing I want to challenge is, is I ask you is do you have a relationship with Christ? Have you been justified? Has Christ paid? Have you believed that he paid the price for your sin? That your sin separated you from a holy God and that he resurrected three days later so that you could have victory over sin and victory over death? That you could have certainty in your future regardless of your re the reality that you're currently in your future is certain.

And the second thing is, is listen. If if you, if you have connected with God, lemme just tell you this, and this is like, I expected to hear this at church. You gotta continue to connect with God through his word. Not only do you have to have an established relationship, but it, but it's in his word that, that we, we continue to be, are, are we continually, are grounded regardless of our circumstances. And then, and then the third thing I would tell you, especially if you're suffering right now, is you gotta connect to God's people and listen that this is the thing that you, you need the most and will want the least. Suffering will tell you, I need to be away from people. I just need to be by myself. And what suffering does is isolating you. And the enemy will use that. So You gotta lean in and get some folks around you. But at the end of the day, because we've been justified, we know that we can trust God in our suffering and with our suffering.

You guys pray with me. Father God. You know, each person here, God, you know their, their life story. You know the things that they walked in here with. You know, the suffering. They're in the suffering. They've come out of God. You know, the suffering that they may be stepping into when they step out of these doors. God, I pray that e each of us will not rely on our own strength, but on the strength that comes from being justified. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.