Lesson 60b Q 3
Romans 15:8-13 · Courtney Hemenway · Nov 1, 2020
Romans (2018-21), No. 136
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261920482070

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right well hopefully I'm not too garbled on this but I think we are in lesson 60 and I believe we are starting in question 3 which is on verse 12. And again, in verse 12, is this referring to the current age? And in verse 12 it says, and again Isaiah said, there shall come the root of Jesse, and he who arises to rule over the Gentiles. In him shall the Gentiles hope.

The first question I said is, who's the root of Jesse? Christ is the root of Jesse. He's a Christ is a descendant of David and and Jesse and so that the link is spelled out quite clearly throughout Scripture that Christ would be a descendant of David and his in that lineage and so we see that also in 2nd Timothy 2 8 where it says remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead descendant of David according to my gospel so again, he's Christ had to be a descendant of David and Jesse. So through that lineage, that was brought out that Christ had to be a descendant of David or through that family.

It's also, we saw that in Romans 1, 3 through 6. And starting in verse 3 concerning his son who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh Who is declared the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead according to the spirit of holiness Jesus Christ our Lord through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his namesake and among whom you are also called of Jesus Christ.

So I added the last part about according to faith among all the Gentiles. So, I guess the question is, so is this verse referring to the current age or another age? When it says about, in the verse it says, there shall come the root of Jesse, and he who arises to rule over the Gentiles, and him shall the Gentiles hope.

Is that referring to the current age? No. The question is why? That's referring to the millennial age. And why is that? Why do you say that? Somebody else said it, right? Well, he doesn't rule over us now. That's the key right there. Is he ruling over us right now? No. There has to be some time in the future, which is then the millennium.

Again, at this point, it's pointing forward to the millennium where Christ will rule over the earth and all the Gentiles. But the important part, too, is this verse also expresses the joy that is now available to the Gentiles through Christ. In Him shall the Gentiles hope. So again, it is pointing to the millennium, but it also says a very important thing. So all the Gentiles, it's given hope. So again, this is, again, for us, we have the hope. So question four.

This is an interesting one, and now we're starting to unpack verse 13, which I think is just incredible verses, or a verse. So, what does the God of hope mean to you? So, verse 13, now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So let me break it down a little bit. The Greek word for hope is called elpisis, and that means to anticipate, usually with pleasure, expectation, or confidence.

And then Zodiatis has it broken down a little bit more specifically for this verse. Spoken especially of those who experience the hope of salvation through Christ, eternal life, and blessedness. So Paul has been bringing this out all through Romans. So I'll give you another one here in Romans 5, 1 through 2, as we went through that one.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exult in hope of the glory of God. Again, abounding, may the God of hope. We've looked at it here, we exalt in the hope of the glory of God. This looks forward to the sure hope we have in Christ and God. What does it mean, God of hope?

I was just going to, it's a really good question. We use this word a little flippantly sometimes just because it doesn't carry the full weight. The idea of security, our security in the Lord, what's the opposite of that? And sometimes that contrast can be helpful. and thinking about this word. So that would be the antonym or whatever the converse of this. Despair. Despair. That's what I was thinking of. You know, I've come to look at hope. I define it as a person, Jesus.

Because with Jesus, there's so much hope for every person that's ever been born, there's hope for, you know, to be right with God, to have eternal life, to have a, you know, a good day. Just anything, you know, is because of Him. There's no Christ, there is no hope. Because of who He is and what He does, He gives us hope. So He's a God of hope. hope. Yeah. Hope is an absolute certainty.

I think and because it is, it's gotta be resident in the one who offers the certainty which is god himself and like like David is saying, it is Christ. It is he is the god of hope because he's the one that lays out the information that we need to rest in. It's the same thing with faith.

It's just the only difference is maybe don't have right now on a conditional basis, but it's certain. You know, it's like the best example is every one of you and me are going to have a resurrected body. Well, we have hope about that. There's a certainty about that, but we don't have them yet. Yeah, good.

I think of hope as that we live on this earth and we need hope now because we're not with our risen Lord. And then, and my hope is that I will be with him in eternity in his presence. And that hope will go away when I'm there because I won't be hope anymore. It will be a reality that I'm there. There won't be faith anymore either.

Right? Yeah. So that's, that's just the coolest thing ever. I think. You know, again, kind of getting away from the word, too, that, you know, point being, too, is that, and Mike, you expressed it, it's certainty. It's not like we use it in the current vernacular of hope. It's like, gee, we wish, we kind of think it's going to happen. We hope that, you know, whatever, tomorrow the sun rises, whatever. You have hope in that. There's uncertainty in that. But God of hope is certain. And the point, kind of, at least in this first part, like I said, there's so much in verse 13, but it's the God of hope. He's the one who provides that certainty. And Mike, one of you touched on it. It's like, the importance of, is who said it? God said it. So do you have certainty in that?

Yeah, and you know, if you ratchet back a few verses to verse 5, it says, now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. That's pretty good definition of the whole thing that he's laying out here. You know, that's why I'm kind of getting, you know, this whole verse, you know, think of the journey we've been on throughout all of these verses, especially as we've gone in, you know, 13, 14, and 15, where, you know, he's laid out all these different things, and now it's kind of, this is kind of the crescendo. This is the end of the Christianity 101, which is Romans, you know, the basis, the foundation of everything.

He's telling us now, this is the God of hope. God of hope. If you look at verses 12-12, that's another one. It's rejoicing in hope. That's the Greek present active. That's continually rejoicing in hope. How do we do that? Because we have the God of hope. He's the one who provides the hope. God is the one. I think that's so important today.

As I was putting the questions together in the lesson, and I've said this many times, how would you like to be in this world right now without Christ? Without knowing God personally, intimately? How'd you like to be, you know, we're coming up on Tuesday and the craziness is probably gonna happen on Tuesday and whatever time period after that. I'll thank you.

Not have the hope. and not knowing that there's a sovereign God in control of all this. I pray that he's a sovereign God, he's in control, he knows what's going on, he's using it for his purposes. He knows exactly what's going on. There's never a time in my isms, there's never a time where God goes, oops, missed that. that never is a possibility. So he knows what's going on. And yet, for us as believers, we have hope, because he is the God of hope.

So Jim, were you going to say something? Yeah, I wouldn't want to live in any age without that hope. We're going through some easy times right now compared to what you know, the reign of Hitler, Marx, Stalin, Nero, you know, it's just without hope, you know, hope speaks of the future.

If you don't have any kind of hope for the future, then all you have is despair. Yeah. I think that was a good contrast, JD. I think, yeah, bringing out the contrast is despair, you know, pain, suffering, everything. If you don't have the hope, What do you have? All you have is despair and a very dark future.

Yeah, I was thinking of the word you said, certainty. So having uncertainty. And then I use the term security. I think there's security in a sovereign God that is the God of hope. So without security, and security is a big deal right now. It's kind of a buzzword, right? But without security in the Lord, without certainty in the Lord, you are on your own. And what a horrible place to be, to be frank. And there's no peace in that either. He speaks with all joy and peace. That's what hope is. He's got a Band-Aid on his forehead. Yeah, you like my Band-Aid? Now, the other thing I think of, too, with all this, I always tell people, what are you afraid of? Are you afraid of the known or the unknown? The unknown. The unknown.

So, we know. We don't have the fear, because we know we have a God who is a God of hope. He's certain. He's certain in what He's doing, and we have a certain future. We're certain today, and it's not an unknown. We may have not known what's going to happen today. Mike, I'm sure, wasn't planning on opening the trunk and having his arm explode.

Again, it's the fact that God is in control of all that, knowing that God is totally aware of that, God is using it for his purposes, and that there's a secure hope in the future. And a secure hope today. We always put hope out as in the future, but I think it's also a hope today. certainty that he's in control. I don't have to have anxiety about tomorrow. I don't have to worry about it.

And even though there will be trials to come, it is known to God. And he's using it for his purposes. And I rest in that fact every day. Well, Courtney, would the rest be more, the facts are really important. but the facts are not as important as the one who says them. I think David was right about that when he says, you know, that our hope is a person.

And so like, if you and I are talking on the phone and I say, well, okay, we're gonna go to lunch on Thursday and I'm gonna pay. Well, you don't trust me about that. So you don't have any hope about that, right? I never trust you about paying for lunch. You always use the grace and say that I have to pay, so.

So it really does redound back to the veracity and the character of the one who makes the statement. And so the believer, as he grows, that's why I think growing in the intimacy and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus is so critical for us because we have plenty of theologians around that can give you all kinds of facts. The problem is there aren't that many believers who actually have this intimacy with Christ where he is relied upon personally. I think that's an important part of this. And that goes back to something at some point getting to what teaching on too. I think all of this, every single bit of this goes back to faith. It doesn't matter what words you see or whatever it comes down to, it all comes down to faith.

You've been saved by grace, what? Through faith. Look at verses. Like I said, 15 pages of notes in the New Testament and the epistles where faith is the underlying topic, subject. It's all based on that. Our salvation is based on faith. Our salvation is based on faith. What about our life and our life in Christ after that? It's the same faith. It never changes. It's the same faith. The faith is God is God. You trust in God because you have faith in him. And it all comes down to faith.

You know, in all of these, in the trials, do you have faith that God is in control? So, Courtney, when you say it all comes down to faith, you're talking about personal faith, right? Yes, personal faith. Yeah, I mean, in that, you know, for us, you know, our life and all that is based on personal faith. We break it down into four different aspects of it, the faith and the unity of faith, all the different aspects of it. But in the personal side, it really comes down to the same faith that you had to believe that Christ died for you, the death, burial, and resurrection, all that same faith.

Now it's the same for you to trust him for all that's going on. You have to have faith that God is the God of hope. I was going to say, um, sorry to, um, some of the things that, that David mentioned, and then Mike reiterated, uh, that it's about a person that another contrast and contrast helped me a lot. So I, I tend to go there at times, but you are alone without the hope. the God of hope. You're literally alone. It's a despair. It's, yeah, it's all of those things, but you're alone.

And I, I remember a story that Vern told about, I think it was his grand, one of his grandparents who was a missionary and was in the face of death. And if I recall the story correctly, um, And I think it was his I don't remember who maybe you guys can help fill it in. But the statement was in the face of death being basically martyred or killed was that's that's literally all you can do to me.

I'm not alone. You can't take that hope away from me. But you can take my life. But you can't take that hope away from me. Do you guys recall that? I don't. Yeah. Less than I do. It was one morning where he mentioned that story and Not that I got it historically correct, per se, but I took that away.

It's like, in the face of death, in the face of all, like, we think of that being maybe the worst thing that could happen to you, right? But that you can't take away my security, my hope in God. It's not possible. No man has that ability to do that. And that's a very important truth from this verse that I think we should be very aware of as believers, in all ages, not just ours.

We're not unique, like you said, Courtney, in the sense that, or I think it was Jim, in the sense that there's been plenty of horrible, horrible things, but no one can take that from you. It's yours through faith, and you're held in the hand of a personal God, a personal savior. And so, Yeah, there's so much packing into this verse. I think that's a great point. You can't take that away no matter what. They can threaten you, they can take everything away, all the material things, they can take your life. I think that's an absolutely great point, that this can never be taken away, which gives us that peace and rest that the world can't offer.

We've said this many times, when a believer goes home, that's the second best day of his or her life. The first being when he came to know the Lord, and the second is when he gets to meet him face-to-face. If you truly believe that. You know, at a believer's memorial, it's a celebration. He's home. He or she's home. It's with a God that we see by faith. They see face to face.

And, you know, that's something that, you know, if they can take this body away, they can do whatever they want. But you're right, JD, they can't take the faith and the certainty of my salvation. And that gives peace and rest beyond anything that the world can provide. It's truly optimistic. I mean, it's forward thinking, right?

There's an optimism that we have, an expectation, a security, and to wrap that all up into the person of the God of Hope. unknown to unbelievers, and we should be very thankful for that. Oh, absolutely. And God of hope. He is the one who is hope. And we derive all of our hope from Him, because He has said all of these things that are true about us as believers. That's, I guess, the point of this question. He is the God of hope. That's where hope comes from. It's nothing that we rely upon ourselves or anything here at all. He is the God of hope, and that's where hope comes from.

Let me read something to you, Courtney, that Kenneth Weiss said about this. I thought it was really cool. He says, in believing, and then he gives the Greek, literally is in the believing interpreted of the act of habitually believing, abound to exceed a fixed number of measure, to be over, to exist in abundance, to be in affluence." That's what this is really about. This is not, oh, I think I'll try working on that faith today. Now, this is a super abounding every day walking around hope and faith that the believer lives in.

We're getting to that in the last part of this verse. We're just beginning in the first part of the verse of who is the God, you know, he's the God of hope. So now, we get into question five. What is God's will for us from verse 13? And verse 13, now again, I'll reiterate, I'm gonna keep going over this. Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you are bound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, first of all, what are we filled with?

Joy and peace. Joy and peace. What's that? Joy and peace? I'm missing one word that I want in front of that. I might say that what God's will for us is to abound in this. We're getting to that. All. Oh, yeah. Thank you, JD. That's the key word. You know, with all joy and peace, all joy. Oh, that's incredible. Now, the God of hope with the certainty of this. And who's who's doing you with all all joy and peace? That's incredible.

When you get into Ephesians, and we've been blessed with most of the blessings, all, all spiritual blessings, all. We're here now, all joy and peace and believing. Many times, God is called the God of Peace. We see that in Romans 15, 33, 16, 20, Philippians 4, 9, 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, 2 Thessalonians 3, 16, Hebrews 13, 20. He's the God of Peace. God is a God of Peace that brings us all joy and peace, all.

It starts with, and we saw this in chapter 5, verse 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus. The beginning part is we have peace with God. That starts it. We have peace with God. That's the first thing out of the chute is when we have peace with God.

So that's first and foremost. But then, the faith in what we're gonna see, and we keep unpacking this verse, we're gonna get to the abounding, but the God of hope, certainty, the God, has filled us with all hope, or all joy and peace. Wow. Today. Yeah.

I was reading somewhere that You might say that joy relates to the anticipation we have in seeing, although I think knowing, that our hopes are going to be fulfilled. God has revealed so much about himself, his retributes, we know that he's truth, we know that his word is immutable, so we have joy in just anticipating the hopes being fulfilled, and also that the peace may, you might say, result from the assurance that we have. Reckoning on what God says is going to happen is true. So there's so much joy and peace and assurance in thinking of it.

Absolutely. That's really good, Joanne. Again, as you unpack this verse, it starts with God of hope. That's where your joy, peace and everything comes from. You have a God, a certainty in God of all these things that he's told us. That's where the joy and the peace come from. food today, or you got the Ferrari today, or you got whatever.

The joy, nothing that this earth gives us, gives us the peace, rest, comfort that the God of hope gives us. And that's really what's coming here, and it goes back to kind of what JD was saying, they can take everything away, everything away, but they can't take our joy, our peace, our rest in God. everything away, but you can't take that away because I have a certainty of one day face to face with Christ and God the Father. You can't take that away from me. No matter what you do, you can't take that away. And because of that, I have all joy in peace.

Courtney? Yeah. Related here in 2 Corinthians 13 and 15, Or do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? How about that for joy and peace? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's so many of them. I mean, you know, I just think of all the identification truths, you know.

I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I live, but Christ lives in me. Wow. You know, Second Corinthians 517, we are new creatures in Christ. Whoa, what? You know, a new life, a completely new, not a refurbished old man, but a new man in Christ. All of the identifications, you know, wrecking yourself dead unto sin and what, alive unto God. I mean, there's so many things that we have, these truths, because the God of hope has told us that. And that's incredible. Courtney, can I make a, comment on the context here, sorry. Yeah. Am I? Nope, you're up. Okay. Just the, there's a come from the root of Jesse, one who arises to rule over the Gentiles. I just can't help but think of it in the context of this next week in the U.S. and we watch American politics as much as anyone. And there's a lot of anxiety over that in the future of that.

And yet, I think the context here, our hope I think if there's one thing that every election or political administration shows us is that our hope can't be in this world. And our hope is in this coming King and we will rule and reign with Him. And everything that we experience and endure now is training for reigning. And that's hopeful and joyful and nothing can destroy that hope.

Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. You know, that's the, again, the two part of that, that verse is that pointing to the future in millennia, millennium, where we will rule and reign with him. And also today we have that saying, the God of hope, it's the Gentiles hope, that's our hope. And so, no, I think that's absolutely, you know, that's a great point in that if you're thinking, if you're thinking ever president, whoever you're for, I'm not getting into the politics of it, whoever you're for wins and things are gonna be great, or that's the solution.

It ain't, pardon me, the poor English. You know, the flip is, where's our citizenship? in heaven today now yeah we're just sojourners we're we're just passing through here you know we're we're in this uh mess but we're just passing through our citizenship's in heaven you know and the beautiful thing about that No politics in heaven.

There will be no advertisements. There will be no bad advertisements. There won't be any propositions to vote on. There's nothing. There is no politics where we are, where we're citizens. There's none of this. The advertisements are going to go away in a week, but they've been just up here in Alaska. It's anything. I'm going to log on to anything. It's 49 things about the politics here. And wherever you're at, I'm sure you're getting just inundated with that.

It won't be anything where we're our citizens. There's never going to be a vote. There's never going to be any of this. Very delightful in the fact that our future is certain in heaven and that there's none of this. All the stuff we're going through is nothing. It's like watching a football game. In the end, it means nothing.

What means everything is the one question, who is Christ? Do you believe it or not? That's the only question that matters in all of eternity here, or all of time here, when you're on planet Earth, is that question, is who is Christ? And you believe or you don't believe. That's the only question that matters. It doesn't matter your politics, it doesn't matter about anything.

That has ramifications. And we can, you know, cloud ourselves with lots of other stuff, but it really comes down to who is Christ. and what he did for you, and do you believe it? I would add one thing, Courtney. Yeah. That there's these wonderful truths that a believer reads, and as a young, growing believer, you hope that they're true. Maybe you put it that way. But the great thing is that God has designed a life for us of continual growth and the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus.

So there's a persuasion that goes on day by day, minute by minute, on these wonderful truths that he does. It isn't that I'm going to suck it up and be all that strong a believer. He's going to persuade me beyond any sort of resistance. He'll allow the resistance, but it's his work. I think it's important for us as believers to understand that Not only is our hope in the person, but also our growth is resident in that same person.

Yeah, and I was going to add to that, Mike. I think it is very continual, but it's total. We have it all at the exact same time, but we are persuaded about it at different paces. Yeah. Again, there's so much in this verse as we get to the end of this verse about who's doing it and all of the different things in here. We're unpacking it slowly, but this verse is really incredible. about what's in here. It's kind of, you know, again, it's kind of come to a crescendo at the end of Romans where this verse really, I think, is a summary verse of all that Paul has been laying out. And there's so many things about it.

And I'll get into it. We'll finish up. There's a couple questions. I think Noel brought out a really good point on this that we'll start with next week. I think I'm probably going to get the buzzer here. Somebody's going to text me. And Brian will run to the buzzer there and buzz me, right, Brian? I'll start here because there's a question I want to ask on this.

Neal brought out a really good point on this that I want to hit before we move on to the other ones. Probably, hopefully we'll get done with this lesson next week. Then Mike, I think, has the, we'll get the questions out for the last versus 15. And we'll try and finish up in 15 here, but. All right, close, and we'll get going. We thank you.

Again, it's you. You are the God of all hope. That is not an uncertainty. You are the God of hope. There is no certainty in who you are. You're a sovereign God in control of all things. You have told us many, many things about What we have in Christ, when we believe and are placed into Christ, what that is and what that means to us, and what joy, peace, comfort. You've shown in these verses that all joy and peace come from you. And we realize that there's nothing on this earth that gives us joy and peace and any certainty other than what you provide in your word, in your indwelling of your Holy Spirit who is working on us moment by moment to conform us to the image of Christ. and what that means. It's just incredible what you have in your scripture telling us about who we are in Christ.

That gives us joy, peace, and comfort through all the trials and all the different things that are going on here while we are on this planet. thanks for who you are and just the amazing things that you have told us in your words. So we just give you thanks for this time where we can fellowship even electronically and again that all that we say and do this day will honor and glorify you and it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.