God's Love Poured Out

Brothers and sisters in the Lord, what I want to do with you this
morning and the time that we have available to us is share with you some
feelings in the Christian life. We often talk about faith, we often talk about the
necessity of faith and how it is by faith that we are reconciled to God but
we're not only people of faith, we're also people of feelings, we are human
beings, human beings have emotions and part of being a Christian human being is
that those emotions too need to be yielded to the Lord for the Word of God tells
us that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul and
strength and mind. Safe to say I think that in our tradition historically
speaking we've put the emphasis primarily perhaps in serving the Lord with
our minds but we're not only people with a mind we are also people with an
emotion and my experience has been that when the Spirit of God begins to stir the
emotions of God's people then two things happen. On the one hand there is a
tremendous amount of energy that begins to come loose energy and worship energy
and service energy and obedience. There's also some real frustration that
begins to become loose because once the feelings of God's people start to be
stirred and sometimes you begin to wonder what about my feelings? How come my
feelings are in being stirred? That surfaces sometimes in worship when when
there's a real spirit of worship present among God's people and and people are
really getting into giving God glory and they're excited about being children of
God and you look at your own life and you look at your own heart and it almost
feels sometimes like you're standing outside of a a played glass window ever
have that feeling? You see all kinds of people being excited about something
that that leaves your own heart untouched and you say to yourself what's the
matter with me? Maybe I'm not a Christian at all or if I am maybe I'm just a
really bad or poor Christian. Surface is too when people share their
testimonies when people share their testimonies there are always some folks
who can can just really identify with the kinds of things that are being said
and sometimes there are others of us we hear those testimonies being shared
and we say you know I can't relate to that it's not a part of my life and it
can create in the body of God's people some very real questions of insecurity
and and judgmentalism and all of the things that are associated with the
bad side of the human experience and the human emotion and the danger then is
either to embrace emotion without restrained and say this is great without
examining what its foundation is or on the other hand to get rid of all
emotions and throw it out of the window because we can't control it and we
can't manage it and we're not comfortable with it and for that reason it's
very important for us to understand from the scriptures what it is that is God's
people we can reasonably expect to happen in our lives if we are in union with
Christ and the power of God's Holy Spirit begins to live within my heart that's
the issue now that Paul begins to address here in Romans chapter five when he
rounds out the argument that he has been developing here in these first five
verses of Romans chapter five here's what he says hope does not disappoint us
because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which
has been given to us hope he says does not disappoint us let's start by trying to
put that for just a moment in its proper context the context of these verses
in Romans as we've seen many times now is that Paul is listing here what
happens when people come to faith in Christ and he's listed for us four
things that happen when you become a Christian number one you have peace with
God number two you have access to the grace in which we stand number three you
begin to rejoice in the hope of glory and then number four you begin to learn to
handle suffering from a redemptive point of view you learn how to suffer like
a Christian and then as we've seen he takes this fourth point and he begins to
expand upon the process by which this happens he says suffering produces
endurance it makes you strong as you become strong your character changes and
as your character changes you become more and more convinced that God loves you
that his power is there for you and that he is going to bring you into the
glory that he has promised the wall of his children character he says produces
hope now technically speaking that finishes his argument here in Romans chapter
five he's come around full circle he's back to the hope that he began with but
you see Paul is the kind of individual who leaves no stone unturned and it's
like he anticipates the questions and the objections that arise in people's
mind and the question that he raises is if it were in the back of his mind before
he goes on is is the objection how do I know that there's hope of glory this
promise that God will get me through anything and out of anything is not just
some kind of a vague imaginary pipe dream but that it is really a hope that I
can depend on in the midst of my struggles that's a very important question
because the world is full of people that have hope isn't that I've known all
kinds of people and so have you who are always looking for the part of gold on
the end of the rainbow and they hope in their money and they hope in their
spouse and they hope in their friends and they they hope in the latest
medical advance to regain their health and whatever it is that they're hoping
in they come to the end of their life and their hope has let them down how do I
know that God's not going to be like that how do I know that the hope that I
have in God is a hope that will carry me through and that when all has been
said and done I will not be left hanging and discover that I have been on the
wrong track because I have put my hope in God that's the question that he begins
to answer as it were in verse five when he says hope does not disappoint us
because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which
has been given us hope he says does not disappoint us the word disappoint
there is really the word ashamed hope does not make me ashamed that's one of
Paul's favorite words he used it all the time he used it in one Timothy chapter
one verse 13 when he is sitting in jail an old man now ready to face death
probably ill and here is what he writes to Timothy he says I am not ashamed for
I know whom I have believed and I am sure that he is able to keep until that day
what has been entrusted to me he says I am not ashamed humanly speaking it
might look he says as if I'm at the end of my life and humanly speaking it might
look as if everything I've ever lived for has been foolishness because what
have I got to show for my faith in God I'm an old man I'm in jail I'm going
to die and the Roman Empire is full of power and full of glory and I see
none of the reality that I've preached all of my life I am not ashamed
because Paul you see understood that when you put your hope in God and when
you have confidence that God loves you and that God will carry you through and
that God will be there for you even in the midst of the pain and the anguish
and the suffering hope will not make you ashamed there is nobody who has put
his hope in God who and all has been said and done in the course of the
universe is going to discover that he's been disappointed by God sometimes it
looks like it doesn't it and you and I we can all point back to experiences in
our lives where where God throws us a curveball and and we don't know what it is
that he's doing and and we feel that he's let us down but that's in the short
run when all has been said and done says Paul hope does not make us ashamed it
does not disappoint us our hope is as good as the promises of God and the
promises of God are as good as his character hope does not disappoint us and then
he goes on in this passage and he gives us the reason hope does not
disappoint us and you would think knowing a little bit about Paul that in
typical Pauline fashion what he would do is he would tie this into the reality
of faith because Paul is an apostle of faith and he's always talking about the
importance of faith and how it is by faith that that we lay hold of all of these
realities and as we'll see in a few moments he does that in this passage but
only indirectly directly interestingly enough he ties this hope in our
lives into a very subjective experience of God's love poured out in our hearts
notice how he puts it hope does not disappoint us why why can I be sure that
God will carry me through because he says God's love has been poured into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us God's love has been
poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us very
critical phrase if we are to understand the biblical balance of what it is that
reasonably as God's people we can expect to experience emotion and feeling
wise in the kingdom of God let's look at each part carefully God's love has
been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us
God's love there is generally interpreted as being the love that God has for
each one of his children it's an amazing thing is it not don't know how often
you ponder this or meditate it I'm sure we don't do it enough the God who made
the whole universe who is so glorious that nobody can approach his splendor from
before the foundation of the world loved his elect in Christ with an everlasting
love of all the billions of people there are upon the face of the earth
every one of his children is the most special of all of his children and the
love that God has for his children isn't just some kind of a nice sentiment
that says well I like your pretty blue eyes or your cute smile now it is a love
that says all of my power and all of my glory is available for you to bring you
to where I want you to be and the place where I want you to be he says is at my
right hand in glory ruling over all the nations of the world manifesting the
praise and the power and the majesty of our God God's love has been poured into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit the word poured there is the same word that
is used in Acts chapter two when Peter talks about the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit it's a word that means to lavish upon to fill out to overflow to
the point of spilling and the picture that comes at least to my mind is the
picture of somebody having a picture full of of a liquid and you're you're
pouring it into a cup and you fill the cup right up to the brim and then you
keep on pouring and it overflows and it runs all over the place because you're
being liberal with your generosity God's love has been poured into our hearts
by the Holy Spirit the heart in scripture is the seat of personality includes
the mind includes the will but it also includes the emotions and what Paul is
saying here is that when the chips are down and I begin to wonder where God is and
I wonder if God is ever going to bail me out one of the ways in which I know
that God will bail me out is not only by intellectually knowing that God
loves me not only by by by following through all the debates and all of the
arguments and saying well with a stiff upper lip I know God loves me and God's
going to carry me through but there are times he says when God's love is poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us who's the
Holy Spirit he's the agent of the Godhead who applies the salvation I find it
very helpful to think of God in this way God the Father is the one who wants
me to be his child he's the one who ordains for me for the foundation of the
world that he wants to have fellowship with me the son is the one who leaves the
glory of heaven to live our life to die our death and to obtain for us the
salvation that we need and to be restored to the grace of God the Holy Spirit is
the agent of the Father and the Son who takes God's love and the salvation of
Jesus Christ and who makes it come to life within my heart and within my
experience hope he says does not disappoint me because God's love has been
poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us
when we come to Christ and when we learn to walk by faith and when we stand
in the promises of God there will be those times when the Holy Spirit who has
been poured out to live within my heart begins to let me know in a very special
way that all of this stuff that I believe all of this stuff that I've heard all
my life isn't just imagination it isn't just true way out there it is true
because I know in my heart that God's love has been poured out and my heart
experiences with a certainty that you cannot put into words the reality that God
loves me and God is for me and nothing will ever separate me from the love of
God in Christ Jesus later on in Romans chapter 8 you will recall Paul puts it
this way he says it is the spirit himself bearing witness with my spirit that
we are the children of God and if children then heirs heirs of God and
fellow heirs with Christ provided that we suffer with him in order that we
may also be glorified with him John chapter 14 Jesus is the same thing to his
disciples when they're asking him Lord how is it that you're going to show
yourself to us after you've gone back to heaven and you're not going to show
yourself to the world in Jesus is if a man loves me he will keep my word and my
father will love him and will come and we will come and make our whole with him
you see that's the story of Christmas that's the story of the incarnation the
story of a man you will God with me and that doesn't mean that every moment of
every day that we've got to feel that love of God and that we've got to
experience that love of God nor does it necessarily feel that if we don't
experience that love of God we're not the children of God what I'm saying is
that as a normal consequence of being united with Christ there will be those
times when God's love being shed abroad within my heart bears witness with my
spirit with a certainty that only God can give me yes God loves me yes God is
for me I am a child of God and it doesn't matter what the world throws at me
God's going to get me through this and I will shout and I will live to sing the
praises of God you know what I'm talking about this morning I'm not
talking about some mere emotional high that says well you know I've got my
life together I'm not talking about some kind of a super high spiritual
experience that only certain kinds of personalities can ever experience I'm
talking about that quiet steadfast witness of the Holy Spirit with our hearts
in the middle of my pain and in the middle of my suffering where God just sort
of wraps his arms around me and he says it's gonna be all right for some of
us that happens and has happened in moments of illness there are some of you
here you've been ill you've been tempted on every hand with every kind of
temptation you wondered if ever you were going to live in the middle of that
pain somehow God showed you that he was really real maybe it wasn't an
answered prayer maybe it was even in the form of a friend that showed up and
understood your heart and poured out God's love through that person into your
life but you were encouraged and you were strengthened and you were helped
because you encountered God's love for others of us it's happened when when
we contemplated our sin and we wondered if God could ever forgive that sin we
walked around and a cloud of condemnation always feeling in the outside always
feeling like like maybe God at the last moment is going to pull something out
of his bag of tricks that will put me in hell for the rest of my life and and we
lack that confidence deep within our hearts and and then God spoke his word of
grace and through the pain and the agony of our guilty conscience God's word
came God's truth came God's love came and God touched my life and he said
it's okay your sins are all forgiven you're my child I love you and our
hearts began to overflow with the awareness of God's love and God's praise and
God's glory I remember years ago what it was fashionable in our circles
criticized Billy Graham and there was such a time you know somebody had made
the criticism to Billy Graham that that his his his altar calls were too
emotional and and that that emotion had no place in the worship of God and and I
recall his response because it was very measured and it was very wise and he
said what a person meets the Almighty God for the first time of his life
discovers that all of the sins have been washed away and that in Christ he has
become an heir of eternal life and eternal glory he said what do you expect to
happen in that person's heart hope does not disappoint us because God's love
has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to
us it ought to be normal we ought to be expecting the Spirit of God to bear
witness with my spirit that I'm a child of God and that I'm an heir of God's
kingdom and that God will be with me no matter what it is that we go through and
again I don't want to leave any misunderstandings I don't want to sound as if
unless you have this and unless you live this way all the time you're not a
child of God what I am saying is that what God promises that as the pressure of
life begins to increase the love that God sheds abroad within our heart to bear
witness to our spirits that we are the children of God will increase and of
that isn't happening if everything that I'm saying this morning sounds like
a foreign language to you then you need to re-examine your relationship to
Jesus Christ I say that because many years ago to the woman at the well the Lord
Jesus said whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst
and the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life that's a reference of course to the Holy Spirit
and when the Holy Spirit has been poured out into our hearts Jesus is that Holy
Spirit becomes a spring of water welling up to eternal life and and the word
there is an artesian well a natural spring we've all seen those you try to stop
them up and you put a plug in it here and it bursts out over there because
there's pressure behind it and it just naturally flows and it brings life and
water wherever it goes he says that's what ought to be happening in your life
and in my life if we're united with Jesus Christ doesn't necessarily always
mean we feel a certain way but the grace of God ought to be flowing within
our lives so that wherever we go the grace of God flowing out of our lives is
bringing healing and life into the lives of people and when that doesn't happen
I believe one of two things are true either we've never come to Christ or
having come to Christ there is something in our lives that is blocking the
flow of God's grace my experience has been that there are people of both
categories represented in the average church community I have people coming
to me in this church who in some cases have gone to church all their life and
they discover that for all the religiosity they have never truly repented of
their sins and never truly put their trust and their faith in Christ and very
often as they yield their hearts and their lives to Jesus there is a release of
the spirit of grace and a spirit of joy that comes within their hearts that you
have to see before you can believe it also have a lot of people that talk with
me and that ask for encouragement and advice who have given their lives to
Christ and they want to serve the Lord with everything that is within them but
they find missing in their life the joy of their salvation and then
sometimes we sit down and we talk about it and we try to ask the Holy Spirit to
show us where the stones are in the fountain and then by God's grace we take
those stones and we give them over to Jesus and we lay hold of the promises of
God that if I'm in Christ Jesus then God is my father and he will give me his
spirit and his spirit will carry me through and his spirit will fill me with a
love of God to the praise of his glory and my experience is the time and time
again when we do that God is true and faithful to his word and he fills our
hearts with his presence and with his life and with his power and the emotions
may come and the emotions may go but through it all and under it all there is
an awareness that God loves me and God is for me that gives us hope that
gives us courage to step out into the world and to face the darkness and the
pain and the anguish because we know there is nothing but nothing that
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord hope does not
disappoint us because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit let me tell you a true story and we'll conclude with that
this morning and again I share it with you with the permission of the individual
involved lady in our congregation came to see me about three months ago had
given her life to Christ wanted to serve him with everything that was within
her but found her life so dead no sense of joy no sense of love no sense of the
assurance of salvation felt no love for her husband lived in a deep cloud of
depression went to the doctor who tried to prescribe a variety of
medication she didn't want to be simply zombieed out on pills although pill
certainly have their place in that condition and many others and suggested that
really what she needed was some as he called it heavy duty counselor she came
to see me shared her frustration as I listened to her story the Holy Spirit just
sort of gave us insight as to what had been happening in her life because if
you look back in the course of her life you discover that all through the
course of her life she had never felt secure she had never felt loved and she
had never felt cherished by anybody because you see she had been born in a
family two years after an older sister had died her parents still living with
the grief of that loss it's something that I know other parents have done
also in life and they took the name of the baby that had died and they gave it
to her and all the years when she was growing up she felt that she was really a
substitute for the baby that had died and that her mother's heart was still
really with her sister imagine her pain then that as years went by and she grew
older her mother got sick never had any time for her then when she was 15 years
of age her mother died and for the next couple of years she ended up being the
housekeeper to her father and her father drew his emotional life from her and her
life even though she didn't realize it at the time was full of a sense of
rejection full of a sense of anger couldn't wait to get out of the home
married a man among other reasons to escape home never processed any of this
grief any of this heartache any of this pain and lived with it for years and
years and years until it surfaced in heavy duty depression there's a lot of
people like that there's a lot of people who have stones in the fountain stuff
that's never been processed stuff that poisons or souls to the court of our
being stuff that has wounded our hearts and has shut down all the feelings so
that we won't hurt the pain of rejection she cried it out we gave it to
Jesus I shared with her how Jesus as the son of God has gained for us access to
the Father's presence and how even if nobody in the whole world wanted her God
in Christ cherished her with an everlasting love God gave her the gift of
faith she stepped out and she reached out to receive that love of God she
confessed her anger anger towards her father anger towards her mother the
pain the rebellion and a month later she came back for a follow-up visit and I
had touched base with her in the meantime but she said I can't believe the
change that has happened in my life she related to me how for the next three
weeks she went home and she cried almost every day because you see all that
pain all that hurt that had been bottled up when the Holy Spirit begins to
start loosening things up and softening our hearts that pain begins to flow and
she cried and she cried and she cried and then when she was done crying she
knew that she knew that she knew it's okay God loves me I matter to God and she
knew that all of her sin and all of her failure and all of her anger was
paid for at the cross of Jesus and that Jesus Christ as the son of God was
shedding a broad in her life the love of God and for the first time in her life
she knew that she was a child of God not simply because she believed it
important as that is because but because the Spirit of God more witness with
her spirit that she's a child of God I spoke with her yesterday to ask her
permission to share the story with you this morning and she said this in
effect she said in these were not the words she used but she said in effect let
them know that God's love is something that I really experience now in my heart
and she said almost every day the song that is with me is the chorus of that
hymn that we sing so many times here amazing love how can it be that you my
Lord should die for me hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us to
the glory of God let us pray amazing love how can it be that you my Lord
should die for me some of us Lord perhaps don't know what it is to be loved
by you some of us don't think we're worth being loved by anybody because no
matter how many times we hear the gospel and no matter how many times we hear
your promises it's Lord like there is something inside us that says but it's
not for you it's only for good people you failed too many times you've
blown it too many times besides why would anybody want to love you Lord give us
the gift of faith help us to understand that in Jesus Christ you will never
turn us away and that in Jesus Christ you give us your spirit and that is you
give us your spirit your spirit will bear witness with our spirit that we are
the children of God and that we are the ears of God and then Lord one life
comes crashing around us and the pressure is on help us to have that steadfast
assurance born of faith and born of hope that nothing but nothing can
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and then Lord in a
world it is filled with pain and insecurity and heartache send us out into that
world to proclaim and to testify there is hope for the greatest sinner there
is hope for the most broken situation there is hope for the most the greatest
heartache because Jesus died and Jesus arose and it is well it is well with
our souls thank you Lord for hearing us in Jesus name. Amen.