III. The one emotion with which the Christian should front all the
facts, inward and outward, of his earthly life.
'We glory in the hope,' 'we glory in tribulation,' I need not dwell
upon the lesson which is taught us here by the fact that the Apostle
puts as one in a series of Christian characteristics this of a
steadfast and all-embracing joy. I do not believe that we Christian
people half enough realise how imperative a Christian duty, as well
as how great a Christian privilege, it is to be glad always. You have
no right to be anxious; you are wrong to be hypochondriac and
depressed, and weary and melancholy. True; there are a great many
occasions in our Christian life which minister sadness. True; the
Christian joy looks very gloomy to a worldly eye. But there are far
more occasions which, if we were right, would make joy instinctive,
and which, whether we are right or not, make it obligatory upon us. I
need not speak of how, if that hope were brighter than it commonly is
with us, and if it were more constantly present to our minds and
hearts, we should sing with gladness. I need not dwell upon that
great and wonderful paradox by which the co-existence of sorrow and
of joy is possible. The sorrows are on the surface; beneath there may
be rest. All the winds of heaven may rave across the breast of ocean,
and fret it into clouds of spume against a storm-swept sky. But deep
down there is stillness, and yet not stagnation, because there is the
great motion that brings life and freshness; and so, though there
will be wind-vexed surfaces on our too-often agitated spirits, there
ought to be deeper than these the calm setting of the whole ocean of
our nature towards God Himself. It is possible, as this Apostle has
it, to be 'sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.' It is possible, as his
brother Apostle has it, to 'rejoice greatly, though now for a season
we are in sorrow through manifold temptations.' Look back upon your
lives from the point of view that your tribulation is an instrument
to produce hope, and you will be able to thank God for all the way by
which He has led you.
Now, brethren, the plain lesson of all this is just that we have
here, in these texts, a linked chain, one end of which is wrapped
around our sinful hearts, and the other is fastened to the Throne of
God. You cannot drop any of the links, and you must begin at the
beginning, if you are to be carried on to the end. If we are to have
a joy immovable, we must have a 'steadfast hope.' If we are to have a
'steadfast hope,' we must have a present 'grace.' If we are to have a
present 'grace,' and 'access' to the fullness of God, we must have
'peace with God.' If we are to have 'peace with God,' we must have
the condemnation and the guilt taken away. If we are to have the
condemnation and the guilt taken away, Jesus Christ must take them.
If Jesus Christ is to take them away, we must have faith in Him. Then
you can work it backward, and begin at your own end, and say, 'If I
have faith in Jesus Christ, then every link of the chain in due
succession will pass through my hand, and I shall have justifying,
peace, access, the grace, erectness, hope, and exultation, and at
last He will lead me by the hand into the glory for which I dare to
hope, the glory which the Father gave to Him before the foundation of
the world, and which He will give to me when the world has passed
away in fervent heat.'