Our scripture reading this morning is from Romans
chapter 5 verses 1 to 11. Romans 5
verses 1 to 11. Please listen now to
the reading of God's word.
Therefore,
since we have been justified
by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Through him we have also obtained access by
faith into this grace in which we stand,
and we rejoice in hope of the glory
of God.
Not only
that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing
that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope. And hope does not
put us to shame because God's love
has been poured into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the
right time Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will scarcely die for a righteous
person, though perhaps for a good person one
would dare even to die.
But God shows His love for us in
that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
Since therefore
we have been now been justified by His
blood,
much more shall we be saved by him
from the wrath of God. For if while
we were enemies we were reconciled to God
by the death of his son,
much more,
now that we are reconciled,
shall we be saved by his life.
More than that, we also rejoice in God
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received
reconciliation.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Please be seated.
Do you ever stop to think
about what a wonderful commodity,
what a wonderful benefit,
what a wonderful blessing
peace is.
It's not something that you think much about
when you're a child,
but the older you get, the more that
you understand
the value of peace.
Of course the term peace
can refer to an absence of hostility,
between nations for example,
or to harmonious relationships with family members,
or with friends,
or with lack of conflict
at work, or, in your neighborhood,
is the sort of thing that you may
not appreciate
until you don't have it.
And unless you're the kind of person who
enjoys conflict,
and there are some people who really do
enjoy conflict,
you will find yourself
longing
to experience
the tranquility,
the lack of drama,
and the sanity
that peace brings.
You may catch yourself thinking, oh, what I
wouldn't give to enjoy some peace and quiet.
Well, we live in one of the wealthiest
metropolitan areas
of one of the wealthiest
states
in the wealthiest country
at the most prosperous time in human history,
and yet peace
seems as elusive to us as it has
ever been for anyone.
Conflicts in the Middle East, and in the
Far East, and in
Europe, conflicts in which America is involved,
have the whole world on edge right now.
Within our own borders,
society
has not been this divided
along political,
ideological,
and religious lines, perhaps,
since the civil war.
And more people than ever before in their
own lives
and in their in in the lives of,
of their churches that they belong to,
are,
can can feel more isolated from one another.
They can feel discouraged.
They can feel,
desperate, even anxious,
and alone
than people in previous generations did. There's this
lack of cohesiveness
in the ways that we live in our
society.
And according to scripture,
the reason we feel this way,
the reason we are experiencing this lack of
peace
is because,
this is a world that is in rebellion
against God.
A world that has embraced
the lie that the serpent told in the
garden,
a world that has inherited the spirit of
Babel,
a world infected
by the devastating
effects of sin,
a world that worships and serves the creature
rather than the creator.
In short,
the reason for our lack of peace
is that this world
and our families
and we ourselves
are often being led
by weak,
ungodly sinners at enmity with God or at
least with the ideas
that these people,
have allowed
to come into the world and have triumphed
in,
in in the worldview that now governs us.
And
yet, the Bible tells us that we have
reason for hope.
The Bible tells us that the mercies of
our Heavenly Father are new every morning.
The Bible tells us that the Son of
God is the Prince of Peace.
The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit
is our helper, and that He is our
comforter.
And as we will see this morning, Romans
chapter 5 verses 1 to 11 tells us
that despite all the craziness that surrounds us,
and despite all the conflict that exists in
every sphere of life,
the Christian
can enjoy peace
in this life.
In fact, the main point that I want
you to remember this morning is this,
since in the past
Christ secured your future,
you can enjoy peace in the present.
Since in the past
Christ secured your future,
you can enjoy peace in the present.
So let's consider
our text under these three headings. Number 1,
rewards,
Number 2, redemption.
And number 3, rest.
Rewards, redemption, and rest. And we're going to
be looking at these 3 headings. We're gonna
spend a lot more time in the first
one. Okay? And then we'll do the second
and third one. Let's look at the first
one now, rewards.
Under this heading, we're looking at verses 1
to 5 especially, where Paul describes
6 benefits or rewards
that believers enjoy because of Christ's work.
Look at verses 1 and 2.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through Him we also have obtained access by
faith into this grace in which we stand,
and we rejoice in hope of the glory
of God.
So in these verses, we find the first
four rewards
that the first five verses give us.
1st, justification by faith.
2nd,
peace with God.
3rd,
access into God's grace.
And 4th,
rejoicing
in hope.
The last verse of chapter 4, which we
looked at last week, told us that it
was the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ that secured
our justification.
It's already happened.
It's been secured. This is why Paul writes
in verse 1 that we have already
been
justified by faith, because Jesus has already in
history
lived,
died,
and resurrected.
Jesus has already, in history, atoned
for our sin.
He has already paid our debt.
He has already satisfied
the holy wrath of God that our sin
incurred.
It's already happened.
It is finished.
Jesus has done it.
He has already redeemed us by His blood.
The father has accepted
the payment that Jesus has given.
Our debt has been satisfied.
This is why Paul writes in verse 1
concerning our second benefit
or reward, which is that we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So the first thing is that we have
been justified,
and the second is that we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, one cannot overemphasize
the immeasurable value
of this benefit.
If you have faith in Christ,
if you trust Him,
if you rest on His finished work
to atone
for your sin,
the Bible tells us that you have peace
with God.
You have peace with God.
This peace does not simply refer
to a feeling of satisfaction
or tranquility.
It's much more than that. It refers to
a status of goodwill and harmony
with God.
It means that you are no longer
at enmity
with God.
It means that His wrath and His fury
are no longer fixed on you.
It means that you don't have to dread
His justice.
It means that He is for you
and not
against you.
Think about what amazing benefit
this is.
This is why the cross is so glorious
to the Christian.
Because at the cross,
divine justice and mercy
intertwine.
They come together
at the cross to simultaneously
satisfy the wrath of God
and to appease the conscience
of repentant sinners.
When we look to the cross, we can
know for sure that the wrath of God
has been satisfied.
And we can also be at peace in
our conscience even though we're sinners.
We know that our sin is dealt with
and has been dealt with already at the
cross. That's an amazing gift to us.
Thus, when we look to the cross, we
can say amen
to the words of James in chapter 2
13 of his epistle, which state
mercy
triumphs over judgment.
At the cross,
mercy
triumphs over judgment. When my kids were younger,
I would tell them that when they pray,
they ought to put their hands together and
when and and then they should have their
left thumb,
I mean their right thumb go over their
left thumb. And that every time they would
form that cross with their right thumb over
their left, they could remember
that mercy triumphs over judgment
at the cross.
It's just it's a reminder to us that
mercy really does triumph over judgment, that when
we approach God's throne of grace, we look
to the cross, and we have peace of
conscience
because the wrath of God has been satisfied.
We are His children now.
In verse 2,
Paul writes of our 3rd benefit or reward,
which is that in Christ, we have obtained
access
by faith into this grace in which we
stand.
When you have a problem with some kind,
of some kind,
and you have access to someone who has
in a position of authority to help you
solve that problem,
you value that contact, don't you?
For example,
if someone were to steal your golf clubs
from your garage,
imagine how good it would be
if you had the friendship of Constant Gable,
of Constable Gable.
Some of us have experienced that, haven't we?
It's it's a great gift to know someone
who knows what to do,
who knows how to help you, who knows
what to do in that circumstance. That thief,
soon discovered that he had messed with the
wrong person.
Paul writes here,
that we Christians have access by faith
into this grace in which we stand.
This grace
that we have access because of Christ
is the state
of,
is the state of peace with God.
That's the grace that we have access to.
The state of peace with God. Because through
Christ,
God has declared us righteous already.
He's a holy God, but we are righteous
because of Jesus.
We can stand before Him. We can enter
into His throne of grace. In other words,
through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ,
we have
peace with God,
therefore in Jesus
we have obtained access to a loving God.
And this access is not a precarious
benefit that can be lost at any moment.
That the next time that you don't measure
up, that the next time that you mess
up, that the next time that you sin,
now you're in enmity with God again, and
now you don't have access anymore. It's not
that kind of benefit.
It is a permanent
benefit that God has given you.
Paul writes that we stand
in that state of grace.
That we are firmly rooted in that state
of grace.
Fully secure in that state of peace. Enjoying
favored
status
with the Holy God because Christ introduced
us into the Father's throne room.
We didn't just come in trampling into His
courts.
Christ Himself led us, and He said, and
He said, They are Mine.
We have access.
Talk about having access
to someone in a position of authority
to help solve our problems.
It is
God's Son
who intercedes for you.
You have access. Jesus
has given you access with his pass.
You can enter with his ID badge.
His identity
never fails you.
Every time you swipe His ID into the
throne of grace, the door opens.
Because it is His ID. It is His
identity. You are united to Him by faith.
How amazing
is that benefit?
In Christ,
therefore,
you have justification,
you have peace with God,
and you have access
into His throne of grace. This is why
you have a 4th benefit, and that is
that in Christ, you want to rejoice in
hope.
Paul writes in verse 2 that you can
rejoice in the hope of the glory of
God.
The sense in the original Greek is that
you can exalt,
even boast
in, the hope that Christ has secured for
you.
In other words, because this justification,
peace and access
are the result of Christ's work
and they don't depend on your work, you
can have a joyful confidence
that your inheritance in Jesus Christ is fully
secure.
That it cannot be lost.
You can boast in that inheritance.
Not because it's anything you've done, but because
it's a gift that has been given to
you.
This kind of assurance, this boast in the
certainty of your salvation
that Christ has secured for you is not
presumptuous
and is not unseemly.
Precisely
because it is not your doing.
It's not your doing.
It's God's gift to you in Jesus Christ
through a spirit
wrought faith.
We boast in God.
The triune God gets all the glory because
salvation belongs to Him.
In verses 3 and 4, Paul explains that
because of Christ's work, the believer
is right to rejoice in every circumstance,
even in adverse circumstances.
He writes this,
Not only that,
but we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces
hope.
According to Paul, Christians can and ought to
rejoice in their sufferings, rejoice in their hardships,
rejoice in their trials,
rejoice in their tribulations.
Now, at first glance, this seems
to be either the epitome of irrationality
or perhaps evidence
of a psychiatric deficiency that manifests in masochism.
However, the context allows for no such conclusion.
Paul is nothing,
if not resolutely
logical in the force of his argumentation.
Just like he never argues for blind faith,
Paul never exalts meaningless suffering.
That's not what he's talking about.
Instead, he argues in a very rational,
logical, and persuasive manner that God is sovereign
over creation.
That long ago He promised to save His
people
from their sin, and that He has already
accomplished that rescue mission
through the life, death, and resurrection of His
Son.
Therefore, because this Sovereign God, who has complete
control over creation
and over the events that unfold in history,
loves His people,
it logically follows
that all the circumstances
in the lives of Christians
work together for their good
because they are planned
by their loving God.
They are foreordained
by their loving God. They are decreed
by their loving God. They are executed
in accordance with their loving God's perfect
and good
will.
Paul will explicitly
make this point in Romans 8 verses 28
to 30, the well known and glorious passage
which reads like this, and we know that
for those who love God,
all things work together for good, for those
who are called according to His purpose.
For those whom He foreknew,
He also predestined
to be conformed to the image of His
Son, in order that He might be the
firstborn among many brothers.
And those whom He predestined,
He also called,
and those whom He called, He also justified,
and those whom He justified,
He also glorified.
As a result,
because all of this is true,
because salvation belongs to the Lord, because He
is the author and perfecter of our faith,
because He holds you in the palm of
His hand and protects you,
Because no one can snatch you away from
Him. Because nothing can separate you from His
love, you can logically rejoice
in all circumstances,
even in your suffering.
Listen, Paul is not saying that suffering is
something that we are supposed to seek out,
or that we are supposed to pretend
like suffering is a pleasant experience to us.
But he's also not saying
that we are merely called to endure without
complaining.
He's not simply calling us to contentment.
Rather,
because through the blood of Christ we are
no longer God's enemies,
instead of understanding suffering as a sign of
God's displeasure
or as our punitive recompense due to our
sin,
we are to understand that our trials
have now become
an instrument
for our own
sanctification,
an instrument for our own spiritual growth,
an instrument to make us more like Jesus,
and therefore,
legitimate grounds
for our glorying and rejoicing in God.
Think about that. When we are suffering, when
we are going through difficult circumstances,
we are not to think that God is
punishing us for our sin.
Christ took our punishment. He really did. That's
not what's going on.
But He is changing us through it. He
is working in us through it. He is
going to make us more like Christ through
it.
It is an amazing
gift to us
when you are in Jesus Christ.
This is why when we have,
undergone trials as Christians,
we we have seen His faithfulness to us
and we can repeat with joy
the end of Paul's words in Romans 8,
where he boldly states,
Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?
Shall tribulation,
or distress,
or persecution,
or famine,
or nakedness,
or danger,
or sword?
No.
In all these things we are more than
conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am sure
that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor rulers,
nor things present nor things to come,
nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in
all creation will be able
to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What an amazing thing to say, and it's
all true. Talk about being fully justified.
Talk about having peace with God.
Talk about having access to His throne of
grace. Talk about having reason to rejoice in
all circumstances.
It's God's love
that governs
every
aspect of your life.
It is the love of your Heavenly Father
that governs every aspect of your life.
So, without minimizing its significance or pain,
nevertheless,
you can rejoice
in your suffering,
knowing that instead
of separating you from God, it will be
an occasion for you to depend on Him,
for you to recognize your own limitations,
for you to appeal to His power through
prayer,
and for you to learn to trust
and obey Him, expecting to see Him sustain
you
in and through suffering.
It's God's plan.
We were hoping to come before presbytery
this,
January 19th. We've been praying for that day,
we've been looking forward to that day, we're
gonna have to wait till April.
It's God's plan.
It teaches us patience.
It teaches us humility.
It gives us time to prepare for what's
coming. Praise the Lord. It gives us more
time to pray. Praise the Lord for that.
He's in control.
This is why,
suffering produces endurance.
Because you learn experientially
then God will carry you through.
He will not let go of you.
He is the good shepherd who is with
you, who goes before you
when you walk
through the valley of the shadow of death.
In verse 4, Paul writes that endurance produces
character.
The word character carries with it a sense
of being tested and approved.
It is a tried integrity.
In other words,
because God sustains his people in and through
trials, Christians who undergo trials learn to trust
in the fidelity of God.
We learn to not be shaken.
We become more firm in our conviction.
The heat of the oven of tribulation
solidifies your faith
because it removes the impurities of doubt as
you test
that God will always be with you and
that he never will abandon you.
The unbiblical doctrine of purgatory
teaches that after death, Christians need to suffer
for an undisclosed amount of time so they
can pay for the remaining guilt of their
sin,
and become worthy to stand before God forever.
Think about everything that we've read so far
in Romans. Does that make any sense?
Do you have to do it so that
you're worthy? Is there anything that you need
to add? No.
Paul's letter to the to the Romans disabuses
us from such notion, making it abundantly clear
that the blood of Christ has already atoned
for our sin,
that it is His holiness and righteousness
imputed to us
that gives us access to God both now
and forevermore.
His blood is sufficient.
His work is finished.
You are forgiven.
You have access.
Yet, there is a purgatory that is real.
It is a purgatory that takes place in
this life,
as suffering purges you, not from the guilt
of your sin,
the blood of Christ has already done that,
But, from any remaining doubt in God's love,
in God's goodness,
and in God's power to preserve you
through trial, to preserve your faith.
You see, trials are the testing ground for
God's steadfast love,
enabling you to develop a faith that has
been tested and approved.
Therefore, suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces
character,
and character produces
hope.
And in verse 5, Paul writes,
that Paul writes the following, and hope does
not put put us to shame because God's
love has been poured out in the in
our hearts through the Lord, I'm sorry, through
the Holy Spirit who has been given to
us.
So in verses 1 to 4,
we have seen 4 rewards that the believer
can enjoy because of Christ's work. Justification by
faith,
peace with
God, access into God's grace, and rejoicing in
hope. In verse 5, we find
the the other two benefits, numbers 5 and
6, the other two rewards given to the
believer. Number 5, God pours His love into
the believer's heart. And finally, number 6, we
get the gift that makes every other gift
possible.
God gives the believer the Holy Spirit.
The gift of the Holy Spirit was predicted
by the prophet Joel in Joel 2, but
also by the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36
verses 26 and 27
where God says,
And I will give you a new heart,
and a new spirit I will put within
you.
And I will remove the heart of stone
from your heart of flesh and give you
your heart of flesh. And I will put
My spirit within you, and cause you to
walk in My statutes
and be careful to obey My rules.
In Romans 118 all the way through Romans
3 20,
Paul made it clear that fallen man is
incapable
and in
and of himself
to obey God, to please God, because fallen
human beings are corrupt.
So God graciously provides a substitute,
His own son,
to perfectly keep the law in our place
and to atone for our sin on the
cross.
Furthermore,
we now see that God also gives us
the Holy Spirit,
who as we have seen in Ezekiel,
changes our heart of stone
into a heart of flesh,
enabling us to love,
trust, and obey God.
In other words,
the Holy Spirit
regenerates our hearts
so we can see our sin,
repent,
turn away from sin, and turn to Christ,
and be saved.
It is the Holy Spirit who enables us
to do those things. That is what Jesus
refers to in John 3 verse 5, where
He tells Nicodemus that unless one is born
of water and the spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
We cannot repent of our sin. We cannot
hate our sin. We cannot turn to Christ
and trust in Him. We cannot love God
unless the Holy Spirit regenerates us.
There can be therefore no greater gift than
the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit that causes us
to be born again.
It is also the Holy Spirit who pours
God's love into our hearts,
changing our heart of stone through that love
into a heart of flesh. A heart that
is capable of loving God, a heart that
is capable of loving His law, a heart
that is capable of loving
our neighbors.
In other words, if we have the Holy
Spirit within us,
He will produce His fruit in our lives.
Saying you believe in Jesus is not enough.
In fact, in Matthew 7 verses 21 to
23, Jesus gives this sobering warning. He says,
Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord'
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the
one who does the will of my father
who is in heaven.
On that day many will say to me,
'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your
name
and cast out demons in Your name,
and do many mighty works in Your name?'
And then will I declare to them, 'I
never knew you
depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'
This warning is not meant to
make you doubt your salvation,
rather it's supposed to do the opposite if
you're in Christ.
Even though on the one hand, Jesus makes
it clear that you cannot fool God,
on the other hand, He shows that God
knows those who belong to Him.
And Jesus says that you can also know,
you can distinguish between a false teacher and
someone who truly is His disciple.
In Matthew 7 17, Jesus says this, you
will recognize them by their fruits.
You will recognize them by their fruits. In
other words, if you belong to Christ, you
will have the gift of the Holy Spirit,
and your life will manifest
the fruit of the Spirit. If you don't,
then the fruit of the spirit will not
be there. So you will recognize a false
teacher,
you will also recognize somebody who's truly a
disciple.
If you have the fruit of the spirit,
because it means you have the spirit.
Well, what is that
fruit? Paul tells us in Galatians 5 verses
22 to 23. It's a great text to
memorize, Galatians 5 22 23.
There, Paul tells us that the fruit of
the Spirit is love,
joy, peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
and self control.
If you have the gift of the Holy
Spirit, you will also manifest
the gift of God's love.
So if you have God's love, that is
to say, if you love God
and,
you will also love His word,
and you will also love your neighbor.
Because the whole law is contained in this,
Jesus says. In loving God with all your
heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your
neighbor as yourself,
Even if not perfectly.
Even if not always.
If you love God, His word and your
neighbor,
that's a clear sign that you have the
Holy Spirit within you because He is the
one who produces the gift of love.
And from this gift of love, every other
fruit of the Spirit follows.
Perhaps not immediately, and perhaps not perfectly, but
you will grow in your joy.
You will grow
in your peace.
You will grow in patience.
You will grow in kindness.
You will grow in goodness.
You will grow in faithfulness.
You will grow in gentleness,
you will grow
in self control.
It's a wonderful way whenever you feel like
maybe God doesn't love you, whenever you have
doubts about your salvation, you can go to
this list. And far from being crushed by
it,
there there are ways in which you can
see you can pray, Lord, help me grow
in these areas.
Help me be the kind of person who
pursues peace and not conflict.
Help me be the kind of person who
is patient.
Help me be the kind of person who
exhibits self control.
And as you grow, as the as the
Spirit helps you, that will,
give give you even more assurance of your
salvation. It's a wonderful blessing to the believer
to have the fruit of the Spirit.
Therefore, your assurance of salvation is not a
boast in your goodness, rather, it is rooted
in the manifestation
of God's love in your life.
The Christian glory is in God's love because
He owes everything to God's love.
This brings us to our second heading this
morning, I'm a shorter heading, and that is
the one of redemption.
In verses 6 to 8, Paul focuses on
the role of love in securing our redemption.
He writes, for while we were still weak,
at the right time Christ died for the
ungodly.
For one will scarcely die for a righteous
person, though perhaps for a good person one
would dare even to die.
But God shows His love for us,
in that while we were still sinners,
Christ
died for us.
Let us settle this point once and for
all.
Your obedience to God's law
is not the reason
God placed His love on you.
Your good works
are not the reason.
They're not the grounds
on which God deemed you worthy
to be saved.
Your turning away from sin from sin is
not what caused Jesus
to choose to die for you.
Therefore,
your status as saved
will neither depend
on your obedience to God's law, nor on
your good works, nor on you turning away
from sin
perfectly,
because these were never the reasons
why you were saved to begin with.
In fact, in verses 6 to 8, Paul
writes that Christ died for weak,
ungodly
sinners.
This is why,
in verse 10,
Paul says that we were enemies of God.
Now, please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm
not saying that God does not care about
our piety.
That God does not care about our godliness.
That God does not care about our doing
good works. He does, and He does very
much, and we ought to care.
We ought to care.
Remember,
that Jesus says that a good tree produces
good fruit.
But that is my point.
Good works are the fruit of your salvation,
not the root.
The root of your salvation is God's
unconditional love for you.
While you were weak,
while you were ungodly,
while you were a sinner, while you were
His enemy. In other words, the reason your
hope is secure,
the reason you can enjoy assurance of salvation,
is that it rests entirely on God's unconditional
love for you.
It is an unconditional love that He has
demonstrated already in Jesus Christ.
Imagine the implications
of Jesus' words in John 13,
when He gives us a new commandment. He
says, a new commandment I give you, that
you love one another as I have loved
you.
How has God loved us? How does Christ
love? He loves us in this way.
We were talking about this text yesterday, and
Julio told me,
that one of the ways in which he
remembers application for this text, he said,
God loved us when we didn't meet his
demands.
And so he calls us to love people
when they don't meet our demands.
Imagine that.
Husbands.
Where's Samara?
Oh, man. She's not here to hear this.
I'll tell her. Believe me.
We're to love people when they don't meet
our demands. Why? Because this is how God
loves us.
What kind of love is this? I can't
love that way.
We can in Jesus Christ. We have to
depend on Him. It's a humbling thing.
We rely on God's power to do this.
God loves you unconditionally.
And the reason you can know that He
loves you unconditionally
is precisely because while you were weak, and
ungodly, and a sinner, and an enemy of
God, Christ died for you.
Paul knows that one would scarcely die for
a righteous person, though perhaps for a good
person, one would dare even to die. But
you and I were neither righteous nor good,
we were neither morally upright, nor kind, nor
gracious,
We were not worthy of anyone's love, and
certainly not worthy of anyone sacrificing His life
for us.
Yet it was precisely
when we were in such an unworthy state,
when in the fullness of time, Christ
loved us and died for us.
Note first the irony
this entails. It is the righteousness, it is
the righteous
good man who dies for the weak ungodly
center.
Higher body.
Secondly, notice the security that this brings.
Since he took our weakness and ungodliness
and sin,
and paid for their consequences,
these attributes are no longer part of our
record.
Instead, we have His record of righteousness
and goodness
credited to us.
It's amazing.
This is the amazing nature of God's love.
The saving love that anchors our redemption.
As if commenting on our text, the Apostle
John writes in 1st John 4, verses 9
and 10,
In this, the love of God was made
manifested was made manifest among us, that God
sent His only Son into the world so
that we might live through Him.
In this love,
I'm sorry, in this is love,
not that we love God
but that He loved us
and sent His son to be a propitiation
for our sins.
His love is a propitiating
love, a love that transforms curse into blessing
because
wretched sinners are its object
and justified
saints are its result.
So we have seen that through Christ's work
we have received great rewards, and that through
Christ's love, we have a sure redemption.
This brings us to our final
heading this morning, rest.
In verses 9 and 10, Paul writes,
since therefore we have now been justified by
his blood,
much more shall we shall we be saved
by him from the wrath of God. For
if while we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God by the death of his son,
much more
so sorry. Much more now that we are
reconciled,
shall we be saved by His
life?
Paul, continuing with his relentless logic,
here argues that if God sent His Son
to shed His blood and to die for
us while we were His enemies,
now that we are His sons and we
are His daughters,
we can be sure that he will save
us to the uttermost.
He writes that, and while we were God's
enemies, we were reconciled to him through the
death of Jesus.
Now that Christ lives
to intercede for us, our assurance of salvation
must be unshakable.
In other words, if God loved you
while you were His enemy,
you can be sure
He loves you now,
and therefore,
that he loves you now, sorry, that you
are his son and daughter.
Think about it. He loved you while you
were his enemy, so much so much so
much so that he died for you. Now
that he lives,
you can be sure that he loves you,
that you are His son and daughter.
And if while you were God's enemy,
Christ's death brought you reconciliation,
the resurrected Jesus will certainly preserve
your salvation.
You see, through Christ, you are not merely
pardoned. God doesn't merely say, go, get out
of here, I forgive you.
No. Through Christ's life, death, and resurrection,
you become God's beloved child.
God says, come.
You have access.
Inherit the kingdom that I have prepared for
you. I love you.
So you don't have to fear God's wrath
because Christ has already satisfied it.
You don't have to fear trials and tribulations
because Christ endured tribulation for you and is
with you and will sustain you.
You don't have to fear death because Christ
died
and was raised,
and you will be raised with Him,
being united to Him by a Spirit wrought
faith.
Jesus says in John 1419,
because I live,
you also will live.
If you have placed your faith in Jesus
Christ, then you can enjoy rest,
fully confident that if He purchased you with
His death, He will also bless you forever
through His resurrection life.
In verses 12,
Paul wrote that since believers have been justified
by faith, they have peace with God through
Christ,
enabling them to experience
joy in all circumstances.
Now in verse 11,
Paul circles back to the same thought, saying,
More than that, we also rejoice in God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we
now receive reconciliation.
So don't miss this. The amazing this amazing
passage, which teaches us about the blessed rewards
that are ours through Christ's work, and about
our glorious redemption
through Christ's love, and that we can certainly
rest in Christ's resurrection,
this passage
is surrounded,
encompassed, and covered by the declaration
that in Christ we can rejoice
because through Christ we have peace with God.
Paul writes that you were weak,
that you were ungodly,
that you were a sinner, and that you
were God's enemy.
Yet,
because of His great love, Christ who is
strong died for the weak.
Because of his great love,
Christ who is holy died for the ungodly.
Because of his great love, Christ who is
righteous died for the sinner.
And because of his great love, Christ who
is the only begotten son of God,
died for God's enemy.
Your great problem is overcome by His great
love.
In the past, Christ secured your future so
you can enjoy peace in the present.
Thus the great reformer Martin Luther comments.
So when the devil throws your sin in
your face
and declares that you deserve death and hell,
tell him this,
I admit that I deserve death and hell
what of it?
For I know one who suffered
and made satisfaction in my behalf.
His name is Jesus Christ,
Son of God.
And where He is,
there
I shall be also.
You have access.
You have peace with God. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ.
That while we were weak
at the right time,
Christ died for us.
That while we were sinners,
He loved us in such a way that
He gave us His righteousness, and took our
sin, nailed it to the cross,
took your wrath,
being our propitiation,
removing the guilt of our sin,
satisfying your holy wrath,
making us clean by his blood,
that while we were your enemies,
He loved us in such a way that
by His life, death, and resurrection, we have
been reconciled to You. We have peace with
You, Lord.
Father, I pray that we would not forget
that.
That whenever we don't meet
the perfect requirements of the law,
we would not doubt in your love,
because while we were your enemies, Christ died
for us.
How much more now that we are your
sons and daughters through His blood,
that we have been adopted through a spirit
without faith? How much more now can we
not be certain of your love, your steadfast
love that never changes, your steadfast love that
provides mercies for us every morning?
And Father, I pray that that love would
transform us,
so that we become more like Jesus,
so that we are the furthest away possible
from any sense of self righteousness,
instead being humbled by your grace, and therefore
being the kind of people who are gracious
to others,
who forgive those who sin against us because
we have been forgiven by you.
Oh Father, may we be people of peace,
because we have peace with you.
Father, we love you, we praise you, and
we pray all these things in Christ's name.
Amen.
Well, let's stand now
to thank God with this closing hymn
as we marvel at the deep,
deep love of Jesus.