Turn, if you would, to Romans
chapter 5. We'll begin in verse 1. Romans chapter 5, verse 1. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith unto this grace in which
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not
only so, but we glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation
worketh patience. Patience, experience, and experience
hope. and hope maketh not a shame because
of the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
who is given unto us. For when we were yet without
strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man
some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward
us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more
than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from
the wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more
being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only
so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
we have now received the reconciliation. Paul, who wrote the book of Romans,
really filled this book full of doctrine. I think of all the
scripture, you have doctrine throughout from Genesis all the
way to Revelation, but Romans is perhaps one of the most doctrinally
packed books in the Bible, at least I think so. And it's a
book that presents the sovereignty of God's grace as plain and precise
as anywhere that you can find throughout scripture. And I think
Paul's primary purpose in this was to give this church the great
doctrines of grace. And while I was thinking about
this, unlike some of his other epistles like 1 and 2 Corinthians
or Ephesians or some of the other ones, in writing this, he was
not writing to correct errant doctrine and he wasn't really
writing to correct some sin that was in this particular church
as far as we know. the church at Rome was doctrinally
sound. We also know up to this point
that no apostle had actually visited the church yet. They'd
been getting letters and were instructed, but as far as we
know in the scripture, and I could be mistaken, that there was no
doctrinal error here and there was no gross sin that he needed
to address. You know, Romans is a book of
logic, and therefore, There are a lot of therefores in the book
of Romans. There's the therefore of condemnation
that's in chapter two. There's the therefore of justification,
which we just read in chapter five. There's the therefore of
now no condemnation. And then later in the book in
chapter 12, there's the therefore of dedication. In this book,
Paul explains to us that all have sinned. and that the whole
world, all mankind, is guilty before God. And that there is
nothing we can do with religious works or religious deeds that
can change that in any way, shape or form. Salvation has always
been from the very beginning in the Old Testament through
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is by grace. And we know
that God gives us the faith. We're all sinners and we need
a savior and Christ is that Savior. And also, and I'm not going to
cover all of these in the time that we have, but Paul answers
some really important questions in the book of Romans. First
and foremost, which we just said, the question, who's a sinner?
All of us are sinners. He answers the question of whom
did Christ die? He died for his elect. He answers
the question, how is one saved? How is one reconciled through
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? And latter,
he addresses, once a person has been justified, can they lose
that justification? And the answer to that question
is no. But for this evening, I'm going to focus on the first
two verses, and I'm going to get my outline from three words
that we find in those first two verses. The title of my message,
I guess if I had one, but we always kind of have a title,
is The Blessings of Justification. And there are a lot. And there's
no way that I could cover them if we, well, I could, but we
might be here until next Thursday. But I'm sure we all have a place
to go, so we're not gonna do that. Which is why I'm just gonna
look at these first two verses in chapter one. And in listing
these blessings, Paul is showing us how wonderful it is to be
one of God's elect. I mean, salvation, forgiveness,
reconciliation, all these things is not just a ticket to heaven,
which we all will spend eternity with him, those of us who know
him, but there's so much more. There's blessings that we experience.
There's blessings that we have through Christ and God's riches
are inexhaustible. for His people. And so the first
word that is part of my outline is we have peace with God. You look at verse 1, therefore,
being justified by faith, we have peace with God. The Bible says, and you read
it, that we're at enmity with God. Mankind is at war. with God,
and it is a war that man cannot even possibly win. He can't. So the question is,
why are we at war and how did that happen? Well, and I'm not
gonna be telling y'all anything you don't already know. This
is like eating a dessert that you enjoy, so not gonna get anything
new. So we're just gonna, so I'm gonna
be referring to what happened in Genesis for each one of the
points that I make. So how did it happen? Well, we
see that it happened in the first three books of Genesis, in the
first three chapters of Genesis. So God created the heavens and
the earth. Amen? And it was perfect. And
then he created the plant life, he created aquatic life, he created
the birds, he created the animals, and it was perfect. Then he created
man, Adam and Eve, and they were perfect. and he had fellowship
with them. The Bible says he walked with
them, and he talked with them, and things could not have been
any more perfect. But this is where it all began,
because Adam, of his own will, sinned against, he disobeyed
God. God told him, you can eat anything
in the garden, but the day that you eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, in that day you will surely die.
And so when Adam deliberately disobeyed God, everything changed. Man changed. He was no longer
innocent. He was no longer perfect. The
relationship was no longer perfect. He had
brought sin into the world. For by one man, sin entered into
the world. And there it is right there.
And so we also know from this book that that sin nature is
passed on to everybody. Every single person who is a
descendant of Adam brings with them that sin nature. Is there
anybody here who's not a descendant of Adam? Because I'd be worried.
But it's passed down to everyone. And then not only did man change,
but the world changed. The perfect environment that
God had created became cursed. And we see that the thorns came,
thistles came, biting insects came, disease came, sickness,
all of these things. But what affects us the most
is that man was now at enmity with God and would be. without Christ. And there it
is. Isaiah said, there is no peace,
saith the Lord unto the wicked, but God. Christ's death and resurrection
for the people he died, he brought peace and he brought forgiveness. And forgiveness is a wonderful
thing. I mean, I'm sure you all don't,
but I can sometimes take for granted the blessings that we
have. Because we've been in church,
some of us our whole lives, and we hear about forgiveness and
all. But to be forgiven is a wonderful
thing. Amen. I mean, it really is. Have
you ever had to have somebody forgive you for something that
you did that you were really sorry that you did it? And it
just brings, I have. I was watching, and I don't know
if you remember this, but this happened in the early 2000s. I was watching the sentencing
phase of a trial for Gary Ridgeway. He was known as the Green River
Killer, and they were televising it. And he was responsible for
killing multiple, multiple, I don't even know how many. And as they
were going through the trial, this man sat there stone-faced,
without emotion, without remorse. And when it got to the sentencing
phase, the judge allowed family members to speak before they
were gonna pass the sentence. And this guy was guilty. So one
person got up and she said, I hope that you burn in hell throughout
all eternity. And without Christ, that's exactly
what was going to happen. And he deserved it. Another person
got up and she said, I hope that you suffer. I hope that you suffer
and suffer and suffer. And still he sat there stone-faced,
no expression. Third person got up and said,
I will hate you for the rest of my life. And this went on,
and I don't remember how many there were, but a gentleman got
up who was a father of one of the women that he had killed.
And he said, and this may not be exact word for word, but he
said something to the effect of, you know, there's a lot of
people in here who hate you. And he said, I'm not one of them.
He said, I believe God's grace and I believe that God's word
says that I am to forgive you. And as difficult as you have
made that for me, I forgive you. And at that moment, this man,
this murderer, this cold hearted, and it wasn't going to change
his sentence, wasn't going to change the outcome of nothing.
He just broke down and cried because one person forgave him.
And again, he was still going to suffer. Think about our sin. Think about the thoughts that
we think about all of it and that God has forgiven us. What a blessing that is. So justification
means that God has declared us righteous. He's forgiven us and
the war is over. Now the war that we have within
ourselves, as you were talking about this morning, that goes
on and on until God takes us home. But the war with God is
over. Number two, we have access to
God. Verse two says, by whom also
we have access by faith onto this grace in which we stand
and rejoice. Back to Adam and Eve. When Adam
and Eve sinned, they were expelled from the presence of God. They
would live in a world where at that point nobody had access
to God. It was only later when the high
priest in the tabernacle would go into the Holy of Holies once
a year and would offer sacrifice. He was the only person who could
go into the presence of God, because as you know, his presence
dwelt between the two cherubims, the Ark of the Covenant, but
nobody else had access. And then, when the temple was
built, there was a veil, and that veil kept everybody out. You ever wonder how big that
veil was? And I'm getting this from Josephus and some of the
other historians. According to him, that veil was
over 45 feet high, some 30 feet wide, and four inches thick. And it was made in squares and
then put together in squares. That was a thick wall. And it
was meant to be that way so that people would know you don't have
access to God. Four inches thick. Imagine hanging
it. But we'll get to something else
in just a minute. So again, the only person who
had access was the high priest. But when Christ came, who was
the perfect sacrifice, he was sinless, and he was on the cross,
and he paid for every single sin of every single one of his
elect. You know, let me pause there
for a minute. Let's kind of make this personal. When Christ was on the cross,
he was God, perfect lamb. And God treated him as if he
committed every single one of my sins and yours. Amen. God turns around and looks at
us as if we had never sinned. And Christ on the cross, even
though God treated him as if he committed none of our sins,
we did. So on the cross, when the price
was paid and he said, it is finished, the Bible tells us that it was
God himself who tore that four-inch thick veil in half, meaning that
all have access to God. Jew, Gentile, man, woman, child,
through Christ, we all have access to God. And with that means that,
according to Romans and according to Ephesians, we have access
to the inexhaustible riches of God's grace. We stand in grace
and not in the law. We stand in his blessings and
not condemnation. But what this also means that
we have access to God is we have access through prayer. We have
access to the creator of the universe, our heavenly father,
that we can talk to. I was always very close to my
dad from the time that I was a little kid until the time that
he went on to be with the Lord in 98. And we spent a lot of
time talking, and I would talk to him about things that were
good that were happening. I would talk to him about problems
that I may be facing. And you know the thing is, if
it was humanly possible for him to help me, He would, but there
were some things that was just not humanly possible for Him
to help me with, just because He's human. But we have access
to our Heavenly Father. His power is inexhaustible. His riches are inexhaustible.
There's absolutely nothing that He can't do in His will. So as believers, what a blessing
it is that we have access to God through prayer. As I was
putting the message together, I remembered somebody had asked
me. a question, they said, if you
believe that God is sovereign, and you believe that God has
a plan, and you believe that God is going to work out all
of the details according to His plan. They were poking at me
because I believed in the sovereignty of God. And they said, if you
believe all these things, God's going to do what He's going to
do anyway, why pray? And you know how it is when somebody
asks you a question right at the moment, I didn't know exactly
what to say and I hemmed and hawed and muttered a little bit,
but about 20 minutes later, I had an answer for him. So I thought about it. Well,
why do we pray? Well, first of all, because God
told us to, and that's really it right there. God told us to
pray. Well, what if it doesn't change
anything? Well, I believe prayer is all
part of God's plan. You think about the salvation
of a sinner. So did God choose a people before
the foundation of the world? Yes. Is there any way that if
God chose them that they're not going to make it? No. Is there
anything that we can do to prevent one of God's elect to coming
to the saving knowledge of Christ? No, there's nothing that Satan
can do to prevent it. Yet at the same time, he still
tells us to go out and preach the gospel. So that's part of his plan. With that, I say that prayer
is part of God's plan. He commands us to pray, and He
uses those prayers to do exactly what He was going to do in the
first place. But we have the privilege to
be part of God's plan. And then secondly, we pray because
Christ prayed. Our Lord is the God-man, our
mediator, our substitute, our propitiation, but He's also our
example. And throughout Scripture, we
see Christ praying. over and over again. I was thinking
about the miracle a lot of people talk about, the feeding of the
5,000. The first thing you read scripture that he did when he
had the loaves and fishes in his hand was he looked to heaven
and prayed. And then after it was all over with and the people
dispersed, the Bible tells us that he went into the mountains
to pray. The blessing of justification
is that we have access to God. And then lastly, we have a glorious
hope. Verse two in the latter part
says, that by whom also we have access by faith into his grace
in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Now, unlike our English word
hope, The New Testament word contains absolutely no uncertainty
whatsoever. In fact, it speaks of something
that is certain, but has not yet been realized. And as God's
elect, our ultimate destination is to be in His presence. You know, without the clear and
certain promises of the Word of God, we would have no basis
for our hope. But we do. One more time, going
back to Adam. When Adam and Eve sinned, there
was separation. But God made a promise. He promised
to send a Savior. And in Bethlehem of Judea, 2,000
years ago, he fulfilled his promise and then completed it outside
the gates of Jerusalem 33 years after that, when our Lord died. And because of that, because
of what he did, because of the sacrifice, we will be in the
presence of God. Our Lord is our hope. I'm going
to end with, and I know for sure I've quoted this verse here before,
but it's one of my favorite verses. And it was the words of our Lord
when he was speaking to the apostles the night that he was betrayed.
He said, let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God,
believe also in me. For in my father's house are
many mansions. Were not so, I would have told
you. I go and prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself,
that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go you
know, and the way you know. And Thomas said, or we know not
where thou goest, and how can we know the way? And he said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father, but by me. You know, life seems like it
can drag on and we go through the struggles, but in the whole
scope of things, it's really short in comparison to eternity. And when we go to be with the
Lord, not only are we going to be in his presence, not only
are we going to be with our Lord and Savior, we're going to be
with loved ones who've already made that journey. We're going
to be with some of the writers of the books that we read and
we preach, and we're going to praise and honor and glorify
our Lord in a perfect way, uninhibited by this battle we have right
now on earth between the flesh and the spirit. And things will
be perfect. Amen. May God bless His word. Very clear message, right? The gospel.