Seeking once again the Lord's
help to grant me the words to speak to you, I'd like you to
turn with me to the book of Romans, the chapter that we read together,
Romans chapter 5, and the text you'll find in verse 1. Therefore,
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Those of you who were with us
this morning will hopefully remember that we spoke from Romans 10
verse 17, so that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the
word of God. And we noticed that faith is
divided into three things, that it's not just the knowledge or
the facts about the Lord Jesus Christ that saves. It's not just that those facts
alter your life, that you may live day by day with the ability
to reason from the scriptures, to argue your case about God,
to argue your case about creation, to argue your case about the
facts about the Lord Jesus Christ, We saw that none of those things
of themselves are saving and we can be like Pharaoh, we can
be presented with the truth of God's word yet reject it. We
can be like the people of Nineveh who can be presented with the
truth of God's word and it affect our lives. but never actually
make that step of faith to lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ
and that step of faith, that gift of God which enables one
to lay hold of the truths of the scripture where that finished
work of Christ is applied to the account of the believer,
that of itself. is saving and so we may have
a knowledge of the Lord Jesus, we may believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ but the scripture tells us that the devils believe and
tremble at the presence and the knowledge of God and so of itself
it is not enough. There must be that mixed with
faith, that linking of the chain, that final piece of the puzzle
that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God and
so there is that as we saw with the lady with the issue of blood,
how she heard about the Lord Jesus Christ and that hearing
about him and the knowledge that she had of him caused her to
believe in him and to go and search him out and to find him
and then to press through the crowd and to lay hold of him
And then it was that she received that living virtue. And it was
not until all of those three aspects of faith were knit together
that she actually received that healing for her condition, healing
for her sickness. And so we see that faith comes
by hearing and we know that the Lord Jesus Christ has gave the
gospel to the church, that the church should go forth and proclaim
the news, the good news of salvation. And here in the fifth chapter
we read of the great fruit of the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that those who hear the gospel, who believe
the gospel and lay hold of the gospel and have their sins forgiven
are placed into a condition of justification. We know that justification
is a legal term. by which a person is rendered
right or justified before a holy God, that their sin, because
of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, is done away with
and they are counted before God as being just. The scripture
tells us that there is no way that anybody can be justified
by the works of the law. We can try our hardest to keep
every single aspect of God's law. and yet the scripture tells
us if we break one we are guilty of breaking them all and so there
is no way that a man, a woman, a boy or a girl is able to justify
themselves before a holy god because the scripture has declared
to us that we are sinners in his sight and no matter how hard
we try we can never obtain that righteousness which is required
of God to be declared holy in his sight. In our reading we
are told that we all fell short of that glory, we all sinned
in Adam. The scripture tells us wherefore as by one man sin entered
into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all
men for that all will have sinned. And those of you who have been
at the Bible study will notice that Adam will remember that
Adam was our representative, our head. and that all of the
world were in Adam and so as Adam sinned against God so all
of his descendants fell into a sinful condition before God. They were separated from God,
declared as unclean and sinners in his sight. The beauty of the
Gospel is that the second Adam came, the Lord Jesus Christ who
was born of a woman, born under the law, that he would be enabled
to redeem his people. Verse 18 tells us there, therefore
as by the offences of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon
all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. So the beginning of the book
of Romans is the apostle declaring the state of man, the condition
of man, and the way in which God has chosen to save a people. It is God's method of salvation. Because we have all sinned against
God, God steps in and brings about a salvation that is not
of works but a salvation which is by faith in the finished work
of his son the Lord Jesus Christ and he presents a case in the
opening chapters of those in the Old Testament, Abraham and
Moses, that they were saved by faith and not by the works of
the law. In chapter three, it says, Now
we know, in verse 19, that whatsoever thing soever the law says, it
says to them that are under the law, every mouth may be stopped
and all the world may become guilty before God. As I've said
to you many times before as we are in England we are under the
law or the authority of the law of England. You go to another
country and you enter into the authority of the law of that
land and that's why sometimes the Americans want to extradite
somebody from England to bring them under their own law so that
they can be judged according to their own law but all people
that are born into this world of ours are under the total law
of God. God's law spans all the nations. There is no person, no matter
whether they're a sovereign king of a land or just a road sweeper,
every single person is under the law of God. And no matter
what happens, nobody can escape from being under that law. You
can go from one country to another country you still remain under
God's law. Whatsoever the law says it says
unto them that are under the law therefore by the deeds of
the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. So the law, the apostle
tells us that the law is his schoolmaster. The law reveals
to us not how good we are but how sinful we are. It shows us
how holy God is. And so as we read the law of
God, it declares to us the holiness of God, the mind of God and what
God desires of his people that live in this world. And the scripture
tells us that we cannot keep that law because it is not just
about the things that we do and the actions that we take, but
it's about the things that we don't do. We do not love God
with all of our heart, soul and mind. We do not love our neighbour
as ourselves. But not only is it external,
but the Lord Jesus tells us that it is also the internal workings
of the mind that break the holy law of God. In the very searching
statement that Jesus says that if a man even looks at a woman,
and lusts after her, he has committed adultery with her already in
his heart. If a person is angry with their
brother they have committed sin already within their heart and
so God knows the inner workings of our hearts and those inner
workings of our heart are enough to cause us to break the holy law
of God and the scripture tells us here, for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God and so by our nature it is
impossible for us to save ourselves. My friend in Kenya used to tell
an illustration, he used to say that if you went to a restaurant
and the waiter came out and he had pusses and boils all over
his hands and he was dribbling and he came and he presented
to you some food. It may look nice, but would you
take it from him? And he used that illustration
to say that that is how we are in the sight of a holy God, that
we are corrupted and everything that we present to him comes
from corrupted hands and a corrupted mind and a corrupted will and
so therefore in the sight of a holy God nothing we can do
can ever satisfy him or make him pleased with us because we
have all sinned and fallen short of that glory and so if you can
think of that in your mind that when you outside of Christ No
matter what good deed you do or think you do, you are offering
it to God with, as it were, pus filled hands and sickness and sores and it
is unacceptable to him. And therefore we are fallen short
of that glory that he requires. Verse 10, it says, as it is written,
there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that
understand it. There is none that seek it after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are altogether become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is
an open sepulcher. Their tongues they have used
deceit. Poison of asps is under their
lips and whose mouth is full of cursings and bitterness and
it goes on. And so as we look at ourselves
often we think that we're not that bad. We think that we can
disguise our sin and we may be able to disguise it from our
friends and our family and our loved ones but we cannot disguise
it from God. God sees us as corrupted outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ and you may deem yourself good in
your own sight but in the sight of God outside of the Lord Jesus
Christ there's nothing, there is no difference to you or to
me than any other person outside of the Lord Jesus. Remember this
morning there were those that reject the truth completely and
there were those that almost embrace the facts but they remain
outside of the Lord Jesus and so there's no difference. One
life may look different but the inner workings of the heart which
still outside of the Lord Jesus Christ are no different in the
sight of a holy God. that is why God had to go to
such lengths to bring about salvation for his people. That is why his
son the Lord Jesus Christ had to volunteer to make himself
a little lower than the angels to put on flesh for the suffering
of death. But he had to come, as we looked
at recently, to the bottom of the pile, made himself of no
reputation so that he may live under the law to redeem his people. And he came to bring about a
salvation for a people that could never, ever save themselves. And so the Lord Jesus, through
his work, fulfilled the whole law of God, weaving or creating
a righteousness for his people. And then upon the cross, he was
punished for the sins of his people, clearing the accounts
of his people. And the scripture tells us here
that he was raised again for our justification. was raised
again, proving that God fully accepted his perfect sacrifice
and that Christ's work was complete, that he had wrought a righteousness
for his people and in doing so it was seen that he had brought
about a completion of that work. He satisfied the law of God and
as he was punished for the sins of his people that payment was
made and the accounts of those people were cleared and they
were declared just before a holy God at that moment of Calvary. But that work has to be applied. We know that Christ is not crucified
again every time somebody believes. But the work is applied to the
life of that person as they are born again, as they are enabled
to lay hold of the truth of the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Their life is knit together with
the Lord Jesus. And so it is by faith and not
by our works. This is something that is hard
for us to grasp because of our sinful nature we may know that
we're a sinner but we still hold on to something in ourselves
that says that we are good. We still hold on that surely
God is pleased with some small part of my life. Surely it is
that I use the right language or that I do certain things or
that I go to the right church. That is why God is being pleased
with me, but it's not. You see, we must hang out the
flag of surrender. If any of you have watched the
news, you will see that there are times when the Ukrainians
and the Russians storm each other's trenches, and there is gunfights,
and then sometimes some of the men there are brought to surrender.
and they come out of their trenches waving a white flag and they
declare that they've got no weapons anymore. They give up hope and
they surrender themselves to the enemy. Well that is the position
where we have to come to. God by our nature is our enemy
and we are his enemy. and we must come to that position
of surrender, that we have no hope. We lay down our weapons,
our weapons of good works, our weapons of religion, our weapons
of self-will and self-promotion, and we wave the white flag and
we say, there's no hope for me outside of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give myself to him. You lose sight of self and you
see all in the Lord Jesus Christ and you confess that is salvation
in Christ alone. When you confess salvation in
Christ alone That stems from what? An understanding that has
come to you either through the reading of the Word of God or
the preaching of the Word of God that faith comes by hearing
and you have heard. and you have seen that it is
true, you have seen that in yourself dwells no good thing and you
see there is no hope and so you offer up, you lift up the flag
of surrender and you say that it is not of works, it is salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ alone and that faith which is a gift
of God, links you to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember in the Old Testament
it says, there is a fountain opened for sin and of God, not
by any works of yourselves. And verse nine says, much more
than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from
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. That's where it
is. Through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture
tells us that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses us
from all sin. not of works lest anybody should
boast but by the perfect sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ God
says this is my beloved son in him I am well pleased and we've
seen what the scripture says about us what we are in the sight
of a holy God but what is Christ in the sight of a holy God his
beloved son whom he is well pleased and he was totally satisfied
with his perfect work of salvation and he was raised again from
the dead to prove to us that Christ's work is a finished work
and it satisfies God therefore we can rest upon it and be justified
in his sight. was delivered for our offences
and was raised again for our justification. Chapter 3 verse
25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith
in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remissions of sins that
are passed through the forbearance or patience of God. The propitiation
is an atoning sacrifice We know as we look through the Old Testament
we have those sacrifices which were done at the temple and they
were as a symbolic atonement for sin. but Christ was God's
Lamb, the Lamb of God that cleanses us from all sin who God set forth
as the perfect atoning sacrifice and to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins. And so therefore being justified
by faith and so it's faith that lays hold of this truth that that finished work of Christ
is credited to the account of the believer and they are declared
by God as justified and righteous in his sight. Being justified by faith we have
peace with God. We read verse 10, for if when
we were enemies of God. Such is our corrupt nature that
we like to think that God and us are quite good friends even
when we're outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. We deem ourselves
to have some good thing in us for God to like us. But the scripture
declares very plainly that outside of the Lord Jesus Christ we are
enemies to God. We are in the darkness, we are
in the realm of Satan, we are in the kingdom of the darkness
of this world and we are enemies of God. But through the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ Those hostilities that were there
between you and God and me and God are removed. And this is
one of the greatest blessings that comes from the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We looked at recently that God
was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And so where
there was once hostility and separation becomes peace. And those statements which are
found in chapter three, they no longer apply to the believer. If you think of everything that
was ugly between you and me outside of
Christ, everything that God declared that this is what you are outside
the Lord Jesus Christ yet in the Lord Jesus Christ because
of Christ's finished work we have been declared righteous
and therefore all of those statements that are written against us been
cancelled out. All of those hideous sins that
we committed in our unregenerate pathway have gone. Everything that you said, everything
that you thought, everything that you did is done away with
and remembered no more. I know there are things that you wouldn't tell anybody
about. So ashamed. But in Christ they're gone. The
scripture tells us that your sins and your iniquities will
I remember no more. They are cast behind my back
into the depths of the sea. You might remember them. I remember mine. but God sees
them no more because they have been wiped away and paid in full
by the Lord Jesus Christ and there is peace now between you
and God. You were once an enemy, now you
are a friend. You were once an enemy, now you
are a son. Now you are a daughter. You were
once separate, now you are reconciled. part of the family of the Lord
Jesus Christ adopted into his family not because of anything
that you had done like the Sunday school children looked at this
morning but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord wasn't
anything to do with Noah God chose him and God has chosen
you before the foundation of the world and he has put you
in the Lord Jesus Christ and he has done away your sins there
upon the cross at Calvary and he raised up the Lord Jesus Christ
to prove to you and to me that your sin which is so much has
been washed away and that you have peace with God. That is
the wonderful work of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
good news of salvation is that there is now peace with God. Go back to creation. Adam and Eve fellowshipping with
the Lord. Sin comes. Separation enters
in. But then the beautiful promise
that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head. the seed of the woman, the Lord
Jesus Christ, came to bring about, to overthrow that which took
place. So though, as we walk in the
sinful body, there is not that perfect union as we would like,
but there will one day be in glory. And so there is peace
with God, reconciliation, the primary primary work of the Lord
Jesus Christ to remove that which separated us from God which is
our sin and it's removed by Christ on the cross as he is punished
for the sins of his people therefore being justified by faith we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. through the Lord
Jesus and it doesn't say through the Lord Jesus it says through
our Lord Jesus. Faith claims Christ for her own
faith lays hold of Christ as her own personal saviour. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ,
he knows his sheep and they are known of him. I'm sure Edwin
as he goes through his flock, he knows his sheep, he knows
which one is which, he knows which one has given birth, he
knows which one is expecting and he knows about them. the
Lord Jesus Christ knows his sheep although they are without number
for multitude yet he knows them intimately, he's acquainted with
them and he loves them without limit and each believer lays
hold of the Lord Jesus Christ as their own saviour. It's like
they see him as an individual to themselves and they claim
him for themselves. So faith says our or mine. Jesus is mine and I am his. Through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus says I am the way He's the door. He's the only way in
which somebody may be justified. He's the only way where someone
may have peace with God. He's the only way where someone
may be declared as righteous before a holy God. It is only
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Apostle never wants us
to forget that and Jesus Christ never wants us to forget that.
That's why we are told through the Lord's Supper this to do
in remembrance of me. If you notice in the writings
of the Apostle he is constantly pressing the point the Lord Jesus
Christ, Jesus Christ the Son of God, that salvation is only
to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and so he's constantly
pushing the point that it's Christ and Christ alone where man might
be saved. If you remember Adam, Adam was
created as the pinnacle of God's creation, his masterpiece. Christ
is presented to us as the only way, the pinnacle of God's mercy,
the pinnacle of God's grace, the pinnacle of love, Christ
the second Adam is set before us as everything in the Lord Jesus. There's no hope outside of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so as you read through the
New Testament, especially the letters of Paul, he's constantly
pressing home the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord because he is master. We cannot have the Lord Jesus
Christ as not our master. We either belong to him or we
don't belong to him. He is either our master or he
is nothing at all to us. He cannot be our saviour and
not our master. As Thomas says, my Lord and my
God. Those of you who know anything
of the problems in the church at the moment, you know that
there are those who declare lordship salvation, that Christ is my
savior, but he's not my Lord. that it's my life, I can live
how I want to live, I can do what I want to do, I can go where
I want to go, I'm still saved but Christ is not having any
control over my life whatsoever. Well that is a false doctrine
of Satan and Christ can only be your saviour and master at
the same time, he cannot be one or the other and so Paul says
my Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ is full
a name. And so how then are these things experienced? If it is a statement that is
made, if it is a theological doctrine
that cannot be felt, How then is it experienced? Because we looked at this morning and we saw that faith works on
knowledge, what it knows. the faith that lays hold of Christ. It is the work of the Holy Spirit
of God in the heart that causes a person to be enabled to see
the truths of the scripture and lay hold of them. And that may
be felt, that may be experienced by a person. They may have walked
in the darkness for some time under the burden of their sin. and they may have been seeking
for salvation. And when that salvation is applied
as that faith lays hold of the truth, there can be peace experience,
it can be an experimental experience that takes place. But for some
people that might not never happen. There are some people who believe
and there is not a time when they have not believed. They
have gone through their whole life believing and trusting in
the Lord Jesus Christ and they cannot pinpoint a time or a moment
when the words of Christ or the Spirit of God entered into their
soul and they were born again. There is no specific moment.
There were some people that were never sought after God. never
sought after the Lord Jesus Christ and God suddenly comes and intervenes
in a moment and breaks open their heart and transforms them immediately
and they go on their way rejoicing. You think of the Apostle Paul
headlong going that way. God deals with him in a moment
and he is transformed in a moment and we have Lydia whose heart
the Lord opened. We had those who were at the
the riverside in prayer and they attended to the things that were
spoken of by Paul and so you cannot pinpoint the way in which
these things are experienced in the life of a person but they
are a theological fact that when someone is born again immediately
That person is justified before God and declared righteous. That finished work of Christ
is immediately credited to their account and they are declared
sinless before a holy God. But each person will have a knowledge
of sin. They will see themselves as they
are in the sight of a holy God. They will know that they are
a sinner and that they need a saviour. They will have a desire to be
forgiven and even as a believer as we continue walking on the
narrow way that leads to life we sin day by day and we have
that desire to overcome sin And we are constantly confessing
sin before our God because we don't like it. We don't like
what we see within us. We are fed up with the day by
day battles as we war against the flesh and even so that never
affects our justified position before a holy God. It is just
a warring against the spirit and the flesh. there is also
that longing for Christ to be yours. So if you see that you're
a sinner and you see that God is holy then surely you have
that desire for the Lord Jesus Christ to be yours. You have
that love to him, you have that desire to see him as your saviour
to say our or my Lord Jesus Christ, you see him as your only hope. And once that finished work has
been laid hold of by faith, as you look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
as you look to the cross for that only hope, there is that
continued walking out of faith. You see it's not just an experience
that we had once. That experience could have been
an emotional experience, it could have been a trick of Satan to
deceive you but the scripture says those
who are justified They live by faith. They continue living and
trusting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
not a one moment experience and then it's over. That experience that you have
had must continue to affect your life. You continue to see your
sin. You continue longing for that
cleansing. You constantly have that desire
to be made right before God. You constantly have that desire
to have an increase of faith, to know Christ in a more intimate
and detailed way. And you constantly have to check
yourself. see whether you are in the way
or not. And so the scripture tells us
that those who are justified, those who are Christ's, those
who have had his finished work credited to their account continue
to live by faith, by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 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 wherein we stand and rejoice in hope and in the glory of God. Well may the Lord work in our
hearts. Those who are seeking, may you
be enabled to lay hold of Christ and have this truth credited
to your account. And those who are walking with
the Lord Jesus, may he enable us to continue to walk by faith,
a walk in the constant knowledge of God and the Lord Jesus. therefore being justified by
faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who may be our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Final hymn is from Hymns for
Worship number 125. just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bid'st me come
to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. Hymns for worship number 125.
Just as I am, without one plea, And that Thy blood was shed for
me, And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come,
I come. and waiting not to rid my soul
of wanderplots, to Thee whose blood can cleanse each soul,
to Them of God I come. I come, just as I am, not asked
about, with many a call, with many a doubt, Fightings and fears
we're filled with the love of God, I come, I come. Jealous as I am for friendship
lies, Sight, riches, healing of the mind. Yea, all I need
in Thee, to find the Lamb of God, I come, I come. Thus as I am, thou wilt receive,
wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve. Because I promise, I
believe the Lamb, ? Of God I come, I come ? ? Just as I am thy love
unknown ? ? Has broken every barrier down ? Now to be Thine,
yea, Thine, Lord of love, of God I come, I come. Just as I am of that freedom,
that breath, length, depth, and height to prove. Here for a season,
then above the Lamb of God I come, I come. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee
for the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we who
are sinful are able to be declared righteous and justified in Thy
sight. We pray, Lord, that we may appreciate
the Gospel in a greater way, that we may live our lives according
to the love that has been bestowed upon us through the Lord Jesus,
greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his
life for his friends. We pray that we may be the friends
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We do thank thee, Lord, for the
way in which thou hast dealt with the music this evening. We give thee all the honour and
glory and we pray that thou receive our thanks in Jesus' name. And
now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of
God the Father, with the fellowship and the communion of the Holy
Spirit, do rest and abide with us each now and for evermore. Amen.