Come back to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. The title of
the message is Peace with God. Peace with God. I love the sound of that. that
there's real peace between me and God, that I can enjoy His presence, and someday I and you who believe
will stand in glory. I wish we could get a hold of
that more than we do. that we will stand in glory and
behold God face to face. He said in the Old Testament,
no man shall see my face and live. And yet now, in Christ,
we can look into the face of God someday and live. Live. Now Paul has very clearly
established the fact in these last four chapters that salvation, that justification
before God comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
let me say this. Faith, the act of faith, faith
in and of itself is not our justification. It's the object of faith, and
the object of faith is Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus Christ,
the object of our faith, that we are justified. And Paul has
made that very clear. He's made it very clear that
acceptance before God, justification before God, is never, ever, ever
based on anything that we can do. or we have done or can do
or will do. It can't be done. And he's made
that very clear. So he starts out in this chapter
five and he says, therefore, because of all that I have said,
all that has gone before, being justified by faith, cleared of
all charges. You know, I know this, I know
I'm guilty. I know I'm guilty. and you know
you're guilty. And yet I know this, I know this
by the word of God, by the testimony of his spirit, that I stand before
God justified, just, cleared of all charges, cleared. Therefore
being justified by faith, we have peace with God. We have it, and we have it through
the Lord Jesus Christ. You've heard someone say, have
you made peace with God? No, I haven't. Jesus Christ did. Jesus Christ made peace with
God on my behalf. Jesus Christ is my peace before
God. He is my peace. My peace with
God, listen, is a person. My peace with God is not me straightening
up. My peace with God is Jesus Christ. My whole foundation of peace,
of reconciliation, of acceptance is totally on the shoulders of
Jesus Christ. And that's it. It's not Christ
plus me cooperating. Salvation is not me cooperating
with God. Salvation is God saving me. It's God saving me, a sinful
man. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through, he's the channel, see,
the Lord Jesus Christ is the channel. Christ is the channel
of all blessings that come from God to us. He's the, if you have
it, the conduit. All blessings flow to us through
Jesus Christ and no other way. in a saving manner. No other
way. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This peace comes to us through
Christ. It comes to us through Christ.
Christ, because in Christ we are righteous. In Christ we are
forgiven. Doesn't it... I can't... I can't
find the words to express what it is to be forgiven. Not only
to be forgiven, but God forgets. He's cast all my sins behind
his back. Never to look at them again.
They're gone. They're absolutely gone. And because of that, you and
I who believe have peace with God. Listen to these scriptures. I'm going to read to you. I've
got them written down here in front of me. Ephesians 1, 3 and
4. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. God has blessed us
with all spiritual blessings. He's the conduit. He's the channel.
in heavenly places, in Christ, according as He has chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world," listen, "...that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." That's
how we stand before God. We need to get a hold of that. We need to live in the reality
of that. This is how we are in God's sight.
Colossians 1.21-22, And you that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. When
we were at our worst, when we hated God, when we hated Him,
God reconciled us. He reconciled us to Himself. How? Here's how. "...in the body
of His flesh through death, to present you holy, unblamable,
unreprovable in His sight." That's how we are presented. And this
is how we have peace with God. Out of Christ, there's nothing
but war with God. Romans 8, 7 says, "...because
the natural mind is enmity against God, It is not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can be." It can't be. It's too sinful. But in Christ
is a different story. We are reconciled and have peace
with God. God's at peace with us. And when
He saves us, calls us, and regenerates us, As Scott Richardson said,
we lay down the shotgun, and we are at peace with God. God's
at peace with us through Christ, and through Christ, we are at
peace with God. The war is over. The war is over. The enmity is
over. That natural enmity that's in every one of us, in every
person in this world, that natural enmity, that natural hatred of
God is over. It's gone. It's gone. It is therefore being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom? That is, by Jesus Christ also
we have access. It's never apart from Jesus Christ. We never deal with God Almighty
apart from Jesus Christ. He's the only Mediator between
God and men. And every dealings that we have
with God Savingly is through Jesus Christ. By whom? We have
access. Access to what? Access to God. Access to the throne of grace.
We have access to the throne of grace. I just prayed this
morning. Craig prayed. We have access to the throne
of God to come and pray. Think about that. Think about
who you have access to. And I tell you this, if you really
think about it, you'll pray more. When you really meditate upon
the greatness of God, the person of God, and you really have access
through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, you're going
to call upon Him more. You're going to commune with
Him more when you think upon what you have in Christ. Access. Listen, "...by whom also
we have access by faith, into this grace." Our standing is
in grace. Could there be any greater or
more sure standing before God than to stand upon the grace
of God? You sure don't want to stand upon a law. You won't even
make the first step. But we have access into this
grace. This grace. Wherein we stand and rejoice.
Rejoice in what? What do we rejoice in? What is
it you rejoice in? What is it that I rejoice in?
What is it that we rejoice in? He says here, in hope of the
glory of God, in hope of seeing God. being in the presence of
God forever and ever and ever and communing with Him without
sin, without all these distractions and all the sin that we deal
with. I mean, it's hard enough just
to sit and listen. I know, I've sat there so many
times. I mean, I have to even arrest my mind as I stand here
and preach. You'd be surprised how much your
mind even tries to wonder when you're doing this. And someday
we'll do it without this, without this distraction and without
sin. We rejoice in hope of experiencing the full glory of God. The One
who said, Let there be light, and there was light. The One
who spoke creation out of nothing. This is our Creator. Our Creator. This is the one we will stand
before and rejoice in His glory. Listen, we'll stand there on
a new earth, just as solid as this one. We're not gonna be
floating around on a cloud with a halo and a harp. That's not
gonna happen. Does that interest you? I know
halo and a harp and a cloud interests me, but I tell you what, walking
with God, on a new earth where there's no sin, that's interesting.
I find that interesting. David said this, he said this
in Psalm 17, 15, as for me, in other words, I can't speak for
anybody else. He's saying, I can't speak for anybody else, can't
speak for my family, I can't speak for anyone else, but as
for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be
satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." John said, now are
we the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we
shall be. I mean, we can't even comprehend what that's going
to be like, but now we are the sons of God. And when we see
Him, we're going to be just like Him. Just like it. Righteous. We're going to have
the mind of Christ. No sin. That's what it's going
to be like. And not only so, not only do
we go into glory in this hope of seeing God, not only so, but
we glory in tribulations also. Now, the first two verses, he
dealt with our relationship with God in heaven. Now I ain't gonna deal with our
relationship with God while we live on this earth. We have a
life to live out, you know. I don't know how long I'm gonna live.
I don't know how long you're gonna live. But I do know this,
we have a life to live out. And while we live out this life, we not only glory in being in
the presence of God, but we glory even here in tribulations. because they are of God. He's
conforming us to the image of Christ. Our Lord said, I go prepare
a place for you. But you know what he's doing
now? He's preparing you for that place. He prepared a place for
us, and now He's preparing us for that place. And He said,
and I'll go prepare a place for you, and I'll come again and
receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
So He went and prepared a place, a place of acceptance, because
we lost that in Adam. And then He's preparing us for
the place. And then when it's time, He's coming to get us.
Now, if we could just view life and death in this manner, it
will make life a lot more easier to live. If we can just live
like this, we can live. We can quit worrying. He has designed our life. He's conforming us to the image
of Christ. As Scott Richardson said, he
said, whenever he gets to glory, or anyone that goes to glory,
and you look back at your past, if you were able to do that,
you wouldn't change a thing. There's things that I, right now, there's
things I can say that I wish I hadn't done. There's things
I wish I could go back and do or not do. But you know what?
When this life is over, I wouldn't change a thing. Because Jesus
Christ gets the glory out of all of it. You and I go back
and change things and we'd come back and we'd be as self-righteous
as we couldn't stand each other. We would. It's the things, listen,
it's the things that I even don't know about. You can't even change
those. I have more sins that I don't
know about than I do. You love God with all your heart
every day? Not even one day, not even one
day. But not only so, but we glory
in tribulation also. Now we don't glory in the pain
that trials cause. We don't glory in pain. We don't
glory in the suffering in and of itself, but we glory in the
results of it. It's the results. We glory in tribulations also. They conform us to the image
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that all our trials are
appointed of God, our Father. We know that they are for our
good and His glory. You know, we're bad about taking
medicine if it tastes bad, aren't we? That's why they have to try
to make it taste better, so we'll take it. Trials don't taste good. but
they're very effective. Very effective medicine for conforming
us to the image of Christ. But look here. Trials not only
are good for us, and we rejoice in it, as I said, we rejoice
in the results because look what it works. Trials work patients.
These are the things we need. These are the things we need.
Don't need a bigger house, don't need a better car, don't need
a better job. those things that tend to eternal life. Patience. The Scripture says, In your patience
possess you your souls. You're waiting upon the Lord.
Patience. Now, here's what patience is.
Trials work patience. Now, what is patience? Well,
to put it very simply, it's this. Patience is submission to the
will of God, whatever it is. Whatever it is, it's submission
to the will of God. And then this patience, this
submission to the will of God, it works with experience, or
listen, it works maturity. Experience, listen, experience
is probably the most difficult teacher there is, but she's the
best. You can't sit down beside someone
and weep. You can't weep with those who
weep and rejoice with those who rejoice unless you have walked
in their shoes. That's the only way you can really
do it. Now, you can have some empathy, but to really sit down
beside of them, put your arm around them, and you don't even
have to say a word. Patience works. Here's what works. Maturity of character. It makes
you grow up. It makes you grow. Every time
you... When God puts you through a trial, He puts His children
through a trial, it weans them from this world. It makes you
see. It makes you see more and more
the nothing of this world. It enables you to see more and
more how that the whole world really, really does lie in wickedness. The whole world does, outside
of Christ. That's the description of it. This experience, which is maturity
of character, and it also is this, it's the proof of real
faith. I'll tell you something else
it'll do. It'll run off the hypocrites. It'll expose the hypocrites. But it won't run off true faith.
True faith will just grow stronger and stronger, like that big oak
tree that stands in the wind year after year after year. And
those roots, every time it gets rocked, you know what happens?
It loosens that dirt up a little bit, and those roots go deeper.
It loosens that dirt up a little bit, and those roots go deeper.
That's what it does. And that's what trials do. And
every time it rocks you a little bit, your roots just loosens
you up a little bit and your faith, your dependence upon Christ
just gets deeper and deeper and deeper. That's why God sends
them. Those roots just keep getting
deeper in Christ, rooted in Christ. And experience, this experience
that trials bring, and the patient's work experience, and this experience,
listen, it doesn't break your hope. It works hope. It's actually working your hope.
It's strengthening your hope. Because the more you endure,
the older you live and endure, the greater your hope becomes
of being with the Lord and less and less of these things. Your
hope is not in these things. You see how perishing these things
are. But your hope in Christ just
grows more and more and more. It proves to be genuine. I tell
you this, I want to know I'm a child of God now. I don't want
to wait till it's over and stand before God. I want to know now. Paul calls it this, full assurance
of faith. I am fully confident that in
Christ, God has saved my soul. In Christ, he's put away my sins.
In Christ, I am righteous. That doesn't say I don't have
a day of doubts, but I thank God that faith overcomes doubts. God-given faith, not something
I worked up, but God-given faith. Patience and experience, experience,
hope, and hope, listen, verse five, and hope, this hope, this
hope that is worked in by faith and it's worked and it grows
by experience, it makes not, you won't be ashamed of your
hope in Christ, you won't be ashamed of it. Job said they
were, it's written in Job, they were confounded because they
had hoped. Do you know how many people are
going to stand before God who has made a false profession?
They've been led to a false profession by a false preacher and they
had hoped. And Job says they are confounded or confused. because
they had hoped. And our Lord gives us an example
of it. He says, many will say, Lord, I preached in your name.
I cast out devils in your name. I have done many mighty works
in your name. And he said, depart from me.
I never knew you. Because I'll tell you what, I'll
tell you what you did it in. You did it in the name of another
Jesus and another gospel. Paul writing to the Corinthians
said, they will come preaching another Jesus. I read that and it just in me
and instilled in me to make sure that the one, the Jesus Christ,
I believe is the one of this Bible and not another one, not
a twist on another one. but the Jesus Christ of this
Bible, and the gospel, I believe, is the gospel that is according
to the Scriptures, and not some twisted gospel, not some satanic
gospel. That's what Paul said. Paul said,
you've been moved to another gospel, to the Galatians, Galatians
chapter 1, you've been moved to another gospel, which is not
another. He said, there is no other gospel, but you've been
moved to another gospel, another so-called gospel. which is not
another." I don't want to do that. And
hope makes not a shame, listen, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. You
are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and you are convinced of the
love of God in Christ towards you. You're convinced of it.
Now, he makes a contrast here. In verse 6, for when we were
yet without strength, in due time, it says over my
margin, according to the time, according to the time, God's
time, Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for the ungodly. I've heard, and people, We'll
do this. They'll say, well, how do I know
if I'm one of the elect or not? I wouldn't worry about that.
I'll tell you what I do know I am, ungodly. And I know this,
it says Christ died for sinners. I'm a sinner. I am a, like Peter
said to the Lord one time, he said, Lord, depart from me. I'm
a sinful man. I'm a sinful man. I know that.
I'm a sinful man. Ungodly. You know what ungodly
is? It's unlike God. unlike God. That's who Jesus
Christ died for. Charles Spurgeon said, A sinner
is a sacred thing, for the Holy Spirit hath made him such. It
takes the work of the Holy Spirit for a man to confess, according
to the Scriptures, that he's a sinner. Lord, be merciful to
me, the sinner, as if he were the only sinner on earth. That
man felt like he was the only sinner in the house. While that
Pharisee said, Lord, I thank you, I'm not like that sinner.
I'm not like that publican. I tithe, I mend, I do all, I
give all, I am outstanding. You should just be so impressed
with me. Christ died for sinners. That's
what you need to be concerned with. Christ died for sinners. Here, Paul gives us the sum and
substance of the gospel in verse six. when we were yet without
strength. In due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. First of all, He tells us who
died. Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the only begotten
well-beloved Son of God, died. He really died. And it tells
us how He died. It tells us in the Scriptures
that He died on a cross. A cross of shame. He died under
the wrath and judgment of God. Awake, O sword, God said in the
Old Testament, Awake, O sword, against my fellow. What sword? The sword of justice. God said,
Awake, O sword of justice, against my fellow, against his son. And why did he die? He died as
a substitute. for the ungodly, for sinners. That's what it says here, for
whom he died, the ungodly. He didn't die for righteous men.
It's what he's saying here. He didn't die for righteous men.
Those Pharisees, we be not sinners. Well, you can leave. You guys
are going on. We be not sinners like those
Gentiles. Well, I don't have good news for you. I don't have
good news for you. Christ died for sinners. He didn't
die for righteous men. He said the righteous don't need
a physician but the sick. The whole don't need a physician
but the sick. He died for sinners is who he
died for, for the ungodly. He didn't die for religious men.
He died for the ungodly. He died for those who are ungodly
in nature and in practice. You can read that over in Ephesians
2, verses 1-5. And when did He die? When we
were without strength. When we were without strength
to obey His law, when we were without strength or the ability
to help ourselves, when we were in bondage, that's when He died
for us. He died for us when we were at
our worst. when we were without strength,
and listen here, when we were without strength, He did so in
due time, in God's time. In due time, in God's time, that's
when He died for us. God had marked that day out. Our Lord said this in John 17,
Father, the hour has come. How many hours do you reckon
it's been since that time? all those millions and millions
of hours, but he speaks of one. The hour that you have fixed
before the world began, the hour for me to glorify you, that hour
has come in due time, in God's time. Christ died for the ungodly. Now listen, I'll wind this down. For scarcely, and he's going
to make a contrast here, he's going to set forth, listen, he's
going to set forth the love of God. He's going to really magnify
the love of God for us in Christ. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die. It'd be hard to find someone
to die for someone that is righteous. This is the man who's strict.
You know, he demands justice. He demands, you know, I'll pay
you what I owe you and you pay me what you owe me. Ain't nobody
going to die for that guy. It's like when he's ready to
die, they just let him die. They don't want to die for the self-righteous.
This is the self-righteous man. Yet peradventure for a good man.
He's a good man. He's a good outwardly moral man. He's a giving man. He doesn't
demand that you give him strict justice, you pay him what you
owe him, he may let that go. He says, yeah, forget it. I know
you can't afford it, just forget it. Well, there's some who would
die for that man. You can find some that would
die for that kind of a man. But now listen, but God, but
God, this is a whole other level. This is a whole other level of
love. This is love that passes understanding.
You can't comprehend this love. But God commended His love toward
us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
While we yet hated Him, while we were enemies in our minds
by wicked works, while we wanted nothing to do with God, that's
when His Son died for us. Would you give any of your children?
Would you give a son to die for an enemy? Someone that absolutely
despises you. Someone that would cut your throat
if they could just get a chance to do it and not get in trouble,
not get put in jail, and cut your throat. That's when Christ
died for us. When if we could, we would cut
his throat. He died for us. Isn't that amazing? That's love on another level.
That is divine love. That's divine love. Listen, if God did that for us
while we were such enemies, how much more then, being now justified
by His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him? Think
of what it's going to be like now that we're friends. now that
we've been reconciled, now that the war's over. If He did that
for us while we were enemies, think what He's going to do for
us now that we are reconciled to Him. Think upon that. For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more,
I like the way Paul says this, much more, much more. Being reconciled,
we'll be saved by His life. If Jesus Christ died for me when
I was an enemy, much more shall God bless me now that I've been
reconciled to Him. And not only so, listen, but
we also joy in God. Brethren, before God saved you,
you didn't joy in God, I didn't joy in God. I know what I joyed
in, and I figure you're pretty close to me. Apples don't fall
far from the tree of Adam. We're all the same. We all came
out of the same mold, same mess. But listen, not only so do we
joy in these things, but we actually joy in communion with God. Is this a joy to you this morning?
Seriously. Is it a real joy to be here this
morning and to hear God speak from his word? You know, reading
God's Word is the same as hearing God speak audibly. It's the same. What's the difference? He's speaking to us through His
Word. Not only so, but we also enjoy in God, listen, through
our Lord Jesus Christ, not apart from Him, because Christ is that
God we enjoy in, by whom we have now received the atonement or
reconciliation. Rather, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through faith in Him. Faith is the cup that receives Christ,
receives the blessing. We have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace. I know this, I know we
will not understand or really grasp that until this life is
over. And we are brought into God's
awesome, awesome presence. And it's nothing but peace. Peace.