just read Romans chapter 5. Maybe you haven't closed your
Bibles yet, but I want to speak to you this morning from a few
verses here in Romans chapter 5 on the subject of the remedy
for our own sinfulness. If we had the time to read the
first five chapters of Romans, we would discover that the man
who wrote this, by divine inspiration, he is giving us information about
the God who justifies and the means by which God justifies
the ungodly. I think that often as a preacher,
and other preachers also, I fear that we sometimes make this mistake. We just kind of assume that people
know the definitions of these words that we use. What does
it mean to be justified? I know this, we've got to be
justified to go to heaven, got to be justified in salvation,
There is no acceptance with God apart from justification. It's
a biblical word. You look through especially the
epistles of the Apostle Paul and you'll find that he often
speaks about being justified. And of course in the book of
Romans, especially in the first five chapters, this is a key
thing. about being justified, and I'll
throw this in before I give you a definition of justified. You
know, this is not the first epistle that this man wrote. The very
first one that he wrote most likely was 1 Thessalonians. But when the men who gathered
the scriptures together, what we call the canon of scripture,
when all of the books of the Bible were gathered together,
all 66 of them, In wisdom that I believe God
gave them, they put this one at the very beginning of the
epistles of the Apostle Paul. And rightfully, rightfully so. It is such a vital book. And that's not to put down any
other book as far as that goes, but here is our doctrinal basis
for salvation. Here's our real theology. Here's the gospel set forth for
us, and especially in the first five chapters of the book of
Romans, we read about this matter being justified by God and justified
by faith. Now, what does it mean to be
justified? Well, it means to be the root
word is just. It means to be just with God. That is to be forgiven by God
of all of our sins. So it's to be absolutely forgiven
of every wrong, of every iniquity, of every vile thought, of every
evil imagination, of the impurity of our dreams, our actions, our
words. It means to be fully and finally
forgiven. of every breakage of God's law. There's no doubt, but what all
of us have, we've already committed many sins, not only this day,
but even in this very service. You see anything that isn't perfect
and anything that's not a faith before God is sin. Any thought that is not honoring
to God, any deed that you might do or I might do, any word that
we might speak that is not done consciously for the glory of
God is sin. Now how many times have you sinned
already today, even in this service? You see, it's absolutely foolish
for anyone to say, I live above sin. I keep the law of God. That's a statement made out of
absolute ignorance or a statement that is made by
somebody who is deceived. Everything that we do must be
in the eyes of God done to perfection. Or he can't have anything to
do with it. Well you say, well then Jim,
since our worship is imperfect, our prayers are imperfect, our
thoughts are imperfect, our prayers are imperfect, our reading of
the scripture is imperfect, how then can God receive anything
that we do? And the answer is through Christ
Jesus. See, that's the reason we've got to have a mediator.
Because even though we are the people of God, even though we
love the gospel of God's grace, even though we love and appreciate
Christ our Savior, still we're very much, as you know and I
know, in the flesh. And we sin. We've gotta have
a mediator. We've gotta have one to whom
we can go who will then take all of our petitions, be it thanksgiving
or asking God for something, whatever it is. We've gotta have
one who intercedes for us, who is our mediator between a holy
God and us. That's Christ Jesus. To be justified
then is to be forgiven. And I say to those of you who
have not, you've not experienced the wonders of God's forgiveness,
I say to you, oh, that God would bring you to faith in the Lord
Jesus to see that everything God demanded for your own sinfulness
has been fully accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. You who
are the people of God, I know you weep over your sinfulness
even as I do mine, and I confess my sins. I say, Lord, forgive
me. Forgive me. I've done wrong. I've thought wrong. My motives
are wrong. It's an endless thing. but I
know upon the basis of the word of God that I'm justified by
God and before God, that is, he has forgiven me of all my
sins. Can you enter into that? Yes, we do confess our sins,
but don't keep beating yourself up over your sins and living
in misery. Oh, that God would give us grace
to enjoy this wonderful and great salvation that we have in Christ
Jesus, which means full forgiveness of all sins. God holds nothing
against you. Isn't that wonderful? God is
not mad at you. He's angry with the wicked every
day, but you're not wicked, you're righteous. You're righteous through
the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus, our Savior. God's not angry with you. Now,
do we displease Him when we sin? Well, absolutely. He's not pleased
with us with the sins that we commit, but He is pleased with
us in Christ Jesus. So enjoy your forgiveness. Here's
what it means to be justified. It means to be forgiven of all
sin. And then here's what it means
to be justified. Secondly, it means to be made
righteous. Well, we often speak about righteousness
and rightfully so. We should speak of righteousness.
But what does that mean? We say you've got to be righteous
before God. The root word is right. You've
got to be right with God. And to be right with God, you've
got to be perfect. Well, how can you be perfect?
How can I be perfect? After all, the Bible says we
drink iniquity like water. Well, how can I be perfect? I'm
perfect through the perfection of my Savior, which is credited
to me. I'm credited for all the obedience
of my Savior. Should I be obedient to God?
Absolutely. I should be obedient to Him to
love Him with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love
my neighbor as myself. but I cannot do those things
perfectly and God requires it. But my savior did that. He did
that for me. And therefore I'm right with
God. I'm righteous before God because
his obedience through his life and in his death because the
scripture says in Philippians the second chapter, he was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. He was obedient all
through his life and he was obedient in dying to redeem his people. And that obedience, the obedience
of my Savior is credited to me. And I'm rewarded as though it
was my obedience. I'm rewarded as though the obedience
was mine. Because actually I was in the
Savior when he was obedient to God. Everything God demanded
of me in my Savior is fulfilled. I'm righteous before God. That's
what we've got to appreciate. And you see his perfections,
his beauties, there has been the scriptures, it's been imputed
to us, been credited to our account. In fact, in Romans chapter four,
we have the word reckoned, accounted, imputed. His righteousness credited
to us. Say, do you believe in rewards?
Yes. We're going to be rewarded for
that which is on our record. And you know what's on our record?
Absolute righteousness perfection. And we're going to be rewarded
for that. And none of it, listen, none of it was our doing. It's
all the doing of our Savior. At no point in this grand scheme
of salvation, from beginning to end, at no point in this great
salvation, Can we point to somewhere and say, now there, that's what
I did and God's rewarding me for that. Oh no. Because everything
we do is defiled by sin. Don't you understand? We're a
vessel that's polluted. Everything we do, the prayers
that we pray, the sermons we preach, the worship service we
attend and enter into, it's all contaminated by sin. Do you really want God to reward
you for what you have done individually? Who in their right mind, who
has some concept of the nature and the status of their own heart,
who would ever want to be rewarded, for God to reward you for what
you have actually said, done, and thought? Why, you wouldn't want anybody
else in here to know your thoughts. And we're embarrassed just to
think about it. God rewards us for the righteous
obedience of Christ Jesus. And that's such a blessing. That's
what it means to be justified. And you who are the people of
God, you're justified. You're justified. It means to
be made righteous. It means to be accepted by God. God who is holy. God who is righteous. God who dwells in light that
is unapproachable. God who dwells in the most holy
place. God who charges His angels with
folly. God before whom the heavens aren't
even pure. To be justified means He accepts
us. He accepts us. And again, he
accepts us in Christ Jesus. And because of the obedience
of our dear Savior. And in the first five chapters
of Romans, this beloved apostle speaks to us about this subject
of justification. And I'll just, let me, I'll give
you five things here briefly. Number one, the need for justification. Because now you know what it
means to be justified. It means to have your sins forgiven,
to be right with God, to be accepted by God. In chapter one, beginning at
verse 14, verse 13 verse is kind of an introduction to the letter. And beginning at chapter one
in verse 14, continuing through chapter three in verse 30, we
have set before us the need for justification. We need to be
justified because we're sinful. See, here's sin and its remedy. We're sin. We not only commit
sin, but really sin is what we are. That's why the Lord said to Israel,
He said, from the top of your heads to the bottom of your feet.
There's no soundness in you. You're just wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores that haven't been bound up nor mollified.
You're just a mess. And I say this to you in love,
but listen, we're a mess from top to bottom. It's just defilement. You want
to talk about perfection? You've got perfect defilement.
That's what you've got. You're perfectly defiled. Therefore,
the apostle, he begins this epistle. And like I say, this is strategically
placed at the beginning of his many letters, 13, 14, if you
include the book of Hebrews. because he goes right into the
need for justification. We need to be forgiven. We need
to be made righteous. We need to be accepted and it's
all in Christ Jesus. So he begins by saying in chapter
1 verse 14 through chapter 3 and verse 30, this is the great need. We're sinners. And because we're
sinners, it is impossible to justify ourselves. Number one, you can't quit sinning. You say, well, I'm going to start
doing, stop doing these bad things that I do. Well, you're doing
some bad things. Stop them. Just stop. But you can't stop your mind.
Can you? You can't stop those selfish
motives. You know exactly what I mean.
You can't stop your vile imagination. You can't stop your dreams. You're defiled, and so am I. So we can't justify ourselves.
We can't put away our sins, can't deal with our sins. We don't
even know them all. I heard somebody one time say,
if I've sinned today, you might as well stop right there. If
you've sinned? Do you not know that you've sinned
multiple times? Our own sinfulness has resulted
in our utter inability to produce or even go after righteousness. Our own sinfulness. You see,
the Lord Jesus is the righteousness that God demands. Well, why then
doesn't everybody run to Him? Why doesn't everybody believe
Him? Why doesn't everybody forsake their own way and go the way
that God has appointed, the new and living way, Christ Jesus,
who is the way to God? Why don't people do that? Because
they're sinful. Because they're depraved. and you start talking about salvation,
they say what? I'll be okay. I'll be okay, preacher. No, you won't be okay. You're
only okay if you're in Christ Jesus. Is that right? You're only okay if you're in
Christ Jesus. You can't justify yourself. Job
said in Job 9 in verse 20, if I justify myself, my own mouth
shall condemn me. If I say I'm perfect, it'll prove
me perverse. He said in Job 25 verse four,
one of his buddies said this, how then can man be justified
with God? Or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? And David said in Psalm 143 verse
two, enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy
sight shall no man living be justified. See, sin, here's the
problem. Here's the need for justification. In fact, let me read just a few
verses to you from this first section. Look back in chapter
three and verse nine. Chapter three and verse nine. Here's what the apostle writes.
He says, well, what then? Are we better than they? Are
Jews better than Gentiles? No, in no wise, in no way is
one group better than another group. For we had before proved
both Jews and Gentiles that they're all under sin. Under, that's
a powerful word, under. under the dominion of sin, under
the control of sin, under the power of sin, under the authority
of sin. We before proved that, and he's
proved that in chapters one, two, and up to this point in
chapter three. Look at verse number 10. As it
is written, and it is written in the Psalms, there's none righteous,
no, not one. Not you? Not your mother, not your father,
not the finest person you know in the world? You know, this
business of somebody was telling me about somebody passed away
and I guess a family member said, if there's anybody in heaven,
they are. Well, wait a minute now. That's salvation by works. If there's anybody in heaven,
it's because of God's grace given to them in Christ Jesus. If there's
anybody in heaven, it's because Christ died for them. If there's
anybody in heaven, it's because the blood of Christ Jesus made
atonement for them. If there's anybody in heaven,
it's because the Holy Spirit revealed to that sinful person
the doing and the dying of the dear Son of God and brought them
to rest their poor souls in Him. But there's none righteous, no,
not one. In verse 11, there's none that
understand it. There's none that grasps the
holiness of God, of His character, of His demands for perfection. And there's none that seeks after
Him. Not by nature. I know the Lord said you shall
seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart,
but we don't do that till he intervenes. When he seeks us, then we seek
him. When he calls on us, then we
call on him. If God waits for you to take
the first step toward Jesus Christ, the Savior, He will wait forever. No person takes the initiative
in salvation except God. He must come to us. We've got
to get away from this idea that this salvation, it's available,
it's available, but we've got to step out and get it. If God
is waiting on us, we'll never be saved. You see, the work of redemption
and reconciliation and putting away the iniquities of His people
and the bringing in of righteousness has already been accomplished.
The Spirit of God comes to us and He makes us alive and He
shows us the work has been done for sinners just like you. And then we come to rest in Christ
Jesus. And as far as us justifying ourselves,
look down at verse 19 of chapter three. Now we know that what
things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law. There's that word under again,
under the dominion of the law, under the control of the law,
under the authority of the law, under the power of the law, that
every mouth may be stopped. Has God ever shut your mouth? Talk about what a good person
you are. Well, you know, I treat my neighbors right. I try to
live right. I try to love God. I try to love
everybody. I do nice things for people.
God's going to have to shut your mouth. He's going to have to shut the
mouth. and make you to see you're guilty. You see that verse 19? Become
guilty before guilty. Isn't it amazing? Men are so
arrogant and filled with pride. They'd rather go to hell than
say, I'm guilty, as charged. But whether you acknowledge it
or not, you're very guilty before God. And so am I. I'm not preaching down to you,
I'm preaching to all of us, we're guilty. Therefore, he says in verse 20,
therefore, by the deeds of the law, by you doing things, obeying
legal requirements, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be, there's that word, justified. in God's sight. You might fool
people and they'll say, you're justified only in their sight. But it doesn't matter what we
see. It doesn't matter what our estimation is. All that matters
is God. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. And so in this first section,
he sets forth the need for justification. Here's the second thing. And
this begins at chapter three, and I would say verses 21 through
31. And this is God's way of justification. You see, what we couldn't do,
what we cannot do, God could do and He did do through Christ
Jesus. The remedy, here's the remedy
for our sin. I know we've got an awful disease
now, but there's a remedy. And the remedy for sin is Christ
Jesus and His work of redemption. If sinners are to be saved, if
they're to be made the righteousness of God, they must be made the
righteousness of God in Christ. And God must do the work. See,
only God can forgive sin. Only God can declare the guilty
to be guiltless. Only God can legally pronounce
a person to be righteous in His sight. Only God can do that.
Which means two things. Number one, this justification
has got to be a matter of grace. It's got to be a matter of grace.
And that's what he says here in chapter 3 and verse 24. Being
justified, he uses the word freely, which means without a cause in
us, by His grace. Being justified
without a cause in us by God's grace. It's got to be an act
of grace. It can't be merit, it can't be
based on our works, otherwise nobody would ever be justified
before God. And secondly, not only must it
be an act of grace, but it must be an act that meets God's just
requirements. Death for sin. It's gotta be
that. It does meet that requirement
because again in verse 24, being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This justification
is all of grace and due to the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. It's through the substitutionary
justice satisfying obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ even
to His death that we're justified. God set him forth to be the propitiation,
the satisfaction of divine justice. You see, God brings us to believe
the record that he has given to us of his son. Here's the
good news, the remedy for sin. And the remedy is, the substitutionary
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, which satisfied all of God's
legal requirements and met our every need. The gospel is the good news that
Christ has satisfied God. I rarely get on Facebook, Too
much junk on there. And there's a lot of good on
there. I know that. But I just don't
take the time to look at it very much. Yesterday I was looking
because I got on there. As you know, we went to Ethan,
our grandson's graduation. And it was on Facebook. You can see the entire graduation
ceremony. And so I was looking for that,
and I came across this quote by a very popular preacher today. And he made this statement, and
I want you to think about this. He was talking about the gospel. He said, the gospel is so simple. It is repent of your sins, and
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a quote from him. I'll
give you just a few seconds to think about that, absorb that. The gospel is repent of your
sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that the gospel? Well, let me answer for you with
a very distinct word. No, it is not. That is not the
gospel. The gospel doesn't have anything
to do with what you must do. The gospel is a declaration of
a work already done by Christ Jesus. And you've got to be very
careful because error can just slip in. Error is a very slippery
thing. Mr. Spurgeon said, error, heresy,
it's like indebtedness. It's very slippery. You get in
there and you can't get out. You just slide down. And that's
the way it is with error. And there are multitudes of people
who think, boy, that is good. That is good. The gospel is repent
of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, must
a man repent? Yes. Must a man believe on Christ? Yes. But that's not the gospel. The gospel gives us the reason
that men do repent and the reason men do believe on Christ Jesus
is because of a work finished to God's satisfaction. the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ. You be careful who you listen
to and what you read. We can't justify ourselves. But here's the third thing. As we get to the fourth chapter,
this wonderful apostle gives us illustrations of what it means
to be justified. Illustrations of men who were
justified, and he sets before us Abraham in chapter four, who
believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. And
he sets before us another illustration of a man by the name of David. And he also was justified, as
the Scripture says, by faith without any works of his own. Now, what about faith? Does faith make us righteous?
No. And so actually, to be absolutely accurate, Faith doesn't
justify us. Faith receives the truth of being
justified by the grace of God through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. Faith doesn't put your sins away. Don't be so foolish to think
that your faith has got that kind of power. Or that your faith
can justify you before God, make you righteous. Faith doesn't
do that. Faith is a receiver. Faith is
a look to Christ Jesus. Faith is a hug and embrace of
the Savior. Faith is a coming to Him out
of your neediness and receiving out of His fullness, grace and
mercy and salvation. But this faith, it doesn't work
for salvation. It works after salvation. But the gospel, the gospel is
a declaration of what Christ has done the work that He has
done, and then we believe Him. That's what faith does. Faith
reaches out her empty hands and takes hold of Him who is the
fullness of God, who has in Him all the riches of grace. That's
what faith does. But faith in and of itself, and
you can write this down if you want to, faith in and of itself
does not justify us any more than works do. You can't be justified by your
works and you cannot be justified upon the basis of your faith.
Faith receives the work Christ has already done. Faith believes, faith receives,
faith embraces, faith is active after conversion, but faith didn't
redeem us. Faith didn't put our sins away.
And when you come to believe Christ Jesus, and I pray that
you will, I pray that everybody under the sound of my voice will
come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But don't you think for
a moment that when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, all
of a sudden your sin problem is dealt with. Your sin problem,
if you're brought to faith in Christ Jesus, your sin problem
was handled 2,000 years ago. Faith embraces the fact of that.
and welcomes the good news of that. And then fourthly, the
glorious blessings of justification. This is chapter five, verses
one through eight. He says this in chapter five,
verse one, therefore being justified, justified by the blood shedding
of the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, we believe on Christ.
Faith doesn't secure the peace. Faith enters into the wonders
of this peace that's been made. That's what faith does. And, by whom also we have access
by faith into this grace wherein we stand. Listen, by faith we
stand before God on the rock, Christ Jesus. That's a blessing
of justification. We stand. And in the day of judgment, everybody
is going to have to make an appearance before God. But there will be
some people who will be able to appear before Him and stand. Well, how can that be? Because
we stand on Christ Jesus, the solid rock. That's the reason. Everybody else just makes an
appearance and then away with you. but we'll be able to stay
there. We'll be able to abide the presence
of God and God will be able to abide our presence. And the reason
is because through the substitution of death of Christ Jesus, we
are made the righteousness of God in him. So we can stand before
God. That's the blessings, the glorious
blessings of justification. And all of these other things
that he talks about here in the first few verses of chapter five.
No wonder an old writer, Martin Luther, he said this, although
I am still a sinner, yet I despair not. For Christ, who is my representative,
and who is my righteousness, and who is my Redeemer, He ever
lives. In Him, I have no sin. In Him, I have no fear. In Him,
I have no sting of conscience. In Him, I have no fear of judgment. For in him there is no condemnation. And he said this, I am indeed
a sinner as touching this present life, but I have a holiness and
a righteousness which is above this life. The righteousness
of Christ my Lord, and in him alone I rejoice, end quote. Isn't that wonderful? In him
alone I rejoice. No wonder Paul says there in
verse two, in whom or wherein we stand. We stand in Christ
Jesus. And then here's the last thing.
What is our confidence of justification? And that would be from verses
nine through the end of the chapter. And I would sum up this last
section concerning justification by saying here is our confidence. Our Lord Jesus Christ He stood
for us as our representative, and we stand before God in the
perfection and the beauty of our Savior. Listen to what Paul
says in verse nine. 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 in or by his
life. That is, he who died for us ever
lives. He ever lives to represent us
before the Father. And he is our acceptance. Here's our confidence of justification. My, with what assurance the apostle
speaks. But we can also speak with confidence. Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through him. There's no wrath in him. There's
no wrath for anybody who's in Christ Jesus. No wrath for him,
no wrath for us. And here's our confidence. Here's
our assurance. The Savior has done the work.
And now, if you're working and trying to earn favor with God,
well, I've got some news for you. Number one, your work will
never be done. And number two, your work can
never be done because you can't satisfy God's demands. But if
you're resting your poor, sinful, polluted soul in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Savior of sinners, if He is your only hope of glory,
if that's a fact, then I can say to you, you're justified. All is well between you and a
holy God, and not because of your faith, but your faith is
the evidence that God has done a work of grace for you and a
work of grace in you. Here's our confidence of justification. What is the problem? The problem
is sin, and we're all infected I've got a terrible disease,
but there's a remedy. It's this justification. It's
this work of God by grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. Let's sing.