Would turn with me to Romans
chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. There's no message worth preaching that doesn't
speak of Him. He is our salvation. He is our everything. Verse 1 Therefore, being justified
by faith, we have peace with God, where? Through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now in the first four chapters, the Apostle Paul has clearly
stated and proves that justification before God is not by works, but
by faith. And in chapter five, Paul begins
to show us the blessings that we have through Christ. Him,
His, He. That's what it's all about. We're
justified and righteous before God by faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Faith's not blind. Faith has
an object. That object is Christ. It's a
result of believing on Him as He's revealed in the Scriptures. There are many today that are
preaching of Jesus that it's not concerning to the Scriptures.
They begin to describe Him. He don't sound like the same
Lord Jesus Christ that I know. The peace here Paul speaks of
comes from the fact that in Christ we're righteous. That gives me
peace. It's not dependent upon my righteousness. My peace comes from the fact
that my sins, which are ever before me, are no longer before
Him. They're forgiven. And this book declares, and I
still can't get over this, that I'm holy and unblameable in His
sight. I can't fathom that. Me? Yeah. And in order for us to be saved,
dear friends, we must not understand justification by faith as just
a mere doctrine. It's an experience. We must understand it as something
realized, something felt, something enjoyed, something understood
in our soul. Now, I'm not saying that salvation
is an experience. It's not. But we experience salvation. There's a change. There's not
an outward change, an inward change, which hopefully by God's
grace leads to an outward change. But it's not a warm feeling or
an emotion. It's something heartfelt given
by God and Him alone. And there's some of you here
this morning that can say, therefore being justified by faith, I have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's real to you. And if you
can say that, by God's grace, you are at this present time,
right now, walking and living and an actual enjoyment of His
peace. The peace of God which passes
all understanding. We can't understand this peace.
Now there's a lot of times I don't act like a man with much peace. About every moment of every day.
I have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not
something merely external. If it's only external to you,
if it's only an external thing, then you've missed the true meaning
and it really has no value to you. Those of you that have experienced
it inwardly, right now, right this moment, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Up to this point, Paul in his
letter comes to this subject of justification by faith. He's been speaking about sin. You see, it wouldn't have been
possible for him to have given a true definition of justification
by faith without telling men and women that they're sinners,
that they're sin, sin's what they are. He couldn't have made
them understand justification by faith without informing them
that they'd broken God's holy law. He had to tell them that
the law by and of itself could never restore them to the favor
of God. And when the Spirit of God brings
a man or a woman to Christ, they discover something, don't they?
Oh, I remember vividly God revealing my sin to my heart. He shows
them something. They discover that their past
life has been badly marred by serious offenses against God's
law. That's why the law was given,
to show man he was a sinner, show man that he couldn't keep
God's law, that he was in need of a Savior. One of the old writers said,
before the Spirit of God comes into the soul, it's like being
in a room in the dark. We can't see in it. Have you
ever went into a dark room and you're kind of groping around?
He said, we don't see the cobwebs. We don't see the spiders. We
don't see the foul and loathsome things that may be hiding there. We're in the dark. But when the
Spirit of God enlightens us, turns on that light, like turning
on a light switch, the sinner is astonished, isn't he, to find
what he is and who he is. What he is and who he is. When
he sits down and opens the book of God's law, And in the light
of the Holy Spirit, reads that perfect law. Compares it with His own imperfect
life, ways, heart. I can assure you of one thing,
He'll grow sick of Himself. He'll hate himself to the point
of despair. He'll take sides with God against
himself and say, I deserve death and eternal condemnation. That's
what I deserve. I see it now. I'm way off the plumb line of
God's strict and holy law. Way off. Well, there are some that say,
well, I know I'm a sinner, but I'm not that bad. I've never
committed adultery. But you've looked at a woman
in lust. There are others that say, well, I've never committed
murder, so I can't be as bad as a murderer. You are in God's
eyes. You've hated in your heart, haven't
you? Why? Who? Who? And why, really? But who on earth can truly say,
I'm innocent? Only one man that ever walked
this earth that could say that. And he became sin, that we might
become righteous. Now we know that what things
whoever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law,
we saw that in chapter 3 verse 19, that every mouth may be stopped. What's that mouth stop? Well,
that's stopped on bragging on yourself, isn't it? Yeah, it's
stopped that mouth and all the world becomes guilty before God. The day God revealed His Word,
revealed my condition before Him, I shut my mouth. I was guilty. I deserved nothing
but death, for that's the wages of sin. And if we ever, ever
see our own nothingness, We'll never understand Christ's
all-sufficiency. If we never see our sin, we'll
never see our need of a Savior. God shows it to us. Unless we're
pulled down, Christ will never lift us up. We've got to come
down, don't we? We've got to decrease. Unless
we know ourselves to be lost, we'll never care. that our Savior
came to seek and save the lost. We must, by God's grace, see
that it's utterly impossible for us to hope that we can ever,
ever be just before God on the foundation of our own works,
our own doing. What must I do to be saved? believe,
trust, rely upon Christ. And you can't do that unless
God bid it so. That's why our Lord is described
as the sure foundation, the chief cornerstone. That's why he himself
in the parable of the seed, he likens a man that built his house
on a rock. unto those who trust in Christ. Sure foundation. That house is
going to stand. Building upon sand is building
upon what I do. That's just sand. You get it
in your hand, you pour water on it, it oozes out between your
fingers. You hold a rock and pour water
on it, it doesn't go anywhere. It just bounces off. That's Christ. That's Christ. He was made a curse for us that
we might be made a blessing. And unless you and I keep the
law of God perfectly, it doesn't matter how close we get to perfection. There are some that think they
get close. I wouldn't be too worried about that. I'm pretty
much the opposite of perfection. But it's totally necessary to
be just before God, to be reconciled to God. I know that. And I know
there's only one way to be reconciled to God, and that's through His
blessed Son that He gave. By God's grace that we see that
we're not just, and we see we cannot be just, and we're convinced,
absolutely convinced by the power of God that it's hopeless for
us to think of standing before God in ourselves. What do I have to offer God but
his precious son? Absolutely nothing. That's why
the old Hymn writer wrote in my hand, no price I bring, simply
to thy cross I cling. We cling to the Christ of the
cross, not the cross, the Christ of the cross. You see, God's never indifferent
towards sin. God hates sin. He always has. He always will. If a man's not
in a state in which God can justify him, he's in a state in which
God must condemn him. If you're not just before God,
you are condemned at this very moment. If you're here this morning,
you're without Christ. You're condemned. You know how
I know that? The Scriptures say that he that
believes not is condemned already. Know what it says? The sign of this condemnation
is your unbelief. Thank God for His marvelous grace. You see, now God has determined
to deal with men in a way of mercy, to forgive them
of all their offenses, all their iniquities, and to bestow love
upon them without admiring His justice at all. That's amazing. He's just and justifier. God
devised the way. Undeserving men and women are
now received in His heart. Did you know God has a heart? Yeah, He does. In Acts, we can
read that David, son of Jesse, was a man after God's own heart.
That's what the Bible says. God has a heart. God now blesses us not according
to works of righteousness that we've done, no sirree, but he
blesses us just as if we had kept God's law perfectly. Can you imagine keeping God's
law perfectly? I can't. Because sin is so much
of what I am. And if I'm going to be honest before
God concerning my sin, I can't. I can't fathom that. But in God's
eyes, through the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm as perfect as He
is. I'm as holy and righteous as
Christ Himself is. Who can understand those things?
We don't understand them We believe them, though. We trust in the
fact that God's told us the truth about Him and ourselves. And
isn't it great to know that where grace is, there's no works? Well, that'll mean something
to you if you see that your works are nothing but works of dishonor
and unrighteousness. If you think that your works
merit some righteousness, then that won't mean much to you.
But when you realize that your works are nothing but iniquity, you'll love the fact that where
grace is, there's no works. There's no mixing of grace and
works, is there? I'm so glad that my right standing
with God is not dependent on me in any way, shape, or form." Well, you had to believe, didn't
you? I couldn't believe unless God caused me to. God made me
say it. I couldn't say it. I did. He
had to give me like those old bones that Gary read about a
week or so ago in Ezekiel. They're bones. far past death, and he said,
preach to those bones, tell them to live. That's what God does for us in
Christ, isn't it? Not by works of righteousness,
which we've done, but what? According to His mercy. He saved us. He saved us. If we're saved by grace, it cannot
be our own merits. If we depend upon our merits,
then we can't appeal to the grace of God. They don't mix. They
don't go together. But according to His strict justice,
God cannot bless us for our sake. But you can be assured that He'll
bless you for Christ's sake. In our study in John, a week
or so ago, we looked at chapter 2, verse 12, and He said, I write
unto you, little children, maybe it was last week, it was, because
your sins are forgiven you for His namesake. Not for yours,
but for His. You see, when God looks at us,
He must curse. But God has laid the curse on
Him. And now, looking at us through Him, God can bless us, though
we don't deserve it. He can pass by our undeserving. He can blot out our sins like
a cloud, and He can cast our iniquities into the depths of
the sea. You know why? Because that's what Christ, that's
what was done to Christ. He took my sin and made it His
own. He bore my iniquities on that
tree. We have no merits, but Christ
has boundless merits. We're full of sin. We must be
punished But the gospel is, my dear friends, He was punished
instead of us. It's called substitution. This is the way the gospel comes
to us. Well, now here's the privilege
of this verse, and this is the only one we're going to look
at today. Here's the privilege of this blessed, blessed verse
of Scripture. It says, being justified. just as if I'd never sinned. Paul here under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit tells us that every believing man and woman
is at this very moment perfectly justified before God. We know
that Adam was naked in innocence. He didn't know he was naked before
he disobeyed God. So is every justified man or
woman. Our sin's gone. Adam could talk with God because
he was pure from sin. And now, in Christ, we have access
to the throne of God. In Christ. Through His blood,
we're clean. But notice that justification
is by faith. Being justified by faith. It's
not by tears, it's not by prayers, it's not by humility, it's not
by works, it's not by Bible reading, church going, free will, decision. It's by faith. For you're saved
by grace through faith, that's not of yourselves, it's a gift
of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Faith is a
simple, utter, total dependence upon Christ in believing the
faithfulness of God, not our faithfulness to Him. It's a dependence
upon the promise of God, because it's God's promise. And it's
worthy, it's worthy of our dependence on it. It's a total reliance with all
our might that God will do what He's promised. Is God a man that
He should lie? The Son of Man that He should
repent, change His mind? God's not a fickle God. God's
a God of purpose. What did Paul tell his young
friend Timothy? He said, I know whom I've believed. I'm persuaded that he's able. He's able Timothy to keep that
which I've committed unto him against that day. Look at verse
one again, therefore being justified by faith. Notice this part, we
have peace with God and it's through. Our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, lastly here, we see
that we have peace with God. Peace is something that natural
men and women really don't know much about. There's no real peace
except in knowing that I stand perfect before God and Christ.
That's my peace. Everything's all right. Peace. God's not mad at me anymore.
Peace. Why? Because my justification
is by faith, and my faith and my peace with God are what? Look at the last of verse 1.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why. That's why. There's peace through Christ.
Men think that they have peace and riches and possessions, comforts
of life. Men think they have security
in this world. Those without Christ, maybe because
of a good job or a steady career, but they don't. Not real peace. There was a man that our Lord
spoke of in a parable. He said the Lord had blessed
him, blessed the ground that he tilled. He had so much that
one day he said, what am I going to do? He said, I guess I'm going
to tear down my barns and build some bigger ones. That's the
only way I can house all that I have. And God says, you're a fool.
Your soul is going to be required of you tonight. It tells us in
another place, don't say you're going to go here and do this
and do that. It's up to the Lord's will. The only true peace, friends,
we'll ever, ever truly find is through, in, and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what Paul is saying here.
That's what Paul is saying. What peace it is to know. That
all things work together for the good of them that love the
Lord, who are they called according to His pardon. Not some things,
not most things, all things. All things. God help me to believe it more.