We've been studying here in the
letter of Romans, and we've come now to chapter five. We'll look at the first five
verses tonight. Very familiar passage of scripture
to all of us. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not
only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation
worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope,
and hope maketh not ashamed. because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. We know that the truth of justification
has been the theme in this letter so far. The apostle, first of
all, showing that we've all sinned, that both Jews and Gentiles are
guilty of sinning against God. and there's only one way of being
justified. The word justification or justified,
many people associated the Reformation especially with the doctrine
of justification by faith because of Martin Luther, because of
his teaching, the truth that he taught. about being justified
by faith. He said that this doctrine is
the difference between a standing church and a falling church.
The truth, when men and women, by the grace of God, understand
what justification is, the difference between a standing church and
a falling church. What is justification? Well,
we know it is a law term. It's a forensic term, as they
say, a law term. And it is God pardoning sinners
and declaring them just or righteous. That's the same thing, the word
just and righteous, the same thing. Here are six things that
the Apostle Paul tells us about justification in this letter
of Romans I would just remind us of. First of all, a person
who is justified is justified by grace. No one is justified
in any other way. If you look back to chapter three,
we've seen this, but we'll just glance back to chapter three
and verse 24, being justified freely by his grace. And we can't help but notice
that he not only said being justified by grace, but being justified
freely by his grace. And that word freely literally
means without a cause. That is not by anything, any
works, any feelings that we do. We're justified freely by God's
grace, God's unmerited favor. And I like to remind myself,
I know I've told you this so many times, bear with me. But
when God showed me that mercy deserved is not mercy. And grace merited is not grace. What a blessing those two truths
are to me, to my heart. You can never deserve or merit
God's grace is freely given by God. And that's the first thing
I point out to us, those who are justified are justified by
grace, God's unmerited favor. A second thing, a person is justified
by the blood of Jesus Christ. If you notice in verse 24 of
Romans 3, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. It isn't like God could just
say, well, you're just. Even though you're guilty, you're
just. No, God being the holy God that
he is, there had to be an atonement. There had to be an appeasement. There had to be a work to satisfy
God's justice that we have offended, justified by his blood. Don't bring anything. In other
words, when a person looks to Christ or comes to Christ, don't
bring anything. Didn't Augustus Toplady in his
hymn that many times we sing, In my hand no price I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling. Yes. And third, a person is justified
by faith, as we see in our text tonight, therefore being justified
by faith. When a sinner believes in the
Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, when he looks to Christ,
we come into union, by faith into union with Christ. We saw
that this morning about this spiritual union. I said it's
eternal, it's representative, and it's vital. And the vital
union is when a believer when a person believes in the Lord
Jesus Christ and that sentence of justification passes on our
conscience. Yes, I've been justified freely
by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. And
by faith, I apprehend that truth and I come to know that truth
and rest in that truth and rejoice in that truth. Then fourth, and
we haven't got to this place, but in Romans we know a person
is justified by God. It is God that justifies. That's what we read in Romans
chapter eight, isn't it? It is God that justifies. It is He, the Almighty God, who
declares a person to be just, to be righteous before Him. And
fifth, a person once justified is freed from all condemnation. Who shall condemn us? It is Christ
who died. We're justified freely and we
are no longer condemned and never shall be condemned. And a person
who is justified will never be separated from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now it's easy to preach about
justification, but I want you to look with me over in 1 Peter.
1 Peter chapter four. 1 Peter chapter four and verse
18. The apostle writing, and if the
righteous Now that's the just, those who've been justified.
Righteous, declared righteous by God Almighty. If the righteous
scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Now what does that mean, if the
righteous scarcely be saved? Well, it means with difficulty. When Job asked that question,
how then shall a man be just with God? One of the oldest recorded
questions that we have. Even his question shows that
he understood it would be with difficulty. For God, who is the
thrice holy God that he is, who loves righteousness and hates
iniquity, for him to declare a person who drinks iniquity
like water to be just. It would be with difficulty.
And the difficulty, of course, scarcely, with respect to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He had to come into this world
and he had to take the sins of his people upon himself and pay. I don't know if we fully Think about the weight of sin
that was laid upon Christ. When you sin, and we do, and
your conscience troubles you, that guilt, but think of the
guilt, not of one person, but of all of God's elect, however
many thousands or millions of God's elect, all of their sins,
The weight of all our sins was laid upon Christ with difficulty. That's what this means here.
The righteous with difficulty, difficulty on his part because
he had to bear the wrath of Almighty God for the sins of his people. And with respect to those who
are saved, It's difficult in the sense that we go through
this world and we have problems and trials and doubts and fears. We all do. And yet we know that
the Lord Jesus Christ is a sufficient Savior. Now, that's the first thing we
see here in our text, therefore being justified by faith. But
now I want us to look at the four things that he tells us
accompany justification. In other words, everyone who
is declared righteous by God, who's justified, then we have
these things. First of all, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God. Now this
is what the Bible means by reconciliation. If you look down to verse 10,
we're not going that far tonight, but the apostle wrote, for if
when we were enemies, enemies, enmity, actually, enmity with
God, We were reconciled to God. That
word reconciled or reconciled, we know that Adam, as he was
created in the image of God, enjoyed the presence of God. But once he sinned, once he failed,
and he represented us, we come into this world enemies of God. And we must be reconciled. must be brought back and given
peace. And that's what we have, those
who are justified, we have peace with God. Look in Colossians 1, just a
moment. In Colossians 1 and verse 20, and having made peace through
the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto
Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
Not talking about something that's going to happen in the future,
but now. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God. Yet now hath he reconciled. Reconciled, reconciliation, being
justified. We not only have peace with God,
but the peace of God that passeth all understanding keeps our hearts
and minds through Jesus Christ. That word keeps is garrison,
like in a fort, we think about an army fort or something, the
walls and the garrison and the peace of God we have in our hearts
and it keeps our minds, it garrisons our hearts and minds through
Jesus Christ. We have peace with God. The second
benefit that we see that those who are justified, we not only
have peace with God, but we have access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand. Now, what does that mean? We
have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. Well, it has to refer to the
throne of grace. We have access to the throne
of grace. It's called the throne of grace
because it's God's throne and because God is the God of all
grace. And it's called the throne of
grace because the Lord Jesus Christ is on that throne. It's
the throne of God and of the Lamb. The words here, wherein
we stand, refers to the fact that by grace we come boldly
to the throne. We have access, as the word of
God here says. Wherein we stand, we have access,
we come boldly to the throne of grace. As the word of God
tells us in Hebrews 4 and verse 16, let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in the time of need. And I always like to point
out when I quote that verse boldly, we come boldly We don't come
irreverently. That's what I say today that's
going on in so many so-called worship services, the lack of
reverence. Our God is a holy God. We stand
in awe of Him. Yes, He's our Father, and He
loves us. We've been reconciled unto Him,
and we come boldly, but we don't come irreverently into the presence
of God. You wouldn't run into the oval
office where the president is. You wouldn't, if you lived in
a country like England that has a king, you wouldn't just run
into his presence, no. There's a reverence about coming
into the presence of God. But we have that right, that
privilege to come boldly. And we come as sons. Not as criminals. No, we come
as sons. Here's the third thing the apostle
tells us that we have. We have cause to rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. We see that also in verse two. And rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. Now the glory of God here is
not his essential glory. We know that we rejoice that
the God that we worship, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the God of the Bible is a God of glory. Everything
about him is glorious, I understand that. But that's not the glory
that we're speaking of here, the glory of God. Here, it refers
to the hope, the living hope to which we have been begotten. That is to eternal life, to be
enjoyed in eternal glory with our Savior. Let me read this
passage if you want to turn in 1 Peter 1 and verses 3 through
5. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance, to an inheritance incorruptible,
undefiled, and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you,
who are kept by the power of God through faith into salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. We rejoice in hope. Now hope, that word hope, in
the scripture, it means expectation. Expectation. We rejoice in expectation. And what is it that we expect? What is it that we rejoice in
that we expect? We expect one day to be with
the Lord. Right? That's His promise. We expect one day to be like
Him. That's His promise. We expect
one day, and we rejoice in this expectation of the glory of God,
in the hope that we shall one day be done with this body of
sin. I know it troubles us. We were
born with it, and we will die with it, that old nature. But we rejoice and hope that
one day the expectation that when we leave this body, we're
going to leave that body of sin also. And we're going to be holy,
perfectly holy in God's presence, just like Christ. Not only to
be with him, but to be like him is the hope. We're going to be
removed from sin, removed from sickness, removed from sadness. removed from death and to be
forever with the Lord. We rejoice in that hope. And
if we don't rejoice in that hope, shame on us. Shame on us. We've been begotten again unto
a living hope, a lively hope. Yes, one day we will be with
the Lord. We'll be like him and we will
enjoy God. in a way that we've never been
able to enjoy Him while we're here in this flesh. Rejoice in
hope. We don't go around with our demeanor, you know. One person
used to say a man looked like he could eat oats out of a Coke
bottle, you know. That's not the way God's people
live. We rejoice. We're happy in Christ. Blessed, happy is the man, the
scripture says. Happy is the man. Rejoice in
him. And that brings me to the fourth
thing. We glory in tribulations also. Now, when we read here, we glory
in tribulations, how do we do that? How is that possible? That doesn't mean when you go
to the doctor and he says, I've got some bad news. What's that? Well, you've got cancer, the
fourth stage. We don't start shouting, praising
God. Or we come home and our house
is burned down, nothing left but ashes. I mean, the tribulations
and things that people go through here, God's people, we're not
exempt from them. In fact, our Lord promised that
we would have them. But we rejoice in knowing. This is what he said. We glory in tribulation also
knowing. There's some things we know about
tribulation. When tribulation comes my way
or comes your way, we know some things about this. It didn't
just spring up out of the dust. Our father sent it. And our father
sent it for our good and for his glory. Yes, there's some
things we know that are true about tribulation. We know that
God loves us enough to send us tribulation. You remember in
Hebrews chapter 12, where the apostle is writing about chastisement. You know, he makes the fact that
a bastard is not chastised. Why? Because he's not a son. But every son that God receives
is chastised. Yes. These things that we experience
in this world and tribulations, we know some things about them. And knowing some things about
them enables us to rejoice. Knowing that God has promised,
this is one of his promise, there shall no evil befall thee. Say unto the righteous, that's
what God told Isaiah, say unto the righteous, it shall be well
with thee. It shall, it shall be well with
thee. That's God's word, God's promise. And then the apostle, notice
he names three effects of tribulation. Three effects of tribulation.
First of all, he tells us that tribulation worketh patience.
Now, patience is a grace that most of us, we're not blessed
with. We want everything yesterday.
We want what we want. We want what we need. We don't
have the patience that God has. But tribulation, the apostle
tells us, works patience. And it appears that the grace
of patience It only thrives and grows in difficulties and in
disappointments. When everything is smooth sailing,
everything is like the wind is at your back, no problems, no
difficulties, then most likely you're not going to grow much
in patience. Tribulation worketh patience. This patience is not called into exercise except
in tribulation. In the midst of tribulation,
this grace is developed. And the patience here refers
to deliverance from murmuring and complaining. You know, some
people They don't have patience, and none of us have patience
like we would like, I'm sure. But some people, they just murmur
and complain about everything, and never stop to think that
that is a wicked sin. You read about the nation of
Israel, about their murmuring and complaining, and God took
it to heart. God took it to heart, didn't
he? But they were guilty of always. That was a national sin, we might
say, of the nation of Israel in the world. Always murmuring.
Always complaining. We don't like the weather. We don't like this. We don't
like that. Always complaining. It's a grace. And how do we get
that grace? Tribulation. Tribulation. Work of patience. And then he
tells us that patient then works experience. In the calm, when
there's no difficulties and there's no problems, we know and we believe
what the scriptures tell us. We do. We believe what God tells
us. We believe God's faithful. His
word tells us that. We believe it. We believe God's
faithful. We believe God's grace is sufficient. That's what he tells us. And
we believe it. We believe he'll never leave
us. That's his promise. We believe it. But all of that
is just believing it. But when you experience something,
then you learn, yes, God is faithful. in the tribulation. God is faithful. God's grace is sufficient. I've
dealt with people long enough to know how many people I've
seen when faced with life issues. Say, I just don't see how. I just don't see how I can go
through this, how I can take this, But they find that God's
grace is sufficient. His grace, that's his promise,
isn't it? Yes. Paul had those thorns in
his flesh, and God told him that his grace was sufficient. And
he said he'd rather glory in those things, that the grace
of God, the power of God might rest upon him. It's in tribulation that we experience
that God is faithful, that God's grace is sufficient, that God
will not leave us. It proves to you, and when you
go through that difficulty and you experience God's faithfulness
and his grace being sufficient, it proves to you that your faith
is real. You know, faith has to be proven. God proves the faith of his people.
It's easy to say, I believe, I believe. We'll see. We'll see. I've always tried to use this
example. Let me use it again tonight.
But I've read about people who've always wanted to sail around
the world. And some of them have built their
own sailing ship. I've always said, if I did that,
before I launched to sail around the world, I'd want to sail in
the Bay of Galveston a day or two before I took off around
the world. Yeah, faith. Faith is proven. Faith is tested. And it's for
our good. It's for our good. And then the
last thing, experience brings hope. Again, I said hope means expectation
and expectation has to do with the future. When our circumstances
are mainly as we would like them to be, no problems, no difficulty
at the present, then our hope Our expectation isn't as lively
as it should be. But you let sorrows, you let
trials, and let them come our way. And then we begin to look
forward to this hope, to this expectation that we have to be
with the Lord in heaven. Let me close tonight by asking
us to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 32. This text illustrates this
text, I believe, Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verses 11 and
12. As an eagle stirreth up her nest,
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings. So the Lord alone did lead him,
speaking of the nation of Israel, and there was no strange God
with him. Now, these eaglets, I guess that's
the right term, they hatch. And they are in the
nest, and their mouths are wide open. And they're just there
waiting for the mama bird and the papa bird to come with some
worms or something to feed them. And things are fine. But the
eagle knows. That's not good. And so what
does the eagle do? Well, the scripture here says,
she stirs up her nest. I mean, the birds, they'd like
to just stay there. It's safe, you know, it's warm,
and food is delivered. Yeah, but that's not the best
form. So what does she do? She stirs
up the nest, the scripture here tells us. She flutters over her
young, her wings, she flutters over them and spreads her wings
abroad and taketh them. She forces them when she knows
that they have the wings that they're able to fly. She forces
them out of the nest. And from what I've read, when
they fly, she's always there. And if they are not doing a good
job of it and start going down, she swoops under them, picks
them up. But the point is, she does it
for their good. And that's the same thing about
tribulation and problems and difficulties that God's people
go through. It's for our good. Tribulation worketh patience
and patience, hope and hope maketh not ashamed. May the Lord bless
these words to us here this evening. We're going to sing a hymn before
we're dismissed. Brother Bill, if you'll come.
And let's stand as we sing.