Peace with God

What peace is this?

Pray:

Father, thank you for the opportunity to learn from you.

I pray that you would open our hearts and minds so that your Spirit might change us into the likeness of your Son through the preaching of your Word.

Lord, speak through me, and also speak to me.

I need you to work in my own heart just as much as everyone else here does.

We are all relying on you to do in us what we could never do on our own.

And Father, I pray that you would be glorified as we worship you today in singing, reading Scripture, prayer, and proclaiming your Word.

We thank you, and praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This is week number 2 in our advent series.

The theme for this week is peace.

When you think of that theme, peace, especially around Christmas time...

What things come to mind?

We read earlier in the service from Luke chapter 2 where the angels were praising God at Jesus’ birth saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Last week, Ryan preached from Isaiah chapter 9 where this child that was to be born would be called the Prince of Peace.

Or maybe what comes to mind is something more modern like the need for peace in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, or the conflict between Israel and seemingly the rest of the world.

Or maybe you are thinking a little closer to home… maybe there is strife between extended relatives, or between siblings, or even within your marriage.

War is terrible whether it’s war between countries or war between spouses.

People know this, that’s why it’s become so cliche to wish for world peace.

That’s why people go to counselors to fix their marriages, or they run away from the conflict and get a divorce.

Everyone is seeking peace in some way or another.

Either they try to force the opposition to submit or cease, or they run away… fight or flight.

This is what the world thinks of the concept of peace.

But this is not the peace we see in God’s Word.

We see words like the Hebrew word “Shalom.”

That’s the word the people in Israel would use as a greeting, and they still use it as a greeting today.

It’s translated “Peace” in English, but the concept is slightly different from tour typical idea of peace.

It more accurately means, “Life as it was meant to be.”

That takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening…

there was no sin, no strife, no war…

but then the serpent came and tempted them and they fell in sin...

and now strife and war are rampant between people and more specifically between man and God.

It also takes us to the new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21:1-4

After sin and death are removed, the peace is more glorious having come through the fall and redemption.

But until that time, we wait amidst an antagonistic world.

The world wants nothing to do with God… they are running from him, running from his opposition to their sin.

Everyone knows that God exists, but they suppress that truth in unrighteousness Romans 1:18.

And because of that, their idea of peace ignores God, and seeks peace with each other only through fighting or fleeing.

But that is a tainted understanding of peace.

True peace, as we will see, can only be had through selfless sacrifice, not through selfish fighting or fleeing.

The world is constantly proclaiming their tainted understanding of peace, so we need God to proclaim his perfect peace in Christ louder than the world.

What does God have to say about his perfect peace in Christ?

In Romans 5:1-11 God tells us exactly what his perfect peace is.

Let’s read it together and then we will see three aspects of God’s peace in Christ so that we can drown out the world’s tainted understanding.

Romans 5:1–11 ESV

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

First, we see that our peace with God is...

A peace based on faith (1-2a).

Paul has just explained that Abraham was justified by his faith, and we, too, are justified by our faith in Christ.

And now he explains that our justification means that we are at peace with God.

He says in verse 1, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We cannot have peace with God unless we have been justified, declared righteous before him...

and until we are justified, we are at war with him.

There can be no peace when hatred abounds.

God hates sin, and everyone, because of Adam’s sin, naturally hates God.

But because of Jesus Christ, and because of our faith in him, we have peace with God.

We no longer hate him, we love him.

And now, when God looks at us he does not see our sin, he sees the righteousness of Christ.

And Paul brings up another thing that we get from our faith in Christ, he says in the first half of verse 2, “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.”

Grace is one of those Christian-eese words that people have a hard time understanding unless they’ve spent a good amount of time in the church.

Grace is simply a gift that is undeserved.

All of the gifts of God are undeserved, and we have access to them all because of our faith in Christ.

And the place where these undeserved gifts of God are given to us is in his presence, at the foot of his throne in heaven.

Because of our faith in Jesus Christ, and the peace we have with God through him, we have access to stand in the very presence of God in prayer where he lavishes his grace on us.

Our peace with God is based on our faith in Christ, not on our own efforts to satisfy his wrath against our sin.

That’s what the Jews were trying to do, and sadly, that’s what a lot of legalistic Christians are trying to do.

The wrath of God is real and scary because all those who are in sin will be judged and given the just penalty for their sin, eternal separation from God in Hell, a place of eternal agony and despair.

When you understand what’s at stake, it’s only natural to try and get out of those unbearable consequences.

The problem is thinking that there is anything we can do to appease God’s wrath.

The truth is that we can’t do anything because the price of his appeasement is more than anyone can pay.

But there was one person who could pay it, and he could pay it for everyone because of his infinite worth.

That one person is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, he child we are celebrating this season, the One God had promised to send for this very purpose.

Pastor Ryan preached about this last week from Isaiah 9:6–7.

One of those names this promised child would be called is the Prince of Peace.

He would bring about peace through the blood of his cross as Paul says in Colossians 1:20.

None of us can satisfy the requirements to appease God’s wrath against our sin, but Jesus Christ can and he did through his death and resurrection.

Now we can have peace with God simply by placing our faith in Christ to be declared righteous and given access to stand in his presence as he pours out his grace on us.

We saw, first, how our peace with God is based on our faith in Jesus Christ.

Second, we see how it’s...

A peace filled with hope (2b-5)

English Standard Version Chapter 5

and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The word Paul uses here translated “Rejoice” means to boast or exult.

This is like rejoicing when your team wins the championship.

Our peace with God means that the hope of his glory makes us cheer and shout for joy rather than cower in fear or sulk in defeat because we are on God’s team now.

God wins, he's already defeated sin and death at the cross, and when Jesus comes back it will be so awesome and glorious.

That’s what the entire book of Revelation is about.

Jesus is coming back, and he wins gloriously.

Ryan touched on this a bit last week, but biblical hope is not the pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking that the world has… like I hope I get a new car for Christmas.

Biblical hope is based on the unchanging character of God and his faithfulness and absolute ability to do what he promised he would do.

So we can look forward to Jesus coming back and making all things new as if it has already happened and rejoice in the hope of his glory.

Now, rejoicing in the hope of God’s glory is boasting or exulting about the sure fact that God will make all things new when Jesus returns in glory.

But when Paul says that we also rejoice in our suffering, he’s not saying that we rejoice about the fact that we suffer.

That’s masochistic and unbiblical.

Paul uses a slightly different preposition in the Greek that gets a bit lost in our English translations.

He is really just referring to rejoicing while going through suffering, not rejoicing about the suffering.

People have an amazing capacity to endure suffering when they are sure that the suffering is worth it.

But as soon as it becomes clear that the suffering is pointless, we try to get out of the suffering as soon as possible.

Are you suffering right now?

Do you look at your life and wonder how you are going to survive?

Do you wonder how a good God could allow this much pain and misery?

Do you hear Paul’s words that we rejoice in our suffering, and think, “Okay Paul, surely you didn’t mean MY suffering, because what I’m going through doesn’t leave any room for rejoicing.”

Let me tell you that Paul understood suffering, and he probably experienced more suffering than you.

But the point isn’t how much suffering you are going through, it’s about how the hope of God’s glory is bigger than whatever suffering you’re going through.

So, how does that happen?

How can your hope outweigh your pain?

Paul explains how we as believers who are at peace with God can rejoice in the midst of our suffering.

He says that the suffering we endure produces endurance, which produces character, which produces hope.

But there’s a missing ingredient that causes this chain reaction to happen.

Without this missing ingredient, our suffering does not produce endurance or character or hope, rather it produces despair, and doubt, and fear.

The missing ingredient is God’s love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Knowing and feeling God’s love for you through the Holy Spirit who dwells inside of you, believer...

That makes your suffering worth it.

That makes your suffering produce endurance, character, and hope.

Knowing and experiencing God’s love for you changes everything.

Jesus experienced this same rejoicing in suffering when he went to the cross.

The author of the book of Hebrews explained in chapter 12 that we endure suffering in our lives as believers by looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2.

That is the hope of God’s glory outweighing the suffering in life.

And Jesus did this because he intimately knows the love of God which motivated this salvation plan in the first place.

So, we saw, first, that our peace with God is based on our faith in Jesus Christ, and second, that it is filled with hope in Christ even as we suffer like him.

Now, third, lets see in verses 6-11 how it’s...

A peace motivated by love (6-11)

Romans 5:6–11 ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Remember, we have hope because the Holy Spirit pours out God’s love into our hearts, but what does that love look like?

It looks like God giving us his best when we were at our worst.

Our peace with God is motivated by his love for us in saving us through Christ’s death and in keeping us through his life.

While we were still weak, powerless, helpless, hopeless… Christ died for us, the ungodly.

While we were his enemies Christ died for us.

Who does that?

Hardly anyone would die for a righteous person, let alone a person who has done good to them...

But Christ died for us when we were unrighteous and wicked.

That’s how amazing God’s love for us is.

That’s how much he loves you.

The love we typically experience is usually conditioned upon some benefit to us or some perceived benefit to society.

People fall in and out of “love” all the time because the other person makes them feel good in some way and then that feeling stops for whatever reason.

But that’s not how God loves.

He loves you, not because of how you make him feel, or what you can bring to the relationship.

He loves you because he’s already brought everything in abundance, and he wants to share his love with you.

Jesus said in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, laid down his life in the greatest act of love, and he did so, not for those who were already his friends.

He did it for his enemies, sinners, the ungodly, you and me… so that we would become his friends, his brothers and sisters, adopted into his family.

So, our peace with God is motivated by his love in sending his Son to die for us so that we can be saved, but it’s also motivated by his love in keeping us forever.

We are justified by Christ’s blood shed for us on the cross much like the Israelites were justified for a year by the atonement sacrifice.

But that Old Covenant sacrifice could not turn away God’s wrath against sin.

All it could do was delay the inevitable because that sacrifice was insufficient to pay the infinite debt of sin.

But the blood of Christ IS sufficient because his blood has infinite worth; his is the blood of infinite, almighty God.

Jesus’ sacrifice DOES turn away God’s wrath, it’s the only thing that can do that.

And he turns it away forever.

We don’t have to continually offer sacrifices year after year because Jesus’ sacrifice, once for all time, is sufficient to keep us saved from God’s wrath forever.

Ryan has been preaching through Hebrews, and he recently went through this concept in depth in chapters 9 and 10.

You can listen to those sermons on the church website.

I commend them to you as he explains how Jesus is a better high priest and a better sacrifice than the old covenant because his single sacrifice was sufficient for all people and for all time.

Well, Paul goes on in Romans chapter 5 to make a lesser to greater argument.

If God loved us enough to reconcile us, that is, make peace with us, while we were his enemies through the death of his Son...

Then his love is way more than necessary to keep us saved by Jesus’ life now that we are his adopted children.

It’s pretty obvious how we love our own children more than we love our enemies.

And if God loved us this much while we were his enemies, then how much more does he love us now that we are his children, now that we have peace with him?

He loves us more than we could ever really understand.

This is the hope of God’s glory that we exult in back in verse 2.

The hope of God’s glory is our reconciliation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ motivated by God’s abundant love for us poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit in verse 5.

I don’t know if you noticed, but all four advent themes are present here because all four are intrinsically linked.

Hope, peace, joy, and love.

We have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ which produces joy over the hope we have in God’s glory because his love is poured into our hearts through his Spirit.

What Peace is This?

God’s perfect peace is based on our faith in his Son, Jesus Christ, it is filled with hope that Jesus will return to make all of our suffering worth it, and it is motivated by love to reconcile us through the death of his Son even when we were his enemies and to keep us forever through the eternal life of his Son now that we are his children.

It makes sense that Jesus is called the Prince of Peace.

He’s the catalyst for every aspect of God’s perfect peace with us.

He’s the one we put our faith in to have this peace.

He’s the one we hope in and look to in order to endure suffering.

And he’s the one that God’s love for us was displayed through in his death and resurrection on our behalf.

So, make sure that you are relying on your faith in Jesus for your justification before God.

Remember that your peace with God is based on your faith in Christ alone, not in your efforts.

Without faith in Jesus, you are left to rely on your own merit which falls infinitely short of paying for your sins.

Your obedience and righteousness cannot turn away God’s wrath against your sin… only Jesus’ blood can do that.

If you have not put your faith in Jesus, then I beg you to do so right now, because you cannot experience this peace with God unless you have faith in his Son, Jesus.

And if you have faith in Jesus, then do not go back to relying on your own effort...

As Romans 12:1–2 says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Relying on your faith in Jesus for your justification means presenting your bodies, your efforts, your own righteousness as a living sacrifice rather than holding onto them like a security blanket.

It means being transformed by the renewing of your mind through God’s Word to know what he wants you to do.

It’s a matter of motivation.

We are called to obedience, not in order to be justified, but because we have been justified and now we want to know how to please the one who saved us.

And make sure that your hope is not set on earthly things but on the glory of God.

When trials come in life, let the peace of God fuel your hope in his glory and his return to make all things new and wipe away every tear from your eyes.

Life is hard, and it may seem like money, family, friends, stuff, or any number of other things, will get you through it...

But those things are all fleeting, and they offer cold comfort compared to Christ.

He is the example we look to so that we can rejoice in the midst of our suffering.

And he is the one who will return in glory and make all of your suffering cease, and all of your suffering worth it.

As Romans 12:12 says, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

Hold on to Jesus because the peace he purchased at the cross is full of hope.

And finally, remember the love of God that motivated this peace… especially when others are unlovely.

I don’t think I need to go through all of the ways people can be unlovely during the holidays.

We all know.

I’m sure all of us can call to mind at least one incident or another where someone, maybe a friend, or a family member, or even a stranger was selfish, mean, uncaring, or rude during this season.

It may have even happened on your way to church today.

God loved us when we were his enemies.

And we are called to do likewise, to love others when they behave as our enemies.

Romans 12:14 says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”

And Paul goes on to say in Romans 12:17–21 “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Remember the peace that God pursued in his love for you when you didn’t deserve it, and give that same love to others who don’t deserve it.

This is the peace we have with God, based on our faith in Jesus Christ, full of hope in Jesus Christ, and motivated by love displayed in Jesus Christ.

Pray:

Father, thank you for loving us, for giving us hope, and peace through your Son.

I pray that you would help us to remember these things as we go about our lives.

Help us remember to rely on Jesus’ righteousness for our right standing with you, and obey out of a desire to please you rather than trying to earn our justification.

Help us to remember your promises when life is hard, and to look to Jesus as our example and motivation to keep going in the midst of suffering.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that our suffering is worth it, so pour out your love in our hearts through your Spirit.

Help us to remember your love that pursued us when we were your enemies, and keeps us now that we are your children.

And help us to show that same love to our enemies.

Be with us as we continue our worship service, and help us to remember what true peace is, peace with you through your Son, Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

It’s in his glorious name we pray. Amen.