The Peace of Righteousness

Our theme for “2020” is “Seeing Spiritually.”

Pastor Lester Zimmerman, leader of the Hopewell Network, wrote a blog this week reminding leaders that when the world around us is in darkness it is our time to shine.

We need to convey a message of hope in the midst of fear, confusion and despair.

Sure, we live in the real world. We see the problems and we feel the intensity of these unprecedented times.

But we also have the big picture in view. God is greater than all of this.

Every pandemic, riot, hurricane and election is proving that the world is broken, but God is still good.

Do we identify most with a broken world or with the goodness of God?

We are in the fourth week of a five part series on the first half or Romans entitled, “What does it mean to believe?”

On the first Sunday we read that most of the world is in denial about the truth of God.

We see that playing out today as the world is in chaos because they are following a secular world view.

Then we talked about the purpose of law, that it is designed to teach us about right and wrong and to bring us to seeking God for help with our sinful human nature.

The person who knows they are guilty, broken and at the mercy of God knows that they live by God’s power and not their own.

Last week was about grace. I never really understood grace until I reached a place of personal brokenness.

But grace is literally God’s pleasure. God extends favor to those who please Him.

"What does it mean to believe?"

Paul says we have peace with God that gives us hope.

We are no longer fighting against God and His will for our lives, but we are aligning with God to accomplish His purpose.

A Reason for Hope

Romans 5:1–5 ESV

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 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. 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.

God is not your enemy.

I know it sounds strange to say this, but God is not your enemy.

God is not the problem, we are.

God does not hate you, God hates sin, but He loves you.

When we love our sin, we find ourselves fighting against God.

Last week we talked about how God makes us righteous by grace, meaning that we have right-standing before God.

This chapter begins with that premise.

To say that we are justified means that we are righteous.

It’s the same Greek word. Righteous = Justified.

The process is simple.

We exercise a little bit of faith by accepting God’s promise.

God meets us the rest of the way with His grace.

We now have access to all of the goodness that is God!

God is good!

We only know what good is because of God.

In fact, God’s character becomes our standard for knowing what is good, right and pleasant.

Our real enemy, satan, has tricked us into thinking that sin is fun and that God is mean.

It’s time to realize who the real enemy is.

The real enemy is that independent and rebellious spirit that tries to be like God.

When we try to be like God by manipulating or taking control, we are inadvertently declaring that we believe that this is what God is like or this is what God does.

But that is not what God does.

God took the initiative to love us before we loved Him.

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Just think about it, the most powerful being in the universe acted unselfishly by suffering and dying for you before you ever did anything for Him.

When you know that God is with you, you can endure anything.

So this is what we need to bear in mind as we are living in a sinful and broken world. - The broken world that we see is not what God designed.

God did not make us to hate, He made us to love.

God did not make us angry, bitter and resentful, we became that way from living in a broke world with broken people.

God did not make us to have to live with our walls up to protect ourselves from people who might take advantage of us. We learned to do that in order to survive.

God did not make us to be greedy and selfish, looking out for our own interests only. That is what life in this world has taught us.

But what if we could see the beauty and majesty of who God is and what He intended?

What if we could see that God is working behind the scenes to restore everything to His original design?

What if we could trust God to work through every circumstance, good or bad to turn our hearts back to Him?

We learned in Elijah House this week that the consequences of sin, though painful are actually good because it shows us where we need to repent so that we can be healed.

That is what Paul is also saying here.

Once we have God’s goodness in perspective, even the bad things that happen to us only serve to bring about the necessary change that makes us more like the people God intended us to be.

A ratchet is designed that the motion can only produce torque in one direction. If the mechanism is set to tighten, only movement in a clockwise direction will produce torque. It will spin free in the opposite direction. But if you switch the mechanism, it will only loosen.

The same thing happens when you realize that God is good and you submit to His will. Now instead of every thought and circumstance making you more frustrated, angry and confused. You see God working in everything to redeem, restore and to make things right.

Siding with God is a sure thing!

Romans 5:5 NLT

5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

This is a verse that I have personally meditated on and struggled with; how does one have a hope that will not disappoint?

Have you had times where you were believing God to do something for you and it didn’t turn out the way you had hoped?

You thought you were going to get a certain job or marry a certain person?

You were praying for someone to be healed and they died?

Someone you love turned away from God and from you?

These disappointments are real and are a part of life in a fallen world.

But hope in God invites us into a greater perspective than the pain of the present reality.

God is making everything new. How do we know?

We have the Holy Spirit as a deposit, a foretaste of heaven.

God is making us new and the progress that we see in our own lives is just the beginning.

The Free Gift of Life

Romans 5:12–17 ESV

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

You didn’t ask for a sinful nature, but you got one.

Are people basically good or bad? That is the question that is often debated by those who hold a secular world view.

They would say that the church teaches that people are bad, whereas they believe the good in people.

That’s not quite right.

The Bible first teaches that people are good, created in God’s image.

And then that image became tarnished by sin.

People are not good or bad, or rather you could say that we are both.

So what we have is a mixture, good people, which when compared to God’s holiness are not so good.

Have you noticed that Christians aren’t always good and non-Christians aren’t always bad? Why is that?

Precisely because we have a mixture of good and bad in each of us.

Non-Christians don’t seem to struggle with sin. They just do whatever seems right to them.

It isn’t until their actions are held up against a standard (the law) that they have a problem.

In the same way, we might not know that we have a sinful nature if we didn’t know what sin was.

Romans 5:20 NLT

20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.

If you don’t think you have a sinful nature, just try living a holy life apart from God.

You can’t do it! The harder you try to do what is right, the more you will find yourself tempted by selfish desires.

More on that next week...

Jesus gives us a new nature.

Jesus’ character and sacrifice stands against the backdrop of our failed human condition.

Jesus didn’t try to be God, He was and is God.

As God, He did not participate in human posturing and power struggles.

He loved and He served and He spoke the truth even if it killed Him.

And they did kill Him, not because He couldn’t defend Himself, but because He wouldn’t.

Jesus voluntarily laid His life down as a sacrifice for sin.

Compare Adam, the original man, and Jesus, the new way to be human.

Adam disobeyed God, Jesus obeyed to the point of death.

Adam gave in to temptation, Jesus withstood temptation by the word of God.

Adam was passive. He stood by while Eve was being lied to by the serpent. Jesus did the work that the father gave Him to do.

Adam shifted the blame and refused to take responsibility. Jesus took the sin of the world on Himself, even though He didn’t deserve it.

Jesus became not only a new model, but a new progenitor.

The language of the Bible implies that we did not just follow Adam in sin, but that it was inherited as well.

It became part of our DNA. We are programmed to sin.

However through Jesus, there is a way to override and eventually reverse that programming.

1 John 3:9 TPT

9 Everyone who is truly God’s child will refuse to keep sinning because God’s seed remains within him, and he is unable to continue sinning because he has been fathered by God himself.

John makes this point, not once, but three times in this short letter.

He wants his readers to know that they have a choice.

Your part is to chose which nature you will live out.

The sinful nature doesn’t just go away. It is with us as long as we are in our mortal bodies.

However, it does not need to rule us.

You can live a life victorious over sin.

Since we know about the new nature we have the choice to override our default programming.

Yes, you are only human. But you can be human like Jesus was human.

Through Jesus, you have access to the Divine nature.

You have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.

Paul goes on to say that just as Jesus died in the flesh, we die to our old nature, and are raised to life in our new nature.

Romans 6:4–5 ESV

4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

If we identify with Jesus by dying and rising again, we live in our new nature in Christ.

I don’t want to imply that, by choosing this, it is something that we can do in our own effort.

We exercise a little bit of faith and God does the transformation.

Genuine transformation is nothing short of a miracle that God accomplishes in us when we ask Him.

Choose your Master

Romans 6:15–19 ESV

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Don’t confuse grace with permissiveness.

So God is good and loving and Jesus gives us the free gift of eternal life, why not just give in to temptation a little bit? God will forgive me, right?

Why not play in traffic? Why not drink poison? Why not poke a bear in the eye? Are you crazy!?!

This is exactly the deceptiveness of the sinful nature that Christ wants to deliver us from.

Anyone who asks the question, “What can I get away with and still be a Christian?” has completely misunderstood what it means to be a Christian.

You have moved from death to life. Why would you want to go back?

I am convinced that, in our efforts to make the gospel more widely acceptable, we may have mislead people as to what it means to follow Jesus.

Many people come to Christ because of what they are promised Jesus will do for them.

You will have peace of mind, prosperity, health and healing, etc.

All of that is true, but that’s not the point.

On the other hand, there are people who are scared into the Kingdom, threatened with hell, fire and brimstone.

That’s not the point either.

God wants a people who will recognize who He is and serve Him because He deserves it!

God created you, that alone makes Him worthy of all honor and praise.

If that were not enough, He redeemed you. Bought you back a second time, paid for you with His own blood.

God does not owe us anything, we owe Him everything.

And yet He delights to give us every good thing.

Jesus’ death on the cross was a Divine exchange, all of you for all of Him.

You belong to God. That’s the deal.

1 Corinthians 7:23 TPT

23 Since a great price was paid for your redemption, stop having the mind-set of a slave.

God does not treat you like a slave; He treats you like a son or daughter, but make no mistake that you belong to Him.

Why is that important? Because it’s how you get free from sin.

The only way to be free from bondage is to be bound to someone greater.

Jean Jacques Rousseau whose philosophy helped spark the French revolution said, “Freedom is the power to chose our own chains.”

The great theologian, Bob Dillon said, “You got to serve somebody.”

Nobody gets to do whatever they want. We belong to one another and we belong to God.

More on that in the second half of Romans.

Sin is a harsh master.

The only way to be free from sin is to be bound to Christ.

In deliverance ministry it is often necessary to establish identity (ownership), that this is God’s child, which supersedes any ground that they might have given knowingly or unknowingly.

God honors individual choice; satan will try to convince you that you have no choice.

What does it mean to believe?

You can stand before God in confidence because you are only standing because of what God has done for you.

You are not only standing before God, He is standing with you.

Peace with God means we are no longer fighting against God and His will for our lives, but with are aligning with God to accomplish His purpose. We are His.

Questions for reflection:

Are you in need of hope today? How do you see God? Is He above the circumstance? Is He with you?

How is your posture toward God? Do you find yourself fighting God or are you moving with Him? Are you trying to get God bless your agenda or are you seeking to know His will?

What are you doing about your sinful nature? Have you discovered it? Will you admit it? Has the new nature that Jesus gives you overcome it? What is your choice today?