Romans 5 Part 2 (2)

when you apply for a job oftentimes there's not just the employment that you're after but you're after the benefits that come along with joining that company

so there was a young engineer who graduated from MIT Massachusetts Institute Technology and he was looking for his first job.

he found a company was willing to interview him so at the interview the HR official said what kind of a salary are you looking for as a starting salary and the engineer said oh two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year depending on the benefits package

so the HR interviewer said well what would you say to this package:

five weeks paid vacation fourteen paid holidays

full medical and dental

the company will match retirement funds up to fifty percent of your salary and

a leased car every two years say red Corvette

and the young engineer sat up straight and said Wow are you kidding and she said yes

but you started it first

1) You ever think how great this company is - the Church of Jesus Christ.

first of all our product works universally you can take the gospel share it with any person willing to listen and receive it and it will change that life

second we have offices worldwide you can go to any country any culture and you will find some expression of the church in that country

third our benefits are exceptional the

forgiveness for our past

meaning in the present

peace of mind

then on top of that we have a retirement package that's out of this world literally

as well as figuratively when it's all over we have heaven waiting for us and

even in heaven will be rewarded based upon our service for the Lord here

with that in mind look at Romans 5

4 benifits with being justified:

a) peace with God -

Peace with God is judicial and the peace of God is experiential.

Walking with Jesus as Saviour brings peace with God walking with Jesus as Lord brings the peace of God. Jesus as Lord means a life surrendered to Him. He wants all.

Unbelievers might feel natural peace. is the same peace as somebody sitting on lounge chair sipping champagne on the deck of the Titanic feels really good now but that boat is going down. They might feel peaceful but it is a temporary illusion

In Islam there those who strap bombs on themselves and commit suicide in order to please and have peace with God

For example a European film maker in the seventies by the name of Roman Polanski went back and forth to the United States until he was found guilty or drugging a 13 year and fled back to Europe. If he ever came back here he would be arrested and thrown in jail. He might feel peace there in Europe but he is at odds against the judicial system here in the US.

Those who do not have Jesus might feel natural peace. They might say I have nothing against God. However the wrath of God abides on them. From God’s perspective He doesn't have peace with them.

Adversely there are believers that believe that they don’t have peace with God. Devil has robbed them of the truth that they have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

When Martin Luther lead the reformation of the Catholic church -The prevailing teaching of the Church was “infused grace,” or the grace God puts in the sinner so that he might become righteous. The Christian life and faith was thus heavily focused upon obedience and behavior; it was a “gradual healing process” in which the sinner “starts to become” righteous as “God creates a new will in man so that he begins to fulfill the Law.”

“As a monk I led an irreproachable life. Nevertheless I felt that I was a sinner before God. My conscience was restless, and I could not depend on God being propitiated by my satisfactions( satisfied by his works). Not only did I not love, but I actually hated the righteous God who punishes sinners…Thus a furious battle raged within my perplexed conscience”

Then finally God had mercy on me, and I began to understand that the righteousness of God is a gift of God by which a righteous man lives, namely faith, and that sentence: The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel, is passive, indicating that the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ Now I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered Paradise.

b) Access with God

why this was a revolutionary concept 2,000 years ago in paganism and Judaism

the idea of intimacy and access with God was unheard of

the Greeks didn't want to get close to their gods in in Greek mythology

Roman their gods were angry and not to be approached

People didin’t want to hang out with those gods and wanted to get as far away as they can

They were to be playacted to

They didn’t want to tick them off

Jewish: if you look at Judaism it was different but not a whole lot better in terms of intimacy with God or access to God

you couldn't just have quiet time to get really close to God

you couldn't run into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle or the temple open your Bible there next to the Ark of the Covenant. you'd be zapped dead

Now we can come boldly to the Throne of Grace

in Bedwin communities in the Middle East and Bedouin are nomads. they travel around and live in tents they still exist to this day

in this ancient community one day two Bedouin young men were having an argument it broke out into a fight a heated fight got very violent and one man killed the other man so there is the guy the dead guy laying in the sand he had bled out

and the guy who's alive knowing the inflexible custom of his people high for eye tooth for tooth life for life they're going to be an Avenger of blood after him to take his life

he fled across the desert to the sprawling tent of a tribal chief called a Shake as he came to the sheiks tent he said I'm asking for your protection a crime has been committed

I'm seeking asylum. also that's a custom among the Bedouin to admit that person into your home based on that plea so the old man rose up put his hand on one of the guide ropes of the tent and swore by God to give that young man protection

the next day the following morning the pursuers came to that tent and demanded that the old man release that young man to them. turn him over to us the old man said nope I've sworn my protection.

turn him over to us he killed a man. nope a word is a word I've given him my promise he's under my protection.

but you don't know who he killed they said

does it matter he said he's under my Asylum

and then they said he killed your son

the old man fell to the ground visibly shaken by what he had just heard

gathered himself picked himself back up and said to the pursuers

then he shall become my son and everything I have will one day be his

do you know that's exactly what God has done for us

He bought us out of the slave market he adopted us as sons and daughters brought us into the family gave peace between

c) rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God

1 salvation is anchored in the past because through Jesus we have peace with God

2 salvation is anchored in the present because we have access with God

3 salvation is anchored in the future because we have hope that all of this will lead to glory - glory is another word for heaven

d) We have purpose in trials - or purpose in pain

between the present and the future? There is pain - there is trouble - there is tribulation. In this world your will have trouble. Those trails will work for you and not against you.

So we glory in tribulation