Romans 5:1-11
Notes
Transcript
Peace with God
Peace with God
Good morning friends, I hope you are well today.
let me ask you a question?
So consider this past week? What did you struggle with this week, what burdens, problems etc did you carry and struggled with week?
You know if we are not careful, we can allow the Devil to set up camp in our mind and it can cause to worry, doubt, cause frustration and much more… It happens, and sadly it happens a lot.
So I want to encourage you guard your hearts and mind, and you do this through Christ.
I say that my friends because we have victory in Christ Jesus. We have victory, and You are free!
Do not allow yourself to fall back into captivity and allow the devil to oppress your hearts and minds.
Be free in Jesus, Christ made peace through his death for us before God on the cross. There is the truth we stand in...
This morning lets look at Romans 5, three thoughts this morning in our text and the first one is this....
1. The Outcome of Faith...
Now we know, over the past few chapters, Paul has been teaching about the controversy of faith and works. and He has been using Abraham and David as great examples of that truth…
And with this text, we see just what faith does… as we allow Jesus to change our lives.......
Lets look at verses 1 and 2
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.
As you open up this text, Paul is saying everything we have talked about in those first 4 chapters, since we have been justified by faith the result is simple.
Their faith as been credited to them as righteous ( remember 4:24) As such the out come of that faith is peace, namely peace with God.
WOW, we are at peace before God.
But how does that peace come about? How does that come about?
And consider what this means for the born again believer my friends...
A. The faith we have brings Justification... Remember, I said previously, we were born into sin, and this sin, it’s consequence is separation, it separates us from God. It’s like being isolated from God, there is a wall of division there because of sin.
We are guilty before Him. But as we exercise faith, trusting in the Lord salvation. We are made right, we have a right standing in front of God, and the result is we are justified.
This is the truth Paul is sharing, we are justified by faith....
And as we keep looking we see the outcome is peace....
B. We have peace with God… This my friends is the natural by-product of faith.
Peace come to us. Why? We are no longer guilty before God, we are no longer enemies with God. This is the result of the sacrificial death of Jesus. Jesus died for us, took our place atoning for our sin.
Remember Rom 4:25
25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
So instead of death, we have life… man that brings peace.
Consider this example, we are sick and we are prescribed a medicine, we take it, follow its directions and we are made well. Having responded to the call for salvation, we are justified and that brings peace, not man’s peace but God’s peace.
That peace is a state of mind, of heart and presence that we cannot find any other place. It is a new relationship with God, the old man, the old ways of your life is not there nor remembered.
Hostility has been replaced with peace, a peace that is harmonious and joyful.
That is the outcome of faith, having believed that Jesus came and died for the sins of man, and reaching out to Him by faith for salvation brings peace.
Let me ask you a question, are you enjoying that peace my friends.
If you say I wish I had peace, then this morning, ask Jesus to give you peace, ask Him to take you, take the old and get rid of it and replace it with life, life everlasting.
Now, lets move to our second thought today...
2. We Rejoice by Faith....
My friends, faith also brings joy. And we rejoice because there is joy in our life, in our hearts. Why? What is the question we ask....
Well that is what we are going to look at.... Look with me at verses Rom 5:2-6
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.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Rejoice is a great word to consider.... it means to “...feel or show great joy or delight.”
So why are we rejoicing my friends? Jesus and his work.
You see, it is through him, through Jesus that we have obtained His grace by faith. We fell short.. remember Paul in Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Our sin has kept us from the ideal purpose and plan that God has for us. We fell short of the glory of God. But in Christ, we have been made right, acceptable into His sight, not by our works, but by His work,
In Christ, through his death, burial and resurrection we are changed and suddenly we are now able to move toward the goal He had in store for us at creation. That goal is the glory of God ( remember verse 23).
Grace changes our status, remember last week I said grace is receiving what I didn't or what we didn't deserve. I deserved death, instead we received life. Christ took upon himself the sins of the world, he took our punishment, what we deserved and we received grace.
Because of that wondrous work, we rejoice. Man, listen you get diagnosed with something bad and then the doctor tells you it is gone, you rejoice.
We rejoice because our sins have been forgiven. And we rejoice because we are able to live in a way that brings glory to God.
But secondly in that passage, Paul says that we also rejoice in our sufferings...
Look at verse 3 again Romans 5:3-4
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
Now we don’t think about suffering a lot, we would rather not think about it.
The idea here is not just making the best out of a bad situation. No, it is the idea that our joy, our rejoicing is the growth we make, how our life and character ais strengthened and built up.
Do you remember James, the head of the church at Jerusalem, what he says in James 1:2-4, listen this this passage from James...
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Listen if we live long enough we will face trials, it will happen, but listen my friends, the trials do not define you, own you and they certainly do not guarantee anything about your future. Jesus is our future!
Jesus does that, and the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of the good things to come. But trials are still there at times, but remember what Jesus said about trials. Listen to Jesus from John 16:33.
33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
This quote comes from the night of his arrest, they are just a little but from the men coming to arrest Jesus, they are hours away from his death and a days away from the resurrection.
They are facing a great trail, their world will be shaken… the events good or bad does not bring joy or peace, only He can do that… so Jesus tells them, don’t worry about the world, I have over come it.
Here Paul says particularly, rejoice in sufferings, because those things will produce, make in you endurance, character and hope. They build you up...
It is like a trial by fire, fire purifies my friends, we have talked before about smelting gold, melting down the raw ore. The heat of fire, separates the good from the bad and makes the gold more valuable.
The trials of your life make you better when you walk with Jesus. Jesus is always the catalyst, the component that controls and produces the best end result.
Listen my friends, Hope isn’t just being optimistic, no! It is the calm assurance that Jesus will keep us until the day of redemption.
I have seen a lot of people, saved and those not walk through difficult days, some do OK, but they remain broken. The ones who have Jesus, who walk and trust Jesus each day, they might be just as broken, but Jesus has all the pieces my friends.
We rejoice by Faith, not in us, but in Jesus.
Now this brings us to the last thought of the day here in this first part of chapter 5
3. We are Reconciled by Faith
Think about a set of friends, they've been friends for a long time, but at some point, something happened and maybe there was a falling out of sorts. One was hurt, mad at the other and it divided this friendship.
Man, it was like driving a wedge between the two, but something happened, maybe an apology, something and suddenly they are friends again, they are patching things up. They have reconciled their difference...
This event is what God did for us, we were alienated from Him, and we couldn’t do anything to change it, to help the situation… But God could and did...
Lets look at verses 6-11 Romans 5:6-11
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. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 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. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Paul says at the “right time” in verse 6. Jesus died for the ungodly.
I like that phrase “right time”, here is why: It tells me at a perfect point in time, God planned this,
Just as Gal 4:4 declares Jesus birth at the right time…listen
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
So His life, ministry and yes death was all at the right time. Precise moments in time, prepared by God for our benefit. He did this out of love.
We love people, our families and our children, and those we are not related too, but Paul says love doesn’t mean you might lay down your life for a good person...
But God did, He loved us and gave himself for us… Wow…look at verse 8
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God took humanity at it’s worse, in its sin, without hope and sent his Son, literally laying down his life for us. Not when we were our best, but at our worst. He died for us.
God knew we were unable to improve our plight, our lives, our own flesh we are not able… Oh we think we can at times, we think we can do better, we will wait till we are batter to walk with God.
It never works.... We need His help. He came to us, and in and through Him, we are able to change… but it is His work in us… nothing to do with us.
What love my friends, what love.
God’s love placed our needs first, He died for us...
And his work changed us…look on last time, verses 10 and 11
10 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. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
There is the proof, while we were enemies, apart, separated from Him. God was at work and reconciled us.
Remember I said a week or so again, we struggle with the idea of being an enemy of God.
We say to ourselves, we were not God’s enemy, we believed in Him, we knew who He was.. But we were his enemy
Paul says this in Col 1:21
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
We knew him but we just hadn’t acted on it yet. And that is the problem my friends, you knowing and not doing anything made you an enemy of God.
So God in turn did what we could not, He reconciled us, He made us right in the eyes of the Father. Remember Romans 3:24-25
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Our reconciliation was God’s gift out of love, being justified by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ.
Redemption is an important word for us, Christ redeemed us, became our redeemer, that is an old slave turn. It means to buy back.
He came and took our sin, purchasing us back from the penalty of this world and death and since His life takes our place, we receive life. Why? His death has justified us,
Now when we stand in front of the Father, our sin, our death, nothing is seen, instead God sees the son whose blood has made us right. We are then declared not guilty, forgiven.
That happens by faith… In faith we trust that God loves us, died for us, atoned for our sin and has given unto us the gift of life, eternal life.
We might die in this life but we will not taste death, we will not face hell, in stead we will see Jesus the one who died for us and we are welcomed into the Kingdom of our God.
Wow
So the final outcome, we rejoice having received reconciliation.
That will make a Presbyterian shout… LOL
Ask yourself a very serious question. I think everyone or most everyone here is saved, if you are not I would love to share with you how to be saved, its simple and it is real.
But ask yourself this question.. Am I living for God? Am I living for Him like I should? Am I living in a what that bring glory to Him like He had planned for me.
If you cannot say that.... then bow your face before the Father, repent of that sin and ask Him to give you that peace, that joy that you have struggled to enjoy
Do that right now, come talk to me. Let me pray for you if you need too..
Lets pray
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.
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. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 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. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.