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[0:00] What I'm going to do is we'll do some work on the whiteboard here and then we'll come back to the presentation. Could we turn to Romans 3, 21-26?

[0:30] And we've got a roving microphone there. Would Jack be prepared to read that for us please? Romans 3, 21-26.

[0:50] Yeah. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been known, to which the law and the prophets testify.

[1:09] This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

[1:30] God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

[1:49] He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

[2:00] Thank you very much. So that's where I'd like us to get to. Well, that's one of the passages I'd like us to get to. You notice that it is talking about righteousness.

[2:11] Verse 22, righteousness is given and it talks a lot about faith. So verse 22, this righteousness is given through faith to all who believe.

[2:22] And in verse 24, it talks about being justified freely. Does it say anything about faith anywhere else?

[2:35] Yes, it does in verse 26, doesn't it? So to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Right, so let's work up to that and let's go back.

[2:51] You'll have to trust me on this a bit. Hopefully it will make sense when it all comes together. Let's look at Genesis 15. And we want Genesis 15, 1 to 6.

[3:17] So could Pete Croft, I'm just going to circulate around as a microphone. Could Pete have that and give us Genesis 15, 1 to 6.

[3:28] Thank you. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.

[3:45] And Abraham said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? And the steward of my house is this Eliza of Damascus.

[3:56] And Abraham said, Behold to me, thou hast given no seed and lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall he be thine heir.

[4:18] And he brought him forth abroad and said, Look now towards heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

[4:31] And he believed in the Lord. And he counted it to him for righteousness. Thank you. Okay. Let's stop on that for a bit. So here's Abraham.

[4:44] He has no offspring. And the Lord promises him, You will have as many offspring as the stars in the sky.

[4:59] Is that what he says? Look at the sky and count the stars if you can count them. So shall your offspring be. So this seems impossible, doesn't it? And impossible in lots of ways.

[5:10] But when you just think of the number of stars and God is saying to him, Look, this is what I will do. I will make your offspring as many as the stars in the sky.

[5:24] And the question is, What does Abraham do with that word from the Lord? And what does he do with that word from the Lord? He believes it, doesn't he?

[5:35] And what does it say the Lord does, as it were, in response? He credited it to him as righteousness.

[5:49] So here is somebody who hears the word of the Lord, which seems impossible, believes it, and it is credited to him as or for, I'll put for, righteousness.

[6:10] In other words, God says, Of Abraham, there's a righteous person. And why does he say there's a righteous person?

[6:23] Because he believed the promise. This word credited, I know it starts making you think of bank accounts, credit and debit and credit cards, but I would like to suggest that that word actually doesn't naturally live in the banking world, it lives somewhere else.

[6:43] And I'd like us to look at Genesis 38, 15, where the word is used again. Genesis 38. David McAuliffe, could you give us Genesis 38, verses 15 and 16?

[7:09] I'll just explain, this is Judah, back in those days, this is, am I right, Tamar's his daughter-in-law, isn't it, but Judah hasn't arranged for her to have children, and he's at fault in that.

[7:27] And this is what she, she sort of plans something, which works out like this, 38, verses 15 and 16, please.

[7:37] When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot, because she had covered her face.

[7:51] And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto thee. For he knew not that she was his daughter-in-law.

[8:03] And she said, What will thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? Thank you very much. Beautifully put in tactful Elizabethan English.

[8:15] In the NIV it says, Come now, let me sleep with you. And she says, What will you give me, that I sleep with you? Tamar was the daughter-in-law, but this word credited is used.

[8:28] Anybody like to suggest where in the sentence that word is used? It's in verse 15. Thought. Sorry? Thought. Thought, yes.

[8:39] So Judah, what it says, credited or reckoned her as a prostitute. Was she a prostitute?

[8:55] No. That's not what she was, but... She was dressed as one. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it was a cunning plan. But he fell for it, if you like.

[9:07] He thought she was a prostitute, and he treated her as such. He reckoned her as a prostitute, and he treated her as such. If you look, if...

[9:18] I don't know if the word credit works in that sentence, but he credited her as a prostitute, and he treated her as such. And what we're going to get into the New Testament is, the Lord reckons us to be righteous, and treats us as such, even though in ourselves we are not.

[9:37] Do you get that thought? Judah reckoned her to be a prostitute and treated her as such. She wasn't, but that's how he reckoned her. The Lord is going to reckon us righteous and treat us as such, even though that's not what we are in ourselves.

[9:50] That's where I'm heading with that. Now, let's pick up another word. So, in English, righteousness, whoops, and righteous.

[10:13] Okay, they look fairly similar, don't they? Fairly similar spelling. And then this word that we are going to be looking at, justify. Woo! And justification.

[10:36] Looks completely different. Spelt differently. Seem to work differently. What I have to ask you to believe is that in Hebrew and in Greek, the words are virtually the same.

[10:53] We don't, we can't take righteousness and make it into righteousness-ify, and we can't take righteous and make it into righteousness-ication.

[11:03] But if we could, it would be good. Because in Hebrew and Greek, it's all the same. In Hebrew, it's all one word, slightly altered.

[11:14] And in Greek, it's all one word, slightly altered. So, we miss out on that. Anyway, I'm just trying to persuade you that as we read about righteousness and justify, we're all in the same area.

[11:26] It's all in the same area. Let's look, please, at Deuteronomy 25, verse 1. Let's go. And could Brenda read for us, please?

[11:55] Let me just see. Yeah, Deuteronomy 25, verse 1. When people have a dispute, they are to take it to court, and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.

[12:12] Thank you. That's even more confusing because that one uses the word acquitting. But we're still with the same word. So, let's see.

[12:22] Here's some guy who is accused of something. I don't know. What does it say? Does it say anything particular? A dispute.

[12:34] Yeah, a dispute. Okay. He's a shoplifter or something like that. And so, the judge, it brought before the judge, judge.

[12:52] And the judge is going to end up doing one of two things. What are the two things that the judge could possibly end up doing? Declare the person innocent. Declare the person innocent.

[13:03] Declare the person innocent. Declare the person innocent. Declare the person innocent. Exactly. Yeah. Just to declare the person innocent. So, if I put a box here, this is where you put innocent people.

[13:18] Or the opposite. Here's a box where you put guilty people. And if the judge puts the person in this box, what he's done is declared the person innocent.

[13:37] Or declared the person just. Or, if you like, righteousnessified. Or, if you like, justified. He's put the person in that box. He's declared them to be that.

[13:49] Or, alternatively, he's said, there's enough evidence that this person is a shoplifter. We hadn't settled a bit before, but now I'm going to say, I'm going to declare you guilty.

[14:02] I'm going to treat you as such. And into the guilty place you go, which is probably what it says to be beaten or whatever. Does the judge change anything inside the person when he does this?

[14:21] No, he doesn't. He changes something, though. Anybody like to suggest what he does change? The legal status. Reputation?

[14:31] The reputation? Yeah? The legal status. The legal status. Yes. Yeah. To confer a status. So, the judge confers a status. And he says, I declare you innocent.

[14:47] Go free. Or, I declare you guilty. And I condemn you. And then you'll take whatever punishment it is. So, what he does here is the act that we give the label, justify.

[15:08] He has justified this person. NIV says acquitted. What did it have in the AV, guys? It says justify in the authorised version.

[15:20] He will justify the righteous and condemn the guilty. So, you're getting this thought. He's not actually changing anything in the person. He's just conferring a status or declaring something, a legal status.

[15:36] Okay. So, that gives us some background on reckoning, on what it is to justify.

[15:46] And here, the model of Abraham, who believed God's amazing promise. And God sort of justifies him.

[15:57] He credits him with righteousness and says, I reckon you're a righteous person. For why? Because you believed my amazing promises. Okay. Let's go back into Romans then.

[16:16] Can we read Romans chapter 4? And then I think I'll go back to the presentation because that's a bit more orderly.

[16:29] I think we'll actually go back to Romans chapter 3 and read again.

[16:46] Now we have got some of these words settled. So, is it Steve's turn? Could Steve read us once again Romans chapter 3 from verse 21?

[16:56] Romans 3. Romans 3. 21 to 26, please.

[17:08] But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

[17:20] There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

[17:33] God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

[17:48] He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Thank you very much. And could Maria read us Romans 4, 1 to 8, please?

[18:01] What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God.

[18:20] What does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.

[18:37] However, to the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

[18:49] David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

[19:00] Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin, the Lord, will never count against him.

[19:13] Thank you very much. It's all going on in there, isn't it? I think probably the best way is if, having read those texts, we go back and look at the presentation.

[19:24] So let's go through this. Those are the solas. And we think back now to Martin Luther as he sort of unravels this and as this comes to the surface.

[19:38] That was what happened on October the 31st, the 95 Theses, which, as we've said, can be identified as the trigger point for a cultural, political, economic and spiritual revolution for Europe.

[19:51] And then America and Africa and we're still living in the benefits of the Reformation even today. And the issue is how can I be right with God?

[20:06] I think Martin Luther would agree that if the church can't tell people how to be right with God, the church needs to be sued for negligence. Because that's the job of the church, to say how to be right with God.

[20:20] And the sad thing is you can go to some churches and they won't tell you how to be right with God. And I think one would tremble really to be in that situation. So you could put it sort of church-wise, you could put it personally, if you were sitting there thinking, how can I be saved?

[20:38] You would want to hear what we're looking at this evening. How can I be right with Almighty God? How can I find peace with God? How can God have anything to do with a sinner like me? Did you notice the text, God justifies the wicked?

[20:51] Isn't that an incredible thing that it could say? God declares wicked people innocent. He justifies the ungodly. That is just scandalous, isn't it? Now, how can that possibly be?

[21:04] So let's putting it through the experience of Martin Luther. His conscience was guilty and he could not find peace. And Daniel had some fantastic quotes on this last week.

[21:14] The one that I had found was this, which I think was probably not translated by a German, but let's see what it says. He says, I was a devout monk and wanted to force God to justify me.

[21:27] Justify, yeah, to say I'm innocent. Because of my works and the severity of my life. I was a good monk and kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery, I would have gotten there as well.

[21:44] You know, he's trying so hard, doing everything he could possibly do and more. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I would have killed myself with my vigils, prayers, reading and other works.

[22:01] I want God to declare me innocent. I want to be in that box of justified and I'm working so hard and I still can't get there.

[22:13] Yeah? And he did pilgrimages and I think you had the picture of the stairs that he crawled up, didn't you? Severe treatment of the body, payment of money, repenting as hard as you can, turning over a new leaf, trying to get rid of sin in my life, trying to punish myself.

[22:34] You know, all of that and it still didn't work. I mean, can you put yourself in Martin Luther's position? I want to be right with God but look at me, I just need to try harder.

[22:44] And will I ever be accepted? Can I ever get any sort of assurance that I've done enough? You know, you can see what a huge pickle he's in.

[22:57] So, this is the logic of what he's saying. There's one almighty God, I need to be in a right relationship with him and we say amen to that, don't we? My conscience tells me that something is deeply wrong, I am a moral failure.

[23:11] And we would say amen to that, wouldn't we? If we'd begun to know ourselves, we'd say I'm a deeply flawed person. I have things like envy. I see somebody who's got a nicer dress than I have and I envy them.

[23:25] Or I see somebody who's cleverer than I am, I envy them. Lust. My desire goes out for situations that are just not right.

[23:36] I get angry. People upset me. I get angry and I come back at them in an unjustified way. I can be cruel. I can say things and they just come out which are cruel and nasty.

[23:49] I can be negative. I don't see the good in people but rather I criticize. I'm proud. I don't like to admit it but I put myself at the center of everything.

[24:00] And I'm thinking with all those sins I need to sort them out myself. It's up to me and in my power to mend this in the sight of God.

[24:11] And you think, well, you know, that's just a huge pickle. That's how he's thinking. Now, what does the Bible say? Now, the Bible would agree with quite a bit of what Martin Luther is saying.

[24:25] Yes, there is a God. Okay? First of all, yes, there is a God who is the creator and the judge. Now, it's very important that we understand who God is.

[24:35] The fact that he is creator means that he has the right to judge. Now, as human beings, we probably dispute that but that's the fact and that's what we have to accept.

[24:50] He is the creator. He is the judge. And he does it in the book of Genesis, doesn't it? He sees things and he judges. He says, and it was good. Yeah?

[25:01] And it was good. So, he judges. He's judging from the word go. And he has authority to put order into his universe, to look and to assess, and that includes us.

[25:16] So, here's a quote, Genesis 18, 25. This is Abraham talking about what God will do to Sodom. I think this is where the quote comes from.

[25:26] Far be it from you to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you, will not the judge of all the earth do right? And that's a beautiful summary, isn't it?

[25:38] Will not the judge of all the earth do right? And, you know, if people have ever said to you, what about such and such a moral dilemma? What does God do about people who've never heard the gospel?

[25:52] I think this is a great answer. Whatever he does, it will be right. Will not the judge of the whole earth do right? He won't do anything unfair. You know, we might not understand it, but it won't be unfair.

[26:03] And this brings into play the sort of God he is with moral qualities. So, the things that we know as right and wrong and good and noble and faithful, they all come from God.

[26:20] These are the qualities that God has. Justice, righteousness are meaningful descriptions of the character of God. holiness, holiness, his moral excellence and purity, which I think we find difficult because we are such unholy creatures.

[26:39] This is all to do with his role as judge. So, Martin Luther was right when he agreed there is a God and he is a God with a moral character.

[26:51] And he is right, Martin Luther is right when he says there's something deeply wrong with us human beings. I think the picture is over the top of the human.

[27:03] Now, what is the problem with human beings? Now, is it that people are finite? So, we can't be in two places at once, for example. Or sometimes we can't reach the top shelf because we are finite.

[27:17] Is that the basic problem with human beings? Nope. Is it that we are weak? So, there are some things that are beyond our power. You know, sometimes perhaps beyond our power to recover from illness or beyond our power to run a marathon the way we used to.

[27:37] Is that the basic problem with human beings? And the answer to that is no. Well, the problem is that human beings are resistant, independent, rebellious. That's the fundamental problem, isn't it?

[27:50] And human beings have it intuitively within them. We won't obey God unless it suits us. This is what sin is.

[28:02] And we won't put God first of all, us first, and then God second if it suits us. This is what sin is. So, you could put it in terms of being a lawbreaker.

[28:15] So, you could put that in terms of the way God expects things of human beings in his world. And we, well, there's various, we break or we transgress or we twist.

[28:31] So, that's all vocabulary to do with sin. Or you could put it that we're lawmakers. That we say, well, this is what I think is acceptable. And you hear that all the time, don't you?

[28:41] People saying, oh, such and such, that's unacceptable. What Christians say is unacceptable. This is judgmental or whatever. But that's making law, isn't it?

[28:52] And human beings make law as well as breaking God's law. So, the problem that Martin Luther was so conscious of is God's justice.

[29:04] How he judges me. How he will treat me. How he sees me now. And how it will all end up. This is all to do with God's justice.

[29:15] And this is the framework within which the Christian gospel comes. It isn't a gospel which is mainly designed to deal with our finitude or our weakness.

[29:28] But to do with our sin. So, the solution is to be righteous. Let's sing something and then we'll come back to that.

[29:40] Let's sing, thou must save and thou alone. So, the solution to this lies in the hands of the judge. What the judge decides is the key. If he were to look and say, innocent, that would be just amazing.

[29:55] That's exactly what Martin Luther has been longing for. If the judge says, guilty, that is appalling. Now, we are thinking, what will he say?

[30:07] So, I put again the text from Deuteronomy. Those words sort of all linked up. Righteous, righteousness, justify.

[30:18] One of them is an adjective. One's a noun, one's a verb. And here's the little boxes with the judge putting people into the condemnation box and treating them as such or the justification box.

[30:33] And the judge, this is the activity of a judge to justify the guilty. Sorry, to justify the innocent and to condemn the guilty.

[30:45] So, that's what we did before. And this is, I'll just remind you, not changing anything on the inside but conferring a status. And Tim Keller said that, so we're in good company if we believe that.

[31:00] So, there's a little picture. Now, here's the question. What makes the judge decide what he decides? On what basis does the judge do this? Now, the obvious and normal basis is that the judge looks at the evidence.

[31:17] So, in the case of the shoplifter, how come you have 25 kilograms of meat stuck down inside your jeans and this enormous coat that you're wearing?

[31:30] How can you account for that? Well, this is a lot of evidence, really, isn't it, of shoplifting. Or, conversely, if the evidence says, well, this person has lived a life which deserves to be accounted not guilty, then that would be a fair thing, wouldn't it?

[31:49] And we expect judges to be fair. We expect judges to be fair. Now, the judge might declare a guilty person innocent for some other reason.

[32:03] So, it could be that there was no evidence. Or it could be that the judge was corrupt. So, here's a judge who's been got to by a mafia boss. The mafia boss is as guilty as can possibly be.

[32:17] But money has changed hands. And the judge says, Francesco, you are innocent. And off he goes and is treated as innocent.

[32:30] And that's corruption. That's appalling. You know, that is terrible. That is terrible. There is another possibility that something else intervenes.

[32:46] Some sort of intervention occurs. Something mind-boggling. Let's suppose it's a debt. Someone else comes along and pays the debt.

[33:00] That would be wonderful, wouldn't it? I owe a huge amount. I go before the court and somebody else pays for me. And I get out free.

[33:11] Or maybe if it was an imprisonment. I mean, would this even work? Somebody else says, well, I'll go to prison for you. And then I go free. Or if it was the death penalty.

[33:23] I mean, would this even work? It would take a real amount of arranging and wrangling, wouldn't it? That some other person says, look, I will sort out whatever's necessary.

[33:38] I will pay the death penalty. And you go free. That would be something, wouldn't it? And this is where the Christian gospel is heading, isn't it?

[33:52] That someone else intervened in this situation in such an amazing way that God can say to this wicked person, you are justified.

[34:05] So let's, this isn't simplistic. Because it isn't automatic, is it?

[34:16] An awful lot has to happen for this to work. Not only has this third person got to pay up, but there's got to be some willingness on the part of the judge to accept whatever this third party does.

[34:31] So, there's the Romans text that we read. To the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

[34:49] God credits righteousness apart from works. And just stop and think what that's saying. Saying that the Christian gospel is saying, here are people who have not worked hard enough, who have not lived up to it, who have not achieved what can be expected of people to achieve.

[35:10] They haven't done that. They've failed. But I still justify them. Not by works. Now, the thing about works is that if you had achieved everything, you would deserve congratulations, wouldn't you?

[35:28] You would stand in the court and say, well, I deserve to be set free. Look at me. Look what I've achieved. I deserve this.

[35:39] But in this scenario, where it's not by works, but for some other reason, we have no cause to boast at all. What we have cause to do is just to say, thank you from the bottom of my heart for something which is so great, I can hardly understand it, but here I am, a wicked person, justified.

[36:01] This seems impossible. A little bit like the promise to Abraham of looking at the stars. It seems impossible, but if God says it, I will trust him, and God credits that for righteousness.

[36:14] Here's a righteous person. They believe my promises. So let's look at the Romans 3.25. We did read this, didn't we?

[36:26] Yes. We read it right at the beginning. Worth coming back to just looking at the intervention by this third person. Thank you. What verse did I put?

[36:51] Three, Romans 3. So look at verse 24. We know that all have sinned, that is Jew and Gentile, and all fall short of the glory of God.

[37:05] And all, that is Jew and Gentile, are justified freely. Freely here means for no particular reason.

[37:15] It just justified freely. My dad had a friend who was walking along the beach at Harlach in North Wales, and somebody came past him and just knocked him in the face.

[37:27] And my dad said, well, what did you do to get knocked in the face? He said, I didn't do anything. I was just, gratuitously, I was just knocked in the face for no reason. And here God justifies, as it were, for no reason.

[37:40] What did you do to deserve justification? Nothing. He just justified me freely. We're justified freely by his grace through, now this is where this third person comes in, through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

[38:01] So he is the reason why God can justly justify us because of this sacrifice of atonement.

[38:14] He paid the debt. He suffered what I should have suffered. He got treated the way I should be treated.

[38:28] He died the death I should have died. He suffered that. He suffered that. I go free. Isn't that amazing?

[38:39] Do you believe it? Justified by faith. And for those who believe, not those who work hard, not like Martin Luther was trying to do, justified, declared innocent, declared innocent, and treated as such.

[39:00] That's an amazing thing, isn't it? I feel so sorry I'm not putting it across very well, but I mean, the truth is there, isn't it? It is just an amazing truth. And Paul writes the letter to the Romans sort of off the back of all the implications of this.

[39:15] This is what we can declare to people. You don't have to try hardly. You don't have to do better. God gives you justification as a gift because of Christ's sacrifice of atonement, the shedding of his blood, to be received by faith.

[39:32] And the thing is, the judge isn't unjust. It isn't as though he says to sin, oh, it doesn't matter. I'll write that off. The sin was paid for. It says in verse 25, he did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

[39:53] He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just. So the sins are paid for, but by Jesus. And the one who justifies, he declares innocent.

[40:06] Who? Those who have faith in Jesus. Jesus. This is the sola fide. This is, you don't have to work for it. You simply believe it.

[40:19] And it is such a wonderful message, isn't it? Such a wonderful message. I don't have to come and do anything just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was said for me.

[40:31] It's so great that the judge is willing to be moved, is ready and willing to be moved by this. It's a strange thing, but it's offered to us by way of a promise to be received by faith.

[40:46] And the question, do you believe it? Are you like Abraham when faced with an amazing promise? Say, yeah, if that's what God says, that's good enough for me.

[40:58] To receive God's offer and Christ's intervention. He thought that the answer lay within him and his efforts? And the Bible says, no. Luther, shall I keep on trying to be right with God by my efforts and pain and prayers?

[41:14] And the answer is, no, Martin Luther, just stop. Receive God's righteousness by faith. It's a gift. I think Martin Luther went on to say, it's an alien righteousness.

[41:27] It's not mine. It's come from somewhere else. Just amazing. By reason of another person. So, getting towards the end here, I've put up this little chart.

[41:41] Not by works. Jesus does it for me. He's a complete saviour. And here's a little chart of the difference between justification, which is how God comes to declare us innocent and treat us as such, and then how that goes on to affect us afterwards.

[42:02] And then, sanctification, in this sense, meaning how, once we have been justified, God works within us, through Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to change us.

[42:16] Now, you remember I said at the beginning that justification doesn't change us. It doesn't change the, it changes our status, but it doesn't do anything inside us. But God's work goes on to be changing inside of us.

[42:29] But that's different. That's sanctification. So, justification is what God declares about me. Sanctification is what God then does within me. Justification is complete from the first moment.

[42:41] I'm as justified as I'll ever be. Sanctification is a lifelong process of change. Sanctification is to do with belonging to Christ and his people.

[42:53] Sanctification is to do with becoming like Christ. Justification is the first root of salvation. Sanctification is the developing fruit. Sanctification is the first root of salvation.

[43:03] Sanctification is the first root of salvation. Sanctification, my good works are excluded. Sanctification, my good works are indispensable. As we go on to become holy, it must change us.

[43:15] Otherwise, it isn't the real thing. That's why he says faith without works is dead. If it hasn't changed us, it's not making us perfect. But something's happened. We're not what we ought to be, but we're not what we used to be.

[43:28] So, that good works. And this is all through the Lord Jesus. So, that was, I think this is the last slide.

[43:40] Justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Justificatio sola fidei sola gratia. That's the sola by grace, which we're going to do.

[43:50] Is that next week? And then, three weeks. Okay, yes, because next week is Jerome, isn't it? Click.

[44:02] Martin Luther would have said, this is a crucial doctrine. Church stands or falls by its ability to proclaim this.

[44:13] The church can't proclaim this. It's a falling church. It's falling down in its duty. It's an amazing doctrine, a liberating doctrine. My chains fell off.

[44:24] My heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee. My chains fell off. My heart was new. I rose, went forth, and followed you. Depending on which version. And I've got, I think I've got life insurance.

[44:40] But I'm not really quite sure where it is. It's probably hidden away in a filing cabinet somewhere. I don't ever look at it. It's probably there somewhere. Or I have got a will, actually.

[44:53] I don't know where that is either. I don't deal with that every day. But Weetabix, I do have every day. And the doctrine of justification by faith should be a Weetabix doctrine that we lean on every day.

[45:08] It's not like a life insurance doctrine where it's locked away and we only ever visit it every four or five years. It's a Weetabix doctrine. Every day, how do I come before the Lord through faith in the blood of Christ and the wonderful promises of justification?

[45:25] It's a hopeful doctrine. It's a personal doctrine. I mean, it is a doctrine. But, I mean, don't apologize for that.

[45:37] I mean, this is a truth which is glory to our souls. And that's the end. Let's stop there. Does anybody want to ask any questions or make any observations?