Peace with God

[0:00] shalom shalom shalom yes you know some hebrew what does it mean peace peace and that's the the message of this passage isn't it or at least the first thing that paul wants to tell us here in romans chapter 5 and verse 1 we've been reading for quite some time how humans lack this one essential thing to be right with god and that's righteousness paul tells us there's none righteous not even one so what are we to do we can't get righteous by by earning it and paul says well the wonderful news is is that god has provided that righteousness through jesus christ his beloved son and the way in which he's done it is we might think well how can you justify the ungodly how can you justify the wicked god's done it in a way that's perfectly in keeping with his justice in that christ has taken upon himself the punishment that was due to us for our sins and in this great exchange our sins on christ his righteousness on us we can now be counted righteous through faith in jesus christ and what he has done for us but what does that mean what what blessings flow from that paul is asking now now that we have right standing with god what does that what does that lead to and paul has said it's it means peace paul has been talking about this hostility that exists between god and human beings but this justification this right standing now brings reconciliation peace an end to all the hostility the war is over and so we have shalom and that word really gives the sense of the fullness the richness the quality of the peace because we might think oh peace is just a break from a lot of noise or something like that geese peace they say in glasgow i don't know if they say it here geese peace that means give us a break 10 minutes or so away from your nattering or something like that but when we think of it really as shalom that is a sense of wholeness of wonderful goodness of completeness a restoration of wholeness and completeness that's the kind of peace with god that is now enjoyed by those who are justified through faith in jesus christ and that means that we can rejoice rejoice in three ways you'll notice um this word comes up three times in the in the passage we've read it comes up in verse two the end of verse two there paul says and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of god then in verse three he says not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings it's an interesting one isn't it and then way down at verse 11 the end of the passage he says not only is this so but we also rejoice in god through our lord jesus christ so peace with god this peace this reconciliation this end to the hostility can cause us to rejoice in three ways we rejoice in hope we rejoice in suffering and we rejoice in god well let's think of the first aspect rejoicing in the hope of the glory of god and again you see that

[4:05] there at the end of verse two if we just read verses one and two together paul writes therefore since we have been justified through faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ through whom we have gained access again paul is stressing by faith not by works through what we believe in into this grace in which we now stand isn't that a wonderful picture standing in grace yet if we've come to believe and we've been put in right relationship with god because of that we've been justified we've been justified we now stand in the sphere of grace and we always will we stand in grace we have access by faith into this world of grace in which we now stand so that's a present reality but this present reality and allows us to rejoice in something that will take place in the future and that's what paul is saying here and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of god that means paul is saying well in short the best is yet to come although we have this right standing before god now and we have peace with god now something that causes us to rejoice in the present is something that will happen in the future the hope of glory paul has told us that one of the effects of sin is falling short of the glory of god hasn't he that was in chapter 3 and verse 23 all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god that is sin takes away our right to behold god's glory but now through jesus we have this hope of glory again and it's not um a wavering hope or a vague hope it's not an uncertain hope it's a sure hope this is all about assurance of the good things that are to come for us if we've placed our trust in jesus christ now what is this glory of god that we we're reading about because we already see something of god's glory now don't we in a lot of ways even the psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of god we see some of god's glory in creation and we see a lot of god's glory in jesus don't we already in the scriptures in our walk with the lord we see a great deal of god's glory in in the whole revelation that we find in god's word in the scriptures we behold so much of god's glory so what is this hope of the glory of god that's something in the future well that's glory itself that is something even more amazing than what we have now that is beholding god in person being in his nearer presence when we enter into glory this glory just isn't any old glory it's the glory of god himself and what makes it so glorious is the one from whom this glory is radiating god as seen in the face of jesus christ himself we have peace with god now and that's wonderful but what it also means is we have the sure and certain hope of glory of seeing christ himself that is because we have this knowledge of what's to come it motivates us doesn't it to live now for god and for the glory of god and do everything as unto the lord because we have the sure and certain hope of what is coming that means it gives us joy doesn't it we really should be joyful because of what is ahead

[8:15] of us and maybe sometimes we might lack that joy because we haven't meditated enough on what's to come and just how wonderful that will be a blissful reality for eternity and and when we think on that and that that's assured if we've put our trust in jesus christ that gives us joy in the present doesn't it but then the next joy verse three so we might be feeling happy on this wave of joy we have peace with god and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of god and then paul says in verse three not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings and we might go oh that's hard to say amen to isn't it we might say rejoicing in our sufferings but paul clearly spells out why we can do that here it's because these sufferings actually produce the hope that give us joy in the first place see see there he says that there's a kind of process a chain we're rejoicing our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance or if you like endurance and our endurance couldn't be sharpened unless we suffered the suffering is the only way to produce the stamina to produce this endurance this perseverance and through that verse four this perseverance produces character and again this character has the has the notion of one who has endured and passed the test one that has been tried and proved to be the genuine article that's the kind of character that can only come through suffering which produces endurance and then through this character we are people who then have this hope a hope that has this quality again not just of hoping for the best oh well i hope so no it's hope in a very assured very clear very calm sense of knowing that what god has promised he will do and therefore if i have peace with god now even amidst all this stuff i see around me that's causing me to suffer or within me that's causing me to suffer it's producing actually in me these things that enable me to hope in the future in what god will do in the future because we know that suffering produces perseverance perseverance character and character hope and what's more this hope doesn't disappoint us that is it's not a hope that gets thwarted but it's a hope that is vindicated because this is another amazing reality of the life of a believer god has poured out his love into our hearts by the holy spirit whom he has given us again through these sufferings the holy spirit who is pouring the love of god into our hearts and is with us through these sufferings is helping to ensure that it doesn't dash hopes which suffering often does in others but rather it produces hope and is even more certain of the promises of god this is often how he does it it's not something we say bring it on is it none of us enjoy suffering but yet we can rejoice in the midst of suffering knowing that god will use that suffering to increase our faith basically to make our hope all the more grounded on him and not on anything else

[12:16] and so that gives us comfort doesn't it if we're suffering today god is actually going to use that to firm up our hope to increase our hope to deepen our hope rather than to dash our hopes we rejoice in then the hope of the glory of god we rejoice in hope now of what will come in the future because of what we have in the present we can even rejoice in the midst of sufferings because it's something god will use to increase our hope finally though we see down there at the end of this passage we rejoice in god through our lord jesus christ we rejoice in god himself i think often if i'm honest i think of my relationship to god in terms of often the blessings that will come to me through that that will maybe have peace of mind i'll have less less difficulty in this life with the things that used to ensnare me so i'm free from addiction now for example but the great blessing of peace with god is god himself it's knowing god himself it's not any of the blessings that flow from from god himself it's actually being able to now be in right relationship with god and therefore enjoy him and sometimes we can be or i can be in a way so self-centered that i'm thinking about myself and what my relationship with god will bring me rather than thinking well the great privilege and blessing that it brings me is that i know him and if that's not if you like doing it for me what that just tells me is i don't know him well enough in order to rejoice in him because imagine well let's just think about who god is god is light in him there is no darkness at all god is love he's not just loving he is in himself love he is a most pure spirit he is gracious and compassionate and he forgives sin even though being holy and just sin is obviously deeply offensive to him he is he is in his amazing wisdom found a way to reconcile us to himself and have all our sins washed away then why am i not rejoicing in this amazing being why am i counting the greatest blessing of salvation communion with god himself because when we start to think that's not enough knowledge of and knowing not just knowing about god knowing god personally if knowing god personally father son and holy spirit the one who is love the one who is light the one who is unchanging if that's not enough for me if that's not giving me complete fulfillment what's going to happen i'm going to go after other things am i status money secure trying to get my security in other ways trying to get my enjoyment through other things things that even in themselves might not be bad but if i don't see all of my contentment and all of my joy as being in communion with god and rejoicing in god himself through our lord jesus christ i'm kind of doing down what god actually offers us

[16:17] and how can we rejoice in god then how can we get a stimulus to rejoicing in god more and that's really what paul is saying right in the heart of this passage verses six seven and eight you see at just the right time while we were still powerless christ died for the ungodly very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die but god demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners christ died for us and he goes on since we have now been justified by his blood how much more shall we be saved from god's wrath through him for if when we were god's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his son how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life paul is saying whilst you were not god's friend he did this for you christ died for you whilst you were not god's friend whilst you were still hostile to god and alienated from him christ shed his blood for you and look at the words he describes you were ungodly you were enemies you were sinners you were powerless that's the condition you were in when christ died for you how much more is going to come your way now that you are friends now that you have been reconciled now that the hostility is over it's been dealt with how much more are you going to get of god himself now that you are his friends and how wonderful a thought is that because as you can see paul is placing a lot of emphasis on being saved do you notice that in verse 9 how much more shall we be saved verse 10 having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life now we tend to often speak of being saved in the past tense don't we i was saved when you know we would we would we would make that the same as when we were converted i got saved i got saved and the bible does speak of that as being saved in the past tense but what paul's really placing emphasis on here and what the new testament does more so is talk about being saved in the future tense that is we don't have it all now do we there's still aspects to our salvation that are yet to be accomplished the redemption of our bodies the perfection the the ridding of ourselves of the remaining corruption of sin that lies within us that is future that is still to take place so if someone says to you when were you saved or are you saved you could say well yes and no because yes i was converted at such and such a time or maybe i don't even remember when it happened because i was very young or i only realized it by degrees but i'm yet to be saved finally and that's what paul is placing the emphasis on here is assurance of final salvation we might say well i've been reconciled to god i have peace with god but how can i be sure that this is all going to end up the right way how is this all going to how can i be sure that i will be finally saved because that's not happened yet and paul is saying how you can be sure of how you will be finally saved is this when you were god's enemy christ died for you what do you think is going to happen now that you're his friend he's going to abandon you

[20:17] he's going to walk away don't be ridiculous if christ shed his blood for you whilst you were god's enemy now that you've been reconciled to him you have this sure and certain hope that your final salvation is assured and that produces joy because of that sure and certain hope of what is in store for us it can be hard to persevere can't it sometimes we can sometimes really wonder but what draws us back is not ours our making a superhuman effort to get back to god it's god drawing us back to himself with these assurances that if we've been justified by christ's blood whilst we were enemies then god is certainly going to save us from his wrath on the day when the wrath will be finally revealed that's what he says in verse 9 since we have been now justified by his blood how much more shall we be saved from god's wrath through him that's to say the day of god's wrath is still to come isn't it it's being revealed from heaven even now and god's judgment is being exercised even now but the great day is still to come and it's a day of god's wrath it's a day when that will be poured out and paul is saying if you've been justified by christ's blood now how much more can you have assurance having been reconciled that you'll be saved from that wrath on the day of wrath and then he goes on to say if you were god's enemies and now you're reconciled to him through the death of his son how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life his resurrection life this is the assurance we have and this is what verse 11 leads us to rejoice in god how can we not rejoice in god through our lord jesus christ if we know this is true i would say it's not really true for us yet if we're not rejoicing the penny has not dropped yet if that doesn't lead to a response of of rejoicing and so if you are trusting in christ today the assurance that we have is that if we were while we were sinners and enemies christ died for us how much more will we be saved now that we have been reconciled to god we're no longer these sinners the ungodly the enemies we're sons and daughters children of grace how much more hope then can we have of being saved and of glory now that we are reconciled but if you haven't put your trust in christ yet well all of these blessings and benefits aren't yours yet are they i was saying shalom at the start there's no shalom yet for you but it's available you might not even feel well i'd i feel pretty much at peace now this may sound like a really horrible thing to say but it's out of love and it's out of a desire that you would experience this shalom i pray that you wouldn't get any peace now until you find that peace that is on offer in the gospel because that's the peace that counts this shalom this peace with god is available to you now god is offering it to you now in the gospel and just saying come come to me with nothing come to me with the empty hands of faith and put your trust in my son and his shed

[24:17] blood and you will have peace with me and you will have the hope of glory you can have peace and joy and it's free and it's been offered to you now and our ministry is we implore you be reconciled to god