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Today's reading is from Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter 5, verses 1 through 11,
as printed in the liturgy.
A reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand,
and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance, character, and character, hope.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person 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.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath
through him?
For if, while 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?
Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom
we have now received reconciliation.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Thank you, Michael, for that reading.
Always sounds a little bit better coming from a Brit, doesn't it?
Good morning, Christ Church.
We're exploring this great epistle to the Romans.
It's the chief letter in the New Testament.
And we hear this great word, therefore, in verse 1, which starts a new section of this
letter, linking us back to everything that's been said already, Romans 1, 2, 3, and 4.
And I just want to start by saying one of the secrets of the Christian life is knowing how
to engage this word, therefore.
Therefore, if you're here exploring Christianity, the historic Christian faith is all about the
therefores.
It's all about thinking and reasoning and logic and deduction, right?
Christianity is not about checking your brains at the door.
In fact, it's a scandal when Christians fail to use the minds that God has given us to say,
you know, given certain unavoidable facts, therefore, those facts must lead to certain
inevitable conclusions.
And this is what the Apostle Paul is doing all the time.
We read in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 17, the Acts of the Apostles, that he goes about
from city to city, and he comes to this great city in Greece called Thessalonica, or Thessaloniki,
if you traveled there this summer.
And it says that when he got there, he reasoned with them from the scriptures.
He reasoned with them from the scriptures.
Paul was constantly reasoning from revelation.
This is what he did in every city throughout the Roman Empire.
It's what he does here in this greatest epistle of Romans.
Paul says, based on what God has said, based on what God has done, based on the words of God
and the works of God, we must deduce, we must conclude, we must say, therefore, this is the result.
And we've always got to ask this question, what is the therefore, therefore?
Have you heard that before?
What is the therefore, therefore?
Now that Paul has expounded for us the necessity of justification in Romans 1, 2, and 3,
and then Paul has expounded for us God's way of justification by faith only in Romans 3 and Romans 4.
Now that he's established for us God's pronouncement over us that we are just and we are righteous
in and through the person and work of Jesus Christ and his cross,
and that God regards us as if we've never sinned or ever even been a sinner,
now that Paul has established this great truth that we're justified in Christ alone
and through grace alone and by faith alone,
therefore, therefore, the apostle now in Romans 5 expounds for us the fruits and the consequences
and the great assurance that justification brings to our lives.
You following me?
Paul has one concern from this point onward.
He wants to show us the absolute character, the fullness and the finality of our salvation
which comes to us in the way he's already described as the result of justification by faith.
And having put that doctrine of justification by faith only before us,
he goes on to show that if, as Romans 4 says,
we believe in him who raised up Jesus Christ, our Lord, from the dead,
if we believe in him who was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification,
then, therefore, the proper conclusion is that our salvation is absolute.
It's complete.
It's final.
It's guaranteed.
Nothing can ever rob you of this salvation.
Do you see what the therefore is therefore?
We're reasoning from revelation, right?
That's what it means to be Christian.
And we come here to Romans 5.
It's the most important chapter in the whole letter.
We'll get to Romans 8, which I would say is the most moving chapter in this letter.
But Romans 5 has the most powerful argument found anywhere in the Scriptures
with respect to the consequences of justification
and the finality and the assurance of our salvation.
So you ready for it?
You ready to reason from revelation?
I was a little weak.
Are you, we need some espresso this morning?
We got to get the coffee over here?
Paul says in Romans 5 that in Jesus Christ,
our salvation is secure, it's unshakable, and it's certain.
That in Jesus Christ, our salvation is secure, unshakable, and certain.
First of all, in Christ, if you've been justified by Christ, your salvation is secure.
Verse 1 says,
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The primary function of the gospel, the good news.
The first thing that justification by faith only does is to change our relationship with God
and to give us peace with God.
That's what he says again in verse 10.
He says,
While we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son.
That's the whole line of thought from start to finish here is peace with God, being reconciled with God.
Now, many people, including us and the people that we know, are looking desperately for peace.
Right?
We want peace, world peace, without, peace among the nations.
Amen?
We want peace, personal peace within.
We want peace in our mind.
We want peace in our homes.
We're desperately searching for a peace in the midst of all of our misery and turmoil,
in the midst of all of our unhappiness and our frayed nerves.
We really want and need peace.
But Paul says what we most need is peace with God.
Not the peace of God, which is a subjective experience, maybe a way to manage our anxieties.
No, peace with God, which is an objective status.
It's a relationship with God that stands outside of our subjective feelings about that relationship.
And Paul says if you've been justified by faith, you have peace with God and you've been reconciled to him in the past.
Justification by faith removes all those obstacles that exist between God and a sinner.
Before you're justified, you're in this state of hostility and enmity with God.
You're at war with God.
There's an opposition.
There's an antagonism.
There's a fighting with God.
But if you've been justified by faith, all of that is gone.
And you're now in a condition of shalom.
A condition of peace.
Peace and harmony has been established between God and the one who believes that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
But you see, something had to happen on God's side and on our side for this peace to be achieved.
And we talked about that in Romans 3.
That God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood.
That only because God laid our sins on Jesus Christ, only because God poured out his wrath at the cross of Christ,
can he look on us with favor and pardon and forgiveness and reconcile us to himself.
The wrath of God has been removed on his side.
The hostility that we have against God has been removed on our side.
And instead of being enemies, we are now in this blessed alliance of peace with God.
And that peace with God leads to grace.
And it leads to glory.
If you have peace with God, you have grace and you have glory.
Paul says, not only if you've been justified, not only do you have peace with God,
you've been reconciled with him in the past,
but you now have the grace of God and you have access to him in the present.
Therefore, since we've been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
Now, if you want to meet with a king or a queen,
you don't just enter into their presence.
You don't just go and have an audience with his or her majesty.
Anyone ever tried this?
You don't go to Buckingham Palace and just, you have to gain admission into the palace.
You have to have an escort take you into that royal throne room and present you at court and give you an introduction.
These are just the procedures that have to be honored.
And Paul is saying that when we were in sin, we had no right of entry.
We had no access to God.
We had not been presented to him.
We had not been introduced.
We could not come into the presence of a high and holy God.
But now that we've been justified,
now that we've been reconciled to God and we have peace with God,
through Jesus we've gained access.
We've been introduced into grace.
And this is now our standing before the great king.
We cannot go to God as we were.
Sinful and polluted.
Even our best righteousness was like filthy rags.
But what is grace?
Grace is favor to the undeserving.
Grace is approval for those who deserve judgment.
And Paul says here is Jesus who had the right of access.
He had the right of entry himself.
And he came and he removed our sins.
And he put his righteousness on us.
And he grabs us by the hand, as it were.
And he takes us.
And he presents us to God the Father,
who by grace accepts us and delights to receive us
and is pleased to bless us.
Grace.
That's what grace is all about.
Friends, do you understand that you have a VIP status before the king?
Do you know that you're standing before him as one of grace?
And that you have been introduced by the son of the king.
There's no higher introduction possible.
And that you have the privilege now,
not just to go to the palace one time in your life,
but you have the privilege of living in the palace.
Hebrews chapter 4 says this.
It says,
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,
Jesus the Son of God,
let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
This tells us that we do not periodically approach
and have occasional audience with the king.
But your access to God's throne of grace,
it's not sporadic, it's continuous.
It's not precarious, it's secure.
We do not fall in and out of grace like courtiers
who may find themselves in and out of favor with their sovereign.
No, this grace is our permanent and irrevocable standing before our king.
And we get to go to his throne of grace to get more and more grace
because there's an abundant, overflowing, infinite supply of grace to help us.
The same grace that brought us in is the same grace that will sustain us.
Is this not great news?
Paul says if you've been justified by faith,
you have peace with God,
you've been reconciled to him in the past,
and right now you have the grace of God,
you have access to him in the present.
And he goes beyond that.
He says now we also have hope in God.
We have hope in the glory of God
and that we will be glorified with God in the future.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace
in which we now stand
and what we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Friends, we were created by the glory of God.
We were created for the glory of God.
Glory is just a word that means the outward shining of an inward beauty.
And we had that.
We had the glory of God in the Garden of Eden.
But we lost it.
And Romans 3.23 says that all have sinned
and we've all fallen short of the glory of God.
But the incredible news here is that we are going to get the glory back.
That we're going to see God.
We're going to behold his glory.
We're going to enjoy this radiant vision
of his beauty and his splendor and his majesty.
And that's the ultimate end.
That's the final goal of our salvation.
So Paul says we boast in it.
We look forward to it with confidence.
It thrills us in the marrow of our bones
and the depths of our being
because not only will we enjoy a vision of the glory of God,
but we ourselves will be glorified.
I mean, if you just look at the people sitting around you this morning,
we're not much to look at.
At least some of us.
But Romans chapter 8 says we're going to share in his glory.
And his glory is going to be revealed in us.
And that those he's justified, he's also going to glorify.
And it's essential that we should be glorified
because without it we'd never be fit.
We'd never be able to stand the glory of God.
We would just completely fall apart before the glory of God.
But God is going to remove every single sin,
every single vestige of sin from our bodies and from our souls.
There's going to be no trace of self-centeredness left.
And we are going to be partakers of his divine nature.
We're going to shine with his radiant beauty in his glory.
If you're exploring Christianity,
do you desire to have this peace with God,
to be reconciled to him on the basis of the things
that he's done for you in the past?
Because you can have all that.
You can have it as a completely free gift.
Just open your empty hands and receive it.
And if you're a Christian and you're standing in this grace of God in the present,
do you take advantage of your VIP access
and go with confidence to this throne of grace
and pray with a holy boldness?
Are you taking time to begin every day meditating on and rejoicing in the glory of God
in such a way that you would begin boasting in the glory of God now
and in your hope of having the fullness of the glory of God one day in the future
and that you too are going to be glorified?
Our experience of justification by faith leads us to this increasing assurance and security
that my past war with God is finished
and that I have this peace with God that introduces me into a grace
so that I can come to God today in prayer
and I can rejoice in his favor for the undeserving
and that I can even look forward concerning my death and my life beyond death,
my judgment before the throne of God,
that great day when the verdict will come down
and I have no concerns, I have no fears
because I know I'm going to see the glory of God
and I'm going to stand before his glory.
Paul wants us to have that kind of security
and that kind of assurance of our salvation.
And he says we can have it.
In Jesus Christ, our salvation is utterly secure.
But not only that, in Jesus Christ, our salvation is not just secure, it's unshakable.
Our salvation is unshakable.
You see, in verses 1 and 2, he's telling us about the results
and the consequences of justification
and then he goes on, after he tells us about peace and grace and the hope of glory,
he goes on in verses 3 to 5
to show us that nothing can ever shake us out of this salvation.
The worst tribulations that can come to us cannot rob us of our salvation.
A further proof and assurance that you've been justified, that you've been saved,
is the way that our relationship with God enables us to face the trials
and troubles and tribulations of life.
And not just the suffering that comes from being a mere human
because everybody has to suffer.
But he's talking about the suffering that's going to come to you
especially because you follow a crucified Christ.
Right?
Jesus told his disciples the night before he went to his cross in John 16,
he says,
in this world, if you follow me, you're going to have trouble.
And that's what Paul says in Acts 14 to the disciples.
He's strengthening.
He says,
we must endure many hardships to enter into the kingdom of God.
And it was this trouble, it was these hardships, this suffering
that very often shook the assurance of the first Christians.
These Christians throughout the cities of the Roman Empire
who were hearing this glorious message of the gospel,
they said, yes, it's amazing,
but how can this new life
of being justified by Jesus Christ
be marked by tribulation?
And why is God allowing afflictions into our lives?
Is God displeased with us?
Is God casting us off?
Does God love us?
Have we really been saved?
Have we truly experienced salvation?
Maybe we wouldn't be suffering so much
if we were doing something different.
And some of us have those same questions.
And so this is why Paul introduces this thought in verse 3.
He says,
not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings
because we know that suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance character, and character hope.
This suffering, the word means pressure,
or stress, or difficulty, or affliction
because of Jesus in our lives.
And Paul knew what this was all about.
He'd been beaten, imprisoned, persecuted.
He'd suffered mightily for Jesus.
And how does he say that we should handle
this kind of suffering?
He says, we should glory in it.
We should glory in it.
Paul, are you out of your mind?
We should glory in our sufferings.
It's an astounding statement,
and particularly because at this point,
the highest human thought had reached
was stoicism.
Stoicism says that when you suffer,
don't groan or whine.
Don't grumble and complain.
Just put up with it.
Resign yourself to it.
Grin and bear it.
Just take it with a stiff upper lip.
Now, if you're not going to be a Christian,
I would recommend becoming a stoic.
Right?
It would lead to a lot less whining in our society.
Many, many people are becoming Epicureans,
but I would recommend checking out stoicism.
But even better is Christianity.
Right?
Because Paul says a justified Christian
glories in their sufferings.
They boast and they exult in their sufferings.
How?
Because he says we know something.
And what is it that we know?
We know that in God's hands,
suffering produces.
Suffering in God's hands is not destructive.
It's productive.
Our faith enables us to view our sufferings
in such a way that we realize
that far from working against our salvation,
suffering actually is promoting
and furthering our salvation.
We've been given this knowledge,
this knowledge of and this insight
into God's purposes and God's methods.
And this knowledge causes us to know
that suffering is not a sign of God's anger towards us.
In fact, it's very often a sign of God's love.
That suffering in God's hands is not destructive.
It's productive.
We know, Paul says, that suffering produces.
It produces fruit.
It produces the fruit of perseverance and patience.
Suffering, when it's come into my life,
it causes me to see that,
to realize that I need a fresh supply
of the strength and the grace of Christ.
And so suffering drives me to him.
It drives me to go and spend time with him.
It drives me to get into his word
and to plead with him and say,
Lord, help, help me.
And what happens is,
I realize that he's building in me something.
He's producing something in me.
The ability to endure.
He's building into me a constancy.
He's producing in me a steadfast character
and a stronger hope.
He's making me more and more mature.
And therefore, he's conforming me
to the very image of Christ.
And this is proof.
This is assurance that God
is working out his salvation in my life.
And so Paul says in verse five,
he says,
and hope,
when this hope is rising up in us,
this hope does not put us to shame
because God's love
has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit
who's been given to us.
Yes, you're going to,
especially as a Christian,
you're going to have trials
and troubles in your life.
But if your hope is in God,
you're not going to be put to shame.
You're not going to be shaken.
In fact, you're going to be put up on your feet
and realize,
as Paul says in Romans eight,
that you're more than a conqueror.
And why does that happen?
Because on the day that you were justified,
you received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
And what's the Holy Spirit's ministry to us?
What's his work within us?
It's to pour out God's love
more and more into our hearts.
And the image here is of a cloud burst, right?
You've maybe been in other parts of the country
where you see a giant cloud
and then at one point in the afternoon,
that cloud just opens up
with an abundant deluge of rain
and overflowing rivers of water.
And Paul is saying,
that's what the Holy Spirit does.
He just opens up and pours out
and overflows us
with the love of God the Father.
A love that says,
although God may be allowing you to suffer,
that does not mean that he does not love you.
As Romans 8, 16 says,
the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit
that we are God's children.
We're the beloved children of God.
And we should be asking the Holy Spirit
to help us understand that.
Holy Spirit, I need to know,
particularly in this difficult moment,
that God loves me.
Would you please grant me this direct
and immediate inner witness and assurance
of the love of God?
Holy Spirit, would you please turn
this objective reality of God's love
into a subjective experience of God's love?
Oh, Holy Spirit,
would you please cause the love of God
to grow in my heart,
to grow warmer and warmer
and become deeper and deeper
and richer and richer.
And when the Holy Spirit's doing this in you,
it's proof.
And it's assurance that God has started his work in us.
And he's going to carry us through these sufferings.
And he's going to bring his work to completion
in our ultimate glorification.
In Jesus Christ,
our salvation is not only secure,
it's unshakable.
Nothing can shake it.
Even the worst things that come to you
are not going to shake it.
But he goes beyond that.
He says, in Jesus Christ,
our salvation is not only secure
and unshakable,
finally, it's certain.
It's totally certain.
If verses one to five have not been enough,
if you're still wondering,
if your justification is certain,
if your salvation is sure and final
and absolutely guaranteed at the last day,
then Paul says,
look at the loving character of God
in action for you.
Look at what God did for us
while we were utterly weak
and without strength
and even his enemies.
He says in verse six,
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 person,
though for a good person
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.
Now follow me.
The degree of any love
is measured both
by the costliness
of the gift to the giver
and by the worthiness
of the unworthiness
of the recipient.
So that the more
a gift costs to the giver
and the less the recipient deserves,
the greater the love
is seen to be.
And measured by these criteria,
God's love is absolutely unique
and therefore our salvation
is totally certain.
Consider the costliness
of this gift
that God the Father
sent his son to die for us.
He gave his love
to be enfleshed and embodied.
God gave all that he had to give.
He could not give his son
without giving his very self.
But consider not only
the costliness of the gift,
but consider the unworthiness
of the recipient.
Right?
He says here that
we were powerless.
We had no ability
to save ourselves.
He says we were ungodly.
We were unlike God.
We didn't even love God.
We didn't want God.
He says we were sinners.
We were missing the mark
of what God intended us to be.
We were falling short
of the glory of God.
He says in verse 10,
we were enemies.
We were hostile to God.
We had our backs
turned against God.
We were utterly unworthy.
And yet for us
and our unworthiness,
God the Father
sent his son
to die for us.
God has proven
his distinct
and his unique love,
a love that's higher
than every other love.
And there's no greater proof
of the love of God
towards us
than the fact
that when we
were totally unworthy,
God sent his son Jesus
to face the horror
of this sin-bearing death
in our place,
to take our spiritual
and moral record
off of us
and to put
the spiritual
and moral record
of Jesus onto us.
That is the ground
of our assurance.
And Paul says
we must draw
the inevitable
logical deductions
from this event.
If it's true,
now that we understand
the truth
that what God has done
for us in his love,
it follows that God
will provide
everything else for us
for our final salvation.
that if God
has already done
this hardest
and greatest thing
while we were unworthy,
then he cannot fail
to do the lesser
and simpler things
now that he's declared
us worthy
to complete the task
of our total deliverance
from sin
and our ultimate
final glorification.
And that's why Paul says
in verse 9,
since we've now been
justified by his blood,
how much more
shall we be saved
from God's wrath
through him?
We need to learn
what it means
to be much more Christians.
How much more?
If Jesus shed his blood
for me when I was powerless
and ungodly
and a sinner,
then how much more
will the same Jesus
do for me
now that I've been justified
at the infinite cost
of his precious blood?
I can approach my death,
I can approach the day
of God's judgment
with assurance
and confidence
because I already know
the verdict
and the outcome.
My judgment
has already happened.
Christ has absorbed
and satisfied
God's wrath
on the cross for me.
He's already declared
the judgment
that I'm righteous
because of the righteousness
of Christ
and therefore
I have no concerns.
I have absolutely
no concerns
whatsoever
that my final,
eventual,
complete salvation
will be brought about
by the same Christ
who bled for me,
who's going to come
through for me
on that last day.
How much more?
He says in verse 10,
for if while 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?
If God has reconciled
me to himself
through the cross
of Christ,
when I was an enemy
fighting against him,
then will he do
any less for me
now than he did before?
Surely he's going
to do much,
much more.
How much more
is he going to do
for me now that I'm
no longer his enemy
but his friend,
indeed his beloved child?
Friends,
he can never
reverse course on us.
He can never go back
on the reconciling work
which he began.
How much more
shall we be saved
through his life?
Friends,
Jesus died
to reconcile you to God
and he's not,
he's not dead.
He's alive.
And he's been raised
from the dead
up into this
indestructible life
and he has life
immortal,
life abundant,
life eternal.
He's gone ahead of us
into his risen glory
as our advocate
and he's interceding
for us.
He's there to give us
all the power
and the strength
and the life
that we need.
So how much more
is he able to save us
through his life?
If he's begun
our salvation,
will he not finish it?
You see,
and this is why
Paul says in verse 11,
we boast in God.
We glory in God.
We rejoice
and exult in God.
Why?
Because God has done it all.
God has done
absolutely everything
we needed
so that in Jesus Christ,
justified by him
and him alone,
our salvation is secure,
our salvation is unshakable,
our salvation is in fact
certain.
How can we keep
from singing?
How can we keep
from praising his name?
How can we keep
from falling down
in his presence
and worshiping him
because we have peace
with him?
We have access
into his grace.
We have hope
in the glory of God.
Friends,
let's rejoice
in this incredible news.
In the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.