WWUTT 1221 Therefore Since We Have Been Justified By Faith? (Romans 5:1)

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You have sinned against God, and because of your sin, you can't stand in the presence of God.

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You need to be justified, made innocent and holy to come into God's presence when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We are back in our study of the book of Romans, and starting this week in chapter five.

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If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, I'll begin by reading chapter five, verses one through 11.

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The apostle Paul wrote to the church that was in Rome, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. 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.

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Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

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And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

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Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners,

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Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

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But 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.

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More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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So as we start this particular chapter with Paul saying, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, he's summarizing the argument that was presented in the previous chapter in Romans chapter 4.

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We've been justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as Abraham was also justified by faith.

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He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Back in Romans chapter 4 verse 5, we read, and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

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And again, Abraham was our example that was used there. So the gospel is not just something that has come about in the

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New Testament. In fact, as Paul had said back in chapter 3 verses 21 and 22, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

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So that statement there is to say that the law and the prophets bore witness to the gospel that would be actualized in Christ.

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Bearing witness to it means that the gospel was proclaimed. It had not come to fulfillment yet as Christ had not showed up.

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As the apostle Paul says to the Galatians, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son.

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So that had not yet occurred, but the gospel was still proclaimed in the Old Testament as something that was coming.

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And people believed in God, they trusted in God, and it was credited to them as righteousness.

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But even according to the Old Testament, this word was spoken about as the gospel.

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Consider what Paul said to the Galatians using the same argument with the Galatians that he used here in Romans chapter 4, talking about righteousness by faith and Abraham being our example.

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In Galatians 3 .8, it says in the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the

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Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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Now that's the gospel. This promise that God gave to Abraham in you, all the nations will be blessed.

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That's a gospel message. It may have been mysterious to the Jews, just how God was going to do that.

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Many of the Jews thought that the nations would be blessed because they would bless Israel.

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That was also part of a covenant promise that God made with Abraham. Whoever blesses you, I will bless.

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Whoever curses you, I will curse. So the Jews thought, hey, whoever's going to bless Israel, they're going to be blessed.

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Through Israel, the nations will be blessed. But they did not understand that it was through Israel would come the

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Messiah. And it's through faith in the Messiah that the Gentiles would likewise become heirs of the eternal kingdom of God.

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And in this way, all the nations will be blessed. So this was a gospel that was preached to Abraham.

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It had not yet been actualized. It was mysterious. Paul talks about that in Ephesians chapter three.

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But since here on this side of the cross, we have seen how God was bringing about the salvation of his people through his son, people from both the

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Jews and the Gentiles coming to faith in Jesus Christ. And so are saved.

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And we are fellow heirs of his eternal kingdom. Hence why Paul said at the start of Romans chapter one, verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel.

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It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. This gospel was first proclaimed to Abraham.

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So when we read about justification by faith in Romans chapter four, verse five or anywhere else that's proclaimed there in Romans chapter four, it's not just some abstract statement.

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It's not just saying faith. Faith saves you. Faith. Just have belief. There was a string of movies that came out in like the 90s and early 2000s.

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I can remember some of the titles, but I'm not going to mention them. Some of them are movies you shouldn't watch.

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I was in a different point of my life back then. But anyway, I remember this series of movies coming out.

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They were all made by atheists, but they always seem to have this moral lesson contained in them somewhere that you just needed to believe.

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It didn't matter what you believed in. You just needed to believe.

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Or it might also be said, it doesn't matter what you have faith in. You just need to have faith.

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But even though I was in kind of a rebellious state in my life at the time that I was watching those particular movies, when a character would say something like that,

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I would sit there and I would be like, that doesn't make any sense. What does that even mean?

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It doesn't matter what you believe in, but just that you believe. Believe what?

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If there's not a thing that you're believing in, if you're not directing your belief towards something, then the belief is nothing.

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You can't just sit there and believe. Like as though faith is this, or faith or belief is like an object that you can just grab a hold of.

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Like you hold a basketball, you know, here I have some belief. That's not what belief is.

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You have belief because you have put your faith in something. You've trusted in something. There must be an object of your belief or there is not belief.

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So as we're talking here about faith, it's not just some abstract statement. It's not just saying

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Abraham had faith and therefore he was saved. So you just need to have faith in whatever and you will also be saved.

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We know by the argument that Paul has been presenting from Romans one all the way up to this point that the object of our faith is

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Christ. That's what he said back in Romans chapter three, that our salvation is by faith in Christ.

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Going to chapter three, verse 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith, believing in Jesus, believing in what he has done, believing in the promises of God through his son.

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This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.

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It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he, God, might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith.

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Just faith? Just believing abstractly in nothing? No, the one who has faith in Jesus.

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There must be an object of our faith or we don't actually have faith. Even in the very definition of faith that we are given in Hebrews chapter 11 presupposes an object of our faith.

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Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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You are hoping for something. You have a conviction about something you don't see, but you are convicted by it.

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You can't just simply have conviction as though it exists in a vacuum. There is something that causes this conviction and the conviction that we have is that God's word is true and we must obey it.

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According to God's word, we have sinned. We are under the judgment of God. We need a savior to save us from the judgment that is to come and Jesus Christ is that savior.

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Believing in Christ means you believe his word, not just some abstract thought about Christ but even what the

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Bible says about Jesus and what Jesus has said, that the Bible says that Jesus has said.

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You believe in Christ and everything that goes with him. His words, his deeds, his divinity, everything.

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So by faith in Christ, you are convicted. You see his holiness.

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You recognize your sin. You are convicted over your sin. You ask God for grace.

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He gives it to you through his son and then you walk in that grace. It's not merely a conversion experience that you had at one point, but you have been transformed and changed.

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That conviction is ongoing. That you may walk in holiness in pursuit of Christ who is the object of your faith.

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Then we get to Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, the next chapter over where it says, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us and running with endurance is not just running in place or running towards something.

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I don't know what I'm running toward, but I'm running. I am going. We know what we are striving for.

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And it goes on to say so in the next verse, looking to Jesus, we're looking to Christ.

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We're running with endurance. The race that is set before us, Jesus is our pursuit.

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Our desire is to be like him. Looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith.

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He gave us our faith and he is growing us and maturing us in that faith as well. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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We have the words of the apostle Paul in Colossians chapter three, verses one through four, that we would seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

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For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

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And so we are focusing on Christ who is seated there at the right hand of the throne of God that we may attain the thing that is promised to us.

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And that is that we would likewise sit with Christ, with him on his throne as a fellow heir of his eternal kingdom.

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And all of this is by faith in Jesus. We are justified. We are declared innocent.

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We are being made holy. We have fellowship with God. We may enter into his presence.

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All of this by faith in Jesus. It's not just some abstract thought of faith, but Jesus is the object of our faith.

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Do you want to be like Jesus? Let me ask you, my friends, do you want

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God? Not just that you would expound on your knowledge of theology, although that's a good thing, but there must be a reason for that.

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Not simply to have book smarts, maybe not to look impressive in front of your friends, but you learn theology because you want to learn about God.

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You want to know how to become more like God. And we become more like God by faith in our

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Savior, by seeing what Jesus did and hearing what it is that he said and obeying what he said and doing the things that Jesus did.

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So we may be more like our Savior. This is godliness. The definition of godliness is godlike.

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It's to become more like God. Now I know saying something like that might tend to make people recoil a little bit because we remember what it was that the serpent said to Eve in the

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Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter three, when she said that we may not eat of this tree, nor can we touch it or we will die.

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And the serpent says, you will not die for God knows that when you eat of this tree, you will become like God.

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And so since that's what the serpent tempted Eve with, we tend to think, well, we shouldn't want that.

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We shouldn't want to be like God. Yes, we should. The problem there was that Eve was about to do something sinful that God told her not to do, told

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Adam and Eve not to do and doing the evil thing was going to make her more like God.

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She chose to believe the lie rather than believe the truth that God told her.

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God told Adam and Adam was to lead his wife, which he did not do. God said to them that if you eat of this tree, you will surely die.

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That was the truth. But she chose to believe the lie that the reason why God doesn't want you to eat of this tree is if you eat of it, you will become like God.

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No, they were already like God. Adam and Eve made in the image of God, worshiping

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God, honoring him, working for him, desiring God, wanting to be like him.

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They were doing that when God was the object that they were pursuing.

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When they were looking to God and they were wanting to be like him, then they were growing in godliness,

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God likeness. But then when they turned aside from that, when they weren't looking at God anymore and they listened to the created rather than the creator, they fell into sin and into judgment.

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They went after the lie. They traded the truth about God for a lie and went after the created things rather than the creator.

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And that is what brought death into the world. The first sin of Adam and Eve, the curse as a result of that sin is that we would die.

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Death is the consequence for our sin. We'll read that later on when we get to Romans chapter six, verse 23, where it says for the wages of sin is death.

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But we have the gospel in that verse as well. The free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. So again, our justification in all of this is faith in Jesus. It's looking to Christ.

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When we take our eyes off Jesus, that's when we fall into problems. Remember that Jesus came to his disciples in the boat.

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He was walking on the water in the midst of a storm. He was coming out to them in the boat, in the boat, in the midst of a tempest.

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And Peter says to Jesus, let me come out there with you. And so Jesus tells him to come.

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When Peter steps out of the boat, he's walking on the water. But then he takes his eyes off Jesus and he sees the wind and the waves and he is filled with fear and it begins to sink.

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And Jesus taking his hand, lifts him up out of the water, puts Peter back in the boat and says, you of little faith, why did you doubt?

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Peter doubted when he took, when he took his eyes off Jesus. And that's what happens with us as well.

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We have doubts when we're not looking at God. No matter what you're going through, no matter your circumstance, look to Jesus.

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He is the object of our faith. It is in Christ that we are justified. You are cleansed.

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You are made holy. You stand in righteousness in the presence of God because of the righteousness that you have received by faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So you have nothing to fear of what man may do to you. As Paul will go on to say later on in Romans chapter eight, if God is for us, then who can be against us?

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So you have nothing to fear, but stand in confidence in the presence of God because of what

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God's word has said about you who has faith in Jesus.

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You are forgiven. You are justified. You have been granted eternal life.

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Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

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The judgment of God is not upon us. We have peace with God, fellowship with God, friendship with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. 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.

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And we'll come back and talk more about that tomorrow. Let's conclude with prayer.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for the grace that you have shown us through our Lord Christ.

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May we keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith as we run this race today, whatever it is that we've got going on today, no matter what we're going through, no matter what we have to do, no matter what tasks are before us, we're looking to God.

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We are desiring to please our Savior. We want to be more like God.

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As it says in Hebrews 12, 14, without holiness, no one will see the

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Lord. So we desire the righteousness of Christ. We want you to make us more like you, growing us in godliness, that we may do the things that please

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God and are more like our Savior. Keep our minds on Jesus today.

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Give us confidence in our hearts, knowing that by faith in Christ we are saved, we are forgiven our sins, we have fellowship with God.

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These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

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You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

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Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.