Sermon: 3 Essential Christian Truths - Part 3

Romans 5 and the Gospel of Peace

If you want to open your Bibles to Romans, chapter 5, Romans chapter 5, Paul to the church of Rome. As you get there, he wrote this letter with this grand opening, the first sentence, seven verses long.

He can't wait, he longs to go to the church in Rome to bless them. He says their faith is being proclaimed throughout the entire world and Romans, every word of God is pure and lovely and wonderful and important, every part of Scripture is the word of God.

But Romans is unique in that Romans is his systematic explanation of the good news. If you want to know what the gospel is unpacked and in detail from bottom to top, Romans. Paul is systematically explaining the Christian message and so if you want to know what the Christian message is in detail explained, look at Romans.

Look at Romans. In Romans chapter 5, verse 1, hear now the word of the living and the true God, therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our 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.

Not only that, but we rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time, 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, 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. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation. As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together as a church.

Lord we love you. Thank you for this promise. Thank you for this truth. I pray, Lord, that you would bless us as a church to be committed to the gospel of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ and not only to be committed to it for ourselves and in this room with this community of believers, but let us be committed to this message in the public square.

Give us boldness and strength and humility to be able to go out with love and sacrifice into the world around us to proclaim your excellencies, your supremacy, and your glorious gospel. I pray, Lord, that you would use us to bring glory to your name.

Not for our sake, O Lord, but for the sake of your name. Lord, use us to expand and grow your kingdom and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom around.

The world.

In Jesus' name, amen. Did you hear all that? I was just wondering why there was no shouts and like praise going on like during, I mean I don't want to show respect to the word of God, but did you capture the essence of that?

You see, that is not offered to you in man-made religion. One thing I've been saying over the last couple of weeks is that man-made religion does not bring peace. Even the religions that ape Christianity and co-opt our language, they cannot because they distort the nature of the gospel and distort grace, they cannot offer you peace with God.

So name the religion and I'll show you where they glory in their own attempts to essentially build a righteousness that is acceptable to their God or their gods and goddesses. Man-made religion, Romans 1 Paul says, everyone knows the true God, they suppress the truth of God and unrighteousness, and the sin of mankind, Paul says in Romans 1, is that we know the true God, we hold down this truth, we are in the active, the active duty of suppression and we don't want God in our knowledge, we don't want to know him, we don't want to think about him, and so the sin of mankind is to switch the true God for something that looks really like us, to worship instead the creature rather than the creator.

Why are there so many different worldwide religions, so many expressions of religious faith and so many different gods? Answer, we're idolaters, because mankind, men and women, all of us are made in the image of the same God and the central problem of humanity is rebellion.

It's hostility against the true God, and so all man-made religion builds a God that looks very much like them, have you noticed that? All gods, man-made gods look so much like them, even religions that try to co-opt Christian language and ape the Christian faith, they'll borrow our language, redefine it and turn the God into something mortal, with gods before them, or they look a lot like us, they have the same failures, they're unjust, they're inconsistent, they change, they lie.

That's the nature of human religion, is exactly that, and all human religion will attempt to solve the problem that every image-bearer of God feels the weight of, it's in all of our hearts and all of our minds all the time, we know that there is a righteous standard that we fall short of, all humans know that.

And the way back, the way to peace is to somehow make up for the unrighteousness and to sort of build enough righteousness where you can be acceptable to your God. Even look at the hardest atheists today.

Look at the atheists that we've dialogued with on our channel, we go on the streets, into the public square, preaching the gospel, we do debates, and you listen to the atheist who says that all of us come from the goo to you, right?

We all came from bacteria to eventually down a line, it formed into human beings. They follow all kinds of mythology to get to that place of speciation from one thing to the next. Human beings are no more valuable in the universal thing of scheme of things than snails or rocks or dogs or horses, they say that.

And yet every atheist that you talk to has a sense of what is just and unjust. They have a sense of what you ought to do to others, this is right and that is wrong. They want to be quote unquote good people, good human beings, they want to be loving.

To other people.

Where does that come from? How do you build something like that with a worldview that says that human beings are cosmic accidents, that we are just African apes in a world that doesn't matter, and in this cosmically indifferent universe, you live, you die, and you're gone, you're absolutely gone when you die,.

Dr. Will Provine, professor at Cornell University, who died. And yet every atheist knows that something's wrong and there's this standard that we fall.

Short of.

Fairly recently I had an atheist that wanted to talk to me on Apologia Radio, I had this girl on, and what's interesting here is when she came on, she's an atheist, and said that there's ultimately no meaning and there's no purpose, and she told me personally, nothing is right or wrong ultimately, there is no real right or wrong, and yet this young woman actually has a very strong sense of hatred for the unjust.

Things that are injustices perpetrated upon others. Where do you get that when your fundamental assertion is that nothing matters and nothing is ultimately right or wrong? You see, you can't escape the image of God.

You can say there is no God. You can say there's ultimately no meaning. You can say that nothing is right or nothing is wrong, but brothers and sisters, you can't live that way in God's world, and you won't.

And so what do atheists do? They try to somehow make up for their own unrighteousness or injustices by trying to be good people, better people, and then you move over to religious people who essentially express that religion differently than the atheists with some version of a God or some version of righteousness and how to attain this righteousness, and yet all man-made religion cannot deliver to you what Paul does right here in this small section of Romans chapter.

Five.

Justification by Faith and the Gift of Righteousness

Do you understand the glory of the gospel? Because you just heard it. We've been reconciled to God. You've been declared righteous, justified. You've been declared righteous in God's court because of Christ, because of His work on your behalf, because of the grace of God and faith in Him, God has already given the declaration of righteousness.

I declare you righteous on behalf of my son and his work. You have peace with God. There's nothing left. Did you notice the past tense-ness of everything that occurred here? Go back to Romans five and see this.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have presently peace with God. Do you notice that? We've been declared righteous. You currently have peace with God. Look again in verse nine. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved from Him, from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled, we are reconciled, we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life? More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received what?

Reconciliation. And man-made religion can't get a hold of this and really understand it. You mean it's all done? You mean there's nothing left for me to grab for or to try to polish up before I can be acceptable to God?

It's an amazing thing when you go out to do evangelism with people who are part of different cults and religions and you express this gospel, what's left for me to do? You need to repent and believe the gospel.

You need to turn to Christ and trust in Him, look to Him for salvation and for life, and you receive the gift of eternal life, peace with God, reconciliation. You start to see a short circuit in the wiring of the religious person.

It can't be that easy. And the answer is, it is just that easy, and of course, it wasn't easy for God to become a man, to take on flesh and to live the righteous and sinless life that you and I have failed, and it certainly wasn't easy for the Son of Man to go to that tree, to go to that cross and to die for me.

It wasn't easy to take a beating for me. It wasn't easy to bleed and suffocate and die for me. And of course, it certainly isn't easy for any human being to conquer death and to have victory over death.

So yes, it's easy in terms of the grace of God, it's a free gift, it's unmerited, you can't earn it, not kind of, it is a free gift you receive with empty hands. And so that's, of course, easy in a sense in terms of it's not you doing it, it's all to the glory of God, but this gospel contains something that was massively, powerfully hard to attain in terms of how is God going to reconcile sinners to himself?

How does it happen? And I want to just emphasize this one thing. This is the most important thing. This is the most important thing. When you talk about having the right God, of course, that has to be there, you have to be worshiping and coming to the right God.

But this question of the gospel itself, how will you have peace with God? Jesus says in John 14, 6, you know the verse, I hope you know the verse, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.

That's the message of Jesus, take it or leave it. Jesus is not one mediator amongst a bunch of other mediators. He is the sole way to peace with God. There is no other salvation, no other way to peace with God, and all of us are made in the image of the same God.

He is the only way. And here's what you have to get about the Christian message. The gospel can be known, it can be understood, it can be defended. One of the things I was pointing out last week was that in Galatians chapter 1, a very short letter from the Apostle Paul, he is freaking out.

Admit it, he opens the letter up with very short greetings to the church, it's read before the church, and it's immediate beat down. It's an immediate freak out moment for an inspired apostle, not long after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, where he has to defend the gospel against something even that would appear to disrupt the glory of the gospel.

If you read the first two chapters of Galatians, you'll see actually a pretty interesting record of the Apostle Paul giving you some insider information about a conflict he had with Peter. Peter wasn't denying the gospel, Peter knew the gospel.

He preached the same gospel as Paul. And Paul has to emphasize, I'm going to take down this false gospel. He explains that through Galatians, we're going to touch a bit on that. But he actually tells you the inside story of how he had to confront Peter to his face publicly because Peter was engaging in just the appearance of denying the gospel.

He just looked like he might be on the edges of denying the gospel. Not that Peter was, he knew Christ, he knew the gospel, but just even his behavior could have given the wrong impression. And the Apostle Paul goes to another apostle in his face in public and confronts him over the behavior that might distort the gospel.

Can the gospel be understood? Can it be defined? We live in a day where everyone wants to mix words and blend words. Everything is malleable. Every word, it can have your own meaning. Boy, man, malleable.

It could be anything. Girl, woman, malleable. It could be anything. Marriage, malleable. It could be anything. We live in a day where words don't have ultimate meanings at all. And we live in a day, religiously, in a nation that has abandoned Christ as Lord, abandoned the word of God as the supreme revelation of God, as the ultimate over our nation.

And so we live in a world, of course, in this nation, and of course it's happening around the world all over the West where the Christianity had so much victory, but now apostasy. We live in a world where we have so many different religions that say things like, well, you know, have it to yourself between you and God, right?

I mean, if that's how they want to worship Jesus, if that's how they want to view Jesus, you know, can we really define who Jesus is? I mean, can we really do that? And how do you know what the gospel is?

Can it be defined and understood? You have people trying to blur the lines of distinction today between Rome and Christianity saying it doesn't really matter. Rome is Trinitarian. I mean, at least they have a respect and a reverence for the word of God and they're Trinitarian.

I mean, does it really matter that they've added all these other things and obstacles in terms of reconciliation and peace with God? I mean, they still say they have faith in Jesus, right? They use our language like grace and faith and salvation.

They say all that too. Or how about the other religions that ate Christianity? They say they believe in a version of Jesus. They say the word gospel. I mean, if Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking on your door or the Mormons come knocking on your door, they're using your vocabulary.

They're saying gospel. They're saying Jesus died.

Jesus rose again.

Yes, you need to trust in Jesus. And then you get into the system and discover they're adding more and more and more and there is no peace. That's the ultimate thing. There is no peace in these religions that distort the gospel.

And the gospel can be understood. Paul demonstrates it by explaining it systematically in Romans and then defending it in Galatians.

Very short letter. Very short letter.

Get to know it. Get to love it and understand it because it is not very long. But you see the Apostle Paul in a very short letter defending the gospel itself saying if you do this to the message, then go to hell.

Hell.

That is what anathema is when he says if an angel, if we or an angel from heaven preaches any other gospel than the one you received, let him be anathema. The word anathema is one of the strongest words you can use to describe eternal separation and condemnation.

That is Paul saying if that angel comes and distorts this gospel message by adding even this one thing to the gospel to disrupt it, to disrupt our peace with God, to disrupt the message of grace, he says then let the angel go to hell.

Let me go to hell and be condemned forever. It can be defined. And I mentioned to you of course that throughout the New Testament you see so much grace. There is so much grace filling the New Testament for one another.

You see the interesting scenario of now God accomplished what he said he always would. The Messiah would come into the world and the nations would stream up to God's mountain. He would draw all the peoples to himself.

You would have Jew and Gentile in one body. And listen, I think before Jesus came and it actually started to happen, people must have just been living in this sort of la-la land of utopia like oh it's going to be glorious, Mashiach's going to come, salvation, forgiveness, all the nations to God's mountain and he's going to draw all the peoples to himself.

Every tribe, people, tongue, and nation, it's going to be great. And then Jesus comes and does it, Pentecost, blows up the gospel around the empire, and now they got to live together, right? Now you go, oh now we have the tough work of putting people together who are very different from one another.

You know why I love this room right now? I do this a lot. Some of you guys are probably bothered, but I'm not going to tell you to turn to your neighbors and say squat. I hate that, okay? Don't do that.

But truly, just for a moment, don't feel weird about this because I think it highlights my point here. Look around this room for a second. Just consider, look at the different colors, look at the different backgrounds, look at a room full of people that are not all descended physically from Abraham.

It's a room right now that expresses what the promise was about the kingdom of the Messiah, that the Messiah would bring together Jews and Gentiles, all these different people into one body. And you see throughout the New Testament, the apostles are having to engage in the church in Corinth and other church issues, where now you've got to deal with the issue of like, how do you have different colored people come together in a body loving Jesus together?

How do you have people that have different food traditions and cultural traditions come together in one body and love Jesus with unity and passion and peace and outdoing one another with honor? How do you accomplish that sort of a thing?

And the apostles are very clear, all the instances are like, look, one person wants to view this day as important, one person doesn't, look, do it for the glory of God, have it to yourself between you and God.

You don't disrupt the unity of the church over all of these side issues. If this person wants to eat that meat offered to idols, let them have the steak, shut up,.

Right?

If this person doesn't want to eat it because it violates their conscience, like, oh no, that meat was offered to the false god. Paul's like, look, if they feel like I can't do that, then don't do it, right?

There's so much grace given to one another, except for when you see the nature of God or the gospel itself disrupted in a New Testament. This is where you see the apostles taking their gloves off and going to war all the time, all the time.

Even over things that, let's admit, in the 21st century, evangelical West, we might say, eh, is that really a big deal? And to them they would say, deny this about Christ and His nature and you lose Christ.

Don't even let a person like that into your church. Don't let them disrupt your fellowship. If you add, pack this one thing onto the gospel, if you say that it's something other than trusting in Jesus, other than trusting in what He's accomplished alone, and it's just this one thing packed onto the edges of the gospel, Paul says, you've now given up grace.

It's over. The gospel's gone now. Galatians chapter 5, you need to choose between grace or law. Which one? And you've got to imagine now for a moment, as we talk about reconciliation that we have and peace with God that we have, the people in Galatia who were denying the gospel, the ones that Paul said, a curse on you, go to hell, those people, we don't have any evidence.

They denied anything essential about the Trinity, the deity of Christ, that the word of God was authoritative, that this was the inspired revelation of God. We don't have any evidence, because he doesn't address anything about them denying some crazy other essential things.

All we have in Galatians is they were saying, this covenant symbol, this thing about circumcision from the law of God, let's at least have everyone trust in Jesus and do this one thing. At least keep that sign.

You've got to at least be circumcised. You've got to bring this over into this new covenant with Jesus, at least this aspect.

Of the law.

We've got to maintain this Jewish identity, keep that part, and we're good to go. Paul says, you've become severed from Christ. Christ has become of no benefit to you. Whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace.

That's the issue. What brings you into a place where you have peace with God? What brings you into a place where you're reconciled with God? The answer? Grace. It's the grace of God. And that is an overflowing, incomprehensible, and massive grace, agreed.

And that's how you know this has the Prince of the Divine all over it. This is the gracious God. This is the God who has mercy, that is new every morning. This is the God who loves sinners. Now I want to emphasize this as we unpack this from Romans.

Very key thing. Are you ready for this? You want to know where you'll find it? I'll tell you right now. Here's where you're going to find it. When you talk about man-made religion that can't bring peace, that doesn't reconcile you to God, you're always in an in-and-out relationship with God.

Think about your week for a second.

Pause.

Let's break away from the message for one second. Think about your week for a second. Wives, did you love your husbands this week perfectly in a way that glorifies God? Don't answer that out loud.

Okay.

Husbands, did you love your wives? Were you angry? Were you bitter? Were you not forgiving? Did you fight? Kids, did you honor your father and your mother? Did you have hatred in your heart this week for somebody?

Maybe somebody political, okay? Was it there? Did you covet? Did you lie? Did you, were you consumed with lust this week? Now if you know the answer to that question, then here's, here's, here's what you have to be brought into.

This says you have peace with God. This says you're justified, declared righteous. This says you're reconciled to God. How do you have that when you know your own hearts? When you know what happened last night and this morning and Friday, you know how you sinned.

You know how you failed as a follower of Jesus Christ. How can you say that you've been justified? You have peace with God. You have received reconciliation.

How?

Because man-made religion says it's in and out. It's in and out. I'm okay with God. I've gone to confession. I've done this thing in the temple ceremony. I did these good deeds. I gave this money. I did this.

And then all of a sudden, Tuesday, face plant, sin, no longer at peace, right? It's in and out of a ceasefire with God and man-made religion. Ceasefire, we're okay. I'm obedient enough. I'm trusting enough.

All of a sudden, sin, take up arms against God again. No peace. No reconciliation. None of that.

How do you have it? How do you have it?

And not only. How do you have it, ready? How do you have it forever? Because it's one thing to say you have it now. You come to church. You hear a pastor telling you God says you're reconciled. You have peace with God.

You've received this reconciliation.

How do you have it now and forever? And the answer is the grace of God. The answer is the work of Christ. The answer is grace and faith and peace with God.

It's all God's work.

But did you notice something? All religion says ultimately that God has to look into my life and my heart and my mind and he has to find in there some degree of acceptable righteousness so that God and I.

Are okay.

Now pause and think. I want to show you two contrasting positions. All man-made religion will say somehow there needs to be enough righteousness, commitment, obedience in myself so that God can look at me and say, okay, we're good.

God looks down into humanity, into human hearts, and he says, is this person righteous enough? Have they obeyed enough? Are they loving enough? Have they had enough victory over sins in their life? Are they in a good place?

Okay, on the basis of what I see in them, their righteousness, I'm going to make it.

Happen.

But this says something entirely different. Verse six, while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. The older translations I think are better to get across the point. But the Wiccan, the Wiccan, Christ died for the Wiccan.

That's what you are. That's what I am before a holy God. And that is why the gospel itself delivers a severely crushing blow. Because it comes right against the pride of man that says, no, I'm acceptable.

I can do it. I can be good enough. I'll be disciplined.

I'll be obedient.

I'll do all the things. And the gospel comes in and says, you're lost.

You're wicked.

You're ungodly. You're a God-hater. You're hostile to God. You're an enemy of God. You have no hope. You can accomplish nothing. Everything you're doing outside of Jesus is a filthy rag before a holy God.

You only have Christ. It's only him.

And it is only to his glory.

Is that the gospel you believe in? That it's all Christ? That you have nothing? That you're a worm and a maggot and you're wicked and you're evil and you're not righteous and you're a non-God seeker?

Because this says Christ dies for the ungodly, not the righteous. And that is the glory of the gospel and the hope of the gospel. Now, in Romans chapter 5, that's this glorious summary of what he's been saying all along.

Romans 1, 2, 3, 4 come before 5. Obviously the chapter divisions are in, you know, modern innovation. Those weren't there when Paul wasn't like, chapter 5, verse 1, right? He wasn't doing that. But this is a long letter where he's explaining the gospel as an inspired apostle and we see.

The word.

I said it last time. Chapter 5, verse 1, therefore, therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. That's because he said something before that is so grand. I mentioned to you last week, if you take Romans 1 through 3, it's an indictment upon all humanity.

It's everybody. Jew and Gentile, same spots. Not righteous, not good, non-God seeking, poisonous asps under your lips, feet, swift.

To shed blood.

That's everybody. Jew and Gentile. That's me. That's you. And I talked about the fact that in Romans 3 Paul makes a point to say that the law wasn't given to justify anybody. It can't declare you righteous.

All the law can do is shut your mouth before God because what do you see in the law? If you look into it, what do you see?

You see yourself.

That's me. I'm the liar. I'm the covetous person. I'm the adulterer. I'm the murderer. I'm the thief. You see that you're the person who doesn't love neighbor as God calls you to. So the law just acts as this condemning force when it comes to how do I have peace with.

God.

The law is good. The law is good.

And we are called to love God and love his law and be light to the world with his truth and his law. Yes. But the law is no means of justification. And Paul says in Romans 3, 28, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

That's the message of the apostles. That is the message of the apostles. Now if you don't believe that, that you are justified by faith apart from the works of the law, faith by itself, faith alone, if you don't believe that, then you're not part of the we of Romans 3.

We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. If you want to find yourself standing in the ancient church with the apostles themselves, then you need to believe that message.

It's faith apart from the works of the law, faith alone. And so Romans 4, I'm going to read through some of this so you know it and you can articulate it and unpack it yourselves, not just for being on the street or being with family, preaching the gospel to friends and family, but you can know it for yourself.

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, verse 1, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before.

God.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Ready? Important point as a Christian. When you think about defending the gospel, when you think about the supremacy of faith, faith alone in Christ for salvation, here's Paul's point.

Let's go back to the beginning and to the forefather of where this came from. God made promises to Abraham to bring a seed that would save and bless the world. All the nations, descendants as numerous as the stars and like the sand on the seashore.

So Paul's point is this, I'm telling you, you're all sinners. It's not by law. It is by faith and faith apart from the works of the law, faith by itself. And then he says, what? Let's discover Abraham.

How was father Abraham justified? What'd he do?

What'd he do?

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. It was charged to his account as righteousness. But what did he do? Well he offered his son Isaac on the altar.

Nope.

That happened about 20 years after that verse. So he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

But what did he do?

Well, he obeyed the Mosaic law. No, this happened hundreds of years before the law was given through Moses. So what did he do? Well you see, he made a covenant with God and he and God walked through the parted animals by themselves, by together.

No, when God made the covenant with Abraham and they did this special covenant where they divided animals to like, it was, it was a serious thing in that day to make a covenant. They didn't have paper like us and legal documents and paralegal .com or whatever it was or record.

Stuff.

You know, you had to make a big showing for making a covenant. So they would take animals, they would divide them in half. You would be walking together with the person you made a deal with and a promise to with witnesses.

You'd walk through the divided animals through the blood and through the guts to basically say, if I break your, my promise, let it be done to me. What's done here. That's serious business. And when they're going to, when God's going to do this to show Abraham how committed he is, the animals are divided.

And instead of Abraham and God walking through together, a deep sleep falls on Abraham. What's he doing? He's out. He's passive. He's got no contribution. And who goes through the parted animals? God, he's going to keep the promise.

He'll keep the commitment. There's nothing for you to do, Abraham. I'm going to do all of this. It's a one way covenant. It's what I'm doing.

This isn't about you.

And so what Abraham do, he believed. He believed. And if you want to be a son and daughter of Abraham, and you do, and err according to this promise, then you need to be of the same faith of Abraham. Is that how you're justified?

Is that how you're justified in Rome? Is that how you're justified in Mormonism? Is that how you're justified in all of these different religions that ape Christianity that say it's faith plus this faith and faith also this thing over here?

The answer is this, that's not the faith of Abraham. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. What'd he do? He came to God with empty hands. He had nothing. He didn't have books by Bovink and Bonson.

He didn't have like this rich Christian tradition of theology. What does Abraham even know? Honestly, very little about the whole redemptive story of what God's going to do. He's got limited information and he just believes and God credits to him righteousness.