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I just want to welcome everybody today. My name is Bob Andrzejczyk, I've been a member of BBC about two or three years now, and, you know, hopefully you're all fed today by the word, by the man here today.
So, do you consider yourself a bragger? Do you know how to brag? I think each and every one of us here today, and you'll see in a moment what I mean, we need to become better braggers. We need to learn how to boast and boast properly.
You know, we probably need to know how to relearn how to brag, because everyone knows how to brag. Everyone knows how to boast in themselves. I think many times, most of us have almost a constant compulsion to make ourselves look superior, to show that we are better in some way, or our stuff is bigger and better, or, you know, our experience is just more exciting in general.
And as I thought about this topic, the only thing I could think about that kept coming to mind is a comedy routine, and I don't mean to make light of a sinful tendency, and that's what sinful bragging and sinful boasting is, but I thought of this comedy routine, and I'm sure many of you have seen it, where the gentleman's talking about, he's at a dinner party, and he wants to relate a story.
He wants to tell people he just had his wisdom teeth taken out, and he starts, and he said, I had two wisdom teeth taken out. And immediately he's cut off. Everybody at the dinner party is on top of him, and, you know, what are you talking about?
What are you going to give this story about two wisdom teeth? I had four wisdom teeth. Well, I had this many wisdom teeth. And so he's just immediately cut off, and it just, his point was, it seems that no detail is too small or too trivial for us to want to make ourselves feel better, feel superior to somebody, and so I think we all know how to brag.
And ultimately the comedian finished up his routine. He said, you know, it would be great, you know, if you're just one of those handful of guys who walked on the moon, because any dinner party you go to, you can just drop that bomb and, you know, you walked on the moon.
What else can they say? So my purpose here today is, like I said, to encourage godly bragging, not sinful bragging, material things, not boasting in our economic status, our noble birth, nothing like that.
Not even about, you know, where you go to church or who your pastor is. If you are a believer here today, your bragging has to be grounded not in your merits, not in what you've done, but in what God has done in justifying you.
So in short, my purpose is this from our text, a proper understanding of the theology of justification by faith alone. It should lead to boasting in God. It should lead to boasting in God and who he is, what he has done for you.
And so by the time you leave here today, you have the proper object of your boasting, which is God, and you know how to brag properly and biblically about that object. So armed with that information, I hope that whatever dinner party you're at, even if Neil Armstrong is there or Buzz Aldrin, you'll have something to boast about over them, and that is that God has justified you through Christ.
We're going to be looking at Romans 5 today. If you guys are open to Romans 5, verse 6 through 11. We're going to read that to start in a minute. Up to this point in Romans, up to chapter 5, Romans 3 .19 through 4 .25, Paul has laid out an extremely thorough, well-thought-out, well-argued defense of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
And now in chapter 5, he's going to lay out some of the benefits, some of the fruits of that justification. What Jesus Christ, when we're justified in Christ, what are some of the benefits we enjoy as believers?
And again, there may be some of you today wondering what it means to be justified, so I'll just quickly explain justification. From Romans 3 and 4, we learn the following about justification. We learn that the entire world is condemned because they've broken God's law.
God has a law. God is the creator. He has his law, and you need to obey it. And every one of us has sinned. Every one of us has broken God's commands. To be saved from punishment and God's judgment, God requires that you be perfect, that you perfectly obey his law at all times.
But the problem is that none of us have done that. Romans 3 .10 is clear. Not one of us is righteous. Not one of us has completely obeyed God's law. We sin every day. So we need a righteousness outside of ourselves.
We need a perfection from outside of ourselves, and only Jesus Christ can provide that perfection. He's God in human flesh. He came to earth. He lived a perfect life, completely obeyed God's law. He died a death in our place.
He was a substitute for us. We deserve that death. God's penalty for sin is eternal wrath being poured out on us, but Jesus Christ bore that on the cross. Christ was buried. Three days later, God raised him from the dead, and that was just an approval of what he had done, that he approved that sacrifice, that Christ truly paid for sins, truly saved sinners at the cross.
And basically, if you repent of your sins, you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you believe that he paid for your sins on the cross, God, he just completes a miraculous transaction. He takes your sin, and he puts them on Christ, and he takes Christ's righteousness, and he puts it on you.
And in his eyes, you are now just. He doesn't look at a sinner anymore. He looks at somebody who's been justified, and that's through faith alone, by the grace of God alone. So that is justification in a nutshell.
So those of you who didn't know that, didn't understand that, that's where we're going to go from here. Please understand that these benefits we're going to look at, these are for believers. So if you do not believe in Christ, you do not trust in Christ, you need to do that today.
You need to put your faith in him, believe that he bore the penalty for your sin, but realize that these benefits are just for Christians. These are only for believers. So let's get into the passage. I'm going to read Romans 5, 6 through 11.
It starts out, For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly, for one will hardly die for a righteous man. Though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die, but God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. So after hearing my introduction, many of you are probably saying, Bob, I didn't hear anything about boasting in any of that, but I'm just going to make a quick case why I think Paul, what he's doing here is he's taking a break.
Through 425, he's explained justification by faith, and now he's going to take a break, and he's just going to take some time to praise God, rejoice in God, for all the benefits we enjoy being justified by faith.
Paul, in Romans 3 and 4, he's continually steering his readers away from boasting in their own works, boasting in their own merits. 4 .2, for example, says, it's talking about Abraham, how he was justified by his faith.
It says, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Now here in Romans 5, he shows his readers that far from trusting or boasting in our own works, we need to look at what God has done to secure our salvation.
Another thing that makes me think that Paul is praising and rejoicing and boasting in God here is that the word exult is used several times here, 5 .2, 5 .3, verse 11, it's also used. In the Greek word here, it's translated boast, and even in some translations brag in other locations in the Bible.
So many commentators feel that that's probably the best translation of that word, this boasting, this exulting, rejoicing in God. And also in Romans 5 .2, we read, we exult in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5 .3 continues in the same exultation, and not only this, so adding to that, but we also exult, we also boast. And from verse 3 through 8, we have one long boasting where he's talking about the hope we have in Christ, the love of God being poured out through the Holy Spirit.
By 5 .11, we have exult again, and through that whole, from 5 .2 through 5 .11, we hear much more than, and more than that, and not only this, but we exult. So I think that idea of boasting is just kind of carried through this whole passage, and so that's the leaping off point we're going to have here today.
I just want to read one quote from John Stott. He's kind of commented on this passage, and he was talking about some bad boasting described earlier in Romans, boasting by some Jews who they essentially thought that they were God's people by right or by birth, and that just being born a Jew, we're good to go.
And this was from Romans 2, and John Stott writes, Christian exultation in God begins with the shame-faced recognition that we have no claim on God at all. It continues with wondering worship that while we were still sinners and enemies, Christ died for us, and ends with the humble confidence that he will complete the work he has begun.
So to exult in God is to rejoice not in our privileges, as the Jews may have been boasting, but in his mercies, not in our possession of him, as the Jews thought maybe they owned God, they possessed him, but in his of us, his possession of us.
That's where our exultation should jump off as Christians. So I just want to go through four points today, reasons why we should boast as believers, and I want you to notice how each of these points is phrased.
It's always God is the active party. He's the one who's done this. He's the one who's justified people, and he's the one who pours out these benefits on those justified people. So the first point today is you should boast in God because he has demonstrated his love toward you in Christ.
You should boast in God because he has demonstrated his love toward you in Christ. Again, verse 6 -8, it says,. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So probably a very general basic rule of hermeneutics, when you see a 4, you want to know what it's there for.
So we're going to go back just to verse 5 because in 6 you see 4 right at the beginning. And if you go back to verse 5, it says, The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
And then we get the 4, where it's talking about how that love of God was demonstrated. The love of God in verse 5, I think it points to a very much, it's a subjective kind of experience that Paul's talking about.
Anyone who has received a new birth, you've been born again, you've been justified by God, you just glow when you first are saved, God saved you. You're glowing, you're gushing, you're talking about all his goodness, his love towards you.
You know there's been a change, and you know that what the verse says here, that the love of God has been poured out in your heart and it's been through the Holy Spirit. Other versions say it's been shed abroad in your heart.
You know that, that's an experience, that's a good mark that you can know you're saved, that you can have assurance. The conduit for that love is the Holy Spirit and you know you've received the Holy Spirit as well because you've had a change of life, you've had a change of heart.
And again, how can you tell that you've had this love of God poured out in your heart and poured out in your life through the Holy Spirit? It's a changed life. You're different, you're completely different.
God has made a new creature. And you see the evidence of the work in your life, you see the fruit, you see your life transform, your attitudes are different, desires different, attitudes different. You're a new person.
The love of God, it's acted on you. You've seen its effect, you've felt what it does. But these feelings, they need to have a basis. You know, it's not enough just to say, Yeah, I feel saved. Yeah, you know, I feel happy, you know, God's changed me.
Because I've seen many people that looked happy, they've looked saved, they've looked like the Holy Spirit's written all over their face. And a few months later, you don't ever hear from them again. So it's got to be more than just feelings, more than just a happy feeling.
And so then in verse 6, we see, For while we were still helpless, the whole passage turns on this conjunction. Paul takes his reader from just, you know, floating merrily along this big sea of God's love, you know, and he just drops anchor.
And he says, We're going to ground these feelings in truth. And when the anchor finds the bottom, he grounds those feelings in the historical fact of Christ's death on the cross, Christ's death for sinners.
And Paul takes his reader from the subjective to the objective, and it all hinges on that, for while we were still helpless. And so that's the basis for these feelings, these feelings of love being shed upon our heart.
And so how did God show his love? Like I said, while we were still helpless, he sent his son to die for us. And helpless has many synonyms, you know, and all the commentaries, study Bible, whatever I checked, there's all different synonyms.
Helpless means without strength. It means weak. It means powerless, infirm, sickly, feeble, impotent, destitute. And one of the best ones I like to say, incapable of working out any righteousness in ourselves.
That's helpless. You can do nothing to merit any favor with God. You can do nothing to commend yourself to God to earn his love. That's where we were. That was all of our situation. Then it says exactly the right time Christ died for us.
Certainly God does everything at the right time. And it's not saying that God was kind of sitting up there and waiting to pull the trigger on this whole Jesus thing, you know, like not now, not now, now.
No, that wasn't it. This was planned from eternity past. God appointed a time. If you're going to look at right time, you should think of the appointed time, the time that God set for Christ to come to die for sinners in the fullness of time even, as it says in Galatians 4.
Another great passage that talks about that, how God appointed a time where he'd send his son to save, to rescue men, to rescue sinners, Acts 2, 22, and 23. Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost. It says, Men of Israel, listen to these words.
Jesus the Nazarene, a historical figure, a man attested to you by God with miraculous miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst. So these people, they saw him. They saw him do great wonders.
Just as you yourselves know, this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hand of godless men and put him to death. And so he's taking the people to the historical fact of Christ walking on the earth, to him dying on the cross.
And that's what, again, we're planting our feelings upon. And finally, Christ came to die when we were helpless. He came to die exactly at the right time, at the exactly appointed time, and he came when we did not deserve it.
And if you go into verse 7 and 8, For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his love towards us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He says righteous man, he says good man. We know from Romans 3 none of us are righteous. We know none of us are good. And so we could probably make some distinctions with the Greek words, but Paul's ultimate point is this, that there was nothing in us that God should demonstrate his love towards us in sending Christ to die for our sins.
There was nothing to commend us to him. Again, I have a quote here from Donald Gray Barnhouse. He says there was nothing in us to call forth his love. There was everything in us to repel it. In spite of this, the love of God still flowed to us.
So we should respond to that love that reached down to us when we were helpless, a love that decreed your salvation in eternity past, a love that was completely undeserved. Our response should be boasting, should be rejoicing in God.
And so that's the first point. We should rejoice in God's love demonstrated to us. Number two, you should boast in God because he has rescued you from his wrath. Verse 9 says, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.
And so many commentators, when they look at this passage, they say that this is kind of, verse 8 was kind of the apex of this argument. He started over here with some lesser love. Somebody might die for a righteous man, a good man, and he moves just to the ultimate expression of love, and that's Christ dying on the cross for sinners.
And so if I had my chalkboard, my R .C. Sproul board here, I could draw a line and say this is the argumentation. It comes up, here's the apex, and now Paul's going to take us down the other side. He's going to go from lesser to greater, and then he's got a kind of a greater to lesser kind of argument here where in verse 9 he said, if we've been justified by his blood, if Christ has done all the hard work already, God came to this earth, he was at the incarnation, he came, he lived 30 plus years on this earth, he lived the perfect life, perfectly obeyed his Father in heaven.
He died a torturous, just excruciating death on a cross to pay the price for sinning. So he was resurrected and he went through all of this. He's already done the hard work. He has saved sinners at the cross.
How much more will we be saved from the wrath of God? He already bore the wrath of God. Are we somehow going to think that he can't keep us, that he can't keep us from the wrath in the future? And so that's what Paul's saying here, that's his argument.
He's saying he's done the work, all right, and he's going to keep you to the end. He's saved you from the wrath. He's declared you righteous and he'll save you in the end. So if we had our one graph, you know, it was kind of the apex and it comes down the other side, I think in this verse, if I can make another graph of, you know, here's your argumentation, here's boasting.
Boasting would start here and I think it's just going up, right off the charts, right up, you know, into heaven is this boasting in God. Because you just see it in the way he talks. He says, you know, in verse 9, much more than, you know, he's justified us, he's saved us and much more than, he'll keep us from God's wrath.
Now and in the future and for all eternity, we're never going to face God's wrath. And so I just want to point out also here in verse 9 and 10, a couple of verses that just show Paul talking about this later on.
In Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 1, he writes to the believers there in Thessalonica, we have heard how you turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven whom he, that's God, raised from the dead, that is Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come.
Also in verse, chapter 5, for God has destined us for wrath, has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has saved you from your sins, he will keep you from the wrath to come and your response again is boasting in a great savior.
Point number 3 from verse 10, you should boast in God because he has secured your final salvation. You should boast in God because he has secured your final salvation. Verse 10 says, for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son much more, there you have it again, much more having been reconciled we shall be saved by his life.
Again, we have kind of a greater to lesser argument and in verse 9 it was more of a legal forensic type thing where God said you've been justified, Christ has paid the penalty which was my eternal wrath.
Now, there's no double jeopardy, you're not going to be dragged back into the courtroom, that wrath is paid, you're not going to face that again. Here in verse 10, it's more of a relational type thing, how will we relate to God now that we're saved?
It says that we were reconciled to God. If we were reconciled then there had to be a brokenness in that relationship. Much more than that, we were his enemies. We see that throughout this passage, we were enemies of God.
We had turned our face against him, we were just hell-bent on sinning and going against God, going against his will and just sinning to our heart's delight. That was our situation before salvation. But now we've been reconciled.
Christ, through his death, he has breached that gap. He has reconciled us to the Father. The Father didn't have to be reconciled to us, he did nothing to us. God is righteous, he's holy, and he didn't offend us, we've offended him.
And he came all the way down, he took sinners and he reconciled them to himself through his Son. And so again, this is more of a relational thing. If he's paid the price in his death, now in his life, so much more are going to be saved through his life.
He's risen from the dead. In Hebrews 7, I mean, this is just too good to explain this passage. This is just too good, I couldn't make this up. If I wanted to write a verse out of my own head to explain this.
But this is what it says in Hebrews 7, 23, 25. The former priests, talking about the Levitical priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers. There was lots of them to do the sacrifices and take care of the temple.
But they were prevented by death from continuing. They died, they were humans, they were you and me, they were sinners. But Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever, holds his priesthood permanently.
He's a priest forever. Therefore he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him. Since he always lives to make intercession for them. Christ lives to make intercession for you. Is there anything that God the Father is going to deny his son?
If you've been reconciled to God, Christ has done all this work. He's not going to lose you. He's not going to lose you. And your response should be boasting. Again, because Christ has died. He's died to secure your salvation, to reconcile you to the Father.
You're no longer enemies, but sons in full heirs. Finally, my fourth point, the fourth reason for boasting. You should boast in God, basically for all he's done. In this whole salvation transaction, Paul just kind of stops and says, and not only this, so again we're taking that boasting graft right through the roof.
Not only this, but we exalt in God. There's our word, exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Just think of where we've come from. If you go back to chapter 3, we were dead in our trespasses, none righteous, not even one.
Paul just reads the indictment against us, and he's taken us through chapter 3, explained the whole justification by faith. Chapter 4, a little more of that. Now in 5, he just pours forth with all these benefits, all these fruits of justification that we enjoy, the fruits of Christ's labor, what he's done.
And he boasts, and he rejoices, and he rejoices in God. And so today that's what I want to leave with you, that we should, from this text, we should be motivated to rejoice. We should just desire to look at all that Christ has done in our lives and rejoice and give him praise and give him glory for that.
And that's kind of a built-in conclusion right there from Paul because it looks like he's just gotten right to the top of the mountain. He looks back. He looks back at all he's written these last 3, 4 chapters.
He looks at all that God has done for us, and he rejoices. He rejoices in the reconciliation. We are sons. We are heirs. And if you today, or you're here, and you're a believer, you should rejoice. If you're not a believer, like I said earlier, repent, believe in Christ, and you too can enjoy the benefits of all that Christ has done to save you.
Trust in him. Put your faith in him. Let's pray. Oh God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for all that have come out today. Father, I just pray for the men that follow me, God, that you give them boldness to preach.
Oh Father, you give them clarity of thought, focus their minds to preach. Father, I pray that this message resonated with someone today, Father, that we'll be more motivated to praise you, to rejoice, to boast in our God, that we be better braggers than you, not in our merits, not in what we've done, but in your great work on the cross.
In Christ's name, amen.