[Transcript may not match broadcasted sermon word for word, and contains extra material that was cut from the broadcast due to time constraints]

       Now we come in our study of the Book of Romans into the most beloved parts by Christians. Chapters 5 through 8 are undoubtedly the most famous chapters, and they also contain some of the most famous doctrine of our faith. To understate it, there is a lot going on here in these chapters. I know I have spent a lot of time in these chapters in my personal studies, and I’m sure you have too. In view of that fact, I’m going to slow our pace down here a bit as we navigate through this section, so that we can immerse our minds and better come to grips with what the Apostle Paul has to say to us through the Spirit of God.

       Up and to this point, Paul has been making his defense of the Christian faith, and primarily with his Jewish brothers and sisters in mind. Paul was a Jew, and he based his arguments for Jesus Christ by using their point of view, by pondering the things from the Old Testament that he made his case from. The Jewish people were on Paul’s mind, and we will see more of that later in this book. Nevertheless, Paul also has talked a great deal about Gentiles, those to whom God had not originally choose, but those who came after the Jews rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has talked about the total depravity of mankind, and how both Jews and Gentiles can be saved from their sins through Jesus Christ.

       In the midst of all of this Paul has followed a cleverly devised series of arguments that has led us up to our text today. First, Paul explained that people are not righteous, and he listed a whole series of sins to demonstrate that, with the finality of that being the sin of homosexuality. He said that sin showed the total depravity of men and women. Then he argued on behalf of God, demonstrating that God is in fact righteous in his judgment against sin, that he is the holy God. Next he talked about the Jewish man’s relationship with sin and the Law of Moses versus the Gentiles relationship with sin. He spoke of how even though God’s chosen people, the Israelites, were not righteous, God still remained faithful to them. And again, Paul re-emphasized that no person is righteous before God, not the Jew or the Gentile.

       After Paul had gone through all that, showing people’s sinfulness versus God’s righteousness, he then spent the second half of chapter three telling us how in fact humans can become righteous like God is righteous. And how do they become righteous? Well, we learn it is by faith—people become righteous through placing their faith in Jesus Christ. Since Christ came to the earth, died for our sins, and was raised to life again, anyone can place their faith in his accomplishment and have righteousness, perfection, counted to them. Paul pointed out that Abraham was justified in front of God by his faith, and that David also believed the same thing. And Paul showed us that anyone can have the same righteousness that Abraham and David had, by believing through faith for justification from their sins before God.

       And this brings us to chapter 5. Let’s move through the first half of this chapter today. So, go ahead and turn in your Bibles, or tap in your Bible apps to Romans chapter 5. Beginning in verse 1, we read: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (ESV).

       We start here today with an incredible statement from the Apostle Paul. We, who believe in God, who have placed our faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead, who have been justified in front of God by this faith, we now, Paul says, have received peace with the God of everything that exists, who made everything that is, the God of all time. That’s incredible.

       Let us recall what Paul said a few chapters back in Romans 2:8-9, and this contrasts severely with what we see here in chapter 5 for the Christian. Remember? He said, “for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek” (ESV). This is Paul’s picture, God’s picture, of the unbeliever—the one who still has yet to place his or her faith in Christ. This is what anybody is before Christ, indeed, what we were before we came into relationship with Christ. What are the characteristics of the one who doesn’t have peace with God? Notice, the person is self-seeking and does not obey the truth. That’s Paul’s definition of evil in verse 8 of Romans chapter 2: self-seeking and does not obey the truth.

       What does it mean to be self-seeking? Well, a person who is self-seeking is a person who fails to obey both the first and second greatest commandments. You know what they are. We are to love God first with our whole beings, and then what? We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. If we are self-seeking first, we don’t do either one of those things. And, and, the person is also one who does not obey God’s truth, the real truth of the world. What does this look like? Well, it is simply one who practices sin, one who follows their instinctive, fleshly impulses and selfish desires. It is one who lives in sin, doing things that are offensive to God, regularly practicing those things Paul outlined in Romans chapter 1. That’s why we like to see a difference in character, a difference in behaviors, in a person claiming to be a Christian. That’s how we have confidence a person is truly born-again.

       One thing I like to do in order to understand Scriptures better, is do what I call a Scripture Reversal. We just saw how Paul stated the characteristics of the unbeliever and their consequences in Romans 2:8-9, but what I want to do is reverse this Scripture so that we can see how we ought to look as Christians. Let’s rephrase the verse: “for those who are God and others-seeking and do obey the truth, who obey righteousness, there will be peace. There will be peace for every human being who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek” (ESV). Ok, see how that worked? I took the verse and reversed it, and this can help us gain better understanding of where we stand and how God see us. This is a good practice for us to use to better understand Scripture. I think right now you are beginning to think of all kinds of ways this technique can help you understand Scripture better.

       So, we as Christians have peace with God. What is this peace with God? What Paul is talking about here a legal standing with God, a position, how God sees us. It’s God’s perspective. We have peace with God in that we are not at war with him and on the opposing side. We are not enemies of God, as other Scriptures talk of unbelievers. Our father is not Satan, not the the devil any longer. Our Father is God. And with this legal standing, then, obviously comes a feeling of peace. There is not supposed to be anymore fear or dread of God in how we approach him. Usually the unbeliever can feel fear and dread when coming to God, and rightfully so because that person is not on good terms with him. We, as Christians, still retain our reverent fear of God, but in our relationships and in our dealings with God, we now have peace. As Jesus said, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15, ESV). We can now see God is our friend, even though we still revere him.

       Remember what the writer of Hebrews has told us? He said in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (ESV). Our peace with God, then, gives us confidence with God. You know you can have confidence with God, before God, right? I think a lot of Christians have failed to realize this very important and essential point. We should not approach God with a hesitating attitude, or a fearful one, or one where we feel that God doesn’t want to be bothered by our presence. The writer of Hebrews tells us that God gives us both mercy and grace. He gives us mercy, forgiveness from our sins, our failings, when we need it. And he gives us grace, extra blessings and ease, which helps us with whatever it is that we need help with. It is a timely help. We should expect God to give.

       So, peace with God really, ultimately then means peace of mind. Now, granted, I think it’s safe to say that not all of us, or perhaps most of us, have mastered this peace of mind that results from our peace with God. In fact, to capture this thought, let’s consider what Jesus told his disciples right before his crucifixion, back in John, where we were a second ago, which was a time of heightened stress (at least for him, and one of which was about to be for the disciples). He said to them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27, ESV). Wow. This means that no matter what the times, even in times of trouble, we have Jesus’ peace. And, we are not supposed to let our hearts be troubled, neither to let them be afraid. That means we have to choose not to do that because we know who our God is, and our standing with him. As all of us realize, however, that’s much easier said than done, isn’t it?

       Our next verse here in Romans chapter 5, verse 2: “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” (ESV).

       Man, there is a lot we could talk about here at this point. In addition to our peace with God, we have obtained access by our faith into God’s grace, where we stand. What is God’s grace? I think it’s the ability for us as Christians to live a successful life, in God’s eyes, beyond our own personal potential. We cannot be righteous in and of ourselves. We can’t achieve our own righteousness by following a list of rules and regulations that we come up with from our Bibles. People can say they live by grace, but do they really? Often times I think that people who really believe they are living under the new way of grace have instead just formulated a new law by which they live. And they think that since it’s a lesser law than God’s Old Testament prescription, that they are living by grace. But that’s not a true understanding of grace at all.

       Bear in mind that if we are living by an achievement based system, a system where we earn this or that before God or others, we are not living under grace. Grace is God giving us, what? It is God giving us what we do not deserve. We accept grace from God through our faith. And, as Paul said earlier, our faith does not come from us. We didn’t come up with our faith. Our faith was given to us as a gift from God. And since it is a gift, and we didn’t earn our faith, and didn’t therefore earn our grace, grace then is not something of our own doing. So, we live by grace through faith. But what does this look like?

       If I am to live by God’s grace, that means that I don’t depend on my own ability. I don’t depend on my own power to be able to accomplish this or that for God, or for others. Now, it is getting interesting. So, grace is God moving me, or perhaps pushing me out beyond what I feel I can personally handle, do, or accomplish. It is God leading a person to go beyond his or her own potential. I talked about the Christian deist’s perspective several weeks ago, at the beginning of our study, and recall I said the deist wants to live in a state where everything is natural, it’s all understandable and all figured out. That’s not living by God’s grace. God wants to move us out of our comfort zones, so that we depend on him. If he says we can do it by and through his grace, then his grace is really all we need. This goes against the very core of the natural, logically minded, powerless Christian. We have to come to the place where, no matter what we personally feel or reason within our minds, we have to nevertheless move out in God’s grace to accomplish whatever God wants to accomplish in us and through us.

       I’ve stated in the past that we like to come up with and have answers to everything in our minds. However, that’s not living by God’s grace. To state it plainly, are you ready? To state it plainly God asks us to give up control. To some of you out there that was like a bolt of lightning striking right at where you are sitting. You base your whole lives on being in control. You live and thrive by being in control. But God asks us not to be in control. He wants to be in control. Now, for those of you who didn’t have a heart attack and are still listening, we know that when we give up control, we what? Well, we give up the ability to keep ourselves secure. Oh no. Giving up our security, this is asking a lot. We have to depend on God for our security. We have to come to God fully dependent on him that he will keep us safe, he will give us what we need, he will keep our reputations secure. We can either try to control those things ourselves (and remember, we’re not really in control even when we feel like we are), or we can let God take control of those things.

       What does all this mean, in finishing up our discussion on grace? It means that grace doesn’t come from us. It’s not something we conjure up with our own strength or ability. It is something that we have to depend on God for. It is something that continually, supernaturally, comes from God himself, on a daily basis. Sure, we can live by our own strength and ability, and think and say we are living by grace, but we certainly are not going to see the true results of grace in that case. You see, we can either live by our own efforts, or we can live by God’s grace. God urges us to live by his grace, but that means we’re going to have to take risks. We’re going to have to live without knowing all the answers in our personal situation. Like Indiana Jones did in the third installment of the movie franchise, we are going to have to step forward and out over the cliff, the canyon, even when we cannot see the bridge, when it is invisible. Will you today make the choice to live like this? Or, are you going to play it safe, do it your own safe, comfortable way, within your own ability, and not through God’s grace?

       Reading verse 2 again: “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” (ESV).

       So, we are to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Obviously, this is not a one time thing for us, but it is a continual thing that we do over and over. It is an outward look, an eager anticipation, of what we will ultimately be. It is, “seek[ing] the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set[ting our] minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” as Paul told the Colossians (Colossians 3:1-2, ESV). We understand that our salvation is secure in Jesus. We recognize that when we die, we are going to get our new, resurrection bodies that will be the new homes of our spirits, our new flesh. We will be with our Savior, Jesus, forever. We have these hopes, and no one can take them away from us. Regardless of what happens in life, we can always cling to these hopes.

       The writer of Hebrews has told his Jewish Christian audience, “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:17-20, ESV). So, here, one of the illustrations we see for hope is that it is our anchor for our souls. We understand that a ship's anchor is let down through the water and it fastens on the seafloor, in the rocks, so that the ship will not drift away from where it is supposed to be. Our hope, then, is that we can fasten our anchors to Jesus, who is stable and sturdy, so that the water (which represents the instability of life) won’t be a concern for us.

       Now, to the part we don’t particularly care for. Romans chapter 5, verse 3: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our 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.” (Romans 5:3-5, ESV)

       We rejoice in our sufferings. We rejoice in our sufferings. We know we all experience sufferings, many of which pertain to the normal, daily living of this world. There can be money problems, relational issues, employment hardships, bodily diseases, whatever it be, there can be all kinds of worldly troubles. And sometimes God will use these things to teach us things.

       I was trying to come up with an example in regard to this topic of suffering of which I thought might be beneficial for us. One of my friends about a year and half ago in the Springtime lost his job in the I.T. world unexpectedly. And he began the search for a new job right away. After months and months of trying to find another I.T. job, he eventually ended up taking a lesser paying job at a local department store. He faithfully worked that job for many months without complaining. And after about a year and several months from the time he lost his original job, after lots of praying, God provided him with a bigger and better I.T. job at a better company than the one he worked at before. This worldly trial produced endurance, character, and hope for my friend. Now in the future, he can look back on this trial and take comfort in the fact that God will lead him through, even if it takes God longer than he expects, because he did back here. And those of us who prayed with him can look to his suffering, his trial, as well for encouragement.

       We as Christians can also face special trials, unlike the rest of the world, ones that are geared specifically for Christians. Let us be reminded of what Jesus has told us in Matthew chapter 5 and verses 10 through 12: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (ESV). So, following Christ can bring persecution, suffering. I think here in America we are a little less familiar with this concept for Christian suffering than perhaps those brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. Really, most of the time we have it really easy here. With our government and society the way it is setup, it is generally tolerating of Christian teaching and serving, or people just ignore it. Since we believe everyone’s allowed to have their own opinion on whatever, there seems to be less suffering.

       Nevertheless, there still is some suffering for Christians, even here in America. And Paul tells us that suffering first produces endurance for us. It produces endurance for us, why? It does because quitting is not allowed for us. As Donald Trump use to always say on his T.V. show the Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice, “Are you a quitter?” Mr. Trump didn’t like quitters, and Jesus doesn’t like them either. God doesn’t want us to quit. And when we don’t quit, we endure. And what does endurance do for us? Paul said endurance produces character. The battle scar of enduring our trial is a positive one; it means we better know how to cope with trouble, deal with it, and wait on God when trouble comes. After we have endured, we now have better character. And this character produces hope. And why does it produce hope? It produces hope because our character is a better character. When our character is taken to the next level, we recognize that we are becoming more like Jesus. And that gives us hope for the future when we will ultimately become like Jesus.

       One thing that we must always be mindful of is that God will carry us through whatever trial we face. And this is true even if we believe we caused it, that we are responsible for it. Now, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether we really are responsible or not. Regardless, I think the more we become familiar with how God works, how he takes care of us, we come to the place where, when a trial comes, we are not frightened or crushed by its presence. When we’ve been through trials, we know that God carries us through to the end of it. He gets us through it, and makes a way out even when it looks like there could be no possible way out. God always has some way out of the trial. This is something though, this confidence, this faith, it is something that I believe can only really be learned by experience, unfortunately. There just isn’t any other way to increase our faith.

       We need to keep in mind, when considering our lives, that they cannot and will not be perfect, and squeaky clean, all the way through to the end. When I was growing up, my brothers and I loved to play Super Mario Brothers on the original Nintendo, the 8-bit one. We liked Mario I and Mario III. Playing either of these two games, we never got to the end of the games without dying many times before we reached the end (and as I’m sure many of you can recall yourself, it’s was like this with most video games of that time). You play and play, and every so often, you die. You fall off of a cliff, a bad guy gets you, whatever, you die. No one, my brothers or my friends, would have expected to play Mario straight through on the first run, having never given up a life, having never died. Dying and replaying a level was just part of the process. That’s how you reached the end of the game. And so it is with life. You have trials, you die, every once and awhile, and you have to replay the level. Sometimes you have to start back at the beginning of the game. That’s just the way it works; it’s normal. So, we should not expect a life without trials, without hardships.

       I think as we go through our lives, becoming more and more like Jesus, we will notice that we are growing closer in our love for God. And is that because we are moving closer to God? Well, Paul says here that it is actually God who has poured his love “into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” It is through the enabling of the Holy Spirit that we will feel God’s love.

       Continuing on in Romans 5. Verse 6: “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.” (Romans 5:6-8, ESV)

       Paul says, “at the right time Christ died.” That is something we need to consider and learn. God always does things at the right time. The right time. The right time is his time, which at times isn’t our time. We just talked about our endurance and how that produces character. We need to learn to develop the endurance to wait on God’s timing. When we wait on God’s timing, all will go well. And we don’t want to have the habit of not waiting on his time, and trying to do things in our own power, which will not get us what we want.

       Anyhow, we are told “Christ died for the ungodly.” That’s you, that’s me, that’s everyone. We are all weak. All of us, before we come into personal relationship with God, are ungodly. We are separated from God because we have not been obedient to him. Remember, take away sin and there is no point for Christ dying on the cross. Anyone who wants to say, “I’m not ungodly” cannot come to Christ. There has to be that inner sense of being ungodly, of being in need of a Savior. One needs to feel that he or she needs forgiven of their sins. If you take away sin, you take away the Gospel. No sin equals no Gospel. If your preaching takes away sin, then what is the need for the cross? You have become just a self-help guru at that point. A guru is a Hindu spiritual teacher.

       Jesus didn’t come to the earth and die for us because we were good people. We don’t come to Jesus in our goodness in order to make us better. Jesus so loved us that he died for us because we were sinners, which is a pretty amazing thing. Really, if you stop and think about it, he died for his enemies in a way. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and do good to them, and that’s exactly what he did. Before we knew God, we were enemies of God. And yet, John stated, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV). That had to be a hard thing to do, to die for your enemies. Would you or I be willing to die for our enemies? I would venture to say most definitely not.

       Finishing up our text for today. Verse 9: “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.” (Romans 5:9-11, ESV)

       For those who are always looking for another verse to add to your eternal security list, be sure not to miss this one. Notice how Paul used the past tense of the word ‘justify.’ He said, “we have now been justified.” So, our justification, as he previously argued, has already taken place from the moment we believed. That’s tremendously encouraging. So, if we have been justified already, then it only makes sense that because we are counted as not guilty for all accounts of sin, then we will be saved by Jesus from any of God’s wrath to come. What is the aim of God’s wrath? Where is it targeted? It is targeted for sin, and unbelievers who have no forgiveness for their sin. Those who are on the wrong side. They don’t have a payment for sin. Anyone who doesn’t accept Jesus is going to end up bearing God’s wrath, both in this life, and in the life to come. Eternal fire waits anyone who doesn’t know Jesus. You can laugh at that, but that’s the reality of the situation. I’d prefer you not laugh, for your own sake, because I’d rather you accept Jesus than find out the hard way.

       Again, Paul re-emphasizes what he just said in the next verse. Anyone who isn’t in right relationship with God is an enemy of God. All of us, at one point or another, were enemies of God. Unless you believe in the age of accountability, that children up to a certain point are not responsible for their sins, then all of us at one time or another were God’s enemies. But because we were reconciled to God, and notice that the very word reconciled, meaning, we were brought back to God, means that God was the owner of us. We were brought back to God. That’s why God can sent an unbeliever to Hell, to be tormented day and night forever and ever. Everyone, believer or unbeliever, belongs to him. We have to be reconciled to him, made in good relations again, so that we have no fear of his wrath against us. The one who doesn’t believe cannot be free from that fear. If we have been reconciled, we will be saved by the fact that Christ is currently living in Heaven with God. He will save us; he guarantees it.

       Because of all this, we can rejoice in God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who has saved us from our sins, made us alive with God, having reconciled us again to God. Anyone at the sound of my voice, can have this reconciliation with God. Anyone can have a personal relationship with God. By believing that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead, and is now Lord, you can trust in him for the safety from any of God’s wrath, any chance of going to Hell, in the future. Just place your trust in him.

-Daniel Litton