We will read together two scripture readings this afternoon. The first is from John chapter 17. John chapter 17 will read verses one through 19. When Jesus was preparing for his death, he was in the garden and he prayed to the Lord, his God. So we read these words. to shed light on the passage that we will be particularly studying Romans chapter five and dealing with the doctrine of our justification before God. John, Chapter 17, beginning at the first verse, when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the sun may glorify you. since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on Earth, having accomplished the work that you gave to me, that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the word that you gave me and they have received them. And I have come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I'm no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I'm coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. Let's then turn forward to Romans chapter five, the great epistle to the Romans. We take up verses one through five of the fifth chapter. We've gotten this word declares to us, 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 in the glory of the glory of God. 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. So far, the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Your congregation also turned then to the back of the Psalter hymnal. We will confess our faith together in the words of you. Heidelberg Catechism. Turn to Lord's Day 23. This is found on page 30 in the back of the Psalter hymnal page 30. For all of our guests, again this afternoon, we regularly recite the questions and answers of the Heidelberg Catechism together as a summary of what it is that the Word of God teaches. So let us do that together. I would ask the question of you and if you would respond together on page 30. What good does it do to you, however, to believe all the things, as the question is referring to, to believe everything in the Apostles' Creed? Question 60, how are you right with God? Why do you say that by faith alone you are right with God? Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, at the beginning of every service of worship, children, you've probably especially noticed this. We follow the example of the apostles and their letters to the churches by together as an audience receiving the spoken word of blessing. We describe it as the greeting in our form of our liturgy, the confession of dependence, which then is followed by the Lord's greeting to us. We rise that we would receive it upon ourselves as the Lord himself declares grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace and to those who are assembled, the word of the Lord rings out then as a declaration that his kindness and his mercy has been shown to you. Not do so merely out of customer superstition, for we know that it is a good tradition to carry on One begun in the word and continued on to this day, because we are declaring and we are having declared to us that the Lord is at peace. The Lord is at peace with those who are sinners by virtue of their common humanity with Adam. The Lord is at peace with many who are by nature the rebellious sons of disobedience and darkness. Peace in the midst of depravity. The light of God is illumined hearts. God has pierced through the darkness. He has restored and reconciled to himself all who are justified in the sight of God and united to Christ their Lord. So the word of greeting is spoken to you by a minister, yes, but I stand as a recipient of that word along with you. I need that word to be communicated to me just as much as it is to each one of us. The declaration of God's favor, the declaration of God's peace, and grace upon us. You see, my words here this afternoon communicate the blessing and kind of favor which God has revealed to you through the intercession of Jesus Christ. In our day, it's very easy to dismiss these things as mere ceremony, to dismiss the repetition of the declaration of our sin and iniquity as just the ramblings of the superstitious or the killjoys. In our day, it's easy to find a sympathetic audience if you lay hold to the claims of those positive thinkers out there who repeat their token charms. God wants everything to go well with you. God wants you to be happy, wealthy, and healthy. I call them soothsayers. At the time of the prophets, there are those prophets who came to the people and said, peace, peace. And there was no peace. In our day, it's easy to find spokesmen also of a new soft legalism that says that peace with God can be achieved through following a few simple steps. We achieve peace with God through charitable giving or of being a good person to those around you, of generally tallying enough positives to overcome the negatives. That's just legalism and some deadly misunderstanding of what God in this law demands. all the while missing the real life giving message of the Christian gospel. For what changes your life is life changing news. The announcement of blessedness, of peace, of grace to those who have no right claim to that blessedness, when a scoundrel hears grace and peace and knows that he has received that by the free offering of God that changes your life. Blessed are the meek, declared Jesus. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, and he's describing the posture of every believer who is deeply aware of their own liability to judgment and indebtedness to sin, aware that apart from Christ, there can be no peace. Apart from Christ, there is alienation. Alienation is just a long word to say, being totally separated, being cast away. As Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword was set there, flaming as the cherubim wielded it, to say, you pass back this way, you will surely die. Your life will be taken from you. That's what alienation looks like. That's what it is to be on the outside of the walls or to be on the outside of a family home. To be cast out. But those who are deeply aware of their own liability to judgment and the indebtedness to the sin, to the accumulation of guilt, not favor before God. So we must be, as Jesus says, blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Blessed are those, to paraphrase, whose conscience accuses them of having grievously sinned against all of God's commandments. Notice the language of the catechism, how beautifully and powerfully it states this. Your conscience accuses you of having grievously sinned against all of God's commandments, of never having kept any of them who, without their deserving, are then granted and credited the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ. Blessed are the justified. And who are the justified? Well, Jesus tells a parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus. God, I thank you that I'm not like the other man or like other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breath, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted in the light of Jesus parable. We ask ourselves, who is the man, the Pharisee or the tax collector who matches the description in question 60? Those whose conscience cries out against them and yet have confidence that they are justified. Believing that the mercy of God can and is poured out freely because of Christ. In telling this parable, Jesus was summoning those around him to seek their justification, not in their own works, but in the grace and mercy of God. A sinner pleading for the mercy of God to cover his sin, that's the image of a justified sinner that should rest before us. May the word today afflict the comforted or afflict the comfortable, as Martin Luther famously said, may the word afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. May the declaration of our status by faith in Christ before God may lift up the broken heart and may the blessed message of salvation be received by many more who must enter into the blessing of Christ and live with him forever in eternal blessedness. Here today, this afternoon, chiefly focusing on Romans five verses one through five, we'll see that peace with God can be found in Christ alone. Three points will occupy our time with the first being the cost of our union with Christ, the second, the state of our union with Christ and the third being the fruit of our abiding union with him, the cost and the state and then the fruit of our union with Christ. Well, what's what's the cost of our union with Christ? In some ways, it's cherry picking to take Romans five versus one through five. It's it's a powerful, beautiful summary. It has so much packed into there, picking up on what Paul has already laid out in chapters three and four, describing God's tremendous work through his son to make all things well for those who trust and believe in Christ. And then showing, especially in chapter four, that for Abraham, the model of faith, The man who believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. The apostle Paul uses him as an example, a demonstration that it could not have been by his own righteous acts. It could not even have been his march up the hill to sacrifice his son. It couldn't have been on account of his leaving his land and going to a place that God had called him for, then he would be able to both. What does Paul say in Romans chapter three, it is a reward. Pardon me, it is not a reward, it is a gift. If it is a gift, we cannot boast in our own doing. So that's why as recovering legalists, as those who must continue to be told that we cannot find our own way, that we cannot secure our own status in the heavenly kingdom, that we cannot create peace in our own way. The Lord himself continues to instruct us about what union with Christ consists of. It is to use the language of the Heidegger catechism to be right with God in Christ, the setting in the first question, their question fifty nine to be in Christ is a profound thing. I teach catechism students, I try to bring attention, the particular phrases and prepositions that we use children and some of you who haven't been in school for a while. Let's re teach ourselves what a preposition is. Preposition is a grammatical category for statements of position or relationship. That's what a preposition is, a statement of position or relationship. So it can be above or it can be below or it can be beside or it can be underneath or through or under or over or with or in or alongside. There are other prepositions, of course, but these terms make a big difference in the meaning of a sentence. If we confess that with Christ, I am right with God, that's different than saying in Christ. Or if we say beside Christ, I am right with God, we're not saying the same thing as when we say that in Christ we are right with him, for we could have written it as alongside Christ. I am right with God. And and you might think of what it's like to be in a group with someone else alongside one person, another person and another person or part of a group. to be alongside or with or next to Christ is of a lesser degree than to be in Christ. So this adds a layer of intensity, a union, we describe it as a mystical union where we are part of Christ's own body. Though he is physically resurrected at the right hand and ascended at the right hand of the father, we also say that we are in Christ now on Paul's leading on the scriptures, teaching. In Christ, I am and ever shall remain a living member of the body of Christ in Christ. I am right with God. Question fifty nine. I have peace with God. God can speak to me a word of grace and peace, and I'm not receiving it as a counterfeit. I'm not receiving it as a fraud. It truly belongs to my property, my possession, my inheritance already being spoken to me. That I can approach the father in the son, As we begin or begin the study of the Lord's Prayer, we say that the reason we address our father is for the sake of Christ, his son, who makes it so we can approach the father and the son is, after all, as Jesus taught in John chapter six, no one can come to me unless the father sent who sent me draws him. And he says, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living father sent me and I live because of the father, whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. That's why we sing in Christ alone, my hope is found in Christ alone. We have peace with God on account of our justification by faith. You see that ring out in verse one of Romans chapter five. Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ brings us into union with him. And Paul is saying we have that peace. You don't have to go somewhere to find it. You turn to Christ to be justified by faith. And here this afternoon or this morning, rather, we had an opportunity to study the Lord's prefiguring. For there was a cost for us to be united to Christ, for a righteous son of God to accept Unrighteous heirs meant that a sacrifice had to be paid. We saw that in a powerful way that the atonement sacrifices is prefigured when Isaac is taken up to the mountain and bound and put on an altar and then spared at the very last moment. This is this poignant sign of a sacrifice that was to come. Blood was spared on Isaac's day because of the great day with which the Son of God's blood was to be shed. It was prepared for and anticipated. So the spirits of anointing of Jesus in the Jordan that confirmed this divine mission of the Messiah for his people. The Messiah who came as a good shepherd to lay down his life so that the sheep could enter the stables of the father of mercy and goodness. The Messiah who came as the sacrificial lamb to justify the ungodly. And here we hear Paul's teaching concerning the wonder of our justification in Christ, that in the right time, Christ died for the ungodly to set captives free and to remove the stain of guilt and the filth of corruption from us. The terror of heart. that Abraham underwent when he bound his son and placed him on the altar was then magnified and profoundly overshadowed by the agony of Christ Jesus himself when he freely submitted himself to the chains of a criminal and the cross of a cursed man, all the while bearing the wrath of God against the sins of his people. Sinners, unrighteous and liable to death are declared to be righteous by virtue of Christ's imputed righteousness. We are declared righteous, though we are not righteous in ourselves. It's a profound thing. It's one of the reasons in question 60, we say that even though my conscience accuses me. Canon's Adore talk about the continued weight that we feel, the burden of our sin. The recognition. That we live lives that are not pure. Lives that are not holy in that clamor begins to build that clamor, the intensity of our knowledge of ourselves. What's a two, what is the law of God, teach us how great our sin and misery is. Come to understand this, and now that's all that we can hear, all that we can see, and then the light of God shed its light through that darkness, so that way we understand. That we are declared righteous, though we are not righteous in ourselves. It is a forensic declaration on us. A judge who says you are not guilty because your head is pure, your head is innocent, your head has given you his righteousness. Romans five makes that clear, our justification is by faith, not by works. Our justification hangs up upon the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us. And on the count of this, we then have peace with God. It's beautiful through our Lord Jesus Christ and through him. What does it go on to say? We have also obtained access by faith in this grace in which we stand. For those who are isolated, for those who are cast out, for those who know exclusion, for all who know alienation on the count of sin, access by faith in this grace in which we stand is most beautiful thing. It's a powerful part of the book of Hebrews, but talks about entering by the new and living way by being accepted as sons and not slaves. Truth continues to ring out, that's the heart of the Christian gospel. God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ. What is his becomes yours because God grants and credits it to you and your sin. Christ took it upon himself. So, boys and girls, when you pray to the Father, ask Him. Make known to Him your request for the satisfaction of His law, for the righteousness of life and nature and the transcendent holiness of Christ to be given to you. That's the prayer of a believer. That's the prayer of one who says, Lord, make me as Christ is, for I will never be so on my own. Ask God for the fullness of the blessings of belonging to Christ. Dear children, bring your prayer to the Lord. Lord, make me whole. Whole, at peace with God, marveling in your grace, for we often simply just ask God to take away our sins. Often, that's fine, that's good, we should ask God to take away our sins, but there's more, isn't it? It's not merely the removal of sins, but we seek the access into the grace in which we stand. And that's far more than just having our slate swept clean, so much more than just having our bad deeds wiped away. If that was the case, what would be the thing that would happen? What would happen if our slate was merely wiped clean? Do you know what would happen to us if our justification merely consisted of a penalty for the sins we committed, of taking away that penalty? Well, like a white shirt with a bleeding wound underneath. No amount of cleaning of our clothes would address the wounds. No amount of washing that white shirt would get rid of the blood if the wound remained open. If the alienation from God on account of our absence of righteousness continued, we of all people would be the most pity. Justification leading to our union with Christ consists of this, that God looks at me as if I'd never sinned or been a sinner, blank slate. But then he fills it, as he says, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. Take a slate, wipe it clean and write on it holiness, purity, love, peace, compassion, all of the things of which Christ did that we need. That's your slate. That's what God declares to you, imputes to you. Not emptiness, fullness, the grace in which we stand forgiven and righteous in obedience to all of the laws of God. So that I'm looked on as a law keeper, not a law breaker, that I'm looked on in Christ as the one who obeyed God's law perfectly. when my conscience accuses me of not having kept any of them. That's what's granted and credited to you in Christ alone by faith in his name. The doctrine of justification is precious to us. We must guard it. We must be zealous to make others know what it is to be justified. For the outcome is clear in this life. Sin's dominion is toppled. But we also know that sin still indwells believers. And this brings us to the second point this afternoon. For the cost of our union with Christ was his life of perfect law, keeping in his sacrificial death as an atoning sacrifice and the state of our union with Christ. Then our second point is expressed first in the catechism. Sixtieth answer in the phrase, even though I am still inclined to word all evil, what's the state of our union with the risen ascended Christ? Well, the apostle Paul speaks this truth most clearly in Romans seventh chapter, but we capture a glimpse of this in verses two through five. He says, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Hope is set on that which is unseen. Faith, hope and love and hope will be gone. Faith will be gone. Love will be the only one that remains when we see Christ. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. That's the state of our union. We've been credited with righteousness the moment we believe that righteousness is imputed to us. And we anticipate, we hope for the glory of God being shown to us in our state of peace. We who can rightly and righteously draw near to God as a tax collector did on his way home in Jesus' parable. We are those who can rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Nothing else will allow you to rejoice in God. Pure, uninterrupted joy. No, that still awaits us. Still waiting for the great joy, for the outpouring of joy when there is no more soil, there are no more burdens. For notice how many reminders and exhortations Paul gives the Christian in his letter to rejoice in the Lord. Again, he says, rejoice. He has to do that for a reason, because there are many reasons we are discouraged. There are many reasons why we begin to lose that joy that is kindled within us. So again and again and again, we're told joy, rejoice, rejoice, have joy, look to the joy that is set before you. For the state of our union is that we are faced with many sorrows, many toils, many concerns. It's that we already now possess the not guilty verdict. And the record of Christ as our own, while confronting the hardships of continued life in the flesh. For this reason, we are called to rejoice in our sorrow and despair, to rejoice in our sufferings. Notice what Paul says, knowing that suffering produces endurance. It's not always going to be so. The day awaits when the redeemed in Christ will no longer know suffering. When your body won't break down. When your loved ones will not see death. When you will not be afflicted by the sins of others against you. When the darts and arrows of the evil one will no longer be sent your way. And Christians, when you will no longer harm others by your sin against them. when I will no longer deprive others of the love that is due to them, because we will be exalted, we will be glorified, we will reign with Christ. The day awaits when we will no longer need the armor of God because we will no longer be at war. The day awaits when we will be renewed in glory. Fruit of our justification. But the state of our union in Christ today is mixed, isn't it? I have an accusing conscience. that nails me every time on account of my sin. Prajna provokes me, I have inclinations and desires that are constantly warring within me, and I have the sufferings of which I'm called to go through as a disciple of Christ following in his way. I know that this is not yet the fullness of peace. But, Christian, lift your heads in your weariness. Be bold in the strength of Christ dwelling in you and know that suffering produces endurance, which produces character, which produces hope, a hope that does not put us to shame. Hope filled and justified. God's doing that to you. God has justified you and he's filling you with hope. Do you believe this? Do you know this? Do you live in confidence because of this? Can each of your days Be filled with the hope that is set before you to know in Christ I am right with God and I am heir to life everlasting. I am Christ and he is mine. Let that confession ring out, let that confession fill you, extinguish the darts of the evil one by speaking of what you have in Christ. Press against your sinful desires by comparing them to the beauty of your Christ, your Lord, and the beauty of your radiance in his presence. It's a powerful book on addictions. It's called The Banquet in the Grave. We often confront various addictions, they are disorder, desires, desires that have been taken over our lives. Addictions to alcohol, addictions to gratification from others, addictions to the praise of others, addictions to pornography, addictions to spending whatever it might be. Addictions to gossip. As the author describes it, he says, this is a banquet in the grave. It's eating a meal that does not satisfy. It's taking something to your lips that has no lasting pleasure. Instead, we are called as brides awaiting the bridegroom to say, I want to taste something greater. I want to feast at a banquet that is a delight. I want to receive from my Lord his beauty over and over and over. Not returning to my vomit, not returning. To those little hidden treasures that I keep for myself. Because I'm a sinner. Because I want to control something, because I want the feeling of gossiping or slandering someone. Turn away from that. Empty banquet, turn to what you have in Christ. Press against those sinful desires, compare them then to the beauty of Christ, your Lord, the beauty of your radiance in his presence. We're all as brides awaiting the bridegroom, we anticipate when we shall be changed in the twinkling of the eye, a moment when our lives will be transformed and life will turn into the blessedness that awaits us. The thing which might perplex us, the thing that challenges us still is that if I am fully justified, the moment I believe on account of Christ's righteousness imputed to me, then why is it that I still have to go through this struggle? The Lord, through his servant, is answering us. He says, endurance produces hope, builds up your character, continues to stir you on. And moves you along the path that I've appointed for you. All I need to do is accept this gift of God with a believing heart in the language of the catechism. There's no mountain to climb. There's no path that you've got to get a certain way down. All I need to do is accept this gift of God with a believing heart, hope in the promise. Accept this gift of God with a believing heart, know that you are redeemed. Christians, believers, let those words fill you with thanksgiving and wonder, let your confession of Christ continue to ring out. For hope does not put us to shame. Because God's love has been poured into our lives through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Here we come to our third point this afternoon concerning the fruit of our abiding union. Our lives are filled with God's love through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Earlier in chapter four, Paul asked the question, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? There is extended answer shed light on the powerful teaching of our justification in Christ, but the short answer could be the truth summarized so powerful, powerfully here in verse five of chapter five. Abraham gained the love of God poured into his heart through the Holy Spirit. How does he gain? How do we receive the Holy Spirit by faith? That is how he, the father of Isaac and Jacob, the first to receive the covenant sign of circumcision, was not granted the love of God on account of those acts, but was credited righteousness through the Holy Spirit. He believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. Paul just hits that over and over again, believed and counted it to him as righteousness. And he says it's not written just for Abraham, but also for each one of us. Unless we forget. Lest by the time we get to verse five, after reading about the endurance that we must build up. We're told the starter and finisher of belief in us is the Holy Spirit, and so he shows us Christ, the spirit gives us faith or faith is a gift of God is the work of the Holy Spirit. We confess that clearly in Heidelberg Catechism, answer 21 concerning true faith that is worked in me by the Holy Spirit. who is the author and finisher of our faith. The gospel has power to save because Christ was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. And in the day when our hearts are open to hear and to heed that message, we then have the Holy Spirit sent by the son to do the will of the father to thank. Through whom. The love of God is poured into our hearts, a beautiful image. God's love poured down upon us Think of the thirstiest moment in your life and then water entering into your mouth and just that feeling of receiving something so beautiful, so incredible. And then so much greater for Paul continues in the rest of chapter five in Romans to expand on his teaching of justification, explains how debts are forgiven, how enemies are reconciled, how sinners are saved from the wrath of God. And that's why there's no reason to turn from this message of hope in order to pursue some blurry, messy, troubling teaching which makes our justification depend on our performance and satisfactory accomplishments of acts of love. You can go elsewhere. Other church communions have developed, have arisen, following in the path of the first step of seeking to find some way to God in their own strength. Some blurry, messed up, troubling teaching that makes our justification depend on our performance. For the Pharisees, they could not believe that the tax collector could be newly righteous and acceptable before God. He expected there to be human requirement. The Pharisee expects a pattern of conduct that must meet muster a certain degree of respectability that must be reached. What's needed in contrast with the Pharisees expectations is a living faith and continued communion in the body of Christ, a living faith that grasps the shocking truth, which Paul later calls the offense of the cross. It says the offense of the cross is that our reconciliation with God has all been accomplished in the death and resurrection of Christ. For the Pharisee holds on to his pattern. and practices and tries to load his prayers and ties with salvific consequences. But the publican holds on to his Christ and stands apart from any satisfaction in his own in his own efforts, for it is only by true faith in Christ that you are right with God, because true faith is centered on its true object. Christ, your Lord, in whom you now participate, serve him gladly. Love Him with joy and through love serve one another. Amen.