Amen. Please turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 8. And as you do, I have a question for you. Do you ever feel condemned? Maybe by others? Maybe by your own sin? Is there any charge It could be brought against you. Is there anything that you haven't made right with others? And even as we think about communion next week, is there someone you need to pursue making things right with even today and pursuing peace before that time? Is your heart right with the Lord here this morning? If you were to die today, are you sure that you would meet the Lord in heaven? If you were to stand before God as your judge and he were to ask you, why should I let you as a unholy, sinful person into my perfect and holy heaven? What could you say before God if you stood before him today? We know from scripture we cannot say, well, I've tried to be a good person. I've done good works. I've done this and that. We can't say, well, I believe in God, and I have tried to do this or that. Because scripture tells us, and we're going to see in Romans, that we are guilty sinners before God the judge who is holy. He is righteous. He is wrathful. All those things we've seen in the book of Romans. Look at Romans 8.33. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? Those are God's chosen people. It is God who justifies. That's the key word. Who is to condemn? And this is the question. Who can condemn? Who can bring charges? And this is courtroom language. God is the one who justifies. That's the language of what a judge does. But who does he justify and how does he justify them? How are we right before God? We've actually been looking at Romans 8. Pastor Corey, taught us about God's love a few weeks ago. We looked at God's goodness last week in verses 28 through 32 of Romans 8. And now we come to verse 33. But what comes before us in the language of these legal terms is what about God's law? And what about our law breaking? And what about charges that we are guilty of? What about those condemning thoughts or the things that could condemn us? Is love enough for a judge to let off a repeat, repeat, repeat offender without consequences? If a judge is good, that's another attribute of God, does that good judge let bad people go free and continue to do bad things to other people? It's actually, if that judge is good, He deals with what is not good. In fact, this is actually a problem. We talk about the good news. This is actually bad news for us to understand that God is not only loving, He is also a just judge. He is just. So go back to chapter 3. because he's using language that he's really developed more in chapter three. God loves his law, his law is good, Romans 7 tells us, but Romans 3 is about how can we be right in his sight with all of our violations of his law? There's nothing we say or do that can give justification for our sins. And Romans 3 verse 19 says, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become accountable or be held accountable to God. For, verse 20, by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. James chapter 2 tells us, even if we could keep most of the law, even the whole law, and just stumble in one point, we would be guilty. Galatians 3 tells us, if we do not continually do all things that are written in the book of the law, that we are under a curse by God. Because we all violate God's law, we're all lawbreakers in the sight of a judge. But verse 26, It says, God has a plan to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. That's the key phrase I want us to focus on, how God is just and the justifier. Because we've seen God is love, many people know that. But how many of us meditate often on the fact that God is just? How can God be just and justify us? is the question of questions. God is just and the justifier. Let me just define the terms to be just means to be right, to be upright, to be righteous. That's according to the standard of the law. It also speaks of the character of someone. And then to justify is when a judge declares someone to be just or to be righteous in accordance with the law. The problem is in Romans 3, 10, that there is no one righteous. No, not one. We just read verses 19 through 20, but God is just. We start with that. Actually, the Bible starts with that. From Genesis to Revelation, God is just. Several times in Revelation, the heaven is declaring how God is just in his judgments on the world. when judgment was coming down on Sodom in Genesis 18, Abraham says, will not the judge of all the earth do what is just? Abraham understood that. Some translations say, will the judge of the earth not do what is right? To do what's right, to do what's just is The same thing. To say God is just is to say He does what is right in His judgments. And so when Romans 3, 26 says, God is just, that's actually the same word in the original language that Jesus used when He said, judge with right judgment. Or he said of his own judgment, my judgment is right. Or it's just, same word. It's the word in Ephesians 6, verse 1. This is one of the verses our kids learned when they were little. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is Right. Same word. Right. Just. Same word in Colossians 4, verse 1. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly. So it goes together with fairness, but the problem is what's fair, what's just, what's deserved for our sin is for it to be punished. In fact, it must be punished for God to be just. So we have a problem here. We're not right or righteous, no not one. How can the judge declare us righteous? How can he just wink at sin or just pretend that it's not there? He can't. And Romans 2.13 says, the doers of the law will be justified, but we don't do the law, we fall short. We continually fall short. One dictionary says this word justify in the Greek means to pronounce a verdict that someone is in full accordance with the law of God. To actually declare this person is fully in accord with the law. To bring the verdict down that that's what this person is. That's not me, that's not you. And here's when we think about it more deeply, as we think about the analogy of law, to break a law is a criminal. You don't have to break billions of laws to be considered a criminal. And yet we are guilty every day when we understand the law actually reaches our heart, not just our actions. And a good and a just judge cannot just let criminals off. If you were to hear of the Superior Court judge of El Dorado County, someone is guilty of all these crimes, the evidence is there and it's very clear, and he just says, yeah, but you know what, I'm just going to let him go. That would not be a just judge. There would rightly be an uproar. And we see all around the world when there's perceived that a judge has been unjust. There's often rioting, and this really reaches the core of who we are. Even as young children, wanting things to be just is just part of the fabric of who we are, even as made in God's image. But a judge, just because he's a loving guy, cannot do that. With a criminal, just let him go, and we are all guilty. Before God, that's the point of Romans 1 through 3, but let me give you some other scriptures. God says in Exodus 23, I will not justify the guilty. In Exodus 34, he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. We've seen God's faithfulness in Romans. He is faithful to what he says, and so by no means leave the guilty unpunished. What are the means then for us who are guilty that we could ever be justified. We're the guilty. How can we be acquitted? How can we be accepted as justified before God who is a just judge? And we could read in Proverbs 17 verse 15, the one who acquits the guilty or the one who justifies the guilty is an abomination to the Lord. That's an abomination to the Lord for someone who would justify or acquit someone who is guilty. And yet Romans tells us that God justifies the wicked. How can God do what the scriptures say, His own scriptures say is an abomination? Because if we're guilty, if we're wicked, if we are ungodly, as the Bible says, that is abominably unjust just to treat us as if we are just when we are not. And so the question of questions that we need to hit us in Romans 3 verse 26 is how can it be that God is just and he can justify us? And the answer's not love, the answer's not grace, the answer's not some of those other attributes we've looked at today. We need to look at God's justice. And the end of verse 26 says, he is just and justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And we need to understand more what Jesus did in relation to God's justice. Verse 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. So it's not about, it cannot be about the works of the law, And it's not Christ plus our works. It's not Christ plus religion or anything else. It's right there behind me. Faith, sola fide means faith alone. Solus Christus means in Christ alone. And based on scripture alone, it's by grace alone. And right behind me there, it is for the glory of God alone. But really the heart of this truth right here and how this works that we need to understand more is what it means to be justified. by faith alone. Those slogans, those banners, had to be recovered and reemphasized in the Reformation. And historians tell us that this very truth right here, that we're justified by faith alone, was actually the material cause of the Reformation. And the Reformers believed that a church would rise or fall depending on the strength of its understanding of this truth. In fact, it was considered a doctrine no less essential than the Trinity to our forefathers. And Luther said, all other doctrines flow from it. And this truth preserves and defends the church of God. And without this truth, the church cannot exist for one hour. If we give up this truth and the truth that it represents here, we're departing from historic Christianity. One writer says, this is the most important thing for a Christian to know. And Martin Lloyd-Jones said of these verses right here, these are the most important verses on the gospel right here in Romans 3. Let's look at them. Beginning in verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We looked at that part a few weeks ago, but here's where we're gonna spend some time. Verse 25, whom God, this is Christ, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. That's the lead up to how God can be just and justify the unjust. We've got to understand Christ's propitiation, God's justification in light of that, and then our application. Maybe some of you are thinking, what's with these big words? Propitiation. That's five syllables. So is justification. That's a big word. It's a mouthful, you might say. Here's what a pastor named Milton Vincent says. The vibe he gets from some Christians when he starts talking about these terms is, whoa, pastor, you lost me there. I'm shutting down on you. They're not interested, but he says, what's amazing is I can talk to that same person about the medications they are on that might even be more syllables than that, or they'll throw out these things like, you know what, pastor, I've got osteoarthritis. He says, that's actually six syllables right there. And he says, I can guarantee you when a person hears from the doctor, you know what, you have osteoarthritis. They're not like, whoa, doctor, that's a big word. I'm not going to listen anymore. I don't care what you have to say. No, he's wondering, wow. I don't know if I really understand. Tell me what that is. What does that mean? How does that impact my life? What is going on inside of me? Is there something that I should be doing in light of this? And they're not only wanting to know more and more, but they're also on their own going and they're researching. They're going online. They're trying to find everything they can and talk to others who understand this more, and they're not just content with what one person, like their doctor, might say. They're going to read. They're going to research. They're going to find out, what does this mean for me? What is the cause of this? And they become experts at osteoarthritis. That's how we should be when the great physician tells us that propitiation and justification. That's in relation to our condition, that this actually should affect how we live every day. This is actually good for us and for our spiritual health to understand what's going on and what happened inside of us in salvation. And we need to tune in and not tune out. that these words, we need to study and be experts in what God does in us in salvation and what it now means for our lifestyle. And so propitiation, and we'll unpack this, but it has to do with God's just wrath towards sin, being pacified, being satisfied. It has to do with it actually being turned away There's other words you could look at, but that's the basic big idea here in Psalm 711. It says, God is a just judge, and he is angry with the wicked every day. If he, the wicked, does not turn back, he, God, will sharpen his sword. He bends his bow, and he makes it ready. He also prepares for himself instruments of death. He makes his arrows into fiery shafts. That's the language of God's justice. And as he looks at sin, this is what's going on. And it would be just for God to bring down that sword of divine judgment right now. But he doesn't. He is merciful. He's patient. He's long-suffering. But that will come down. And so all these attributes as we think together of his patience and all this, but there is judgment that must come because he's just, and his sword is sharpened, and his instruments of death are made ready, and his fiery arrows are lit like they would do in those days. They would dip those arrows, and they would make them fiery, and it says, the image is like he's got the bow bent. It's ready to be released. He's just holding it right there, and there's, And here's how Jonathan Edwards described it, the bow of God's wrath is bent and the arrow is made ready on the string and it is the fact that he is just that bends that bow at your heart and he is straining the bow and it is nothing but the mere will of God that right now is keeping that arrow back for one more moment. And he says, from your blood, all of you that have never passed under a great change of heart by the mighty Spirit of God upon your souls, you are in the hands of an angry God. Oh, sinner, consider. He said, this is what we need to consider. And right here in Romans two, verse five, if you look at it, he says, but because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous or just judgment will be revealed. And then verse eight, but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. This is where chapter one, verse 18 started. God's wrath is revealed against those who rebelliously suppress his truth. And so the question is, how can that arrow that we deserve, how can that be justly turned away? What we, chapter three, verse 23 says, our sin deserves death. That's the idea of the wages of sin. or payment required of sin, chapter six, actually verse 23 talks about that. But we read already that we're guilty, we're all accountable for God. Every mouth is gonna be stopped on judgment day. No one's gonna be able to say that's unjust. Every mouth is gonna be stopped and held accountable before God based on his law. We're accountable and accounts payable will come to collect. But Romans three, verse 24 says we can be justified And it's as a gift. Your Bible might say freely. In other words, we don't pay for this. But how is that? There has to be payment. Verse 25 explains how. It says, God puts forward Christ Jesus as a propitiation. And what that means is Jesus paid it all. with His blood. He said on the cross, it is finished, which would be another way to say it is paid in full. It was finished through what He did. We don't add to that and we cannot. He finished and fulfilled it. He pacified, He satisfied. When you think of a pacifier, don't think of a bad movie. Don't think of a baby's binky. That's a little thing, maybe you can remember times, or some of you now are in those times where a baby is just crying and screaming and angry and making a lot of noise, but you put that pacifier in them, and all of a sudden they're calm, they're pacified. This is much bigger than that. Propitiation actually has an Old Testament background of the payment that would be made for a offended party. Someone who might want to kill you. Sometimes you might wonder if little babies want to kill you if they don't get what they want. But this is Jacob and Esau. Esau had been treated horribly by Jacob. they're gonna meet, Genesis 32, Jacob starts sending gifts. He starts giving him all these gifts, because they're gonna meet. He's investing a lot of resources, and the language, it's actually the Greek Old Testament, same word from propitiation. He was wanting to, it says, pacify Esau's anger. He's thinking, maybe if I can just do this, keep giving him all these nice gifts, he's not gonna wanna kill me. That's on a human level. But God says in Ezekiel 16, 42, I will calm my fury. I will be pacified and angry no more. And how can that be? Well, another way this word was used in the Old Testament was it was actually most commonly used for the mercy seat in the temple. So this is the word for, in the Greek version of the Old Testament, propitiation is used for the mercy seat in the temple. The temple, if you don't know, was the place where the high priest and priest would bring a sacrifice in that most holy place. Blood would be brought. But it was also, the temple was the place where they would pray for the sins of the people, for mercy, and Jesus actually picks up on this word, uses the same root word for propitiation and justify when he tells this story. There were two men who went to the temple to pray. There was a tax collector and there was a Pharisee. And the Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed this, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, that I am not like the unjust. That's what he says. God, thank you that I'm not unjust. I'm not an extortioner, an adulterer. I'm not like this tax collector over here. I give tithes, 10% of all that I have. I fast twice a week. But there's a different kind of prayer going on with this tax collector over here. He's just standing far off. Doesn't even feel like he can come close. Would not even lift his eyes to heaven. But he's beating his breast. And here's what the tattletales are saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And Jesus said to all those religious people listening, I tell you that this man went home justified that day and not the other. That religious person, all the religious things he did, had nothing to do with justifying him. He was justifying himself. In fact, that's often what the Pharisees were even asking questions to justify themselves. And the word that he uses here when he says, God be merciful to me, that's the verb form of propitiation. God, be merciful to me through the propitiation, through what's going on in this temple here, through your mercy seat. Lord, that's my only hope. Be merciful to me through that. God, be propitious to me, we might say. And Jesus says that's the person who is justified that very day. He went home a different person in God's sight. He went home, declared righteous in God's sight, because he knew he was unjust. He knew that God was just. He knew his only hope was to beg for mercy at the temple, at the place of the mercy seat, of the propitiation. And he was justified. And so that big word, this is the big idea, it's a place where sacrificial blood was spilled. And the law called for blood atonement. And it had to be by an unblemished life. You've heard of an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. The principle is also life for a life. And it's blood by reason of the life that can make atonement. There's a death in the law that could pacify and could actually satisfy that demand. And so we sing on that cross as Jesus died What happened? The wrath of God was satisfied. That's what's happening on the cross as Jesus died. The payment for sin is death. That's what was justly due. But God can justly accept that payment to satisfy justice. And he can accept that payment from another. God's law allowed for substitutes. Remember the Passover, his wrath passed over that Passover lamb, that unblemished lamb, so that the firstborn son did not die in their house in Egypt. There was a place for atonement and appeasement of the God who was just. And on the day of atonement, in the law, the high priest went into that most holy place to cover the mercy seat with blood and the guilt of the people also was symbolically placed on a scapegoat that was sent away and it was picturing that he's bearing their sins away from the community away he's taking those sins far away and that's actually what we're saying earlier how Jesus took the blame for me dying he saved me buried he carried my sins far away and then rising he justified freely forever. and one day he's coming. That's the glorious day of salvation. In Romans 3 verse 24, look at verse 24 again. Let me read it in the New King James. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith. In other words, you've gotta be trusting in this, like that man in the temple, beating his breast, begging for mercy. You've gotta have faith in that as your hope The priest in the Old Testament did that privately, but it says here God did this publicly on the cross. And he did it to demonstrate how he is just and the justifier of believers in Christ. Remember that image of God's sword that's come down, his instruments of death, his arrows that are ready to pierce sinners. There's another psalm that says, God will crush on the day of his wrath. God must do that with sin because he's just, but Brother Ron mentioned Isaiah 53 earlier where it shows us how he justifies it says there's a suffering servant Messiah who would come and it says he was pierced through he was pierced through for our transgressions so so that instrument of death went forward but it it pierced him he stepped in the way of his people he was pierced through for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities. We were going up to Tahoe last weekend, and there was some boulders that were still being moved. Some of you know boulders had fallen there. But imagine it's going to fall on a car, and someone else comes and takes that and is crushed in their place so they don't die. He was crushed for our iniquities. And it says, the Lord, the God, this is the Father, has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. That's Jesus. For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due. We deserve that stroke. But it says, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, Isaiah 53 says, the Lord, this is God the Father, was pleased to crush him. God was pleased to crush him instead of us as a guilt offering. It says that he will see and he will be satisfied. And it says he will justify the many. He was crushed for many. He was pierced for many. He took the stroke due to many so that God can see and can be satisfied and can justify the many. He says he will bear their iniquities. That's his propitiation. That's where his justice, the father's justice is appeased. Jesus is crushed. The father is pleased. Jesus takes the wrath on sin and then he says it is done or it is finished. That's how sin's wage is paid. That's how propitiation is won. That's how God is just and the justifier. He paid the price to pacify and to satisfy the Father's wrath against our sin. Romans 8 4. Let's read this out loud together. God did what the law could not do. He sent his own son as a sacrifice for sin. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us. That's what we also sing. Because the sinless savior died, my sinful soul can be counted free because God the just can be satisfied to look on Jesus and pardon me. He can see the justice. He can see the one who represents and does what is just and takes the punishment that we deserve. He can actually look on him and he can actually pardon. me and you who put our faith and trust in him. He is just and the justifier, Romans 3, 26, because verse 25 says, by his blood, there was this propitiation, that place of atonement by a substitute. There was this payment that legally satisfied by a sacrificial death in our place. All those other sacrifices in the Old Testament, they pictured this transfer of guilt and this unblemished substitute. But we need to see more because that doesn't complete the picture. We need to see how justification comes into this, how God, the judge, declares a person to be just or to be righteous because just not to be guilty of all those or to have those things paid for is not enough. Because justification is not just saying this person's innocent of what they've been accused of. It's not the gavel coming down saying, not guilty. is actually the gavel coming down saying, this person is just and righteous in my sight. And here's where we need to think about this more deeply than maybe we do sometimes. Having our sins paid for may keep us out of hell, but it doesn't bring us into heaven. Have you ever thought about it that way? Not being a convicted criminal doesn't mean you get to be in the presence of the king. Just not being guilty of heinous crimes against the king of the kingdom doesn't mean you get to be in his presence. And what propitiation does is it does away with wrath, but we still need to be righteous to see God. That's his requirement. And so think of our demerits, all of the negatives. Our demerits were paid by Christ's death, but we need the merit of his life. I don't know if they do demerits in school anymore, but it's like demerits and detention, punishment, just avoiding that isn't enough to graduate you. That's just helping you stay out of what you deserve on that day. Or think another school analogy of having a negative score. You've got all these negatives, you're in the negative, and to have all those negatives canceled away just brings you back to zero. But a zero isn't enough, you need 100% on the test because Jesus said the standard is be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. So even if you can wipe your slate clean, there's still that righteousness that we need. And so this is why when it talks about faith in Jesus, we've gotta understand Jesus not only died for us, he lived for us. He lived as perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. He's the only one who ever fulfilled that requirement. He came, he says in Matthew, to fulfill all righteousness. He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And he not only died to pay the fine for our crimes, he kept the law for us perfectly. And here's what 1 Peter 3, 18 says. In fact, let's read this out loud together. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God. So there had to be this just one, this righteous one, dying for us unjust, unrighteous ones. And that's what Jesus did. And so God can justly let his son into heaven. And he can let in any who are in his son. I heard the story told many years ago of some boys who wanted to get in to see the president, Lincoln. And the guards there, legally, they're like, I'm sorry, we can't get you in there. We're not allowed. Legally, we can't let you in. And then he realized one of the boys was the son of the president. And they had a standing policy that whoever's, the son can always see him at any time, and he said, he's with me. And they said, okay, and so they escorted him right into the office of the president. And that gives a little bit of a picture of when we're with Christ, if he can say we're with him, that we get to go all the way to where the father is, but it's more than that, we're actually, he's actually in us. And we're in him. Christ in you is the hope of glory. Being in Christ is our hope. Because in Adam, we are all guilty before a just judge. But in Christ, we're actually treated as sons. So look at Romans 5, because it actually compares Adam's sin and how that impacts us, and then how Jesus impacts us by the free gift of righteousness, Romans 5, verse 18. Verse 18, therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, that's Adam's trespass, all in Adam, so one act of righteousness leads to justification, there's that word, and life for all men. So all in Christ, whose righteous life died so that they could live in him. It's kind of summing up his act and what he did there at the end. But then verse 19 talks about his whole life. Whereas by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Theologians talk about his active and his passive obedience. The bottom line is, in every way, in all of his life, he was obedient, that obedience that God requires. And so it's not just his death. It's his life, his obedient life, his righteous life. His righteousness is crucial for us to understand, to appreciate our salvation more. We need to remember that as well. And even as we think about the pictures and communion that we'll celebrate next week, there's the, there's the blood that of course were to think of his blood shed for us, his death for us. And the fact that he rose from that, but also the bread reminds us of his body, his life that he lived for us, that body, that perfect life that we needed and that has been resurrected and is now in heaven, interceding for us. So all of that is crucial. It's Christ's righteousness alone is how we're able to stand faultless before the throne. Our hope is built on nothing less than what? Jesus' blood and righteousness. That's our hope. And to complete that picture, there's one more big word that is imputation. And that's the transfer, this two-way transfer from Christ to us, our sin to him. His righteousness to us. If God is just, justice must be served on sin. And it was on the cross. But also righteousness is needed, and that's part of what Jesus was doing. So it's not just crimes off my record. I need Christ's life on my record to be declared righteous. And maybe you learned this as a kid, justified, kind of a play on that word. It's like just as if I'd never sinned. And that's helpful to a degree, but it also means God sees me now just as if I'd live the perfect life of Christ. So it's not just as if I'd never sinned only, it's just as if I'd live that perfect life of Christ. So God treats Jesus on the cross as if he lived my sinful life. And for those who put their faith and trust in Christ, God now looks upon them as if they live the perfect life of Christ. because of this imputation. 2 Corinthians 5, 19, God in Christ was not imputing their trespasses to them. For He, this is the Father, made Him, that's Jesus, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. The Him is Christ. So he's not imputing our sin, he's imputing it to Jesus instead on the cross, and he's imputing that righteousness so that we actually become the righteousness of God in him, this two-way transfer of guilt for grace on account of believers. So Romans 4, 22. Look at Romans 4.22, that is why. His faith was counted to him as righteousness. If you have the New King James, it's imputed as righteousness. This is an imputed righteousness. Verse 23, but the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone. Talking about Abraham. It's not just for him this was written, but for ours also it will be counted or imputed to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord. who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. So we need his life before he died. We also need the fact that he has a risen life now, our justification in intercession. That's Christ's propitiation, God's justification. What's our application? Keep reading to chapter five, verse one. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope. We can go to the father who's greater than the president any time we have access as a result of this. We don't have to go through mediators anymore, through priests. through religious rituals. We have access into this grace in which we stand. It says, and we rejoice in hope. This truth that God is just and the justifier. This should make us rejoice. They should make us sing with greater meaning what we're gonna sing at the end. In Christ alone we're justified. His righteousness is all our plea. Your laws demands are satisfied. His perfect work has set us free. That should make us rejoice to meditate on the fact that he's done that for us. It is done, it is finished, and there's a peace, verse one says. that comes with it. There's a peace when we're no longer having to keep striving and wondering where we are with God on a given day based on our own efforts or lack on that day. Verse 2 says we can stand in this grace because it's not based on our standing on our own. It's based on being in Christ and His standing before God. And that actually motivates me to want to serve Him and to want to love Him. Even when I fall short, As we stand in grace, you've heard it said before, our best days and our worst days need grace. Our best days are never beyond the need of God's grace. And our worst days are never beyond the reach of God's grace. Because it's not a relationship based on our performance on a given day. It's based on the performance of Christ for us in His life and in His death. And it's a love relationship that then, as we understand that, should move us to want to do even more for Him. but not to earn it, which we never can because of what he's done. So the end of verse two says this can give us joy. This can give us hope. And verse three says we can rejoice in suffering. I know there is suffering in this room. I know a little bit of it, but I know there's a lot more. There's been people who have gone through very difficult things this very month, very difficult things. And yet there's a hope. that this talks about, that we can rejoice even in suffering, knowing that God is not unjust. He's doing all this for our endurance. He's doing this for our character, as it goes on to say, to build our hope. And this hope will not disappoint us, because he's poured out his love in our hearts while we were unjust, while we were ungodly. Christ died for us, Romans 5. Read the rest of it. It goes on to just celebrate that. But go to Romans 8. Because if you're here today, you're feeling crushed. You're feeling condemned by sin. Romans 8 verse 1 says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. If you're in Christ, your past can't condemn you. Those things maybe you were thinking about earlier, there is no condemnation ultimately in Christ. There's nothing that can be said against us that Christ, if you're in Christ and are trusting him, he is not already paid for. in His life and death, and so that takes us full circle to where we started. Verse 33 of chapter 8, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? That's those He has saved, His chosen people. It is God who justifies, so who is to condemn the answer? The rest of the chapter is no one, and nothing in the past, nothing in the present, nothing in the future, not even demons, even Satan can't tempt me to despair because of my guilt within, because Christ put an end to all my sin. And so there's no condemnation and there's no separation, ever. That's what Romans 8 is about, that for those who are in Christ. Maybe you're not in Christ here today, and I want you to look at Romans 10, verse 4. If you're not in Christ, you haven't been changed by His grace, you recognize you're guilty by God's law. and that you can't keep that law, Romans 10 verse 4, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believed. He fulfilled that law. And everyone who believes, there's a righteousness that comes from him. How? Verse 9, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified. There's that word. But you've gotta confess that Jesus is Lord. He's in charge, he's the master. You've gotta trust in your heart, believe your only hope is what he did for you on the cross. He died for you and that God raised him from the dead. You can be saved. You can go home justified like that man in the temple who begged for mercy on him, the sinner. You can go home justified today. We would love to talk with you more if that's your need and you need help, someone to pray with, but you can even just, verse 13 says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You can do that even this very moment in your heart. Call on him for mercy and he can save you. We'd also love to come and help you in that process if we can. But if you're a believer and you're struggling in sin, 1 John gives two more applications. These are familiar verses. 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. Not faithful and loving. He's actually just. He actually justly deals with our sin because of the cross. He's faithful and just to forgive us. But then he says, if anyone does sin, this is chapter two of first John, we have an advocate with the father. That's a legal defense attorney. We've got him by our side. We're with him. We have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the just, or the righteous. That's that legal term. Before the just judge, it says he is the propitiation for our sins. He not only did that in the past, he's with us. We're with him. And he's interceding for us right now based on that. So 1 John 4 verse 10 says, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. And then 1 John says, beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. And so as we go to the end of the Bible, 1 John, one of the final books, tells us that this truth of propitiation for our sins should move us if God has loved us in that way. We must love one another. Who is it that you must love that may be hard for you to love? How can you show love? to one another. Propitiation by Christ puts away God's wrath. We need to put away wrath. As Ephesians says, we need to be forgiving one another just as God and Christ forgave us. We need to serve one another in love. And as you do, Remember that God is just. Here's what Hebrews 610 says. God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints. Sometimes ways that you love and labor can be overlooked by others. That's not right, but God, it says, God is not unjust. He doesn't overlook your work. He sees what you're doing in secret. He sees how you're serving and loving others. And what a comfort it is when we're on this side of Christ before this God who was just in this unjust world to know he is just and that he is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Our gracious God, we thank you for this truth of propitiation and justification. And I pray that we would love one another and love you more first and foremost, but then love one another more as a result of these truths. Even today, we pray in the name of our advocate, our mediator, our mercy seat, our propitiation. In Jesus name, amen.