Well, greetings to each one of you this morning. It's a blessing for me and my family to be with you again after traveling last weekend. Let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Romans, Romans chapter five. For those of you that are visiting here, we are continuing our study verse by verse through the book of Romans. We're ready this morning for verses six through 11 in Romans chapter five. Let's Pray. Our gracious and loving Father, our wise Heavenly Father, we ask you this morning to make the Word clear to us, make it known to us. Help us, Lord, to understand the Word so that we can be anchored by it and changed by it and empowered and quickened. and assured by what you have written to us. There are many circumstances and many feelings that we have faced and we will face in the rest of our days. And so many times, Lord, our feelings are troubling and deceiving, and they're not certain and clear and sure like your word is. So we ask that you would instruct us and guide us by what you've written to us and that you would take the word before us and direct us by it and speak to us through the Holy Spirit. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Well, let's read verses six through 11. In Romans chapter 5, we're breaking in, in the middle of a section here that is explaining, as Professor Murray says in his commentary, the fruits of justification. 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. 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, we shall 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. It was a bit hard for me to make two conflicting desires meet together. I wanted to finish this section, which I intend to do, but I also am very committed to making sure that the message is the message of the text. And so there's a variety of themes here, but yet I wanted to gather them all together under one heading or one theme. And so it was a bit of a conflict for me to do this. I wanted to just go ahead and go back into low range and take a couple verses and make this last a few more weeks. But I have decided to wrap up this section in this one message. We have come to verse seven. In our last message, we spoke about how that when we were weak, that Christ died for us. And now, this morning, we're moving on to justification means that we shall be saved from wrath. In verse one, we notice that justification means we have peace with God. Verse two, justification means that we have access by faith into the grace of God. Also, justification means that we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Verse three, justification means that we rejoice in sufferings. Verse six, we spoke about how that we were justified in our weakness, unable to contribute anything to the work of our justification. And now in this message, we want to focus on justification means that we are saved from the wrath of God. In verse seven, Paul continues to answer the question, why would Christ die for me? I know a bit about my own heart, and I wouldn't die for me. So why would Jesus die for me? Many of us, maybe all of us, are a bit suspicious by nature, and we face enough different circumstances in our life that sometimes we're made to doubt God's love for us. Does he really love me? Am I going to be disappointed in the end? Or because of the many, many varied and, and deep-rooted needs in my life, am, am I going to face the reality one day that, that God has abandoned me? that I'm abandoned by Him? Will I be kicked out of the garden that I now enjoy? Will I somehow be brought to a point through sin or temptation? or trial, that I'm going to somehow let go of faith in Him. And there are reasons why we face these questions in our life. We have a sense of guilt, we all do. We know of our own unworthiness. We know that though we do believe that we are unclean and unworthy, sometimes circumstances in our life make us feel as if God is far from us. We don't feel his care, maybe like we did at one time. His good pleasure toward us may seem distant. We also face the reality of the evil one who will try to sow and does sow tears among the wheat. Little evil messengers come to us calculated to undermine our trust and our confidence. And we make a mistake when we wrongly interpret these feelings of inadequacy and shame and guilt and sin and testing and trials as indicators of the lack of God's love for us. That's a mistake to interpret our circumstances that way. Now, it's also a mistake when circumstances are good to interpret them as an indicator of God's love for us. God's love for us is rooted in its written, not its felt. And so we must be careful because I assure you that if you're doing quite well today because you feel good, later this week, that'll be flipped around the other way. And you will feel very poorly because you feel rejected. But the question is, that Paul's answering is, why would Christ die for me? How can I be sure? How did Wesley ask that question? How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? And here in this section, Paul assures us that God truly loves his people. He loves his people now, and He is going to continue to love us to and through all eternity. And I'm sorry that this portion of Scripture and this truth has been so neglected in my own life, in my own past. I'm afraid that there were times when I thought this was a bit dangerous. to think that God loves me as I am, and he loves me now, and he will continue to love me throughout all of eternity, to eternity, and throughout eternity. And so we face this, and some of you have heard sermons recently where you've spoken to me that about, you know, how that individuals believe that you can, you lose your eternal salvation. You know, the fatal flaw in this matter of losing your salvation, I'm afraid is that people are thinking about a salvation that is not a salvation at all. It's, they never really possessed the reality of the saving grace of God. And so if you have a salvation of your making, I think you may lose it. And I hope you do. So that you will come to Christ and say, not what I bring to you, but Lord, what do you have for me that's solid and substantial and lasting? If you lose what you suppose you have, you've simply lost your grip on the hand of a mannequin named religion. That's what's happened. But here in our text, we're told that God loves us and he demonstrated, do you see that in verse seven and eight? That God shows his love for us and the word shows there's a bit of a weak word. It's the word demonstrated or proved. It's the same as I think that we have in chapter three and is it verse 25? Yes, that God put forth His propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show, this was to demonstrate, this was to prove to us God's righteousness. And here in verse 8 we have the very same word, and it's a strong word. And so against all of our doubts and all of our stumblings, God shows the reality of his love by the cross. Christ died for us. This shows the love of God. And as we wrap up this section through verse 11, I want to make three statements this morning concerning God's love for us. And then the third statement I make, taken from this text, is going to have two subheadings. So it's one, two, three, A, and three, B. First of all, I want you to notice that God's love is undeserved. It's undeserved by us. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, dash. though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. This is showing to us that God's love is undeserved because even the most deserving individual, we're not likely to die even for the most worthy individual. And how much more unlikely are we to die for someone who is undeserving? There are maybe, there are maybe some conditions under which that some might dare to die. But notice in verse 7 how Paul says, that's so unlikely, that's scarcely going to happen. Only perhaps may it happen. And people don't dare to die for the unworthy. Don't count on it. It's almost unheard of. That's what Paul was saying here, that God's love for us is undeserved. Scarcely for a righteous person, a just person, the person who does the right thing. Perhaps for a good person. Sometimes we say, well, he's a good man, she's a good woman. But even for a good person, someone who's full of kindness and grace, one that we are attracted to, a worthy person, perhaps, but only perhaps, for such a person would one dare to die. And I say, don't bank on that, that you'll find such a man. But in the case of Jesus, Jesus dared to die not for the righteous, not for the good, but for sinners. He dared to die for sinners while we were still sinners. Does not mean so much that back then he died for us, but he died for us literally even being sinners. It's not a matter of timing, but it's a matter of degree or the kind of person that Jesus died for sinners. He died for the ungodly man. He died for the person who was undeserving and unworthy. Now, there once was a truly righteous man a good man, and no one would die for him. They all ran off when death came calling. No one stood up and said, here, take me instead of this good man, this righteous man. I will die for him. No, not even Peter. You know who I'm talking about, don't you? And there was a good man, but even his closest friends didn't dare to die for him. And if no one would die for him, what makes us think that someone would die for me? I'm so unworthy. I'm so sinful. Why would someone die for me? but Christ did die for me. You know, dying is one of the most adverse things that one can ever do. Now, I know that some have died for family, for country, for fellow soldiers, I realize that. But in this case, people were dying for their own kind. They were dying sort of like for their own. But Jesus didn't die for His own kind, did He? He died for sinners. He was not a noble man dying for noble men. What Jesus did was more like you offering to die for Mussolini or Hitler. You know, He did what He did and He stands trial and He is condemned. And you stand up and say, No, not him. I'll die for him. I'll die instead of him. Or maybe it's like standing up and saying that I'll die in the place of that man that murdered my child. You know, dying for someone is more than just forgiving someone. Dying for someone is putting yourself in the place of. And Christ did that. He took all the horror, and the dereliction, and the agony, and the forsakenness. He took all of the wrath, and all of the judgment that is our own. He died. He stood up for me. He stood up for you in your place. For us, even being sinners, Christ died for us, and there's no value in us, nothing in this world to compel Him to come and die for us. Enos, it's because of grace, like you opened up the first part of the service here with. It's not because we're worthy. It's not because of some goodness in us. It wasn't because of a good investment. What? A good investment? Me? Him? Never. There is no good investment. It is of grace. It is because of God's love for us that he died for us sinners. And I wonder if this has ever broken in upon you in your own heart. Has that ever dawned on you that Jesus Christ died for an ungodly man? He died for an unworthy man. He died for the unrighteous. God's love for us is undeserved. We do not deserve it. In 10 years from now, in 20 years from now, it's still going to be of grace and you're not going to deserve it then either. And you're never going to be more worthy and more deserving though no matter how much progress you make in grace, you might in your Christian life move from chapter five through six, you make it through seven, and you get to the end of Romans chapter eight, and you're still undeserving. You're still unworthy. Number two, God's love is unmeasured. And this, we can take care of this in just a couple minutes. What do I mean by being unmeasured? I mean his love is not limited. It's not measured in a sense of this much and no more. You know, sometimes we say after we have been sort of forced to bend and forced to give that, and we feel like we're about to break, that we can say, I can't go any farther than that. I just can't do it anymore. I've reached the end. But the love of God for us is unmeasured. It's not limited. And I see that in Christ not suffering, and I know he suffered, he did suffer, but Christ didn't, and don't think about the suffering and death of Christ as, well, maybe for the really bad person he had to die, but for me, you know, it would have only taken an hour of suffering, no. His love is unmeasured that He went all the way to the grave. He went all the way to the judgment place. He bore the fullness of death. And that's, we have here this phrase in verse nine saying that we have been justified by His blood. And justified by His blood means He died. His blood was poured out. When we come upon a scene where there's volumes of blood spilt, we know that there was a violent death. We know that. We know that someone died here, something died here in violence. It was a giving of everything. When the Bible speaks about the blood of Christ being poured out, it means that Jesus gave everything. He sacrificed everything. He held back nothing. In chapters 3 and 4, Paul speaks about us being justified and justification being granted to us. And now here in our text this morning, Paul explains to us at what cost we're justified. He gave us again and again the truth that we are justified and justification is ours by faith and it was through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are justified. And here in verses 7 through 9, Paul explains to us what it cost. We talk about free grace. It's free for us, but it wasn't free for him, was it? It was a great cost. It was at the cost of his life. It was at the cost of his blood being poured out. That justification comes to us. Bloodshed speaks of a violent death. It speaks of wrath and violence. The blood of Christ, that phrase is used three times as often in the New Testament as the death of Christ. It's used five times more often than the phrase, the cross. And these phrases are used often in relationship to our salvation. It is through the cross, it is through his death. But the phrase the blood of Christ is used many, many more times when referring to our salvation. I had to think of Jonathan and David. Jonathan sacrificed a great deal for David. He gave up the kingdom. Jonathan didn't say, well, David, I love you, and I'm going to give you a place as prime minister, secretary of state, or this position, or that position. When Jonathan sacrificed for David, what did he give him? He gave him the kingdom. And when he made that sacrifice, there was nothing left for Jonathan. Jonathan did not have a place remaining for himself. There's another indication here of how God's love is unmeasured. Is this phrase much more Did you notice it several times that in verse nine, since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more. And then I believe it's given to us six times here in this chapter, in verse three, in verse nine, and 10, and 11, and 15, and 17. Paul uses this phrase much more. There's a word for this that I learned. I like new words. Afatori. And I said, what does that word mean? Why did the commentator use that? It looks like Latin to me, and that's what it is. Afatori. It means for a stronger reason. Or because this is true, this is even more certain. It's like this, I think there's like 30 examples in the New Testament that I found of this kind of argument. If God cares for the grass, so much that he closed the grass. How much more does he care for us, his children? That's the argument. If this is true, then this is even more true. If the player can make a 70 or 80 yard pass, then he's not going to have any problem with the 30 yard pass. If he can do this, he's going to be able to much more do this. That's the argument. And so since God sacrificed His life, His communion with His Father in bearing our sin, He will much more accomplish whatever is needed to bring you and to bring me safely home to glory. That's the argument. that if he shed his blood, if he died for undeserving individuals like myself and like you, how much more is God committed to bringing us safely home to glory? And that leads us to the third matter here of God's love. God's love is undeserved, it's unmeasured, It's not like the way that I used to give my friends bites of the candy bar, and I learned a long time that you don't stick any more out in front of your thumb and forefinger than what you were willing to give up when you gave your buddy a bite, you know? It was generous, but it was limited generosity. You're free to bite anything beyond my fingers, and the rest is in my hand. Well, God, He gave us the whole candy bar, didn't He? He didn't limit it, He didn't restrict it. In verses 9 through 11, I want you to notice that God's love is unending. 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 sinners, 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. Here the apostle goes to the future tense. He speaks about the future. Now we are justified, verse nine, we shall be, that's future, we shall be saved. It's interesting to notice in these three verses that Paul uses all three tenses, that we were justified, that is in the past there was a death, which purchased, that redeemed us, that purchased us. We are now being justified. We are now being saved. And then in verse 9, we shall be saved. And it's spoken of, our salvation is spoken of in these three tenses. It's unending. It's not temporary. It's not here and gone tomorrow. You know, what God did when He justified us was not just to get us off to a good start. Do I need to remind you of that? Do I need to repeat that? That when God saved us, He did not just get us off to a good start. He didn't say, well, here you go, I'll give you a shove, and I hope you have a good and safe and successful trip. Not at all. But God, in saving us, did a work that shall be completed. I remember the day and the place. Well, I remember several days and places in my life. I remember where I was when I heard that the planes hit the towers. I remember the day, and I was very young when I heard of JFK's assassination. And it's interesting how the things like that sort of stick in your mind. You remember where you were. I also remember the day and the place where I was when Philippians chapter one in verse six came home to me. And if I give myself to thinking about it, I go right back to that time and to that place when I realized that the love of God For this center is unending, that it's ongoing, that it's not just a good start. And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. And that does not mean that I got off to a good start and that I'm going to finish it. But the same God who began a good work in me, that He is going to complete it and complete it. He is going to finish it all the way until the day of Jesus Christ. Now it is begun and it is being worked out in sanctification in my life. But it is going to continue until it's finished all the way to the end through the final judgment. His love for me is more than just a good start. The love of God will not fail midstream. And I remember that this, finding this here, and it was, and I don't know why this verse became the verse that put the, it finished off this losing your salvation thing, like you lose a pocket knife out of your pocket. This was the verse that did it for me. And I've many times, in times of opposition, I've come back, and I've said, Lord, I thank you And I worship you and I give you glory for this confirmation, for this assurance, that though I am greatly troubled and in distress now, that you are going to bring my salvation to completion all the way to the end. And this is what Paul is referring to when he says, we shall be saved from wrath. He's not talking about our propitiation. in our initial salvation. And yes, in our propitiation, the wrath of God is turned from us, but Paul is saying that there's a day of wrath coming and you're saved from it. I give you the assurance that that day of wrath is empty for you. There is no wrath in that last great day for you. Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. And verse one in chapter five teaches us that we have peace with God and that we have access to God. But what about now? What about the future? This is a guarantee of future salvation. Professor Murray, In his commentary on the Book of Romans says, quote, the wrath here in verse 9 is the wrath that will be dispensed to the ungodly at the day of judgment. It's eschatological wrath pertaining to final matters. Chapter 2 in verse 5. in the same, just sticking, staying right here in Romans 2 and 5. But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you're storing up wrath for yourselves on the day of wrath. Do you see what Paul's referring to? He's not talking about a current anger of God toward me on this day, but he's talking about wrath that is being stored up for the day of wrath. Verse 8, but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, that is the lost, the unbelieving, there will be, that's future tense, there will be wrath and fury. And then in I'll go to 1 Thessalonians and look at two there, and then I'll let the others, there are others, but this will be satisfied with these two more. 1 Thessalonians chapter one and 1 Thessalonians chapter five. 1.10. And we wait for his son, that's Jesus from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath, what? To come. It is coming wrath. It is wrath that is in the future. And then chapter five and verse nine, for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so the wrath in view here in chapter five, being saved by him from the wrath of God, is wrath that will be dispensed to the ungodly on the day of judgment. We shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. We shall all appear before the judgment seat of God. There's no question about that. But in that day, there is no wrath for those who are justified. Justification means that there is no wrath reserved for us. Now our hope, and the word hope is used several times in this paragraph, is both a positive and a negative. Earlier in verses 2 and then I believe in verse 2 and I believe, yes, it's in verse 2, he talks about our hope of the glory of God positively We have a hope that's going to bring us into glory, into the glory of God, that's positively, and we have a hope, negatively, that is going to deliver us from wrath. And so there is, our hope is both a positive, that we shall enjoy the glory of God, and negative, we shall not suffer the wrath of God. Now to be certain today, if you are a believer, you are not under the wrath of God. That's certainly true. But in verse nine, Paul is reaching forward to a final day and explains that we shall be saved from wrath in that final day. Now, there's some confusion here that comes up. Peter refers to it in his epistle. Some people believe that the forbearance of God is deliverance from the wrath of God. It's not. Forbearance is temporary. Forbearance holds back wrath for a time. I believe Peter calls it long-suffering. And it's, but that's only a temporary matter. And many individuals, even unbelievers, experience forbearance. They experience long-suffering. And because of that, some individuals think that, well, you know, I'm living for myself, I'm living against God, I don't trust in God, I don't trust in Jesus Christ, and nothing bad is happening to me. Where is this wrath of God that you speak about? Well, you're experiencing forbearance. You're experiencing long-suffering. But don't for a moment believe that somehow you're going to escape the wrath of God. Tuesday night, in Bible college, I explained it this way to the men. And I started an illustration, and then I realized I got to stop. The illustration wasn't clear enough. Tuesday night, as I was teaching the men, whenever the AA meeting was finished, they always leave a pot of coffee out there that always a couple of the guys get up as soon as they dismiss and they go out and they come in with stacks of coffee for everybody in Bible College. And they all sat them down on a table in front of them and The question just came up at that point is to, you know, what about individuals that think they're masters of their own destiny? We were discussing free will. That was the question that was asked. And some of them were pushing this idea that, you know, we're masters of our own destiny. You know, we have the reins. God's given the reins to us. We're steering it. We're in control. And And I asked them, I said, well, why do you believe that? Well, they said, because that's the way it's working in my life. You know, I think I'm in control. I said, I said, you guys are let's put all this coffee you brought here on this table and just set it all here. And and and it's hot. It's steaming hot. And I said, you're we're going to pour it all out on the table, all of it. And you're going to die for under the table. And you're going to say, well, I'm not going to be scalded by this. I'm underneath the table. You know, it's only going to be a moment until the coffee runs off the edge of the table. And then if you're not covered, you're in danger. You're going to be burnt. And I said, and what for the believer, what God does is that God picks the table up and diverts it all onto the Lord Jesus Christ. It all falls on him. And then I realized, bad illustration, you know, coffee dripping off the edge of a table just isn't going to do it. And I realize that the illustration is really that the unbeliever is hiding under a cauldron filled with the wrath of God. And the wrath of God is being poured out. And as Peter says, the wicked, they're hardened in their sin because they say, wrath of God, none's falling on me. And they don't realize that that cauldron is like a dam that is storing it up. And one day it is going to be poured out. But for the believer, for the child of God, it's poured out upon the Son of God. In His dying, in His bloodshed, in His giving Himself a sacrifice. It's poured out upon Him. And He bears the wrath. Do you know what Paul says in this chapter right here? He says, I want to tell you something about the cauldron. If you're a child of God, it's empty. It's empty. God has showed to me there's nothing in that cauldron. There is no wrath of God reserved against us. So we are saved from the wrath of God. It's unending. We're saved today and we will be saved and in the final day. And there is a coming day of wrath. It's a great and terrible day. And God will call all things into account. But as a child of God, we have nothing to tremble about. We will be awed by the display of the justice of God. But we will not be endangered by it. We will on that day be recipients of mercy. John even writes in Revelation that we will rejoice in the righteousness of God's wrath being poured out. I love that song that Kristen led us in before the message in 430, I believe it was, the verse where it says, Let us love and sing and wonder, verse one. Let us praise the Savior's name. He has hushed the law's loud thunder. He has quenched Mount Sinai's flame. He took the wrath of God for us. The wrath of Mount Calvary and the day of wrath still coming. We are saved from wrath. And that is the end for the child of God. And it's easy for us sometimes to fall away from trusting. And yes, I do believe we can fall away from trusting. We fall away from trusting because we confuse justification and sanctification. And when we're focusing on the progress we make, or the lack of progress that we make in sanctification, we're tempted to think that we are in danger because the further we go, the further it seems we have to go. And the more we grow in sanctification, the more painful our remaining sin becomes to us. And I hope that you have experienced the reality of that. Otherwise, I don't know if you're making any progress because a true believer is someone who, he does sin less and less, but he repents more and more because his sin is more heinous to him today than what it was yesterday. But that sanctification, and we do, progress in that, and we want to progress in that, and I'm glad that God works powerfully in us so that we do progress in that. But it's not because of our sanctification that we're saved from the wrath of God. It's because of our justification that we're saved from the wrath of God. And it's a very, very different thing. The certainty of our final salvation is not rooted in sanctification. And that's why in chapter 8 and verse 30, sanctification is not in the chain there. It's in the chain. But 8.30 says it speaks about us being predestined, and called, and justified, and glorified. And I often wondered why is sanctification not in that golden chain? Well, Paul here is referring to those things which make our final salvation certain. Sanctification is the fruit of these. not the cause. Now there is sanctification spoken of in chapter 8 but it's not in verse 30. It's in verse 23 where it says that we are groaning inwardly because we want this to get done. We want it to be finished. But that's in verse 23, not in verse 30. So justification imputes righteousness to us. Sanctification infuses the grace of God into us. And it's a very different matter altogether. Justification means glorification. Justification means delivered from wrath. Justification means that our salvation, the love of God is unending for us. And it means that we will be saved from final wrath. Some of you may be, oh yes, perfectionist. Some of you may think that I'm a perfectionist. Maybe you live with a perfectionist. And there's a lot of frustration in being a perfectionist because there's always things in our life that we can't set right. But your salvation is not based upon perfectionism. Salvation is based upon what Jesus Christ has done for us. And that's what I mean when I speak about the love of God being unending. And then last of all, number three, B, God's love is unending because of the unending life of the Son. It's unending because the day of wrath is not a day of wrath for us. It's unending because the unending life of the Son. Look at verse 10. We have now been justified by his blood. How much more shall we be saved from the wrath of God? For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. How much, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? What does that mean? That we're saved by his life. It says that we're reconciled by his death and we're saved by his life. Verse 11, more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Well, I believe Paul's saying the same thing here as what he said in chapter 4, verse 25, that Christ was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. The resurrection of Jesus Christ When it talks about, let me back up, when Paul speaks about that we're saved by his life, he's not talking about us being saved by the first 33 years of his life. He's talking about us being saved by his resurrection life, the life following his death. That if he died for us, now that he's alive, how much more is he going to see us through? all the way to the end. We are more than just legally put right with God. That is our justification. But God, through Jesus Christ, Christ is mediating for us. He's interceding for us. He's praying for us. He's working in us post crucifixion, and post-resurrection. We're saved by His life. Not the good and perfect 33 years of His life before His death, but His mediatorial life. He's ascended on high. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. And all of that for us. He's in the control room for me. on my behalf. He's leaving captivity captive and giving gifts unto men. That's now. That's the ongoing ministry of Jesus Christ for us. We're no longer enemies of God. And when I talk about enemies of God here in this text, he's not talking about us being mad at God. He's talking about God being angry with us. That's the enemy part here. It's not that we don't like him, but it's that he's not antagonistic toward us. And because of our sin, we naturally are enemies of God. But we have been reconciled by the death of his son. We're reconciled that God bore the cost of bringing us to peace and then to fellowship. It was our fault, it was our sin, but he paid it. And we are now in fellowship with him. Justification here in verse 11 means reconciliation and we're brought full circle right back to where Paul started in verse one. We have peace with God in verse 11. We rejoice in God because we're reconciled. We have fellowship with him. We don't just rejoice in what God has done for us in Christ, but we actually rejoice in God himself. We rejoice in Jesus Christ. Salvation is not just some thing that God did. Salvation is fellowship with God Himself. And that's a much greater thing. It's a much greater matter. And I'm so thankful for this lovely ending here in this section, that our salvation is not that God did these beautiful things for us, one, two, three, four, and five, but the end of our justification is that we rejoice in God himself. We don't just rejoice in what God has done for us. but we rejoice in him. I would like if we would sing together before we're dismissed, number 504. And the words of this beautiful hymn, I think, underline very, very well this great final blessing too, in our justification that we have fellowship with God Himself. Kristen, would you mind coming up here and leading us in 504? Arise, my soul, arise, shake off thy guilty fears. And as we close this service with those lovely words of Abba Father, fellowship with our Savior and with our Heavenly Father. will be dismissed following the song.