Good morning. Take your Bibles, if you would, and turn to Romans chapter 5. And we will pick up where we left off in Romans chapter 5. By the way, if you don't have a Bible with you, there's a Pew Bible in front of you, and you can take that. And if you don't own a Bible, that one can be yours. And we are on page 942. for our message today. So I would encourage you to open that up. And I'm not really old-fashioned, but it's still a little odd to see someone with their phone out. Go for it. Go for it. As long as you've got the Bible on it, I'm fine with it. But be patient with me as I mature, okay? I remember the first sermon I ever saw preached off of somebody's phone, and it was the weirdest thing. He's got the stylus, and it was strange to me. So there's nothing wrong with it. I'm certain there's nothing wrong with it, but I like paper. I understand paper. And the battery's not going to run out on my paper. All right, we are in Romans chapter five, and we've been going through Romans for some time. And today, you'll see, I don't know what version you're using, but if you're using the ESV, you'll see that the first word is therefore. And as you know from your studies, anytime you see the word therefore, you ask, what's the therefore therefore? Or as Pastor Bob Burroughs always says, wherefore the wherefore. Of course, I've never read that version that has wherefore all that much, but anyway, we are going to go back into Romans from earlier chapters and see what the therefore is there for, but for now, let's read in chapter five, verses one and two. 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 of the glory of God. Let's pray. Father, we rejoice in these words about us having been justified by faith. And thus we have peace with God and access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. It's a privilege for us to be able to come into your presence. It's a privilege for us to be able to approach your throne of grace. It's a privilege that's ours only by Christ. And so we thank you for it. We remind ourselves this morning of just who you are, creator God, self-existent, self-determined, holy, all-powerful, all-knowing. We worship you. And we bow down to you. We recognize that you didn't need to create us, and yet you did. And when we fell into sin, you didn't need to redeem us, and yet you did. And so we thank you and we praise you. for what you've done for us in Christ. And even this morning as we come to this passage in Romans chapter five, Father, I pray that you would help us to engage with what we have right now, that we would not be turned off by big theological sounding words, that we wouldn't be turned off by concepts of doctrine or anything like that, but instead that we would feel the joy That we would hear the joy and that we ourselves would sense the joy that is in Paul's tone as he writes these words. And that we would be raised to give you praise and glory in even greater ways as a result of what we read. So help us, Father, to set aside things that maybe distract from this previous week. There are many things from this past week, wonderful or painful things, that could compete for our attention right now. And there are things in the upcoming week, maybe we know about them and maybe we don't. that might be terrible or that might be wonderful that could compete for our attention right now. But I pray that you would help us to be all here right now in Romans chapter five, that we would engage with what you have for us here because the fact is you are holy and you are just. And sin rightfully deserves your wrath and we have sinned. But that's not the end of the story, and we praise you that that's not the end of the story, because in fact, you sent your Son, who would stand in the gap, who would bear the penalty for our sin, who would obey where we've not, that we might be redeemed, that we might be justified. So help us this morning to hear from you, from your Word, We pray in Jesus' name, amen. So we ask the question, what's the therefore therefore, which of course points us to what has come before. And we've been some months working through the book of Romans, and there's a lot there. You can of course recognize for yourself that there is a lot of information, there's a lot of argumentation that goes on in the book of Romans, that Paul is not just writing a little gospel tract. Nor is he just writing a small letter, but he's writing really what is his magnum opus. He is explaining, he's trying to make as clear as possible what the gospel is. He's trying to display what it is not. He is trying to display what it is and what it means. And so, there's a lot of argumentation. There's a lot of development of thought and theology, and we need not to lose focus on that. I lose focus on the fact that he brings it to a point in chapter five where he has a therefore. Why does it matter? And so the message today is entitled, Justified by Faith. So what? Why talk about all this theology? Why have we spent so much time dealing with this? Why did Paul spend so much time writing what he has written? And we will see that today. So if you go back in your minds or maybe flip back to Romans chapter one, Romans 1, Paul argues, starting in verse 18 all the way through the next couple of chapters, he's talking about the necessity and the provision for justification by faith. It's essential that we be justified. We have to be, we must be justified if we want to be in God's presence and experience peace with God, we have to be justified because there's the sin problem. There is a sin problem that we have. And of course, as he goes on, he argues in chapter 1 and chapter 2 and into chapter 3, he's arguing for our sin, making plain to us our sin, our own culpability before God. And then he gets to 321, and he begins to talk about the provision that God has made for our justification, that we might be brought into a right relationship with God. And so he argues at the end of chapter 3 and into chapter 4 for that fact. And then he gets to chapter 5, and he says, okay, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, which is what I've been arguing, since we have been justified by faith, so what? So what? Does it matter? How does it matter? Well, he's going to pick up a new section in your book, and maybe your Bible has a clear division here from chapter 5 through the end of chapter 8, but this is a new section. He's transitioning from the argumentation he's been making in 1 through 4, and he's transitioning to something that he's going to be talking about in 5 through the end of 8. Basically, what's the outcome of this theology he's unpacked? What's the big deal? What's the practical benefit in the life of the believer from being justified by faith? What are the results? What does it matter? And these are the questions that Paul's going to answer. He's going to address in 5, 6, 7, and 8. And today, of course, we're just talking about two verses. So we're not going to bite off too big a chunk. I wouldn't want to do that. So we're going to move slowly, as I want to do, typically. So we're going to cover two verses today. We're going to talk about three astounding benefits that are ours. that come to us because we've been justified by faith. And so, looking back at chapter five and verse one, we come to the first one, which is peace with God. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the first of the benefits that he's talking about. And it's a massive one. Peace with God. So what is peace with God? Well, I can think of a couple of concepts, a couple of ideas that may come to mind when we think about peace, and maybe the first one is peace of mind, right? Peace of mind is when you've settled up an old account, and now you don't have to worry about it anymore. You have peace of mind. Maybe peace of mind is when you've reconciled a relationship with someone and now you don't have hostility with that person. Or maybe peace of mind comes when you've finished your to-do list for the day, right? Those things bring peace of mind. And of course, we all want peace of mind and we struggle when we don't have it, but that's not really what he's talking about. He's not talking about a psychological peace of mind that comes from something that we've done, that comes from a reconciled relationship or some other psychological thing in our lives. He's not talking about peace of mind, nor is he really even talking about the peace of God. Many of us jump immediately to Philippians chapter four in our minds, and we think of verses six and seven, where Paul says, do not be anxious for anything, But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." That's a passage that's given to us to help us walk through painful times, trying times, difficulties, difficult situations in our lives where we need help, and perhaps we're tempted to be anxious, we're tempted to worry about the future. And so we go to the Lord in prayer, and we give Him thanks for His goodness, and we leave our worries there with Him, and when we come away, what do we have? We have a peace, knowing that I didn't just abandon my problems, I gave them to the one who can take care of them, and I left them there with Him, and I can go away having the peace of God which surpasses understanding, guarding my heart and guarding my mind so that I'm not worried, I'm not fretting over those things. I go away with the peace of God, but as powerful as that is and as true as those things are and as important as that is in our life, that's not what he's talking about here in 5.1 either. He says, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God. between one another Peace with God it means a right relationship with God It means that we have been restored to something like what Adam and Eve had in the garden when they they got to walk with God when they enjoyed being in his presence. Before sin came in and they ran away from his presence, when they got to talk with him, they got to have right relationship with God, they had peace with God. And of course, sin entered that picture and rebellion came in and ruined that relationship. And so for the first time we have when God enters the garden, what do they do? They run and hide. Their relationship has been destroyed. The peace that they had with God is gone, and for the first time, they become guilty before God, and they become objects of cursing rather than of blessing for the first time ever. And so this right relationship with God is what we have in mind when we talk about peace with God. And notice what he says, therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Where is peace to be found? through our Lord Jesus Christ. And nowhere else, only in Christ, can we find peace with God. By the way, this is one of the unique things about Christianity, is that rather than providing us with steps to overcome the challenges of our remoteness from God, Or perhaps our lack of understanding rather than providing steps to overcome those challenges instead in Christianity We are provided with a Savior who paid the cost for our rebellion He's not he's not illuminating a path as in showing us just a way to go as in do these things and you will have it taken care of he comes on the scene and And he takes upon himself that rebellion. He takes upon himself the penalty for that rebellion, pays the cost for it in his own life so that we can be restored to right relationship with God. And so we say that peace is only to be found through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we insist on proclaiming the name of Christ. That's why we insist on preaching Christ and Him crucified. That's why we insist on preaching the gospel because that gospel is the only means by which we can have peace with God. But that raises the question, why do we need peace? And I've hinted at it a little bit going all the way back to the garden. But if you go back once again to the beginning of Romans, back to chapter one, and if you walk through, and by the way, if you're not reading through Romans as we work through this, you're missing out, because there's a lot of great reminder in there of the things that we've covered and direction given for the way we're going to go. When you go back and read through it, things tend to sink in as you've read them for the 20th or the 50th time. As you think about what we've talked about, as you work your way through it, things that maybe were confusing become less confusing. Things that you had forgotten now stick in your mind. So I encourage you to be reading Romans and rereading Romans. Just working your way through it. You don't have to read it in one sitting, though I encourage you to do that. But you can read it a paragraph at a time and chew on it. Chew on it. You could read this portion that we're talking about from chapter five, read it tomorrow and the next day and think about what we've discussed and ponder. And as you read through Romans, you'll see it all laced together. And as we go back to chapter one, we can see that Paul makes a very clear and powerful argument in chapter one, starting in verse 18 and following about the sinfulness of the Gentile world, the sinfulness of the pagan world. It's obvious their denial of God, the God they know exists, and yet they deny Him. They don't want Him. They suppress that truth, and instead they pursue unrighteousness in their life. They set themselves up as king, and they worship themselves, and they're trapped in this hopeless sin. They can't themselves escape from this sin. And that's the conclusion of chapter one, and then we get into chapter two, and he shifts gears, and he begins to talk about not just the pagan world, but also the Jewish world is wrapped up in sin also. Though they have every benefit of the law, they have every benefit of having the prophets and all this history with God, yet the same result is sinful before God, guilty before Him, in need of justification. And so you have the Gentile world in the end of chapter one, and you have the Jewish world in all of chapter two, wrapped up together under sin. And then in chapter three, we have this powerful passage, which is various quotations from the Old Testament about the condition of man. He's guilty before God, and so we read in chapter three that none is righteous, verse 10. No, not one, and these are all quotes from the Old Testament. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they've become worthless. No one does good, not even one. He makes it clear. He makes it painfully clear. And you remember, as we worked our way through that, how painful that section was, this several chapters where Paul is hammering again and again the sinfulness of man, which makes sense when you look back at what he said in 118. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." Why do we need peace with God? Because we have made ourselves the objects of wrath. Because we have placed ourselves in the position of being at enmity with God because of our rebellion against Him. That's what 118 through almost the end of chapter three is all about. We need peace with God because the natural man has made God his enemy because of his treason against him. We've incurred the just and the terrible wrath of God. And so we need peace. And so Paul says back in chapter five in verse one, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Reading that verse by itself, you think, well, having peace with God is a nice thing, it's a good thing. But when you go back through and you work through what Paul has argued in chapters one, two, and three, you realize peace with God is an astounding thing. It's profound. And it's powerful that we could have right relationship with God despite our own treason. And so he says that in Christ, well, I'll just read it, five and one, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And what's powerful about the conclusion of chapter three is that after having explained that everyone is wrapped up and trapped in sin, guilty and having made themselves God's enemies, what happens at the end of chapter three? Jesus comes on the scene. And the righteousness of God is made manifest apart from the law. The law and the prophets bear witness to it, but the righteousness of God is manifested by faith in Christ. So that by what he has done in our place, we can stand before God having been cleansed. and having the righteousness of God applied to us. And so we stand before God with peace, at peace with him because of what Christ has done. First of all, we have peace with God. Second of all, he continues in verse two, through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We have access to God. We have access to God. We've obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We get to be in God's presence. And so what is this grace? The grace that he mentions here is God's very presence itself. This isn't a new concept. Adam and Eve got to be in God's presence, at peace with God. until sin entered the picture. And then there was a barrier. First they ran and hid, then there was the statement of judgment, of cursing, and then what happens? They get kicked out of the garden. There's an angel put there to guard the way so they can't get back. And that's the condition that all of mankind is born into, where there's a distance between us and God. And what Paul is arguing is that Jesus Christ himself has bridged that gap so that we now have access back to God. into His very presence. Can you imagine what it must have been like? And it doesn't tell us, so we're imagining what it must have been like for Adam and Eve. One minute to have been in God's presence, to have walked with Him, had peace with Him, to have known Him. And the next, to have such a changed relationship that when you hear Him coming, you run and you hide. Mankind is barred from God's presence. And we read something from Psalm 16 and verse 11. You hear David reflecting on this fact. The psalmist talks about the presence of God and what it does for us and wanting to be in the presence of God. And so we read in Psalm 16 and verse 11, he says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. He realizes that God's presence for the believer is a place of blessing and joy. And he continues on from what Pastor Woody preached on yesterday in Psalm 23. There's a great joy that comes from God's presence. But it's not just limited to those times when we're together on a Sunday or some special event. It could even be the worst time. Think of what the psalmist says in Psalm 23 in verse four. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You are with me, even in the midst of impossible, painful, terrible situations. The presence of God provides peace and joy. And so this grace of having access to God is not a new concept in the New Testament. It's something that's been longed for, it's been rejoiced in, it's been written about by the people of God from of old. And of course, not to get too far ahead of us, but in chapter five, Paul is going to talk about this reconciliation of sinner to God. Listen to what he says in chapter five and verses 10 and 11. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, brought back into relationship, there used to be hostilities, now there is peace together and you get to be in the presence of one another without hostility. If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. He spent chapters arguing that the natural man has made himself God's enemy. And now in Christ, we get to have reconciliation with God. We get to have the grace of access to God's very presence. And once again, where do we obtain that access? Look what the first two words are. In the ESV, through him, we have obtained access. Once again, the only way that a person can have access to God, be at peace with God, be in His presence and be blessed by that is through Christ Himself. Jesus is the only one who can bring us into God's presence without us being destroyed. Because sin cannot remain in God's presence. It will receive judgment from God, wrath from God. And you and I have sinned. And so Jesus enters the picture. and he's the one who takes that sin upon himself, so that it's punished in him, so that when we stand before God, we don't bear our sin, and thus we don't bear the judgment, the penalty for our sin. Jesus already bore that. And so we get to have reconciliation with God because of what Christ has done, and only in what Christ has done. Paul describes it this way back in chapter three in that very powerful section starting in verse 21. He says, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. 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. There is peace with God and there is access to God only to be found in Christ. What Paul says is an interesting thing. He says, we've obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. What does it mean to stand in this grace? Well, it means to remain there. We remain there. It doesn't happen momentarily. just for a moment and then passes away. It doesn't happen intermittently, occasionally, only on Sunday mornings, or only when we celebrate the Lord's Supper together, or only when you're especially walking well with God and you've not sinned terribly recently. This is a grace in which we stand. This is the baseline truth for the Christian, is that we stand before God. by grace at peace with Him because of what He's done. We get to have peace with God. We get to stand there not having that old enmity, not having those old fears of Him that we're just and we're deserved, that we would want to run away and hide in the woods because of what we've done. That's all been dealt with for the Christian. And so we get to stand in His presence, in this new reality of grace. That's what it means to stand in this grace. But he continues on and he says, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Hope in God is the third benefit that he's talking about here. We have hope in God. Hope in the glory of God is the way he says it. Which raises the question, how does God's glory give us hope? How does God's glory give us hope? Well, the fact is, God will be glorified. He will be glorified. And when we were separated from Him because of our sin, because of our unbelief, His being glorified was a terrible thing for us. His being lifted up and declared to be the only King, the only Lord, was terrible. for the little lords and the little kings running around. And by the way, that's the natural man. He sets himself up as his own king. He sets himself up as his own lord in his heart. He worships himself. It may look all kinds of different ways, but he's worshiping himself. He is seeking to give himself glory. And the fact of Almighty God being glorified means the glory the natural man receives is all taken away. And so for the natural man, God being glorified is a fearful thing, it's a terrible thing, it's a frightening thing for God to be glorified because it means destruction for God's enemies. And so it's a frightening thing. But for those who are in Christ, the Bible says that we will be glorified with Him. We've entered into the kind of relationship with him where he is our Lord as well. And so when he is exalted, we are not squashed as competitors. We are not squashed and crushed as his enemies. Instead, we are lifted up as his heirs. When He is glorified, it benefits us. It is a good thing for us. As Paul writes about it in Colossians chapter three, he says, when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. His being glorified benefits those who are in Him, benefits the Christian, so that it's no longer His being glorified at our expense, it's His being glorified and we get wrapped up in it. so that we are blessed as well. His glory is enriched by what he's done for us, and when he is glorified, we benefit from it. And Paul's gonna say later on in Romans chapter eight, he's gonna talk about those whom he justified, what does he do with them? He also glorified. And so we went from a position of God's being glorified being a terrifying and horrific thing for us. It means destruction. Instead, his being glorified means good news for us because he is lifted up, he is the true Lord, and he blesses us in that process. And so, Paul says, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. What does this hope do for us? Well, it changes everything. It changes everything. No longer are we at enmity with God. No longer do we have to fear and hate God being lifted up. We rejoice in it, knowing that, in fact, we will be blessed by it. It changes our entire perspective on all of life, that we have this hope of God. Being in His presence, at peace with Him, Being able to rejoice in Him changes all of life. Biblical hope in the glory of God gives us a new reality and it changes how we view the world because we are now in Christ and not in opposition to Christ. And so, I wanna back up just for a moment and look at what we've been talking about. He's been talking about these blessings, these benefits that are ours by virtue of all of this doctrine he's been discussing. Justification by faith. There are whole books and multi-volume books written on this topic. And he says, people, get this, please, because it is wonderful. It is the cause of rejoicing for the believer. That we have peace with God. in contrast to what we used to have. That instead of being kicked out of the garden, instead of having that angel guard the way with a sword, instead we are brought into his very presence. And that's where we stand, at peace with God. And we get to rejoice in that. Christian, we get to rejoice in that, even in hard times, even in hard times that you can't comprehend, that maybe in your mind they are impossible and you cannot see a way out. How could this ever be good? Christian, even if this situation results in your own death, it will not result in your destruction. It will result in you being in the presence of God, at peace with Him, rejoicing in Him forever. So this doctrine of justification by faith should change the way we view all of reality. Because now we have been brought onto God's side. We've been reconciled to Him and we are no longer His enemies. And so what do we do with this hope? We rejoice in it. We rejoice in it. It gives us joy in the midst of trial. It gives us hope in situations that are hopeless. What do we do with this hope? We share this hope with other people. We take it to them and we tell them about hope that is to be found in Christ alone. We encourage each other with it. Sometimes on a Sunday morning, I'll meet someone who's down. They're struggling. What do they need from me? A hug, a pat on the back, and direction to Christ. There's hope in Him, there's joy in Him. And I don't know your situation, and I don't know the struggle you're going through, and I don't know what pain you feel. And there are a lot of ways we could talk about that pain and that difficult situation, and maybe there are some things that could be worked out to make it easier. Maybe you just need a hug. But you need a hug and you need to be directed towards Christ because there is hope. And that hope will take you through the worst of impossible situations. And so what does justification by faith do for us? It changes everything. It changes everything. Enough so that Paul would spend chapters of the New Testament writing to us about justification by faith. It changes everything adequately that we would spend months working through and talking about it. So what do we do with this hope? We rejoice in it, we share it with other people, we encourage other people with it, and by the way, we celebrate it in the Lord's Supper. This is what we're celebrating when we celebrate the Lord's Supper. And so if I could have the men come forward who are going to help us serve today,