Peace with God

Now, as has been mentioned a couple times already, today is Reformation Sunday. On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. And he was not setting about to start about a reformation of the entire church or the downfall of Roman Catholicism. but that's what God used. It was a spark and it changed the world. But as with all biblical reformations, the basis and the impetus of the reformation was a return to God's word. It was to seeing God's word as the only rule of both faith and practice. And you will not be able to understand the reformation or church history And the power and the effect of the reforms that you've seen, if you do not realize the truth which undergirded and shaped it, and that truth is the authority of God's word. And brothers and sisters, if we want to see revival and change today, the same is true for us. We must return to the word of God. We must be people of the word. But that's not what I'm going to preach about today.

While the authority of the Bible was the foundation of the Reformation, one of the greatest recoveries that they made was the doctrine of justification by faith. The idea that we are saved by grace through faith. And that is in part of what I want us to examine this morning. I want to remind you of the gospel of God, of what justification is, and what it means, and the result. of justification for us. And so my hope is threefold. If you're not a Christian, if you're not a believer, then I want you to repent of your sins and turn to Christ. I want you to come to a realization that if you're an unbeliever, you are at war with God, but that you can have peace with him. And we're going to talk about that.

If you are a believer, I want you to examine yourself and I want you to think, am I trusting in the work of Christ or have I fallen into self-justification? Am I putting myself back under the law of God and as a means of salvation? If you're a Christian, thirdly, I want to encourage you because we have joy in Christ. We have hope. If you are a Christian, you are at peace with God. And there's no greater joy than that, than that we have peace with God. Now, please stand for the reading of God's word. God's word comes to us from Romans chapter 5, 1 through 11. It was hard for me to pick a text. This is the one that I believe God laid on my heart for today. Hear God's word. It is eternally true.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exalt in the hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance. And perseverance, proven character. And proven character, hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man someone would dare even to die.

But God demonstrates his own love towards us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only this, but we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Well, it's a tumultuous time. Feelings are high. Tensions are high. People are polarized. An election's coming up. And the state of our nation is hanging in the balance.

Will we choose freedom or will we choose government control? Death or life? Do the people running for office have the experience and the leadership required to get us through these times? Now, of course, I'm talking about the American War of Independence and the time leading up to it, right? Or maybe the War of 1812 or the Civil War or Y2K or the coming month, the election that's in just a couple weeks. To say that we live in tumultuous times is somewhat to say that we are alive at a point in history. There are ups and downs, but if you're a student of history, you will realize that men are always on the brink of disaster and always in tumult. And if you have in your mind that there is this one great, peaceful, settled time where that isn't the case, What I'm going to tell you is you don't know enough about that time period. You are too far removed to realize the details of that time and the difficulties of that day. Men are unstable. Men are constantly at the verge of destruction. And this is sort of a big societal level that I'm talking about, right? But this is true of us as individuals as well.

Whether it's with your work or your marriage, your family, your kids, your finances or school, we all feel these ups and these downs, pressures, the tumult. It's like you feel like you're at a calm point in your marriage and everything's going swimmingly. And then all of a sudden you get in bed and your wife's like, honey. The peace that we feel in all these circumstances is always at the verge of being at war. There's always something around the corner. There's always something that could change. And here's the thing. All of these are, you know, what problems are looming up in your life, right? In whatever category, whether it's work or school, relationship with your wife, whether it's parenting.

All of the dangers and the things that you see or the struggles that you are currently in are real issues. They're real problems. Like the state of our nation, like I sort of joke about the fact that our nation's in tumult, but we could say that about any point in history. That isn't to say that we're not in tumult. It isn't to say that these aren't real issues. They are. They have real consequences. And the issues that we face today are not the issues that we face that people in the past has faced, right? So I didn't sort of joke about that in the beginning in order to say that the things that are happening are fake or not real or don't matter. But what I'm telling you is they are not the problem. They're not the problem that you have to deal with. We have a propensity to deal with the presenting issues, not the underlying issues.

You walk out in the church and you start looking at ceiling tiles. What are you going to see on one of them? You look, you're going to find a water stain. Oh, there's a water stain. We have a couple options, right? Levi knows what I'm talking about, right? Pop the ceiling tile out, put a new one in. Maybe you get a spray can, spray the stain. We're all good, right? No, we're not all good. The water stain is the presentation of a problem. Well, what's the problem? Water's leaking. Where's the leak? And if all we do is switch out the ceiling tile, and we constantly deal with the presentation of the problem, we're always going to have problems. It's like you see a building that's about to fall. And of course, it's moving, and so there's cracks in the drywall.

And most of our lives is just going in and seeing the cracks in the drywall, and we stress out about the cracks in the drywall, so we try and fix the cracks in the drywall. Well, if you have a building that's moving and about to fall down, what's the point of fixing the cracks in the drywall? They're going to come back and back and back. And we're all great at this, right? We all have a propensity to deal with the presenting issues and not the underlying issues. Now, if we look in Hebrews 4.13, it says, And this is God, right? There's no creature hidden from God's sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. We have to deal with God. We have to give God an accounting of how we as his creation have acted.

all other problems that you face today, all the issues surrounding us, all the things that put stress on you and freak you out, pale in comparison to this fact, that you have a problem with God. And we must deal with our most pressing and underlying problems or we can never have peace. And here's the thing, every one of us, every single person knows this. Deep down in their hearts, they know that they have a problem with God. And you know you have a problem with God. This is the argument that Paul makes. In Romans, Paul begins by greeting the Roman church, and he tells them that I am unashamed of the gospel. And then throughout the rest of the book, you know what he does? He opens up the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of the truth in which this.

speaks. And so then he goes through. And so if we look in the beginning of Romans, Romans 1.18 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So we say God is opposed to the unrighteous and he's angry with the unrighteous. Well, we might ask, what is unrighteousness? Because maybe God isn't mad at me, right? Maybe I'm one of the righteous. Maybe not unrighteous. Well, Paul goes on, and in Romans 1, 29 through 31, he tells us what unrighteousness is. Being filled with all unrighteousness, what is it? Wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. There are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful.

inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, unworthy, unloving, unmerciful. Which one of these things have we not broken? How many of us could say we're not greedy, that we don't want more, that, I mean, wasn't it on display last night as we're handing out candy, full of envy? We can look at what other people have and we want that. for ourselves and we're jealous of them and we despise them because of the things that they have that we want. And we don't even, we don't have to try to be envious, right? Like we just glance over at the person next to us and oh man, they have a new phone or whatever. And instantly there's this envy. I wish I could strife. Come on, boys and girls, who hasn't fought with their sibling this week?

If you haven't, it's because you didn't talk to them, right? Malice. Deceit. Ooh. Deceit. How many of us have shaded the truth about why we did what we did, just tried to make ourselves look better, or just we flat out lie? Slander and gossip. We speak ill of others. Whether it crosses our lips or whether it's just in our mind. Inventors of evil. How many of us have... Blockers on our phone to keep inappropriate images and things off. And yet we have looked and searched ways to circumvent them. You're inventing ways to get around the thing that's sort of trying to keep you from sin. We'll think about how we can. I mean, I remember as a kid, right? You get mad at your sibling and you just think of a way that you can get under their skin. You invent.

Wicked things in order to torment your siblings. How many of us have been merciful? We could spend the whole time just looking at these, but you see what Paul's saying. This is unrighteousness. These things equal unrighteousness. And unless you can say, I haven't participated in these things, then you are categorized as unrighteous and under the wrath of God. And Paul goes on to say in Romans 2 that God is impartial. He says, I will render to each person according to his deeds. That's not good for us if we're unrighteous. Paul warns that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And then he further points out in Romans 6 that the wages of sin is death. God is the one who created this world.

Ex nihilo. What's that mean? Out of nothing. God's so truthful that when he said, let there be light, there had to be light. That when he spoke, what he spoke had to exist. He spoke it and it was there. And that's the God that we've offended. That's the God that we're at enmity with. God gives everyone what they deserve. But what we deserve is wrath and judgment. And God's law simply strengthens our guilt. It opens it up. It explains it. It makes it greater. In chapter 3 of Romans, Paul demonstrates that not one of us are righteous. God's judgment is that there are no righteous, no, not one. So do you see your problem? It's not the upcoming election. And it's not the state of your bank account.

whether you can keep your job. It's not the upcoming exam in your school. Your problem is with God, a God who is infinitely wise, unsearchably holy, unchanging, unflinchingly just, perfectly righteous, spotless, blameless, wrathful, jealous. That is the one with whom we have to do. And we, we are weak. Frail sinners whose best deeds are full of sin. Our lives are described by the list of sins that Paul said. He said, this is the unrighteous. And no honest man or woman can read through that list and think that, I'm good. So what can we do? Do we eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we'll die? Here's the thing. If God isn't real, then none of your problems matter because there's no meaning to anything.

Just do what you want. Eat, drink, and be merry because you're going to die. And when you die, it's all over. But God is real. And here's the thing. Now your problems are minuscule in comparison to the fact that you have to deal with God. Well, if you know the gospel, this is where the good news comes in, isn't it? This is where the joy comes in. God did not leave us to suffer his wrath. Instead, what? He sent Jesus to come and pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus came in the fullness of time. And he lived a perfect life that we could not live. He fulfilled all the terms and conditions of all the covenants that God had made with his people. And then he suffered on the cross. He bore the full brunt.

Of the wrath of God. He died on the cross. Christ took God's wrath on himself. And he paid all the penalty of the sin for everyone who believes in him. And then he rose from the dead. And he lives. And so I ask you. Is that you? Have you repented of your sins? And have you placed your trust in Christ? Believe God. Put your faith in him. And guess what? It will be accounted to you. as righteousness. You are saved by works, but not your works. You're saved by the work of Christ. You are guilty under the law as a lawbreaker, but Christ fulfilled all the requirements of the law and he lived a perfect and holy life. And when you put your faith in him, that righteousness of Christ is applied to you. And this is imputation.

This is double imputation. This is just amazing news for us, right? When we have faith in God, our filthy, dirty sin is removed from us. It is applied to Christ and put on him. He who knew no sin became sin. And then his righteousness is taken and put on you. That's justification. It's imputation. It's that Christ's righteousness gets put on us. And in the moment of that, we are justified, which means that God declares that you are no longer guilty. In Adam's fall, we sinned all. But in Christ's accomplished work, what he did on the cross, we who have faith and believe are no longer viewed in that light. God views us through the righteousness of Christ.

He makes a one-time legal declaration that you are just. All of that by the work of Christ, not your work. And isn't it a blessing that it's not by our work? Because aren't we all prone to wander? Justification is a one-time declaration of God that you are no longer guilty of your sin. It has been wholly and completely removed as far as the east is from the west. And you know why it's, if you go north, You go north, you go up, and you start going down. And what happens? Once you reach the pole, you start going south. And then between north and south, it's defined. But when God removes our sin as far as the east is the west, you can go east infinitely. You can go west infinitely. You can't measure the farthest of the east from the west. Now, we're not getting into sanctification tonight that much this morning. But sanctification is a continuing work.

The justification means that at the time, it has both a past and a future where God calls us and makes provision for his people in eternity past. But then at the point where we become alive and are regenerated, we're declared righteous by God. And in that declaration, that is Christ. God now sees us through the righteousness of Christ so that when you die, you go to be with him. But as we continue to live, we will continue to sin, but we will be defeating our sins and we'll be growing in holiness. That's sanctification. Sanctification is a continuing process through life until we die and are glorified. Justification is a one-time declaration of God. Now, if we're justified by God, then the question is, what is the fruit of that justification? What does it mean to be justified by God?

This is amazing. Did you hear what Romans chapter 5 verse 1 says? Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If you have faith in Jesus, you have been justified. It doesn't say you will be justified. It doesn't say you have a trial justification. It doesn't say this is a Period of testing to see if you might be justified. It says, if you have faith in Jesus, you have been justified. That's amazing. That's amazing. It's the best news you could have, except it even gets better. The next thing Paul declares is that you have peace with God.

And what could be better news than that? Think about the garden, right? Adam walked with God. God would come down to the garden and he'd walk with Adam. But when Adam sinned, God removed himself from man. Because if God were to have stayed, he would have had to destroy man. His holiness couldn't be that intimately connected in that way. So God distances himself. rather than destroy his creation. But now we are at peace with God. So the declaration Paul makes is peace with God. The grounds for our peace with God, justification. The agent of that work is Jesus Christ. And the instrument by which it comes about is the faith that God gives us. Now, I mean, isn't that too good to be true? You're waiting for a caveat, aren't you? Like, Where's the catch to this deal? There isn't one. There's no catch. This is the reality that if you have been justified by faith, then you have peace with God through Jesus. Isn't that worth rejoicing over? I mean, doesn't that make you want to sing? Doesn't that give you joy? We're reconciled with God. That means that we're no longer at enmity with God. You have peace with

God if you are a Christian. You have peace. It's not that you will have peace. You have peace. Isn't this better than simply being saved from sin? Like you ask people, what did God save you from? They say he saved me from sin. Yes. When Christ died and rose from the dead, he broke the power of sin. He broke the power of death. But what I want to tell you is it's so much more than that. We have peace with God. God is angry with the wicked every day, and he's no longer angry. Internalize that truth, and it will bring you joy and hope in everything that you go through. After all, the biggest problem has been solved, and all that's left are light and momentary afflictions. You don't believe that. I don't believe that, right?

The suffering in our lives, the pain, the losses that we go through, we don't think they're light and momentary afflictions. But that's what Paul says. And who here suffered more than Paul? Why can he say it's a light and momentary affliction? Because he has peace with God. And that makes everything else we go through endurable. And even, even dare I say, we can have joy through it. And that's where Paul goes, right? There's this progression that he gives us. We exalt in our tribulations, in the hardships, in all the pains and the difficulties of this life. We don't just endure them. He says we exalt in them. We glory in our hardships. We triumph in our hardships. How can that be? How does it make sense? Why should a Christian be stable in all unstable environments?

Why should a Christian not be driven and tossed by any adverse circumstances? It's because as a Christian, you should know that your difficulties will teach you to persevere. And in that perseverance, you are going to be refined and you are going to become a person of proven character, tested and able to withstand all because of the hope that we have. And what hope do we have? Well, our hope is in God. And God that we serve is a God who declares the end from the beginning. We know the end of the story because God tells us the end of the story. And if you are with Christ, you know that you have peace with God. That one day, God is going to send Jesus back. And when Jesus comes back, he's not coming as a babe in a manger, but he's coming with a sword.

But the sword is to destroy our enemies who are his enemies. It's not to fight against us because we have peace with God. He's coming to wipe away our tears, to rectify the wrongs, to bring justice. He's coming to bring us. To our heavenly home where we are sons and daughters of God. We are to be his bride as the church of Christ. Where we'll be in heaven and we'll worship and we'll reign. And we'll receive an inheritance. And we'll receive all the rewards promised in scripture. All the promises are yes and amen. For us who are at peace with God. These are the things we hope for. The fulfillment of every promise that God has made to us.

And the reason our hope is so sure, what is the guarantee, right? Because hope has to have a solid basis or it's a fool's hope. What is the anchor in which this hope and this peace rests? It's rooted in the death and resurrection of Christ. Notice what Paul says. He makes an argument from the lesser to the greater. He says, In Romans 5.8, but God demonstrates his own love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. If Christ died for you while you were unloving and in hatred and in sin, yet he died for you, how much more can we put our trust in the promises that he's made to us who are no longer guilty of our sin but justified in Christ? Of course, he'll fulfill his promises he made to us. Think about you as a parent.

When someone brings your kid or you have to go pick up your kid and they're covered and their diaper blew out and they puked and they're disgusting. And yet you love them and you pick them up and you clean them up. That's what God did for us. Now we're viewed by God and the righteousness of Christ. We no longer look like that. So that when we die, we go to be with him. But while we were gross and disgusting, the kind of thing that only a parent can love, that's when God dealt with you and loved you. So do you know the joy and the peace that I've been describing to you? Or do you fear, feel the fear of this world? Perhaps you don't feel the joy and happiness of being at peace with God because you have a misplaced hope and a counterfeit peace. And this is where we need to examine ourselves and think.

If I have peace with God, and yet I am filled with fear and anxiety, then we should ask ourselves, what is our trust and our hope in? Have you put your trust in your own strength or your own goodness? How much better you are than all those people out there? Are you putting your trust in your bank account? Well, I know there's all these things. There's all these problems out there. But if I save enough, I'll be able to float it out. We'll be fine. Is your trust in men and in politics and in our government, the solutions that we need today are if we can just elect the right people. Is our trust being put in outward symbols? Is your faith in the fact that you were baptized? I take the Lord's Supper. I dress really nice. I homeschool my kids, right? I put them in private education.

We could go on and on and on and name all these things that we think like, if I just do the right things and check the right boxes, there's no peace and joy found in putting our trust outside of Christ and his finished work. If we think that we've found the form, the magic formula, that if we do this, then our children will be safe. There will be no hope. There will be cost driven. True hope is in the work of Christ. It can only be found in the satisfaction which Christ wrought by his death on the cross. Nothing else can really bring us hope because nothing else is good enough or stable enough or perfect enough to satisfy God. We inherently know that none of those things are good enough to reconcile us to God. And so if we think about counterfeit peace, The devil has no new things, right? What he does is he manipulates and corrupts things, the truth of God. And you may have peace and think, oh, I'm at peace with God. But I want you to examine and think, you have a counterfeit peace if your peace with God is because you have an intellectual assent to his word. You have a form of godliness, but no power. If you look real good on the outside, but there is no obedience.

In your life to the word of God. If you're not overcoming your sins. If your sins define you. Then you have a counterfeit peace. It's not a true peace. Because someone who's actually at peace with God. Does the things of God. Out of love for God. There's power in it. You have a false peace. If you're resting on your own faith. See we can almost turn. people often will turn faith into a kind of work. Like the one thing you need to do is believe. And we just turn it into this work. Like, well, I sinned again, so I just didn't have enough faith. So I just need to create more faith in myself or I need to get baptized again or all these different things. And we like make faith as if it's some work that we do that we have to scrounge up within us. Faith is a gift of God. Don't rest in that. We rest in the work of Christ.

Christ is who brings us reconciliation and peace with God. And here's another thing. You have counterfeit peace if your peace isn't too peaceful. What do I mean? Well, when I started out and I read to you those sins that Paul says is the unrighteous, there ought to be something in you that says, uh-oh, uh-oh, that describes me still. And a Christian, is going to want to hear the part about justification. Be like, yes, that describes me. Man, I need Jesus. And if when the preacher preaches and he talks about sin and you don't feel the conviction, then you better beware. Maybe Satan has lulled you to sleep and you think you're at peace with God and you're not. The gospel, the law, the danger that we have with God ought to always make us feel a little bit uncomfortable.

God's wrath against sin should make us uncomfortable. The description of our sin and depravity and of our hearts ought to drive us to God. We need to hear the part about the justification to calm our spirits to help us remember that we do have peace with God. You have a counterfeit peace if all you're interested in, though, is forgiveness. If all you want is you hear the terror of God's wrath and you just want fire insurance, something to keep you out of hell, but it doesn't go further than that, then you have a false peace because God is concerned about righteousness. Therefore, we ought to be concerned about righteousness too. Someone who has a false peace takes sin too lightly and he heals himself too lightly. It's the thing that bothers us about our kids sometimes, right? Where you say they sin against their sibling and you confront them and they're like, oh, I'm sorry, forgive me, please. And you're like, ugh.

There is no sorrow over sin. Don't heal yourself too lightly. It's not that we do penance, but we realize that our sin is an offense against God. And that's why it's so amazing that in Christ's justification of us, that we have peace with God because it's such an offense to God. But it's such an offense that we don't lightly pass over our sins as if they're no big deal. There's such a big deal. The only way to solve the problem was the death of Christ, God's own son. How dare we take sin lightly if that's the case? Don't believe in this cheap grace that, well, God will forgive it. It's not a big deal. It is a big deal. Christ had to die. So don't heal yourself lightly. Here's the thing. True peace with God is not glib. It's not lighthearted because someone who has true peace with God has seen hell.

and they know what they've been saved from, and it's sobering. But you know what else? It's always filled with wonder and amazement and joy because we have peace with God. Why do we smile? We should smile. Someone who knows they have peace with God is humble. They're amazed that God would save them. They don't stand in pride looking at other people and think they're better than them. They're like, But for the grace of God, there went I. And it's amazing that God would reach down in my filth and sin and love me and pull me out of it. And we don't ever quite understand why, because there was nothing in us that should attract God to us. So we're poor in spirit, and we know that all we owe is to God. And we don't put off repentance. We repent as soon as we see our sin.

Because we don't want anything to disfellowship us with God. Right? We want to draw near to God. We want God to draw near to us. And that won't happen if we're pursuing sin. And so we're quick to repent. And so I say to you, brothers and sisters, that if you have faith in God, then you are justified. And having been justified, you are at peace with God. And that ought to calm your soul. Calm your heart. Yes, we have trials. Yes, our lives are often tumultuous. But these are light and momentary afflictions compared to the peace that we have with God and the glory that is to come. Light and momentary. And they'll only be light and momentary to our eyes if we understand the greatness of the peace that we have.

If you are a Christian, if you have faith that you have with God, have hope because your joy and your standing before God is secured by Jesus Christ. It is rooted in his work, not in your work. It is guaranteed. It is not a futile hope. It is a guaranteed hope. This is real. This is true. Stop finding and seeking hope in your achievements. in your success at school, in politics, in your work. Look to Christ. And I tell you that if you find your hope and your peace in him, then you'll be able to go through all the difficulties and challenges of this life with joy. And it won't make sense to anyone else because they don't have faith.

But faith allows us to have joy in all circumstances. And hope. You want to know why I smile? Why I have happiness in my heart? This is why. I'm forgiven. I have peace with God. And I'm here declaring to you today that you can as well. It's not a secret. And if you have that, then go forth and tell everyone you know. Because this is good news. Let's pray.