Sermon Tone Analysis

Alive In the Here and Now, and the Hereafter

Romans Part 13—5:1-11

When I was on Guam many moons ago, I shared Christ with all who would listen, and with some who didn’t!

One day I met a guy named Bill.

Now, Bill was no ordinary guy.

He had a strong desire for all things spiritual, only not in the Christian sense of the word.

Bill was into yoga—and when he wasn’t actually on duty, he would sit in his room and meditate—up to 8 hours a day.

Praise the Lord that, for awhile at least, Bill turned his heart to Jesus and stopped his yoga meditation.

I’ve also heard stories, and maybe you have, too, where people have demon-assisted, out-of-the-body experiences.

Stories of those who claim to have gone to heaven, or hell, and back, are wildly popular.

And how many of us have ever asked, “Where is the power of God today?

I don’t see miracles like I read about in the gospels or the book of Acts.”

And to add just a bit more to the mix, how did Jesus define eternal life?

Knowing the invisible God in an ongoing, right now relationship.

So what is it in us that longs for a sense of mystery, hope, and fear as it has sometimes been described?

This desire to have a mystical connection with God? We’ve all heard: “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”.

Since the days of Adam and Eve, mankind has always had a longing to get back to the Garden.

That’s how religions are created.

Today, we’re going to see in these first 11 verses of Romans 5 some fantastic things about true life in the here and now, and the hereafter.

And we will see that a mystical experience with God is not only possible, but is the norm for the true Christian.

Obviously it’s by faith, but what did Paul tell us?

We walk by faith and not by sight.

So again, Romans 5:1-11.

In vv.

1-5 we’re going to talk about God’s hope He’s given to us.

In vv 6-8 we’re going to see the indescribable love of God, as Paul attempts to describe it.

Finally, in vv 9-11, we’ll take a look at the absolute assurance we can have in God’s salvation.

So let’s read Romans 5:1-5: “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.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

“Therefore” . . .

what?

To set the stage we need to go back into chapter 4 before we move on to these verses in Romans 5.

It was all about Father Abraham having many sons and daughters.

Sons and daughters by faith— because he believed the God of the impossible.

Now, when I say that, I’m referring to the impossible promises that He made to Abraham.

And because Abraham believed the God of the impossible promise, God credited it to Abraham as righteousness.

It’s the same with us.

Remember how in the first several chapters of this letter Paul, in painful, awful detail told us who we all were before a good and holy God.

He told us that because of our sin we were storing up wrath for the day of wrath.

He told us that no one is righteous.

No one naturally seeks after God.

But we tell ourselves and each other a big lie, don’t we?

That we are good people.

And to say anything else is an insult.

For example, every political season automatically carries with it the biggest complaint by us the voters: attack ads—where one candidate calls his or her opponent all kinds of bad names.

They are so mean to each other!

And we don’t like it.

So, what makes the gospel such good news?

Because the news is not all good.

But it is real news.

The gospel begins with bad news.

It tells us that we are wicked.

Ungodly.

The God who loves us is holy.

And we are evil.

And He is committed to take care of evil wherever He finds it.

Of course, many down through the years, and even here today have agreed with God’s assessment of ourselves.

And we have come to the conclusion that it’s impossible for anybody to be naturally righteous before God.

We realize how helpless we are, that we need to be rescued from sin because we can’t save ourselves.

That’s the set up, for it’s then and only then we’re ready to hear God’s remedy, which is truly good news.

For in Christ, the impossible becomes reality.

In Christ, the ungodly is made godly.

Wicked people are made holy.

Those who deserve to die forever are pardoned forever.

And when a person puts their faith in the God of the impossible promise, and repents from their sin, they are given an impossible status—being made right before the holy God of the universe!

And that impossible status is called justification.

We are justified by faith.

Now we need to remind ourselves about what faith is.

Because we are not allowed to use this word any way we’d like, but we must use it the way the Scripture intends for it to be used.

Romans 3:21–22: “But now 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.”

Then skip down 4 verses to 26.

In declaring how God can be righteous to justify the sinner we find these words: “It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

In both of these passages we don’t see faith in faith.

We don’t see faith in God in a general way.

But what do we see?

Faith.

In.

Jesus.

Back to Romans 5:1.

Having been made righteous by faith—let’s supply the object—in Jesus, we have peace with God.

And this peace is exclusive, just like justification.

Do you realize that God’s peace isn’t available to everybody?

God’s peace, according to this Scripture, is only given to those who have been made right with Him, who have been justified.

A little later in this passage Paul will remind us that we were enemies of God—like every other person on the planet.

But many of us here understood our condition before Him, and as one person put it, we laid down our arms and ran to His.

And wonder of wonders, there’s now peace between God and us.

The rest of v. 1 and 2 are packed with incredible truth!

Besides receiving His peace, there are two other realities that are true of us whom God has justified.

The first is that we have access by faith—again, in Jesus—into a literal ongoing experience of His grace in which we are now standing and will continue to stand.

At the beginning of the message I mentioned our universal desire for a mystical union with God.

Our continual standing in grace is the satisfaction of that longing.

If you’ve ever wanted a direct, spiritual connection to God, standing in His grace is it!

Because God made us right with Him by faith in Christ, what’s true of us is a continual spiritual connection with Him.

“What about miracles?”

we ask.

“What about signs and wonders or raising people from the dead?”

Let’s talk about that.

Miracles: God has accepted us and will not reject us.

Signs and wonders: We have the spirit of God living inside us: Leading us.