(Romans) Peace With God

Well, let's open up to Romans chapter 4 and we're going to pick up in verse 23. We look at Romans 4 23 through chapter 5 verse 2. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have saved us.

Lord, that you have brought us into a relationship with you. Lord, that we can know you. What an amazing thing to know the true God, the living God, the the maker of heaven and earth.

And Lord, that's all been accomplished through what Jesus did on the cross. And so tonight, Lord, may we once again just be assisted by the Spirit in understanding the greatness of our salvation and the implications of it. So Lord, minister to us by your Holy Spirit tonight and bless, Lord, everything that happens here among us, we pray.

And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Verse 23, chapter 4. Now it was not written for Abraham's sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us it shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. In these verses, Paul brings to a conclusion his teaching on justification by faith. Now you remember he built his case upon what had been written about Abraham back in the 15th chapter of Genesis in the 6th verse, where there we read, and he believed in the Lord and the Lord accounted it to him for righteousness sake.

So Paul concludes by saying, now it was not written for Abraham's sake alone. It's an important principle to remember. The things that were written before, Paul tells us later on in this epistle, he says, they were written for our learning that we, through the patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.

In another place, 1st Corinthians chapter 10, Paul says something similar. He rehearses some of the history of Israel, and he says, these things were written as examples to us that we would learn from their experiences. And so that's something that we need to really lay hold of.

You know, when we're reading the scriptures, we're not simply reading about things that happened to people thousands of years ago. We are reading about how God works in the lives of people all throughout history. That's why God wrote this down.

You know, think about that for a moment. When you think of the scriptures, especially the Old Testament, because the Old Testament is full of stories about people. And of course, we do have a little bit of that in the New Testament with the Gospels, obviously, with the acts of the apostles, we have that.

But think about all the different people that are written about in scripture. And maybe at times you've wondered, well, you know, why are these people in here? Why are we being told this about these people? We're being told these things because God is wanting us to see over and over again from every conceivable angle, how things work, how he works in people's lives, how his word works itself into the lives of people. And, you know, what it means to follow God and love God and serve God and the blessing of that and the reward of that.

And also the consequences of not doing that, of rebelling against God and disobeying him and things like that. So when we're reading the scriptures, what we're really doing is we're getting an insight and an understanding into how God works. And it's so important to remember that it's not just that God did these things back then.

He does these kinds of things today and we can expect. And that's the, you know, to some degree, that's the thing that makes all the difference in the world. Do you expect God to work in your life? Do you believe that he's actively involved in your life? Do you believe he has a plan? Do you believe he has a purpose? Do you believe he has a will? Do you believe he has a standard by which you're to live? If you believe that.

Truly, that's going to radically alter your whole human experience here. If you don't believe it, then why even bother coming to church? Why bother, you know, going through the motions of religion? If you don't really believe it, you might as well just forget it. And we want to be living this stuff out.

And that's what this whole Christian life is all about. It's all about an experience with God. A friend of mine who is, he's pastoring in Britain as well.

We worked together when I was in London and he's shared his testimony many times in conversation. And I've heard him say over and over again how he came to know Christ. He was, you know, more or less a skeptical person and he'd heard about people being Christians and knew about church and things of that nature, but he really didn't have any interest at all in any of that, you know, kind of an intellectual guy.

And he said one night somebody invited him to a Bible study and he thought, Oh, right. A Bible study. Great.

You know, what in the world would I want to go to something like that for? And he, you know, had all of these things in his head, all of these reasons why this was a really bad idea and a really dumb thing, but he felt sort of obligated. He just felt like, Oh, I've got to go. So reluctantly he went to this Bible study.

He said he sat down and he began to listen. And he said, as he began to listen, something struck him that he'd never even conceived of before. He, he, he listened to the guy teaching and he said, all he knew is that guy knew God.

That guy knew God. It was obvious that this guy, he knows God. He knows he's not just giving me bits of information, intellectual stimulation, or, you know, religious rhetoric or, or rules or whatever.

This guy knows God. And he said before the whole thing was over, he wanted to know God like that guy knew God. And he got saved that night.

That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about the reality of knowing God. You know, sometimes people find out that you're a Christian and then they find out that you go to church more than once a week.

And they just can't understand that, you know, they, Oh, and you know, they'll say things like, Oh man, what a drag. You mean they make you go to church? Like you have to go on Thursday night. Oh, well, poor guy.

No, we don't have to go. We want to go. We come willingly because we want to have that corporate experience of God at work in our lives.

And so remember that Paul says it right here. These things were not written simply for Abraham's sake. They were written for our benefit.

They were written so that we can know how God justifies a man. So Abraham was a living illustration of how a man is made right with God. That that's what he was.

God said, okay, I want to show everybody how a person gets right with me, how a person gets into a relationship with me. And I'm going to take this man, Abraham, and I'm going to illustrate it through his life. Now, our acceptance with God is based upon an imputed righteousness.

Notice what it says here. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him, but also for us, it shall be imputed. Now we need to understand that it's an imputed righteousness.

It's not an intrinsic righteousness. Now the difference between the two is intrinsic is something that you possess. You see our justification, our declaration of righteousness before God is not based upon an intrinsic righteousness.

It's not based upon me actually being righteous because the fact of the matter is I'm unrighteous, but it's based upon an imputed righteousness. God puts the righteousness to my account and that's what gives me a right standing before him. That's what causes me to be declared to be righteous.

Now to impute means to to reckon, to deem, to pass to one's account. So if we were to look at all of our lives in banking terms or maybe from a financial standpoint or something, on every one of our lives, there is the stamp of spiritual bankruptcy. There's nothing in the spiritual account.

We've got nothing there. There's no intrinsic spiritual righteousness to us. We're bankrupt.

So here's what God does. God comes along and as we put faith in Jesus Christ, he puts righteousness into our account. Something that's not there, he places it in there through his grace.

You see that's what Paul's talking about. And we need to understand that because practically we can flounder and we can live in condemnation because we quite often know by experience that we're not righteous, don't we? We know by experience that we're spiritually bankrupt even though we've been Christians maybe for a long period of time. Do you ever marvel at some of the stuff that goes through your head? Some of it is obviously satanic and we can be certain of that.

Satan throws the fiery darts our way. But there are other times when I wish it was Satan. I love to blame it on him, but I have to take responsibility.

This is really me. This is just my rotten attitude or this is my perverse attitude or something like that. And you look at that and you're tempted to think, well, am I even really saved? How could I be saved and have these thoughts or these feelings or these attitudes? Well, you see, if salvation was based upon intrinsic righteousness, then you wouldn't be saved.

Because obviously there is no intrinsic righteousness. But it's not based on that. It's based on the imputed righteousness.

You see, God puts the righteousness of Jesus Christ upon your account. And when he sees you, he sees Christ. Here's the amazing thing.

This is really a mind blower to me. You cannot become more righteous than you were the moment you received Christ from the positional standpoint. You see, we have to understand salvation from a few different perspectives.

There is my position and then there is my practical experience. The moment I believe in Jesus Christ truly, the moment I put my faith in him as my Lord and Savior, I am declared to be righteous at that instant. And that righteousness could never be improved upon.

There's no possibility of improving upon it because it's an absolutely perfect righteousness. It's the righteousness of Christ. And that's how God sees me.

He sees me in Christ. That's why Paul said in Ephesians 1, 6, that we have been made accepted in the beloved. My acceptance with God is because I'm in Christ.

And literally, when God sees me, he doesn't see me in my sin. He doesn't see me in my spiritually bankrupt condition. He sees me in Jesus and he sees me perfectly righteous.

Now, from the practical standpoint, though, as we look at one another, we don't necessarily see the same thing God sees. I look at you, you look at me, and we can find all kinds of flaws. We can find faults and inconsistencies and things like that.

Now, those are the things that God is working on throughout our lifetimes. God is working out what he has placed in us. Last week, somebody asked me after the study about the passage in Philippians, you know, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. But what Paul's talking about there, he doesn't say work for your own salvation or work for your own salvation. He says work out.

The implication is it's in there. God has placed it in there. Now you're to bring it out into public view.

And so that's what's happening on a practical level. We're as righteous as we will be from the heavenly standpoint. But from the earthly standpoint, that righteousness needs to work itself into our lives in a practical sense and show itself more and more and more as we grow in the faith.

So remember that our acceptance with God is based on an imputed righteousness, not on an intrinsic righteousness. Now, here in these verses, Paul tells us, first of all, the father's role in our justification. And he says that righteousness is imputed to us by the father.

There sometimes is a misconception among people that somehow God the father is maybe a bit reluctant in regard to loving us or blessing us. And it's it's only because of Jesus that he even puts up with us, considers us, gives us a time of day. And that is a distorted perspective, because, of course, God's the one who God the father is the initiator of salvation.

Jesus came to save us in fulfillment of God's will for him to do so. So it's not like God the father is reluctant in regard to his blessing us or loving us. He's the one who initiated the whole possibility as well as reality of salvation.

So the father is the one who imputes righteousness to us. He is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. And Paul tells us that he's also the one who delivered Jesus up for us.

Jesus was delivered up for our offenses. He was delivered up by who? He was delivered up by the father. The father was the one who was doing this.

Remember, Jesus, at one point he said, he said, no one takes my life from me. He said, I'm laying down my life. This was all in accordance with the will of God.

And there are, of course, many places in scripture that remind us of that. But then we also look at the reasons for the death of Christ. And here, Paul tells us that he was delivered up because of our offenses.

Jesus was dying because of what we did. He, we understand and know that I think he's certainly wasn't dying for anything he did. He was without sin, but he was delivered up because of our offenses, because the things that we have done, the sins that we've committed, the life of rebellion that we have led has brought an eternal death sentence upon us.

And God is not a man. He has no inequality in him, no injustice in him. He can't simply, as we pointed out in the past, he can't just say, oh, well, let's not worry about that.

If he were to do that, then of course he couldn't be said to be perfectly just. And then he couldn't be God in the sense that we know God from the scriptures. So it was our offenses.

Jesus was being delivered up for our offenses, but he was also raised up because of our justification. So the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the public declaration of our justification. Jesus offered himself up as a sacrifice for our sins.

How do we know that that offering was acceptable? We know because God raised him from the dead. That's how we know the offering was acceptable. That's how we know the price was paid.

Had Jesus offered himself up and remained dead, then of course we would not have any basis for salvation. We would not have any confidence or assurance whatsoever that what Jesus did accomplished anything. I mean, he'd said that he was going to do this.

He was going to lay down his life and he was going to offer himself for the sins of the world. Had he died and remained dead, nobody would have known whether or not that would have actually happened. So it was the resurrection of Christ that brought forth the evidence to us that his sacrifice was accepted by the father.

And so this has resulted in some amazingly wonderful things. And that's what Paul says there here in chapter five, verse one, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So these are some of the results of justification by faith.

And now Paul is going to go on and he's going to describe for us the results of having been justified by faith. He's now finished his argument. He's laid out his case.

He's established this as a fact. Man is justified by grace through faith alone in Christ Jesus. And now these are the results of that justification.

Peace with God, access to grace and the hope of a future glory. So notice the first thing. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

The fact that we have peace with God now implies what? That we were formerly in a state of hostility in regard to God. We were previously God's enemies. Paul tells us that in Colossians, he said that you were alienated.

You were enemies in your mind by wicked works in later on in Romans. He says those he talks about the flesh being at enmity against God and it cannot be subject even to the law of God. And then, of course, James tells us that friendship with the world is enmity against God.

This is our previous condition, and this is the condition of everybody in the world today outside of Christ. They are not merely people who are, you know, sort of passively sinners and not totally responsible for their actions and that sort of a thing. They're active rebels and enemies against God.

That's where we're at by nature. We are God's enemies. This is this is this is heavy stuff in our day and age that we're living in that the church has been so polluted by psychology that you talk to people today about their sin and they talk about it as though it's almost like they're not really responsible for it or they haven't really, you know, it's not an active choice on their part.

They talk like victims. I'm a victim of this sort of a thing. Well, this sort of a thing just came upon me.

You know, well, I've been hurt over here and and there's a totally wrong view of sin and the state of a sinful person. The Bible makes it clear. We are, while in our sin and actively rebelling against God, we are his enemies.

It's not that we're victims. We are his enemies. And, of course, there's plenty of examples in scripture of what God will ultimately do to his enemies.

He will destroy them. He said to Jesus, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord is going to bring a judgment and we, for our own sakes and for the sakes of other people and for the sake of the body of Christ at large, we need to get back to the reality of what sin is.

It's nothing less than rebellion against God. It's nothing less than an example of the enmity that exists between us and God. You know, the word enmity refers to intense hostility against enemies or between enemies.

So that's the position. It's a position of intense hostility. And it's a position that will bring the judgment of God.

God will put down his enemies ultimately. And we have to really be on our guard. We want to make sure that we understand the Christian faith from what the Bible says.

You know, I talk to people and they're doing things that are contrary to scripture. And they will often say, well, you know, I just feel like the Lord has given me, you know, I prayed about it and I just felt that the Lord was saying that, you know, this is the direction I should go in. It's a direction completely contrary from what he's written in his word.

I was talking to somebody and they told me that a pastor was counseling them and a pastor said, well, you know, you could do this. This is an option. And I responded to them.

I said, that pastor was wrong. They shouldn't have told you that because the Bible says you can't do that. So on what authority did the pastor tell you, you could do it because he felt sorry for you because he felt like, well, gosh, if I was in your position, I would probably want to do the same thing.

And honestly, guys, that's the kind of stuff that's happening today. You see it all the time. And we're living in a church environment where people don't want to deal with sin.

They don't want to call it for what it is. And I see it a lot of times, even amongst leaders. There's a real reluctance to come down on sin because after all, I don't know what if I get into that sin later, you know, I don't want it to come down too hard on me.

And we see times where, you know, there's pastors who are in sin. And it's obvious that they should be dealt with, but some other guys come along and say, well, you know, we need to be merciful and we don't want to be too hard and all that. And quite honestly, sometimes it's, well, you know, maybe that'll happen.

And I'll want guys to be behind me and help me to stay in my position and all that. And it's a really, it's a bad thing that's we're in sin. We're not just off in this little, well, you know, just sort of a digression here.

I've had so many people tell me this. I can't even number the people that told me this. Yeah.

You know, I know I'm in rebellion right now. Uh, yeah, well, I know I'm in sin, but you know, I really love the Lord and the Lord knows that deep in my heart, I really love him. I can't tell you how many people have told me that.

Well, you know what? That's not true because Jesus said, this is how I know you love me. If you love me, keep my commandments. He that keeps my commandments is he that loves me.

He that does not love me does not keep my commandments. It's, it's real clear with the Lord. So when a person says, well, you know, I know that this isn't, but Hey, I, I understand that, uh, God is full of grace and I'll never forget.

I was counseling, uh, a couple of one time and this guy sat across from me and he told me, he said, you know, he was living with this gal. They were fornicating. They had no intention of being married, but he had no intention of marrying her.

And he told me, he said, you know, I am closer to God than I've ever been. I said, well, I hate to see where you come from. If you're closer to God than you've ever been, cause you're still miles from him right now.

But he got so angry with me, you know, pastoring there, there are some hazards in the ministry. I've had a few guys want to punch me out at times, but he was so, he just was ballistic, you know, he's gritting his teeth. His face is red.

And how dare you say that to me, but people fall into these deceptions to be living in sin is to be at enmity with God. You're in a place of hostility against him. And that will bring judgment.

And that is of course, what Paul has been talking about all the way up to this point. That's why Jesus came. So we would not have to do what experience the wrath of God.

Remember chapter one, verse 18, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because the only other alternative is the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. What motivated Paul to preach the gospel was he knew people were going to go to hell.

And I honestly think today that we have lost an understanding of that in the modern church. We have lost an understanding of the reality of hell. Hell is a real place.

People go there. And today we're so wishy-washy on that subject. Some people have even come to a place of, of course, there's many people who deny that there is even a hell.

And there are others, little more evangelical who will sort of try to lessen the blow by saying, well, you know, there is a hell, but of course it's not an eternal place of torment. It's just a temporary situation. And then you go out of existence.

This is known as annihilationism. You just annihilated at some point, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, and they shall be tormented day and night forever.

It's a forever situation. And I, for myself, I really do pray Lord, I pray that that reality would, would hit me in a more powerful way that it would motivate me to not only live a holy life, but it will motivate me to preach the gospel as well. And to share God's word with people.

But that's the negative side of it. The positive side is, although we were enemies with God through what Jesus did in our embracing of that, we have now peace with God. We have peace with God, the war's over.

And now there's, there's this peace that exists between us. And because we have peace with God, we experienced then the peace of God. Oh, you know how it is before you're, before you were saved, you're in a state of turmoil.

The Bible says that the wicked are like the sea and the waves being tossed. And that's, that's how life is when we're rebelling against God, the way of the transgressor is hard and life is hard and it's tumultuous. And then we come to know the Lord.

And suddenly there's this peace that comes, that peace comes upon us because we now have peace with God. So we have peace with God. And then secondly, we have access by faith into this grace.

Oh, here's a real wonderful, wonderful thing. We have access by faith into this grace of God. We have an available to us, an endless supply of God's grace.

It never runs out. It doesn't run dry. It can't be used up.

You know, it's not like the guy at the pool there in Bethesda. You remember he was there, he'd been there 38 years. And every time the water stirred up, the first person in the pool would be healed of their infirmity.

This poor guy could never make it into the pool. There wasn't enough of a supply. It only one person, whoever was in first, they got the healing and everybody else had to sit and wait until the next time the water stirred.

That's not what we've got. You're never going to come to God and he's going to say, oh, we've run out of grace. I'm sorry.

Those guys got here before you and they used it all up. No, it's an endless supply of grace. And I can come over and over and over and over again.

And when I come, I find that God is there with his grace for me. You know, as often as I fail and come back with a genuine broken heart and a desire to change, God is right there to meet me with his grace. We have access into this grace, but the access of course comes to us through Christ.

You can't access the grace of God apart from Jesus Christ. There is no access to it. There's no possibility of tapping into that supply of grace apart from Jesus.

He's the fountain of grace. Anybody trying to come to God or be accepted by God apart from coming through Christ, it's an impossibility because the fountain of grace is Christ himself. And then he goes on and he says that we rejoice.

We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God because we have been justified by grace through faith. We can rejoice confidently in the glory of God.

This is a way of referring to heaven. This is a way of referring to that glorified state. You see, this is the wonderful thing that occurs when you receive God's salvation by putting your faith in Jesus Christ.

It gives you a confidence in heaven. You know, you're going to go to heaven. Do you know how many people in the world today are religious people, devoutly religious people in many cases, but of course, none of them have the confidence that they're going to go to heaven.

They have to do all kinds of things in hope that somehow it's all going to work out in the end and they're finally going to make it like those tens of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims that make their way to Mecca every year. You probably heard last week about that disastrous situation where 345 people were trampled as the pilgrims were running toward those pillars to cast the stones at these three pillars. The pillars are representative of the devil and in throwing the stones at the pillars, this is a way to alleviate their sin.

There's the hope of purging of their sin through this activity. And yet, that's all it is. It's just, well, I hope my sins have been purged.

You know, an interesting thing about Islam and the Quran is that in Islam, there is no guarantee of salvation. Even Muhammad himself at the end of his life, he said he did not know whether or not he would go into paradise. That's bleak.

But that's true with every religion in the world. That's why those people are making those pilgrimages. That's why the Hindus do the insane things they do.

And that's why the Buddhists do the things that they do. And all the different groups of people going through all of these gyrations, all of these different activities, what are they all trying to do? They're all hoping to somehow get a place in heaven. But it's all to no avail.

Because the only way to get a place in heaven is through Jesus. And it's by simply receiving what he did. And that's what Paul is talking about here.

We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We have this confidence that I'm going to heaven. Man, it's such a wonderful thing to have that confidence, isn't it? To know that that question is settled.

The question of my eternal destiny is settled. I remember before I was a Christian, when I was still involved in religion as a Roman Catholic, and I remember coming out of a real sinful lifestyle and then realizing that somehow I needed to try to get right with God. Growing up in Catholicism, going back to Catholicism, I started to go through all of the ritual that I had grown up with in the church.

So I went back to confession, and I was going to church as often as I could, and I was saying the rosary, and I was doing all of these things. I remember I would get up two mornings a week, and I would walk a couple miles to the church. And after walking a couple miles to the church, I would get on my knees and say several prayers and all of that.

And then I would go off to work. I'd do it before work, and then I'd walk home two days a week. I actually was working at a place near the church that I went to.

And you know, I honestly thought that, okay, this is helping. This is helping with my ultimate place in heaven because, hey, God sees, look, I'm getting up, God, look what I'm doing. I'm serious about this.

I'm walking. I'm not taking the bus. I'm not driving my car.

I'm walking to the church. You know what I thought? I honestly was thinking that I was somehow purging my sin by doing that. And then by kneeling down, I wasn't sitting down praying, I was kneeling down praying.

This was hurting my knees. But I felt like, man, this is all helping. But you know, at night when I'd lie down in bed, I still had no guarantee I was going to heaven.

I hoped I was. I thought maybe I had a better chance than my roommate because he wasn't doing any of the stuff I was doing. But I had no guarantee that that was the case.

And of course, the reality was it wasn't. It wasn't doing anything. It was all my vain attempt.

But the wonderful gospel is that Jesus paid it all. He did it all. And I just come and enter in by faith to what he did.

And then heaven is mine. I have a guaranteed spot in heaven, not because of who I am or what I've done, but because of who Jesus is and what he did. And I've just simply believed it.

You know, sometimes when you tell a person that you're going to heaven, they'll say, well, you're pretty prideful. Think you're going to heaven. I wish I thought I was going to heaven, but I'm more humble than you.

So and you know, they are right. If I thought I was going to heaven because I was such a good person, then that would be the height of pride. I'm not going to heaven because I'm a pastor.

I'm not going to heaven because I teach the Bible. I'm not going to heaven because I've led people to Jesus Christ or anything like that. I'm going to heaven because of what Jesus did.

And I believed it. And that's the way anybody's going to have. And that's the way everybody in heaven will have gotten there because they put their faith in what Jesus Christ did.

And so we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not just that, you know, I'm going to go to heaven, but just the fact that it, it's a reality. Heaven is there.

And I'm going to live there in that kingdom of God eternally. And so having been justified by faith, past tense, having been justified, Paul will say later in the chapter, he will say those whom he justified, he also glorified those who he saved. He took to heaven.

That's what he's saying. You know, there's a controversy, a debate as to whether you can be saved and then, you know, lose your salvation somewhere along the road to heaven. I don't think so.

Whom he justified, he glorified. Paul looks at it all as already done, but glorified is heaven. It's the eternal state.

And he's writing to people that it hasn't happened to yet, but he writes as though it did happen because the two are connected. If you're justified, then God's promises, you will be glorified. Somebody says, but I've seen people that lost their salvation.

They were in church for years. They were even in the ministry and now they don't even believe in God. Do you know that there have been always, and there are still to this very day, there are men in pulpits preaching the Bible who are not saved.

I've heard the testimonies of guys who have been in ministry for 20, 30 years. And one day they found out they were never even saved in the first place. Thank God they've gotten saved.

But they got, they got 30 years behind them of being in church, church leadership, pastor, deacon, elder, whatever. But by their own omission, I wasn't saved. You see, you can go through the motions.

You can be in church. You can be involved. You can be doing all kinds of things.

You could be, you know, serving in some capacity and you've got some outward sort of things that, well, people look on and say, well, he must be saved. Well, he's down at the church and he's doing that, but not necessarily because it goes further than that. It goes deeper than that.

It's something deep in the heart where you connect with God. And that happens when you say, Lord, I am a sinner. And I know I deserve to be damned, but I thank you for your grace.

And I receive it. I receive that forgiveness of sin. And as you're doing that, there's of course, along with that, a turning away from that sin.

I think that's probably the huge missing ingredient in so much evangelism or even what we call conversion experiences today. The missing ingredient is repentance. And lots of people actually, you know, will say that I'm a Christian, but they've never had the repentance part work itself out in their lives.

In other words, they've never turned away from sin. They might've started coming to church. They might've gotten involved in a group here or there or whatever, but they've never turned away from sin.

When a person comes to Christ in coming to Christ, truly there is in that very act of turning away from sin because our lives apart from Christ, if you were to paint a picture of it, it's a picture of me walking away from God into sin. So repentance is turning away from the wrong direction that I'm walking in, turning my back on sin and coming to Christ. And those who do that are those who are justified.

And those who are justified will be glorified. God will get you the rest of the way. He'll get you to heaven.

He guarantees that. And so there are other benefits and blessings that come from our justification by faith. And we'll go ahead and we'll look at those in the next study.

But oh, thank God that there's peace with God now. That war is over. That tension is gone.

And now I've got peace with God and I've got the peace of God. And when I stumble, when I fall, there's that endless supply of grace. It's there for me.

When I go to bed at night, I just think, oh, Lord, I thank you that I'm going to heaven. I thank you that there's a place for me in your kingdom. It's all because of Jesus.

Lord, we thank you that you did this for us, that you were delivered up for our offenses. Lord, you offered yourself up. You went to that cross, not for your offenses because you had none, but for our offenses.

Lord, you endured the cross. You despised the shame. You died.

And Lord, you were placed in a tomb, but you broke the power of death because it wasn't possible that you could be held by it. And Lord, you purchased our redemption. And how we thank you that we're going to heaven.

Lord, that there is a place waiting for us, that you've prepared for us. And Lord, we give you glory that you've done it. And Lord, may we in response to this, live for you truly, love you truly.

Lord, follow hard after you in these days. Help us, Lord, not to be dabbling in any sin willingly. Lord, help us to walk in truth and in light and in the victory that you provided for us through your death and resurrection.

And Lord, we know tonight that there are some that are walking in darkness, turned back into sin. Lord, we know that their hearts have become hard and we know that they've come under a delusion and they're thinking that everything's okay. But Lord, we pray that your spirit would strive with them.

We pray that you break through that they might turn from their sin and get right with you. Guard us, Lord. Keep us.

Keep us by your grace. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.