This passage that I’ve chosen just for today would have been good on a weekend when we remember D-Day and our military and some of those things because some of the expressions that are used here in this passage fit that very much. Remember also our teenagers today and tomorrow. They’re ministering in a church out in the east of Colorado.
Brother Aaron is preaching today and the kids will be singing giving their testimony and things like that as they finish up their camping trip. I understand it’s gone great. As I said Wednesday night they said everything was fine.
They only hit their heads a few times but nothing was damaged at all. So they’ve had a good time white water rafting, backpacking, horseback riding and some things like that. But challenges from God’s word on what God’s claims on their life is and what God wants in their lives. So pray for them today and then tomorrow as they drive back.
It’s been a good week I think. Alright Romans chapter 5. Do you know that the unbeliever in this world is at war but with a formidable foe? The human being is a remarkable creature. God made the human being to be the master of this world of his creation to have dominion over all of it. And though he is in a fallen condition human beings have conquered everything that they have tried if you will. That is except their tongue, their heart and their passions but in their talent and in this world and yet the unbeliever is still in a war with a great foe. He cannot overcome this enemy. This enemy that he is at war with is not physical like human beings are but rather he is spiritual, he is invisible, he is all wise.
Man’s great enemy has never lost a battle. He has defeated the evil one that is Satan. He has defeated death itself and though man has gathered allies in his forces with him, the devil and all of his demons, man’s foe will cast out all his enemies into an eternal hell at the end.
A lost man is at war with God. And Romans chapter 5 verse 1 speaks about the end of that battle and says therefore if you have been justified by faith finally you have peace with this enemy. But I want you to know if you look at verses 9 and 10 that this enemy is God himself if you don’t know Christ as your savior. Romans chapter 5 then lays out in this chapter the great terms for man’s surrender. And if you come before God without knowing the Lord Jesus Christ you’re not ready for surrender. You must come and know him as your personal savior. Surrender yourself to him and become one of God’s children. God has paid all the expenses I want you to know. God has already made arrangements for an everlasting treaty I want you to know.
But until that contract is done he is still an enemy. Now, let me consider second Corinthians 5. If any man be in Christ he’s a new creature. Old things are passed away.
Behold all things become new and all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself. We were enemies. We were not reconciled to God.
But God put his hand out first and we must reach out and take his hand if we are going to be friends and not enemies of God. First Corinthians 15. Then come at the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God. Even the Father when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and all power for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death for he hath put all things under his feet. Or consider Psalm 110. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.
It’s almost a strange sounding thing to our ears, isn’t it? When we think that those who don’t know Christ as Savior are in a position of being enemies with God and yet that is what the Scripture tells us. Oh God loves us. Jesus Christ died for us. God is our Creator in that sense. But we are at war with him because of our sin until we are reconciled by Jesus Christ.
Chapter 5 verse 1 of Romans begins with that word therefore because it reminds us that in the first three chapters this writer, the Apostle Paul, has proved that all are under sin. He has proved that there is none righteous, no not one. He has proved that all deserve eternal punishment in hell apart from a holy God because of their sin. And then in chapters 4 and 5 he explains and begins to explain throughout this book that Jesus Christ has paid the price for your sin. He alone can do that and then pardon is available to all who will surrender. And those who know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior have done just that. Finally turned away from their own abilities.
Finally turned away from their own path and turned to God in repentance and surrendered and let Jesus Christ become their Savior. I remember back in 1991 when the Gulf War first began and remember how our troops went into that land so quickly that we saw literally thousands of people surrendering to our troops. Do you remember that? You remember that they came in their rags and their tennis shoes and weapons that didn’t work and they were ready to give up.
They were ready to say, here take us. We surrender. You know over the 2000 years that God has offered us pardon, there have been many people that have come and said, here take me, I’m yours.
I need to surrender to you. We’re even finding out now that most of those that we take captive have it much better than they would have if they hadn’t been taken captive by us. So it is with the Lord Jesus Christ too that we are better off by far and eternally when we surrender to Jesus Christ. Now let me remind you of things that this passage says and I want to take us through some details of these verses but if I could emphasize the importance of where these verses are in our Bible I would. If you, in my opinion, there is not a greater piece of literature written anywhere than the first eight chapters of the book of Romans. Now all of the Scripture is inspired by God and so it’s all equal with God but these eight chapters folks, tell us who we are.
Tell us where we came from. Tell us what condition we are in and then tell us how to get out of that sinful condition and the only way back to God is through Jesus Christ and when we come that way we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. These chapters explain this and here we are in the middle of that and in chapter 5 verse 1 beginning with this. First of all surrender to God. When we come to the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior surrender brings peace with God. Not just the peace of God but peace with God who has been our enemy.
Notice again therefore being justified by faith we have peace specifically now with God. You know it’s one thing for a fugitive let’s say to break out of prison and escape and he’s on the run somewhere and he may say to himself oh I’m finally free but he’s not really free is he? He may say oh I can go where I want to but really he can’t. He still has an enemy that is searching for him and when he finds him he will incarcerate him again. It is not until you have peace with the law that you are really free. Peace with the one who puts you in prison that you are free and sometimes we think that we have peace in this world we enjoy the things of this world but it’s not until we have made peace with our maker that we really are free and notice then how that takes place therefore being justified by faith. Now let me give you one of those technicalities that I want to give you today. In this language that Paul was writing to in the Romans we have a verb tense is called the perfect tense.
You always love these things don’t you? We have a hard time sometimes expressing this in English but in that language he is written he is saying we having or therefore having been justified by faith having been justified and he’s going to use this tense three times. He’s going to use it again to say we have had access and we have stood here then since that time. A perfect tense does this if you could draw a dot put an asterisk over here and begin in the middle of that dot or asterisk and draw a line out of it with an arrow at the end pointing that way something that has a specific definite beginning and now is continuing and will continue into eternity that is the perfect tense and so our description is often described in the New Testament in this perfect tense and that is there is a definite beginning to this and that is the moment we got saved having been justified at that moment whenever it was for me it was in 1961 when was it for you having been justified at that moment I have been justified ever since and I will be justified throughout eternity having been justified by faith what do we have peace with God and I have had peace with my maker since 1961 I had it that moment when I came to him I have had it ever since I have it today and I will have it throughout eternity the perfect tense now Paul’s going to use that tense three times to describe this condition of being at peace with God finally of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior you entered into this thing called peace with God and notice first of all you are justified that word we often say means just as if you’ve never sinned The Lord Jesus Christ took away your sin. At that moment that you came to Him, you became a child of God. And by the way, because the Bible is this specific in describing our salvation, we ought to then realize you didn’t grow into it. You didn’t gradually become a Christian. So many times I hear today, when I hear people speak about their faith, it’s some type of nebulous description like this, well, you know, I’ve always kind of been a Christian.
No, you haven’t. There is a time when that specific time happened and from that moment on, and from that moment before, you were not, you were an enemy of God. You didn’t grow into it. You didn’t gradually become it. It’s not that you had a little bit of it from your grandparents, and then about half of it from your folks, and now you have the, no. You were either an enemy of God, a child of Satan, John 8.44 says, or at that moment you became a child of God, and a friend of God.
And notice we were justified by faith, not by your works, not because God looked at you and said, oh, I see something really good in that one. I think I’ll save that one. Not because you went through some really tough time in your life and God said, oh, you’ve been through enough. I think I’ll save you.
No, not at all. You came to him by faith. Now it says by faith we have this piece through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let your eyes go back to chapter 3 for a moment. Let me remind you of some wonderful verses in 323 and a few verses following that.
A conclusion, again, of our condition. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, 323. Now notice being justified then freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.
Let me restate that for you. What Paul is saying here is by the time he gets to his conclusion in chapter 5, he’s assuming you know this, of course. He’s assuming that you’ve read the first four chapters, of course. He’s assuming that when a person comes to God for salvation by faith, that that person understands that they are a sinner. That that person understands that they could do nothing to save themselves. That that person understands that it is only through the righteousness of Jesus Christ by dying for you the shedding of his blood and becoming the substitute for you that you can say, I’ll accept that. I’ll apply that to myself.
It’s a free gift and I can receive it. Now he’s assuming we know all of that but he’s not leaving it out. When we come and we are justified by faith, he is saying, you understand, it’s not someone who says, well, you know, I’ve always had a lot of faith in my life. I have faith in people. I have, you know, a lot of faith in this world. I have a lot of faith in it, not just some nebulous faith. Faith in the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ for your sins. We are justified by that faith. When we do, we have peace with God and it is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is through his terms. And so verse 26 of chapter 3 said it to declare, I say at this time, not your righteousness, his righteousness, that he might be just and justifier. If God forgave you on the basis of your righteousness, God would no longer be just. God would be a compromising God. God would be less than holy because he let sinners atone for themselves. The only way he can do this and remain just and also justify people is to make it through his sinless son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those are the terms. You don’t come to God through religion. You don’t come to him through human works. You don’t come to him through church membership or anything else. You come through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and his work for you on your behalf.
It’s through the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, we have access then, the second perfect tense then. And we have it in verse 2 here, by whom, speaking still of the Lord Jesus Christ, also we have access. We have had access by faith.
We have access into the good graces of God. How do you come to be accepted by a holy God? How do you come to be able to come before him and have him call you son or daughter? Have him call you a child?
Have him treat you as a joint heir with Christ? How does that happen? It is by this access by faith into that place of grace with God. That is a wonderful thing. Access by faith into this grace.
Now it’s not the other way around. It’s not access by grace into faith. You have the faith.
You exercised it in the Lord Jesus Christ and you stepped into that place of grace and that grace is where you are saved. Not only that, thirdly, we stand there too. So notice in the rest of verse 2, wherein we stand or wherein we have stood. Do you know that you cannot stand before a holy God in your sinfulness? You cannot stand before God? You could not stand in heaven? You could not stand before his righteousness without the righteousness of Jesus Christ poured over you? Psalm 130 says, if thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, oh Lord, who shall stand? When the judgment is poured out in the book of Revelation chapter 6, for the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?
No one before God. Psalm 2, why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. People at war with God saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.
Can you do that? He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them with his sore displeasure. You cannot stand before him without the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But by whom? We have access into this grace wherein we stand, and we have stood there since the day we are saved. It doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It doesn’t mean that you’re sinless. It means Christ is sinless, and Christ is perfect. And from that day you entered into him, you have stood there in his righteousness, a child of God eternally secure because of the blood of Christ, not because of you.
And then a great thing, surrender brings this peace with God. Now we are called children. We’re brethren. We’re joint heirs.
We’re fellow citizens. Turn to your right to chapter 8 verse 31. And I don’t know if I’ll read all these verses, but you’ll recognize them. Chapter 8 verse 31. All right, here you are, a child of God at peace with God. Have been since the day you got saved, verse 31, in the conclusion of these great eight chapters in Romans, what shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Oh, you’re not saved. Look, you’re not. I’ve seen you sin.
I’ve seen you do this. Who can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that what? Justifyeth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again. Who is even at the right hand of God? Who makes intercession for us? Can anyone bring a condemnation against a person like that?
No. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And all of these things, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
As a matter of fact, verse 37, we are more than conquerors. We are now on his team. We are on his side. And we are conquering because of that. And I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature, including you, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What a wonderful thing that is.
Now back to our text. And secondly, if surrender brings peace with God, folks, secondly, peace with God brings joy. Now once you enter into this peace with God and you have this peace and you have had it since the day you’ve been saved, now you have access to true joy in this life. Now let’s look at it again in the middle of verse 2. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God and not only so, but secondly, we glory in tribulations also.
Now another little technicality here. The word rejoice and the word glory. We rejoice in hope. We glory in tribulations are the same Greek word. Exactly the same word. As a matter of fact, it appears again in verse 11 when Paul says, not only so, but we also joy in God’s same word. Now here’s what this word means. It means to boast.
Can you imagine? You and I as believers in God who are saved not by our own works have reason to boast. But what are we boasting in ourselves?
Not at all. But we are boasting in the fact that God has made us a child of heaven. And we are even boasting in the fact that we are still suffering tribulation for his behalf. I thought about that for a long time and thought, Lord, how can it be that we boast?
How can we rejoice and how can we glory in these things when it’s all of you? Sometimes when I’m here in this building and I’m here, I think about eight days a week. If there are eight days, I’m here. And I still find myself, folks, we’ve only been in this building six months, and I still find myself walking through it because I can’t find my office. No, I can’t.
I can’t find the coffee pot. I’m walking through. And as I do, I look out to the east. Sometimes the sun comes up and a beautiful way over here.
The sun sets in the west over here. And I walk around and I say, thank you, Lord, for what you’ve done here. And I want to say, Lord, how could it be that you could give us a place to have church like this? And I find myself in that struggle between almost boasting humanly saying, we did it, folks.
And catching yourself and saying, no, God did it by His grace. And maybe that’s something like we understand here about heaven and about our position in Christ. We want to boast to the world about it. We want to tell the world, but what God has done is what we want to tell them.
And done in our lives. We rejoice in our future home with God. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. You and I as believers can say I am going to heaven. Somebody says how do you know you’re going to heaven? Because the Scripture tells me how.
That’s why. I am on my way to heaven and I will live there eternally with Him. And that was secured at Calvary.
It was secured the day Jesus Christ died and when He saved me He gave me a home in heaven and there’s no doubt about that. I can rejoice in that. Secondly, I can glory in tribulation. Now that’s interesting because tribulation means to suffer for Christ’s sake. Now again, not to suffer for your sake.
Not to go home and get a speeding ticket and say oh Lord why am I suffering for you? You’re not. You’re suffering for you.
But we’re talking about here suffering for the Lord Jesus Christ. But understand what has happened here. You were enemies. You were fighting on the other side and it was hopeless. You were going to lose.
There’s no doubt about it. And now you have surrendered to the right side. He has made you one of His own and now you are on His team or His in His army. And sure there’s still battle to be fought. There’s still something to be done. But you know absolutely that all that you do is worth it because you are fighting for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. You can boast in that. Thank you Lord that you made me one of yours. You know it does my heart good. I don’t know about you to hear our soldiers, United States soldiers and Seaman and Airmen and others come back and Marines come back to this country who have been wounded and have given up maybe part of their limbs or whatever and hear them say I am glad that I could represent my country and I’m glad that I could do this for my country.
There’s something that does your heart good about that, isn’t there? How much more folks when we read of those who gave their very lives in the lion’s dinner in the fire for the Lord Jesus Christ. For those who willingly took some ridicule on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank God for them and thank God for that kind of a battle that we have. Look at chapter 8 verse 16. Chapter 8 verse 16 again.
Chapter 8 is a great chapter. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. He tells you every day that you’re a child of God and if children then heirs.
Heirs of God enjoin heirs with Christ. Can you boast about that? In Christ we can. If so be that we suffer with him, that we also be glorified together with him.
How do you like that? We can suffer with him because we’re going to be glorified together with him. Can you serve him a little bit now?
Can you give him something of your life now? Because now you understand what the divine perspective is. Philippians 1-29, unto you it is given in behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake.
Now there’s a great passage. Jesus said it in Matthew 5 verse 10 at the end of the beatitudes. Jesus said it like this, blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you and men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice. Be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you. So we can rejoice in these things.
We can be glad that we’re on his side. So first surrender brings peace with God then peace with God brings joy. Thirdly in our text our knowledge of these things brings growth in grace. How do we grow in our Christian life? How do we progress?
How do we become mature as believers? It’s the knowledge of these things that we gain from the word of God and gain from our understanding that helps us to grow. Now again chapter 5 and look at verse 3 knowing that. Knowing that you say well you know I don’t really have time to read my Bible and I never do get it out and read it except in church then you don’t know these things.
You haven’t learned these things and you say well you know my Christian life isn’t all that great and I don’t know if I really want to die and go on to heaven I’d rather stay here longer it’s because you don’t know these things. These things become a living reality to you knowing that and when you know these things you’re going to grow and notice how that happens. And by the way knowing is the big picture. I know that I was a sinner and I got saved. I know that everyone in this world is a sinner and needs to be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that no matter what I suffer in this world and in this life when I die I will spend eternity with God. I even know that I will live and reign with him for a thousand years on this earth after he returns and then after that in the new Jerusalem forever and ever. I know that.
Now folks if you know that because this is exactly what the Bible says then you have the big picture. You know to speak in military terms I’m a fan of D-Day. I collect all those old movies about D-Day and see all those old black and white films of those our guys landing on the shores but you know what when when they landed on the shores of Normandy in in June of 44 then World War II was as good as done. It was only a matter of time until we entered Berlin.
And you know what? Jesus Christ was our Normandy. His cross was our Normandy. And when He died for our sins, we may have a few battles to fight yet.
We may have to go on living in this world, but we will be in heaven for sure. Matter of fact, the Battle of the Bulge was between Normandy and Berlin, and yet it was as good as done. There was nothing the Germans could do about it anymore. And folks, there is nothing Satan can do to you and nothing that can be done to your salvation. Once you know Christ to save you, you are on your way to heaven.
And if you know these things, then here’s what happens. First of all, tribulation, worketh, patience. The word worketh, by the way, it means to produce something.
It means to mold it into something, to fashion it this way, to give rise to something. So tribulation produces patience. Patience is endurance.
Patience is the ability to bear up under the load, to keep going when the times are rough. And so how do you do that but in tribulation? How do your muscles get stronger unless you put them through tribulation?
Unless you work them a little bit and make them hurt a little bit, and that’s how the endurance is built up. How do we in our Christian life produce patience and endurance unless we’re on the battlefield with Christ? Now after that happens, then patience, once we are in that exercise, patience produces experience. Now this word experience means to be tried and tested. It means to be hardened. It means to be proved. You know, a soldier that has come back from the battlefield and has been there for months and maybe years, he comes back and we say he’s battle hardened.
That’s what this word means. The patience, the doing it, the being in the battle for a long time produces experience. It produces this testing, this trial that we need.
In 1 Corinthians 9-25, remember Paul saying this, every man on training, but they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I not as one that beeth the air, but I keep under my body. I bring it into subjection. Lest, by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast away.
I should be unapproved. Our word here in this text for experience is, dachemos approved, and Paul’s word there is ah, dachemos unapproved. He says, what would happen if I begin to fight the battle and I turn and run? What would happen if I begin to endure things for Christ and then I don’t want to have anything to do with it anymore, so I go AWOL, then I am unapproved. But in our fight for Christ, Paul says in chapter five that when we endure these tribulations, it produces patience and patience produces this hardness, this proof. We are children of God.
Paul said, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And then there’s another step. This experience then produces hope.
The full circles come around. Now you have hope again of eternal life. And you know when you first got saved, you had hope, but it was just that you’re saved.
And, and Shirley, you were. You, you accepted Christ as your savior. Someone showed you simply from the scriptures that once you’re saved, you’re always saved, which the Bible absolutely teaches. And so you had that confidence.
You said, well, good, I know that I’m saved, but you weren’t mature. You hadn’t grown. You hadn’t fought any battles for Christ’s sake. You hadn’t become hardened in the battles of the Christian life. But once you do, that hope is not just a security that you’re saved.
That hope becomes your joy and your thrill and your desire. Let me go on Lord. Let me go on to heaven. I’ve stood at a lot of bed sides of suffering saints who basically said, I’m ready to go on. I’m ready to be released from this suffering. I’m ready to meet my Lord. I’ve seen believers who have many years to go in this life serving God patiently and becoming experienced in the things of, of, of the Lord.
But if you ask them, they’d say, oh, if the Lord came back today, I’m ready. I want to go. Even so, come Lord Jesus. That is this hope here at the end, fully mature, desiring heaven. Go back to chapter eight again. Let me continue where we left off in verse 18.
Here’s how we know the apostle Paul was from Missouri because he said, for I reckon in verse 18, I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. You say, well, Christian, how can you go on in your Christian life suffering the things that you do for Christ because it didn’t worthy to be compared with what I’ve got coming for me. Verse 19, the earnest expectation of the creature wadeth for the manifestation of the sons of God. The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. Oh, Lord, take me out of this flesh. Take me out of this body.
Take me out of this life. deliver me from the bondage of this corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God for we know that the whole creation growneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And in the middle of verse 23 even we ourselves grown in ourselves waiting for the adoption that is the redemption of our body. That is a believer who has matured. That is a believer who has grown and frankly folks we don’t see it that often these days. We see believers who are so caught up in the things of this world they don’t want to leave this world. They don’t want to suffer for God. They don’t want to go on to these kinds of things.
No they want to want it just as it is because they haven’t gone through this process right here. Once you enter into that tribulation for Christ and the patience grows and the hardness as a soldier of Jesus Christ grows then it produces a hope that is always there. A hope for heaven.
Now fourthly and one last thing in verse 5. This growth in grace if you have it in your life brings boldness. Sure it does. It brings testimony. It brings witness.
It opens your mouth and lets your faith spill out because you’re not concerned about what people think of you at this point. Hope maketh not ashamed. That is it doesn’t disappoint and it’s not disappointed.
Hope this kind of hope in heaven can never be disappointed. No one can say to you well I don’t like you and I don’t like Christians and I don’t like what you’re trying to say to me and I don’t like it doesn’t bother you. Never ashamed when you have this kind of confidence and this kind of hope in Christ. But I tell you this folks when our love for heaven dims and when the love for this world begins to grow in our lives then our boldness is gone and our witness is gone and our strength as believers is gone and our prayer life is weak because our sight is on this world rather than on the world to come. But all when we understand these things knowing these things and then understanding that this is our lot then we’re never ashamed of that and it grows again and becomes strong again and notice these two blessings in verse 5 and I’m going to take the second one first. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts because first the Holy Ghost is given to us. Do you understand that the moment you got saved from that moment and ever since you have been the temple of the Holy Spirit he did not live in you before that. You were not a child of God you were God’s creation and creature but you are not a child of God until that moment but at that moment the third person of the trinity the Holy Spirit of God himself came in and made you an abode of his. He lives in you.
You are the temple that word actually means holy of holies of the Holy Spirit. He’s jealous of that space. He wants control of that space. He lives inside you. He has been given to you and by the way he’s the earnest of your salvation. The very fact that you have him is God’s down payment or God’s promise that you will have eternal life. And next time you are wanting to go your own way and the Holy Spirit grabs a hold of your conscience and your heart and convicts you and makes you feel about this tall say thank God for the Holy Spirit that lives within me and brings me back for my own stupidity.
Thank God for these things. Now the Holy Spirit then is in us and so what happens the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. You know what it’s interesting to read the commentators because there’s kind of a little discussion going on back and forth as to whether this love of God is God’s love for us or our love for God.
These genitives can go either way. So is it God’s love for us that he’s placed in our heart and that love then spreads out all over? Or is it the fact that when we know all of these things we love God finally so much.
We have learned to love God and that love that we have for God spreads around in the world. And you know what I say? Write on both accounts. And why not? This love that has come to us from God. God so loved the world that he gave his only God. Not that we love God but that he loved us and gave his son to be a propitiation for our sins. That love just comes out of our mouth and spreads abroad.
The boy when it does people see your love for God. You love him more than this world. You love him more than your own self.
You love him more than anything that exists. That love of God also is shed abroad in our hearts. And folks when that happens there is true boldness because of truth and because of perspective. Somebody says well you know I don’t think that a Christian can know these things. It doesn’t bother you at all because the Scripture says it plainly.
The Word of God says it and you have no doubt. about it. And you have this perspective.
You know what’s going to happen. You know, you ever look at blueprints? Blueprints are nice.
If you go to build a building, we have blueprints of our parking lot out here. Now it’s still sitting there empty, isn’t it? There’s no pavement on it yet. It’s been raining all week.
They couldn’t get any equipment on it. And you look at that and say, is it ever going to be done? You know what? There are blueprints sitting in there. And you can go in there and look at them if you want.
It’ll show you exactly what it’s going to be like when it’s done. And those guys started working in the mud and just started, you know, plowing things apart here and there. You might say, what are they doing? But if you have a blueprint, you say, oh, this is what they’re doing. And folks, we have this blueprint and your life may not always make sense to you. You may not always understand how the finished product is going to come about. But all you’ve got to do is go back and look at this blueprint and then you say, ah, that’s what God’s going to do.
You have boldness and you have confidence because of truth and because of perspective. Now, God created this world, folks, and it’s His. Did you know that? This world is God’s world. I mean, He made the sun, moon and stars. He made the heavens and He made the earth and He made the seas.
They are His, but they are broken. It’s a sinful world because the enemy Satan himself rebelled against God. Lucifer, the son of mourning, took a third of the angels and made them demons and they rebelled against God and they came to this earth and took over God’s creation with the two human beings that God had placed here on this earth. Satan took them captive and made them on His side. And not only that, with all the, with all the demons that He brought with Him, everyone that would be born of Adam and Eve till this time are also on Satan’s side. He made sure of that by birth. God’s created world taken over by the enemy.
Pretty dark picture. Well, once 2,000 years ago, God landed on these shores. God came in the form of a baby. God lived a sinless life and died for all of His enemies. And one by one, from that time to this, God has been retaking His own property.
One by one, capturing what originally was His and letting them surrender back to Him so that they can become really children of God and not children of Satan. And He has been on this campaign ever since. We’re part of that campaign. If you know Christ as Savior, you’ve surrendered back to God and joined the right side again. And you are in this movement to recover what is rightfully God’s. But I’ll tell you, Christ is going to return. And then He’ll put the end to it. He’ll finish the work.
He will do it in a day. He will come in glory and He will establish His kingdom on this earth. And all of those that are still His enemies will be cast off into everlasting fire.
And all of those who have believed on Him from the beginning until now will live and reign with Christ on this earth. That time is coming. And I say, even so, come, Lord Jesus, bring peace now. Sign the armistice now. Remove the enemies now. You say, well, then people will die lost.
Yes, that’s true. And so God is long suffering, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repent. And you say, well, if Christ is coming back, where is He? It’s been 2,000 years and He isn’t back yet. He has waited for you. He has waited for lost people so that as many of them as possible could come and believe on Him.
He’s long suffering, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. And maybe this morning is your time. Maybe hearing the gospel one more time, you have decided it is time to leave the wrong side and join the right side and let the atonement of Jesus Christ cover my sins so that I might be a child of God. Maybe this is the morning you will do that. And maybe just as a believer, you have caught a new perspective of what you are in this world and what claims God has on you and what God wants for you in this battle as we fight it.
And I hope that He did and I hope that He will exalt you to that place and let you fight the battle He wants you to fight. I want you to stand up with me now if you will. We’ll prepare to sing just a few verses of a familiar song, but let’s bow our heads in prayer.
Let’s go to Him and ask His blessing on this time, if you will. Father in heaven, how we have read these wonderful verses and we cannot do them justice with a human tongue. The Holy Spirit inspired them. The Holy Spirit can use them and I trust that He is even now speaking to hearts that need to hear this. If there is one here today that doesn’t know you as Savior, I pray Lord today would be the day I can’t persuade.
I can’t save only you can only you can draw us to yourself and so I pray you would do that divine work in lives that need it today. And then Father maybe your children standing here today have been lax, have been soft, have been ashamed even of your word. Father give us that boldness again, give us that perspective again, help us to regain our courage one more time. And Father if we need to be on our knees praying before you here at this altar, cause us to do that. If we need to bow our heads where we stand cause us to do that. Or if we need to come to receive Christ as Savior, give power from the Holy Spirit to do that. And Father I pray you’d bless in this time in Jesus name, amen.
We’re going to sing 332 a familiar song just as I am. Just a few verses. You have time to do what God wants. If you know you need to accept Christ as Savior, meet me right here at the front. Come here and say I need to be saved. Let someone take the word of God and show you over here in a private way what the Bible says about being saved. Would you do that? And if you need to make any other commitment to the Lord make it now. Let Him have His way in your life now. 332 let’s sing these familiar verses together.