Our Rescue Results in Peace with God...

For the past several weeks, we have been looking at a section of a letter in our Bibles, called the Book of Romans, that reveals God's response that provides us an opportunity for rescue and forgiveness from the universal and insurmountable problem of selfishness and sin. This week, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at another section of this letter, where we will see the Apostle Paul shift the focus of his conversation with the members of the church at Rome.

And as Paul shifts the focus of his conversation, we see him reveal for us and timeless result that followers of Jesus experience when we embrace rescue from the insurmountable problem that our selfish rebellion and sin creates for us through faith in Christ. So let’s look at this timeless result together, beginning in Romans 5:1:

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 exult in hope of the glory of God.

Here we see the Apostle Paul, as he begins this section of his letter to the members of the church in Rome, reveal for us a timeless truth that occurs when we respond to God’s activity in our lives through the message of the gospel in a way that results in us being rescued from our selfishness and sin. And that timeless truth is that our rescue results in peace with God. If Paul was writing this letter in the language we use in our culture today, Romans 5:1 would sound something like this: Therefore, in light of the fact that we have been declared not guilty of having a problem with God as a result of placing our confident trust in Jesus life, death, and resurrection, by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader, we have peace with God. Now when Paul uses the word peace here, this word literally means to experience a state of well being with God.

The reason that we are able to experience this state of well being with God is through our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, we can have peace with God not because of what we have done for God; we can have peace because of what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, who entered into humanity and allowed Himself to be treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful lives so God the Father could treat us as though we lived Jesus perfect life. It was Jesus willingness to live the life we refused to live and die the death we deserved to die as a result of our selfish rebellion and sin that provides us the opportunity to have peace with God.

But not only can we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. In verse 2, Paul explains that through Jesus Christ, we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. To understand what this phrase really means, we first need to define some terms. The word introduction, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to gain access or a way of approach. Faith, as we have discovered throughout this series, is a state of devotion to Christ based on their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. The word grace refers to God’s Divine favor that is upon us based on His transformational activity in our lives. When Paul states that we stand in grace, he is explaining that we are able to live in the state or condition of grace. Paul here is revealing for us the timeless reality that as a result of placing our confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel, we have access to experience God’s divine favor that comes as a result of His transformational activity in our lives.

As a result of responding to what God has done to declare us not guilty of having a problem with God by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader, we are able to access and experience God’s divine favor as an ongoing reality in our lives. We are no longer at odds with God as being in opposition to God; we are now rightly related to God and experience the state of well being that comes with being at peace with God.

And because we can experience peace with God and access to God’s divine favor through our confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel, Paul states that we can take pride in the hope of the glory of God. Followers of Jesus can take pride and have the confident expectation towards the future, when they will be able to experience the eternal relationship with God that they were created for in Heaven as a result of believing, trusting, and following Jesus.

Maybe you would readily admit that you lack peace when it comes to where you stand with God. Maybe you are here and deep down inside, you recognize that there is something between you and God, that you have done selfish things that hurt God and others. And it is this selfishness that creeps into your life and controls your life that has robbed you of peace and leaves you with little hope and lots of questions. Peace seems like a far away dream that is just out of reach.

If I have just described you, I have some good news for you. And the good news is that while there will never be anything that you can do for God that will give you peace with God, the reality is that God, through Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection, provides that opportunity for you to experience rescue and forgiveness. And that opportunity to experience that rescue, relationship, and peace comes by placing one’s confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader.

And as the Apostle writes to the church at Rome, we see him reveal the reality that the peace that we have as a result of our rescue provides two important results. We will look at the first of the two results that peace with God provides tomorrow.