Justified
Romans • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 11 viewsNothing associated with religion, works, the Law, or with rituals can ever provide salvation to humanity. We are totally dependent on faith. We are justified through Christ.
Notes
Transcript
What did the judge say to his dentist?
Pull my tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.
We started studying the book of Romans two weeks ago. In chapters 1-4 the author, Paul, told us about how bad we are as people. We have sinned against God. Humanity deserves the anger and judgement of God.
Paul tells us that nothing associated with religion, our good works, the old testament law, or rituals can ever make us right with God. Basically, he tells us that without faith in Jesus we are completely hopeless.
We are dependent on faith in Jesus to make us acceptable to a Holy God. It all comes down to understanding that it’s not WHAT we do that makes the difference in saving our soul, it’s WHO we know that really counts.
When we know and trust in Jesus, we have salvation, we when do not know Him, we are lost.
12 And so, if we have God’s Son, we have this life. But if we don’t have the Son, we don’t have this life.
Paul has nailed this topic down in chapters 1-4, it’s crystal clear. In the first few verses of chapter 5 he starts to introduce the actual doctrines of salvation. He tells us the benefits of being saved by Grace through Fatih.
This is a VERY exciting portion of scripture. And I want to point out just a few things that I think will make you very happy.
Let’s read the first two verses together:
1 By faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now, because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace with God.
2 Christ has also introduced us to God’s undeserved kindness on which we take our stand. So we are happy, as we look forward to sharing in the glory of God.
Why should these verses make us happy?
We’ve been given justification with God and more than that, we’ve been given benefits that go along with that position.
Justification
Justification
Verse 1 tells us that we have been made acceptable to God. Let’s look at the Old King James version
1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
We have been justified. The word justified is very interesting here. It means “to count someone righteous” in other words if I say you are justified I mean that you are going to be judged, treated, or looked upon as if you are righteous. It doesn’t mean you ARE righteous! It means you are being given the benefit of a person who IS righteous.
Have you ever failed a test? Have you ever been in a class where everyone failed the test accept for that one smart kid? Some times the teacher would give everyone the benefit of the smart kid by grading on a curve. Your grade gets improved, not because you deserve it, but because you’ve been given the benefit of the smart kids score. Once your teacher crosses out your F and writes the D+ on your page you have now been justified. You’ve recieved the benefit of something you didn’t deserve. You are treated as if you are righteous even though you failed.
We are all sinners! Even though most of us claim to be Christians, we are still sinners! Justification does not mean that God is not aware of our sins. It does mean that in spite of our sins, God treats us as though we were not sinners. Even though we are unrighteous and wicked, God treats us as though we were as righteous and pure as He is Himself.
How is this possible? It happens because when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, He paid for ALL of our sins. Then when we receive Him as our Savior, God gives us the righteousness of Christ.
21 Christ never sinned! But God treated him as a sinner, so that Christ could make us acceptable to God.
Justification does not mean that we are perfect, it means that God sees us as though we were!
How did this great miraculous and fantastic justification come about in your life and mine? By faith! We didn’t earn it! We didn’t deserve it! All we did was take God at His Word concerning the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus and God justified us by faith!
We should be happy because we have a Position because we’ve been justified by faith.
We should also be happy because we have the Benefits of Justification.
Benefits of Justification
Benefits of Justification
Because we are considered righteous by the Lord, there are certain things He has given to believers.
Romans 5:1–2 (CEV)
1 By faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now, because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace with God.
2 Christ has also introduced us to God’s undeserved kindness on which we take our stand. So we are happy, as we look forward to sharing in the glory of God.
The first benefit I see is the benefit of Acceptance.
Acceptance of God
Acceptance of God
According to Paul, salvation brings with it peace with God! This is a truth that can hardly be understood by our mortal minds! You see, every lost person is the enemy of God.
7 Our desires fight against God, because they do not and cannot obey God’s laws.
But, when that lost person turns to Jesus Christ by faith, God declares an end to the fight! God declares peace. He then brings that person into a right relationship with Himself. When Jesus is trusted by faith, that person enjoys immediate peace with God. What does this mean?
9 But there is more! Now that God has accepted us because Christ sacrificed his life’s blood, we will also be kept safe from God’s anger.
We don’t have to worry about God’s anger anymore. Because we are now accepted.
2 Christ is the sacrifice that takes away our sins and the sins of all the world’s people.
Our sins have been forgiven. We are accepted. We are no longer rejected because of our sinfulness.
18 God has done it all! He sent Christ to make peace between himself and us, and he has given us the work of making peace between himself and others.
Because we’ve been accepted we have the benefit of Peace with God.
Have you heard the expression, “Making peace with God”? I read about an believer who was dying. He was visited by a friend who asked him, “Have you made you peace with God?”
The man replied, “No, I haven’t.” To that his friend said, “What! Oh you must make peace with God.”
“I’m sorry, I cannot do that.”, replied the dying man. His friend said, “But you must! Don’t you know that it is dangerous to die without making peace with God?”
To this, the dying man said, “But how can I make peace with God? My Lord made peace with me 2,000 years ago when He died on the cross, and I accepted it. I have had peace ever since!”
That man understood the truth in Colossians 1:20 “20 And God was pleased for him to make peace by sacrificing his blood on the cross, so that all beings in heaven and on earth would be brought back to God.”
We don’t make peace with God, He made peace with us at the cross. Now, we must accept that and when we do, we are given peace with God. This is the first permanent blessing the every child of God receives at the very instant of salvation. We are accepted by God! We are at peace with Him!
Another benefit we have because we’ve been justified is that we have Access to God.
Access to God
Access to God
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
This verse teaches us the truth that through Jesus Christ, we have direct access to God Himself. The word “access” means “to enter the presence of the king.” Through Jesus, we have the right to enter into the very presence of the God of Heaven without fear! We have access to the Heavenly Father!
This must have been a radical idea to Paul’s readers. Most of them came from a religious background that demanded that a respectful distance be maintained between the worshiper and God.
Think for a minute about the Temple!
Gentiles were restricted to the outer court of the Temple. If they went any further in, they could be executed.
Women were restricted to “The Court Of Women”.
Then, there was the “Holy Place”. Where only the priests could minister.
Beyond this, there was the “Holy of Holies”. Only the High Priest was permitted to enter this room, and then only once per year on the Day of Atonement, and he could not enter without the blood of an innocent sacrifice.
The message was crystal clear: “Keep You Distance!”
Pauls message was that we now have access.
I once visited Buckingham Palace in London. I had no access. There was no way I was going to be allowed in. But if I knew the right person...
Jesus is holding our hand. He makes it possible for us to access the throne of heaven.
6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life!” Jesus answered. “Without me, no one can go to the Father.
We should be happy that we have access to God! Come to Him in prayer. He’s listening to you because you’ve been justified through Christ.
Verse two gives us another reason we should be happy. We’ve been given the benefit of Assurance.
Assurance of Salvation
Assurance of Salvation
So, since we are justified we have acceptance, access, and assurance.
What is Assurance?
2 through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and so we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
That little phrase “this grace in which we stand” is speaking about assurance because the word “stand” gives the idea of permanence. This verse is telling us that when we place our trust in Chris that we are absolutely secure in our salvation.
You may have heard the term “eternal security of the believer” before. It’s a doctrine that teaches that once you come to Christ that nothing or no one can take you from Him. You’ve heard it maybe as “once saved, always saved”. Some people believe that no matter how you live after you come to Christ, you can never lose your salvation.
On the other hand, there are many people who believe that a person can be saved and then, somehow, they can lose that salvation and need to be saved all over again.
There are problems with both ways of thinking. The “once saved always saved crowd” has a problem because their way of thinking can lead to loose living among professed christians. Many people use the idea of never “losing” salvation is that it gives a license to sin.
On the other hand, people who feel they can lose their salvation the first time they sin leads them down the path of legalism. They try to earn their salvation. According to verse one, we are saved, or justified, by faith right? That is, we did not earn, buy or get it as a reward. Salvation was given as a gift!
Okay, if that is true, then verse two says that we “stand” by grace. In other words, it was faith that saved the soul, and it is grace that keeps the soul!
To say that we are saved by trusting Jesus and then, after that, we must keep ourselves saved, is a total contradiction. If I can keep myself saved, why don’t I just go ahead and do the whole job? The answer? I can’t do either!
We have been saved by grace and we are kept saved by grace.
5 You have faith in God, whose power will protect you until the last day. Then he will save you, just as he has always planned to do.
Here’s the truth. No one can take away your salvation. You are saved by faith in Christ and you are kept saved by standing on grace. You can be assured of Salvation because you are surrendered to Christ.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God,
9 not of works, so that no one should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we should walk in them.
See the progression? Saved by faith, through the gift of grace, FOR Good works!
Our lives PROVE whether or not we are surrendered to Christ. You are transformed when you surrender your life to Jesus. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to live a perfect life.
We can go down the list of “what if” questions. Regardless if, the child of God is still secure in Jesus.
What if we deny Jesus?
13 If we are not faithful, he will still be faithful. Christ cannot deny who he is.”
2. What if I I can’t do it all on my own?
6 God is the one who began this good work in you, and I am certain that he won’t stop before it is complete on the day that Christ Jesus returns.
3. What if I sin after I am saved?
9 But if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.
Hey, I’ve got some “what if’s”.
What if we stopped looking for a reason not to believe and just started taking the Lord at His Word?
What if we just believed that the same God Who was powerful enough to save us was also able to keep us?
What if we just let “eternal” mean “eternal”?
What if we just let “everlasting” mean “everlasting”?
What if we just rejoiced in the salvation we have in Him and rested in the blessed assurance that is ours by faith?
What if we just stopped looking for a reason to doubt God and just took Him at His Word?
We are saved when we accept the sacrifice of Christ as our only hope for salvation. Because of this wonderful gift we can identify with Paul who wrote:
20 I have died, but Christ lives in me. And I now live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.
21 I don’t turn my back on God’s undeserved kindness. If we can be acceptable to God by obeying the Law, it was useless for Christ to die.
I’ve got to allow his words to end the debate about our security in Christ.
1 What has happened to you Galatians to be acting so foolishly? You must have been under some evil spell! Didn’t God open your eyes to see the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion? Wasn’t he revealed to you as the crucified one?
2 So answer me this: Did the Holy Spirit come to you as a reward for keeping all the Jewish laws? No, you received him as a gift because you believed in the Messiah.
3 Your new life in the Anointed One began with the Holy Spirit giving you a new birth. Why then would you so foolishly turn from living in the Spirit by trying to finish by your own works?
4 Have you endured all these trials and persecutions for nothing?
5 Let me ask you again: What does the lavish supply of the Holy Spirit in your life, and the miracles of God’s tremendous power, have to do with you keeping religious laws? The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us through the revelation and power of faith, not by keeping the law!
6 Abraham, our father of faith, led the way as our pioneering example. He believed God and the substance of his faith released God’s righteousness to him.
7 So those who are the true children of Abraham will have the same faith as their father!
8 God’s plan all along was to bring this message of salvation to the nations through the revelation of faith. Long ago God prophesied over Abraham, as the Holy Scriptures say: “Through your example of faith all the nations will be blessed!”
9 And so the blessing of Abraham’s faith is now our blessing too!
10 But if you choose to live in bondage under the legalistic rule of religion, you live under the law’s curse. For it is clearly written: “Utterly cursed is everyone who fails to practice every detail and requirement that is written in this law!”
We have a reason to be happy today. We’ve been justified by Christ alone! Not our own works. We are set free, and now we enjoy the benefits of that justification. We have the acceptance of God, access to God, and the assurance of God.
The question is how does that affect how you live? Maybe like Paul we need to say, I am crucified with Christ. Allow God’s work to become the most important aspect of our lives.
