Romans 5:1-3 THEREFORE being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also …

Do You Have PEACE, Or Are You In CRISIS?

Our text begins with “THEREFORE”. When you read your Bible and encounter the word “THEREFORE”, you should ask yourself,

“What is it THERE FOR?”

This “THEREFORE” is pointing backwards to what we learned about Abraham last week. Abraham is called “our father”, because his life is the pattern of saving faith. The Bible says,

Romans 4:3 (AP) … Abraham BELIEVED GOD, and HIS BELIEF was counted or IMPUTED unto him for righteousness …

God came to a broken man, and called him to follow Him, to be a follower of Christ. Abraham followed. He believed in Jesus, and followed Jesus – even when he did not understand where he was going or what he was going through. Abraham was saved by believing in Jesus (John 8:58). Abraham was saved apart from ritual, apart from Church, apart from Law, apart from good works, apart from any human agency whatsoever. Abraham cast his broken life on Jesus, and followed the Great Shepherd where ever He led.

Period.

God imputed or accounted righteousness to Abraham. God covered Abraham’s sins with His hands, which would one day be nailed to a cross on Calvary.

When Jesus Christ – God’s Only Begotten Son – ministered on this earth He did two things throughout that ministry. Jesus preached the “Gospel of the Kingdom and healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people” (Matthew 4:23).

The only people who ever met Jesus and went away unchanged were those who rejected His help. Unlike Abraham, they would not follow Jesus in faith.

The Pharisees – in love with themselves and in love with self righteousness – were the greatest persecutors of the Lord. They found fault with Jesus because He spent time reaching out to “publicans and sinners”. Jesus told these self deceived people:

Matthew 9:12-13 (KJV) … They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. {13} …. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Jesus is not looking for numbers. He doesn’t care if you “Like” Him on Facebook or Instagram. Jesus is looking for BROKEN SOULS that will follow Him.

Illustrate: No one goes to a doctor when they are well, but when they’re sick. When someone goes to a doctor they do what the doctor says if they want to get well. We go to the doctor’s office and take off our clothes. We then sit on a little metal cold table in a little cold room in this state of undress until the doctor comes in. He says “stick out your tongue” and we comply. He says “cough” and we do it. We want to get better, so we do what the doctor says. The Pharisees, the self righteous Scribes, and the rulers of Jesus’ day didn’t know that they were sick, so they rejected the doctor. They refused to hear Jesus. They loved themselves and thought they were right with God, but for all their good works they were at war with the Almighty. A disease called sin ate not only on their bodies, but also ate on their souls.

Those who refused to give themselves to Jesus, to follow Him, were sincere in what they were doing. They thought they were doing right, but they weren’t. They were in CRISIS.

What they did, they did apart from God. They thought they belonged to God, but were deceived, because they would not follow Jesus. God told us previously:

Romans 3:24-25 (NKJV) being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood …

The only Person God has ever “set forth” as a means to Himself is “Christ Jesus”. Those who claim to be “Christian” but are NOT Christ FOLLOWERS are not God’s Children.

The Scribes & Pharisees & Priests refused to follow Jesus. They refused to believe His testimony, and refused to surrender to His leading. Jesus told them:

John 5:39-40 (KJV) Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. {40} And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

Jesus was clear in what He said. “Look in the Scriptures – and I am there. The Scriptures testify of Me. The Bible told you that I was coming, and now that I am here you will not hear Me.” Dear friends, the Bible says that there are many who, like those Pharisees, they will not come to Jesus. The Scripture says:

John 3:18-19 (KJV) He that believeth on {Jesus} is not CONDEMNED: but he that believeth not is CONDEMNED already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. {19} And this is the CONDEMNATION, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

Word Study:The word rendered “CONDEMNED” in verse 18 is the Greek word “krinō” which means “to be under the judgment of God as a criminal”. If you receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you are not under the adverse judgment of God, for God applies the work of Christ to your soul. Your status changes from criminal of Heaven to citizen of God’s Kingdom because of Jesus. BUT …The word “CONDEMNATION” in verse 19 is a different Greek word, one you are familiar with. It is the word “KRISIS”. This word is pronounced like CRISIS but beginning with a “K”.

Without Jesus, You Are In CRISIS!

The big CRISIS everyone is upset about today is the election results. I have never seen so many people crying, throwing tantrums, screaming, making threats, promising revolution – any manner of weird and childlike – yes, like a 6 year old child – threats. Why is this? Because their faith is not in Jesus Christ, but in a god of this world. Misplaced faith brings a crisis. And before anyone in this room begins to feel superior,

If YOUR candidate had lost, and the OTHER candidate had won, if the tables were switched, would YOU being throwing tantrums too?

I said this before the election, and I’ll say it again. Regardless as to who won the Presidency, the Senate, and the House, Jesus Christ will still be on the Throne! It is Jesus Christ Who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords (1 Timothy 6:15). It is God Who is ultimately in control. It is in Christ we who are His put our faith, not in the gods of this world. The great “CRISIS” in America today is not inflation, high interest rates, the borders of our country, the increasing gas prices, nor global warming. The great “CRISIS” according to God is that “Light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light”. The great “CRISIS” is that many would rather hold on to their sins than bow their knee to the Lord Jesus.

You can only have peace with God THROUGH our LORD Jesus Christ. The CRISIS is that people today want to be cured, but don’t want to take the Cure. If you want to be cured from sin and to find peace with God you can only do this through our Lord Jesus Christ. You must come to Him, surrendering yourselves to Him. Those who put aside their pride and came to Jesus were changed when they walked on this earth, and they will be changed now. Lay down your lives at His feet, and He will give you true life.

We Need To Be Aligned Spiritually With God

Romans 5:1 (KJV) Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

You cannot have peace with God before you are justified. To be “justified” is to be brought into spiritual alignment with God.

Before a person surrenders their lives to Jesus Christ they follow one of two Biblical patterns. We either act like Pharisees, that self righteous crowd who felt that they were good enough in their own power to please God, or else we act like Sadducees, the liberal crowd that only accepted the portions of the Scripture that they liked. Nothing has changed from the beginning of the world unto today. We may have …

cars instead of carts
motorboats instead of paddle boats
electricity instead of kerosene and candles
calculators instead of fingers and toes
television & internet instead of common sense

… but humanity has not changed one little bit. As God tells us in

Ecclesiastes 1:9, “there is no new thing under the sun”. Unchanged man never changes. We may develop greater technology, but at heart we are born into this world self righteous Pharisees and Herodians, or liberally humanistic Sadducees and Scribes. We easily see other people’s shortcomings but never see our own.

Illustrate: We’re like the woman who said: “I don’t know what this world is coming to. Someone broke into my house and stole all my Holiday Inn towels!”

Apart from Christ we are at war with God. He is truly righteous, but we are naturally not. He is holy, we are filled with holes. He is always good and giving, but we are always grasping.

The Devil’s great trick is not to make us more evil, but to make us worship the wrong gods.

We cannot justify ourselves, but the devil convinces us we can do so. The Devil promised Jesus riches and fame, power and world domination. Jesus told that fallen critter:

Matthew 4:10 (AP) …. Get away from Me, Satan! The Bible says, “You shall WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, and YOU SHALL ONLY SERVE HIM”.

The devil offers us substitutes for Jesus. He says “You are good enough. Follow another god, not the God of the Scripture”. But The Bible tells us:

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

When we believe on Jesus, following Him as Abraham followed Him, God considers us spiritually aligned with Himself. He imputes or credits righteousness to us for Christ’s sake. We cannot justify ourselves. The Scripture says:

Romans 8:33 (NKJV) … It is God who justifies.

God must justify or declare a person righteous. God alone is always right, always righteous. We are not always right, no matter what you might think. The Bible says that all of us are naturally sinners, naturally wrong, and naturally apart from God. God must supersede our natural wrongness.

We can’t make ourselves right by doing good religion (like the Pharisees) or by doing good acts of humanism (like the Sadducees). These are false gods. We must surrender to and follow Jesus.

All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). God must intervene – and He has through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The Scripture says that God did not arbitrarily justify people, but that Jesus “was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25).

Jesus paid the penalty that we couldn’t pay to give us a righteousness that we couldn’t earn. God is eternal. Every sin committed against God brings an eternal punishment. Yet we are but mortals. How can we pay for our sins? We cannot. We must believe what the Bible says. We must surrender our lives – our very intellect – to the truth that Jesus was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.

Grace is free, but it’s not cheap. Grace cost God the Father the life of His Only Begotten Son.

Grace caused Jesus Christ our Lord to hang, naked and bleeding, before a jeering crowd as He cried out under the weight of our sin. Grace costs the believer everything as he lays his life down at the foot of the Cross. Jesus Christ died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification. Jesus alone made full payment for the sins of “whosoever will”.

So many “Christians” miss the glory of the Christian life because they refuse to surrender their lives to the Lord.

They think that they can work their way to God, or be good enough to get to God. They miss the miracle of new birth because they – like all Pharisees – hold on to the Law with one hand while trying to please God with the other. We cannot please God until we submit to His resources. We must deny the flesh and submit to the Spirit. We must give our lives to Jesus Christ, so He can give life to us.

Romans 8:5-8 (KJV) For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. {6} For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. {7} Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. {8} So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Those who follow the gods of this world – the flesh – “CANNOT PLEASE GOD”. The power of our salvation is in Jesus Christ, not in our own strength. We follow Jesus, just as Abraham followed Jesus. We are flawed in our following, but we follow knowing that in Him and Him alone is life. By Jesus …

Romans 5:2 … we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

We “STAND” in Grace. We “REJOICE in hope of the glory of God”. We know that God is faithful, and will do as He has said He will do.

Those who worship the gods of the flesh, whether it be politics, money, fame, whatever, those gods shall fall. But our God shall never fall. As Christ followers we do not despair.

Christians do not live in CRISIS. We live looking toward the CROSS. We follow the CHRIST no matter what comes our way.

Whatever “Faith” You Have Will Be Tested

Romans 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also …

What is the difference between the Christ Follower who, like Abraham, keeps their eyes on Jesus, and the “Christian” who has put their faith in the flesh?

When someone turns off the lights, the Christ Follower gives GLORY TO GOD. The “Christian” has tantrums, pity parties, and relying on the flesh literally goes all to pieces. They have no peace with God. The Bible says:

“WE (Christ Followers) GLORY IN TRIBULATIONS”

Word Study: The word translated “TRIBULATIONS” is the Greek thlipsis, which means “afflictions, troubles, anguish, persecution, something that presses down on our spirits and our bodies”. Jesus warned His followers that “they shall deliver you up to be AFFLICTED” (thlipsis). Those who follow Christ can expect the pains and failures of this world, but also the attacks of the darkness. Those who profess to be “Christian” but who are yet in the flesh “have no root in themselves. They endure for a while, but when affliction (thlipsis) comes they are offended – and leave the faith” (Mark 4:17; Matthew 13:21). The heretic Charles Darwin, the inventor of that idiocy we call human evolution, was once a minister of the Gospel. There are other people, pastors and ministers, who look “Christian” but are not Christ followers.

How you respond to trials and tribulations proves whether you are a born again Christ follower, or a follower of the flesh.

When I was younger I read a book written by Corrie Ten Boom called “The Hiding Place”. As Christ followers, Corrie and her family hid persecuted Jews from the Nazis during that terrible time called the Holocaust. When Corrie and her family were discovered they were all imprisoned. Her father and her sister Betsy died in prison. Corrie was supposed to be executed by the Gestapo, but due to a “clerical error” was released. Corrie remarked,

“God does not have problems. Only plans.”

Before she left this life in 1983 to be with Jesus, Corrie wrote:

“Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’ Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. ‘No, Corrie,’ said Betsie, ‘He has not forgotten us. Remember His Word:

“For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.”

“There is an ocean of God’s love available—there is plenty for everyone. May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love – whatever the circumstances.”

God did the greatest thing He could do for you at the Cross and the empty Tomb. Would God save you, dear believer, then abandon you to the darkness? Absolutely not! We have peace with God. We who follow Jesus are God’s Children. No good Father will abandon His children. We are “His Workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10). God is at work in our lives through tribulations and tests, making us more like Jesus. Our faith is not in our flesh, but in Him, the Spirit of God. Our hope is not in fallen man, but in Perfect Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Do you know Him? Are you following the flesh, or the Holy Spirit? Oh Beloved, whether you follow the god of the world, or the God of the Bible, you will be tried. Whether you prosper, whether you grow, or crash and burn – depends on where your faith is.

My faith is in Jesus Christ, and in the promises of this glorious Bible. How about you? May God pierce your heart with His glorious Gospel. Amen.