Peace comes through Faith
The Prince of Peace • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
How do we Live a Life Characterized by the gift of Christ?
The Inauguration of Peace
The pursuit of peace is a universal human obsession, whether it is international, industrial, domestic or personal peace.
Yet more fundamental than all these is peace with God, the reconciled relationship with him which is the first blessing of justification. Thus ‘justification’ and ‘reconciliation’ belong together, for ‘God does not confer the status of righteousness upon us without at the same time giving himself to us in friendship and establishing peace between himself and us’.
And this peace becomes ours through our Lord Jesus Christ (1), who was both delivered to death and raised from death (4:25), in order to make it possible. This is the heart of the peace which the prophets foretold as the supreme blessing of the messianic age, the shalom of the kingdom of God, inaugurated by Jesus Christ, the prince of peace.
Scriptural Context
“Therefore, having been justified with Christ”
This is a continuation (3:21-4:25) of the previous text. The end of chapter four emphasizes grace comes to us through faith. The historical context is given for Abraham as being counted to him as righteousness through his faith. The writer is saying that this was not written only for Abraham’s account but for our account. We are likewise justified and grafted into the royal line.
DECLARATIVE STATEMENTS ARE GIVEN
“We have Been”
Americans Have $21 Billion in Unspent Gift Cards
Some people love them, some people hate them. Worse, a large number of us who receive them on special occasions are indifferent to them, or even forget about them entirely. Such is the sad fate of gift cards – millions of which go unused each year and have a collective value estimated to be in the billions of dollars.
Almost two-thirds of American consumers have at least one unspent gift card tucked away in a drawer, pocket, wallet, or purse. And at least half of those consumers lose a gift card before they use it, according to a new report from Credit Summit. The report said there is as much as $21 billion of unspent money tied up in unused and lost gift cards. Of those surveyed, a majority of respondents said their unredeemed cards were worth $200 or less.
So why aren’t we using up what people have taken the trouble to give us? According to Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst with CreditCards.com and Bankrate.com:
Inertia is a big factor. Sometimes the gift card is for a store that you don’t particularly like or it’s not convenient to go there. Still, ignoring the gift of free money is unwise. They’re not going to get more valuable over time; it’s the exact opposite, as inflation eats away at the value. And the longer you hold onto these unused gift cards, the more likely you are to lose them or forget about them or have the store go out of business.
How have we devalued the Gift that we have been given in Christ Jesus?
How have we devalued the Gift that we have been given in Christ Jesus?
1. We have a Justifying Faith Kind of Peace
1. We have a Justifying Faith Kind of Peace
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord jesus Christ.”
“Everybody is in the market for peace today. Who is against peace, I cannot imagine anyone being against peace. What kind of peace do you want? What kind of peace do you need? How are you going to get peace?”
Paul, in this monumentally significant passage wants to tell us about the one great peace that we all need but lack for want if we are apart from Christ; and have in full if we have trusted in Christ for our salvation.
And you have to pause, and you have to ask how can this marginal man, how can this man who is one of a tiny number of disciples in this vast empire and in this even vaster world of his own day, how can he be so confident, so emphatic, so joyful in the face of all the opposition? Of all the trials, how can he have this kind of joy? What’s the reason, what’s the basis for that kind of assurance and exultation?
Paul has a most simple response. Justification and it’s consequences
Faith does not exist on it’s own, it is joined with repentance and works of love.
Justification is a Christian’s judicial acceptance by God as not guilty because his sins are not counted against him
God is the Absolute Standard of our Justification
God is the Absolute Standard of our Justification
It is faith that unites believers with Christ. Faith alone, through Christ alone. We are not justified by our works however works are the qualifier of our faith. So, faith alone justifies but faith does not exist in a vacuum on its own.
Justification begins with the absolute standard. The triune God is the ultimate moral standard. Even Pharaoh acknowledged the Lord as a righteous God. That absolute standard of right is expressed in the Mosaic Law especially as it is summarized in the Ten Commandments and the law of love as we read about in Deuteronomy 6:1-9.
The Supreme court even has the ten commandments listed in it’s chambers. The righteous perfect law is something that even the United States Supreme court recognizes. It is also perfectly witnessed in the life of Jesus the Messiah who was tempted in every way we are yet without sin.
Humans are Guilty, Condemned, and Helpless
Humans are Guilty, Condemned, and Helpless
Here is where our post Christian culture gets it wrong. They continually try and move the goal post as to what is holy and righteous. We try to define holiness and rightness according to man’s standard.
God’s assessment of the human condition is beyond dispute: no one is good or righteous. Even peoples best efforts are viewed as filthy rags. God’s righteous and holy law condemns us and before the presence of Christ we can only acknowledge our unworthiness.
Remember on the night of the Christ Childs birth. The shepherds and magi that visited the event immediately fell on their face before the Son of God. There was an immediate response of man’s unworthiness in the presence of absolute perfection. In the presence of the perfect lamb of God.
WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE IN THE PRESENCE OF YOUR MESSIAH TODAY?
Think how lack luster a response we give when we come to worship. Our response many times is tainted with our own pride and sense of self-worthiness. We come to worship out of our own sense of self need and apathy towards the righteous Lamb of God.
We approach the throne of Grace like we approach the God of this world with a sense of entitlement, instead of awe and wonder of the incarnation of God in Flesh, the God man who breached the chasm between God and man.
The Dilemma - How can a Person be made Right with God?
Job posed the question to his friends, “But how can a man be in the right before God?” (Job 9:2), and yet in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Jesus made it clear that it was possible for God to justify sinful people (Luke 18:9-14).
Remember Nicodemus had a similar question about being born again, and even Jesus own disciples questioned, if the goal is perfection then who could possibly attain such a mark.
This is where other religions and world perceptions go off the rail by humanities futile attempts to be made right with God and turn away the wrath of God. The other moral dilemma our human minds face is God pardoning even the vilest offender like; the child molester, the murderer, the rapist, the terrorist.
Justification Apart from the Law
Remember the standard in the Old Testament was the law. Now the standard is Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
Remember Jesus declared that he did not come to do away with the law but, to fulfill it. So, for those who witnessed the Christ Childs birth they were looking upon the very consolation of the Law, if’s perfect fulfillment.
Adam was our original representative head of humanity before God and now we are all united and tied to him i his sin, condemnation and death. We read about this further down in( Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 and Acts 17:26).
Christ is now spoken of as the last Adam that is the representative of those who belong to him but, unlike Adam, he is also their substitute. As a result of his obedient sacrifice leading to his atoning death and resurrection, jesus is given the name “Lord” having gained the victory over the principalities and powers of sin and death.
But, he also has the earthly name “Savior,” the angels that night in the hills of Bethlehem proclaimed to the shepherds, “Unto you is born this night a Savior, and His name is Jesus.”
The kind of peace that we have now been given offers us a backstage pass to the very Grace of God in which we now stand.
“Grace is normally God’s free unmerited favor, his undeserved, unsolicited and unconditional love. But here it is not so much his quality of graciousness as ‘the sphere of God’s grace’ our privileged position of acceptance by him.”
“We have been justified by faith and now we receive access by faith”
(Story of Relationship with Joel Smallbone)
“We have Gained Access”
First,
The word access occurs other places in the N.T. A better translation than ‘access’ (which might suggest that we take the initiative to enter) would be ‘introduction’ which acknowledges our unfitness to enter, and our need for someone to bring us in. The Greek word that ‘a certain touch of formality’ about it, although it is uncertain whether the imagery is of a person being brought into God’s sanctuary to worship or into a king’s audience chamber to be presented to him.
Second,
We have taken our stand firmly in the grace by which we have been introduced. It’s as if as Jesus takes us by the hand and leads us into God’s chamber He tells God, this one is mine and calls us by name. Believers enjoy far more than an occasional audience with the king. We are privileged to live in the temple and in the palace.
How often do we fail to take our Stand on the Grace of God alone?
The perfect tenses here remind us our present status in our relationship with God, into which justification has brought us, is not sporadic but a continuous, not precarious but secure relationship. We do not fall in and out of His grace like courtiers who may find themselves in and out of favor with their sovereign, or politicians with a specific public. No, we stand in it, for that is the nature of grace. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, Romans 8:38.
2 Reasons we should Rejoice
1.) The Object of our Joy
1.) The Object of our Joy
Most of us focus on our everyday ordinary hopes about the weather, our health; however, the hope Paul is speaking of here is a confident objective hope which rests in the secure promises of God alone. And it is focused on the object of our hope which is the glory of God.
Already His glory is continually being revealed in the heavens and on earth. Already it has been manifested in Jesus Christ, the incarnate word of Christ. However, one day the curtain will be rased and the glory of God will be fully disclosed. First, Jesus Christ himself will appear with power and Glory. Secondly, we will not only see his glory, but be changed into it.
2.) The Unexpected Joy
2.) The Unexpected Joy
The great artist Van Gogh brushed epic paintings while contemplating suicide. Charles Spurgeon preached some of his best sermons while depressed. Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. battled melancholy. The great composer Beethoven went deaf.
C.S. Lewis buried his wife after a short, cancer-ridden marriage. Elie Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom survived the holocaust. Joni Eareckson Tada lost her ability to walk in a tragic accident. John Perkins endured jail, beatings, and death threats from white supremacists.
As grief expert Elizabeth Kubler Ross famously noted, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known one defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation and sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep love and concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
The kind of sufferings which Paul speaks of are usually translated as tribulations. These are not what we sometimes associate with trials and tribulations of our earthly existence, meaning our aches and pains, fears, frustrations, and disappointments. But rather it is referring literally to pressures, oppositions and persecutions of a hostile world.
What attitude should Christians adopt in tribulations? It is far from just merely enduring them with stoic fortitude, we are to rejoice in them. This is not masochism, however, the sickness of finding pleasure in pain. It is the recognition that there is a divine rational behind suffering.
“Knowing,” Paul assumes that we should know what the purpose of our tribulation is, it is not some random purposeless experience. It leads to our maturity as Christians.
It produces: endurance; character; the kind of hope that does not put us to shame........
The Backbone of Cultivating a Successful Crop is also what cultivates a successful relationship with Christ.
“A Hope that does not put us to shame”
The spirit is cultivating in you and me a hope that is not an earthly kind of hope or simply a wishful thinking. We hope that things happen and when they don’t turn out as we have hoped, sometimes we are embarrassed, and almost always painfully disappointed. No matter how many disappointments we face in this life it is the future promise of the total victory of his Kingdom and glory that we place all of our hope and trust.
2. We have An Immeasurable Love Kind of Peace
2. We have An Immeasurable Love Kind of Peace
We have the kind of love that has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, even while we were still willfully in rebellion and enemies of God’s rightful rule and reign at the right time in History Christ came to die for the ungodly.
Agape Kind of Love
The poured out measure of God’s Love that is implanted in our hearts gives us the power and capacity to love as God loves. Perhaps the biggest change in our personalities is the fact that the new capacity for love has been put there by a supernatural work of His grace. More specifically God gives us not only a love for each other but a deeper greater abiding love for Jesus.
The most supreme test of whether a person is a Christian is whether or not he had an authentic love in his heart for Jesus Christ.
St. Augustine
“Our Hearts are restless until they Find their Rest in God”
What Proof is there that God loves Human Beings?
*The measure of God’s love is shown in His Death for Hostile and Indifferent people.
*The measure of God’s love is shown in His Death for Hostile and Indifferent people.
Christ died for the ungodly. Many have died so that others could live. But Jesus did not extend our lives by 10, 20, 30 or 40 years, rather he died to extend our lives for ever, for eternity. Notice what Paul says, Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die (verse 7).
This is a difficult passage. Paul is saying that it is scarcely possible that somebody would die for a righteous man, yet maybe somebody would dare to die for a good man.
Note: There is a slight difference between the righteous man and good man. A righteous person is just, obeys the law, is straight and has integrity. The good person, in biblical terms, is characterized by kindness, warmth and love.
The point is that Jesus did not die for people who are either righteous or good. Fallen man is not disposed to any acts of kindness toward God.
The ungodly are those who care nothing for God. The ‘weak’ are those who cannot help themselves; we certainly are powerless to rectify the situation between God and man. The word can also be identified as ‘sick’ much they way we would see a person who is acting hostile towards someone who is trying to help them.
How much more depraved is it to see people frequently unmoved even by this, and want God to convince them, to prove himself over and over again personally that He loves them. The fact is that God is continually revealing himself to this world, but we are spiritually sick with a terminal sickness that continues to fail to recognize Him for who He is.
Even at the cross, what the world would have seen as His weakest moment was His greatest strength and victory. He uttered the words “Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Note: What the Holy Spirit does is to remove the hostility barriers to allow this mighty act of love to shine through and open our blinded eyes to the reality of God’s amazing grace for you and me. Our continual prayer at the First Sunday prayer night is that God would give sight to the spiritually blind and quicken their hearts to turn to the immeasurable love that Jesus brought over 2,000 years ago when He was born in Bethlehem to take away the sins of the world.
3. We have A Reconciling Grace Kind of Peace
3. We have A Reconciling Grace Kind of Peace
The barriers of sin and death have now been broken down and the Light of Christ has come to Reconcile us to himself.
Notice the term “Much more” vs. 9b and 10.
Much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. (We are not just saved from sin and death but the full weight of the wrath of God)
10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
Romans 12:19 “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay says the Lord.”
‘But God has not destined us for his wrath’
9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Note: Those who have been pronounced righteous by God can rejoice already in their deliverance from the end-time wrath.
Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
“More than that” vs. 11
We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.
What is Reconciliation? The Process of reconciliation is the restoration of a relationship.
Christian reconciliation is the work of God through Christ by which He restores mankind to a favorable relationship or status with Himself.
THE PROCESS OF OUR RECONCILIATION
We are Saved - We are being Saved - We will be Saved
So, Our rejoicing is for what God has done, is doing, and will do on our behalf.
“Are Saved” (past Salvation) - Jesus stepped down from His kingly throne to be born in Bethlehem, fully God fully man, lived a sinless life, died an atoning death on the cross for ours sins.” (Romans 5:8; Ephesians 2:8-9).
“Are Being Saved” (present Salvation) - We read the words in 1 Corinthians 1:18
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
“but to those who are being saved”
15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,
Between the past salvation of our new birth and redemption, justification and forgiveness of sins which are all fixed, firm and unchangeable and the future salvation of deliverance from the wrath of God in judgment.
“Will be Saved” We are saved from the penalty of Sin an death and now we will be saved from the power of sin and death.
The Idea of Universal Reconciliation
“Burning Down the Shack”
From Tim Challies’s review of professor James De Young’s book “Burning down the Shack.”
James De Young writes from an interesting perspective—that of a former friend, or acquaintance at least, of Paul Young who wrote the shack.
He begins his book by providing some important but little-known background to The Shack.
In April of 2004 De Young attended a Christian think tank and there Paul Young presented a 103-page paper which presented a defense of universal reconciliation, a Christian form of universalism—the view that at some point every person will come to a right relationship with God.
If they do not do this before they die, God will use the fires of hell to purge away (not punish, mind you) any unbelief. Eventually even Satan and his fallen angels will be purged of sin and all of creation will be fully and finally restored. This is to say that after death there is a second chance, and more than that, a complete inevitability, that all people will eventually repent and come to full relationship with God.
De Young believes that Young’s belief in universal reconciliation is absolutely crucial to anyone who would truly wish to understand The Shack. It is the key that makes sense of the book and the theology it contains.
Though far from the only theological problem with the book, it is the one that makes sense of the others.
This idea flies in the face of a Holy God and His gift of His son as payment for yours and my sin. If there had been any other way why would God allow His son to suffer and die one of the most excruciating deaths on a cross.
How does one avoid this unquenchable fire that Jesus spoke of more than heaven?
Many people believe that all roads—all religions and beliefs—lead to heaven, or they consider that God is so full of love and mercy that He will allow all people into heaven. God is certainly full of love and mercy; it was these qualities that led Him to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to die on the cross for us. Jesus Christ is the exclusive door that leads to an eternity in heaven. Acts 4:12 says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
CONCLUSION
While we were enemies of the Cross Christ was working for our reconciliation. From the dawn of creation God Had a plan for to redeem his creation.
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
We read in 1 John 5:13
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
The Peace that Christians have is founded and rooted in the bringer of everlasting internal spiritual peace.
How do we daily experience the assurance and peace that we have been reconciled with God. There is a way to pursue assurance. For those who are given over to excessive self-examination and doubt there is surely a more hopeful path for you.
The book of Hebrews puts it very simply like this: “Consider Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1). Or: “Look to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). In other words, do not dwell on yourself, dwell on what God has done in Jesus Christ.
There is a paradox here. For many people - most people, I think - the more we focus on the subjective inner workings of our own soul and the relative purity or impurity of our own attitudes and behavior, the more uncertain we become of our own assessment of authentic faith. The path to assurance is to shift our focus off of ourselves and onto God. Off of the subjective and onto the objective.
ILLUSTRATION OF THE LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER
William Cowper (English poet and Anglican Hymn writer) he was an introspective and melancholy, and considered himself beyond hope. Christianity was true he said, but he was not capable of faith. He was rejected.
Then one afternoon in the garden at St. Alban’s Asylum he picked up a Bible. God focused his attention on the objective reality of God’s work in Christ. He read Romans 3:25 “God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness....” This is what Cowper wrote at that moment:
Immediately I received the strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone on me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He made for me, my pardon sealed in His blood… in a moment I believed and received the gospel… Unless the Almighty arm had been under me, I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport; I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder...”
Are you living a peace filled hopeful life today, not because this world is filled with peace but because you opened your eyes for the first time and looked to heaven overwhelmed by the love of Christ that has been poured into your heart?
Perhaps the reason you are not experiencing the peace of God in your life is that somewhere down the line you have devalued the gift.
It is time to fully embrace the gift you have been given and Live everyday in the great joy of your reconciliation.