The Peacemaker and the Promise Keeper: Faith, Peace, and Unwavering Hope | Romans 5:1-11

We explore the profound benefits of justification by faith through Christ as outlined in Romans 5:1-5. Pastor Taylor Guerin unpacks how our position in Christ provides us with peace, access, and hope that transform our daily lives.

• For believers, justification is not a process but a point in time when we are counted righteous because of Christ's finished work
• Before Christ, we were weak, sinners, enemies of God, and deserving of wrath – now we have peace with God
• Through Christ, we've received unprecedented access to God's throne room – more valuable than any exclusive membership
• The prayer room represents the true power center of the church, where believers exercise their access to approach God
• Suffering produces endurance, which builds character, which creates a hope that never disappoints
• The Holy Spirit within us serves as a guarantee that God will fulfill all His promises
• Paul wrote about rejoicing in suffering from personal experience, having endured arrests, beatings, and persecution
• Jesus himself demonstrated that suffering can lead to hope through His death and resurrection

How will you respond to these gifts? Will you live differently because of your peace with God? Will you fully utilize your access to Him in prayer? Will you find purpose in your suffering?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Welcome
• 0:46 Romans 5:1-5 Scripture Reading
• 1:57 Justification Provides Peace
• 9:38 Justification Provides Access
• 18:07 Justification Provides Hope
• 25:10 Closing Invitation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello and welcome to the FBC Eldorado Sermon Podcast. My name is Taylor Guerin, I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist and I want to thank you for listening in to our sermon this week. And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist, el Dorado. Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week? I want to read Romans 5, verses 1 through 5. Romans 5, 1 through 5, and it says this therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into the grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope. Endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope. 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. Let me pray. Lord Jesus, I ask that you would speak now through your word. Teach us what it means to live out your gospel truth. I do pray over every woman in this room, for mothers, for grandmothers, for even great grandmothers in this room, for disciple makers across the room, lord, what a gift, lord, the debt that we owe to faithful women of God who have faithfully discipled. We give you praise, lord, and I pray your blessings over them today and every day. And, lord, now through your word, would you speak to us? We ask, in Christ's name, amen.

Speaker 1: 1:57

We've gotten now to Romans, chapter 5. In Romans, 1 through 3, what we looked at is the really, really bad news that we are far more sinful than we ever thought possible. We are far more sinful than we dared to even consider. But then, late in chapter 3, paul gives us the best news we could imagine that there is far more grace than we could ever imagine, far more grace because of the work of Jesus Christ than we could have dreamed was possible. Last week, in chapter 4, we saw Paul give us a case study from family history. What does it mean to be justified by grace through faith? Well, he says look at Abraham, who believed in God and it was counted to him as righteousness. And so we saw this piece of family history.

Speaker 1: 2:48

And now, today, we turn to Romans 5, and Paul wants to show us the benefits of faith, the benefits of the gospel, what is true of us because we believe the gospel. It begins here again, in chapter 5, verse 1,. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, if we have the chart on the screen, I want to show you something. We showed this a couple months back, but this, really this chart that represents the Christian life, and I just want to remind us again that you've got unbelief before Christ. And then you've got that J, that dot there of justification. We're coming back to that which leads to sanctification, which is the process of becoming more like Christ, glorification, when we go to be with the Lord, the eternal state of a glorified believer.

Speaker 1: 3:42

But that big dot, justification, notice, it's not a line, notice, it's not a process. It is a point on the map of your life that you are justified, that your sins have been forgiven. Why? Because of the finished work of Christ and you are counted righteous, because Christ has died and risen from the grave, and so you are justified, a point in time. And you, how could this be? Certainly not, as we saw last week, of our own work, merit or effort, but by the work of Christ. So again, romans 5.1 shows us.

Speaker 1: 4:22

Point number one is this that our justification provides our peace. What's the first thing we get out of it? Our justification provides our peace. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, here it is we have peace with God. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, we now have peace with God. Now, what does that word peace mean? Sometimes, when we think of peace, we can think about it like this as we think of peace, we think of an inner serenity, an inner just, maybe clarity or contentment. That's really not what Paul is talking about here. Now, by all means, there will be times in the Christian life when we have that inner peace, that contentment. All seems well, all feels resolved in our soul, that inner peace. Certainly that will be there at times in our life.

Speaker 1: 5:21

In this moment, really, paul is talking about peace, defining it as that we are no longer rebels, we are no longer hostile to God and to the things of God, that we who were once counted enemies of God are now brought into peace with God. Now we might be tempted to say did I really need peace with God? We might be tempted to say well, taylor, I don't know that I was really hostile to God. I don't know that I was an enemy of his. I might tell you this this morning I was saved at the age of six years old, I think I mentioned before. I wasn't running around the playground at five years old just as this reckless enemy of God shouting out my rebellion against God. That really wasn't my story.

Speaker 1: 6:14

So what do you mean? That outside of Christ, we didn't have this peace. We were hostile to God. Well, outside of Christ, certainly, though we may not have run around as if we were enemies of God and rebels. Certainly, in our sin we lived like it, whether we realized it or not. We made decisions that put us on the throne of our lives. We made decisions that had no time for anyone else being the sovereign Lord, had no time for anyone else being the sovereign Lord.

Speaker 1: 6:45

If you want to see just how much we need peace, let's jump down and look briefly at verses 6 through 11. Because Paul describes when the gospel work came, verse 6, he says For while we were still weak. So, number one, we were weak at the right time. Christ died for the ungodly, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one might dare to die. So we were weak and Christ died for us. Paul, reasoning this out, maybe for someone who is really, really good. Some human might dare to die, but look at this good. Some human might dare to die, but look at this, verse 8, but God shows his love for us in that, while we were still sinners, christ died for us.

Speaker 1: 7:34

When did the work of Christ take place? Not after we cleaned ourselves up, not after we looked the part, not after we finally got our lives together, but it says, while we were still sinners. Christ died for us. Therefore, verse 9, since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 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. More than that, we're rejoicing God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Speaker 1: 8:15

In the beauty of those verses, what you also see is the reality of our own lives outside of Christ. We saw that we were weak. We saw that we were weak. We saw that we were still sinners. We saw that we were enemies of God. We saw that we were deserving of the wrath of God. We saw that we were those that needed to be reconciled to God. And so when we think about that and that is the context of who we were outside of Christ Suddenly it wakes us up to the unbelievable claim that we are those now that stand at peace before God, that before the sovereign God of the universe, you and I have peace. You and I come into his presence in peace. We have perfect relationship with him, and I say perfect. We are justified, his perfect righteousness. Certainly, sometimes our own sin still seems to get in the way a little bit in our lives, but the reality is this we are now at peace and justified before him. So our justification, first of all. It provides our peace, but also I want to see this our justification provides our access. Look at verse 2. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into the grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Speaker 1: 9:52

I want to think about that word, access, for a minute. We live in an access world, don't we? Everything seems to be about access. Thing seems to be about access. You pay your $10 a month to the subscription to the Netflix or the Disney Plus and they give you access to their video catalog. You pay your monthly subscription to the El Dorado paper or the Democrat Gazette they give you access. The second you miss that payment, that access is taken away. We live in an access world.

Speaker 1: 10:25

I think a few weeks ago, the Masters Tournament at Augusta, rory McIlroy wins the tournament, finally wins the tournament, the career Grand Slam, and I'll tell you what he gets for winning. He gets $4.2 million. That's what you get this year for winning the Masters $4.2 million. But let me tell you get this year for winning the Masters, 4.2 million dollars. But let me tell you what he also gets that you get for winning at Augusta winning the Masters, you get access. First, you get the green jacket the green jacket at Augusta that only the winners have and everybody who's never won the tournament want that elusive green jacket that says forever you're a Masters champion. You get your name engraved on the trophy that stays at Augusta. You also get a replica of it to take with you.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Probably most importantly, you get access to the champion's locker room and it is exactly what it says it is. It is a locker room that only exists, that is only open for past champions, and even still, each year at Augusta, the past champions still use that locker room, so there'll be maybe three or four guys that get to use it that weekend at Augusta. The past champions still use that locker room, so there'll be, you know, maybe three or four guys that get to use it that weekend at Augusta, but it's only for them. You get your name on a locker. It is yours now and forever. At the next year, rory McIlroy will get to you know, host the dinner and pick the menu.

Speaker 1: 11:59

There's a certain level of access that comes with winning that tournament and if you asked Rory McIlroy right now which is a very difficult name to pronounce in a sermon multiple times if you asked Rory McIlroy right now and I preface this by saying he lives in a different tax bracket than the rest of us but if you were to ask him right now, you can keep one of them, you can keep the 4.2 million or you can keep the access. It's not a question. Give me the access, let me be the master's champion. The locker room, the jacket, everything that comes with it. There's just something about access. That means something, and you and I, if we are in Christ Jesus, think about something the access that we have. It's almost wild to even utter this fact that you and I, who are so undeserving because of the finished work of Christ being clothed in his righteousness, have access to the throne room of God, that we can come before a holy God. And not only that we are invited in. And not only that, as Jesus reminds us, we can look to him and say this is the wildest claim of all Our Father. That's access. That's better than a champion's locker room, that's better than a jacket. That's access before the throne of God In our sanctuary, in that top corner.

Speaker 1: 13:36

There's a room up there and you all want to. You can look right now. If you hadn't seen it, you see a window up there there and there's a room. And one of two things is true of you Either you've always wondered what's in there or you've looked in and been extremely let down because it's not that exciting. But there's a room up there and if you go in there right now, you can't. After service, you're gonna see a couple things. Again, you're going to be let down by it. You're going to see a lot of breaker boxes and a lot of breaker switches and there's a lot of wattage and a lot of power in that room. You can turn lights on and off, probably all over this building. You're also going to see and this is Dustin's world, I don't know but some large towers of amplifiers that somehow make all this sound go forth so we can hear it, and and all of that is housed in that room.

Speaker 1: 14:32

The amount of wattage, the amount of power that exists just in that room is kind of unbelievable. The reality is this it's not the most powerful room in this church. There's also down below us, kind of down in the guts of the basement, as well as on the roof of the church, there's these large HVAC units. I mean literally, they have to have a crane. Get that unit up on top of the church. If you don't believe just how power-packed these units are, just ask the property team who had to replace one about a month ago. They'll tell you they're serious business. The power that it takes to cool a room like this on a day like this or heat it in the summer, the power that those units take both below us and above it, it's unbelievable. It's above my pay grade, but the reality is where those are housed. It's not the most powerful room, powerful place in this church, the most powerful place in this church. I can tell you where it is.

Speaker 1: 15:34

You go down these stairs, you walk through the reception hall, you turn right. At the end you're going to go into this room that, since 1988, has existed as the prayer room of First Baptist Church of El Dorado. If you want to know what power looks like, think about women and men, for decades now, who have walked into that room and though you and I may see it as just walking into a room, what it really is is using their access to come before the throne of the God of the universe to petition him, to praise him, to seek him, to make requests of him the power that exists in that room, utilizing the access they have to the God of the universe. If you want to know anything good that has happened at this church since 1988, just look at what's going on in that room and what God has done through the power that has gone forth because of the access that is gained before the throne of God in prayer, forth because of the access that is gained before the throne of God in prayer, and the reality is that access? That is true of many who have walked into that room. It's the same access you have At the end of the day. That room's not magic. At the end of the day, you have the same kind of access to the God of the universe at your dining room table, in your, your chair, at home with your cup of coffee in the morning. Oh, it's a beautiful thing to come to that room and I hope and pray that you will, but you have access anywhere you are. Why? Because you deserve it. Why because we can boldly come before the throne and we can say aren't I something, lord, shouldn't I get to come here? No, no, no. Because Christ Jesus has clothed us in his righteousness and therefore we can come. And so, even now, you have access to the God of the universe. Do you live like you have access to the God of the universe? Do you live like you have access to the God of the universe? Does your prayer life look like you have access to the God of the universe? Does the boldness you live with communicate to an outside world that you have access to the God of the universe? Our justification provides our peace. Our justification provides our access. But last, I want to see this Our justification provides our peace, our justification provides our access. But last, I want to see this Our justification provides our hope. So we've seen peace and access.

Speaker 1: 18:11

I'm getting excited about what Paul's going to say next in verse three. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. We fell off a cliff there, didn't we? We're going up, we've got peace, we've got access. And then Paul, in verse 3, says this I rejoice in my sufferings. I don't like that one as much, that one doesn't maybe get a room as excited as those first two. But I want us to see the beauty of it. Not that Paul is saying we rejoice in our sufferings, as in when suffering or trial comes, I'm just, I'm coming out and just high-fiving and, my goodness, I get to suffer again. How great, not that. But we rejoice even in the midst of our sufferings, even in the midst of our trials. Because, why? Because our suffering is not wasted. Because, though we live in a broken world and a sinful world, and suffering and trials will come, we serve a God who is sovereign over all and therefore, even in the hardest of circumstances, we serve a God that doesn't waste any of it, that doesn't waste our suffering. Look what he says. He says we rejoice in our that God is going to do something with our suffering. He's going to take us somewhere with our suffering.

Speaker 1: 19:43

First, it produces endurance. You can think of the word steadfastness. This is just the character of a believer that they've walked through suffering. They've seen the faithfulness of God and therefore through suffering they keep walking. They know God is still on the throne, he is still faithful. It produces endurance, but he continues. Endurance produces character, that believers, in their character, are built up. They're differently. They're different today. They live differently because they've walked through hard things and seen the faithfulness of God and their character that has been built has a new way of seeing God I love.

Speaker 1: 20:26

At the very end of Job you probably heard me quote it before 42.5, job says this that God, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. God, before I walked through suffering I knew about you, but now my eye sees you. I think we all know this that there are some lessons and some growth God can build within us in a season of suffering that might never have come, in the season of sunshine. I praise God for mountaintop seasons, for sunshine seasons. I pray you all have them and have them in abundance. But you also know this God can do something in and through your suffering and trials that can really change things. And maybe you know God more clearly today, because God has walked you through something that you didn't know if you'd make it through. So it produces endurance, it produces character, and character produces hope.

Speaker 1: 21:33

And that hope, it doesn't put us to shame. We hope in a lot of things in this earth. We hope for a lot of things that may or may not put us to shame, may or may not come true. I hope my team wins this afternoon. I hope this or that happens. I hope it's not going to be a cold, rainy day on Mother's Day. And yet sometimes those hopes can let us down.

Speaker 1: 21:59

And yet what Paul shows us here, there's something about the hope in the gospel, even in the midst of sufferings, that will not put us to shame. Why? Because God will come through. How do we know? Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. Ephesians 1.14,.

Speaker 1: 22:20

I love the verse. It says that the Holy Spirit is to guarantee the down payment of all that is to come, the down payment of all of the gifts and even the eternal life that is promised. It's as if God is saying do you want to know how faithful I am? I will come and dwell within you right now and you can go and let that be a promise that all of my promises will come true, both now and into eternity. That the one who walks with us through suffering is faithful. And therefore, because of the gospel, because of our justification, we have a new way to think of even the hard things in life. That we don't walk around this world hopeless. No believer should ever walk around this world without hope. Because we know this that in Christ, at the end of all things, no matter where we sit now, one day we know that all will indeed be well.

Speaker 1: 23:41

And it'd be one thing if Paul were writing this from his beach vacation, sitting on the beach, enjoying himself, writing to the church at Rome, saying why don't you just rejoice in your sufferings? Have you tried that? But no, this is Paul writing, the one who had been arrested more times than we can count, put in prison, who had been beaten, who had they tried to execute him. Eventually, they did execute him. This is the one who had suffered more for the sake of Christ than we can imagine. Who's he writing to? The church at Rome, living under the hand of an emperor that did not like believers, that persecuted believers? They knew suffering and yet even still rejoice. And, most of all, we see a savior who himself knew suffering. The god of the universe sending his son did not run from suffering, but his son entered into it on our behalf. And if you want the perfect example of how hope can come even out of suffering, look no further than an empty tomb a couple days after the Lord of the universe being put in the grave. This is what is possible because of the hope of the gospel.

Speaker 1: 25:02

This is what, as a believer, you have, and so I just want to end by asking you this question what are you going to do with these things? What are you going to do with your peace, the fact that you were once an enemy of God and now you're brought into right relationship? How will that change you? Will people around you hear about the fact and know about the fact that you know Jesus? And it changes everything? What are you going to do with your access? How many subscriptions are you paying for right now and you don't even know you're paying for. Sometimes we don't utilize our access.

Speaker 1: 25:44

I pray that it wouldn't be the case in our Christian life, that we're sitting with access to the God of the universe and yet just putting it on the side. Will you come with confidence before the throne of God because he invites you as a father? Will you pray to him with everything you have because you have a God that wants to hear from you? Will you wake up every day knowing that you live the life of one who has been radically turned upside down, for the gospel that has changed everything and the God of the universe is your father? And what will you do with your suffering? You may be in the midst of suffering right now, in the midst of trial in this very moment, and though it's certainly not enjoyable, though we certainly wouldn't wish for it back at any point or any sufferings, what can God do in the midst of it? How might my hope be built? Even now, the good news of the gospel is this that we now have peace, we have access and we have hope. That changes everything for the believer, and I pray day by day. It changes everything for your life, as we respond in just a moment.

Speaker 1: 27:04

I wonder for someone in here if that'll change everything for you, even this morning, that you would come to know your Savior. I'd love to introduce you. I'd love to talk with you about what that means. I'd love to pray with you down here. I'd love to invite you to be a part of this church. Maybe you want to come down and talk about being a member here at First Baptist. However, you want to respond now. I pray that you would do so. I'll pray and we'll worship Lord Jesus.

Speaker 1: 27:32

I thank you so much for the gospel. Thank you for the peace that we have, the access that we have, the hope that we have only made possible by Jesus Christ. I just pray any in the room that don't know you that today they would come into that relationship with access to the God in the universe, not through their works, but through Jesus Christ, the righteous, and him alone. I just pray that you would bring souls to life. I pray that you would encourage believers who have just maybe grown tired, grown weary. Lord, even in their weariness, would they remember that they have peace, they have access and they have hope. Lord, I thank you for the gospel. I pray this in Christ's name, amen. Would you stand now? I'll be down front if you'd like to respond.