Our Incredible Salvation - 2

We cover the rest of Romans 5 in this episode.  I dare you to remain calm while listening to this one!  It's pretty exciting!

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SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Jeff's Bible Trek. We just started a new season last time on our incredible salvation. And we left off working through the first five verses of Romans chapter 5. And I hope you can tell already how amazing the statements are about our salvation in the New Testament. Well, this is episode two, so let's get back into it. As I said, we were working our way through Romans 5, 1 to 5 and stopped when we touched on forgiveness and what a powerful force it is. I challenged everyone to search your hearts and see if there is a need to forgive someone or receive forgiveness from someone. And for those who had the courage and humility to act on that, I salute you. So let me start by rereading Romans 5, 1 to 5. Our faith in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to us, and he now declares us flawless in his eyes. This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us. Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us a perfect relationship with God. What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing God's glory. But that's not all. Even in times of trouble, we have a joyful confidence, knowing that our pressures will develop in us patient endurance. And patient endurance will refine our character, and proven character leads us back to hope. And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us. So my first point is our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us a perfect relationship with God. Now, I've been looking forward to this verse because of this word access. The Greek word for access occurs only three times in the New Testament, once here and twice in Ephesians. Now we'll get to what Ephesians says about it when we get there in our study. But access literally means a leading or bringing into the presence of. It means freedom to enter through the assistance or favor of another. Well, that's our Jesus right there. It is his assistance and favor and blood that made this access possible. This access involves the acceptance of God and the privilege of his favor towards us. Our kind God has accepted us. That is more than a simple sentence. It is a big deal. Many people, especially young people, struggle with the idea of God's acceptance because they struggle with self-acceptance. Many young people are committing suicide because someone on social media doesn't accept them. And so therefore they don't accept themselves. And if they can't accept themselves, that ties back to God for them because they look in the mirror and say, look what you made, God. And before long, the whole thing is spinning out of control. Adults often struggle with the same issue of acceptance because some of them are as addicted to social media as the young people. Well, I have to tell you at this point that this is one of the purposes for this season. So that you might see in a better light just exactly how God views you, so that you can accept yourself. Well, getting back to the idea of access, our faith guarantees us access to two things. First of all, the kindness of God, which is awesome because many of us need to come to grips with a kind God. A kind God. What is your perception of the God whom we serve? Hey, it's an important question. We have access to the kindness of God. And second of all, we have access to the very presence of God. Getting a hold of this truth will make your prayer life more meaningful. You are coming into the presence of God in the same way Moses met with God in the tent of meeting, face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Well, no wonder the next line says, What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing God's glory. Wow, joy. Not just joy, but incredible joy can be had in the presence of God. As Psalm 1611 says, Because of you I know the path of life, as I taste the fullness of joy in your presence. At your right side I experience divine pleasures forevermore. But then there's a huge bonus. Paul says, but that's not all. Even in times of trouble, we have joyful confidence, knowing that our pressures will develop in us patient endurance. And patient endurance will refine our character, and proven character leads us back to hope. And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading, there's that word again, into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us. You know, both James and Peter tell us to rejoice in our trials of all kinds because of these benefits, such as Paul has listed here. And that's hard when you're in the middle of the fire, right? But you know, I've heard quotes from many well-known people over the years saying that the people they have known with the most noble character have been people who have gone through the fire and come through the other end of the, well, the pizza oven, a better person, a person who is thankful that they went through it. So let's continue on to the next section of Romans 5 and verses 6 through 11, and here they are. For when the time was right, the anointed one came and died to demonstrate his love for sinners, who were entirely helpless, weak, and powerless to save themselves. Now, would anyone dare to die for the sake of a wicked person? We can all understand if someone was willing to die for a truly noble person, but Christ proved God's passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly. And there is still much more to say of his unfailing love for us. For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, you are now righteous in my sight. And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God. So if while we were still enemies, God fully reconciled us to Himself through the death of His Son, then something greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God and because we share in His resurrection life, how much more will we be rescued from sin's dominion? And even more than that, we overflow with triumphant joy in our new relationship of living reconciled to God, all because of Jesus Christ. So what are some of the points in this section? There's so awesome, many awesome ones, it's it's hard to yeah. Anyway, uh Jesus died to demonstrate his love for sinners. Demonstrate. Now, as many of you know, the word for love here is agape. We often get kind of lazy in our understanding of what this word means by saying, well, it's the God kind of love. Have you ever heard anybody say that? But most people really can't get a handle on what that means. Now, while it does exist in emotions, agape is known by its actions. It is a love that is demonstrated. One person said it this way agape is putting the interests of others ahead of your own. Some scripture quotes that support this uh are Philippians 2 and verse 3. Don't allow self-promotion to hide in your hearts. That's good. But in authentic humility, put others first and view others as more important than yourselves. Ephesians five twenty five, Paul says he's describing how a husband should treat his wife, and he says, And to the husbands you are to demonstrate love for your wives with the same tender devotion that Christ demonstrated to us, his bride. For he died for us, sacrificing himself to make us holy and pure, cleansing us through the showering of the pure water of the Word of God. And there is no better definition of agape than in 1 Corinthians thirteen. Every phrase seems to give us another piece of the definition. Just some snippets from this chapter to support its definition are these. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. Love does not selfishly seek its own honor. And love never stops believing the best for others. These are all demonstrable acts. And going back to Philippians 2, it says there that he existed in the form of God, yet he gave no thought to seizing equality with God as his supreme prize. Instead, he emptied himself of his outward glory by reducing himself to the form of a lowly servant. He became human, he humbled himself and became vulnerable, choosing to be revealed as a man and was obedient. He emptied himself, he reduced himself, he humbled himself all to demonstrate his love, his agape for sinners who were helpless to save themselves. In verse nine of Romans five, Paul says, We will never experience the wrath of God. Wow, it's let that soak in for a second. We will never experience the wrath of God. And that's because Jesus experienced and suffered it in our place. Now I've known Christians, and you probably have too, who were constantly bracing for the wrath of God to fall on them any moment. But that's just a lack of understanding about our incredible salvation. And verse 10 just gets better. Paul says we have something greater than friendship with God. Because we share in his resurrection life, which is a fantastic point in itself, we will be rescued from the rulership of sin over our life. Man, how do we comprehend this level of incredible truth? I don't know, but just working on this topic has filled me with gobs of joy. And that is what verse 11 says. And even more than that, what there's more than that. We overflow with triumphant joy in our new relationship of living reconciled to God, all because of Jesus Christ. Come on, let's walk in great joy because of what Jesus has accomplished for us. Now, verses 16 to 21 are so good, I'm going to deal with them one at a time. Verse 16, and this free-flowing gift imparts to us much more than what was given to us through the one who sinned, speaking of Adam. For because of one transgression, we are all facing a death sentence with a verdict of guilty. But this gracious gift leaves us with free, leaves us free from our many failures, and brings us into the perfect righteousness of God, acquitted with the words not guilty. So this verse contains the idea of original sin, the sin nature that was passed on to us from birth as a result of Adam's fall. And with that comes a guilty verdict pronounced over us. But the gracious gift that comes to us as a result of surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ sets us free from all of our failures. Come on, I gotta say that again. But the gracious gift that comes to us as a result of surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ sets us free from all of our failures. This word for failures can also be translated falls or trespasses. The King James translates it offenses. According to Strong's Concordance, it means side slip, such as a lapse or deviation from the path. And this can be unintentional, it can be an unintentional error or an intentional willful transgression. All that to say failures is a good word for it. Jesus sets us free from all our failures. And not only that, but there is a huge declaration over us that says Imagine a sign over your head that says, not guilty. Some of you need to get a hold of that. Verse 17. Death once held us in its grip, and by the blunder of one man, death reigned as king over humanity. But now, how much more are we held in the grip of grace and continue reigning as kings in life? Enjoying our regal freedom through the gift of perfect righteousness in the one and only Jesus, the Messiah. Man, I wish there was a seatbelt on this chair right here to keep me from flying out of it. You see, before we came to Jesus, we were held in the grip of death, spiritual death. And this becomes so much more meaningful when you consider the definition of the English word grip. It is the act of grasping, a seizing and holding fast, a firm grasp. We were in the grip and being held fast by death. There was nothing we could do to escape it. And now we're in the grip of grace, and there's nothing we can do to escape it. The grace of God has a continuous and unyielding grip on our lives. That, my friends, is our incredible salvation at work. Again, the grace of God has a continuous and unyielding grip on our lives. I'm really intrigued and encouraged by the concept of reigning as kings in life. Paul said we're reigning as kings in life. It simply means that we are no longer servants of sin and the sinful nature. But now we are servants of the Almighty God. And sin and the sin nature are now in servitude to us. We reign as kings over it. Come on, that right there is something we ought to walk around in our rooms and declare loudly by faith. Okay, verse 18. In other words, as if we need other words. In other words, just as condemnation came upon all people through one transgression, so through one righteous act of Jesus' sacrifice, the perfect righteousness that makes us right with God and leads us to a victorious life is now available to all. My goodness, it the doors have been thrown open, and not just to a few, but to every single person who comes to Jesus. Verse nineteen. One man's disobedience opened the door for all humanity to become sinners. So also one man's obedience, that's Jesus, opened the door for many to be made perfectly right with God and acceptable to him. There's that word acceptable again. We are acceptable to God because He has accepted us just the way we are. Oh that we could accept ourselves the same way. We're going to address this concept of acceptance even more during the course of this season. Verse twenty. So then the law was introduced into God's plan to bring the reality of human sinfulness out of hiding.

unknown 20:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

And yet wherever sin increased, there was more than enough of God's grace to triumph all the more. Boy, that's a great way to put what the purpose of the law was. To bring the reality of human sinfulness out of hiding. And we're talking about the law of Moses here. Paul says it in a little different way in Galatians 3 19. Why then, and I quote, why then was the law given at all? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. It showed people their sins because it was too heavy a burden to keep the law. And that made salvation by grace so much sweeter, as brought out by the last verse of Romans 5, which reads this way, verse 21, and just as sin reigned through death, so also this sin conquering grace will reign as king through righteousness, imparting eternal life through Jesus our Lord and Messiah. I love that phrase, this sin conquering grace. The law of Moses not only could not conquer sin, but it actually exposed it in the lives of the Hebrews. But the simplicity of grace, simply acknowledging our sins and asking Jesus to come into our lives, not only brings Jesus into our lives, but gives us the power to conquer the sin in our lives. My goodness, does that not show us the greatness of our salvation? The incredibleness, if that's a word, of our salvation? Yes, it does. Well, that brings us to the end of Romans 5 and to the end of this episode. In the next episode, we'll start into Romans six and discover more about the triumph of grace over sin. I can't wait, but I'll have to. In the meantime, God bless you mightily.