SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: The reading today is going to be from Romans chapter five, verses six to eleven.
SPEAKER_00: So while you're getting the that uh opened up, city kids and city teens.
SPEAKER_00: This question is something that you might want to look out for today during the reading.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think about this question and try and find two answers from this passage, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, when did Christ die?
SPEAKER_00: So those are the that's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Try and find two answers in the reading.
SPEAKER_00: For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
SPEAKER_00: For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
SPEAKER_00: But God chose his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_00: Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be be saved by him from the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: 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 be shall we be saved by his life.
SPEAKER_00: More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the assistant pastor here at City Church.
SPEAKER_01: And um just as I get set up here, why don't you open up um Romans chapter 5 again?
SPEAKER_01: Uh have it open there in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's important that you're following along what I'm saying, uh, that you see that it's from scripture, it's not just a bunch of random thoughts that I came up with.
SPEAKER_01: Um we we at City we preach through um passages as they are written with the intention of preaching, preaching the intention that the writer had.
SPEAKER_01: So it's important that you were uh looking at it there.
SPEAKER_01: So open it up on your phone, or there's a few Bibles down here, a couple of Bibles there, if anybody's brave, to uh come down and get one.
SPEAKER_01: I want to start today by thinking uh just a little bit, asking you to think a little bit about the future.
SPEAKER_01: Uh for some of you that might be a big worry.
SPEAKER_01: Uh for the rest of you, uh you haven't worried yet about the future.
SPEAKER_01: Um we don't know what's gonna happen in the future.
SPEAKER_01: We make plans and we dream dreams, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes they don't work out.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that's because of external factors.
SPEAKER_01: Uh stuff that's happened outside that means something can't happen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, sometimes that's because we mess up.
SPEAKER_01: We don't like to think about it, we don't like to um admit it.
SPEAKER_01: But it might be because of things you've done or things that you've failed to do that mean that those those dreams, those plans are yeah, no longer possible.
SPEAKER_01: Take your job, for example.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so you mightn't be able to relate directly to this, but I hope you can follow along, you can understand uh where I'm going with this, and maybe you'll be able to apply it to some part of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Um but if you if say if in your job you're up for a promotion or you're you're thinking about getting a new job and you're actively looking for that new job, and and if you if you're in that stage, if you're in if you're looking for a promotion, if you're looking for a new job, you're not gonna want to mess things up in the here and now.
SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna want to mess things up in your current job on that current project with that current client or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to ruin your chances of getting that promotion, and you don't want to ruin that uh your boss's view of you because you'll need their reference.
SPEAKER_01: You'll need a good reference from them for the next job.
SPEAKER_01: So no matter what it is, whether it's a good uh a promotion or a new job or whatever, you don't want to mess things up in the here and now.
SPEAKER_01: Or think about relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe uh you have plans of where, or maybe you've done, maybe this has happened in the past where you've had plans of where a relationship might go, but you worry that you might think you might mess things up and they'll reject you.
SPEAKER_01: And so the future that you dreamed about, the future you'd planned, that's gone.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a fear that Paul wonderfully addresses here in Romans chapter 5, in terms of our relationship with God, how we might fear messing things up with Him.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the first things to see in this passage is just how amazing God's love is.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't want you to come, I don't want you to be looking at this and hearing me say from the front of church uh just how amazing God's love is.
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
SPEAKER_01: Of course I'm gonna say that.
SPEAKER_01: But look at what Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: So read with me uh from Romans chapter 8, especially.
SPEAKER_01: So just at the start of the passage, we're focusing in on verses 6 to 8.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to separate out the whole thing because we see God's love throughout it, but especially in verse 8, there, if you read it with me, so do follow along in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8 says, But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's our our first main point of today's sermon is behold God's love displayed.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to behold it.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see it, to sit with it for a while, to know God's love for you.
SPEAKER_01: How amazing it is.
SPEAKER_01: And there's two important things here that show us just how amazing God's love is, they'll help us to behold his love.
SPEAKER_01: There's the costly sacrifice, and there's unworthy recipients.
SPEAKER_01: These two things help to highlight the breadth of God's love for us.
SPEAKER_01: And one reason they show the breadth of his love is they're kind of on opposite ends of the scale.
SPEAKER_01: On one side, you have us where we were being weak, being ungodly, being sinners and enemies of God.
SPEAKER_01: You'll see that's how we're described the whole way through these verses.
SPEAKER_01: And on the other end, there's the perfect, costly sacrifice of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And these two things together show the extent to which God loves us.
SPEAKER_01: They stretch it out for us.
SPEAKER_01: It's like looking to the horizon one way and then looking to the horizon in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_01: It just stretches out.
SPEAKER_01: Not just beyond one horizon, but beyond two horizons.
SPEAKER_01: If you try to measure the price of Christ's death and his blood being spilled, you'll start here and you'll start to trace it beyond the horizon that way.
SPEAKER_01: And then if you try to measure your sin, the cost of it, you'll start here and you'll trace it beyond the horizon the other way.
SPEAKER_01: The debt we owed was too much for us, but the value of his sacrifice, of Christ's sacrifice, is infinite.
SPEAKER_01: So let's focus in on that costly sacrifice just a bit by itself now.
SPEAKER_01: Why was such a costly sacrifice needed in the first place?
SPEAKER_01: Well, some of that is answered by the depth of uh of our enmity with God and our sin, which we'll look at more in a moment.
SPEAKER_01: But the Old Testament was pointing towards that through the system of sacrifices for when individuals or the whole people of God sinned against him, whether that was intentional or not.
SPEAKER_01: There was a system there, there was a way for them to be made right with God, to be reconciled to him.
SPEAKER_01: Reconciliation was needed.
SPEAKER_01: And those those sacrifices they were costly enough.
SPEAKER_01: A life had to be given.
SPEAKER_01: It was usually uh a cow or a goat or a lamb.
SPEAKER_01: And it's no that taking the life of a of an animal being given, that's that's no insignificant thing.
SPEAKER_01: But these sacrifices were never good enough.
SPEAKER_01: They had to be made over and over, and they never fully paid the debt.
SPEAKER_01: They were only a shadow of the sacrifice that was needed.
SPEAKER_01: The sacrifice that was needed, it had to be perfect, it had to be a perfect life, it had to be the costliest sacrifice, it had to be God's own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man.
SPEAKER_01: And as we continue to contemplate who this Christ is, we we keep looking further and further at his majesty, at his supremacy.
SPEAKER_01: It just stretches off into the distance, beyond the horizon.
SPEAKER_01: And we just marvel at who he is.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the Christ who died.
SPEAKER_01: God himself.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of God became human.
SPEAKER_01: He lived among us, was betrayed by a friend, mocked by those he had created, and was crucified to those he had given authority to.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, God's love displayed in the costly sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And what compounds this though is how unworthy we are as recipients of his love.
SPEAKER_01: We were weak.
SPEAKER_01: That is morally weak.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul's talking about here in terms of weakness.
SPEAKER_01: We're morally weak, unable to make ourselves good.
SPEAKER_01: We were ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: We were doing the very opposite of what God intended for us.
SPEAKER_01: We were sinners.
SPEAKER_01: We were those who had committed cosmic treason.
SPEAKER_01: We committed cosmic treason against the king of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: We were enemies of God.
SPEAKER_01: And we weren't just coexisting with him in some sort of neutrality, but being at enity with him.
SPEAKER_01: We're enemies, being hostile towards him.
SPEAKER_01: And so we were justly under his judgment and his wrath.
SPEAKER_01: Picture me, uh picture with me a classroom for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy for for me to do.
SPEAKER_01: Twelve months ago, I was uh worrying about the next day as in Monday, because it was when I was going back to school as a teacher uh for the last half term, and any teachers here will know Sunday is uh Sunday is the the fear day.
SPEAKER_01: Um but and and some of you it's a while since you've been in the classroom, but you can imagine it.
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine this classroom situation.
SPEAKER_01: So occasionally I had students come into class without homework done.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not great, so I take a note of it, but there were procedures that we went through, so I gave them a chance to catch up with it, and we left it at that.
SPEAKER_01: And if I had some reward, which is the odd time I did, but had some reward for homework that was done very well or something like that, I wouldn't be thinking about giving it to the student who didn't have their homework done.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty obvious.
SPEAKER_01: They wouldn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: And if it happened again a couple of times that they didn't bring in their homework, there'd be more consequences.
SPEAKER_01: I'd potentially give them extra homework, punishment fitting the crime and all that, although you might think, well, that's a silly thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: If they haven't done their homework in the first place, they're not going to do the extra homework.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'd potentially call home, they could be put on lunchtime detention, or they might have to stay after school or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And all the while I tried to have a good attitude towards the student.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to let uh their behavior and their lack of engagement with the homework harm my relationship with them as an educator, because the relationship is very important for their learning and for your sanity.
SPEAKER_01: But that can be hard.
SPEAKER_01: Not having the homework done is a pretty minor thing in terms of how it affected the teacher-student relationship.
SPEAKER_01: But when it came to misbehaviour and talking out of turn, uh if they're doing that constantly talking over you, talking over others, that's when it got more difficult.
SPEAKER_01: But continue with me.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a student who not only fails to bring in their homework to class, not only do they talk over you and over others, and misbehave in general, they're actually outside during the lesson.
SPEAKER_01: They're outside throwing stones at the windows.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't be anywhere near contemplating giving them a reward.
SPEAKER_01: Not in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: You'd be straight down to the principal to deal with it.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't want to have to bother yourself with dealing with it.
SPEAKER_01: You couldn't tolerate that sort of behavior even for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: And again, there'd be no way you'd be thinking about doing anything good for them in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: Yet that's what we were like.
SPEAKER_01: And worse.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we were like when Christ died for you.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not like God just sat us down like a principal might do, and wait till we're settled, and and wait till we've explained ourselves, or wait till there's understanding and we might apologize.
SPEAKER_01: Christ died for us before we had done anything to claw back from the position we were in as enemies.
SPEAKER_01: We were weak.
SPEAKER_01: Again, Paul means that we were morally weak.
SPEAKER_01: We couldn't make our way to God by ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: That's when Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul, you might have noticed, he makes this argument that it's on a very rare occasion that someone would give their life for another, even if that person is righteous.
SPEAKER_01: But he catches himself for a moment before finishing the thought, saying that maybe he'd consider dying for a good person.
SPEAKER_01: See that in verse 7 there.
SPEAKER_01: For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.
SPEAKER_01: But God shows his love for us and he goes on.
SPEAKER_01: And taken out of context, someone might think, Well, I'm pretty good.
SPEAKER_01: I think someone would consider dying for me because I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is saying that this barely even happens to a righteous person or a good person, but we weren't even in a state of neutrality with God, let alone being righteous.
SPEAKER_01: We were enemies.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: But God shows his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: God's love is shown in the most costly of sacrifices for the most unworthy of a recipient.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, God's love displayed.
SPEAKER_01: And since he loved you enough to die for you when you were a sinner, he's going to keep loving you.
SPEAKER_01: And he'll keep you secure to the end.
SPEAKER_01: Especially because now Christ is alive.
SPEAKER_01: We celebrated that last week with Easter.
SPEAKER_01: If he saved you in his death, how much more does his resurrection and life give us a secure hope for the future?
SPEAKER_01: If his love was displayed, if it was shown, if it was proven when we were enemies, how much more would he keep us and save us on into the future?
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to worry about the coming wrath and the day of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Because of our current position, that's being justified, and because of what God did in Christ to achieve that for us.
SPEAKER_01: Since our current position was achieved by Christ's death and his blood, again, how much more are we assured by his life?
SPEAKER_01: In these next verses, Paul addresses the question of whether we'll be saved and kept into the future, whether God will keep loving us.
SPEAKER_01: Have we messed up too much?
SPEAKER_01: And his answer here is to rest assured in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: That's our second main point.
SPEAKER_01: Rest assured in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Again, there's two sub points.
SPEAKER_01: I should have said at the start, we have three main points.
SPEAKER_01: Each main point has two sub points.
SPEAKER_01: I still struggle with maths, despite the fact that I was a maths teacher, and I make that joke every time I'm up here.
SPEAKER_01: I need to stop it.
SPEAKER_01: Three points.
SPEAKER_01: This is our we're on our second point, and there's two sub points.
SPEAKER_01: So rest assured in the gospel, firstly, because the cross it justifies us completely.
SPEAKER_01: It completely justifies us.
SPEAKER_01: And the resurrection gives us a start in the future.
SPEAKER_01: So rest assured in the gospel because the cross justifies us completely.
SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at verses 9 to 10, and Paul continues to talk about the implications of our justification.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to I want to just head back to verse 1 for a moment and just uh talk through what we were looking at last week and then into this week.
SPEAKER_01: So he started in verse 1 with um which which we looked at last week.
SPEAKER_01: Um have a look up there in verse 1 and 2 and follow along with me as we see the implications of our justification.
SPEAKER_01: So verse 1, since we have been justified by faith, we're with we're thinking about the implications.
SPEAKER_01: We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Through him we've also obtained access by faith into his grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: There are some of the benefits or the implications of our justification.
SPEAKER_01: Peace with God, access by faith into his grace in which we stand, and rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul goes on then in verses 3, 4, 5, again, which we looked at last week, to talk about how we can rejoice in the midst of suffering, and that we're assured of our future hope because of God's love for us, which we experience by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And then we get to today's passage in what we just looked at in verses 6 to 8, where Paul outlines just how amazing this love is, in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.
SPEAKER_01: And now in verse 9, so we're getting to verse 9, he continues with more wonderful implications of our justification, which remember he began back in verse 1 with these.
SPEAKER_01: And just notice the similarity in how Paul writes in verses 1 and 9.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 1 he says, Therefore, since we've been justified, and then goes on.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 9, which we're looking at now, since therefore we have now been justified.
SPEAKER_01: So he's picking up in verse 9 here more of what our justification means.
SPEAKER_01: But one thing to do before looking at the implications of our justification is simply, simply to ponder for a moment, to steep in the first half of verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Since we have now been justified by his blood.
SPEAKER_01: Remember where we were.
SPEAKER_01: We sinners have been justified.
SPEAKER_01: And look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: We enemies have been reconciled.
SPEAKER_01: We've been justified, we've been reconciled.
SPEAKER_01: That's such good news.
SPEAKER_01: Christ's death for us, while we are still sinners, makes us right before our holy God.
SPEAKER_01: It brings us into relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: But how can we be sure that this is true?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's grounded in the cross of the Lord Jesus, in the shedding of his blood at the cross.
SPEAKER_01: We see that throughout here.
SPEAKER_01: Paul talks about Christ's blood, his death, he talks about his death again.
SPEAKER_01: It's all grounded in the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The cross justifies us.
SPEAKER_01: Not only does it justify us, it justifies us completely.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing more we can do, nothing more we can add, because his death was the perfect sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: What Christ has done on the cross in his death is not just paying off our debt, though that is wonderfully true, but it's not just paying off our debt, it's more than that.
SPEAKER_01: It's that our account has permanently been debited.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, not debited, credited.
SPEAKER_01: We can't even put more in.
SPEAKER_01: We can't earn more.
SPEAKER_01: If we tried, we would debit our account, we'd empty our account, but we can't.
SPEAKER_01: It's being credited.
SPEAKER_01: That we may struggle and toil to earn our own righteousness before God and before others.
SPEAKER_01: We can rest assured in the gospel because we've been justified by the blood of our perfect Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And the effectiveness of Christ's once for all sacrifice, it doesn't diminish over time.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't weaken the more people are saved by Him.
SPEAKER_01: Our current right standing before God and our present salvation are grounded in the objective reality of Christ's death on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: We rest assured In the gospel, because Christ's death, because the cross, indeed justifies us completely.
SPEAKER_01: And on top of this, the resurrection confirms our justification.
SPEAKER_01: It's proof that he is victorious, that he's victorious over sin, that his death does justify us.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection confirms it.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but we rest assured in the gospel because the resurrection gives us a certain hope.
SPEAKER_01: So we've seen that the cross justifies us completely.
SPEAKER_01: And now our second sub point is that the resurrection gives us a certain future.
SPEAKER_01: And this is really what Paul is driving home for us in verses 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_01: He's drawing us from how amazing it is that we've been made right with God while we were enemies, while we were still sinners, and helping us to see that if that's true, then there's no doubt that he'll keep us to the end, that we'll be saved from God's wrath on the final day.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ won your salvation by his death, how much more does his life give you hope for the future?
SPEAKER_01: A sure hope of eternity with God.
SPEAKER_01: And we've already seen how great his love is for us in the cross, so we can be sure that he will keep loving us since Christ is alive.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing that can thwart God's salvation plan.
SPEAKER_01: Not even our weakness, nor our own sin, the sins of others or the hardships we face.
SPEAKER_01: If we couldn't stop, if we couldn't put a stop to God saving you, if you couldn't stop him saving you when you were an enemy, then you won't stop, uh you won't stop him from keeping you now.
SPEAKER_01: You see, it's not about you, it's about him.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the grounds for our confidence.
SPEAKER_01: So we can face those hardships knowing that he will keep us.
SPEAKER_01: And we can acknowledge our weakness, we can acknowledge our sin, knowing that we've already been reconciled to God and we will be saved by his son's life.
SPEAKER_01: That's hugely significant for us, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: We can and should live honest lives before God.
SPEAKER_01: And we can live honest lives before each other as well.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to hide our weakness.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to hide our sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we say a corporate confession together on a Sunday morning every few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: And it's good that we're often led in during other times, maybe in prayer, in song, um, at the Lord's Supper, in confession.
SPEAKER_01: In community groups, we're able to talk about our sin and our failings together.
SPEAKER_01: We can do that in one-to-ones as well.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're secure in the fact that God has already pardoned and forgiven us, and confident that Christ brings life out of death because God raised him from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And we are confident that God raised Jesus from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: We believe it's an objective fact.
SPEAKER_01: Our confidence and assurance are grounded in two historical facts.
SPEAKER_01: Christ died for our sins, and he was raised to life.
SPEAKER_01: Rest assured in the gospel because the cross justifies you completely, and the resurrection gives you a certain hope for the future.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, we live out of these truths.
SPEAKER_01: We live out of the knowledge of what God's done for us, of his love that was shown in Christ's costly sacrifice for us unworthy recipients, that we're justified completely by the cross, that our future is secure because of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: So, how should we as Christians live in response to this?
SPEAKER_01: And that's where Paul goes next in verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: He writes in verse 11, if you read it with me, more than that.
SPEAKER_01: We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: Our third and final main point is rejoice having received reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: And again, there's two things I want to highlight here, our two subpoints.
SPEAKER_01: They are enjoy God and boast in Him.
SPEAKER_01: So first, enjoy God.
SPEAKER_01: Justification, it's not an end in itself.
SPEAKER_01: It's 100% needed.
SPEAKER_01: But its purpose is not only that we're not enemies, it's not only that our debt is paid.
SPEAKER_01: These things are true.
SPEAKER_01: And being those who are certain of our future, being confident that we won't bear the wrath of God should make us at the very least feel relieved.
SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful truth that we've been declared right before God and we are no longer his enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Again, that's great news.
SPEAKER_01: But we haven't just been brought from being enemies to a place of neutrality to like an absence of hostility.
SPEAKER_01: We've been reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_01: We've received his favor.
SPEAKER_01: We've been restored to a loving relationship with our Creator.
SPEAKER_01: We've been adopted by Him.
SPEAKER_01: And now we call Him a father.
SPEAKER_01: And the adoption process is helpful to think about.
SPEAKER_01: There are lots of important legal things that need to take place in order for an adoption to happen.
SPEAKER_01: It has to be very formal and judicial.
SPEAKER_01: But the motivation for it is the adoptive parent's love for the child.
SPEAKER_01: The end goal is not just having something down on a legally binding piece of paper.
SPEAKER_01: That's not why parents go through that process.
SPEAKER_01: It's to have a loving parent-child relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And the legal things, they are so important.
SPEAKER_01: And they are actually an expression of love, but it's also there can be this loving relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And the same is true for us with our Father.
SPEAKER_01: What it costs to justify us was huge, but it doesn't just end there.
SPEAKER_01: We've been reconciled to Him.
SPEAKER_01: And when we look at the cross, we don't just see that we're no longer enemies.
SPEAKER_01: We see His love for us and that we've been made His children.
SPEAKER_01: We have a relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: So we go through life enjoying our relationship with our God, with God our Father, confident of His love for us.
SPEAKER_01: And secondly, we boast in Him.
SPEAKER_01: Having been reconciled to God, that's the position we're in.
SPEAKER_01: We've been reconciled to God by His death on by Christ's death on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Having this wonderful relationship with Him and being confident in that reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: Again, because of the the cross and the resurrection, we rejoice in Him.
SPEAKER_01: We proclaim what He has done.
SPEAKER_01: We can't help but talk about it.
SPEAKER_01: And we can't help but orientate our lives around it and around Him.
SPEAKER_01: The word Paul uses here, that's translated as rejoice, can also be translated as rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, as boast.
SPEAKER_01: We boast in him.
SPEAKER_01: We boast in who he is and what he has done.
SPEAKER_01: Now we've no pride in ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We've no pride in our own efforts.
SPEAKER_01: Paul has just been walking us through how we were, when we were weak, that's when Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we rejoice in.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we tell others about.
SPEAKER_01: That our God is so loving that Jesus died for us while we were still weak, so that we could be reconciled to Him, being made His son or His daughter.
SPEAKER_01: So we boast to others whether they enjoy that same relationship with Him or not.
SPEAKER_01: We boast about how amazing God's love is.
SPEAKER_01: We say things like, Did you know that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me?
SPEAKER_01: That's how great His love is.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we sing songs all about Him.
SPEAKER_01: We sing songs all about what He has done.
SPEAKER_01: We're rejoicing in Him.
SPEAKER_01: We're helping each other to rejoice in Him as we sing those songs together.
SPEAKER_01: We boast in Him as we read His Word together in community groups or in one-to-one Bible studies.
SPEAKER_01: We're saying that He is worth living for and shaping our lives around because we've been reconciled to Him.
SPEAKER_01: And our rejoicing in God, our boasting in Him is it's not misplaced or exaggerated at all.
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's grounded in the gospel, in the good news of Christ's death on the cross and His resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Just like how the certainty of His love, the assurance of our justification, and the guarantee of being saved eternally are all grounded in the gospel, so too our boast in Him, our rejoicing in Him, and what He's done for us is grounded in the Gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're here and you don't have that relationship with God, you don't enjoy relationship with Him as Father, then there are no efforts you can make to justify yourself.
SPEAKER_01: But the wonderful, the wonderful news is that justification, that is, having that right relationship with God, being reconciled to Him, that comes through faith in Jesus, in what He has done.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a free gift he gives.
SPEAKER_01: I would urge you to consider Christ, consider His death on the cross and his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: And brothers and sisters, you who were enemies with God, but who have been reconciled to him, behold God's love displayed for you.
SPEAKER_01: Rest assured in the gospel and rejoice in joying him and proclaiming him and what he has done for all your days.