SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Today, be encouraged with a word from my guest speaker.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_02: As we dig in today, we're going to continue into Romans.
SPEAKER_02: And I just want to say that we're about one-third now through the book, and I just want to say as we start to continue to go through this, Romans for me is, I think, it's one of those books that parallels what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7, about how we build our lives on the bedrock of Him and His Word and His teaching.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul is modeling that, he's bringing that truth through the gospel of Romans.
SPEAKER_02: And so building your life on a solid foundation, when you learn its truth and bury it in your heart, the foundation of your life is unshakable.
SPEAKER_02: Because you're tethered, you've tethered your life and heart to Christ, and his kingdom is unshakable.
SPEAKER_02: So today we're going to be in Romans 5, we're going to be digesting one and two.
SPEAKER_02: And my hope is that we fully excavate and chew all the meat off that bone.
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm excited about the word today.
SPEAKER_02: The theme of this passage is going to be living in peace with God or peace with our Father.
SPEAKER_02: Now, before I get into that, I just want to say that we live in a world of conflict.
SPEAKER_02: So this side of eternity, the nature of our environment, the nature of our world is conflict.
SPEAKER_02: Conflict with relationships inside the walls of our homes, inside the places of our business and work, and inside extended family.
SPEAKER_02: You know, Thanksgiving dinners can be pretty awkward at times.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you are laughing like tentatively, like, oh man, these know exactly what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to say that you trust your technology and your device to serve you well.
SPEAKER_02: But I just have to say that you should not do that.
SPEAKER_02: iPhones, whatever phone you're using, it's not that smart.
SPEAKER_02: And if your voice talking to text, you've got to edit that, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: This week, I had the mistake of sending a text to a brother here, and um I don't know him that well, but he's he's joined us, Benjamin Cannon.
SPEAKER_02: He's come on as our tech director, and he's helping us fill some gaps and recognize some holes, and he's he's doing a great job.
SPEAKER_02: But he had asked me if I knew of a role or a position uh that I could maybe find some help filling.
SPEAKER_02: And so I texted, I voice texted him, and this is what I tried to say.
SPEAKER_02: I said, I think I have found someone for you in that position or role.
SPEAKER_02: Send.
SPEAKER_02: This is what really sent.
SPEAKER_02: I want to fight with you.
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't know me well enough, and I don't know him well enough to know like if I'm being serious.
SPEAKER_02: And so the iPhone was setting me up for conflict, and he sends me back.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, I want to fight with you too.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm like, okay, my bad.
SPEAKER_02: And and and so on it goes.
SPEAKER_02: And so we're being sabotaged and ambushed with conflict daily, even with our best efforts to avoid that.
SPEAKER_02: Um I want to open and let's just cover this full text.
SPEAKER_02: And just so we know, throughout this message today, I'm gonna be bringing uh different translations of this as we kind of chew on it in different ways.
SPEAKER_02: And as we go through those different translations, some of the words in those texts may land on you differently, they may resonate with you in a different way, but I really like doing that as we kind of go through and really try and pull everything out of the text that Paul is saying here.
SPEAKER_02: So, opening with NKJV, Romans 5, 1 through 2.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna do today, church, is we're gonna start pulling these words out and we're gonna start kind of dissecting them, doing a deeper dive and experiencing kind of what Paul is talking about and the power of what he's expressing in these first two verses of Romans chapter 5.
SPEAKER_02: We live in conflict in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: We can all recognize that we live in and struggle in conflict this side of eternity.
SPEAKER_02: The obvious relationships of friendship and family will garner our focus.
SPEAKER_02: And it's easy to deflect and stay in those spaces.
SPEAKER_02: But a deeper dive into our heart, mind, soul can reveal that the real villain in our stories are ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: We are the people keeping us in conflict and out of unity with God the Father.
SPEAKER_02: We are at war with ourselves, and which, by its very conflict, pits us against our Creator, the Lord God.
SPEAKER_02: When we let the healing waters flood and wash over us, covering us, bringing refreshment, renewal, and restoring our eternal union with God the Father, this is the exchange that happens at the cross.
SPEAKER_02: We wage war and remain out of balance until the moment we wave the white flag in our lives and say we've had enough, and we take our hearts to the cross.
SPEAKER_02: This exchange life that takes place, and we stand in the truth and the knowledge of all that God promises to do through His Son, through the perfect work and the unmatchable achievements of Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: We bring all our shame, hurt, pain, wounding, and disappointment, and we place it in the river of grace, the river of life that flows from Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: Paul is unlocking in these in this text here there's a combination and a sequence of things that happen in order to bring us into the alignment and peace in our lives that we are designed to enjoy and encounter.
SPEAKER_02: And we do it through the Kraus.
SPEAKER_02: We do it through Christ and we do it through his cross.
SPEAKER_02: Our staff leadership class, every semester we pick a book and we go through it as a pastoral team and directors and leadership.
SPEAKER_02: And this semester we're studying spiritual leadership.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the questions posed to the group this last week was who do you most relate to in the Bible?
SPEAKER_02: Their story, what's happening to them in this in this uh historical context?
SPEAKER_02: How do they write?
SPEAKER_02: You know, do you relate to the way that they write about their lives, their story?
SPEAKER_02: Who do you connect with most?
SPEAKER_02: And you could choose anybody, you know, Old New Testament, and we had some great answers.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but for me, it's Paul.
SPEAKER_02: Of all scripture, Saul to Paul, the conversion, and why?
SPEAKER_02: Because of how he models what is available to all of us in the transformed exchange life via the cross.
SPEAKER_02: This is so critical because after his salvation, his conversion, Paul filters everything through the lens of Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: The cross remains at the forefront and focus of his teachings.
SPEAKER_02: Paul was in love with the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Paul understood that the cross of Calvary did not humiliate, but rather glorified our Messiah and writes about that in Colossians 2.15, where he talks about the spiritual rulers were shamed.
SPEAKER_02: Not our Savior who was naked, bloodied in anguish on the cross.
SPEAKER_02: People in the audience that day that were represented at Calvary didn't really understand what was being performed in front of them.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't another crucifixion, it was the crucifixion.
SPEAKER_02: When we transfix our gaze to the cross, the poignant words of Thomas DeBay come into powerful focus.
SPEAKER_02: It is a consummate splendor and a monstrous horror, both equally tearing and gripping us and causing us to bring our hearts to the Father in reality of what he was willing to do to capture us, to sanctify us and ransom us for all eternity.
SPEAKER_02: The cross is everything, and Paul understands that.
SPEAKER_02: So much so that we understand that the victory we stand in is because we have an empty tomb.
SPEAKER_02: You couldn't have the tomb without the cross.
SPEAKER_02: The cross isn't something to just discuss on Easter or around Holy Week.
SPEAKER_02: The cross should be part of our daily conversation in our lives, and we should daily recalibrate our hearts back to the cross because of what happens there, where we get renewed, where we get transformed, where we get recalibrated in our operating system and our mindset, and what it does to our union with the Father.
SPEAKER_02: Paul completely understood this.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why when he's writing to the church in Galatia, he's not talking about the resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: You won't find that in Galatians.
SPEAKER_02: But what you will find is where he brings up the crucifixion seven times.
SPEAKER_02: Paul preaches Christ and him crucified through his entire mission, through the four corners of the known world at that time.
SPEAKER_02: Developing God's church for the glory of Jesus Christ was brought through the truth of Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: But yet we don't talk about it in our daily conversation.
SPEAKER_02: But we should.
SPEAKER_02: And it's where we should always be pulled back to.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to give you the new living translation of the same passage that we're exploring today.
SPEAKER_02: If you want, sometimes when I'm listening to this, sometimes I'm having it on audio and I'll close my eyes and I'll just see what words I'm connecting to, what's my soul grabbing, what's my heart getting rooted into.
SPEAKER_02: And feel free to do that if you want to.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes blocking out the distractions visually helps.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, since we have made been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.
SPEAKER_02: Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.
SPEAKER_02: Here's another reading in the Amplified Version, an expanded translation.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, since we have been justified, that is, acquitted of sin, declared blameless before God, by faith.
SPEAKER_02: Let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God the Father and the joy of reconciliation with Him through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed.
SPEAKER_02: Through Him, we also have access by faith into this remarkable state of grace in which we firmly and safely and securely stand.
SPEAKER_02: Let us rejoice in our hope and the confident assurance of experiencing and enjoying the glory of our great God, the manifestation of His excellence and power.
SPEAKER_02: So much to really sink our teeth into on this.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to hang on the fact that we get to firmly and safely and securely stand.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes standing in this world right now, it's enough to try and just get out of bed with some of the way we're getting hammered with news and everything that's happening to us.
SPEAKER_02: But what we get to experience when we refocus back to the cross, we can get out and we can stand firmly, securely and safely at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_02: The first thing that we have to recognize here is what gives us that connection, what brings us into that place of peace with the Father.
SPEAKER_02: And two weeks ago, Steve went through the eight points of what it is to be justified.
SPEAKER_02: And I thought those were excellent points.
SPEAKER_02: I want to go back and look at the translation and maybe give you a brief definition of being justified.
SPEAKER_02: Justification is that gracious and, and I think this is critical, judicial act of God, whereby a soul is granted complete absolution from all guilt and a full release from the penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_02: Romans 3 23 through 25.
SPEAKER_02: This act of divine grace is wrought by faith in the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: This is a judicial act, and it's one that is securely fastened to the cross of Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you have found yourselves at the mercy of the human court systems.
SPEAKER_02: I've talked to some of you even in recent times who found yourselves going through that process.
SPEAKER_02: You bring your case, you bring the facts, and you bring them before a judge or a jury of your peers, and then you're relying on them in their understanding and knowledge to plead.
SPEAKER_02: You're pleading your position to see if you're going to be found righteous, if you're going to be convicted, if you're innocent or guilty, or whatever's going to happen in that system.
SPEAKER_02: And it's a broken system at best because it's operating in our own humanity and our own understanding.
SPEAKER_02: But when we take the case of our lives, the sin resume that we've developed, and we take it before God in Calvary, here's you already know the outcome.
SPEAKER_02: God's putting it out here.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's explaining it that the outcome in that process of God's celestial kingdom court system is that when you bring your full heart, shame, and your resume and said, I'm sick of this, I'm sick of being in conflict with God, then his son's blood covers you, and then in that stamp, with that blood, he stamps your paperwork in the book of life, and he says, You are now justified.
SPEAKER_02: It is a judicial term.
SPEAKER_02: You are healed, you are made new, you get a new heart, you get a new mind, and you can walk in the new man that Paul consistently refers to in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_02: John 1, 12 through 13, but to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
SPEAKER_02: They are reborn, not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
SPEAKER_02: The term is translated in the Greek diaxioasis, or in the Latin justificatio.
SPEAKER_02: This is originally a technical, technically legal term derived from the verb to make someone righteous.
SPEAKER_02: Romans 10:10, Paul writes, and here's the combination.
SPEAKER_02: This is the path to justification.
SPEAKER_02: He lays it out for us, and it's the sequential term.
SPEAKER_02: For with the heart, so there's pieces of our body that fall into place with this process to be stamped justified in God's book.
SPEAKER_02: For with the heart a person believes in Christ as Savior, resulting in his justification, that is, being made righteous, being freed of the guilt of sin, and made acceptable to God.
SPEAKER_02: And with the mouth he acknowledges and confesses his faith openly, resulting in and confirming his salvation.
SPEAKER_02: Starts with the heart, ends with the mouth.
SPEAKER_02: That's how God works.
SPEAKER_02: He's always searching to and fro for the hearts of his children, who wants to align with him, who wants to connect, who wants to find peace with the Father.
SPEAKER_02: And is willing to acknowledge and accept and risk taking it all to his son at Calvary to be completely redeemed, healed, restored, and renewed, because that's what happens there.
SPEAKER_02: Such a gruesome horror spectacle, but yet such beauty and life and what comes from that at the foot of Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: So the next the next word in our verses today is faith.
SPEAKER_02: What does it say about faith?
SPEAKER_02: Faith is a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervor born of faith and joined with it.
SPEAKER_02: This secures in the character of one who can be relied on.
SPEAKER_02: We sometimes, and this is very we we trust and we build faith with our human relationships and those that we experience on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_02: Those relationships let us down.
SPEAKER_02: We let others down, they let us down, and this is the process, and sometimes it creates the filter through which we walk through our humanity in this life.
SPEAKER_02: But what Paul's writing here is that we can actually secure our faith to the character of God, which can be relied on.
SPEAKER_02: And why can we trust that?
SPEAKER_02: Because of what he sent his son to do, the perfect restoration, the healing.
SPEAKER_02: And he wants us to secure that because the faith, our faith is what is needed for the next thing that comes up.
SPEAKER_02: And faith is being sure of what you hope for.
SPEAKER_02: I love this quote.
SPEAKER_02: When I read this quote from Elizabeth Elliott, the widow of Jim Elliott, the great missionary, it resonated so deeply because throughout her life and watching, did she have permission to doubt?
SPEAKER_02: But she writes this sweet quote about faith.
SPEAKER_02: Don't dig up and doubt what you have buried in faith.
SPEAKER_02: Don't give back territory and ground to the enemy that's already been one for Christ.
SPEAKER_02: For those of you that are saints and sons and daughters, because you've already done the work at Calvary, he started a new garden with you.
SPEAKER_02: And beauty is coming from that.
SPEAKER_02: You exchange the trash and the sin of your life for the glory, the new mind, and the new person that God redeems and restores at the foot of his cross, and he's planting a garden that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: You've tilled the soil, and so what the enemy wants to do is he wants you to pick up your shovel, go out to your garden and start digging up those beautiful things that God is bringing out because of your faith.
SPEAKER_02: Don't dig up in doubt.
SPEAKER_02: Don't let the enemy get in there and start to cause you to make agreements with how he wants to talk to you, to remind you to go put on the old sin blanket, the old resume, to remind you where your hands and thoughts and heart have been.
SPEAKER_02: That is not what Christ did for us, and that is not how the Father talks to you.
SPEAKER_02: So leave the shovel and stand firm at the cross, recalibrate your heart and mind back to that direction, and don't let the enemy start to infuse the weeds of doubt into your garden.
SPEAKER_02: Because when we have faith, now we get the peace.
SPEAKER_02: And what is what do we have in the deparation of peace?
SPEAKER_02: Peace is freedom from disturbance, possessing tranquility or serenity, being free from persecution, obtaining harmony with God.
SPEAKER_02: What I love about that definition, and the one piece that really sticks out for me, is being free from persecution.
SPEAKER_02: Because we know in the enemy's attempts to come and steal our hearts back, to destroy our lives and burn us down, as the beloved creation of God the Father, who he hates intensely, which therefore he hates you equally, and he wants to burn you down.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to persecute you.
SPEAKER_02: And when we have God's peace, we're free from his persecution, church.
SPEAKER_02: And we've all been persecuted in this life.
SPEAKER_02: We've had allegations made either justly or injustly about us.
SPEAKER_02: Allegations have been brought that you've had to defend your position on, your heart, your good intentions that were maybe misinterpreted, misaligned.
SPEAKER_02: And the enemy wants to constantly persecute us.
SPEAKER_02: It's just this ongoing effort.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't tire of that.
SPEAKER_02: That's his main mission.
SPEAKER_02: But when we can stand in God's peace, which is found at the cross, we are freed from the persecution.
SPEAKER_02: And how do we know this?
SPEAKER_02: Because in John 14, 27, red letter here, Jesus speaking to us, peace I leave with you.
SPEAKER_02: My peace I give to you.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus understood peace.
SPEAKER_02: He modeled peace.
SPEAKER_02: He knew when he needed peace.
SPEAKER_02: And we can see throughout the scriptures where he retreated for peace and realignment with his Father.
SPEAKER_02: My peace I give to you.
SPEAKER_02: Not as the world gives to you, do I give peace.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us, a lot of us, have at times gone through this world and we tried to create and find our own peace.
SPEAKER_02: We often fall short of the true expression of what's offered through the Father as it relates to the connection that we have in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And therefore, we don't really get to experience the complete peace that we are designed to carry.
SPEAKER_02: It's part of the full armor of God, that our shoes would have peace on our feet so that when we walk into places or we walk out of places, we are ushering in God's kingdom of peace with us.
SPEAKER_02: It's one of the main tools that we get access to when we live daily and put it on the full armor of God.
SPEAKER_02: Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
SPEAKER_02: As Jesus is speaking these things to his disciples, they don't fully understand the transaction that's going to happen.
SPEAKER_02: And when he leaves, he leaves his Holy Spirit, the great helper, to continue to help them walk in true peace.
SPEAKER_02: How many of you need peace today?
unknown: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: The rest of you are lying.
SPEAKER_02: Even if you think you have peace, there's more peace to have.
SPEAKER_02: And not because we're not meant to live in battle in this world, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's another side of that.
SPEAKER_02: But we need refreshment in the kingdom of God and the peace that He brings.
SPEAKER_02: To find and maintain peace with God, we must calibrate our hearts at Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: We find our center in harmony with the kingdom of God here.
SPEAKER_02: In my opinion, we can't find a big enough cross for this sanctuary, and ours is pretty big.
SPEAKER_02: The carnal war we wage with God in our flesh begins and ends at the cross.
SPEAKER_02: When we're willing to crucify ourselves with Christ and receive his free gift of life and healing, it is here where true peace is found with our Father.
SPEAKER_02: Slavery and bondage to sin, the enemy's kingdom's tentacles are severed at Calvary.
SPEAKER_02: We are redeemed, washed in the healing, redeeming blood of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And it's at Calvary that we are marked as sons and daughters of the living God from his son's blood, wounds.
SPEAKER_02: Agony and anguish.
SPEAKER_02: So when we wake up and the world just starts hitting us, whether it's communications through your phone, through what you carried in from yesterday, and by the way, that day's gone and dead, and all you have is what's in front of you right now.
SPEAKER_02: Turbulence increases.
SPEAKER_02: We've all been on a plane, or if you have, and you've been in that season where it's like, buckle your seat belts, we're gonna be in some turbulence, right?
SPEAKER_02: And you kind of just kind of hang on, you're like, how bad's this one gonna be?
SPEAKER_02: The further we move away from being calibrated and centered at Calvary, the more turbulent our lives get as sons and daughters, because you've already been marked by the blood, and the enemy wants to burn you down.
SPEAKER_02: So what you have to do is you have to get close again.
SPEAKER_02: You have to come back and you have to center your gaze and your focus, and you have to imagine your Savior at the cross in anguish, in bloody.
SPEAKER_02: His blood is our banner, and his shame is our glory.
SPEAKER_02: Our culture, the distractions.
SPEAKER_02: All of that's built by the enemy to pull us back away from the center because he knows if we're there, we're untouchable, we're unshakable, because God's kingdom came down from heaven, did the perfect work on the cross, and we know how that story ends, and we all celebrate in the resurrection of the empty tomb, but it all started with what happened there.
SPEAKER_02: And the enemy hates that, but that should be our focus in the Christian life, and we should talk about it daily.
SPEAKER_02: It should be a regular part of our conversation.
SPEAKER_02: Because what happens there?
SPEAKER_02: Hope hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life.
SPEAKER_02: Without hope, we perish.
SPEAKER_02: You read these uh read or digest stories, there's always one in there about like I shouldn't have survived, like I almost died, those things.
SPEAKER_02: So they still have those, but it's like in those moments, there's people, there's something hardwired into our human nature to need and desire and chase after hope.
SPEAKER_02: We talk about the human condition and what happens in the state of hopelessness, but what is restored.
SPEAKER_02: Expect with confidence for a positive outcome and to cherish a desire with anticipation.
SPEAKER_02: And how do we know that?
SPEAKER_02: What can we cling to the hope of?
SPEAKER_02: In Jeremiah 21, 29, 11.
SPEAKER_02: This is what this is what God says.
SPEAKER_02: For I know the plans I have for you.
SPEAKER_02: He knows the plans that he has for you.
SPEAKER_02: The God who created you in his image for a purpose to walk this earth knows the plans that he has for you.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, that's great.
SPEAKER_02: I've heard people have plans for me, you know?
SPEAKER_02: But this is what he says about those plans.
SPEAKER_02: They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
SPEAKER_02: His plans for us are good.
SPEAKER_02: They give us a bright future, they give us a hope of a future.
SPEAKER_02: And we can look to Calvary and we know that there's a it doesn't last forever.
SPEAKER_02: When we crucify ourselves on the cross of Christ, he's carrying us with us, with him, and through him.
SPEAKER_02: And so we know that when we have hope to just hold on, pain ends.
SPEAKER_02: That's the hope that we cling to the side of eternity.
SPEAKER_02: We have to know that our pain will end, just as our Saviors did.
SPEAKER_02: I love this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
SPEAKER_02: That only in darkness can you see the stars.
SPEAKER_02: So next time you're feeling hopeless and it's at nighttime, I just encourage you to get up, get out of your house, walk out to your street, and look up into the majesty of the stars and the celestials.
SPEAKER_02: I know that God put those in there to encourage you and give you hope in a time of darkness in your life.
SPEAKER_02: The theme of the road this year is leadership.
SPEAKER_02: And I, regardless of how you feel about Napoleon Bonaparte, I like this quote from him a good leader is a dealer of hope.
SPEAKER_02: And I pray that all of you in your areas of influence this year would be leaders, good leaders, and be dealing hope to those who look to you, even if that starts just in your immediate home and space.
SPEAKER_02: Hebrews 3, 6, Paul writes, but Christ as the Son is in charge of God's entire house, and we are God's house.
SPEAKER_02: If we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ, we only have to go back and recalibrate our hearts to the cross, to Christ's cross of Calvary, and hope is restored.
SPEAKER_02: Our hope is renewed when we just redirect our gaze back to the cross.
SPEAKER_02: And this is where grace is unlocked in this whole story.
SPEAKER_02: God's grace over us, and grace is defined as the unmerited gift of the divine favor of God in the salvation of sinners through Christ Jesus, and the divine influence operating in individuals for their regeneration and sanctification.
SPEAKER_02: Jonathan Edwards writes grace as this grace is but glory begun, and glory is grace perfected.
SPEAKER_02: Donald Gray Barnhouse says, God's greatest glory is in his abundant grace.
SPEAKER_02: The glory of our Creator, his greatest glory is in the amount of grace that he has for us, and his desire to keep chasing us and coming after us and running after us and rescuing us and healing us and never leaving us alone because of his love and grace.
SPEAKER_02: Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin.
SPEAKER_02: Grace is power, not just a pardon.
SPEAKER_02: Some of us take the transaction at the foot of Calvary and we just walk around like there's still, you know, the barcode, a prison or whatever on us, and we walk around like we're just released inmates.
SPEAKER_02: And we're like, I've been pardoned.
SPEAKER_02: But that's not what he's saying.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying that you have been released, you have been pardoned, that's all true.
SPEAKER_02: But now step in and operate in the power of the glory and the grace that's offered at that transaction.
SPEAKER_02: Fully let your mind go there and receive all that's just happened to you.
SPEAKER_02: You've been renewed, you've been restored, you've been reborn, not by this earth, not in any earthly fashion, but in a way that God makes us reborn.
SPEAKER_02: Hebrews 7 25.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, he is able once and forever to save completely those who come to God through him.
SPEAKER_02: He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this takes us into the next part of our passage, and that is glory.
SPEAKER_02: God's glory.
SPEAKER_02: High praise.
SPEAKER_02: Glory is high praise, worship, magnificence, abundant majesty, honor in a most exalted state.
SPEAKER_02: A.W.
SPEAKER_02: Tozer writes this of glory.
SPEAKER_02: The glory of God always comes in self-sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: The world is filled with God's glory, and you can't turn around without bumping into it.
SPEAKER_02: Driving in and the sunrise was coming up, and it was just breathtaking to see God's majesty reflected.
SPEAKER_02: His glory fills the earth.
SPEAKER_02: His glory wants to come through you in your lives to inspire and heal those around you.
SPEAKER_02: J.J.
SPEAKER_02: Packer writes this of God's glory.
SPEAKER_02: Our highest privilege and calling is to do the will of God, in the power of God, for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02: Church, we should all want crowns of glory and righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: But not so that we can wear them, but so that we have something to cast down before the Lamb of God.
SPEAKER_02: The things that we do in His name on this earth, the way that we let Him come through our lives and hearts, is for His glory.
SPEAKER_02: And I can't wait to the moment where we enter in and God gives me a crown.
SPEAKER_02: For whatever I've done on this earth, anything accounted to me as glory for work on this earth by the way of the Father's grace is only meant for me to throw as an offering at his feet to his son, realizing I'll never be able to return the opulent love and unrivaled achievements of the cross.
SPEAKER_02: All is for his glory.
SPEAKER_02: If we can get around our heads and get out of our own minds and take it all back and recalibrate at the cross and gaze on the magnificent opulence, the monstrous horror of what he took on for us, then it is a privilege.
SPEAKER_02: And I can't I can't think about getting prostrate fast enough on my face to give the Lamb of God my crown.
SPEAKER_02: Because he's a lamb to his friends and he's a lion to his enemies.
SPEAKER_02: And I praise God that he's my lamb and he's your lamb.
SPEAKER_02: I want to take us through our last translation, and this is uh the last piece of our verse here.
SPEAKER_02: This is coming out of the Passion Translation.
SPEAKER_02: This is beautifully written and it captures something here at the end that we're gonna just touch on briefly.
SPEAKER_02: Our faith in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to us.
SPEAKER_02: Your belief in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to you, and he now declares us flawless in his eyes.
SPEAKER_02: That is good news, church.
SPEAKER_02: This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace.
SPEAKER_02: We have entered into union, into the union of our lives with God's peace and enjoy lasting friendship with God.
SPEAKER_02: The word Irene in the Greek here means to join, as in a dovetail joint.
SPEAKER_02: For you woodworkers out there.
SPEAKER_02: This is the connection.
SPEAKER_02: This is where we have unity with Him.
SPEAKER_02: We have with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the anointed one, has done for us.
SPEAKER_02: Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us a perfect relationship with God.
SPEAKER_02: Last sentence in this what incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing God's glory.
SPEAKER_02: The way to the Father is as narrow as the wood that Christ was crucified on.
SPEAKER_02: Scriptures talk, and this is Jesus, that wide are the gates to hell, but narrow is the path to the Father.
SPEAKER_02: When we live in peace and harmony with God, our desires should shift to bring him glory and experience the glory of his kingdom both in and through our lives.
SPEAKER_02: I want to give you guys six habits of giving God all the glory.
SPEAKER_02: As sons and daughters, we should be confessing our sin.
SPEAKER_02: When we confess our sin, we are putting on display his glory by declaring his righteousness to forgive us and redeem us and heal us.
SPEAKER_02: Number two, we should be forgiving others.
SPEAKER_02: When we forgive others, we are proclaiming his compassion and eagerness to forgive.
SPEAKER_02: Forgiving others puts his glory on display, and we are never reflecting the image of God.
SPEAKER_02: We are never reflecting the image of God more than when we choose to forgive.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus tells us if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
SPEAKER_02: But if you refuse to forgive and hold on to that, your Father will not forgive your sins.
SPEAKER_02: This is a mandate from the kingdom.
SPEAKER_02: And we give God glory back when we're willing to walk in humility and forgive others.
SPEAKER_02: Trusting God.
SPEAKER_02: If God does all things for our good, and he does, church, then demonstrating our trust in him puts his nature and character on display.
SPEAKER_02: And we get to reflect who he is.
SPEAKER_02: Abraham in Romans 4 20.
SPEAKER_02: Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this, he brought glory to God.
SPEAKER_02: Your crown's getting larger so that you have a beautiful offering to cast before the throne of God one day by trusting in him.
SPEAKER_02: Number four, you're producing fruit.
SPEAKER_02: Live a life that adorns or furnishes God's attributes, puts his glory on display.
SPEAKER_02: When you produce much fruit, John 15, 8 here, Jesus read letter talking to us.
SPEAKER_02: When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples.
SPEAKER_02: This brings great glory to my Father.
SPEAKER_02: We're not to leave our land barren, we're not to leave our garden empty.
SPEAKER_02: We are to cultivate it, bring forth the seeds that He's planted in you because of the healing work that He's done in you, that He wants you to reflect to the world so that they know that there's an opportunity for them to be healed, restored, and redeemed.
SPEAKER_02: You can't carry that.
SPEAKER_02: You can't leave your garden bare with this rich soil that God is ready to grow, fruit in your lives from.
SPEAKER_02: Giving thanks, expressions of gratitude toward God set his glory on a pedestal.
SPEAKER_02: Your life will be changed if you change the narrative through which you wake up and start to think about it.
SPEAKER_02: If you wake up in a negative narrative, look at the cross.
SPEAKER_02: I challenge you, look at the cross, go back there.
SPEAKER_02: If you're like, it's too bleak, there's not hope, there's nothing to live for, it's not going my way, this is not what I planned.
SPEAKER_02: Then I challenge you.
SPEAKER_02: Spend 15 minutes in your mind's eye, focused on the cross of Calvary, and give thanks and see what your heart does.
SPEAKER_02: Lastly, is prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Like giving thanks, prayer shines the spotlight on God's attributes of goodness and omnipotence.
SPEAKER_02: John 14, you can ask for anything in my name, Jesus says, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.
SPEAKER_02: Again, Jesus modeling the relationship for us with his Father.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to bring our prayer request to life in his name so that his works are glorifying the power that he receives from his father, that we now partner with him because we are now aligned and we are grafted into the kingdom because of Calvary and His blood that has changed us.
SPEAKER_02: We don't look the same.
SPEAKER_02: We don't look the same to the Father than when we were born, and we had that transaction that exchanged life.
SPEAKER_02: Your mugshot looks different in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: You used to be America's most wanted up there, but now they're like, you know, you're not on the you're not on the milk carton anymore.
SPEAKER_02: They don't recognize you.
SPEAKER_02: You're a saint, you're a son, you're a daughter of the king.
SPEAKER_02: He says, then call on me in Psalm 15, 50, 15, then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to rescue us from our stuff so that he can be glorified in that rescue.
SPEAKER_02: And we see him do it time and time and time again with his children in Israel.
SPEAKER_02: How he's redeeming them, restoring them, healing them, rescuing them, so that his story, his glory is on display through their story.
SPEAKER_02: Church, when we profess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, we are saved by God's grace, and it is here that we encounter the eternal presence of God, and we are at peace with the Father.
SPEAKER_02: Those of us who realize the deepest need for this grace will also be blessed to experience the deepest level of his presence and power to heal and connect us to his kingdom.
SPEAKER_02: You were designed to live at peace with the Father.
SPEAKER_02: And he sent his son so that you could do that.
SPEAKER_02: And if some of you are out there who've never made that first initial step to Calvary, brought it all there, I challenge you today to do that.
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna have prayer time later for that.
SPEAKER_02: But if you find yourselves in conflict with the Father today, that's on you to now get over yourselves, bring some humbleness into your heart, come before the Father and see what he wants to bestow on you and walk in the peace of his kingdom that is unmatchable, his kingdom is unshakable.
SPEAKER_02: You're trying to find feet, you're trying to find peace in your world, and you're stepping on not solid ground.
SPEAKER_02: Things are moving underneath you, and you're grasping, you're putting boards down, you're trying to shore it up, you're mixing cement that ain't gonna dry.
SPEAKER_02: And so you're drowning because you're not stepping into what is offered completely to you.
SPEAKER_02: So I challenge you today.
SPEAKER_02: Come into full, perfect alignment with the Father and experience all of his kingdom's peace because he loves you and he wants that for you.
SPEAKER_02: It's not to be terrified of that, it's about to step into and experience that and then watch the glory unfold from his kingdom because of how much he loves you.
SPEAKER_02: And then you're just in this beautiful cycle.
SPEAKER_02: You leave the turbulent, repetitious cycle of the world, and you step into a new cycle of operating where it's cross, Christ crucified, my life transformed and redeemed.
SPEAKER_02: I am not the old man.
SPEAKER_00: But now I can manifest and reflect his glory.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.