06-13-10 Happy Birthday!

We return this morning to our study of the book of Romans,

and to 11 remarkable verses,

verses that you have heard me refer to frequently in my teaching,

verses that are designed by our God

to serve as our doorway,

our introduction into the true nature

of what it means to live with our Creator

on the basis of the work of Christ for us.

The passage contains a list

of what I like to call our Birthday Presents from God -

seven eternal,

irrevocable,

absolute and unchanging gifts

given by God to each person who comes to Him through faith in Christ

on the day we enter His family.

They are gifts given to us

to introduce us to the true nature of the Christian life.

Unfortunately, most Christians don’t even know they have been given these gifts,

and because they don’t know

they also don’t reap the great wealth that comes with them.

If you were with us when we began our study of Romans

you will remember that Paul wrote this remarkable letter

to present his basic statement

of the true nature of the Christian life.

He does this by offering his readers

the answers to four questions:

1. Why was it necessary for Christ to come? (1:18-2:20)

2. What is a Christian? What does it mean for a person to live with God through faith in Christ? 2:21-8:39)

3. What happens to the Nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, now that God has established His Church? (Chapters 9-11)

4. What are the basic operating principles of the church? (Chapters 13-16)

And as we have studied our way through this book

we saw Paul answer that first question

by presenting to us a vivid picture of what the human race looks like without Christ.

Perhaps the easiest way

I could illustrate

what Paul did for us in that first section of the book

is to take his approach

and apply it to the concept of light.

If I had the skill

and the knowledge

I could spend a considerable amount of time

trying to explain

the many values of having light in this room right now.

But I could communicate the heart of that same message

much more quickly

and much more effectively

by covering the windows

and flicking the switch

that would then plunge us all into darkness.

Nothing could more powerfully

impress on our minds

the need for light

than to be exposed to absolute darkness.

And when Paul set out to explain to us

why we desperately needed the Light of the world, Jesus Christ,

all he had to do was to draw for us

a verbal portrait of ourselves

and our world

without that light.

And this is exactly what Paul does for us

in those first two and a half chapters of his letter.

It was a terrible portrait to look at,

a portrait of the human race,

surrounded by a physical world

that screams the truth about our Creator God,

confronted with His absolute morality,

and our willful rebellion against Him.

It was a portrait that ended

with everyone of us

standing accountable

and justifiably condemned before our God.

That section of the letter ends with these words:

Rom. 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

And then, after immersing us in darkness,

Paul suddenly flicks on the light

as he describes for us

the glorious alternative offered to us by God through Jesus Christ.

Rom. 3:21-22 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, ... even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe...”

His words were not complicated,

they were simply totally out of the normal realm of human reasoning.

In careful language

we listened to Paul tell us

that, even though we all stand rightfully condemned before our God,

He chose to step into our world

and allow us to nail Him to a cross

so that through His own death

He could offer full payment for our sins.

And all that He requires of us

is our faith in what He has done for us,

our choosing to believe

that our debt has now been paid in full forever by God Himself.

Rom. 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

Welcome to the Good News of God.

Then, last week we sprinted through the 4th chapter,

a chapter in which Paul addressed a question that would certainly have come to the minds of many of his Jewish readers.

Has God suddenly changed the rules?

Wasn’t Abraham justified before God on the basis of his performance?

Where did this faith thing fit into his life?

And in our last study

we looked at the life of Abraham

and allowed Paul to guide us to the understanding

that even Abraham’s righteous standing before God

was not something he earned,

but rather something that was given to him by God

in response to Abraham’s faith.

Rom. 4:3 For what does the Scripture say? " And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."

Which brings us to Romans chapter 5

and the passage we have for today.

And perhaps a little illustration

will help prepare us as we move into what Paul does next.

Picture yourself as an orphan.

You have been raised in an orphanage for as long as you can remember.

You have no memory of a mommy or a daddy

or any other human being who loved you or rejoiced at your birth.

You are now six years old.

In those brief six years of life

you have never been special to anyone.

You’ve always been just one of the group.

You eat your meals

in a noisy dinning hall filled with other children,

all of them trying to get their share of the food before it’s gone.

You sleep in a dorm room

with 30 other kids.

Nobody tucks you in at night,

few of the staff even remember your name.

It is in every way an emotionally cold, lonely, painful existence.

And then one day a husband and wife come to the orphanage

and, wonder of wonders, of all the children there

you are the one they want,

the one they choose for adoption,

and, after signing a bunch of papers,

they take you home with them.

As you ride away from that orphanage

with your new Daddy and Mommy

your mind is filled mostly

with the overwhelming thrill of being special to someone for the first time in your life.

You know nothing of what you are going to,

you know only what you are leaving behind -

the isolation,

and the loneliness,

and the chaos of life at the orphanage.

But then, your Dad drives up in front

of your new home,

and as they take you on a tour

you discover all sorts of things you never even dreamed of before.

You have your very own room,

and the room has toys in it -

not the shabby, broken toys at the orphanage,

but wonderful, new working toys.

And there is a closet all your own,

and inside that closet are clothes just your size.

And when you walk into the kitchen

you find on the counter

a batch of fresh-baked cookies waiting just for you.

And in that transition

you begin to discover

not just what you have left behind,

but what you have entered into

when you entered into that new home.

These first 11 verses of Romans 5

are designed by Paul

to serve as our tour of the new home we have entered into when we enter into Christ.

When we come to Christ

most of us bring with us extremely limited expectations.

Mostly all we seek is His forgiveness

and freedom from the guilt within.

But then, as we enter the family,

our God wants to reveal to us

a whole wealth of fringe benefits,

things that we receive from Him

as a result of our faith in Christ.

These are our birthday presents,

given to us by our new Father,

on the day we are born into His family.

Now, with that to help us better relate to what’s going on in this passage,

lets take a look

at what’s in those packages.

We’ll open the first one in the rest of our time together this morning.

And the first present He gives us

is the one from which all the others flow.

Rom. 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,...

If I was forced to select

just one verse from all of Scripture,

one verse that would be

the only statement I would ever be able to hear from the mouth of my God,

I would select this verse,

this statement.

I know we are going to run into a problem here,

one for which I have no good solution.

You see, I can teach you the doctrine,

the certain, absolute truth

that’s being given to us by our God

in this first birthday present.

I can give you the present in your mind,

but only God can give it to your heart.

But at least I can do that for you -

I can help you to get a hold of this truth intellectually,

and then I can pray that His Spirit will be able to move it from your mind to your heart.

Let me begin by stating as simply,

and as clearly as I know how,

what this verse is saying.

And the first thing I want us to notice

is that part of the verse is in the past tense,

and part of it is in the present.

Paul begins by saying,

Therefore having been justified by faith,...

When Paul puts this in the past tense

he does so because he wants it clearly understood

that this is a completed fact

in the life of every true Christian.

It is not a goal we are to pursue.

It is not a hope we have for the future.

It is already now and forever a done deal.

And for this truth to really get a hold of us

we need to do a little more work

with that word ‟justified”.

Do you know what that word means?

Listen to this!

That word means

“to show to be righteous, to declare righteous”.

Many years ago

I heard some preacher somewhere

say that “justified” means,

“Just-as-if-I’d” never sinned.

I usually don’t like little Christian cliches,

but that one is worth hanging onto

because it really does capture the truth.

Our faith in Christ’s death for our sins

has made it just as if we had never sinned.

Now, I know we do not feel like we’ve never sinned.

I know we continue to fret,

and stew,

and worry,

and churn over the sin issues in our lives

every day we live

in one way or another.

But the truth is,

the TRUTH is

our faith in Jesus Christ

has resulted in our now standing before our Creator

every day we live

just as if

we have never had an evil thought,

never spoken a cruel word,

never spoken a lie,

never ever in any way violated a moral commandment of God.

Our faith in Christ

has resulted in our becoming

as righteousness in spirit

as God Himself.

And the first thing I want us to see here

is that this remarkable, divine purification of our lives is ALL IN THE PAST TENSE!

having been justified by faith,...

Do you believe that?

Or do you perhaps believe

that if you were standing in this room alone,

and through that door at the back

your God would suddenly enter

in visible form

to hold an audience with you,

do you believe

that in His hand or in His mind

He would carry with Him

a list of His grievances against you,

things going on in your life right now,

things that He would require you to resolve

before any truce,

any peace,

any solid ground could exist

between you and Him.

If that is the case

then you do not yet believe

that you have been justified by faith,...

It is our nature to get it backwards.

We believe we cannot know peace with God

until we first resolve the issues.

But here is the truth -

and I pray that God will give you ears to hear -

the truth is

we cannot resolve the issues

until we first accept the peace we already have with God.

We will never know our God’s power to heal,

His power to deliver,

His power to free us from our bondage

until we first know

that we can bring that bondage into His presence

without fear of His rejection.

And everything else Paul says to us

in this verse,

and in the rest of this passage

is built upon this one opening statement,

Therefore having been justified by faith,...

The simple truth is

that the day you came to God through faith in Christ

God Himself recreated you justified,

holy,

righteous,

pure forevermore.

Which is why

the second part of that first verse

is now and forever in the present tense:

Rom. 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

And that, of course,

is our first and our greatest birthday present- PEACE WITH GOD.

The battle is over forever,

the war is over forever,

and you and your Creator will never again be on opposite sides.

I know that in a group this size

there are some of you right now

who do not believe that.

If you were to risk honesty before this congregation

you would tell us that there is a huge battle raging

between you and your God.

You see Him requiring things from you

that you are convinced

will destroy your life if you submit.

You feel all tortured and twisted right now.

You feel as though you cannot escape your God,

and yet you dare not trust Him.

If that describes what’s going on inside you,

let me close by sharing two comments with you.

First of all,

even though you may feel tremendous tension between you and your Creator,

THERE IS NO WAR GOING ON.

For a war to exist

there must be two sides fighting against each other,

and I tell you now with absolute authority

that your God is not fighting against you.

He is for you,

fighting for your health,

and your true happiness,

and your fulfillment with everything He has.

And second,

the resolution to that turmoil within you

will begin when you allow yourself to receive this first birthday present from your God.

He has given you peace with Him.

Accept it.

That God you have been running from,

hiding from,

afraid to trust

is not after you,

He is for you,

with you,

eagerly seeking to bring you

the freedom you so desperately seek.

Believe the battle is over,

and then take that turmoil that is shredding you inside

and bring it to Him.

I know you are afraid of what He will do with it.

I know you think He will cheat you,

or condemn you,

or demand from you what you cannot deliver.

But He will not

because, you see,

... having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

And what He is asking you to do right now,

that request He has made of you,

the one you are so afraid to follow,

is an expression of His infinite,

unending love for you,

and His great longing for you to be free.

And let me just finish by stating the obvious-

your fear of your God

and your efforts to resist His intrusion into your life

have obviously not given you

the security or the quality of life you long for.

Could it be

that the One you have been trying so hard to hide from

is the only One who can lead you into freedom?

He is not fighting against you,

the war is over,

and now, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.