Amen. Thank you, Dave, that ministered to me. I appreciate that. Well good evening to each of you. We're glad you're here tonight at Grace Church Roseville. We are studying the book of Romans together, seeking to understand this key book in all of the Bible. If there were just one book that you could pick to seek to master, I would encourage you to consider this book. In it we learn about the righteousness of God,
that is the theme. We see that God is righteous in all his deeds. The book of Romans tells us about the righteousness of God, that in every relationship that he has, God acts righteously, always. He is righteous in his relationship to the world. The last time we talked about Romans, we said that God's relationship to the world could be summed up in one word, and that is the word condemnation. That is a righteous response of God to the world. Why
is that? Because whether pagan or moralist or Jew, all are under sin. In Romans chapter 3, excuse me, in verse 9, the apostle says we have already charged, and that is a legal word fit for the court system. He says we have charged, we have indicted that both Jews and Greeks or Gentiles are all under sin. Possessing the knowledge of God, they reject it. Having a conscience that exposes guilt, they refuse it. Being given the law to reveal
sin, they rather use it to attempt their own self-righteousness. All are under sin. And the conclusion of this first section of the book, describing God's relationship to the world, puts God in several roles. First of all, we see God in the role of the judge. He examines the evidence before him in verses 9 through 12, and basically it says there is none righteous, not even one. In verses 13 through 15, God is, as it were, a physician
and examines the patient. He gives his diagnosis, and the diagnosis is that the patient is in a terminal condition because of sin. In verses 16 through 18, it's as though God is an historian. He looks over the record of mankind, and he finds it full of destruction. And then as a prosecutor, verses 19 through 20, God says that all are accountable to him. All are accountable to him. That includes you and me. And so we conclude with this first section of the book,
wondering, how can any of us be made right with God? How can a person be made righteous in the eyes of God? Is there any hope for any of us? The answer, of course, is yes, there is. And we see the tide change now in verse 21 of chapter 3, the first two words, but now actually form something of a continental divide in the text. As you know, at the continental divide, the water that falls on one side goes to one ocean. The water that falls on the
other side goes to another ocean. It is a division of the continent. And here we have a division. What has been said up to this point is condemnation for all men, because we're all under sin. But now we come to good news. There is a division here at this point. God has taken action to rescue sinners from their deserved condemnation. God provides a different relationship for those who will believe. God's relationship to the world,
condemnation. But now God provides another relationship for those who believe. The relationship between God and believers can be summed up in one word, and that is the word salvation. You may want to write that in your outline. There's a spot for it. The relationship between God and the believers can be summed up in one word, salvation. God's relationship to the world, condemnation. God's relationship to believers, salvation. And this salvation
includes both justification and sanctification. Two big words. Tonight we're going to talk about the first one, because he talks about justification in the rest of chapter 3 through chapter 4 through chapter 5. Justification. Salvation also includes sanctification. And that's chapters 6, 7, and 8, which we'll talk about next Sunday night, if the Lord willing. What is justification? Well, let's define it this evening just simply this way.
It is the legal act whereby God declares the believing sinner to be righteous in his sight. Now more might be said about it, but I think that hardly less could be said about it, that it is a legal act whereby God, this is God's work you see, not ours, whereby God declares the believing sinner to be righteous in his sight. The word justification is related to the word righteous or righteousness. It means that God sees us as being righteous in Christ
because we believe. Now in chapter 3 verse 21 through chapter 4 verse 25 we find the basis for justification. And I want you to think basically about two words, because I think the basis can be summed up in these two words. One of them is God word, one is man word. The two words are grace and faith. Grace obviously is the God word, faith being the man word word. In order for God to declare a believing sinner righteous, he has to have
a legal justification for it. God simply can't sweep the sin under the rug and pretend it's not there. That would be unrighteous and God cannot be unrighteous. God has to have a legally righteous way to deal with the sin. God cannot be anything less than just. And so God in his grace has provided a means for the forgiveness of sin and the gift of righteousness. And
that means is the sacrifice of his son. Notice that he says verse 24 being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood. So the basis for justification is grace in the sense that God in his grace has provided through the sacrifice of his son so that he can legally
and justly declare us to be righteous. He can forgive us of the sin that we've committed and at the same time give to us the gift of righteousness in his sight because of Christ's death on our behalf. Now there are two words that he employs here that give some real meat to this thought and those are the words redemption which you see in verse 24 and the word propitiation
in verse 25. Redemption means the deliverance of a payment price for a slave. One of the children gave me a novel based on some of the history leading up to the Civil War for Christmas. I've just finished that. A thoroughly delightful novel. It's fictional but embraces a lot of history in it and it reminded me again of the pitiful condition of a slave
as I read that novel. A slave has no hope. A slave does not belong to himself. A slave is under the control of his owner and he can be treated well or he can be killed depending upon the whim of the owner. The Bible says that we are all under sin and he says it flat out in chapter 6 that before we were saved we were under the mastery of sin. Sin was our master. We weren't slaves but God through Jesus Christ has provided a payment price
so that we could be purchased away from sin's mastery and then set free. The second word is the word propitiation which is not as hard as it looks. It simply means a satisfaction. It's that which satisfies God's own righteous demands for the punishment of sin. On the one hand God is the judge and he says condemnation, wrath is my response to sin and the sinner must die. On the other hand God himself takes the place of the sinner and satisfies through
the death of his son the very demand that he made upon the sinner for death. That's propitiation. Because of it God can show mercy righteously. In doing this God demonstrated or proved his righteousness. He did not spare his own son so that he might give us freely the gift of righteousness. He mentions here that in the past God had passed over sin in the Old Testament. In fact when you see that or hear that verb passed over it makes you
think of one of the feasts doesn't it? The Jews. The feast of Passover. When a sacrifice was offered, atonement was made for the sins of the nation. God passed over them. He did not give them what they deserved for their sin because of the sacrifice. But all of those passovers, all of those sacrifices of the Old Testament were like IOUs. They were accumulating. Those sacrifices could not deal with the sin itself. They could not remove the sin. But
God did that in Christ proving his righteousness for all of those IOUs in the past. May I say it this way? That God paid up when Christ died. He paid up all of the IOUs in the past and righteously through the sacrifice of Christ laid a basis for salvation. The second word is the word faith. God provided also the means for this gift of righteousness to be received. And that is faith. In verse 22 he says, even the righteousness of God
through faith. Verse 25 he says, through faith. Again in verse 28 he says, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Faith is man's part in this. Faith is man's only acceptable response to the Gospel. Faith is in itself no virtue. To believe is not a meritorious act. Because you see all of the worth of faith is found in its object.
Someone has said faith is only as valid as its object. People have faith tonight that their church is going to save them, or that the rituals they've been through are going to save them, or that their works are going to save them. They have faith, but it's not going to save them. Because the object of their faith is invalid. Faith is only as valid as its object. And the only sufficient, the only valid object of faith is the Lord Jesus
Christ. God has provided the only means by which this gift of righteousness can be received. It's the opposite of self-reliance, of self-effort, of self-confidence. Faith implies acceptance, it implies reliance, it implies dependence upon another, and in this case Jesus Christ. And faith as he says here is apart from the works of the law. Faith and works do not mix. Whether it be Jew or Gentile, faith and works cannot mix. In the world today there are two
kinds of righteousness, two different religious systems. There is one religious system that talks about works righteousness. And people do what they can, they try their best, they turn over a new leaf, they reform, they do this, they do that. It's works righteousness and it does not save the soul. And you can include under that umbrella many different kinds of faith, all kinds of religion, man-made, it's all works righteousness when you get
to the heart of it. On the other hand there is biblical Christianity. The religious system is faith righteousness. It is being made right with God, not through works, but by the act of believing the promise of God. Through the death, the sacrifice of his son, we can be saved. Now Paul takes a whole chapter, it seems to me, to illustrate this, chapter 4. And he illustrates grace and faith through Abraham. He gives us several facts about Abraham's
justification. In the first place he tells us in verses 1 through 8 that Abraham was justified apart from his works. He says that if Abraham, or for that matter any of us, if God saves on the basis of works, then it's not a gift, it's a wage. And God doesn't give righteousness on the basis of wages. He gives on the basis of a gift. And he uses
here the word imputation or the word reckon as it is in the translation that I have. Verse 2, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. But what does the scripture say? He quotes the Old Testament. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned, imputed to him as righteousness. This word is an accounting word. Some of you are accountants. All of us deal with accounting if we have any kind of business transactions.
You sit down at your table or your desk and you write out a check for the account that you have over here at Dayton's, let's say. And you sign your name, you send the check off and somebody in an office somewhere gets that check and sees there the account number and sees your name and puts that to your account. That's the word right here. God put righteousness to Abraham's account because of his faith. It wasn't works. It's a gift. It's not something
that's merited. We don't earn it by wages. It's a gift that God gives. He puts it to our account based on faith. In fact, 11 times in this chapter 4 you find the word reckon or some form of it, an important concept. The second thing we see about Abraham's justification is that he was justified apart from his circumcision. Verses 9 through 12. And of course that physical circumcision was the boast of the Jew. It was the sign of the law. They were the circumcised.
Everybody else was the uncircumcision. But was Abraham saved because he was circumcised? Paul reminds us in fact that he could not have been because he was circumcised after God said that he was righteous. Had nothing to do with his circumcision. He concludes that salvation is by grace, not by some ritual, some outward sign or work for all people, whether Jew or Gentile. Thirdly, he says that Abraham was justified apart from the law.
Verses 13 through 17. Why is that? Because Abraham lived hundreds of years before the law was ever given. Now keep in mind that there were many people in Paul's day as in our day who think that by keeping the Ten Commandments, so to speak, God's going to say you're okay. God says you're good enough. You're righteous. Come on in. He says no, no. Abraham's the illustration that we are not saved by law keeping. The law wasn't
even given until Moses' day, hundreds of years after Abraham died. He concludes in verses 17 through 25 by saying fourthly that Abraham was justified by faith. He talks about the choice that Abraham made to believe God even against impossible odds. He was not overwhelmed by the fact that a child was physically impossible. God said you're going to have a child. He believed God. He made the choice to believe God. Faith is that, isn't it? It is for us
today. It's a choice we make to believe God and not the circumstances that we may be facing at the moment. The promises of God, living by the promises. Faith's consequences are that it gets results. It did for Abraham and it does for us today. In Abraham's case it was justification and for us today it's the same. Faith brings justification. Faith in
the Lord Jesus. Notice it says in verse 24, but for our sake also to whom it will be reckoned that his righteousness will be reckoned as those who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He says he was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. There's a commentator in the book of Hebrews says faith sees the invisible, it believes the incredible and receives the impossible. So
in these verses that we have looked at we see the basis for justification. In a Godward sense it's grace. It's all grace. God has provided for it in the sacrifice of his son. From the perspective of man the response, the only response that we can give is faith to believe God. And it is that response of faith that God then uses so that we might be declared righteous in his sight. He puts the righteousness of Christ to our account.
And now we come to chapter 5 in which he talks about the blessings of justification. First the basis. Now the blessings that come with justification. He enumerates them first of all and then he explains how these blessings are ours. As I number them, I number at least seven of them. Others have different ways of numbering them, but let me give you the seven that I would enumerate. The seven blessings of justification by faith. Number one we have
peace with God, verse 1. No longer is there war and hostility with God. There's peace with God. Number two we have access to God, verse 2. We have been given the right of entrance into the very presence of God through the favor of another, that is Christ. No longer are we separated from God and held at a distance because of our sin. Our sin's been dealt with. We're righteous in Christ and now we are embraced and we have access to God himself.
Blessing number three is the glory of God, verse 3. The glory of God, that is our hope, that is our expectation. We are destined to share the glory of Jesus Christ because we've been justified by faith. Blessing number four is the working of God, verses 3 through 5. The working of God in our lives. The tribulations, that is the pressures that we face, become the stuff that God uses to refine our character. God uses these experiences in a process which
he names as being perseverance, first of all. We learn to abide under a load of pressure and stress. It's not easy. None of us enjoy that. The tribulations are a part of life and one of the blessings of justification is knowing that these tribulations have a purpose. God is working in us and it involves our patience, our perseverance, which then results in our proven character. God is about the business of maturing us as people, growing
us up in Christ. He wants to prove, test, and find acceptable our character. He's building a way inside of you and me tonight through the tribulations of our life. I don't know about you, I'm glad Phil was break-server now and then. And it would be awfully nice if life could just be one continuous break from tribulation, but that's not reality. Reality is that life is stressful, but God's using it. God's working through our stress.
And the end result is hope. I want you tonight to believe that God is at work in your life. Not in some broad, intangible way, but he's at work right now in that thing that is eating away at you, or that pressure that is pushing down on you, or squeezing you. God is at work in that tonight, right now, at this moment. Believe that, because God says he is. Abraham believed God, didn't he? And his circumstances are a whole lot more tough than what most
of us are facing. Well, another blessing he mentions in verses 5 through 8, the blessing of justification is the love of God. God's love is just poured out upon us. It's not that God's sprinkling us with his love. It's not that God is a garden hose and he's holding it out here with his love. But he's saying God has just flooded our hearts. He's just opened the gates of the dam and the water has just flooded out and filled everything.
His love has consumed your life. And he says that God has objectively demonstrated this love through the sacrifice of his Son. And you and I can subjectively sense it and know it. We have the love of God active in our lives. Verse number 6 is the deliverance of God, verses 9 through 10. He says we shall be saved
from wrath through him. I take that as being a very specific wrath, not just wrath in general, but a future expression of God's wrath, which is going to come upon this world in the tribulation period. We're not going to be a part of that whole scene. We are going to be rescued or saved from that wrath of God that's coming upon the world through Jesus Christ. It's not that we're going to be free entirely from tribulation. I'm not saying that. I've already
said we're in tribulation now. But we're going to be saved from that aspect of tribulation that can be defined as the wrath of God being poured out upon this world that has rejected Christ. And then in verse 11 he says that a seventh blessing is joy in God. You and I not only exalt in what we have in Christ, but we exalt or we boast in whom we trust. We boast in the Lord himself. We have the joy of God in our lives. Jesus said, you will
have my joy because I've chosen you out of the world. And so he enumerates the blessings of God. And now in verses 12 through 21 he explains the blessings of God. This is perhaps one of the most complicated paragraphs in the book of Romans. Verses 12 through 21 talk about identification. All of these blessings that he's just enumerated come to us because of our identification with Christ. You will notice that this text revolves around two
persons, Adam and Christ. And I want to emphasize these are two historical people. Those who think that Adam was not historical but merely represents something completely obliterate the meaning of this passage. If Genesis chapter 1, chapter 2 don't require a historical Adam, and they do in my opinion, Romans chapter 5 does require an historical Adam. Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all
men because all sinned. There's Adam. I'm going to take a moment to digress and just give you some conjecture on my part. So don't hold me to this as though I had proclaimed that it was gospel truth and revealed from heaven. I'm not saying that. No angel delivered this to me. A few months ago in the fall there was an article in the newspaper in which at least one scientist postulated, he's not ready to state this fact, but he postulated that
homosexuality is genetically related. You remember seeing that? I have a friend here in the Twin Cities that I've been seeking to minister to who is homosexual, part of the gay community. It wasn't, but 24 hours later that article was on my desk with the mail because he wanted me to know that what he is experiencing is genetic. The implication being therefore God can't hold him responsible for his actions because God made him the way
he is. He's genetic, you see. Well, I thought about that. I wondered if it can be scientifically proven, and it hasn't been, and I don't know that it can be, but if it could be scientifically proven that homosexuality or kleptomania or adultery or any other sin you want to talk about can be related to genetics, does that totally destroy our theology? Is man off the hook by that? Does that mean then these kinds of proclivities being related to genetics
excuses man from responsibility for his actions? The more I thought about that, the more excited I got because of Romans chapter 5. And here's my conjecture. I wonder if in fact atoms fall into sin involved in some way his genetics so that the very sin and the proclivity to sin itself is in fact genetically passed on to his descendants. So it's not merely a spiritual identification, which is true, but even genetically the proclivity to sin and
to certain sins perhaps is passed on to Adam's descendants. In no way does that excuse man for his actions. To me, in my very preliminary thinking, my unscientific thinking, it may in fact just underscore what the scriptures say regarding the identification between Adam and sin. Or you can think about that and chew on it and don't go away from here saying, guess what the preacher said tonight? Because I'm just telling you what I'm thinking about.
In verses 12 through 14, he makes a comparison. And of course the comparison is between Christ and Adam. He says that both Adam and Christ are the head of a family and the kingdom. Adam is the head of the family of man and the kingdom of this earth, where he was until he lost it to Satan. And Christ is the head of redeemed man and the kingdom that he is establishing. And he notes that each of them is noted for one act that has far reaching
consequences. That's another way in which they're similar. Adam's act was sin. And the far reaching consequences involved the passing on of sin to his descendants and the death that accompanies it. Christ's one act was an act of obedience, by which he provided life and justification for his race, for his people and his kingdom. We can say that what happened to Adam happened to you and happened to me because we were in Adam when he fell,
genetically. We were there in him. And what happened to Adam happened to us. But we can also say, thank God, that what happened to Jesus happened to us. For we were crucified with him and we were raised from the dead with him. Now having made a comparison between the two, they're each the head of a kingdom and a family. They each have one act that they're noted for that has far reaching consequences. He now in verses 15 through 17 talks about a contrast between Adam and Christ. And let
me just list the contrasts. On behalf of Adam there was transgression. On behalf of Christ there was grace and obedience. Verse 16, on behalf of Adam there was judgment. In contrast to that, with Christ there is a free gift. With Adam death reigned. Verse 17, but with Christ the believer reigns. The contrasts. And that brings us to the conclusion, verses 18 to 21. He says there's a sort of principle involved here. It's the principle of cause
and effect. Something happened to one and all were affected. Look at verse 18. So then as through one transgression, that's Adam's, there resulted condemnation to all men who are identified with him. Even so through one act of righteousness, the cross, there resulted justification of life to all men identified with the cross. For as through the one man's disobedience, the many identified with him were made sinners, even so through the obedience
of the one, the many identified with him will be made righteous. So you see what I'm getting at here? He's explaining why we have these blessings of justification. It's because of our identification with Christ. Just as we were identified with Adam, we are now identified with Christ. In Adam we inherited death and destruction and sin. In Christ we inherit life and righteousness and blessings. He says the law came in that the transgression might
increase. That doesn't mean that the law made us more sinners than we were before. But it means that the law provoked us, as he'll come to in chapter 7, and stimulated us so that our sin was evidenced. And not only that, it was more defined. An example of that, it's the common example. If you walk in a park and you come to a bench that says, please do not touch wet paint, what do you do? What do you want to do at least? You want to touch
it. Why? Because the law says, do not touch it. Well is it really wet and sticky? And you see that's what the law did. God says, don't do this, don't do that. There were good reasons, positive, wonderful reasons that God gave the law. But when we sinners saw don't do this, all it did was make us want to do it. Because we're sinners. He says, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Now he gives the ratio between
grace and sin. That as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. It's super bounded. If sin is at this level, then grace is at that level. There is no way for one to sin beyond grace. He says, wherever there is sin, however much
it increases, grace is always superior to sin. Now there are some people thinking, they say, wait a minute, does that mean that we ought to sin more so that grace can abound even more? Well Paul is going to get into that next week. Because that's the very question that comes up as chapter 6 begins. And it begins to deal with sanctification. Justification and sanctification cannot be separated. They are distinct, but they cannot
be separated. Thus far he's talked about justification. And how God has provided that through the sacrifice of his Son. He says that when we have believed in Jesus Christ, we have received the gift of righteousness and with that gift come all of these blessings he's enumerated. And we are identified with Christ now, made righteous in him. And grace just abounds in our lives. We are overwhelmed with grace. And so let's sing about it, number
297 in your hymnal. The grace, the grace of God, which super abounds over our sin. I'd like for you to stand with me please as we sing this in closing. Grace greater than our sin. Let's stand together. And verse 4 will be our only verse. So sing it together. Marvelous infinite matchless grace freely bestowed on all who believe. You that are longing to see his face, will you this moment his grace receive. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will
pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin. Steve, would you come up a minute? Steve Peterson. We've sung about the grace of God and I want Steve to condense 10 minutes from the small church this morning into about one minute here and tell us about the grace of God this week in your ministry. Okay, well as a lot of you know I work with Treehouse and that's working with Trouble Youth out
of Brooklyn Park and I took some kids Saturday night to the Washington Redskins Chapel. That was a week ago, right? That was a week ago, last Saturday before the Super Bowl and we had three kids standing up to receive Christ there and I thought that was really neat. But then the next night we came here, a lot of you probably were here, remember that.
As a matter of fact there was a little grousing about it from some quarters and that's why I wanted you to share it, what God did because some of the kids didn't act too church-like,
did they, Sunday night? And besides that they half killed you. I was here Sunday night and we had a bunch of kids, about 18 of us, and during the Super Bowl I started having these chest pains and they moved all the way down my left arm and so I thought I was having a heart attack and so did other people so I was taken to the hospital and somebody else
had to take all those kids home. Darrell, thank you very much if you're here. And I probably thought those kids were pretty well behaved but because I imagine they were kind of subdued, well I know that they were on the way home because they were pretty concerned about what happened to me and on the way over to the hospital all these verses of assurance
came to my mind. I was thinking of that verse in Romans, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Lord you will be saved, and I knew that if I died that I'd go to heaven. When I got to the hospital I was rushed into the emergency room and they hooked all these things up to me, monitors and all that kind of stuff. The guy next to me was really having a heart attack and while I was laying there they had to revive this
guy three times so that in itself was kind of scary. But I started thinking about him because this man had been drinking and when he would come around he had no idea what was happening to him. He would say things like, I'm just not staying here, I'm going home. And his wife was there and I started praying for this man because this man was on the edge of eternity and he didn't know it. It just really hit me that if I died I'd go to heaven,
if this guy died I'm not sure where he'd go. Anyway what happened was those kids were really concerned about what happened to me, a lot of them called the hospital and by that time I'd already checked out, I wasn't there that long and it wasn't a heart attack, I'll just tell you that, it was something else. On Tuesday night I was relating this whole story of what happened to me and how that I knew that if I died I'd go to heaven. Well I gave to the
kids. Most of these kids were there, most of those 18 plus, well we had about 40 some kids there. And I gave an altar call that night, something we don't normally do at Treehouse, but I gave an altar call that night and we had over 30 kids stand up to receive Christ. And it was fantastic to see because a lot of those kids that you saw here on that sunny night were some of those kids. And I knew it was genuine because it was like they
all stood up at the same time. And afterwards everybody was hugging each other and it was a great time of rejoicing. And I think that happened because a lot of you people pray, you know I've been there in Brooklyn Park for five years and we've been planting the seeds and finally all made sense to them. And I just want to share that with you and I want to thank you for being a part of that. Amen. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord.
And that's what we've sung and that's what we've seen illustrated. Thank you Steve for sharing that tonight. And sometimes people who don't know Christ can be a little trying to those of us who are saved and sanctified. Nearly perfect. And reaching out in the love of Jesus made a difference for all of eternity and some lives. Thank God. Let's pray together. So we rejoice in this evidence again of your grace. Thank you. Thank you for the work of
the Spirit through these unusual circumstances. And our prayer is that that new birth that has taken place in these many lives will now be nurtured through these early and critical days. There would be an expression of maturity and growth. Father we would even pray that some of these young men and women who a week ago here tonight were a little tough to deal with might go on to become missionaries and preachers. Men and women who would serve you
in a significant way in our world thus magnifying your grace all the more. We worship you and praise you. And as we go we go remembering that we too are the recipients of grace that super abounds even over our sin. Amen. Good night.