The Gift Of Grace

Romans 5:12-21

Introduction

You are holding your baby and enjoying the wonder of a new life. The child gets restless and seems uncomfortable and begins to cry. A few cries and all of a sudden he launches everything you just fed him. His aim is good and his sleeper and your shirt are dirty and smelly. As you lift him you notice that he has also blown through his diaper and a light brown liquid is seeping through his sleeper onto your pants. What a mess! What happens next? Do you send the child to his room to get cleaned up? Not a chance. He is a baby and incapable of cleaning himself. You get up and after putting a clothes pin on your nose you clean up the mess on the baby and then clean yourself up and hope it doesn’t happen again too soon.

Sin makes a mess. How is it cleaned up? Who does it? In order to find out, we will look at Romans 5:12-21. This is a fascinating passage which deals in comparisons. The most frequently used phrase is “one man.” The passage draws a contrast between the one man Adam and the one man Jesus Christ. We are identified with the one man because we are human and invited to be identified with the other man because we are loved. What we will see is that by His grace in Christ, God has cleaned up the mess we have made.

What A Mess!

A Mess Made

How did this mess we are in get started? In previous messages on Romans we have learned that we are all sinners. Why? Where does sin come from? Romans 5:12 answers that question when it says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” It all started with Adam through whom, as the text says, “sin entered the world.” How did that happen?

In the concentration camps in Germany during the second world war, there were times when people were herded into a room. Sometimes they didn’t know what kind of a room this was. Some may have thought it was a delousing station or something like that. Although perhaps somewhat fearful, they were all fine and could breathe and were doing OK, until one door was opened which allowed poisonous gas into the room. When that door was opened, the gas permeated the entire room and very soon all the people in that room were dead. The power of the deadly gas was allowed into the room and overcame everyone.

Sin came into the world in a similar way. By his disobedience, Adam opened the door that allowed the power of sin to come into the world. Since that time, this power has been present in the world and has had an impact on everyone in the world. The power of sin is not a genetic thing. We are not under it’s influence because we inherited a sin gene from our parents. Rather, it is an environmental thing. The power of sin is everywhere in the environment of the world. This is an important distinction. If sin is genetic, then the practice of baptizing infants becomes very important, but if it is a force in the world, then children are innocent until they succumb to that force.

Another way of looking at it is that sin is like a magnetic power which attracts everyone. With a magnet, you can attract metal which is within its magnetic field. In the same way, sin is like a magnetic field that attracts everyone in the world.

Just as everyone in that gas chamber died, so the magnetic attraction of sin also results in the death of every person who yields to its.

There is, however, at least one way in which the illustration of the gas chamber fails. Those who are overcome by the power of the deadly gas are overcome innocently. The power of the gas is imposed on them. Although it was Adam who opened the door for the power of sin to enter the world, we are all implicated because, as the text also says, “all sinned.” Every one of us is subject to the power of sin, and everyone of us also yields to the power of sin through our sinful acts. If we had been Adam, every one of us would have opened the door for the power of sin to enter the world, allowing death to also enter. So Adam opened the door to the power of sin and death came in. Everyone of us yields to that power and as a result every one of us is subject to death.

Let’s Clean Up!

How can this mess be cleaned up? As we read on, another man is mentioned who came to this world to establish a relationship between God and people. This man was Moses who gave the law to the people of Israel. Was the law a good thing or a bad thing? The Jewish understanding and Paul’s understanding was that the law was good. It was a gift of God. The law given by Moses did two things.

First of all, we read in Romans 5:13, that “before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.” One of the purposes of the law was to show sin for what it was. The basic sin in the world is rejection of God. When the law came, the true nature of sin was revealed. The rebelliousness of people was revealed and the evil of every person’s heart was also revealed. There are instruments which measure the presence and strength of magnetic fields. The law was like an instrument to test the presence of the magnetic field of sin. The law demonstrated the presence of the power of sin and, because people could not keep the law, it also showed how powerful sin is.

But the law had another purpose. The law was intended to help people overcome the powerful attraction of sin. That is the meaning of Romans 5:20, which says, “The law was added with the result that sin was multiplied.” It was intended as a barrier so that people would not yield to it’s power. The problem is that the attraction of sin is just too strong and it is impossible for us to escape from it’s power. If you have ever played with a magnet you know that you cannot remove the attraction of it by putting it in water or putting a piece of paper over the magnet. The only way to remove the power of the attraction is to move the magnet far away from that which is attracted to it. There is nothing that can be applied to remove it’s attraction. Just as it is difficult to escape the attraction of a magnetic field, so also it is impossible, even with the law, to escape from the attraction of sin.

What a mess! It seems like a totally hopeless situation. The power of sin is very great! We are not strong enough to overcome it. The law is not strong enough to help us overcome it. As a consequence, we all succumb to the consequences of sin and we will all die.

Getting Cleaned Up

This is the starting point of this passage and the themes I have outlined here are mentioned throughout the passage as the one man Adam is compared to the one man Jesus Christ. But the passage is not about sin and death! It is about grace and life! Through the one man, Adam, sin and death entered the world. But this passage is mostly about the one man, Jesus Christ who brought freedom and life into this world. This passage is written to contrast Adam and what he brought into the world with Jesus and what He brought into the world. John E. Toews says, “the free gift of righteousness…went far beyond what was needed to correct the consequence of Adam’s trespass.”

Those of you who play Rook know how important it is to hold a trump card. I have played games in which one player seemed to be dominating and was boldly playing his final card with confidence that he would win, but did not count cards and was beaten because one person still held a trump card. The trump card wins! What this passage tells us is that God holds the trump card when it comes to the power of sin. John Toews says, “salvation trumps sin in Christ.”

Jesus Didn’t Mess Up

Earlier I said that everyone has fallen to the power of sin and that no one has been able to overcome its influence, but that is not entirely true. There was one man who did not yield to the power of sin. We read in 5:18 about “one act of righteousness” and in 5:19 about “the obedience of the one man.” Jesus became a human being and lived under the power of sin, but He was the only one who was not overcome by it. The consequences of that victory are amazing!

It is easy to make a mess. You wouldn’t believe the mess I can make whenever I do any baking or cooking. However, cleaning up is much more difficult. The easiest way to clean up the kitchen after I have cooked is to ask Carla to do it. Of course that usually doesn’t work either.

Yet Jesus didn’t mess up. Adam began with a clean slate, but made a mess. Jesus, began with a huge mess, but did not add to that mess at all. What’s more, because He didn’t, He is able to clean us up as well. The amazing thing that Jesus did when he didn’t mess up was that He did what the law could not do. By overcoming the power of sin in a human person, Jesus was able to introduce into the world, the way in which all people can overcome the power of sin and also to release them from death and show them how to live apart from sin. John Toews says, “What makes the second person so amazing is that He is able to undo the disastrous outcome of the first person’s disobedience…The faithfulness of Christ reverses the unfaithfulness of Adam and assures righteousness for all who faithfully commit themselves to God.”

Jesus Cleans Us Up

It is important to note that cleaning up sin has happened through Jesus. It is very important for us to see Jesus. We are so quickly tempted to think we can clean up the mess ourselves. Even after we are saved we often think that now that we have a good start, we can live clean. We can now keep the law. However, we need to remember that the work of God in cleaning up the mess has happened entirely through Jesus. This theme is repeated over and again in this passage. Please take note of the pervasiveness and power of this truth.

5:15 – “the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ.”

5:17 – “the gift of righteousness (will)reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

5:18 – “the one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.”

5:19 – “through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

5:21 – “grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

What happened because Jesus did not succumb to the power of sin? The text lists three things.

We Receive God’s Grace

First of all, it speaks about God’s grace. In 5:15 it says, “God’s grace and the gift…overflow to many.” 5:17 speaks about “God’s provision of grace…”, 5:20 says, “grace increased all the more.” and finally, 5:21says, “so that grace might reign.”

When the baby blows it at both ends and makes a terrible mess, why do you clean him up? You love your child and have no expectation that he is able to clean himself up. You clean him up because you love him and he is helpless. Of course, we would say, “but we should know better.” But do we really? Of course we are responsible for our sin and of course we need to repent of it, but that does not change the fact that God cleans us up as an act of grace because He loves us and we are helpless without His help.

“G. Campbell Morgan was once approached by a man who said he would give anything to believe that God would forgive sins, "but I cannot believe He will forgive me if I just turn to Him. It is too cheap." Dr. Morgan said to him: "You were working in the mine today. How did you get out of the pit?"

“He answered, "The way I usually do; I got into the cage and was pulled to the top." "How much did you pay to come out of the pit?" "I didn't pay anything." "Weren't you afraid to trust yourself to that cage? Was it not too cheap?" The man replied, "Oh, no! It was cheap for me, but it cost the company a lot of money to sink that shaft." The man saw the light, that it was the infinite price paid by the Son of God for our salvation, which comes to us by faith and not by anything that we can do.”

We Are Made Right

The other thing that Christ’s act accomplished is that we have been made right. Not just declared right, but made right. The words “justified” and “made righteous” appear in 5:16,17, 18,19, 21. They are all the same Greek word, which means "being made right.” While under the power of sin, we were all wrong, but God, in Christ has made us all right.

John E. Toews says, “Salvation effects more than a change of status – the gift of ‘right standing’ before God – but in fact makes people righteous.” When I have studied this in the past, I have sometimes been taught that being justified means that we have gotten a piece of paper which says that we have a right standing with God, but we are still sinners and when we get to heaven we will turn in our piece of paper for true righteousness. But, this has never completely made sense to me because it seems to put too much distance between our lives and what God has done. Yet to believe that I am now righteous is also hard to understand because I know myself and how much sin still exists in me.

A few weeks ago my son and I made a trailer to pull behind a bicycle. We made it out of aluminum conduit. We used a conduit bender, but had never used one before. We tried to do it right, but realized that some of the bends were in the wrong place. I tried to straighten out one piece that we bent wrong so we could use it again, but it was impossible to do so, we had to start over with a new piece. What was impossible for us, that is, to straighten ourselves out, was done by Jesus. We were bent and crooked, but God, in Christ has straightened us out.

It is true that we are made straight, but it is important to remember that it is in Christ that we are straight. He never sinned and when we belong to Him, God does not see our crookedness, but the purity and holiness of Jesus. So we are made right in Christ and invited to continue to live in that righteousness.

We Are Given Life

Having been made right, the result is life. We find this theme in Romans 5:17, 18 and 21. Because the power of sin is overcome, its consequence is also overcome. One year, there was one place in our yard where I was always afraid to walk by. It all started one day when I was mowing the lawn and all of a sudden there was a terrible pain in the back of my leg. I realized that I had been stung by a wasp. It took a while to figure out what to do about it and so for a few weeks I walked by that place very carefully. Eventually, I found out how to get rid of the nest. Once the nest was gone, the fear of getting stung was gone and I did not fear to go there any more.

I Corinthians 15:56 says “The sting of death is sin…But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Because of what Jesus has done, the cause of death has been removed. Therefore we are no longer subject to death, we are now released to life, which is eternal.

Conclusion

In many circles today, people talk about improving ourselves through therapy or the practice of some ritual, but it does not work. Sin is too powerful and there is nothing we can do to overcome it’s attraction.

The emphasis in this passage is on what Christ has done. He, by His faithfulness in not yielding to its power, has conquered sin for us so that we can live free from it’s power. Having been freed from it’s power, we are also placed into life.

Who is this for? If you read through these verses, you will notice the word “all” appears several times. Particularly we notice that Romans 5:12 says, “death came to all men, because all sinned.” However, it is also important to notice that 5:18 says, “the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.” In other words, all of us have the same problem of being under the power of sin and death and what God has done He has done for all men. There is no racial or cultural limitation. God’s grace in making right and giving life is for all men.

However, we also notice another word and that is the word “many.” Notice particularly 5:19 which says, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” This seems to limit what God has done. Here it does not say that “all” will be made right, but “many.” What are we to understand by this? Who is freed from the power of sin? Who is given life?

From these verses it seems clear that God’s grace is available to all, but given, as Romans 5:17 says, to “those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace…”

Have you received it? If not, I invite you to accept God’s gift. If you have, I encourage you to live in Christ.

That You May Know Him Better

Ephesians 1:15-23

Introduction

When Rosenort Fellowship began to talk about planting a church in Oak Bluff, I listened with interest and thought it was a great thing and so I have always wanted to come and visit and see what God is doing here. So I am glad to come and talk with you today.

Ephesians 1:15a seems an appropriate verse which expresses my feelings. It begins “ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” There are certain aspects of this verse that are true about me and how I think about you. I have heard about you and the faith you have. When the church was being planted and ever since then, I have prayed for you. It isn’t only the beginning of the prayer that strikes a chord with me, but also the content of the prayer Paul prays for the Ephesians. Paul had planted the church in Ephesus and knew the people there. He knew their faith and love and had heard that their faith and love were still active. Yet he continued to pray for them and desired that on the foundation of faith and love, they should continue to grow in their walk with God. That is also my desire for you. This morning, I would like to look at Ephesians 1:15-23 because it expresses my wish, my prayer for you.

God May Open Your Heart Eyes

Twice in this chapter, Paul mentions that he prays for the Ephesians. In verse 17 he says, “I keep asking…” and in verses 18 he says, “I pray…” I like the way he phrases his prayer in 1:18, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know…”

There is a story in John 9 about a blind man who met Jesus. Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud and put it on his eyes. He told him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash the mud off his eyes. When he did, he could suddenly see. The rest of the story tells of the encounters he had after he was able to see again, particularly with the Pharisees who were upset that Jesus had done this and did not want to believe what this implied about Jesus. The story is as much about the physical healing of a man born blind as it is about the blindness of those who could see physically and claimed to be able to see spiritually, but were really blind spiritually. In Ephesians, Paul prays not that they will have 20-20 vision with their physical eyes, but 20-20 vision with the eyes of their heart. He prays that the eyes of their heart will be open so that they will know God. What does it mean to know God?

How many of you know Milt Stegall? Of course most of us have heard of him, but how many of us really know him? For most of us the knowledge is pretty superficial. Some people know God only in this way - they have heard of him but they do not really know him. This prayer is a prayer to go beyond the superficial.

There is an excitement when a young man and woman first get to know each other. It is the joy of first acquaintance. When believers first come to the faith, they come to know God with the knowledge of first acquaintance. This prayer is a prayer to go beyond the knowledge of first acquaintance.

When a couple has been together for many years and have worked so that their relationship is a growing, loving relationship, we can say that they know each other well. Sometimes such couples say the same thing at the same time because their minds are so in tune with each other. It is this kind of knowledge of God which the writer desires for his readers and which we need. It is the knowledge of personal relationship. It is a real, deep and full knowledge. It is a dynamic and experiential knowledge. It is the knowledge of close friendship.

Do we know God in this way? Do we desire to know God in this way?

Paul’s prayer assumes that there is a gap in our lives. We have a desire to see God face to face – a desire which God himself has put within us, but as long as we are on this earth, we will not see God face to face. However, in Christ we have seen God and this prayer asks that we will see Him in our hearts and know Him more and more. How is this prayer answered?

My brothers brother-in-law is deaf and one day when we were visiting my brother, he was there. I would be totally unable to communicate with him because he can’t hear and I can’t sign. But my sister-in-law and my niece are very proficient at signing. Through them, I as a hearing person and he as a deaf person were able to communicate. What Paul prays for in Ephesians 1:17 is that God will give them the “Spirit of…revelation.” It is a prayer that the Holy Spirit will be the interpreter who will allow our hearts which are deaf to God to hear and know Him. The only way we will come to know God is if the Spirit of God does a work of illumination in our hearts.

The prayer also asks that God will give a “Spirit of wisdom.” Wisdom comes as we expose ourselves to the Word of God and as we experience God in relationship. As we walk with God, and apply his Word to our lives, He will make Himself known to us.

I love this prayer. I love the possibility of knowing God. I love the language which speaks of the eyes of our heart being opened. My prayer for you is that you will know Him better, that the eyes of your heart will be opened.

Knowing Him Better

But what are the specifics of that knowing? The next few verses mention three things. The prayer asks that they will know:

1. “the hope to which God has called them.”

2. “the glorious riches of his inheritance in his people.”

and

3. “his incomparably great power for those who believe.”

Hope 1:18

A while ago, I saw a special on TV about the actions of people who get lost in the bush. When they realize they are lost, they lose hope and they panic. As a result, their vision and focus is obscured. Some have been known to cross roads which would have gotten them out but they didn’t even see them. The loss of hope prevented them from healthy thinking and planning. People need hope. We sometimes lose sight of the hope we have. Knowing God is knowing that we have hope.

This is particularly important when difficulties and troubles strike. Sometimes, we have to go through life sustained by nothing but hope. For example, Abraham saw the fulfillment of hardly any of the promises which God had made to him. Hebrews 11:13 says that he and Isaac and Jacob all died without seeing the things they were promised. Yet they died in faith because they had a hope in God.

When we use the term "hope" we often use it in the sense of wish or possible expectation. Like, I hope the Bombers are going to win this afternoon. The Biblical use of the term "hope" is much stronger, especially when presented as it is in this text.

Biblical hope has three elements. There is the element of expectation by which we anticipate and expect that certain things will happen. There is the element of trust by which we believe, through faith, that these things will happen and there is the element of patient waiting by which we are aware that we may not receive the fulfillment of our expectations immediately, but only eventually.

This hope is rooted in the call of God, which in itself indicates that it is much more sure than merely a wish. God is the one who has called us to this hope as Ephesians 1:4 says, "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight."

It comes to birth in us when we receive Christ by faith as it says in Ephesians 1:12-13, "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."

This hope will climax on the day when we receive our inheritance which is assured in Ephesians 1:14, which says, "who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory."

To know God is to know that we have hope. It is a tremendous encouragement to have hope in a world which is full of fear and despair. When we wonder if our world will be destroyed by a natural disaster or if terrorists will strike or if we will get sick, we know that the future is not in the hands of random forces. As the song says, "I know who holds the future and I know who holds my hand."

Inheritance

The second thing the prayer asks is that we will know what is “the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints…”At first view, it seems that this simply repeats what was just said, namely that we would know what it is that we will inherit. But when we look at the wording of the text, it says something different. It does not say to know OUR inheritance, but HIS inheritance. Paul prays that the believers will understand what it is that God is going to inherit, and that is us. We, the people of God, the church, are God's inheritance.

I have sometimes thought about what I might inherit, but not very often thought that I, that we, are someone's inheritance, and not just anyone's, but God's!

Is God going to create for himself a shoddy and poor inheritance? The Bible talks about that inheritance as a beautiful bride, a glorious city. What kind of an inheritance is worthy of God? The text calls it a rich and glorious inheritance. Knowing something of what God is like, we know that it is a holy and pure inheritance. God is preparing such an inheritance for himself and we are that inheritance.

Do we really grasp the fact that we are God's holy and glorious inheritance?

What a wonder to know that this is how God thinks of us! What an exalted position this places us into! It helps us understand that God is much more involved in our life, much more concerned about us than we sometimes think. It encourages us to rest in Him, to obey Him, to love Him.

Having our eyes opened means that we understand that we are His inheritance. What kind of a difference will it make in the way we live every day when we come to have a clear knowledge that we are God's holy and glorious inheritance.

Power

Finally, Paul also prays that they will know the power of God available to them. "To know...his incomparably great power for us who believe."

At one time, I put some crushed rock on my driveway. I began by shoveling along the edges with a spade in order to remove the old shale from the driveway. That was better than trying to do it with my bare hands; my power was increased by what the spade could do. Then my neighbor came along with his front end loader and scrapped the rest of the driveway to clear off the old shale. This was much better than trying to do it all with a shovel. Again I increased my power by using the tractor. Later that afternoon, a tractor came with a large bucket. The whole four yard load of gravel, which I wanted put on the driveway, was in one bucket and with three sweeps along the driveway he had spread the crushed rock so that I had to do very little spreading with rake and shovel. Once again I increased my power by using an even more powerful tool. Each time I dwarfed the power I had with something more powerful.

The power of God dwarfs the greatest displays of energy among humans and angels. It speaks of “all rule and authority, power and dominion and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” There is a sense of fear in regards to the powers of the earth, but God's power is much greater.

The power of God has already been demonstrated. It is demonstrated in: Jesus’ resurrection (1:20); His enthronement (1:20); His absolute Lordship (1:21), His eternal lordship (1:21b), and His present sovereignty for the churches benefit (1:22,23).

When a prisoner faces his executioners, when a hold up victim looks into the barrel of a robber’s gun and when we hear of the attacks of terrorists, we realize that people have the power to kill. However, they do not have the power to make alive. Only God has the power to make alive. And he has demonstrated that power by raising Jesus from the dead. God's power is life giving power and that resurrection power is for us. God is the God of resurrection. He is the one who, as Ezekiel says, can make dry bones live again. He is the one who did make Christ rise from the dead.

God also has the power to set as ultimate authority the one He wants to rule. Having raised Him from the dead, God has placed Jesus Christ as sovereign Lord over all things. Christ's enthronement means that the world citizens have a new Lord.

Verse 21 goes on to describe that the risen and exulted Christ has authority far above everything. The totality of Christ’s power over everything else is emphasized by listing all other possibilities - rule, authority, power, dominion and every title that can be given. The authority and power of Jesus extends to all powers on earth - monetary power, political power and military power. His authority also extends to all powers in heaven - angels, demons and all possible powers. But as we read on, we also learn that His power is not only over this age, but also the age to come. All things are under His feet. He has absolute dominion and authority.

That is wonderful! Christ, the one who came to earth, who knows us and has lived with us, is Lord above all. But the truly interesting part of this passage is that, as verse 22 says, “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.” Did you catch that? Christ’s authority over all things is “for the church!” What are the implications of that amazing statement?

When we see the world in its present or in its past, what do we see as important? The world in which we live gives important place to nations. The running of nations, the interplay of one country with another, the G-8 summit, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Olympics in China - these are the things of consequence. These are the things that newspapers will record, that historians will write about.

But that is not God’s point of view. From God’s point of view, the thing that will be recorded for all eternity, the story that will be told in heaven is not the story of nations; it is the story of the church. John Piper said in a sermon, “The church of Jesus Christ is…more significant in world history than any other group, organization or nation. The United States of America compares to the church of Jesus Christ like a speck of dust compares to the sun. The drama of international relations compares to the mission of the church like a kindergarten riddle compares to Hamlet or King Lear. And all the pomp of May Day in Red Square and the pageantry of New Year's in Pasadena fade into a formless grey against the splendor of the bride of Christ.”

If we would only know His great power at work among us! What is possible since the Lord of all is at the head of our church? What power do we have since the power of the one who gives life is there for us? His power transforms us and enables us to live as agents of dynamic renewal in the context of unredeemed political, economic, social and cultural power. Instead of being anemic, we have energy. Instead of being weak we have power. Instead of being fearful, we have boldness.

To know God is to know the power of God available to us.

Conclusion

I was once on a canoe trip in northern Manitoba. We camped on an island near the north shore of Simonhouse Lake. There was no civilization for several miles and so when it got dark at night, it was dark. One evening, we lost something in the campfire area after dark and even though we used our flashlights to try to find it, we couldn't see very well and we couldn’t find it. The next morning, when the sun was shining, it was very easy to find because we could see everything well.

Spiritually, the same thing is true. The Bible speaks about those without Christ as being in darkness, unable to see the way things really are. As Christians, we have become children of the light. Despite that, we as believers are sometimes not fully aware of what is real. Living in the land of darkness, our eyes are not always fully opened to see the way things really are. We are influenced by the darkness. With shadows in front of our eyes, we sometimes live according to the darkness instead of according to the light.

My prayer for you is that God will open the eyes of your heart to know Him more. May you know the hope that is yours in Him, the glory of the fact that you are His inheritance and the power which is yours in Him!

We Have Peace With God

Romans 5:1-11

Introduction

Last week at the Mission Conference, Nard Pugyao talked about his experiences growing up. He grew up in the jungles of the northern Philippines without a knowledge of God. One of the stories he told was of the time when the witch doctor came to their house because his sister was sick. The witch doctor came because the understanding of that culture was that you had to make some kind of a sacrifice to appease the gods in the hopes that they would help you. In such a culture, there is a constant fear of what could happen and whether or not you are OK with the gods. Even the directions of the witch doctor never gave confidence because, as Nard experienced, his sister still died. Therefore fear is an ever present reality. He also mentioned that when you walked in the forest, you always had to listen for the omen bird. The culture in which he grew up was a fear based culture. Their relationship to the gods and their dealing with sin revolved around fear.

Last weekend I also visited with one of the missionaries who had set up a display. She was a missionary to people of Arab descent and we talked about the way in which people from that culture look at things. She mentioned that one reason suicide bombers are willing to kill themselves is because it is a way of saving face. Being thought well of is very important to them, it is the highest value. Their relationship to God and their response to sin are processed through this value of how others look at them. It is a shame/honor culture.

Our culture is a guilt/righteousness culture and we process our relationship with God and our response to sin through those values, but these two stories illustrate that there are actually three types of cultural understandings of sin and a relationship to God – that is fear based, shame based and guilt based. Yet it isn’t only a matter of different cultural understandings. It is also helpful for all of us to understand these things, for in some ways, all people face these three different ways of relating to sin and to God. When we sin, we have done wrong and we feel guilty. When we sin, we have disgraced ourselves and we feel ashamed. When we sin, we have crossed a boundary and we fear punishment. The wonderful thing is that the gospel answers each of these and in Romans 5:1-11, there is a description of how the death of Christ on the cross answers our guilt, our shame and our fear.

We Have Been Made Right

The Problem Of Guilt

A few weeks ago I was helping my son put together some cabinets that they plan to have installed in their house. One of the pieces was the countertop, which was nicely wrapped up in cardboard. Jonathan wanted to see what the countertop looked like since it had been quite a while since they ordered it. I took out my knife and tried to cut a hole in the cardboard to take a look. I tried to be very careful so as not to scratch the top, but as soon as I opened the cardboard, I realized that I had not been careful enough. I had scratched the countertop. I felt awful. I felt guilty for making such a mistake. My immediate thoughts were, how can this be made right again? I had several options. I could ignore it and blame the factory or the installer, I could see if there was some paint or filler that would cover up the scratch or I could pay to have a new countertop made. That is what I chose. The only acceptable option was to replace the piece so they would have a nice new kitchen. This option is going to cost me.

That is how guilt works. We do something wrong and life is spoiled. There is a mark, a scratch in our life and we begin to try to find a way to deal with it. Sometimes we are tempted to ignore it and blame someone else. Sometimes we try to cover it up, but until it is properly dealt with, we feel guilty. There is a sense in which we cannot rest until it is dealt with.

The Gospel Answers

The gospel has an answer for our guilt. If you look at Romans 5:1,9, you will see that they are almost parallel passages, which speak about that answer. Romans 5:1 says, “Since we have been made right through faithfulness…” Romans 5:9 says, “Since we have been made right by His blood…”

Both of these verses use the word “since” which means that they refer back to what has already been said. These are important statements which tell us that guilt has been dealt with. We have already noticed that in chapter 3:9 it says that we are “all under sin.” We looked previously at how those without the Law are guilty because they reject God and those who have the law are guilty because they do not keep the law. We all sin and we are all guilty and suffer from feelings of guilt.

But we have also already noticed that God has done something through Jesus Christ to remove our guilt thus making us right with God. The scratch has been fully repaired. There is nothing wrong any more. This “being made right” has happened because Jesus was fully faithful to God. He kept the law. He did not do anything wrong and so when He died, He died not for His sins, but for ours. By trusting Him, we are also made right with God.

How can God do that? Romans 5:9 tells us that being made right happened “by His blood.” Fixing a mistake does not happen without a cost. Just as I had to pay to have the countertop replaced, there is a price that must be paid to make things right again. The price that has been paid is the blood of Jesus.

So the good news of the gospel is that our sins are covered, our guilt has been taken away and we are free. As a result, rather than suffer under the weight of our guilt, we can have peace. Most translations say, “we have peace with God,” but if you look at the footnote, in most Bibles, you will notice that another translation is “let us” have peace with God. That is a wonderful thought. Because we have been made right, rather than feeling guilty, we are encouraged to have peace and to live in and rejoice in that peace. We do not need to live under guilt any more. We are set free from guilt, therefore, let us be at peace.

We Have Been Reconciled

We understand this perspective. It is how our culture is wired and for most people in our culture, we know what it is to do wrong, to feel guilt and to desire freedom from that guilt. But it isn’t the only thing that happens when we do wrong, or the only way of looking at what God has done in Christ.

The Problem Of Shame

There are cultures in our world, there are people in our midst and there are times in our life when the issue which causes us distress isn’t that we are guilty, but that we are ashamed. A shame/honor way of looking at things is quite different than a guilt/righteousness way. I have to confess that I have a hard time fully understanding this myself, but let me try to make it clear.

The following chart has helped me understand it a little more.

			Others Think I Am
		Guilty		Not Guilty
	Guilty	I am guilty and am punished		I should feel guilty regardless
I Think I Am					Guilt/Righteousness Society
	Not Guilty	I protest my innocence and fight the accusation.		No Problem
	Guilty	I am guilty and am punished		No one knows so I am not ashamed
I Think I Am					Shame/Honor Society
	Not Guilty	I am ashamed and dishonored by their belief		No Problem

As you can see, there is a big difference between the two understandings. In a guilt culture, if I am guilty, even if no one knows it, I feel guilty and know that I need to deal with it. If, on the other hand, I am not guilty, but other people think that I am guilty, I will fight to prove my innocence. However, in a shame/honor culture, if I am guilty and no one knows I am guilty, I am not ashamed and do not do not have to deal with what I have done wrong. If I am not guilty, but everyone thinks I am guilty, I am shamed and dishonored and have to do whatever I can to save face and regain their respect.

From a guilt perspective, the important thing is right and wrong. From a shame perspective, the important thing is being disgraced and our relationship with other people. Although it is not strong in our culture, we can understand this. We know what it is like to be ashamed. If we embarrass ourselves, we can hardly face others. We blush, we would like to crawl under a rock, we gladly flee the room. That is what shame does to us. If we feel guilt, we feel that we have done wrong, but if we feel shame, we feel that we are wrong. We are diminished in the eyes of others.

From a guilt perspective, a person who does wrong is law violator. From a shame perspective, a person is seen by others not to have met an expectation. He has violated the norms of the group. John Toews says, “A person who sins by breaking a law is a violator, whereas a person who sins by not meeting an expectation is unworthy, unclean, dirty and thus excluded from the group.”

Along with the feelings of disgrace, shame also breaks relationship. When we have been disgraced, we cannot face others and as a result, we do not want to see them and we assume that they do not want to see us.

The Gospel Answers

Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is not only that guilt has been taken away, God also takes away our shame and restores us to relationship. In Romans 5:1-11, there are a number of phrases which answer to shame.

The word boasting appears several times in this passage. It answers to the issue of shame. If you are ashamed, you have nothing to boast of, in fact you are inclined to hang your head. Of course, in Romans we have already noticed that there is bad boasting. For example, it is not appropriate to boast that you are good or to boast because you come from a certain culture. The Jews were boasting that they were children of Abraham and built walls excluding the Gentiles. All such boasting is not appropriate. However, in this passage, we read in 5: 2, that we can boast in the hope of the glory of God. NIV has “rejoice” but the Good News translation has the more accurate “boast.” Through Jesus, a fundamental shift has taken place which has taken away the shame, the hanging of our head and has allowed us to hold our head high and know that we will experience the glory of God.

Through Jesus we can even boast in suffering. Suffering would normally be a cause of shame. John E. Toews says, “Suffering normally produces shame in an honor-shame culture, because the superior, the one holding honor, is humiliating the inferior.” However, because of hope and because suffering has purpose, we can boast in our sufferings and not be ashamed because of them.

So in the gospel, the disgrace has been removed. One way of looking at it is with the idea of “saving face.” When we are ashamed, we want to hide our face. To “save face” means that we are willing to show our face again. Because Jesus has died, shame is removed and honor is restored and we can show our face again.

Romans 5:5 describes how that has happened when it says that hope does not make us ashamed because God has come near through the Holy Spirit. He has not treated us as if we are shameful, but in fact has demonstrated a most amazing and powerful love towards us in which even when we were weak sinners, or we could say shameful, Christ died for us so that we no longer need to be ashamed. In other words, the shame has been taken away. We are not nothing, we are not disgraceful, we are worthy, and loved and have been shown love.

The other thing that God has done through the gospel is to restore the relationship. Shame breaks relationships, but God has come in order to reconcile us to Himself. In Romans 5:2, it says, “we have access into this grace in which we stand.” God’s love poured out has made us welcome.

Furthermore, three times in 5:10-11 we are told that we have been reconciled. No longer are we in a broken relationship because of embarrassment, but we are reconciled to God. Our shame is taken away. We are not worthless, but worthy to the one who has made friends with us.

We Have Been Saved From God’s Wrath

The Problem Of Fear

The third culture, or way of looking at things is the fear culture. I can’t imagine what it was like for Nard to grow up under the constant fear of the spirits, of life, of death, and of the unknown. Yet there are whole societies, like his, whose people are in constant fear. Their relationships to the gods are based on fear. We have a hard time understanding that.

However, we do know what it is like to fear because we have done wrong and need to be punished. We all know what it was like to come home from school on the day that the principle told us, “I will be phoning your parents.” Well, at least I know what that feels like. At our house it was very clear. If I got a strap at school, there was another one waiting for me at home. It only happened once, but I still remember the fear. We all understand the fear of what will happen when we drive through a red light camera intersection and it flashes. We fear what will come in the mail within a short time. Well, at least I understand that fear. We also know what it means to fear that death is the punishment that is ours because of our sin.

The Gospel Answers

In Romans 5:1-11, this aspect of our approach to God is also discussed and the good news of the gospel is that our fear has also been removed.

Two parts of this passage particularly address fear. First of all, it is wonderful to know that God’s love has been poured out on us. In Romans 5:6-8, we have this amazing concept that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. God is not waiting for us to admit our fear and reluctantly come to Him. He has taken the initiative. We notice in these verses that there are three descriptions of what our relationship with God was. We were powerless (vs. 6); we were ungodly (vs. 6) and we were sinners (vs. 8). While we were in that situation, while we were without hope, Christ died. This is the demonstration of God’s love for us and because He has taken the initiative to relate to us in love, we do not need to fear Him.

Another phrase that answers to the fear we feel in the presence of God is found in verse 9. There it says that because we have been made right with God, we “shall be saved from God’s wrath through Him!” God’s anger was poured out on Jesus and so it will not be poured out on us. We are free from that anger and therefore do not need to live in fear. We are set free from fear and set free to live in a loving relationship with the one who has taken the initiative to reconcile us to Himself. Instead of pouring out His wrath, God has chosen to pour out His love on us. Fear is removed! We are free!

Conclusion

If we look at the gospel and understand it only from the point of view of guilt and forgiveness, we have not adequately understood all of what God has done for us in Christ. Romans 5:1-11 allows us to see this bigger picture, this more complete way of looking at salvation. Not only has our guilt been dealt with, we have also been reconciled because our shame is removed and we are also set free and given peace because the reason for fear has been removed.

To understand the fullness of the gospel in this way allows us to live in the fullness of a blessed relationship with God, which is His intention for us. We can know that we are loved, we can know that we are forgiven, we can know that we are set free. We can live in peace with God and with one another.