Romans 5

March 12, 2023 · Ben Hoyer · 31:08

A third-Sunday-of-Lent message on Romans 5:1—"since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God"—unpacking Paul's argument from Abraham and reframing justification as how we make sense of and justify our existence before God.

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We are in this morning our third week of the Lent. Lent takes us up until Easter celebration of the Resurrection, which will celebrate here. We have built this tradition over the years of having Easter dinner together. So I'd love for you guys to think about your Easter day and start to put that in. We'll set up a long table down the middle.

We'll provide some maintenance to him and something else. And people will bring supplies and we'll all hang out and have celebrate the Resurrection together. But let's take this up to that. And the way this church has encouraged us to prepare for the celebration of the Resurrection for generations has been to reassign ourselves with a need for a failure. The way we do that is we look at our sinfulness, the way that we have backed up choices that are less helpful.

Choices that put ourselves in the position of God rather than recognizing that there is a God and it's not us. And so several of us maybe are are entering ourselves in repentance during this Lenten season by adding practices to our lives and taking some practices away. And that might be a good thing for you to think about. What is my life look like in this season? These next several weeks, how am I entering myself through repentance in these next several weeks?

One of the ways that we're doing that together here is celebrating communion every week and so we'll celebrate communion in a little bit. But also we're looking at the text that the church gives us. So we're using the letter of the time kind of church readings that we've been looking at for the Lenten season. And so each week they give us an Old Testament psalm, a New Testament and a gospel. The gospel is the one I was telling the kids version of here with the woman at the well, the students and the well.

The psalm that we had assigned was one that Megal read for our call to worship. I want to look at the epistle ring in the New Testament reading which is in Romans chapter 5, which you want to look at with me. Romans in the New Testament, Acts, Romans, Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians. Romans chapter 5. Remember that the Apostle Paul writes this letter to a group of Christians and the followers of Jesus who have gathered in Rome.

In advance of him getting there, it's interesting when you look at the story of Paul and you get most of it in Acts, sometimes in Galatians 2. The guys really wanted to get to Rome. She had been arrested by the Antioch and ancient minor and they also were getting ready to let him go. They had found that the charges didn't hold up in court, but before they let him go because he's a Roman citizen, he's a man of birth, who's to be hurt in front of the Roman emperor.

And so then he's in house arrest and for really the New Testament, he wanted to get to Rome and he wanted to be able to preach to the gospel to the Roman emperor. So though he's going to have been allowed out, he probably forgot to advise us some today about whether he died in house arrest in Rome. There is some church tradition that said he got out and went on to Spain, which was kind of interesting to try and think about. But this letter that he, he, the title Romans and that the church copied and saved from one generation to the next was a letter that he wrote before he got to Rome.

And he sent it ahead of himself and he, if you read through it, it's very calling, it's very kind of systematic and incremental. It builds on itself one point after another because this is true. Now we know this is true. And it's reading that you have for days for today's one of those incremental pieces because it starts with a their form. And when you're reading through Romans or eating written by Paul really, he'll like write two whole chapters that build up to one their form.

And I'm not saying that three chapter three and four all build up to capify, but there is a pretty significant build up to capify. Which we don't, we don't have to take the time to go into the build up. We're just going to jump to the next one. Therefore, so in Romans chapter five verse one, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The build up for what is worth in peace making the point that how Abraham, God, his relationship to God was one of faith and not works. And then he says that this holds for all of us. Therefore, since we haven't justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And like I said, Paul has a lot of build up to this sentence. And he's been telling the story of Abraham all the way back.

And he's been building up to this and then he drops this therefore. And we know that also that therefore comes something important. And then the sentence is therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know if that fits you like any significant or important thing. I don't know if you are like walking around concerned about having been justified or having peace with God.

I had one seminary professor who I really liked my favorite seminary professor. Most of my classes did not like professor Okamoto. He was a really smart guy. He's his undergrad at MIT in mathematics, got an advanced degree there. Then decided he didn't like mathematics and went and got a PhD in theology. And then was teaching at the seminary.

Really smart guys. Now, as an advanced degree from MIT in mathematics, he wasn't a real questionable guy. He was not a real dynamic. He write out all of his lectures. And then he would pass out a type lecture to everyone. And then he would fill in the reading of the professor to discuss professor Okamoto. And then sometimes he would flip it and he would ask his questions that he knew no one was going to give me answer to anyone. But he may keep answering it anyway.

I really loved professor Okamoto. I did my last class. I had a place to take one more class and I did an independent study with professor Okamoto. But one of the things I remember when talking about was this idea of justification. It's such a church word, is it? Maybe you would use, maybe you might use the word justification if you had to give justification for something.

But certainly most of us, let alone most of the world, don't walk around worrying or wondering whether we are justified before God. It's not like a cultural concern. If we know what the word justification means, we're typically not stressed about it. And the reason I bring about the most is because one time he flipped the understanding of the word justification out of a church word,

and in case that most people aren't worried about whether or not they are justified with God. Remember, to be justified with God is to be in the right standing with God. For God who holds no account against you, but to see you as worthy of manner in the standing justify. This is what I'm walking around worried about, they're justified with God.

But he's like, almost everyone has an implicit motive that can justify their existence to explain why on earth and here, what on earth am I supposed to be doing? What I feel a complex experience, share, build, create, leave, hide, give before I die?

If I'm here, what do I do with myself while I'm here? Most people implicitly are driven by a desire or a motivation to justify their existence. I'm taking up space. What's the heck for? Taking up space. What the heck for? Most people have an implicit motivation to justify their experience. Everyone feels the way of the need to justify their existence.

I think if we consider that that motivation is implicit, like we are without awareness moving through life as though we needed to justify why we are here, what are the things that we spend time, energy, resources on? How are we justifying our existence to ourselves and the people around us? What drives us in life?

I made a short list. Money, power, creativity, pleasure. If someone were to say, let's adjust the case for my existence, what am I here for? The first one that would be obvious for us, I think, in where we sit in a place no doubt is to accumulate things to me. Like almost ten years ago, I was trying to put together a little presentation on keto when I was getting it started.

And I was talking about how much of the way that we serve a place is built on stuff. We find people who don't have some stuff and we figure what they need is the more stuff that we find people that have extra stuff and we take some of their stuff and give that piece of stuff to the people that have less stuff. And at the extremes of the stuff is the implication that your quality of life is kind of the stuff that you have. And we have the whole culture in philanthropy and in work around accumulating things. At the time, ten years ago, we had enough public storage space for seven cubic feet for every human in the country.

Outside of your homes, which at the time, ten years ago, the average new home was in sixth of an acre and the average subsistence farmer in China lived on its sixth of an acre. So we have six of an acre home plus seven cubic feet of storage outside of this home for every student in the United States. It was enough to cover the island of Manhattan with public storage. In this city, often, we'd justify our existence by the things that we have.

I'm here to make money and buy things. We'd justify our existence by the things that we have. But maybe not it's not the things in themselves. Maybe it's to yield authority and power. Maybe we are here not to accumulate things but to control some stuff. Maybe we spend maybe implicitly, we're moving through life in order to accumulate power and authority.

Maybe we're going to leverage that power for good. Maybe this is the reason that we're here to accumulate people who will listen to us, opportunities of influence, power, and prestige. Maybe that's why we're moving through life. That's how we justify our time here. Or maybe it's just to maximize the number of experiences. Maybe the implicit purpose for my life is to have as many positive, pleasurable experiences as possible.

Maybe my work takes time to the experiences that I've chalked up. That's also why I take pictures of every single one. Because the experiences are all that I have. And the experience of the moment is gone. It's gone. And if I look back at it, and even if I don't look back at the picture, at least I know that I can't. Because the just the case for my place in the world is the experiences that I've stacked up. Paul worked hard to build up the whole argument, leaning through this therefore to tell you that the justification for your existence.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this great in which we stand only rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Look, you have to accumulate nothing. If you got no more things in your life, your value is for sure.

Whether you get bankruptcy and poverty and could sit on the street and in the coalition, your value, your justification for God is secure. Whether you're bolted to the million dollar homes on the lake, you can't change your value, your justification for existence is the same. It rests not in the power or perceived or the accumulation or the experience, it rests in the prerogative of God.

You are valuable, you are justified, your existence matters not because of where you've been or what you've done or what you've accumulated, but because for heaven's sake, the God of the universe imagines you into existence and perpetuates your life for this moment. This is your justification for existence. You are the nearly work of God. No matter where you go or what you've done, no matter what you acquire or what you lose, no matter what you say or don't say, no matter who listens to you or doesn't listen to you, no matter what you create or bangle.

You cannot undo your position, your justification for your existence. It's not within the scope of your possibility, your justification rests in the prerogative of God. You made you because he'd like a world battle with you in that period. This is your justification for existence. God.

It takes some pleasure. Or it could. This is what Paul is saying Abraham had. Remember, we talked about the prayer of Abraham. Abraham was picked to finish what his dad didn't. Abraham was selected when brothers and nephews were not.

Abraham failed his wife on the day. Not to mention his wife. There's all kinds of ways. It Abraham accumulated well, honestly and decolonously both. And all kinds of places to struggle or fall to and to feel good about himself and to feel terrible about himself.

And Paul says that the justification for ignorance within his face that he's got outside of his works or his socks or his prayers has got outside of him justified his existence. He told him you are worth something on the face in them. Propelled Abraham in and through life. It came for you as well. Paul's about to get into what can happen if you are settled in the justification of God rather than propelled to justify your existence by accumulating things or experiences by gluing things or trying to be

something. Nothing left to be. Nothing left to do. Your existence is completely justified outside of yourself according to the Prodigent of God. Therefore, simply have been justified by faith. Then he says we have peace of God. Now God is not a taskmaster or an undelched judge. He is a point of peace.

Through him we have also obtained assets by faith into his great and wicked stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. I love the phrase glory. I probably mentioned it here too many times because I like it, but it's worth saying again. He says that we have hope in the glory of God. Now that you recognize that your existence is justified according to the Prodigent of God.

For the preface who accumulate or experience or wield authority in order to make your life worth it comes off. You don't have to make your life worth it. You're like scared to worth it. And now that the pressure of that is backed off, because we move into the presence of God in peace and our hope is in the glory of God. This is another church to order. It's even harder to put together. And so looking at the context of the places where the word glory is used, I like to think of the word glory as something revealed for what it truly is.

A hope in the glory of God that God would be revealed for what God truly is the beginning and end of all things. The source and culmination of wisdom, beauty, justice, mercy, creativity. Our hope is that we move towards a God where the encounter keeps and see in the God the fun and end of all things that we need.

Paul is backing up a period therefore your existence is just upon us. God is the hope for all good things. We are just verse three more than that. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We look at the oh that that glory would be real out for me. That I might know God as justice, as beauty, as mercy, as generosity.

Then because we go further more than that, verse three. We rejoice in our sufferings. Knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. But do we? I can handle inconvenience.

I've had a friend tell me that they said I've never met anyone as comfortable with inconvenience as you. I'm okay being inconvenienced. I will seriously avoid suffering. I mean I will. I am slippery and classy. I can imagine situations and figure out how to get out of it.

I know a lot of people. I can talk really fast. And I don't like failure. I'm really against failure personally. I do not like. Paul says we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. I can get behind us. If God is the beginning and end of all good things, then when I begin to glimpse the glory of God, I do rejoice because this is the God in whose progress rests my justification.

That my value and worth is in the God's when I see his glory is the beginning and end of all good things. I can rejoice there, but then Paul goes further and says we rejoice in our sufferings. And I think you can say this because normally if we were suffering, we would assume that we have messed up something.

That we were left worthy. That our value was in jeopardy. Maybe diminished. When I fail in business or relationship, when I fail in my morality,

when I experience calamity, when I look at car or encounter addiction, when suffering finds me in any way, it would be very easy in the midst of the suffering to devalue my tooth. I was unjustified to feel like I was without justification, like some kind of left thing.

Some kind of diminished version, some kind of left valuable, left worthy. But Paul has done good work, hard work, to build up the case, remember, that your justification, your value as a human in the world, as a created entity of God rests not in your choices, successes or failures, accumulated experiences, power, prestige or money.

Your justification, your value, rest in the corruption of God, so when suffering comes, it does not put your marriage or values. For just the case, it does not exhibit un-invited, un-marge, undeninced. And so suffering comes and we rejoice in suffering because we recognize it in the midst of suffering, all things must be.

When I am a failure, if my justification is thinned to my successes, I'm going to have a hard time. When I cannot take the addiction and my justification is thinned to my moral superiority, life is about to get very difficult. But more difficult than if I endured a addiction with the settled conviction, faith even, that my value does not rank on my focus, but in the poggy of God.

Do you see what Paul is building up here? Because we rejoice in the hope of the glory that, more than that, the justification is so secure when suffering comes, we rejoice. Because for ones like us, people of faith who believe beyond obvious inclinations, meaning our apparent value is no greater than anyone else moving around in the world, but we believe, according to the gospel of Christ, that our value is in the, like, rest in the prophet of God, moving forward with faith

when we encounter suffering, we realize that our value is not diminished. And so he says, more than that, we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance character. And character produces hope, it's one of the best rule phrases, it comes up a couple of places in the psalm and here as well, first five, and hope does not put us to shame. Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

That story about the woman who just met at the well, remember it? He's not supposed to speak to her because he's a woman, but also because she's a Samaritan and there's, like, the conflict there. It's like, what? I'm surprised that you're talking to me. I mean, I've been to some water, but I'm surprised that you're talking to me. And Jesus is like, look, if you knew you were talking to you to ask who's for the water that says the dance, he's like, well, that's interesting. What's the water that says the dance? It's like I gave you living water that springs up into eternal life. It's hard even to do that, and then you don't even have a cup.

And then he's like, hey, go home and ask your head for me. And he's like, man, I don't have a husband. He's like, yeah, you don't have a husband in the last five days you have been with. And now, from your whole room, she's like, I can see that you are appropriate. Jesus doesn't indict her. He doesn't dismiss her.

Because her worth and value is not tied to the fact that she's a Samaritan or the school has made a number. Her worth and value is not in the parietal of a gun who is demonstrating commitment and value to her. Just go, oh, live your life, but make different choices. The love poured into her that no matter how many times it's built out, it keeps coming.

That's why it says, for a while we were still weak at the right time, right time with your own godly. For one will scare to die for a right woman's person, though perhaps for a good person, one may go to die, but why? Her worth and value. Her worth and value. Her worth and value. Her worth and value.

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Her worth and value. Her worth and value. Her worth and value. Her worth and value. Her worth and value. Her worth and value.