This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome to today's
episode. of the New Mercies Podcast. It is February
the 12th, and my reading plan today is suggesting
I read Romans chapter 5. Great passage of scripture.
Again, this week is kind of themed around Titus
3. In Titus 3, it tells us what we became, right?
We were justified by his grace, and we are now
heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
So let's dive into that a little bit and see
what Romans 5 says. Romans 5, powerful, powerful
text. One of these verses is going to stand out
very familiar to you, Romans 5, 8. It is a passionate
-filled text where we, a lot of pastors, a lot
of teachers, a lot of Sunday school leaders,
and small group leaders, and everybody. I mean,
this powerful, powerful text. But I want to look
at what happens before that text shows up. passage
in Romans 5, as I read through it and as I just
kind of thought, what would this be themed as?
And I think it would be themed as, if your peace
with God rises and falls on your emotions, you've
not fully experienced or you don't fully understand
grace yet, you'll get there. It's a long journey.
It's hard to live this life sometimes. It's hard
to live this Christian life and to walk with
it sometimes. And I think churches may do a pretty
bad job about this. I think we try to build this
Christian life based on hype. And Romans 5 is
very grounding. The Scriptures, they're very
grounding. They help us to ground our faith into
something solid, and that's the person of Jesus.
Romans 5 does it. And if your faith is grounded
in Jesus, if your grace and understanding of
grace is grounded in Jesus, then you're going
to have a much better go at this life. So let's
ground our faith today into Christ. Let's dig
our roots in deeper so that we can see what the
Lord is trying to show us. I want to read us
a couple of verses in Romans 5. I'm just going
to read the first few verses today, and we'll
see what turns out from this. Romans 5, beginning
at verse 1. Not only that, but we rejoice in
our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces
endurance, and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope. And hope does not
put us to shame, because God's love has been
poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
whom he has given to us. You know, when you read
those five verses, There is something that stands
out to me. The first couple of verses there,
he says, therefore, we've been justified by faith.
Paul says, hey, we're going to bust open the
doors of this courtroom. We are justified by
faith. That's what we are justified by. You were
guilty, and now you're declared righteous. You
were guilty in your sin, right? We read that
in Titus 3 as well. You went from this ungodliness
into this wonderful sonship. You get to be an
heir of Christ. Unbelievable. So you were once
guilty. Now you are declared righteous. You were
once condemned. Now you are declared. You are
accepted. You're set free. You were once an outsider,
and now you've been brought near. This is powerful
stuff in the text. He says that in verse 1. We
have peace with God through Jesus, though we've
obtained this faith. This faith gives us this
grace. All these pieces begin to play on each
other, and they begin to add and compile on one
another. And I look, what's the result? We have
peace with God now. Now we have peace. We didn't
have peace with God before Christ. Now, through
faith, we have peace with God. We're now close
to him. We're drawn near to him. It's this powerful,
awesome moment. The war is over. The case is
closed. The gavel has fallen. We are now justified.
by faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone. You didn't
earn access. It wasn't like you did really good.
It wasn't like you did great. It wasn't like
everything worked out. We've obtained access
by faith into His grace. This grace that He has
given, we have access because of faith in grace.
Grace is not this doorway that you nervously
step through. It is now the place that we have
a firm foundation. It's what you stand on. It's
what your whole Christian life is standing on,
the grace that was given to you. You know, I've
heard it said before, justice is getting what
you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve,
and grace is getting what you don't deserve.
So we deserve death, separation from God forever.
That would be just. That would be the justice
move. If God gave us exactly what we deserved,
we would be separated from him forever. But he
gave us mercy, right? The mercy is he didn't
send us to separation from him. Instead, he gives
us this loving kindness that allowed Jesus to
come and die so that we could experience glory
forever with him. Here's the wild part. So we
didn't just not get what we deserved. We got...
peace with God. We are now connected to him.
We are now able to live with him, dwell with
him. He dwells with us. That's a grace that's
far bigger than our minds can even conceive.
He goes on and keeps writing. Grace rewrites
our suffering. You may be suffering right now,
but I'll tell you this. I was reading it and
looking over it, and I kept... thinking this
thought in my head over and over and over again,
whether it's right or wrong or inspired or not
or whatever this thought is. It's grace does
not deny pain, right? You're going to experience
suffering. You're going to experience endurance.
It's going to produce endurance. It's going to
produce difficulty. You're going to rejoice in
that suffering, though. Grace doesn't deny the
pain. Listen to what grace does. It outlasts
it. The grace outlasts our pain. Sometimes I
just need that hope found in verse five, where
I can say the grace of God is giving me hope.
that one day I'm going to be with him and all
the present sufferings that I can face in this
world are going to be gone. As it says in the
book of Revelation, he's going to wipe away all
of our tears. He's going to wipe away all of
our hurt, our shame, our death is going to be
gone. Every suffering you can imagine is going
to be gone. That's the hope that I have today,
that because of the grace that I have received.
Because that's where I put my faith, in Christ
and in him alone. Then he says in the next few
verses, verses 6 through 8, which I'm going to
go ahead and read these. I wasn't going to, but
I'm going to. I decided. It's my podcast. I can
do whatever I want. Verse number 6. For while
we were still weak, at the right time Christ
died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die
for a righteous person, though perhaps for a
good person one would even dare to die. But God
shows his love for us in that while we were still
sinners. Christ died for us. Grace, can I say
this? You know, we were weak, we were ungodly,
and we were sinners. That does not sound like
a great prize. It doesn't sound like God was
like, ooh, I hope I get them. It sounds like
God should have said, I'm starting over, right?
I'm getting rid of you guys. This is awful. You
were weak. Nobody wants a weakling around. You
were ungodly. I mean, you did everything that
I wouldn't do. There's nothing in you that looks
like me. So there's no, you know, if you find
a friend, right, you typically find things that
you have in common, right? Imagine from God's
perspective. He's looking for things in you that
are in common with him, right? That would be
godly things, right? This is one of those moments
where, I don't know if you've ever thought about
this before, but when you have companionship
with someone, you typically look for things you
have in common. Maybe with your spouse, there's
certain things that you both laugh at together.
And you know what's wild? Whenever you laugh
together at the same things, guess what? Your
relationship grows stronger. Because you have
that in common. And the more you experience those
things that you have in common, the closer your
relationship gets. God is looking for things
in you that are in common with him. He does not
have a sinful nature. He does not have unholiness
in him. He is holy in all of his ways. He's perfect.
He's not going to stoop down and be sinful so
that we can be together with him. In fact, he
sent his son to die to become sin so that we
could then be godly. So we could have that in
common with him. And the more things we do with
him in common, the stronger our relationship
gets. You may say, I don't feel like my relationship
with him is very strong. What godly things are
you doing? Do godly things and then you're going
to be closer with him. He wants to do things
that he has in common with you. And the things
that are in common have to be godly things. He
said, we were weak, we were ungodly, and we were
sinners. That's who we were. And while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus didn't
wait till we got good. Grace did not wait for
worthiness. Grace created worthiness. It created
it in us. The grace that we received, God says,
I'm going to give you grace so that you become
worthy of a relationship with me. Now, what we
have in common, the godly things that are in
you now, let's do those things together so our
relationship can grow. You know, there's more
in here that I want to talk about, but I know
you're busy. You're a busy person, and you need
to read the Word. If you've got a little extra
time, go read the whole chapter yourself. I do
want to say, verses 12 to the end of the chapter
talks about the death in Adam and the life that
we have in Christ. There is some beautiful theology
there. There's some beautiful doctrine in there.
There's two Adams and two outcomes, right? There's
Adam. Who brought on sin, death, and condemnation.
And then there's Jesus. There's Christ. Who brought
on righteousness, life, and justification. That's
the way it is. Sin entered through one man, and
grace overflowed in the other. The more I think
about it, the way it says it even in the text,
it's abundant. It's more than. Jesus' grace that
he brought was so much bigger than we can even
understand. We don't know the depths of our own
sin, let alone the amount of grace it would take
to overwhelm that. Paul says this is so incredible.
Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
Where sin was in your life, grace was bigger.
Grace is bigger than your sin. This is a great
concept. Grace is not fragile. It's not threatened.
It's not outmatched. It justifies the ungodly.
It proves the love of Christ because that's what
God does for us. He loves us. He says, I'm going
to prove my love for them in that while they're
still sinners, I'm going to die for them. I'm
going to send my son so that they know how much
I love them. Grace secures this peace that we
have. Grace anchors us in hope, as it says in
the first part of that chapter. I look through
all of this, and if your justification depends
on Christ, you're secure. If your peace comes
through grace, you can rest. If your love was
proven at the cross, you can trust. If your hope
is anchored in this God, then you won't drift.
Romans 5 may be telling us, stop living like
the verdict is still up for debate. The cross
settled it, grace sealed it, and hope holds you
fast.