Can you see the consequences? What are the consequences?
We have been justified by faith. So
then we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We stand in His grace. So
then we rejoice in the hope of the glory.
Since we have hope and rejoice, then we come into conflict with the
world, which has no hope. This
conflict produces sufferings as we are persecuted for our stand.
This suffering produces perseverance.
This perseverance produces character and this character produces hope.
This hope does not disappoint us, because we have God’s love in our
heats.
While we were still sinners
Christ died for us.
Third
Rock From the Sun by Joe Diffie
Chain of events or consequences.
He leaves the motor running he'll
only be a minute
his car drives away with teenagers
in it
the driver tells his buddies, got
one life to live
they scream into the night
"Let's get it over with"
the kid guns the gas, the car starts to swerve
heads for a semi truck, jumps the
curb
truck hits a Big Boy in the Shoney's
parking lot
and flies through the air takes out
the bank clock
clock strikes a light pole,
transformer sparks
lines go down, town goes dark
waitress calls the cops, says she saw it all
swears a giant alien has landed at
the mall
cops ring up the mayor says there's
panic in the streets
Romans 5:1 (NIV) Therefore,
since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this
grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that
suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character,
hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love
into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 6 You see, at just
the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone
might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were still
sinners.
Christ died, therefore we have all this in the Lord.
A duck hunter was with a friend in the wide-open land of southeastern
Georgia. Far away on the horizon he noticed a cloud of smoke. Soon he could
hear crackling as the wind shifted. He realized the terrible truth: a
brushfire was advancing, so fast they couldn't
outrun it.
Rifling through his pockets, he soon
found what he was looking for-a book of matches. He lit a small fire around
the two of them. Soon they were standing in a circle of blackened earth,
waiting for the fire to come. They didn't have to wait long. They covered
their mouths with handkerchiefs and braced themselves. The fire came near --
and swept over them. But they were completely unhurt, untouched. Fire would
not pass where fire had already passed.
The law is like a brushfire. I
cannot escape it. But if I stand in the burned over place, not a hair of my
head will be singed. Christ's death is the burned-over place. There I huddle,
hardly believing yet relieved. The law is powerful, yet powerless: Christ's
death has disarmed it. --
Adapted from "Who Will Deliver Us?" by Paul F.M. Zahl. Leadership,
Vol. 4, no. 4.
When I was 5 years old, before
factory-installed seat belts and automobile air bags, my family was driving
home at night on a two-lane country road. I was sitting on my mother's lap
when another car, driven by a drunk driver, swerved into our lane and hit us
head-on. I don't have any memory of the collision. I do recall the fear and
confusion I felt as I saw myself literally covered with blood from head to
toe.
Then I learned that the blood wasn't
mine at all, but my mother's. In that split second when the two headlights
glared into her eyes, she instinctively pulled me closer to her chest and
curled her body around mine. It was her body that slammed against the
dashboard, her head that shattered the windshield. She took the impact of the
collision so that I wouldn't have to. It took extensive surgery for my mother
to recover from her injuries.
In a similar, but infinitely more
significant way, Jesus Christ took the impact for our sin, and his blood now
permanently covers our lives. -- Jeffrey Ebert in Fresh Illustrations for
Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.
We have Peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our trouble is we
want the peace without the Prince.
-- Addison Leitch (CT, Dec. 22, 1972).
Christianity Today, Vol. 38, no. 14.
Have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Years ago, there was a master violinist in Europe. He would play in
concerts, and he had a magnificent Stradivarius violin, extremely expensive.
He would play the Stradivarius violin in concert and everyone would whisper in
the crowd, "Listen to the beautiful sounds of the Stradivarius." He
would play in churches, and people would say, "Listen to the beautiful
sounds of the Stradivarius." He even played before kings and queens, and
they, too, would turn to one another and say, "Listen to the beautiful
sounds of the Stradivarius." All the glory went to the instrument.
Then one day this master violinist
was walking by a pawn shop. He noticed an old, beat-up, worn-out violin. He
walked into the pawn shop and asked how much it would cost. The owner of the
pawn shop told him the American equivalent of five dollars. He bought the
violin, and he took it home. He polished it, and he refined it, and he tuned
it, and he retuned it, and he built some character into that violin. Then,
when he was to play the greatest performance of his life in a concert hall, he
took out the little, five-dollar, worn-out, beat- up violin that he had
polished and refined. He put it up to his chin, and he began to play, and
everybody in the concert hall whispered, "Listen to the beautiful sounds
of the Stradivarius." --
Ron Lee Davis, "Rejoicing in Our Suffering," Preaching Today, Tape
No. 74.
Justified by Faith. Eph.
2:8 (NIV) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can
boast.
Without
justification it is impossible to have real peace.
Conscience forbids it. Sin
is a mountain between a man and God, and must be taken away.
The sense of guilt lies heavy on the heart and must be removed.
Unpardoned sin will murder peace. The
true Christian knows all this well. His
peace arises from a consciousness of his sins being forgiven, and his guilt
being put away. ... He has peace with God, because he is justified.
-- J.C. Ryle in Foundations of Faith.
Christianity Today, Vol. 35, no. 8.
Gained access by faith
into this grace in which we now stand. Since
we have been given faith we have gained access by that faith into His
grace.
Rejoice in our
sufferings.
Suffering produces
perseverance.
Perseverance produces
character.
[Paul] doesn't just say,
"We rejoice in the midst of suffering," period. He says, "We
rejoice in the midst of suffering because it produces something." What
does it produce? Look at the next phrase in your study Bibles. "We
rejoice in the midst of our suffering, knowing that suffering produces
endurance. Endurance produces character." Character is the blockbuster
term here in Romans chapter 5, That's the Greek term dokimas, and it literally
means "someone or something that has been put to the test and has
measured up." If you have ever traveled to the Middle East, you may have
taken note of the fact that you can visit a potter and you will look at a
vessel, a jar, and it's been through the furnace, and it's been through the
fire, and it hasn't cracked. It hasn't broken; it comes out whole. It comes
out complete. And you turn that vessel, and you turn that jar over, and on the
bottom there is stamped DOKIAMAS. It means "approved." This is a
vessel of character. It has withstood the test of the furnace where it has
been refined, and it hasn't broken; it is whole, complete. That's character.
-- Ron Lee Davis, "Rejoicing in Our Suffering," Preaching Today,
Tape 74.
Character produces
Hope. I remember Tom
Landry telling me in the mountains of Colorado years ago, just after they had
won the Super Bowl (the Dallas Cowboys, year after year after year, had been
coming so close, and finally that victory had come), "The overwhelming
emotion--in a few days, among the players on the Dallas Cowboys football
team--was how empty that goal was. There must be something more."
-- Ron Lee Davis, "Rejoicing in
Our Suffering," Preaching Today, Tape 74.
Hope doesn’t
disappoint us. God has poured out his love into our hearts.