What excuse remains? Well, the lust of the flesh. 1 John, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.
And the world is passing away, and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. And you say, well, I don't always do God's will.
Well, that's where you need to be. I need the grace, but I always stay with God. Nonetheless, that proves you've got the grace.
Let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Romans chapter 5 with today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. So much of your faith except here. And God uses that.
And if you say, well, what's the benefit? That Christianity is still here and preaching is the benefit. And souls are still getting saved. That heaven is still being populated. That we still pursue love of enemies. Trouble is inescapable. Will it be wasted on me and I become shallow and bitter?
Many do. Many churchgoers become shallow and bitter. Over just things in the church.
Or will I become scarred and better? Well, that's what Paul was talking about to the Galatians. I bear on my body the marks of Christ. And he did physically and spiritually also. How many times was Paul heartbroken?
What do you think? Was there not a sob when he said, Demas has forsaken me? He had come to love Demas. He was one of the group. He was in Paul's letters. Demas is here. Demas has forsaken me having loved this present world and has gone on to Thessalonica.
He's left. He had many of those kinds of experiences. You don't just get one of those in a position that Paul had.
You get many of them. And you can either look at people as time bombs or you can just focus on what Christ is doing with you and them the time you're doing it. So Paul, he lists tribulation among the things that cannot separate us from God, from Christ. In chapter 8 and verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Our tribulation, our distress, our persecution, our nakedness, our peril, none of those things are going to separate me from Christ. That's what he's talking about here. I have peace with God. The main thing stays the main thing.
And the miners can do whatever they want. Verse 4, and perseverance, character and character hope. You say, well now he's lecturing them.
So, what's the problem with that? We need to be lectured from time to time. We need to be preached to. You say, well pastor, who do you get preached by at this stage? In my earlier years, I got to sit under a lot of teachings.
But now it's in my preparation time. I read sermons. I love them.
I like them more than the commentaries. But anyway, here in verse 4, perseverance, time under pressure. We don't persevere.
A little kid is not persevering through a chocolate bar. It's when the pressure is on, and it's going to stay. That's when perseverance kicks in. I'd rather work in there.
Now, you're not going to like this, some of you, but I can't resist it. I'd rather work in there than hang in there. I mean, again, just hanging in there implies you're not doing anything, but just getting beaten on. But working in there is, yeah, I know I'm getting beaten at this time, but I can still pray for the guy while he's beating me. Well, where do we have an example of that in scripture? Father, forgive them.
They don't know what they're doing, nailing him to the cross. Christ was notorious for giving examples. John 13, I'm going to wash your feet. He said, I'm doing this to give you an example.
What I'm looking for, service without a tip. Ephesians 6, therefore, take up the entire armor of God, because you're going to need it, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. That is when it's your turn to persevere. And having done all, to stand, stand.
Perseverance buys time in the midst of hardship, and that forms character. I got to ask, so Lord, if I live to be 90, do I still need my character formed? I mean, aren't we like done with that part? No. Why? Because others are watching you.
That's why. You're still a witness. Even if you become unconscious, you're still a witness. Your life is a witness. And the proof of that is when you're finally flat-lined, it impacts those left behind. Character.
How we behave overall due to influence. What he's talking about in verse 5, we'll get to that later. What would I be without character shaped by the Holy Spirit? What would I be if Christ did not put his hands on me, if I were untouched by God?
This is a character point now. I would be clay in the earth, not in the potter's hands. And we like, you know, to be seeing, you know, as, you know, I got confused between the deer panting for the water and somehow the potter's wheel.
But anyway, I'm going to try to fix that one. I am the potter, you are the clay. That's how the song goes. And yeah, well, then let him push on you and spin you around and soak you because that's what it's going to take to get the job done. Verse, you know, one thing you learn about construction, whatever kind, whether you're in home construction, industrial, is you show up to a job and there are things that are required to get the job done. This is true in all fields, but some is a plumber.
You know, hey, my bathroom stopped up. Well, he's going to have to do what the job calls for. And we are to be no different.
What does the job call for? Verse five, now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given to us. Well, I wish he'd pour a little bit more love into some of the other hearts, but sometimes, right, it feels that way. This again, the hope, when he says now hope does not disappoint, this is the hope of anticipation. It is the anti-anxiety or anti-anxious hope. This is a hope that says I'm not going to, I'm not going to doubt. I'm going to be excited about what's coming and I'm not going to doubt. I'm going to stand my ground in my faith. What others do, that's what they're doing, but I know what I'm supposed to do. I know what my role on the ship is and I'm going to carry it out. Imagine an aircraft carrier full of a crew of several thousand people and nobody knows what their role is.
It would soon be a sanctuary for fish. Anyway, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given to us. This is the first mention of love directly in Romans and the first explicit mention of the Holy Spirit. But everything he's been saying and everything he will say is based on this foundation of love and the Holy Spirit. This forming now, he's talking about the forming of Christ's likeness within us to resist our own carnality and we all have it.
Here's a question. Is the Holy Spirit inoperative within me because I refuse to love someone? Because I have edited something in God's Word?
We can't afford to ignore that question. Is the Holy Spirit inoperative within me because I refuse to love? Ananias, I want you to go to Paul.
He's on a street called Straight. Lord, this guy's been persecuting us, but in the end, Ananias goes. Verse 6, for when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That due time is the prophetic marker that this has been prophesied.
It's just in there. It's quite meaningful. But when he says for when we were still without strength, meaning you're powerless to save yourself. You're not even worthy to be saved.
How are you going to earn anything? Even if you did everything right, you're still not worthy because you are born in iniquity. You're a sinner. In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Now the ungodly are the undeserving for whom Christ died for. That he died for the ungodly means he died for me. See, there I am in the Bible. I'm the ungodly. I'm named twice in the Bible. One as the ungodly and the other one, Hey Dad. There's a man named Hey Dad. Alright, I've been sitting on that joke and the delivery was awful. The confession is funnier than the delivery. Anyway, next time you come across that man's name, huh? What? The dads, that is.
Anyway, would have really been nice if there was someone named Hey Mom. But there's some close ones though. Anyway, if you think that if to believe that Jesus died for those who behaved themselves. If you think that, then you don't understand grace. You think like a lawman, not a child of God who's received the message from the scripture. And there are those that think that way. To believe that Jesus keeps all who are strong as his own and abandons the weak reveals your low opinion of salvation, of redemption, of his finished work. So the next time you're weak and you mess up, maybe it's a big one too.
Or maybe it's just a medium size but it's constant. Christ is not abandoning you. 1 Peter 1 verse 5, speaking of the Christians who are kept by the power of God through faith or salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. That last part where he says ready to be revealed in the last time is heaven.
They make it through, kept by the power of God. So if being told you're ungodly offends you, you understand you've offended God first and more. 1 John chapter 1, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar. His word ain't on us.
That's what it says and his word is not as I've just added the inflection. Matthew 9 verse 13, but go learn what this means. I love this is Jesus schooling the teachers. He's telling them go back to class.
But go learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The righteous don't repent. They have repented. That's how they became righteous. Everybody is unrighteous until they get right with Christ. Verse 7 of Romans 5, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. Well, men may give their life for another whom they deem worthy. Maybe it's a loved one. Maybe it's someone that you highly respect.
Maybe it's a cause. You know, I'll die for that cause. It's worth dying for. But that doesn't go far enough. Verse 8, but God, and that disjunctive is critical, but God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Nobody has the right to say, well, you know, I'm not good enough to come to God and at the same time say they believe in the Bible. Because the Bible says, I thought we got past that. We know you're not good enough.
You'll never be good enough, but I'll take you. So, but God, going beyond just prophecy, carrying it out, fulfilling the prophecies, dying for the unworthy, this is incomparable love. So when I think of this Roman letter as I started out, verse 1, have peace with God, and God demonstrates his love towards us, and while I was still a sinner, he saved me.
That's why these two verses stand out to me. Christianity would have been the easiest religion to disprove if Christ did not rise from the dead. They just would have said, well, here's the body.
You guys are liars, but they couldn't do that. As a matter of fact, I don't recall anyone knocking them for preaching the resurrection in Jerusalem. They did when they got to Athens and other places, but, you know, they claimed that Christ rose from the dead. They could have disproved it, and no one did.
They just opted out. Acts chapter 1, verse 3. Speaking of Jesus, he presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs.
I like many infallible proofs, plural. I like that Luke refers to the cross. He just goes right past it real quick, his sufferings. Doesn't dwell on it. Oh, let me tell you how gory it was, how horrible it was.
He said, the Holy One suffered. Do you need anything else? Do you need graphics?
I don't need special effects. I need to just understand that these things are true. And it says here, his own love toward us. Well, he did not die because we loved him. He did not die because we loved each other.
That's humanism, incidentally, that part. He died because he loved us. Love flows downward. It comes from on high to us. Galatians chapter 2.
I mentioned I'd get back to this one. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. And then after that, he'll go on to talk about bearing on his body the marks of Christ. May we not measure God's love for us by what happens to us. Christ did not do that on the cross. Well, he did in a different way.
Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, we know the answer because sin was upon him.
He was accursed for us, but it was a flash. He took it and he rose and he sits at the right hand of the throne of God. He turned the empty tomb into a crown. Well, in that while we were still sinners, well, his death for sinners, not death to sinners, didn't come to wipe sinners out. Luke 9, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. The statement is God did not come to destroy you. He came to save you, but he's coming back. And if he doesn't come, if you go to him before he comes to you and you ain't right, then you will be destroyed. So don't let us imagine that we can make ourselves worth saving, something to tell the unbeliever. Don't imagine that we can reject Christ and go to heaven, something to tell the unbeliever.
Don't imagine that there's another way, something to tell the world. Such guesses are unnecessary. They are useless and they are insulting to God. And this is why we're here on earth, to get people to face facts. Verse 9, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through him. He makes, five times in this fifth chapter, we have this much more statement. Four times it's the same Greek phrase.
The final time it's even more emphatic. But Paul is saying, everything he's saying here, these are superlatives, they're high things. Having been justified by his blood, that is saved by his death. Saved by death of God incarnate. You know, the Catholics think that because he's a son, he has to be subject to the mother. See, the whole theology is wrong. That's to toss away the humanity of Christ. At the wedding of Canaan, when he said, woman, what does that have to do with me? He was letting everybody know, I am not under her authority.
And what I'm about to do is love, but is not because I am subject. And the same thing with his, as the son to the father, he was subject to the father in his humanity. But once he returned to his eternal state, he equaled with God. With the Mary thing, they missed the whole point that yes, as a child he was subject, but once he became a man, and that was the end of that.
So you cannot apply natural things to the supernatural without thinking them through. Colossians 1, verse 20, having made peace through the blood of his cross. Nobody could have done that. Mary could not have done that. And I think Mary is one of the greatest women in the Bible. For what she had to put up with, or the accusations, is just quite remarkable.
But that's it. She's still a human, still a sinner like the rest of us. But we have to be careful. We don't turn on Mary because others have missed it.
Anyway, we've got to finish this up. Unfortunately, you've got places to go, which you shouldn't. You should tell your friends, I'm blocking four hours for sermon time Sunday. God will laugh at you for that.
No, he won't. Where am I? We shall be saved from wrath through him. Well, he's talking about salvation.
Listen to this. Our salvation removes past, present, future sins, covers it all, comprehensive. At the cross of Christ, there's not stamped on it, I'll forgive you this time.
That would be terrible. And here's a scripture verse to go with that. For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
The sanctified ones are those separated and living the life, but failing, but perfected forever. Sometimes I feel no one knows forgiveness and mercy and grace more than me, because no one has been forgiven or loved more than me by God. Every Christian should be able to say that.
Romans 8, 1, there is now therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. But the Satan's not going to be comfortable with that, so he's going to harass you. And I can, you can talk back and say, you caused all this, you fool. You are the fool, having been in heaven thinking you were equal with God, and now you're a devil. Don't talk to me, the accuser of the brethren. Just, you know, better still just talk to the Lord.
It is all saying the devil rings your doorbell, ask the Lord to answer the door. Verse 10, for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through death, through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. You see, enemies, and therefore amongst the wicked without Christ. And if God saved us while we were enemies, he will keep us now that we are his friends. Yet this is hard to get in the heads of some Christians. They're always worried about their salvation. How about, how about this?
How about start worrying about a fat lip? If you bring that up one more time. You couldn't do that.
They might give you one. Anyway, Christ has pardoned the sinner, and he has condemned the sins of the sinner at the same time. He's never said, I'm going to love you and I'm going to forgive you, but your sins aren't that bad. It's I hate the sin, but I can get you out of it because I love you.
And this is, who else is doing anything like this? Who else addresses sin? Nobody comes close to addressing sin like Christ.
Verse 11, and not only that, there's more. But we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. That's the peace.
He's fixed this. Now it's the reconciliation because that means there was a problem. You don't reconcile when there's no problem. If two are walking together and they agree, no need for reconciliation. But if they don't agree and they start having a problem, now reconciliation is on the table.
So just that insertion of that word says there's a problem. And when Adam sinned, one of the first two things that hit Adam and Eve were shame and fear. And we pick it up in Genesis 3 verse 10 when God comes looking for Adam and Eve after the sin. And he's looking for Adam, Adam the head. Adam, where are you?
So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Well, we've been reconciled. We don't have to fear God. We boldly come into His presence, not irreverently, not losing sight of who we are and who He is. But we need to understand what it takes to get things done for the glory of the King.
I cannot do that if I do not understand how much He loves me, what has gone into it. And the outcome is peace with God. At that moment, Adam did not have peace with God. He had fear. God has reconciled us.
So what excuse remains? Well, the lust of the flesh. 1 John, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world.
And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. You say, well, I don't always do God's will. That's where you need the grace. But I always stay with God.
Nonetheless, that proves you've got the grace. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reverence Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick, we'll be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.
