Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, April 18th. The curse of sin is insurmountable to humanity, but where we fail, God succeeds. Hear the good news that because of His grace, God gives you a second chance. Have you ever looked around during your circumstances and thought, my, how I would like to have another chance to do that again? Or looked over the past few days and thought, Lord, if I could just change that, if I could just have another chance, what you were really asking for is grace, because that's what grace is all about. Grace is God's second chance. All of us would like to have those second chances in life. All of us can look back over the years or maybe not too many years or just a few days and think, Lord, if I could just do that again, I would do that a lot better. Or Lord, I wouldn't have done that.
I would have changed this. You see, a second chance is what grace is all about. And that's what I want to begin today is a series on grace, God's second chance. All of us have experienced it and all of us need it. And when you and I think about grace, we think about the most favorite song of all, and that is Amazing Grace.
How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me once was lost, but now I'm found was blind. But now I see all of us who are saved have had that second chance. I don't mean by second chance that when you die, that one of these days after you have died, that God will give you another chance to be saved after death.
I don't mean that. I'm just talking about those opportunities that God gives us over and over and over again when we blow it in life. And His forgiveness is so amazing. His grace is so amazing.
That's what amazing grace is all about. It is God's second chance. I want you to turn, if you will, to Romans chapter five.
And this is the first message in the series, A Second Chance Now. And today I want to sort of lay the foundation of all of this series because he says in this passage that you and I now have been introduced into a standing which is called grace. And so chapter five of the Romans beginning in verse one and reading through verse six, when Paul says, therefore, what he's doing, he's referring to what he has been saying beforehand. These first four chapters, he's talked about the sinfulness of mankind and that God has provided for us sinfulness. And so he says in verse one, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we exalt or rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also rejoice or exalt in our tribulations, knowing that tribulations bring about a perseverance and perseverance, proven character and proven character, hope and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been shed abroad or poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. But while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Now, when you and I think about grace, usually we think about the goodness of God.
But I want us to think about this in the light of what the Apostle Paul said in this passage. And it really says that God has demonstrated his provision for this grace for us in two ways. And beginning in this first verse, God has provided for our second chance and has demonstrated that provision in the pardon of our sin. That is, the first opportunity you and I have to experience God's second chance in our life is having known the truth and rejected it many times, you and I finally trust that Jesus Christ is our personal Savior. So, first of all, he's talking about his provision for our second chance, which is demonstrated by his pardon.
And the word he uses here to describe that pardon is the word justification. But how did this all begin and why does God need to give us a second chance? Well, let's go back to the Garden of Eden and remember that Adam and Eve lived in a perfect environment where there was no sin.
They would need to save and they're lost. Theirs at that time was untried innocence. And so in that perfect situation, the Bible says that they chose and God gave them a choice whether to love him and obey him or disobey him. They made a bad choice. They chose to disobey God. The whole human race fell so that every single person from that point on has grown up with a sinful nature. What happened was he said to them, all the trees of the garden you are free to eat, but of the tree in the midst of the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it.
The day that you do, ye shall surely die. So the decree of God was the rule, the law of God was you eat, you die. So what happened? They ate. So the judgment upon them was that they died, but God in his mercy gave them a second chance. You'll recall that the scripture says that God came to them in the cool of the day and he asked them where they were, knowing where they were. Then the Bible says that he provided skins for them, which means that God killed an animal. The blood was shed even in the Garden of Eden and their sin was atoned for.
So all down through the centuries and in your life and mind, all of us have had to look back and see things in our life for which we regret, things we wish we had not done, or changes we would have made in our life. And God has not struck us dead. And how many times did you hear the gospel before you were saved?
Some of you heard the gospel for years and years and years before you ever trusted Jesus as your Savior. You see, he's not only a God of a second chance, but oftentimes a thousand chances, but he's a God of wonderful, loving understanding. You see, sin is the big problem because we all came into this world with have been away from God. And if you really want to look at the situation the way God sees it, turn back over to the third chapter of Romans, and this is the way God sees humanity.
By the time we get through coloring ourselves up and patching ourselves up, we don't look so bad, but this is the way God sees humanity. He says in chapter three, won't read all these verses, but beginning in verse 10, he says, As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. Verse 11, there is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. And all have turned aside together.
They have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. Then verse 18 says, There is no fear of God before their eyes. So in the eyes of God, he sees humanity as it really is. And that is not righteous, not good. And he says, There's no fear of God. You and I live in a society today, and most of us have lived long enough to see that whatever fear of God there may have been around some years ago, something has happened to it.
We live in a world of humanity that is lost. They're blind to the truth and therefore living in sin. The Scripture says, The problem is that everyone has sinned against God.
And the problem is very simple. The problem is that all of us came into this world with a been away from God, with a sinful nature. And then of course, we behaved in a sinful fashion because it was our nature to sin. And then we had Satan to deal with, who was there also challenging us and tempting us and trying us.
So all of us have the same problem when we come into the world. And that is we have the problem of dealing with sin. Because we have that sinful nature and because it is our behavior to do so and because we have Satan to deal with, we have to face that. So what happens we sin against God, we disobey him. God doesn't strike us dead the moment we sin against him. Some of us were saved early in life, and some were saved late in life. But remember this, it took the same amount of salvation to save a 12 year old boy as it does a 60 year old man.
No difference because sin is sin in the eyes of God. And he sees human nature the way it is. And the tragedies and all the things that we see that we think are so horrendous today, we think how in the world could anybody do that? God sees what is in the human heart. And he knows there is only one answer to the sinful condition of mankind. And that is what he's talking about here in this passage, because what he has said in these first four chapters is that man is absolutely helpless to save himself, we can't forgive ourselves, we can't rid ourselves of guilt, we can't change our past, only God can rescue us from the penalty and the wages of sin in our life. The wages of sin is death, he says. And so what happens is, when a person is unsaved, they've never trusted Jesus as their Savior, they don't have the Holy Spirit, they can't understand spiritual things.
They hear the gospel, they don't understand that they keep rejecting God. And God in spite of that keeps hammering away and keeps sending forth the truth. And as the truth is sent out, there's a time when many people say, Yes, I do want that. Yes, I do need that. Yes, I do believe that.
And you can mark this one down. Nobody's ever been saved yet who thought they could do without it. Because you see our pride, as long as we think we can do it without God will try.
As long as the Christian thinks that they can somehow manage without asking God seeking his direction following him, somehow they'll try to just doesn't work. God made you and me to depend upon him to trust in him, and to need him. And sinfulness in the heart of every human being is what has motivated God to provide for us that which is necessary to make us is acceptable before him. And that is the work of his grace. And that grace is first demonstrated in his pardon for our sin. Now, when he says in this passage, look at this, he says, Therefore, in verse one, having been justified by faith, now once in a while, somebody will say to me, Well, you know, you shouldn't use words like reconciliation, sanctification, justification, glorification, redemption, who understands those words? And so what does he mean by justification? justification means that God has made a decision about somebody and therefore acquitted them of their guilt, acquitted them of their sin, declared them no longer guilty. And in the eyes of God, no matter what may have happened to be justified in the eyes of God means that he sees us just as if I'd never sinned. That doesn't mean sin will not show its toll in our bodies and in our life. But in the eyes of God, when he declares us not guilty, we are not guilty. When he declares us pardon of our sin, we are pardoned. And he says we have been justified by faith.
What does that mean? It doesn't mean that simply believing in God has made me justified or acceptable in the eyes of God. But it means it is the object of my faith that matters. The object of my faith is Jesus Christ. And so when he says, therefore, having been justified by faith, what he's talking about, he's talking about the experience that separates me and moves me from being the enemy of God to being the child of God, separated from God to being one with God.
Justification is a declaration by God that we are no longer guilty, and that he's accepted us. Now, how does God do that? And I want to explain this again and again, because this is where so much confusion is somebody says, Well, I believe in it.
That's not the issue. You can't just believe in it. The object of your belief must be in the person God said it must be in. And that is the person Jesus Christ.
And so when we think about justification, we're talking about God declaring us not guilty, but how can he do it? Can God just say to Adam and Eve, Well, look, you blew it, Adam, I told you better than that. I told you not to do it. You blew it. But that's Oh, I tell you what, I'm going to give you another chance. Now I want you to listen carefully. So you won't misunderstand me, or somebody today says, Well, Lord, I blew it again, but but I know you'll give me another chance. Did you know that not even God listen to this now, not even God himself could say to you, Well, look, I know you blew it, but that's okay. I'm going to give you another chance. Not even God can say that.
Now listen carefully, so you won't misunderstand me. The reason in the Garden of Eden that God could give Adam and Eve a second chance was that when God sees time, he sees it all at one time, he could look down 1000s of years in the future and see the death of his son at the cross. So when he made for them skins and shed blood, that was symbolic of what was going to happen. So with God, while God recognizes time, God is above and beyond all time.
It's like being in a helicopter and looking down and seeing the whole parade at one time, you can see the beginning and the end and everybody that's in there. That's the way God sees time. So when he forgave Adam and Eve for their sinfulness, he was doing so on the basis of what in the mind of God was already a done deal. And that is the crucifixion was already done in the mind of God. The only way God can give you and me a second chance in life is because somebody else took our rap. That is somebody else was a substitute for our sin. Somebody else paid our penalty.
Somebody else took it for us. And Jesus Christ came into this world and died on the cross and his substitutionary death makes it possible for God to say to us, I'm going to give you another chance. And so what he's saying in this passage here is, he says, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
Now, what does he mean by that? Peace with God means I'm no longer an enemy, but now I'm one of his children. The war is over between God and me, I recognize that he's God, and I'm his son, Jesus Christ is my Lord, and it is my responsibility and my privilege to walk obediently before him, the war is over.
Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no second chance, there is no opportunity, there is no salvation, because I can't forgive myself, I can't help my helpless self. Why? Because remember, what he says in his word, he says, in First Corinthians chapter two, the person who is the natural man, that is, the unsaved person, doesn't even, listen to this, doesn't even have the ability to understand spiritual things. They don't understand them. And so that's why they wonder about some of these words we use and why we operate the way we do. They don't understand them.
They can't. Apart from the gift of the Holy Spirit to give them understanding, they can't understand it. And secondly, he says, we were dead and our trespasses and sins. And so what does a dead man need? A dead man or dead woman needs one thing, that's life. How do you get life? Through Jesus Christ. How does it come through Jesus Christ? Through the cross.
Not even God can give life apart from his Son. He's the one who said the wages of sin is death. Somebody pays the rap.
When he pays the rap, then what happens? Then you and I get the blessing and the benefit of Jesus' death. We were pardoned from our sins and we are forever pardoned because you and I did absolutely nothing to receive forgiveness except to receive it by faith.
That's all we did. Now, that leads me to the most important part of what I want to say here, but that's the foundation. And apart from that, I think we would misunderstand what grace is all about. If you eliminate the cross, you cannot have grace. A lot of people have the idea that God is a God of love and that he loves everybody and all you have to do is just be loved by God. God loves everybody. He's not going to let anybody die and go to hell, not going to judge anybody. God just loves everybody. Now, listen to me, friend. I understand what you mean by that, but I want you to understand that you can't have a God of love who is not also a God of justice. Now, I don't want justice.
I don't know of anybody who does. I certainly don't want it. Justice is getting what we deserve.
That's not what we want. And what happened is this, that God who is a just God, if he were to give us what we deserve, all of us would deserve to die and be lost and to be spent eternally separated from him. That's what we get if we give what we deserve. What we want is the grace of God and that's what he offers. And so he simply says here, he demonstrates his provision of that grace and that pardon through justification. That is, by justifying us from our sins, he's demonstrated grace because we don't deserve it, but he's provided it. Now, look at this next phrase.
And this is where I want us to dwell primarily. He says, Now, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, look at this. He says, Through whom also we have obtained our introduction or our access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Now, what in the world does that mean? That we have been introduced into grace? Well, I would say here that God's provision for our second chance has been demonstrated by his introducing us into a lifestyle of grace.
Now watch that. That is, first of all, he says he's provided through the pardon that comes by the forgiveness of our sins. Now, he says, that's what gets us into grace. That is, by the pardon of our sin being justified, he gets us into grace. Now, this lifestyle of grace is an expression of, he says, being introduced into it. That is, being introduced into this grace in which we stand. This is the sphere in which you and I live and walk now that we've been justified, have been saved by his grace. We live and walk in a sphere of grace. Now, when we think about grace, think about it in this light. We sing Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound. Well, what's so sweet about it? What's so sweet about it is it took care of my sin debt.
What's so sweet about it is that I can enjoy it every single day, that you and I walk in the sphere of God's grace. Well, if you look in the scriptures, you'll find that over a hundred times that word is found in the New Testament. But it's interesting that only about four times in the Gospels. Once in the Gospel of Luke, three times in the Gospel of John, and Jesus never mentions it.
Why? We're on the other side of the crucifixion. And so it is Paul who makes the word grace come alive and live for us in the epistles, though it's also found there in the book of Acts as well as the epistles. And so what you'll find is you'll find over a hundred times grace is mentioned.
Grace is the most powerful life changing force in the world today. You see, a lot of people think, well, listen, what gets people to Jesus? What gets people right with God is preaching judgment, hell, fire and damnation. Well, I'm not opposed to preaching that.
And I believe in that just like you do. But it's interesting to me that Jesus's appeal to mankind was not on the basis of condemnation, judgment and fear of the wrath of God, though he mentioned that. And he mentioned it primarily to the religious leaders of his day who thought they did not need him. But Jesus's primary appeal is love.
Listen to what he said. He said, I didn't come into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus came as a lover of mankind, offering the love of the Father to mankind. And so oftentimes, we see God as a God of justice and a God of wrath. And indeed he is.
But his appeal to mankind is not justice and judgment and condemnation and law but grace. Thank you for listening to A Second Chance Now. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
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