Jonathan, thank you so much. I can tell you enjoyed reading that, so thank you. Do keep your bibles open. In fact, after 930, people came up to me and said, oh, what about this bit? What about that bit? And I said, yeah, come on, we’ve only got 20 minutes. There’s so much here, isn’t there? So we’re going to do what we can and we’re going to see some of the highlights from Romans chapter five. One of my experiences as a parent has been being bemused by grammar. My children come home from school and tell me about all the types of grammar there are that I never learned. I know the basics. We did verbs and adjectives, we did past, present, future tense, but they’re coming home with all sorts of things. They’ve been learning the different kinds of tenses there are. They tell me about modal verbs, conjunctives, which I actually had some drops for once, and prepositions, and I’m thoroughly confused about what all these things are. And being in Linfield and on the staff team here, I work with lots of people who take grammar very seriously. Someone once accused me of splitting infinitive and I shrugged my shoulders and said, I don’t know and I don’t care. But they obviously took it very seriously. Now, of course, well, I’m not really joking. I don’t really like grammar at all, but I recognise that grammar is important. We use it every day and particularly in Romans chapter five. Some of the grammar here, and certainly the tenses which Paul uses, past, present and future, are really quite important. Things that happen in the past can have a hugely significant effect in the present and the future. And we’re going to see that as we dig into Romans chapter five. Now, just by way of a brief recap over the first few chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he’s been reminded them of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, and he wants this new church in Rome to love the gospel so much that they might support him in his goal to reach the whole world for Jesus and especially the next stop in his mission to Spain. Now, in reminding them of the gospel, he’s explained a few things. He’s explained the problem that we’re all, whether good or bad, under God’s right judgement for our sin, and that the only solution, as we’ve seen, is to trust Jesus’ sacrificial death in our place, to pay the price for our sins. And last week we saw that this trust, this faith in Jesus, has always been the way to be justified. Even way back in Abraham’s day, it wasn’t through his works, through his obedience to the law that he was made right with God. Now it was always through trusting, through faith in God’s promises. Now, having laid these foundations, Paul wants to build on them. Okay, so he’s talked about justification. He’s talked about what it means to be made right with God. We’ll say what? What does that really mean for me? When the beginning of chapter five, he’s going to lay out some of the big implications of the gospel, the so whats of being justified. And we see that, we see three of them in the opening verses of chapter five, three big implications, and they are peace with God, access to grace and hope of glory, peace with God, access to grace and hope of glory. Look at verse one with me. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Since we have been justified. What’s he talking about? He’s talking about something in the past justified. Being made right with God is a past event. It’s already happened. And because it’s already happened, we have peace with God. And again, this is put in the past tense. It’s as though he says, you have received, you’ve already got this peace with God, it’s been done, you’ve got it. And that’s really important because what he’s not saying is because you’ve been justified, you might feel at peace with God, you might have a sense of God’s peace. Sometimes we talk about peace like that, a kind of subjective feeling of how we feel about God, but rather here Paul is much more objective. Peace with God has been declared. The implication then is not because Jesus has died, you may feel at peace, but rather because Jesus has died, you have peace with God. The war has ended. And this is great news because in the context of Romans, Paul has been laying out that there is a war. In chapter one we saw God’s wrath, his right judgement being poured out against the ungodly. And in chapter two we saw his judgement against the religious, the judgmental. But now peace has been declared. The war is over. There is no more judgement, no more condemnation. That’s how he will begin chapter eight of his letter. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But the truth is we have been at war. We have been at war because we’ve thought that we’re God. My life, my rules, me in charge. You see, the thing about this war is we’ve been fighting over the same territory. This territory. I think it belongs to me. But God, he’s the creator, he’s the ruler. He’s the rightful king of my life. As much as I fight, as much as I protest, he is king. Here’s how John Stott sums it up in his book, the cross of Christ. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be. God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. You see, peace doesn’t come through some negotiation, but rather it’s God who takes the initiative. What he says in verse six. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. We were weak, powerless, unable to save ourselves, unable to do anything good. We were the ungodly. We were those of Romans, chapter one. Rightly under God’s wrath and under his judgement. But God steps in at the right time. I love that phrase. At the right time, God steps in to save. He steps in to make peace, to win peace, not by negotiation, but by the giving of himself. A great sacrifice. Recently I’ve been watching a new tv series. It’s called the masters of the air. It’s something of a sequel to the band of brothers that you may have come across a few years ago. It’s a series this time that follows the American Air force hundredth bond group. During the second world War, they were nicknamed the Bloody Hundredth. That’s how the other squadrons named them. Such was the scale of their loss. And this showed us doesn’t shy away from the reality of that. You get a sense of it. Perhaps some of you have been to Duxford Air museum. In the site there’s a new american museum, a big hangar, and at the back, at the entrance, there is a memorial. And it’s a series of glass panels. And etched on the glass panels are little symbols, just small of a plane. And this plane, a b 17, would have ten in the crew. And these glass panels, they’re bigger than me and they’d have, I don’t know, probably maybe 100 planes on each one. And as you walk, you think, that’s a lot of planes, it’s a lot of men. But you keep walking and the glass panels just don’t stop. They just keep going on and on and on. Such a great sacrifice to bring peace. Such a great sacrifice in the service of duty and country. But God gives of himself. Not out of duty, not out of service, but out of love. His desire is to bring peace, and he gives everything to win that peace. He gives his son. At the right time, Christ died. Now, I would certainly hope that this peace with God that Christ has won, does indeed bring us a sense of peace, a joy in resting, in all that God has done for us in Christ. And Paul will go on in chapter six to explain how we can live at peace with God, because he’ll say, we’re no longer slaves to sin. We no longer have to be masters of our own lives, but we’ve been set free to live with him as king. That’s the first gospel benefit, peace with God. Secondly, he brings us access to grace. Access to grace. And again, it’s something that’s already happened. It’s a past event. We have already obtained access. We don’t have to come to church. We don’t have to be really good. We don’t have to feel in the right place with God. Access has already been obtained. Look at verse two. Through him, through Jesus, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. This word access, it’s the greek word prosegogue. And it’s not just talking about an open door. The door has been opened. No, it’s much more than that. It carries with it the idea of approach, of being brought close, of being invited and welcomed in, of ushered towards God and his grace, his unearned love for us. So because access has been gained in the past, now in the present, you get to enjoy God’s love. You may stand in his presence. This idea of being able to stand in God’s presence is an old idea, and we picked it up in some of our liturgy earlier in psalm 130 that we read in the song only by grace. We have that line, who could stand? Who could stand before the Lord? And it comes up, I think, most clearly in psalm 24, which is, who can stand in his holy place? And the answer comes back, well, only the one with clean hands and a pure heart, only the perfect can stand in God’s presence. In some ways you read that and, gosh, that’s crushing. I’ve certainly not got clean hands or a pure heart. I could never stand in his presence, if that’s the bar. But here Paul says, now you can stand. You’ve been given access to his grace. You can come and stand in his presence. And there’s something both objective and subjectively true about that, objectively saying, you really do have access. This has happened. You can stand in God’s grace, but subjectively true. That’s an experience to enjoy. To stand with God is to be in his presence, to enjoy his love. You can dwell in his love, you can truly know God. And he sums up this experience. He sums up something, the feeling of this in verse five. How do we know his presence? Verse five. Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who he has given to us. We can know God’s presence. We can enjoy his grace because he’s poured out his love into our hearts. He’s come to live in us by his holy spirit. A love to enjoy, a love to cherish, a love to live every day. And yet that subjective experience is founded on an objective historical truth. How do we know God’s love? Where it’s there in verse eight. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us in the death of Jesus. He shows us, he demonstrates, he proves beyond any doubt his love for us as Jesus died on the cross. Now you might have lived your whole life feeling unwelcomed, being told you’re not good enough, feeling like you’ve been standing on the outside, or you might have been born into wealth and privilege. Knowing that you only need to drop a name to be accepted, Jesus invites both to come and stand in his grace. The outsiders are brought in and the insiders are humbled. You see, you’re not welcome here because of who you are or what you’ve done. But because Jesus says, come, come closer, draw near, stand with me. Make yourself at home in my love, in my grace. How do I know this invitation is real? Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? How do I know I really can be loved and accepted? Verse eight. Because Jesus died for me. He shows his love because he died for me. We have peace with God. We have access to his grace. Thirdly, we have the hope of glory. Now here Paul brings out something of the emotions that this good news should lead us to. Verse two, second half of verse two there. And we rejoice in the hope of glory. What’s the hope we rejoice in? Well, if I can sum it up simply, there’s more that could be said. But to sum it up simply, it’s the hope of something more. It’s the hope of a future with God. His glory, his glory is really just shorthand for his perfect presence to know him and love him for eternity. You see, in Romans chapter three, we were told here was the verdict of all mankind. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We’ve fallen short. We can’t get there. We can’t be with him in his perfect presence. That would be a bleak future. That would be no hope. But here there is hope, the hope of the glory of God, a future focus, a sure confidence that we can know him and enjoy him forever. But he doesn’t just rejoice in the future. He’s not just looking far into the future, thinking, hey, that’ll be great. He says, there’s hope for now too. Look at verse three. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Gosh, that was quite a transition, wasn’t it? What a great hope of the glory of God. But more than that, we rejoice in our sufferings. How great a hope that must be to be able to rejoice in sufferings. How secure must that hope be to be able to rejoice in trials and sadness now. And he says, this hope, this hope won’t ever disappoint, it won’t ever let you down. Verse, verse five, he says, this hope will not put us to shame. It’s not the kind of hope that will let you down. It’s not a false hope, it’s secure and true. And Paul expands on this. In verses nine to eleven, he says, there’s so much more to come, his friends, please don’t think this is it. Please don’t think the good news is just, Jesus died for your sins. You’ve been made right with God. The end there’s so much more to come. There’s so much more. I’d love to tell you about the salvation about his life. If God did all this in the past, how much more will he do in the future? How much more will he do for you today? Verse nine, he says, you’ve been saved from wrath. Verse ten, much more will you be saved by his life. Verse eleven, more than that, you’ll be reconciled. He keeps adding on these words and saying, there’s so much more to come. So, friends, do you hope for more? Do you long for that new creation? You know this isn’t it. You know there’s more to come, right? You know there’s a bigger, greater hope to come. Do you have a hope that makes you rejoice? Do you have a hope that’s big enough to sustain you in your suffering? Because Paul says it is. And Paul suffered lots. He knew what it was to suffer. And he says, no, this hope is big enough that even my sufferings I can rejoice. Three gifts of the gospel, peace with God, access to grace and the hope of glory. But there’s a question behind this passage that I wanted to address as we close, and it’s the question that is entitled our sermon, do we have to be good before God loves us? You see, here’s my default position. Here’s how I normally think about life. God loves me when I feel close to him. God is pleased with me when I’m following him closely. And consequently I come to church when I feel good about faith. I rejoice when life is going well. That’s how I think. That’s my default position. If I feel good, then God feels good about me. Is that how it is? I have to be good to really know and appreciate God’s love? This year is a leap year. You notice there was an extra day last month. I don’t know if you noticed. February 29. And one of the traditions that’s allowed to be broken on a leap year is the tradition about proposal. Of course, the tradition is that in a marriage a man proposes to the woman, but on a leap year that tradition is suspended. The woman is allowed to propose to the man. But the thing is, that’s fine for leap year, but that’s never how it is with God. God is always the one who loves first. Summed up really well in John one. John, chapter four. We love him because he first loved us. God doesn’t say, I love you because you scrub up really well. I love you because of all the great things you do at church. No, he loves us first. He loves us before we do any of that. In fact, looking our reading, where and when God loves us there in verse eight. For God shows his love for us when. When we were really good, when we had life sorted, when we were on enough rotors at church. No, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It wasn’t when I was good. It wasn’t when I had my life sorted. It wasn’t when I started living a godly life. No, he loved me. He died for me while I was still a sinner. While I was still his enemy. There’s a lovely old hymn called intendedness if you know it. We’re actually seeing an updated version at Cornerstone. And the updated version has this verse. In the second verse it says, he died for me while I was sinning. There’s a lovely chorus. You might know it. Oh, the love that sought me oh, the blood that bought me oh, the grace that brought me to the fold of God. As we saw last week. Did Abraham have it all figured out when God justified him? No, of course he didn’t. He’s justified by faith. Was the tax collector that we saw a few weeks ago, was he a good man when he went home? Justified? No. He knew he was a bad man. There’s a parable that Jesus tells in Luke, chapter seven. Jesus is at the home of a pharisee, Simon, and in comes a woman. She’s described as a sinful woman. And she comes in and anoints Jesus. And the Pharisees are there. They say, does this Jesus know who she is? Do you know who she is? She’s a sinner. She’s a sinner. And Jesus tells this story. He says, stop. Listen to this. As a money lender, he lends two people some money. One, he lends 500 Danarian, another, he lends 50 Danari. Neither can pay the debt back. So the money lender says, okay, your debts are forgiven. And Jesus simply poses the question, who will love him more? Who will love the money lender more? Simon’s a bit sheepish, but he says, well, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt. Jesus says, you’re right. The one who had the bigger debt. You see, sinners love Jesus. Sinners come to Jesus because they know that he’s the one who can help. He’s the one who will love and is able to forgive. God loves sinners. Jesus died for sinners. Sinners like you, like me. So, friends, can I invite you, either for the first time or again, afresh, to enjoy his peace, to stand in that access to his grace that he’s won for you, and to live in the hope that will never, ever disappoint. Amen. Close.