The Law, Sin and Grace

Let's look to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. We're going to be finishing up not only chapter 5, but actually the first major section of the book of Romans this morning is we've been going through this book. Today we want to try to see how the law, sin and grace fit together in this passage. It's a glorious passage. It reminds me of the song, grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.

The grace of God is without limitation. It's without limitation. It's immense. You cannot measure it. In both the beginning and the end of Romans chapter 5, give us the sense of the glorious magnitude of God's grace. For example, look at the very last verse in Romans 5, Paul says, so that a sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

He ends the chapter with this infinite reality of eternal life. God's aim, His purpose, His goal in the work of redemption is the triumph of grace, over sin and death, unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ. What kind of life is that going to be? Have you ever thought about that? What is heaven going to be like, be like? The fact is that there is nothing that we experience in this life that we would want to experience throughout all eternity.

Even the most exquisite pleasures of earth would turn into torture after a while. Some of us have learned that. The thing that we love the most, that new babies born and man, it's such a glorious thing and you love that little thing so much and it's amazing how before long there are certain aspects of that that really get old, you know, like waking up at 2.30 and then 4.30 and so forth.

But when we get to heaven, we're going to experience something very different. He's going to tell us about that. What we're going to experience is the infinite glory and grace of God. And that's why back in verses 1 and 2, the beginning of chapter 5, we have this other infinite thing and that is notice what it is. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through Him. We have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Notice, He doesn't say, rather than saying, we exult in the hope of eternal life. Paul says, we exult in the hope of the glory of God. Why does he say that? A lot of times we think, oh, the end goal, the ultimate thing is we receive eternal life and all of its fullness.

But here he says, we exult in the hope of the glory of God. You see, this is why we need eternal life. Is in order to experience the eternal glory of God so that we can experience his glory. We enter into it. What an amazing thing that's going to be when we enter into the glory of God. That's why he's going to give us this eternal life.

It's going to take forever for us to taste it and experience it, rejoice in it and experience it in its fullness. It's going to take all of eternity for that to occur. And that's why God ordains that there is eternal life for us, so that we can experience in its fullness the glory, his own glory that he's going to open up to us. Do you sense the weight of this glorious truth? That the glory of God is beyond measure and therefore he gives us the kind of life we will need in order to experience it, to taste it, to understand it, to rejoice in it and to enjoy it as it is to be enjoyed. One of the things that is a disappointment sometimes in our lives is to see people who have no taste for good things and therefore when they're offered good things they reject it because they have no taste for it.

Well, God's equipped us so that we can taste and enjoy. In fact, several times in the New Testament, He quotes from the Psalms, since you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, you've had a taste of it, but He's going to give you the kind of life that's going to equip you to enjoy it in its fullness without limitation. You know, when they put men up into space, they first, before they leave the earth's atmosphere, they put them in space suits.

Now, they don't need the space suit here in order to live, but they're going to need it when they get there and so they put them in a space suit. They equip them so they can experience life outside of this atmosphere. What God has done for us, He's already begun to equip us to experience life out of this atmosphere, this fallen world, to experience the atmosphere of His glory. He's given us eternal life so that we might know Him and experience Him. It's a glorious thing that God's glory is infinite, because God is infinite. It is without boundaries.

It's amazing how I teach a class called Theology Proper at Grace School of Theology, and you try as best theologians have over the years to try to come up with terms to describe the limitlessness of God, that He's without limit. He is immense. He's beyond measure. He is infinite. We cannot put a circle around Him and say, that is God. We simply have to observe what He reveals of Himself because He is so far beyond our capacity to comprehend He is immense, and therefore His glory is immense.

In fact, it's interesting in the New Testament that the Apostle Paul invents, or rather, He coins a phrase to try to do this. The phrase, the riches of His glory. For example, in Romans chapter 9, verse 23, Paul says that God's purpose is to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.

Now, in that passage, He's answering the question, God, why are you doing this? Why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you pouring out wrath upon some and pouring out your grace upon others? And in answering that question, He ends up saying that God's purpose is to make known the riches of His glory, the unlimitedness of His glory to vessels of mercy. God, in fact, the Apostle Paul says right now, God is displaying His glory in clay pots. We are very mundane.

We're very earthly. All of us have great weaknesses that often show up in a very glaring way, and yet God has decided to display His glory in clay pots like us. Isn't that amazing? That He doesn't perfect you first, but He takes you just as you are, brings you into a relationship with Him, and He pours into you His very life. And He wants to display His life. Somebody has said that God uses cracked pots, but they see the glory through the cracks, don't they?

The cracks of life. When you go through things and you are so weak and yet God displays His mighty power through such weak vessels, takes a while. I think that the reason God does what He does in our lives and takes us to the very end is that everybody who lives a long life comes to the place where all they can do is to display the truth about themselves. I can't posture any longer. I can't pretend to be something I'm not any longer. I can't cover up my weaknesses and foibles and shortcomings and all those things.

My humanity any longer, you're just going to see what's really there. And then we just see, and people like that who have the eternal life and then the light of His life in them, you see it so plainly, it just spills out everywhere. That's what happens to us. We get to the place where we can't hide what's really in there and it just spills out all over the place. J. Hudson Taylor was having lunch tea actually with a man who was just beginning his career as a missionary and he was asking for some advice and he reached up, Taylor reached up and slammed his hand down on the table where their tea was sitting and the tea spilled everywhere.

And he says, you need to make sure that what's in you when it spills out is the grace of God. You have to have the real thing. And that's how life is, isn't it? Sometimes we become aware of that. I'm kind of disappointed at times that I didn't learn that lesson earlier. It's wonderful to see a young person who comes to learn that lesson very early in life and begins to value what it means to take in the grace and glory of God into their lives very early and they display it throughout a long life.

That's a wonderful thing. But then notice this, he says in Ephesians 118 that he praised for them. I read this this morning, he got in his knees and prayed for them so that they could come to understand this, the chapter two chapters before, but the same kind of context of his prayer. I want you to come to see what are the riches of the glories of his inheritance in the saints is, the riches of the glory of his inheritance. And then in Philippians chapter 419, my God speaking to a church that felt so needy, they were very needy and Paul's writing from prison and they're upset about it that this man who'd come and preached the gospel to them was now imprisoned and they felt vulnerable. They were beginning to experience some persecution and so he says to them, I want you to know the church that's full of anxiety because you face a task that seems bigger than you and you don't think you have the resources to face it.

He says, I want you to know that my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory and Christ Jesus. It's a glorious verse and God speaks to the hearts of believers all the time through that passage because it's a truth. It's a universal truth for all these people, whatever you're facing. You're facing health problems, facing relation problems, financial problems. What are you facing?

Well, you need to know that my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory and Christ Jesus. Well, the purpose of that phrase, the point of this phrase is that God's glory is the ultimate supersize. There is none like this that the glory of God is without limitation. You cannot exhaust it. It is an inexhaustible resource. You don't have to conserve it.

You don't have to practice conservation when it comes to the glory of God. You don't have to worry about giving him too much response to his glory because it is inexhaustible. You can't squander it or diminish it. It is infinite immense without limitation. You say, well, so what?

Well, it's going to take you all eternity to drink it in. All eternity to drink in the glory of God, to see it and taste it and enjoy it. It's kind of like this. At this present moment in your life as a believer, if you were to go to the Pacific Ocean and I said, here's a thimble. Why don't you experience the reality of this ocean?

Well, all you can do is just keep going back and dipping in with your little thimble. But you can keep on tasting it if you want. But one of these days, your capacity to take in the glory of God is going to be greatly expanded because you're going to experience the fullness of eternal life.

And so you can drink it into its full. But you know what? Even if you had a 50-gallon drum, you would never put a dent in that ocean. You can carry water all day long. You'll never put a dent in it. And probably a better analogy is this that God is a fountain, that He is a fountain.

And what He wants you to do is not draw water and bring it to Him, but rather to drink deeply from Him and from His glory. Eternal life isn't just an unending experience of daily routine, like we experience here on this earth. It isn't just being in good health. It isn't just having a perfect body and mind and spirit. All those would be wonderful things, but it's oh so much more than that. It isn't like Groundhog Day.

Remember that movie? Every day you wake up and you discover you're going through the same old thing again. It's not going to be like that. It's going to be a life of discovery, of drinking, of experiencing in brand new ways that continually astound us and fill our hearts with joy and pleasure. John Piper has a statement in one of his works as he says, it will be ever new sights and tastes and wonders and experiences and pleasures forever and ever, because the glory of God is where we will live and move and have our being. You won't be able to take it all in, but you will never stop trying throughout all eternity.

Well Romans 5 begins with the hope of the glory of God at the ends with the triumph of eternal life. The God is going to give you the equipment to experience His glory. You will have an unending life in order to experience in a very full and wonderful way, the inexhaustible glory of God. Everything that you think about this life that brings pain and suffering and heartbreak, death and sin and hurt and alienation and all those things are going to be banished from this, from the presence of His glory. So this is God's purpose, but have you ever wondered if God's purpose was that we would experience His glory in this way and why in the world did He include all these things that we are experiencing? Why doesn't He just, why didn't He just take us from creation into His glory?

Why all of this? Why the garden of Eden in the test? Why the fall of Adam? Why the apostasy of mankind? Why the flood? Why the call of Abraham and 2,000 years of history of a chosen people who constantly failed God and sinned and apostasized and they were chasing and they repented and they came back and then they failed again and they apostasized and they were chasing and they came back.

Why Christmas? Why did God have to come into this world and become one of us in humility and suffer and die on a cross? Why the resurrection? Why the day of Pentecost and the spirit was poured out and the church was formed and now we've had 2,000 years of church history and it's been marked by sin and disappointment and failure. The gospel goes out but it goes out seemingly through such a weak church. Why all this?

Why didn't He just usher us into His very presence? Now some say well because He didn't ordain it. It's not His fault. He didn't want it this way. This is all happened because His expectations weren't met but there's a problem with that view. The problem is the Bible says, the Bible teaches that God planned the ages and He does everything that He does according to His good purposes.

Ephesians 1 says, even the fall of man allowing man to rebel to use His free will to rebel against a holy God. Paul says that's all a part of His plan and purpose. In fact, listen to Paul's words in Titus chapter 1. He says the hope of eternal life which God who cannot lie promised long ago. In fact, in the context, He's talking about before the ages begin. In other words, God was preparing the gift of eternal life before He created a world before there was a fall.

He was going to give eternal life to fall in man. God knew perfectly well that this eternal life was not going to come to us through Adam's righteousness in the garden. He knew perfectly well that Adam was going to fall in rebel. In fact, in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 9, it says that we have we are saved by the grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.

Well, the fact that He's called Christ Jesus means this that He's going to come into the world and die as a Savior. That title Christ Jesus even though this eternal person, the Son, has existed from all eternity. When He's called Christ the Messiah, Jesus, God's salvation, it implies that He's going to come into the world and become one of us and die for our sins.

And so from before the foundation of the world, God in His purposes, purpose to send His Son into the world to save a lost humanity. So while of this on the way to eternal life of taking in the glory of this infinite God, which is ultimately what we are going to do, why do we have to go down this path? I think we can gain some insight to this in this passage this morning that we're going to look at.

Let me read it first beginning in verse 18 of Romans chapter 5. Listen to these words. Therefore, as one trespass, that is atoms, led to condemnation for all men. So one act of righteousness, that is Christ's act of righteousness, that culminates on the cross. He says leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were constituted sinners.

So by the one man's obedience, the many will be constituted righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so this question we want to answer first of all is why did the law come in? Why did the law come in? It's interesting the word that he uses here when he says the law came in so that trespasses would increase. The word that's translated, the Greek word that's translated, came in means to enter in a long side of it.

It was used when an actor who was not the primary actor in the figure in the play would walk into the side. He would never come to the center stage, but he had a small role to play over here on the side. The law came in in this sense. God brought the law in for a purpose. The important subject is not the law, but sin. The purpose of the law was to deal with sin.

And so it's sin that's at the center stage here that God's dealing with, but law came in. And the point is that if sin is to be effectively dealt with in mankind, it must become manifest among all men for what it really is. Some people are so deceived about the real nature of sin. Sin is rebellion. It's treason against God. It may be small, a seemingly small act of treason, but any act of treason against God, this is God.

I'm not going to let you reign in this area of my life, because I don't think there's any problem with doing this, even though you have commanded me not to. That's an act of treason. Sometimes we want to make friends with certain sins, because we think we need it to spice up our lives. What the law did is it exposed the true nature of sin. You want to know what sin really is, then you look at the law and look at the consequences of that sin and the lives of people. It's an amazing thing.

In fact, I think older people are always wanting and somehow to communicate to a younger generation, the wretchedness of sin. It looks so good now. Pleasure for a season looks so good now, but look at the end result. Look at the consequences. Look at the true nature of sin. The thing about sin is that it's very, in its very nature, it is such an aggressive thing.

Sin is never passive. Some people think they can simply disobey the law of God, the word of God, and there be no consequences whatsoever, because it's such a small issue. And God isn't so picky, is he? What they don't realize, that it is the very nature of sin, the very nature of treason against God's rule and right over our life, to lead to ruin, because God loves us and doesn't want us to be ruined. The law came in. It had a role to play.

Not the central role. The central role is the Lord Jesus Christ, but the law had a purpose. And it was to expose a true nature of sin. Actually, in this context, what Paul is saying is that the law had three purposes in this.

First, that the sin of men might become fully manifest. The law brought about the full manifestation of the true nature of sin. Secondly, it is to reveal that it's inherent, that it has an inherent ungodly nature about it, because it is rebellion against God, the true king, and the higher our privileged position, the greater in the front it is to God. Why was it such an affront to God that Adam sinned, because Adam had such a high place of privilege, created the image of God, given rule over his kingdom, and yet Adam, in this lofty place, commits treason against God.

But it also reveals, and this is another purpose of the law, that it might increase in quantity, as men sought to defend themselves and their sin against the attack of the law, they manifest their sin in a greater way. Earlier in this book, Paul has said that when you see sin all around you, as you see the manifestation of sin, what is it saying? Well, one thing it's saying, he says, is that it is revealing God's wrath against sin. Some people are very upset because the sinnet, the California sinnet, one of the subcommittees has passed a resolution to change the definition of marriage, very upsetting.

But may I say to you, don't pull your hair out. As we'll see in a moment, God isn't control. He is sovereign, and even the manifestation of sin is a platform for the display of the glory of Almighty God through Jesus Christ. Fight for the right. Speak up, but don't pull your hair out. Don't ring your hands.

There is a God on the throne in heaven, and he sets up and takes down rulers. And he is the one ultimately who is going to fulfill his good purposes. We may end up living in a paganized society that is as bad as the first century church in order to display his glory, the way he did in the first century church.

But God is going to display his glory. He is going to accomplish his purposes. But then we need to ask this question, why would God make this purpose of the law of Moses? Why does he want to multiply sin? Why does he want to see sin manifest in its true nature? What's the purpose of that?

Well, if you look at the second part of this verse, he says, the law came in to increase the transgression or the trespass. But then he says, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more, or grace super-abounded, where sin abounded, grace super-abounded, in the provision of forgiveness. Now, let me explain to you what he's talking about. Where did the law come in? When the law was laid down alongside to function like this, where was it laid down? To whom did the law come?

Well, it came to the people of God. It came to Israel. The law was given to Israel, so where were the trespasses multiplied and manifested in Israel? Where do we have the chief case study of the true nature of sin in the history of Israel? Oh, it's true there was sin all around them, sin abounded outside of the walls of the Israelites, the chosen people of God, but it was in the midst of the people of God where we see sin abounding as they broke the law, as they broke the law.

And so when Jesus Christ comes to his own people and his own people reject him, his own people reject him. Not an amazing statement. John chapter one, he came into his own creation and those who were his own received him not. He didn't come to pagans. He didn't come to people who had never had any exposure to the true living God. He came into the midst of the people of God, the chosen people of God, and they rejected him.

So where was sin manifested? Where did sin increase? It increased right in the midst of God's people. And where is it that we have the ultimate peak of sin? Where is the one moment in all history where we have sin displayed in all of its gory detail in the suffering of Christ? It's when Christ was crucified, when men rejected the Lord of glory and wanted to destroy him.

They wanted to destroy the Son of glory. That was the ultimate sin. This is an anti-Semitism because you would have done the same thing. This is anti-fall and humanity. That's how sinful we are. That's how powerful sin is.

There are those who grew up in the church and think, I know it's true, but I just don't want to walk this way. But when I'm old and have no youth in me, I'll turn to God. No, you won't. No, you won't. Oh, there may be a few.

But what you will discover is you will have no heart to turn to him. You'll discover that the heart of sin is so anti-God in you that you too would have crucified Christ. But notice the glorious goodness where sin abounded grace did much more bound. What does he mean by that?

Well, at the moment of our greatest sin, we deseed display the moment of God's greatest display of grace. When they were crucifying him, when they had beaten him to a pulp and he couldn't be recognized as a man and hung him on a cross as a curse in the presence of God. At that moment, in this weakened state, when he couldn't even move, he was nailed to a cross. The father pours out his wrath upon his son for us. We're sin abounded. On Calvary, grace did much more bound.

Isn't that amazing? And haven't you seen that play down in your life as a Christian at those moments when you've been so weak and you've turned your back on him and you've been so unfaithful to him at that moment, he displays his grace in your life in the greatest kind of way. That's what drives you crazy. It's almost like you wished he was mad at you and treated you bad, but instead he pours out his grace into your life and it breaks you. And grace works powerfully in us. Mr. Spurgeon used to say, listen to this, the law is a storm that wrecks your hopes of self-sauvation.

Isn't that great? The law is a storm that wrecks your hopes of self-sauvation. You think you can save yourself and obey the law? Obey the law as it is revealed and interpreted in Christ Jesus. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You want to save yourself?

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and all your neighbors yourself. Spurgeon says the law is a storm that wrecks your hopes of self-sauvation, but then he goes on, but at the same time, the same moment that it wrecks your hopes of self-sauvation, he says, it washes you up upon the rock of ages. Not only rescued but restored and raised to the side of the eternal God, and then he goes on, he says, who would not want to cry out and joy, marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt, yonder on Calvary's Mount out poured there where the blood of the Lamb was spelt. Amazing what he paid for you, isn't it? Isn't it? You now you measure a person's worth?

What's somebody willing to pay for you? What was God willing to pay for you? What a phenomenal thing. Where sin abounded, grace, superabounded, and the point of increased sin was the superabounding of grace. Why did God allow us to get so low so he could display his grace? Why didn't he allow his own people to turn against his own son in this way so that he could display his grace?

So he could unveil to us the glory of his grace. So the increase of sins, the multiplication of specific transgressions was not the ultimate point of the law. It was not the end in itself. It was to bring us to this place. It was the occasion for something God wanted to do that was more important and far, far greater, and that is to show his grace superabounding in his son. Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

And then we asked the question, why did grace superabound? Why was this so important? He's going to answer this question verse 21. This is the wrap up of this first major section of the book of Romans. And he's telling us why it was important for God that grace would superabound. Look at this.

There's a lot more to the explanation of why the law came in. It's so that God's going to do something. Notice this in verse 21, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. God's purpose in giving the law was that grace might superabound.

But notice how he describes this in four ways. Just four little phrases from this verse that bring this thing to bear upon us in such a powerful way. This is a climax of this whole passage, the unveiling of this glorious gospel of righteousness in Christ Jesus. And notice it was that grace might reign, that there might be a triumphant reign of grace. There's a lot of things going on in the world. We're trying to establish a government in Iraq and the real key we know is how do you get the right people to rule?

Isn't that the problem? How do you get the right people to rule? You can make them ahead, but if they can't reign, if they can't reign triumphantly over all their enemies, then it's not going to do any good. If this government, however good it is, is constantly under siege and it can't gain control, then there's no hope, is there? Grace is a wonderful thing, and if all it is is a sentiment of God, that God is a free giving person, and he gives to us freely things we don't deserve, that's wonderful.

But what if his grace can't overcome our sin? And our fallenness and our rebellion? Paul says that the reason that grace superabounded is to begin to display the triumphant reign of grace. We saw sin in its greatest display overcome by grace. So you need to ask yourself, can God's grace reign over your sin? Can God's grace reign over your life?

Are there things in your life that keep him from reigning? Let me tell you, if God can reign over the superabounding of sin by the abounding of sin by the superabounding of grace at the cross, then his grace can reign in your life. It's not just that grace superabounds, but that the superabounding grace could be seen and known as reigning triumphantly over death and sin and hell. Over these past 27 years, I've done a lot of funerals, and one of one side of my family have done every funeral of every person who's died over the last 20 years. It's an amazing thing, the phenomena of standing at the grave of a person that you've known is passing out of this life, and some of them have been believers, and some of them have not been believers. It's amazing the difference, the difference it produces within you.

As you stand at the side of a grave where a body is about to be put in the ground, but that person was an object of God's grace that had eternal life in them, and you realize that what you're doing is you're simply placing a body, you're committing it to the ground, but their spirit has already been committed to the hands of Jesus Christ, grace triumphs overall. In fact, one of these days when they come out of the tombs, when the headstones are blown away, and those bodies come out of the tombs to be reunited with Jesus Christ and reignited with their risen spirits, and they experience this detasting of the glory of God in the presence of Jesus Christ, we'll see it manifest so clearly that grace reigns triumphant. Grace reigns triumphant. He said he did all this that grace might reign triumphant through righteousness leading to eternal life. The second thing he says is these words leading to eternal life. It's more specific.

His purpose is the triumphant reign of grace unto eternal life. As sin reigned in death, separation from God even so grace would reign to eternal life. Think of this, an endless duration and quality of life in the presence of God. You know, after you've lived in the church a long time, after you've walked with Christ a long time, you've been around believers a long time and we get to know each other, we get to hear each other, we get to watch each other go through the difficulties of life, the hardships of life, the challenges of life, we see one another in the trenches, and we get to know that who we really are, we're not the veneer, we're not the people that you see on the outside, and we first meet someone we're so impressed, but then we get to know each other, we discover, you know, there is weak as I am, there is vulnerable as I am, but think of it. He has already placed within you eternal life. John 17, 3, Jesus as He praised the Father, He says, this eternal life that you have given them is their ability to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

He's given, He's put something in you that empowers you to know God even in this state that you're in, clay pots, and you could know the eternal God. But one of these days, when this body of humiliation is transformed, and you're no longer limited by your body and brain, but you are set free, that this eternal life is set free now to experience and express your true response to the glory, the unfathomable glory of God, what a day that's going to be. I think even Baptists are going to shout in heaven. I do. I think Presbyterians are going to run the aisles, seeing an oak glory to Almighty God. What a day that's going to be when we experience eternal life in this fullness.

I was singing this morning about this, those songs we sing, 10,000 years, we'll just be started 10,000 years. Amazing grace. He says, when we've been there 10,000 years bright shining as a son, we've no less days to sing his praise than when we first began. What is that? When you take a number away from infinity, you know what I left? Infinity.

Infinity. Eternal life, leading to eternal life. Wow, this is the glory of his grace. And then it is through Jesus Christ. This is so important that he be seen and understood as the basis of the goal and experience of history and eternity. Everything that God does is based and founded upon his son.

It's for the unveiling of the glory of his own son. So when he says, so that his sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord, all of history aims at the purposes of this purpose of magnifying the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorification of Jesus Christ. He is why God created the universe. He is why God spent thousands of years preparing for his coming, allowing the fall of man and all this sin and all this failure and all these things and all these deaths. And it's why he brought the incarnation of God as for the glory of his son, the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ, the outpouring of the spirit and all of church history. What is it for?

It's for the glory of Jesus Christ. Why do you live? It's for the glory of Jesus Christ. It's for the glory of Christ. The Bible says that even his enemies, even their sin is going to bring glory to him ultimately. When Jesus Christ sits on the throne, the great white throne and judges sin, we will be in awe of his glory.

We have never seen anybody deal with sin like the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who died for sinners and still has the marks in his hands and feet is going to deal with sin. We'll be in awe. It says even his enemies, their mouths will be shut. What does that mean? It means that they will be in such awe of this righteous judge that they won't be able to speak a word, no complaining at the great white throne, no excuses because they will be in awe of this glorious Christ. And then it's through righteousness.

This has been the whole focus of this chapter since verse 12. In fact, it's really the focus of the first five chapters, the righteousness of Jesus Christ as the foundation of eternal life. It is the righteousness that He gives us that is imputed to us, that we are clothed in that makes us right with God. That's the foundational truth here. Grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life means that grace justifies the ungodly on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus, or as he says in verse 19, the obedience of Jesus. What's he talking about there?

A life of obedience? I don't think so. In that context, he's talking about this life of obedience that led to this one ultimate act of obedience upon the cross. That song that says it was his love that held him to the cross is true. It was his love. This is love for the Father and also his love we're told in Ephesians 5 for his own church, for his own people.

Grace triumphs over sin and guilt and condemnation through righteousness. Through God finding a way to declare sinners like you and me righteous simply because we rest our faith in a righteous Christ. Well, how do you summarize this section of Romans? We could do it this way. There is none righteous, no not one. As Paul teaches us, all are guilty before God because of our union in Adam and his first sin.

And we'll become our own little atoms as we respond to the demands of God when our depravity meets the law of God, we become just like Adam and our rebellion. In fact, we multiply his stress passes. Therefore, there's no getting right with God, no justification on the basis of deeds which we could do in righteousness. What do we need? We need another atom. We need a second atom.

We need another man to stand in our place. And that's what Jesus Christ has done. And his righteousness, he has given two things in this text. In chapter 5 verse 19, he gave his blood and then it says, he gave his righteousness, his blood to cover our sins and his righteousness to cover our nakedness because we had no righteousness of our own.

And so we stand before this God no matter how weak you are. This week has been one of the most draining weeks I've had as I've watched the weakness of humanity, the weakness of my mom and just see her and just the physical strength just completely go out of her. And yet, all she can do is talk about the living Christ and glory in Christ. May everything else is taken away from you. If you live long enough, it's all going to be taken away. Your help, your clear thinking, your possessions and even people.

But you know what you'll have? You'll have eternal life in Christ Jesus, which will cause you to pass through this veil of tears in the very presence of the living God and begin to drink deeply from his glory. Jesus said if any man's thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who is believing in me out of his belly will continually flow rivers of living water. Listen to these words of John Piper again, the aim of all creation, all history, all redemption is the glory of the triumphant grace of God through the righteousness of Christ, freeing us from sin and guilt and condemnation and give us a given giving us a never ending life where after 10,000 years of seeing and admiring and enjoying the glory of Christ, we will have only just begun. They'll have only just begun.

What a day that will be with my Jesus, I will see. Wow, stand with me. Let's give God's thanks for this glorious gift. Almighty God, when we look at the unveiling of your glory in the Word of God, the person of your son, it humbles us. And we feel like the Apostle Paul, all these things that we count as possessions become like waste to be cast off. And what we crave and desire in long for more than anything else is the righteousness of your son, the eternal life that he has promised us so that we might drink deeply and taste forever and enjoy forever and revel forever in your unending limitless glory.

Father, we thank you that you've caused us to taste and see that the Lord is good. We confess to you that our taste is so small and there are times when we just forget and you have to remind us, you drive us to you through the circumstances of life and we begin to drink a fresh one as well. All of this life is despair and like Solomon said, it's just vanity of vanities. All is vanity apart from you. And yet when you're filling our lives, all these little things of life become a joy. We pray to day, Father, you would speak to our hearts.

I pray you'd comfort those who are going through times of grief. I pray you'd calm the hearts of those who are filled with anxiety about what they're facing. I pray, O God, that you would strengthen us who are weak, that you would empower us to live for you, to praise you in all of our life. Father, to fulfill the calling that you've put upon our lives, we pray we'd be faithful to it. Fill us with the joy of the Lord because we know that is our strength. We thank you for this.

Help us today as we leave here, as we talk with one another, to encourage one another and incite one another to love and good deeds. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.