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2002
13th January (am) - Peace With God Through Our Lord Jesus Christ

Perhaps you saw on the news in the early part of this week, the release of a movie which depicts the events of Bloody Sunday, and in particular Ivan Cooper, a Protestant Civil Rights leader of the time. The premiere of this movie, called 'Bloody Sunday' took place last Sunday evening in Londonderry, and there seemed to be great interest in the movie with many stars and dignitaries turning up for it. The star of this movie is local actor, James Nesbitt, him of the BT advertisement campaign, you know, 'there's a hard way to do it, and there's a BT way to do it'.

Anyway, James Nesbitt has been interviewed many times this week, and the one thing he has been stressing in his interviews is that one of his desires for this new movie concerning Bloody Sunday, would be that it would in some way help in the healing process of Northern Ireland, that it would be used as an instrument of reconciliation and peace in this land. And I suppose a movie like this, if it deals with a sensitive issue in a responsible way can play a part in helping people to better understand their history, in the same way Schlinder's List attempted to do the same. However James Nesbitt's movie had already been written off by some as Republican Propaganda.

But James Nesbitt's desire for peace is the on going desire of people living in Northern Ireland. After a time of relative calm, North Belfast has seen violence on the streets again this week, and we wonder where it will all end, or how it will all end. It seems that no matter what we try to do in our land to bring about peace, it is still the elusive, but most sought after commodity in our community. It seems that the words of Anwar al-Sadat, former President of Egypt who was assassinated in 1981 for making peace with Israel are most applicable to our own situation, peace is more precious than a piece of land.

We are in these morning services thinking about, 'getting it right with God', blowing away the misconceptions and misunderstandings that so many people have about being right with God, being at peace with God. Henri Nouwen in his book 'The Wounded Healer' has stated that Jesus appearance in our midst has made it undeniably clear that changing the human heart and changing human society are not separate tasks, but are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.

In other words, our desire for peace in our land, is more than a cessation of hostilities between conflicting communities, it requires more than a movie to bring it about. Our desire for peace in our land requires each individual to deal with their relationship with God, for human society cannot really be changed unless human hearts are changed. For peace is not the absence of violence or conflict or sectarianism or bigotry, peace rather is the presence of Christ. We cannot be a Christian and hold on to the things which have marred and tainted Ireland for the last seven hundred years.

In this second part to this series of 'getting it right with God', we want to think about 'Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ'. We read about it from Romans 5:1, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, ... Paul here is writing to Christians and reminding them of their status with God because they are Christians. They are at peace with God, because of something that has happened. They were justified before God - a technical term which means they were put right before God, they were restored to a right standing before God.

There are a number of things about this opening verse of Romans 5, that we need to bear in mind.

First of all, we cannot assume that we live at peace with God. We may come to church, we may be good, honest, decent, moral people, and these things are good in themselves, but because we do these things we should never be led to the conclusion that we are living at peace with God. If we come to the conclusion that we are living at peace with God, because of what we do outwardly, we have been deluded by Satan himself.

Secondly, if there is a time when we can be at peace with God, then this implies that there is a time when we are not at peace with God, and if we are not at peace with God, we are God's enemies. Paul reminded the Colossians that they were once enemies of God. Remember what he said; Once you were alienated from God and enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. Before they were saved by grace and justified through faith, the Colossians, the Ephesians and the Romans were enemies of God. They may have been devout Jews or God-fearing Gentiles, but if they were not saved by grace and justified through faith, then they were living as enemies of God. So we therefore cannot say, 'I have always been a Christian'. We certainly can say, 'I grew up in a Christian environment' or something similar, and that is a different thing entirely.

Paul in these opening chapters of Romans has been seeking to help the Roman Christians understand this technical word 'justification'. Paul first of all speaks of the need for justification, and then the way of justification and then the blissful consequences of justification, one of them being at peace with God.

J. I. Packer tells us that Justification is an act of God pardoning sinners, accepting them as just, and so putting permanently right their previously estranged relationship with himself. It's validity is in the finished work of Christ on the cross, it is made real for you and for me, by faith in Jesus Christ. It's result is peace with God.

Justification is needed because before God we are guilty of breaking his Law, we are sinners, we are rebellious toward our creator, we are at war with God, we are in dire straits without hope in this world or the next, and incapable of saving ourselves. The way of justification is faith in Jesus Christ, knowing and admitting we are sinners, accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. We are justified before God, made right in his eyes. It is as if Christ is a big overcoat on us, and God can only see Christ. If we want to be made right with God, there has to be a moment of justification. It may happen in an instant, it may take time for us to understand. But if we are to move from being at war with God, to being at peace with God, then we have to move from being in an unjustified state to being in a justified state before God.

Francs A. Schaeffer, who died in 1984, was a prominent Christian writer in the 1960's and 1970's, led a series of studies on Romans 1-8 with students in the 1960's in Lausanne, Switzerland. Here's what he wrote concerning this verse; People struggle like mad to have peace in their hearts. They try all kinds of psychological methods to find some point of integration. But all such efforts lead only to disappointment unless it involves the relationship and the purpose for which we were created. The only way we can return to that purpose and to that relationship is by having our guilt removed on the basis of Christ's finished work. Once we have thus had our guilt removed, there can be a peace in our hearts that is not false, a peace that ... will never disappoint us.

The most important aspect of this peace with God is not the peace in our own hearts, but the reality that God is at peace with us. The Sovereign Lord of all the universe has declared that he is at peace with us, because we have recognized our guilt and by faith in Christ we have been rendered justified by God in his sight. Peace is not the absence of certain things, rather it is the presence of Christ in our lives, because we are justified by God in his sight.

Let us pause for a minute. Getting it right with God? Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Having been justified by faith (in the past), we now have peace (in the present) with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Getting it right with God as we saw last week, and we now see it again this week, is God doing something - declaring his peace with you.
Is God at peace with you?

Or are you trying to make peace with God? Let God make his peace with you? God has done the hard part, he had made peace with him possible through the finished work of Christ on the cross, because he is prepared to offer his peace to you for all who come by faith in Christ to him.

God has done the hard part. If you are trying to do the hard part, you are rendering pointless the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. If you are trying to make amends with God, by outward acts and deeds, you are saying that the death of Jesus Christ was for nothing, and that is the greatest insult you could throw at God.

Justification through faith results in peace with God through Jesus Christ. Without justification through faith we are not at peace with God. There is no peace with God if Jesus Christ is excluded.

Peace in our land does not happen when a new movie about Bloody Sunday is released, it does not happen when political parties work together. Peace in our land happens through changed lives, transformed lives, lives that are at peace with God, and sadly in our land there are many Christians who should know better.

Peace with God is but one blissful consequence of being justified through faith in Jesus Christ. For the person who has been justified through faith in Jesus Christ, there has been a cessation of hostilities between God and them.

As we read through the next ten verses of Romans 5, we see that there are other blessings of being at peace with God by justification through faith in Jesus Christ.

For the Christian who is at peace with God through Jesus Christ, they are standing in grace. We read, through whom we have now gained access into this grace in which we know stand. Grace in this context refers to the sphere of God's grace, our entry into it and our continuance in it.

At the end of 1999, my friend's father was on the Queen's New Years honors list. He was awarded an MBE for services to The Boys' Brigade. This of course meant an audience with the Queen in Buckingham Palace. My guess is that an introduction was made announcing him and then he was presented to the Queen. In the same way, the Christian is introduced to the Father by the Son, but unlike my friend's father who then withdrew from the Queen's presence, the Christian continues in the presence of God. The Christian therefore can most assuredly say, For I am convinced that [nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. John Stott says: Our relationship with God, into which justification has brought us, is not sporadic but continuous, not precarious but secure. Not only this, but the Christian can rejoice in the hope of the glory of God - a joyful and confident expectation of the glory of God, his radiant splendor which will in the end be fully displayed. The hope the Christian has is to share in God's glory.

But not only this, the Christian can rejoice in the midst of their sufferings. This is not to rejoice in suffering, but in the midst of their sufferings, the opposition and persecution of a hostile world, the trials and tribulations of daily living, hope can be strengthened, just as muscles are strengthened when there resistance is applied.

The Christian can rejoice in their sufferings, because there is a purpose behind them. Suffering is the one and only path to glory - it was for Christ, it is for the Christ follower. And if in the end, suffering leads to glory, in the present, suffering leads to maturity. Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character (maturity), and character produces hope, a hope which does not disappoint, because of the steadfast love of God, as demonstrated on the cross through the death of Jesus Christ and being poured into us by the Holy Spirit.

The security of the relationship which peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ brings, results in joy and hope. The Christian can look to the future and anticipate the glory of God. They can look at the present and find joy and hope in the midst of difficulty.
Yet isn't sad that so many live without this joy and hope in their lives, for in the midst of difficulty, they adopt either the attitude of fatalism, 'Que sera sera', or they adopt the 'stiff-upper-lip' attitude and never deal with their emotions or they become so unstable that they need medical attention. In the situation comedy, Fraser, Fraser Crane is a radio psychiatrist and his signature line at the close of his show is 'Good Mental Health'. My friends, good mental health begins with justification through faith, which results in peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ - restored to that relationship and purpose for which we were created.

But as Jimmy Cricket says, 'There's more'. There's more blessings of justification through faith which results in peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. For Paul goes on to say that the Christian will be saved through Christ. Salvation has a future tense as well as past and present tenses. Justification the past results in the salvation from the guilt of sin. Sanctification the present results in the salvation from the power of sin, and glorification the future results in the salvation from the very presence of sin.

For the Christian it is good now, because of their status of being at peace with God. But my friends, if it is good now, the best is yet to be.

Paul concludes, we also rejoice in God. Why? Because for the Christian, they are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. It is another way of saying 'peace with God'. Rejoicing in God is quite different from bragging about our religious credentials, like going to church, or making sure the neighbors know we are going to church, or dare I say it, making sure the whole town knows we are going to church.

Rejoicing in God begins with the shameful recognition that we have no claim on him at all, and continuing with wondering worshipwe search for, it is something which is conferred on us.

Peace is that gift of God given to all who are justified in his sight through faith in Jesus Christ. Peace of heart, peace of mind, peace in our community are only by-products of God being at peace with you and me.

Is God at peace with you?

AMEN!