Maybe you notice that the verse of Scripture that was the inspiration for Charles Wesley for penning this song was Romans 5, verse 8, which serves as our text for this morning. We read together Romans 5, verses 1 through 11. Verses 1 through 11, giving our attention to verse 8. Romans chapter 5, beginning at verse 1, as we hear now the Word of God. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us. You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him? For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life? Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom? We have now received reconciliation. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. Beloved in the Lord, those beautiful words from Ephesians chapter 2, I believe best summarize what the 16th century reformation of the church was all about. That truth of Scripture delivered many from a number of abuses that had grown into the Christian church up to that time, and in some respects, many of which still exist today, maybe in different clothing, we might say. But abuses summarized by salvation by works. And of course, as a Reformed church and as Reformed believers, we find our roots into the truth of that Reformation teaching. But as we think about the Reformation, especially on this 487th anniversary, boys and girls, that's what today is, the 487th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing those 95 theses to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg. As we think about the Reformation, we might ask, well, how could the church get it so wrong when it seems so clear in Scripture? When the truth of God's Word from beginning to end is that we need the righteousness of another as even the Old Testament sacrifices teach us. That we need the righteousness of another in order to be forgiven and in order to be justified in the sight of God. How could the church get to the point of needing reform? And of course, we can study church history even in our own day and see the downward spiral of the church throughout the centuries. We are not yet perfect, are we? Yet we must be ever so grateful that as sinners saved by grace that God has reformed His church and brought her to the light of His truth. We must be grateful that by His grace through a proper understanding of His Word believers stop striving and struggling to do the impossible to save ourselves. For indeed it is by grace you have been saved through faith. Tonight, the Lord willing, we will consider Hebrews chapter 11 and chapter 12 through verse 3 and the teaching of true faith. But this morning we consider the portion we read Romans 5, 1 through 11 and especially verse 8 with a consideration of the comfort of justification. Verse 8, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God's love demonstrated as we notice the need for God's love or are reminded, we might say, of the need for God's love and the act of God's love. Now, the doctrine of justification, we know, deals with the question, how are you right with God? How are you right with God? This is the most important question because in order to have peace with God, as verse 1 says, or to be at peace with God, one has to be right with Him. One has to be in a right relationship with Him and enjoy a right standing before Him. And of course that's true in our human relationships, isn't it? In order to have peace with each other, with another, for example, you must be in a right relationship with that other. And the doctrine of justification is a beautiful doctrine that teaches of God's love demonstrated. It was demonstrated in Christ Jesus who accomplished for us The two things that we needed accomplished most, forgiveness of sins, we needed our sins removed, and the gift of perfect righteousness. We needed that to be given to us. You see, justification is a legal term, we might say, a courtroom term. It's God's declaration with regard to our status. It's God's verdict with regard to His people, those who are in Christ Jesus. and that verdict is not guilty. Justified. But without these necessary things accomplished on our behalf, we cannot be declared not guilty. We cannot be declared justified. You see, only a righteous Savior could pay for sin and with sin paid for and forgiven, Christ's righteousness, which qualified Him to make that payment, that righteousness is freely given to those who look to Him in repentance and faith. And that's how God sees us. As righteous in Christ. And as the Heidelberg Catechism, Answer 60 says, He sees me as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. In other words, he sees me as not guilty in Christ Jesus. And the result is peace with God. That's what verse 1 says again. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the blessing of salvation, that we now stand in that relationship of peace with God and we enjoy the peace of God in our hearts. However, beloved, that means that before justification, before God's declaration regarding our verdict, there is no peace with God because of our sin, because of our unrighteousness, because of our guilt. And therefore, the demonstration of God's love is magnified when we realize the need for God's love. It's illumined as we were as we realized that need. Paul says God's love is demonstrated while we were still sinners. Now we need to understand that the idea behind the word that is translated as demonstrated is more than simply that God proved His love for us or that He gave evidence of His love. But the idea again is that He magnified as if to shine a bright spotlight on it. He confirmed His love for us. As Paul had just said in verse 7, very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. In other words, it would be a hard sell. But if someone was considered to be indispensable and profitable, one that the society simply could not do without, one that had a whole lot of good to do for mankind, Another might recognize that and feel compelled to give his life for that one. It doesn't mean he will. It's not what Paul says. He might possibly dare to do that. And we're not talking about a soldier throwing himself or herself on a grenade to save fellow soldiers. We're not talking about someone pushing another out of harm's way and taking on that harm, maybe even to the point of death. Those are indeed demonstrations of sacrificial love. We hear about those things once in a while. I've never seen it myself, but I've also never seen what Paul says. Someone give their life or another just because they thought about it, and well, you know, that person is going to do society a whole lot more good than me. So I'll give my life instead of that one. While we were still sinners. Not after we had cleaned up our act a little bit. Not after we had pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps. not after we had genuinely sought God with our own free will, but while at the very same time as we were terrible, bitter enemies of God. You see, in sin, man is cast away from God. He can have nothing to do with Him. And he doesn't want to have anything to do with Him. There was nothing worthy or profitable about us. We had no value. No wonder the question, how are you right with God, is so important. There was not one bit of righteousness or goodness, as verse 7 says, about us. We were useless, guilty, obnoxious. And there would be absolutely no loss if we would perish for eternity. Boy, that's hard news, isn't it? If you're like me, you've probably never thought about it in those terms. That there would be no loss if I perished for eternity. No harm done. No value given up. And let's be honest, even as Reformed thinkers and as Reformed believers, we still like to think, deep down in our heart of hearts, we still like to think that there must have been, or there must be, a little bit of something about me that is pleasing to God. Just a little bit of value in me. Something. We confess that that's not what Scripture teaches. We know that up here. We just can't get past it. It must have been something. But apart from Jesus Christ, there's absolutely nothing. In fact, as those lost in sin, God cannot even bear to look upon us. And when He does, the only thing that we deserve, the only thing that we can expect because of our sin is the righteous wrath of a holy God and eternal banishment from His glorious presence. That He should look each one of us in the eye and say, away from me. For I never knew you. While we were still sinners. Plain and simple, we were not His friends. But His bitter enemies. We were unlovely, even ugly creatures saturated with sin. Paul gets pretty graphic, pretty descriptive in chapter 3. Notice, describing our sin from inside out, beginning in verse 10. There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. And in that description, their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways. And the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. While we had no peace with God. While. Again, at the very same time that we were at war with Him and hated Him. At the very same time, He demonstrated such a foreign kind of love, a kind that the human race cannot even imagine and certainly doesn't recognize. 1 John 3, verse 1 says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. That manner, that kind of love is that while we were still sinners. Who would do such a thing? God would. And He did. While we were still sinners, that is even while we were in the midst of sinning against Him, while we were offending Him, while we hated Him with an intense hate, Christ died for us. What an awesome act of God's love. You see, that awesome, that act of God's love is magnified, it's illumined against the backdrop of the condition of those for whom Christ died. Christ died for the ungodly, verse 6 says. While we were without God, while we were without His favor, He was merciful to us in that foreign, unheard of kind of way. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not die at our request, at our begging, not even at our suggestion. He did not die because we deserved for Him to take our place. God was not moved to act in this way by love on our part for Him because there was none. But He was moved by His own love for unloving people. John says, this is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. We love because He first loved us. We have a hard time loving some people because they are simply, at least to us, unlovable for whatever reason. Maybe they drive us crazy. Boys and girls, maybe they break your toys every time they come to your house. Maybe they're just downright mean and nasty. Who knows? But we have a hard time loving some people because to us they're unlovable. Well, praise God that we can't say that about ourselves in the sight of God. Again, we don't deserve to be loved by Him, but because He is the sovereign God over all things, He is able to love the unlovable. God's love demonstrated for us in Jesus Christ is both without precedent. In other words, there was no love demonstrated before, no pattern for God to follow. And it is without parallel. There is no demonstration of love that can be given or ever will be given that can compare with it. And when we think of Christ's death on our behalf in which He took the eternal punishment for sin that we deserve, we are to be humbled. And we are to be amazed. You see, Christ's atoning work was more than just a small favor to us. There's nothing as well that we can do to repay Him for it. We often do favors for each other, whether it might be to help each other out with various home projects, maybe swap babysitting, or as students we help a classmate with an assignment they're having trouble with. Boys and girls, maybe you help somebody out on the playground with someone who's having a difficult time shooting the basket and making it in the hoop. But sometimes, too, we're not always willing, though, to help others unless there's some sort of a payoff, unless we can see some benefit, some return in it for ourselves. And indeed, we are called to live lives of gratitude to God. Grateful, being grateful for such a great salvation. And that glorifies God. But Jesus Christ went to the cross and He suffered the rejection of His Father and He suffered hellish agony, not as some sort of a small favor to you and to me. But beloved, He went there because there was absolutely no other way that you and I could be made right with God. He did that for us because that was our only hope and God in His goodness chose to make that hope living and real for you and me. He chose to bring us who were at war with Him to be at peace with Him. He reconciled us with Himself. Boys and girls, to reconcile means to be brought back together, to come back together. If you've had a fight with your best friend and you don't talk for a couple of days, eventually, hopefully, the apologies are said, the forgiveness is given, the problem, the offense is gone, it's removed. You come back together. You go on as you did before. God reconciled us with Himself. He has removed the offense and brought us back to Himself. Jesus Christ died voluntarily for us. He didn't go to the cross kicking and screaming without His will. No one took His life from Him. Indeed, the wicked men who testified against Him and put Him on the cross and nailed Him to the cross. They're held accountable for their sin. But He orchestrated it all. Remember He said before, early on in His ministry, don't tell what you've seen and heard, because my time has not yet come. But when His time had come, He set His eyes, Scripture says, resolutely on Jerusalem and on the work that was before Him. He gave His life. He laid it down. He said in John 10, I lay down my life for the sheep. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. And we know that He was able to make that eternal payment for sin because He was totally and completely without sin. He was the Lamb, as Peter says, without blemish, without defect, whose blood alone is precious and more valuable than silver and gold and whose blood alone could redeem us from our empty way of life. Beloved, this is the wondrous love of God, which is really beyond our understanding. It's beyond our comprehension. but when we consider how great is our sin and misery which is indeed depressing isn't it that's a bit of a downer but when we consider our sin and misery and then and then we consider how marvelous is our Savior and what a great salvation is ours through Him then how joyful is to be our grateful living and it can be joyful because of the glorious result of God's love demonstrated which is we have peace with God. By the work of His Holy Spirit, we look to Him in faith. By faith alone, you see, because Christ has accomplished it all. Nothing else needs to be accomplished and nothing can be added to it. We look to Him in faith without fear that His wrath is still hanging over our heads. See, His wrath against us has been turned into His favor for us. And he gives to us that blessed assurance that all the benefits earned by Christ are our blessed possession. And those benefits include that Jesus has satisfied all the righteous demands of God's law. He kept it perfectly for us because we couldn't. And because he paid for the sin that we committed, therefore God's wrath and his anger is removed from us and our guilt and shame is also removed. And ours is the benefit of being reconciled to God, brought back into his favor because the offense has been removed as far as the east is from the west. As well, Satan, sin, death, the grave, have no eternal power over God's people any longer. And nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. If you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are still guilty and separated from God. and will remain separated from Him for all eternity unless you look to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance and faith. Again, only in Him, the one who has satisfied everything, can our slate be wiped clean. Can we enjoy fellowship with God? That's the greatest benefit of salvation, fellowship with God in this life through His Spirit, by His Holy Spirit, through His Word. And also through the gift of prayer. And in the next life, face to face. And of all of this, congregation, isn't a reason to rejoice, give thanks, and sing that I don't know what is. Does all of this stir your heart? Does this move you to willingly confess love so amazing, so divine? Demands my soul, my life, my all. Peter and Paul and others of the disciples understood so much how great this salvation in Christ is that they had boldness to preach the gospel and they had boldness to live for the gospel without fear. In fact, we read in Scripture that some of them rejoiced after being beaten and whipped. They rejoiced of all things that they were counted worthy to suffer for the sake of the gospel. Last week we included a portion of that letter from the author of the Belgian Confession, Guido de Bray, that he wrote to his wife of seven years. That he wrote while he was in prison, just before he was put to death, he was martyred for his faith. And if you recall, he said there, and I paraphrase, that he was humbled. He never thought that he would be counted worthy to suffer death, to be martyred, for the sake of Jesus Christ. What an honor that was for him. And we can read the history of many others martyred for their faith as they rejoiced and they sang hymns, we read, as they burned at the stake, running to the stake, they were singing praises to God, and as the flames licked up around them, they sang until there was no life left in them. What about you? What about me? Does it mean that much to us? Would we rather die for our faith in Jesus Christ instead of cover it up? It's a hard question. Maybe for many of us the answer is even harder. Or are we afraid of the least bit of persecution? Remember that those who enjoy peace with God cannot be at peace with the world. It's impossible because the two don't mix. Because the world hates God, it will hate those who are on God's side. 1 Timothy 2 verse 15 says, If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. James 4 verse 4 says, Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. And our Lord said in John 15, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it will love you as its own. Now, beloved, it's not that we go out there intentionally looking for trouble. God's Word is not calling believers to go out into the world and do and say things that will make the world hate us in an intentional sort of way. There's nothing loving our enemies about that. But by the very fact that we live as Christians, talk as Christians, and work as Christians, as those who stand in a right relationship with God, because of that Christians will naturally draw hatred from the world. Yet, that won't bother those who have peace with God and are confident of it. Again, if that confidence is not yours, if you do not have peace with God, you are urgently and earnestly called to look to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance of your sins and faith in Him as the only one who is sufficient for us. Again, without Him there's only guilt before God for eternity. And only with Him can one be declared not guilty but righteous and justified in the sight of God. Praise God for our heritage called the Reformation. Praise Him for the truth of Jesus Christ and His work and even the truth of ourselves as hard as that may be to swallow. Because only when we understand that do we understand what a great Savior and what a great salvation is ours. You know, we cherish our reputations before others, don't we? We don't want to smear our reputations. We take care of them. But more important, we must see and understand the truth of ourselves that we are sinners saved by grace. And therefore, our energy is not to be put into trying to save ourselves. That's a waste of time. But our energy is to be put to work in its proper place. Grateful living always and only for our Savior. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, we thank you and praise you indeed for such a great salvation. We must confess, Lord, that we cannot fully understand how great it is until we first understand the truth of ourselves before You. And Father, we are humbled because of ourselves before You, yet filled with joy inexpressible that You have called us to be Your people and that we enjoy that great salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And may it be that as those who have the confidence of standing before your face as righteous, you see us as righteous, that we would indeed desire to be righteous before you and help us to walk in that way, O Lord, both this day and every day that you give to us. And may our lives indeed give to you the glory and the honor and the praise that you alone deserve. Thank you for your word. Thank you for applying it to our hearts and lives by your Holy Spirit. in Jesus name we pray Amen