Romans
5:10-11
"Saved By His Life"
Romans
5:10-11, "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."
"Turn
in your Bibles to Romans chapter 5, open our Bibles together
to Romans chapter 5. For
the fun of it, let's read altogether verses 10 and 11 of Romans
the fifth chapter, verses 10 and 11 out of all of our varied
translations. OK, you
ready? On your mark,
get set, "For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only this, but we also exalt in God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received
the reconciliation." We
were reconciled to God through the death of his son.
Throughout the Bible we see that the message of Christianity
is a message of reconciliation.
It's a message of God calling men and women to be brought
back into harmony and friendship with him.
To be reconciled means that you're back in friendship,
you're back in harmony. When we say a marriage has been reconciled,
often times we get a mental picture of a husband and wife
who've maybe even separated and moved apart, but through the
grace of God, I've seen many marriages reconciled, they've
come back together, and they're friends and lovers again.
And that's really a simplified version of what the
Gospel is. Through
sin we were alienated to God, we stopped being his friends. But through Jesus Christ, we can have a relationship
re-established with God again.
Ephesians chapter 2, verses 13 through 16 says, "But
now in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly far off, have been
brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our
peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier,
the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh
the law with its commandments and regulations.
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out
of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile
both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to
death their hostility." [These verses are in context with the hostility
between Jew and Gentile which Jesus reconciled and abolished,
not that he abolished the law and ordinances of God, with
the exception of the laws and regulations which prevented
Gentiles from mixing with Jews. Got to take this in context with the subject.]
We have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Jesus reconciled us to God through his body on the
cross. Jesus needed
a body, so that he would have something to offer as a sacrifice,
and so the 2nd Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ [Yeshua
haMeshiach] came, he took on a body, that's what the Christmas
celebration is all about [or should be all about-it has been
horribly commercialized]. We call it the incarnation, he took on a body,
that he might have a body to offer, something to offer as
a sacrifice for our sins.
In Colossians 1, let me just read it to you, I'm going
to have you look up one in a second. Colossians 1, verses 19 through 22 we read,
"For it was the Father's good pleasure, for all the fulness
to dwell in him, and through him"-that's through Jesus-"to
reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through
the blood of his cross." And then he goes on to say, "He has now reconciled
you in his fleshly body through death." [Read the whole piece, it's beautiful] Jesus has reconciled us to God. This teaching of reconciliation is probably
summed up in a bow put on it with 2nd Corinthians
chapter 5. It's just a beautiful statement, and I would
want us all to look at that together.
If you have a Bible, go to the right of Romans to 2nd
Corinthians chapter 5, and we'll look beginning at the 18th
verse, 2nd Corinthians 5, verse 18.
[Actually this whole statement starts in verse 11 and
goes through verse 21] And you might look for a key word. In fact, I'm going to tell you what it is.
Look for the word reconcile
or reconciliation. And with your Bible underliner or marker, here's
some fun for you, underline every time he speaks of our being
reconciled to God, it's a real neat statement.
Verse 18- "Now
all these things are from God, who"-what?-"reconciled us to
himself through Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation.
Namely,
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world
to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and
he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as
though God were entreating through us, 'We beg you on behalf
of Christ be reconciled to God.' He made him who knew
no sin to be sin on our behalf in order that we might become
the righteousness of God in him."
I like the way the living Bible translates verse 20,
it says, "We are Christ's ambassadors, God is using us to
speak to you. We beg
you as though Christ himself were here pleading with you,
'Receive the love he offers. Be reconciled to God.'" No how were we reconciled to God? Going back to Romans 5:11, it says "We were
reconciled through Jesus Christ." Verse 10 says, "through
the death of his Son." through Jesus Christ.
How is this done? What
has happened? I've got a little illustration that I need two
guys to volunteer to come up and help me out. Don't worry, it's nothing weird, I'm not going
to make you do anything weird.
But quickly, two guys.
Don't everybody jump up at once-OK, I got three.Since
you've got the tie on, you can be God, OK? [laughter], nice
to have the Lord with us.The Bible teaches us, when God created
man, this man, he represents us-this is God, with the tie-this
is us.So anyway, when the Lord created man, he created man
perfectly, and there was this perfect relationship between
God and man. Man was
in friendship with God, they loved one another. But when man sinned, sin broke that relationship.
OK? And man turned away from God. And when man turned away from God.Sin broke
this relationship, and now there's this gulf between God and
man. We've talked about that a lot, sin has broken
the relationship. Now
is God mad [angry] at us?
No, God's still reaching out, but there's no bridge.
That's where Jesus, Yeshua comes in.
He came from the Father.
And he bridged the gulf between God and man, and he
gave his life to die for us, he offered his life as a sacrifice.
So through him, man can have that reconciliation to God. Now the message is, "Do you want to be reconciled
to God?" "We'll you
can through Jesus." It's
through Jesus that we had that reconciliation, that relationship
restored. We're reconciled now. And so you today can have that reconciliation
to God. But you've
got to turn around. You've
got to understand, God's not mad at you, he hasn't turned
his back to you. God has always been reaching out to you. God isn't some angry God, mad at you. In fact, the Bible says "For God so love the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son, in order that we might have
eternal life"-if we put our faith in him, if we believe, if
we trust in him. So you can be reconciled to God. Being reconciled to God means that you are the
beneficiary then of Jesus' life.
"We shall be saved by his life", the Scripture goes
on to say. The Good News doesn't stop with reconciliation,
it goes on to say in verse 10, the latter part of Romans 5,
verse 10, it says, "Much more than having been reconciled
by his death, we shall be saved by his life."
You see that at the end of verse 10.
"Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved
by
his life."
Well,
what life? What life
of Jesus, Yeshua saves us?
The life that he gives us, the life that he gave for
us on the cross. Yes,
but at the same time, we're also saved by the life that he lives right now.
And we're going to look at both of those. We're saved by the life that he gave us. This is really illustrated in a true story I
read, happened during the French-English war, when Napoleon
was emperor of France. During
this time, a man was drafted into the French Army.
He was supposed to go and fight, and the officers came
to deliver the papers and take him off to the army and he
started fighting them, he said, "No, no, you can't take me.
You can't take me, I'm not going."
And they said "Why aren't you going?" And he said, "Because I died two years ago!"
And they're looking at each other, like, "Oh no.this
guy's a loonie." And
so they started to arrest him, and he says, "No, no you can't
take me." "Why can't we take you?" And he says, "Because I died two years ago,
I died two years ago, let go of me!"
They said, this guy needs help, they took him, they
arrested him. And finally they became so insistent about this,
they saw that everything else he talks about, he seems pretty
sane, let's do some checking.
And what they did was, they checked into the French
military records and they discovered that truly two years
ago he had been drafted. When
the draft papers came, a good friend of his came over to his
house and said "I just heard the news that you've been drafted."
He says, "You can't go, you've got a wife, you've got
all these children to take care of.
What if you die? Who would care for them? Let me go in your place. Let me take your place." And so the man, his good friend, took his place,
he took his name, he took his address, and he went and joined
the army. Only, in
one of the first battles, he was shot and killed.
Word came back to the man who's place he had taken
that his friend had died, and he realized, that actually he
had died. Incredible. Well, when they heard this, they didn't know
what to do. Do we let
him go? Do we let a substitute take his place? Can another man take his legal responsibilities
like that? Did he really
die? And finally that
case went all the way to Napoleon Bonaparte.
And finally, when Napoleon, when he heard the case,
Napoleon said, "In his judgment, the man was free, because
somebody had took his legal responsibilities for him, and
had died in his place." It was officially declared that he had died
in the person of another.
It was made official in the court records that that
man had died two years before. And now he was free because his friend had taken
his place. Interesting. Because in the same way, we are saved by the
life that Jesus, Yeshua gave us.
He took on himself the responsibility for all of our
sins. He took the legal responsibility for what we were
supposed to do. We
were supposed to die for our sins, for the wages of sin is
death (Romans 6:23), but Jesus, Yeshua took our place.
And if we receive him as our Savior and our friend, then we have
died in him. And that's the truth, that maybe
for the first time you understand.
Let's look in Colossians 3.
Go to the right until you hit Colossians, the book
of Colossians chapter 3, verses 3 and 4.We have died in the
person of another, we have died in Christ. It's not a morbid thought, it's a glorious thought.
It wasn't a morbid thing for this man to send someone
to take his service for him. And then when his friend died, he realized,
'My friend loved me so much, he actually died for me. But now I'm free, you can never draft me again.'
Colossians 3, verse 3, "For you have died, and your
life is hidden with Christ [Messiah] in God. When Christ, who is our life is revealed, then
you also will be revealed with him in glory." What is Christ? Christ is our life! He's my life, because
he lived his life for me.
He's my life. His death was my death.
And his resurrection is my resurrection, all because of that linkage of faith. I've trusted him as my Savior, and I believe
in him. So we're saved
by the life that Jesus lived.
But we're
also saved by the life that Jesus now lives. What Paul means is this. If his death made you secure in salvation, just
think what his life can do to make you secure in your salvation. Look at John 14, verse 19. Jesus said the most amazing thing, and I'm really
excited about it. John
14, verse 19, Jesus says, and we're just going to look at
the very last part of the verse, and we're not really taking
it out of context, because it stands all by itself.
In the latter part of the verse Jesus says in 14:19,
"Because I live, you shall live also." Because Jesus is alive right now, I'm going
to live. Jesus says,
that because he is alive, I'm going to have the life too.
[Now I want to put what Jesus said here in context
with the rest of the verses around it.
How will Jesus' life make us alive, what takes place
here? Let's read starting
in verse 19 and go through verse 23. "Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my
Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one
who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I too will love him and show myself to him.If anyone
loves me, he will obey my teaching.
My Father will love him, and we will come
to him and make our home with him." How will
this occur? Verse 26
explains, "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father
will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind
you of everything I have said to you." Verse 16 elaborates a little more, "And I will
ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to
be with you forever-the Spirit of truth.vs 18.for he lives
with you and will be in you."
I.e. God the Father and Jesus Christ live within us,
have made their home in us by and through the Holy Spirit
whom he has placed within each and every believer. Jesus lives his life in us through the Holy
Spirit living within us.]
Because he is alive, I'm going to have the life too.
Paul says in verse 11 of Romans 5, "The result of this
is that we exalt in God", we are really excited.
Why are we exalting in God?
Well, first of all because Jesus lives to be a compassionate
High Priest. Jesus, Yeshua is living right now. We're not serving one of those religions who's
god is dead. We're
not following the founder of a religion who we can go and
visit his tomb [except his empty tomb!], Jesus is alive.
His resurrection is one of the most indisputable facts
of history. There's so much evidence for his resurrection.
Not just the hope of Christians, but the facts of the
faith are founded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He lives right now to be a compassionate high priest.
Look at Hebrews chapter 2, and we're going to spend
a little time in this book of Hebrews.
Hebrews chapter 2, and we'll look at verse 17.
Hebrews 2:17, "Therefore he had to be made like his
brethren in all things, that he might become a merciful"-or
you could translate 'compassionate'-"and faithful high priest
in things pertaining to God to make propitiation [atonement]"-or
to be the 'mercy seat'-"for our sins"-'for the sins of the
people.' "For since he himself was tempted in that which
he has suffered, he is able to come to the
aid of those who are tempted."
Jesus, Yeshua, we are told right now, lives to be a
compassionate high priest. Right now in heaven, your Savior is full of
mercy and compassion for you.
Hey, ever get around somebody who's never been sick
in their life? And you, maybe, have your aches and pains?
Ever be around them, and do you realize how cold they
are toward you? You
tell them, 'Oh man, you know, oh my back' or 'oh my arthritis'
or something, 'oh, man, I.' or whatever you've got. And they just sort of sit there and they almost
act like you're a hypochondriac, you know. It's like, 'Well, come on! Cut it out!
Act like a man.' or something.
'Stop being such a baby.'
But do you know what happens to that person when they
get sick? I've seen this happen to people where they get
some kind of extended illness, and all of a sudden they're
talking about 'oh, how we need to be so compassionate towards
people who are ill and who are hurting.'
And I thought, 'where were you a year ago.'
You see, they understand, because they've gone through
it now. And who do we have minister to other people? You try to find somebody who's gone through
something, I try to find people who've gone
through the pain of divorce to minister to others who are
going through that, or long-term illness to minister to others,
or those who have problems with their children, and you know,
the Lord's
given them some kind of victory so they can minister to those
are going through the same thing.
In a like manner, Our Lord is not in heaven going 'What's
the matter with you guys!?! Come on! Get
with it! He's compassionate.
He lived on this earth.
He was despised and rejected of men.
He knows your loneliness. If you're the only Christian in your family,
he understands what it's like to be the only Christian in
the family. He knows what it's like to have people make fun
of him. He knows what it's like to have people reject him. He knows what it's like to feel so far from
God when all of our sins were laid on him, he was rejected
of God. Wow! He
understands. So in
heaven right now, one of the things we exalt about is there's
somebody who knows what it's like to have no money!
Remember tax time came, the disciples panicked, 'We
don't have money for the taxes.' Jesus said, 'Peter, go fishing. First fish you catch, open its mouth and the
money will be in there.' What
pond was that? I would
like to find that pond. [laughter] He
knows what it's like to have God supernaturally supply those
needs, too. He is a
faithful, compassionate, merciful high priest in heaven.
And he is able to come to the aid of those who are
tempted. Amen? So
we rejoice. He's alive
right now, a compassionate high priest.
Hebrews 5. But
that's one of the qualifications for a high priest.
In the Old Testament, he had to be a guy who could
understand the people. "For every high priest, he says" in verse 1,
"taken from among men, it's appointed on behalf of men in
things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and
sacrifices for sin." So the high priest was supposed to represent
God to the people. His
life, even his clothing, of the high priest, actually, was
to represent God to the people.
And then in turn, he was to represent his people to
God. He was the intermediary,
he was the inbetween, he was the mediator as you call them. Well, isn't Jesus the perfect mediator? He's part man, part God, well not part, he all
man and all God. It's
a mystery of how he can be 100 percent of both, but he is.
And he represents God to us.
He says, "If you've seen me, you've seen"-who?-"the
Father." And then he represents us to God, clothed in
his perfection we stand complete in him.
Hallelujah, what a neat priest we've got! But not only that, he also offered the sacrifice
for our sins. The high
priest's job was to offer the sacrifice once a year for the
sins of the entire nation.
Jesus, Yeshua did that [for the entire world!], only
he was both the priest and the sacrifice. Incredible.
He was the high priest, and at the same time as the
priest, he offered himself to God.
Incredible. Not only that, it goes on to say, that he needs
to be the kind of guy, verse 2, who can deal gently with who?-the
ignorant-[the NIV has "He is able to deal gently with those
who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is
[was] subject to weakness."] Now that's me a lot of the time. How about you? The ignorant.
That is a good word for us.
You say, 'I'm offended by that.'
Well, sorry. But
maybe you don't know that you're ignorant.
And that's really being ignorant.
[laughter] He can deal how? Gently, with the ignorant. Oh boy, that's not the way I am. How about you? These ignorant drivers on the freeway [laughter].
That ignorant person who crowded in front of you in
the grocery store. That
ignorant relative of yours who's making your life a hassle. He deals gently with the ignorant, doesn't he.
And, he says, "with the misguided."
A lot of people in life, ignorance and being misguided
are their biggest problems. That's their problem, they're just ignorant. They're misguided. And he can deal gently with them, since he himself
was beset with weakness, he knows what it's like to go through
the same things that you and I go through.
And yet he's standing before God [and don't forget,
he is God also, God the Son, he was more than likely the Yahweh
of the Old Testament, the Great I AM]. It's incredible. [Hebrews 4:14-16, "Therefore, since we have
a great high priest who has gone into the heavens, Jesus the
Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted
in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin.
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in
our time of need." That
is Jesus job right now, he's the high priest, and he will
yet sit in the Millennial Temple after he returns and be the
King of the world (Zechariah 14:9) and he will also be the
high priest for the whole world, for those who believe then.
Just as he functions for us right now in that role,
he will return and function for all those who believe then,
in the Temple, as a perfect high priest.
Isn't it amazing how the whole Plan of God comes together?]
Secondly,
we exalt in the fact that he lives to be our advocate with
the Father. Look 1st John chapter 2, the first
verse, "My little children, I am writing these things to you
that you may not sin"-in other words, I'm trying to help you
live a godly life-"and if anyone sins, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and he himself
is the propitiation (or Mercy Seat) for our sins, and not
for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."
Jesus is the Mercy Seat, the Atoning sacrifice for
our sins, and if we sin, he is with the Father, the One who
gave his life to die for that sin, and rose again after paying
for that sin, now stands next to God the Father when you commit
the sin. I mean, you've
got it all in Christ, Messiah.
He's standing before God as your advocate, or we could
translate it, defense attorney. Not that God's out to get you. But I'll tell you who he's defending you against,
he's defending you against the accusations of the evil one,
of Satan. In Zechariah,
we won't go there, but in Zechariah 3 there's an interesting
occurrence. Joshua the high priest is standing before the
Lord to minister to the Lord, but Satan is standing at his
right hand to accuse him.
He's pointing out all of Joshua the high priest's sins.
Symbolic of his sins, Joshua the high priest who should
be clothed in a white garment is clothed in filthy rags.
Satan's saying 'Look! Look! Look what a sinner he is.
Look at how filthy he is, look at how dirty he is.' And then an interesting thing happens. The Lord stands up in his defense, and says
'The Lord rebuke you, the Lord rebuke you Satan. Is not this man a brand plucked out of the fire.'
In other words, it's like you saved a piece of wood
from getting burned in the fire. And then the Lord says, 'Now clothe Joshua the
high priest with clean clothes, because this is what I'm going
to do for my people.' Satan
is called the accuser of the brethren in Revelation chapter
12, and he truly is there to accuse you before God day and
night. And Jesus, Yeshua
is the defense attorney. Jesus
says, 'The Lord rebuke you Satan, I died for Mark and he's
covered with my righteousness, I've covered him with clean
robes and clean garments.' Isn't that cool? God is good.
Jesus pleads for us.
And he stands there in heaven, the trophy of a finished
work. There's no more work to do to save you. It's all been done. Jesus is proof of that. His blood guarantees our justification. And it guarantees that we're going to escape
the wrath of God, and it best guarantees our reconciliation
with God. And now his present life guarantees that we're
going to heaven. [Or
for some, 'We're going to be given entrance into the kingdom
of heaven, wherever that might be or end up (cf. Rev. 21)']
And that's
the third thing Jesus is living to do for us right now, he's
living to get you to heaven [or entrance into the kingdom
of heaven, called in other places, the kingdom of God].
Chapter 7 of the book of Hebrews, again Hebrews describes
the word of our high priest.
Chapter 7, verse 25. You know I'd rather start with verse 22, and
the discussion here, is he's talking about the Old Testament
priests and how they were representative of what Jesus would
come to do. But there had to be many of them, because they
die. You know, they'd
live so long, and die. Another
one would come on, live and then die.
But Jesus has an endless life.
Verse 22 says, "So much the more also, Jesus has become
the guarantee of a better covenant. And the former priests on the one hand existed
in greater numbers, but that was because they were prevented
by death from continuing.
But he on the other hand, because he abides forever
holds his priesthood permanently, hence also, he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him, since
he always lives to make intercession for them."
Jesus lives forever to make intercession for us, and he's able to save-how
long?-forever, those who draw near to God through him. Now the King James Version translates this interestingly,
it says "he is able to save to the uttermost", and for years
I thought that meant. I
thought, well, you can be the worst of sinner, and Jesus will
save you. "Saved to the uttermost", and I'd hear preachers
say "even to the guttermost", they would say. Well it sounds good when you're preaching, but
it's not what the verse means.
It is true that Jesus can save guttermost, he can save
you in a gutter, he can save you from your drugs, he can save
you in your sin.To the woman caught in adultery he right there
offered her salvation [and said to her, "go and sin no more.],
to crooked businessmen like Levi, he offered him salvation. Another crooked businessman, Zechias who was
really up a tree, he offered him salvation.
So it's true that Jesus will save us in our sin [and
through the indwelling Holy Spirit, save us out of our sin,
helping us to come out of our sins].
But that's not what this verse means.
This verse means that he'll save you to the uttermost
point, he'll save you from here to forever, to infinity.
It's a term that means forever-that point that never
ends out there. That's
how long, that's how far his salvation saves us and how far
it reaches, and how far it continues, it's a forever salvation.
Can you say Amen to that?
It's a forever salvation.
And he's living right now to make it possible for us.
Remember that song, maybe you sang it?
"I serve a risen Savior, he's in the world today, I
know that he is living, no matter what men may say.
I see his hand of mercy, I hear his voice of cheer,
and just the hour I need him, he's always there." And the chorus is "He lives! He lives! Christ
Jesus lives today!" "He
walks with me, he talks with me, along life's dreary way. He lives, he lives, salvation to impart. You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart. [cf. John 14]" Jesus lives, that's the message of Christianity
[and now Messianic Judaism, Yeshua lives]. The cross of Christ, Messiah is a wonderful
message, but if it stops there, people, we'd all be dead [dead
in our sins, with no power to overcome them].
The cross is not it all, you have to have a risen Saviour. You have to have both. That's why the symbol for Christianity isn't
really Christ, Messiah hanging on a cross, that's not all
the gospel. Paul says "I delivered unto you the gospel that
I preached to you that Christ died for our sins, and that
he was buried, and he rose again the third day.
And so that's why so many Christians prefer the empty
cross, because it reminds them that the One who died for them
is now living for them in heaven. And also in application to all of this, it means
that you don't need an earthly priest in order to intercede
for you to God. You
know, I'm not your priest. And we don't have a group of priests here.
And you don't need a priesthood, an Aaronic or Melchizedekian
priesthood. Why Jesus,
if you read the book of Hebrews, Jesus is a priest forever. He holds his priesthood permanently, after the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a king and a priest
[some think he was actually Yahweh, in some human form during
the time of Abraham, who later became Jesus Christ, Yeshua
haMeshiach. This is one Biblical mystery of many that will
be cleared up at Yeshua's 2nd coming]. So I don't need an earthly priesthood bestowed
upon me. I don't need
an earthly priest. But
it is wrong to say, "I don't need a priest."
Sometimes I hear Protestants saying that.
"Well, I'm a Protestant, I don't believe I need a priest!"
Wrong, you need a priest.
You just don't need him on earth, you need him in heaven. You need a priest. You need someone to represent you to God, and
someone to represent God to you, and that is Jesus Christ,
Yeshua haMeshiach. And
he's alive, gang! I know it's not resurrection Sunday, but every
day is, really, because he's alive and he lives in us, and
his life [on the cross] took my place.
And when Satan comes knocking on my door and he says
"the wages of sin is death" I can say "You can't have me,
you can't have me, I died, I died two thousand years ago!".
People think you're crazy until they actually read
the records. And they
read the legal document that says, "yes another man took your
place, yes, it's all been paid in full, you're free, you can
go." So we exalt, Paul says, we exalt, we rejoice
in what Christ is in his life, in his ministry.
Praise God. You
can have that life this morning.
Many sitting around you have that life already.
But you can have the life of Christ credited to you
this morning. "How?" you say "how? How can I be reconciled to God?" The Bible says you've got to turn around.
Just like you saw here. You're facing in the wrong direction, the Bible
says to turn around, that is what the word "repent" means. It means "turn around." And you'll discover if you turn around, just
like you've heard today, that God is reaching out his arms
to you. God isn't mad [angry] with you, God wants to
save you. That's what
Christianity is all about.
So you've got to turn around, and then you've got to
believe. You've got
to believe two things. Number
one, that you need a Savior, you've got to believe you're
a sinner. A sinner is somebody who isn't perfect, somebody
who has missed the target.
Have you ever made a mistake?
"Yes." How many mistakes have you made? 'Well, I don't make many.' Well, what if you made one a day? How many is that a year? 365. I
heard a guy the other day saying, 'What if you appeared before
a traffic judge and you tell him you're a good driver, I only
make got one ticket a day.' If you appear before a judge with 365 tickets
what is the judge gonna say?
'You're a good driver?'
'Get out of here. I know where to send you, and it's not traffic
school.' When you appear
before God, even if you're a good person, you still can't
plead that you're a good guy, because you've got too many
tickets racked up. You're a sinner, admit it. Turn around.
Admit that you're a sinner, believe that. And then secondly, believe that God has provided
the answer for your sin, and that's Jesus who took your place
and died for you. God
made Jesus who knew no sin, Jesus wasn't a sinner at all,
even his judge said that. His judge, Pilate said, 'I find no fault in
him.' Then why did
they go ahead and execute him.
Good question. The reason why they went ahead and executed
him was because it wasn't for his sin he was dying, he was
taking our places. He
took our place, God put all of our sin on him.
That great transaction, if you believe in it and accept
it with all your heart, will save you.
You've got to believe it. You've got to trust in it alone for salvation. Now look, we're not asking you to believe in
a church, we're not asking you to believe in your baptism
when you were a baby. We're
not asking you to believe in your confirmation when you were
12 or 13, because the Bible doesn't teach that any of those
things saves you. The
only thing that can save you is faith, personal faith in Jesus
Christ, your faith, not Mommy and Daddy's.
'Well, we got a priest in the family.'
My whole family thinks that they're going to heaven
because, not me, but I have a cousin who's a priest.
And I'm constantly hearing, 'Well, you know your cousin
Myron.' And I'm thinking,
'You guys, he's not gonna get us to heaven, because he didn't
die for us. Only Jesus,
Yeshua saves. Well, my mother was a great Christian woman.
Yeah, but do you know Jesus? He doesn't have any grandchildren. You've got to be a child of his firstborn.
And so look, I'm offering you today the option, heaven
or hell, Jesus, to accept him or reject him. That's the decision today. Jesus says "Because I live you can live"-you'll
live also. But if you
reject him, you are rejecting life.
The Bible says, "In him was the life."
And if you want life, you can have it now.
In a moment, I'm going to give you an opportunity to
ask Jesus to save you. I'm
going to ask you to pray a prayer, because the Bible says
the way you get saved, you turn around, you believe, but then
it also says that you must confess with you mouth what's in
your heart. You believe
Jesus died and rose again for you?
Then you need to confess that and call on the name
of the Lord, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved. So in a moment
I'm going to give you that opportunity to pray that prayer. If you pray that prayer, there are four things
that you can be sure of. Number
one, you can be sure that the emptiness in your life that
you've been trying to fill with things, cars, relationships,
houses, clothes, that emptiness inside will be filled because
God's place in your life will be filled with God. Secondly, you're not going to be lonely the
way that you're lonely now.
Because you're going to have Jesus, Yeshua with you,
in you, and you're going to have the Holy Spirit in your life.
God will come and live in you.
Thirdly, you can get rid of your guilt, your guilt
will be rolled off your shoulders, because Jesus died for
all the things you did. You
see, you're carrying it [now], but you can be sure that will
be gone. And lastly, you don't have to fear death anymore.
You can be sure that when you die, you'll be absent
in this body, and you'll go directly to be with the Lord.
That's what the Bible says. It's a great thing, and God has got his hands
outstretched to you, and I'm his messenger, and today I'm
begging you, if you haven't yet, be reconciled to God.
Let's pray." [Transcript
of Romans 5:10-11, given by Pastor J. Mark Martin, Calvary
Community Church, PO Box 39607, Phoenix, Arizona
85069] Go back to the end of the "Romans 5:9 part 2"
transcript for a section on this short prayer, if you haven't
seen it before.
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