Peace, Hope And Glory

Alba 8-29-2021

PEACE, HOPE AND GLORY

Romans 5:1-5

A large, two-engine train was making its way across Colorado. While crossing the mountains, one of the engines broke down. “No problem, we can make it to Denver and get a replacement engine there,” the engineer thought, and carried on at half power.

Farther on down the line of course, the other engine broke down, and the train came to a standstill in the middle of nowhere.

The engineer needed to inform the passengers about why the train had stopped, and always trying to look on the bright side of things, made the following announcement:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that both engines have failed, and we will be stuck here for some time until the additional engines arrive. The good news is that you didn’t take this trip in a plane!”

Well in our scripture text today there is both good news and bad news. The good news is that we have hope no matter what happens. The bad news is that we can expect tribulation. But again the good news is that even then, we can have hope.

Lets turn to Romans 5:1-5. "1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

"3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."

In this sometimes hopeless world, in Christ we can still have hope! And the only hope that any of us have is because God provides a way of reconciliation.

He did that when our Lord Jesus paid the price for our sin on Calvary's Cross. And the really good news is that He not only saved us, but also sanctified and declared us to be holy. We are justified in Christ.

And the result is, we have absolute peace with God. The world longs for peace, but it is very illusive. Look at what is going on in the world today. We have tragedy upon tragedy as tribes and nations struggle for dominance.

So where is this peace? Even Jesus foretold that there would be wars and rumors of wars. All we have to do is open our eyes and see that is true. And when we sin, which we all do, it puts us at war with God. That is a war we will not win.

Most people outside of Christ do not think of themselves as enemies of God. Because they have no conscious feelings of hatred for Him, and do not consciously oppose His work or contradict His Word, they consider themselves, at worst, to be “neutral” about God.

But no such neutrality is possible. The mind of every unsaved person is at peace only with the things of the flesh, and therefore by definition is “hostile toward God”.

Scripture clearly says that every person who is not a child of God is a child of Satan (John 8:44). And every person who is not a citizen of God’s kingdom is a citizen of Satan’s kingdom.

Thankfully conditions of peace have been offered to end this war. This is the most crucial peace of all: We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus died on the cross to take all of the punishment for our sins, and He rose again from the dead. In doing so, He took our sins away and satisfied the wrath of God against sin by making a new covenant, a covenant of peace between us and a holy God.

A lady told about a time when she was struggling with past failures in her life. Then God helped her through a letter from one of her friends. This friend told about a recent visit with her young granddaughter.

They got to see a sky-writing plane writing messages in the sky with smoke. The little girl loved watching the words being drawn, but she was mystified when the smoky letters started to disappear.

That little granddaughter thought about it for a few moments. Then she blurted out, "Maybe Jesus has an eraser!"

Have you ever been accused of something, and then you were cleared of the accusation? Well we were more than accused, we were guilty, but our guilt has been erased by what Jesus did on the cross.

And now we can have peace. The peace that really matters. Peace with God. As Paul said in Colossians 1:19-20: