Skip to content

The River ChurchSermons

Righteousness

The Blessings of Righteousness

Josh Combs · Sunday, 22 June 2025 · Romans 5:1-11 · 40:16 · 4,986 words

Romans S9 · 5:1-11 Goodrich

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The sermon explores Romans 5, showing that believers are justified by faith, which brings peace with God and access to his grace. Because of Christ's work, Christians can rejoice in the hope of God's glory, even amid suffering, knowing that trials produce endurance and character. It emphasizes God's love poured into hearts through the Holy Spirit and the call to be reconciled through faith in the gospel. The speaker invites listeners to confess Jesus as Lord and share the message of reconciliation.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

rejoice 51 peace 46 reconcile 19 suffer 23 unmerited 7 access 13 hope 25 celebrate 10 weakness 8 emotionally 5 number 13 grace 22

Topics

Hope 7 Suffering 5 Faith 4 Salvation 3 Grace 3 Justification 2 The Gospel 2 Sin 2 The Wrath of God 1 Obedience 1 Baptism 1 The Holy Spirit 1 Death & Resurrection 1

Scripture referenced 21

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 5:1 1:14 Romans 4 1:47 Romans 4:24-25 1:47 Romans 4:24 1:56 Romans 4:1 2:25 John 14 3:26 Romans 5 6:10 Romans 5:2 6:41 Hebrews 4 7:19 Romans 1 18:43 Romans 3 18:50 Romans 5 18:57 Romans 5:3-4 18:57 Romans 5:5 20:13 Romans 5:9 22:02 Romans 12 22:33 Romans 12 22:56 Romans 5 31:40 Romans 5 31:40 Romans 5:17 31:59 Romans 2 34:53

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 9 lines, 0:49. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey, everyone. My name is Mitchell Holmes, and I want to thank you for checking out this message

today. We're so glad that you're here with us, and we want to connect with you and your family.

The easiest way to do that is to text the word RIVERCONNECT to 97000. There we can answer any

questions you may have and even help pray for you. You can also visit our website at

theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church. Finally,

if you want to support the work we are doing here at the River Church financially,

please head to our website and click the Give tab at the top of the page,

or you can text the amount that you want to give to 84321. Thank you again for joining us,

and we hope you're blessed by today's message. Open your Bibles this morning to the book of

Romans, Romans chapter number 5. We'll pick up in verse number 1. Just a moment. Great to see you

today. If you don't have a Bible, I want to encourage you to share with someone sitting

next to you, or you can take out your phone. You can download a Bible app or the River Church app.

There's a Bible feature there. I want to encourage you as much as I can to be following along in the

Scripture. If you're a guest, I want to encourage you to share with someone sitting next to you.

I want to welcome you. Thank you for being here with us today. If you're watching online,

certainly want to welcome you as well. Romans chapter 5, verse 1. Paul says,

therefore, since we have been justified by faith. So that word therefore is a transitional

statement. Paul is kind of finishing his point, his argument about how we are made right before

God. That's what that word justified means, or justification.

And we are made right by faith. If you look at chapter 4, in verse 24 and 25, this is what

accomplishes that. Verse 24, it will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead

Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

So we are made right before God by putting our faith in the death of Jesus,

for our sin and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That is the only way to be made right

before almighty God. So Paul says, therefore, since that has happened, verse 1, we have been

justified by faith. Paul says, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Several times

here in this first few verses, you'll see this phrase, we have. This idea of what we have because

of what Jesus has done. We are recipients of so many things because of God's kindness to us

through Christ. Paul says here, we have peace with God. Paul in Philippians speaks of the peace of

God. He says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your

hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Hold your spot in Romans. Just go to the left.

To John chapter number 14, two verses there. John chapter 14, verse number 27, Jesus is speaking

to his disciples. Jesus says, peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give to you. Not as the world

gives, do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Jesus speaks

of two kinds of peace here. He says, my peace, I leave with you. And it's a peace that is different

than the world's peace. As we look around the globe, we see a lack of peace. When we look around

in the lives of people that we know outside of Christ, we see a lack of peace. We see a pursuit

of peace. And it's often a peace that is the world's peace. I'll have peace. I'll have

tranquility. If I have that relationship or that financial status or that career or that house or

that number of kids or that college scholarship or that acceptance in that group or this,

look for that worldly peace. And Jesus essentially says, that peace is fleeting, temporary. The

peace that Jesus offers us, the peace of God, as Paul speaks of, is a peace unlike the world's

peace. Jump over into John, to John chapter number 16 and verse 33. Again, Jesus, the night he would

be betrayed, speaking to his disciples. Verse 33, Jesus said, I have said these things to you that

in me, you may have peace.

In the world, you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Justification

that Jesus gave to us, the standing before God that we receive by putting our faith in Christ

gives us the peace of God. We have peace with God. We have the shalom of God is really the word.

But also that peace that we experience between us and God extends into our very souls. And then

it overflows into our life.

The peace of God is different than the peace of this world. It isn't an absence of storms, but it

is a peace that provides calm in the chaos of this world. Go back to Romans 5. Paul says, because

we've been justified, we've been made right by faith in Christ. We have peace with God and that

peace is given to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we have, we have peace.

Verse two, through him, we have. So not only peace, but we have also obtained access by faith

into this grace in which we stand. Hold your spot. Romans, go to the right to the book of

Hebrews, Hebrews chapter number four. Not only does God through Christ make us right,

justify us, he gives us his peace, but he gives us more than that. We have, as Paul says there,

we've obtained access.

Access. Access to what? Hebrews chapter four, verse number 14. Scripture says, since then we

have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God. Let us hold

fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our

weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then

with confidence draw near to the throne.

Of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of trouble. So because of

what Jesus has done, we have peace, but it's not just a peace that we have. That is a peace with

God, a peace in our own souls, or a peace that, uh, overflows to our relationships. The Bible says

we also have been granted. We've obtained through Jesus and access to the throne of grace. Now,

I don't know about you, but I look at that last phrase in Hebrew,

Hebrews four 16. There are often times where I need help. There are times where I am in need. I

don't know what to do. I don't know how to process something. I don't know how to think about

something. I don't know what decision is the right direction there. There are times of need in my

life. And what the scripture says here is because of Jesus, we have access in prayer to go to God

and say, God, I don't know what to do, but I know you sit on a throne of grace. And so that

unmerited grace is what we need. And so that unmerited grace is what we need. And so that

unmerited grace is what we need. And so that unmerited grace is what we need. And so that

unmerited grace is what we need. And so that unmerited grace is what we need. And so that

unmerited favor that Jesus has obtained for us overflows to us. And so that's why James says,

if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God and God will give it to us. He's not going to

look down on you and say, man, what an idiot. Why does he always need wisdom?

The invitation from God is to come to his throne and say, God, I need your grace. And the Bible

says we can access that grace because of what Jesus has done. I think it's Spurgeon who points

that out. Let us never forget that it is a throne of grace. This, this isn't a bank account of grace

that runs out. Maybe you're sitting here today and you made a mistake yesterday in your life.

That's eating at you or this last week or this last month or this last year, or maybe your life

just feels like one successive mistake after another. The Bible says, because of what Jesus

has done, you can come to him and he has an inexhaustible amount of grace. You can receive

his grace for yourself. You can come to him and he has an inexhaustible amount of grace. You can

be embraced by the grace of God. He sits on a throne of grace. Now let's go back to Romans five.

So we've been made right, justified. We have peace with God. Verse two, we have obtained access

by faith into this grace in which we stand. So stand is our standing, our status.

So how do we respond to that? The Bible says there in verse three, verse,

excuse me, in verse two, we rejoice. We rejoice. The word rejoice there is the idea of a celebration.

It is the idea of cheering or delight. One author said it is a sense of jubilation,

something to shout about. As I was studying this and thinking through this, it really convicted me

because I thought, when is the last time I've rejoiced? When is the last time I celebrated,

cheered, or had great delight? I had to think a while. First thing that came to mind was sports.

I'm not a huge sports guy, but I can get emotionally vested in the dumbest sport like that.

I'll be on a date with my wife. There's a TV on and it could be cornhole on TV. And I'm like this.

Yes. I don't know what happened, but it was awesome. Right? Because I know nothing about it.

Now you take me to a stadium. Is it the Tigers game a few weeks ago? Full count,

someone gets up and hits a home run. Like I am standing up. It's not even like a conscious

decision. It's not like, wow, that's really awesome. You know what I should do right now?

I should stand and I should cheer. My fist should go like this. I should clap and say,

woohoo. It's almost involuntary because you're excited. And what starts to happen?

People are cheering. I'll be honest with you. The thing that made me smile most at the game,

this is how dumb I am, was the wave. I just feel like it's, you know,

it restores my hope in humanity. Some ways we can all in order, stand up, put our hands over our

head, sit back down, watch it go around, time it right. Stand up again, way to go. Everybody's

society has hope, right? I don't know what it is. I love the wave. I know it's dumb. I know it's

silly and I know it's something to fill boredom, but I was brought to celebration, rejoicing and

may go to a concert. A song you've been waiting on the singer or the band to play comes on and

you're like, yes, you celebrate, you cheer. The crowd goes wild. I thought, okay, we know how to

rejoice. It's something that we're emotionally vested in or something that we're part of,

or something that we're, we're anticipating. We anticipate the game. We anticipate the bottom of

the night. We anticipate the concert there. So there's a,

there's a sense of hope, a sense of expectation about that. And that started to convict me

because I look at verse number two and I see we have peace with God. We've been justified before

God. We have access to God. And so what does Paul say? Because of those things, we rejoice

in hope of the glory of God. So we rejoice. When is the last time involuntarily

talking about the gospel, the hope of heaven, the glory of God, the end of the struggle of

sin, where you were just like, yes, let's go. Couldn't think of a time. Sometimes the band gets

up here and says, let's stand and sing. And you're like, ah, can we sit this week? Like what if we

did a sitting song, like old school Baptist Sunday night, go ahead and sit everybody for this next

song. Awesome. I can sit here, sit my coffee. Fantastic. Way to go band. Why is it that those

things that we know are eternally meaningless, elicit a rejoice in us. But when we know,

there is the hope of glory, the end of the struggle with sin, the end of suffering, the end of war,

the end of all those things, Jesus is exalted. We're assembled in heaven, man. Doesn't that just

make you want to shout and celebrate if it doesn't something wrong. And I realized that I rejoice over

a lot of things don't really mean anything. I allow myself to be emotionally vested in stuff that

doesn't matter. I allow myself to be emotionally vested in stuff that doesn't matter. I allow

myself to be emotionally vested in stuff that doesn't matter. I realize this about myself

yesterday. My wife was laughing at me. Uh, Keaton got me into watching Mr. Beast on YouTube. Now,

this is how this works. There are 70% of these people back here that don't know. You guys all

know what I'm talking about. Uh-huh. I've become a middle school boy and I love it. So a new Mr.

Beast video dropped yesterday. Some dude losing a hundred pounds and I'm watching it in the car

crying. And right before I had to go to an open house, I go, let's wait. My eyes are red. I need

to go to the house. She's like, are you serious right now? I was all in. I was all in at the end

of the video. I was pumped. I was excited for the guy. And I thought, man, I rejoice over some

things. Grand scale don't really matter. Paul has been walking us through in Romans, the hope of the

gospel fact that we are rightly judged before God's sinners. And the only way to be made right,

whether we're Jew or Gentile is to be made right through faith in what Jesus has done on the cross.

And then he said,

because of what Jesus has done and his resurrection, we have peace. We have access. We've

been justified. That ought to bring us to a place of rejoicing, of celebrating in hope of the glory

of God. Verse three, not only that, but there's more rejoicing. We rejoice in our sufferings.

James chapter one says, count it all joy. My brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds

for, you know, that the testimony of the Lord is the testimony of the Lord. And when you meet

trials of various kinds for, you know, that the testimony of the Lord is the testimony of the Lord. And

of your faith produces steadfastness. Look at how Romans says it. Romans chapter three, or excuse me,

Romans chapter five, verse three and four knowing. So we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that

suffering produces endurance. It produces spiritual grit. It produces spiritual stability. And that

spiritual stability produces character character being the idea of a purified heart before God.

And that purified heart before God,

produces hope. Can I tell you why we don't rejoice in the hope of the glory of God? Because we often

don't rejoice in our suffering because as humans, we run from suffering as Christians. We are to

embrace suffering and say that I know that this trial, this difficulty in my life is going to

produce a sound faith, a stable faith. So I'm not tossed all over the place anymore. I have some

spiritual grit, some spiritual tenacity, some spiritual strength, some spiritual strength,

staying power. And that produces in me a character that's pure before God. And out of that character

comes hope and anticipation, a joyous expectation of what is to come. That's why we rejoice.

Verse five, Paul says, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into

our hearts through the Holy spirit. Who's been given to us. Paul says, this hope won't disappoint.

And the proof of it is the seal of the Holy spirit. Hold your spot.

Romans and go to the right, go to second Corinthians, second Corinthians chapter number

12. Apostle Paul had some suffering of some kind seems to be physical. Verse number seven,

middle of the verse, Paul says, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass

me, to keep me from becoming conceited. So physical trial, something was wrong. There was a

difficulty in his life. There was suffering in his life. So Paul says three times, I pleaded

with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. Lord, can you please take this away? And if

you've ever had physical suffering or trial or chronic pain or things in your life, you go to

the Lord. There is a, there is a deep groaning, pleading to God, God, this is awful. You please

take this away. I know you can. God responds. Verse nine, my grace is sufficient for you. My

power is made perfect in weakness. So Paul says, therefore I will most, I will boast all the more

gladly in my weakness. So the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ. Then I am

content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. When I am weak,

then I am strong. This passage comes right after in chapter 12, Paul talking about God, giving him

a vision of heaven. He is, I don't want to say cryptic about it, but Paul is super humble about

what's happening in chapter 12. He says,

I've been given this vision of heaven. It was extraordinary. I was caught up into heaven.

He doesn't even write about it, but you can just sense in how Paul is writing, how extraordinary

the journey was, how extraordinary what he saw was. Then he's back on earth and he's suffering.

So he knows who God is. He's seen in some ways, the glory of God, but he's suffering physically.

So he says, God, please take this away. I know you can. And God says, no, my strength is made

perfect in your weakness. If you had no weakness, you would have been perfect in your weakness.

Then you'd boast. You'd boast about the trip to heaven, or you'd boast about the missionary

journeys. So I've given this to you. So you'll be dependent on me. So Paul says, sweet, I will most

gladly glory in my infirmities that the power of God might rest upon me. Here's why he could endure

suffering because he was, his eyes were fixed on the hope of glory. And this is why, and I know so

many of you suffer, but this is what I want to encourage you with the hope of glory, the hope of

that. So in your physical suffering, in your emotional suffering, in the suffering that you

have, know that God walks that road with you in your weakness. You are made strong by the power

of God. There'll be a day where you cross the finish line and that suffering will be over.

You can lock in and know that that hope is real. So we rejoice. Go back to Romans. Paul says, we,

we have hope and we have peace. We have access. We rejoice. We rejoice.

In what we rejoice in the hope that we have. We rejoice in our sufferings. Jump down to verse

number 11. It says more than that. We also rejoice in God. We rejoice in God. So we rejoice in our

hope of glory. We rejoice in our sufferings. We rejoice in God. What is, what does that mean?

Again, to celebrate, we celebrate God's love. We rejoice in God's kindness to us. We rejoice

in the miracles that he's done. We rejoice in his presence. We rejoice in his plan.

We rejoice in his character. That's why the Bible says rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say

rejoice during the awe of something and our hearts begin to beat faster and we find ourselves just

celebrating. It's like, if something is funny, you don't go, that's funny. I choose to laugh.

If it's funny, you laugh. If it's something you're excited about, no one has to tell you to celebrate

it. No one has to tell you to rejoice over it. You're going to. A lot of my friends, they're,

sons and daughters are graduating from high school. And it's always a joy when you see your,

your children, your kids accomplish some things in life. No one has to really tell you to celebrate.

If they did, you'd, you'd kind of be a terrible parent, right? Hey, your kids walk on the stage.

You should clap. Okay. You celebrate because you're excited about it. It thrills you. It's a joy. So we

rejoice in the hope of glory. We rejoice in our sufferings because we rejoice in who God is. It's

the gospel. Look at verse eight, Romans five, eight, excuse me, verse six. For while we were

still weak. So we have this, we rejoice, but look at what verse six says we were. So let's

kind of look in the past a little bit. While we were still weak at the right time, Christ died

for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good

person, one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us. And that while

we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So we have hope and we have access and we have peace

and we have been justified. We should be rejoicing over that because that is quite a contrast

from what we were. The scripture says there in verse six, that we were weak. We were ungodly.

We were sinners. We were enemies of God. Later in Romans, Paul would say the mind,

that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. James says, friendship with the world is enmity with

God. So we were enemies of God, hostile to God's truth. That's who we were outside of Christ. If

you're here and you don't know Jesus, that's who you are. But if you're here and you do know Christ,

that's a past tense. That's who you were. And in spite of our sin, our rebellion,

our hostility towards God, he demonstrated his love for us.

And he didn't just send flowers. He didn't just send a card. He didn't just send you a nice text.

The Bible says his love was demonstrated to us. And that while we were sinners, while we were

haters of God, God sent his only begotten son, pay the penalty for our sin, that Jesus was buried

and Jesus rose from his, from the dead. I want you to realize what an extraordinary demonstration of

God's love that is. Like we all know, we all know that Jesus rose from the dead. We all know that

we all ought to sit here in awe of God's love, that you are deeply loved by God. And he has

demonstrated that love in sending Christ for us. Look at verse nine. Since therefore we have now

been justified by his blood, kind of echoes verse one, God's plan of salvation, to rescue sinners,

gives us peace with God in the present. He wants us to look at the past and remember who we were

but now he wants us to look into the future. It's almost like a game show host who says, you know,

here are the prizes, but wait, there's more. This just keeps rolling. It's like the blessing,

the kindness of God keeps going. Pick back up in verse number nine. Much more shall we be saved by

him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death

of his son, much more.

Now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? So Paul up to this point has used the

word justified or justification quite a bit. That's a legal term. Again, the idea of being

made right before God. But now Paul introduces this term of reconciliation. Go back over to

second Corinthians real quick. Second Corinthians chapter five, second Corinthians chapter five,

verse 17. Paul says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a

new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God who through

Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ,

God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,

and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are,

ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ,

be reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might

become the righteousness of God. We've been reconciled to God through the work of Christ.

The relationship was not just broken or slightly fractured. It was shattered because of sin. And God,

was in the right and we were in the wrong. And what did God do? God didn't say, gravel back to me,

earn your way. He realized we could not earn our way back into a right relationship with God. We

couldn't on our own strength, reconcile the relationship. So what did God do? God pursued

reconciliation, sending his son, Jesus, to bridge the gap, to make a way for us to be reconciled to

God. All this, I love how Paul says it there,

is from God. God did this. And then God did something that's even more crazy. He gave us

the message, the ministry of reconciliation. We, if we are in Christ, have been reconciled

in relationship with our heavenly father. That's the justification. It's the reconciliation that

we've received through the power of the gospel. And then now what are we to do? We are to spread

the message of reconciliation that God,

has made a way for people to be saved from their sin, to be restored in fellowship with God.

Let's go back to Romans now. We've been reconciled. We have been saved from the wrath of God. The wrath

of God is coming for sin. Earlier on in Romans chapter two, Paul says, the kindness of God is

meant to lead us to repentance. So God's delay, God's patience is meant to lead us to repentance,

not to believe he's ignoring sin. So we have peace and we have

access. We rejoice in hope of glory. We rejoice in suffering. We rejoice in who God is. We were

far from God. We were weak. We were ungodly. We were sinners. We were enemies of God. We have

been reconciled and we shall be spared, saved from the wrath of God. So what should be our

response? Rejoicing. Rejoicing. I was thinking about men. There's a lot of dudes who come and

they're like, oh, I'm just not a big singer. Yeah. But during the seventh inning stretch,

nobody sings louder because there's things we rejoice about because our minds and our

hearts are fixed on those things. And we need to fix our eyes and our hearts and our minds

on the hope of the gospel, the glory of what Jesus has done for us. And that will bring us

to a sense of awe and celebration like none of that other stuff will. Maybe you're here and you

don't know Christ. Maybe you're here and you have not been reconciled to God. The Bible says all

have sinned, fall short of the glory of God. So we've all sinned against God, but God has

made a way while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. And so Jesus came to pay the penalty for

your sin. Jesus was buried and Jesus rose from the dead. That's the gospel. Nothing more, nothing

less. The death of Jesus for sinners, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The only

way for you to be saved is to respond in faith to the gospel. The Bible says, if you will confess

with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that Jesus was raised from the dead,

you'll be saved. That's the only way to be saved. It's the only gospel and it's the only way to be

saved. It's the only saving response to the gospel. I'm going to ask you to just bow your

heads and close your eyes. Just a quiet moment for you to spend some time and respond to who,

respond to God, respond to maybe what the Lord is speaking to your heart. Maybe this is your first

time here. Maybe this is your hundredth time here. Truth is you've never responded in faith to Christ

and you can do that right now. You can confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in

your heart. Jesus was raised from the dead. You can be saved. In just a moment, I'm going to pray.

The band's going to come lead us in a

song, a song, an opportunity to rejoice, rejoice in hope, rejoice in God. Maybe for you, it's

rejoicing in your suffering. During that song, maybe the Lord's been convicting you about being

baptized. You need to publicly declare your faith in Christ. That's all baptism is. It's a step of

obedience to publicly proclaim you're a follower of Jesus. Like I said, in a moment, I'm going to

pray. If you need to be baptized, you can walk right through these curtains on my left. There'll

Obedient to the Lord in baptism.