So just you're gonna have to lip read through this. Oh, there we go. Good morning. Singing sound great.
Unfortunately, we're gonna put carpet down this week coming up and it's gonna kind of muffle the sound. I've enjoyed the boisterous sounds of the echo and the acoustics in the room with the wooden floor. Maybe what we'll do is put the carpet down and we'll bring a bunch of plywood down and put it on top of it. It could sound better.
But I don't know if we get the camel look going and apply with anyone. That's really cool. This is like redneck country stuff. Alright, let's take a moment and look to the Lord.
Father, thank you this morning for our Savior, the Lord Jesus. We thank you that there is no greater thing than to know him. And I pray for everybody here, Lord, that that could be the words of their heart, that they know you and are known by you. We just thank you.
Thank you for your exceptional love in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, you're doing to me like, first you tell me you didn't get the PowerPoint. Now you're playing with it.
Alright, with the first slide not up there. Alright, so I'm going to move this because when I start moving around I might hit that microphone stand and all that stuff. So there was an engineer, a young engineer graduated from MIT. It's easy to pick on engineers because I know so many of them.
And I found a whole bunch of people all at once. But don't worry, young and hit the sales guys towards the end. So there was a young engineer who just graduated from MIT and he's sitting in his interview and the interview was said to him, so what are you looking for as a starting salary? And he said, oh, this is with my credentials and my abilities and my smarts.
I would think around $250,000 a year. And she looked at him and she said, well, okay. It was his first job in the market and she said, well, how about what do you think about this benefits package? Five weeks paid vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental.
The company will match retirement, finds up to 50% of what you put in of your salary, a leased car every two years and you can pick any car you want as long as it's a European built sports car. He sits up and he says, wow, are you kidding? And she said, yes, of course I am, but you started this. So now we understand that the Church of Jesus Christ is not a corporation.
It's an organism. But I read this a little anecdote this week and talking about the church as if it was the greatest corporation in the world. Please, don't go away from this saying that I believe that the church is a corporation. It's not.
Some are. Some local churches operate that way. But I'm talking about the church in general, the universal church. You see, here's the thing about our the church.
If you looked at it as the greatest company in the world, our product works universally. You can share the gospel with any person who is willing to listen, repent and receive it and it will change their life forever. Secondly, we have offices worldwide. You can go into any country, any culture and find some expression of the church.
Our benefits package is exceptional. Forgiveness of our past, peace of mind and the present and our retirement packages out of this world quite literally. When it's all over, you have been waiting for you. You'll be rewarded based on your service for the Lord on earth.
This morning, it's Thanksgiving morning and I battled with what am I going to speak on? Thanks, give me morning. I think I changed topics three times in the past week. So it's been a long haul into the weekend when you finally settle out on what you feel like the Lord wants you to talk about.
So this morning, I want to look at Romans 5 verses 1 to 5. Romans 5 verses 1 to 5. Now, I'm still on my introduction. Before you look at Romans 5, you have to look at the last word in Romans 4.
In Romans 4, verse 25, this is our starting point. It says, he who, speaking of it, says in the previous verse, Jesus, our Lord, he who was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. Actually, I like the way the NIV puts it. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
You see, justification is how you get right with God. Justification means to be declared righteous, not just not guilty, but declared righteous. It's a wonderful thing. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone.
It's not earned, but it's received. And none of us are going to get to the point where we can stand in heaven and say, I did it my way. This is how I got here. I worked hard.
I was good to my neighbor. I read my Bible every day. I gave money to the church. Even that church in Dartmouth that needed carpet.
I gave money to them. I went to prayer meeting. I did all of these things. And you know what?
Not one single person in heaven is ever going to say that. They won't. They're going to point to the one who has five wounds. And they're going to say, he is why I'm here.
What he did for me is why I'm here. Not from what I did, but what he did. So let's picture a courtroom scene for a minute. And Paul kind of sets the book of Romans up as a bit of a courtroom scene.
So Paul brings the whole world into the courtroom. And we're sitting down. And it says, the whole world is guilty before God. And he makes this case.
I forgot that I double-sided my notes. That's kind of tragic when you go from page one to three. That's my morning cardio. My page was missing.
He says it all of sin and falls short of the glory of God. And he makes this case. So now I'm sitting here in this courtroom. The whole world is there.
And then then comes the first witness and it's Moses. And he brings in the law. And he holds up the law and he says, you know, let's focus on one person at a time. Let's focus on David McDonald.
Here's the law. And Moses says, your honor, Mr. McDonald has broken the law. And the way the law is set up, if you offend on one thing, if you lust, if you steal, if you kill, if you have something in place of God, you have broken it all.
The judge looks and he says, is that so? I put my head down, yes. And then Satan comes in and we know who he is. He's the accuser of the brethren.
And he knows all the dirt on me. He knows the bad deeds. He knows the secret thoughts. He knows the times I've obeyed him rather than obeyed God.
And he accuses and accuses. And by the time he's done, I'm absolutely speechless. The judge turns to me and says, are these things so? Yes, your honor, they are.
And then when you think it's all over, my defense attorney arrives. And my defense attorney comes up and approaches the bench and his name is Jesus Christ the Lord. He's my defense attorney. And what's interesting is that he happens to be related to the judge.
He's his son. And he says to the judge, you come up to the bench and he doesn't have to come up with all the decorum and say, your honor, he says, Father, we both know that what he has done is deserving of death, but that penalty's been paid. I present exhibit A, my own blood. The judge takes the gavel, he slaps it down and he says, not guilty.
And I walk out of there, first of all, not just not guilty, but declared righteous. This man is right in my eyes is what the judge says. I suppose if the news media had been there, CNN wouldn't cover it because they're all fixated on Donald Trump. But if the credible news was there, they would say on the headlines of the paper the next day, Cinder Pardon and goes to live with the judge.
That's kind of the way it goes. If you play it out in a courtroom scene, that's what justification is all about. Forgiveness, justification, that's just the beginning. And then what I want to talk about this morning is the benefits to follow, just for them.
It's Thanksgiving. You know, when I go to Dilman Farmacy and Brian fills my prescription, I'm picking on everybody today, but when he fills my prescription and I look at it, I think man, those drugs must be really expensive. And he says, that'll be $3. Oh, awesome.
Why? Because you have a benefits package with your company that covers your medical. When I go to the dentist and sit in the chair and I know that the first pain is just getting there and sitting in the chair, but then they're going to work on me and it's going to be, and she goes, uh-oh. What do you mean, uh-oh?
Well, you have coverage, right? Yes, I have a benefits package at work and it covers me. Oh, good. Because this would have cost you thousands of dollars.
So we're thankful for a benefits package at work, but are you thankful for your benefits package with God? It's Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for the things that God has given me. And so four things I want to look at.
First of all, we have peace with God. We have the privilege of access to God. We have a preview of our future. It's hard to come up with John Deacon's diagot lines and we have a purpose for our pain.
Those are my four points. That's the introduction and I will promise you I'll go quicker. Let's read this passage. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.
And we exalt in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulations, knowing the tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character and proven character hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. The first thing we have, if you read this, therefore having been justified by faith in the past event, we have peace with God.
Now, I don't know about you. I'm so thankful to have peace with God. I am not walking around all day thinking, God is mad at me all the time. I'm at war with him.
Everything I do is just to fight with God. I have a boss that tells me before, and this is recorded, I better not say it. Okay. So, we have peace with God.
It's a fact. It's not a feeling. You don't wake up in the morning and say, I feel I'm at peace with God. In fact, you might not feel that way sometimes.
You may, because you slip into some sin or you may just not fully understand the transaction with God. You might not feel at your peace. But you see, an unsafe person is at enmity with God. When you're not a believer, somebody read the verse this morning, that you're dead in your trespasses and in sins.
You're at enmity with God. You are actually fighting against God. You're a God's enemy. You might say, come on, I'm not.
Well, here's some verses. Isaiah 48, 22 says, there is no peace for the wicked, says the Lord. This is a very difficult verse. This next one.
I came across this when I was a brand new Christian and I thought, wow, this is a really hard thing to get my head around because I know God loves every person because he sent his son to die for everyone. It says in Psalm 7 verse 11, God is a just judge and God is angry with the wicked every day. It doesn't say angry with wickedness. He's angry with the wicked every day.
Those who promote and perform wicked deeds are on the wrong side of God, and he is not pleased with that. Now, I thought, okay, how can I get my head around this? God is loved, but he's angry with the wicked every day. So how can I tell a sinner on the street?
But God loves you. And then by God is angry with you because you're wicked. I had a loved one of my family that was an alcoholic. And you know what?
Many, many days because of the stuff that went on in the family and the abuse and the things that were said and the harm that was put on people, I was angry with that person. I was angry with what they did. Was that wrong? No, of course not.
What they were doing was wrong. It was sinful. It was evil. It was wicked.
And I was angry with them every day. But you know what? I loved that person. I loved that person because I wanted to see them change.
I wanted to see them delivered from their wickedness and turn. So God may be angry with the wicked every day, but he loves that same wicked person and wants him to repent and turn to him so he can lavish that love upon them. It's a hard verse, but when you look at it in that light, it makes sense. Romans 1 verse 18 says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.
It's not just targeted people who run parades downtown or who do terribly wicked things and slander people and scoundrels who steal money against all ungodliness. You see, the wrath of God is coming against all ungodliness. All. We like to take these big sins and say, oh man, look at this one.
Man, God must be really, really mad at them. But you know what? Call it a big sin. Call it a little sin.
It's all sin to him. And it really turns the wrath of God on those who do not repent and turn from those sins. You see the great enemy of peace. We have peace with God, but the great enemy of peace.
It's not the liberals. It's not the conservatives. It's not the NDP or the Green Party. It's not Donald Trump.
It's not the pure Trudeau. It's not the Democrats. It's not the Republicans. The enemy of peace is sin.
Sin is what divides man from God. Sin is what puts that shiz in between God and man and there is no peace between God and man. There needs to be peace made between God and man. And the only way to do it is to deal with the issue of sin.
Not to deal with the issue of politics, but to deal with the issue of sin. Then we have peace with God. You see, here's another delusion that people have. I don't know what you're talking about.
I feel at peace. I'm okay. What do you mean? I'm an enemy of God.
I don't feel like that. I'm at peace. You know, to say that is kind of like sipping champagne on the deck of the Titanic. My chips going down.
You can sip all the champagne you want and say, hey, I don't care. I'm a float. Everything seems good. It is going down.
This world is going down. Sinners will be judged. We spoke on that a while back. The surety of the judgment of God.
So to say that, hey, I don't need peace with God. I have it already. I feel like I'm good. Why are you good?
Have you dealt with your sin, the sin issue between you and God? If you haven't, there is no peace. But the believer is a peace. And as I said, might not feel at peace because of sin in our life or because of lack of teaching.
But peace is made possible through the cross of Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 53 verse 5, it says, he was wounded for our transgressions, speaking prophetically of Christ. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement or the punishment for our peace was upon him.
And by his stripes, we are healed. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. So once we have peace with God as believers, we should then experience the peace of God in our lives. So all the turmoil in our lives, we can face it with peace of God because we have peace with God.
Sorry I'm dry. My wife sent out this little picture of a little snuggly thing for guarantee to keep babies asleep. And everybody is looking at it on this Facebook messenger thing. Everyone is going back and forth and back and forth saying, this is awesome and great.
I look like a guitar case really for a baby. But it was pretty cool. And I said, you don't need that to guarantee your babies asleep. Just bring the church when I'm preaching.
They all sleep. I get to look out on them. They're sleeping all the time. So we have peace with God.
The second thing is once we are believers, we should experience the peace of God. And a good verse for that is in Philippians chapter 4 verses 6-7. Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. That's a wonderful verse.
I'm clinging to that right now. I'm going through some real turmoil at work. I really am. I've told some of you about it and it's real turmoil.
But I look at it and think I have to be anxious for nothing. Really. I have to just let that go. Let my request be made known to God.
Tell people of prayer me. Have others people pray for me. Pray myself. And it says, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.
I don't understand why I'm not like out of my mind anxious right now. I don't. I'm not. I do wake up at 4 o'clock in peace with my eyes.
But you know, I'm not running on high anxiety. Why? Because if I commit these things to the Lord, what is the Lord doing here? Let's let him do his work.
Then I have peace. The peace of God. And if surpasses all understanding, I don't even understand it myself. My some days I can go to work.
It's like a train wreck. I can get the card to home and say, hmm, what's for supper? Oh, I didn't cook it yet. Peace with God should generate peace of God.
But first is the first one is a fact. The second one is a feeling. The peace of God is judicial. The peace with God is judicial.
The peace of God is experiential. Everybody says they want peace, but not everybody wants the way to find peace. We hear a lot of people say, you know, what we need to give peace a chance. We need peace in this world.
So on and so on. You hear that all the time on the street. How is this going to bring peace? We need to stop all the traffic on the bridge so that we don't go extinct because of the lack of peace in our world.
I'm sorry. But there's only one way to peace. It's repent of your sin. Surrender to Jesus Christ.
Turn your life over to him. Be justified. And then you will have peace with God. The second thing we have is, and we'll sing a song after, is the privilege of access.
In verse 2 it says, through whom we have also, or we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. The word access is kind of used as I have the privilege of going into perhaps the presence of a king and I bring somebody with me. They're properly clothed and ready to go and they're good to go and come in. So the other side of the page.
So we ourselves were pretty poorly dressed to stand before the king of the universe. I'm standing there in my filth and my sin and my misery and so on. But you see Jesus Christ, when I come to him, when I trust him, he clothes me in his righteousness. I now have the proper attire to come into the presence of God.
He clothes us with his righteousness. You can look in John 14 verse 16, but we all know this verse that says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father or really has access to the Father but through me. He is our access to God.
If we want to go and be in the presence of God, it's through Jesus Christ. Now, the idea of access to God is to, for Paul to write this, it's quite a revolutionary thing. You see the Greeks and the Romans and the pagans, they didn't want access to their gods. I don't want to go near Zeus or whoever it might be.
They don't want to go near their gods. Their gods are angry. Their gods need to be appeased. It's interesting you'll find altars all over the place, ancient altars, where people would offer sacrifices to appease the God of that volcano or the God of this or the God of that.
They were scared to death of their gods. Now, the Jews, it was a little bit different, but not much better. You see, it came to the temple where the tabernacle at the time, and there were different courts. If you were a Gentile, you got to come into here, but a long way from the presence of God.
If you were a woman, you got to come into here, quite a distance from the presence of God. If you were a Jewish man, you got to come into here. Still, the presence of God is over there. If you were a priest, you got to go up here, but the presence of God is still over there.
If you were a high priest, once a year, you could go into the presence of God. But just in case you messed up and did something wrong or your thoughts weren't right or something was not quite right with you, tradition says that they tie a rope around your ankle and you had bells on the bottom. When you were in there working around doing stuff for God, everybody can hear ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I haven't heard those bells in about five minutes.
Boy, boy, are you in there? Uh-oh. Pull the rope and they haul him out dead because obviously his heart was not right with God. So that's what the Jewish people had for access to God.
So for Paul to say, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, is a revolutionary thing. You and I can come to God to his presence. Why? Because the cross changed everything.
When Jesus died and breathed his last on the cross, there was a big veil that separated high priest moist. We'll just stay with the same guy from everybody else. This big curtain. It was a thick, heavy curtain.
And it got torn. The moment that Jesus breathed his last and died, that curtain was torn. Not somebody coming along with ropes and pulling the thing apart. It was a miraculous tear and get tore from the top to the bottom.
Now who could tear it from the top? There's no men up there. There's no people up there. God ripped that curtain open and said, come in.
You can be justified. I have made a way for you to have access to me. It's amazing. Are you not thankful for that?
Just say amen or something. You see, Ephesians 2 verse 13 says, we have been brought near by the blood of the cross. Lamentations 3, 22, this was the most verse for last week, I believe, wasn't it? It says, through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed because of his compassion.
Because his compassion is failed not. They are new every morning. Great is life faithfulness. We have access to the Lord.
We will not be consumed. We are His children. We have this wonderful access. They are new every morning.
I need that. Because I use them up in the course of a day. I need new mercies the next morning. I need more mercies than coffee every morning when I get up.
But they are new every morning. Every day I can start my day off of new mercies from the Lord. Hebrews 4 verse 16, tell us how we come to God. It says, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace in time of need.
Let us come boldly to Him. I think I know what song we are going to sing a little later on. We are a child of the king. And even when you fall and enter into the throne room, you can come boldly before God.
We can come in no matter how we look, what we've been through, because we have peace with God. And now we have access to God. He has bought us of the slave market. We are His.
We are His sons and we are His daughters. Is there ever a time my child can't come into my presence to talk to me? Not usually. I wouldn't think.
They are my child. Even if I am on a conference call or something at home at the time, I can put it on mute and they can come in and tell me the emergency that Sam took the dinky away from me. But it's just like that we are children. We can come to God when we want to.
When we please no matter. My kids have come to me bloody. They have come to me dirty. They have come to me with dirty diapers and all of that stuff.
We don't reject them. God does not reject you when you come to Him filthy. He accepts you. He takes you.
You have access. You can come and be forgiven and cleaned up. I know our time is really going along here. But in the last part of this verse, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Our hope is founded in the glory of God. You know what? If there is no hope of heaven, then we are wasting our time. If there is no hope of something more than this life of getting up, going to work, coming home, ending our day, getting up the next day, going to work, and then wishing for five days that the two days that we don't have to work comes.
That's a cycle of life. That's a cruel joke if that's the way all of life goes and there's nothing beyond that. We have hope because it's founded in the glory of God. In heaven we will see full on the glory of God.
Moses is the greatest desire in the Old Testament. He saw miracles. He saw the sea split. He talked to God in a burning bush.
He saw all of these things. And then he says to God, yeah, but I know. But show me your glory. Show me your glory.
I want to see the glory of God. You know, God says, yeah, okay. You can't look on it because you won't live. So I'll put you in a place in the rock.
I'll put my hand over and I'll pass by and I'll take the hand away and you can see my back parts. But boy, it's going to be like it's going to be something. But you know what? I will stand in heaven and I will fall right into the face of the glory of God.
And I won't be smitten or stricken or anything else. I'll just be in awe forever. Isn't that great? Isn't that great?
Thank you. I was hoping it was great. It says in 1 John 3 verse 2, Beloved, we are now the children of God and it has not yet been revealed to us what we shall be. But we know that when he is revealed, we should be like him for we shall see him as he is.
You know, that little word of the hope of the glory of God. I like the way JB Phillips puts it. Happy certainty. See, sometimes hope is like, oh boy, I hope I win the lottery.
Oh boy, I hope, you know, this happens or I hope that doesn't happen. And it's just kind of wishful thinking. But this is a happy certainty. I like the way Phillips puts that.
Two reasons why we have hope. First of all, in John 17 verses 20 to 24 and our time won't allow us to go there. Jesus prayed. He prayed that we would be with him and with the Father.
That's a wonderful prayer. Read it. Read it. Read it.
It'll really lift your heart if you read John 17 because then you know what Jesus' heart is towards you. The second thing is his resurrection. You see, when Jesus died and all the disciples were walking with him for those three years and Jesus died and they looked and said, Our hope is gone. If you read back, and I didn't notice this until I started looking into this, but if you read in the last chapter of Luke where the two were on the Emmaus road and they're walking along with Jesus and I never noticed this word before.
But they say, we hope to that he really, but they've given up that hope. They think he's gone. Our hope is dead. Here was our hope.
It was all in this one person in Jesus Christ and he's dead. He's gone. And what did they say when they realized who was in their presence? Didn't our hearts burn within us?
Our hope is alive. Thank you. Our hope is alive. We have a living hope.
And because Jesus is alive, I know I have a guarantee of heaven. And every promise that he makes because he's alive is validated and it's true. The moment he rose from the dead, hope went ballistic. It really did.
I am the resurrection of the life. That's true. We know that's true. He rose himself from the dead.
I am the way, the truth, and the life. We know that's true. We know that's true because he is alive. He is the way.
We've seen the change in lives. We've seen it in our own lives. He who hears my words and believes on him, my word and believe on him who set me has eternal life. You will see me because I live.
You will live also. Those are wonderful, wonderful promises of God. But they're all tied to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Final point is there's a purpose in our pain.
In the past we have had peace with God. In our present we have access to God. In the future we have the glory of God. But what about the tough times we're going through right now?
I know some of you are going through tough times. Some of you haven't told anybody about the tough times, but you are going through them. I'm going through tough times on my own scale of things. We are all having struggles.
They could be physical pain. They could be emotional pain. They could be mental pain. They could be relationship pains.
They could be any of those things. They could be job pains. We're in a problem in terms of our permeability. We need to pray for work mercies.
Now we pray for work mercies, marriage mercies, journey mercies, all of these things. We need those mercies that are new every morning. Every one of us, every day. I mean husbands and wives.
Oh, happy anniversary, Mary Nick. First anniversary by the way today. But I hate to say it, but husbands and wives, spite sometimes. Husbands and wives sometimes don't get along.
They always get along. And there's pain in that until it's reconciled. Sometimes bosses and employees don't get along. Sometimes neighbors don't get along.
Sometimes you go to the doctor and you get a diagnosis and there's something wrong and you're in pain and you're traumatized by this. Now, here's the thing. It says here in these verses, not only do we also, I took us from the end idea, I like that rendering, not only do we also rejoice in our sufferings. Rejoice in our sufferings.
Are you kidding me? Because why? Because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope. We're back to that word hope.
And hope does not disappoint. We know hope is assured a certainty, right? Because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us. Isn't it funny how we've gone from suffering to now the love of God poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit?
It's a great little ladder that he's made here. In John chapter 16 verse 33, part of the verse, I had to open my Bible up this morning and said, I gotta have a look at this. I like to highlight my Bible. I heard somebody say one time, if you don't mark your Bible, you're not cool.
So I like to mark up my Bible. So it's good to mark up your Bible and put notes in it, highlight it, underline it and so on. And it says in John 1633, in the world you will have tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world.
I gotta look this up. Have I marked this? It says in the world you will have tribulation. No highlight.
Take courage. I have overcome the world. Highlight it. So just so you know, the preacher struggles with this too.
Who wants to have tribulation? Who wants to have trouble? Nobody. The honest answer is nobody.
But God allows trouble and trials and hardship in our life to make us better. Not better, but better. Better for him. Romans chapter 8 verse 28.
A couple of weeks ago I spoke and I said that I think it was ouratory, he said this is a soft pillow for a tired heart. And we know that God causes all things. All things. To work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
The English word for tribulation comes from a Latin word, tribulum. And here's what the tribulum is. The suspense is killing you. Okay, it's a board.
And it's got pieces of stone or bone or flint or metal in it. And it's pulled, this is an ancient Roman sledge. And it's still used today in many parts of the world. And they still use it today.
And it's a heavy board with many teeth of stone or iron or whatever. And it's scraped across the field. And it separates the kernel, the good stuff, from the chaff, the stuff you're going to burn up. So it takes all the good goodness out of the plants and sets aside all the bad stuff.
And from that we get our word tribulation. So when you're run over by tribulation, it might feel like that bony stony thing is going over you, running up and down your back. But it is separating out the good and the bad in your life. We got to be really careful what we call bad.
We got to be really careful what we say about why he's not doing this. Remember back in two weeks, I guess it was, we spoke of Joseph. Was there bad things happened to Joseph? Yeah, just a little.
Young boy, his brothers hated him. Teenager, they sold him. The people at the bottom sold him again. He goes in, he's falsely accused in Egypt.
He's thrown in prison and he's forgotten. Bad things? Yeah, really bad things. But what did he say to his brothers who started this whole thing of hardship for his life?
As for you, you met it evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result. What's the present result? I underlined it. To preserve many people alive.
You know if they had not sold Joseph, that an entire nation would have been wiped out by a famine? The people would have been wiped out by a famine. They would have all died. But because Joseph was sold, he would down into Egypt.
He had access now and he brought his family down. And out of that, the nation of Israel multiplied and went out. All those hardships were to save his family and to save the nation. Be careful what we say is evil and what we say is good in our life.
Some of the things that are in our life we might look at and say, oh, this is bad. You know what, it may be the work of God. I don't mean he sends bad things on you to smack you around. But he may allow difficult things to happen in your life to make you better.
It's important we don't get bitter, but we get better. So in the end, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Being justified by faith, we have access to God. Being justified by faith, we have hope to be with God.
And glory and being justified by faith, we have purpose in our trials until we get to heaven. Those are four things to be thankful for. Those are the believer's benefits. Back to the headline.
Sinner pardoned. Goes to live with judge. Are you thankful for your justification? Are you thankful for all that has gone with that?
At 22 years old, I came to Christ as my only hope to have my sins forgiven and to have my life make sense. I haven't regretted that since. It's been quite an adventure. And every time I learn more of the benefits and I learn more of what I have in him, it makes the adventure better.
If we really think about what God has done for us and give him thanks, we will find joy in our lives no matter where we are. Father, thank you this morning for your wonderful justification through the Lord Jesus Christ. We read that he was delivered over to death for our sins. Thank you, Lord.
And he was raised to life for our justification. Thank you, Lord. That makes sense of all of our life if we just ponder those thoughts. And with that you have given us so much.
We don't deserve to have access to the presence of God, but you have given us access. Not just access, but we can come boldly into your presence. Not only that, Father, you promise us a day when we can look for eternity on the glory of God. What a wonderful promise.
And Lord, in the pains of life right now, you can use those hard and difficult things to make us better, to grow us. To reach our lives, to pour your love out and demonstrate that you are real to us and to those around us. Help us, Lord. For the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ and for those who live with us, to appropriate these things into our lives.
We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. I know you probably have turkeys and stuff.