Introduction: Sometimes I hear Christians say: Don't talk about doctrine all the time. I'm interested in practical things. But the themes of daily Christian living are firmly founded on essential Christian doctrines. If we don't understand the doctrines, we also will not understand peace, joy, and love, as we can experience them in our lives.

Salvation is a broad general topic in the Bible. We often think of it in the past tense only: "I got saved when I was five years old." But the Bible speaks of salvation as a past event, a present process, and future completion.

Salvation as already achieved:

"When the kindness of God our Saviour, and his love towards man, appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:4-7).

Ro 8:23-24 We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

Salvation as an on-going process:

"To us who are being saved, (the word of the cross) is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18). The original text of this passage in Greek has present-tense (being saved), not perfect-tense (having been saved) or past-tense (aorist-tense) (saved);

Salvation as yet to be obtained:

"Since, therefore, we are now justified by (Christ's) blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:9).

The doctrine of salvation is called "Soteriology," and it covers a lot of territory.

There are six facts about salvation that I would like to illuminate in today's passage from Romans.

I. Because we have been saved, we have peace with God.

Romans 5:1 "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

This is not inner peace (the peace OF God), but peace as opposed to war.

The ordinary person in the world probably never thinks of himself as existing in a condition of war with God, but that is his condition. He is not in a condition of peace. He and God are not on speaking terms. He is a rebel against his rightful King. He disobeys the Laws of God, and he does not hesitate to fight against God's people and God's Kingdom, if he believes that will help him attain his personal goals of lust, money and power.

The Christian on the other hand is at peace with God. We are at peace with Him because we have surrendered. We have quit fight Him. We have acknowledged our rebellion and our sins. We have asked for forgiveness. We bow the knee to God's only Son, our King, the Lord Jesus Christ. God demanded unconditional surrender from us, and that's what we have given Him. He is our Lord. We are his bond-servants.

II. Because we have been saved, we have access to God and His grace.

Romans 5:2 "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."

Access means entrance. It means availability. It means that God receives us willingly into His presence. Before we received Jesus as our Savior, we had no access to God. The prayers of those who are not Christians are meaningless. People around the world are busy praying, but they are praying to false gods. They are praying to idols. They are not praying in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their prayers rise no higher than the ceiling.

Sometimes our USA government sponsors huge ecumenical worship services at Washington's National Cathedral, and invites ministers of many religions to lead us in prayer. Such worship services are meaningless, and they are an insult to the one true God; because there is only one God, and there is only one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.

Ezekiel 8:4-18 are God's words to our ecumenical worship services...

• 4 And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain.
• 5 Then he said to me, "Son of man, look towards the north." So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of jealousy.
• 6 And he said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the house of Israel is doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable."
• 7 ¶ Then he brought me to the entrance to the court. I looked, and I saw a hole in the wall.
• 8 He said to me, "Son of man, now dig into the wall." So I dug into the wall and saw a doorway there.
• 9 And he said to me, "Go in and see the wicked and detestable things they are doing here."
• 10 So I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and detestable animals and all the idols of the house of Israel.
• 11 In front of them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan was standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising.
• 12 He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’"
• 13 ¶ Again, he said, "You will see them doing things that are even more detestable."
• 14 Then he brought me to the entrance to the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning for Tammuz.
• 15 He said to me, "Do you see this, son of man? You will see things that are even more detestable than this."
• 16 He then brought me into the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men. With their backs towards the temple of the LORD and their faces towards the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east.
• 17 He said to me, "Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the house of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually provoke me to anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose!
• 18 Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them."

You and I have access to God, only through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4:14-16 says...

• 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
• 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.
• 16 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.

III. Because we have been saved, and because we are being saved (sanctification), we have joy because of our hope; even in times of suffering.

Romans 5:3-5 "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

The Christian life should be a life of joy. If you are not living joyfully, the probable reason is that you are not HOPEFUL.

• Hope is a faith-based unshakeable conviction that your future is bright, because you believe in the wisdom and goodness of God.
• Hope means we live in the future, not in the past, or even in the present.
• Hope means we are daily looking forward to seeing Jesus and Heaven.
• Hope means we are daily expecting our lives to get better.
• Hope means we are firmly confident that there are solutions to all our problems.
• Hope means that we can even embrace our sufferings, because we confidently believe that God has a good result in mind.

Paul writes more about HOPE in the latter chapters of Romans...

• Ro 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
• Ro 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
• Ro 15:12 And again, Isaiah says, "The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him."
• Ro 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hope is the Key! If you don't have hope, why not? Ask God to give you stronger Faith, and the ability to look to the future with confident hope!

IV. Because we have been saved, and because we are being saved, we have love and the Spirit of God in our hearts.

Even as hope is the spring from which joy flows, even so love is the result of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5)...

"God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He is the gift of God. He IS God, and He lives inside of YOU.

• Ro 8:9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
• Ro 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
• 1Co 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.
• 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
• 23 gentleness and self-control.

Christians ask: "But how can I live a Christian life? How can I resist temptation? How can I become like Jesus? How can I possibly measure up?" Well, you can't. Not in your own strength. But the Holy Spirit lives in you, and He will produce fruit in your life. He will convict you of sin. He will inspire you to live for Jesus. He will give you hope, and He will give you love. So, open up your heart and life to Him. Don't resist Him. Don't quench Him.

V. Because we have been saved, we need not fear the wrath of God.

Romans 5:6-9 "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!"

Here is the central difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. The Christian admits that he is a rebellious lost sinner and that he needs to be saved from the wrath of a righteous God.

The non-Christian will not admit that he is a lost sinner, and that he cannot save himself. He believes that he can please God in the flesh, under his own steam. Or that God doesn't care, and that he has no wrath to worry about.

• Those who read and understand and believe the Bible know that God's wrath is real.
• Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden because of God's wrath.
• The world's population in Noah's time was destroyed in the flood because of God's wrath.
• The people who built the tower of Bable were confused and scattered because of God's wrath.
• Sodom and Gomorrah were cast down and destroyed because of God's wrath.
• Israel's Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians because of God's wrath.
• Israel's Southern Kingdom was conquered by the Babylonians because of God's wrath.

VI. Because we have been saved, we have been reconciled (Romans 5:10-11).

• 10 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!
• 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

The word "reconciliation" refers to the process of changing something thoroughly and adjusting it to something else that is a standard.

For example, when you re-set your watch to a clock that is correct, you are reconciling the watch to a time standard. Or when you reconcile your checkbook, the standard to which you match it is the bank's record of your account. On rare occasions the bank must reconcile its accounts to yours. In salvation, it is always us who must change, not God. We must be adjusted to fit his standard.

In the Bible, reconciliation is the word used to refer to the process by which God changes human beings and adjusts them to the standard of His perfect character. He does this by creating in each believe a new spirit, created in righteousness.

The Greek word used here is the noun katallagei. This word is also used in Rom. 5:10-11. God is the One who does the reconciling. Man is not active in reconciliation and provides nothing toward reconciliation. The Bible does not command us to change our own hearts. It does not command us to save ourselves. Salvation, and reconciliation is God's work in us. God reconciles us to Himself, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice that God is never said to be reconciled to man. God is immutable, so He does not change. Reconciliation is only possible in one direction. What sometimes seems to be a change in God is actually an unchanged attitude of God viewing a reconciled man. God, having how accepted Christ's work, is able to continue to be just toward man. He can now offer salvation.

The believer, in turn, has the responsibility of becoming a minister of reconciliation (2 Co 5:17-21).

• 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
• 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
• 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
• 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
• 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Conclusion: And so we have here six facts about salvation.

• 1. Because we have been saved, we are at peace with God.
• 2. Because we have been saved, we have access to God.
• 3. Because we have been saved, we have joy, rooted in hope.
• 4. Because we are being saved, we have love and God's Spirit indwelling us.
• 5. Because we have been saved, we need not fear the wrath of God.
• 6. Because we have been, and are being saved, we have been reconciled to God.

Now, let's do as Paul said, and persuade others "be ye reconciled to God!"