The Triumph of Grace Over Sin

, well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter. 5 for our time of study and God's word this morning. We are doing a study through the book through Romans chapter 5, and And just letting the Lord lead as we go, but we've studied up through verse 19, so today we'll look at verse 20 and 21, and if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be. The triumph of grace over sin, the triumph of grace over sin.

Normally we think of the cosmic battle that rages as a battle between good and evil. But Romans 5 actually alerts us to the fact that there's another way of describing that battle, and that is that it's a battle between grace and evil. a battle between God's grace, and the evil or the sin of, of man. And, and I, I believe actually, what we're gonna, gain from verses 20 and 21 this morning is just a head start, In terms of understanding the role that grace will play in our lives and helping us in our, our daily battle with sin, both sin within ourselves and outside of ourselves in the lives of other people, let me just ask for a raise of hands.

How many of you can use a little bit of help in your battle with sin? OK. most of you, those of you that didn't raise your hand, either you're not battling sin, or you are and you're wildly successful. but there will be help in, in this passage, for us.

I was surprised at, at what was in these verses that was of immense help. what's interesting is as you, as you look through Romans 5, it's been a very bright, A chapter full of delicious truths about our salvation and our justification, but there's actually, and I don't know if you've ever thought of Romans 5 this way before, there's a lot of darkness in this chapter also. There's just this undercurrent of evil and darkness that runs through the length of Romans chapter 5, and at the Risk of being overly excessively redundant or whatever.

I did an exercise this week and I went through Romans 5, and all the times where I saw a word that conveyed sin or judgment, condemnation or whatever, I just typed that out in a list and so beginning at the beginning of Romans 5 all the way to the end, here's all the words that That I came across in Romans 5 from in the order in which they appear helpless sinners, ungodly enemies, sin, death, death, sin, sin, sin, death, sinned, transgression, transgression, died, sin, judgment, transgression, condemnation, transgressions, transgression, death, transgression, condemnation, disobedience, sinners, transgression, sin, sin, death.

Wow, a lot of darkness and a lot of mess that we find in, in Romans chapter 5. And it's interesting you, you line all of that mess up on one side. what is it that Paul brings in? and places in the other corner of the ring to do battle against all that darkness.

what it is? It's grace. Grace is the combatant that Paul identifies in the other corner of the ring. And actually in Romans 5, we get to watch grace.

A do battle with this darkness and sin. There's 6 times that we see the Greek word for grace. It's charis, and we see that word showing up 6 times in Romans 5. And then there's 2 times where a word that comes from charis is used, and that's charisma.

It's the same root and it means gracious gift. So in verse 2, we have the word grace, verse 15, we have gracious gift, grace and grace, verse 16, gracious gift, verse 17, grace, verse 20, grace, and verse 21, we have the word grace again. So it's grace against sin that we find in Romans chapter 5. And guess who wins?

Grace wins. In fact, we're privileged to have a ringside seat in verses 1516, and 17 to watch three rounds of a battle, as it were, between grace and sin, and grace wins every round. Look at this in verse 15. We see the word grace three times.

He says, But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died. So Adam sinned, we all sinned in Adam, death passed to all men, that's a major problem. But look at this, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ abound to the many.

So grace overwhelms and Essentially reverses this verdict of death. Round 2, verse 16, we see that the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation. So Adam sinned, we all sin in Adam, condemnation comes upon all men as a result of that.

But on the other hand, the gracious gift, the charisma. Arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. So we get this verdict of righteousness and forgiveness delivered by God that reverses the verdict of condemnation that is very ancient and deeply embedded in the human condition going all the way back to Adam. So grace wins again.

Round 3, verse 17. For if by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of the justification will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. So Paul is juxtaposing, sin and condemnation, judgment against grace, and they go at it and grace triumphs every time. And as we watch this, we are, we're privileged to be able to observe this happening, but here we are in the trenches of day to day living.

We're slugging it out and doing battle with sin, and sometimes we're successful, sometimes we're not. I bet all of us in this room wish that we were more successful and victorious than we actually are, and we get to watch with pleasure as grace triumphs at every turn over sin. And our thought needs to be like, wow, I'm battling with sin every day. I would like to employ grace.

To help me in my battle with sin. And it turns out that grace is a powerful combatant. And in our lives, a lot of times we, we're tempted and it's like, will I choose evil or will I choose good? What we need to be thinking after Romans 5 is, will I choose sin or will I choose grace?

That's what the choice ultimately is. With the time we have, I want to share with you guys 5 thoughts that will help. You to allow God's grace to triumph over sin in your life, to bring the grace of God. We all have God's grace in our lives if we are believers in Jesus, but a lot of us are not employing grace as a tool in our sanctification.

And in our dealing with sin in ourselves and in others, so 5 thoughts from verses 20 and 21 that will help us to allow God's grace to play a more active role in triumphing over sin. In our life. And the first of these thoughts is actually just embodied in the definition itself. go ahead and write this down.

I want to spend just a little bit of time on this. That grace, by its very definition is ill-deserved kindness. And as such, it's actually hard to receive. Grace, by its very definition is ill-deserved kindness.

And being such, it's actually a difficult thing to receive. When I say ill deserved, that, that the salvation, for example, that God gives to us is not only a kindness, And it's not only a kindness that we failed to earn, but it's a kindness that is the opposite of what we actually have earned. So it is an ill-deserved kindness, and as such, it is hard to receive. Grace is the decision of God to think of us as forgiven and righteous, and all the ill-deserved favors that God lavishes upon us as a result of that verdict.

of justification that he has given to us. You need to understand, and most of us in this room know this, that salvation through Christ is sheer 100% grace, completely undeserved. We don't, we don't even deserve 1% of it. We have earned eternal judgment in the lake of fire.

God in response, withholds that from us and gives us a salvation. And as he hands us this salvation, when we believe in Jesus, he says, this is totally a grace. This is an undeserved favor, and you cannot contribute to earning this in any way, shape, or form. If you're going to receive this salvation, you must receive it as a pure 100% grace from me.

You must receive it as something you don't deserve or you cannot receive it at all. You realize how hard that is. Most of us, in this room have known the Lord for long enough to where this comes naturally to us. but you need to realize this is so hard for men and women to do in our natural state of pride and arrogance.

that it takes the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. It takes a miracle from God, just to bring us to a place where we're willing to accept salvation as a total grace. It's hard to receive a grace that is ill deserved. I've never shared this with you guys before, because it reveals the darker side of Of, of me, but when I was in high school, I shared a bedroom with my younger brother, and Long story short, there was a, a season of a few, of several months where I got angry with my younger brother.

He had done nothing wrong, but it was just pure sin on my part of, of bitterness, anger, envy, jealousy, through no wrongdoing on his part, I allowed those sins to get a hold of my heart, and I went several months without hardly saying a word to my brother. And it, it hurt my younger brother, and at times he would talk to my mom about it and my mom would get the two of us together and say, Milton, what is going on? and try to get me to open up, but I was a guy, I didn't know how to share my feelings.

I didn't even know fully what, what, what I was thinking at the time and what was controlling me, but it was pure unadulterated sin.

And I knew I was wronging my younger brother, but I didn't know at that point how to get past that. But one of the things he did, with some regularity that just got under my skin during this season, is I would come upstairs after like taking a shower in the morning to get ready for school. I'd come upstairs, come into our bedroom, and he had made my bed. He did that, often, and I would walk in the room and being in a sinful place, I just, it would infuriate me, and I would want to just, just grab the sheets and just mess them all up.

I never did, but I just, I'm telling you to receive that kindness from a person that I knew I was wronging was extremely difficult. In fact, it was impossible. And I knew that to actually receive that from my brother and to let that in, I knew that it would, it would ruin the sin and the hatred or the anger and all the sins that were reigning in my heart at that particular point. It's hard to receive an ill-deserved kindness from somebody that you have sinned against when you don't deserve it.

In fact, it's the opposite. Of what you have deserved and it is all the more true with God. I love what John Stott says. He says, we and our natural human condition, we cannot stand the humiliation of acknowledging our bankruptcy and allowing someone else to pay for us.

We all know how hard that is, even on the human level. The notion that this somebody else should be God Himself is just too much to take. We in our natural state would rather perish than repent. We would rather lose ourselves than humble ourselves.

And there's a lot of people that are on the long road. the broad road to hell for no other reason that they, they don't want charity from God. They don't want a salvation that they cannot contribute anything to. But to receive this grace, it's actually devastating.

God's grace is devastating to our pride and to our arrogance, and God designed his grace that way. Rebecca Manly Pippert says this and hope has its reasons, God's grace is devastating. For its undeserved kindness exposes our stiff-necked pride and pigheaded obstinacy. And it really does.

And it takes a miracle for us to receive this grace that God gives to us, this God whom we have sinned against and we have wronged, and we deserve judgment from Him. He gives to us lavish grace, and that's, that's hard to take, and we need a miracle from the Holy Spirit to receive that Timothy Keller was talking with a woman in his church after he had preached a message on the gospel, and he was explaining how, we're saved by grace. We can't contribute anything to our salvation.

And it's all of sheer grace, and this woman came up and was talking to him afterwards and she said, what, I grew up always being taught that I could be good enough to get into heaven.

I could be good enough to win God's favor. That's the religion basically that I've lived by all of my life, but I'm seeing now that salvation is all of grace. And she then said, and that scares me. That's scary to me.

And Timothy Keller said, Well, why, why is that grace scary to you? Listen to her answer to him. She says if I was saved by my good works, then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights.

I would have done my duty and now I could, would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by sheer grace, then there's nothing God cannot ask of me. You see, guys, that's, she's rightly understanding grace. That's the transaction that occurs, which is exactly why God has designed the gospel in such a way that we can contribute nothing to it.

It is pure 100% grace coming from this God whom we have sinned against and from whom we deserve judgment. And only those in whom the spirit has generated humility and brokenness and a poverty of spirit are willing to actually receive this salvation as a pure, unadulterated grace from God. That's the first thing I think we can. observe just by way of looking at the definition of grace itself.

There's a second thought to observe here in verse 20, and that is, and this is a thought that will help you in terms of knowing the role that sin is to play or that grace is to play in your life. And that is that the law came in in order to magnify our need for grace. All right, salvation is all of a grace. We can't earn it.

You can't receive this salvation from God unless you're willing to receive it as a pure 100% grace. God in His kindness actually gave us His law with the intention that His law would expose before our eyes the magnitude of our sin and thus our need for His grace. Look what Paul says in verse 20. He says the law came in, in other words, into the world so that the transgression would increase.

Notice the so that there in the new American standard. The law came so that, in other words, with this purpose that the transgression would increase. That's an amazing theological statement there, is it not? That God would actually give His law so that transgression would increase.

no government body ever writes laws and their, their attitude is, what, let's write some laws just so transgressions will increase in our society. No one does that. Anyone that writes laws, they're writing laws in order to make behavior better, right? But there's different ways of looking at God's intention and giving us His law, but one of the angles is that God actually gave His law, sent it into the world, as it were, so that transgression or sin would increase.

Now what does Paul mean by that statement? Well, there's two ideas here. First of all, God gave His law in order to expose sin for the big ugly thing that it is. All right, sin is big, sin is ugly, and he gave us his law so that we would begin to see it as the big ugly thing that it is.

In fact, Paul actually speaks of this effect of the law in chapter 7, verse 7, and following. He says, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, You shall not covet. So I'm living my life and I'm coveting all over the place, but I don't really, I'm not consciously thinking that that's a sin necessarily. But now there's a command from the law of God.

I understand that command, and now I start noticing, my goodness, I'm actually coveting in everything I do. And suddenly now Paul is seeing his sin as a big deal that's happening all the time in a way he would have never seen it if it weren't for the law giving. That command. Does that make sense?

Well, there's a second way that the law actually increases the transgression. And that is that the law, it doesn't just expose sin for the ugly thing that it is inside of us, but the law actually has an aggravating effect upon the sin that is within us, that actually causes us to act out in sin, worse than we would have if The law had never existed in the first place, but it's not that suddenly worse sin, is that we're sinning worse than we would have if the law was not there.

No, it's all a manifestation of what was within. It's like the law's purpose is to aggravate the sin, as it were, and arouse it to awaken it to where it comes out of us, and we can see how big and ugly the sin, even within us, really is.

Some of the sin which would have never come out of us if it were not for the law. Paul actually says this in verse 8 of Romans 7, he says, but sin taking opportunity through the commandment produced in me coveting of every kind, for apart from the law sin is dead. But when the commandment came, sin became alive. It was awakened.

It was aroused, and through the commandments sin became utterly sinful. There's nothing wrong with the law. The law is pure, holy, and good, but when God sets His law in front of sinful man, it's as if the sin inside of mankind sits up and stiffens its neck and becomes belligerent almost and defiant, and it's the law that awakens and aggravates that to where sin begins to manifest itself in ways that it would not have. Otherwise, do you understand that also?

we see this all the time, especially in younger children. Hypothetically, if I were in the nursery building this morning, and there were 10, let's say 3 to 4 year olds that I was in there with, and let's say in the corner of the room there was a box of candy and it was all covered, the lid was on it, no one knows what's in it, and there's a lot of other stuff in that building to play with, and I am sure that the kids would. In all likelihood, leave that box alone, never even knowing to go look into it.

And if I were theoretically to get those kids together and say, kids, I'm going to, I'm going to leave this building for the next 3 minutes.

I'm going to leave you alone for the next 3 minutes, which, by the way, would be a violation of our child protection policy. But let's, let's imagine that I did that. I would probably come back 3 minutes later and in all likelihood, no one's touched the box. But If I gathered the kids together and said, Kid, I'm going to be leaving.

I'm going to be gone for the next 3 minutes. But I want to give you one command before I leave. They're like, well, what's the command? Here's the command.

You see that box in the corner over there? Don't touch that box. Don't open that box. Don't go near that box, whatever you do during the 3 minutes that I am gone.

Do you understand me? Yes, we understand. What do you think's going to happen? In all likelihood, there will be a violation, there will be a sudden interest in that box in the corner that the kids would have never had before.

and that's so intuitive to our fallen condition that when a command is given, a prohibition is given, it has an awakening, exciting effect upon the sin that is within us. It aggravates that sin and arouses that sin, and things come out of us that would not have otherwise come out of us. God in His grace has provided us His law. His 10 Commandments, for example, in order to help us to see we've got a sin problem, and it's a big problem, and to even aggravate that problem to where the sin that is within us begins to manifest itself in a way that we can now look at and go, what, I need help.

In fact, Paul says at the end of Romans 7. wretched man that I am, who will set me free? Paul would have never come to that conclusion about himself, his wretchedness and his need for deliverance if it were not for the law that God used to bring him to that awareness of his wretchedness and his need for deliverance. So grace is an ill-deserved kindness, and as such it's hard to receive.

Number 2, the law came in order to magnify our need for this grace, but thought number 3 to share with you this morning from verse 20 is that where sin increases, grace abounds all the more. You can take that to the bank. No matter how much sin increases, grace abounds all the more, he says in verse 20. The law came so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

What I love about God's word is that it makes a big deal out of sin. And it makes a bigger deal out of God's grace. The Bible tells us that sin is big, it's ugly, it's huge, it's a monster. But the Bible also tells us that sin is no match for the grace of God.

Your sin is no match for the grace of God. Your sin is but a blip on the screen, against the backdrop of the panorama of God's love and God's grace. Our sin is no match for the magnitude of the grace of God. If you're going to be a believer who is walking in freedom and victory, There's two errors you're going to need to avoid.

The first error is you don't want to be guilty of minimizing sin. Some people do that. They'll excuse themselves if they're put in a corner and a finger's being pointed at them. They're like, No, I'm not guilty, and No, I, it's not my fault.

I haven't done this, and it's your fault anyway. If I did, and we'll make excuses or we'll try to minimize our sin, that's one error. But there's another error that's equally dangerous, and that is minimizing the grace of God. And we don't want to be guilty of that in our own lives and in our ministry to other people.

There are some people that walk around in defeat, and they're like, Whoa, it's me, and I've, I've done terrible sins against God, and they've got a really good understanding of the magnitude of their sin, but by their behavior and by their words, they're, they're indicating that they're not quite convinced God's grace is bigger than their sin. And They need to be encouraged to look at the scripture and passages like this that, what, your, your sin is a big deal. But God's grace is a bigger deal.

God's grace abounds all the more and overwhelms the sin.

in Romans 12, in the first half of 3, Paul is portraying the magnitude of sin, and his goal is to have every mouth stopped and all of us to close our mouths and realize our guilt before God. But then he begins to bring in the grace of God, and by Romans 5 Paul is saying, We exult, we exalt, we exult. His mouth is open and he is exulting in the awesome grace of God because God's grace is bigger than our sin. There's got to be people in this room.

A room this size with this many people who you're, you're laboring under this burden of, what, I, I can understand God's grace for the sins of other people in this room and even for some of the sins that I've committed, but I, I've done some things, Pastor Milton, that I I just have a really hard time believing that God has forgiven me for particular sins that I have committed. And to you I'm going to say something that's going to sound really odd, but I think it's biblical. If you're thinking you've done something, that God can't forgive you for.

I, I just want to tell you that I already know the worst thing you've ever done.

You killed Jesus. OK, you killed Jesus with your sins. And so that's the worst thing you or anyone can do. And right at that spot where your sins and my sins killed Jesus, guess what we find there?

Grace. God's grace abounds from the cross to cover and overwhelm our sin of participation in the death of Jesus Christ. And so my question to you would be, if God's grace abounds to you, for having killed Jesus and having committed that sin, what other sin could you possibly commit that he would balk at? Think about that.

God's, you've already committed the worst sin imaginable. I already know what your worst deed is, and God's grace abounds towards you. We learned in verse 16. that justification arises from multiple transgressions being visited upon Jesus.

From that spot, from the cross, grace abounds infinitely more than our sin. And so if you really believe the gospel and believe, what, I was a participant in the death of Christ. But what, Christ shed his blood for my sin, and I am forgiven. If you really believe that Paul would say, what can you struggle believing after that?

Regarding any sin that you have committed. Paul committed terrible sins before he was saved. He was responsible for the death of people, even as he's writing Romans, I'm sure that there were widows in the church of Jesus Christ as a result of things that Paul did before he came to faith in Christ. He was like a wild animal ravaging the church.

And causing Christians to try to get them to blaspheme the name of Jesus. And Paul in First Timothy 1:13 says, I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, a violent aggressor, yet I was shown mercy, and the grace of the Lord was more than abundant. My sins abounded, and they increased, but the grace of the Lord Jesus was even more abundant than my sin. Be a believer in the magnitude of the grace of God and realize that your sin is no match for God's grace.

There's a forethought To share with you this morning to encourage you in terms of the role of grace in helping you in your battle with sin, and that is that grace, God's grace abounds toward us so that it might dethrone sin and reign in sin's place. You need to realize that grace, when you open your heart and allow grace in, it comes in with an agenda. And its agenda is to dethrone sin from your life and to reign in sin's place. we, we come to God in brokenness and bankruptcy, and we say, I understand that my salvation is a free gift, and it's undeserved, it's ill deserved.

But what, Lord, I received this grace. I welcome this grace into my life. You, you need to think about that almost before you do it, because what we're, what we learn here in verse 21, is that when God's grace comes into the life of a person, it's not content merely to be received. It's coming to take over.

And to start calling the shots. It's coming in to rain. Doesn't you receive grace into your life and and grace doesn't say, Oh thank you so much for welcoming me into your life. I feel so honored and flattered that I'm in your life and what?

I'll just take my sleeping bag and I'll just sleep in the corner. Don't mind me, I won't cause any trouble. I'll just stay to myself. That's not what grace does.

If you let grace in, grace says, I'm coming in to take over and I'm coming in to reign. I'm coming in to start a revolution. I'm coming in looking for sin right now. Sin is reigning in your life, and even as a believer there's still pockets where sin is reigning in areas of your, of your life.

I'm coming in to identify those areas, to call them out, and to dethrone them. I'm here to start a revolution against that sin in your life, and I want to reign in those exact spots where right now sin reigns. That's Grace's agenda. And you thought you were just receiving.

Forgiveness Well, when you receive grace in your life, You're getting A grace that is laden with an agenda, and that agenda is to take over, to start calling. The shots and to transform you. Paul says in verse 21, so that, think about this, go back to verse 20. The law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So sin increased in our lives. God's grace abounded towards us all the more. Verse 21, so that the reason God's grace comes into our life, the reason it abounds. towards us and into us is so that with this agenda, with this purpose, that as sin once reigned in death, even so grace now would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace comes in to reign. the passage Titus 2:13, I believe, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, teaching us, coaching us, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and to live, I forget how it ends, soberly, righteously in this present age, looking forward to the appearing of Christ. Grace comes in. We're receiving the salvation of grace, but when grace comes in, it starts telling us what to do.

It starts dictating how we live. It takes over. That is God's grace. It abounds towards us so that it might transform us, that it might search out and destroy sin in us, to remove sin from office.

To throw that incumbent out and to reign in its place over our lives. And I think that's what the woman talking to Pastor Keller was realizing if I let this grace in. my life is going to dramatically change. Because grace has an agenda, and that agenda is to transform.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the story through the, the older and the newer movie Les Miserables, and the story was written by Victor Hugo. I probably didn't pronounce that right. Les Miserables. Is that good?

OK. so we can move on. OK. But And the story.

Jean Valjean is in prison for 5 years for stealing to be able to feed members of his family, and his prison sentence gets extended for another 14 years. So he's in prison for 19 years in very difficult labor, mistreatment. He just grew to hate and be bitter and angry. He gets released from prison, but he's got to carry this, according to the book, this yellow.

placard that that essentially identifies him as a convict or an ex-convict, and he has to show that essentially wherever, he goes and so the mistreatment continues even though he served his sentence, he's identified as a convict and so his treatment that he receives out of prison after serving his sentence makes him even angrier and more. More bitter, but eventually he finds his way to the home of a bishop who shows him tremendous kindness and invites him in and, and Valjean is like, you, you don't want me in, in your house.

I'm a convict, and the bishop's like, I know, but come on in. And, and so he, he gives some food to eat and, and is kind and gracious towards Valjean.

And then gives them a place to sleep for the night. But the story. During the night, Valjean gets up and goes to a cabinet where the cutlery and silverware and stuff were, and he puts that stuff in his bag and he steals this pretty expensive cutlery and so forth from from the bishop. There's some candlesticks that are there, and he looks at them, but he doesn't take them.

And then he steals off into the night. Well, as the story goes, he ends up being captured by the police. The police bring him back to the bishop, and, and Valjean is before the bishop fully expecting condemnation, totally expecting condemnation, but the bishop says, no, I, I gave that cutlery. To him.

He can have it. I, I gave it to him. And then he turns to Valjean and he says this to him. He says to Valjean, he says, yes, but I gave you the candlesticks too.

Why didn't you take them along with your cutlery? Now, go in peace. And by the way, my friend, you needn't come through the garden, you can always come and go by the front door. what?

That right there is Romans 5:1 to 11, pure and simple. you can have what you stole. What, what did we do? We killed Jesus.

God raised him from the dead and gave him back to us and said, by the way, you can have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. go in peace. You now have peace with me. That's at the beginning of Romans chapter 5.

By the way, my friend, we're now friends. We've been reconciled to God, and he says you needn't come through the garden. You can always come and go by the front door. In verse 2, we now have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

We're brought into the presence of God where we can come in and out. We can live in His presence forever. Well, in the written narrative, written by Victor Hugo, Valjean is, bewildered by this kindness. He's not instantly transformed, by it.

in fact, Victor Hugo says that Valjean could not have said at that moment whether he was touched or humiliated. He's not sure yet. In fact, he robs another kid after that incident. just out of habit, but as he takes more time to really ponder this grace, this withholding of judgment, and the lavishing of grace upon him from this bishop, that grace begins to take root in his heart, and it begins to accomplish a change in him.

But Valjean, there's a part of him that rises up in resistance against it, and Victor Hugo describes this going on in Valjean's mind. He says in opposition to this celestial kindness, he, Valjean summoned up his pride, the fortress of evil in man. He dimly felt that the priest's pardon was the hardest assault, the most formidable attack he had ever sustained. Guys, this is a man in the story who's endured horrible treatment.

And yet this act of overwhelming kindness and grace from the bishop is the hardest assault, the most formidable attack he had ever known. And he also realized that if he yielded to this grace, if he let it in, he would have to renounce the hatred. With which the acts of other men had for so many years filled his soul and in which he found satisfaction. He knew that at this time he must conquer.

Or be conquered. So here he is with this dilemma. Am I, I touched? Am I blessed or am I humiliated?

And, and this, this grace is trying to get into him and he's resistant to it, and a part of him is wanting to set it aside and say, no, I can, I can earn my way back. He's not wanting to receive that grace, but he knows if I receive this grace, it's going to change everything. This grace is going to, it's going to ruin my hatred. It's going to ruin my bitterness.

It's going to wreck. It's going to devastate this hatred, bitterness and anger that I've been finding satisfaction in. I'm going to have to let these things go, because the grace will dictate that I let them go. Grace wants to reign as king in the hearts of anyone who receives God's grace.

It's coming in, says I'm calling the shots from here on out. And, and, and trust me guys, grace calling the shots, who would you want to call the shots but grace. Because it's God's favor, it's God's love, it's God's kindness, it's peace with God, it's forgiveness, it's declared righteousness, it's friendship with God. It's the Holy Spirit.

It's the love of God that the Holy Spirit pours out in our hearts. And this is the reign of grace. Grace is making sure that all this good stuff is happening. And grace commands us live inside the good of all of the stuff that is coming through me to you.

But grace goes beyond that, and as you're living in the good of that, someone wrongs you and you're like, I want to retaliate, and grace says, Wait a minute, I'm king. I'm king. Respond with grace and forgiveness. Give the same grace that you have received.

And Grace starts calling the shots. But what would you rather be ruled by? This grace. Or by this tyrant of sin.

That ruins and destroys and And brings heartache. and pain and brings the sword to households What what a terrible idle sin is. And grace comes into our life and it's, it's looking for pockets of sin and its agenda is I want to reign wherever sin is raining. Guys, just let grace in, receive the grace of salvation, and when grace comes in, let it rule, let it rule.

Where pornography is right now reigning in your life, let grace take the position there and, and call the shots. Let grace, let God's grace take care of you and reign rather than sin that destroys. Anger, bitterness, whatever, let whatever your sin issues are, just dream a little bit and imagine, imagine allowing grace to sit on that throne in that area and letting grace call the shots, where you're just living under the love and the care and the peace and the friendship and the kindness of God, and that's that's what you're being ruled by rather than by sin.

There's a final thought, and this is actually a great way to end, even by way of application, and that is that That grace exerts its reigning influence upon us through our justification.

Paul, at the very end of the chapter comes right back to what he started with. You may be thinking, man, grace, grace is amazing. Grace is transformative. I, I would like, I've received God's grace, but I've not really been allowing God's grace to play this strategic role in my life and helping me to live my Christian life and to experience sanctification and in my battle with sin, I want God's grace to play that role against sin in my life.

How do I do that? How do I position myself to where I'm allowing grace to play this role in my life? Well, look what he says in verse 21. He says, so that, here's why grace abounds into you.

So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness, and that's the Greek word translated justification earlier in this chapter. In other words, so that grace would reign through the agency of your justification. Now why Paul spends the second half of chapter 3, all of chapter 4, all of Chapter 5 talking about justification. Because it's not just something God does, and then you move on from that.

No, His grace that God wants to be fully operative and reigning in your life. His grace operates that reign in your life through the instrumentality of your justification. So if you're wanting God's grace to fully reign and have its way with you, we come back to counsel. We've been learning in recent weeks, and that is turn your life towards your justification.

Be a student of it, gaze upon it, feed upon it, live in the good of it, be exulting in it, and doing commerce with it, because it is through that means that grace accomplishes its reigning influence in your life. And grace does this. He's personifying grace as a person in a sense, but grace accomplishes this through eternity. We'll be staring at our justification.

For all of eternity, it takes us into life rather than death, and it goes on forever and ever. And now here's the ultimate person. That grace is just an embodiment of, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he ends this glorious chapter on justification by pointing our attention to Him.

He is the source of this good. And if grace is reigning in our lives, that means grace. Or if Jesus is reigning, Jesus Christ, our Lord is reigning. Allow him To have full reign and full sway in your life.

It is through him and through your justification that grace accomplishes its mighty reign. Let me ask you to bow your heads. We're going to pray in just a moment, we'd encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give. If you're here today and you've never received this grace, maybe you're trying to get to heaven by your own good works.

God says, listen, put that down. Your righteousness is filthy rags to me, not interested. I am so unimpressed with your righteousness. Just set your righteousness down, run away from it, and run to me and take the righteousness that I'm giving out for free.

And if you've never done that, just right where you're seated, just call on the name of the Lord. Calling upon Jesus to be your Lord, your Savior, and your righteousness. And welcome this grace into your life and say, God, I received this forgiving, saving grace, and I'm allowing it to come into my life to reign. And to start calling the shots.

I've been ruled by sin long enough. I want to be ruled by grace. If you're a believer, Grace is a powerful champion. And we are able each day the blessing of employing it.

In directing us each day And using grace in our battle with sin. That it might rain where sin once rained. Father, we thank you for your word. And for what you have spoken to us today, we deserve you to speak in judgment, but instead you speak in grace.

Lord, your grace is so phenomenal. It's so amazing. And you've spoken so kindly to us today. Where our sin abounds, you say, listen, I got, I got more grace and you got sin.

My grace will abound infinitely beyond any any sin you can come to me with. That's how big your heart is and how awesome your grace is, Lord, help us to see your grace for what it is and to live in the good of it. And then to be an embodiment of this grace towards others also. Lord, thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you.

and for allowing us the privilege of abounding back to you through our giving to you who have abounded towards us in grace, do much with what we give for the glory of Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.