A Second Chance Now - Part 1

Welcome to the intense podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, April 18.

The curse of sin is insurmountable to humanity when we fail God succeed hear the good news is that because of his grace God gives you a second chance. You look around your your circumstances and thought Maha would like to have another chance to do that again.

A look of the past few days and the thought. What if I could just change that. If I could just have another chance. What you are really asking for his grace because that's what grace is all about grace is God's second chance. All of us would like to have those second chances in life. All of us can look back over the years, so maybe not too many years of just a few days and think Lord if I could just do that again I would do that a lot better or long. I wouldn't of done that I would've change this, you see a second chance is what grace is all about and that's what I want to begin today is a series on grace, God's second chance. All of us have experienced the and all of us needed you not think about grace we think about the most favorite song of all that is amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me once was lost but now I'm found was blind but now I see all of us who was saved have had that with second chance. I don't mean by a second chance that when you die either one of these days.

After you have gathered God to give you another chance to be saved after death. I don't mean that I'm just talking about those opportunities that God gives us over and over and over again.

We blow it in life and his forgiveness is so amazing. His grace is so amazing that's what amazing grace is all about is God's second chance when you turn if you will to Romans chapter 5. This is the first message in this series a second chance now and they will to suddenly the foundation of all of this series because he says in this passage that you and I now have been introduced into a standing which is called grace, and so chapter 5 of the Romans beginning in verse one and reading through verse six, when Paul says therefore what he's doing. He's referring to what he has been saying beforehand.

These first four chapters. He's talked about the sinfulness of mankind and that God has provided for sinfulness and so he says in verse one. Therefore, having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we exult all rejoice in the hope of the glory of God and not only this, but we also rejoice or exult in our tribulations during the tribulations bring about a perseverance and perseverance, proven character, and proven character whole and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been shed abroad or poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Now when you and I think about grace usually we think about the goodness of God. But I want us to think about this in the light of what the apostle Paul said in this passage, and it really says that God has demonstrated his provision for this grace rising two ways, and beginning in this first verse that God has provided for our second chance and is demonstrate that provision in the pardon of our sin.

That is the first opportunity you not have to experience God's second chance in our life is having known the truth and rejected it many times you and I finally trusted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. So first of all he's talking about his provision for a second chance, which is demonstrated by his pardon and the word he uses here to describe that pardon is the word justification.

But how does this all begin and why does God need to give us a second chance. Well, let's go back to the Garden of Eden. Remember that Adam and Eve lived in a perfect environment where there was no sin, they will need to save the lost theirs at that time was untried innocence and so in that perfect situation. The Bible says that they chose. And God gave them a choice whether to overload him and obey him or disobey him. They made a bad choice. They chose to disobey God. The whole human race fail so that every single person from that point on, has grown up with a sinful nature. What happened was, he said to them, all the trees of the garden, you're free to eat by the tree in the midst of the guard, the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of the day that you do. You shall surely die. So the decree of God was the room. The law of God was you eat, you die.

So what happened, they ate, so the judgment upon them was that they died but God in his mercy gave them a second chance. You'll recall that the Scripture says that God came to them in the cool of the day and he asked them where they were.

Knowing where they were in the Bible says that he provided skins for them, which means that God killed an animal the blood was shed. Even the garden of Eden and their sin was atone for so all down through the centuries and in your life and mine all of us have had to look back and see things in a life of which we regret things we wish we had not done our changes we would've made in our life and God has not struck us dead and habited times did you hear the gospel before USA. Some of you heard the gospel for years and years and years before you ever trusted Jesus as your Savior. You say he's not only a God of a second chance, but often times a thousand chances but is a God of wonderful, loving, understanding you see sin is the big problem because we all came into this world of been away from God and if you really will look at the situation the way God sees it, turned back over the third chapter of Romans, and this is the way God sees humanity the time we get through coloring ourselves up, catching ourselves up.

We don't look so bad. This is the way God sees humanity. He says in chapter 3 will read all these verses, but beginning in verse 10 he says, as it is written, there is none righteous, not even one verse 11 there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God and how all have turned aside, together they have become useless.

There is none who does good. There's not even one in verse 18 says there is no fear of God before their eyes.

So in the eyes of God.

He sees humanity as it really is and that is not righteous are not good, and he says there's no fear of God do not live in a society today, most of us have lived long enough to see that whatever fear of God. There may have been around some years ago something is happened to it. We live in a world of humanity that is lost their blind to the truth and therefore living in sin.

The Scripture says, the problem is that everyone has sinned against God, and the problem is very simple. The problem is that all of us came to this world of been away from God I with a sinful nature and then of course we behave in a sinful fashion because it was her nature to sin and then we had Satan to deal with who was there also challenging us and tempting us in trying us so all of us have the same problem we come in the world and that is we have a problem of dealing with sin because we have that sinful nature, and because it is an behavior to do so and because we have Satan to deal with. We have to face that.

So what happens we sin against God.

We disobey him. God doesn't strike us dead. The moment we sin against some of those were saved early in life and some were saved late in life.

But remember this took the same amount of salvation to save a 12-year-old boy as it does a 60-year-old man no difference because sin is sin in the eyes of God, and he sees human nature.

The way it is and the tragedies and all the things that we see that we think is so horrendous. Today we think how the work anybody do that God sees what is in the human heart and he knows there is only one answer to the sinful condition of mankind and that is what he's talking about here in this passage because what he is said in these first four chapters is that man is absolutely helpless to save himself, we can forgive ourselves. We can't rid ourselves of guilt. We can't change our past.

Only God can rescue us from the penalty and the wages of sin in our life. The wages of sin is death, he says, and so what happens is when a person is unsay they never trusted Jesus as their Savior, they don't have the Holy Spirit they can understand spiritual things they hear the gospel they don't understand that they keep rejecting God and God, in spite of that keeps hammering away and keep sending forth the truth and is the truth is sent out.

There's a time when many people say yes I do want that yes I do need that yes I do believe that you can mark this one down.

Nobody's ever been saved yet who thought they could do without.

Because you see our pride as long as we think we can do it without God will try as long as the Christian thinks that they can somehow manage without asking God seeking his direction, following him somehow they'll try to just doesn't work. God made you and me to depend upon him the trust in him and in need him and sinfulness in the heart of every human being is what has motivated God to provide for us, that which is necessary to make as acceptable before him, and that is the work of his grace and that grace is first demonstrated in his pardon for our sin. Now when he says in this passage, look at this, he says.

Therefore, in verse one, having been justified by faith. And once in a while somebody will say to me, will you know you shouldn't use words like reconciliation, sanctification, justification, glorification redemption who understands those were. And so what is he mean by justification. Justification means that God has made a decision about somebody and therefore acquitted them of their guilt acquitted them of their sin declared them no longer guilty and the eyes of God. No matter what may have happened to be justified in the eyes of God means that he sees us, just as if I'd never sin doesn't mean sin will not show its toll on our bodies and in our life but in the eyes of God when he declares those not guilty. We are not guilty when he declares those pardon of our sin. We apart and he says we have been justified by faith. What does that mean it doesn't mean that simply believing in God has made me a justified or acceptable in the eyes of God. But it means it is the object of my faith that Matt is the object of my faith is Jesus Christ. And so when he says, therefore, having been justified by faith what he's talking about. He's talking about the experience that separates me and moves me from being the enemy of God being the child of God separated from God to being one with God. Justification is a declaration by God, they will no longer guilty and that he's accepted as the how does God do that I want to explain this again and again because this is where so much confusion is the most is why believe in it.

That's not the issue. You can just believing in the object of your belief must be in the person God said, it must be in, and that is the person Jesus Christ. And so when we think about justification we talking about God declaring is not guilty but how can he do it. Can God just say to Adam and Eve.

Well, look, you blow it out on I told you better than that. I told you not to do a new blog.

That's all a table in the giving of the change knowledge and listen carefully so you will misunderstand or somebody today says the Lord. I blew it again but but I know you give me another chance. Did you know that not even God. Listen to this now, not even God himself could say the you will look on the you blow it, that's okay, and I give you another chance. Not even God can say that the listen carefully so you will misunderstand me the reason in the garden of Eden that God could give Adam and Eve a second chance was that when God sees time he sees it all at one time he could look down thousands of years in the future and see the death of his son at the cross. So when he made for them skins and shed blood that was symbolical of what was going to happen. So with God while God recognizes time. God is above and beyond all time. It's like being in a helicopter looking down and seeing the whole Brady one time you can see the beginning and the end everybody that's in there that's the way God sees time.

So when he forgave adamantly for their sinfulness. He was doing so on the basis of what in the mind of God was already a done deal and that is the crucifixion was Artie done the mind of God. The only way God can give you and me a second chance in life is because somebody else took our wrap that is somebody else was a substitute for our sin. Somebody else paid out penalty somebody else took it for us and Jesus Christ came in this world and God in the cross and his substitutionary death makes it possible for God to say to us to give you another chance. And so what he saying in this passage here is pieces, therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God and what is a meme about peace with God means I'm no longer an enemy. But now I'm one of his children. The war is over between God and me, I recognize that he's God, and on his son Jesus Christ is my Lord and is my responsibility.

My privilege to walk obediently before him. The Lord so apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no second chance. There is no opportunity there is no salvation because it can't forgive myself. I can't help my helpless self why because remember what he says in his word he says in first grade. In chapter 2, the person who is the natural man that is the unsaved person doesn't even listen to this doesn't even have the ability to understand spiritual thing. They don't understand.

And so that's what they wonder that some of these words we use, and while we operate the way we do. They don't understand they can't. Apart from that gift of the Holy Spirit to give them understanding they can understand and secondly he says we were dead in our trespasses and sins. And so what is a dead man lead a dead now that woman is one thing that's life. How you get life through Jesus Christ.

How does it come through Jesus Christ through the cross, not even God can give life apart from his son.

He's the one who said the wages of sin is death, somebody pays the wrap when he pays the rent then what happens than you and I get the blessing and the benefit of Jesus death. We were pardon from our sins and we are forever.

Pardon because you and did absolutely nothing to receive forgiveness except to receive it by think that's all we do now.

That leads me to the most important part of what I want to say here, but that's the foundation and apart from that, I think we we would misunderstand what grace is all about. If you eliminate the cross. You cannot have grace. A lot of people have the idea that God is a God of love and that he loves everybody and all you have to do is just be loved by God.

God loves everybody's not writing about Don go to hell. I do judge about a guy just loves everybody listen to me friend. I understand what you mean by that. But what want you to understand that you can have a God of love who is not also a God of justice. Now I don't want justice audible of anybody who does us of the wanted justices is getting what we deserve. That's not what we will and what has happened is this that God, who is a just God if he were to give us what we deserve all of us would deserve to die and be lost in the be spent in eternity eternally separated him. That's what we get. If we get what we deserve what we want is the grace of God. That's what he offers and so he simply says here he demonstrates his provision that grace and that pardon through justification that is by justifying us from our sins. He's demonstrating grace because we don't deserve it, but he's provided now look at this next phrase. This is where I want us to dwell. Primarily, he says now therefore, having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ to look at as he says, through whom also we have obtained our introduction or access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Know what the world is that me that we have been introduced in the grace well I would say here that God's provision for our second chance has been demonstrated by his introducing us into a lifestyle of grace and watch that that is first of all, he says he's provided through the pardon that comes by the forgiveness of our sins. Now he says that's what gets is in the grace that is by the pardon of our sin being justified.

He gets is in the grace that this lifestyle of grace is of is an expression of he says being introduced into it that is being introduced into this grace in which we stand.

This is the sphere in which you and I live and walk. Now that we've been justified or been saved by his grace we live and walk in the sphere of grace now we think about grace.

Think about it in this life.

We sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound what so sweet about what so sweet about is it took care of my send what so sweet about it is that I can enjoy it every single day that you not walk in the sphere of God's grace. Well, if you look in the Scriptures you will find that over 100 times that were to stand in the New Testament, but it's interesting that only about four times in the Gospels. I once in the gospel of Luke three times the gospel of John and Jesus never mentioned why we're on the other side of the crucifixion. And so it is Paul who makes the word grace come alive and live for us in the epistles, though it's also found there in the book of acts, as well as the epistles and so what you find as you find over 100 times. Grace is mentioned. Grace is the most powerful life-changing force in the world today is a lot of people think will listen.

What gets people to Jesus. What gets people right with God is preaching judgment hellfire and damnation on that oppose the preaching that and I by believing that just like you do. But it's interesting to me that Jesus's appeal to mankind was not on the basis of condemnation, judgment, and fear the wrath of God, though he mentioned that. And he mentioned it primarily to the religious leaders of his day, who thought they did not need him. But Jesus primary appeal is love. Listen to what he said.

He said I didn't come to the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saying for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus came as a lover of mankind offering the love of the father to mankind and so oftentimes we see God is a God of justice and I got up, ran, and he indeed he is. But his appeal to mankind is not justice and judgment and condemnation and all, but grace thank you for listening to that content now if you like to know more about Charles Stanley or in touch ministries intense tantalizing back after the presentation of intense ministry advantage of