Romans Chapter 5

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Keep reading below if you want to start where we are (Romans 5:1-2)
Or go back to the beginning - [Here's the intro to Romans], and [here's the full archive] so you can start from Chapter 1.

Either way works. I just don't want you to feel lost.

Before diving into my notes, I encourage you to read Romans 5:1-2 first (or the whole chapter if you have time).

I include all the Scripture below, but there’s something about sitting with the whole chapter first — giving yourself room to be curious.

What catches you off guard?
What doesn't make sense?
Where is that?
Who's that?
Why?

Those questions will make the notes hit deeper.

"When disciples followed a rabbi, they followed him closely so they would never be out of his sight, never be someplace where they couldn’t hear him speak. They followed him so closely that his sandals often kicked up dust."

May you be covered in His dust.

Peace to you, brothers and sisters.

We’ve been in Romans for a while now.

And if you've been with us since the beginning, you've carried some heavy things.

You've sat with the wrath of God being revealed from heaven. You've watched Paul dismantle every defense, every excuse, every hiding place. You've stood in the courtroom. You heard the verdict. You watched the Judge step down from the bench and take the sentence himself.

That was chapters one through four.
That was the Gospel Explained.

Paul spent four chapters doing one thing: making sure you understood what you were saved from, how you were saved, and why it cost what it cost.

But today’s different.

Paul‘s been building. Four chapters of foundation so that when he finally says what he's about to say, you feel it.

He starts chapter five with one word.

“Therefore.”

It's Paul saying: because all of that’s true. The wrath. The courtroom. The cross. The resurrection. The justification of Abraham. The imputation of righteousness to those who believe. All of it.

Here is what’s true of you now.

He needs you to feel the weight of it before he moves on, because the benefits of justification don't mean anything if you don't understand what you were justified from.

Today’s gonna be so good.
We’ve received so much more than we imagined.

When I first read that, I thought, “Peace with God. I'm forgiven. God and I are good.”

Wait a minute.

“Peace with God?”

Not the peace of God. Paul's not talking about what you feel on Sunday when everything clicks and you drive home full.

That's the peace of God. That’s real too, but it’s not what Paul’s saying here.

He's saying we have peace with God.

If you think about it, you don't make peace unless there’s war first.

Before Christ, God and I weren’t just distant.

We were enemies.

God and I weren’t on the same side.

I was at war with the God who made me.

We all were.
And we didn't even know it.

I grew up in church. I knew the verses. I knew I wasn't perfect and that Jesus died for my sins.

But at war???

That’s not the way I would have said it, but that is exactly what Paul’s saying. Peace with God implies that before Christ, there was no peace. And if there was no peace, there was something else.

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son...” Romans 5:10

Enemies.

Paul’s word. Not mine.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Romans 1:18

Not was revealed. Not will be revealed.

Is being revealed.

Present tense. Right now.

We don't like that verse.

We prefer the God of the New Testament, the God of love and peace and fairness. We prefer Jesus over the God who flooded the earth.

But Scripture holds them together. The God of the manger and the God of the flood are the same God. The Jesus who holds children on his lap is the same Jesus who will one day judge the living and the dead.

Paul spent three chapters on wrath before he got to peace… on purpose.

Because the peace of Romans 5 only carries weight if you've sat with the wrath of Romans 1.

Wrath wasn’t immediate punishment every time someone sinned.

Go back to Romans 1 and watch what happens.

They rejected God.
God gave them over.

They exchanged the truth for a lie.
God gave them over.

They refused to acknowledge Him.
God gave them over.

You’ve seen this before.

The wrath of God in Romans 1 isn't always God stepping in.

Sometimes it's God stepping back.

It's God removing His hand. Letting people pursue the very sins they've chosen, letting those sins run their full course, letting them have exactly what they wanted.

The most terrifying judgment God can give a person isn't “no.”

It's, “have it your way.”

“because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath.” Romans 2:5

Storing up.
Every day.
Every sin.
Every rejection.

That was us before Christ.
That's the war.

But God didn’t leave us there. He took the initiative.

Not us.
Him.

We didn't negotiate the ceasefire. We weren't even looking for peace.

And God moved toward us anyway.

That's what makes grace so beautiful. Not that God forgave people who came crawling back to Him. But that He made peace with people who weren't even looking for it.

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The war is over.

That word access.

In the original Greek it's prosagōgē.

Prosagōgē was specific. It described the act of being brought into the presence of someone important. A king. A ruler. Someone whose presence you couldn’t simply walk into on your own.

You didn't just show up at the throne room and knock.

Someone with standing brought you in. Someone who already had access introduced you. Someone looked at the guards and said this person is with me.

That's prosagōgē.

My dad was on the ski patrol in Vail, Colorado.

When Gerald Ford, the President of the United States, came to ski, my father was assigned to the Secret Service detail to help protect him on the mountain.

You couldn't just show up and ski with them. It didn't matter how good of a skier you were.

My father was there because someone with authority said so.

And that was enough.

That's the word Paul uses for what Christ did for you.

You didn't find your way into grace. You didn't work hard enough or pray enough to qualify.

Christ brought you in.

He looked at the throne room of heaven and He said this one’s with me.

Paul doesn't say through Christ we have obtained access to God.

He says through Christ we have obtained access “into this grace in which we stand.”

The introduction isn't primarily into a place.

It's into a position.

Christ didn't just get you through the door. He walked you into an entirely new standing before God. A new status. Not law. Not probation. Not a trial period where you prove yourself worthy of staying.

Grace.

Christ takes you by the hand and says come with me. You belong here.

And then He leads you in.

Paul could have said so many things here.

Into this grace which you received.
Into this grace which covers you.
Into this grace which forgives you.

But that's not what he said.

He said “in which we stand.”

Stand.

That's a position. That's where you live now.

I think a lot of us live like we're standing on a trap door.

One bad week. One sinful thought. One failure. One season where faith feels thin and the prayers feel hollow and you wonder if you ever really meant any of it.

And the floor drops out.

We treat grace like a hotel room. We check in when we need it. We clean ourselves up as best we can before we knock on the door. We're grateful for the stay but we're never quite sure how long we're welcome.

But Paul says we stand in grace.

We don’t check in and check out depending on how the week went.

We stand there.

We wake up there.
We fight sin there.
We fail there.
We repent there.
We doubt there.
We worship there.
We grieve there.
We age there.
We die there.

And one day we will walk from there directly into glory.

The floor isn’t going to drop out.

Before Christ, Paul says we stood in sin and under God's wrath. That was our position. That was where we lived.

But Christ introduced us into something entirely new. A new position. A new ground beneath our feet. And the ground is grace.

Not performance or consistency or how well you did this week or how long you spent in prayer this morning.

Grace.

That's the ground you're standing on right now as you read this.

You don't earn your way into it. You were brought here by Christ himself.

And
you’re
not
going
anywhere.

When you read the word hope in the Bible, forget everything English has taught you about it.

In English, hope is uncertain. It’s more like wishing.

I hope it doesn't rain. 
I hope this works out.

There's desire in it, but there's doubt too.

That is not what Paul means.

The Greek word has a sound to it.
It's not the quiet relief of maybe.
It's the loud confidence of absolutely.

A better way to say it is confident expectation.

Paul isn't saying we rejoice because we hope we might someday see God's glory.

He's saying we rejoice because we know what's coming.

In Exodus 33 Moses has led Israel out of Egypt.

He stood before Pharaoh.
He watched the Red Sea split.
He received the Law on Sinai.
He is, by any measure, the greatest prophet who ever lived.

And he has one request.

"Please show me your glory." Exodus 33:18

Not another miracle. Just, “Show me your glory.”

God's response is breathtaking.

"I will make all my goodness pass before you..." Exodus 33:19

But then…

"you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." Exodus 33:20

So God places Moses in the cleft of a rock, covers him with His hand, and passes by. Moses sees only what Moses can bear to see. A glimpse. The back of God's glory, not His face.

The greatest prophet who ever lived, hidden in a rock, granted only a glimpse of what he was begging to see.

Now read what Paul says.

“We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:2

What Moses begged for is what’s waiting for you.

Jesus prayed for it himself, the night before the cross:

"Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory..." John 17:24

September 27, 2024

We boarded a plane for the United States from Guatemala on a Monday, five little ones in tow. Months of preparation. Paperwork. Legal documents. We finally had an appointment. By the next day, they would all be American citizens.

It was a perfect day of flying.

Until it all unraveled.

We landed in West Palm Beach and received an email from our attorney. While we were in the air, our appointment had been canceled. The citizenship office would be closed until October 15th.

Hurricane Milton.

I spent hours on the phone. There were zero flights out the next day… or the day after. Florida was shutting down all around us.

I emailed our attorney and explained that we were stuck in Florida. "If anything changes, if the office opens up earlier... please let us know."

The next morning, we got a call from our attorney's assistant.

"Where are you right now?"
"West Palm Beach. In a hotel."
"Can you get to the citizenship office?"
"When?"

"Right now."

Thirty minutes later we were pulling up to the empty parking lot of the Federal Citizenship Building.

Not a single car.

The building was dark.
There was no reason to think anyone was expecting us.

And then a security guard unlocked the door.

"Sisneros family?"

On the other side, two women were waiting. One of them smiled.

"Good morning. Follow us."

We walked briskly past a dark waiting room. 75 empty seats. They rushed us through like it was an olympic event.

At every step Vonda and I kept looking at each other.

Is this really happening?

In 45 minutes, five children who had boarded a plane from Guatemala the day before, were American citizens.

Our five little ones still don't understand the significance of what they received. Not really.

They didn't understand the paperwork. They couldn't read the legal documents. They had no idea what was happening in that building or what it would mean for the rest of their lives.

They were just brought in.

And that's you.

Not someday. Right now.

You've been adopted. You have full citizenship. And like my kids in that waiting room, we have no idea what we've been given.

The war is over.

The verdict has been rendered and it will never be reversed.

The Judge stepped down from the bench, took your sentence, and then took you home.

You’re standing in grace. Not visiting. Not passing through. You’re standing. The floor beneath you won’t drop out.

And one day, you’ll hear your name called. You’ll walk through a door that’s been prepared for you since before you were born. You’ll see what Moses could only beg for, what he could only glimpse at from the cleft of a rock with God's hand covering his face.

And you’re going to see God as He is.

Sit with that today.

Not the Greek words or the theology or the outline.

Just.
That.

Your name is already known.

I love you,
George

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George Sisneros is a full-time missionary in Guatemala and the founder of Ordinary Missionaries and the El Rosario Christian Academy for Boys.

He’s been married to his wife, Vonda, for 27 years. He’s a father to nine children, five adopted.

In 2024, George and his wife expanded to Cuba, joining forces with nine pastors committed to transforming lives through the gospel.