Peace with God
Romans 5:1-3
Pastor Ryan
Part of At Peace—Finding Peace with God, Ourselves, and Others
August 14, 2024

Dr. Jordan Peterson, who is not a Christian (yet), but is someone who is wrestling with this issue as a psychologist.

• Modern psychology focuses on coping strategies and resiliency in mental health, but it does so with a hollow voice, according to Peterson.
• There is too great of a focus on pathology, which is just the diagnosis or labeling of a

rather than a focus on personal growth and development. The result is that people become identified with their disorder rather than seeing it as something to overcome.
• The reason for this because modern psychology has bought into the nature of humans as simply a creature with a specific neurochemistry. There is no consideration of the spiritual or immaterial part of a human and how that interacts with their emotions.
• This purely , materialistic approach to humanity also avoids connecting people to transcendent meaning that is found in ancient wisdom, such as the Scriptures and the biblical worldview.
• Peace is a pressing topic for individuals, communities, and the world. All of the top five most searched terms in 2023 relate to an absence of peace: peace in the world, with others, and even with the environment or nature.

Romans 5:1-5 | Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

• Context >> Paul’s argument in Romans 4 is that God has made this salvation and restoration available to all people by faith.

looks at what Jesus has done and trusts that it is sufficient. Faith looks at God’s loving provision and surrenders.
• According to Paul, this brings peace. Peace in Greek is a word that means harmony between individuals, an end to conflict or discord.
• The Hebrew equivalent is the word “ .” This word includes the same connotations as “peace,” but brings in the concept of completion, wholeness, and fulfillment.

// Shalom is a state of

where all relationships are aligned with God’s will.
// The shalom of God, which begins with a personal relationship with Him, represents a holistic peace that includes, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being.
// Shalom comes from God and happens in us as the law does not stand against us >> Romans 3:20-24 | For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

• This is the

of the kind of peace and shalom that humans were meant to discover.
• C.S. Lewis >> God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
• As we will see in the coming weeks, once it is experienced, this peace flows outward >> Peace in society depends upon peace in the family. Peace in the family depends upon peace in the individual. True peace in the individual lies in knowing that one is loved by God. (Augustine)

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