Gift of Grace #10 - The Perks of Grace
Description
In "Gift of Grace," Kurt Bjorklund unpacks Romans 5:1–5 to reveal that grace isn't just a ticket to heaven — it's a present-tense reality offering peace, access to God, and overflowing love right now. If you've ever felt the need to prove your worth, discover how justification by faith gives you a standing that nothing in this world can shake.
What Justification Gives You Right Now
Most people assume the primary reason to follow Jesus is to secure a spot in heaven and avoid hell. But what if grace offered far more than a future destination? In a recent message from Romans 5:1–5, Kurt asked a provocative question: "If heaven was never promised — was never part of the equation of faith — would it be worth believing and following Jesus Christ?" His answer, drawn from Paul's letter to the Romans, is a resounding yes. Justification by faith isn't just a ticket to eternity. It delivers six tangible benefits that change how you live right now.
Peace With God
Romans 5:1 opens with a "therefore" that points back to everything Paul has argued in the preceding chapters — that we are declared right before God by faith, not by works. The result? "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." This isn't the "peace of God" that calms anxious hearts, but something more foundational: the hostility between you and God is gone. Kurt noted that many people live "God-haunted" — carrying a low-grade unease they can't quite name. Justification by faith puts that unease to rest. You are no longer at odds with God, and God is no longer at odds with you.
Access to God
Verse 2 introduces a word — access — that carried a specific meaning in Paul's day: the ability to approach someone of great power who you wouldn't normally be able to reach. Ephesians 3:12 echoes this, saying that "in him and through faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence." Kurt illustrated it with a simple image: being escorted through the door of an airport club by a friend with membership — suddenly you have access to things that weren't available to you before. Grace gives you that kind of introduction to the God of the universe, meaning every prayer, every concern, every burden you carry can be brought directly to Him.
Standing in Grace
The phrase "this grace in which we now stand" is written in the perfect tense in the original Greek — indicating something that happened in the past with results that continue into the present. Your standing before God isn't something you have to earn or maintain by performance. Henri Nouwen's insight is worth sitting with here: most of us operate with the unspoken belief that "I am what I do, I am what I have, I am what other people think of me." We exhaust ourselves seeking verdicts from jobs, relationships, and accomplishments. But Kurt pointed out that grace reframes everything: "Whether you are great at your job or struggling at it, whether you've accumulated much or little, whatever people think of you — your standing is unchanged." You have been defined by God, not by the world's fickle assessments.
The Hope of Glory
The "hope of glory" in verse 2 is easy to reduce to a vague wish for heaven someday, but Paul means something richer and more certain. In the original language, "hope" carried the weight of fixed certainty, not wishful thinking. First John 3:2 captures the vision: "We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." The hope of glory means that one day you will not just be forgiven of sin's penalty — you will be completely free from sin's very presence. The patterns and habits you're weary of, the brokenness in the world around you — all of it will be redeemed. This is something worth living with genuine anticipation.
Purpose in Suffering
Romans 5:3–4 makes one of the more striking claims in the passage: "We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Without the framework of grace, suffering is simply loss — something to survive. But for those justified by faith, suffering is purposeful. Kurt put it plainly: God is actively at work in even the hardest seasons, using them to produce perseverance, proven character, and deepened hope. Your pain is not wasted. It is being shaped into something.
The Abundance of Love
The final benefit lands with particular weight. Verse 5 says that "God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." The phrase "poured out" suggests overflow — more than can even be fully received. Kurt drew on the scene from Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye presses his wife Goldie to answer not just whether she has served him faithfully, but whether she actually loves him. The distinction matters. God's love for those justified by faith isn't merely transactional — it is affectionate. Richard Lovelace captured it well: "The faith that surmounts this evidence, and that is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love instead of having to steal love and acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness." We are not saved by the love we exercise, but by the love we trust.
Making It Real
Kurt closed with a helpful analogy: knowing you have a gift card to a great restaurant is not the same as actually going to dinner. The benefits of grace are real, but they have to be actively received and returned to — especially in the moments when we forget them. Every time you feel hostility toward God, return to peace. Every time you feel distant, return to access. Every time you feel the need to prove yourself, return to your standing.
Grace isn't just the beginning of the Christian life. It is the sustaining reality of it.
For Reflection
Which of the six benefits of grace — peace, access, standing, hope, purpose in suffering, or love — do you find hardest to actually experience day to day, and why?
In what area of your life are you most tempted to seek your sense of worth from performance, possessions, or others' opinions rather than from your standing in grace?
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Richard Lovelace (from the book Dynamics of Spiritual Life)
"It is an item of faith that we are children of God. There is plenty of experience in us against it. But the faith that surmounts this evidence, and that is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love instead of having to steal love and acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness. We are not saved by the love we exercise, but by the love that we trust."
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Opening Announcements
Good morning. It’s great to be together. Just before we jump into the teaching, I want to highlight something that’s going on. You’ve likely heard about this, but on Easter this year — always a great weekend for the church as so many people come — there will be different service times at all of our locations, at least most of them, from normal. So pay attention to when the service times are. If you can go to a service that isn’t right in the middle of the morning, that is helpful to everybody.
The other thing happening that weekend, unless some unforeseen circumstance comes about, is that we are going to be launching two new locations — one in Beaver, and one in the Mars/Gibsonia area. You may ask, “Why two at the same time? That’s a lot.” And it is. What happened is that over time we’ve been praying about the opportunities and the chance to purchase the building and to lease and be part of the Keene Theater. The Mars/Gibsonia location came about at the same time, and our core groups were coming together. We simply believe this was the right time. Certainly at Wexford on Sunday morning, it has been tight in terms of space, and so having several hundred people go to new locations will create new seats.
People will be going to Mars/Gibsonia from Butler, from the Strip District, and to Beaver from Bridgeville. People from Wexford will certainly go as well. This creates a new opportunity to serve. One of the things that can happen in a church like Orchard Hill is that you can come week after week and say, “Everything runs — they don’t need me.” The truth is that’s never true. If you’ve ever thought it would be good to get involved and serve in some way but haven’t done it — or haven’t done it in a while — this is a great opportunity. With so many people going to help launch our new locations, there are a lot of ways to plug in.
Today in Wexford, there are tables in the lobby where you can stop and talk to someone about opportunities to serve. If you’re at one of the campuses, you can talk to leadership there or go online to find ways to get involved. This is a time for us to continue meeting the needs of the community and help as many people find and follow Jesus as possible. If you’ve been thinking about this — or maybe you’re just thinking about it now as we talk — we would love to encourage you to be a part of what God is doing here at Orchard Hill.
Opening Prayer
God, as we’re gathered this weekend, we pray for what’s coming in the weeks ahead. We pray that you would work in Beaver and in Mars/Gibsonia to bring many new people to embrace Jesus Christ as their Savior. We pray for the spaces being vacated by people going to serve and be part of that — that you would bring new people to address those needs within the church. Father, as we’re here this week, we’re also aware that in our world there is unrest in the Middle East. We pray for the peace of the Middle East and ask that you would bring calm to all who are making decisions. Father, as we’re gathered this weekend at Orchard Hill, we ask that you would help us to grow in our understanding of you, our affection for you, and our devotion to you. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Introduction
Let me ask you a question: If heaven was never promised — was never part of the equation of faith — would it be worth believing and following Jesus Christ? Let me put it another way: If hell were not a threat, would it be worth believing in and following Jesus Christ?
I ask this because I think for a lot of people — including some who are part of church in different places and some who aren’t — the idea is that the primary reason to cling to faith is so that one day you can share in heaven and avoid hell. And to be fair, the Bible does speak of heaven and hell. Over these last several weeks, as we’ve been working through the Book of Romans, we’ve talked about being justified by faith and how you can know you are destined for heaven and can avoid hell because of what Jesus Christ has done on your behalf.
But I would like to suggest today that grace and justification aren’t just something that punches a ticket to some future eternity, or that merely avoids some threat in the future. There are perks — there are benefits — to grace that you have in your life right now. If heaven were never promised and if hell were never a threat, it would still be worth following Jesus Christ anyway. This is all found in Romans 5:1–5, which speaks about some of the benefits of justification — the benefits of grace — that come into our lives now.
There are certainly benefits not spoken of here directly. The Holy Spirit is alluded to, but not fully addressed. Having the Holy Spirit is a significant benefit — there’s power and joy that aren’t necessarily expressed here. But in Romans 5 there are six benefits. Let’s take a moment to look at each one.
Benefit 1: Peace with God (v. 1)
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Whenever we see the word “therefore,” we should stop and ask what it’s there for. In this case, it’s there for all that has gone before in the book of Romans. The Apostle Paul has been arguing through chapters 1–4 that you are declared right by faith, not by works — it is God’s work, not ours. And he says, since that is true, we have peace with God.
Now, in the Bible there is also the concept of the “peace of God,” which is slightly different. The peace of God is the peace that passes all understanding — giving you a confidence and calmness in the face of everything going on in the world. But this is peace with God. What this implies is that there was hostility — and that hostility is now gone once you’ve been justified, once you have faith in Jesus Christ. You can know with certainty that you’re not at odds with God, and God is not at odds with you.
Often people in our world may not call it hostility with God, but many are “God-haunted” — living with a little sense of unease, trying to put God out of their minds. But when you’ve been justified by grace, you’re able to say: God and I have peace.
Benefit 2: Access to God (v. 2a)
“…through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”
The word “access” means to have an introduction — the ability to approach someone. It was often used of approaching someone in a powerful position where you don’t normally have access. Ephesians 2:18 says, “For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” Ephesians 3:12 says, “In him and through faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”
I was flying recently with a friend who was a member of the Admiral’s Club — you know, where you go through a little door, someone scans your membership, and suddenly there’s a buffet, beverages, no lines. You have access because you’ve paid or accumulated points. That’s the idea here — except it’s far better than an airport club, because this is access to the God of the universe. It means you can bring your prayer requests, your concerns, everything that matters in your life, and know that God hears you. That is a benefit of grace.
Benefit 3: Standing in Grace (v. 2b)
“…into this grace in which we now stand.”
In the original language, this is in the perfect tense — meaning something that has happened but continues to have a result. It means you have a certainty of your status with God because of having been justified by grace. You can say, “I belong here,” with no fear that you’ll be found out.
Some of us live with a nagging sense of, “I’m not sure about my standing or my status with God.” But if you’ve been justified, your standing is fixed by God in grace. You don’t need to live with uncertainty about your worth and your status.
Henri Nouwen wrote about how this impacts day-to-day life. He said most of us live with a never-ending sense of having to perform. We decide: I am what I do. I am what I have. I am what other people think of me. So we go through life trying to perform well enough to feel good about ourselves, to accumulate enough, to have people think well of us. But standing in grace means that whether you are great at your job or struggling at it, whether you’ve accumulated much or little, whatever people think of you — your standing is unchanged. You have a standing given by the God of the universe that isn’t as fickle as how people see you in this world.
Madonna, at the height of her fame, described in an interview a relentless cycle of feeling worthwhile, then crashing back into feelings of mediocrity and inadequacy, needing to prove herself again and again. She concluded that even having “become somebody,” she still felt she had to prove she was somebody. The standing of grace says to those who’ve been justified: you have been defined by the God of the universe, not by these lesser definitions.
Benefit 4: The Hope of Glory (v. 2c)
“…and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”
You might wonder if this is just another way of talking about heaven or some future thing. There’s an element of the hope of glory that encompasses that, but it’s more. First John 3:2 says: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
The hope of glory isn’t just a future destination with streets of gold and no night and no pain. The hope of glory is that one day you will be what Jesus is. Do you ever get tired of your own sin — your own habits and patterns that you wish weren’t still part of you? Your inability to control some anger, the pettiness you allow into your life? The hope of glory means that you won’t merely be saved from the penalty of sin (which is what God accomplished through Jesus Christ on the cross), but that one day you will be free from the very presence of sin. Not only that — the world’s brokenness will be redeemed and restored, and God will rule as things should be.
In English, the word “hope” means we kind of wish for something. “I hope it’ll be a better year for the Pirates.” “I hope the weather will be nice next week.” But in the original language, the word “hope” carried a fixed certainty. Paul is not expressing a wish — he is saying he lives with a fixed certainty of what is coming. That is something we can live with anticipation about, right now.
Benefit 5: Purpose in Suffering (vv. 3–4)
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
Without Jesus Christ and without justification, suffering is just suffering — a bad thing in your life. But if you’ve come to embrace Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, Paul says your suffering is not pointless. Suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance produces proven character. And proven character produces hope.
We so often see suffering as a random hardship to endure or get through. But here the idea is that your suffering produces something of significance. The Christian hope is that you have a destiny that God is actively at work in, and that even the hard things, the suffering, God is using. He’s turning it to produce perseverance, proven character, and hope. Even your suffering isn’t pointless. That is a benefit of being justified by grace.
Benefit 6: The Abundance of Love (v. 5)
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Here Paul alludes to the Holy Spirit, but his emphasis is on the abundance of love — on what God has given us. The phrase “poured out” carries the idea of overflowing — more than we can even consume. That is how much love has been given to us.
The truth is that what most of us want, maybe more than anything, is to be loved and to love well. But when love breaks down in human relationships, it is almost unbearable. What this verse is saying is that the love available to you from God is abundant. It is overflowing toward you. You can know, because of what Jesus Christ has done, that you are loved abundantly by the God of the universe.
In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye asks his wife Goldie repeatedly, “Do you love me?” She responds with a list of all the things she’s done — washing his clothes, cooking his meals, raising his children — and asks why he’s bringing up love now. He keeps pressing: “But do you love me?” What he wanted to know wasn’t just that she did things that served him — he wanted to know she had an affection for him. God’s love for those who’ve been justified by faith isn’t just about what He’s done for us. He actually has an affection — He loves you.
Richard Lovelace wrote: “It is an item of faith that we are children of God. There is plenty of experience in us against it. But the faith that surmounts this evidence, and that is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love instead of having to steal love and acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness. We are not saved by the love we exercise, but by the love that we trust.”
What we will do is either go through our lives trying to get other people and other sources to render a verdict — I am what I do, I am what I have, I am what other people think of me — or we will warm ourselves at the love of God. And that love will allow us to be free to love and be loved without demanding from other sources something they were never intended to give.
Application: Now What?
For some of us, the answer goes back to the very beginning: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith…” If you’ve never been justified by faith — if you’ve never come to believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior — that is the first step to having these benefits and perks of grace. It means saying: God, I know that I’m a sinner, and I trust Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
But many of us would say, “I believe that, but I often don’t experience God the way you’re talking about today.” Here’s an analogy: Someone recently sent me an e-gift card to a nice restaurant. Knowing I have the e-gift card doesn’t get me the experience of going out to dinner. In order to have the experience, I need to actually use it. Here’s where the similarity ends: once you use a gift card, it’s gone. But God’s gift of grace is unlimited.
This means that every time you feel a little hostility with God, you can come back to this passage and say: I have peace with God because I’ve been justified. Every time you feel distant from God: I have access to the God of the universe because I’ve been justified. Every time you feel the need to get a verdict from something else in your life: I have standing in grace because I’ve been justified. I have purpose in suffering. I have the hope of glory. I have the abundance of love — because I’ve been justified.
That means you come to the place where you say: God, I am going to take what I know you’ve given me, and I’m going to make it a reality in my life by focusing on it until it is true. Part of why we sing and worship is to experience a moment where we say: God, I love you — but you also love me. I worship you because of what you’ve done. And our hearts are moved toward the God of the universe when we consider this justifying work of Jesus Christ. That is why the gift of grace is so great.
Closing Prayer
God, we ask today that you would help us to live in the reality of what you have given, not without it. Help us not to simply believe and follow because of the carrot of heaven, but to understand that what you offer in justification impacts every area of our lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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AI-Generated Disclaimer
This transcript has been cleaned up and formatted with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI). While every effort has been made to accurately represent the spoken content of the sermon, minor edits for clarity, grammar, and readability have been applied. The AI-assisted process may have introduced unintentional changes to phrasing or nuance. This document is intended as a general reference and should not be considered a verbatim transcript. For the original audio or video recording, please visit Orchard Hill Church’s official website or media library.
