Day 261: Justification (1987-1995)

• It’s Day 261!!

• ARTICLE 2: GRACE AND JUSTIFICATION

• How are we justified?

• How are we saved?

• What is grace?

• What does grace do in our lives?

• We are not just covered by grace

• Grace must do something inside of us

• We are clothed in Christ and the Holy Spirit, of course

• BUT…

• Our fundamental disposition towards the Lord is radically reoriented

• We are made into new creatures

• What Jesus does through the sacraments in us radically changes us

• What does grace do?

• How does grace justify us?

• How does Jesus Christ justify us through the Power of the Holy Spirit?

• It is complex and yet simple

• What do all these words mean?

• JUSTIFICATION

• SANCTIFICATION

• GRACE

• MERIT

• FAITH

• WORKS

• Paragraph 1987 says, “The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us ‘the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ’ and through Baptism: But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, you are good, and you desire that your children not only come to know you, but become like you. Lord, in the life of the Holy Spirit, in the life of grace, you give us your gift. You make us like you. By sending us your Holy Spirit, we have become partakers in the divine nature. And by sending us your Holy Spirit, you give us the power to live as sons and daughters of God. So Lord, this day, wherever we are right now, please meet us with that grace. Wherever we are right now, please meet us with your salvation. Meet us with your justification and sanctification. Meet us with your Holy Spirit. Lord God, just meet us and help us. Help us to see you in this world around us. Help us to hear your voice. Help us to become like you, so that all may see and know you and so that you may be glorified in all things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• INCREDIBLE!!

• BEAUTIFUL!!

• St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans tells us what God has done for us

• We are now looking at our calling in PILLAR 3: HOW WE LIVE

• We need to recognize that we do not do any of this on our own

• We can’t do any of this on our own

• This is God’s grace working through us and coming to us by the Power of the Holy Spirit

• Paragraph 1987 says, “The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us ‘the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ’ and through Baptism: But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

• Paragraph 1991 says, “Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or ‘justice’) here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.”

• The Holy Spirit has communicated to us that we are justified

• What does that mean?

• In some ways, we are made right with God

• We are brought into right relationship with God

• We have the gifts of faith, hope, and love poured into our hearts

• We then get to have the power to have obedience to the divine will

• We have the power to do something that we could not do before

• The Law on its own is good but it is not enough

• It does not give the power to follow the Law

• Because we have the Power of the Holy Spirit, we have God HIMSELF living in us

• So we are brought into right relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

• We have grace so we actually can say YES to God’s will

• We have the ability to be obedient to God’s will

• Paragraph 1988 says, “Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself: [God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature…For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.”

• The Holy Spirit makes ACTUAL what Jesus made POSSIBLE

• We participate in Christ’s Death through Baptism

• BUT…

• We also get to participate in Christ’s Resurrection by being born to a new life

• And we have to live this new life

• Paragraph 1989 says, “The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus’ proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. ‘Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.’”

• Paragraph 1990 says, “Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follow upon God’s merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.”

• We get to say, “Ok, Lord, is there a deeper and deeper way that you want to move in my heart? Is there a deeper way that you want to purify my heart?”

• Because He does

• This is the great news

• Not only does justification detach us from sin, it also purifies our heart from sin

• It is the acceptance of God’s righteousness

• Paragraph 1992 says, “Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life: But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from 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: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.”

• Jesus did this for us

• We are not simply declared just

• We are made inwardly just

• We are not simply declared righteous

• God makes us righteous by Baptism and faith

• This is not simply a legal justification

• Grace changes us

• The Holy Spirit changes us

• We are truly inwardly transformed by the power of God’s mercy

• Why?

• For the glory of God in Christ and the gift of Eternal Life

• Paragraph 1993 says, “Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom…When God touches man’s heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God’s grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God’s sight.”

• Paragraph 1994 says, “Justification is the most excellent work of God’s love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that ‘the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth,’ because ‘heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect…will not pass away.’ He holds also that justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy.”

• Paragraph 1995 says, “The Holy Spirit is the master of the interior life. By giving birth to the ‘inner ma,’ justification entails the sanctification of his whole being: Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification…But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.”

• To sanctify is to set it apart for God

• The justification entails the sanctification

• The setting apart and transformation of one’s whole being

• Has today felt abstract for you? (vigorously nodding yes)

• This is not an abstract thing

• This is so concrete and tangible in our lives

• What Jesus did for us is tangible

• This is something that happened in time

• The Cross is tangible

• The nails are tangible

• The crown of thorns is tangible

• His rising from the dead is tangible

• His being transformed and rising to new life is tangible

• When the Holy Spirit comes upon us in this work of justification and giving us grace, that is tangible as well

• If we keep ourselves away from God’s grace and do not allow faith, hope, and love, to be poured out into our hearts and we don’t live in obedience to the Father’s will, then it is abstract

• Then it is intangible

• BUT…

• When we look at our lives and say, “Today, Jesus, because of your grace, because of the Holy Spirit, for the Lord, for the Father in Heaven, I am going to walk in faith. I am going to walk in hope. I am going to walk in love. Today. Today, because of what you have done, Jesus, because you have poured out your grace into my heart and brought me into your Body, the Church, I am going to be obedient to the Father’s will.”

• When that happens, every action of the day is an act of grace

• It is no longer abstract

• It is very tangible

• Thank God for the grace of salvation

• Thank God for the gift of faith, hope, and love

• Thank God that He enables us to be reconciled to Him when we fail and to be obedient to Him when we walk in the Power of the Holy Spirit

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• TTFN!! (Thanks, Tigger!!)