L3 Ministries

What six blessings result when we are saved? Paul has a list of six real, hard-hitting truths in mind to encourage our hearts and build our hope! A Heavenly Treasure by Eric Blick, May 1, 2026 Reading the book of Romans is like hiking in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. I have loved every time I start from the car and make it up along the trails to high elevations with majestic views of the mountains and sweeping landscapes. It’s like Paul walking with us tells us when we park the car, “this gospel is really good news, and we see glimpses of these peaks of the mountains in the distance.” As we start the trail he says, “if the gospel is such good news and majestic then it’s really because you are so bad off. You are guilty for worshipping yourself and creation instead of this God who made all this, and you are worthy of his eternal punishment (Romans 1-3).” Then coming around the first bend on this trail we see the first 14-er mountain peak. We hear and see: We get a righteous record from God, earned through the life and death of Jesus, credited to our account while Christ takes the just punishment for my sin (Rom 3:24-26). How do we get this righteousness? Just like Abraham did, we believe in God’s promise. Abraham and each of us believers have faith that God would provide our needed righteousness through himself (Romans 4). Then it is like Paul sits us down on the trail, we take out our sandwiches and drinks, and he points out the path to the next mountain peak. With excited voice he says something like, “now that we have made it this far, let me tell you SIX great results of this great salvation. Let me remind you of where we are on this journey: look around at what it is like to get here, take in all that you see, and reflect on six beautiful results of what happens now that we are saved. Four of these results are present right now on this path, and two more are future results of blessing.” Let’s look at the logical flow and path that Paul takes us on in Romans 5:1-10. These are the six simple steps or results to walk on this path as we take in the splendor of the heights: The Action: We get God’s righteousness deposited to our account making us justified. That is the action: we are saved by God, we get his righteousness, and that is done through faith. We are justified before him. One great way this has been described is my status changes to “just as if I have never sinned.” That is justification. Paul starts Romans 5:1 with this: Verse 1 – Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, We are justified, and that is done by faith! Result 1: God and I are at peace. We are no longer at odds with our Creator. We have peace with him. Instead of our sin making us at war with him, he is for us. We are on the same team, and we are in his Kingdom as sons and daughters. Verse 1b – we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Result 2: We have standing. We have access to the throne of the king, and we belong in his presence. We have standing. And we are not jokers or court jesters only invited in for humor and then kicked out. We have an audience with the king. Verse 2 – Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, Result 3: We have real hope of Glory. We are joyful in the real hope that we will see the glory of God, that we see the glory of God in Jesus, and that we are ourselves are destined for glory. Paul says all creation is eagerly awaiting to see us glorified. We will be remade. We will have glory and creation is groaning in itself to see us glorified (Rom 8:15). We were built for glory and to behold the glory of God. Verse 2b – and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Implied objection – Wait, that all sounds too good to be true. What about my suffering now? I see the world is broken. My loved one just died, and I know the world is not right. I suffer. I see others suffer. How can these first three results be true now while I suffer? Result 4: Suffering increases our joy. What? Suffering can actually increase our joy and our knowing that God loves us immensely. Paul writes, Verse 3-5: 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, Implied objection – How do I know that even in suffering I am loved? How do I know I did not make this up? Paul argues TWO reasons WHY we know God’s love is not cut off in suffering: Grounding Argument #1 – the SUBJECTIVE reason [because]: I have the Holy Spirit who tells me I am loved. I have the Spirit of God IN me, and one of his jobs is to remind me how much I am loved, and I know it, and I feel it, and I want to feel it more. It is a subjective experience that the Holy Spirit brings. I am God’s. I am his child, and God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, is IN me (Rom 8:9-10, 14-15). Paul can hardly help himself from showing us the beauty of this peak without showing us another peak right behind it and above it as he unpacks so many of these truths further in Romans 8, which the Puritans named “the Great 8”! Verse 5b – Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Grounding Argument #2 – the OBJECTIVE reason [for]: I see Christ died for ME demonstrating to me I am loved. Paul gives us another reason why God’s love stays with us in suffering. He gives us a fact: Christ actually did die, and he died for you and me, believer! This is the Romans 8:32 argument, and let that truth melt your heart: he is for you and loves you and did not spare his own son, so why would he not give you all things? Verse 6-8 – For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Result 5 [Future] – We will escape God’s judgement. If he justified us by Jesus’ blood shed for us, then when the final judgment of God falls we will be saved from his wrath. We WILL make it through the final judgment of God with flying colors! Future judgment is not something we need to fear! Verse 9 – Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Implied objection: Yes, but what if I don’t make it to that final judgment day? What if God changes his mind, or what if he forgets I am justified now as the final judgment could be a long time from now? Or what if I am justified now but then I sin again, will my status be changed from justified to guilty again? I am good today but what about tomorrow? Grounding Argument [for]: Jesus perseveres his friends in faith. Paul give an astounding reason why we will avoid God’s final judgment. He says if Jesus died for us before we had peace with God while we were his enemies, then if we are now his friends – and we are – how much more will he stand by his guarantee to take his friends through God’s final judgment? Let that land on you, believer, you are a friend of Jesus, a friend of God. Verse 10 – For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Result 6: We get God NOW and forever. This was the most precious truth that hit me at the 1 year anniversary of my son’s death. I miss him. I long for him. I am crushed that he is gone, and I can’t get to him now but will see him one day. What do I do in the meantime? What do I have now? I have NOW received reconciliation with God. I have HIM now. Ultimately he is the better treasure, and he is undoing the broken and evil and wrong and as the better second Adam restoring all things to himself including my son’s resurrection from the dead. Verse 11 – More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Take these six truths that Paul pounds out and recite them, memorize them, use them to build your hope in him. These are yours, your six benefits to being saved, walk this path and take in this grandeur. Use them to know AND believe his deep love for you. Prayer Lord, what a mighty God you are who saves. Thank you for doing this impossible work to justify us and for covering us in your righteousness. We pray that you would remind us of these great blessings and results of knowing you and walking with you on this path. We love you! Amen! Write to us! admin Notes: The same pattern that we would KNOW and also BELIEVE the love of God as we see in Romans 5 is also seen Ephesians 3:18-20 and 1 John 4:13-16. Source: Timothy Keller, Romans 1–7 For You: For Reading, For Feeding, For Leading (The Good Book Company, 2014), Source: John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994) Photo by Eric: Starting to see peaks all around on the trail to climb La Plata in Granite, Colorado, July 2025 Forward this email to friends: If you are encouraged by this, please forward this email to your friends, and they can click HERE to sign up to receive this email to their inbox! About Us: David and Eric have been friends for many years through Glenna. Find out more about L3 Ministries together with Glenna’s three daughters carrying the torch from Glenna, passing on the hope of the sovereign grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. more Other Heavenly Treasures: Click here as our blog inventory fills to read past Heavenly Treasures! View in browser Copyright (C) 2026 L3 Ministries – Living a Lasting Legacy. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Want to change how you receive these emails? Click to unsubscribe 1839 Fawn Circle, Fremont, NE 68025