Listen
Transcript
Brothers and sisters in the Lord, I shared with you last Sunday morning that one of the
things that happens when by faith in Jesus Christ we become the children of God is that
God pours his love into our hearts that is to say we begin to experience and the core of our
being the reality of God's love. It isn't only an intellectual exercise any longer. His spirit
bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. That's of course what Paul talks about in
verse 5 of this chapter when he says hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. And the irony of all of that
is that the difficulties in the trials of life instead of robbing us of that experience of God's love
more often than not are the instrument that God uses to bring out the awareness of the love
that he has for you and for me. Many of us here this morning I'm sure can testify to the fact that
that there have been those times when our backs were driven against the wall.
And on an outward surface issue there wasn't a lot of reason to be joyful and there wasn't
a lot of reason to be hopeful. But in the middle of that crisis there was an awareness of God's love
and God's power that carried us through and we knew that it would be okay because God is on his
throne in heaven. I am his child and he loves me with an everlasting love. God's love has been poured
into my heart through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Now unfortunately
not all of God's people are able to identify with that experiential knowledge of God's love
poured out in their hearts. So not only that but even those of God's people that know how to
experience or that have experienced that love of God should have brought in their hearts
will acknowledge that more often than not we're not very much aware of it at all.
And there are many reasons for that of course but I believe one of the reasons is that sometimes
we just really feel unworthy of God's love. And we wonder how God can put up with us and we
wonder if the day is coming when God will just sort of pull the plug on us because we've been too
bad for too long and we've gone too far. Haven't you ever felt that way? You know God comes to you
in His love. He shows the reality of the sacrifice of Jesus. You respond in faith with all that is
within your heart and you say yes Lord I want to love you I want to live for you I want to serve
you I want to do your will and you put all the energy that you have into gear and you try to be
all of the things that God wants you to be and then you discover it's not that easy
and you fail and you can't overcome those certain bad habits that are a part of your life
and you become discouraged and you begin to wonder maybe God's love is meant for everybody else
but me and you kind of throw in the towel because because it's just become too hard and you can't
imagine how how God will want to put up with you because He's put up with you for so long.
I believe that's especially true of new believers when they start struggling with overcoming old
patterns in their lives. I also believe that it's true especially of people that have been raised
in a situation where the love they received from their parents or from other people around them
was a conditional kind of love. The kind of love that said I love you if you measure up but
I'll throw you out and and I will I will punish you when I will reject you when you don't quite
measure up to what my expectations are of your life. How do you overcome that?
How can you live with the confidence that the love that God is for you is a love that will
carry you through and present you before the throne of God without spot or wrinkle or blemish
or any such thing? Well that's what Paul begins to talk about now in verses 6 through 11 of this
chapter as he begins to elaborate upon the nature of the love that God has poured out in our hearts
and he does that in these verses I think in a most interesting fashion because he begins
saying on what we were like when God's love first found us three times in his passage
he tells us what we were like when God first gave his son Jesus to die for our sins. Verse 6
while we were still weak at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Verse 8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us on
then verse 10 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 do you notice the parallel
structure in each of these verses while we were still weak while we were yet sinners while we
were enemies what's Paul saying? Well what Paul is saying is that when God first proposed in his heart
to bring you and me and to fellowship with himself there wasn't anything that he saw in your life
or in my life that made us worthy to be saved that's a tough and bitter pill to swallow for humanity
but the Bible teaches it again and again and again we were Paul says number one week
that is to say there wasn't any strength in us that made us even want to be able to reach out to
God let alone be able to number two Paul says we were sinners that is to say people who stubbornly
and determinedly decided to go their own way rather than God's way and then Paul says number three
and you'll notice the progression here gets worse all the time he says we were
enemies that is to say we didn't only just ignore God we didn't only not have the power to reach out
to God but we were actively opposed to God we viewed God as an enemy we wanted nothing to do with
him and we fought him with everything that is within us do you understand that to be the condition
of your own heart do you understand this morning that from God's point of view
apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ that's how we are towards God
now if other people treated us that way what would we do well we'd make shortshifter then wouldn't we
I mean you just don't have a relationship with people like that but the amazing thing of God's
love says Paul here in this passage is that while we were all of these things Christ died for us
and his whole argument in this passage then is that God knew us through and through and through
and he knew that we were weak he knew that we were sinners he knew that we were his adversaries
wanted nothing to do with him and yet fully knowing that in his love decided to send his son
into the world helped him to live our life and die our death ascended into heaven said down
at the right hand of God poured out his Holy Spirit and by the Spirit of God came to you and to
me with his grace while we were yet sinners and he said I know you're not worthy to be saved
I know there is nothing in you that would make me want you to be part of my family because you're
a rotten miserable little whatever but Paul says in this God's love was shown that while we were
yet sinners Christ died for us and that's when his argument here becomes really interesting
because he now goes on to say if that's what we were like before God sent his son into the world
and he nevertheless reached out to me where I was knowing that I was not worthy to be saved and to
be loved and to experience his salvation much more now he says that we have been saved by the death
of Jesus and have become a part of God's family how much more will now God pour out his love into
my life and carry me through and bring me into victory verse 10 listen to it again
if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son much more I love that
phrase much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life two sets of contrasts
there I want us to notice this morning enemies reconciled to God that's one set
removed from God restored to God friends of God the second set of contrasts that you find in
that one verse is the death of Jesus versus the life of Jesus and without trying to make it
complicated what Paul is really saying here I believe is this he says there was a day
when I was alienated from God and there was nothing in me that would want God to save me
but he says so great is the love in the heart of God even though while I was weak while I was a
sinner while I was an enemy God chose to bring me into a relationship with him by the death
of his son when his son died on the cross the issue of sin and guilt was dealt with
and we became reconciled to God we are now the friends of God because of the death of Jesus
but he says and this is the clincher if that's how much God loved me
when I was a stranger and an enemy and doomed for hell now that he has brought me into
his family by the death of his son how much more God having done all of that will he now take me
and lead me into glory by the power of Jesus who is no longer dead but who's alive
because you see we are saved by his life that is to say Jesus sits at the right hand of God
and because he has overcome death and hell and all of its anguish ever lives and reigns to make
it her session for the children of God and of God love me enough to let his son die for me
while I was a sinner how much more now that I am no longer a sinner but a member of his family
and Jesus lives at the right hand of God how much more will he pour into my life everything
that I need to carry me through and to bring me to glory if while we were enemies we were
reconciled God by the death of his son much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved
by his life picture it this way
you're a married couple you've got some children of your own
but your heart's full of love and you want to find more children into which you can pour
out that love and you go to the orphanage shades of and of green gables here
and you go to the orphanage to pick out a child to take into your family and to bless with everything
that you've got but instead of just going around to see who's got the cutest face and who's
got the best background and who would best fit into your family you're so filled with love
and you're so confident of your love that you reach out to the least likely candidate for adoption
maybe a child that's malformed maybe mentally handicapped
a child that you know in and of itself can can never give you the kind of joy that perhaps a
healthy child would give you but but you're so full of love that you picked the worst possible
kind of child and you bring that one into your family you know it's medical history you know
what its prognosis is and you know that you're heading for a lot of trouble but you're going to do
it the child grows up and sure enough your worst fears are realized emotionally psychologically
and physically the child is very severely handicapped and you just got to keep on pouring your
love and your life into that child's life now human parents are limited in their love aren't they
human parents are limited in their knowledge of what really lives in the child's heart
and one of the problem that a lot of foster children encounter and a lot of foster parents experience
is that the relationship is more than either bargain for it sometimes these children are passed on
from home to home not because anybody wants to reject them but because we just don't have what it
takes to pour out that kind of love into people's lives but God's not like that
when God called me into his family he knew exactly what was living in my heart
he knew that I was weak he knew that I was a sinner and he knew that I was an enemy
and yet in spite of all of that he sent his son to bring me into his family and now having brought
me into his family with a full four knowledge of the rebelliousness of my own heart
he is committed by his confidence and the sacrifice and the resurrection of Jesus to pour out his
love into my life and to carry me all the way through because he isn't now going to throw me
out of the door when he's done all that work to adopt me into his family to begin with
much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life I get the impression
sometimes that many of God's children think that that when God called us into his family
he underestimated what lives in our lives and we say to ourselves God you don't know what you're
in for you don't know how much anger lives in my heart you don't know how many credit genes
I inherited from both sides of the family and I'm not talking about pants here either
you don't know how hard it is for me to even begin to want to love you let alone do your will
and there are those times I'm sure in many of our lives where we come to that kind of point where
we say well you know everybody else pushes me away Lord I failed my father I failed my husband
I failed my wife I failed my kids I've I'm just a failure just just throw me aside because
because Lord I haven't got what it takes to see it through to the end I guess I'm just one of
these that are our destined for damnation rather than for glory and Paul's argument here in Romans
chapter 5 let while we were yet sinners Christ died for you and for me God's not taken by surprise
God's not surprised that what lives in your heart or what lives in my heart
and when he sent his son to die in the cross for our salvation he knew fully well what it was that
lived within our hearts but still he chose us to bring us into his family and having brought us
into his family he knows that his love and his grace is more powerful than everything that lives
within us because you see if we are reconciled by the death of his son much more now shall we be saved
by his life one of the things that I believe God wants us to learn is a people
to get our eyes off ourselves off our failures off our weaknesses off our sins and onto the
person of Jesus Christ so that as Paul goes on to say in this particular passage we can rejoice in
God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have received this message of reconciliation
maybe you're here this morning and you don't feel worthy of communion maybe you're here this
morning and and you say to yourself you know everybody tells me God loves me
and intellectually I might understand that God loves me
but I really believe that God can love me I mean he may love other people
but if you really knew what I was really like then you would never think that God could love
me the way that I am today and God says just be quiet God says I love you
when you didn't even know that or what though that was there God says I love you when you were
stubbornly and stupidly following your own way God says I loved you when you were fighting me
with everything that was within me and I loved you so much that I gave my son to die for you
so that I could bring you into my family and God says do you think having done all that
I'm just gonna stand by now and wipe you out because I see that you have struggles and because
there are burdens in your life you don't know how to deal with all that at all says God
because I know God speaking now I know that what Jesus did when he died and when he arose
was to make possible the complete salvation of every part of your life and of my life
and even though we often despair it even though we think that God cannot keep on loving us
God's grace is there to the degree that as we yield to him and lay hold of his power and
lay hold of his glory that which he has begun in us that's what he will bring to completion
once we understand that we understand why Paul when he gets to Romans chapter 8
can say I believe there is nothing but nothing at all of creation that can separate me from
the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord you struggle with your sin
you struggle with what lives in your heart
you struggle with becoming the man becoming the woman that God is calling you to be
do you question whether you can make it to glory and stand before God spotless and without
ring call Paul says look at Jesus look at the manifestation of God's love in his death and in his life
God says believe in him for nobody but nobody that hopes in him will ever be disappointed
because in him God poured out his love for you and for me let us pray
and cannot be Lord that you should love the likes of what we are we're here this morning and
Lord if we've taken seriously last something night's admonition to prepare our hearts
that we know Lord that in many many areas we're not where we ought to be
and sometimes the more we see about what lives in our hearts the more we
we just sort of want to give it all up and say how could you ever love me
it Lord we know from your word and we know from experience too there are there are persons
upon persons in this auditorium even this morning I will have discovered that time and time
again as they sought to run away from you your love pursued and your loved one
and we pray now Lord that as we join together in the sacrament that you'll help us to believe
your word that if you loved us while we were yet sinners enough for Christ to die
now that we have become your children there is nothing but nothing that will stop you from
pouring out your love into our lives and changing us from glory to glory and to bring us through
to stand before your face we give you Lord our sins our shortcomings our failures our pains
our defeats our discouragement our heartache and we just declare by the word of the Lord
that we rejoice in God through Jesus Christ through whom we have been reconciled
to God the Father now you spray this warning Lord that as we stand in faith your spirit will
pour out your love into our hearts and that will know in a whole new way that nothing but
nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord help us to lift our eyes now
to Jesus his cross and his life and by faith may we be made whole in Jesus name
Amen