INI June 8 & 9, 2008
Sermon preached at Cross of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), 9931 Foley Blvd. NW, Coon Rapids, MN 55433. Please share this with someone else after you have finished. Thank you!
Bible Text—Romans 5:6-11, You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
One of the joys of being a pastor is to be able to share the gospel with others—as they’re about to leave this life and step into eternity. It’s worth more than all the money in the world to be able to tell someone what God’s Word says about heaven and that it belongs to them because of everything Jesus did as our Savior.
But there’s disappointment in the ministry as well. I’ve had conversations in the past and I’ve overheard conversations with people who are asked if they’re sure they’ll go to heaven. It’s a disappointment when men, women and children who sit in church Sunday after Sunday and who listen to sermon after sermon and who sit in Bible class and Sunday school regularly respond to such a question with the answer: “I’m not sure—I’m not sure if I’m going to heaven or not.”
In our text from Paul’s letter to the Romans, the apostle tells us that when it comes to going to heaven when we die, our answer can be sure and confident. We can be confident because getting there does not depend on us or what we do. Let’s consider this morning OUR CHRISTIAN CONFIDENCE.
You and I are Christians because of the hope God gives us in his Word. We have hope because of the love God has for us. Our text gives us the supreme example of that love: You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The picture of our lives before the Holy Spirit brought us to faith was not a pretty one. Paul describes what we’re like by nature by using words such a powerless, ungodly and sinners. Before Christ came into our lives, we were without spiritual life and strength. In Ephesians (2:1) the apostle describes us as spiritual corpses. We were also ungodly—this was a term used to describe those who are completely hostile to God. Such people think so little of God they would just as soon spit on him! And then there’s that term sinners. Sinners are those who miss the mark of keeping God’s Commandments.
Our natural state of unbelief does not offer a very pretty picture of ourselves. The thing we need to remember, though, is that even now as we have the new person of faith living in our hearts by the gospel, our human nature is still just as despicable. Our human nature is still powerless, ungodly and sinful. The human nature of a Christian is just as sinful as the human nature of any unbeliever.
But at just the right time—at the time God determined to be the best time—Christ died for the ungodly. The Messiah promised by God in the Old Testament died in the place of those who would just love to spit in his face! He died so the ungodly would not have to die in hell.
Paul then offers two examples from every-day life that show the ultimate love of God.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. A righteous man refers to a good citizen, someone we all want to be. A righteous man is someone who works hard, he pays his bills on time, he doesn’t cheat on his taxes, he’s patriotic—he’s the kind of guy you’d want for a neighbor. Would someone lay down his life for a person like that? Maybe, but it’s very unlikely.
Then there’s a good man. A good man is someone whose position of power and prestige strongly argues that his life should be spared for the public good. We may think of people like Bill Gates or Ted Turner, who give away millions of dollars every year to help people eat in starving third-world countries and for scientific research to find cures to fatal diseases. Would someone die for such a good man? Possibly; but still, it would be extremely rare.
But consider the love of God. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God’s love is one-way, unreciprocated love coming entirely from him. This is a love that is totally foreign to our human way of thinking and our human experience. The Innocent One offers himself into death to save the guilty. This is the very height of self-sacrificing love!
This past week President Bush awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously to Ross McGinnis, a nineteen year-old soldier in Iraq who lost his life when he spared his friends from almost certain death. As he and his buddies were on patrol in Baghdad, Ross was stationed at the machine gun on top of his vehicle, when a hand grenade was thrown and it fell through the hatch. Private McGinnis yelled at his friends and he very easily could have jumped off the vehicle to save his own life. Instead, he jumped inside and covered the grenade with his body. Ross McGinnis lost his life while his four friends were spared. This is the kind of love the apostle Paul says is rare.
Now imagine for a moment that the four men inside of the humvee were al-Qaeda prisoners. Would an American soldier throw himself on a grenade to protect the lives of people whose main goal in life is to kill Americans? I really doubt if something like that would ever happen. But that’s exactly the kind of love shown to you and me when Christ died for us.
Paul then discusses our Christian confidence in our salvation. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! Saved—When we lived in the South people would sometimes come up to us on the sidewalk and ask, “Are you saved?” We use this word quite a bit in our preaching and teaching, in our sermons and Bible classes. But what does the word mean? Literally, to be saved means that we’re rescued from a hopeless situation. The hopeless situation we found ourselves in was eternal condemnation in hell because of our sins. But God has pronounced us “not guilty” because of Christ’s sacrificial death. Since that has already happened, we will most certainly be delivered from the hopeless situation of hell on the Last Day.
The apostle then wants to explain this to us more fully: For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Paul repeats in even more vivid terms that God’s love for us in the past guarantees our future! The greatest and most important work has already happened. The crisis is over—we’ve been reconciled to God through the death of his Son. If Christ’s death means our reconciliation, then his life—his resurrection from the dead—means our ultimate deliverance. Eternal life is the natural result of our justification.
In the book of Romans, Paul speaks of Christ’s work in our behalf in three different ways. He speaks in terms of price: Christ redeemed us from sin, death and hell. In other words, he purchased us for himself. Paul also writes in terms of the courtroom: because we are covered in Christ’s righteousness, God has acquitted us of our sin. And now he speaks in terms of our relationship with him: we were reconciled.
During his public ministry, Jesus described his mission using all three of these terms. He spoke in terms of price. When the mother of James and John wanted her sons to have positions of importance alongside of Jesus, he responded: “…the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” Matthew 20:28. In his parable of the unmerciful servant, Jesus used the legal terminology of the courtroom when he spoke of the king who “canceled all that debt” of his servant, Matthew 18:32. And in his parable of the prodigal son, using the language of a personal relationship, our Lord referred to the father who welcomed home the undeserving son, Luke 15:20. The first example from Jesus is redemption. The second example is justification. The third is reconciliation. They all refer to the very same thing.
Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Literally, the word that’s translated rejoice actually means “boast.” Paul had talked about “boasting” two other times previously in this chapter. In verse 2 he wrote: “And we rejoice [or boast] in the hope of the glory of God.” In verse 3 he said: “Not only so, but we also rejoice [or boast] in our sufferings.” So we boast in hope, we boast in suffering, and finally we boast in God, because apart from God we have nothing to boast about!
There are times in all of our lives when we feel so guilty about something we’ve done that we think we’re too terrible to be forgiven. “Why would God love me?” “Look at how I‘ve lived!” “Look at the trouble I’ve gotten myself into.” “Look at the evil thoughts and desires I’ve harbored in my heart.” Satan whispers his doubts into our ears and we almost despair of Christ’s forgiveness and we just about give up on the hope of heaven. And when we’re feeling this way and someone asks us if we’re sure we’re gong to heaven when we die—we respond with a great deal of uncertainty.
But consider for whom Christ died. He didn’t die in the place of those who are good. He didn’t suffer hell on the cross for those who are perfect. But Christ died for the ungodly. Are you ungodly? Are you spiritually powerless and a sinner? Of course you are! It’s exactly for you that Jesus died.
We don’t have to wait until Judgment Day to have this reconciliation made our own. It belongs to us right now. So if anyone ever asks you: “Are you sure you’re going to heaven?” You can answer with a firm “Yes, I know I’m going to heaven, because of what Jesus has done for me.” This is our CHRISTIAN CONFIDENCE: Confidence in God’s love. Confidence in our salvation.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
