At the Right Time
Notes
Transcript
1 Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with our God through Jesus Christ.
2 We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory.
3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance,
4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
6 While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people.
7 It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person.
8 But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
9 So, now that we have been made righteous by his blood, we can be even more certain that we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.
10 If we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son while we were still enemies, now that we have been reconciled, how much more certain is it that we will be saved by his life?
11 And not only that: we even take pride in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, the one through whom we now have a restored relationship with God.
At the Right Time
At the Right Time
In a "Calvin and Hobbs" cartoon a frazzled Calvin quips, "God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I'm so far behind I'll never die."
Have you ever felt that way? We can get caught up in life and feel like we’ll never catch up.
I know at work it can seem that way. On Thursday I had 9 patients scheduled. I had to go first to the Rockwood High School to see a student and then to my office in Somerset for the other 8 patients. Unlike most days, they all showed up at there scheduled times. At lunch time I had a teleconference with my social work supervisor. Some how in the 10 hours that I was scheduled to work I was expected to see all the patients, have my supervision, and do all the paperwork and progress notes.
I left my office shortly after 7 pm knowing that when I got in the office on Monday that I would have to finish up what I didn’t finish on Thursday and then do everything that is waiting on me to do on Monday.
Our scripture text addresses this issue of time. Paul wrote in verse 6
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Chuck Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship, visited a prison in Brazil that is operated by Christians and founded on Christian principles. This is what he found:
When I visited this prison, I found the inmates smiling, particularly the murderer who opened the gates and let me in. Wherever I walked, I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas, people working hard. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs. My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that area houses only a single inmate. As we reached that cell, he paused and asked, "Are you sure you want to go in?"
"Of course," I replied impatiently. "I've been in isolation cells all over the world." Slowly the guide swung open the massive door and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the inmates -- the prisoner Jesus, hanging on a cross.
"He's doing time for the rest of us," the guide said softly.
We can say that Jesus did time for us. Because of our sin Jesus came and put on His creations flesh and form.
Paul starts this chapter with that great theological word “Therefore.”
In the preceeding chapters he has written about the law and how it was unable to save us. He wrote that we have all sinned.
We looked last week at Abraham and learned about his faith that was credited to him as righteousness. It wasn’t about what he did or didn’t do, it was about his faith in God.
As I have said many times that when we see the word “therefore,” we have to look at why it is “therefore.”
Paul has been explaining the opening section of this letter about sin and how it has corrupted God’s creation. He wrote in Romans 1:18 “18 God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodly behavior and the injustice of human beings who silence the truth with injustice.”
God created all that was created to bring glory and honor to Him. He created humanity in his very image, holy, pure.
Sin broke that image. Some question about how God can demonstrate wrath or anger against his creation. They will mention that God loves everyone of us. God does love us with a love that compelled him by coming to us in the person of Jesus to demonstrate that love. Jesus died for all of us.
God does love us, but his love for us will not allow him to leave us as we were. God wanted to restore, to reconcile us to him. The law was incapable of doing that. The law wasn’t bad or unholy, it was given by God. So why was it needed? Well, I’m glad you asked. Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians.
24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
A tutor is someone who teaches, guides, or coaches. In this case the law was to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
That has been what Paul has been writing about in Romans. He has been teaching about justification by faith.
So getting back to that Therefore where he wrote “Therefore, having been justified by faith.”
It is through Jesus that we have been justified. So backing up to the last verse of chapter 4 we read
25 He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.
God did that for us. Jesus did what the law couldn’t do. He died for our sins. To illustrate it, listen to this story:
One winter’s night in 1935, it is told, Fiorello LaGuardia, the irrepressible mayor of New York, showed up at a night court in the poorest ward of the city. He dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench. That night a tattered old woman, charged with stealing a loaf of bread, was brought before him. She defended herself by saying, “My daughter’s husband has deserted her. She is sick, and her children are starving.”
The shopkeeper refused to drop the charges, saying, “It’s a bad neighborhood, your honor, and she’s got to be punished to teach other people a lesson.”
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the old woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you; the law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail.” However even while pronouncing sentence, LaGuardia reached into his pocket, took out a ten-dollar bill, and threw it into his hat with these famous works: “Here’s the ten-dollar fine which I now remit, and furthermore, I’m going to fine everyone in the courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”
The following day, a New York newspaper reported: “Forty-seven dollars and fifty cents was turned over to a bewildered old grandmother who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Making forced donations were a red-faced storekeeper, seventy petty criminals, and a few New York policemen.”
You see Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Justification is not for some pie in the sky when we die. Justification is a source of blessings for us here and now. When God declared us righteous in Jesus, He gave us seven spiritual blessings. Paul liked to write about spiritual blessings. In Ephesians he wrote that God has blessed us in the heavenly realm with all spiritual blessings. So the seven I’m going to point out is not an end all list, but rather seven that we can readily identify.
The first blessing is Peace with God. Rom 5:1 “we have peace with our God through Jesus Christ.” Before we came to faith in Christ, we were enemies of God. Have you ever had someone who was an enemy? It didn’t matter what you did, they were hateful. That was us towards God.
The second blessing is Access to God. Rom 5:2 “ We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him.” Picture the Jewish Temple. Within the Temple was the Holy of Holies, that one place that only the High Priest could enter once a year on the Day of Atonement. There was this great curtain that separated that place from the rest of the Temple. When Jesus died on the cross, that great curtain or veil was torn from the top to the bottom. That symbolized that the way to God was opened through Jesus.
The third blessing is Hope. Rom 5:2 “we boast in the hope of God’s glory.” The great Bible Teacher Warren Wiersbe wrote:
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Four: Live like a King! (Romans 5)
“Peace with God” takes care of the past: He will no longer hold our sins against us. “Access to God” takes care of the present: we can come to Him at any time for the help we need. “Hope of the glory of God” takes care of the future: one day we shall share in His glory!
Jim Hill wrote a song in our hymnbook that has these words:
What a day that will be,
When my Jesus I shall see,
And I look upon His face,
The One who saved me by His grace;
When He takes me by the hand,
And leads me through the Promised Land,
What a day, glorious day that will be. [Jim Hill]
Are you ready for that day? It will come whether we are ready or not. Is that glorious hope yours?
The fourth blessing is that of a Christian Character. I know a lot of people who are characters, I know a number of Christians who are characters. When I say that it is not in a positive sense. Paul wrote Rom 5:3-4 “3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
Paul understands that we live in a world with real problems but they are not insurmountable by the power of God at work within us by the Holy Spirit. Jesus recognized that we would face trouble in this world. He said to the disciples:
33 I’ve said these things to you so that you will have peace in me. In the world you have distress. But be encouraged! I have conquered the world.”
That world trouble or tribulation “means “pressure,” and while most people would testify to the unpleasantness of pressure, believers are able to rejoice in the unpleasantness. This is not because they flippantly ignore it or psychologically block it out with loud exclamations of “Praise the Lord” but because they know what is going on and welcome it.”[8]
Paul points out next a sequence or chain of events that leads to hope in the life of a believer. He writes:
that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
That word perseverance means to “abide under.” That means for the believe we abide with Christ when things are going good and also when things are not going good. We face the temptation to toss in the towel when life gets rough and we’re under a lot of pressure. We are tempted to give up. To persevere is to not give up.
Perseverance produces character. Now some of you are characters, but that is not what Paul is writing about. Character that Paul is writing about as one writer commented: “incorporates the idea of the approvedness that comes from passing through a trial. Paul, writing to the Philippians, used the same word about Timothy: “But you know his proven character” (Phil. 2:22), referring to the stability which the young man had exhibited in the fiery furnace of evangelistic endeavor with Paul. The people in the church at Philippi were in a position to recognize the type of man he was by the way he had come through his ordeals.[9]
It is out of that approvedness of character that final link and that is that character produces hope. This hope Paul writes:
5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Yes we may experience times of loss and suffering. We may face difficulties. Our hope is not in the here and now. Our hope is in the God who loved us and redeemed us. Paul said “hope does not put us to shame or it does not disappoint us.” Why? Paul answers our inevitable why question by writing: “because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
The fifth blessing is God’s Love Within Us. Rom 5:5-8 “5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. 7 It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person. 8 But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
Because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, “the moment we believe, floods our hearts with these expressions of God’s eternal love, and by these we are assured that He will see us safely home to heaven. After you receive the Spirit, you will sense that God loves you. This is not a vague, mystical feeling that “Somebody up there” cares about humanity, but the deep-seated conviction that a personal God really loves you as an individual.[1]
The sixth blessing is Salvation from future wrath. Rom 5:9-10 “9 So, now that we have been made righteous by his blood, we can be even more certain that we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. 10 If we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son while we were still enemies, now that we have been reconciled, how much more certain is it that we will be saved by his life?”
If God saved us while we were his enemies, won’t he keep on saving us as his Children? Yes, that is what Paul saying here. Wiersbe wrote
The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Four: Live like a King! (Romans 5)
Jesus Christ wrote us into His will, and He wrote the will with His blood. “This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). He died so that the will would be in force; but then He arose from the dead and returned to heaven that He might enforce the will Himself and distribute the inheritance. Thus, we are “saved by His life.”
The seventh blessing is Reconciliation with God. Rom 5:11 “11 And not only that: we even take pride in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, the one through whom we now have a restored relationship with God.”
As Christians we have been reconciled, brought into a relationship with God. The battle is over, the war has been won by Christ.
Going back to our key verse today, Paul wrote Rom 5:6
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
At the right time. That one event has altered world history. After his resurrection and ascension to Heaven, the Gospel sped around the world with incredible speed.
Jon Courson’s Application Commentary Chapter 5
On August 6, 1945, one man, Harry Truman, ordered the atom bomb dropped over Hiroshima. And the death, the devastation, and the destruction that followed were unparalleled in history. The atom bomb changed the entire course of geo-political events, as every building within 4.7 miles of the epicenter was leveled instantly, as ninety-three thousand people died immediately, as three hundred thousand died eventually from the fall-out.
When Adam “bombed” in his relationship with God, sin entered the world. That one event impacted everyone of us. When Jesus died on the cross, that one event has the potential to save every person in the world. I say it has the potential because we have to “believe in him so we won’t perish but will have eternal life.”
Let me close with these words from verse 11
11 And even more than that, we overflow with triumphant joy in our new relationship of living in harmony with God—all because of Jesus Christ!
[1] MacDonald, William. Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments. Ed. Arthur Farstad. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995. Print.