Christ Died for Us (Romans 5:6–8)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Today is Good Friday. Today, we remember the cross. The cross is important for us for many reasons. It's more than a decoration on a chain, or just something we put on the stage. The cross reminds us of what God did for us 2000 years ago through Jesus Christ. The cross shows us both the wrath of God and the love of God at the same time. The cross shows God's love for us.
I'm trying to find a picture of what the message of God's love for us on the cross, what that looks like. How many of us like receiving greeting cards? Now, the greeting cards you get from the store are fine, but there's a general message that's written that's purchased with the card. And typically just don't want to hand just that out because, you know, may not feel authentic.
But, as a parent, do you know what are the best cards you receive? They're the ones that weren't purchased at a store. They're the ones that your son or daughter made with crayon on a piece of paper and you get it, and it just says to the best dad ever, to the best mom ever. I love you. I mean, you get this, and it just, you cherish it. You cherish it because it comes from their heart.
When we see the cross, it's a message that is 1000 million times stronger, with more passion and more sincerity. The cross is a picture from God of his passionate love for his people.
When the early Christians, as they looked at the cross, what was their understanding? When they saw the cross, what did they think about it? We've been in the book of Romans this year. And I thought we'd take a look back in that book to ask ourselves what did the early Christians see when they saw the cross? What did they see? We'll see this from Paul today. And look at how he describes the cross as we think about that for Good Friday. Romans 5:6-8:
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die.
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Pray
About 2000 years ago, the son of God came to this earth, took on human flesh and lived among us. He lived a morally perfect life. There was no sin in him.
He had an incredible ministry in this world for about three years. He made the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and he made the dead rise.
Then he started predicting his own death. In a garden called Gethsemane, he gave himself over. They took him and bound him, presenting him to the Jewish authorities. They deemed him worthy of death. The Romans put a crown of thorns on his head, whipped and beat him. They put nails through his hands and feet. And Jesus hung on a cross. Ultimately, saying the words, it is finished.
Christ died for the world, because the Bible says that God loved this world so much that he gave his only Son. Christ died for you.
Paul, as he reflects on the cross in Romans 5:6-8, he speaks about the death of Jesus in four ways.
First, he says that:
Christ died for us when we were helpless.
Christ died for us when we were helpless.
The word for helpless in verse 6, Romans 5:6 “For while we were still helpless” literally means weak or sick.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
This word for “helpless” is the Greek word ἀσθενής. It shows up in the New Testament about 26 times. Most of the time this word is translated as “weak” or “weaker.” About seven times it as translated as sick. Only here in verse 6 is it translated as “helpless,” because in the context, helpless seems to be a better fit.
But if you get the totality of what Paul is saying, what he is describing is a helplessness that's almost like a physical ailment or a physical disease.
Think of a disease that has fully corrupted the body. When someone is diseased, there's something about that moment when you realize just how frail and helpless you are.
I think one of the greatest lies that exists in our current culture is the lie of self-sufficiency. The modern man is coached to be believed that if you've reached a certain amount of status, if you have enough money, you're able to take care of yourself, you’re not hurting anyone, generally, you're okay. The goal is to be self-sufficient.
People walk around in a kind of malaise because they feel like they've got it all together. They work, they pay their rent (in San Diego, barely), they try to have fun on the weekend, and that’s really it. That is all that life has to offer.
What's interesting about the gospel is that the gospel is not for people who have it all together. Jesus was criticized for hanging out with the lowest people, and he tells them in Matthew 9:12-13:
12 Now when he heard this, he said, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick.
13 Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The righteous there are the self righteous, the people who feel like they've got it all together. At the core of the human problem today is for people to realize that their self righteousness, their self sufficiency, is killing them.
Your bank account might be doing okay, but are you doing okay? How is your mindset? Is there an unforgiveness that's eating away at you? Are you angry at yourself?
If you realize that you're not a perfect person that's a good place to be. Cause Jesus didn't come for people who have it all together. He came for the sick. And our greatest spiritual need is to realize our sickness. It's the sickness of the human condition within mankind that drove Jesus Christ to the cross. Because Jesus came to heal the helpless, to heal the sick.
Second,
Christ died for us at the right time.
Christ died for us at the right time.
In Romans 5:6 it says that Jesus died for us at the right time.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
The timing of Jesus is incredible. If you look at his ministry, Jesus is keenly aware of timing. He says at one point, when he was talking with his brothers in John 7:6:
6 Jesus told them, “My time has not yet arrived, but your time is always at hand.
God always knows the perfect time. If you just think of the time and place when God decided to come into human flesh, during the reign of the Romans, it was the right time. It was a time when the message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ could spread perfectly.
If Jesus died and rose again today, people would say is was some sort of Hollywood trick or AI or something else. We see the timing of the cross again in 1 Timothy 2:5-6:
5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.
Christian, knowing that Jesus died for us at the proper time is important because we need to be able to trust God's timing in our own life. There is a season that God has you going through right now. And are you going to get stressed out because you think the things that you need aren't happening right now, or are you going to trust God's timing?
When you know that Jesus died for you at the right time, you know that you can trust his timing in your life.
Third,
Christ died for the ungodly.
Christ died for the ungodly.
Paul also tells us that Christ died for the ungodly in verse 6.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
The word "ungodly” means the irreverent, the impious. It has to do with those who violate the norms for a proper relation ship to God. It is speaking to those people who break the law of God, those people who are rebellious against God, the ungodly.
And if you think that means he's speaking of you, yes, that means he's speaking of you. He's speaking of me. Because we are all sinners in need of God's salvation. We are all the ungodly.
Listen to this description of the ungodly in Titus 3:3:
3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another.
The status of the human condition is not one of freedom outside of Christ, but it's one of slavery. The human being is enslaved to various passions and pleasures, and it is those passions and pleasures that drive us further and further away from the one who created us. Christ died to save us from ourselves.
You know what's amazing about Good Friday? Christ died for the people who put him on the cross. And if you're looking for blame, don't look at the Jews at the Romans. Look at yourself. Christ died for you.
Romans 5:7 gives us an interesting argument from Paul. He says,
7 For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die.
And that argument's interesting. They are a very rare instances where you might give yourself up sacrificially. Now they're probably some ways that you could think of that. For instance, I could think of jumping in front of a bullet from my wife, for instance, or for my kids I could see that. But beyond that, the list gets very short.
Your list might be different than mine, but all of us. if there are people on that list, that list of people we would give ourselves up for is a very, very short list.
Now, soldiers in battle make. give them heroically give themselves up sacrificially. For instance, if you're an American soldier you'd give yourself up to defend freedom and the idea of freedom. freedom in our own homeland, he sacrificed for the good There's a goodness to that idea of freedom.
But whatever that list is. of those rare circumstances where we would sacrifice ourselves. there's always a goodness attached to it. There's a passion there. There's a passion for. my wife, for my family. or a passion for freedom.
But we don't die for enemies. We don't die for people who hurt us. We don't die for people who despise us. We don't die for people who fight against us.
I mean, to get a picture of this. imagine. someone has done terrible things to hurt you and the people you love. and then you’re told to go die for that person who did that to you.
Would you do it? I bet you wouldn't. But I know that Jesus did. because we were his enemies. We were the ungodly. We were the ones who rebelled against him. Christ shows his love by dying for the ungodly.
That’s the last point,
Christ died because God loves us.
Christ died because God loves us.
In Romans 5:8,
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Now the CSB says that God proves his own love for us here. If you see this in the NASB, it'll say that God demonstrates his own love toward us, or if it's the ESV or the NLT and says that God shows his love. The point of what's being said in this verse is that God showed evidence to us to the fact that he loves us incredibly
And what was the evidence that God loves you? The evidence that God loves you is the cross.
It is the fact that God loved you when you believed you were unlovable.
God loved you even though you didn't care about him.
God loved you before you knew it.
God has always been there. He has always loved you before you even realized it. The Bible says it this way:
9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Good Friday is good because the cross shows that we can be free. Good Friday is good because the cross shows that God loves you and me.
Now, why do Christians need to be reminded that God loves them? We need to be reminded, because we go through seasons in our life when things aren't going our way. We have a tendency to forget. We have a tendency to doubt. Maybe we've wandered away. We've fallen into some kind of sin, and we just think that God is done with us. Or we see turmoil in our family, and we wonder where is God in all of this?
Romans 5:8, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, shows us that God is in a situation before we realize we need him. God loves you. Christ died for you. And the cross is evidence that God has always been there for you.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Prayer
Communion
We will have communion, remembering Jesus and his sacrifice for us. Meditate on the Lord and where your heart is with him.
Communion is for believers in Jesus to reflect on what he did for us on the cross. Communion is an act of obedience for Christians to our Lord.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread,
24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Last Song
Doxology
28 After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now finished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he said, “I’m thirsty.”
29 A jar full of sour wine was sitting there; so they fixed a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it up to his mouth.
30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.
I can’t wait to tell you the rest of the story on Resurrection Sunday. See you on Easter!
