Blessings of Justification - God's Love
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Pastoral Reminder: Head Heart Hands
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Today we are going to look at a passage that I believe each and every Christian should get very familiar with. We are working through the 1st half of the 5th Chapter in Romans. The Apostle writes to the believers in Rome about many of the blessings that we recieved when we justified before God.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, 4 endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. 5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 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. 9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.
The first is the blessing of peace with God. To no longer be a hostile, rebellious enemy.
The second was that we have gained access into his grace and presence. To be in the company of our God and savior.
Third was Hope. A hope that is grown in the rejoicing of trials. That the affliction that we endure as Christians produces patient endurance, the fortitude to take on the next challenge, by producing proof of the quality of character.
This produces a hope that does not disappoint. It is a hope that does not lead to shame. It is a hope that is founded on stable sturdy ground, that will stand against any onslaught of the enemy. This hope does not disappoint because of God’s love.
God’s Own Love
God’s Own Love
5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
The work of God on the heart of a person is an amazing truth revealed in the scriptures. Here it is God’s own love that has been poured out in our hearts.
Each and every person who believes and is justified has a work of God in their own heart. As he does the work of removing the heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh. As he is circumcising the heart of believers. God takes his own love and lavishly and abundantly poured it into us a vessels. This is an act that he performed of his own will and power.
We did not spend a life time earning it. Or trading for it. God’s love wasn’t handed down through the generations from father to son. We did not stumble across it one day by accident or go on a quest to discover it. We did place ourselves in the right place at the right time to reach out and take it.
The word for poured also means to shed blood and is used that way in other scriptures. God’s love has been poured out through his shed blood on the cross. This is a great and abundant love.
1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! ...
The great love that was given to us, that was poured out came though the Holy Spirit. All three person’s of the Trinity are here in the work of the one true God. The Love of God is poured out in those that have been justified by the Son through the Holy Spirit that was given to us.
14 For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
The Holy Spirt is given to us as a great act of God’s grace. The Spirit we recieved was the Spirit of adoption. To be taken from the cold and miserable slums of the world filled with ungodliness and unrighteousness and into the household of God where we can cry out Abba, Father.
When our position in the family is attacked and contested, when we testify that we are God’s children, when our inheritance is in question, the Holy Spirit of God testifies together with us. He is our witness. Who better to speak on our behalf then God the Spirit. The Spirit who has been abundantly given to us.
6 He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.
The Spirit sent through Jesus Christ our Savior so that having been justified we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life. There is no inheritance of eternal life for those that do not have the Spirit. For without him we are not sons and daughters.
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
We are stamped and marked as his for the day of our redemption.
22 He has also put his seal on us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.
The down payment for what?
14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.
The guarantee that you will receive the reward promised. Eternal life.
16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
God has pour his love into our hearts by pouring God into us. By giving us his Spirit, the Spirit of the Son, and God remains in his people.
16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
God’s love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. God poured out his Spirit though Jesus Christ. Because we are sons, God sent the Spirit of His son into our hearts.
The Holy Spirit Leads God’s Children, strengthens us, The Spirit of adoption, testifies that we are God’s Children. The Spirit seals us for the day of redemption and is the down payment of our inheritance.
The Holy Spirit that is given to us, is recieved, poured out in us, dwells in us.
There is no greater gift then to have the Spirit of God dwelling in your heart and mind. Why is this such a wonderful gift? Because of the heart of the one who receives the love of God. Because God gives his love to the unworthy.
To the Unworthy
To the Unworthy
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.
There is a false understanding of love in our world today. The love in our world today is hasty, it is filled with demands, ultimatums, and conditions, it is jealous, and prideful. It is selfish, easily lost, and easily forgets that it is a gift to give and receive it. It is weak and temporary and usually fades away when something more shiny comes along.
But the Love of God is different. Jesus said
32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do what is good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.
True love is made manifest in the conflict. When things are not going well or when someone is undeserving of love. When things are going well, when we prioritize another’s needs above our own and another person responds in kind, it is easy to love. I would argue that love is what is created. But it isn’t true until it is tested. When love is given to one that is undeserving and here an enemy.
Paul is speaking of the state of a person before they believe and are justified by God. Earlier in the book he called them; lost, enemies of God, the unrighteous, the ungodly, hostile.
Helpless (weak, strengthless)
Helpless (weak, strengthless)
Here he states that before salvation we were helpless, weak, and without strength. If you have ever been super sick where you were so drained of your strength that you could not care for your self. Like a new born baby. Completely helpless. Without the care of someone else a baby could never live. They are completely dependent on other people to survive.
In a spiritual sense a person is even more helpless than a new born.
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins
There is nothing a spiritually dead person can do to save themselves. They must be quickened and made alive. Through the work of the Spirit are we made new. A new creation able to do what is right.
Ungodly
Ungodly
Not only are we helpless when God justifies, we are also called the ungodly. The root of this word is the irreverent. The immoral, wicked, foolish God haters. They have earned and deserve the judgment of God.
14 It was about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied: “Look! The Lord comes with tens of thousands of his holy ones 15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly concerning all the ungodly acts that they have done in an ungodly way, and concerning all the harsh things ungodly sinners have said against him.”
This is what is deserved when God’s hand of redemption. Reaches out to save a soul. A sinner.
Sinner
Sinner
8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Sin: Transgressing the Law, iniquity, immorality, any act that is against God’s righteous character and will will for our lives is sin. It is this sin that condemns the world. That requires separates men from God, that makes them guilty before the law. The very thing that condemns us is the reason he came to die. So that he could bring God to people.
18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,
Proves His Love
Proves His Love
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.
The proof and example, the demonstration of God love is that even though you were a helpless, ungodly, sinner he died for you.
All of this love is once again wrapped up in the fact that Jesus willingly went to the cross for me and you. That at the appointed time as determined by God before the foundation of the world.
4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ 10 as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.
At the fulfillment of time when the son would come to be the sacrifice for his own people to come and save sinners. He gave is life as a ransom for many.
4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
We should find this a wonder. The God of heaven comes to die for helpless, ungodly sinners. This is so profound that Paul emphasizes it with this picture that we see repeated in scripture. The idea that men are not willing to give their own life for a righteous man or a just man. We understand this.
If we brought the most law abiding man into the room here. A man with no corruption and he was put up on a false charge, and sentenced to death. Who would offer their life in exchange to save this man.
If we brought the best person you know into this room. People who have lived God honoring lives, of do great works for the Lord. Full of goodness, kindness, generosity, hospitality, and was just a great person. If their life was on the line, there may be a person that would trade their life to save a good man.
Who was more righteous and good than Jesus. Falsely accused put before corrupt trials and stands in the public. There were people there that greatly loved their friend. There were people there that had recieved great blessing from him by his own power. Lepers were healed, the lame walked, the blind saw, the unclean made clean. But who stood in his place.
Paul says even when it makes sense for a person to give their life in order to save a righteous and good man, how inconceivable is it that our God looks up from the crowd of our judgement where we are the criminals. We are Barabbas and the criminals hanging on the cross. We are the enemies of God, the unrighteous, the unworthy, the unwilling, the immoral, the impure. Think of the most wicked man you can place in your mind.
It is these who Jesus died for. Who he shed his blood for. Not the good man but the wicked and lost man.
13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.
Paul know this personally that Jesus came to save sinners
12 I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry—13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them.
We are were not those that loved God. We were the exact opposite described in the following way in Chapter 1 of Romans.
29 They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.
It was not who we were that caused God to love us. It was his own will to do so. This is what makes Christianity strange to the world. That a good God would die for unworthy men and women. All other religions have some form of works to them in order to receive blessings from their god. It is only the one true God that loves the detestable sinner by dying for them.
Conclusion
Conclusion
When we look at the work of God in our own hearts we see a gentle and loving God who pours into our heart his love. And he did so when we were totally wicked in our hearts.
Some displayed that wickedness in blatant obvious sins. Mocking God with life of destruction. Others have displayed what looks like the righteousness of God but have in their hearts a void that is empty and dark.
6 He answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands. 8 Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition.”
There are many who profess to be followers of Jesus but are just following the teachings of human doctrine and tradition. What is in a person’s heart matters.
45 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
It is out of the overflow of the love that we have been given to us that becomes the out pouring of the life of a believer. This love grows. As undeserving sinners, we have seen our savior die on the cross and give his life for us. The greatest proof of God’s love for us. This is what love truly means.
16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
When we come to understand this truth our hearts that a filled with Good's love will overflow into the world around us.
16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Love is the central theme to the story of the bible. The one who is love creates. The created rebel and turn to worship anything but the one who is worthy of it. Corrupting all that is good in the world. Living lies of wickedness and destruction.
God gave his Law and sent his commandments and prophets to the people so that they would love God and the people around them. Jesus would sum up the law this way.
37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Every law and word spoken by the prophets depend on loving God with all of you and loving all others as yourself. This can only happen when our hearts are filled with God’s love and then we love others.
34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.
Today we love very poorly compared to God’s love. The love in our world today is hasty, it is filled with demands, ultimatums, and conditions, it is jealous, and prideful. It is selfish, easily lost, and easily forgets that it is a gift to give and receive it. It is weak and temporary and usually fades away when something more shiny comes along. God has continually told us in the scriptures that we love God by obeying his commands.
9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands.
21 The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.”
3 For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden,
6 This is love: that we walk according to his commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: that you walk in love.
My question for today is do you understand God’s love for you? Do you rest in it? Does it cause you to rejoice and feel great gratitude like Paul that God would save a sinner like you?
Do you love out of what is in your heart from God or what is in your heart of man? Does God’s love come out of your heart as a blessing into the world? Proving that God has loved you and saved your soul? Or do you love as the world does? Does it have limits and demands? Is it full of hypocrisy.
32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
Do you show your love for God by following his commands? Not out of obligation but out of thanksgiving and gratitude, out of your love for God.
19 We love because he first loved us.
He poured out his love into our hearts so that we can love our Lord with all our heart and love our neighbors as yourself. Do you pursue these things? For if you do they will change your life and the life of your family and church and even our community. But if you do not pursue them you must settle for the weak and broken love that our generation promotes as good.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Blessing/Benediction
16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word.
