Romans 5:1-8 Poured Out

Romans 5:1-8 (Evangelical Heritage Version)

1Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God.

3Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, 4and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. 5And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.

6For at the appointed time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7It is rare indeed that someone will die for a righteous person. Perhaps someone might actually go so far as to die for a person who has been good to him. 8But God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Poured Out

I.

It was a dry camping spot—no water to be found anywhere around. That’s a bit of a problem if you have driven in with your SUV and your camping gear. Most likely you brought at least some water with you. It’s a much bigger problem when the dry campsite is for 1-2 million people arriving on foot. They couldn’t have carried much water with them, and they had many animals that needed water, too.

“So the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink’... 7 They tested the LORD by saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’” (Exodus 17:2, 7, EHV). It’s a natural human reaction, isn’t it? The moment there is some suffering or adversity we jump right to grumbling and complaining. Quarrels break out when everyone’s nerves are on edge because of the adversity.

While there was undoubtedly adversity, there had been plenty of evidence that God could ease their adversity. Miracle after miracle happened as the Children of Israel left Egypt. Ten plagues, one after the other, eventually forced Pharaoh to let the people go. Water stacked up on both sides of the Red Sea as if it were nothing more than Lego bricks, letting the people walk through the middle on dry ground. Bitter undrinkable water had become pure and tasty so they could drink. Gnawing hunger had been eased by Manna and quail.

No circumspection. No consideration of what they had just seen and experienced. Straight back to grumbling and complaining and quarreling with Moses. “Give us water to drink... Is the Lord among us, or not?” The thirsty bodies of the people actually exposed the aridness of their hearts. The people failed to trust in God.

The Psalm of the Day today pointed back to the incident, reminding people centuries later: “Do not harden your hearts as they did at Meribah, as they did that day at Massah in the wilderness, 9where your fathers challenged me and tested me though they had seen what I had done” (Psalm 95:8-9, EHV). We know the dryness. We have seen the goodness of God poured out on us again and again, yet we still experience souls cracked by doubt and fear—there is an endless striving for something to fill us.

Or maybe we’re more like the Samaritan woman in today’s Gospel. Usually the women went in groups to draw water from a well at a time that would avoid the heat of the day. This woman came alone, seemingly around noon. The scorching sun was perhaps more bearable than the looks of accusation and the judgment she usually endured, so she hauled up the same old bucket that never satisfies.

We live in the thirst of the Children of Israel and the Samaritan woman. Life dries us out. We quarrel with God when we experience adversity or suffering. We test God with demands: “Where are you when I need you, God?” We look for temporary fixes like success and relationships. We seek distractions that promise relief, but leave us even emptier.

Paul calls us: “...helpless... ungodly... 8 sinners” (Romans 5:6, 8, EHV). Later in his Letter Paul says: “The mind-set of the sinful flesh is hostile to God, since it does not submit to God’s law, and in fact, it cannot” (Romans 8:7, EHV). Human beings are by nature enemies of God with hard, unbelieving hearts.

Unless something is poured into us from the outside, we wither. The thirst is real. The wells we seek in life by nature are dry and empty.

II.

The problem is not just dryness—it’s that hostility, it’s the fact that we are enemies of God by nature, and quite content being his enemies. Our hearts are turned inward—away from God—and we don’t care that that’s the reality.

The grumbling of the Children of Israel revealed not just a failure to trust the God who had proven himself to them again and again, but their outright unbelief. The woman’s five husbands and current live-in arrangement showed a heart seeking love in broken places.

All our own grumbling and complaining at suffering and adversity point to the same problem: we are at war with God. Back to Paul’s list of things that characterize us; we are: “...helpless... ungodly... 8 sinners” (Romans 5:6, 8, EHV).

Hauling a bucket out to a well at high-noon isn’t going to pour life back in to us. God’s Law exposes all our issues: our hearts are not just thirsty, they are hostile; dead in our sins. We need more than water. We need reconciliation poured out.

III.

You will notice that those characteristics were pulled out of longer sentences. God did something to helpless, ungodly sinners. Paul said: “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us. 6For at the appointed time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly... 8But God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:5-6, 8, EHV).

Out in the wilderness Moses was instructed to strike the rock with his staff. God’s love for his people poured out of that rock in life-giving water.

On Calvary’s cross Jesus, the Rock, was struck, not just for the sins of the People of Israel and their rebellious ways in the wilderness, but for the sins of all people—for us and for our rebellious ways. Blood and water poured out from his pierced side. God’s love poured out for us.

Paul writes: “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2, EHV). Justification by faith declares us righteous. We stand in God’s grace, rejoicing confidently.

The Samaritan woman rejoiced confidently in that hope. She left her water jar behind and ran off to tell others the great Good News she had heard. The Holy Spirit lives in us—not like a dripping faucet or even a little trickle of a stream, but like a gushing spring.

God’s love overwhelms the dry places. It assures us. It gives us hope. “And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us” (Romans 5:5, EHV). God assures us that we are forgiven, loved when we were unlovable, loved when we were ungodly sinners. He poured out his love of forgiveness abundantly and irreversibly on us.

IV.

What Jesus has done for us and given us by faith worked in us by the Holy Spirit has results. Paul says: “We rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God” (Romans 5:2, EHV). Because of the hope God has given us, adversity and suffering don’t lead us so quickly to grumbling and complaining and quarreling. Why?

Paul continues: “Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, 4and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. 5And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us” (Romans 5:3-5, EHV).

Suffering and adversity are not things that are just to be endured, things to be merely put up with. The same Holy Spirit who pours out God’s love on us keeps pouring, sustaining us through the dry seasons. There’s no more hardening, like at Meribah. No more hiding at the well. We are reconciled children of God, with access to the Heavenly Father.

His poured-out love overflows in us. We forgive as we have been forgiven by our Savior. We love, as he first loved us. We share the Living Water with the thirsty around us.

In trials, we persevere with confidence, knowing the flood from God continues to be poured out. Our hope is confident, because God’s love is poured out without measure.

As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman: “Whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty ever again. Rather, the water I will give him will become in him a spring of water, bubbling up to eternal life” (John 4:14, EHV).

That’s exactly what we need. Not a little sip. Not a promise of future rain. But the flood now. God’s love in Christ, bubbling up to eternal life.

God’s love is poured out. Poured out into our hearts, as Paul said. Drink deeply. The cup is full. It overflows in you. Amen.