God's Demonstration of Love
Pericope: Romans 5:1-11
Theme: You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Doctrine: love of God
Image: arms outstretched in love
Need: experience of God's love
Message: feel God's love
God's Demonstration of Love
Romans 5:6-11
A couple of summers ago I met an elderly lady named Sue. While I talked to her she confided in me that she felt as though she was not worth anything anymore. When she was younger she had worked as a nurse and was stationed in a neo-natal ward. She loved being able to participate in the miracle of birth and help mothers adjust to their child. As she got older, however, her body began to shut down. She became weaker and was no longer able to do the heavy lifting involved in nursing work. Her health began to deteriorate rapidly and she now had so much trouble breathing that she was attached to an oxygen machine. She was unable to work at all anymore. She felt like she was no longer a blessing to society. She felt like a burden to her family. She felt like she wasted everyone's time who showed any interest in her. On top of all of this she had recently lost a good friend. Her friend had passed before Sue was able to apologise for something she had done 20 years previous. She had carried this secret for such a long time that she felt like she was acting her life instead of living it. She could not see how people would accept her if they knew what she had done. This burden she was carrying was suffocating her. She was also having difficulty feeling loved by God. She did not think that God would accept her after holding on to her secret for so long. She was certain she was not worthy of God's love.
Sue is not the only person who feels this way. There are times, I think, when all of us feel this way at some point in our lives. We realise, and are oppressed by, the reality of our sinfulness. Our feelings of guilt begin to weigh us down. We are afraid to confide in others because we fear further condemnation. We fear that this feeling is unique to us. We fear that this feeling of not being worthy means we are not loved by God. Well, I tell you this evening that we can take comfort in this feeling because it means we have the Spirit working within us. It means that the Spirit is urging us on to further perfection. It means that God is active in our lives. Realising our own sinfulness, and powerlessness is the first step to truly turning your life over to God.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” At just the right time. That seems somewhat strange, does it not? At just the right time. Since when is it the right time for anyone to die? How was that time better than this time? Why was that time better than earlier in time? Why did the world have to go through so much crap after Adam and Eve sinned before Jesus came on the scene? Why did it take so long for God to make good on his promise in the garden to crush the serpent's head? Why is it taking so long for Jesus to return and make all things new again?
Well, to tell you the truth, I am not exactly sure. We do not know the plans of God, we have to be content sometimes not to concern ourselves with great matters, with things too wonderful for us, but we have to trust the word of God. Here we are told that Jesus came at just the right time. God was working throughout all of history to make the perfect moment come about. Like a master chef, God was organising the entire kitchen. He was getting everything prepared for the perfect moment to put his greatest ingredient in the mix.
I do not know how many of you watch Hell's Kitchen on TV. I find it to be a fascinating show, mainly to see how much abuse people are willing to take in the name of a contest. If you have not seen it, I have to warn you, there is a quite a bit of swearing, though it is beeped out. This show is about a bunch of junior chefs who are competing to gain the prize of their very own kitchen in a luxury resort somewhere. Throughout the competition they are forced to work as a team to try and get a dinner service out in a fine dining restaurant. The other night I was watching it and one of the girls, Bonnie, was having a rough day. She was having trouble timing things to get them ready at the same time. The chef asked her when her beef Wellington would be ready, she said, “15 minutes, chef.” “15 minutes!?!” he replies. “Yes, chef.” “What about the chicken?” “Its done chef,” she says. “Hold on,” says the chef, “Wellington needs fifteen minutes yet, while the chicken, which takes half the amount of time to cook, is done.” “Yes, chef,” she replies. “Come, on. When are you going to get your head on straight. Can't you get something as simple as timing the food? How the heck do you think you are going to run a restaurant?”
Now, God is not like that poor girl on the show. He has everything in order, everything working according to his plan, he is ensuring that everything was leading toward the one moment when he demonstrated his love toward us.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” When we were still powerless. When we were unable to do anything for ourselves. When we were no good to ourselves, let alone anyone else. The Greek word translated powerless here is from the word ἀσθενής. This word has a much richer meaning than simply to be powerless. In Mt 26:41 the word is translated as “weak”. When Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane just before he is betrayed and he comes back to find Peter, and the sons of Zebedee sleeping, he says, “'Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.'” the body is ἀσθενής. In 1 Cor 1:27 Paul says “God chose the weak things (the ἀσθενής things) of the world to shame the strong.” This word is also translated as sick. In Lk 10 Jesus gives instructions to the seventy-two disciples as he sends them out into the countryside. Among other things he says, “Heal the sick (heal the ἀσθενής) who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’” In Acts 5 as more and more people are believing in the gospel message they “brought the sick (the ἀσθενής) into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.” This word has a heavier meaning as well, it is also used to mean crippled. In Acts 4, Peter is placed on trial before the Sanhedrin for healing a man who had been crippled from birth in the name of Jesus. As he is standing in front of the council he says, “If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple (to an ἀσθενής) and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.”
So, at just the right time, we were powerless, when we were weak, we were sick, we were crippled, we were totally unable to do anything for ourselves, Jesus died for us. We, just like the cripple healed by Peter at the gate of the temple were confined to sitting on our duff and begging for our food. We were unable to return to God. We had broken off the relationship with him. We had burned the bridge and had no materials with which to build a new one. But, amazingly, God did not leave us powerless. He did not leave us weak, or sick, or crippled. He sent his anointed one into the world to rebuild the bridge between humanity and divinity. God came, in the person of Jesus Christ, and died for us.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” Now, let us think for a moment about this word, 'ungodly'. This word has an interesting meaning for many of us. It often refers to things that are an extreme offence to our senses, an ungodly mess, or an ungodly racket, or an ungodly stench.
When I was younger I had hooked up an electric guitar amplifier to my stereo in my room. There were times that I would turn that thing up so loud the whole house would shake. Once when my grandmother was visiting, I was playing some music, perhaps a bit too loud, and she came down the hallway into my room. When I finally realised she was there and turned off the music, she said, “What is that ungodly noise?”
If something is ungodly, we generally think it is something that is worthless, it is no good, it is irredeemable, there is nothing in it with which God has any part; hence the term ungodly. It is something that is completely separated from God. This is getting close to what the term means for Paul. Throughout the scriptures people who are ungodly are those who live apart from God; those who turn their backs on him, or thumb their noses at him, or put one of their fingers on each hand up toward him and give him a couple of birds. These are people who are ungodly. They are people who have no care if there is a God or not. People who live their lives by their own rules and do not care who they hurt.
People who are ungodly are people who are deserving of God's punishment. In 2 Pt 2, Peter says God sent the flood upon the earth in the time of Noah to punish that ungodly generation. God snuffed out the lives of the entire population of the world, save that of Noah and his family because they were ungodly people deserving of this punishment. In Genesis 18.23 Moses pleads with God not to treat the righteous as the ungodly when he judges Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses recognises that the ungodly deserve the punishment of God, but he pleads for the salvation of Lot and his family. Jude 4 defines ungodly people as those who oppose God and “change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
People who are ungodly are not just unable to turn back to God, they are also unwilling to turn back to God. They do not care about his law. They do not care about his love. They do not care that he is governing and ordering the world according to his plan. They ignore his pleas. They ignore his grace. They turn their back on him and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge him. They have not only burned the bridge between themselves and God, they have also tried to set themselves up as gods of their own lives. The only ethic the ungodly live by is what feels good to them. They do not care who gets hurt in the process. They follow their sinful desires, and try to satisfy their ever increasing lust for more.
Ungodly people are people who deserve every bit of punishment they have coming to them. Ungodly people are the kind of people our media loves to portray as monsters who are wasting the air they breathe. But here is the thing. If we believe that Christ came to die for us, we have to admit we were, and in many ways still are, ungodly people. We were, and maybe still are, people who were separated from God, who turned our backs on him, who spit in his face. We were people who deserved to die. People who deserved to remain separated from God, the source of all goodness, life, and love, for all eternity.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” But God does the unexpected. God does not treat us according to what we deserve, but lavishes his love upon us. God does not play fair, he demonstrates his love. This is the amazing thing. This is the thing that I cannot get over as a Christian. God did not decide to hang out with us because we looked like fun. God did not show his love to us because he took pity on us since we were the loners sitting by ourselves in the corner of the playground.
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We are not worthy of God's love. We are not worthy of God's grace. We have done so much that has caused him pain. We have done so much that has caused him grief. Time and time again we spit in his face, and turn our backs on him. Time and time again we show our true colours; our dark, ugly, ungodly colours. Even though we have done so much to hurt God, he comes to us and shows us his love in the most amazing gift ever imaginable.
“Very rarely would someone die for a righteous man.” Very rarely would someone give up their own life for someone who is innocent and sentenced to death. Even if a lawyer knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that someone was innocent of the crime that has resulted in their being sentenced to death, I do not think they would offer to bear the sentence for them. If an innocent person were condemned to die, we might be filled with pity. We might offer condolences and set up funds for defence. We might be outraged and write letters to our politicians and other leaders to intervene on their behalf, but we would probably not be willing to die for them.
“However,” says Paul, “for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.” For a person who is kind, caring, compassionate. Someone who lives their lives for others. Someone who makes a mark on the world and makes it a better place. For someone like this a person might be willing to die, though even that is a very rare thing. But God goes way farther than this. God shows that his love toward his creatures is beyond anything we could have imagined. God does not treat us according to what our sins deserve. God shows that his love is incredible, spectacular, astounding. He takes his own punishment upon himself, so that we would not have to.
So, “[s]ince 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.” The gift of Jesus dying on the cross was an amazing gift in and of itself. But it does not end there. Jesus did not remain in the tomb. Death does not have the final victory. If we are justified in Christ's death. If his death on the cross took away the curse of our sinfulness, then imagine how much more we will get from his life! How much more we will gain by being a part of his body. If we have been justified through Christ's death, then we are reconciled to God through his life. We are no longer asstranged from God. We no longer are separated from him. We no longer dispair his enemies, but rejoice as his children.
If we got what we deserved, none of us would have any hope. Yet we do have hope. We have the hope of victory over death. We have the hope of Christ's real death and resurrection. We have the hope of the promise and love of God. This hope is something that Sue, the elderly lady I met a couple summers ago, rediscovered. I ran into her just before she was being discharged from the unit and the change in her was remarkable. She was much more relaxed and joyful. She was not trying hard to look good, or say the right things. She seemed to be more content. I asked her how she felt about herself, and she said this. “I know I am a sinner. I know I do not do what I am supposed to, but I also know that God came to save people like me. After all Jesus said he came to heal the sick, and not the healthy.” Sue came to realise that God's love overcame all of her problems. She took to heart the message in this passage. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Amen
Let us Pray