Sermon Tone Analysis

As Good As We Should Be

 

April 6, 2008

 

*Romans 5:1-11*

 

Please turn in your Bible to Romans chapter 5.

The passage that is our key Scripture for this morning is entitled, in my Bible, “The Benefits of Righteousness.”

Christ’s death and resurrection were for our benefit.

Not only did it prove Father God’s acceptance of His Son’s sacrifice on the cross, it was for our justification.

The cross pronounced us free from guilt or blame.

The Cross is our source of blessing.

Notice in the last verse of chapter 4 Paul says /“He/ (meaning Jesus) /who was delivered over because of our transgressions /(that’s our sin and guilt) /was raised because of our justification.”/

It was all done for us.

The cross has no other purpose!

He died for us; all for the benefit of our righteousness.

And now in the first verse of chapter 5, Paul gives one of the main benefits – “Therefore having been justified by faith, WE HAVE PEACE WITH GOD THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

A recent session of the “Truth Project” put it this way: through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have the privilege of becoming the children of God.

When we come to salvation by confessing that we are sinners and believing and receiving Him as our Savior, we are given the indwelling Holy Spirit.

We have God in us!

Not a piece of Him, but all of Him!

With God in us, we are at peace with God.

But there’s more.

Look at verse 2 of Romans 5 /:”// through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.” / By admitting our need for a Savior and letting God come into us, we become recipients of His grace – that unmerited gift of God’s riches at Christ’s expense.

And because we now have eternity in our hearts, we have HOPE.

Hope is what keeps us strong.

Without hope, we are doomed.

Hope gets us through this life of tribulations.

Look at verses 3-11: “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For while we were still helpless; at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath /of God/ through Him.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son; much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

\\ And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

Can you feel the portent of these verses?

We were hopeless, doomed, headed for eternity separated from God, and along comes the answer to our prayers.

Our Savior, Jesus, who bought our ticket into heaven.

And it is an expensive ticket – a blood-bought ticket – a priceless ticket!

Do you have your ticket to heaven?

My main job as your pastor is to make sure you have your ticket to heaven.

If you leave this life without it, I will stand before God a broken man, for I will have failed to preach the only message worth preaching.

I want to  relate to you what two other preachers have said about this passage: Charles Haddon Spurgeon said that preaching is like throwing a bucket of water at a row of bottles.

Some of the water goes in some of the bottles.

But by talking to people personally, you have the opportunity of topping off every bottle and making sure none of the water spills.

That is what I want to do this morning – throw a little living water your way!

So have your bottles ready!

Stuart Briscoe says, “If I had the chance to go back over the 42 years that I’ve been preaching, I’d like to sit down with all the people I’ve ever preached to and ask them, “Do you really feel that Christ is your Savior and your Lord?”

This morning’s message is a follow-up to Easter’s message of Christ’s sacrifice for our sake and how we benefit.

Listen again: /“ For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

/

 

The Bible explains carefully that the human condition is serious indeed.

That Christ had to die.

We could live our lives as reasonably happy people.

We can get things reasonably well organized.

We can get ourselves into a relatively comfortable situation and never really feel that life is all that ominous, that the human condition before God is all that drastic.

Yet, if we are to take what the Scriptures say seriously, we have to come to terms with the fact that the human predicament is extremely grave.

What we are in ourselves is fundamentally at odds with God.

That’s our root problem.

The technical term for it is /total depravity/.

It’s not a biblical term, but it’s an accurate one

 

Dr.

J.I. Packer put it this way: “Total depravity means not that at every point man is as bad as he could be, but that at no point is he as good as he should be.”

That is the human condition in a nutshell.

According to Scripture, our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6),filthy rags.

Pretty graphic!

Am I trying to persuade you that you are totally rotten and despicable, utterly, thoroughly, totally depraved?

Filthy rags!

 

Do you think the Scripture is saying, “At every point of your life you are as bad as you possibly could be?” Rather, I like to think that there is no point in your life where you are as good as you should be.

We all have come short of God’s glorious standard says Romans 3:23.

In this Romans 5 passage, there are various words that describe the human condition.

In verse 6 it says we are “powerless.”

In the same verse it says we are “ungodly.”

In verse 8 it says we are “sinners.”

In verse 10, we’re “enemies.”

These all have a slightly different nuance that simply can be added up in this whole concept: At no point are any of us as good as we should be.

We have fallen.

We have failed to be what we were created to be.

We are all sinners.

We all need a Savior.

That is the meaning of the word /sinner/: Someone who comes short, someone who misses the mark.

One of the sad tragedies is there is a powerlessness about us.

This powerlessness manifests itself in different people in different ways.

Martin Alfonse, a Methodist pastor in Madras, India, told an interesting story: His father, an orthodox, dedicated Hindu, became seriously ill.

As a result of his illness, he went around trying hard to get proper medical care; none was available to him.

In desperation, he turned to some Christians.

They prayed quite specifically for his healing, and he was healed by a dramatic, divine intervention.

At that point he became convinced that Jesus Christ was Lord.

As a result of a specific, physical need being met, he acknowledged Christ as Savior.

Now, there was a certain /physical /powerlessness about him that was the direct or indirect result of sin.

But Christ was able to intervene.

Martin Alfonse’s experience was totally different.

He had an overwhelming sense of inferiority.

It was so severe that he was practically crippled in his everyday relationships with people.

But somebody told him that Jesus Christ could heal him in the area of his inferiority complex, that he would begin to understand his true worth as somebody whom Christ loved.

When he heard this message, he turned to Christ, and Christ became his Savior and Lord.

He was met not like his father at the point of physical need but at the point of his deep /psychological /need.

Both were powerless as a result of sin.

It manifested itself in different ways.

Pastor Alfonse went on to tell about a delightful family in his congregation.

As is normal for Hindus, they had been looking for inner peace.

They went through all the rituals of their religion.