Salvation

6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

intro

It is always difficult to come into a new environment and preach a sermon that is weighty and relevant. When you are preaching to a congregation that you are familiar with, you know their hurts, their successes, the sins they struggle with, and areas they need encouragement in, their biblical IQ, what depth of doctrine they have been taught, and all of the other things you glean from doing life together. However, there are a few things that are always relevant and important. It’s kind of like a tee-shirt I saw that said school is important, but fishing is importanter. To keep the analogy going, marriage, finances, morality, and good works are all important, but the gospel is importanter.

C.J. Mahaney puts it this way “First importance. The Bible tells us that, while there are many different callings and many possible areas of service in the kingdom of God, one transcendent truth should define our lives. One simple truth should motivate our work and affect every part of who we are.

Christ died for our sins.

If there's anything in life that we should be passionate about, it's the gospel. And I don't mean passionate only about sharing it with others. I mean passionate in thinking about it, dwelling on it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world. Only one thing can be of first importance to each of us. And only the gospel ought to be.”

Not only is the gospel paramount, but getting it correct is our highest priority. Why do I say this? Galatians 1:9 says, As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. That word for accursed is also translated anathema, according to Webster’s, anathema means a person or thing to be detested or loathed, a person or thing accursed or consigned to damnation or destruction, a formal ecclesiastical (or churchly) curse involving excommunication (or kicking someone out of a church), or a divine punishment. So getting the gospel right is not something to be flippant with. Before we get into what the Biblical gospel is, I think it is important for us to understand why Paul uses such harsh language for people who preach a false gospel. Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Why does Paul take the gospel so seriously? Because the gospel is the means in which God saves us. In Romans 10:13-15 Paul goes on to say 13For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Preaching the biblical gospel is of paramount importance because it has consequences that resonate deep into eternity.

So what exactly is the biblical gospel? I’m glad you asked. There are four things you have to have in order to have the biblical gospel. First is an understanding of who you are in light of who God is. Second is and understanding of because of who God is, what must be done about who you are. Third is who Jesus is and what he did for you. And finally, what you must do in response to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

who we are in light of who God is

If we go back to our main text for this morning in Romans 5, we see that we are enemies of God, but really this is Paul just summarizing what he has stated from the beginning of the book of Romans. In chapter 1 he goes into deep detail about the blatantly unrighteous and how they have knowingly ignored God’s righteous decree that people who do these wicked acts deserve death. They not only do them, but they give approval to others who practice them. To be honest, this is something we see in our culture a lot right now from the radicalized LGBTQ that claim that you have to agree with them or you are intolerant, to the guy sitting next to you in the pew who says that you should be getting revenge on those who wronged you, to your conservative neighbor who wh Not much has changed in the 2000 years since this was written. Human nature still wants the things that are opposed to the character and nature of God. Just in case we are standing there going you tell them Paul, Chapter two we have the self-righteous and pious folks who think that they have managed to somehow earn righteousness. They are just as dead in their trespasses and sin as the blatantly unrighteous. In chapter 3 he makes it abundantly clear who is righteous. Look at verses 10-12

10as it is written:

"None is righteous, no, not one;

11 no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one."

Maybe you are in here and you are of the mindset this is just a by product of choices that we make, and not an identity that we are born with, let me take you to psalm 51:4-5 where the psalmist is talking to God,

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

and blameless in your judgment.

5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Maybe you are here and you still aren’t convinced of who you are, so Paul makes it perfectly clear for us back in Romans chapter 3 and verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I don’t know, maybe you are here and you are still thinking that you are just kind of unrighteous, kind of sinful, or kind of bad. Listen to Ephesians 2:1-3 1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

So to sum up who we are without Christ, we are incredibly depraved, we are all sinners, none of us are good, and we are spiritually dead. Not just mostly dead, but dead dead. I heard a guy one time try to explain the human state by saying that we are all in the middle of an ocean and some people are just closer to shore than others, but we all will need saving in order to survive. that isn’t biblical. The Bible says that we are all dead. We are at the bottom of the ocean. We aren’t trying to gain righteousness, we are D.E.A.D. dead in our sin!

Now that we have an understanding of who we are, we need to take a minute and put that in light of who God is.

We see in Isaiah 6 that there are angels who’s sole purpose is to cry out holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. You also see In this passage a common thread that runs through scripture of what sinful mans response is when he comes face to face with the holiness of God. Starting in verse 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Isaiah, a prophet of the Lord God, is brought to his knees in the presence of the Almighty. He is shaken to his core. If we go back to Joshua 5 starting in verse 13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?" 14And he said, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "What does my lord say to his servant?" 15And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so. if you still don’t see it go to Exodus 3 where Moses hides his face when he realizes he is looking at God in the burning bush, or Luke 5 when Peter realizes Jesus’ deity, falls to his knees and says “depart from me, for I am a sinful man”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones puts it this way…

“To make it quite practical I have a very simple test. After I have explained the way of Christ to somebody I say “Now, are you ready to say that you are a Christian?” And they hesitate. And then I say, “What’s the matter? Why are you hesitating?” And so often people say, “I don’t feel like I’m good enough yet. I don’t think I’m ready to say I’m a Christian now.” And at once I know that I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves. They have to do it. It sounds very modest to say, “Well, I don’t think I’ good enough,” but it’s a very denial of the faith. The very essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him. As long as you go on thinking about yourself like that and saying, “I’m not good enough; Oh, I’m not good enough,” you are denying God – you are denying the gospel – you are denying the very essence of the faith and you will never be happy. You think you’re better at times and then again you will find you are not as good at other times as you thought you were. You will be up and down forever. How can I put it plainly? It doesn’t matter if you have almost entered into the depths of hell. It does not matter if you are guilty of murder as well as every other vile sin. It does not matter from the standpoint of being justified before God at all. You are no more hopeless than the most moral and respectable person in the world.”

In other words, the moment your eyes are opened to your depravity, in light of God’s holiness, the process of salvation has begun. That brings us to our next step

What God must do because of who He is and who we are.

We know that God is perfect, but inside of that, all of his attributes are also perfect. So when we say God is loving, He is perfectly loving. And when we say that he is patient, He is perfectly patient. And when we say that His anger burns on our sin, it burns perfectly. So God being a Just and righteous judge, he must be perfect in his judgment. Perfect justice and perfect mercy are, at least in human understanding, oxymoronic. Think about it this way, you are a judge and before you stands a murderer. This is a man who has dedicated his life to helping others. He gives of his time and his money. He has spent a life time trying to make the world a better place. His only crime is that one night he lost his temper and killed another man. Now he is standing in front of you asking for mercy that those few seconds of poor decisions don’t define an entire life of service and piety. So you have a choice to make; justice or mercy. The law states that if you take a life, you owe a life. So anything short of a death sentence would be mercy and not a just sentence. Now we have clearly stated who we are in light of who God is. We know our sinfulness. Look at Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. If we know that we are sinful, and that death is what that sin has earned us, then how can God still be just if he doesn’t punish our sin? Going back to our original text we see that it was Jesus who died for us, when we didn’t deserve it, to save us from the wrath of God. Any true conversion will have a certain amount of sorrow and fear over sin. We should be utterly shattered when God shows us our sin and His holiness. A truly repentant heart sees its sin and melts. There is a sense of desperation, fear, true humility. When a man is truly broken over his sin, and is fully aware that he is staring up at the unstoppable wrath of a Holy and Just God, he is finally ready to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

What Jesus did because of who God is

The verse that we all know, John 3:16, fits so beautifully along side of Romans 5.

For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that who so ever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation

I love how Paul Washer puts this. I'm paraphrasing here, but imagine if you will that you have a home an eighth of a mile from the bottom of a dam. One morning as you are enjoying your coffee, you hear earth rattling crack and the ground begins to shake. You rush outside to see what is going on and to your horror there is massive crack in the dam. As you stand stunned, your mind trying to process what you are seeing, the dam suddenly explodes and there is a wall of water 100 feet wide and 100 feet tall headed right for you and your family. There is nowhere to run, there is hardly any time to scream. All of the ground opens up and there is a massive cavern between you and the immanent death. as the water barrels toward you it hits the cavern and every last drop is drank up, saving you and your family.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21 20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

So as I close with our last point, what must our response be to the gospel? In it’s most simplistic form repent and believe. Repent of your sin, and believe in Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Repent-

feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin. But it’s more than this. It’s a change of heart on sin. You now view sin the way God does. You understand that there is no such thing as little sins. Your heart no longer desires the things of the flesh. Sin, to the truly repentant heart, is like a Twinkie. They look like they should be good. Fluffy and golden, filled with that sweet cream. Yet, every single time, without fail, they have never lived up to my expectations. This is sin to the repentant heart, It looks good, and we may take a bite from time to time, but as we grow in Christ, we trade our desires for sin for desires for the things of God.

Believe

What does it mean to believe in Jesus? in short it means to trust him with being in charge of your life. You trust that his sacrifice on the cross is sufficient to pay for your transgressions, and now that you have been made alive in Christ, you will follow him.

do you love Jesus? is he your treasure? Jesus tells a parable of a man who finds a treasure in a field, goes and sells everything he owns and buys the field. do you treasure Jesus like that? do you love him more than anything?

At the beginning I read you Romans 1:16 that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. This morning, that power has been revealed to us. if you are here this morning, and The Holy Spirit has removed the scales from your eyes, and you now see that you are hopelessly staring up at the full weight of God’s wrath on your sin, and you are desperate for someone to rescue you, I implore you to turn from your sin and follow Jesus.