A BELIEVER’S THANKSGIVING

Romans 5:1-11

I sometimes think if God weren’t so good to us we would be more grateful.  There seems to be an inverse ratio between God’s generosity and our sense of appreciation. The more he blesses us the less thankful we seem to be.

• For example, if the leaves in the Fall turned only in one tiny county in the State of Maine, we would probably drive for miles and stand in line for hours just to be able to witness the turning of the leaves and experience the beauty of God’s creation.  But as it is, leaves turn all around us and we take them for granted and complain that we have to rake them out of our front yard.
• If a glass of water was available to you only once a year, you would probably be willing to pay $20.00 a glass to have your thirst quenched. But as it is, we take it for granted, and waste what we do have, and complain that we don’t have anything else to drink.
• If we were healthy only one month out of every year, would be so ecstatic during that one month. But as it is we complain about our little aches and pains.
• If salvation was available to only 100 people and you were one of those 100, you would feel so privileged that you wouldn't stop praising God.  You’d pay $10,000 a month if you could to ensure your salvation for life.  But since salvation is available to whosoever will may come, we take it for granted.  We go to church and complain about the choice of music that day, or the sermon was too long, or the sanctuary was too warm.

If God weren’t so good to us I think we would be much more grateful. So it’s appropriate that we have this Thanksgiving season when we just stop and give God thanks for all his goodness to us.  And I’d like for you to look with me today in Romans the 5th chapter as we examine some of the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ. This passage is not at all an exhaustive list, but it does provide us with an idea of some of the unique blessings we have because we are Christians.  Now, the world can thank God for a good harvest, and good health, a free nation, and a wonderful family.  And all of us should express thanks for those things on a regular basis. But, as Christians, our gratitude ought to go deeper and we ought to express our thanks to God for the spiritual blessings that we enjoy and often take for granted. 

Now, our text for today not only talks about our past blessings – what we have received, and our present blessings – what we have now, but it also reveals the blessings that God still has in store for us in the future.  So let’s look at the past, present and future blessings from God.

I.                   THE PAST BLESSINGS

The first blessing is Justification.  Verse 1 reads, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith…”.  Now that’s a big word, but justified can be defined simply as “just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned”.  A more theological definition would be “the act of God whereby a sinner is declared righteous.”  There are two words that describe justification. The first word is guiltless.  I stand guiltless before God. Even though I am a sinner and I am guilty, yet because of the blood of Christ I stand guiltless before God.  Verse 8 says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Since that has occurred, I am not guilty in God’s presence. 

I heard the story of a little boy in elementary school who hated school. And every day he would just scribble wrong answers in his workbook and he would draw ugly cartoons of his teacher in the margins.  For three weeks he did that.  But the teacher was so patient and loving that she finally won the little boy over. But after 6 weeks there was that parent-teacher conference and the little boy dreaded what his parents would do when they saw the kinds of things he did in school for those first three weeks.  He stood at the back of the room and watched as his parents went over to his desk and watched as they picked up his workbook and began to scan the pages, nodding in approval and smiling as they examined his work.  They put the workbook down and went to another part of the room to see the other work the students had done. The little boy raced over to his desk and picked up the notebook to discover that the teacher had torn out all the bad pages and left just the positive pages for the parents to see.

God has done that for us. Acts 2:38 says, “Repent and be baptized very one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.”  Jesus Christ comes when we give our life to Him and tears out the bad pages of life and leaves just the positive pages for God to see. We are guiltless before him through Christ.

But the second word that describes justification is the word righteous.  We are not just left guiltless; God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us.  In Romans the 4th chapter, the 24th verse it says that God will credit righteousness to us.  If a man is a multi-millionaire and he takes $10,000 and puts it in your checking or savings account, he credits that to your account and suddenly you become much wealthier.  Now, God does not just remove the bad pages from our lives, or there would be nothing left in our notebook.   Because even our good deeds are as filthy rags before God, Isaiah reminds us.  So when God sees us, he sees us as spiritually rich because we have credited to us the righteousness of Christ. And God doesn’t see us as empty vessels, but he sees us as Jesus because the Lord has credited the righteousness of Jesus to us.  That’s what it means to be justified.  So let’s be thankful that we have been justified as a people of God.

II.                THE PRESENT BLESSINGS

Now our text for today speaks not only of the blessings of our past, but also of the blessings that God gives us presently.  In the past we have been justified. In the present we experience reconciliation.  We have been alienated from God by sin, but now we are on friendly terms again.  Look at the next phrase in Romans 5:1, “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Man is at war with God.  Man doesn’t always feel like he is at war with God, though.  Someone asked the dying Henry David Thoreau if he had made his peace with God, and he said, “There is no peace to make.  I’ve never quarreled with him.”  And some men are so naïve they don’t even realize they are at war with God.  You can go to a different culture and you through an innocent gesture or an inappropriate word can offend the people of that culture.  And some men are so far removed from God that they offend Him without even recognizing it.  Sometimes he offends God deliberately.  God says, “Don’t take my name in vain”, and out of the thousands of names in history we don’t say, “Oh my Buddha, or Oh my Confucius”.  We say, “Oh my God.”  We don’t say, “Jimmy Carter!”.  We say, “Jesus Christ.”  Why?  Because man is in rebellion against God.  Verse 10 says that we were enemies of God. 

But the good news is that through Jesus Christ we have been reconciled to God. We now have peace with God through Christ.  The treaty was signed in Christ’s blood on the cross.  We are not enemies of God any more.  We are now his friends. 

Verse 3 of Romans 5, “and we rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, character; and character produces hope.”  That word for suffering means “pressure”.  We rejoice in our pressures.  Now, let’s be realistic about that.  We don’t say:

• “I’ve got so many financial obligations right now I don’t know how I am possibly going to make my ends meet.  Isn’t this wonderful?” 
• “Management wants us to increase our production before the holidays.  But one line is down and another is staffed with new trainees.  I don’t think we can meet our quota.  I love my job!”

Rejoicing in our pressures simply means that in the long view we understand that God is developing character, and we can rejoice that God is refining us. That word “character” there is a word that means to be reined by fire.  It’s like Sterling Silver. 

• You can take a metal bar of Sterling that is worth $5.00. But if you heat it an turn it into a horseshoe, it will be worth $10.00.
• But if you cut it up small enough and heat it precisely enough, it can be made into needles and be worth $350.00. 
• But if you cut it up finer and put it in the fire just precisely, it can be turned into hundreds of delicate springs for a finely tuned watch and it can be worth $350,000.00.  

And when we go though suffering, we can say, “God is cutting and God is refining in my life because he wants to make something valuable of me.”  And even when we hurt, we still have this confidence that God is working all things together for our good.

And, Paul adds in verse 5, “this hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”  Christians are reconciled to God. And God gives us, not only rejoicing in the midst of suffering, but he gives us this capacity to love people who are unlovable.  Now the world can love those that love it. The world struggles, at times, to love those who don’t love it in return.  And the world finds it impossible to love those who are opposed to it.  But the amazing thing about God’s love is when he pours out this Holy Spirit in our heart, he gives us this capacity to love people who are opposed to us. 

Listen to this passage from Acts 7.  Stephen had just preached to the Sanhedrin and they resisted the message when he told them that Jesus was the Son of God.  But Acts 7:54 reads, “When they heard this they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.  But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  ‘Look, he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’  At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices; they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him.”  Verse 59, “while they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’  Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, curse these and their families for killing an innocent man.”  Oh, that’s not what he said?  He said, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  He was filled with the Holy Spirit.  He was being stoned, but even in the process of having his life beat out of him, he prayed, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them.” 

That’s an amazing capacity to love.  And I suggest to you the only reason Stephen could love like that was that he was filled with the Holy Spirit.  He was reconciled to God. He was at peace with God.  He could rejoice in his suffering and love even those who were opposed to him.  What a great spiritual blessing that is.

III.             THE FUTURE BLESSINGS

Now, we come to the final blessing and that is salvation.  Listen to this phrase from Romans 5:9, “Since 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 is life!”

Sometimes we take our salvation for granted.  We hear a lot about being saved, but have you ever stopped to think about what you were saved from?  This passage says were saved from God’s wrath.  Would you turn in your Bible for just a moment to Revelation 16? 

You know, if you want to incur my wrath, if you want to get me angry, there’s one sure way to do it.  You start attacking my wife or any of my children and you’ll feel the fury of my wrath. Now I can take some abuse, but you start abusing my children and it makes me real angry.  Now, listen, Satan knows that he can’t get to God, because Satan is just a fallen angel and God is all-powerful.  So what does Satan do?  He goes after God’s children.  He begins with little babies through abortions, and incest, and child abuse. Then he attacks God’s children who are Christians and when he does that it angers God. And God’s wrath has been storing up for centuries.  I once saw a bumper sticker that said, “Jesus is coming back, and boy is he MAD!!”  In a sense that is true.  God has been restraining his wrath.  II Peter 3 says, “God is not slow as some consider slowness.  He is patient with us, desiring that all men everywhere would repent. But the day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night and the heavens will melt with a fervent heat.”

So God is storing up his wrath and he’s going to pour it out.  Now, look at Revelation 16.  Here’s the picture of what’s going to happen to the world; four angels will pour out four bowls of God’s wrath upon the earth. 

• Verse 2, “The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land and ugly, painful sores broke out on people who were in rebellion.”  Some kind of disease. 
• The second angel poured out his bowl in the seas and he seas tuned to blood.
• And the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water and they became blood. 
• Verse 8, “The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire.”  Men will suffer from excessive heat. 
• The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and his kingdom was plunged into darkness.
• The 6th angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and it was dried up to prepare the way for the kings of the East.
• And then verse 17, “The 7th angel poured out his bowl in the air and out of the Temple came a loud voice saying, ‘It is done!’  And there were flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, and a severe earthquake, and hailstones 100 pounds in weight came raining down on men.”

And when the wrath of God begins to descend on this earth and people will cry out for the mountains and the rocks to fall on them.  I want you to understand that there is going to be a terrible wrath someday poured out on this world because of its rebellion against God.  But the great news is, we’re saved from God’s wrath.  We’re going to escape that.  He’s going to take us out of that.  And we ought to be so grateful that we are justified and we are reconciled and we are saved from God’s future wrath because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Jeff Walling compares it to a husband who is in a mall with a friend and all of a sudden he says, “Oh no!  I forgot!”  And he races to a phone where he calls the beauty shop and he says, “Is Linda there?” 

“Oh, she’s gone.  Well, how long ago did she leave?  That long, huh? Okay.  Thanks.”

He hangs up and the friend says, “What’s wrong?”

And the man says, “Oh I was supposed to pick my wife up at the beauty shop 2 ½ hours ago and I forgot.  She was going to get her hair done because her parents are coming over tonight and we were going to have a special night together.”

So the man calls his house and his son answers the phone.  He says, “Son, is your mother home?’

And the son says, “Dad, just keep walking.  Wherever you are, just keep going dad.  Yeah, she’s home.  She got home 10 minutes ago. She walked the whole way. Dad can you see outside from where you are?  It’s raining.”

What’s your mom look like, son?”

Well, dad, you’ve seen our dog Sparky after he’s been out in the rain?  Dad, I love you. 

So he hangs up the phone, and quickly drives his friend home. All he way home he thinking, “Maybe I could tell her I got hit on the head at the mall and I had amnesia.”, or “There was a back-up on the expressway and I was stuck in traffic.”  No. I’ve got to tell her the truth.  I just forgot.

Now, guys, put yourself in that man’s shoes for a moment.  As you drive up to the house, you see your in-laws coming down the street in the opposite direction. And you think to yourself, “Oh I’ve got to get in there before they do and make this thing right.  And then you remember, “I promised that I would be home early enough to clean and dust and I forgot that too.  I’m a dead man.”

So you walk in the door with your most humble expression, your shoulders drooped.  And there stands your wife, with a soup spoon in one hand and a knife in the other.  Homicide in her eyes. 

And she says, “Where were you?  You promised 2:30.  I walked all the way home in these heels and I’ve got blisters and it was raining the entire time.  Where were you?”

And you say, “Honey, I’m sorry.  I forgot.”

And she says, “Ok.  No big deal.-------- Just give me a kiss and you’re forgiven.  I thought maybe it slipped your mind. That’s OK.”

And you think to yourself, “Drugs.  Is she taking drugs?”

She says, “No.  Now just give me a kiss and we’ll forget the whole thing and have a good night.”

Now fellas, what kind of a kiss would you give your wife?  Would you give her a condescending little peck on her cheek and say, “Before I kiss you I want to talk to you about how much money you’ve been spending at the beauty shop lately.  And you’ve gained a little weight, too.  And these plants around here need water, I’ve noticed.” 

Are you kidding me?  You’d grab your wife and you’d hug her, and even if your mother-in-law came in and you’d given her a big kiss and you’d say, “I’ve married the most wonderful woman in the world.”  And you have!  Because you have been saved from wrath!

Now, we don’t need to see God as some doting grandfather up in heaven that never brings wrath down on the disobedient. We need to see God with a sword in one hand and the power to wreak vengeance. And we need to understand that we are guilty before him and we have no excuse.  But God says to us, “Let’s just say that through my son you are saved.  Let’s just say, Because of his blood you are forgiven.” 

Now what’s your spirit towards a God like that?  Condescending?  Critical?  “Well, Lord, first I’d like to talk to you about my kids.  My job’s not really making as much money as I thought I would in the past year.  My car’s not running exactly right.”  No.  When you come to church and you realize that you have been justified, and you have been reconciled to God, and you have access to him, and there is joy even in suffering, and that you have been saved from his wrath you can’t thank him enough.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  How grateful we ought to be.  How about you this morning?  Got anything to be thankful for?  Would you like to be justified—made just as if I’d never sinned?  Would you like to be guiltless in the sight of God?  Would you like to escape the terrible wrath of God?  Well, the best news of all is that you can.  As we sing our hymn of invitation, simply come forward receive the spiritual blessings God wants to pour into your life through His son Jesus Christ.  If you’re not sure how to respond to God—you just know you need to respond in some way today—come forward as we sing and we’ll walk you through the steps you need to take in order to be right with God.