messenger doxCall to worship:OT:
pastor zachary mcguire
psalm 119.65NT:
pastor andrew loginow
John 16.31-33
song:
how firm a foundation
Historical reading:
pastor michael champoux
apostles creed
song:
I stand amazed
Eckman baby dedication
dr. brett eckel
Confession & Pardon:
dr. brett eckel
song:
Christ the sure & steady anchor
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Romans 5.1-11
Introduction Studying this passage throughout the week got me thinking about the film Saving Private Ryan. That opening scene of storming the beach at Normandy is savage. When I was pastoring in Kentucky there was a member of our church who was at Normandy – Bob Rice. He was 16 and lied about his age to join the military.
Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene gave us a vulnerable and graphic depiction of one of the most important days in modern world history. D Day, June 6, 1944, is effectively the day WWII ended – the invasion at Normandy began the Allies’ campaign to liberate Nazi-invaded Europe. The Nazis officially surrendered in May of 1945, and Japan surrendered in September 1945 after Hiroshima. Even though battles raged on for another year or so, the war was effectively over on D Day.
Though imperfect, there is an analogy here for this passage in Romans 5.1-11. Easter Sunday is the true and better D Day – the day the war effectively ended. When Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead, he defeated Satan, sin, and death. This unholy axis lost their power, their sting. Even though the war is over, battles rage on, and they will until the Lord Jesus returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new.
Peace With God Enables Us to Rejoice in Hope of The Glory of GodBut Romans 5.1 reminds us that we fight these battles against the world, the flesh, and the devil from the position of peace. In fact, the book of Romans has been preaching this good news of peace from the very beginning. Romans 1.16-17 gave us the thesis statement of the letter, the summary, in many ways Romans 1.16-17 could be the title of the epistle:
I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who is believing – the Jew first and also the Greek – for in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, beginning and ending with faith, as it is written, “the righteous will live by faith.”
Romans is all about the gospel, which is the power of God to save all who believe because the gospel reveals God’s righteousness in Christ imputed to us by faith.
Then from Romans 1.18-3.20 St. Paul writes his dissertation of why we need this good news – our lack of righteousness, our sin. And then we get to Romans 3.21, what some have called the most important paragraph ever written – St. Paul’s explanation of justification by faith alone in Christ. In Romans 4 we saw how Abraham was declared righteous through faith, revealing to us that justification, salvation, being declared righteous, being right with God by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is not merely New Testament doctrine, but this has been God’s plan of salvation for all of history.
And this justification, this declaration of our righteousness because of Jesus means we have peace with God. Pastor Kevin walked us through verse 1 last week, which is a major transition spot in Romans. St. Paul didn’t write chapters and verses, but this is like starting a new chapter. Moving forward indicatives start turning into imperatives, having established what Christ has done one our behalf, St. Paul beings to explain how the gospel of Jesus shapes our lives.
Since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Since we have been declared righteous through faith the result is we are at peace with God through Jesus. The image is that since we have been justified, declared righteous, now, through Jesus, we are face-to-face with God. But we must learn to live in that peace with God. The world we live in is not at peace with God, we have been catechized by the world to be at war with God, the inclinations of our flesh have been at war with God – we have muscle memory of war with God. How do we discipline our thoughts, words, and deeds to be at peace with God when our inclination is war?
The answer is to rejoice in Jesus. Three times (καυχάομαι) in these 11 verses does St. Paul reveal that rejoicing, boasting, exulting is the immediate effect of our peace with God (vss. 2,3,11). Rejoicing in Jesus does not justify us, it does not make us right with God; we are made right with God through God’s unilateral action alone, we have seen that in Romans, but after God declares us righteous, we enjoy God’s peace, we apply God’s peace to our lives, we live in light of God’s peace by rejoicing in Jesus.
Verse 2 says through Jesus we have access by faith into God’s grace, in which we stand. Our access, our standing in God’s grace are ongoing states of reality. May 16, 2009, Bethany and I were married, and we’ve continued to be in a state of marriage since. When God saved you, when he declared you righteous, you entered his grace, and you continue to be, to stand in that state of grace through Jesus.
Doesn’t that make your heart rejoice? Doesn’t that make your heart boast in Christ? Doesn’t that make your heart exult the Lord Jesus? Church, rejoice in hope of the glory of God! Don’t you want to rejoice in the confident expectation that God is glorified by the justification of sinners through Jesus! Don’t you want to boast in the hope that God is working all things together for the good of those whom he’s called! Don’t you want to exult in the hope that when it’s all said and done God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and everything sad will be untrue, and every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father! Let’s rejoice!
Peace With God Enables Us to Rejoice in SufferingThe hard part is that day is not here yet but in the meantime our peace with God means we can rejoice in our suffering. Even in our suffering we can boast in Jesus. As we walk through the dark valleys of this life, we can exult the Lord Jesus. In verse 3 St. Paul encourages us that not only can we rejoice in God’s glory, but we can rejoice in suffering.
I want to be vulnerable with you guys here for a minute – I feel like a fraud; I feel like a phony. We all experience suffering; we’ve endured quite a bit of suffering in our family these last few years and I haven’t always felt joy, but that’s because I don’t always rejoice, I don’t always boast in Jesus, I don’t always exult Christ well in my suffering. So, I’m not standing here as an expert, as a pope, as one saying, “I do this perfectly, so do what I say.” I stand here as a mere messenger, a conduit of the Word of the Lord and I need this as much, if not more than any of you.
The Word says we can rejoice in suffering; we can boast in Jesus in suffering; we can exult Christ in suffering because suffering produces endurance. Through suffering God is shaping us, molding us like the potter does the clay, like the ironsmith does the metal in the fire, to teach us endurance. Our suffering forms us into the image of Christ, who willing and innocently endured the suffering of his humiliation in his incarnation and crucifixion. Like an athelete suffering through drills in practice, like a musician suffering through rudiments and scales, our suffering is not purposeless or random, our suffering is NEVER purposeless or random, but it is sovereignly and providentially ordained by God to shape us into the image of Christ through endurance.
Because endurance produces character. As we rejoice in suffering, as we boast in Jesus through suffering, as we exult Christ in suffering, endurance is the result and that endurance produces character. What we do becomes who we are. How we live our lives shapes who we are. Now hold on a minute – we must not use that to forget everything St. Paul has said so far or we’ll fall back into legalism or self-righteousness – our righteousness does not start with what we do; NO! – It starts with Jesus. We are righteous because we have Jesus’ imputed righteousness and that creates a desire to think, speak, and act justly, that carries us through suffering producing endurance, which shapes righteous character. Because we have peace with God we can rejoice in suffering, and the more we endure suffering practicing rejoicing, we become people who rejoice no matter what – rejoicing produces endurance, which produces character.
And when our character is formed by living out the peace established by God alone, we have hope. We genuinely have a confident expectation that God’s promise is true, that Jesus will make all things new, that our sin is forgiven, that we will live forever, that God will right every wrong. We don’t merely want that to be true (I really hope so), but we have confident expectation, we have hope because that is our character, we are people who rejoice even in suffering, because we’ve endured suffering while rejoicing.
What is wrong with us that we don’t do this? Think about this – we all want the Lions to win the Super Bowl, right? (except Arron) Image this – the Lions win the Super Bowl, it actually happens; but then we’re all moping around, or getting angry, or depressed like, “I wish the Lions would win the Super Bowl.” But they won! It’s over!
Multiply that by infinity – the war is over! Jesus is victorious over Satan, sin, and death! Why do we live as if, why do we suffer as if Jesus is not victorious? The answer is our sin, but we need to see that and repent – turn the other way. We have real hope. We have confident expectation.
And that hope will not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit God gave to us. All the Old Testament promises about the pouring out of God’s Spirit were fulfilled at Pentecost and continues to be true every time God saves a sinner. Because God loves us, he gives his Holy Spirit and it is only when the Spirit makes our heart new, only when the Spirit lives inside us that we can rejoice in suffering and endure and this character is created giving us hope.
Peace With God Enables Us to Rejoice in God Through JesusAnd verse 6 reminds us that God only pours his Spirit out through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This is all God’s doing – while we were still weak, we were helpless, we were dead in sin, enslaved to our depravity, blind, while we were spiritual zombies, the walking dead, it was then, at the right time, according to the season, Scripture says, that Christ died for the ungodly. The initiative was all God’s; the means was the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
St. Paul acknowledges that this gospel is counter intuitive to our natural thinking. People will scarcely die for a righteous person, for a good person someone might dare to die – even that language: dare to die, is like, man, dying for a good person is a bold move. Those soldiers at Normandy died for a righteous cause, but it was not something everyone does every day.
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We were all guilty, none of us were righteous or seeking God, but the Father sent his only begotten Son to be conceived of the Spirit and born of the virgin, to live without sin, righteous, and to die in our place on the cross. Why did God do this; what was his motivation? Love. This pericope is the 1st time in Romans we’ve seen the word αγαπη, love.
Verse 9 gives us more good news – since we have bee justified by the blood of Jesus, we are saved from God’s wrath. This is the major place where Protestant Liberalism gets it wrong. This is where weak, seeker-sensitive churches fall short. Jesus died because he loves us – true, but that’s not the whole story. Jesus died to satisfy the wrath of God against our sin. Sin deserves wrath – that’s justice. So, our only hope to assuage the wrath we deserve is for someone else to endure it for us and that’s what Jesus did by his death – he stood condemned, cursed in our place.
And verse 10 says that since we have been reconciled, returned, restored to God through Jesus’ death, now we will be saved by his life. Jesus’ resurrection is the grounds, the means, the power for our justification – being forever righteous in God’s sight; our sanctification – being progressively made righteous in thought, word, and deed through the Word and Spirit – and our glorification – on the last day when we will be resurrected and we will not sin, nor will we desire sin. We are saved by Jesus’ life.
And so, in verse 11 St. Paul calls us for a 3rd time to rejoice in God through Christ in whom we’ve received this reconciliation. Look to Jesus and rejoice in response to your faith. Faith is the knowledge of who Jesus is and what Jesus did. Faith is assent in the good news of Jesus – assent means to acknowledge that it is true; to confess it and not deny it. And faith is trust in Jesus alone.
And the starting place of rejoicing, of boasting in Jesus, of exulting Christ is repentance. We cannot boast in Jesus if we’re boasting in ourselves; we cannot exult Christ if we’re exulting ourselves. Rejoicing starts with humility – humbling ourselves like Christ did who humbled himself to the point of death, even death on the cross. Humility means vulnerability, it means crucifying our pride, removing the wall of self-protection.
Humility leads to confession – we confess our sin; we confess when we’re wrong; we confess we don’t know everything, or we don’t do everything the right way. We acknowledge that we are sinful creatures. We say, “I was wrong, I’m sorry, I love you.” We confess the truth we don’t twist the truth to make us look better or feel better.
And confession frees us to turn. We turn away from our sin, our pride, and we walk in the way of Christ. We walk in humility, and love, and faith, and grace, and hope. The gospel is the compass of our lives and when we walk in humility, we will rejoice regardless of our suffering.
Here’s the best part – this is all God’s doing. There’s nothing I can say or no special way I can say it that will change anyone’s heart. So even now as we transition from the Word to the sacrament, I pray our Father would, through the Spirit, apply the good news of Jesus to the hearts of these hearers. Because the gospel is everything.
ConclusionBecause when Jesus walked out of the tomb on that 1st Easter Sunday, he stormed the beach of Satan, sin, and death. The war has been won, but the battle rages on until the day when the Lord Jesus returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. In the meantime, how do we keep fighting our daily battles against the world, the flesh, and the devil? We do it from a position of peace. We rest, we rejoice, we boast, we exult in Jesus.
Song:
Christ our hope in life & death
Eucharist:
pastor kevin mcguire
Benediction:
pastor bobby owens
numbers 6.24-26
Doxology
