St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Pentecost 4 – June 9^th and 12^th, 2005

Dear children of God,

Love comes in many different shapes and sizes. There is love as we talk about friendships. There is love as we talk about marriages. There is love as we talk about parents and children. There is love when we talk about puppy love and dating. There is love when we talk about some thing we like. There is love when we appreciate someone who has done a nice thing for us. It is almost impossible to truly understand the word love, until we place it into the context of God’s love for us. It is this selfless love that never is looking for something in return that is the kind of love that we are talking about today. It is Jesus’ love for us and all people that will serve as our theme for today.

In chapter three of his letter to the Romans, Paul firmly establishes on the basis of Old Testament passages the universal sinfulness of mankind and its condemnation by God. Since man in his sinfulness cannot save himself, salvation must be accomplished in another way. By God’s grace it was accomplished by God’s promised Messiah. This, too, is amply proclaimed also in the Old Testament. To demonstrate that this is the case, in Romans 3-4 Paul recalls the example of the Old Testament patriarch Abraham and uses him to establish the truth that "a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." He concludes chapter four with the strong gospel statement that Christ was "delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." Our salvation has been accomplished in Christ.

In chapter five, Paul now begins to set forth exactly what this justification means for us in our daily Christian lives. Verses 1-5 serve as an introduction to all that follows, through chapter eight. The words, "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," serve as the theme. The emphasis in those words is not on our attitude toward God, but on God’s attitude toward us. There is peace between us because Christ has taken away our sin. At this point in his letter Paul is not yet talking about our attitude toward God, but what will motivate us to have a correct attitude toward God. In his first epistle John says, "We love, because he first loved us." Paul here establishes God’s love for us.

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." With three words, "we," "powerless," and "ungodly," Paul preaches some very powerful law. With the word "we" Paul joins himself with all of humanity, including all who would ever hear or read this letter, and says that we, all of us without exception, by nature are two things: powerless and ungodly. Both are terms that don’t sit well with us by nature.

We are "powerless." We all like to have or think we have some strength about which we can boast. It may be mental, physical, financial or whatever. We would like to think of ourselves as having the power or authority to persuade God to do our bidding, to serve us. But as God sees us, we have no strength at all, no strength to seek him, no strength to serve him, no strength to save ourselves, no strength to draw his attention to us. Instead we are like the man set upon by thieves who needed the help of the Good Samaritan. To confess that we are this way is most difficult, even for the Christian, because our sinful flesh would like to take at least some credit. God’s Word, however, still stands. We are "powerless." But the gospel paves the way for our salvation. If we are powerless, then our salvation is dependent upon God’s power alone. If it is dependent upon God’s power alone, then our salvation can’t be lost. In Christ our salvation is an accomplishe! d fact. It has been completed in full. Paul wants to instill this confidence in the hearts of his readers.

We are "ungodly." The people of Paul’s time as well as the people of today would like to consider themselves as godly because they acknowledge that there is a god. The Greeks and Romans had a plethora of gods in their pantheons and mythologies. The Jews considered themselves the chosen people of God, whether they worshipped him as he had revealed himself or not. Among all this "piety," though, there was a lack of true reverence for the true God, a lack of reverence, which revealed itself in the fact that they ignored God’s Word and his revelation of himself. They trusted instead in their own righteousness. Self-righteousness has led some to conclude that some deserved to have Christ die for them. To that Paul says no. "We are ungodly." Then Paul further lays the foundation for the clear proclamation of the gospel.

Paul makes that gospel proclamation when he says here that it was precisely for these ungodly, these powerless ones, namely, for us, that Christ died. He makes that point again in verse 8 when he states plainly, "Christ died for us." Here is the gospel pure and simple; to try to give some appreciation of how great a sacrifice this was on Christ’s part Paul draws upon an example from daily life:

"Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die." It is a rare situation in which a person offers to act as a substitute for someone who is being held hostage or who is about to die. The thought is considered only when the other person might be worth dying for because of his value to society. For whom would we be willing to die? A member of the family perhaps? But would we lay down our life for the one who had been the "black sheep"? Or for an enemy of ours?

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." "Sinners." The word literally means that we miss the mark. As was the case with "powerless" and "ungodly," this, too, is a word that doesn’t rest well with us by nature. We like to think of ourselves as being right on target, or at least no worse than a wee bit off course when it comes to the matter of our righteousness before God and man. As far as God is concerned, however, we don’t even come close. Society uses the term ‘‘sinner’’ to describe those who are outwardly evil. God uses the term to describe us all on the basis of what is in our hearts.

Sinners, people like us, are the kind of people for whom Christ died. What we wouldn’t even consider doing, God did without hesitation because he loved us. His love is there for all to see, believe and rejoice in. His love is revealed in Christ, whose life of perfect love invites the closest scrutiny. God’s love provided the supreme sacrifice for our sins.

"Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!" Paul advances his argument from the greater to the lesser. If God did not exercise his wrath toward us while we were powerless, ungodly and sinners, will he now reject or condemn those on whom he has lavished his grace? If God did not immediately exercise his wrath while we were guilty without Christ, he certainly will not do so now that he has declared us innocent through faith in him.

What is our feeling when someone who once was angry with us says that he is no longer angry? Do we immediately trust him? What if the hostility was deep and of long standing? We want to believe his words, yet in our hearts there may be that nagging doubt. As people who know that we deserve God’s punishment and who live in a world full of heartaches and disappointments it is only natural that there may be those times when we wonder whether God hasn’t decided to punish us after all. Paul reminds us that if God didn’t do that while we were without Christ, he certainly will not do it now or on the last day.

"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 have saved through his life!" "Enemies." Paul again uses a strong word to describe our relationship to God by nature. We were his enemies because of our sin. We stood in opposition to him and everything he represented. This, too, is not pleasing to the natural man. The natural man likes to think of himself as being at least on generally friendly terms with God, even though the relationship may not be a close one. But that is not how God sees us by nature. He makes us aware of this through his law. We are his "enemies.

"Reconciled." By God’s grace through Christ our natural status with him now has been altered. The Savior has removed our sin and with it the reason for God’s hostility toward us. Now God regards us not just as former enemies, not just as friends, but as his own dear children through faith in Christ. The words of verse 10 echo the thought of verse 9 so that our confidence toward God might be firmly established. When God should have destroyed us because we were his enemies, he didn’t. Instead, he removed the reason for his hostility toward us by taking our sin, placing it upon his Son, letting him suffer the penalty of hell and death for it, so that we might be regarded as his friends, his children by adoption.

But if Christ’s work had ended with his death, we would have reason still to be in doubt. Would the Father hold it against us, even just a little bit, since it had cost him so dearly? Christ’s resurrection from the dead answers this question and many others. Have all sins been atoned for? The resurrection proves it. There could have been no resurrection if any sin had remained. Can God now withhold any blessing from us? How can he, when his Son lives and reigns with him in heaven? When the last day comes, we will be saved by faith in that Son who is still alive. There can be no doubt about it. In him there is no reason for condemnation, only cause for rejoicing.

"Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." "Rejoice!" Literally the word means "to boast." This is not an activity that is done quietly or when we are unsure about a situation. The words emphasize how confident we are of our salvation. There is no room for doubt, because it has been accomplished completely by God himself. We boast, not about ourselves, but about our God and his Son Jesus Christ. God gets our full glory and praise. Our joy and confidence compel us to rejoice. Amen