Sermon Text: Romans 5:1-8
Date: March 12, 2023
Event: The Third Sunday in Lent, Year A
Romans 5:1-8 (EHV)
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God.
3Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, 4and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. 5And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.
6For at the appointed time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7It is rare indeed that someone will die for a righteous person. Perhaps someone might actually go so far as to die for a person who has been good to him. 8But God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Christ Died for Us
“Are you sure?” Anyone ever ask you that question? Maybe you’ve said you’re going to do something that seems extreme to someone else. Perhaps it was a teacher trying gently to get you to see a miscalculation in a math problem or a skipped step on a homework assignment. Maybe it’s just your computer double-checking to see if you really want to close that program without saving hours of work. “Are you sure?”
It’s a question that can cause some panic or anxiety in you unless you have the utmost confidence in what you’re doing or planning. “Am I sure? Are there no other options? Is this truly the best option?” And in reality, it’s unlikely that you ever have the objectively best plan, right? There’s always going to be something you didn’t think of that would work better, or there would be other options that would be equal to your idea, but you just need to pick just one.
There are all sorts of options when it comes to spiritual and religious thought. Are you sure you have the right one? And what is on the line if you don’t? It’s not like ordering the pasta when you should have gotten the fish. You can always come back to the restaurant and try something else off the menu later. But when it comes to eternal security, the answers to true, spiritual questions, you’ve got one chance. So, are you sure?
In our Second Reading for this morning, Paul wants to bring us some certainty, but he wants that certainty to be placed in the right spot. We’re not just here to make each other feel better, we’re not trying to cope with some sunk-cost fallacies. We’re here to be led by God in his truth.
The Samaritan woman at the well that Jesus spoke to in our Gospel really serves as an interesting example for us. Here was a woman—sinful, as we all are, but also religiously minded. She thought she had what she needed. She followed the faith of her people (which was a hybrid religion mixing some of the Old Testament with other things). But Jesus pointed out that she had a thirst that was not being quenched; she needed something only he could provide. She could have certainty—but not in herself. Her certainty would come from him.
Paul addresses that thirst that we all have. Our sin, he says, made us helpless, which really flies in the face of popular thought about our spiritual reality. All people (including you and me) would like to believe that we are pretty good. Or we’re trying our best. Or we’re at least better than someone else, our neighbor, or that person who has been arrested with horrific charges held against him. But by calling us helpless, Paul is underscoring the “not ok-ness” of our relationship with God. Helpless isn’t getting close; helpless isn’t just needing a little boost. Helpless means that there’s nothing to be done to help us. The situation is so dire, the problems so completely out of control, that nothing that we or any other person could do would ever help. We are helpless, so thus our situation is hopeless.
Yet, you have the confidence of eternal life, right? You’re looking forward to heaven? Are you sure? Paul said it was helpless. Well, helpless until: At the appointed time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly. One thing and one thing only could rescue us from this helpless situation: Jesus. And he did it in the most unexpected way possible. Paul continues: It is rare indeed that someone will die for a righteous person. Perhaps someone might actually go so far as to die for a person who has been good to him.
Who’s on your shortlist of people you would take a bullet for? Whom would you die for? It’s a trope in war stories and romance movies, but in reality, that list is probably pretty short, if it exists at all. Paul makes the point that if you were going to die for someone else, it would be someone whom you hold (and who holds you) in high esteem—a righteous person or a person who has been good to us. But here’s the rub: God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Being a sinner means you are an enemy of God. Being a sinner means you haven’t endeared yourself to him; it means that you’re actively fighting against him. You have nothing in you by nature that would draw you to him or make him think happy things about you.
This is what makes Jesus’ death for mankind so baffling. You and I brought nothing to the table. He didn’t look at us as a fix-upper; he didn’t see potential in us and figured he’d put in the work to make us whole again. We weren’t some restoration project that had good “bones” but need a new coat of stain or paint. No, we were wholly corrupted to the core. There is nothing worth anything in us by nature. And even if we think there is, Jesus is quick to show us our corruption as he did for the woman at the well, “Go, call your husband…” (John 4:16). Uh, about that…
No, God shows that his love for us had nothing to do with us and everything to do with him. He died for us not because of us but because of him. His love is completely unilateral; it depends only on itself. You are loved because he loves you. Jesus died for sinners who hated him, because he loved them—he loved us. There’s a reason this passage serves as the heading of our congregation’s website and is emblazoned on the back of every one of my business cards: there is hardly a more succinct way to summarize the gospel: God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The beginning of our Second Reading tells us the results of that self-sacrificing love of God: Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God. Our rejoicing isn’t internal, it’s external. We don’t rejoice in ourselves; we rejoice in our Savior who loved us and died for us.
So, if you want confidence in eternity, don’t look in yourself with questions like “Do I believe enough? Am I good enough?” Looking for confidence in those places is like trying to quench your thirst with salt water. At the moment, it may seem like you’re doing the right thing but, in the end, you’re killing yourself.
No, if you want confidence in eternity, look at the Savior who gave his life for you. When trouble or hardship presses you on every side, there too we can rejoice because we know that these things are temporary, these things keep us looking forward to the final, eternal home of heaven, these things give us that godly patience and remind us of the certain hope we have not in the “now,” but in what is coming.
Are you sure? Are you sure you’ll be in heaven? Are you sure your sins are forgiven? Are you sure that there’s something better than this life waiting for you beyond what we struggle with today? We joyfully and confidently say, “Yes!” Why? Because Christ died for us. Thanks be to God! Amen.
