Sermon for CATM – Thanksgiving Service and Banquet – October 10, 2010 – Made Just Right
Today is Thanksgiving. A time to pause and, if we’re not in the habit of doing so regularly, reflect with gratitude upon all God’s good gifts.
Now one of the keys to living a joyful life is indeed to live thankfully. When we live with gratitude to God in our hearts we remain a God-focussed people, never forgetting that despite all life might throw at us, despite the ups and downs of daily living, the most important reality is that God is with us.
When life gets me down, when people close to me are suffering, when my own weaknesses get the better of me, I remember this central truth: Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father. Always, always, for 30 years now and counting, this confession of faith has buoyed me, has lifted me, has restored perspective at those times when I’ve lost perspective.
We’ve been on quite the journey so far through the Book of Romans. For those of you taking the course based on this sermon series, and who are submitting papers weekly, you’ve more than likely been ‘living in’ the book.
We’ve heard a lot over the past number of weeks about what faith is. We’ve learned that this journey we’re on in the book of Romans looks pretty closely at the darkness in the human heart, everything in us that would rebel against God, that would seek to compromise true faith, that would seek to exchange the grace of God, freely given to us in Jesus, for our works – as if there’s the tiniest chance that our good works can save us.
Of course, there isn’t. We’ve learned that we’re justified by faith in Jesus. That means that when we believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we receive Him truly as our Lord and Saviour, committing our whole lives to Him, Jesus makes it so that it is just as though we never sinned. His blood covers our sins.
Today we look at chapter 5 of the book of Romans. Since we haven’t time in this series to look in-depth at chapter 4, I thought to lay the groundwork for today I’d do a real quick summary of chapter 4. Rom 4:1-5 Talks about how Abraham was justified by faith, and not by the works of the law; for his faith was imputed to him for righteousness.
In Rom 4:6-8 David also bears testimony to the same doctrine.
Rom 4:9-12 Talks about how Abraham, the father of the Jewish race, was justified by faith, even before he was circumcised; therefore salvation must be of the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
Rom 4:13-17 Continues, revealing that the promise that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in him, was made to him while he was in an uncircumcised state; and, therefore, if salvation were of the Jews alone, the law, that was given after the promise, would make the promise of no effect.
Rom 4:18-22 Describes Abraham’s faith, and its effects.
Rom 4:23-25 Tells how this account is left on record for our salvation, that we might believe on Christ, who was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification. That’s a real quick look through Romans chapter 4. I really hope you are reading through the entire book of Romans. It is such an amazing and challenging book You will be enriched and blessed as your read it.
Today, because our time is shorter than usual due to the Thanksgiving Banquet following the service, we’re going to focus on the first verse of chapter 5 and how this verse is unpacked or explained by the rest of today’s verses.
Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
It is ALL about peace with God. Everything that the book of Romans has been talking about so far points to this verse. The darkness of human sin and rebellion separates us from God.
We all share in common both our sin nature, our innate inclination to sin, and we share in common that those inclinations to sin often enough show up in the sins we DO commit.
We try to do some good to compensate and try to earn God’s favour, but the weight and depth of our sin is too intense. It doesn’t work. In the light of God’s absolute holiness, our best efforts at good works are like filthy, stinking rags.
We see in Abraham a person who was made right with God not first through his actions, but rather first through believing. Abraham is the father of all who believe. He found peace with God not through works, but through faith.
Like Abraham, when we have faith in Jesus Christ, believing that His sacrifice was for our sins, we find forgiveness. And knowing we are forgiven, we are established in God’s peace.
Before my conversion to Christ I had little peace in my life. I joined my sister going to a Sikh ashram as part of a young teenager’s quest for inner peace.
As we sat and meditated all I was aware of was a lot in inner turmoil and a great vacant emptiness. At that time in my life I had no real sense of right and wrong. It was wrong if I got caught.
It was right if I didn’t get caught. My sinful actions or sin were an expression of sin at work in me, or original sin, which we’ll be looking at in a few weeks.
That sin, un-dealt with, un-atoned for, un- forgiven created a world of stress and anxiety and misery that nearly ended a few times with feeble efforts to end my life.
Of course I had no idea about sin or any of that, being raised as an atheist. But when I first heard the message of God’s love expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for me – it echoed at a place very deep in my soul.
It began to quench my intolerable thirst. I was loved. I was held. Someone died for me. Peace came into my life through the gospel, and I was never the same.
2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Jesus has made a way for us, through Himself, into the grace of God. Because of Jesus, because He bore our sins on the cross and suffered the penalty we deserve, we do not get what we deserve.
Actually we get what we absolutely do not deserve – forgiveness of sin, restoration of a beautiful relationship with God. Being restored brings us peace. When we both have peace with God, and TRULY APPRECIATE that peace, we rejoice in the incredible hope He has given us.
3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Nobody in their right minds wants to suffer. Humans are not wired that way. People who like to suffer need help. Really. But having faith in Jesus, knowing that we have peace with God through God’s Son, this gives purpose to the suffering in our lives.
Whether it is suffering for our faith, as the early Christians did to the point of rejection by society at best and, often enough – death, or coping with the general suffering in life, this principal holds true: suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and growing in our character produces hope.
I feel like I haven’t suffered personally too much. But my son’s two terrible illnesses and my brother’s death from cancer brought me as close as I’ve been to suffering.
In 2007 after my brother died and then my son’s kidneys right away shut down and so much was hanging by a thread.
All I could do was PRESS into God, cleave to Him, pray and cry out and pray some more.
A friend came up to me in 2007 after I led a Holy Week worship service in the midst of all that and he said something I’ll never forget. “When things get really bad, you either walk away from who you are, from your faith, from all that defines your life, or you press in until the light begins again to shine through the darkness”.
When we stick close to God through the stuff that we WILL suffer, we will come out stronger, hungrier than ever for God, for reality. May it always be so.
The key here is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. God doesn’t ration His affection, He doesn’t give it to us in a miserly way. He doesn’t let it trickle in, building up perhaps over time.
Through the Holy Spirit God POURS His love into our hearts. That’s an abundant gift to you and to me. God’s love poured in. Let it be so, Lord Jesus.
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Paul lets us in on a well-known little secret here. No human is willing to suffer for another human who is just awful. Once in a while, someone might put their life on the line to save the life of someone they deem good. It happens. But God is different. He is not a respecter of persons.
God showed his abundant love by sending Jesus to die for us when we were undeserving. You know a lot of folks won’t come into a church – this church or any other – because they feel unworthy.
I’ve talked to such people and I get the impression that they think that those of us who do go to church must be something really special. We must be super-holy, perfect. Anyone here super-holy or perfect?
I read a sign outside a church that said: “If you’re perfect, you do not belong here. Far from perfect? Welcome home!”
Not because we were good, not because we got our lives together, not because we are holy. Totally the opposite. Because we are sinners – not ‘good’, not ‘together’, not, in and of ourselves, ‘holy’.
If you are a sinner, if you struggle with sin – Jesus died for you, because God loves you. Plain and simple. And you belong. We are family. Amen?
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 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 his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Sing: What can wash away my sin – nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Reconciliation. What good can that do? In 1975, when I was 13, my parents split up. It was devastating and totally unexpected. I figured all the yelling and screaming and crying was just normal for married people.
My dad moved up to our cottage and my mom sold the huge house we had lived in for a little duplex in Riverdale. The separation ate at me a lot, probably contributing to me experimenting way too much with drugs.
I lived high from 13 to 19, which was two years after I came to Christ. (No one at church told me I shouldn’t smoke weed. All they talked about was the evils of alcohol).
My dad had a heart attack at my brother’s wedding in 1985. He had heart surgery in January of 1986. He came out of the surgery a different man, someone who had come face to face with his mortality.
My mom went up to the cottage to help him convalesce or recover from the surgery. And she stayed with him. 10 years they were separated. 10 years apart. Until they were reconciled.
That reconciliation brought with it huge healing for my family. In fact, we were a whole family again.
You know, because of sin, our relationship with God is seriously messed up. No peace. No communion. But God took the first step. He not only took the first step, He took all the steps necessary to heal our seriously wounded relationship with Him. God brought us reconciliation on the cross.
Despite our sins, despite our messed up pasts, despite histories we are ashamed of, despite all of these things; when we believe that Jesus died for our sins and commit our lives to Him in gratitude, WE ARE JUSTIFIED. JUST AS IF WE NEVER SINNED.
Earlier in our series on the book of Romans, we looked at the wrath of God. God is not neutral toward sin. He doesn’t stand idly by as humans cause other humans or other parts of creation to suffer.
God is passionately real and alive.
God’s passionate love for humankind is no fancy poetry or nifty philosophy. God’s passion is real.
God’s wrath is real, and those who are not in right relationship with God through believing in Jesus, should, frankly, be pretty darn nervous about the wrath of God.
But when you believe, you are saved from God’s righteous wrath. Paul makes the point that since even when our relationship with God was totally on the rocks, we were made right with God through Jesus; how much more now that we are reconciled to God, now that our sins are atoned for – we can have confidence that we are saved.
Are you thankful today for the peace of God that comes through Jesus? Are you thankful today, believers – that God has reconciled us with Him, fixed all that was broken in our relationship with Him?
Are you thankful, brothers and sisters in Christ that this same peace, this same healed relationship, this same reconciliation is freely available to ALL?
Let’s live that message. Let this message of the gospel be settled in our hearts.
Let’s pray. God, we are thankful for Your love. We are thankful that Your love came down from heaven to earth in Jesus. Give us hearts that just gush gratefulness to You for all you have done. With thanksgiving in our hearts, O mighty God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we worship You, we adore You. We lay our lives before You. In Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
