“Between the Lines: How to Hit the Bull’s Eye”
Romans 5:1-11
During my high school years I spent two summers working as a counselor at the local YMCA Day Camp. In that capacity I was often an instructor – including teaching archery. Being totally inexperienced in that field, I quickly learned that I could not hit the target unless I had the courage to take a shot, and I could not hit the bull’s eye unless I had the benefits of practice. Little did I realize then that now, some 47 years later, I would discover a similar principle in the Book of Romans. In the first 11 verses of this 5th chapter, Paul wrote that we cannot hit the bull’s eye in life – we cannot be between the lines and on target with God – unless we have the courage to reach out and grab hold of the gracious realities of peace with God.
Paul’s whole premise is stated in verse 1: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” The first reality is WE ARE AT PEACE WITH GOD. This is not a matter of feeling or emotion – it is a fact. Paul has taken great care in demonstrating that we all have been at war with God. We all rebel against Him. We all miss the target repeatedly. Our self-centered desires pit us against God in a war we cannot win. We were condemned to die. But Jesus died in our place. And since God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the war is over. We are at peace with God. It’s a fact. It’s an external fact, however, that many do not experience internally – and that’s because they have not grabbed hold of the reality of peace with God. Are you experiencing the realities of being at peace with God? Do you know what those realities are?
The second reality of peace with God is that GOD HAS PROVEN HIS LOVE FOR US. Listen (Verses 6-8 NLT): “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” We Americans concoct a lot of slang in our language. It’s our way of emphasizing something way out of the ordinary. So something’s not big – it’s humongous. It’s not a large church – it’s a mega church. It’s not “double the order” – it’s “super-size” it. When someone serves a cake with extra chocolate, it’s not mega or super – it’s “Death by Chocolate!” And when something or someone is the ultimate, it’s “to die for.” “Look at him – he’s to die for!” “Wow – look at that Cadillac – isn’t that to die for?” Similarly Paul, trying to emphasize God’s extraordinary love, said that God, in Jesus, looked at you and me, considered us the ultimate, and said, “YOU’RE TO DIE FOR.” While we were still sinners! There was a movie, starring Tom Cruise, called Minority Report. It was about an elite police task force that routinely arrests people who will commit crimes in the future – in other words, this force can see the future and they arrest people to prevent crime from happening. It makes me wonder what God sees when He looks into my heart. What sins did He see in me as He hung on the cross dieing for me? Knowing full well what was in my heart, knowing fully all the times I would come up short and miss the target, still He loved me and died for me.
During the war in Vietnam, a young West Point graduate was sent over to lead a group of new recruits into battle. He did his job well, trying his best to keep his recruits from ambush and death. But one night, when they had been under attack, he was unable to get one of his men to safety. The soldier left behind had been severely wounded. From their trenches, the young lieutenant and his men could hear him in his pain. They all knew any attempt to save him – even if it was successful – would almost certainly mean death for the would-be rescuer. Eventually the young lieutenant crawled out of hiding and got dying man to safety; but before he could save himself he was killed. After the rescued man returned to the States, the lieutenant’s parents heard that he was in their vicinity. Wanting to know this young man whose life was spared at such a great cost to them, they invited him to dinner. When their honored guest arrived, he was obviously drunk. He was rowdy and obnoxious. He told off-color jokes and showed no gratitude for the sacrifice of the man who died to save him. The grieving parents did the best they could to make the man’s visit worthwhile, but their efforts went unrewarded. Their guest finally left. As the dad closed the door behind him, the mother collapsed in tears and cried, "To think that our precious son had to die for somebody like that." Yet that’s what Jesus did. When we were utterly helpless, in total rebellion, with no way of getting into a right relationship with God, Jesus died for us. At our worst moments in life, we can look deep into the heart of God and see the words, “You’re to die for.” JESUS LOVES US ENOUGH TO DIE FOR US.
Paul continues, verses 9-10 (MSG): “Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!” The third reality is that God has proven that He LOVES US NO MATTER WHAT. This theme of Paul’s runs all the way through the 8th chapter where he concludes that nothing is able to separate from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. A. W. Tozer penned this truth majestically: “God knows us completely. No tale-bearer can inform on us; no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come out of some hidden closet to abash and expose our past to God. No unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us since He already knew us utterly before we knew Him. And he CALLED US TO HIMSELF IN THE FULL KNOWLEDGE OF EVERYTHING THAT WAS AGAINST US.” There’s not a reason in the world God will not love you. God will love you no matter what.
There was a boy who was the apple of his parents’ eyes. Tragically, in his mid-teens he headed in a bad direction, stepped outside the lines. He dropped out of school and began associating with a bad crowd. One night he staggered into his house, completely drunk, at 3:00 a.m. His mother slipped out of bed and left her bedroom. His father followed, assuming his wife was in the kitchen, perhaps crying. Instead, he found her at her son’s bedside, softly stroking his matted hair as he lay passed out drunk on the covers. “What are you doing?” he asked. She replied, “He won’t let me love him when he’s awake.” The mother stepped into her sons’ darkness with a love that existed even though he did not yet love her back. She loved him no matter what, no matter when. So God, through Jesus, loves us. “If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!”
What gracious realities – We are at peace with God, God has proven His love, and He will love us no matter what, all because Jesus died to give us peace with God. And listen to this (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.” Reality #4 is that GOD CONTINUES TO FILL OUR HEARTS WITH HIS LOVE. He shares His Spirit with us to keep warming our hearts and communicating His love. The Holy Spirit will so fill our hearts with God’s unconditional, rich, and radiant love, that we will never be disappointed. The only question is, “ARE YOU LETTING GOD LOVE YOU?” For example, how do you handle suffering, trials, setbacks, opposition, and difficulties? The medical report was not good; the job market doesn’t seem to have room for you; the unemployment checks will stop coming very soon; you didn’t get the job, promotion, or the coveted part; your significant other has indicated he or she does not want to be your significant other; the death of your loved one continues to hurt. Is your heart warmed by God’s love? You have peace with God – it’s God’s gift to you. But have you accepted it? Are you rejoicing in spite of the circumstances of your life? Or, (like Millie from the drama), do you refuse to receive and open up the gift? Perhaps you’re afraid that if you let God love you, His love will control you. Maybe you’ve let someone else love you and wound up getting hurt - and you swore you’d never let anyone – not even God – love you again. Maybe you want to experience the realities of peace with God, but your sin and its consequences are spoiling the gift. It could be you’re angry with God and don’t want to let go of that anger. Or have you been trying to please God, to pile up merits as if you needed to preserve the peace, or earn the peace? Perhaps you feel like God could never love you – you’re just not worthy enough or good enough or talented enough. Or have you continued to be at war with God by obeying your will and walking your way? Maybe you’ve been living in doubt, not completely sure of your salvation. And it could be that life is rolling along so well for you right now that peace with God is not a major concern. Possibly you’ve just never asked Jesus into your heart to share that love with you. But hear this truth: our hearts are restless – have no peace – until they rest in Jesus.
Picture a fishing boat. The poles are all in place, the lines cast into the water. A fish has taken the bait and is on one of the lines. You have a fish, but it does you no good because you haven’t reeled it in. That’s the way it is with God’s peace. I invite you this morning, whatever your situation, to grab hold of the realities of God’s gift and reel in Hi peace. Here’s how.
First, REMEMBER THE CROSS. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The mother of a nine-year-old boy named Mark received a phone call in the middle of the afternoon. It was the teacher from her son’s school. "Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today in your son’s third grade class. Your son did something that surprised me so much that I thought you should know about it immediately." That was not a particularly comforting thing to say to her. The teacher continued, "Nothing like this has happened in all my years of teaching. This morning I was teaching a lesson on creative writing. And as I always do, I tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper: "The ant works hard all summer and stores up plenty of food. But the grasshopper plays all summer and does no work. "Then winter comes. The grasshopper begins to starve because he has no food. So he begs, ’Please Mr. Ant, you have so much food. Please let me eat, too.’" Then I say, "Boys and girls, your job is to write the end of the story." "Your son, Mark, raised his hand. ’Teacher, may I draw a picture?’ "’Well, yes, Mark, if you like, you may draw a picture. But first you must write the ending to the story.’ "As in all the years past, most of the students said the ant shared his food through the winter, and both the ant and the grasshopper lived. A few children wrote, ’No, Mr. Grasshopper. You should have worked in the summer. Now, I have just enough food for myself.’ So the ant lived and the grasshopper died. "But your son ended the story in a way different from any other child, ever. He wrote, ‘So the ant gave all of his food to the grasshopper; the grasshopper lived through the winter. But the ant died.’ "And the picture? At the bottom of the page, Mark had drawn three crosses." THE CROSS OF CHRIST IS PROOF POSITIVE THAT GOD LOVES YOU ENOUGH “TO DIE FOR.” “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Do you want Jesus to fill your heart with this magnificent humongous, mega, super-sized love? I ask you again: are you experiencing the benefits of being at peace with God? Remember the cross.
Second, COME HOME TO JESUS. He is accessible twenty-four hours a day. There is no cost to you; Jesus has paid your expenses. There is unlimited grace – with no maximum lifetime limit. There is love that can never be broken. There is peace, permanent and beyond anything the world can give.
Max Lucado wrote about Christina. Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city. One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing – pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro. Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture—taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village. It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” She did.
This morning you can come home. I invite you to come home to Jesus. The realities of peace are only a prayer away.
