"While We Were Still ____ Christ Died For Us"
Romans 5:1-8
Have you ever gone through a deep, dark time where you just could not find any peace?
Have you ever found yourself thinking: "I am no good."
"God couldn't possibly love me."
"I have missed the mark."
"There is no hope for me."?
I would assume many of us have.
Perhaps you are feeling that way this morning.
Or perhaps you know someone else who is feeling that way.
When I was in college, I went through a period of time when I felt like that.
I felt really bad about myself.
One day, as I was feeling and thinking this way, I walked into a music store on campus.
In that store, I heard, coming from the overhead speakers, Billy Joel's song: "I love you just the way you are."
And in that moment, it felt as if God were speaking to me through that song.
It was as if God were saying: "Ken, don't be so down on yourself.
I know you even better than you know yourself.
I created you.
And before you were even born, I died for you.
Ken, I love you just the way you are.
Now get on with the amazing life I have planned for you!!!"
That night, when I got home I was reading from Colossians.
And I came upon a passage that gave me a tremendous amount of relief, and also made me want to jump for joy!!!
It's found in Colossians 2:13-17:
"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.
He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."
The reality is found in Christ!!!
I think this is what Paul is telling us in Romans as well.
The reality is found in Christ.
And what is that reality?
That reality is that God loves us.
God loves us!!!
God loves us!!!
"While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Or as our bulletin cover says for this morning: "I loved you at your darkest."
What is the worst thing you have ever done?
What is the lowest you have ever gone?
Don't say it out loud, just think about it.
Search your mind.
What causes you most shame?
What sin have you committed that you are most worried about finding forgiveness for?
Have you ever done or thought something that you wouldn't even share with your closest friend--for fear that that person would no longer love you or even want to be around you?
I bet most, if not all of us have.
We all live with deep, dark secrets.
We have all done things or thought things that haunt us.
Many of us have said hurtful things to others that we can never make amends for.
Some of us think about things that we would never tell anyone about.
Some people are brought to the brink of suicide or insanity because of things they have thought or done.
Self-hatred very often comes from guilt and shame.
Paul says, "Don't let anyone judge you--the reality is found in Christ."
And whatever you have done.
Whatever you have thought.
Whatever you have said.
God has forgiven you of those things, cancelling that which was against you and that stood opposed to you; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.
Do you believe this?
Coming to accept and believe this is what the Good News of Jesus Christ is all about.
Coming to accept and believe this causes us to discover a whole new life opening up before us.
It's a new life marked by grace, and an increasing appreciation for what God's mercy offers us--what God has done for us in Christ Jesus!!!
The Founder of the Biggest Revival to hit this world in the past 200 years, John Wesley, was a man who was searching for "peace with God."
One day it came to Him, when he was listening to someone, in a Bible study, read Martin Luther's Preface to Romans.
Wesley wrote: "About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
John Wesley started preaching salvation by grace through faith alone!!!
It was the Great Awakening, or the Methodist Movement.
And it spread like wildfire across the continents.
When we come to know and truly believe that God loves us, unconditionally, no matter what we have done or who we are...
...when we come to accept ourselves and thus, others because of God's acceptance and love for us...
...this is when new life begins--this is when we have been made right, as Paul says, "through [God's] faithfulness combined with our faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
And peace with God is what all people need and crave.
All of us search for peace--peace of mind.
I googled "peace of mind" just out of curiousity this week.
Here are some of the things which came up:
* 40 ways to create peace of mind through tiny budha.com
* 9 ways to find peace of mind in tough times
* The Peace of Mind Foundation
* Peace of Mind Early Education
* The Ten Commandments for Peace of Mind
* Peace of Mind Dog Rescue Home
...and it goes on and on and on.
We are all searching for peace of mind.
It's part of the human condition.
Pastor Tim Keller used the following example to show how to find peace of mind in Christ:
"Do you remember when your mother used to say, 'Don't eat candy before meals?'
Why did she say that?
Because she knew it would ruin your next meal.
The trouble with eating candy is that it gives you a sugar buzz, and then you don't feel hungry.
Candy masks the fact that your body needs proteins and vitamins.
The sugar buzz from candy masks your hunger for the real nutrients that you don't have.
Things like sex, power, money, and success—as well as favorable circumstances—act like spiritual sugar....they can give us a false sense of peace.
People who are eating these candies are basing their day-to-day joy on supposedly favorable circumstances.
When the circumstances change, it drives us to God, because when the sugar disappears, when the candy gets taken away, we're forced to pursue the feast that our souls really crave.
We'll hunger for the spiritual nutrients we really need."
Recently I read about a famous comedian whose quick wit and endless supply of jokes had guaranteed him huge audiences for his entire career.
But when he died, a darker story was told about his life as well.
He had had a falling out with his father when he was young, and they never "made up."
Then, the tragic pattern repeated itself when one of his own sons fell out with him and got "cut off."
I can't imagine what that must be like.
Imagine knowing that there is someone there, only a telephone call away, who is one of your closest blood relatives...
...and yet he or she won't speak to you, or have a thing to do with you.
And imagine that going on for years and years and years.
There is something deeply disturbing about the whole picture--but a lot of people live like that.
There's an even bigger tragedy.
A huge number of people live exactly like that in relation to God.
(pause)
In Romans, Paul is talking about a reconciliation to end all reconciliations!!!
"Since we have been made right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ we have...."--what?
...a warm glow in our hearts?
...a sigh of relief that our sins have been forgiven?
...a new understanding of what it means to belong to God's people?
Yes.
Yes to all those things and more!!!
Because at the center of it all we have PEACE WITH GOD!!!
And "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."
As it is written in 1 John Chapter 4: "Dear friends let's love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God...
...This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent His Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins."
God's love has done everything we could ever need, and everything we will ever need!!!
In verse 8 of Romans Chapter 5, Paul says this: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
I love what theologian N.T. Wright has to say about this: "What Paul says here makes no sense unless Jesus, in his life and death, was the very incarnation, the 'enfleshment' of the living, loving God.
After all, it doesn't make sense if I say to you, 'I see you are in a real mess!
Now I love you so much that I'm going to send someone else to help you out of it.'
If the death of Jesus demonstrates how much God loves us, that can only be because Jesus is the fully human being in whom the living God is fully present."
And if God loves you and God loves me--and everyone else so much that He came down from heaven and died for us, even when we were at our darkest...
...if God loves us that much...
...how much can we trust God to bring us peace of mind, and hope even as we suffer in this present life?!!!!!
As Paul says later in Romans Chapter 8: "I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Are you searching for peace this morning?
Do you feel as if you can never be good enough for God to love you?
Are you trying to win God's approval on your own, but you are continuously falling short?
Are you sad?
Are you lonely?
Do you feel dirty and unloved?
Do you know that "God shows his love you for you in this: while you were at your darkest--Christ died for you?"
Do you believe this for real?
Do you have peace?
