“An Invitation”
Romans 5:1-11
Invitations come in all sizes and shapes – for all kinds of occasions. What’s the most unique – or ridiculous – invitation you’ve ever received? Julie Potter wrote that her mother volunteered to help her with her wedding invitations while she visited her parents in North Carolina. They spent two long nights addressing envelopes and adding a handwritten note to each invitation, "Please stay for dinner following the ceremony." When she got back home, she realized she hadn't sent an invitation to her parents. Before putting it in the mail, she personalized it with a note at the bottom: "Please pay for dinner following the ceremony." (i)
Marc Horowitz has received numerous dinner invitations because he wrote his cell phone number on a whiteboard when he was working on a photo shoot for Crate & Barrel. The board, with his number on it, showed up in a Crate & Barrel magazine, and that’s when the calls started rolling in. As an aspiring artist, Horowitz decided to turn the calls into a project so he planned a nationwide road trip to have dinner with any caller who wanted. He received invitations for “a mean lasagna” in Georgia, coffee in Wisconsin, and Shabbat dinner in Maryland—all from complete strangers. (ii)
So what’s the most important invitation you’ve ever received? Wait – don’t answer yet. Let me share an invitation with you first. Then decide.
The invitation starts with an announcement in Romans 5:1 - “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” The announcement 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 have rebelled against Him. We all have missed the target repeatedly. Our self-centered desires have pitted us against God in a war we cannot win. We are condemned to die. But – 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. Are you experiencing the reality of being at peace with God?
The announcement continues by informing us that GOD HAS PROVEN HIS LOVE FOR US. (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 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 could see the future and they arrested 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 LOVED US ENOUGH TO DIE FOR US.
Paul continues his announcement (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!” God has proven that He LOVES US NO MATTER WHAT. This theme of Paul 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 does love, and 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 mattered 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 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!”
We are at peace with God, God has proven His love, and He will love us no matter what, all though Jesus death. 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.” 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? How do you handle that 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 - 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, or you’ve known about this great love so long that it just doesn’t seem all that exciting anymore. 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. I invite you this morning, whatever your situation, to grab hold of the realities of God’s gift. 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 peace with God? Remember the cross.
Second, COME HOME TO JESUS. He is accessible twenty-four hours a day. Come home. There is unlimited grace – with no maximum lifetime limit. Come home. There is love that can never be broken. There is peace, permanent and beyond anything the world can give. Come home. It’ is the most important invitation you can ever receive. Come home.
One Sunday morning a minister asked a Young Life worker to dismiss the service in prayer. He knew the young man had just that week discovered he had terminal cancer. The man came forward with his guitar in hand, stood on the steps of the platform, and said, “I’d like to give the benediction, but I want to sing it.” But before he sang he gave his testimony of how he’d been raised in the streets, kicked around, and hadn’t known any family life. He had fallen early into drugs, had shot heroin for six years, and had destroyed most of the soundness of his body. He told how he had sold his body into homosexuality, how miserable he was in that situation while trying to find some sense of meaning and worth. Then someone told him about Jesus – and he was freed. He became a Young Life worker in order to share the Word with high school students. Then he began to sing his benediction.
I am so glad that my Father in heav’n
Tells of His love in the Book He has giv’n;
Wonderful things in the Bible I see;
This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me.
Tho’ I forget Him and wander away,
Kindly He follows wherever I stray;
Back to His dear loving arms would I flee
When I remember that Jesus loves me.
Oh, if there’s only one song I can sing,
When in His beauty I see the great King,
This shall my song in eternity be,
‘Oh, what a wonder that Jesus loves me.’
I invite you to come home to Jesus. The realities of God’s peace are only a prayer away.
(i) Julie Potter, North Chatham, Massachusetts. "Rolling Down the Aisle," Christian Reader.-from www.preachingtoday.com
(ii) Sara Kugler, "Artist on Nationwide Tour to Meet Curious Callers,"The Seattle Times (2-14-05); submitted by Neil Bennett, San Antonio, Texas-preachingtoday.com
