Romans 5:6-15

All for You!

            How far would you be willing to go for a stranger? If a random person asked you for a ride, would you give it to them? If they asked you for money, or help moving, or for food, how would you respond? Now, the hard part about asking such a question is that our culture has had such an impact on our immediate responses. We’ve been trained usually to assume the worst for the sake of our own safety. Such phrases like “stranger danger” sum it up all too well. But assume the person asking for help wasn’t actually a stranger. Imagine that the person coming to you for help was a childhood bully who used to pick on you and call you names in school. And even what little interaction you have with them in the process of them asking for help alerts you to the fact that they haven’t changed at all. Would you still help or would you turn them away as revenge for the torment that they put you through? It’s easy to be nice to others who love you and praise you in return. It’s much harder to care about someone who hates you with every fiber of their being. But this is exactly what we’re called to do as Christians because it’s exactly what God has done for us.

            For today, in our Epistle lesson, Paul invites us to consider again the circumstances of our salvation. We can’t lessen what Christ did so as to make ourselves feel better. We must come to comprehend one of the hardest and most difficult truths of the faith. Thus, from the words of Paul, let us come to learn today:

NO ONE HAS EARNED THEIR REWARD, BUT CHRIST HAS GIVEN IT FREELY TO ALL!

I.

            It’s certainly one thing to be called a sinner. Sinner simply means we missed the mark; we fell short. It’s a connotation that we probably prefer because it gives us the image of being a child who simply doesn’t know enough… yet. It gives us the impression that we can “try again” and do better. But Paul doesn’t want us to fall into a false comfort. Consider Paul’s words in verse ten, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life,” Romans 5:10. Enemy is a better descriptor for the depth of sin we were in prior to Christ’s salvation. For imagine you didn’t just miss the mark once, but a hundred times, even a thousand times. Sooner or later, your emotions will tell you that you’re not good enough. And all that hatred is thus turned toward God. God is the one we hate and blame for our circumstance to the point that we wish God were dead. For sin isn’t like getting a “B” on a test when you were hoping for an “A”. Sin is like ripping up the test and thinking that means you don’t need to take it. It’s complete rebellion against God and his good creation.

            But here’s the hard part that most people struggle with when it comes to faith. Because you’ve sinned, or missed the mark, so many times, it doesn’t matter if you were to hit it even once; it still wouldn’t redeem you from your past sins. To say it another way, you’ve rebelled against God so much in your life that you have no hope of mending that relationship on your own. There’s nothing you can do to appease God to make him give you a second chance. There’s no ounce of power within your body to claw your way closer to God. We couldn’t build a tower to heaven any more than the people of Babel could. For just as Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned,” Romans 5:12. Death and sin are a constant in this life because we all face them. I am no less a sinner than you are, and perhaps for all I know, the worst sinner of all. 

II.

            Only when we understand this point fully and whole-heartedly will we come to truly know what grace means. When we understand that faith isn’t our own work, when we understand that I’ll never be able to appease God with my life, when we understand that we stood opposed to God, will it then confound us all the more to hear that Christ gives it to us freely. Faith must come from God through the life and death of Jesus Christ, preached through the power of the Holy Spirit into your heart. Faith comes from outside of us because nothing inside of us is good enough to grasp faith on its own. Consider then, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly,” Romans 5:6. While we were still weak and sinners and enemies of God, Christ came for us, entering our flesh, taking upon himself your sins and my sins so that he may die for us. This is what Grace has always meant. It’s not just a gift given to a friend, but rather an enemy. It’s a gift given to someone who doesn’t deserve it, didn’t earn it, and hasn’t worked for it.

            Oh, the depth of sin and death and misery we find ourselves in prior to faith. Which is what makes the salvation and life and forgiveness of God all the greater. Yes, God never had to give us anything, but he decided to give us the world. He gave us his one and only Son to become man, live a perfect, sinless life, to suffer and die a gruesome death, and then rise victorious on the third day. Jesus has reconciled you to God by his blood shed on the cross. He poured out his entire body and soul for you on the cross so that he may reconcile you to God. That is, Jesus is the one responsible for rebuilding the bride that we burned down. Jesus alone is responsible for taking us by the hand and leading us to the very throne of grace. Jesus alone has saved us from our own sin and death by taking it for himself. As Paul said, “More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation,” Romans 5:11. For by one man, Adam, has come the sin and death of the whole world, but by the one man Jesus Christ, we now have faith and life and eternal salvation!

            This is the truth of the faith that is most essential for us to grasp. We’ve been saved purely by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who has suffered for us, died on the cross, but now lives and reigns to all eternity. So that, now as he lives, we may trust with all certainty that we have grace through Jesus Christ to live eternally with him. In Jesus’ name! Amen!