Romans 5:1-11
Intro Questions
#God #People #Time #Place #Obedient faith #Sin #Key Idea
Peace and Hope
1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we a have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we b boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we c also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10For if, while 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! 11Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
- God is ... What do we learn about God in this passage?
- We are ... What do we learn about people in this passage?
- I will ... What has the Holy Spirit revealed to us in this passage? How can I apply it to my life this week?
- You can ... Who do you know who needs to hear this? Feel free to share with others by social media links at the bottom of this.
https://youtu.be/g-mpk-m-jH8?
Salvation By Christ Alone - Part 5 from North Boulevard Church of Christ on Vimeo.
Psalm
34:1 “I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my
lips.” NIV
Praise for God your Father
should be the easiest thing that flows from your heart and mouth. The pure recognition of you not only being
God’s creation, but also being the recipient of His love and grace through your
redemption in Christ Jesus should flood your heart with praise for Him.
Romans 5:8 say,
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.” Your praise should not be
limited to when you receive something from God, but praise Him for the reality
that God Almighty even considers you.
Your praise should not be limited to when you come out of hard times,
but just for the normal things in your life.
Your praise should not be limited to when you get a raise or promotion,
but for the very job you have. Your
praise should not be limited to when God heals you, but for the very breath of
life itself. Praise should not be
limited to
Sunday morning, but to every
waking moment. Praise is the
inexpressible recognition of Who God is in your life, His immeasurable love for
you, His never exhausting patience with you, and His unfathomable capacity to
cover you with His grace. Your praise is
not dependent on how good times are, but how GOOD YOUR GOD IS!
Romans 5:6 says, “You see, at just
the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” The world’s affect on you is probably crowding God
out of your life when your praise becomes limited to the events of life itself
and not your life in communion with God.
It is out of your intimacy with God that you begin to see and experience
God in every detail of your life.
Philippians 1:9‐11
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge
and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may
be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of
righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of
God.” NIV
Romans 11:33, 36
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and
unfathomable His ways! For from Him and
through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory forever! Amen.”
NIV
==========
Expert Salvation
Like many cities, Grand Rapids, Michigan, has a recycling center where residents can drop off paper, plastic and metal products for reuse. Employees staff a processing line to sort things properly. Last spring, the line had to be stopped and evacuated because a metal sphere turned in for recycling was actually a six-pound cannonball from the Civil War. Those would typically have been used in small field pieces with a range of only about a mile—and they were replaced for Union use in 1862.
The six-pound cannonball was an antipersonnel charge fired into enemy infantry. The exploding ball would spray out 37 musket balls. So this cannonball had been quietly deteriorating and becoming more unstable for at least 158 years. The Michigan State Police bomb squad disposed of it before it could kill anybody. Folks aren’t always so lucky: Sam White died when he accidentally set off a cannonball in his driveway. From time to time, explosives surface even far from battlefields. In 2016, a pile of 16 Civil War cannonballs was uncovered by a storm on a South Carolina beach. Old explosives actually become more dangerous; the detonators deteriorate into unstable conditions that might not work at all—or might go off with the slightest disturbance. There is no do-it-yourself plan to make them safe; they must be expertly rendered.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8 NIV).
Because we are forgetful, we lose track of the sin buried in our past. If it came to our minds, we would assume it lost beneath the sifted dust of time. And since its results were no longer seen by us, we would consider it effectively neutralized. In truth, it waits right where we left it, quietly nursing its fatal purpose. It is impossible for us to undo our history and unmake the terrible choices in our past. We are truly powerless in the face of our own decisions and their savage consequences. There is no do-it-yourself plan so that we might correct our actions and survive our past. Left to our own ingenuity and efforts, we are inflexibly self-condemned and doomed forever.
And yet there is hope for our survival in the expert rendering of sin’s lethal power by the sacrifice of Jesus. It is a simple thing to understand: I deserved to die for my sin but Jesus paid the penalty and suffered that death in my place. He didn’t do that because I’m such a great person; I was a contemptible piece of work that didn’t deserve so much as a sideways glance from Him. The reason He did that was that He chose to love an unlovable waste like me and release me from the catastrophe I had constructed by my terrible decisions. And what He did for me, He’ll do for you, if you’ll allow Him. When you realize you’re a “dead man walking,” the promise of expert salvation is really good news!
No comments:
Post a Comment