Romans 5:1-8 Whether you are a
family trying to get out of debt or a young person preparing for a career or
someone trying to lose weight—you need a plan.
As different as
these goals are—the plans to get out of debt and build a business and become a
doctor and lose weight all share the
same characteristics: where are you
right now—your goal at the end—how you are going to get there—and what
resources are at your disposal to reach your goal. Every
plan has those steps.
The same thing is
true in our life of faith. All of us
have the goal of going to heaven when we die.
And so we need to know where we are right now in our journey of
faith. We need to know how it is that
God is going to bring us to himself in heaven.
And we need to know what spiritual resources we can count on to get us
there. Paul writes:
Therefore, since we
have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Through him we have also
obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand…
Standing in God’s grace. That is where we are right now and it’s a
great place to be when it comes to our life with God!
Standing in God’s grace means that when it comes to our
relationship with God: we can be confident that God’s attitude towards us is one of love and blessing. Far from being “out to get us”—God is for us.
But how did we
come to this remarkable place of blessing and favor?
Paul says that we
have been justified by faith in Jesus
and that through him—we have gained access into this precious place of standing in God’s grace. And so it’s through faith in Jesus that God
has counted us righteous in his sight. God
himself has counted Christ’s holy life as our own righteousness. God himself has counted Christ’s death on the
cross as our punishment for our sins.
The wrath that God
has towards sinners has been taken away and replaced by peace so that we can be
absolutely confident that God looks
upon us with a shining face of love and desires to bless us with every good
gift of body and soul. Grace is where we
are and faith has brought us there. That
is why we rejoice in hope of
the glory of God.
Our goal is to one
day live in the presence of the glory of God with his light and love and life
shining upon us forever and ever. This
is the goal of the Christian life. To
that end…
God has created
you by his almighty Word- and redeemed you at the cost his Son’s blood- and
brought you to himself by the power of the Holy Spirit- for a single
purpose: that you would live with him in
heaven—so that his glory would shine upon you forever in joy and peace. As Christian people we rejoice in that hope.
So far we have
learned: 1. Where we are right now: standing in grace 2. How we got there: by faith in Jesus 3. and what
our goal is: eternal life in the
presence of the glory of God. The next
step in God’s plan is getting us there.
Paul writes about God’s work to bring us to heaven through the hardships
and difficulties of life:
We rejoice in our
sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces
character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame
There
are going to be some hardships along the way until we reach the glories of
heaven. But far from complaining about hard
times, we can actually rejoice in the midst of them because we know that there
is a God of love who is wisely, graciously, lovingly, patiently working in those
hard times for our good-- to form us into the image of his Son and prepare us
for an eternal life in his presence.
And so how does
God do that exactly? What are the steps
that God takes in that plan?
First of all, we just
need to accept that there are going to be hard times and there is going to be
some suffering in this life. We live in
a broken world- and we are broken people- and there are going to be times when
that brokenness comes to rest on us and those we love. But as we endure those times, we come to see
that what we thought was unbearable, has actually made us stronger.
Character is produced in us as we face
and overcome the challenges of life.
When we discover (through trials) that God will equip us and strengthen
us for whatever difficulties we have to endure—ever so slowly we begin to
change on the inside—we become more courageous and confident—we develop an
inner resolve—we gain a mental and emotional strength. Our character grows. And character produces hope.
That is where God
is working to bring us—to a firm hope in him—confidently facing the future and
eternity—because we know the God who has been our help every step along the way
has promised to remain our help until we get to heaven.
Suffering. Endurance.
Character. Hope. Let me just summarize this process with an
analogy. All of us who are parents know
what we want at the end of our child-rearing years: we want decent, hardworking, Christian adult
sons and daughters.
And so, is the
best way to achieve this goal to give them every thing they want on a sliver
platter, to pamper them into helplessness, to never challenge them beyond where
there are in any given moment? Is that
the best plan? Of course not! It’s a recipe for disaster!
If we have sense
enough to know that that formula doesn’t work for our children—why on earth
would we demand that our heavenly Father work that way among us—his children? That is a recipe for spiritual disaster!
But as little as
we would spoil our children, neither would we let our children fend for
themselves without our help-- and neither does our heavenly Father leave us to
our own resources and strength to work our way to heaven.
Every bit of God’s
plan to bring us to our heavenly home (through suffering and endurance and
character and hope) is accomplished in us
by HIS loving help. Paul says that: God’s love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And so what does that mean? It means that:
Every time we hear
God’s Word preached (the law that corrects us and the Gospel that comforts us) every
time we hear that our sins are forgiven—every time we receive Christ’s body and
blood in Holy Communion—there, in those places, and in those moments—God is
pouring his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit—to give us those spiritual
resources we need to reach our heavenly goal—which is why he sent his Son in
the first place. Paul writes:
While we were still
weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous
person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God
shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.
All of us understand
the challenges of reaching a goal. Lots
of kids want to be doctors until the hard work of physics and chemistry kick
in. Plenty of us have lost and gained
back hundreds of pounds. We get one bill
paid off only to be faced by another. We
know about failure in meeting
goals.
And so how can we
be confident as Christian people that we WILL make the goal of heaven? It‘s because the One who has already
accomplished so much for us has promised
that we will-- and his track record of accomplishing what seems to us
impossible—is perfect.
While we were still weak, at the right
time, Christ died for the ungodly.
It you think you are weak now (and that causes you to worry about
reaching heaven) think what you were before you came to faith in Jesus! That is real weakness!
But it was at that
moment—when you had no spiritual resources of your own—that God loved you and
sent his Son to die for you. It is while
you were still sinners—incapable of pleasing God—incapable of even making a
start towards God—that Christ died for you.
This is the deep,
abiding, everlasting love that God has for each and every one of you and having
sent his Son to die for you—having brought you to himself by the Spirit’s work
in Holy Baptism—having sustained your faith through word and sacrament up to
this point—HE WILL NOT STOP working
to bring you to heaven until you are safe and sound, standing in his presence,
basking in his glory.
And so when you
think about how far you still have to go to get to heaven—when you are in the
midst of some kind of sorrow or suffering—when your sins seem to overwhelm your
faith—remember what you learned today: that through faith in Jesus you stand in
God’s grace RIGHT NOW.
He is at work in
your life in hard times to shape and mold you into the image of his Son—and
that having sent his Son to die for you while you were still a sinner—he CERTAINLY will not give up on you until
you reach your heavenly goal. Amen.
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