Romans 5:8 God Demonstrates His Love for UsElderly Care Ministry
I wanted to start right off with the passage that it is in today’s handout. Please follow along as I read it for you:
Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us
Amen. The verse is short, but it packs in a lot. I go back to this verse personally when my feelings and emotions tell me one thing, that God doesn’t love me, but I can cling onto the cross which shows that God loves and forgives me.
- He demonstrates his love
Let me re-read the first few words of this verse: “God demonstrates His love for us”. That’s an amazing statement. It says that God actually demonstrates his love for us—it’s not just talk.
When I was a kid, I used to ask my mom, “Mommy, do you love me?” And of course, the answer was a resounding yes. It was the words and feelings behind them. But how could I know for certain? It wasn’t just the words that my parents said. That was important, but what was more important was that they actually demonstrated that love for me: they changed my diapers, they fed me, they raised me through some tough teenage years, they sent me to college. They demonstrated it.
In some ways, we never seem to outgrow this desire to know that we are loved. This is a question that I have brought to God: “God, do you love me?” And sometimes it takes the form of “God, WHY do you love me?” because I realize I’m not all that lovable. But God doesn’t laugh at that question when we ask him seriously. The Bible here says that God demonstrates his love. He does something concrete to prove it. So if any of us are having any doubts that God loves you, that God would possibly want to love you and me—there is proof, and that’s the cross of Jesus. That’s our proof, and that’s something we can point to that’s objective.
- God’s love is amazing
So God demonstrates his love for us through the cross: but I want to point out that this is amazing. This is a love that can only come from God.
It’s not in your bulletin, but let me read the two verses that come before the one in your program:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The Bible says that it’s unlikely and rare that anyone would die for a righteous person. For a good person, a really good person who benefits society, someone might. MIGHT possibly dare to die. But God dies for sinners. Sin, at its core, is a rejection of God and his authority in our lives, which I will talk about in a second… Jesus Christ is willing to die for those who reject him.
Let me illustrate how crazy this is. Think about people in your life: your friends, your family, your old coworkers and colleagues. Which of them would you die for, if any? Your child maybe. When I ask myself this question, the most logical person is this. [picture of my child] That’s my child. Now think about people who have harmed you: your rivals, your enemies, people who belittled you. Some people in this home were in the military--there were enemies trying to take your life. Now let me ask the same question: which of them would you die for?
That’s the position God is in with us. The Bible says we are sinners. We all know that we aren’t perfect. But if you peel back what is behind our lapses, our so-called bad moments, it’s not just that we aren’t perfect. We’re really flawed people. Each time we lose our patience with a person, there is something deeper than “I was in a hurry”. It was that I didn’t love that person who I got mad at enough to give them more time, or we weren’t very generous with them even though we know they have a certain fear or tendency. And not only do we not love, we regard our own time as the most important—we are fundamentally selfish. We can do that with any so called mistake we make. We are sinful people to the core.
We reject God. And our sins are not just annoying to God. They hurt him. The Bible has so many pictures of God’s heart: he is a spurned lover, the husband of an adulterous wife, an abandoned parent, a rejected king. He feels such sorrow, such anger at sin. Our sins make us enemies of God.
But then he gives his own son Jesus for us. He doesn’t just tolerate enemies. He sacrifices his one and only son, his own child, for us on the cross. That’s amazing. That is a love that is beyond human. It’s way beyond comprehension. That’s the love of God. The cross is God’s concrete demonstration of his love for us for all time.
- We don’t need to clean ourselves up
And that’s what I want to invite all of us to respond to today. You don’t need to clean up your sin on your own. You don’t need to fix yourself and change before you can respond to God’s love. What if I told you that President Obama was going to visit Bay View tomorrow? You would probably wash up, clean up your room, prepare a picture of the president. God’s not like that!
I want to read the last words of the verse again:
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us
God knows we are sinners. And as sinners, we can’t change ourselves no matter how hard we try. God knows that. And he still comes to us with love. We only need to confess to God that we are sinners in need of his love and forgiveness, that we have rejected him—and that we want to return to him and accept his gift of Jesus on the cross, the ultimate demonstration of his love. If we confess our sins, but ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, God forgives us and saves us.
If there is anyone in this room who has not made Jesus your Lord and Savior, but you want to respond today, please raise your hand or let one of my friends or I know so we can pray with you.
And for everyone who already has a relationship with Jesus, let’s thank God for his amazing love for us—that though we sin day by day, God’s response to us is forgiveness and love, and we know that because of the cross.