We read the word of God from Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is spread abroad, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also join God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all, for that all have sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them which had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also as the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. and not as it was by one that sin, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus far the reading of the holy and divine scripture we consider as our text this evening, verses six through eight. For when we were yet without strength, In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet, peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle is continuing to develop the second part of his theme. The Apostle's theme is that the one who is righteous by faith shall live. The one who is righteous by faith is the ungodly person whom God justifies by faith only. That faith by which he is justified is the full persuasion of his heart that what God promised, God will perform. And thus it is the full persuasion of his heart that all that God speaks is true, and especially this, that God's promise of righteousness unto him is a true promise. Faith is that full persuasion, so that in spite of all the testimonies in his life to the contrary, despite all the sin that he sees in himself, despite all the sin that he sees in his life, in spite of all the death that surrounds him, he is fully persuaded that God justifies the ungodly and that he is one of those ungodly persons whom God justifies and he believes God he believes the word that God speaks to him and he believes that that's true for him and he believes in God therefore who raised Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, in the resurrection, he finds the testimony that all his sins are forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ. And that faith, that full persuasion, is counted for righteousness. Not because faith itself justifies, Faith itself is no ground for justification, but because by that faith he is united with the righteous corporation of Jesus Christ. And he's covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that that righteousness is him. That one that is righteous by faith shall live. He's righteous by faith. Not works. Works don't enter in. If someone tells you, you must believe, then you can be righteous. Then you say, I must not believe. Someone tells you, you must repent, and then you can be righteous. Then you say, I must not repent. Someone says to you, I must obey God, and then I can be righteous. Then I must not obey either. There are no works. There are no deeds, there are no activities of man. He who is righteous by faith is the one who does nothing. And God declares him righteous for Christ's sake as an ungodly person. That one shall live. And it's that life now of the one who God justifies freely by His grace for Christ's sake that the Apostle is developing. That one is free from wrath, that one is free from the law, and that one is free from sin and from death. And that one therefore hopes. A Christian without hope is no Christian. A Christian who has no hope has no life. His very life is hope. He has peace with God through his Lord Jesus Christ. And so he hopes in the glory of God. He doesn't hope in anything earthly. He doesn't hope in anything carnal. He hopes in that hope reaches out beyond this life and beyond this creation. And that hope lays hold on the everlasting and eternal that God has promised him. That he will share in the glory of God. That he will be lifted up above sin and death and wrath and condemnation. That he'll live forever in the new heavens and the new earth, he hopes. And that hope doesn't make him ashamed. And you understand that doesn't simply mean this, that when he gets to heaven he'll say all the suffering is worth it. The Apostle's thought is sharper than that. The Apostle's thought is in this life, in the midst of his suffering, as he loses for Christ's sake, as he suffers for Christ's sake, as he bears the tribulation so that he loses his name and place in the creation. He loses his family and friends. He loses his substance. His place in the world is squeezed to such a point that he's squeezed out of the world itself. As he suffers, his hope does not make him ashamed. He never says in himself, this isn't worth it. And you say, how is that possible? Because God sheds his love abroad in our hearts. As he loses his son, God says to him, I love you. As he loses his job for Christ's sake, God says to him, I love you. As he loses his name to the ridicule and the slander of the ungodly, God says, I love you. God testifies in his heart, and that testimony is dearer to life than life to him. There's no Christian life without hope. There is no Christian life. without the knowledge that God loves you. For the sake of that testimony, the child of God will lose everything. He will not be ashamed to lose everything because God says to him, I love you. I'm telling you that is the rock bottom foundation of the entire Christian life. A Christian doesn't live in doubt and say, I don't know if God loves me. I need to work harder so that God will testify to me that He loves me. I need to repent more so God will testify to me that He loves me. I need to labor and strive more so God will say to me, He loves me. No, no, no, no. for Christ's sake because being justified by faith you have peace with God God says to him I love you so the Christian then hopes against hope when there appears to be no hope he hopes and says I'm going to go to heaven and the reason the explanation of why that love of God is you might say the engine of the whole Christian life is the character of that love that love is like no other love that love carries the power of God with it that love is a sovereign love and an unchanging love and a fervent love and it is the character of that love of God toward us that God demonstrated in the world in the cross of Jesus Christ and it's that demonstration or manifestation that the Apostle is interested in our text God manifested in due time his love toward us and that Christ died for us. And that's the theme of these verses, the manifestation of the love of God. Notice what this is, notice how this is shown, and notice what this shows. The love of which the apostle speaks is so amazing and it's so divine. And I could have entitled the sermon this evening that theme, a love so amazing and a love so divine. That is what God manifested. Understand the Apostle's point is not only that God loves us. The Apostle has said that in the previous verses. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. But the Apostle's point is the manifestation of that love of God that he had toward us. That love of God is incomparable. That love of God bears no resemblance to what the world calls love. That love far exceeds all that the world calls love. That love is divine. That love is wonderful. That love is beyond man's comprehension. and God commended the character of that love toward his people. That word commended means to make manifest or to show. That's always appropriate when we're talking about love. Talk of love is cheap. Anybody can say I love you, I love you, I love you. Love is shown, love is demonstrated. Love is not only spoken, love is demonstrated, it is shown. And it is shown in such a way that that demonstration commends the genuineness and the character of that love that one professes. God not only says to us, I love you, but God demonstrates the very character of his love. And he demonstrates it in such a way that he impresses upon the heart and the mind of the child of God, that love that God has toward him. If I can explain to you what the text is talking about, the text is not saying simply this. that God, as it were, has a statue of his love in the world and he uncovers that statue and says, see now, that's my love for you. It's more powerful than that. It's rather more like this. If you have some new gadget or some new toy and you say, I'm going to show you this, I'm going to demonstrate it for you, how it works, or how wonderful this new thing is. And you show it, and the demonstration impresses the quality of that thing upon the one that you show it to. That's what God did. God demonstrated, God showed, God manifested the quality of His love toward His people. Paul uses that same word with regard to his own ministry. He says that in all his labors and doctrine, he was commended before men as a true servant of God. No one, friend or foe, no one could say, Paul, was no servant of God. His very labor, all of his suffering, and all of his doctrine simply commended him and said, he is servant of the living God. Earlier in the book, in chapter three, the apostle says, our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God. The very fact of our wickedness, God uses to show and to glorify himself as a righteous God. And so too here, God commends. He impresses upon us the character of his love. That's always true with regard to love. A husband can say to his wife, until he's blue in the face, I love you, I love you, I love you and he turns around and he manipulates her, he belittles her he has no really use for her and you say all his words are vain that man needs to show that he loves his wife or a man says about his friends, I love you, I love you, I love you but he lays down his life for his friends and he shows that he loved them and two we must understand about this commendation of the love of God that that commendation of the love of God is at the same time a revelation that love was always in God What God showed in the world was always true of God. Within God, there is a divine desire for His people that never changes. It is from eternity to eternity. God loved his people. God desired to have his people. God willed the blessedness of his people. God determined to do good to his people, to take his people out of the world, and to join his people to his covenant, and to show himself to his people. God always determined that, but that was hidden. There is nothing in the world that testifies that God loves his people. You can't say, oh, my life is going along just how I want it to go, and so God loves me. You can't say I have more than heart could wish, and therefore God loves me. You can't say I'm healthy, and therefore God loves me. You can't look at your creation and say, oh, God loves his people. There's no testimony in the creation. The fact that God loves his people. In fact, in the world, there is a very different testimony. And that testimony is a revelation of the wrath of God against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men who hold that truth down in unrighteousness. That's what you see in the world. God is angry with the wicked every day. God will judge the world. God will destroy the world. God gives the world over to its sin until he finally judges the world, casts the world into outer darkness. That's the testimony. Then piercing into that, there is another testimony. And that testimony came by the cross. Outside of the cross, There is no testimony that God loves His people. They cannot look at their life and say, Oh God loves me. They cannot look at their things and say, Oh God loves me. There is one testimony that God loves His people. God commended His love toward us And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In the dying of Christ for his people, God showed, manifested, revealed, and demonstrated the character of his love. And importantly, with regard to the death of Christ, is the death of Christ for us. The apostle does not simply say that God commended his love in the death of Jesus Christ. That's not his word. There are many who say that God commended His love in the world by the death of Jesus Christ, and they mean by that that God loves all men head for head, but that's not the apostle's word. The apostle says God commended His love toward us, that is the love that God had toward us, He commended in that this fact, Christ died for us. And not only that Christ died, It's not only that Christ died upon a cross, it's that Christ died for us. And that word for us means in the first place, on our behalf or in our interest. Christ died upon the cross on our behalf. You would say this, Christ died on the cross so we didn't have to die. Christ died on the cross so that we might live. Christ died on the cross and as the very thought of Christ as he went to the cross was our interest, our salvation, our goodness, our eternal life. He died for us in the sense that he died on our behalf. But secondly, that word for us means in our place. Christ died in the place of specific human beings. So that Christ, when he went to the cross in our interest, had the interest of very specific human beings in view. And he stood in their place as their substitute. He took upon himself all of their sin and their guilt. And He took that sin and the guilt and He crucified that on the cross and He suffered the curse for that in their place. So much was at the case, it was as if they hung there. Christ died in our interest not only, but in our place. All the sin, all the guilt, all the wickedness, all the transgression, on account of which you should have died, Christ took that, so that it is if you yourself went to the cross, he died in our behalf. And that's simply a wonder of grace. You ask yourself the question, how can Christ die in our place? How can one suffer punishment for another? How can one take another's place before the tribunal of God? Let me explain to you how strange that is. Let us say that you, in your greediness, you rob a bank and you are caught for that crime. And the judge takes you into court. And the judge says, I'm going to punish someone else for your sake. And the judge tells the bailiff, go on the street and grab somebody and haul him into court and I'm going to punish him for your sake. You would say that is completely unjust. You cannot do that. And you must understand then when it says Christ died for us, it is joining Christ in us so tightly together that we cannot be separated. And I can give you an analogy of that too. If your minor son, let us say in his irresponsibility, Your minor son burns down your neighbor's barn and his tractor and and all of his tools and it all goes up in smoke And he gets caught And they take him to the juvenile center and The judge says to the parents I hold you responsible Why Because there's a connection between them There's a union between them. The death of Christ for us isn't the coming of a third party between God and us so that he comes from outside of us and he inserts himself between God and us and he says, as it were, punish me for their sake. No, there is a connection between Christ and us. There is a connection between Christ and us, such as that Christ is responsible for us. Christ can be legally held liable for all of our sin and our guilt, and indeed, such is our connection with Jesus Christ that he must be held liable. He's responsible for us. He has the responsibility before God to see to it that our sin is taken away and furthermore Christ himself is God the one who died for us is not only one with us but he is God himself Christ doesn't come as a third party and say to God, Oh God, don't punish them, punish me instead Christ comes out of God Christ indeed comes out of God's love toward His people Christ isn't the cause of that love if Christ were the cause of the love of God then the idea would be this God was angry with His people God was going to punish his people for all their sins. Christ came in and Christ said, I'll suffer for them. And then because Christ suffered for them, God says, okay, now I love you. That isn't the thought at all. Christ comes from God as God, who becomes man, who is one with us. And he comes as the commendation, as the manifestation and the demonstration of the love of God toward his people. And so Christ died too, willingly. That's an often overlooked part of the death of Christ. Sometimes you read the scripture and it seems as though man took Him. And man tried Him. And man nailed Him to the tree. And man took away His life. That isn't true at all. He has His life of Himself. No man can take it from Him. And He lays it down willingly. And He lays it down in love for God, in love for the righteousness of God, in love for the love of God toward His people, and in love for those people Himself, willingly. It was never coerced. It was never forced. Willingly. He died for us. And secondly, about that demonstration of the love of Christ, of the love of God for us in the cross of Christ, it was not only that that cross was for us, that is in our behalf, but it was also that that cross happened at the appointed time. That's what the Apostle means when the Apostle says in due time. That's a very unique Greek word for time. The Greeks have two words for time. One of them simply means a succession of moments. So as you watch the second hand move around the clock, then you have that Greek word for time. We get our word chronology from that word. Succession of moments. Another Greek word for time looks at time as a right time and a pointed time. There are certain times we say that it's right to say something. It's apropos at that moment to say that thing. Preachers deliver words in due season. It's the right time. Sometimes they deliver words that are completely out of time. Whether in season or out of season, the Word is preached. And here, Christ died for us at the right time. And that looks at the death of Christ as that death of Christ comes out of the counsel of God. As that death of Christ stands in the very center of history. As that history, as it leads up to that death, was all preparation for that death. And as history, as it flows out of that death, is simply the river that flows from the death of Christ. That that death of Christ is planted in Golgotha, in the very center of history. That the death of Christ then, That death of Christ was, as it were, no accident. That death of Christ was not simply an event that happened through a succession of moments. That death of Christ was purposed by God. You can say God created for no other reason than that Christ be crucified on Golgotha, outside of Jerusalem, in the year 33 A.D. and you can say history after that point has no meaning apart from that cross it is the event is the event in which God would demonstrate at the appropriate time at the appointed time before all the world that he loved his people and what shows the character of the love that motivated that the sending and crucifixion of Christ is the circumstances in which it happened the Apostle says about the love so amazing and the love so divine that that happened while we were yet sinners. That's an amazing and a wonderful and divine love. That love demonstrated itself while we were yet sinners. And that's not all the Apostle says. The Apostle says that we are ungodly. That's a bristling word. That's a word full of hatred toward God and rebellion against God. Let me explain to you. When God demonstrated His love And I can explain that to you in the words of the apostle from chapter 3. You were the nastiest, meanest, most vile enemies of God that can be imagined. You spit upon His goodness, you assaulted His glory, and you sought to tear God out of heaven itself. You broke all His commandments and you had a sick delight in doing that. You were darkness while God was light. You were evil while God was goodness. You were the very opposite of God. And at every opportunity, you held God's truth down in unrighteousness. You changed the truth of God into a lie, and you worshiped the creature rather than the creator. And the apostle says about you, we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there's none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh good. They are all gone out of the way. They've all together become unprofitable. Their throat is an open sepulcher. Poisons of asp is under their tongues. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in all their ways. There's no fear of God before their eyes. That's who God loved. And you say to me, but I'm a Jew, I'm a Christian. I was born in a church. I was baptized. I have devotions and I read. And I listen to sermons. And I pray. And I repent of my sin. And I say to you, Whatsoever the law saith it saith to those who are under the law There is none righteous no not one That's who God loved Maybe I can explain that to you with an analogy Well a man He's beating up your wife. And He's beating up your children. And He's robbing you blind. And He's going to kill you next. You love Him. That's a love so amazing. That's a love so divine. That was God's love. while we were enemies, while we were ungodly, while we were sinners. And to add to it all, we had no strength. While we were yet without strength, What does that mean for the sinner? And what does that mean for the ungodly? He has no strength. I can tell you what that means. What it means is that man, as that man tries to destroy God himself, as that man breaks all of God's commandments and that man keeps none of those commandments, that man will not, and that man cannot, and that man cannot will to be saved. The situation of the sinner isn't this, that the sinner says, oh, I know that I'm in a very dangerous position. I know that I've made God my enemy, and I'm going to at least try to be friends with God and make it up with God. No, he has no strength. He cannot. No ability. He will not. He has no desire. and he can't even manufacture that desire in himself cannot, he will not he cannot will to be saved and in due time Christ died for the ungodly isn't that amazing? that's so divine Scarcely for a righteous man would you die. Maybe for a good person you might be bold enough, courageous enough to die. The world has its love stories, its stories of sacrifice, men laying down their life, a man throws himself on a grenade or he takes the bullet that's intended for his brothers in arms mother sacrifices her life for her children or man lays his life down for a cause that he deems to be noble and good and virtuous and righteous but you see the love there The love that motivates that act is a love that is moved by the worthiness, the goodness and the righteousness of the one you lay your life down for. And that in the end is no love at all. This is love. God commended this as divine love. While we were yet sinners, ungodly and without strength, Christ died for us. What does that show about God's love? It shows, first of all, that Christ died for those whom God loved. He didn't die for any others. The source of the text, because the text speaks of a demonstration source is the eternal love of God in His elect. If you don't have election, and by that too if you don't have reprobation, don't touch the text. The text can only be understood in light of God's eternal love made manifest at the cross. And that cross shows then that that love of God is absolutely sovereign. Those whom God loved had nothing to commend themselves with toward God. They didn't have anything that supported that love or that impelled that love. Often that's how our love is. Often we make our love dependent on the other person. They have to have something that supports our love. I'll be nice to you if you're nice to me. I'm gonna take care of you if you take care of me. But in the end, that's no love. The love of God is a sovereign love. That love of God doesn't find anything in you as its cause. And that means too then that That love of God cannot be increased by what you do and it cannot be diminished by what you don't do. The love of God is sovereign, it's independent, it simply doesn't depend on you. It never did, it never will. That love is free. That love finds its source in God's own divine heart, in His own good pleasure, in His own will. You might even say this, God chose who He loved to make sure that everybody knew that that love of God didn't depend on them. He didn't choose many mighty. He didn't choose many noble. He chose the things that are not to put to naught the things that are. Sovereign love of God. Your good works can't make God love you more. What a wicked teaching. The more you do, the more God loves you. It's just like the love of the world. when you sin, God doesn't love you anymore that's the love of the world that love is that love is not amazing and that love is not divine that love is sovereign it's independent of you it always was it always will be and that love of God is unchangeable it was a love of you when you're an enemy and when you were nothing when you could not and you would not and you could not will to be delivered he loved you it never changes while you're an enemy he loved you How can it be that if now you're his friend, he didn't love you? Or he couldn't love you. He loved you when you were an enemy. When you were ungodly. When you had no strength. That love of God is as unchangeable as God himself. And that love of God is ever fervent. If the cross of Christ teaches us anything, it teaches us the fervency, the unchanging, sovereign fervency of the will of God. The love of God as a fire burns ever brightly toward His people. When His people sin, that love doesn't begin to flicker. That love of God isn't like a fire. You have to keep adding wood to it to keep it burning. The love of God is a fervent, eternal, unchanging love He spared not His own Son God loved Christ as He loved nothing else Christ, it says, sat in His bosom Christ loved God. God loved Christ more than you love your children. More than you love your wife. He didn't spare Christ. He didn't withhold one stripe from Him. He didn't take any pity on Him. He didn't stop Punishing our sin and guilt because Christ Christ cries got to his heart. He didn't spare his son He delivered him up for us all God attested that at the cross And that word of the cross comes to you in the preaching that's why the preaching has to be the preaching of the cross because there is no testimony in all the world apart from the cross of Christ's love that's why there's no preaching of the cross there's no knowledge of the love of God and there's no hope and there's no peace that love of God that he demonstrated at the cross that love of God is such a power that that love of God brings the preaching of that cross to his people and through the preaching of that cross the Holy Spirit takes that demonstration and he impresses it upon our heart or to use the language of the apostle The Holy Spirit takes that testimony that God gave at the cross, that demonstration, and through the preaching of that cross, the Holy Spirit fills our heart up with the love of God, with the sovereign and the unchangeable and the ever-fervent will of God. That's why our hope does not make us shamed. Amen, let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee for the death of Thy Son. We thank Thee for Thy love, and ever pour out that love in our hearts, that we too then might rejoice in tribulation, and that we might re-hope in the glory of God. forgive us lord all our sin especially our doubt and our fear and anxiety for what do we have to doubt or fear or be anxious about since thou hast loved us from before the foundation of the world thou and thy love will surely take us to heavenly glory thou and that love will make all things work for our salvation and so father assure us of that love. We ask this all for Jesus' sake. Amen.