We are in Romans the epistle to the Romans chapter 5 Chapter 5 epistle to the Romans and We will It's going to be an adventure going forward. And so I may even use a PowerPoint I may use I don't know. I might use the chalk. I might use the marker board. I'm not sure but a lot of things we need just to get settled and in our minds from the Bible, from the Bible. And so we want to, but tonight is the love of God. What a topic, the love of God. And it has just three verses for us. Actually, we'll probably read verse eight verses. Chapter five, the first eight verses, we're gonna center on six, seven, and eight. And then next week we get to start into, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for they all have sinned. That's what a verse that is going to be. Before we get there, though, we're at Romans 5.1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into his grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is 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 perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God, 84 times in scripture, but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What a wonderful promise that is. Let's pray together. Lord, we're just thankful for your blessings to us. We're thankful that farther along we'll understand it. Lord, glory land, we are looking forward to glory land. Thank you that you so love the world. Your love is abundant. The love of God, how pure and marvelous it is. Lord, bless our time together. Help me as I speak. Lord, please be with Miss Cindy teaching next door. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Listen to this and tell me what book this applies to. It was written from Corinth in 55 to 56 AD. Paul had not met any of the believers to which he was writing. He was in chains when he finally arrived in the city. The letter was delivered by a woman. This town was to be a stopover for Paul on the way to Spain, and he was in this town for two years under house arrest. Those all go with Romans, the background about Romans. So you've got to love kids when you get honest answers, when they ask questions, and this is the topic of love. And when asked why love happens between two people, why does love happen between two people? One said, well, one of the people has freckles, and so he finds someone else who has freckles too. Another said, no one is quite sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do with how you smell. That's why perfume and deodorant are so popular. Another said, if you want to be loved by someone who isn't already in your family, it doesn't hurt to be beautiful. When asked how to get someone to love you, they said, tell them that you own a lot, a big bunch of candy stores. Another said, how to get somebody to love you, don't do things like have smelly green sneakers. You might get attention, but attention ain't the same thing as love. And then the pastor was teaching the older kids in Awana and he said, in the midst of their squirming and punching and talking, he said he realized that he had been just like they are, if not worse. The only difference was the kids he was preaching to were deeper than he was, spiritually speaking. Our topic was the importance of loving those who are near us and loving those who are as difficult to be around. And so they all agreed the worst, the most toughest thing it was in the world was to love their sisters. That was the hardest thing to do. then the response was at the question was asked what they think about God's love and here's the responses why it's a blessing it's everlasting give God loves sinners and believers God loves aliens if there are any and God loves is not ordinary God's love is not ordinary because he loves everybody and one boy with tears in his eyes says he just can't explain it he just can't explain it it's too marvelous to put into words so we if you're taking outline we're going to see first of all our terrible condition We have a plight without Christ. We are in a desperate situation. Our depth of depravity is abounding. Now, I believe in the depravity of man and the fact that all men are sinners in need of saving. I do not believe in a total depravity of man whereby some are chosen for, we cannot respond. I don't believe in the total depravity as mentioned by the reformed theologians. I believe we're all depraved. I believe we need to be saved, yes. We'll talk about that for another time. Actually, we're going to talk about those things in the series ahead. First of all, the terrible condition, we are weak, or we were weak, verse five, we were weak, for when we were yet without strength. Powerless, that's the idea, no strength at all. We cannot change our basic nature on our own. The word usually applies to the sick and the feeble, those who've been wiped out, weakened by some kind of disease. Our sin has made us spiritually weak. Specifically, it means we have no power to come up with a plan, really, on our own, how to be saved. Mr. Womack is talking about the shackles falling off, and that's when Christ comes in and our burden. It's John Bunyan and Pilgrim. When the burden falls off, I'm released from all that burden. Praise the Lord. We have these trying to improve our society by man's base logic. And if you'll just help yourself, I'm telling you, there's one self-help, help yourself to God's word. And that's going to be your best self-help book. Read God's word and allow it to change your life. We cannot change our basic nature by self-effort. It takes a change from the inside out. We have to be safe. And Christ comes into our heart and life, and he changes us to become more like himself. That's the goal. So we were weak, not only our terrible condition. Secondly, we were wicked. For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Ungodly means someone who has no desire to change or just nothing to do. Ungodly, they're not anything to do with God. We were not only helpless, but we were vile, we're obnoxious. The ungodly indicates that we were irreverent, impious, or deliberately withheld from God what was rightfully His. James Romans says, there's no fear of God before their eyes. And that's the people who don't know Christ, who are anti-God, etc. literally means we have violated God's standards. This word means that we live our lives as if God does not exist, and so we worship ourselves. One commentator refers to the ungodly as mighty and evil. In Romans 1.18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness who hold the truth in unrighteousness. It's interesting, we think about, and we may not like to think about that Christ died for the ungodly, but I thought this was quite interesting. Here's your question for you to think about. If he died only for the pure, handsome or beautiful, or the righteous, What happens when we're no longer handsome, or beautiful, or righteous, or pure? So I love the comment. This is Fruchtenbaum. He says, God showed his love for us by having his son die for us while we felt total animosity toward him and were his enemies. And it was while we were his enemies that we were reconciled back to God. In 2 Corinthians 5, 18 and 19, Paul made a similar point. If God did so much for human beings when they were his enemies, he will certainly not forsake believers who have become his friends by grace through faith. So he died for us while we were ungodly? I'm glad about that because if he died for us after we got ourselves cleaned up and looked right, then what happens if we go back into the mud pile? that he doesn't love us anymore. God's love for us is amazing. It's an amazing love. He loves us, it's just, you can't explain it. wayward. Not only were we wicked wayward, chapter 5 verse 8, but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Sinners that were desperately in need of a change that we couldn't make ourselves and we didn't want to make and the Holy Spirit moves in our hearts and lives and I believe he woos us. I believe the order of salutis is The Holy Spirit woos us, and He convicts our sin, and then we trust Christ as our very own personal Lord and Savior, and the atonement is applied to our lives, and we have redemption. I do not believe that He redeems us and changes us and saves us, and then, inwardly, before it even happens, and then we get on board with that. I believe it's the moment of salvation is when your will meets God's will, and you ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. And He comes in into your life and He grants salvation. The other earlier part comes from a different reformed belief. We'll talk about that again later on as well. But he is calling us, his Holy Spirit convicts the heart. And you can say no, you can say no. I mean, Israel said, oh, Israel just had responded to the Messiah. How many people have you seen at church hold onto the pews and get to the invitation and they go out the door and the Holy Spirit convicts and they're holding onto the pews again. I don't want to go forward in the spirit. You do that long enough, I think God will quit working with you. But if the Holy Spirit is working on your heart and saying to you, get right with me, you need to get right with him. Because he's not going to linger for forever. There is a limit to his mercy in that regard, I believe, when he woos us to himself. The word sin then really means to miss the mark and was used of an archer who takes aim at a bullseye and doesn't hit anything. That would be me. Totally misses the mark. That's sin. No matter what you do, you can't. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. At the cross, and we're going to sing this at the end, but at the cross, the first verse says, should he devote that sacred head for such a Worm as I. Now, do you think that Mr. Watts knew what he was saying when he said worm? Yes. But now other people, other denominations have taken that to sinners such as I, and there's even a newer one, should he devote his sacred head for a person such as I. I sort of like worm, because that's where we are without Christ. We are lost and undone. A worm as I. As much as we try to make ourselves look better than we are apart from Christ, we are helpless, hopeless and horrible. Some unbelieving, undeserving ungodly. That's who we are. Ugly sinners. That's who we are without Christ. So our terrible condition. How about God? Secondly, God's perfect timing starting again back to verse six. For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. When Christ was on earth, he operated with the acute awareness, did he not, of his Father's will. He was always submissive, always the Father's timing. Jesus said unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour, John 2, verse 4, mine hour is not yet come. The brothers sensed the timing, John 7, verse 6. Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come, but your time is already ready. Mark 1.15, the time is fulfilled that the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel. John 17.1, these words of Christ and lift up his eyes into heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. So he followed meticulously, set schedule in advance, and he followed it to perfection. Think about God's sense of time. We must remember he is eternal. Time is something he's given to us. He lives outside of time. He lives in the ever-present. So he has seen your creation, your birth, your life, your death, your salvation. He's seen all that at once. He sees everything at once. He says, I am the great I am, Exodus 3.14. I am the God who always is. He's the self-existing one. He's the Yahweh, the Tetragrammaton. He's the Jehovah. He's the God. He's the Lord of hosts. That's who he is. And the timing of the incarnation, look at Galatians chapter 4, a very familiar verse, the timing of the incarnation. Now we believe in incarnation, we do not believe in reincarnation, but we certainly believe in incarnation. If you didn't believe in incarnation, you wouldn't be here. First time in the flesh is what incarnation is. I also like carnation evaporated milk for some things. For making, I think, a cheesecake pie, you need that carnation evaporated milk. Incarnation, first time in the flesh, Galatians 4.4. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law. How long had they waited? 400 silent years for God to speak again. Can you imagine? That's longer than we've been around as a country. Over 100, like 150 years approximately longer than we've been around as a country. 400 silent years between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Is God going to speak again? Can you imagine what people are thinking? Uniformitarianism, well, it's always been like this. The Lord's not coming back. That's just the old Baptist preachers who wanna rail on that. Billions of years ago, it is now, it'll forever be. That goes against science, it goes against logic, it goes against most of all God's word. He has a plan for all these things. By the way, our earth is dying. It would not last forever as it is. Now the new earth, yes. fullness of time had come. The fullness of time has come. I asked Mr. Loren Quillen if he's gonna get his hay in, et cetera, and the first cutting of hay that time is just about here, I think, for the first cutting of hay, that time is ready. It's like the pregnant woman feeling when the labor pains is, well, she's ready to be delivered. Her water's burst and she's got to go now. That's the idea. The fullness of time has come, God, but since, why not earlier? Why not later? Because God knows all these things. And when the fullness of time came, He sent His Son for us. by way of application, if you would. Just as God worked out his plan perfectly at Christmas, at Good Friday, on Resurrection Sunday, he's working out his purposes in our life through the pain we are experiencing now. He has a reason for these things. Since he controlled all the details surrounding his birth and death and resurrection as the Savior, is he not then controlling the particulars of our pain and suffering? He is. He has his hand on the thermostat. It's right there. Knows how much we can take. Well, we need a break. Maybe circumstances do not look very good right now. Will you trust his timing that he knows what, in the fullness of time, he will bring deliverance. Now, often the deliverance is not what we envision, but it's what we need. Remember Mary? Be it unto me according to thy word. Spurgeon says there are no loose threads in the providence of God. The great clock of the universe keeps good time. And the right time also means God's offering of salvation to us at the right time of our greatest need. And so often people have come to Christ when they're just on the verge of perhaps ending their own life or something. And so they are, Christ's goodness comes and his word is given. through just the right time. So our terrible condition, God's perfect timing, God's incredible love. God's timing's perfect, His love's incredible, and that might be hard to hear, but you might not want to hear this, but you're not naturally, per se, a lovable person. We aren't. Neither am I. Sin has infected our lives. Someone said sin uglifies everything it touches. Sin uglifies everything it touches. God loves us because His love, His nature to love us, and we don't... We don't have to meet this criteria or do something really good or make some kind of standard. Here in his love, we love God, not that we love God, but he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. He gave himself for us, knowing when we were ungodly, he died for us. So he loves sinners, first of all, just like us, and God's incredible love. Number one, he loves sinners just like us. If God loved you only when you were lovable, then when you stop being lovable, God would have to stop loving you. Aren't you glad he loved us when we are ungodly and sinners? It's better to admit the truth, isn't it? God loves the unlovely and sent his son to die for the unlovely. What a wonderful thing. We can count on his love because it doesn't depend on anything that we say or do. So what is the love of God? How do we define it? Human love is basically often a response to conditions. And so I was at college, and I was my fifth year of college, and I really needed a wife. And so, because this is my last year of college, and I was going to go out. And so I had gone the previous summer, and I had gone to, I traveled for 10 weeks with all these churches. And I had a little list of, I actually had five or six people on there. Ladies on there who I wanted to date because they were coming back to school And I met him at their different churches and Stephanie was number four or five. I think number five Anyway, I sat across from her in July and I put her on my schedule today And so I got to the first floor by the first floor the first floor by the beginning of October No, no, no, no, no or what one and done one no And so finally as October the 3rd of 1983 outside that why don't you know I outside the music locker? I said, would you want to go to church with me? She goes? Yes And that was it. And so then they made money afterwards, and the Lord just brought her, and that's, we're just trusting him that that was, and so I was, I know I had that fifth year senioritis where I've gotta find a wife, but the Lord granted me that wife, and there, God, I was trusting him, and she had just prayed the night before, Lord, please help someone nice to ask me out, just the night before, I don't know, and so I won't necessarily say I was nice or something, but it worked out, and so there we are. God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. So we find then that often it's the response to conditions or circumstances around it. That's our loves. Well, I mean, I have freckles. Find somebody else who has freckles and we're going to be in love with one another. I mean, that's what the little boy says. But God loves us whether we have freckles or not. Matthew Henry said, the great God not only loves his saints, but he loves to love them. Isn't that amazing? He loves to love us. And if I were to tell you the honest truth bearing my soul here, the thing I grapple with the most is realizing that God is my father and having that understanding and that, because I know how holy, I mean, I have a vision how holy he is and how righteous and awesome he is. And yet he wants to be, he is our father. And having that, you know, how can he do all that and still, you know, it's my puny brain trying to wrap around, how can he? But the Bible says he is, and he wants to hear our problems. He wants us to come to us. I'm just the opposite, because everybody comes in my door, works similar, pretty much has a question or a problem. It's like no one comes with solutions. They're coming with, every once in a while, they get good news. Like one out of 50 is good news. But they come at the, he wants that for us. He wants us to be with him. So the question is, in our text, let's read verse seven. Back to our text, Romans chapter five, look at verse seven. The epistle to the Romans, five or seven. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. So two questions, first of all, who would you die for? Who would you die for? Now, it's a fairly short list for most of us. I thought about, I was wondering who I'd be willing to die for. A handful, my immediate family. I would like to think in certain situations, if I would jump in front of a car to say what you want me to do, or someone who was just a child out there, I'd try to say, I like to think I would do that. I don't think I can move that fast anymore. But I would like to think that. But there's probably not a lot of people we're going to die for. And for sure, we don't wanna die for the wicked wayward people, do we? The verse is telling us that God's love's not like that. He died for those wicked wayward people. Well, of course, we are part of that wicked wayward people, but the people, the worst people you can think in the world today, Christ died for them. I believe in a universal atonement. I believe in an unconditional atonement. He died for mankind. Will everybody be saved? No. But he offered his life for the world. If they will come, it's there for us. Who would you die for? And secondly, who would die for you? That's probably even a shorter list. Who would die for you? Do you have confidence that someone would step in and take a bullet for you? I mean, none of us have secret service, I don't think. They're supposed to be doing that. Would you have confidence? I tell you, there's only one I have confidence for sure, for sure, but God commended his love toward us in that while we're against sinners, Christ died for us. He died for me. I have that confidence and believe wholeheartedly he did. That's the only one I can say for absolute sure. Some of you probably would, and I probably would do it for you, but the one person I can guarantee, he's already done it. Emphasis on the fact that we are still sinners when Christ died for us. But God, Ephesians 2, 4, but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherein he loved us even when we were dead and sins hath quickened us, made us alive together with Christ. He took the first step. He did not wait for us to turn to him because he came and died for us knowing what a terrible person we are. because we needed life, he commendeth, it means to set together, it was introduced, it means to demonstrate, someone has said, the wonder is not that Christ should die for us, but that he should do so while we're powerless, while we're ungodly, rebellious sinners, forgive them, they don't know what they do, the people who are crucifying him. That's a love that's beyond. Were we with ink the ocean filled? Were we with a scribe by trade? Could we take all of the ink from the oceans and write of the love of God? That's what he says. If all the oceans were turned to ink and we had a quill, could we write about the love of God? What an amazing thing it is that he would love us. In the Middle Ages, there was a monk, and he announced his message is going to be on the love of God. As the shadows fell and the light ceased to come into the cathedral windows, the congregation had gathered. And in the darkness around the front of the church, he took a candle, and he lit the candle, and he took it over to a picture of Jesus. Without saying a word, he took the candle and illuminated the thorns on his head. and then the two wounds in his hands and then his rib inside where the spearhead entered and then he blew the candle out and left the love of God and the message was pretty pretty poignant what he did for us. Commendus is a present tense meaning if you want to know how much God loves you right now then go back and look at the cross Choir's working on two songs that have the old rugged cross in there. One's called the old rugged cross and one's another arrangement that has it in there. And so that's, we go back to what, how much does he love it? He spread his hands and died on the cross for us. That's how much he loves us. God's love is inexhaustible, incomparable. As the Juana young man said, he just can't explain it. We love it, we learn about it, and we are so much enjoying it. It just can't explain it all. Richard Halverson said this, there's nothing you can do to make God love you more than he already does. Nothing you can do to make God love you more than he already does. And secondly, the follow-up, and there's nothing you can do to make him love you any less than he already does. Now that's like, wow. Now it doesn't mean he's pleased with your sin, but his love is consistent, everlasting. Love with everlasting love. That's what his love is. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, we might have life with him for eternity. That's the amazing thing of his love. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. We follow him and he's promised us so much. And fourthly, and finally, then there is this, there is our response to God's love, the action steps. First of all, our response to God's love. first be saved by your substitute Christ died for the ungodly for a righteous man while we're yet sinners Christ died for us he and so if you've not received him receive him now for he has given his life for you he died on the cross we might have life he died in our place that's the idea substitute for the benefit of on behalf of instead of He took our punishment upon himself so that we don't have to bear it You are either going to bear that your punishment your own suffering eternity never satisfying that punishment or Christ trust what Christ did on the cross for us For you and I who are saved in a second. It's a no-brainer. I Trust Christ or live in eternity without Christ in hell and never get paid for. Christ is like, oh yeah, I'm gonna trust Christ. But for the world, they've been blinded by Satan and they don't see it that clearly. They don't even likely believe the Bible, many of them. Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Who said that? We all should say that. Paul said that. It's like three different ones and finally gets this last one. Who I am chief, I'm the chief of sinners. Paul says that, so we need to come to the point where we're just like the public and standing afar off. God be merciful to me, a sinner. He understood his plight. So be saved by your substitute. Secondly, fall more deeply in love with Christ. Fall more deeply in love with Christ. One of the best ways to love the Lord morally more is to simply focus on the depth of the forgiveness to whom much is forgiven, much love can be returned. Dr. Joseph Stoll, who was the president of Booty and then the teaching pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel, now is the president of Cornerstone University, which was Grand Rapids Baptist Bible College, who grew up in a church I worked in in New Jersey. It's interesting because his dad was the pastor and they had a dumbwaiter right here on the platform. and he would get in it and he'd ride it up and down. He wasn't supposed to, but he would ride it up and down. I mean, one time even the service, but he was riding it up and down in there. And so the boy who wouldn't behave became the president of Moody Bible College. And he said, he was asked one time at a conference, he said, what's the most challenging part of your job, Dr. Stoll? And he said, the most difficult part of my job is me. He tells those at the conference, he said that he just had turned 62 and that he continues to be tired of himself. He lamented his lack of love, his propensity for pride, and his frequent dissent and discouragement. And then he said this, I'm really tired of me, but the longer I live, the more I'm in love with Jesus. I'll never tire of his beauty, his indescribable attributes, and his amazing grace. See, he understood that because he knew what a sinner he was. Christ died for the ungodly. So we know where we are without Christ, and then we can see where we are with Christ. What a difference it changed. And then finally, let the love of God change your life. Someone has said these words, God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way. So he, and that's the, we don't, we like the first part. God loves you where you are. And I can get, no, you can't. He wants you to be changed. He loves you where you are, but that's when you're a sinner. Now you've trusted Christ. You've been set free and you stop barking for the world, if you would. And you come to know Christ and you're different. And it's like that, but then you start growing. See, it's an alphabet. A, you're saved, B, baptized, etc. C, and now there's all the way to G, and then there's all the way to Q, and then there's all the way to Z in heaven. So it's just we're working all this way through. A lot of Christians get stopped on about C. I'm saved, I've got my fire insurance. That's not the way. Fire insurance is great, but that's not the purpose. The purpose is we become more and more and more and more like Christ. That's the purpose. Save such a worm as I, thank you, Lord, for doing that. One writer said, on the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for him. Our love for him wanes, doesn't it, sometimes, sadly? And demonstrate God's sacrificial love for others, and this quote says, love at first sight is easy to understand. It's when two people have been looking at each other for years that it becomes a miracle. Love at first sight is easy to understand, but when two people have been looking at each other for over 40 years and still love one another, then it becomes a miracle. But God commended his love toward me that when I was dead set to do my own thing, he died for me. Let's rejoice in that. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your love for us. It is a love that surpasses our understanding. It's a love that we will spend eternity learning more and more about. It is a love who died for us when we were so unlovable. And I remember John Little said, he was always saying, I still am unlovable. For we're just thankful that you came. You didn't come for the handsome, the beautiful, the pure, the rich, the eloquent. You came for we, wretched sinners. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Saves a wretch like me. So Lord, help us to be mindful of that and live for you this week. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.