this morning for prayer meeting is from Romans 5, verses 6-11. Romans 5, 6-11. Hear the word of the Lord. For when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Amen. As we prepare for prayer meeting this morning, our thought here from Romans 5 is God's justifying love. God's justifying love. On August 20th of 1940, just after the Allied forces had lost a number of men in battle in the beginnings of the Battle of Britain, they ended up losing over 1,500 soldiers who died trying to defend Britain from the incoming Nazi air force and their bombing campaign on England. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England, in his famous speech on the radio said concerning those men who died to protect their country, never have so many owed so much to so few. Well, this is at the heart of this text. In an infinitely greater degree, never have so many sinners owed so much, our everything, to One that is our Triune God. This text teaches us of God's justifying love. This comes to us in the flow of the book of Romans wherein Paul has already laid out that the power of the Gospel is the only hope for sinners. He's already taught us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness, that God is holy and righteous. Man is utterly depraved on a downward spiral to hell. There's absolutely no hope in man himself. There's no hope in his own knowledge. He cannot find God by his own knowledge. He worships idols instead. There's no hope in religious good works and self-justification like the Pharisees and the Judaizers did. He's already laid that out. He's torn down all the foundations of human religion and human self-righteous works for salvation. And then he has begun to build the foundation of justification by faith alone, showing us that we are saved in one way, and that is through Christ alone. by God's grace alone, through faith alone, apart from work. And then here in this passage, he is teaching us of the underlying principle of our justification, which is God's love for us. A lot of times, as Reformed Protestants, when we think about our salvation, we automatically think, well, justification, that's the main thing in salvation. But really, that is just one benefit of our salvation. And we also need to remember the underlying, the root cause of our justification. Why is it that God has declared us righteous in Christ? Why is it that God set forth Such an infinitely wise plan in the cross of Christ, whereby He may be just and the justifier. Why is that? It's because of God's love. God loved us before He justified us. And He justified us because He loves us. We are not justified from eternity, we're justified in time. We would have read that in 5.1 of this passage. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So, though we are not justified from eternity, we are loved of God from eternity. And we remember in this, The fact that God, as we confess in our confession of faith, God is without parts. Which means that when we talk about the love of God, we're not talking about a love added to God. Because God is not made up of parts. Creatures are. To have parts, to be composed, belongs to creatures. Love is something we have. that is added to us. It's not who we are. I am not my own love. But Scripture very clearly declares to us of God that God is love. So when we talk about the love of God, we're just talking about God loving. Now in this passage, Paul teaches us of God's love to us. And he teaches us how we are to love each other as Christians by implication out of the overflow of God's love to us. And this will benefit you as a Christian. This will be of help to you. Old dear center if you will hear. And if you're hearing is mingled with faith, you will see the glory of Christ and oh lay hold of him and be saved. Be justified, be united and assured of God's love. United to God in Christ, assured of his love. So in this passage, Paul teaches us of God's justifying love, past, present, and future, and how we are to respond to it. And we'll see it in three basic thoughts. First, remember the past demonstration of God's justifying love. Remember the past demonstration of it. This is verses six to eight. Paul tells us there, for when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is the past demonstration of God's love. for you, dear Christian. If you ever doubt it, if you ever struggle and wonder, does God really love me? Look at the cross of Christ. That is the clearest and boldest demonstration that God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. In this past demonstration of justifying love, God shows us superabundant grace Superabundant grace. We read that in verses 6-8. It gives four different descriptions if we include verse 10. Four descriptions of what we were when God loved us and sent Christ to die for us. We were helpless sinners in verse 6. We were without strength. We had no spiritual ability. We were spiritual corpses. No desire to seek God. No ability to seek God. We could never find Him even if we wanted to and we didn't want to. But you who were dead in sins, Paul says he's quickened. He is raised up alive. He is made alive together in Christ. We were helpless. We were hopeless. He said we were ungodly. Anti-God, against God. I don't know, children, if you've ever held two magnets, maybe two horseshoe magnets, and you've tried to push those magnets together at the repelling poles and you feel the repelling force. Those magnets push against each other and you can't put them together. That's how we were by nature in our sin against God. Repelling God's truth. Repelling God's goodness. Rejecting saying no to every good gift that God sent to us. Ungodly. We were not only helpless and hopeless sinners, we were hellish sinners. He says in verse 7, that while we were yet sinners. Little factories of sin. swimming in sin, loving sin, just like a fish swims in water, we lived in sin. It's all we did. Of course we know that everything overtly evil we did was sin. But you know also all our best works were sinful. Our best prayers, our best good deeds to others, our best words that we could speak, even words about God, even words praising God, all of our prayers, all of our praises, even the very best things we did, Isaiah tells us all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. The reason is because every even Even every good deed or good word that comes out of our mouth as sinners comes from a wicked, evil, sinful heart. We're not doing it in faith. And Scripture tells us whatsoever is not of faith is sin. We're not doing it for the glory of God in Christ. So it's all tainted. It's all ruined. We're absolutely ruined to the core. Sinners by nature. This is what we were when God sent Christ to die for us. When God loved us. Not only were we hellish, but we were hostile. Verse 10, he says that while we were his enemies, enemies, it's not just that we were helpless. Yeah, we were that. But more than that, we were hostile aggressors against God. We were attacking. We were assaulting God's throne rights. And if we could, we would have annihilated God so we could be God. Don't think of yourself before you were saved as a poor little orphan kitten and you were just there shivering in the cold and God had pity and brought you into His nice warm house. No, you're more like what they call an enemy insurgent in the war on terror. You are an active, hostile, enemy insurgent terrorist against God and against His Christ. Every sin is an act of hostile aggression. Every sin is an attempt to un-God God and to kill God, to commit deicide. Even the very least sin. This is what we were, this is who we were when God demonstrated His love, super abundant love and grace to us in Christ. Not only was it a super abundant grace that he demonstrated, but it was a redeeming grace. He said here that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God didn't hope to save us. He didn't try to save us. He just flat saved us. Christ did not die to attempt salvation. He died to accomplish salvation for all of God's elect. And in this, it was a perfect timing. He said in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. He was a perfect substitute. Christ died for, for, in the place of, instead of the ungodly. All us who were so helpless, hopeless, hellish, hostile against God. God took all of our sins. all of our hostility, all of our rebellion. He imputed that to Christ at the cross. And as Luther said, that in a certain way, Christ at the cross became the biggest sinner that's ever lived. Christ had no sins of His own. But there He who knew no sin became sin for us, and God treats Christ as that rebellious, hostile, hellish sinner that we have been. Pours out all of the wrath we deserved there upon Christ. He died for sinners. He died for the ungodly. In this, I remind you, dear believer, You rejoice in these truths now. You rejoice in what God has done for you in Christ now. You look back to the past demonstration of God's love. You look back to the cross and remember how much God loves you. But I also remind you to look ahead. Because forever in glory, God will demonstrate His love to you. As you will be part of the fruits of Christ's sufferings, you will be part of the rewards of Christ's labors, and you will enjoy eternal bliss in Christ, in that beautiful vision of God in glory. As the demonstration of God's love, you will shine forth forever. as a testimony to God's justifying love. Dear believers, in this, God calls us today, just like God has loved us and given us superabundant grace and given us redeeming grace, now you give superabundant grace to each other. You give redeeming grace to each other. And what I mean by that is you treat each other way better than you deserve. Spouses, husbands, treat your wives. Wives, treat your husbands. Children, treat your parents. And parents to children, and especially here in the church together, each member of the church, treat each other better than that person deserves. Why? Because that's what God's done for you. When you struggle and you say, well, they're just so irritating, or they're just so unsanctified, they're just so annoying, or they're just so problematic, they're so hard to work with. Go back and remember what you were before you were justified. And now you treat them like God treats you. Redeeming grace to leave their sins behind. to recognize God has forgiven it in Christ, and so do you, and move on for the glory of God. This is the past demonstration of God's love that we are to remember. Secondly, concerning God's justifying love, lay hold of the future hope of it. Lay hold of the future hope of it. This is verses 9 to 10. Paul says, much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. You can have hope for the future. Because you're justified and thus saved from the wrath of God, verse 9. You're reconciled and thus saved from death by Christ's life, verse 10. And now God calls you to take hope that you, because you're justified in Christ, you will enjoy eternal glory instead of the wrath of God that you deserve. and you will participate as you've been reconciled to God in Christ, you will participate in the beatific vision in God forever. God calls us in this, dear Christians, to temper our own wrath toward one another. Since God has appeased His wrath through Christ's propitiation, we should temper our wrath with one another and show love. Since God has reconciled us to himself in Christ, dear Christian, God calls you to promote reconciliation in life, not to promote separation and death from one another. Third and lastly, in God's justifying love, live in the present rejoicing of it. live in the present rejoicing of it. We've seen the past demonstration, future hope, and now present rejoicing in verse 11. And not only that, but we're also rejoicing God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation. This is a God-centered rejoicing. We're rejoicing in God. It's a Christ-enabled rejoicing. This is only because of Christ and His active and passive obedience and His present mediation. He's our only hope, our only access to God. Dear believer, because of this, I remind you that the greatest present rejoicing you've ever experienced in the Gospel is nothing compared to the rejoicing you will have forever in glory. Take hope in this. And dear Christians, this reminds us, root your rejoicing in God and not in your circumstances. This is a rejoicing in God. It doesn't change when our circumstances change. Root your rejoicing in God and not in others, not in your spouse, not in your friend, not in your church. If we root our joy in each other, we will never have true joy and rejoicing. But oh, free one another from that burden. Let us all root our rejoicing in God and what He's done for us in Christ. And this will be a rejoicing that endures.