“While We Were Yet Sinners”
Romans 5:6-11
Romans 5:8 (The Message): But God put his love on the line for us by
offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
John 10:11, 15b (The Message): I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before
himself, sacrifices himself if necessary… I put the sheep before myself,
sacrificing myself if necessary.
[Prayer]
“All gave some; some gave all.” These
words hold a special meaning for those who served in
In terms of human salvation a very different statement must be
made. “God gave all. Period.” As
Paul wrote in the fifth chapter of Romans, “But
God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial
death…” In the tenth chapter of
John’s Gospel Jesus said, “I am the Good
Shepherd. The Good Shepherd… sacrifices
himself if necessary.” Later on in
Paul’s letter to the Romans Paul wrote, “He
who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us.” [and] “Who is
to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died… for us.”
God offered his Son as a sacrifice.
He did not hold anything back; he gave it all. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, sacrificed himself
for the sheep. He died. “[He]
who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as
something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. And being
found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of
death – even death on a cross.” So
wrote Paul to the Philippians.
The common thread through all of this Scripture is sacrifice. Jesus, the Word made flesh, the very
incarnation of God, humbled himself. He
surrendered the glories of heaven to become one of us. As our Good Shepherd he gave his life for
us. As Paul put it in this morning’s
text, “For while we were weak, at the
right time Christ died for the ungodly… while we were [yet] sinners Christ died
for us.” He died. For us.
Although we will sometimes give up ourselves for a noble cause or put
our life on the line for a loved one, we are not prone to sacrificing ourselves
for the undeserving. How many of us
would take the place of an unrepentant mass murderer in an execution
chamber? How many of us would throw
ourselves in front of a bus in order to save the life of a non-remorseful
rapist or pedophile? Knowing what we now
know, is there any one of us who would willingly take up arms for Hitler or
Stalin or Mao Tse Teng?
There is but one answer to those questions: no. I would not trade my life for the life of any
of those people above. I might not be
willing to kill them, but I am definitely not going to die to save them. There are limits to how much and for whom I
am willing to sacrifice. Odds are you
that share those same limits.
But at the right time – the time of God’s own choosing – Jesus died for
the ungodly. The Good Shepherd
sacrificed himself for undeserving sheep.
God gave his son for a human race whose relationship with him was
antagonistic. Jesus died on a cross for people
so corrupted by sin that they could never even come close to the holiness
demanded by God. He shed his blood on
behalf of people who accepted standards of living and behaving that were much
lower than the standards of God. People
who couldn’t even live up to their own incredibly low standards.
Who are these people? Who are
these perverse and rebellious people?
You. Me. All of us.
We are those weak, sinful, ungodly people for whom Jesus died. We are the people for whom God gave all, the
constantly and willfully straying sheep for whom the Good Shepherd sacrificed
himself. None of us is righteous, no,
not even one. We have all sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God. We are
all people whose common status before God is one of unrighteousness, whose
behavior is way below the standards demanded by God.
And yet, at the right time Christ died for each and every one of
us. In Christ God took it upon himself
to end the antagonistic relationship between himself and us. He paid the debt we could not. To use the words of a song I’ve quoted
before, he conquered the great divide.
The title of that song by B. B. King and U2 is “When Love Comes to
Town.” Who is this love? God.
In his commentary on today’s text William Barclay wrote, “Jesus did not come to change God’s attitude
[toward us]; he came to show what [that attitude] is and always was. [Jesus] came to prove unanswerably that God
is love.”
It was love that caused Christ to sacrifice himself for us. By way of that sacrifice Jesus made reconciliation
between God and humanity possible. By
love our status before God changed. We
who were unjust and unjustifiable were once and for all time justified. The theological term for that is justification.
And it didn’t stop there. The
Father, again in love, raised the Son up from death. Our living Savior is with us day in and day
out. By the power of his Spirit we are
enabled to change our behavior, bit by bit, in ways that move us closer and
closer to measuring up to God’s standards.
The big word for that process is sanctification.
In Christ we are justified – we are reconciled with God. In Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
we are sanctified – we are empowered and enabled to start becoming the holy
people God created us to be. Love has
indeed come to town in the person of Jesus.
Now what? Once this love has
come to town, we have recognized it for what it is, and then accepted it, what
do we do with it? We give it back. We love the God who first loved us. We acknowledge this love by seeking and doing
God’s will: in our lives and in the world.
We demonstrate it by obeying God’s Word.
We show it by following faithfully in the footsteps of Jesus. We worship God, giving him thanks and praise. We joyfully proclaim the Good News of
salvation. We compassionately minister
to the world in the name of Jesus.
In short we become faithful disciples of our Lord. Are we perfect disciples? Not this side of heaven. Day in and day out we who are justified move,
bit by bit, closer to perfection as we engage in the spiritual disciplines by
which we are sanctified: prayer, Bible study, corporate worship, Christian
fellowship, and even fasting.
We also, day in and day out, one bit at a time, learn stewardship. Faithful disciples are faithful stewards: of
life, health, and creation; of time, energy, and relationships; of our finances
and possessions. All good gifts come to
us from God as a sacred trust. They are
not to be taken lightly or treated frivolously.
Most especially they are not ours to waste and misuse.
Are we perfect stewards? Not
this side of heaven. Healthy stewardship
habits are something we acquire through prayer and Scripture study. Stewardship is something we learn from one another, most
often by example. Our stewardship is
carried out within the context of Christian worship and fellowship. It is a form of obedience. It is an act of worship and praise. It is a thankful and joyful response to the ultimate
sacrifice that was the cross. In love,
God gave all. In response to that love,
we give some.
At this point I feel a need to apologize to you and every member of
every church I have served. I am not
apologizing because I’m focusing so much right now on financial stewardship. I apologize because for way too long I have
avoided doing so. I apologize for my reluctance,
timidity, and maybe even cowardliness when it came to talking about the stewardship
of money.
In Jesus Christ God risked everything on my behalf. The truth is that when it comes to faithful
preaching about money, I must apologize to him for risking so little. He gave all.
How dare I not give up so much of my need to be liked, my fear of people’s
anger, my desire to not rock the boat?
In the process I have been a poor steward of the gift of preaching. I have been less than faithful to God. I have done you a great disservice.
“For while we were still weak, at the
right time Christ died for the ungodly… God proves his love for us in that
while we were [yet] sinners Christ died for us.” God
sacrificed all. In response we are
called to sacrifice something. Sometimes
that something is our money. Amen.