Rev. David Holwick V Romans series #6
First Baptist Church Communion
Ledgewood, New Jersey
July 10, 2005
Romans 5:1-11
BENEFITS OF BELIEVING
I. Why believe?
A. Millions do.
1) Religion is universal among humans.
2) Interesting, because faith involves the invisible and
unknowable.
B. It's not just pie in the sky.
1) Heaven will be wonderful but what about now?
2) Christianity believes our new life starts immediately.
3) There are many benefits in believing.
C. The foundation.
1) The benefits begin with our response.
2) Justification lays the foundation for spirituality.
a) Benefits are available - if you choose them.
II. The results of knowing God.
A. Peace with God. 5:1
1) Not so much peace we feel, but peace we have.
2) God is now on our side.
3) In a world where bombs go off with no warning, it is
comforting to know our souls are secure with God.
B. Access into his grace. 5:2
1) Grace represents a position we hold - same as "salvation."
2) Salvation is a present possession for us, not future.
C. Joy in our hope. 5:2
1) Hope in the Bible is not wishful dreaming, but a certain
goal that is not yet achieved.
2) God's love, which we experience right now, confirms the
promises of the hope.
III. A new perspective.
A. Our joy is not dependent on nice events.
1) Suffering cannot cancel our joy.
a) We don't rejoice for having troubles, but we rejoice
"in" our troubles.
There is a Peanut's cartoon where Charlie Brown is telling his
problems to Schroeder, the piano player.
To comfort Charlie Brown, Schroeder says, "Don't be discouraged,
Charlie Brown.
These early defeats help to build character for later on in
life."
Charlie Brown asks, "For WHAT later on in life?"
Schroeder answers, "For more defeats!"
#29668
B. Even suffering serves a positive purpose. 5:3
1) It sparks growth in our character.
a) Perseverance.
b) Character.
c) Hope.
2) Our hope is not an empty thing, because God's love that
he pours in our hearts will confirm it.
IV. We don't deserve it.
A. Sacrificial love is rare.
1) Remote possibility for a cold righteous type.
2) Somewhat likely for a nice decent type.
Jack Kelley, a reporter from USA Today, tells about something
he witnessed in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
Kelley was there to cover a terrible famine.
It was so bad that as he walked toward the village he saw many
people already lying dead on the ground.
He recalls how the smell of death is something that gets into
your hair, onto your skin, onto your clothes, and can't be
washed off.
As he made his way down the road he came across a little boy.
He could tell that the boy had worms and was malnourished; his
stomach was protruding.
His hair had turned a reddish color and his skin had wrinkled as
if he were 100 years old, both signs of malnutrition.
The photographer who was traveling with the reporter had a
grapefruit that he gave to the boy.
But the boy was so weak that he couldn't hold the whole grapefruit
by himself.
And so they cut the grapefruit in half and gave it to him.
The boy took the grapefruit, looked up at the two men as if to
say "thank you" and began to walk back towards his village.
What the little boy didn't realize was that the photographer and
reporter were following at a distance.
As he entered the village, there was another little boy who
looked to be dead.
His eyes were completely glazed over.
As it turned out, this was the boy's younger brother.
The older brother knelt down next to his younger brother, bit off
a piece of the grapefruit and chewed it.
Then he opened up his younger brother's mouth, put the grapefruit
in, and worked his brother's jaw up and down.
The reporter and photographer later learned that the older brother
had been doing this for the younger brother for two weeks.
A couple days later the older brother died of malnutrition, but
the younger brother lived.
This is an incredible illustration of sacrificial love.
But it is not the greatest example.
Because this boy was showing love to his brother.
It is greater love when we do it for our enemy, someone who is
depraved.
Could you do that?
#29669
B. We are the depraved type.
1) Terms used: powerless, ungodly, sinners, God's enemies.
C. Jesus died for us anyway. 5:8
1) It is the greatest demonstration of God's love.
2) He gave himself for us before we even turn to him.
V. A young pastor's testimony.
In 1996 James Van Tholen, then 31, became pastor of a Christian
Reformed Church in Rochester, New York.
Members of the church found themselves drawn to Jim's ministry,
especially to his preaching and his human touch.
Then, the unthinkable occurred: in the late winter of 1998, doctors
removed a cancerous tumor from behind Jim's right knee.
Within weeks Jim had another tumor behind his chest wall, and then
spots on both legs and one kidney.
For seven months Jim struggled to recover from surgery and to endure
the chemotherapy that offered no cure but could prolong his life.
By the end of that time the chemotherapy had suppressed Jim's cancer
enough that he was able to return to his pulpit.
On that day he preached from this passage in Romans 5.
He said this:
We want to worship God in this church.
For our worship to be real, it doesn't have to be fun, and it
doesn't have to be guilt-ridden.
But it does have to be honest, and it does have to hope in God.
We have to be honest about a world of violence and pain, a world
that scorns faith and smashes hope and rebuts love.
We have to be honest about the world, and honest about the
difficulties of faith within it.
And then we still have to hope in God.
So let me start with the honesty.
The truth is that for seven months I have been scared.
Not of the cancer, not really.
Not even of death.
Dying is another matter -- how long it will take and how it will go.
Dying scares me.
But my real fear has centered somewhere else.
Strange as it may sound, I have been scared of meeting God.
What the last half year has proved to me is that my weakness is
more of the soul than the body.
This is what I've come to understand as I have dwelled on one
question: How will I explain myself to my God?
How can I ever claim to have been what he called me to be?
And, of course, the scary truth is that I can't.
That's the kind of weakness Paul is talking about.
And that's where the word "still" comes in -- while we were STILL
weak, while we were STILL sinners, while we were STILL enemies
of God, we were reconciled with him through his Son.
I find it unfathomable that God's love propelled him to reach into
our world with such scandalous grace, such hope.
No doubt God has done it, because there's no hope anywhere else.
I know. I've been looking.
And I have come to see that the hope of the world lies only inside
the cradle of God's grace.
I'm dying.
Maybe it will take longer instead of shorter.
But I am dying.
I know it, and I hate it, and I'm still frightened by it.
But there is hope, unwavering hope.
I have hope not in something I've done, some purity I've maintained,
or some sermon I've written.
I hope in God -- the God who reaches out for an enemy, saves a
sinner, dies for the weak.
That's the gospel, and I can stake my life on it.
I must.
And so must you. #4832
Three years after he preached his sermon, Pastor Van Thoren lost his
fight with cancer.
But he did not lose his salvation, which was bought by his Jesus.
VI. Our present is good and our future is great.
A. How much more... 5:10
1) A favorite expression of Jesus as well.
2) God's positives always far outweigh the negatives.
B. Saved through Jesus' life.
C. Reconciled to God so we can have intimacy with him.
1) Have YOU been reconciled with God?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 4832 "Surprised By Death," Rev. James Van Tholen, Christianity Today
magazine, May 24, 1999, page 57. This illustration is
very long and should probably be broken up into components,
but it was very effective.
#29668 "Built Up For More Defeats," Charles Schulz, quoted by
Rev. John Beehler, Kerux Sermon #21281.
#29669 "No Greater Love In Somalia," Rev. Keith Manry, Kerux Sermon #21283,
by way of www.SermonCentral.com
These and 25,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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