3/8/09 - Lent 2 - Romans 5:6-8

LOVE DISPLAYED IN DEATH
- We were not worth dying for
- Christ made us worth dying for

Life is a very precious thing to most people. In any country in any culture in any age a person will do everything it takes to preserve and take care of and improve and protect and even lengthen his or her own life. Most people want to avoid death as long as possible, don’t they? That’s why there are countless medicines and ointments and diets and lifestyles that are meant to extend a person’s life beyond the normal number of years. Life is usually considered a person’s most precious commodity. Life is the last thing anyone wants to part with.
And so when a person gives up his or her own life to save another’s, that is thought of to be a very noble thing. When a soldier jumps on a grenade and gives his life up to save his comrades, that sacrifice is honored above almost any other action. When a parent gives up his or her life to save a child that in danger, that is a praiseworthy and virtuous thing to do. But rarely does that happen. Rarely does a person give up his or her life for someone else. Even a lifeguard who dies trying to save a drowning victim doesn’t intend to give his life in exchange for another’s. Even a firefighter who loses his life while trying to rescue someone from the flames doesn’t mean to die. Those people don’t have in mind that they will give up their lives for strangers - they plan on getting themselves out alive as well as saving that person in need. And so a situation in which a person legitimately intends to sacrifice his life to save another is a rare thing indeed. And if it ever does happen on this earth, the life to be saved is someone that the person loves and cares about and treasures beyond measure. A soldier might die for his fellow countrymen, but he will not give up his life for his enemies. A parent might make that sacrifice for a dear child, but a parent will not give up his or her life for their child’s bully. Someone else’s life has to be very precious and very close to the heart of a person in order to make it worth giving up their own.
Paul speaks about this kind of sacrifice today in Romans chapter five. “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man,” Paul says. What he means is: just because someone is “righteous” - well-behaved, moral, ethical, even a Christian - just because someone is “righteous” in that regard doesn’t mean anyone would give up their life for him. “Though for a good man,” Paul continues, “someone might possibly dare to die.” A “good” man - a person who is personally good to you, a person who has treated you well and is close to your heart - then possibly you might think about giving up your own life for a person like that. But that person would have to be awfully important to you, wouldn’t they? That person would have to mean a lot to you if you were to consider sacrificing your own life to save theirs. You would have to struggle with the question, “Is their life worth giving up my own?” And so Paul’s words in verse eight should come to you as a bit of a shock: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
While we were “sinners” Christ died for us! Not just as sinful human beings, but as people living in sin, people unrepentant of their sin, unbelievers! When we were unbelievers Christ gave up his life for us! The point is: we were not worth it! We were not worth giving up his life to save. Because we were not close to his heart at all. And we had not endeared ourselves to him over time. In fact, it was just the opposite. Because Paul says that “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” Paul says that we were once ungodly. We were not worth it because we were ungodly. We were God’s enemies just by being conceived with a sinful nature and we were powerless to do anything about it. Our lives were not worth saving. Our lives were definitely not worth the life of Christ.
Of course, that is contrary to what you hear in our culture and different than what most people think. We are told in numerous ways by numerous sources that we are worth something, and even that our self-worth defines us. We don’t have to worry about what other people think because we are worthwhile to society, to our families, to our friends, to our jobs, and especially to ourselves. We are worth the air we breathe and the space we occupy. We are worth it just because we exist. But the Lord’s words in Scripture disagree. The Lord’s words in Scripture say that we are ungodly from the very beginning. We are powerless. We are sinners. We are not worth it. We are not worth anything. There is no reason whatsoever that Jesus should have came down from heaven, suffered 33 long years on this earth, and then gave up his life to save us. We gave him no reason. In fact, we gave him every reason not to. We gave him every reason to stay in heaven and let us deal with sin by ourselves and die on our own.
So why did he do it? If we weren’t worth it, why did Jesus give up his life for sinners and ungodly people like us? Once reason and one reason alone: because he loves us. But God doesn’t love us because we have done something worthwhile. God doesn’t love us because we have lived a good life or try really hard. God doesn’t love us because of anything in us. God loves us because he has made us into something he loves. He has made us into his children through faith in the gospel. He has made us his heirs through the work he performs in baptism. He has made us the objects of his affection through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He has made the worthless worthy by giving up his life for us while we were still sinners. And that’s the glory of God’s grace: he creates that which he loves. And I want to repeat that again because this is a concept from Scripture that is important to grasp: He creates that which he loves.
We can start at the beginning of creation for an example of that truth. In the beginning there was nothing but God. And he didn’t need anything or anyone else. But then in a moment he created Adam out of the dust of the ground - and he loved him. He loved him! He made the earth and the sky and the trees and the plants and the animals and all creation for Adam! Why? Why did God love him to that extent? Adam certainly hadn’t done anything to earn his love. He didn’t even exist prior to being formed by the hands of God himself! So why did God love him? Because he wanted to. Because he created that which he loved.
In a less literal way, but in a way that is just as real, Jesus loved many people while he was on this earth that we probably never would. Jesus loved prostitutes, Pharisees, murderers, tax collectors. One day Jesus stopped by the tree that Zacchaeus the tax collector had climbed and offered to eat at his house so that he could share with him the Word of God. Why would Jesus do that? Zacchaeus himself admitted that he had cheated his own people. He had robbed his countrymen as part of his job. He was labeled as a “sinner” by those around him. And so why would Jesus love Zacchaeus? Jesus loved him because he wanted to. He created in him that which he loved by bringing Zacchaeus to faith. And when Zacchaeus believed in the gospel, Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:9-10).
A few decades later Jesus sought out and saved a lost soul again. A man was traveling on the road up to a city called Damascus. He was on his way to hunt down and arrest anyone who believed in Christ. But on his way Jesus physically appeared to him, called him to his apostle to the Gentiles, and immediately gave him a specific job to do. Jesus loved Saul - who was soon to become the apostle Paul. But why? Saul was a persecutor of God’s own people. He killed God’s children for a living! He was there giving approval to the stoning of God’s servant Stephen! He was set and determined to wipe Christians off the face of the earth before Jesus appeared to him! And so why would Jesus love this enemy of the gospel? Because he wanted to. Because he created in him that which he loved by calling Saul to be his apostle on that road to Damascus. God didn’t love Paul for who he was. God loved Paul for who he made him to be.
Our situation is very similar to the apostle Paul’s. We were once not just neutral, but actually God’s enemies before we were brought to faith. We were in opposition to the Lord because of our inbred sinful natures. But Jesus loved us anyway. He loved us because he wanted to. He loved us because he created that which he loved. He created faith in our hearts. He made us his children. He determined that we would be the objects of his affection through faith. We did nothing to produce that love in the Lord. We did nothing to prompt him to show us that grace. He just did. He loved us all on his own despite what we did and what we would do against him. Martin Luther wrote something similar on the very same topic: “If I were God, I would wish to and I would give the world hellish fire on their heads. That I would do. But what does God do? Instead of his wrath, which the world has full well deserved, he has loved the world, and in such a superabundant and inconceivable manner that he gave his only Son for the world, his worst enemies.”
And perhaps therein lies the most comforting part about his love: if we did nothing to deserve his love in the first place, if he died for us and loved us while we were still ungodly sinners, then we can do nothing, nothing that can change his love! When we sin, he will still love us because he died for us when we were sinners. When we fall, he will still love us because he died for us when we were fallen. When we give into that same temptation yet again even though we should know better, he will still love us because he died for us when we were his enemies. That doesn’t mean he overlooks the sin or is indifferent when we fail to keep his commands, but his love for us will not be diminished even in his disappointment. He loved us when we were unlovable, and so we will always be able to count on that love. It is pure; it is true; and it is unchanging. Because “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
God the Almighty, the Creator of life, gave up his life for those who weren’t worth it. Can there be a greater demonstration of love than that? Can there be a more sure proof that Christ cares for you and longs for your salvation? Christ died for you. For you! Christ died for me! We who were not worth dying for are now worth everything to our Lord because he made us to be his dear children. We are all that he cares about. We are all that he thinks about. We are all that he works for and waits for. He loves us, not because we are so good, but because he is so loving. He loves us… because he loves us. And since that is true, we could never do anything to change his mind. And he promises that he never will.
Amen.

“May the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” - 2 Thess. 2:16-17