Christ Died for the Ungodly

So this morning, our sermon text is Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 10. And if you're here normally, you know that we're not in a series in Romans right now. We're in a series in 1 Timothy, though we've been away from it for a while now. We will be getting back to it soon. I wanted to take some time to talk about the basic, simple gospel message. What is the message of the gospel? What is it that we hope in? What is it that we believe? And I think that Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 10 do a good job of describing to us the simple gospel message. The title of the sermon is Christ Died for the Ungodly. And I want to begin by asking you a question, or stating something and then asking you a question. If you're a Christian, I presume that you've faced seasons of temptation and sin in your life.

The effect of the temptation or the sin has been that it's unsettled you a little bit. It's shaken you. It's shaken your faith, if you will. You've wondered. You've started to question things that you know you shouldn't question, but yet the question arises in your heart. Maybe that question is you're wondering, in response to some sin or temptation in your life, maybe you're wondering if you're actually a Christian. Do Christians struggle this way? Do they have these sorts of temptations? Maybe you've wondered if it's worth being a Christian. Meaning that the constant fight against sin is taxing and tiring and you're weary of it and you think, is this worth it? Maybe you've wondered if God's able to deliver you from your sin in any meaningful way in this life. Will I ever be free of this? Maybe you've wondered something else. What I submit to you is that all of those questions have a similar theme and the theme of all of those questions is, did God really say?

If someone were to come up to you on the street and ask you any one of those questions, I don't think any Christian would have trouble answering those questions. Is it worth being a Christian? Yeah. Will God deliver you in any meaningful way from the struggles that you face? Yeah. I think we would say yes because we know in our hearts and from our study of Scripture that this is what the Bible tells us. And yet to know that something is true is not the same thing as believing that it's true for us. That's what I want to talk about this morning. And so when it comes down to it, when we boil these questions down to their essential nature, what is at the root of them? The question is, do we believe what God has said or not? Simply having knowledge of what God has said is helpful, but if that's as far as our faith goes, I would contend that we don't have faith yet. We simply just have knowledge of some truth. But faith...

is having knowledge of truth, believing it to be true, and casting our own souls on the truthfulness of that truth. Saying, if that truth is not true, I will suffer as a result of it because my hope is in it being true. You could think of it in terms of gambling. It's one thing to look at a horse race or a football game or something and say, I bet such and such is going to win. Well, that's fine. Maybe you base your I think such and such is going to win on some knowledge. You've got some statistics, some data, some information that leads you to believe such and such is going to win. But what does it matter if you think such and such is going to win if you don't put any of your money there? And I'm not advocating that you gamble, just so you all know. It's an example. I'm not advocating for this, but I'm using it as an example. You've all heard the saying, put your money where your mouth is. You think it's true?

Bet on it. Risk. Put yourself out there. Accept the consequences of being wrong. These are the questions that we have. Is it worth it? What if I'm wrong? And I think it really boils down to do we believe what God has said or not? This morning we're going to be studying the answers to these questions, not because I think you're ignorant of the answer. As I said already, if you're a Christian, I think you could all answer the questions with a truthful answer. And so I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is that the answers to those questions don't carry the weight.

in our lives that they should. And by weight, I don't mean burden. I don't mean another weight to carry on your back. By weight, I mean like ballast. If you know about like a sailboat, a sailboat has ballast in it. What is ballast? It's a big heavy weight at the bottom of the boat. And what's the purpose of the ballast? To keep the ship from capsizing. That when the storm comes, this ship that floats, has this big weight in the bottom so that when it teeters and totters in the water, that big weight always brings it back to the bottom is down and the top is up. And so the sort of weight I'm talking about is that kind of weight, the sort of weight that when we teeter and when we totter, we have a weight to us that keeps us upright, that we have faith that works and helps us in that way. And so my hope is that by the end of our study this morning, each one of us will be better ballasted against temptation and against sin.

Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 10. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood. we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while 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. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I want to start out by saying to you that Christians in this group are not described as an admirable group of people. They're not described as the sort of thing that you would aspire to. Now you say, but it says we'll be saved. And I say, I know.

And we'll get there. But it's very important that we go through the process. You guys are familiar with flyover country? That's what the Midwest is. Why is it called flyover country? Yeah, that's part of it. Why don't people stop there? Why don't people like going through Kansas? Kansas is flat and Kansas is boring. There's no mountains there. There's no water there. There's no cool deserts or rock formations. There's just corn and more corn. High-grade quality Kansas corn, and therefore high-grade quality Kansas bucks. I don't know if you like to hunt, but that's not what we're talking about this morning. Would everyone agree that Kansas is as I've described it? No. Not people from Kansas. They'd say, there's really cool stuff. You ever see on your Facebook feed or wherever it is you waste time learning useless stuff, you ever see things like top 10 unheard of cool things to do in Indiana?

Because Indiana, I'm sorry to tell you, is part of flyover country. It's not exciting. But we look and we go, oh, look, there's this cool thing. There's this cool stuff that really is cool. And if people knew about it, they'd say, wow, that's an amazing thing. That's a helpful thing. It's a beautiful thing. Well, when I say to you the Christians are not an admirable group, you want to say, well, yeah, Kansas is boring compared to Colorado. And I say, yeah, that's because you don't know about Kansas. Now, I didn't study about Kansas. I don't know what's cool about it, but I bet it's cool in the same way that Indiana is cool. There are some neat things about it, and it's our own limitation, our own weakness, that we don't know what's interesting or neat or helpful about Kansas. And so when I say Christians aren't an admirable group, I don't want you to simply jump to the end and go, there's really nothing else important except the very end, because that's not true.

The reason that when you're on I-70 and you're going west and you get through Kansas and you start to see the clouds in the distance, but as you're driving you start to realize those aren't clouds in the distance. Those are mountains. Part of the reason that those mountains are so glorious to your sight is because you've driven through the monotony of Kansas. Colorado, I don't think, is as beautiful or as astounding to people who live there every day. as to people who live in flatland. And so we have to pay attention to the process and not just the destination. So my contention at the beginning is that Christians are not an admirable group. In our text, they're described as helpless. They're described as ungodly, sinners, enemies. And you might say, that's not the description of the Christians. And I say, oh yeah, that is the description of the Christians. That's who they are. That's them.

You say, but God changed them. And I say, I know, but I want this morning for us to slow down and go through the process. I want you to see how they got changed, who they became, because that's the ballast that we all need. And so first, they're described as helpless. Now, when you think of helplessness, what do you think of? Well, I think of helplessness in two ways. One might be they are helpless. They are unwilling to be helped. They refuse help. I'd do it myself. You know, little kids, my kids, I'd do it myself. They're helpless. They are unwilling to have help. And there is a sense in which that is helpless, but that's not the sort of helpless we're talking about here. The sort of helpless that's being described here is an intense weakness or lack of strength such that they are incapable of helping themselves. Now, does someone who can't help themselves willingly accept help from others? No, not usually.

Because it's very, very humbling, humiliating to not be able to do for yourself. If we just were talking about the normal chores and necessities of life, to not be able to do for yourself is very, very difficult. And it often leads to you not wanting other people's help. And it's because the one who's incapable of doing for themselves is frustrated by it, is upset by it, is stuck. on their inability. And so they don't want their helplessness exposed, acknowledged. They say, I'm going to get stronger and I'm going to be able to do it. And sometimes we have these sorts of weaknesses. You might use somebody throwing their back out as an example. They do something, they throw their back out, and they're hunched over. And they know that there's a certain helplessness about them. But it's a temporary helplessness. There are things they can do about it.

They can go to the doctor and the doctor can help. They could maybe go to the chiropractor. There's things they can do. Their helplessness is temporary. But the sort of helplessness that's being described here is a permanent helplessness. It's a sort of helplessness that comes with old age, perhaps, or some sort of debilitating disease where there is no cure. That's the sort of helplessness we're talking about. It's not temporary. It's permanent. It's going to go from hard. to harder, to harder, and it's never going to get easier until it ends. That's the sort of helplessness we're talking about in this passage. And so not only is their helplessness, their inability to do something on their own, their weakness, a burden, that burden is compounded by the fact that they're not going to regain their strength. And that person has a huge temptation to become angry, bitter, frustrated, not wanting any help. If you have ever been to nursing homes and listened around in the to what's going on there or talked to nurses and doctors that work in nursing homes they deal with this sort of hardship in people's lives and it is a real hardship because what those people are doing is is having to battle with the the helplessness of their body and the reality that they're not going to get better and so it's a very sad very dangerous situation to be helpless because there's no hope of getting better regaining your strength

This is the description that our text gives of everyone apart from Christ. They are helpless. There is nothing they can do to help themselves. Spiritually, they have fallen into a pit and they cannot get out. They're not only described as helpless, though. They're also described as ungodly. Now, it's one thing to describe... or understand people as being helpless, to lack strength and ability. But as I said, we're also described as ungodly. So what does it mean to be ungodly in addition to helpless? Well, I can tell you that an invalid is still capable of doing something, saying something. They're still able to be wicked. They don't have to be able to move. They don't have to be able to feed themselves. They don't have to be able to get up and do...

with their bodies. They can still be ungodly even if they can't move. They can be ungodly in the way they look at people. And so it's difficult. And the reason that they're able to do this is because they spend what strength they do have on sin. And this is why they're described as helpless, then ungodly, and then sinners. Finally described as enemies of God. Now, you remember I said that this is true of everybody apart from Christ. This is true of you. This is true of me. If you're a Christian, it may not be true of you anymore, but this is the condition of all mankind. Helpless, ungodly sinners who are enemies of God. This is who we are by nature. You might think, well, I don't know if I agree with that. I don't know if I like that. And I'd say, yeah, I know. Kansas can be boring sometimes, but I'm telling you there are very necessary things that we need to bear in mind about ourselves if we're to bear the name of Christian.

and if we're to love Jesus, and if we're to have the ballast in our hull to withstand the trials of life. And the first thing we have to know is who we are apart from Christ, and not forget it. In Romans 3, Paul says, as it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. And so he's using absolutes here. Right on through as he quotes the Old Testament and what he's doing. The purpose of him quoting this is to say, there's no one that isn't in this state. And it's meant to discipline our hearts and our pride when we want to say, no, but, but, what about? Not me. Not completely. The scripture says, there is none righteous, not even one. None who understands, none who seeks for God, all have turned aside. Together they've become useless. There is none who does good.

There is not even one. Their throats an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. We know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God. Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. And so I want to impress upon you as the first point, this is who we are and what we're capable of. And there is no benefit, only danger, in denying, suppressing, altering, or ignoring this truth about ourselves. Helpless sinners spend all of their energy, all of their intellect, all of their lives in pursuit of ungodliness.

Remember I started out saying, do we have questions about our faith? Do we question our faith? And we all said yes, because this is how we are. These are the things we face. What I want to do is I want you to see this point, because when you question your faith, what you're questioning is God and his word and what he has said. And how foolish is it for someone who has all the things I've just said true of them, How is it possible that when something difficult goes in their life, our first response is to question God and not ourselves? Now that's a high bar, I realize. I'm pushing. This is the difficult spade work that has to be done in our hearts. Because this is what's necessary for us to receive the seed of the gospel and to be made alive by it. We have to see who we are and what kind of people we are. Not what kind of people they are. What kind of people we are. What kind of person I am.

How could someone who's so corrupt, so wicked, so full of sin, when difficulty comes, accuse God of being the source? This is the height of foolishness. And it's very dangerous. And the reason we're so easily tempted in this way is because Satan doesn't want us to see ourselves as we really are. Because if we do, we might come alive spiritually and say, Danger! There's danger. I'm dangerous. My soul's in danger if I'm left to myself. And so Satan would tempt us to accuse God. Did you really say? Did you really mean it? Why haven't you done what I wanted? But when Isaiah saw who God was, his response was not, why did you make me this way? His response was, woe is me, for I am ruined.

Isaiah understood this truth about himself when he met with God. Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah understood these truths about himself, what kind of man he was. And you might think, well, this is not very flattering. And I say, you're absolutely right. That is the first point in you believing the gospel, is that you realize there is nothing in you. that's flattering. There's nothing good in you where you say, well, there's a good one. No. There's nothing good in you. Not one shred of it. You say, well, that's not very appealing. And I say, the point of that is not to be appealing. It's to be true. You ever go to the doctor and say, doctor, give it to me straight. I want to know what the problem is. As people, but especially as Christians, we ought to want the truth.

And not expect that the truth would be hidden or covered up or manipulated in such a way as to accommodate our own pride. The truth is not always an easy thing for us to hear, but it is necessary. And so what you have in this person that's described, this helpless, ungodly sinner, is you have someone who's worthy of death. The whole context of our passage, bigger picture, is a courtroom. And you're dealing with... innocence and guilt. And so the person we've just described, ourselves, is a guilty person. And the consequence of their guilt is death. And so then you read in the next passage, he says, or the next verse, for one will hardly die for a righteous man. And it's a weird construction. But if I were to translate it to you and have it make more sense to you, you'd say, in a courtroom, no one needs to die for an innocent man because he hasn't done anything wrong.

He's come into the court. He stood before the judge. The judge has said, you haven't done anything worthy of death, so no one needs to die for you. And so when it says, for one will hardly die for a righteous man, he's saying there's no necessity for death when you're dealing with a righteous man. So you have the two poles of the spectrum here. You have the helpless, the ungodly, the sinners, the enemies of God, who are guilty and worthy of death. And on the other end, you have the righteous man who's done nothing wrong and as such is not worthy of any death. He is innocent and he is free to live because he's done nothing wrong. And then you have in the middle, the good man. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, Someone would dare even to die. The good man's in the middle of this spectrum, but he's toward the righteous end of it. He isn't innocent. In this context, there's a difference between a good man and a righteous man. The righteous man is innocent. The good man is not innocent, but he's not the helpless, ungodly sinner that's described. And it says, well, for a good man, someone would dare even to die.

Someone would be willing to give their life for the good man. And you have to think, why would someone give their life for a good man? He's not innocent. He's committed crimes that are worthy of death. But he's described as a good man. He has works that are both good and bad. And there's some value to his life. That's what this passage is telling us about the good man. There is some value to his life. And someone might dare even to die for the value of his life, for him to be able to carry on his good works. Someone might dare even to die for him. Now, does a good man exist? This is something that you have to realize. This is used for argumentation's sake. This man doesn't exist. There isn't a good man in reality, in our lives. We might aspire. We might say, well, I can't be a righteous man, but I hope I can be a good man. And I say, you have to understand from this text, the good man is still worthy of death. He still has to die because he's not righteous. He's not innocent.

Though he's not as corrupt as the helpless one. He's not righteous. And therefore he has to die. He doesn't exist in reality. If he did exist, then what I read to you earlier from Romans chapter 3 wouldn't be true. Where he says, there's none righteous, there's none who seeks after God. All have gone astray. You say, well except for the good men. Those good men didn't do that. Not entirely. And so Paul uses this construction to teach us two things of the good man. First, he teaches us that even a good man, even what we would consider a good man, a man who does more good than harm, even that man is guilty and death is the result of his guilt. That's true even of the good man. And he also uses this construction to teach us that we're not a good man. That the helpless one, we all understand, blood's got to be shed, someone's got to die. Guilt is there. The righteous man, no. The good man, no. He's still a wicked man who has to die.

And so he's using this construction to fix in our minds this chasm between righteousness and innocence and guilt and death. And so at this point, if you're like me, you would feel pretty hemmed in. You'd feel cornered. And you should. And this is God's kindness to us that he's so honest and truthful in Scripture to just tell us, this is who you are and this is what you deserve and these are the consequences of your actions. Your deeds are evil. You should feel hemmed in on every side with no way of escape, headed for the judgment seat of God with the only expectation that you will be pronounced guilty and exposed and judged with eternal pain and misery. You should see and have it burned into your minds and into your hearts that that is what you are and that is what you deserve. That's the second point of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you think, this doesn't sound like the kind of gospel presentations.

I'm used to hearing, and I say, that's part of the problem with the church today, is that you don't ever hear about this part of it. But you need to hear about this part of it. And not only do you need to hear about it, you need to drink the whole cup of it and believe it. The truth is that all of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way. Not one of us, not one of us, has sought after God and done one thing that he would have us do. And it's not... Because we were unwilling only. We are unwilling. We are also incapable. Unwilling, incapable of doing anything that God would have us do. Anything, not even one thing. And so our expectation should be that we're going to face God one day and all the secrets of our hearts are going to be laid bare for everyone to see and for everyone to know and then we're going to face judgment before a righteous judge for all that stuff.

Now that is a terrifying thought. It's terrifying. Now, if that's what you understand to be your condition, and you believe it, and you have a fear in you, now you want relief. But here's the problem. You're helpless. You're helpless. Now you're awake. Now you're motivated. Now you want deliverance. I'm going to do what? What is it that you're going to do? I'm going to aspire to be the good man. Death is still in his path. What are you going to do? What energy do you have? What desire do you have? What could you do to satisfy the least bit of the judge's sentence against you? There's not a thing you can do. Not one thing that you can do or I can do. And so we have a problem. A real problem. A scary problem. A problem of our own corruptions and our own sins and God's holiness. And what are we going to do about it? We can't do anything about it. What are we going to do?

We aren't going to do anything because you can't do anything. But Paul goes on and he says, but God, so far to this point, he's been talking about men, the helpless man, incapable of helping himself, unwilling to help himself, unwilling to accept the help of others, ungodly sinners, just stuck in his ways and loving it. Then there's the righteous man. And we go, well, if such a man existed, it would be nice to be him. But since he doesn't, the good man doesn't exist either. There's just no hope. And that's all about us. And then he says, but God. And about that time we ought to say, could we hear about someone other than ourselves? I've seen in the mirror now who I am and what I am at some level. And each of us are going to see different things. And I want you to know that when you see these things in your hearts, you shouldn't cut yourself an inch of slack for your corruptions. You shouldn't say, yeah, well, but none of that. Because the judge that you're going to face isn't going to give you an inch.

There's no sympathy in a courtroom. There's no, well, yeah, but that was hard, and we know. The question is, did you do what you were supposed to do? Nope. Okay. That's it. You're guilty. But I don't want the consequence. Well, you shouldn't have done what gets the consequence done. And you say, but that's not fair. And I say, says who? Says you? What's it matter what you think? Is your word supposed to rise up to the level of God's word where you can tell him and accuse him that his ways are not righteous and just, but yours are? Would we take this position before our God and say, I know better. That's not fair. And so this is who we are. And if we were left in ourselves to deal with other people that fit this description, how would we be with them? How would we treat them? What would we think of them? I can tell you, you would spit them out of your mouth. You would want nothing to do with them. And it wouldn't take a lifetime of their sin against you for you to get to that point.

Paul goes on and he says, but God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and our jaws ought to hit the floor. At that point, what else can you say? But this is not the next chapter in that story. It does not follow. It doesn't make sense. I would never do that myself. It is completely opposed to anything that makes sense to your brain. That a sinner, a helpless sinner who is a rebel and an enemy actively pursuing their rebellion against God, that that same God would look on them with love. And you might think, oh, it's because there was something lovable in them. And I say, no, there was nothing. Nothing lovable in them. If someone was pointing a gun at you and shooting at you, would you describe your disposition toward them as love? Would you want to expose yourself to them? Would you want to...

say, my life for yours, you who are shooting at me. No, you'd run and hide and you'd shoot back. And you wouldn't stop until they were dead. That's what it means to have an enemy. And that's how we're described in this passage, as an enemy. But God is not like us. It says here that he demonstrates his own love for us. That those who are his enemies, those who are hostile toward him, he loves. This is the message of the gospel. Do you ever see, you know there's houses down in near downtown Indianapolis, and they're condemned houses. Now, why are they condemned? Well, because there's some structural flaw in them that's so bad that the only thing that can be done with that house is for it to be plowed under. You guys have seen this in your neighborhood. Big orange X's or red X's, boards on the windows, and then they just come in and they just tear the house down. That's the sort of condemnation.

that we deserve. We are those houses. And the thing that is incredible is that God takes that house that is full of mold and full of rot and full of meth and full of every other awful, terrible thing that could be in a house that could warrant condemned, tear it down, destroy it, get rid of it. It would be better as a plot of grass. It would not lose any value if it was just grass. instead of this house. It has no value. It is a hindrance and a danger to anyone who gets near it. That's us. God buys that house and he fixes it. And he fixes it in such a way that it was better than the original builders ever could have made it. You know, you go in your house and every one of you in your house, there's things you like about it and there are things you don't like about it. I don't know what it is.

But some of you, you don't like this door, you don't like that kitchen, or you don't like these stairs, or there's this piece of part of the property. There's something you don't like about it, even if you built it yourself. This is often what people who build their own houses run into. They build a house, and then they live in the house, and they're like, man, I wish I, if I had it to do over again, why? Because they didn't build it perfectly. And this is the mystery of the gospel. This is what's amazing, is that God takes a condemned house, a destroyed house, ready for the match, ready for the bulldozer, and he makes it back perfect, better than it was originally. Have you ever heard the joke about why mechanics get paid so much less than doctors? They both fix bad plumbing. Doctors and mechanics do a lot of similar stuff. We've all got plumbing and electrical and joints that wear out and stuff, and why do doctors get paid so much more than mechanics? Do you know the joke? Do you know the joke? You don't know the joke?

Yeah, because they have to work on a car with an engine running, right? If the doctor has to replace your knee or your hip or work on your teeth, they have to do it while you're alive. They can't kill you, fix you, and then turn you back on. And that's why they get paid so much more. How much more than what God has done for us? That he takes a condemned house, a ruined house, ready to be plowed under, buys it, and makes it new while we live. Changes us, as it were, from the inside out. And the cost for those enemies, for those helpless sinners, was his own son. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now you might use the house analogy and you say, well, it's just a house. And there's a point at which the...

it breaks down because the house is just a house and it doesn't have a soul and it's not going to face judgment like us. But we ought to understand as Christians that when we're dealing with life, our own lives, the lives of the old, the lives of the infirm, the lives of the young, the lives of the unborn, the lives of those who are deficient in some way, mentally or physically, their life has value to it because God has assigned value to it. And they're not to just be plowed under because they have no value. I don't have time to go into it, but we could have a big long talk about euthanasia, about doctor-assisted suicide, about abortion, because people are not houses that can just be plowed under without consequence. Their life has value because God put it in there. Even as helpless, ungodly sinners, every man and every woman bears the image of God. And as such, are not to just be plowed under. It ought not to be our desire for that. We ought to work against it because God has taken those enemies of his and given his own son for them. Jesus' life for theirs. The righteous for the unrighteous. The innocent for the guilty. Then in verses 9 and 10 it says, much more than having now been justified by his blood, having gotten a new heart, having had the transplant, having been changed over.

If we could use the house analogy, they picked the whole house up, they dug out underneath it, and they put a new foundation in there for it to sit on. Because a house is only as good as its foundation. A new foundation for a house, a new heart for us. If you bought a house, like the one I've described, and you picked it up off of its foundation, and you dug out the old foundation, and you put in a new foundation, a good foundation, one that would could will last forever and you set that house back down on top of it what would anybody who walked by that house know is going to happen to that house what would you do with the house they're going to fix the house they're going to fix the house and this is how justification is if you'll take the analogy justification is the foundation being changed much more than now having been justified by his blood, having been given a new heart, having been changed, having had our foundation, our old one torn out and our new one put in, we shall be saved from the wrath of God. We should expect with full confidence and hope and expectation that God, who's loved us as sinners, who started a work in us, will bring it to completion. This is what Paul says in Philippians. Here he says that we'll be saved from the wrath of God through him.

If you were in a courtroom and the judge says, someone says, I'll take his penalty. He says, okay, you get his penalty. You're free to go. What else might the judge say to that free man? Go out and carry on with how you were. Someone died for your sins, and you'll never face the consequences of them. So go on and live how you would. No. What would the purpose in one man dying for another if it wasn't to change the sinner? From old to new. Wouldn't make any sense for us to be saved from the wrath of God and then to be abandoned for the rest of our lives here on earth as Christians. Free to return to the lives which we previously lived. And so what Paul's saying here is, this is who you are. This is what you're like. This is what I'm like. And then he says, this is who God is and this is what he's done and what he's like. And the result of it is that we ought to take weight from it.

There ought to be ballast put into our souls to carry us through the difficulties, knowing that if he would send his own son to die for us, as we're described in this passage apart from Christ, if he would love us in that way, surely he will not abandon us until he returns. And so he provides for us strength to obey. You remember we started out helpless. Helpless. He'll provide for us strength to obey. Where we were helpless in our own strength, we'll become strong in the grace that he provides. And you say, how's that work and does it work? And I say, you know, honestly, it won't be perfect in your life. Because we're not perfect yet. But you will have a new hope and a new set of principles and a new desire to serve God.

And even as you see that new desire, you'll praise God for that new desire and you'll long for the day when it grows to its maturity in you. Because you aren't done yet. You're not perfect. You have burdens and you fall in many ways. I fall in many ways. It doesn't take that much, does it? It doesn't take that much to get you off track. Just wake up with a stiff neck in the morning because you slept on your pillow wrong. It doesn't take much. This is our weakness, but God provides strength to us daily to carry us through. And you say, I don't feel the strength. And I say, but this text teaches you that he'll never leave you or abandon you or forsake you. And so you are faced with the questions that you asked at the beginning, that I said we ask at the beginning. And I say, will you take hold of what God has said? And will you put it with all of its weight into your hull? Or will you throw it overboard?

And say, I have a different hope. I'm going to get my ballast somewhere else. It gives us strength to obey. And for us to have strength to obey, we have to have faith to obey. When Abraham was faced with having a son, it took faith for him to obey. We could look at that account in Genesis. We could look at that account in Hebrews. But Paul also deals with this same thing in Romans. Abraham's faith, and this is what he says in Romans 4, he says, He contemplated his own body. Speaking of Abraham, without becoming weak in faith, he recognized he's an old man. Now as good as dead. Since he was about 100 years old. And the deadness of Sarah's womb. So this is what he sees without becoming weak in faith. We aren't going to have a child. Not naturally. How are we going to have a child? We're old. We have one foot in the grave. We're supposed to have a child? He contemplated that without growing weak in faith.

With respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully assured that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. And so I hope that as you think of the daily struggles that you have, you question God and these things spring up inside of you, that you have some weight now and some strength to cut that out at its root. And you say, that's not easy. And I say, I know it's not easy. but it's necessary. This is what Jesus Christ has come to bleed and to die for, so that you would be freed from your helplessness and from your enmity with God, so that you can see your sin and not go, oh no, what am I going to be doing? What's going to happen to me? You say, no, God saw that one better than I do and demonstrated his love in sending his son to die. He won't leave me or forsake me in these trials and these sufferings, no matter how difficult, no matter how hard, no matter

How painful. He will not abandon me. He will not leave me. And as we see the burdens, as we see the difficulties, as we feel the weight, we remember these words about Abraham, that he was fully assured that what God had promised, he was also able to perform. That God keeps his word, that he's faithful, that what he says he'll do for you, he will do for you. God's word is sufficient, and the promises made in it are sufficient to bear us through any storm that God allows in our life. Okay? And I'll tell you, I don't say that because I don't have trouble with it. I say it to you because there's no other way to understand what God has said in his word other than that he will stick with us and bear us through every trial that we face. And I don't believe it the way I should. You don't believe it the way you should. And yet this is the truth, and this is the message of the gospel, is that you have no hope outside of Christ. You are nothing but an enemy of God.

And in that condition, he sent his son into this world to die for you because of his love for you. And if he would send his own son to die for you, you can take hold of his promise that he won't forsake you in this world. What it will do is make you long for a day when you'll be free of the hindrances that you face in this world. Paul says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And as for me, I don't know which to choose. This is the testimony of a man. who knows his depravity and knows his sin and sees God's love and mercy, and he says, I would leave all that I have in this world, all that I love in this world, every bit of usefulness that God has given to me in this world to see him as he is and to be done with this earthly show. Am I supposed to want to die? No, you're not supposed to want to die. You're supposed to want to serve God to the best of your ability with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength.

So long as he has you on this earth. Because so long as you're here, you have a purpose. You have work to do. And it may not be the work that you used to do. And it may not be the work that you prefer to do. But it's the work that God's ordained for you to do. And it's the work that he attends you in. And so trust God with it. And do the work that he's given you to do. And look forward to the day when all of the encumbrances that you have right now will be laid aside. That's the message of the gospel. That's what God does for sinners.

For his enemies. This is the message we need to hear and believe and remember. It's so easy to get caught in the particulars of our lives. And I don't mean to be, there's an old saying, you're too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. That's not what I'm trying to do. You'll be much more use in this world if you have this weight in your hull. If you have believed on these words and held them dear to you. Let's pray.