Mission: Rescue the Enemy
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)The raw, violent, amazing World War II movie Saving Private Ryan ends with a devastating scene. Warning: In case you’ve never seen the film, I’m about to spoil it for you. Click away now if you’ve been avoiding hearing about it. . . . Still here? Good.
If you have seen it, you’ll remember that Tom Hanks and his team are sent on a D-Day mission to save Matt Damon, the remaining living son of a family hit hard by the war. One by one the soldiers assigned to save Ryan are killed off, but they ultimately succeed. Ryan lives. With his dying breaths, Hanks’ character says to Ryan, “Earn this.” In doing so, he urges Ryan not to waste the lives of the men who died for him, not to squander the gift of his life they paid for with their blood.
What an burden! How could you ever earn such a sacrifice? Did Ryan make good enough use of his days? Did he contribute enough to society to compensate for what those guys did for him? In the final frames, we see Ryan as an old man years later, and he seems still unsure. “Did I do enough? Would that even be possible?”
It makes sense that Hanks’ character would want Ryan to earn the gift of life he was given by the squad of men that saved him. It’s logical. It’s fair. We get that. And that’s what makes God’s gift of life to us so much more amazing, even, than what the guys in that film did.
First, Christ did not die to save us because, somehow, we were worth saving. He didn’t give his blood for the sake of our families. He didn’t do it because He knew we would be good soldiers or that we would try really hard. Verse 6 says we were ungodly. Verse 8 says we were “still sinners.” Verse 10 says we were still God’s enemies. When Jesus gave His life for us, we were fighting for the other side.
Imagine Saving Private Ryan if Hanks’ squad was sent to save a Nazi soldier that hated Americans and had done terrible things in the war. What kind of weird mission would that be? Why would anyone do that?
Even more amazing: God didn’t send His only son to die for us, then turn around and say, “Earn this!” He never tells us to earn it before He offers us salvation -- and He doesn’t even tell us to earn it after we’ve been saved as a condition of keeping our salvation. Instead, He says simply, “You could never earn this -- no matter how many lifetimes you lived. It’s a gift, and it’s available to all who trust in Jesus’ death in their places on that cross.” (Romans 3:23, 6:23)
Some of us can’t accept the gift. We’re too proud and stubborn. “I don’t care; I’m still going to earn some of it. I’ll do enough good to make the sacrifice for me worth it.” But we’re just lying to ourselves, and we’re making too little of what Jesus did on that cross. He paid for it all. Period. End of story. We were “powerless.” There’s nothing left to be done.
But why would God give the life of (and pain and separation from) His own Son for me when I was still against HIm, before I even knew to want such a thing? “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (verse 8)
Don’t try to “earn this.” Thank God for the gift and love Him back with everything you’ve got. It’s the only response that makes sense.
Why Suffering Matters
“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts.” (Romans 5:3-4)Not to be a downer, but life is hard. And not just for some people. Everyone “suffers,” as the Bible tends to call it. Relationships crumble. People get sick. Our best efforts to do important things often fail. Disappointment is so common that it’s almost the norm. Worse, we hurt each other -- sometimes on purpose. Or we make selfish choices that end up causing pain for ourselves or people we care about in ways we never thought of. Life really sucks sometimes.
Wait, don’t go just yet. I’m not wearing mascara and trying to be all emo or anything. I’ve got a point coming up in a couple of paragraphs. One of the reasons that the Bible feels so truthful to me is that it doesn’t try to hide the fact that life is really hard in a lot of ways. Every writer freely admits it. Paul said that suffering is global -- all of creation is in “bondage to decay.” (Romans 8:21) Even Christians carry around with us this inner groaning of suffering. (v. 23). Why? The formula is simple. Every human being sins. Sin produces death. So every last living thing we see is in the process of dying. We’re all broken emotionally, physically, relationally. Nothing really works the way it was meant to.
If you look at last week’s devo, we started into Romans 5 talking about all the amazing things that come with trusting in Jesus for our salvation from sin. Amazingly, God declares us “righteous” because Jesus is righteous; we have (right now!) peace with God; we stand (right now!) in God’s grace (forgiven and accepted); and we will absolutely be with God forever in glory. We don’t deserve any of it, and we can’t earn it. It’s God’s gift.
Then you turn to verse 3 and run into a giant “wait a minute!” Why would the all-powerful God of the universe who did the much more unlikely thing of making us right with Him (through faith in Jesus) also not just keep us from suffering. It makes much more sense to me that He would flip a switch and make all the hard things in my life disappear. He’s got the power, and I know He loves me. What’s the deal?
Instead, Paul writes that we can “rejoice in our sufferings.” Yay. I don’t want to rejoice in my suffering. I don’t want to suffer. But Paul is honest that there is no escaping from suffering on a sin-ridden planet -- even for Christians. We’ve been made alive spiritually, but we’re all still dying physically. We are not yet in heaven. Our bodies are not yet “redeemed.” Our adoption as God’s kids won’t be complete until He takes us home. So the suffering continues.
But. (That’s a big but right there.) But, Paul writes, something has changed about why we suffer. People without Jesus suffer pointlessly. Those in relationship with God suffer with a purpose. Our suffering helps us. How? It “produces perseverance” by making us trust in God more -- and longer. When I hurt, I feel my need for Him and I turn to Him for help. Guess what I find? He helps! I can trust Him! So I learn to trust Him sooner when I hurt the next time.
That perseverance grows my “character.” That means that instead of rebelling against God because my life is hard, I learn to obey Him because I’ve discovered how trustworthy He is. It makes sense to me to obey the God who helps me in my hard times. People of character make those right choices over and over. And if I do it God’s way enough, I become even more convinced that He really is God. His way works. He knows what He’s talking about. My character grows my hope in the God of heaven, the Father I can’t wait to be with forever.
Okay, that’s all kind of deep -- and this is already too long -- but the big picture is that our suffering matters if we’re willing to trust God when life gets hard, if we’re willing to obey Him in spite of our pain, and if we’re willing to look for the evidence of His goodness and power even on the hardest days. So next time you suffer, throw a little party and wait to see how God will once again show His incredible love for you.
When I have worn I suit, I felt awkward: some peop…
When I have worn I suit, I felt awkward: some people treat me with some new kind of respect and attention when I am dressed up. I do enjoy that feeling, that exhilaration of being noticed. I can only hope that "the treatment" will last long enough for my excitement to testify to others through my expressions that there is something different about me more significant than my new outfit and haircut. That is not always easy, and its often hard.
Right With God Right Now
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2)Okay, okay, we get it, right? We did the whole Easter thing last week, and we get it. God’s love in sacrificing Jesus -- and Jesus’ love for the Father and for us in following through all the way to that last agonizing breath -- it’s overwhelming. We didn’t deserve it. And the power of God to raise Jesus from the death? Whoa. Untouchable. It’s easy to sing praises to a God like that. The celebration of Easter makes sense.
But that was last week. Now let’s ask a really selfish, really practical question. What does Jesus' death and resurrection mean for me right now, this week, when I’m looking at the back of some guy’s head on the bus, or in math class, or on the world’s worst reality show.
For the next few weeks, we’re going to break down the benefits for those who trust in that alive-again Jesus. Paul spells them out very clearly in Romans 5:1-11, and I think it helps to remember exactly why faith in Jesus is the only choice that makes sense in this life.
The first big benefit for me Paul describes is that as a person who has made the choice to trust in Jesus for my salvation -- my life and afterlife -- I become "okay" with the God of the universe forever. I know you already know that, but I wonder if you know just how ridiculous that concept must sound to most of the people in the world today -- and those who lived in the thousands of years before Jesus escaped death.
Nearly every religion in the history of the world is built on the idea of my attempt to become okay enough with God to be blessed in this life and to be “okay” in the afterlife. If I do just exactly what my god wants -- in the right order and with the right attitude -- just maybe he/she/it will be pleased enough with me that everything will be “okay.” They live every moment with the uncertainty of knowing whether or not their god accepts them.
Paul says that through faith in Jesus, I can stop worrying about being okay with God. I just am. Right now. Present tense. Why? Not because I'm good enough or God lowered His standards. But because it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Jesus. Look at the first four good things about trusting in Christ.
1) “We have been justified.” (v. 1)
If you typed my ID number into God’s database before I was a Christian, it would have said “Sin detected; unjustified.” I had zero chance of getting into heaven with God. Unjustified people just don’t belong with Him. Type in Jesus’ ID number, and you’ll see “No sin detected. Justified.” And now mine does, too. One of the transactions that happened because of Easter weekend was that Jesus’ life record replaced the account of every person who comes to Him for salvation from sin. Yes, I still struggle with sin, but my record isn’t the one that’s “official.” His is. Through faith in Him, I’m justified.
2) “We have peace with God.” (v. 1)
In those old westerns, the gun fighters were always saying, “Git ready to meet your maker." Some Christians I know are scared silly they won’t have a chance to “git ready” before they die. But Jesus did all the getting ready there will ever be to do. As a believer, you’ll never have more peace with God than you do right now (even if you don’t “feel” very peaceful today).
3) We stand in grace right now. (v. 2)
Grace is getting a good thing you’d couldn’t have paid for on your own. By the Easter Jesus, we have God’s grace. Right now. This minute. Yes, even when we’re still stupidly sinning. That’s why it’s called grace.
4) We have the hope of the glory of God. (v. 2)
In Bible-talk, hope doesn’t mean wish. Hope means an iron-clad expectation of what’s definitely coming. Paul’s talking about heaven. Being with God. No more pain, sorrow, death, or 404 error pages. Paul said that’s worth “rejoicing” about.
Next week, we’ll look at some even more practical right-now benefits of faith in Jesus.
Easter Blues
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. . . . But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . . For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:6, 8, 10)Can I be honest with you about something? I never really enjoyed Easter all that much. I became a Christian when I was a kid, and I took it seriously from the start. I should have been big into the holiday. I just didn’t like it. I think I wanted it to be Christmas. You know, presents. And warm fuzzy feelings. And happy times with the family. But it just wasn’t that kind of fun.
Instead, I associated Easter morning with feeling a little nauseated. Grandma always bought me a giant Easter basket full of sugar in various forms, and I’d be knee deep in all that green plastic grass by 6 a.m. and feeling queasy by 6:30. Then they’d dress us up in our most uncomfortable clothes, and we’d all go to church to sit still and sing slow songs and listen to sermons and sit up straight. Then the big Sunday afternoon meal. Ham. Too much food. When can I take off these angry shoes and my clip-on tie? You know you’re not having a good time when what you want most is to go take a nap.
The other thing is that everyone pushed the “feelings” we should have about Easter. This is a BIG DEAL. Get it? Do you get it? Are you feeling it? You better be feeling it. It was just too much pressure. All my feelings felt fake, because I was forcing myself to really “feel” grateful to God and awed by his power.
But, of course, I do get it. And right now, sitting in front of my computer with my shoes off and some music playing, I’m overwhelmed at the idea of God sacrificing His only Son to allow me a way into His family. What God did -- and why He did it and the power He showed in defeating death -- it’s the bottom line of my whole life.
Here’s my point, though. I don’t think God cares whether I’m able to come up with all the right feelings at the right volume during the pomp and circumstance of Easter morning. Jesus didn’t die on that ferocious cross and walk out of His borrowed tomb in hopes that I’d really get all warm and fuzzy at Easter. He died for me when I was still his enemy, still all about me, still lost. No matter what I feel or don’t, God wanted to “reconcile” us, to remove the barrier of our sin so He could welcome us home with open arms. God committed that giant act of heroic love . . . because He likes us.
So no matter what you’re feeling this Easter season, I hope you’ll take some time to tell God that you know how God He is and to thank Him for the gift of eternity with Him through Jesus -- whether it’s in a crowded Easter morning service or sitting at your keyboard or driving in your car. And if you haven’t received God’s sacrifice of love by trusting in the alive-again Jesus to save you from sin, I hope you won’t judge the value of faith in Christ by our big hats and shiny shoes. It’s about the God who loved you before you could even bring yourself to care. Without that, what’s the bottom line of your whole life?
Happy Easter. And watch out. That early-morning candy high wears off ugly.
