Hope In The Death of Jesus (Romans 5:6-11)

Good morning church, if you're visiting with us this morning,

I just want to introduce myself, and I'm not the

normal guy who's up here, but it's a privilege to

be able to preach God's word any moment that I

get an opportunity. My name is Devin Warfield, and I

serve as the pastor of Children and Families here at

Bethesda Baptist Church. I've been here before almost four years

and it's been a privilege to serve with here the

people here at Bethesda. I see many faces out there

that help with many different things, and it gives me

joy to be able to share from God's Word with

you this morning. If you'll turn in your bibles to

Romans chapter five. Romans chapter five will start in verse one,

and we're gonna read a section here. I want to

get the make sure and get the context of the

passage we're talking about today. We're going to read Romans

five one through eleven, but we're going to focus on

verses six through eleven in the message for today. Romans

is a letter written by Paul, who was called by

God to share the good news of Jesus to everyone

who wasn't Jewish. The letter was written to the church

in Rome, and so in the section right before our

passage today, Paul explained how Abraham, the first man to

represent God's people, became righteous because of his faith in God,

not by anything he did. Abraham, like all of us,

was a sinner in God's eyes and needed help to

be made right with God. Paul explained that Abraham was

made right in God's eyes by his faith alone in God,

and this faith in God gives us hope. And so

our passage for today is blains why we can have

hope in the death of Jesus. Would you stand and

let's read together Romans five one through eleven. Therefore, since

we have been justified by faith, we have peace with

God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have

also obtained access by faith into this grace in which

we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory

of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and

character produces hope. And hope does not put us to

shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

For while we were still weak at the right time,

Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die

for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person

one would dare even to die. But God shows his

love for us in that, while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been

justified by His blood. Much more shall we be saved

by Him from the wrath of God. For if we

were enemies, sorry for if while we were enemies, we

were reconciled to God by the death of his son,

much more, Now that we are reconciled, we shall be

saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice

in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we

have now received reconciliation. Let's pray together, Father, God, we

praise you this morning because you have given us your word.

You've given us a testimony and a witness to the

good news that we believe and we hold to be true.

And so Father, now as we study this passage, Father,

as I attempt to deliver your message to your people

this morning, I pray that you would teach us from

your word Holy Spirit. I pray that you would convict

us of sin and lead us to a life of

honor and hope that we can find in the death

of your son, Jesus, I pray that you would guard

me from error, and I pray that you would open

our eyes that we would see wonderful things out of

your word. We ask this in Jesus' name. I pray, amen,

you can be seated. One question I want to ask

you this morning is what do you hope for? You

might have hopes and dreams in your life, and I'll

share some of mine. I hope to be one hundred

year years old someday, so long as I'm coherent and

physically able to move. That's kind of qualifications I've put

on that. Twelve years ago, I hoped that Shania Twain

would show up at my wedding after I invited her

on social media. That dream did not come true. I

know some students hope to become famous on TikTok or

make a living off their YouTube channel. Anybody here, maybe

you've given up on that hope and dream. But these

students' parents hope that their kids will get a good

education so they can get a job someday and pay

for their own cell phone bill, and the retirees in

the room hope to spend time with family, friends and

to take a nap whenever they want. We all have

hopes for ourselves and for others, and these hopes aren't

always guaranteed. They're more like dreams or wishes, and we

can do things to make them happen, but they're not guaranteed.

For us. We can't ensure that they will happen. In

this imperfect world where many things seem to be hopeless,

we as a people need a certain hope, and so

today I want to show you where a more certain

hope can be found. We're going to see that we

must find our hope in the death of Jesus, because

God demonstrates his love for us through sacrificing his son.

So let's look in Romans chapter five. We're starting in

verse six now, So it says, for while we were

still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly,

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though

perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

But God shows his love for us in that while

we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Notice in

verses six and eight, Paul gives us the reason to

hope in Jesus's death. He says in both verses Christ died,

and he's talking about the death of Jesus. But notice

that there are three times where Paul tells us who

he died for. And verse six we read while we

were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly. We have

that Christ died for the weak and for the ungodly,

and verse eight he says while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. And lastly, if we look at

verse ten, we see that Paul says, we while we

were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death

of his son. And so four times Paul explained who

Jesus died for for the week, the ungodly, the sinner,

and the enemy of God. Who are these people? Well,

the week is one who cannot do anything on his own.

Paul probably meant here that Jesus died for the weak,

one who couldn't do anything good for God, could do

nothing to reach God on his own. We see this

idea clearly in Romans chapter three, where Paul says, no

one seeks for God, no one does good, not even one.

This has been a state of humanity since Adam and

Eve disobeyed God's command in the Garden of Eden. They disobeyed,

thinking they knew better than God, and became plagued with sinfulness.

From that time forward, it continues to affect us, you

and me Eve. Now, did Adam and Eve's disobedience make

them ungodly? Of course it did. They knew what was right,

and they chose not to obey. They became God's enemies.

They became weak, ungodly sinners who were far from God

and could do nothing of their own to repair that relationship.

And so Paul is telling us that this person that

I just painted is the one who Christ died for

You who disobey God, You who don't see any hope

in your life, You who feel like God's enemy and

like God is doing everything he can to make life hard.

Jesus came for you. Jesus took your place on the

cross so that you could be reconciled to God. Not

having done anything on your own to bridge that gap

between self and our creator, God, Jesus has taken our

place to restore that relationship and be that bridge to

our Father. In verse seven, Paul uses a human contrast

to help us see the immense value of Jesus's death.

He says, one will scarcely die for a righteous person,

though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even

to die. Now, I'm gonna be honest, I've read that

verse many times and it's been weird, Like I don't

understand what he's saying there, but like Paul is saying

that it's rare, but people will sometimes die for someone

who's a good person, maybe someone who does good things

or tries to be a good person. We might describe

someone as, you know, he's a pretty good person. Yeah,

she's a good person. She does good things for people.

And then Paul says, well, maybe there's a righteous person, right,

righteous as in like follows the law, obeys all of

God's rules and commands. They appear to have it all together.

They're not just good, but like they're obedient and righteous. Right,

So Paul says, maybe someone would die for a good

person or a righteous person. And I had to come

up with maybe some examples. For example, maybe a father

wants to save the life of his child, and so

he runs out and rescues a child from the street,

and not being hit by a car. Okay, the father

would say, man, this is a good kid. I want

this kid to grow up, and so I'm gonna go

and rescue that child. Okay. We would we see that

as a father or a mother's actions to save their child,

or maybe like a on a TV show where the

husband goes back into the burning house to save the

family's dog but ends up dying himself as well. There

might be some people who have this act of courage,

this act of boldness to do something for someone who's

good or for a good cause. But Paul says that

people will sometimes sacrifice themselves for someone they love or

someone who's good. But that's not what Jesus did. Jesus

sacrificed himself and gave it all for his enemies, for

the ungodly, for the ones who've done nothing to deserve

his love. Paul says, you might find a couple of

humans that will do the ultimate sacrifice for someone they love,

but he would never find someone who would die for

an un righteous person who's offended them and there's their enemy.

But that's exactly what Jesus does for us. Jesus sacrifices

himself and takes our place on the cross, so that

we would be reconciled to him, the ones who are

the most far off from him. The highest level of

God's love for us is that he sacrificed his son

for his enemy. This was similar to Jesus's motive in

the Gospels. In Luke five twenty seven through thirty two,

Jesus calls Levi to become one of his disciples. And

Levi is a tax collector. Levi is not a good

person or a righteous person in the eyes of God's people.

He has rejected God's people. He has abandoned them and

even committed treason against them because he is serving the

the Roman Empire in their I can't think of the

word in their controlling of the Jewish people. And so

he's helping the Romans to take taxes from God's people.

He sold out his faith for his money, right what

he could earn. And so Jesus goes and calls Levi,

knowing who Levi is, and he says, Levi, I'm gonna

have dinner at your house. These tax collectors, they would

steal from the Jews. They would take too many taxes

and line their pockets along the way, But there Jesus

is inviting a hated tax collector to be his disciple.

Levi takes Jesus to his house where he fixes a

meal for him. The Pharisees, who are their Jewish religious leaders,

they find out about this meal, and they're dumbfounded. They

ask Jesus's other disciples, how could anyone who considers himself

a respectable Jew ever eat with sinners like tax collectors.

Listen to Jesus's response to them, those who are well

have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners

to repentance. You see, because Jesus has not come for

the one who thinks he has it all together, and

the one who is self righteous, and the one who

boasts in self and says, look at me, I've followed

all of the law. He has come for you, who

is weak and a sinner, ungodly, and you feel like

God could never love you, because there's this vast separation

between our lives and our actions and our thoughts and

the most high God, who should be worthy of praise,

and he's holy, and he's set apart, and you say,

how could a god like that ever love a person

like me? Can I tell you this morning that that's

exactly who Jesus came for. He came for you who

don't feel like you are worthy, so that you can

see his love for you and have faith in him.

But you say, Devin, how does this death, Jesus's death

give me hope? The Bible's short answer, Jesus's death was

a substitute for your death. You see, we are sinners, ungodly,

and especially the enemies of God, because our sinfulness is

offensive to God. It's so offensive that we have a

debt owed to God, not just for our sinful actions,

but for our sinfulness. The desires of our hearts and

the thoughts of our mind seek our own way and

not God's way. The prime example is what we already

saw in Adam and Eve. God said one thing, but

Adam and Eve chose what they thought was best. They

redefined what was right in their own eyes and decided

to pursue their own desires instead of listen to the

words of God. Because we have inherited this sinful nature,

we are guilty before God. We owe him. We have

a debt to pay to Him that we will never

be able to pay on our own, but enter Jesus.

God poured out his love for you, and that while

you were still a sinner, having done nothing right in

God's eyes, nothing to earn it, he sent Jesus to

take your sin and your shame and your guilt on

the cross so that you would be reconciled to God.

And that means having your debt wiped clean, no record

of your wrongs to be found. On the cross. Jesus

took the sins of the whole world to pay for

them and to reconcile every person who would trust in

Jesus for their salvation. That's what we're reminded of in

John three point sixteen. For God so loved the world,

including you, that he gave his only son, that whoever

believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

That's how Jesus's death is an offer of hope for

the sinner. This morning, it's an offer to remove your

debt and to be reconciled to God. Now there's not

only offer of hope for the sinner, but this morning

there's also the death of Jesus secures hope for the saint.

Look in verse nine this morning, Since therefore we have

now been justified by His blood, much more shall we

be saved by him from the wrath of God. For

if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God

by the death of his son, much more now that

we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

So the saint, there's hope for the saint, or there's

there's the death of Jesus. To here's that hope because

the saint is just a way of saying someone who

follows Christ. Right, we see in the scriptures that the

saints are those Christians who have trusted in Jesus, who

have believed and trusted in his death. And so the

sinner is before trusting in Christ, and the saint is

after trusting in Christ. In no way does it mean

that the saint is perfect amen. In no way does

it mean the saint is sinless or a good person.

Nothing like that. It's the one who has already seen

their imperfections and gone from enemy to friend of God

because they've trusted in Jesus. So Paul continues in verse

nine about what it means for the one who has

trusted in Jesus as their substitute, paying for his sins.

He says, since we have now been justified by his blood,

see that already accepting language there, Since we have been justified,

much more shall we be saved by him for the

wrath from the wrath of God. So we spoke earlier

that we are sinful, that we are debtors to God,

that we owe God our debt because of our sin.

And so Paul describes this this earning death in Romans

three twenty three. For the wages of sin is death. Sorry,

it's six twenty three. The wages of sin is death.

So what we earn, the wages is what you earn

when you work. But when we sin, our wages is death.

And so we deserve as a consequence for sin is

our death. And Paul saying here in verse nine that

if we trust that Jesus died in our place as

our substitute, then we're trusting in Jesus's righteous lines to

be our righteousness. We take on Jesus's righteousness when we

trust in him. It's not something we've earned, it's something

that he has earned, and he gives to us when

we place our complete faith in him. We become justified

or made right before God because Jesus paid his life

on our behalf. That is what justification means. And we

received this justification purely on having faith that Jesus's death

was sufficient to satisfy our debt. And so what's the

result of being justified before God? It means being saved

from the wrath of God. On the cross. Jesus took

all the wrath of God that was ours to receive.

So the hope that secures the saint is the fact

that since you have trusted in Jesus for your life,

you are no longer guilty of your sin or do

the wrath of God for the sins that you deserve.

You are no longer condemned for the sinful heart that

you have. Jesus took all of the past, current and

future death, not death debt earned by your sinful nature.

Paul says in verse ten, we were reconciled to God

by the death of his son, and now that we

are reconciled, we shall be saved by his death. So

even though we continue to sin, there is payment made

already for our sin. Our death is wiped clean. His

death took our sin so we have nothing left to pay,

and his resurrected life shows that our punishment, our death

couldn't keep Jesus down. His death pays for our sin,

and his life secures our hope in Jesus. You see,

Jesus's death is considered the first fruits of our resurrection

or his yeah, his life. I think I said his death,

his resurrection or his life is the first fruits of

our resurrection. Right. So Jesus died on the cross to

pay for sin, and then he rose from the dead

to defeat death and to secure resurrection from the dead

for you and me us who trust in his death

and his resurrection. And so we are freed by sins

penalty by his death, and we are promised resurrection from

death because of Jesus's resurrection from death his new life.

Think of it this way. When someone is your family member,

they belong to you by blood for life. There might

be times when they do something that makes you like

them less, but you still love them because they belong

to you and you want the best for them, You

want their good. This is what happens when we belong

to God by our faith in Jesus. John even describes

it as being born again when we have new life.

So when we trust Jesus, we are born again into

a new family, the Family of God. We didn't do

anything to earn it, and we can't do anything to

lose it. We might do things that the Father doesn't like,

like sin, and it damages our relationship, our inn to

mis see with him, our friendship with him, and we

might try to hide it from him. But the good

news is that we are forever united to God in Jesus.

We have that hope that is secure that if we've

trusted in Jesus, nothing can ever take away our salvation.

We will never face the wrath of God because Jesus

took it for us. That is the hope the Saint

has secured by the death and resurrection of Jesus. And

so you say, Devin, what do I do with this

secured hope through Jesus's death? And I'll say, you praise

and you proclaim him. Look at verse eleven. We also

rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom

we have now received reconciliation. So Church, we respond to

praise God that he has secured our hope in Jesus.

The word rejoice. Here is the word that I thought

it was joy. I thought it was like, you know,

be joyful in the Lord. But really it's the word

that means to glory or to boast. And so like

we boast in the death of Jesus, we boast in

God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have

received reconciliation, and so I think we praise him. We

should use that in our worship time. We should be

praising the Lord because he has traded his son for

us and given us life. He's worthy of all praise

and honor because of his love for us and the

hope that he can give us and secures our eternal life.

And so we boast or we glory in God through

our Lord Jesus Christ. After we've trusted in the death

of Jesus and found our hope in him, we can

boast in Him and praise in Him. And we must

proclaim him. When someone encounters us and they see there's

something different in us. We got to boast in Jesus.

We have to say I'm not joyful in this life

because my whole life has been wonderful. We must boast

in the Lord who has taken away our sin and

our shame and our guilt. And we must say, the

Lord gave me this life, and I praise him for it.

Do you know him? Let me tell you about my Jesus,

who gave himself for me to take away my sin

and to give me life forever. I don't have to

worry about sickness. I don't have to worry about my family,

because if I trust in the Lord, I know he's

in control, and I serve him every day of my

life because he's in control and he's good and he's faithful.

When I've trusted in that death of Jesus, I have hope.

As the saint. There's nothing that can separate me from

his love. We were weak, sinners, enemies of God. We

were lost and down in sin without hope. But we

heard the good news that there is forgiveness and new

life in Jesus. And we must proclaim that good news

church to those who are still with without hope, feeling

weak and sinners and enemies of God, and ungodly we

respond in praise. Remember the doxology. Let's sing it together.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures.

Here be lo, praise himbove Ye heavenly Host. Praise Father,

sign and hold he ghost Ah.

When you sing praises to him, do you praise Him

from a heart that boasts in the Lord? Do you

call your friends and your family to praise the Lord?

Because our hope is only found in Jesus. We rejoice

in God through our Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we

have received reconciliation, and it's only through Him that we

have joy and hope in this life. Paul says, we

are ambassadors for Christ, and we must represent him to

the world who has no hope, to proclaim this gift

to the world, to the sinners, to the ungodly, to

the enemies of God, that Jesus Christ has died to

make them right before God. But they need to hear

of the truth and the hope, and it's up to

us to tell them so. As I finished this morning,

I want to remind you Jesus's death offers hope to

the ones who don't deserve it, and it secures hope

for the ones who have received it. We've seen in

this passage this morning that there are two types of people.

There are sinners, who need hope and saints who are

secure in hope, and I don't doubt that you are

one of those. For both of you, there's a call

to action. Are you a sinner here who needs to

surrender to Jesus and accept this offer of hope. God's

word tells us how to do it. It says if

you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved. For with the heart one believes

and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and

is saved. When you hear the good news that Jesus

died in your place to take away your sin and

to satisfy God's wrath for you, it should cause you

to turn away from your sin and cry out to Jesus,

placing all of your faith on him. And you don't

have to get your life right first. He died for

sinners and the enemies of God. So will you turn

from your sin and trust in him today? That's my

call to you. Or maybe you're a saint here who

has trusted in Jesus and you need to praise him

for his wonderful works in your life. Maybe you've been

caught in sin and your relationship with the Lord is

dark and damaged, and there's no intimacy anymore. You need

to confess your sin and be reconciled to the Lord,

your God. Through Jesus' death, He's already saved you, but

it's time to confess, just like a friend and say

I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? I want to come

to it. I want to come back to you. Maybe

you're convicted because you don't proclaim the good news of

Jesus like you. Should take this moment today to recommit

to him and your private and your public life to

be a saint for the Lord in this world. If

you've been a Christian for a long time but you've

grown lazy and too comfortable, maybe today you need to

start growing again and getting out of your spiritual lazy

boy and get to work for the kingdom of God.

Whoever you are, God deserves your response. Will you accept

his offer of hope or will you praise and proclaim

him because you are secure in hope. Let's pray together, Father, God,

your word is good because it gives us hope. You

lead us to understand Father and your word. This morning

that in the death of Jesus, death which is normally sad,

in heartbreaking, Father, but because it was your gift through

your son Jesus Is death brings us hope and brings

us life. And so Father, this morning, I pray that

you would lead us, all of those in this room

and listening for this morning, Father, would lead us to

a place of repentance, turning from our sin and turning

to obey you more fully, to give our lives to you,

to give every breath that we have in this world,

to honor you and to praise you, and to boast

in Jesus. We thank you for that gift that you

have given us good news in Jesus, thank you for

the hope we have. In Jesus name, we pray Amen

to