How Does God Love?

Romans 5:8-10

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, how do you show love? Maybe a husband shows love to his wife by buying some flowers for her, by taking time away from what could be spent on a hobby of his to spend time with his bride. A mother shows love to her child by taking money that could be spent on her wants and her needs and instead spending it on and using it to take care of that child. She loves her child by being patient even though that child just continues to – over and over again – misbehave. Someone might show love to a friend by dropping everything to go and help that friend in need. They might even forgive their friend when they were sinned against. The different ways that we show love to those around us, but I wonder how do you show love to your enemies? Perhaps showing love to your enemies goes as far as smiling and walking away when they are going after you for something. Keeping your mouth shut and not escalating the situation any further. Maybe the love that we show our enemies isn’t really love after all. We’ll do something nice for them, say something nice to them, so that they can know just how much better I am than they are. That might be the extent of the love we show our enemies, and we certainly wouldn’t die for our enemies. Dying for our loved ones, maybe, but even that would be challenging, but certainly not an enemy. That’s Paul’s point in verse seven, the verse right before our text this morning. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, but for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. Maybe we would be brave enough to lay down our life for someone we love, but not for an enemy, no, not a chance. It’s how our human nature works when it comes to showing love right. There has to be some little bit of sense to it. It has to make sense in at least some way. Whether that way is simply because we have a relationship with that person. They’re our friend, they’re a family member, a loved one, and that’s why we show them love. Why we want to show them love. Maybe we show love to others because they have shown love to us in the past. Regardless, that’s how our human nature works. We show love when it makes sense, and that’s why God’s love makes absolutely no sense. I think there’s a temptation for us to overstate the relationship that we have with God before there was ever faith in our hearts. Our relationship with God by nature. Imagine the relationship God wants between a parent and a child. The parent loves the child and the child loves the parent, but every once in a while, like children do, they disobey, they misbehave. The parent maybe has to put their foot down and maybe even discipline that child. And the child learns from it. The child forgets about it eventually and and those that relationship continues on. The parent loves the child again, and the child loves that parent again. But this is just something that happens. That children misbehave. They break the rules. And I wonder if that isn’t what we sometimes are tempted to think about our relationship with God. That God, our Father, as we come into this world that we kind of are in a neutral place with Him, we know about Him. We maybe love Him and He loves us. And every once in a while, we make a mistake. Every once in a while, we sin, and so God – He straightens us up again, and we go on loving God. But that’s our natural relationship with God. We hear the words of our text. Hear the words throughout the rest of Scripture and how they describe our natural relationship with God. Verse 10 says that we are we were enemies with God. Our sinful flesh is described as hostile to God. Verse 6, before our text says that we were ungodly. Our sinful nature, though, the way we enter into this world, our relationship with God is one where we hate God by nature. And that all stems because of that first sin we heard about it in the Old Testament reading this morning, that in Adam’s sin all of us sinned. Sometimes we call that original sin, that we are born into this world guilty. And then not to mention the sins we commit every single day afterwards. Not at this nice, peaceful relationship with God to begin, but one of hostility. And so what should an all-powerful, perfect, just, and holy God do then about human beings who hate Him? Should He show mercy? Well, if we’re being honest, mercy would be that God would give us another chance. He would say, “Okay, you messed up before, but here’s your next chance. All you have to do is live that perfect life that I demand, not fall into sin, not even one time, and then you can get to heaven.” That would be merciful. No, really, what God should do, how God should react, is by punishing us as our sins deserve. God should show His own anger for us. God should show His own wrath toward us. God should show His own disappointment in us. Because why would an all-powerful, perfect, holy, just God want to spend eternity with people that are His enemies? It’s just. That would make sense. But what does this all-powerful God do instead? We hear it in verse 8 of our text this morning. God shows His own love for us in this. God shows love toward me. He doesn’t show the anger or wrath that I deserve. God shows His own love for us in this, while we were still sinners. So you’re telling me that He’s showing love to me even though I hadn’t done anything to work my way back to Him. I hadn’t even shaken off that ugly title of sinner. God shows His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For me? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would God ever do something like this? What have I done to earn it? What have I done to show that this was worth it to God? His love doesn’t make any sense. In fact, it almost sounds too good to be true. And I wish I could tell you or suggest to you that somehow, some way, God gets something out of loving us, but I can’t. Because simply put, it’s God’s love. Dear Christian, in Christ’s death for you, your sins were taken away. You were declared righteous in God’s sight. Despite your helplessness, despite our sinfulness, God loved us anyway, and He saved us. In verse 10, Paul writes that we were reconciled to God in Christ’s death. Understand what that word reconciled means. When Jesus died for us, imagine that we were, we were in this negative, this negative relationship with God, this relationship where we are hostile to God. What would make sense is that when Jesus died for us, we’d be taken back to that middle spot again, where now we can either do good things and get closer to God or do bad things and get farther away from Him. Of course, we know how that would end. Now, when Christ died for us, when He reconciled us to God, He put us in a relationship where now we are at peace with God, where God looks at us and He doesn’t see the ways that we’ve failed. He doesn’t see our sins and our shortcomings. Instead, all He sees is His Son, who lived that perfect life that we were meant to live. He saved us. He justified us. He took our sins away. What love. And as if that love wasn’t enough, this love that God shows for us now has lasting impacts on the rest of our lives. You have absolute certainty, undeniable assurance of your salvation. God made sure of that. Paul explains this in verses 9 and 10 of Romans chapter 5. He really is just simply using a logical argument here. “Therefore, since we have now been justified by His blood, it is even more certain that we will be saved from God’s wrath through Him,” and then he restates the point again. “For if while we were still sin, if for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, it is even more certain that since we have been reconciled, we will be saved by His life.” To put it in a rather crass way, Jesus already did the hard part. How certain and sure we can be that God’s going to finish the job and take us to heaven. Imagine that you’re at home and you’re cooking a meal for your family, for your friends. You find the perfect recipe. You take careful time to measure out the ingredients exactly as they need to be. You cook it to the exact point where it is ready to go. You set the table. Everything is ready. What should your family expect is going to happen next? That you’re going to take all of that food and dump it into the garbage can? That you’re going to let it sit on the stove and grow cold? No, they expect that they’re going to get to eat the meal afterwards. It’s a silly example, but do you see Paul’s point? Jesus already did the work. He did that by His perfect life as He took our sins upon Himself and died on the cross for us, and then He rose again to confirm it all. Jesus already did the work. We can be absolutely certain that God’s going to take us to heaven. He’s not going to throw us in the trash. He’s going to bring us into eternal glory with Him forever. What love that God shows, and He makes sure that you know it through His Word, convincing you by faith that this is meant for you, too. That this is God’s love for you. What amazing love. Cling to that truth, dear Christian. When you’re tempted to wonder, “Does God really love a sinner like me?” Take a look at His word where He tells you. Look back at your baptism where He made you His child. Look at the Lord’s Supper as He offers the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of faith through His body and blood. Look at all of those things and see how much God loves a sinner like you and like me. Not simple lip service where God says that He loves you, but one where He actually shows you that He does. He proves that it’s not too good to be true. How much your God loves you. We talked about it earlier, but that theme for this week from our Synod is Christ for us. What Christ has done for us. That though we were His enemies, He would sacrifice Himself, take on our punishment so that we might be saved. And God has blessed our church body for 175 years now, with that being the the central teaching of God’s word and that being the central the central teaching of our church. We live our lives in awe that God would give us the privilege to gather together as brothers and sisters in Christ to be reminded once again about how much God loves us. What a privilege that He has kept our church body focused on that most important truth that Christ has that Christ loves us. What a privilege it is every day of our lives to reflect on that. Reflect on the truth of how much your God loves you. Dear Christian, your sins are forgiven. You have been saved by God. Despite our sinfulness, despite our helplessness, God has saved us. He looked at us, and He loved us and He still does today. It’s God’s love that makes absolutely no sense at all, but it’s real. It’s God’s love for you as well. Amen.