“What Wondrous Love!” – FBC Morning Light (6/20/23)

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading, we're reading 2 Kings 25, last chapter of that book of the Bible, Romans chapter 5, and the fourth stanza of Psalm 119, verses 25 to 32.

The Hope and Meaning Found in Romans 5

I want to focus on Romans chapter 5. This is a wonderfully precious passage of Scripture, especially focused on those first 11 verses. Have you read that yet? If you haven't, let me encourage you to get a hold of your Bible as soon as you can and do so.

Romans 5 in these first 11 verses. And you can't read that passage without coming to the end of it and just kind of shaking your head and echoing the words of that hymn, What wondrous love is this, O my soul?

What wondrous love is this? Because in this passage, we read that we were dead in trespasses and sins, we were enemies of God, says this in verse 5 that we were ungodly, in verse 8 says we were sinners, verse 10 says we were enemies, and yet, despite those descriptions of who we were, Christ died for us.

Christ died for the ungodly. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. What wondrous love is this? That Jesus, the Son of God, would die for ungodly sinners who were enemies of God.

Paul's Teaching on Justification, Reconciliation, and Hope

I want you to think about this even further. What Paul wrote in the first century AD, a few decades after Christ had died and risen and ascended into heaven, he wrote, and this is permanent inscripturated text.

What Paul is writing to the Romans in the first century is applicable to us, that we were sinners, we were ungodly, we were enemies, and yet Christ died for us. But get this, he did that before we were ever born.

God, in his sovereign grace and purposes, looking down through the corridors of time, saw you and me, you who are in Christ Jesus, saw us in Christ, saw us that we were dead in trespasses and sins, we were ungodly sinners who were his enemies, and nevertheless Christ died for us long before we were ever born.

What's wondrous about this passage is it goes on to talk about the implications of what Christ has done for us. In that he has died for us, we read in verse 1 that we are justified before God, that is, we're put in a right standing before him as if we had never sinned, we're justified before God, and then we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Being graciously justified by the blood of Christ, I have peace with God. The passage goes on to say even more, not only do I have peace with God, I'm no longer his enemy, we are friends. He is my Father, I am his child.

But it goes on to say that I actually get a measure of meaning in life that I could never have had otherwise. He says we have access into this grace in which we stand, and not only that, verse 3, we glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation works, produces perseverance, perseverance character, character hope.

These are responses to the situations of life that are based on the meaning that we have. We are God's people, we are saved by the blood of Christ, we have peace with God, we now have new life, we have meaning in this life that we have.

We have peace with God, we have meaning in life, we're justified before God, we're reconciled to God, and then the passage also says that we therefore have a glorious future, we have a glorious hope of a wonderful future, a future that escapes any wrath, the wrath of God.

Verse 9 says, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. We shall be saved. At the end of verse 10 it says the same thing, much more having been reconciled to God, we shall be saved by his life.

Not only that, verse 11, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have received the reconciliation. Don't you read this passage and just have to pause and shake your head a little bit and say, what wondrous love is this, that I, an ungodly sinner who is an enemy of God, should be the recipient of such grace that I am now justified, reconciled to him, given hope and meaning in this life, and given a glorious future.

Indeed, what wondrous love. And let's rejoice in that today, shall we? So our Father and our God, we are astounded by your love and the love of the Lord Jesus. We're grateful for all he has done for us in his death on the cross, and what that means to us.

We now can have peace with you, justified before you, reconciled unto you, and eternally present with you in this glorious hope that we have. Thank you. We rejoice in this today, in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, listen, have a wonderful Tuesday. May the Lord bless you in it.