Romans 5:1-21

Demonstration

I don’t know if there is a more powerful sentence in any language than the one contained in verse eight. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

You don’t have to be a pastor to have people make promises to you that they will not keep; however, pastors certainly get to hear more than their share of such promises. Sometimes it is hard to not become a bit cynical. Sometimes you just want to say, “Enough! Stop filling the air with empty words and no follow through.” God is not like that.

God has demonstrated His love for us; has He ever. Sometimes we say that we would take a bullet for someone and sometimes we actually mean it. I’m quite sure that I would “take a bullet for any of my kids or their spouses and for any of my grandkids. I’m also pretty sure I’d take a bullet for almost all of my friends. I might even take a bullet for a stranger. I admit that I would likely not take one for Moammar Gadhafi or for most radio political blowhards. It is almost inconceivable that I would take one for the guy who murdered all of those kids at the camp in Norway or the leaders of the polygamist sect who just got life in prison for “training” young girls for sex. Would you? Jesus did.

Ponder for a few seconds this statement: “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!”

Has anyone ever heard anything more beautify, more full of hope, than these words? They aren’t just words. God doesn’t do “just words.” He demonstrates.