The theme for this week is thirsting for love.
The selected passages are … Psalm 95 • Exodus 17:1-7 • Romans 5:1-11 • John 4:5-42.
The Old Testament selection from Exodus recounts this story of Israel complaining about thirst, which is met by God’s gracious act to provide water through a rock Moses was instructed to strike.
Exodus 17:1-7
Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, “Give us water, that we may drink.”
So Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord?”
3 And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, “Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!”
5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.”
And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 So he called the name of the place Massah (tempted) and Meribah (contention), because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted (tested) the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
The call to worship Psalm presents a liturgy of praise celebrating God’s provision of water in the wilderness to his people, while also using their example of complaining as an admonishment against hardened hearts.
Psalm 95:1-11
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
3 For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods.
4 In His hand (in His possession) are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
7 For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand (under His care). Today, if you will hear His voice:
8 “Do not harden your hearts, as in the [c]rebellion (contention), as in the day of trial (testing) in the wilderness, 9 When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work.
10 For forty years I was grieved (disgusted) with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
In the Gospel reading from John, we witness Jesus offering living water to a Samaritan woman.
John 4:5-42
So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
27 And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”
28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 29 “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 Then they went out of the city and came to Him.
31 In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! 36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His own word.
42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed [a]the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
The epistolary text in Romans provides a contrast to Israel’s complaining hard hearts, using Paul’s picture of endurance that flows from God’s love poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
(To be looked at later)
SPEAKING OF LIFE
- Title: Busy Work
- Presenter: Pastor Greg Williams, GCI President
- Featured Passage:
Transition Song
- BE IT UNTO ME … Don Moen et al …
SERMON REVIEW
Repentant Response of Faith, Hope, and Love
Romans 5:1-11 (ESV)
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 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. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 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.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 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. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Today’s text begins with the word “therefore.” Paul often uses this word to look back on something he had just established in his writing, as the foundation for the implications he is about to present. This is a good word to begin with for the season of Lent, or as GCI calls it, “Easter Preparation.” During this season we are encouraged to take time and look back on who God has revealed himself to be in Christ Jesus, and what he has done for us. This is the ground for our repenting and turning again to the Lord. As we are reminded of God’s faithfulness and love toward us revealed in Jesus Christ, we can turn from unfitting responses born out of fear and guilt, to responses filled with faith, hope, and love in all that we do. We will see in Paul’s words following his “therefore” that all three – faith, hope, and love – will make up the fitting response of those who have come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, turning to him again in preparation of receiving his life more fully by the Holy Spirit.
Let’s pickup with Paul’s transitional word, “therefore.”
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1 ESV)
With the word “therefore,” Paul begins a new section in Romans by drawing a conclusion from his argument that he has been making through the first four chapters. He will go on to tell us of three things that “we have” on account of Jesus Christ. It is important to note that the three things are not presented as three things we must achieve or acquire on our own merit. Rather, they are three statements of reality that believers already have.
The first thing we already have is justification. As Paul says, “we have been justified by faith…” It may be hard to grasp the reality Paul states here with the words “we have been.” This means that we have already been made righteous. How can this be since we so often fall again into sin? During this Easter Preparation season we become painfully aware of our great need as sinners to be made righteous. Our experience indicates that we are not yet righteous and our justification, or being made right, still lies in the future. We are easily convinced that righteousness is a goal to pursue rather than a present reality to receive. But Paul leaves no room for a potential justification, only a justification that is already accomplished and real. Paul does add the qualifier that this justification comes to us “by faith.” That’s important in Paul’s statement.
Paul is not saying that our faith is what justifies us or saves us. Rather, faith is trusting in Jesus for our salvation. It is only in him that we have justification. The righteousness we have is the very righteousness of Christ that he gives to us through the work of the Spirit. In this way faith is a means of receiving, not a means of achieving. We don’t work up our own faith in order to accomplish something towards our own justification. Rather, in trusting Jesus, we receive what he has already accomplished on our behalf. And even this faith is a gift that comes to us as we come to know who God is in Jesus Christ. There is nothing we do that makes ourselves righteous.
So, in verse one Paul has already brought in the fitting response of faith upon knowing who God is as the one who has made provision for our justification. During this season we are reminded and encouraged to once again live in the faith of Jesus Christ who is ever faithful to us. We are reminded and encouraged to turn once again from other competing objects of our faith. We do not put our trust in any other person, thing, or ideology to justify us. It is only in Christ, who is faithful to give us his righteousness, that we can place our whole trust and allegiance.
From here Paul tells us the second thing we have as a result of this justification given to us: peace with God. Again, Paul states boldly that we already “have peace with God,” not that we must pursue or attain peace with God. That would be a pagan concept. But this God of grace revealed in Jesus Christ literally takes our sin and guilt, along with its ultimate consequence of death and alienation from God, and overcomes it in order to bring us into a right relationship with himself. This is all done “through our Lord Jesus Christ,” which indicates Jesus as our High Priest. He is the one who mediates our peace with God by cleansing us of our sins and clothing us with his righteousness. Again, this is a reality to receive by faith, not works. We do not have to work ourselves into the Father’s good favor.
How might this change how we go about our day? We are not called to cower in fear of a god who is angry at us, seeking to catch us in some sin in order to blast us on the spot. We have peace with the Father. His thoughts towards us are only for our good, not our destruction. Peace, biblically understood, is an active peace. It seeks the good of those who live in this relationship of peace. It is not merely a cease fire or cessation of conflict. It is a dynamic, intentional, and active relationship aimed at the good of the other.
This will mean that the Father will not turn a blind eye to our sins and shortcomings. On the contrary! That would not be a loving Father who has our best interest in mind. That would be a god who is disinterested in us, who doesn’t care about us at best, or who aims for our destruction at worse. No, the Father is intimately concerned with our life choices as they reflect an orientation of either trusting in him for the life he gives, or an orientation that rejects what he gives in favor of providing our own life, which he knows will never amount to a life of peace. And that is why the season of Lent, or “Easter Preparation” stands among all the other liturgical celebrations. Repenting and returning to receive from the Father is part of the life of faith into which we are called. He is calling us further into his relationship with us in Jesus by the Spirit. He is not a God of neglect.
Let’s move to verse 2 to see the third thing Paul says we “have” by faith:
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. (Romans 5:2 ESV)
Paul wants us to see that not only does Jesus bring us into a life of peace with the Father, but he also brings the Father’s life of grace to us. Again, this is a life that Paul states we already have. Further, he says “we have also obtained” grace in such a fashion, that it can be said that we take our “stand” on it. Our standing with the Father is secured by his grace. Like God’s peace, his grace is also active toward our good. God’s grace is not some exception or pass, but rather a committed and determined will to bring us fully into the righteous life he has for us. That’s why Paul can go on to say, “and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” God’s glory is our destination, and we can rejoice in hope because God’s grace is determined to bring us there.
Here Paul has introduced the second fitting response to knowing who God is as revealed in Jesus Christ—hope. And this is not the type of hope we refer to as a child may “hope” to get dessert after dinner. He may or he may not, but hope has nothing to do with it. The hope we have in Christ is a sure hope, a guaranteed reality that we know is here now, and is coming more fully in the future. Living in this kind of hope grounds all our thoughts and actions on the sure foundation of who God is and what he has done to bring us into “the glory of God.” That’s where we are going, and we have absolute assurance he will get us there.
Paul has more to say about rejoicing in hope:
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. (Romans 5:3-4 ESV)
Paul does not divorce the glory of God from the glory revealed on the cross. Because of what Christ has done on the cross, even our sufferings now serve the good purposes of bringing us into the life of glory the Father intends for us. I think it is safe to say that virtually everyone hates to see or experience senseless suffering. For Christians, we know that all our suffering, no matter how small or large, is assumed in Christ’s sufferings. In fact, what we see on the cross is Jesus entering into our very sufferings. He has made them his own. Because of this, we are assured that our sufferings are not senseless. They now serve God’s purposes to bring us further into his glory. Our sufferings are never a waste or a senseless occurrence in our lives. God has employed them into his work of bringing us to share in his own glory.
As Paul puts it, our sufferings now “produce” something. They add up to “endurance” which comes from the nearly untranslatable Greek term hypomone. This word means a patient waiting upon the Lord in the confidence that comes by Jesus’ faithfulness to us, even though our circumstances scream otherwise. Through this dynamic, our sufferings produce character, which in turn adds up to more hope. In this way, hope becomes the disposition and orientation of the believer regardless of what they are experiencing in this life. They become more and more like Christ, entering more fully the glory God has for us in his Son.
Paul is not done talking about 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. (Romans 5:5 ESV)
This hope is a resurrection hope that “does not put us to shame.” We will not be shamed or embarrassed or disappointed for putting our hope in Jesus, just as he was vindicated through his resurrection. Suffering will end in glory. And Paul gives us assurance of this by telling us another reality that has already happened. Namely, that the Holy Spirit has already come to us and poured God’s love into our hearts.
As we grow in receiving the Father’s love, we are given a sign and seal by the Holy Spirit that what he is presently giving us is what we will eternally be receiving in the future. And here we see the final fitting response to knowing who God is—love. As we come to know more and more who God is for us, we will be receiving his love more and more, enabling us to love others with the same love we receive.
During this season we can repent and turn away from all our distorted and ineffectual attempts of love that do not flow from God’s love poured out into our hearts. We do not need to manufacture or signal our own love to the world. The Father’s love is not kept at a distance for us to try and emulate. It is given to us through the Holy Spirit to participate in with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Now Paul is going to turn our attention to the cross for a fuller revelation of God’s love.
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. (Romans 5:6-8 ESV)
In these verses Paul has shown the extreme radical nature of God’s love. This is not a love that comes to the deserving or lovable. Rather it has come and continues to come to the weak and ungodly sinners. These verses confront us with two realities we must deal with during this season of repentance. First, we are not deserving of God’s love. Our pride may resist the stark reality of our sinfulness that Paul captures with the words “weak,” “ungodly,” and “sinners.” Not only are we ungodly sinners, but we are too weak to do anything about it. There is no room to justify ourselves or better our situation. To turn to the Lord, one must realize there is something to turn from. There is no life gained by holding onto our miserable state. But Paul knows that just being confronted with this dismal reality of the human condition does not move us one inch forward in repentance.
From the description given, we must conclude that even our attempts of repentance would be sinful as well. Paul mingles our sinfulness with the proclamation of God’s love demonstrated in the very thick of it. Only by seeing who Jesus is as the very coming of God’s love to us, even in our sinfulness, can we begin to turn to him. Perhaps Paul knew this best as his history of persecuting the church came to a halt once he was encountered by the resurrected Lord. Paul knows that we do not turn to the Lord until we first see that he has turned to us.
It is God’s love that comes to the unlovable that initiates the first steps toward him. Paul is trying to show how completely paradoxical God’s love toward us is. There is no human justification for his divine justification. We are given in Christ a revelation of God who is love all the way down. He loves us because that is who he is. Our unlovable and ungodly stance against him does not turn his love away. Our position simply prevents us from seeing it and receiving it. But in Jesus we are now shown the love of God.
It may be important to mention here what Paul is not saying. He is not saying God loves us as sinners. God does not love our sin. His love moves to remove our sins and not leave us in our weak, godless, and sinful state. His love aims to perfect us and bring us into his glory. The Bible is not antiquated in proclaiming God’s love when it warns against the many sins that our world pridefully celebrates and promotes. On the contrary, our loving Father knows we are not created for sin. It is not the fitting response humans were created for. We are created to respond with the same love he loves us with. And this love does not include a life orientation that worships itself over its Lord.
Paul will now return to his opening statement of being justified, but with a difference. He has “much more” to say on account of our justification.
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:9 ESV)
Paul began by saying “we have been justified by faith.” Paul now states that “we have now been justified by his blood.” He is moving from how we receive our justification, to giving us the assurance that our justification is a secured reality because of what Jesus has done for us through his death. The crucified Christ is the bedrock reality that we have justification. It is on that solid ground that we can acknowledge, receive, and participate by faith, in the justification secured for us by Christ. Paul wants to ground our justification on an objective reality. In other words, our justification is real and sure, and we do not have to live in fear or doubt about it.
Paul springs from this objective statement to give us assurance that we can be confident that God will not leave us in our sins. Paul says there is “much more” to come on the basis of the justification we now have. Namely, the complete deliverance from our sins, or as Paul states it, we will be “saved by him from the wrath of God.”
For Paul, divine wrath is understood to be the opposition God has toward sin. This wrath is manifested in God’s final judgment. So, we can rightly say that Jesus took God’s wrath against sin on the cross as he assumed all our sin. This doesn’t mean that Jesus took some arbitrary punishment from his Father that was intended for us. Rather, Jesus took on the punishment that sin delivers, the penalty of death, by dying on a cross. The Father was not going to let sin have the final word over us. He sent his own Son, the Word of God, to speak the final word, “It is finished.” Therefore, Paul can conclude that we are saved from God’s wrath on account that Jesus has already exercised God’s wrath over sin on the cross.
Paul is still not done, he still has “much more” to say:
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. (Romans 5:10 ESV)
Paul now speaks of our reconciliation as connected to our justification. And he once again grounds this in the reality of what Jesus has done for us. Clearly, we do not reconcile ourselves to the Father, as this was accomplished “while we were enemies.” God has reconciled us to himself through Jesus’ death, not on account of anything we have done. But Paul wants to move from the death of Christ to his resurrection. So, he gives us another “much more” statement.
On the present reality of our reconciliation accomplished by Jesus’ death, we are assured that we will live out this reconciliation on account of Jesus’ resurrection. In other words, when Paul says that we are “saved by his life” we are being assured that we are now participants in that life. That is what salvation amounts to. What would be the point of being reconciled to someone if you never engage in the relationship? That would be an empty reconciliation. The Father didn’t only save us from something – sin and death – but he saved us for something – righteousness and life. And that life is now available to us in the risen Lord, who ever lives to share with us his life with the Father.
Paul has one final thing to say.
More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:11 ESV)
Have you noticed that Paul keeps using the word “more.” Even with two previous “much more” statements he wants to say even “more than that.” And we will be glad that he did. Paul wants us to know that our justification and reconciliation, the righteous life of knowing the Father through the Son and by the Spirit, given to us all by grace, is a life of great joy. We are brought into the righteous life of God to rejoice. We are assured that the life we are given in Jesus is not going to be a disappointment.
As we come to know the Father as Jesus knows the Father, we will come to share in Jesus’ joy of knowing the Father. In other words, we have much more to look forward to. Even now in the present, as we come to know the Father more in Jesus, we grow in faith, hope, and love. We come to see more and more the goodness of God, and how richly blessed we are to belong to him. But, in the end, we will come to see that on this side of heaven, we have only scratched the surface of the depth of all that God has in store for us. We will not be disappointed that we have turned to him in faith, hope, and love.
GOING DEEPER
Romans 5:1-11
Therefore, having been justified by faith, [a]we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces [b]perseverance; 4 and perseverance, [c]character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 For when we were still without strength, [d]in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Romans 4 revisited
What then shall we say that Abraham our father (forefather) has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted (counted … imputed, credited, reckoned) to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. 5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,
Romans 5:1-11
Therefore, having been justified by faith, [a]we have (let us have) peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces [b]perseverance (endurance); 4 and perseverance, [c]character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 For when we were still without strength, [d]in due time (at the right time) Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.