Christ Died for All

Welcome and Series Update

Today we're continuing in our sermon series. We've been preaching through the book of Romans. So, I do invite anybody that's got your Bibles to go ahead and open up there to the book of Romans. We'll also have the words of the passage on our screens today. But last Sunday, we were in the first five verses of Romans chapter 5 and the title of our message was blessings through salvation. We are blessed when we're saved. Amen. There's so many blessings when we made the decision to surrender our life to Jesus.

You know, one thing we were reminded of last Sunday was when we're saved, we have peace with God. There's no peace we're going to get like the peace we get when we're a child of God when we trust in Jesus. Also, when we're saved, we can have joy no matter our circumstances, no matter our situation. We also saw there that when we're saved, God helps us through the trials of our lives. Aren't you thankful to have God in the midst of those trials? And we were reminded that when we're saved, we have hope. A living hope, right, Brother Danny? We have hope when we're saved, when we're a child of God.

But God is so good. Amen. God is so good. And I tell you what, God has been working at our church. Three Sundays ago, Brother Charles rededicated his life to the Lord. Praise God for that. A couple of Sundays ago, John walked forward and he prayed to trust in Jesus. And I'll never forget the invitation was still going. He's like, "You could come on. It's easy. Of course, we're going to Jesus." But he said, "I should have done it 30 years ago." And I said, "You've done it now." Amen. And then last Sunday, brother Tyrone, Amen. I started the invitation like the first word and Tyrone was charging the aisle and he said, "I'm ready to pray the sinner's prayer. I'm ready to pray to trust in Jesus." And what a blessing it is to have Tyrone and Carol here after getting chemo just recently. Y'all, please continue to pray for Tyrone. They talked to me this week and Tyrone's ready to get baptized. Amen. Amen.

So, Lord willing, March 22nd, we're going to have a believer's baptism for Brother Tyrone. Praise God. Praise God you're here, brother. Yeah. And John, he's not certain yet, but he thinks he has family that can come in on Easter. So, we might be having an Easter baptism as well. So, listen, if you're here and God's been working on you about salvation, make sure you trust in Jesus. And also, if you have questions about baptism, let us know. We'd love to talk to you about that and it would be a blessing if you need to get baptized as well to come forward with believers baptism.

But God is so good. Yesterday we had a group of us go out and knock on doors around the neighborhood. Raquel, one of our youth came. Jerry and Terry, they're out of town today, but they were out here. Reva was out there. I'm forgetting a couple others, but there were several of us out there. And it was a blessing sometimes. Miss Terry, thank you Beth. As Terry was out there. There were it really is a blessing to stretch ourselves, right? And to even be willing to get a little uncomfortable at times. We had so many times we shared the gospel yesterday. So many seeds were planted. We had so many times we prayed with people that opened their doors and we got to pray with them.

And I was thinking about it when God put it on my heart to try to go to every home around here. It's been a slow process, but I was thinking about it. Tyrone and Carol, they first got invited here when someone knocked on their door, right? Raquel, who's over there, her whole family, like six, seven, eight of them, they've all been baptized now and they it started with a knock on the door. Sometimes a person will say that's old-fashioned. Hey, any way we can talk to people about Jesus, it's worth it. But there's several people now, and they're not all here today, but that are a part of our church. And it started with just knocking on the door.

And I had this thought. We had three groups yesterday. Can you imagine if say 20 of us were out there and we had 10 groups of two. How many people we're going to reach with Jesus? But I'm just so excited all that God's doing today. We're going to pick up where we left off. We're there in Romans 5 again and we're going to go to the very next verse, verse 6 of Romans 5.

Scripture Reading: Romans 5:6-11

I do invite anybody that would like and is able to stand with me in honor of the reading of the word of God.

Romans chapter 5 beginning in verse 6, the word of God says, "For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 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. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."

Father God, thank you for your word. And God, right now as we continue to worship you and as we continue to ponder and speak to and preach the word of God, God, I pray you would penetrate our hearts. God, I pray that those here today that are born again, that are saved, that the word would work inside of us, that you'd use it to mold us, to shape us, God, more and more into your image. That you'd use it to get us fired up to tell this community and this world about Jesus, that you'd use it to minister how needed, God, that you'd just work. And God, I also of course pray as we read this passage, which so many passages in Romans speak about the gospel and how we can be saved. I pray if you've got anybody listening today in need of salvation, in need of being forgiven of sins and justified and made right in God's eyes, I pray today would be the day that they call on you, Jesus, as Lord and Savior. And I hope they'd make it public so we can celebrate it. God, we love you. We thank you for this time. It's in Jesus name we pray. All God's people said. Amen.

Christ Died for the Ungodly

You know, Crystal and I were looking at this passage earlier in the week and she said something to the fact of Christ died for all. That's the title of our message today. Christ died for all. Jesus Christ died for all of us. It says there in verse six, "For when we were still without strength, we were sinners in need of a savior. We were spiritually dead. We were unable to help ourselves when we were still without strength in due time, at the appointed time." Yes. In God's timing, Christ died for the ungodly.

Who is the ungodly? Amen. I'm the ungodly. You're the ungodly. We're all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. We know that because we know it. And we know that because of the authority of the word of God. Christ died for the ungodly. In other words, Christ died for us all.

You know, when I think about that and I think about that Jesus died for us, I think about that the fact that giving up your life for somebody is the ultimate price to pay. You know, we've got a lot in our military. A lot of people that have fought and died for our country and died. We've got to pray for our military right now. Amen. Pray for our world right now. Now, when we see everything going in our world, we're reminded what Jesus said. There will be wars and rumors of wars. And we remember the different sides. All these are the beginning of birth pains. We're going to see it more and more frequent and more and more intense. And at some point, the Lord's going to take up his church. Amen. Amen. Doesn't need to worry us. This is what it's off. It's war is never something we want to see, but it's part of what Jesus said we would see. We will see wars and rumors of wars.

But you know when I think about the Lord giving up his life really I just thought about giving up your life for somebody is the ultimate price. Verse seven the next verse it says for scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. There aren't too many people that would die for somebody else. In other words, it says, "Rarely would someone even die for a righteous person. Scarcely would someone even die for a good person." Why? Because giving up your life is the ultimate price. You're giving up your life. Rarely would you see someone die for a very good person, even a very righteous person. If you did, more times than not, it would be someone that they loved and they cared about so much. But you'd rarely see it. But what Paul is saying here under the inspiration of God that Jesus died for all of us and we weren't even righteous and we weren't even good. We were like filthy rags. Yet Christ died for all.

You can't even find somebody barely to die for somebody that is good, that is righteous. But Jesus died for me and Jesus died for you even when we weren't righteous. Even when we weren't good, you know. And you know what I think about when I think about that? I think about God loves us so very much. Right? Did you know that? Do you believe that today? That God loves you so very much. I hope you know that. I hope you know that God loves you so very much.

You know, the other day I was asked if I could go back and parade at a big fundraising event for the scouting program here. And if y'all are basketball fans and ever watched Duke back when I was a kid, you probably know of Christian Laettner. He was the speaker, man. He's tall. Wow. But I remember and I worked for Scout for 10 years. I was going to be a CEO, but God called me and I ran for 40 years. And finally after accepting a CEO position and I shared this when I went to this event, that after accepting that CEO position, finally upon returning when Chris and I got back to Wilmington and the wheels touched the ground in Wilmington, I just looked at her and cried. And she knew why. Because I knew I couldn't keep running from God. I had ran for four years. And although that was my dream, I just looked at her and I said, "I can't." But I still didn't have the strength to trust God and to give it up. How will I take care of my kids? How will I take care of my family? Well, after a lot of praying that week, we were supposed to start in about 30 days.

On the 10th morning, I cried out. I said, "God, I promise if you give me a sign, there's ministry position. I will trust you and I will answer the call." I shared a little of that story. And then one thing I wanted to share with this group, even though people were coming there to support scouting, even though people were coming there to hear Christian Laettner, I wanted to tell them all, and I told them all, God loves you. God loves you so much that he sent his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to die for you. He sent his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to die for you so that you could be forgiven and saved when you believe in him. And I will say when I got down and I prayed and I prayed the gospel, the guy got back up there. He's like, "We've never heard anything like that at the scouting event." But listen, we need to share Jesus wherever we're at. Amen. And it's that reminder God loves us so very much.

And I love that verse that says in Romans 5:8, that's one probably some of us in here have written on our heart. It's a great Bible verse to memorize. God demonstrates his own love toward us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Amen. Can you think of somebody in your life that either does or has maybe they've gone unto the Lord. Maybe they're still here. You say, "That person loves me." You ever had somebody or do you have somebody like that that you know they love you? Yes. They love you. Isn't it such a blessing to have somebody like that in your life that loves you that much? Don't even compare to the love God has for us. God loves us so so very much.

You know, he loves us so much that even though we were sinners and even though we were in rebellion against him, he sent his son Jesus to die for us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. When I think about God's love to say to do that for me and I really stop and think about it, I'm amazed like I'm sinful. I've done so many things bad. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve that kind of love. I don't deserve that kind of grace. I don't deserve that kind of mercy. But man, God loves us that much that he gives it to us. God loves us so much that he sent his son Jesus down to heaven to this earth. And you remember Jesus in the garden. He knew what was coming. He said, "Father, if possible, let this cup pass, but nevertheless, not my will be done, your will be done." And he knew he had to go and he went.

I hope we all remember maybe we have times of we all have times of being discouraged. We all have times of feeling down. Remember that God loves you. You might have times that people let you down. Remember, God will not let you down. Remember, God loves you. And I tell you something we're reminded of in this passage is because of his love for us, we have a way to be reconciled to him. Watch what it says in verse 9. Much more then having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 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.

God loved us so much that he made a way. As flawed as we are, like Isaiah said, we're like filthy rags, he made a way that we could be justified. A way that someone as sinful as me or as you could be made in right standing with God. A way that we could be justified. And what's that way we were justified? It says by his blood. We think about the sacrifices of the Old Testament. Aren't you glad we don't have to slaughter all those animals all the time? I'm glad Jesus came for a once and for all sinless, perfect sacrifice. Jesus came as God in the flesh. Amen. Emmanuel, God with us. He was without sin. It says God sent forth him as a propitiation by his blood through faith. He gave the one and only sinless, perfect sacrifice to atone for all of our sins for us all.

He made a way that as sinful as we are, we could be reconciled to him. It says in Ephesians 2:1, "And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins." Do you remember coming alive when you met Jesus? He made you alive. God is so full of love, so full of grace, so full of mercy to save sinners like you and me. We have good news we need to tell people about. Amen. Amen. This is good news. I got a question though. Have you received that reconciliation? God did make a way. There's only one way. Hey, you start preaching that sometimes people get mad. Sometimes they'll even cuss you. Remember talking to my brother and he said I was in a cult because I said Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life. No one can come to the father except through me. Doesn't it make sense that God reserves the right to choose the way to heaven? He's God. God made one way to be born. Born in our mother's womb. He made one way to be reborn through faith in Jesus.

Have you received that gift? Because he made a way you can be in right standing and a way you can be reconciled to God. A way you can be forgiven of sins and I can be forgiven of sins. And he did it by sending Jesus. Have you been made right? And I tell you, if you're here and you've never given your life to Jesus, you've never been and think about we say saved. Watch what it says there. It says verse 9, "Much more then having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." You see, when we're justified, when we're saved, we're saved from the wrath of God. We're saved from eternity in hell, and we're promised eternity in heaven.

Have you made that decision to trust in Jesus? You know, church doesn't save. You know, you'll hear people say, "Well, I was an alter boy. I'm good." Or, "By the way, I grew up Catholic and I never heard about salvation." Praise God. People kept sharing the gospel, and I gave my life to Christ at age 27. But it's not church, it's not Baptist, it's not Presbyterian, it's not Methodist, it's not Catholic, that saves. It's Jesus that saves. It's a relationship. It's what Jesus did on the cross, dying for us. That's the only way to be saved. And have you said, "Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm in need of forgiveness of sins. I know only you can forgive me of my sins. And Jesus, I'm giving my life to you. I'm trusting. I'm saying I want to turn from sin and I'm trusting in you, Jesus Christ, as Lord and as Savior." Have you made that decision to trust in Jesus? I pray you have. If not, the good news is you can do it this very day.

John that day he came forward two Sundays ago and I said, "Does anybody else want to publicly come?" Not that you go straight to Jesus, but it's a blessing when you publicly come. You make it public and you say, "I'm choosing Jesus. I'm choosing to trust in Jesus." And I remember he said, "You can come to Jesus right now." It really is that easy. It's that easy. It's not complicated. We can sometimes over complicate the gospel. You got to believe. Amen. When you believe, you'll be saved.

Living in Response to God's Love

What about for us as believers? Because a lot of this and a lot of many of these passages, you know, you go to Romans 1, Romans 2, Romans 3, Paul in Romans 1, he's talking to the Gentiles and how they're sinners. And then he's talking to Jews in Romans 2 and 3. He's like, "You are too, Jews. You're sinners, too. You're not going to go to heaven by following the law." You know, he tells us all we're sinners. What about for those of us that are saved? A lot of Romans talks about the gospel. A lot of Romans definitely applies to someone that needs a relationship with Jesus. But you know what? This also applies to us as believers.

What do we take away from this passage today? If you're saved, if you are born again, well, I'll tell you one thing that I was reminded of as I read about God's love is when we think about God's love for us, it ought to encourage us to love others. It's pretty easy to love the people that are good to us, isn't it? It's pretty easy when someone loves you to love them back, right? That's real easy. What about when people don't love you? That's kind of hard for me. Is that hard for anybody else? Now, I've been reading through Okay, we've been reading through the Bible, those that wanted to. And we've been in this Bible study over a year now, and it is a lot on a Wednesday night to come talk about half the the Gospel of Luke. But the reason we're doing that on Wednesdays is hopefully that we're more accountable to read the word before Wednesday and talk about what God gave us as we read chapters 13 through 24 in Luke. But even if you don't read it this week, come out anyway. Get fed with the word of God. But when I've been reading the Gospels, you know something you see over and over is kingdom living doesn't look like this world.

Being truly saved and living for Jesus looks different. It kind of looks upside down the way that we're to live. Loving somebody who isn't nice to us kind of seems upside down, but that's kind of the way kingdom living is. And when we look at what Jesus did for us, what God did by sending Jesus, and what Jesus did, died on the cross for us while we were sinners. That's amazing love. And that's an example for us to follow if we're saved. It ought looking at God's love for us. God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. When we consider God's amazing love for us, I hope it encourages us to love others, even the ones that are hard to love.

And a final thing I'll say before we close is for us that are saved, for us that have made this decision to trust Jesus with all God has done to love us, we ought to love him and live for him. I read a quote, one of my pastor friends had shared this from Pastor Chip Ingram. Christianity isn't about trying to be a better person so that God will love you. It's grasping how much he already loves you and living from that love.

If you're saved today, I hope that a takeaway we take is with God's amazing love and grace and mercy for me to save someone as sinful as me. Hey, it wasn't long back. I mean, I used to be closing that bar down a few miles down the road every night before I got saved. Just living totally for myself, totally for just the world. I used to be living in sin, but God still died for me. Amen. And if God saved me, and those sins are wiped away as far as the east is from the west, I ought to live for him. See, that's part of the thing. When we make this decision to trust in Jesus, we shouldn't be thinking, I'm good. I'm going to heaven. I got a license to sin. No, we should be living for Jesus. But when we've surrendered our life to Jesus, none of us do it perfect, but we we're changed. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away. All things have become new. And none of the good living and godly living we do will get us to heaven. But because he saved us through his blood, we ought to want to live for him, you know? We ought to want to live for the Lord and not the world.

And if you're here today and you've made that decision to trust in Jesus and you know you're not living in fellowship with God, I pray you'll rededicate today cuz you are not meant to live in sin. The most miserable person I believe with all my heart isn't the unbeliever living in sin. I believe it's the believer that's got sin and habitual sin in their life because you know better. If we've been saved, we ought to live for Jesus. And as a church, we want to help each other with that. Live in a way that's pleasing to God. Not living in the old man, but living for the Lord. Living for the Lord by being active in the church. Living for the Lord by gathering to worship. It says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together." But living for the Lord by serving the Lord, living by giving to the Lord. Sometimes we say, "How can I give 10%? How can I give a tithe?" Well, we can when we give it first. And if we can't trust God with our finances, how can we really trust him with salvation? If we don't believe that he'll make a way for us, how can we believe that when we die, we're going to heaven? How can we believe he's going to rapture us up? Don't you think God's got control of that? By the way, you can't out give God. And when you give, it's going to bless you. And when we give, it's showing we trust God.

But living for the Lord by living for the Lord, living a godly life, and absolutely knowing that all God's done for us to save us, we ought to be living for the Lord by being a bold witness for Jesus. We got to wake up. So many across our nation are sleeping and in a slumber. We got to be on fire for Jesus. We when we believe when we've believed in Jesus and we know he saved us and we know we're going to heaven. Okay, we're going to heaven. Amen. We're going to go to heaven. Isn't that exciting? When we know that, shouldn't we want to bring others with us? Not that we can save a person, but our role is to proclaim. We got to shake ourselves and wake up and when God brings us to people today, tomorrow, throughout the week, we need to tell them the good news, right? We need to tell them that they can be saved, too. Hey, again, one way to go out witness as a church is when we knock on doors. That's one way. It really was cool to see a young person out there that's only 18. She's out there on her Saturday tell. And man, I remember when she walked up in the middle of the house and said, "You go ahead, Raquel." Man, she's just praying in the spirit, man. Just bold. But we got to wake up. God can use you to save somebody. Not you saved them, but you proclaimed the gospel and God saved. God can use you. How many people have you shared the gospel with? We're in March. How many people have you shared the gospel with this first quarter of the year? I love the story I heard from Danny. Amen. This morning talking about someone coming over to his home and he's like he didn't give his life to the Lord but when he heard the gospel and he was in tears and so you can come back. Look for those opportunities. God's going to give you opportunities.

So more than anything when we think about God's love for us I hope we're encouraged to live for him and be bold witnesses for him. God loves us so much. I hope we're encouraged to love and to live for him because Christ died for us all.

Closing Prayer and Invitation

God, we love you. Thank you for how much you love us. I pray you help me and help us to love you more and more. And God, I pray you help me and us as believers, to go out from this place today to live more and more for you, to be bold witnesses for you, and to be all about your mission of making disciples. We love you. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

I just want to take a moment to just have a chance for a moment of invitation, a moment to respond. If you've got something that you just need to lay down at the altar, I invite you to respond. I don't know the ways that God's working in each heart here, but I know that as God's working, it's always best to respond. And maybe today you just maybe there's someone that you haven't been loving that's in this place. You just want to go up and love on and say, "I love them. I want our friendship to be restored." You know, maybe today you got some burden that you just need to lay down. You're overwhelmed with something. Maybe you need to lay something at the altar and just come and kneel and pray. And maybe others will come and pray around. I don't know.

Right now, I just want to give a chance, however God is working, for you to respond as God leads you. And if you need to come and lay something down, you get up now. You don't need to wait. Come on. There's something you need to put down. If you need to get up and pray with somebody, go and pray with them. Let the Holy Spirit be free in the Holy Spirit. Go respond. And today, if you're here and you've never fully given your life to Jesus, I pray you do it today.

Is God dealing with you today about salvation? Maybe you've been in church a long time, but you know you're not saved. You can give your life to Jesus today, this very day. Take a moment just everybody pray right now where you're at. Just close your eyes and just pray. If you need to come to the altar, come. Just want to ask, is God here dealing with you about fully surrendering your life to Jesus today? If that's you, I just want to invite you. Hold up your hand. You might have grown up in church all your life. Hold up your hand. I won't call on you. I will pray. Maybe God's dealing with you about rededicating, coming back to Jesus, whatever it is right now, just keep praying. And if God's got a decision on your heart, I just want to encourage you, respond to Jesus. Respond to the Lord. That might be a calling. That might be to get baptized. That might be to do homeless ministry. I don't know.

If God is dealing with you about something, respond today. I'm here if I can pray for you about anything just right now as we continue to pray. If there's a decision that you want to share, maybe you know you've known about the Lord, but you've never surrendered and you want to fully surrender today, I want to encourage you to do that. I want to encourage you to come forward to make it public. You go to Jesus, but I want to encourage you to come publicly so we can celebrate it. Maybe it's you want to rededicate. Maybe you're a believer and there's something else. Whatever it is, right now, I invite you to respond as God leads you. If you want to come and pray around this altar, you come. Whatever God's leading to, you come.