The Ravished Heart of God
Romans 5:3-11
God’s heart is ravished toward you!
He has given His most precious thing, His Son, because He is ravished in His love for you!
Romans 5:1-2
And thus, when you accepted His love you were justified. Because of our justification in Christ, because Christ has imparted into us His righteousness:
- We have peace with God
- The hostilities have ceased! We are no longer in enmity with Creator God.
- You have a Father in heaven that has adopted you and He holds the adoption papers on you.
- We have access to God
- We can boldly and confidently approach Him in prayer and communion.
- We can be as close to God as we desire!
- Thus, when you have God’s peace in your heart, and when you seek His face in prayer and communion, you find yourself rejoicing in hope a whole lot more!
- Do you rejoice in God often? Do you rejoice in His goodness and faithfulness to you?
- We will need that peace and access as we approach the next few verses of Romans 5.
Vs. 3
- It is a lot easier to rejoice in hope of the glory of God than to rejoice when afflictions come.
- Yet, this is real spiritual growth.
- This is the greatest sign of maturity, learning to practice patience during tribulations.
- Tribulation has been taken from the Latin, it comes from the word tribulum, a threshing sledge which separated grain from chaff. A tribulum consisted of a wooden platform studded underneath with sharp flints or iron teeth. As this instrument passed over the grain, the wheat was separated from the straw.
- Tribulation literally means “to press, to oppress, to afflict.”
- Tribulation means pressure!
- Everyone has troubles: believer, non-believer, wealthy, poor, prideful and humble. Everyone!
- One of Job’s comforters said it well: “man is born to trouble.”
- It is our heritage as humans.
- And, let’s be honest, no one likes this kind of pressure.
- But how you handle troubles will determine your blessing in this life.
- The crux of the Christian life is how we handle tribulations. This is what sets us apart.
- As a believer in Christ you have been given an endless supply of grace from God!
Ephesians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
- Look back to Romans 5, verse 2: “access by faith into this grace in which we stand.”
- The Lord is saying “don’t cave in.”
Isaiah 57:15
For thus says the High and Lofty One
Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
"I dwell in the high and holy place,
With him who has a contrite and humble spirit,
To revive the spirit of the humble,
And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
- God wants to revive our spirits with His grace during times of tribulation.
- There are two kinds of grace:
1. Salvation grace in which God’s grace woos us to Himself, and we give our hearts to him for salvation.
2. Sanctification grace in which we call out to God for His power in times of need.
We might define sanctification grace as God’s present power in times of need.
- Ex. It is in such times that God wants us to call out to Him. Difficulties cause us to seek God and cry out to Him.
- In all the references in the Bible for “crying out” there is no instance where God doesn’t answer.
- But you will have to pray and wait, pray and wait!
- God is developing endurance in you as you cry out to Him!
Vs. 4
- We have no say over our gifting, talents, height, who our parents are, the color of our skin, or our IQ.
- But we do have power over our EQ - our emotional quotient and CQ - our character quotient.
- I propose that we only grow in our EQ and CQ as we pass the tests God brings our way.
- God’s tests are tribulations that we must endure.
- The purpose of suffering is for the development of Christ-like character.
- Character is developed when our human natural resources run dry.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
- God is sculpting you into His image.
- Ex. In his autobiography, the great artist, Benvenuto Cellini, tells how he felt as he stood before a block of marble that had been brought to Florence, Italy, to form his greatest statue. Cellini could see a beautiful statue in that block of marble. It took patience and years to release from that stone the vision of beauty which he could see in that rough piece of marble. The beautiful statue still stands in his native city.
- In the same way, our heavenly Father is at work in your life. He is chipping away at your rough hewn block of sinfulness and he sees a thing of beauty in you.
- Ex. Some of us are learning to talk more, but some of us are learning to keep our mouths closed more. Some of us are gossips and God is busting you; some of us are learning to have more compassion; some of us are learning to listen more. God is chiseling away at different things in all our lives.
- Remember: this is our hope, that the Lord is chiseling away at our flesh and our selfishness in order to bring forth his Son. He sees His Son in you!
Vs. 5
- How does tribulation produce hope? It is the hope of the work of God in our lives, a work in which God gets glory from your life.
Philippians 1:6
…being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
- This is our hope! God will complete the marble statue that looks like His Son.
- Our hope is a certainty! The hopes of this world are just worldly hope and not knowing if we will get there!
1 Peter 1:4
…to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
- The Holy Spirit is not the power of God; it is God, Himself!
- The Holy Spirit is God, Himself, living in your spirit, and He has poured His love into your spirit man.
- The Holy Spirit was given when you placed your faith in Christ.
Romans 10:11
For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."
- If you trust God, you will not be disappointed! Because God’s love is being poured into your heart.
- There was an impartation of righteousness when we believed, but there was also an impartation of God’s love, God’s heart. God’s ravished love for us has been poured into us!
- Ex. In the Old Testament when a leper went through the cleansing ceremony, the Priest would first take the blood of the trespass offering and place it upon the tip of the leper’s right ear, upon the thumb of his right hand and the large toe on his right foot. The Priest would then take the anointing oil and place the oil on the blood spots on the right ear, thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot. The oil was a symbol of the Holy Spirit and the blood a symbol of atonement in Christ.
- The complete act shows that the oil had to follow the blood. Until you are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, you can’t be anointed with the Spirit and His love.
- You are now in Christ and the Holy Spirit lives within you, and Christ has poured out His love into your heart.
- This is an amazing love that we now have; God’s powerful agape love lives within us.
- He now continues by describing the love that He has for you and me.
Vs. 6-9
- We can’t just earn the right to receive the grace of God; we were ungodly, which means we were “ungod like.”
- We were in rebellion, powerless, and an enemy of God, some of us directly, others of us indirectly, and He loved us!
- Christ died for the ungodly sinners like you and me.
- This concept is so difficult for people to grasp, that God gave his life for you and that He didn’t die for good people but bad people. We were all bad compared to God.
- You certainly aren’t good enough to be a follower of Christ, but you are certainly bad enough! Jesus died for ungodly sinners!
- If Christ was willing to die for us as ungodly sinners, in rebellion to Him, how much more will He save us from the wrath to come?
- God really loves us! It is a love we just can’t understand; it is not of this world.
- In this world one might give his life for a good person and we call that one a hero, but God gave His life for those who actually were in rebellion to Him.
Vs. 10
- In verses 9 and 10 these “much mores” are so wonderful!
- While still an enemy of God you have been reconciled to God.
- Our heavenly Father has signed a peace treaty with the blood of His Son, and you are reconciled to God.
- Christ drank the Father’s cup of wrath for us! You can’t be good enough; he took the wrath for you.
- Our debt was paid in full by His blood.
- We are saved from God’s wrath.
Vs. 11
- Verse 11 is the climax of Paul’s description of God’s love manifested through His reconciliation.
- Ex. The Old Testament sacrifices of goats and bulls covered sin but didn’t put away sin. The Greek New Testament word for atonement, Katallage, literally means “making one,” and that is why the word “reconciliation” is used here.
- If you have believed in Christ, you have become “one” with Jesus Christ.
- Reconciliation! This is joy, joy, joy!
- You are now a friend of God! Is anything more valuable or more important in this whole world?
- Jesus became man that He might live a life of holiness, conquer sin with his life, and then die on a rugged Roman cross to show us the way to the Father.
- Godspeed said, “We glory in God!”
- Our boast is in God! We have nothing to boast about!
- Any holiness, any love, any grace that we see in ourselves is from Him, His power through the Holy Spirit living within us.
- Ex. Have you ever been around someone who is falling in love? We smile tolerantly as he or she talks constantly about the person of their admiration - her hair, their conversations, his eyes, etc.
- David had a ravished heart for God!
Psalms 86:8
Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;
Nor are there any works like Your works.
- This is why we worship the Lord! There is none like our Lord!
Are you falling in love with our Lord?
This sermon was produced at Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs, with Senior Pastor Steve Holt. www.mountainsprings.org
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