Showering the People He Loves With Love Romans 5:1-11 

What are you sure of in life? Seriously, what are you totally and completely, without reservation, without 
hesitation sure of? Are you totally and completely sure, without any doubt that you will never develop a 
terminal illness? Are you sure without any reservation that you’ll have a good paying job in the future? How 
about just a job tomorrow? Are you sure without any hesitation or waffling that you won’t be like those other 
couples and have major struggles in your marriage possibly leading to separation or divorce? Some of you 
already know the painful answer having had that firm surety in your life betrayed. 

James reminds us that life is an unsure enterprise when he says, “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow 
we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even 
know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then 
vanishes”. Even this past Friday I was again made aware of the tentative and unsure nature of our lives as I read 
of the tragic accident in Kentucky which claimed 11 people. I suspect if those people were asked if they were 
sure the were going to be able to enjoy the wedding they were traveling to we would have heard a resounding 
yes. 

All around us, in the news and on the web, from our checkbook to our datebook, from the rising of the sun to 
the place where it sets, our days are filled with a looming uncertainty, with an overshadowing feeling of being 
unsure of what the future will bring. And I think, for many of us here this morning, this shows up must often 
with respect to our faith in Jesus Christ. We ask, “Am I really saved?”, “Is He really there?”, “Is all this talk 
about faith and trust and Jesus and discipleship and reliance on the Holy Spirit real , or is it just talk?” When 
life’s going wrong, when life’s not working out as we had dreamed or intended, when tragedy strikes, when loss 
occurs, when desires continue to languish in the sea of unfulfillment it’s tempting to think, “Maybe God isn’t 
really who he says he is”, “Maybe I’m just not doing the whole God thing right”, or perhaps what so many of us 
ask but never tell another, “Life must be going wrong because God really doesn’t love me”. 

If you are here today having responded to the call to Christian discipleship by confessing Jesus Christ as Lord 
of your life, but find that you have struggled with being sure about your salvation, having assurance of salvation 
I have some good news for you today. And if you’re here today and have not responded to the call of Jesus to 
trust and believe in his sacrificial death on your behalf, yet you wonder could it be true, could the claims this 
man Jesus makes of himself and of a God who has made a way for me to find forgiveness, could it really be 
true. If that’s you today - I have some very very good news for you. 

The gospel, the good news of the gift of God’s grace, offered freely to all who trust in Jesus’ sacrificial death 
and resurrection is not just about our justification before God, as absolutely important as that is. The gospel of 
Jesus Christ also provides an assurance that we can be confident in God’s grace extended to us, regardless of 
what the situations and circumstances are around us. This is what the apostle Paul wants us to learn deep within 
our hearts and minds from Romans 5. So turn with me to Romans 5 if you haven’t done so already, and let’s 
look at the hope that the gospel provides - the assurance of our salvation. 

Paul has spent the first four chapters of the letter to Romans talking about the heart of the gospel - justification 
by faith. So in the first verse of chapter 5 he simply summarizes what it is he has been teaching by saying, 
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand”. His point is what we 
have been looking at in Pastor Sam’s challenging study on Galatians. The mantra from that study has been 
rightly established to be that salvation or to use Paul’s term here, justification comes by grace alone, through 


faith alone, in Christ alone. The rest of the verses we are looking at this morning turn Paul’s attention from the 
heart of the gospel to the hope of the gospel which is the assurance of our salvation. At the end of verse 2 Paul 
introduces the subject of the hope of the gospel by saying, “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God”. To 
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God is to have confidence that what God said he will do he will indeed do. 
To be sure that what God has declared is true. 

Now Paul gets side tracked for a moment in verses 3 and 4 as he thinks about the assurance of salvation 
believers can have. Paul is probably hearing what many of us hear when life’s not roses and sunshine, “If your 
God’s so good why is X happening?”, “If your God’s in control , if he’s Lord of your life, why are you 
suffering? Doesn’t he love you? ” In verse 3 Paul says, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings”. 

Paul never lets us get away with a happy happy joy joy, pie-in-the-sky theology. Paul knows full well Jesus’ 
teaching that in this world we will have trouble. But for the Christian sufferings, trials, challenges and 
difficulties are all times in which, as disciples, we can grow in our lives. As Paul says, “Not only so, (Not only 
do we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God) but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that 
suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope”. 

Hear me carefully. Suffering does not have to have the final word on our lives. As a matter of fact, Paul and the 
New Testament assume that suffering not only doesn’t have the final word in our lives, but that God uses the 
sufferings in our lives to teacher us to persevere to keep moving, and also to mold our character into the person 
he desires us to be. In other words, we rejoice in the sufferings that come into our lives because they give us 
opportunities to live out the things we profess to believe about God, to refine, to deepen our trust in God, to 
prove that what God has said is indeed true and that God can be depended upon. 

And Paul says this in verse 5, “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our 
hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us”. Hope does not disappoint because hope, over time, and 
proved in the harsh reality of life breeds assurance. The heart of the gospel is justification by faith, but the hope 
of the gospel is assurance of our salvation. Now we’re going to come back to verse 5 in a minute, but I want 
you to circle or underline or highlight - just mark in your Bible the words God has poured out his love. We’ll 
come back to this in a moment. 

Verses 6 and 8 are perhaps the most well known verse in this section of Romans. And rightfully so. They 
contain profound and comforting truths about the gospel of Jesus Christ, truths we would do well to memorize 
and rehearse to ourselves often. In verse 6 Paul says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still 
powerless, Christ died for the ungodly”, and in verse 8, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we 
were still sinners, Christ died for us”. Now Paul is building a picture in these 2 verses of the overwhelming love 
of God for Christians. 

And by way of contrast to God’s love seen in verses 6 and 8, Paul says this about human love in verse 7, “Very 
rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die”. Now I 
want to illustrate the picture that Paul is painting here in verses 5, 6, 7, and 8. So I’ve asked my son Benjamin 
to join me up here on the platform. 

What does Paul mean in verse 7 saying, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good 
man someone might possibly dare to die”. At core, Paul is contrasting in this verse human love with God’s love, 
and is doing this by way of looking at the pinnacle of human love - a person willing to die for another person. 


Now Paul gives to examples of a person being willing to die for another person - the righteous man and the 
good man. I think the distinction being made between the two is that the righteous man is one who is highly 
respected, but with whom I share little to no relationship with. The good man is one who I have relationship. So 
the willingness to die for another is premised with the righteous man on a profound respect or admiration, and 
for the good man on the deep relationship I share with him. 

Ben, then, is my good man. I love him and am willing to sacrifice myself for him because of the relationship 
that we share. Now I want to try and compare my love for Ben with God’s love for Ben, since this is the 
contrast Paul is making in this passage. My love is going to be represented by this thimble. God’s love will be 
played this morning by this 5 gal container. 

Now, if I pour out my love over Ben do you think we will see much of a difference? Remember, the comparison 
is my love, human love, compared to God’s love. Do you think we’ll see much? Let’s find out. (Pour thimble 
over Ben) 

But, what about when God pours out His love? Do you think that might have a lasting impression on a person, 
or might be noticeable in a person’s life, or might utterly consume the person that experiences it? Let’s find out. 
(Pour jug over Ben) Is there a difference now? 

(THANK BEN) 

What’s the point? While my love is impressive by human standards, it doesn’t even begin to compare to God’s 
love. Not only does human love not compare, God’s love is consuming, and God’s demonstration of His love 
towards human beings is inconceivably great. Why? Because human love is almost always given because we 
are favorably predisposed in some way. I’m related to them, I like them, they’ve done something for me. In 
other words, in human love there is typically a positive trigger that motivates me to love another. 

But look at God’s love. Verse 6, while we were powerless Christ died for the ungodly - when we could do 
nothing to help ourselves when we brought nothing but rebellion to the table - CHRIST DIED FOR US. Verse 
8, while we were still sinners - dead to God and openly, flagrantly, shamelessly, in active disobedience towards 
God- spitting in his face and thumbing our nose at him - while this was our attitude towards God - CHRIST 
DIED FOR US. 

It’s crucial that we don’t miss Paul’s point here. Just as our salvation is the gracious action of God on our 
behalf, so also our assurance of this same salvation is God’s action. This means our assurance of salvation is not 
based on our feeling like we’re saved. Nor is our assurance of salvation based on the circumstances or 
sufferings of our lives. Being assured of the truth and hope of my salvation is not my job. Just as the heart of the 
gospel, justification, is God’s work and received by faith alone, so also the hope of the gospel - the assurance 
that we are saved by God’s grace, is also God’s work and received by faith alone. 

Hope does not disappoint us as verse 5 says because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy 
Spirit - He has showered the people He loves with His love. The sacrifice of Jesus cross on the heart is THE 
definitive, tangible act that forever settles for the Christian believer that God does love, does care, does provide 
for those who are by faith his son’s and daughters. 

And to drive this point home Paul says in verse 9, “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much 
more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” If our sin has been dealt with definitively by God, 


meaning we are justified before him, having embraced the heart of the gospel by faith - then it follows that 
when the wrath of God, the final judgement of God comes upon humanity we can be assured that we will 
indeed be saved. Verse 10 restates this truth another way saying, “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!” If when we were God’s enemies he sent Jesus to die for sin, surely we can be sure that God 
can be trusted when we have been made God’s sons and daughters. 

If you want to know that your salvation is secure, Paul says look to the love of God poured out for you. If you 
need assurance of your salvation today, Paul says look to the cross. If you want to be sure of your salvation - to 
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, Paul says embrace the love of God poured out for you in the death and 
resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

How do you apply this to your life? Simple - believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. The heart 
of the gospel is justification by faith. The hope of the gospel is assurance of salvation. Both are the work of 
God’s grace on our behalf. Both are responded to and received by faith. 

Today is Palm Sunday, it is the day which begins the week long move of Jesus from exaltation and praise as the 
coming king entering Jerusalem to Good Friday and the rage-filled rebellion and hatred that nailed Jesus to the 
cross to pay the penalty for sin. We’re a fickle people you and me. Willing to make a king one day and crucify 
with common criminals the next. I’m so glad God is not fickle about me. I’m so glad God makes it crystal clear 
how he feels about me. 

I want to encourage you to not let this Holy Week go by without taking some time to thank God for his love for 
us, to thank Jesus for sacrificing himself for our sin, to thank the Holy Spirit for indwelling us who are believers 
and bringing the comfort and assurance that the gospel provides. 

There’s not a lot that we can be absolutely sure of in this life - but it’s sure nice to know that the most important 
thing in life, having our sin atoned for and forgiven by God has been done, and is available to be poured out 
over you today if you will respond in faith. 

Let’s pray.