Hey

I lead a devotional for the staff at my church this morning.

I did a quick look at Romans 5:6-11 and tied it into finding Joy in God. 

“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. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 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. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

I explained the Gospel and substitutionary atonement and how we deserve God’s wrath because we sinned against a righteous God.

Then the apostle Paul started off verse 11 with “More than that…”, so I explained that along with the Gospel, we are to rejoice in Christ taking our sin and taking the wrath of God.

I touched on the word “through” that appears twice in verse 11. The word “through” points out that we rejoice in God only through Jesus Christ. Its also through Jesus that we have received reconciliation. So we find joy in the Gospel. We only have joy in God through the Gospel.

The Gospel is where we find our joy because through the Gospel we get God, and God is where we find our ultimate Joy because God is all sufficient.

 

I think it went well. I get nervous a lot especially doing something straight from scripture with no book or commentary to help me out. I spent these last couple days away from my library at home, so I just had my thoughts and hopefully God’s blessing. However, I shouldn’t stress myself out about if they got it or not because its not up to me, its up the Spirit in his effectual calling.

-Jimmy

~ by jimmypurchase on August 5, 2008.