Summary: Have you experienced the kind of love that changes everything? Does it consume you? Does it burn within your heart? Does it transform your relationships? Does it mold your speech? Does it break your heart over the needs of others? The love of God has been

A Love that Changes Everything

Romans 5:1-5

Jack Kelley, a reporter from USA Today tells the story of a trip to East Africa in which he was taught a very valuable lesson. He was in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, to cover a terrible famine. It was so bad that as he walked toward the village he saw many people already lying on the ground dead. In his retelling of the story he recalls how the smell of death is something that gets into your hair, onto your skin, onto your clothes, and can’t be washed off.

As he made his way down the road he came across a little boy. He could tell that the boy had worms and was malnourished; his stomach was protruding. His hair had turned a reddish color and his skin had wrinkled as if he were 100 years old, both signs of malnourishment.

The photographer who was traveling with the reporter had a grapefruit which he gave to the boy. But the boy was so weak that he couldn’t hold the whole grapefruit for himself. And so they cut the grapefruit in half and gave it to him. He took the grapefruit, looked up at the two men as if to say “thank you” and began to walk back towards his village. What the little boy didn’t realize was that the photographer and reporter were following at a distance.

As he entered the village, there was another little boy who looked to be dead. His eyes were completely glazed over. As it turned out, this was his younger brother.

The older brother kneeled down next to his younger brother, bit off a piece of the grapefruit and chewed it. Then he opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s jaw up and down. The reporter and photographer later learned that the older brother had been doing that for the younger brother for two weeks.

A couple days later the older brother died of malnutrition, and the younger brother lived. I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, "There is no greater love than to lay down our life for somebody else." Love changes everything. It changes our hearts and causes us to do things for others that we would never have done before.

I want to give you a practical example of what I mean when I say that love changes everything. If you’re married, would you raise your hand. Keep them up for a minute. (STOP AND QUESTION A COUPLE: Are you the same person that you were when you got married? Give me an example of something that has changed about your spouse? Is there anything that has changed because you married the person sitting next to you?)

Love has a way of reshaping us and redefining our priorities and our motives. It transforms our actions and ultimately it changes our lives.

Today’s scripture reading is about a love which sets the bar by which all other loves are defined. A love which defines unconditional love. A love which comes without condition.

Turn with me in your Bibles if you will to Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome. If you’re following along in the pew Bibles it’s found on P. (B, 39; C, 142) of the New Testament, the second part of the Bible. What we find in the first part of the book of Romans is Paul’s belief that the Gospel has the power to save everyone, specifically both Jews and Gentiles, both the chosen people of the Old Testament and all others. Paul builds up to chapter five by explaining to this church that they are righteous not because of what they’ve done to obey the law, as was the traditional thought, and not because of their good deeds but simply because of their faith in Christ. This is a radical concept for the Jews and was very difficult for them to accept.

Look with me at chapter 5. Paul starts this passage off by talking about a relationship. He writes, “therefore,” or to summarize the last chapter, since you can’t become righteous by works, by rituals, or even by obedience to the law, the way that you can be justified is through faith.

Before we go too far we need to pause and think about a word. This word “justified” is often translated “righteousness”. And righteousness, we learn in the Old Testament, is all about a relationship. When a person fulfills his or her end of a relationship, or his or her obligations, they are said to be righteous. Righteousness entails faithfulness to a relationship.

What Paul has laid out for the church in Rome and for us in the first four chapters of this book is the fact that you and I, while created to be in a relationship with God, have fallen short of our end of the bargain. Because of sin we no longer are able to keep up our part of the relationship. We have fallen short of God’s glory.

But here’s the good news that he offers in this chapter: a way has been made to repair that relationship once again. A means has been provided whereby we can be at peace with the very God whom we have injured with our sin.

Love changes everything. Think with me for a moment about a relationship in your life which is strained. Almost all of us have them. Maybe it’s with a spouse, or maybe a child. Maybe it’s another person here, or someone at work. But you know how difficult it is to forgive that person if they’ve hurt you and you also know how difficult it is to ask to be forgiven if you’re the one who’s done the damage. Let me ask you something else, how often are you willing to give in even when the other person is the one in the wrong and lay yourself on the line so that your relationship can be repaired? I don’t about you, but that’s difficult for me.

But Folks, that’s exactly what God did. God saw the big picture. God knew that we could never make our way back to where we started. God knew that you and I, left to our own efforts would only continue to try but fail to come back into the relationship that God created us to be a part of. And so God chose to take the initiative. And even though God wasn’t the one in the wrong, God chose to make the relationship whole again by doing something which is un-imaginable: sacrificing God’s very self for the very people who caused the pain in the first place. God’s love changed everything.

That’s why we’re here this morning, because of such a great love. A love which Paul says as we continue on in this chapter, gives us reason to boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God. In other words, because of God’s great sacrificial love, you and I can one day look forward to celebrating the glory of God in heaven.

But this love which was poured out for us not only gives us something to look forward to, but praise God, it gives us a hope that can carry us through the most difficult struggles in our lives. This love gives us the courage to face the future unafraid.

Turn with me again in your Bibles to Romans 5 and look with me at verse 3. The Apostle continues and says, not only does this love give us reason to boast about eternity, but it gives us reason to boast in our sufferings.

The Christians to whom Paul wrote refused to take part in many of the social activities of their time because of the idolatry and immorality that were rampant, and as a result these Christians suffered persecution. Paul says, celebrate your suffering! Not only celebrate during your suffering but celebrate the fact that you suffer, because suffering produces endurance, and when we learn to endure then we can glean the lessons that our suffering can teach us. How many times have you wanted to escape a trial rather than live through it? None of us enjoys suffering. But when we learn to endure we always come out on the other side better people than we went in.

That’s where Paul’s next phrase comes in: endurance produces character. It makes us better people. And as our character improves so does our ability to have hope, to see the hand of God at work in the fiery furnaces of our lives and to be able to come out of them un-charred. And that hope that enduring our sufferings ultimately produces will not disappoint us because of the love that has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

On the night of March 29, 1848, Niagara Falls completely and mysteriously stopped flowing. The estimated 500,000 gallons of water that customarily rushed over the falls stalled to a trickle. James Francis Macklem, a village justice of the peace in the Niagara area, wrote that he had witnessed the subsidence of the waters and that the phenomenon of the Niagara running dry "caused great excitement in the neighborhood at the time."

To some, the mystery of this sudden "turning off" of the river seemed to be a sign, and nightfall found most of the churches packed with people praying or talking in frightened voices about the end of the world. Fear grew into panic.

The cause of this unusual event began along the shores of Lake Erie near Buffalo. For several days, the wind had been blowing to the east over Lake Erie, driving much of its ice flow down river. Then the winds suddenly shifted to the west, driving the lake water west and causing the lake’s ice to break up and dam the river. The Niagara River ceased to flow for almost 30 hours until the ice shifted and the dam broke up.

Up until about a week ago, I was really exhausted. Something had stopped flowing and I was experiencing some struggles and stress, and rather than wanting to learn from them my first instinct was to flee. I wanted to escape the trials. Something had stopped flowing, but then something happened to me. As I prayed, the love which I experienced long ago as child in Jesus Christ when I gave my life to Christ, was poured out all over again. I was overwhelmed by a feeling that no matter what happens in life, no matter what struggles I must face, it’s all going to be all right, because I’m loved. I’m loved by one whose love for me is greater than I can ever explain. And because of that love I can endure and can hope not only in tomorrow but also in eternity. Because of that love I can live, and live abundantly.

Have you experienced that same kind of love? Does it consume you? Does it burn within your heart? Does it change everything in life? Does it transform your relationships? Does it mold your speech? Does it break your heart over the needs of others? The love of God has been poured out for you and all you need to do is open yourself to allow it to fill you.

The love of God has changed everything, for good. The desire of God’s heart is that you will allow it to change you.

Let us pray…