Group’s “Rome” VBS Sunday

Sunday, June 11, 2017

(Bible Verses from New Living Translation)

We have had a great week together. We have spent the past week learning about the love of God from a man we call Paul. You may know his name, but you might not know His story.

Paul was born into a Jewish family in the Middle East during the glory days of the Roman Empire. He was born a Roman citizen, which was not common for most Jewish families. Saul was well-educated. Religiously, he was a Pharisee and from all accounts, nearly perfect. He was zealous for God and the Law, an enemy of followers of Jesus, arresting them, jailing them, trying them, even consenting to the death of Christians. But then Saul met Jesus and everything changed. His name, his purpose, his passion. For the rest of his life Paul would work hard to let others know about the love of God in Christ. We learned about that love this week at VBS.

1. God’s Love Is a Gift!

Romans 6:23. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Why did God send His Son Jesus to our world? This verse gives the reason in not very many words. We all sin against God and others. That sin makes us guilty and worthy of punishment. The paycheck for that sin is death, permanent separation from God. But a loving God doesn’t give us what we’ve earned or deserved; He graciously and generously gives us a gift instead. We don’t earn His love, His forgiveness, His blessings, or His favor—Paul knew that it was impossible to earn it or be worthy of it. God gives because He loves.

Paul’s words are equally powerful for us today. Grace may be a foreign idea to you. You may feel like you have to earn God’s love and forgiveness. So you pray and worship and give and serve so that God will notice you and give you love and eternal life. But we don’t earn His love! He gives us freely His love, forgiveness, and eternal life to anyone and everyone.

2. God’s Love Changes Us!

Romans 12:2. “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.“

We get this idea that God is all about behavior modification, that He wants us to work on all our behavior and that eventually we will change on the inside, that we can become better people if we’ll just act like better people. Usually, acting like something you’re not is called hypocrisy. With God’s love, we can be completely and totally transformed . . . from the inside out. It’s important for our lives to be different from the rest of the world, but the change inside is what makes that possible. When we understand God’s love for us, we get a new perspective about Him and about others. Becoming a follower of Christ

3. God’s Love Is Always with Us!

Romans 8:38. “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a]neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.”

Paul tells us that we have a loving Father in Romans 8, One who will never leave us alone, that there is nothing anywhere that can keep His love away from us. For a lot of people, the idea of a loving Father who can be approached and known, who deals with us justly but also graciously and compassionately is sort of foreign. That’s exactly, though, how Paul describes God. He loves His children unconditionally, perfectly, totally, no matter what. That love travels with us everywhere we go, all day long.

Jesus promised His followers that after His death, a “helper” would come from God, who would always be with us, as a friend, as an advocate, as a guide, reminding us of everything He said. He promised that we would never be “orphans,” we’d never be all alone again. Whether we are where He wants us to be or not, whether we are being faithful or not, God’s love and the presence of the Holy Spirit are always with His people. There is nothing that can stop the flow of His love.

4. God’s Love Saves Us!

Romans 5:8. “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

This is another one of those verses from Romans that is packed full of the good news. I memorized it a long time ago a different way, but the message is the same, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Without God’s sacrifice, we would be eternally separated from the God who loves us. The word “for” in the original language can mean “instead of.” Christ died instead of us. The wages of sin is death, and Jesus paid it instead of us. God sent His Son Jesus to take our place, to take our punishment, to pay the penalty for our sin and wrongdoing, and He didn’t wait for us to be worthy of it. And because of Jesus’ death, we are no longer controlled by sin or by death. We are set free, rescued by a superhero of Biblical and eternal proportions!

5. God’s Love Is Worth Sharing!

Romans 1:16-17. “For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile.[a]17This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”

Paul risked so much to tell others about the love of God. In a letter to the Christians at Corinth, he listed all the things he had endured in his life of ministry (2 Cor. 11:23-27): “

I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again.24Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes.25Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.26I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.[c]27I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.

But Paul didn’t stop. What was the last risk you took to share the love of God with someone else? What was the last sacrifice you made to tell someone or show someone that God loved them and so do you? The message of Jesus is powerful, life-changing, eternity-changing.