YouTube video sermon
Romans 8:31-39
Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me again to Romans 8. If you’re like me this 4th of July weekend, you’ve been looking at America wondering if there’s any hope. COVID-19 was bad enough (and still is, by the way), and the racial divide continues to grow. Fear abounds. Confusion abounds. Frustration and anger abound. So how should I strengthen your hope this morning?
- Should I try to strengthen your hope politically, and comfort you that America is durable and will come together in great bipartisan unity and prove that the democratic system is strong and unshakable?
- Should I try to strengthen your hope militarily, and comfort you that America’s military and police force is unsurpassed and can turn back any destructive force against the nation?
- Should I try to strengthen your hope financially, and comfort you that when the market opens on Monday there will be stability and long-term growth to preserve the value of all your investments?
- Should I try to strengthen your hope geographically, and comfort you that you live in northern Greenville County, far from the major political and military and financial targets that protestors and enemies might choose?
- Should I try to strengthen your hope psychologically, and send you to a self-help website so that you can read about “individuals with strong coping skills . . . maintain a view of self as competent . . . and avoid regretting past decisions”?
Of course, the answer to those questions is a resounding “NO!” For none of them is true.
- The American political system is not imperishable.
- The American military and police cannot protect us from every destructive force.
- The financial future is not certain. In fact, you may lose your investments.
- Northern Greenville County and The Cliffs is not immune from disease and domestic and international terrorism, which may be more pervasive and deadlier in the future.
- Psychological efforts to feel competent and avoid regret are not healing, but fatal.
So, no, I won’t contradict my calling as a minister of the gospel by trying to strengthen your hope in those ways. Instead, I want to strengthen your hope with these words:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the One who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Beloved, listen to me this morning. Your steady, solid hope this morning is that if you will trust Christ as your precious Savior and your supremely-valued King, then you will be folded into the love of God in a way that no terrorist, no torture, no demons, no disasters, no disease, no man, no microbe, no government, and no grave can destroy. That’s the hope of this text. That’s the hope of the Christian life. Folks, we don’t put our hope in politics, military, finances, geography, psychology or anything else. Our hope is found in a blood-bought, Spirit-wrought, Christ-exalting, God-centered, fear-destroying, death-defeating Lord and His name is JESUS!
Five times, here, in Romans 8, the apostle Paul has asked questions to draw out the amazing privileges of belonging to Jesus Christ. Verse 31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Verse 32: “How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” Verse 33: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” Verse 34: “Who is to condemn?” And finally, in verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
The answers are so plain and so wonderful that Paul lets us supply the answers ourselves and rejoice in them. Verse 31: “No one can be successfully against us.” Verse 32: “God will supply everything we need.” Verse 33: “No one can make a charge stick against us in the court of heaven.” Verse 34: “No one can condemn us.” And verse 35: “No one and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.”
And what makes this text so relevant today, on this 4th of July weekend, is that Paul spells out the kinds of things that cannot separate us from the love of Christ, and they’re the sort of things that we’ve been experiencing in 2020: “Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus!
In the precious few moments that we have left. Let’s consider three ways Christ loves us.
Christ’s Moment-by-Moment Love
Jesus is loving us now. At this exact moment, in this worship service on July 5, 2020, Jesus is loving you.
A husband/wife might say of their deceased spouse: “Nothing will separate me from his/her love.” Typically, what’s meant by that statement is that the memory of that person’s love will be sweet and powerful all their lives. But that’s not what Paul means here. In verse 34 it says plainly, “Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”
The reason Paul can say that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus is because Christ is alive and is still loving us now. He’s at the right hand of God. He’s ruling for us. He’s interceding for us, which means He’s seeing to it that His finished work of redemption does, in fact, save us hour-by-hour and bring us safely to eternal joy. His love is not a memory. It’s a moment-by-moment action of the omnipotent, living Son of God, to bring us to everlasting joy.
Larry doesn’t know this, but when I first got here to Mountain Hill and listened to his prayers I always felt a little uneasy. Not because his prayers weren’t genuine. They were and they are. It was because (and maybe some of you have noticed this too) his customary conclusion is “…and save us in Jesus’ name.”
Now, see, the theologian in me was struggling a little bit because the reality is this: if you’re trusted in Christ, if you’ve confessed your sin and accepted the free gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus, then you’re saved (period, end of story). And there was a part of me that wanted to pull Larry to the side and kind of gently remind him of this. But thanks to prayer and the counsel of the Holy Spirit I didn’t and haven’t, and this is precisely why.
Yes, theologically, I’m correct. The moment you trust Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins you’re saved. But, theologically, Larry’s right too. Not only is salvation a one-time event from the human side of eternity, but it’s an ongoing event from God’s side of eternity whereby Christ’s moment-by-moment love is poured out into our lives.
Christ’s Particular Love
This love of Christ is effective in protecting us from separation, and therefore is not a universal love for all, but a particular love for His people – those who, according to Romans 8:28, “love God and . . . are called according to His purpose.”
This is the love of Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.” It’s Christ’s love for the Church – His bride. Yes, Jesus has a general love for all people. That’s why He came, and lived, and died for mankind. But, He has a special, saving, preserving love for His bride. And you know you’re a part of that bride if you’ve trusted Christ. Anyone (no exceptions) who trusts Christ can say, “I’m a part of His bride, His church, His called and chosen ones – the ones who verse 35 says are kept and protected forever no matter what.”
Christ’s Preserving Love
This is Jesus’ omnipotent, effective, protecting love. And we need to make a distinction here. Notice, that this preserving love doesn’t spare us from calamities in this life, but it does (and will) bring us safely to everlasting joy with God.
Paul makes this crystal clear in verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” And some believers have been tempted to say, “Oh, but what he means is that God will not let these things happen to His bride.” Two things prove that this is not the case.
One is the reference to death in verse 38: “Neither death nor life . . . will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” Death will happen to us. Physical death is coming for each of us, to be sure, but it won’t separate us. So, when Paul says in verse 35 that the “sword” will not separate us from the love of Christ, what he means is that even if we ARE killed we won’t be separated from the love of Christ.
The other proof that this preserving love doesn’t mean that we won’t suffer is verse 36, where Paul quotes Psalm 44:22 and applies it to himself and Christians in general, “As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’” This means that martyrdom is normal Christianity.
It’s happening all over the world. Those that were here for Secret Church last week were reminded of our brothers/sisters in Pakistan, Nepal, Sudan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Yemen, North Korea and so many other countries for whom suffering and death and calamity is REAL. It’s estimated that 164,000 Christians will die this year because of their faith. This is what Paul has in mind. And it’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for My name’s sake” (Luke 21:16–17).
Folks, here me; our country with its relatively peaceful and tolerant approach to living and faith is an anomaly. It is utterly unlike many places in the rest of the world, and that should drive us to greater and greater care for the persecuted church (Hebrews 13:3).
So, the sum of the matter in verse 35 is this: Jesus Christ is mightily loving His people with omnipotent, moment-by-moment love that does not always rescue us from calamity but preserves us for everlasting joy in His presence even through suffering and death.
What does Romans 8 have to do with today? What’s the application for July 5, 2020, with the political and racial turmoil that we’re experiencing here in America? Well, over and over again in the Bible, the love of God for us is the root of our love for each other. The reality is that if we don’t rest in the love of God for us, we won’t be able to love each other. For example, Jesus said in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
His love for us is first, and ours is an echo of it. “This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12–13)
His love for us is before and under our love for each other. And it’s a deep, deep, unshakable Calvary love. “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.” (Ephesians 4:32–5:1)
All true love begins with this: God in Christ loved us and forgave us. “In this is love, not that we loved God [or even each other], but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10–11)
As we prepare to take the Lord’s Table together… As we prepare to celebrate this love that gave Himself for us… Have you incorporated the love of Christ, have you been so filled with the love of God in Christ that it shows, that people hear it from you, that people sense it in you? I want you to think about and reflect upon how YOU are doing sharing and showing the love of Christ in America today, as you listen to this song.
The Greatest of These
(by Larnelle Harris)
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong – a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move the mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; it does not envy, does not boast; it is not proud 5 it is not rude. It is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrong. 6 Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put my childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror, but then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love. The greatest of this is love.