Romans 8:24-39
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Intro
Intro
Continuing our study of Romans
Romans is a deeply theological passage
Mini Bible Scholars
Mini theologians
We have already talked about how we were lost in our sin.
We talked about last week how we were considered enemies of God.
As God’s enemies Romans 8:7 tells us that the mind set on the flesh (unbelievers) does not submit to God’s law or to God. In fact it says the mind set on the flesh cannot submit to God.
So we established that we were desperately and hopelessly lost and enemies of God
We were unable to save ourselves by anything we could do.
Tonight we will learn that because it is God who saves us and it is God who rescues us we can have hope that nothing in this life can take that salvation away from us.
Example
I once swam two miles out to an island in Hawaii.
When I had gotten to the island my arms and legs were so tired they had began to cramp and I felt like I was going to drown because I physically could not continue swimming
My arms and legs were so exhausted that when we had to swim back I actually thought I was going to drown on the way back.
This is where God finds us in our sin.
Drifting out at sea drowning and without hope, unable to rescue ourselves.
It is God’s direct intervention in our lives that saves us, He’s the one who picks us out of our sin and rescues us.
Now because we have been saved we now have hope.
Hope that we will one day go to be with God forever and we no longer will live in a world or an existence with sin.
24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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Romans 8:24-25 tells us that this hope has saved us
Paul goes on to say that hope that is seen is not hope.
Faith in what you can see is not faith.
17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.
Jesus appears to His disciples, not just the 12 but the other 70+ that followed Him during His ministry.
This is the post resurrected Jesus.
His followers had seen Him die on the cross and now they see Him standing in front of them and it tells us that most of them worshipped Jesus
But SOME DOUBTED
There are many people in our world today that say they do not believe in Jesus or in God because there is no physical evidence for Him (They can’t see Him, or they allow their earthly experiences to determine if they think God is real or not.)
But right here in Matthew we see Jesus physically interacting with those that were closest to Him and some still had doubts.
Why, because faith is not an issue of the eyes or of the human experience it is something that must be believed in your heart.
If you are going through a difficult season in your life you don’t place your faith in Jesus because He promised you that you won’t go through hard times.
In fact Jesus tells us that because of our faith in Him the world will hate us
Most if not all of the disciples died horrible excruciating deaths because of their faith in Christ.
We place our hope in Jesus because He promises salvation and freedom from our sins.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
So here in this verse we see something that almost contradicts what I just said.
God works all things together for GOOD for those who are called according to His purpose.
So we have to understand what this word GOOD does not mean that everything in your life will be perfect.
We talked about the now not yet reality last week
The reality that although we have already been saved by God and made righteous (NOW) we still live in and exist in a world that is filled with sin and brokeness and we have (NOT YET) been brought to live with God free from this sin and brokeness.
So this GOOD that is talked about here is not saying that as a believer you are going to be rich, or healthy, or your life will be perfect.
Because our world is still filled with sin..
This GOOD that is being talked about is the GOOD NEWS that even when we were still sinners, lost out at sea and drowning in our own iniquity God saved us and rescued us and is able to use anything and everything to bring about salvation in the lives of believers. No amount of spiritual, physical, or mental attacks are beyond God’s capability to save and rescue sinners and make them righteous.
Paul’s whole point here in this passage is to talk about how we could not save ourselves.
In fact the whole point of the first 8 Chapters of Romans is Paul saying “YOU COULDN’T SAVE YOURSELF! Thank God that He saved you!”
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
This passage of Romans brings up one of the most highly debated and difficult theological concepts of our age.
Does God choose some to be saved and others to not be saved?
This is a concept called God’s Election.
Let’s think about it in context of my story about swimming out to the island.
If while I was swimming back to shore my arms and legs became to weak to keep me above water I would have drowned in the ocean and died.
I needed something or someone to help me get back to shore.
We actually found some floaties on the island and were able to float back to shore with them.
In Romans here Paul is explaining to us that we were lost, drowning, and we could not help ourselves.
There were no floaties, or rafts that we could make or that we could find.
It is in this place that God chose to intervene in our lives.
If God did not first choose to rescue us out of the sin we were in, there are no decisions we could make in order to save ourselves.
Salvation must begin first with God’s decision to rescue us.
Remember Romans 1 tells us that all of humanity had exchanged the Glory of the Immortal God to glorify themselves.
Because of this Romans 1 tells us that God gave them up to their own sin and their own desires.
But it was God’s holy and righteous plan that not all of humanity would perish or would be lost to sin.
Instead He chose to save those who believe in Him.
Do not forget that at one time each and every christian was considered an enemy of God.
We had turned our back on Him
We had exchanged God so that we could glorify ourselves.
God did not need to rescue us, He did not need to save anyone.
This is the beauty of the Gospel, that even though God did not need to rescue us He did not need to rescue a single person because Romans 1 tells us that all of humanity abandoned God.
He chose to look upon a broken, sinful, and rebellious humanity and to rescue believers.
So at no point in that process is there any reason we can say that it was because of something that we did or because of some good deed that we have been saved.
It is only because a Holy and righteous God chose to save you from the pit of sin and death and make you clean.
So how do we respond to this?
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.”
Remember that Paul is writing to a persecuted church.
His whole point about who is predestined to salvation or not is to encourage believers who are facing death that no one can steal their salvation, even if they threaten to kill you.
Because it is God who saves, not man.
No amount of suffering or danger can tear you away from the Love of Christ.
This does not mean that God does not care about your suffering or your pain.
He does, He hears your cries and He sees your suffering.
Just because He does not directly intervene during a difficult moment in your life does not mean that He is not working on your behalf.
Just because God does not work in your timing or the way you think He should work does not mean that He is not moving in your life.
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.
In the midst of extreme persecution of God’s children the Martyrs of the early church cried out to God. In fact the martyrs (those who have been slaughtered for their faith) have been crying out for two thousand years to God and in Revelation 6 we see them crying out to God to save them but the answer is not yet.
Some of you might be going through some very difficult seasons in your life.
Some of you may have already gone through more pain and more hurt than I have in my life.
And all of us will go through very painful moments in our life.
Just because we go through hardship does not mean that God is not real, that God is not loving, or that God is not making all things good for those who love Him.
And it certainly doesn’t mean that Christ is not right there with you in the pain and in the suffering sympathizing with you because He too lived in this broken and sinful world but He lived perfectly so that He may pay the price for our sins and make a way for us to be saved
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Not a single person saying but you didn’t make me rich, or but I had such a hard life, but why did I have to suffer?
Once again this doesn’t diminish your struggle, no God sees you and His heart breaks for you as you go through trouble.
Psalms even tells us that even in the Valley of Death God is with us.
He is there in your suffering and He is able to comfort you.
I am telling you that in the midst of that suffering we can have hope knowing that God can make all things work together for Good
This is the GOOD that we place our hope in.
That one day, because we have placed our faith and our hope in Jesus, He will bring us out of this sinful broken world and we can be with Him free from sin, free from death, and free from pain.
Paul answers this list of troubles we see in Romans 8:35
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Paul answer this by saying in Romans 8:37-39
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.
Nothing in ALL OF CREATION will be able to separate us from the Love of God.
See the hope we have in Christ is not immediately answered.
You won’t always have the perfect life here on this Earth.
If that were the case then there would be nothing to hope in to to have faith in.
Paul is telling his fellow believers in Rome that there is nothing to fear because the end goal of our faith is not a temporary easy life on Earth but the eternally perfect life that we will receive when we go to be with Christ forever, free from sin and death.
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