Carlton's Wonderful Promise
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: Talk about promises. People make them all the time - but don’t always keep them. Promises in scripture is a different thing.
Promise: A declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen.
Trans Sent: There is one particular promise that Carlton held onto as a wonderful promise which gave him hope and removed the fear of death.
How could he do that? Well Romans 8:31-39 says:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;
34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Verse 33 starts off with a big questions - “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” Well there is only one answer for that question. Satan - he is the condemner. Satan tries to tear down all those who are the elect of God.
However, the elect have an ace up their sleeve. And that is God. You see God is the one who justifies His elect. That means that God is going to declare His elect righteous. We can have the confidence that He will do it because His elect are His children and the elect have a brother who will vouch for us. That brother is Christ Jesus. When He rose from the grave He ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of God. And those who believe in Christ Jesus will have Jesus interceding for us when we stand before the throne. He will declare all those who have a relationship with Him as righteous before God.
That is the promise, the promise to be declared righteous before God. But how can we be sure that it will happen? Well, we can be sure because Jesus holds us in His mighty right hand. So that doesn’t help, OK, take a look at verse 35 & 36. All of these issues are things that are going on and happening in our lives right now. These things bring us pain and suffering, things like death. These things point to the fact that we are constantly in danger and life is fragile. We never know what is going to happen next.
But verse 37 tells us why all of this doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because we conquer all of it. Not by our own strength but by that of Christ Jesus. We can’t do it on our own. Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life. We must pass through Him to come to the Father. We must pass through Him to be saved from all the turmoil in our lives.
Verses 38 & 39 take things even farther. It talks about powers that are above this life. It talks about powers in the heavenly realm. Powers that want to destroy us and keep us captive. But we are conquers in Christ Jesus. His power sees us through.
That’s where Carlton’s wonderful promise comes in. We will not be separated from Christ Jesus. All of this stuff can not and will not pull us away from Him.
Carlton knew this. He knew that His Lord and Savior Christ Jesus would intercede for him with God when death finally came for his mortal body.
The only way to hold onto these verses as a wonderful promise of your own is to believe in the only one who can save you from all the stuff going on in your life. The one true Son of God Christ Jesus.
If you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior and don’t know this promise is for you also then now is the time to accept Him into your life and heart. Confess your sins, ask for forgiveness and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior so that you to may have peace in this life no matter what is going on and have the wonderful promise that Carlton held so dearly. Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Pray!