Conquerors

More Than Conquerors

08.09.26 [Romans 8:28-39] River of Life (12th Sunday after Pentecost)

In a world of chatbots and virtual receptionists, it can feel impossible to even talk to a real live person about a problem you’re having with a company’s product or service. But after pressing through a maze of menus, smashing the 0 button, or repeating live agent until you turn blue, it can feel like a relief when you finally hear a live person’s voice. 

At least until they say Bear with me as I put you on a brief hold so that I can transfer you to the right department. Then the muzak starts. And you wait. And more times than not, someone will eventually answer. But not every time. Sometimes, the transfer immediately ends the call. Sometimes, you get transferred to a different department and they tell you that you actually need to speak to someone in the department you started with. Sometimes, you wait and you wait and they tell you what your spot in their queue is and offer to call you back. Sometimes, you never really get the help you were looking for. 

That doesn’t just happen when you’re on hold with customer service. Sometimes, we wait and wait and wait at the doctor’s office or on the tarmac or in the lobby of a restaurant and we wonder if they’ve forgotten about us. More than likely, there’s been a time or two when someone said they were doing something for you and forgot about you. 

We’ve also been on the other side. We’ve forgotten to call people we said we would. We’ve forgotten to do things we’ve promised. It happens to the best of us. But that experience with people—of being forgotten and forgetting—affects our perspective on God. 

In Romans 8, Paul famously writes: Rom. 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. And it sounds really good. But in life, there are moments when we wonder if we’ve been placed on hold by heaven. Perhaps there are even times when we fear that we may have been totally forgotten about. 

Some of those are the kinds of experiences that Paul speaks about in the second part of our text. Times when we encounter things like Rom. 8:35 trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword. But it doesn’t have to be systematic attacks. We may face troubles in this life; we may endure hardships, even face persecution for our faith, but it doesn’t have to rise to these levels for us to wonder or even fear that God has forgotten about us. 

Sometimes, we feel forgotten because of our unanswered prayers. Maybe we’ve been praying for direction or healing, and nothing seems to be happening. You feel stuck in neutral, or even reverse. The chronic condition lingers. Maybe you’ve gone to God about a relationship that suddenly soured or a loved one who has left the faith. Perhaps you’re waiting & praying for a job, a spouse, or a child. When nothing seems to be happening, we fear nothing is being done. How can God be working out all things for our good when nothing seems to be working at all? 

We feel this pain especially in moments of great loss. You lose a job. An investment goes belly up. Someone you trusted steals from you. You lose a friend over a little fight that becomes a big thing. You bury a loved one who was your rock. How can God work this for good? 

When we’re exhausted from unanswered prayers or undone by some great loss, it can be hard to see God working in the margins of life. Sometimes, we see the devil in the details of life but not God. We trust that God will handle the big stuff, but we struggle to see how God works all things for the good of those who love him. How can I believe God is for me when I’m so overworked? So stressed? So lonely? How can God turn my being taken advantage of for my good? How can God use how I have been hurt and even sinned against for my blessing?

But there are also times when we feel like the weak duck at the park. You’ve fed ducks at the park, right? No matter how widely you cast the pieces of bread, there’s always this one duck that’s too slow or too weak to actually get anything. Sometimes, that’s how we feel as Christians. We look around, and we see God working in the lives of everyone else around us. They’re getting promoted or married or in recovery. They’re doing well for themselves, and they’re on fire for Jesus. Then you look at your life, and it just doesn’t look like that. Sometimes, we fear that God just scatters his good things and we have to go and get them, and we’re just too slow, too weak to get it. 

If you’ve ever had these experiences and these feelings, then you know how hard it is to think of yourself as more than a conqueror. You feel defeated, not triumphant. When you look in the mirror, you see a loser, not a winner. Someone who is forgotten, not eternally known & loved. 

For one, we must understand that what God says here does not contradict everything else that he says in the Scriptures. God has not pledged to give us our dream life. God has not guaranteed us the good life. A Scottish preacher once said: God is more interested in conforming you to the image of his Son than making you comfortable. 

But God does work out all things for the eternal good of those who love him. He is doing that for you now. You may not see it. But he is. 

And that’s easy to say. It’s harder to prove to someone who is struggling to see it. And this is where the Old Testament serves us well. Because we have Holy Spirit-inspired hindsight to help us.

I want you to consider with me the lives of four believers. Hagar and Joseph. Ruth and Samson. We can’t cover their full biographies. 

Hagar was Sarah’s Egyptian slave. She served in Abraham’s house. One day, childless Sarah had this horrible idea to use Hagar as a surrogate. It worked and simultaneously blew up the house. There was jealousy and fighting. Sarah became abusive, and Hagar fled. And do you know what happened? God came to her and helped her. He promised her son would be the father of a nation. 

Joseph had a similar experience. He didn’t run away, but his brothers sold him into slavery, and he ended up in Egypt. No matter how hard he tried to do the right thing, he always seemed to get the wrong result. For thirteen years, nearly half his life, he was a slave or a prisoner. Finally, God dramatically elevated him to second in command in Egypt. His brothers tried to kill him and eventually God used Joseph to save his family from a famine and reunite them in Egypt. 

Ruth married into an Israelite family. Shortly after that, she buried her father-in-law, her brother-in-law, and her husband. Then her mother-in-law wanted to abandon her. But Ruth remained faithful to Naomi. After a little while, God made this widow the great-grandmother of David. 

Samson is a totally different case. Samson was less deserving of God working in his life. God had given him great intellect and strength and he had mostly used it to mock his enemies, enrich himself, and do whatever made him feel good in the moment. Eventually, it caught up to him. He was outwitted by Delilah, captured, & enslaved. Even though Samson had forgotten about God, God had not forgotten him. God heard Samson’s prayer and restored his strength and allowed him the opportunity to strike down the Philistines who were abusing Israel. 

God called each one of these individuals for his purpose. And he has done the same for you. Before you took your first breath, God knew you. Before you did anything good, God loved you. In fact, before God created the world, Eph. 1:4 he chose you to be made holy and blameless in his sight through the work of his Son.  

Because of his great love for you, God predestined you to be like his perfect Son. God marked out the time you would live. He knew the place you’d grow up and the one you’d call home. And in every place you’ve gone, he has gone with you. He has worked out the big and the mundane moments for your good. He has called you, sending people to you bearing the good news of his mercy & grace. You may not have always responded well, but he sent them all the same. At the perfect time, through that call, God brought you to faith. The Holy Spirit assured you that because Jesus lived for you, died for all your sins, and rose to life for you, you stand justified. 

God lavished all these blessings on you because he is for you, as Paul puts it. He is on your side. He is working for your good. And Paul tells us how we can know that with certainty. Our emotions and our experiences don’t always align with the idea that God is for us in all things. So Paul takes us to the heart of the matter. 

How do you know if someone is really for you? You examine how they treat you under stress. You look at what they do when times are tough. Paul invites us into the crucible where God demonstrates just how for us he really is. Rom. 8:32 God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. How will he now also, along with him, graciously  give us all things? Parents, the calling God has given you in raising children has given you great insight to God’s love. 

You know what it is like to have a child who is sick, struggling, or suffering. It’s a miserable sight. A heartbreaking experience. How many times have you thought, if I could just switch places and take away their sickness, their struggle, their suffering? Imagine sending your child into a situation where you know they’re going to suffer. It’s hard to imagine, but it would only happen if you really believed in the cause. If the sacrifice was really worth it. 

God has been for you before you did anything good or bad. He is love and that love prompted him to make the unimaginable sacrifice of the Father not sparing his Son, of the Son joyfully submitting to the cross, and the Spirit patiently calling you through his Word and Sacraments. God is for you. No matter what you’ve been through. God is for you. He hasn’t forgotten you or put you on hold. God is for you. And nothing separate you from the love of God. Amen.