Romans 8:31-39
5 reasons you can trust in God completely.
Intro
Pray
Message
Sometimes, like Jacob, we lament, “All these things are against me” (Gen. 42:36), when actually everything is working for us. The conclusion is obvious: “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
The believer needs to enter into each new day realizing that God is for him. There is no need to fear, for his loving Father desires only the best for His children, even if they must go through trials to receive His best.
Octavius Winslow was correct to write: ‘Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy;—but the Father, for love!’
We cannot know the love of God apart from Christ. The cross, and only the cross, shows what real, divine love is
32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
this one sentence sufficiently proves, that the Apostle speaks not here of the fervency of that love which we have towards God, but of the paternal kindness of God and of Christ towards us, the assurance of which, being thoroughly fixed in our hearts, will always draw us from the gates of hell into the light of life, and will sufficiently avail for our support.
The phrase ‘more than conquerors’ is a translation of a single compound word in the Greek, hupernikon. It has a prefix, huper, that is emphatic and intensive (which comes across into the English language in the word, ‘hyper’); and it has a root, nikon, meaning ‘conqueror’. So literally, Paul is saying that in all of these things we are ‘hyperconquerors’.
The word used in the Latin version of the New Testament is supervincimus. We are not just more than conquerors but superconquerors. We are supermen. The New Testament says it is the Christian who is the superman; it is the Christian who rises to the supreme level of conquest; it is the Christian who has at his disposal the power to conquer which no one else can find. In fact Christianity, instead of diminishing our manhood, our strength and our authentic existence, enhances them. In Christ we don’t conquer people in bloodbaths of fights but we conquer trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and the sword. How much more strength does it take to conquer distress or persecution or peril than it does to beat up somebody on the street corner?
But what is the key to being supermen, being supervincimus: through him who loved us. The means by which we conquer is not our own strength, but rather Christ gives the capacity to overcome.
The phrase ‘more than conquerors’ is a translation of a single compound word in the Greek, hupernikon. It has a prefix, huper, that is emphatic and intensive (which comes across into the English language in the word, ‘hyper’); and it has a root, nikon, meaning ‘conqueror’. So literally, Paul is saying that in all of these things we are ‘hyperconquerors’.
The word used in the Latin version of the New Testament is supervincimus. We are not just more than conquerors but superconquerors. We are supermen. The New Testament says it is the Christian who is the superman; it is the Christian who rises to the supreme level of conquest; it is the Christian who has at his disposal the power to conquer which no one else can find. In fact Christianity, instead of diminishing our manhood, our strength and our authentic existence, enhances them. In Christ we don’t conquer people in bloodbaths of fights but we conquer trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and the sword. How much more strength does it take to conquer distress or persecution or peril than it does to beat up somebody on the street corner?
But what is the key to being supermen, being supervincimus: through him who loved us. The means by which we conquer is not our own strength, but rather Christ gives the capacity to overcome.
We urgently need them today, since nothing seems stable in our world any longer. Insecurity is written across all human experience. Christian people, are not guaranteed immunity to temptation, tribulation or tragedy, but we are promised victory over them. God’s pledge is not that suffering will never afflict us, but that it will never separate us from his love.
We urgently need them today, since nothing seems stable in our world any longer. Insecurity is written across all human experience. Christian people, are not guaranteed immunity to temptation, tribulation or tragedy, but we are promised victory over them. God’s pledge is not that suffering will never afflict us, but that it will never separate us from his love.
Close
Our confidence is not in our love for him, which is frail, fickle and faltering, but in his love for us, which is steadfast, faithful and persevering. The doctrine of ‘the perseverance of the saints’ needs to be re-named. It is the doctrine of the perseverance of God with the saints.
Let me no more my comfort draw
From my frail hold of thee;
In this alone rejoice with awe—
Thy mighty grasp of me.