Romans 8:31-39
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Hope in a Time of Desperation
Hope in a Time of Desperation
God is our advocate.
God is our advocate.
The last few weeks, our world has been turned upside down.
Many people have become sick. Many have died.
The term “Social distancing” has been introduced into our lives.
Schools have closed down normal operation.
Our church has been doing live stream just so we have some way of getting the Word out on the Lord’s day.
Its easter Sunday and you are in a car in a church parking lot listening to a sermon
Walmart is limiting the amount of people who can go inside and still there aren’t enough registers open.
No longer can we go to restaurants and sit down with our family and eat because its been deemed unsafe.
Gas prices have plummeted.
People are losing their jobs, their businesses, and their sanity.
The stock market is in decline.
People aren’t traveling.
501 is passable.
Everyone has on masks.
Toilet paper, clorox wipes, and GermX are our most precious commodities
This has been tough.
In light of our current situation and difficult times in general, why does it matter that Jesus’s tomb is empty today?
All of these are problems, but our biggest problem
Why does an empty tomb matter
Paul is going to ask a series of what really are rhetorical questions in the passage we are studying today?
And what I hope this passage does in the middle of what is certainly the most uncertain time I’ve experienced is provoke in us a certainty, a sense of awe and worship for our God who has saved us.
Look with me here in verse 31
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
Now, admittedly, we are picking this passage up in the middle of the letter. I don’t like doing this, but if we are going to do it, we at least have to mention what has come before, so that we understand the context of the book.
In Romans chapter 1, Paul has introduced the letter as he always does. The He jumps right in.
He speaks of God’s wrath, and God’s judicial hand of hardening in the lives of those who reject Him.
In chapter 2, He condemns the Jews underneath the Law.
In chapter 3, He condemns all people under the Law.
In chapter 4, he argues for justification by faith alone in Christ alone, by using the example of Abraham who is the Father of faith, because he believed God.
In chapter 5, Paul deals with Christ as federal head, who comes as the second Adam who upholds the Law perfectly.
In chapter 6, He describes the believer’s relationship to sin now that they are in Christ.
In chapter 7, He describes this as a struggle.
And in chapter 8, in what is probably my favorite chapter in all of Scripture, Paul writes of our deliverance.
Our freedom.
Our new life in the spirit.
He writes of our adoption.
He writes of the hope of the future.
He writes of the help we have in our prayers even when we are weak.
He of how he foreknew us. He predestined us. He is conforming us to His image.
And he will one day glorify us. At his return, all those in Christ will be changed. Given a new body free of pain, free of sickness, and most importantly free of sin.
Which leads Paul to write verse 31.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
Paul is caught speechless here for a moment. What more can I say?
What shall I say in light of these things? In light of everything God has done for me in Christ.
He has looked at our helpless states poured out His blessings in Christ. He’s given us Himself.
If God is for us, who is against us?
I would add here the if is not in question for those who are his. If he is for us, and he is. How do I know that?
He came to the earth FOR us.
He lived FOR us.
He died FOR us.
He raised to life FOR us.
He will one day return FOR us.
Our God is FOR us. And if that is true. Who is against us?
Now, Paul is not saying that if we are believers, we have no enemies. Of course, we have enemies. Of course we have difficulties. Of course we have things that come up against us.
But… Not even the most difficult trial, the most impossible situation, the deadliest disease, the driest of famines, the deepest of floods, the strongest of storms. None of that can compare to the God who is for us.
In other words, if God is for us, and He is, is there even an enemy worth mentioning?
Is there an enemy that should strike fear in us?
Maybe 2 kings 19- example of OT foe- God silences him
And again, he is FOR us.
Look what Paul says here to remind us.
God is the giver of all things in Christ.
God is the giver of all things in Christ.
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?
God has not withheld anything from us. He has given us His own Son.
He delivered Him over. And here we see that even though, that even though it was because of the Jews who accused him and brought him before the Romans, and then the Romans were the one who crucified Jesus, it was the Father in heaven who had orchestrated everything.
Octavius Winslow said this:
“
Who delivered up Jesus to die? Ultimately Not Judas for money; Not Pilate for fear. Not the Jews for envy, but the Father for love.
This was the Father’s will. We see this in Acts as well in Peter’s sermon.
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
We see here the Sovereignty of God working His plan, even through the sinful and unjust actions of wicked men.
The Father gave up His own son for us on the cross.
But this verse verse 32, tells us that the crucifixion and the atonement of Christ that he paid on the cross, was just the beginning of the blessings that he intends for the believer.
Believers
He’s given you His Son. How could we even begin to think we fail us in hard times?
He has give you His Son. How could we even begin to think that he wouldn’t turn even the bad things that happen to us for our eternal good.
And this all comes through the channel of Jesus Christ. Don’t miss that in verse 32.
How will he not also with Him freely give us all things?
Jesus is the channel through which the Father blesses the believer.
This is another rhetorical question.
Through Christ, we are given EVERY spiritual blessing.
Not only is He our atonement, given up by the Father for us, but He is also our etern
He does not withhold ANYTHING. Look to the cross and see the foundation for Every gift he intends to gift.
Our duty then believer is to mine the riches of God’s Word so that we might grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus so that we may know just how blessed we are. The Believer has every spiritual blessing in Christ, in our union with Christ and in our salvation.
With all that, Paul then asks another rhetorical question.
Look in verse 33.
Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;
That is, with every blessing that we have been given in Christ, not the least is the very righteousness of Christ.
Whenever a sinner repents and believes, The righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer. We stand not wearing the filthy garments of our past and present sin.
We stand wearing robes of white. Pure. Adorned with acceptable clothing as Christ bride. We have been justified.
And in that, there is no accusation that can stand.
Who can bring a charge?
God is the highest judge. There is no appeal to be made. There is not a higher judge.
On the basis of the righteousness of Christ alone, He has declared me Righteous. justified.
Who the judge declares is righteous through Christ is righteous.
No accusations can stand, not even from Satan.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
Rev 12
Satan Himself, can bring all the accusations against me he wants and he would be right to accuse us in our own righteousness, but there is one that Satan cannot accuse, and His name is Jesus. He is the resurrected, victorious, and conquering lord of All. He is my Savior, and in Him, there is no accusation that can stand.
If there is no accusation that stands, then there is also no condemnation.
Look in verse 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.
In other words, who is judge?
Who will judge? A lot of people assume it is the Father.
Its the Son.
“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,
Jesus is the judge.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Other Scripture answers this question. But paul answers this question as well.
Christ is the judge.
And he is the one who died for us. He took our judgment.
Not only that, he rose to life to prove his innocence and secure our justification. It is the resurrection that we celebrate today.
He died but he rose again, but His work doesn’t stop there.
Not only that,
He has also now ascended to the right hand of God the Father, where now, he constantly intercedes for us.
If Christ is the judge, it helps that he is also the one who pleads our case.
And he pleads it, not based upon my sinful actions.
He pleads based upon His own righteousness. He doesn’t plead based upon my works. He doesn’t say, look how good he’s been.
When we stand in the Holy Presence of Christ our judge, We will be comforted.
John was in verse 17
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Thats our judge.
And at that point we all have to say, If God be for us, who can be against us?
The Accuser has been silenced.
The Righteousness of God has been satisfied.
The judge is our justifier.
And that is eternally true for those of us who are in Christ.
There is no might or maybe. We are saved based upon the righteousness of Christ.
Now, a question that always comes up it seems, and that so many struggle with, is how secure are we in this salvation?
Is it possible to lose the benefit of God being for us.
Beginning in verse 35.
Is it possible that for those God has justified to once again again become unjustified?
What about ?
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Is it possible that for one who was previously given the promise of no condemnation, to now by a failure, or a fall, or whatever, to no longer be able to claim the benefits of that verse?
That seems now to be the question Paul wants to answer.
And beloved, I would argue that this passage, if it was the only passage which its not, but if it was, should satisfy the thoughtful mind when it comes to the security that the believer has in Christ.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Now a very important clarification to make here.
In verse 31, he is not referencing OUR love for Christ. Rather, he referencing Christ’s LOVE for us.
And that alone should already begin to answer our questions in relation to this.
Christ’s love for us is not swayed by the ebbs and flows of our character.
I speak with people all the time, even this week, I spoke with someone who told me that their spouse told them that they didn’t love them any more.
Our love for things is so frail and fickle. It changes. I struggle.
It is necessary for my love of Christ and the things of Christ to grow, and it should be growing if you are genuinely in Christ.
But Christ’s love is not fickle. Nor is it ever in need of growing.
He loves us. Period.
So.
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,
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 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.”
“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
In other words, can any earthly vice or thing separate us, keep us from, or drive a wedge betwen Christ’s love and us? His love for us is as present as His presence is with us.
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Just as no one can ever escape the presence of God, No power, struggle or trouble will ever remove one who is IN Christ from His love.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), .
Even when it seems to be the case.
Here the quote is from
Where God had allowed
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.”
Here the quote is from
In that Psalm, the Psalmist is lamenting over the fact that they are being killed all the time. Its easy for the people killing them. Its like slaughtering sheep.
But just as God had not forgotten his people then, even when the most difficult of circumstances and persecution comes, the love of God is still there. It still pursues us.
The love that began before the foundation of the world will not stop, and its precisely Christ’s love for us during those times that allows us to be conquerors over it.
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
We conquer through His love. Thankfully, my conquering is not based upon my love that is subject to change.
The victory over sin, over sickness, over persecution, trials, and tribulation. That victory is an overwhelming victory and it is ours in Christ. We conquer. We triumph through Christ.
having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
Col 2
Thankfully, the love of Christ is always present.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 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.
As we sit here this Lords Day, we can confidently lay hold to every word Paul writes because of the resurrection of Jesus.
When everything around us falls apart, we can worship knowing the tomb is empty, and the throne in heaven is occupied by the Lord of All.
For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.
Church…Believers
Is God for us? Absolutely
Will any charge stand against us? No Because of Christ
Are we secure in Him? Yes. For how long? As long as He is alive.
To be honest, what we are going through now, a difficult and bad as it is, just remind us that this is not heaven. This is not how it was supposed to be and it is not how it will be.
For the believer, the difficulties of this present life are light and momentary and none can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
But those things are true only for those who are in Christ
Unbeliever, currently you are at odds with God. An enemy of God, in rebellion against God.
All the charges are stacked against you. As you stand now, you are condemned because of your sinful wicked heart.
Do not sit here today suppose that you will escape God’s wrath if you are not and have not repented, trusted, and submitted your life to Christ.
I urge you today. Are you desperate? Do you feel hopeless? What if things stay this way? Or get worse? Will you be at your wits end? Where is your hope?
My plea to you today is to trust in Christ alone for salvation.