Why a Believer is Secure
Notes
Transcript
Why a Believer is Secure
Why a Believer is Secure
Paul is closing by explaining God love for them
How they can be secure that His love will always be there
Nothing separate the love he has for His children
we are secure in our salvation
we are sure in know God has a plan knowing his sovereignty
we are secure in know He will never leave us of Forsake us
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
So encouraging to know that God is with us and planning our lives
It hard to be Alone, abandoned and left out
Illustration of security -
I am married to Ann - I can enjoy my marriage knowing her love for me
This affects my attitude
This allows me enjoy my marriage
If our marriage was based on happiness and circumstances then life would be a upside-down rollercoaster
This texts given me assurance that God love for me will be eternal and not contingent on my behavior or circumstances
Nothing will separate us from the love of God....
Terror - losing Trisha at the NJ Shore
Separation - caused us to look for her in terror and lose the fun we had planned.
It would have comforting to know that just becase we could not find her , we were guaranteed that she was safe ans secure...
We are guaranteed to never be separated from the Love of Christ ....
I. Circumstances Can Not Touch Him
I. Circumstances Can Not Touch Him
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
A search is made for every adverse circumstance that has been effective in causing separations in other areas of human life.
But none can be found. Not the threshing flail of tribulation with its steady pounding of distress and affliction, nor the monster of anguish, bringing extreme pain to mind and body, nor the brutality of persecution, inflicting suffering and death on those who dare to differ. Nor can the gaunt specter of famine—gnawing, racking, and wasting down to the skeleton. Nor can nakedness, with all it means in the way of privation, exposure, and defenselessness. Nor can peril—the threat of imminent and awful danger. Nor can the sword—cold, hard, and death-dealing
The apostle suggested seven things a believer might experience (Paul experienced all of them; 2 Cor. 11:23–28) that some might think could come between a believer and Christ’s love—trouble (thilpsis, “pressure or distress”; mentioned frequently by Paul in 2 Cor.) or hardship (stenochōria, lit., “narrowness,” i.e., being pressed in, hemmed in, crowded) or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword. These things—stated in increasing intensity—do not separate Christians from Christ; instead they are part of the “all things” (Rom. 8:28) God uses to bring them to conformity to His Son[1]
My love for you is not diminished by what you go though or how you handlde it....
Illustration- what parent would stop loving a son or daughter after they had been through hardship or persecution .... if we being mortal men say that then what about our heavenly father
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Why is a believer secure… because
II.Death Cannot Destroy Him
II.Death Cannot Destroy Him
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Then Paul quoted Psalm 44:22 to remind his readers that in this life the people of God must face much affliction (cf. John 16:33) including even martyrdom for some. In the early days of the church one or more Christians were martyred every day, or faced the possibility of it. Their persecutors valued Christians’ lives as nothing more than animals to be butchered.
In all these adversities (cf. “all things” in Rom. 8:28 and “all things” in v. 32 with all these things in v. 37), rather than being separated from Christ’s love, believers are more than conquerors (pres. tense, hypernikōmen, “keep on being conquerors to a greater degree” or “keep on winning a glorious victory”) through Him who loved us. Jesus Christ and His love for believers enable them to triumph (cf. 2 Cor. 2:14
In these things we can not only be conquerors but “more than conquerors through him that loved us.” Peter illustrates what this means. He had been arrested by Herod and the sentence of death had been passed upon him. On the morrow he was to die. James had already died at Herod’s hands, and Peter knew that the Herods knew no mercy. If looking into his cell that night we had seen him bravely resolving to die nobly and unflinchingly for Christ, we would have seen a conqueror. Instead, we see him rolled up in his blanket, sleeping peacefully with fine contempt for the plans of Herod (Acts 12:1–10). He was more than conqueror
Death does not destroy the Christian
When it comes to physical death, we should not fear death.
It ushers us into the very presence of God. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:1-10).
Jesus spoke intensely of this at the death of His close friend Lazarus, comforting Martha with these words: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
Paul spoke of the resurrection of believers in 1 Thessalonians 4, assuring the church that those who die believing will live forever with the Lord.
And we do not believe in the annihilation of the wicked. Those who do not believe will also live forever in conscious torment in hell.
The truth is that people live forever, not physically as we know it here on earth, but spiritually in a resurrected state.
We are more than conquerers through death ....
III. Spirt World Can Not Hold Him
III. Spirt World Can Not Hold Him
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
8:38 The apostle has not finished his search. He ransacks the universe for something that might conceivably separate us from God’s love, then dismisses the possibilities one by one—
death with all its terrors;
life with all its allurements;
angels nor principalities, supernatural in power and knowledge;
powers, whether human tyrants or angelic adversaries;
things present, crashing in upon us;
things to come, arousing fearful forebodings;
8:39 height nor depth, those things that are in the realm of dimension or space, including occult forces. Then, to make sure that he is not missing anything, Paul adds:
nor any other created thing.
The outcome of Paul’s search is that he can find nothing that can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
No wonder these words of triumph have been the song of those who have died martyr’s deaths and the rhapsody of those who have lived martyr’s lives![1]
What an encouragement to know that we are secure the Love of Christ!
Nothing can separate us