Sermon Tone Analysis

CELEBRATE GOD’S UNFAILING LOVE      ROMANS 8:31-39

 

 

            Today is Mother’s Day, in which we celebrate these amazing women in our lives.

We are grateful to God for the blessing of mom.

After all, they do so much for us with very little thanks.

Yet, this day is set aside to show to them how much we love them for all their sacrifice and hard work they have put in for us.

Connie Ragsdale sent me an email this week about a mother’s dictionary.

I thought I would share a few of them with you.

But most of all when we think about mothers, we think about their love for us.

Moms have a special love that can be expressed in their care, concern, nurture, and tenderness.

But even Mom’s love cannot compare to God’s love for his children.

For those who are born again have the love of God poured out into their hearts.

God’s love is almost indescribable, but Paul in the verses this morning helps us to celebrate God’s love.

Paul, in Romans, walks us through the gospel.

In chapters 1 and 2, he reminds us that all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God.

In chapter 3, he tells us that God had a remedy for our dilemma in his son Jesus Christ.

In 4, he illustrates how we obtain this remedy for our lives through the live of Abraham.

In 5, he elaborates on what this gift of God gives us and chapter 6, as a result of salvation, we no longer have to be slaves to sin.

But in 7, he reminds us that this is not easy because what we want to do we do not always do and what we do not want to do we sometimes do.

Then he comes to our present chapter and talks about life in the Spirit.

If you are in Christ, you need never fear divine condemnation.

You are assured through the Holy Spirit that you are sons of God.

Even though you suffer and groan due to the fact that sin is still a part of your mortal body one day you will be released from the presence of sin.

Creation groans for that day when our mortal bodies are redeemed.

The Holy Spirit is on our side interceding for us because of our groaning and suffering.

But God is going to work out all things according to his purpose to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

In verses 29-30, Paul addresses our position in salvation and the progress for salvation, which leads us to this great praise that Paul has for God because nothing can separate us from the love of God.

So take your Bibles and turn to the Romans 8:31-39.

In this passage, Paul addresses the topic of can anything separate us from the love God.

If there were two things that could do so: it would be somebody or something.

And as we will see Paul says with a resounding no that no-one and no thing can do this.

He does this through five questions.

NO ONE CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD – 31-34

            In light, of everything I mentioned about salvation and God working out everything to His purpose *what then shall we say to these things?

*For the unbeliever, they would call all this nonsense, foolishness, others just ignore these great truths by being indifferent to the facts of salvation, and still others pay no attention at all to the question.

But Christians can answer these questions with confidence in God, not themselves.

They can be assured of God’s love just by the very fact that the Bible tells us so.

So Paul answers the first four questions about who can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

*If God is for us, who can be against us?

*God has done everything for us.

He took us when we were in sin, redeemed us, saved us, effectually called us, justified us, and He announced that he looks upon us as being already glorified.

In looking at this question, it would seem that there was a doubt in the mind of the one asking the question.

In fact, some people have a hard time believing that God is on their side.

Sometimes it is due to sin in their life, sometimes it maybe in light of a terrible circumstance or situation.

But the “if” could be better translated “because” or “since.”

As men and women or boys and girls of God we need to get this truth deep into our minds and hearts.

Scripture tells us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Now, how much more is God’s love for us that we are Christians?

Donald Grey Barnhouse said, “When we for a partnership with God He demands that we do it on His terms.

We put up weakness and he puts up strength; we put up sin and He furnishes pardoning grace; we cats in our nothingness and he answers with His all-ness.”*

*

*            *“The Bear,” has in the final scenes a little grizzly cub being attacked by a mountain lion.

The life of the little cub seems to be in great danger as the mountain lion moves in for the kill.

Suddenly, the baby bear rears up on its hind legs letting out the fiercest growl it can muster.

Amazingly, the mountain lion shrinks back!

The camera then slowly draws back to reveal just behind the cub a massive grizzly, reared on his hind legs, delivering a fierce warning to the mountain lion.

The cub’s enemy was great.

But in the protective shadow of the great grizzly, that mountain lion was nothing.

With the giant grizzly as its protection, who was this mere mountain lion?

With God on our side, who could possibly be an opponent who would cause us to shrink back in fear?

The sovereignty of a God who is “for us” provides a new perspective on anyone or anything which threatens to oppose or destroy us.

*He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

*The certainty of God’s faithful provision for all of our needs is in view in this question.

It is an argument based on the greater and the lesser: if God did not hesitate to give us the greatest gift of all, certainly He can be counted on to freely give us lesser gifts.

Paul says that God gave that which was most precious to him.

He gave up his Son for us.

This means that he died in our place because you and I deserved to die that day on the cross but Jesus took our place by God’s plan and design.

For three hours, Jesus endured the wrath that you and I deserved.

He already spent the maximum amount on our salvation, He's certainly willing to spend a lesser amount getting us to glory.

This is the greatest proof of God's grace.

God has already given the best, He's already given the most, He's certainly not going to hold back the least.

And He's certainly not going to undo the work of the Son.

If the Son died on the cross, follow this, and actually paid the penalty for your sins, for God to turn around and let you go would be to depreciate and undo what the Son had accomplished...so say nothing of disdaining the supreme sacrifice that the Son of God Himself would bear the punishment for sin.

Since He delivered His Son up for us all to save us, will He not also along with His Son give us whatever we need to get us to glory?

Whatever grace it takes?

Whatever strength it takes?

Whatever wisdom it takes?

Author Peter Kreeft tells the story of a poor European family who saved for years to buy tickets to sail to America.

Once at sea, they carefully rationed the cheese and bread they had brought for the journey.

After 3 days, the boy complained to his father, “I hate cheese sandwiches.

If I don’t eat anything else before we get to America, I’m going to die.”

Giving the boy his last nickel, the father told him to go to the ship’s galley and buy an ice-cream cone.

When the boy returned a long time later with a wide smile, his worried dad asked, “Where were you?” “In the galley, eating three ice-cream cones and a steak dinner!” “All that for a nickel?”

“Oh, no, the food is free,” the boy replied.

“It comes with the ticket.”

*Who should bring any charge against God’s elect?

It is God who justifies.*

Most of us know what the courtroom is like from watching Perry Mason on television.

At the front of the courtroom, the judge is seated.

He will be the one who hears the testimony, views the evidence, and pronounces the verdict.219

To the left of the judge, the prosecution is seated.

The task of the prosecutor is to make accusations against the accused and to prove that they are legitimate charges.

To the right of the judge sits the defendant—the one who is to be accused.

And at the side of the accused is seated the counsel for the defense, whose job it is to argue on behalf of the accused in his defense.

Before considering the courtroom scene Paul describes here, we must first be reminded of a fundamental truth without which Paul’s words fail to make their point.

Just as God has ordained that there is no other Savior than Jesus Christ, so there is no other Judge than Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ has two roles.

The first is that as Savior.

The second is that of Judge.

All who receive Him as Savior need never fear facing His sentence of condemnation as the Judge of all the earth.

Those who reject Him as Savior most certainly will be condemned by Him as their Judge.

Ponder this courtroom scene for a moment.