One year we attended a winter carnival in Mather, Manitoba. Part of the carnival involved a hockey game in which the boys played against their dads. I think the boys were between 8 and 10 years old. You would think that in such a game the dads would easily win, but in that game the boys had one advantage. Playing for them was Terry Yake, who at that time had just been drafted by the Harford Whalers and went on to play for the NHL for 11 years playing for Hartford and also Toronto and Anaheim. I don’t remember who won, but with him on their side they sure had a lot of help and probably won.
When we think of our life, we might ask, “Who is on our side?”
Since September, we have been studying Romans and have discovered the most in depth and profound description of all that God has done in Christ to redeem a people for Himself. In the first 8 chapters, we have already been given all the information we need to rejoice that we have received, will receive and are receiving everything we need from God. Romans 8:31 asks, “What then shall we say to this?” As we think about all that God has done, what are the implications?
The words we/us appear 12 times in Romans 8:31-39 and give us the wonderful, affirming word that all of this is written for those whom God has chosen, the people of God both Jews and Gentiles. The implication for us is that we can rejoice in the unqualified affirmation that God is on our side! As Paul concludes this section of Romans and this constantly heightened description of what God has done, he does so with a hymn of praise to God, a victory song affirming that we are people who are loved by God.
What a foundation upon which to begin 2008! As we know that we are loved, we can go forward with hope and confidence. This is undoubtedly one of the most encouraging passages in the whole Bible. As we examine it, I trust that we will be encouraged to have faith in God and to move forward with hope.
What follows begins with the word “if” which is a conditional word. We read, “If God is for us” and ask the question, “is God for us?” How do we know?
How do we know if someone is for us? One of the most hurtful things we can experience is to believe that someone likes us and even to hear them say that they like us and then to find that they have gossiped about us. Their actions deny their words. So it isn’t only words which let us know that someone is for us. How do we know if someone is for us? Some of the things I look for is to listen to their heart, to notice when they go out of their way to be with us, when they do something for us. But I think the thing that most lets us know that someone is for us is when they are willing to make a sacrifice for us. When I think of that, I think of mothers. I know that Carla loves our children because she is often willing to make sacrifices for them. When they come home, she always tries to make their favorite food. If they call and ask us to babysit or help with something else, I don’t even have to ask her if she wants to go. That is just something that mothers do. I think of my own mom. This year again she made a Christmas cake for me and New Year’s cookies for my brothers because she knows that we like these things. A warm heart, a face turned towards another person, friendly conversation and above all a willingness to sacrifice are ways in which we know that someone is for us.
If that is the measure of when we know that someone is for us, then we should have no doubt that God is for us. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Romans 8:32 which says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all…” We have this incredible confidence that God is for us when we realize that He made a huge sacrifice for us. He gave up His own Son. He was willing to send Jesus to earth to experience temptation, pain and suffering and ultimately death. What a great sacrifice God made! We also notice that He made that sacrifice “for us.” We don’t know what the benefit was for God, who does not need anything, but we know from this passage that He did it for us. He was thinking of us, His face was turned towards us, His heart was for us as He made this awesome sacrifice. Because He did, we know that God is for us.
The confirmation that God is for us is even stated in another way in what follows.
I heard of a situation in which an estate was being divided up following the death of the last remaining parent. While the parent was living, one of the family members had already tried to get the parent to give him money to help him buy a car. When the will was read, this same person objected to the will and felt it was unfairly divided. He felt that one member of the family was getting too much. It was a messy situation and the relationship between that family member and most of the rest of the family has been broken ever since.
When someone does something wrong against another person, the relationship is broken. The two are not “for” each other. One has a complaint against the other. The other has an accusation against the first person and things are a mess. Usually in such a situation, we expect that the person who has done the wrong will admit it and come back and make things right. After that, it may be possible, if people are gracious, to be for each other again.
In our relationship with the creator of the universe, we are the ones who have done wrong. We have broken relationship with God. We have rejected Him. We have made a mess. God has every reason to lodge a complaint against us, to accuse us of wrongdoing and to judge us. He is God and holy and just and we are wrong.
Paul asks in Romans 8:33,34, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” and “Who is He that condemns?” God is the one who can bring a charge against us. God is the one who has the right to condemn us. But, He doesn’t! It seems only right that we should go to Him to make things right, but instead, He has come to us and has chosen to make us right. Instead, Jesus died and was raised to life and is interceding on our behalf in the presence of God. God is not the one who has done wrong and come back to make it right. God is the one who was wronged but has found a way, through Jesus Christ, to make us right. God is the one whom we rejected and with whom we have broken relationship but He is the one who has reached out to us. There is no more accusation because Jesus who died is the only one who can judge and because He died, he won’t. Therefore, we know that God is for us.
So if God has sacrificed for us and if God has nothing against us because of that sacrifice, we know without a shadow of doubt that God is on our side.
The conditional statement “if God is for us” is answered and affirmed, “God is for us!!!!”
Nothing Can Separate Us From His Love!
But Paul isn’t finished describing the amazing love God has for us. He continues to talk about it as he asks in Romans 8:35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Whenever the word “of” appears in a sentence one must always ask the question, “is it a subjective genitive or an objective genitive.” In other words, which direction does the love go? Is it talking about our love for Christ and thus asking what can separate us from loving Jesus? Or is it talking about Christ’s love for us and therefore asking what can stop Christ from loving us? Sometimes it is a difficult question to answer. In this case it seems very clear from the entire context that this is talking about Christ’s love for us. So the question is, what will ever prevent Christ from loving us?
If we think about human relationships, what prevents one person from loving another? It isn’t hard to think of lots of things. I have heard of families in which a child goes astray and the parents relationship is broken, or a fire destroys the house and also breaks up the home. My father died when I was 19 years old. As much as I love my father, his love for me ceased to be expressed or even relevant the day he died.
Can these things also prevent God from loving us and expressing His love for us?
Paul acknowledges that persecution and trouble are a reality for God’s people. In Romans 8:35,36 this recognition is addressed. In response to the question “who shall separate us from the love of Christ,” and we read, “shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” This covers a wide variety of human experience. Although persecution is primarily in mind, the words “trouble” and “hardship” suggest that it can apply to many situations. Can whatever difficulty we experience because we live in a broken world that rejects God separate us from God’s love for us? Is it a sign that God does not love us when our dishwasher and car both break down on the same day that we hear that our best friend has cancer? Does it mean that God does not love us when our friends reject us?
Paul quotes a verse from Psalm 44:22 which acknowledges that God’s people can expect that persecution and ultimately death will come to every one of them. Although the Bible acknowledges the presence of persecution, suffering and death; to us that feels like the end of God’s love. When we experience hardship, it feels like God is not there. When God’s people are persecuted, it feels like God doesn’t care to or have the power to overcome the enemy. Sometimes it feels like His love doesn’t have enough power to help His people.
However, Romans 8:37 is a confident statement that assures us once again that we are loved by Christ. Because He sacrificed for us and because He restored relationship with us even though we broke it, we know that we are loved and therefore there is nothing – not trouble nor hardship nor persecution which can separate us from His love for us.
Indeed, we are “more than conquerors” because of Christ. The feelings of defeat can be conquered in the knowledge that we are loved. When we are discouraged, when we doubt, when we feel all alone, when we are afraid, we can conquer all of that in the knowledge that God is for us. We can conquer all when we know that we are loved in Christ. When I think back of my dating years, I went out with a few different girls. I liked some of them, but the one who has stuck with me for over 35 years is the one who also showed that she loved me. Because she loved me, I was more drawn to her than the others who were just interesting. When we are loved, we respond in love. This is why it is so important for us to be encouraged and reminded that we are people who are tremendously loved by God. When we know that we are so loved and that not even persecution and hardship and difficulty can separate us from the love He has for us, then we also are encouraged to continue to remain in a love relationship with Him.
When we know that we are loved by God in this way, then we are also encouraged to know once again that what was said in Romans 8:28 is true. If we are loved and if we cannot be separated from His love even by persecution and hardship, then we can be sure that no matter what happens, God truly is on our side!
In a final statement, Paul affirms that of which he is convinced. There is confidence and hope in this statement in Romans 8:38,39. What do I know for sure? In all the insecurities of life, in all the fickle things in this world, in all the random acts of violence, in all the chance meetings of metal to metal on the highway, in all the unexplainable events of life by which one person dies at birth as my daughter-in-laws nephew did and another walks with a brisk step at 100, as I saw Mary Loewen do the other day, what is it that we can be completely confident about?
Paul says, I am convinced that…nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Do we always understand how all this works? Certainly not! Do we always feel loved? Probably not. Can we have confidence that God’s love is always with us? Absolutely!
Following this confident statement, Paul raises pairs of scenarios. They are opposite pairs to help us look at things from the extremes of every possible situation which life can bring which could possibly leave us without God’s love.
The first pair is death and life. These are the two possibilities in which every person exists. Even a person on life support is either dead or alive. If our name was not listed in the obituaries this morning and if we are here we are alive. If our permanent dwelling is across the street in the cemetery, we are dead. It is either one place or the other. But of one thing we can have complete confidence. Whether we are here or across the street, we are not separated from the love of God!
The next pair is angels and demons. There are spiritual powers, which we don’t know much about, but which we understand operate in our world. Angels operate as messengers of God and, we believe, move us toward God. Demons work against God and have power to make a mess. There are some people who think that demons can play enough tricks and are powerful enough to separate us from God. But that is not true. Neither the powers exercised by angels or demons are enough to separate us from God’s love for us.
The third pair dealing with the present and the future introduces another aspect. Because we only see what is now and don’t always know how what is now will impact what is yet to come, we often fear the future. We are starting to make plans for our sabbatical and already the fear of the future has entered my heart. Will things work out the way we want? Will there be peace in Israel when we are there? What will it be like to be gone so long? But in all our fears about the future, the one thing we can be confident about is that God’s love will not be absent.
Powers is mentioned alone without a pair, but it is almost as if he is thinking about the power of life and death, the power of angels and demons, the power of the present and the future and wrapping it up with a mention of any other potential power like the power of governments, dictators, terrorists, forces of nature or any other thing. He is covering all the bases with confident assurance that no power can separate us from God’s love!
Finally he mentions height nor depth and again goes to the extremes of what is above and what is below and declares that anything in all that has been created is able to separate us from God’s love for us.
This is a formidable list of powers, but not a single one of these powers is able to separate us from God’s love. How incredibly we are loved!
The last part of Romans 8:39 says that this love is in Christ Jesus and that is important. Whenever you doubt. Whenever you wonder why you have constant pain. Whenever you wonder why your best friend died. Whenever you wonder why you suffer with temptations that no one else seems to experience. Whenever you feel all alone in the world and doubt that anyone truly cares for you and understands you. Whatever might cause you to question and doubt, know this for a certainty - nothing can separate you from God’s love. How do we know that? We can go right back to what God did in Jesus. Romans 8:32 assures us, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with him, graciously give us all things.”
We have this confident assurance, God is for us!
The first question that was asked as we began looking at this passage was, “What then shall we say in response to this?”
As we conclude our examination of this passage, I would like to ask this question once again. “What shall we say in response to this?” What do we say when we know that we are loved by the creator of the universe?
First of all, we can say “thank you.” We don’t deserve this love that is for sure, but we have it. A humble and deeply grateful “thank you!” is in order.
We can say, “I trust you.” Paul says, “I am convinced.” When we see all of the evidence of God’s love and the depth of what is promised, how can we not say “yes” and put our confidence in God no matter what the circumstances of our life.
We can say “I have peace.” What can shake our world and destroy it if we know that we are loved? Nothing! This allows us to live each day from January 6, 2008 until all eternity with a deep and profound peace in our hearts.
We can say, “I can hardly wait!” We can live with a hope for tomorrow and the tomorrow after that with the confidence God’s goodness and love are not only a promise, but will be powerfully evident along the way and in a most wonderful way in the final end.
As you begin this year, please know with all confidence that you are loved!
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