God Is For Us, So The Losers Are The Winners

2.21.21 Romans 8:31–39

31 What then will we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him? 33 Who will bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies! 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us! 35 What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 Just as it is written: For your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God is For Us, So the Losers are the Winners

When Tom Brady recently won his seventh ring, all of his fans were adamant. “Tom Brady is the greatest of all time!” If you happen to mention any other quarterback who has a better throwing percentage or has more touchdown to interception ratio, you will quickly be shot down and told, “Seven Superbowls, more than any franchise in NFL history! End of story!” I hope I don’t alienate too many Michigan fans, but being a Packer and a Chiefs fan, I was cheering against him. Unfortunately, he beat me. You won. We lost. I’m still kind of salty about it. But such is life.

I use this as an illustration because I think it is kind of a neat illustration for God and us. God is FOR us, but many people are AGAINST us, as Christians. They WANT us to LOSE. They don’t like our morality. They don’t like our hypocrisy. They don’t like our theology. The devil is AGAINST us. Sometimes we are even against OURSELVES, our own worst enemies. Even when you are on the same team with someone, there can be rivalries and jealousies. You want to win the game, and you can have a great game, but your teammates can still end up angry at you if you got more minutes than they did or if you got the winning shot and they didn’t. It’s hard to find a UNIFIED team where everyone wants everyone else to succeed for the good of the TEAM. So even Christians can be jealously against each other unfortunately. And it even seems that sometimes GOD has it out for us too. At least that’s what the devil wants you to think. But that’s not what Paul says. God is FOR us, not against us. And that ought to make all the difference in the world. After all, He is God, the ALMIGHTY God.

What does it mean to be FOR us? When Cindy Schlosser recently died, I especially felt badly for her grandchildren, because she had such an active interest in them. She wanted them to succeed. Did you have a parent or grandparent like that? Someone who wanted you to succeed? Someone who paid for your lessons? Someone who went to your games even though you were a mediocre athlete, actress, student at best? It’s hard to find, but it’s great when you have someone whom you know is FOR you.

God is for us. He isn’t against us. He doesn’t want us to be damned. He wants us to be saved. God didn’t just give us money to take lessons. He didn’t just cheer us on from the sidelines. Lent shows how He actually came down here to take on the battle and do the work FOR us. Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him? God came here to live our life and suffer our death for us; to take on our hell for us.

Who could be included in the US? Look at that beautiful word all. He gave Him up for us ALL. So there’s not ANYONE that God doesn’t want to be saved. That means He must want me too, if I’m part of all. If you think back to the Tom Brady illustration. He’s easy to cheer for in some senses. Nice looking guy. Family man. Somewhat conservative I think. He’s good at what he does, there’s no doubt. You have reasons to cheer for him. He’s not a loser. But then when we look at ourselves? WHY on EARTH would God want to be for US? The devil points at us and says, “Why do you cheer for these losers? You give them angels. You protect them from evil. Yet they still worry! You give them the Word, but they don’t read it! You give them ways out of temptation, and they don’t take them! They stink!” And to be honest, he’s right. Many of the accusations are true. We give into temptations. We don’t pray like we should. We like to complain. We like to give up. Even though we have His Holy Spirit, and even though He rules this world in a way that should make it easier for us, we don’t fight against the world and our sinful flesh like we could or should. There are people that would make a lot better Christians than I am. There are people that could do a lot more for God than I am doing. It doesn’t seem to make sense!