Romans 8:28-39 More Than Conquerors
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He 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? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We talked a little last week about not worrying so much about things of this world such as the turmoil and strife that may be in our lives. We talked about how the kingdom of heaven so greatly out weighs these things of the world, and that we should not allow them to overtake our focus on our mission that we have here on earth. That this turmoil also should not take away any of our joy because we know that God is using these things to build us up.
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
“We know” Paul says here. Who are the we? The we are the ones God has called. The ones that are saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ.
There are a great number of churches today that would just skip right over this section of the Bible. Or maybe just read through it so fast that the hope would be that you couldn’t catch what it is God is telling you here. To deprive you in some way of who God is. To me this next section is the foundation of all of who God is. God is the creator of all things and being the creator of all things he has control over all things. This section shows His power, His justice, His grace and His love for us, all in these next two little verses.
Romans 8:29-30 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
God foreknew you – Before man was even created God knew you.
God predestined you – Before man was created God also predestined you to come to faith one day.
God called you – When God called you, you could not resist Him and came to faith.
God justified you – God justified you by Jesus’ payment on the cross for your sins.
God sanctified you – God continually builds you up to be conformed to the likeness of Christ.
God will glorify you – God at the end of your life will glorify you by bringing you home to heaven and later rejoining you with your body which will be made perfect in every way.
God is in complete control. God had given us the chance to do it on our own over thousands of years and guess what, we failed. We couldn’t do it.
He knew you since the beginning of time, He predestined you to be one of His chosen, He called you to come to Him and you did, He justified you by the payment of your sins by putting Christ to death on the cross for them, He sanctifies you until your death, and at the time of your death God will glorify you by bringing you home to heaven and restoring you and your body to a perfect state.
Do you think you can accomplish any one of these things by some means of your own? The Jews tried it for thousands of years and couldn’t accomplish any one of them. I know I couldn’t.
God gets the glory for all of it. We can’t take one shred of that glory away from Him.
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
It says here “according to His purpose”. Do we see anywhere in these verses were it says according to our purpose? No. If we had done any one of these things ourselves it would have completely taken away the “His purpose” from that. If it hinged on something we had to do, something God had no control over, it would have been not “His purpose” but our purpose. I know at times I feel like I had something to do with it. I think to myself look what I have accomplished. But that’s just the human side of me coming out. That’s my pride.
So what part in all of this did we have? Well we did have one part in all of this, one part that we can take credit for. As sinners we ran away from God as fast and as far as we could. That was our part in it. But God was a little faster than us. As fast as we ran He had no problem whatsoever catching us.
Some would say what kind of God would choose some for heaven and some for hell? What we need to understand is that if we are talking about right and wrong then everyone deserves hell and no one deserves heaven for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
But what we are talking about here is Gods mercy and grace here not what’s right and what’s wrong. God would not be a just God by letting all people come to heaven, some needed to be sent to hell because Gods wrath demanded it. God is not a one sided God, this is why we must teach about Gods wrath also, if not people begin to think God is unjust and unfair and He is not.
God is perfect and we are not and at times we can not even begin to understand what God must do because our imperfections get in the way.
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. This is all we need to know. This is all we need to have faith in.
Romans 8:31-34 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us (no one)? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all (all that have been called) — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things (all things pertaining to what we just got through talking about)? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
We talked last week about the Holy Spirit interceding for us and here again we see Christ interceding for us.
Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
As secure as our salvation is by the path God chose for us in bringing us to faith, so also is our security in never having to worry about loosing that salvation. Paul states here that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not even we ourselves.
There are those that think they can loose their salvation every time they sin. If you are unfortunate enough to have sinned just before getting hit by a truck and killed without asking for forgiveness and repenting that you are doomed to hell.
If that is what you believe I would say that you would have to be on your knees every second of the day asking for forgiveness with no time left to do anything else.
Romans 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“We are more than conquerors” Paul tells us here. The Greek word for these five is hypernikomen or super-conquerors. Why such elevation for those who are also called sheep. It seems almost like opposites sheep conquerors the just don’t seem to fit together do they?
In Ephesians 6:12 it says For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
That’s why “more than conquerors” because what God is accomplishing through us can not be accomplished by any means of our own. It takes the supernatural power of God to be able to win the battle over the supernatural forces of evil. Mere man from start to finish only looses this fight on his own.
And what better way to finish chapter eight than with these verses.
38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
