"Overcome"
Romans 8:26-39 (The Message)
Romans 8:37 - No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
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“Overcome” – at first glance one might feel this presentation promises to be boring. The word is not going to make the “top ten” countdown of favorite words in anyone’s vocabulary!
The word is not ‘in vogue’ or ‘hotness’ (cool) but the desire certainly is. Overcome is defined as “to get the better of in a struggle or conflict” (dictionary.com) Who has not wanted to ace an exam, pass the road test, get a good physical report from the doctor or beat cancer? Who has not had something in their lives that they felt “I have “to get the better” of this situation? I have to overcome.
Our Bible text, verse 37, speaks in similar language. It talks about being “more than conquerors” (NIV), or having “overwhelming victory” (NLT) or how about this one: “None of this fazes us” (MSG)?
Sometimes it seems like Bible people were not real people. They talked a language that appears very foreign in our day. There are a lot of things that faze me. Are there things that faze you? Singing artist, Amanda Marshall, released a CD in 2002 called Everybody’s Got a Story”. Let me wave my disclaimer! I do not encourage you to run out and buy her music unless you have a taste for offensive content, this song included. There is one verse though that is worth repeating.
Now who can read the mind
Of the red-headed girl next door
Or the taxi driver who just dropped you off
Or the classmate that you ignore
Don’t assume everything on the surface is what you see
’Cause that classmate just lost her mother
And that taxi-driver’s got a Ph.D.
Everybody’s got a story that’ll break your heart…
How do you tell them to overcome? Better yet, the nagging question is how do I overcome? St. Paul lists in verses 38-39 the concerns that people were facing with this challenge to overcome: trouble, hard times, hatred, hunger, homelessness, bullying threats, backstabbing, and many other sins.
During my undergraduate studies some years ago, I interviewed a lady whose religious belief was a hybrid of different religions. She spoke of trying to climb to a higher consciousness as her spiritual guide (which was an apparition that looked like an embryo with thousands of tentacles protruding from its form) led her to deeper awareness of life and self.
Glenys took part in the interview with me, since she had several opportunities to sit in this woman’s home and share fruit juice together on previous occasions! We asked our questions and explored this fascinating woman. When we left my heart was troubled and filled with questions. We watched this woman on a few occasions as she exhibited a wonderfully gentle spirit, amazing patience and seemed to reflect a deep joy-filled attitude toward life and every breathing microcosm.
My story? Many experiences of stress, moods, anger, and impatience. I am ashamed to say it. I walked away questioning, “If I have the answer in Jesus, why does she seem happier than me?”
Overcome.
Get the better of struggle and conflict.
Live so that nothing fazes you.
How do I do that? Today’s Bible reading provides the answers! If you want to overcome, if you long for something higher than your current mediocre, bland, boring, unfulfilling life, this message is for you!
If you have a great or decent relationship with God but the unexpected trips you at your doorstep, this message is for you!
There are three simple lessons that tell us how we can overcome!
1. The Holy Spirit helps us Romans 8:26-27
One thing I discovered about why I have the answer and the lady I mentioned had the joy, was the place my sin nature has in my faith. This is not a reference to ‘sins’ which means things we do that we should not do; but ‘sin’ meaning an inbred nature, a part of us that we were born with. That side of us pushes us toward those things and behaviours that conflict with the other part of us that wants to listen to God. St. Paul talks about the conflict in his own struggle in Romans 7 – doing things he’d rather not doing and failing to do what he knows he should do.
Last week Glenys walked us through the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5. As we pick up in verse 16 we’re told, “The old sinful nature loves to do evil which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants.” (v 17) Then there follows a list of things the evil nature wants to do versus what God’s nature within us wants us to do and the human spirit becomes a war zone all the time as we struggle to make the right choices.
This battle is very significant and powerful – “For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12, NLT) If we will overcome we need help outside ourselves; we need God’s power within us to help us defeat sin. So the lesson is, conflict will always be a very big part of us. James Hastings, editor of The Speaker’s Bible and joint editor of “The Expository Times” tells us “the Christian in this world of ours never gets rid of conflict…” – note 8:37, “IN all these things” – “And second, that the Christian need never be afraid of conflict, for they have a secret power and endurance equal to all their trials and struggles, even the continuous help of the Holy Spirit.”
Bible Book – Zechariah. A prophet. We don’t know much about him. We do know he wrote his prophetic book at a time when God’s people didn’t care much about religion and God and had to deal with a lot of sin issues. It was also a time when he was passionate about rebuilding the temple. In this climate of social and spiritual poverty he included among his words from God in chapter 4, verse 6, “So he answered and said to me: “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ’Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.”
The most effective means of tapping into that power – are you ready for this? – comes primarily when we pray.
Prayer is a tough subject. The problem is our prayers are very superficial for the most part. When we pray it generally ends up being a conversation about things that bother us and things we want. Hastings says elsewhere, “We may have every desire to serve God, but do we know what we need at each moment? The wisest and best of men fail here.” One writer suggests that even Jesus may have had a weak human moment of praying for what he wanted when he asked Father to remove the cup of suffering. We tend to use the account to explain how we should tell God what we want and how to resign ourselves to Father’s will. We don’t often consider if the point of the glimpse into the Garden is to show us that the best human effort from the holiest Man who ever lived even tends toward superficial prayer.
The Holy Spirit therefore comes along us to pray for us. Since we don’t know what we need most times, the Holy Spirit does the work in accordance with God’s will. William Barclay, theologian and author, quotes C.H. Dodd as saying, “prayer is the divine in us appealing to the Divine above us.”
We must learn to depend on the Holy Spirit if we will overcome.
2. God works in favour of those who love him! Romans 8:28
The questions are coming aren’t they? If that’s true, why is there so much suffering and pain in the world? Why are people going hungry and God seems silent? I’m sure people have prayed that a lot of things would change and sick family would get well but it doesn’t always happen.
Chemotherapy for cancer treatment is a tough road. There are dreadful side effects with pain, nausea, exhaustion, hair loss and potential for infection, blood-clotting, fluid retention, and many other symptoms. Only those who walk through cancer can understand the emotional toil of fear, loss and awkward social interaction. I’ve never head anyone say however that they thought the physician treating them was cold, heartless and cruel; that they must be an emotionally detached mechanical drug dispenser because of the side effects that come with treatment. Patients understand that, to quote a medical source, “The side effects of chemotherapy can be unpleasant, but they must be measured against the treatment’s ability to destroy cancer.” http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=21716#
If we can believe a physician has our best health interests at heart, why is it so hard to have a similar view about God and accept that he takes the tough stuff of our lives and works all of that in our favour?
I was never an English buff in school – or a math student, neither a geography, science, or physics student. I was a gym student! Reading literature, for instance Shakespeare, was a tough exercise for me. It all sounded so confusing and was only a jumble of words. When my literature teacher explained it however, everything became clear and I saw the poetry in Shakespeare.
So too our circumstances are often not much different from anyone else. The only difference is our understanding of it as we set it against a different light than just the final outcomes from a human point of view. We look at it through a spiritual lens and gain different insights and understandings that help us put that stuff into perspective.
Quoting Hastings again, he writes, “The real difference between two people is not in what happens to them, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are fortunate or unfortunate, whether they have sorrow to meet or life floes on like a sunlit stream that never ruffles the surface of their days. The real difference is the way in which they response to these things.”
Someone said, “We ought not to blame God for all the troubles that come to us, but we can always be sure that God comes with the troubles if we will let Him.”
The Wesleyan Commentary tells us, “The assurance is that we are so sheltered by the care and providence of God that we are enabled to bring good out of all that is allowed to happen to us.” (Wesleyan Commentary)
If we will overcome we need to believe that God takes the situations of our lives that are not fun, that are not enjoyable, that are not wanted, and works those to our favour and advantage.
3. We overcome by realizing God loves us! Romans 8:32, 37
Barclays notes, “Paul is saying, you can think of every terrifying thing that this or any other world can produce. Not one of them is able to separate the Christian from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ, the Lord [who controls] every terror and [Masters] every world.”
A story I heard a long time ago captures God’s love for us. A man who was a lift-bridge operator. He’d lift and lower the bridge on a daily basis as ships needed access to the waterway. One day he agreed to let his seven year old son go to work with him. He always wanted to watch the big ships. The day was like any other day, only for the seven year old, wide-eyed excitement of his boy.
After a while a ship sounded its horn, alerting the operator to the need to lift the bridge. As he prepared for the lift, he noticed his son had slipped out of the control room. He scanned through the window and to his horror, noticed his boy playing among the cogs of the mechanical lift. He called him frantically but the boy couldn’t hear him. The situation forced Dad with the toughest decision of his life. If he ran to get his son the ship with several hundred passengers would crash against the bridge because he wouldn’t have time to get back to lift it. If he lifted the bridge he would kill his son. It was the hardest and darkest day of his life as he pushed the button to save hundreds of lives on the ship.
John 3:16-17 says, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”
We will overcome when we realize how deeply Father loves us.
There is one final word on this subject. Why did Paul not simply say, “We are conquerors”? Why “we are more than conquerors”? An illustration will help explain it. It is difficult to appreciate the idea that one side or the other wins a war when all sides have fractured social devastation, decapitated bodies littering their streets and grieving, poverty-stricken people facing death from malnutrition. We decide the one holding the balance of power and have the most people standing is the conqueror.
To be more than conquerors is to have achieved a victory without losing anything. More than conquerors gain an insight into life’s pain and suffering and calamity so peace resides inspite of what comes our way.
WRAP
- We are not simply meant to conquer but to more than conquer
- We can overcome when we realize we need the Holy Spirit’s help;
When we believe God works everything for our favour; and when we understand how deeply God loves us!
