“No Greater Love”
Romans 8:31-39
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 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? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. 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. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
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 demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither 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.
Introduction
I believe that one can only understand the love of God when it's weighed against the predicament of man
In other words you can't really get happy about what God has done or even make an attempt at trying to comprehend the breadth and length, the depth and the height of His love unless you understand just how bad off you really were
We're talking about what in the words of Whitney Houston would be known as "The Greatest love of all."
And see Great love doesn't earn that type of classification when it's given from a person who releases it under the conditions that everyone else adheres to and has the limits and boundaries that everyone else has
but Great love or the greatest love is the type of love that when given, breaks the condition code, and knows no boundaries on the extent of it's fulfillment
And it has the authority, the ability and the assignment to do something that no one can and has done for a person, and more pointedly, a person in which by human standards doesn't deserve to receive it
It is the type of love that loves so hard that your worse is completely overshadowed by the power of what that love has the ability to do to bring out your best
Because in a real sense when we are at our worse the world decides if they can love us or not, but this type of love that comes from God makes a decision to not let who we are dictate who He is and what HE wants to do
Because the truth is that if the Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8 that God is love, then that means for Him to withhold love from anyone for any reason would be outside of His nature
So our nature may have caused us to make a few bad decisons but HIS response is love,
Our nature caused us to play around with God and waist a good portion of our life ignoring Him and taking HIS blessings for granted but His response is love
Our nature is that we were born in sin and shaped in iniquity and even after being washed in the blood, and still wrestling with some sins and not always giving the best presentation of a Christian, His response is still love
And See this truth about God messes with our concept and our ideology of what we feel it takes to be loved,
because we've been trained that it starts with a good perception of who we are, what condition we're in and how appealing we've made ourselves to the one whome we're trying to get to love us
In otherwords after we've done our part, our mindset is a confident one in which we feel how can someone not love us after all we have to offer, and all we we have to give, and all of the sacrifice and right things we have done to appeal to them
I mean we get so arrogant that we say things like somebody would die to have me, or someone like me, because I'm worth all that, I've got the total package, I've worked on myself and now I'm a good catch
But see that whole cycle of love is twisted and dishonest, because you can make someone believe that you are something that you're not and gain their love
But there are no secrets from God, everything about you from the inside out, is exposed and laid before Him, and so He knows exactly what He's getting when it comes to you
That's why when you read Romans you see God's perspective of this love cycle, you see an honest picture of love, you come face to face with the right picture of love
A picture where you realize that you don't look as good as you think you do, and that nothing you could do could ever make you acceptable before God,
You realize that your best look, is still your worse look before Him because of the stain of sin,
you realize that your righteousness is as filthy rags without you being clothed by a righteousness that only HE can give
But in the midst of what we're lacking, in the midst of not meeting the standard, during a time of not being in a right relationship with God
He was so intentional about being in a right relationship with us, that He gave His only begotten son, He gave the best of Him to produce the best of us,
He was so in love with us just as we were, in the filth that we were in, doing those crazy things that we were doing that out of love, He sent His Son as a living sacrifice so that whoever received Him would recieve His love, be changed by this love and live in His love
As a testimony that no matter where God found you, He looks past all of your faults, and He sees your need for Him
And He doesn't demand for you to get it right first, He doesn't make you carry the burden of cleaning up your act first,
He doesn't make you feel guilty for making choices and living lifestyles that you were preconditioned to accept and enjoy for the purpose of killing yourself and your soul being damned to hell
But instead He takes on the guilt for you, he takes on the shame for you, he takes on the burden for you in the person of Jesus Christ
And when you said yes, you never had to look back to who you were, but you could walk in the confidence of who you are
And when you realize that who you are is tied to who Jesus is your praise ought to be:
I love you Jesus, I worship and adore you, just wanna tell you, that I love you more than anything....
You might wanna follow that up with love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me
And when you really get worshipful and don't wanna go through 4 verses and a chorus, you just say: He loves me, oh how he loves me, oh how he loves me
And this praise is because there is no greater love than this, that would sacrifice so much for someone like you and I.
And somebody in hear ought to praise God for Jesus the Christ!
Transition
Now to help you understand how God felt about us, what Paul does is he opens up this letter talking about how the wrath of God is against all humanity and shines the spotlight on the unrighteousness of Gentiles
By chapter 2, He then puts the spotlight on the Jews who felt that because they kept the Laws and commandments of God that they were in the clear, that they were righteous or in a right relationship with God
But by Chapter 3 verse 23 Paul concludes that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Which means now if all have fallen short and none are righteous and there is nothing we could do to make us acceptable by God
Then the only solution would be that God Himself would have to provide the remedy or the solution to make us acceptable to God
God would have to find a way to clean us up, to put us in right standing, to clear the record so to speak, of the offenses we have against His Name
And so through Jesus God provides a solution for the problem of righteousness which is what Paul deals with in this first division of Romans which is chapters 1-8
And its in these chapters that we learn about doctrines such as justification, adoption, and reconciliation and how they are ascribed to us as believers as the the work of the Holy Spirit in us once we accept Jesus
Now even with that acceptance, there is the reality that we still struggle with sin, and Paul addresses that,
but praise be to God that Jesus condemned sin in the flesh, which means though we may still wrestle with sin, He doesn't condemn us because we are in Christ Jesus
And that's how chapter 8 opens up, and it moves to our sonship in Christ
and goes on to talk about Him being our hope in affliction, our help in weakness and even our heavenly predestination
So it appears that Paul wants us to realize that the fact that we are where we are is all a God thing
He predestined for us to be chosen, He marked us out as those that would be saved,
which means He so orchestrated the affairs of our lives that we couldn't die in our sin before we heard His affectual call in our Spirit and said yes
It sounds like to me, that God's love didn't start after we messed up, but that because of love, He made a decision before the foundations of the world, out of His own love to be the remedy for our sin-sick condition
In the fact the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the lamb that was slain before the foundations of the world
That says to me God has always had my back!
Well in light of all that God has done, on his own accord for our sake, Paul is speaking to us in today's passage and he says, there really is no greater love than this, this is as good as it gets
Let me give you 3 reasons why:
The Beauty of God’s Love
Paul says here that the only one who has the right to truly be against us, who has every right to condemn us, and who really has a reason to beef with us, is the one that is for us
Paul's assersion here doesn't rest on it's own accord because he backs it up by stating that God must be for us because He didn't spare His own son
So because of what Jesus did for us, the who that could be against us, the people that still want to judge us, and make us feel bad everytime we mess up,
don't even matter, because if God is for us, it makes the who that is against us insignificant
In other words when God is for you who cares whose against you
In fact you and I don't have to entertain the who that is against us, because if the who didn't sacrifice their son for me, then I'm not going to waist my time fighting whose against me when GOD is for me
Because God for me is more than the world against me
After all God went through to get me, and to get my attention, I would be a fool to turn my attention to people that are no better than me,
people that needed a savior just like I did, people who are still struggling just like I am but wanna try to hide it
But see when you know who's for you, you don't have to hide,
because when someone is truly for you, they're gonna stick with you through the good and the bad times and do what's necessary to see the best be produced in you
And the truth is that since Jesus paid a high price for me, He's not about to throw me away because I have a few bumps and bruises
He knew I was cracked when He brought me, He knew I was a hot mess when He made the transaction, but to show me He was for me and that He had a plan for my life He took me anyway
And that's the beauty of this love and it's that he withheld nothing just so I could have everything
He gave His son as a precursor to what we can expect would be the norm for a God who is for us
In other words Paul says that you can look to God for all things and can expect to see all of your spiritual and physical needs taken care of because in Jesus you see a standard of a God who gives "all" and gives His "best".
So Paul says that if you want to understand the quality and the richness of what God freely has for you,
If you want to understand His attitude behind giving things to you, then just consider Jesus
And see that right there ought to make you shout because if God gave His best to you- Jesus, on HIS own accord, without you putting up a fight and without hesitation
Then you better believe that that same GOD that is for us, and loves us, has more where that came from
And He wants to bless you just because He's God and He can,
He's not about to withhold any good thing from you after He's already showed you His best,
you're not about to have to start fighting Him for stuff now after He's already sacrificed
But what you can do is show him so gratitude by having an attitude of thankfulness, and submission to His will and His way
And since there's nothing you can tangibly give Him back for how freely he blesses you, why not take a moment and bless his name, give him praise and thank the God that is for you..
The Blessedness of God’s Love
Paul once again posesses questions followed by statements in which these statements give us the clue to the answer of these rhetorical questions
Paul says that God is the one who justifies, so who can bring a charge against God's elect
In other words our only judge is God, which means if there is anyone that had the right to charge us it was Him
But God Himself is also the only one that can aquit us of all charges,
which means if he aquits us, who is there that can charge us again for what God has already declared us not guilty of,
And if you're a believer, all of us that have been justified are in the same boat,
if he had not been for The Lord we'd still be guilty, on trial awaiting the death sentence
But the blessedness of love wouldn't allow that to happen.
Paul is now saying that since we are acquitted then who can condemn?
The right person to condemn, is also the righteous judge of all, who died for us and rose again to get our acquittal
In other words while we stood in the courtroom awaiting our sentence, the judge that should have sentenced us, added our crimes to a record that he didn't have,
took the punishment we deserved for what we did, and then came back and said we can go free
So the picture here is you're standing before Jesus for your sins, that you are guilty of committing
And He comes down from the judges seat, to be the judged,
accepts your entire rap sheet and the punishment, and goes through with it till death, while you stand there never having felt a thing
and then He rises from the grave on the 3rd day and comes back to the courtroom and says you're free to go if you believe that I did what I just did
I don't know about you but I've had a lot of people do a lot of nice things for me, but that right there is a manner of love that's indescribable, incomprehensible, it's an amazing love that would even cause Jesus to do something that Great for someone so small
And aren't you glad that He thought about your comfort before His discomfort and made a decision to save you....
Well, now after Jesus removed the chains of bondage, guilt and shame, He release us, but not into a work release program
In other words He didn't release us to try to work off our debt, because it was grace that saved us
But the Bible says that He is at the right hand of the Father, in fact He's seated there which is what you do when you've finished the work
So God says the work is a finished work, I paid the debt, but this salvation must still be worked out in you
And that's why this text gets even better because He knew that even when we went free we would have problems working it out
But His love is so strong that every step of the way He wants to ensure us that He's right there helping us
That's why the text says He's making intercession for us.
In other words Jesus is our advocate, He speaks to the father on our behalf
And I don't know about you but aren't you glad to know that Jesus is still advocating for us, he still goes to the Father for us
Because I still don't get it right sometimes, and I get hard on my self thinking God is probably mad at me messing up and doesn't want to fool with me
But the truth is that rather than beat us up like we do and others may do, He'd rather bless us
He took the punishment for us and now He spends HIS time praying for us
And when I know Jesus is praying for me that gives me boldness and confidence to be all I can be in God
Because the verdict over my life is not guilty and my relationship with God is already secure I may struggle but I already have victory
But the reason I've got to fight is so I can show the devil and myself that God was right when He declared me not guilty
And so God is not going to make Himself out to be a liar, He won't allow Himself to look bad, or look as if He doesn't have control over His children
So if he took the time to save us, and went through hardship and pain to place us in right standing, Just because we messed up He's not going to start preying on us, but He's all about praying for us
And that's we ought to bless the name of our God!
The Bond of God’s Love
Lastly Paul says look at this bond we have in God's love.
It's so strong that trials, troubles, turmoil or even world disasters couldn’t separate us.
In fact if we were seperated from God in any of these instances we would lose ourselves,
and lose our minds, because you can't get through tuff times without God
But the fact that Paul says we are more than conquerors, tells me that our ability to win is tied to the closeness we have with God in the midst of what we go through
Which means, we can be experiencing the worse times of our life and still feel the soothing power of God’s love, the nearness of His presence,
where we realize we’re not in this by ourselves, but that God is here, and whatever God is in that we’re in, we are more than conquerors through Him
In other words, because love binds us together with Christ, trials bring Him closer to us
Because if the crisis of our sin situation brought Him near, how much more any other situation that overwhelms us and frustrates us shall we find Him in as well
And it's Him being there that gives us the assurance of His love for us, even when we are in a situation that seems less than what we feel a child of God deserves to go through.
See we have the tendency to feel alone and fearful when things around us are changing or becoming disastrous and that no one is there, no comfort is there
But Paul wants us to know that God is there, and that the bond of love we have in Christ has never been stronger
It’s not hindered by Space and time, life and death, trial and disaster, sickness and distress, it's sticks no matter what
So when I’m facing trouble it sticks, when I throw up my hands and want to give up its sticks, when I’m on my deathbed it sticks, when I feel defeated it sticks
No matter what, me and God are bonded together by love, in fact, we have a love connection!
So you can still feel and experience God's love even in an unloving situation, because the idea is that He wants you to know that His love is the control and everything else is the variable
So don’t focus on what’s changing, focus on what hasn’t changed
Don’t focus on what you don’t have, focus on who you still have
Because at the end of the day, it was because of love that got you hear and it’s going to be love that holds you here
And If we understand that, then we understand that we don't have to fall apart when things go bad because GODS love is still there.
Well if God's love is there than God is there, so no matter what comes your way, You are never separated..
You’re always connected because God did something through Jesus to seal the deal..
Conclusion
What greater love is there..
How beautiful it is..Oh the blessedness of it..Oh the binding power of it..
It’s the love of God!!
