Is there any place that’s really safe anymore? We used to think our homes were safe, but we’ve become more and more aware of just how dangerous some people’s homes are. Domestic violence keeps getting worse. Just last week a San Bernardino man was sentenced to life in prison for shooting his wife in the face. Last November a woman was convicted of starving her seven year old daughter to death. (from www.LAtimes.com).
We used to think our workplaces were safe, but workplace violence has shattered that illusion. We were reminded of that back in December when a 42 year old software tester named Michael McDermott walked into the internet consulting firm he worked at and killed seven of his co-workers. In the last few years we’ve seen similar events in Atlanta, Honolulu, and even here in Southern California (From www.latimes.com).
We used to think our schools were safe, but a flurry of school based violence has changed all that. Now schools are fearful of any hint of threat against other students. Schools are becoming places for metal detectors, with our own high school here in Upland having a full-time police officer assigned to the campus.
We used to think our churches were safe, but then in September of 1999 Larry Ashbrook changed all that. As the high school students of Wedgwood Baptist church worshipped God, Larry Ashbrook walked in and killed seven people, four of them teenagers. At first they thought the gunman was part of a skit, but when he started firing they realized it was real.
Even places sworn to be safe places can be dangerous. I read in the LA Times recently about a group home in San Bernardino for teenagers awaiting foster care. Some of the teenagers living in this particular group home have come out claiming that counselors at the home have sexually abused them. These group homes are supposed to be safehouses for teenagers, yet even this home has become a dangerous place (From www.latimes.com).
Is there any place that’s truly safe? We like to build an illusion of safety and security around us, but the reality is that our world can be a very scary, dangerous place. Those of us with children are sickened that we have to spoil our children’s innocence by talking to them about the danger that lurks just outside our doors.
I’m glad there’s one place we can turn that’s truly safe. I’m talking about a relationship with God, a life of following Jesus Christ as his disciple. Today we’re going to talk about God’s safehouse. A safehouse is a place that’s truly safe, a place where a person who’s afraid and threatened can relax and let down their gard. When an abused spouse flees domestic abuse, they place her in a safehouse, a place where her abuser can’t reach her. A safehouse is heavily guarded by authorities, so the people inside can be safe. Today as we talk about God’s safehouse, we’re going to find a fact, and then three reasons we can know for sure that we’re safe with God.
We’ve been in a series through the New Testament book of Romans called Good News For Our Times. In chapters 1 to 4 of Romans we looked at the Good News About God’s Integrity, as we saw how Jesus Christ’s death on the cross provides God with a way to maintain his integrity and forgive sinners. For the last ten weeks we’ve been in chapters 5 to 9 of Romans, looking at the Good News About God’s Love. We’ve seen that God’s love enables us to live the life we were intended to live. And today we finish Romans 8 by looking at God’s safehouse. Next week we’ll start looking at chapters 9 to 11 of Romans, as we look at the Good News About God’s Faithfulness.
1. A Fact (Romans 8:28)
We’re going to start by talking about a fact. Romans 8:28 is a very familiar verse to many followers of Jesus Christ. This verse has brought great comfort to Christians for generations as they’ve struggled with the fact that life is often painful and filled with heartbreak.
This verse is not simply telling us, "Don’t worry, be happy." It’s not the Bobby Mcpherin verse of the New Testament. This verse is also not telling us, "Everything will turn out okay in this life." This verse is also not telling us that bad things that come into our lives are really good things in disguise.
The point of this verse is that God is able to take everything that comes into our lives--the good and the bad, the exciting and the dull, the pleasurable and the painful, the joyful and the tragic--and God is able to use these things to work for our ultimate good. "All things" is encompassing, including anything that comes into our lives (Moo 529). The Greek word "work" here is the same word we get our English word "synergy" from, and it means that God works these things together for our ultimate good.
You might think of baking a cake. If you were to take some of the ingredients and taste them alone, they’d be pretty gross. Ingredients like flower, raw eggs, baking powder, and salt don’t taste very good alone. Other ingredients like sugar, frosting, and vanilla do taste pretty good alone. But when you bake a cake, you mix all the ingredients together, the end result tastes great (unless of course I baked the cake!). God takes the good and the bad that come into our lives and mixes them together in such a way that the end result is good.
Now the "good" here refers to the ultimate completion of God’s work in our lives. We need to be careful to define "good" here on God’s terms, not our terms (Moo 529). Good here doesn’t mean fun, or enjoyable, or painless, but it’s the completion of God’s work in our lives.
Now the people this verse applies to are described in two ways. They’re described as people "who love God," which is Paul’s way of describing Christians. Paul’s not saying some Christians love God and some don’t, but this is simply another way of talking about all followers of Jesus Christ. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is by definition to be a lover of God. But they’re also described as people who are "called according to God’s purpose." These are men and women God has called to be part of his strategy for the universe. God is working out his purpose to restore the universe to a state of goodness, where evil is conquered and sin is abolished, and God has called certain people to participate in this purpose.
This verse makes a claim about every follower of Jesus Christ. This is our fact. NO MATTER WHAT OUR CIRCUMSTANCES, EVERY FOLLOWER OF JESUS CHRIST IS SECURELY INCLUDED IN GOD’S PLAN.
This includes twenty-first century Christians trying to follow Jesus in our postmodern culture, and it includes second century Christians who were fed to the lions in the Roman Coliseum by the Romans. It includes followers of Jesus in Africa and Antarctica, Canada and Chicago. It includes every follower of Jesus Christ, regardless of his or her circumstances. In short, this promise includes Jesus Christ’s worldwide Church across the globe. It includes every follower of Jesus Christ from the birth of the Church in the book of Acts until the end of the age when Jesus comes again.
You see, Jesus Christ’s Church is God’s Safehouse. I don’t mean a specific local church, but I’m talking about God’s worldwide community of people who confess Jesus Christ as Master. I mean the community of God’s people regardless of age, language, nationality, color, or even denominational affiliation. Those who are in Jesus’ Church are securely included in God’s plan for the universe.
Now how can we know this for sure? Our tendency is to look at our circumstances to gain this knowledge. So when painful circumstances come into our lives, we try to discern what good can come out of those circumstances.
For example, lots of Christians looked at the shootings at Wedgwood Baptist Church in this way (Christian Reader March/April 2000, 88). People have observed that although the gunman fired 68 bullets, only 14 people were hit. They’ve observed that although Ashbrook detonated a bomb in the church, most of the shrapnel went into the ceiling, injuring no one. Ashbrook didn’t go into the church nursery or elementary school areas of the church, where there were several small children. A paramedic happened to be at the church that night, so the victims received immediate medical attention. Fifteen thousand people attended a memorial service for the victims, where the Senior Pastor of Wedgwood Baptist shared the good news of Christ. Many of those people came into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
This is an example of how we try to look at our circumstnaces in order to see how God is working for our good. But as valid as all these things are, it’s interesting to me that Paul doesn’t look to our circumstances to establish this fact, but he turns to the God behind the circumstances.
Paul gives us three reasons we can know for sure that we’re safely included in God’s plan, no matter what tragedy befalls as.
2. God is In Control (Romans 8:29-30)
Let me give you the first reason, then we’ll look at the text: GOD IS IN CONTROL OF THE PROCESS FROM START TO FINISH.
That’s what we see in vv. 29 to 30. Some have called these verses a "golden chain" of God’s salvation for people. Notice that Paul is still talking about a community here, a group of people we know of as the Church. This is especially clear by his use of the plural: "those God foreknew, those he predestined, those he called, those he justified." If Paul wanted to focus on individuals, he would’ve said, "Each one God has foreknown, each one he has predestined, each one he has called, and each one he has justified." But the emphasis here is on the plural--as it is throughout Romans--on the community, on the Church.
Paul begins with God’s perfect knowledge of all things before he created anything. The Greek word for "foreknowledge" is proginosko, and it’s where we get our English word "prognosis." Although doctors have to make their best guess when they give a prognosis, God’s perfect knowledge makes his knowledge of the future certain and complete. Although Bible teachers debate the precise meaning of this word, it somehow refers to God’s perfect knowledge of all things, even before he created the universe.
Because of God’s perfect knowledge, God set the destiny of the Church. God has predestined the Christian community to be just like Jesus, transformed into the likeness of Jesus. We will bear the family image of Jesus when we finally reach our destiny.
After God made the universe, he called specific individuals into this community. When God called people to be part of his Church, he also justified them. This means God makes them right through Christ’s death, forgiving their sins, and applying Jesus’ perfect life to their lives. This was the point of chapters 3 and 4 of Romans, to discuss how God can do this through Jesus’ perfect life and sacrificial death.
But God also promises to glorify these people. Paul speaks of it in the past tense here because it’s as good as done, it’s guaranteed because of what God’s already done. Yet our experience of this glorification is still in the future, that time when our salvation is complete, when our bodies are transformed into glorified bodies.
Now entire theological systems have been built on this golden chain. Calvinists and Arminians often sharply debate the meaning of this golden chain. I certainly have opinions on these issues, and you’ll probably hear some of them when we get to Romans 9. But the point here seems to simply be that God is in control of our salvation from start to finish. From eternity past to eternity future, God has been the primary one initiating the process. That doesn’t make us passive puppets on a string, but it simply affirms that God is in control. I believe God’s will and our will work together in our salvation, but God’s will is always the initiating will. Rather than speculate how this can be, I find it more fruitful to find great comfort from the fact that God is in control.
As we fact painful circumstances we feel out of control. We begin to wonder if anyone’s running the universe. But we can remind ourselves that God is in control of the process. It’s not up to me to try harder or to be perfect, but God has been the one from start to finish, from the past to the future. This reminds me that I’m securely included in what God is doing, not because of me, but because of him.
2. God On Our Side (Romans 8:31-34)
Let me give you the second reason: GOD IS ON OUR SIDE. That’s what we find in vv. 31-34.
Paul pictures a courtroom here, with us as the defendants, God as the Judge, and Jesus as our defense attorney. We know we’re guilty of breaking God’s laws in that courtroom; we’ve seen that clearly from chapters 1 to 3 of Romans, that all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. Religious and irreligious, moral and immoral, young and old, all stand guilty before God.
The image in this section is of all the people who know our failures marching into the courtroom and lodging their complaints against us. The time I betrayed a friend, the times I lied, the time we stole, the time I was unfaithful. Every complaint is filed in the court. Prosecutors step up to condemn us for our failures, and as they do we hang our head in shame because we know they’re right. We are condemned, we are guilty, we’ve failed to love God and love others. Yet after hearing everything that can be said, the judge gets up from the bench and says to us, "I’m for you, I’m on your side." He says, "I know you did all this, but I gave my Son, and he gave his life. My Son suffered your penalty, so based on his suffering, I declare you righteous in this courtroom." The witnesses against us murmur their disapproval, but the judge says, "I’m on the defendant’s side," and every accuser is silenced. Jesus stands at your side, still bearing the scars from the cross, reminding the court of his suffering.
If God was willing to do that, then we can be sure he’ll give us everything else we need to live the spiritual life. If he gave us Jesus, then he’ll give us strength when we feel weak. If he gave us Jesus, then he’ll give us guidance when we don’t know what to do. If he gave us Jesus, then he won’t withhold anything he thinks we need to live this spiritual life of following Jesus Christ.
When tragedy strikes and our hearts are breaking, we’re tempted to think God has turned against us. Like Job, we begin to think God has become our enemy. But we find here that God is on our side. He’s withheld nothing, and he won’t withhold anything, because he’s for us.
Now this doesn’t mean that God takes our side when we’re wrong. It doesn’t mean we can highjack God to endorse our favorite cause. People do this all the time with politics, claiming God is on their side and not on someone else’s side. For instance, when the Ravens win the superbowl later today, it won’t be because Ravens quarterback Trent Dilfer is a Christian and God was on his side rather than Kerry Collins’s side. It will be because of the Raven’s defense.
God is on our side to complete his purposes in our lives, to fulfill his plan for conquering evil and purging this creation from the effects of sin.
Are you wondering if there’s anyone left who believes in you? Are you feeling like the entire world is against you, you family, your friends, even your church? Remember that God is for you, he’s withheld nothing from you for your ultimate good. He loves you. You’re safely included in what he’s up to in our world.
3. Guarded By God’s Love (Romans 8:35-39)
Let me give you the third reason: GOD’S LOVE FOR US IS INDESTRUCTIBLE.
Let’s look at the closing verses of chapter 8. These are incredible verses, almost poetic in their scope and magnitude. Can anything separate us from Christ’s love? The circumstances Paul lists in v. 35 are all circumstances that might tempt us to turn away from Jesus or to lose our confidence in God’s love.
"Trouble" describes the problems that involve suffering in our lives (Louw and Nida 22.2). It’s a failed marriage, a broken friendship, a malignant tumor, a sick child, an abusive parent. It’s discouragement, depression, hopelessness, and despair. These things hurt--no one doubts that--but as much as they hurt, they can’t separate us from Christ’s love.
"Hardship" describes circumstances that impose restrictions on us (Louw and Nida 22.10).
Hardship is poverty, helplessness, and being the victim of racism. As painful and difficult as hardships are, even they can’t separate us from Christ’s love.
"Persecution" is a government endorsed systematic attempt to stop people from following Jesus Christ. Persecution is what happened to 200 Christians in a small village in India when Hindu extremists broke into their church, destroyed the cross, set up Hindu idols, and drove the Christians out of town. Persecution is what happened to four Christians in the country of Turkmenistan last year when police arrested them, beat them, subjected them to electric shocks and partial suffocation, and then forced them to turn over all their money as a gift to the government. Persecution describes the 787 Chinese Christian churches that were destroyed by the Chinese government just last year. Yet as awful and painful as these systematic attempts to exterminate the Christian faith, even this can’t separate us from Christ’s love.
Not famine, not homelessness, not danger, not even violence can drive a wedge between Christ’s love and us.
Paul quotes Psalm 44 in v. 36 to remind us that God’s people have always suffered for following God. Being a follower of Jesus Christ doesn’t exempt us from suffering, but in some cases it actually exposes us to suffering. Just as the Jewish people in Psalm 44 were put to death for God’s sake, many followers of Jesus Christ are put to death for Jesus’ sake. In fact, more Christians were put to death for their faith in Jesus in the twentieth century than in any previous century since the church began twenty centuries ago.
But even in the midst of horrible sufferings, we’re more than conquerors, not because of our courage or faith, but because of God’s incredible love for us. The word translated "more than conquerors" here is literally super-nike, because nike is the Greek word for conqueror or victory. So followers of Jesus Christ are supernikes, even in the midst of the most horrible suffering because of God’s indescribable love.
Then Paul lists several powers that might try to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love. Not death or life can break the bond of God’s love. Not even angels or demons--with all their incredible supernatural power. Not our present circumstances or even the unknowns of the future can break the bond. No power--political, physical, legal, supernatural--no power can break this bond. Not the highest heaven or the deepest hell can break this bond. Nothing in the cosmos can drive a wedge between us and God’s indestructible love for us.
God’s safehouse is truly safe. Not because it’s guarded by pit bulls, patrolled by police or a state of the art security system, but because it’s guarded by God’s indestructible love. No power in the universe can breach that wall. God’s love for his church is like the most powerful glue in the universe. The turpentine of Satan himself can’t unglue us from God’s love.
Not even our own failures and stumbling can separate us. In fact, I believe once we come inside God’s safehouse of his love, even we can’t separate ourselves from this incredible love. And even if we could, why would we ever want to? So when we’re tempted to wonder if we’re really safely included in God’s purposes, we remind ourselves that we’re guarded by God’s indestructible love.
Conclusion
This is an incredible section from the Bible. It literally takes our breath away when we stop to reflect on what it’s telling us. Although we face horrible pain and heartbreak in this life, God is able to use these things for our good. No matter what the heartbreak, no matter what the failure, no matter how deep the pain and tragedy, we are still safe in God’s plan. We know this, not because we can always see how these things will work out for good, but because of the God who says we’re safe. We’re safe in God’s safehouse of the church because God is in control of the process, God is on our side, and God’s love for us is indestructible.
Sources
Louw, J. P. and E. Nida. 1989. Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. New York: United Bible Societies.
