March 9, 2003 Romans 8:31_39
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who 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.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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.
One of the biggest mistakes that happens in a marriage is when we take each other for granted. After being married for a few years, it’s easy to assume that your spouse knows that you love him or her. But when you don’t express it with words or actions, human nature likes to assume the worst. You need to keep the communications open.
God compares our relationship to him with a marriage - where he is the groom and we are the bride. Whereas we are sometimes negligent in our communications with each other, God is never negligent with us. He keeps his communications open. The book of Romans is a wonderful letter from God that expresses His wonderful love for us in Christ. Whenever you get to wondering whether God really loves you, all you need to do is open this book. Then you will quickly find that -
There is No Reason to Ask, “Do You Love Me God?”
I. Look at what He did for you!
James once said, Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? He used this illustration to show that faith without actions is dead. In the same way you could apply it to love. You could tell your spouse or your children a hundred times over that you love them - but if you never hugged them, never kissed them, never bought them any gifts or spent any time with them, they would start to wonder if you really meant what you said.
Jesus once said that “nothing is impossible” with God. The almighty God can do anything easily. God says that he loves us. Yet I would imagine that it is more difficult for God to love us than tocreate the world. If we keep the comparison of a spouse - in God’s eyes we were like sleazy prostitutes who had gone to sleep with other gods - caught their diseases and rotted away to rotten corpses. How could he show love to sinful humans?
According to Robert Ripley, The longest—and simplest—love letter ever written was the work of a Parisan painter named Marcel de Leclure in 1875. It contained the phrase “jevous aime” “I Love You” 1,875,000 times. The prodigious lover did not pen the letter with his own hand. He hired a scribe. He dictated it word for word and had the hired man repeat it verbatim. All in all therefore the phrase was uttered orally and in writing 5,625,000 times—before it reached its destination. Robert Ripley then concluded, “Never was love made manifest by as great an expenditure of time and effort.” I thought to myself, “that’s a ridiculous conclusion to come to.” How loving is it to just write the same thing a million times?
God’s Word doesn’t just contain the same words over and over again, “I love you.” It is illustrated and displayed in Christ. He wrote love by calling His only Son to put flesh on for 33 years. Then he subjected that Son to a lifetime of laws which He had created. After that, He took His own Son and put Him on a cross. The God who abhorred child sacrifice, allowed His own Son to get beaten and mangled and sent Him to hell. Some people are offended by such a thing. They say, “how could a God of love sacrifice his only son? What kind of a God is that?” They would rather talk about a God of love being one who just winks at sin and says, “hey, that’s ok - we all sin.” But God’s love was so great that He didn’t want His creatures to be constantly subject to pain and sorrow. Instead, His love wanted to see us holy and pure on Judgment Day. The only way this could be done would be if our sins could be taken off of us and eradicated forever. So He appointed His only Son to do just that - to die for our sins. Paul wrote that, He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. I couldn’t imagine sending either of my sons to die for my friends, much less people who had stabbed me in the back. But that’s the kind of love God showed toward us. He spared nothing in saving us from hell. That’s how much he loves us - more than just words - but with actions.
Whenever you have two people in love, it doesn’t mean that they live happily ever after like in the movies. More often than not, someone tries to come between their love. That someone is the devil. What does he do? He accuses. When I was working in the Seminary my classmate was working a forklift at a union based shop. One of the workers there told him to take a load and put it on a shelf - knowing full well the load was too heavy for the forklift. Lo and behold, the load fell off. So that worker walked throughout the whole shop telling all of his co-workers what my classmate had done - making him look bad. That’s what I would compare Satan to. Revelation 12 says that Satan is - the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night (Re 12:10). Why does he accuse us? Because he hates us and God - and He hates to see us love each other.
But what does Paul say? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who 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 have a defense attorney who is constantly pleading for our case at the Father’s throne - Jesus Christ. Jesus is also the judge, who has already declared us to be not guilty. In God’s eyes - our jail term has already been paid for - we’ve already done our time in hell, since Jesus did it for us. Think about it - since God GRACIOUSLY GIVES us salvation - bases our salvation on HIS GRACE and the LIFE and DEATH of Christ, what good does it do the devil to bring up OUR lives for accusation? Jesus, our defense attorney, shows that the evidence is inadmissable, and it is all thrown out of court. Why? Because God gives salvation because he is gracious. It would be like trying to sue a millionaire for giving his money away and being generous. The lawsuit would be thrown out of court.
So can any of us say that God doesn’t love us? The sad fact is that we do say it and think it quite often. What a terrible accusation to make - that God doesn’t love you. If anything, God could easily make that accusation of us. He could look at our lives and say, “what have YOU sacrificed for ME? What have YOU given to ME? What have you done to make ME any better? How many times have YOU told ME that you love me? How many times have you talked with me?” Honestly, like Job, we could not answer one thing. All we could do is sit in ashes and repent. But one thing is clear - is that God loves us - even in spite of our accusations. If you ever doubt it - just look at the Son. He took your sins away and nailed them to the cross, making you holy in God’s sight through faith in Christ. His Son still serves as your defender daily. His righteousness still covers our lack of love to Him. On top of all that, Paul says that he has graciously given us ALL THINGS. As he said to the Corinthians - All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. (1 Co 3:21_23) Everything in this world somehow serves our good. God has held NOTHING back - He has given it ALL to us.
II. Have assurance no matter what happens to you!
Do you believe this? If you fully believed it, you would never complain. If you fully believed it, you would never worry. You would never get jealous over what other people had. You would never be upset when things didn’t go your way. You would be the most amicable and calm person in this world. But you’re not.
Paul believed it, and look at what it did for him. He said, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Paul had been through some terrible things in his life - he was stoned, shipwrecked, whipped, imprisoned and left for dead. But he had an interesting view of these things that happened to him. He quoted Psalm 44 in a different way. In Psalm 44 the Sons of Korah were praying to God - wondering why he was allowing them to lose battles when they had remained faithful to his covenant. It didn’t make sense to them. They just felt like they were sheep to be slaughtered. But Paul realized through his study of the Old Testament that God always worked these things out for the good of God’s kingdom. And so Paul quoted that same Psalm and PROUDLY said, “I’m just a sheep to be slaughtered.”
Think about that view of life - to say, “God, I’m not indispensable to you. I’m just another piece of meat in your field - you can shave my hair or slaughter me any time. That’s what I’m here for. If you want to use my meat to feed others - that’s fine with me.” It takes great humility and great trust to tell someone that and put yourself on the chopping block like that. But Paul was so confident of God’s unconditional love, that he knew in the end he would be more than victorious in heaven. So he didn’t worry what God wanted to do with him - take his clothes and food away - lock him up - or even slaughter him. That was fine.
So Paul went on to say, I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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. These weren’t just words to Paul - they were reflected in his life. He was convinced that God loved him, so he was willing to take chances. With a seemingly reckless abandon, Paul went forward in life and preached to people when they were threatening his life. He dedicated his whole life to spreading the gospel, irregardless of the circumstances - not worried about the future. What happened in the end? Paul ended up getting slaughtered - beheaded outside of Rome. But this didn’t separate him from God’s love - it made him even closer to God’s love. God worked it out for good. First of all, he ended up in heaven. Second of all, he used Paul’s dedication and words to inspire people yet today. It worked out for good. God still loved him through it all.
When you are convinced that nothing can separate you from God’s love for you - it will really change your outlook on life. A newborn son of Dr. Siegbert Becker died at six (?) months, Christmas Day. But Dr. Becker always said, "I would rather have a dead son than an unbelieving son." Only a convinced believer of God’s love in Christ can understand what he meant. When you really believe what God is saying, you won’t be afraid of going to the heights - like being happy and enjoying things in life. Or you won’t be afraid to profess Christ among the high and mighty of this world. If God’s love is universal - why not risk reaching out to the depths of society - those entrenched in drug abuse and sexual perversion? Why not risk helping a stranger if it gives you the opportunity to share Christ? When you are convinced God loves you, you won’t hesitate to cry over the loss of a friend of a loved one - God will be with you no matter you go - even to depression. God has promised that he has an undying love for you - so don’t be afraid of the future. Take chances for Christ. So what if you fail? Jesus still died for you and God will still love you through faith in Christ. Everything that exists is for you - happens for the good of the kingdom.
Paul says that nothing will be able to SEPARATE you from the love of God. Separate is a marriage term - as when God says, “what God has joined together, let man not separate.” That’s a neat way of looking at God’s relationship with us. He’ll be with us for better or for worse - when we’re rich or poor - strong or weak in faith - as long as we keep him as our Lord - he’ll never forsake us. He’ll always provide for us. He’ll always love us, because his love is IN Christ Jesus our Lord. His love is not based on who WE are - but on who we are IN - Christ Jesus. He will not reject you and throw you into hell, just because you don’t always trust in Him as you should. He will not reject you because of things that happen outside of Christ. Through the forgiveness won in Christ - He will only continue to love you. He will always be our husband.
The only thing question then remains with YOU - do you want to remain his spouse and keep loving Him? Let’s see - not only is God perfect and holy, but He’ll stay faithful to me and love me no matter how I look or how rich or poor, strong or weak I am? He’ll give me everything I need and make me eternally happy? Or should I divorce him to marry the devil, who will only make false promises, abuse me, and make me look ugly? Hmmm, tough choice. I think I’ll stick with Christ.
Have you ever gone through your old stuff and found some old love letters? This can have a variety of effects on a relationship. Sometimes it can get the guys in trouble. Usually it will make the wife mad, remembering how romantic her husband used to be, and now isn’t. It can be embarrassing and incriminating evidence against the manliness of the men - to think about how sappy they once were. But it can do some good too. It can remind the husband that he can show and express love when he wants too, and that he shouldn’t take his wife’s love for granted.
Today we’ve dug out a 1,948 year old love letter from God. He isn’t embarrassed about it. He had it published - made it into a best seller and had it translated throughout the world. It isn’t sappy. It isn’t perverted. It’s perfect. It’s illustrated in his actions through Christ. One wonderful portion is found in Romans 8 - where God says that nothing can separate you from God’s love. Not height, depth, angels, demons, nothing. If you ever begin to doubt that love - as you deal with bad health, a drop in the stock markets, or a rocky romance - go back to this love letter again and again and remember - God loves you in Christ. He always will. Amen.
