Winners in A Losers’ World
(Romans 8:31-34)
Note: This sermon was too long to complete for me (I usually preach 1/2 hour), so I ended up reworking point 2 into a second sermon.
1. Short term winners are often long-term losers.
2. The other day, I was messing with my stamp collection. I’ve purchased a whole gob of Russian stamps.
3. Many of those stamps contains busts or paintings of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.
4. Those guys made great promises to the Russian people; Communism was supposed to usher in an almost Utopian Era; instead, the people of the former Soviet Union are left holding the bag and trying to put the pieces back together.
5. The entire Communist movement was a movement of losers.
6. If we believe the Bible to be true, than we have to conclude that the vast majority of people will end up as losers.
7. Indeed, many people admit they are losers up front: you look at the rock music stars and the Hollywood stars, and their lives are depressing, cynical, and negative; they have done a good job convincing others to adopt their doom and gloom world view, and Generation X in particular has bought into it, lock, stock, and barrel.
8. Some from the current generation of teens have also bought into it, but most have not. Which is why I am excited about this generation of teens. They are, by and large, participators.
9. In one respect they are much better than Cynical Generation X because they do not easily give up on the quest for joy, and they have learned the art of enjoying other people rather than embracing a victim mentality.
10. But many of Generation Y will also lose, because they are seeking a short-term joy and not the joy that flows from living life with God first and then other people. Being social makes you happy in this life; being right with God makes you happy for eternity; being right with God and being social means joy on earth now and greater joy in heaven for eternity.
11. God’s elect are guaranteed winners in eternity, the theme of today’s message.
12. The Christian life is a responsible life, but the responsibility of the Christian life flows from its blessings and privileges.
13. That’s why lost people cannot understand us. Our great privileges motivate us to shoulder responsibilities that do not seem so great in light of our privileges.
MAIN IDEA: With privilege comes responsibility, but we need to grasp our privileges to prepare for our responsibilities. And our privileges include this: we are destined to be winners!
I. Because We Are God’s Elect, God is __Specially___For Us (31-32)
1. God is sometimes ____against____ people
· When we read Scriptures containing the word, “we,” we must ask who is meant by “we?” We…all people? Believers? Jewish believers? Leaders?
· Lost people often apply Scriptures to themselves that are written to believers…
So God is not FOR everyone:
Romans 9:13, “Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
Many examples of God being against people in Scripture: Pharaoh & the Egyptians, the population of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Canaannites, etc.
· What does it mean to be elect? We answered that last week
2. “Since” God is for His elect, who can stand against us
Literally, “If God for us, who against us?”
(1) NASB: Who can stand against us….
(2) We have many formidable enemies, and they often win the battle in our lives, but not the war….
· Demons, headed up by Satan, a word which means “adversary”
· According to Isaiah 14, Satan was created as Lucifer, the greatest angel; he thought he ought to be God and led a rebellion, taking a third of the angels with him; he became known as Satan, they as demons…
· But this was all part of God’s plan to glorify Himself…not surprised…
· And we are in the middle of this drama that has been going on for thousands of years…and all of us began on the wrong side…when God zapped us and saved us, we defected from the Kingdom on Darkness to the Kingdom of Light…
· If God took His hand of protection off of us, I believe Satan would destroy every believer he could….sometimes when God disciplines us, He releases some of that protection in some area…
· The world, meaning society and individuals who disregard God’s priorities and values
· Our own sinful nature which betray us and ally with the enemies above
3. The argument of the ___greater___ to the lesser
· Negatively, God did not spare His own Son
· Remember the story of Abraham and Isaac?
· Positively, He will give us ALL things to accomplish His purposes
4. What is the issue under discussion here? Comfort in ___life___, or security in Christ? Short term ease of eternal bliss in heaven and depth and meaning in life now?
· Not everything we want in life, but rather His long term plan for us is that we would enjoy Him and have joy forever as companions of Jesus Christ….
· And so when we talk about taking up our crosses and following Jesus, we are talking about self-denial. But listen to what John Piper said: “Self-denial is not the renunciation of the quest of joy, but the renunciation of lesser inadequate joys for bigger and longer ones.”
· The quest for lasting, satisfying, and intense joy begins and ends with God.
· Saved individuals have a base-line blessing of forgiveness and eternity in heaven. That’s the minimum package; but it builds up from there as we store treasures in heaven and earn rewards that bring even more joy in heaven.
· Lost people have a base-line of separation from God forever; they can work downward toward a greater condemnation.
· It’s good, better and best verses bad, worse, and worst.
5. Many times, we are our own worst enemy; we sin because we think we are losing out and will die not having enjoyed our life to the fullest; but God’s concern is our eternal, long-term _____joy_____. So our short-cut attempts mean a net loss, often even in this life.
· If we look at the origin of sin, it seems to begin with a lack of faith in God’s goodness (true in both the sin of Lucifer and the sin of Adam and Eve); because we doubt God’s goodness, because we are AFRAID that God is not really out for our best interest; because we are Afraid, we try to control everything we can, including our own happiness; this causes us to fear we are missing out on joy unless we compromise God’s standards….and we sin.
· But the opposite is true: God is out for our ultimate joy, and we sacrifice some of our future happiness (both in this life and eternity) out of the fear that God is cheating us. That is why the Bible places such a high premium on faith. Faith glorifies God because it acknowledges that He is trustworthy; doubt insults His very character.
· As Christians, we have the responsibility to trust God because we are guaranteed an eternity of joy.
With privilege comes responsibility, but we need to grasp our privileges to prepare for our responsibilities. And our privileges include this: we are destined to be winners!
II. Because We Are God’s __Elect__, We Have An Impenetrable _Security_ (33-34)
1. Note: many people think they are saved, but are not; this applies only to the truly elect!
2 Peter 1:10, “Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall...”
2. Accusations are sometimes unwarranted:
· John was driving home late one night when he picked up a hitchhiker. As they rode along, he began to be suspicious of his passenger. John checked to see if his wallet was safe in the pocket of his coat that was on the seat between them, but it wasn’t there! So he slammed on the brakes, ordered the hitchhiker out, and said, "Hand over the wallet immediately!" The frightened hitchhiker handed over a billfold, and John drove off. When he arrived home, he started to tell his wife about the experience, but she interrupted him, saying, "Before I forget, John, do you know that you left your wallet at home this morning?"
· Early believers were considered atheists because they had no images they would worship; they were accused of being cannibals because of a misunderstanding of Communion…now we are accused of being mindless, narrow, or stubborn, simply because the idea of having convictions is lost to modern society…
But many accusations made against us can be true; we all mess up. Yet the good news is that justice has been served…in Christianity, God does not just forgive sins. In His justice, He sees to it that sins are given their due penatly…
Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’"
But where do these accusations come from?
· Our consciences: either working right or wrongly (too sensitive)
· Our families, friends, and associates (sometimes rightly, other times not)
· The word “Satan” means adversary, but the word devil means, “accuser.’
Revelation 12:10 reads,
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down
3. Christ rises to ______defend_____ us against the accusation
· Turn with me to Zechariah 3:1-5
1 John 2:1-2 reads
1My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for[1] the sins of the whole world.
With privilege comes responsibility, but we need to grasp our privileges to prepare for our responsibilities. And our privileges include this: we are destined to be winners!
Conclusions
1. There is more to being a winner in life than knowing God.
2. God wants us to be social creatures and to build relationships with others.
3. But if God is not first, we are not the winners we could be.
4. Are you a winner?
