ROMANS 8:35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Did you ever feel unloved? I mean, even though you know a certain person in your life loves you, sometimes you just feel unloved by that person. You can’t understand why in the world he/she would let you go thru something like you are going thru.....don’t you love me? This text says "For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" and yet also says "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us’......how can that be? How are we "more than conquerors" when we are SO beaten down and things are going so terribly wrong for us?
Nanci and I went to a movie Fri nite.....the first time we have ever done that....to see a christian produced film called "Facing the Giants." I wasn’t sure what to expect frankly, because I had been reading about this film for a while It was produced and written and filmed by a church in Georgia....the lead actor is actually an assoc. Pastor of that church. I mention it only because I believe that if us christians are gonna go see a movie, we need to go see christian based movies and support them, because if we don’t, pretty soon there won’t be any to see. The major studios wouldn’t touch this one and it had to be privately financed. We highly recommend it... The main thing it helped bring home to us is this simple message found in Mark 10:27 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”
Have you ever been "behind the eight-ball" in your life. You look around and see that your life isn’t quite as you had planned for it to be. Think back to when you were just 17 or 18 yrs old and you had high expectations for your life. Most of us are not any where near where we imagined ourselves to be, are we? Maybe you freamed of being a Dr or a lawyer (sorry) or even an astronaut. Yet, here we are, usually as a consequence of our own poor choices, trying to find our way thru this life on earth.
Personally, I never dreamed that I would end up being a Pastor. I thought when I was around 14 that God might have called me to preach, but certainly not be a Pastor! I wanted to be an evangelist! That’s it, tell ’em the way it is and then leave their pastor to deal with it! Life takes funny turns, doesn’t it? It took me a long time to get back to God and His calling on my life. Lotta bad choices and decisions. Now that Nanci and I are pastors, I wouldn’t ever imagine us doing anything else but this right here. We love the work God has called us to, but it just goes to show "all things are possible with God.” Ask any of my old high school friends.(NOT)
Back in our original text, it says we are more than conquerors . do you feel like YOU are that? How can we feel like more than conquerors if things aren’t always going just right. Usually we feel like we are anything BUT conquerors. But the secret is found in the rest of our text...38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. .PRAISE GOD!
We CANNOT be defeated as long as we are not seperated from the love of God....and so what then can seperate us? Not even death! There is one thing we need to look closely at...nor any other creature. What does that mean, other creature? Nothing can seperate us from Gods love except........us. When we withdraw from God and look to our own selves to try to correct the trials we are facing....when we turn away from what we KNOW to be right......when we stop attending church because we are in the middle of a lot of trouble.....that’s when we are pushing God out of our lives. And That’s the time we should be seeking MORE of Him in our lives!
We sing a song.."I will not be defeated" and yet sometimes I can’t help but notice that a bunch of the faces I look across seem like they are already defeated before church even starts! We are more than conquerors ! Don’t you feel it? Don’t you believe it? Than act like it! Satan and death have been defeated for us by the work of Jesus at the cross. We need to understand that. And to understand that, we need to realize that we need to PRAISE Him for that!
Nanci and I have determined that we will praise God in all circumstances....even when it might seem crazy to some people, we WILL praise Him! Psalm 150 1 Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. 2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. 3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, 4 praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, 5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals. 6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.
I don’t care what this world does to me....what is the worst it can do, send me to heaven? Oh death, where is thy sting? We are going to praise Him when we are broke, when we are in need, when we are discouraged, when we are downcast...when our children are giving us trials, when we are giving each other trials, when the people we love are putting us thru trials, whenever EVERYTHING is going wrong, we will praise God! And we’re putting Satan on notice this morning, try what you will, but we will NEVER give up praising God! He alone is worthy to be praised, and we don’t do it, Jesus said even the rocks will cry out His praises!
I want to show you one more thing there in ROM 8:24For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? 25But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. 26Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Sometimes you want to give up on hope, don’t you. It’s because we can’t SEE hope. The scripture tells us that we must "with patience wait for it." Man, it’s hard to have patience whenever your world is caving in, isn’t it? Notice also, in vs 26 how important it is that you are in constant communion with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit "maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God." Praise God, I’ve got the Holy Spirit praying for me! Whew! How can we lose? We are more than conquerors
Lastly, look at vs 28 28And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Everything will eventually work out for the good....for those that love God. Do you love Him? I mean really, really love Him? Even when you wonder why He would allow certain things to attack your life? Then show Him.....by drawing nigh unto Him whenever you have problems.....not by blaming Him on your own bad decisions.
