The Triumph of Love

Please remain standing now for the reading of

God's word. We're looking at Romans

Romans 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8 and we're finishing chapter 8 today.

We're looking at verses

31 to 39. Again, Romans chapter 8 verses

Romans 8:31–39

31

to 39.

Hear now the reading of God's word.

What then shall we say to these things?

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 with him

graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It is God who justifies,

who is to condemn.

Christ Jesus is the one who died. More

than that

who was raised,

who is at the right hand of God,

who indeed is interceding

for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of

Christ? Shall tribulation

or distress

or persecution

or famine

or nakedness

or danger

or sword?

As it is written, for your sake we

are being killed all the day long. We

are regarded as sheep

to be slaughtered.

No.

In all these things we are more than

conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor

life,

nor angels nor rulers,

nor things present, nor things to come, nor

powers,

nor height,

nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation will be

able to separate us from the love of

God in Christ Jesus

our Lord.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Please be seated.

About 2 years

after the resurrection

of Jesus,

there's great consternation

on Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The Sanhedrin, which served as a kind of

Supreme Court for Israel,

especially on religious matters, is in session

listening to accusations of blasphemy

against a man named Stephen.

Stephen is a committed follower of Jesus, who

is in his service as a deacon by

the power of the Holy Spirit,

is performing wonders and signs causing many Jews

and even many priests

to become Christians.

But now representatives

of several synagogues

have brought charges against Stephen,

accusing him of speaking blasphemous words

against God

and against Moses.

They also accused Stephen of repeating Jesus' threat

to one day destroy the temple

and abolish

the law.

As the slanderous accusations

rung in Stephen's ears, he understood the gravity

of his circumstances.

The Roman law forbade the Sanhedrin from executing

anyone.

The penalty for blasphemy under the Mosaic law

was death by stoning,

and illegal executions of the guilty

could be carried out by a spontaneous

act

of a mob.

Stephen knew

that the angry crowd surrounding him was certainly

capable

and definitely willing to pick up stones and

make sure that divine justice was carried out.

So as the high priest turned to Stephen

and asked him if the accusations against him

were true,

one might have expected Stephen to be paralyzed

by fear

and to take the opportunity perhaps to plead

for his life, to plead for the court's

mercy.

But at the end of acts 6, Luke

paints a very different picture.

He writes that those who gazed at Stephen's

face

saw the countenance of an angel.

So despite the looming threat of death,

Stephen didn't flinch.

Instead,

he boldly recounted the history of Israel

arguing

that by rejecting and crucifying Jesus,

they had betrayed

the long expected Messiah,

putting to death the righteous one of God.

Stephen's piercing words caused indignation in the Sanhedrin

and rage among the crowd.

Yet Stephen did not become consumed by fear

of what might happen to him. Instead,

he lifted his gaze to heaven and he

witnessed a scene

that steadied his heartbeat

and filled him with peace.

Today, we're considering the final 9 verses in

Romans 8.

In this text, Paul rends the heavens

and allows us to set our eyes upon

the very same courtroom scene that Steven that

that put Steven's heart at ease.

And I believe this scene will have the

same effect on us that it did on

Steven

when he faced a severe trial.

In fact, my sermon proposition this morning is

this.

If God is for you,

no attack against you will ultimately prevail.

If God is for you, no attack against

you

will ultimately prevail.

So let's consider Romans 8:31 to 39 under

Romans 8:31–39

3 headings. 1st,

the courtroom.

2nd,

the

trial. And 3rd,

the verdict. And we're gonna spend most of

our time in the first of these, the

courtroom,

because it's really the most significant part of

this text that we have before us. So

let's begin by looking at this first heading,

the courtroom.

Verse 31 reads,

what then shall we say

to these things?

If God is for us, who can be

against us? The first thing we need to

do is understand what Paul means by these

things.

In the immediate context of Romans 8, Paul

has asserted the following.

First, in verses 2 to 4, Paul asserts

that those

who are in Christ are no longer under

condemnation,

but are considered righteous

before God.

2nd, in verses 9 to 11,

Paul asserts that Christians can pursue holy living

since the indwelling of the Holy Spirit enables

them to walk in newness of life.

3rd,

in verses 12 to 17, Paul asserts that

Christians have the privilege of calling God father,

and that they bear the responsibility of honoring

God with their lives, and if necessary even

with their deaths.

And 4th,

in verses 18 to 30,

Paul asserts that the Christian salvation and inheritance

are always secure,

being bound to him by an unbreakable chain

designed and forged by God

himself.

These are some pretty amazing assertions by Paul,

aren't they?

This is especially true if one considers the

context in which Paul writes

these assertions, the context in which Romans is

written.

When Paul writes his letter to the Romans

around AD 57,

the Christian population

in the Roman Empire constituted less than 0.01%.

This means that if you randomly met a

Christian

somewhere in the Roman Empire,

you'd have to meet more than 10,000 more

people before meeting another Christian.

So based on numbers alone,

Christianity wasn't exactly a success story. Christianity at

that time wasn't really flourishing,

not yet.

And to add to this the fact that

by the middle of the 1st century,

Christians are already being shunned by family and

friend.

They're being expelled from synagogues.

They are exiled from their hometowns.

They are being jailed and beaten because of

their beliefs.

And sometimes,

they are even being martyred

for their faith.

If you followed Christ, clearly, this did not

mean that your life would suddenly become a

bed of roses.

And the Christian life today

is also

not a bed of roses.

Since not only Christians still suffer

all the miseries of this fallen world, as

we all know, but also Christians are being

harassed more and more

because

of our faith.

And around the world, of course,

no group of people is more persecuted

and martyred

than Christians are.

And yet by the end of Romans 8,

Paul reminds us that Christians are free from

condemnation,

clothed in the righteousness of Christ,

indwelled

by the Holy Spirit,

adopted as God's children and heirs, and bound

to God's blessing by an unbreakable chain.

All of which

is a spectacular way of telling Christians,

God is for you.

In the midst of all those troubles, of

all that suffering, of all that pain, of

all those tears,

God is for you.

That's what Paul means

by these things when he asked in verse

31, what shall we say to these things?

All this suffering, all this misery, what shall

we say to this?

If God is for you, who can be

against you?

In the second part of verse 31,

perhaps you hear echoes here of

young David's bold words to Goliath in this

part where he says, if God is for

you, who can be against you? In 1

1 Samuel 17:45

Samuel 17 verse 45,

where David fearlessly walks up to the giant

and tells him, you come to me with

sword

and with spear and with javelin,

but I come to you in the name

of the Lord, the Lord of hosts,

the God of the armies of Israel.

Beloved Christian, when the challenges in your life

loom large and appear insurmountable,

when adversity befalls you

like sharp spears,

like deadly javelins,

How good it is to know that you

bear

God's name,

that you enjoy the protection of the Lord

of hosts, of the God of the armies

of Israel.

For you know that in that day of

trouble

you can run into the shelter you can

run into the shelter of the most high.

That you can abide in the shadow of

the almighty.

You know that he holds you fast in

his love.

That he knows your name.

That he will deliver you, and that he

will protect you, and that he will show

you his salvation.

God does not promise to remove your suffering,

but he does promise to remove your sin.

God does not promise to make your troubles

go away,

but he does promise to make you holy.

From predestination

to glorification,

God has you in his mind, and in

his hand, and in his heart.

How do you know that you

as a Christian are the object of God's

love?

That you are the apple of his eye?

That you can rest in the eternal security

of his unending grace? How can you know

that?

Well, Paul tells you in verse 32

where he writes,

He who did not spare his own Son,

but gave him up for us all, how

will he not also with him

graciously

give us all

things.

One of the ways that we express our

love for others is through the giving of

gifts.

For example, with great joy,

a man will save money and buy his

beloved an engagement ring as he hopes and

prays that she will like it and that

she will say yes.

Parents love to give good gifts to their

children,

even more so than getting anything for themselves.

And the greater the relationship that you have

with somebody, the greater

the intimacy,

the greater the love, then the more thought

and planning, the more attention, the more resources

that you dedicate

to finding the right gift.

Well, consider God's gift

to Christians

and think about the thought,

the attention,

and the cost

behind his gift.

With respect to the thought behind the gift,

remember that God planned the gift

before the world began,

even as he chose us in Christ

before the foundation of the world as Paul

reveals in Ephesians

Ephesians 1:4

1:4.

Your existence is not an accident.

Your life is not a random occurrence

and your membership in God's family is not

happenstance.

God thought of you before the world began,

and he made you to be his.

And he also thought of what he would

have to give to you.

What he would have to give for you.

He thought of what he would have to

pay

in order to redeem

you. With respect to the attention behind the

gift,

remember that last week we learned

that God planned every detail

of his gift, from predestination

all the way to glory. Every last detail

he has planned.

He has paid attention to these things.

The gift he gives you not only guarantees

your salvation, but also your ongoing growth in

grace

and maturity in holiness

until you are perfected in glory.

God leaves no detail

outside of his perfect plan for you.

With respect to the cost

of this gift that God gives you. Paul

writes that God did not spare

his own

son.

God gives you

his own son.

That is the gift, and there is no

greater gift possible.

There is no gift that is more costly.

God the father gives

his own son.

In Romans 8, Paul writes that God's children

that we are God's children how? Through adoption,

he says.

But here in stark contrast to adoption,

Paul emphasizes that God gives his own son

to redeem us. Not his adopted son, but

his only begotten son. That's

what he gives, that's the cost.

So whenever Satan

or any of his earthly minions attempt to

convince you

that your past makes you damaged goods,

that your present makes you a fraud,

that your future offers no hope,

that your life

is worthless.

Remind them and remind yourself

that you've been in God's thoughts

before the world began.

That he planned every last detail

of this precious gift

to secure you.

That he stopped at no expense to redeem

you.

That God the Father did not spare his

own Son,

and that God the Son did not hold

back his own life.

To paraphrase the great Christian Holocaust survivor, Corrie

10 Boom,

Yes, the depth of our sin may be

deep,

but the power of God's love reaches

deeper

still.

And if you are loved with this kind

of love,

if God did not spare his own son,

how will he withhold anything from you?

The reason these words matter is that the

in the courtroom scene that Paul is about

to describe,

the Christian is the one who is under

duress.

The Christian is the defendant,

the one being accused,

the one under attack.

The accusation

is that we are sinners,

that our love for God is fickle and

adulterous,

that we worship the creature instead of the

creator.

Now I wanna ask for a show of

hands to see who feels the sting

of these accusations, because the truth is that

these accusations

are not entirely without merit.

That's why we have time

for corporate and private confession of sin in

our own liturgy, because we of all people

understand

and bemoan

the reality of our sin.

We confess

that sin is terrible,

that it wrecks lives,

that it is deadly.

Not only does sin damage our relationship with

others,

hindering our disposition to witness even, because we

feel like hypocrites,

but it also hurts our relationship with God,

causing us to doubt his love,

deceiving us into seeing him

more as a judge

than as our father.

This is devastating to our ability to grow

in our knowledge of God and our love

for God because our sin makes us run

away from his presence.

Or that we would instead run away from

the presence of sin,

deadly sin, and that we will run into

the life giving arms of our heavenly Father.

That ought to be our disposition. That's what

we do when we confess our sin. We're

not running away from God, we're running to

him.

Yes. These accusations have merit.

And it is the merit behind these accusations

that makes the attacks against us so effective.

These attacks include all the hardships that we

suffer in this life,

resulting from the misery of living in a

fallen world, in a world in rebellion against

God, and which our accuser

and our adversary

wants us to interpret

as evidence of God's judgment against us.

If you are sick,

it's because God is punishing you.

If you're struggling in school,

it's because you've been

a naughty boy or naughty girl and God

is punishing you.

If you're struggling at work,

it's because God is punishing you. You're not

faithful.

If you're struggling in your marriage,

it's because God is punishing you.

You don't honor your husband. You don't serve

and honor your wife,

and so on. And again, these accusations carry

weight because our sin does wreak havoc

in our lives

and brings devastating consequences.

So Paul begins his description of this courtroom

scene

by reminding

you, the one sitting on the defendant's chair,

who you really are.

Your adversary is accusing you and his accusation

appears to have merit,

but if you are a Christian,

you are no ordinary defendant.

God has already given

his son for you

and given you his spirit.

So will he not also give you everything

you need to withstand

this present trouble?

That's Paul's point.

Now look at verse 33,

where Paul gives us more insight

into this courtroom scene that he is depicting.

He

writes, who shall bring any charge

against God's elect? It is God

who justifies.

The charges

are being are being brought against God's elect.

The defendants, that is to say, Christians are

God's

elect.

In the Bible, the elect

are the people whom God chooses.

They are not the electors.

They are the elect.

God chooses them

to set His love upon them and He

chooses them that they might receive His name.

They are the ones who are bound to

God by the golden chain of salvation, which

is forged in God's eternal purpose and secured

around Christians

by his unfailing love.

Their good standing before God does not depend

on their record of obedience,

nor on the strength

and constancy of their own faith,

but on the magnitude and immutability

of God's divine love.

That's why Paul asked, who can bring a

charge against them?

Furthermore, Paul makes clear that God is the

judge,

writing, it is God who justifies.

Now God does not lie,

and he is most certainly a good judge,

a righteous judge.

So if he justifies,

that is if he declares the defendant

not guilty,

it is because he has legal grounds to

do so.

You might ask, how can this be?

Since you and I are the defendants,

and as we admitted earlier, the accusations against

us are not unfounded.

In verse 34, Paul answers our question and

completes the courtroom scene.

It says,

who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that, the one who was raised,

who is at the right hand of God,

who indeed is interceding

for us.

This verse

is the hinge

around which our entire passage turns.

The reason why the accusations against Christians are

toothless,

the reason why the defendant can rest

when he faces trial,

the reason why the judge is right

in absolving the accused

is not because the transgression

of the defendant is non existent,

nor because the judge looks the other way.

Rather,

it is because the defendant's sin

has already been adjudicated,

condemned

and punished,

and therefore it cannot be adjudicated again.

That would be illegal.

Nor condemned again.

That would be unjust.

Nor punished again.

That would be cruel.

You see in verse 34, Paul tells us

first

that Jesus has already died in our place.

That is to say,

he has already been punished for our sins,

satisfying divine justice

and removing all grounds

for our own condemnation.

2nd, he tells us that Jesus has already

been raised.

That is to say he has been vindicated,

Meaning that the father has already accepted Christ

payment

on our behalf,

and therefore he will not require further payment

from us.

The debt has been satisfied.

3rd,

Paul writes that Jesus is already at God's

right hand.

That is to say Jesus now has

authority and dominion over all things, meaning that

his will cannot be thwarted.

And 4th, Paul writes that Jesus

intercedes

for us.

That is to say, he is our High

Priest,

our Advocate,

our Defense Attorney.

He undertakes

our case and he secures for us a

favorable verdict. That's his will and his will

will not be forwarded.

Please understand the significance of what Paul is

saying here.

In this courtroom scene,

Satan is the prosecutor,

the one who argues for our condemnation.

Christians,

the elect are the defendants. They are the

ones who are accused.

The father is the judge

who will adjudicate the case, and Jesus is

the defense attorney.

He is the one who defends us.

But here is the detail

that rightly secures the not guilty verdict for

Christians.

Our defense attorney

who happens to be the judge's beloved son

has already

personally

been tried

for the very transgressions for which the defendant

is standing trial.

Dear Christian,

Jesus has taken your place.

He has already been condemned for your transgression

and he has already

paid the penalty

for your sins in full.

And now he stands in that courtroom

as your defense attorney

and he brings the receipts

that show

that your transgressions

have been paid in full.

The receipts

are evident for everyone to see in the

court.

They are marked

by the thorns on his forehead,

by the nails

in his hands and in his feet, and

by the tip of the spear on his

side, the marks that they leave, those are

the receipts there exhibit a

in your innocence.

And because he has already been declared guilty,

you will not be.

Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that, who was raised?

Who is at the right hand of God,

who indeed is interceding for us?

That is the very heart

of the gospel.

That is the good news that changed the

world. That is what has the power

to change your life.

The blessing of this courtroom scene is not

that Satan is the accuser.

That would be a curse. He's a formidable

opponent.

The blessing of this courtroom scene is not

that God is the judge.

That would be a curse. His justice is

inescapable,

and he will by no means clear the

guilty.

The blessing of the courtroom scene is not

that Jesus is your defendant.

That would be a curse for he does

not lie

and you're a sinner like me.

Now the blessing, dear Christian,

is that Calvary

was your courtroom

And on that hill, Jesus took your place

as the defendant

and received the punishment for your sin. It

is finished, he cried.

Therefore,

let us no longer live as slaves to

sin because we are not.

Let us instead live to honor our gracious

God, our loving God, who stopped at nothing

to deliver us from sin and to give

us eternal life.

So having considered the courtroom,

let us now look at the second heading,

the trial.

Look at verses 35 and 36 with me.

Who shall separate us from the love of

Christ?

Shall tribulation

or distress

or persecution

or famine

or nakedness

or danger

or sword? As it is written,

for your sake

we are being killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

In these verses, the Apostle Paul lists all

sorts of trials

that Christians experience in this life.

Things like tribulation, that is to say things

that causes direct suffering.

Distress,

this word literally means narrow space, a narrow

space and refers to something that squeezes us,

something that causes us to feel great pressure.

Persecution,

that is to say

things that

cause others to attack us,

especially because of our faith.

Famine,

that is to say circumstances that make it

difficult for us to put food on the

table.

Nakedness,

that is to say circumstances that cause us

and our loved ones to lack the most

essential things, things like clothing, things like shelter.

Danger,

that is to say anything that threatens our

well-being.

Sword,

that is to say threats to our health

and to our life,

and even death

being regarded as sheep

to be slaughtered.

Paul writes that these are the trials.

These are the adversities.

These are the adversaries

that we Christians must face in this life.

But the hope that these verses offer is

that although we face these trials,

we will not be conquered by them.

In fact, verse 34 starts with the words,

who shall separate us

from the love

of Christ?

None of these trials will.

Tribulation,

no. Distress,

no.

Persecution,

no. Famine, no. Nakedness, no. Danger, no.

Sword, no. Death, no. None of these things

will because none of these things can.

None of these things, none of these trials

can overcome

God's love for his people.

19th century Princeton theologian Charles Hodge comments,

this is the last step in the climax

of the Apostle's argument,

the very summit of the Mount of Confidence.

No one can accuse,

no one can condemn,

no one can separate us from the love

of Christ.

This last assurance

gives permanency to the value of the other

2. It is God's love that grounds our

confidence.

Beloved Christian,

I know that several of you are facing

very real and difficult trials.

They are inevitable

in this fallen world. But our text this

morning ought to fill you with great confidence

because the courtroom is in your favor.

And these

trials

will not be able to separate you from

God's love because there is no trial

that can separate you from God's love.

Perhaps this does not remove your present suffering,

but it does give you the right perspective,

and it provides for you an abiding hope.

Whether you face tribulation, or distress, or persecution,

or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword,

or even death itself,

Nothing will be able to separate you from

God's

unchanging love.

So having considered the courtroom and the trial,

let us look at the final heading, the

verdict.

In verses 37 to 39 we read,

no, in all these things we are more

than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor

life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present,

nor things to come,

nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything

else in all creation

will be able to separate us from the

love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For the Christian,

the final verdict has been secured

and it is favorable.

A resounding not guilty

shall be heard on that solemn day.

The courtroom scene that Paul describes guarantees it.

There is no other way.

He tells Christians that in all these things,

that is in all these trials that we

face, we are more than conquerors through him

who loved us.

Not only are all these trials that we

face

incapable of condemning us, not only will all

the charges against us be dismissed,

not only will all these things fail to

separate us from God's love, but we are

more than conquerors

in the midst of these trials.

In Greek,

it states that we are hyper conquerors,

that we are victors

to the uttermost.

It is a word that would sometimes be

used to describe someone who was declared to

be

irreproachably victorious

over his accusers in a court of law.

The verdict

that awaits all of us Christians is that

you are more than conqueror because it has

been secured

by him who loved us.

And because it is the power of Christ's

love that secures our victory,

there is no other power that can put

our blessed future state in jeopardy.

If you're a Christian,

you can trust

in the sure triumph of Christ's love

and confidently declare with Paul that neither death,

nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor rulers,

nor things present, nor things to come, nor

height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation

will be able to separate you from the

love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christ holds you in his hand.

The Father holds you in his hand and

the Holy Spirit seals

that impenetrable grip.

Who can separate you from God's love? Nothing.

No one,

not even

you. Nothing in all creation, not even you

can separate you from the love of God.

He will not allow it.

If you're in Christ,

your suffering will go away.

Your pain will pass.

He will wipe away

all your tears

and you will enjoy all the pleasures

at his right hand. We're all heading in

that direction.

There's a day coming

when everything that I promise here will be

a yes and amen.

If you're not in Christ,

if you're not taking refuge in him, then

how would you stand on that terrible day?

This is not a hypothetical day. The first

part of that day already happened on Calvary.

The second part is gonna come.

How will you stand on that day if

you're not taking refuge in Christ?

Your accuser is powerful and without mercy.

Your signed defendant will not lie.

Your judge

sees your sin

and he will not be bribed.

Do not delay any longer. Turn to him.

Let him take your place.

Let Christ take your place.

Let him change your heart.

After Stephen spoke

before the Sanhedrin on Temple Mount,

the heavens opened

and he lifted his gaze to heaven and

said, behold,

I see the heavens open and the Son

of Man standing

at the right hand of God.

Stephen saw the same courtroom scene that Paul

here describes

and that gave him a peace that surpasses

understanding.

The crowd became enraged

and they dragged him outside the city walls

and they picked up stones and began hurling

them at him with deadly force.

And as the stones pummeled Stephen

and his body crumbled to the ground

and his life began to slip away,

Stephen cried out not for justice against them,

but for mercy,

saying, Lord, do not hold their sin

against them.

And in that moment,

he was received

in the loving arms

of his advocate.

Because no stone

and no hatred

and no power in this world and no

power in the world to come could separate

him from the love of God in Jesus

Christ.

This is the triumph of love

that Paul speaks of in Romans 8.

So dear Christian,

since God is for you, no attack,

no matter how fierce will ultimately prevail against

you because if God is for you, who

can be against you?

Let's pray.