Romans 8:28-39

The Heidelberg Catechism begins with, What is our only comfort in life and death?

I actually want to share this with you this morning.

And it says this that I am not my own.

That is, I don't belong to me.

And that's that's huge.

That's a that's massive difference from the way a lot of people think.

I don't believe I'm not my own, but I belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

That's awesome.

Who with his precious blood has fully paid for all my sins and set me free from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my Father in heaven, not a hair can fall from my head.

Wow, that's amazing.

Indeed, that all things must work together for my salvation.

Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live unto him.

Wow.

That's great.

We've had uh we're living in an unparalleled times.

We've had an unparalleled week.

Um seems like uh not only the tornado, not only the the worldwide microbial enemy that none of us can see with our naked eye, but seems to be ravaging uh the world that we live in.

But even on a personal level, Kim and I are um uh talking with folks all the time throughout the week.

We on the phone with one couple talking about a loss when another phone call comes in, another emergency.

And I don't know about you, but sometimes it feels like there's a lot of shaking going on.

It feels like everything that can be shaken is being shaken.

And that's the time, I think, when convictions and affirmations from the Scripture and encouragement from the Holy Spirit really start to matter.

And things like what we just sang, that Christ is our hope in life and in death.

See, the Christian faith isn't just about sort of happy, slappy living, but it's also about during times of suffering and darkness, how God's our hope even in death.

If the worst that can befall us here in this life is that this life comes to an end, we know we belong to Him.

I belong to Him is the beginning of that Heidelberg catechism.

So I really like that.

It may only bring just a little bit of comfort to know that we're not the only generation that's gone through some of these kinds of things, but it might bring some.

It's one of the reasons why the best of our writers and storytellers and songwriters can pour all of their angst and all of the reality of their pain and suffering that they're experiencing into their songs, into their poems.

And it can mean something, it can impact us, much like the ancient book of Psalms does for us when we open it, we experience every human emotion written in those 150 ancient songs.

And today, what I want to do, uh, since we're kind of uh adjusting, I normally stand up and say we study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.

Um we're taking this opportunity while we're doing these uh at home with the Village Chapel services, we're taking this opportunity to do a series, and as a matter of fact, so inspired by that song that we want to call the series Christ Our Hope in Life and Death.

Um we'll do today is jump to Romans 8, 28 through 39, a passage you might be familiar with, some of you.

And uh it's been uh a passage that's brought great hope to a lot of people for a long, long time.

And I think there's more there than some of us might know, and that's what I hope to unpack for us today.

Uh but no, we aren't the first generation to suffer through a lot of uh very difficult times.

Uh I'm I'm I think of the Inklings, for instance, C.S.

Lewis, J.R.R.

Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, um uh Owen Barfield, and those guys that used to gather in Oxford uh in that little pub, and they had a little group called the Inklings.

They used to read to one another, and uh they'd they'd share as they were writing, and after the Great War, World War I, with all of its horrors, all of the death, uh, all of and and all of this man-made, all this caused by by the evil that it lies in men's and women's hearts.

And and uh, in spite of all of that, they were able to come up with these amazing stories that that told of this uh uh uh epic story of hope, uh, of friendship, uh, of of destiny.

And I some of you are familiar, and because it's been passed around so much this week from the Fellowship of the Ring, I can just see Tolkien reading it to Lewis and saying, What do you think?

And some of the dialogue went like this, where Frodo basically says to Gandalf, I wish it need not have happened in my time, that this darkness that was surrounding it, that it just wouldn't happen in my time.

And that's that's the way we all feel too, isn't it?

Gandalf, though, replies and says, So do I, and so do all who live to see such times.

But that is not for them to decide.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

And it remains a timeless opportunity for us as well.

What will we do with the time that is given to us?

Well, if you have your Bible, uh maybe grab one off the off the bookshelf in your home, or or uh maybe maybe like me, you've got you've got them laying around in a lot of different places.

Just grab one.

Let's open up to Romans 8 and let's take a look at this passage.

Uh the chapter itself is fascinating.

We've studied it before together.

Um, it's bookended by these two really bold, and I'd call them happy declarations, okay?

Um verse one opens with, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

In other words, when it comes to our standing before God, if you're in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation.

That's how the chapter opens.

And then the chapter runs through, and the chapter at the end it says, There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

So everything's about being in Christ, and I love it that Matt mentioned that earlier in the prayer, and that may indeed serve to be the theme of this day, in being in Christ, you know.

But when you're in Christ, there's no condemnation, and when you're in Christ, there's no separation.

And that's what Romans 8 in a nutshell is gonna tell us.

Both uh Christopher Ash says, both failure with sin and precious from suffering unsettle us deeply.

The only remedy is to know with equal depth the unbreakable love of God for us in Jesus.

So Paul's goal in Romans 8 really is to hold up the joyful and luminous beauty of God's love for us in Christ, to show us that his love for us is infinitely brighter than all of the darkness that pressed in on Frodo and Gandalf, that presses in on us, that pressed in on people, you know, in days gone by when there have been plagues and when there have been depression and when there have been economic disasters and lots of sickness and all of that.

That God's love for us in Christ shines brighter than all of that darkness, all of that pain and evil that this world could ever throw at us or seek to drown us under.

So let's read this text today, which I'm so excited about.

I really do love it.

Romans 8.

And uh, as I say, some of you will be familiar with some of this.

But verse 28, so it's probably been put on more embroidered uh plaques and carved into wood and all that than a lot of other verses, and it's wonderful, it's rich in promises.

Um, but as we start to go to this text, I want to tell you because you're familiar with it, I'm gonna give you the outline in advance just a little bit because I want you to make sure you get the goods, okay?

Um I I want to I want you to get more than a plaque out of this.

I want you to get more than a veneer sort of hope.

Because I think there's more than that here, okay?

So I'm gonna borrow, and I'm I do this unashamedly.

I borrow all the time.

I think there's very precious little that is ever original that you hear from my lips, but uh that's why I'm such a quote slinger.

People other than me say it's so much better, and so I'm gonna lean on them.

This is from John Stott.

He put these five things together.

We'll fill it in our own way uh here at TVC, but but he says in verse 28, we find five unshakable convictions.

And when everything is shaking, what I need is some unshakable stuff.

See?

And so we'll find five unshakable convictions, five undeniable affirmations in verses 29 to 30, and five unanswerable questions in verses 31 to 39.

I'm gonna leave that up on the screen there.

Uh I'm sure the camera will cut back and forth a little bit here, but um I'm I'm I'm gonna read the text and you you watch for those, and then we'll come back in a little bit, and I'll uh I'll throw them up on three different slides so you can see them all together.

We know that God causes, verse 28 says, we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined.

All the Presbyterians just woke up.

Hello, glad you're here.

Stay with us.

All right, yeah, it's good.

To become conform to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

In other words, that there would just be the character of Christ all over the place.

Okay?

And whom he predestined, these he also called, and whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified.

And that's in the past tense, too, even though we haven't completely realized all of that glorification, it's so sure a conviction of the apostle Paul that he's willing to say it in the past tense.

This has begun, folks.

Why?

Because Christ is our hope in life and death.

Yeah.

What shall we say then to these things?

I love that.

How do we respond?

See, we we always talk about that when we're doing Bible studies.

We always talk about the four big questions.

How does God reveal Himself in this passage?

Um how does God expose the weakness or vulnerability of humanity, the fallen condition focus, as some people call it?

Third, um, how is the gospel reflected in this passage?

Old Testament, New Testament, it doesn't matter.

The gospel's always in some way present.

And fourth, what is the faith response or the response of obedience that God is looking for?

And so that's kind of what the Apostle Paul is saying.

What do we say?

How do we respond to these things?

And he means all those things that precede verse 31.

If God is for us, who is against us?

That's an awesome question.

You know, when you were picking teams, when you were a kid out playing on the playground, I always got picked last.

Let me hear a big aw.

Okay, yeah, that's fine.

I got picked last, why because I was tiny and, you know, I mean it wasn't safe for me to be out there on the field at all.

Um I I I my mom wouldn't let mom, I know you're watching, but my mom wouldn't let me play uh little league baseball because she thought that I'd trip over the second base and or first base, whatever, and I'd just hurt myself and I was a little guy.

And just, you know, I when I was in high school, I could turn skin, I was so skinny, I weighed 100, maybe 92 pounds or something.

Like I could turn sideways and disappear.

I mean, it was like it was like such a little guy, fragile, just like the way we all feel right now, very fragile in so many ways.

But if God is for us, Paul says, who can be against us?

I love that question.

Verse 32 He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us, Saul, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

That's an argument from the greater to the lesser.

Do you notice it?

Do you recognize the device?

In other words, if he's given us Jesus, what else would he withhold from us that we need?

What else would he withhold that's good for us?

Would he if he's given us the most precious, most valuable prize there is, then everything else.

You know?

It's just amazing, isn't it, to think about that?

Wow.

He didn't spare his own son.

He delivered him up for all.

How will he not also with him freely give us all things?

Verse 33.

Who will bring a charge against God's elect?

God is the one who justifies.

In other words, nobody can reverse what God does.

Who is the one who condemns?

Question mark.

Who is it that could possibly bring a charge against God's elect if God is the one who has justified us?

And the answer is very clearly nobody.

Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

And I don't know about you, but I'm really glad about that.

Um He's interceding for us even now.

He's aware because He's a risen Savior, He's aware of what's going on in our world right now, and aware of what's going on in your world right now, in my world.

Who, and I love 35, who can separate us from the love of Christ?

Tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword.

Now, when you read those things, please don't make the mistake of thinking that Paul doesn't know what he's talking about here.

This is a guy, and you read through the book of Acts, you read these three missionary journeys, and you you you you see that he endured all of this.

Not because he behaved foolishly, but for the sake of Christ.

Now, I I suffer some things because of my foolishness.

You know, you do too, all of us do.

We go out, we we we we it happens in traffic, we go out and we drift, we kind of lose track what we're doing.

We listen to a song or just lose track and we're drifting to another land and the somebody's honking a horn at us, you know, and yelling at us and screaming at us, telling us what they think of us.

Uh others are suffering uh from their own foolish mistakes all the time.

But what Paul's talking about for himself, anyway, is that he has literally shared in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of the gospel.

Tribulation, distress, think of his shipwreck, persecution, run out of many towns, st people throwing rocks at him, hoping to kill him, famine, nakedness, literally losing everything.

And there are people in this world that are experiencing that right now.

Peril or sword, and of course, the persecution of Christians in the early um uh early uh few hundred years of the church was horrific, remains horrific even today around the world in which we live, just as it is written, and then this is powerful, as he quotes uh from uh Psalm uh Psalm 44, just as it is written, For thy sake we're being put to death all day long.

We were considered as um uh we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

But in all these things, and this is such an amazing pivot, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.

Who can separate us from the love of God?

Nobody.

Nothing, not the worst thing that can happen.

And we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.

Now, verses 38 and 39, he has he lists ten things there.

And these ten things, what he's saying is, let me let me illustrate how amazing, how powerful God's love is.

How you can't shake it and nothing can get you away from it, nothing can separate you from it.

I'm convinced that neither death nor life.

Now that's pretty much the bookends to this world and our experience in this world.

From death to life, everything in between can't separate us from the love of God.

Nor angels nor principalities, okay.

The first one was about the material world, the physical world.

Even in the spiritual world, those things can't separate us from the love of God that is in Christ.

Things present nor things to come, okay.

Time itself.

You you are today the sum total of your previous experiences, but you've got you've got days or hours or how what however long we have left to live.

It doesn't matter.

All of your entirety in time belongs to Him.

And it can't separate you from the love of God that is in Christ.

Wow.

Things present, things to come.

Nor powers.

And that that could just be any old kind of power there is.

No force of energy, no force of politics, no force of uh uh some other person that that they can't separate you from God's love.

He even talks about things in the spatial realm, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing.

Now, nor any other created thing.

Folks, that's everything.

Like Francis Schaefer used to say, draw a line.

God's on one side of the line, everything else is on the other side of the line, including us.

The Heidelberg Catechism.

What's my comfort in life and death?

I don't belong to me.

I belong to him.

Even though I'm on this side of the line, I belong to him, they say.

You belong to him if you placed your hope, confidence, and trust in Christ.

Nothing created shall be able to separate us, verse 39, from the love of God, which is in, and there it is again, Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Verse 1, no condemnation.

Verse 39, no separation.

Folks, happy and bold declarations.

And no matter what we're going through, and he's covered everything.

Every created thing, every bit of time, every experience we might have, every kind of enemy we might have, including the invisible ones.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Hey, I don't know about you, but I find this to be mind-blowing stuff.

Okay?

And when I go to my Bible and I think of it as I do, as we do around here at the village chapel, we have a high view of scripture.

This is the word of God.

This is the infinite God who created everything out of nothing with just speaking it into existence.

This is him speaking to a part of his finite creation in words, propositions, and truths that we can understand.

It's not a full explanation of everything.

I get that.

If you're sitting here wondering why this is going on or why that's going on, I agree with you.

I don't understand everything.

I don't know all of what God's up to.

But I do know that what he has revealed is right here.

And it's mind-blowing to me that he would make that kind of a bold claim.

That nothing created, nothing can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ.

At first reading, some people might put their plaque up on the wall and think of it as a child's fairy tale, a rose-colored glasses, plaque, uh, everything sort of sweetness and light, Pollyanna fable type stuff.

But we've got to look deeper because Paul is saying so much more than this.

Um, the claims that he is making here about God's steadfast love, Paul is laying a rock solid foundation upon which his case can stand that even in the hardest of times that we might ever experience.

And he has experienced some of these in ways that most of us won't.

And he can speak firsthand and say that this is a message for believers to reassure them of God's steadfast love for them.

And this is a message to unbelievers, and I don't know where you're at spiritually right now, as you're watching what we're doing here, as you're watching the other people who are Christians around you or believers of some kind around you, and you're you're kind of wondering what why is it they keep on believing?

Aren't those just child stories and aren't those just boys' philosophies?

No, no, no, no, no.

No, as you watch people suffer sometimes and you watch them suffer with hope, it's kind of an undeniable sort of thing.

You want what is it they're holding on to?

And then the Christian case, in the case of the gospel, it's not just what I'm holding on to, it's who's holding on to me.

You see?

And it's the love of God.

See, this is about him.

It's not just about me.

It's not just about me putting a plaque up on the wall and going, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe.

Not gonna let go.

No, he's actually holding on to me.

He will not let me go.

And he won't let you go either.

And nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Five unshakable convictions, in short, God is at work.

God is at work for the good.

God is at work for the good in all things.

That's in all things, folks.

That's not just in the happy times.

And that's why this isn't just a veneer kind of faith.

Some of us that call ourselves the village chapel have had great loss.

There's people, even in this small collection today up here.

We've been hurt in some ways.

Our hearts have been cut open.

We've lost somebody very dear and near to us.

Some of us are scared.

And occasionally, I don't know about you, but this is one of the things that wears me out is every time I sneeze, I'm thinking, oh no, do I have it?

That just wears my soul out.

And then I gotta remind myself, oh yeah, Romans 8.

He's got me.

And even if the worst thing that could happen to me in this life is that I just die in this life, I still belong to him because nothing can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, you see.

So God is at work.

God is at work in all things, not just the happy slappy things.

But God is at work for the good and all things for those who love him.

These promises, folks, these promises are for you.

Do you love him?

That's who these promises are for.

Do you love him?

I hope you do.

I want to know him more.

I want to love him more.

And I want to rest in his love more and more.

God is at work for the good and all these things for those who love him.

And then that fifth one up there is who are called according to his purposes.

In other words, we see our lives, like the Heidelberg Catechism says, we see our lives not as belonging to ourselves for our purposes, but we actually have had a completely different way of looking at stuff now.

Our lives actually don't belong to us.

Our lives belong to him.

And so it's for his purposes, is what that means.

So however he wants to use us, however, we might be able to bring glory to God in his good name, however, we might be able to, like Jesus, lay down our lives for others.

I mean, Jesus didn't sidestep the cross, he went to the cross because of his love for us.

That's so great.

That can we can never be separated from.

So we're not the key here.

God is.

God is always the initiator.

We're always the responders.

These five convictions, they lay that unshakable foundation, like five footers around the foundation.

Those of you guys that build anything, I'm not very good at doing that, but but it's like it's like five solid footers for the foundation of the gospel and the good news of the gospel.

The five undeniable affirmations are up on the screen as well on the slide, therefore.

God set his affection on us.

Look at verse 29 and 30 there.

He foreknew us.

He foreknew us and he chose us.

This is awesome.

Why would he do that?

I honestly don't know.

That is one of the biggest questions in my crazy little brain, the way my brain thinks.

I know there's a lot of people that think differently than I do, but one of the mind-blowing things.

The more I get to know me, the more I'm amazed at why God loves me.

It's mind-blowing when you start thinking about how this God of the Bible knows us fully and still loves us completely.

That is just amazing.

Because you got to be honest too, because I mean this is true with me too.

The people that know me best, they actually know what a fool I can be sometimes, how selfish I can be sometimes.

The people that actually know me best, they're the ones that I continue to marvel as I get older and older as I walk in relationship with them.

How in the world can they love me?

Because I keep learning more about myself.

So glad God hasn't revealed it all to me all at once.

What an idiot I can be sometimes.

But but so much more so remarkable is it that God has set his affections on us.

Isn't that amazing?

We're predestined to be like Christ.

We're not just, it's not just an elite club.

I choose you, I choose you, and I choose you.

No, I choose you for a reason to become like Christ.

He's called us personally and by name.

He knows your name.

He knows my name.

And he set things right between us because of the cross, you see.

My sin was paid for, not just swept under the rug, not just denied, but paid for.

The price was paid by Jesus so that I could be reconciled to God and restored to the right relationship with God.

And God ultimately, that's just a foreshadowing of what he intends to do with all of his creation.

And we're gonna study that in the book of Revelation once we get past Easter.

I'm so excited about it.

God intends to restore us to the fullness of his original design for us one day.

And I, for one, look forward to that.

No more disease, no more death, no more sadness.

Everything sad will become untrue when Christ returns.

Then those five unanswerable questions which we have there as well.

Who can be against us?

Nobody.

What good would God withhold from us?

Nothing.

Three, who can rightly accuse us?

Nobody.

Four, who can rightly condemn us?

No one.

Five, what can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord?

Nothing.

Okay, they all said it right here.

That's what we call an open book test of five questions.

You got the answers.

And let's do it again.

You shout in your living room.

Who can be against us?

Nobody.

What good would God withhold from us?

Nothing.

Three, what can rightly, who can rightly accuse us?

Nobody.

Four, who can rightly condemn us?

No one.

And five, what can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord?

Nothing.

That's right.

Amen.

Jackie Hill Perry, some of you have uh followed her uh online or heard her speak before.

Um she says, this God is up to something.

If anything, he's rerouting our dependence and adjusting our expectations, and he's doing it communally.

That is, working among his people, even though we're disconnected and we're not able to meet in person.

And by the way, I started to catch a glimpse of what it's gonna be like the first Sunday that we all get back together again.

And I just got so excited.

And I'm I'm loving doing, I'm doing these little daily devotionals on Instagram.

If you're not following me, I hope you will, and and I hope those will be inspiring to you.

And I'm loving doing that because it's kind of a new thing for me to do.

But man, I'll tell you what, there will be nothing like the day we get together again and sing together.

Oh man, I'm so excited.

Christ, our hope in life and death.

Reminding each other that these things are true.

But God is up to something, as Jackie Hillperry said.

If anything, he's rerouting our dependence, adjusting our expectations.

And he's doing it communally.

Don't miss the point.

Don't confuse the realities of living in this fallen world.

Losing sight of certainty and longing for comfort does not mean that God is distant or God has somehow or another turned his back on us.

God promises to be most present with us when certainty and comfort and especially control seem to be missing.

Let me say that again.

Don't miss the point.

Don't confuse the realities of living in this fallen world.

That's where we're living.

Losing sight of certainty and longing for comfort doesn't mean God is distant or that he's turned his back on us.

God's promise to us in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ is that even when certainty and comfort and control seem to be out, gone, he's still holding us fast.

He's still got us.

Lewis said it this way: God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.

It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Sometimes we need to be awakened, don't we?

And perhaps that will be one of the silver linings to what happens.

I don't wish for any of this to have happened.

But perhaps one of the things that will happen is that we will be awakened and drawn back to our Lord and to run to Him for refuge and for strength.

Tim Keller, in Making Sense of God, a brilliant book.

If you haven't read it, I encourage you to get it while you've got some time to read.

Christianity's unsurpassed offers meaning that suffering cannot remove, satisfaction not based on circumstances, a freedom that does not hurt but rather enhances love.

An identity that does not crush you or exclude others, a moral compass that does not turn you into an oppressor, and a hope that can face anything, even death itself.

Yeah, that's really great.

And then I'll close with this quote from Stott.

Our confidence is not in our love for him, for God, because our love for him is frail and fickle and faltering.

But our confidence is in his love for us, which is steadfast and faithful and persevering.

And even when I'm running the other way, even when I'm afraid, even when I find myself with unbelief and drowning in it, even when I'm angry at him, even when I'm impatient with him, even when I when I'm doubting whether anything's real, his love for me remains steadfast.

Christ, our hope in life and death.

Isaiah, the ancient prophet, said you'll keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.

Trust in the Lord forever.

For the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

I seek to persuade you and to remind you over and over again that when everything finite has failed you, you can turn to Jesus Christ, and he will be your hope in life and even in death.

Let's pray, Lord.

Thank you for your word.

Lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

And in these dark days, in these fearful times, I pray, Lord, that you'll grant us the faith that leads us to turn to you, believing, trusting, hoping in Christ, the one who has not only gone to the cross, but risen from the dead.

And we so look forward to celebrating that this coming Easter, even though it will be in an adaptation of the way we normally do it, we're excited about the truth and reality behind it, Lord.

Remind us all along the way, Lord, that we can trust in our hope, Jesus Christ, not just a principle, but the person and work of Jesus Christ in our lives.

And Lord, sharpen our senses to one another as well.

May your church be your hands and feet here in this world, as many are uh running scared and afraid and have so many needs, and that's gonna probably continue, Lord.

Help us be like you, willing to lay down our lives for others, to sacrifice, to give, to encourage, to point to Jesus, our beautiful, wonderful, majestic Redeemer and Savior, in whose name we pray.

Amen and amen.

God bless you.