Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: So Much Winning (Romans 8:31-39)
Date: August 18, 2024
Have you ever quit something because it was hard? I mean, I know that’s not something we generally want to admit in polite company, but I suspect most of us have at least one story. When I used to play NBA Jam on my Sega Genesis, I had a perfect record. That’s because anytime it looked like I was going to lose, I just hit that power button and started over. Perhaps a bit more significantly than that, I used to play the trumpet. I played for about a year. I was actually doing okay with it, and was having fun…but then I got braces. Let me tell you: Trumpets and braces are not a very good combination. I still remember how much that hurt. I put up with it for a few weeks, but then the school year came to an end, and I was able to pick a new instrument for the next year. I quit the trumpet and went with drums. It didn’t look like it would hurt as much as the trumpet. Plus, I had seen how much fun the drummers were having in the back of the band. It was way more fun than we were having in the trumpet row. Also, it didn’t hurt. Did I mention that?
But maybe you’re one of those rare people who haven’t ever quit anything. The rest of us are duly impressed. So, let me change things up on you just a bit. Maybe you have been through one of those seasons when you felt sure you were going to be quit by someone else. Ever been there? Ever felt like you were unquestionably unlovable because of the kinds of choices you were making? Perhaps you were just too hard to love. As much as you might have felt that way with another person, it’s even easier to feel that way with God. Whether you have been following Him for decades or just a few days, there are times when life’s circumstances have conspired to leave us feeling like God can’t possibly want anything else to do with us. We are too broken, too sinful, too selfish, too…you pick your favorite negative adjective—maybe the one you’re feeling right now—for God to be willing to endure us for another second. He’s going to quit us for sure. Well, this morning, I want to address this entirely too common feeling with you. And I want to address it like this: Whenever you feel it, your feelings are out of sync with reality.
The various guys who contributed to the Scriptures offer us assurances of God’s commitment to us all over the place. There is one in particular, though, I want to abide in with you this morning for a few minutes. If you have your copy of the Scriptures handy, find your way with me to Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. Now, when Paul wrote a letter during his ministry, it was almost always to a church that he had had a hand in planting. It was usually one he had visited and spent time with before. This allowed him to address really personal and specific issues with the church who was receiving his words like he did with the Corinthian church. Romans is different. Paul hadn’t been there. He didn’t plant the church. He really didn’t know many of the people in the church. As a result, this letter is far more general than the rest of Paul’s letters. Far from taking away from what he might have said to them, though, this resulted in Paul’s deciding to simply present the Gospel in as simple, direct, and comprehensive a fashion as he could. It is also one of the best such explanations ever written. This morning, I want to take just a few minutes to marvel with you at the climax of Paul’s Gospel presentation and to reflect on some of what it might mean for us.
Let’s take just a minute and set up how Paul gets to where we are going to be this morning. As the Gospel always must, Paul starts with sin and judgment. After declaring his unwavering fidelity to the Gospel message, Paul immediately launches into the bad news of the Gospel: everybody’s guilty. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from, what kind of a charmed—or broken—background you have, you are guilty before God. No one is born free from this curse. Thankfully, God made a way to deal with this guilt in Christ. When we place our faith in Him, God extends to us the grace Jesus won on the cross. This grace brings us the gift of freedom from the sin that once kept us down. Even once we are following Christ, though, we can still struggle under the weight of our sin nature.
All of that brings us to Romans 7. The end of Romans 7 is tough. It’s emotional. It’s deeply personal. Paul, through a reflection on his own experience with wrestling against his sin nature brings us face to face with our own inability to get even the things we actually want to do right on our own. “For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.” Can you feel the tension in Paul’s words here? He cranks the tension up to eleven in v. 24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
As profoundly depressing as this cry of desperation from Paul is, though, it only serves to help him tee off on the glories of the Gospel in chapter 8. After identifying Jesus as the source of help from out of this morass of sin, Paul begins with a profound declaration of the freedom from condemnation we have in Him. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. What the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Paul goes on from here to outline the wonder of what God has made available to us in Christ. It truly is good news.
Finally, starting in v. 31, Paul gets to his big finish before shifting gears to another topic for a bit. These turn out to be some of the most profound words about the majesty of God’s love for us ever written. If you are sitting at Romans 8 with me, turn your attention to this incredible text starting in v. 31.
“What then are we to say about these things?” Okay, pause right there for a second. What are “these things”? The glories of the Gospel Paul has spent the previous 30 verses laying out for us. Go back after the service today and read them again for yourself. What Paul is saying next here is the natural reaction to all of that. If all of that is true (and I think there is a good case to be made that it is all true), then this is the rational conclusion we should draw from it.
“What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” And that makes sense, right? If the God who created the world and everything in it has your back, there really isn’t anyone who can meaningfully oppose Him. Unless there happens to be another Creator of the world who rivals God in power (there isn’t), then we’re pretty well set for whatever might come our way if He is on our side. The real question here is not whether we’ll be okay with God’s being for us, but how we can be sure He is for us in the first place.
That’s where Paul goes next. “He did not even spare his own Son but offered him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?” I know the wording there is confusing, but Paul’s point is not. If God didn’t hold back His own Son for us, by what logic would we conclude that there is anything He wouldn’t do for us? Put this in more personal terms. I love my boys. A lot. I’d take a bullet for one of them in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even have to think about it. If you mess with my kids, you might as well be messing with me because we are not going to be good anymore. So then, let’s say you needed something—something big—and it was going to take my kid’s life in order to give it to you, and I did that. Would it be reasonable for you to ever doubt my commitment to you ever again? That’s what Paul is saying here. If God didn’t hold back His only Son—I’ve got three, so at least I’d still have the other two if I did that—then how on earth could we ever doubt that He’s for us? We couldn’t do that rationally.
Paul had been talking before this chapter about the condemnation of sin. He opened the chapter with the grand declaration that there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ. But still, sometimes we feel condemned. We condemn ourselves. Other people condemn us and we accept their assessment for some reason. Condemnation is all over the place. So, sure, maybe Paul says there’s no more condemnation for those in Christ, but what if there is? Paul answers that tension again rather emphatically in the next verse. “Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.”
In other words, we’re covered from both sides. God is the one who decides whether or not any accusation or condemnation is going to stick to us. He’s the final arbiter of what is right and what is wrong. That includes any kind of personal condemnation we might bring on ourselves because of some internal angst we have going on. And that might be scary except for the fact that Jesus—you know, the only Son God didn’t hold back from us who also willingly laid down His life for us—was raised from the dead after being killed, was elevated to the Father’s right hand, and now He intercedes for us. It’s like Jesus is sitting there next to His Father, and every time someone brings some sort of an accusation against us before Him, Jesus leans over and whispers in His ear, “Hey Dad, I’ve got that one covered. Just let that accusation go.” Incredible.
And since Jesus is God in a bod, this means that God is interceding for us before God. Guess how persuasive God is at convincing Himself to do or not do this or that. We literally can’t lose here. In fact, the only way we could lose is to reject all of this in favor of our own efforts to get right with Him which are pathetic as compared with what Jesus has already done. As long as we are willing to play by His rules, we win because He’s rigged the game in our favor. He made the game and rigged the game for us.
As a result here, there’s nothing that can separate us from God’s love. Look at how Paul wraps all of this up. Verse 35 now: “Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” Is there any circumstance, no matter how hard, that can separate us from God’s love; that can make Him finally give up on us and walk away? Nope. Hard times? God still loves you. Anxiety? God still loves you. Is persecution a sign that God has thrown in the towel? Nope. God still loves you then. How about some other form of suffering? God still loves you. “As it is written, ‘Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.’” God’s love for you isn’t going to quit no matter what the situation happens to be. If there is a situation, God is going to love you in that situation. Period. God’s love doesn’t quit.
Because of this, as Paul magnificently declares in v. 37: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” More than conquerors. The Olympics just finished up last week. Given the medal count, I’d say that the U.S. pretty well conquered these Olympics. We tied in gold medals with China, but we won more total medals than any other country, and it wasn’t really close. We had one swimmer—Katy Ledecky—who won one of her races by more than ten seconds. Given that there were some races where the top three places were separated from each other by a few hundredths of a second—not to mention the men’s 100 meter dash that was decided by 5 one hundred-thousandths of a second—ten seconds is like an eternity. We conquered. It feels good to conquer. When it comes to the race of life, if we run that race in Christ, we can be more than conquerors. Honestly, I’m not even sure what is more than a conqueror, but in Christ, that’s us. We win, and we win so profoundly that there isn’t even a thought of second place.
And what is our victory? God’s love. That’s the prize. And in Christ, we win the prize all day long. God’s love doesn’t quit. “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Just marvel for a second in the majesty of that meditation.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. At all. If there is a thing, that thing cannot separate us from the love of God. It doesn’t matter what we do. It doesn’t matter where we go. It doesn’t matter how thoroughly we reject His love. It just won’t quit. God’s love doesn’t quit. You can die, and His love will still be there. As long as you are living, His love will be there. There’s no authority that can take it from you whether that authority stems from heaven or earth. Nothing going on around you will serve as an effective shield for it. There isn’t anything in the future that will do the job either. And just ponder the wonder of that for a second. The future could bring all kinds of things; things we can’t even imagine yet. I mean here we are nearly 2,000 years’ removed from Paul’s writing this letter, and he couldn’t have even fathomed what we have seen and experienced. Yet I tell you that if he were writing this same letter today, he would make the same declaration. Should we still be waiting another 2,000 years from now for our Lord’s return, there will still not have been anything that will have been able to accomplish that task. Why? Because nothing can separate us from the love of God. God’s love doesn’t quit.
And there at the end, just in case we are tempted to play a few rounds of whataboutism with Paul, he issues a blanket denial of this possibility by saying, “nor any other created thing” will be able to get the job done. You can’t imagine something that could remove God’s love for you in Christ. I don’t care how good your imagination is. You won’t be able to do it. There are not circumstances that will result in your becoming unlovable to God. And the reason for this doesn’t have the first thing to do with you. Isn’t that a relief, by the way? To know that you don’t have to bear the weight of keeping yourself lovable in God’s eyes? Have you ever done anything before because you felt like you needed to make yourself more lovable to God? You didn’t have to do that. It didn’t help you or hurt you. Here’s why: God loves you because it is in His nature to love. He loves you because you are a person who He created and He loves all of His creation. In fact, you represent the very best of creation for God. You are the loveliest thing He made. You reflect His character in a way nothing else does. God sees Himself in you. Because God loves Himself, He loves you. And nothing can change that. At all. Ever. God’s love doesn’t quit.
There’s just one catch. And this catch is something all the folks who were baptized just a little while ago understand. It’s why they came to get baptized in the first place. All of this love is only available in Christ. Now, before we go a step further, let me explain what I don’t mean. Because God is love, you are going to be the recipient of His love whether you believe in Him or not. Again, it is in His nature to love. But God’s love for His Son goes above and beyond the rest of creation. This is just the same as your love for your kids goes beyond your love for anyone else save your spouse if you are married. That is as it should be.
This is where the “in Christ” thing comes roaring back into play. When we are in Christ—where Paul says that unshakable love of God lies—God looks at us and only sees Jesus. Or, to put that another way, He sees us through the lens of Jesus. And because of His special, unending love for His only Son, when we show up covered in Jesus, we become the recipients of that love just like He is. And that love never quits. God’s love doesn’t quit.
So, I want to do something a little bit different here at the end. I want you to close your eyes for me for just a second. I want you to think back to a time when you felt like God must surely be done with you. Maybe for some of you that was a long time ago. For some of you, that could have been recently. Perhaps you walked in the doors this morning with that feeling hanging heavily around your neck. That may be a really hard moment to go back to. I want you to do it anyway. Here’s the thing about that moment: God loved you then. That thing you did that caused that moment for you didn’t have the slightest impact on His love for you. God’s love doesn’t quit.
With your eyes still closed, and that moment still sitting at the front of your mind, can we acknowledge something together? It is really easy for us to let a moment like that define us. Depending on just how big of a moment it was, it may be that you really struggle to see yourself in any other light than the one that casts on your life. You felt—or feel—so distanced from God because of it. Would you be willing to do something with me this morning? That moment didn’t separate you from God’s love—it couldn’t—but it may have put some relational distance between you and Him. There’s a solution to that. Confess it. Maybe you have before, but if it came to mind very easily for you, it may be that there’s still part of it you haven’t fully given up to Him. Would you take a moment and do that right now where you are sitting? Here’s the thing about confession like this, though: it has to be specific. You don’t need general forgiveness because you didn’t commit a general sin. You committed a specific sin. So, confess a specific sin.
You don’t have to use these words, but that confession could go something like this: “Father, when I did ________ (fill in the blank with whatever your moment was about and be specific about whatever it was), I was acting outside of the bounds of your character. I’m sorry I did that. I know that you promised to forgive all of our sins in Christ. Would you please let me live within the boundaries of that forgiveness so that, with your help, I can have this weight of guilt lifted off of my shoulders?” Take a minute and offer up your own prayer of confession and repentance to God.
Now, look back up here at me. Look me right in the eyes. In Christ, you are forgiven of whatever that was. If you are walking in repentance (meaning it is your full intention to walk away from whatever it was), God in Christ pronounces your sins forgiven. And stay with me here: God loves you. He loved you before. He loved you during. He loves you still. God’s love doesn’t quit. And with that thing behind you—or at least with your now having taken a concrete step toward putting it behind you—you don’t have to let it get in the way of your receiving His love in Christ. God’s love doesn’t quit.
Let me do one more thing, and then we’ll get out of here. While many of you have embraced God’s love in Christ, it may be that some of you have not. Can I invite you to fix that this morning? Would you follow in the example of these five whose baptism we got to celebrate a little while ago? They each came to a point where they understood that they were broken because of their sin. They had the courage to be honest enough to acknowledge they couldn’t solve that problem on their own. They had the humility to accept that God was willing to help them in Christ if they were willing to receive it. And they had the boldness to take what He had to give. As you heard this morning, they confessed with their lips that Jesus is Lord, and they believe in their heart that God raised Him from the dead. So, they are saved. If you haven’t been saved by His love that doesn’t quit, today is a great time to do that. Today is a great time to start a conversation about how to move forward in that. Today is your open invitation into God’s love that doesn’t quit. God’s love doesn’t quit. Let’s rejoice in that together as we commit ourselves to moving His kingdom forward.