Please remain standing now for the reading of
God's word. We're looking at Romans
chapter 8 and we're finishing chapter 8 today.
We're looking at verses
31 to 39. Again, Romans chapter 8 verses
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
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
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
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.