God’s Love for You Conquers All!

11th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/28/11
Romans 8:35-39


God’s Love for You Conquers All!


Recently I overheard a member of one of our churches declare, “We’re not winning. My salary and benefits have been cut, food costs are up. The price of gasoline is up. I’ve made quite a few cuts already and I’m still running deeper into the hole each month. We’re not winning.”

Can you sympathize with this person? I’m sure you can. No matter what age-group you fall into, you know to one degree or another what this person is facing. We’re not winning. If you pay any attention to the news, you know that’s not only true personally and locally, it’s true all over our state and nation. About once a week you hear the debate about a double-dip recession and whether or not we’re in one. We’re not winning.

And I’m not just talking economically. It’s true across the board. Our society is unraveling. The family unit is under attack. Countless people no longer even strive for what we call the traditional family. For all too many people, “family” has become whatever people are in their lives at any particular juncture.

We’re not winning in the area of education either. The cost of our education system at the elementary, high school and college levels long ago outpaced our financial ability to maintain. One of the results is that our students years ago fell in the global academic rankings. We’re not winning.

What’s more, we can’t seem to agree on how to address our insatiable appetite for energy. The amount we use each day is staggering, but the resources in many cases are finite. Sooner or later we’ll run out. What then? We’re not winning.

We’re not winning the war on crime either. It’s hard to believe that when you drive the I75/I70 interchange that it’s one of the busiest illegal drug routes in the nation, but it’s true. The authorities can only stop so much of it from getting through. We hear daily reports of violent crimes and even the abuse of children by their own parents. Daily. We’re not winning.

But that’s enough about the battles out there that we’re not winning. We all have our own personal battles we’re not winning as well. Perhaps you know what it’s like to go further and further into an economic hole each month. Sure some of it might be due to your own poor choices, but in so many other areas it’s through no fault of your own. We’re not winning.

And for all the advances in the medical field—and, believe me, nearly every day it seems like there’s a new and better method or procedure that just a couple years ago were unthinkable—for all those advances, we still can’t seem to find the help we need for ourselves. And sometimes, even when we do know what will help us, it’s out of reach for us financially. We’re not winning.

And we’re not winning in our relationships either. If we’re honest, all of us have at least one we should be working on in order to improve it. For one reason or another there’s a barrier there, and we just can’t bring ourselves to address it. So the relationship silently suffers. We’re not winning.

I’m sure you could add to that list. But that’s enough for now. Instead of adding to our own, let’s listen to the Apostle Paul’s here in Romans 8. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” Paul’s list isn’t random. There’s a progression to it. “Trouble” is something the presses down on us. “Hardship” is something that presses us from the front and back. These first two words indicate a situation in which there seems to be no escape. The third word, “persecution” helps us understand the realm of the trouble and hardship to which Paul refers. These are verbal, physical and economic difficulties that come to us because of our connection with Christ. We’re persecuted. And that persecution causes us to flee, resulting in a lack of food and the lack of proper clothing. Finally comes the “sword.” In Paul’s day that was a very real possibility. Christians were martyred for their faith in Christ. In a sense, they we’re winning.

Martyred. Wait a minute. That’s not one of the battles we’re losing. We hope and pray we never have to face it. But it’s a real possibility. It happened in the past. In some places in our world it’s still happening. And that fact begs us to ask the question, “Why? Why are these terrible things happening to me and other Christians? Shouldn’t we be winning?”

Paul answers those questions this way, “As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’” Paul quotes Psalm 44—not one of the most familiar psalms. But if you’re ever in the middle of a personal pity party, I urge you to read it. The psalm writer observes that the Lord allowed his people to be crushed even though they were being faithful to him. That’s the way it is in this sinful world. Faithfulness to the Lord doesn’t bring endless earthly pleasure. Just the opposite. It brings suffering.

And when we’re suffering even though we’ve done nothing wrong to bring it on us, we wonder what God has against us. The truth is, it’s actually the Accuser, Satan himself, whispering in our ear that God must be lying to us. God tells us in his word that Jesus died for all our sins. Therefore we are forgiven. God has justified us, declaring us to be not guilty. But Satan tells us that our outward circumstances—our sufferings—seem to state the exact opposite. It appears God does have something against us and our record of sins has not been cleared by Jesus Christ.

And when that’s our frame of mind, then there’s no hope left. Then the only recourse we have is to try to pay for our own sins. So, what are you going to pay God? Money? You don’t have enough to pay for a single sin. Good works? God says in his word that your good works are like filthy rags. They don’t earn anything. Endless prayers? God calls that noisy babbling. Sacrifice something that’s valuable to you? God says such sacrifices are a stench in his nostrils.

Pretty hopeless, isn’t it? And when we’re hopeless, where do we turn? To the only hope we have. We turn to Christ and to the love of our God. Recall Christ’s death. Innocent though he was of every sin, he willingly went to death for us, for you, for me. That death wasn’t just a tragic case of injustice. It was the linchpin in God’s eternal plan to save sinners. Christ died our death. His death appeased the justice of God.

But a dead Savior is a loser, not a winner. But death couldn’t keep its hold on Christ. As the God who created life, he raised himself from the dead as promised at the crack of dawn on the third day. His resurrection is the guarantee of his victory over Satan and the grave. Our situation therefore, no matter how dismal it may be, isn’t hopeless. In fact, it’s full of hope.

You see, Jesus died and rose again to make you a member of his eternal kingdom. He shed his blood to make you his own forever. He brought you into his kingdom when he brought you to faith in him as your personal Savior. He placed his name on you at your baptism, calling you a child of God. He has promised to work everything out for your good.

And that “everything” includes the difficulties and tragedies that we experience in this life. It includes the economic hardships and the physical ailments. It includes the heartaches of broken relationships and the stress of daily living. All of these are part of living as a child of God in God’s kingdom. That’s what Paul tells us in his quote from Psalm 44.

And yet over all these troubles stands the God who created us and saved us. Listen to Paul’s grand statement of confidence, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing in our world can separate us from the love of God. He’s the creator of all things. He controls all things. He loves us with an eternal love that he showed for us when he sacrificed his Son for us.

And in that eternal love for us, he planned out our eternity with him. We talked about that last Sunday based on words from this same chapter of Romans. God knew you by name back in eternity as one of his own children. Back in eternity he destined you for eternity with him in heaven. Now in time he has called you to be his own by faith in Jesus and by faith in Jesus he has justified you—declared you to be innocent or holy. The final thing he will do for you is to glorify you in heaven with him.

But given all the trouble we face on a daily basis, that almost sounds too good to be true. Can we really expect that glory awaits us when we deal with trouble every day? We couldn’t if any part of the glory depended on us. But that’s not the case. Thank God it isn’t the case. Instead, in his eternal love for us our God already accomplished our eternal glory for us. Go back to Christ. That’s what his life here on earth and his death and his resurrection were all about. The entire life of Jesus isn’t simply a nice story for us to know. It’s God’s saving truth for us to believe and to trust.

To people who trust in Christ as their Savior from sin and yet who come to the conclusion in all sorts of aspects of their lives that, “We’re not winning.” Jesus says, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

And that brings us to this comforting, powerful truth: God’s love for you conquers all!” Believe it! Amen.