Your God Is Certainly on Your Side!

1st Sunday in Lent , 2/18/18
Romans 8:31-39


Your God Is Certainly on Your Side!
I. Giving you all you need
II. Affirming that you are justified
III. Assuring you of his love


“Beware the Ides of March!” Are you familiar with that ancient phrase? The Ides of March is another name for March 15 and it refers to that date in 44 BC. Do you recall what happened on March 15, 44 BC?

That’s the date when the Roman senators assassinated Julius Caesar. In the famous Shakespearian play by that name, Caesar utters the timeless question, “Et tu, Brute?” meaning, “You, too, Brutus?” Caesar was incredulous that his close friend, Brutus, was in on the plot to assassinate him. For hundreds of years people have quoted that Latin phrase when they come to the realization that someone they trusted was not loyal to them.

Have you had that unpleasant experience? Most of us have. Which of us hasn’t been stabbed in the back by an employer or fellow-employee? Ever get thrown under the bus by a friend or family member? You never saw it coming. You thought you could depend on them.

It’s bad enough when that’s our experience with the people who play important parts in our lives. But it’s crushing if you’ve ever come to the conclusion that your God has not been loyal to you. It can easily send you spinning into the depths of despair when you’re convinced that God is no longer looking out for you; instead, he’s out to get you.

If you’ve ever felt that way, Christian friend, you’re not alone. Countless Christians throughout the history of the Christian church know your pain. It’s been that way since the Christian Church on earth began. When senseless tragedies strike the faithful Christian, he or she can easily and quickly conclude that God is against him or her.

But does that make sense in the light of all that our Lenten Lord Jesus has done for us? Absolutely not. If your God was against you, he would have abandoned you to hell long ago. Instead, you can be sure that your God is for you.

That’s Paul’s solid declaration in the words before us this morning. Your God is certainly on your side. Let’s review why Paul states that and what evidence he presents in support of it. And along the way, may your God convince you of it!

Part I.

It’s been a few years since I had the privilege of raising a teenager, but I imagine the following parent-teen interaction is fairly typical. Your teenage daughter becomes convinced—with a little help from her friends—that she needs a new cell phone. The IPhone 5 which you handed down to her is no longer usable, according to her. Yes, it still works just fine, but it’s not as nice as the phones her friends have. She informs you that she “needs” an IPhone 8. And when you quickly and firmly inform her that her request is denied, she storms off to her bedroom screaming something along the lines that you don’t love her or care about her. In reality, that’s silly, isn’t it?

But the sad part is that we never seem to grow out of that, do we? Perhaps you’re saying to yourself, “C’mon now, pastor! I’m not that immature!” But I’m serious; dead serious. We never seem to grow out of our propensity to measure how others feel about us by what they give us. And the moment we feel slighted, the moment we’re convinced that we’re being forced to do without something that we feel we truly need, then we call into question some other person’s love and devotion to us.

And that goes for our relationship with our God as well. Our thinking goes like this: God states in his word that he loves me. I know that God has all power to give me whatever he pleases. So, if those two things are true, then why I am suffering, why am I so needy, why is my life so unbearable? Conclusion? God must not love me.

If Paul were alive and listening to that “reasoning,” he’d say that’s simply not true.

Listen to his undeniable line of reasoning. “What, then, shall we say in response to this? 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, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Do you have children? If you do and you willingly gave up one of your children for the life of a friend, how would you feel when, at some later point, your friend questioned your love for them? Insulted, right? Enraged, is more like it. The point is, our God gave up—sacrificed—his greatest Treasure, his Son. And he did it for people who don’t deserve it. The only thing that could cause him to do that is the greatest, deepest, purest love the world has ever seen.

So now, Paul argues from the greater to the lesser. If he did that—if he sacrificed his Son for you—won’t he supply whatever else you need? To put it another way: if he sacrificed his Son so that you could spend an eternity with him in heaven, won’t he give you what you need now on earth in your brief lifetime here, so that you attain the heavenly gift that he won for you? The resounding answer is a divine, eternal, “YES!!”

Your God isn’t against you. Your God is certainly on your side, giving you all you need.

We know it. We hear it. We read those words over and over again. But we doubt it. And the reason for it is that we tend to measure God’s love for us on the basis of our current situation instead of our eternal situation. When we get battered by life day after day, when the news about our personal situation keeps getting worse and worse, when the people or situations in life that brought us joy are suddenly removed from our lives, then we tend to judge God’s love for us based on the here and now. And that’s when our God comes to us, lifts our depressed chins, and points us cross-ward—to the cross of Christ. Nothing can ever change what Jesus did for you on that cross and why he did it—only because he loves you with an eternal love. And having done that, he’ll surely give you what you need. Your God is certainly on your side.

Part II.

Have you ever tried to exist in a toxic environment, one in which the people around you share all sorts of nasty things about you which simply aren’t true? If so, you look for the first opportunity to make a break. You simply can’t exist long under those hostile conditions.

Believe it or not, that’s your situation right now. There’s someone who knows you inside and out. He’s keenly aware of your every indiscretion, every sinful word and impulse. He’s seen it and he’s keeping a record of it. How could anyone know all that about you so accurately? This one can, because he’s the one who tempted you to do it in the first place. His name is Satan which means “Accuser,” and the Bible has this to say about him, “[He] accuses [Christians] before our God night and day” (Rev. 12:10). You see, Satan isn’t content merely to tempt us to sin and lead us into sin. When he succeeds, then he stands before God like a vicious prosecuting attorney and declares, “You saw that, right? He sinned. Now he deserves hell for it.”

And he has you dead to rights, until you listen to what your God, who is on your side, tells you through Paul, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Satan’s charges against us, although supported by irrefutable sinful evidence, are thrown out in God’s divine court. How? Why? Because God’s rebuttal to every one of Satan’s charges is, “My Son, Jesus, died for that sin. It’s already been punished and paid for.” And his verdict? Not guilty. Not guilty! Justified! That’s the sweetest news any sinner could ever hear.

Satan has us dead to rights but God declares us not guilty. Your God is certainly on your side, affirming that you are justified.

What do you want to hear from God? When you pray to him, what are you looking for, what do you hope he’ll do for you? I suppose there are as many answers to that question as there are Christians. And many are the times we’re disappointed when we don’t seem to hear God say what we were looking for. But how about this one? “Not guilty!” There it is. The most important words you can hear from your God and he declares them to you repeatedly in his word. That “not guilty” declaration is your eternal ticket into the glory and joy of heaven. You hold that ticket in your heart right now by faith in Jesus. Not even Satan can accuse you. So, chin up! Your God is certainly on your side!

Part III.

It’s been well-documented how tragic it is for a child to grow up feeling unloved. It causes such an unloved person to view the world as unsafe and untrustworthy. I’m not an expert, but I have to believe that had something to do with the mass murders in Florida this past Wednesday.

I’m sure every one of us has dealt with the feeling that we were unloved, at least for the moment. And it’s crushing, debilitating, depressing.

It’s easy to feel that way when our evil world comes crashing in on us. But that’s no evidence that our God doesn’t love us, that he has something against us. Paul concludes our text with this powerful paragraph, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” You’re not a loser. You’re a conqueror, and more than a conqueror. You’re a super-conqueror! How so? Through Christ. A dead Savior is a loser, but a risen Savior is a winner. Jesus is our eternal victor! By faith in Jesus you’re a winner, too! So, hold on to him by faith this Lenten season. See his victories over sin and Satan. He crushed Satan and claimed you as his own. Nothing in this life can change that! Your God is certainly on your side. Make each day of your life here on earth a victory celebration in Christ! Amen.