(Psalm 44:20-26; Romans 8:31-39)
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:1-5)
“The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 5:20-21)
“Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” (Romans 6:14)
“Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:22-23)
“While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our bodies to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Romans 7:5-6)
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, be-cause through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2)
“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he called; those he called, he justified; those he justified, he glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? God is for us. He has not abandoned us to our sin, he has not abandoned us to our enemies, he has not abandoned us to our failures, he has not abandoned us to those who would condemn us—he has given us his Son, Jesus Christ, and in Jesus he has given us new life. Whoever else may abandon us, whoever else may give up on us, whoever else may turn on us, God says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” God is for us; who can possibly be against us?
Of course, this doesn’t mean people won’t try. They try every day. But God is for us—God who is at work in everything for the good of his children. People may try to be against us, but they can’t outsmart God; in the end we will say with Joseph, “You meant this for evil, but God intended it for good.” In the end, even our enemies will be used for our blessing and growth.
People will still accuse us of things—sometimes even dreadful things. Some of them will probably be true, since we know we do still sin. Others won’t be, and those accusations will come precisely because we’re not guilty of anything. The more we follow Christ, the more we will make some folks uncomfortable, and some of them will deal with their discomfort by opening fire on us. One of the best ways to do that is by making an accusation, because people who hear an accusation will tend to start off assuming it must be true; it puts us in a bad light with our community whether it’s the least bit fair or not. Paul knew this well for the ridiculous array of charges that were hurled at him over the years. And yet he says, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” Why? “It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?” Remember, he says, who holds justice in his hand; whatever this world may say, the only verdict that ultimately matters is God’s, and it is God who has declared you innocent in Christ.
Indeed, Jesus is standing right there at the Father’s right hand as our great high priest, bringing our prayers to the Father and interceding on our behalf; the one who died for us and rose again for us is our advocate. Anyone who wanted to turn the Father against us would have to turn Jesus against us—and can anyone or anything make him stop loving us? No, says Paul. We suffer, but it doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t love us. Just look at Paul’s own example. In his list in verse 35, he had suffered every one of those things except execution, and he’d already faced the threat of that; he could testify from his own experience that not one of those things had in any way served to separate him from Christ. If anything, they drove him closer to the Lord.
It isn’t enough to say that God will get us through tough times; it isn’t enough to say that he will help us endure trials or opposition or oppression. No, not only are trouble and hardship, persecution and danger and all manner of suffering unable to separate us from the love of Christ, we don’t merely hang on through adversities, we prevail over them. Indeed, it isn’t even enough to say we conquer them, for that doesn’t go far enough—in Christ we are more than conquerors, because God doesn’t just leave the adversities we face in life as defeated bad things in our past. Rather, he takes our trials and sufferings and he uses them to bless us and grow us, turning them to our good. From those black roots, he grows beautiful flowers.
To this, there are no exceptions. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that could ever even conceivably cut us off from the love of God, which he expressed in giving his Son Jesus Christ for us so that he might redeem us and call us his children. There is nothing that could ever undo what God has done for us in Christ, and nothing that could ever make him even think about changing his mind about that. Nothing in our existence—nothing in life, and not even death. Nothing in the spiritual realm—not angels, and not devils. Nothing in time—nothing we’re doing now, nothing anyone else is doing, and nothing we or anyone else will ever do. No powers of any sort—spiritual, political, cultural, military, religious, judicial, or any other kind you might want to name. Nothing in all creation, no matter how high or how low you want to go—even if you could go all the way to Heaven or Hell. Not anything, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, can separate you or me or any one of God’s people from his love.
God loves us in Christ. He loves us as we are in Christ, and as we will one day fully be, and nothing wrong with us now can change that. He loves us in the work of Christ—he shows his love for us in that while we were still completely ruined, sinners unable even to want to repent, Jesus died for us. God loves the world in this way: he gave his Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish—absolutely not—but will, for certain, have eternal life. Nothing you can do, nothing you will ever do, can change that, undo that, or modify that in any way, and neither can anything the Devil or anybody else can do. That’s how big God’s love is, that’s how big his grace is—big enough to swallow anything else and never change a bit. Our hope is in Christ alone, and that means our hope is absolutely certain, because he is absolutely faithful. This is the promise of the gospel for you, this day and every day, now and forevermore. Amen.