Bible Passage: Romans 8:31-39
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: February 18, 2024

Bulletin February 18, 2024

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

I’ve got some great news this morning!  I pulled a few strings, and I have been able to arrange a little football game.  Lord of Love will put together a team and we will play against…are you ready?  The world-champion Kansas City Chiefs!  Who wants in?

That would be madness, wouldn’t it?  We would get schmeared!  Think of who they have playing for them!  They have all-stars and all-pros!  They have Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and Isiah Pacheco.  Like they would be the difference!  Our team, no offense, couldn’t compete with their third string!  No one likes to be on the weak side of such a mismatch.  It is not fun to be part of such a lopsided, asymmetric contest.

Did you know that you are a part of a lopsided fight each and every day?  But here is the good news.  You are not on the weak side of this one.  The other side does not have all the might and weapons at their disposal to use against you.  In this struggle, you have the upper hand.  You have something better than all-stars and all-pros.  You have the all-powerful all-gracious God on your side.  Today we will consider the implications of this profound truth:  God is FOR US.

Paul begins our text with a question.  What then shall we say about these things? (v. 31)  Paul has just laid out God’s saving plan and purpose for his readers.  Paul reviewed how God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and will finally bring his children to glory.  What do you say about these things?

Well, Paul says, If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him? (v. 31)  Paul does something very clever here.  He makes his point in the form of a question.  Questions make us think.  He wants each one of you to think, “That’s absolutely right!  God didn’t hold back his Son!  He handed his Son over to be the Savior of the world.  If God gave me his Son, he will surely give me everything I need!”

So what do you need?  Here let’s think bigger than food and clothes and shelter.  Paul does.  Paul is thinking “big picture.”  He is thinking about how we need to be able to stand before God in judgment one day.  But now, filter into this equation our theme: God is for us.  Now consider what becomes of appearing in God’s courtroom.  Who will bring an accusation against God’s elect? (v. 33)  The question is, who would dare to bring charges against one of God’s chosen, elect people?  There is an answer.  Satan.  Satan wants to be the prosecuting attorney and bring charges AGAINST YOU.  Oh, he so desperately wants a conviction!  And here is the thing, it sure looks like he’s got a strong case and lots of evidence to use AGAINST YOU.  But God is for you!  Paul says, God is the one who justifies! (v. 33)  “Justify” is a courtroom term.  Justify means to declare not guilty.  Remember, God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. (v. 31)  God speaks the verdict.  It is a verdict based upon the blood and cross of the Son he did not spare. “You are not guilty, for Jesus’ sake!”  You have been acquitted in God’s courtroom by God himself.  That verdict cannot be overturned on appeal.

Paul is not done with the courtroom just yet.  He comes at it from another comforting angle.  Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us! (v. 34)  There are many condemning voices that speak against you.  There is the condemning voice of Satan, “You ought to be damned for that!”  There is the condemning voice of my own conscience, “I ought to be damned for that.”  But there is another voice that speaks FOR you, not against you!  It is the voice of Jesus.  The Jesus who was handed over to death because of our trespasses and was raised to life because of our justification. (Romans 4:25)  This Jesus, the crucified and risen Jesus, pleads your case!  He is talking you up to his Father!  John wrote, My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.  But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. (1 John 2:1)

What comfort to know that Jesus himself loves us and is FOR US!  But, here is a chilling thought.  What if that should change?  What if somehow Jesus could be turned against us?  What if his feelings for us change?  Could we lose our Advocate, our voice, in heaven?  Paul gives us the answer:  What shall separate us from the love of Christ?  We don’t have time to go into detail on all the things Paul lists.  But in Paul’s list we will find economic forces, political forces, hostile forces, physical forces, spiritual forces, natural forces.  The forces of life and death!  And then, just for good measure, Paul adds, nor anything else in creation (v. 38).  His point is that there is not anything in the entire created cosmos that can come between you and Jesus’ love.  Nothing can stop Jesus from loving you.  Nothing can undo Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  No matter what you are going through right now, this will remain true, Jesus loves you dearly!

Paul says, In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (v. 37)  “More than conquerors.”  That is the translation of what in the Greek is just one word.  It is the verb “to conquer” with the Greek preposition “huper” attached.  We get our word “hyper” from “huper.”  We could translate the word “to hyper-conquer.”  In all these things we hyperconquer!  We don’t just “conquer”!  We “hyperconquer”!  But this only through him who loved us.  Through Jesus, who said to those he loves, In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)  He is the Hyperconqueror who gives us the victory.

Not even the Chiefs “hyperconquered.”  They squeaked one out in overtime.  But we are on the winning side of the most lopsided victory ever won!  Jesus’ victory!  And for his sake we say, “God is for us!”

Amen.