Sermon Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.
- Opening Scripture
- The Proof of God’s Love
- The Persuasion of God’s Love
- The Place of God’s Love
- Closing Prayer
Opening Scripture
Open your Bibles again, if you would. We’re going to look briefly at Romans 8 again. I wanted to share a little bit more on what I began last week. On Romans 8. Romans chapter 8. Let’s begin in verse 28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. Some manuscripts read, We know that God works all together. And I said manuscripts, not translations. Manuscripts say, For we know that God works all things together for good to those who love Him, to those who are the called according to His purpose, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, those whom he called these he also justified, and whom he justified these he also glorified.
What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him a also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? Is it God who justifies? Or some versions say, it’s God who justifies. An affirmation, not a question. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. As it is written, for your sakes we are killed all day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
The Proof of God’s Love
I want to point out three things briefly today. One, the proof of God’s love. Secondly, the persuasion of God’s love and then the place of God’s love. We kind of unpack this passage a little bit last week and that’s really my first point and that is to in some ways review what we said when we talk about the proof of God’s love. Have you ever met anybody that was very free with their terms of endearment, very free with saying things like I love you and nice words but you tended not to believe them? Never met a person like that.
God’s not like that. When God speaks, God speaks truth, but more importantly, God’s words are backed by God’s deeds. The proof of God’s love are not words. Now this might seem obvious, but we need to contemplate this for a moment, because you see, we have a book called the Bible. We believe these are God’s words, amen? so these words are true. And so Christians tend to have a intellectualized faith, a head faith, if you will, a knowledge-based faith, a word-based faith. And it’s easy to get things in our head that are not really in our heart. It’s easy to ascend to things intellectually, which we don’t believe practically. And it’s because God has chosen to reveal himself through his word. But the thing we need to understand is God doesn’t reveal his love through words. Now the word talks about his love. God doesn’t reveal his love through words. God reveals his love through acts and deeds. The words in the Bible are not simply words of love, they are words about deeds of love. Do you understand the difference? Think about the history of Israel. They’re in bondage in Egypt for 400 years. God intervenes, brings them out of bondage. That was an act of God’s redemptive love. Then whether in the wilderness in spite of their grumbling, God provides water, He provides manna, that was an act of God’s provisional love for them. Then He brings them into the Promised, He gives them victory over their enemies. This is a manifestation of God’s providential love. All throughout the Old Testament, we have these narratives, we have these stories about God’s deeds and God’s acts, which are mighty acts of redeeming love. So when people say the Bible is God’s love letter to you, that’s not really true. He doesn’t just say over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you. Is there a song like that somewhere? Rather, the Bible is a record of God demonstrating His love to us through His deeds.
So God has proved His love. He acts in ways which demonstrates that. He truly loves us. What we have in the Bible are not merely stories. We have history. Now, if you read contemporary evangelical books, you’ll see this word story a lot now popping up. You see the word narrative, you see the word metanarrative in these fancy words. The biblical metanarrative is. And that’s all fine and dandy. As long as we lose sight of the fact that when we talk about a story in the Bible, we’re not talking about something that is fictional. We’re talking about history. We’re talking about things that actually happened in space and in time. In other words, the love of God is not a theory, it is a fact.
It is a fact. This is why Machen, who was kicked out of the Presbyterian Church years ago for being a Bible-believing Christian, stressed the importance of the indicative. And I’m going to talk a little bit about language this morning, Because the indicative in language is the mode of assertion. It is saying something is a fact, something is true. When we say that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead, we’re not saying this is a lovely story which we’re saying this is a lovely story which is to inspire us to sacrifice for others, we’re saying this really happened. In space and time, at a certain date, at a certain place, a certain person named Jesus was literally, not figuratively, not symbolically, but literally nailed to a cross.
Boom, boom, boom. It hurt. It was painful. He bled. He died. It happened in space-time history, it’s a fact. So Paul gives us a list of things which prove the love of God for us. When he says God is for us who can be against us, right? He that, verse 32, he that did not spare his own son, and he’s talking about the pain for crucifixion and death of Jesus, that God gave for us in space-time, in history, as a real event. He gave His Son in our place to die in our place for our sins. He did that for you and He did that for me. It really did happen. It’s not just a story. I was reading an article today about, the other day about the, you probably, if you keep up on religious news, you know, the Presbyterian Church USA, which is not the same as the PSA, the PSA is conservative and that’s covenant seminary, the PC USA is liberal and they just had a vote to have homosexual clergy. And as I was reading quotes not just about by different liberal clergy, it was astounding to me how they would talk about the biblical narratives and the biblical stories, and they would even say things about Jesus rising from the dead. But as you read more, what you realize is they didn’t really believe it happened as a fact. It’s religious language, it’s symbolic language, it’s supposed to lift our spirits, how we can rise above the adversities of life and other such things. But it didn’t really happen. Well, what does Paul say about the resurrection? He says, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we are all men most miserable. Our faith is in vain because our faith isn’t in a story. Our faith is in a real person that lived and died and rose again from the dead. He really died and he really rose and he’s really alive. It’s a fact. It’s not a theory. It’s a fact. It’s not a story. It’s a fact. So when Paul in this passage talks about God’s love and he goes through this list of things in Romans 8, which we’ve read, but let’s look at them again. He says in verse 32, He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. This is the crucifixion of Jesus. Who shall bring a charge against God’s luck? He says, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, it’s just if you’d never sinned.
Your sins are removed, you are forgiven, you are accepted in the beloved, and that is not a theory, that is a fact. It’s a fact. Who is he that condemns? It’s Christ who died. The point being, if Jesus Christ loves you enough to die for you, is he going to condemn you at the same time that he’s dying for you? And furthermore, he’s also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Jesus Christ is now in heaven. It’s a fact, because he rose from the dead and he ascended. He’s now at the right hand of the Father. That’s a fact. He is now interceding for his church. That’s a fact. That’s not a lovely story. It’s a true story. God gave us the most precious gift he could ever give and by giving us his son. Jesus paid the ultimate price by giving his life and even now he continues to demonstrate his love for his people by interceding, providing, leading, guiding, blessing and all the things that God does continually for his people to demonstrate or should I say to prove his love for them. The beautiful thing to me about God’s love is the Word of God says that He demonstrated His love for us, not when we were good, not when we obeyed, not when we prayed, not when we went to church, not when we tithed. He demonstrated His love for us while we were yet sinners. Look at Romans 5. We’ll come back to Romans 8. Romans 5. After saying in verse 1 that we’ve been justified by faith, and as a result of that, we have peace with God. He says in verse 6, for when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, that perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. Paul contemplates the possibility that someone might be willing to step in and die for somebody.
And we see acts of human kindness where people can at times lay down their lives for someone else. God in contrast to Jesus dying for the good man, or Jesus dying for the righteous man, that’s what the “but” here is for. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Now I don’t know about you, but I was raised in a religion that taught that kind of that God loved us a little maybe. But it was clear [audio unclear] white-knuckle Christianity. You hang on and hang on and you might make it, right? But that’s not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel of the Bible is that while we were sinners, God loved us. While we were ungodly, God loved us. While we were without strength, God loved us.
Now if that’s true, then how much more must He love us now that we’ve accepted Him? How much more?
Right? And so Paul says, much more than, verse 9, much more than having now been justified by His blood, his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.“ The love of God, as revealed in the Bible, is a series really of many acts and deeds on God’s part which culminate in the death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because the word of God says that all the promises of God in Jesus are yea and amen. That means that all of the, the promises of God are encapsulated and they are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is the fulfillment of every good thing that God intends to give to us, and it’s in him. God’s love is a fact whether or not we believe it. Now, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get saved as a little kid. I got saved as an adult, and I lived as a pagan for quite a while. And when I say that, I mean a real pagan. I really lived like a real pagan. And I tasted the world, lived in the world, was immersed in the world. And when I came to the Lord Jesus and I experienced the love of God, it was life transforming, life transforming. And I remember reading Romans five for the first time. And I remember it hitting me that even when I had been out partying and sinning and rebelling, God had already demonstrated his love for me. Jesus had already died for me thousands of years before, already. And it wasn’t turn over a new leaf and then God will love you. He was rather receive the love of God and he’ll turn over your leaf. You don’t change for God, God changes you. when you experience His love, which leads to my second point, the persuasion of God’s love. Go back to Romans 8, in verse 38 Paul says, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor power nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able Kislyak us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Notice he says that I am persuaded. Or your versions might say I’m fully convinced or something of that nature. Leon Moore says the word he says this regarding Paul, he says, Paul sees no possible shadow of doubt. That’s what the word means. I am not just convinced, I am fully convinced. He says. Now notice what Paul does not say. He does not say, I hope, right? I hope I won’t be separated. He doesn’t say, I wish I don’t get separated. He doesn’t say, I desire to not be separated. He doesn’t even say, I think I won’t be separated. He doesn’t even say, I know that I won’t be separated, but rather he says,
The Persuasion of God’s Love
I am persuaded that nothing will separate us.
I am fully convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God. This is the language of faith. And what’s one of the things striking about this word persuaded here, here we’re back to grammar, it’s in the perfect tense. You know what the perfect tense means? Well, let me tell you, even if you know I’m going to tell you anyway, you know what the present tense means, right? Not just that it’s happening now, but if it’s happening now, the idea is that it happens continually. So grammarians, they illustrate the present tense by a line. Just think of a line running. That’s the present tense. Now Greek has this thing called the aorist, which we tend to call the past, and the heiress tense is something that happened in kind of a timeless way. Often it’s alludes to the past, and that’s why it’s often called the past, but it’s pictured as simply a dot on a piece of paper. Boom. It happened. Doesn’t say anything about anything else other than it just happened. But the perfect tense is the combination of both. The perfect tense is a dot with a line. So what Paul is saying is not just, I am convinced now, that’s true, but I at some point in the past, the dot, at some point I became convinced. I’m sure that was when he got knocked off his donkey onto his donkey, right? All that Damascus wrote and he met Jesus, he got convinced. Boom! Point in time. I am persuaded. But the perfect is, I am, I was persuaded, I have been persuaded, I am now persuaded, and I will be persuaded.” That’s what the perfect is. That’s why we have to translate it, persuaded or fully convinced or maybe even better, I have been and will always be fully persuaded of God’s love. That’s the force of the term and the tense. Now what is amazing about this is that Paul says this after he gives us a catalog of bad news. Notice verse 35, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword.
This is, right? Now again, we have to take this out of the realm of story and out of the realm of fiction and out of the realm of religious language and put it in the realm where it belongs which is the realm of reality. When Paul says this, he’s not saying, he’s not simply throwing out rhetorical, he’s not preaching a sermon and just trying to dial it up. He really means this. because what, Paul is talking about is his own experience. Look at 2 Corinthians 11 for a moment. So remember, we’re going to read this passage here in Corinthians, and the same person that said, I am persuaded, meaning I have been and am now and continue to be persuaded that nothing will separate me from the love of God. This person also said this, wrote this, right here. Second Corinthians chapter, what did I say? Good, you’re following me, 11. Verse 22. Now he’s challenging false apostles here, and he’s challenging their credentials, and He’s saying, well, here’s my credentials for the ministry. This is what he’s saying. Verse 22, are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. So far, so good. Right? Good credentials. Are they the ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors, more abundant. In stripes above measure. in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I had been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of water, of robbers, of my countrymen, of Gentiles, in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea, and among false brethren, in weariness and toil and sleeplessness, often in hunger and thirst, in fastings, often in cold and nakedness. That was his diploma. That was his seminary degree. He could have written that out, put it on the wall in his office. I don’t think he had an office. In his tent, how’s that? Those were his credentials. So when Paul talks in Romans about, shall tribulation or persecution or affliction separate us from the love of Christ, he’s not speaking rhetorically, he’s speaking from his own experience because he experienced tribulation and he experienced persecution. So this is how we need to read this passage, look at it one more time with me. He says, I speak as a fool. Are they the ministers of Christ? 23, I speak as a fool. I’m more. In labors, more abundant. Yet I am persuaded. In stripes above measure, yet I am persuaded. In prisons more frequently, yet I am persuaded. In deaths often, yet I am persuaded. From the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes minus one. that I am persuaded. Three times I was beaten with rods, yet I am persuaded. Once I was stoned, yet I am persuaded. Three times I was shipwrecked, yet I am persuaded. A night and a day I’ve been in the deep, yet I am persuaded. Are you hearing it? Are you hearing it? The love of God that Paul knew was a love that no experience could alter, no experience could shake. This is the language not only of faith, which it is, but it is the language of his experience. This is in spite of faith, right? Because faith deals in the realm of the unseen and the invisible. Faith operates often when all appearances are contrary. Now I don’t know about you, but if I left church today and had a car accident, got beaten by the cops, got thrown in jail, I might not think God loved me. Never have a hard time and you start to doubt God’s love. Troubles in the family, troubles with the, Trouble is at work, trouble in relationships, trouble with your health, trouble with your pocketbook, trouble there. And then we say, oh God, where are you? Oh God, don’t you care for me anymore. And it reminds me of the story where, you know, a story, historical story, a real story, a real event where they’re out in the sea of Galilee and this big storm comes, right?
What’s Jesus doing? He’s doing what I love to do. He’s taking a nap. So when I take a nap, I say, Jesus taught me how to do that. He’s taking a nap in the boat. Big storm comes, and what do the disciples do? They don’t say, you know, the Lord’s going to take care of this. We don’t need to worry. The Lord’s here. He’ll, in his time, he’ll wake up and he’ll deal with this. No, they run and they wake him up. Can you imagine grabbing Jesus? Jesus, wake up! Wake up! And they say this. They say, Jesus, don’t you care for us? Don’t you care about us? What a terrible thing to say. But have we not all uttered it in our hearts, if not with our mouths? We who know much more than they knew. We who know His great love, because we know the cross. We know better. Yet how often our hearts will say those words, Lord, don’t you care about me? If you cared about me, Lord, why am I having this problem in my marriage? If you cared about me, why am I having problems with a prodigal child? If you cared about me, why am I having strife at work? Why did I lose my job? If you care about me, Jesus got up and what did he do? He said, when? Calm down. And. And it calmed down. He should have looked at disciples and said, you need to calm down.
But no, they were looking at the environment. They were looking at the circumstances. They were looking at the storm. That’s how the natural man acts. But the spiritual man walks by faith. He walks in the realm of the unseen. So even though things may be contrary to the word of God, he believes the word in spite of the circumstances. Somebody say amen.
Where are we? We’re in Corinthians. Go to 2 Corinthians 4, since we’re already here. 2 Corinthians 4, look at this. You there? Say yes. Therefore, well, now we need to go back. Verse 7 second Corinthians 4 7 we have this treasure the treasure of the gospel in earthen vessels clay pots We’re the clay pots. We’re the you know, we’re nothing But the gospel is the treasure Because it’s about Jesus Says we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us For we are hard-pressed. This is Paul again: on every side, yet We’re not crushed We’re perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, [audio unclear] knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving [audio unclear] Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. And now the inward man is being renewed because he has faith. Because the inward man can perish too. Not eternally, but practically. The inward man is renewed by faith, because the inward man looks at the unseen. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Notice verse 18, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. If we had time, we would look at Hebrews 11, but we don’t. But read through the chapter this Hall of Fame of Faith, and it talks about how when God warned Noah of things unseen, he moved with fear. And we see other examples where Moses responds to the, it says to the invisible God. The things, the choices they made, the things they did, didn’t make sense.
If you didn’t see what they saw, it didn’t make sense. They were not acting based upon what they saw, they were acting based upon what God has spoken. Well back to Romans, we go to chapter 4. We’ve already looked at this recently, but we need to be reminded again.
Romans 4, the father of our faith, Abraham. Paul is lauding his faith here. He says in verse 19 of Romans 4, and not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.
If Abraham had considered the facts as they stood, he would not have believed. Are you hearing me? The facts as they stood contradicted the promise of God. Hear me now. The facts as they stood were contrary to the word. R.I.P. So the question became, was he going to believe the facts as they stood, or was he going to believe the promise? Now, I don’t know about you, but if my wife was 100 years old and God said, hey, you’re going to have a baby, I’d say, you’re crazy. And that’s what Sarah laughed. I mean, it feels like this is crazy. Because the facts, as they stood, completely mitigated against the fulfillment. I mean, this is the thing we have to understand, folks. Because some of you are walking by sight and not by faith. [audio unclear] And that’s a dismal way to live for a Christian, because that’s not the life of faith. The life of faith flourishes in the realm of the unseen and the eternal. And when you read scripture, what you see is so often God sets up situations intentionally which are just the opposite of what he’s going to do. Well, why would he do that a lot? Because he’s testing our faith, and [audio unclear] And we’re going to win the game. That’s not how we play, right? But that’s how God plays. Why? So that God can get the glory. So that it can be clear that what really transpired here was a miracle of God.
And that’s why God sets up facts or situations which are contrary to His promise. But He intends to fulfill His promise. wants to fulfill his promise for you. But the promises are received. How? By faith. Not by sight. They are received by faith. And so we are called to believe in spite of appearances.
In spite of appearances. We often are waiting for favorable conditions. And then we will step out in faith. Well, that’s like saying, you know, I’ll just relax on the boat here with Jesus when there’s no storm. Well, that’s easy to do. But what are you going to do when the storm comes? How do you act then? How do you pray then? That’s the question. The storm is where your faith is developed and your faith is manifested, and your faith gets the victory.
The Place of God’s Love
Let me conclude because I’ve gone too long. Back to Romans 8, one more comment. This is my third point, what I’ve called the place of God’s love, although it could be called the person. Notice Paul says this in verse 38, he says, frying persuaded. Then in verse 39 he says, that none of these things should This shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is where? Where is it? It is in Christ Jesus. That’s where the love of God is. And this means two things, really. We can understand this in two senses. Being in Christ in the sense of being what we call today, we talk about being saved. The Bible talks about union with Christ. that when someone truly believes in Jesus as their Savior, that’s the lingo we use, trust Jesus, that there’s something that happens inside of them where through the work of the Holy Spirit, they and Christ become united. They’re joined together through that faith. And so then the person is in Christ and Christ is in them. I’m not sure though that that’s what Paul’s really saying here. He might be saying that. But I think he might also be saying this, that this unshakable faith in the love of God is to be not just believed, but it is to be experienced in Christ Jesus. In other words, we must distinguish between union with Christ and communion with Christ. Because we can be in him in the sense of being united by saving faith, but not be communing with him. Paul’s persuasion, Paul’s conviction, his unshakable conviction that God loved him and that nothing could separate him from this love, this unshakable, unfailing, never-ending conviction was a result not of a theoretical knowledge of Jesus. It was rather that he was convinced of God’s love because of his vital living relationship with Jesus Christ. The love of God, the reality of the love of God, or should I say, the realization of the love of God for us is to be found in knowing Jesus Christ. It is clear that God loves his people. It is evident from the Scripture, but it is not always clear to the soul.
God can do nothing else that he has not already done to prove his love for you.
There’s no greater act, there’s no second show. He’s already done it. It’s a reality. But that reality needs to become a realization. And that is through faith in the Lord Jesus. Not faith about Him, but I mean the kind of faith that comes to Him and communes with Him.
Because when you are in communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and when you have fellowship with Him, you will know the love of God. You will know the peace of God. You will know the joy of God. Because in Jesus are hidden all the treasures that God wants to give us. They’re all in Jesus Christ. They’re not in church. They’re not even in worship. They’re not even in prayer. They’re not even in the Word. They’re in Jesus. Now, prayer, worship, the word, church, or means, but he’s the end. He’s the goal, communion with Jesus Christ. It was because Paul had a living, vital relationship with Jesus that his faith was unshakable, that he was fully persuaded, because this was not a story to him. This was not a theory to him. This was not a doctrine to him. This was a person, our Lord Jesus. You want to know the love of God? Come to Jesus. I’m talking to Christians. I’m not talking to unbelievers. You want to be unshakable in knowing that love? Come to Jesus. Spend time with Jesus. Yes. You’ll have to read your Bible and pray because these are means God has given us. But these are not the end. Jesus is the end. He is the goal. Let’s stand and pray. Lord, your gospel is so full, so complete, so rich, so deep, and yet so simple.
Closing Prayer
Lord, I pray for each one of us to have ears to hear today. And the response is very simple, that we who profess to know you would truly commune with you. We would just not profess Jesus, but that we would possess Jesus.
And I pray, Lord, that if we do not hunger and thirst for You, that You might forgive us for that. That You would forgive our cold hearts. I pray, Lord, that we would be like David who said that he waited and he watched for More than those, more than the watchmen, the sentries, that waited all night for the sun to come up.
Because in you, Lord Jesus, all God’s promises are fulfilled.
All the riches that God wants to give us are in you, Jesus.
May you teach us, Lord, to learn how to truly abide in you. And I pray it for your glory. Amen.