July 2, 2017 God's Unwavering Love by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Romans 8:35-39 and the Threefold Cord of Assurance

Now please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 8. Romans 8. We'll attend this morning to verses 35 through 39, which is the last verses of this chapter. And though they are the last verses of this chapter, it's not the last sermon on this chapter.

This is the ninth sermon since we started chapter 8 in this series on Romans. Began some months ago with chapter 1 verse 1, of course. And my plan is next week to treat you or subject you, as the case may be, to one more sermon on Romans chapter 8, as we're going to go through and summarize what Paul's been saying about this work of the Holy Spirit.

In very few places in Scripture do we get such a concentrated teaching on the work and the person of the Holy Spirit and how the work of Jesus Christ and the redemption that he bought for us on the cross is then applied to us and carries us through in this life.

So this sermon to finish, going through sequentially next week, we'll sort of summarize chapter 8 before we move on through the rest of the book of Romans, God willing and with his blessing. But for this morning, chapter 8 of Romans verses 35 through 39.

This is the word of God. Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 12 says that a threefold cord is not easily broken. And I believe in Romans 8, in these last several verses of this chapter, we have such a cord, but it's a cord not made out of hemp to give us a rope.

It's a cord made out of strands of gold bathed in the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ. The first strand of this threefold cord was a few weeks ago, it was in verses 31 and 32 of the same chapter. God is for us.

And if God is for us, who can be against us? How do we know God is for us? How do you know God is for you? Paul answers, he gave his only Son. Speaking of the cross, God did not spare his own Son for you, for us, for all his elect.

God is for you. Who can be against you? This is the first strand of confidence that we have as we go through life in this fallen world, knowing that God, God Almighty, as proven by the giving of his Son, is for you.

He is for us. There's no greater demonstration of his commitment to his people than that, that he gave his Son. God is for us. Who can be against us? The second strand was last week, verses 33 and 34, and that's about our justification, this declaration of God that you are justified by faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.

Paul asks, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is it who condemns? It is Christ Jesus who died. More than died was raised from the dead. And this is the second strand of this threefold cord that we have, binding us to God, giving us confidence and strength in this life.

And what is it? Your justification is sure. Who, on that great day when God calls all humankind before him, and all humankind, as it were, looks up to God the Judge, with God the Son next to him, who would dare to say, your justification was wrong?

You, God, erred. Who would dare? With the Son of God next to him, he who died and was raised, who would dare to say that one needs yet to be condemned, that your condemnation of him, the Son, was not full, was not complete?

That's the second strand of this threefold cord, that your justification can never be nullified, can never be abrogated by anything, by anyone, because God the Father declared it based upon the work of God the Son.

And therefore it can never be nullified, abrogated, lessened, diminished, or diluted in any way. That's your second strand of this threefold cord, binding us to God and strengthening us in this walk, in this fallen world.

The third strand, these golden strands bathed in the blood of our Savior, is this morning's passage, verses 35 through 39, and it's another one of Paul's rhetorical questions. Who or what shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Now as before with Paul's rhetorical questions, if God is for us, who can be against us? Rhetorical. The answer is no one, nothing. Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? No one can dare. Who is it is God who justifies?

Who will condemn? No one. What can separate you from the love of God, the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? Well the expected answer is a resounding, no one. No thing, no force, no entity, no concept, nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in His Son Christ Jesus.

Love is an unassailable and indestructible commitment that flows to us from God through His Son. First John chapter 4 verses 8 and 16 say plainly that God is love. God is love the same way the scripture says God is holy, God is righteous, God is just.

This is His nature. His nature is love. And what Paul is saying here, we need to see how important this is. Anything that can break the bond of love between God and His people, between God and you, saint, anything that can damage that bond that God has committed Himself to, is able to change the very nature of God.

What can separate us from the love of God? We're speaking about the nature, the core person of who God is. This is a happy sort of verse, isn't it? Because we know that the answer is nothing can separate us from that love.

But I think it goes deeper than just that, than just the emotive response of it. Though the emotive response to something like this, where nothing can separate us from the love of God, that's something to be happy about, that's something to rejoice over, is it not?

And yet it goes beyond that. Because anything, anyone, any entity, any force, any power that could change God's love, God's declared love for those who are in His Son Jesus Christ, is a force, is a power, is an entity, is a thing that can change God's nature.

Such a thing could then make God less holy than He is, less righteous than He is, less just than He is. It could change the nature of God Himself, and that is absolutely impossible. So see the strength of Paul's question.

What can change it? What can separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. Because nothing can change the nature of God. That's Paul's point. Nothing can break this bond of love which God has established between Himself and His elect, His chosen people.

Whatever it is that comes at us in this life, the troubles of this life that are brought on by men or by demons, whether it is forces that you can see and determine what they are, or forces unseen because they're from the spiritual side of things, whether you live or die, the love of God stands sure.

What God has done for His people in Jesus Christ, what Christ has done for you by God's will, all flows from an unalterable, unassailable, irreproachable, and overwhelming love of God for those who are in His Son Jesus Christ.

That's the love we're speaking of this morning. That's the love Paul writes to us in Romans 8, verses 35 and 39, or 339. And this love does something. God's love accomplishes something in and through us and for us.

And what is it here that we're looking at here this morning? It sees us through. It brings us through the troubles and the vicissitudes and the trials and the tribulations of this life in this fallen world where all creation is groaning for the redemption to come, and we groan with it for this waiting for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies.

During all this, this unbreakable bond of love that God has for His people who are in Jesus Christ does something. It accomplishes something. It brings us through. You know, one of Johnny Cash's greatest hits, A Boy Named Sue, about the father who left his family when the boy, his son, was very, very young.

And he named him Sue because he'd get teased for being Sue, and he'd learn how to fight, and he'd learn to be tough. And years and years later, of course, the meets the father. This is just a song. And it has this line when they confront each other, and the father explains why he did it this way.

He said,. And the very next line is this, Well, I was thinking about that a little bit for reasons I won't bother to explain, and it dawned on me that the Christian could use that motif a little bit. We could change it a bit.

We could say something like this. This world is fallen, and if a saint's going to make it, he's got to be stalwart, and I give you my word. I'll be there to help you along. God gives His word to help us along, and this is Paul's point.

What can separate us from this help you along love of God that He has for His people? What can break that bond? The answer, nothing. But if these verses are about anything, they're about this, they're about this life, they're about the trials, the challenges, all these things that come upon us, and God in His love, His unfailing love, His constant love, His love poured out upon sinners, sees us through it all, brings us to His predetermined conclusion for us.

All these things Paul's been talking about as this chapter 8 of Romans is finished up. The redemption of our bodies, the final adoption of sons to see Jesus. The key in these verses really is verse 37.

Verse 37, I'll read in a moment, but it looks two ways really in the middle of these verses. It looks up to verses 35 and 36, and it looks down to verses 38 and 39. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him, that's of course Jesus, through Him who loved us.

All these things in verses 35 and 36 are the man-made trials we face, the things due to living in this fallen world, the stuff that as it were men can do or bring upon us, impose upon us. It looks up to those, and it looks down to the spirit side of things.

Verses 30 and 39, the dangers we face from unseen forces, that we're more than conquerors. It's as much a statement of fact as it is a promise. If you're in Christ, you are now more than a conqueror. He having conquered the law of sin and death, and we in Him have that same victory.

You are more than conqueror now, and will be more than conqueror. We can make it future. The verbs are not in the future the way they're written in the original, but because of what we spoke of a moment ago, that great day that is yet to come when God takes the challenge, who will condemn, who is it who will say God's justification is invalid?

Then we're more than conquerors as well, as God and those whose faith is in Him totally vindicated. The question is, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who indeed shall separate us from that love?

You heard Conley read just a moment ago, greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. That was Jesus, of course, speaking the night before He went to the cross. We talk about that sometimes, everything that occurred before He said those words, it is finished.

As the south side of the cross, before the cross, and that's Jesus just hours before the cross, yet before the cross, greater love has this, has no one than this, then someone lays down his life for his friends, and we on the north side, on the completed side of the cross, after He said it is finished, we join in with the Apostle Paul.

We say, but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is a love deeper in depth and commitment beyond anything that we can really imagine. It's a love proven by commitment, proven by sacrifice, proven by endurance.

It's a love that sees us through the tribulations and the troubles that we face in this life. So who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The word who in the original could just as easily be translated as what?

Who, what can do this? Can troubles? You know, the trouble with troubles is that too often they force our thoughts inward. They make us so introspective. I mean, James and Peter both write in their letters about the way our faith is burnished and polished by the difficulties that we face.

God sends trials our way to teach us particular lessons that bring us to repent of our particular sins. That's the loving hand of chastisement. It's God proving that we really are His sons and daughters because He's treating you as children by chastising us.

And it is good to be somewhat introspective and to look for what we did that is bringing this chastisement upon us. It's good to go to a multitude of counselors to speak to husbands and wives and friends, brothers and sisters in the Lord and find reveals so that we can repent and say, Lord, I repent of this and thank you, Father, in your chastisement, in your providence, in your sovereignty, bringing these circumstances upon me to force this out and so repent of it.

It is good to look inward if we look inward in that way. But not all trials, not all troubles, not all tribulations that we face are the result of a particular discrete sin. I mean, back in chapter 8 verse 28, we did this, we preached this a few weeks back.

Paul writes that God works all things together for our good. And Paul means there everything in this world, everything that is wrong, everything that's making us groan for our final redemption. We're groaning, we're waiting, all these things that happen, we're looking for them to be made right because everything now is wrong.

And in the meantime, they are by God's design conforming us to the image of Christ his Son. So they are good, doesn't mean they're easy, but they are good. And we can say with a little bit of fatalism, it's just the way things are.

You can't always take your trials, the things that are happening that are hard, that are difficult, and say, if I repent of this sin, God will lift his hand of chastisement and things will be easy again, or smoother again.

That's just not the case. The trouble with troubles, they make us look inward. The other trouble with troubles is they can make us doubt God's love. I mean, if I've come to God in prayer, if I've said with the psalmist, search me, O God, know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and I in good conscience can find no particular sin to account for things, then why is this happening?

And we get interested in introspective. We begin to think, well, the only logical conclusion is that God doesn't love me. Because no one who loves me would treat me this way. And if God is sovereign and God is all powerful, he can make this stop happening.

He can make me happier right now. And so we get introspective. We begin this inner turmoil like that. Does all this mean that God doesn't love me? It must. If there's no one thing I did to account for this or that, then maybe God isn't as loving as I've been taught he is.

And so sometimes we get to thinking that there's this one-to-one correspondence between an event and something we can tie it to. And here I'm talking about an event in our life that's difficult, that's not good in that sense, and a particular sin, and we can't always.

It's just not that linear all the time. My apologies to the mathematicians and engineers amongst us, which are several. It's just not always that straight a line between this thing happening and this thing I did, this repentance, this forgiveness, and it's all over.

It's just not always like that. To look at things happening and to allow them to make us doubt if even so slightly that God doesn't love us or love me. Paul says in Galatians 22, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

To think otherwise is a lie. Paul's question, who can separate us from the love of Christ? The obvious answer is nothing. And you know where we're going with the rest of this sermon as we go through the tribulations, and trials, and powers, and spirits, and all these other things.

You know where this is going. To think that anything could separate you from the love is a lie, and it's a lie that as soon as we delve into it, as soon as we allow ourselves to touch it, it's like stepping into quicksand.

And what does quicksand do? It just keeps sucking you down further and further, and the more you struggle against it, the more you sink down into it. Don't go there, because Paul's point is nothing can do this.

Never doubt this love of God. So who shall separate us from this love of God that is in Christ Jesus, his Son? And we can examine some possibilities. Paul offers seven possibilities, sort of as an opening gambit.

So let's ask, shall tribulation, shall tribulation separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? Jesus said in John 16 .33, in this world you will have tribulation. John 16 .33, in the middle, almost dead center of this whole high priestly prayer that Jesus preaches the night before he goes to the cross.

He says you will have tribulation, and that in a teaching where if anything is coming out of the Lord's lips to his disciples, to us, is his love. His love, no tribulation cannot change God's love. In a prayer that's all about God's love, Jesus says we will have this tribulation, so that can't do it.

Distress, can distress do it? In 2 Corinthians 12 .10, Paul writes this, for the sake of Christ then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. Calamities is that same word used in Romans for distress.

For when I am weak, then I am strong. So if distresses, if calamities that come upon us as we seek God's help, as we go to God, as we go to him as the one to bring us through the calamity, we come out stronger.

So that cannot separate us from the love of God. That's proof of God's love. How about persecution? Shall persecutions separate us? I mean that's in that same list in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul was persecuted.

He grew even stronger in God's love with the persecution. Shall famine, nakedness, and danger all found in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 26 and 27, just before what I was reading a moment ago? The signs of an apostle to go through these deprivations for the sake of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the sake, can we say, of the love of God in Christ. How about sword? Well, the sword obviously stands for execution. You know, you could sooner separate the head of a saint from his shoulders than the love of God from a saint.

Book of Revelation, does not John see the saints who were beheaded for the sake of their testimony of Jesus Christ? And what are they doing? Are they doubting God's love? Do they say anything like, God if you would love me you wouldn't have let this happen to me?

No! They're praising God. They're praising God. None of these things that Paul speaks of are accounted for by a particular sin. It's the dissonance of a fallen world as it encounters something which it cannot understand or comprehend, which is the gospel salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They are the response of sin-crushed men against the only answer to their sin, which is repentance, which is faith in Christ. Now far from proving that God's love has failed, they're evidence of unfailing love.

Open your Bibles, if you would, to John chapter 3. Look at John chapter 3 verse 16, one of the best-known, best-loved, too-often-misunderstood verses in the entire scripture. John 3 16, we are all very familiar with this.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Well God in his love sent the gospel of his son to a perishing world, and this should be cause for rejoicing, should it not?

If we preach a message of salvation, if we preach God's free gift of eternal life by faith in his son, if the gospel is a power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. That's a great message, is it not? That's a loving message. That's a wonderful message. That's a message that God who created all things, who loved the world, God is love, so he sent his son to declare the gospel of salvation.

Now that should be cause for rejoicing. Should it not be welcomed? Shouldn't this church where this gospel is faithfully preached as best we can, but it's faithfully preached, should we not be bulging at the seams with a message like this?

Why instead is the Christian given such a hard time? We can answer that. Just look down a few verses. Look at verse 19, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and the light, of course, is Jesus.

I am the light of the world, he said. The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. You see, people's hatred for the gospel is matched only by their love for their own sin, and that's why there's tribulation and distress and all the rest.

It's just part of this fallen world. It's the reason that the creation itself groans in distress waiting for this final redemption, and here we are on this world, this inanimate thing. It's groaning. How much more are we?

Why do we groan? We groan because the Bible promises something better. We groan because this world just isn't right, and part of its unrightness are all these things that come upon the church. Perhaps you personally have encountered these things.

Churches throughout the world we know have. So the question is, do these things happen because God does not love? Do any of these things prove that God does not love his people? No. The answer is a resounding no.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. No. They happen because men hate, and what do men hate? Men hate the gospel because they love their sin. That's what Jesus says. We're in dissonance with this whole world, and the world at dissonance with us.

It's a different view, a different worldview, a different way of analyzing everything that happens. If you're in Christ, your entire view of everything is almost at every point opposed, if not diametrically opposite, to the world at large, and this will bring these things upon you.

For some of us, more. For some of us, less. But for all of us, some. It is man's hatred of conviction. It is the natural man's enmity aroused against the pure goodness of Christ that brings trouble against those who are purveyors of a message that is generally despised, and that's just part of this world that is wrong.

When sin came in, everything became less than what God had intended it, and so we groan for that final redemption. We look forward to what is, and in the meantime, what gets us through? Perhaps we groan just because we know something better is ahead.

Perhaps we groan because these specific things are coming upon us. How do we get through? The third strand of this threefold cord, God's undying love. God's right now with you love that cannot be separated, cannot be broken, cannot be diminished, cannot be diluted.

Far from separating us from the love of Christ, our trials align us with his people throughout all history. Now think about a minute. Cain hated Abel's better sacrifice. Hagar persecuted Sarah. Hagar, who brought forth the Son of the Flesh, persecuted Sarah, who would bring forth the Son of Promise.

Esau hated his birthright that promised the coming Savior. Saul hated David from whom according to the flesh would come Jesus Christ, our Savior. And in all this, God's love never failed. He stayed true to his promises.

He stayed true to his nature. In our passage, Paul cites a single verse from Psalm 44. As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

I had Conley read the entire psalm because I think this is one of those cases where though Paul only cites one verse from this longer psalm, I think he had in mind the whole thing. So I had it all read for you.

Paul's looking back through the centuries to show that the hardships we face have always been part and parcel for God's people. It's just part of the warp and woof of life in Christ. You want to turn there if you would to Psalm 44.

I believe it was page 470 in your pew bible. I want to go through this psalm because I think it's an important part of the teaching in Romans 8 35 to 39. The psalm is what we call a lament. It's a corporate lament.

It alternates between the king of the people as they try to understand why they're in such affliction. And one of the things that's so encouraging about Psalm 44 is it cannot be tied to a specific historical event in Israel's past.

So it's a general sort of psalm. It speaks of just the general way of things for God's people. It just sort of is. And the first three verses there they recall how God had delivered his people in the past.

Oh God we have heard with our ears our fathers have told us what deed you performed in their days in the days of old. And he goes on to describe the victories that they had. The victories that the father said look what God did for us.

We'll look down at verse 3 and notice what they say. For not by their own sword did they win the land nor by their own arms excuse me nor did their own arms save them but your right hand and your right arm and the light of your face for you delighted in them.

It sounds a lot like the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. It had been retold again and again. It had become an article of faith as the fathers told their children the children told their children and on it goes until Psalm 44 where we can they can then say our fathers told us about this.

We've heard this and more important church we believe this. We believe what our fathers told us about what God has done or what God did. You know there's almost no better place to go when we're bewildered by hardships than to remember what God has done in the past.

The Bible is full of histories of how he has gone ahead of his people and delivered their enemies to them and delivered them from all their calamities. So go there when we need that encouragement go there go to the scriptures read what God has done for his people.

There find assurance that God's love did not fail them and look at Romans 8 35 and say therefore God's love will not fail me because God has done this this is what God does this is his nature. Go there go to the scriptures and read what God has done for his people and be reassured of God's love for you.

Go back to your own short history with Christ. Remember the times he has stood by you. Remember when you were in a dilemma you had nowhere to turn you had no answers and everything you tried on your own failed.

Remember the times that you opened the scripture and found God's answer and you having fallen on your knees and committing yourself to doing things God's way were delivered from your trial. Financial, job related, relations between friends, children with parents, husbands and wives.

We've prayed about all these things in this place and seen God's deliverance. If you're one who's been delivered and you're in a trial now and you're beginning even to slightly think that God's love is not completely for you stop.

Don't go any further down that road. Read what God has done for his people. Read the history that we have in the scripture and then stop and recall your own history. Were you not the subject of those prayers?

Were you one of the ones who was praying for deliverance of another person? That's fine. Remember how that person was delivered and God thinks no less of you if you also are in Jesus Christ. God's love does not fail.

It never has. It's sometimes hard for us to fall back on the past. It seems so long ago that God moved for us and did this or that for us. Has God forgotten me forever? Has he forgotten his loving kindness?

And no we say Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. If he loved me then he loves me now. If he loved you then he loves you now. God's love will not fail. Meditate on God's acts of glory for his people as a whole and for you personally and then join God's people confessing your faith which is verses four through eight of this psalm.

Our history with God means something. It means that we serve a God who is the king of ages, a God who never slumbers, who never tires, who is an ever-present help in times of trouble. That's what they start to say in verse four there.

You are my king oh God. Ordain salvation for Jacob. Jacob just being another name for Israel. In that context another name for God's people in all ages. Look down at verse eight of the psalm. In God we have boasted continually and we will give thanks to your name.

They say this to a God from whom they seek deliverance but they don't have that deliverance yet. God's people boast in him and they give him thanks anyway even during the trial. They give thanks to him as though they've already been delivered, as if they already have what they need.

So what are these people doing someone might ask. Well they're praising their God and the person making the query might say why? They're in terrible shape. They've got all kinds of problems. They've got tribulations and distresses and persecutions and swords and all kinds of miserable things are happening to them.

How can they praise a God who allows all this? Simple. Because what God has done in the past gives us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Because what God has done in the past for his people if not for you or for you personally is proof positive of this unchanging love of God that sees us through the trials.

Now in the middle of the psalm verses 9 through 16 there's a litany that's worthy of Romans 8 .35. I'll go through them quickly. You won't have time to read them. I'm just going to do it very quickly but verse 9 speaks of rejection by God and so disgrace before men.

Verse 10 speaks of their defeat before their enemies. Verse 11 they are like sheep for slaughter which literally means something like sheep to be eaten. Slaughtered and eaten. There's just no hope. Helpless as lambs being led to death.

Verse 12 you sold your people for a trifle. You were satisfied getting a bargain basement price for us. Just a clearance. Just get us off the shelves. Verse 13 they are a taunt and a derision. They're being scorned.

You can see Paul displayed at the end of a victory parade as prisoners least esteemed of all worthy only to be teased and taunted. Verse 14 they're a laughing stock. Sort of like look what happened to this one who believed in this God.

So they're derided in that way. Have you ever felt the lash of a tongue sharper than yours? One who makes minced meat out of your faith leaving you so confused and twisted up that you can't even answer?

Well you're not alone and you never were. Verses 15 and 16 of Psalm 44 constant shame and disgrace. Do you hear there the chords of Romans 8? Paul's saying yes this is our experience. It has always been the lot of God's true children to suffer this way.

Does it mean that God's love is not upon you? May it never be. It's simply the way it has always been for God's faithful children. I said earlier we can't always tie our current woes to a particular sin.

In verses 17 and 22 of the Psalm this is made really clear because in those verses they lay claim to having conducted themselves properly. They've done nothing, at least nothing they can see, nothing to provoke God's wrath.

All this has come upon us, verse 17, though we have not forgotten you and we have not been false to your covenant. He goes on to say if we lifted up our hands to a false God would you not have known this?

And they're really saying God you know that we didn't. God you know we didn't do these things. Faith though, faith. Those who believe what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8 35 nothing can separate us from this love.

Faith faces the trials of life without needing to know the immediate cause. Faith stays true to God even when his ways are inscrutable. It's a great mistake to think that just because we have the scripture we have the complete mind of God.

I mean Paul does say that we we have the mind of Christ. That means we know his will for us so far as it's been revealed to us in scripture. But scripture is not the full revelation of God himself. It's the full and sufficient and inerrant and infallible revelation of what we should and can know of him.

But let's never think that we're meant to be able to tie this trial to this sin or this calamity to this prophecy with a perfect one-to-one correspondence. Faith is satisfied that God is sovereign in all things and that come what may God is actively working it for a good because he is a good and loving God.

So I took a moment with that in order to make a point. The fact that there could be found no specific cause or explanation for our tribulation does not negate our Christian duty of obedience and worship.

It's in the psalm. Psalm 44. As they continue obediently to worship God to fall upon him and his grace to bow down before his sovereignty so they can say the words that Paul was inspired to quote. Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long we're regarded as sheep for the slaughter and through it all total faith and reliance on God.