Romans 8:31-39 (The Spiritual Life, Part 5, Pastor Jeff Kliewer)

I knew that this church leaned right, but why did you have to sit physically all to the right today?

Is that like you're sending a message that... I know you're still there in spirit, yeah, yeah.

All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer. And we thank him so much as we take communion to remember the body and blood of Jesus.

Now let's go and thank him for his word. Lord, gracious heavenly father, we do come with such joy in our hearts, so thankful for the cross.

Thank you, Jesus. We were prisoners and you've set us free. Lord, we thank you that we can come to your table and remember the body and blood that was broken and shed for us.

Lord, we'll never forget that and it means everything to us, Lord. And now Lord, as I preach,

I pray that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit, that I could have words that are taught by you, not just my own thoughts, but words that come from you.

And I pray for all of us who hear your word that you would change how we think and how we live in Jesus' name, amen.

Every good story has four elements. You have to have a setting and then some kind of conflict.

There's no good story without conflict. The third element is climax. It's gotta go somewhere and lead to some climax in the story and then finally, every good story ends with resolution.

It's gotta work out good in the end. Gotta have some kind of resolution. So setting, conflict, climax, resolution.

As I was thinking about how every good story has these elements, as the literature teachers will tell you, the question came into my mind, why is that the case?

Why are stories that way? And I think it's because every story is, in this sense, an echo of God's story.

That God created a perfect world, a Garden of Eden, the setting.

But then there was a conflict. Satan, in the form of a serpent, deceived

Adam and Eve and sin came into the world and the world fell. But there is a hero in the story and that is

Jesus Christ who was crucified and that death, burial, resurrection of Jesus is the climax of the story.

And it ultimately results in resolution. That he will bring everything around for our good.

And all of history resolves in Christ Jesus. So do you see that? There has to be conflict in the story in order for there to be a conqueror and a deliverer, a savior and ultimately resolution.

And these stories that we live through in the history of the world and every little story that we tell has these elements because this is part of God's design for the entire universe.

And I wanna tell you, in my Christian ministry for these 20 some years, it has not been a story of just riding roughshod over the enemy.

It hasn't been just conquering in an easy march over those who oppose

Christ. In fact, there has been great conflict in ministry and especially to the degree that we as elders and pastors and as a church step out in faith and speak the truth the more boldly we preach the truth of Christ, the more conflict we get into.

Conflict is a part of the story. When I was a missionary in Kensington for eight years, we saw the power of God at work.

We saw so many young people being baptized. I think more than a hundred young people come to saving faith.

And the church grew to 300 some people. And then there was a conflict that came into the church.

It was over marriage. And my wife and I were standing together. I think there were very few standing with us at that time where we stood for marriage in a particularly difficult situation.

And sadly, this caused the breakup of that missionary team and we had to move on to a different location.

It just felt like this conflict wrecked everything that was going so well. Did you know that just less than a month ago, every night

I had a dream. It was always something slightly different, but it had the same character in it.

I'd be going into a dollar store and there would be the pastor of that former church from Kensington.

The next night I would dream the same thing. I would keep running into this person and we would talk and it was just such a weird thing that I kept dreaming of this guy that I hadn't seen for so long.

On the seventh night, I woke up to a text message from this very man, the pastor of that church in Kensington.

And he invited me and our evangelists to come back out to Kensington and serve with him at a block party, an evangelistic festival.

And as we came back together, there was resolution to the story, healing what had gone wrong so many years ago was now bridge under the, what, water under the bridge, is that how you say it?

Not bridge under the water, that's water under the bridge. There was this reconciliation.

And then we were out there, because you guys speak Spanish, you guys were like the heroes on the street, by the way, because that was a very valuable tool.

And to God be the glory, we saw many dozens of people pray to accept the Lord Jesus Christ on the streets of Kensington.

Setting conflict, climax, which is Christ, and resolution.

It all comes back around. God works it all together for good. The same thing happened in Juniata Park. For two years, my wife and I were working with a

Vietnamese church. And by the power of God, we saw so many people getting saved.

Young people, old people, black people, white people, Hispanic people. And sadly, this

Vietnamese church wanted to protect their ethnic identity as such, to be a

Vietnamese church. And all of the different people coming in was difficult for the leadership of the people who owned that building, and conflict.

Because we stood for preaching the gospel to anybody and everybody without reference to the color of skin or ethnicity.

And sadly, they pulled the plug on the entire church plant. In a day, we lost it all. 100 plus people that we had gathered as a church.

Conflict. But this last year, having seen how the

Lord brings climax and resolution to the story, we planted a church in Mount Laurel, and Ben Honeyford, the pastor of that church, and myself were invited back into that Vietnamese church to train them how to plant churches.

The Lord brought healing in that leadership structure, brought us back together. It took more than a decade, but the

Lord ultimately worked all of that together for good. Here at Cornerstone Church, there was, within the denomination of the

Evangelical Free Church, a movement toward wokeness. You know what that is? It's making race the pinnacle of all that matters, and trying to have less white people, essentially.

And we stood against that diversity, equity, inclusion. Wrote a book.

Our elders all agreed on doing this to stand against the wokeness that came into the free church.

Church, when I wrote that book, they never interacted with what was said.

Instead, they called me names. They labeled me a Christian nationalist. They said that I had extreme, stubborn arrogance, and it must be symptomatic of horrible problems in the family, and horrible problems in the church.

And they mailed this out to all of the delegates of the free church, slanderously saying awful things, unsubstantiated.

And I wanna tell you what it was like to hear those things, and to be voted against by the people who receive those things.

Joy. Count it all joy. Because I know that the way

God works in this world is not that you just run roughshod over the enemy. Ultimately, the free church ended up rebuking and turning away from the very things they introduced.

They repudiated social justice. They repudiated wokeness. They repudiated critical race theory.

But they left me trampled under feet. So I know that it was

God who brought that resolution, and in the end, it might be five years from now, it might be 10 years from now,

I know how the story ends. So in this life, we will make stands.

As a church, when the Dobbs decision came down from the Supreme Court, and it overturned

Roe versus Wade, we celebrated, but the Congressman, Andy Kim, called a town hall in Mount Laurel in order to chastise those of us who fought against Roe versus Wade.

When we went to that town hall meeting, even a 10 -year -old at the time stood up and spoke prophetically, saying, these babies that you're killing in the womb, one of them might be the next

George Washington. Every one of these lives has value. Wouldn't you know that one of the townspeople, congresspeople from Lumberton stood up from the back row and began yelling at the little boy?

And by the way, this kind of behavior is always one -sided. It comes from one side of the aisle, not the other. You endure that kind of persecution, people who oppose you.

Recently, we went to the library because they were putting pornographic books into the hands of minors.

Should not be a difficult issue to think through, folks. And we stood against that.

But on the way out, someone was yelling at one of our elders. We had people in the positions of power speaking horrible things about our church and about your pastor.

All of us spoke lovingly and told the truth, and yet you receive all these criticisms and hateful speech against you.

They will call us, and they can call us, Nazis, misogynists, fascists is the new one, racists, garbage.

This is to be expected in the cause of Christ.

When you step out and you speak the truth, people will oppose you.

Conflict will come against you. But here's what we need to understand. It's not that we are merely conquerors, but that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

The conflict must come. The persecution must come. But through the power of Jesus Christ, not only will we conquer, we will more than conquer.

It will be better for us for having gone through the suffering than if it had been smooth sailing all along.

It's part of his story, how he works his universe. So turn with me now to Romans chapter eight, and this is the theme of this chapter.

More than conquerors. Romans eight writ large is about teaching every one of us to be spiritual.

What does it look like to be a spiritual man or a spiritual woman? Are you spiritual?

The first 17 verses of Romans eight are concerned primarily with having the spirit.

The spiritual person is someone who has the Holy Spirit indwelling them. And either you do or you don't.

How do you know if you have the spirit of God inside of you? You have a lively pursuit of righteousness.

You're putting to death the deeds of the body. You're willing to follow the lead of your master.

If Christ is your Lord, you're willing to submit to his headship. You have a leader.

You're not captive to fear. You might experience the emotion of fear, but it won't hold you in slavery.

You cry Abba Father when you're in distress. You call on the name that is above every name.

You have an internal witness that you are a son of God. And when suffering comes, you do not tuck tail and run.

You hold on to Christ and you continue. Nothing can deter you from your good confession.

If that describes you, according to Romans eight, one to 17, you have the spirit of God.

Now, a spiritual person begins to let go of the things of this world with a view to eternity.

Knowing that the groaning of this creation is only temporary, but there's coming a time when the lion will lay down next to the lamb.

In the millennial reign, Christ will come back and reign from Jerusalem, and we will go up to see him for a thousand years.

We will reign with him, and then he will make a new heaven and a new earth. A spiritual person is looking for that day, longing for the new creation, okay?

That's verses 18 to 25. Verses 26 and 27 are about prayer.

If you don't pray, you're not spiritual. Prayer is the

Holy Spirit in you, interceding through you, even when you don't know what to pray for.

He helps you in your prayer. He's the intercessor. Verses 28 to 30 are about the security that you have, the confidence you have, that all things work together for good.

This is that idea of story. Even the bad things are part of his plan, and nothing can break the golden chain of redemption.

How many here remember what the golden chain of redemption is? Okay, it was rhetorical, so you don't have to raise your hand, but.

The golden chain of redemption, that those whom he foreknew, he also predestined, and whom he predestined, he also called, and whom he called, he also justified, and whom he justified, he also glorified.

And this is an unbreakable, illustrious, glorious chain, meaning

God is completely in control from beginning to end. When you think like that with this kind of worldview, you're secure, and you know that no matter what happens, whoever comes against you, he's got you.

He's planned it before the world began, and that includes the suffering, that includes the sin of other people, and even our own sin, this is all according to God's decree.

It gives us the security of knowing who's ultimately in control.

So when you begin to think like this, to have that security to pray, to look for the coming world, to know you have the

Holy Spirit, you're spiritual, but there's one more aspect to this, which we look to now, and that is confidence in the indwelling spirit that makes you more than a conqueror.

It is to walk in this world with your shoulders high, your chin up, not in prideful boasting, but with your eyes looking to God, with a confidence that you will conquer anything that comes against you, not by your own strength, but through him who loved you.

Let's read it. Romans 8, 31 to 35. What then shall we say to these things?

The reason I just reviewed the earlier part of the chapter is because that's what he's talking about by these things.

How are you to think and how are you to speak regarding what he just said? And it comes to us now in questions, rhetorical questions, so don't answer out loud.

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 with him graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword the implied answer to all these questions is no.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. So in verse 31, the question relates to a person.

The second half of the verse says, if God is for us, who can be against us?

And what follows through verse 34 are questions relating to persons.

It's a who. Somebody will come against you. Somebody may be stronger than you.

I once went to a power team crusade. This was in Clearwater, Florida. And these guys back in the 90s, these were bodybuilders and they were super strong.

They were on our team. They would do feats of strength and then preach the gospel. They were awesome.

I love those guys. But one of them just blew my mind with how strong he was.

He took a phone book in his hands and young people, a phone book is like this really big book, that thick.

It had everybody's information just printed on pages and it was yellow. But he took this giant phone book, grabbed it with his two hands and tore it in half.

Can you imagine how much torque is required to tear a phone book in half with your bare hands?

When our text says in verse 31, if God is for us, who can be against us?

The question here relates to power. And the idea is if you have an omnipotent

God who has not only foreknown but predestined and called and justified and glorified, if he's the one doing that, who can stand against us?

Can the power team who can rip a phone book in half break God's golden chain of redemption?

Not a chance. There's a really strong power lifter on the reels that are going around Facebook and whatnot.

His name is Anatoly. He's a little guy. But he dresses in long sleeves and you can't tell how much muscle must be under there because he looks small.

He goes up to these power lifters and they're snatching 600 -pound deadlifts.

And he's just a little guy and he's coming around with his broom saying, oh, can I clean around here? And then he just completely embarrasses these strong guys.

He's like, oh, let me move that. And he picks up the 600 pounds, walks it across and sets it down somewhere.

And they're all just bewildered. Who is the strong man? I don't know if Samson looked like Anatoly or if he looked like a bodybuilder.

You ever wondered that? Was Samson also muscle -bound? Or do you look like me? I don't know.

But the strength was supernatural, right? There is not a man on earth who can overpower your

God. This is the idea. Is there somebody in your life who opposes you? Talks trash to you?

Calls you garbage? Makes fun of you or whatever it is that they do?

You should have no fear of them because you know God is for you.

That's the idea. Now, it could also become religious. In verse 32, we're told about the son.

And here's the thought. If God loves you so much that he put Christ on the cross to atone for your sin, he was buried and rose on the third day.

If God did that for you, then isn't God also going to give you everything that you need for life and godliness?

You don't have to worry about what you will eat or where you will sleep or what you will wear because God clothes the sparrows and he gives a den for the foxes.

And not even a sparrow falls from the sky apart from God's plan. And even the very hairs on your head are numbered.

So if he gave you Christ, he's surely gonna care for your food and your needs.

But what about the religious man who looks down on you?

Maybe he's a cult leader who thinks they found the secret knowledge and you are just an ordinary

Christian and begin to question your salvation. Maybe you weren't baptized in the right way or you don't speak in tongues or you don't do this, that or the other.

And they begin to look down on you and question your salvation. Look what happens in verse 33.

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is

God who justifies. If some council in California, a fitting place for them to have met, condemns me,

I look back and say, it is God who justifies. Verse 34, who is to condemn?

Did you know that all of you in this room sit under the condemnation, the anathema of the

Roman Catholic Church? Did you know that in 1545 at the

Council of Trent, in the sixth session, they wrote an anathema, which is a condemnation to hell of anybody who says what the

Protestants said. That Council of Trent, article six, canon nine, has never been repealed, so it's still enforced to this day.

It reads like this. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.

Canon nine condemns us to hell. This is exactly what

I believe, that salvation is entirely of God, it is the gracious work of God, and it's not that I would dispose myself by my will to make me savable to the grace of God.

Paul was in rebellion against God when God chose him and called him. Out of his rebellion, the

Roman Catholic Church at Trent, session six, canon nine, condemns

Protestant Christians for preaching faith alone. But our

Bible, in verse 34, says, who is to condemn? Who is the pope?

What are we to make of his strange hat and his little pope -mobile? Or the splendor of the

Vatican? Or all the pomp and circumstance and surroundings of bishops in their conclaves picking the next pope?

The Bible says, who are you? Never knew you. No regard to what you decree.

Who is to condemn? Verse 34, Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that, who was raised. This is the all -powerful

Son of God who died for sinners like us, and he is at the right hand of God who is indeed interceding for us.

So in verse 27, we learn that the Holy Spirit indwells us and he intercedes for the saints as the will of God teaches him.

The Father has willed, the Spirit is in us interceding. Now we learn that at the right hand of the

Father stands and then stands for Stephen, for the martyrs, and then sits because his work is done on our behalf and he makes intercession before the

Father. Well, what does that mean? That means if you've sinned, you've fallen short, you've stumbled, no one can come against you and say he's lost.

No one can condemn you to hell. The good news here is that you have a great high priest.

His work is done, it is finished, and his blood shed for sinners like us is enough.

He's seated at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for the saints. It says here in verse 34, so if you have him as your intercessor, who is there to condemn?

What of the family member that condemns you for your faith in Jesus Christ?

You know there's a lot of people like that who will try to talk you out of following Christ. Maybe there's a schoolmate who mocks you for your stand for Jesus Christ.

Maybe they think you're a dope and they call you that because you believe that God created the world in six days and this only happened 8 ,000 years ago.

And they call you a fool and a fundamentalist. Who are they if Christ is seated at the right hand of the

Father on your behalf? Whoever comes against you in your life, whether it be through an ugly divorce, a painful family situation, sometimes children grow up to reject their own parents.

I know even in this congregation, there were some where they weren't allowed to see their grandkids during COVID because they were unvaccinated.

What if it's your own family who rejects you? The idea here is that if you have

Christ, whoever it is that comes against you cannot take away the love of God you have in Christ Jesus.

And in verse 35, it's not only, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

That's the persons he had in view because there are human enemies and even spiritual ones, demons, but it goes on to say, circumstances.

Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness, perish the thought, or danger or sword or COVID or an angry neighbor with a yard sign or whatever it is that comes against you in our world.

Whatever it is, the implied answer is, it cannot separate you from the love of God in Christ.

Nothing to fear. Some of the circumstances in life are not caused by a person. It might be a diagnosis.

For my mom, it's Parkinson's and to watch her struggle for this more than a decade.

You think, why? Where is the love of God? But to know this, to know that this suffering is light and momentary compared to the surpassing weight of glory that far exceeds it all, to know it's only a short chapter in the eternal story.

Changes everything. You see the idea? Nothing can separate us. In verses 36 and 37, it says, as it is written, and then quotes from Psalm 44, for your sake, we are being killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. But notice how the next verse begins, even though it already said, as it is written, meaning in accordance with this idea, the first word is no.

Why that defiant negation of the word of God?

Something seems amiss, doesn't it? Turn back with me to Psalm 44 to get the context.

Whenever something seems a little off, it's usually that we lack context. The three rules of Bible interpretation are like the three rules of real estate, which is location, location, location.

In Bible interpretation, it is context, context, context. The first 16 verses of Psalm 44, in the first eight verses, he celebrates that God has done in the past what you would expect him to do, deliver his people.

But in verses nine to 16, you see that the sons of Korah who write this

Psalm are disgraced, they're kicked around, they're trampled underfoot, they're persecuted.

They're even driven out of the land by an opposing army, an avenger and an enemy.

They're persecuted. And then in verses 17 and following, the sons of Korah write this.

All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you and we have not been false to your covenant.

Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way. Yet you have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death.

If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign God, would not

God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. Yet for your sake, we are killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. There's the quote. Verse 22 is what we have quoted in Romans eight.

Now notice in this context, the surrounding people have no regard for Israel.

And they're trampling them underfoot, they're persecuting them. They're reviling them.

They're even physically oppressing them. And the sons of Korah are not in sin.

They haven't been offering to idols. God would have known that.

But what's happening here is the sons of Korah feel and begin to identify like sheep to be slaughtered.

And look at their prayer in verses 23 to 26. Awake, why are you sleeping,

O Lord? I have a question for you to answer their question. Does God ever sleep?

No. But they feel like he is. They're thinking as if he is. Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever.

Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

Does he ever forget? Has God ever forgotten anything? Verse 25, for our soul is bowed down to the dust and our belly clings to the ground.

They picture themselves like worms. Belly to the ground, dust getting in their nose, trampled underfoot, victims of the surrounding people.

And where is our God? The final verse is very important. Rise up, come to our help.

They're calling for a deliverer, a savior. And then they say, redeem us.

What do they want? A redeemer. Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

They've read the Torah, they know that God is loving and he loves his people Israel, but all they've experienced in their lives is pain and suffering and being trampled underfoot.

And listen, they've begun to think like sheep to be slaughtered.

And here's the reason why all of this is happening. They live on the other side of the cross.

They are looking for a redeemer and they've never seen or known that kind of love.

And they don't understand why Israel is constantly under somebody's boot.

They're longing for a Messiah. And so their mindset here has become trampled down.

It's as if God is asleep. It's as if they're eating dust and their belly is in the dust all the time.

Where is God? They're longing and hoping. This is the hope and the longing of Israel before Messiah comes.

So now go back to Romans eight. When verse 37 begins with the word no, it is to negate that kind of thinking.

There was a sheep, a lamb who went to the slaughter.

His name is Jesus. He died once and for all for sinners like us.

And so Paul says in verse 37, no, in all these things, all this persecution, all these people coming against you, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Through him who loved us points to Christ having come. Now listen, church, you are not like the sons of Korah.

You don't live in the old dispensation, longing and hoping for deliverance.

You are in the church age and we as a church look back on he who loved us at the cross.

We are on this side of the cross looking back. And so we must not think like they used to.

We must think like more than conquerors. You cannot look at your oppressors and your circumstances and think, where are you

God? You're asleep. I'm so trampled down. I'm such a victim. This world is so hard and this load is so heavy.

No, you have already been loved with the perfect display of love that God himself took on flesh and took your sin to the cross.

And if he did that, how will he not give you everything you need for life and godliness?

This is the idea. When he says more than conquerors, it's not just that it's gonna be okay.

It's that he's already done it. He's proven his love. And now you live from that victory.

He's already won. You are more than a conqueror. You must know it and think like this, that whatever comes against you, it will fall.

You'll trample it under your feet in time. The God of peace will soon crush

Satan underneath your feet. So we close with verses 38 and 39. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. He begins with death, our great foe. Hebrews 2 .15

says all our lives, we are held by our fear of death. That's the one enemy that we all have to face unless the rapture happens first.

But here he's taken the sting right out of death that we no longer live in fear of death because that foe is defeated.

Sometimes life is more difficult than death. But from death to life, neither of these things cause us concern.

What about angels? Should you be afraid of an angel? Not if you're a

Christian, but if you're an Assyrian who's the ones that were ransacking

Israel in the days of the sons of Korah, one angel destroyed 185 ,000

Assyrian soldiers in one night. They should be afraid of that angel.

Now when you see the, it's running the gamut from one side to the other. From angels, the opposite would be demons.

So when it says nor angels nor rulers, the rulers there are the principalities and powers of this dark world.

Should you fear demons? No, but they are a real and present danger. They are real.

They will tempt you. They will put troubling thoughts in your mind. They will cause so -called doctors to put a scalpel into the head of a baby in the womb.

That's demonic. You can't understand abortion in this culture without realizing that it is demonic.

When you called it a demonic death cult, that's what this is. It's not just human evil.

It is an evil of such supernatural proportions that only demons could be behind this.

We're battling against not flesh and blood, but against rulers and powers and principalities, and yet we're not afraid.

It says nor things present nor things to come. No fear of the future.

Sometimes the present is difficult and the future is what has you stuck, oddly enough.

So much fear of things to come, how bad the world might get, but here you're more than a conqueror.

You need not fear. Even if things look bad, you anticipate things to come.

Nor powers, who are the powers here? Probably not Satan and the demonic rulers because that was just addressed a few phrases earlier.

It's probably referring to the powers of this world, the Roman Empire that could crush you like dirt under their feet, crush you to powder.

There are powers in this world like the Iranian regime that's getting very close to a nuclear weapon.

Have no fear of them. It's possible that a wicked ruler will take to the

American throne, so to speak, of the presidency. We don't even fear that.

God will write that into a story. It's written from before the foundation of the world, and even that we will conquer in his name in time, but it's our part to do whatever we can to resist that from happening.

It says nor height nor depth. I never had a fear of heights until I had little kids.

We went on a ride at Six Flags, and it was one of those parachute things where you just go up a couple hundred feet, and all they had over the kids' laps was this little bar, and I pictured them sliding right under, and from that day on,

I have been very afraid of heights, but here the height is as if you could be on like an

Elon Musk spacecraft to Mars. Even if you go that high, you're not outside of the love of Christ.

There is no height that can separate you from the love of Christ, no depth under the ocean.

It's Psalm 139. Where can you go to flee from his presence? Everywhere, God is there, nothing to fear.

Height can't take you away. Depth can't do it, and then he summarizes, nor anything else in all creation.

That includes everything besides God himself. He's not created.

Everything else is, and the big idea there to close with that is that if God, the creator, is for you, then no created thing can overcome his plan.

Nothing, nothing, no circumstance, no person, and so it says none of these things will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our

Lord. So the application. A highly spiritual life is not pious, monkery, self -flagellating austerity, or any pompous religiosity.

It's not to be out in the desert, sitting by yourself, or dressed in some special religious clothes, or whipping yourself.

To be spiritual means to have a sturdy confidence in the

God that you know. To walk in this world as more than a conqueror in the face of any election, in the face of neighbors, or any who oppose

Christ Jesus your Lord, to walk in victory.

To know who's you are, and who lives inside of you. So if you lack that confidence, that more than conqueror mentality, that mindset, here's what

I want you to do. Take these seven questions in verses 31 to 35, and ask yourself those questions every day until you're answering the way

Paul expects. It'll get rid of any victim mentality, any fear.

A spiritual person is one who has the Holy Spirit in you, and you know what that means.

You have the Son of God and His love with you at all times, and this casts out all fear.

Perfect love casts out all fear. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you give your people a more than conqueror mindset.

That we would not be afraid of anything, anything in all of creation.

I pray for those in this room who have a more sensitive disposition by nature, and tend to give into fear.

I pray that you give them an extra measure of grace today to live as more than a conqueror.

I pray that we would revisit these questions until our minds are convinced of your truth.

That you have made us more than conquerors through Him who loves us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.