Christ Life In Us Romans 8:35-36 God Is For Us

Good morning. So we've been working our way through the last part of Romans chapter eight. There's a lot of, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Maybe blessed truth there that you really have to kind of go slow to pick up on it. So I started off this week back to the whole idea is based on one fact, that God is for us. And so now there's a challenge.

Who shall be against us? If God is for us, is there any legitimate opposition that we could find ourselves involved in that somehow God wouldn't be for us? And so Paul takes pains to kind of go through and list everything that is a possibility. that God may change his mind about us. He's for us in giving, he gave his son. He's for us in justifying, he justified. He's for us in securing, our security is based on him, not you, not me.

And that in all difficulties, nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of Christ. Now what's interesting is that externally you can spend a lot of time and come up with all kinds of reasons and why you can't be separated. Like Courtney says, there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

But in your mind, you know, that wonderful, the faculty that we have, you just think and thoughts show up. Our opposition is pretty good at using our minds to try to change our attitude about these kinds of things. So first in giving, we find in 32 that he didn't spare his own son, but he delivered him up for us all. Well, That's the best gift he has. That's the number one thing on the top of the list.

And then he said in 33, it is God who justifies. Now what's interesting about that, it's not here talking about justified before him. We're not standing before him to be justified, but he's the one that does it himself, before himself. So it doesn't matter now who condemns us. God is for us in the whole idea of justification. It was his idea. So talk a little bit. I'd look for a passage that would kind of fit this. And what I came up with was Zechariah chapter three, one through three, and I'll read it to you.

He then showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan, the Lord rebuke you. Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you in this Is this not a firebrand or a troublemaker, talking about Satan plucked from the fire?

Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, standing before the angel. And he spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, remove those filthy garments from him. And again, he said, see, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you in fefty robes. Then the Lord said, let them put a clean turban on his head so that they did put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments while the angel of the Lord was standing by. So in the Old Testament, here is this prophet, Joshua, and God is the one who makes him acceptable.

But standing right next to him was our old buddy, Satan, accusing him. So, and still further, I think there are difficulties in our lives, there are trials, there are dangers in the way, there's death, there's high and holy places so far removed, and Satan's powers against us. We know as the difficulties and trials they are from our perspective, because we've learned, They are the very path of blessing and honor. God takes all the trials and tribulations and he turns them to support us, to justify us, to strengthen us. So when you think about, take all as high as you can find or as low as you can find, angels, powers, any creature, Creature power and create our creature weaknesses.

Nobody can stand up to God and his proclamations about you and me. So then he says, it is Christ that died, yea rather has risen again, who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us. So the Lord Jesus has gone down in the depths of sin and sorrow and ruin as a man And he's been risen in power out of that and over it. And the victory over now is now there is a man who is exalted, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. And as the exalted man in the heavenlies at the right hand of God, he's interested in us. He's interested in each one of us individually. He intercedes for us. He's there to find help when we need it.

One of the great questions in this whole bunch of verses is, what shall we say to these things? Don't you find yourself when you spend time in God's Word that you will see something of God's blessing, and you have to say to yourself, how do I react to this? What do we say to these things? he who then can separate me from the love of God. It's a challenge, it isn't just a casual question, it's a challenge. Here it is, the love of Christ, that we may know him and his love as man, gone down in the depth of death and gone up on high as man and still interested in carrying out our requests and requirements. So the verses that we're gonna talk about today is this challenge, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And then he goes through a list.

Tribulation, distress or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or peril or even the sword. Who can separate us Can any of these things separate us from the love of God? And we would, off the top of our heads, say, well, that's okay, I'm cool with that. Problem is, is that there are times in our lives when, if we're being persecuted or whatever's going on, that we doubt Him. And oh, by the way, I would venture to say that nobody in this audience understands any of these things. You ever been persecuted? You ever been in tribulation? for your faith?

Have you been starving because you didn't have enough food? My problem is I go to the refrigerator, open up the door, and I'm trying to decide what I want a snack on. We have way more food than we need, but famine, and I read some articles this week about famine in Afghanistan. 60% of the people don't eat for two days. 60%. And if you're a Christian in Afghanistan, they're hunting you down, and they're trying to take what food you have away from you, including your life.

So, when we talk about here, who, who's the who? And so as we talked about last week, we said this who is called in Greek a literal indefinite pronoun. It can be anybody, any circumstance, anything that could separate us from, but we really are clear about who the who is, because he's the accuser of the brethren. He's the one who, in Paul's mind, is a great enemy is against everything God has done.

I got to thinking this week, if you wanna find out, and all you have to do is, you know, spend two hours listening to the news, or watching it or reading it, and then go back and read Genesis chapter one verses, chapter one through chapter three. If in those three chapters you discover that God created it, or he said it, or he planned it, and I don't care what it is, guess what?

He's against it. He's against simple little things like gender identity. Where do you think that comes from? Where do you think the prince of this world, the god of this age, who's his foe? His foe is everything that God did in Genesis, the first three chapters. He's against it all.

Nothing that, and we listen to those kinds of reports and we think, those people must be crazy. This is so obvious that they're... A doctor told me one time, well, gender's really simple. You take the baby out of the womb and hold him up in front of the mirror and you know. You know what he is or she is. They don't seem to know. You know why? Because this is the opposition.

It seems simple in one sense, but as you go through God's word and all these other things, like who can separate us from the love of God, well, he's got a whole dictionary full of things that will separate us now. So the word of God comes along, and so when it says, who shall separate us from his love, The Lord Jesus has considered our entire situation. He himself went into what is needed for our situation. He knew it ahead of time.

And he triumphated and is now risen and sits as a man at the right hand of God. He is the indisputable guarantee of the full and blessed results of his work. He is, not you, he is. and is now occupied with carrying out on our behalf, on high, everything that he guaranteed, everything.

So first, in the gift, he gave his own son and all the things with him. In other words, if he gave the best, he'll give the rest. Second thing is, in justifying he gave himself, according to the value of Christ and his work. The father looks at the work, looks at the person who did it, and he's totally satisfied. And so what does he do? He puts us in Christ and we have the same standing and status that he has. It really is kind of simple mentally.

But then, and this is the part we're gonna talk about more today, in the love of Christ. the love of Christ, who can separate us from the love of Christ. He who has borne witness of its strength here below in all possible trials, that he could separate us from any other as surely as he is existing, it is for us before God in the virtue of redemption.

You've been redeemed. You can't be separated. Maybe put it this way. Everything in our life as believers is in perfect place. Nothing's out of whack. The love of Christ is evident in our suffering to the utmost for us here. He has the same vigor as he intercedes for us in love, in heaven for us, and he who suffers still We who suffer now are now where he was and suffered. So there isn't anything that we can experience that he didn't experience.

All of it. All of it. So the result is that we can say there's immense unchanging love to those of us who live under grace. He planned it. He gave it. He forgave, He justified, He sustains us, and will bring all to that fullness of love and joy and glory which can satisfy such a God and the redemption of such a Savior. It's His plan. He's doing this.

So the love of Christ If the love of Christ is our claim because it's demonstrative reliability in measuring all the depths and the pleadings of a cause that we have on high with the Lord, the unchangeable strength of the love of God which is in Christ Jesus stands before all and through all and all eternity. Love imparts the fullest rest and confidence in our hearts.

When I thought about that, I thought, we gotta talk more about love. So that's where we're going now. I think it's important to see how far we have entered into his love. And I'm gonna use some Old Testament, another Old Testament example. No doubt his love is there, but when we enter into it, it's only when we, in some measure, enter into his heavenly sphere. And I'll explain that as we go along.

And I use Colossians 3.1.

Why would God, or why would Paul encourage us, since therefore we were raised with Christ? Since that's a fact, it's true. Everybody, I could say, raise your hand if you've been raised with Christ. All your hands go up. What do you do? With Christ, the things above keep seeking. That's from the inner literary. Since therefore you are raised with Christ, the things above keep on seeking. Why? Because that's where he is. Where Christ is at the right hand of God, sitting. Why is he sitting? Because he doesn't have to work anymore. He's done. The things above think about and not the things on the earth. Well, what are those things?

The number one thing is his love. The number one thing is his love. So, I think we can find that we are often occupied with a great deal that relates to Christ and also connected with ourselves and yet, It's not really Christ, because Christ's love wants to be unique and alone, just him. And so the example that I'm gonna use is here. Are we not first occupied with what I call the service of love? And the example is, it's a greater thing to be occupied with the one who does love us than the service he provides. Here's the example.

Behold, a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak. And she was saying to herself, if only I could touch his garment, I shall get well. She had a great idea who the Lord Jesus was, that he could heal, and she'd obviously been hearing about him and following him around.

But you know what? He is not satisfied with just that much. She had not gotten to his heart of love, but only to his service. So what does he do? He turns to her in the middle of a crowd, because he's on his way to go raise somebody from the dead, But Jesus turning and seeing her said, daughter, take courage, your faith has made you well. And at once the woman was well. He made personal, intimate contact with her. So what did she get from that? Oh, not only do I know the service of his love, but I'm finding out that he himself is a lover. I'm finding his heart.

So I would say that maybe A lot of people here in this room ever had a greater idea of the Lord Jesus and ready to serve at the suffering and helpless than she had. She has not reached the knowledge of his heart. Lots of us talk about what, you know, we pray that God will do this and do that and do that.

Do you ever sit down and think, I just want to know him and his love? I just want to know what it's like. I want to get to his heart. I want to know. So I wrote myself a note, and my note says this, do you mean to say, Mike, that there are not people on earth who have touched his garment for healing in their souls and yet have never known his heart? My answer is yeah. Yeah.

I want us to see that there's a very different result when we have reached his love, when we've reached his heart, because I think that's the core of what he's saying here. So hopefully, the Lord will show us the difficulty has been met on his side to show us, and we may be brought into conscious relationship with the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The knowledge of Christ's love, and I said this before, that Christ is in the heavenly, so the knowledge of Christ's love is in the Father's presence. That's where it is. If I want to know the Father's love, the Son has to teach me. If I would know Christ's love, it's in heaven, and it passes knowledge. The Spirit of God will show me. So I'm gonna give you another example. I like this one even better. This is out of the Old Testament.

This is our friend Joseph. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, what if Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pay us back in full for all the wrong which we did him? So they sent a messenger to Joseph saying, It's pretty crafty. Your father charged before he died, saying, thus shall you say to Joseph, please forgive, I beg you, the transgressions of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong. And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of God of your father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

So what are the brothers? The brothers had been 17 years under Joseph's care. He fed them, and they didn't know his heart. And when their father died, they thought their protection mechanism was gonna go away. So they send a message to Joseph saying, our dad said, and your dad said, forgive us for being so sinful. How did Joseph respond? He cried.

Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, behold, we are your servants. We are your servants. But Joseph said to them, don't be afraid, for am I in God's place? And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive. So therefore, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones." And so he comforted them, and he spoke kindly to them. What are they finding out? They're finding out that after 17 years of taking care of them, that he loved them, and they were getting to his heart.

This alludes primarily, this passage alludes primarily to the restoration of Israel to Christ at the coming of Christ, but I think it also belongs to us in, I would say it this way, in a class of souls who have not yet reached the knowledge of the love of Christ. Though we have the service of Christ, he's so gracious and generous to us. This knowledge doesn't come at the moment of reaching his service. These men, 17 years that family was under the care of David, and yet they didn't really know David.

Paul. Did he know on the road to Damascus the love of Christ? I don't think so. I think he learned it over the next three days when he didn't eat or drink. And it was then that he learned how God could take someone like him and bring him into his presence. He could do it because he loved him. So this passage in Genesis actually is a great feature of the gospel.

Jacob sends Joseph to see how his brothers fared. Early on in Genesis, he sends, Joseph is the youngest brother and the favorite of the father, so he sends him out to see how the older brothers are doing. And he comes back and he gives them a bad report. He said, they're not doing, they're lazy. And So they, and they know that the father loves Joseph and he got a, made that coat of many colors for him. And so the last time Joseph is heading out to see his brothers, what's their attitude?

They wanted, they plotted to kill him. So they grab him and they throw him in a hole. And the older brother Judah talks him out of killing him. And so what do they do? They sell him to the Ishmaelites who carry him down to Egypt And now he's a slave. He went from being the father's favorite son to now he's a slave in Egypt. And he's in peril. And so he's a prisoner.

Now the next thing that happens is a famine comes to the land. So the brothers and Jacob hear about the fact that there's food in Egypt. We get down there, we got a couple of bucks. We go down there, we can buy groceries. Only place around. It's like every other grocery store closed up at King Soopers. Where are you gonna go for food? King Soopers.

So they go down there, and they're back and forth, and he gladly takes care of them, but they don't know. First of all, they don't even know who he is. And then he tells them that he's their brother, and they still don't understand why he does what he does. So they never know his heart through this whole time. They don't understand. And do you not think that souls go on in this condition not knowing who Christ is and what his heart's about for years? I think so.

If these brothers had been asked what they thought of Joseph, what would they have said? He's a really good brother. He took care of us, serve us. But they hadn't gotten to his heart until the end. The thing that happens that triggers it is the father dies and the protection goes away. I think we find in our life that we're going along pretty well and something that we really cherish, the Lord comes into our life and it goes away. It may be a person, it may be something we've had an idol about.

But Joseph doesn't disclose to them his heart until after the father dies and they come down with the message about, you know, our father said, forgive us. And Joseph says, you did evil to me. So the Lord says, you did evil to me. And Joseph wept when he spoke to them. And then he said, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. The cross of Christ was evil, but God meant it for good.

In order to bring about this present result, our salvation, in order to bring about the present result to preserve many people alive." That's us. We're being preserved alive. So therefore, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of the Lord's heart of love. So then it adds, then the word adds, I will provide for you and your little ones, is not that the same thing as the Lord intercedes for us? It's the same thing. So he comforted them and spoke to their hearts. What has he done? He's led these brothers into the depths of the love he has for them. And he comforted them and he spoke to their hearts.

I think God's word More and more I'm seeing that God's word speaks to our hearts, not so much here as it is here. So there's an entirely new sense now, a new link to Joseph by his brothers. There's a new link between us and the Lord Jesus Christ that the brothers got, that are finally understood here and they had reached his heart. the spring of all, and they can say, all of my interests are now His. Think about that. All of my interests are now His. So, I think it happens to us when we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

The Lord Jesus told the disciples The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and will bring to remembrance all the things which I've said to you. We've been spending on Wednesday nights and Tuesday men's study, we just finished with Mark. What the fascinating thing this time through the Gospels is you see the Lord's heart for the disciples. He teaches them, he comforts them.

He wants them to know, and he even tells them, there's gonna come a day when you're gonna see that I am in the Father, and the Father's in me, and you're in me. You're in me, and this context means you're gonna know my heart. So, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Let's go through the list. Well, I started out by doing these, and then I had this website I was on that was talking about all the persecution of Christians all over the world, and I was gonna use those examples, but then after I finished reading Genesis, I thought, well, these are better examples, because they're all there, you know?

Tribulation, the Lord uses that 37 times, and what it means is pressure, trouble, Genesis 37.2 says, and these are the records of the generation of Jacob.

Joseph, when 17 years of age, was pastoring with the flock of his brothers while still young, and along with his son, Bilhah, and his son, Zephah, and his father's wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to the father. Guess how they reacted? And Joseph had a dream, and when they, When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. What did the dream say? I'm gonna rule over you. And then he goes and tells the father about the dream, and the father says, Jacob says, wait a minute, that's not gonna happen. And so, Joseph at this point can't get a break. So, let me get on the rights question here.

So, tribulation, pressure, then there's distress, and it means anguish. The word means a narrow, cramped space where one is in straits. A lot of times in your life, you feel like you're in, Courtney asked a question in Sunday school, or no, JD did this morning. What does feelings have to do with God's word? Nothing. but I can feel like I'm in a distress. Genesis 39, 19 and 20.

Now it came about that his master heard the words of his wife and she spoke to him saying, this is what your slave did to me, that his anger burned. So Potiphar's wife, tried to seduce Joseph, and he wasn't having any of it, the rejection. So when Potiphar, her husband, came back, she accused Joseph of being a predator. What happens to Joseph? This is distress. So Joseph's master took him and put him in jail, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and there he was in jail.

But you know what? Jail couldn't separate him from the love of God. Or persecution. The word persecution means to chase and run down, to track down, to pursue. In Genesis 37.4 it says, and his brothers saw that the father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him and could not speak to him in friendly terms. They persecuted me. The Lord Jesus told the disciples, they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. They'll hunt you down and tell you that, keep you on the run.

Imagine having all those brothers in that family and none of them would talk to you because they knew you were the father's favorite. Famine. Famine's an interesting thing. When you go down this list, by the time you get to famine, you can say, well, I can identify a little bit with tribulation, a little bit with distress and persecution, but how do you identify with famine? You know, for 250 years, we've lived in an environment where none of these things were our problem. None of them. How do we identify with such a thing?

How do you identify with not having enough food to eat? I mean, even homeless people in our city live better than people in Africa, the Middle East, and other places in the world. They just do better. But you have to think, gee, would the Lord ever not provide liberally for his saints on the earth? Yeah, he might. He might do that.

In 41, he says, and when the famine spread over the face of the earth, then Joseph opened up all the storehouses and sold the Egyptians, and all the people of earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe on all the earth.

We haven't had a famine. We had the Dust Bowl, and we had other things, and we had depressions, but everybody seemed to get food. You may find in your life you may be hungry, but hungry in a Christ-rejecting world. The Lord still has blessed us way over the top.

Nakedness on clothes is part of a Romans 8 shows as the partakers of Christ with the world had cast out. I had a quote, but I don't, you know, We don't, we have clothes. One of the first things I did as a Christian, I worked in a, I wasn't, I didn't necessarily like suburban shirts, so I worked in a mission on Larimer Street, and my job was to go to the St. Vincent de Paul Collection Center every week and get shoes and pants and shirts. That was my job, and I'd bring them to the storefront mission, We would put them on hangers by size, and then on Sunday, when the street people came in for the service, we gave them coffee, and we called it mission coffee, because the spoon would stand up in the coffee. But then they had to listen to the sermon, and then we fed them, and if they needed clothes, they could get clothes.

We don't know what that's like. And the last one is, or the second to last one is peril. Paul uses a word and the same word in 1 Corinthians, we stand in jeopardy or in peril every single hour. I don't, I'm not in any peril because I belong to the Lord Jesus. And the sword, now the sword is interesting. I read a story last week about a group of Muslims raided a Christian village in Africa and killed 30 people in one night, including children and babies and everybody. I thought, boy, if I had to live in that town, I would be in peril all the time and I would be in danger of dying.

But even in the hour of death, Christ was there and they were not separated from his love. One of the things unique about Christians is that as they get older and they get closer to dying or they get sick, they're not afraid. They're not afraid. And it's because of the love of Christ.

Now, this last verse, is a quote from Psalm 44, 22, for thy sake we are being put to death all day long and we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. You guys feel that way? No, you don't. I don't. But as great as the blessing is, great as the dangers are, We're secure to enjoy the one and to get through the other more than conquerors by God being for us through him that loved us.

So the last thing I want to do this morning, it took me all week to put those 10 slides together, right? So I get up this morning, and the first thing I always do every day is I read The Hungry Heart, right? So I sat down and read The Hungry Heart, and when I was done I thought, I spent all week putting together what this guy says in four paragraphs. So I'm going to read it to you because maybe it's better than what I did. It's called Loved to Love. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

Ephesians 1.3.

His love is mine when I know what he did for me. That's the service aspect. My love is his when I know who he is to me. He who is love is my life. He loved and died that I might live and love. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. My Father in His grace has come in and ended my history in the flesh by the cross. And now by the Spirit, I am brought into association with His Son at His own right hand in heaven. The Lord Jesus wins my heart in His humiliation. He satisfies it in His glory.

A won heart is not necessarily a satisfied heart. But if a heart is truly won by the Lord Jesus, it will never be satisfied without him. No heart that is won is ever satisfied but in the company with the one who won it. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. You only discover in absence what you have gained in presence.

We talk of difficulties and perplexities, how little the heart is really in concert, in simple concert with the Lord Jesus. He has gone up to the right hand of the Father in greater power than ever, and he is using the elevation that he has gone to to effect deliverance for me from all things that would break fellowship between him and me. And he uses his word to keep me from all that would interfere with that blessed communion.

Psalm 119.11, and thy word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against thee. So let's close.

Father, I pray today that every one of us would know and be able to feel comfortable and rely upon the heart of the Lord Jesus and the fact that he loves us so dearly. And that that would be the motivator. His love would be the motivator of everything that we think or do of our whole life. For you to even decide that that's what you wanted, you want us to know personally and intimately, the love of Christ which passes understanding. We're thankful and we pray in your son's name. Amen.