No Separation
No Condemnation • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 5 viewsToday's text celebrates a promise that has been a source of hope and strength to countless generations of believers—the promise that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ.
Notes
Transcript
English Standard Version (Chapter 8)
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord
The question at hand, “Is this
(1) our love to Christ
(2) Christ’s love to us
(3) our sense of Christ’s love for us?”
Christ’s love to us, saying that “having shown that God’s great love to us is such that none can accuse nor harm us, the apostle now asserts the permanence of that love under all adverse circumstances—that none such can affect it.
It is by that love that we are enabled to obtain the victory over all such adversities. And finally he expresses his persuasion that no created thing shall ever separate us from that love, i.e. shall ever be able to pluck us out of the Father’s hand.”
We have two final thoughts that Paul gives us today.
There is no separation Anxiety for God’s Elect.
There is a Geometry of Divine Love that Goes beyond our human understanding.
Separation Anxiety:
Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most common childhood anxiety disorders. SAD is an exaggeration of otherwise developmentally typical anxiety manifested by excessive concern, worry, and even dread of the actual or anticipated separation from an attachment figure. Although separation anxiety is a developmentally appropriate phenomenon, the disorder manifests with improper intensity at an inappropriate age or in an inappropriate context.
1. No Separation Anxiety
1. No Separation Anxiety
Who Shall Separate us from the love of Christ? : Last week started with “who shall bring any charge against God’s Elect? These two thoughts are tied in that the first takes place in the court room of eternity. The second takes place in the economy of God and His Love. In a legal sense we are vindicated in God’s court of judgement and made righteous by the blood of Christ. Now we find our security in life and death in the comfort of knowing that there is nothing anyone can do to us in this life that will change our position in the kingdom of God.
Qualifying list of things that might be perceived as separating or dividing us from divine love. All of these seem to be grouped under the Category of Tribulation or Afflictions.
Tribulation: The distress of suffering whether physical, emotional, or mental. This may also not be direct persecution but a trying experience we are currently going through.
Future Tribulation
We know that the tribulation in scripture is a period when God will finish His discipline of Israel and finalize His judgment of the unbelieving world. Throughout Scripture, the tribulation is associated with the day of the Lord, that time which God personally intervenes in history to accomplish His plan. The Bible is clear about what we are to do during times of testing and tribulation.
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
What is the purpose of Tribulation in our Lives?
What is the purpose of Tribulation in our Lives?
*Tribulation draws us closer to The Way of Love
*Tribulation draws us closer to The Way of Love
Jesus referred to Himself as “the way” in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. The early Christians also referred to themselves as “the way,” meaning that they followed “the way,” Jesus Christ alone.
Note: We see in scripture how often people associated Trials and Tribulations with someones sin or associated with someone else’s sin that has led to our suffering. (Job, the man born blind)
Through Trials and tribulations God “opens our ear” by adversity, which means our struggles make us listen more closely to him. We learn to recognize his voice, as Samuel did, when he was aware that God was speaking to him (1 Samuel 3:4-14). We then find comfort in HIs presence, and his direction in trials because we are actively looking for it, with eyes and ears wide open.
As the prophet Isaiah says,
20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
*Tribulation draws us closer to the Things of God.
*Tribulation draws us closer to the Things of God.
Psalm 119 shows us that affliction can make the word of God more effective in our lives. The Psalmist points this out, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” (Psalm 119:67)
Tribulations draw us closer to the things of God because it helps us realize the things of this world are broken. Nothing is as it should be, sin has marred everything, and all creation is groaning.
Tribulations teach us to depend on him more through our sufferings. We are a people who pride ourselves on being self-sufficient without needing help from anyone. Paul gives us a greater Christians perspective in 2 Corinthians 12:9
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
*Tribulation makes us more aware of our sins.
*Tribulation makes us more aware of our sins.
Many times God refines us through the furnace of our affliction, softening the rough edges that we would not have discovered without the tribulation or times of trouble.
We see how self-focused we are.
We realize how impatient we can be.
We become painfully aware of our love for the comforts of this world.
Suffering much like discipline is never pleasant at the time, however, later it yields the fruit of righteousness and makes us stronger and more resilient to endure it when it comes our way. Our suffering will never be wasted, rest assured that God always has a purpose behind the things we are going through in our suffering. It is to produce something in our lives that is far greater.
2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Note: Endurance produces character, and character produces home, and this kind of hope never puts us to shame because of the love that God has poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
This is why we can rest assured that nothing can separate us from this kind of love.
*Tribulation makes us Long for Heaven
*Tribulation makes us Long for Heaven
When we face tribulations we should not question whether or not God loves us. Our afflictions should make us long all the more for heaven. We should become increasingly aware that this world is not our home.
Look again at what we read earlier in Romans eight that ties this all together with the Future Result ......
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
In Love with This World
Perhaps the greater problem with the Church today is not that we somehow feel separation anxiety from God. Our problem is that our love for this world and what it has to offer is greater than our longing to be with the one who demonstrated the greatest act of love the world has every known.
Our tribulations should give us an even greater longing for heaven because we become painfully aware that this world is not our home. When our dreams are broken, it’s harder to be like Demas, who was in love with the present world (2 Timothy 4:10), and it becomes easier to heed John’s warning in 1 John 2:15 not to love the world or things of the world.
Our suffering will make heaven seem even more glorious as we get a bigger picture of what God has accomplished for us at the Cross of Christ.
I remember being a teenager and wishing I could freeze time in the moment of my youth and live in the moment. It’s like the Bryan Adams song “Summer of 69” that I used to jam to back in the day. He says’ that he wishes the present moment in time would last forever. However, we know that life does not last forever.
I truly believer that the closer we are in our walk with our Lord the greater the drawing and longing becomes for Christ to split open the heavens and return to establish His new heaven and earth. Not only are our present pains not worth comparing with the joy’s of heaven (Romans 8:18), but it is actually preparing us for it.
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
Next Paul injects Psalm 44:22
22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
This was probably a verse that Paul recalled on many a day when things were not going swimmingly for him, like when he was chased by mobs, stoned, flogged, imprisoned, or shipwrecked. Psalm 44 begins with a celebration of the Lord’s victories for Israel in the Exodus and conquest of the land, but then quickly turns to a lament because Israel’s loyalty to the Lord has led them to suffer a mix of mockery and massacres at the hands of the surrounding nations. (Kind of like what is happening right now)
The Psalmist is pleading with God to get His act together and to show his covenant love to Israel.
Not your Best life now!
Paul does not see your present Christian walk as you “Best Life Now!” but as being granted to share in the suffering of Christ.
Paul now returns to answer in verse 37 the question he asked in verse 35.
“know in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
the word “but”: probably meaning “but despite all of this.....” In the face of all these things that stand against believers, they are nothing for the believers who are more than conquerors.
The word hypernikaō is literally to “hyper-conquer” or “super-conquer” and denotes their superlative triumph over all adversity. Paul is not engaging is some kind of cognitive reconfigure of his beliefs to manufacture a metaphorical triumph in the ashes of misery.
Far from it! He believes instead in the Easter message that God, on the cross of Christ, has dealt a decisive blow to the world, the flesh, and the devil (see 1 Cor 15:57; Col 2:14–15), and one day the old foes will be made no more (see Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 15:55–56).
Such victory takes place not in the evolution of human society into a Marxist utopia nor even under the aegis of divine providence, but through “him who loved us,” and such love is shown in his cross (2 Cor 5:14; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2).
2. The Geometry of Divine Love
2. The Geometry of Divine Love
Now Paul concludes not with another rhetorical question but with his own reflection:
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord
Note: the word peitho for “convinced,” or “Persuaded” signals Paul’s definite confidence in this view.
Now Paul moves beyond the description of worldly hardships to a near universal list of adversaries who might derail them in verse 38.
Geometry of Life
Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures.Geometry is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces.
So now Paul is more concerned with the property of the kind of love that God has poured on our lives.
Romans (The Geometry of Divine Love (8:38–39))
These include the 1). natural processes of life and death, 2). spiritual beings whether good or bad, the 3). temporal nodes of the present and future Glory to be seen, elemental forces, the entire created order, and even spatial dimensions.
He lists them all in order to make the point that nothing, 3). not even the most malevolent of metaphysical powers, can unfasten them from the divine love that is known and experienced in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The total Surface Area of the Geometry of God’s Love.
The total Surface Area of the Geometry of God’s Love.
*His Love Covers the Natural Process of Life and Death.
*His Love Covers the Natural Process of Life and Death.
How do we view our own mortality. Most peoples greatest fear and trepidation is the reality of life and death. We are all going to die sooner or later. You woke up this morning and still had a pulse, good, you are alive and not dead. Paul is reminding us that the life we now live is a gift from God and will in no way get in the way of God’s divine love for you.
The even greater fear of most believers is that they will do something to mess up or dishonor this new life they have been given in Christ. Paul is assuring us that the life we now live in the flesh is not our own but has been bought with a price. We also know that in Romans Paul speaks of the depravity of our sin in the flesh and how their is no one immune to sin.
The sovereignty of God should reminds us that life is not a guarantee however, God’s love endures forever. 1 Cor. 13 reminds us that we have faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. Basically Paul is reminding the church at Corinth that while faith and hope are important and necessary to live out this Christian life, the love of God is the glue that holds it all together. Look what Paul affirms in Ephesians 3:17-18
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
*His love Covers the Spiritual Beings whether Good or Bad.
*His love Covers the Spiritual Beings whether Good or Bad.
Paul is now speaking of the spiritual battle that is waging war all around us.
Paul speaks in Ephesians 6:12 of the principalities and powers that are evil forces in the universe, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Look at 2 Kings 6:17 as Elisha wakes early in the morning only to find the army Assyria surrounded the camp of the Israelites, Elisha prayed that their eyes would be opened and he saw the flaming chariots of the Lord circling their enemies. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 10:28
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
The world clings to fear and despair about the things that take place in this temporary life. Look what Paul said to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
We read in verse 7 about the power we hold in this earthen vessel of clay shows the surpassing power that belongs to God. Certain opponents in Corinth may have assumed that Paul’s sufferings delegitimized his apostleship, as they regarded suffering as a sign of weakness. Paul reminds the believers that his sufferings brought about the spread of the gospel by displaying God’s power
*His Love Covers spacial references to time and measurement
*His Love Covers spacial references to time and measurement
Paul gives two spacial references:
1). The spatial reference of Time. (the measurement of our temporary existence)
2). The Spatial reference of Surface Measurement.
Reference to Time in Scripture
What does the Bible have to say about time?
Moments, seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, and eons are all various measures of time…but how does God measure time itself? What are we called to do with the time we are given.
We know that God is eternal and stands outside of time. Revelation 1:8 tells us that he is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning, and the End, the one who was, and is, and is to come.
We read in Ephesians 5:15-17 that we are to make the best use of our time for the days are evil, therefore, we are not to be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is for us.
God holds the entire dimension of time and space in the palm of his hand. He knows its beginning and end. Remember when God abruptly put Job in his place and asked him the questions, where were you when I laid the foundation of the world and put everything into its order. God’s love extends beyond the bounds of our temporal world of understanding.
Unfortunately our God is too small.
We see all of the problems we are currently going through and assume that God’s Love cannot cover and reach us where we currently are at in time and space. We view God through temporal lenses in a temporal world and fail to reach behind the veil and see the God of time and space.
The present with its problems, the future with its forebodings—can do nothing to separate us from the great and deep love with which God in Christ smiles down upon us, and which from moment to moment he bestows on us, forgiving, helping, and encouraging us on our way through life.
“Height nor Depth”
How does our current world measure Love
Love is measured in terms of quantity, what have you done for me lately. It is all measured on the tangible things we can see and know. However, the Love of God is not measured on our earthly scale of Love. God’s love is unmeasurable, we are incapable of wrapping our minds around such a kind of love.
I continue to go back to God’s response to Job about measuring and laying the foundation of the word and it’s surrounding Universe. Paul is now throwing out an even outlandishly absurd statement to make a point.
Height and Depth
Paul continues to draw strength from the unattainable knowledge of the Love with which God loves us.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Paul asks the question in the middle of the struggle to understand what is the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love, and in response he answers his own question that to know the love of Christ surpasses human knowledge of understanding which is to be filled with the fullness of God.
The Doctrine of God
The doctrine of God is framed in the knowable and unknowable God. I think many times we loose the sense of the awe of the God that we cannot possibly fathom or know here on earth.
Because God can never be fully known, those seeking to know God should be deeply humbled, realizing they will always have more to learn. Considering his incomprehensible greatness, the appropriate response to God is a heart of wonder and awe.
So the argument that Paul is making at the end of Romans 8 is that God is infinite and His creation is finite. In heaven God’s incomprehensibility will undoubtedly be lessened when the effects of sin no longer ravage our minds and when he will most likely share some of His secrets. However, God will always be infinite, and humans will always be finite, so he will always be beyond human ability to know Him exhaustively.
CLOSING
DO YOU LOVE ME
My mind in conclusion this morning goes to a final but powerful scene on the sea shore of Galili with Jesus and Peter “the rock.”
Peters Love for Jesus Christ was put to the test on the night that Jesus was lead away for his impending death on the cross.
Peter was so sure and confident of His love for His Master and Lord. Everyone will remember how the scene unfolded where Peter had the opportunity to profess his complete love and devotion to his Lord and Savior. With the sound of the rooster crowing still fresh in his ears the resurrected Christ now asks him the all important question.
“Peter do you love me?” Jesus had already showed Peter how great his love was for him when He laid down on a cross and died. Jesus greater question was not whether he loved Jesus or not, but whether he trusted in the love of Christ to see him through the adversities that he was about to face.
The action put with the question was to feed His sheep. Peter comes back in a huge way at Pentecost when he laid down one of the best sermons in scripture. The boldness with which Peter now professed his love for Christ was only made possible because of the greater love of Christ which gave him the strength to do what previously he had lacked.
Previously he was trusting in his certain undying love for Christ, now he was trusting in the one whose love for him was beyond human comprehension.
What kind of Love are you trusting in today?
Maybe the problem you have had with your love and devotion for Christ rests in the fact that you are trusting in your own love to carry you through instead of the unfathomable love of Christ.
Jesus question to Peter should resonate with us today! However the greater statement is not whether we love Jesus but, do we trust in the Love of Christ to carry us through.