Love
Conquers All
(Romans
8:28-39)
Introduction (vs. 28-30)
What is heaven like? (wait for response)
Why would God mess up his heaven with us? (love)
So what’s he going to do about it? Can he do anything about
it?
And we know that
in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been
called according to his purpose.
The genius of God is his ability
to take the worst situations and repurpose them for good. He does do it. He is
doing it. For those who love him.
For those God
foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he
might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he
predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he
justified, he also glorified.
Before you and I were born, before
the Earth began, before we were even able to love Him, God was planning to love
us. That’s what “predestined” refers to—God’s unchanging plan to love you and
me. God wants to be in a
loving relationship with us.
God’s love leads to his desire to
be close to him. He works for the good of those “who have been called.” “…those
he predestined, he also called.” God wants us to be close to him, so he
calls.
But now we come to that problem again: If heaven were
populated with us, the way we are now, it would not be heaven. We would drag
heaven down. Do you honestly think that progress has or ever will fundamentally
change the problems we have, human to human? Do you think that putting us in a
perfect place, with no wants or worries, would eliminate hatred, hurt,
jealously, selfishness? Wait, that’s been tried before, in a place called Eden.
Nonetheless, God’s love will not be blocked. God’s plan is
not primarily about getting us to heaven—God’s plan is about making us fit for
heaven so that we don’t ruin it. Look at what it says: “…he also predestined us
to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brothers and sisters.” He doesn't just want to be your God. He wants to be
your family. By every means at His disposal, he is changing you to be like your
kuya (elder brother) Jesus. God wants us to be like Jesus. Heaven is the
family reunion. Almighty God is using every resource He has to bring you into
His family. God wants us to be family to him. And here’s the crazy part: God made you part
of His family before you acted like
someone who should be a part of his family, with the full confidence that you
will grow up to be just like Jesus.
Looking around this room and looking the mirror, God’s view
seems just a bit naive. I mean, just look at us. You know at the wedding, when
the pastor or priest asks “if anyone knows of any reason why this man and this
woman should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold you
peace.”? When you say God loves you and you love God, someone is bound to raise
their hand and say, “Excuse me, I have a few objections.” What are those
objections?
- Opposition. You are not strong enough.
- Accusation. You are not good enough.
- Labels. You are hopeless.
- Separation. You are too weak.
The Opposition Says: You Are Not Strong Enough (vs. 31, 32)
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, along with him, graciously give us
all things?
God loves us. God calls us. We make the first step. Then
there’s the backlash. Then there’s the fallout. We have built up a lifetime of
habits that reinforce the cycle of trying, hope and then disappointment. Our
friends, our neighbors, our colleagues, our communities have built up a
comfortable relationship with those habits. Those habits, those patterns,
those friends, those supports threaten to fall away. Fear speaks to us and
says: you won’t make it.
When we start to move in response to God’s call on us, we
find that the pattern of our life fights against us. This is the opposition.
God’s love says: You are weak, but I am strong enough for
both of us.
The Accusation Says: You Are Not Good Enough. (vs.33)
Be honest: have you
ever seen your kids do something embarrassing, and turned to your spouse and
said: “Anak mo iyan.” (that’s your kid!) Or have you ever seen your parents do
something embarassing and turned to your siblings and said, “Kamaganak ba
namin?” (are we related to them?)
As God changes us, making us like his son Jesus, there are
failures. Not just mistakes. Failures. Not just set backs. Failures. Then there
rises up the accuser say: if you were really the son or daughter of God, like
you claim, you would never act like that, or think that or fail like that. Do
you think Jesus would approve? Paul writes:
Who
will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who
justifies.
There was a story about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, in the Washington Post many years ago.
"I heard Dr. Conan Doyle tell
a good story during a trip I made to London last winter," said George D.
Aldrich at the Arlington last night. "He said that at a dinner party he
had attended the guests began discussing the daily discoveries made to the
detriment of people occupying high stations in life and enjoying the confidence
of the business world. Dr. Doyle said that it had always been his opinion that
there was a skeleton in the closet of every man who had reached the age of
forty. This led to a lot of discussion, some of the guests resenting the idea
that there was no one who had not in his past something that were better
concealed. As a result of the controversy, Dr. Doyle said, it was suggested
that his views as to family skeletons be put to the test. The diners selected a
man of their acquaintance whom all knew only as an upright Christian gentleman,
whose word was accepted as quickly as his bond and who stood with the highest
in every respect. 'We wrote a telegram saying 'All is discovered; flee at
once" to this pillar of society,' said Dr. Doyle, 'and sent it. He
disappeared the next day and has never been heard from since.'"
God does not accept any accusation against us, because he
has already changed our status from guilty to acquitted. There is no secret
that will be uncovered and no accusation so shocking that it will change God’s
mind because he knows it but has chosen to not hold it against us.
God’s love says: You are good enough, because I say so.
Nothing will ever make me love you more. Nothing will ever make me love you
less. You are family
The Labels Say: You Are Hopeless (vs. 34)
You will always be like that. The gavel comes down…bang! You
don’t have to wear an orange jumpsuit. You now wear a label, whether official
or unofficial, and it changes the way people treat you. That label defines who you are.
Perhaps you struggled with finances, your spending was out
of control, and then, too soon, the debt is compounding with interest and
penalties and you have no hope. Creditors are calling you. No one lends you
money. You are labeled a bad investment. That’s what you expect people
to see.
Perhaps your relationship just gets worse and worse. You
said things. He said things. Angry words. Mean words. Hurtful words. Now every
conversation seem to push the same buttons and ends in a fight. You are labeled
a failed marriage. That’s what you expect people to see.
It doesn’t take a judge to give you a label. We carry around
a whole jury box in our heads, filled with voices who tell us: You are a _____
(you fill in the blank). Talagang ganiyan ka. Maybe it’s your parents. Maybe it
is those teachers. Maybe it was those kids at school. They have pronounced
judgment. Addict. Alcoholic. Liar. Betrayer. Mean. Failure. Loser. And very often they are right. If you had a
journal from where you listed out your struggles, would the entries today be
similar to those 10 years ago? We can feel hopeless.
But Paul writes a different story:
Who then is the one who condemns?
No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is
at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
The voices around us tell us: you will always be like
this. What you are is what you will
always be. You can’t escape your situation in life and you can’t escape your
own bad habits. That is what the world
promises. Paul notes that Jesus died. Like everyone else. But then something
strange happened. They went to the grave of Jesus on the third day and there
was no dead body, because he broke the pattern of death and established
a new precedent—he was raised to life. He pioneered something new.
You are not stuck with the label. That’s what Paul says:
“Who then is the one who condemns?” Who judges, who assigns labels? Jesus has a
new label for those who trust him—not a label of failure or disappointment or
misfortune—no, the title he has given you is: son or daughter of the Most High
God.
Now live like it. Are you struggling to make a name for
yourself? Or are you rejoicing in the name Jesus has given us?
Those other failures? Yes, they are things you did, but they
are not who you are, because Jesus is interceding for us.
So now there is no condemnation for those
who belong to Christ Jesus. - Romans 8:1
--Forgiveness Interlude--
How can he do this? Sure, he wasn’t condemned because he was
the perfect man. But he wasn’t just the perfect man, he is also the perfect
God. This is important, because we are condemned to feel the results of the
curse—death and failure—because we have offended God—hurt him. But God forgave
our sin when Jesus took the pain upon himself. How?
When one person forgives another, it does not mean
that there is no hurt and pain. It does not mean that it goes away or is
forgotten. Rather, when one person forgives another, they take—carry--the hurt
on themselves instead of requiring that the one who hurt them pay the penalty.
Jesus’s suffering on the cross was the visible and tangible effect of God
forgiving us. To forgive us, he took the pain on himself rather than requiring
we pay ourselves.
--Forgiveness Interlude--
God’s love says: You are not hopeless, because you are who I
say you are.
The Separation Says: You Are Too Weak (vs. 35-37)
Can I still have a meaningful life for God, with all of the
bad things that have happened? We have wasted so much time with problems, so
much energy with sickness and paying the rent, that there seems that there is
nothing left for a relationship with God.
Who shall separate us from the love
of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or
danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Rick Hoyt Illustration
When Rick Hoyt was born, the
umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, cutting off oxygen to his brain. He also had celebral palsy, meaning he can't
control most of his movements. The
doctors told his parents to put him in an institution, because he would never
walk, never write, never talk --they said he'd pretty much be "a
vegetable" all his life.
His parents refused. As he grew a bit older, they thought they
detected intelligence in his eyes. They
sent him to public school. When he was
11, they took him to Tufts University and asked some engineers there if there
was a way to help him communicate. The
engineers didn't want to waste their time, so they asked for proof of his
intelligence. Dick said, "Tell him
a joke," They did, and he laughed!
They built him a machine that let him type by tapping a stick with his
head.
When Rick was in high school, a
classmate of his was paralyzed in an accident.
The family couldn't afford the medical bills, so the school organized a
5-mile race to raise money. Rick typed
out "Dad, I want to do that."
At the time, his father, Dick was in pretty bad shape. He pushed Rick in his wheelchair for the 5
miles, but he was sore for the next two weeks.
But at the end of the race, Rick typed out "Dad, when we were
running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"
That sentence changed their
lives. Dick decided he was going to give
Rick that feeling as much as he could. He
started training to get into shape. In
1979, he felt he was ready to try pushing Rick in the Boston Marathon. "No
way," said a race official. But
eventually, years later, Dick was in such good shape that they made the
runner's qualifying time (even pushing a wheelchair)!
After that, someone suggested they do
a triathlon: swim 2 miles, bike 112
miles, and then run a 26-mile marathon!
As of January 2014, they'd competed
in 70 marathons (best time 2:40:47), 247 triathlons, and numerous other races,
including running across the country.
The truth is that many things separate us from the love of
Christ. But nothing separates the love of Christ from us.
Conclusion: God’s Love Wins, If You Let It (vs. 38-39)
When I proposed to Helen in the Philippines in early 1989, I
had been doing my research. The little that I’d learned about Filipino culture
taught me that if I was going to profess my love to her, and she was to accept
that, that this was not a dating relationship, but rather the start of a
relationship that naturally culminated in marriage. At the same time, the
little that Helen had learned about American culture, mostly from a few
American missionaries and American movies, was that professions of love were thrown
around like water balloons, fat, gushy and easily broken. In fact, while I was
calling in “being engaged” she insisted in calling it her “experiment.”
So we plotted a course forward together, because we loved
each other, but I was returning to the U.S. only four months later. Because we
were both trying to finish are studies, we knew that it would be a long time
before we could see each other again. So we wrote to each other daily, and my
heart always jumped when I saw the air-mail envelope with the Philippines
stamps show up in my mail box. And we could afford to talk on the phone once a
month. But that was no substitute for being together.
There were those who said this wasn’t a good idea. The
mission agency had a policy against short-term workers getting in
relationships. Helen had to defend her choice to those to whom she had told
that her “beauty was not for foreigners.” I had to explain to my parents that
I’d gotten engaged to someone I’d met overseas. We had to convince my pastor
that our marriage would really be a good idea. Helen had to convince a U.S.
embassy worker that her coming her was not some sort of marriage fraud.
You can imagine that Helen was somewhat perturbed when I
reported to her that the one other girl who I had ever dated (Heather) called
me shortly after my return and asked me if I wanted to go out. I hope you told
her “No” she said later. Later, when I mentioned another girl, Angela who was a
class mate in debate class and who had the extreme misfortune to be dating
another guy whose name was Tim, Helen wrote me in no uncertain terms to never
speak with her again.
There was this assumption (rightly so) that my relationship
with Helen would preclude certain types of relationships with other women. And
she was very insistent.
Then there was this assumption that she would do likewise
and one day, come to me. Because that’s what love does. Love acts as one even
when separated. Love compels us to find a way to be together. Nearly two years
later, she arrived on American soil and in my home church, we were married. We
were no longer two separate people, we one.
God’s plan has always been that we should be with him, that
his family should be united together. He has made the arrangements, he has
spent everything, and he has worked out every detail. He is acting as though it
is a fact.
Look at what Paul said:
For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
This love of God has to very practical implications:
- We can be courageous because we are children of God. Our status is not failure. Our status is beloved of God. So many times we react out of fear. Fear of being hurt. Fear of failing. Fear of missed opportunity. No! The courageous child of God runs forward because know that the outcome is in the hands of a Father who loves them.
- We communicate our love to God by how we help people in need. When we were apart, Helen and I were desperate for letters or phone calls or once in a long while, a special treat was a package. How we treasured those? If you are truly part of this family relationship with God, how do you communicate like that? God seems so far away. Yes, you can pray. That’s like those letters and phone calls. But do you want to send him a love gift? Jesus told us: ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’’ Helping those who are weary, hurting and helpless-is a special package that Jesus receives with joy.
There was a period during our writing back and forth to each other where I noticed that Helen had started to say, “if we get married.” And I said, “What do you mean ‘If’? You should say ‘When we get married.’” But she wasn’t sure. Too many worries, too many doubts. It was when I sent her the money for her to buy her wedding dress that she moved from ‘if’ to ‘when’
Jesus has paid. God has said, it is not ‘if we are together’ God’s love will bring us all together, it is ‘when we are together’
