Rom 8.28-30

Pause: The Assurance of Providence

(Romans 8.28-30)

Jason Procopio

I grew up in church, and I very clearly remember one time at Sunday School when I was 13 or 14, when someone asked the teacher a theoretical question. They said, imagine a Christian dies in a car accident. And just before the accident, the Christian in the car sees the accident coming, and before he can stop it, says a bad word. He has not had time to ask God to forgive him for this sin. Will he still go to heaven or not?

The Sunday School teacher looked at us for a long while, then very solemnly said, “Well…we don’t really know. So be careful.”

This story illustrates for me one of the biggest problems I had with Christianity growing up: the question of assurance. If everything depends on my ability to obey God (as many Christians believe), I know I’m doomed. So why even try?

This question of assurance is essential—and that’s what we’ll be talking about today.

Last week Eduardo preached from Romans 8.18-30. I want to thank him for doing that; Eduardo’s in training and assessment to be an elder here, and he’s preached a couple times before, last summer, after the training he’d done with Joe. But it’s one thing to preach in the summer, when most people are away on vacation and there are other elders present, and another to preach during the year, with a full room, and no elders there to back you up. It was a hard thing we asked him to do, and he did a great job. So thanks Eduardo—we all had a good vacation thanks to you.

Right now, as you know, we’re preaching through Paul’s letter to the Romans. We started in chapter 1 back in September and we’re just working our way through, slowly but surely. This week we’ll be taking a bit of a break, like we’ve done a few times during this series, to talk about one specific topic that came up last week, that we feel we should spend a little more time on.

In last week’s text, we basically saw that everyone and everything suffers. That’s what it means to live in a world corrupted by man’s rebellion against God. The creation suffers, and we suffer along with it. But, for the child of God, we have help in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and prays for us when we don’t know how to pray ourselves—which is awesome, because he’s God, so we know that his prayers will always be answered.

And then we saw that in addition to this help the Holy Spirit gives, God does something else in our lives—namely, he works everything together for our good.

This is a very small snapshot of a very big doctrine called the doctrine of Divine Providence.

When we say a word like "providence,” we need to define it. One of my favorite explanations of this doctrine comes from the Westminster Confession of Faith, which contains an entire chapter on Providence. Chapter 5, article 1 of the Westminster Confession reads:

“God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”

There is so much we could say in response to this definition of the doctrine of Providence—to do it right, we’d have to touch on dozens of possible topics.

But that’s not what we’re going to do today—we don’t have time and that’s not the focus of the text. So I’ll be using the word “providence” kind of loosely today; we’re going to spend most of our time zooming in on one very specific aspect of God’s providence, which we see gloriously described in the text we saw last week, in Romans 8.28:

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

In other words, today we’re going to focus specifically on God’s providence in the lives of his people. I’d like to spend several weeks touching on all the other possible implications of the doctrine of Providence, because frankly, we human beings are already too self-centered as a rule. But it can be a little shocking to see Romans 8.18-30, which is about the greater plan of God for this world, and not slow down at v. 28. We want to say, “Hold on, am I reading that right?” And often, when we do that, we do it wrong.

Here’s a really silly example. There’s a show on Netflix now called Manifest. It’s a really fun show, exactly the kind of science-fiction/thriller I enjoy, about a plane that takes off from Jamaica, disappears, then lands five years later in New York. None of the passengers have aged, and they start seeing weird visions that help them solve mysteries. It sounds stupid, and it kind of is, but it’s a lot of fun.

The thing is, Romans 8.28 is featured heavily in the story of this show. The flight number for the plane the passengers are on is Flight 828. The passengers who return five years later are known as “828ers”. And they frequently discuss Romans 8.28 explicitly, drawing the conclusion that, quite simply, “everything happens for a good reason.”

That’s true, but of course it’s not true in the way they mean it. I admire the show for having the guts to use the Bible in a positive way, but they still overlook what this verse is actually saying.

So what is Paul saying in this verse?

God’s Providence in the Lives of His People (v. 28-30)

Eduardo talked about this last week, and he was right to frame it the way he did: the big question—the question that this text answers—is not whether God is sovereign over the world, or even over our salvation, but whether or not he’s sovereign over the suffering that we experience in our lives as Christians.

It’s an important distinction, because if we were receiving nothing but things we wanted, all the time, we wouldn’t complain so much about the idea of God’s sovereignty. The idea of his sovereignty really bothers us when things don’t go the way we want them to, when you get diagnosed with an illness, or when someone hurts you, or—unfortunately—when someone who calls himself a Christian does something that is unreservedly evil.

That’s the circle we can’t square, and that’s what this text addresses.

So Paul is speaking in the context of the Christian’s suffering and the help the Holy Spirit gives us, and then in v. 28, he says:

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

So here’s the Bible’s answer to the question of God’s providence in our suffering in this broken world: God works all things together for GOOD.

ALL things. ALL things. ALL things. For GOOD.

Now, there are a couple of qualifiers we need to consider, and they’re really important, because when we miss them, we apply this verse the way Manifest does.

Here’s the first qualifier: this promise—that God works all things together for good—does not apply to everyone.

Keep v. 28 in front of your eyes: Paul says that this promise is for:

1. Those who love God—not the idea of God, but God himself, as he presents himself in his Word.

2. Those who are called according to his purpose—that is, those whom God has brought from death to life by the call of the gospel, supernaturally causing us to be born again through the faith the Holy Spirit gives us.

In other words, this “good” that is promised is for the people of God, those who have been saved by new birth, through the faith the Holy Spirit gives us.

That’s the first qualifier.

The second qualifier is that when he says God works all things together for good, the “good” he has in mind is a very specific “good.” The goal of God’s providence in “all things”, the good he works out in all things for his people, is that we become like Christ.

Look at v. 29:

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Paul goes much further than simply saying God predestines us to salvation: he predestines us to obedience. He predestines us to Christlikeness. He predestines us to faithfully live the Christian life.

In other words, if your idea of God working for your good doesn’t look like obedience to Christ, your idea is wrong. If we read Romans 8.28 and we think, God works in everything to make us healthy and wealthy and happy and comfortable, our thinking is way off the mark.

The “good” God works for us is mainly that we be conformed to the image of his Son.

This Promise Is Good News

Now, I know that a lot of us want this verse to mean something else. We want it to mean that in every suffering, God is working to make us feel better—to take the pain away, to make us happy again. That’s not necessarily untrue—our God is good, and he does comfort us, and he does answer our prayers for relief—but it’s not his primary goal.

That may not sound like great news at first.

But it is. For two main reasons.

1. Because conformity to Christ is a foretaste of heaven.

God predestines us to be conformed to the image of his Son—he works all things together for that good—in order to develop in us a distinct family resemblance.

Whether we like it or not, we’ve all inherited characteristics from the family we grew up in. From my dad, I inherited a decent singing voice, a good amount of emotional openness (we have no problem talking about our feelings), and a love of movies. From my mom, I inherited a good musical ear, a pretty quiet personality…and yes, a love of movies. (So you get it: growing up, there was a lot of music, and a lot of movies.) I inherited these things from my parents, and I’m grateful for them.

But from my dad I also inherited insomnia and a predisposition to anxiety; and from my mom, an aversion to conflict that’s sometimes almost crippling.

All of us are like this: there are things we inherited from our parents that are good, and other things that aren’t so good.

But when it comes to belonging to the family of God, every characteristic that can be qualified as a “family resemblance” is a good one—God predestined us to be conformed to Christ, the firstborn among many brothers.

If we think about it, we already know this is good news. The one thing that almost all non-Christians, across the board, will agree on is that they admire Jesus as he is described in the gospels. Jesus had no patience for hypocrisy. He defended those who couldn’t defend themselves. He welcomed the unlovable. He healed those who were sick. He was kind to his enemies.

During his earthly life, Jesus proved himself to be the kind of person nearly everyone wants to be. And he did it by perfectly obeying his heavenly Father.

So Paul says, if God has saved us, he intends that we become that kind of person. Sometimes the way we’ll get there will be unexpected—God will give us commandments we might not understand, he’ll call sin some things that we find good and normal—but the end result, if we trust him and obey those commands is always the same: we’ll look like our Brother, Jesus Christ, who himself is the perfect image of his Father, and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1.3).

And that is better than any comfort, any amount of wealth, any earthly pleasure we might gain if we don’t follow him. Being like Christ, and suffering to get there, is better than not being like Christ and living a perfectly pain-free life.

This is the bottom line; this is the reason we were created. Being like Christ is how we will be forever, in heaven. If that’s not something you want, then you don’t want to be there. If it is, if you belong to Christ and want to be like him, then you have the promise that God will do it. (What’s the benediction I give four out of five times? 1 Thessalonians 5.23-24: Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. We obey, because God is faithful to bring us to obedience.)

That’s the first reason this is good news: conformity to the image of Christ is a wonderful gift. It is a foretaste of heaven on earth.

2. Because the end of suffering is coming.

The second reason this is good news is because God does indeed promise that we will be healthy and comfortable and happy, forever—once Christ returns and renews the world. That’s the hope Paul was describing in v. 18-25, and which he alludes to explicitly in v. 30:

30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

That “glorification” he’s talking about is our glorification—the day when our bodies will be resurrected and renewed to resemble Christ’s. And he’s already told us it’s bigger than just us: his goal isn’t just to save individuals, but to save a family of brothers and sisters, with God as our Father and Christ as our Brother.

This is the ultimate promise of the entire Bible—the story of the Bible culminates in this day when (Revelation 21.3-4):

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

This is health, this is peace, this is comfort, this is joy, forever. And it’s all these things, not just on an individual scale, but on a cosmic, universal scale: God will renew the earth and make it the dwelling place for his people, the tabernacle where his presence dwells among them. The promise of that day isn’t just good news; it’s the best news.

But that day’s not here yet. God is already our God, and has already given us his Spirit to apply his promises to our lives…but he hasn’t yet returned to make all things new. For now, we live in the middle—between “already” and “not yet”. And living in the middle means understanding how God is still working while we wait for that day to come.

So Paul describes what God is doing, and how he is doing it. V. 28 again:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

It would be easy to hedge on this, and basically reduce it down to an empty platitude: the biblical equivalent of “Don’t worry, I’m sure everything’s going to be okay.” (By the way: if you ever say that to someone, you’d better have some serious evidence to back it up, because otherwise it’s utterly useless.) That’s what most people do with this verse, because to take Paul literally means giving up our ideas of how in control we are of our own lives.

The thing is…I don’t know how you can be a happy Christian if you don’t take Paul literally. I know these people exist, but I don’t understand them. Because if you don’t take what Paul says seriously, you have no other foundation on which to base your hope that God will be faithful to his promises. If God is faithful to his promises, that will necessarily mean denying you some things that you want, because some of those things are bad for you, and he promised you good. It will necessarily mean allowing you to go through some things you don’t want to go through, because he promised that we are heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him (as we saw two weeks ago in v. 17).

For those who have been brought from death to life, called by God, saved by his Holy Spirit, a radical transition of circumstance has taken place. We can now have the certainty that—yes—literally everything that happens to us in our lives are being worked out by God for our good.

This promise ranges from the most banal situations to the most extreme.

You catch a cold, and you have to go to work anyway. That sucks. It’s not fun. But if Paul is telling the truth, then God is working in that hard day for your good, to make you more like Christ.

My friend Aaron’s eight-year-old daughter has cancer, and despite three years of treatment, it keeps on advancing. I can’t even imagine that kind of pain. But Aaron, and his wife Sarah, and their daughter, all know and love Jesus Christ. So even though they don’t know why this is happening, they know God has not let them go—that he is working in it, that he is working for them, that being like Christ is worth even the most horrendous pain.

This applies to sickness; it applies to tragedy; and as we’ll see in a few weeks, it applies to sin as well. If you’re a Christian who’s been wounded by someone else who has sinned against you, then you can rest on this promise: this person meant it for evil, but God is working in it for your good. Just like he did with Joseph and his brothers, just like he did with the Pharaoh in Egypt, just like he did with the crowds who cried for the crucifixion of Christ.

All things. All things. All things. For the good of his people, that we might be conformed to the image of Christ, our Brother.

Our only assurance, our Wonderful Assurance

Loanne and I, a long time ago, were living in Normandy, and going to a church in which the pastor disagreed with me on this issue. We had had a discussion together about this particular passage, and a couple weeks later he surprised me by preaching on the end of Romans 8, v. 31-39, which we’ll see next week.

I’ve got to say, it was a great sermon. He exposed the text faithfully, he did it with great passion, and it was fantastic. And we could see it. We knew the people in the church, of course, many of whom struggled with problems of doubt, and as he spoke we could see them visibly lifting up in their seats, like the pastor was pumping air into them.

Then he got to the very end of chapter 8, and he read the end of the chapter, saying that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, nothing nothing nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Then he said: “Well… Maybe one thing… You. Your sin. Your choices. Your decisions.”

And just like that, we saw the whole room deflate again.

We left the church in tears that day, because he had taken God’s loving control over our lives, and put it back in our hands—which is terrible news, because if it’s up to us to make sure this thing works, it won’t work.

The reason why this sermon was so tragic is because it went against the root of Paul’s assurance that nothing will separate us from God’s love in Christ, and that root is this: those whom he foreknew, he also predestined, those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

And that is why God works all things together for our good—because what God wills is good, and he will allow no evil to get in the way of his good will. No sickness, no relational heartache, no sin, not even death.

If this is not true, we have no assurance that any of God’s promises will come true, because they’ll always depend on us. This is the only assurance we have, and it is the best assurance we could imagine.

The Stability of Assurance

Now there are a lot of reasons why people resist these truths, and we’ll talk about them more in the coming weeks. People say that they don’t want to be robots, they want to maintain control of their lives. So do I, but the hard-yet-vital truth is that we don’t get to decide that. We’re not robots, and we are responsible for our choices, but our choices do not give us absolute control. Our lives—this entire universe and everything in it—are being directed by the sovereign and providential hand of a wise God. That means that every day, we’ll be confronted with unexpected things—things we didn’t plan for, pain we didn’t anticipate.

We’re going to suffer, and most of our suffering will be unexpected. So how does God call us to do that? How do we suffer well?

In this text, God gives us two essential truths—two things we know now from our text, that allow us to deal with the unexpected suffering that comes up in our lives.

First, we know what is coming. God warns us that we will suffer, because we live in a broken world. It’s amazing that we’re still surprised when suffering comes. The creation is groaning, Paul said, and so are we—we are weak, and subject to pain, and waiting for the day when we’ll be freed from our weakness. God tells us that life in this broken world will be hard, life with other broken people will be hard, and we shouldn’t be surprised when we’re confronted with hardship.

But at the same time, we know what is promised. The Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, Paul says; he intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray. And God’s sovereign hand is working all things together for our good—not despite our suffering, but in our suffering, through our suffering. He’s working in it to make us like Christ, which is the glorious promise of heaven for us.

Think of how freeing it would be to live every moment with these two truths anchored firmly in our minds. We’ll never be surprised when we’re confronted with suffering or sin in ourselves or in others, so we won’t be caught off guard by it. When we get angry, our anger won’t be defensive, but rather measured and appropriate; even our anger will be gracious, seasoned with salt (as Paul says in Colossians 4), so we’ll know how to answer each person.

And at the same time, we’ll remember we’re never without the precise help we need at any given moment. We might not feel like it, but the Spirit is there, helping us in our weaknesses. He’s working to make even this contribute to our good, to make us like Christ.

How steady would we be in the face of the unexpected, if we knew this? We’re not there yet…but that is what we are growing toward—not boats tossed around by the waves, but firmly anchored to the seafloor, stable and sure. This is the good that God is working out in us, in all things.

Let me just say one last thing. There may be some people here who are listening to all this and who think it sounds pretty great—you might be thinking, I want to have that kind of assurance too.

Can I be honest with you? That’s not the best reason to come to Christ. The best reason to come to Christ, we find it earlier in this book, in chapter 3: no one is righteous, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3.23-24). That is why you should come to Christ: because you’ve sinned against God and need his Son to be the sacrifice for your sin.

But you know, I don’t believe that God is against accepting and using other reasons to come to him; in fact, if you read the Bible, you’ll see God giving us all sorts of reasons to come to Christ.

Christ invites us to come to him if we’re tired and we want rest.

He invites us to come to him if we feel dead and we want life.

He invites us to come to him if we desire abundant joy, and eternal pleasures.

He does not just give us one reason to come to him.

So if you desire to know Christ, then come to him. Don’t worry about not knowing how to do it exactly right. We’ll give you the opportunity to do it, and we’ll explain how to do it, in just a minute. And when you do, you can know that if you place your faith in him, he will forgive you of your sins, and work all things in your life to make you more like Christ. He’ll work on your motivations; your job is to respond in faith.

Rom 8.31-39

more than conquerors

(Romans 8.31-39)

Joseph Tandy

We are coming to the end of the first half of Romans, which we have been meditating on since last September.

We will then take a break in Romans which will take us to Easter.

Today ... this majestic passage from Romans 8.

There are passages in the Bible whose purpose is to depress us.

This is not one of them!

Here is our question this morning: what has the message of the good news accomplished?

Let's remember all we've seen in the last few months. What has the message of the good news achieved?

I imagine that many of us in this room would instinctively answer: What a question! This message has transformed my life! I wouldn't be here if it hadn't. What has this message accomplished? Where to start?!?

Just listening to Mariya's reading was enough to make me feel energised!

Let's allow ourselves a little moment of pessimism before diving into the treasures of this text!

If you're like me, there are times when we really ask ourselves this question - what has the message of the good news changed?

Sometimes because of our sin. "I've fallen again, I'm tired of falling back into the same old ways and dragging this weight of guilt with me! What has the message of the good news really accomplished?"

Sometimes we ask because of difficulties in life. "Lord, until when? Can't you see how I am suffering? I am at my wits' end and I am beginning to wonder if you really care about me. What has your good news accomplished for me?"

Or finally, we can ask this question in the face of what looks like failures when the good news is announced.

Before I came to Connexion, I was involved in a church plant where my efforts to share the good news of Jesus were more often than not met with indifference.

Even here we are close to 200, which is encouraging ... but compared to the population of Paris, it is still a drop in the bucket. Even if we gathered all the evangelical Christians in this city, we could quite easily fit them into a hall the size of Bercy ... and there would still be room.

What did the proclamation of the message of the good news really accomplish? What difference did it make?

God has given us Romans to fill us with confidence, assurance and joy at this question.

2000 years ago, when Romans was written, we might have had the same doubts.

When Paul took up his pen to write it, he had just spent 10 years preaching all over the eastern Roman Empire - from Jerusalem to Italy.

At the time of writing, he was preparing to move to Rome because he wanted to make the church there his base for the next phase of his mission in the western Mediterranean. He wrote Romans to convince the Christians in Rome to support him.

But looking at the results of his work, I'm not sure they would have been full of enthusiasm.

A handful of Christians here. A few dozen here. People still burdened by the same problems as everyone else. Still suffering, still sinning, still dying, while being drowned out by thousands of people, sometimes indifferent, often hostile to the message they had believed in.

What had the message of the good news really accomplished?

Even today, we sometimes ask ourselves the same question. Perhaps you are asking it this morning. I believed in Jesus. What did it change?

This passage is one of the clearest passages in the whole Bible about how good it is to be a Christian.

It tells us this.

If you believed, everything changed!

A person who has believed in this message is a person whose destiny has been radically changed, whose most fundamental problem has been solved and who is unquestionably and eternally secure!

Everyone is looking for security. Only the good news of Jesus offers it.

If we have believed, we are guaranteed that God is for us today and forever.

Let's look at this together.

This message guarantees us:

• Irrevocable justification (31-34)

• Inseparable love (35-39)

Irrevocable justification

Romans 8:31

"What more shall we say? If God is for us, who will be against us?

Paul takes us back to where it all began in Romans - in the courtroom!

You may remember that at the beginning of this series there was a trial.

God's trial against humanity.

We saw that the world's biggest problem is not global warming or the war in Ukraine, real as those problems are; it is God's righteous judgement against a guilty world.

Let's go back to Romans chapter 1 verse 18 to remind ourselves of this.

Paul says:

"The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who unjustly hold the truth captive."

We had seen that everyone, including us, is guilty of saying to God more or less blatantly, "I know you're there, but I'm going to live as if you're not." So God was angry.

Let's go forward a few pages - chapter 3 verse 19. Paul says that before the judgment seat of God "every mouth is stopped" and "everyone is convicted before God".

We had nothing more to say in our defence. The guilt of mankind was obvious.

Let's go back to Romans 8.

This morning's passage puts us back before that same court, not to condemn us, but to remind us of all that Jesus has done for us!

Paul asks three questions:

Who will be against us?

Who will accuse us?

And who will condemn us?

To all these questions, we could answer ... many people and many things!

Who will be against us? Many people can be! Satan is! Our sin-corrupted bodies are! God should be!

Who will accuse us? Men can do it! Satan does it! Our conscience does it too!

Who will condemn us? Human courts can do it! Our society can do it. God especially would have every reason to do it!

Paul knew this.

In the course of his ministry he had faced all kinds of accusations, had been called a dangerous blasphemer, and had had to defend himself in court several times.

He also knew his past and present sin. Like us, his conscience could accuse him, others could accuse him, the devil could accuse him.

Paul knew very well that we are not without adversaries or accusers.

But ... thanks to the death of Jesus on the cross, it does not matter!

God ... has spoken in our favour ...!

So what does everything else matter!

In some countries there is a Supreme Court which is the highest legal body.

It has the last word. When it decides, there is nothing more to say.

Here Paul places us before the real Supreme Court - the court of God.

The supreme judge is God himself, and when he decides, that is the final word.

Verse 31

What more shall we say then? If God be for us, who shall be against us?

It is not that if God is for us, no one can be against our professional success or our search for Mr or Mrs Perfect.

Rather, this verse means that when the supreme judge has decided, that is the final word!

The matter is settled.

The Supreme Judge has ruled.

"Righteous!"

"Perfect."

"Completely in line with justice."

This is his verdict on those who have believed in Jesus.

God has erased my name from the indictment against me for all the shameful things I have done, said or thought in my life, and written the name of Jesus instead.

I, the real culprit, have been pronounced as righteous as Jesus ... by God ... the supreme judge.

Verse 33

"Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? It is God who declares them righteous!"

If even God, ... he who would have every reason to accuse us ... he who is not only the supreme judge but also the offended party ... if even God declares us just, what is any other accusation worth? Nothing!

It is as if Paul turned to the universe and said: the supreme judge has given his verdict. It is favourable.

Does anyone else object?

Yes, someone will say, but how do I know that one day I won't do something so bad that God will change his mind?

Verse 34 -

"Who will condemn us? Christ has died, much more, he has risen, he is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us!"

Christ is today with his Father.

And he is constantly saying to him: Look at my pierced hands! Remember! I took his indictment! I served his sentence. You will not punish the same sins twice!

Your verdict is therefore irrevocable! It cannot be withdrawn.

And since it is irrevocable, since God considers us righteous, as righteous as Jesus, we have nothing more to fear!

Verse 32 -

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all, how can he not also grant us everything with him?"

If God so loved us as to give up his beloved Son to death ...

If by this death our punishment is purged ...

If God considers us just ...

And that this verdict is final...

What will prevent him from giving us "all with him"?

God did not shed the blood of his Son for nothing!

Not a single drop of that blood was wasted.

He shed it precisely so that he could give us all the other treasures to which it entitled.

An incredible legacy in the perfect world to come...and in the meantime, everything we need to get through the journey.

We are totally safe.

The message of the good news guarantees us irrevocable justification.

This is an incredible turning point.

Since Adam and Eve, there has always been only one verdict on humanity: guilty.

This is the verdict that, by default, still hangs over every person who enters this world.

The history of the people of Israel was a thousand year long attempt to get a new trial with a better verdict.

At the end of the thousand years, the judge had ruled again - still guilty. Israel was sent into exile.

But now the message of the good news offers a new verdict for the first time.

Just.

I can stand before God's throne of judgment, and know that I am safe.

No one else can offer that!

Other religions try to do this ... to no avail.

Secular humanism, the dominant doctrine in our society, only makes things worse by denying God's judgment.

But the good news of Jesus fulfils the humanly impossible.

We can be declared righteous, know that God is therefore for us and that he will never change his mind.

How does it feel to know that God is for us?

If you're like me, you probably find it hard to believe.

You think about your week, you look into your heart, you see what's inside, and you think: if I were God, would I be for him? I'm not sure.

And if I myself am not convinced, well, God is much more demanding than I am.

If I asked you - are you on good terms with God? - how would you answer?

Yes - fine.

No. Not good.

Or if I asked you if you could say with certainty that if you were to die today, that you would go to heaven, what would you say?

Yeah...

Or maybe I couldn't tell you.

Or maybe it's simply: Can we really know?

Maybe we function with an idea of God like a schoolmaster whose patience is always close to running out.

Indulgent with the good students but overall unsatisfactory with most of us most of the time.

But God is not a schoolmaster.

He is the judge. The supreme Judge who pulls the strings of the universe, and that Judge has already given his verdict. Through the death of Jesus, he is for us.

I ask if sometimes we are so afraid of the prosperity gospel and its idea that God wants to give us Rolexes and Lamborghinis, that we don't embrace this truth - God, he really is for us.

Even if our emotions say otherwise, even if other people say otherwise, even if our circumstances suggest otherwise, God is on our side ... if we have believed in Jesus.

God never treats us as we deserve, but always, without exception, as his son deserves.

Please meditate on this this week.

What has the message of the good news accomplished?

It guarantees us irrevocable justification.

Since it guarantees us that, it also guarantees us an inseparable love.

An inseparable love

OK - you say. God has declared us righteous if we have believed in Jesus.

So how come I keep suffering?

It doesn't seem to make sense. God is good, God loves me, and I suffer.

But how is that possible?! It seems as if we are swimming in contradictions.

Is it that God does not control what happens to us? The whole Bible teaches the opposite!

I remember a friend of mine, who had gone through a major relationship trauma, telling me that if the Bible were true, this ordeal should not have happened to him.

He concluded that God didn't really love him.

Here's the thing: God says he loves us, but sometimes it seems like it's just talk.

We look at our circumstances, and God doesn't really seem to be for us

Pause

The theme of verses 35-39 is the love of God.

But if the theme is love, the setting is still the courtroom.

Paul has just said that if God the supreme judge has given his verdict, and that verdict is favourable, we are definitely acquitted.

What happens in a court of law after the verdict has been given?

If the verdict is negative, the judge pronounces the sentence. He imposes a sentence.

The same thing happens in the Bible.

After Adam and Eve are found guilty, God announces the sentence. They are expelled from the garden. Separated from him.

When Israel, after 1000 years of rebellion, is found guilty, God pronounces the same sentence. They are exiled. Separated from him.

The sentence on humanity in the Bible is always the same - separation from God.

In these verses, the language of separation and exile is everywhere.

Paul asks in verse 35 if tribulation, anguish, persecution, hunger, destitution, or peril and sword could separate us from the love of God.

All the words recall the punishments God sent on Israel in the Old Testament when they sinned.

It begs the question.

To the extent that we go through these same trials, is it a sign that God no longer loves us?

Is it possible, once God has decided in our favour, that we can still be separated from him?

And what do we do when our experiences give us that impression?

Paul begins by saying that suffering has always been the lot of God's people.

In verse 36 he quotes a psalm which tells of a defeat in battle of the people of Israel.

There are many passages that tell of Israel's defeats, but the special thing about this one, Psalm 44, is that it tells of a defeat that comes when the people had done nothing wrong.

In fact, not only have they done nothing wrong. But they are clearly under attack for belonging to God.

The verse Paul quotes says,

"For your sake we are being put to death all day long."

They are suffering for their faithfulness to God.

And I think what Paul is saying is that we have a right to find this bordering on incoherence.

The next verse in the psalm says,

"Why do you sleep Lord? Wake up!”

Would you have the audacity to pray like that? God, stop sleeping!

Your people are innocent and yet they suffer. It doesn't make sense.

Paul quotes this psalm to show that suffering has always been the lot of God's people, and that we have always struggled to understand why, since God loves us.

So does this mean that God is indeed inconsistent?

Verse 37

"In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

Nice formula.

What does it mean?

And why more than conquerors? Why not just "overcomers"?

"Overcomers", we understand.

Think back to the French football team's run at the World Cup five years ago.

A smooth start with two wins and a draw in the group stage.

Then that incredible victory against Argentina in the round of 16.

The elimination of Uruguay in the quarters.

Then the match against Belgium where the French were struggling and yet won.

Finally, the final against Croatia.

Victory!

That's what winning is all about.

The scale of the event.

The cost paid.

The strength of the opponents.

That is what being a winner is all about.

To be more than victorious means that the trial is not only overcome; it becomes our servant!

The adversary is not only defeated; he helps us.

The closest image is the one that Paul used earlier in this same chapter that Eduardo explained to us - childbirth.

A woman who gives birth experiences intense pain. Having witnessed the birth of one of my children at home on my bed, I can testify to this!

But these pains remind her that something marvellously beautiful is coming!

The same goes for the Christian.

To be more than conquerors is not simply that God helps us through our trials.

It is that the trial serves us because it reminds us of the wonderful hope that awaits us.

Look at verse 35.

What can distress, anguish, persecution or hunger do to someone whom God has already declared righteous?

They can hurt him.

They can weigh heavily.

But what they cannot do is rob him of his hope - the new creation.

Unemployment can put us in an economically precarious situation ... but it cannot take away the inheritance that Jesus earned for us.

Depression may dampen our spirits ... it does not take away from what Jesus has gained for us.

In fact the heavier the trial, the more it will make us long for the day when God will wipe away all tears and remove all sadness!

And what is the worst these things could do to us?

They could kill us! They could put us in a coffin.

Question - how effective a way is this to separate us from the love of God?

In no way at all! It would only hasten our arrival home!

Far from meaning that God does not love us, these trials, however hard they may be, simply mean that God is bringing us home.

Far from being our enemies, they are now our servants.

My unemployment.

My depression.

The celibacy that weighs on me.

My health problems or the precariousness I am going through.

These are all reminders that my future with Jesus is both guaranteed and glorious.

There is a kind of divine irony.

These things that might make you think you are defeated, actually mean the opposite.

The Christian burdened by illness, unable to enjoy life - is he beaten?

The Christian dismissed for witnessing to his faith - is he defeated?

The missionary killed for preaching the good news - is he defeated?

On the face of it, it seems so.

"On the contrary, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

And the God who makes this promise, who went so far as to give his Son for us, is not going to go back on his word.

If he has already given us the biggest, the hardest, the most precious ... then the rest is a fortiori acquired too!

God did not deliver his Son to death for us, only to forget us along the way.

We are loved with a love from which nothing and no one can cut us off.

Verse 38

"For I am confident that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ our Lord."

What are we afraid of?

Of illness?

Of what will happen to our professional situation?

Of never finding a spouse?

Of death?

If we believe in the good news of Jesus, none of these things will have the last word on our lives.

Not death

Not life

Not the present

Not the future

None of what we see.

Nothing we can't see.

Nothing in the whole universe.

We can be touched, but never sunk. :-)

We're like invincible.

You see, if you are a Christian, you can lose everything in this life. You can lose your health, you can lose your reputation and you can even lose your life.

It's no accident, I think, that the kinds of suffering Paul mentions include both the suffering common to all human beings, and the suffering specific to Christians who witness to their faith - persecution, danger and the sword.

One can lose everything.

But in the final analysis, one cannot lose. The Christian cannot lose.

Because on the last day it will not be death that has the last word but the love of our God.

I don't know what your daily life is like.

Maybe it's hard right now, and if it's not hard, it will probably be hard one day.

But if God is for us, then nothing and no one can separate us from his love, nor take away the hope of being with him one day.

So ... what has the message of the good news accomplished?

Our absolute and eternal security!

We are the irrevocably justified and inseparably loved people.

Romans was written to fill our hearts with joy, zeal and assurance by showing us all that the message of the good news produces.

This security that Jesus offers, many seek but never find.

In money, in relationships, in human religions - all things that will sooner or later fail.

But if you have the message of the good news of Jesus, you have not only the security you need, but also the security the world needs.

When Paul sought to mobilise for his missionary project, that's what he wanted the church in Rome to understand, and even today, that's what he wants the Connection church to understand.

Our message guarantees absolute and eternal security to anyone who receives it.

A final word for anyone here who realizes that they do not have this security because they have not yet believed in Jesus Christ. This security is for you, if you are ready to take it. In a moment I will explain how.

Before that, I simply propose that we read the passage one last time.

What more shall we say then? If God is for us, who will be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him for us all, how can he not also grant us everything with him? 33 Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? It is God who declares them righteous! 34 Who will condemn them? Christ has died, but more than that, he has risen, and is at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Shall distress, anguish, persecution, hunger, want, danger or the sword separate us? 36 For it is written, "For your sake we are killed all day long, we are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.

37 On the contrary, in all this we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am confident that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom. 10.18-11.24

The Olive Tree

(Romans 10.18-11.24)

Jason Procopio

We’re arriving today at what is, I think, the most difficult section in Paul’s whole letter to the Romans. I said Romans 9 is difficult, not because it’s hard to understand, but because it’s difficult to accept. Romans 11 is difficult to understand and accept. But if we do the work well, it’s an incredible passage: it’s absolutely fitting that Paul closes off this section by a doxology.

We’ll be in this chapter for the next two weeks: there’s a lot here. But before we get into it, it’s absolutely vital that we remember what’s going on in this letter Paul is writing to the church in Rome.

This church is comprised of Christians from both Jewish and Gentile backgrounds. The Jews were exiled from Rome for several years, and have since returned to this church that was being run by the Gentiles in their absence. Now that they’re back, there’s some confusion over what exactly church life should look like for them, over what it means to be a “good Christian”, who has the better position in regards to salvation.

The Jews were God’s chosen people in the Old Testament, they were the ones whom God rescued out of slavery in Egypt, to whom he gave the law through Moses and to whom he spoke through the prophets. So they had good reason to feel like they had the market cornered on God’s favor. The Gentiles, on the other hand, had received faith in Christ without the law and the prophets, so they had good reason to think all this Jewish heritage was sort of worthless—why think about it, if they had faith in Christ?

That’s why Paul took a lot of time at the beginning of this letter leveling the playing field, and establishing that we all need to be saved from our unrighteousness, our rebellion against God. We are all guilty before God, Jew and Gentile alike, because we have all rejected him. We all need his forgiveness and mercy; we all need to be saved from the punishment we deserve. And Christ is the means God gave us to be saved.

That’s not the question Paul’s addressing here; the Jews and the Gentiles, presumably, already agree about that.

The question Paul’s addressing here is twofold: first, what does God’s plan of salvation in Christ mean for those Jews who have rejected him? And second, once we have placed our faith in Christ, what does that change for us? How does that change the way we see ourselves?

Those are the questions this church is wrestling with.

So in chapter 9, Paul takes them back to basics and reminds them that even though salvation is absolutely by faith and faith alone, the law and the prophets were actually necessary tools that God used to bring the Jews to this salvation by faith alone. He reminds them that God is the one who chooses to save whom he will, and that for those whom he chooses to save, he uses the Old Testament (amongst other things) to bring them to faith in Christ.

And he reminds them that this has been God’s plan, and God’s way of doing things, since the beginning. Many other Jews had understood what God was doing—like the saints in the Old Testament, even if they didn’t have the whole picture yet—and had faith in God’s promise to save them. The Jewish Christians in Rome are a good example of this: they have grown up knowing about God’s promises to send a Messiah, a Savior to save his people—and they have understood and believe that Jesus Christ is that Messiah. Many of them have gotten it.

But at the same time, many of the Jews around them haven’t understood. They’ve sought to establish a law of righteousness by works, not by faith, which was their fatal mistake (as we saw two weeks ago in Romans 10.1-17).

The proof these Jews have missed the mark is simple: they’ve rejected Christ, who is the Messiah God promised, the means to salvation.

And in the text we saw last week, Romans 10.14-17, Paul gives this stunning reminder that while salvation isn’t easy, it is simple: God brings people to faith through the proclamation of the gospel.

That’s where we left off, in v. 17 of chapter 10: faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Israel has Heard (10.18-21)

So now Paul returns to the subject at hand and asks the next logical question. Romans 10.18:

18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for [this is a quote from Psalm 19]

“Their voice has gone out to all the earth,

and their words to the ends of the world.”

19 But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, [in Deuteronomy 32]

“I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;

with a foolish nation I will make you angry.”

20 Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

“I have been found by those who did not seek me;

I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”

21 But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

So he’s setting the stage for where he’s going by saying, very clearly, these Jews who have rejected Christ have heard what they need to hear. All the way back in the time of Moses, God told them what they needed to know, and he told them how it would work.

The question is, why didn’t Israel, as a nation, understand what God was saying to them?

They didn’t understand because God was doing something specific (and here’s where it starts to get tricky: here Paul’s going to start hinting at the mystery he’s going to explore in chapter 11). God wanted his salvation to come not only to the Jews, but to every nation—to the ends of the earth, to peoples who are not Jewish, but pagan. People who didn’t know him, who weren’t looking for him, for whom God wasn’t even on their radar. He wanted to make himself known to all of them.

This is what he was saying, in Psalm 19, in Deuteronomy 32, in Isaiah 65. So Paul’s saying that the nation of Israel, who had knowledge of the Scriptures, should have understood these prophecies (and others) that the  Gentiles would believe, and they should have taken taken the Gentiles’ belief as proof that Christ is the Messiah.

But they didn’t. God held out his hands to them, and they remained disobedient and contrary. (Not all of them, as we said, but many.)

A Remnant (11.1-12)

In response to this, Paul sort of goes back to the kind of question he asked earlier, in chapter 9: if the people whom God had chosen for himself have—as a nation—rejected his Messiah, what does this tell us about God? Is God faithful to his promises to Israel or not?

That’s the question he asks again, in chapter 11, verse 1:

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? 3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” 4 But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

What’s going on here? Paul’s returning to the kind of argument he made in chapter 9—God has not rejected his people, because he has never said that every single Israelite, just because they were born into the nation of Israel and followed Israelite law, was automatically saved. Remember what he's said before: merely being a descendant of Abraham isn’t enough to save anyone (because our sin still remains); you have to share in Abraham’s faith.

And, Paul says, that’s exactly what’s happened for some of them. In v. 2-4 he gives this example from 1 Kings 19, when the prophet Elijah laments of the idolatry of Israel, and God reassures him—no no, I have kept for myself a group of people whom I will not let wander into idolatry. That’s a small picture of what God has done on a much larger scale.

God has kept a “remnant” among the people of Israel—a number of Israelites to whom he has given the ability to see what’s actually going on. Again, think of the saints of the Old Testament. Think of Zechariah and Anna in the temple. Think of Nicodemus. Think of the apostles, Jews every one. And look around, he says to the church in Rome, at your Jewish brothers and sisters who have placed their faith in Christ.

God has not rejected his people—he has made sure that a significant number of Jews came to faith, in the same way Abraham did. These people were given faith by God, as an act of pure grace.

But what about the rest of the nation? V. 7:

7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.

Stop there for a second—we’ve seen this before. Why did Israel—as a nation—fail to obtain the righteousness they were seeking? We saw that in 9.32: Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They didn’t obtain righteousness because they were trying to earn it, trying to reach it for themselves, instead of trusting God to provide it for them. That’s the first reason.

But there’s a second reason why they didn’t obtain it, which Paul already mentioned in chapter 9, but which he repeats here even more bluntly:

The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, 8 as it is written,

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,

eyes that would not see

and ears that would not hear,

down to this very day.”

9 And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and a trap,

a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

10  let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,

and bend their backs forever.”

In other words, from the very beginning, it was God’s plan to do it this way. And again, he said this was how it would work—in v. 8 he quotes Isaiah 29, and in v. 9-10 he quotes Psalm 69. God didn’t keep this from them; it wasn’t a secret. He had always said that this is how it would work.

God made the nation of Israel—with the exception of those Jews whom he chose to save (who were surely more numerous than we imagine)—hardhearted, with eyes and ears closed.

Now the question is, why did he do it this way? That’s what he’s going to cover in the rest of the chapter.

Why did God do it this way? Was God simply disregarding Israel, in order to open the door for everyone else? Was he being dismissive of his chosen people? Paul’s answer is complex, and we’re going to see the first half of it in the rest of our time today. V. 11:

11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

God’s plan here was not that Israel as a nation “might fall”.

Through their trespass, Paul says (through the rejection of Christ on the part of the nation of Israel as a whole) salvation has come to the Gentiles. His plan was not a condemnation of Israel—it was a way of opening the door of salvation to all peoples.

This sounds confusing, but we get a little picture of what he’s talking about here at the very end of Acts 28 (which is the very end of the book of Acts as a whole).

If you remember, in Acts 28 Paul is speaking to the Jewish leaders in Rome. (This is before the church in Rome was planted.) Some are convinced by what he’s saying, but others aren’t. They start bickering amongst themselves about these things, until Paul seems to get fed up with it and (yet again) quotes Isaiah, who prophesied about the hard and dull hearts of God’s people. And Paul concludes with this condemnation: because you will not listen, God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen (Acts 28.28).

That’s what he’s saying here, but now he’s explaining why God chose to do it this way. He allowed Israel to fall in order that they might understand why God was saving the Gentiles. And in turn, God sent salvation to the Gentiles in order to make Israel jealous.

That seemed insane to me when I first read it, and it still might sound insane to you. If that’s the case, just be patient: we’ll get to that part again next week.

But before we do, Paul turns the tables again, and speaks directly to the Gentiles, saying, If this is what’s happened, what does it mean for you, pagan men and women who did not belong to the people of Israel?

The Olive Tree (11.13-24)

Well, what would your reaction be if you read that the Jews’ failure meant riches for the Gentiles? How would you feel if you read the book of Acts and heard Paul tell the Jewish leaders, “Because you’ve rejected Christ, God is bringing salvation to the Gentiles, because they’ll listen”?

For the Gentile believers in Rome, the temptation would have been toward antisemitism, which was the overwhelming sentiment of the Roman citizens at the time. Rome was a profoundly antisemitic city. It would have been so easy for these Roman believers to slip into the mindset of their culture and look down on the Jews for this.

But Paul categorically closes that door starting in v. 13:

13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? 16 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

He speaks of his own ministry—which, if you’ve read the book of Acts, you’ll know was directed toward the Gentiles. That was his own personal mission: share the gospel with the Gentiles. But part of his goal in sharing the gospel with the Gentiles was to make his fellow Jews realize what they were missing, and want to get in on it. He wants to make the Jews jealous in order to save at least some of them.

That, for Paul, would be the optimal outcome: if their failure resulted in good for the world, how much better for the world would it be if the Jews came back to God, and accepted Christ?

You see, he’s trying to protect the Gentile believers in Rome against pride. And to do this, he uses an image that may not speak to many of us here: that of an olive tree.

There’s a professor of sculpture at the University of Syracuse named Sam Van Aken, who had an idea to make a series of living sculptures out of trees using the technique of grafting. It’s a common practice to do this: you take an unhealthy branch from one tree, prune it off, and attach a healthy branch from another tree onto that same spot. If it takes, the new branch begins extracting the sap from the tree, and growing new fruit.

That’s what happened for Sam Van Aken’s art project, except he put a twist on it: he took a semi-mature stock tree and pruned off all the branches. Then he took sapling buds from dozens of different types of tree, and grafted them onto the trunk of this stock tree. Forty of the branches he grafted from other trees took, and they all managed to grow and start producing new fruit. The result is a single tree, which is producing forty different varieties of fruit, including almond, apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach and plum.

It’s an incredible idea, and one that helps us visualize the picture Paul is giving us in v. 17-18:

17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.

The Gentiles were not members of the Jewish people—but they’ve been brought in to God’s plan for his people. They’ve been made a part of it. Their origins are different, but they’re attached to the same root.

In other words, Paul tells them, you Gentile believers are not starting something new. Christianity did not begin with the New Testament, in the gospel of Matthew; it began in the book of Genesis. It began with Abraham. It began with Moses. It began with David. It began with the prophets. You Gentiles have been brought into a much older story, and you need to acknowledge that this is not your thing—it’s God’s thing, and you have been brought into it.

Now at this point, as Paul often does, he anticipates an objection from his Gentile readers. V. 19:

19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.

So you see the logic behind the arrogance: “God chose not to save them…because he wanted to save me.”

And surprisingly, Paul concedes that point. He says in v. 20, that’s true. And they deserved it because of their unbelief.

But (and that’s a big “but”) you Gentiles have to remember how you were saved in the first place. Remember, it wasn’t through works, it wasn’t because you were so awesome that God desperately wanted you on his team. You were saved by grace, through faith. That’s how you “stand fast”—through faith. Just like it was a grace for God to choose to reveal himself to the people of Israel, it is a grace for you to have a seat at the table.

It’s true that they were broken off because of their unbelief. But why are you here? Because of the faith God gave you, even though you weren’t looking for it. So, he says at the end of v. 20,

…do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

If God didn’t spare the natural branches (the members of his people who rejected his Messiah), neither will he spare you, if you think your right standing with God depends on anything else but God’s grace and mercy to you.

Now we need to be careful here, because this may freak some people out.

Paul’s not saying this to make the Gentiles worry that they might lose their salvation. He’s not saying this to make us afraid. He’s saying this to make us fear God. There’s a big difference.

When I was a teenager in Tennessee, there wasn’t much to do. So we would drive out to nearby farmland in the middle of the night and try to tip cows. The idea was that you could go up to a sleeping cow and push it over, and it wouldn’t wake up until it hit the ground. It’s a myth (as we quickly discovered); you can’t actually tip a cow over because cows don’t sleep standing up, and they’re way stronger than humans. But we still tried. We’d go out to these fields and walk up to cows that were standing still and try to push them over.

But we wouldn’t have been so cavalier about the game if, instead of a cow in that field, it was a lion. There is no such thing as lion tipping; no one would even try it.

Why? Because a lion can eat you.

That’s the kind of fear he’s talking about. It’s the recognition that God has all the power here. He has promised to keep those whom he saves. But he is the one who saves us and keeps us, that means that trying to establish a righteousness of our own (like these Jews who were cut off) is a serious miscalculation.

The only reason we’re here—the only reason the Gentiles are a part of this story at all—is because God is good, and has welcomed us in, even though we have no reason to be here, even though we have no part in this story on our own. He has grafted us in to this massive tree, as old as creation itself, and our being here is nothing but pure grace on his part.

And if he needed a final reason for the Gentiles not to look upon the Jews with pride, he gives us one more in v. 23-24:

23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

How were you Gentiles brought into God’s salvation? Through the faith in Christ that God gave you.

God has the same power towards the Jews as he did towards you: if he brought you in, he can bring them back in too. He can give them faith in Christ as well—and if they turn to Christ in faith, they will be grafted in again.

The Humility of Fearing God

Now I know that’s only one side of the coin: he’s talked about what the present inclusion of the Gentiles into salvation means. Next week we’ll look at what Paul says about the future inclusion of the Jews—their being grafted back in. The only reason I’m not talking about that today is because the end of chapter 11 is very difficult, so there will be a lot to talk about.

But I’ve often wondered why God chose to make it happen this way, and I wrestled with that question a lot this week. Of the top of my head, I can think of a million different ways to achieve God’s goal that would have been easier. Why not just keep all the Jews believing (instead of a “remnant”), and tell them—through a prophet or something—that the Gentiles are now welcome to come to the table?

There are several reasons, some of which we’ll see next week, but the first one—and the most pertinent one for most of us—is very simple. God wants to make it abundantly clear that he is Lord over salvation. That’s what we’ve been talking about for over a month now: it’s not a result of following the law, or of learning to obey; we’re not saved because we come to church every Sunday, or because we serve in church every Sunday, or because we go to a home group, or because we lead a home group; we’re not saved because we’re baptized, or because we take Communion every week.

We are saved because God made us part of his people. We are saved because he plucked us up from where we were, and put us somewhere else. We are saved because he pulled us up out of the mire of our sin, and placed our sin on Christ, and punished Christ in our place, and clothed us in Christ’s perfect righteousness.

That’s it, and that’s all.

So how backwards is it for a Christian, who claims to be saved by grace through faith, to look down on anyone? How backwards is it for a Christian to be impatient with someone who’s less mature in their faith? How backwards is it for a Christian to take pleasure when someone is caught in their sin, and suffers the consequences?

How backwards is an attitude like that?

And at the same time: how easy is it for us to fall into it?

If we are here—if we have faith in Christ—it is only because of the grace and mercy of God.

Now of course that doesn’t mean we should never voice useful criticism; it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t call one another out on our sin. But if we understand how we came to have faith in Christ, our correction and reproof of one another will have a very different “flavor”.

It’s easy to differentiate between someone who’s gloating over the failure of another, and someone who’s coming alongside their brother or sister who has fallen into sin, saying, “I can see you’ve fallen; let’s get you out of harm’s way. Let me help you up.”

A humble person doesn’t gloat before someone who has fallen. And by the same token, someone who understands God’s grace in Christ doesn’t resist when his brother tries to help him see what needs to be corrected in his life. Of course we have corrections to make—the way we were saved proves that to us. Why would we resist it?

Our understanding of God’s grace to us in Christ will have an impact on every single interaction we have with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and with the unbelievers around us. We will not be proud, but we will fear God, knowing how unfair it is that we’re even here. We will remember his kindness to us, and his severity toward those who have fallen—so we will want to continue in his kindness. We will be thankful, and our thankfulness will make us kind, and gentle, and patient.

If we are here—if we have faith in Christ—it is only because of the grace and mercy of God. This grace and mercy are what motivates our mission. God calls us to be a people who show the world that we understand the gift we’ve been given, and want to help others experience that same gift.

Do not become proud, but fear.

Rom. 10.14-17

Beautiful feet

(Romans 10.14-17)

Jason Procopio

Some people are fascinated by feet. They get a charge—sometimes even a sexual charge—out of seeing someone's feet they like, the way other people might about seeing someone with great hair or beautiful skin.

I’ve never understood this. Feet are paddles with tiny sausages on the end. I understand the physiological point of toes, but they’re not something I find particularly mesmerizing.

The only reason a person’s feet might interest me is because of what they can do. A dancer’s feet interest me. A football player’s feet interest me. (How obvious can you be?) Michael Jordan’s feet interest me. I don’t understand how these sausage paddles we all have are capable of such things.

But dexterity or strength are not the Bible’s criteria for what makes great feet.

In Isaiah 52.7, the prophet Isaiah says this:

How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of him who brings good news,

who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,

who publishes salvation,

who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

We used to sing this in church, and I always thought it was funny: I’d look at Loanne and then look down at my own feet and nod: You see? I told you. (I do not have nice feet.)

But it’s not supposed to be funny. According to Isaiah (speaking on God’s behalf), what makes a pair of feet truly beautiful is when they carry someone who is bringing the best possible news in all creation.

And this is, in a very real sense, what we are all called to do. We are all called to have beautiful feet.

So what is the good news we are carrying along on our beautiful feet? We saw this last week, in the first 13 verses of Romans 10, which ended with Paul reminding us how easy it is to be saved.

Romans 10.12-13:

12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Last week we looked at what that entails—confessing that Jesus is Lord and believing that God raised him from the dead—and why those two elements are so crucial. Confessing that Jesus is Lord means that he has done what you could not do: he lived the righteous life we were called to live, but couldn’t live on our own, and he gave us his perfect righteousness. He suffered the punishment for our unrighteousness, so that we wouldn’t have to. He absorbed the wrath of God against our sin on the cross, dying for us—and then God raised him from the dead, showing that his wrath against the sins of his people really was taken care of.

When we confess and believe these things, we are saying that now, Jesus is the Lord of our lives: he gets to tell us what we should and shouldn’t do, and we will obey him, because the alternative is unthinkable: it’s quite literally hell. And we are also saying that all of our hope for the present and for the future lies in the fact that as Christ was raised, we will be raised too: everything that is wrong with the world—including ourselves—will one day be made right.

Paul was reminding the Romans of these crucial elements for two reasons: because the Jews and Gentiles might themselves be tempted to imagine that they were saved for some reason other than God’s grace, and attempt to one-up each other in their own attempts at righteousness.

Secondly, he’s reminding them of these things because many of the Christians in that church, particularly the Jewish Christians, were fearful and distraught over the fact that their Jewish families and neighbors had rejected Christ. The same was true for the unbelieving Gentiles living in Rome—ordinary people who wanted nothing to do with the Christian God, and didn’t realize they actually needed him.

That’s the point Paul is going to press on today, by driving the church in Rome towards their mission—and in so doing, he’s going to drive the entire church, the global church, throughout all history, towards the same mission. He’s laying the groundwork for one of the reasons he’s writing this letter—to encourage the church in Rome to support him on his mission to Spain—but he’s doing a lot more than that.

The Logic of the Mission (v. 14-15)

First Paul explains the logic of the thing; and it’s so simple I’m almost surprised he feels the need to say it.

But I’m thankful he did, because so few Christians today ever really feel the need to share this good news with people. Or they do, but they’re afraid to go through with it. So this is a very helpful reminder.

Let’s start back at v. 13 again.

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

So there you have it: there’s his logic. The person who brings the gospel is beautiful: beautiful in the way an MRI is beautiful, the way farming is beautiful, the way any productive and life-saving tool is useful—but in a much more profound way, because what they’re bringing won’t just feed someone for a day, or diagnose a single illness that can be cured for a few years. What they’re bringing has eternal repercussions of joy for those who receive it.

But these people bringing the good news aren’t just beautiful; they’re necessary. They’re the proper tools God uses to save people.

Look at Paul’s logic again.

• Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

• But to call on God, you have to believe that God can save you from eternal death and punishment for your sin.

• To believe that God can save you, you have to know who he is.

• To know who he is, you need someone to tell you who he is.

• For someone to tell you who he is, they need to be sent. (By that word “sent” he’s surely referencing the function of the apostles whom Christ commissioned to spread the good news and begin the church. But as we’ll see, it’s bigger than that.)

Now I said this a couple of weeks ago: sometimes God intervenes supernaturally to save someone, independent of any human intervention. He saved Paul by blinding him and speaking to him from the sky while he was on the road. Sometimes he saves people by giving them dreams about him. This does happen.

But here Paul lays out the normal way in which people come to faith, 99% of the time: this is the way God has ordained that this happen.

Someone is sent to preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

This person arrives at his destination and preaches the good news of Christ, and those who listen learn who Christ is. (So we haven’t reached the level of acceptance yet, just the level of comprehension.)

When the person listening learns who Jesus is, he believes. This is where God intervenes: Ephesians 1.13 tells us that Christians are Christians because when they heard the word of truth, the gospel, they believed.

And only then is a person truly able to “call upon the name of the Lord,” which means nothing less than what Paul said in v. 9: it means believing in your heart that God raised Christ from the dead, and confessing with your mouth that he is Lord, and asking him to save you as you cannot save yourself.

This is how it happens, most of the time. This is the normal way God chooses to save people.

Now there are a few things we should understand about how this works.

First off, sometimes it’s progressive. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 3, when he talks about how he preached the gospel to the Corinthians, and another teacher, a man named Apollos, came and continued explaining the same things to them. Paul describes it as planting and watering.

Every time the gospel is preached, it is planted. But sometimes, it takes some time to take roots in our hearts. That was my case: I heard the gospel all my life, because I grew up in church, but God didn’t actually bring me to real faith in Christ until I was twenty-one. It’s not like flipping on a light switch, but like planting and watering a tree: sometimes it takes time, and sometimes there are dry spells where nothing seems to happen, and other periods where it seems to grow really quickly.

About ten years ago, a woman in our old church in Florida shared a story with us, right after Loanne’s mom died. She said her dad had passed away not long before. Although his wife and all of his children were Christians, he always refused it—wanted nothing to do with Jesus at all. He had cancer and fell into a coma. His children and his wife sat around his bed praying for him, and of course as they prayed, they prayed the gospel: they asked Jesus to save their dad, even though they had no reason to think he would wake up.

But he did—for a few minutes, he did, and he was lucid. So they got on the phone to the pastor and said, “Get over here right now, he’s awake! Come share the gospel with him!” The pastor rushed over, and sat down next to the dad’s bed. He shared the gospel with him.

The dad listened politely, showing no resistance. Then the pastor asked, “Do you want to receive Jesus Christ s your Lord and Savior?”

The dad looked surprised. He said, “I already have.”

To which the kids finally spoke up. “Dad, you have refused this your whole life. You never wanted to come to church with us, or talk to anyone. When did this happen?”

He said, “I was asleep, and I heard you praying. And I remembered all those times you guys told me about Jesus. I didn’t want to hear it, but you told me. And while you were praying for me, I realized you were right: I’m about to die, and I’m a sinner, and I need Jesus.”

He died a half hour later.

If you share the gospel with someone and nothing happens, that doesn’t mean that nothing will happen.

So that’s the first thing: sometimes it’s progressive.

Secondly, it’s always active. Paul talks about hearing and believing and confessing—choosing to accept something and to say something. Salvation will never come to its full fruition in our lives without our knowledge and our participation.

It’s like when babies are born: babies don’t choose to be born, they just are. But at a certain point in their development, they become aware that they exist, and they have to make a conscious choice to engage in their existence: to live their lives.

Paul describes salvation in just this way in Ephesians 1 and 2. In Ephesians 1, he takes us through the whole process of our salvation, and most of what happens is God’s doing, not ours. He sends the gospel out, he opens our eyes to see the truth of the gospel, and he gives us new hearts to desire it. But there always comes a point at which the individual is required to engage with what God has done in them. They make the choice to live according to what God says is true about them now. They start to do the “good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2.10).

Our participation in our salvation is never passive. It isn’t something we make happen, but it doesn’t just happen either. No matter what the timeline looks like, salvation is always real, and conscious, and active.

Now why do we need to understand these things? Because understanding these realities completely does away with the idea that we can become Christians because our parents (or spouses or aunts or uncles) are Christians, or that we are saved because our parents baptized us when we were babies.

No—we do not inherit salvation from any family or culture or lifestyle. Salvation is a collective reality, absolutely—we are saved into a people—but it is still intensely personal.

The Success of the Mission (v. 16-17)

So that is the mission—that is how God saves people: through the proclamation of the gospel to people who have not heard it.

But anyone who’s been in ministry for any length of time knows that it doesn’t always happen in quite the way we expect it or want it to. V. 16:

16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Paul knows that these Romans have likely already shared the gospel with many of their friends and neighbors, and been met with mile-long stares or even hostility. Not all obey the gospel—not everyone believes and confesses that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead.

This can be profoundly disappointing, and even disillusioning. So Paul reminds them that the prophet Isaiah predicted it would be like this. Many people have gone through the exact process Paul laid out in v. 14-15…but never believed. This happened even to the apostles—even to Jesus! They announced the good news, people heard the good news, they understood who Jesus is…and they rejected him anyway.

It doesn’t always “work” the way we want it to.

So here’s what he wants us to remember: if it doesn’t “work” the way we want it to, that does not suggest any deficiency in the gospel itself, or on the part of the ones who announced the good news. Remember Romans 9: God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. Salvation is his doing, not ours. He decides how it will work.

That can be disheartening for someone who wants to share the gospel, but it shouldn’t be. No matter what the outcome, the mission remains the same—because although God knows whom he will save through the proclamation of the gospel, we don’t.

So we keep at it. Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. That’s how it works.

Keep going. Keep proclaiming the word of Christ, and praying God will cause it to give birth to faith in those who hear it.

Mission in Practice

This call to go, to proclaim, to make Christ known, is a call for all of us. It’s not just for apostles or pastors or evangelists.

It’s even for those who might consider themselves to be the worst of us. The first person in the Bible—other than Jesus or the apostles—to actively share the gospel with people was a Samaritan adulteress: a woman who wasn’t Jewish, who was regarded poorly even by her own peers because of her lifestyle—and a woman to boot! (A woman at that time would not have been a likely candidate for such a task.)

This is how we are all called to live; this is the mission of every Christian throughout history. When Isaiah says, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”, he’s talking about all of our feet.

But there is a reality to our world that needs to be accounted for, and that is that we all live in a specific place, and we are all surrounded by specific people. No one person can share the gospel with everyone.

So what does it look like for the church—for all Christians—to accomplish our mission to proclaim the gospel?

First of all, we plant churches.

It’s not necessarily self-evident, so it needs to be said: sharing the gospel with people without bringing them into a community which will teach them to live for Christ is an uphill battle—and it’s an understatement to put it that way. Sometimes it’s necessary to share the gospel in this way—because some people happen to live in areas in which there are no churches—but life for that new believer is going to be very, very difficult.

So we plant churches.

We belong to a network of churches that plant churches called Acts 29. We interned at a church in Val d’Europe for two years, before they sent us out to plant this church. Eglise Connexion is a church plant—we didn’t exist before September of 2014. We moved our family to Paris to begin this church. And the only reason we could exist as a church is because one Acts 29 church in the United States took our project to heart, and agreed to pay half of my salary. Then two other churches agreed to pay the other half. Our church has taken on more and more of my salary over the years, but these three churches in Colorado still pay for a large chunk of my salary every month—over ten years later.

And when the church in Saint-Lazare was planted, we sent several of our members to join that church plant. We couldn’t afford to contribute financially, but we could send people. So that’s what we did, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.

For new Christians to have a place to live out their faith once they meet Christ, they need to have churches to go to. And there are many areas in France—some entire regions—where there are no churches. (One pastor in our denomination, Jean-Rémy Otge, planted what is still today the only evangelical church in the entire region of La Corrèze.)

This—church planting in our city and in our country—is a local expression of the final, much larger field for this mission God gives us to share the gospel, and that everywhere. We fulfill this mission to share the gospel by sending missionaries to places that need them.

Now I know this is hard, because it feels more abstract—it feels far away. It’s hard to care about people we don’t know, whom we’ve never seen, in countries we’ve never been to.

But it is essential. Missionary work is how the church began. Every church that has ever been planted exists, ultimately, because people went out, to cities and countries and peoples they didn’t know, and shared the gospel in those places.

From the beginning of our church, we have benefitted from the presence of many missionaries here. Some missionaries—like Joe and Debs and Noémie and Rachel—were sent here, to Paris, and have taken up active roles of leadership in the church. This church would not work without them.

Many other missionaries have joined us for a short time, while they were (or are) learning French, and we’ve simply benefited from their presence with us. This too is essential: this church wouldn’t be the same without them.

But they won’t be with us for long: pretty soon they’ll be sent out to other places. (Josh & Stephanie, )

Here’s the question: what possessed these people to do this? What possessed them to leave their homes, to leave their cultures, to learn a new language (and sometimes multiple new languages)?

They did it because, how will people call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

We have brothers and sisters in Christ we don’t know yet (but we will someday) in cities in villages all over the world. They will never hear the gospel if no one is sent to preach it to them. That’s why these missionaries have come, and that’s why they’re going where they’re going.

But I’m not saying this to just pat our missionaries on the back (though I am profoundly grateful for them). I’m saying this, mainly, because there are other people in other places who need to hear the gospel too—people whom God has already chosen to save.

And the means through which God has chosen to save them might well be someone in this room.

I’m not talking about this so that you’ll “support” foreign missions (though you should—you should pray for them, send them money if you can, do all you can to support them). I’m talking about this because for some of you, this may be the first time you’ve ever considered it, and God may well be calling you to go to a country you don’t know, learn a language you don’t speak, live among a culture you’re unfamiliar with, in order to share the gospel.

Now most Christians throughout the world won’t be called to go out in quite this way. But that doesn’t mean we’re off the hook.

The most basic and fundamental way we accomplish the mission God has given us—the way that is the norm for church growth and for spreading the gospel in a given place—is through ordinary Christians, sharing the gospel with ordinary people. The more I see, the more I’m convinced that even our best efforts at putting together events, moments at the church where we can invite people to come, are good, but will never be as effective as the ordinary conversations that take place in our own personal relationships, with the people who surround us, the people whose paths we run across. Our neighbors and friends and family members, the people we run into on the street, the old lady sitting next to us on the bus.

This is how most Christians fulfill their mission: it’s not through anything spectacular or showy, but through ordinary, human interactions.

This is scary, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s one reason we have an evangelism team: it’s not just to share the gospel with people, but so that you can go out with the team, and watch them, and hear them do it, to see how it works. It’s not as difficult as it sounds.

My favorite evangelism story comes from Matt Chandler. Matt came to Christ in high school, because he had a friend on the football team who shared the gospel with him.

But the way this guy did it was fantastic. One day after football, Matt’s friend just came up to him and said, “Oh by the way, I’m going to talk to you about Jesus. So let me know when you want to do that.” And he walked away. It was such a strange encounter that Matt came to him pretty soon after and said, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

It doesn’t have to be that hard, especially if we’ve gotten used to thinking about the gospel all the time, and talking about it. For people who eat, sleep and breathe the gospel, talking about it is second nature.

To put it another way: our fulfilling our mission begins when we are all by ourselves, meditating on the goodness of God in Jesus Christ, and works itself out when we naturally speak about the Savior we love.

I cannot wait for the day when we’ll be in heaven with Jesus, and we’ll be able to see gathered together brothers and sisters and Christ who will be there because people in this church shared the good news of the gospel with them. I can’t wait to see the multitudes they will represent.

This is our call. It’s necessary, and it’s a joy. Let’s enjoy it.

Rom 8.18-30

Suffering, Seen Rightly

(Romans 8.18-30)

Eduardo Peres

NOTE: As all our elders are on vacation, we had to rely on Google Translate for today’s English manuscript—if anything feels “off” about the following text, give Eduardo the benefit of the doubt: it’s Google’s fault, not his.

I think we have had the opportunity to see in the last few weeks, or even months, how dense the letter to the Romans is. On each verse, we could spend hours there. And, in this particular passage, there are so many interesting and useful themes to explore that it can be difficult to step back and see all of what Paul is saying.

So it's useful that we take a little time to link this passage to what we saw the week last.

Last week, Jason spoke to us about verses 12 through 17, and he explained how these verses not only present us with encouragement for our Christian life, but also a set of weapons to fight against sin.

Jason told us about 5 weapons mentioned in this passage from verses 12 to 17. I won't mention them all
- I invite you, if you weren't there, to listen to Jason's message on the website of the 'church. But he ended the list with a weapon that may seem very surprising in the fight against sin: suffering.

It's amazing to see suffering mentioned as a weapon against sin. And perhaps it is for this reason that Paul zooms in on suffering here before returning to the theme of earlier chapters - the future glorification we expect as Christians.

Paul does not give us a complete theory of suffering. But he places it in this larger context, of God's work, of his plan for the future, of his decrees in the past and of his actions in the present.

This is not the major theme of this chapter - it is rather a "zoom" that serves to support the words that he has been developing for a few chapters already -> the fact that we have already received salvation of God in Christ but that the consummation of this salvation is still awaited.

He begins by saying that "he considers that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which is about to be revealed to us". This juxtaposition of suffering and glory repeats what he said just before: we suffer with Christ and we share in his glory.

And to better describe this experience of suffering, Paul will present it to us by speaking of three interactions:

First, the interaction between suffering and creation;
Second, the interaction between suffering and the
Spirit; And finally, the suffering and faithfulness of God in his plan for us.

Suffering and Creation

If Paul begins by contrasting the scale of our present suffering with future glory, he will amazingly show the size of that glory by speaking precisely of the scale of suffering.

Here's some good news: if you're hurting right now, you really aren't alone. Rather, you are in a big club, which is the whole creation. He says that the whole creation has been subject to fickleness, frustration, corruption; and this is a source of suffering.

We are not talking here about suffering that comes from persecution, but rather about the suffering that comes from living in this world subject to inconstancy, frustration and corruption. Creation is there, all that God created as originally good is there, but

things are not really as they should be...

Paul certainly has in mind, when he writes these words, the effect of the fall on creation. In the early chapters of the Bible the first human beings were appointed by God as stewards of creation. And as stewards of creation, when they sinned, when they decided to get out of alignment with the will of God, they brought the whole creation into that out of alignment.

Creation, from the fall, from the beginning of sin, is subject to mismanagement. Like human beings, the present nature of creation no longer clearly expresses the purpose for which God created it. And even she sometimes (or even very often) seems to run counter to why
God created it.

What are we talking about here, concretely? Paul is talking about all of creation, so we can say that inconstancy of creation encompasses everything that makes life tragic. Illnesses, accidents, natural disasters, or even more subtle things like the dysfunctions of our societies, the corruption of what seem like our best efforts to do good. It's the effect of the fall and of sin

in a very diffuse way.

This suffering can sometimes be experienced as meaningless. Confronted with an illness, an accident or a catastrophe, the ways in which we use to interpret suffering escape us. We sometimes tend to see suffering either as a consequence of something bad we have done, or as persecution, which would make us martyrs.

But here's something that's hard to swallow, sometimes: creation has been subject to corruption, so sometimes the suffering isn't really personal. It's "just" the whole creation not working as it should.

And if Paul presents this reality, it is not to encourage us to accept it. To say to yourself, faced with an illness, a disaster, "it's
life, creation is inconstant, that's how it is." No, on the contrary, he even mentions that creation itself does not accept this situation. She looks forward to when that will change.

This moment is described as "the revealing of the sons of God". The time when those who have put their trust in Christ
will have their bodies renewed, just as Jesus was resurrected. At that time the sons of God will have "glorious freedom" - they will be free from the corruption that still dwells their bodies, and they will also be free to fully follow the will of God. We are talking about a perfect harmony between our actions, our wills and the will of God.

That is when creation will be freed from corruption, when it will be under new stewardship - not under the stewardship of human beings who inherit the sin of their ancestors, but under the stewardship of the sons of God, fully free from corruption.

It is at this moment. But we are not there yet. We are still in "the sufferings of this present time", and creation too. See, this shows us the scale of glory that awaits us: it is not only awaited by us, with our personal, individual problems, but by the whole creation. If, when you suffer, you are in a big club, when you wait with hope for the renewal of our body, you are in such a big club, and you are in very good company. The whole creation looks forward to that moment.

So creation suffers and waits. And we, too, suffer and wait. And one thing seems to be impossible to be dissociated from the other: we wait for a future reality, we wait because it is not there yet, and since it is not

there yet, we suffer, because the current reality is not what we expect. The two things are linked, waiting and suffering.

And I think that there are few images that better express this inseparability of waiting and suffering than the image of the pains of childbirth. Paul says that the creation "sighs and suffers the pains of childbirth". Sighs - or moans, depending on the translation - and pains. Elements extremely present in a maternity ward.

And I'm perhaps the least qualified person in this room to talk about childbirth - personally, I only attended one birth, when I was born, and I can't remember.
But women who are mothers can testify to this mixture of suffering and expectation, a strange mixture where sometimes the suffering is so intense and so present that we cannot think of anything else - and yet, objectively, we know that cries and sighs announce the arrival of a baby, announce the arrival of a new life that we have been waiting for for a long time.

An interesting detail is that it was precisely at the moment of the fall, when for the first time creation was subjected to inconstancy and corruption, that God declared that woman was going to suffer in the
'childbirth. "I will multiply the suffering of your pregnancies. It is in pain that you will give birth to
children." (Genesis 3:16) And right after, "the ground is cursed because of you." - God said to man. (Genesis 3:17)

When creation was cursed because of man's sin, God placed in childbirth a very close link between suffering and the expectation of a new life. No image is stronger, more universal, more appropriate to express the situation of creation, which is suffering and waiting. This suffering is not an end in itself, it is a sign of a process that has already begun.

In verse 23 of our passage, Paul says that "it is not {the creation} alone that groans, but we also have the firstfruits of the Spirit" - and he starts talking about another interaction of suffering - the interaction between suffering and the Holy Spirit.

Suffering and the Holy Spirit

It may seem strange. Paul had said, we saw last week, that those who believe in Jesus have received a spirit of adoption, which bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God. One would expect that within the framework of this adoption, the suffering would not be present, or at least, reduced.

But Paul says that it is precisely because we have received the Spirit that we sigh. "we sigh within ourselves waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body." It is precisely because we have received a foretaste of the work of the Spirit in us that we await the culmination of this work. Again, we see the link between waiting and sighing, a suffering that announces the arrival of a new life.

This Spirit, who testifies about our adoption, cannot make us indifferent or insensitive to the suffering, caused by the state of inconstancy and corruption of creation and our body. On the contrary, it makes us more sensitive, more aware that our nature does not quite express our adoption - at least not yet.

The foretaste of the work of the Spirit, the testimony that he gives us, the sanctification that the Spirit brings about in us, adds to this duality of expectation and suffering. We know better what we expect, but we also know better that it is not there yet. We receive a deep hope, but as Paul remarks in verses 24 and 25, hope is precisely the fact of waiting for something absent.

In good French, this expression "avant-gout" or "premiers fruits" could be read as "l'apéritif" - something
that announces the arrival of the main meal, but which is not the main meal. The appetizer gives us something to eat, but it serves to stimulate our appetite, rather than to satisfy it.

So no, the Holy Spirit that is given to the Christian does not come to remove the tension, the tension between the present time and “the glory that will be revealed to us”. It adds tension.

And in this tension, we who already have the Spirit but who are not yet transformed, we do not always manage to live it in full awareness of the glory that awaits us. We suffer, while waiting for a better reality, but sometimes in the midst of suffering the expectation fades away or shifts. An image of this: if we go back to childbirth, sometimes the woman who gives birth will have the thought empty of any other thought except "it hurts, it hurts, I want it to stop".

In our weakness, we can lose perspective of what lies ahead and find it difficult to express our hope. In a time when tragedy, disaster, accident, or disease befalls us, who can keep 100% focus on future glory? This glory where, with our renewed nature, we will be immune to tragedy, disaster, accident, disease?

In those moments when through weakness we lose perspective, Paul reminds us that the Spirit comes to our aid. He, who gave us expectation, helps us to keep it. He sighs with us and, above all, for us, to express our suffering to God and ask for the fulfillment of our hope, even when we are too weak and tired to do so ourselves.

In the moments when we just manage to express "it hurts, it hurts, I want it to stop", the Spirit intercedes for us, asking God to give us strength during childbirth, and that the baby can be born healthy. It expresses what we really need, even if we are incapable of knowing it or asking for it. And since what the Spirit asks is in accordance with the will of God, this intercession is always effective and sure.

It is the effectiveness of this intersecting prayer that allows Paul to say that "everything works for the good of those who love God". And with affirmation goes into our last section: the interaction between suffering and God's faithfulness to us.

Suffering and Faithfulness of God

"Everything works for the good of those who love God" - this is one of the very often quoted verses, often out of context, but it is found here in the middle of a text which speaks of the "sufferings of the present time". So, we must conclude that this "everything" also includes the sufferings, the difficulties, that we go through in life, even if it may seem strange that these things can contribute to our good.

See - the text says that the Spirit intercedes for us, he asks for what we need, even when we don't know what we need. And God grants what the Spirit asks. The fact that the events of our life are tools that God uses for our good, to make us grow, is God's answer to the prayer of the Spirit.

"The good of those who love God" - those who love God, that is, those who have received the Holy Spirit. And this "good", Paul then mentions it in verse 29, is "to become conformed to the image of his Son".
Become like Jesus, in his obedience to his Father's will, but also in the glory of his resurrection. Become conformed to the image of Jesus, and already begin this conformity in our conformity to suffering - we saw in verse 17.

Become conformed to the image of Jesus... See, Jesus didn't just suffer on the cross. To live in a fallen world, in the midst of corrupt creation and humanity, is also to constantly submit to suffering. And Jesus lived that, even as a Son, it was part of his ministry. In conformity with Jesus, we too, who are declared sons, adopted by God, live with a fallen nature, we take part in the suffering of this world we inhabit to bear witness about our Father.

So the promise to become conformed to the image of Jesus speaks of the future good, "the glory that will be revealed to us", conform mentioned at the beginning of the text, but also the present sanctification and perseverance which prepares us for this future glory. Once again, we see both the present taste, the aperitif, and the fulfillment of God's plan in the future, the continuation of the meal.

This sequence of these last two verses, "those he predestined, those he called, those he declared righteous, those to whom he gave glory" - this sequence confirms that God is faithful to his plan for all whom he has called and is sure to accomplish.

The events of our life, even the sufferings, are not challenges that could interrupt this plan of God,
but rather tools that he uses to fulfill and continue this plan. This plan is not endangered by our weaknesses, this plan is not endangered by not knowing how to pray correctly, this plan is not endangered by our sufferings. No, this plan is certain, as certain as the Spirit's prayer for us and God's answer to that prayer.

Applications

So, even if these last verses are very encouraging, it is worth taking a step back from this entire text to see what concretely we can be encouraged. In my daily life, in my life during the week, what is the use of knowing better the interaction between suffering and creation, the interaction between suffering and the Holy Spirit and the interaction between suffering and the faithfulness of God? How can this change my behavior, or at least my outlook on things?

1. No suffering is meaningless

A first conclusion that can be drawn from this text is that for the Christian no suffering is devoid of meaning. As I said, it can be difficult to find meaning in certain sufferings, sufferings that are not consequences of something that we have done. A suffering that is neither a punishment, nor a consequence of our personal actions, nor an unjust persecution against us.

This text invites us to take a step back and contemplate suffering outside the individual scale. The whole creation is subject to it, and this reality is well integrated into the great story of the Bible.
A story that presents the creation that is created as good, that is corrupted by sin and that will be renewed at the end of time.

So if you are suffering with something in particular right now, an illness, a loss, loneliness, anxiety, etc., it can be useful to see this suffering as part of this big story, especially when you have to hard to find a personal, individual meaning to this suffering.

And even if we are not individually the cause of suffering, that does not mean that God is not going to use it to benefit us personally, individually. Paul's statement in verse 28, “and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” is a statement for each individual Christian.

For a Christian, no suffering is meaningless, no suffering is useless. It is a reality that I must preach to myself first, but I think it flows from this text.

2. God's plan does not depend on our ability to pray well

Another conclusion that can be drawn from this text is that God's plan does not depend on our ability to pray well. It does not depend on our ability to choose well what we ask, as if we could miss the point and ask for things that will not lead us to spiritual ruin.

It's not that we're not able to ask for things that aren't good for our spiritual life – we all do it and I can testify: I think I've done it multiple times. But God is not the genie of the sadistic lamp who will give us what we ask for even when we ask for bad things. He is also not the genie of the lamp who will remain inactive when we do not know what

ask.

No, the same Spirit that bears witness to us that God is our Father, who actively wants our good, this same Spirit helps us and prays for us, even when we do not know what to ask for. Especially during a time of suffering, when we feel lost, we don't need to add to our suffering the pressure of knowing what to pray, what exactly to ask.

Personally, this reality even encourages me to pray, because I know that I can approach God, express my sighs, and not have to know exactly what to ask for. Think how terrifying it would be if it was up to us to ask for what we need? If it rested on us, on our knowledge?

See, that's part of two things that this text doesn't ask us to do:

he does not ask us not to suffer, not to sigh, to ignore or build a shell of indifference in the face of suffering

and he does not ask us to know exactly how to solve our suffering, to know exactly how to make it useful for our spiritual life

So if you have put this pressure on yourself, either to become impassive in the face of suffering, or to have
to know precisely what to ask God without being allowed to make mistakes, this text frees you from this pressure. If you have put this pressure on yourself, whether consciously or unconsciously, you can rest in the fact
that the Spirit groans with you, and that in our weakness, the Spirit asks God for exactly what we need.

3. Our sufferings are not an obstacle to God's plan for us.

The third and last conclusion, I have already mentioned it and I think most of you are already well aware of it, but it is always good to remember it: our sufferings are not an obstacle to God's plan for us.

Because in the face of suffering, we can wonder if we are not missing out, losing our chance, if we have not arrived at an impasse. Whether it is the feeling of having "failed life", or the feeling that a catastrophe has missed our life for us, the underlying assumption of these thoughts is that God could not carry out his plan for us. . He wanted to, but... there's something that's spoiled the deal.

But this text tells us no, that these sufferings are not a sign that God could not carry out his plan for us. His plan is certain, stupid in advance, and it's already underway. He is already working with our sufferings to mold us into the image of his son.

So if you have the impression that to your suffering was added an impression, conscious or unconscious, that God would be prevented from doing his plan for you, this text gives you the right to get rid of this impression quickly.

Next week's text will talk more about this theme, about the impossibility of God not accomplishing his plan for us. And I invite you to be there, because it is among the most beautiful texts in the Bible.
But until then, I invite us to meditate on what we have read today, and to pray so that we can have a more accurate vision of the place of suffering in the history of our salvation. .

I invite you to pray with me.