The Book of Romans XIV, Allies and Enemies

Romans chapter 8, Paul. The ushers will quickly find their places and pass out the outlines. That will help us a great deal. The teaching outlines are gold tonight. I hope you've been keeping up with all this. While they're doing that, I'm going to read in Romans chapter 8, so we'll be on the same paragraphs together. Beginning in verse 28, Romans 8. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. And those He predestined, He also called. And those He called, He also justified. And those He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Let's say that together. If God is for us, who can be against us? Now, let's say it and not smile. If God is for us. Verse 32. He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. How will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? And who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. And who is He that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, or hardship, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? For as it is written, For your sake we face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, nor the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. It is difficult to read that and not be a little bit encouraged. Who is the most important person in most of our lives in terms of how we view God? Our earthly Father. James Dobson writes and says that his earthly dad was the one who transmitted the image of what God would be like to him. It was the most influential person in his life that led him into a career which now affects millions of people through his ministry. So it happens that most of us, however, don't necessarily have perfect Father images that we've grown up with. And consequently God gets some pretty bad raps from many of us. And tonight we're going to look and see what kind of Father we really do have. You see, Paul has brought us to a place in this journey in Romans that's absolutely incredible. Think back for just about three months ago, we were bumbling around in Romans 3. Remember that? Let's turn there just in case you've forgotten or are already falling asleep. Turn back to Romans 3. Paul has spelled out the journey. It hit the low point. Remember we talked about falling over the cliff of depravity and the waterfall and those kinds of things. We talked about how far down man had fallen, how despairingly despicable he was, that God just had to, in the condition man found himself, judge his sin. And here's what it says. What shall we conclude then? Verse 9. Are we any better? No, not at all. In verse 10, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one, no one, not one, who understands. No one who seeks God. All have turned away and have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. And that's where God finds us, dear ones. We are as good as dead laying on the road of life. And I remember not having to convince most of you that that was true about where you were. Interestingly, even the proudest people among us recognize that there's a flaw, that some are just better at covering up than others. But it's in that condition that something marvelous begins to happen. And from that point on, stay in Romans 3, things begin to get better. We find, for example, that though all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, verse 23, that they are justified freely by grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. And then God begins to unfold this incredible saga of His provision for redemption in our lives. And begins to change our understanding of what our Father God is truly like. And then He tells us how He is weaving, as we end now in today's passage, in chapter 8, verse 28, weaving every part of our life together for good. We have a Father up there who is not laying in wait for us to fall so that He can stomp on us. We have a Father up there who's weaving everything together for good in our lives. I wondered, how could I show this? What kind of a picture could I paint in your mind? Here's a little piece of stained glass. Let's say it represents an event in your life. Maybe a little smaller piece like that that represents another event or relationship or responsibility in your life. How many of you know sometimes, individual things, when they happen to us, aren't always that pretty? Sometimes they have some jagged edges. Sometimes they don't even look like they matter or fit. Have you ever had an experience where something happened to you and you just didn't know why it happened? Didn't make any sense? Left you frustrated, wondering if God really loved you? You ever had that happen? No, not me. I'm a spirit-filled Christian. I never had that happen. How about today? Anyone have one today? Now, you see, what this Scripture tells us today is that God began the process way back in Romans 3. We read about it, and I could have chronicled it through with you, and I will a little bit later, somewhat more. But He takes all these pieces and He starts to fashion them together. And we don't get to see the finished product. Wouldn't it be great to be able to just sort of step out of yourself and look 30 years down the road and see what He was doing? Because see, in the end, He promises. That verse promises to us that in the end, He's taking all those broken pieces. He's making something beautiful. He's fitting all the cut parts and all the separate little pieces together. And He's working them together for good to those who love Him on a call according to His purpose. We can't see it when it happens, but He's doing it. And I want you to know, dear ones, that all things there is all things. I studied this in numerous commentaries this week. Unfortunately, your New International Version doesn't do justice to it. The all things is the subject of that sentence. In other words, some people like to say, well, God works all things, and so it's really God. No, all things. Someone think of something that's not part of all things. That fight that you had last night with your husband or wife. That time you just fell to temptation. That wrong decision you made about a job. God can take all things and work them together for good. Now, we pick that up and find that only as comforting to us as our trust that our Heavenly Father is doing that. If your image of Him as being some kind of a distant, cold, demanding, authoritarian kind of dad, if that's what you're thinking then, when those cuts come along and the pieces fall, you're not likely to believe that God's working it together. But if you can learn to trust Him as a loving dad who's inclined, whose demeanor is positive toward you, then you can begin to believe, even in the middle of negative things happening, that God's working in your behalf. And that is such a vital thing. Now, look what it says, moving on here. Verse 29. There's five of those little theological goodies here. Let's just flash those up real quickly. I don't want to take the time to try to explain all these. Next week, the message will be on predestination and free will. Pastor Scott will be bringing the message. And I'm going to sit there and cheer him on. But I'm going to try my best to melt those two concepts together. Now, these five words are very important because the Lord tells us here in the Word that this is how He's working the plan together. These are the elements. Can we have one at a time, please, Jerry? These are the elements that He is fashioning to use in your life. Those that He foreknew. To foreknow something means not that, well, you understand that it's going to happen, but literally it means that the Lord takes active delight in putting His favor upon. In other words, long before you were, the Lord had actively determined to put His favor upon your life. Well, that makes you awful special, as I understand things. To be predestined does not mean that, you know, you have no free will at all in this. And I'll talk about that next week. It just means that God has set some limits in advance and that you will act within those limits. But you have the free will to act at all. Let me use this illustration about predestination. Let's say that Carol decided to have some of you over for dinner. And she decided to have roast beef. Main course, roast beef. You could come over and make the choice to have dinner or not, but you couldn't make the choice to have turkey or ham or chicken. What could you have? Roast beef. You see, and the Lord has predestined, He has set limits in advance as to what you will do. But you can still choose to do it. You just can't choose to do what you want to do if it's opposite of what He wants. Does that make sense? Good. I won't have to do this next week. Number three. You then come to dinner. He called us. The word to call means to summon out. Now, listen, folks, I want you to know, this is something that every one of you have experienced if you're in Christ, all right? This isn't just theology. This is what your life, this is part of the mosaic that God's put them together. He foreknew you. He predestined you. He called you. What's the best illustration of someone being called in the Bible? Saul, right? I think Saul of Tarsus, you know, the light on the road to Damascus, was called, he was summoned out to a new life. You say, well, that didn't happen to me. But you know something? You're going to look back on your salvation and realize that God just as dramatically got ahold of your life. When you see the replay, you're going to realize it was just as much a miracle because God called you by name and summoned you out. And then he justified you, and we talked at length about that several months ago. What does justified mean? Just as if I never sinned. Incredible. Incredible. God says, I justified you. I declared that your sins are forgiven just as if you never sinned. I don't even remember it. That's not like me. Is that like you? That's like God. And then those that I've justified, I've glorified. Now, to be glorified is something that is yet to be fulfilled, but I see it here as saying it's as good as done. It's as good as done. And I'm looking forward to that day when I share in the glorification of this body and what the Lord has for eternity. Now, all this is God's way of saying, I'm a daddy that's taking care of you. Now, let's look carefully at the next verse. What then shall we say in response to this? Now, pick up your gold sheet, and we're going to start running down through the blanks there. What shall we say in response to this? God is our ally. God is our ally. And if God is our ally, who cares who the enemy is? Who cares who the enemy is? If God is the one that's on our side, does it matter who the enemy is? This God loves us so much that he went all the way back when we were dead in our sins, laying in the gutter, and brought us along, and lovingly carried us through. And now he stands and says, if God is for me, if God is for us, who can be against us? Now, when it says here, response to this, what is the this I'm talking about? Look at your Bible. What is the this it's talking about there? In response to this, in response to what? Look in your Bible. You see there? What is the this it's talking about right there in verse 31? The whole process. All right? Let me take you back again. Let's quickly run down that other list. I mean, the whole list. Here are the things that the Lord has already done for you. Verse 24, chapter 3, your redemption. And then it goes on, that long list, Jerry. He talks about the peace that he's given you in chapter 5 and verse 1, and the love he's given to you, and the reconciliation where enemies have become friends, making you alive to God, giving you eternal life as a free gift, giving you the new way of the Spirit, the old way of the law didn't work. And saying in chapter 8, now there's no condemnation. You've been made alive in the Spirit in verse 10. You've been given life in this mortal body, verse 11, led by the Spirit, verse 14, able to call your heavenly father Abba, Daddy. And I could talk about how intimate that verse, that word was. To be a co-heir with Christ in verse 17, and to even be help in your weakness by the Holy Spirit. Paul is saying, look, he's saying, look at all this evidence and realize that God is for us. God is for us. And if God is for us, if he's our ally, who cares who the enemy is? Now, folks, how many of you knew that verse before I read it? How many of you heard it before? How many of you memorized it before? Just about everybody. I pray tonight that somehow a few of us will be able to know this more than just up here, but experience a little bit more. Because as far as I can tell, most of us are not convinced that God is our ally. More often than not, we see God as one who's watching to see if we mess up. We see him in light of maybe what our own image of our own dad was, or some other dad or authority figure. We see him as kind of being ready to, like, pull out the rug from underneath us when we're just about to make it. And I want you to know, God wants you to see him as an ally, someone who's for you. I'm not talking about, you know, my book titles that say, you know, believe in the God who believes in you and those kind of things are, I get a little antsy when they get kind of new age sounding, you know, like, we're not talking about the whole universe is revolving around you. We are talking, though, that God literally looks out for you. He's inclined for your favor. And I want you to know, I'm glad I'm not praying to a God that I have to convince to love me, aren't you? It makes it so much better to know that God is looking for ways to see me through. Several months ago, when we were in McCandless Township and dealing with all the authorities there and all the hoops to jump through for the property approval, I don't know if you knew this, but we were blessed with a little bit of encouragement from the inside, may I say. And Pastor Scott related some of that to you and the Lord had given us some relationships. And every time, that building happens to be pretty sterile, in my estimation, sort of just a, you know, it's a very institutional looking building and I'd go by there and say, boy, that, you know, it's not very inviting and the people were very professional and businesslike and not emotional. And every time we went to these different meetings, I remember thinking, someone on the inside is on our side. I can't tell you how that little bit of knowledge helped me to be positive through the whole process, even when it seemed like there was going to be negatives coming along and there was going to be resistance. Knowing that someone was on my side helped my attitude to be very, very positive about the whole process. Now, can you just extrapolate that a bit and see that all throughout life, someone is on your side? That in every circumstance, you see, what are you inclined to do when you walk out of here tonight and your battery is dead in your car? Yeah, you know, mumbling, stupid charge to the gun anyhow, that kind of, you know. What are you inclined to do tomorrow when you walk in and the same person in the office that always has it out for you is still there and still berating you and so on? You see, Paul wants us to get a hold of this. If God is for you, it doesn't matter who's against you. It doesn't have to be a big weight that you carry around with you. It doesn't have to change how you see life. This verse needs to become something that generates a response of faith to those circumstances and those people and those issues. So many times, I feel like we came in at the first sign of trouble, you know. We're so quick to like throw in the towel, you know, I prayed it didn't happen, might as well give up. The first ripple that comes along in the pond and we figure the ship's going down, you know, my face, shadows come up and we're scared of them. Where are you, God, you know? Let's see that this verse is saying to us, God is always there. He's always on your side and He's always with you. He's your ally. My dog that I talk about on occasion is a wimp. We go to the park together. She will, if she sees a dog up ahead in the trail, won't, you know, just won't even approach the other animal, will go up and do this big loop through the woods and get out ahead of the dog. You know, I'm sure that when she was a little puppy, she came up behind some dog and the dog snapped her head off practically, you know, and she has this, you know, she needs inner healing or something, but there's a problem there. It's just the dog really has a problem. And this happens all the time and she'll run with her tail between her legs and, you know, the thing that really gets you is some of the dogs in the park are that high. You know, I've been talking to these little tiny dogs. Doesn't matter how big the dog is, little tiny thing like it. And I, you know, it doesn't help to reason with her. I say, Morgan, you could destroy that dog. You just, you know, step on it. You could outrun it like, you know, doesn't matter. Now, forgive if I draw an analogy here, but, you know, sometimes that's the way we are. We see an obstacle up in the road and we say, oh my God, you know, I'm going to get chewed up here. And we start running out to get out of its way and hope that nothing hurts us. And dear ones, I want you to know, it's time for us to adopt a bit of a fighting spirit in the camp here. We need to be able to see some of these obstacles and say, wait a minute, God's my ally. To be able to look some things right in the eyeball and say, wait a minute, you don't understand this. I'm going to win this thing. I'm going to win this thing. Not because I'm any better or deserve it anymore, but because God is my ally. There's a little backbone in some people. Some of you are looking at me right now like, yeah, well, you don't know how bad I have it. Well, the point I was trying to make, seriously now, I'm not making light of people who are struggling. The point I was trying to make is, when God found you, what did you bring to the case? What did you bring that God wanted? Not a thing. You were just dead. Good is dead in your sin, Ephesians 2 says. Now, he's put his spirit in you. He's quickened your mortal body. He's given you life. How much more now will he be at your side when you need him? He just can't wait to be moving on your behalf. Dear ones, we have to get a hold of this and start acting like it and expecting it to happen, expecting God to break in on us like that. Paul is saying, if God is for you, look how he says it. He said, what then shall we say? Notice in your Bibles in verses 31, 32, there are all question marks there. Do you see that? Will he not give us all things, he says in verse 32. Verse 33, who can condemn us? He's asking these questions sort of rhetorically. The answer is nobody can. Nobody can defeat you as you trust in the Lord. Greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world. Is that just a verse you memorized or is that a reality to you in everyday life? Now, all right, Romans 2, God is our ally also in the future. Verse 32 says, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? You see, look at it this way. If God met your greatest need, which was what? Salvation. If he met you where you were, if he brought you up out of the gutter of despair with nothing, why would he withhold what you need to make it through life now? Why would he let you squirm and suffer and fall back into despair again? That's not God. Now, the devil may want you to do that and we're going to talk about that. But God doesn't want you to do that. He doesn't want to withhold anything from you. And I hope you understand the treasure that Jesus is. I hope you understand that when God gave you Jesus, he was saying now in him you have everything that you need, everything. And it's not simplistic to say that once you understand that and begin to grow in that and receive that as a daily experience of your life, all the other things you need, God supplies through him. He's not going to withhold anything else from you. Use this analogy, if you will. Let's just say that you have a brother who doesn't have anything, really poor, has five kids and is barely making enough, doesn't have enough to eat. You go out and somehow make an incredible hit on the lottery, the $50 million one or something like that. You have all this money that you could ever want. You're going to live in absolute abundance for the rest of your life, no problem. You say, I want to do something nice for my brother now. So you go to your brother and you say, I want to buy you a nice home and I want to help get your family established. And so you go up and you find a place out here and you buy him a house. Let's say the house costs $250,000, a big seven-bedroom house or something like that. You say to your brother, now take this, this house is for you and your family to enjoy for the rest of your lives, all paid for. Now, just when you're about to move in, the brother's not moved in yet, the builder calls you and said, you know what, if we just added a few other little things here, maybe if we added these wall coverings and did a couple little things with lights and when they first see the house, it'll be unbelievable. I mean, it'll just be so appealing. You say, well, how much is it going to be? He said, well, just another, maybe a thousand, $2,000 at the most. What would you say? No, I've already paid you $250,000. Am I going to pay? What would you say to him? Hey, let's make this thing just right. Because I want it to please my brother. I want him to love it. And that's just, I know it's not a great analogy, but you see, I think it's the same way. Jesus paid an enormous price for you. And the rest of the things you need to make it through life, God the Father's not up there saying, no way. He wants to supply it. He wants your life to be rich. I've been meditating over and over and over and over again since I've been back from India on that verse, John 10, 10. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but God said that, Jesus said, I've come that they might have life and have it to the full, to the max. You know, not the discount version. Full life. Can I say to you just humbly, the more I go on in this life, the more I follow Christ, the best that I know how, and the more you learn to walk in humility and purity, the more you're going to discover something. It's almost embarrassing how good God is. It is almost embarrassing. I don't know about you, I wouldn't trade the life I have for anyone that I know. And I don't know, why should I be able to say that? I don't deserve it. If I'd look back in my earlier days, I wouldn't have been God and picked me out. And dear ones, the same thing could be said of you as you grow in your relationship to him. It's almost embarrassing. I don't mean materially, I just mean in terms of purpose, in terms of direction, in terms of fulfillment. What else is there than to be loved by Jesus and to know his will for your life? It's almost, it's just embarrassingly good. People who have mega bucks don't attract me as having more than I have. How about you? It's not the money that does it. It's not the success. It's knowing him. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3.22, all things are yours. All things. When you're in Christ, all things are yours. I have not been able to really figure that one out completely, but he says the same thing here as well. Will the night graciously give us all things? Don't theologize that verse. Just accept it and ask the Lord to give you application. Lord, I'm yours. And you're my ally. You're my friend. Let's go for it. Roman numeral three, who can be your enemy? Well, if God is for you, who can be against you? Well, the enemy is clearly the devil. And I am not trying to paint a picture here tonight that if God is your ally, your friend, that you won't have trouble. How many of you know you do? And we're in a battle. But dear ones, we're not in a battle with God. And that's the thing I want to get through tonight. You don't have to convince God to love you or to be on your side. The devil is the one that wants you to think he's not. That God somehow has abandoned you. And how will the devil try to defeat you? Well, his favorite weapon, I believe, is accusation. Accusation. I'll find ways to accuse and to condemn. Look at verse 33, is it? Who will bring any charge or accusation against the elect? What does Revelation 12.10 say the devil is? The accuser of the brethren. Always accusing. What is an accusation? It's bringing a charge. It's saying that you are something or you're not something. Accused, accused, accused, accused. You ever hear a voice in your ear saying you're not a very good Christian? You ever hear a voice in your ear saying that you're not going to get that done? You ever hear that voice saying that you're really not worth much? They won't miss you at that church. They don't care about you. Accused, accused, accused, accused, accused. And dear ones, if the devil can help you think that you're not worth anything, if he can make you think that you're not really a born again son or daughter of God, if he can make you doubt your identity, doubt the validity of your experience, if he can endlessly bug you with your past failures and your present inadequacies, it won't be long before you'll be a paralyzed believer. And when you're paralyzed, you begin to slip back and fall into patterns of defeat and discouragement. Paul says, don't let the devil do that to you. God's justified you. And listen, if he's written the final paragraph there, then you don't have to worry what someone else is saying. I picture it this way. There's this little plaque in heaven. And on it, it says, justified freely by the blood of Jesus. And guess whose name's on the bottom of that plaque? And yours. And that's never going to come out of those hallways of heaven. It's always going to be there. Now, many of you here tonight don't worry about that, but there's a number of you looking at me right now that need to know that you know that you know that your name's written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The devil keeps telling you, no, you blew it again. You're not really a believer. And I just want to say prophetically to some of you tonight, believe the Word of God. God's your ally. He's your friend. You trust Him. He won't fail you or forsake you. Now there is, Romans 8, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then the devil, if it doesn't work to bring accusation and condemnation, verse 35 says he'll pour out a torrent of hurt. His other weapons are weapons of discouragement that seek to separate you, as the overhead says, from your faith. And I have to say, church, let's not be ignorant. You know, the devil is a pretty weighty foe. I've watched the devil use different techniques. I've seen people who the devil's let alone for months and years and they just seem to cruise along and then all of a sudden, you know, they'll hit it. And there'll be some sickness and there'll be a financial setback. And there'll be a, you know, some kind of a betrayal or whatever. And all of a sudden, the devil just whack, whack, whack, whack, whack. And I see a believer just fall back and say, well, what's the use? You know, God doesn't let, kind of like Job, you know. All these things happen and his wife says, curse God and die. Well, gee, thanks, wife. Encouraging. Isn't it true though? And then I've seen some other people, the devil just has this, the Chinese water torture. They've never had a good week. I mean, every week, you know, they get all the way to Saturday night and some other thing happens. They're back down to the bottom again. Climb out Sunday morning, great worship service. Oh, I'm going to, you know, and by Saturday night they're back down to the bottom. Let's believe something. Let's believe that the word that tells us here tonight that nothing is going to win. Sure, we're going to have battles, but the bottom line is you're going to win. I suppose if I was sharing this message with a group of people, some kind of an oppressed state or in prison, they might get a little more excited, but you all have it together, so I can't expect too much. See, the tactics of the devil are to make you believe that God's not going to deliver. That's the bottom line. God's not going to come through for you. And many of you here tonight have struggled with that very question. Verse 37 says it a little differently. It says, In all these things, we are more than conquerors. And all this struggle and pressures and nakedness and peril and sword and all those things in verse 35. He says, In all these things. Look at what it says, folks. In all, in all. In other words, they're going to happen to you, but in all of them, we are more than conquerors. And in your Bibles, go ahead and write. I give you permission to write in your Bibles. The Greek word really is best translated, super conquerors. We're super conquerors through him who loved us. If God is for us, we're going to overcome. And I want you to see something here that really gripped me today as I was studying this for the final time through. What pronoun is being used there over and over and over again? Would you look at it? What is it? What is it? The pronoun. You know, that's... Let's go back here to the basic English. Yes, it's plural. We, us. Okay? First person. Plural. We, us. That's so important. We are more than conquerors. Not just I, but we. Why am I underscoring that? Because there are days when I don't feel like a super conqueror and I need you to remind me of it. I need you to share with me something of your grace. I want to tell you that I believe that those verses really only make sense in the context of community. They only make sense when we're holding up one another in the midst of the battle. We are more than conquerors. If God is for us, who can be against us? I don't know many Lone Rangers that are super conquerors. But I know some people in community and in fellowship together. I was talking to a lady. I'm not sure if she's here tonight. Dear gal. Going through a very hurtful time. You know, losing her marriage, struggling with her kids and all that. She said to me, she said, Jay, I can't tell you. In the midst of all this darkness, one light keeps shining so brightly. She said, you know what it is? I said, no, tell me. What is it? She said, it's the body of Christ. She said, I have seen Jesus in so many people who've reached out to me, just been there to talk when I've needed them. They've held my hand, so to speak, through this terrible tragedy I'm going through. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have made it. I whisper a thanks to God. And I know it doesn't always happen that way for everyone. I know that. Because we're fallible and human and we sometimes miss. But I praise God that he says, we are more than conquerors. Look at verse 38 and 39. It's sort of the climactic end of it all. He says this, For I am convinced, and here are five things, the last five things there, Mimi, that neither death nor life, look at these things, what Paul has chosen here, let me just throw this in, he's chosen expressions that are really hyperbole. They're the extreme expressions of things. In other words, there's nothing that won't be covered by this list. Neither death nor life, nor angels or demons. And now he said, well, how about this? There won't be any powers or principalities out there. There won't be anything in the future or anything present. Keep going now. And there won't be, listen, I love this last one, literally says, any other created thing. In other words, if I've missed it, as Paul is saying,