Introduction:
There was a little boy who got a new slingshot and went out to try it out. While he was trying it out, he took aim on grandma’s pet duck, and to his surprise he hit it and killed it. As you can imagine, the boy was horrified, so he took the duck and hid it in the woodpile. Just as he finished covering it up, he noticed that his sister Sally was watching. After lunch that day, Grandma told Sally to help with the dishes. Sally responded, "Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you Johnny?" She leaned over and whispered "Remember the duck." So Johnny did the dishes. The next several weeks were Johnny’s worst nightmare. It seemed like he was always at the sink, sometimes for his duty, sometimes for his sin. Whenever he would almost get completely fed up with it, Sally would remind him "Remember the duck." Finally, Johnny decided no punishment could be worse than a lifetime of washing dishes, so he confessed to killing the duck. Grandma was understanding. "I know you killed the duck. I was standing at the window watching the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you. I just wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave out of you." Johnny had been pardoned, but he continued to feel guilty because he listened to the words of his accuser. All of us know what it is to be beat up by our guilt over past mistakes. Our head tells us that God has forgiven and forgotten them but we lack the ability many times to let go of them. So the accuser uses this opening to continue to beat us around with our past. Many times this leaves us feeling defeated and hopeless. This last part of chapter 8 is quite stirring as Paul provides us with a word of great encouragement for when we come to those difficult times in life. Paul asks two series of questions that help us to bring the truths from chapters 5-8 into focus. Let’s examine what we can learn from this powerful passage.
I. Paul’s first set of questions are designed to cause us to draw a conclusion.
A. What shall we say about such wonderful things as these?
1. Paul is prompting the readers to draw a conclusion in regard to the material he has presented in chapters 5-8.
2. This question also requires us to examine how God has worked in our lives on a day to day basis.
3. Paul has presented us with the basics of the Gospel message so far in the letter, now the rhetorical question He asks calls us to apply them in our lives.
4. As we reflect on the resources that God has given us that Paul mentioned earlier in chapter eight, one can only conclude that God has provided us with everything we need to live the life to which we are called.
B. If God is for us, who can ever be against us?
1. This second question is basically saying if we believe that God is who He says He is, we have everything that we need to stand against anything that comes our way.
2. We should feel confidence building in our hearts because we can know for sure that through everything God is in our corner.
3. Even though there may seem to be no light at the end of the tunnel through Jesus Christ we have the victory and evil will not win.
4. The logic is full proof. If God is all powerful and nothing can overcome Him then being His children means that He will protect us and make sure that we win in the end.
C. Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
1. Paul wants us to reason that since God has given His only Son as a sacrifice for us then He will not withhold anything that will benefit us.
2. The argument Paul is presenting moves from the greater to lesser.
3. This question also goes a long way toward showing us the depth of God’s love for us.
4. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16—NIV 2011)
5. When one weighs this evidence, how could we even entertain the thought that God has ignored us or forgotten us?
II. Paul’s second set of questions are designed to present detailed evidence.
A. Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own?
1. Paul is using courtroom imagery picturing the Christian as the defendant to illustrate that we have the assurance of the ultimate victory.
2. Paul presents the Christian as being in a courtroom with a chance that a witness will bring charges against us.
3. Satan is presented throughout the Bible as the one who accuses us constantly before God but shows that none of His charges will stick.
4. John writes in Revelation of the accuser’s final fate. 10 Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last— salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth—the one who accuses them before our God day and night. 11 And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die. (Revelation 12:10-11—NLT)
5. The truth is that we will face accusations all through our life but none of them will hold any water before the judge who will decide our eternal fate.
B. Who then will condemn us?
1. At the beginning of chapter 8, Paul announced that there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.
2. Paul’s point is that the only one who is qualified to condemn us chooses not to if we have accepted the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross on our behalf.
3. Jesus showed that it was within the realm of possibility to perfectly walk in God’s will while experiencing human life fully.
4. Listen to how Bruce Shields states this in his commentary on Romans. “We can best understand what grace is when we realize that God could (and had every right to) have destroyed the human race on that first resurrection day, but instead, He used the power that overcame death for Jesus to make it possible for us to overcome death.”
5. If you are in Jesus Christ the judge has already said, “You’re not guilty, there is no penalty for you.”
C. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?
1. This final question asked by Paul speaks volumes considering what the Christians of Paul’s day were facing on a daily basis.
2. It would have been easy for the believers of Paul’s day to wonder if God had forgotten them or no longer loved them. We wonder that when things go wrong in our lives.
3. Paul’s conclusion is that in view of all the evidence that even the difficult circumstances being faced by Christians is not enough to disprove God’s eternal love for mankind.
4. Since God completely loves us, we can rest assured that we will win the ultimate victory regardless of what we face through Jesus Christ.
5. There is nothing that we can do or anyone else can do to make God stop loving us. Remember God is working in every situation for the ultimate benefit of His children.
III. Applying the answers to Paul’s questions to our own lives.
A. Understand that God has shown His love for each of us through His actions.
1. God, when mankind was at their worst set into motion a plan to bring everyone back to Him.
2. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. (1 John 4:9—NLT)
3. When God could have wiped us from the face of the earth as He did with the flood, He chose to provide a way to save us and restore our relationship with Him.
4. The evidence is clear and there is no way for us to say that God does not care about us or does not love us.
B. Understand that through Christ we no longer stand before God guilty of our sins.
1. Paul has shown throughout the Letter that Christ’s sacrifice has made it possible for us to stand before God and be declared not guilty.
2. 27Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27-28—NIV 2011)
3. Jesus has chosen to act as our defense attorney, He stands before God proclaiming our innocence not based on our own goodness but based on His own righteousness and sacrifice.
4. Jesus has done the work to bring us back into the right relationship with God but it is up to us to accept the work that He has done.
C. Understand that there is nothing that you can do to make God stop loving you.
1. God’s love for us is perfect and unconditional, there is nothing that we or anyone else can do to cause God to stop loving us.
2. Have you ever thought that you are not good enough to be saved or good enough for God to love you?
3. God has proved His love and we have to accept that God’s love is not fickle like human love.
4. You probably realize by now that Romans is much more than simply a great theological work, it is a letter of encouragement and comfort written to you and me.
Closing:
A preacher named Ron Rose told a woman who came into his office complaining about his sermons always being about forgiveness and grace. She said he needed to come down harder on the sinners and in her words, "nail them."
After her rant, Ron asked, "So, you’ve got forgiveness and grace all worked out in your own life?"
"Well, Ron” she replied, “There are some things you can’t turn loose of, things that don’t deserve grace, or forgiveness. That’s just the way it is. I know it’s that way in my family."
She leaned over my desk and revealed a heart hardened by resentment and bitterness, "No, forgiveness is not an option. I’ve been hurt too much."
The grudge was too embedded. And her spiritual life was powerless and trapped in the wilderness. Lack of forgiveness had turned her into a critical, judgmental woman.
Then the preacher went on to say “She wanted me to make everyone else as miserable as she was.”
