13 Confidence in Christ (Romans 8:26-39)

Krisan Marotta: And I have to apologize for my voice, but at least I have a voice. Thankful for that. I woke up Sunday morning and I couldn't talk at all. And I thought, oh no. Now what? Now what am I going to do? And so my kids were like, it's all your fault we're in school today because you prayed that you'd have Wednesday in the Word. And so now here we are between snowstorms and we have to go to school. And I Yes, it's all my fault. Because I really wanted to get to this section of Romans. This is in many ways it's the climax. Kind of the the passage we've been working toward all these months, and I didn't want to have to put it off till after Christmas. So I'm like, oh, please give me my voice back. So I'm sorry you have to listen to this scratchiness, but I'm glad to be here. So we're in Romans chapter 8, and we're going to start in verse 26, and we're going to finish the chapter today. And this is one of my favorite passages in the book. I think it's in many ways the best of the of the good news, the most comforting, at least in my life. So I hope I can explain it in a way that that reaches you as well. Can you just review where you're like so close, Livia? I'm looking. No, it's okay. I'm looking up your notes. Um, where are we? We're in Romans 8. We're going to start in verse 26 and go to the end of the chapter. Let me just review where we are in the book, because that's what I do every week. And I hope that you're you're memorizing along with me. This is my encouragement to make sure you know my challenge to memorize the outline of the book of Romans. So, chapter 1, you'll recall, starts with Paul arguing that we sinned, and we uh in God's response to our sin was to abandon us to it, to turn us over to sin and death, to give us into its custody. And in chapter 2 and 3, he argues that no one is righteous, no one can keep the law, and no one can be justified by keeping the law. Not the moral person, not the pagan, not the religious person, that all of us fall short of God's standard. In the end of chapter 3, then he announces the good news, which is there is a way to be justified, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. In chapter 4, he argues that Abraham was an example of this, that even Abraham was justified by his faith and not by works, and he brings in David as well in that chapter. In chapter 5, he then says, so what? So if we've been justified by faith, what should that mean? And he says that the fact that we've been justified gives us a reason to rejoice because we've been singled out by God to be made holy, and that that is up to him and not up to us, and we have every reason to rejoice. And he's going to pick that theme up again today. Then in chapter 6, he begins kind of a question and answer of, okay, here are objections or questions that my gospel raises. The first one was, okay, Paul, if what you say is true and we're justified by faith, not by the law, then we should keep sinning because that will bring glory to God. The more sin he has to forgive, then the more he will be glorified. So we should just go out and pursue sin. And Paul answers, No, that's not what I'm saying, because part of the gift is not just forgiveness. There's another part to the gift, and that is breaking the power of sin in our lives. And to then continue to pursue a master that is no longer our master would be to mock the gift or to mock God. Then there's a follow-up objection of, well, okay, maybe there's we shouldn't pursue sin, but there's no incentive not to, because there's no punishment. If we're under uh grace and not under the law, and if we sin, we're forgiven, then why not sin? Because it's all covered anyway. And Paul says, no, there's still an incentive not to sin, and that is death, as he's defined it, that all the brokenness, the corruption, the futility, the resentment, jealousy, greed, anger, bitterness, um, sharp tongues, all that stuff, the brokenness of our lives is a direct result of sin, and those consequences are still in effect. If you sin, you still experience those consequences. And then he adds, the law was not really an incentive anyway to avoid sin. All it did was multiply our transgressions. So then he takes up the question, well, if the law multiplies our transgressions, then it must be an evil thing. Right? And we know it's not an evil thing, so your gospel's wrong. And Paul says, No, the law is a good thing. It did a one did us a great favor, and that is it alerted us to our sinfulness. It told us that we need to look for some other solution to the problem. It pointed out how sinful we are so that we could look then to a savior. And that's in chapter seven. And as part of that answer, he goes on to describe what I've called moral paralysis. That is, the distinction between my desire to be holy and good and my lack of ability. So that's the section where he talks about the very thing I don't want to do, I do, and the thing that I do want to do is not the thing I'm doing. So he says, on the one hand, I desire to be righteousness, I agree with the law, I resolve to keep it, but I can't. And he ends that chapter with wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? Chapter 8, then, is the solution to that problem. So all of the chapter is really answering how does faith in Jesus solve this problem that he just described in chapter 7. So in 7 he says, I want to be righteous and I can't. How does eight solve that problem? In the first 11 verses, he gives us the answer, which is under the law, our only option was to look inside ourselves and try harder. And he's already spent six chapters arguing that there's nothing in us but sin apart from God. So trying harder doesn't work. However, under grace, God gives us his spirit. And now with his spirit working in our lives, our his spirit changes us so that we become more and more people who not only want to keep the law, but can keep the law. So faith in Jesus solves that problem of moral paralysis because now we have access to the Spirit of God, and God is going to change us. So that was 1 through 11. In 12 through the end of the chapter, which is really all one piece, we went to 25 last week just because of time. He kind of it's an exhortation then of so what? How should you live if all this is true? And his exhortation is to give up legalism. And by legalism he means trying to do it on your own. So give up the mindset that says, I will, I will be righteous on my own, I will, I will do it myself, and instead trust in God. So 12 through 14 is his summary statement, which is basically saying, if you trust in yourself to get holiness, that will lead to death, as he's defined it, the brokenness, the futility, the corruption in our present experience. But if you trust in the Spirit of God to make you righteous, that will lead to life. And then he discusses two things that are true of those who trust God. The first one we looked at last week, that was in 15 through 25, and that is you know that the Spirit is working in your life because of two things. He the Spirit will produce in you a longing to be righteous and a grief over your sin. So if you see yourself when you sin responding with repentance, with grief, with um sadness over the fact that you're sinful and longing to be changed, longing to be freed and to be made righteous, that is tangible evidence that God has given you his spirit and he's at work in your life. And he ends that by saying the creation shares that longing, that groaning, that longing to be righteous. Now he's gonna pick up the second thing the spirit does in our life, and that's what we're gonna look at today, starting in verse 26. And in a nutshell, what he's gonna say is you can have absolute confidence that everything that happens to you is in your best interest because God's Spirit is at work in your life. So he's gonna say the Spirit intercedes for us, that intercession is effective, and therefore we can have absolute confidence that no matter what, everything that happens to us, God is using it to bring about our inheritance, and that is the best of the best of the good news. So let me read the um the um chapter or the verses, and then we'll actually let me tell you one more thing. Let me just all of this is works together to make one point. So from 12 through 39, he's really trying to argue give up legalism, give up trying to do it on your own, give up the attitude and a mindset that says, I'm just gonna try harder and make myself righteous. And instead seek to rest and trust in God. So as a believer, our job, if you will, if you want to call it a job, is to rest. It's not a new thing to do, it's not a new thing to try. We don't, there's no um manipulation or steps you have to learn or technique you have to master. He's really announcing truly good news, and that is God is going to do it. You don't have to bargain with him, you don't have to negotiate, you don't have to, you know, there's no uh 12 steps to faith or, you know, three keys to Christian living. It's the announcement is there are no tricks, there's no techniques, there's no manipulation. You can sit back and wait and hope and pray, knowing that God is working in you to bring about your salvation. All right. And it's not that we're passive, it's not that now we sit on the couch and do nothing. It's we still actively live our lives. We still make choices, we still have to face difficult situations, we still go out and do whatever God has called us to do, walk whatever path He's called us to walk. But the difference is the attitude, knowing that no matter what, God is in control, and it's not up to me. Now, obviously, you could take that good news and say, okay, then I'm gonna go sin in the meantime, but that goes back to chapter six. Part of the gift, it's being freed from that desire to sin. So if you have the Spirit of God, you wouldn't want to per continue to pursue sin. So a legalist, someone who's relying on themselves, and a non-legalist, may look exactly the same on the outside. They may say the same things, they may make the same choices, they may um uphold the same standards, strive for the same thing. The key difference is attitude. And when all is washed away, when all is said and done, who are you trusting? Do you trust in yourself and do you trust in God's spirit? So that in addition to attitude, the other difference is gonna be results. The legalist is going to fail because they're relying on themselves. The non-legalist will make progress because they're relying on the Spirit of God. So if you were going to ask me, what should you what should I do? If everything I've said is true up to this point, what should I do? How should I change my life? How should I live? I would say probably do exactly what you're doing now. You know, strive to do the right thing, study the Bible, uh, learn God's law, love your family, uh, serve in your church, study the Bible. Did I say that one? Say that one again. Seek to do good, you know, pursue goodness and righteousness and justice. And I study the Bible, that's my favorite one. And all the while you're doing that, knowing that it is God who is working in you, and that the more successful you are at those things, the more you have to thank God for. It's not a cause to boast, but the more you see yourself wanting to pray, wanting to serve, wanting to do the right thing, and actually in some having some measure of success, the more you ought to say, Thank you, Lord, for working in my life. Thank you for bringing me to this point, as opposed to, hey God, look at me, look how good I am. Um that's the difference in attitude. Okay, that's the overview. And I I could stop there, but I won't, because there's too much good stuff in the passage. So let me read it, and then we're going to look at the details. So this is Romans 8, and we're going to start in verse 26. And in the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew he also predestined to become conform to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren brethren, and whom he predestined, these he also called, and whom he called these he also justified, and whom he justifies these he also glorified. What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who brings a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? For as it is written, for thy sake we are being put to death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor any other created things shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. I love this passage. So he starts out in the same way, and that refers immediately back to what we looked at last week. Um just skip back up to verse 23, where he was talking about uh creation groaning. Well, let me just read it. And not only this, but we also, but we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. So he's been talking about our hoping, our groaning for glory, I love that kind of analogy, or our longing to be righteous. And he's saying, in the same way, the Spirit is working in our lives to produce in us that that deep hunger and thirst for holiness and that longing to be righteous. And we don't even know how to pray for the right things. Our sinfulness goes so deep that sometimes we don't even know what to ask for, we don't even know the right words to say. You know, often our prayers are, you know, God fix it, you know, or make my life easy, that's one of my favorites, or remove the consequences of my sin. And I as I look at my prayers, I'm often praying for those three things. You know, let's just make life easy. Don't let me experience all the junk that I've I've now created, or just fix this problem, make it go away. And often that's not God's agenda for us. He wants to let us experience those consequences or to continue to struggle, and life gets hard. But what he's saying is the Spirit Himself is interceding for us. When we don't know what to ask for, we have the Spirit asking for us. Um, and that is with groaning too deep for words. It's literally inarticulate groanings, and I think that refers to us, not to the Spirit. So it is our inarticulate groanings that the Spirit is interceding for us. And I think what he's talking about, has you ever been in those situations where it just hurts so much you don't even know what to pray for? Where you just have to kind of fall on your knees and say, Lord, here I am. I I don't even know where to go from here. I don't know what to say, I don't even know how to pray. I think it's that kind of situation. Sometimes the best we can do is say, God help me, I'm I'm lost. It hurts too much to even know where to go forward. And he's saying, in that situation, we don't know how to pray, but the spirit does. We don't know the big picture, we don't know what to ask for, we can't see what all God is doing, and yet we have a spirit who's interceding for us, who knows what to pray for when we have no idea. So he's not the spirit is not groaning inarticulately, or he's praying intelligently and with words. He's not, I don't think this is mumbling or stuttering, it's the spirit is praying and interceding with wisdom and knowledge, and um he's intimately aware of what I need, and he's intimately knows the mind of God, so he can ask for exactly the right thing. That is incredible because what he's saying is here you have someone who knows you better than you know yourself, and at the same time, he knows the mind of God perfectly, God's will and understanding, and he's asking for you. He knows you, he knows God, and he's asking for exactly the right thing. And then he goes on to say, he who searches the hearts, that is God, knows what the mind of the Spirit is, namely that he's interceding, and so he grants it. So he knows what I'm going through, the Spirit knows what I'm going through, he knows what I need, he knows what God wants for me, and he's asking for it, and he's asking perfectly in line with God's will. That is an incredible gift if you stop to think about it. It means the Holy Spirit is as perfect an intercessor as Jesus was a perfect atoning sacrifice. And what he's saying is you don't even have to trust in your own prayers. So I don't have to worry that my sinful desires are getting in the way of my prayers or my feelings or my impulses or my weakness or my selfishness, or that my vision is too small, or that my understanding of God is too weak, or that I can't see, and worry that you know, God's up there going, Oh gosh, I'd love to help Krissan. If she'd only figure out what to pray for, then I could grant it. You know. I mean, that's kind of the impression I had when I was a new Christian. You know, God was up there going, Come on, if you just figure it out, I can give, you know, I can help you here. What Ball's saying is you don't even have to worry about that because the spirit is there saying, I know what Krissan needs. She needs a really long series of minor frustrations right now. Or, you know, or maybe some major tragedy or whatever. She's getting too self-righteous. So, you know, let's shape things up a bit. I don't know what. But he knows exactly what I need, and he can ask for it with complete confidence because he knows exactly what God's will is and what God values. So that is a wonderful gift. He is there interceding on our behalf, not only when we don't even know what to pray for, but when we're praying for the wrong thing, I think. So then we get these two very famous verses, Romans 8, 28, and 29. And I hope now when you quote that verse, you can quote it with much deeper understanding, and that you will not quote it unless you also quote 29 at the same time, and you'll see why. So 28. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And well, we'll stop there. So he's saying, Because we have the Spirit interceding for us, because He is He knows us intimately, and He knows the heart and mind of God intimately, and He's praying for exactly what we need, we can have absolute confidence that all things work together for good. Because God searches the heart, he knows the Spirit, the Spirit's asking for things in line with God's will. He's interceding for us intelligently, asking for exactly what we need, and God will grant it. So everything takes us one step closer to bringing about that inheritance. So all things work together for good. What's good? I think by good he means our inheritance. Or what he goes on to say in 29, being conformed to the image of his son. That's what good is. All things are working together to bring about my inheritance, to make me holy, to make me more a righteous person. This is not a promise that all things will be pleasurable or happy or comfortable or easy. This is not that kind of good. He says it's not a promise that you'll never get hurt, that life will be a you know a bed of roses. It's a promise that no matter what happens, it will God will use it or will be working in all of it to bring you to the point He wants you, to bring you, to make you His child, to conform you to the image of His Son, i.e., to make you holy and righteous. Now notice it's limited to believers, those who are called according to His purpose. We can have that confidence, and it's qualified as what is good, it is our inheritance. And the idea is that God is working in everything for good. I think the emphasis is on the fact that no matter what choices we make, God is there. And God is with us and He's working through us. So I don't know about you. When I was a new believer, I used to have the idea that there was got like this one perfect will that was God's plan for my life. And if I made the wrong choice, then now I'm on the second best, you know, will because I I blew it over here, and now I make another one and now I'm on his third best will, you know, and and now now I've really messed up and I'm way off track. Um and and there are people that believe in, and you know, they think, you know, well, you might have married the wrong person, there was that one person out there, but but I married this other guy, and now that's um you know the second best plan for my life. And I always wonder what happened if someone like back in the fifteenth century got off and now my husband wasn't born because you know they married the wrong person, and then that person married the wrong person, and then you know, maybe maybe I didn't even maybe the person I was supposed to marry wasn't Even born, and maybe I wasn't supposed to be born, you know. Think about it. So it gets really crazy if you start thinking that way. Um, we're all marrying the wrong people and having the wrong children, you know. So that kind of thinking, I think, is ruled out by this verse. Um God is saying the what Paul's saying is no matter what, no matter what happens, God is there, God is working, and the Spirit is praying intelligently, interceding for you to bring about your inheritance. We all make stupid choices. We all have done things in our lives we wish we hadn't done or said, Um, and God is always there bringing it out, bringing about good no matter what. Now, good is not necessarily my comfort, my health, my wealth, or my happiness or my pleasure. It's being conformed to the image of his son. It's being made holy, it's being made a person who not only wants to be righteous but can be righteous. And remember from the previous section, he described this as labor pains, where he made the analogy of childbirth. It's gonna hurt. Um, and like labor, things may get worse, they may get more intense, they may get closer together, but the promise is God is always with you no matter what, and that that is guaranteed. So those he foreknew, um, the idea here is for chosen or foreordained. I don't think you can take from this that God looked ahead into history and figured out who was going to pick him and then said, Okay, well, I'll pick them. That's not the idea. The idea is God chose, God made a choice, he those he ordained. Now you've probably heard about the Calvinist who fell down a flight of stairs and then dusted himself off and said, Oh, glad that's over. You know. That's not what I'm talking about, you know. That's more of a determinist view. Um what he's talking about here is predestination, being marked out beforehand. And the idea is that God marks out the boundaries of our lives beforehand. And that boundary, if you're a child of his, is being conformed to the image of his son. So all those choices, all the things you make, all the things that happen to you, are working to bring about that end. That's confidence. So he chose some to give them a destiny of being made holy, being conformed to the image of his son. Those these are the ones he predestined, that is chosen ahead of time. The ones he predestined, he called, that has the idea of invited or converted. He opened their eyes to see, their ears to hear, and those he called, he justifies. That is what he's been talking about in the first five verses or five chapters, being forgiven, being um having the problem of your sin solved. And then those he justifies, he glorifies, and that is, I think, in this um context, it's a synonym for sanctification, being made completely holy, being granted your full inheritance. Now you'll notice in that verse it is in the past tense and twenty-nine, the these he also glorified, but he has made clear back in 24 and 25 that it's a future event, that we have not yet been granted our full inheritance. So why would he use the past tense here in 29? Um this is a typical kind of Hebrew idiom. There's often times in the Old Testament where they put predictive prophecy in the past tense. And it's clear that they're predicting a future event, but they describe it in the past tense because the idea is if God said it's going to happen, it's as good as done. And so you'll see that a lot in the Old Testament. And I think that's his point here. You will be glorified, but it's as good as done because God has promised it. So in 24 and 25, he says, we aren't glorified yet. We're hoping for it. We don't have this hope. But because it's based on God's word, it's as good as done. You can count on it. Okay, then 31. What shall we say then to these things? This is his so what? If all everything I've said is true, what should we learn from it? What's how should we respond? And his response is basically confidence. If you understand that you've got this Spirit interceding for you with exactly the right words, exactly asking for exactly what's in line with God's will, and God is willing to grant it, and no matter what it's going to take place, how should you respond confidence? What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? I think he's repeating the argument he made in chapter 5. If God loved us enough to justify us while we were his enemies, and while we were under his wrath, surely and he and he did that by not even sparing his own son, then surely now that we're his children, why would he withhold any good thing from us? Why would he not also give us the rest of this inheritance? Um in 33, who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather who was raised. Who is at the right hand of God who also intercedes from for us? The idea is who can find you guilty if God Himself has forgiven you, and Jesus Christ is your defense attorney? And that's kind of the idea. Who is going to accuse you when the judge, that is the father, has already forgiven you and you have Jesus Christ as your advocate? Who has left to say you don't rate, you don't make it, the blood's already been paid. And what that means, I think, on a practical level is you don't need to condemn yourself. You know, there I think sometimes we're our own worst critics. We're the ones saying, But you don't know what I did when I was a teenager, or you don't know about my my college life, or or what I said to my husband, or whatever. We all have something in our past or in our present, maybe where we we think, oh, I wish I'd never done that, or said that, or been that kind of person. And the first thing to realize is, yes, we're all like that. Every one of us has that deep, dark secret or that we're ashamed of that we wish we hadn't said or done. The second thing to realize is nothing, there is nothing that we can do that God cannot overcome. That's the point of, I think, Romans 28 and 29. All things is all things. There is nothing, no tragedy so deep or dark that God cannot redeem in some way. If you don't believe that, read the story of Manasseh sometime in the Old Testament. He was one of the kings of Israel. Some of you are familiar with it. If you ever get to a point where you think, I have really blotted now, God will no longer love me. Go read Manassas. He was the one of the most evil kings of Israel. He converted on his deathbed. And God says he's in the kingdom. So it's very comforting. All right, let's just wrap this up then. This this we get to the even better part here. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? For as it is written, For thy sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. That's a quote from Psalm 44, verse 22. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us, for I am convinced 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 created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God. So the idea is, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? He's not talking about Christ's emotion here, and who will make Christ stop liking us, but who can separate us from what the love of Christ accomplished for us is the idea. So it it it is true that I think Christ loves us, but He's not talking, He doesn't have His emotions in view. He has the results of Christ's love for us. So Christ's love for me I can't talk, translates into my inheritance by the fact that he loved me enough to die for me, that will bring about my inheritance, and he's asking, who can separate me from that? Who can separate me from the inheritance of what Christ uh Christ demonstrated his love by his death and what his death accomplished? What will keep me from receiving that? And then he has this list of basically everything on earth and nothing separating us. And it's interesting that Paul experienced almost everything on this list firsthand, which it's like, ooh, God gave him a nice road to walk. Um tribulation and distress refer more to the outward pressures of life, and um, well, tribulation is the outward pressure, distress is more the internal anguish of life. Peril and sword are the life-threatening dangers. And then notice in the middle of this he quotes Psalm 44, which is a brilliant, I just strikes me it's a brilliant psalm to quote, because if you go back and look at that psalm, the psalmist is describing people who are going out into battle and dying. So here are the Israelites in the Psalm, they're going to battle. God has told them to go to battle. God has told them this is the war to fight, this is the just cause, you should do it, and they're dying in battle. And the psalmist is lamenting, Lord, what does this mean? What should I do? Um, we are being called as sleep sheep to be slaughtered. So, what do you do when you find yourself in a certain situation where you're doing the right thing and you're being killed for it? Does that mean that God doesn't love you? Does that mean that somehow he's abandoned you or he's cut you off? And Paul's point is no, even that does not mean that he has abandoned you. Even that could be part of the plan. So that, I mean, think about that. You know, we we have lots of people in our church, for example, right now who are struggling with cancer. And if we pray for them and they are not healed, does that mean we've prayed wrong? Or does that mean somehow God's abandoned us or he doesn't love us enough? Um if I pray to be released from a health problem or a bad marriage or a broken relationship and it just continues year after year, what does that mean? It's tempting in those situations to think, well, God must not love me enough to solve this problem, or maybe God has abandoned me, or maybe I'm not doing the right thing, or I'm not saying the right thing, or maybe I'm just not the person I should be, or you know, it must be all my fault. And Paul's saying, even in those circumstances, God has not abandoned you. God is still working for good. He has not cut you off. It is part of the plan. And not only that, in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer, he goes on to say. It's not just that they're part of the plan, it's that you're going to conquer through them, you're going to survive. I mean, I think to me, the most poignant example of this is Brad Arms. He's a son of our church who felt called to go join the Marines and he went through Iraq and we were all praying for his safe return and he was killed on the streets of Fallujah. Does that mean he did the wrong thing? Does that mean we didn't pray enough or we didn't do the right thing, or we or maybe he got his calling wrong? Because that's the situation of the psalm. When you go out into battle and you do the right thing and you're killed, what does it mean? Does it mean God's abandoned you? And Paul's answer is absolutely not. Even that does not mean God abandons you. No matter what, it's God can conquer, not just bring good, he can conquer, overwhelmingly conquer. It's hard, it's painful, um, but it's all custom made to get me to my inheritance. It's custom made to bring us as a body into our inheritance. So in 38, then he continues, and he says, nothing, absolutely nothing, including me, including my own sinful choices, can keep that from happening. So God uses all things, even my stupidity, even my selfishness, even my sinful choices, even the brokenness of life he can bring about good. And all these things we overwhelmingly conquer. We don't just survive, we conquer. We're going to win. We're going to receive that glory. So neither life nor death, that is nothing in the present realm, nothing in the realm of death can separate us from the love of God. Neither angels or principalities, that's nothing in the spiritual world, regardless of rank, can separate us. There's no authority in this life or in the age to come that can separate us from that. Things present or things to come. So nothing in the present age, nothing in the future world. You know, if the world falls apart, um, even that, if the terrorists win, nothing can separate us. It's all part of the plan. He goes on powers, that is the miraculous, and nothing of a miraculous nature can separate us from God's love, neither height, nor depth, nor geographical location, and just in case he missed anything, nor any other created thing can separate us. I think he's gone out of his way to make this list all-inclusive and comprehensive. So he's saying the second thing the Spirit does for you is it produces this absolute confidence that no matter what, God is working for good, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how crazy, no matter how out of control, you know that you've got the Spirit interceding for you, you've got God working for you, and it's all tailor-made to bring about your inheritance. Your glory is guaranteed because it's up to the Spirit of God in your life, it's not up to you. So his point is give up legalism, give up trusting in yourself. There's nothing to be gained by it, and everything to be gained by trusting God. Let me just wrap this up by taking you back to the beginning. Remember the very first week we looked at Romans chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, and I told you that was the theme for the book. I want to go back to that now that we've studied eight chapters, and look at that and show you how he's played out that theme. So verses, this is chapter 1, verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith. So he's saying, I'm not, Paul's not ashamed of the gospel because it's powerful enough to bring about our salvation. And he's just spent eight chapters telling us how. Because we now, under grace and we've now been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have no reason to be ashamed of the good news because the bottom line is God's going to do for us what we could never do for ourselves, and that is make us holy. So I'm not ashamed of the good news because it's powerful, it will bring about salvation in a way the law never could. To everyone who believes, the Jew first and also to the Greek, so it's granted on the basis of faith. Um, and that's the sole condition that for salvation is trusting that God will do it. And even that he's going to tell us as part of the gift. So God's power or God's uh ability will bring about salvation for those who believe, those who trust Him to make them holy, because of what Jesus did on the cross. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Again, this gift of justification from God is made real to those who have faith because they have faith. I think that's what he means by revealed from faith to faith. So this justifiedness, if that's a word, is granted on the basis of faith to those who have faith. That's all. You can give up keeping the law, you can give up trying to do it yourself because it's coming through faith. Then the one who's justified on the basis of faith shall have life. I think that's the point of the Habakkuk verse. I would translate that the righteous man as the right standing before God man, not the holy man, but the man who has been made right with God, who has been forgiven and been justified. So the justified one shall have life because of his faith, because God will grant it. So Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because in it we see that it's God's power that guarantees our salvation from sin for those who trust him. And that's an incredible gift. It's the one thing that we cannot lose. It's the best gift that we can get. It's one that won't fit under the Christmas tree, but it's one that we cannot lose, we cannot ruin, it won't break, it won't disappoint, it's guaranteed. Because it's up to God, not up to us. And I'll give you a chance to respond. Father, thank you that you're a God who loves us, loves us enough to die for us, loves us enough to come down from heaven to be born as a man, to suffer as we suffer, and to face a horrible, painful death on our behalf. I just pray that you would be making those truths real as we go through the Christmas season, knowing what it meant, what it cost, and how much you love us, and how that your birth and then death and resurrection demonstrate that love. I pray too that um that we would be instruments in your hand to bring that good news to other people who may not see it yet or know it. And that as we go through each day in each life, as we face difficult choices or frustrating choices, or the mundane or the boring, that we would know it's all from your hand to shape us, to make us the people you want us to be. I thank you that we have these weeks to study Romans that we that you have given us um all these weeks free of snow to to attend, and just pray that you would be working these truths into our heart and send into our lives. In Jesus' name. Amen.