Lent 1 Romans 8:31-39

February 18, 2018

This morning I’d like to share with you something amazing – something so astonishing that just doesn’t even seem possible. Itsounds completely unbelievable, eventotally false. But before I begin I need to ask an important question: does God have anything against you today? You know – is there anything he could point to in your life and say, “I don’t approve”?

You might be asking, “What kind of question is that? I got up, drove to church in the cold, I’m sitting here in church, participating in the service, singing the songs, listening to a sermon. That’s pretty good. I could have slept in, you know.”

OK. Let me ask it another way. Are your thoughts and actions holy? Does God have your undivided attention? Have you brought anything less than a joyful, thankful, repentant heart to worship this morning? Can you look back over the week – or even this morning – and recall any:

  • rude, impatient words spoken to dad, mom, brother or sister, husband wife?
  • vulgar jokes you read and passed on through the email?
  • indecent language or pictures on your Facebook pages?
  • gossip that came your way but didn’t stop with you?
  • anger that lasted more than a day?
  • smug thoughts about yourself or sneeringthoughts about someone else?
  • second thoughts about putting your offering in the collection plate?
  • anything else you’d like to add?

We are not inclined to think that most of our sins are a big deal, are we? In fact, Christians are tempted to think we’re not as sinful as people who aren’t Christians – or that our sins don’t matter as much. The devil lulls us into thinking we memorize the 10 Commandments just so we can get confirmed but after that we have no further use for them in our life. Satan tempts us to excuse our sins by saying, “Nobody’s perfect. Everybody’s doing it. I’m not as bad as so and so.” The Prince of Darkness urges us close our eyes each night thinking that our sins simply evaporate and they’re gone.

But sins don’t just “go away” anymore than the garbage you bury in a landfill goes away. Jesus warned that “men will (even) have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” (Mt 12:36) God“holds the whole world accountable” for all their sins and “he shows no favoritism”.

But it gets worse – far worse than we could ever imagine. If God is against you, it won’t matter who isfor you. All the praises of the world cannot change the smell of sin in God’s nostrils or move him in the slightest from pronouncing his just judgment on the sinner. On judgment day your parents or friends, husband or wife, children or grandchildren, church members, chamber of commerce or the entire Supreme Court could declare what a humble, good, kind, generous, hard-working, faithful, upright person you are, how you always mean well and do your best. They could say how, compared to others, you are a much finer person.But accolades and endorsements from fellow sinners have not one bit of influence on how God’s holiness measures you. If you have the slightest smudge on your record there is absolutely no way you canpass the scrutiny of God’s righteousness. You will most certainly go to hell, from which there can be no escape because sin has an eternal shelf life. Guilt never expires. It’s no problem at all for God to consume you in the fire of his just anger forever.

Let that sink in for a minute. Can you think of a single person who could vouch for your character, speak up for you, and testify that you have never failed to do everything well? Even if your very best friend would go to bat for you, could that friend guaranteethatevery attitude and thought flowing from your heart has been pure every single moment of your life? You have secrets that nobody, not even your most intimate companion, will ever know. In fact, there are many faults you yourself don’t even recognize or remember.But God knows every sordid detail.Each of us stands naked and alone before him to whom we must give account, and, remember,God shows no favoritism. Sin is sin no matter who does it,and there is way more than enough evidence to sentence you to eternal judgment.So if God is against you - when he says, “Guilty!” – there isn’t a soul on earth who could possibly defend you.

But listen carefully, because I’m going to tell you the most astonishing thing you will ever hear, and today may be your last day to hear it.As we stand here looking over the shameful disaster we’ve made of our lives, Someone comes to our side and stands with us looking over all those things we’re so ashamed of and so afraid to admit. He sees muchmore than we see. Then he looks into our eyes and says, “I have taken care of it all for you. I claimed your sin as mine. I went to hell for you. I stand with younow anddefend you in God’s holy presence. I’ll do it for the rest of your life andon the day you die. No matter how much you have against you, I amfor you.”

Have you ever heard anything so outrageous?It even sounds blasphemous. We have been caught red-handed in sin, yet God, whom we have grievously offendeddoes not count our sins against us. Not byreducing the sentence or forgetting the verdict or vaporizing our sins but by paying the dreadful penalty with his own blood.“Not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy he saved us.” (Titus 3:5) In fact,“While we were stillsinners Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8) Isn’t that the most astonishing thing you’ve ever heard?

1. God is for you!

Here’s more:“If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 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? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 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.”

God is for you when the policeman is at your car window writing out a speeding ticket and you are kicking yourself for being so careless. God is for you when you’ve just gotten the news that you need bypass heart surgery and no one understands what you are going through. God is for you when someone you love is taken away, when you’ve lost your job, when you are ashamed of yourself for losing your temper. God is for you when you have done the worst possible thing anyone could ever do and you have no one to blame but yourself. God is for you when the worst possible thing has been done to you and there’s no one else who will stand by your side. Even if the whole world rises up to condemn you and walks out on you, even when your own heart condemns you, Jesus is for you.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither 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.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we do not simply read our Bibles or come to worship as a religious routine to get a weekly fix of religious feelings. We are fleeing for refuge to God’s mercy in Christ because it is safe to do so! We are coming to Jesus because only Jesus has the words of eternal life. We come to hear the amazing, incredible, sounds-too-good-to-be-true fact thatthe God who has every reason to be against us is for us!

You and I cannot come away from this chapter of Romans without seeing how certain Paul was that God was on his side. His God-given confidence sings from the pages!And that’s why the Holy Spirit had Paul write these words to the Christians in Rome and put it in our laps today.God wants everyone to have that same certainty!

2. God is for everyone!

Look around this morning. Is there anyone here to whom this chapter does not apply? Is God for the person on your right, left, ahead of you or across the aisle?

Christ Jesus shed his blood for every person exactly the same, and God has declared every person “not guilty of sin”because of it. God wants everyone to know for sure that he is for them – everyone in our congregation and everyone who still doesn’tknow Christ. That’s what Paul was doing, and that’s what God wants us to do:to share the certainty that no matter who you are or what you have done or where you have been, God loved you so much that he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for you. God wants everyone to know that they can find refuge in the Savior’s redeeming blood when the devil dredges up their past to condemn them again and again.He wantseveryone to know that Jesus himself is for us by praying to the Father on our behalf.He wantseveryone to know that nothing – absolutely nothing – can possibly separate them from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, their Lord. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Don’t you wish you could have been Phoebe, the woman who carried this scroll – Paul’s letter to the Romans – under her arm from Corinth to Rome? I wonder if she knew howbreathtaking its message was, how much it would mean to the Christians in Rome, how far it would pass down through history, how much it would mean to us? What an amazing message: God is on my side! Here it is, right in our hands and before our eyes. Now we can read it and carry itto others just like

Phoebe did.We can tell everyone that God is on their side, too. That is the astonishing message of Lent. Amen.