As I reflected on this passage, I kept hearing myself reading this passage at various times through the years. Usually, they were times of crisis, and when I read the passage, I would always emphasize "for I am convinced" in an effort to sound convincing to those who were struggling. I decided to have that as the basis for the sermon. If I preached it again, I would spend more time in the body of sermon building up the point I made in the conclusion, that is, if we cannot find the faith to proclaim nothing can separate us from God's love than we let Paul or others speak it for us.
“Do You Need Convincing?” Romans 8: 31-39; Sept 2, 2017; SAPC, Denton
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.[w] 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Introduction: The last month or so we have read through the first part of Paul’s letter to the Romans. I trust you have been reminded, as I have, of the theological intrigue and insight found in almost any verse. We can dig into almost any verse and find theological treasures.
But this morning, in the midst of more wonderful theological insights, I want to focus on four words that are decidedly less theological, but still carry tremendous power as we hear them.
Move 1: “for I am convinced…”
a. I have stood and looked into the gathered congregation and read those words of Paul and claimed them as words of truth and hope in a critical juncture.
1. The Sunday after 9/11 as the congregation gathered, knowing their world had changed in unimaginable ways; people desperately seeking to know what God is doing in the face of those horrific acts: “For I am convinced…”
2. As the congregation gathered in the small town where I served, everyone there aware that a fellow member’s nephew had awakened one morning earlier in the week and killed his parents and two younger sisters in cold blood. Most of us were living immediately following worship for the funeral service that would have four caskets on display. What can God’s read hold for them that morning: “for I am convinced…”
3. After natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and now Hurricane Harvey and people ask questions about where is God in all this. What can we say? “FOr I am convinced…”
4. In those moments, we need to hear Paul, not so much his keen theological insights, but his core belief that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
“For I am convinced…”
b. Paul may makes this statement both from a theological perspetive, but we know that it grows out of his personal experience.
1. We remember Saul on his knees on the road to Damascus, blinded in the moment as he hears the voice of the Lord, “Why do you persecute me.”
2. Paul can do the theology with the best of them.
3. But his conviction grows out of his own experience of how God has been at work in his life.
c. Dr. David Read, Presbyterian minister who served as pastor at Madison Ave Presbyterian Church in NYC, was raised in Scotland and served as a chaplain in WWII.
1. He was captured by the Germans at Dunkirk and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. he ministered and preached in the prisoner-of-war camp. In fact, his rise to fame came with the publishing of the sermons he preached while imprisoned.
2. He said that he did not spend a lot of his sermon time on stories like Jonah and the whale. Instead, he preached on how someone in their midst could believe God was real.
3. In one of his sermons he noted, “I don’t believe in my dearest friend simply because someone told me he existed, or because I am intellectually convinced that there is such a person. I believe because my friend has revealed himself to me and I responded” http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/11/nyregion/david-h-c-read-dies-at-91-pastor-to-a-far-flung-flock.html
4. Paul’s conviction grows out of his having discovered God in his midst previously.
d. How have your discovered God in your midst in the past?
1. the one whom you found in that crisis years ago is still at work in your life and the world.
2. Even if we cannot fully explain the God we have come to know, our personal experience confirms for us that God will continue to be present for us.
3. and if you are not sure, lay claim to those whose experience reveals God’s presence in our midst.
“For I am convinced…”
Move 3: Paul’s words are more a comment on God’s intentions than anything else.
a. Earlier in the letter we heard Paul say, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God,”
1. Those words reveal God’s desire for good to come out of any and every circumstance.
2. that is not to say that God made Hurricane Harvey happen so that something good for someone could happen.
3. But it does remind us that in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, God is there working with us and through us to bring good out of it.
4. As we hear the stories of people risking their lives for others or giving of themselves to help people in need, we see glimpses of how God is at work in difficult situations.
5. We may wonder at the mystery of why things happen, we find God with us at work.
b. when Paul tells us that “Nothing can separate us from God’s love in jesus Christ” he is pointing us to the God who will not give up.
1. the God who keeps coming after us.
2. the God whose pursuit overcome all things.
3. Paul gives us a short list that coves a lot of territory, but filling whatever you want, and you still end up where Paul is.
For I am convinced…nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Move 3: A final thought — now we act on our conviction.
a. Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, 107 discusses the challenge of really believing because if we believe it carries with it the responsibility to act accordingly.
b. If nothing can separate you from God’s love, what could possibly hold you back?
1. you are free to live risky lives that dare to do new things.
2. You are free to imagine new ways of being in relationship with other.
3. You can dare to forgive and work toward reconciliation because God is with you in all things.
Conclusion: What is your calling as a Christian? to stand in the face of the world’s uncertainty and declare for all to hear: “for I am convinced…”
And if you cannot summon the belief to say it as your own words, announce to the world what Paul says, “ For I am convinced…that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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