Well, good morning, Leamington EMC.
It's great to be with you this morning.
I left my house at 6:00 AM this morning, and so if my hair is a
little out of place, I'm just kidding.
We'll be fine. My name is Paul Pendleton.
I'm one of four pastors at Straffordville EMC. 2 are lay
pastors, and two are on staff. I'm one of the two on staff.
And as I'm sure you've gathered by my name so far, I am not like
the others. I am not Deech, and I don't just
mean my last name, my first name too.
I have a bone to pick with some of you people.
One of the first things I learned when I was hired at
Straffordville is that I was the only Paul at the church.
And when I came here today, I talked to your administrator,
your treasurer, and I said are there any Paul's in this church?
And they said no, not one. When I asked why at our church,
they said they only named their children after their favorite
biblical characters. However, no one could tell me
what they had against the Apostle Paul.
I mean, he wrote over half the New Testament and is referred to
as the greatest apostle. Unbelievable.
So why? Why are they all?
Why when there are already so many Peter Jacobs Abes?
Why are there no Paul's? There's even one guy in our
church. His last name is Peters.
He has five other brothers, not one named Paul.
Guess what? They named him?
Peter. Peter Peters.
Are you kidding me? Did Meno Simons make a no Paul
policy for his followers? That's my question.
Well, just to get back at you, I'm preaching out of the book of
Romans today written by the Apostle Paul.
I'm just kidding. I'm not that petty.
I am preaching out of that familiar passage this morning in
order to remind you or perhaps for the first time for some of
you really explore a theme that is a deep down to the core of
Christianity. And I hope you like to drill
down or or bite down to the core of your faith because that is
where we form our core convictions.
You see when I was growing up, my mom was a nurse and she had a
core conviction. An apple a day keeps the doctor
away and everyday she would put an apple on my plate or in my
lunch box. And now today I love apples.
But back then I struggled to eat anything that wasn't chocolate
covered or candy coated. I don't know if you can relate
to that, but the apples my mom gave us were neither.
They were the real deal. And in order to ensure that we
ate them and didn't throw them in the garbage, she made us
prove to her that we ate them. So after we ate our apple, we
had to put the apple core back in our lunch box to bring back
home for inspection. And inspected she did.
And we had to eat it all the way down to the core or face the
consequences. And she would say this, you had
to eat your apple all the way down to the core in order to get
all the nutrition that the apple could offer.
So as we begin to unpack our key text today in Romans 831 and 39,
I want you to think about your own faith journey and ask
yourself, am I getting all that my faith in Jesus can offer?
Am I living according to my core convictions?
You see, if you want to live an abundant life and make a
difference on this earth, you need to develop core
convictions. Of course, you have to identify
them first. If you don't know what your core
convictions are, well then how do you know who you are or what
you stand against? I know that's blunt, but your
convictions are the truest things about you.
You are your convictions, or more accurately, you become your
convictions. For better or for worse, your
deepest held beliefs will define who you become and who you are.
So let's discover where we start.
Do you want to know what the Apostle Paul score conviction
was? Here it is.
Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
That wasn't just the foundation upon which Paul built his life.
He banked all of eternity on it. You see, the last few verses of
Romans eight form the pinnacle or the mountaintop of all of
Paul's words to his readers. And these words were intended to
lift our hearts to a new understanding of our key theme
today, which is God's grace. Why is this important?
It's important because very few Christians understand what grace
is really all about. Very few Christians comprehend
what God has promised to do in our lives because of grace.
To be honest, it's life changing for the believer.
Let's dive in now and look at the fact that Paul poses 5
rhetorical questions in this section of the last few verses
of Romans 8. And these five questions point
us to the clearest description in the entire New Testament of
what it means to live by grace. Here they are.
Who can be against us? Who will provide for us?
Who can accuse us? Who is it that condemns you?
And finally, who can separate us from God?
And I believe the answers to those questions are the best
description of grace in the entire New Testament.
You can summarize grace really in one sentence.
God is for us. God is for us.
I want to challenge you to meditate on that truth all next
week. I think it can revolutionize
your life in light of the fact that God is for us.
Let's look at 5 things we need to learn about grace today.
The first thing we learn is that grace means I can always count
on God's power. Paul asked in verse 31.
What shall we say then in response to this?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
If God is for me, who can be against me?
Frederick Douglass, he was a black slave reformer.
He once said one plus God equals a majority.
And what he meant was that nothing should ever discourage
believers when we recognize the fact that God is on our side.
Sorry, have you ever felt as a child or a parent if we could
just get that one guy on our team then we would win.
Some of you who follow sports who are as old as me might
remember when a future Hall of Fame hockey player got traded
from the Edmonton Oilers to the New York Rangers.
The Rangers had not won the Stanley Cup in 40 years.
So you can forgive this overzealous and sacrilegious New
York Post headline. The Messiah has arrived.
They truly believe that this larger than life leader could
take their team back to the promised land, and he did.
Not only that, if you think about it, if confidence backed
by talent can help A-Team or a business find success, how much
more confidence should we have as believers when the greatest
power in the universe is backing us?
That, in a nutshell, is the message behind verse 31.
The power of God is so overwhelming that no enemy of
ours can stand against it. Do you believe that the Apostle
John confirms this in first John 4/4?
You, dear children, are from God and overcome them because the
one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the
world. So what is it in your life right
now that's overwhelming you? Financial problems, Emotional
problems, Past trauma, perhaps a relationship problem?
The Bible says the greater is he that is in you than the he that
is in the world. God's power is part of God's
grace, and grace means I can always count on God's power and
nothing, nothing in this world can overwhelm me if I put it in
the hands of the Lord. Why is this important?
In this age of anxiety, we sometimes lose hope because we
do have people who are against us.
The Bible says the devil is against us.
He wants to attack us. He wants to get us down, He
wants to destroy us. However, the Christian never
needs to be intimidated. If God is for us, who can be
against us? Now I'm going to get a little
personal here. If that's OK, then I'll walk
away from my notes just for a second.
I had been a pastor for probably 25 years, the lead pastor of a
Church of about 220 people. Our church had grown from about
85 people to about 220 people really over the course of about
three years. And and then it started to
plateau. I went to the church board and I
kept saying we've got to do something.
We either have to plant another church, we were 90% full, or we
have to build onto the church or we have to start sending out
missionaries into the community. We have to do something.
And their response was no to all of my suggestions.
No. And it started to to really
press down on me, really, really disturbed me that that we
weren't trying to expand the Kingdom.
And I actually began to get very anxious and then suddenly every
little slight against me seemed to be really overwhelming and I
began to have anxiety. This is why it's important
because even pastors get anxiety.
Pastors struggle. I don't know if you know this,
but during COVID, 50% of pastors resign from their church due to
stress and anxiety. What did they forget?
What did I forget? In Philippians 413, the apostle
Paul declares confidently, I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me. Grace means that I can always
count on God's power. Commit that verse to memory.
I I mean that when I say that and access it whenever fear
overcomes what you're trying to accomplish for God's Kingdom or
whenever you face an enemy or even an abuser.
Remember, because of God's grace, you can count on God's
power. The second thing we learn about
grace comes from Romans 8 verse 32.
We're just going through the verses now, which teaches that I
can always count on God's provision.
Here the apostle Paul writes he meaning God did, who did not
spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.
How will he not also along with him, generously give us all
things? I want you to think about this.
If God loved me enough to send his Son to die for me, then
surely he loves me enough to care for all my needs.
Most people think I don't want to come before God and talk
about him with my finances or about my emotional needs or any
small problem I've got. I only want to give God the big
the big things. Well, this verse says the exact
opposite. God, your loving Heavenly Father
not only solved your biggest problem when He sent Jesus
Christ to die for you on the cross, but He most certainly
wants to take care of all your little problems as well.
What Father doesn't want to fix all of their children's
problems? I can't think of one thing I I
wouldn't do to help my kids if I could.
The point is that because of God's grace, I can always count
on God's provision. God wants to provide for my
needs. Can you imagine somebody buying
you a house and you say, well, thank you, Would it be OK if I
lay down in the bed at night? Do you think they'd answer, no,
of course not you can. It's your bed, You've already
received the gift. So when God saves you, you get
to experience the full benefits of salvation.
Here's my question. Are you accessing all of God's
grace? Some people ask about verse 31.
How do we know that God is for us?
Well, verse 32 tells us how we know that God is for us.
He sent His Son to die as a sacrifice for us.
Could you do that? Allow your child to die so that
a stranger, perhaps even an enemy, could live?
If our God could do that for us, is there anything He wouldn't do
for those who put their faith in His Son Jesus Christ?
Grace means I can not only count on God for His power, but I can
also count on His provision. Psalm 37, four says delight
yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your
heart, not just your needs but your desires.
The scriptures say we can. We can pray for anything that
doesn't say God will always grant everything you always ask
for. We are like small children to
God, so sometimes we ask for things that really aren't
necessary and maybe are a little crazy.
But if we are aligned with God's Word and God's desires, if we're
really delighting ourselves in the Lord, that means we're
putting Him first in our lives, wanting Him to be #1 wanting Him
to live through us. And I want God's will more than
anything else then. And then my desires are going to
be aligned with His will. And He will give you the desires
of your heart, Psalm 8411 tells us.
For the Lord God is a son and a shield.
The Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is
blameless. Do you have to be perfect for
God to bless you? No.
Why? Because God has justified you.
He has declared you you perfect through the sacrifice of His Son
Jesus Christ. Not that you are perfect, but
He's declared you perfect because of what Jesus has done
for you. No good thing does he withhold.
Grace means I can always count on God's provision.
He will always take care of me. He will always meet my needs.
My response to this then is to ask over 20 times in the New
Testament. I'm commanded.
Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you will find whatever
things you asked for in prayer. Believe that you received them
and you shall have them. The believer who trusts God
lives a life without limitation. Paul guarantees that in
Philippians 4/19. He says, My God shall supply all
your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ
Jesus. So one whose resources are
limitless has promised to provide for all our needs in
life. He wants to help us.
God wants to meet your needs. Grace teaches me I can always
count on God's power in my life and I can always count on His
provision. There's a third thing we need to
learn about grace this morning. It's that I can always count on
God's protection. It's found in the question who
will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen.
It is God who justifies, who can accuse us.
Many people want to put you down, to accuse you, to
criticize you for being a Christian.
But who is the chief accuser? The answer is found in
Revelation 12/10. Then I heard a loud voice in
heaven saying, now have come the salvation and the power and the
Kingdom of our God and the authority of Christ, for the
accuser of our brothers who accuses them before our God day
by day has been hurled down. Of course he's talking about
Satan who's continually accusing us before God.
But thankfully, we read in verse 33, it is God who justifies.
Grace means I can always count on God's protection, not just
his power, not just his provision, but His protection.
I want you to imagine a courtroom scene in heaven.
God sits in the judgment seat. Satan is the prosecuting
attorney. He's bringing all this evidence
against you. Look at what they've done.
How can they claim to be Christian?
How can you love them? How can you promise to meet
their needs when they've done all these things?
But the Bible says we have a defense.
And who's that attorney for the defense first, John 21, My dear
children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.
But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in
our defense, Jesus Christ the righteous. 1 He is the atoning
sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the
sins of the whole world. Scripture says that Jesus Christ
is our defense attorney. What a beautiful truth.
However, if you've got the judge and the defense attorney on your
side, and the price for your crime was already paid by Jesus
Christ, then your accuser, Satan does not have a case.
Lot of people, lot of Christians live in guilt.
Always, always living in guilt. I'm not good enough.
The scripture says you are. Have faith in what Jesus Christ
did for you. Believers will never have to
face our due penalty because, well, you've passed from a life
of judgement into a life of freedom.
You are free. Remember Job, The Bible says he
was a righteous man. God says to Satan, look at Job,
let's use him as a test case. Have you, have you considered my
servant Job? That's what he says.
Look at what a righteous man he is.
God is kind of bragging about his servant Job, and Satan says
this. Does Job fear God for nothing?
Satan replied. Have you not put a hedge around
him and his household and everything he has, but now
stretch it out your hand and strike everything he has and
surely he will curse you to your face.
But God knows the conviction deep down of Job's heart that
nothing can separate him from the love of God.
The key to the book of Job is, is the question, why does a man
serve God? Does Job serve God for nothing?
Well, Job lost everything, his wealth, his health, his family
as the devil was allowed to take it all away.
And yet Job kept his integrity and he remained true to God.
And Satan was accusing him. And Satan tries to accuse you
before God. I'm sure you feel it at times he
tries to accuse you and make you feel guilty.
But someday, someday, God is going to settle all accounts.
Do you know that? Even the false accusations that
have been made against you, God is going to settle that score as
well. Do you feel unfairly attacked?
Grace means I can always count on God's protection.
And that leads us now to the fourth thing that we can learn
from grace. I can always count on God's
pardon. We find this in verse 34.
Who then is the one who condemns?
What's the answer? No one, Christ Jesus who died
more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of
God and also interceding for us. Who shall condemn us?
No one. The question is, have you
received your pardon? Have you stopped beating
yourself up? The point is that grace teaches
me. I can always count on God's
pardon. I'm not going to be perfect.
Christians aren't perfect. We're just forgiven.
He's saying, who is it that condemns you?
Well, it's not Jesus Christ. So many people grow up feeling
that God hates them or God is against them.
That's the opposite of what Scripture actually tells you.
He died for you. He loves you.
He's justified you. And as the previous verse said,
as the previous verse said, so live like it.
Accept your pardon. You are free.
How do we know that? Romans 81 says therefore there
is now no condemnation. If you're a Christian, you are
living without condemnation. It doesn't mean you're perfect.
You still sin, you still make mistakes.
When you do, you confess, you repent, and remember your
judgement has already been paid for by Jesus Christ.
No condemnation for everybody. Well, no, no, not for everybody,
for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Jesus
Christ the law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin
and death. Freedom from condemnation is
only true for the Christian, only for the Christian.
It is Jesus gift to you the believer, but you need to
receive it fully, you see. Well how could that be true?
First Peter 318 says for Christ died once for all, the
righteousness, the righteous story for the unrighteous to
bring you to God. He was put to death in the body,
but made alive by the Spirit. So Jesus Christ was the
righteous dying for the unrighteous.
Who's that? Us.
When he was on the cross, He took every sin that you and I
have ever committed, past, present and future, and He took
our condemnation. He was condemned so that we
might live without condemnation. What is required of me?
John 318 says whoever believes in him is not condemned.
It's belief. And what is belief?
It's trust. How do we know someone trusts
the Lord? They follow Jesus.
That's what Jesus said to us. Follow me.
The Bible says that's what grace is all about.
It's by grace we are saved through faith.
See, when I put my faith in God's grace, I experienced no
condemnation. Grace means I can always count
on God's part. Who then is the one who
condemns? Verse says no one.
Jesus Christ, who died more than that, was raised to life at the
right hand of God, and he is also interceding for us.
Can you believe that Jesus Christ is praying for you?
He's interceding for you right now.
Even when you make mistakes, He's praying for you.
Scripture teaches that Jesus is our high priest.
Did you know in the Old Testament there were no chairs
in the temple? The priest never sat down.
Why? His work was never finished.
He was always sacrificing continually for the sins of the
people. And then at the end of his
shift, another priest would come in and continually sacrifice for
the people because people are continually sinning.
But when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He paid it all.
Past, present and future. His work has been finished from
the cross. He said it is finished.
Our crime has been paid in full. And that's the difference
between every other religion and Christianity.
Other religions are based on what you have to do in order to
please God. That's the rules, that's the
religiosity. But the Christian life is not
based on doing. It's based on what's been done
for us. Our penalty has been paid
through Jesus Christ. And grace means I can always
count on God for His power, His provision, His protection, and
His pardon. And the 5th and final thing
about grace that I can learn is that grace means I can always
count on God for His presence. Do you know how comforting that
is? He is always with me.
He will never leave me. In verses 35 to 38, the question
is who can separate us? Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine, or nakedness, or danger or sword?
Let's take note of the word trouble.
Jesus said in John 1633. In this world you will have
trouble, but that can't ever separate you from the love of
God. You're going to have trouble in
this world, and no trouble you encounter will ever separate you
from Jesus Christ. How about the word hardship?
In the Greek it literally means stress.
How many people feel stress? Everybody.
Our relationship with Jesus may be stressed, but that's not
enough to separate you from the love of Christ.
Persecution describes what other people do to you, it says.
And not even famine or nakedness.
People who are naked in that time just they couldn't even
find have money to to buy any clothing or or have anybody make
them clothing. They were just so lost danger or
sword. Nothing can separate us from the
love of Jesus as it is written for your sake.
We face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be
slaughtered. What does that verse have to do
with what we're talking about? Well, Paul, here, the apostle is
quoting from Psalm 4422. He's referring to the Jews as a
nation suffering and being scattered all over the world.
They've they've lost the land of Israel for years.
And Paul uses an illustration to ask if all that happened, should
we lose hope? No.
In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who
loved us. So many Christians live in
defeat. Paul now shares another one of
his deep convictions. For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, neither angels nor demons, the present or the
future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything
and all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Isn't that incredible What a great chapter Romans 8 is?
He starts with no condemnation, and he ends with no separation.
Absolutely nothing can ever separate the believer from God's
love. Nothing you can ever do will
make God stop loving you. He loves you on your good days
and your bad days as a parent, you know that, right?
My daughters sometimes were awful to us.
You know, parents. Parents get that sometimes,
right? Especially moms.
Oh boy, what my wife had to put up with.
It's incredible. My daughter said some awful
things to them, never to me. I don't know why.
Probably because she had to discipline them.
Anyway, she never, never stopped loving them.
Scriptures teach this over and over.
Our final scripture proof from comes from John 1027.
This morning it says this. My sheep listen to my voice.
That's how you know you're following Jesus.
I know them and they follow me, and I give them eternal life,
and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my
hand. What comfort it is to know that
we can lose everything in life, but we can never lose our
relationship with our heavenly Father.
But just like your kids and my kids, they can walk away.
We can walk away from God. He never stops loving us, but we
can choose to blasphemy. I think it's difficult to lose
our salvation, but it's it's it's possible we can we can
reject Jesus, but he never rejects us.
You are secure in God's love because of this Amazing Grace.
The love depicted in Romans 831 to 39 architects today.
It's it's not a sentimental love.
It's a love that's bound by blood and sweat and tears.
It was a costly love. It's a love that's been knocked
down but gotten back up every time.
And when we worship, we don't just sing in the present tense.
We sing out of our past tense memories and our future tense
dreams. We sing out of the sum total of
our lives. Each song spans our lifetime.
So the older we get, the more capacity we must worship God.
I don't think I'll ever know the kind of persecution that Paul
endured, But each of these experiences was an event.
It was an event that revealed more of God's love and more of
God's grace. So if you're in a tough place
today, take heart. No one likes tough times in the
present tense. But as author Mark Batterson
writes, those tests add tenor to our testimony, and those are
often the memories we cherish the most.
Isn't this weird? Our great grandparents love
telling stories about adding water to ketchup to make tomato
soup during the Great Depression.
Did you ever hear that? Using the outhouse in frozen
temperatures and walking through a foot of snow to school that
was uphill both ways? We look back on challenges with
a touch of nostalgic pride. According to one poll, 60% of
those who survived the blitzkrieg that was during World
War 2 remembered it as the happiest times of their lives.
Why? Because it's the tough times,
the trouble, the hardship, the persecution, the famine, the
nakedness, the danger in the sword that test our love.
But it's also how it's proved the love of Christ was improved
by his miracles. As impressive as those miracles
were. His love was proved on a Roman
cross and it's proven to be fail proof.
The cross is God's way of saying over my dead body.
No matter what trouble or hardship or persecution you
face, this too shall pass. More importantly, Jesus is with
you and He is for you. So what if we decided to take
God at His word today? What if we decided to believe in
God's gift of grace? The apostle Paul did, even
though his life was way more difficult than anything you will
ever have to face. Job did even though he lost
everything. What if you decided today to get
back to the core conviction of God's grace that nothing can
separate you from the love of Christ?
What would happen in your life? Here's what would happen because
of God's grace, we won't ever have to worry about opposition
from God. We don't ever have to worry
about dire situations from God. He has promised to provide.
We don't ever have to worry about any accusation from God.
He's not against me, He's for me.
He defends me when Satan accuses me.
We don't ever have to worry about condemnation from God
because Jesus took our punishment.
And as a result, we don't ever have to worry about separation
from God. Why?
He will never let us go. Isn't that a wonderful truth?
God is for us. That's what grace is all about.
It's summed up in these 4 words. God is for us.
Would you pray with me that that message lands today?
And I pray that this is an encouragement to you today.
Whatever you're dealing with, Let's pray, dear Lord, this gift
of grace for the believers beyond all of our dreams.
We now know, Lord, that this is a gift of grace.
And what it means is we can count on your power and your
provision and your protection and your pardon and finally your
eternal presence. And Lord, we ask that if there
are any here today, we've not accepted that gift of grace
today, that they would receive it and start to live as a free
person in your son Jesus name. Lord, we also ask if there are
any here that have not decided to follow your son, that you
would compel them today to make that choice, to decide to follow
you into freedom and eternity by declaring your son Jesus to be
Lord of their lives and by believing that you raised him
from the dead. Together, Lord, may we all
prepare our hearts for what we're about to do to celebrate
the gift of grace you've provided through communion.
We pray this in Jesus precious name, Amen and Amen.