The Power of Christ

All right, well good morning CrossPoint Campus. We are excited that you are here with us this morning as we wrap up our sermon series on Romans chapter eight today. We're gonna be in Romans eight verses 31 through 39. Romans chapter eight, verses 31 through 39. Confidence is kind of a funny thing, right? And it can cause mixed reactions in people. Sometimes you meet somebody who's a little too self confident, right? Someone who, no matter whether they can back it up or they can't back it up, they're just too self confident and you can't help but see them as cocky. And we don't really like cocky people, right? We don't like people who are too self-confident, who lift themselves up more than anyone else would. But what we do like is when someone is confident in someone else and they lift others up, they lift the other person up that they are confident in and it raises that other person in our minds as someone who might really be something special. You can think of in sports, there's a lot of people who are really cocky, right? We've got some people who think they are the greatest basketball player of all time, and then everybody else thinks that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time, right? There's a difference between when you're just thinking about yourself and when everybody else thinks it about you. There's a difference in the confidence level that you should have there. Well, the conclusion of chapter eight is a passage that contains great confidence that every Christian should have. Every Christian should have great confidence but not in themselves. Instead, we should have great confidence in our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. That's where all of Romans chapter eight lands today. And it's really where all of the book of Romans lands and everything that became or came before chapter eight and everything that will come after chapter eight, and really everything that surrounds the book of Romans, the entire Bible is all about our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ and that we can have not in ourselves, but in Him. And every believer can and should have this confidence. As Christians, we don't look to ourselves and say, "Well, of course God loves me. Well, what's not to love, right?" We don't say that. We shouldn't say that. I hope you don't say that. Instead, we look at what Jesus has done and we say, "How amazing is the love of God that He has put on display in the cross of Jesus Christ? How amazing that God would love me?" And we look at Jesus Christ and we put our confidence in Him, not in anything or anyone else. In this passage, we see that we can have rock solid confidence in Jesus Christ and we can have rock solid confidence that all the promises of God that we've been talking about in Romans eight and all the promises of God that the Bible lays out for us from beginning to end. We can have a rock solid confidence in all of those promises because of Jesus Christ, what He has done in the great love that he has displayed for us. In this passage, Paul operates kind of like a lawyer here laying out his closing arguments. He's asking all these questions that people might ask in order to give the answer that will give you the confidence that you can trust in Jesus Christ. And so, I think this passage kind of splits into two. There's a bunch of questions that Paul asks and he answers here, but I think it comes down to two things. I think it comes down to two things that we can be confident in. And the first one is that we can be confident in the promises of God because of the power of the cross of Christ. We can be confident in the promises of God because of the power of the cross of Christ. Power is something that I think many people long for, right? We long to have power. We long to be somebody who can make things happen. We long to have power in our jobs or in our neighborhoods or in our whatever it may be. Many people long to have power, but the truth is many just don't have it. And when we're talking about spiritual power, none of us has it within ourselves. And so when we think about not having power, what people often try to do if they don't have power is befriend somebody who does have power and attach themselves to somebody who does have power. When I was in eighth grade, I switched to a down in Louisiana that was just, it was a football factory. That's what it was, okay? I mean, guys have gone on to the NFL, they've gone on to all sorts of college programs out of this school. And I'm in eighth grade and I step into the school with all these huge guys and I was the same size I am now. I haven't grown since seventh grade. That's a true story. This is a true story. I'm a small guy. That's okay. That's okay with me. I've learned to live with it. That's fine. But all these guys are huge, man. They are guys that went on in my grade who went on to Division 1, like played for LSU, went on to the NFL, all these kinds of things. And here I am, little old me. I know that I need to attach myself to someone much larger than me, right? If there's ever a fight that goes down, I want this guy on my side. He is 6'4" in eighth grade. I mean, there's something wrong with that. But it's what happened. I don't know how old he actually was, but he was an eighth grader. And so I attach myself to them. Day one, I make best friends with all the biggest guys in my grade. And that's what you do. You attach yourself to someone with power. Now, it doesn't matter how much power you have in the world or in society, when we are talking about spiritual power, when we are talking about the power to set ourselves right with God, when we are talking about the power for eternal life, when we are talking about the power to take hold of all the wonderful promises of God, we don't have it within ourselves. Not a single one of us does. Not a single person who has ever lived has that kind of power except for one. Jesus Christ, who has come and He has bought the promises for us. He has paid the price for each and every one of those promises on the cross, and we look to the power of the cross of Jesus Christ to have our confidence and all the promises of God. Paul gives us the opening to his argument in verse 31. He says, "What, then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" Paul has laid out all these promises. Some of them we have right here, right now, but they're things that we don't necessarily see them, right? They have an effect in our lives, but they're not tangible. We don't actually see them with our eyes. We have to trust God that we really have them. For example, having no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. We can't actually see that. It's not a visible thing, but we can believe it. We can trust God for it. Things like receiving the Holy Spirit. You can't see Him. You can't see Him inside of you. As time goes on, you see the evidence of having Him inside of you, but you can't see the Spirit himself. You trust God that He has truly given the Holy Spirit to you if you have trusted in Jesus. Things like being adopted as a child of God. That's not something that we can see with our eyes right now, but we can trust God that we have it, that it is true. But there's also other things that we don't have quite yet, or at least we don't have them in full. Some of the promises that Paul has laid out, we will receive in the future. So clearly we must trust God for them. Things like one day being raised from the dead with Christ, things like being heirs of God and reigning with Christ in eternity. These are future promises. The things that in the future will be brought into their fullness. And Paul says, what should our response be to all these great things, all these wonderful things that the Lord has promised us. Our response should be to trust that God is for us, that God is for us, and therefore there is nothing that can take away His promises from us. And there is no one who can overpower His promises and overpower God to keep Him from giving us His promises. And there is nothing and no one in all this world who can stand against us and separate us from God and separate us from all of His blessings and separate us from all of His promises. There is no one, there is nothing in all of creation that can do it because God is for us. God is for us. That's what Paul has been laying out all of Romans eight. That's what we've been seeing all these weeks that we have been in it. Our response should be that we trust in God by trusting in the power of the cross of Christ. As believers, we are tempted all the time to believe lies, right? We still have those temptations to believe the lies that Satan feeds to us. To believe that the truths of Romans eight and the truths of the Bible aren't actually true. That they're not actually real. Satan says, "Did God really say?" You remember that's what he's been doing ever since the beginning of creation. That's what He said to Eve in the garden, "Did God really say that?" Did God really say and do you really think that it's true? Do you really think that there is no condemnation left for you? You remember what you did this morning? You really think there's no condemnation left for you? Do you really think the Holy Spirit lives inside of you? Why you still struggle with sin? You really think that He's inside of you? Do you really think that you're a child of God? God doesn't let people like you into His family. God would never let anything bad happen in the life of someone who is a child of God. These are the lies that Satan feeds us. Are they not? These are the lies that Satan tempts us with that you could never overcome. All you've done is still be loved by God. And we face these temptations to believe lies over the truth of God's Word. To believe lies over the promises of God. We face temptations to think that what God says isn't true, but what should we say to all these things? We should say, yes, they are true, and I know that they're true because I can look to the cross of Jesus Christ and I can see that God has done something to ensure each and every one of those promises. Yes, they are true and there is nothing that can be taken away. Yes, they are true and God will not take back His Word. And why should that be our response? It's because of the power of the cross of Christ. It's because there's nothing in all this world that is more powerful than the cross. It's because the power of the cross is greater than any possible enemy. All the enemies that Paul is about to lay out in the rest of the verses we're gonna look at. All of the enemies in this world, none of them overpower the cross of Christ, and so he lays out three arguments for this in the following verses. First, he tells us that God gave up His own Son for us all so surely He will get what He has paid for. Verse 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?" Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser. He's saying God has already done the greater thing. All that's left is the easier thing. If He's done the harder thing, surely He will do the easier thing. If He has done the great thing in giving up His Son, surely He will do the easier thing in giving us all that He has promised. You don't pay a great price for something only to throw it away in the end. One of my old professors from seminary in his commentary on Romans gives the example of going to Disney World, right? You know that Disney world is expensive, right? Like stupid expensive. Like absolutely stupid, right? It's super expensive and here's the thing is you don't pay all of that money for the flights, for the tickets to the park which is just out of this world. For the food, for the hotels. You don't pay all that money for that just to pull up in the parking lot and be like, "It's $20 for parking. I'm out, I'm gone. I am not paying 20 bucks for parking. Not for four days, no way. That's $80." And you just throw away all the money you already spent on the trip because you refuse to give $80, right? That's something like what Paul is saying here. God does not give up His own Son. He does not send His own Son to the cross to pay this great price to take our condemnation, the condemnation of the world on himself, to take the wrath and justice of God the father on himself. God would not do this just to cheap out on the easier thing. He wouldn't do it. He would not do that. He will give us the promises He has bought for that price. The second thing Paul says is that no one can bring any charge against us because it's God who justifies, it's God who justifies us through Jesus Christ. Verse 33, "Who will bring any charge against us?" You see where I'm getting these points from, right? It just says it. "Who will bring any charge against us or against those whom God has chosen?" It is God who justifies. Our sin is against God in God alone. It's against Him, and therefore He's the only one who can bring a charge against us, a real charge that will stick. Yet for all those who are in Jesus Christ, He doesn't. He's thrown out the charges. He's placed them on Jesus and He as paid for them. And the third one goes with that second one. Third, no one can condemn us because Jesus has settled the issue. Verse 34, "Who then is the one who condemns? no one. Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." Paul has already told us in the very first sentence of Romans 8:1, "There's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ." But don't we so often feel like we are still under condemnation? It's a lie of the devil. It's one of his favorite tactics. It's so easy to hear Romans 8:1, and not believe it in certain moments. You might know it in your mind, but not believe it in your heart in certain moments, but we can look to the person and work of Jesus Christ and we can believe it. He says that Christ died and took our condemnation on himself. It's done, it's paid for. He says that Christ was raised to give us life. He says that Christ is at the right hand of God. He's the only one who condemn us, and Jesus is right there alongside of Him and He is interceding for us. He is alive. He has paid the price, He has risen from the dead and He is at the right hand of the Father to plead our case. That means that Jesus is both our judge, and He's our defense. I don't know if you know anything about the law, but that's a pretty good place to be. If the judge is your defense attorney, that's a pretty good place. It doesn't actually happen here on earth, right, but it happens in heaven, and it's a good place to be. My favorite old hymn might be, "Before The Throne of God." I love the hymn. In verse two it says, "When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free for God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me." That's the truth of the gospel. That's the truth for each and every person who puts their faith in Jesus Christ, He stands at the right hand of the Father and we are pardoned of our sin if we trust in Him. It's a good place to be. Satan might tempt us to believe that we're still under God's condemnation or that we continually put ourselves back under it. He temps us to believe that, but we can take what Paul says here and remember to never stop looking to the cross. The cross is not just what brings us into being a Christian. It's what sustains us as Christians as well. It's not just the beginning of the Christian life. It is the Christian life, is looking to the cross of Jesus, His death and His resurrection. It's not just the ABCs of the gospel. Tim Keller says it's the A to Z of the Christian life. The gospel is the A to Z of the Christian life. And when Satan comes at you and tells you that you are not good enough, you can look to the cross and you can look to the power that is on display on the cross when you're dealing with sin in your life, and we all still do. We all still deal with sin in our lives. We can come to God in repentance on the basis of the cross. We can enter the throne. We can stand before the throne, not on our credentials, but on the credentials of Jesus. When you feel unworthy of God's love and ashamed before Him, look to the cross and remember that it's not by your credentials. It's by Jesus Christ's credentials that we can stand there. And the same way when Satan comes at you and he attempts you to believe that you are good enough, he does that too. He tempts you to believe that you are good enough to justify yourself before God. Then we look to the cross. And remember that God would not send His one and only Son to the cross if we could do it ourselves. He would not pay the great price if we could do it ourselves, but we can't, and we should see the seriousness of our sin by looking to the cross that God would send His one and only Son to it. He's that serious about sin, and when Satan comes at you and he tells you, "You are good enough," still look to the cross. Remember that you cannot set yourself right with God, but God has done it in Jesus Christ. We look to the power of the cross for confidence in the Christian life. We look to the power of the cross of Christ for confidence in all of the promises of God. The event of the cross is finished, but the effects of the cross are not. The event is finished, but the effects are not. While we were once enemies of God, now God is for us because of what Jesus has done. And Jesus has risen from the dead and is ruling at the right hand of the Father and He is ongoingly interceding for you. That's good news, y'all. That's the good news of the gospel. That's the good news that is not over, but it goes on and we will sing of it for all of eternity as we stand before the Lamb and before the Father. So, we can be confident in the promises of God because of the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. That's the judicial side of things. But second, we can be confident in the promises of God because of the power of the love of Christ. The first one is the judicial side, and it's important. The second one is the personal side, and it's just as important. When we talk about being confident in the power of the cross, we're seeing all that God has done to pay for the penalty, to send Jesus to pay for the penalty of the cross of Christ, but we also see the power of the love of Christ. We see that it's personal. It's not just judicial, it's personal. When we talk about being confident in the power of the cross, we're seeing all that God has done to pay for the penalty to send Jesus to pay for the penalty of the cross of Christ, but we also see the power of the love of Christ. We see that it's personal. It's not just judicial, it's personal. If you go to a courtroom and you stand before a judge, he has no personal connection to you. Or at least he's not supposed to, right? Like that's a problem in the justice system. He has no personal connection to you, but someone who has a personal love for you who is also a judge makes all the difference in the world. God is personal and He has a great love for each and every one of His children. He has a great love for each and every person who belongs to Him in Jesus Christ. He has such a great love that He sent His one and only Son to put it on display on the cross. And God's love is so strong that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Take a look at what Paul says in verses 35 through 39, "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, neither 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." Friends, we have many enemies in this life. We have many things that try to drag us down. We have many things that we stand or stand against us, but God is for us. God is for us. And He has shown that in the power of the cross. So Paul gives us a few foundational truths to hold onto about God's love. The first foundational truth is that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. There's a lot of options that Paul gives here, right? He names a lot of things that might be, we might be tempted to think could do it, but none of them will win. None of them overpowers the cross. None of them overpowers the love of God. All of these things except for death at this point in Paul's life. All of these things except for death, Paul had already faced. He knows what he's talking about. He knows what he knows what all of these things are like, but he says, "None of them can separate us from the love of God." And don't separate us on either side. What I mean is that nothing will pull God away from us and nothing will pull us away from God. The things listed here in verse 35, they're not things that would make God stop loving us. There are things that might tempt us to stop loving God, yet all who are truly in Christ will remain in Christ for all of eternity. They will persevere even when we are tempted to walk away, the power of Jesus and the power of His love holds on to us, but just because God's the one who brings us to persevere doesn't mean we sit by passively and just watch it happen, right? We saw the same thing last week. This isn't to say that we sit back and do whatever we want and God will just make sure the job gets done in the end. It is to say that God is the one who makes sure it will happen. He is the one who makes sure that we will endure. He makes sure that we will persevere. He makes sure that nothing will separate us from the love of Christ, but He works in us to bring it to completion. He works in us that as we act, He will be bringing about this perseverance. In Philippians 1:6, Paul wrote, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ." Nothing can separate us from Christ's love. The second foundational truth is we are more than triumphant over the opposition. We are more than triumphant over the opposition. These things seem like they might conquer the believer, but none of them will because God's power is greater than all of them, and we stand in the power of Christ. In Christ alone my hope is found. He is my strength, my life, my song, as we just sang just a little bit ago. None of them can overpower the believer. I dunno if you've ever watched like boxing or mixed martial arts or something like that. There are some matches where it is just clear from like the bell, right that this person is not gonna stand up to this person. It's just not gonna happen, right? Like it is just clear that one is going to overpower the other. But there are other times that they seem so equal in all facets, you have just no idea who's gonna win this match. You have no idea who's gonna walk away the winner. For those in Christ, we are never in an equal fight. We are never in an equal fight because Christ has conquered all opposition and we stand in Him, we belong to Him. It's not our power, but the power of His love, and we see His love displayed on the cross. The last foundational truth is that nothing is stronger than the love of God in the cross of Jesus Christ. The only thing that could possibly separate us has been dealt with. That's our sin. Our sin is what separates us from God, but it has been dealt with on the cross. Notice Paul's confidence. He says, for I am sure, and we are loved by God in Christ. That means if you are united with Jesus through faith, you remain in God's love. God's love for us is just as secure as His love for His Son. I'm gonna say that again. God's love for us is just as secure as God's love for His Son, because we stand in Him. We are in Him, we are united with Him. And we stand secure in Him. And we can remember that and we can stand in confidence by looking to the power of the love of Jesus Christ. We can remember the power of His love by looking to the cross. We can remember that the power of His love, it overcomes every enemy, every opposition, and that we can endure not in our own strength. Our confidence isn't in us. It's in the one who has died for us, who has risen from the dead, who's standing at the right hand of the Father and is interceding for us. We trust in Him. Verse one of before the throne says, Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea. The great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on His hands. My name is written on His heart. I know that while in heaven He stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart. Nothing can separate us as long as Jesus lives, and He lives forever. Nothing can separate the people of God from God." Who can bring any charge against God's elect? Nobody. Who can condemn those God has taken away all condemnation from? Nobody. Who can separate us from the great love of God that we see displayed in Jesus Christ. Nothing and nobody in all this world or all of creation can do it. And it will remain so for all of eternity. So when you are having a hard time believing that that's true, when you're having a hard time holding your confidence and being a child of God, when you are having a hard time fighting the temptations that Satan gives us, the lies that he gives us, that it's not true. We look to the power of the cross of Christ, and we look to the power of the love of Christ, and we put our confidence in Him, not in ourselves. And we fight back against those lies. We lift our eyes to Jesus and we continue to follow Him. The cross is powerful enough and the love of Christ is determined enough to hold onto us for all of eternity and give us all that He paid for. Let's go ahead and bow our heads this morning. If you've never trusted in Christ this morning, I want you to know that what you're doing, whether you realize it or not, is you're placing all your confidence in yourself. You're placing all of your confidence in yourself that you can get yourself through life, that you can get yourself through eternity, that you can stand before God and say, "Here I am Lord, you have to let me in. You have to take me." When we put our confidence in ourself, that's what we're saying. And when we're not trusting in Jesus, we're putting our confidence in ourself. But I wanna encourage you this morning, if you never have before to put your trust, your faith, your confidence completely and wholly in Jesus Christ, completely and fully in Him, in His death, in His resurrection, His death that has paid the penalty for your sin, so that there may be no more condemnation. His resurrection that gives new life, His resurrection that makes Him King, ruling overall at the right hand of the Father, trust in Him, follow after Him. Place all of your confidence in this life, and the next in Him. If you have trusted in Christ, I want you to know you will face temptation. You will face temptation to not believe the truths of the promises of God. Maybe you came here today facing that temptation this morning. Maybe you came here today already dealing with that already just not knowing how to deal with that. I want you to know that what God has paid for, He will do. What God has paid for, He will give to us. And He's paid for you. And you will endure by trusting in Him. Look to the cross and see that your sin is great. I mean, it is greater than you can handle. But as you look to the cross and see how great your sin is, see the power and the mercy and the love of God is greater for you than anything in this world, than any sin, than any temptation. God, we are so thankful that you have put your love and your power on display in the cross of Jesus Christ. That's where our confidence is today Lord. Let our confidence never be in ourselves or in anything else, but in the cross of Jesus Christ. Lord, we need that as we face temptation. We need that as we walk through life, through hardships. We need that. We need that reminder. Would you give it to us Lord? Give us the reminder to look to you, that you will do all that you have paid for. Help us to trust in you, to follow after you, to pick up our cross daily, denying ourselves and following after you, in complete trust and surrender. We thank you, Lord. We love you. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen, amen.