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WHERE IS GOD WHEN IT HURTS? THE LOVE OF GOD OVERCOMES SUFFERING Romans 8: 31-39INTRODUCTION We are in a war and I ‘m not talking about the “War on Terrorism”. If you are a Christian, then you are in a war of faith and a war for faith. You are in a war against sin and you are in a war for holiness. Our great enemy, Satan, is out to destroy our faith. His weapons are many and varied. His tactics are cunning. He appeals to us through the pleasures of this world and of sin to believe that we will be happier if we pursue the pleasures of this world and of sin rather than the pleasures of God. Every time you and I sin it is because we believe the promise of sin rather than the promise of God. Sin is always a failure of faith. If Satan fails to destroy us through promise of pleasure then he seeks to intimidate us through pain or the threat of pain. Satan designs affliction to cause us to question God’s power and his love. He knows that humans naturally think the way that John Hick thinks regarding pain and suffering, “If God is perfectly loving, he must wish to abolish evil; and if he is all-powerful, he must be able to abolish evil. But evil exists; therefore, God cannot be both omnipotent and perfectly loving”. When we suffer we naturally think that either God doesn’t love us or that God is unable to help. When suffering comes, faith is always threatened. Will we continue to believe that God is loving and powerful? Will we continue to live in hope and joy and love, even though we hurt? Satan doesn’t even need to send pain in order to keep us from trusting God, he only needs to send the threat of pain. He knows that the entire appeal of God in the gospel of Christ is based upon embracing a life of suffering love here because we are so eager to know God and experience his love for us now in small ways and one day in fullness. To be a Christian means that you are living a lifestyle of risk. This is what faith means. Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow after me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for me will save it.” “Do not be afraid little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” “All men will hate you because of me.” “Bless those who persecute you and do not curse.” “Do not repay evil for evil or insult with insult but with blessing because to this you were called, so that you might inherit a blessing.” All of these statements are descriptions of faith. Faith believes that to lose every comfort that earth affords and to have Christ is gain. When someone curses you or hurts you, rather than retaliating, you seek ways to bless them and do good to them and so expose yourself to more cursing. You do this because it is better to have Christ and cursing than to not have Christ and no cursing. Christians joyfully turn off the TV in order to meet the needs of others because they love Christ and therefore love people. Christians give their money away to further the cause of Christ in the world rather than joining in the consuming frenzy of American culture. Single Christians gladly endure the pain of loneliness and unfulfilled sexual desire rather than seeking to relieve the pain through “hooking up”. Married Christians regularly risk being taken advantage of by their spouse because they believe the promise of God. Christians risk being misunderstood, despised and maybe even hurt or killed in order to tell others about Christ. To be a Christian means that you are continually putting your comfort and the pleasures of this world at risk in order to obtain the greater pleasures of living with and upon Christ now and the glory of heaven later. Satan knows that this is faith and so he attacks faith by threatening harm and accentuating the pain of loss and so seeking to keep us from all the risk of love. In Romans 8:31-39 Paul is dealing with the threat that pain and suffering brings to faith both in its causing us to call into question God’s love and power and in its threat keeping us from taking any risks. The language of conflict is throughout these verses. “If God is for us, who can be against us? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? Who is the one who condemns? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? “But in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” What Paul is seeking to do here is to both strengthen the faith of those who are in suffering and encourage those who are afraid of the pain that will come if they take any of the risks of faith. Paul is trying to help us suffer in faith with Christ because as he said in v. 17, the only people who will experience the glory of Christ in heaven forever are those who suffer with him now. But he knows that pain and the threat of pain cause people to not trust the promises of God as being superior to all other promises and so he seeks to give us weapons to fight the fight of faith. Here’s what I want you to do while we look at this passage. I want you to think about the hardest thing that you know that God wants you to do right now and then, as we look at each part of this passage consider how it shows that the risk is worth it. For some of you that hardest thing right now is loving your spouse. For others it is not despairing over your children and persisting in being a parent. For others it is taking a risk to share the gospel with a friend or family member. For some it is forsaking the pleasure of some hidden sin. For another it is taking the initiative to befriend another Christian with no confidence that the other person will want to be your friend. For others it is enduring pain in faith and joy and hope. MAIN POINT We can risk pain and endure suffering in faith because…I. God did the greatest thing already (vv. 31-32) Paul’s first rhetorical question looks back at all that he has said through chapters 5-8 about the benefits that we have in Christ. He just summarized these benefits in vv. 28-30. We who love God are absolutely confident that God is working all the circumstances of our lives, especially the suffering parts, for our good. The good that he is making is conforming us to the image of his Son. In other words he is making us fit for heaven. We know this is true because God is determined to honor his Son and he is determined to display his power and love in our salvation. So Paul asks how should we respond to this amazing love of God for us and the fact of suffering now? His answer is that we should risk the pain and endure the suffering because we know without a doubt that God is for us. And, if God is for us, then no one is against us. Is that really true? If I am a Christian, God is for me and therefore no one is against me? So I’m not really in a war? God has so overcome my enemies and so destroyed all opposition that sin and Satan and an unbelieving world no longer are opposing me? Is that what Paul means? Obviously not. Paul himself talks about being opposed by Satan and unbelievers and his own sin on a regular basis. In 1 Thessalonians 2 he writes that he tried many times to come to see them but Satan stopped him. In 2 Timothy he says about Alexander the metalworker, “…he strongly opposed our message.” In 1 Cor. 12 he talks about a physical ailment that brought him to the edge of despair. Therefore, Paul isn’t saying that if God is for you that no one and nothing will oppose you. Rather, he is drawing the inference from v. 28. If God is working all things for your good, then he is making even your adversaries serve your good. It is as though no one is against you because when people or sin or Satan or disease opposes you God merely turns all their opposition into good for you. How do we know that is true and how does this work? Paul points to the greatest piece of evidence that God is for you. You can know, no matter what suffering you are enduring, no matter what risk you are taking, no matter what opposition you might be facing, that God is for you because he handed over his Son for you already. You need never doubt that God has an infinite love for you and that he is at this moment exercising his omnipotence on your behalf because he handed over his Son for you. How desperately we need to feel the impact of these familiar words. What Paul says here emphasizes the Father’s cost in this plan to save you. He handed his dearly loved, very own Son over to those who hated him. The word, “hand over” is the word used for what Judas did when he betrayed Jesus into the hands of religious leaders who then “handed him over” to the pagan authorities who then “handed him over” to the executioners. As Peter says in the first Christian sermon addressed to the religious people who killed Jesus, “This man (Jesus) was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” God, seeing you in your sin and rebellion and helplessness, handed his Son over into the hands of his enemies to be treated with contempt in order that you might be delivered from the just punishment of your sins and given the very righteousness of Christ. If God has done this, why in the world would you ever wonder if he would give you everything else that you need to make it safely to your heavenly home? There is no part of the “all things” that can “be harder” or “greater” for God to give you than the giving of his Son. The “all things” that God will give us are all the things we need in order to know and love him our whole life and so come safely to our heavenly home. The “all things” don’t mean, “whatever you want.” I know this because he will give us all things for the same reason he handed his son over to be tortured for us. What was the goal of God’s handing over his son? According to Romans 1-8 it was so that God could justly forgive sinners, credit them with the righteousness of Christ, adopt them as his own dear children, give them new hearts and bring them to live with him in his eternal kingdom. So we know also that he will graciously give us everything physical and spiritual that we need to make it safely home. This promise is only meaningful if you want what Christ died to give you, a relationship with God, more than you want a pain free existence on planet earth. This is why Paul in v. 28 told us that all these promises are true for those who love God. If loving God is the supreme passion of your life, then you will consider it the best news that God has promised, at the cost of his own Son’s death, to give you everything you need to keep loving God to the end of your life. If you love something other than God, then this is not good news. This is an empty and meaningless promise. We can risk pain and endure suffering in faith because…· God did the greatest thing already · And because… II. We’ve escaped our greatest danger (vv. 33-34) In vv. 31-32 Paul is looking back at what God did to give us assurance that he will give us what we need now. In vv. 33-34 he looks ahead at what he will do in order to give us confidence in our present suffering. These two verses invoke the image of a court of law. It is describing what will happen at the end of the age when each of us will stand before God and give an account of ourselves. Witnesses for the prosecution will be brought forward to accuse us. Paul does not have specific people or beings in mind but is simply using the metaphor. It could be other people or Satan himself or our own words used against us. Just as Paul wasn’t saying no one was opposed to us, he is not saying that there will be no accusations leveled against us on that great day. There will be many accusations made against us, justly so. You do know that it would not be hard to build an airtight case against you showing that you do not deserve to go to heaven but you do deserve to go to hell, don’t you? When you stand before God on that great day what hope do you have that you can justify yourself and prove that it would be just for you to escape hell and gain heaven? Nothing exposes the arrogance of human hearts more than the fact that people believe they are going to be able to stand before God, by themselves and prove they have a right to enter into God’s presence forever. This is what the vast majority of humans believe. As Christians, we look forward to that great day of judgment without fear for two reasons. We are “those whom God has chosen” and the one who is our judge is also our justifier. We know that the love that God has for us is a very specific love. He freely, for no reason in us, chose, before the world began, to love us and save us, i.e. those who love him. He pledged himself to us in love before the creation of the world and so we know that when we face him he will not go back on his own choice of us. But also we know that God is the one who justifies. When we are accused we will not need to answer one word. God, who is our Father through Christ, will declare us not guilty but perfectly righteous. He will command our accusers to be silent, not because they are making false accusations but because he has determined to declare us not guilty but fit for heaven. Paul next asks, “Who is he who condemns?” What is the difference between an accusation and condemnation? Condemnation is the end result of accusation. Condemnation is what happens when the accusation is proven to be true. Paul wants to assure us that no accusation is going to “stick”. We know that we are guilty and so we are afraid that when we are standing there being accused that God will finally be persuaded by all the accusations and change his mind and condemn us. But that can’t happen because of what Jesus did and what he is doing. First Paul reminds us that Christ died. He wants us to remember statements he has already made like Romans 5: 6, “You see, at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” As we contemplate our sins and our impending trial we think of how Christ was condemned for our sins. Second, Paul reminds us that not only did Christ die, but also, even more amazing, God raised him from the dead. The reason the resurrection is “much more” than Christ’s death is because everyone dies. We only know that God counts Christ’s death for us because God showed his approval by raising Jesus from the dead. The resurrection is God’s declaration that he has punished all the sins of all his people in Christ and that for the sake of Christ he will credit us with his very own righteousness. Now notice, after recounting these past events Paul goes on to describe Christ’s present position and occupation. He is now God’s right hand man. He is currently living in the place of ultimate influence, at God’s right hand. He is more highly esteemed by the Father than all other creatures. He is the one who executes all of God’s decrees. Whatever Jesus says or does is what the Father says or does. This Jesus, who is at God’s right hand, is right now interceding for each and every Christian. He is not at God’s right hand simply carrying out God’s decrees but he is also right there as our representative. He continually asks the Father to care for us and accept us and watch over us. How does Jesus’ present intercession give us confidence as we look forward to the final judgment? If he died, was raised and is now interceding for us at God’s right hand, how will he not also intercede for us when we stand before God and face our accusers? Will God the Father who has listened to the intercession of his Son throughout the course of your whole life, fail to listen to his Son when you finally come before him at the last day? How does this help me endure suffering in hope and risk more suffering? First, the greatest danger that you or I will ever face is coming into the very presence of God at the final judgment. “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” If it is an absolute certainty that you have been delivered from this great danger, how much more certain is it that you will be delivered from all lesser dangers, i.e., the sufferings of this life and the risks of love. We’ve escaped the greatest danger therefore we will escape these lesser dangers. Second, when we suffer it feels like God is condemning us, that he is angry with us. When your life is full of pain it feels as though God has rejected you because of your sin. But that is not true because God has chosen you, God is the one who justifies, Christ died and was raised to life and is now seated at God’s right hand interceding for you. God is not condemning you now because he is not going to condemn you at the last day. As a Christian, the suffering you experience is never due to God’s condemnation and anger with you. He may be disciplining you as a parent disciplines a child but he is never expressing his anger and opposition to you because of sin. If you are convinced that the worst thing that could ever happen to you is to be condemned by God, then vv. 33-34 are enormously good news. However, if the worst imaginable thing is something else, then this is not very good news. This promise only works if you fear God’s rejection more than anything else in the world. We can risk pain and endure suffering in faith because…· God did the greatest thing already · We’ve escaped our greatest danger · And because… III. God ordains suffering for the display of his love (vv. 35-39) Paul, to give us courage to risk and hope to endure has looked back at what God did in giving his Son and has looked forward to our certain escape from accusation and condemnation at the last day. Now, in vv. 35-39 he looks square in the face of our present experience of suffering and faces the main question that suffering raises. Does this suffering exclude me from God’s love? Does this prove I’m not loved or will it end God’s love for me? Paul gives a resounding NO. Suffering, rather than ending God’s love is ordained to display his love. Now look with me at how he does this. This entire section presupposes that the worse thing that could happen to a human being is to be separated from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ. To be outside of God’s love, to be cut off from it, is death. There is only darkness and weeping and the gnashing of teeth. So Paul’s question, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”, is intensely practical and of utmost importance. Then Paul poses a list of 7 things that might separate us from the love of Christ. I want to note two things about this list. First, this list proves that when Paul thinks about the “sufferings of Christ” he is not only thinking about the suffering that comes to us because we are Christians. Several of the things listed are directly related to our being Christians, i.e., persecution, danger, and execution at the hands of the authorities. However, the other things may or may not come to me because I am a Christian. The first two, trouble and hardship, are used to refer to all kinds of suffering throughout the Bible. Famine and the nakedness of poverty and danger are common human experiences and are not the direct result of being a Christian. Second, Paul, in 2 Corinthians 11 & 12 says that he has experienced every one of these except execution. In other words, when Paul says that none of these things can separate us from the love of Christ he knows this is true from personal experience. Verse 36
is an amazing statement. Paul quotes Psalm 44:22, which we read earlier,
to prove that none of these things can separate us from God’s love. If
you will remember, the psalmist says throughout the psalm that God is
the one who is causing the nation What does this mean? First of all, remember this is poetry and so it doesn’t mean that every Christian is killed by martyrdom every day. Rather, some are killed but all of us suffer oppression at the hands of our enemies as listed in v. 36. We all experience the curse of sin daily, the ultimate expression of the curse is death. It is a reality of every Christian’s life. But what does it mean that we suffer “for the sake of God?” It can mean “because of God.” Some of our suffering is because of God, in other words we are persecuted because we belong to God. We endure the pressure of resisting temptation because of God. However, there is more to it than that. When do we use the phrase, “for your sake”? We use it when we mean that we are doing something for the benefit of someone else or to give someone else pleasure. How does our suffering “benefit” God or give God pleasure? (I am using the word “benefit” in an analogical way because we are not necessary to God in any way. We never give God something that he needs and does not have without us.) What this means is that when we suffer we display the greatness of Christ’s love for us in ways that being thankful for the good things he does can never do. When we suffer in faith and continue to love God we prove that God’s love is better than a life of comfort, free from all pain. When we choose to suffer in the cause of God we show his sufficiency and power in far greater ways than when we give thanks for the good things he does for us. God ordains our suffering for his sake. But isn’t that cruel? Isn’t it cruel of God to make us suffer so that his sufficiency is displayed? It would be except for what he says next. “But in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” What does this mean? First, the use of the word “conqueror” shows that we are in a battle. Satan designs the trouble to cut us off from Christ. It is his goal in the suffering to destroy our faith and to keep us from risking anything for the sake of Christ. When are you a conqueror? When you defeat your enemy. You are a conqueror when you have resisted the goal of affliction to cause you to renounce Christ or when you have gone ahead in a risky venture for Christ in spite of the danger. But when are you “more than” a conqueror? When you do not simply defeat your enemy but when you make your enemy serve you. John Piper says it so well, “What must happen for you to be called a conqueror? Answer: you must not be separated from the love of Jesus Christ. If the aim of the attack is to destroy you and cut you off from Christ and bring you to final ruin without God, then you are a conqueror if you defeat this aim and remain in the love of Christ. But what must happen in this conflict with famine and sword if you are to be called more than a conqueror? I would say that a conqueror defeats his enemy, but a "more than conqueror" subjugates his enemy. A conqueror nullifies the purpose of his enemy; a "more than conqueror" turns his enemy to his own purposes. A conqueror strikes down his foe; a "more than conqueror" makes his foe his slave.” So you see, God is not cruel in sending the suffering for his sake because not only is he glorified as we joyfully endure the suffering but also we get the joy of seeing our enemies serve us by making us more fit for heaven and by making heaven more glorious for us. God gets the glory and we get the benefit as God makes our enemies, all the suffering we endure in faith, serve us. Notice that v. 38 begins with “for”. In other words, Paul is now giving the reason he knows that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. The reason is because nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. It is God’s love for us in Christ that motivates God to work all things for our good. It is his love that caused him to give his Son for us and his love moves him to give us “all things” necessary to live in faith to the end. It is his love that guarantees that our accusers will be silenced and we will not be condemned. It is his love that causes him to make our enemies, our suffering, serve our good. I know that some of you think I talk too much about God’s choosing us and predestining us. You are uncomfortable with the language of predestination because you feel it somehow makes God unjust. I am aware of the apparent problem and want to arrive at a biblical solution. But I want you to know that I don’t keep bringing this up just because I enjoy controversy or am trying to prove I am right. I keep talking like this because it is in the text and because it is God’s definite love for me that is the ground of all my comfort in my suffering. God’s love is not some vague, universal love for everybody equally. God’s love for every Christian is the fierce love of a Father for his child. His love is for me, forever. His love for me began before the world began. It is his love for everyone who believes that is the reason he gave Christ and sent the Holy Spirit to us to give us new life. His specific love for each of the elect is the ground of all our assurance. This is the reason there is nothing in all creation that can separate me from that love, not even my own sin. I have been given the greatest gift that any human can ever have. I have been delivered from the greatest danger that any human could ever face. All of the sufferings of this life are serving my good. All this has been done for me because God has loved me, in spite of the ugliness of my sin. So how can I not endure in hope and risk in love? We can risk pain and endure suffering in faith because…· God did the greatest thing already · We’ve escaped our greatest danger · God ordains suffering for the display of his love
©
Copyright 2002 John Swanson.
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