Hope in the Hoplessness

Shayne Goldfinch

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Hope in the Hoplessness

Romans 8:38-39 “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.”

Introduction:

Happy Mothers Day

Story of Boy purchasing a jigsaw

The complexity of life and the seeming hopelessness/suffering at times, highlighted on Mothers Day

Body:

Romans overview (path of the gospel)

Break down of text

Seen

Death & Life

Human rulers

Time - Present and future

Unseen

Angels & Demons

Creatures

Any Spiritual Power

Everything else

Depth and Heights

Heaven and Hades

Ourselves

Conclusion

There is absolutely NOTHING in the physcial or spiritual realm that can seperate us from His Love, because he has done the saving. This is why we can have hope in the hoplessness because he has all the puzzle pieces and he knows the big picture.

Intro

Drew was a young child who loved to put puzzles together. One day Drew’s father bought a puzzle in a box marked “Map of the United States”—that was all, just the words with no picture. At home, Drew opened the box and excitedly poured out the brightly colored, multi-shaped pieces. But he was stumped. He had no idea where to begin. In his mind, all he saw were a lot of pieces that made absolutely no sense. After several frustrating minutes, Drew said, “Dad, would you help me put this together? There must be something missing.” His father got on the floor with him and within a few minutes the puzzle began to take shape. “Dad, how did you do this so quickly? How did you know which pieces went where?” “Son, you only saw the blank box and all the pieces. I’ve been fortunate enough to see the whole picture. I knew what our country looked like even before we started this puzzle.” In the same way, God knows exactly how the pieces of our lives will work together, because He alone sees the whole picture. Thus, the believer can rest assured that God is putting everything together in the best way possible. Leadership Ministries Worldwide, Practical Illustrations: Romans (Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide, 2004), 71.

Gospel in Romans

“Romans Road” to salvation. Man has a problem: sin (3:23). The result is condemnation and death (6:23). But Christ died for sinners (5:8). Commitment to him from the heart results in rescue (10:9–10). God’s judgment is lifted (8:1) and God’s love is assured (8:38–39).

Convinced

I am convinced. The verb expresses certainty; Paul sees no possible shadow of doubt. And the perfect points to a permanent state. This is no passing whim.

List of things that can seperate us from the love of God

Death

Death is not prejudiced of race, creed, culture, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, the bad, the good and neither old nor young.

Where Was God? During World War II, following word that an only son had been killed in action, a priest was called to the home of grief-stricken parents. The father, pacing the floor, weeping, in anger demanded, “Where was God when my son was being killed?” Silence prevailed. Then the ministering priest replied, “I guess where He was when His Son was being killed.” The calm, profound answer impacted the father, for it brought God out of remoteness into the circle of real life.

In Genesis 1–3, evil entered the world through temptation and the fall. The result was alienation from God and one another, broken relationships, physical and emotional pain, toil, and death. Thus, the early chapters of the biblical canon portray suffering as an intruder of paradise. This account of the fall serves as a basic explanation for the origins of human suffering. The pain of childbirth and the agony of death are specifically connected with the original curse of humanity at the fall (Gen 3:16–19; compare Rom 5:12–21).

Death will not pull me away from God’s love. Neither will life and its allurements, nor cosmic spiritual powers—benevolent or malevolent, nor anything in time, nor power, nor the height of Heaven or the depth of Hell, nor anything else—disappointment, neurosis, disease, a broken romance, financial crisis, insanity—nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” R. Kent Hughes, Romans: Righteousness from Heaven, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), 171.

I believe that my tears and my pain over my loss are exceeded by God’s tears and God’s pain over my loss. God knows, for God has been there where we are in our loss. Tragedy can drive us away from God in bitter disappointment or tragedy can lead us to God in longing hope. The choice is ours!

Break down of passage

The passage.—This is one of the great chapters of the Bible. It begins with “no condemnation” (v. 1) and ends with “no separation” (v. 39). It defies description and needs to be read over and over until its surpassing message grips our hearts and souls. The new life is a life of liberty from the law of sin and death (vv. 1–8). It is a life of glorious hope (vv. 9–25), hope of the resurrection, hope of jointheirship with Christ, and hope of final redemption. The new life is a life of glorious power (vv. 26–39). This power comes through spirit-led prayer and the providence of God. It enables us to face the future without fear. Special points.—Christ has ended the tyranny of sin (vv. 3–4). The law was weak because we, with our sinful nature, could not obey it. Christ, coming in the likeness of sinful men, condemned sin. That is, he broke its power in human life; he knocked it off its perch. As a result of his work, the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in the Christian’s life. They are fulfilled because we live by the Holy Spirit rather than depending on human resources. How does the Holy Spirit help us in our praying (vv. 26–27)? He does not pray for us, but enters into our hearts and enables us to pray as we should and for what we should. Verse 28 does not teach that all things are good. It teaches that God combines all life’s experiences “for good” in the Christian life. The “good” is defined in verse 29; it is being “conformed to the image” of Christ (RSV). This happens only when we meet the experiences of life with love for God; it is not true automatically. Verses 29–30 describe the sweep of salvation from eternity to eternity. It begins in eternity past with the foreknowledge and predestination of God. It continues in the present with God’s calling and justification. It reaches into the eternity of the future in our glorification. All of this is spoken of dramatically as if it had already taken place. All of it is rooted in God’s grace and initiative. How can we be “more than conquerors” (v. 37)? To avoid spiritual hurt by the experiences of life is to conquer them. To use even the adverse circumstances of life for spiritual advancement is to be a superconqueror. Paul spoke from experience; he had faced the troubles he enumerated (v. 35) and used them for his own spiritual advancement. Truth for today.—Paul looked upon himself as expendable in the service of God (v. 36). We should do the same. We often fail because we are too concerned about what will happen to us. The main thing is what will happen to the gospel; we are expendable. Only by losing our lives can we find their full meaning.

Do you know what happens to people when they are persuaded? They become convinced, and people who are convinced have convictions; and people who have convictions live according to principles. How else can you explain the life and ministry of Paul, apart from the fact that he was a man who had been persuaded. That’s what we need in the church—people who are convinced that nothing can separate them from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul gives a list of things that could possibly disrupt and rupture our relationship with Christ: death, life, angels, demons, the present, the future, powers, height, depth, anything else in all creation. He could have said it in one sentence: ‘Brethren, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.’ That’s the point he is making. There is nothing in this universe that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We know that we are ultimately safe and secure in Christ. R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 160.

8:37–39. Therefore, Paul assures suffering believers that in all these things we are more than conquerors. Christian victory becomes possible only through Him (Christ) who loved us, unlike the self-sufficient attitude found in 7:14–25. Paul explains the immensity of this love by including a list of four contrasting pairs. The first item, death, is feared by many, but cannot defeat Christians. The word life affirms believers cannot lose their eternal salvation. In death or life, Christians exist in God’s presence (2 Cor 5:8–9). God’s angels would not cause believers to lose their eternal status, and neither can they. Angels are contrasted with principalities and powers, the evil spiritual hosts in obedience to Satan. Though they would take away our eternal life if they could (Eph 6:12), they are powerless to reverse the believer’s eternal destiny. Neither the present perils nor things to come can sever the believer’s relationship since Christ’s paid for all sins, past, present and future (vv 32–34). Neither height nor depth (heaven or hell; see Eph 3:18–19), can separate believers from God’s immense love. This does not mean that some believers will end up in hell, but that even hell has no power over the believer’s relationship with God. The final item summarizes all that Paul has listed, and everything else besides. There is not any other created thing that can separate us from the love of God found in Christ Jesus our Lord. The thrust of Rom 8:18–39 is to motivate committed believers to endure suffering, knowing that victory is already accomplished through Christ. René A. López, “The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans,” in The Grace New Testament Commentary, ed. Robert N. Wilkin (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010), 669.

Vv. 37-39

Believers truly know the love of God only in Christ Jesus and experience it in him. No natural or supernatural malevolent forces, even if they are capable of taking the believer’s life, can separate the believer from God’s love. Indeed, to take a believer’s life is to send him directly into the presence of Jesus. Ben Witherington III and Darlene Hyatt, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004), 234.

No experience, present or potential, can separate the believer from God’s love. Angels and archangels perhaps represent here the cosmic forces ranged against the believer (see Eph. 6:12). It is possible, however, that “powers or rulers” refers to earthly authorities before whom the Roman Christians might be brought. “Height” and “depth” were used traditionally of things above the sky and beneath the earth.

Paul’s point is that no forces, experiences, or events external to the believer’s own heart or mind can get in the way of God’s love. Thus the believer has nothing to fear from the world in this respect. The scope of God’s love is greater than the scope of the world’s powers, whether natural or supernatural. This is a great reassurance indeed and is meant, as is this whole passage, to bolster the idea of the perseverance of the saints and their salvation so long as they rest in the firm grasp of the hand of the Almighty. Note the hymnic character of this entire passage. Paul has gone into a doxological mode here at the end of his positive arguments.

Grief with hope

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” -

I believe the depth of our grief arises from the depth of our love. When we lose someone we greatly love, how can we not deeply grieve and how can that grief quickly pass? Deep grief never passes quickly and never passes completely.

Rev. 21:3-4 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.””

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