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There are times in our lives when we feel discouraged,
times when we feel that our spiritual life has run dry,
or periods when nothing ever seems to goes our way.
There might be times when we are ready to throw our arms
up in despair, ready give up. All hope has seemed to
vanish. Have you ever felt that way? I suspect we’ve
all felt that way at some point in our lives.
Our epistle lesson the last two weeks and again this
morning is Romans the eighth chapter, which is one of
the Apostle Paul’s most substantial and instructive
writings. We not only discover practical instruction but
also words that instill hope and assurance in us. He
begins by contrasting life in the spirit with life in
the flesh. As believers we “live according to the
Spirit,” setting our “minds on the things of the Spirit”
and not focus on things of the flesh, which reflect our
sinful nature.
Our lesson opens with practical instruction on how to
pray. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do
not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit
intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” At those
times when our spiritual life has lost its zest, and we
find it hard to pray, or the right words do not come
out, the Holy Spirit intercedes taking our concerns to
God. Through the Spirit God knows what we need when we
need it. With the Holy Spirit in our lives our concerns
are never far from God.
While we pray for our own specific needs and wants Paul
expands our understanding of prayer. Paul wants
believers to pray for what God desires, not just for us
individually, but for the good of the community. We
pray for people we do not know, we pray for those who
are experiencing difficult times in their lives. We
pray for those persons who feel they do not need God or
the church. We pray for a sense of God’s presence in
their lives. We offer our prayers and God hears them.
There is also an eternal dimension
to our prayer life. When we pray seeking the bigger
picture we are not limited to the here and now. We pray
for God’s will for the entire world. We pray for the
completion of God’s good creation. There are times when
we worry and are upset by events that have no eternal
consequence.
When we live by the Spirit, focused
on God’s will for our lives and community we realize
that God is at work in our world. God is able to change
peoples’ hearts. With a great sense of confidence Paul
claims, “We know that all things work together for good
for those who love God, who are called according to his
purpose.” God can change even our worst experiences and
bring good from them. When we are experiencing
difficulties we probably do not see any good, but over
time we realize that one experience helps us deal with
another, or that our negative experience can help
someone else who is going through the same thing. That
is the power behind many support groups, people who have
experienced a particular difficulty help those in the
throes of addiction, or grief, or other problems.
People are more willing to listen to someone who has
experienced the same thing. In helping others, God is
able to transform our bad experiences and bring
something good from them. If we help one person, if we
lead one person to Christ, then we allow good to come
from bad.
We have to be careful; God does not
cause terrible things to happen to us or our loved one.
There are tragedies that break God’s heart as well as
our own. God does not cause bad things to happen to us
but when we offer those experiences up to God, God is
able to transform them into something good.
Paul then offers words of comfort
and assurance. Paul asks a series of questions, “If God
is for us, who is against us?” The answer is no one.
No one can sever our relationship with God. Paul
continues with this line of questioning to drive home
his point that nothing can break our relationship with
God. “Who will bring any charge against God's elect?”
Again the answer is no one.
As God’s children our bond is so
strong that nothing, nothing in all creation can
separate us from God. God is the God of all creation,
and nothing can or ever will separate us from the God
who loves us! Not “hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword.” We belong to God and nothing or no one can ever
take that away from us. We may experience heartaches,
and disappointments from time to time but nothing has
the power to dissolve our relationship with God.
Knowing and more importantly
believing this gives us the confidence to live our
lives. No matter what happens to us, no matter where we
find ourselves, God is on our side and is with us.
Nothing has the power to break our bond with God.
Paul continues stating that God’s
love for us is so strong that not even death can
separate us from God. God continues to reveal God’s
love for us. God stops at nothing in the life and death
of Jesus.
We do not just endure bad things
happening to us but we transcend them. “No,” Paul
states, “in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us.” Because nothing can separate
us from God we can lives our lives in confidence, not as
victims of happenstance but rather as “conquerors.” We
are conquerors, we are victors!
One summer Helen and her husband
led the church youth group on a mission trip. At the
end of the week of hard work, in celebration of what was
accomplished the youth group went river rafting. Within
a few yards of entering the river, the group was thrust
upon class four rapids. The guide did not stir the raft
to the correct part of the rapids and hit a rock head
on. Helen’s husband was catapulted into the rapids
ahead of the raft; while Helen was thrown into the
water. The guide immediately pulled Helen out of the
river, but by that time her husband was a bus-length in
front of them.
As they continued Helen says her
love for her husband grew and grew. She says, “As I saw
him being thrown end-over-end on the rocks, I prayed
mightily for him, as one hundred percent of his
concentration was focused on trying to figure out how to
breathe and which way was up.” Helen felt a deep love
for her husband. “My husband in that river was unable
to spend any part of his consciousness on prayer,” Helen
recalls, “but I prayed mightily enough for both of us.”
A few minutes later Helen was able
to pull her husband out of the rapids. He was
breathing, motionless, and bloody, but in that moment
Helen realized, “I had everything I needed in the
world.” Helen’s husband would recover suffering many
surface scrapes and a broken toe.
For those who believe we need not
fear what the future will bring because our future has
already been established. We belong to God once and for
all. “For I am convinced,” Paul confidently claims,
“that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is the ultimate promise.
We belong to God and no one or nothing can break that
bond. This realization gives us the confidence we need
to live each and every day not as victims of
circumstance but as victors, conquerors. We live our
lives trusting in God for all of our tomorrows.
Amen.
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