More Than Conquerors

Romans 8:28-39

As this is being written, it’s November. The year is nearly done and the time is nearing when we reflect over the past year, looking at our triumphs and our trials, our victories and our struggles, our blessings and our heartaches. Some of us will sit down to write Christmas letters soon and stare at the paper. We’ll be wondering what to write, how to shape the events of the last year in such a way that we don’t depress those who read the letter. We’ll wonder how to make the good things sound more mundane so we don’t sound like we’re bragging about how good life has been for us. Let’s face it. Some years are just better than others, and some years there are more tears than joy.

One of the things the last year has taught me is that so much depends on your perspective, how you look at the situations in your life. Do you look at them from God’s perspective or your own? Looking at the situations in your life from your own perspective is dangerous. The biggest danger is that, as humans, we’re limited in how we see the world around us. Our perspective is limited to what we can see and feel and experience. We are simply incapable of seeing the big picture, because it is so much bigger than we are.

And because the big picture is so much bigger than we, it is much safer to place our trust in God and look at things from His perspective. Sometimes we won’t know why certain things happened in our lives until much later in our lives, and sometimes we may not know the reason certain things happened until we’re with Him in eternity. My parents found a poem many years ago that wonderfully describes our perspective versus God’s perspective:

My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me,
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.

Oft times he weaveth sorrow
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I, the underside.

Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

Benjamin Malachi Franklin, the author of this poem, was obviously familiar with the passage in Romans we’re taking a look at today. This passage is all about looking at life from God’s perspective and when looking at life that way, seeing how much He loves us. This passage is full of encouragement to do just that. Paul shows in these verses that because He loves us, no matter what, God is in control, God is on our side and God is always with us. It may sometimes seem hard to believe all of that, but Paul presents us a great case for believing it, not only with his words here but also in his own life. By the time that the book of Romans was written, Paul had been threatened with death, run out of town, stoned and left for dead, beaten, and thrown in jail. I think if anyone had a case for being discouraged, it was Paul. Yet, he was able to see things a little from God’s perspective as he wrote the words that we’re studying today. So let’s take a look at the points that Paul makes in this passage.

Because He loves us, no matter what situations come our way, God is in control. The ten dollar word for this idea is sovereignty. According to the dictionary, sovereignty means “the exercise of, or right to exercise, supreme power; dominion; sway; supremacy; independence.” When it refers to God, it means “his absolute right to do all things according to his own good pleasure.” Really, what it all boils down to is that God is in control and that He knows what He’s doing.
Faith in God’s sovereignty caused Paul to write, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”(v 28) These words have gotten thousands and perhaps millions through some of the toughest times of their lives. For so many of us, we want to control what’s going on in our lives, even down to the minutest detail. Those who want to control the details we call “control freaks.” These also tend to be the first to freak when things in their lives get out of control.
However, Paul gives a gentle reminder in verse 28 that though we think we’re in control, we really aren’t. God is. He takes the beautiful and the ugly in our lives and uses it not only to bring glory to Himself, but also to shape us in the image of Christ. Paul tells in verse 29 that God not only called us, He chose us to be like Christ. The circumstances of our lives are like a chisel and hammer in the hands of God. Like a sculptor, God chisels away at us with the stuff that happens to form us into the image of Jesus. It’s not an easy process. It’s not a fast process. But it is a process that is worth the effort. It took seventeen years for God to shape a young braggart and dreamer named Joseph into a man who had the wisdom to lead a nation in a time of crisis. Sold into slavery by his brothers out of jealousy, accused of rape by his master’s wife, thrown in prison for that same accusation, forgotten by someone who promised to remember him, Joseph had every reason to be bitter when his brothers came to Egypt in search of food during the famine. All the years that Joseph was in Egypt, God was chiseling away, until Joseph could stand in front of his brothers and say, “As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil.”(Genesis 50:20)

One word that jumps out in these few verses in Romans is the word “everything.” Paul doesn’t say that God uses only the good things in our lives to shape us. He doesn’t say that God uses just the bad things in our lives to shape us. He says that God uses every thing that happens to us, whether it is an illness or the birth of a child. God even uses what we call chance encounters to mold us. Some have referred to these as divine appointments. These may take many forms. They may come in the form of a doctor who administers exactly the right treatment needed at exactly the right moment. They may come in the form of a book that opens your eyes to the relationship with God that He means for you to have. Or they may be a person who is need of something that only you can give them, which may turn into an opportunity for them to see that God is on their side.

Because He loves us, no matter what accusations are thrown at us, God is on our side. Paul practically shouts this truth in verse 31: “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” Eugene Peterson in The Message translation puts it this way: “With God on our side like this, how can we lose?” Paul is telling us that whatever happens to us, God wants the best for us. Sometimes what we think is the best for us isn’t what is best for us. Remember, we’re trying, in our limited humanness, to see things from God’s perspective. This may mean that what we want God to do isn’t always what He will do. This means that we’ll go through things that aren’t pleasant, that hurt, and that may tempt us to walk away from God. When we experience that temptation, we need to remember what Paul tells us in verse 34 about Jesus: “[H]e . . . is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us.”

Did you catch that last phrase? Let me read it to you again: “pleading for us.” This means that Jesus isn’t just sitting up in heaven enjoying listening to the angels sing. He is our high priest, pleading for us, interceding for us, standing between us and the accuser. In the Old Testament, the high priest was the one priest who went, once a year, into the Holy of Holies in the temple, where he interceded for the people before God and offered the sacrifice for the people’s sins. When Jesus offered Himself on the cross, He became that sacrifice. When the temple curtain in front of the Holy of Holies was torn in two at His death, our High Priest entered the ultimate Holy of Holies, offering the sacrifice to God. And after His resurrection and ascension, He came into the Father’s presence and pleads our case before the Father, like a lawyer at a trial.

Because Jesus stands in that place, Paul asks the question, “Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself.” Because we’ve been given right standing with God, we have nothing to fear from the accusations that Satan throws at us and that he throws up to God about us. It is as if Jesus stands between us and God and says, “This one believes in me. This one is covered by the blood I shed on the cross. This one’s sin is forgiven by my sacrifice. I do not condemn or accuse this one, for they belong to me.” This is undoubtedly what Paul was trying to convey to the Romans when he wrote, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”(Rom. 8:1) Because of Jesus’ sacrifice and our faith in Him, no one can tell us that our sins are not forgiven, that we can never be forgiven when we slip back into our old ways. Jesus has already covered all of your life with His blood, so that when you stand before the Father, He no longer sees your sin, but someone who is pure and righteous – in right standing with Him. Because of Jesus, the Father looks at us and declares, “Not guilty.”

Though hearing the words “not guilty” from God should be cause enough for anyone to praise Him, God takes His love one step further: no matter what, God is always with us. Jesus promised that fact Himself when He told the disciples on the night before His crucifixion, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.”(John 14:15, 16a) This is not the first place in Scripture that God promises His continual presence with us. In Deuteronomy 31, Moses told Joshua, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”(Deut. 31:8 NIV) David cries out in Psalm 139: “I can never escape from your spirit! I can never get away from your presence!”(Ps 139:7)

He never leaves us. He is always with us. No matter what we’re going through, God is right there, holding our hand. After Horatio Spafford lost his four daughters in an accident at sea, he penned these immortal words:

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrow like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.

What causes such a sentiment? How does a person move past the grief of such a loss to be able to say, “It is well with my soul?” By remembering that Jesus, though He was God, was also human. By remembering that Jesus doesn’t downplay our losses and our trials. He’s been there, too. He knows our limitations, both bodily and spiritually. He stands with us and grieves with us and strengthens us. Because He is with us. Because He loves us.

It was the confidence that Paul had in this truth that caused him to write: “Can anything separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?” Too many people believe that if these things come along, if bad things happen, that they are being punished, that God is not in control, that He no longer loves them for whatever reason. Not true. Trouble, calamity, persecution, hunger, cold, danger and death happen because we live in a sinful world, not because God no longer loves us. This goes back to God’s sovereignty and what I said earlier. God loves us so much that He will allow troubles and struggles and trials to help shape us. Someone the other night at small groups used the analogy of sandpaper on a block of wood. Our trials and troubles are the sandpaper that God uses to smooth the rough places and knots out of us.

Paul emphasizes his point when he tells us, “No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.”(v 37) The New International Version translates that same verse this way: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” With those three words, Paul paints the picture of a soldier in armor at the end of a battle who is not just elated that they won the battle, but has their sword raised in victory, shouting their joy to the heavens that the enemy is defeated.

The next verse in our passage has another word that jumps out at us: nothing. Normally, when you think of the word nothing, it’s in a negative way. But Paul doesn’t see it that way. He uses it to tell us what can separate us from God’s love. Nothing. Not death or life. Not a bad economy or a good economy. Not our trials or our blessings. Not a spouse dealing with an illness or the birth of your first grandchild. Not anything bad or anything good. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. Not even the bonds of humanity. He broke down that barrier when He became one of us in the person of Jesus. Not even our sin. He broke down that barrier when He went to the cross as our sacrifice. And not even eternity. He broke down that barrier when He rose from the dead.

Paul knew this. He was convinced of it. He spent most of his life trying to convince others of it. In our passage today, it was the Roman church he was initially trying to convince. Because we have Bibles in our hands, his words are there in black and white to try to convince us. “And I am convinced,” he tells us, “that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”(vv 38, 39)[i]

Paul has offered us the evidence. Because God loves us, He is in control. Because He loves us, He is on our side. Because He loves us, He is always with us. What comfort is there in knowing this, that no matter what situations we find ourselves in, no matter what accusations are thrown at us, no matter what trials we go through, God loves us. Paul believed it. Millions since have read his words and believed it. Do you believe it?


[i] Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.