is mine, which remains standing for the New Testament reading, which comes from the epistle to the Romans, Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, and we'll read the last nine verses of Romans chapter 8, starting at verse 31. I don't see the page number here, but Romans 8, starting at verse 31, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure 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. Please be seated. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Your word is truth. We ask, Lord, for the help of the Holy Spirit to understand it. and then to share in this comfort that the Apostle Paul here gives us in your holy inspired word. We ask, Lord, that the Spirit will work in our hearts, open our ears, open our eyes to behold wonderful things in your law. Sanctify us by your truth. Your word is truth. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. The title of this message is Separation Anxiety. And that's a real thing. Example, a family goes to the park for a picnic. A little child drifts away and disappears. And of course, the parents are frantic. The child gets scared. Hopefully, they're reunited. And this happens with adults. Perhaps a elderly member of a family, very forgetful, wanders off and is gone for several hours. Maybe even the police have to be called to find the person and bring that person back. And I'll just tell you an experience I had. My wife and I were in a very, very large department store in Japan. I think it was four stories, four floors. And somehow I got disconnected from her. And I looked, and I searched. This was before cell phones. And finally, out of desperation, I went to the department store, and I said, would you please broadcast an announcement? Mrs. Van Dam, please come and retrieve your lost husband. But there is separation anxiety also in our spiritual lives. Maybe your spiritual life feels kind of dry, like God has turned his back on you. He's not hearing you. Or maybe worse, you've denied being a disciple of Jesus publicly three times with oaths and cursing. We know this happened. And then you come to your senses and you realize, have I just destroyed my relationship with the Lord Jesus? Or maybe you've committed adultery with the wife of another man. And then you arranged for that man, the husband, to be intentionally killed in battle. And this has happened. And you ask the question, has the door to heaven slammed shut at that point? So Paul addresses this question. Can we have some kind of assurance of faith? Can we lose it all, drop out of grace, and just totally lose our salvation? And I don't want you to worry. I'll give you the answer right now. The answer is no. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, the way that Paul develops this is by means of some questions. Let me just say that some people avoid the Book of Romans. They think it's too doctrinal, too theological. But the theology in this book has many, many practical and precious promises for us. Several months ago, an email was circulated throughout the denomination. informing us that the wife of a certain minister, teaches at a seminary, was in the last days of her life and likely to depart shortly. And the email also said that she and her husband had just finished reading the epistle to the Romans, which was a real favorite of hers. Many, many exceeding great and precious promises in this book. No question about it. There was a famous Welsh preacher, Martin Lloyd-Jones, who wrote a commentary on Romans, 14 volumes, 14 volumes commentary on Romans, consisting of 366 sermons that he preached over the span of 12 years. And two of those 14 volumes were just totally only on chapter 8, which is a real high point within this epistle. Now, there's 39 verses in Romans chapter 8. He preached 75 sermons on Romans chapter 8. My mathematical mind says that's about two sermons for every verse. We're going to not do quite that this morning. But what he's doing here within chapter 8 is he's building a line of reasoning step by step. And finally, we get to these last nine verses. And you may have noticed as we read this, a number of these statements here in these verses end with a question mark. And there's seven of them. But what I'm going to say is there's a set, a main set of five questions by which Paul makes his argument and concludes that there is no separation anxiety for Christians. So we've gone from seven to five. Well, if you look at verse 35, those two questions are actually part of the same one and the same inquiry. He asked the question, and the answer is another question. So that's one. And then verse 31, what then shall we say to these things? That question is not part of the argument. It's really a transition. It's a literary device that Paul uses to basically say, OK, on the basis of what has been taught, let's reach a conclusion. And he says the same thing in chapter 4, verse 1, chapter 6, verse 1, chapter 6, verse 15, and chapter 7, verse 7. What then shall we say to these things? So as you're reading through the epistle to the Romans, just look out for these markers that indicate a transition. At this point, stop, take a breath, draw a conclusion, which is what we are going to do. We're going to look at each of these five major main questions one by one and see how this is the case. So the first one comes in verse 31, the second part of verse 31. If God is for us, who can be against us? And looking at that question, an English teacher would say, well, this is a rhetorical question. Rhetorical question is the kind of question that, once you've asked it, you know the answer already. The answer is obvious. In fact, Paul does not give an answer. He asks the question. The answer is obvious. And in fact, it's obvious because, as part of the question, he starts by saying, if God is for us. God being for us, well, who can be against us? And the answer is obvious. Now, if God is for us, I don't want this word to suggest to you that there's some doubt whether God is for us. In this context, the word means because God is for us. So if you believe in Jesus Christ, God is for you. Because God is for you, who can be against you? Nobody is the answer. But what if you asked only part of the question? What if you just asked the second part of the question, who can be against us? Oh, my. A whole barrage of responses comes out. The unbelieving world hates Christianity. Indwelling sin in my heart is an adversary. The devil prowls about seeking whom to devour. Death, defeated but still not destroyed, is an opponent. And we'll see later in verse 35 a whole list of things, tribulation, distress, famine, et cetera, et cetera. These things are all against us. So if you drop that first part, oh yes, there are many adversaries. But if God is for us, then the answer is obvious. God is only for you if you are in Jesus Christ. If you rest and receive and rest upon Jesus for alone for salvation, then you are in Christ and God is for you. If not, the worst thing that can be against you is God himself. And that is terrifying. So I urge you, be in Jesus Christ. That was question number one. Question number two, verse 32, He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Again, a rhetorical question. These are all rhetorical questions. There's no answer, because the answer is basically contained within the question. And as we look at the question, this should remind us of something. There's some very important verbs here. He, God, did not spare his own son. And that should ring a little bell in your memory and bring you all the way back to Genesis chapter 22. Let me just give you the context there. Abraham and Sarah are old. They're very old. And yet God has promised that they'll have a child, a son. And they wait, and they wait, and nothing happens. And finally, Abraham is 100 years old. Sarah, I think, is 99. And they have a miracle baby, Isaac. And they love this child. But in Genesis 22, God comes to Abraham and says, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love. Go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as an offering. What did Abraham think? I don't know, but he obeyed. Hebrews 11 tells us that God, he considered, Abraham considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. So off they go on this sad task, they come to Mount Moriah, they go up the mountain, they build a stone altar, Isaac is bound, laid on the altar, Abraham picks up the knife, and God stops it. At that point, he says, now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld, not withheld, not spared, same words, your son, your only son from me. And then God provided a ram that happened to be trapped in the thicket as a substitutionary offering at that point. And what Abraham saw there was a prophetic picture of something that would happen years and years and years later, when God would not spare his only son on the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ. God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. Gave him up. If you read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, every one of them says Judas Iscariot, the traitor, gave Jesus up to death. And they say that the Jewish religious leaders gave Jesus over to death. They say that Pontius Pilate handed Jesus over to death, but Peter, at Pentecost, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, preached and made this statement. He said, Jesus was delivered up, handed over, given over, according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God. And so there's this, I ran across this interesting statement by Octavius Winslow, I think he's a Puritan. Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas for money, not Pilate for fear, not the Jews for envy, but the Father for love. God spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. And having given us the greatest, the costliest, the most precious thing in the universe to Him, His only Son, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, He will not lack in providing us with whatever we need in this life to serve Him. So Paul is arguing from the greater, the gift of Jesus, to the lesser, whatever we need. So that's question number two. Question number three, in verse 33, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. So here, the associated gospel truth that makes this a rhetorical question is stated separately right after the question itself. But you see this the way it's framed. Who shall bring any charge? That's legal language. You see a courtroom scene, a prosecutor bringing an accusation. And who brings accusations against us? Many people, starting with myself. My conscience accuses me. Yeah, I put up a nice front for other people to see, but inwardly, I know my thoughts of hatred and anger and lying and envy and so forth. My conscience accuses me. Other people accuse Christians. Oh, he says he's a Christian, but look at what he says, look at what he does. And Satan, of course, his very name means accuser, the great accuser of our brothers who accuses them day and night before God. It's Revelation 12, verse 10. Remember how Satan presented himself before God. This is the book of Job and accused Job. Oh, he's not such a wonderful guy. Just let me at him for a little while. He'll curse you, God. And of course, it didn't work out that way. The Lord supported him. And in the book of Zechariah, which is almost at the end of the Old Testament, in chapter 3, there is a vision of Joshua the high priest standing there with filthy clothes. And Satan is pointing the finger at him and accusing him. And the Lord steps in and rebukes Satan, gets rid of those filthy clothing, brings in new clean garments for Joshua, and takes away his iniquity, which is what this whole thing symbolizes. It's God who protects us. Now, bringing a charge. So we're in a courtroom, and there's a prosecutor. And you look up, and you see who the judge is. The judge is God himself. This is terrifying, because God knows everything. Everything that we've done and everything that we've thought and intended, it's open and exposed. Hebrews 9, it is appointed for man to die once and then to face judgment. And we're not going to be able to avoid this. We're not going to be able to avoid judgment. God is our judge. We're not going to be able to fool him. He knows too much. But Paul brings in two truths, two gospel truths that save the day. First of all, verse 33, who shall bring any charge against? God's elect. These are people that God Himself chose. And that terminology brings us back a few verses to verse 28, this famous, famous verse. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to His purpose, those are the chosen ones, the elect. not because of any goodness in me, purely the grace of God. And those people he foreknew, he predestined, this is verse 29, and he called, and he justified, and he glorified them. And against such persons, no charge can be sustained. Because we are standing before God the judge, but amazingly, God the judge has already acquitted us. You're justified. It is God who justifies. And he acquits us because he sees here the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who stepped into our place and substituted for us and took our sin and paid for our sin. We, if we're in a court of law and we're the accused, and a charge is brought against us, and there is the possibility that a verdict could be rendered that goes against us, and there is a verdict of condemnation, we need a lawyer, a good lawyer. And one of the commentaries said that when you go into court and there's a law case and it goes against you, then the lawyer will appeal to the next higher court, maybe going all the way up to the Supreme Court if they want to hear it, And Dr. Boyce said, lawyers appeal verdicts to higher courts. But the court of God is the Supreme Court of all Supreme Courts. No one can challenge God's judgment. He's acquitted you. That's it. Final. But I'll say this, don't think you can go into the day of judgment and stand before God and try to justify yourself on your own supposedly good works. That will just utterly fail. It is God who justifies on the basis of Jesus' work. Question number four, we're moving right along. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. So again, legal terminology, condemn. Bring a charge, condemnation, that's the verdict. And as I said, we need an attorney. Now, I know in Spanish the word for lawyer is avocado. OK, thank you. Which is very close to the English word advocate. And in fact, praise God, the Bible tells us we have an advocate, a lawyer, an attorney for us. In fact, not one, but two. Two. In the upper room discourse, which we'll be looking at during the adult education hour, John chapter 14, again in John chapter 15, again in John chapter 16, he told his disciples, I am sending the Holy Spirit to you to be your advocate. And depending on the translation you have, it might be your helper, your comforter, your counselor. It's all the same Greek word, which means somebody who's called to come alongside and help. If I'm in a tough situation, I certainly appreciate you brothers and sisters coming alongside and giving a strong, helping hand. This is fantastic. This was an interesting statement from one of the commentaries, Dr. Boyce. This is a picture of a divine law firm with two branch offices. One in heaven, that's Jesus pleading for us, and one on earth, that's the Holy Spirit praying for us. Amen. Now the answer to this question, who is to condemn, there's a four-part answer. Paul likes these lists. I mean, he's really thought about these things. And so he gives four reasons why there is no condemnation for those who are justified and acquitted. And reason number one, Christ Jesus is the one who died. He died in our place. He paid the price. He became sin for us sinful people that we might become right with God. And this is a glorious truth. It is the definitive event in all of human history. And we never get tired of celebrating this. I love to tell the story. It will be my theme and glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. But then Paul continues, Christ is the one who died. More than that, who was raised. So the death of Jesus on the cross was for our atonement. And his resurrection is a demonstration. It's proof that God accepted that. And then Paul goes on. He sat down. He is at the right hand of God. Died, raised at the right hand of God. So we know that after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples, a number of other people in various contexts. And then 40 days after his resurrection, He was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. Now, when you sit down, that generally means you've finished your work. And in fact, Hebrews chapter 10 presents a contrast between the Jewish priests who were always standing in service and offering many same animal sacrifices over and over and over. And the contrast that Hebrews makes is with Christ, who offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins and then sat down at the right hand of God. The right hand of God is the place of honor, exaltation, power, and authority. And lastly, At the right hand of God, Jesus is interceding for us. So this goes back to his role as our advocate. Satan brings an accusation. Just like against Job, he accuses us. And there are many things to accuse us, but Jesus defends us and says, look, here is my shed blood. And he intercedes for us. He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he ever lives to make intercession. But also, as we come to him in congregational prayer, in your individual prayers, in your family prayers with your needs, and your problems, and your issues, he listens. He hears. And he brings those things to his Father. And we have this promise that my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. So now we come to the last of the five questions, verse 35. And we've been climbing the rungs of a ladder, and now we're at the top. This is the climax. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? This is really the question that's been in the back of our minds all along. Can we lose salvation? And Paul gives us the answer, no. But first he gives us a list. So he asks the question in verse 35, and then he answers that question with another question, so to speak. Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, And he says, no, in all of these things, we will not be separated from the love of Christ. Now, you could preach a sermon on each of these things in this list. You might even add items to this list. And that's fine. There are many things. But notice that Paul constructed this list with seven items. And as you read through scripture, you probably know that there are some numbers that have special significance. Three, Trinity, seven, days of the week, the Sabbatarian year, Israelites marched around Jericho seven times, the seventh full spirit of God, and so forth. It means completeness. And of course, 10 and 12 are also significant numbers. But here we have a list of seven. And so maybe Paul is quietly suggesting completely nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not even these seven things. Paul himself had experienced all of them. except maybe the sword, which means to be martyred. And in the early church, Stephen was the first martyr. Then the apostle James was martyr number two. Peter was getting set up to be martyr number three, but the angel came into the prison at night and took him away. Paul was almost a martyr. He was stoned. And people left him for dead, but he survived. And you can read in 2 Corinthians 11 a little summary of all the hardships that he had, beatings, the stoning, shipwrecks, persecution. Sometime after he wrote this epistle of Romans, he was murdered by the very wicked and cruel Roman emperor Nero. But Paul concludes, nothing in this list can separate us from the love of Christ. Verse 37, it starts with this little word, no. And you can just imagine Paul, who's dictating this letter to his friend Tertius, at this point, he hits the table several times. No, no, no, nothing can separate us. Now, do you know any preachers who like to pound the pulpit? Yeah, OK. I remember one guest preacher at our church back in Texas years back. And he did this. And at one point in that sermon, for emphasis, he hit the pulpit so hard that the water for him to drink jumped right out of the glass and went back in. Paul is pounding the pulpit, so to speak. In all these things, we are more than conquerors. Now, in Greek, that's one word. And the main part of that word relates to the name Nike, which is the name of the Greek mythological goddess of victory, Nike. And there's a prefix, hypo, which means super. So today, we might wear Nike athletic shoes if you want to try to be victorious in sports, get an Olympic medal or something like that. Christians run the race of life. And 1 Peter 5 tells us, we will be given a crown of glory that does not fade away. And yet in heaven, Revelation tells us, in heaven, we're going to cast those crowns before the throne of God. Because we are super victorious. We are more than conquerors. At this point, Paul could stop. He's made his point. But he adds two more verses. And notice he changes from we, us, we, us to first-person pronouns, singular. I am sure. This is Paul's personal testimony. I am totally convinced. Here's another list. We've had, so far, five questions, four reasons why no condemnation, seven things that cannot separate us. And now he gives us a list of 10. But he varies the formulation a little bit. It comes in pairs, not death or life, not angels or rulers, not things present or things to come, not powers, single. not height or depth, nor anything else in all creation. So we've had time. We've had space. We've had death, life, principalities, and powers. And then Paul basically says, you don't have to add anything to this list, nothing else in all creation. Now, apart from God, everything has been created, which means nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." I want to point out how important those last little words are, in Christ Jesus our Lord. In 1 John there's a famous verse, God is love. And we understand what that means. But if you rip that out of context, like many people do, and they say, oh, God is so loving that anything and everything is OK. You can do whatever you want. That's nonsense. If you want to know what it means that God is love and loves us, look at the death of Jesus on the cross, the horrible death of Jesus on the cross. Then you will know how God loves us, why God loves us, and how much. God loves us only in Christ Jesus our Lord. So again, be very sure you are in Christ. So this passage started, what then shall we say to these things? Let's make that personal. What then do you say to these things? And I want each and every one of us to say, Jesus is my Savior. And therefore, nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, my Lord. Let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you for this tremendous gospel promise. No separation anxiety, assurance of faith, perseverance of the saints, actually perseverance of you, oh Lord, with us all for Jesus Christ. And we pray that we would not take this promise, this truth, as a excuse for doing whatever we want, but instead that we would be so edified and encouraged by this truth that we would want to serve you and obey you and enjoy you forever. And so, Lord, encourage us to live holy lives of thankful obedience to you, our Heavenly Father. We pray this in the name of the one who loved us and gave himself for us.