Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Romans 8:35-39
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  February 18, 2024

I doubt that Mary Wells had any clue where her song, “My Guy,” would go when she recorded it back in 1964. Perhaps she thought it would make it to the top of the charts in 1964, which it did. But I doubt she thought it would be re-recorded two other times and have it go near the top of the charts again. And I really highly doubt that she ever imagined that in 1992, changing one little word in her song would make it more popular than it had ever been before.

You see, in 1992, “My Guy,” was changed to “My God,” in the 1992 Golden Globe nominated film, Sister Act. I find it hard to believe that Mary Wells ever imagined a chorus of nuns led by a Las Vegas headliner would be singing her song about God. Yet, there they were! So why is this relevant to us? Just listen to a few of the modified lines: Nothing you could say could tear me away from my God. Nothing you could do, ‘cause I’m stuck like glue to my God. I’m sticking to my God like a stamp to a letter. Like birds of a feather, we stick together. I’m tellin’ you from the start, I can’t be torn apart from my God.

Sounds an awful lot like what Paul has to say to us in Romans chapter 8, doesn’t it? But is it true? As we rethink religion during these Sundays in Lent, that question is there: Can trials, and tests, and temptations separate us from God or are we truly inseparable?

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Just as it is written: For your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” Obviously, it’s not wrong or foolish of us to ask the question, “Are we inseparable from God?” Paul asks it here. And it’s a question that all of us have asked from time to time, perhaps most often at the difficult moments in our lives. This question is really no different than people asking, “Why does GOd let bad things happen to good people,” or, “If God truly loves us, then why is there so much pain in the world?” Almost everyone has known a time when they felt alone, when they felt separated from God’s love, God’s presence. Paul certainly did. Paul’s life before he became an apostle was a race away from God. As Paul ran away from God, he tried to take down as many of God’s believers as he could. But it was only after Paul was struck blind on the road to Damascus, only after Jesus had appeared to him in that blinding light that Paul realized he was trying to separate himself from God. Only in the midst of suffering did Paul understand what he was doing.

Are we inseparable from God? Oftentimes, we try to separate ourselves from God. Like Paul, we try to run away from God. Without necessarily realizing it, we run away from God when we twist his Word to fit our sinful desires, our selfish wants and wishes. Trying to justify our sinful behavior with the logic that, “if it feels good, it can’t be wrong,” or “God just wants me to be happy, and this makes me happy,” is just another way of running away from God. 

But when you get right down to it, every sin is illogical. We can’t run away from God. We can’t hide from him. Jonah found that out the hard way, didn’t he? God told Jonah that he wanted him to go to the Assyrian city of Ninecha and preach repentance. But Jonah didn’t want to go, not because he was afraid of the Ninevites, but because he knew God would forgive them when they repented. So Jonah headed for Tarshish, the exact opposite direction of Nineveh. He was on the ship when a terrible storm came up that threatened to sink the ship and the whole crew with it. Jonah realized God was controlling the storm and that the storm would cease if they threw him overboard. The crew didn’t want to, but finally conceded and tossed Jonah into the sea, seemingly to his death. The storm stopped immediately, but Jonah didn’t die. He was swallowed by a great fish. He spent three days in the belly of that fish. During that time, Jonah came to realize his folly. He couldn’t run away from God. And friends, neither can we. But there’s one more important note to take away from Jonah’s story. Even while he was trying to run away, God provided for Jonah. God preserved his life in that fish even when Jonah clearly didn’t deserve it. God’s care for us and this world will never leave us! Listen again to what Paul says.

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Just as it is written: For your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” Paul here lists just a sampling of things people face in this world. Danger and sword are a reality for many Christians throughout the world. We all face trials and tests and temptations. Paul’s quote of Psalm 44 foreshadows Jesus’ promise to us: “People will have you because of me.” Can these problems separate us from the love of Christ? Can these problems rip us out of God’s hands? 

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” As parents, do you ever find yourselves encouraging your children as they face a challenging test or a difficult situation by saying, “You’ll get through it,” or “You’ll survive?” That’s not what Paul says to us here. Not only does Paul say we’ll survive the trials and the tests and the temptations, the dangers that face us. Paul says that we will conquer them. But not just conquer them, we will be super conquerors. We don’t just squeak by, we don’t just make it, barely. We win in a landslide. We blow away the competition. We totally dominate in every way! How is this possible? “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” 

Notice what Paul says! “Him who loved us!” We conquer, check that, we super-conquer not because we loved God, but because God loved us! The credit doesn’t fall to us, who left to ourselves would fail miserably. No, the credit goes to God. The credit goes to God for loving us when we were unlovable. The credit goes to God for choosing us before the world began. The credit goes to God for providing for our every need, body and soul. The credit goes to God for sending his Son to win the victory over sin, death, and the devil. The credit goes to God for giving us that victory through his gracious gift of faith. God loves us! He wants us to be his own. Nothing can separate us from that love! No possible tragedy or disaster or catastrophe, no matter how damaging we might perceive it to be, can separate us from God’s love. This means that even when I don’t feel loved, even when I feel unloveable, even when I don’t deserve to be loved, those feelings don’t separate you from God’s love for a second. If you ever doubt it, look to the cross. That simple shape represents God’s love for you, a love that will hold up under every effort to separate us from God. It will shield you from all of the devil’s attempts to have you question God’s love. It will support you from anything in the world that would try to isolate us from God’s love. Why? Because there, on that cross, our Savior bled and died. There, he loved us!

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” All of those things in Paul’s list here, this pairing of opposites, are things that we face in this life. And when you really look at them, they are out of our control. Just because we are dearly loved, dearly protected children of God doesn’t mean that we will be shielded from suffering, illness, sadness, or death in this earthly life. God’s love is behind all of those events! God uses hardships and difficulties and disappointments in his strategy to preserve us in the faith and bring us to glory. But why doesn’t it have to be so hard?

When the astronauts first began to spend longer periods of time in the zero-gravity condition of space, they suffered severe physical problems when they returned to earth. Dizziness, high pulse rates, atrophied muscles, and weakened hearts resulted. Why? At zero-gravity, the muscles of the body began to waste away because there was no resistance. So how did they fix it? They put the astronauts through a vigorous exercise program that had one special feature: a running suit equipped with elastic bands. The suit resisted every move the astronauts made, forcing them to struggle, to exert their strength. The suit helped to maintain the muscle tone.

We may dream of a paradise on earth. We may wish that everything was easy, that life for the believer would be like pie in the sky. But God knows better. The easier our life, the weaker our spiritual fiber, the less equipped we will be to fight against sin and exercise our trust that puts everything completely on God, walking by faith and not by sight. 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Angels and demons are not equal to Christ’s power. No amount of time now or in the future can overcome Christ. No dimension no matter how great can come between us and Jesus. Nothing in all creation, not even death itself can come between you and your Savior’s love. There is no doubt remaining. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ!

Paul has given us a hymn to be sung for the ages. These verses bring out the certainty of the Christian, our certainty. And unlike the spoof, “My God,” Paul reminds us that our confidence is not in ourselves and our ability to stick to God, but in the love of God and his determination to stick with us. This is our story, this is our song! This is the reason to sing praises to God! We are more than conquerors because we are in Christ’s love! Amen.