Romans 8:31-39 - Nothing separates us from the love of God

Three little words. Three little words that change everything. Three little words that mean a lot. Three little words that are sometimes hard to say. Three little words that are sometimes hard to hear. Three little words. I love you.

These words change relationships. They bring dating relationships to the next level. They speak of commitment. There is a depth of feeling expressed in these words. Sometimes, they create fear. Sometimes, hearing those words feels suffocating. Hearing them calls for a commitment on our part that we’re not willing to make. The words make us want to run.

But at other times, in other relationships, they are the words we love to hear. They are the words we need to hear. Arriving home on a cruddy day and hearing "I love you" can make you forget a lot of the rotten stuff that happened. Facing a tough choice, dealing with a fearful situation, and hearing those words can calm the nerves and give us courage. Those three words have power.

And sometimes, when we don’t hear the words, it hurts. It makes us doubt ourselves. It sends us looking in all the wrong places for the love that we crave. We wonder why that person who is supposed to love us, can’t tell us that they love us. We grow afraid. We may grow angry. Those three words can build a relationship strong. And the absence of those three words can tear a relationship apart.

Now, sometimes as we talk about love, we can have different reactions. Some of us want to hear about love, because we see it as so important, so vital for life. But some of us roll our eyes and are thinking that we already hear enough about love. Everybody’s singing about it on the radio, everybody’s talking about it on TV. We’ve heard enough about love.

And especially when all this talk about love distorts how we understand God’s love. We hear so much about the romantic kind of love, the sappy kind, the kind that lasts for a night, the kind of love based simply on emotion, that God’s love becomes warped, twisted. The world’s misuse of love has affected our understanding of God’s love.

But it’s supposed to be the other way around. Our understanding of God’s love is supposed to affect us. Knowing God’s love is supposed to change us. Hearing those three words, from God Almighty, is supposed to move us to be holy, to obey, to trust.

So, over the next few weeks, we’re going to hear God talk to us about love, from His word. And as we hear Him speak, some of the distortions are going to fall away. We’re going to hear what it actually means for God to love us, and it’s not going to be the sappy kind of love we often think about. Today and next week, we’ll hear about God’s love for us. And the two weeks following, we’ll hear about our love for God. Thy love to me and more love to thee.

So, if our eyes are rolling and our defenses are up, let’s relax, let’s listen, and let’s hear God speak His love to us, in Romans 8. This is one of the most familiar passages of the Bible. You’ve heard plenty of sermons on this text, I’m sure. And yet, we come back, don’t we? We come back to hear the words again. In a marriage, it’s not enough to say "I love you" on the wedding day, and then go for the next 50 years, with no mention. It wouldn’t even be healthy to go for a year without saying, without hearing those words.

And so, we need to hear them, and we need to hear them again, and again, so that they soak in. When we don’t hear them, when we don’t remember them, we become confused. We think we have to earn God’s love, somehow, with the nice things we do and the nice things we say and the nice people we are. And because God is so big and holy, that means we have to be really nice, we have to be really good to get His love.

When, all along, He’s been loving us first. Paul has been talking about this for the entire book of Romans, and especially in the first part of chapter 8. We’ve heard, verse 1:

And verse 16:

And verse 26:

So, having heard all of this, verse 31:

Are we going to say, "Aw, I’ve heard too much about all this love stuff." Or, "that’s all fine and dandy, but I don’t really buy this. I still need to convince God to love me." Is that how we respond? Or are we going to say, with verse 31:

Remember how hearing those three words at the end of a lousy day can lighten any load? Then how about hearing them from God? If the boss just has it in for you, what do you say in response? If God is for you, who can be against you? If you’re not sure what decision to make about your business, about an investment, about a career, about anything, how do you answer? If God is for you, what kind of confusion can be against you? If the doctor has given you the awful news from the report, he’s said the word cancer, or heart disease, or leukemia, what do we say in response to that? If God is for you, what kind of illness can be against you?

Let’s understand. God is for you , if you have accepted His love. And that means accepting His Son. Accepting lesser expressions of His love, like assurance and healing and strength and comfort won’t work unless we accept His most shocking example of love, His own Son dying. But if this has sunk in that His Son died for you, if you’ve come to accept that as fact, if you’ve grounded your life in that fact, then what, then who could be against you? Verse 32:

Even if the devil, that old nasty accuser, comes along, and you know the ammunition he has. He has our files, our records, the list of all the nasty things that we’ve done. And we’ve done them, haven’t we? Some of the stuff makes us kind of sick to our stomach just to think about it, and then when the devil comes and starts pointing them out to us, it’s just bad. We want to run and hide, but how do you hide from yourself and your past and your thoughts?

How do you hide? You listen to God speak His love again. Listen, the devil doesn’t have the right to bring charges against you. He’s more guilty than you are, anyway. Who is he to point out evil? He IS evil. No, but there is one who can bring charges. There is One who is perfect, and He can condemn us. Verse 33:

It’s God who can charge us with our guilt, but it’s also God who clears away all the guilt, who justifies. It’s Jesus who can point at our lustful thoughts and glances with our eyes, at the words of judgment and gossip that we speak, at the greedy swipes of the credit card, and He can condemn us. But He’s also the one who died for us, more than that ,who came back to life for us, more than that, who is interceding right now for us, praying for us, talking to God about us.

So, if the devil can’t accuse you, and the Lord won’t accuse, then verse 35:

It’s kind of a rhetorical question after all of this assurance. If God, the only one who can condemn, instead took the condemnation, then what else is there.

Except, there’s a lot of things that LOOK like they come between us and God’s love. We may understand that God loves us. We may get it. But there’s so much that happens in our lives that seems to push God’s love far away, like He’s loving us from a distance, and we’re in the mess right here and right now. God still loves us, but His love is so far away.

And Paul makes a list here. You think that nothing can move God’s love away from us? How about

Because we know the trouble we have. Every single one of us right here can talk about heart aches and wishes and crushed hopes. And God’s love sure seems distant then. And how about persecution. We’re not openly persecuted in our country, but there’s a subtle mockery of Christians, especially Christians who really want to serve Christ. We have the eye-rolling, the condescension, insulting smiles at our superstitious ignorance. How does a God who loves us allow us to put up with all this? And even worse, there are Christians who are hungry, who are struggling to pay the bills, and it doesn’t matter how much work they do, they can’t get ahead. And even worse, Christians are being killed, because they are Christians. Paul writes, in verse 36:

And that describes life for a lot of Christians today. So, don’t these things remove us from the power, the security of God’s love?

Verse 37:

Not only do we survive the trouble and hardship, the persecution and famine, the danger and sword, not only do we squeeze by…we thrive. These trials not only fall away, they also turn to our good, for those who love God.

But the conquering isn’t ours. It’s not because we held on, we kept the faith, we looked on the bright side. No, we are more than conquerors because of God’s love. You want to know how to make it through? By being loved. Not you loving God. God loving you. You sitting there, through the pain and grief, being loved by God. That’s the way through.

Paul knows this. He speaks from experience, He’s been through the pain, which qualifies Him to say:

The uncertainty of what happens in death can strike fear in our hearts, but it can’t separate us from the love of God. The confusing dilemmas of life, the daily burdens of having to get up again may be tiring, but they won’t separate us from the love of God. Angels are good. They’re powerful. They take care of us. But they can be distracting. We can want the presence of angels more than the presence of the Lord. But not even angels can separate us from God’s love. Not demons, with their slick temptations. Not the frustrations of the presence, not the fears of the future can move us an inch out of God’s love.

Not powers. These are rulers in the spiritual world. Princes of darkness. And if that gives you a chill of fear, then hear this again, not any powers are able to separate us from the love of God. They’re too weak and God’s love is too strong.

And if nothing in the spiritual world can remove God’s love, nothing in the physical world can either. After all, Psalm 139:8 says:

So neither height nor depth can erase God’s love. And just in case you can think of something Paul hasn’t mentioned, something that you think makes God’s love for you fade, Paul covers everything when he says that nothing

Hear this. I know you know this, but hear this again. Jesus died for you. Jesus allowed nails to placed against His wrists and have them pounded through. Jesus allowed a spear go to up into His heart. He allowed this for one reason, and only one reason. Because He loves. I know, you might be squirming, hearing those words. But I’m glad you’re hearing them. Without them, then the present and the future and the heights and the depths and angels and demons and life and especially death are going to really throw you for a loop.

But you’re hearing those words from God. I love you. And if we get uncomfortable with them and dodge them, they’ll be there waiting when we come back. I love you. And when we think we’re not worthy, we’ll hear them again. I love you. Nothing can change that. Listen, accept, enjoy, rest in those three little words God keeps speaking to you: I…love…you.