I've been part of many ministry budget meetings as budgets and expenditures were being detailed. Somebody couldn't resist saying, "Okay! What's the bottom line?" Maybe you've been thinking that over these past couple months, "Okay, Paul, when it comes to hope, what is the bottom line?" Well, this is our bottom line passage. Look there in your 'Order of Worship' at Romans 8:31 and following. This is the ground; this is the foundation; this is the 'says-it-all' passage. This is hope's beginning; this is hope's end.
Hope You Bring to Your Experience
And it's a radical perspective on hope because Paul would teach us that hope is not so much something you get out of your experience, but something that you bring to your experience. You bring an understanding of amazing realities that are true of you because of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ that enable you to live right here, right now, in hope, rather than somehow I look at my experience, and I try to figure out who God is and what He's doing, and I hope that somehow, by figuring it out, and I can come out with hope.
No! No! No! This is God declaring who He is; it's God declaring what He has done, so that, as you face the kinds of things that all of us will face in this world that still is groaning, waiting for redemption, we could have hope. Hope is not so much something you get out of your experience, but hope is something by means of the work of the cross of Jesus Christ that you bring to your experience. Look at verse 31: "What then shall we say to these things?" Paul is saying that what he is now going to say is a response, an application, a tracing out for you the implications of what's gone on before.
What are these things? Well, I would propose, if you look at verses 18 and following, there are two realities that you must embrace if you would be honest about what the Bible says about the here and now. The first one is that you must embrace the fallenness of the world in which you live. Paul is very honest about that; he is honest that the world we live in is not operating the way it's supposed to; it was subjected to futility and to decay. It's like it's in pains of childbirth; the whole world is groaning, waiting for redemption.
Hear this. That surely means that you will face bad, hard, unpredictable things because all things around you are broken in some way; all the things around you are longing, groaning, waiting for redemption. The family doesn't operate the way it was meant to operate; government doesn't operate the way it was meant to operate; your mind doesn't always operate the way it's supposed to operate; friendships don't always operate the way they're supposed to operate. This world is groaning, waiting for redemption.
But there's a second reality that you have been chosen to be part of the unshakable, unstoppable work of redemption. No matter what you're facing, because of God's sovereign grace, His work will be accomplished. Look at that crescendo in verse 30: "And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." God's work in you will be done. Now, what does it mean to hold on to those two realities together, an honest look at a fallen world?
Hope is not about denial; hope is not about sheltering myself from reality; hope is not about playing mental games with myself. When you are denying reality, when you are playing mental games with yourself, we're trying to escape an honest look at what is; you're not doing that because you have hope, you're doing that because you're hopeless. But I don't need to do that because I have been made by God's grace, the object of His unstoppable grace. Now, what does that mean? Look at what Paul says next: "If God is for us, who can be against us?"
God's operation of grace in my life means God is for me. Say that to yourself. "God is for me. God is for me. God is for me." What an amazing thing. There is no more beautiful, no more stunning reality in your life then you and I, given who we are, given what we deserve, that we could say, "God Almighty is for us." What a miracle. How amazing is that, that reality that I could never achieve, I could never deserve, I could never earn His favor? By grace, God is for me, not just some time in the future, (Are you ready for this?) right here, right now.
This is a 'now' passage. Beginning with verse 18, Paul turns to the here and now, to the realities that we're facing in the here and now. He wants to say to all of us, "Don't you understand, because of sovereign grace, God is for you in the here and now." Hear me! It won't always look that way. You won't always understand that in the particular details of your life. That's why you must bring these truths as the lens that you look through to interpret your life because, if you start with circumstances, again and again, you will conclude God isn't for you.
Start With Truth
Hear me! You cannot start with your circumstances; you must start with truth. Truth is meant to interpret your circumstances. That's hard for us. This is a no exception declaration. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" is that rhetorical question that says, "No one!" Now, maybe you think, "Wait, Paul, there are all kinds of things against me. Circumstances seem to be against me; my friends are sometimes against me; my family is against me at times; my boss is against me; my professors are against me.
What does he mean?" Well, he is not arguing that we won't have opposition. The passage clearly goes on to talk about the kinds of things that we will face. What he means is, 'successfully against you,' nothing in your life will ever be able to stand in the way of the unalterable purpose of God on your behalf. And then he makes his bottom line argument, really the epicenter of this passage. "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?"
Do you get the argument? If God would do this huge, miraculous thing in marching by His sovereign control, all of history toward this moment when Jesus would come, live a perfect life, die that cruel death, carrying our sins upon Him, if God would do that huge thing, would He not then also deliver all the little things that would follow? It would make no sense for God to send His Son to suffer and die on your behalf and then to somehow, some way, abandon you in your hour of need. That would make no sense at all.
That would be absolute irrationality. So, Paul is arguing, if God didn't spare His Son, then will He not deliver all the things that you need? Will He not graciously give us all things? Now, be careful here. "By all things," He does not mean all the things that are on your wish list, all the things that you could ever dream, all the things that you could want, all the things that would make your little kingdom work the way you would like it to work, all things that would make you comfortable and make life pleasurable, and make life easy.
That's not this promise. He promises everything you need to be what God has ordained for you to be, and called for you to be, and to do. He will deliver to you in Christ; He will give you everything you need. Parents, do you believe that? Do you believe the cross guarantees that, as a parent, God will deliver to you what you need to do that thing to which He has called you? Do you believe that? Husbands, look at me. Do you believe that promise reaches into your marriage that God has given you in Christ, and will continue to give you in Christ, everything you need to love your wife as Christ loved the church?
Do you believe that? Wives, look at me. Do you believe that, as you live day after day, and week after week, and month after month, and year after year, with your husband, that God will supply to you everything you need to do that thing that He has called for you to do? What do you tell yourself, wives, on that day where your husband is just having a bad day, or he is not thinking the way he is supposed to think; he's not acting the way he is supposed to act? He is irritable and impatient and unloving.
What are you telling yourself at that moment? Are you preaching yourself this Gospel at that moment? Are you saying to yourself, "If Jesus gave us His Son, He will not abandon me on this difficult day?" If you're a university student, and you're dealing maybe with temptations, and a dormitory, and a classroom, and friendships there that you've not faced before, and they're seductive, and their attractive, and you want to be accepted? You don't want to be alone; you don't want to be mocked; you don't want to be misunderstood.
What You Need for This Moment
Do you believe that, because of the cross of Jesus Christ, you have what you need for this moment that you're facing? Do you get the implications of what He's saying? Here's the bottom line, the cross of Jesus Christ is your guarantee of hope. In those moments where you have nothing else to grab ahold of, you can't grab ahold of your own wisdom; you can't grab ahold of your own strength; you can't grab ahold of acceptance; you can't grab ahold of comfort; you can't grab a hold of these; you can't grab ahold of success.
Are you still standing because you're standing on the hope that is only found in the cross the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you have hope? Notice where Paul goes next in verse 33: 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. Hope rooted in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ means this, that by the justifying work of Christ, by the fact that He bore your sin, and as the perfect Lamb of God, His righteousness is not given over to your account by the means of that; you are able now to stand before the One who is the judge and be declared as righteous before Him.
The cross of Jesus Christ means that the charges against me have been cancelled. In the court of highest judgment, I am accepted; in the court of highest judgment, I am declared as righteous. Now we live in a world where there are all kinds of accusations against you. Maybe it's the enemy of your soul who assaults you, who says that no way could God accept a person like you, who says, "There, you did it again. You've proven that your faith is nothing." Maybe you're a person who still struggles with the accusations that were made against you in your home of origin, maybe horrible words spoken to you by a mom or a dad that should've never been spoken, that still haunt you.
Maybe it's accusations against yourself, moments where you slide into self-abuse and self-loathing. Maybe it's the accusations of a friend who has deemed you as unworthy and walked away. What a wonderful reality it is to know that, in the one court where it really matters, all accusations against me have been cancelled, and I no longer have to carry all those evil, false accusations against me. I do not have to build my identity on the way others have valued me or the things that circumstances have told me about me.
I do not have to let those words of the past haunt me any longer. I do not have to listen to the evil accusations of the enemy because the Judge, who is the Judge, in Christ, has declared me as righteous. What an amazing truth! And the reality is that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, and He still speaks in my defense as I continue to struggle with sin and temptation. Hope is knowing that in the one place that matters, in the wall chamber of eternity, I have been accepted, and the charges against me have been cancelled.
There's a third thing Paul would say as he speaks hope into our lives in the here and now, that because of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing can separate 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 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.
Hope rests on the eternal love of God in Christ Jesus. Hope rests in the understanding that there's nothing, there is no experience that I will ever face that will separate me from that love, not tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword. Now again, think of your own experience. It's very tempting, in moments of suffering, to think that God is distant, to think that somehow God has turned His back, to think that somehow God doesn't hear, to even think that that thing is a punishment from Him.
Christ Has Borne Your Punishment
And everything that Paul writes in this passage goes in the opposite direction; Christ has borne your punishment. That's why you can stand before God as righteous. And so, you are always the object of God's love in Christ. No matter where you are, no matter what you're experiencing, no matter how powerful it is, you're always the object of God's love. I think I said this months ago, that in that moment on the cross where Christ cries out, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" Christ took our rejection so that we would never see the back of God's head, that God's face would always be toward us, always be toward us in love.
There's no experience that can separate you from that; there's no power or authority that can. "...I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers," no authority can separate you from God's love, no thing in creation, "...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." Hope is believing that, no matter what circumstances tell me, God is for me. Hope is believing that, if God gave me His Son, will He not provide everything that I need?
Hope is believing that. Hope is believing in the court of highest judgment, the charges against me have been cancelled. I do not have to listen to all those false accusations that are made against me. Hope is believing that, no matter what I'm going through between the already and the not yet, nothing can separate me from God's love in Christ Jesus. I would ask you this evening, "Do you have this hope?" Don't answer too quickly. I'm not asking, "Do you understand the theology of this passage?" I'm asking, "On Monday morning, and Tuesday evening, and Wednesday afternoon, when you face something unexpected, when you're listening to an accusation, when a friend has been disloyal, when you face sickness or financial difficulty, when you face the fallenness of your world, do you live in hope?"
Hope that's not rooted in circumstances, hope that's not rooted in your understanding, hope that's not rooted in your wisdom, hope that's not rooted in your success, hope that's not rooted in what's going on around you, hope that's rooted in the Gospel, do you bring this lens to your life so that you're able to have sturdy hope, hope that doesn't pass away? That hope is only ever given as an act of grace. Now, this is a humbling passage because this passage would teach us there's nothing you can do to give yourself this kind of hope.
You can't build this hope for yourself. You have no power to build for yourself unshakable hope. This hope is only ever given by an act of grace by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords through the suffering and death of His Son. Hope, here's the bottom line, is a gift. Hope is a gift. And if you are God's child, (Are you hearing me?) you have been given that gift. Incredibly, God is for you. Amazingly, He has committed covenantally to meet your needs. Beautifully, He has cancelled the charges against you, and covenantally, He is committed to allow nothing to separate you from His love.
Do you live as if you actually believe that? Oh, not just here, when we're singing glorious Christmas hymns infused with hope, but in the brokenness of a groaning world where all of us live every day? If you're God's child, you have been gifted with hope. Again, I want to appeal to one who may be here who doesn't have this hope. I would say to you again, "This passage would argue there is nothing that you can do to build this hope for yourself. This hope is only ever a gift of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to Him. Seek Him, so that you may have this hope as well." Let's pray: Lord, it's an incredible thing that people like us could have any hope at all. We are unworthy of hope. We are too weak and too foolish to manufacture hope for ourselves. And You have come to us in Your grace; You have cancelled the charges against us; You have adopted us into Your family; You have taken us into Your loving arms. And you will allow nothing to separate us from those arms of love. Lord, help us not to look for hope where it can't be found.
What a sad thing it would be to be gifted with this kind of hope and yet to live hopelessly, to live a tentative, panicked, survivalist life, when by Your grace, we've been called to be more than conquerors, to thrive. Lord, give us the wisdom to preach the Gospel to ourselves; remind us of who we are, and remind us of the hope that we have been given by Your grace. Remind us even in those moments where we don't get it right, where we forget who we are, we still have hope because our hope is not rooted in our righteousness, but in Your sovereign grace. Thank you! In Jesus name, Amen.
