More than Conquerors

More than Conquerors

Romans 8:31-39

Paul has spun out a long theological argument, stating that if we focus on life in the Spirit rather than the life of the flesh we will be “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”  What a promise!  This is the legal language of a last will and testament.  We will be remembered in God’s will.  (Yes, I know:  God is not going to die—but no metaphor is perfect.)  Our future reward is secure:  life eternal with God and fellowship with Jesus Christ.

When we read the next verses, those in today’s passage, there seems to have been some objection raised.  It sounds as if someone said, “How secure is this promise?  What if someone or something gets in the way and messes things up?  Isn’t it possible we could lose our inheritance?  After all, wills can be challenged.”

Paul answers firmly:  “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  This is the God who created us.  This is the God who sent Jesus Christ, God’s own Son—“gave him up for us all” is how Paul puts it.  This same Jesus Christ, who died for us and was raised from the dead, stands as advocate for us.  If God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son are for us, who will be able to stand against them?  Our future—our inheritance—is secure.

Paul then asks:  “ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”  Two verses later he answers the question:  “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.”

It’s difficult to imagine a more affirmative statement.  Paul doesn’t leave much out.  While the list in his answer doesn’t exactly parallel the list in his question, we get the idea.  Nothing nor no one will be able to separate us from God!  Paul left out only one possibility—ourselves.

Remember the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7)?  We’re not told how the sheep got lost, but with what we know about sheep we can figure it out.  Sheep aren’t very smart, and when they’re concentrating on eating, they forget everything else.  Imagine for a moment that you’re a sheep, feeding on some delicious grass on the hillside.  “Here’s a great tuft; and over there, there’s another; and there!  There!  Look at that!  A whole lot of tasty grass!  And I have it all to myself.  No one else has found it.”  You wander from one patch of grass to another, and another, and another, until—where did everyone go?

Suddenly you realize it’s getting late, and you can’t see the shepherd or the other sheep, and you’ve wandered into a grove of trees, and—you’re lost!  How will you get home?  There are no signposts or familiar landmarks to guide you back.  What do you do now?

Just so we can wander away from God.  It has happened to me, and I’m sure it has happened to someone you know—perhaps even yourself.  Our lack of attention to God may cause us to grow apart from God.  Sometimes we wander far enough away that we can’t find the way back.

Thank heavens God doesn’t give up on us.  Like the good shepherd, God comes looking.  We may not know the way home, but God can find us and bring us back—back to the fold and safety.  We have the assurance that God keeps looking, and calling our name, just as the shepherd calls the name of the lost sheep, waiting to hear a response.

Can anything separate us from the love of God?  No!  Even if we wander from God’s presence, God calls us back, searching until we return, conquering all obstacles with God’s help.