1603-06A 1

TIME AND SPACE AND THE LOVE OF GOD

(Romans 8:38-39)

SUBJECT:Living confidently.

F.C.F:How can I live with great confidence?

PROPOSITION:Because of the Lord’s promise, we can live confidently.

INTRODUCTION

A. When I was a child I greatly feared tornados. A twister had struck about a mile from our home, blowing up a neighbor’s shed and snapping thick, highline poles like they were blades of grass. And I slept on the second story of an old frame, farmhouse whose windows rattled in the wind. I recall building with my brothers an “underground fort” of sorts in the straw shed with tunnel entrances and thinking how secure I would feel if I really lived underground—nothing could hurt me. And then I thought about floods and earthquakes.

The only truly secure place on the planet is in the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate us from that love, not tornados or earthquakes or floods. The Apostle Paul invites us to share his absolute confidence in God’s unfailing love: “38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor 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.”

B. We’ve already considered the threat of death, no threat at all, really, but ultimately a friend who delivers us at last firmly and finally into the forever love of God. And life is no threat: not even we can separate ourselves from the love of God because he keeps us safe as his own for the sake of his dear Son. And, while there certainly is a vast world of unseen spirits, some faithful and some fallen, none of them poses any real threat, and neither does any other invisible trouble we may encounter.

C. Paul presses on to exhaust the list of fears we may face, and he extinguishes them one by one until every item is crossed off the list and the list itself is crumpled and tossed to the wind.So let’s continue neutralizing any poser who might assail God’s unfailing love for his people.

We tend to think in terms of four dimensions: time and three dimensional space. Everything we see can be defined in terms of length and width and height, and in terms of the present and the future. The past doesn’t really count because, well, it’s in the past, it’s over. Time and space: let’s follow Paul’s lead and consider time first.

I. WE MUST BE CONFIDENTABOUT THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

A. In the popular fantasy novel, The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is in a riddle contest for his life with the frightful creature Gollum. Each in turn asks a riddle, and the first one stumped loses. And for Bilbo that means, loses his life. So Gollum asks this riddle:

This thing all things devours;

Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;

Gnaws iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal;

Slays kings, ruins town,

And beats high mountains down.

Bilbo cannot think of the answer and in his exasperation pleads for more time. And then he realizes that the answer is…time.

Time is a puzzle for many. Children often cannot wait for the future; adults often dread the future. Circumstances in life can sometimes create such despondency that some choose to flee the present and to forfeit the future by taking their own lives. They are convinced that they cannot bear what is and they cannot face what is to come.

B. In the present, we often live with unfulfilled desires, unrealized dreams, and unrelenting disappointments. As you know, I often put a sermon outline in the bulletin with space to write notes if you so desire. Many years ago on a Christmas morning, I found a bulletin that a choir member had left on a chair in the church basement after the Christmas Day service. It had a single question hand-written on the outline: “Is my life turning out as I expected?”

Actually, this is what we should expect if we have read our Bibles. We know that God created a wonderful world, a true garden paradise of fulfilling and satisfying delights. And we know that by the third chapter in the Bible, our first parents had forfeited that Edenic existence and had brought sin and misery and death into the world. Adam was warned that this fallen age could only offer frustration instead of true fulfillment. And we are still living in a broken world and a dying age. Dissatisfaction, disappointment, and unfulfillment are woven into the very fabric of this wounded creation.

Years ago I was complaining to my college roommate about how complicated life was. He agreed, and then said, “And you know what: it only gets worse!” He was right. I’m not trying to be a downer, but the biblical reality teaches us not to pin our hopes on this world, nor to expect very much out of this life. The sun may come up…tomorrow, but I wouldn’t bet my bottom dollar on…tomorrow. What does the future in this world truly hold for us? Decline, debility, and death. When my grandmother died suddenly years ago, I was working in a nursing home. When I told one of the residents of her death, she asked how my grandmother died. I said, “She went to bed with her hair in curlers on a Saturday night, and woke up in heaven on Sunday morning.” To which the woman replied, “Oh, she was one of the lucky ones.”

C. Beloved, whatever the present and the future holds for you, whatever struggles or fears you may face, please be sure that nothing touches our life that does not pass through God’s fatherly hands first. Nothing confronting us in the present and nothing awaiting us in the future is able separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord—nothing.

And secondly,

II. WE MUST BE CONFIDENTIN THE HEIGHTS AND THE DEPTHS.

A. There is a strong difference of opinion among the scholars as to what Paul intended when he listed “height” and “depth” as factors that we may fear might be able to separate us from the love of God. About half suggest that Paul is being literal here. For the ancients (and for us) there were high places on the earth where few could travel and explore. What’s up there? What strange or troubling forces are there above us, hovering over us? And there are also the deep, dark places as well. What lurks beneath? The word translated “depth” is the
Greek term “bathos” from which we get our word “bath.”

When I was in high school I went on vacation with a friend at a cottage on the lake. The water was clear, and I was delighted to be able to swim out and look below. And in a about 20 feet of water, someone had lashed several poles or beams together in the middle in a criss-cross pattern and sunk them to the bottom with rocks, I think for fish habitat. And I knew this wasn’t true, but there in the murky depths they looked a lot like spiders or octopi…and I didn’t swim out that far any more.

And perhaps Paul is thinking about Psalm 139 which we read earlier: “7Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9If I take the wings of themorning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” Nothing is too high for God, and nothing is so deep that it escapes his gaze.

B. But the other half of the scholars note that these words translated “height” and “depth” refer to the zenith and the horizon and are terms commonly used in astrology. The “depth” was the point just below the horizon from which the stars seemed to ascend to govern and rule our lives.

It may seem incredible, but a surprising number rely on their horoscope to determine their course of events. In the 1980s many were stunned to find that first lady, Nancy Reagan, actually planned her outings and made some important decisions based on information from astrological signs. One of the New York tabloid newspapers lost its daily horoscope and went to press without it. A short while later the switchboard was jammed with calls from frantic people looking for the information their horoscope usually contained and soon there were several thousands surrounding the building demanding the same! And that was in the 1950s! If anything, superstition and the dependence on such spiritualism has risen since then.

But remember Paul’s point. Whether the concern is the undiscovered heights and unfathomed depths, or the dark and mysterious forces that seem to govern our times—none of them nor all of them together are able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And Paul closes with a catch-all category, lest we may think of anything he has not covered and fret about it.

III. WE MUST BE CONFIDENTTO FACE ANY OTHER CREATURE.

“…nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

A. Paul chose his words wisely.He has been making distinctions among polar opposites, which would include everything in between as well: life and death and any other condition, angels and demons and any other powers that might be out there, the present and the future, all of time, and height and depth and the stuff in the middle as well. And lastly he mentions anything else in all “creation.”

This category of “creation” has it polar opposite as well. The opposite of the creation is…the Creator. Paul is reminding us that ALL of these foes and factors are mere creatures. The main reason why none of these will be able to separate us from the love of God is because of the absolute distinction between the Creator and his creation. The creation cannot resist the Creator. The creation cannot thwart or overpower the Creator. The creation cannot frustrate or overrule in any way, shape, manner, or form the One who made all things. The very notion is absurd, ridiculous, which means “worthy of ridicule”!

B. Beloved, if you are reconciled to God the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth through Jesus Christ is only Son our Lord who was crucified, dead, and buried for us but who on the third day was raised from the dead and who now sits at the right hand of God, then all your fears are ridiculous, and you must ridicule them. Laugh at them. Who do they think they are? Do they not know of the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Are they so stupid that they think that they can rise up against the CREATOR and separate us from his love? That’s crazy! That’s nonsense! That’s ridiculous!

CONCLUSION

Remember, remember, remember what God has done to save us. “32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all….” The Father “gave up” his Son. Do you remember where we first encountered that phrase in our study of Romans? It was back in the first chapter. Remember how people refused to acknowledge God or to give thanks to him even though they knew he was there? Remember how they chose instead to worship the creature rather than the Creator and made images of mortal man, and birds and animals and reptiles, and bowed down to them and gave them the honor that was due unto God?
And so what did God do in response? He gave them up to their sin. He gave them over and let them go deeper and deeper into the horror of their misery and shame.

Do you see it now? Do you see what God has done and why his love for us can never be shattered? He gave others up to their sins. For us, he gave up his Son for our sins. He gave Jesus up to the horror and the shame, to his own fierce wrath against our sins. He gave him up. So he’ll never give us up. His love is the only safe place in the universe. Nothing, no creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Beloved, this is no mere academic exercise or inspiring pep talk. Are you aware of what happened just a few short years after the believers in Rome received this epistle from Paul’s hand? Well, yes, Paul himself suffered the sword, beheaded for Christ, a gain by Paul’s own reckoning.

Author and preacher Derek Thomas gives us this postscript to Romans 8:

“Paul wrote Romans from the house of his friend Gaius during a stay in Corinth. Neither Paul nor the Christians in Rome knew how soon they would need the comfort of Romans 8.

“Opinion varies, but many scholars estimate that Romans was written in A.D. 57-58. Within a decade, many of the Roman Christians to whom the letter was addressed were brutally slaughtered in the Roman amphitheaters. The original readers of Romans faced a terrible dilemma: they could deny Jesus or profess Him knowing that, if they did, they faced certain death. Tacitus’ account, written half a century later, and with unmeasured contempt for Nero, is often cited: ‘Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered in the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or doomed to the flames.’” (141)

What did these dear ones need in order to stand firm in the hope thathad found them in Christ? And what do we need to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord? We must be certain, we must be confident, we must be fearless in the love of God.

“38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.”

______