GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

No Matter What, I'll Be There For You

This week I have been faced again with my own absolute need to know my Father in heaven is for me: there for me, caring for me, looking out for me, cheering for me, fighting my battles for me. He is my Father, there for me, no matter what.

I came across a story that reminded me of my Father in heaven, only this father lived in Armenia. This story comes out of the time of the devastating earthquake that flattened much of Armenia in 1989. It measured 8.2 on the Richter scale, killing 30,000 people in less than four minutes.

In the chaotic aftermath of the quake, one father left his wife safely at home to rush to the school his son attended. When the father arrived there, he found the school building collapsed upon itself. There was rubble everywhere. After the initial paralyzing shock, the father remembered a promise he had once made to his son: "No matter what, I'll always be there for you!" Remembering the face of his son, tears filled his eyes. He looked at the flattened mass of concrete and debris before him, and it seemed as if he would never see his son again. But over and over in his mind, he kept remembering the words of his promise.

He began to focus on which part of the building he would walk his son to when he dropped him off each morning. He knew that his son's classroom was in the back right corner of the building, so he resolutely walked to that area of the rubble and began digging. As he was digging, other distraught parents came to look at the school, crying aloud, "My son!" "My daughter!" Other parents tried to pull the father off the rubble, saying such things as "It's too late!" or "They're dead!" or "You can't help them!" or "You'll just make things worse," or even "Go home!" But to each parent who tried to dissuade him, he simply said, "Are you going to help me now?" Then he returned to his work, removing the rubble handful by handful.

The fire chief saw the father, and tried to pull him off the school's remains, saying, "Fires are breaking out, explosions are happening everywhere. You're in danger. We'll take care of it. Go home." But the father again replied, "Are you going to help me now?" and he kept right on digging. The police came, saying, "You're angry, distraught and it's over. You're endangering others. Go home. We'll handle it!" But looking at the policeman, he simply said, "Are you going to help me now?" But no one helped. The father dug alone.

He dug for eight hours ... 12 hours ... 24 hours ... 36 hours ... until the 38th hour, when he pulled back a large stone and heard his son's voice. He screamed his son's name, "ARMAND!" He heard back, "Dad?! It's me, Dad! I told the other kids not to worry. I told 'em that if you were alive, you'd save me and when you saved me, they'd be saved. You promised, 'No matter what, I'll always be there for you!' You did it, Dad!"

"What's going on in there? How is it?" the father asked. "There are 14 of us left out of 33, Dad. We're scared, hungry, thirsty and thankful you're here. When the building collapsed, it made a wedge, like a triangle, and it saved us." His father then said, "Come on out, boy!" But Armand replied, "No, Dad! Let the other kids out first, 'cause I know you'll get me! No matter what, I know you'll be there for me!" (Story adapted from Chicken Soup for the Soul, pg. 273, 274).

When all of life comes crashing down around us, when the day of disaster strikes, we can be certain our Father has promised to be there for us. Let's study His absolute promise to us, that our God is for us, no matter what.

What We Need to Know

I want us to think deeply about the darkest days of our lives. Perhaps those dark days are present now in your life; perhaps they are a remembrance of days gone by, dark seasons you do not wish to recall. But this morning I want you to think about those times, because in today's study we find real comfort for our darkest days. I have found that it is easy to study Romans chapter eight, the greatest news in the Bible, and rejoice in its message ... without claiming its comfort in the hour of need. Today I want us to seize and hold the comfort of the most encouraging passage in the New Testament.

My prayer for all of us is that this passage become like a golden key in our lives: a golden key we keep in our pockets at all times, that when the dark day comes and discouragements swirl around us, we can reach in our pockets, take out the golden key of Rom. 8:26-39, and unlock the treasury of God's perfect comfort for us.

How many of us face a specific problem in our lives that is so difficult and deeply rooted that we have prayed about it for years, without any seeming answer? How many times have bad circumstances piled up against you, so that you feel like the mighty hand of God is crushing you under an unbearable weight? How many of us feel like we are trapped by our own weaknesses and the circumstances we find ourselves in? If you think about the very darkest days in your life, there is usually one bleak theme running through them all: you feel terribly isolated. Alone. The evil one works on us by lying to us, telling us that our problem is unique, that we are unable to make choices that will make the problems easier to bear, and he often leads us to compare ourselves to those whose lives seem to be going so well. The worst pain of the dark day is the feeling of isolation.

Who has not felt terrifyingly alone? Who has not stooped to comparing yourself to others when you are having a bad year and they are having the best year of their lives? Who has not felt the cold touch of spiritual warfare, making you doubt your God and doubt your standing with Him? Who has not felt the horror of isolation?

But this passage at the end of Romans eight shows us how God surrounds us, embraces us, and loves us absolutely throughout the lightest and the darkest days of our lives. He does not leave us alone; He comes to us. We are NOT ALONE: our God is FOR US, no matter what. This is what each one of us needs to know.

Paul has made this a key theme in Rom. 8:26-39. He starts by saying that the Holy Spirit intercedes "for us" in vs. 26, a truth so important he repeats and sharpens it in vs. 27 by saying the Spirit intercedes "for the holy ones." The Holy Spirit is within us and for us. And God our Father is for us in all circumstances, literally every single situation, weaving all circumstances together for good. Our Father is hand-designing every aspect of our lives in such a way that Paul considers the sovereign love of the Father and asks, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" in vs. 31. Our Father's love for us is proven in the gift of His Son to die for us. But the Son lives, and He lives in glory at the right hand of the Father's Majesty in heaven, and there the Son is for us, interceding for us, pleading our cause. Here on earth, even inside us at this moment, God the Spirit is for us; up in heaven, even at the right hand of the throne of God, God the Son is for us; and in all things, all circumstances, past, present, and future, our Father God is for us. We are not alone: God is for us, no matter what, in each part of the Trinity.

The Spirit is For Us, From Within Us

In Rom. 8:26, 27, Paul explains how the Holy Spirit of God living within us is for us: "And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because He intercedes for the holy ones, according to the will of God."

In these verses, Paul employs the preposition hyper in Greek, appending it to the verb "intercede" in vs. 26 and letting it stand alone in vs. 27. The preposition hyper means "on our behalf, for us." It is specifically FOR OUR GOOD, ON OUR BEHALF, that the Spirit hears our internal groanings, that the Spirit fathoms the depths of our pain that we ourselves cannot plumb, and translates that pain to the Father in a God-talk too deep for human words. The moment-by-moment ministry of the Spirit in listening to our pain and considering our struggling and bearing the message of our pain to our Father is entirely FOR US. In our pain, our God is not silent, though we cannot hear Him with human ears. When we hurt the most, the messages between the Spirit inside and our Father in heaven flow constantly. The Spirit is God's indwelling Comforter, a very real comfort in the dark day.

I remember one dark night when I felt very keenly alone ... more alone than ever before. It was the night when I last met with the elders of PBC, the night I told them of my final decision to leave PBC and come to South Carolina. The night was very dark. The street where they were meeting was cast in shadow. I went into the meeting, into a warm room flooded with light, filled with men who were doing their level best to listen to God and go where He was leading. I thanked them for the thirteen years at PBC, and told them I was leaving for one reason above all others: I felt called by the Lord to come to Greenville. They all agreed that if I felt that call, I needed to heed it and obey Him. We parted with grief on both sides, but with a knowledge that God was behind it all. I left that place full of light and plunged into the darkness of the night, walking all alone. Suddenly that became a metaphor of my years there: I had ministered for almost six years on a very dark campus, usually laboring all alone with little sense of support. As I walked back to my car, my eyes filled with tears at the sense of crushing isolation I had felt all those years. I stopped by my car, leaned headfirst against the door, and cried. "Oh Lord, I have walked alone. Please let me not walk alone any more." It was a simple prayer, because I knew not how to pray in a moment of raw pain and alienation.

But in that moment, I sensed the moving of the comfort of the Spirit in my heart. I am with you was His simple message in the ears of my soul. In the last year and a half since that dark night, I have felt more personally comforted by the Spirit of God, more prayed for by the Holy Spirit, than ever before in my life. His quiet comfort has given me hope far beyond myself. He is for me, standing with me even in times of darkness, and praying for me in the season of greatest change and testing I have ever faced in my life. The Spirit is for us, praying to God on our behalf, and whispering God's loving care to us just when we need it most.

Often hymns teach us the most about these deep things of God. There is an old hymn entitled Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart that I want to quote in full. It was written by a seasoned pastor who had labored 19 years in a church in the darkest slum of London. He knew that comfort in the dark is found in the Spirit. Here is his desire for the ministry of the Spirit in his life:

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart:
Wean it from earth, through all its pulses move.
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

Hast Thou not bid us love Thee, God and King?
All, all Thine own soul, heart and strength and mind.
I see Thy cross there teach my heart to cling;
O let me seek Thee, and O let me find.

Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame:
The baptism of the heav'n descended Dove
My heart an altar and Thy love the flame.

The Spirit of God, the Dove in our breast, the flame of God's love lighting the altar of our hearts. The Spirit is for us in the darkness. His light shines for us, His love is for us, even when it is darkest. The Spirit's comfort is the greatest comfort there is, shining from deep within us, blazing brightly for us no matter what. May we be drawn to the warmth, comfort and guidance of the Spirit, like the moth to the candle flame.

The Father is For Us in All Circumstances

Paul then moves into the mysterious glories of Rom. 8:28-31: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?"

Paul considers the expansive plan and purpose of God for us, moving us from the smallest samples of sinful humanity to mold us and enlarge us into towering giants of glory in the heavenly realms of His kingdom. He changes and molds us by the pressure of His hand guiding all circumstances to enlarge the stature of our souls to the height of the great God-Man, Jesus Christ. God is our potter: using every single revolving day like the potter uses the turning wheel, pressing us on all sides with His own expert fingers wet with our tears and grimed with the useless portions cut away from our lives; all the while, with every turn, fashioning us into the vessel of His life and glory that He intends to employ throughout all eternity. No revolving day nor pressure on any side, within or without, comes upon us by accident: it is all part of the plan of the Master Potter. We are dizzied and molded, we are pressed and shaped beyond our will, all for the Master Potter's glory, as a work of His inscrutable art. But in every turn of the wheel, with every pressure brought to bear on us, He is for us, not against us.

Paul considers all this, and He boils down the entire eternal plan and purpose of God into one idea: GOD IS FOR US. He was for us before time began, foreknowing us in the stillness before the first rising of the sun. He is for us in the stillness of our dark circumstances in the present time, or in the glorious noontime of our joy if this season is a sweet one. He is for us forever, from here to eternity. In Paul's mind, and in his letter to the Romans, all of the sovereign love of God for us expressed in Rom. 8:28-30 boils down to the phrase in vs. 31: GOD IS FOR US!!

In the epic tale Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe finds himself shipwrecked but saved, all alone on a deserted island, but healthy and whole. In the first crushing days as his isolation crept into his soul and weighed on him, he developed a two-sided list on a single piece of paper. On the left side of the list was the word "Evil," and on the right side was the word "Good." Here is the list:

What a list!! The first two words under the last "Good" item say it all: BUT GOD ... This is our unquenchable light in our day of darkness: BUT GOD. In the evil day, in spite of the evil circumstances seemingly designed to crush us, our God is working for us. BUT GOD is our blazing beacon light to rally to in the darkness. Our God is for us, no matter what, even in the greatest calamities of our lives.

Again, to fathom the depths of these truths, let's defer to the hymn-makers. William Cowper, the saint who struggled daily with mental illness and yet wrote glorious poems of praise to God, spoke of the mysterious movements of God in his most famous hymn, entitled God Moves in a Mysterious Way. This hymn is thought to be the last hymn text Cowper wrote, and it is considered his reflection of God's sovereign leading throughout his lifetime. Cowper wrote:

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.

You fearful saints, fresh courage take: The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace;
behind a frowning providence faith sees a smiling face.

Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.

Our Father God is for us, no matter what. In all things, He is working for us. He is there for us, the smiling face behind all our circumstances, bleak or blessed. With Paul, we must ask again: If God is for us, who is against us?

The Son is For Us, From the Heavens

So, the Spirit within us is for us here on earth, hovering and listening within our souls, comforting us with His prayers to the Father on our behalf. And our Father is for us throughout all eternity, molding and shaping all events and circumstances in our lives to our good as He shapes into us the character of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is for us, and our Father is for us, no matter what. But what about the Son?

The picture Paul draws for us of the Son of God interceding for us in Rom. 8:32-34 is a powerful image to fix in our minds. Paul tells us, "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; and who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us."

Can you see Him in your mind, by faith? Where is Jesus Christ right now? He is standing, robed in the brilliantly shining white of the Transfiguration, His heavenly garb, arrayed as the great Authority over all heaven and earth. And what is this kingly figure doing? Is He delivering universal edicts? Is He yet judging all creatures? Is He receiving His justly deserved praise? Is He holding secret council with the 24 elders? NO! He is standing beside the Father, the Ancient of Days enthroned on high, and He is whispering into the Father's ear. We don't know for certain what He is saying, but one thing we know from what Paul tells us of this heavenly vision: every word He says is FOR US. Every word is a word spoken on our behalf. Nothing He says will result in judgment for us: every word is a seed of grace, sprouting for our good. Every word is FOR US. That's really all we need to know about what He is saying.

One poet, Annie Johnson Flint, wondered what words He prayed in the Father's ear on our behalf in her poem The Intercessor, based on Rom. 8:34:

Infinite Wisdom and infinite Love,
Praying for me to the Father above,
Asking for me what Thou knowest is best --
Surely my heart in this knowledge can rest.
Wrapped in my darkness and ignorance here,
With Thy great prayer let me not interfere;
Let me not cross that petition divine,
Losing a blessing that might have been mine;
Teach me to pray, that Thy will, so begun,
May in my life and my spirit be done.
Here is my confidence, here can I rest;
Thou alone knowest and askest the best.

That is it: we don't know what Jesus whispers in the Father's ear on our behalf, but we can rest that every word is for us, and He knows and asks the best. We can rest in the love of His advocacy for us.

Once again, the hymn writers say it best. A man named Joseph Scriven wrote one of the best-loved hymns in our hymnals: What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Scriven was raised to a life of wealth and distinction in Ireland, and he lived in a devoted family. But his life was touched with a great sorrow: on the night before his scheduled wedding, his fiancee drowned. In the ensuing days of his deep sorrow, Scriven discovered the depths of never-leaving love in intimacy with Jesus Christ. Years later, Scriven's mother became ill, and he wrote a letter to comfort her. He enclosed the words of a poem he had just written to remind her of the friend who does not fail. Later on, Scriven himself fell ill, and a friend who came to visit him found a copy of that same poem on some scratch paper beside his bed. The friend read the lines and asked, "Who wrote those beautiful words?" Scriven's reply: "The Lord and I did it between us." Here is that poem:

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged -- Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness -- Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge -- Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer;
In His arms He'll take and shield thee -- Thou wilt find a solace there.

There is no closer Friend, closer than a brother, and there is no finer Advocate than our Jesus Christ, who speaks for us, on our behalf, in our Father's ear.

Conclusion: The Love of God For Us

Paul concludes with an eternal embrace of the love of God for us in Rom. 8:35-39: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, 'For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

It all boils down to these twin statements: GOD IS FOR US ... GOD LOVES US. He loves us from within us here on earth, by the indwelling Spirit. He loves us in a sovereign way in all our circumstances, across all eternity, by our Father. He loves us up in heaven through the advocacy of Jesus Christ the Son. Father, Son and Spirit, God loves us. Father, Son and Spirit, God is for us. This is the golden key to hide in our pockets for the dark day when it comes, that we may unlock the treasure store of God's comfort for us.

I have a very good friend who was a former intern of mine whose life deeply impressed me. He is one of the finest young men I know, and he feels very good about his God and himself. He is also very thoughtful, always thinking about and praying for others. His character so impressed me that one day I asked him what his parents had done to shape him into the man I admired and appreciated. He told me, "Every day, my Mom told me I was her favorite boy, that she thought I was the most handsome and best boy in the school. I knew my mother and father loved me no matter what." There it is again, that familiar bell ring of truth: his parents loved him, they were for him, and he grew into a fine man because of it.

We are now concluded with our study of Romans chapter eight. I have taken much time slowly working through each verse and passage, hoping to milk the truth and encouragement in these deep words. Many of you may wonder why I have taken such time to do this.

The reason is simple. Our vision at our church is this: to love God and love others. I have a deep passion that our church be about these right things, that our church be about these two great loves to which we are called. That is our vision. Nothing is more important to me about this community of believers than that we love God and love others. I want us to be a loving body. One time a number of years ago, Ray Stedman said something to Blythe that has become a touchstone for us, a truth to which we often return. He said this: "If you want your people to be loving, teach them how much they are loved." There is no better passage in the Bible to know how much God loves us than Romans eight. The one goal of all this instruction in this chapter has been this: that we all may know we are loved!!

Oh Lord, may we all know we are loved, and may that so transform us from our selfish selves that we may have eyes filled with love for God and love for others, that the world may know we are Christians by our love, and find Your love through coming near to us. Amen!

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