Let the Shepherd Lead

Originally Proclaimed 08/12/18
Intro:

• Type into your internet explorer the question which is more important, the Destination or the Journey and you will find a number of websites all with instant wisdom on which one is more important.
• You find quips like this
  • “Destinations are milestones and give direction in life. The journey is life.”
  • “Destinations will make you proud. The journey will make you wiser and stronger.”
  • “Everybody has similar achievements, but the journeys are unique and distinct.”
• To that list, I would like to add another perspective, one brought out by a television show our family has been watching on Hulu.
  • ABC’s The Goldbergs follows a 1980 something family through life. It is told from the point of view of Adam who as an adult is reflecting on his years growing up.
  • Having grown up in the 1980s, the show has a lot of resonance with me.
  • They yell too much, use questionable language, and have all sorts of crazy quirks, but at the end of the episodes they say things like this
    • “Cause at the end of the day, walls need to be broken, and boundaries need to be crossed Yeah! In order for love to get through” (S04e04)
    • “Looking back on your childhood is a funny thing. Sure, the details get fuzzy, and the days blend together. But the good news is all the hurt fades away, and you just end up remembering the love. You remember your family. You remember 1980-something. And you wouldn’t change a thing.” (s02e24)

Hook:

• So just imagine for a moment friends a person who achieves every goal they set, and seems to enjoy their journey to achieve them, but never makes a friend or cares for a loved one.
• Isn’t there something more important than our journey or our destination?
• My hope today is to show you three specific reasons that I believe relationship is more important than the destination or the journey.

Message Points:

• As we have looked at Romans 8 we have seen the importance of three major concepts.
  • We have seen the importance of our relationship with the Holy Spirit. At salvation the Spirit of God indwells us and he works to transform us into a loved member of God’s family.
  • To bring us into God’s family the Holy Spirit gives us new life, so much so that even in our suffering and weakness, the Spirit is there to help us and to work all things to our good.
  • It is this very personal relationship with God that gives to us great peace as we go through life.
• Today we finish this chapter and the series by looking once again at the peace that having a relationship with God affords those of us who are believers.
• Look with me at verse 35. There we find the fifth rhetorical question Paul asks marked by the pronoun who?
  • In this question Paul raises the issues of our eternal security in Christ.
  • In essence He is saying can anyone separate us from Christ? But before we gloss over this too much, notice with me that to be clear it is the love of Christ from which we cannot be separated.
    • Unbelievers will not be separated from God in the sense that they will constantly experience his judgment and wrath. They have an eternally broken relationship with God.
    • On the other hand believers will not be separated from the loving relationship that we have with God in Christ. We are a part of the family because of Christ’s eternal love expressed to us.
    • In the same way that a couple’s love brings them together as a family united in marriage, God says that Christ’s love for His bride eternally unites the church into a special family relationship with God.
  • But you might also notice that Paul lists not persons who might separate us, but situations that might threaten our relationship with God. Why?
    • This may be nothing more than gender agreement that occurs in Greek ordinarily.
    • However, it also could be that Paul is making an intentional statement about our nature, even as redeemed folks. We have a tendency in situations to turn to others who offer us more tangible help than we sense is coming from God.
      • The old hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing captures the sentiment well.
        • O to grace how great a debtor
        • Daily I’m constrained to be!
        • Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
        • Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
        • Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
        • Prone to leave the God I love;
        • Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
        • Seal it for Thy courts above.
      • How often when we face troubling situations, like illness, or debt, or conflict do we wander and leave the God we love for the temporary help and relationship offered by someone else?
      • Do not think that I am telling you not to find God-honoring relationships in your troubles. We need relationships in our distress with someone who will point us towards our Savior and Lord even as they offer help.
        • That is why we have churches and worship services. The family you have here is not merely to help with your temporary trials.
        • The family here is meant to encourage you to look to the eternal worth of a relationship with a God who loves you and never abandons you in your stresses.
• That is our first reason this morning: Relationship removes the threat of situations. (8:35)
  • Notice the list that Paul makes in the rest of this verse.
    • First there are those situations that result in extra stress physically and mentally
      • Trouble is a word for pressure.
      • Hardship indicates both outward and inward distress.
      • Persecution of course is an outside attack on you due to your beliefs.
      • Danger fits here as well. It is a word that relates to more of an intellectual recognition of a threat, even if the threat is unnamed.
    • Second there are those situations brought about by some sort of poverty.
      • Famine may mean nothing more than hunger, but certainly indicates a poverty of food.
      • Nakedness may indicate nothing more than a lack of clothes, but certainly indicates a kind of poverty.
    • Finally is the ultimate sort of situational trouble, the sword. This word is used to describe the authority of the government to execute someone or conduct war. Certainly for early Christians the sword would have been synonymous with death.
  • Paul tells us that not one of these situations will affect the loving relationship that we have with Christ.
  • If you are a non-believer, you might say, how can my suffering or especially my death not affect my relationship with Christ? After all, “I can’t have a relationship if I am dead.”
    • Let me use a quote here that may help us. Stonewall Jackson said to one of his men in the Civil War, “Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. Captain, that is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.”
    • Jackson mentions the idea of safety in this quote.
      • Safety is a huge concern in our violent society. I am thankful for safety teams like the one at this church. They have been meeting and soon will present some recommendations to you as a church. A good Safety Team like ours wants to provide as safe a place as possible for us to grow in our relationship with Christ.
      • But the kind of safety Jackson is referring to in his quote is the kind of safety that is certain.
        • Notice that Jackson says “God has fixed the time for my death,” implying that God is in control.
        • And if a God who is powerful enough to create and sustain the universe wants to continue a relationship with one of his creatures, surely he can give them new life or raise them up again.
        • That is the reality for our Savior. His resurrection proves not only God’s power, but the power of a relationship with God.
        • So non-believer and Christian in the room today, recognize that if God is as powerful as the Bible claims, having a relationship with Him means that no situation, no matter how bad will keep us from an eternal life with Him.
      • Jesus even makes this point with the Sadducees in Matthew 22. In verse 29 he says to them, “you are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” He then quotes from Genesis where God says “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” All of them were long dead, but as Jesus said, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
      • There is no stress relief, benevolent help, or life saving measures that compare with our relationship to God in Christ. Because of his power, He removes the threat of life’s situations.
• That brings us to two verses that upon a cursory reading of this text you might think as I do that they are out of place.
  • But be assured Paul knows what he is doing by quoting Psalm 44:22. Whenever I come across a verse quoted in the New Testament I go back and read the surrounding context.
    • That psalm is told from the perspective of one of the faithful remnant from Israel. It is a psalm of lament.
    • The psalm begins by recounting God’s power to save Israel in the past.
    • Then the psalm goes on to describe the current situation. In God’s judgement of the faithless of Israel, His faithful remnant also had to face all sorts of harrowing situations.
    • Those people cry out to God and ask when is he going to stand up for them.
    • Psalm 44:22 is the last piece of evidence before the author builds to his concluding verse, “Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!”
  • Do you hear the urgency of the Psalm writer asking for God to again make his loving relationship with His people evident?
    • That is the desire of Robert Robinson in 1757 as he writes Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. He asks for his heart to be bound to God, asking God to confirm his relationship with Him.
    • That is the desire of Stonewall Jackson as he says that he must be ready when death overtakes him. Why must he be ready? Jackson knows that he will meet his Maker and he wants there to be a loving relationship evident at that moment.
    • And friends that should be the cry of our heart when we are pressed by the situations of our life. We should cry out for God to make His love for us real in those moments.
    • For believers it is almost as if we are saying, I could overcome all these situations Lord, but if I do not have you, I have nothing.
• This is the 2nd reason that I believe relationship is so important: Without relationship victory is hollow.
  • There is a phrase in military history that is important to consider in this moment – a Pyrrhic Victory.
    • The victory is named after a Greek king, Pyrrhus of Epirus who sought to fend off the Roman armies as they invaded Greece.
    • Pyrrhus’ armies were drawn into conflict with Rome as they tried to defend the Greek colony of Tarrentum which is in the heel of Italy.
    • They won every battle against Rome, but Rome’s overwhelming numbers against Pyrrhus’ casualties led to their eventual defeat.
    • Thus a Pyrrhic Victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat.
    • If victory over trials were our destination, there could easily be so great a casualty that we would never enjoy or celebrate our victory.
  • I wonder if this was in Paul’s mind as he wrote Romans. Just the construction of verse 8:37 leans into this understanding.
    • Thus, Paul begins by saying in all these things – in other words he wants us to think again about all out trials and situations of life.
    • He then says we are more than conquerors. In other words we have discovered that there is something more important that the temporary victories of this age.
      • The eternal victory of Christ is not in view here, because we are talking about all our trials.
      • Some have tried to translate this word in our translations as conqueror as “excessively victorious”. While acceptable the original word is a combination of the preposition “above ” or “more than” and the word NIKE or victory.
      • In Morris’ commentary on Romans he quotes Martin as saying, “Hate can make a man a conqueror, can fill him with furious energy, but only love can make him more-than -conqueror.
    • Paul’s final portion of this verse         modifies his statement, revealing that we can only be more than conquers “through Him who loved us”.
      • Paul’s use of love in this verse is in the aorist tense, which is normally utilized for past actions with present relevance.
      • What is in view is the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. God proved his love for us according to Romans 5:8 in that while we were yet sinners, he died for us.
  • So let me ask you to think with me for just a few moments…
    • If you could be healed from every disease but must live life in a quarantine from others would you?
    • If you could have every need provided for, but have to live alone on a deserted island would you?
    • If you could never die, but not have any relationships with others would you?
  • Paul’s point in these verses is to encourage us towards relationships!
    • First and foremost we should strive towards a relationship with God through Christ.
      • As we face all of life’s trials as believers we should not look at them as times that interrupt our relationship with God.
      • We should begin to see through Christ that it is those times when God wants us to reach out to Him and see Him draw near to us.
      • That is what peace in trials looks like. It is a focus on something more than victory. It is a focus on Christ.
      • Friends that is why on Sunday mornings we have this time of worship. We want you to have the opportunity to look to God through Christ and be refreshed and renewed in your relationship with Him. We want to offer you the opportunity to Seek Jesus as your Savior through Worship!
    • Similarly God wants us to strive towards relationships with others.
      • Have you heard an older person say that they are ready to die because everyone they love has passed away?
      • It is hard for us as people to live without relationships, and those older folks who might say that are feeling that pain.
      • That is why as believers we should never stop building relationships. That is why the great commission tells us to “make disciples”.
      • I went to Helen Parsons funeral service on Friday, and I was so encouraged to see her grandchildren and their spouses testify to how Helen even up to death had sought to have a God-honoring relationship with each one of them.
      • Friends you are never too old, infirmed, or distressed to begin building a God-honoring relationship with someone else. What makes a relationship God-honoring? It is a relationship where we consistently point someone towards their next step to follow Christ.
      • That is why after the service this morning we have small groups called Sunday Schools. Sunday School is not merely an opportunity to hear another bible lesson, but to build a relationship with others where someone         might us personally to be more than a conqueror. To be a believer who follows Christ – no matter what.
• With that in mind Paul in the last two verses brings this whole chapter to a close focusing on our relationship with God.
  • Paul tells us that this is personal to him. He is convinced. I want to share with you that this is personal for me too.
    • I cannot imagine being a pastor without this chapter and these verses in Scripture.
    • Every graveside I stand beside I share these words. Every counseling session I have, I want people to understand these concepts. Every message I preach I want people to hear this good news.
    • I feel this strongly because I know that it is my relationship with God through Jesus Christ – brought about by the Holy Spirit, and tested by the trials of my life – that allows me to have the peace that is in my life.
• That is the 3rd reason I believe in the importance of relationship: No one can challenge the relationship I have with Christ.
  • Notice how Paul frames this assertion. Paul lists five pairs of items in his list in verses 8:38-39.
    • First he mentions death and life.
    • Then he mentions angels and demons.
    • Then he mentions present and future
    • He begins mentioning powers, but then inserts height and depth.
    • Then he finishes by bringing up the counterpoint to powers as anything else in creation.
  • Each pair has an antagonistic sort of element and a more positive sort of element.
    • Paul’s intention is to help us to see that the highest of highs and the lowest of lows cannot challenge our relationship with Jesus Christ.
    • That is the power of a testimony friends.
      • A testimony is more than a record of our journey to profess to Christ as Savior, as if our faith was locked into the past.
      • Our testimony is telling others how our relationship with Christ impacted us today!
      • A testimony challenges others to experience a relationship with Christ that brings to them the life and peace of one indwelt by the Spirit of God.
    • And most importantly that is the power of a relationship with God in Christ. It is not a past event, but an eternally present reality that no one can challenge.

Conclusion:

• Which brings us to the question? Do you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ?