coffee talk, Romans

Another historical weekend. Men we are making history. Our world is crazy and we cannot help to see it now more than ever. In these troubling times it seems like it gets crazier and crazier, when we do not think it can get anymore further from reality, we take another deep breath. At first we probably all thought we would be back to what we thought was normal by now. None of our lives are the same. At first we felt okay with things, if even we knew there were areas of uncertainty before there were terms such as social distancing, stay in place, and Corvid-19.

How ya doin’?

As We discussed over the past month, our hope and sanity needs to be based on facts and truth. If it is not our emotions trying to impact us, it definitely others and outsiders. The daily news has now found a common place in our life, and today is no different. The news we are going to talk about this morning is the Good News.  And for the Good News, we need to get a good healthy dose of truth. Several weeks ago, ironically before all this corona virus changes really impacted us, we went through the Truth series that hit on how we were Accepted, where our Security comes from and how we are Significant. I do not think those messages were just coincidental. Those are solid stones we have place in alignment with our Cornerstone.

This week, having my soul pant like a thirsty deer for hope and inspiration. The Lord lead me to what I believe is an oasis in the midst of the chaos and that is what we are going to share today. I believe it is most likely the most precious section of my bible. People talk about if you were on a deserted island what 5 musical albums would you have, or what 3 books would you want to have. In these times of shakeable reality, I got to the point what one chapter in all of the Bible would I pick as my last hope? The answer comes from the book of Romans, chapter 8. Hence the title the Great Eight. You might all have your go to section, book or chapter, but i want you to receive this truth this morning and I place before you a candidate I would like you to consider.

Romans chapter eight is so dense and so constant with good news — good news that is so great and so glorious and so vastly superior to all the good news in this world — whether health good news, or family good news, or church good news, or job good news, or political good news, or international good news, or financial good news — so vastly superior to all earthly good news and so relentless, that you can scarcely feel the full force of it until you take virtually every verse and restate it as the good news that it is.

I want you to just close your eyes for a minute, put your mind at ease and prepare your heart to receive encouragement from the Holy Spirit. As we learned in the Truth series we are ambassadors of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, that He works through us. With that truth, I am going to allow the Lord himself to speak kindly and deeply and powerfully to your soul.  I am going to speak the truths of chapter 8 as if God himself were speaking directly to you, his beloved, cherished children.

  • 8:1 In Christ, you are free from eternal condemnation.
  • 8:2 You are free from the damning curse and power of sin.
  • 8:3 I executed the penalty for your sin in the crucified flesh of my Son.
  • 8:4 The Holy Spirit is fulfilling in you the demands of my law summed up in love.
  • 8:6 The power of the Holy Spirit in your soul gives life and peace.
  • 8:7–8 Apart from the Holy Spirit, you are in bondage to the flesh and cannot please me.
  • 8:9 But you are not in the flesh. My Spirit is in you, and you are the possession of my son Jesus Christ.
  • 8:10–11 My Spirit in you will one day give life to your mortal bodies in the resurrection.
  • 8:12 Your only debt in life is to live by the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • 8:13 That power is the only means by which you can kill your sin.
  • 8:14 All who are thus led by my Spirit to kill sin show that they are my sons.
  • 8:15 My indwelling Spirit is the spirit of adoption, wakening the cry from your heart, “Abba Father.”
  • 8:16 This is my witness with your spirit that you are my children.
  • 8:17 As my children, you are my heirs and will share my glory after a life of groaning with me in this fallen world.
  • 8:18 But that groaning is not worth comparing to the glory that you will see and share.
  • 8:19 The whole broken creation waits to receive its glorification when you receive your glorification. Yours will be hers, not the other way around.
  • 8:20 I subjected the creation to its present futility with a hope-filled purpose.
  • 8:21 One day, this entire creation will attain its own freedom and glory after and from and for my glorious children.
  • 8:22 It is as if the whole creation were heaving with the labors of immanent birth.
  • 8:23 Even the Spirit-indwelt followers of my Son groan in your aging, disease-ridden bodies with these same hopeful birth pangs, as you await the fullness of the privileges of your adoption, the resurrection of your glorified bodies.
  • 8:24–25 Since you are saved — not fully already but only in hope — you wait with patience through all of your sufferings.
  • 8:26 When you don’t know how to pray in your sufferings, my Spirit prays for you through your very groanings.
  • 8:27 I never mistake my Spirit’s meaning, but respond always for your good.
  • 8:28 But one thing you do know: I work everything for the good of those who love me and are called according to my purpose.
  • 8:29 From eternity I took note of you, acknowledged you, chose you, and destined you infallibly to magnify my Son by becoming like him as the great firstborn.
  • 8:30 I forged in eternity the unbreakable links of the chain: predestined, called, justified, glorified so that at no point is any of my elect ever lost.
  • 8:31 Manifestly then, I am for you! No one can successfully oppose us.
  • 8:32 I gave my own Son to save you. And so, with the hardest act behind me, nothing can stop me from giving you everything you need to enjoy me forever.
  • 8:33 When I, the judge of the universe, count you righteous, and acquit you in the court of the universe, no charge, from any adversary, can stick.
  • 8:34 To secure this vindication, Christ Jesus died, rose, reigns, and intercedes for you before me.
  • 8:35 Therefore nothing can separate you from the love of Christ — not tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword.
  • 8:36 You may be slaughtered like sheep — indeed somewhere in this world you are always being killed.
  • 8:37 But no. Even in your slaughter — or any other demise — your loss becomes your gain, and your enemies become your servants.
  • 8:38–39 Therefore you may be sure — you should be sure, how can you not be 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 [you] from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

How did your soul receive His blessing?

Some insights I have learned about Romans 8 this week…

  • There is no other chapter that more deeply or fully deals with the brokenness of the physical universe, and how it got that way, and what will become of it.
  • There is no chapter that expresses with more clarity or power the infallible and unbreakable linkages in our salvation from predestination to glorification.
  • There is no other chapter that combines the intercession of the Holy Spirit for us with the intercession of the Son for us in the service of the never-failing love of God the Father for us.
  • There is no chapter that more explicitly and repeatedly contrasts the necessary horrors of our suffering with the utterly assured grandeur of our glory — that moves with such force through suffering to a crescendo of unshakeable hope in the love of God.
  • There is no chapter that deals more directly and tenderly with our struggle to know that we are the children of God, opening to us the witness of the Holy Spirit.
  • There is no chapter with a more sustained litany of privileges, securities and assurances to hold us firmly in the keeping love of God.
  • There is no other chapter in which so many glorious truths are marshaled to help us obey only one implied command: Live by the Spirit not the flesh.

Some surprising truths to chapter 8…

  • The words Joy, Rejoice, Faith, Trust, or Believe are not included in chapter 8.
  • There are no direct commands in chapter 8

Let’s here chapter 8…

What has your soul received? What emotions are stirring? What thoughts are jumping?

Truth and Emotions

God uses the Bible to instruct us to be happy.“Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 4:1); “Rejoice in hope” (Romans 12:12); “Let the nations be glad” (Psalm 67:4); “Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous” (Psalm 32:11). It is a wonderful thing to know that our God is so committed to our seeing and savoring his greatness that he commands it.

But we all know that none of us rejoices merely because we are told to. Emotions don’t work that way. Telling a sad person to be happy does not make them happy.  Here is an example of emotions and truth at work…

  • heard bad news
  • believed the news
  • responded to the news
  • shared the news

But my friend was aware of something I wasn’t. He knew more than I did. When I was troubled, he said

  • that news is wrong
  • the truth is
  • he was personal witness

Now if I am not changed emotionally, that means I don’t trust my friend.  The facts are:

Facts change Emotions.
Emotions don’t change Facts.

Now remember my example, facts only change emotions if we trust the facts. In chapter 8, God knows I can’t just trust facts. My flesh wants to rely on itself. God knows that because in this great chapter the Holy Spirit is so prominent.

The word “Spirit” refers to the Holy Spirit 30 times in the whole book of Romans. 20 of those 30 references are in Chapter 8, with 15 of those in the first 16 verses. Taking those facts and summarizing them. The Holy Spirit is a very prominent reality in Romans 8 and the dominant reality in the first 16 verses.

Why is the chapter with the most sustained description of joy-awakening, hope-giving facts also the chapter that begins with the greatest focus on the Holy Spirit in all the Bible?

Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:5

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 – Romans 8:38-39

The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. – Romans 14:17

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. – Romans 15:13

The point of these verses is the reason that the chapter with the most sustained description of joy-awakening, hope-giving facts is also the chapter that begins with the greatest focus on the Holy Spirit, is that without the work of the Holy Spirit we could not see or savor the glory of these facts. But the greatest joy in the greatest chapter in the greatest book is in fact to see and savor and share in and show the glory of God.

Without the Holy Spirit, it would be difficult to receive facts of chapter 8 and overcome our personal emotions.

Can Romans chapter 8 be considered valuable to you? Can it make your top 5 of all time?

This coming week, I encourage you to read, listen, and hear with your soul, Romans chapter 8. Look at different translations; look at the different themes. Take a peek at the list that I spoke over you in the beginning and dwell on them. Take verses that might seem strange or difficult and discuss them with God. Let the Holy Spirit speak and work on your soul.