Well, there are two people here at our church and even here at this service who have been divorced, but they are not in sin. And that's one of the things that surprised me as a pastor, might even surprise you to hear me say that how could you be divorced, but not in sin? And I want to invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to Matthew chapter 19. Because there's a concept here related to divorce that's really going to help us understand Romans chapter 8, when we get there later on. And so, divorce has just become commonplace in our American culture. But if you come to church, you might hear things like God hates divorce and divorce is a sin, and so how could people at church be divorced but not be in sin? And I want to show you that from Matthew chapter 19. And look with me here at Verse 6, because this is Jesus’ famous statement about divorced after he quotes Genesis 2 that “a man's going to leave his father and mother be joined to his wife, and the two of them will become one flesh.” Then Jesus says this, Matthew 19:6, “so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Now that word “separate” that Jesus uses right there, that is our key word of the day, the Greek word, we'll put it up here on the screen. If you're if you got a handout, you might want to take some notes, you might want to write this down, you would say that “chorizo” in Greek. it looks like “chorizo” in English, which if you didn't get breakfast, I want to apologize to you right now. Because that's definitely my favorite kind of breakfast burrito right there is the one with chorizo. So, it's this idea and we understand, hey, what God has joined together, let no man separate. That means if God has joined you together as a husband and wife, if he's joined you together as one in marriage, then don't get divorced or don't separate now, as it goes on here. They have a question about divorce. And they say, well, then how come Moses even talked about divorce? Why is there even a thing about divorce then if God doesn't want you to separate? And he says in verse 8, he said to them, “because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so, and I say to you, Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery.” So let me tell you that yeah, he confirms here, if you divorce your wife and you go on to somebody else, that's adultery. Don't do that.
But then you notice how he says there “except for sexual immorality.” What about the person where their spouse goes to be with someone else? And they then are separated. Are they in sin because their spouse when and committed adultery? No, they are not. And see that that's something that as a pastor, then I found myself in the room with this person who has now made this horrible discovery in their life to find out that their spouse is now going to be with someone else, and there's just a heartbreak to this separation. The separation is just, it's a tearing apart of things that were not meant to be parted, and it hurts, it's painful. So, this idea of separation if you know about divorce, if you know about adultery, if you've ever seen a friend, or maybe you personally have gone through this, there's a real pain of this separation, but that person they need to be encouraged that, hey, it says this isn't your sin. You didn't do this. You got separated from, but it wasn't for you. See, go over with me to 1 Corinthians 7:15. Let me show you another way that this same idea shows up a little bit different than adultery here. And in 1 Corinthians 7, it's talking about a believing spouse and an unbelieving spouse. And it says in 1 Corinthians 7:15, “if the unbelieving partner separates,” there's our word again, the chorizo word, right. If the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. You're a believer. You're married to somebody who's not a believer, and they start saying, I don't want to be married to a believer. I don't want to be married to you. I'm going to abandon this relationship. I'm going to get divorced. I'm going to separate. It actually tells the believer here, “let it be so in such cases the brother, their sister, is not enslaved. God has called you to peace for how do you know wife? Whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know husband, whether you will save your wife. So, this is a really heartbreaking separation. Let's say there's two people who are married, and they don't believe in Jesus. And then one of them comes to church. Here's the gospel, believes I found salvation, I've got a whole new life and in their joy over their salvation in Christ, they go share that with their spouse, and their spouse is not interested in Jesus. Their spouse is actually like upset that they've become a Christian; their spouse often didn't sign up to be married to a Christian. And so, maybe their spouse now no longer wants to stay in that marriage. Can you imagine the feeling of that separation, where like, the best thing ever just happened to you that Jesus saved you. And then it leads to like the end of your marriage. And there's a heartbreak with that, there's a hurt to that. Or maybe it even happened where people get married. And they're both professing faith in Jesus. And it's like, they got married at a church, they got married by a pastor, they went through premarital counseling, and we're going to go have a family, we're going to go live our lives for the Lord Jesus. And then one of them, as they're going on in their marriage, one of them to decide, no, I don't want to live for Jesus anymore. And because I don't want to live for Jesus, I really don't want to be married to you anymore. And so, they fall away from the faith. and as a part of that they separate from their spouse. Could you imagine, and some of you don't have to imagine, because you've experienced this, the heartbreak of we were going to live our lives together. And now that we've separated, see, that's the thought that we need to have in our minds, this idea that when you love somebody, you don't want to lose that person. When you love somebody, you want to love them forever. Even in the best of marriages, even if both people are believers in Jesus, and the husband really loves his wife and the wife, she really respects her husband, and they have the greatest of possible human marriages. I mean, even then there can be a separation when one of them dies. And then the other one finds themselves in a stage of life that maybe they weren't really prepared for where now they realize that they're a widow, and they're going to keep living, but the one that they love has died. And so, they feel the pain of this separation. See, I know when I got married, and I said till death do us part. I was thinking, Yeah, I'm going to love my wife until I die, and maybe something I didn't fully think through is what if she dies? What about that separation? What about that pain? See, when you love somebody, and I'm talking about when you really love, and you're ready to give your life to them, and they are more important to you than you are, you know down in your bowels, you know, in the depths of who you are, that love is not supposed to come to an end, I am not supposed to be separated from that love. And when you are separated when you love and then you lose, there is a heartbreak, there is a pain that is attached to that. That is very real that many people here at our church have experienced. And we need to keep that heartbreak in mind as we now turn to Romans chapter 8, verses 35 to 39. Because it's going to use that same exact word, separate. And that's often used in reference to divorce and in reference to the end of the closest or love relationship we can have as human beings were to become one. And when that union is torn apart when man separates what God has joined together, or even when death separates what God has joined together.
It's that same separates that we're going to read about right now and Romans 8:35-39. And out of respect for God's word, I'm going to ask if we would all stand up with a public reading of Scripture. I'm going to read for us the end of Romans 8, verses 35 to 39. You might have heard these verses before, you might know these verses, we want to give them our full and undivided attention. Together, right now we want to be reminded of what they say. And maybe we want to realize that these verses are actually saying even more than we know. And our faith in the love of Jesus could grow here today. So please follow along as I read for us, and pay attention to our key word separates here in Romans 8:35-39.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 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.
That's the reading of God's word, please go ahead and have your seat. And if you do have that handout there from the bulletin, you can see we printed out those verses there on the side. And I would just love for you to circle the word “separate us” two times in these five verses here. That's the original question, who's going to separate us from the love of Christ, from the love of Jesus? And he doesn't just answer this question once, he doubles down. And he says it in a definitive statement, that he is sure that nothing and you can separate. Separate is at the end of verse 39. So, you can circle “separate” again. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. So, he's been going through rhetorical questions, where the answer is this is a strong no. Here he is in verse 31. If you want to look back with me: “What shall we say to these things?” And he's talking about the things of our salvation. He's talking about the fact that God has a purpose in Jesus, and God has now brought us into Christ. And so, all the things that he's working for the glory of Jesus, he's now working for us to be glorified with Jesus. So, what do we have to say about that? Well, if God is for us, who can be against us? Answer, nobody can. If he already did not spare his own Son, will he not? Or he also graciously gives us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? Verse 33, who is to condemn? Verse 34. the answer is nobody can condemn. God has already declared him righteous. Jesus already died and rose again and intercedes. He stands in our defense. Jesus claims us as his people. No one can condemn us. Jesus has saved us. And in this list of rhetorical questions we now get, well, hey, you're loved by Jesus. That's amazing. Who could separate you from that love of Jesus? And the answer to that is supposed to be a strong, no one can separate me from the love of Jesus. And see, that's not something that we can apply to any other relationship. Because we see how many people do get separated from someone they love in divorce. And we then see so many people getting separated from someone they love in death. And so, the love that Jesus has for us transcends all other loves. Because this is the one inseparable thing in your life. This is like the thing you can be sure of, you can be confident about. You can say, Jesus loves me this I know because Romans 8 tells me so. Right? It's saying it right here that hey, let's think this through, In fact, what this text is going to actually encourage us to do is let's go to your worst-case scenario. And maybe your worst-case scenario has already happened in your life. Maybe your worst-case scenario is right now just a what if in your life, but let's just think that through. What if that happened? Would that be able to separate you from the love of Jesus?
So, the love of Jesus… go back to Romans chapter 5, verse 8, because we were already introduced to this love of Jesus earlier in the book of Romans. And it was defined for us here in Romans 5:8. And this was a while ago that we preached on this; it was Christmas Eve last year that we did a sermon. This is love from this passage, and it says here, God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So specifically, when we say that Jesus loves me, we're saying that God sent his Son Jesus to take the place of the punishment of my sin. This is a specific way that God has loved me; God has been good to us in many different ways. God's common grace is for all people. The sun rises, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. But specifically, when we say that Jesus loves us, as Christians, as believers, we're saying Jesus died; he willingly laid down his life and took my place. He took God's wrath for my sin, and I got the righteousness of Jesus given to me when he died for all of my sin. And it says this is love.
Look back at verse 5 of Romans 5, Romans 5:5. It says, “and 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.” When God gives us a new heart, and when God puts his Spirit within us, the Spirit bears fruit in our life, and what is the first fruit of the Spirit we're given in Galatians chapter 5, it is love. And so, God loves us. He says, Jesus loves us. He lays down his life in our place. And now the spirit is within us, causing us to love, helping us to understand the love of God; God's love is in our hearts. And what I'm trying to tell you here today, what Romans 8 is here to teach us this morning is you have a love of Jesus, and there is no divorce, not even death. Nothing can separate you from the love of Jesus Christ, like this is a sure thing in your life.
Now, when you go back to Romans 8:35, it doesn't just give us the question, and then expect a rhetorical No; it actually gives a list of potential threats, a list of worst-case scenarios. Let's talk about all the trouble that you can have in your life. Let's start thinking about bad things that maybe have happened. And you're seeing Jesus love you through them. Or maybe there are just bad things that you're afraid could happen in your life. And it says, well, let's think through the tribulation, let's think through the distress. What about the persecution? What about people coming against you because you're a believer? And well, what about things, and there may be things that we have not yet experienced, that could possibly be the future for us ,things that it talks about here, like famine, or nakedness or danger or even feeling like a my life might be taken by the sword. I mean, this is kind of an intense verse here. This is for Romans 8 being known as such a positive, uplifting, encouraging passage. The list of things here is actually very disturbing. I don't know if you've seen some of the videos, some of the images that are coming out of Israel, where people are just living their lives, and now they find themselves in a situation of distress, they find themselves women, children finding themselves in situations where now it seems like their life might be in danger, they might be put to death. Wow, that's an intense thing to think about, going to the store, and there's no food going to the store. And there's no clothes, like we don't even have the basic physical needs we need to live our lives. I mean, this verse is really inviting you to think about how bad can life get because we are all promised that life is not going to work out exactly how we want it to hear in this life, in this world. We will have, what did Jesus say? You're going to have trouble.
And see, I don't know if you're like me, but I have this idea that my life should just be good. And everything in my life should be working out and how come It's not just all coming together? And I have to realize that the scripture is teaching me it doesn't all come together down here in the here and now, see? And so, there's going to be trouble. And is that trouble going to be able to separate me from the love of Jesus? Now, this is not a theoretical list. When Paul writes this list, he's not just throwing out what-if scenarios of things that could happen.
Go over to 2 Corinthians 12, just real quick, and see what he mentions in 2 Corinthians 12:10, because if you know about the guy who's writing Romans, the apostle Paul, a guy who went around planting churches, maybe you've heard about his missionary journeys, and you know that the Jews really chased him from town to town, and persecuted him. And he had rocks thrown at him to kill him and he was left for dead outside of town. And so, when you know the things that Paul went through, he talks about some of them here in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 10. And look what he looked at. He gives a list for the sake of Christ, “then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for when I am weak, then I am strong.” And he just said that he learned, when he's weak, and life is hard, that that's when he finds that Jesus, his grace is sufficient for him, for the power of Jesus is made perfect in our weakness. So, Paul, he's not just saying, well, even if life gets bad, Jesus will love me. Life has gotten very difficult, very challenging. And in that he has known that nothing, not one of those things separated him from the love of Jesus. See, one of the things that happens when you go through the trials of life is you find out that this thing I would never want to happen to me, that seems like an evil thing. Somehow God is actually working through this evil thing to draw me closer to Jesus. And to find out how much Jesus loves me more than I ever have before. One of the ways we know Jesus is in the fellowship of his sufferings. And so, I'm finding out, wow, that bad thing that I didn't want to happen, did happen. And you know what's powerful? You know, what's amazing as I go through this trial, is that the love of Jesus is real to me. It's helping me through this. And I was afraid of that evil thing taking place, but the love of Jesus, and I think it's up that thing did not separate me. Look at how Jesus is loving me. See, that's what we want to experience. That's what faith that we need to have. Now.
If you look back at Romans, chapter 8, he quotes in verse 36, he quotes a verse here after he gives this list of really intense things. He quotes Psalm 44:22, where it talks about people being killed all day long, like sheep being led to the slaughter. So, he has a thought already. That's kind of making his point back from Psalm 44. So, everybody grab your Bible and turn back to Psalm 44. It may not be a Psalm you're familiar with. So, you may not get the reference that Paul is making here and look at all these bad evil things. Could they separate me from the love of Jesus? and remember, even how the people thought about it? Here in Psalm 44, it's a Psalm of the sons of Korah. It's a psalm written at a time when there was turmoil in Israel, when they were at war, and they were not winning the victory over their enemies. In fact, all the other nations had had a bad reputation about them. You can see that here in Psalm 44:9, it says, “But you have rejected us, disgraced us.” So, this psalm is written at a time where the people of Israel are like, God, why aren't you there for us? Why aren't you winning the victory for us? Where are you? We need you. And you can see in verse 22, that's the verse that gets quoted, hey, it feels like we're living for you. But we're being killed all day long. Like these people here in Psalm 44, they're being honest, hey, God, I believe in you. And I thought you were going to bring blessings in my life. I didn't know that this was going to happen to me in my life. I didn't know it was going to get this bad in my life. God, where are you? Why aren't you helping me it feels like I'm living for you. I'm living for your sake. But then look at this suffering I'm going through. It feels like I'm dying. Look at how they said it. Start with me in verse 17. Let's follow the flow of thought here in this song. They're talking about all these bad things that have come upon us, all this evil from the other nations around them from the war that's going on. And it says here in Psalm 44:17, “all this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you.” We have not been false to your covenant. Our heart has not turned back nor have our steps departed from your way, yet you have broken us in the place of jackals. You've covered us with the shadow of death. If we had forgotten the name of our God, if we had spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God discover this for he knows the secrets of the heart? Yet it's for your sake we are killed all the day long. Like do you hear what the psalmist is saying? Yeah, if I was out there singing if I was out there worshiping another god, yeah, if I had separated myself from you, then I could see why it would go this bad, but I'm living for you. I'm not I'm not out there living in sin. I'm not out there living for something else. I'm living for your sake. And yet it feels like it's so hard. Like it's not working out for good. So, I love Psalms like this. I love how real they are in expressing the challenges that they're facing and the doubts that they have, but then look at how the prayer ends in verse 23. “Awake. Why are you sleeping? Oh Lord, rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression, for our soul is bowed down to the dust, our belly clings to the ground. Rise up, come to our help, redeem us for the sake of your…” what is it and with everybody? See this guy, these sons of Korah? I mean, they are going through the worst-case scenario and where are you God? Wake up God, come and save us. Do something, rise up God, but what is their hope? What is the thing? What is the reason that they think they can't be separated from God? See, even in the midst of the shadow of death, even when it feels like God is distant and far away, what are they asking for? What are they praying for? God, when are we going to see your steadfast love? See, even in their doubt, they still believe that nothing could separate them from the love of God. That's what they're saying here. Redeemers I love that last line. See, when you're going through that trial, and you're pouring out your heart to God, and you're casting up your cares to him, you may not feel like you're in a place of faith. But if you believe that nothing can separate you from the love that God has for you, through his Son, Jesus, you'll be able to keep going, even in the worst of times. That's what the hope is here. The hope is, redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.
So, Paul, he understands how this goes, he understands. There are some people here in this room as you hear this sermon, you know, the pain that I'm talking about. And you hopefully also know the love of Jesus that I'm talking about. And I'm hoping that this will be a comfort to the pain that you've experienced, to freshly consider how much Jesus really does love you. But for some, you may feel like this is more theoretical, like, well, what bad thing will happen to me, and how will I experience the love of Jesus in that you've got to believe. We’ve got to equip you, we’ve got to prepare you for the trouble that is to come, we’ve got to use the days that we have like this, when we get to gather together to make sure you're ready for the days where you get that devastating medical diagnosis, when that tragedy takes place. When we find ourselves in a situation that we've never been in our life in the United States of America. I've never known something like this. What's going on? What's changing, when that day comes? Are you going to be praying prayers like this? Like God, this is brutal. But where's your steadfast love? I still believe that you love me. I still believe. I remember nothing can separate me from the love of Jesus. Yeah, I think if we asked everybody here today, do you know that Jesus loves you to be like, oh, yeah, the Bible tells me so. Of course, I know. But see, I'm asking is the love of Jesus, your go to response is your love of Jesus is the default thing that you go to when the bad thing happens is a thought that immediately comes to your mind. Yeah, even this won't separate me from the love of Jesus.
I say the kind of knowledge we're looking for isn't an intellectual, I can give you the right answer at church on a Sunday morning. It's an experiential, yeah, when that brutal thing happens, I'm still going to know that I'm not separated from the love of Jesus. And this is what enables people if you've ever seen a person of faith, where it seems like they just run through a wall, like they hit a trial, but they just keep on going. Like they get rocks thrown at them, they get left outside of the city for dead and they get up, brush themselves off and walk back into the city and keep preaching that gospel. How do people keep going through the trials and tribulations of this life, it's because they've got one thought, nothing can separate me from the love that God has for me. And that's what Paul is referring to. He's talking about things that have happened to him. He's talking about this Psalm, which is a great example. Even when it feels like I'm being killed all the day long, I'm going to be praying for your steadfast love to come and redeem me.
So, let's get this down for point number one: Jesus doesn't do divorce, you can't get separated from the love of Jesus, “He loves you no matter what.” That's point number one here, he loves you no matter what. This is something you've got to believe, this is what this passage is teaching us here today. And this passage, it's not like our wedding vows, when we made those vows. And I don't know how the vows work. If you wrote your own vows, if you repeat it if you just said I do write traditional vows usually include things like to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Right? Till death do you part. Right? And so, this here, when it's talking about Jesus loving us, yeah, we don't even need to mention the positive stuff, right? It doesn't give you the richer or it doesn't give you the health here. It's just like, let's talk about the bad things that are going to happen and how Jesus is going to love you. Like sometimes you see young people getting married, and they're like they say these beautiful vows. Any anybody else ever looked back at your wedding pictures, or anybody else look back on your wedding day and just think I had no clue what I was signing up for it. Can I get an amen from anybody on that?
Like I was young. I wasn't naive. And when I was like for richer or poorer, all I was thinking is richer, baby. Let's go. You know what I mean? I mean, I was thinking, wow, you look healthy. This is great, right? I was just thinking all these positive thoughts. And maybe I was a little naive, that no, there's trouble in life. And there's trouble in marriage. I mean, now the husband, he cares about the things of his wife, and the wife, she cares about the things of his, of her husband, and there's going to, there's going to be trouble there. There's going to be trouble in this world. And see, wow, what an amazing thing not to live in a naive way, and just hope it's all going to be positive. But to be able to see that it's going to be negative, it's going to be trouble. But guess what? The love of Jesus is going to carry me through every single trial I have in my life. In fact, no matter what, whatever your “what if” is, fill in the blank on whatever it is that you think, I don't know, maybe it is the loss of your spouse or the loss of a child or some kind of disease. You know, like, I don't know how I would deal with that. Well, I can tell you what Romans 8 is teaching you is how you're going to deal with that is you're going to find out that it didn't separate you from the love of Jesus.
In fact, look at Romans 8:37, he doesn't leave it rhetorical. He doesn't just bring up thoughts of how bad it could get. And Will Jesus still redeem me with his steadfast love through all the tribulations of this life? No, he emphatically answers this question in the strongest possible language, he puts an exclamation point, he puts an emphasis on this. He says, who shall separate me or us from the love of Christ? Like can any of these trials, can any of these evil things, even the sword, even to the point of death? Can any of this not just all the bad things that could happen to me in this life, but even the taking of my life? Even if I came to the end of my life? Can any of that separate me and then he says look at this verse 37? No, and all these things, whatever your what-if is, and all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. I don't even know what that means. And I've been studying it for days, my friends. What does it mean? If you conquer somebody? You are the man at that point, right? I mean, just I mean, yeah, my football team conquered the team. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't get better than conquering. But apparently it does here, everybody. I mean, conquering is this word. Maybe you've heard us talk about this Greek word nikeo? Oh, it's nike in the noun. It's the word nike, it means victory. All right. So, this is this is an awesome thing here to win, to have victory to conquer. But this is like hupernikeo. Or you could even say hupernike is what this is. This is like it says more than conquering above victory. Like over winning it. What it says is the love of Jesus is not only not going to separate from you, it's going to be so with you that no matter what you go through in this life, you can more than conquer because Jesus loves you.
Man, I would like to meet more Christians who live like this right here, where I believe that it's me and Jesus, no matter what. And even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'm not going to be afraid of any evil. I don't have what-ifs that I'm afraid of. You want to know why? Because he is with me. And I believe he already won a great victory when he died on that cross, when he proved his love for me with his blood. And I believe that his love, it will win the victory. And I know how this story is going to end. Jesus wins. And so I believe, no, none of those things can separate me from Jesus because we are more than conquerors. Can I get an amen even at the nine o'clock service this morning on a foggy morning? All right. That's what it's saying here.
Write down John 16:33 under point number one where it says in this world we will have tribulation. Jesus says it very clear. “I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace in this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart I have overcome the world. I have won the victory over the world. I have conquered the world.” That's what Jesus is saying. And now he's saying because he loves us and because not anything in this world, including death, nothing can separate us from his love for us, that we are over overcoming, that we are more than conquering. So, Paul's trying to say this like Yeah, those trials, they might beat you down, but you are really going to be lifted back up over them by the love of Jesus. So, he's saying this in a way that is meant to like, this is like the hurrah moment of the book of Romans, everybody. This is like when he's like, and nothing can separate us. And we're just like, yeah, all right. Where are the people who are living their life for Jesus? Like, Jesus loves me this I know. Yeah. Not just like, oh, yeah, another sermon about the love of Jesus. Yeah, I know about that. No, we don't know about that. You do not know how much Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you more than you know, you might know that he loves you. You might know how he loved you in the gospel, but through all the things that happened to you in this life, he's going to love you through all of those things. And then some day, when you're with Jesus, and you get to see him face to face, and you meet the unsearchable riches of his grace that he has in store for us forevermore, when you meet Jesus, and he gives you the nickname that he has for you. That's only between you and Jesus. When you meet Jesus, and he introduces you to the place that he personally prepared for you in his father's house. There are many rooms and he's got one of them for you. See, you don't fully know the love of Jesus, not yet. There is so much more to it. And that's where he goes right next in verse 30. A he starts saying, in fact, “neither death nor life, not even angels or rulers, not even things that are present or things to come.” Like now he starts saying, yeah, the love of Jesus will not only take you through all the trials of your life, not only will you not be separated, but Jesus will enable you to overcome by his love, all the evil that will come against you, you will overcome with a good love of Jesus. But not only that, let's start talking about things after death. Let's start talking about things in the spiritual realm where there's angels and demons, let's start talking about things outside of time, not even the present, not even the future. Let's talk about powers. Let's talk about things outside of the space that we live in, even outside of this universe, things where there's powers, nor height, nor depth, anything that has been created, even the things beyond what we can see in creation.
See, let's start seeing how the love of Jesus won't just carry us through the hard times in this life, it actually transcends the reality that we know of in this like, that's where he goes to here. Like, see, he asks a question, and then he emphatically answers the question. And then he takes it to a whole another level. And so, the love of Jesus is something that is so profoundly simple. You could go explain it to your child when you're putting them to bed tonight. But it is something so deep in profundity that you will never get to the end of the love of Jesus Christ. And so, all of us, if you know that Jesus loves you, there's a way that you could grow in knowing that Jesus loves you. And so, what I hear sometimes, what really concerns me sometimes when I hear it in my own thoughts, in my own heart, or when I hear my brothers and sisters at church, act like we have this been there, done that with the love of Jesus. No, you can't contain the love of Jesus in this space and time. You can't contain the love of Jesus in your past experience, even in your own salvation. No, he's going to love you beyond death. He's going to love you in the spiritual realm. He's going to love you when you're in eternity, outside of space and time, and you're there in his glorious presence, you're going to know a love like you have not yet known. See, so, he's taken now the love of Jesus, and he's stretching our understanding here. And he's saying, I love how he says it. Look at verse 38. He says, “For I am sure.” And it's this word there in the Greek, it's just the word “peitho”. And it means to be persuaded or convinced. So, this this idea that he has that he wants to share with us that nothing can separate you from the love of Jesus, not the bad things that happen right now. But even let's talk about after death. Let's get outside of our normal ways that we think and let's get into the life of the age to come. Let's think about eternal things. See, I've become persuaded is what he's saying. I've become convinced, I'm now sure of something, something I wasn't sure of before. But as I've now heard it and considered it and responded to it, now I am persuaded. Now I am convinced and let me share with you what I now believe so this is a confidence you don't start out with and even when you do know that Jesus loves you. It's an understanding that you can be persuaded about convinced about it. You can grow in your faith, you can grow in your level of confidence to where you're not even afraid to die. You're not even afraid of what's going to happen to you when your soul leaves your body, because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And you think even death won't separate you from the love of Jesus. So, you're convinced of that you're persuaded.
Go over to Philippians chapter 1. Let's see how he uses this same word peitho. A very similar thought here in Philippians 1:6, a great promise for everybody who believes in Jesus at it says it the same way. Philippians chapter 1, verse 6, he says, and “I am sure of this,” or I've become convinced of this, or I've been persuaded by this, “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ, when Jesus is unveiled in all of his glory, when Jesus is revealed, for every eye to see, I have become convinced that you will be there, you will be made complete, you will be made perfect.” On the day when Jesus’ glory is revealed. You're going to make it all the way to the end, I'm convinced about it. That's what Paul's saying. So, Paul, he is expressing something here and when you see the way if you know the story of Paul's life, and how the guy even appealed to Caesar, when the Jews were persecuting him and accusing him, and he appealed to Caesar. And he went through so many trials as a prisoner, some of us we got to go through the book of Acts together. This is a guy who believed in Jesus. In fact, he says, At the end of his life, that all of his friends, they deserted him, he had to stand alone on the day of his defense before Caesar, but he was not alone. “Because the Lord stood with me, he delivered me out of the lion's mouth, he will rescue me from every evil and he will bring me safely home.” See some of the bad things Paul could tell you, because he'd been there and done that. Now he's saying, hey, I'm convinced of things I haven't even yet experienced. And I'm convinced that on the day I die, I will be loved by Jesus. I'm convinced that when I'm in the future, I will be loved by Jesus. I'm convinced that when I'm outside of the dimensions of the realities, that kind of the physical universe that we're living in where there's height and there's depth, and I, when I'm outside of that space, I will be loved by Jesus. There is nothing that can separate me from the love I have in Jesus Christ, I have been persuaded see. And he's living with this confidence.
Look at how he says in Philippians 1:20, look at look at these kind of phrases. And let's ask ourselves, is this me? could I describe myself? Could I say what Paul says in Philippians, chapter 1, verse 20. Notice he says, “As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed.” So, when he looks to his future, and when he's looking to the end of his life, how's this story going to end? How's that all this tension going to resolve. I have an eager expectation, I have a hope I'm not going to be ashamed at the end of my life. I love how he says it here. But that with full courage. Now, as always, here's a guy who has full courage for what he is about to face. He's got it now he's got it always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. “For to me to live is Christ. and to die is gain if I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet, which I shall choose, I cannot tell I'm hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” Man, if I could stay here and keep loving all the people of Jesus and building them up in their faith, then I want to stay here and do that. But if it's time for me to go, if I'm going to die, well, that's again, that's far better, because then I'm going to be with the one who loves me. And I'll be with Jesus. He said, “Full courage, eager expectation.” It's like, yeah, Jesus loved me when he died for me 2000 years ago, that kind of knowledge of the love of Jesus is not going to lead to full courage today. That kind of like Jesus loved me in the past, and now I'm good to go is not going to prepare you for the future that God has for you. But a love that you can't be separated from, a love that's going to burst out of space and time and echo for all of eternity, that is the kind of love that will compel you to live for Jesus, with full courage with eager expectation.
So let's get this down for number two: “He loves you more than you know,” he loves you, let's say like this, beyond what you know. Yeah, Jesus, He does love me this I know. And in fact, Jesus is going to love me no matter what happens to me in this life, but there's actually more to the love of Jesus than I have experienced yet, then I know. And that kind of relational way. Yeah. Yes, the deeper my suffering goes, the more my knowledge of the love of Jesus grows, but even after death. I mean, go back to Romans chapter 8, let's try to think through the list that he gives us here. These are things that are hard for us to get our minds around, hard for us to fully understand because we have not yet experienced that. So that's where Jesus loves me. Yes, it's true that I already do know about it. But no, his love for me is actually beyond what I've yet experienced. What I know. Because he turns here, I have not yet died. I don't know what it's like to be on the other side. I don't know what it's like to go through that thing. And that's why death has an edge to it that like what is it going to be like to die? What will it be like to have my soul leave my body? What is that going to feel like? Where am I going to go? What's it going to be like? There are so many questions about death, I don't know what it's like to die. Now. I know that I will be with Jesus when I die. But then he says, angels or rulers, he's talking about the heavenly beings in the spiritual realm. Now, if you ask me, hey, what's the spiritual battle that's going on? What's going on today in the realm of angels and demons? Well, I can tell you that I know there are angels and demons. And I've had some rough moments in my life where maybe an angel really helped me out. And I've seen some very disturbing things in my life where maybe that was a demon. So I can tell you, I can act to you like I know all about angels and demons, but I don't really know that much about angels and demons. I don't really know what they're doing right now, I have an idea. But he's saying, this love of Jesus, you can be so confident that Jesus is with you, you can be so confident that Jesus loves you, that when you get through all the hard things in your life, when you get beyond this life, when you're now in eternity, when you're at now, like what is going to happen to somebody like me, out there in the spiritual realm, you can know when you can be persuaded and convinced, Jesus is going to love me even then. So, he's taking us beyond any, and he's given us like outside of time, things present, or things to come, powers, nor height, nor depth, even outside of the space that we find ourselves in. Like he's really trying to stretch our thinking here. No, none of those things will be able to separate you, from the love of Jesus,
Go over to the book of Ephesians. Chapter 6 kind of gets us a little bit thinking that there's a spiritual battle going on. And so, we have to put on the armor, we have to prepare ourselves. And we have to remind ourselves in Ephesians, Chapter 6 of all this that we have, what are we putting our faith in? Because it says, Look at Ephesians 6:12. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, our battle isn't really here in the physical life. No, we are against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil, and the heavenly places.” Satan and the rest of the demons are out there. They hate you. They want to take your life from you. They want to kill you and destroy you. You have an enemy that would love to take you down and destroy your faith and make you fall away. And guess what? Satan and the rest of his fallen angels, they cannot separate you from the love of Jesus. That's what we're hearing. We're hearing that things beyond even what we can see or fully understand, things that might terrify us, things that are beyond our comprehension. Yeah, even those things won't be able to separate us from the love of Jesus.
Go back to Ephesians 3 and look at how he says it at the end of Ephesians chapter 3. He's trying to say that, hey, this foundation that you're on, if there's one thing that you really need to know, and you need to keep knowing it and you need to know it more than you know right now, it’s this he says, I want you. This is Ephesians 3:17. “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” I want you to know that Jesus put his Spirit in you, that Christ is in you, that you’ve been rooted and grounded in love. The love of Jesus needs to be your foundation that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints, with all of us who believe “what is the breadth and length and height and depth and that you would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him, he was able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Like, you’ve got to know that Jesus loves you. It's what? It's your roots. It's the ground that you're standing on. But then he says, no, no, no. Can you see it? Can God even give you the ability to possibly perceive that the love of Jesus is working? It’s working in a dimension. You I mean, try to track with it here. There's a breadth, there's a length, there's a height, there's a depth, like, how is the love of Jesus, even working in all these different ways. I want to know a love that surpasses knowledge is what it says here. That's where Paul's taking us. At the end of Romans 8, he said, Not only will Jesus keep loving you, through all the bad things that you can possibly understand that might happen to you, but Jesus is going to love you through things that you can't even possibly understand right now. He's going to love you in a way that is beyond your knowledge, and he's going to fill you with something that is the fullness of God. Like, I believe that Jesus has loved me, I believe that Jesus does love me. But the best love that I'm going to experience from Jesus is still yet to come. Does anybody want to say amen to that here?
In some ways, I'm barely at the beginning of the love of Jesus in my life. Like, see, when we get to the end of our lives, I don't know what trials we’ll go through. I don't know what will happen in our country. I don't know what events, what diseases, what relationships, that we may end up looking back on at the end of our lives, but I do know one thing that's going to be there. And it's going to be that nothing has ever separated or ever will separate me from the love that Jesus has for me, the fact that he died for me, the fact that he is always with me the fact that he is the one who said he would take me home, to be with him. And he is the one who is going to come and get me and he's going to take me there. That will be the story of my life. That will be the theme of my life. When it's all said and done, the thing that will matter is the love of Jesus. And we act like oh, I know about the love of Jesus, when we have the love that everybody in the world wants to have. Everybody wants to be loved and to be in love and they want to be secure and that love they just want to know please don't let that love Go away. Please don't separate from me. Please don't let there be divorce or death. I just want to have this love forever. And we have that love we have the wood all the stories are about what all the happily-evers, the ever-afters are about. That's what we know. We know what people, what everybody is looking for. We have it. We have a love that will lead us.
I and the end of my story will be happy. After all these bad things happen to me and you for the rest of our lives, there will be a huge catastrophe, there will be this plot twist, there will be this resolution that at the end of the story, we will think wow, I hated that bad thing. I prayed against that thing happening. And look all of this, it was just bringing me closer to you the entire time. And now that I'm here, it's so worth it. It's so much better. It's so much bigger than I even could have possibly imagined it to be. Look at how Jesus loves me. I never knew it would be like this. It would be this good. That's what we'll be saying. Like, this isn't your theme. This isn't just something oh, I know Jesus loves me. This is the theme of your song. This is your get up in the morning. This is your go to on a bad day. Hey, let's just make a list of what will be able to separate you from the love that Jesus has for you know, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. I'm persuaded. I'm convinced. Have you become convinced of this? Paul, when he wrote this, man he must have been feeling it. Even when he just wrote this. He must have been pumped up. He must have been thinking yeah, even if I do die. Yeah, even if Satan does come after me. Yeah, even when I'm out there, and Paul, he even had visions of the heavenly places. Right? And he's thinking, wow, I'm going to be there and I'm going to know the love of Jesus. That's more than I know right now. So, I hope you can be encouraged. I hope that this can equip you for whatever is yet to come in our lives, whatever it is, nothing will separate us. Not divorce, not death, we will be loved by Jesus. Let me pray for us about this.
Father in heaven. I just pray that you would forgive us for this pride that can creep in this knowledge that puffs us up, where it's like, oh, yeah, Jesus loves me. Yeah, I know about that. Father, I pray that you could open our eyes today through the Scripture. Yes, there are things we know about your love that we need to be reminded about, that we need to be refreshed about. But there are things to know about the love of Jesus that are yet to come. Father, I pray for all my brothers and sisters that are going through tribulations, that they will know the love of Jesus. And I pray for those of us who are about to go through tribulations. Father, I pray for people in this room, that when that bad news comes on that day, when that person says that thing to them on that day, when that moment that that's like the worst case, what-if scenario, that they're like, oh, I hope that never happens to me. When that happens, I pray that they will know they are loved by Jesus Christ. I pray that they will more than conquer. Because Jesus is loving them even then, even in our moment of death. When it comes to take our last breath, I pray that we will know the love of Jesus then, that we will be convinced, that we will be persuaded, that you, Father, right now, are holding us in your hand and you will never let us go. No one is able to snatch us out of your hand, that you will hold us fast, that you have given us in your son Jesus, a love that can never be taken away from us. And we have that love in our hearts. Today. Let us be rooted and grounded in the love of Jesus. And Father, let us leave here today with a song on our hearts, with a pep in our step that we could not be more loved than we are right now. And we will always be loved and we will come to know more of this love. Because nothing can separate us from the love that you have for us in Jesus Christ, our Lord. We pray this in his name. Amen.