Can Anything Make God Stop Loving You?

All right, good morning, Two Cities Church across all of our campuses. I don't know if you know this. If you have kids, you probably know this. But this past week was Kids Week at our church. In fact, I think I've got some pictures behind me. Let me explain to you what Kids Week is. It is an intensive week where parents and their kids, families, serve local communities in Jesus' name and have a ton of fun while they're doing it. In fact, at all of our campuses, the Davie campus and the Lexington campus and then here in Winston, we were able to serve different communities. In fact, there was about 1,000 people, parents and kids, serving. And we got to serve in 29 different locations. This is assisted living areas. This is elementary schools, pregnancy care centers. It was an incredible week. Now, here's what Kids Week means for us as a church and as a staff. So if you don't know this, we used to do Kids Week like earlier in the summer and then for various reasons, we moved it. And so now it's the last week of July. What that means is as soon as Kids Week's over, we are headed into the fall. And part of what I want you to know is our church, like any kind of church or organization,

has growth cycles. In the fall for us, you can already look around here at the Winston-Salem campus. It's pretty crowded. We're always trying to make room, especially in the fall and at the beginning of the year. So prepare your heart. In just a minute, I'm gonna ask you to move the five o'clock service, okay? But let me tell you, okay, let me tell you why. Because some of you want a Bible verse. And here it is. The Bible talks again and again about hospitality, right? And hospitality is actually a requirement of an elder in the church. He must be hospitable. Here's what that means. Welcoming the stranger. But what I wanna talk to you for a second is the church should have organizational hospitality. We should, basically what we wanna do is this. We want, when people show up to any of our locations, we wanna express this. We were expecting you and we were ready for you. That's what hospitality says. And actually underneath it, theologically, it says we were expecting you because we wanna communicate that God was expecting you and he's glad that you're here. And so here's what we're trying to do.

We're launching, well, let me talk about Lexington for a second, okay? Our Lexington campus is getting so jam-packed. I had someone take a picture of the service. Show the picture of our service while we go. I mean, wrong picture. Throw the other picture up there, okay? So guys, I mean, but it is packed out. We've got limited space. So you're gonna be excited about this, okay? All of our campuses will be excited about this, but especially Lexington. On August 16th, okay, which is two weeks from today, we are launching a five o'clock service in Lexington. Hope you're excited. And if you live closer to Lexington, maybe this is now the time to try this. Here's why you wanna do the five o'clock service, okay? If you are single and ready to mingle, five o'clock service is for you. If you have kids, okay, and they're getting older and they get up at the crack of dinner, this is the service for you, okay? Now, we're gonna be doing something special at our Lexington campus and here at Patterson and Winston-Salem. We are going to, just for three weeks, the 16th and the two weeks following it in August, so for a total of three weeks, we're gonna do food and fun at five, okay?

So we're gonna have some food afterwards and we're gonna have some things to do, and it's just gonna be a great experience. Part of what we're trying to do, guys, okay, and then we'll pray and get to work, is we are trying to make space for people because if we don't have a seat for a person, we don't have a space for them. If we don't have a space for them, we can't disciple them. So that's our hope, but that said, let's pray, and maybe you would consider moving to the five o'clock service, whether you're in Lexington or here, and by the way, you can only increase your seating capacity if you also increase your serving capacity. Churches that increase their seating capacity is because they're filled with people who have servant heart and servant hands, and hopefully that's what we'll have here, so let's pray. Lord, thank you for the grace of God on our church and growth is a great blessing, and we thank you that we've seen this church grow numerically and spiritually and missionally and organizationally in all these different ways. We're trying to be good and wise stewards, and so if there are people in the morning services at either Lexington or here in Winsome, that could make that move to the five p.m. service, pray that they would do it, that they would try it for a season

to see if it might be best for them and their families, that certainly would be a way to serve our church. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well, questions are powerful, right? So I don't know if you've ever been in a meeting or more likely like a one-on-one conversation with somebody and somebody asks you the right question or maybe the wrong question. I've had people ask me a question before that made me cry. It's like, I didn't even know that was in me, you got at something, okay? Questions are really, really important, and today if you'll turn to Romans chapter eight, Paul's gonna ask us six questions. We're ending Romans chapter eight. By the way, if you're new, great time to be new. We're halfway through the book and we're coming to the end of the most famous chapter in the book. And Paul has six questions to ask us today. See the Puritans. And I love the Puritans, okay? The Puritans, they preach for a very long time. Can you say amen, right? Long preaching, yes. And the reason that they preach for such a long time, right, they literally would flip the hourglass once or twice while they were preaching. They preach for a long time because they would preach a text and then just answer a bunch of questions.

Questions the culture might be asking, questions the church might be asking, questions that are in the text but maybe aren't obvious. And so think about it this way. Catechisms, so depending on what tradition you're from, if you grew up in any type of church, catechisms were, I mean, they were really designed to pass on the faith to the next generation, particularly little kids. So when our kids were littler, my wife would do the New City Catechism, which is this catechism from Tim Keller and anyway. And the first question is, what is your only hope in life and death? And it's weird to see your five-year-old eat goldfish and go, that I am not my own but belong to Jesus Christ. But that's the power of questions. Now, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, asked a lot of questions. If you go through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, okay, I don't know who first tallied these up. It looks like, it appears, Jesus asked 300 questions, roughly. That's a lot of questions. In fact, a lot of times in rabbinical tradition, he would be asked a question and then answer the question with a question. You know, he asks, who do people say that I am? He asks a guy that is sick, and he says, who do you want to be healed?

He's like, of course he wants to be healed. Maybe he needed to say it. Maybe he needed to think about it. Well, guys, today, I'm gonna read you Romans 8.31-39, okay? And here's the big idea, okay, for the whole sermon. It's really a question about these questions, but here's what Paul's going. Can anything separate us from God's love? Is there anything someone else could do to us? Is there anything that I could do from the love of God if I'm in Christ? And you'll see in a second, Paul's answer is a resounding no. I'm gonna read this, and first thing I want you to notice is the tone. Look at this. What then shall we say to these things? Okay, first question. Paul's like, I'm gonna just ask you a question, and then I'm gonna give you five questions in response, okay? And by the way, these things is all of Romans 8 so far, and especially Romans 8.28-30, which we read last week with we know all things work together for good and the golden chain, all that. Look at this. If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. Second question. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Third question. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Fourth question. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who's at the right hand of God, who's interceding for us. Final question, which is what Paul's leaning towards the whole time. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And then Paul lists a bunch of separators, potential separators. Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? And then Paul quotes Psalm 44, not the most encouraging Psalm, okay, probably not your memory verse here. Look here. It is written, for your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And look at Paul in 37. No, in all these things, not around them, but 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 case I forgot something else, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. What I wanna do today is I want to put steel in your spine. I wanna put a spring in your step. I wanna put a smile on your face because Paul is saying nothing can separate you if you're in Christ from the love of God. Nothing that you've done, nothing that you will do, nothing that anyone else will do against you. And Paul's going to do this by talking about five different questions, okay? And the first thing that we need to talk about even before we get into these is this whole big idea that Paul's gonna get at, which is this is the question under all these questions. Could I do something that would separate me from God's love? Because here's why that, you know, I know you know, if you've been in church, I know you know the right answer. No, nothing can separate me. But come on, that's not the real answer for you. That's not how you often feel. Partly it's because our lived human experience tells us that all relationships. have a breaking point, right? I mean, how many couples do we know that stood at the altar with God and government and friends and family, and they said forever,

but then there was like a little bit of fine print and forever wasn't really forever, right? We all have this. I thought my boss was for me until they downsized my department and there was budget cuts. We all have that feeling, right? It's interesting this week, kind of an interesting week. I found myself, I met and ended up talking to this minor league baseball coach. And I'm always trying to learn things from different people, what they do. And so we started talking about coaching and leading men and he's a Christian and he's been in the minor leagues, you know, coaching under a pro team. And he said, what's interesting is all of the young men, he's like, without exception, all of the young men on my team that do not have a dad or they had a terrible relationship with their dad. He says, when things are going well, you can't tell, but as soon as there is failure, you can tell who had a dad and who didn't. And the problem, if you know anything about baseball, the problem with baseball is like, if you're good, you hit the ball one out of every three times you're up there. And so he's like, basically I'm dealing with all these men who are 22, 23, 24 years old, and they don't know how to deal with failure and they get to the locker room

and they turn into an eight-year-old, his words. Can anything separate you from the love of God? Because some of you had a dad walk out or a spouse walk out or you've got an ex something and you're confused. Well, I'm gonna give you five things that Paul says. First, Paul says, God is for us, no one can be against us. He says it as a question, let's read it. He says, what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? By the way, I want you to notice the celebratory defiant tone of Paul. I imagine Paul in this whole section, okay? If you've ever seen the movie Gladiator, remember when Maximus, okay, don't act like you haven't seen it, okay? When he's got the sword, right, and that famous scene, I don't remember all the things that happen in it, but he wins against all odds and then the crowd's cheering and he's all upset and he goes, are you not entertained? That's what Paul's doing. He's like, I'm talking to God's enemies, I'm talking to anybody and everybody who will listen, are you not entertained? First thing he says is if God is for you, no one can be against you, okay? Really what he means is nobody can be against you successfully because as soon as I say, oh yeah, guys, God is for you, who can be against you? You're like, I have a list, starting with my HOA, right? And the problem with you and the problem with me

is we have what's called a negativity bias, which here's what this means. This means that for every one insult, it takes about 10 compliments to make it up. This is why if you leave here and in the parking lot, you know, you see a $20 bill, you'll get like a two second dopamine spike and you'll be like, that's cool, 20 bucks, okay? And if you find out that your AT&T bill was off by $20 and they've been taking $20 from you, you will be on the phone with them for three hours. We have this negativity bias. Now, okay, let's just be honest, okay? What appears to be against us? A couple of things. Number one, your health, right? Some of you feel that. You're like my, some of you, right? You're like, I just, I have horrible genetics. This happens to people. And then you're afraid because it's against you and it was against your mother and it was against your grandmother, right? And you're like, I just have terrible genes. Some of you go, I know who's against me, my family, right? You're like, he's not even here. Like my boyfriend or my spouse or my son or whatever it is. It's like, he thinks what I'm doing is goofy. Some of you know this, but I did four years of ministry at Duke University, okay?

And I remember we saw this guy come to Faith in Christ, crazy story, like a lot of stories were at Duke. Super secular family, super secular parents. We shoot a video about it, we're so excited. With his approval, like we made sure he's really walking with the Lord. We shot this video about it, it was a great story. His parents find out. They find out that we're celebrating him becoming a Christian. They call, they're upset. They say, quote, we'd rather our son come out of the closet as gay than come home from college and tell us he's an evangelical Christian. That changes how you disciple a guy who's 19 years old in college. Sometimes, you know, it's the dining room table or the dinner table at Thanksgiving, they're like, they're against me, right? Sometimes it's culture. You're like, I get these goofy pronoun emails that I don't know even how to respond to. And every once in a while I have to go to these silly DEI diversity training things that makes me feel weak. And it's not fair because everybody else with their cubicle at work gets to celebrate. every lifestyle except mine, which has to be hidden and managed. Then there's the economy that feels like it's against you.

You're like, ah, inflation and interest rates, right? All the young people are like, we tell all the young people, you should have bought a house in 2020. And they're like, I was a sophomore. Well, that's your fault, you know? Well, he says, if God is for you, who can be against you? Now, let me clarify this, because when people hear God is for me, listen, God is for you, but it's not ultimately about you. Now, you're gonna be confused. You're like, God is for me, but X is happening, but Y is happening, but Z is happening. It's like, look, your favorite psalm you've been reading wrong your whole life. He leads me beside still waters. He makes me lie down. Read the end. For his name's sake, God is for you, but just not in a way that's ultimately about you. He's ultimately about his own glory. Now, the opposite is also true. If God is against us, who could be for us? That's a terrifying thought. The book of Hebrew says it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of almighty God. And it does not matter if the Supreme Court rules in your favor, if God is against you. But Paul tells us the very God of the universe

is in our corner, promising that he is never, ever, if you're going through suffering, you don't ever have to think, is God against me? No, no, God is for me, and Romans 8, 28 is happening. He's working it together. Second thing, God is not just for you. He will give you everything you need. Look, here's what Paul says. Let me show you this. Verse 32, Paul says this. He who did not spare his own son, notice the logic of the Christian gospel. He who did not spare his own son, that's the heart of what we sing about, Jesus going to Calvary on the cross, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Paul's doing something called arguing from the greater to the lesser. So it's like Paul goes, God already did the hardest thing. There is nothing harder than not sparing his only son, who he's been with from all eternity. And you can hear it in the word spare. He did not spare. He's saying if he did the hardest thing, he's going to do the way easier thing. In fact, meeting all your needs is a billion times, it's not an exaggeration, is a billion times easier

than giving up his one and only son. See, my wife and my kids, they like to go to Disney. Pray for me, okay? And so we're a Disney family, okay? And so they want to go to Disney. And I can, I like it sometimes, you know what I'm saying? It's just so stressful going to Disney because it's so expensive. It's like, guys, it was this or college? Enjoy. You know? We took a second mortgage out to come here. And so, but when I'm there, you know, when you get to Disney, like the first thing that the kids want when you get to the, you know, because you got to stay at the Disney resort, you know, that kind of stuff. Because the extra magic hours, some of you know what I'm talking about. Okay, so we're at the Disney resort. What they want is like the all you can drink cup. The all you can drink cup is still a rip off. Eh, she says it isn't, I think it is, okay? It's like whatever it is, it's 20 some dollars. But then, you know, you're there for seven days, you drink, whatever. So maybe it's worth it. But my whole point is, I'm telling my kids, of course, I'm going to get you the cup.

I already, you know, gave my kidney to you know what I'm saying? I already paid for all this. It's a silly illustration, but what I want you to understand is, if you've already, that's what God's saying. I've already paid the biggest thing. I've already done all the big, don't ask me about a goofy cup. I mean, you guys have got it, I'm going to get you the cup. I'm going to get you everything that you need, okay? Now, here's the thing. We actually have in America today a scarcity mindset, which basically we don't believe God's going to provide for us. And the scarcity mindset, you know, it's so the average, like Gen Z or whatever generation is like a generation or two below me, 42%, this is hard to believe, but they live paycheck to paycheck. Now part of it might be the avocado toast. I'm not sure, okay? But there's real, I mean, there's inflation, there's interest rates, right? And here's the thing though, the scarcity mindset, I won't have enough, I need to hoard. I wish I could tell you that the more money you make, then it goes away. But the problem with the scarcity mindset is it's not a math problem, it's a theological problem, okay?

So you've got the entire boomer generation, right? They're just like saving millions of dollars, right? And they're billions, because if I had to go to an assisted living home, I better be able to get the $25,000 a month one. And I might be in there for 15, you know what I'm saying? There is a hoarding, God is not going to take care of me mindset. It's a zero. And then the zero-sum game is, yeah, and then if he gains, I lose, you know, we both can't win at the same time. God's like, I'm going to provide all of your needs. Now, all things, by the way, give us all things, does not mean everything that you want, right? God will meet your needs, not your greeds, if you've never heard that. And so what happens is, here's what God will give you all things means. God will give you everything you need to get to heaven. God will give you the mercy. See, we think of it in financial means, but God will give you the mercy. God will give you the supernatural strength. God will give you the grace. And he says, you can know that because God didn't spare his own son. Now, listen, God did something you wouldn't do. God did something I wouldn't do. And I love you guys. And I'd like to think in a moment of heroism,

Christian heroism. I might give my life for one of you or a group of you, but I would never ever, no disrespect, you wouldn't do it either. I would never give my kid for you. And as soon as you go, yeah, I wouldn't do it for you either. Then you start to realize the great extent God went to to save us. And he will now meet all of our needs, but not all of our greeds. Third, Paul says, look, God's for you. So no one can successfully be against you. And God's gonna provide everything you need. You can just look to the cross as the foundation. And then he says, look, and no one's gonna bring any accusations successfully. That's the key word, successfully against you. Look at this, verse 33. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. He's not saying there are no charges to be brought against you. He's saying they can't be brought successfully because God has justified you. In fact, he doesn't even say you're justified, which is true if you're a Christian. He said, God justifies you. Now, charges are accusations. Now, here's the problem.

You and I have at least three accusers, right? The first is, you know who I'm gonna say, Satan. I mean, literally his name in the Bible, one of his nicknames, is the accuser of the brethren, okay? And the only thing good that we can say about Satan is he's utterly predictable, okay? Satan is like the eagles. He's still living off his old hits, okay? And it means, listen, Satan only does two things. Satan only has like two plays. He has temptation and accusation, okay? And so he wants to get you with temptation. And then as soon as you give in to temptation, then he comes and he does accusation. This is why, like, you'll notice this. You'll be alone or you'll be on vacation or whatever. You'll be somewhere. And you'll hear the voice of Satan, which is always soft on sin before you do it and hard on sin after you do it. He's like the greatest, you know, timeshare salesman, okay? And like, he can just, he'll tell you, you know, no one will find out and you deserve this and you're the exception and all the things that, you know. And then as soon as you do it, well, how could you? You did it again, you're never gonna be, if anybody ever found out, you would never, and this means that you'll never overcome it. Listen, Satan is soft on sin before you do it, hard on sin after you do it.

God is hard on sin before you do it, but quick to forgive and give grace after you do it and confess it. So you have Satan who accuses you, then you have other humans who accuse you, right? See, here's the problem with cancel culture, right? It's like the internet never forgets, unfortunately, right? And you could have, like, I thought I had friends and then I did one dumb post like four years ago that somebody found and now they've canceled me because we live in a culture, this is important, where because of the internet technology, we have a perfect memory with no mercy. Tell you a story, so I'm, I love to watch documentaries. So a couple of years ago, I saw a documentary of Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Arnold Schwarzenegger, I thought he was fascinating, and then I watched the documentary, I was like, this guy's unbelievably fascinating. You know, first of all, he was Mr. Universe, which, you know, I'm looking around here, none of you are Mr. Universe, you know? So, I mean, it's like, this guy, I mean, think about this, I mean, he got in the best shape, like the, okay, so that's, we won't even do that, but that's one whole episode, like, wow. Second thing he does is become the most famous male actor in the world while acting in his second language. You go, okay, well, you won't do that either, but he did both somehow.

And then the third episode is then he marries a Kennedy and becomes governor of California. You're like, you wouldn't believe it if it was a book. Like, there's not one person does it, so why am I telling all this? I watch this show, and I'm telling somebody about it. I'm like, you never knew this, Arnold did this, and Arnold did this. And you know what the first thing he said to me was? You know he slept with his nanny. And I thought, that is the human condition in a parable. Why was that the first thing you wanted me to know? It's in the documentary. documentary. What is it about us that can't have something well said about somebody without putting them down? Or what is it about us that remembers the worst thing about everybody and then brings it up when it's convenient, or particularly when we're angry at them? And then we have an inner critic, okay? So you've got Satan who accuses you, right? You got other people who accuse you, and they'll remind you of every dumb thing you've ever done, okay? Especially when they're mad at you. And then you have this inner critic, right? Which, have you ever heard of, what do they call it? A geography of regret. So, I mean, Taylor Swift actually writes, I'm never going to do this again, but I'm going to quote Taylor Swift for just one second.

She writes about it in her song, Cornelius Street. Basically, a geography of regret is there are places I can't go because of what I've done. And it might be your college dorm, it might be Las Vegas, you know, it might be a frat house, you know, and you go, man, even when I drive by that exit, I remember. And so he says, who can bring a charge against... Interesting, do you know what? We're going to talk about this for the next three weeks afterwards, so get ready. But he says, who can bring a charge against God's elect? What's that about? It's the first time Paul uses the word elect in the Bible, or sorry, in Romans. Elect is shorthand for the golden chain, if you were here last week. Elect is...Paul's like, it's too long to write again. So elect means foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified. Basically, it's like, listen, God has justified you. God, more than that, foreknew and foreloved you. And God is in the highest court, and no charge can successfully be brought against you, which leads to his next question, which is connected. Some people put them together. Who can condemn you? Let's talk about this quickly. Because no condemnation, we've covered many times, it's the main theme, one of the main themes in Romans 8. Who is to condemn?

I'm in verse 34. Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised. Notice again, he's going to the gospel, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ to comfort us, who was raised, who's at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. He goes, so not only can you...there'll be no charges, there's no condemnation. Why? Because Christ died for us. Now, if you're new, you may not know this, or if you've been coming around for a while, you still may not know this. When we baptize people, on the shirt, it says, Jesus in my place. Why did we do that? Well, because it took a long time to think about, but we try to say, what is the shortest way to explain the entire gospel in the least amount of words and just put on a shirt? And the heart of the gospel is Jesus in my place. He lived a life I couldn't live. He died in my place for my sins. He's both my perfection in his life and my punishment in his death, and he's basically saying, God doesn't punish sin twice. Jesus was condemned in your place for your sin so that God could treat you as righteous, and you could have the righteousness of Christ. But I want you to see it says he died, then it says he was raised. In other words, it doesn't say he rose from the dead, which is true.

It says he was raised. It's the passive voice, meaning God raised him from the dead. The resurrection, the empty tomb, is God's read receipt. It's like, I saw it, I approve it, I accept it, I celebrate what my son has done. But what's interesting is in most Christian circles, all we talk about is the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, which is great. But you need a present tense Jesus. Most Christians have a past tense Jesus. Yep, he, you know, he died, he lived a long time ago, and then he was a real historical figure, and then he died, and that was also a long time ago, and then he rose from the dead, and that was also a long time ago. What we forget, so theologians say there is the life, the death, the resurrection, and then here's a new, it's a simple word, but here's a new word. What the theological category for after the resurrection is called Jesus's session, S-E-S-S-I-O-N, session. It's his ascension to heaven and being seated, it says in other places, it doesn't say seated here, but it says in other places, seated at the right hand of God. Now, why would he be seated at the right hand of God? Well, yes, authority, kingship, all that. But it's the idea that his work is done. In other words, so this is interesting, in the tabernacle, you may not know this, in the tabernacle back in the day, in the Old Testament, there were no chairs in the tabernacle. You go, that's kind of strange. Everywhere you go, everywhere you've ever gone, there's been a chair

for you to sit in. There are no chairs in the tabernacle. Why? Because God wanted to communicate in the Old Testament, the priesthood, the work of the priest is never done. When Jesus goes, well, now that I'm the great high priest, it is done. He sits down and it says that he is now interceding for us, okay? Yes, that means praying. It also means presenting all that he's done for us to God, the Father, and defending any accusations or condemnations that come our way. So we have this beautiful… full picture of what Christ has done as our great high priest. Do you remember what Jesus said to Peter? Right before he goes to the cross, Jesus says to Peter, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat. And then what does he say? But I've prayed for you that your faith would not fail. And then he says this, and after you have turned, strengthen your brothers. In other words, I've already prayed for you, and even before you deny me, I've already promised your restoration. Jesus, I mean, there's such comfort in knowing that Jesus prays for you more than you pray for you. He says there's no condemnation, there's no accusation, there's no deprivation, right, God's going to provide. There's no opposition, but this is where he's going at. This is where we're going to spend the rest of our time. No separation. This is where he's going. Look here.

This is verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And then he mentions a bunch of separators. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? So basically, Paul's going to... Paul started with no condemnation, verse 1. Paul's ending with no separation. And he's basically, he's like, guys, I told you all those other things God's for you, he's going to provide for your needs, he's not going to accuse you, all this kind of stuff. He says, I told you this so that you would know that nothing is going to separate you from the love of God. See, there's something that in child development, they call attachment theory. And attachment theory is this idea that the first thing we learn in infancy is this. When I cry, will someone come? I don't know how it all works with babies, but it's like, somehow, you know, they can't even, I don't have the words yet, but they're figuring out, when I cry, will someone come? And he's saying, I want to tell you, nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. He said, in fact, do you notice he says, who will separate us? But then he names a bunch of things, not people. That's kind of weird. We would probably write, what will separate us, right? Maybe he misquoted. What will separate us from the love of God? It doesn't say what, it says who, because, by the way,

all of our attacks feel so personal. And so he actually gives us seven different things that potentially could separate us. The first three are kind of external. So the first one is tribulation, which literally means, the original Greek word means pressure, right? So think about it, pressure is a big deal. You have chest, some of you have chest pressure. Others of you have high blood pressure. I mean, some of you come home from work, right? Or you've been with the kids all day or something like that. And you'll say to, you know, your husband or your kids, hey, I just need to decompress. We use this kind of language, right? We feel pressure, right? Some moms out here are like, yeah, Paul thinks he's experienced pressure. You try organizing three kids in club sports, okay? Now he was shipwrecked, but amateur, right? I mean, no, but we have an enormous amount of pressures on our lives. Then he says, okay, there's pressure. And then he says, there's distress. And that's the Greek word for being squeezed. Here's what it really means. It means feeling trapped, which is to take, we don't want that, right? That's why you don't wanna get in the MRI machine. That's why people are afraid they'll get stuck in elevators. This is why you don't wanna be

in the middle seat ever, right? Some of you feel trapped on the family toxic text thread you can't get off of, right? We all have like, how do I get out of here? He goes, okay, so there's times you feel, look, you feel pressed and you feel squeezed. And then he says, on top of that, there's persecution, which is the unique suffering that only Christians experience because of or for their faith in Jesus Christ. But then he says, not just that, do you see the next two? He says, famine and nakedness. And part of what I'm doing, reading this, is I'm like, how do, this sounds so extreme. I'm like, how do I talk about these things in an air-conditioned room where people are taking notes on their $1,200 phones? I mean, it sounds, famine? This is not intermittent fasting. This is not skipping a meal to try to get a beach body or something. Paul's like, I don't know the last time I ate. Nakedness is not looking in your closet and saying, I have nothing to wear. It's looking at all you own and say, I have nothing to wear. Paul says there's famine, there's nakedness, there's danger, right? We live in a very, I mean, the world, we don't wanna think about it too much, but the world's a very dangerous place.

I mean, you can see signs of it everywhere. Like, oh yeah, we have seat belts. Oh, we have smoke detectors. Oh, we have security. security systems, oh, we have passwords for everything. Oh, we wear helmets. I mean, it's like the world is not, it's not a safe place. And Paul says, there's lots of danger. And then the sword is, I mean, it's literally execution is what Paul's talking about. And Christians all over the world do lose their lives for Jesus, but it would be death by extension. But here's what I want to do. I want to read you real quick. The suffering Paul underwent. If you've never seen this before, because I want, before we get to, because after Paul says all that, in a moment, he's going to say, no, we're more than conquerors. But that doesn't mean a lot from somebody who hasn't suffered or is in some ivory tower or some armchair theologian. That's not Paul. Let me read you, this is 2 Corinthians 11. This would be a great thing to look at with your community group this week. Let me show you what Paul says about his own sufferings. Paul's defending himself in 2 Corinthians 11.

He says, are they servants of Christ? These false teachers. I am a better one. And I love Paul goes, I'm talking like a madman. Then look what he says. With far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings and often near death. Now, did you notice something's a common in what he says at first? I can't count how many times it's happened. You know, I have like four stories from Duke and I remember them. And I remember what they said to me. I remember almost getting kicked off campus one time. I remember getting a threatening email from the religious life people. I mean, I remember it. Paul goes, this stuff happens to me so much. I can't remember how many times I was in prison. But then Paul goes, there's a couple of things that I did count. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, 40 lashes minus one. You can just imagine what Paul's back looked like. Three times I was beaten with rods. So that's eight times at least I can remember. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. And then a night and a day I was adrift at sea. Then look at this.

Paul's gonna say he was in danger. So when Paul says danger, Paul goes, I've been in danger. On frequent journeys, I'm in danger from rivers, I'm in danger from robbers, dangers from my own people, the Jewish people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers. Paul's like, if I'm with the Jews, they don't like me. If I'm with the Gentiles, they don't like me. The Jews don't like me because I left the Jewish faith. Well, I actually think Jesus is a completion of it. And the Gentiles don't like me because I'm trying to convert the Gentiles. And then there's false brothers who are in the church. So everywhere I go, I can't even trust people. And then he says this, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and in thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. You just read this, you go, Paul, what kind of life did you live? Every once in a while when I'm, you know, it doesn't happen a lot, but if I go get asked to speak somewhere else, one of the things that they'll end up doing is they'll end up emailing somebody on the staff and say, what is Kyle like? Like, what snacks does he like? And so every once in a while, when I get into the green room where I'm speaking somewhere,

I'll see my Topo Chico. Not anymore, you can't find it, but I'll see my Topo Chico, and I'll see that someone went and got me the dried mangoes. Not the dried mangoes that have the sugar in them, you know, just the classic dried mangoes. And then if they're really, they got me the peanut butter pretzels covered in chocolate, my favorite little dessert. But every once in a while I get in there, I'm like, what the apostle Paul figured? What has become of my life? Paul's like, dude, I'm in cold and exposure. Everywhere I go, people beat me up. I've been in prison more times than I can count. And it's with that that Paul says, verse 37, I want you to see that, because this is a man who then says this, no, no, in all these things, by the way, not around them, in, in all these things, in what, in famine, in want, in danger, in distress, in tribulation, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Now, you got to ask this question, how can you be more than a conqueror? In fact, Paul makes up a word in Greek never used before. He does this every once in a while, he like just combines words. And so he says, we're not just conquerors, it says we're more than conquerors.

Literally it's one word, it's hyper conquerors, which is kind of weird to say, so we just translate it more than conquerors. Because if you think about it, what is a conqueror? Well, a conqueror is like, well, they win. Here's what basically, by the way, for all the young people, here's what Paul is saying, all I do is win, win, win. Okay, that's what he's saying. I know that song is inappropriate, don't listen to the whole song, but you get the whole thing. Okay, literally, Paul's like, all I do is win, win, win. That's it, I can't lose. Everything works in my favor. So here's the thing. A conqueror wins. A conqueror defeats their enemies. A conqueror takes the land, okay. More than a conqueror subjugates them. In other words, I will take everything that was against me and now use it for me. I will take the very weapons used against me and I will now use them for good. This is what Paul does. You guys understand that Paul says, Paul preaches the gospel, they get mad at him, they put him in prison. In Acts 16, while in prison, he leads a jailor to Christ. So he just turns a prison, you hear him, Butner? He turns a prison into a church.

And he ends it. Then, he leads the whole family to Christ, he baptizes. And then, when they say, okay, we're gonna kill you, Paul. Paul's like, well, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Like, fine, we're not killing you. He goes, great, then it means fruitful labor. Paul's more than a conqueror. Because look what he says here. This is what he says, how he ends, look at this. Verse 38, 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. Paul's like, I forgot it, let me just put it in here. Nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now, what I want you to know is in verse 28, Paul said, actually, in verse 26, Paul says, basically, we don't know how to pray. And then, in verse 28 of Romans 8, Paul goes, well, we know, here's one thing, we don't know how to pray. Here's one thing we know, I showed you this last week. We know that all things work together for good. Then, it's very clear, Paul steps it up at the end. He says, for I am sure, which means I am convinced and I have been persuaded beyond any doubt, and I am certain. See, this is what's interesting. Paul says you can have certainty

even when you don't necessarily always have clarity. I was talking to a pastor who he had to do a funeral for a young child in his church. And the Lord put on his heart, talk about the difference between certainty and clarity. And the whole sermon was, hey, based on what we know from scripture, let me tell you what I know for certain. I know your young child's in heaven. I know, and he gave all these, but here's where we don't have clarity. We don't know why. We don't know what this means for your future. We don't know, there's so much that we don't know. And Paul goes, listen, you guys can have certainty even when you don't have clarity. And then, Paul lists everything. He goes, what could separate us? And he gives such massive, have you noticed how big those categories were? I mean, height, depth, things in the past, things to come. Here's what I want you to know as we close. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. There are certain things that could separate you from people you love temporarily. That happens. There are certain things in your life that can separate you from your body. I mean, literally, by definition, that's what death does. Before the resurrection,

death separates you from your body. There are things that happen in our minds and in our hearts that sometimes separate us from ourselves. You know, you deal with all this dementia and some of the things in old age, and you feel like, man, it's hard to watch your parents or your grandparents get old because they get separated from themselves. So Paul's like, look, sin and suffering can separate. They can separate you from you. They can separate your soul from your body. It can separate you from people that you love. It can take you away from this world because they can take your life. But Paul says, ultimately, nothing can separate you from the love of God that's in Christ. He's basically saying, look, your dad, if you're a Christian, your dad, your heavenly father, is bigger than any danger that you're going to face. And what I thought I would do, kind of just end a little differently today, I wrote out what I think in 2026, if Paul had a lot of space, you know, because he gave us the big categories, height, depth, right, future, past. But those are big categories and they're coming for us. But I thought, what if I just wrote down all the little things? And the different things that in every generation, some may seem silly to you if you've passed it,

some may seem silly to you if you've not gotten it to yet. But I wrote down a list of what could separate us from the love of Christ? And the answer to all this is it can't separate us, but I wrote a couple of things down. Shall the group chat that went quiet. Feel like you don't have any friends. Shall the lunch table, and I remember how big of a deal that was, shall the lunch table that has no seat for you, or the party you saw. at everybody's story, I'm sorry, the party you saw on everyone's story, but nobody sent you the invite. Shall the college rejection letter, or the number you keep seeing on the scale, or the thing they're saying about you in the thread you can't see, that can't separate you. Shall the major that you picked wrong and now regret and are worried about AI, or the degree that hasn't turned into a job, or the interview that never called you back, or the apartment or house that you can't afford, or the wedding that you keep going to that's not yours. Shall the pregnancy test that keeps coming back with just one line, or the nursery you painted that's still empty, or the miscarriage that no one at work knows about, and the due date that only you remember. Shall the marriage that is harder

than anyone told you it was gonna be, or the divorce papers on the kitchen counter, or the counseling that you're going to that's not working. Shall the affair, the one you committed or the one committed against you, no, it can't separate you from the love of Christ. Shall the toddler years that are burying you, or the teenager that frustrates you, or the diagnosis with letters that you have to Google. Shall the prodigal, the kid you raised in church who won't come anymore, and whose empty chair at Thanksgiving is the loudest thing at the table. Shall the layoff at 55 when nobody's hiring with your resume. Shall the mortgage or the market or the 401k you're afraid to open. Shall the sandwich years where you're both raising your kids and burying your parents. Where you find yourself sitting at Novant parking deck trying to remember which floor you were on and which grief you're on. Shall the emptiness that's different and quieter than you expected, or the tremor in your hand, or the name you can no longer remember, or when someone begins to talk about memory care. Shall the diagnosis or worse, the one you're waiting on, neither the MRI nor the biopsy, neither the reception or recession, nor the election,

neither the anxiety you can't pray away, nor the depression that came back, nor the panic attack in the target parking lot. Neither your worst decision or your darkest season, neither the abortion or the addiction or the arrest, neither death nor life, and life with its difficult seasons, neither angels, nor demons, nor governments, nor algorithms, nor anything that has happened to you or anything that you're afraid to happen to you, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God. And men of Butner, I don't talk to you enough directly. You're experiencing, one of our campuses, we all know this when we speak to you men, you are experiencing a sentence of separation. It's a sentence of separation where you can't tuck your kids in at bed, where you can't experience your mother's cooking, and you can't do the things that we take for granted on a normal Monday and Tuesday. And even though the state can put a fence around your body, nobody can put a fence around Romans 8.39 in your life. And you, there's nothing you can do that will separate you if you're in Christ from the love of God, and you are more free than many people walking around who do not have that relationship with Christ. And so the way that we wanna respond, guys, is in just a minute, we're gonna sing. And we're gonna sing in the same way

that Paul is defiantly just singing. We're gonna sing about nobody. There's nobody in the grave, we're gonna sing. And we're gonna pray, and I just want to invite you. I wanna invite you to come forward. If there's anything in your life, you're experiencing accusation, opposition, condemnation, whatever it is, I want you to come forward. We wanna pray with you, we wanna pray together, because nothing can separate us from the love of God. Let us draw close to the altar, let's pray. Lord, even if I didn't get to an item on someone's list, there is just so many pain and pressure points, there's so much distress and tribulation in people's lives, Lord. Would you comfort us with the fact that nothing will separate us from the love of God that is found in Jesus Christ? The question is not, are we going to hold on? But the fact is, you will never let go. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Please stand and say.