Nothing Can Separate You from the Love of God
Romans 8:28-39
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. For I am convinced 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.
I won’t hold it against you if you don’t have the beginning section of today’s scripture already memorized. It is a very classic style of text from the Apostle Paul.. “those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” It feels a little all over the place. Paul has a tendency to start one thought, add another thought, remember something else he wants to say, and then suddenly we are several paragraphs deep into a theological argument that we didn’t know we were signing up for. As I was studying scripture in college and seminary, I learned that the Apostle Paul likely did not physically write these letters but had a scribe who he was dictating to, I began to understand his somewhat frantic ramblings. He realized he needed to add just “one more thought” and that’s how Romans ends up being sixteen chapters. And I want to be honest in that I have some beef with the Apostle Paul, but I have to give him credit for his passion and in today’s text, that he acknowledges life won’t always be peaches and cream but that doesn’t mean we are left to fend for ourselves. He doesn’t tell the church in Rome that if they just believe hard enough, everything will work out. He doesn’t say that faithful people will avoid suffering. In fact, he says almost exactly the opposite. In fact, Paul is convinced that God will always be for us. Paul is making the argument that while things that cause pain will still happen in this life, They never can put us outside of the bounds of God’s love. A life in Christ doesn’t promise a lack of hardship or pain. It promises that we don’t have to do it alone. This message was exceptionally pertinent to the early church who had to hide and at times were being killed for sharing this message of a God who abides with us AND conquers death. And the church in Rome who Paul is writing to is doing that right under the nose of the empire! They were living within the Roman Empire, a system that had enormous power over their lives. Their faith in Jesus was not simply a private belief that they kept tucked away for Sunday mornings. Their faith shaped the way they understood power, community, money, dignity, and what it meant to live as people belonging to God. And so Paul is writing to people who know what it feels like to be vulnerable. And Paul is writing the same to us today. Encouraging us to not be only Sunday morning people, but as people whose lives are fundamentally and radically changed from this truth.
Paul gives us a list of things you think that could separate you from God. He is trying to cover every possible category. He’s saying: Try to find the thing that can separate you from God’s love. Go ahead. Look everywhere. Look in the heavens. Look in the depths. Look at what is happening right now. Look at what might happen tomorrow. Look at life. Look at death. Look at all the powers of this world. Look at everything you are afraid of. And Paul says: None of it can do it. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. If there’s one thing that you need to know by heart, it’s that nothing and no thing that you do or don’t do can ever separate you from God’s love that continues to pursue after you.
And I think this is where we need to be careful with another verse in this passage.
Because verse 28 is one of those verses that many of us have heard before:
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”And this verse has sometimes been used to justify the theological idea that “everything happens for a reason.” I want to be clear that I don’t believe that is what Paul is saying. Because there is a profound difference between saying:“Everything happens for a reason.”and saying: “Whatever happens, God will not abandon us.” Those are not the same thing. “Everything happens for a reason” can leave us looking backward, trying to explain why something terrible happened. Why did the cancer happen? Why did the relationship end? Why did that person die? Why did this happen to me? And sometimes, when we don’t have an answer, we invent one. We like answers. It’s so human to want an answer, so we say, “Well, maybe God had a reason.”
But I don’t believe we have to make God the author of every tragedy in order to believe that God is present in our tragedies. The God we encounter throughout scripture is not a God who delights in our suffering. God does not need your pain in order to accomplish God’s purposes. Sometimes terrible things happen because we live in a world that is beautiful and broken and complicated and finite. Sometimes people hurt one another. Sometimes bodies fail. Sometimes relationships end. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes other people make mistakes that hurt us. Sometimes life simply does not go the way we hoped it would. And Paul doesn’t ask us to explain all of that. Instead, he gives us something else.
Presence.
God is with us.
Emmanuel.
God’s love remains.
And nothing, not even our suffering, can ever put us outside the bounds of God’s love. I think that matters because, if we’re honest, sometimes the thing we fear most about suffering isn’t actually the suffering itself. Sometimes what we fear most is that we will have to suffer alone. Maybe an injury has taken away something you once loved. Maybe you can’t figure out how to leave the job that is sucking the life out of you because you still have bills to pay. Maybe you’re grieving a relationship that ended differently than you hoped. Maybe you are grieving someone you love. Maybe you’re carrying something that nobody else knows about. Maybe you are exhausted from being the person who always has it together. Maybe you’re afraid of what the future holds. I don’t know what suffering you are currently enduring. But I do know this: You do not have to endure it alone. A life in Christ does not promise a life without hardship. It promises that hardship does not have the final word. It promises that love will hold you in that hardship.
Paul doesn’t say he thinks this is the case or he hopes this is the case. He says, “I am convinced.” The Greek word here is πέπεισμαι which can mean to persuade, convince or rely. Deep within the Apostle Paul he is able to rest in this knowledge.
So I’m curious… What do you need to be convinced that God’s love has never and will never abandon you? What is keeping you from being able to rest in that truth? What is keeping you from resting in that truth for yourself and the rest of the world? Could you rest in the knowledge that God’s love for you is deeper and greater than anything that you could ever ask or imagine. God looks at you and delights in you. Even with all your mistakes. Even with all the times you have pretended that you didn’t need God. Even when you feel like you don’t deserve it. God loves you.
Sara Bareilles recently released a new album, Good Grief. And the album explores different kinds of grief and loss. Under grief, there is almost always love. We grieve because we love. We grieve because something mattered. We grieve because someone mattered. We grieve because we had something worth losing. Her song A Love Story, tells of grief and her journey to her Maker’s love and I think it’s exactly what Paul is talking about to the church in Rome. So let’s listen…
I threw a coin into a fountain
On a mountaintop in Rome
The water lit from underneath
So you could see how deep it didn′t go
I wished for cinematic love
Or some approximation of it
Like somebody else’s bravery
Could ever be the thing to save me
On a birthday candle′s flame
I wished to glorify my given name
And prove my worth by making myself known
I’ve watched the years collect and gather
And my bright future knows I’m staring at her
And she never asks about the glory
She just wants a love story
In the Colorado skies
There is the bluest bird with the blackest eyes
Who fascinates a stranger
Who just shared with me he lost his wife
Five days ago, he softly said
“50 years of loving her
And as she held my hand and said goodbye
She said, ′Don′t give up, I’ll send you signs′”
He stared up at the heavens
And the tears rolled down his face
Told me I was living proof of her to him that very day
It took my breath away, his sadness
And I held it to my chest
I let it break me open and be blessed
Be blessed
Demolish me, my maker
I could ask for nothing more
I will build the deepest wishing well
From the tears upon my kitchen floor
My childhood made of wishing
Naïve and superficial
Compared to what is given
They don’t even hold a candle
chorus
Nothing that I′ve asked for
Has ever been as true
As what was coming for me
When it comes from you
Nothing that I’ve asked for
Has ever been as true
As what was coming for me
When it comes from you
(Nothing that I′ve asked for)
bridge
So let’s me say right now for the record
I am still gonna be here
Asking this world to dance
Even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet
You, you stay here with me, okay?
You stay here with me
Raising your bite against the bitter dark
Your bright longing, your brilliant fist of loss
Friend, if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other
My God, that is plenty, my God, that is enough
My God, that is so, so much for the light we give
Each of us at each other’s backs
Whispering over and over and over
“Live, live, live”
chorus
Oh, nothing that I′ve asked for
Has ever been as true
As what was coming for me
When it comes from you
Nothing that I′ve asked for
Has ever been as true
As what was coming for me
When it comes from you
Friends, nothing you have asked for has ever been as true as what is coming for when it comes from God.
Thanks be to God for a love like that. A love that never lets us go.
Amen.