God's Love

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. All right, we are at the end of Romans 8, which I think is one of the most magnificent passages and one of the most magnificent chapters of all of Scripture, okay? Just to say a few positives about it up front. Hopefully you are not disappointed after we read this, but I think you will not be. And I think it can be a life-changing passage if we live by it, because then no matter what, you've got something to hold on to. You have hope in a hopeless world, okay? So let's read that then. What shall we say to these things? 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, how will He not also, with Him, graciously give us all things? Who shall separate us, or who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised. Who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 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 heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Wow! Isn't that amazing? Like I had mentioned before, this is a passage to memorize. This whole chapter is something worth memorizing. Because there are many times in my day, in my time, that, I don't know, I'm assuming in yours as well, that you just feel beaten up, or beaten down, or things going on, and it's like, it's something nice to be able to say to yourself then, when you've already heard from yourself, and you say to yourself instead, you know, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Boom! That puts things in perspective, doesn't it? Alright. So, you have hope in a hopeless world. Hope, in the Bible, is not a, I hope so, hope. It's not a wish, it's not a dream. Paul uses at the end of this, for I am sure. That word for sure, that word is what really hope is. It's the certainty. It is the absolute, yep, I can stake my whole life on it. That's what it means. It is so sure, you can even, like last week, we talked about how the verbs that Paul used were in the past tense, even though he's talking about our future that we have with God. That's the kind of hope that we're talking about. And the thing that we can hope for, that we are sure about, more than anything else through this passage, is the love of God. Hope and love in the Bible go together so closely, you can't really pull them apart. And so, from this passage, we're going to learn three things today. You can be sure of God's love. Secondly, why you can be sure of God's love. And thirdly, how you can rest in that assurance, or in God's love, okay? That's what we're going to look at in this passage. So, you can, first of all, be sure of God's love, okay? You know, one of the rock bed principles for human life, for your emotional, psychic, spiritual health as a human being, is what, well, Carl Rogers, the psychologist, I remember this still from my college days, many eons ago, in my psych class. He called it unconditional positive regard. Have you ever heard that term? Anybody have a psych class and heard that term before? Not so much. No, this is Carl Rogers, this is not Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers. But they are, I'll tell you though, I think they would probably be sympathetic with this. Now, I think this term is way too clinical, but basically what he is saying is, you need someone who is greater than you. A child needs someone who is greater than he or she to love on them in such a way that no matter what, no matter what they might say or do, that love doesn't go away. That's what good parenting, and we're flawed, but that's what good parenting does, is I'm going to be there for you, you're always going to be my child, no matter what, nothing's going to ever get in the way of that. And then a child can flourish when they know that that's there. That it isn't conditioned on as long as you do good in school, so long as you behave, so long as you're not a nuisance, so long as it's convenient in my life. Now, that's the problem a lot of people face these days. They've had conditional parenting. Our world is full of all those conditions. It's funny, Zoe, congratulations, Zoe is now a permanent resident. She's got her green card. Three and a half years, right? And if you read on it, three and a half years in the process, it's no easy thing to do, right? And on it, you know what it say...