God Is For You

Good morning, everyone. If we haven’t met, I’m Matt VanCleave, one of the pastors here at Blue Oaks.

If you’re not a Christian, I’m especially glad you’re here today.

You may have assumed that Christianity requires people to explain away suffering.

Something terrible happens and Christians are supposed to say: “Well, God has a plan.”

And then somehow everyone feels better. Except usually no one feels better.

Paul doesn’t do that. In the passage we’re looking at today, Paul is remarkably honest about how broken the world is.

He says creation groans. We groan. Sometimes we don’t even know what to pray. And yet somehow, by the end of this passage, Paul is absolutely convinced that God is good, God is for us, and nothing can separate us from his love.

So whether you believe that or not, I think Paul gives us a fascinating question to consider: How can you look honestly at everything that is wrong with the world and still believe that God is for you?

And actually, that’s not just a question for people who aren’t Christians. If you’ve followed Jesus for any length of time, you’ve probably asked your own version of it.

Because last week we ended with one of the most beautiful claims in the New Testament.

Paul says that when we put our faith in Jesus, God doesn’t simply forgive us. He adopts us. We become his children. We can call him: “Abba, Father.”

And Paul says the Spirit of God actually lives in us.

Which sounds incredible. But it raises a question. If God is my Father… if God loves me… if his Spirit lives in me… why can life still hurt so much?

I think almost everyone who has believed in God for very long eventually runs into that question.

Maybe you prayed for something that didn’t happen.
Maybe you lost someone you loved.
Maybe your marriage ended.

Some of what Paul is saying here has become a lot less theoretical to me over the last couple of years.

Maybe your child is struggling and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to fix it.
Maybe you received a diagnosis you never expected.
Maybe you’ve done everything you know to do and the situation still hasn’t changed.

And somewhere in the middle of that, a question begins forming: If God loves me… where is he?

And if God is for me… why does it sometimes feel like so much is against me?

And maybe make that personal for a moment — What is happening in your life right now that makes it hardest for you to believe that God is for you?

You don’t have to say it out loud… but I want you to think about it.

Maybe something immediately comes to mind.

A person.
A loss.
A diagnosis.
A prayer that still hasn’t been answered.
Something you’re waiting for.
Something you wish God would change.

Just hold onto that as we walk through this passage.

Because Paul isn’t writing Romans 8 to people whose lives are working out exactly the way they hoped. He’s writing to people who know what it is to suffer.

And by the end of this chapter, he’s going to make an extraordinary claim about whatever it is you’re carrying: It does not mean God has abandoned you.

I think Christians sometimes feel guilty even asking this question.

We think faith means we’re supposed to have an explanation for everything.

Someone asks how we’re doing and we say: “God is good.”

Which is true. But sometimes what we mean is: “I have no idea what God is doing, and I’m trying not to say that out loud at church.”

Paul doesn’t seem nearly as uncomfortable with that tension as we sometimes are.

In fact, immediately after telling us that we are God’s children, listen to where he goes.

Romans 8:18:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

Present sufferings.

Paul doesn’t say: Now that you belong to Jesus, suffering is behind you.

He assumes suffering.

Actually, the verse right before this says :

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:17)

Being loved by God and experiencing suffering are not contradictions.

You can be loved by God… and hurt.
You can be led by the Spirit… and confused.
You can be a child of God… and grieve.
You can trust God… and still wish your life were different.

And Paul says our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Now, be careful with that. Paul isn’t minimizing suffering. He knew too much suffering to do that.

He isn’t saying: “It’s not that bad.”

He’s saying: “It’s not the end.”

Those are very different things.

And then Paul does something fascinating. He pulls the camera back.

Listen to verses 19 through 22:

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Romans 8:19-22)

Paul says: Look around. Something is wrong with the world.

And you don’t have to be a Christian to know that. You don’t need a theology degree. You just need to read the news for about seven minutes.

Actually, seven minutes is probably more than enough.

Wars.
Cancer.
Natural disasters.
Violence.
Disease.
Children suffering.
People we love dying.
Our bodies wearing out.
Things breaking.
Everything eventually seems to move toward decay.

Paul says creation itself is experiencing what we experience.

Frustration.
Bondage.
Decay.

And then he uses this extraordinary image:

The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.

Groaning.

I love how honest that word is.

Sometimes there aren’t words for what we’re experiencing. Sometimes all you can do is groan.

You ever get out of bed at a certain age and make a sound you didn’t intend to make?

But there are other kinds of groaning that aren’t funny.

There are moments when the pain is too deep for a sentence.

And Paul says creation groans. But notice the image he chooses. Not the groaning of someone who is dying. The groaning of someone giving birth.

That matters. Because both involve pain. But only one involves expectation.

Labor hurts precisely because something is coming.

Paul looks at everything broken in the world and says: These aren’t merely death pains. They’re birth pains.

God isn’t abandoning creation. God is going to renew it.

The Christian story doesn’t end with all of us escaping this broken world while God throws it away.

Paul says creation itself:

will be liberated from its bondage to decay.

God intends to put things right.

And apparently creation knows it.

It’s waiting.
It’s groaning.
It’s longing for the day when death and decay no longer get the final word.

And then Paul brings the camera back to us.

Verse 23:

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly… (Romans 8:23)

There’s that word again.

Creation groans. And we groan.

I find that incredibly freeing.

Paul doesn’t say Christians should be the one group of people who never groan.

He doesn’t say:

“If you really trusted God, you’d stop being sad.”
“If you really had faith, you wouldn’t be disappointed.”
“If you really believed Romans 8, you’d walk around smiling all the time.”

No. Sometimes faith groans. Because Christians experience the same broken world everyone else experiences.

But there is a difference.

Listen to the rest of verse 23:

We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23)

There’s that word from last week: Adoption.

Last week Paul told us we’ve already been adopted. Now he says we’re waiting for our adoption.

Which sounds like Paul has contradicted himself within about six verses. That would be an impressively short amount of time.

But he hasn’t. He’s describing one of the great tensions of the Christian life.

We already belong to God. But we haven’t yet experienced everything belonging to God will eventually mean.
We have the Spirit now. But our bodies are still mortal.
We’ve been forgiven. But we still struggle with sin.
God’s kingdom has come. But the world is still broken.
We’re already God’s children. But we’re still waiting for the redemption of our bodies.

Theologians sometimes call this the “already and not yet.”

God has already begun his work. But he has not yet finished it.

And that means we live in the space between what God has already done… and what God has promised he will one day do.

And that space can hurt.

Paul continues:

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:24-25)

Hope, in the Bible, isn’t optimism.

Optimism says: “I think things will probably work out.”

Hope says: “Even when I don’t know how this will work out, I know where the story is going.”

That’s different.

Because sometimes the circumstances don’t work out the way we want them to.

Sometimes the relationship isn’t restored.
Sometimes the diagnosis doesn’t change.
Sometimes the prayer doesn’t get answered the way we desperately wanted it answered.

Christian hope isn’t the promise that every painful chapter will have a happy ending before we die.

It’s the promise that — none of our painful chapters gets to write the ending.

God does.

And Paul says we wait.

Which may be one of the least exciting spiritual disciplines in the Bible.

No one says: “You know what I really sense God calling me to this year? Waiting.”

We like doing.
We like fixing.
We like progress.

Waiting feels like nothing is happening.

But Paul says sometimes faithfulness looks like trusting God while you’re still waiting for something you cannot produce yourself.

Creation groans.
We groan.
We wait.

And then Paul is going to tell us something remarkable. We’re not the only ones groaning.

When we hurt so deeply that we don’t even know what to say to God… God’s Spirit meets us there.

Listen to verses 26 and 27.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

We see that word again — groans.

Creation groans. We groan. And now Paul says: The Spirit groans.

I find that remarkable. Because when we’re hurting, I think we often assume the spiritually mature response is knowing exactly what to say to God.

We think good Christians know how to pray.

They know the right words.
They know the right promises.
They know the right Bible verses.
And sometimes they even know how to work the phrase “Father God” into a prayer seventeen times… which is impressive.

But Paul says sometimes we don’t know what to pray. Not because we’re spiritually immature. Because we’re human.

We do not know what we ought to pray for,

Sometimes life becomes so complicated that you genuinely don’t know what to ask God to do.

You want the relationship restored… but you don’t know if it should be.

You want the door to open… but you don’t know if walking through it would actually be good for you.

You want someone you love to be healed… and you desperately pray for healing… but you also know that every human life eventually ends.

Sometimes you’re so overwhelmed you don’t even know where to begin.

And I love that Paul doesn’t say: “When you don’t know what to pray, try harder to come up with something.”

He says:

…the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

…the Spirit intercedes for God’s people…

And sometimes that prayer is deeper than words.

Paul calls them: “wordless groans.”

Which means there are moments when: “God, I don’t even know…” is a prayer.

Sitting silently in God’s presence can be a prayer.
Tears can be a prayer.
A groan can be a prayer.

Because prayer doesn’t ultimately depend on our ability to explain ourselves to God.

God already knows.

The Spirit who lives within us takes what we cannot put into words and brings it before the Father.

Think about how intimate that is. The God we’re struggling to talk to is already at work within us helping us talk to him.

So if you’ve ever thought: “I don’t know how to pray about this…”

Paul says: That’s okay. You don’t have to know. The Spirit does.

And then Paul moves from something we don’t know… to something we do.

Verse 28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

“And we know…”

That’s interesting.

Verse 26: “We do not know what we ought to pray for.”

Verse 28: “But we know that in all things God works for good.”

There are things we don’t know. And there are things we can know.

We may not know what to pray.
We may not know why something happened.
We may not know what God is doing.
We may not know how the story is going to unfold.

But Paul says there is something we can know: God is at work.

Now, Romans 8:28 may be one of the most quoted verses in the Bible. And it may also be one of the most poorly timed verses in the Bible.

Something terrible happens and someone says: “Well, you know, all things work together for good.”

Maybe don’t lead with that.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do when someone is suffering is sit beside them and keep your mouth closed.

Remember, Paul has just spent eight verses talking about groaning.

Romans 8:28 is not permission to rush someone through their grief.

And Paul does not say: “All things are good.”

Some things are not good.

Cancer is not good.
Abuse is not good.
War is not good.
Betrayal is not good.
Death is not good.

Paul calls death an enemy.

Christianity never requires us to call evil good.

What Paul says is: “In all things, God works for good.” That is a very different claim.

It means there is no circumstance so broken… no suffering so deep… no failure so devastating… that God says: “I can’t do anything with this.”

God is able to enter even the worst things that happen in a broken world and continue his work.

But that raises another question: What does Paul mean by “good”?

Because I think sometimes we unconsciously read Romans 8:28 like this:

“I didn’t get this job because God has a better job for me.”
“This relationship ended because God has someone better for me.”
“This door closed because a bigger door is about to open.”

Sometimes Christians can make Romans 8:28 sound like God is constantly upgrading our reservations.

“This didn’t work out because God has something better.”

Maybe… but sometimes the flight gets canceled and you just spend the night at the airport.

Not every disappointment comes with an obvious upgrade.

Sometimes the loss remains a loss. Sometimes years go by and you still wouldn’t call what happened good.

So what exactly has God promised?

Paul tells us in the very next verse.

Verse 29:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…

There’s the good — To be conformed to the image of his Son.

God’s definition of good is much bigger than making my circumstances comfortable. God is committed to making me like Jesus.

And apparently God is so committed to that purpose that there is nothing in my life he cannot somehow work within as he accomplishes it.

Even suffering.

That doesn’t mean God caused everything that happened to you. It doesn’t mean God wanted everything that happened to you. And it certainly doesn’t mean everything that happened to you was good.

It means evil does not get the final word over what your life becomes.

And someone at Blue Oaks gave me a picture of this recently that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

A woman in our church wrote me a letter recently. An actual letter. On paper. She put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it, and mailed it to me. I’d forgotten we could still do that. It was kind of nice.

She told me that more than twenty-five years ago, both of her sons walked away from the church and from God.

They had grown up in the church. Her older son had even gone into youth ministry right out of college. But a couple of years later, he was fired.

Not because of some moral failure. In her words, it was because “he didn’t do enough.”

And shortly after that, he walked away from God.

His younger brother went with him.

Now imagine being their mom. You love God. You love your sons. And you want desperately to fix this.

She said there were times when she tried to talk to one of her sons about faith and it only made him angry.

And eventually she came to a realization: “I can keep trying and totally alienate them, or I can pray and trust that God, in his time and in his way… will bring them back.”

So she waited. Not for a few months. Not for a couple of years. More than twenty-five years.

And they still haven’t come back.

That’s important to the story. Because this isn’t one of those stories where I tell you that eventually everything worked out exactly the way she hoped.

She’s still waiting. She’s still praying.

But something happened in her while she waited.

She carried anger toward the pastor who had fired her son. For seventeen years.

She told herself she had forgiven him. Someone had even told her, “You can forgive someone and still never want to see them again.”

And she thought: Okay. I can do that.

But seventeen years later, something began changing in her.

She reached out to that pastor. She asked his forgiveness for the anger and blame she had carried all those years.

And he apologized for ways he hadn’t handled things with her son as well as he could have.

And she said she experienced a relief and peace and closure she couldn’t have imagined.

Now, here’s what I find so powerful about her story.

The thing she has prayed for most still hasn’t happened. Her sons haven’t returned to God. She still doesn’t know how that part of the story ends.

But she wrote something in this letter that sounds an awful lot like Romans 8.

She said: “The fact that you don’t understand what God is doing does not mean God is absent.”

Seventeen years. Twenty-five years. Still waiting. Still praying. Still not knowing. And yet God was doing something.

Maybe not the thing she was asking him to do. At least not yet.

But while she was asking God to work in her sons… God was also working in her. Softening something. Healing something. Freeing her from something she had carried for seventeen years.

Making her more like Jesus.

And I think that’s exactly why we have to be so careful with Romans 8:28. Because if I had walked up to her twenty-five years ago and said:

“Don’t worry. All things work together for good” — I would have completely missed Paul’s point.

The good wasn’t that her sons walked away from God. That wasn’t good. And the pain wasn’t secretly good. And she still doesn’t know how this part of her family’s story will end.

But after all these years, she can look back and say: God wasn’t absent. He was working.

And maybe that’s what faith sometimes looks like.

Not: “Now I understand why this happened.”

But: “I still don’t understand why this happened. But I believe God has not abandoned me in it.”

There are things we don’t know. But there are things we can know — God has not stopped working.

And then Paul keeps going.

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son… And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30)

Notice the final word — glorified.

Paul speaks about our future as though it has already happened.

Called.
Justified.
Glorified.

Why?

Because Paul is so confident in what God has begun that he can speak of what God will eventually do as though it is already accomplished.

Remember where we started.

Creation is waiting. We are waiting. Our bodies are waiting for redemption. The story isn’t finished.

But Paul is saying: God will finish it.

And maybe there’s another question underneath everything Paul has said so far: Where is God while all of this groaning is happening?

Because when life hurts, it can feel like God is somewhere far away from it.

But look at what Paul has been telling us.

Creation groans. We groan. And the Spirit meets us in our groaning. When we don’t know what to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us. God is working even when we can’t see what he’s doing.

And in just a moment, Paul is going to tell us that Jesus himself is interceding for us.

In other words: God is not standing at a distance from our suffering.

He is present in it. He is working in it. And ultimately, he is going to redeem it.

The deepest assurance of this passage isn’t that everything in your life is eventually going to make sense. It’s that nothing in your life can prevent God from accomplishing his ultimate purpose for you.

And that leads Paul to one of the great questions in all of Scripture.

After suffering… after groaning… after waiting… after weakness… after prayers we don’t even know how to pray… Paul asks:

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? (Romans 8:31)

And his answer is the heart of everything we’re talking about today:

If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

There it is. That’s Paul’s answer — “God is for you.”

Now, Paul doesn’t say: “If God is for us, nothing will ever be against us.” That obviously isn’t true.

A lot can be against us. Paul knew that better than most.

People can be against you.
Circumstances can be against you.
Your own body can seem to turn against you.
There are seasons when it can feel like almost everything is against you.

Paul’s question is: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

In other words: What can ultimately defeat you if the God who raised Jesus from the dead is for you?

And I think there are moments when we genuinely wonder whether he is.

Maybe you’ve wondered that. You look at what’s happening in your life and think: God, if you’re for me…

Why this?
Why now?
Why didn’t you stop it?
Why haven’t you changed it?

And notice what Paul does. He doesn’t point to our circumstances as evidence that God is for us. He points to the cross.

Verse 32:

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

Paul says:

If you ever wonder whether God is for you… look at Jesus.

Because circumstances change. Sometimes life feels like God is for you.

The door opens.
The prayer gets answered.
The relationship is restored.
The test comes back negative.

And it’s easy to say: “God is good.”

But what about when the door stays closed?

What about when the prayer seems unanswered?
What about when the relationship isn’t restored?
What about when the news isn’t what you prayed for?

Has God’s disposition toward you changed?

Paul says: Look at the cross.

Don’t interpret God’s character through your circumstances. Interpret your circumstances through the cross.

The cross is God’s definitive declaration: I am for you.

And then Paul goes back to the courtroom language we heard at the beginning of Romans 8.

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. (Romans 8:33)

Do you hear the echo from last week?

“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Paul began Romans 8 there. And now, near the end of the chapter, he comes back to it.

Who can bring a charge against you when God has justified you? Who can condemn you when God has already declared: “No condemnation.”

And then Paul says:

Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Romans 8:34)

I love that.

Because earlier Paul told us that when we don’t know what to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us. And now he says Jesus is interceding for us.

Think about that.

When you’re suffering…
When you’re confused…
When you don’t know what God is doing…
When you don’t even know what to pray…

You are not alone.

The Spirit is interceding for you. Jesus is interceding for you.

God is not standing at a distance from your suffering. He is for you.

And then Paul asks one final question. And I think it may be the question underneath every other question we ask when life falls apart.

Verse 35:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Romans 8:35)

Because maybe that’s what we’re really afraid of.

Not simply: “Will this hurt?” But: “Does this mean God has left me?”

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? (Romans 8:35)

Notice what Paul doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say: “If God loves you, you won’t experience trouble.”

He says: Can trouble separate you from his love?

He doesn’t say: “If God loves you, you won’t experience hardship.”

He says: Can hardship separate you from his love?

Paul doesn’t promise the absence of suffering. He promises the presence of God in the middle of it.

And then he says:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:37)

“In all these things.”

Not around them. Not after we’ve escaped them. In them.

And then Paul finishes Romans 8 with some of the most beautiful words he ever wrote:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Neither death nor life.
Nothing in the spiritual realm.
Nothing happening right now.
Nothing waiting for you in the future.
Nothing above you.
Nothing below you.

And then, just in case Paul forgot something: “Nor anything else in all creation.” Nothing. Nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

And think about the journey we’ve taken through these two weeks.

Last week Romans 8 began: Nothing you have done can condemn you.

And today Romans 8 ends: Nothing that happens to you can separate you.

No condemnation. No separation.

And everything in between is the Spirit of God holding us while God finishes what he has begun.

Which is why I can’t think of a better way to end today than by coming to communion together.

Because Paul says: “If God is for us…” And maybe you walked in today wondering if he is.

Maybe life has given you reasons to wonder.

Paul doesn’t tell you to look at your circumstances for the answer.

He says: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all…” Look at Jesus.

And that’s what communion allows us to do.

The bread reminds us of the body of Jesus given for us. The cup reminds us of his blood poured out for us.

This is not where we come to prove our devotion to God. It’s where God reminds us of his devotion to us.

We don’t come because we’ve had a good week.
We don’t come because we prayed enough.
We don’t come because we finally got our lives together.
We come because Jesus gave himself for us.

So as you take the bread, maybe hear these words: God is for you.

And as you take the cup: Nothing can separate you from his love.

You’re invited to come forward when the worship team leads us in the final song.

Before we began walking through this passage, I asked you to think about something: What is happening in your life right now that makes it hardest for you to believe that God is for you?

Maybe you’ve been carrying that thing with you through this entire message.

A loss.
Something you’re waiting for.
Something you regret.
Something you’re afraid of.
Something you’ve prayed about so many times you don’t know what else to say.

When you come forward for communion, bring that with you.

You don’t have to resolve it this morning. You don’t have to understand it. Paul never promised that you would.

Instead, take the bread and the cup. And look at Jesus.

Because there are things you don’t know. But there are things you can know.

God is at work.
God is for you.
And nothing can separate you from his love.

Pray with me as the worship team comes to lead us.