Christ Church (Moscow, ID) Divinely Justified Conquerors
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this sermon is to remind you all that there is absolutely no one who can condemn you. And that message of “no condemnation” has a purpose. The purpose is not merely to leave you feeling happy, though happy it should leave you. The purpose is to increase your joy and confidence so that you would be bolstered in your conquering.
THE TEXT
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:31–39).
NO ONE TO CONDEMN
The passage tells us that there is no one to condemn us. But that does not mean that there is any shortage of those who will try to condemn us. And these attempts come in various forms and from many directions.
DO MORE THAN CONQUER
Being justified, we are then more than conquerors. We not only conquer. We do more than conquer. The conquering is extensive, which means that the things which need to be conquered are extensive.
IT IS CHRIST
Colossians 1:17 says that by Christ all things consist. Christ holds all things together. And your justification is one of those things that Christ holds together.