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St. Stephen's Anglican Church
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, August 3, 2014


The Logic of Heaven*


Text: Romans 8:31-39

Where do we put our confidence when things get rough? That is something we ask ourselves early in life, and we need an answer that can carry us all the way through. Do we look to money, education, or family to get us through the storms of life? If we become people of power and influence, will that make us safe? We can buy insurance to cover almost any loss. We can live in gated communities and build survival bunkers. But all those things will fail in the end to make us whole. There is a Biblical answer to the question, “Where can we put our ultimate trust?” We put our trust in God. If there is any single most common message in the Bible, it is that we can trust in God. We all know that. But once in a while, it is important for us to stop and think through how it is that we are able to put our trust in God, so that, when things get really rough, we don’t have to doubt or reconsider—so that we don’t have to be anxious over how things are going to turn out.

We wrestle with all kinds of anxiety-producing things at every stage of life.

The sooner in life we settle the matter that we can trust God in every circumstance, the better life will be. The message of all our readings this morning is that God can be trusted to take care of us. From Nehemiah to the Psalm to Romans to the feeding of the 5,000, what God is saying to His people is that, even though we don’t deserve it, He will take care of us.

The one reading that works out the logic of our confidence is the one from Romans chapter 8. And the bottom line of the Apostle Paul is in verses 31 and 32:

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, along with him, graciously give us all things?

The author John Piper has called this “the logic of heaven.” Let’s spend a moment thinking about what the Apostle Paul has said to us in this logic of heaven.

Let’s take verse 32 first: “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?” The decisive point here is that God has already given us the greatest gift He could possibly give us. He has made the biggest sacrifice that could ever be made. He sent His only begotten Son from heaven into the world. It wasn’t just an angel. It was His own Son, a part of Himself in the divine Trinity. And the Father did not just send Him as a messenger to pass along Good News. He gave His Son as a sacrifice. He allowed Him to suffer and die a hideous death so that His sacrifice could bring about our salvation. It was the most precious gift God could ever give. And it bestowed the greatest blessing we could ever receive. It freed us from the death sentence of an eternity separated from God and suffering the flames of hell. And it replaced that catastrophic destiny with the glorious hope of everlasting life with God in perfect peace, joy and happiness.

God has already done it all—

As Romans asks us, how can we doubt that God has our best interests at heart and will take care of us?

Now, let’s go back to verse 31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” He is saying that God’s demonstrated love and sacrifice for us show us God’s favor. Add that to God’s power, and you have an unconquerable force. One of the reasons the Bible so often recites how good God has been to His chosen people, and how bad they have been, is that one is tempted to ask, “Can we lose God’s love? Can He withdraw His love because we don’t deserve it?” The Old Testament celebrates God’s steadfast love, and His mercy that endures forever, even though His people were stiff-necked and disobedient and rebellious. And the New Testament proclaims that “...God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) He took us in our most despicable state and gave us new life.

In other words, God saved us, He justified us, He sanctified us, He glorified us.

I should point out here who Paul means by the words “we” and “us.” You can find that in verses 28-30, where he says,

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. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

In light of that astounding gift of grace, Paul asks four questions: 1. Who can come against us—we who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose? 2. Who will make a charge against us? 3. Who will condemn us? and 4. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? And his answer is, “No one.” Oh yes, people will make charges against us:

But if they bring charges against us, who can condemn us? Who can issue our sentence of punishment? It is only God who can condem. Only God, who created the law, can declare us guilty and impose the just punishment. And He has already heard our case, recognized our guilt, and sent Jesus to pay the penalty we deserved for our sins.

God’s purpose has always been the same: to create a world filled with people who reflect His glory, who enjoy His love, and who love Him in return. God has never strayed from that purpose. And what presides over all that purpose is God’s love. That is why we can trust in God to take care of us. John Stott put it this way:

The eternal security of God’s people, on account of the eternal unchangeability of God’s purpose,... is itself due to the eternal steadfastness of God’s love.
[The Message of Romans, p. 246, series The Bible Speaks Today (Intervarsity Press, Grand Rapids)]

John Piper’s book, Future Grace, (cited above), explores this remarkable passage from Romans 8. The whole point of his book is that, because God is God, the grace He has already shown us will continue. And if we can trust in that, we can live in thankfulness that God loves us and has revealed Himself to us, and walks with us. And we can be free to live the life for which this God of love created us. John Piper says:

If there is a way to live by faith in this invincible future grace, I want to know that life. I want to know how trusting this promise, rooted in the unshakeable logic of heaven, can free me and empower me to love and risk and suffer and die and rise for the glory of God, and the good of my people, the good of the nations, and the good of my own soul. [Future Grace, p. 118]

Isn’t that a blueprint for the Spirit-filled life? Christians have rested in that hope from day one. From St. Stephen to Joan of Arc to Martin Luther, to Hudson Taylor, to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to Miriam Ibrahim, Christians have been emboldened and empowered by understanding that God can be trusted in everything.

In 1955, one of the opening events of the civil rights movement in this country took place. It was the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. Martin Luther King was a young pastor in Montgomery, and had emerged as the leader of the boycott. He was 26 years old, and, according to his biographers, his faith was only partially formed. He had inherited his vocation as a minister of the Gospel from his father. He had intellectually grasped the faith from his theological studies in graduate school and seminary. But it wasn’t until a night in 1955 that, as Dr. King put it, he came to know God for himself. His faith became personal. He tells about how he was exhausted, and was frightened by threats he and his family had received. It was late at night, and his wife and daughter had gone to bed. He was brewing a pot of coffee when the phone rang. A vicious voice on the other end said, if he wasn’t out of town in three days, they were going to blow his brains out and blow up his house. He was at the end of his rope. In a sermon some years later, King described the prayer he prayed that night:

I said, “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. I think I’m right. I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now. I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage.”

...And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.” I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.
[Quoted in Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor, pp. 20-21 (Doubleday, New York 2001)]

That was the moment Martin Luther King understood the logic of heaven, and knew he could trust God.

Now, as believers have known from the earliest times, that doesn’t mean that God is going to give you the fix that seems obvious to us human beings. In fact, Dr. King’s home was bombed three days later. But God gave him the strength to do what God called him to do, and he was at peace. And God used that bombing and the many other atrocities that occurred during that movement to change the conscience of a nation.

As people of faith in the goodness and love and power of God, we don’t pin our hope on His doing the obvious fix. Our spiritual ancestors, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego knew that. They refused to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar and worship his image of gold. He was so enraged, he condemned them to the fiery furnace. But they said,

“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” [Daniel 3:16-18]

Even if God does not give us the obvious fix that our heart desires, we can trust His unfailing love, for He has already shown us that He will withhold nothing from us. That is the logic of heaven. And because God’s love is eternally steadfast, the answer to Paul’s final question in Romans 8 is that nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love, manifested in Jesus.

There are times when all of us are weak, faltering, losing our courage. Life challenges us, frightens us, knocks us around, confuses us and breaks our heart. From childhood on: whether we—

that is when we turn to the logic of heaven. “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?

It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns?

And who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The answer rings down through the ages. And it rings true:

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 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.

©Jeffrey O. Cerar, 2014

*This title was borrowed from an expression by John Piper in his book, Future Grace, p. 118 (Multnomah, Colorado Springs 1995)

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