The Text: Romans 8:31-34
The Theme: If Jesus laid down His life for us, we should lay down our lives for Jesus.
The Grand Truth of the Gospel
Paul has been expounding for 8 chapters now the “good news” of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
1. Good News! God is not the cosmic killjoy but rather God is the Supreme Good who created us to honor and enjoy Him as our great Help and Happiness under His perfect rule. (Romans 1:21-25)
2. Good News! God is not the reason this world is filled with evil and suffering but man is because He is a proud, unbelieving idol worshiper who has rebelled against God and broken His Law and deserves His punishment. (Romans 1:21-2:11)
3. Good News! God is not indifferent to the evil and suffering in the world but has provided for the salvation of sinners and the renewal of creation in Jesus who is the Son of God who laid down His life to perfectly obey His Father in our place and to take the punishment we deserve on the cross, then rose from the dead as Lord of all, promising to give life to all who trust Him and to come again in judgment on all men. (Romans 3:21-30)
4. Good News! We don’t have to merit or work for our acceptance with God (which we never could achieve) but simply trust in what God has done for us in Jesus so that faith is the proper response to what God has done in Christ and this faith trusts in God’s promise alone for a gift of righteousness which leads to eternal life and turns from sin to live to glorify and enjoy God. (Romans 4:1-16)
Then in this passage Paul celebrates the “logical” conclusions to all that God has done for us in Jesus:
1. If God is for us, then nothing and no one is truly against us. (Romans 8:31) God, who is the ultimate and infinite Sovereign, Savior, Sufficiency and Satisfaction, is causing all things to work for our good, so nothing can ultimately hurt us but only help us and bless us. So even our enemies have been turned into our friends because God makes them serve our good. (Genesis 50:20)
2. If God gave us the greatest gift of His Son at the greatest cost, then He would not withhold any good thing from us. (Romans 8:32) God is not going to dishonor His infinitely precious Son by giving Him to us at so great a price (the cross) and then withholding something else. We can be confident that God is giving us all good things even when it doesn’t appear that way. (2 Corinthians 1:20)
3. If God justifies us, then it doesn’t matter who charges us with sin. (Romans 8:33) “Bring a charge” is legal, courtroom language and points to the ultimate day of judgment at the end of time. We will never be accused of unrighteousness by the One who declares us to be righteous because of His Son. (Zechariah 3:1-5)
4. If Jesus intercedes for us, then it doesn’t matter who condemns us. (Romans 8:34) The death and resurrection of Jesus are historical events that are meant to overshadow our historical events! We will never be condemned by the One who was condemned in our place. In His ascension, Jesus is exalted to the place of power and dignity so that no one can execute a sentence against us. The right hand is the place of favor also and we are with Him and in Him at God’s right hand of favor. We will never be condemned by the One who administers grace to His people. The intercession of Jesus is a present, ongoing, unchanging intercession. Jesus is a perfect and permanent Intercessor for us. (Hebrews 7:23-28)
A Fitting Response
What kind of response is fitting for such grand and glorious truth?
A. Rejection, certainly not.
B. Ho-hum acceptance, not sufficient.
C. Grand response for grand news, absolutely.
We need to think about the gospel as being, at its heart, a call to something bigger than ourselves and the run of the mill everyday life. Jesus preached the gospel of a kingdom. (Matthew 4:23) Jesus called people to live for and work for the progress of His kingdom. (Luke 9:57-62)
When Apple Computer fell on difficult days a while back, Apple’s young chairman, Steve Jobs, traveled from the Silicon Valley to New York City. His purpose was to convince Pepsico’s John Sculley to move west and run his struggling company. As the two men overlooked the Manhattan skyline from Sculley’s penthouse office, the Pepsi executive started to decline Jobs’ offer. “Financially, you’d have to give me a million dollar salary, a million dollar bonus and a million dollar severance” said Sculley. Flabbergasted, Jobs gulped and agreed – if Sculley would move to California. But Sculley would commit only to being a consultant from New York. At that, Jobs issued a challenge to Sculley: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want to change the world?” This challenge “knocked the wind out of” him and he went to Apple. (IPT)
The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have. ~Norman Vincent Peale (note: not someone I would endorse but the statement has some important truth in it as it relates to the call to follow Christ)
That’s why it’s time to camp for awhile and think through the implications of all this for us as individuals, as families, and as a church. So what is the first primary practical implication of the gospel?
Laying Down My Life for Jesus
Most of us are like John Calvin who just wanted a life of ease to study the Scriptures and write (this excerpt is from a short biography of John Calvin by John Piper).
In 1536, France gave a temporary amnesty to those who had fled. Calvin returned, put his things in order and left, never to return, taking his brother Antoine and sister Marie with him. He intended to go to Strasbourg and continue his life of peaceful literary production. But he wrote later to a friend, "I have learned from experience that we cannot see very far before us. When I promised myself an easy, tranquil life, what I least expected was at hand" (see note 20). A war between Charles V and Francis I resulted in troop movements that blocked the road to Strasbourg, and Calvin had to detour through Geneva. In retrospect one has to marvel at the providence of God that he should so arrange armies to position his pastors where he would.
The night that he stayed in Geneva, William Farel, the fiery leader of the Reformation in that city, found out he was there and sought him out. It was a meeting that changed the course of history, not just for Geneva, but for the world. Calvin tells us what happened in his preface to his commentary on Psalms:
Farel, who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the gospel, immediately learned that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies, for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement, and the tranquillity of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refuse to give assistance, when the necessity was so urgent. By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journey which I had undertaken (John Calvin).
This leads me to this question: What is the proper response to this verse? (Romans 8:32) The Bible argues that the proper response to this ultimately means laying down my life for Jesus! The gospel logic is, If Jesus laid down His life for me, then I should lay down my life for Him! But we need to (1) see this in Scripture and (2) realize what it is and what it is not.
· It is not laying down our lives for Jesus just like He laid down His life for us (to redeem Him).
· It is not laying down our lives for Jesus in order to earn our salvation (to redeem ourselves).
· It is not paying Jesus back for what He’s done (we could never do that and should never try).
· It is laying down our lives for Jesus to follow Him in doing the will of God and especially to be involved in growing His kingdom.
We are not gifted and edified in order to be complacent and self-satisfied but in order to do the Lord’s work of service in building up and expanding the Body of Christ. (John MacArthur, Ephesians)
Does a gospel of grace really call us to lay down our lives for Jesus? In order to answer this …
A. We need to go back to the goal of it all as Paul defined it in chapter 1 and chapter 16: the obedience of faith. (Romans 1:5; 16:25-27)
B. We need to go back to the bottom line application as Paul defines it in chapter 12 after laying out the gospel for us: presenting our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. (Romans 12:1-2)
C. We need to go to other primary applications that Paul makes of the gospel in the believer’s life. (Romans 14:7-9; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
D. We need to hear what other apostles said. (James 2:18; 1 John 3:16)
E. We need to go back to the ministry of Jesus, who commissioned Paul to preach the gospel. (Matthew 28:19-20; 16:24-25; 7:21-23; 10:24-39)
Look and Lay Down
Some may object that this makes salvation about works and seems to make the simple call to “look and be saved” much more complicated and not so simple. The truth is really just the opposite. If I am looking to Christ and seeing Him as He is and in light of what He’s done and in light of what He promises me, then laying my life down for Him makes the most sense of all. Why does a gospel of grace result in the laying down of our lives?
Think again about the gospel.
1. God Created Us – Help and Happiness
God’s Purpose: We were created to glorify and enjoy God by humble, trusting worship of Him as our ultimate help and happiness. If God is the Supreme Good, my help and my happiness, then wouldn’t laying down my life be a turning to God for true happiness?
2. We Have Rejected Our Creator – Idolatry and Judgment
Our Problem: The problem with this world is sin which is pride (independence and self-righteousness), unbelief (rebellion and disobedience) and idolatry (looking to created things for help and happiness) at its root. If our problem as sinners is that we live independently of God, then wouldn’t laying down my life to turn from this path of destruction make perfect sense?
3. Jesus Laid Down His Life – Pardon and Perfection
God’s Provision: The only solution is the Savior provided by God Himself, His Son, Jesus Christ, who lived sinlessly, died in the place of sinners on a cross and rose from the dead three days later as Lord of all, promising peace with God, standing in grace and the hope of glory for all who believe in Him. If Jesus is the way to acceptance with God and lived in perfect enjoyment of God, then wouldn’t laying down my life to follow Him make perfect sense?
4. We Lay Down Our Lives – Look and Live for Him
Our Personal Response: The proper response to what God has done in Christ is repentance (to turn from sin - pride, unbelief and idolatry) and faith (trust in Jesus for righteousness, wisdom and LIFE), resulting in a life laid down in obedience to His Word, the love of God and man and devotion to His people for the growth of His kingdom. If I am looking to Jesus for acceptance with God (the way), for wisdom in navigating this life (the truth) and for the enjoyment of true happiness in God (the life), then wouldn’t laying down my life for Jesus make perfect sense? If Jesus rose from the dead as Lord of all, then wouldn’t laying down my life for Him be only fitting in light of who He is?
Laying Down My Life in What Ways?
When we talk about laying down our lives for Jesus, what do we have in mind? We could simply say, “In doing God’s will” and that is true. But that would leave out the reality that certain aspects of “God’s will” are so big and so broad that they form “life pillars” or “priorities” that shape what it looks like to “lay down my life for Jesus.” We will talk about these in the weeks to come.
Isn’t This a Call to Condemnation and Depression?
For some this call to lay down our lives might sound like a call to condemnation and depression. We might see it as unreasonable in light of the realities of everyday life, but Jesus doesn’t see it that way. (Luke 9:57-62) And Jesus says that it is a call to joy. (John 15:8-11; Matthew 13:44-45) Maybe we should also hear in this call, a call by the Lord Jesus to His church to return to their first love. (Revelation 2:1-7) Again, we should hear in this call a call to lay down our lives for the growth of the kingdom of Jesus in the hearts and lives of people.
The entire church is to be aggressively involved in the work of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58). … Spiritual service is the work of every Christian, every saint of God. Attendance is a poor substitute for participation in ministry. (John MacArthur, Commentary on Ephesians)
Have you laid down your life for Jesus?
- Maybe some have never thought about faith in those terms.
- Maybe some have thought about it and dismissed it as unnecessary.
- Maybe some have thought about it and believe that is what their life is all about.
- Maybe some need to reevaluate what it means to lay down our lives for Jesus.
That’s what we will do the next few weeks.
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