Nothing Can Separate Us from the Love of God
by Steve Eason
Myers Park Presbyterian Church
July 24, 2011
Dr. Steven P. Eason
Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of God…
Romans 8:31-39
31What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul says, nothing can separate us from the love of God. That may be true but everything will most certainly try! Being a Christian does not spare you from life’s hardships, not even Paul.
To the Corinthians he wrote:
Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, endangered from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. (II Cor. 11:24-28)
We conveniently fail to mention all this to new members before they sign up! It would be a small church!
Whatever it means to be loved by God, it does not mean being spared from life’s hardships. Christians get sick, have accidents, suffer from broken relationships, broken hearts, broken dreams, not to mention the brokenness from our own sin and weakness. As good as life can be, life is also a series of hardships.
That is the reality of life and even the great apostle Paul was not exempt from it. In fact, the more faithful you are the more you may suffer for righteousness sake. Those who stand up for what is right will likely suffer because of the stance they take. That was certainly true for the early Christians.
Several weeks ago a group of us were touring sites of the early church in Turkey and Greece. On Saturday we went to the island of Patmos where John was exiled by Rome. The island is little more than barren rock and it was there in a cave where John received a vision and wrote the Book of Revelation. We stood in that cave.
Dr. Brian Blount, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary, was with us on the trip. He has written several commentaries on the Book of Revelation. After the trip he sent me an email in which he wrote,
I will not long forget walking in that small Patmos cave and thinking of how dark it must have been in there and how lonely and how far away it must have seemed from God until God actually showed up. That cave seems as unlikely a place for God to have been calling on believers as those cities, with all their vast monuments to human and pagan greatness. The cave seemed too isolated a place and the cities seemed too crowded and magnificent as places for God to be trying to start something!
But there is no place where we are separated from the love of God. There is no isolated island or cave or life experience that can separate us from the love of God. The Roman Empire couldn’t do it. After all Paul went through he writes,
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
Though our challenges may not be as great as some in the world, there are those things that try to separate us from the love of God. It may be a sickness or an untimely death. It may be despair, anxiety or fear. It could be guilt or shame. On the other hand, it could be pride and arrogance. Nothing can separate us from the love of God…but everything and anything will try.
Our first prayer is for God to remove whatever the hardship may be. “Take away the cancer, restore the broken marriage, heal the wayward child, get me out of this financial mess.” But when that doesn’t happen the prayer changes. Then we pray for strength to endure it. Then we pray for God not to abandon us or to leave us on our own. Then we pray for stamina, courage, patience and perseverance. We pray that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That becomes our prayer.
I’ve been with people who have lost a child, a marriage, a job, their health, their freedom and reputation, their dreams. I’ve been with folks who were lost in an addiction or to depression or mental illness. I’ve been with people who were dying. I’ve sat with people in jail, in the hospital and in the nursing home. Over the years I have had an array of people come to my office as pastor of a church with their stories of how something or somebody is trying to separate them from the love of God. That may not be the way they express it, but that’s what is going on.
As difficult and painful as it may be, I’ve considered it a privilege to be with those people who are facing various trials and tribulations; what Paul calls “the things present” or “the things to come.” But it’s not been my presence they’ve wanted. Whether they can express it or not, without exception, what each of them wants and needs most is the conviction that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. Nothing! Not even what they are experiencing.
In one of my former churches, when Ruth Walker was dying, she called and asked for me to come to the house. It was before dawn. When I got there, her nurse escorted me back to her bedroom. She was sitting up and ready for my visit. She said,
‘Steve, I’ve not lived a particularly good life. I’ve not been a faithful church-goer. I’ve never really done anything for anyone else. I’ve lived a pretty selfish life, really. I’m concerned about what’s going to happen to me after I die.’
That’s a serious conversation.
Some would say, “Too little too late.” Is it ever too late? I shared with her the message of how Christ was crucified and was raised from the dead. Then I asked Ruth, “Ruth, have you ever crucified Christ?” To which she responded, “No, I never have done that.” And then I said to her,
‘Ruth, none of us deserves eternal life. No one can earn it. And maybe you’ve spent the majority of your life on the wrong things. But if Christ can get up from the dead after we crucified him, don’t you think Christ can forgive whatever sins you have committed?’
She thought about that for a moment and then said softly, “I suppose he could.” And then I asked Ruth if she wanted that forgiveness and we prayed together. Sounds so simple, maybe even too easy. But consider the alternative.
As the sun was coming up, I left her house and thought to myself, “I’ve been standing on the threshold of eternity.” An hour later she died.
Is there anything that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? Anything? The shame of it is that Ruth didn’t know the joy of God’s love and grace long before the day of her death. How much richer her life could have been. But the joy of it is, she knew it on that day!
If Myers Park Presbyterian Church is a church where Every Member Has a Ministry, then in each of our ministries we will experience those things that try to separate people from the love of God. And God just may use your presence to deny that from happening. The love of God may show up through you in times and places where people feel separated, disconnected, lost, abandoned, forgotten or punished. You may be the instrument of God’s grace in your ministry, whether here at the church or in Grier Heights, in Congo, Malawi, El Salvador, or with a friend or family member – wherever God may want to use you to live out the hope of the Gospel;
…that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
Paul wasn’t wishing that was true. I’m not even sure that he was even hoping it was true. He wasn’t trying to believe it was true. He knew it was true. After all he had been through, he was “convinced,” there is nothing in all creation that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord…even though, everything will try.
Thanks be to God for the divine promise and grace by which we live our lives. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Congregation: Amen
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