Session 34 – Romans; Romans 8:31-32: Mark Lanier, 05/31/26

ROM 034_Romans PODCAST_053126
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[00:00:00] Okay, I am, I am really stoked to teach this morning. I'm so excited you're here. Today, I wanna talk to you, and if I were gonna title this class, I would entitle it Terror Gives Way to Triumph Terror or chaos or Panic or problems, issues give way to triumph. Now, the way I'd like to introduce this is tell you about what is one of the best pieces of music that was ever written before the advent of rock and roll.

And, [00:01:00] And that is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. If you are a student of music, you know this well. If you are a student of history, you may know it as well also. It was certainly the anthem for the Nazi Third Reich. It's also the anthem for the EU. It's also the anthem for many an Olympic event. It can be used for good, it can be used for evil.

But what it really stands for is a, a, a triumphal symphony. It was Beethoven's last symphony. He wrote it over a two-year time period, I think, when he was already totally deaf. He heard it in his head, he produced it in music. And I- it's, it's in four movements, and many [00:02:00] musicians after him thought it pointless to write a symphony because he had written the most perfect symphony that could ever be written, and that's what it was viewed as.

Now, music is pretty subjective, and for a lot of classical music, um, y- you can get some idea of, you know, Debussy's Prelude to a Faun. Well, you can get an idea from the title what it may be, and you can hear it sounding like spring and a little, uh, you know, whatever may be involved, pre-Bambi or something like that.

But, but... Or you know, the, you can hear some and, and remember the Bugs Bunny interpretation because they had a lot of classical music playing behind that. But, but it's very subjective to talk about what classical music is. But not so with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony because he was the first to put [00:03:00] words into his symphony.

And so he's got singing in the fourth and final movement that tells us and informs us about this symphony in ways that make it a delight to study. So think of this symphony as one that contrasts the chaos of life with the joys of divine fellowship. That's the brotherhood of humanity and the, the presence of God.

And if you think of it, you've got the first movement, which represents and sounds like chaos. You've got the second movement, which in the symphony tradition is always gonna be kind of a dance movement. By the time you get to the fourth and final movement, he'll take themes from the earlier movements. He puts them together in that [00:04:00] fourth and final movement, so you've got the theme from the first and second and third, and then he puts a grand finale with a, a final theme as well.

And Beethoven knew the power of the grand finale. And this is just an awesome piece of music. And so you go into that first act, or you take-- I've taken part of the theme from the first act that's replayed in the fourth as he's summarizing everything up and moving to his grand finale, and it's a theme of terror and violence.

So Beethoven was about 17 or 18 with the French Revolution and, and, and all of the, the stuff that happened with that. This was a time where, um, uh, hi-historically, going back thousand plus years, the idea was God appoints a king. Everybody must obey the king. A passage in Romans we'll get to later [00:05:00] was used to justify, doesn't matter if the king's good or evil, the king's the king because God made the king the king, and everybody else worships the king.

And with the Enlightenment, people started saying, "Time out. Maybe people are as important as the king." Heaven forbid it would allow colonists

in the United States of America to say, "Bye-bye, King George. We don't care. You're not king of nothing." And, and, and that's all wrapped up in this time period where people were starting to think that, that there's a, a common brotherhood of humanity. It's no longer just the king and various degrees of servants.

And so into that [00:06:00] time, though, there came a lot of violence. You've got the French Revolution where, uh, off with their heads, and, and, and they invented the guillotine so they could kill them quicker. I mean, you, you've got all sorts of things happening like that. Beethoven writes into that, and he puts into this symphony what you'll be able to hear.

I'm gonna play a soundbite. Is my sound turned up? Okay. Listen and see if this doesn't feel like terror and violence to you.

You can hear the chaos. You can hear the, the va, va, va, va, va, va, va, va, va and all of the dissonance and all of the... I mean, it's frenetic. It's just w- ugh. F- then you get to the fourth, and in the fourth movement, where the, the, the Beethoven takes these earlier themes and incorporates them and, and moves to a higher theme.

It's kinda [00:07:00] cool. So a tenor makes the appearance, and, and, i- it... You- I'm gonna play a segment for you, and I've got it on video so you can watch this guy sing, 'cause I just think it's cool to watch him. And, uh, um, uh, but I, I'm gonna put the lyrics up if I can time them. My German is, is basically nonexistent, so, uh, um, but I think I can hit it pretty close.

And I've translated the German down below. I say I. I grabbed a good translation of the German down below, not trusting my own. But let's see if we can do this. See if you can follow the, the chaos, and then the tenor comes in and basically says, "Let, let's don't sing these tones. Let's don't sing of chaos."

And that fourth movement has this whole section of the Earth, but then it, it, and it escalates and takes us up into heaven. And you can see it with the lyrics. Um, uh, let, I, I'll, I'll insert a few, 'cause I [00:08:00] don't have them all. But see if you can't track. Listen for the m- you've got a little musical interlude.

Then you've got the chaos, and then the tenor comes in, and he says, "Hang on. It's not all terror and chaos. Let's don't sing of that. We got better things to sing about." And see if you recognize anything. Here we go

Chaos[00:09:00]

Joy. Joy

Recognize it? About 100 years later, another poet put, "Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of Heaven, Lord of life. Our hearts unfold like flowers before the opening to the sun above," or however it goes. "Melt the clouds of sin and sad-" All right, well, that wasn't Beethoven's lyrics. He stole the [00:10:00] lyrics from... Not stole, he used the lyrics from another poet.

But the, the lyrics are the same. He's taking all of this terror and chaos and all of these problems and saying, "We can, as a common people, beseech God and find joy in this life." And it's a great idea that terror can give way to triumph. Now, go back to the time of Paul, and don't stop in your way-back machine.

Go back even further, 2,000 years before Paul. There's this fella named Abraham, and God says to Abraham, "Take your only son Isaac. Go to Mount Moriah-" And I'm gonna have you sacrifice him." So he gets a couple of servants, they saddle up the mule, they go for three days to Mount Moriah, they go up the mountain.

Uh, uh, Isaac's carrying the [00:11:00] wood. Abraham's got the knife and the fire. Isaac says, "Dad, we got the wood, we got the knife, we got the fire. We forgot the sacrificial animal

"Father, where's the lamb for the burnt offering?" And Abraham says, "Well, God will provide for himself the lamb, my son."

And Abraham is about to... He binds Isaac, and the Hebrew word for this story is the word for binding, akah. And he binds Isaac, and he's about to slay Isaac, and the angel interrupts and says, "Abraham, Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy." [00:12:00] And so there's a ram caught in the thicket. The ram is sacrificed.

Abraham and Isaac walk back down the mountain to the servants, and God says this. He says, "Now I know that you fear God, seeing you've not withheld your son, your only son, from me." I'll guarantee you for Abraham, and I'll guarantee you for Isaac, that end of the story was terror giving way to triumph But I'll also tell you that I think that story was in Paul's mind when Paul wrote the verses we're gonna be looking at today Because what God said in the Greek version of the Old Testament, which is what Paul preached out of, it's what he [00:13:00] quoted out of in his letters, it was viewed as authoritative by his rabbi Gamaliel.

It was, uh, uh, uh, viewed to be even divinely inspired by some. We don't have any indication it was. We don't know that Paul thought it was, but some within Judaism did. It was the Bible for most of them at that point in the Greek-speaking world. If you read this story in the Greek, it says, "You did not spare," ouk epheso, "You did not spare your beloved son."

Paul uses the same verb and uses the same word for not, ouk, in his passage we're gonna be looking at shortly, where he says, "He who," God, "who did not spare his own [00:14:00] Son." Same word, and it sets up a parallel between what happened on Mount Moriah, which is Jerusalem, where the temple was built, and what happened 2,000 years later Here's the passage that we're gonna look at.

"What then shall we say to these things? 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 with Him graciously give us all things?" Terror should give way to triumph for all of us. And so we have Paul, and Paul's writing, and he's come toward the end of this chunk of Romans that spans from Romans 6:1 to the end of chapter 8.

It [00:15:00] started out, this whole chunk of Romans, with this question: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so there can just be even more grace?" Heavens no The-- now, now, now what we're ultimately doing is we're recapitulating to make sure we take it in context. We're gonna see this Romans six, seven, and eight, and then we've hit the grand finale.

So these are themes that, that Paul's kind of repeating like Beethoven did, and he gives that final grand finale theme. So he says, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? No, let me list the reasons why. We died to sin. We changed masters. We're no longer enslaved to sin and to the law. We died to the law.

The Spirit transcends the law. We live according to the Spirit. We are adopted [00:16:00] children." Um, he continues. Keep going. Go, go, go. Scoot up We're part of a creation groaning for glory, and the Spirit's interceding for God's good in us. And then last week, and we're predestined to be in the image of Jesus. We shouldn't be sinning so grace may abound.

That's w- our destiny. And after that, Paul says, "What then shall we say to these things?"

Paul's saying, in light of this entire argument, death to sin, life in the Spirit, adoption, this unbreakable chain, those whom He foreknew, He predestined, He glorified, this unbreakable chain to glorification. What then is our takeaway? What shall we say? Grand [00:17:00] finale, bottom line, points for home. Call it what you will.

And here's his answer: "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Amen. Amen? Amen. That's what this class is about. So I've broken it apart into three sections. First, I wanna talk about the question that silences every enemy. And then we're going to look at the gift that's already been given. And finally, we will look at God's unstoppable generosity.

Okay? Let's do it together. The question that silences every enemy. Romans 8:31, "What then shall we say to these things? If God's for us, who can be against us?" Now Paul [00:18:00] is doing something that the ancient Greeks and Latins would call diatribe He's engaging in diatribe. Di- means through,

and -tribe comes from idea of rubbing something. It also ultimately meant a path, because that was worn down into the ground. But diatribe, we get the word diatribe straight from it. Diatribe, though, for us generally means something negative. It didn't have a negative connotation at all. It was just a standard way of arguing.

It was a way where you... It was a, a popular philosophical method used by the Stoics. By the way, Tarsus, where Paul was from, was a seat of Stoic philosophy. Stoics and Cynic teachers who argued [00:19:00] their points on street corners by asking rapid-fire questions, and that's what Paul does. He's got a bunch of rapid-fire questions he's gonna ask that should...

Or, or they're designed to make you think and to prove his point. He'll say, "What then shall we say to these things?" Ask that question. Then he'll ask this question: "If God's for us, who can be against us?" Then he'll say, "How, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?" He continues, "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

Who is to condemn? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" And it's just one right after the other. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Now, the lawyer in me likes this-

because it's what we lawyers do. We elicit through questions. It wasn't exclusive [00:20:00] to the philosophers in Paul's day, wasn't exclusive to the lawyers today. It was also used by Jewish rabbis, and you find it quite often in scripture. Job spends 39... Tim Wilson's my Job expert. Job spends th- 39 chapters or so just him and his friends trying to understand what nobody can understand, and then God comes to him.

But what does God do? He peppers him with questions. "Where were you when I created the Earth? Where were you when I hung the stars? Where were you when I put the Moon in place? Where were you when I established the boundaries? Where were you when I created the sea? Where were you? Where were you? Where were you?

Where were you?" Peppers with questions. Heavens. Do you think when God goes to the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve have sinned, says, "Where are you?" is 'cause God didn't know? Like Apple Trackers hadn't been invented yet? [00:21:00] Find My iPhone?

It's this, it's to educate the people who are hearing the questions What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Now, we gotta be careful here. A, in the Greek, if. In our English sometimes we think, "Well, yeah, but I don't know if He's for me or not." We need to be translating if in the sense of since.

Since. There's no question in Paul's mind. Paul doesn't wonder if God's on our side. He has just spent eight chapters proving it. You should never wonder, "Is God on my side?" "Yeah, but I've done some pretty bad stuff." Give me a break. You do not have it in your feeble power to be [00:22:00] so bad that God can't forgive you.

You just don't. "Yeah, but my sins are worse than His ability to forgive. I'm that sinful." You are not. You couldn't be. So since God is for us, who can be against us? Now, let's take this apart even further. Since God is for us, huper

hemon in the Greek. Huper is translated for. God is for us. You can translate that in multitude of ways. You can say He's for us. You can say He's on behalf of us. You can say He... It's for the benefit of us. You can say He's in the interest of us The point is, this is not a [00:23:00] distant God that tolerates us.

This is a God who is up close to us, who has positioned himself on our behalf

Let's think of it in our terms

God has invested in you

You may have a 401or a K014 or a QRSTUV or some money market account. You may own some stock. I'll tell you this When I try a case Uh, we, we tried the case out in California, uh, for [00:24:00] first three months of this year. Thank you, Miss Carolyn. Oh, thank y'all. We tried the case out in California, and when we were selecting the jury, one of the questions we ask every potential juror is, "Do you own stock in Meta or Google?"

And under the law, if they owned stock in Meta or Google, they ain't allowed to sit on a jury where we're suing Meta or Google. They're invested in the company. They can't be fair. One of them tried to stay on. "You know, I, I've got my lifetime, uh, investment in that company, but I can be fair."

Yeah, well, not in my case you can't. Bye-bye. God's invested in you

He's paid to be [00:25:00] involved in your life

And God's committed to you He has said, you know, we, we were, we, uh We, we had to go to a wed- not had. We got to go to a wedding. Not had at all. It was a great joy, honor, and privilege, Friday night in McKinney. And, um, uh, we were there and the, the... it was a Christian wedding and a Christian service. It was just so delightful to watch this young man that we've known for a long time, and this young lady, who by all accounts is just a superstar, uh, in, in the Lord, uh, to watch them commit their lives to each other.

And I'm sitting next to my sweet Becky, and all I wanna do... Well, actually, there were two things I wanted to do. One is I wanted to just hug her so tight [00:26:00] because of the commitment we share. The other is we'd just flown back from England, and we'd only been there three days, so I was asleep, so I was also wanting to stay awake for the rest of the service.

But I remember those two things. I wanna hold tight this woman, and Lord, don't let me fall asleep God is committed to you He said the strongest "I do" that can be said His commitment is not until death do you part. His commitment is for eternity Here's another way we could translate it and understand it in today's language.

God is acting in your interest. When I stood up as a lawyer, when I stand up, I've gotta be in sh- court in Chicago in the morning. I will be standing up in front of the judge on behalf of my client, saying the things that are in the best interests of my client. That's, I will be [00:27:00] acting on my client's behalf.

God acts on our behalf. He acts in our interest. He doesn't just sit idly by. All of that's wrapped up in those two simple words, for us, in the Greek. So if God's invested in you, if God's committed to you, if God is, is acting in your interest Who can be against this? Now, that doesn't mean there won't be opponents.

He's gonna list a bunch we'll look at next class But they can't prevail against him. God has not... When, when you walk into the Christian walk, you know, I've got a, I've got a friend who, who came to know the Lord, and it was so interesting because [00:28:00] his life was going around like this, and he came to know the Lord, and it's like, boom, everything fell out His, his wife, uh, was antagonistic toward the Lord and him, and basically fled from that His, his work, his friends, so many different things really suffered.

His health, and yet his commitment and his appreciation for the Lord sent his life through the roof. Now, it doesn't mean that just because you love the Lord, there aren't opponents. It doesn't mean life is easy. It means that they will never prevail against you at the end of the day. If God is for us, who can be against us?

That question silences every enemy[00:29:00]

Now, let's look at the gift that's already been given. It's where Paul continues in Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Now, there are two kinda cool things happening in the Greek here I've told you before, Greek has all these little, uh, run-on words, all these little, uh, uh, particles and conjunctions and, and all, all of these, you know, and, and, and they throw them in all the time and it...

'cause it's a sung language originally, and it just sounded good and lilted, and when you don't have them, it's kind of jarring. It's called asyndeton in the Greek grammars. But before we get there, hos [00:30:00] ge

Gay is, um

ge. I pronounce things my own way. It's okay. Um, it's an interesting Greek word because in effect what it does, it's not one you generally translate. It's, it can be translated in a specific way. It, it, it's got lots of, well, two main areas of, of, of work that it can do. But the main thing it does is it shines a spotlight on what he's about to say.

So you can't really translate that. All you could do is maybe put it in italics or underline it. But he who did not spare his own son has got a spotlight shining on it in the Greek, because Paul is not just saying it, he's pounding the table when he says it. And then it [00:31:00] doesn't have one of those Greek particles that, that kind of fits in.

It, it has Greek asyndeton, which is this jarringness. And what that basically does is... Uh-oh, that's the emphasis, his own son. Uh, ah, crud. Okay. I've messed up. Um, okay. I'll come back to it in a minute. Remember, we're gonna get a second spotlight, okay? But first we have to get here. The spotlight shines on he who did not spare his own son.

His own son. That's our idiu, idiuuiiu, his own son. Idios, the idiu word, means one's own. It's, it's my personal. It belongs intimately to me. Um, uh, Saturday in McKinney, I drove a rental car. Well, I mean, it was [00:32:00] mine to drive. I rented it. But to church today, I drove my car. It's mine. It's personal. Not my rental car.

Not mine I borrowed from my wife. She drived her, drove hers, I drove mine. Not that we're divided, but we leave at separate times . But one's own, it's, it's personal. It belongs intimately to one's self. That's Paul's emphasizing. He's shining a spotlight. Jesus wasn't just some guy This is God's own, this is intimate, this is personal.

He took from himself and invested for you, committed to you, did something on your behalf. And so you've got that spotlight [00:33:00] shining down, but you've also got him, He did not spare. Ouk ephesato, ephesato. This is, um, the exact language that was used in the Greek Old Testament story of Isaac. And God said to Abraham, "I see that you were not going to spare your own son."

And yet God really didn't spare his own son. And when you're reading this, you've got that spotlight of the day, but you've got this second spotlight. Whoops. Get the other spotlight. Go. Boom, boom. There. That's what it was supposed to be doing the whole time. Then we were gonna go to that. Then, anyway, that was what happens when you get up at 4:00 in the morning to finish your PowerPoint.

[00:34:00] Um, so we'd have the two spotlights, but what would those spotlights do? They help us understand the contrast between what happened on Mount Moriah and what happened on Calvar- Calvary, Mount Calvary. You've got in Genesis 22:12, "You have not..." The English Standard Version says, "You have not withheld your son."

So you may not realize it's the same word as spare in Romans, but it is. That's the same word. God did not spare his own son. You can see the uk, the O-U-K, and then you can see the E and the P-H and the E and the I and the S. It's just this is, uh, uh, uh, first, and we've got third person. So it's just a different, uh, part of the verb, but it's the exact same word.[00:35:00]

And you not only have it in Genesis 22:12, four verses later it's used again. God says, "Because you have not withheld your son." Uses the same words. In Genesis 22, a ram was substituted. What Paul's saying is the son was on our behalf. He was our substitute. He was the investment. He was the commitment. When Abraham said, "God will provide the, the, the lamb for the sacrifice," little did he know, most likely, how true that would turn out to be.

Amen. In Genesis 22, Isaac came down the mountain. The Son didn't get to come down like that. He was given up unto death. The sacrifice was completed. So God did not spare. He didn't stop. He could have [00:36:00] Christ could have called, what's the song? He could have called 10,000 angels

I mean, he speaks worlds into existence. Those nails aren't gonna hang him. He's hanging there by his love, and commitment, and investment in you. That's what he's doing. He's not doing it after you ask him to. He's not doing it 'cause you begged him to. He's not doing it 'cause you looked at him and wanted him to.

He's doing it before you ever thought to ask him. This gift is already given. And I love this. He gave himself up. Paradidomi is the verb in the Greek. Now, that's a verb that's used a lot. It's a common verb, but there are some usages that I think are very instructive here. [00:37:00] It just means to hand over, to deliver up, to surrender.

But it's worth looking at for a minute because one of the places in the Bible where you find it used most often, a ton, that's the word that's translated instead of gave up, it's translated betrayed with Judas. In Matthew 26 and the first two verses of 27, it's used 11 times to reference Judas and what Judas did.

And so you've got this word gave up, and Paul's been using it. He used it in Romans 1:24. "Those people who did not acknowledge God, he gave them up. He deli- he, he b- gave them up," paradidomi, "to impurity." And that [00:38:00] gave up, that's the word. Paul uses it two verses later. "God gave them up to dishonorable passions."

Gave them up. Two verses later, "God gave them up to a debased mind" uses the word. So Paul... And remember, these people

We used to live in a, um

In a good reading society where people read Um, m- more and more we live in a video society where people watch How many of you actually get a newspaper delivered to your house? How many of you used to get a newspaper delivered to your house? See the [00:39:00] difference? We get most of our news off the internet, heaven help us, because we know everything there is correct.

Um, or we get it off TV, heaven help us, because we know all of that's unbiased But, but in antiquity, they didn't read much, and they certainly didn't watch TV. They were really good at listening. So these letters get read, and they will have heard Paul use paradidomi, paradidomi, paradidomi, paradidomi. God gave them up to impurity.

God gave them up to a debase, uh, to dishonorable passions. God gave them up to a debased mind. And now they reach a point where they hear that God [00:40:00] gave Jesus up on our behalf See, God could hand people over to judgment, and that's the story without the cross. But with cross, with the cross, there's now a handing over of Christ and a handing over to us of salvation.

And that's the gospel, and it's all just in that one Greek verb

So if we look at this, uh, here, get rid of all of that. Look at that. You know, if I didn't spend my time doing that kind of stuff, I'd have gotten the other slides right. That is a perfect example of pride comes before a fall. Um, let me tell you three more times where this is used. Isaiah 53. Paul has already referenced it in, in, uh, Romans.

He references it in Philippians. I mean, it's like one of his [00:41:00] go-tos, okay? And, and rightfully so. Uh, Isaiah 53, let me pull it up and show you where this is

This is a very messianic Psalm. All right. Let's get this

Okay, I'm not a fan of the, this wavy stuff. I, that, uh, sorry, y'all. If you're gonna get sick, turn to your neighbor. You don't, you don't wanna mess up your own clothes. He is All right, let's see. Let's start with verse four. Man, I can't stand that. "Surely he's borne our infirmities, carried our diseases. We accounted him stricken, struck down by God."

God is the one who handed him over. "Afflicted, he [00:42:00] was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the punishment that made us whole. By his stripes or bruises we are healed." And then look at this. "All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned to our own way. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Then it's used twice in verse 12, where it talks about he poured... Let's see if I can get verse 12 up here. There it is. Yes. Um, uh, divide the spoil with the strong. "He poured out himself to death, numbered with the transgressors, bore the sin of many, made intercession for transgressors." Three times, paradidomi.

That's what happened. God delivered Jesus over. And so that's wrapped up in what we're reading here. "He who did not spare his own Son, but [00:43:00] gave him up."

How? If he did all of that, how will he not do this for us? He did all of this for us. By the way, for us, again Huper hemon, the same Greek that we saw before. We just saw it in verse 31. If God is for us, huper hemon, who can be against us? I said it's on behalf of, for the benefit of, in the interest of. Now, we have a distant God that toler- doesn't tol- that tolerates us?

No, no, no. He's positioned himself on our behalf. Here's what Paul has just done. Every idea that we had with these slides, so I'll walk back through them again, pertains to the fact that Jesus died for you. This is what his death was all about. So it's not just God's got this interest in you. He wants you to [00:44:00] know it was giving of Jesus on your behalf.

That was an investment God made in you. That was a commitment God made to you. That was God acting in your interest, and it's already happened. It's in the past. It is a done deal. It's a gift already given. Amen. And so Paul's saying, now, in light of that, look at the unstoppable generosity of our God. He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, with Him, graciously give us all things?

Now, Paul is using an argument form here that was common with Jewish rabbis. It's common in Jewish scripture. But it's [00:45:00] called, uh, in, in Hebrew, it's kal va-chomer. Kal va-chomer. Kal means something that's light. Va just means and. Chomer is something that's heavy. So it's light and heavy. It's kind of like a f- fiore arguments for us, but it's an argument that flows from the lesser to the greater or vice versa.

And it was very common Um, Jeremiah 12:5 uses it. Look at this. "If you've raced with men on foot and they wore you out, how on earth are you gonna compete against horses?" Right? Same, same type deal. Jesus used it. If God... Consider the lilies of the field. If God so clothes the grass of the field, [00:46:00] how much more is he gonna take care of you?

See, it's the light and the heavy or vice versa. Paul's used it before. We talked about it in this class, Romans 5:10. "If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we're reconciled, shall we be saved by His life?" Um, Aristotle used it, though he didn't use the Hebrew word.

The Greek phrase was the idea of from the more and the less. And so in his rhetoric, he says, uh, uh, in chapter 2 verse 23, he says, "Look, if the gods aren't omniscient, certainly humans aren't." It's that same idea. It's light and heavy, light and heavy. Um, Jesus used it in Matthew 12. "If you will rescue a sheep on the Sabbath, how much more should you be [00:47:00] willing to do something for a human?"

Okay, that's what Paul's doing here, so recognize the argument for him. If He w- didn't spare His own Son but gave Him up, how much more is He graciously gonna give you all things? How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Now, if you've been in this class routinely, you're gonna remember I've said over and over Paul's big on these soon words, these with words.

He's used it as compound. But he's used it in this Romans 6, 7, and 8 section over and over. He said, "We died with Christ. We were buried with Christ. We were raised with Christ. We are heirs with Christ. We will suffer with Christ. We'll be glorified with Christ. The Spirit helps us with our weakness. W- we're [00:48:00] conformed to Christ's image."

It's with, with, with. How will He not also, with Him, when we're part of Him, when we're with Him, graciously give us all things? And graciously should not be, uh, looked past. It's charis is the, the, the root behind this graciously give. It's the word for grace. It's the word that started this section. Should we sin so that grace may abound?

Heavens no. It's the same root, charis. He will graciously give us all things. We don't sin so that grace may abound. We walk with Him, and He, in grace, gives us more. Every single thing we need to be brought home safely to the Lord, we will get. He's committed to it, He's invested in it, and He's already paid the price.

That's what Paul is doing, and he's saying life may be filled with chaos, but there is a joy of divine fellowship, and let me [00:49:00] give you a grand finale of it. And it's a movement that Beethoven didn't invent, 'cause Paul had one tremendous grand finale himself on how terror can give way to triumph. Amen?

Amen. So here are the points for home. Number one, yours assurance and my assurance rests on what God's already done, not what you might do. Amen. Don't get me wrong, we can do things to His glory. He's prepared good works for us to do. He's gonna empower us, He's gonna guide us, He's gonna lead us, and we can turn our nose from Him, and we can turn our hearts from Him, and we can try and disregard, and we can get lost in weeds, but He's still there.

And it may not be till harvest day He cleans those weeds out and finds our pure [00:50:00] wheat, but He ain't gonna let go And he wants you to know that he gives peace, that he gives joy, that he gives strength in this journey, and there's nobody and nothing that's gonna be able to take that from you. He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up.

If you ever have any doubt about God's investment in you, his commitment to you, the cross itself should settle all doubts. Beneath the cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand. To the cross, lead me to the cross. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my... Charles, help me.

Richest gain. Richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride[00:51:00]

How much more is the math of the Christian life? If God gave up His Son, how much more? Spotlight. If He gave up His Son, how much more will He give us what we need today? God is for you. Don't let the enemy ever convince you or even make you doubt whether or not God is for you He, he, he, he died for you.

He's invested in you. He is for you. And everything you need will come with Christ Amen. It doesn't come instead of Christ. It comes with Christ. Will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Don't ever chase the blessings [00:52:00] and neglect the blesser. Amen? Amen. So if you have a lunch topic Here it is.

Where in your life right now are you anxious about something small that you have forgotten to filter through the how much more logic of the cross? When we had a chance to visit before worship this morning, one of my sisters, I won't embarrass her, um, uh, uh, there she is though.

I ask, "How are you doing?" What did you say? Do you remember? Mm-mm. You said, "I'm blessed. I have God. Do I need anything more?" Praise him. Praise him. Praise him. I have God. Do I need anything more? I mean, isn't, isn't that it?[00:53:00]

How much more? Lord, in the name of Jesus, we thank you for who you are and for all you have done, for the ways you pursued us and continue to pursue us, for the ways you speak through this letter written by your Spirit thousands of years ago, Lord. You're speaking to us today To trust you, to love you, to honor you, to seek you, knowing You are invested, committed And taking care of us.

We thank you with love. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.