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Feb 16, 2020

Why Be Afraid Anymore

Why Be Afraid Anymore

Passage: Romans 8:31-39

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Elevator Pitch: The Good News in One Chapter, Romans 8

Every elevator pitch ends with the most important thought. In Paul’s mind the thought is that, despite all, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Order of Worship

PRE-SERVICE: Romans 8:31-32a
CALL TO WORSHIP: Ephesians 2:1-2,4,7,19-20
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Psalm 23:1-6
CENTRAL TEXT: Romans 8:31-39
MESSAGE: “Why Be Afraid Anymore?”
RESPONSE: Communion!
BENEDICTION: Romans 8:31-32a;37-39
POST SERVICE: Romans 8:38-39

Illustrations

Bridge of Spies

Readings & Scripture

PRE SERVICE: Romans 8:31-32a
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all,

CALL TO WORSHIP: Ephesians 2:1-2,4,7,19-20
LEADER: 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world,

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

ALL: 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

OLD TESTAMENT READING: Psalm 23:1-6
ALL: 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

CENTRAL TEXT: Romans 8:31-39
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long;we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.

BENEDICTION: Romans 8:31-32a;37-39
LEADER: 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all,

ALL: 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.

POST SERVICE: Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.

Related Scripture

  • Psalm 110:1
  • Psalm 118:1, 4-6
  • Isaiah 50:8-9
  • Isaiah 52:13-53:12
  • 1 Corinthians 3:21-23
  • 2 Corinthians 4:7-11
  • Ephesians 3:14-19
  • Hebrews 5:5-11
  • 1 John 4:4

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Don’t be ashamed to answer: what are you most afraid to lose right now? Why? What all would it mean for you?
  2. How would you put in your own words how God is for us? What does Paul include in his case for that point?
  3. When are you most inclined not to believe God is for you? Why then? How does this passage clarify your first inclination(s)? Can you be displeased with someone and still love them--even deeply? Can God from what you know of Him in Christ?
  4. Paul mentions all manner of things external to us that can’t separate us from the love of God in Christ--but can we separate ourselves? Why or why not? What in the rest of Romans 8, or elsewhere in Scripture, might offer evidence?
  5. Go back to Paul’s list (which almost reads like a poem or a song crescendoing). What in your world that gives you fear could you reasonably add to his list of what can’t separate you from His love?
  6. How might believing deeply that you have a love from which you cannot separated affect the way you love all from which you can be separated? What difference(s) would it make?

QUOTES:

  • Modern man fulfills his urge to self expansion in the love object just as it was once fulfilled in God. - Ernst Becker
  • I just want you to know who I am. - “Iris,” The Goo Goo Dolls
  • The reason why that grief had penetrated me so easily and deeply was that I had poured out my soul on to the sand by loving a person sure to die as if he would never die. The greatest source of repair and restoration was the solace of other friends, with whom I loved what I loved as a substitute for you and this was a vast myth and a long lie. . . .For wherever the human soul turns itself, other than to you, it is fixed in sorrows, even if it is fixed upon beautiful things external to itself, which would nevertheless be nothing if they did not have their being from you. - Augustine, Confessions
  • It is no new thing for the Lord to permit his saints to be undeservedly exposed to the cruelty of the ungodly. - John Calvin
  • . . .run to the rescue with love and peace will follow. - the late River Phoenix, quoted by his brother Joaquin
  • Wuhan’s pestilence cannot separate us from the love of Christ; this love is in our Lord Jesus Christ. These words are so comforting for us, we have already become one body with Christ. We have a part in his sufferings, and we have a part in his glory, all of Christ’s is ours, and our all is Christ’s. Therefore, Christ is with us as we face the pestilence in this city; the pestilence cannot harm us. If we die in the pestilence, it is an opportunity to witness to Christ, and even more to enter into his glory. A pastor in Wuhan, China asking for prayer, 1.23.20

SERMONS / TALKS: