03-13-11Who Will Bring A Charge?

ROM 8:33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect?

That question is used by Paul

to introduce us to the 3^rd

of 5 things he wants us to never forget

about the Christian’s relationship to God.

We’ve looked at the first two already.

They were found in Romans 8:31-32

where Paul says,

ROM 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

The first was the one we spent our last two Romans studies on,

the realization that God is FOR us.

The second is the understanding that,

having already demonstrated to us

His true heart attitude toward us

by giving us His own Son,

we can reasonably expect our God

to supply our other needs as well.

And then, from there,

Paul moves on to this third truth

he never wants us to forget

about what is really going on between us and Him through Christ.

If you’ve been with us in this study the past few months

you know that the last 9 verses of Romans chapter 8

are used by Paul to present to us

in one simple, unified statement

all that he has been trying to communicate to us in the first 8 chapters of his letter to the Roman Christians.

If we might have gotten lost or confused in all those words,

he wants to be sure we don’t stay in that confusion.

And so, to remove all confusion,

all doubt,

all misunderstanding forever,

he pulls it all together,

beginning what may well be the most remarkable single paragraph ever written,

with the words, “What then shall we say to these things?”

And through the use of 6 more questions,

and then one final, powerful concluding statement,

Paul imbeds into our thinking

the things we need to know most about us and our Creator.

And just from a teaching perspective

I can’t let what Paul does here pass

without commenting on it.

Paul knows that everything he is attempting to accomplish

through the writing of this letter

depends upon his readers grasping

what he is telling us in these 9 verses.

And so, in order to intensify the communication power of these words

he uses a teaching technique

that he does not use to this degree

anywhere else in any other New Testament letter.

He knows that,

if he simply states what he wants us to know,

it will not impact us the way he wants it to.

So what he does

is to ask us 6 questions

that we must then answer for ourselves in our own minds.

And in so doing

it forces us to interact with the truth in a way we would never do otherwise.

And the questions themselves

are truly remarkable

because the answer to each

is contained within the question itself.

Look at the first two we’ve already studied:

1. If God is for us, who is against us?

And the answer, of course,

is, “Who cares?”

If God is for us, who cares who’s against us.

We win!

Would you like a little mental picture of this?

Picture 9 kindergarten boys in a tug-of-war...

5 on one side,

4 on the other,

and then the team with the 4

fills their 5^th slot with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If GOD is for us,

who is against us?

If the Creator of all that is

has chosen to stand beside us,

and not just to stand beside us

but to join Himself to us, identifying us as His child, His friend,

then who could ever stand against us with the hope victory?

2. And that second question does the same thing for us -

ROM 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

It forces us to tell ourselves the truth,

the truth about our God’s heart attitude toward us.

If I really matter so much to Him

that He chose to die in my place for my sins,

do I really think He doesn’t care

about these comparatively little things going on in my life?

3. Which brings us, then,

to the 3^rd and 4^th questions

which work together as a single unit.

Paul begins by asking,

Who will bring a charge against God's elect?

Now, to help us appreciate what’s going on here

I want you to picture yourself back in school.

Only this is not just an ordinary school,

this is the school of life.

There you are,

sitting in one of those little metal desks,

with all the other desks in the room

filled with pupils.

And at the head of the class is the teacher.

She reminds you of Miss Weaver.

You remember Miss Weaver, don’t you...

she was that Social Studies teacher

you had in the 7^th grade.

She wore her hair in a tight bun at the back,

and her mouth always looked as if

she sucked on a lemon each day before entering the room.

She knew she was at war,

and she knew who the enemy was -

it was you,

and every other student in that class.

Though of course she never came right out and said it,

you always felt as if

she must be very active,

and very prominent in some small, fervent church in the area,

a church that talked with great intensity

about the obvious and tragic problems in the younger generation today.

Think of Miss Weaver

when you think of the teacher

at the head of this schoolroom you are in today.

Only it isn’t really Miss Weaver,

it is the Moral Law Of God in human form.

And on this particular day

the Moral Law of God

calls your name

and asks you to come to the head of the class.

The Law then places a chair there

and tells you to sit down.

Then The Law steps up to the chalk board

and pulls down a large rolled-up list.

And on this list are printed

all of the moral commandments of God.

The Big 10 are there, of course,

but there are many others as well,

all sorts of rules dealing

not just with big, overt actions,

but with our attitudes,

and our motivations for doing things,

and even our reasoning processes.

The Teacher then turns to the class and says,

“Now, class, who will bring a charge against the one seated in this chair?”

For a few seconds no one speaks.

Everyone just sits, staring at you.

And then you look over at the list,

and then at the Teacher,

and you raise your own hand in the air.

For you see, when we are honest, we are the first to bring all sorts of charges against ourselves.

It is one of the things we do best.

We skillfully, daily weigh ourselves in the balance

and find ourselves wanting.

We know the longings our God has created within our spirits

for a life that honors and glorifies Him,

and then we see ourselves falling short of those longings so often.

And when we first hear Paul’s question,

“Who will bring a charge against God's elect?”,

our hand shoots up to answer the call.

But our hand is not the only one in the air.

There are others there as well,

most prominently that huge guy sitting in the front row -

Satan himself,

the one whom God has called, “the accuser of our brethren...”.

He springs to his feet

and goes on for a very long time

offering charge after charge against you.

And before he sits down

he looks right at you and says,

“What right do you have

to call yourself the child of God?

What right do you have

to share in His salvation?

On what basis do you ever think

you could stand before God?

Look at your past,

look at your actions,

look at your thoughts!

What possibly makes you think

a holy and righteous God

would have anything to do with you?

Look at this failure,

look at that one.

Look at how far short you fall!

And you call yourself His saint?

His holy one?

I really don’t think so!”

And then there are other hands in the air as well.

The class is really enjoying this, now.

A few of those hands belong to misguided

but well-meaning fellow saints

who feel it is their “calling”

to point out to you where you are failing

to meet up to their standards.

And other hands go up too -

hands belonging to those who have given themselves over to religion,

those whose social standing and prominence

depends upon showing their little world

how much better they are doing

than the others around them.

Something tells you

they probably go to the same church

that Miss Weaver goes to.

Luke 18:11-12 ... “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.”

They have memorized The List -

they know it by heart,

and they are always willing,

and eager,

and highly skilled at bringing a charge against God’s elect.

And then there are those

who have turned their backs on their God altogether,

those who need very much

to justify their rejection of God

by “proving” to themselves

that God’s people really are no different

from all the rest of the world.

And their hands, too, shoot in the air

to bring a charge against God’s elect.

Who will bring a charge against God's elect?

If that was the only question Paul chose to ask,

the answer would be, “Many...many bring a charge against God’s elect,

and do it with confidence and with boldness.”

But then, suddenly the door of classroom is opened,

and as every eye turns toward it,

God Himself walks in.

Now there are no more hands waving in the air.

Now the only sound

is the sound of His footsteps

as He walks up to you,

stands behind you,

and places His hands on your shoulders.

You can feel the warmth,

and the gentle strength of His hands

as He stands there behind you.

And then He speaks.

“Who is bringing a charge against this, My elect? I am the one who justifies. Now, who is it who condemns?”

And the silence that fills the classroom this time is wonderful.

It is a silence filled with warmth,

and with victory.

And when it becomes obvious

that no one is now going to speak,

your God brings you to your feet,

places His arm around your shoulder,

and says, “Come, My child.”,

and then leads you out of the room.

You see, when it comes to this 3^rd truth about our God,

and about our relationship with Him through Christ

that Paul wants us to never forget,

he does it not with one question,

but with two.

The first one brings that same old fear

that has paralyzed us all our lives -

the fear of our rejection

on the basis of our performance.

But the fear then sets us up to hear the truth through the second question

as we could never have heard it any other way.

Paul knows us,

he knows himself,

and he knows our enemies extremely well.

He wants to make certain

we have truly understood

what He has been saying to us in these past eight chapters.

And so, having asked the first question,

he then follows it immediately with a second,

only the second contains that one crucial statement,

the one that points us back to Romans chapter 3,

and Romans chapter 5.

ROM 8:33-34 Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns?

Sound familiar?

ROM 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

ROM 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

ROM 5:2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand...

Now, as good as all of this sounds,

even the voice of our God

assuring us that He has justified us

doesn’t answer all the questions.

We have heard those voices of condemnation

so clearly

for so many years

that they do not silence easily.

And so, just to help us in the rethinking process

Paul adds one additional comment

before he goes on to the next question.

ROM 8:34 ...Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

You know what that is, don’t you?

It is Paul’s offering our logical minds

the basis upon which God does not condemn us.

Christ Jesus who died...in our place...for all of our offenses,

ALL of them.

Christ Jesus, whose sacrifice for us

was validated by God

through His resurrecting Christ from the dead.

And Christ Jesus who is now at the right hand of God,

who, whenever any accusation against us

for any offense we have committed against God is raised,

points to the wounds in His hands,

and in His feet,

and says on our behalf,

“That debt is already paid in full.”

And then, just one final comment before we leave this.

I do understand

how much this truth,

the truth that God Himself has justified us through His own death forever,

how much it puzzles the human mind.

It seems to deny everything

that we think will lead to improved performance in our lives.

Why tell those

who still struggle with flawed moral performance

that they stand justified before God

right now,

just as they are,

forever?

The answer is twofold.

First of all,

God tells us this

because, for those of us who are in Christ,

it is the truth,

and to say anything else would be a lie.

Christ’s death truly was adequate payment

for all of our sins forever.

But second,

He tells us this

because He knows

that only this truth will provide the foundation

that will have the ability to break the power of sin in our lives.

Attempting to perform for God out of fear

will never lead us into freedom.

Only when we finally begin to accept the reality of His love for us

in a way that floods us with a hunger

and a longing to live lives that honor Him,

only then will we begin to know the inner motivation

that truly has the power to heal.

And only through this knowledge,

the knowledge of our own true inner righteousness of spirit,

will we have the basis upon which

we can then begin reshaping our concept of ourselves.

We are not just sinners, saved by grace.

We are saints, His holy ones,

transformed by the redemptive power of His work within us,

and the greatest basis upon which to fight sin that we will ever have

is the basis of being able to look at ourselves honestly

and saying to ourselves,

“I am no longer the person I once was.

I am the holy one of the King of Kings.

And sin simply doesn’t fit with who I have become in Christ.”

Only when we begin to see ourselves

for who we truly are

will we find an adequate basis

for breaking the power of the lies that have bound us.