If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans Chapter 8, we're going to be reading from verse 31 to verse 35. Romans Chapter 8, verse 31 through 35. Reading out of the ESV. 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 Saul. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus, the one who died. More than that, who was raised.

Who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Let's pray. Father God, we want to thank you for our brother Tim and for sustaining him, watching over him and using him, Lord God, to support the ministry going on in China.

I pray that you would continue to help him, Lord God, to not to simply be a missionary who's done his work and come home, but to really be able to continue the work here, to reach out, to use his gifts to honor you. We pray for our missionaries, Pastor Alex and Jen and the family, Lord, that in their travel here, I pray that you would watch over them and that the brief time that they will join us, I pray that you would refresh and strengthen them, that they may be re-equipped and refreshed, Lord God, for the sake of your work.

We entrust this time to you. Help us to see your word as your word and not mine or anyone else's and that your word would have the impact, Lord, on all of us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. >> Now, we've been talking about our salvation and our security that we have in Christ and Paul, understandably, has been taking chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8, and if you were to take a step back, we can say that that's basically what he's been talking about from chapter 1, by establishing our need for Christ, establishing that Christ came and died for us in our sins and then the security that we have and what happens as a result of our salvation.

And so he's been pounding that over and over again. And it is absolutely essential, our security in Christ, that we're able to confess with absolute confidence that our salvation cannot be shaken, that it was not initiated by us and it is not something that God just kind of handed over to us, it's all dependent on you to see if you persevere, and it is not ultimately dependent on us and our glorification, that God initiated, he's the one who causes us to persevere and he's the one who causes the glorification ultimately to happen.

There are things in our life that if we don't have security, if we don't have confidence, it's very difficult to function. Something as simple as traffic lights. Every time you go through the intersection, if you don't have confidence that if it's green and you cross, that the other guy who's coming is not going to stop, you can't drive.

You're not going to be able to drive. Every time you get to the intersection, you're going to have to make a stop and look left or right. There are certain people in your life that you depend on and you lean on, maybe even your job. You go in and there's some security in what you're doing.

But no matter how much we depend on some of these things, as soon as your confidence is broken, even while you're driving, if 99% of the time you feel safe, but that one time that you cross the intersection and somebody didn't stop, if you've ever gotten in an accident where somebody who was supposed to stop, didn't stop, came through and hit you, and it was a pretty bad accident, from that moment on, you're going to think twice every time you go through that intersection.

That confidence, that lack of confidence in that traffic light or what the other person is going to do is going to affect the way you drive your car. That's also true in relationships. If you had a good friend that you completely relied on and later on somehow you found out they talked bad about you or gossiped about you and you've lost confidence.

Now that doesn't have to happen over and over again. It can happen once or twice and it's enough for you to lose confidence in friendship. Sometimes that happens even in family relationships. All these things that are absolutely essential for us for survival, for normal living, the longer you live, you realize that nothing is absolutely secure.

Nothing. But there is this one thing in our salvation, in our relationship with God, that without this confidence you cannot function. There has to be absolute solid assurance. Or else, again, it unravels. Everything that we know about our relationship with God, all the confidence that we have in eternal life, every perspective that we've had, every decision that we've made, it unravels if we lose confidence in our salvation.

That is why it's absolutely essential that in our beginning walk with God, in our continuing persevering walk with God, in our final glorification that you and I understand as Paul has been pounding that our salvation is absolutely in his hands. One saved, always be saved if salvation is genuine.

Whenever we talk about eternal security or election or predestination, there's always this thought, there's always this opposition. Well, if you preach predestination like the way you preach or what Paul seems like he's saying, isn't that going to lead to licentiousness? Aren't some people going to say, "Well, if one saved, always saved and our salvation is absolutely secure, it doesn't matter how we live." So all this preaching about, "Let's do this, let's do that, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but whether I do it or don't do it, it doesn't matter." Wouldn't some people respond in a way where they don't think obedience, "I should do it, but it's not essential." Living holy is important, but not essential.

Truth of the matter is, a lot of the people do respond that way. A lot of people, when we talk about predestination, will respond in a way where it's kind of like a security blanket, "Well, I'm not following Christ. I say He's my Lord, but I don't live like it, but again, thank God I'm saved and all of that doesn't matter." Well, let me tell you plainly, that is not a Christian response.

That is not a Christian response. Somebody who does not have faith may superficially hold on to the doctrine of our security in Christ and will say, "Well, I believe that, and so I should, but I don't, but it doesn't matter." Somebody who does not have faith may confess to believe that, but by their life, they demonstrate what they truly believe.

"Let us eat, be merry, for tomorrow we die. This is all we have. YOLO." Right? You only live once. Right? So, the real application of what they really believe is YOLO. Right? We only live once. This is all we have, so let's live and die. And then, Jesus and the gospel that we profess to believe in is nothing more than an extra security blanket, just in case.

See, the doctrine of election doesn't cause genuine believers to be passive at all. If anything, it gives us confidence to live righteously. It gives us security to be able to pursue holiness without constant fear of anxiety that I haven't done enough, that I'm not trying to earn an A.

All I'm trying to do is be faithful. See, this doctrine of election is the foundation upon which we build everything else that we do. It is not a security blanket so that I can live any way I want. Again, like I said, it will, whenever the Word of God is preached, it always reveals the genuineness of someone's faith and how they respond to the Word that they hear will reveal what they genuinely believe.

Paul has been expositing some chapter 6, chapter 7, and chapter 8, the absolute security that we have in Christ. So, chapter 8 is kind of like a crescendo. It's at the end of this important message of absolute security that we have in Christ. And so, the way he's going to end it is by giving seven rhetorical questions.

Now, whenever we give a rhetorical question, it's not, we don't give it because we don't know the answer. It's called rhetorical because it's obvious. If I asked you, "Well, what comes after Monday?" It's not because I don't know that it's Tuesday. It's not because I don't think you know that it's Tuesday.

It's because I'm trying to make a statement. "Well, what comes after Monday?" Of course it's Tuesday. Now, why am I asking you that? Because there's something important on Tuesday. It's our anniversary. It's my birthday. Right? Something important is happening, and I'm trying to convey that through a rhetorical question.

That's how we use rhetorical questions. Right? Paul gives seven rhetorical questions in conclusion, kind of a crescendo of obvious answers that he's already given in the previous chapters. Right? He begins by asking, "What then shall we say to these things?" Well, what is it these things that he's talking about?

Right? The union with Christ in his death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit that's given to us as a seal to empower us to live godly lives. He said that all things work together for good. The good and the bad. In season and out of season. That whether it is our foreknowledge, predestination, justification, that all of these things, ultimately God is working for our salvation.

So when he asks this question, "What then shall we say to these things?" He's already answered these questions in the previous chapters. So he's trying to reemphasize. Just in case, let's summarize what we've said up to this point. What then shall we say? So he has seven questions, including the one I just read.

But in the seven questions, I think can be summarized in four. So I'm going to condense it to four, and we're going to go over that this morning. What then shall we say? First thing he says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" That's the first, again, confirmation that he gives.

If you had any doubt that because of opposition, because of failures, because of doubts or whatever it is happening in your life, if God is for you, who can possibly be against you? The first thing that I think about when I think about the confidence that we have, that we ought to have in Christ, a lot of times, whether it is doubt or anxiety, it all comes because we're not able to see the reality that is in Christ.

If you remember the story in 2 Kings 6, it was during a period of Israel's history where they were kind of shaky in their relationship with God. And the Syrians were constantly coming in to try to conquer Israel. Well, Elisha the prophet had a very intimate relationship with God, and God would constantly reveal to him that Syrians are going to come, and they're going to attack you in this valley, so don't go to that valley.

And the Syrians aren't able to conquer them, so they make another plan. And then Elisha tells the king of Israel, "Don't go there either, because God told me if you go there, they're going to attack you from every side." So every time the Syrians make a plan to attack them, Elisha tells them what's happening.

So the king of Syria says, "What's going on? Do we have a spy among us?" And one of his servants says, "No, there's not a spy within us. There's a man named Elisha who is constantly prophesying about what's happening." He said, "Well, go capture this man." And that's the setup for 2 Kings 6, 15, and 17.

The Syrian army has surrounded Elisha and his servant, basically captured them and probably killed them. This is what it says, 2 Kings 6, 15-17. "When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city.

And the servant said, 'Alas, my master, what shall we do?' He said, 'Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.'" Now, physically speaking, Elisha, you're crazy. It's just me and you, right? And again, the servant doesn't know what Elisha knows.

The servant doesn't see because he sees with his physical eyes. So he prays, Elisha prays to God and says, "Oh Lord, please open his eyes that he may see." So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Kind of reminds me of the scene when Jesus was in the boat when the storm came and all these professional fishermen, they're freaking out, right? And these guys fish for a living, so they're probably used to storms and rocky waters and it was bad enough or they're freaking out, saying, thinking they think they're going to die.

And Jesus wakes up and says, "You have little faith," right? Because they don't know what he knows. And the reason why they were in fear is because they didn't really know who was on the boat with them. They knew, but they didn't really know. See this scene with Elisha and the servant, Elisha is calm because Elisha knows that God is with him.

And that's exactly what Paul is saying. Again, Paul says in Galatians 6.17, "From now on, let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Paul is not saying, "Don't mess with me because I got a bigger sword." Right? He's saying, "You know what?

I planted all these churches and if you mess with me, I'm going to be able to call all of them and you're not going to be able to overpower me. Let no one mess with me." Galatians is written in the context of him being beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, going hungry, persecuted.

Even as he is sitting in prison in Philippi, somebody in the church is preaching the gospel to make it harder for him, to put more pressure on him. He had oppositions from outside and inside. And he explains that in the midst of all of this, even, he's a human being.

He struggles with his flesh. He struggles with anxiety, he says in Corinthians, over the churches that he's planted. So what does he mean in Galatians 6.17? I think you and I know exactly what he's talking about. "Now on, let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." He's not talking about the whipping that he got.

He's not talking about him being stoned. He's saying, "Look right here. You know, I got stoned right here. That's marks of Jesus." What Paul was saying was that he was tagged. He was tagged by the blood of Christ. That the seal of the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing his salvation, is on Peter, spiritually.

So whether you beat me, persecute me, or ultimately even kill me, God is on my side. I've been tagged by the blood of Jesus. That's what he means, "Let no one cause trouble for me." And that's the first thing that Paul says in our salvation. The first thing about justification, the doctrine of justification, tells us God is for us.

God is on our side. It's not God and us. It's not God and the church. It's God. God is for us. Who can possibly be against us? Well, I mean, I think our opposition as Christians can be probably divided into three parts. The world, the devil, and our own flesh.

The world, the devil, and our own flesh is constantly opposing us. Jesus said in John 16, 1-4, "I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.

And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you." You know, it's a strange thing that we are experiencing in our generation of Christianity that we're trying so hard to be cool in the eyes of the world so that the coolest people in the world, you know, will think that we're cool.

And that this is not going to be a strange place. So when all the cool people in the world step into the church that they'll fit right in. It is a strange thing that the church has embraced knowing full well that Jesus said they're not going to accept you.

You're going to be aliens and strangers in this world. In fact, if you look at every gospel, every epistle in the New Testament, there is a warning. There is a warning that persecution is going to come if you stand up and declare the gospel. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you are light in darkness and the darkness doesn't like it.

It doesn't matter how you dress. It doesn't matter how we play the music. It doesn't matter how cool and nice we try to make it into the church. The scripture says, and why does he say it? He says so that you may not fall away. It may not surprise you, he says.

That when they start to hate you and think you're weird because of the things that you profess to believe, that you don't become surprised and as a result of that fall away from your faith. So he warns us and he tells us, brace yourself for that. We have opposition clearly in the world, but it goes even further than that.

We have opposition of the devil himself. First Peter 5, 8, be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a rowing lion seeking someone to devour. We can make a mistake of thinking of the devil in two extremes. You have one extreme where Hollywood makes him the superpower.

You open up the Bible and the devil tears it up. Everybody's trembling in fear. There's nothing can overpower the devil except for this cross. You know what I mean? Or you go in and you make this devil the supernatural power being that no one can do anything about. So that's created by Hollywood.

And then you have the other extreme where you're kind of like, ah, the devil is nothing. And you kind of minimize him to the point where you don't even think he really exists other than every once in a while it's mentioned in the Bible. Well the biblical view of the devil is powerful.

Out of all the created beings, there's nothing more powerful than Satan himself. All the created things. And he was so powerful and influential, he was able to take a third of the angels with him and third of the angels created in heaven fell away with him and is in rebellion against God.

So you imagine what that means when the scripture says you have an adversary, the devil, like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Who's that someone? That's not a random someone. The devil is not looking to devour his own. People that he's already under his dominion. That someone he's talking about are people who claim to be children of God.

And that's why we are warned again and again, Ephesians 6, 12, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. I mean, if you claim to be a Christian, if this is all true and we believe all this to be true, how can we possibly not fall into despair if it wasn't for Christ?

Knowing that this superpower being is actively pursuing to go against you, to knock you down. How can we possibly not being connected with Christ have any confidence? We will be overwhelmed with anxiety. The whole world around us doesn't want the light. And then on top of that, the God of this age is actively working with all his intellect, with all his power.

And see, the devil doesn't need to be invited. That's why the Bible says, "Do not give him a foothold." See, the devil is on the constantly attacking. So if you give him a crack and you give him any way to get in, he'll get in. Generally speaking, how can we not be in despair?

How can we not be anxious? But that's not where it ends. Our own flesh fights against us. Galatians 5, 17, "For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do." We have the Holy Spirit that's made an indwelling in us, but we are not home yet.

We're still living in the flesh. As long as we are in this tent, our flesh is going to be fighting us. Galatians 6, 8, "For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life." How can we possibly think that we're going to be victorious with that kind of opposition?

So the key to what Paul is saying is not, "You are great. Work harder. Be strong." No, the key to what he is saying is, if God is for us, if God is for us, the world, the devil, even your own flesh cannot stand. Our security isn't because God looked at us and he found some diamond in the rough.

He saw some people with potential who were able to do great things for God. That's not what it says. The Bible actually reminds us that he loved us and saved us while we were yet sinners. We weren't diamond in the rough that he tripped over and said, "Oh, I forgot this one." God is for us.

Who can be against it? Where's the proof that God is for us? In the next verse he says, "He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not graciously give us all things?" Okay, it's a rhetorical question. If he gave his son, his most precious being, why do you question that God has power or the will to sustain you?

Years ago, when I was a youth pastor dealing with teenagers, every once in a while I would have to counsel some teenager who would come and tell me some off the wall stuff and would come and tell me, "My mom, she won't feed me dinner. I'm so angry with her.

She won't make me dinner. She doesn't want me to eat." So I'm like, "That same mom who just dropped you off, she's not making you dinner." I say, "Yeah." "That same mom who picked you up when you got in trouble at school." "That mom." I say, "Yeah." "The one that took you to the hospital because you were sick and got you medicine and took time off of work so that she can be by your bedside all day long.

That mom." "Yeah." "That same lady for 16 years have been wiping your butt, feeding your food every single day. That mom. That mom won't feed you food. That's what you're saying right now." "Yeah." "Do you hear yourself? You're saying that mom doesn't want you to eat." And then you dig a little bit further and you realize that that kid was eating junk food all day long and the mom says, "You can't keep eating like that.

If you eat like that, you can't have dinner." Right? And all he knows is angry because he doesn't get to do what he wants to do. My mom won't feed me dinner. Now no one would believe that because that mom won't feed you dinner. Right? As ridiculous as that statement may be, what Paul is saying is, "How can you not have confidence in God?

You come in here singing about His Son dying for you and then you're living every day thinking like, 'Oh, He doesn't care, doesn't give me a job, I don't have food, I don't have this.'" And your source of anxiety, how will He not? If He gave you His Son to justify you, how will He not along with Him give you everything?

Somebody gives you a million dollars and then you say, "You know what? I need $10 for breakfast." He's like, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to ask Him because I don't know if He's going to give it to me." He gave you a million dollars. See the illogical, the way we feel sometimes, the anxiousness and the despair that we fall into sometimes is inconsistent with our faith.

Psalm 84, 11, 12, "For the Lord God is a Son and a shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold." No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly, O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in You. No good thing does He withhold.

In Matthew 9, 5, when Jesus heals the paralytic, they come to Him, drops a paralytic and say, "I want you to heal him." Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven." Everybody freaks out, "Who are you?" Only God can forgive sins and Jesus responds to them and says, "What's easier? What is harder to say?

To say your sins are forgiven or to tell them to get up and walk?" Now for me and you, it's much harder to say, "Get up and walk," because I can't do that, right? Anybody have stubbed toe? I got nothing for you. All right, go to the hospital. I'll pray for you, but I don't have healing power, right?

I could say, "Your sins are forgiven." I just said it. I've said it many times. It's so easy, right? But think about who's saying it. The God of the universe who created all things, who simply gets up and says, "Storm, stop," and it stops. Blind man, open your eyes.

It opens. You know, lepers, you say, "Go show yourself to the priest." Even on their way, they get healed. A woman who's hemorrhaging, all she does is reach out to him in faith and just by being near him, she gets healed. So for him to say, "Get up and walk," there's no sweat off of his back.

Get up and get out, right? Which is harder. So your sins are forgiven. In order for him to say, "Your sins are forgiven," and for that to actually have any kind of power, that same God who created the universe, that same God who can heal simply by someone's touch and being near him, Emdid himself became nothing.

He humbled himself. He walked in sinful man's shoes. He experienced all the pain that you and I would experience in life because of living in the fallen world. Performing all these miracles, loving and serving these very people that at the end of the ministry were going to reject him and crucify him.

Imagine the loneliness. Imagine the humiliation. And then even as he's about to go to the cross, his closest companion denied him and they're disappearing. If that wasn't enough, as he's hanging on the cross, he cries out to his father for the first time in his existence, "Father, Father, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He did all of that to justify us.

He did all of that. He went through all of that pain. He sacrificed all of that just to say, "Your sins are forgiven." So he who did not spare his own son, how will he not along with that give us all these other things? You think he went through all that trouble to justify us and then left sanctification?

That's on you. Hope you make it. He said, "No, our security is firmly in his hands because he who began a good work in you, he will carry it onto completion on the day of Christ." That's why we have security. Again, a non-Christian may hear this and say, "Wow, that's great.

Then I have this free ticket to heaven. I got it. Now I can do whatever I want." Right? Someone who is unbelieving may simply see the doctrine of security as a ticket to do whatever they want because they don't really believe that Jesus is life. But if you're a genuine believer and you believe that Christ is life, that's where I find life.

Then, the doctrine of security gives us strength to persevere. It gives us strength to go. Even when we fail, it gives us strength to get back up and continue. Why Peter and Judas, the sorrow that led to condemnation, all he saw was, "I did wrong and I deserve to die and he dies." Where Peter repents and he's restored.

What was the difference? The sorrow that leads to repentance and sorrow that leads to condemnation. This doctrine of security gives us absolute security in Christ. And then he says, the next verse, "Who shall bring any charge against God, God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is it that condemns?" It's almost like the challenge to the world.

This is my son. These are my adopted children. You are under my wings and my care. Who is going to come and accuse? You'd have to be one arrogant being to say, "I'll do it." Well, scripture tells us there is a being, Satan. In Revelation chapter 12, 10, it says, "And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, 'Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down.'" He's talking about Satan.

"Who accuses them day and night before God." There are a couple of things I want to highlight about Satan here. One, he's called the accuser. Now if you want to, in modern terms, he's a prosecutor, constantly pointing out. If you're guilty, he's going to point it out. The audacity to stand before the throne of God, to accuse those that God claims is his.

Only Satan would have that audacity. That's exactly how it's described. But look at the second thing. Not only is he the accuser, who does he accuse? He's the accuser of who? Of our brothers. He's accusing Christians. Constantly questioning. Constantly questioning. How can he be your child? How can God love you?

How can you be justified? And he's constantly accusing the brothers. When is he doing it? He accuses them day and night before our God. He doesn't, he's not part time. He doesn't do it on Monday and then he forgets on Tuesday. He says constantly, the accuser is accusing the brothers day and night.

And that is why in Romans 8.34 it says, "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." You notice he doesn't say, "He interceded." He doesn't just say, "He justified and then the end.

And now he's watching to see who's going to make it." He says, "No, he's interceding." Right? He's interceding. So he started it. And he's continuing it. And he's going to finish it. The accuser is constantly accusing. But Jesus constantly stands before us. Before us and God. Covering us with his blood.

That's why we have security. He didn't just start and then just kind of let you guys go and say, "Okay, hopefully some of you guys can make it." He loved us enough to die for us while we were yet sinners. And it's illogical. It doesn't make any sense that he who loved us while we were sinners.

And the scripture tells us that we were enemies of God. That all of a sudden he said, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know he was going to do that. I thought if I poured a little love that there would be some change but nothing happened." While we were yet sinners.

That never changes. And that's why we call it unconditional. We call it unconditional. We use that term so cliche and so often that it kind of lost its meaning. But originally that's where the term comes from. Unconditional because it is not based upon any condition. It is not conditioned upon you becoming a diamond.

It's not conditioned upon you being a famous evangelist. He just decided to love you. That's the mystery. I don't know why. I don't know why some were chosen and some were not chosen. I don't know. I don't have the answer for that. But what the Bible does make it clear, what Paul says, we don't even know what to pray for.

But one thing that we do know, that all things work together for good for those who have been called according to his purpose. That we know. That we know. That we know. That we have security. We know that we have this confidence in him. And that's why the final thing that he concludes in all of this thing, he says, "Then who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" You see how this crescendo of all these rhetorical questions, but the last of the rhetorical questions really sums up everything that he says.

All of these things, justification, sanctification, glorification, eternal security, the Holy Spirit, our union with Christ, death and resurrection. All of this stuff can be summed up by what? The love of Christ. Why can't we be separated? Because he loves us. Why do we look at our children like hawks, those of you who have small children?

You love them. You can't bear to imagine any harm coming to them. Any parent with small children, I mean you're watching over them. Where are they? Are they sticking their finger in the wall? Who's around them? Are they going to, even the babysitters, are they going to hurt them?

Are they going to care for them? And you're watching over a hawk. And you're a human being. The greatest job that you can possibly do is limited by your limitation. John 3, 16, it says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." See that word "so" in "for God so loved the world" isn't saying God so loved the world.

It's saying the way God loved the world. That's how it really is written in Greek. The demonstration of God's love is that he gave his only begotten Son. How do we know God loves us? He sent his Son to die for you. That's how we know he loves us.

Sometimes we want to measure God's love by our bank account, by friendship, by security. But he says, "No. What more do you want than the Son of God who died for you?" And then he says, "Shall tribulation" - tribulation is talking about outside forces. It's a general word that really describes everything.

"Distress, the inner anxiety that comes from living in a fallen world when things don't go right. Persecution, trials that are deliberately brought into our life by the world and our surrounding. Famine or nakedness, our basic necessity of food and clothing. Danger, when somebody actually decides to bring harm. A sword, even the threat of death." So basically what Paul is saying, he's describing in every circumstance.

Even trivial things as food and clothing, just someone else's threat. Danger, even anxiety. Can any of this separate us from the love of Christ? Is something or anything more powerful in this world than the love of Christ? See that's the rhetorical question. What will separate us from the love of Christ?

The answer is pretty obvious. Nothing. Nothing. There is nothing more beautiful in our world than love. Nothing. Even among human beings. When you see people falling in love, everybody's like, "Oh." Nobody's like, "Ew." Whether it's love between husband and wife or love for mother or children or usually love and when it is pure, which has no greater love than this, than a friend laid down his life.

One person laid down his life for his friend. But even that description of love doesn't describe Jesus' love. He didn't lay down his life for his friends. He laid down his life for enemies and made us friends. Who shall separate us from this love of Christ? Nothing. That's why we have eternal security.

Those of you who are being accused because of your weakness. Those of you who are living in anxiety. Those of you who are questioning, "Am I going to make it?" If you have true faith, our confidence is in Him. That's why we are encouraged, challenged, commanded to fix your eyes upon Christ, the beginner and the finisher of our faith.

If it wasn't for Christ, if our confidence wasn't in Him, if it wasn't security in Him and His love, we would be overwhelmed with doubt, overwhelmed with anxiety, considering our opposition. But that is not us. Let me conclude with Isaiah 58-9. It says, "He who vindicates me is near.

He who contends with me, who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them up." Isaiah 45-25.

"I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." I want to sing a hymn with you. I'm going to ask the praise team to come up. And I know you guys are very familiar with this hymn. If you can turn the lyrics on.

And so instead of inviting you to pray, I'm going to invite you to take some time to reflect on the lyrics of this hymn because it basically is a summary of everything that we talked about this morning. And it's before the throne of God. And I know we sing it, and I know you probably have memorized the song, but I want to go over the lyrics with you.

And then I want to sing this together. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high priest whose name is love, who never lives, who ever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on his hands. My name is written on his heart.

I know that while in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart. Verse two. "When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free.

For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me. Behold him there, the risen lamb, my perfect spotless righteousness. The great unchangeable I am, the king of glory and of grace. One in himself I cannot die. My soul is purchased by his blood. My life is hid with Christ on high, with Christ my Savior and my God." So as we sing this hymn together, again I pray that these words of our security that we have in Christ would really be embedded in our hearts.

And that that would be the foundation in which we build everything that we do.