If you did not know, “you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” To help us understand this good news, I plan to preach on (video below) my favorite of all favorite Scriptures — Romans 8:26-39. In this treasure trove we have these wonderful discoveries:
1. Both the Holy Spirit and Jesus Himself are constantly interceding (praying, pleading, advocating) for us before God the Father.
In the same way the Spirit comes to us and helps us in our weakness. We do not know what prayer to offer or how to offer it as we should, but the Spirit Himself knows our need and at the right time intercedes on our behalf with sighs and groanings too deep for words.
He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our condition, and keeps us present before God.
2. As God’s chosen ones who love Him, everything that happens to us is for our good.
And we know with great confidence that God who is deeply concerned about us causes all things to work together as a plan for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.
Romans 8:28
3. Our salvation and sanctification (becoming Christ-like) are God’s work from beginning to end.
For those whom He foreknew and loved and chose beforehand, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son and ultimately share in His complete sanctification, so that He would be the firstborn the most beloved and honored among many believers.
Romans 8:29
And those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified declared free of the guilt of sin; and those whom He justified, He also glorified raising them to a heavenly dignity.
4. God is for us. He’s way bigger than any that be against us.
What then shall we say to all these things? If God is for us, who can be successful against us?
Romans 8:31
He who did not spare even His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?
5. No charge against us will stand. God has declared us righteous. What a treasured possession!
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect (His chosen ones)? It is God who justifies us declaring us blameless and putting us in a right relationship with Himself.
Romans 8:33
6. Christ’s death and resurrection is our victory over sin, death and the devil.
Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died to pay our penalty, and more than that, who was raised from the dead, and who is at the right hand of God interceding with the Father for us.
Romans 8:34
7. Nothing (natural or supernatural, personal or impersonal) can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Who shall ever separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Romans 8:35
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us so much that He died for us. For I am convinced and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the unlimited love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Remember: “You are a people set apart as holy to God, your God. God, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure.”
Deuteronomy 7:6
