OPENING PRAYER

Ancient of Days, You guided our ancestors, wandering Arameans, across the desert into a homeland You prepared for them. You called our ancestors out of slavery into freedom. You promised our ancestors a future with hope. You gave the world Your Son, Jesus the Messiah, who taught us a new way to live in the world by loving You foremost and loving our neighbors as ourselves. You have written our story, O God, before we drew breath. You have called us into this world to share the story of Your love with those who do not know it, who have not experienced it. Help us to share Your love with the world, with our neighbors, with those in need of knowing Your grace and forgiveness, Your healing and hope. Call us out of our comfort zone to share our story of Your love with the world. In the name of Christ, the Living Word, the Author of our Life, we pray. Amen.

Music: Jesus Loves Me!

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

God of mercy, you promised never to break your covenant with us. In the midst of the multitude of words in our daily lives, speak your eternal Word to us, that we may respond to your gracious promises with faithfulness, service and love. Amen.

SCRIPTURE              Romans 8:26-39

²⁶Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

²⁹For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. ³⁰And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

³¹What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor 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.

SERMON

I can remember most Sunday mornings during middle school and high school lying in bed and hearing my father in the family room practicing his sermon and his liturgical parts of the worship service.  Dad came out of the very traditional southern Presbyterian church and there were certain prayers and responses that were standard at almost all worship services.  So on almost every Sunday, these words from Romans 8 formed the Assurance of Pardon. Who is in a position to condemn us? Only Christ, and Christ died for us. Christ rose for us. Christ reigns in power for us. Christ prays for us. Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. As I grew up, I heard these same words being proclaimed Sunday after Sunday as a promise of our forgiveness, and as a testimony to our belovedness, as children of God.

But the first time, I truly heard them unleashed in all their radical power happened during my college years. I was involved with the College Church at Hampden-Sydney, and the Chaplain Willie Thompson asked several of us to assist in worship on a regular basis.  Part of my job was to help lead the liturgy in worship. Liturgy, by the way, is all of the things we say and do together that comprise our worship. The liturgy gives our worship its shape and its content.

Well, one Sunday I was given the portion of the liturgy that included the Proclamation of the Assurance of Pardon. Not wanting to mess anything up, I began to write down exactly what I would say. And out of sheer habit, I found myself writing these words from Romans 8. That’s the power of memorizing liturgy and scripture. It is one reason why having children in worship is so incredibly important. The words of worship shape your imagination even when you do not realize it. It happened to me. But as a young adult, writing down these memorized words from my worship experiences as a child, suddenly the light bulb came on for me in a new way.

For the first time in my life, I truly heard what Paul was proclaiming in these words. I truly heard and let it wash over me, even if it was just for a minute, this promise of forgiveness and the testimony about my belovedness, regardless of my own actions. Now perhaps this moment of clarity stood out so much for me because of where I was on life’s journey. I can promise you, as a young adult trying to figure out how to navigate life at college, other than from my family and my church, little of my reality offered any testimony about my belovedness.

Listen again and maybe you might hear it, too: Who is in a position to condemn us, Paul asks. Who is in any position to judge us for who we are or for what we have done or left undone? Who is it that honestly holds that kind of power over our futures and our lives? Who is in a position to condemn us? Is it our boss at work or our partner at home? No, Paul says. Jesus Christ is the only one with that kind of power. The one who is both our brother and our Savior—that’s who is our judge. Our only judge is the Jesus we claim who made a home with us, in order to teach, in order to heal, in order to show us in flesh and blood what Love looks like and what Love does. That Jesus is our only judge.

So again, I ask us, Who is in a position to condemn us? Who gets to tell us who we are or if we are good enough? Is it Wall Street or the SAT score or where our neighborhood is located? No. It is only Jesus Christ. Our judge is none other than the one who was born a ruddy-faced Jewish baby boy, who had dirty diapers and gave his parents sleepless nights just like the rest of us. That one is our only judge.

But let me ask just one more time, just to make sure we are hearing what this scripture says: Who is in a position to condemn us? Is it our parents or our children or our bank accounts or our teachers? Is it our friends or our enemies or all those mistakes we have made and continue to make? Is it the power of the “not enough” voices that surround us? Do any of them, does any of that, have the power to judge us and to tell us who and whose we are? No. It is only Jesus Christ. Our only judge is none other than the one who followed God’s call, even when it led to a criminal’s death on a cross. Our only judge, the only one who gets to tell us who and whose we are, is the same one who humbled himself completely for our sake. Our only judge, the one who holds our life, is the same one who cried out for the forgiveness of his executors. Our only judge is the same one who was raised from the dead, who went back into God, who carries our human face with him, who knits us together as family. Our only judge, the only one who gets to tell us who and whose we are, is Jesus Christ.

This Jesus is the only one who can condemn us. This Jesus who became weak in power in order to be strong in love is the only one who holds our future in his hands. This redeemer is the only one with the power to tell us who and whose we are. Have you really heard it yet? Our only judge is none other than the one who claims us in our baptism, who calls us beloved, and who crafts us into being his body where we live here and now. Do you truly hear the reality of such extravagant grace and lavish love? Can you let it wash over you, even if it is just for a minute?

I hope so. Because really hearing that proclamation of promise, that testimony of belovedness, will change your life. Trusting the promise that nothing—no thing—will ever separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord will change the way you make decisions. It will change the way you look at yourself in the mirror. It will change the way you walk by people on the street. It will change the way you spend your money and your time. It will change the way you think of church. For if, by the power of God’s Spirit, we can really hear and trust what God is saying to us through Paul’s words—that the one who knows us the best is the same one who loves us the most—then we realize we have to make a choice every single day. As God’s beloved ones, what are we going to trust more? Are we going to live our lives out of fear or out of gratitude?

Are we going to live our lives and spend our time fundamentally afraid that the “not enough” testimony from all around and from even deep within is true, or that God might love everyone else but certainly cannot love me given all that has happened, or that we have messed up too much and too often that “beloved one” can no longer be our name, waters of baptism not withstanding? Are we going to live our lives and spend our time being governed by those fears? Are we going to turn the proclamation that only Christ can condemn us into bad news because we don’t think we can ever be good enough or faithful enough to measure up? Is that what we are going to trust? Are we going to live primarily by fear?

Or are we going to try and live out of a sense of gratitude for what this scripture, what the gospel, promises us? Are we going to live our lives with the orientation of a deep and abiding thankfulness that trusts not in our own goodness but in God’s goodness; a thankfulness that tries to remember and live that only Jesus is the one who gets to define us? That trusting that promise makes all the difference in the world because it means we are trying to trust that nothing—no thing, not anything in the past or anything in the future, not anything we have done or left undone, not any voice that tells us we are not enough, not anything from within us or without us—nothing, no thing can separate us from God’s love. Not even death can separate us from God’s love. Period. End of story. That is the gospel good news of this text. You are God’s beloved, and there is nothing you can do about it except choose how you will respond. So, what will it be, fear or gratitude?

The great theologian Paul Tillich claims these words from Romans 8 are among the most powerful words ever written. He states that “the mere sound of them is able to grasp human souls in desperate situations. They are stronger than the sound of exploding mortar shells, of weeping at open graves. They are stronger than the sighs of the sick or the moaning of the dying. They are stronger than the self-accusation of those in despair. And these words prevail over the permanent whisper of anxiety we all carry around within us.”

Tillich is convinced God’s Spirit can radically shape our imaginations and our lives through the power of this proclamation from Romans—this proclamation of God’s unconquerable and unquenchable love for us. I bet if we could have ever asked Tillich to choose his favorite scripture passage, this Romans 8 text would have made the cut. From his writing, it is clear this chapter from Romans held that kind of power for him.

My prayer is that you would trust this proclamation from the Apostle Paul also, and that trusting that promise would make all the difference in your life because it means we are trying to trust that nothing—no thing, not anything in the past or anything in the future, not anything we have done or left undone, not any voice that tells us we are not enough, not anything from within us or without us—nothing, no thing can separate us from God’s love. Not even death can separate us from God’s love. Period. End of story.

Commentary provided by Jonathan Fleming, Paul Tillich, David Lose, Jeffrey T. Howard, Shannon J. Kershner, Jule M. Nyhuis, Charles S. Freeman, Roy Almquist, Scott Hoezee, Daniel B. Clendenin

THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

Lord Jesus Christ,
Words cannot express
how thankful we are that You consider us to be Your children; Your treasure, Your pearl beyond all price.

Words cannot express
how grateful we are that nothing: Angels, demons, death, life…
nothing can separate us from Your love!

Lord, we pray this day for all who are yet to hear this news.
May You continue to sustain all who seek to make You known across our world. Be with missionaries, Bible translators, children and family workers,
chaplains, ministers, preachers and pastors.
Be in conversations, Bible studies, Alpha courses,
Christianity Explored and Emmaus courses.
Be in high churches, café churches,
messy churches, house groups and cathedrals.
Be in all that opens people’s eyes to You,
Your love and Your call.

God of love and compassion,
We pray for all who seek to make a difference in the lives of others. Be with carers and counsellors, medics and mediators,
Be with those with listening ears and those with caring hands,
Be in all that opens people’s eyes to You,
Your love and Your call.

God of justice and peace,
We pray for all who seek to challenge injustices and stand up for what is right. Be with the politician and the protester,
The activist and the pacifist,
The vocal and the silent.
Be in all that opens people’s eyes to You,
Your love and Your call.

Hear us and help us to see You this day, we pray. Amen

The Lord’s Prayer

We pray all this in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit  –who taught us to pray:

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.  Amen.

Music: My Shepherd Will Supply My Need (Psalm 23)

SENDING WORDS

I bless you with joy
May you find moments of laughter and bliss
In the midst of suffering and distress
May you cherish those times and may they sustain you

I bless you with the fruits of humility
May your humble and sacrificial actions
Be instrumental in preserving your community
And loving your neighbors

I bless you with peace
In the face of financial hardship and uncertainty
May you know the faithful presence of the God who provides

Go in peace.

Wash your hands.

Love your neighbors.

You are not alone.