The Commitment

Study Notes

Made New:  The Commitment

Romans 8:28-39

     The holy God, the Creator of the universe, has made a personal commitment to you.  That’s what I want to speak to you about today.  God promises he will make everything right in your life. 

     We have been talking about that for months here at LAC in a series from Romans 5-8 that I’ve called Made New.  Today, we come to the very last message that the Apostle Paul, who wrote this book, wanted to give us.  Almost all who have read these 12 verses agree that they are among the most beautifully and movingly written in the entire Bible.  And, they are all about the commitment that our perfect and holy God makes to imperfect and unholy people like us, a commitment to finish in us what he started when we placed our faith in Jesus.

     It’s a bit difficult to talk about what this commitment from God is like because there are no commitments in this world that are quite like it.  Many of us make commitments in this world.  Almost every advertisement in our consumerist society contains a commitment that, if you will buy a particular product or get involved in some kind of program, that good things will happen.  Here’s an advertisement to help you look young that makes an enormous commitment to you, one I doubt it can keep:      We all know that we have trouble keeping our commitments perfectly.  I remember the commitments I used to make as a university president.  I would meet with parents and tell them that, if their children came to our school, we would be committed to developing the intellectual, relational, spiritual and physical lives of their lives.  And, we sought to do just that. However, I could promise no assurances that all this would happen.  There were so many things outside of my control.  So, I could only promise that we would do all that was in our power to fulfill our commitments. And, for the most part, people understood that very well.  We human beings are not all-powerful and all-wise.  We all often cannot follow through perfectly on our commitments.

     How different it is with the commitment we see God making in Romans 8:28-39.  Let me summarize briefly what we find in Romans 1-8.  In Romans 1-3, Paul makes it clear that each and every one of us has fallen short of what God would have us to be.  By the time we get to Rom 3:10, the Bible simply says, “There is no one right with God – no not one!”

     But, everything changes in 3:21ff.  In those verses, we learn that God has found a way to forgive our sins and declare us right with him, i.e., Jesus came and lived the perfect life that none of us has and then died on a cross in our place so that the punishment necessary for our sins has been paid for.  Hear now some good news:  You can be cleansed from your sin and guilt by placing your faith in Jesus.  When Jesus is your savior, you are made right with God.  All that was in Rom 1-4. 

     Then we come to the chapters we’ve studied these months at LAC, Romans 5-8.  In those chapters, when you have placed your faith in Jesus, you not only have peace with God through Jesus, but you also are given the Holy Spirit to begin to remake your life.  Oh, we still struggle with temptation and trials.  We all know that.  So, hear now some more good news:  God will not leave you as you are.  When you place your faith in Jesus, God begins a work in you to re-make you to be what you were meant to be, i.e., a person who is conformed to the very image of Jesus.  He will work all things together to bring about his good.  That’s God’s commitment.

     Now, we come to the end of these four great chapters of Scripture.  And, what we find in the last 12 verses, 8:28-39, is God making a personal commitment to finishing his work in you.  I will only go briefly through what God’s Word says. (Someday, I will come back and spend more time with this passage.)  But today, I want to remind you of God’s commitment to you and show you the basis for trusting him to keep that commitment.  When I’m done, I will call us all to respond to what God says.

The Commitment God Makes to His Children (8:28-30)  Those he justified, he also glorified (8:30).

     Paul summarizes Romans 1-8 in a brilliant way in 8:29-30: Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

    Look at the verbs in those verses:

1. God foreknew – “Foreknew” in Jewish thought is not only about knowing something in our brains.  It has to do with a personal relationship.  Paul is saying that God was preparing to enter into a relationship with you before you ever knew him.  This is the same point God’s Word makes in 1 Jn 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.”  So, God loved us, called us, and reached out to us even when we were in our sins.  The point is that salvation is by grace.  It is by grace we are saved – not by our works (Eph2:8-9).
2. God predestined – This is not saying that some are predestined to be saved and others are not.  It’s saying clearly that those who are in Christ by grace through faith are promised a destiny.  What is that future destiny God promises?  “To be conformed to the image of his Son.”
3. God justified – God is the only one who can say that we are now innocent before him.  That’s what this word is about:  God has used his Son’s death on a cross to made us right with him.
4. God glorified – “Glorified” is God’s end goal for you and me.  This is his commitment to us, to make us like Jesus.  It’s interesting that this word is in the past tense because this work of God is not done yet. But it's put this way because anything that an all‑powerful one plans to do is already as good as done.  It's as certain as if it has already happened. 

    There are no dropouts from God’s family along the way.  Those whom God has justified are already as good as being glorified.  Again: This is God’s commitment to us.  And different from human commitments, God will finish what he has started. 

The Basis of Our Confidence in God’s Commitment (8:31-39) God is for us (8:31).

     Look at the question in 8:31:  What, then, shall we say in response to these things?  The phrase “these things” refers to all the reasons the Bible has given for us to have confidence that God will fulfill his commitment to us:  One statement summarizes it all: God is for us!  Look at the two ways he is for us: 1) the work of God for us in Christ and 2) the love of God for us in Christ.

1. The work of God for us in Christ Jesus (8:31-34)

The Question:  If God is for us, who can be against us?

    In these four verses, the Apostle Paul being in a courtroom having to give account for how we have lived.  Why should we be declared innocent before God when we all know we have sinned?  All of you who are lawyers or judges can envision this perfectly.  God is the judge.  Jesus is our attorney.  Anyone who has seen us sin could be called to give evidence – including the devil himself. 

     Let’s walk through the case Paul makes verse by verse:

* V.31 – Paul says that if God is the judge and he has already declared that he is for you, then no one and nothing can really stand against you.

 * V.32 -- In view of the fact that God the Judge has expressed His commitment to you by sacrificing His own Son for you, you can be sure that he will give you all you need even when you don't see yourself making much progress -- or when you cannot grasp that he will work all things that happen to you for your good.

 * Vv.33‑34a remind you again that any accusations that people, Satan or even your own self may bring against you are of no real consequence since God has already declared His verdict about you.

 * V.34b makes the bold and precise declaration that the one who is advocating for you will is the same one who died for you and bore the punishment for your sins! 

     Bottom line: It’s a fait accompli case.  There is no one and nothing who can condemn you because Jesus Christ, your Savior, has died for you and has been raised from the dead to be your intercessor before the Father. God fulfills his commitments. You need no longer be a slave to fear.  You are a child of God.

    So, the work of God is for us in Christ Jesus.  How else is God for us?

2. The love of God for us in Christ Jesus (8:35-39).

The Question:  Who shall separate us from the love of in Christ?

     Knowing that God personally declares you innocent of all charges against you is a wonderful thing.  But, Jesus is not only your defender.  No, he is also the one who loves you, died for you and enters into an ongoing personal relationship with you.  Nothing will ever separate you from that love.

     I don’t think there is a more powerful or moving passage in the Bible than vv.35‑39.  Who or what could possibly separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus?  Paul anticipates every possible barrier that might try to destroy your relationship with God.  Physical afflictions and persecutions, the fear of death, the terror of demonic influences, the temptations and allures of the world, and anything above the earth or below the earth and seas.  The Apostle Paul tries to think of anything, anything in all creation that can undo what commits to doing.  Anything he imagines all comes under a single verdict: It can't do it!  Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

     So, the reason we can be certain that God will finish his work is not how hard we strive to be good.  Nor is it how much we accomplish accomplishments.  No, it is God's eternal purpose and work on our behalf that flows out of his love for us. It's not our fragile and wavering love for God that is the foundation for our assurance that God will do what he has said he will do, but His invincible love for us.

     In v. 37, he declares that, in spite of all the different kinds of difficulties in this world, we are “more than conquerors” – “hypernikao” in Paul’s language -- i.e., super-conquerors.  This means, I think, we not only make it through the trials of this world but make progress because of the trials that come.  At the end of pain, we're better off than before.  This is the point I made last week from Rom 8:18-27, i.e., it’s not just that we make it through the temptations and trials that come in this world.  No, God is at work in all those things work to bring about his good in us.  So, in his final words to us about God making everything new in us, Paul says that, while we’re still in the process of what Christians have called “sanctification”, of being made new, there is nothing that will keep God from loving you.

     Let’s put it all together:  As Romans 8 began with “there is no condemnation” for all who are in Christ, so it ends with “there is no separation from God’s love” while he completes his work.  As we started this series of messages in Romans 5 with the fact that, in Christ, you have peace with God, so, in Romans 8 we end with the even greater declaration that in Christ, you are loved by God.  To be a Christian is to have a love relationship with God. 

     Love is a beautiful word.  Nothing brings radiance to a person's life as much as love.  And in the midst of all the rot of this world, I want to tell you that when Jesus is your Savior, you are loved by God. Let me tell you again:  You are eternally loved by the eternal God. 

     God is the one who, through Romans 5-8, makes this commitment to you when you are a Christian: “I will declare you right with me because of what Jesus did on the cross.  I will remake you into one who glorifies me just as Jesus does.  And until I am done, I will love you.   

     That is God’s commitment to all who are in Christ Jesus. 

     God’s commitment of grace and love to us calls for a response.  The response is, first, to accept Jesus as your Savior by faith.  At the same time, I see that, the one who hears of the love and grace of God also is called, as Paul would put it in Galatians 2:20, “I no longer live for myself but for him who died and rose again.”  What does that life look like?

     I have gone back over Romans 5-8 and listed some commitments I would like you to consider in light of God commitment to make all things new in your life.  I’ll go through those with you now – pausing to ask you to join me in prayer after each.  After I’ve done that, I will give you a chance to make a more formal commitment to the Lord as a response to his Word:

My Romans 5-8 Commitments

I make a commitment today and each day:

• To live no more for myself but for Jesus, who loved me and gave himself for me.

God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (5:8).

All:  Lord, help me remember that you loved me while I was a sinner – and that you love me still. 

Help me to be humble because of my sin that requires mercy and thankful for your love that provides it.

I will not forget your great blessings lavished on me only because of your grace. 

• To surrender my thoughts, desires and decisions to the Lordship of Jesus.

Count yourself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus (6:11).

All:  Lord Jesus, I will be your servant, under your command.  I will no longer be my own.
I will give up my priorities and preferences to your will in all things.

• Both to acknowledge my sins and to rejoice in God’s salvation.

I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing… Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord (7:19,25)!

All:  Lord, I will no longer trust in my own strength and power.

In my weakness, I will not forget that, in Christ, you have declared that I am right with you.

With your help, I will learn to rely upon your promise that I am saved by grace through faith in Jesus.

• To set my mind on what God’s Spirit desires.

Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires (8:5).

All:  Lord, I vow to set aside some time each day to spend alone before you;

I will seek to learn from your Word what your Spirit desires,

    and then to set my mind on those things rather than my own desires.

• To live with the certain hope – both in good times and bad -- that God is making everything new.

In all things God works for the good of those who love him… Nothing will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:28,39)!

All:  Lord, make me what you will.
I put myself fully into your hands:
   Put me to doing what you will.  Put me to suffering if you will,
   Let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you.
   Let me be full; let me be empty,
   Let me have all things; let me have nothing.
Do all that you will until you have conformed me to the image of my Savior, your Son, Jesus Christ.

The Blessing to Be Offered:

Holy Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask you now to bless this sister/brother with the strength to fulfill these commitments.  Remind her/him always that nothing will separate her/him from your love that is in Christ Jesus.  Fill him with your joy until your work is complete in her/him and she/he is conformed to the image of your Son.