Confident in God’s Love

Text: Romans 8:31b-39

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

          New Year’s Eve and this time of year in general, as the calendar flips to a new year, is a perfect time to reflect on the past. To remember all the blessings that God has shown us this past year. To reflect on the fact that He has richly blessed us as individuals and as a congregation. To remember the new brothers and sisters we’ve welcomed, the new opportunities for fellowship and learning that have begun, and the many accomplishments we’ve experienced together. I could certainly spend whatever time you’d allow me tonight talking about all the ways God has blessed me, and our congregation this past year.

But I also know that as I look out at our congregation, every one of us could also come up with a list of things from this past year that we would not immediately consider blessings. The loss of a loved one, or a job. Roadblocks to advancement in some aspect of life. Trauma or tragedy. A feud with a family member. It’s often as easy to list these as it is to rattle off the blessings. Which is one of the reasons we love this time of year so much. It’s the perfect time to leave the past in the past and hope for a future full of only the good things. The ability to say, “That was 2024, but 2025 is going to be so much better.” It’s why every gym in America will have its best crowd of the year – tomorrow. Everyone’s looking for a new start. It’s why Facebook pages will be filled with New Year’s resolutions like saving more money, eating healthier, exercising more, spending more time with family, and so on.

But according to a recent poll, 43% of Americans aren’t going to make a New Year’s resolution this year. Why? I could speculate on any number of reasons, but I think the most likely is that they know it’s pretty pointless. I don’t know all the statistics, but I do know that those gyms that will be crammed full of people tomorrow will be back to their regular clientele by the middle of January. People will likely end up saving the same amount of money they always have. And we’ll all probably spend about the same amount of time with our families this coming year as we have in the past. That’s not to be pessimistic. It’s the reality of our fallen nature, that even with that absolute best of intentions, we’ll always fall short.

We just don’t – we can’t – have the confidence necessary to accomplish the things we desire to do. Paul said it best when he wrote, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” That’s Paul speaking in the chapter right before the one tonight’s Epistle comes from. I guess it’s good to realize that our inclination is toward the things we shouldn’t do instead of what we ought to do. But it doesn’t inspire confidence in our ability to change. For the future to be better, or more positive, than the past. The only thing that can inspire that confidence is the promises that we have in the reading from Romans that we heard tonight. And it all comes down to the fact that

OUR CONFIDENCE COMES FROM THE LOVE OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS.

          And when we lack a full understanding and acceptance of this love, we will live without confidence, without hope. Those who lack love are convinced that things won’t get better. Don’t believe that God will “graciously give us all things.” Those who lack love feel compelled to justify themselves, when in truth “it is God who justifies.” When we lack love we find it hard to believe that anyone would intercede for us, much less Jesus, who Paul tells us, “died, [and] more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” And those who lack love feel separated, not only from the love of others, but also from God’s love. The answer to the question, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” which should be easy to answer with a simple, “No one” becomes something more like, “Anyone and everyone.”

          But it doesn’t need to be this way. We can have an abundance of confidence because we have an abundance of love. Love shown through the life and work of Jesus on our behalf. Shown to us in His death and resurrection where He took each and every one of our sins upon Himself and set us free to be His people. All that past that we so desperately want to put behind us so that we can move forward has been erased. It was done at the cross once and for all, but even tonight as you came forward and heard that absolution, you should have been comforted with the love of Christ that paid the debt you could never pay. That restored you to the sinless man or woman God see you as through the blood of Christ.

I read a story recently that shared the work of a Jesuit priest, Father Greg Boyle, who is in the business of erasing the past. He serves as the founder and director of Homeboy Industries in East Los Angeles. He worked to develop a team of physicians trained in tattoo removal. This team serves ex-gang members with the procedure of removing gang tattoos.

They do this because those tattoos can serve as a barrier to these individuals getting jobs. It can endanger their lives on the streets. And mentally, the removal of these markings helps lift them from a past that’s hard to forget and to get away from. Spiritually speaking, it brings a picture of having the past cleaned and the freedom of new life. The cost for this service—absolutely free, and it’s offered to them as a gift.

I tell you that story because I suspect that each of us has been tattooed by something in our past lives. Sin often leaves marks that don’t easily disappear. And while there can be long-term realities, there is a gift that’s offered to all. That gift is from Jesus. And He has the tattoos to prove that such freedom is real. You can see them in the palms of His hands, His feet, and His side. His will never go away, but ours are removed as easily as a word of confession and the reception of His forgiveness so quickly given.

The sacrament of Baptism is one of drowning the Old Adam. Removing the sin. Making the sinner clear and pure. Baptism is such a beautiful process in which the past is forgiven and washed away. It’s been said though that the Old Adam is a pretty good swimmer. Even after that drowning in the baptismal pool, he continues to rear his ugly head. The wonder of God’s work through His son though is that whenever that sin arises, he is eager to, over and over again, forgive and restore. As though the past had never happened. “As far as the east is from the west” is how far he sends our sins away from Himself.

And it’s all because of the love of Christ. Which should make us confident that whatever we’re leaving behind from this past year can be left right there, at the foot of the cross. And whatever we’re striving for in the New Year can be placed in the hands of God as well. Where we can be confident that He will guide and direct us in exactly the way He would have us to go.

Paul assures us of this deep, abiding, and everlasting love of God throughout this passage we just heard. When he asks, “If God is for us, who can be against us” we can confidently say “no one.” When he reminds us that “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also graciously give us all things?” we can be confident that He will be gracious to us always. And Paul so powerfully tells us that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. Not “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or sword.” Or anything else for that matter.

 ^“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor 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.” I believe that will all my heart, and I pray you do as well. That’s the love that assures us that the blessings of this past year were the gracious gifts of God. It’s the love that assures us that all that we need to leave behind can be left at the foot of the cross. And it’s the love that gives us the confidence that whatever this new year might hold for us, we are held firmly in the hand of our Lord and Savior. May this be your confidence as we move forward together to follow wherever God leads us. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.