Sermon by Pastor V.O. Varghese at the Malayalam Fellowship, Emmanuel Assemblies of God, Singapore
Romans 8:31-37
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”[a]
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
A Christian life should be “more than conquering life.” It’s an extraordinary and successful life. As in the school exam, we don’t just strive for pass mark but strive for top rank.
Revelation 2: 7 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”
Revelation 2:11 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”’
Revelation 2:26 And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—
Revelation 3:5 5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
Revelation 3:12 He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.
Revelation 3:21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
Revelation 21:7 He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
God desires us to be successful. What does it mean by more than a conqueror?
It means:
- To be at the center of the will of God
- To fulfill the purposes of God
- Being at the nucleus of the love of God
- to be where God wants you to be and
- How you ought to be.
If we don’t serve the purpose of the One who created us and brought us, what’s the use! It is possible that we may solve the purpose of God, we may be at the center of the will of God, but we may not be in the core of the love of God. That’s the danger, that we may miss the love of God.
God can use
- lifeless objects e.g. Moses rod
- living beings without spirit, e.g. ravens that fed Elijah
- non born-again human beings e.g. king Cyrus
- Satan
Luke 10: 20 Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
If we are placed at the very point where God wants us to be, we are able to recognize the love of God, we are able to love God, and we are thankful to Him the way He is, then we are on the way to success.
The questions we must ask:
- Am I abiding in the love of God
- Is God pleased with me
- Is God’s Presence with me
- Is my life a life that glorifies God
What is the beginning of the more than conqueror Christian life?
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Doing the ministry of casting out devils, performing signs and wonders, and prophesying does not guarantee kingdom of God. It’s only for those who know Jesus intimately. It’s not an intellectual knowledge, it’s a relationship. We must have a relationship with God.
This relationship must be
- Personal
- Intimate
- Consistent and persistent
- Growing
- Inseparable
In the OT, God was addressed as the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Even Moses who spoke with God face to face could not say, My God. Neither David, Elijah or Elisha could say, my God. It was with fear and respect, they addressed God. We through Jesus Christ have the privilege to call God – Our Father. We got this freely, but Jesus paid the price.
Paul explicitly describes in Romans 3: 9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
Romans 3:19 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
We deserved eternal condemnation, but God sent His Son and died for our sins.
God manifested two major things on the cross:
- God’s’ righteousness
- Gods’ love
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 3: 24-25 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
God is righteous and cannot let sin go unpunished. Jesus bore our sins on the cross. We see the love of God towards sinner and the righteousness of God towards sin.
Cross is the junction where the love of God towards sinner and righteousness of God towards sin met together. It is the place of the demonstration of the righteousness of God and the love of God.
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