Home Again

Q: What does the Bible say about no condemnation?

The Bible declares that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Romans 8:1 states, 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.' This profound truth reassures believers of their standing before God. It emphasizes that because of Christ's sacrificial death, believers are free from the penalty of sin and its condemnatory power. This freedom is not based on the believer's merit but solely upon the completed work of Christ, who was our substitute and bore the punishment we deserved.

Q: How do we know that God's sovereignty is true?

The truth of God's sovereignty is affirmed throughout Scripture, including Romans 8, which teaches that God works all things for good for those called according to His purpose. God's sovereignty is a foundational doctrine in Reformed theology, demonstrated through passages like Romans 8:28, which states that 'all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.' This emphasizes not only God's control over all creation but also His purposeful direction in the lives of His people. God's sovereignty assures believers that nothing occurs outside His divine plan and that every circumstance contributes to the overarching good for those who are called by Him.

Q: Why is hope important for Christians?

Hope is vital for Christians as it anchors the soul and provides assurance of eternal life and the fulfillment of God's promises (Romans 8:24-25). Hope plays a crucial role in the Christian faith, serving as a source of comfort and strength. Romans 8:24-25 teaches us that we are saved by hope, and this hope is not seen or fully realized in this life. Instead, it is a confident expectation of the future promises of God. This hope sustains believers through trials and equips them to persevere, knowing that their struggles are temporary and that they will ultimately be redeemed in the fullness of time. A Christian's hope is rooted in the finished work of Christ and the assurance of eternal life, which empowers them to face life’s uncertainties with trust in God’s providential care.

Q: What does Romans 8 say about separation from God?

Romans 8 reassures believers that nothing can separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39). Romans 8:38-39 powerfully asserts, 'For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' This passage highlights the inseparable bond between Christ and His followers, emphasizing the depth and permanence of God's love. The assurance that nothing in creation can sever this relationship offers profound comfort to believers, reinforcing the reality that their standing in grace is secure regardless of life's trials.

I invite your attention back
to Romans, the eighth chapter. I have entitled my message, Home
Again. Home Again. This past week has been a very
interesting week. A very interesting week. Providentially,
the things that were scheduled for last week did not take place. We are once again faced with
Man proposes and God disposes. This week I dealt with things
like insecurity and struggle, frailty, wanting to come home. I missed Cherokee, perhaps on
this trip, worse than I ever did, even when I was with my
wife. And then no reflection on her whatsoever. I wanted to
be home. I wanted to be home. Debbie and
I, when we're traveling back on I-40, there's a dip right
this side of Hickory. And when you crest the hill,
you see the mountains full blown for the first time. And almost every time we do,
we just simply say, there they are. Almost home. Almost home. This past week, I dealt with
folks who were sick. a hospital, a home. So I was
in Winston-Salem visiting folks I knew who were sick. Some of them religious. Some
of them believed the truth. And I often quoted to them Romans
8 in different passages or read to them Romans 8. And sometimes I got blank looks
from people's faces. Sometimes people refuse to be
comforted as we often are. You know, we kind of like the
water in it as long as we can take it and then turn it over
to God. But I found myself, and this
is odd, as I was traveling back here, I was thinking about my
thinking, my process going on up there. I was thinking, why
couldn't I comfort these people? And I can't. And why did some
react to the Word of God with such neglect? And it didn't seem
that it had any effect on them, that they could excuse themselves
away from this or that. Then I realized that I was dealing
with things that only a believer can believe, but was also telling
them things which somehow my mind itself wasn't grasping. concerned and upset because they
weren't seemingly receiving it when I was talking about the
sovereignty of God and the salvation of sinners as absolute, complete
success. Something's wrong with me. That's
the conclusion I came to. I can tell someone about these
things, and yet while I'm telling them, I'm discouraged because
they don't listen, and I'm not listening to what they say. I'm
not listening to my own words as I speak these things. So I'm
going to come home this morning. I'm home. And while I saw those
mountains, this chapter came to my mind. I'm coming home like
the old fellow said this morning, I'm going to dance with the One
that brung me. I'm going to dance with the One that brung me. The
first true message I ever heard declaring the sovereign grace
of Almighty God was from Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. The first confidence that the
Lord gave me was that I was not condemned. That was the first
confidence when the Lord saved me. I latched on to that. Because I'm still living in a
body that is plagued with weakness and frailty. I'm still a sinner. I still think awful thoughts
and do awful things. It's a joy to know that I'm not
condemned. I ought to be condemned. I deserve to be condemned. And yet I'm not. There is no
better news, I think, than that for any child of God. My notes
are not three or four pages long this morning. They are a fourth
of a page long. I have five things I want to
speak of this morning. Five things that are a home and a hearth to warm the heart
of everyone who knows God. If you are here this morning
and you know Christ, I'm speaking to you. And if you don't know
Christ, I'm telling you now, you're missing something absolutely
wonderful. Wonderful. Five things. The first thing is this, just
what I was talking about. Our God, the God who sees all
and knows all, the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, almighty,
sovereign God says of His people, that they are not condemned. No condemnation. No condemnation. Why? Because Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, suffered our condemnation as our substitute. Look at the first part of this
chapter, verse 8. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit, for the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus." What is that? That's the gospel. That's the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That's what brings
life to you, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is
a principle of life. It's in Christ. And that principle
of life has done something for you. It has made you free from
condemnation. It has made you free from the
law or the principle of sin and death. It has made you free from
that. That is how God sees it. That
is how it is. Before God, you are free from
the law of sin and death. Why? Because Christ died in your
room instead. Look at verse 3, For what the
law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. That
is a difficult kind of rendering of the English language. What
that means is simply this, the law deals with the flesh. The law is about sin and nothing
else. So the law could never, in the
flesh and by the flesh, ever accomplish what Jesus Christ
accomplished on Calvary, nor could it ever set us free from
itself. Because it thrives on the fact that we are sinners.
The law acts on us as sinners. The sting of death is sin. The
strength of sin is the law. What does the law do? The law
simply says this, you are guilty and this is why you are going
to be punished. And this is your punishment. That is all the law
ever does. It does not do anything else.
The speed limit out there does not make you a better driver.
To many of you will attest to that fact, surely. It's a law. What's it for when you break
it? Isn't it? If it says 35 and you're doing
35, does that law mean anything to you? Does it have any power
over you? Can it restrict you in any way? Not whatsoever. Because
you're not breaking the law. The law is only powerful and
effectual if it's broken. That is why the Lord said through
Paul that the law is not for the righteous man, but the unrighteous
and the ungodly and the manslayers and the whoremongers and anything
else that does not deal with sound doctrine. The law is not
for you because it was reeked through the flesh. It was reeked
through the flesh. Sending His own Son in the likeness
of flesh, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemn
sin or put away sin in the flesh. Jesus Christ went to the cross.
The law says sinners must die. The law says every sin must be
punished. That is what the law says. And
the law has a judgment for sin. Here is what the law says about
sin. You have got to die. You can't live any longer. You
don't deserve to live. You've broken the law. You must
die. Well, 2,000 years ago on Calvary Street, the Lord Jesus
Christ was made to be seen. Now I know a lot of people like
to spend time explaining exactly what that means. I'll be honest
with you. It's too big for me. It's beyond
my comprehension what it means that Jesus Christ was made to
see Him. Was He declared to be a sinner? Yeah. Was he declared
to be sin? Yeah. Was he actually a sinner?
I don't think so. I'm pretty sure he wasn't. But
by imputation, you were a sinner before you even existed, weren't you? You were accounted
as a sinner and he faced death or faced the law in the flesh
as a man. He was made to be sin and the
law said what it must say. Die. And so he died and satisfied
the law. And what comes down to us poor
wretched sinners who could never do anything because we are weak
in the flesh, what comes down to us is this
simple, plain, glorious declaration. Take it for yourself if you are
a child of God this morning. I mean, really ponder this in
your mind. Right now, this very instant, you who are sitting
here as children of the Most High God, you are sitting here,
are not condemned. No condemnation. When? Right now. Right now. The righteousness of the law.
What does that mean? The holy edict that says, Thou
shalt not is fulfilled in us. The holy edict that says the
sinner must die is fulfilled in us because we died in the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ. What does that mean? In Christ. Well, let me tell you this. If
you are in Christ now, it is because you were always in Christ
unless God somewhere Something occurred to him or he changed
along the way. We don't begin and cannot begin
to understand God. Canst thou by searching understand
Him? But all that we are going through and all that this thing
of time and tide has carried on right now, when God thought
it, He thought it all from beginning to end. He set
everything in order. There's nothing that occurred
to Him. Nothing surprised Him along the way. So if you are
in Christ now, it's because you were in Christ before the world
began. You were in Christ in election.
You were in Christ in predestination. You were in Christ as the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. Some people say, well,
I don't believe in eternal justification. Well, I do. I also believe you are justified
when you believe on Christ. And you have no reason to think
you are unless you do. I also believe you are justified
on the cross. You are justified by grace. You are justified by
blood. You are justified by works. All these things are in Scripture.
We are justified for a foundation of the Word, before God, when Jesus Christ
was made to be our surety. How do we get in Christ? We do
not get in Christ. We have always been in Christ. Whom God has made us to be. Wisdom. Made to be to us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. Look at Ephesians 1 sometime
and just underline this phrase. In Him. In Christ. In whom. Just underline that phrase. Ephesians
chapter 1. It is all in Christ. How did you get in Christ? God
put you there. Now, if you are there, There
is no condemnation. No condemnation. We are there by the Spirit of
God. The salvation of your soul is a work of the triune Godhead.
God chose us in Christ, predestinated in Christ. Christ died and redeemed
us by His blood. The Holy Spirit takes those things
and applies them to our hearts and minds and teaches us what
God has done for us through the preaching of the gospel. We have
the Spirit of God. We just read about the Spirit
of God. Now, all men have not the Spirit of God. Jesus Christ
had the Spirit of God without measure. We have the Spirit by
measure. But all of God's children have the Spirit of God. We are
spiritually alive. And therefore, to some degree,
nobody, even ourselves, can never understand us. Do you really
understand yourself? None of us do. If we're a child
of God, especially that's true because the wind blows where
it listeth. You see it coming, you hear it going, but you don't
know where it's from. So is everyone that's born of God. When it talks
about our new nature, we use that kind of language because
I believe it's easier for us to understand. We're a new creature. And yet we have an old creature
in us too. But we're a new creature. Well, the only creatures we have
to look at is ourselves, isn't it? Or beasts, perhaps. What does
the new creature look like? What does he act like? What does
he do? He's spiritual. He's a new creature
in Jesus Christ. We have the Spirit of God living
in us. What does that mean? I like it. But I have no idea. The more I look at it in Scripture,
the more I study it, I find, what in the world is that? A
new creature. A creature who loves God, who
worships God, who always worships God, who always does what's right.
I'm looking for that guy. It's me. You see, what spiritual
you can't even see and I can't even see. And that's the wonder
of this thing. We're not condemned. We're a new creature. We have
the Spirit of God. That's the first thing. The first
thing about coming home is this. For me, there's no condemnation. The second thing is this. There's
no desolation. There's no desolation. Look at
verses 24 and 25. For we are saved by hope, by
hope. But hope that is seen is not
a hope, for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it?
But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience
wait for it." What kind of strange language is this? Debbie and
I were sitting on the porch the other day and we were talking
about a young woman who died. Cancer,
severe. She had it all over her body.
She was Debbie's brother's first wife. Born to a son named Bradley,
who's 22 years old now. And she died. And her brother
came over to see us and was talking with us. You couldn't say anything
to comfort him. Couldn't say anything. He just
didn't get it. And he don't want to get it.
He's troubled. And he's mad. And he's angry. All those things. And the reason
is, by his own confession, he has no hope. But where there
is hope, there's no desolation. There's no hopelessness where
there's a hope. But that hope, again, is spiritual hope. It's
invisible. Invisible. When I was talking with this
young man, he kept relating to what he needed to do. It's not
what you need to do. If you are Christ, you'll not
be in desolation, because you have hope and expectation of
better things. I was talking to Gary Shepherd
on the phone last night, and we were talking about his mother
being 87 years old, my parents being 83, soon to be 84, juniors
over 80s, 82, sisters 79. And I said, Gary, does it seem
appealing to you to get old? I said, it seems to me that people
are just hanging on to every thread to live as long as they
can. Are you? I'll tell you what,
being in a wheelchair doesn't appeal to me. I may have to be.
I hope I don't. I've lived a pretty good life. I think I've done things that
a lot of people would be envious of, travel, seeing the world.
been called to preach the gospel. And I'll be honest with you,
if he comes from leaving today, if it's up to me, which it's
not, or hanging around for 30 years and drooling, I'd just
as soon leave right now. Just go. You know why? Because
I'm not worried about what's on the other side. I have hope. When I think about death, I don't
think about desolation. When I think about death, I think
about stepping over this life, out of this paltry, frail, weak,
dying existence, and living forever in the presence of my Savior.
Forever. No tears, no sorrow, no pain.
We grieve for each other when we are sick. One day we are not
going to grieve anymore. Why? No desolation. We have hope. No condemnation. No desolation. No desolation. The third thing is this. No deprivation. Look at verse 32. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely
give us all things? We got it all. I think it was
Freddie Mercury who sang with the group called Queen. Solid
rock music. Boy, I tell you, that guy could
sing. He sang a song, I Want It All. I want it all. I want it all. And I want it
now. It was a great song. I've got
it all. All things are ours. We've not
been deprived of anything. He gave us His Son. How shall
He not with Him freely give us all things? Whatever we need,
we have. We don't have to pray to get
it. We don't have to work to get
it. We don't have to attend church to get it. We don't have to read
our Bibles to get it because it has nothing to do with getting.
It has to do with being Given. How shall He not freely give
us all things? Well, how do I know He is going
to do that? He has given us the best thing, the unspeakable thing,
the greatest thing. He has given us Jesus Christ,
His Son. Given His Son up for us. All things. That includes everything. Everything
I need to put me in a right standing with God. Everything I need that
will assure that when I die, I will be in the presence of
God. Everything I need to survive and live in this world while
I'm here. Everything I need. I have. Well, I'm looking for a second
work of grace. I'm still trying to get over the first one. I
don't believe I'll ever get over the first one. What do we have? Well, we know
this, though sometimes we just can't see it. As I was this last
week, just full of beans. I was just full of bologna all
week long. I'm so embarrassed by myself sometimes. Do you ever
embarrass yourself? Just for what you think, gosh, that's
embarrassing. Why would you even think that? All things work together for
good to them that love God, to them that are called according
to His purpose. How many things is that? All the things. I had to tell myself that way
back, because I didn't know about Brother Wayne having to come
in here and preach twice on short notice last Sunday until Sunday
afternoon on the way back to Cherokee. Because Bill had called
Debbie's cell phone, because he didn't have my cell phone
number, to tell me about it. So Debbie says, guess what happened?
And I said, what? She said, David Acton's father-in-law
had a stroke. He couldn't come. I just went ballistic. What?
Well, Wayne filled in and took care of it. Don't worry about
it. Wayne had to do that? Bless his heart. I was just cursing
second causes like crazy. You know why Wayne was up here
last Sunday? Because that's where Wayne was supposed to be. I wish
I could learn that. Old things work together for
good. Life, death, happiness, sorrow,
All things work together for good to them that love God, to
them that are called according to His purpose. That's one thing
to take care of, isn't it? Like old Forrest Gump said, that's
one less thing to worry about. All things are taken care of. All of them. That's why we're
told that it's the will of God in Christ Jesus for us to be
thankful in all things, because they're already ours and already
taken care of. I'm just not talking about Temporal
things. We have those. But that's not
what that's talking about. Well, that's talking about everything
we need, we have. Everything we need, we have. No deprivation whatsoever. What
else do we have? Well, we have the eternal love
of God. for whom he did foreknow." That
word is pro-gnosco, translated foreloved. That word know is
not know in the sense of a knowledge gained by learning. That word
know is the same word that was used when Adam knew Eve. Same
word. Gnosco. God loved us from all
eternity. We have the love of God. I know
people talk about it a lot, preachers preach about it a lot in this
world which we live in. They don't know what they're
talking about. We have the love of God, whom He did foreknow,
He also did predestinate. Well, our course is set. That's
a pretty good thing to have, to work for our good. Our course
is set. Our path is marked. You ever
seen one of those Little games you used to get when you was
a kid that had a spinning wheel on it and had dancing feet on
a piece of paper and you put your feet where the feet were
to learn how to do the tango or something. That's our life,
folks. If we could see it as it's marked
down, we'd see that every footstep, every turn, everything is marked
down. For whom he did foreknow, he
did predestinate. But the height of the fact that
we are predestinated is this. We are predestinated to be conformed
to Jesus Christ. And to some degree, we are already
there. Spiritually, we are already there. The more I read the Scripture,
the more I am convinced that we are not going to have anything
new when we get to glory. We are just going to lose something
old. Get rid of something old, but we are not going to have
nothing new. Nothing new. What we already have, we have
in Christ. We are already conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
Well, we are sons, aren't we? Sons and daughters. We are a
member of God's family. God birthed us into His Kingdom
by the Holy Spirit. God adopted us into His Kingdom
by the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the Spirit of Christ
living in us. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling
us. We have the knowledge of all things. We have the mind
of Christ. conformed to Christ. Paul may
answer, the Lord looked around heaven and He saw Christ. He
said, I'm going to populate this place with people just like Him,
because it don't get no better than Him. And that's what you
are. As He is, so are ye in the world. And that's why we don't
fear the judgment, because Christ sits at the right hand of the
Father. We're not deprived of anything. We're like Christ. How was that accomplished? Go
on, let's read. Verse 30, it says, Moreover,
whom he did predestinate, them he also called. Now, there are
two ways of looking at this. The word does mean two different
things. One is it could speak and does
speak of the effectual call. We are called by the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That is all tied in with our
election of grace. For Paul said in II Thessalonians,
in fact, II Thessalonians, We are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief in the truth, whereunto He called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The gospel is a call. We are called by providence.
Every day we get a call. We probably get a hundred of
them. Sometimes we don't answer. Sometimes
we don't listen. But we get calls. Our life is not A patchwork. It's God calling us, admonishing
us, warning us, stepping in our path so we won't go too far with
something. It's all taken care of. So that
word called can mean God's effectual call to us. But the word can
also mean named. He named us. What name do you have? Well,
we have the name of God. He's our Father. He birthed us. We are in His family. So He has
named us. Whosoever He did predestinate,
them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified. There is a thing worth having.
There is one of them all things that God did not keep back from
us. He did not give us a way in which we could be justified.
He did not give us steps to take to reach a high plane of justification. When Jesus Christ died on Calvary
3, God said, that person whom He died for has never sinned
in My eyes. That's what justification means.
And He did that because He was already in the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. Justified. Justified. Not only that, He said, moreover
whom He justified, them He also glorified. And notice this is
in the past tense. A lot of people have difficulty
with this, and a lot of theologians say, well, that don't really
mean, you know. It does mean that. Right now, if you're a child
of God, before God Almighty, you're glorious. Kind of scary to say something
like that, ain't it? Much less thinking, if it weren't so. I told you, this matter of Romans
8, this matter of our salvation, fool or a Christian to believe
something like that. Glorify. Ralph, there ain't nothing
wrong with you before God. Not a wrinkle, not a spot, not
a speck. You say, there's old glorious
Ralph. That's right. Glorious Peggy. You can say that
if you want to. You don't really want to warp
somebody's mind. Say, let me tell you about my glorious friend
Peggy. You're glorious, but oh yes, ye glorify. It's done. Everything. No deprivation whatsoever. And the only thing we can say
about that, the only thing possible to come to our mind when we consider
what we are and what we are to God, what God has made us to
be, what God declares that we are, If God is for us, then what else matters, folks?
Who can be against us? If all things work for our good,
even our enemies are for us. Those who oppose us are actually
for us. They just don't know it. Satan,
who works against us, is actually working for us. He just doesn't
know it. When someone comes up and says,
you ain't nothing but a sorry so-and-so, they're working for
you. Remember old Shimei that cursed
David and said, call him the son of a whore? David said, well,
let him curse. The Lord paid him. The Lord told
him to. Told him to cuss me out. It's
all right. Don't worry about it. Well, I wish I had that attitude,
don't you? People cuss me out, I want to spit and fight. That's what I want to do. for us. Nothing works against
you, because God is for you. I'll tell you what, that's a
home I want to live in. That's a home I want to live
in. The fourth thing is this, an old boy, what's his name down
in Mississippi, you say, grab your hat, we're going to jump
the creek. No accusation. No accusation. You say, well,
doesn't Satan accuse us day and night? So what? Doesn't our conscience accuse
us? So what? Don't we accuse each other? So
what? Look at verse 33. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect. You see, it's not us that justify
ourselves or justify each other. It's God who declares us to have
never sinned. It's God who justifies. No accusation. None can be laid. What does that mean? We're perfected. We're accepted. No accusation
can be laid. Look over at Romans chapter 4.
Look at verse 8. Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not charge with sin or impute sin. You mean
there's somebody like this walking on the earth? I'll tell you what,
throughout history there's been a number no man can number. You say, well, what if I sin?
What if? Get real. When? When? God will never look at you and
say, I accuse you. Nor will He allow any accusation
against you to stand. Though in humanity and in nature,
it might even be true. If you were to just think about
the things you could be accused of, that ought to take care of
you for a while, just thinking, I can't be accused. No charge
can ever be laid to you. Now, do you worry about the judgment?
Why should you? God said, no charge can ever
be laid to you. No accusation. No accusation. Finally. And this is a blessing to me,
as I did look at my parents, my friends who were growing older, No separation. No separation. I've often said,
I could die now, and I believe I'm telling the truth. I don't
know. I have been told that I was going to die by a doctor. He
is wrong, but he told me I was going to die, and I kind of set
my mind to thinking, well, it's time to go. And the only thing
that really struck me as bothersome about the whole thing was that
I was going to have to leave people I love behind. That's
the only thing that really struck me. I've often said, if I could
take all the people I love with me right now, let's go. What's
here holding us? What matters here? We can just take the people we
love. I remember when Linda Stoniker died, Sarah and Gabe were on
the front porch. The first time they'd come back
to the conference after she had died, they were talking about
No, it was right before she died. It was the last copy she was
here. She sang it with her and Marvin. And they said, you know,
Mama's dying. I said, yeah. I said, I know.
I said, it breaks your heart, doesn't it? She said, yeah, it
breaks my heart. I said, don't you wish you could go with it?
They said, oh, yeah. I said, just go with it. These
were teenagers talking. I said, just go with it. And
I said, well, I don't know much about what words mean. But I
kind of figure the minute she steps over into eternity, you're
already with her. Because it's now or there forever.
It's now or there forever. Even when I die and leave this
world, I'm not leaving you, and you're not leaving me. Nothing
shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ. Will we know each other in glory?
I believe we will. Well, I sure hope we do, because
I like y'all so much. It wouldn't matter to me if in
heaven we had a section that said, Sequoia. It wouldn't bother
me at all. I'd be glad to hang there the
rest of my life. For all eternity. I don't know whether that's the
case, but I know this. I'll never be separated from
you. Because in reality, I never have been separated from you.
I was brought here 32 years ago, or 29 years ago. May 14th will
be 29 years. I didn't know a thing about anything.
I'm amazed you put up with me as long as you did. But you know what? I was just
coming home. I didn't even know it. I was
coming to be with the people I'll never be separated from.
I buried some dear friends. Oh, Kaiser. I'm not separated
from Kaiser. He's not separated from me. We're
just in a little different time warp right now, but we're together.
We're with the just men made perfect. We're part of that great
assembly, the Church of the Living God. We're the body of Christ.
Well, these going on, do they have a function? Are they still
in the body of Christ? Well, of course they do. I don't know
what it is, but they function. to worship and honor Him. We're
still in this together. Kaiser and I are still behind
the same flower. He's on one end and I'm on the other. Weenie,
Dan, Joey, John Hardy, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, never
separated. Look what it says back in that
text. Verse 35. Who shall separate us from the
love of God in Christ? Who shall separate us? Shall tribulation, or distress,
persecution, famine or starvation, nakedness or poverty, peril or
sword? As it is written, For thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep of the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, and Paul
didn't persuade himself by this because he studied He was persuaded
by God. I am persuaded that neither death,
death, life, angels, principalities,
powers, things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus. This is where I want to
live, folks. I like to learn this before I
die. No condemnation. No desolation. No deprivation.
No accusation. No separation. That is a fine
house that the Lord has built. And I want to dwell therein.
And I want to live with y'all in that house. And I believe
we do. Well, that's my shot at it. God bless you. You're dismissed.

Home Again

What does the Bible say about no condemnation?

How do we know that God's sovereignty is true?

Why is hope important for Christians?

What does Romans 8 say about separation from God?

Sermon Transcript

About Tim James

Comments

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

Home Again

What does the Bible say about no condemnation?

How do we know that God's sovereignty is true?

Why is hope important for Christians?

What does Romans 8 say about separation from God?

Sermon Transcript

About Tim James

Comments

More from Tim James

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Articles by Tim James

Books by Tim James

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book