Romans 8:28-39 – “All-Conquering Love” 5/17/20 – Pastor Tim Meendering

Questions for family/small group discussions:

How are you impacted by the barrage of media/news that is often bad these days, and how do you manage your intake of this barrage?

How do we drive and thrive through the dismal fog of bad news? We see three truths about the amazing good news about our future:

1. All our bad turns out for good. a. How have you seen God turn your bad into good? Where do you most struggle with this truth that God

turns all our bad into good?

b. Since this truth applies only to those who love God, how does this impact your burden for those who live without Jesus?

2. God’s all-conquering love will change you. a. We said that God’s power, wisdom, and love provides not an escape but rather a triumph over all bad

things. How might you often work frantically to escape the bad when it may be better to trust in what God can do through it?

b. Since God is using all things so that we are conformed to the image of his Son (vs. 29), what are some ways that you could be focusing on changing the circumstances or the other person rather than focusing on changing your heart and character flaws—with marriage, work, family, school, friends?

c. How has God worked through the pain, wounds, and circumstances to prune away your flaws and yield the priceless fruit of character, strength, and insight?

d. As God works to teach us how to let go of the things that serve as substitutes for the security, joy, peace, hope, and love that only he can provide, what things would he want you to loosen your grip on?

e. What can we learn from what appeared to be the dismal, catastrophic failure of the cross? How does this “failure” impact you and all of history?

3. God’s all-conquering love will carry you. a. What does Romans 8:29-30 say about all the benefits and love of God for you?

b. Imagine, as Lisa Beamer experienced, the hopelessness of those who suffer without Jesus. Identify at least two neighbors, friends, family members, or co-workers who don’t know Jesus and commit to pray for them daily. Ask God for a love that is willing to suffer for the hopeless just as Jesus was willing to suffer for you.

c. What does it mean for you that nothing is fatal and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ?

d. What did Jesus suffer and give up so that you can forever be accepted and made glorious with his beauty? How does Jesus’ love and actions for you shape what is to be your response to his mission for you to love and pursue those who are lost?

e. St. Teresa of Avila said that “From heaven, even the most miserable life will look like one bad night in an inconvenient hotel.” When you consider this and Romans 8:18, how does this help carry you through the struggles and suffering?

Resources for further study, application, and loving Jesus: a. Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering – Timothy Keller

b. A Place for Weakness: Preparing Yourself for Suffering – Michael Horton

c. A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty – Joni Eareckson Tada

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How do we drive and thrive through this dismal fog?

Romans 8:28-39

1. All our bad turns out for good.

When God works all things for good, it’s only for those who put their trust in Jesus.

But, if you don’t have a love relationship with God and live for him, the door is wide open for you to trust in all that Jesus is for you.

1. All our bad turns out for good.

For those who do love and trust Jesus, it is already true that all things will work for your good.

How can it possibly be true that this will all turn out for good?

2. God’s all-conquering love will change you.

God’s massive power, wisdom and love provides not an escape but rather a triumph over all the bad things. God is overruling, shaping and mastering everything so that in the end he defeats the bad and turns it all to good.

God is working all things in us so that we are conformed to the image of his Son.

2. God’s all-conquering love will change you.

Your character flaws will devastate your life much more than your circumstances ever will.

It is much more about what’s going on in your heart than what’s going on with the people and circumstances around you.

It is my pride, selfishness, denial about my sins, hard-heartedness, and the crazy delusion that I can handle life mostly on my own, unchecked, that destroys me.

2. God’s all-conquering love will change you.

God can work through the pain, wounds, and circumstances to prune away the flaws and yield the priceless fruit of character, strength and insight.

Jesus didn’t suffer so that we wouldn’t suffer. He suffered so that through our suffering, we could become like him.

These inward trials I employ From self and pride to set thee free And break thy schemes of earthly joy That thou mayest seek thy all in me… (John Newton)

‘Lisa, this life is just a blip on the radar screen compared to your future with Me in heaven,’ He says. ‘The best thing that you can imagine on earth is garbage compared to what awaits you.’

2. God’s all-conquering love will change you.

Just because God’s ways don’t fit into the severely limited channels of my tiny brain doesn’t mean they are bad or unloving.

I can’t see all the reasons he might have allowed this when I know he could have stopped it…I don’t like how his plan looks from my perspective right now, but knowing that he loves me and can see the world from start to finish helps me say, ‘It’s OK.’ Lisa Beamer

Jesus loves us well so that we can suffer well.

3. God’s all-conquering love will carry you.

God knew you, loved you, and predestined you to a great destiny long before you were born.

Through the great exchange—your sins are placed on Jesus and his perfect life and righteousness is placed on you—so that you can live “just-as-if-I’d” never sinned.

He loves and delights in you so much that he has turned you around and there are glimpses of the glory of God shining through your life today.

3. God’s all-conquering love will carry you.

“…as I listened to the well-intentioned speakers, who were doing their best to comfort but with little if any direct reference to the power of God to sustain us. I felt I was sliding helplessly down a high mountain into a deep crevasse. As much as I appreciated the kindness of the wonderful people who tried to encourage us, that afternoon was actually one of the lowest points in my grieving. It wasn’t the people, or event, or the place. Instead, it struck me how hopeless the world is when God is factored out of the equation.” Lisa Beamer

3. God’s all-conquering love will carry you.

Nothing is fatal! It is impossible for anything and anyone to stand against us because NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ!

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to its foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

3. God’s all-conquering love will carry you.

On the cross, Jesus was abandoned and forsaken by his Father, so that we who deserve to be rejected, can forever be welcomed home.

Jesus gave up his glory and suffered shame so that we who deserve nothing but shame can be made glorious with the beauty of Jesus.

This is all because Jesus is ravished and smitten with you.

“…the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18

“From heaven, even the most miserable life will look like one bad night at an inconvenient hotel.” St. Teresa of Avila

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for…that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened…” Fyodor Dostoevsky