Well, the scripture reading this morning is taken from Romans chapter 8, the very last section of that chapter. So I'll be reading from Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 31, on to the end of the chapter. Hear now God's own word. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. 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. Thus far God's holy word. Well, this morning, as you might expect, offers us an opportunity to reflect on the year past and to look forward to the year ahead. So I'll begin with a question. How was 2020 for you? How did it go? And what are your hopes? What are your fears for 2021? As always, there's been a lot of chatter over this past week around New Year's stories about seeing the old year off and welcoming in the new year. Headlines, tweets, memes have abounded. Maybe you've seen some of these. Many have been saying things like this. I'm not just saying goodbye to 2020. I'm kicking it down the stairs and showing it the door. Have you seen things like that? One cartoon showed an open door with a dumpster labeled 2020 and the dumpster was on fire and it was being tossed out into the alleyway another tweet read this before I agree to 2021 I'd like to see some terms and conditions please another one said the bar is low 2021 maybe you share some of those sentiments and maybe you've also heard the pundits who've been writing things like this one wrote well we've made it this far through 2020. And we're certain that anything 2021 has planned will be easier than 2020. At least we can hope. What do you make of that? Anything 2021 has planned, as if the year itself has a plan for us, has a will for our lives. At least we can hope. Well, we understand the sentiment, don't we? But that's the best that the world can do is to hope that what lies ahead might just be better than what we've gone through. Of course, we know as we begin this year as God's people that the Lord God Almighty is the sovereign one. He was sovereign over 2020 and he's going to be sovereign over 2021 as well. But in our text this morning, what we hear is that our Lord does not, does not promise that 2021 will necessarily be better than 2020. You might want me to sit down just now, now that I've said that. But I'm sorry to say, that's not one of the promises amongst the many promises in this text. The Lord does not promise that the year ahead will be better than the one just gone. He doesn't promise us that things are going to return to a comfortable normal, whatever that might be. He doesn't promise us that we won't face difficulties, that we won't experience trials or illness. He doesn't even promise us that we might not have tragedy or death touch us in some way in the year to come. But what he does promise us in these verses is absolutely wonderful. Almighty God, our triune God, promises us that he is for us. He is for us. He is for you, people of God. That in whatever his providence brings your way in this coming year, whatever circumstances we face, we can be assured that God is for us and not against us. And he tells us that we can have that confidence because of what he has done for us in and through his son, Christ Jesus, that we can have confidence that he is for us. Romans chapter 8, verses 31 to 39, are really a lovely and wonderful climax, not just to this beautiful chapter of Romans 8, which many of you know, perhaps by heart, but really to this entire central section of the book, of this letter. So from Romans chapter 5, verse 1, on to the end here, Paul is now bringing together, weaving together all the threads of the truth and the promises of God that he has been laying out for the Romans. Listen as I read just a few of the highlights from those chapters 5 through 8. Romans chapter 5 verse 1. Therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 5 verse 8. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What about Romans chapter 6, verses 22 and 23? But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Or what about Romans 8, verse 1? Hardly gets better than that, does it? There is therefore now, you know it, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. What about Romans 8, verses 16 and 17? The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. How's that for a flyover of the promises of God, the truth revealed in chapters five through eight? Justification by faith, peace with God, a savior who died for us while we were still sinners, eternal life as a freely given gift of God in Christ, A declaration that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. The Spirit of God given to us. The Spirit himself who testifies to our hearts that we belong to him as children. But did you also hear what it said there in verses 16 and 17 of chapter 8? Children and heirs together with Christ who will suffer with him. Sometimes we miss that bit. We gloss over that bit. who will suffer with him and will be glorified with him. These then are the truths, the declarations that God makes that lie behind and provide the context for our passage this morning in verses 31 to 39. And as we come to verse 31, Paul pulls back and he poses a question to us. And it's not a question about how was 2020 for you. It's a very important question. Look at it. Verse 31, what then shall we say to these things? It's a question that provides a pause. It provokes us to reflection, and it calls for a response from us. But before we jump to what the answer might be, and in fact, Paul is going to give us the answer, we need to follow the flow of thought from verses 31 to 39. And that flow of thought actually lays out lots of questions. Did you hear all the questions in the scripture reading? It begins with that one, what then shall we say to these things? But it doesn't end there. That's just the first question in our passage. There are, in fact, seven questions. Can you count them? Look at those questions. What then shall we say to these things? Verse 31. If God is for us, who can be against us? Verse 31b. He who did not spare his own son. Verse 32. And it ends with, will he not graciously give us all things? Verse 33, who can bring any charge against God's elect? Verse 34, who is to condemn? Verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And then he goes on, shall tribulation, et cetera, or soar? Seven questions that Paul poses. And each of these questions, we might be tempted to look at as what we would call a rhetorical question. Do you know what I mean when I say rhetorical question? An Old Testament, a former Old Testament colleague of mine used to ask lots of questions in his classes, as any really good teacher does, because he was trying to engage his students. Not just give them the information, but cause them to think and even invite them to respond. But often what happened, and maybe those of you who are teachers know how this happens in classrooms sometimes, you ask a question and you're met with silence, right? Nobody responds. And you think, well, either they all know the answer and they don't want to tell me because it's too obvious, or they've fallen asleep, or I was speaking in some completely foreign language. And you get no response. And so my friend would say to the class at that point, it's not a rhetorical question. It's not a rhetorical question. By which he meant, he wanted them to respond. He wanted them to provide an appropriate response. And I think if Paul were here with us this morning, he would say to us, this is not a rhetorical question. This is a question that I want you to give an answer to. Now, I don't know you well, but having grown up in the Presbyterian church and knowing a little bit about the Reformed tradition, I'm not going to engage in a lot of call and response with you this morning. So don't get nervous about that. But I will ask you to do this. I will ask you to provide answers to some of these questions maybe silently in your mind as you hear them because Paul would say these are not rhetorical questions. These are designed to call forth a response from us, an appropriate answer. Paul and the Holy Spirit through him lays out this series of questions in a way that draws to the surface and draws to a sharp point for us this morning all the truths that have been laid out in Romans 5 to 8. And he does so in order to drive them home into our hearts and into our minds. And ultimately, what he's trying to do here is to give us assurance, to give us an increased confidence that God is indeed for us in Christ Jesus. And that's evident, isn't it, right from the beginning in verse 31. Look again, the first question that serves as a headline over the whole section What then shall we say to these things? We might have to wait to answer it fully until the end, but we get an immediate kind of answer, don't we, in the next question, the latter half of verse 31. What does that say? If God is for us, who can be against us? Now, don't call it out here, but if I were to ask you, what's the answer to that question? I think you would know. If God is for us, who can be against us? What's the only appropriate answer in the context of Romans? No one, right? No one, no one can be against us. No one can prevail against us if God is for us. No one. Now, in just what sense that's true, we're going to see as we work our way through the following verses. And the questions that remain in these next verses, we're going to think about them this way. These questions open doors onto different rooms for us to showcase for us truths that God wants us to know and to grasp. And so as we work our way through these questions, it's going to be as if there's a series of doors that opens and we look into that room and see what we find. The first one is in verse 32 and then a series of questions in verses 33 and 34 and then thirdly in verse 35. So three doors that are opened by these questions and what we see there, what we see there should fill us with love for our Lord God, it should fill us with gratitude for all that he's given us and ultimately it should fill us with a great confidence that he is indeed for us. What we're going to see is in the first room, the gift of God, in the second room, the verdict of God, and in the third room, the love of God. Let's look at that first room, the gift of God first. Verse 32, look at what the question does for us. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Do you see how this door opens onto us? Well, maybe it's like a Christmas scene. We've just come through the Christmas season. Many of us have celebrated. Some have been fortunate enough to celebrate even with family. And what a wonderful gift that has been. I have memories of growing up as a young boy. And every Christmas Eve, my grandma and grandpa, my mom's parents, would come and stay with us. It was the only night of the year. They lived in town with us. The only night of the year when they would actually come and sleep over at our house. So you knew something special was going on. And they would arrive, and it was the same every year. My grandpa would open the trunk of the car, and he would start pulling out bags and bringing in the bags while my grandmother directed where these should go. And then I'm told, after we went to bed, the task before my grandfather and my mom and my dad was to help, because my grandmother, she went a little overboard some years. She would spend the entire year thinking, oh, that would be wonderful for the grandkids, wouldn't it and so we would come down christmas morning and the stockings were hung there on the hearth of the fireplace and and on the hearth overflowing down off the hearth onto the floor onto the carpet underneath our stockings were all kinds of stocking stuffer type gifts little wonderful things that grandma had found for us and we knew we knew from that overflow among other things how much she loved us when we saw that every year well that is an incredibly small analogy to help us to think about what's being said here in verse 32 the overflowing super abounding gift of God that has been given to us in Christ Jesus that's what we see in this room there's a kind of untranslated little word there in verse 32 it doesn't come through in our text but I'm going to try and draw it out for you. Here's how we could draw it out. He who even did not spare his son. Or maybe we could do it this way. He who did not spare his son, indeed his own son. Do you hear the emphasis that that provides? These are wonderful little details in the text in verse 32 that drive home for us the generosity of this gift of God given to us in Christ Jesus. Even his own son emphasizes for us the preciousness of this gift that our God has given to us. Even his own son, he did not spare. He didn't spare him, did he, from death? Do you understand the generosity of this gift that your father, your heavenly father, has given you? But what did he do instead? He gave him up. Other translations tell us he delivered him over. And we know what that means. We know that means he sent him to the cross. And that emphasizes for us the costliness of the gift that our Heavenly Father has given us. And as we look to the cross and we remember God's gift there, what are we meant to also think in verse 32? We're meant to also, well, this is the real question, isn't it? If God did not even spare his own son, but graciously gave him up there at the cross for us, how will he not also generously, graciously give us together with him all things? The cross guarantees that God the giver will keep on giving to us. And as we look to the cross, we realize whatever lies ahead in 2021, 2022, the next 10 years, However long the Lord gives us, he will continue to generously give us all that we need. It's guaranteed there for us as we look to his gift of Christ Jesus on the cross. So how do we answer this question now that we've opened that first door? Will he not also give us? Yes, he most certainly will. That's the answer that Paul expects to hear from us. So if we see in that first room the gift of God that gives us confidence that God is indeed for us, what do we see in the next room? Well, in the next room, in verses 33 and 34, there are two questions. Two questions that work together to help us hear afresh the verdict of God. What are those questions? Verse 33, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? Verse 34, who is to condemn? What kind of room is this that's been opened to us by these questions? It's a courtroom, isn't it? It's a courtroom, and there at the front, there's the judge seated on his bench and spread out before him. We've got the advocate, the defense attorney. We've got the prosecutor and a long line of would-be accusers ready to come and testify against me, against you, because we're in that courtroom and we're seated in the dock. That's what we see as this door opens to us. And as we scan that room, perhaps our heart begins to sink because what do we see as we look down that line of accusers? We see God's law standing there and we know ourselves to be guilty before that law. We see Satan himself there, the accuser of the brethren, more than ready to accuse us of all the things that we've done wrong and all the things that we've failed to do. And we see there memories of our own sin, our own specific sins that haunt us. We might even see there are our own consciences accusing us, ready to accuse us. But as our hearts sink and as we scan that room and begin to lose hope, before we can say anything, before the prosecutor can stand up and point his finger at us and begin to lay a charge to our account. Verse 33, the judge stands and says, hang on, I'm the one who justifies. Verse 34, the advocate stands and agrees and says, and I'm the one who was legally appointed to represent the defendant to intercede for this sinner. In fact, I died for her. I was raised for him. I'm seated, I'm standing here rather, and I'm appointed to intercede for this brother or this sister. The verdict of God that comes to us in this second room is one simple word, justified. Justified. That's the verdict that we hear. Forgiven, yes, we're forgiven. Reconciled to God, yes, we've heard that in chapters 5 through 8 as well. That's true, but it's even better than that. We're justified. And some of us, if you're like me, might have grown up hearing that, you know that old shorthand phrase for justified? Just as if I'd never sinned, right? That's great, but it's even better than that. And I hope you know this. I hope I'm preaching to a well-trained choir here, but nonetheless, I want to proclaim it to you this morning. It's not just, it's not only just as if I've never sinned. it's also just as if I'd always kept. Just as if I'd always kept God's law perfectly because my mediator, my savior, did so for me. And now the judge stands and says, I'm the one who justifies and throws those accusers out of the courtroom. John Calvin puts it this way. He says, the way to a trial is more completely closed up when the judge himself pronounces him wholly exempt from guilt, whom the accuser would bring in as deserving punishment. The verdict of God in this second room is that for you, justified. And that's how you can have confidence that God is indeed for you and not against you. Because you hear that verdict afresh. We see the gift of God as we look to the cross of Christ. We hear the verdict of God. And then thirdly, and it gets even better. This text just gets better and better as you go. Thirdly, we understand the love of God, the love that God has for us. Look at verse 35, please. Here's the next set of questions, the next door that opens for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? That is the love Christ has for us. Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Did you realize during the scripture reading, we hear twice in these verses, verse 35 and verse 39, who shall separate us from? Separate us from. Because that's the issue here. That's the issue. Will the circumstances of your life, will the pressures that you're under separate you from the love of God that's in Christ. And so as we see this door swing open, it's not so much a room, I suppose, as a series of possible scenes. Maybe it's like this. Maybe it's like you're at the beach and the surf is pounding. It's a heavy waves sort of day. And you've got your little child there with you or your grandchild with you. And the waves are threatening to rip them out of your head. What do you do? You're holding on so tightly to the hand of that little child. Or maybe it's like a few years ago, I found ourselves in the middle of London, the center of London, just before Christmas. Not a place I'd recommend going in the future, by the way. And crowds were swirling. I can hardly remember what this is like now. Crowds swirling around you. No social distancing going on whatsoever. And I'm holding tightly to one of my children's hands because I don't want them to be torn away from me, separate, swept down the street in this swirling crowd. that's the kind of separation that Paul has in view because of these pressures, because of these difficulties that he knows those first Christians in Rome were facing. But God knows that we continue to face. And so as we see this third room opened to us, we realize that there's nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ. Did you notice there in verse 35b, in that final question, that there are seven things listed? And we know that often numbers are not accidental, are they, in Scripture? I don't think they are here for Paul. Seven things that he asks, can they separate us? Shall tribulation count them, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword? Seven things culminating with the kind of perfect storm of death by the sword. Execution for faith in Christ. Now at this point, 2020 is not looking so bad, is it? We don't face some of those same pressures to that same extent as did these first Christians or as do some of our brothers and sisters yet around the world. We had some friends in our London congregation who were from Nigeria. And they would tell stories about the attacks on villages in their region by Boko Haram and other Islamist militias. Attacks that would kill people, take people prisoner because they were Christian. We don't face these things, but we know these things are being faced still today by our brothers and sisters around the globe. They feel very deeply and personally the weight of what Paul says next there in verse 36 as he quotes from Psalm 44 that we sang earlier. For your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And maybe that isn't the pressure for us, but we've got enough pressure, don't we? We're going to face enough things in God's good providence in the year to come. And those pressures, whatever they might be, those difficulties, social pressure, legal pressure, So even if it's not as dire for us, we've got to be warned. We've got to be warned. Calvin again says very insightfully, I think, on this passage, here's what we're tempted to do wrongly. We look at our own lives. We look at our circumstances. We look at the difficulties that are facing us, whatever it might be. And we're tempted to judge our state before God on the basis of those circumstances. Have you ever felt that way? I'm facing difficulty. I'm facing an illness I can't seem to shake off. Things are not going well. Therefore, God must not be loving towards me. God must be angry with me. God must be judging me. And Calvin says we've got to be very careful not to judge God's stance towards us by looking at our circumstance. but instead to cling tightly to this promise in these verses that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. What does verse 37 say? It gives us the answer, doesn't it? Paul can't resist. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. These things can't separate us from Christ's love. Literally, that text reads, but, but, it's a contrast. Although our life may look like this, nevertheless, that can't separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Another reformer by the name of Andreas Musculus, looking at this text, asked the question, what on earth can Paul mean by saying that we're more than conquerors? What kind of conquerors, what kind of victory are we talking about if our lives are beset by these kinds of difficulties and trouble? That's not what the world calls conquering. That's not what the world calls victory, is it? And Musculus said, well, it's a very strange kind of victory. In the midst of trial and tribulation, and here's the victory. Here's the victory, he said. The victory is not letting our faith be wrested from our hands by the difficulties of our lives, but clinging tightly by faith to the promises of God in Christ so that we persevere unto the end, even unto eternal life. So how do we win the victory? We continue to look to our God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We see the gift of God on the cross given for us when we were yet sinners. We hear afresh that verdict of God justified on the basis of Christ. We know and hear again and again and again the love of God overflowing for us. That grip of God, that grip of love that holds on to us so that no waves, no crowds, nothing can pull us from his grip. It's not our grip on him that's going to keep us safe, is it? It's his grip of love upon our hand, which is going to see us through whatever 2021 is going to bring. And so as we look ahead to this coming year, Paul wants us to know, the Lord wants us to know, That our God is for us. He is for us in Christ. It doesn't mean that 2021 will necessarily be a better year than 2020. It might not be. For some of us, it might be worse. But it does mean that no matter what we face in this coming year, no matter what circumstances of life or death, that we can hold on to our confidence that God is indeed for us, even when our circumstances seem to contradict that. so let me talk to the younger people here boys girls young people who are still in school what does that mean for you this coming year well it's going to be hard to tell what lies ahead isn't it maybe there's online school which is never the most fun if you're wanting to be in school you don't get to be with your friends your plans maybe go awry maybe you yourself or people in your family that you know are faced with illness and difficulty? Well, even for you, you can look to the promises of God in Christ Jesus and know that God is for you this year. What about for those of us who are parents in the middle of our life's journey? Maybe some of you find yourself kind of pressed on many sides, right? You're trying to hold things together for the family. Work is harder. Life is harder. Kids need attention and time, but your own parents might need a little bit of care in the year to come, and you're trying to balance all of these things, and you can't have as much freedom as you've had before. What does this mean for you? It means you too, despite whatever comes this year, need to look to that cross of Christ, need to hear fresh that verdict of justified in Christ, need to know that God is pouring out his love for you and will hold on to you in this coming year. Can I speak to those who are older than me, perhaps much older than me in the congregation here this morning? One of the things I love about this congregation is that there are many heads of wisdom as I look out. And I mean that with all respect this morning. I've been a part of congregations in the past where there are very few who are much older than 55 or 60, but that's not the case here. And it also means that not only do we have a lot of wisdom in our midst, but that this coming year may well bring some illness and some difficulty and probably some death in 2021. Now that may not just be those who are older amongst us. So young people, listen to this as well. One of the things that ministers have to learn how to do is not just teach people how to live well in light of the gospel, but also how to die well. Some of my students will tell me that that's what Greek class is actually all about, is learning how to prepare for death. It's not really that bad. But that's a part of the Christian life, isn't it? Learning how to prepare to die well. That whenever we face that hour of our death, we know how to cling to these promises. And I want to read to you, as I'm getting to know the URC as a federation of churches, I'm learning more and more each week. And here's something I discovered in your own forms of prayer. Prayers for use by families and in homes. There's a prayer for the sick and the spiritually depressed. And I want to end with this this morning, not because I'm trying to be morbid at the start of 2021, but because I want to press home this truth of Romans 8 into your hearts this morning. Can I read this to you? And maybe as I do, maybe these words turn into a prayer from your heart. Eternal God, the only creator, preserver, judge, and savior of the world, you alone hold the powers of life and death. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when he had conquered death and hell, announced, I was dead, but I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades in my hand. Listen to this. Yet often our circumstances seem to testify against your promise. What we see does not appear to agree with what we have heard. Yet even at the cross where you seemed so absent and your son seemed so cruelly and unjustly abandoned by you, we have been taught that he was thereby fulfilling your purposes to redeem us from the power of darkness. Teach us through these trials to number our days, recognizing that we are but fading in this age, but will flourish in the age to come. We know that these struggles are not tokens of your wrath, but are part of your plan to save us, to sanctify us, and to glorify yourself. While we may fear the circumstances, we no longer fear the condemnation of the law, the sting of death, or the sharp arrows of Satan. For we know that your son gained victory for us by his death and resurrection. And so we ask that you would, even through these tests, deepen our confidence that you would deepen our confidence to appear before you clothed not in the filthy rags of our own works, but in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, our Savior. And that, brothers and sisters, is what Romans 8, 31 to 39 teaches us here at the beginning of 2021. Don't judge the Lord's love for you on the basis of your circumstances. Don't doubt his commitment to you no matter what you face in this coming year. And as we come to the end of the passage, we know how to answer that first question now, don't we? What then shall we say in response to these things? The answer is right there at the very end, verses 38 and 39. I am sure, I am confident, I am convinced, I am persuaded that nothing, Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we fall down before you this morning with awe and gratitude at the truth of these promises that you hold out to us. And we ask that you would help us and strengthen us by your Spirit to receive them, to cling to your promise by faith, and to look always to those promises and not to our circumstances. Thank you that you are indeed for us. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.