Songs for Sunday, September 8, 2024 @ Christ Community Church

Sunday’s coming!

Do you ever feel like you are living in between two realities — like there’s a tension in where you are and where you want to be?

In a sense, all of us are, especially if you are saved. There is the reality of what Jesus has done in dying for our sins and raising again (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). There’s the reality of when His Spirit convicted us of our sin and we turned — repented — from our sin and put our faith and trust in Jesus (John 16:8, Acts 2:38)….

…when He made us born again (John 3:3-7)….

…when He brought us from dead in sin to new life in Him (Ephesians 2:1-5)….

…when He reconciled us from enemies to His friends (Romans 5:10-11, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20)….

…when He adopted us into His family (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:4-5).

Those who are saved know and understand that reality. They understand that confessing Jesus as Lord and believing He is risen is an eternal-life altering moment (Romans 10:9-10). And with that comes the assurance that Jesus is alive and reigning despite the way this world is going (Ephesians 1:20-21, Colossians 1:17-18). There is assurance that Jesus cannot be defeated. There is assurance that Jesus has promised to return for His Bride, the Church, in victory and bring her to be with Him forever and ever (John 14:3, Revelation 19:7-9). There is assurance that He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).

But living in between those bookends is tough. Salvation is already and, at the same time, not yet. There is a tension because we struggle with sin inside us and without us (Romans 7:21-25). There is a spiritual battle being waged (Ephesians 6:12), and with it comes pain and struggle and sorrow and danger and mourning and threat and…well, that list can go on and on, can’t it?

I’ve been thinking about that tension a lot this week, and, thankfully, the tension drove me to Jesus in His Word. Let’s look at the bookends of Romans 8 to see just how faithful and powerful our God is!

First, let’s look at Romans 8:1-2:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

God tells us here that, for those who are in Christ, there is NOW “no condemnation”. If Jesus has saved you, you are saved. He has paid the death penalty for your sin and given you His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Before He saves us, we are captives of our own sin yet we have no idea. We had a sort of sad Stockholm syndrome with our sin and could not see that our captor — the sin that we so enjoyed and pursued — was actively trying to kill us. But Jesus comes in as a powerful warrior King and rescues us from our captivity. He rides in and paid the price to free us. As the old hymn says, He sought us and bought us with His redeeming blood. Death and sin no longer own those He saves. He bore our sin and paid our price by His death to set us free and give us His life.

This is a powerful bookend — a significant beginning where our lifeless corpse, killed by the wages of our sin, is filled with life better than anything we could even hope for. But the life we have is still in a world where death and sin is rampant. The Fall is everywhere and still falling. There are temporal dangers that bring fear and reminders of captivity. They breathe threats that we still deserve condemnation. And our physical bodies, despite our eternal life, are decaying and dying.

Here in the middle is a scary place to be sometimes.

But GOD!

Look at the end of Romans 8 (vv. 31-36):

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 is the One who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or danger, or sword?

These rhetorical questions are helpful here in the tension of living eternal life in this fallen world.

The accuser can throw our sin in our faces all he wants to. Our past can testify against us as vehemently as it wants to. If God is for us, none can stand against us. He gave His Son to save us and will not withhold His grace. There is no condemnation because Jesus justifies those He saves — justifies in the present-tense because Jesus is alive and seated at the right-hand of His Father and actively interceding for us!

So, in the midst of fear — in the midst of those frightening things Paul listed in v. 36: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, danger, death by the sword — the answer to the question of “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” is a clear and definite NO ONE!

If Jesus has saved you, the world can throw its worst at you, and its greatest threat — death — is your greatest reward. Death brings those who are in Christ TO Christ (Philippians 1:21-23). I don’t know about you, but that comforts me. I don’t have to survive to thrive. Jesus has saved me, so I thrive in Him and eternally no matter what happens here (John 10:28-29, 1 Peter 1:3-5). The greatest threats in the midst of tension are merely part of a testimony of what Jesus is bringing me through, even and especially when I can’t see it right now (Romans 8:28)! I can know that because my Savior lives and reigns and intercedes for me even now (Hebrews 7:25, Romans 8:34)!

How about you?

Are you in Christ?

If not, I invite you to call out to Him to save you (Romans 10:13)! He is still that valiant warrior King — the God who saves! He delights in reconciling sinners to Him (Zephaniah 3:17, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19)! He has the power to bring you from dead in sin to alive in Him (Ephesians 2:4-5).

If you are in Him, I invite you to breathe a sigh of relief because God has got you no matter what (John 16:33, Psalm 46:1-2). One way or the other, He is bringing you to Him (2 Corinthians 4:16-18), so let the things of this earth pale in comparison to His light and glory (Colossians 3:1-4)!

I invite you all to gather with us tomorrow at Christ Community as we sing to and about Jesus, all He has done and is doing. John will open the Word and point us to Jesus, the living Word of God (John 1:1, 14).

I can hardly wait.

In the midst of the tension between salvation and eternal life, we are going to remind each other of what He has done and can do — get a glimpse of what it will be to stand around His throne and worship Him — the Lamb who was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ — forever and ever (Revelation 5:5-6, Titus 2:13).

Won’t you gather with us?

Here are our Scriptures & songs:

21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

9But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

13And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

14Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

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Published by justkeithharris

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