Metamorphosis: More than Conquerors.

This was part preparing a sermon I preached over this past summer. I haven't blogged in a while so I thought I would post it. This is really complicated stuff.



I keep coming back to this verse in Romans 8:28-39, the section I've been preparing to preach on this past week for this Sunday at Mercyhouse, verse 37. It's really peculiar. To conquer means you have victory over something or someone. You vanquish it, destroy it, conquer it and have victory over it. But what does it mean to be more than a conqueror? And what does this kind of conqueror look like?

Paul is writing this in response to a question he's asked, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The "us" are Christians, who are in Christ. Paul goes on to give a list of possibilities and asks them to consider each one. Shall tribulation? Shall distress? Shall persecution? Shall famine? Shall nakedness? Shall danger? Shall sword? Shall any of these separate those who follow Christ from the love of Christ? He quotes Psalm 44:22, a time when Israel felt like they were following God but disaster was all around them. So no, none of these things can separate them from this love. Not Roman soldiers dragging them off to execute them, not starvation, and not even being so poor they have no clothes. Paul is able to write these things with confidence because he's experienced all these things first hand. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 Paul writes of some of his experiences:

"I am talking like a madman--with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was a drift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure (nakedness). And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches."

Yikes! Paul is speaking from experience. And he writes that nothing will separate us from this love and he knows what he's talking about! He's lived it out and was still loved by Christ. So from these experiences, he extrapolates and looks ahead to the future. Not even execution, the sword, can separate. He's totally convinced that "neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers (demons), 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" (Romans 8:38-39). Why, why can't we be separated from this love? In the world around us people are separated from the love of someone all the time. Divorces, break ups, death, misunderstandings.

Here's a contemporary interpretation for us. "I'm talking like a crazy person because that's how I feel right now. I've been driven to the brink of despair. I've suffered early mornings, the loss of friends, and busted relationships. I've spent hours on an empty stomach. I've had heated discussions about faith that never seem to go anywhere. I've been in car accidents and had my house broken into. Friends have betrayed me. My parents have died."

What makes this such a sure thing?

Before this, Paul lays out God's plan for the working out of salvation. He writes in 8:28-30,

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

So, the whole time, from beginning into eternity, it is God who does this working out of salvation in our lives. So, those who follow Christ are destined without a question to become conquerors over whatever comes there way. But this conquering doesn't look quite like what we would think it to look like. The way this conquering was worked out was through the suffering and death of Jesus. So a conqueror doesn't look clean and pretty, but bruised, beat up, and dying. But this dying was reversed. What looked like loss was victory.

It's a battle that's been fought and won and we are invited into the victory of it.

The metamorphosis is complete. As we are formed into the image of this conqueror, Jesus, we also take on this conquering, over sin, over sadness, over pain, over evil, and ultimately over death! This is your destiny Christian!

Revelation 19:11-16

So what does this mean? It means that God has worked out our salvation and that no matter what comes our way, we are more than conquerors in the face of any opposition of sin or physical atrocity be it disaster or murder. This is not "I get saved, I go to heaven," this deep truth is how we have joy in the face of suffering and death and pain. Joy! Real joy in the midst of this, because you can look into the future and know that you have won because of a battle you did not fight but have been drawn up into.