Latest / Belin Memorial UMC / Rev. Will Malambri - "More Than Victorious"
Transcript
- Belin Memorial UMC: I invite you to hear now the epistle reading from the letter to the Romans chapter eight. If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own son, but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written, For your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered. No. In all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. For I am convinced 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 of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. the word of God for the people of God. Thanks. Thanks be to God, you can say that. Sometimes we read a difficult passage, and it's a little harder for you to say that. We'll give you the prompt, the word of God for the people of God, and you'll say, Thanks be to God. As if there's a question mark on the end. But you say it, you're faithful to say it because you know that God works all things together for good. And so you are faithful to say it even when the passage is hard to read, but not today. Not today. Today you can say thanks be to God with all conviction because what is more good news than to know that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. You've likely heard that before. Hopefully from someone you have trusted, someone who them being convinced of this helps you to be more convinced. The people of Rome had not heard it before, at least not in that way, and it was coming from someone they had not even met yet. Paul wrote the letter to the Romans before he had ever visited there. They had heard of him, but not yet from him. And this letter, what we call Romans, was his self introduction as well as a deep dive into big theology. In part, he wanted them to know that even when we suffer, even in the faith. That's not a sign that God's love is left. that that's not an indication that God no longer is for us. He he wanted them to know even as you suffer, even if loving and serving Jesus contributes to your suffering. Jesus is worth it. We all need people like that in our lives. People who are honest enough to say that bad things may be coming, but they do not overcome. Troubles may win some of the battles, but they will not win the war. There are times when difficulties are victorious, but because of Christ, we will be more than victorious. You know someone who is empathetic enough to be able to say the struggle is happening. It is a struggle for the moment. But who also has the long view, enough to be able to say, as Paul did just before what he wrote in this letter today, be able to say, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing. The glory about to be revealed. That is tough, difficult, hard as this life might be right now. That much greater is the glory that is yet to come. One thing the Roman church would have known about Paul is that he knew about present sufferings. When he wrote, Who will separate us from the love of God? Well per affliction, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sore, they knew he knew what he was talking about. The gospel writer Luke knew that as well. Luke recorded in the book of Acts, Paul's exploits. He talked about how Paul was ridiculed and scoffed at and wrongly imprisoned and beaten and stoned and shipwrecked and snake bitten. Paul himself describes that in 2 Corinthians. He tells what it is. It's a summary he gives. It reads almost like a stockholder account of what they've done this year. He tells us five times I have received from the Jews the Forty lashans minus one. Three times I have been beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning, three times I was shipwrecked. For a night and a day I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandas, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked, and besides other things I am under daily. pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. Other than that, Brother Paul, how was ministry? How was life? It sounds like a great big struggle. It it sounds like whatever my struggle is I'm going through, you can relate. You know, Paul, because of your life, that life, even for the believer, even for the one who is seeking to follow Jesus, does not always get spared the suffering that this life can bring. Back to your life, Brother Paul shows that It can be that the more we seek to follow Jesus, the more the persecution ends up coming. And yet you're telling us. That despite all you've been through, none of that is evidence that God's love has been removed. None of that is evidence that you can be separated from God's love or I can. And I respect And I believe it. But what if, Brother Paul, what if something yet to come could separate me from God's love? Maybe someone's death. Or maybe some part of this life. Maybe some supernatural force or some major powerful earthly force. Maybe something really big or something that is in creation that I don't even know exists yet. There must be something that could separate me from God's love. To which Paul shouting from two thousand years ago and from wherever he is in God's presence says no. Nothing. Nothing can separate you from God's love. Nothing. In everything by God's grace, we are more than victorious. More than victorious. It is sometimes translated as more than conquerors. You've probably heard it more often that way. I like more than victorious because it kind of for me lends itself to the athletics that Paul liked to use as analogies. He liked a sports analogy. He's the one who who compared discipleship to running the good race. He's the one who compared discipleship to fighting the good fight. He's the one who talked about how athletes had to be so disciplined in their daily lives so that they could have a chance to go and And win the victors' wreath, their version in the first century of a championship trophy, that like them, we are called to be disciplined in our discipleship for Jesus Christ. He wanted those who followed Jesus to be disciplined enough to be able to have victories along the way. And more so, he wanted us to have a life that is more than victorious. Since Paul liked a sports analogy, I'll try one. There are victories that are temporary and there are victories that are lasting. I had a temporary victory last Monday. I woke up, I knew I needed to take a run. I decided I was going to run for four miles, and then I went outside, and it was hot. And it was humid. But I persevered slower than I like to run, but I persevered. I finished that four miles. I had a victory. And then I ate a lot. And then I remembered my heart and my lungs and my muscles, my spirit, my mind, they all need more movement. So by Wednesday I couldn't live on Monday's run anymore. That victory was past. I had to run again. W we can't have a victory and think that's gonna last us forever. The the victories of our lives are often temporary, short-lived. They they don't carry us forever. They're part of a building block that takes us to something bigger, perhaps, but if it no one single victory is all we need. Life is like that. Small victories need to be repeated to sustain the longer ones, the bigger ones. But even those, none of those, not the training runs, not the races. Not the successes, not the good health, not the health struggles. None of that makes us more than victorious. Even if I won the biggest races in the world, I won't. Even if I competed in the biggest races in I wouldn't. Even if I entered the biggest races. I won't do that either. Had I, none of that would make me more than victory. Those kind of victories are temporary and people move on often as if they're racing to do so. Before the New York Knicks ever had their celebration parade in New York after winning the championship, people were already placing bets on who will win next year's NBA finals. What have you done for me lately? And before the Knicks between the Knicks nineteen seventy three championship and their two thousand twenty six championship, what they had done for the people of New York was lose two thousand one hundred and seventy one times. Nearly half the games they played between those two championships, they lost. Victories are temporary. The big noteworthy ones and the small barely noticed ones, all temporary. So, what could Paul mean by more than victorious? It can't be just to win more than anyone else. That would be victorious. It couldn't even mean winning every race, every game, every contest you're entering. That would be exceptionally. victorious, but not more than. Even from a faith perspective, being more than victorious is not living so disciplined as such a faithful follower of Christ as to have every thought and every action and every word be in line with the mind of Christ. Even doing that, no one has ever done that besides Jesus. But even if someone were able to do that, it would not be more than victorious, it'd be a wonderfully victorious life. What could he mean? What is he claiming for us? Is it an impossible standard that just goes to reinforce how far off we are from it? I know I can feel sometimes as though I'm less than victorious, not even getting half the thoughts and words and actions of Christ right a day. Is Paul just mocking my losses? Or is the apostle Paul saying that since nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, we are not defined by our winning per percentage. Our our core identity is not determined by our failures and our successes. Those are a worldly way of determining our worth. But a heavenly way, the way our God does it, is determined that we are more than victorious because our essential value is not in what you have done for me lately. It's not in how quickly you'll fall off the championship podium. It's that you are loved by God and nothing can separate you from that. That is the core of who we are, and the Apostle Paul is convinced that is. Then our focus is not to see how many ways we can be victorious before the final buzzer, but instead living as those who are victorious as long as we are on the field. And since we are more than victorious through Christ who loves us, this is not being arrogant as though we have gained the victory, but living at peace. Because the one who did gain the victory loves us when we get it right and when we fail to. Loves us when we impress our peers and when they don't even notice us. Loves us when obedience to him makes us popular and when it causes us to suffer. Loves us when joy in serving is abundant and when service feels like a burden. Loves us when the things we say and think and do are in keeping with the mind of Christ and when they are off of it. Loves us when we look like we want to look and when we do not. Loves us when we our our accounts are full and when they are empty. Loves us when we are hurting and when we are happy. Loves us, whatever the situation you are in. Loves us. Whatever it is you are facing. Loves us. Loves us however we have been, however we are being, and however we will be. Loves us. Loves us. Loves us. It's not based on temporary successes or failures, but on an eternal status conveyed on us by God, that we are children of God beloved, whatever our winning percentage. Given to us. That we might respond by giving our lives in a way that reflect back that love that God shows each day. So that when you win. You're more than victorious. And when you lose You're more than victorious, and when it hurts. You're more than victorious and when it doesn't. You're more than victorious. When I believed that. When I am so convinced. And there's little left to say, but thanks be to God. So Thanks be to God. Amen.