Trinity Evangel Church

# Introduction

A good story doesn't give everything away on the first page, not even in chapter 3. As Scripture records God's dealings with man, even as Scripture records God’s promise that He will send a Man, the revelation progresses. We're in a blessed position, and can work our way back (and forward) from many spots on the timeline. We know more about the Christ in Christmas than anyone in the Bible (mostly because we have our own complete copies unlike any of them), but that doesn't mean we long for His coming as we should.

This year as we head toward Christmas day in a advent season series of sermons, I am taking us back to the Old Testament. We're getting a prophetic start, a progressive anticipation.

Last Lord's Day we started at the beginning of mankind, and with what has been called the * protoevangelium*, the “first gospel,” in Genesis 3:15. Christmas is the celebration that the Dragon-Slayer Seed was born. It was going to be a man, which is important for sake of Him identifying with our sins, but it's also the promise to bruise the head of the serpent. We who believe in the Son of Man are also offspring of the woman. The devil is defeated in principle, but mad, and the ongoing spiritual battle between his offspring and the woman’s offspring is everything that is wrong with Christmas.

A lot has happened between Genesis 3 and our text for today, Isaiah 9. The flood, Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, Joseph, Egypt, Exodus, and back into the Promised Land to Abraham. The Lord chose a family to become a nation which He would love and from which would come the Man. He lead them *personally*, He led them *successfully* (even miraculously), He led them *mercifully*, and they didn't think it was enough. They wanted to be like other nations (1 Samuel 8:6). They wanted an embodied ruler, one who could take them into battle and govern their land (1 Samuel 8:19-20). They rejected the Lord as king (1 Samuel 8:7).

The Lord gave them Saul, whose resume stood a head above the rest, for a while. Then the Lord gave them David, and to David the Lord promised a son who would sit on the throne and rule forever (2 Samuel 7:14-16).

But even though we know the petty and disobedient and divided and in some cases tyrannical history of Israel’s kings after Solomon, note that the original desire for a king was *right*. It was not right in terms of how the people went about it, says God Himself. But as He reveals His purpose for the offspring of the woman, the particulars include the Seed’s coming as a Man-King.

# Post Tenebras, Rex (After Darkness, a King)

Things were in a bad way near the end of Isaiah 8. Things were *dark*. The people of Israel were looking to spiritual mediums (Isaiah 8:19), they weren’t looking to God’s Word and so they had “no dawn” (8:20), the earth was “distress and darkness,” they were thrust into “thick darkness” (8:22). The people walk in darkness, “in a land of deep darkness” (9:2). Isaiah sees the Assyrian army under Tiglath-pileser taking over the northern part of Israel, “the land of Zebulun and…Naphtali” (9:1, see also 2 Kings 15:29), who are a burden of oppression (9:4). Ahaz was the king at the time, and his kingdom was full of distress and war. But the prophecy doesn't end with the blackness of night, it looks forward to a better king. After darkness, a King.

> For to us a child is born,

> to us a son is given;

> and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

> and his name shall be called

> Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

> Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

> Of the increase of his government and of peace

> there will be no end,

> on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

> to establish it and to uphold it

> with justice and with righteousness

> from this time forth and forevermore.

> The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

> (Isaiah 9:6–7 ESV)

The "child born" picks up a previous word from the Lord in Isaiah 7:14 about a son born of a virgin named Immanuel. It's a man, who is God, and who takes dominion.

**The government shall be upon his shoulder**, and **of the increase of his government...there will be no end**. The word "government" is good, but the Hebrew word (pronounced *miś·rā(h)*) means *domination* . The LXX translates as ἀρχὴ (*arche*), the meeting point/corner of authority and power. The VLG has *principatus*, the first or eminent one. But *domination* works, even as it is related to *Dominus*, the Lord. This is the Lord of lords, the King on the throne of David. He can shoulder the responsibility of rule.

There are four titles for Him.

1. **Wonderful Counselor**. There have been wise rulers, but the vast majority throughout history must certainly be considered policy half-wits and political jesters. They get promoted, they get to inherit what daddy built. This coming King will know what to do; think of Joseph’s solutions to African famine but applied to *every issue* for *every nation*. His decisions will inspire delight and admiration.

2. **Mighty God**. More than a Man, more than the divine right of rule, He will be the *Divine* Ruler, again related to Isaiah 7:14. He is strength incarnate, a Warrior King.

3. **Everlasting Father**. This is not a confusion of Trinitarian persons or relationships, it's a typical, figurative usage of “father” (see Job 29:16 and Isaiah 22:21). It is the King who cares for and protects His people, and this role will be His forever.

4. **Prince of Peace**. Prince here isn't second in line, but emphasizing his royalty. Peace is the thing men want. Peace is the thing nations fight about. Peace is the thing the serpent and his offspring hate and disrupt. Peace in safety and prosperity define this King’s kingdom.

Four more things describe the King's accomplishments in verse 7.

- **Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end**. His rule expands in space and time, dominion grows.

- **On the throne of David and over his kingdom**. His rule fulfills the longstanding promise.

- **To establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness.** No dishonesty or corruption, no delinquency or compromise.

- **From this time forth and forevermore**. See “Everlasting” and “no end” above.

This isn’t speculation of outcome based on exit polls, this is God’s commitment. **The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.**

*God sent a King.*

# Hostile to (Royal) Hierarchy

The wise men from the east came because they saw the sign of whom? “Where” is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1-2). When Herod realized the wise men weren't coming back with a report of this baby's location, he ordered the murder of all the boys two and under because his throne, his dominion was being threatened.

Jesus was killed for His claim to be King (Matthew 27:11, 29). *God sent a King*, and “the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed” (Psalm 2:2).

This is the problem with domination, or attempts at it, among men. It's a constant fight to be top dawg. This is the way it was since the serpent, this is the way *of* the serpent himself (compare with Isaiah 14:12-14). This is the way among the "rulers and authorities, the principalities and powers." This is the way of all those who typify the Beast of the Apocalypse. This is what’s wrong with politics, with governors, with *men* in power.

The levels of incompetence among our rulers are higher than Snohomish County flood warnings. And I get that being anti-authority is cool. But that is mostly a show.

While there is a tendency of hostility toward hierarchy, something about a King *appeals* to men because of God’s regality.

Give me a good king to submit to. Deep in their hearts men *want* a King, at least one like Isaiah’s prophecy. God established this desire. We have a king-shaped whole in our hearts, not separate from the God-shaped hole, but the archetype of a magnanimous king is universal and eternal. It is divine. God set up and progressively revealed the glory of His kingship. The Christ as Messiah, the Anointed One, is Priest but also King.

If you are at the top of your hierarchy, you don't understand Christmas. Those hostile to King Jesus are just mini-Herods. Wise men bow down.

# Conclusion

This King has sons, not just servants. And He glorifies His court.

> What king surrounds himself with warped, dwarfish, worthless creatures? The most glorious king, the more glorious the titles and honors he bestows. … He is a very great king to have figures of such immense dignity in his train, or even better, to have raised them to such dignity. … All glory to him, and in him, glory and honor to these others. (Thomas Howard, _Evangelical is Not Enough_, 87)

His glory is never threatened, His glory is heightened by raising us up. Jesus said, that all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him, and we represent Him.

> Born They people to deliver,

> Born a child and yet a King,

> Born to reign in us forever,

> Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

> By Thine own eternal Spirit

> Rule in all our hearts alone;

> By Thine all sufficient merit,

> Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

> —Charles Wesley, “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus”

Joy to the world! The Lord is come; let earth receive her **King**!

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## Charge

Beloved, you must give as those who have received, you must forgive as those who have been justified by grace, and you must use your authority as those who are under the dominion of the Dominus, the Lord Jesus. God sent a King, and God has delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred you into the Kingdom of His beloved Son. Adore the King, adorn His ways.

## Benediction:

> I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:13–16, ESV)

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Father there's so much waiting that is even recorded for us in Scripture the saints of old looking to the first advent of your son and us now looking to the second advent of your son and we are In a constant state of waiting and yet it is appropriate for us to And we do pause annually to celebrate your advent the coming of your Son in the flesh for our sake. And it is because of this work that He did on earth that we have a sympathetic high priest, that we have one who can relate to what we have gone through and we too go through. And we know that there are a host of ways that you would have us to apply your word and to be faithful.

And of course, numbered among those would be being stewards of what you have given, whether it is of our minutes or our bodies or of our dollars or anything else. And tonight, as we do open your word together, we pray that we would find clear application in it and that we would do so with open minds and humble hearts ready to receive. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. So we continue with our study of Proverbs on Sunday evenings and I have the opportunity tonight to talk about money.

This is not going to be a message that is full of all kinds of hot tips as much as it will be about principles drawn from the book of Proverbs. And then hopefully we can find clear application in them as we examine different ways that the Lord uses money. Money, of course, gets a bad rap in our culture. And is money itself good or evil empirically? Or is it simply a tool that, like a hammer, can be used for good or for evil, depending on its user? Should money itself be an aim? Or should it be an object of our pursuit, or should it rather than be a fruit of something good, like the children are a fruit of the love of their parents?

Well, we do find answers to questions like these, along with a bunch more questions, in the book of Proverbs, and looking for lessons, as a matter of fact, on money from the book of Proverbs is a bit like looking for sand in the desert. Finding lessons is not hard. Actually, it can be kind of overwhelming. And I might do a bit of overwhelming tonight. Stop from Proverbs. From Proverbs alone, we learn that money, wealth in particular, is a gift, a blessing, a curse. And it's inferior to wisdom. It's of far less value than integrity and a good name. Of course, each of those would merit a deep dive on its own. But as we consider what all of these aspects of wealth holding common together, it's clear that God uses wealth in our lives in a host of ways.

We affirm that God ordains whatever comes to pass. And as the omnipotent sovereign of the universe, all creation is accountable to Him. And all that happens does so by His decree according to His will. Further, God has at His disposal infinite resources that He has created. And he uses these resources to bring about his will. He ordains means as well as ends. And of course, sometimes those means include money. Means in fact sometimes is used to refer to money. God allows money to be present in or absent from our lives. And Proverbs helps us to see when and why and how. God uses money in the lives of his people to bring all sorts of good.

Even if that good sometimes simply involves bringing wickedness to light. Sometimes the greatest good is in fact the exposure of wickedness. And tonight we'll be searching for some answers from Proverbs considering together how God uses money in our lives. And I'll be reading a host of verses. In fact, we have about, just a tiny bit more than 30 passages to look at together. And so we're going to be just looking at the verses and I'll be doing some commenting on many of them. And as I do, I will be plucking the verses from a greater context of the book of Proverbs or even the writings of Solomon himself. Solomon does supply us with some pretty fantastic one-liners.

But in many cases, taken by themselves and apart from the whole context of the rest of even Solomon, let alone the rest of the Bible, they could appear misleading or even contradictory to other scriptures. So we have to take care with this. We have to take the whole of scripture as complementary of itself, allowing scripture to interpret scripture. I'll spend most of my energy here trying to understand what the passages say on their faces but also realize that other verses will in fact inform our understanding. So again, for instance, if Solomon says, the hand of the diligent makes rich, is that a proverb or is it a principle by which to operate?

Have you ever met a diligent person who wasn't rich? It's not a guarantee that all diligent people will in fact be wealthy, but it is proverbial. It is full of wisdom, and it does actually give us a little bit of the mind of God on the matter of diligence. Make sense? Hopefully that's fair enough. So bear with me as we fly over these passages together. If you're a note taker, we do have some headings that you can scratch down, or you can write down references if you see one that's interesting and you want to look at later on. Otherwise, for pity's sake, don't try to write down all of the verses. And my headings themselves are not exhaustive or inspired.

Several of them, several of the passages we're examining could actually fit pretty well under more than one of them. So you've been warned. There you go. So now let's consider how God uses money in the lives of His people. So the first heading we're going to hang our thoughts on is that God uses money to bless us. Chapter 10 verse 4 says, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. The man who is diligent will be blessed materially from the Lord. So I gave my disclaimers earlier so I won't have to give them throughout, but that is what he's saying here. The lazy man should expect to starve.

It is tempting to overthink this, wondering why the wicked so commonly seem to prosper. Well, in a lot of cases, in much overthinking, there is folly. We can become so presumptuous and start to demand answers of God. Well, we would do well to be faithful with what is before us and not be surprised if and when material blessings follow. Again, be faithful with what is before us and not be surprised if material blessings follow. God measures out these blessings according to His good pleasure. The size of a blessing is not always commensurate with faithfulness, except when God is doing the measuring. So, it's commensurate with exactly what He wanted to give.

You may be more faithful than your neighbor, even though he's got a big house and a boat, while you have a cardboard box and a kayak. Look at verses 15 and 16 of chapter 10. A rich man's wealth is his strong city. The poverty of the poor is their ruin. The wage of the righteous leads to life. gain of the wicked to sin. In this context it does not seem as though the rich man is idolatrous in his security. There is a passage we'll look at later on when Solomon uses the exact same wording and it actually is sinful. But here he's saying it's a good thing. His wealth is a blessing from the Lord and it offers a degree of earthly protection. The strong city here of wealth is a good thing. And we're aided in this by looking at verse 16.

The wage earner is at the mercy of the wage giver and in this case God is the giver of the wage to the righteous he gives more life and fruitfulness and blessings To the wicked he gives more sin perhaps to their ruin Look at 11 verse 4 riches do not profit in the day of wrath but the righteousness delivers from death when judgment comes and And men must give account for their sins. Believers will point to the work of Jesus and his atoning work on the cross for us. And that is the only thing that will impress God in that moment, meaning riches won't profit them. Christ's imputed righteousness will. Yes, it's true, righteousness delivers from death, and that is true of men, and it is true of Christ's righteousness for us.

For the blessing that they may signify, as blessings from God, riches simply cannot compare with righteousness in terms of their spiritual value. And yet it is also fitting to put this under the category of blessing. It also suggests that righteousness and riches are not the same thing, even if they commonly go together. 1128, whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. themselves on never to be the object of our dependents. We should depend on the one behind the blessing. We should pursue righteousness. Look at chapter 18 verse 11. A rich man's wealth is his strong city and like a high wall in his imagination.

So this is quite different from chapter 15 verse 16 when it looked like a bad thing. A rich man's wealth could introduce a false sense of security if he comes to depend upon that. So when we read of God using riches to bless us, there's two sides to that. And we'll see later on as well that with blessing comes the temptation to be independent in our thinking. Look at chapter 21, verse 20. Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it. Wealth is a blessing for the wise. If you see a wealthy man, of course he is blessed by the Lord, but he also might be really wise. Not uncommon at all.

The foolish man, however, squanders the Lord's blessings. Chapter 24, verses 3 and 4 say, "...by wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established. knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches." And that's a support of the same of the same idea that he puts forth in chapter 21 verse 20. Wealth is a blessing from God to the wise. The contrast with the fool follows in verse 7. Wisdom is too high for a fool in the gate he does not open his mouth. Wisdom builds up. Foolishness tears down. Chapter 30, verses 7 through 9. Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die. Remove from me, remove far from me, falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me and I will, lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is the Lord? Lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

The wise man here captures potentially the greatest danger that often accompanies blessing. We see it in America at present, the sin of presumptuous independence. And this is a problem not with riches themselves, but with our hearts. So he is explicit that there are problems with riches. The arrogant man, the arrogant rich man may ask, who is the Lord? That's kind of the fear here. And there are problems with poverty, stealing, and profaning God's name. This happens when we focus idolatry on the gifts themselves rather than on the giver. If your focus is on God as the giver of the blessing of wealth, then it is wrong-headed to steal.

Stealing to increase blessing from God is like sinning the grace may abound. And Paul addressed that in Romans 6. So God uses money, we see in these passages, to bless us. But there are two sides to that as well. There are the obviously there's the blessing on its face, but then there's the danger of independence and that comes with that sort of security. The thrust of the passage I've read here is that these blessings are intended to promote dependence and Thanksgiving. When we feast, we don't delight chiefly in the steak and the butter rolls. We enjoy them while we enjoy the one who gave them our enjoyment of them should remind us of who gave them and what we deserve.

So don't trust in your riches, but do enjoy them as a blessing from the Lord. God also uses money, second, to enable us to bless others. Money is a tool that we can employ in bringing good to other people. And this is all by God's design. Chapter 13, verse 22 says, A good man, I like this one, A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, But the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous. Perhaps the first group we should be seeking to bless would be those who are in our direct charge, our children and their children. It is the hallmark of a good man that he make an effort to do this, even if he remained poor his whole life.

His aim ought to provide for them. A strange sort of inverted application here is also in view, and that is that God will use the wealth of the wicked to bring blessing to the righteous. You see it there? sinners wealth is laid up for the righteous. We've already established that God uses wealth to bless people but sometimes in ways that we don't anticipate. Chapter 14 verses 20 and 21 say, the poor is disliked by every by even his neighbor. But the rich has many friends whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner but blessed is he who is generous to the poor. Everybody likes the rich guy right? But this is just as much about what the rich guy does with his money as anything else, and when he is generous to the poor, he is blessed.

The poor is disliked by his neighbor, but the rich man has many friends. 1431 says, whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him. The poor of the world tend to have fewer resources to defend themselves, making them easy targets of oppression by others. And God regards the oppression of the poor as an insult to Himself. When one person oppresses the poor, He does injury to the image of God in that person. When we oppress others, we insult God. That's a bad idea. Don't do that. The reverse is also true. The one who is generous to the needy renders honor to the man, and by extension he renders honor to God.

And money is a common tool in the blessing of others. chapter 19 verse 4, wealth brings many new friends but a poor man is deserted by his friend. You can also see verse 6, as with the great Jay Gatsby, everyone likes the rich guy, they've already said that, but this is a superficial relationship that does not endure hard times. With poverty too often comes the desertion of those so-called friends. It also happens to speak to the potency of covenantal relationships. A faithful married couple has a relationship that is founded on Christ. That couple is then well equipped to endure the trials of prosperity and the trials of poverty.

Both alike bring trials. Chapter 22 verse 9 says, Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor. And I really like this one. The man with a bountiful eye is the one who is looking for ways to bless other people. He is proactive in doing good for others. He is like David who sought out somebody from Saul's household whom he could bless for Jonathan's sake. While the devil may prowl around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, according to 1 Peter 5, verse 8, the man with a bountiful eye is doing the opposite. He is on the hunt for people to bless. And what does this say here?

The one with the bountiful eye will find people to bless? No, it says he's the one who will be blessed. He will be blessed for he shares his bread with the poor. Those folks who are proactively doing good for others are commonly on the receiving end of blessing. Chapter 22 verse 16 says, whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth or gives to the rich will only come to poverty. Well, whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth or gives to the rich will only come to poverty. Exploitation is bad. It's a bad idea, don't do it. The suggestion in this verse is that people who give to the rich usually do so for their own gain.

Jesus says that there is great value in blessing people who don't have the resources to return the favor. In Luke chapter 14 verses 12 to 14 he said, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you'll be repaid. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the blind, and you will all bless them? No, you will be blessed because they cannot repay you.

For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Chapter 25, verses 21-22 say, if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. If he's thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap burning clools on his head and the Lord will reward you. Wealth can be a coal shovel for your enemies. With wealth from the Lord, you have the resources to bless and administer to those who hate you.

Even if they never come and say, Thank you, or maybe they never come to faith in Christ Still the Lord rewards this sort of favor to other people He was rewards a sort of favor extended to other people. They may not reward you but the Lord will Chapter 28 verse 27 says whoever gives to the poor will not want But he who hides his eyes Will get many a curse as they say you can't outgive God But you can invite his chastisement when you refuse to do what you know is right and A man who turns his a blind eye to the needs of the poor Will invent invite this chastisement. He will get many a curse Says the proverb What do you think about that? I think it's kind of unnerving and I think we could all find ways to apply it Ways that we need to apply it So we see here that God uses money to bless us And he uses money to enable us to bless others.

Next we'll see that he also uses money to expose our hearts. God uses money to expose our hearts. Jim is often saying that you can tell a lot about a person's loves by looking at his checkbook, right? By looking at how he spends his money. Well it's because it does in fact expose our loves. Chapter 21 verse 17 says, whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man. He who loves wine and oil will not be rich. Well, yep, that's bad. So now, what's not bad is pleasure or oil or wine. Those are not bad. Just because it's good doesn't mean we get to love it idolatrously. Pleasure is good. Wine and oil are good. The love of them is bad.

It is lawful, however, to receive it as gift, loving the gifts out of our love of the giver. That's sort of the magic of thanksgiving for Christians and it is, that's the decoder ring, is knowing God. And others who practice thanksgiving are only going through the motions or performing an exercise. They're even in their silence still giving a hat tip to some giver though. It's not sinful for a wife to exclaim, I love it, when her husband gives her a necklace, because she loves him. If she loves the necklace more than she loves him, that's probably a problem, right? Neither is this sinful for us to love what God gives, because we love him.

But if we love oil and wine and other creature comforts for their own sake, we will not be rich, according to this proverb, because our hearts in the wrong place. Chapter 23 verses 4 and 5 say, Do not toil to acquire wealth. Be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle toward heaven. There is a tricky balance here. Do not toil to acquire wealth. Then why do you toil? Well, we'll see actually from Proverbs later on that in all toil there's good, there's benefit. And work is a good thing. But should money be the object? It seems like no.

We ought not to pursue wealth like the villains of so many Christmas stories. Scrooge had no family and no way to exhaust his wealth. neither does Henry F. Potter. The wicked gather and they hoard idolatrously and selfishly. The industrious and the diligent often find that wealth comes to them as they are faithful. Neither am I saying that an entrepreneurial spirit is bad. Entrepreneurs are used by God to build culture and bring good and opportunity to others.

faithful wealth building is as different from idolatrous greed as the marriage bed is different from the bed of a prostitute. And like the love of a harlot, the pleasures of money are short-lived. They ought not to be an end in themselves. The dangers of idolatrous wealth are clear in chapter 30 verses 7 to 9. There's a little finer print. Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die, remove far from me falsehood and lying, give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? Lest I be poor and steal and profane in the name of my God. Poverty and riches can be as spiritually toxic as falsehood and lying. Crazy, huh? They're right here in the same passage indicating that there's dangers of both of them. Prosperity too often leads to sinful and presumptuous independence. We've already talked about this. The man who has more than he needs often forgets the source of his blessing. So in a hundred different ways, money can expose our loves. It exposes our hearts.

It shows what is on the inside. The last heading before we try and drive home a few takeaways is that God uses money to reward faithfulness. God uses money to reward faithfulness. And though this may seem awfully closely tied to bless us heading number one, I think it is a little it's different than nothing that it deserves its own heading. It's also unavoidably clear in Proverbs that God rewards faithfulness and often with money. Why is it Christians are weird about this? So I feel that even now a strong temptation to qualify all my language because there's gonna be some church ladies who are gasping that I'm using these words. God uses money as a vehicle of blessing for faithfulness. I I'm not making this up. There's such a strong temptation to come back and qualify, but yeah, but I've been faithful and I'm poor. Well, that happens too.

Right. However, maybe there's an area where you can grow. There does seem to be though an emphatic message that the Lord wants for his people to get because I'm just laying the verses out here and it seems to be pointing to this pretty clearly. God blesses faithfulness and one common means, not the only means, but a common means is money. And what are you going to do with it? It sounds greedy to say it as though I'm peddling some sort of prosperity gospel, but it's true even if it's not completely universal. To the one who has much, much will be given. Jesus said as much in Matthew 13 to the one who has more will be given and he will have an abundance but from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away. Why is that? Why is that? Could be because the one who has has received it as a blessing from the Lord and has demonstrated faithfulness and excellent stewardship and can handle more. Maybe. The faithful can handle more responsibility. That is true. And that doesn't deserve qualification. The

faithful can handle more responsibility, like the stewards of the talents in Matthew 25. Looking at the following verses, we see that money is often a reward for faithfulness, and at the same time it is used to humble the wicked. Look at chapter 3, verse 9. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Where do the first fruits come from? The first fruits come from the Lord. Wealth is a blessing from Him in the first place. And as stewards, it is our duty and ought to be our delight to honor Him with our wealth. 1118, the wicked earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward. We can cry out with the psalmist, wondering why God allows the wicked to prosper.

We see wicked people getting rich all around us. Well, one thing we can know is that their Where wages will earn them no eternal reward, we can also know that those wages may soon be in the abecan counts of the righteous. Those deceptive wages go as easily as they come. Look at chapter 13 verse 11. Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. A portfolio grown slowly through patience, diligence, and faithfulness is better than finding the winning lottery ticket. We'll come back to this. In order to gain little by little, you have to keep showing up. You have to be faithful, diligent, and patient.

If that happens, the one who's worked hard is also well positioned to appreciate what he has earned and what God has blessed him with. You're able to appreciate your earnings and God rewards that sort of faithfulness. This one's really good too. Chapter 14, verses 23 to 24. In all toil, there is profit. Work is good. But mere talk lends only to poverty. The crown of the wise is their wealth, but the folly of fools brings folly, which has inspired redundancy.

Even if you never get rich, the sort of behavior that makes the faithful rich will always be profitable. Even if you never get rich, the sort of behavior that makes faithful people rich will always be profitable. Again, we see that the wise man often is also wealthy, though it is not a guarantee. In the house of the righteous, chapter 15, verse 6, in the house of the righteous, there is much treasure, but trouble befalls the income of the wicked. The wealth of the righteous is more secure than the wealth of the wicked. It's less likely to disappear. that is more stable like the owner.

Chapter 20, verse 21, an inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end. This is like 1311. Are you seeing a pattern here? Wealth gained hastily or gained wickedly is not secure. Nothing is ultimately secure, I get that. But the wealth that is gained little by little as a reward from God of faithfulness is given to a certain kind of person with the right kind of character, and that is less likely to flee away, to fly away from his grasp because he's able to handle it more, like the faithful steward. That is why there's so much to be said by just putting in the time and growing a portfolio little by little, saving, saving, saving, rather than squandering your dollars, gambling, or trying to earn a quick buck.

The sort of work that we do when working faithfully and diligently year after year after year shapes us and we become the right sorts of people, the right sorts of stewards by God's design. Look at chapter 21, verses five and six. "'The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, "'but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. "'The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death.

I'm running out of ways to qualify this or explain it. It is so insanely clear. Chapter 23, verses four and five. Do not toil to acquire wealth, be discerning enough to desist. Yes, we use this one already, and it was inspired then too. When your eyes light on it, it is gone. For suddenly it sprouts wings flying like an eagle toward heaven. It's fun to look at these different passages through different prescriptions. And this time under the heading of a rewarding faithfulness, if we are faithful, if we are faithful, God will take care of us. And when it comes to money, we will have enough. And what if you don't?

That is where the body is to take care of itself in love. We need and pursue money as an end in itself. Yes, you need money to buy bread to feed your children. But if you're working diligently in the normal pattern of things, it will come. It will come in the normal order of things God will provide. Chapter 28, verse 19. Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread. But he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty. That cash, that one's really good too. Plenty of bread versus plenty of poverty. Working your land is hard. And following worthless pursuits, that is in the idea, maybe, of making a quick buck.

But that would definitely apply here. So these verses taken together show us that wealth acquired through patient, diligent, faithfulness is more to be desired than a quick buck or money gained in wickedness. Because as I mentioned before, like the man, so is his wealth. The man who gains wealth quickly is an unstable man. The man who gains it slowly, little by little, through diligence and faithfulness, is also himself more stable. Whoever trusts in his riches will fail, will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. You should pursue wealth in the same way that an excellent student pursues good grades.

The grades are not themselves the point. They are intended to be a metric of faithfulness and success. Likewise, we should be diligent, humble, generous, and faithful and pursue the wealth that evidences that faithfulness. As I bring this in for a landing. It's important to remember that these are proverbs, words of wisdom. They offer direction on how to honor the Lord. They do not promise an easy life. But if the overwhelming thrust of proverbs is that faithfulness leads to blessing, and oftentimes that blessing is material, we should pursue faithfulness. We take the whole of scripture together and realize that wealth and poverty alike are from the Lord.

God would have us act as stewards of what we have for sake of those around us. If the Lord has blessed you with money, act like you are a steward of it and how you manage it. If He has blessed you with poverty, by all means, try to get out of it. But remember that He may just be freeing you of the trappings and the distractions that money brings. We know that money is a gift from the Lord, and it is our responsibility as His children and as His stewards to manage that, to use it to bring good to others. How can you do that if you are a slave to money? How can you bring good to others if you are living paycheck to paycheck?

Unless you live within your means, you have no wiggle room within your budget to bless others, whether planned or spontaneous. Let me just offer a few ways to put these things into practice. These are just ideas. This is not inspired and it's also not exhaustive. Hopefully there's a lot more. But reckon yourself a steward. I really like the word reckon because it is no-reck-and-yield. It is when we behave as though it is true, even when we don't feel like it. You are a steward. God has given you what you have and your job is to manage it. The old hymn says, all that borrows life from thee is ever and thy care. I like that.

We borrow life. Life is borrowed. When we reckon this to be true, we walk out our days as though it is actually the case. We put this reality into action. We are stewards. The dollars that we have are the Lord's and it is our job to manage them and to do so with wisdom and with faithfulness. This is the sort of thing where if you would just stop and think about this before making your purchases, it could be revolutionary. It could profoundly change our living and our financial situation if we just are mindful of this reality. Another, write a budget. If you have a budget, revisit it. Look at it. To be able to account for all of your dollars before they're spent is a very good exercise.

There's great value, and obviously, just like a diet in moderation, counting your calories is telling, and it doesn't fix everything. If you don't have a healthy relationship with food, you can still count your calories and kill yourself. And if you write a budget and it is consistently, you're consistently budgeting for a deficit every month, you're kind of missing the point. You still need to have a healthy relationship with food, have a healthy relationship with money. But writing a budget is a good exercise. There's great value, whatever it is that you're doing, in doing it on purpose with intentionality, whether it is work or it's parenting or it's eating or it's spending money, whatever it is.

Too many of us just let life happen to us. We are reactive where we should be proactive, and if you wish to grow in this area, like writing a budget is a good, practical step in that direction. Related to that, budget to give first to the Lord. This is not about patting the coffers of TEC. It's between you and the Lord how much you give, but we do know that the Lord wants it to be both cheerful and sacrificial. And each time you give, sacrificially and generously, you are taking a step of faith. You are trusting the Lord to provide for you, and He loves to honor that sort of trust. Another is budget to bless others.

This is not a tithe. This is beyond that. Maybe have an envelope or a line item in your budget where you put $50 or $100 every month for the purpose of blessing somebody else every month. If it sits idle for a few months, it may be because somebody you know actually needs three or four months' worth of your blessing. Let it grow. Take someone out to dinner, slip a Fred Meyer gift card into somebody's pocket whom you are struggling to appreciate, or who you know could use it. Buy 25 Christmas meals at the Everett Gospel Mission. Give to the Deacons Fund. Give to the Project 92 Persecution Relief Fund. These are among the ways that Christians care for one another and bring good to the world.

If we believe what we read earlier, you do that and you may end up blessing somebody else but the real blessing is going to come down right on your head. Plan to do good. This is related to the last one. But it's more broad than just money. Doing good is something that should happen spontaneously, of course, for the Christian. But it is also something that we should plan to do. If we believe that God uses money to reward faithfulness, then we should pursue faithfulness. And don't be surprised if wealth comes with it. It's not a guarantee that it will. But don't skip the faithfulness part on your path to wealth. To do so is actually to invite, well, chastisement.

You be classified then as a wicked man. So there's a lot to be said, obviously, and the Proverbs do say a lot about this, and tonight, I've just tried to look right at the verses and see what they say together. But overwhelmingly, faithfulness ought to be our aim, and then not be surprised when the blessing that comes involves money.

So, and if you have questions about any of this or you wanna know what this looks like in the SAR household, like we can tell you, I'd be happy to talk about that. Sonya would as well, and she's not here tonight, but we'd be happy to try to show you what that looks like on the ground for at least one family. So, let's pray together. Father, we are grateful for your faithfulness to us and any sort of faithfulness that we can, I guess, be marked by is a self and evidence of your gracious work in us. And we do thank you for entrusting to us all sorts of things of which we are stewards. And we want to be wise and purposeful and plan to do good to others.

Father, we want to pursue blessing, but we know that doing so necessarily means sacrifice, and we also need to be faithful along the way. So help us to have the right loves, help us to have the right aims, and to be diligent, and to have a blast while doing it. May the world see our blessing monetary and otherwise and because it scratches head in disbelief. And we do think of faithful saints the world over who have the cards stacked against them and whose faithfulness is actually bringing about their poverty as they are persecuted. Thank you for how you have prospered us and positioned us well to be a blessing to them and help us not to turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor but to be the one with the abundant eye looking to bless others.

May that be a hallmark of our church as it ministers one to another. We pray that you be honored in all of it. We ask this in your son's name. Amen.

I can tell you everything that's wrong with Christmas. There is an explanation for tiny-terrorist present-demanding children, there is an explanation for holiday season loneliness, there is an explanation for passive aggressive, or even just directly critical extended family members, there is an explanation for why Scrooges exist as well as for the same sentimental seasonal stories on the Hallmark channel, there is an explanation for the over-decorators and the over-drinkers, there is an explanation for the abortions and the suicides and the divorces that will happen in December, there is an explanation for the hypocrisies in the mouths of so many politicians and parents (and even some preachers) who see the baby Jesus represented in the manger and yet who refuse to kneel before the risen Jesus in all His authority on the throne beside His Father.

The December advent season and Christmas itself are front line battle spots in the spiritual war. This is at least a 6,000 year conflict, a clash ordained by God. Though it took a critical turn about two millennia ago, we are still right in fight. Our worship, our communion table, our dining tables, our wrapped presents under the tree, our Cantus and carols, the fatigue in our bones and the circles of baked sugar on our paper plates, are all a part of it.

Christmas got off on the wrong foot from the start. Stated differently, the fact that we got off on the wrong foot is the reason why Christmas was born.

No matter how much you feel like you enjoy the feeling of things on Christmas morning--the family gathering in cozy pajamas and the smell of cinnamon rolls baking and the colorful lights inside with maybe a new blanket of snow outside--the Garden of Eden was better.

That said, even in paradise a liar showed up, the original Grendel, the unredeemable Grinch, the great dragon/ancient serpent (so called in Revelation 12:9). He came bearing gifts of doubt and discontent. He persuaded the woman that her Maker was threatening her to keep something from her, that the Lord hadn't given His best, that she could stand on her own two feet without God making the rules (Genesis 3:5). So Eve ate the fruit, she gave it to Adam and he ate, the first human sin, the original sin. That sin brought guilt and shame (verse 7) and fear, so they hid from God (verse 8). That sin brought defensiveness and blame-shifting, "it was the woman's fault" (verse 12) and really "it was the serpent's fault" (verse 13). That sin divided the one-couple back into two sinners. That sin separated the sinners from the Holy One.

We learn all this in Genesis 3 as the LORD God asked questions (Genesis 3:8-13). Then the LORD God spoke to the serpent, the woman, and then the man (3:14-20).

The LORD told the man, "cursed is the ground because of you, in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life" (verse 17). Among many other examples, you will not get your tree posted straight with ease and a third of the lights in the strand will be burnt out having just sat in a box for the last eleven months, and work will take more hours during the holidays. "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread" (verse 19), or you will at least find it painful how much inflation hit the supermarket. Sure, Biden did that, because Adam did that.

The LORD told the woman, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing" (verse 16). How broad is this? Just the contractions? Or how about the sleepless pregnancy nights, the hemorrhaging and mastitis, the diaper blow outs in their new advent jammies? And then the LORD said, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you," and even though you can see how much he could help after dinner, he just sits there watching TV acting like the jerk patriarchy.

There's no salvation tying a bow on these judgments to the man or woman. The curse is inescapable to death, until "to dust you shall return" (verse 19). The hope comes in the LORD's judgment of the serpent, which actually comes first in the story, and shines light over the judgments on the woman and the man.

The LORD God said to the serpent that he would be despised among the beasts and "eat dust," and then,

"I will put enmity between you and the woman,

The curse on creation (in which it groans awaiting redemption, Romans 8:20-21), is only the theater for the conflict between two sets of children. As we learn, the two "offsprings" or more directly, "seeds," are more than physical, they form different spiritual families. The woman may have pain in childbearing, but a child born will win the battle against the enemy. The serpent has offspring, and God establishes an "enmity,” an active and ongoing conflict between the offsprings, and then the serpent's head will be crushed.

Genesis 3 is what is wrong with Christmas. Genesis 3:15 explains, at the highest level, everything that makes advent, the last 24 days or even the 51 6/7th weeks of preparation for Christmas, a battle. The problem is sin, yes, and the problem is a declared war.

But in the midst of that is a promise. The promise was vague enough that Eve thought her firstborn, Cain, was the answer. "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD" (Genesis 4:1). When Cain killed Abel and she bore Seth, she seems to have thought Seth was the answer, "God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him" (Genesis 4:25). Cain was ruled by the serpent's traits of selfishness and spite so much so that he killed his brother.

The next chapter, Genesis 5, is a genealogy, and in the generations from Adam to Noah there was no dragon fighter. The offspring of the serpent were so evil that Genesis 6-9 is the record of God's global flood to wipe out all but Noah's eight. Chapter 10 is another genealogy, more generations into nations spread over earth after the flood, and still no dragon defeater. This isn't to say that there were no spiritual offspring of the woman who worshipped the LORD, it is to say that none of those men fulfilled Genesis 3:15.

In addition to the anticipation for the coming—the advent—of the woman's offspring, and in addition to the length of time waiting for that coming, through generations of men who marked their lifespans in centuries, what has struck me in the Christmas meditation mindset this time around is what they were waiting for.

Man had blown it. He had one job. He had been given only good and obviously good gifts. He had unmediated walks with God and heard the words of God and yet he failed. The serpent was too crafty, the man listened to the woman who listened to the lies.

So what would God do? How would He accomplish redemption, and triumph over the serpent? At this point at the author's desk, what sort of creature could come and defeat and deliver? What mythical, even angelic expectation might God have provoked in their imaginative hope?

If you have ears to hear, the good news is that God sent a Man.

It's why Eve looked to Cain, then Seth; where is the man? It's why the genealogies of men. It's why the dragon chased Israel for centuries to devour a male child according to Revelation 12:4-6. Herod was doing the work of his father when he ordered all the baby boys killed.

Adam—whose name is the Hebrew word for “man”—sinned and all died in him (Romans 5:12, 15), the last and better Adam-Man makes men alive (1 Corinthians 15:22). God sent a Man, to share in flesh and blood, to defeat the devil and make propitiation for our sins (Hebrews 2:14, 17).

Yes, Jesus was and is Emmanuel, God with us. But Christmas is not the celebration that God exists, or even that there exists in the Godhead three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. Christmas celebrates that God was “born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7), the Logos made flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14). Jesus, as the genealogies in both Matthew 1 and Luke 3 make clear, became a Man. God sent a man.

The only reason we accept the fact that a Man came into the world as a baby and saved the world is because we’re Christians who’ve had a lot of Christmases.

One implication of the story is that there is nothing wrong with being a man, nothing wrong with having flesh. There is nothing wrong with the calling of Christmas, says Christmas, says the Incarnation, says the eternal Logos born of a woman. The problem is sin and the serpent, not man on earth.

“He comes to make His blessings flow / Far as the curse is found” through a Man (“Joy to the World,” Isaac Watts). “Adam's likeness, Lord, efface, / Stamp Thine image in its place: / Second Adam from above, / Reinstate us in Thy love” (“Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” Charles Wesley).

Holidays are rough and lonely too because of sin and the serpent. Why would he like the faithful feasting? There is no neutrality, and God is glad to keep sending men, not who replace the Son of Man, but who represent Him.

God sent a Man, Let men their songs employ.

God sent a Man. Jesus is “truly God and truly man…in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary…according to the Manhood” (Chalcedon Creed, AD 451). This is not a man-made myth, it is too unfashionable for humanity. The charge for you is also simple: eat and drink and find joy in your December toil in the name of this dragon-defeater, the Lord Jesus (Colossians 2:17).

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (Romans 16:20, ESV)

# Introduction

I can tell you everything that's wrong with Christmas. There is an explanation for tiny-terrorist present-demanding children, there is an explanation for holiday season loneliness, there is an explanation for passive aggressive, or even just directly critical extended family members, there is an explanation for why Scrooges exist as well as for the same sentimental seasonal stories on the Hallmark channel, there is an explanation for the over-decorators and the over-drinkers, there is an explanation for the abortions and the suicides and the divorces that will happen in December, there is an explanation for the hypocrisies in the mouths of so many politicians and parents (and even some preachers) who see the baby Jesus represented in the manger and yet who refuse to kneel before the risen Jesus in all His authority on the throne beside His Father.

The December advent season and Christmas itself are front line battle spots in the spiritual war. This is at least a 6,000 year conflict, a clash *ordained by God*. Though it took a critical turn about two millennia ago, we are still right in fight. Our worship, our communion table, our dining tables, our wrapped presents under the tree, our Cantus and carols, the fatigue in our bones and the circles of baked sugar on our paper plates, are all a part of it.

# What Went Wrong

Christmas got off on the wrong foot from the start. Stated differently, the fact that we got off on the wrong foot is the reason why Christmas was *born*.

No matter how much you feel like you enjoy the feeling of things on Christmas morning--the family gathering in cozy pajamas and the smell of cinnamon rolls baking and the colorful lights inside with maybe a new blanket of snow outside--the Garden of Eden was better.

That said, even in paradise a liar showed up, the original Grendel, the unredeemable Grinch, the great dragon/ancient serpent (so called in Revelation 12:9). He came bearing gifts of doubt and discontent. He persuaded the woman that her Maker was threatening her to keep something from her, that the Lord hadn't given His best, that she could stand on her own two feet without God making the rules (Genesis 3:5). So Eve ate the fruit, she gave it to Adam and he ate, the first human *sin*, the original sin. That sin brought guilt and shame (verse 7) and fear, so they hid from God (verse 8). That sin brought defensiveness and blame-shifting, "it was the woman's fault" (verse 12) and really "it was the serpent's fault" (verse 13). That sin divided the one-couple back into two sinners. That sin separated the sinners from the Holy One.

We learn all this in Genesis 3 as the LORD God asked questions (Genesis 3:8-13). Then the LORD God spoke to the serpent, the woman, and then the man (3:14-20).

The LORD told the man, "cursed is the ground because of you, in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life" (verse 17). Among *many* other examples, you will not get your tree posted straight with ease and a third of the lights in the strand will be burnt out having just sat in a box for the last eleven months, and work will take more hours during the holidays. "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread" (verse 19), or you will at least find it painful how much inflation hit the supermarket. Sure, Biden did that, because Adam did that.

The LORD told the woman, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing" (verse 16). How broad is this? Just the contractions? Or how about the sleepless pregnancy nights, the hemorrhaging and mastitis, the diaper blow outs in their new advent jammies? And then the LORD said, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you," and even though you can see how much he could help after dinner, he just sits there watching TV acting like the jerk patriarchy.

# The Hope in the Story

There's *no salvation* tying a bow on these judgments to the man or woman. The curse is inescapable to death, until "to dust you shall return" (verse 19). The hope comes in the LORD's judgment of the serpent, which actually comes first in the story, and shines light over the judgments on the woman and the man.

The LORD God said to the serpent that he would be despised among the beasts and "eat dust," and then,

> "I will put enmity between you and the woman,

> and between your offspring and her offspring;

> he shall bruise your head,

> and you shall bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:15)

The curse on creation (in which it groans awaiting redemption, Romans 8:20-21), is only the theater for the conflict between two sets of children. As we learn, the two "offsprings" or more directly, "seeds," are more than physical, they form different spiritual families. The woman may have pain in childbearing, but a child born will win the battle against the enemy. The serpent has offspring, and God establishes an "enmity,” an active and ongoing conflict between the offsprings, and then the serpent's head will be crushed.

Genesis 3 is what is wrong with Christmas. Genesis 3:15 explains, at the highest level, everything that makes advent, the last 24 days or even the 51 6/7th weeks of preparation for Christmas, a battle. The problem is *sin*, yes, and the problem is a declared *war*.

But in the midst of that is a promise. The promise was vague enough that Eve thought her firstborn, Cain, was the answer. "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD" (Genesis 4:1). When Cain killed Abel and she bore Seth, she seems to have thought Seth was the answer, "God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him" (Genesis 4:25). Cain was ruled by the serpent's traits of selfishness and spite so much so that he killed his brother.

The next chapter, Genesis 5, is a genealogy, and in the generations from Adam to Noah *there was no dragon fighter*. The offspring of the serpent were so evil that Genesis 6-9 is the record of God's global flood to wipe out all but Noah's eight. Chapter 10 is another genealogy, more generations into nations spread over earth after the flood, and still *no dragon defeater*. This isn't to say that there were no spiritual offspring of the woman who worshipped the LORD, it is to say that none of those men fulfilled Genesis 3:15.

In addition to the anticipation for the coming—the *advent*—of the woman's offspring, and in addition to the length of time waiting for that coming, through generations of men who marked their lifespans in centuries, what has struck me in the Christmas meditation mindset this time around is *what they were waiting for*.

Man had blown it. He had one job. He had been given only good and obviously good gifts. He had unmediated walks with God and heard the words of God and yet he failed. The serpent was too crafty, the man listened to the woman who listened to the lies.

So what would God do? How would He accomplish redemption, and triumph over the serpent? At this point at the author's desk, what sort of creature could come and defeat and deliver? What mythical, even angelic expectation might God have provoked in their imaginative hope?

If you have ears to hear, the good news is that **God sent a Man**.

It's why Eve looked to Cain, then Seth; where is the man? It's why the genealogies of men. It's why the dragon chased Israel for centuries to devour a male child according to Revelation 12:4-6. Herod was doing the work of his father when he ordered all the baby boys killed.

Adam—whose name is the Hebrew word for “man”—sinned and all died in him (Romans 5:12, 15), the last and better Adam-Man makes men alive (1 Corinthians 15:22). God sent a Man, to share in flesh and blood, to defeat the devil and make propitiation for our sins (Hebrews 2:14, 17).

Yes, Jesus was and is Emmanuel, *God* with us. But Christmas is not the celebration that God exists, or even that there exists in the Godhead three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. Christmas celebrates that God was “born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7), the Logos made flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14). Jesus, as the genealogies in both Matthew 1 and Luke 3 make clear, became a Man. God sent a man.

The only reason we accept the fact that a Man came into the world as a baby and saved the world is because we’re Christians who’ve had a lot of Christmases.

# Conclusion

One implication of the story is that there is nothing wrong with being a man, nothing wrong with having flesh. There is nothing wrong with the calling of Christmas, *says* Christmas, says the Incarnation, says the eternal Logos born of a woman. The problem is sin and the serpent, not man on earth.

“He comes to make His blessings flow / Far as the curse is found” through a Man (“Joy to the World,” Isaac Watts). “Adam's likeness, Lord, efface, / Stamp Thine image in its place: / Second Adam from above, / Reinstate us in Thy love” (“Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” Charles Wesley).

Holidays are rough and lonely too because of sin and the serpent. Why would he like the faithful feasting? There is no neutrality, and God is glad to keep sending men, not who replace the Son of Man, but who represent Him.

God sent a Man, Let *men* their songs employ.

----------

God sent a Man. Jesus is “truly God and truly man…in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary…according to the Manhood” (Chalcedon Creed, AD 451). This is not a man-made myth, it is too unfashionable for humanity. The charge for you is also simple: eat and drink and find joy in your December toil in the name of this dragon-defeater, *the Lord Jesus* (Colossians 2:17).

## Benediction:

> The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (Romans 16:20, ESV)

Romans 8:29-30 are sometimes called the Golden Chain of salvation. God Himself chose a people to love. He loves those rebels out of hostility into righteousness and peace; those who were in the chaos of sin He calls into conformity to Christ. He brings the broken into glory, the dying to eternal life. Is there a more potent reality in time and space than God's love? Jesus is the Son of love, the Spirit sheds the love of God in our hearts.

The sending of the Son by the Father, and the sacrifice of the Son, and the help of the Spirit, along with all the promises through suffering, are love-driven. Sovereign authority and power and grace are focused through a laser-like love for the elect. We cannot be separated from this love, and in this love we cannot lose, even if we lose our physical possessions or status or breath.

Romans 8:32 still is the crux and crest of (what I’m calling) the Golden Wave of comfort. God does not make partial provision for His people. The gift of Christ to death includes all gifts for our salvation, including sanctification, including endurance and peace and hope through suffering. Bring on the accusers. God is for us, God has counted us righteous. Jesus is praying for us even now. So bring on the trouble and troublers and threats. We are loved (verses 35, 37, 39): the love of Christ, loved by Him, the love of God in Christ.

May these certainties fill the sails of your faith and propel your hope and courage forward, that you might know yourselves to be unconquerable sheep.

God is the greatest Champion, the one who fights for us. He is the greatest Benefactor, who does us good. He is the greatest Judge and Advocate. All of this is out of His love; He is the greatest Belover. (Of course, “beloved” is our word, not belover, but this is the point.)

The rhetorical questions keep flowing from verse 31 into verse 35, then Paul quotes a psalm, asserts our position, and finishes with an emphatic exultation.

There are two bursts of threats, one in verse 35, the second in verses 38-39. The first list seems very personal while the following is cosmological. To call these categorical means that they are not ambiguous, they are not open to more than one interpretation, but they are explicitly emphatic. Even more, they establish mental shelves where our thoughts about God’s love fit.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

A "who" made charges (verse 33), a "who" attempted to condemn (verse 34), now some whos try to separate. Sin separated us from God, and this is our greatest loss. Separation from God is hell, it's death. But our salvation from sin means that none can separate us from the Son's love (this is a subjective genitive, referring to Christ’s love for us, not an objective genitive, which would be our love for Christ. We know better than to depend on the resoluteness of our affections. Verse 37 leaves no doubt: “He who loved us.”)

The second question is personal, even though the persons are included by the damage they inflict.

Tribulation is “pressure” and distress is to be “narrowed” or squeezed, so both are more general words for pain than persecution which includes hostility and harassment, but this isn't caused by gravity, it's caused by haters. Sinful men don't want to see anyone happy, at peace, enjoying love. Famine or “hunger” and nakedness could be from weather, but more likely from tyrants and commies making bad policies, such as wicked rulers in the Psalms and modern day Democrats. Danger and sword are violence, even execution, whether one-off or movements of whole armies.

No one, intentionally or unintentionally, directly or from a distance, can mess with or cut us off from the affection of Christ.

It's a quote that takes a moment to put together, especially heading into the "more than conquerors" in the next verse.

As it is written, ”For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

It's from Psalm 44:22, written by the Sons of Korah. The people are suffering, but it doesn’t seem to be discipline for sin. They claim that they haven’t forgotten the LORD (verses 17, 20), that they hadn’t disobeyed (verse 18), and yet it seemed in that moment that God was hiding His face and had forgotten their affliction (verse 24).

The comparison is between sheep who can't be separated from their shepherd's love and sheep who are also lined up to be killed. They aren't just sheered, shorn of wool, but slaughtered as if for meat; this isn’t even for sacrifices but for selling. The shepherd loves them but here it looks like others destroy the sheep because of the shepherd, it’s happening for your sake.

There is a kind of inseparable love that not even slaughter can touch.

The straight answer:

[But] in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

In suffering and groaning, even to butchering like livestock, which is the extreme, in rather than instead of, and in them all, we win.

More than conquerors at least goes back to the Geneva Bible in 1560, picked up by the KJV, NIV, ESV. Other English translations for the phrase: NASB "we overwhelmingly conquer", HCSB "we are more than victorious", NET "we have complete victory", Tyndale "we overcome strongly."

It’s one word in Greek: ὑπερνικῶμεν (hupernikōmen) a compound verb: super-victory-ing, hyper-nike-ing, over-conquering.

Which means that we do need to consider the divine definition of hyper-winning.

Our young people need to know this. Our older saints need to know this. We need to know it for the culture "war," for the cultural mandate, for every millennial position, for making Jews jealous, for living and dying like those in the Hall of Faith “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:32-38), whether by faith they conquered kingdoms or were sawn in two. In the Apocalypse men conquer the accuser of the brethren by the blood of the Lamb as they “loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:11). In Deuteronomic blessings as far as the curse is found, in holiday bonuses enjoyed in hope that there are even better joys that await the faithful, and in joyful accepting of the plunder of property in anticipation of a better possession (Hebrews 10:34). We are more than winners, so we don't need a sad-sack attitude.

It's all through the one having loved us, a substantival participle; He can be characterized by the heart of His cross work. So we conquer through the cross, and even in dying there's a winning, a thousand sleepless nights or one shot to the head.

Paul can get for happy (there are four “for”s in the first six verses of chapter 8). Here is “for” leads into more exultation (triumphant jubilation) than explanation (relevant reasons).

For I am sure that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor things present or things to come, neither powers, or heights or depths, nor anything also in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He's convinced, and he shares it, that we also might have comfort and courage.

A second thought about this list not only distinguishes this set from verse 35 in scale but also in species. Verse 35 is personal, and not many of them can be spun positive. Not all, maybe not even most, are negative here.

The lexical groupings start with death and life. Death would be the end of persecution and killing, or old age, and often feared as a threat, but what of life separating us? Angels probably doesn’t refer to demons, which is typically a different Greek word, though good angels could be a temptation to some to worship (see Colossians 2:18). Rulers (or “principalities”) don't have to be the contrast, but spiritual beings, whether possible idols, or considered in all their mustered hostility, they still aren't more powerful than God. Present things, problems or distractions, future things, fears or failures, or even any good, now and then. Height and depth are more than spatial considerations, they were typical terms of astronomy, “the space above the horizon (which would be the domain of many transcendent forces” (BAGD). Neither any other thing of creation, whatever else, no other part anywhere, can separate us.

There is no question about His position toward us; He is for us. There is no question about His provision for us; He will give us all things necessary. There is no question about His protection of us; no accusations stick. There is no question about His eternal love for us.

Beloved, is your faith weak or strong? It may be often and in many ways assailed and weakened. But according to the authority of God’s Word, and in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, I exhort you to “keep yourselves in the love of God.”

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20–21)

Thank God for the victory He gives us through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57). In His love we are winning a most glorious victory, come hell or high sorrow.

Church, neither brain bleeds or cancer, neither too much or too little money, neither cranky neighbors or disobedient kids, neither hospital days or holidays, neither sickness or sleeplessness, can snatch you out of the Father’s or the Shepherd’s hand. So give an Amen of faith to the truth of His love, and follow where He leads.

[M]ay you have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

# Introduction

Romans 8:29-30 are sometimes called the Golden Chain of salvation. God Himself chose a people to love. He loves those rebels out of hostility into righteousness and peace; those who were in the chaos of sin He calls into conformity to Christ. He brings the broken into glory, the dying to eternal life. Is there a more potent reality in time and space than God's love? Jesus is the Son of love, the Spirit sheds the love of God in our hearts.

The sending of the Son by the Father, and the sacrifice of the Son, and the help of the Spirit, along with all the promises through suffering, are *love*-driven. Sovereign authority and power and grace are focused through a laser-like love for the elect. We cannot be separated from this love, and in this love we cannot lose, even if we lose our physical possessions or status or breath. 

Romans 8:32 still is the crux and crest of (what I’m calling) the Golden Wave of comfort. God does not make partial provision for His people. The gift of Christ to death includes all gifts for our salvation, including sanctification, including endurance and peace and hope through suffering. Bring on the accusers. God is *for us*, God has counted us righteous. Jesus is praying for us even now. So bring on the trouble and troublers and threats. We are loved (verses 35, 37, 39): the love of Christ, loved by Him, the love of God in Christ. 

May these certainties fill the sails of your faith and propel your hope and courage forward, that you might know yourselves to be unconquerable sheep. 

God is the greatest Champion, the one who fights for us. He is the greatest Benefactor, who does us good. He is the greatest Judge and Advocate. All of this is out of His love; He is *the greatest Belover*. (Of course, “beloved” is our word, not *belover*, but this is the point.)

The rhetorical questions keep flowing from verse 31 into verse 35, then Paul quotes a psalm, asserts our position, and finishes with an emphatic exultation. 

# Categorical Questions (verse 35)

There are two bursts of threats, one in verse 35, the second in verses 38-39. The first list seems very personal while the following is cosmological. To call these categorical means that they are not ambiguous, they are not open to more than one interpretation, but they are explicitly emphatic. Even more, they establish mental shelves where our thoughts about God’s love fit. 

**Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?**

A "who" made charges (verse 33), a "who" attempted to condemn (verse 34), now some whos try to separate. Sin separated us from God, and this is our greatest loss. Separation from God is hell, it's death. But our salvation from sin means that none can separate us from the Son's love (this is a subjective genitive, referring to Christ’s love for us, not an objective genitive, which would be our love for Christ. We know better than to depend on the resoluteness of our affections. Verse 37 leaves no doubt: “He who loved us.”)

The second question is personal, even though the persons are included by the damage they inflict.

**Tribulation** is “pressure” and **distress** is to be “narrowed” or squeezed, so both are more general words for pain than **persecution** which includes hostility and harassment, but this isn't caused by gravity, it's caused by haters. Sinful men don't want to see anyone happy, at peace, enjoying love. **Famine** or “hunger” and **nakedness** could be from weather, but more likely from tyrants and commies making bad policies, such as wicked rulers in the Psalms and modern day Democrats. **Danger** and **sword** are violence, even execution, whether one-off or movements of whole armies.

No one, intentionally or unintentionally, directly or from a distance, can mess with or cut us off from the affection of Christ. 

# Categorical Quotation (verse 36)

It's a quote that takes a moment to put together, especially heading into the "more than conquerors" in the next verse.

> As it is written, **”For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”**

It's from Psalm 44:22, written by the Sons of Korah. The people are suffering, but it doesn’t seem to be discipline for sin. They claim that they haven’t forgotten the LORD (verses 17, 20), that they hadn’t disobeyed (verse 18), and yet it seemed in that moment that God was hiding His face and had forgotten their affliction (verse 24). 

The comparison is between sheep who can't be separated from their shepherd's love and sheep who are also lined up to be killed. They aren't just sheered, shorn of wool, but **slaughtered** as if for meat; this isn’t even for sacrifices but for selling. The shepherd loves them but here it looks like others destroy the sheep because of the shepherd, it’s happening **for your sake**.

There is a kind of inseparable love that not even slaughter can touch.

# Categorical Conquering (verse 37)

The straight answer:

**[But] in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.**

In suffering and groaning, even to butchering like livestock, which is the extreme, **in** rather than instead of, and in them **all**, we win.

**More than conquerors** at least goes back to the Geneva Bible in 1560, picked up by the KJV, NIV, ESV. Other English translations for the phrase: NASB "we overwhelmingly conquer", HCSB "we are more than victorious", NET "we have complete victory", Tyndale "we overcome strongly."

It’s one word in Greek: ὑπερνικῶμεν (*hupernikōmen*) a compound verb: super-victory-ing, hyper-nike-ing, over-conquering. 

Which means that we do need to consider the divine definition of hyper-winning.

Our young people need to know this. Our older saints need to know this. We need to know it for the culture "war," for the cultural mandate, for every millennial position, for making Jews jealous, for living *and dying* like those in the Hall of Faith “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:32-38), whether by faith they conquered kingdoms or were sawn in two. In the Apocalypse men *conquer* the accuser of the brethren by the blood of the Lamb as they “loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:11). In Deuteronomic blessings as far as the curse is found, in holiday bonuses enjoyed in hope that there are even better joys that await the faithful, and in joyful accepting of the plunder of property in anticipation of a better possession (Hebrews 10:34). We are more than winners, so we don't need a sad-sack attitude.

It's all **through the one having loved us**, a substantival participle; He can be characterized by the heart of His cross work. So we conquer through the cross, and even in dying there's a winning, a thousand sleepless nights or one shot to the head.

# Categorical Exultation (verses 38-39)

Paul can get **for** happy (there are four “for”s in the first six verses of chapter 8). Here is “for” leads into more exultation (triumphant jubilation) than explanation (relevant reasons). 

**For I am sure that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, nor things present or things to come, neither powers, or heights or depths, nor anything also in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.**

He's convinced, and he shares it, that we also might have comfort and courage. 

A second thought about this list not only distinguishes this set from verse 35 in scale but also in species. Verse 35 is personal, and not many of them can be spun positive. Not all, maybe not even most, are negative here.

The lexical groupings start with **death** and **life**. Death would be the end of persecution and killing, or old age, and often feared as a threat, but what of **life** separating us? **Angels** probably doesn’t refer to demons, which is typically a different Greek word, though good angels could be a temptation to some to worship (see Colossians 2:18). **Rulers** (or “principalities”) don't have to be the contrast, but spiritual beings, whether possible idols, or considered in all their mustered hostility, they still aren't more powerful than God. **Present things**, problems or distractions, **future things**, fears or failures, or even any *good*, now and then. **Height** and **depth** are more than spatial considerations, they were typical terms of astronomy, “the space above the horizon (which would be the domain of many transcendent forces” (BAGD). Neither any other thing of creation, whatever else, no other part anywhere, can separate us. 

# Conclusion

There is no question about His position toward us; He is *for us*. There is no question about His provision for us; He will give us all things necessary. There is no question about His protection of us; no accusations stick. There is no question about His eternal love for us. 

Beloved, is your faith weak or strong? It may be often and in many ways assailed and weakened. But according to the authority of God’s Word, and in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, I exhort you to “keep yourselves in the love of God.” 

> But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20–21)

Thank God for the victory He gives us through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57). In His love we are winning a most glorious victory, come hell or high sorrow.  

----------

## Charge

Church, neither brain bleeds or cancer, neither too much or too little money, neither cranky neighbors or disobedient kids, neither hospital days or holidays, neither sickness or sleeplessness, can snatch you out of the Father’s or the Shepherd’s hand. So give an Amen of faith to the truth of His love, and follow where He leads. 

## Benediction:

> [M]ay you have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

> Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:18–21, ESV)

As you read God's Word in the quiet of the morning you may not always hear the author’s intended tone of the passage in your mind, and fine. I imagine that the first person who read Paul's letter to the Romans for the first time didn’t realize in real-time how dramatic the rhetoric and argument and theology really are here at the halfway point; did he say, “Wait, let me read that again”? We who have familiarity with it, who have heard it a hundred or even a thousand times, aren't desensitized by the gold. We come here for the certain comfort and courage like a wall of wave driving us to shore; this is like a great golden wave.

If previous parts in the letter convicted men of sin, clarified doctrine, called men to believe in Christ for salvation, this final part of chapter 8 is certainly for stimulating the faith and hope of believers. There is a crescendo, not necessarily to the entire epistle, but to a long section on the gospel. Paul narrows the subject at the start of chapter 9, and drills down on it for a least three chapters. The gospel has an order to it (Romans 1:16), and while chapter 9 begins a discussion on the Jew first and also Gentile (and Jew again), chapter 8 trumpets the security and eternality of the evangel for all who would ever believe.

A bell-ringing of rhetorical questions make the realities of God's work for us in and through Christ assumptions worth dying for, or at least worth groaning through. The first section, verses 31-34, bang on some heavy theological implications, that nothing can succeed in changing God’s position for us. The second section, verses 35-39, which we’ll consider next Lord’s Day, pronounce the impotence of all enemies to the love of Christ for us; nothing can separate us from God’s love. The Word feeds our hope with realities even if the visibilities work against us.

(Don’t like the title, “Champion”? No worries, choose a better one. Our word derives from the Latin campus - a military camp, where there are campions - fighters. So, one “who has defeated or surpassed all rivals; who fights or argues a cause on behalf of someone else.” That is the image portrayed through these questions.)

Two questions swell up from the previous paragraph.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

The second question answers the first question. We do know what to say. What we shall say is that God is for us.

What provokes the question is these things, plural, so an umbrella over multiple things. While there's no obvious reason to limit the "things" to only the previous paragraph, a lot of those things in verses 28-30 wrap up truths from the letter.

It is for the we and the us and the us. In the immediate context God's Spirit prays for us when all we can do is groan. Our day to day, in real time lack of words when we're suffering can't ruin our hope. We're also brought in to see a portion of the divine perspective, with His purpose to choose a people to make like His Son.

The last sentence in verse 30 summarizes from first to last: God 1) predestined, 2) called, 3) justified, 4) glorified. If these four were the "these things" that would be a powerful set. It's the same group in all four. No one starts with justification (all the justified have been predestined), and no one ends with called (the called will no doubt be glorified). If your glorification is certain, as the past tense presents it, then your election is certain (see the label “elect” in verse 33). God predestines, God calls, God justifies, God glorifies.

This is why we can believe that God is for us. The way Paul asks not only asserts the truth, he argues from the truth. The question who can be against us? isn't about the possibility of troublers but about the impossibility of their success.

The LORD is on my side; I will not fear.

Verse 33 raises the possibilities of accusers, but their words are like dandelion seeds. Verse 35 refers to persecutors and killers, but when they do their worst they can’t disrupt God’s love for His own. All creation against Creator looses. Any dependent, who is dependent on the Sovereign for his own existence, can't defeat the Sovereign. No non-God beats God, nor those God makes Himself for.

There is no question about His position toward us.

More than predestination, regeneration, justification, and glorification—so more than choosing us, raising us from spiritual death, declaring our sins forgiven, and restoring the full image of shared glory—the way we know God is for us, and actually the price for all the salvation, is the cross work of the Son.

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?

The question doesn't make us doubt, it draws us near to the warmth of the promise.

Paul uses language that reminds us of the Lord’s word to Abraham in Genesis 22: “because you have done this and have not withheld (same Greek word in the LXX as in Romans 8:32) your son, your only son, I will surely bless you” (verse 16). Of course Abraham was ready to obey, God went through with it, all the way (John 3:16; Isaiah 53:10). The Father did not spare, “He did not withhold or lighten one whit of the full toll of judgment executed upon his own well-beloved and only-begotten Son” (Murray).

If I could have only one benediction, if I could give one truth to the groaning Christian, even more than Romans 8:28, verse 32 is what verse 28 is proved and purchased by. This is John 3:16 not just seen on a sign behind home plate, but covering you like a blanket while you lay in a hospital bed. The material, so to speak, of eternal life, are all the things belonging to eternal life.

There are at least four arguments in this verse.

First is the argument for God’s logical giving, from the greater to the lesser. If God gives what is of greatest price for securing the greatest blessing of our eternal life, then of course He will give the rest of the smaller, so to speak, things.

Second is the argument God’s sacrificial giving. Before even considering the progression, consider the nature of the gift; His own Son. Here is God in sovereign generosity, magnanimity. He predestined us to be gift-receivers.

Third is the argument for God's effective giving. In verse 31 any who would be against us must deal with God's secure protection of us. In verse 32 any possible lack we face must remember God's certain provision for us. Do you lack wisdom? Do you lack strength? Do you lack freedom from sin? Do you lack peace? He has purchased all you need, it is an all-inclusive package. His gifts are effective for our growth toward and reaching the goal of conformity to Christ.

Fourth is the argument for God's particular giving. All things are yours, but all these things are not given to all people, it is only for us all. He gives His Son for all those He is for, and He is for all those He predestined and called. These are called "God's elect," these are the ones Christ Jesus intercedes for. The love and sacrifice and gifts are effective to the targeted group.

If we say that Christ died for each and every person who has ever existed, because God is for them and didn't spare His own Son for them, and therefore will obviously give them all things, then what about those already in Hell? What about those who persist in their rebellion and unbelief? He gave His Son to give them salvation but He didn’t give them faith to receive the salvation? No.

Our hope is in God's sovereign grace through the particular redemption of His sheep. His sheep can never be separated from the Shepherd.

The sending of the Son and His sacrifice were either effective and particular, or not effective. God's giving is for the propitiation of our sins and the perseverance of our faith. He gives all things that pertain to life and godliness so that the elect might be partakers of Christ’s image and enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord (see 2 Peter 1:3-4, 10-11).

There is no question about His provision for us.

Groaning happens because of loss, because of hurt, because of false guilt, and because of sinful men still in enmity against God who enjoy taking it out on the persons most representing God. Ironically, they like to judge (not realizing they are in the wrong seat.) It comes out in accusations (then even killing, see next verses).

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 indeed is interceding for us.

Charge, condemn, accuse, judge, slander, all the same. We're taken back to the righteousness of God being revealed, in God's declaring His people righteous. Accusers can't overcome the one who does the accounting; it is God who justifies.

The elect are here by God's choice (see also Colossians 3:12), and, there is more to come about God’s election in chapter 9. The death and resurrection of Jesus show the Father and Son's love, and proclaim that the Son bore the Father's wrath and that the Father received the substitution on behalf and raised His Son in vindication of that acceptance.

For us Christ died. For us Christ was raised. (For us) Christ is at the right hand of God. For us Christ intercedes.

Jesus said "It is finished," referring to taking our punishment, but not His priestly work of prayer. Even now He intercedes for the ones He atoned for (see also Hebrews 7:25, also Isaiah 53:12). The Spirit prays when we're groaning so much that we’re not sure what to pray, the Son prays for the ongoing application of His purchase, and that He is at the right hand indicates the position of authority.

Even when our own heart condemns us, God is greater (1 John 4:10). No higher court of appeal is to be found. Those who argue against our justification argue against the gospel, the cross, and against the honor and justice of the Judge.

There is no question about His protection of us.

B. B. Warfield, in his book The Plan of Salvation summarizes:

“The things we have to choose between are an atonement of high value, or an atonement of wide extension. The two cannot go together.”

Loraine Boettner wrote one of the foremost books on Calvinism titled The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (1932). His chapter on Limited Atonement is one that profoundly shaped my thinking on this issue. He gives a great concrete illustration of the difference between the two limitations:

“For the Calvinist it is like a narrow bridge which goes all the way across the stream; for the Arminian it is like a great wide bridge which goes only half-way across.”

We might say that there is mystery in the Father's election, but there is no mystery in the argument for our hope.

If God is for us, and He is for every believer, blessings all around and forever. If God is not for you, cry out for His salvation.

If God is for us, He can’t be turned against us. If God is for us, all His sovereign wisdom and power keeps us inseparable from His love, and though we suffer or even are slayed, we have hope and are unconquerable sheep.

Turkey and ham, mashed potatoes and stuffing, pumpkin and pecan, relatives’ compliments and criticisms, Monday morning at work and Thursday afternoon on the couch, salvation and suffering, faith and fatigue, presents and unfinished projects, the gospel and good works, the Spirit and the Son, all are yours and you are Christ's. Do not be as Job's wife: "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). Resist the devil and your thanksgiving will be free.

So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21–23, ESV)

# Introduction

As you read God's Word in the quiet of the morning you may not always hear the author’s intended tone of the passage in your mind, and fine. I imagine that the first person who read Paul's letter to the Romans for the first time didn’t realize in real-time how dramatic the rhetoric and argument and theology really are here at the halfway point; did he say, “Wait, let me read that again”? We who have familiarity with it, who have heard it a hundred or even a thousand times, aren't desensitized by the gold. We come here for the certain comfort and courage like a wall of wave driving us to shore; this is like a great golden wave.

If previous parts in the letter convicted men of sin, clarified doctrine, called men to believe in Christ for salvation, this final part of chapter 8 is certainly for stimulating the faith and hope of believers. There is a crescendo, not necessarily to the entire epistle, but to a long section on the gospel. Paul narrows the subject at the start of chapter 9, and drills down on it for a least three chapters. The gospel has an order to it (Romans 1:16), and while chapter 9 begins a discussion on the Jew first and also Gentile (and Jew again), chapter 8 trumpets the security and eternality of the evangel for all who would ever believe.

A bell-ringing of rhetorical questions make the realities of God's work for us in and through Christ assumptions worth dying for, or at least worth groaning through. The first section, verses 31-34, bang on some heavy theological implications, that nothing can succeed in changing God’s position for us. The second section, verses 35-39, which we’ll consider next Lord’s Day, pronounce the impotence of all enemies to the love of Christ for us; nothing can separate us from God’s love. The Word feeds our hope with realities even if the visibilities work against us.

# God as the Greatest Champion (verse 31)

(Don’t like the title, “Champion”? No worries, choose a better one. Our word derives from the Latin *campus* - a military camp, where there are *campions* - fighters. So, one “who has defeated or surpassed all rivals; who fights or argues a cause on behalf of someone else.” That is the image portrayed through these questions.)

Two questions swell up from the previous paragraph.

**What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?**

The second question answers the first question. We *do* know what to say. What we shall say is that *God is for us*.

What provokes the question is **these things**, plural, so an umbrella over multiple things. While there's no obvious reason to limit the "things" to only the previous paragraph, a lot of those things in verses 28-30 wrap up truths from the letter.

It is for the **we** and the **us** and the **us**. In the immediate context God's Spirit prays for us when all we can do is groan. Our day to day, in real time lack of words when we're suffering can't ruin our hope. We're also brought in to see a portion of the divine perspective, with His purpose to choose a people to make like His Son.

The last sentence in verse 30 summarizes from first to last: God 1) predestined, 2) called, 3) justified, 4) glorified. If these four were the "these things" that would be a powerful set. It's the same group in all four. No one starts with justification (all the justified have been predestined), and no one ends with called (the called will no doubt be glorified). If your glorification is certain, as the past tense presents it, then your election is certain (see the label “elect” in verse 33). *God* predestines, *God* calls, *God* justifies, *God* glorifies.

This is why we can believe that **God is for us**. The way Paul asks not only asserts the truth, he argues from the truth. The question **who can be against us?** isn't about the possibility of troublers but about the impossibility of their success.

> The LORD is on my side; I will not fear.

> What can man do to me?

> (Psalm 118:6 ESV)

Verse 33 raises the possibilities of accusers, but their words are like dandelion seeds. Verse 35 refers to persecutors and killers, but when they do their worst they can’t disrupt God’s love for His own. All creation against Creator looses. Any dependent, who is dependent on the Sovereign for his own existence, can't defeat the Sovereign. No non-God beats God, nor those God makes Himself *for*.

There is no question about His position toward us.

# God as the Greatest Benefactor (verse 32)

More than predestination, regeneration, justification, and glorification—so more than choosing us, raising us from spiritual death, declaring our sins forgiven, and restoring the full image of shared glory—the way we know God is for us, and actually the price for all the salvation, is the cross work of the Son.

**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?**

The question doesn't make us doubt, it draws us near to the warmth of the promise.

Paul uses language that reminds us of the Lord’s word to Abraham in Genesis 22: “because you have done this and have not withheld (same Greek word in the LXX as in Romans 8:32) your son, your only son, I will surely bless you” (verse 16). Of course Abraham was *ready* to obey, God went through with it, all the way (John 3:16; Isaiah 53:10). The Father **did not spare**, “He did not withhold or lighten one whit of the full toll of judgment executed upon his own well-beloved and only-begotten Son” (Murray).

If I could have only one benediction, if I could give one truth to the groaning Christian, even more than Romans 8:28, verse 32 is what verse 28 is proved and purchased by. This is John 3:16 not just seen on a sign behind home plate, but covering you like a blanket while you lay in a hospital bed. The material, so to speak, of eternal life, are all the things belonging to eternal life.

There are at least *four* arguments in this verse.

First is the argument for God’s *logical* giving, from the greater to the lesser. If God gives what is of greatest price for securing the greatest blessing of our eternal life, then of course He will give the rest of the smaller, so to speak, things.

Second is the argument God’s *sacrificial* giving. Before even considering the progression, consider the nature of the gift; **His own Son**. Here is God in sovereign generosity, magnanimity. He predestined us to be gift-receivers.

Third is the argument for God's *effective* giving. In verse 31 any who would be against us must deal with God's secure protection of us. In verse 32 any possible lack we face must remember God's certain provision for us. Do you lack wisdom? Do you lack strength? Do you lack freedom from sin? Do you lack peace? He has purchased *all* you need, it is an all-inclusive package. His gifts are effective for our growth toward and reaching the goal of conformity to Christ.

Fourth is the argument for God's *particular* giving. **All things** are yours, but all these things are not given to all people, it is only **for us all**. He gives His Son for all those He is for, and He is for all those He predestined and called. These are called "God's elect," these are the ones Christ Jesus intercedes for. The love and sacrifice and gifts are effective to the targeted group.

If we say that Christ died for each and every person who has ever existed, because God is for them and didn't spare His own Son for them, and therefore will obviously give them all things, then what about those already in Hell? What about those who persist in their rebellion and unbelief? He gave His Son to give them salvation but He didn’t give them faith to receive the salvation? No.

Our hope is in *God's sovereign grace through the particular redemption of His sheep*. His sheep can never be separated from the Shepherd.

The sending of the Son and His sacrifice were either effective and particular, or not effective. God's giving is for the propitiation of our sins and the perseverance of our faith. He gives **all things** that pertain to life and godliness so that the elect might be partakers of Christ’s image and enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord (see 2 Peter 1:3-4, 10-11).

There is no question about His provision for us.

# God as the Greatest Judge and Advocate (verses 33-34)

Groaning happens because of loss, because of hurt, because of false guilt, and because of sinful men still in enmity against God who enjoy taking it out on the persons most representing God. Ironically, they like to judge (not realizing they are in the wrong seat.) It comes out in accusations (then even killing, see next verses).

**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 indeed is interceding for us.**

**Charge**, **condemn**, accuse, judge, *slander*, all the same. We're taken back to the righteousness of God being revealed, in God's declaring His people righteous. Accusers can't overcome the one who does the accounting; **it is God who justifies**.

The **elect** are here by God's choice (see also Colossians 3:12), and, there is more to come about God’s election in chapter 9. The death and resurrection of Jesus show the Father and Son's love, and proclaim that the Son bore the Father's wrath and that the Father received the substitution on behalf and raised His Son in vindication of that acceptance.

For us Christ died. For us Christ was raised. (For us) Christ is at the right hand of God. For us Christ intercedes.

Jesus said "It is finished," referring to taking our punishment, but not His priestly work of prayer. Even now He intercedes for the ones He atoned for (see also Hebrews 7:25, also Isaiah 53:12). The Spirit prays when we're groaning so much that we’re not sure what to pray, the Son prays for the ongoing application of His purchase, and that He is **at the right hand** indicates the position of authority.

Even when our own heart condemns us, God is greater (1 John 4:10). No higher court of appeal is to be found. Those who argue against our justification argue against the gospel, the cross, and against the honor and justice of the Judge.

There is no question about His protection of us.

# Conclusion

B. B. Warfield, in his book [The Plan of Salvation](https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/warfield/warfield_plan.html) summarizes:

> “The things we have to choose between are an atonement of high value, or an atonement of wide extension. The two cannot go together.”

Loraine Boettner wrote one of the foremost books on Calvinism titled _The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination_ (1932). His chapter on Limited Atonement is one that profoundly shaped my thinking on this issue. He gives a great concrete illustration of the difference between the two limitations:

> “For the Calvinist it is like a narrow bridge which goes all the way across the stream; for the Arminian it is like a great wide bridge which goes only half-way across.”

We might say that there is mystery in the Father's election, but there is no mystery in the argument for our hope.

If God is for us, and He is for every believer, *blessings all around and forever*. If God is *not* for you, cry out for His salvation.

If God is for us, He can’t be turned against us. If God is for us, all His sovereign wisdom and power keeps us inseparable from His love, and though we suffer or even are slayed, we have hope and are unconquerable sheep.

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## Charge

Turkey and ham, mashed potatoes and stuffing, pumpkin and pecan, relatives’ compliments and criticisms, Monday morning at work and Thursday afternoon on the couch, salvation and suffering, faith and fatigue, presents and unfinished projects, the gospel and good works, the Spirit and the Son, all are yours and you are Christ's. Do not be as Job's wife: "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). Resist the devil and your thanksgiving will be free.

## Benediction:

> So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21–23, ESV)

There are so many things to say about these verses that one might be tempted to abandon hope of doing them justice; will you dare to breaststroke across the Pacific? But one must try! One might also be tempted to fear the possible reactions of those who want the engine of hope to work another way. But one must step on those toes with love.

Should we use theological labels as we work through the paragraphs? Don't these doctrinal nicknames often cause offense? What's more, don't they often become divisive, partisan, and like trampolines for preachers to jump up and down in front of their base, whoop them into frenzy about how ridiculous anyone who thinks something else might be? Yet, why be shy about what the inspired words say or how they've been summarized by other believers? And why not take advantage of certain categories for our own understanding of the world, for passing on the truth to our kids, as well as for giving context to our experiences, and to increase hope in our sufferings?

Romans 8:26-30 are follow up to the issue of suffering. We will be glorified with Christ "provided we suffer with him" (Romans 8:17). The glory is so glorious that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing" (Romans 8:18). That said, a Christian in long-suffering, deep suffering, dark suffering, may ask, "Really?" Even the creation groans in its current condition. We likewise "grown inwardly as we wait eagerly" (Romans 8:23). It really requires hope, which isn't hope unless it’s banking on something which isn't currently seen.

Two unseen, but knowable, dependable, bankable, realities fuel our hope. First, God's Spirit prays for us when we don't know what to pray. Second, God's sovereignty fulfills all His purposes whether we see it in real time or not.

Pastorally I think it's silly to not use some theological shorthand, and also, it doesn't bother me whatever you call it. But pastorally I am telling you that if you don't submit to the fullness of God's sovereignty then you can't have the comfort. These truths are not crutches, they are the bones of your hope. When I say you can't have the comfort, I don't mean that you don't deserve it, I mean that you logically lock yourself out of it. To be consistent with some emotions (the wannabe independent, self-willed sort) is to make other emotions (comfort and peace) impossible.

Pastorally I also think that these truths can be used inconsistently. Solomon said that the one who sings songs to a troubled heart is like one who takes a garment away on a cold day or who pours vinegar on soda, like a volcano (Proverbs 25:20). It is possible to ignore someone's suffering with theology and feel virtuous about it. But theology explains, it doesn't distance. And when we think about our approach to our own, or to a friend's suffering, we ought to be thinking about the glory God is working into them, not immediately about how wrong they are.

Also, it's valuable that Paul leaves "suffering" and "weakness" and "all things" as ambiguous and vague; they have more than one definition and not all the same extent. Is it as bad, hard, and painful for you as it was for Paul's original readers? Believers in previous generations, or in other parts of the world, or across the room? You don't have it as bad as somebody, and yet these truths are for everybody. It's okay if your trials aren't the worst, God is getting you warmed up.

The suffering of this present age requires endurance as those who are saved in hope wait for the consummation of their salvation. But we have a hard go of it, even with hope. We're weak. God helps those who can't help themselves. The nature of His help is in prayer, and the value of that help is that His prayers are always according to God’s will.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Weakness doesn't mean sinfulness, though sin has made problems in the post-fall world, in our bodies of flesh. We are not strong to bear up under the things we can see, things which cause groaning. We are limited in capacity or even debilitated, fragile. We also cannot see everything, which means we're not even certain, sometimes, what to ask God for.

The Spirit helps (coopitulatur in Calvin’s Latin translation). Paul doesn't say that the Spirit fixes prayerlessness. The Spirit isn't a surrogate, He is a different kind of advocate. The Spirit intercedes, but we are faced toward God, just not sure of the words. We do not know what to pray as we ought.

The too deep for words or “groaning which cannot be uttered” (KJV) are not a new kind of language. This isn't a private prayer language; it’s not a language at all. Even if we wanted it to be the gift of tongues, the gift of tongues wasn't for everyone, but weakness and the Spirit's help is. Creation groans, and we groan, an involuntary expression of stress; maybe the modern version is “AAAAAA!” We’re searching for words, we don’t even know what we don’t know to ask.

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The Heart-Searching One here is God, the Father, not the Son nor the Spirit. As the Son intercedes for His brothers (see Hebrews 7:25), so the Spirit intercedes for the saints. And His prayers always get through, meaning that they are never selfish (which is one reason we don’t receive what we ask for, James 4:3) or off by a click.

When your chest is tight and your mind is turning like an overfull cement truck and words escape you because it hurts, one reason not to give up hope is because the Spirit who lives in you is praying for you.

We don't always know what to pray. We do know, always and for all things, that God's purpose for us - glorification - will be completed. This is better than merely drinking another six-pack of beer and dreaming everything will turn out all right.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Is there any other verse in God's Word more quoted to others when they are having a hard time? Is there another one that is harder to believe in the moment?

The we in the we know is only for those who in a certain category, described in two ways. It belongs only to 1) those who love God and 2) those who are called by God.

We are commanded to love God, this is the great/greatest commandment, and it is personal. Those who don't bother giving their hearts to God shouldn't concern themselves with whether God has given His attention to them.

The called, as becomes definitive in the next two verses, are the ones elected and drawn to God by God. It isn't just those who have heard the gospel, it is those whom the Spirit has given new life. How do you know if you're called? You love God. How did you come to love God? You were called.

There are a couple ways to understand the grammar of the main piece but the point is that God works together all things unto good. The all things is accusative, the direct object, and plural, whereas the verb is singular. The things are what receive the action, not the doing of the action. God weaves and works.

As for what are the all things, isn't the point to say the suffering things, the we-aren’t-sure-how-to-pray-for-them things, the bad, evil, depraved, sinful, unjust, malevolent, demonic, dirty, bent, traumatic, horrible, hurtful, unholy things? God causing good things to work toward good is true, and obvious. We can see that, it takes hope in God for what we can’t see.

This promise is not a justification to sin, any more than being justified by faith is a justification to sin. Those who love God shouldn't love Him by driving the car off the cliff and saying, "Oh, He'll fix it."

It is not simplistic, but it is simple. Joe Biden being our current president is for good, for sure, and it apparently wasn’t to make our neighbors wake up to vote better in the midterms. Your cancer may be for your good-er weeping with another, not for your recovery story on earth. The acute things, that can be named, that have a shorter duration, are worked by God for good. The undiagnosed, apparently unending or at least of uncertain ending, that ruin your plans and upend your life. The nagging and annoying and inconvenient, the systemic and global and generational, God is God of working all things.

Which also means I do not have to have experienced your portion of the all things in order to have some perspective on your portion of the all things. "You don't know what I'm going through." That's true, but not completely right. And I do know that God cares, He has ordained, He is at work. I also know the end of what you're going through: good. This is the good good, the ultimate good.

Of course neither you or I are at the center of God's plans. But both you and I are being taken through God's plans for you and I.

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.

Whatever the exact nature of God's relationship to time is, the comfort in our sufferings does not come from the idea that God looked down through the corridors of time and saw that we would believe and then He responded by determining from that point that He would take care of us. Our hope is not in His response but in His purpose.

And foreknew only means pre-knowledge on the surface of the compound word. It’s not semantics to say that when God knows it’s more than accumulated data, it’s affection and familiarity. Foreknowledge is more than foresight. Predestined means He set the path toward the horizon for those He knows.

The subordinate goal is that we would be Christlike; conformed, συμμόρφους, made to match the mold. The goal up from that is that Christ would be glorified. The goal up from that, the end for which God created the world, is glory to God, Father, Son, and Spirit. That glory is the same one He is calling us into.

Beloved, God made the world and rules and knows how to get you to the good. That great good is in Christ, and this is for the preeminence of Christ.

And those he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

It’s not the complete ordo salutis, but it is covers the complete picture of our experience of salvation, calling to eternal glory. That Paul wrote glorified in the past tense presents the God’s purpose as so determined it might as well be done.

When we are weak, then we need God's sovereignty. We need monergism, Calvinism, the doctrines of grace.

When we talk about being blessed, about being jealousable, about living the sort of provocative lives that are a treasure of salvific riches for the world (Romans 11:11-12, 14), how we suffer, and watch God work non-linear, complex good and blessing in our pains, is part of it. Obviously blessed with success is one kind of glory, obviously blessed with and through suffering is another.

Those who love God have been foreloved by God (1 John 4:19), elected to salvation and elected to specific sufferings that we might learn obedience (Hebrews 5:8) and be made like the Son in His glory. In John Calvin’s words,

“by the same celestial decree, the afflictions, which conform us to Christ, have been appointed; and he did this for the purpose of connecting, as by a kind of necessary chain, our salvation with the bearing of the cross.”

When it hurts, what can you do? You can pray. When you don’t know what to pray, remember the Spirit intercedes for you, and prays according to the purpose of God for your glory.

The charge is: having girded up the loins of your mind, and being fully sober, set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13).

Hope in God! You will praise Him again, and forever.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.