“I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this New Years’ Eve comes from the Epistle lesson read a few moments ago from the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Church of God in Rome. Dear friends in Christ, what then shall we say about the year that is past? Surely there were joys—babies born and baptized, marriages performed, birthdays celebrated, a Nebraska volleyball national championship, a Royals World Series victory, and countless other causes of rejoicing for you and those you love. But there were also challenges—the growing darkness of ISIS, racial unrest and riots in our cities and our universities, numerous natural disasters, an economy that is still struggling, and the vitriol of a presidential campaign that is barely begun. In our congregation we have struggled with a shrinking school, we have had trouble paying or bills, we have watched another confirmation class leave the church behind. In your own lives you have seen loved ones lost, families torn apart by conflict and divorce, the struggle of addiction, the scourge of disease. Many of you have spent parts of this year in a hospital bed, or at a mortuary, you know what it is like to spend the night awake, wondering how you will make it through the latest crisis to enter your life. You know the truth of the words Paul quotes from Psalm 44: “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
What then shall we say about the year that is past? For the most part, we say, ‘good riddance!’ That is one reason why we celebrate the New Year with such fervor; we are optimistic that the year to come will be better than the year that is past, that the future will be an improvement on the present. But such optimism has no basis in fact; it is hope without content, a hope that has its foundation simply on the changing fortunes of politics and economics, the blind belief that our world will simply get better and better, an optimism contrary to the testimony of history. Such a hope will always disappoint, because it is founded on men. What Saint Paul has to offer us this New Years’ Eve is a different hope, a hope that will never disappoint, a hope and an optimism that is much more certain, much more sure, because it is founded not on sinful men, but upon the sinless, crucified, and risen Christ. What then shall we say about the year that is past? Paul has the answer, or rather, the question: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
God is for us. He was for us in the past, He is for us in the present, and He will be for us in the future. In fact, the reason we know that He is for us now and in the days to come is because He was for us in the past. “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?” God did not spare His Son, He spared us. You deserve death, you deserve suffering, you deserve hell itself, but God spared you and refused to spare Christ. As Isaac was spared and the ram died in his place, so you were spared and Christ died in your place. He is your substitute in life and in death, He, the sinless One, dies in the place of you, the sinful one, and you are justified, made righteous in God’s sight. If God is willing to do that, if He is willing to put His own Son to death in your place, how can anything or overcome you? He has given to you His Son, His most precious gift; how will He fail to give you all that you need (not necessarily what you want), now and in the future?
What then shall we say about the year that is past? For the most part, we say, ‘good riddance!’ That is one reason why we celebrate the New Year with such fervor; we are optimistic that the year to come will be better than the year that is past, that the future will be an improvement on the present. But such optimism has no basis in fact; it is hope without content, a hope that has its foundation simply on the changing fortunes of politics and economics, the blind belief that our world will simply get better and better, an optimism contrary to the testimony of history. Such a hope will always disappoint, because it is founded on men. What Saint Paul has to offer us this New Years’ Eve is a different hope, a hope that will never disappoint, a hope and an optimism that is much more certain, much more sure, because it is founded not on sinful men, but upon the sinless, crucified, and risen Christ. What then shall we say about the year that is past? Paul has the answer, or rather, the question: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
God is for us. He was for us in the past, He is for us in the present, and He will be for us in the future. In fact, the reason we know that He is for us now and in the days to come is because He was for us in the past. “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?” God did not spare His Son, He spared us. You deserve death, you deserve suffering, you deserve hell itself, but God spared you and refused to spare Christ. As Isaac was spared and the ram died in his place, so you were spared and Christ died in your place. He is your substitute in life and in death, He, the sinless One, dies in the place of you, the sinful one, and you are justified, made righteous in God’s sight. If God is willing to do that, if He is willing to put His own Son to death in your place, how can anything or overcome you? He has given to you His Son, His most precious gift; how will He fail to give you all that you need (not necessarily what you want), now and in the future?
No one and nothing can destroy you; no one and nothing can take away what has been given to you through Christ. “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.” You are not alone; you have an intercessor with the Father—Jesus Christ, His only Son, seated at His right hand. No one can bring a charge against you before the Father, no one can condemn you. The devil tries to make you despair; he holds your sins before your eyes, and he knows the penalty for them better than you do. He points to the sufferings that have entered your life as evidence that you are guilty and condemned. ‘If God really loves you,’ he asks, ‘why do you suffer so?’
The answer to his accusations, the only answer, is the cross and empty tomb; that is what Jesus is constantly holding up before His Father’s throne of grace, that is the basis of His intercession. When you sin, when you repent, Jesus is right there at the throne of God, holding up His death and resurrection before His Father, reminding Him that you are justified, declared righteous, fully reconciled with your Creator. No one can condemn you, no one can accuse you in God’s courtroom—not the devil, not anyone else. Every charge has already been answered by the death and resurrection of Jesus. You do not look to your sufferings to know what God thinks of you—you look to the cross, you look to the empty tomb, you look to Jesus, your substitute, your intercessor.
As long as He stands at the right hand of the Father, you have the promise, the sure and certain guarantee, that this world can do nothing to take away your salvation. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” Christians are experiencing every one of these sufferings somewhere in the world at this very moment; the world desperately desires to destroy the Church, and so it makes her suffer. “As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’” It seems that we are forsaken, abandoned by God; that He has left us to fend for ourselves. But nothing could be further from the truth. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
Christ will not allow sufferings to divide us from Him; we are more than conquerors in Him. When we are weak, then He is strong. When we seem to be overcome, at that moment we have triumphed. Why? Jesus died and rose again for you. It is through the cross and empty tomb that Christ has won the victory over all our enemies, and nothing, absolutely nothing, can snatch that victory away. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Christ holds the future and the past; there is nothing that happened in the past year that can take away your salvation in Christ, and there is nothing coming in the future that can separate you from Him. You can refuse to repent and believe, you can turn your back on this salvation, and many tragically do, but this world cannot take away what has been given to you in Christ. This fallen world can destroy your marriage, estrange your kids, strike you with disease, even put you death, but it cannot separate you from God’s love. You are justified, forgiven, declared righteous in God’s sight; you are the baptized, those cleansed and made holy by Christ’s blood. All things are yours in Christ; the future doesn’t belong to the world any more than the past does—all things belong to Christ, and so all things belong to you, even time itself, because you have a future certain in Jesus.
Christ will not allow sufferings to divide us from Him; we are more than conquerors in Him. When we are weak, then He is strong. When we seem to be overcome, at that moment we have triumphed. Why? Jesus died and rose again for you. It is through the cross and empty tomb that Christ has won the victory over all our enemies, and nothing, absolutely nothing, can snatch that victory away. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Christ holds the future and the past; there is nothing that happened in the past year that can take away your salvation in Christ, and there is nothing coming in the future that can separate you from Him. You can refuse to repent and believe, you can turn your back on this salvation, and many tragically do, but this world cannot take away what has been given to you in Christ. This fallen world can destroy your marriage, estrange your kids, strike you with disease, even put you death, but it cannot separate you from God’s love. You are justified, forgiven, declared righteous in God’s sight; you are the baptized, those cleansed and made holy by Christ’s blood. All things are yours in Christ; the future doesn’t belong to the world any more than the past does—all things belong to Christ, and so all things belong to you, even time itself, because you have a future certain in Jesus.
What then shall we say about the year that is to come? More of the same, it seems: ISIS, economic recovery or downfall, a divisive election, tornadoes, blizzards, and floods. In your own life, who knows who the Lord will call home, what affliction will attack your body, how this sinful world will assail you. Only one thing we do know, for it has always been true and always will be true: God is for us for the sake of His Son. And “if God is for us, who can be against us?” So you can rejoice with every celebration that awaits you in this new year, and you can have joy even in the midst of suffering; you can face the struggles that are coming into your life, your congregation, and your world with your eyes fixed on Jesus, knowing that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
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