Mar 11, 20184 min read

The Shadow of Parting - The Eternal Love of God [Sermon]

Annapolis, Maryland, USA

March 2018

Romans 8:31-39

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1.0 Types of Agreements (Covenants)

a. Covenant of Works – Mosaic

Human responsibility: Holiness.

b. Human Covenant – Marriage

Promise Made: On the wedding day.

Human responsibility: Sacrificial commitment.

c. Covenant of Grace – Messianic

Promise Made: Genesis 15

Human responsibility: Belief in Jesus

Genesis 15:9-18

9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.

13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.

14 “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

15 “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.

16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

17 It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.

18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land.

2.0 How can the Agreements fail?

a. Covenant of Works – Mosaic

Romans 3:10 “There is none righteous, not even one;

b. Human Covenant – Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:39 A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

c. Covenant of Grace – Messianic

Romans 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

i). Death of the parties

1 Timothy 6:14-16 our Lord Jesus Christ…who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light…

Luke 20:36 for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

ii). If Jesus sinned

1 John 3:5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin..

iii). If Jesus didn’t die.

John 19:31-33 Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

32 So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him;

33 but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

iv). If Jesus didn’t rise up.

Matthew 28:5-6 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.

6 He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.

v). Can God dissolve the covenant and separate the relationship?

Numbers 23:19 God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (NIV)

“We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench. “And will continue friends apart,” said Estella. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861

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