Romans 8:31-32 “If God is for us, who can be against us? 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?”

Have you ever heard of the “new atheists”? They aren’t content to let people believe what they want. They feel the need to proselytize, and to do so aggressively. Men like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris try to convince people that all religion is harmful, that there is no God, no spirits, no life beyond the grave. They write books, host seminars, organize debates to motivate their followers to make new converts.

We should take their movement seriously, because in many ways it is sync with the spirit of our age. But while they may succeed in picking off some Christians on the fringe, I don’t think they will ever become the dominant point of view.

The problem for most is not, “Is there a God?” The problem is: “Is God on our side?” If God is on our side, then why do we suffer so? Why is my health such a mess? Why do my relationships bring me so much grief? Why do I have to deal with issues for which other people seem to get a pass?

These are old, old questions. In Romans chapter 8 the Apostle Paul doesn’t attempt to tell us what God is thinking for every problem we might have with his decisions for our lives. But he does tell us all we need to know to be sure that God is on our side.

If God is on our side (and he is), then we are in a position of absolute safety. We are beyond harm. How can we be so sure? “He…did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.” It’s not that he sent Jesus to be our other-worldly advice columnist. One religious group claiming to follow Jesus never refers to him as “Savior.” On their website they consistently call him their “Way-shower.” In other words, for them Jesus is nothing more than a source for solid advice.

Paul says that God did not spare his own Son. He was fully aware of the sacrifice Jesus was going to have to make. He knew about the suffering, the torture, and the death. It was part of the plan. Do you know how hard that must be? This was his one and only Son, the Son he loves. This was the ultimate demonstration of his love for you and me. This was the gift that has no equal.

Truly, if God would do that, “…how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” After that gift, what could he possibly withhold if he knew it would help us? At various times, he has made the earth turn backwards, sent the angel of death to wipe out invading armies, given life back to those who have died, and worked many other miracles to save his people. After sacrificing his Son to save you, he is not going to let you slip through his fingers over some smaller need. If you truly needed a billion dollars for the good of your soul, what is that compared to the gift of his Son? And if the billion dollars doesn’t show up, we can safely assume it’s not what we truly need.

Do you want to be sure that God is on our side? Look at the gift he gave us. The gift of his Son convinces us it is so.

1 Corinthians 1:22-24 “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

 God wraps himself in human flesh and lives among the Jews for 33 years. He stills storms, heals the sick, raises the dead. But his own people don’t know him. They want a sign. Which sign? Pick a sign. I mean, really, was Jesus stingy with the miracles? But they can’t see him. They crucify him instead.

God paints his wisdom all across creation. He plants the wisdom of his laws in human hearts and consciences. He writes the wisdom of his grace down on thousands of pages of history, poetry, and prophecy spread across a millennium and a half. And when Paul brings God’s word to the Greeks, for all their intellect and research and deep thought, they don’t get it.

We still live in this world between those who demand magic and those who want nothing but cold logic, the materialist and the magician as C.S. Lewis once described them. One side or the other appeals to our own hearts and minds. One side or the other is campaigning for our own souls, creeping into our own thinking. Neither side wants, or respects, or appreciates the cross. It is foolishness to our world.

The idea that there is a God who became one of us–not just put on a human disguise, but permanently united his very being to these things he made called “humans;” who then took the blame for all of their sins, which they had committed against him; and then let them torture him to death on a cross to serve their sentence, to endure the punishment they had earned by all their sins–that is just the one thing that prevents some people from believing the Christian faith. They could go along with all the rules and morals, even the ones that seem to restrict their personal freedoms, if only Christianity didn’t ask them to believe this.

The translation above calls it a “stumbling block.” More literally, the Greek says it is the trigger in the trap, the little lever on which you put the cheese or peanut butter in your mousetrap. You know, a mousetrap is just a harmless little collection of wood and wires until that trigger is disturbed. But touch the trigger, and “Snap!” the mouse is dead. Christ crucified, God in the flesh on a cross, is the thing that gets so many people to say, “Okay, that’s it. I was with you up to here. That’s just too much to ask a reasonable person to believe. I’m sorry, but I’m done.” It’s the trigger that springs the spiritual trap, and the soul is dead.

But that’s the Christ we preach, Paul says, Christ crucified–not super role model Jesus, or motivational speaker Jesus, or really wise advice Jesus, but the one who dies for us on a cross. Why? To those God has called to faith, Christ crucified is the power of God. It is the power that gives faith, the power that converts. Like Paul writes to the Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.”

This power of the cross is not the power of carefully reasoned logic. It is not an argument or case so indisputable, so airtight, that you are forced to agree. The gospel is not merely a mathematical principle, a proven formula that works every time your run the numbers. There is something warmer and dearer and friendlier working here.

The power of the cross is not brute force. It is not God taking your arm and twisting it behind your back, wrenching it higher and higher until you cry uncle. “Okay, Okay, I believe, I believe already. Let me go.”

“This is love,” the Apostle John writes in his first letter, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” That’s the cross, and the hidden power behind the cross. Dying on a cross is God at his weakest, weaker than anyone could ever have imagined possible. Still, “the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”  What human achievement has ever accomplished as much?

The whole world’s debt to God has been settled, millions of hearts have been changed, the history of nations and empires has been altered–all because 2000 years ago God did something “foolish,” and he hid his loving power on a cross.

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

I can tolerate many things. But I don’t like to be considered a fool. Since I was in high school–no, grade school–peer pressure has played on my pride and my desire to be accepted. It has gotten me to do some really dumb things. I will spare you the gory details.

Peer pressure doesn’t end when our school days are over. A 58-year-old single Christian woman with a page on a popular internet dating sight made it clear in her profile she had not lived a perfect life in the past. Going forward, however, she intended to avoid physical intimacy before marriage. She was surprised and saddened by how many people took time to mock and criticize her for her beliefs. Pressure to conform to the word’s ways hasn’t ended just because she is approaching 60.

Paul wasn’t talking about personal morality in these words to the Christians in Corinth. He was talking about the preaching of the gospel, the message of Jesus’ cross. Our world still thinks that is foolish. They pressure us to think the same. Maybe they don’t use the word “foolish.” Maybe they use words like “not relevant.” “Hey, I don’t need some dusty theology about something that happened 2000 years ago. I need something to help me live a better life tomorrow. I need information I can use every day.” The information they mean is not the message of the cross.

Early in my ministry I read about a conference in Minneapolis at which a “Christian” college professor told those gathered, “I don’t think we need people hanging from crosses, and blood dripping, and weird stuff.” I know of Christian parents who pulled their children from Sunday School classes because they didn’t want them exposed to the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. Why? “…the message of the cross is foolishness…” It doesn’t work for so many. It doesn’t make any more sense to them today than in Paul’s day.

Before we get with the times and throw out the foolishness of the cross in favor of a less offensive, less graphic message, consider where Paul says the world’s opinion is taking them. “The message of the cross is foolishness…to those who are perishing.” Remember the stock question that parents used to ask when their kids wanted permission to give in to the peer pressure, because “everybody else is doing it”? “Well, if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you want to jump, too?” Paul’s words have a bit of that flavor here. Those who think the cross is foolish are perishing. They are dying a slow, spiritual death. Do we want to end up like them?

I am reminded of the brave confession I once heard a pastor in Sweden give. When he was asked, “Why do you want to leave the Church of Sweden (the state church which makes little use of the Bible and hardly believes in Jesus’ saving work anymore) where a pastor can have a nice, comfortable life (as a sort of government bureaucrat)? Why do you want to join a little free church, with just a few people in it?” His answer: “The Titanic was a very luxurious ship. It was big. It was comfortable. But I would rather be sitting in one of the little life boats and live, than stay on that big ship and end up at the bottom of the sea!”

The message of the cross looks like little more than a humble life boat. It is foolishness to our world, but it is foolishness to those who are perishing. To those who are being saved, it is the power God uses to save our souls.

Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

When you are convinced that God loves you no matter what, that every sin has been forgiven, that death is just a door opening to better things in heaven, that conviction invades and infects every corner of your life. It changes your point of view. Here Paul sees it changing every word and movement, too: “whatever you do, in word or deed.”

We could say it is the natural consequence of a heart full of the peace, a faith confident of God’s grace in Christ, but there is nothing natural about it at all. It is spiritual and supernatural in every way. Still, there is a certain logic to the difference this makes in our lives.

Let’s say that you are the poor unfortunate soul who has to work behind the customer service counter at some department store the day after Christmas. It’s going to be a long day. In front of you is a line that stretches to infinity. No one in line is particularly happy. It didn’t fit. It doesn’t work. It’s just plain ugly.

Now you didn’t manufacture any of this stuff. You weren’t the salesman who talked grandpa and grandma into buying it. But you know that maybe every fourth or fifth person in line is going to treat you like it’s your fault. If your heart is more or less spiritually empty, you may tolerate this for a little while. Maybe you can make it to the end of the day without snapping. It’s a job, after all, and you’ve been trained to make the customer happy. But maybe you’ll be a little snippy with the malcontents by the afternoon. Maybe you’ll bite someone’s head off when you get home.

Enter the peace of Christ. If your heart is full with the good news that God loves you unconditionally in spite of your faults and failings, you are secure in who you are as God’s child. What’s a little irritation from someone whose kid’s new iPad won’t work when you know that God turns everything for your good? You know that he is constantly smiling on you, and that you’ve got a place in the most exclusive neighborhood ever, called heaven. Everything is good.

You can look at the people coming to you like Jesus once looked at the crowds coming to him. He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. That would be doing what you do “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” because now you are acting like him.

That’s the kind of life that gives “thanks to God the Father…” because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That’s the kind of thing that happens when the God’s word changes our hearts, Jesus rules in them by faith, and we know his peace. That can change our words or deeds in a thousand different ways every day. That is life “in the name of the Lord Jesus.”