1 Kings 19:9-10 “And the word of the Lord came to him: ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.’”

Elijah is one of only two people recorded in the Bible who ever went to heaven without dying. The prophet was a faithful believer, but far from perfect. Do you note the self-righteous, entitled tone in his complaint? “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.” It’s not that it wasn’t true, comparatively speaking. He is just a little too aware of the fact. His high view of himself adds fuel to his depression and pessimism. He has decided to identify himself as a victim. “In spite of how good I have been, I’m not being treated fairly.”

And once we settle into the role as victims, there is little left to do but complain. Sometimes you and I really are the victims. But don’t keep telling yourself that over and over. Don’t keep playing that tape in your head. (Am I dating myself with that phrase? Should I say, “Don’t keep listening to that podcast?) Too much victim-talk starts to drown out the sound of God’s promises.

The same is true of the stories we tell ourselves about the world around us. “The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword.” Again, he doesn’t speak as some lying politician. His evaluation pretty well lined up with the daily news. If they had fact checkers in 875 B.C., Elijah’s claims would be confirmed. It’s not that these things weren’t true. It’s that Elijah was spending far too much time dwelling on them.

So maybe the people were bad. Israelite faith, morality, and culture were all swirling in the toilet. Had God changed? Has he now? Yes, maybe the news is depressing. Yes, maybe my friends’ posts on Facebook do paint a gloomy picture of our people, our institutions, and our politics. Yes, maybe it is getting harder to be a Bible-believing Christian in the 21^st Century. But we are committing spiritual suicide when we let the pressing problems of our time talk over the voice of God in our lives.

Even if Elijah was right about being the only one left, even if we alone survived as Christian believers in our time, does that in any way change the fact that we know God in his grace? Doesn’t he still love us just the same? Hasn’t Jesus still forgiven all our sins and promised life that never ends in heaven? At least we can say, “I am left.” God has kept his promises to me. I am not alone as long as he is on my side.

Christian faith is not about being part of the majority in a popularity contest. It is about receiving God’s gifts. If we start there, we will be better equipped to deal with those who are not eager to share our spiritual blessings.

Romans 8: 35-37 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Paul presents us seven challengers which try to convince us that God doesn’t love us. These are our personal experiences. “Trouble or hardship”–both words in the Greek have the sense of a situation that is narrow and squeezes and puts us under all kinds of pressure. We feel trapped, like we can’t escape. The life is being crushed out of us. It could be a manager asking us to do something unethical or be fired, a class at school that’s gotten bigger than us, a health issue that seems to have no solution, a bad relationship that is smothering us.

“Persecution.” The kind we face is subtler than the kind that put Jesus on the cross, or drove Paul out of so many towns where he was trying to share the gospel. But Bible-believing Christians will likely see more of this in our own country before we see less. For those who reject Bible morals or Bible faith, “tolerance” only applies to themselves. The world doesn’t seem to love us. When we are persecuted, does God?

“Famine or nakedness.” Jesus promised that our Father would take care of food and clothes. He taught us to pray for our daily bread. So what are we supposed to conclude when we can’t make ends meet? Has no Christian ever died of hunger, or exposure, or had to file for bankruptcy? Of course they have. Maybe you and I have faced the possibility. Maybe we wonder how a loving God could let us struggle so.

“Danger or sword.” We could literally be left bleeding and dying from crime, war, terrorism, or natural catastrophe some day. This and everything just mentioned can create a crisis of faith. “We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” We aren’t the dear little lambs of the Good Shepherd. We are just so much meat at the slaughterhouse. God has us here just so that he can butcher us, or that is what we fear.

But that is not the case. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” It’s not just that we will survive the challenges. In a war one side may win, but they often do so at the expense of many, many lives, leaving even the victors severely weakened. In athletics the runner may flop himself across the finish line first and need someone to help him get up and walk around long after the race is finished. The team may send man after man to the locker room with injuries, ending their seasons, before they score the winning points in the closing seconds and win the game. In each case these are victories, but not by much.

That’s not like the victory God gives to those he loves. We don’t squeeze out a victory by the thinnest of margins. Even when the pressures are killing us, and persecutors won’t leave us alone, and we have nothing in all this world to live one, and death itself is all that’s left for us here, “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” More than conquerors!

When the dust settles on all these threats and dangers, we are still standing, it is true. But more than that, even at their worst, all these things serve us. They serve us! They force us closer to our Savior in faith. There is no better place to be! They help to strip us of our worldliness and taste for sin. They build Christian character and godly wisdom. Even if they end our lives, they are merely ushering us into God’s presence, opening the door to the glory and bliss of a new and higher life that never ends. Even when they try to hurt us they help us, because God still loves us and we are more than conquerors.

List all the things that look powerful to you, the things you fear, the things that look bigger than you any way you can. God’s love is stronger, greater, bigger than them all. Nothing can separate us from his love in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:33-34 “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? 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”

Don’t misunderstand Paul’s words. It is not as though potential charges are lacking. You know this. We have mountains of little sins, private sins, sins that are practically invisible.

Do you know what the tallest mountain in the world is? It’s not Everest. Everest is the highest mountain above sea level. Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest of all. It looks rather average because almost two-thirds of the mountain is under the Pacific Ocean. But from base to summit, it is almost three quarters of a mile taller than Everest. The real size of our sinfulness is hidden like Mauna Kea underneath the ocean of our private moments, unexpressed thoughts, and selfish attitudes.

But even if someone could expose them all, it wouldn’t matter. By faith we are the people “whom God has chosen,” and “It is God who justifies.” Our Judge has chosen to adopt us as his own children. He gave up his only Son so that he could justify us, pass a not guilty verdict sentence when we stand before him in his court.

If this were any human court it would look like corruption, or a conflict of interest. The judge should step down. His verdict would be appealed. But in heaven’s court there is no other judge, and there is no court of appeals. There is only the Judge who chose to make us his own people, and gave up his only Son for our crimes, and finds us not guilty as a result. He is on our side. No one can turn him against us.

Just in case someone should try, we have even more assurance. “Who is he that condemns? 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.” Again, the issue is not that there is a lack of things to condemn us for. But Christ Jesus died in our place to pay for all those things. And for God the Father, that will never be a forgotten little piece of ancient history.

You see, Jesus lives again. He sits in the most privileged place in heaven right next to his Father. He is his “right hand man,” his most trusted partner. And any time you or I might sin, Jesus is right there to remind his Father, “You know, I have paid for that sin already.” “You know, I took that sin away at the cross.” “You know, there are no limits, no borders, no boundaries for forgiveness.” “You know, this is one of your own children we are dealing with here.”

No one else has the Father’s ear like Jesus does. No one can turn him against us. Jesus makes us certain that God is on our side.

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?”

God isn’t a Republican or a Democrat, as much as enthusiastic partisans may want to claim him for their side. God isn’t even an American, or an Israeli. Israel may have played a special part in his plan to save the world at one time. But even in the Old Testament there was a time when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joshua before the battle with Jericho. Joshua was near Jericho, and when he looked up he saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua asked him, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” And the reply was not, “Israel, of course. They are God’s chosen people.” No, he said, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come” (Joshua 5:14).

Before we get the idea that God is always neutral, and heaven is the spiritual equivalent of Switzerland, Paul’s words to the Romans help us understand that there is a side God takes. It’s the human side. Like John 3:16 teaches, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…”

Think of it: he gave his one and only Son. Or as Paul puts it in these words to the Romans, he did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. There are few things for which men and women will sacrifice more, for which they will work harder, than to spare their own sons or daughters.

During my seminary years I attended an inner city church and did inner-city mission work. There I met parents living at the edge of poverty who scraped together thousands of dollars to send their children to a Christian school. They did it to spare them exposure to gangs and a substandard education in underperforming schools. Men and women will work for decades at jobs they hate to spare their children having to do without something. They will go night after night without sleep to keep vigil at the side of a sick child’s bed and spare them just a little of the discomfort of their illness.

The God of all power did not spare his own Son. He did not spare him from the mockers and the bullies. They said he had a demon, called him a drunkard, accused him of encouraging people to sin, made fun of his hometown, tried to trap him with trick questions, and mocked the idea that he was some sort of king. His Father did not spare him.

They arrested him on false charges, fixed the trial against him, used lies and threats and incited a riot to make sure he was found guilty and condemned to death. His Father did not spare him.

They spit on him, pulled out his beard, slapped him, beat him, whipped him until he bled, and nailed him to a cross to die. His Father did not spare him.

It’s not just that God “did not spare his own Son, but gave him up…” No, he gave him up “for us all.” He did it for you. He did it for me. He did it to spare us from having to stand trial for our own sins. He did it to spare us from a guilty verdict and a sentence worse than death and infinitely longer than life.

God is on our side. The gift of his Son leaves us no doubt.

Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

“Aha,” someone might be tempted to say. “Here we have hit upon what we must do to become righteous in God’s eyes and be saved.” But if that is what we think we find in this verse, we have missed Paul’s point.

Confessing Jesus as Lord is not a good work we do to be saved. “Jesus is Lord,” was one of the earliest and simplest Christian creeds. It identified who the Christians were. It distinguished them from the pagans, who considered other gods their lords. It distinguished the Christians from the Jews, who had rejected Jesus as their Lord.

It does the same thing for us today. It’s not so much a work we do. It is an expression of a living faith in Jesus, which Paul goes on to describe:

“…and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,” Many people of Paul’s day believed that Jesus died: practically the whole Jewish nation, and a large number of Romans who were stationed in Jerusalem at the time of his crucifixion. But only the Christians believed he rose again from the dead. Thus, only those who believe that he rose can perceive the significance of his death as the payment for our sins. Only they understand it as the basis for our holy and righteous status before God. Only they will receive its ultimate blessing:

“…you will be saved.” Faith is not our work. It is God’s. We do not save ourselves. We are the objects of God’s saving work. He is the actor. But faith is the way by which true righteousness becomes our very own. Faith receives God’s gift and we are saved. It does not depend upon what you and I are doing. It does depend upon the one to whom we are listening.

A Christian radio station has a bill board which asks, “Does your Father know what you are listening to?” Perhaps an even better question is, “Do you?” The righteousness that saves us can’t be found in endless repetitions of the law. It is found only in the message of faith in Christ. Happy listening.

Romans 10:6-8 “But the righteousness that is by faith says: ‘Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart…”

The kind of righteousness that actually makes us acceptable to God does not have its source in the law. It has its source in Christ. Since this idea of doing something to be righteous and holy in God’s sight is so ingrained in us, it is natural that we think that there is something that we must do to get it from Christ. We still want to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to our relationship with God.

As a result, people think they must do something extraordinary to find Christ. They must search for his presence where he is giving away his grace and blessings. A person who didn’t know the gospel in Paul’s day might think, “We need to find a way to get up to heaven to bring God down to help us.” But God already came down himself, when Jesus became a man and lived here with us.

A person who knew a little more about the life of Christ might think, “We live after the time of Jesus. We need to go down to where the dead people are and bring Christ up to help us.” But Jesus rose from the dead. He is alive and well right now. Still, we can’t see Christ. If real righteousness, real forgiveness for sins, real love from God, real life comes from him, how are we going to get it?

Before we examine Paul’s answer, let’s note that the same dilemma has come up over and over again throughout Christian history. In the middle ages people felt they had to make pilgrimages to holy places to find God and his grace. More recently people have felt you have to find where the Spirit of God is moving in some revival or church movement. Throughout time some have thought that God must be present in mystical trances, emotional experiences, man-made rituals, a favorite styles of church music, or even the goodness of their own lives. They have worked hard to get or keep these things.

People may find Christ with his grace when they are looking in some or all of those places, but not for the reasons they go looking there. Paul reveals the true location where Christ and the righteousness that counts before God is found: “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming.”

We don’t have to make a pilgrimage to some spiritual Oz to get back home. We have been in “Kansas” all along. We don’t find our way to Christ by our efforts. He has always been here, present in his word! He came to us from heaven. He rose for us from the grave. In his word, he is still here for us with the blessings of his life, death, and resurrection. When you hear his Word preached, Christ is there! When you are washed by that Word together with water in Baptism, Christ is there! When you consume that Word together with bread and wine, Christ is there! If you have committed that Word to mind and heart, then wherever you take that Word with you, Christ is there!

Do you want to have Jesus with you, always making you holy, new, and righteous before his heavenly Father, woven into the very fabric of your lives? Take his word to heart. Get to know his word by heart. Believe that word with all your heart. Our hearts are never the source of the word that brings us Christ with his true righteousness and holiness. But they have become receptacles in which that word is kept. Real righteousness only comes to you and me in Christ.

Romans 10:5 “Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: ‘The man who does these things will live by them.’”

Here is a simple, straightforward way to eternal life that we instinctively want to follow. The plan is easy to understand: Keep the commandments, and you will live; break the commandments, and you will die. The plan is fair: Each person gets exactly what he or she deserves. The plan is reasonable: Good behavior should be rewarded, and bad behavior should be punished. The plan is appealing: I get to control my own destiny. Let’s admit it: every day we are surrounded by people who let us down in one way or another. Work doesn’t get done. Instructions aren’t followed. Important details are forgotten. But here I own the whole project from start to finish. I am in control. “Do these things and live” sounds like the way to go.

The plan is guaranteed to fail from the start. In order to understand why Paul states it without further comment, we need to understand a little bit about the earlier chapters of Romans. Note that Moses didn’t say, “The man who does some of these things will live by them,” or “the man who does most of these things will live by them,” or even “the man who does 99 percent of these things will live by them.” In order to live, to truly gain eternal life, by the law, you must keep it without fail 100 percent of the time. Not a single exception is allowed.

You can guess how many times that has happened since the beginning of the world. This is why Paul strings together this list of quotes in the middle of Romans 3: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Righteousness by the law doesn’t work. It’s too demanding.

Most Protestant Christians understand this in theory. But let’s take a look at how we may still find ourselves drawn to this impossible plan. A relative of mine attends a liberal Christian church. His pastor questions the idea that only Christians will go to heaven. It seems to him that a good Buddhist, or a good Muslim, ought to be able to get there, too. On the surface, such an idea might sound rather humble and gracious. After all, we don’t want to give the prejudiced and prideful idea that we are better than everybody else just because we are Christians.

But what false assumptions do such ideas reveal? Isn’t it clear that a person who thinks this way is thinking in terms of people being “good enough” to get into heaven? Doesn’t this suggest salvation comes by keeping God’s laws well enough to qualify? No Christians are “good enough” to enough to get into heaven, either. God’s law is simply too demanding for that to happen.

We may find ourselves listening to this kind of righteousness in more subtle ways. There is no virtue in spilling out all of the seediest details of our private lives in front of people for whom it is none of their business. But when we approach the fellow members of our congregation as though we must hide our struggles and constantly keep up a happy and holy false face, is that not because we believe we are acceptable only based upon how good we are, how well we keep the law? If people who struggle with sin will not seek our help because they are afraid of what this will do to their reputation, have not both they and we forgotten that none of us can keep the laws demands, that none of us are saved by our works, that all of us are utterly sinful and under God’s condemnation by nature?

We all confess together on Sunday mornings, “I am by nature sinful and…I have have disobeyed you in my thoughts, words, and actions.” Do we say these words only in theory, then deny that they have any basis in the realities of my life? Are they true, or aren’t they? And if they are true, then why are we so desperate to give others the impression that, in my case, they are not? While we must never embrace defiant, unrepented sin, we must never lose sight of the fact that the law is too demanding for any of us to keep.

We hear the real solution in the words the pastor speaks after we confess. “God our heavenly Father has been merciful to us, and has given his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” That is for all of us, too. Whether it is easy to see or not, we are all in the same boat.

Philippians 4:19 “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

What do the following Biblical accounts have in common?

• The Feeding of the 5000 (Matthew 14:13-21).

• The Trip from the Red Sea to Sinai (Exodus 15:22-19:2).

• Gideon’s Defeat of the Midianites (Judges 6-7).

• Peter Walking on Water (Matthew 14:22-32).

• The Missionary Journeys of the Apostle Paul (Acts 13ff).

• The Conquest of the Promised Land (The book of Joshua).

In each case, the Lord gave an assignment to one or more of his people. In each case the Lord did not reveal up front how he was going to provide the tools necessary for them to accomplish what he asked. In each case these people began their tasks with nothing more than God’s commands and promises. In each case the Lord made it possible for his people to do what he asked of them.

These were not merely special cases from the distant past. To some degree all of life works this way. Who of us would have ventured to have children if we had waited until we had all the resources necessary to raise them? Who of us would venture to buy a home, or a car for that matter, if we had to wait until we knew we had all the money up front?

We cannot guarantee that we will have the resources necessary to carry out the most basic responsibilities of life tomorrow. In an instant the Lord could snatch away business, home, wealth, or health. Just ask Job.

Nor does Jesus expect us to have the future all worked for years in advance. “So do not worry saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them…Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” There is a reason Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” He wants us to trust him to provide for us each day. His way of providing for our needs may change tomorrow.

In all of this our Savior is teaching us trust. He is teaching us not to rely upon our own resources. He wants us to depend on him. Ultimately, he is responsible for taking care of us, enabling us to serve him. He taught Israel the same lesson in the wilderness: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3).

These lessons also have application to our church life. When Jesus commissioned 12 apostles, and about 500 other followers, to go out and preach the gospel to all creation, they weren’t much more than a single congregation of believers with the whole world as their mission field. They weren’t spectacularly wealthy. They weren’t the world’s most naturally gifted people.

But they had the Lord’s command. “Make disciples of all nations.” And they had his promises. “I am with you always.” “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” “I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles.”

We are the heirs of those commands and promises. We enjoy many opportunities to share the message of salvation–so many that our resources seem overtaxed. Manpower and money are perennially in short supply. We find it difficult to keep up the ministry that we have already made our concern.

However, our greatest resource is not to be found in our own money or manpower. It is in the Savior who promised to be with us always and empower us with the Holy Spirit. It is his mission we carry on. He will not let his work fail.

Proverbs 27:6 “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

Who is truly your friend?

We all look to our friends to support us when we are down, to back us up when we are in trouble, to understand us when no one else does. We want our friends to express their care and concern and build us up with their kind words.

But since genuine love always seeks our good, not necessarily our happiness, sometimes true friends also have to perform the unenviable task of telling us the truth–at least to the best of their ability to tell it. That means that some of the things they say will hurt.

Someone who is less concerned about our welfare but more interested in how we can be used isn’t so concerned to tell us the truth. Such people butter us up with nothing but good things to say. And you know why we slather things with butter—it’s only to improve the flavor before we sink our teeth in.

Living with the truth of Proverbs 27:6 requires a loving atmosphere in which we learn to accept such friendly wounds as well as inflict them. In order for such wounds to be truly friendly, they must also be limited to times when we genuinely have someone else’s welfare at heart. Wise King Solomon did not mean to open the door to arbitrary meanness. Other proverbs warn against spouting off every stray thought that happens to come to mind.

This is a practical lesson for life in a Christian congregation. There are likely to be more opinions than people, opinions that are passionately held. We do well to check ourselves as we respond to each other. Every viewpoint is welcome, but not every rebuttal we are tempted to make is suited for a public forum.

And not every contradictory viewpoint, no matter how strongly expressed, should be taken as a personal attack. We are friends, teammates, working toward a common goal. If a friend perceives some weakness in our thinking, his wound can be trusted, even if we still don’t share his point of view.

As Christians, we have already learned how to adopt this way of looking at the deepest wounds that come from our dearest friend—our God and Savior. His points of view are always correct, but they don’t always coincide with our own. God’s law has some painful things to say to me.

But he never says them just to hurt us. His wounds ultimately aim to heal. They cut less like a “stab in the back” and more like the skilled surgeon carefully removing the cancer.

And our God is no enemy when he multiplies his kisses. His words of love spoken in the form of forgiveness are always sincere, always friendly, and always spoken with our best interest in mind.