Romans 8:31-39
Imagine a wealthy business man in an impoverished third world country. Children from the slums near his factory regularly destroy his property; yet his heart goes out to them. He doesn’t desire to punish them, but to protect and help them.
One day, the police show up just as one of these boys is breaking factory windows with rocks. They grab him, beat him, and take him to the jail where they will punish him severely. Just as they are poised to whip the boy’s back, the wealthy man steps through the prison doors and says, “Wait! I want to adopt this boy. Release him.”
But the penalty for his crime must be paid. The man removes his suit jacket and dress shirt, and takes the boy’s place. Upon his naked back land the blows earned by the child.
After the ordeal, the man and child go home. The child is cleaned up, given a full meal, new clothes and his own room. He is no longer an orphan, but a son.
As time goes on, the wealthy man must allow suffering into the child’s life in the form of discipline and tough life lessons and medical shots. In these times, will the boy question the man’s love? Will the boy shake his fist at his father and scream, “You don’t care enough about me to stop this pain!” No. Each glimpse at the scars on his back will remind him that his father loves him and is highly motivated for his good.
I tell this story to catch us up to the point Paul makes in Romans 8:31: “What then shall we say to these things?” This story is similar to what God has done for Christians through Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus, we know that God loves us and is highly motivated for our good. “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
When suffering comes, Christians don’t have to hope that God will work some good through it. They can know for certain that all things will work together for their good. (8:28). Because in Christ there are two things suffering cannot do:
1. Suffering cannot separate us from God’s love. (8:31-36)
Suffering can separate us from the lower case securities, providers, and gods in our lives. But it cannot separate us from the Security, Provider, and God. In fact, it tightens our connection to him.
We are in a cosmic hurricane and the winds are always howling. While many are blown away, Christians are wrapped tighter to their Father.
2. Suffering cannot conquer us. (8:37-39)
Paul says that Christians are “more than conquerors”. Conquerors kill or vanquish their foes. In Christ, we don’t have to kill or vanquish our suffering because it actually serves us.
In other words, suffering doesn’t enter our lives because God can’t stop it or isn’t motivated enough to stop it. So God must be using it for our good.
Think of your suffering right now, the pressure or pain you’re feeling. Is God too weak to remove it from you? Is he not good? Or is he so powerful and good that he’s up to something beyond our understanding?
There is no human parallel to how powerful and good our Father is. It would be like a doctor who so transforms his patients that illness itself strengthens them. Injury itself makes them better.
In God’s great work on our behalf, he didn’t make earthly stress go away. He transformed everything so that earthly stress became a gateway to eternal peace. He didn’t make earthly death go away. He transformed everything so that earthly death became the doorway to eternal life.
So we have hope. We have an anchor for the soul in times of trouble. We have a good Father who loves us.
Discussion Starters
- Have everyone in the group share the best and worst thing that has happened in their lives in the last seven days.
- Read verse 35-39. What life events has God used to draw you closer to him? Describe them for the group.
- Have there been times in your life when you were tempted to give up your faith in God?
- Share an example from your life of either: tribulation (pressure), distress, persecution (mistreatment from people), famine (lack of resources), nakedness (exposure, vulnerability), or danger.
- How could parents teach their children the truths in this passage?
- All people suffer. Based on this passage, what is different for the Christian in suffering? What is the same?
- How can we serve one another based on this passage?
- How can your group pray for you this week?
