Message Title: What Can Separate Us from God’s Best?
Message Text: Romans 8:31-39
Each of the questions starts with “who”: [Each transition]
- Who can be against us? (verse 31)
- Who can accuse us? (v. 33)
- Who is to condemn us? (v. 34)
- Who can separate us? (v. 35)
How We Can Be Against Ourselves:
Lack of Faith (Mark 6:1-6)
It is imperative that we understand that faith operates only within the boundary of God’s will. In other words, without a knowledge of God’s will, there can be no real faith. In prayer, for instance, we cannot ask in faith if we are guessing at the will of God. The prayer of faith is the prayer offered in the knowledge of that will; it is not shooting in the dark, hoping we’ll get lucky and hit the bull’s-eye. Faith is not man’s way of getting his will done in heaven; it is God’s way of getting his will done on earth.”
- Salvation commences with faith and continues the same way; we live the life the way we entered it.
- “We walk by faith” (2 Cor. 5: 7), and Galatians 2: 20: “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.”
- Success in the Christian life is measured by faith. Always the word of Jesus is, “It shall be done to you according to your faith” (Matt. 9: 29). All our failures are failures in faith.
- It is by faith that we please God. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Heb. 11: 6). The writer doesn’t say without faith it is difficult to please God—it is impossible.
- It is by faith that the things possible to God become possible to man. “With God all things are possible” (Matt. 19: 26). “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9: 23).
- It is by faith that we overcome the world. “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5: 4).
- It is by faith that we resist the Devil. “But resist him [the Devil], firm in your faith” (1 Pet. 5: 9).
- It is by faith that we conquer the problems of life. “Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him” (Mark 11: 23).
- It is by faith that we are made secure. “Who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1: 5).
- It is by faith that we receive all God has promised us. “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matt. 21: 22).
Lack of Faith Gives birth to…
Disobedience to Gods Word
- We only obey what we really believe to be true.
- Obedience to God is considered the highest form of worship because it is a living proof of our love, trust, and total surrender to His authority.
Prayerlessness (I feel more empowered when I take control)
- You can’t trust someone you don’t know, prayer is how we get to know God personally.
- Prayer matters because there is a real spiritual battle, not a predetermined script.
- Gods will is not automatic on earth, that’s why we pray for it.
- Prayer is partnership with God pushing back against evil – obedience is aligning ourselves with Gods will
- Through prayer we learn to recognize Gods voice.
- Jesus modeled confronting evil through prayer, not just accepting it.
- Your prayers carry real weight, or God would never command us to pray.
- Trust is built not in safety but through ongoing prayer with God IN the battle.