TOPIC:“There's a Christian Way to Be a Conqueror”
by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap
TEXT:Romans 8:35-39
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us”
(Romans 8:37)
Without doubt the Apostle Paul was the greatest missionary in the history of the Christian Church. He outworked, out-walked, out-witnessed and out-wrote all other Christians of the first century. He turned down a professorship at the University of Tarsus to become a missionary of the greatest piece of news ever to fall on human ear.
Adventuring upon unknown paths Paul went into towns, into synagogues, into cities and preached a message not only to the meaning of life, but also to the mastery of living. As he traveled across the Roman empire on three missionary journeys Paul preached a message of victory in Christ. He was totally persuaded that no matter what the outcome was going to be, victory belonged to him.
I ask you, have you reached that place in your life where you are experiencing the kind of victory that Paul spoke about in the text? If not, you can. Such victory can be your daily experience. Let us trace out together the Christian way to be a conqueror as Paul sets it forth here in the text.
I.
Think, to begin with, of the SCOPE of our victory. In verse 37 we read: “Nay, in all these things…” Now in thinking of the scope of our victory I want you to note two important truths.
First of all, there is something here we can't DENY. “Nay, in all these things.” Paul makes a list in verse 35 of those things that are in the world and that we can't deny: “What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Phillips is excellent here: “Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, pain or persecution? Can lack of clothes and food, danger to life and limb, the threat of force of arms?”
So here are the things in this world that we can't deny - pain, trouble, sickness, persecution, famine, starvation, lack of clothes, war and even death itself as Paul mentions in verse 38. Even Jesus stated: “In the world ye shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). He also declared: “Ye are in the world.” Yes, we can't deny that we are living in the midst of those things spoken of by the Apostle Paul in the verses before us.
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