Begin with the End in Mind

A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on August 3 2008 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center in Huntington, WV, and based on Romans 8: 28-39


In 1989 Steven Covey published his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people. One of those seven habits was to “Begin with the End in Mind.” Apparently God must have been operating on the same principle when he created human beings. For in Romans 8: 29,30 we read:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son….

God started with the end in mind. He knew us before hand when he said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… (Gen1:26).

Actually, the word foreknew can be understood as “fore loved”. It’s not just that He knew something ahead of time. No. In saying “Let us make man …” it is evident that God had preconceived us in His mind. He loved us before He made us, and designed us to end up like Christ. Again, …”those whom he foreknew he also predestined (designed) to be conformed to the image of his Son”.

He did this, fully aware that there would be this little issue of Sin to overcome. Notice this from 8:30:

…And those whom he predestined he also called, (we are called out of Sin. We are God’s ekklesia, those who have been “called out”)… and those whom he called he also justified,(we are made just or righteous before God by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf) and those whom he justified he also glorified.

This last word is especially important because glorification is something that happens in the Resurrection, after death in the “Life after life after death” We are finally glorified when we receive that resurrection body, just like Jesus has. In other words, it hasn’t happened to any of us sitting here – yet.

But because God began with the end in mind, Paul can say that God glorified us – past tense. In God’s mind, the future is a done deal. When he looks at us, he sees the end, and he is pleased by it, just as he said when he finished creating man, “…it was very good (Gen. 1: 31). God said that it was very good because He had also made provision to take care of the freedom/sin problem by providing Christ as the Lamb of God “sacrificed before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13: 8), so that he could write the names of all His own in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev. 21:27).

Boomerangs
In the great arc of creation, our trajectory is rather like that of a boomerang. We start out in God’s hand, and we are flung out from God through our free choice to Sin, but God calls us back to Himself and He provides a way reconcile us to Himself through Jesus, so that the One who was offended by our freely-chosen separation has now provided the means needed for him to go from Judge of our souls to Lover of our souls. We end up back in God’s loving hand, firmly gripped by his Grace.

Our Security in God.
So in Rom 8:31, Paul can say, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” And of course, he is referring to our enemy the devil, the ‘accuser of the brethren” (Rev.12:10), the one who stands before the throne of God throwing up our sins to God and daring Him to accept us. Paul is defiant: “Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn?” Paul knows that God … did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, (32) and this same son, who has every right not judge us does not – rather He stand at God’s right hand interceding for us (v.34).

The result of this knowledge is great confidence before God, Satan, and the World. We are confident before God, knowing that He has already given us the very best he had to give. …”as a result how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (v.32). We are like the secure child who defies the bully, confident that her father will stand up for her and protect her.

And Satan is the bully, the adversary. He is the one who brings the accusation. He is the one who plays on our fears and insecurities, trying in every way to undermine our faith and to abandon our relationship with God – even I fit were possible to get God to turn away from us because of our wickedness and disobedience.

Then finally, we have the world system, replete with all manner of tribulation, distress, persecution, famine nakedness danger and sword. If our Savior doesn’t judge us and Satan’s accusations cannot sway God against us, then nothing the world has to offer can separate us from the love of Christ, even when it seems that the world beats up on us and leads us like sheep to the slaughter. No, says Paul, in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

Now we come to the poetic and passionately eloquent conclusion: “38 For I am sure (convinced) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers (principalities), nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Because God began with the end in mind, there is nothing is nothing that can come between Him and his plan for us.

A word about Height and Depth: (v.39)

Many people today follow their horoscopes in the daily paper. It’s usually right underneath the funnies – and most of us read it in the same spirit we chuckle at the comics. But in the ancient world people were very serious about the stars and their effects upon people’s daily lives. The star you were born under could control your destiny. And the daily movement of the planets was considered auspicious or inauspicious for various activities: starting a business, planting crops etc. Even Jesus’ birth was accompanied by great fanfare and the appearance of a new star.

In the astrologer’s parlance, the term “height” meant the zenith or highest point of a star’s progression through the sky, while the term ‘depth’ referred to the lowest point in the night sky. The star was thought to have greater of lesser impact in your life depending upon its height or depth. Often people lived under great fear of these astrological influences – still do in some cases!

But here Paul is saying, “I don’t’ care what your horoscope says, nothing can separate you from the Love of God!” No doubt this was a very reassuring message to his readers as it should be to us.

Again, the result is that we should have great confidence and reassurance because of God’s great and constant love for us.

An Insane Man?...
During the 19th century, a man was placed in an insane asylum. He was there for many years living out his days in a small cell. Upon his death the attendants set about to clean his room. On the wall these beautiful words were written in pencil:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Whatever insanity this man struggled with, it was not about the love of God. He was entirely sane on that score. The words he had written were the words of a Jewish poem composed in 1050 by Meier Ben Isaac Nehorai, a cantor in Worms, Germany and have been translated into at least 18 languages. Later, in 1917, Frederick M Lehman, of Pasadena, California would add two verses and a refrain, giving us the Hymn we know as “The Love of God.

I’d like us to look at the words to this wonderful tribute to God’s love. As we do so, let’s make this a prayer of praise to our Loving God, a tribute to his unimaginably immense Love.

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;

The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave his Son to win;
His erring child he reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain:

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky
Amen.