It must have seemed like such good fortune to Achish the Philistine. Fighting between the Israelites and the Philistines had gone on for forever, for centuries, long before Achish was born. But look at how the tables had turned! Who had come to him, to join him, but David! David, the guy who had beaten Goliath, perhaps the mightiest Philistine warrior who had ever lived. David, who had songs sung in Israel about him, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”
But now, after King Saul had spent years trying to kill David, where did David go, but to Achish the Philistine. “Assign me and my men a place to live,” David told him, “and we will fight for you.” It was the only place David could think of where he would be safe. But what a strange alliance these two made. A Philistine ruler serving as David’s protector. David serving as his warrior and even his personal bodyguard.
What a difference it makes to have the right man on your side. This is pretty obvious in the world of sports. Baseball players are always being traded. The NFL draft is a huge event. Even for gradeschool kickball, everyone in the class knows who will the first ones picked for the team. If you have the right person on your side, you just can’t lose.
Here at the beginning of Lent we consider a situation that’s really even stranger than the temporary alliance between David and Achish in the last chapters of 1 Samuel. The Philistines were wicked and idolatrous people, enemies of God. But by nature we’re really no different. We too, because of our sins, are enemies of God. And yet the holy Son of David comes to fight for us. In the process he makes himself weak and humble. But this man who goes to die is the one with whom we just can’t lose.
Our sermon text for today is from Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8. This letter is a wonderful explanation of the Christian faith, and the first half of the book is all about how we are justified by grace through faith. God declares us righteous because of his undeserved love in Jesus, not because of anything that we’ve done, and this is something we receive and take hold of through faith, which is worked in us by the Holy Spirit.
Our second lesson for today is at the end of that first part of the book, or right in the middle of the whole book, if you want to look at it that way. What Paul is doing here is really answering the question, “What does it mean then to be a Christian? And Paul’s answer is that you have the confidence and joy that God is on your side. With him on your side, you can’t lose. Paul says,
“What then will we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
That’s a great rhetorical question. Indeed, if that’s true, that God is for us, who can be against us? It’s one of those kinds of questions that puts things into perspective. When someone is treating me harshly or unfairly, I don’t need to be down about it. God is for me! When everything is wrong in the world and life is just one frustration after another, I can cheer up. God is for me!
What about Satan? The easiest way to not be afraid of the Devil is to not think about him too much. He’s powerful, far stronger than we are. He’s sneaky, anywhere and everywhere, wherever we least expect him. Sometimes he uses that power in truly terrifying ways. Siegbert Becker was a pastor and professor who wrote a book on the occult and at one point he said to a friend and colleague, “I have to finish this. I can’t sleep. It’s too frightening.” But most of the time Satan is sneakier than that. He came to tempt Jesus in the wilderness and Jesus knew exactly who he was. But the temptations were fierce. “You’re starving, Jesus. The Son of God, starving in the wilderness? You deserve some bread. Turn these stones into bread.” And at the temple, “Jesus, throw yourself down. Prove your faith. Or don’t you believe that God will save you?” And on the mountain, “See all these kingdoms of the earth? All this and more I will give you. You don’t need to face a cross. No one even has to know. Just bow down and worship me.”
So often Satan comes after us the same way. It’s when no one else is looking, when no one else would know, when it’s only ourselves alone with our thoughts that he comes and says, “I have what you want. I can make you happy” or when he tests our faith saying, “Do you really think that God loves you?”
But if God is for us, who can be against us? What power does Satan have against me? And how do I know that God is for us? That he is for me? Paul says,
Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?
Jesus himself is that answer. Why was Jesus in the wilderness facing Satan’s temptations? He came to be on our side. He came to be our champion against the Devil. Jesus knew all our sins. He knew all our weaknesses. He knew our hearts that are just as vile and wicked as any Philistine. Unlike with David this was no mutually beneficial situation. He didn’t come for protection. He came to suffer and die.
Look at that cross. That’s how far God’s love for you goes. That’s no last-minute almost-forgotten Valentine’s Day gift. That’s the ultimate sacrifice of himself. That’s the one who beat Satan at every turn, resisting every one of his temptations, and then still turns around to suffer all of hell for failure and wickedness because all of our failure and wickedness he made his own. He claimed it. And he claims us.
If God is for us, who can be against us?
And so Satan can come after us with every accusation he can think of. He can list our sins, the things we’ve forgotten all about, the things we’re deeply ashamed of, the things we’ve done with our hands and said with our lips as well as the things that we’ve never allowed outside the confines of our hearts.
And to every single one Jesus says, “No.” And he holds up his hands to show the marks left by the nails and says, “That one is mine. You cannot hold that one against him. Not when I have paid for it with my blood.”
Do you see what this means for you as you live in this world? Do you see what it means for your relationship with God? There is no sin you can commit that has not already been suffered by Jesus. You cannot take Jesus off the cross. You cannot pull the nails out of his hands and feet or the crown of thorns off his head. You can’t undo his death, because he is the one who has undone death. He conquered it for you.
And so Paul says,
What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36Just as it is written:
For your sake we are being put to death all day long.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
We will suffer these things, just as the saints of old suffered them. The evidence that God is for us is not found in ease and success and everything going our way. That is not this life. The evidence is Jesus’ cross.
And because Jesus has declared himself to be our life, and because Jesus has joined himself to us when we were baptized in his name, and because his body and blood that gives us life is our food and drink in his Holy Supper, his victory over death and hell and Satan is also ours. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
In Lent we’re always reminded of the terrible cost of our sin. It’s because of us that Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness. It’s because of us that he was mocked and beaten. It’s because of us that he suffered hell on the cross and died. How terrible those sins are! How we grieve and weep to think of what we have done, how we have spit in the face of God’s love.
It’s a season for repentance, but it is not a season for doubts. With God on your side, you can’t lose. No one can take away the forgiveness of sins that he gives you. No one can take the place in heaven that he has secured for you. No one can take away the life that is yours in the one who lives forever. Repent of your sins with confidence and joy in the loving promise of your God. Declare with Paul,
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson