In his sermon titled 'God is for us (Romans 8:31-32) Part 2,' Pastor Steve Hopkins emphasizes the unwavering support and love God has for believers. He underscores that there is no condemnation for those in Christ, reinforcing the Apostle Paul's message that believers are eternally secure in their salvation. Using the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah, Pastor Hopkins draws parallels to God's ultimate sacrifice of His own Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross at Mount Calvary. He stresses that since God did not spare His own Son, He will freely give believers all things promised. The sermon reiterates the unbreakable chain of salvation, predestined by God, ensuring that nothing can obstruct or reverse the salvation of those God has called and justified. Pastor Hopkins calls on believers to rest assured in their faith, understanding that their salvation is indissoluble and secured by God's eternal purpose.

Welcome back to Barnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the Book of Romans. Let's turn in our Bibles again to the Book of Romans. And if you would, stand with me for the reading of the Word of the Lord, Romans chapter 8, verses 31 through 32. Let's read together.

Let's pray. He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Let's pray. Father, we who are your people, God, the sheep of Christ's pasture, Lord, we are so weak, Lord, and needy in every way. And Lord, we are assailed on all sides, the enemy of our souls, continually seeking to sow doubts in our hearts and minds and fears within, so many times concerning our eternal state, Lord, who are in Christ.

And so we ask for the Comforter God to be given, for the Spirit of God, for the Comforter to be given this afternoon, for the Holy Spirit to lead us in the way of truth, to open our understanding, and to comfort our hearts, oh God, as we open your Word. Lord, we pray that You would assure the hearts of those who are in Christ, O God, of their eternal security in Him and bring comfort and peace to the flock of the Lord Jesus, for he asked it in his holy name. Amen. Let's be seated. In a few minutes we're going to be traveling to Mount Moriah, to the place where God told Abraham to take his son, his only true son, Isaac, and tie him with ropes to an altar and deliver him up as a sacrifice, but who at the last moment before the knife came down was commanded of God to be spared.

And then we're going to travel together 2, 000 years into the future from that time to the same mount, to that same mount where Abraham took his son Isaac, to that mount that would later become known or come to be known as Mount Calvary, where our Savior was fastened to a cross and not spared but delivered up for us all. But before we go there I want to iterate and reiterate again and again the truth that the Apostle Paul has been laboring, laboring to bring home to the hearts of every believer in Jesus Christ that God is for you and not against you. That there is, as he began in Romans chapter 8 and verse 1, there is no sentence of condemnation hanging over the head of anyone who is in Christ Jesus, who is in union with the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, that He loves you, and that He loves you with an unchanging love, with an eternal love. These are the truths that the Apostle Paul has been laboring to bring home to the hearts of every believer in Jesus Christ, of every reader of his epistle to the saints that were at Rome, that is, to those who had been set apart by God, who were believers in Christ at Rome at that time.

He's been laboring to bring this assurance to their hearts that God is for them, that God fixed his love on them in eternity past, and that no one and no thing will ever be able to separate them from that love, from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. In our last session we looked at verse 31, where the Apostle asked the first in a series of six questions, intended to drive home to the heart of every believer the comforting reality of our eternal security in Christ and he said what shall we say to these things first question second if God before us who can be against us Everything the apostle Paul has been saying to the believers in Christ at Rome from the beginning of this letter, even up to this point, has established beyond any doubt that God is for his people, that God is for us, and that since he is for us, no one and nothing can possibly or could possibly stand against us in this sense, in the sense of anyone or anything in any way annulling or reversing our final salvation. And I just want to ask my own question this afternoon, brothers and sisters, has that truth gripped your heart?

Has that assurance, this assurance that the Apostle Paul has been laboring to bring about in the hearts and the minds of the people of God, has this assurance gripped your heart? Do you who have repented of your sins, you put your trust in Christ, you're trusting in Him and His name and His sacrifice in His person and His work alone, do you understand that you are eternally safe in Christ. The Apostle Paul speaking under inspiration of the Holy Spirit intends that for every child of God, every person who has come to trust Christ with their sin and with their guilt, to reach the obvious conclusion of everything he's been saying, to come to the deep conviction and the crystal clear conclusion that they are secure in Christ. Believers in Christ are secure in Christ, and they need to be convinced of the fact. They need to be assured in their own hearts of the fact.

Believers in Christ are secure in Christ. They need to come to the obvious conclusion that those whom God has saved can never and will never finally lose their salvation. That no one and nothing can tamper with it. No one and nothing can tamper with our eternal salvation. It cannot be annulled by anyone, it cannot be obstructed by anyone, and it cannot be reversed by anyone.

From the moment God set His affection upon His elect in eternity past and predestined them to glory, which is what we've been reading about and looking at in the last couple of weeks, it's been a done deal. And brothers and sisters, that's the cause for which you came to trust in Jesus. That's the cause. What God initiated in time past when He fixed His love upon you, upon a people, for knowing them, for knowing you, with a distinguishing love that distinguished you from others before time began. What God has initiated and what he initiated in the life of every believer who has ever been in Christ from the beginning of the world and will be in Christ to the end of the world.

He loved with a distinguishing love, he fixed his love upon them before time began and that cannot in time be obstructed or fouled up in the least by them, by you or anyone else. Someone says, well, what if a person just goes off and they're living in sin and one of those persons just says, you know, I'm just going to go ahead and just do whatever. My salvation is secure and I can just go ahead and sin it. That's not the attitude of a true believer. The true believer in Christ never reaches the conclusion that they can sin because grace is going to abound.

God forbid the apostle Paul, we read earlier, no, but all whom God forloved, all that he set apart in his Son, he did also predestinate to complete conformity to the image of his Son in glory. It is a fact and it is an unalterable fact. Whom he did predestinate we went on to read in Paul's letter, them he also called. Remember he called them. Not like, hey y'all believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

No, He called them with an effectual calling. Remember we wrote it on the board here about three weeks ago. Effectual calling is a calling that produces the intended effect. It produces the effect that was intended. What's the intended effect?

That every person who is called in that way with the internal call of the Holy Spirit will come to saving faith, will put their trust in Christ, will repent of their sins, will put their trust in the person of the work of Christ Jesus alone for their salvation. Whom he foreknew, for loved in eternity past, them he also called with an effectual calling, and them that he called he also justified. That is, declared just in his sight, counted righteous in his sight. And then we read, in all whom he justified, he also glorified. And I said in our last session, All of those things are spoken of as past tense.

Look at the text. It's all spoken of in the past tense. For new, predestinated, called, justified, glorified. It's all spoken of by The apostle Paul speaking under inspiration of the Holy Spirit as though all these things had already taken place. Because in the mind and in the eternal purpose of God it has.

From knowing us with a distinguishing love and eternity past to the future glory that awaits us it is an unbreakable chain of salvation what God began in eternity past he will bring to completion in the future people say you could take that to the bank You can take this to the bank. This you can rest your hopes on. What God began in eternity past, He will bring to completion in the future. We have His word on it. The golden chain of our salvation is an unbreakable chain, indissoluble by any force in the heavens, any force on earth, and any force in hell below.

The order of our salvation began with God and not with us and therefore it is secure, it is unalterable, it is unchangeable, it is indestructible, kept by the power of God reserved for us. Paul's first question intended to bring believers into this quiet place of rest and confident assurance is, what should we say in response to these things? If God be for us, the answer I said is contained within the question. It's rhetorical. If God be for us, and everything that he's been saying is proof to that fact, then who could possibly be against us?

No one. No one. No one. To be against us for whom God is for would be to attempt to stand against God himself and no one can stand against God. I quoted Dr.

Sproul, I'll add to that quote from last week. He said, no one can stand against us if God is standing with us. All the opposition in the world cannot overthrow the glory that God has laid up for His saints from the foundation of the world. And that's what we've been saying for a couple of weeks now. Again, the Apostle's question is rhetorically saying, since God is for us, who could possibly be against us?

Since God is on our side, what does it matter who is on the other side? God's eternal purpose concerning all those in His Son cannot be thwarted, cannot be interrupted, cannot be overthrown by anyone or anything. As I've said in the last couple of sessions again and again, it's a done deal for all those who are in Christ by faith, united to Him by faith. No one and nothing will ever be able to impede or to obstruct the plan of God to bring those that He forloved to the end for which He predestined them, which is future glory. That is, future complete conformity to Jesus at His coming.

That's where you're headed if you're a believer today. If you are in Christ by faith, that's where you're headed. Future complete conformity to Jesus that is coming. I know we went over it You know, yes, we're being conformed to the image of Christ now We are being conformed to it to his image incrementally anyone who's not growing in holiness The Bible says without holiness no man shall see the Lord. We're continually seeing things in our lives where the Spirit is convicting us, the Word is bringing things to light for us that we haven't seen before, and the darkness of our minds is being more and more enlightened.

We're being conformed more and more to the image of God as we're progressively growing in sanctification, in holiness, in obedience to God, but our future state, the future state of every believer is future complete conformity to the image of Jesus that is coming. Remember when we went through that about the firstborn? Why? Because there's a purpose for that. And the purpose is, the ultimate purpose is, that for our being in the future at Christ's coming conformed perfectly and completely and finally to the image of Christ in glory when we see him as he is at his coming is for the purpose that he might be the Firstborn that he might be the the preeminent one Among many brothers and sisters that he is brought to glory that he might be praised and honored and glorified and adored for all eternity by a redeemed glorified humanity, massive host of humanity.

That is the future. That's where we will all be. You're going to be praising him then, start praising him now. But believers need to understand that we rest secure in the hollow of God's hand. We who are united to Christ by faith in His person and his work will be conformed to the image of God's Son in glory at his return.

And as the hymn goes that we sang earlier, sinless there forever, we will laud him ever. We will praise him forever. We will thank Him forever. Believe you me, we will all who are in Christ be praising Him and thanking Him forever. There will be perfect praise and perfect gratefulness and perfect thankfulness, perfect adoring of Him who came from heaven to earth on a mission to save us from our sins and accomplish that mission 2, 000 years ago on that cross at Calvary.

Our salvation is secure in Christ. There is no ground for any believer to fear for his or her future. Our salvation is secure in Him, in Christ, who suffered and died for our sins and rose again the third day. God is for us. And as we pick up with verse 32, the apostle continues to drive home the fact.

Look at your Bibles. He that spared not his own son. He goes on, look, God is for us. You've got to understand this. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Everything he said, all of his promises will be fulfilled. This is Paul's third question, and he's saying, look, God the Father didn't even spare His own Son for us. The Father, far from sparing Jesus, delivered Him up for us. He delivered him up for us to be a sacrifice for sin, our sin, to bear the weight of our sins, who knew no sin, and to bear the wrath of God do us for them, to meet with the justice of God in our place. Robert Haldane, theologian from the late 1800s, writes, God delivered up His Son that He might rescue us from that misery which he might have justly inflicted upon us.

That he might take us who were the children of wrath into his heavenly presence and there rejoice over us forever as trophies of his redeeming love. His trophies of his redeeming love." Brothers and sisters, the ultimate demonstration and evidence of God's love for us, that he is for us, is that he did not even spare his own son, his only begotten son. Isaac was spared. Jesus was not. Isaac was spared so many centuries before Jesus was not, and it happened on the same hill.

Mount Calvary is the hill upon which our Lord Jesus died 2, 000 years ago, But 2, 000 years before that, it was known as Mount Moriah. I think 1, 996 years to be exact. Turn with me to Genesis chapter 22, and let's go there together. Let's go to Mount Moriah, which later will be Mount Calvary, where Jesus will be crucified on a cross. Genesis 22, follow along with me, beginning with verse one.

And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt that is test Abraham. And he said unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt sacrifice, a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. God chose the very mount where his son would be offered on an altar of wood 2, 000 years later. Verse 3, and Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and clave the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went under the place which God had told him then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw the place afar off.

Abraham said unto his young men, abide you here, stay here with the ass, and I and the lad will go over there, we will go yonder and worship and then we'll come back to you again. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son. Jesus will bear the wood of the altar upon which he will be sacrificed and carry it up that same hill 2000 years later. And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father, and he said, Here am I, my son.

He said, But behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went, both of them together, and they came to the place which God had told them of, and Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. There's no indication here that Isaac opened his mouth or resisted it anyway. Verse 10 says, and Abraham stretched forth his hand and he took the knife to slay his son.

And brothers and sisters, at the last moment before Abraham brought the knife down, the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he said, lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do anything unto him, for now I know you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him, at that very moment, a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. God told Abraham to spare his son, but 2, 000 years later God would not spare his own son but deliver him up for us all.

Deliver him up to death in our place, in our stead, to satisfy the justice of God do us for our sins as a substitute, as an acceptable offering delivered up for all those He forloved in eternity, past and predestined to life eternal. He delivered Him up for us all to bear our sins in His own body on a tree, to atone for our sins, to make satisfaction to God for the guilt that we incurred, for the guilt of our sins that we should have suffered for for all eternity. He delivered him up. He who knew no sin took our sins upon himself and died to put away our sins, to put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself. Isaiah the prophet says in Isaiah 53, he was led as a lamb to the slaughter.

God provided a lamb. God provided a lamb just as he said to Abraham. Lamb of God for sinners wounded, a sacrifice to cancel guilt. As the old hymn says, none shall ever be confounded who on him their hope have built. God delivered him up to death, to the death of the cross for us.

He was wounded for our transgressions, Isaiah says. He was bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement of our peace. What it took for us to be reconciled with God and bring peace between God and us, and us and God was laid upon him And with His stripes we are healed. All we, brothers and sisters, like sheep have gone astray. But the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Every one of us like sheep has gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. No one can say, Lord, I'm not in that category. I'm a sheep that has gone astray. I'm one who has turned to his own way.

And I thank you, God. If you're a believer, you'll say, I thank you, God, that you laid on him my iniquity. He laid on him the iniquity of us all, to atone for our sins, to redeem us from all iniquity, to make peace through the blood of His cross, to bring in an everlasting righteousness, to bring us to Himself, to bring us to God, that where He is, praise God, there we may be also. God told Abraham to spare Isaac, but God didn't spare his son, but delivered him up for us all. The ultimate demonstration and evidence of God's love for his people that he is for us is that he did not even spare his own son.

He's only begotten. He who is in the bosom of the Father, he who is the brightness of the Father's glory in the expressed image of his person, the Father did not withhold him. Even his own son, but in love, delivered him up for us all. I came across this hymn in our hymnal, Shall We Still Dread God's Displeasure, Who to save freely gave His most cherished treasure. God gave His own Son.

To redeem us He had given His own Son from the throne of His might in heaven. And then we sang these words earlier Arise my soul arise shake off thy guilty fears Shake off thy guilty fears the bleeding sacrifice in My behalf appears in your behalf appears before the throne our surety stands before the throne our surety stands Our names are written on His hands. Brothers and sisters, God is for us. He is for His people. He has proven it again and again.

He has proven it through His Word. And since He spared not His own son, we can be assured of this truth, of the fact of it. He spared not his own son for us. God is for us. And as we close, since he spared not his own son, we can be assured that everything that he gives his Son, he will also give to us.

Look at the passage back in Romans chapter eight. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Without a doubt, he will. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you spared not your own son, but gave him up to the death of the cross for us.

And We thank you, Lord, that with Him, you freely give us all the things that you have promised. We thank you, God, that you have freely given us full atonement through His name. The remission of sins, life everlasting. We thank you God that you loved a people, you loved your people before time began and predestinated them as your Word says to be completely conformed to your Son in glory. We thank you God, and we thank you God that you did it, that He might be the firstborn, the preeminent one, worshiped and adored forever by us, along with a vast multitude of those He has redeemed, of glorified saints.

O God, that You would help us, Lord, every one of us who are in Christ, to take these things to heart. Oh, assure our hearts before you. Convince us, oh God, and convict us of the truth of your word, that those who are in your Son are secure in Him, their salvation secure in Him, both now and forever. And oh God, that you would help us also, Lord, to set Christ before us, God, to set Christ before us as our very life, He who is our life and our all in all, for we ask it in His holy name, amen.