Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ who has made us more than conquerors through his great love for us. Amen.

Romans 8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Heavenly Father, in Your great kindness You created us and all the world in perfect harmony. When we had shaken the foundations of creation by our rebellion, You showed abundant mercy by restoring through Your Son what we could never repair. You have promised and demonstrated to us your amazing and gracious love. Nothing can take us away from that love and salvation. For this we give You thanks and praise, now and forever. Amen.

A popular song proclaimed: "Love makes the world go 'round." William Shakespeare penned the famous lines: "Llove is blind and lovers cannot see the petty follies that themselves commit." The Latin poet Virgil wrote: "OMNIA VINCIT AMOR", which translates into "Love conquers all." The famous passage in the Bible says, "God is love." (1 John 4:8)

Jesus took the Ten Commandments and boiled them down to love by saying, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind"; and "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Prison officials note that often the only person who will visit a prisoner year after year is the prisoner's mother. Why? Love. No one can force a person to remain married to someone else. Threats don't work. A gun won't keep a marriage together. What will? Love.

The answer to some of those perplexing questions we can ask of God is often love. Why didn’t God simply wipe Adam and Eve off of this world after they sinned and start over? The only answer seems to be love. Or why did God make this world if he knew that mankind was going to rebel against him? Again the answer is love.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent. Lent is a time when we focus on our failures and our awesome God who loves us in spite of our failures. We spend some time with St. Paul this Lenten season as Paul instructs us that, when it comes to God, it always comes down to love.

The first evidence of God’s love is this: God did not spare own Son. Paul writes, "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all -- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

Jesus once said that "nothing is impossible" with God. The almighty God can do anything easily. God says that he loves us. Yet I would imagine that it is more difficult for God to love us than to create the world. God loves us, yet how have we treated him in return? Doubt, anger, resentment, fear, adultery with false gods, and more. How could God show love to sinful humans?

According to Robert Ripley, the longest—and simplest—love letter ever written was the work of a Parisan painter named Marcel de Leclure in 1875. It contained the phrase "jevous aime" – "I Love You" – 1,875,000 times. The prodigious lover did not pen the letter with his own hand. He hired a scribe. He dictated it word for word and had the hired man repeat it verbatim. All in all, the phrase was uttered orally and in writing 5,625,000 times—before it reached its destination. Robert Ripley then concluded, "Never was love made manifest by as great an expenditure of time and effort." I thought, "that’s a ridiculous conclusion." How loving is it to just write the same thing a million times?

God’s Word doesn’t just contain the same words over and over again, "I love you." It is illustrated and displayed in Christ. He had his only Son put flesh on for 33 years, and then for all eternity. Then he subjected that Son to a lifetime of his laws. After that, he took his Son and put him on a cross. The God who abhorred child sacrifice, allowed his own Son to be beaten and mangled and to suffer hell on the cross.

Some people are offended by such a thing. They say, "How could a God of love sacrifice his only son? What kind of a God is that?" They would rather talk about a God of love being one who just winks at sin and says, "Hey, that’s OK - we all sin." But God’s love was so great that he didn’t want his creatures to be constantly subject to pain and sorrow. Instead, his love wanted to see us holy and pure on Judgment Day. The only way this could be done would be if our sins could be taken off of us and eradicated forever. So he appointed his only Son to do just that – to die for our sins. Paul wrote, "He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all." I couldn’t imagine allowing one of my children to die for my friends, much less people who had stabbed me in the back. But that’s the kind of love God showed toward us. He spared nothing in saving us from hell.

You could tell your spouse or your children a hundred times over that you love them - but if you never hugged them, never kissed them, never bought them any gifts or spent any time with them, they would start to wonder if you really meant what you said. God loves us with more than words. He backs up his love with actions.

When Oliver Cromwell was ruling England, a young soldier had been tried in military court and sentenced to death. He was to be shot at the "ringing of the curfew bell." His fiancée climbed up into the bell tower several hours before curfew time and tied herself to the bell's huge clapper. At curfew time, when only muted sounds came from the bell tower, Cromwell demanded to know why the bell was not ringing the curfew. His soldiers went to investigate and found the young woman cut and bleeding from being knocked back and forth on the bell as the clapper swung. They brought her down before Cromwell. Cromwell was so impressed with her willingness to suffer for someone she loved that he dismissed the condemned soldier saying, "Curfew will not ring tonight." In a spiritual sense we were all condemned to God's firing squad. We all deserved to die forever in hell. But Jesus allowed himself to be beaten and nailed to a cross. Because of Jesus God's anger at sin could not strike us and we are safe. The reason why God let his Son die cannot be explained in any other way than this: It always comes down to love.

It always comes to love because it is God who justifies. Paul writes, "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died -- more than that, who was raised to life -- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." The rich Bible term "justify" means to declare righteous, innocent, not guilty. It is a judicial term of a guilty criminal standing before a judge, but the judge drops all charges against him.

We have a defense attorney who is constantly interceding for us, pleading our case, before the Father’s throne – Jesus Christ. The Father is the judge who has declared us to be not guilty based on his Son’s intercessory actions. In God’s eyes our jail term has already been paid for – we’ve already done our time in hell, since Jesus did it for us. The devil may try to accuse us. He may try to make us believe that our lives are worthless and pointless and full of sin. He’s right … except none of that evidence is admissible in God’s courtroom. God has thrown out all the piles of evidence against us because of our defense attorney, Jesus Christ.

But even though we are forgiven by God through Jesus Christ, the sad fact is that we still keep on sinning. Fight as hard as we can against sin, we still sin. Sometimes we partially succeed with God's help in doing what is right. But if we are honest, we know we sin against God and his holy will every day. Our Ash Wednesday banner is a visible reminder of that. What then? Listen to this: "Christ Jesus, who died -- more than that, who was raised to life -- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." Every day and every hour of the day we have a defense lawyer before God who pleads our case and gets God to drop all charges against us as long as we believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. Famous lawyers like Johnny Cochrane and F. Lee Bailey win many cases, but not all. Jesus never loses. When he defends us, we are declared not guilty by God himself.

A Minneapolis insurance office had a strange case at the end of the Depression. A timid, tired old lady came into the office and approached the first desk she saw. When asked what she wanted, she showed the clerk a policy and explained that she was unable to make additional payments on it. She said it was hard for her to get work and what little she did get was hardly enough to clothe and feed herself and to keep a roof over her head. After quick investigation, the clerk saw that her policy was valuable. She warned her that she was making an unwise move to stop payment. Besides, did her husband not have anything to say about this matter? It was his policy, made out with her as the beneficiary. 'My husband,' the lady replied, 'has been dead for three years.' The company officials immediately went into action and found that what she said was true. Not only was she entitled to the face value of the policy, but also a refund of the amount she had paid after her husband's death. Her husband's policy left her enough money to be comfortable for the rest of her life. She had not realized that her husband's death left her rich. That's the way it is with everyone who either does not know about Jesus Christ or does not believe in him. The truth is, however, the death of Jesus Christ makes us rich before God, our sins are forgiven and we are guaranteed a home with God in heaven. Why? It always comes down to love.

The third great proof that it always comes down to love is that nothing can separate us from God's love. Security is one of the great concerns people have. Many people want financial security. If you have enough money in investments, savings, property and so forth, you might think you have security. But what would happen if you were hit with a huge lawsuit? Or what would happen if someone stole your identity? Or what would happen if we were struck with a deep economic depression or the stock market plummeting again?There really is no such thing as absolute financial security. Even Social Security isn’t very secure. It will run out of money unless some drastic measures are taken. Now compare the value of having financial security to having the security of being with God in heaven as opposed to being doomed to eternal hell. If I lost every dollar I own I really haven't lost anything but money. But if I lose my soul I have lost everything.

Now comes this question: If you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin, how certain can you be that you will be with him in heaven? 15% certain, or 55% or 99%? Paul settles the issue forever for us: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate you from the love of God as long as you believe in Jesus Christ. That is security – eternal security.

An elderly lady was greatly disturbed by her many troubles, both real and imaginary. Finally she was told in a kindly way by one of her family, "Grandma, we've done all we can do for you. You'll have to trust God for the rest." A look of utter despair spread over her face as she replied, "Oh, dear, has it come to that?" It always comes to that, so we might as well begin with that! In the end it finally comes right down to this: Do you really believe that God is going to take you to heaven or not? Do you really believe that Jesus saved you, or do you believe that you can save yourself either partially or completely? Our whole certainty of salvation comes down to trusting God. It always comes down to love. Amen.

1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Amen.