The Gospel for Moms | Romans 8:28-39
Brian G. Hedges | May 12, 2024
Let me invite you now to turn in scripture to Romans 8. Of course, today is Mother’s Day and I want to say Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms in the room. But I have to acknowledge that every time I come to a Mother’s Day and prepare a Mother’s Day message, I’m conscious of the diverse experiences and emotions that are represented in the room. There’s, of course, deep gratitude in many of our hearts for the moms who shaped us and the moms of our children—women in our lives who are raising godly children and seeking to follow the Lord in that important calling.
But there’s also, of course, the emotions of disappointment or of grief, or loss, or sorrow, that many women feel if you wanted to be a mom and have not been given that opportunity. That can be a deep feeling of disappointment on Mother’s Day. Or if you’ve lost a mom in the last several years and you know that ache—that void of your mom not being with us anymore. Maybe you feel those emotions this morning. Or for moms who have lost a child. Of course, on Mother’s Day you’re going to feel those emotions of sadness.
So today I want to bring a message that is really an application of the Gospel to the hearts of moms. While I’m obviously not a mom, from what I can tell it’s hard to be a mom. Being a mom is a tough job. Maybe you’ve seen that American Greetings commercial made several years ago where they kind of set up a fake interview and there’s a person interviewing people for a job. They are very serious about this and he’s listing all of the qualifications. He’s listing the hours—you know, a hundred and thirty-something hours a week. But literally, you have to be available 24/7. Oh, and the pay is nothing. And, of course, people are just astounded by this and then comes the punchline. There’s actually millions of people doing this job. They are called moms. And you can see that moment of recognition on the faces of the interviewees, and even emotion, as they begin to think about their moms.
Being a mom is a tough job. Sometimes the church can make the job seem even harder. There are many passages of scripture that speak to the vocation of moms, and those are important. But what I’m going to do this morning is not the Proverbs 31 sermon. That’s an important passage of scripture and it gives us a lot of wisdom about what this ideal virtuous woman looks like, but I think that it’s possible to hear a message like that and walk away feeling, not motivated and inspired, but instead feeling condemned—feeling like you don’t measure up; feeling like this is the ideal standard, but when I look at my life against the ideal I don’t feel like I measure up to it. It seems moms regularly today struggle with deep feelings of anxiety and fear and guilt and insecurity. Sometimes if all you’re getting are the commands of scripture—if all you’re getting is law and not grace, you can just exacerbate that feeling.
What I want to do this morning is talk about the Gospel for moms—the application of the Gospel to some of these deep experiences that moms feel in relationship to motherhood. And I want to do that by going to Romans 8:28-39, about the last third of this wonderful chapter in scripture. It’s pure Gospel. It’s actually a pretty heavy theological passage of scripture, but I think the application of it to the emotions that many moms feel could be helpful this morning. Of course, if you’re not a mom, you can just transpose the application to your own role and your own emotions and experiences in your own role and vocation in life.
Let’s read this passage, Romans 8, beginning in verse 28. The Apostle Paul is writing and he says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? 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 with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 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.” This is God’s word.
So what I want to do this morning is just apply this Gospel-rich passage of scripture to these three emotions that I’ve already mentioned this morning: fear, guilt, and insecurity. And of course, we won’t be able to unpack every single verse or all the nuances of the passage this morning, but I hope that you’ll see that, when we understand the broad outline of the teaching of this passage and all that it says about God’s saving purpose and God’s justifying grace and God’s unbreakable love given to us in Christ, you’ll see that the application of this to the emotions and the experiences of moms, as well as anyone else, can be a great antidote to those emotions in our hearts and lives.
(1) So first of all, how do we apply the Gospel to the emotions of fear and anxiety? Of course, we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that is full of sickness and disease, of senseless violence and natural disasters and a world that is marked by suffering and with death itself. It would be irrational to not feel any fear when we think about those threats in our lives. And of course, moms are sometimes going to feel that when they think about the threats against their children—they are concerned with the safety and the wellbeing of their children. For a Christian mom, that extends to their spiritual wellbeing and their spiritual safety and their salvation in Jesus Christ.
But what do we do with those emotions so that the emotion of fear doesn’t become a paralyzing kind of anxiety? I think we find the answer to that in Romans 8:28-32. Let me just start with verse 28 where we see this promise—a promise from God, and it’s one of the great promises in all of scripture.
“And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.”
This has got to be one of the greatest promises in the Bible. Now, I know that this verse can be applied in an unfeeling and uncompassionate way. This isn’t a verse that you just quote to someone when they are in the throes of suffering—when they’re in the throes of loss—and kind of apply this as a panacea to all problems. There’s a danger in doing that and failing to weep with those who weep and not understanding the heartache and the sorrow and suffering that people are going through.
I think we have to say that the Bible is more honest about suffering than we could possibly imagine. All you have to do is read the Psalms and see the Psalms of lament and these earnest expressions of heartache and grief in prayer to God. But a passage like this needs to be reckoned with. While the scripture is very realistic about suffering, the scripture is also more hopeful about our sufferings because the Bible reminds us that we do not sorrow as those who have no hope and it reminds us again and again that there is a God, a sovereign God who is our Father, who reigns over all and who is working out his good purposes in our lives so that something is qualitatively different about Christian suffering. I think this passage is pointing us to that truth. It is reminding us that God works all things together for our good if we are in Christ. We know that the “all things” includes suffering because just a few verses before Paul mentions suffering in verse 18 when he says, “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory to be revealed to us.” These sufferings are part of what God uses.
And in fact, in another passage—I read this last week, 2 Corinthians 4:17—Paul says, “This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” So Paul here is saying that the suffering is actually something that is used by God to bring about the glory that is to come.
C.S. Lewis one time said, “They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into glory.”
Now that’s part of the promise of the Gospel, that God will turn our agonies into glories. He will use our suffering to accomplish his good, eternal purpose for our lives, and what is that purpose? It is to make us more like Jesus. You see that in verse 29. “For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” We’ve talked about this for the last several weeks, that God’s great purpose is to restore the divine image—to conform us to the image of Christ—and he uses all things to accomplish that purpose. He is bending all of our sufferings, all of our circumstances towards this goal, towards this end, to conform us more and more to the image of his Son. And that purpose is supported by all of the saving work of God. you see that in verse 30. This gives us the famous golden chain of salvation with these various links in the chain. Notice what it says, “And those he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
Now there’s a lot more in that than I’m able to unpack this morning, but here’s what I want you to notice: that there is a crucial link between God’s call—the call that’s referenced in verse 28, “Called according to his purposes,”---and our future glorification, so that those whom God has called and predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ will finally be glorified. God is using everything in our lives to accomplish this purpose.
One of the old Puritans named Thomas Watson wrote an entire book on Romans 8:28. The book was originally called, The Divine Cordial. You ask, what is a cordial? Well, a cordial in old English was a medicine. But it wasn’t just any medicine, it was a medicine with a particular quality. Here’s a definition from the Oxford English Dictionary. It says, “It is a medicine, a food, or a beverage which invigorates the heart.” Okay, that’s what a cordial is, and Watson is saying that this is a truth which invigorates the hearts of believers—the truth that God works all things together for our good. His whole book is really just an exposition of this verse showing that God uses not only the best things in our lives—we expect that—but he also uses the worst things in our lives in order to accomplish this purpose. And here’s one key quote.
“Afflictions work for good as they conform us to Christ. [Listen to this.] God’s rod is a pencil to draw Christ’s image more lively upon us.”
Some of you are looking ahead and maybe you just feel paralyzed with fear and anxiety when you think about the possibility of grief in your life, especially in relation to your family. Some of you are looking back and you’ve already experienced that grief and you’re wondering what to make of it. Here’s what you make of it: God is using it, and he’s using it to conform you to the image of Christ.
The great assurance that we have that God will accomplish this purpose is given to us in verses 31 and 32. Verse 31 says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” That’s the assurance: that God is for you. God isn’t against you. And even with the sufferings that come into your life, it’s not that God is against you. God is for you and he is exploiting even those bad things to accomplish his purpose.
Verse 32 then assures us that God will give us everything that we need. He’ll give us all the grace we need. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” We know that God is for us because we look to the cross where we see that he gave his Son, Jesus. If he’s given his best gift already, he’s going to give us every subsequent gift we need in order to walk the walk of faith.
So here’s the application: when you are fearful of the future or grieving through past or present losses, remember that your heavenly Father uses even your sufferings and your heartaches to make you more like Jesus. This is a Gospel antidote to fear and anxiety and sets our eyes on the goodness and the wisdom of our gracious and sovereign Father in heaven.
(2) Secondly, what about guilt? How do we apply the Gospel to guilt? I think this is also a problem for many moms. In fact, I googled “mom guilt" and here’s just some of the links that came up.
parenting.com, Thirty-one Reasons You Shouldn’t Feel Mom Guilt
babysitter.com, Top Seven Mommy Guilt Trips and How to Handle Them
Huffington Post
WebMD
Psych Central, The Pros and Cons of Mom Guilt
Forbes magazine, Letters to Working Moms: Stop Feeling So Guilty
Alright? That’s a pretty diverse set of websites and news resources that are addressing the problem of mom guilt. It sounds like it’s an issue, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder when you consider the world we live in. It's a very public world now with social media and we live in a cancel culture, and on every decision that a mom has to make, there’s going to be debate and someone is going to say you’re wrong. So these are the kinds of things moms wrestle with:
Should you be a working mom or a stay-at-home-mom?
Should you breastfeed or bottle feed?
Should you use cloth diapers or disposable diapers?
Should you homeschool your kids or send them to a Christian school or send them to public school?
Should you allow sleepovers or not allow sleepovers?
In every decision you make, if it’s public, someone’s going to say you’re making the wrong decision. That’s why there’s a lot of mom guilt, and sometimes the church just piles the guilt on because a lot of Christians have very strong opinions about these things.
Now, maybe it doesn’t need to be pointed out but I’m going to point it out anyway. There’s actually two kinds of guilt. There is false guilt and then there’s also real, actual guilt. For a lot of the stuff that I just mentioned, the guilt that moms feel over those things is really false guilt because the Bible doesn’t specify one way to do all of these different things.
But there is such a thing as real guilt and sometimes moms wrestle with those feelings of guilt because moms, also, are sinners. Sometimes the stresses of parenthood can reveal deep underlying patterns of sin and selfishness in a person’s life, and you might begin to think about the ways in which you’ve sinned against your kids, or the ways that you have failed your kids, or the ways in which your sin has affected them.
When that’s the case, how do you apply the Gospel to guilt? The answer is in verse 33 where Paul asks, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” And here’s Paul using the language of the courtroom. Who can bring a charge? Who can bring a charge that’s going to stick against you? And the answer is, “It is God who justifies.”
And of course, this is the great Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide, justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And you might wonder, “Does that really have relevance to the everyday life of moms?” And I want to say, “You bet it does,” because when you’re wrestling with the feelings of guilt and inadequacy and you wonder how you measure up, what you need is not to pull yourself up by the bootstraps—I guess some girls wear boots—but it’s to apply the Gospel deeply to your heart and to your life.
So, let’s just kind of imagine an experiment for a minute. I want you to picture yourself standing before God on the Day of Judgment and every moment of your life is vivid in your mind. I mean, here’s the moment when you give an account to the Lord, all of your sins, all of your failures. And you’re conscious of every time you were impatient or angry or resentful, of every harsh or unkind word you ever spoke to one of your children, of every time you made a self-centered choice, of every time you complained or murmured under hardship or difficulty, every instance of discontent, every time you gazed on another woman’s life or family with envy or judged her with disdain. The books are opened, the records are read, and when the evidence comes up against you in all of its stark and damning ugliness, what’s the verdict? The verdict is “not guilty”.
Why? Because, you see, you’re not judged on the basis of your works because justification is not based on what you’ve done, it’s based on what Christ has done. And in fact, the verdict is already given, you’re already justified. You’ve already been declared righteous in the eyes of the court because of what Jesus has done for you. That’s what the doctrine of justification is teaching. The obedience of Jesus is credited to you so that your sins are covered, you are pardoned, and you are considered righteous in the eyes of God, the divine judge, and therefore free from all the penalties of the law.
And the reason we can be confident in this, that God is the one who justifies and nobody can lay a charge against us, is given in verse 34. Paul asks another question, “Who is there to condemn?” It’s a rhetorical question, and the implied answer is, “No one.” And he gives the reasons, and the reasons are packed with Gospel. “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.” There’s the cross; there’s the death of Christ. “More than that, who was raised.” There’s the resurrection of Christ. “Who is at the right hand of God,” There is the exaltation of Christ who indeed is interceding for us. I mean, that’s just the essence of the Gospel, isn’t it? And Paul is saying that when you look to the cross and to the empty tomb of Jesus Christ, and when you remember that Christ is seated at God’s right hand right now interceding for you, it means that nobody can condemn you, not even for sins you’ve actually committed. If you are in Christ, the sins are covered and you are justified.
There’s a wonderful story told by Dale Ralph Davis in one of his books. This is the story of a young man who had committed a crime and he had spent a time in prison and the day of his release was coming. He had brought great shame onto his family and he didn’t know whether they would want him back or not. He wrote them a letter—he hadn’t heard from them for some time—and he just told them, “I’m going to be on the train that runs by the farm and if you want me to come home, just hang a white ribbon on the apple tree by the train tracks.” And sure enough, the day came. He’s on the train, they’re approaching the farm, and he can’t bear to look out the window because he doesn’t know whether he will be accepted or rejected. He’s sitting next to someone on the train and he asked that person, “Would you look out the window and just tell me what you see.” He told him about this letter. The person he’s riding with looks out the window, turns to the young man, and he says, “It’s all right. The whole tree is white with ribbons.” It was covered in ribbons! And that’s a picture of God’s grace. It’s not that you get barely saved or barely forgiven, it’s that you get abundantly forgiven and accepted by God’s grace. It’s an abundant salvation.
So here’s the application: when you feel condemned by the disapproval of your peers or the accusations of your own conscience, remember that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free.
For God, the Just, is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.
That’s the answer to guilt. You look to Christ on the cross and risen from the dead who paid for your sins so that you could be fully forgiven and accepted by God.
(3) So we apply the Gospel to fear. We apply the Gospel to guilt. One more, how do we apply the Gospel to insecurity? And again, I think this is a deep emotion felt by many women in the world today.
I’m going to take a risk here, I’m going to quote from a movie I don’t necessarily approve of, but last year when this movie came out, there’s a speech in the movie that just kind of went viral online. This is the movie, Barbie. Some of you are wondering, “Brian went to see Barbie?” And I’ll tell you why. Okay, I’ve kind of made a deal with Holly that she comes with me to the epic science-fiction movies, and if she wants to see a chick-flick, I’ll go with her. Neither one of us ended up liking the movie, but there is this one scene in the movie when one character named Gloria is talking to Barbie in the movie, and this is what she says—I’ll just read you an excerpt of this monologue. She said:
“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You [speaking to Barbie] are so beautiful, so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy but you also have to be thin. You have to have money but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss but you can’t be mean. You have to lead but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to be a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the time. You have to be a career woman but also always looking out for other people. You have to answer for mens’ bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be part of the sisterhood. Always stand out and always be grateful, but never forget that the system is rigged, so find a way to acknowledge that, but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard.”
That’s quite a monologue, isn’t it? I mean, that’s pretty revealing of the deep sense of insecurity that many women live with in the world. But you know what’s absent from that? What is absent is an answer on how to deal with it. Because the answer is not, “You be you.” That’s Hollywood’s answer to everything. That’s not the answer of the Gospel.
The answer to the feelings of insecurity or inadequacy in your life is not just, “Be yourself.” It’s, instead, “Look to the God who is your creator who loves you with everlasting love—an unbreakable and unshakable love.” You see this in verses 35-39 here in Romans 8.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 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.”
There is a kind of love that you can never lose if you are united by faith to Jesus Christ. It is the love of God that secures you, that gives you a sense of new identity in Christ— an identity that’s not dependent on your performance and that gives you a love that can never be taken away.
Let me just give you one more illustration. One day, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend, and as they strolled along they noticed a barn with a weather vane. And on the weather vane it said, “God is love.” And Spurgeon initially objected to this. He said, “I don’t like the implication of that weather vane, as if God’s love is changeable with the wind and the weather.” His friend corrected him and said, “I don’t agree with you about those words, Charles. You’ve misunderstood the meaning. The sign is indicating this truth: regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.” And that’s right. It’s a love that cannot be taken away. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
So here’s the application: when you feel insecure and your identity, your capabilities, your circumstances, remember that you are so secure in Christ that nothing can separate you from God’s love. Do you see how the Gospel, these great theological truths of the Gospel, when they are applied to our hearts, can actually make a difference to our experience?
When you struggle with fear, you can consider the goodness of God’s sovereign purpose, that God is for you and if he is for you, nothing can be against you. He will work out his plan to conform you to the image of his Son.
And when you feel guilt and condemnation, whether it’s just perceived, false guilt in your own mind or maybe it’s real actual guilt for actual sins committed, you can look to God’s justifying grace in Christ and the truth that no one can lay any charge against you. No one can condemn you because Christ has died and has risen.
Well may the accuser roar
Of sins that I have done,
I know them all and thousands more,
Jehovah knoweth none.
And when you feel weary and insecure and restless because of all of the competing messages in our world about what you should be and who you should be, you can remember that you are absolutely secure in God’s love given in Jesus Christ so that nothing in heaven or earth can separate you from his love.
I hope that you’re resting in that love this morning, that you’ve trusted in that good news, in that Gospel, and may God now apply it to our hearts by his Spirit. Let’s pray together.
Gracious, merciful God, we thank you this morning for these rich truths of the Gospel. And we pray that your Spirit would now do more than mere words can do, that your Spirit would take these truths and so apply them to our hearts that we feel the difference, that we are transformed, that fear and anxiety give way to peace, and feelings of guilt are removed as we feel the welcome and the assurance of your grace and of your acceptance in Christ, and that all the feelings and emotions of inadequacy and insecurity give way to a deep sense of security in the love of God. Lord, we need to apply these things to our lives and we need your Spirit to help us in it and we pray that you would do that now.
As we come to the Lord’s table, we pray that the table, also, would be for us a means of grace. As we take the bread and juice, may we remember that these are emblems of the body of Jesus Christ broken for us, the blood of the Savior poured out for our sins, and may we experience a deep assurance of your saving grace and mercy given to us in Christ. We ask you, Lord, to work in us what is pleasing in your sight and to draw near to us now as we draw near to you. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
