This was Josh’s favorite Bible passage. I read it to him many times when we were together. I never asked Josh why this was his favorite passage, but I think I know why. These verses share incredibly good news. But they also speak of struggle. Josh experienced both.
Josh knew and had experienced the good news of this passage and never tired of hearing it. Listen to the phrases:
Verse 31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”Verse 37: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Josh was competitive. I first met Josh and Justin in 1993 in Mexico City, where the Shupacks were living at the time. Josh and Justin frequently played street soccer. Later played Josh played football, basketball and soccer. Maybe in life as well as in sports, Josh was encouraged to know that God was for him.
Verse 33-34: “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.Who then is the one who condemns? No one.”
Due to his mental illness, Josh sometimes heard condemning voices in his head, so these verses must have been encouraging. Josh must have been reassured by the incredible love of God in the gift of his son, Jesus.
Verse 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.”
This speaks of Jesus death on the cross. I recently read this:
The greatest possible ethic is love and the greatest possible way to express that ethic is self-sacrifice and if God is truly the greatest possible being, then he would express the greatest ethic in the greatest way and that is self-sacrifice even for his enemies. That is what the cross is all about.”
In the midst of his struggles, Josh held on to the love of God, demonstrated in the cross. This love was expressed in so many ways, especially through Marty and Diana and Justin and Sarah.
Verse 34: “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.”
Over the years, Josh would request that some of us go and pray with him from time to time. He valued the intercessory prayer of others. So I’m sure the image of the risen Lord, who conquered the death, interceding on his behalf at the right hand of the Father, was important to him.
Josh knew the good news of this passage, and never tired of hearing it. Josh’s life was shaped by this good news and the living Christ. Marty’s reflection mentioned that Josh had a “Great Heart”and a “Good Heart.” Josh lived a life of courage, initiative, drive and effort. And Josh was loving, caring, encouraging, understanding.
As we have heard, even in his great struggles, Josh shared the Good News. As Diana reflected, Josh shared Christ with many of friends, who came to faith in God through Josh’s and Justin’s witness. Sarah says that Josh “didn’t know how to hate. Josh related to everybody everywhere. He loved people. Josh was always able to talk about his faith. He didn’t do that because he felt Christians were supposed to, or as some kind of project. He was genuine. Jesus was just so important to him and so much part of his life, that talking about him with others was natural. It was simply who Josh was. Josh spoke from his experience without being judgmental or intrusive. He was inviting, not pushy. He made people feel comfortable.”
Josh and Justin opened the doors for me as a pastor to join with them in sharing the Good News with many, even with some of you here today. Josh showed us that the most important thing in sharing the Good News is not perfection, but a life touched and shaped by the living Lord.
But Josh also knew the struggle this passage talks about. At times, Josh’s mental illness led him to feel lost and separated from God. There were thoughts and voices in his mind that condemned. The medications that he took for his illness would sometimes leave him feeling numb. The struggle was real, so that’s why I think he never tired of hearing:
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship…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,[b]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.
Now Josh is enjoying the fullness of God’s love in Christ. No more struggles, no more battles. No more mental illness. Josh is healthier than anyone of us now. He’s enjoying what he deeply longed for his entire life.
The Apostle Paul, the author the book of Romans where we find Josh’s favorite passage, experienced many struggles and hardships in his life. He likely struggled with condemning thoughts. There were many people who were against him. At times he felt lonely and abandoned. Likely Romans 8:31-39 grew out of Paul’s own experience of struggle and hope.
Near the end of his life, in his last letter, Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:7:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
One of the things that impressed me about Josh was that, even in the midst of, his most difficult struggles, he kept the faith. Marty noted Josh’s effort and drive to push forward. Josh brought that persistence to his life as a follower of Jesus.
Paul and Josh remind us that as followers of Jesus that our path is sometimes difficult. That the struggle can be real. That we don’t always understand why and how God works. At times we feel deeply discouraged. But Josh and Paul challenge us to keep fighting the good fight, to finish the race, the keep the faith because we trust in a loving God who in the end makes us more than conquerors.
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