What difference would it make to you if you could see and hear our Lord Jesus Christ praying for you? Will you be encouraged to know that God knows all about your problems, that you are not facing the challenges of life alone? Will your problems immediately begin to melt away since you know that God’s own Son is on your side? Will that vision inspire you to take the bold step of faith you have been afraid to take, knowing that with Christ on your side you are safe? This is how one pioneer missionary to America, Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843), answers the question for himself, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies.” Yet we do not need to hear with our physical ears Christ praying for us. We can hear it with our ears of faith. For “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). As Christians we are accustomed to thinking of Christ as our judge. In today’s second reading from Romans, Paul, still maintaining the courtroom image tells us to see Christ not just as our judge but as our defence attorney. Imagine Christ standing up at God’s judgment throne and marshalling his arguments, point by point, why you should acquitted! Could God say no to Christ? Who else in heaven or earth could take a stand against Christ and have any chance of success? With these powerful images Paul assures the persecuted Christians of Rome that, in life or in death, they are completely safe and secure and have absolutely nothing to fear. “If God is for us,” he asks, “who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). The answer is clear: noone. Paul wants to assure the struggling Christians of Rome of the infinite love of God for them. You know, when one is besieged by trials and difficulties on every side, it is easy to doubt if God is really there for us. To reassure them that, yes, God is still with them in their suffering, Paul makes allusion to the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac. He does this to make two points. First is that people of God should not be surprised if they are visited with undeserved suffering because even God’s only Son also went through a suffering and death that he did not deserve. The second point is to underline God’s infinite love. “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” (verse 32). In the persecutions, Christians were arrested, charged to court, tried, found guilty of treason or impiety, and then put to death. Paul is telling them that the charges brought against them are phony and the judgments passed against them null and void, since the only judgment that really counts is God’s own judgment. “Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn?” (verses 33-34a). Then he makes the startling statement that Christ is at God’s right hand interceding for us. “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us” (verse 34b) This statement is startling because according to the ancient creed of Christians, the Apostle’s Creed, Christ (i) died, (ii) was raised, (iii) ascended and seated at God’s right hand, (iv) “will come again to judge the living and the dead.” Paul changes the fourth item. Instead of Christ judging us he has Christ interceding for us. Christ is not just a neutral observer recording and judging our actions and failures. He is on our side, supporting us by his grace, to make sure that we do not fall at all. With this new understanding of Christ who is not a disinterested judge but a committed advocate on our side, Paul concludes by asking a series of questions, which we will do well to answer for ourselves today: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (verse 35,37).