Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Tweety Bird and all the rest are in trouble. Through no fault of their own, they find themselves matched in a basketball game they cannot win. Their opponents are huge. They dwarf the Toontown gang. Not only is the other team huge, the players are ugly and scary. And they are mean. In the first half of the game Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester and all are abused to the point of breaking. They leave the court dragging and defeated.
In the movie “Space Jam,” the Toontown team realizes its only hope is for a hero — someone who can rally them, inspire them, lead them; someone who is big enough and powerful enough and talented enough to beat these basketball bullies who have mistreated them so rudely during the first 20 minutes of the game.
Who is the hero? Michael Jordan, of course. And in typical movie fashion, Jordan accomplishes the impossible and leads his new team to victory.
There are times in life that all of us feel as abused and defeated as Bugs Bunny and company. There are times when all of us face opponents who are big, ugly and mean. There are times when hope of victory seems lost.
Go to any prayer meeting and listen to the litany of problems. A car wreck has left a person in a coma or impaired for life. Cancer has been diagnosed and everyone holds their breath awaiting the doctor’s report. Heart attacks. Strokes. Alzheimer’s. Injuries.
The opponents do not have to be physical to be scary. When one loses a job, the opposition can seem big, mean and ugly. When relationships fail, when families tear apart, when hurt comes into the body of Christ, the foes in front of us can seem big, mean and ugly. We know what it is like to feel abused and mistreated, to be dragged to the point of defeat.
We know what it is like to need a champion.
The good news is that we have a champion. Romans 8:31 declares: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” In the first verse of the chapter, the writer is already assured that God is for us when he writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
The emphasis of verse 31 is not a question. It is a declaration that “since God is for us, who can be against us.” The writer even asks “who will bring a charge against God’s elect.” It is as if God looks around heaven and earth, but all are silent.
For us who read these verses, we almost expect our own sin to speak out and accuse us, for we know too well that we “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” And the Bible teaches that the great accuser, the devil himself, longs to bring charges against us before God. Yet all are silent because “God is the One who justifies.” What God has done, no one can oppose.
How did God justify? Through Jesus Christ. Verse 34 explains that God took the initiative in Jesus’ paying the price for the sins of the world. We are told that God raised Jesus from the dead. Those who share the suffering of our Lord through faith will also share His life eternal because of that faith.
Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father and there He makes intercession for all who accept Him as Lord and Savior. Later in Romans the writer promises that Jesus is coming again.
God is for us.
The Apostle Paul then asks a rhetorical question, “What can separate us from the love of Christ?” He lists several possibilities — tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword.
Interestingly, he admits that Christians are going to suffer and die. They will face foes that are big, mean and ugly. Then the writer declares, “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” We are more than conquerors because “nothing can separate us from the love of God.” Those of us who love the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ know how the game is going to come out. We know who the winner will be. God is for us. No matter how big or how mean or how ugly the foes may appear, God is going to win and we are going to win because we are on God’s side.
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