What does First B Jackson teach about nothing can separate us?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on this topic is rooted in the closing verses of Romans 8, and Pastor Ray has returned to them more than once, including out of his own personal grief. The starting point is always context. Romans 8:28 does not float on its own. Paul has spent seven chapters establishing that humanity stands guilty before God, that justification comes through faith alone, and that there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. All of that ground is what makes the promise that God works all things together for good mean something real rather than sound like a platitude.
Pastor Ray is careful about what the verse does and does not say. God working all things together for good does not mean He authors sin, rebellion, or temptation. Those choices belong to us. What it does mean is that God's sovereignty is large enough to turn even the worst circumstances toward the good of those who love Him, without Him becoming responsible for our sin. The purpose behind that working, spelled out in verses 29 and 30, is conformity to the image of Christ, so that Jesus would be the firstborn among many brothers. The predestination Paul describes there is not meant to frighten but to comfort.
Verses 31 through 39 press the logic to its conclusion. If God did not spare His own Son, He will not withhold anything else His people genuinely need. No charge against the elect can finally stick because God Himself is the one who justifies. Christ is not only the one who died but the one who rose and who is interceding right now at the right hand of God for each person going through each specific thing. To show what it looks like to hold that promise in the middle of real suffering, Pastor Ray has read all of Psalm 44 from the pulpit, showing that Paul's quotation in verse 36 is not a random line but an echo of a whole song, a prayer from people under oppression who have not let go of God. The conclusion of the passage is that nothing in all creation, not death, not life, not anything present or to come, can separate those who are in Christ from the love of God.
Taught from Romans 8:28 · Romans 8:29-30 · Romans 8:31-35 · Romans 8:38-39 · Psalm 44
The passage taught · Psalm 44
1 We have heard with our ears, God; our fathers have told us, what work you did in their days, in the days of old.
2 You drove out the nations with your hand, but you planted them. You afflicted the peoples, but you spread them abroad.
3 For they didn’t get the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your face, because you were favorable to them.
4 You are my King, God. Command victories for Jacob!
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 1, 2026 Nothing Can Separate Us Romans 8 shows that nothing can separate believers from God's love, even suffering, grief, and doubt. Pastor Ray walks through Romans 8:28-39.
- February 1, 2025 All Things, These Things, All These Things Romans 8:28 is on coffee mugs for a reason, but Pastor Ray walks through the full passage to show what it actually promises and why it holds.
- July 31, 2016 In All These Things, More Than Conquerors Romans 8:28-39 explored: Pastor Ray walks through Paul's sweeping declaration that nothing in heaven or earth can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.