SPEAKER_00: To Romans chapter 8, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: We as a church are walking through the book of Acts, but beginning on Easter, we paused our Acts study to really take a kind of a deep dive into Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: And Romans chapter 8, as I've been sharing throughout this series, is really important in our understanding of why God has given us the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That God has given us the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us Jesus' very Spirit in order to go through life and to know deep within us that we are loved by God.
SPEAKER_00: To know deep within us that we have this advocate, the Holy Spirit, who prays on our behalf, who literally testifies within us that what we read in Scripture is true, that Jesus loves us, that God loves us.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we're learning about in Acts the ministry of the Holy Spirit and how we are to be people who are filled with the Holy Spirit, showing the love of Christ where we live, work, study, and play in our own homes, it's important that we understand how the Holy Spirit ministers to us first.
SPEAKER_00: So that's really what we've been looking at for the last few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm gonna share this morning, we need the Holy Spirit to convince us of what I'm about to say that it's true.
SPEAKER_00: Like I got a lot, I wrote like 4,000 words this week for this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who don't realize that, I actually write the things that I'm gonna say.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not just kind of getting up here and spouting.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some powerful things that I'm about to say, but I'm gonna tell you right now, without the presence of the Holy Spirit to make these things true to your heart, my words don't matter.
SPEAKER_00: And so my prayer and my hope this morning is that as we're walking through kind of the crescendo moment of Romans 8 and the power of what Paul is trying to convince the church in Rome of, but he's also trying to convince the church in Arvada of, we actually need the Spirit to make everything that I'm about to say real to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Like we need to have an experience of God's love, not just to know God's love intellectually, but to feel God's love for this to hit hard.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna pray that way this morning, uh, and then we'll dive into this text.
SPEAKER_00: God, this morning, we need your spirit that you promise is present in those who are followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, would you allow these truths of your word that are inspired by the very spirit that lives within us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you allow these things to land and hit hard?
SPEAKER_00: I pray for those who are here today or watching online who are yet to experience your outrageous, incredible, extravagant love, that your love would be experienced in this room this morning.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray particularly for those here today who are suffering, who are in the midst of some sort of battle, either a trial within or a trial without, that this morning, that the promises of what your word says, that you are working in all things, the good and the bad, to accomplish your purposes in your world and in us, that that is a trustworthy saying.
SPEAKER_00: And that you are trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 28, Paul writes these words, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: For those he 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.
SPEAKER_00: What then shall we say to these things?
SPEAKER_00: If God is for us, who can be against us?
SPEAKER_00: He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give all things?
SPEAKER_00: Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
SPEAKER_00: Is it God who justifies, who is to condemn?
SPEAKER_00: Christ is the one who died more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us.
SPEAKER_00: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
SPEAKER_00: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_00: 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 that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: My parents had a lot of friends growing up, and many of these friends they would invite to live into our home live into our home with us when they were going through a rough patch.
SPEAKER_00: It's just the way my parents lived life.
SPEAKER_00: They just saw people and loved people and took them in.
SPEAKER_00: And so I had people at my house all of the time, and my parents had a lot of friends, but there was one particular friend that my mom had, and her name was Tana, and Tana was different in the best kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: I remember as a 12 or 13-year-old boy going through adolescence, being awestruck with Tana's ability to show kindness to other people.
SPEAKER_00: How she showed kindness to me.
SPEAKER_00: And as I grew up in my teenage years and I made really poor decisions that created distance between me and the church, and distance between me and others, Tana's love for me as a teenager, in the midst of my sin, in the midst of my rebellion, it made a mark on me.
SPEAKER_00: Tana always showed me a picture of someone who deeply loved God and who was being formed into the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When I looked at Tana, I saw Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember a time in conversations with Tana where she didn't just look at me with this giant smile.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't matter what I was going through, didn't matter what the decisions I was making, she would smile at me and she would speak to me about how much God loved me and how all of the things that she saw in me, they were gonna happen one day.
SPEAKER_00: She saw stuff in me that I didn't see in myself.
SPEAKER_00: And so it was deeply disturbing about 10 years later, when I was a young adult, to find out that Tana had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
SPEAKER_00: And at that point in my life, my understanding of the Bible and my understanding of suffering and theology, this made no sense to me because people like Tana, people who genuinely loved God, they didn't get terminal cancer.
SPEAKER_00: Especially not in their 40s while their children were still in school.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, even after her diagnosis, Tana never seemed nervous.
SPEAKER_00: She never seemed scared.
SPEAKER_00: Her confidence in God was sure.
SPEAKER_00: A couple years later, Tana passed away.
SPEAKER_00: And I can remember sitting with my mom, and uh, my mom thought a lot of Tana.
SPEAKER_00: She was a very close friend, and so I can literally remember sitting on my mom's bed.
SPEAKER_00: When you have these experiences as children or as young adults, they they just kind of sit with you forever.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to explain, but we know this.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking to myself, why would God not protect Tana?
SPEAKER_00: I think most of us, we have some version of this kind of story.
SPEAKER_00: A situation where we see people who are amazing, who are following God, who are showing the love of Jesus, and they are called to endure this great thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this thing takes their life from them.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens in those moments is we're left with far more questions than we are answers.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sense of disorientation with God that settles in.
SPEAKER_00: And while we may not say it out loud and we actually might not actually believe it, we think things like really good Christians should not get cancer.
SPEAKER_00: Or really good Christians should not get into car accidents.
SPEAKER_00: These kinds of really bad things that happen should not happen to those who are following God.
SPEAKER_00: And it creates this tension within us.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to resolve.
SPEAKER_00: How is God going to work all of this out?
SPEAKER_00: How can this be a part of God's plan?
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8.28 is it's a really difficult verse.
SPEAKER_00: It's a promise and it's an encouraging verse, and it's a verse that invites us to fix our eyes on God, to look up and not just to look at the circumstances in our lives or in the circumstances of those around us, but it's a challenging passage because it talks about God's providence.
SPEAKER_00: You might be familiar with the word providence.
SPEAKER_00: Let me define what biblical providence is.
SPEAKER_00: Divine providence is the governance of God by which He with wisdom and love cares and directs all things in the universe.
SPEAKER_00: And so the doctrine or the belief in God's divine providence, it asserts that God is in complete control of all things all of the time.
SPEAKER_00: You see, as Christians, we reject the notion that the world and life emerged through natural processes over billions of years with a big bang followed by the earth's formation.
SPEAKER_00: But we also reject the idea that life in the world was created by a rational, intelligent designer that just kind of wound it up by like a clock and then left it to run without any intervention.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Romans 8.28, it affirms that not only is God intimately involved in the universe that he created, but right now he is at work in the lives of those who are in Christ to work the good according to his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: You see, there are so many things in our life that are just part of the dailyness of life that are good, that seem to work out, that we take for granted.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that happen that we assume are happening without any help, and at the end of the day, God is the one that is keeping everything going.
SPEAKER_00: The sun that rises each day, the water that pours out of the faucet when we turn the handle.
SPEAKER_00: These are some of the examples of the good that God has allowed to work.
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we see these forms or these provisions as God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: All of life, the inner workings of anything that we can experience that is good is by his hand.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of this good is experienced by all people.
SPEAKER_00: Some people who completely reject God and who are rebellious in their living, well, they still get to experience common grace.
SPEAKER_00: Common grace is the benefit that the sun keeps the earth viable, that there is oxygen that we were able to breathe to stay alive.
SPEAKER_00: But as Christians, we we kind of reject the nice, cushy, sentimental view that kind of life just works out in a good way automatically.
SPEAKER_00: But yet there are aspects to God's good that He is working into creation that all people can experience.
SPEAKER_00: But for those who are in Christ, God promises something very different.
SPEAKER_00: He promises to take even the hard and the bad things that we experience in this life and somehow work them out for good.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: If God is restraining evil in the world right now, which he is, and if he is extending good in these common forms of grace, whether it be sunlight or oxygen, if he's doing that on behalf of people who reject him, how much more is God looking to bring the good in the lives of those who love him and exalt his name?
SPEAKER_00: You see, Romans 8.28, it's not so much a statement about our individual circumstances and whether each one of our lives will have a nice red bow tied on it at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8.28 actually communicates something greater, far more superior.
SPEAKER_00: It communicates God's character.
SPEAKER_00: It is a proclamation about who God is and that we can be confident in God no matter how our lives turn out, because God is good.
SPEAKER_00: You see, for God to promise that He will take all of the suffering, all of the struggle, all of the hard things in our life, and turn them to good, that must mean that God is holy and completely good.
SPEAKER_00: This takes a shift in our thinking because oftentimes when we experience the moments in our life that are hard to accept, or we experience the moments in our life where we look at life and we go, wow, life is happening to me right now.
SPEAKER_00: This is actually not God's position.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8.28 is the assurance and the promise that for those who love God, God will work the good.
SPEAKER_00: That means there is no suffering in our life that is wasted.
SPEAKER_00: That means there is no circumstance in our life that God can't somehow redeem for good and his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to stop here because I think the Bible, it communicates this clearly, but some teachers of the Bible communicate this in a confusing and a murky way.
SPEAKER_00: Some communicators of the Bible seem to suggest that God will always bring blessing and positive things out of the good that we can see, and that's just not true.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that we have experienced in our family, and if I'm honest with you, as your pastor, I look back at some of those things right now, years later, and I go, God, I don't see the good.
SPEAKER_00: I don't see it.
SPEAKER_00: And the promise is not necessarily that we will see it in our lifetime this week or next month or three years from now.
SPEAKER_00: The promise is that a good and loving, sovereign God will work all things in our life according to his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Stephen, put that verse back on the screen again, Romans 8.28.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read this again.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, and we know that for those who love God, all things will work together for good.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a comma there, and what's about to follow is actually going to interpret the first part of that sentence.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for the good, for those who are called according to whose purpose?
SPEAKER_00: His purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And so this verse in no way, shape, or form is saying that we should only expect good things as God's children.
SPEAKER_00: This verse, in no way, shape, or form, uh, says that we are going to always see the good in the hard, difficult suffering that we experience.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what this is saying.
SPEAKER_00: This is like an NFL quarterback saying, All right, I want to play quarterback, but when I drop back into the pocket, I never want to get hit.
SPEAKER_00: We talked last week about suffering, and we talked about last week about pain as human beings on this fallen and broken planet that is literally unraveling at the scenes.
SPEAKER_00: We should expect and anticipate pain and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: But what Paul is saying here is clearer.
SPEAKER_00: He is saying that we can be 100% confident that God in all circumstances and circumstances will work his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, consider Joseph's life in the Old Testament for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: None of us would want Joseph's early years.
SPEAKER_00: He was sold into his sl is into slavery by his own brothers.
SPEAKER_00: He was wrongly accused and imprisoned.
SPEAKER_00: His life on the surface was an absolute train wreck of suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, when we get to the end of Genesis, what is God doing in the midst of Joseph's suffering?
SPEAKER_00: He's training him.
SPEAKER_00: He's training him in prison.
SPEAKER_00: He's training him in all of these circumstances so that he will be prepared in the midst of this famine to be in Egypt, to be second in command, basically the prime minister of Egypt, who is equipped and gifted in that moment, to not only be able to help lead the people of Egypt through this famine, but also then to invite his own family back into his family.
SPEAKER_00: The end of Genesis says that what you meant, Joseph says, what you meant for evil against me, God has used it for good.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is the promise.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a life free of pain and suffering, it's not a life removed of the injustices of our world, but it is the confidence of Romans chapter 8, verse 28, that somehow, in some way, God will turn evil against itself.
SPEAKER_00: He will use all things to accomplish his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are his purposes?
SPEAKER_00: Well, his purpose is the salvation of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: It's the salvation of humanity from eternity's past, God had a plan to save humanity from their rebellion and sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so he is working all things in our lives for those who have called on the name of Jesus Christ toward that end.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see why the Holy Spirit's involvement in our assurance of salvation and prayer is so vital.
SPEAKER_00: Because do you think that Joseph had moments where he was sitting in an Egyptian prison wondering if God abandoned him?
SPEAKER_00: Wondering if God really loved him?
SPEAKER_00: What about Paul, the writer of these words, and the other disciples as they were being led to their brutal deaths because of their faith in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And so this is why we need the ministry and the power of the Holy Spirit so badly in our lives, because when we get to these places and these times in our lives where we don't know how to pray, where we know that our will in the situation might not be God's will in the situation, we actually need the Holy Spirit to remind us of who we are in Christ and that God's plans and his purposes, no matter what, will not be thwarted.
SPEAKER_00: And so this actually, when we understand Romans 8.28 and all of the complexities and the nuance of this verse, it can bring a great sense of peace in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: To know that God is fully in control and that God is fully good and that he's going to bring about his purposes no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: What that should do and can do in us is create liberation and freedom.
SPEAKER_00: We're not in control.
SPEAKER_00: And any illusion of control that we think we have, we're deceived.
SPEAKER_00: To know that God has his hand on everything means that we don't have to live anxious lives that are filled with worry and consumed by fear.
SPEAKER_00: Either God can be trusted with our lives or he cannot be trusted.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8.28 is telling us something that we don't readily accept, but the words are clear that God is both working in the good things and the bad things in our life.
SPEAKER_00: The celebration of life and the lamentation of life.
SPEAKER_00: You see, this requires a shift in our thinking.
SPEAKER_00: It does.
SPEAKER_00: It requires a shift in our thinking from looking at only the good things in our life as God's gifts and his blessings.
SPEAKER_00: It's got to be both.
SPEAKER_00: If God is working in the heart and the suffering to bring about our ultimate good and his plans, then our suffering is not pointless.
SPEAKER_00: We are not to evaluate the suffering or the pain in our life and come to the conclusion, hey, there's nothing good that can come from this.
SPEAKER_00: God says and promises that there is good.
SPEAKER_00: And not only the chance of good, but the promise of good for those who are in Christ who walk according to his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: The 18th century pastor and hymn writer John Newton, who we famously know, penned the song Amazing Grace.
SPEAKER_00: He said this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Everything is needful that God sends.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can be needful that he withholds.
SPEAKER_00: So everything is needful that he sends.
SPEAKER_00: So he's not sending anything that is not needed, and he doesn't withhold anything that is needed.
SPEAKER_00: And so Romans 8.28, it actually should cause us in this moment to stop and ask some really, really important questions about our faith in God.
SPEAKER_00: Do we value God's will over our own purposes in life?
SPEAKER_00: Are we willing to trust that pain and suffering will produce good in us and accomplish God's purposes?
SPEAKER_00: These are hard questions to answer.
SPEAKER_00: They're easier questions to answer when life is going good and as planned.
SPEAKER_00: They're much more difficult questions to answer in the midst of suffering and pain and disillusionment and disorientation when things are spinning out of control, and what I'm experiencing is not what I planned.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, I need us to stop here for a minute because if we don't answer these questions by saying yes, then the possibility that lives within each of us is that our pain and suffering will actually create resentment in us toward God, bitterness toward God.
SPEAKER_00: You see, to value God's will over my will, in order to trust that he is working all things in my life to the good of his purposes, I've got to love God, right?
SPEAKER_00: I actually have to love God to be able to trust God with my life.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: To see and to value God and to love God for who he is is to recognize this.
SPEAKER_00: God owes us nothing.
SPEAKER_00: God does not owe us a good life.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that without God's intervention, we were running as far away from him in the opposite direction as we could be.
SPEAKER_00: That in our hearts we were living in rebellion and in our sin.
SPEAKER_00: We were dead in our sin, separated from God for eternity, but in his love he showed us grace and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: What is mercy?
SPEAKER_00: Mercy that we experience from God is this that we don't get what we deserve.
SPEAKER_00: It's eternal separation from God.
SPEAKER_00: For the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: But not only does God extend us mercy in that he doesn't give us what we deserve, he gives us grace.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us grace.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means he gives us what we don't deserve.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just that we're no longer eternally separated from God, but now he's given us life through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so to love God is to believe that God owes you nothing.
SPEAKER_00: But in his grace and his mercy, that he has done everything.
SPEAKER_00: And it's only that motivation that will allow us to fully surrender to him and to fully surrender to his plan and to receive the good and the bad.
SPEAKER_00: For many people who would call themselves religious, for many people who would attend church.
SPEAKER_00: You see, there's a lot of people who would call themselves religious or they would attend church because they like the idea of being forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: They like the idea of heaven at some point.
SPEAKER_00: They like the idea of not being judged by God, but as soon as something comes into their lives that is hard or challenging, guess what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Resentment and anger arise.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on, this is not what I expected when I started doing these religious things or when I started following God.
SPEAKER_00: This was not part of my plan.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul writes these words.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in the letter to the church in Rome, he says this, Romans 5, 3 through 5.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance.
SPEAKER_00: And endurance produces character.
SPEAKER_00: And character produces hope.
SPEAKER_00: And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when suffering comes into our lives, we don't want to look at it in this way.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible does not mince words that suffering is a great test.
SPEAKER_00: And we are forced in that moment of suffering to abandon our own expectations and our own plans.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying in Romans chapter 5 is he says, when we experience pain and suffering and the things in our life that we don't have an answer for, there are two results that can come.
SPEAKER_00: If I love God and my life is surrendered to God in his service, meaning I don't think that God owes me anything, then Paul says that when you're living from that kind of motivation of returning your life to God because of what he's done in Christ Jesus, when you do that, that here's what suffering can produce it can produce endurance, strong character, hope, and a deep sense of God's love no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, though, if if my love for God is based on how God can serve my life plan, then when we experience suffering, it can lead to anger and bitterness and resentment and this deep sense that God doesn't actually love me because if he loved me, I wouldn't be going through this.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure that I love him because he's not serving my plan and my hopes for my life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the difference?
SPEAKER_00: This is a reason why two people can profess Christ and go through the same circumstances, and one of them responds with this great faith.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that they're not struggling or suffering, but they know that God has control while the other one looks at those same circumstances, walks through them, and they become angry, resentful, and bitter toward God.
SPEAKER_00: There's a maxim that says this the same sun that melts wax hardens clay.
SPEAKER_00: The same sun that melts wax hardens clay.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's grace for this.
SPEAKER_00: This feels heavy.
SPEAKER_00: There's grace for this.
SPEAKER_00: Choosing God's will and God's plan over my will and my plan, like this is an everyday thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is a moment by moment, sometimes hour by hour decision to surrender my will, to surrender my plans, to surrender what I want, knowing that sometimes those things are actually not in line with God's will, and they're not in line with God's purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the last two verses here, they're really important.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope today is as we walk through these verses, that for those who are in Christ Jesus, particularly those of us who are here and you're online, for those of you who are suffering right now, where you're enduring something that is incredibly painful, it wasn't part of the plan, you didn't expect it.
SPEAKER_00: My prayer this morning is that confidence will rise up in you.
SPEAKER_00: That what Romans 8 promises is that is the Holy Spirit will testify within you that God loves you no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: And then for those of you who are in here watching online who don't have a relationship with God yet, my prayer is that these two verses will show you not only God's great love for you, but that he's had a plan all along.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8, 29 and 30, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the first and more born among many brothers.
SPEAKER_00: And those whom he called, he predestined, he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.
SPEAKER_00: Now, right away in the first verse and the first part of 29, God tells us why he is committed to working the good, whether it's the bad things in our life or the joyful things in our life.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us, here is why I am committed to working all of those things to my end and my purpose.
SPEAKER_00: God is an artist and he has one primary intent in your life, in my life.
SPEAKER_00: You know what it is?
SPEAKER_00: He's conforming us to the image of his son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean he doesn't care about your career, your marriage, your family, your occupation, your dreams, your goals.
SPEAKER_00: God cares about all of those things in the service of those things conforming you to the image of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, this is what we are signing up for.
SPEAKER_00: When we surrender our lives to God, we're essentially handing him the putty and saying, form me.
SPEAKER_00: And that formation process can be really painful sometimes, can't it?
SPEAKER_00: It can be really hard sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: There's a conversation historically, I'm not sure if this actually happened, uh, but there's uh a very famous sculpture in Florence, Italy.
SPEAKER_00: My parents took Eric and I to Italy.
SPEAKER_00: We were on a mission trip over there, and so my parents met us there in Italy like almost 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote this illustration, Erica read it, and I was like, a few years back, Erica's like, that's more than a few years back.
SPEAKER_00: And we went and saw Michelangelo's famous work, The David.
SPEAKER_00: And it said that after Michelangelo finished sculpting the David, he was interviewed, and the interviewer said, Hey, how did you come up with this idea?
SPEAKER_00: How did you get to this kind of final product of the David?
SPEAKER_00: And Michelangelo said something like, I just kept everything that was part of the David and I removed everything that wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: I chipped away at everything that was not a part of the masterpiece until I was left with the masterpiece.
SPEAKER_00: If you have given your life to Jesus Christ, if you're a follower of him, you are being sculpted and molded and formed to look more like Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is God working in your life, both the good and the bad, and the masterpiece is that you might look more like Jesus and his Christ-likeness.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's always working in us to be more loving and more kind and more patient and more gentle.
SPEAKER_00: All of these qualities of Jesus, God is committed to forming in us.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is important for us to see because Paul's not saying that God is going to give Christians only good things.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's not promising that life will be easier for Christians than non-Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, the most difficult things that people experience in life are experienced by Christians and non-Christians.
SPEAKER_00: But the promise for the Christian, and this is a unique promise, this is not promise for everyone, but this is promise for those who are in Christ Jesus, that the end goal of being conformed to the image of Christ, God's gonna work it all to that end.
SPEAKER_00: There's a string of theologically rich words here that Paul uses to describe all that God has done in our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Forenew and predestined and called and justified and glorified.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Paul, he's he's again, he's asking us, he's inviting us to lift our eyes to God.
SPEAKER_00: He's inviting us in the midst of our circumstance, in the midst of our pain, in the midst of our questions, in the midst of our circumstances, he's inviting us to lift our eyes and to consider the plan of God.
SPEAKER_00: That for those who are in Christ, God foreknew us.
SPEAKER_00: Fornew.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just that God is omniscient.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just that God is the creator of all humanity and that he knows all humanity.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible talks about God knowing us, it means that he has set his love on us.
SPEAKER_00: That God's plan for salvation reaches all the way back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: It's more than that God loved us from the start.
SPEAKER_00: It means that by his initiative, he has chosen to save us.
SPEAKER_00: God foreknew us.
SPEAKER_00: God predestined us.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word predestined mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means to make a plan ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek here more literally means to determine the horizon and set out for it.
SPEAKER_00: And so God has determined to save us and to form us into the image of his son, and that planning took place long before any of us were born.
SPEAKER_00: Long before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a tension here, and we can't fully unravel it between God's predestination of us, that he has a plan and our freedom and choice.
SPEAKER_00: We can't fully unravel that.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is we do choose Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We're not robots, while at the same time, our choice is not by coincidence and it's not robotic.
SPEAKER_00: God is behind everything.
SPEAKER_00: He is the source, not just of our life, but he is the source of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: So God foreknew us, he predestined us, he called us.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean that God called us?
SPEAKER_00: It means that you didn't just wake up one day and decide that you were going to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You responded to a God who was pursuing you.
SPEAKER_00: I responded to a God who called me to salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He draws us to him and we respond by faith.
SPEAKER_00: And when this happens, it is like someone turns on the light in our soul and we can see for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: He foreknows, foreknew us, predestined us, called us, justified us.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this word a lot in recent weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Justification is the act by which God declares sinful human beings righteous because of the work of Jesus Christ in his life and his death.
SPEAKER_00: When we trust in Jesus Christ, we're not only forgiven, but we are actually given Jesus' righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: You remember on Easter Sunday, it's not just that God erases the chalkboard with a wet cloth so that there is no memory of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: He removes it as far as the east is from the west, but he also takes that Sharpie marker and he writes our new identity that is in Jesus Christ that is unerasable.
SPEAKER_00: We are justified.
SPEAKER_00: And then last, we are glorified.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is the end goal of salvation, where the children of God, we will be made perfect in all respects.
SPEAKER_00: The physical and the spiritual will be identical, and we will be sinless in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And so those who are putting their faith, who have put their faith in Jesus Christ, are being made like him, and everything in our lives that was broken is restored.
SPEAKER_00: This comes with a new body, thank God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to notice something.
SPEAKER_00: All of the verbs that Paul uses here in the Greek, they're actually the aorist tense.
SPEAKER_00: And the aorist tense is the past tense, is an act in the past that has a future implication.
SPEAKER_00: And so what Paul's saying here is actually profound.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that all of these things, from God's standpoint, they're already done.
SPEAKER_00: And so while we sit here on earth in our bodies that are wearing down, struggling and fighting against the sin that so easily entangles us, God speaks about our glorification.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks about the future when we will be fully redeemed, as though it's already happened.
SPEAKER_00: It's a foregone conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: And so then Paul, in very Pauline form, he just starts asking some questions, and these are meant to be rhetorical.
SPEAKER_00: He said, if all of that I've said in chapter 8 is true, if God is for us, who can be against us?
SPEAKER_00: If God who put this plan into motion from A to Z from the beginning of time, if all of this is happening according to his purpose, why would we be afraid of any opposition?
SPEAKER_00: If God who did not spare his own son, how will he not give us all things?
SPEAKER_00: If God did not spare his own son, but allowed the justice of sin and punishment to fall on his own son, his very most precious possession, will he not meet all of our needs?
SPEAKER_00: Who will bring any charge against us?
SPEAKER_00: If God literally provided the payment for his sin, who's going to revoke his payment?
SPEAKER_00: Who is it that he condemns?
SPEAKER_00: Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for us.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, and if his spirit is interceding on our behalf within us, who in the world could condemn us?
SPEAKER_00: Then Paul says very famously in verse 35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: No one and nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
SPEAKER_00: No, Paul says, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_00: For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, or things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, absolutely nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing spiritual can separate us, nothing physical can separate us, no height, no death, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is speaking to the family culture of what it means to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Within our families, we all have different things of culture or different values, whether they're stated or unstated.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the family values in our household is we tell our kids and we try to tell each other your love no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: I love you no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an intentional way that Eric and I are trying to communicate the unrelenting, unconditional love that we have for our kids because we want our kids to know they can come to us with any problem.
SPEAKER_00: They can come to us in the good times or the bad times where they performed well or where they blew it big time.
SPEAKER_00: And in those moments, even when we have to bring challenge to their behavior, we try to end each of those conversations by saying, I love you no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: We want the last thing for our kids to hear is that they are loved no matter what, that there's nothing that they could do that could ever change that.
SPEAKER_00: We want that our kids to know that life's biggest hurdles, hardships, their glories, and their gains, that our love for them is fixed.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul is doing at the end of Romans 8.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, for all believers in Jesus Christ, if you are in God's family, if you have received Jesus, his life and his death in your place, if you have been justified by his blood and by his grace, you are loved no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna invite you just to bow your head for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just gonna pray that that would not be words that I'm saying, but those would be words that the Holy Spirit right now would apply to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, we need you in these moments.
SPEAKER_00: I need you in these moments.
SPEAKER_00: Even as I preach this sermon, there's this other voice in my ear that is reminding me why I shouldn't be loved no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: And my sense is I'm not the only one in this room, and I'm not, there's people online.
SPEAKER_00: They're hearing this, they may kind of intellectually assent that it's true, but there's a difference between knowing something with our mind and experiencing something in our heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Holy Spirit, would you take the truth that we are loved no matter what in Christ Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, would you apply that deeply to our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: That it would change us, that it will allow us to live from this place of being loved.
SPEAKER_00: We are useless in your kingdom if we are fixated or focused all of the time on does God love me, does he not love me?
SPEAKER_00: But we are actually empowered greatly to live loved when we realize and when we've experienced your great love.
SPEAKER_00: So would you do that across this room?
SPEAKER_00: If you're here in this room, just keep with your bow with your eyes bowed.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here in this room and you're like, I I don't have that confidence or assurance that I'm loved by God, would you just flip up your hand because I want to pray for you specifically?
SPEAKER_00: If you're here and you're just like, I'm not, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have that assurance.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to pray for you specifically.
SPEAKER_00: God, for those who are just bold enough to raise their hand, God, would you assure them that through your son Jesus Christ, and only by your son Jesus Christ, we can live with this great assurance that we are loved no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: And so I pray that you would bring your assurance to each heart this morning that in Christ we are loved no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna invite you to stand.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna sing one more song, and I'm gonna invite our prayer team forward.
SPEAKER_00: If you're on the prayer team, go ahead and make your way down right now.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here today and you need prayer for whatever reason, maybe you are going through something right now, there's suffering and pain in your life, and you just need to join with someone else who will pray for you and who will care for you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to invite you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this morning you're receiving this love of God through Christ Jesus for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: We want to encourage you to pray with someone, or maybe you're just having a really hard time with what you're experiencing right now, believing what Romans 8 says, that you are loved no matter what, because of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We want to invite you to just take the couple next couple minutes to come forward or to stick around after the service.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to pray for you.