Rebrand | Week 5 | Bill Bush

So what we're gonna see in this last half of chapter eight is basically this big idea I wanna unpack, is following Christ makes us victors, not victims. Following Christ makes us victors, not victims. And what do I mean? Let me let me let me say a few things so you don't hear what I'm not saying.

Don't hear what I'm not saying. When you hear don't be a victim, be a victor, that sounds like I'm downplaying if you've been victimized. I'm downplaying the bad things that have happened. I'm downplaying the issues. You know what? We live in a world, we'll see in this passage too, where hurt people hurt people,

but we're all hurt people. So we all hurt our we even hurt ourselves. You do deal with that. That's what the community of the church is to be. If I if I'm sick, I'd see a doctor. If I have emotional I do. If if I've had abuse in my life, I need to deal with this. I'm not saying,

you know, if you've been victimized, just act like nothing happened. This is a way to view. What he's gonna say here is how do I view eternity? How do I view this life in general? How do I view what's going to happen in the bigger picture of it? How do I see how it works?

And I need to choose to look at it if I am a follower of Christ from a perspective of victory, not victimhood. You see, if I take the victimhood mentality when I suffer or things don't work out my way or I have problems and pain,

I end up only focusing on that. I forget God. I forget what I'm supposed to do. I only look at my that's the victim mentality. I mean, you're only looking at your pain. You're stuck in this mentality.

And so that happens is you have these problems, and the problems with your problems is you're stuck only looking at your problem, and that's your problem. I should probably just close in prayer. That's the smartest thing I'm gonna say today. And

so what what does it mean? So in in this context, we're gonna look at this passage where he talks about, hey, we gotta understand that we need to view life that if I know Jesus, I walk through life in victory, not in victimhood. But I need to know to not fear the struggle I should expect it.

But what is happening through that? And so as we look, I see three things in here that we need to respond to, that we need to react to. So the three points I wanna make is really this passage is all about God and what he did.

And that's important to remember because sometimes we come in and I'm just gonna word it in a way, okay, this is who God is, this is what he did. The point I'm gonna make is, so what are we supposed to do about it? But the reality is you gotta understand something. If you're ever gonna live in victory in the Christian life,

if you're ever gonna understand what it means to walk out being a Christian, you have to understand the role we have versus the role God has. A lot of our struggle and let me take a big high theological concept we've already looked at in Romans a whole bunch. We've been in church a lot. Legalism versus law versus love.

It talks about this a lot, and it seems so impersonal. But you gotta understand what it means. Usually, you'll fall for legalism when you have the wrong view of who does what. You see, God is the actor. We are the reactors. But if you have a legalistic point of view, you get this attitude that says, I act

and then God reacts. You see, I do what God says and then he reacts by loving me and blessing me. I don't do what he says, and he reacts by punishing me and not loving me. That's what legalism is. And really, it's the it's you got the wrong idea of how this whole thing works. God always is the one that acts.

And then we have a chance to react to what he's doing. We respond to what he's already done and what he's doing, and we have to view it that way. We have to understand

that. And so he's gonna talk about what God's done. We're gonna see these three things. And then I just wanna say, so what does that mean? How should we be reacting in order to walk in victory in life?

Because victory in life is not we'd have no problems. That ain't gonna happen. And if we walk through life trying to make it work that way, we're gonna miss out.

You see, in other words, what we're gonna see here is a lot of us have this view that we think that we come to church and and and and and instead of just living this life in Christ's love, instead of coming here and and and in order to to be like Jesus, we think our goal is to be liked by Jesus. That's

actually deep. You should write that down. I didn't think about that earlier. We we we we we there's a huge difference between being like Jesus versus pursuing to be liked by Jesus. It's we were already loved by Jesus. He's the one that already acted.

So what are we supposed to do here? These three things. Here we go. How do I live in victory instead of living a life of victimhood where all I do is worry about my problems, worry about yesterday, worry about what's gonna happen, get stuck in that pain, and then start to doubt God's love and start to struggle. The first thing we gotta do is remember his promises.

Remember his promise. Let's start in verse 18. He says, yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for the future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse.

He's saying the whole world. You see, sin, what Adam and Eve did, sin is not just people made mistakes, now God's mad at us because we do stupid things. It actually broke the very fabric of this whole universe. The way God created the whole universe to work, it doesn't work right.

It just doesn't work right right now. There's still the image of God, but even creation struggles. But it's with eager hope that creation looks forward to the day when it'll join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. So he's saying this world, the universe is not getting better.

It's not gonna heal itself. And even our own bodies aren't gonna We'll see that in a minute. But he says, For we know that all creation has been groaning.

He's saying it's groaning. There's three groans in here that we'll see. Groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Now there's even hope in that. He says it's groaning because it's not working. It's in pain. It's struggling. It's not working right. But it's like The hope is it's like in childbirth. Because guess what? Yeah, you have pain. If you've had a baby, you know that was painful. But what did you get at the end?

A tax write off. Victory. A little bit more than that, but you get the point. He says, and and we believers also groan. So if you're Christian, he's like, we're good. We're groaning too. Why? Says, even though we have the holy spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory,

for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. So he's saying even sin,

our emotional state, oh, we still yeah. We have this glory. We have the the holy spirit. We're living the kingdom. He's already saved us, but we still live with Romans chapter seven that we preached. We still live with the shadow of the hurt. And he's talking about the actual physical bodies decaying.

You know, if you're young, you don't get this yet. But as you get older, this means more and more to you. I wake up now and anything that hurts, I go, I'm dealing with the rest of my life now. And you go, you work out, you eat good, you're like, I'm gonna live forever.

And you realize all you're doing is trying to tap the brakes on the downside of the hill. You're not stopping it. But if you make healthy choices, you can make the difference between this or a cliff.

You're either going up and then boom. Done. Or you can, like, gradually descend, but it the the result's the same. In the end, you end up at the bottom. And he's saying, and we know that. It's hard. It's it's it's a pain. And not only physically, but there's the emotional. There's there's the struggle.

And he goes, we too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he's promised us. We are given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don't need to hope

for it. But if we're looked forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently. Remember, he says wait and patient several times in this passage. And then if not only on top of that, says, and the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for.

Now he's talking about the groaning. He's talking about the struggle. He's talking about the pain. He goes, as you try to live out this thing called the Christian life, some of us are going through a lot. It's heavy. It's a struggle. And you might even be like, you know, I wanna do this.

I don't even know what to talk to God about. I don't even know where to begin. This relationship, just my finances, I'm having a health issue, or my children, or whatever it is. You're going through and it's like, I you almost don't even want to talk You don't even know what to say to God. But look what it says,

but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that can't be expressed in words. And the father who knows all hearts knows what the spirit is saying, for the spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will. Even when you don't know what to say, God's praying for you.

See what he's saying is you gotta remember these promises. Well, what were those promises right there in the verse we said? He actually said four things. There was four things he said about getting through this life and the struggles we have with these groanings.

Now the two groan, the world groans, we groan, the spirit groans. The spirit's the only one that has groaned to actually accomplish something.

But he gives four promises here that we can hold onto to wait patiently for, and I wanna show it to you. The first part is he's saying it's only temporary. You gotta remember that no matter what happens in his life that's bad, it's only temporary.

Now in verse 18, he actually says, when he says, yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory later. That's the point about his only two. He says it's nothing in comparison.

Some of the older translations, I like the word they use. He uses a word called considerate because the Greek word there means to consider, to consider. But I like how these compare also because what it's saying is that word for consider or compare is where we get the word computer.

It means to calculate, to analyze, to take the data, to take the truth, and set it alongside and look at it.

And actually look, compare the two. Compare. And he's like, so what he's saying is if you take the worst possible life you can have as a say your life is awful. Say it's like nothing goes right, you feel alone, it's terrible, and then you die young. But you know Christ?

If you don't look at it wrongly, if you don't calculate, look at you like, woe is me or woe is the person that it happened to. This is so unfair. But he's saying no. Have you ever laid it alongside that when you know the glory, the future glory, what Christ has promised us, what he's done for us? All of eternity,

no pain, perfect relation with God. Everything is meant to be awesomeness for all of eternity compared to this thirty years. That's how you gotta look at it. You ever think about it that way? You could have the worst possible life, but if you know Christ, how does that compare to that to the rest of eternity? From now

till now. But we don't think about it that way, do we? We're caught in the moment. And you know who's writing this? Who said nothing it doesn't compare? It's this guy Paul. Well, when he turned to Christ, his life got worse from the earthly perspective.

He had power, had wealth, he was married. We don't know what happened to his wife. We we assume he's married because the position he had in the Jewish high council, you're usually married. But we don't know if she died, left him because he followed Christ. But anyways, he spent the rest of his life single. What I'd like, if you knew that following Christ, you're gonna spend your whole life single, a lot of you younger adults would be like, that would be the worst thing ever.

He did that. But in the process of that, as he followed Christ, just what we know from scripture that happened to him said he was starved frequently. He went without food, without sleep, without a place to live frequently. You know? And and he didn't have Netflix. He didn't have Amazon.

He didn't have any of that stuff. But it says he also was was beaten five times. That's the recorded beat. That's like officially arrested beat. And that meant they would take these rods and beat you. And they do like so many minus one because the average person would die if you go to that next one. So they beat you to almost death. He had that happen recorded in scripture on five occasions because he's following Christ.

He was arrested repeatedly. He was run out of town. He he was shipwrecked twice. Shipwrecked twice, and he was even stoned twice and not in the newly legal way.

Every service, I should just hold on it. It's the laughter goes takes you a minute to sink in. But when they was when it said he was stoned and left for dead, they threw rocks at him, and the reason he didn't die is they thought he was already dead. How badly beaten up are you if they go they assume you're dead?

He had a he had some kind of physical ailment that was hurting holding him back, and he prayed on three occasions for God to take it away. And God says, nope. My grace is sufficient for you. That is probably worse than anything any of us is gonna and then he ultimately was arrested and killed for his faith.

And he said all of that is nothing compared to all of eternity.

Sometimes we think the victory of God means the victory now. That if I just hang in there, God's going make everything awesome. He already made everything awesome. Even if your entire life here isn't. And if you can't accept that,

your problem isn't with what's going on in your life. Your problem is is do you really believe in God? Do you really believe who he is? Do you really trust what he said? Or do you even really care about what he wants to accomplish? Or is it more about what you want to feel?

We have to look at his promises. It's only temporary,

and it gets better because he says, because Jesus is coming back. The terminator didn't say that first, he did. I'll be back. You know, and he's coming back. He's gonna make it right. And then he and then it talked about how heaven's gonna be wonderful. Like I already said, all of eternity. Heaven's gonna be wonderful. We live in a culture now that that the pendulum has swung, like church culture gets its way. Like, there was a time when it seemed like the church was so heavenly minded, it was no earthly good. We just thought being a Christian, you come to church, you hear all the right truth, you know all the right answers, and then that's about it. We didn't engage with our world. We weren't really pointing people to Jesus. We just acted like we're better and you're all going to hell. You know, stuff like that. And we needed to get out there and love people and engage in our community. There's issues out there that we should be involved with. Our faith should drive us to do it. But then we got to this point that we missed out. And we said, hey, you know what? The kingdom starts now. It's not just sit here and wait till we go to heaven. And that's true. But they're they're two sides of the same coin, so the pendulum went too far. So then it became everything about our faith is all about the gospel issue we need to do in the everyday life. And don't talk about receiving Christ to go to heaven. Like, that's bad. It almost became bad to talk about that.

And now we don't even talk about that. Like, that's that's a cop out. That's so weird. I think that's a lie from the pit of hell to distract us and get us so focused on the now that we forget the awesomeness of what's coming.

It's okay to say this sucks. We're gonna do the best we can. But you know what? In the end, heaven's gonna be really, really, really awesome. And it's okay to think about that. Teachers, you get it. The whole year, terrible. But you know, summer's coming.

Then it ends way too fast.

And then finally, the coolest thing is the Holy Spirit prays for us. If you feel alone, but you know Christ, we have each other. We're supposed to pray for each other, but say you don't even feel like believers or anything. You just don't feel like you have anybody.

Let me ask you something. If this is really true and you look at it that way,

What do you think is more effective prayer for you? Every human on the planet or God himself?

When we don't even know where to begin to pray. If you are a follower of Christ, the Holy Spirit is right now groaning. The groan means he understands your pain, he hurts with you, but then he prays over you. God's will in your life. That's some powerful promises to remember. But we have to remember that.

But why do we have a hard time remembering it? Why do we get so distracted? Why do we say, but, I get what you're saying, but it ain't helping. You know why? In my vast experience going around the sun on this planet, I've determined one thing that I think is true as every single one of us as human beings.

None of us are patient. Now we have people that are more patient than us. But you know what? More patient, that's not the same as being patient. I believe the most patient person in this room is an impatient person in the eyes of God.

We are stuck in the now. We and I can prove this. You wanna know the best way to see how and know that everyone is impatient? Is the deboarding process on a plane.

Just see how you feel. Watch how everyone acts. You know, like, you've been stuck on I I just came back from England, ten hour flight. We've been on a flight for ten hours. So it's been ten hours. We're pulling in.

We made it. We didn't crash. We're landed. We're on the ground. We're pulling up the we're going to get off this plane. And it's not gonna be ten hours from now. It's probably the next fifteen minutes. And for whatever reason, we lose it in that last fifteen minutes.

Everybody wants to get out of there really fast. We are so fast. Like, they say keep your belt. Like, the first thing they say, stay seated with your belts buckled until we come in. The second it hits the ground, you hear all the clicks. Everyone's like, screw that. Belt's off. You know? Because I gotta get you know, people are stretching their hammies,

you know, and all that stuff. And then all of sudden, they don't even tell you you can get up yet. You hear that ding? Because you know that that ding means they pulled up to the gate. Ding. That's like the and everyone's like, duh. Throwing open the things. It's gonna say, ah. And then you're standing there.

What did that accomplish? But I wanna get up. I wanna be ready to go. Give me three seconds more of my life back. You know, and and it's funny because British you know, the British people, they're interested. I think they want they they understand we we're gonna be more orderly.

I mean, their accents doesn't just seem like they're smarter than you. Seems like they think they're smarter than you. But when they on British Air, before you land, they know they must know what we Americans are like. They start warning you. As we land, don't get up. Don't even get up when the bell rings.

They say you don't get up until your row is called. They they release you, like, from by row. They'll call out rows, and they go, don't get up. Don't they they said it so many times. It's like, I know communication.

I know that if you're repeat if you've been a parent, know, when you're repeating something over over over, you pretty much assume, you guys are idiots. You're not gonna listen. We're gonna keep telling you this.

And in my section, we're sitting there. Said it a million times. You know, flight attendants are standing there as we're rolling up. Ding. Half of my section jumps up. And this this British flight attendant and her eyes had a mask on. All you needed was the eyes. She looks and goes and then points at them all and goes

and all these guys were like, know, like, all these people like, does she mean me? And and they started to sit down. One guy was still standing. He went and she's like she wouldn't even say words. She was just like the evil stare. Like Clint Eastwood would have been afraid. Chuck Norris would have backed down.

I mean, was like crazy. And I watched them all do that and I was so judgey judgerson on them. I was like, you guys are stupid, didn't you listen to what they said? And I felt so much more superior because they were so impatient. So then they start calling the rows. I'm in Row 26. The first call was one to fifteen.

So they leave, I'm waiting, and we're waiting for them to leave. And I'm like, okay, I'd like to get out of here. And I'm like, you know, I'm getting ready now because one to fifteen, I'm twenty six. It's gonna be sixteen to thirty. Right? So I'm going, yeah. Alright. And all of sudden then they wait. They wait. I'm like, anytime now. Anytime now. They go, alright.

Sixteen to twenty five can now deboard.

And then I realized my hypocrisy. I'm sitting there. Everyone in front of me gets off. And I'm like, and then the person calling it out is like, do they have a standard wait time? Because there wasn't a lot of people in front of us. So it's like,

everyone's off the plane. Why aren't they calling the next row? I'm like, they're like, woah, woah, the you know, people are off, but they haven't gotten their baggage and their ground transportation yet, so we're gonna wait a little longer. There's still a few of them getting to their connecting flights.

You know, one of them hasn't called us and told us they're home yet, so we'll let you go in a few minutes. That's what it felt like. It's like, why are you letting me out? And I'm sitting here getting so mad, and I'm looking and I'm like, flight attendants over there, there is a clear path.

If my wife wasn't sitting next to me, I would have made a run for it. They wouldn't have stopped me. I could be off this plane before they knew what was going on. And and and I must have it must have showed

because I look over and the guy on the aisle I'm in the aisle seat, the guy on the aisle next to me, it must have showed so clearly that when I looked over at him, he goes, it's painful, isn't it?

And I go, it's so painful. Yeah. I didn't jump up like everybody else did, but in my heart, I not only jumped up, I was running people over to get off that plane. And and I I and and and we do the same thing getting on the plane. That's the one I don't understand.

We know we're gonna be stuck on this plane. Why are you in such a hurry to get in your seat on the plane? Get out my way. I wanna get I wanna get called first. And I I get it on the on the flights where it's not assigned seating, but if you have an assigned seat,

it must be just you're afraid that all the overhead storage is gonna be taken. That's what I think it is. But anyways, that's not my point. My point is we are not patient. And three times in this passage, wait. Wait. Wait. But I don't wanna wait. So when you're waiting, remember his promises. Remember his promises.

And then the second thing, the second thing we gotta do is respond to his purpose.

Verse 28 through 30 here, look what it says, and we know that God causes everything to work together for good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

For God knew his people in advance and he chose them to become like his son, so that his son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, and having chosen them, he called them to come to him, and having called them, he gave them the right standing with himself, and having given them the right standing, he gave them his glory.

So right there he says,

he's talking about we need to respond to his purpose. What do mean? It starts off with, says, and we know that God caused everything to work together for good. And you're like, wait, wait, you just said, you know, don't fear the suffering, expect it. Don't fear the bad, expect it. Didn't he just say everything's gonna be good?

That's not what he said. God works all things together for good? That is probably one of the most misapplied, misquoted verses I've ever seen. You rip that right out of the middle. It's right in the middle of a passage that's saying life's gonna be hard. Bad things are gonna happen.

He's not saying in this life, don't worry. You suffer right now. The job's gonna eventually, you're gonna get the money. You're gonna do it eventually. Sometimes you do something. That's not what he's saying. He says it actually is implying that there's gonna be things that aren't good.

He works all things together for good. Meaning he'll take the bad and can make it work for good. He didn't say he'll stop the bad. It's like the bad's gonna be the bad, but it'll ultimately have a purpose. And what is that purpose? He said, it works out for those who are called according to God's purpose. When you respond to his purpose,

he will take the bad that happens to you, and in the end, it'll work out for something good. It doesn't mean you're gonna get your definition of good or your way. He's gonna work it towards his purpose. And it said right in there what his purpose is. Did it say what he's gonna work it towards? Did you catch it? He said, We will be made like Jesus.

That's his purpose.

So when he says he'll work it out for good, it means the bad things that's happening to you doesn't mean if I'm just patient enough, if I love Jesus enough, if I do the right thing enough, I'm eventually gonna get what I want. That's not what he's saying. He says, eventually, you're gonna get what he wants. You're gonna become more like Jesus.

So God in his love can take all the brokenness of this world, our own sin, and say, if you trust me and lean into my purpose, I will use that to make you more like me. Which is what his goal is. But if you come to church wanting to get Jesus to like you more instead of be more like him, you're confused by that.

You see, because Jesus' goal is not to make you happy. It's to make us holy, to make us like him. And he understands that the world, the brokenness, even our enemy that wants to discourage us, the bad, actually the suffering, God can use that in wonderful ways to make us more like Christ.

So I have to respond to that. I have to agree with that. I have to lean into that. So here's the question. You might have been a Christian for a long time. You might be coming to church all the time. But did you wake up this morning and say, no matter what happens in my life,

I wanna agree with God that he's gonna use it to make me more like him and that's the goal? Or is it I'm gonna do everything I can to try to convince God to give me the life I want?

Because if you have that other attitude, that's why your problems don't ever get you to a place of hope. James was much more of a throat puncher. He said consider it a pure joy when you face various trials. He didn't even just say he'll work it out for good. He says you actually should go, yeah.

Because he's saying like, here's a challenge. This stinks, but you know what? I know that I love Jesus. I'm gonna lean into what he has, and I'm looking forward to what he's gonna do to make me more like him at the other side of this.

How many of you just wanna get to the other side of it? You don't care how you look. You just wanna get past it. You don't wanna go through it. You see, you when you have that attitude, you're just fighting with God all the time.

And and so you gotta lean into that. And what's interesting in these the rest of these verses has some of the deepest theological terms that people debate. And you've been in church, you're wondering about this. If you listen to their I wanna show up throw up a list of these five terms that are listed in here that that have deep theological meaning. Go study them yourself. I'm not gonna get to this real a lot of times, we as Christians, the longer we've been, we just wanna know words. We wanna know how God's working. It's not really what he's trying to do. And we can get so focused on the little finer points that you missed the actual point.

I wanna point out what these words mean in context of what is he saying because these phrases he says in here, he's telling us his process. God's saying, my purpose is to make you like me. And if you respond to my purpose in your life, I will take even the bad things and use it towards that purpose.

And this is how I here's my process. And when you see his process, what God's doing, you can trust him more. And so what he said there, first said, those he knew before. It's the the the seminari ish version of the word is foreknew. That's the word in there that says, God foreknew.

What does that mean? In the Greek, foreknew means foreknew. It means he knew beforehand. And some be like, what does that mean? Like, he knew. He's like, it's all it really means is God does not live in past, present, and future. God is outside of space and time. God created time.

God doesn't say, I'm running out of time. He's like, I don't have. I have all the time in the end because I I created it. So it means that all that's happened right now, here's where it should encourage us. He already knew everything. He already knew everything was gonna happen.

He already knew what you were gonna do. He knew what I was gonna do. He knew everything. He knew where the world was gonna go. He knew every political stripe. Just, God did not sit there one day and wake up and go, oh no, another variant.

I really didn't mean it to go on this long. My bad.

And because he foreknew, he predestined. He predecided. That word means prehorizon. He already said this is where it's going.

And in the context here, that's a big word if you've been in church for a while, it's like predestined. Does that mean God says, you're going to heaven, you're going to hell? I don't know how that works. But in the Bible, every time it says predestined, he's talking to someone that already knows Christ.

It's not talking about heaven. It's talking about being like Jesus. What he predestined is if you know Christ, he determined beforehand, I'm gonna make you like Christ. He already decided that's what he's gonna do. You can fight him. You you can resist him. But if you know Christ, he's gonna use everything

to make us more like him. He already decided ahead of time. The nice thing about that is every time we mess up, you know, like, God's gonna change. Oh, I didn't do it. He's not it's not on us. He decided.

He foreknew. He predestined. And those he predestined, he called. Isn't this a word called? That means, like, it's it's, like, outside of time, we live in the moment. So if you if you met Jesus, if you've put your faith in Jesus, you kinda think it like this. I realized something was wrong and I called out to God. You realize that's from your point of view, but you did not.

You did not do the calling. He called you. You would have never called him. You didn't even know his number. You didn't even know who he was. If he texted you, you'd say, who dis? You're not in my phone. He called you. You just finally answered. Why is that giving confidence? Because you don't have to run around looking for God.

When you mess you don't have to run around calling to him. He took care of us and he proved that because not only did he call us, he justified us. And that's what the whole first part of Romans was about. Just as if I never sinned. Jesus not only called, he goes, hold on, I'll be right down. And he came and died for us.

He left heaven. He came to us. He called us. He pre decided to save us. He rescued us. He paid the price for us. We didn't do any of that. And he died for us. And so then the last part, he says glory, and that's glorified. And that's when he's saying when this earth is done, when this temporary this temporary

time for us, fifty years, hundred years seems like forever because that's all we've ever known. But in the context to in compared to eternity, doesn't matter. We will be glorified. That means all the pain, all the sin, all the struggle, all be gone. The only thing that's gonna survive is the part of us that he created us to be, and it's gonna be glorious.

We are gonna live in absolute complete victory. And what he's saying in this process is what we struggle with right now is we are right now in between four and five. And the Bible calls that sanctification.

That's the process of he allows the troubles. He allows this world to mold us into Christ, and he gives us the opportunity to point other people to Jesus.

Of all the things God's asked us and invited us to do, people go, why are we so worried about the outsiders? Why why can't churches be about us believers? Why can't it do this? Because everything we do as a believer will continue into eternity except one thing. You can't point anybody else to Jesus

on this side on the other side of heaven. Evangelism, reaching the lost is the one mission that has a timetable to it. But if I'm more worried about my problems, my pain in my life, and being happy and holy, and wanting Jesus to like me instead of me being like him, I'm not gonna worry about reaching out.

I'm not gonna serve. I'm not gonna give.

I'm gonna circle the wagons. But when I understand what he wants to do, and I understand the process,

I now can say, alright. God's already done this. Am I gonna respond to his purpose in my life?

Or am I gonna fight him and be a really frustrated Christian? There is no option that avoids pain. There is no option that avoids pain. But if you lean into God's purpose, you have pain with a purpose and you are a victor. You lean away from it, you're just a victim.

It's which do you want? It's funny. It's funny. My dad, Nietzsche said this quote, that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

And we go, that's good, but what God's letting me go through now, I can't bear up. I can't bear up. And you know what? Our biggest fear is, what if this kills me? The biggest fear is, what if I get I actually die? Well, my dad once said, you know,

if you think about it, now that you know Christ, that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. But that that does kill you makes you even stronger. Because what happens the problem. What happens when you die? You're like Obi Wan. If you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Only for real.

But if I'm stuck in the here and now my biggest fear is the ending of the here and now.

So I fear the death instead of expect it because there's more life on the other side of it. But I'm supposed to fight the good fight. You know, Paul put it easier simpler than that. He said, to live is Christ, to die sucks. No. That's what he didn't say. He said, to live is Christ, to die is gain.

So he said, why I still draw breath? I can lean into God's purpose. He invites me to become more like him and he gives me an opportunity to be a part of changing eternity for people. He gives me a part of his mission that I don't deserve to be a part of. He gives me a part of experiencing

what he's doing in this world as how he can take the broken things and make them unbroken. But then if I die, that's even better.

We're victors not victims. Which mentality do you take?

Do you look at what's going on and go, I want to lean into God's purpose or do you just be like, I get fearful, I get fighty, I get so many of us Christians, we get so worried. We fight. That's why we fight about politics because we're so worried about this world. I'm not saying we don't get involved in things. I'm not saying we don't have an opinion. We're called to be good citizens, but what I'm saying is at the level of which we get so fearful and angry is because we're stuck and I'm thinking that's the answer.

That's not the answer. That's just a stop gap.

No political law, anything in the universe is ever gonna fix what's wrong with this world. Only Jesus. And even that won't be totally fixed till he comes back.

I need to respond to his purpose. And then the last thing I need to do

is refuse to surrender. In this last section, he gives five rhetorical questions And look what he says.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these if we understand and remember his promises and we see what his process is for his purpose and how awesome that is? He goes, what shall we say about this? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

If God is for us, who could be against us? Now a lot of people, if you have that idea that church is I'm gonna come to make Jesus like me instead of I'm supposed to be made more like Jesus, what you thought that just said is, if I can get God on my side, who can ever stand against me? God doesn't take a side. He is a side. For God to be for you is simply this. God's over there, I'm over here. You know how God is for you? Is you go.

Abraham Lincoln said that. The civil war. Both sides were praying to the same God. They thought they had victory. And in his cabinet, they said, well, I hope God's on our side. He goes, that's the wrong question. I don't think the question is, is God on our side? It should be, are we on his? That's the point.

So if God's for us, if I'm on God's side, who could stand against you? Since he did not spare even his own son, but given up for us all, won't he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for us? We live in a world people would accuse us. They're like, oh, you Christians. You're like, yeah. You're stupid. You're all like that. And we think the answer is to be more like them. My dad used to say in war, if you become what you're fighting,

why are you fighting? Think about it. When you become what the enemy is, then what's the point of being at war? But we have a chance to say, who cares? We're gonna be accused. Who cares? We are winning. We are winning. Who dares accuse us?

No one, for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one, for Christ Jesus died for us and raised life for us. He is sitting in the place of honor at God's right hand pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or persecuted

or another variant or have to wear a mask or end up with people that are in office we hate or we go hungry or we're destitute or we're in danger or we're threatened with death or Nicolas Cage makes another movie as the scriptures say. Good, you're listening. As the scriptures say,

for your sake we are killed every day, we're being slaughtered like sheep. He's saying if you're a true Christian, you might actually die. And that's still winning.

No. Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us. Overwhelming, not underwhelming, not partial, not political,

not we get our laws passed that keep us safe, not we protect our liberty, we protect those are things we should care about, but that's not the end game. We could lose all of that and we still win. That's the point. That's not the real battle. That's not where the fight is. It's not.

And he says, and I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries about tomorrow.

Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. I think about that as I catch my breath. Did you wake up with that attitude?

Which worry about tomorrow did you think about? Which political thing did you think, oh, if this goes that way.

And I have opinions. I don't ask for pain. God never says to ask for it. There's things I'd rather have that are pleasant. But my attitude isn't like all is lost if it goes that way. You know why? We already won. But we still have problems.

I've used this story before, the best way I can explain it is when my dad was at the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, there's that famous picture of that flag going up on Mount Suribachi. You know, they're all leaning into it. Well, you know what? When they took that mountain, that was on day four of the battle.

The battle went on for a month. Over 85% of all the casualties happened after that moment. Was that a fake declaration of victory? No. Because they knew tactically when they took that high ground, they also knew the Japanese were not getting reinforced. So they knew once they took them out, they won.

It was just clean up duty. But they were facing an enemy that was told, you're not getting taken out of there. You're not getting reinforcements. Your job is to kill as many Americans and slow it down as much as problem. Distract them, demoralize them, do whatever you can to slow them down.

You're not winning, but don't quit. That's exactly what our life is right now. You see, Jesus came and he went up on Mount Calvary and the cross went up. And he said, it is finished

and we have won. But now we're still in this fight. And we have an enemy that won't quit even though he's lost. And his job is to demon. You know what? He wants to distract you with stupid stuff. He wants you to wanna make Jesus like you more instead of be more like Jesus. He doesn't want you to tell other people about the love of Christ. He wants you stuck in your own problems, stuck in your own pain, stuck in yourself,

stuck within what you want, stuck in your viewpoint, stuck in all of that, and not to see the victory. That's his job even though he's lost. And we already have the victory. It's already finished. Stop being a victim and start walking in the victory we have by remembering his promises, by responding to his purpose,

and by refusing to surrender.

So what do I do with that? What's the next thing I should do? Let me close with this. My grandson's at that age where he loves to watch like Disney movies over and over and over again. So when he's over at our house, I get to watch Disney movies over and over and over again.

And he's been really into Frozen two. I didn't even know they made a Frozen two. I didn't know. But I got sucked in. You know I act like I'm grumpy but I get sucked in. I like stories so I start watching it. And to be honest, I think it's better than Frozen one.

And mainly because there's a story to there's there's there's a purpose, there's a moral they kinda land in it, that Disney is not known for its great theology, but this one thing they got right. And it's one of the characters, Anna, is is trying to help and she ends up in hopelessness.

It looks like a lost cause. She's suffering. And in talking to one of the other characters, she doesn't know what to do. And the advice was when you don't know what's next, when it seems like all is lost, you just do the next right thing. And that's actually a scriptural thing. You don't worry about everything.

You just do the next right thing. You know, Jesus even taught us to pray that way when he said, give us this day our daily bread.

Did he say, give me my lifely bread, give me my weekly bread, give me you know why he makes us daily go to him? Because if he gave us everything, we're impatient. We'd wanna go do our own thing. We'd forget who it came from and we'd just go live our life and forget God.

But by daily making us go to him, we're reminded daily that we have a God that loves us so much. And so when we follow him, just do the next right thing. Just what is his purpose he wants you to respond to right now? What's that next right thing? And I saw this in my mom at the end of her life.

You know, she grew up in church, walked away, she was kind of a fan of Jesus. She started to come to our church because she was a big fan of me. But she

almost thought of church as like I want Jesus to like me more, it wasn't more of me be like Jesus. But her last couple years she got serious. I baptized her and she really started to get it and she leaned in, she realized how God had wired her, her number one gifts and purpose. And she started to lean into that.

But then not long into that my dad dies in her arms. And I was sad, but she at least knew he knew the Lord.

And she also, it was a chance to now live some life because my dad was awesome, but he didn't like to go anywhere because he'd been everywhere. And so I was planning a trip. My mom always wanted to go to Ireland, so I go, I'll take you to Ireland. And we were gonna do it, but her arm kept hurting. So she goes to the doctor. They x-ray. They find it's broken in two places, which was weird. So they did more tests. Turned out she had bone cancer, all through her body.

She died ten weeks later. And so right now she's taking care of my dad. She's sad over that. That's hard. At least there may be some hope, and now she's gonna die. She could've played the victim. She could've just closed up shop and said, I'm done with life. I'm done with that as she's dying in horrible pain.

But you know what? My friend and I, Randy, went over to see her. It turned out it was like less than a week before she died at her house.

And we've talked to her and she's sitting in a wheelchair. And I'm what are you doing next? She's like, I'm in bad pain, but somehow sitting in this is the most comfortable place to sit.

And so she said she couldn't even like move her arms to move. She would use her toes like Fred Flintstone style to pull herself up. And as we're sitting there, she goes, you guys wanna drink? I'm like, yeah. I could use a drink. I'm thirsty. And I go, yeah.

And and and and and Randy goes, I'll get it. And she goes, no. I'll get it. He's like, what? And then she started, you know, and she's like moving like this fast. And as she's going, I'm thinking, I'm gonna die of dehydration before I get that drink.

And then Randy jumps up and he goes, Diana, don't. You're hurting. You're in pain. Let me get it. And he goes to walk by her. And even though her arms hurt so bad, reached up and grabbed his wrist. And she pulled on him and she goes, Randall Deal, don't you dare take this from me.

What did she mean?

Her number one gift in serving the Lord was service and hospitality. She showed people the love of Christ by taking care of them. And that was her way. That's the way God built her. And she realized that. And she knew she was dying.

And instead of saying, well, I'm dying now, forget what God wants me to do. I'm just gonna roll up in a ball and have a pity party. She goes, no. What she was saying is don't take this right. Until I take my last breath,

I am refusing to surrender. Until I can't move anymore, till my toes won't even drag me, I'm gonna do what God built me to do. I'm gonna do the next right thing.

And as she kept going, Randy was still confused by it. He's like, but Diana, why wouldn't you why why would you wanna do this? You're in pain. Why don't you just relax? And you know what she said? She said the non Disney version.

She used to say it all the time. She was saying do the next right thing. Pardon my French, but it's my mom's words, not mine. She looked at him and says, what the hell else am I gonna do? What did she mean by that?

What else am I gonna do? I'm dying. I'm suffering. Why wouldn't I do the very thing that I get joy from? The very thing God built me for? The very purpose. Because if I do anything else, I'm doing hell's work. I'm just doing the opposite of what God wants me to do. I'm being selfish. I'm being focused. I'm being a victim. I'm being this. What the hell else am I gonna do? How about you? What the heck else? I'll stop saying hell to not to offend.

What the heck else are you gonna do? If you're in pain, if you're suffering, if you're hurting, what else are you gonna do? Why wouldn't you just do the next right thing? Do the thing God's called you to do. Why wouldn't you? Because the other thing you're gonna do is only gonna create its own problems.

Just do the next right thing. Remember his promises. Respond to his purpose in your pain. Walk in the victory.

Don't be a fearful victim

because we already won if you know Christ. Father God, I thank you. I thank you that you said that it's finished on the cross. And Lord, it is finished, but we're not finished. So Lord, simple prayer for me, everyone in this room, anyone watching online. I pray that we would embrace your promises and remember them,

especially in the tough moments. That Lord, we would respond to your purpose in our life and we will refuse to surrender.

May we walk out this life in victory. I pray it in the mighty name of Jesus,

us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpointe.io for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.