Amen, what a blessing to sing together. Good to sing new songs too. That first song we sang this morning was new for us. But yeah, what a blessing. Thank you, music team. Please open your Bibles again to Romans 8. I'm going to read verses 28 to 32. Our focus this morning is on verses 31 and 32. But look again with me at some of these verses that Mike read earlier for us. Romans 8. 28 to 32. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose. For those 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. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Let's pray. God thank you for this time of corporate worship. Thank you for songs and instruments and voices. Thank you that we can sing our praises to you and thank you for your word. God we recognize we are not good but you are very good. You are the definition of good and you are so gracious to us to reveal yourself to us to speak to us in your word. And I pray this morning we will be listening to you and learning from your word this morning. We pray that you'll guide us by your spirit and we pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. Well, in the opening chapter of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, there's a funny little conversation between Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf. Bilbo has just finished breakfast and is standing outside his door. He's never met Gandalf before at this point. So when this old man with a staff and a long white beard shows up in front of Bilbo's home, Bilbo greets him as a stranger, not knowing who he is. And this is how it goes. This is from the book. Fairly similar in the movie, but here's from the book. Good morning, said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining and the grass was very green, but Gandalf looked at him from under long, bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat. What do you mean, he said? Do you wish me a good morning or mean that it is a good morning, whether I want it or not, or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good on? All of them at once, said Bilbo. Well then, Gandalf shares that he's looking for someone to share in an adventure, which is something that Bilbo doesn't want to have anything to do with. Bilbo tells Gandalf about the hobbits that we're plain, quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things. Make you late for dinner. I can't think what anybody sees in them. And then Bilbo's eager for Gandalf to leave at this point because Bilbo doesn't want to have anything to do with any kind of adventure. So Bilbo starts looking at his morning letters, ignoring the old man. And then when Gandalf doesn't leave, Bilbo says to him, good morning. We don't want any adventures here, thank you. And Gandalf replies, what a lot of things you do use good morning for. Now you mean that you want to get rid of me and that it won't be good till I move off. I like that little conversation. I just wanted to share that with you this morning And that clever little exchange reminds us that words can have a variety of connotations and meanings and uses, right? And like I said a couple weeks ago in the sermon on Romans 8, 28, it's important for us to clarify what the good is in that great promise of verse 28. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. What is the good specifically? that were promised in verse 28. Well, verse 29 answers that question and Tim Wolford unpacked that very well for us last Sunday. Look again at verse 29. For those 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. So that's the good promise to us. We're going to be conformed to the image of our older brother, Jesus Christ. And as we read on later in this same chapter, we're reminded that we'll face many hardships. which will never separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. But these hardships will still be hard, they'll still be difficult, but they'll also be working this good in our lives, fulfilling the promise of Romans 8.28. So we can't define the good of that promise just whatever way we would want to, whatever we think of as good or pleasant or comfortable. No, the good that God has in store for us is the good of being shaped into the likeness of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And as that happens, we're gonna have the peace and the joy of knowing Jesus better. He's the treasure. To become more like Jesus, to know him, to know God the Father, this is the ultimate good that's promised to us. And the verses we're going to study this morning, verses 31 and 32, make a very similar point as we're going to see. Here we have the promise that God is for us. This is good. This is the good of knowing God, that he's going to be on our side. He is for us and that he's graciously giving us all things. He's going to give us all that is good. Well, let's zoom out though here for a moment at the beginning of the sermon to observe where we're at in this chapter and also in this great letter of Romans. If you haven't been with us, It's just over this summer, these summer months, that we've been studying through just chapter 8 of the book of Romans, which is a little odd for us. Usually we're going through entire books of the Bible, but I decided for this summer to focus on this really powerful chapter of Scripture, Romans 8, and just go through in a verse-by-verse expository, a very detailed way through these verses. And we're moving now into the final paragraph of Romans 8, and Paul is also drawing to a conclusion this major section of Romans, chapters 5 through 8 of Romans. And these verses at the end of chapter 8. And the beginning several verses of chapter 5 serve kind of like bookends of this section, chapters 5 through 8. If you want to look back to the beginning of chapter 5 or maybe later you could go back and read some of those verses, chapter 5 opens with the proclamation that we have peace with God and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We even rejoice in our sufferings and we're told that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. And we also rejoice that we've been reconciled to God through the death of his son. And now here at the end of Romans 8 there are similar themes. We're given assurance that God is for us and therefore no enemy can succeed against us. God showed his love for us in giving up his own son and nothing, no suffering or trial or persecution can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And I just want us to notice those parallels because as we come to verse 31 of Romans 8 where we're seeing the beginning of the conclusion not only of chapter 8 but of this section of Romans. We could think of Romans 5, 1 through 11 as the opening of this section and then Romans 8, 31 to 39 as the conclusion of this section. Look at verse 31. Verse 31 begins with the rhetorical question, what then shall we say to these things? Paul signals to us here that he's reflecting back on things that he has previously written and he's about to draw out some implications based on what he's already told us. He certainly has in mind the verses right before this when he says, what then shall we say to these things? What are these things? Well, certainly the promise of verse 28. and the golden chain of verses 29 and 30. What shall we say to this promise? What shall we say to these unshakable purposes of God beginning in eternity past? What does this mean for us? What else can we say about this? How else can we rejoice in these great realities? And it could also be that Paul has in mind the entirety of this section beginning all the way back in chapter 5. All of this gospel truth about justification and our freedom from sin and our freedom from the law and our new life in the spirit and our adoption and the redemption we look forward to, all of this has been building toward this climactic conclusion to this section. And of course, he's going to go on in the letter, right? There's chapters 9 through 11 and all the glorious truth there. And then there's chapters 12 and on with all kinds of application. But here, even at the end of chapter 8, is kind of a finale, like the end of seeing the fireworks. You know, you think of 4th of July and watching the fireworks in the sky and enjoying the amazing display of bright colors exploding this way and that way, and then a short lull before a spectacular finale. And this is kind of how I think of the end of Romans 8. There have been many amazing things to behold in Romans chapters 5 through 8. And now there's this brief pause as Paul kind of takes a deep breath and says, what then shall we say to all these things? And then the finale begins with rapid fire promises that are precious beyond our comprehension. And just so you can kind of feel the finale of this in a different way. I'm going to reword Paul's many rhetorical questions here and put them in the form of statements. So rhetorical questions, these are questions, not really questions meant to be answered, but just for rhetorical effect to kind of make the point. And if you look through those verses there at the end of Romans 8, you'll see a lot of question marks at the end of a lot of these sentences. He's wording a lot of these. as questions, but let me just put them in statement form. He's saying, God is for us. Therefore, no enemy can succeed against us. God gave his son for us. Therefore, we know that God will also give us a great inheritance with Christ. Nobody can bring any charge against us. God justifies. Nobody can condemn us. Christ Jesus died and rose and is at the right hand of God, interceding for us. Nobody can separate us from the love of Christ. Knowing every affliction, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Nothing, no nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the finale that we have in the last paragraph of Romans 8. So let's look now through verses 31 and 32, and I just want to I have four headings here, which are just specific statements I want us to focus in on and then try to understand better. And the first one is, God is for us. And then we'll look at God gave his son. And then third, I want to really focus in on for us all, that phrase for us all, what is meant by that. And then lastly, in conclusion, that God will graciously give us all things. So point number one, God is for us. In saying, if God is for us, who can be against us? Paul doesn't mean to cast any kind of doubt on the fact that God is for us. Again, this is a rhetorical question, right? And this is the nature of rhetorical questions. Verses 28 through 30, just before this, assure us that God is for us. He's working all things together for our good. He foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified. So the statement now is if God is for us and we know he is, then who can be against us? And the implied answer is nobody can be against us. Or to summarize it more simply, we could say it like this. Since God is for us, nobody can be against us. That's the point. Now if you're thinking about this and also thinking about your life experiences and the life experiences of others around you, whom you love. You're probably scratching your head here and saying, well, yep, Paul, but what does that mean? Because we all have experienced opposition in our lives in one way or another. We've had people who are against us. Kids, maybe for you, it's a classmate who's been mean to you. Maybe it's a brother or sister who won't play the game you want to play or won't share a certain toy. Teenagers, maybe it's classmates who make fun of you for your beliefs or pressure you to compromise your convictions. Adults, there may be times when your boss is against you or a co-worker is against you or a neighbor is against you. We face plenty of opposition in life. So what can Paul mean here when he says nobody is against us? Paul certainly knows that there are many who come against us. He lists many of them later in this passage, verse 35. Persecution, danger, sword, these clearly imply things and circumstances and people who come against believers. There's somebody carrying out the persecution. There's someone or something causing the danger. There's somebody on the other end of that sword. And we would recognize the things he lists there and the overlap with things he lists in other places. These are very personal to Paul. He experienced these things in very in violent ways and in very intense ways. Let me just read you some verses from 2 Corinthians 11 where he shares some of his experiences. He writes of imprisonments with countless beatings and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers. Danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Those are some of Paul's experiences throughout his ministry. And a few verses after that in 2 Corinthians 12, After talking about the thorn in his flesh he says, for the sake of Christ then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for when I am weak then I am strong. So Paul certainly knew as a believer that there are plenty of things that come against us in this fallen world. But the point in saying if God is for us who can be against us, the point is nothing can ultimately be against us. Nothing can succeed as it comes against us. It's not going to succeed in destroying us. Nothing can triumph in its attempt to bring us down. Nothing can separate us from Christ's love. Instead, God is using those very things As people and circumstances are coming against us, God is sovereign over that to use that for our good. He allows all of those things to happen in his mysterious purposes so that we will be more than conquerors through him who loved us. One of the church fathers going way back in church history, a guy named John Chrysostom, lived in the 300s and he wrote about this. Listen to this quote from John Chrysostom. He said, yet those that be against us, so far are they from thwarting us at all, that even without their will, they become to us the causes of crowns and procurers of countless blessings, in that God's wisdom turns their plots into our salvation and glory. See how really no one is against us. What a great point. making there, that yeah, there are evil purposes against God's people, but God's going to turn that and use that and ordains that for our good. So it's not that nobody is ever going to oppose us in any way. We know that we will face opposition, but even the opposition which comes against us is going to be for our good. The opposition is part of God refining us and strengthening us and purifying us and making us rely more and more on him. With God on our side, everything, even the fiercest opposition, is going to be working for our good. Therefore, let us be people of courage. This is an application point I want to make from this truth. Let us be people of courage. Knowing that God is for us and nobody, nothing can succeed against us. Nobody can succeed in thwarting God's good plans for us. What do we have to fear? What do we have to lose? Why would we cower in the face of opposition? Why would we give in to peer pressure rather than standing up for what we believe? Why would we shrink back in silence because we don't want to be ridiculed? The fact that God is for us should encourage and embolden us. We have nothing to fear. Athanasius, to quote from another guy way back in early church history, another guy who lived in the 300s. Athanasius was a great defender of the faith. He was part of the controversy involving a man named Arius. Maybe you've heard his name, Arius, the Arian heresy. Arius claimed that Jesus Christ could not be eternal. Since he is the son of God, Arius said, well, he must have had a beginning. And those teachings of Arius, the heresy of Arianism, continues today in the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Arius claimed that Jesus is not eternal. And Athanasius stood up and was very bold and courageous to confront that false teaching. And Athanasius defended the biblical doctrine of the Trinity and the full deity of Jesus Christ, that Jesus is fully man and fully God and eternally God. in opposition to what Arius was trying to, this false teaching he was trying to spread. But even as Athanasius was standing up for the truth, he faced a lot of opposition. Over the years of his ministry, he just had a lot of hardships because of his stand for the truth. There were many church leaders who didn't like him. There were emperors as well who didn't like him. He was exiled five different times from his home in Africa. He had to flee from his home in Egypt and from his ministry there. The phrase that's used to describe his life is Athanasius Contramundum, meaning Athanasius against the world. That's kind of how it felt like for Athanasius, like everybody was against him and he was trying to hold to biblical truth. And that kind of boldness and courage and steadfastness comes from knowing that God is for you. Standing up against error, refusing to give in to immense pressure to compromise, that comes from a deep inner confidence in God's good purposes for you. So let's learn from that. Point number two, God gave his son. Moving on to verse 32 now. God gave his son. We see in verse 32 the clear demonstration of God being for us. Here's how we know that God is for us. He gave his son for us. Unless we think of this abstractly or simply as a point of fact that God gave up his own son, there's a really helpful parallel that God gives us like a preview in the Old Testament. which Mike read for us earlier from Genesis 22, and I just want to touch on that again. God gives us this beautiful picture in Genesis 22 in the account of Abraham delivering up his own son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. So God is testing Abraham at the beginning of Genesis 22, tells him, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. And then at the last moment, so Abraham is obeying what God is telling him to do, not really knowing how this is going to play out, but trusting in the Lord. And at the last moment, the angel of the Lord says, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. And then God provided a ram. for the burnt offering instead of Isaac, which is a powerful picture of Christ's substitutionary atonement for us. He stood in our place. And then the angel of the Lord spoke again to Abraham, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. So God through his word there in the Old Testament gives us this tender and tangible and emotional, really intense event there. But seeing Abraham's love for his son, his only son, Isaac, and also the heartache and the pain just at the thought of offering up his beloved son as a sacrifice. And Abraham's willingness to offer up his only beloved son points to God the Father willing to offer his beloved son for us. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave, he gave his only son. And after Jesus was baptized, remember how God the Father spoke from heaven saying, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We see in these ways how much God the Father loves His Son and therefore what a sacrifice it was for the Father to give up His Son. As we read the story of Abraham and Isaac and as we feel the inner turmoil and agony and heartbrokenness of that event, we should learn something of our great God because He did not spare his own son. In this case, in the case of God the Father and God the Son, no one called out in the last moment and called it off. The Father drove that knife into his son's heart, for using the parallelism of Genesis 22. God did not spare his own son, his only son, his beloved son, but he gave him up. for us. He crushed his beloved son on that cross. He poured out his wrath against sin upon his very own son so that he can spare us from that wrath, which we rightfully deserve. Jesus was not spared so that we can be spared. Isaiah 53 speaks of the fact that it was God's will to crush his own son. Isaiah 53 verse 10, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, he has put him to grief. And in that context, in that passage, the Lord being spoken of there is God the Father. And the one put to grief is the suffering servant who is the Messiah, Jesus Christ. So this verse is saying very clearly that God the Father is the one who ordained the death of Jesus Christ. He crushed him, he put him to grief and he did so because he, the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son had agreed to this from before time began. They had agreed to this plan to magnify the grace of God and the glory of God by saving undeserving sinners like you and like me. This is why we can celebrate the death of Jesus because it wasn't a sign of failure that Jesus died on that cross, it was not a sign of defeat, it was not the end, it happened exactly according to plan and through it Jesus triumphed and succeeded in accomplishing our eternal salvation. In the context of this paragraph at the end of Romans 8 we see this evidence that God is for us and that God loves us and that he is on our side. Verse 31, look at these verses with me again. Verse 31 says it in terms of God being for us, okay? Verse 35, if you look down to verse 35, puts it in terms of the love of Christ. And then to skip down a few more verses, verse 39 speaks of the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So brothers and sisters, consider God's love. Here's another application point for us, to consider the depth of God's love for us. The takeaway for us is to feel this sacrificial love of God that he was heartbroken, in agony, giving up his beloved son in order to save us from his own wrath against sin and to lavish us. Instead of giving us the punishment we deserve, he gives us these good gifts that we don't deserve. This is the mercy and kindness of God, his love to us, which we do not deserve. Some of you know the story of Nicky Cruz. He was one of the guys who started this ministry called Teen Challenge, helping people escape the clutches of addictions. And Nicky's story is really powerful. He had a very rough childhood. He grew up with parents who practiced witchcraft. When he was 15, he left Puerto Rico to live in New York City, and just all the hatred that had built up in him as a young person led to him being the leader of this very destructive gang. He was a force for evil. His heart was just filled with hatred until he met this guy named David Wilkerson. David Wilkerson showed up in Nicky's life just wanting to tell him about the love of Jesus Christ. And Nicky thought that nobody loved him. And at first, Nicky resisted this message of the gospel, even violently. He threatened to kill this skinny street preacher who was trying to tell him about Jesus. But David Wilkerson was persistent, just kept loving him, kept telling him about Jesus, and eventually the powerful love of God invaded Nicky's life and overcame his hatred and God has used him for so much good. That's an awesome story, an awesome testimony of the life changing love of God. And maybe you've been deeply wounded throughout your life. Maybe the disappointments and the broken relationships and the abuses of life have left you angry and bitter. My prayer for you this morning is that the tidal wave of God's love will crash over your life and fall upon you and just wash away all of that hatred. I pray that you'll be so in awe of God's sacrificial love to give his own son for us that you will be changed from the inside out, that you'll love God for this amazing gift of salvation. Well, a third point now, I want us to look at this phrase, for us all, in verse 32. You see that? The next phrase, for us all. This is such a tremendous statement that God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. And the question we need to talk about now is, who is the us? Who is the us? From the context, we can see very clearly the group of people Paul has in mind, if we trace this through. The verses, look back to verse 28, it's those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So here's two descriptions, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago. And just to remind us, I mean, that's the same group of people, right? It's not those who love God and then there's those who are called according to his purpose. It's two ways of describing the same group of people, those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So that's one thing we can look to in the context, verse 28. Then in verses 29 and 30, it's who? It's those whom God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified. So there's some additional descriptions of this group of people. And then skipping forward to verse 33, you see what it says in verse 33? It's God's elect. So there's another way of of describing this group of people, God's elect. These are the ones who can say, God is for us, in verse 31. And Christ is interceding for us, verse 34. And what we see here in verse 32 is that these are the ones for whom Christ died. These are the ones for whom Christ died. God gave up his son for a specific group of people making atonement for their sin, purchasing their redemption. The point I want you to see here is that Christ's death was specifically designed to accomplish that, to accomplish the salvation of this specific group of people, the elect. Christ didn't die in kind of a vague general sense for all of mankind merely making it a possibility for individuals to be saved on the condition that they exercise their free will and choose to believe. Okay, so that's a common notion of the atonement, but I'm trying to help us see something here that would adjust our understanding. of the atonement. What we're seeing here is that no, Christ didn't die in some vague general sense, so he didn't die merely to make something possible, but he died rather to definitely accomplish the redemption of those who were predestined, the elect. Now, to elaborate on this point, I want to quote from one of my favorite theologians who also happens to be a hip-hop artist, okay? How about that? His name is Shai Lin, and this is from a song entitled, Mission Accomplished. And just to say one other thing about Shai Lin, I listened to a message of his recently from the Together for the Gospel conference. He gave just kind of a short talk, a 25-minute sermon on 2 Timothy 2.8, Remember Jesus Christ. Okay, so I just want to give that plug. I would encourage you to look that up and listen to that very edifying 25-minute sermon, Remember Jesus Christ. But here's a few lines from Shai's song, Mission Accomplished, which is all about this very point, the definite atonement. He says, the question concerns those for whom Christ died. Was he trying to save everybody worldwide? Was he trying to make the entire world his bride? Does man's unbelief keep the Savior's hands tied? Biblically, each of these must be denied. It's true, Jesus gave up his life for his bride, but his bride is the elect to whom his death is applied. Okay, so he's making the point there that there's a definite design to Jesus' death, and a design that is certainly accomplished. It's not that Jesus was trying to do something, trying to make something possible, something that would never fully be accomplished. Rather, Jesus died for the church, for his bride, who is made up of those who are chosen, the elect. And in this way, it's mission accomplished, right? It's not mission attempted, but it's mission accomplished. And there's another section of that song Trinity in salvation. Listen to these lyrics. Father, Son, and Spirit, three and yet one, working as a unit to get things done. Our salvation began in eternity past. God certainly has to bring all his purpose to pass. The Father foreknew first. The Son came to Earth to die. The Holy Spirit gives the new birth. The Father elects them. The Son pays their debt and protects them. The Spirit is the one who resurrects them. The Father chooses them, the Son gets bruised for them, the Spirit renews them and produces fruit in them." And I just think it's so cool that he'd be able to pack such rich theology into a rap. And those lyrics summarize a lot of what we're studying here in these verses of Romans 8, and really so much of what's central to a God-centered understanding of salvation. This is what we were seeing last week. As Tim was preaching from the golden chain of verses 29 and 30, God chooses a people for himself, predestines them to be conformed to Christ, calls them effectually unto salvation, justifies them, and causes them to persevere all the way to glory. And what we're seeing now in verse 32 is the definite focus of Christ's death. He died for whom? he died for us. And who's the us? It's the elect. And not that his death was limited in power and was therefore only sufficient to atone for a certain number of individuals. No, that's not That's not it at all. His death was infinitely powerful and sufficient to save whomever it was designed to save. The point here is about intention. Christ died to save his own. Like Jesus said in John 10, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He says, I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep. Now, how do you know if you're one of the sheep? How do you know if these promises are true for you? Well, it's if you believe. Do you believe? in Jesus? Are you repenting of sin and trusting in Jesus to save you from your sin? This teaching about Jesus dying for specific people in a definite way. Don't take this to mean that there will be people who want to be saved but are turned away. No, that's not what this is about at all. The invitation goes out to all. This is an open invitation. Remember John 3.16. It says, whoever Whoever believes in Christ will not perish but have eternal life. So if you're not sure where you're at with all of this, if you're not sure if you're in or out, the invitation is to believe. And if you believe, it'll become clear that you are among his chosen ones. You're among the sheep. There is certainly mystery here. I don't want to come across like I understand how all of these things fit together. There's certainly mystery. This is beyond our comprehension. But I hope as we continue to study all of scripture that we'll be able to gradually piece together all that God's word reveals to us so that we can have a rock solid hope in God and so that God will get all the glory that he deserves. Okay point number four just briefly in closing, he will graciously give us all things. As we close think of the magnitude of this promise and think of how closely connected it is with the teaching of the first half of the verse that God gave his son for us. And then he's going to graciously give us all things. You see here in this verse how Christ's atonement for us is the reason why we can have absolute confidence that God's going to graciously give us all things. This is very similar to verse 28 saying that all things work together. for good, and it's very similar to the promise that those whom God foreknew and predestined and called and justified, he will most certainly bring to glory. The argument here in verse 32 is from the greater to the lesser, greater to the lesser. God did the greatest and most difficult thing imaginable by giving up his own son. He did the most sacrificial thing possible, and if he did that, for us, then he will certainly work all things for our good and bring us into the blessings of heaven for all eternity. That is a, comparatively, that's a small thing compared to the sacrifice he made in giving up his beloved son. So as sure as Christ died on that cross for his sheep, We can be sure that God's gonna do good to us all of our days on this earth and for eternity in heaven. What an amazing thing to know that the almighty God of the universe is for us, that he is on our side, that he's working everything for our good so that no enemy can succeed against us. As those who are trusting in Jesus, the very definition of all that is good, it belongs to us. Our good God is giving us all good things for our eternal benefit. If you're already a believer, I pray you'll be encouraged and emboldened by these truths. And if you're not yet a believer, I pray you'll bow the knee to King Jesus today and put your trust in him and enter in to the joy and the peace of knowing that Almighty God is for you and on your side. Let's pray. What amazing things you give us, God, in your word. Thank you for this opportunity this morning to dwell on these verses. I pray that your spirit will apply these things to our hearts, that we would continue to grow in our comprehension of your great love for us. And I pray there will be very tangible outworkings of this in our lives, that we will be bold in holding to the things you've revealed in your word. that you'll give us courage to share this good news with others, even people who are not going to want to hear it. And to give us peace, even when there are troubling things in our world and in our lives, that we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're working all of it for the good of your people and for the glory of your name. Amen.