we have a church service that constrains us on the other end. So please take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8. The original language of the New Testament was Greek. And because they're handwritten manuscripts, there are little differences between this manuscript and that one. And they can oftentimes easily be traced back to a scribe that made a mistake. And if you've ever looked into this, it is absolutely providentially amazing how accurate the New Testament is and how abundant our supply of manuscripts is. God has providentially provided for us such a vast witness of the original in what Paul wrote. But there's an interesting, at the beginning of chapter 5, there's an interesting difference in the manuscripts between ecomen and ecomen. Some manuscripts say ecomen and some say ecomen, ecomen being the small O, ecomen being the big O, omicron and omega in Greek. And so, and the difference comes down to translation is, therefore, having been justified by faith, Let us have peace would be ecumen. And we have peace would be ecumen. Now it's probably a difference in a scribe listening with his ear. But then other scribes came along and passed it along and such. But notice the difference. We saw last night that having been justified by faith means giving a status of righteousness. That we are now placed in a category that we as wicked individuals do not deserve. And so, what's the result? Do we now strive to have peace with God? Or is it a fact we have peace with God? And when you read the rest of the first paragraph through verse 11, you find that we definitely now already have peace with God. Look with me please at verse 9. Much more than, well, let's see, I'll start with verse 8. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's what we saw yesterday, the big transaction that occurred when God placed our sin on Christ and we gained His righteousness. Christ died for us on our behalf, demonstrating the love of God, much more than having now been justified by His blood, His death became my death through faith, the law executed me in Christ, so the laws can't do anything more to me. I'm justified by His blood. We shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. It is a fact Paul just lays it down as an absolute, we shall be saved from the wrath to come. There's no wrath for anybody who is righteous. And I'm reckoned righteous in God's eyes because of Christ. And so I have confidence. that I shall be saved from the wrath that is coming at judgment. And then he backs it up with another statement in verse 10. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Now he switches the metaphor from a judicial court context in which there is somebody that's been charged and now the charges have been lifted or not been pressed, justification. He switches the metaphor to personal relationships, enemies versus friend. When we were enemies, we were reconciled, made friends through his death. And since we're now friends with God, we have hope, a certain hope that we shall be saved by his life from the wrath to come. And so taking those two then as metaphors, you'll notice that they're used the same way in verse nine as in verse 10, one from courtroom, one from relationship, which means it is a certain fact that having been justified, we do certainly now have peace. I can truly say I'm a friend of God. And that makes sense because I have the same faith of Abraham and Abraham was justified by faith and he's a friend of God. So it is not the case then that I'm being called to somehow gain peace having been justified. It is actually a fact that I have peace with God. We're no longer enemies. I'm reconciled to Him. He's reconciled to me. I no longer have hostility in my heart towards Him because of the work we'll describe today of the Holy Spirit and He is no longer my enemy because I've broken His law. And so what a grace that I have a certain hope before death of going to heaven. In the Roman Catholic system, coming out of the Middle Ages, it was always an uncertain possibility of whether somebody would enter heaven or not. In fact, to say that I would, would be presumptuous, unless you had a direct revelation from God. And so it was always held out as a possibility that if you use the grace well and your will cooperated and taking the sacraments, gaining strength, you would eventually, Lord willing, be fully formed in love and become perfect or a saint. And that was the hope through the sacramental system. And the Protestant Reformation, recovering this radical truth from Romans in particular, declared that it is Every believer's actual peace with God, ownership, that is, every believer's... I'm hesitating to say that they know it because sometimes they don't know it and their faith is weak. But it is their right to know it. And they need to believe it, that Christ is for them in the gospel. And so, I just went on a historical side, if you noticed that. I just stepped over here and I actually started speaking like a reformer. Now if I go back and talk like Bob, it's like, no, you should know it. Second order assurance is looking at your life as proof of being born again. First order assurance is Christ died for me, God loves me, I know I'm going to heaven. and therefore I'm being transformed. And so I own the gospel, I own Christ, and my assurance is based on Christ, not on the Christian life I now live. I'm not saying Luther and Calvin did this or that, but I know their heirs definitely went off the rails a little bit on that one, and so I just wanted to hesitate, and before I spoke on their behalf wrongly. Well, here's our question for today. We've looked at two identities. I am a failure and I am righteous in Christ. And so now we're going to look at what does that identity mean now that I have a certain hope of glory. This hope of glory is so strong that Paul actually boasts in it. We saw a hesitation about boasting in chapters three and earlier, but now in verse three of chapter five, he says, we greatly rejoice in hope of the glory of God. It is something that we can sing about I am redeemed and sing about I'm going to heaven. But then verse 3 adds to the rejoicing. We can also greatly rejoice in our tribulations, in our suffering, because even that heightens our hope. I would say it confirms the gospel hope that we have. We have a hope through faith that I believe in Christ, therefore I know I'm going to heaven. And then God throws us off the end of the dock. throws us into sufferings, just as the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness right after his baptism, and said, let's test out the status you have. And let's show that you really are alive in Christ. And in that floundering and tribulation, which just means pressure, In that pressure cooker, Christians find a new strength. And they find that faith is not just giving us a status, but giving us life in Christ. And that the Holy Spirit within us is just as strong as the Son of God above us. As he prays and intercedes for us before the throne, that our sins don't stick. He's our High Priest. The Holy Spirit is within us, groaning and interceding, praying for us, leading us, fighting against the flesh, and ensuring that we will enter heaven. In fact, we could even say, because the Holy Spirit is our pledge, our down payment of heaven, because the Holy Spirit is the first fruits of heaven, we can even say that the Holy Spirit is heaven in our hearts. which I have found to be a wonderful response when somebody says you can't know you're going to heaven and say actually the New Testament prophesied throughout the Old Testament is the gift of the Holy Spirit is heaven already given to me. How do I know I'm going to heaven? It's because heaven already entered me. It's I'm enjoying right now the first fruits of heaven of my inheritance. And so amazing. I'm going to heaven. And if we didn't believe this paragraph, the next paragraph, the end of the chapter says, okay, let me back up and use Adam and Christ as the two key individuals. I think it is an absolute fact. Well, I think we wouldn't argue that the mortality rate today hasn't differed from yesterday. It's still at 100%. OK? And you've got to account for this. How is it that every human being dies? And accounted, you know, is due to the fact that we are all in Adam, ultimately, and Adam sinned, and therefore, we all are condemned in Adam, and we die in Adam. And that's the ultimate answer, and it would take a whole lesson to unpack that. I'm not gonna do that. So Paul actually, he's, Paul is wonderful in this way. I love the fact that Peter says, there are some things in Paul hard to understand. I'm glad he didn't say all things in Paul are hard to understand. I'm glad he didn't say many things in Paul are hard to understand. But I do get stumped from time to time. Some things in Paul are hard to understand. And when one apostle says that of another apostle, it makes this little pastor feel better. And so this is one of those areas like original sin and how original sin affects each of us is an amazing reality and yet we see it all throughout. Death has reigned is Paul's language. Death is king and nobody has defeated him. Well, Paul says, just as certainly as death reigns in Adam, so also life reigns in Christ. Just as everyone in Adam dies because they are condemned, so everyone in Christ lives because they are justified. that the one sin of the one man, Adam, sent humanity into condemnation and death. So the one righteous act, the cross, of the one man, Jesus, sent all in him to life because he died for them. And so the symmetry in this between Adam and Christ is so remarkable and so strong. So Paul's like, okay, if you didn't believe my last argument in chapters three and chapters four, let me give you this one. And so at the end of chapter five, we're like going, wow, I'm going to heaven. I'm as certainly going to heaven now as I'm certainly on my way to death and aging. Just as my body due to Adam is aging, so my spirit and ultimately resurrection is certain due to Christ. And so it's like, wow! Great! This leads us then into the two areas that we need to focus on this morning. Sin and suffering. He touched on suffering in chapter 5. Now he brings up the sin issue in chapter 6. Because the normal objection is, if you're so certain you're going to heaven, what keeps you from sinning? Like, God just handed you a blank check signed by Jesus Christ on the bottom. I have paid for all your sins. Like, oh, so no matter how much I rack up this bill, it's already been paid for? And you know how human nature is. It's free. We tend to take advantage of free things. Of course, they have strings in this world, but, you know, we take advantage of those. And so, the objection given in chapter 6 is, are we to continue in sin so that grace might increase? I mean, what's gonna keep us? Verse 15, shall we sin because we're no longer under the law but under grace? What's gonna keep you from sinning? And it's even made more poignant by the fact that God added the law chapter 5, verse 20, in order to increase the rebellion, the transgression, the law instead of like keeping the Jewish people, making them better, the law actually incited them, was part of inciting them, and they ended up being worse than the Canaanites. And so the law actually increased sin, but it did so in order that grace may superabound. I remember this one old guy lived just off the bridge, Markham Dam, down in the Ohio River, that way. And I was talking to him about his sin life and different things. And I remember bringing up to him, you know, the fact that just as the Canaanite woman, Seraphim woman, said, yes, I am a dog, but even dogs get crumbs from the table. And Jesus said, you had remarkable faith, so Frank was his name, like, take all your sins, Frank. And even though they would say you should go to hell, bring them before God and say, this will even make your name greater. This will show your grace even more if you save me. Because look at all the great sins I've done. There's a pile of them. And so instead of being discouraged, by having a lot on our record, we can actually turn the argument around and say, God, because I have such a large record, save me. And you'll gain even more glory out of me walking into heaven. But then somebody would say, but, but, but, but Bob. What's gonna keep the Christian from doing the same thing? It's like, well, everybody, you know, can you see, you know, Pastor Kevin standing up here and say, you know what, because of grace, I want you to get out and sin as much as you can this week. I mean, just rack the bill up really high so that when we all get to heaven someday as Bible Chapel, we can all appear before God and everybody will marvel that this group made it into heaven like, wow. And then we'll go, yes, and it's due to the grace of God alone. Glory be to God, can you imagine it? I don't think that's how your pastor's gonna talk, you know, and it's not how the New Testament talks. So it's like, well, what keeps us from sinning? I would expect Paul to answer back with a, why? Why would you do that? Why would you treat someone who's loved you so much that way? Like Polycarp at his death in his 80s. How can I abandon him who has treated me so well all these 80 years? There's a motive there. There's a personal motive there. I would expect Paul to argue that way. Why would you do that? But what's interesting is Paul says, how would you do that? I don't even understand how that would even be possible. He says, how? How shall we, if you notice in verse two, how shall we who died to sin still live in it? Like how? It's impossible. You're like, well, that's an interesting argument. We died to sin? That phrase, died to sin, might look like, you know, Bob Snyder, you know, called in God, became a Christian, died to his old life, and now is raised unto new life. He died to his sin. He died to sin. I don't think that's the meaning of that phrase, and here's why. Verse 10 says that Christ died to sin. Same phrase. It can't be that Christ died to his former life of criminal activity. He has no former life to die to. He lived a perfect life. No violence found. No deceit in his mouth. Nothing. And so what does it mean he died to sin? It's a dative in the Greek. It could mean died with respect to sin. Died in the realm of sin. In the realm of guilt. I think it means that he was crucified because of our sin. And we were crucified with him. We died with Christ in his death. Therefore, how in the world are we going to live in sin? We passed out of that into another existence through Christ. Think of it this way, verse 7. Verse 7 actually says, in the Greek it actually says, He who has died is justified from sin. Regarding you and I, because we died with Christ, we have been cleared of our guilt and have a righteous status. We are guiltless because Christ died for us. We are justified by His blood, chapter 5. And as a result of that, we are in a new status. So think of it this way. He's going to use three analogies to prove you can't live a life of sin as a believer. Cannot. Number one. He's going to use the analogy of baptism. He's going to use the analogy of slavery. He's going to use the analogy of marriage. That's into chapter 7. Three analogies that are on off. The first one of baptism pictures being buried with Christ... and then raised with Christ unto new life. And the point of that analogy is, in a sense, just as it would be silly to think we're only buried with Christ and not also raised with Christ, can you imagine doing immersions but not emersions? I happen to believe in both, okay? Let's get them out of the water too. Christ didn't just die. Christ also raised. And so Paul's argument two times in this first paragraph is, if we were united to Christ in his death, we will most certainly be united to Christ in his life. We're gonna live. It would be as impossible for a Christian not to be alive and to love God and to walk according to his ways as it would be for Christ to still be in the grave. He didn't die on His own. He didn't die for His own behavior. He died for your behavior. So also, 2 Corinthians 5, He was raised for you. He died for you and He was raised for you. Both of it's vicarious. Both of it's on our behalf. And so, because you get His death, you also get His resurrection. And so, it's pictured by not keeping the believing sinner in the water, but immersing Him. And so praise be to God, we have both his death and his life. And so Paul's like, how can you continue to live in sin? You have the life of Christ in you. You're united to Christ in his life. Second, you were a slave to sin, and now you're a slave to righteousness. You were a slave basically to yourself, now you're a slave to God. You can't be a slave of two masters. You've been transferred from this one to this one. And then the third analogy is marriage. You died to the law to be married to Christ. The law condemned you and said, this, this, this is against you. That you were separated from just as a woman, a widow is separated by death from her former husband and is now free to marry another. You are now married to Christ. And so those three analogies speak of union. I'm united to Christ in his death and resurrection, meaning I am no longer united to guilt. I'm no longer united to unrighteousness. I am no longer united to the law. I am now united to Christ, his spirit, and living. I have life. I have power. And so it's impossible. A genuine Christian cannot live a life of sin. Now, we know we're thinking correctly with Paul when he brings up our objection next. Because the next objection is, I don't know if I'm a Christian. It's like, don't we all sin, Paul? And what's the purpose of the law then if it would get separated from the law? And like, wait a minute. I look around the church and I see sin. I look at my life and my heart and I see sin. So chapter 7 comes in and says, well, first of all, please note, the law, yes, is holy and good and spiritual. Chapter 7 proves law is great. The problem is man. Man can't keep the law. God gave the law to increase sinning. Oddly enough, commands given to fleshly people stirs up sin. And if you've ever parented, and you know what it's like to have a four year old, and you think to yourself, do I tell them not to open the closet door? I think I'll just leave that unsaid, and probably the closet door will never be opened. But if I tell the child, whatever you do, before I come back, don't open the closet door, There's something in human nature that goes, I really want to open the closet door and see what's there. And it's odd. Why would a command stir up fleshly passions? I believe the rabbis said, don't read the Song of Songs and don't let young men read the Song of Songs till they're 30. Something like that. What's the problem with a holy book? and young male adults. The problem isn't with the book and the beautiful way it portrays marriage love. The problem is with the adulterous, lustful human heart that is easily stirred up in imaginations even by holy commandments and things. And so the law backfired. It was given, it would appear, to give life. He who does these shall live by them. Leviticus 18.5 And yet, oddly enough, it increased the transgression in Israel. It deceived me, Paul says. It looked like it was going to give me life, and it didn't give me life. In fact, the one that killed Paul was coveting. You shall not covet. And that's the one that does it for all of us. Can I tell you right now, if you are an unbeliever, and you really want to live right, and enter heaven on your own merits, on your own steam, just stop being selfish. If you can get beyond that one, My paraphrase of the 10th commandment, we're gonna be in good shape. But if you realize, the more you tell yourself to stop being selfish, almost like the more you tell yourself to quit being critical, you're always tempting yourself to being critical and it just gets in a nasty vortex. The only way out of it is to be lifted, to look on Christ and what he has done and see the grace of God and walk free and have a new focus. I think Paul understood Deuteronomy really well because Deuteronomy is almost exactly the law of God. But in chapter 31, it says, Moses wrote all the words of this book of the law and then handed it to the priests. It's not the law. The law is within the book of Deuteronomy. But the book of Deuteronomy has a different message, because then at the end of it, God tells Moses, write this song and teach it to them as a witness. They're not going to keep this law. Can you imagine singing that as your national anthem? We have the Constitution, the law of God, and our national anthem is, we're not going to keep this law. It might work well with Americans, actually. And so it's like, can you imagine me as a college professor? I hand out the syllabus to everybody, and then after I get through all the details, the requirements, and how I'm going to grade, and then we get all done and say, and you know what? Not one of you is going to do this. I can imagine my students going like, why am I taking this course? What's the purpose of this? And I think Paul saw that. What's the purpose then of the law? It must not be to give life. Yes, it would give life if they did obey it, but the purpose of it was something different, according to Deuteronomy. The purpose of it was to actually say, as another witness against them, you're not gonna keep this, and you are a wicked, stubborn, rebellious people, and when are you gonna realize it? And so the law isn't a hopeful thing. The law actually led to death, though it appeared like it would lead to life. And how many people need to be freed from that today? They leave a life of sin and now they're gonna try to do good and keep this standard, whether their own or their churches or their country or the Bible, on their own. But they haven't met Christ yet. At some point, hopefully they'll realize, I am a failure. I need something different. One of my students came to Hillsdale College on the hopes of becoming a better person. And in the spring of her freshman year, she wrote me an essay on Luther's freedom of the Christian and said, you know what? I came here hoping to become a better person, but now I realize that can't happen. And what I've read here is my hope. Change can happen from the inside out as God transforms a person. It will not happen by self-discipline from the outside in. Well, how about our daily sinning? Paul describes this in an odd way. He says, the thing that I do, I don't want to do. And the things that I don't want to do, I do. I don't understand this. Well, that tells us right now that something's up that would lead him to expect something better. He's in Christ. A big debate on chapter seven is whether it's a believer or non-believer. I think it's a believer. Primarily because the last verse of the chapter says, with my mind, I'm a slave of God. But with my flesh, I'm a slave of sin. Earlier in the chapter, he says, my mind delights in the law of God. Chapter 7 says, the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God and cannot keep his law. In fact, hates him. So it's like, with my mind, I delight in the law of God, but my flesh is a slave to sin. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of sin? This body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so the Christian life is an odd combination of both. I have my mind that likes God's law, or normally I didn't, and wants to keep it, and my body continues to sin. But Paul does this. He says, the real me is my mind that delights in the law of God. This is not really me. It's sin in me. Evil in me. One student came to me after class and says, well, is that Gnostic? Separating? I said, no, I don't believe it's Gnostic. You know, because Paul believed in the resurrection of the body, chapter 8. He believes in the redemption of the whole person, chapter 8. It's not just separation of mind and body, but it's identity. It's psychological. This flesh is not really me. The real me, in the sense my real identity, is this. This is hugely important in today's culture. Take an alcoholic. AA, I believe, will encourage him to continue to say to yourself, you are an alcoholic. That's your identity. You may not even touch a drop, but that's your identity, and don't forget it. There's an advantage to that, because as Edwin Lutzer said in his book on Breaking Bad Habits, a person can go 10 years sober and then think, I'm finally, I'm good now, I'm free, let me have a drink, and fall right back into an old habit. So, to be aware, to be conscious, you are always liable, you could always fall. Make this your identity. That's the way the world handles it. This chapter says, no, that's not your identity. Your identity is you're a believer, you're in Christ, you're a child of God. Call yourself by your right name. You delight in the law of God. That's your real identity. But then it also says, and yes, you have a body of sin. Yes, you have a law of sin in the members of your body that wages war against the law of your mind. And it makes you. It enslaves you. You're going like, chapter 6 said I'm freed. In practice, in daily form, you will never be freed of sinning. Perfection is out, even though you are freed of slavery to sin, that makes this the defining feature of your life. So, it is not my identity, that's in Christ, but it still is in my body, and I don't deny that it is still present, and so I guard against it, and I fight against it. I don't act like I'm above it somehow. It's still there. I've got to unpack this and go, God help me. This is so important to see the difference between the two. Because let's just take same-sex attraction. Your culture talks about these things. I feel like I can talk freely in this group and just say that is a reality among many young people in our day. due to things that went wrong in their early life, due to their culture, due to their home culture, odd, weird desires can show up in their bodies. And as one of the counselors at a college said to me, they'll fight it, they'll fight it, they'll fight it, until sometime it's just been fighting so long, they'll just go gay, loud, and proud. I guess that's just who I am and it'll feel good to finally just acknowledge it. That's who I am. There. Well, as a Christian, you can come to somebody like that and say, look, that may be your body. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ will take care of that someday if you'll believe in him. But your spirit can be redeemed right now and you can be adopted in the Holy Spirit as a son of God and made completely new so that your mind delights in the law of God. You don't have to be a slave to this. You can delight in the law of God on your inner man. And I can also recognize that you may still, though it may diminish in force, though it may diminish in its intensity and frequency, you may still struggle with this desire for the rest of your life, but in Christ you never have to act on it. But don't make that your identity. That's not who you are. You are made in Christ. As a believer, whether it's alcoholism or homosexuality or whatever that sin may be, I recognize I am free, I am redeemed, I love God. His law is my delight. I love God. And yet, I am tempted by my own flesh. And I don't regard the temptation as amoral, neutral. It is a law of sin in my body. This is not the way God created humanity, to have a lustful desire for alcohol, to have a lustful desire for same-sex flesh. That's not the way he created humanity. This is being bent by the fall. This is corrupted and needs to be redeemed someday. So I don't regard this as just neutral, just genes, just my background. This is sin, but it's not something I have to repent of. Because it's not me and I'm not making volitional choices about it. My choice on how I respond to this is going to be sin or not sin. But it's not me. And just because it's there doesn't define me anymore. I am freed in Christ. Now, I use some outward examples of sin, but if I go inwardly, I could use anger, I could use envy. I could use pride. I could use a whole bunch of things that defined you and me before Christ. And every one of us has a body of sin that has that law in us. And as Paul says in Titus 3.3, it's various lusts and pleasures that we were slaves to. Maybe you didn't have a problem with gambling, but this brother over here had a problem with gambling. Maybe you didn't have a problem, right, with gossiping, but maybe your brother or your sister did. You follow me? Every one of us has a background, but it does not define us, and we also, though, are vigilant because we recognize, I'm still not in heaven. So, it's not my identity, but it's still part of my reality, wretched man that I am. Okay, that's chapter 7. Chapter 8. gives us refreshingly good news, because at the end of chapter seven, I'm like, oh, Paul. It's like, oh no, now I gotta endure. It's like chapter six was, yes, I'm going to heaven. Chapter seven was like, oh, I gotta deal with this flesh. And then chapter eight comes along and says, but by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we will put to death the deeds of the body. that even though I was formerly a lustful man, even though I was formerly a proud man, even though I was a formerly selfish man, that doesn't define my behavior anymore. Increasingly, I don't think it's a nice smooth path. There's backsliding, there's advances, it goes up and down. But by the Holy Spirit we make progress. While the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness given to us in Christ. That's verse 10. And so, I have to summarize because of time. But these are the three glorious chapters in the middle of Romans. Chapter 6 says, I am no longer a slave of sin. Chapter 7 says, I am no longer freed. I am not yet freed from sinning. until the resurrection or the rapture or my death. Praise God, my death frees me from my body of sin. There's no purgatory either. And I am making progress in the Holy Spirit who desires against the flesh so that I will not do what I want, according to Galatians 5. So, praise God, I'm no longer a slave of sin defined by it. I am, yes, in the body, so I'll never be perfect, but I can make progress. This, I believe, is a very sober-minded assessment of the Christian life, putting all three together. These are precious chapters for counseling. We could go on and on with their applications. And if you have desire to wonder about this, please talk to your pastor. Please say, please, show me how these apply to my situation, my problems, because I want to see progress. Lastly, That's a sin issue. And I just showed you how it helps with identity. With regard to suffering, the second half of chapter 8 deals with the problem of suffering. He just brings it up at the end of verse 17, that yes, we are heirs with Christ as children of God, if indeed we suffer with Christ, so that we may be glorified with Him. Well, this is also the reality. If you're in Christ, not only do you see progress in the Holy Spirit, but you also suffer for His name. And then Paul describes how the gift of the Holy Spirit, how He groans within us, helping us to pray when we don't know how to pray as we ought in the midst of sufferings. Then he describes how all things work together for good because it is God's predetermined will to conform us to the image of his son. We often think of Christ's likeness being inner character. But I think in this context, Christ's likeness means I look like a crucified individual. That I'm gonna suffer in this world. If they hated me, they will hate you. And so as Christ suffered, I suffer. And yet, because God loves me, I know that all this suffering will even turn to my good. Which is an interesting thing. Think with me of the logic of the gospel. In the middle of suffering, you may be tempted to think, like Job, Does God still care? Does God love me? Is he even righteous? I've been living, trying to live my life pleasing to him, this and that. And Job ends up with a self-righteous attitude and sues God. This is the occupational hazard of being a victim. Whenever you are a victim, self-righteousness lurks at your door. Because you feel you're entitled to something better, And in an earthly, horizontal sense, you truly may. You were mistreated. You suffered. You shouldn't have been suffering. And so you have your rights offended. Your rights are there. And so you feel like, who's going to stand up for me? Who's going to argue my case? And in an earthly sense, that would be true. Job took that kind of and then applied it to God, and God just said back to him, you don't understand, Job. He didn't explain it. He just said, if you can't understand how I made the world, you can't understand how I'm running your life. You have no business telling me what to do, Job. Well, in the light of the gospel, the righteous man's suffering makes more sense. And so, in the light of the gospel, we find that it's actually true. We all suffer. And you might say, well, what do I do? Everything tanked. I lost my friends. I lost my health. I lost my property. How do I know God loves me? At this age, in the but now of chapter 3 verse 21, you have a standing billboard, which is the basis of your faith. And the basis of your relationship with God, your relationship with God now rests on a historical fact, not on a day-to-day experience. Don't tie your faith to a changing up and down barometer of I'm doing well and prospering or I'm doing poorly and suffering. Tie your faith to a rock that doesn't move and a billboard that never changes its sign. I love you. If He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things in Christ? God demonstrated His love in that while we were sinners Christ died for us. This tells us He loves us. And if He wasn't willing, if He was not If he didn't hold back his own son, his very best possession, do you think he's holding back anything from you right now? It must be because he has something better for you planned. You can never accuse God now of having a small heart. He loves you and he demonstrated it. So Paul builds on that all things. He won't withhold anything from us. Therefore, we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him. All things. In fact, that makes us more than conquerors. Because conquerors can win, but they'll have battle casualties. Christians win without one casualty. Not one event in your life, not one experience is lost. It is all redeemed and contributes to your good. That's amazing. No wonder Paul ends the chapter, you know. But I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, or principalities, or things present, or things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. All things. And so I'm just going to urge you today without trampling on human experience and belittling it. Human pain is real. The loss of human life in the family, in friendship, is real. Jesus wept at a tomb when he knew he was even going to raise him from the dead. It is right for us to sympathize with each other, weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. I am not belittling your pain and your background and your recent experiences and your griefs when I say this, don't let it destroy your joy. Because verse 18 says that the sufferings in this present life aren't worthy to be compared to the glories to come. even though in this sphere they are real, in comparison to the glory God is going to reveal in you, they are trivially small. So don't let them, by sight, become big, when by faith the glory of God can be a background behind it. And then, take that pain as big as it feels and even then declare the name of Jesus over and say, even this I know will turn to my good. God be praised. You have both the benefit of the glory to come and your present sufferings. In fact, Paul says these momentary light afflictions are producing an eternal weight of glory. They are even the seeds that produce part of that glory that you and I will experience someday. So, nothing is lost. Everything is redeemed. And you and I have the identity of being in Christ Not defined by our sin tendencies in our body, and mark this, not defined by our victimization and sufferings. Don't let that become your identity, let alone your glory. And don't let your past sins or even present fleshly tendencies become your identity. All of that is brought in light of the gospel and says Christ is your identity. Look at the provisions given to you in the Holy Spirit and look at the glory to come. Let's pray. Father in heaven, there is so much in these chapters and I just pray, Lord, that you would take as a good physician out of this rich cabinet, take what is helpful for all of us, me and those listening, and apply it to the human heart as needed now. You know what's needed at this moment. And so we pray as a group for each other, we pray that you would apply the medicine of the word to the needs of the human heart so that we can leave this place stronger, more believing, more hopeful, with the right identity and with a true joy. Thank you for being our friend in Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.