Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. Well, it's a privilege to be here with you today. Unfortunate circumstances with Pastor VanderDusen's back hurting, but it is a joy for me to be up here today. Well, for those of you who don't know me, I look out and I recognize a lot of faces. But for those of you who don't know me, I am the son of Steve Walker, who's one of the elders at Central Valley Presbyterian. And I'm also a pastoral intern at Central Valley Presbyterian. So again, it's a joy for me to be here today. Now, if you would turn in your Bibles with me to Romans 8, today we'll be looking at verses 18 through 39. And earlier this year, our church finished working through the book of Romans. We went through a whole series for about a year and a half. And Romans is full of these wonderful and sometimes hard truths, but at the same time, it's so rich in pointing out both the utter sinfulness of ourselves and the magnificent grace of the Lord. And so today what we're gonna be looking at is one aspect just of the assurance of our salvation and also at what that means when we look at suffering in our lives. So if you would, if you're at Romans 8, if you could stand as we read, we'll be reading verses 18 through 30 as we begin today. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. And 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. Those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Let's pray. Father, we prayed that you would show us truths from your word today. As we look at this passage, which speaks of the Spirit's work and the hope that we have, Father, may we take comfort in the fact that you are with us in our weakness and that you give us hope regarding what will come. Father, may we take comfort today knowing that you are for us and that you sustain us. Bless us now, we pray, as we look at this passage, and may we see the words of our loving Father to us. Amen. All right, you may be seated. Well, as we start today, I want to start with a question. When you make a promise to someone, what do you do to assure them that you will keep that promise? I want you to think about that for a moment. Are they positive that you are going to keep your word because of the tone of voice that you used? Or maybe you put down something as surety and you say, OK, if I don't keep my promise, you can keep this. Is that what gives them assurance? Or is there something else in what you're saying that makes them positive that you will keep your word? Now, there are lots of aspects that we could look at. We could look at your tone. We could look at your words. We could look at your past actions. But perhaps as we start here, it's better to look at a more fundamental question, and that's what do we even mean when we talk about a promise? And if we look at something basic to start, if we look at a dictionary definition, Merriam-Webster defines at the top of its list a promise as a declaration that one will do or will refrain from doing something specified. And that's an OK definition. In most situations, that probably describes what we do. For instance, if I tell my wife that I'll meet her at the grocery store after I get off of work, or if I make a commitment to someone else, I'm telling them this is what I intend to do. I'm declaring something that I intend. But there are situations in which our promises are a little bit more binding than just, hey, I'm going to try and be there after work. For instance, if we use that example again, if I say, hey, I'm going to be there at 6 o'clock. Well, what happens if there's an accident on the road and I get there at 6.15? Is that a binding promise? Not necessarily. and I may need to ask for forgiveness for being late, but there are far more binding promises that we do make. For instance, a lot of you have credit cards, and some of you have found out the hard way that that is a binding commitment. When you take out a credit card, you're in essence promising that you're gonna borrow money for a time and pay it back at a certain time. And in that case, it's more than just an intention. It's a legally binding declaration that you will do something that you have said. And if you fail to keep that promise, there are some steep consequences. Now, in the Bible, we see different types of promises made. And we see both of these types of promises throughout the scriptures. But what we see is that whenever God makes a promise, it's always that second type of promise. It's always that binding declaration that he is committing himself to a particular course of action. So there's no backtracking, there's no possibility of him changing his mind. But how do we know this? What assurances do we have that God has, what assurances has God given us that this is the case? And to answer that question, we need to go back to Romans. In Romans, there is this grand arc of history that Paul points to. He says that we are sinners who justly deserve God's wrath, but in his mercy, God has chosen to save some. In that plan and purpose of God's, as it's worked out, As he calls a people to himself, as he promises to send a savior, and then as he actually does that, as he sends his son to die on the cross and atone for our sins, we're freed from the curse of the law. So the law can no longer condemn us. But if you look back in your Bibles at the last part of Romans 7, you'll notice something interesting. You'll notice that Paul drifts into some depressing truths. As he describes his state of turmoil, he's saying, I do things that I don't want to do. And I don't do things that I do want to do. And as Paul is contemplating this, as he's reciting this, he ends by saying, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Paul at this point isn't jumping around saying, woohoo. This is Paul when he's depressed. He's looking at his life saying, hey, this is not what I want to be doing. And the reason that he says that is because he knows what he should be doing. Right? What Paul has said in the earlier chapters of Romans is that since we are Christians, we should have nothing further to do with sin. Again, Paul knows what he should be doing. We're to put off the old self. He's told us that we have died to sin. And yet, what does Paul see? He sees that despite that truth, he continues to struggle. And that's the same thing that we often see in our own lives. As Christians, we know that we are called to live perfect lives in Christ Jesus. And yet, so often, we struggle with obeying even the simplest of God's commands. Just yesterday, we were doing some work around our property, and for all of you who have kids, you know the struggle that it is when you're trying to teach your kids, and they just don't listen, even after you told them. 10 times not to touch something. And all of my kids are young right now. So there were three separate times that I can recall that I had to go back to my kids and apologize and ask their forgiveness because of my frustrated responses. So this is something that we struggle with all the time. And it's not just children. We struggle with contentment in our jobs, with our work around the house. We struggle with showing honor to our parents. We struggle with gossip with our friends, and as we look at all of these areas of struggle, and think about what God instead calls us towards, we call out with Paul, wretched person that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? But the comforting truth is that that is not where Paul leaves us. Paul doesn't end in Romans 7. Instead, he goes on to Romans 8. And like so many other places in Romans, Paul anticipates where our minds are gonna go. He anticipates what our questions and what our comments are gonna be. Now he starts by reminding us of the reality of our state, and he points us back to, in various ways, to what he said in the preceding chapters. He reminds us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because the debt has already been paid. Christ has already died, he has already risen again. And so while we may continue to struggle with sin, there is no longer any punishment for those sins. But Paul also points us to the reality of our relationship with the Lord. Throughout Romans 8, Paul uses the language of children to describe us. And he says that we cry out to the Lord with the words, Abba, Father, and our fellow heirs with Christ. And there's an amazing description found in Ezekiel 16. And if you look at it, you'll think, OK, well, that is not the right description that I would use. But it is amazing. And I'll tell you why in just a second. passage, the Lord is describing his relationship to his people by using the imagery of a child that has just been born. So God's people are like a baby that has just been born, it's been cast by the wayside, and it's still covered in blood. And you may think, oh that's a terrible description, but the amazing part is what comes next. So instead of ignoring this child, the Lord cares for it, he swaddles it, he covers it with love and protection, and as the child grows, the Lord continues to shower blessings, lavishing gifts upon her, and nurturing her up into a beautiful woman. However, the response of God's people, instead of saying, thank you, Lord, thank you so much for caring for us, for nourishing us, that is not their response. Instead they reject the Lord and go after other gods. Yet does the Lord reject his people then because of their unfaithfulness? No, instead the Lord pursues his people. He draws them back and he continues to shower blessings upon them. Now Paul reminds us of these same things in Romans. He talks about how we were rebels against God. We did not seek him. We did not want anything to do with the Lord. And yet the Lord is the one who pursues us. As a loving father, he seeks our good and our growth. And there are a lot of times where we're tempted to think of the Lord as simply a God of wrath and justice. And in some ways, that's influenced by our culture. That's a lot of times what we hear from people who aren't Christians. But we sometimes struggle with that same thought, too. We think about what has happened throughout history, and we say, oh, God is a God of wrath and justice. And while that's true in part, it misses the bigger picture. The Lord will indeed be a God of wrath and justice to those who reject him. But even to them, he shows mercy, and he shows longsuffering. He doesn't punish them as they deserve right away. Instead, he continues to show mercy to them. Now, to those who believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's mercies are even greater. The Bible says that his mercies to us are new every morning, and that is a wonderful truth. Now, as we're going through this, you may be wondering, okay, well, we haven't really even gotten to Romans 8 yet. Why are we doing all of this review? And yes, you've heard all of these things before. What I'm telling you is not something new. It's not something earth shattering. You've heard Pastor VanderDusen talk about these things many, many times before. And as I was thinking through this passage, as I was contemplating, okay, well, what do I bring to RPC today. One of the things that kept coming back to my mind is some of Paul's words in Philippians 3. And he says, to write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. And so the reason that we review, the reason that we go back over these things is because in order to understand Paul's words in Romans 8, we have to be reminded of Paul's words again throughout the letter. There's a context that Paul is writing in. Now, as we jump into Romans 8, again, we need to remember that Paul is responding to Romans 7. And he points us again to these elementary truths of redeemed sinners. He points to our relationship with the Lord as adopted children. But there's still an unanswered question here. Actually, several unanswered questions. If we are truly redeemed, if we are truly children of God, if we truly have God's blessings lavished upon us, Why do we continue to struggle? Why do we continue to go through these things? Why does Pastor VanderDusen still have back pain? Why does Andrew have seizures? Why are these things happening? And as we think about this, another question that may come up is if we do experience those things, are we truly children of God? These are elementary questions that we have to wrestle with as Christians. Now in answer to this, Paul has pointed us to the past, to our justification through Christ, he's pointed us to the present, to our relationship with the Lord, and then he also points us to the future. He points us to our future hope. As Paul begins to direct us to this future hope, he starts by pointing us to the glory of the future. Now Paul acknowledges that we suffer. but he says that he considers the sufferings of the present are not worth comparing to the joys that are set before us, of the glory that is to be revealed to us. Now Paul's not minimizing our sufferings here, but he's rather pointing us to the magnitude of the glory that awaits us. Our struggles with sin, our struggles with despair, our struggles with acceptance, our desires for acceptance, are they real? Absolutely. We all struggle with those things. And Paul talks about how the entirety of creation groans with longing, as if in the pains of childbirth. And one commentator writes that we're so often quick to, after a child is born, we want to show pictures of that perfect little baby. We want to snap the pictures. We want to show it and hear the oohs and the ahs. He said, we never talk to someone and we never whip out our phones and say, hey, do you want to see a picture of my wife in labor? I mean, look at this. Do you see that agony? Oh, that is just terrific there. We never do that. Rather, what we're looking forward to, what we see, what we rejoice in in that moment, is the results of that labor. We don't look at suffering and say, hey, isn't this terrific? Isn't this wonderful? But rather we look at the results and we say, isn't this glorious? Isn't this child glorious? And so as we're looking forward to those things, we're going forward with anticipation. We're going forward with anticipation of that result. Now, when I was young, we lived in the mountains up by San Andreas, Jackson area, even a little bit further up than there. And my dad had a job further down in the Jackson Valley. And when he would get off at work, he would drive up the hills. And our house was on top of a little rise. It was really nice because what we could do is we would sit up on top of our hill and we could look down and we would see the road that my dad would drive on to get up to our house. And so when it was towards the end of the day, when my dad would get off of work, all of us kids and my mom, we'd go out and we'd sit outside and we'd be watching that road like hawks, just waiting for my dad to come. And our goal was always to be the first to see Daddy coming up that hill. And it sort of wound its way out, so there were lots of opportunities. And that's sort of the sense that we get from Paul. All of creation is groaning, and it's waiting, and it's watching for the day when our Father will come, and we'll make all things new. Now this hope that we have of eternal life with the Lord and a renewing of creation is not an empty hope. It's not just a nice ending to our story that we wish would happen. Instead, it's a promise that God makes repeatedly in scripture. After the fall of Adam and Eve, God promises a son who will be born of the woman who will bring redemption. And after the flood, God makes a covenant with Noah, and he makes some of the same promises. He says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And he says that as long as the earth remains, the Lord will sustain it and protect it. As long as seed time and harvest, summer and winter, cold and winter remain, the Lord will sustain all of those things. The Lord also makes promises to Abraham and promises to be a God to him and his descendants and to bring him to a land. And to Israel, God reiterates that promise and says that he will be a God to this people and that he will bring them to that land that he promised Abraham. With David, God promises to be a father to him and his descendants after him, promising that David will never lack a descendant to reign. And as these promises build upon each other, as they escalate, they expand out the picture of what God's redemption looks like. Although corruption and death had entered the world, Through the sin of Adam and Eve, God's redemption is just as comprehensive, bringing restoration not just to mankind, but to all of creation. God doesn't just say, mankind is groaning and I'm gonna redeem mankind. He says all of creation is groaning and is waiting for this revealing of the glory. Now in Christ, all of these promises find their fulfillment as he brings an end to our bondage to sin, as he takes our punishment upon himself and now reigns on high as David's son and yet David's Lord. Now while Christ has brought fulfillment to these promises, there's also a sense in which we haven't yet seen the fullness of those promises. We've been freed from our bondage to sin but we still struggle in many ways. We have been redeemed, but we have not yet been perfected. We wait for the redemption of our bodies with this hope, with this anticipation, like us little boys sitting on top of that hill. But at the same time, we have to hold certain things in tension. There are certain truths that can be true at the same time. At the same time as recognizing that God has not yet fully perfected us, we can't forget that God has already started that work. We can't forget that God is already bringing blessing to us. As Paul says, those whom God justified, he also glorified. Now if you think about that verb glorified, you'll notice something interesting. It's in the past tense. It's not those whom he justified he will glorify, it says those whom he justified, he also glorified. And at first glance it seems odd that he uses that past tense, but I think Paul does it intentionally here for a couple reasons. The glorification of believers is not simply a possibility. It's not simply something that's a potential that's gonna happen in the future. Rather, God has already determined to glorify believers. And in fact, God has already begun to glorify us. He has already begun to lavish blessings on us, and he continues to lavish blessings on us. So again, we come back to that question. So why then do we still suffer? Why do we struggle? Fundamentally, it's because our Lord has also suffered, and because he also struggled. Jesus says that a disciple is not above his teacher, nor servant above his master. And if the master of the house is persecuted and put to death, how much more will they persecute us when we follow in his footsteps? Yet Paul assures us that if we suffer as Christ suffered, we will also be glorified as he was glorified. Now Jesus didn't struggle in the same way as us. He didn't sin, and yet he was tempted. He understands. And so because the master suffered, we also can expect that suffering. But Paul also points to other types of suffering. There's the corruption of creation. There's our own ongoing struggles with sin. And while these sufferings are difficult, the Lord still brings blessings from them. If you look at 1 Peter 1, verses three through eight, it says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So Peter here speaks of two things really. He speaks about our trials as leading to the strengthening of our faith and he talks about it as a metal that's refined in the fire, it's strengthened, it's purified. But Paul also points us back to our hope. He says that we have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, and that it is kept for us who by God's power are being guarded by God. through faith for salvation. Now notice here that Peter doesn't say our faith is being guarded or that our inheritance rather is being guarded. Our inheritance is imperishable, it's unfading. Rather it says that God's power is guarding us. So while our sufferings are hard, while our trials are difficult, scripture repeatedly points us back to the truth of our past justification in Christ and our present relationship with the Lord and our future glory. Okay, so now getting back to the very first question that I asked you. Remember, there was that question, when you make a promise to someone, when Zephaniah makes a promise to someone, what does he do to assure that person that he's going to keep that promise? What do you do? Now, I would argue that there are three primary things that we do. Now, the first is that we make our promises realistic. We don't promise that we're going to give someone the moon. And we don't promise that we're going to give them a private island. Unless someone among you happens to have a private island and wants to share. But that's not all of us. So first, we make our promises realistic. We promise something that we can actually accomplish. Second, we have a past relationship with that person that we can point to. They know that we've been trustworthy in the past. We can say, hey, just like in the past, I will commit to being trustworthy in the future. Now third, we show by our actions that we are working towards keeping our promise. If I promise to build Patrick Gomes a house, I would have to first of all make sure it was a big enough house, but if he doesn't see me gathering materials, if he doesn't see me preparing plans, if he doesn't see me bringing those supplies to his property, he's going to have serious doubts that I'm actually building him a house, especially if I've promised to do it by a particular date. So those three things, we have to make our promises realistic, We have to point to our past relationship and then also there's the progress that we can point to that we are working towards that promise. Now this is really where things get even more amazing as we look at God's word and at his promises to us. So if we apply those three things, first is God's promise to us realistic. Now, we've already looked today at the Lord's promise to us of salvation and glorification. We've already seen that he is able to keep that promise. And in fact, he has already completed part of that promise. We are already saved. We are already free from bondage to sin. So is God's promise realistic? Yes, it is. We already know that. We already know that it's been partially completed. Now, the second question. Does our past relationship with the Lord give us confidence in His trustworthiness? Now, some of you may be quick to answer yes to this. Some of you have already experienced the fact that the Lord is working loud and clear in your life. You've heard today that the Lord is our Father, He's our Savior and our King, and that we have that relationship. And so you say yes and amen. Yes, I have this past relationship with the Lord. But for others of you, there may be a little bit of hesitancy there. You may not be as quick to say yes to that question. And there are various reasons for that. Sometimes there's heartaches, sometimes there are hard circumstances, sometimes there are doubts and depression, and you may be asking, well, is the Lord even working in my life? You may feel that you don't have that strong of a relationship with the Lord. Or you may be a new Christian and say, I don't even know what that means. What does it mean to have a relationship with the Lord? Now, for those of you who fall into one of those categories, hear what we've talked about today. no first off, that you are not alone. We often think of Christian life as needing to have this outer picture of tranquility and peace, that we can't ever share our struggles, that we can't ever say that anything is wrong, because we might not be a Christian if we share those. And I don't think that that view of suffering is right. After all, if we're looking at Romans, if you look at Romans 7, Paul is saying, wretched man that I am, right? He just goes through and he lists all these things. And if Paul, who we view as one of these strongholds of Christian faith in the past, if he's an apostle teaching others, if he admits his struggles, we shouldn't have a problem doing that either. There is no shame in that. And so I hope that through this time today, one of the things that you hear is that God does not guarantee an absence from suffering. And that is not bad, right? God does not guarantee an absence from all pain. But I also hope that what you go away with today is not just an expectation of suffering, but rather is a strengthened hope for the glory that awaits you. In hard times, the love of God is not absent. Nor is God just ignoring us. And hard though those times may be, difficult though it may be, to see how God could ever have anything good planned for those trials, the Bible is clear that the end of all these things is something so glorious that those sufferings don't even compare. They don't even hold a candle to what the Lord has planned for us. In Philippians 3 verses 8 through 11, Paul says, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead. You know, history is not just an endless circle that repeats itself. Some of you may be familiar with Mark Twain and his famous statement, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. That's kind of a funny phrase, but even that misses the point. History is not just this endless circle that keeps going back and forth. It's not even a rhyming circle. It's not even a rhyming line. Rather, all of history is pointed towards a purpose. There's an end goal for all these things. Now, as we look at scripture, as we look for what that end goal is, we see that the end goal, the end purpose, is the redemption of all things, in which the one who loved us, even when we were helpless babies thrown by the wayside, and even when we were rebellious youths, even when we were rebellious adults, The Lord deepens that relationship. He causes us to know him more deeply and more intimately. He seeks us out. And so the Lord who predestined us to glory is the one who calls us. Those whom he called, he also justified. Those whom he justified, those he also glorified. So do we have a relationship with the Lord that we can point to that shows God's past faithfulness? Yes, we do. All right, so that leaves us with the third question. What has God done and what is he doing to show us that he is working to keep his promises? Now, I've got a challenge for all of you. Sometime in the next week or two, sit down with your Bible and grab a pen and paper and read through Romans 8 and write down everything that you see that talks about something that the Spirit does. Because what you'll find is almost every other verse, and in some cases every verse, talks about something that the Spirit does on our behalf. In our passage today, Paul describes us as having the firstfruits of the Spirit. And firstfruits is like the very beginning of the harvest. It's the first fruit from that harvest. And if you think of it, it's almost like an appetizer before the main course. You just get a taste. There's something even better that's coming. In talking about the Spirit, that's sort of the same idea that Paul is describing. In Ephesians 1, verses 13 through 14, Paul says that, In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the glory of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. That's just the starting point, right? Yes, we are sealed with the spirit as a down payment of sorts. And it assures us that the rest will come later, but think about what else the Bible teaches us. If we read just a few verses earlier in Ephesians 1, we see that the father before the foundation of the world set forth a plan for the fullness of time. And in that plan, he determines not only to provide redemption, but to provide adoption. We are not just servants of the Lord saved from sin, but are instead made children of the Most High God. Fellow heirs with Christ are the riches that he has obtained through his obedience to the Father, and in obedience to the Father, the Son took on flesh, was put to death on the cross, though he was innocent of all wrong, and as he hung on the cross, the Son bears the full wrath of the Father, though he himself had done no wrong. Now, the son did not stay dead. And so through the spirit, he is raised from the dead. But before Jesus ascends into heaven, in John 16, he tells us that he promises his disciples a comforter. And the promised spirit would come as a comforter and as a helper, guiding them into the truth, convicting them of their sins, and declaring to them the glories of the father and the son. Now in Romans 8, it says that the Spirit himself is praying on our behalf, even when we don't know what to pray. Now I know that that was a lot there, and again, some of these things you've heard a lot of times before. But if you think through those things, think about what that's telling us. First off, we know that the Father is working on our behalf. Second, we know that the Son is working on our behalf. Third, we know that the Spirit is working on our behalf. Not only does God promise us good things, but he is the one who is working towards them. Our glorification isn't just a nice idea to the Lord. Rather, it is a commitment. It is a promise that he has made, that he has been working all of creation towards. It's like a freight train going down the tracks. It's unstoppable. God's plan will be accomplished. Now friends, there's a reason why God has given us his word. And there's a reason that he assures us of the security of our hope. He loves us deeply, and he proclaims these glorious truths to us, one, so that we might be effective, and two, so that we might be at peace. When sufferings come, do we need to be afraid? No, we have a comforter who cries out for us in our weakness, and who sustains us in our trials. When we look at our own sins in despair of ever growing better, when we, like my kids this last week, when we come back again and again to that same thing, and when we're the ones doing it, and we continue to return to our sin. and despair of ever growing better. When we doubt our own salvation, the Bible points us back to the Lord. And it is so tempting to turn our focus to ourselves and to our trials. And that is natural, right? The pain that we feel, it's personal and it's intense. This is us that we're talking about. And yet what the scriptures tell us, and what the spirit who dwells in us reminds us of, is that the Lord's love for us is even more intense. His work on our behalf is even more personal. And the glory that he has in store for us is even more beautiful and wonderful than we can even imagine. Now, whenever things grow difficult, the Bible's response is to point us to the Lord, to the source of all blessing and comfort, to the one who has a plan and a purpose for us, to the one who began a good work in us and who will bring it to completion. And our assurance and our confidence does not come from our own actions, doesn't come from our own righteousness, but comes from the work of God on our behalf. So does that mean we stop trying to serve the Lord? We say, well, if my work doesn't matter, I'm just gonna stop, right? The Lord's got it under control. He can ride the freight train, I will just be the caboose at the back. No, but it does mean that our struggles do not alienate us from the Lord. It doesn't mean that we stop working, but it does mean that when we fail, it's not like we've unhitched that caboose. We're still on the train. Now in our family Bible studies, we just finished reading through an abridged version of Pilgrim's Progress. And I love the imagery that's used at one point of the book. And for those of you familiar, the main character, Christian, he's going on this pilgrimage to the glorious city, the king's city at the end of his journey. And as he gets to this one point, he has a companion named Hopeful. And for a brief period of time, they get off the rocky road that's just hard to walk on. And they decide, hey, we're going to go on to this little green path right on the other side of this fence, because it's so much easier to walk on. And as they get there, they're captured by the giant despair. He brings them to his dungeon, and he throws them in, and he doesn't give them any food and water. And the description that we have in Pilgrim's Progress just is utterly terrible of what Christian and hopeful are going through. So they're in this prison, no food, no water. Giant Despair comes in every day with his stick, and he will beat them until they can hardly move. And then after that, he offers them poison. He says, hey, you could end this all right now. You don't have to go through this again. I'll be back tomorrow, and we'll do this again. But hey, you could end it right now. And so Christian and Hopeful, they're wallowing in this prison for day after day, and giant despair just keeps coming. And after each day, their resolve is going down and down and down, to the point that they start saying, hey, should I take the poison? Christian, the hero of the story, is the first one that says, I might take it, because this is just horrible. But one day, as he and Hopeful are talking, Christian remembers something that he was given earlier on in his journey. And he remembers a key that he has, and it's called the key of promise. And that key was given to him by the king, and is a key that opens any door. And as they remember this, Christian and Hopeful are suddenly, here's this possibility of escape. And so they shakily get to their feet, and they start going out of this prison. And they use that key and they open the first door. And as they get past that level, they open the next door. And this key of promise takes them all the way out of prison and they get back to the path and continue on their way. Now friends, your God wants you to return to the way of the king and to be effective in the kingdom. And so he's given you your own key of promise. He doesn't want you to wallow in the prisons of giant despair. And so he's given you the key of hope so that you can escape from the gloomy dungeons and once again go towards that glorious hope that he's given you. And so friends, I want you to hear this today. Your God loves you so, so much. Hear that? The Lord loves you so, so much. And if he is for you, who can be against you? Now, as Paul contemplates all of this in Romans 8, and as he pulls us towards this conclusion, he gets to the point where he can hardly contain his enthusiasm and his excitement. You can imagine Paul as he's writing this or as he's dictating. I can just imagine Paul as he's getting more and more animated, like Dave Griggs sometimes gets, and just more and more into what he's talking about. And so he says in verses 31 through 39, he says, 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? "'Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? "'It is God who justifies. "'Who is to condemn? "'Christ Jesus is the one who died. "'More than that, who was raised. "'Who is at the right hand of God? "'Who indeed is interceding for us? "'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? "'Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, "'or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? "'As it is written, for your sake, "'we are being killed all the day long. "'We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. All right, let's pray. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material herewithin, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.