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Romans 8:24-30
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
So one of
Connor Coskery:the things that we do at Redeemer, part of the liturgy of our church, if you will, I mean, we do things like we have times of small group prayer, we have times of declarative praise and then, some Sundays we have a time of testimony in which I ask somebody to come up and to share their testimony with us. I love our testimony Sundays, which we do every few weeks, because it gives you the chance to not just hear the gospel, hear the word of God preached, which is, you know, what we do when we open up God's word. You actually get to hear somebody testify to how that word or how the Jesus we have been proclaiming, how he has come and has changed them. And it's just one of the things that absolutely just lights a fire in my heart when I hear that. And so this morning, James Gannon is going to come and share with us.
Connor Coskery:And James, we look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1:In his book, The Soul of Shame, Curt Thompson says this, our chaos and trauma is something for others to gaze upon and call beauty forth. This is what god does on Good Friday. God joins us in our chaos. In the very space where we couldn't imagine anything about the crucifixion being beautiful, God can look upon it very differently. So my prayer is that you would join me this morning in my chaos so that we would not dwell there or stay there but we could see Jesus more clearly this morning.
Speaker 1:Pray with me. God, we need You in this moment right now. God, I need you. God, thank you that your mercies are new again this morning. God, You are our only hope, You are our only play.
Speaker 1:That's it. We rejoice this morning that You indeed meet us in our chaos, and it doesn't stop there. God be near to your church this morning, pray these things in your name, Amen. So my name is James Gannon, My wife is back there on the back, my beautiful wife. There's a solid chance I wouldn't be standing here today if it wasn't for her.
Speaker 1:So thank you. I have 3 kids, Jim, Luke, and Charlotte. We've been a member at this church for 10 years and, are so thankful for this church and what it has meant for us. Praise God for for Redeemer Community Church. My testimony is is interesting.
Speaker 1:It it often feels like I was born a Christian. And that's not something that I'm necessarily ashamed of. I I feel that it's a blessing. My parents, raised us to the best of their ability. They always pointed us to the gospel.
Speaker 1:My early years, my memories were in the church. They still point me to the gospel. I have 2 brothers to which I'm in the middle, and they're like my best friends. It's a blessing. The first 31 years of my life I'm currently 33 as of today, the first 31 years of my life were easy.
Speaker 1:Smooth sailing. Again, something I am not necessarily ashamed of. For whatever reason I found myself in the generally popular crowd. School wasn't that difficult for me. Sports weren't either.
Speaker 1:I met my wife on the first day I moved into, my college dorm. We got married. We wanted kids. We had them, beautiful, healthy kids. Felt easy.
Speaker 1:God's word was always a part of my life. I knew the lingo, but also believed the lingo. But for the 1st 31 years, God's word was, I would say it was a nice to have and not a need to have. And let me tell you that when God exposes our need for him, beautiful things happen. So this all changed on July 31, 2020.
Speaker 1:That was the last day that I took a sip of alcohol, and by God's grace, it's the last day that I ever will. You see that I thought for the longest time that my drinking was normal, which is quite comical. It's not comical, but it wasn't normal. What started as a tiny grain of sand slowly but surely morphed into a a massive snowball heading downhill, inevitably inevitably leading to death. How did this happen?
Speaker 1:You might ask that. I don't really know. But I do know that I am prone to wander. I'm prone to run after things that are less wild. I'm prone to have that momentary satisfaction.
Speaker 1:When I was in my to kind of illustrate this point, when I was in one of my first AA meetings, I heard this lady say this to somebody, she said: Listen, sweetie, The elevator only goes down, but you can get off of it whenever you would like to. And Joel might have to do a theology check for me on that, but I stand by it, as this is falling apart. So I'm telling you, it only goes down. And the the the rate that it descends might be different for for some of us, but it's a one way trip. And trust me on that, and you can get off of it when you want to.
Speaker 1:And that's probably where the God pulled me off of it. Praise God for that. So I could probably I could sit up here for a while and explain this progression of how my drinking got for that tiny sand for into the snowball, but I'd rather just just tell you the feeling. Matt Francisco, gave me Psalm 32, my margin of my Bible says 10, 13, 2020. I texted them this morning and said praise God that, this is still true on day 548.
Speaker 1:My margin says day 73, sobriety. Amen for that. Psalm 3023, For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away. My strength was dried up. If this is any of you out there today, I want to point you to verse 1.
Speaker 1:So that was Psalm 3023. Verse 1 is, Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered. So fast forward to July 31, 2020, this was the day that it stopped, that it was over. So the routine was was pretty similar. I go I wake up, I go to work, I leave work.
Speaker 1:See, shame tries to creep in here. Leave work, stop by the the liquor store, and, drink that on my way home. So I get home and and a dear friend in our church, Liz Dugan, invited Amy Catherine to dinner that night. Praise God again for that. She's leaving the house, and she says, I'm gonna take your car as she's walking out and, like, enter, complete shambles.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm spiraling, I knew this was it. I was like, well, this is this is gonna this is gonna be it. So I look at her and say, well, let me go, let me go get the car for you. That doesn't make sense. She's like, do what?
Speaker 1:Like, I'm leaving. And I'm like, yeah, I'll I'll go get it. Like, I'm scrambling around, like so I'm, like, running out there. And let me just tell you that hiding is exhausting. It's exhausting.
Speaker 1:So if that's you, just believe me when I say there's so much freedom and light shining on darkness. So I'm scrambling, and, and I get the empty bottles out of my car, and I'm trying to hide them for the what feels like a millionth time, and my wife meets me in the garage as I'm scurrying back in planning my next play. Where is it gonna go? We can't go into the trash this is off script a little bit here. I'm planning my next play, but she meets me and it's the most beautiful picture of the gospel I've ever seen and experienced in my whole life.
Speaker 1:She looked at me and she said, where is it? And I just fell. I was brought to my knees and I was weeping and she physically picked me up and hugged me. And the first thing that she said to me was I love you. The second thing was, This is gonna be Okay.
Speaker 1:And the third thing was you need help. I mean, isn't that what the Lord says to us when we come to him? So that's the last day I ever had a drink, and if you're wondering what happens next, I'm gonna tell you. So the image is so beautiful. This is the image of the gospel community of this church, and this is the reason we're here.
Speaker 1:This is the whole point. Imagine you had a loved one that's playing on top of a tall slide or something, and they fall down to the ground. Even after you've told them how to do it correctly. Let's say you're 30, 50 yards away, what are you gonna do when they fall? You're gonna sprint.
Speaker 1:You're gonna physically sprint to them, and the first thing you're gonna do is most likely not correct them. Well, you should have just climbed up that way. Why didn't you do it how I told you to do it? No. It's I love you.
Speaker 1:You're gonna be okay, and I can help you. And this is the picture I get from this church. When I tell you that there's men in this church that when Amy Catherine called them on that Saturday, called David Foster, who called Matt Francisco, who called Michael Coggan, who met in this building or across the street on that Monday, that was a sprint to me in my despair. And praise God for that. Foster often reminds us, this is what, and I thank him all the time.
Speaker 1:He's like, this is what we do, man. Like, this is what Christians do. It's a beautiful picture, of what gospel community is. So on that day, I was relieved in a I was relieved, but I knew it was over. I knew my drinking was over.
Speaker 1:I had to I'd been I'd been caught exposed. Too many people knew, and too many people loved me to I knew it was done. There's a lot of, like, good things about that, for sure, but I was scared. How would I enjoy I even hate saying this example because it's so dumb. How would I enjoy, like, golf or something without alcohol?
Speaker 1:The list goes on, but Joel mentioned this in his sermon last Sunday, about the circle of life being some sham, and I can promise you that thinking that you need a substance to enjoy these things is a sham. It's a lie from Satan, and I'm living, breathing testimony to that by God's grace. So the picture I have of of sobriety is I do remember what TVs looked like before HDTV. And, again, the example doesn't even come close, but when you get that picture, like, How did I ever watch that TV? I can't see anything.
Speaker 1:Like, you literally you're like, I can't even see the players. Like, what sport is it? This is what it's felt like for me. My wife months ago said, I feel like you're the person that I married 11 years ago. Again, a a moment for shame to come in, but that's why you have friends to declare those things too so they can speak truth over you.
Speaker 1:If I could sum up my recovery journey thus far, it would be in this phrase, joy in the mundane. My dear friend, Clayton Dugan texted me this yesterday. Too many people, us included, are trying to drink from drainage ditches. You gotta go to the headwaters where the springs are. These things of this world are fleeting.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you. If they could satisfy, I would know because I've done them and tried them. And it's a sham. So I'll close with this. John 4:14 says this, And I would ask you this morning, are you thirsty?
Speaker 1:Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Praise God. Thank you all very much.
Connor Coskery:James and I met earlier this week. He's going to walk, talk about this Sunday. I mean, he's he's we're wondering how much he should share, what all he should share. And he, and he's talking me through these things. I I told him, I said, I can't think of a better introduction to what we're actually going to be looking at for this Sunday.
Connor Coskery:But before we look at that, I want to just mention to those of you who are struggling and I'm not gonna ask a question if anyone here is struggling with an addiction because some of you are absolutely struggling with an addiction, Whether it's to alcohol, drugs, porn, whatever it is, if that's you, don't stay where you are. God has given you a community here in this church. As James just said, a gospel community. We wanna come alongside you to say we love you. It's gonna be better, and we wanna get you help.
Connor Coskery:So a very practical next step I would love for you to do is you could reach out to Michael Coggin or Crystal Brummet. Their contact information is up here. It's also there in your worship guide. They're on staff, and they are equipped to help you. We also have some counseling services listed there in your worship guide, that you can call on your own if you want to.
Connor Coskery:But you need to share this, your struggle. James said that hiding these things were so was so exhausting. It also, I found that, secret sins, sins you keep hidden, grow in power. But when it's exposed to the light, they lose their power. And so some of you need to expose those things to the light.
Connor Coskery:And so I would encourage you. Write down those contacts of of Michael and Crystal. And, and that's a great first step. And then they can, they can give you a plan. And and people to come alongside you to help you out.
Connor Coskery:If you have a Bible, Romans 8. And as you're turning there, I want to ask you a question. How do you know you will not fall away? What makes you so certain that you will be preserved in this life all the way to glory in the next. That's what these verses are about.
Connor Coskery:How do you know you will not fall away? We'll begin reading in verse 26 actually. Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as 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.
Connor Coskery: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.
Connor Coskery:This is the word of the lord.
Speaker 1:Thanks be to God.
Connor Coskery:Pray with me. Father we thank you for the gift of your spirit. And we pray that right now he would do his work in us. He would open up our hearts and minds to where the words that we have just read, we'd understand them and they would change us. We pray that we'd be conformed to the image of the sun, that we would look like Jesus.
Connor Coskery:Pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So in Luke 22, Simon Peter went to Jesus and he said, Jesus, I just want you to know this, you could count on me.
Connor Coskery:I could, you could count on me. I'm not going anywhere. Even if everyone else falls away, just know that I will not. Which had to be pretty awkward to the other disciples that were right there. I mean, Jesus I mean, Peter's essentially, he's saying, hey, I don't know about these guys, but Jesus, I'm your man.
Connor Coskery:I'm not going anywhere. I will follow you to the end. And I wholeheartedly believe that Peter would have never said those words unless he believed them. Unless he evaluated his resolve, his determination against their resolve, and he's like, I'm superior in that. I actually will not fall away.
Connor Coskery:I believe Peter believed that with every fiber of his being. And Jesus looks at Peter, and then He doesn't call him by his name that He had given him, Peter. He says, Simon. Simon. Simon.
Connor Coskery:No. Satan has asked permission to sift you and I'm gonna let him. But I have prayed for you. I have prayed for you and you will be restored. So so we know what happens after that.
Connor Coskery:Jesus then is arrested, and Peter goes on to do what he thought was never possible. He denied knowing Jesus three times. And actually when you read the gospel accounts, you have 2 separate interrogations are happening. Jesus is being interrogated in front of the high priest, and Peter is being interrogated by a little girl. And when He's being interrogated by a little girl, He even swears and says, I don't even know the man.
Connor Coskery:Well, Jesus holds up in His interrogation. And what you read is right after Peter denied even knowing Jesus for that third time to that little girl, he actually looked across the courtroom and he and Jesus got eye contact. Could you imagine how devastating that was? And he knew, it's like a fall, a fell. And it says, he wept bitterly and he he ran.
Connor Coskery:This was not the end of Peter though, was it? It wasn't the end of Him. Peter would go on to be restored, he would be raised up, he would become the very rock of the church, the church, the rock that the church needed to be built upon. He'd be that leader. The question is why?
Connor Coskery:Why didn't Peter forever fall away? I have known people whose lives have spiraled out of control into the gutter for far less, and they have never recovered. Why is it that Peter recovered? Why is it that he was restored? Why was he preserved?
Connor Coskery:Jesus tells us, Peter, I've prayed for you. I've prayed for you, and you will be restored. And Jesus, the same Jesus who interceded for Peter, intercedes for us. We read that in Hebrews chapter 7 when we read that the lord, he lives to make intercession for us. So these same powerful prayers that raise Peter up after he had done his worst, those same powerful prayers are being prayed over us at our worst, after we fall, after we sin.
Connor Coskery:But now Paul goes on, he says, that's not the end of it. Not only does Jesus intercede for us, but now the Holy Spirit comes along joining with Jesus and they're both praying on our behalf. Both the Son and the Spirit of God are praying for us. I mean, this means we could be 100% certain that we will make it to glory. 100%.
Connor Coskery:If Jesus is praying for me and the Holy Spirit is praying for me, I will be preserved. That's what this text is about. How do you know that you cannot lose your salvation? How do you know once saved, always saved? Well, because the Son of God is interceding for me, and the Holy Spirit is interceding for me, so my to ensure that you actually make it to glory, it's necessary that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit pray for you.
Connor Coskery:That's how much power is necessary to preserve your life because you have such little power on your own. You cannot make it on your own. Peter's a case example of that. It takes this powerful, continual, relentless intercession by God, the son, and God, the spirit. Verse 26, Verse 26 begins with with Paul saying, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness.
Connor Coskery:This word likewise, he's saying just like something before. Before he if you remember, he's talking about hope and how we've been given hope. And because we have hope, we could endure any suffering. And now he's saying that just like hope gives us the strength we need, the spirit comes and he gives us the strength we need. So the the spirit and hope, they're they're like one another.
Connor Coskery:They help 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. A while ago, a long time ago, I was in college and most of y'all know this, my dad died. He died, suddenly, unexpectedly. And, because I'm in school, I had to go to school.
Connor Coskery:I mean, yes, you you took a few days off for the funeral, but then you're back in class. And I I remember so vividly sitting in the very first class after he had died, and I'm just looking around. And everyone's just going on with their lives. The world didn't stop, and I got so angry. Mary, I I didn't I didn't have that much emotion during the funeral and and all of that, but sitting in class, I just it was almost like rage was coming over me.
Connor Coskery:Because I thought, like, everybody should be suffering, everybody should be in pain, the world should stop and everybody is oblivious. And so, so like, out of that anger, I just tried praying. It was anger and it was sadness, grief. It was everything combined. It was just this this whirlwind of emotions.
Connor Coskery:And I tried praying and I was like, God, I Jesus, could you I I I I don't even know. I don't I don't even know what to pray. Have you ever been there? Have you ever reached a place like that? But like you know, you want to pray.
Connor Coskery:You feel led to pray and you generally don't know how to pray at this moment. I I don't know how to pray. I lack the words to pray. And maybe it's in a time where, like, it is in a midst of sorrow or suffering or depression or articulate words. Or perhaps it's through your own failings or even your own sin.
Connor Coskery:Maybe you've committed the same sin for the thousandth time, and now you're like, God, it's me again. I I I I don't even know. And Paul says the Holy Spirit here comes and He prays for us in that weakness, in that weak moment. He enters into our sorrow and our frustration and He groans with us. He's he's like he's like the friend who comes and he sits next to you, a friend who knows you better than you know yourself, puts his arm around you, he just sits in your pain for a while, says it's gonna be okay.
Connor Coskery:I love you. It's gonna be okay, And prays on behalf of you. So the holy spirit does. He does it with this this groaning. Last week, we saw how creation groans, how we groan, and now we see how the Holy Spirit groans on behalf our behalf.
Connor Coskery:This is not just maybe you perhaps heard this. This is not talking about tongues, praying in tongues or anything like that. Not at all. That's that's not what this is talking about. It's it's the groans like all the other groans we've been reading through in Romans.
Connor Coskery:It's the groans of childbirth, which is a groan of a real pain, sometimes a very sharp pain, pains that come in waves, but they're not meaningless pains. They're contractions. They're pains that we know are moving and progressing us somewhere. They will result in a new glorious life. That's the groaning that's being described here.
Connor Coskery:It's the groans of of frustrations that we are we're not yet at the glory we will one day be. We're frustrated by it, but we know we're moving in that direction. Verse 27. He who 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. I love that phrase, he who searches hearts.
Connor Coskery:If you have some, like, new hip cool modern translation, it might be, in all caps there, actually like that because they're treating it as a name of God. God is he who searches hearts. Kinda like Jehovah Jairus, he will provide or El Shaddai is God almighty. Here's another name of God, He who searches hearts. I like that.
Connor Coskery:And when God searches hearts, He's searching for something in particular. It's not just like, let me just see what's in there. No. He's he's searching for something. So he who searches hearts, he's looking into your heart and what he's doing is he's he's actively listening for groans.
Connor Coskery:He is can he hear the Holy Spirit groaning in your heart? That's what he's searching for. And when he hears that groans, it's like, yes. The Holy Spirit is is in him. The Holy Spirit is groaning on his behalf.
Connor Coskery:And because he knows the Holy Spirit so well, says he knows his mind, the mind of the spirit, that God then can make sense of the groaning. He translates it. He knows what the Holy Spirit is praying. The Holy Spirit is articulating the things that you can't even articulate And giving those prayers up to God. Another time in my life that I felt this groaning and that I I didn't know how to pray, was about 15 years ago.
Connor Coskery:And I felt God strongly calling me to to plant a church that we should be doing this. I was on staff at another church. I had, over the course of a year, been meeting with the leadership of that church, the elders, the pastors, to talk about them planting a church, that them sending me out and and being a part of something on the other side of the city. And those discussions went so well. I was so encouraged by them over the course of the year.
Connor Coskery:And then it finally came time for them to make their decision on this. And, what I thought was gonna be almost a rubber stamp, like, just a rubber stamp, they for you know, their own reasons there is neither good or bad. That's beside the point. They said no. It so shocked me, something in me broke.
Connor Coskery:I I started just crying in front of these men. And this wasn't one of those, like, oh, what sweet little tears. He's kind of emotional. This is one of those, like, everyone's everyone's awkward. Like, no one knows what to do.
Connor Coskery:Like, I've never cried that much in my entire life. Like, it was it was huge, like, just heaves of tears and groanings and uncontrollable in front of these men. That that they they they decide not to you know, that that's not what they were gonna be a part of it. And not only that, but they said, you know, since obviously, your heart is already set on doing that, your job here is over. And so I'm getting in the car, and I'm I'm now I have to call up Lauren, who's pregnant with our 3rd child.
Connor Coskery:And all along with this, just what we kinda thought was gonna be happening, we knew was gonna and I'm just and so I I tried to pray, and I was like, lord, I was just so lord, I'd I'd What? I don't get it. I don't even know what to pray. I don't know what to pray. And I remember keep saying that over and over.
Connor Coskery:I don't even know what to pray. That was my prayer. I don't know what to pray. Groaning. The Holy Spirit groaned on behalf.
Connor Coskery:He took all that mess of emotions. And you know what? God's plan for my life was in no way thwarted. None. In the midst of all that pain, not throated in the slightest.
Connor Coskery:I didn't see it, but God through the groaning of the Holy Spirit, He was actually working all things out for good. That's what we read next in verse 28. One of the most loved verses in all of Romans. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose.
Connor Coskery:Can I tell you, if you live in this verse, like you see it as a home, a shelter, and you live in it, your life is unshakable? Literally, nothing can rock you if you believe God works all things for good. Nothing. And if you live outside of this, your whole life will be sorrow. The result of the Holy Spirit groaning and praying God's will for us is that God is going to work in us.
Connor Coskery:He's gonna work all things for good. In other words, when things go wrong, they're not actually going wrong. They're not, they're going according to a plan. The universe is not being run by blind chance, the universe is being run by almighty powerful father who has bent on your good. Working it all together for your good.
Connor Coskery:And by all things, he means all things. He means all of your sufferings, all the bad diagnosis you get, all the times you have to bury a loved one. Means all of your failures, your mistakes. It even means all of your sins. Even all of your sins.
Connor Coskery:Your sin does not derail God's purpose for your life. Wasn't like I could say, Woah, didn't see that sin coming. God's got a plan for your sin, doesn't derail His plan for your life. Now make no mistakes, sin is still sin. Paul does not here say that all things are good, that's not what he says.
Connor Coskery:Doesn't say all things are good, just that they will work out for good. Sin is a terrible thing in which there will be pain, there's going to be consequences, and God will absolutely 100% use it for good. If James was sitting here like it was in the first two services, he would say amen. James will wholeheartedly agree with that. That even in the midst of his horrible sin, God humbled him, taught him that the gospel was not just a doctrine, but he actually got to feel the gospel in his heart, he got to know Jesus more, God worked that for good.
Connor Coskery:JRR Tolkien. It's been a while since I've
Speaker 1:Hey, man.
Connor Coskery:There you go. Finally, someone who gets it. Tolkien, and I'm not gonna quote Lord of the Rings, people. So we're gonna go someplace else. In his book, The Simerillian, which I do not even pretend to understand.
Connor Coskery:It is above me. Like I I have tried many times to get through that book, and I just can't each time I get a little bit further. But there is there's one story at the beginning of the simerillian. It's about creation. And where what you find is, the God being there.
Connor Coskery:God creating the universe through, not speaking things into existence, but singing things into existence. Music goes forth and the universe springs into existence, and it's beautiful and it's glorious because of the beauty and the glory of the song. And what you find is that this Satan like being, this evil being tries to ruin it all. And he tries to run it all by by throwing in a dissonant note, by throwing in a minor chord to ruin the song. He's like, I've done it.
Connor Coskery:And and and God instead, He takes the the dissonant note and He goes and He weaves it into the song. And then the song actually now it's it's more complex, it's more rich, it's more glorious and beautiful. Which frustrates this evil being even more, so he's now he's throwing more minor chords, more dissonant notes. And each time God's just grabbing those notes and He's weaving them into this absolutely breathtaking, gorgeous song. And Paul is saying, that's what God does in your life.
Connor Coskery:When Satan is throwing stuff your way and he's trying to destroy the glorious song that God Himself is singing over you, He's not running it. God's taking those notes and He's making a more beautiful song. When you begin to sing a song that is detrimental to you, when you begin to sing those dissonant notes and those minor chords, God takes those notes and He incorporates them into His song and it becomes something more rich and more beautiful, more glorious. God does that with us. I mean what a you see all that, what a confidence you're given in this?
Connor Coskery:Now, God does not do this to everyone. I wanna be clear about that, this is not a generic saying like, you know there's just a silver lining behind every cloud. Not true. This isn't Paul just saying, you know, things tend to work out in the end. Not at all.
Connor Coskery:Apart from Christ, your life, your suffering has no purpose. Has no purr It's not going anywhere, it's just pain. Apart from God actively working things out, things will not work out for good. This is a promise given only to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. And if I had time, I'd really flesh out that love God because up to this point, Paul has been talking about believing in God, trusting in God, having faith in God, but here he says this for those who love God.
Connor Coskery:There's something really powerful He's trying to communicate to us there. It's kinda like the, when I love, love my wife or I love my children or what, when there's that love there. They know that even through the even through trials and and sufferings and things like, we're not going anywhere. Like, I trust you in this. There's there's a love here for those who love God.
Connor Coskery:That's who this promise is for. And this promise also doesn't mean that God is gonna somehow turn your pains into pleasures. He does not cause all things to work together for your comfort, but for your good. And we read what this good is in verses 29 to 30. For those whom 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.
Connor Coskery:And those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. So the good that God is gonna work out in your life, the the purpose to which God is calling you is that you would be conformed to the image of his son. That's the good that you'd be conformed to the image of his son.
Connor Coskery:Let me tell you that is a painful process often. Because if ever you're gonna conform something, that means you're like, you're chipping away there, you're chipping away parts, you're you're sanding down those rough edges and making them smooth, maybe perhaps you're having to melt down some things. That's how you conform something. It's not pleasant. I mean you get hold You you you get sandpaper and you rub it, it's not pleasant.
Connor Coskery:But you're being conformed. So that's what we see here. This painful process of being conformed into the image of Jesus. And then the verses these verses, they describe the process, what it actually looks like. In these verses, Paul gives 5 verbs.
Connor Coskery:Five verbs that describe this process. They're inseparably linked together. It's what theologians have, through the centuries called, the unbreakable chain or the golden chain that leads to glory. So you find the words like, for know, predestine, call, justify, glorify. And each one of these are inseparably linked to 1.
Connor Coskery:Basically, meaning whom God foreknows, He does glorify. You you can't it's a it's a string that cannot be broken. So let's quickly go through these. Foreknow. We say that whom God foreknows.
Connor Coskery:Now foreknow is not talking about knowledge, that He just knows about events. Throughout the Bible, anytime you have the word know about a person, it's talking about love. Adam knew Eve. He's not saying he knows all about Eve. He knows he intimately loves Eve.
Connor Coskery:And anytime in the bible you have for no when it's describing a person or persons, it's not talking about I know about the events of your life and what's gonna happen. No, it's I love you. I for loved you. And so right here at the start, what we what we're reading is that before you were ever born, before you were ever a single cell in your mother's womb, certainly before you ever committed your first sin, God loved you. He knew everything.
Connor Coskery:He loved you. He absolutely loved you. And because he loved you, we then read he predestined you. Now predestined means exactly what you think it means. You predetermined someone's destiny.
Connor Coskery:It means that He planned things out. He planned out your life before you were even born. So He has set a destination for you, and that destination is for you to look like Jesus, for you to be conformed to the image of His Son. That's your predestiny, where you're destined to go. Now this is the first time that Paul brings up this in his letter, this this doctrine of predestination.
Connor Coskery:And we're gonna deal with this more in a couple weeks, but I want you to notice why he brings up predestination here. He doesn't think, you know, now would be a great time to divide the church. I mean, like, they've been on board through Romans 8. Like, they've been it's it's time, like, just throwing a little theological wrench for them. Like, time to divide.
Connor Coskery:And he's not thinking, you know, I'd really college students need something to argue late at night. Throw that in there. He introduces this as a comfort. It's the comfort. I mean, it's this rock solid comfort.
Connor Coskery:How do you know your life is gonna turn out okay? Even when you sin and you're like, because God has predestined that it will be okay. He has said, you will be conformed to the image of my son. He has planned it towards that end. That's how you know it's gonna be okay.
Connor Coskery:Things are operating according to His plan and not yours. So that's the comfort. Once again, we'll look at that in a couple There's gonna be predestined calls, he called. This isn't some calling in general, this is an effectual call when you heard the gospel and boom, you knew it. God is calling me.
Connor Coskery:Whom he calls, he he justifies, is justified. If I have to teach on, like, if you don't know justification by now, like, there's not really anything else I could do in Romans. Right? We have been hammering justification, like, for a year. So you've been just you've been declared righteous, justified.
Connor Coskery:And finally, for those whom God justified, he also glorified. How certain is your glorification? It is so certain Paul talks about it in past tense. That's how certain it is. I mean, you gotta understand what these these string of verbs here, all the others being in past tense.
Connor Coskery:I mean, he foreknew, he predestined, he called, he justified. Yeah. Makes sense. Now it should be, and he will glorify, but Paul doesn't go there. It says, he glorified Because you can't break the chains.
Connor Coskery:They're they're linked together. What whom God foreknows will be glorified. And it is so certain In his mind, he could speak of it in past tense. It's going to happen. In his mind, it has happened.
Connor Coskery:So that's your hope Christian. Everything in your life, everything in your life is not thwarting God's plan, it's going according to his plan. A plan that he has in motion to take you to glory. How do you know you won't fall away? Because of that.
Connor Coskery:Pray with me. Jesus, I pray that through your spirit, you would help us to understand and to believe the things that feel unknowable and impossible to believe. We thank you that your holy spirit, he has come inside us. He groans on our behalf. He's interceding for us, joining an intercession with Jesus, And that those powerful prayers will secure us to the end.
Connor Coskery:That is our hope. Thank you. Amen.