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The episodes are the weekly sermons from 922 Ministries (St. Peter and The CORE) of Appleton, Wisconsin.
Promise Land
Week 3 - St Peter
Pastor Tim Glende
I was 14 years old when I lifted weights for the first time. Like a football coach of Michigan Lutheran Seminary where I went to high school, encouraged us to get in the weight room. After our first football season was officially done, he walked us through showed us how to use all the equipment told us not to do anything really foolish and cut us loose. And his words of encouragement? We’re the why behind the what?
Bigger, faster, stronger.
And if we want you get bigger so you can be better at blocking, we want you to get stronger so you can do a better job in your role. We want you to be faster because faster is important in athletics, bigger, faster, stronger. And I understood that working out with caused a little pain. But I heard his words loud and clear that there would be a game if you get bigger, you get faster, you get stronger as a sophomore. You get to start on the junior varsity. Bigger, faster, stronger. When you become a junior, means you might get some playing time, maybe play one way on a team that's made up of juniors and seniors. And as a senior, if you get big enough, fast enough, strong enough, you might be able to play both ways, both offense and defense to help bless the team.
And, I also saw the results in other people. My freshman year, was the first year that I believe the only year. that our high school ever won the state football championship in the state of Michigan. Like I saw the guys who were bigger, I experienced what it looked like to be faster, and I knew and saw the importance of being stronger.
And they also let us know that there was not just a goal of bigger, faster, stronger. But if you got stronger and you worked out hard, the game that you got was a free t-shirt. Like and I know it sounds really bad but the free t-shirt said “pound for pound club”. Like if you could bench your weight, you got a t-shirt on it and all the cool guys have those. And so that was my goal, like the pain of lifting weights served, a great purpose and there was a game athletically and personally.
And yes, along the way there was a lot of pain. Like, no offense, anyone who's ever done leg day knows how painful the next day is like. You look like something's wrong with you when you're walking around the hallways of the dormitory. And yes, some torn muscles along the way some stretched out muscles, along the way that hurt and there was pain. In fact, one time, when doing decline bench, the barbell went not where it was supposed to go up, but backwards on my face on the bridge of my nose and lips and that really hurt a lot. There was pain along the way. Don't do decline bench without someone's spotting. That's also another good tip of advice and there was gain. Like I was able to play a whole lot, my sophomore year a lot more of my junior year and just go both ways in my senior year. And eventually my senior year, I got a “pound for pound club” t-shirt with 400 pounds on it. Like, that's a lot of play, it's on the side and no, I can't bench, 400 pounds right now. If I did, I won't be preaching for six weeks. I'd be having surgery and recovering.
And every reality of no pain, no gain is a life model that many people understand and are willing to go through a great deal of pain. If they know there's a game. Like every athlete understands it. Olympic athletes really get it. Anyone who's a mother understands and knows that pregnancy, in nine months of it, come with pains. But childbirth is filled with pain but in the moment when you hold your child for the first time the gain is worth it.
That might be true for students who are in college, who are studying because they know that to take a big test and pass it in order to get that job. Get that license approved like hours and hours, week after week, maybe for months. So studying it's all about pain and sacrifice, but there's a game.
And maybe it's true at work. Like when you get that first job, you know, if you start at the bottom of the ladder, but you understand doing the menial working really hard. Following through, showing up on time, and executing the tasks in front of you will allow you the opportunity to work up the ladder. Experience the gain.
And I think you all get that the older you are you've gone through that and, the tension behind it. Like, we're all willing to accept the pain when we know there's some gain.
But not the opposite. Like, when we hear the phrase, no pain, no gain, we get it, like some pain is required, but gain will be experienced, but if you flip it around, if there's no gain, like if there's no benefit, if there's no win, then the tension that you, and I probably experience the expression that we sometimes would yell out is no pain. Like, if there is no gain then I don't want any pain.
Or maybe even better, detention could be when there's no gain. We raise a question.
Why pain?
Let’s be honest. If you get out of college and you go for interviews and they interview and say, we'd love to give you this job, but here's the reality of it, you're going to do the most menial tasks every day. You are never going to get advanced. You're never going to get a promotion. There's no hope for you to climb any ladder. You will always stay at the bottom of the ladder. There you are going to go through a whole lot of pain and there's going to be no gain for you. Like how many of you would take that job? Well, if you're desperate maybe to get some experience but most of you would say, no, thank you.
Like if there was no gain from working out, being physically fit from taking care of your body, going through the rehab of all that it goes through, ignore offense, I would rather sleep in to seven o'clock than get up at 4:45 as I do every morning because that's painful. Like we all get the reality when there's no gain we prefer that. Can't be any pain and sometimes why is it exist?
That's really the tension for today, why this promise is so important today because we live in a world where a lot of times the pain that we go through the suffering that we face the things that we endure, we look at them and ask the question there appears to be no gain in this and you know what happens when that's real.
God gets questioned.
Because here's the thing, if you are a Christian, here's the thing. If you are a believer, here's the thing, a lot of unbelievers say is they're biggest argument against God and God's existence. If there is a God and he is good, there should be no such thing as pain.
Like some of you have friends, who've expressed that,
Some of you are know people who are Christians at one point in their life and they're not anymore because of that.
And maybe you've experienced that and you've wrestled with that, like, that is real and that's why this promise is so important.
And the truth that we share that I have for you today. I pray will help bless you in that tension when there's pain and it appears that there's no gain. Is God at work? Is God present? Can God use it? Does God care? Like every question you've asked the things that you've gone through, I hope and pray. These words can encourage you.
As Christians for thousands of years have been wrestling with it. The thought Psalms are full of it. The apostle Paul dealt with it. In fact, God inspired him to write about it. So, today's truth and today's promises are all found mostly in the book of Romans as the apostle Paul, someone who knew pain and suffering, understood the Roman Christians were undergoing pain and suffering for their faith. And I pray that you are blessed today as we dig into it to see truths that help us with that tension. Can God use it? Can God work in it? In the pain. Now, here's truth. Number one, that's important to this promise of God, because if we don't remember this, if we don't understand this, it causes so much spiritual tension for us, a lack of peace for us. A whole lot of doubt in God, from us, the creation, waits, and eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation, everything around us, that all that was created for the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it and hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God, like the trees in the plants and the animals. You know what, they never did sin.
But you know what happened? When Adam and Eve sinned everything in all creation got broken as a result. It all went sideways. That's what the apostle Paul is describing there. Like creation is waiting for the pain to be gone for the decay to disappear for the struggle. That is this world to no longer be. We know that the whole creation has grown as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time like the pain that builds and increases along the weeks and months of pregnancy as the pain gets bigger as delivery approaches, like, that's what the world in which we live. It’s like, it's groaning as in the pains of childbirth.
Here's the truth when there's pain that I need you to remember. That we need to hold on to because it matters for the promise that you're about to hear that God's going to give in Romans chapter 8. Truth number one. When it comes to pain, pain was never a part of God's plan.
Never, ever, ever was pain a part of God's plan, perfection was God's plan.
100% joy and peace was God's plan that God made everything in all of creation to be a blessing to Adam and Eve, the pinnacle of his creation. But here's the sad truth, and it's a hard pill to swallow, and we wish it was different. But the sin of Adam and Eve brought into this world pain.
We're not just fallen people.
For fallen people tainted by sin who live and do life with other fallen people who are tainted by sin who live in a fallen world, where everything in creation is tainted by sin. Like every last thing on the face of planet earth is touched and tainted. By sin pain is real because Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, not God. Not the author of pain. Pain is a result of sin authored by Adam and Eve.
It wasn't a part of God's plan.
And in the face of that sin, God made a promise. We're gonna come back to that in a few minutes, but he also told the truth As a result of your sin, Adam There will be pain. Like work will be hard.
Eve, as a result of your sin childbirth will be filled with pain and I have no clue what childbirth would have been like in a world of perfection, but it wouldn't have included pain.
And, Adam to dust from dust you were made and dust you will return. There'll be loss and death and cause pain.
And that wasn't a part of God's plan.
For you to truly appreciate this promise, you have to begin with that reality and truth. Because when we know that to be true, it helps us when fear is high, when doubts, rear their ugly head when the devil seeks to get you to question God. Question His love question His presence. Remember that pain is not a signal that God is not there, pain is not a doing of God’s. It's might allow it and permit it. This side of heaven because we know we can step into it. But he's not the author of it or the reason for it sin is Adam and Eve's the one you're born with. The sins that we commit pain.
And that truth changes the perspective on the promise that we're going to talk about in just a minute. But before we get to that, I need you to see what comes next in the book of Romans chapter 8, not just God, tells us that pain was not a part of God's plan that all creation waits for this to, not no longer be present and be different. But then God says this a few verses later in the same way the spirit helps us in our weaknesses. When there is pain, do you sometimes struggle with what to say, when there is pain, do you sometimes wrestle with this, God knows what I'm going through, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what, what I want to say, but I can't say, because, God knows God present. We do not know what we ought to pray forever felt like that.
You know, alone the spirit. But in those moments, the spirit of God himself intercedes for us through wordless groans and he searches our hearts, knows the mind of the spirit like God knows. God is present, he knows what's going on in your heart. He knows the fear that might be rearing its ugly head. It might be the paralyzing reality of the pain that you are in. Like, God knows. God gets it. God is present. And as a result, the spirit promises this: He intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. Like I so want to get it right all the time. Be in tune with what God wants and the Spirit’s promises when you're not sure, what that is. When you don't know what to say, God knows God is present and he speaks. The truth to God.
Like we've won, we talked about this truth of God's this, promise of God, that God is present. I just want to add that to this promise. It's so important for this promise. In fact, all the promises interweave with one another at different times and in different ways but it's vital and important to hold on to promise number one, when we get to promise number three, that God is present in your pain, the holy spirit interceeds when you are suffering and don't know what to say, the God of heaven and earth is there, and in the middle of it, he hasn't left you or deserted you. He is an off-the-scenes of your life. No, he is present in the midst of your pain.
Which is so important in the spiritual battle that we face.
Like the question where are you? God is so easy to do when there's pain.
When there's pain, it's so easy to wonder if God cares about your pain.
It's so easy to think does not even know I'm in pain. And the answer is yes, yes. And yes, he's present. In your pain.
And both of those truths are so vital and important for us to understand the promise of what God has for you. And for me, when pain is real,
Because it's super hard to believe. That God can use it for anything, good that there's gain in the pain.
When you understand the fact that he is not the author of it, when you understand the fact that he has present in it, the amazing reality that God says, in this world where Adam and brought pain into the world. This horrible thing. This thing that I did not plan. Yes, I God. Will use it for good. I'll take the bad that they brought and make it good in a world where we're pain will exist until the end of time until my return. And here's our God says, that's what he's exactly what he does.
Few verses chapters earlier in Romans. So this would have been known to them before they got to chapter 8, not only so, but we glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and character produces hope. In other words, the apostle Paul literally says we glory in our sufferings because our sufferings For good spiritual good. Suffering, produces perseverance, the ability to endure, the ability to move forward, the ability to, to not give up in your spiritual life. The pain that we go through and experience, God says produces perseverance. And why is a person here? It's so important. Because God wants you, to be people of godly character to be people where there's kindness and love where there's humility and patience, like God wants you to have those fruits. And sometimes the pain that we go through the suffering that we go through, they produce perseverance in us and they drive us born to God and who God wants us to be. They refine us to be more like God. This side of heaven will never be perfect. Like it produces those things. And at the end of the day, what God wants for you to have and to hold on to his hope.
There are some amazing books about pain in our world that they by Christian authors, like one of them written by Philip Yancey. Where is God? When it hurts, when you ask that question, when you're wrestling with the tension, he's got a great book on pain and maybe my favorite one. One that is probably more quoted than any other. Christian book is the one by CS Lewis, a famous Christian author wrote in the mid-1900s, he identified that people have a problem with pain. The problem with pain is an amazing book that he wrote and his quote would echo. What we just talked about in there. Like, perseverance produces character, the character produces hope, one of his best quotes was this pain shatters. The illusion that all is well.
Like when all is well with your soul in life, because there is no pain, God, is not sometimes, not so important or present in your mind.
But when there's pain when they're suffering it shatters, the illusion that all is. Well, we live in a broken world. This world is not how God designed it to be. This is not the eternal destination. God wants for you, and pain is used for that. He goes on to say. Penis shatters. The illusion that all is well, that we that what we have, the things that this life. Good things are bad in another themselves. It shatters the illusion that what we have is our own and enough for us. Like suffering and pain produce all those things to drive us back to God and his grace which is all we need at the end of the day.
And he wants us to remember that.
CS Lewis also said, pain is God's megaphone to die in the world.
See, here's the truth that I hope you hear. In those words, pain serves a purpose. Like it wasn't what God designed the world to be or to face. But God is now using it for a purpose and your life in mind, a spiritual one, and is a gift to you. And to me, we all need more persons and all of us want to be people of character and you and I in a world that is broken and dying where we're pain is real. God wants us to hold on to hope that there's something better hope in a better place. Hope that is ours found in Jesus and so we can say that pain is again is a gift gave spiritual gifts from God and is not God's goof. God did not go up. Adam and Eve goofed up.
So God can take the bad and and use the pain that's gonna exist and cause it to be used for your good for the good. Your spiritual internal good.
And I'm going to say this out loud. I struggle with this promise of God.
Like, I struggle with using as a pastor.
When in your lives you're going through something that's really bad.
Because it almost minimizes the bad. Like God, never minimizes the bad. A bad breaks, the heart of God.
A God wants to know, even the bad, the worst of things this side of having, he can use For spiritual good, you're good.
By good and that's not a goof. That's a gift.
Which is why this promise is so important to hold onto. Romans, chapter 8:28, press one, the most powerful verses in all of Scripture, maybe one that you've heard before memorized before, is your confirmation verse from long before. At our Thursday night service a lady who said, “Pastor, that verse was so powerful and important for me and my husband. 30 years ago, he was in the hospital and his heart had pains. In the pastor came, when we didn't know what was going to happen and said, no matter what happens, God will use this for good. He'll either bring healing or he'll bring him home.
Just verse one that's speaks to us when things in this life, don't appear good in our life, but maybe, just maybe, they remind us God'll work it for the good of someone else that he loves.
So I want you to hear the promise and I want you to give you the truth so you can hold on to it. Let's read the verse again. If we can go back to it for just a second, we know that in all things, no is owed a knowledge so it's not the Greek word, ginosko, experiential. Like sometimes we experience things and thus the knowledge, like I've lived it like I can see the gain from the pain of weightlifting. That's not this kind of experiential knowledge. No, this is foundational knowledge of God. It's a belief because of who God is, not because of the words written on the page. Because the one who's behind the promise, we know that this promise is true and good.
Because God, endured the pain.
God knew that wasn't in store for you and me in the future because our sin was pain. Pain of hell.
And there was no way you could gain heaven on your own. And so Jesus stepped into our shoes, he walked to the cross. He lived a perfect life. He knew that no pain for him, that no gain for you and so he took on the pain and you get all the gain. That's our God. We know that the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes to see that.
And he wants you to hold on to that, and that's what we know. And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him. We know for the good in all things for the lovers of God, God works is literally kind of the order in Greek. It's no, it's good for those who love God all things work.
Like the direction, God wants you to look in the promise is God. And He wants you to remember who you are. Lovers of “God who so loved the world and He promises that He works in all things for those have been called according to His purpose. And you know what? God's good and gracious will is, what His purpose is for you and for me, and for all is to see us on the streets of heaven one day in the promised land, and that God says suffering and pain can be used for good spiritually.
And so I want you to hear the promise and maybe put it in words and you can hold on to it. It is all things may not be good.
Like marriages that fall apart and are broken because of fruitlessness and unfaithfulness are not good. God does not love that. It is not good and a whole lot of pain is caused. Cancer. Heart disease, the things that happen as a result of genetics to people because sin is real and we are in a broken world. It's not good in and of itself.
Like, five year-olds with leukemia, your spouse dying, suddenly having a heart attack, whatever it is. Those things that is a broken world, all things may not be good. But God can and will work all things for good. Like, sometimes the bad, the disease that is incurable is what God uses to bring you to the good.
Eternal good.
And that doesn't mean that those who are left behind. Look at it as good and it won't make life good at all times. But God used it for good.
Sometimes what you go through is for their good.
Like what other people see a child of God enduring pain, persevering and pain, character through the pain, having hope in the pain. It draws people close to God. It's the megaphone that God uses to bring them back. Like sometimes God uses the pain for the good of others.
Just make a phone. Sometimes the pain that God uses that you go through for good, three years later, you might get to see how God used it two days. Later, you might go. Oh my goodness. That was my aha moment on this side of heaven. You might never see it. It's not on your timetable. It's on God's timetable. You might not know who your life touched or how God used it but God promises he will use it for good spiritually and eternally for those who are lovers of God.
God's not the author of pain, he's present in the pain. He promises spiritually. He can bless you and will use it in the pain and he says he will use it for good.
And so I pray, I can just leave with you. To trust that God.
Who knew that was out. Enduring the pain you and I wouldn't get the gain. And if he's that good of a god He's able to use our pain for good.
Which is why I'm going to leave you with one more thing and point you ahead to next week. Like, Romans 8, it's maybe the greatest chapter in all the Bible. Like it's no more inspired than Ezra, chapter 2, but Romans 8, read it from beginning to end. Justification, sanctification, holy spirit, how to deal with pain, the victory that is ours in Christ. Like it is an amazing chapter. If you read it every day is the only chapter. The book of the Bible, you read you'd be blessed in a lot of ways beats some other stuff, but Romans 8 is amazing. Here's God's promise, he works for good, and here's why. That promise is good and rock solid. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth, comparing what the glory that will be revealed in us. For I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, angels or demons, present or future. Any powers, height or death or anything else in all creation. Nothing, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord, Amen. Jesus wins. You win as a result. There's not a single thing you go through. No pain that you will endure, experience this side of heaven. Nothing that the devil can throw your way that can change your status before God .
That's God who makes a promise to you and to me that he can and will use all things. Even pain for good.
So, when you're going through it, remember that God's not the one who planned it. But is present in it,
And he'll work at and use it for good, His good, until the day you join Him in the promised land and experience the goodness of that God. Amen.