Episode Transcript
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Can read a passage you all are
familiar with, but we will read it
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because it's good to be reminded.
It's excerpted from a flow of a text
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that really begins in chapter one of
Romans, but we're coming to the crescendo
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of Paul's thought and he writes,
and we know that for those who love
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God, all things work together for
good, for those who are called according
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to his purpose, for those whom
he fore knew, he also predestined to
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be conformed to the image of his
son in order that he might be the
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firstborn among many brothers. And those
whom he predestined he also called, and
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those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also
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glorified. This is the word of
the Lord. So I'd like you to
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imagine as we consider this text.
Just to start here, and I'd like
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to imagine you have a boring job. Your daily work is repetitive and meaningless,
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long hours, very little vacation,
working conditions are stark and uncomfortable,
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and this is not an unrealistic picture. I had a summer of job back
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the summer before Randie and I were
married in Memphis Tennessee where that's exactly what
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my job was. I would awake
each day at thirty, we get in
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the cart five drive to a gravel
pit out east of Memphis, Tennessee,
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and there for eight to ten hours
have the exciting job of sitting in a
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birth with one other man, a
small mobile home you might say, or
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trailer, and trucks would load up
with gravel from the shovels and then drive
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over this passage and stop on the
scales. And this is this was the
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activity of the day. We do
the counterweight, get the read, pull
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the counterweight, write the number on
a ticket and handed to ten hours a
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day. Didn't talk to them.
A lot of the Times they complained about
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the weight and that was a summer
job for me. But the man I
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worked with and been there about twenty
five years and and let's just say he
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was not a conversation partner. Partner, he I would come into work every
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day and he'd say how are you
mark, and I'd say fine. James,
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how are you? We'd say fine
and that was it for the day
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and we rotated back and forth because
of the rules of the Union. Now
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imagine that our boss and both of
us are doing this job long term,
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shows up one day and pulls each
of us aside in private and he says,
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Mark, I hate to do this
to your b business has been hard
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and we're going to have to reduce
your wages five percent this year and if
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it doesn't turn around, we're going
to take away some of your friends benefits.
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Are Left to pay for your health
insurance and part and I just want
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to tell you in advance. And
then he pulls James Society says, James,
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I want you to know that things
are going really well in the business
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and you're a faithful worker and I
want you to know if you can finish
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off your thirty years here, I'm
going to give you a bonus at the
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half a million dollars. Now,
do you think the next day there would
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be any change and how we would
go about our work? Well, obviously,
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because our futures had been painted in
very different colors, and what we
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expect in our future affects us now, because we're human. Human's live in
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the past and we live in the
future. In the past we look back
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with regret and guilt, and in
the future we look forward with expectation or
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dread, with fear and anxiety and
how we live now is directly related to
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our believed in future and he would
have changed our believed in future with those
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words. Now, I don't know
if you ever heard of a gentleman named
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Victor Frunkel. He was a Jewish
Austrian psychologist who was interred in the concentration
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camps under Hitler and World War Two. Ended up in four different camps,
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ended up in Auschwitz Berkenhew at the
end of his stay in the concentration camps.
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And he was a student of humanity
and he noticed the ways people cope
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with life in those brutal conditions and
and he said what he would he noticed,
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more than anything else, so there
were certain people that seemed to rise
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above the hatred and the brutality and
the torture and and all that was part
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of living under the thumb of the
Nazi regime in those days. And what
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he what he found, is that
the people who were able to rise above
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it always had a believed in future
that gave them reason to endure. They
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had a picture of what the future
was going to be like that put wind
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in their sales, even in the
most difficult circumstances. And if they didn't
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have it changed everything. He tells
the story in his book about one of
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his friends in the camp who had
a dream that the war would end in
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March, and his friend was convinced
the dream was a revelation from God and
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it filled him with hope. But
as the date drew nearer, it became
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clear from the news reports they would
catch that the war was not going to
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end on March thirty and as that
became clearer and clearer, on March twenty
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nine he began to run a fever. On March thirty he lost consciousness and
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on March thirty one he died.
For uncle says his loss of hope had
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lowered his body's resistance to all the
diseases in the camp. That's how significant
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are believed in future is. He
was healthy as long as is believed in
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future was positive. He lost all
confidence in life and died when his hope
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was destroyed. And that's what we're
talking about her his hope. Hope is
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what we have when our future looks
positive. We we need to know that
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the end of the story makes sense
of all the bad stuff and the first
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chapters. Andrew del Bunco, who
is a professor New York University may be
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retired by now. Put it this
way, human beings need to organize the
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sensations amidst which we pass our days. Pain, desire, pleasure and fear
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into US story and when that story
leads somewhere, it helps us navigate through
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life, through inevitable death, because
it gives us hope. So we're talking
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about hope. Everyone has strategies to
generate hope. Right, if you talk
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to anybody anywhere in this country or
any country the world, they have ways
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of generating hope. They have to
have a hope for future. So they
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think that say things in the midst
of suffering. They say I believe something
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good will come of this, or
I know there's a purpose in my suffering,
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or it's always darkest before the Dawn. The only problem is that may
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not be true. That's just wishful
thinking. I had an older friend who
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used to say in the midst of
difficulties in life, people would come to
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and say cheer up, things can
be worse, and he said I cheered
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up and they got worse. So
hope has to be grounded, doesn't it?
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It's not just wishful thinking and God
gives us certain truth about our future.
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That gives us reason for a certain
hope, not what may happen in
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the future, but what will happen
now. Just want to start with thinking
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about hope as we enter two thousand
and twenty two. are believed in future,
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as defined by God, will affect
how we live day by day.
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Now let's turn from the subject of
hope and talk about a catechism question you're
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probably familiar with at the Heidelberg Catechism. Question One, what is my only
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comfort in life and in death?
I when I first read that catechism question
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about ten years ago, I was
I was just struck by the wisdom of
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the wise pastors who put that down
because they knew that the primary question the
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members of their Church would ask in
the midst of the set sorrow and pain
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and sin of their daily loves,
was what what's big enough to give me
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comfort in this life and as I
face death? They looked at their lives
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and they said every day or every
month there's some kind of two hundred pound
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guerrilla pain and suffering in my life, and what is big enough to take
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it on? And answering what's the
five hundred pound hope. That answers the
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two hundred pound trouble or sorrow or
sin. So I'd like to think that
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you could Redo the catechism question to
what is my only hope in life and
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in death? What is what is
the believed in future that's big enough of
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for whatever I face in life and
whatever I will face in a certain death?
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Well, I think Paul answers that
in this passage. I think.
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I think Paul is taking up the
subject of hope because he talks about it
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just a few verses before and he's
he's giving an answer. Let me let
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me reread the passage and what I
want you to notice is how much Paul
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is talking about the future. We
know that for those who love God,
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all things work together for good.
For those who are called according to his
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purpose, that's future. They will
work together for good. For those are
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me, for near, that's past. He also predestined to be conformed with
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the image of his son. That's
future, in order that we might be
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the firstborn among many brothers. And
those are me predestined. He called in
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those of me called, he justified, in those whom he justified he glorified.
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That is future. He is writing
to people who are asking what is
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my only comfort in life and in
death, are groaning with suffering, there
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aware of their sin, and he
tells them about the certainty of their future
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in Christ, the grounds at an
eternity past. He talks about present realities,
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but it's very much about a certain
future before them. So we've introduced
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hope. We've talked about the value
of future certainty as we face all kinds
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of difficulties in life. So let
me now turn to two ways this speaks
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to us. They're too, too
two hundred pound guerillas in our life,
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if I can put it that way. Picking up on that analogy, one
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is sin and the other suffering.
One is sin and the other suffering,
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or sin and sins. So let's
talk about how the hope that Christ gives
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is greater than sin and sins.
BELTTLE autobiographical here. When I was first
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converted in one thousand nine hundred and
seventy one, God gave me a profound
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sense of freedom from sin. The
sins that he had used to show me
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my sinfulness fell away in a day
and I became very aware of my forgiveness
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before God and very aware that I
was a new creation that was my verse.
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If anyone is in Christ, he
is a new creation. And four
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months that went on this this total
freedom from sins of the past. And
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then it was as though the Lord
said, okay, batter reality, and
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I began to experience that passage in
Romans seven where Paul says, for I
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do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want
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is what I keep on doing.
I found in me an inner law.
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I delighted in the Law of God, but I found something warring against my
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delight in God's law and defeating me
many times. And it turns out that
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this what I thought was a permanent
freedom from sin's power, such that I
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would never sin again, turned out
to be a temporary law on the battle.
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And now I was engaged in the
day and day out, of being
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in a war, the flesh warring
against the spirit, the spirit against the
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flesh and the words of Galatians five
and and from that day to this,
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almost daily, fifty years now,
it is it is my regular experience to
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face the fact that sin still dwells
in me, as Roman seven says,
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and the battle must be engaged and
the desires of the flesh are deeply rooted
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in my heart and no matter how
hard I pulled, they don't get rooted
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out. We lived in Portland,
Oregon when we were first married in reading
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bought a house and Little Arya called
Laurel Hurst and I was in seminary and
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then serving in my first call in
a church right in that area of Portland
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and we were working in our backyard
trying to first time homeowners, trying to
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fix up the yard, plant things, and I discovered weeds in my backyard,
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surprise, surprise, and I decide
to go out and pull those weeds.
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So I went out and spend a
couple hours pulling all the weeds,
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but I was all done. Next
Day came out, same weeds. They
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come back and and I went to
a friend. I said what, what
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is this thing? He said all
those are morning glories. He said that
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plant in your backyard probably has its
roots in my yard two miles away.
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I mean he said these things they
just spread everywhere and he says there's no
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way you're going to get them all
up. What's what? That's what it
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feels like with sin, doesn't or
let's switch from rain soaked organ to the
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dry desert of Arizona. Have One
of my first great surprises in coming to
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Tucson was in the middle of the
hot month of June, hundred ten degrees
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outside, you go out in your
backyard and a weed has sprung up.
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There hasn't been a drop of rain
in two and a half months and there's
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a weed. It's about that hot
and you think I'll reach down pull it
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out and you grab hold of that
thing and ten minutes later your breaking out
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in a sweat, your hands are
bleeding in the wheed is still there.
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That that's what sin is like,
isn't it? That's what sin is like
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and we face that day in and
day out. The sinful disadvires of my
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heart seem as though they never give
up. So why should I keep pressing
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on? That's battlings. And what
about sins? Well, let's talk about
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in that battle with sin. Sometimes
God's people, yes, God's people,
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commit sins that, in the words
of the Puritan, wound the conscience they
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are. They are such transgressions that
it's almost as though they gain a grip
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in the person's heart and they become
accusing sins and they spend their whole life
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tempted to regret and wish they had
never done it and wonder how they could
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go on as a Christian and have
any respect of God's people having done the
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things that they had done. It
really does happen, David King, David,
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would be an example. And we
lose heart. We lose heart people,
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God's people, do sin that way
and God's people, in the face
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of such great and public sins,
lose heart. So we have sin,
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we have this constant battle and we
had sins and that persistence of presence of
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sin can take the wind out of
our sails and we can become listless and
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discouraged. And the actual sins we
commit, they overwhelm us with fears and
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doubts and accusation. So where do
we go with that is? Is there
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an end of the battle? Well, Paul wants us to know that they
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is a certain future. That gives
us hope and that hope gives us reason
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to endure. Look at look again
at verses twenty eight to thirty. We
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know that for those who love God, all things work together for good,
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for those who are called according to
his purpose, for those who me for
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nearly predestined to be conformed the image
of his son, chosen an eternity past,
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Paul says, you, you,
you are called according to God's purpose.
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He knew by name before the world's
were made. What that means is
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very simply this. When God,
the father, gave God the Son to
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bear your sin, he already knew
everything about you and no matter what you
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do or think, it's already factored
into the equation. The father never says,
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well, I didn't know you're going
to do that. This goes back
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into the mind and heart of God, an eternity past. And then he
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calls us, he predestines us,
he calls us out of death into life.
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He justifies this, which means we're
fully accepted before God, just as
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we are. And then he looks
ahead and says you will be glorified.
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And to be glorified, as it
is a hard term to describe, it
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means we will share in the fellowship
of Father, son and Holy Spirit,
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in a new creation forever as sons
and daughters of God. That's the certain
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future than that is ours. The
father gave his son for us, Jesus
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gave his body and blood for us. He intercedes for us, Paul says,
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and the future is certain. He
has fully paid for all my sins
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and set me free from the tyranny
of the devil, which is the answer
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to the first question of the Heidelberg
Catechism. He who began a good work
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and you will complete it in the
day of craigs. He is able ultimately
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to keep you from stumbling. He
is able ultimately to present you me,
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with all the battles of sin we
have, with all the sins we have
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committed. He is able to present
US faultless before his presence, with exceeding
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joys. So God gives us that
vision of a certain future in the face
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of our sin, in the face
of our sins, because the question we
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ask in the battle is why should
I keep fighting? And the answer is
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the outcome is certain. The outcome
is certain. God gives us promises to
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motivate us. Now just a word
about how God motivates. God has two
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ways of motivating his people. One
his warnings and the others promise us.
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And for many years, being a
good reform Christian, I thought the accent
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was on warnings. It isn't.
The accent of scripture is on these fantastic,
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unbelievable promises of God about the certain
future he holds for us, because
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because God, God knows that.
Yeah, we can be motivated by fear,
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but it's much better to be votivated
by hope, isn't it? If,
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if my hope is if my future
is certain, then that gives me
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reason to joyously keep pursuing, rather
than if God is threatening me, I'm
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afraid of being punished and so I
better keep pursuing. Those are worlds apart
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in terms of how I live.
God gives me promises, so I have
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reason never to give up and confidence
of what God might do. So today,
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for you, for me, no
matter what your present battles, no
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matter what your past record is,
your sin or your sins, you have
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in the father, son and Holy
Spirit, the father giving the son,
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the son giving himself, the spirit
of God given to show you Jesus.
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You have, in God, in
Christ, every reason to never give up
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hope in the face of our sin
and our sins. And I think there's
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something else we face that might show
us the need for a believed in future
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that God has promised, and that
is suffering, sins and suffering I have.
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I have an awe of suffering in
a pastor forty years and sixty six
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years, old. I have it. I have an amazement at what seems
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to be the infinite variety of ways
God ordained suffering in our lives. Suffering,
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I almost say suffering, is holy. It's to be walked around with
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a whisper and to tread the ground
softly around it. They're all kinds of
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suffering. Prolonged suffering, severe pain, loneliness, betrayal by a friend,
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the loss of a child in a
tragic death, financial loss, injustice,
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violence, war, wrongs done to
us, wrongs that we have done.
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That brings suffering to us. Paul
calls it groaning. We grown in this
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life, we do, we do. And yet Paul has a promised future
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for us that answers the most severe
forms of suffering, the most prolonged forms
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of suffering, and it's in verse
Twenty Eight. And we know that for
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those who love God, all things
work together for good for those who were
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called according to his purpose. Now
that's about the future, isn't it?
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You're in the midst of the old
things and Paul wants you to know that
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God is going to work all things
for good. It's a bold assertion.
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He people said, well, how
can God bring good out of this,
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whatever that suffering may be. I've
stood with people next to the grave of
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the child they've buried. Parents are
not supposed to bury their children, and
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they've asked how can God bring good
for this? What's a bold assertion.
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It's a very simple statement, but
we know he can because of the life,
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death and resurrection of Jesus. God
is able to work all things together
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for our good because he worked all
things together for our good and the death
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of his sirm Jesus was made like
us in every way, tempted in every
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point as we are, yet without
sin. He was a man of sorrows,
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well acquainted with grief, and at
the end of his days he was
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betrayed, rejected, abandoned, hated, slandered. People in power use their
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power to oppress him and to destroy
him. He experienced a mock trial of
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injustice, he was tortured with the
delight of those to the delight of those
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who tortured him, and then he
experienced the most shameful and excruciating death ever
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designed by man, crucifixion. Chrisifixion
was designed to obliterate every good memory of
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that person's life. Real felt suffering
beyond anything I've ever known. He entered
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into our world with us. And
what was the outcome? Here was the
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outcome. God is able to take
all things and work them for good.
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Well, exactly, because that's what
he does, because he takes all the
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injustice, all the torture, all
the betrayal, all the abandonment, all
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the mockery, all the shame of
Crucifixion, his trial, his murder,
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and out of it he brought the
salvation of an uncountable multitude of all nation.
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That's sounds like all things work together
for good, even the most evil
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things. Perfect it almost seems to
be too weak a word to describe what
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God has done in the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus. Maybe when
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you were a child or heard about
alchemy. Alchemy was a quest among medievals
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that lasted for centuries. It found
out so many cultures of the world and
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it was it was the goal of
these medieval alchemists to find a way to
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turn base medals into gold that will, for obvious reasons right, I never
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did figure it out, but God
did God turn the lad the Base metals
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of human perversion and wickedness and its
most vile expression into the redemption of a
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countless multitude. See, in the
ancient world there were a couple different ways
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suffering was viewed. The stoics at
except suffering, sort of lean into it.
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The epicurean said avoid suffering much as
you can. There were massochist who
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said make suffering happen. But it's
interesting is in Christianity and in Jesus you
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have someone who didn't accept suffering and
didn't avoid suffering it. didn't merely embrace
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suffering. In his death and resurrection
he swallowed up suffering and transformed it into
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glory, which is why Paul and
said Granthan's for says this momentary light affliction
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is working for us an exceeding weight
of glory. It's being turned from lead
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into gold. And the Heidelberg had
chism asks this question, and it's twenty
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six question. What does it mean
for God to be my father? And
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one of the answers is he is
able to turn to my good whatever evil
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he sends me in this sad world. The last word is not suffering,
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the last word is not send the
last word is the triumphant saving grace of
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God for his people through the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, Intercession
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of Christ. That's the last word, and you will, I will,
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will one day be presented to him
faultless and with great joy, and every
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pain, every sorrow we have had
in this life will be transformed into a
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weight of glory and we will not
remember anything else. It's hard to believe
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that, though, isn't it?
The suffering in the sin seems so,
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so much more real than these are
just words on a page, and I
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got to apply this personal I'll end
here. I teach. I go to
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the country of Serbia three or four
times a year to teach at a school
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for Future Church leaders. Small Church, one tenth of one percent of the
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population. God raising up a new
generation of leaders. God bringing students to
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this school from who knows where.
Not An impressive number of students, but
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God as at work that since I've
been going back, they had this thing
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about testing. To get back in
the state I have taken te negative.
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Have to have a negative covid test
within now, within one day of travel.
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When you get there, you get
a test. You you're able to
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go. Tested negative, get in
the plane, twenty four hours arriving Belgrade,
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teach for the week, but the
fourth day of teaching I'm thinking what
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if I test pausive. So,
just so you know, you need to
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get this scene here. Serbi is
on nobody's bucket list, okay, and
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there's a reason for that. It's
not the kind of place you want to
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spend ten days in quarranty. I
didn't even know if the hotel would let
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me stay if they throw me out
on the street. So I'm thinking about
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this a lot, matter of fact, pretty much every waking moment. In
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the back of my mind I'm saying
whatever I to stay. And then this
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passage came to mind. God is
able to work all things together for good.
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So I began to say so,
Lord, if whatever you have from
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me, you have something good in
it for me, and if I'm supposed
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to be here another ten days,
then there's something of you and of goodness
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that you have for me in that
that I'll experience in a way. I
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never wonder if I just tested negative
and came home and that hope that God
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will take all things and work them
together for good was sufficient to answer my
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fear. And then I tested negative
and came home. Sort applies in the
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daily life, whatever it is you're
facing, whatever the sin is, whatever
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the suffering is take take this five
hundred pound guerrilla promise and use it to
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answer that lightweight guerrilla of sin and
suffering in your life. It's bigger,
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it's stronger, it's truer. In
the face of sin, God gives me
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a promise of a certain future of
freedom from all sin and the face of
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suffering, God gives me the promise
of a certain future of my suffering being
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transformed into glory. Amen, let
me pray for us.
