Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you would please remain standing,
if you're able, and let's hear God's
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word now. From Romans Chapter Eight. Paul has been writing throughout this chapter
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telling us about how secure we are. He begins in Chapter Eight. He
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says, therefore, there is now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ
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Jesus, because the spirit of God
has done what the Law of God could
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not do. Then after that he
moves into various implications of this and talks
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about our life in the spirit and
these various consolations that God gives to us,
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even as he calls us to pick
up our cross and follow him.
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And now he comes to this glorious
conclusion in verse Thirty One, to the
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end of this chapter, before moving
on to somewhat new train of thought.
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So let's hear God's word now in
Romans Eight, verses thirty one through thirty
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nine. What, then, shall
we say to these things? If God
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is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare
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his own son but gave him us, gave him up for us all.
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How will he not also, how
will he not also, with him graciously
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give us all things? Who shall
bring any charge against God's elect it is
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God, who justifies. Who is
to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one
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who died, more than that,
who was raised, who is at the
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right hand of God, who indeed
is interceding for us? WHO shall separate
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us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine
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or nakedness or danger or sword,
as it is written? For Your Sake,
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we are being killed all the day
long. We are regarded as sheep
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to be slaughtered. No, in
all these things, we are more than
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conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death,
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nor life, nor angels, nor
rulers, nor things present, nor things
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to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else
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in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God,
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in Christ Jesus. Our Lord,
you may be seated. Kids,
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sometimes you get yourselves into difficult situations, don't you? Tricky situations, situations
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which you're not sure you know how
to get out of. And it's not
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just you. Adults get themselves into
difficult situations too. We remember, when
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we were children, finding ourselves with
a bully, someone being mean to us,
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someone treating US poorly. We like
you have also had unfair teachers and
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coaches and leaders and people who were
not fair to us, didn't treat us
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well, no matter how hard we
work, no matter how much we did
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the right thing, it just we
found ourselves in these difficult situations. We've
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all been in situations where we've been
lost or stuck or in danger. I'm
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finding you know, we walk out
into the desert and we find thorns in
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our legs, where we find ourselves
lost and in these times, we know
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you remember adults when you were young
and kids, you know, even now,
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this is when you say, Mom, Dad, come and help me
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find me. And even when we
know that they're there and they've come and
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they've grabbed US and they've picked us
up and they're holding us, what do
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we want them to say? We
want to them to say it's going to
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be okay, I love you,
I'm going to take care of you,
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I I'm rescuing you. That's what
good parents do. Of course they're.
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Love is more powerful than the dangers
we get ourselves into or the dangers that
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the come upon us. This is
what's so great about a loving parent,
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as they can come in and rescue
us out of these bad situations. We
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don't know how to do any different. We don't know what we might do
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to get out of something, but
mom and dad know, they know how
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to take care of it. Well. That's what God does for us.
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Is His children. As his children, we all face very difficult things in
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this life and this is a passage
where God has grabbed us up into his
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arms and he says nothing can separate
you from my love. Nothing. I
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have you in my arms. I
am very powerful, I can I control
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all things. As we read earlier
in Romans Chapter Eight, our good God
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works all things together for good.
You know, when we think about our
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parents, we all know that they
are somewhat limited in what they can do.
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They can only run so fast and
jump so high. They get tired
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and frustrated, but not with God. The greatest acts of love that we
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see in other people are infinitely supass
surpassed by our God, who takes care
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of us and loves us through all
things, through thick and thin, and
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that's what he's telling us here.
We do face difficulties in this life and
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he names a many of them.
Think about some of them that he names
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here, some of the things that
we as Christians must face. There are,
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he says, beginning in first thirty
five, shall tribulation or distress,
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persecution or famine or nakedness or danger
or sword. That list continues on.
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When he talks about a whole host
of things, I'm both good and bad,
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death and life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come.
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The list goes on and on.
He says absolutely nothing. If you
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look at life from any perspective,
if you point to anything, that thing
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cannot separate you from my love.
If you imagine the image of a shepherd
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who's watching over his sheep, that
shepherd says to his sheep nothing can hurt
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you. There's no wolf, there's
no bear, there's no lion that can
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hurt you. There's no nothing in
me that is bad, that can bring
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about neglect or or trouble. Our
Good Shepherd never gets the vaccinations wrong.
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Our Good Shepherd never leads us to
waters that are dry. He never takes
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us into a dangerous places, he
never lets us out and forgets or falls
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asleep. He's always, always there
watching because of love. That's how it's
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put here. There's this great power
that's expressed right in the way that he
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overcome hums, all these things,
tribulations or danger, you name it,
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he is powerful to overcome it.
But the word power doesn't really come up
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here, does it. It's the
word love, like at the end when
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he says nothing are nor anything else
in all creation will be able to separate
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us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus. In verse thirty six,
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there's a little quote says, as
it is written, for your sake,
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we are being killed all the day
long. We are regarded as sheep to
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be slaughtered. And when you read
this, or maybe when you heard this,
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perhaps this stood out and you said
what, what is this? What
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is what's being said here? What
Paul's doing is he's quoting someone else,
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or rather a group of people that
have been in the same situation I'm describing.
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What I'm saying to you, what
Paul says to you, is that
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we all find ourselves in these situations
of peril and distress and we go where
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is our God? Has He left
us? Has He neglected us? Is
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there in fact something that can separate
us? He quotes some people that for
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feeling that, just like you,
it comes from Psalm forty four, which
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I'm going to preach on this evening, so you can come back for that.
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But to touch on it just briefly
here. It's from Psalm four,
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be four, verse twenty two.
I'm here in the ESV. It's translated.
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Yet for your Sake, we are
killed all the day long. We
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are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. What is the context of this thing
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that's being said? WHO's saying it? It's a little difficult to know who's
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saying it. We're not exactly sure
on the Bible doesn't say. But here
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we have the Holy Spirit putting into
giving Israel these words at some particular point
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in her history, and they're very
surprising words for two things. First of
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all, this cry of desperation,
says we are being killed all the day
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long, we are regarded as sheep
to be slaughtered, begins with a very
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confidence sound at the beginning of the
Psalm. Let me read you the first
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few verses. These same people that
are saying this about their troubles say at
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the beginning this, Oh God,
we have heard with our ears, our
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fathers have told us what deeds you
have performed in their days, in the
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days of old, with your own
hand, drove out the nation's but them
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you planted, you afflicted the people's
but them you've set free. For Not
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by their own sword did they win
the land, nor bought nor did their
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own arms save them, but your
right hand and your arm in the light
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of your face, for you delighted
in them. You are my king,
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Oh God, ordained salvation for Jacob. This is a happy song, right.
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It starts out with this very confident
feeling. We know what you've done
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in the past, how you've rescued
your people, how you've brought salvation.
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They say, we didn't, we
didn't earn all of these things, we
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didn't earn these blessings, we didn't
defeat these people on our own. You
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did that, Oh God. But
then when it comes to they there's some
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more of that kind of confidence.
And in verse nine there's this Butt and
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says, but you have rejected US
and disgraced us and have not gone out
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with our armies. They're saying,
we've seen your salvation in the past.
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We know the goodness that the goodness
you've done in the past. But what
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about now? Have you ever had
this feeling too? You say, I
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know that God has given his own
son, I know that he's taken care
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of me in the past, but
what about now? I'm hurting, now,
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I'm struggling. Now I feel like
a sheep to be slaughtered now,
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not a sheep that's being protected,
a sheep that's being watched over. That's
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how these people felt. You have
rejected us, you have disgraced us,
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you have not gone out with our
armies. You have made us turn back
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from the foe, and those who
hate us have gotten spoil. You have
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made us like sheep for the slaughter. You have scattered the nation's and it
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in a lot of other places we
would say, well, of course we
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know why, Israel, because you've
sinned. This is what happens. But
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listen, in a very unique way, what this psalm says. The spirit
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puts these words in his people's mouths, they say in verse seventeen. All
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this has come upon us, though
we have not forgotten you and we have
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not been false to your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back, nor
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have our steps departed from your way. Yet you have broken us in the
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place of jackals and covered us with
a shadow of death. If we had
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forgotten the name of our God or
spread out our hands to a foreign God.
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Would not God discover this, for
he knows the secrets of your heart,
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of the heart. Yet, for
your Sake, we are being killed
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all the day long. We are
regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And
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then they call on God to a
awake. Why are you sleeping, a
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Lord, rouse yourself. Do not
reject US forever. You see what they're
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saying. They're kind of saying what
job says. Why? You say you
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are my God, you say you
love me, you say that you are
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great, and yet I am suffering
and I haven't done anything wrong, I
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haven't committed idolatry, I haven't rejected
you, I haven't been false to the
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covenant. Even my heart has been
with you. Notice how they appeal with
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this great confidence, even to their
own hearts. They say, if we
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had neglected you, are forgotten you
in our hearts. You, of course,
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would know this. You are the
one who searches these things out.
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This is a cry of desperation and
it's a cry that each of us have
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felt. Sometimes we get into our
own bad situations, don't we? We
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sin, we mess up, we
make bad decisions and then boom, there
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we are in the middle of our
mess and we go to God and we
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say, Ah, this is very
embarrassing and I'm ashamed, but here is
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where I am. But there are
other times when we go before God and
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we say, of course I know
I'm sinful and of course I know that
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I don't deserve anything from you,
but nevertheless I've done the right thing here.
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Think about Christian martyrs who have confessed
the name of the Lord, who
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have endured great suffering and pain and
yet still find themselves in jail or being
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burnt at the stake or hung on
across to cry out, my God,
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my God, why have you forsaken
me? I feel alone, I feel
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separated from you. This is the
cry of these people, these Israelites,
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in some forty four and Paul reminds
us of this, to remind us that
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God knows he does here, even
as we, under the new covenants,
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also feel these ways. It's not
like tribulation or distress or persecution or famine
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or nakedness or danger our sword are
sort of easy to shrug off, as
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if they don't hurt. I barely
miss a meal and I'm finding myself a
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crumpy and needing some kind of snack. But famine, I don't know about
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famine, to go long periods of
time hungry, waiting, waiting, not
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being able to find or know when
your next meal is to going to come,
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or nakedness, to not be able
to clothe yourselves, to be ashamed,
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to be persecuted by the sword or
otherwise, to feel the way of
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the government or your neighbors coming down
hard upon you. Because you believe in
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Jesus, because you have been born
of the spirit, because you belong to
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the Kingdom of God and our citizens
of his kingdom. These are not things
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that we just say, no big
deal. They hurt and, like the
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feet the people in Psalm forty four, we feel like we are being killed
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all the day long, because sometimes
Christians are killed all the day long.
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They feel like they are being regarded
as sheep to be slaughtered. But the
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beginning of these words, the beginning
of their confession, for your Sake,
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is what really grounds there their cry
in faith. They cry out to the
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Lord. They feel separated from him, they feel on distant from him,
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they feel like they are not under
his protection, not under his love,
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but at the bottom of their souls
they know, even though I can't explain
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this, God knows what is right
for your sake. It's not because the
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armies that are overthrowing them want to
overthrow them. No, it's not because
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of their great weakness or anything else. It's only because God is doing what
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he wants to do. This,
by the way, it is always the
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the response of a Christian who finds
him or herself in a situation they do
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not understand, faced with some kind
of truth that you can't just fit put
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together, and yet you know it's
true, what do you say? You
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say you are God and I am
not. And this is what they do.
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Well, Psalm forty four expresses this
perilous situation from the perspective of us,
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the people. Romans eight expresses this
perilous situation from the perspective of God.
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These are the words of God,
swooping them up and saying, I
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know things are bad, but nothing
can separate you from my love. He
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gives a three questions. It starts
with this kind of umbrella category. If
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God is for us, who can
be against us? Think about just that.
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When you think about the things that
are powerful in this world, what
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comes to mind? Money is powerful
right that can accomplish things. You hear
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people or you read of people sometimes
saying things like don't worry about it,
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we have plenty of money right it
can do things, it can make problems
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go away, it can take care
of difficult situations. Money is very powerful.
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There are lots of other things that
are powerful. Governments are powerful.
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On leadership is powerful. Food is
powerful. You can list on and on
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and on many things that are lifted
here on things both in this world and
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and spiritual things as well. When
the people in the Bible see angels,
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they they don't pass by them and
take no notice. They bow down before
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them, they shaken their boots before
them. They are fearful, for for
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them not just the angels but the
demonic powers as well. The Bible says
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that Satan prowls around like a roaring
lion waiting to devour someone. That is
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a picture of power, is it
not? There are very powerful things in
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this world, but what this passage
tells us is that each and every single
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one of those things doesn't even begin
to compare to the power of God's love.
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If God is for us, who
can be against us? If you're
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not sure about this, you can
think about your own lives, the ways
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in which God has exercised his powers
at vary as power at various points to
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bring things together, to make good
things out of bad things. Or you
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can look at the lives of other
people to think about the power of God
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over the power of evil. You
think about Paul sitting in prison, or
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you think about Paul of being regenerated. You think about Joseph sitting in prison
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or in a pit, or the
Prophets of God being killed or shamed or
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exiled. The list goes on and
on. The Bible is full of these
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kinds of examples, people that are
doing the right thing, that are working
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and striving for God, and yet
find themselves in pits, in jails,
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on crosses, being beheaded and more. And yet these people did this willingly
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because of what thirty one says.
If God is for us, who can
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be against us? Remember Paul sitting
in jail, he says, riding from
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jail and he says, well,
here I am. And yet isn't it
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great that the Gospel is going out
to all the Roman guard amazing? Or
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Joseph out of jail, sitting in
this great position of power, rescuing God's
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people from a famine and bringing them
into Egypt. The list goes on and
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on, God bringing about good things
from evil. If God can be for
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us, who can be against us? If the one who created all of
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these things, if the one who
rules sovereignly over all of these things,
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is for you, is on your
side, what possible power could come between
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you and him? Well, these
are all very valid things to think about
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and be reminded of, but Paul
points us to one in particular, in
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verse thirty two, and you must, you must rest your mind on this.
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He who did not spare his own
son, but gave him up for
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us all, how will he not
also, with him, graciously give us
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all things? Drop it down for
a second and think about just human relationships,
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and you're asking yourself, is my
boss going to give me a raise
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this year? You think, well, he liked my midyear report, he
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was pleased about the performance I did
on such and such a project. I
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remember this thing he said at the
dinner party a while back. You're you're
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pointing on these moments, these acts
and which your boss or whoever has been
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affirming in some way, and you
say, yeah, I think it's going
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to happen. I think I'm going
to get this race, or think about
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a friendship. You say, boy, this is going to be a really
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difficult thing, some kind of trying
situation between you and a friend. But
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you remember back and you say,
you know what, she was there before.
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She was there for me before.
Think about all the fact when I
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think about all the things she's done
in the past, I think she'll be
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there for me again. We think
on these actions. Right, if somebody's
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just words, as we say,
they are all words and no action,
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that word is pretty meaningless. Now
raise it up again. What about God?
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What about the past actions of God? Does God prove himself to be
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true or prove himself to be false? What kinds of things might we think
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about? What kind of thing might
we point to when we ask, will
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God be Foreigny in this situation?
What about now? Well, he did
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not spare his own son. He
gave his son to you. Jesus humbled
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himself, having the glory of God, became a man who is hungry and
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tired and facing all these things in
this list. God faced these things as
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a man and you know what happened
to him? He got put on a
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cross, he got beaten, he
got whipped, he got spit upon,
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he got shamed, he got dead. When God became a man, when
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God put himself into the same situations
that we face, you know what happened.
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He died. He understands what it
means to be in peril and in
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danger and under persecution. He understands
what it means to have the powers of
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the enemy railing and arming themselves against
him. Satan himself took Jesus out into
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the Wilderness and tempted him and pushed
him to the brink. So far was
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his need that angels came and ministered
to him after his temptations. This is
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what God did. It's not just
a sympathy either. It's something he actually
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accomplished. Jesus Christ went to the
Cross. The father gave his son up
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unto death. Which of your friends
has given you their child that you might
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have something good? No one.
I'm not going to do it. Can
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you imagine? And yet this is
what God has done. He gave up
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his son, he gave up himself
because he loved us. If God has
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given us himself, if God has
given us himself, what will he possibly
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with old is he going to give
you his son and then forget to take
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care of you and your needs?
Now, of course not. God's words
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are proved by actions, and this
is true in the court room. Who
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shall bring any charge against God's elect? Well, no one even has the
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right, because it's God who justifies
and who has the power to condemn?
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Well, no one, because God
is the one who has the power over
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that. And besides that, Jesus
Christ is the one who died. Sin
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has been condemned in the flesh,
in the sun. But it's not just
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death that happened. Paul says more
than that. who was raised and who
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now is at the right hand of
God interceding for us. You See,
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Satan comes before God, I'm just
like he did with job. Comes before
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God and he accuses us. He
says, I know the darkness of this
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person, I know the sins of
their heart. I know that they've done
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bad things, things that are deserving
of death. And you know what Jesus
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is saying? He says this one
is mine and you have no right to
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even be here. God, in
his courtroom, stands strong, he doesn't
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bad an eye. He never sort
of thinks. Well, you know,
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the devil's kind of got a point. This person is evil, this person
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does have wickedness in their heart.
No, he says, I have justified
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them through my son. There is
no condemnation now for those who are in
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Christ Jesus. Begone, and we
should have the same kind of confidence.
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When the devil whispers in us,
a whispers in our own ears. You
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don't belong, you don't deserve when
he tries to separate us from the love
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of God in Christ, shut the
door against him. I'm not going to
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listen, for there is no condemnation
now for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Nothing can separate me from the love
of God. He has given me
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his own son. How can he
not graciously give me all things? Get
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Out, get out. I don't
want to listen to you, I don't
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want to hear you, I don't
want to be around you. My Lord
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is my Lord, my God is
my God, and his love has conquered
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all things. This is Paul's answer
to these questions. Verse Thirty Seven a
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big and Oh, what part of
no? Don't you understand? No,
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in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him who loved us.
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This is a great word. More
than conquerors. It's actually one word in
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Greek. We translated into three because
the word is. It's like, well,
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there's another word for victory or conquering, to be victorious, and this
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is like hyper victorious or even greater
than Victoria, super victorious. There's this
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preposition added on to it. It's
only with place. We find it here
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in the Bible. So it's like
he could have said, in other words,
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there's another word he could have used
that it says in all these things
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we are conquerors or victors through him
who are through him who loved us.
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That's not what he says, though, in this passage where he's saying nothing,
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nothing, nothing, nothing can separate
you from the love of God.
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He does he he doesn't just say
you are victors, he says you are
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super victorious, you are more than
conquerors. You of course know what it's
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like to win a fight but barely
right, to get out of a situation
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but barely get on the other side
by the skin of your teeth. You
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know, we say, that is
not the case here. This is the
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case of complete and utter victory,
entire conquering, glorious battle and a glorious
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win. That's what we are in
Christ. This is what God is saying
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to us. Nothing can separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
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To conclude, I started by talking
about children that find themselves in these
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difficult situations and desperately need their parents
to reassure them and comfort them. In
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my house we have a at least
a couple books that do this kind of
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thing, you know, kind of
bedtime books, or there's a character in
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the book that asks this question,
usually to a mother or a father.
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Yeah, I think we have both, but ask the question of their parents.
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Says, I'm how much do you
love me? And then there's some
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back and forth in the story.
You know, do you love me as
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tall as a tree? I love
you taller than a tree. Do you
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love me as deep as an ocean? I love you deeper than an ocean.
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Do you love me as as big
as the sky? I love you
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bigger than the sky? These books
which describe to the child and give words
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to the parent to to say I
love you a lot more than you can
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know. My Love is big,
big, big. This is that kind
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of story for us, and it's
true. God says I love you beyond
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all things, beyond anything that could
possibly separate you from me. I love
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you and I will take care of
you and nothing can separate you. If
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a parent's love is beyond the trees
and beyond the clouds, God's love is
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about beyond the farthest reaches of the
universe. If God's if of our if
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human love, will go to great
lengths and even give up our own lives.
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Here we have God himself giving up
the life of his son. God's
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love is infinite, unchangeable, unboundless. We cannot even begin to understand or
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imagine how much love it is.
So when you find yourselves in the situations
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that we find ourselves young, the
situations that bear down on us, and
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we wonder where is God, trust
in the words that he says here.
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Remember this bedtime story and know that
it's not just for bedtime, but if
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but it's for all times, that
nothing can separate us from the love of
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God in Christ, Jesus, Our
Lord. And if you don't know Jesus
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as your Lord, then why are
you waiting? Why are you separating yourself
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from so great a love is this? Come to him who gives and gives
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himself freely. Come to him who
loves with a love that's greater than you
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can ever imagine. Come to him
whose love is eternal and inseparable. You
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and God, let us pray.
