No One, No Thing | Jeff Vanderstelt

Hope.

Community Church.

We're.

Gonna.

Let.

Lets

come on.

We sing your name in the dark and changes everything.

We sing, we victory,

looks like church. This is what living.

Looks.

Like. This is what freedom feels like.

This is what heaven sounds like. We praise you.

We praise you. This is what living looks like.

This is what freedom feels like.

This what heaven sounds like. We, you, we,

you. This what living looks like.

This is what freedom feels like.

This is what.

Heaven.

Sounds like.

We praise you. We you. This is what living,

this is what this

We praise you. Come on church. Praise him.

We praise you. Come on. Give us some praise today.

Welcome to Hope Community Church. We are so glad that's you're here today.

We're gonna continue to worship our faithful father today.

He's a firm foundation. He's a God who keeps his promises to us.

And we're gonna believe that together today as we continue to lift him up.

Come on.

Let's declare

I won't be.

So faithful, so

powerful.

We

thank you.

He loves us. He loves us,

loves

us.

This church.

Oh he loves.

Us.

He.

Loves.

Just the voices.

He.

Come.

On. We're wrapped in the arms of the Father today.

Holy

bow

Church. Holy.

Sing

down.

Above all and

the

creation cry.

Holy.

Forgiven. If you've.

Been redeemed.

Sing the forever.

The

forevers.

Holy,

holy,

holy.

The greatest

above

it.

Holy. He's holy.

Say Jesus

to the

holy. Come church. Lift your voice. He's holy.

You'll always

what? He He

Holy forever. Still holy.

Be.

Holy.

Holy.

Who church.

God

be holy.

Holy

forever. Holy, holy.

Father.

You'll always be holy, holy,

holy forever, Lord.

God.

We love you Lord. Thank you. Then no matter what we face,

you are still on the throne. Lord, wherever we go, you are with us Lord.

And we just thank you. Thank you tonight. God we love you Lord.

And everyone said together church. Amen.

Holy love.

Amen. Amen. Amen. I don't know if he caught the word babe before you're seated.

I don't know if he caught the words to that song,

but man that reminds us that when we gather together in these times of worship,

we are actually participating in something that is eternal.

This worship service around the thrones been going on from all eternity past and

will continue for the rest of eternity.

And it's not a spectator sport.

So I want to thank you for participating today in this eternal worship service.

Hey, before you're seated,

why don't you turn to one or two people and just welcome 'em to church today

And you can take your seats. It is so good to see you.

If you are joining us online, welcome. We are so glad that you're joining us.

If you're new online, this is your first time joining us at Get Hope tv.

We would love for you to just put the word new in the chat there because

somebody would like to meet you and personally just reach out to you.

If you are here in the room, and this is your first time with us at Hope Man,

you're a special guest.

We are thrilled that you're here and we would love to meet you after this

service in an area that we call our next steps area out in the atrium.

Stop by after the service and we'd like to learn your name.

Just send you home with a small gift for showing up.

Answer any questions that you have about taking next steps. But hey,

one thing that's important to know about Hope Community Church,

something that's super important to us is community impact,

both here in the triangle and around the world.

But one of the ways that we express that local impact here in the triangle is

through something that we call Love Your Schools.

This is an initiative we kicked off just about a year ago,

last August as we were heading into the new school year.

But it wasn't meant to be a one or a two week thing.

It's meant to go on throughout the school year,

even throughout the summer breaks and so on.

We want this to be something that continues and we have practical ways of loving

our school. In fact, one of those, if you've been around hope for a while,

you've heard us talk about Backpack Buddies this last year alone through

people's faithful giving of food through our incredible volunteers,

we have had over 5,300 backpacks filled with food for food

insecure homes.

That's actually over 64,000 pounds of food. Yes.

We actually weigh it crazy, huh?

But that's so cool because it's making a local impact and there are many

different ways that you can get involved and love your school.

Actually at all of our campuses over the next week or two,

we're gonna be doing things to practically love our school.

You can check out more details on your campus Facebook page or at our

campuses this weekend. At all of our next steps areas, we have, uh,

forms that you can take with you physical forms that can help you know your

kid's teacher more. Or even if you don't have children in school anymore,

you have schools in your community and we want you to practically figure out how

you can love those teachers, love those schools.

There's blank thank you notes out there that we can bless teachers or school

staff with. We want you to be involved. And by the way,

one of the things we want to grow in this year is identifying and loving our

teachers who call Hope Community Church Home.

And so if you're a teacher here or if you're a teacher online,

would you do us a favor and text the word teach to 7 2 9 8 9,

teach to 7 2 9 8 9.

And that way we can get to know you a little bit more. But teachers,

you're heroes. We love you and we wanna support you.

But if you are a teacher in the room, yeah, if you are a teacher,

if you are a principal, if you're a school administrator,

if you work for Wake County Public Schools in the central office,

as if you are in the education world in any way whatsoever,

I wanna ask you to stand your feet because we want to honor you and we

want to pray for you. Come on, stand your feet. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. And those watching online, thank you. Hey, stay standing.

I wanna pray for all of you. Let's pray. God,

we just thank you for these amazing people. God,

this is an incredible calling life calling that

you've placed on these educators. And God,

it is not an easy calling,

but we know that through your grace and mercy you can make this calling

incredibly rewarding.

And so we pray as we go into another school year that these teachers,

administrators, principals, even people who work at central offices,

but they're doing it because they want to pour in to the lives of the

next generation. God, we pray that you would bless this school. You,

you would protect our schools and God that they would see life change

through the different subjects they teach,

through their interaction with students and families. And we pray God,

that you would empower them to do it for the glory of God.

And we pray all these things in Jesus' name and everyone said,

amen. You may be seated. Well,

we're excited to finish off this current series of Romans eight verse by verse.

And we've got our good friend Jeff Vanderstelt who's going to come and give us a

great message today. But before we do that,

we've got a great story of community impact for you.

We had a call in February of last year with a lady that was wandering around the

street. She was homeless, she had just been discharged from the hospital.

She really had nowhere to go. She was just wandering around the street.

She was carrying all of her belongings in, um, like plastic shopping bags.

They out of their own pocket, they went and bought her food,

change of clothes 'cause she was just a mess.

Dirty clothes hadn't bathed or anything like that.

And so they pulled all the resources together to kind of do what they could for

her. At about the same time, pastor Doug had reached out to me and said, Hey,

hope, hope wants to be involved in Apex. Is there anything we can do in Apex?

And I said, matter of fact,

I think so I told 'em about the situation we had and the idea I had was to have,

uh, these bags filled with supplies, uh, that could get somebody through, uh,

at least a day, probably a weekend. And he said, absolutely.

I think that's something we could help out with. And so we, we brainstorm and,

and we felt like the best thing was to present it to my,

the team that I serve on in Kids City. And they were all very responsive.

So they began to collect,

I gave 'em a list of what we needed and told 'em basically I needed a bag and

toiletries, hygiene products, stuff like that.

One of them even got their small group involved.

And so their small group donated a bunch of items.

Also included in the bag is a list of resources and ministries.

They can call those resources to get longer term help down the road if they need

to.

And I call them hope for the moment bags because I believe that in that moment

we're providing hope and dignity for people, um, that don't have it.

We ran through 'em way faster than I expected.

It's been less than a a year really that we've had 'em available and we've

already gone through close to 20 of them.

It's cool to see the way that God took a simple need in the moment

and spoke to Brian's heart and then Brian couldn't meet that need,

but he knew people that could meet that need. Gosh,

we could see this going from community to community and police department to

police department.

Pretty much every single person that, uh,

one of these bags has been given to their responses.

Nobody's ever done anything like this for me before. As far as I know,

no one that we've given one of these bags to have we had a repeat call for

service? Have we had to arrest or anything else?

I think it's all just about making yourself available. Um,

and and yielding to what God wants to do through you in your position and not

seeing yourself as insignificant. Um, but if you just yield to the Lord,

he'll do great things through you and through the church.

I even believe that God gave me the name for the bags. You know,

and just that impact and the fact that a government agency,

the police department is using something like hope for the moment and they don't

even realize it. That's how impactful it is for me.

That we are literally a police agency,

is giving people hope and not just arresting them.

We're solving a problem and we're leaving people better than we found them.

Such a good story. It's so good to be with you guys again.

I don't know if you were with me when I was here last,

but I'm so glad to be back with you. It's such a joy to partner with you.

I'm from Seattle, if you don't know that. So it's a big distance,

but it's worth it. I'm so glad to be with you guys and I'm really feel honored,

honestly and privileged that I get to bring this series to a close.

Like that's a big deal. I felt like, wow,

you really want me to be the one who does that. And yet I,

I'm so excited to because the end of this chapter, Romans eight,

Paul ends it with this kind of like clarion call for you to know

all that you have all that the gospel and titles you to

believe and live into He,

he wants you to be so confident in it that regardless of what anybody

says about you does to you or even you yourself do,

he wants you to know that none of that's gonna cancel out what God has already

done for you in Christ. And that's where we're gonna end here. In fact,

there's this deep well of blessing that he's gonna in just a few

verses say a whole lot about. But before we do that,

I wanna tell you a little story about a guy named Peter Deca. Uh,

he was actually a Russian immigrant who, uh,

fled Russia in 1911 to go to America to

escape the communist revolution.

And he became a Christian shortly after arriving in Chicago.

He ended up going to Moody Bible Institute and he was trained,

he became a pretty effective minister of the gospel,

saw incredible fruit in America and Russia, as many people came to faith.

But he tells the story of his journey and how his parents saved up all this

money and they were not wealthy, they're pretty poor.

Saved all this money to get him a a,

a boat ticket basically to get across the ocean.

And all he has is a little backpack with a little bit of clothes.

They had no money, uh, to send him with.

He had only like a loaf of bread that was pretty stale that his mom stuffed in

the, the backpack just to make sure he had something to,

to consume while he was on the boat.

And he tells a story of like looking in at the dining room and wishing he could

have the meals that the people were having. And over time the sailors said,

you know, like we can help you a little bit.

Like why don't you do some work with us and we'll share some of what we've got

to eat with you.

And it wasn't nearly as good as what he would've got in the dining hall,

but that he still got some food. And the crazy thing is,

is that it wasn't until the last day on his journey that someone actually

pointed out that his ticket included three meals a day.

So he went this whole journey having no idea what he was entitled to.

And he said, if I could have read the ticket, he wasn't able,

if I could have just read the ticket, I would've known what I had.

And I think that's what Paul wants us to end this series with, is like,

do you understand that the gospel's not just about a ticket to heaven,

it's about all the other things that are true for you now in

this moment as we journey toward it.

And so I just wanna pray and ask that the spirit would help you and I to let

the, these truths sink so deeply in us that they would capture our affections

and lead us to a,

a way of living that looks a lot more like what God has saved you for.

And if you haven't yet experienced the salvation,

that maybe today will be the day you receive his gift. So let's pray.

Father I I'm

even as I think about the things I'm going to say

that you gave the Apostle Paul the ability to write down by your spirit,

I feel a little bit overwhelmed

because it's so good. And Lord,

I pray that your spirit would help us not just to think of these things I'm

going to look at in the scriptures that we're gonna see together as just good

ideas or facts. But Lord, that they would, they would pierce our heart,

they would capture our affections that would transform the way we live.

So ask that you do that by your spirit for your glory

and our good and joy in Jesus name. Amen.

So Paul starts, we're in Romans 8 31,

what shall we say to these things? If God is for us,

who can be against us?

He didn't spare his own son but he gave him up for us all.

How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It's God who justifies, who is to condemn Christ.

Jesus is the one who died more than that.

He was raised who's at the right hand of the of God.

He who is inter indeed interceding for us who shall separate us from the love of

Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness

or danger or sword as it is written for your sake.

We're being killed all the day long.

We're being regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things,

we are more than conquerors through him who loved us

for I'm sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers,

nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height, nor debt,

nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is God's word.

The very first statement Paul makes is what shall we say to these things?

And the question is, what things is Paul referring to?

Now I think in a grander sense,

he's referring to everything he said from chapter one to chapter eight.

And it just a, a run through. These are some big ideas,

but we were in rebellion to God.

We were standing in judgment because of our sin.

We were unable to do anything to save ourselves no matter how religious we are.

God revealed that the answer is the righteousness of Christ who not only lived

the life we couldn't live but died the death in our place for our sin.

And God didn't wait for us to figure it out. But he came after us.

He pursued us. He called us. He chose us,

he adopted us, he justified us.

He did all this work in Christ so that it would be by faith that we would get

this not by our works,

that we would get this and as a guarantee that it's really the true deal and

that it really works. He puts his spirit into our lives to be a, a,

an indicator that we really are God's children.

That we really can trust him to finish what he started.

And even in these previous verses,

Paul kind of summarizes all that in five undeniable affirmations.

As John Stot likes to call them. He, he said this,

these five affirmations are God for new you,

which means he loved you before you loved him and came after you,

before you could come after him. He predestined you to become like Jesus.

In other words, his end goal is that you'll be like Jesus Christ,

perfectly perfected.

But he starts by calling you to be his own.

And then he justifies you so that you can have a relationship with a holy God.

But then ultimately he glorifies you,

making you just like Jesus in all the ways he which he glorifies the Father.

That's the kind of the,

the five undeniable statements that Paul just went through.

And we probably went, you know,

you probably went through that last time we were together.

But Paul's answer to that question,

what shall we say to all of this gets answered with five rhetorical

questions.

John sto likes to call them a five unanswerable questions.

And, and the reason why is because the answer is no one and nothing. Okay?

That's where we're gonna go. So if you wanna know the title of my message,

it's no one and nothing, okay? You'll see what I mean by as that,

as we go through it. So first off, here's the first question. And by the way,

here's, here's my challenge to you. Uh, and even I would,

I would strongly urge you to take this challenge up.

I would love for you to memorize all five of these questions.

I would love for you to rehearse them on a daily basis because they are the

types of questions you're gonna need to state out loud in order to get through

this life in a way that's confident that God is true to his word and that you're

secure in it. Okay? So the first question is, if God is for us,

who can be against us?

Now notice he doesn't ask the question who is against us?

'cause if you just ask that, we'd have a list, right? Minimally, you'd say,

well, especially in his day, the world seems against us.

We're experiencing persecution.

But Paul also talks about this idea of the flesh, which is that that old nature,

that indwelt sin, that that part of me that says,

even though I know what I wanna do, I find myself not doing it. He says,

that's against us. We're, we're fighting this war against the flesh.

And we also know that Satan and all the dark rulers in the heavenly realms are

against us. So it gets summed up in our enemies are the world,

the flesh and the devil. So if he just had said, who's against us,

we would've said, well, the world, the flesh and the devil.

But he doesn't just say that. He says, if God is for us who is against us,

that's really important. 'cause what he wants you to understand is yes,

those are your enemies, but those enemies don't get to prevail, right?

Because if God's for us, really who is against us, I mean the answer is no one,

because God in Christ Jesus has already victoriously, overcome the world,

has defeated sin, and has overcome Satan and death through his resurrection.

So the reality is, if you're in Christ, you have the one who,

who overcame your greatest enemies. So if he's for you,

he's also gonna prevail for you over your enemies because your life is hidden in

Christ, the one who overcame. So I, I want you to hear this,

you and I are no longer victims, right? We're not just sitting around going,

I'm not just helpless. I don't know if I'm, we can make it through. It's like,

no, you have the one who is the victor who you are united with.

If you're united with Christ,

you're an heir of all that Christ is and all that Christ has done for you.

Now, I I like to watch sports.

I'm a bit of a fan of the Seattle Seahawks because I'm from Seattle and I

don't know if you're like me, but whenever we lose, it's always the ref's fault,

right? If,

if you ever happen to follow me on Twitter during football season and I'm not

being wise about what I put on Twitter,

it's usually complaining about ref's bad calls. And I, I, I can fall into that.

If, if it just the ref's had it together, we would always win.

But I want you to imagine you're on a team where the refs are always gonna

guarantee that you win. And every game, you know, I already know this is a win.

'cause I already know the refs are on our side.

And the reality is that is true for Christians. Like in the end,

we always win in the end, Jesus will prevail in the end,

if your faith is in Christ, you will make it at the end we will be victorious.

Amen? Because here's the deal, no one is greater than God.

So no one can stand against you because you are god's and God is more committed

to his purposes for your life than you are that is true for you.

So who, who, who's, who's against me? If God's for me and who's against me?

No one, no one is against me.

Ultimately that's not all. Question two, he goes on,

he says he did not spare his own son, but he gave him up for us all.

How will he not also with him graciously give us all

things? Now, once again, Paul could have easily asked the question,

will God not graciously give us all things? But he doesn't do that.

He preface it with what he's already given us in Christ. Because I, my,

I wonder if, if he would've just asked, won't he give us good things?

We might go, well yeah,

I mean he's generous but we shouldn't over presume on his generosity.

And you know, maybe there's some things he won't give. And so most of us,

we kind of have that internal debate about God's generosity and kindness.

But he starts with what you've already been given, which is Jesus.

And he uses this language who did not spare his own son.

But so if you know the biblical story, you know where that phrase came from?

That phrase came from a time where he called a man called Abraham,

who he changed his name to Abraham because he was gonna become the father of

many nations. If you know that story,

you know that Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children and God

miraculously promised that they would have a child and through that child there

would be a a,

a name that would get great and a nation that would become huge and a a means of

blessing. All the other nations would come out of that,

that kind of chain of events. And that child was Isaac.

Yet as Isaac grew older, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his own son.

And Abraham believed that God must be able to just raise him from the dead.

So he was willing to do whatever God said 'cause he was gonna trust him with

everything. And as he had Isaac on the altar to be sacrificed, God said,

no, stop. I now know be that you were un,

that you were willing to spare your own,

to give up your own son 'cause you believe and trust in me that much.

And so God provides a alternative sacrifice with a ram caught in the bush

nearby. So you know that story and that's what Paul is referencing actually,

that this idea that he who did not spare his own son,

your mind would go back to,

oh that's about Abraham and how he speared his own God spirited him from

actually having to give up his own son. And if there was no Isaac,

there'd be no nation Israel. If there's no nation in Israel,

there is no offspring ultimately that comes in the name of Jesus who becomes the

ultimate savior.

And Paul's using this to help us understand just like Abraham was willing to

give up his own son but didn't have to,

God was willing to give up his own son and he did. And if there's no Abraham,

there's no blessing. But if there's no Jesus, there's no salvation.

So he wants to make it really clear. This is God telling you,

not only will he be faithful to his word,

but he loves you so much that he will give you the most costly gift

possible His own son, for you and me,

Octavius Winslow

was correct to write who delivered up Jesus to die.

Not Judas for money, not Pilate for fear,

not the Jews for envy,

but the father for love because he loved you that much.

See, Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser's thing.

If he was willing to give you Jesus,

you can be absolutely certain He will give you everything else that you need.

Why would he waste Jesus on a people he is not gonna provide for?

And Jesus God gave you everything.

So why won't he give you everything else?

See the crosses the guarantee that the God,

that the God we worship who sent his son will continue to generously provide

according to your needs. So do you lack right now? You go like, man,

I i need this. I I I I'm struggling God, are you gonna be a good provider?

Come to him. Ask him,

be confident that the crosses the evidence that you have a generous God is

willing to give you everything you need. Jesus.

And and James later both say you don't have because you don't ask,

ask him. And I want you to hear this asking is actually an act of worship.

'cause there's three big things that are, you're saying when you ask one,

I'm in need of God. And anytime you say I'm in need of God,

you're at the beginning point of the good news of the gospel taking root inside

of you. Second, you're saying, I believe God's rich.

Like I think he has a lot, he owns everything. And third, you're saying,

I also think he's generous. Anytime you ask,

you are saying those three things through your act of worship. I I,

I don't know about you but like I loved Christmas time with our kids in our home

because especially when they're little now they're,

we have two adult kids and one who's almost out of high school.

She's got one year left and but when they were young, you know,

they would just ask for stuff at Christmas time and sometimes it just seemed

ridiculous. Like you must think I'm loaded .

But what I loved about it is that they actually, one thought I was a rich dad.

Second they thought I was really generous and loved to give good gifts.

And what I do really love about that and we did our best to try and give 'em a

lot of what they asked for. But it framed in them,

if I a dad who's broken and not perfect

would do this for you,

how much more will your heavenly father do this for you as evidenced by him

already giving you the greatest gift? Jesus.

So I just wanna say to you tonight maybe,

maybe some of you haven't even received that gift.

'cause I would say if you haven't received the gift of Jesus Christ for your own

forgiveness of sins and for you to be made right with God and for you to have a

relationship with God that changes everything and for you to have a hope that is

a future forever with God in a new heaven and new earth,

if you haven't received that gift,

what I'm saying doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

You have to receive that first in order to actually believe the rest is gonna be

real. So maybe that's where you're at today. You's gotta go,

I gotta come to Jesus and go like I just receive you and all that you've done

for me. I want that gift right now.

And there's others of you who maybe it's like I just forgot how generous he was

and I need that today. So I'll go back to him and ask again.

Question three, who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It's God who justifies. So what is he saying?

He's bringing you into the imaginary courtroom where you regularly

and probably likely on a regular basis experience accusation where you're,

you feel like there's charges brought against you maybe 'cause of what you know

you've done or failed to do.

But he's bringing you into that courtroom and he is going,

I wanna remind you who the judge is.

The judge of you is God. And that judge already said you're justified.

It's already been decided before you ever made a decision,

before you ever behaved in any particular way. He already said,

because of what Jesus has done, if your faith is in him,

you're already justified. You stand before the judge not guilty.

That's really good news, . And because of this,

as we looked at at the very beginning of Romans chapter one or chapter eight

verse one, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Now, once again, if we were to only have asked the question,

who's gonna bring a charge against us? I guarantee you we all have a list,

right? We go, I got people who know me real well and they'd say, I've hurt them,

I've wronged them and they could bring a charge.

I know my own conscience does a lot, a lot of times I beat myself up.

I I tell myself, these are the things I've done to fall short.

And and and then the devil loves to pro pronounce on that because he's called

the accuser of the brethren. Like he loves to accuse God's people regularly.

So if the,

if the question was who's gonna accuse us or who's gonna bring a charge,

you all have a list. But he doesn't say that.

He says Who's gonna bring any charge against God's elect?

Which already tells you who you are? 'cause he's already justified you.

So there's no charge to be brought 'cause you're not guilty.

And I know that your conscience tells you otherwise,

but I'm telling you that gospel says you're not guilty.

It's amazing news. Gosh, I need that daily.

'cause I can tell you a lot of reasons why I feel guilty for ways in which I've

fallen short.

But no accusation is gonna stand before God because God's already chosen and

justified us, not based upon what we've done,

but based upon what Jesus has done for you and me.

So who's to condemn? He continues next question. He says,

Jesus Christ is the one who died.

And more than that he was raised And even more he's at the right hand of

God who is interceding for us. What is he saying?

We know the end of the story. All humanity is gonna stand before Jesus.

The righteous judge.

He's the only human who can righteously judge humans 'cause he's the only

human who perfectly lived out the righteousness. We can't.

So he can stand in a right place of judgment and go, you're measured to me.

How well did you do compared to me? That's the measurement.

We all love to compare ourselves around other people and go like,

well at least I'm not as bad as them. That's not the standard.

The standard isn't your neighbor or somebody else.

The standard is Jesus Christ who lived the human life in our place.

And those of us who are in Christ get what he did for us in our place.

So when we stand before Jesus, we'll stand with his righteous, not our own.

But everyone will stand before Jesus as the judge.

And the good news is for those who have put their faith in him,

he's not just the judge, he's also the advocate.

He's the one making your case for why you can stand and not be condemned.

Just like Romans eight, three said,

God condemned our sin in the very physical body of Jesus

and in so doing us,

he's redeemed us from the curse of our sin and the condemnation that our sin

deserves.

But not only did he die and therefore can be our righteous advocate of someone

who lived perfectly and died in our place,

but he was also raised to new life by the Father. That's really important.

The father raised him up 'cause the father said the wage of sin is death and you

paid for it.

So you get to be raised from dead to alive in a new resurrection reality.

So that all who put their faith in you will also get the same reality.

They'll be raised from dead to alive. Not because they did it,

but 'cause the Father raised them up by the spirit because of what Jesus did for

you and me. I mean,

isn't that good news that you actually get full acceptance when Jesus'

resurrection is like the, is like the the paid in full deposit,

that it's already been paid but the deposit of the spirit comes into your life

to say he paid for you and he paid for you and he paid for.

It's like Oprah like and you get one and you get one and you get one.

Like that's what's happened.

And he's not only raised but he is raised to the right hand of God where he is

interceding for you and me.

Which means he's constantly making advocacy for you and me through what he's

done for us. Jesus is constantly praying for you.

If your faith is in him, he has been praying for you,

he's been praying for you during this message that this will be true to your

heart. Robert McShane said,

if I knew that Christ were in the next room praying for me,

I would not fear a thousand enemies. He is

so who is there to condemn No one,

no one can bring an accusation against you because Jesus's

word of forgiveness and justification will always trump everybody else's word of

accusation, including your own.

I had a guy who used to come to me after I was preaching in Seattle often and he

would come to me afterwards. He goes, you know I,

I love it when you say this stuff,

but I'm just telling you I can't believe it not for me.

And I said, why? And he said, 'cause you don't know what I've done.

If you knew what I've done,

you would not believe for a minute that God would forgive me. And I said,

what have you done? I, I said, tell me it all. And he did.

And I said, that is really bad. He said, see I told you. I go, oh,

I'm not saying he can't forgive, I'm just saying you are right.

What you've done is really bad by the way, way,

let's not diminish sin so that we can somehow make the savior small

right by, by making sin less we make Jesus less. And I said,

your problem isn't that you believe you sin too much.

Your problem is that you believe your sin is bigger than his grace.

Your problem is that you believe that your,

your behavior is stronger than what he accomplished.

You actually just believe you're bigger than Jesus. That's your problem.

You believe you're bigger than God. So let's call that pride.

Your problem is pride but it's not. It's not pride that you've sinned too much.

It's pride that you think your sin is bigger than God's grace.

Please don't make god's small, small,

let your sin be big but he's way bigger than your sin.

Let your sin be what it really is. It is rebellion, it's broken, it's not right.

But his grace is so much bigger than our sin.

He said, man, I don't know if I can believe that. I said,

I'm gonna keep telling you it until you, he disappeared for a while.

And then I remember a few years later actually I was preaching and got done and

he came. I saw him walking down the aisle and he was not the same man.

I'll tell you what,

people who are riddled with guilt and think their sin is so bad that they can't

even come before God who loved them while they were a sinner.

You can see it on him. And when he walked down the aisle, I'm like,

this is a new man. And he came up to me, he goes, I believe it.

I believe that his grace is bigger than my sin.

I believe that what Jesus has done is more, is bigger than what I've done.

And he goes, I'm, I'm a different person. I go,

I can tell you don't look the same. If you look forgiven,

you look free. I want you to hear this.

You can't outs send his grace and you can't overextend his love.

His grace is big enough for everything you'll you've ever done and will ever do

no matter how many times you do it.

And his love is long enough and strong enough because he is love that it'll

never run out. Which is the next question.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? This question,

I think Paul is now gonna go,

he's just gonna wax eloquent in poetry because I think he wants you to

understand this rhetoric. Rhetorical question has so much depth to it.

So he just starts going like he, he just wants it to sing deep in our hearts.

I think he wants you to feel the depths of God's love. So you just go like,

okay, I get it, I get it, I get it. More, more, more, more. Give me more.

And he goes, sell tribulation or distress or persecution.

He's addressing all the pressures that we feel,

all the pain we go through or famine or nakedness dealing with our basic

needs and what we feel like we don't have enough or danger or sword.

And you know in their day they have the real possibility that Christians are

gonna suffer and die for their faith. In Paul's time we may not experience that,

but we still experience danger. We still experience threats,

we still experience great fear.

And then he quotes Psalm 44 22,

which is depicting the persecution that Israel is going through by the nations.

And he says, as it is written for your sake,

we are being killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And what Paul is doing here is,

is using a rabbinical tactic.

A a rabbi to his students would often quote one verse and then they would,

they would, he would expect that they could quote the rest of the chapter.

And the rest of the chapter basically is them crying out for God to save them.

And what he is trying to say I think is you ever get in those places where

you're just so desperate, you're like, I feel like a sheep before a slaughter.

I feel like I'm getting beat up. I feel like I can't take it anymore.

I feel like I'm at the end of myself.

I don't know if I can make it through this. Does God know? Does God see?

Does God care? Does he love me? And by the way,

that's where some of you are at today.

And I'm just telling you cry out to him 'cause his love never

fails. That's, and that's what Paul is saying, he's going like,

if that's where you find yourself,

just understand there was a sheep who was slaughtered for you and I so that we

can go through what we're experiencing and have the one who overcame,

be the one who helps us and joins us in.

It feels what we feel understands what we're going through and can be with us

the entire time. A lot of times God's not gonna get you outta your troubles,

but he's gonna make sure he's in it with you while you go through your troubles.

And I've had those seasons honestly myself,

where at times I felt like so much despair and yet I have somebody.

'cause what does Paul say? He says no in, not in the not.

Once you get through it, in the midst of it, while you're going through it,

in the midst of all these things,

we're more than conquers through him and not through your own triumphalism.

Not through your own, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Not because you strive no through him we are not conquerors 'cause

we conquer,

we're conquerors 'cause he conquers and through him we are more than

conquerors 'cause he loved us.

So you and I can experience victory in the midst of suffering and trial because

we know the one who experienced the greatest trials of them all.

And even in the midst of his greatest trial, he cries out, father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

Nothing is gonna thwart his purpose for your life.

Paul has already said God cause all things to work together for the good of

those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

I'm telling you nothing, no one and nothing are gonna thwart his purpose.

He will do it and we will make it. I promise you,

you may suffer, you may experience loss.

You may feel like a sheep's being slaughtered,

but in the end nothing's gonna separate you from his love.

And he continues ending it this way. I'm sure that neither death nor life.

And I just wanna pause there.

I notice that I love that he says neither death nor life because you're like,

yeah, I'm gonna die. But he also says life. In other words, even how you live,

some of you go on, yeah, but you don't know how I live. I mean I, I,

I I could blow it and he'd stop loving me. Nope. Not even the way you live.

That's not gonna make him stop loving you. He loved you while you were a rebel.

He'll love you when you fail. Nor angels or rulers, nor things present,

nor things to come, nor powers nor height,

nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will be able to

separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Is that good news to you? It is.

If you are in Christ, this is all true for you.

The end of your life won't be an end to his love.

The ways you fail in this life won't take away his love.

No authority in heaven and on earth can rob you of his love.

What you're going through right now is not evidence that he doesn't love you.

Please hear this 'cause there's a false gospel out there that says if

everything's going really well,

it's 'cause your faith is strong enough and therefore God's rewarding your

faith. That is a false gospel. Like we call it the prosperity gospel.

The true gospel is God blesses you when you don't deserve it.

And sometimes you suffer when you don't deserve it too. Again,

it's a mystery job's, friends were messed up.

They tried to figure out what was wrong.

They didn't know what was going on in the heavenly realms.

Same for you. Don't try to figure it out.

Don't try to ha bolster more faith to be able to somehow change the outcomes.

Trust in God who will control the outcome.

And if it means it's hard for a long time,

just know that that won't suffer you from his love. He's still with you.

He still loves you. He's still for you. He is not against you.

No one can condemn you and nothing can separate you

from the love of God in Christ Jesus. No one and nothing.

I'm gonna say it again. No one and nothing. No one in your life,

no one in the heavenly realms and nothing you do or fail to do

will ever God's purposes for your salvation, for your sanctification,

which is you becoming more like Jesus and your glorification.

You will be like him in the end. Rest in that.

I think Paul is wanting to end chapter eight with the sense of like,

just take a big breath and go whew.

That's for me. And don't just rest in it. Revel in it. Like just

do what Paul did. I pray that the depths of your heart,

that your heart would know the depths of this love, the width of this love,

the breadth of this love. Like we have yet to understand how good it is.

I promise you it'll take us all eternity to celebrate it. It's so good.

So how do we respond? First,

I pray you learn to worship Jesus more and more because of this.

Like he's the hero of this whole story, not us. This is meant to move you.

It's meant to stir you. In fact, I'll tell you this,

whatever you give your attention to, you also give your affections to.

And that's called worship. And if we keep attending ourselves to this truth,

we'll grow in our affections for Christ who did it for us.

And when you grow in your worship and it captures your affections,

then it changes your behavior.

And that's the second thing that we're gonna do is not we're gonna,

we're gonna worship, but we're also,

we're gonna also have this sense of we don't get overly discouraged when we're

in hopeless situations 'cause we aren't hopeless. 'cause we have,

we know at the end it, he's going to win and you're going to overcome.

And then third,

let this embolden you for the mission of making disciples,

of letting this world know that they have good news if they'll turn to Christ.

Ray Orland said this, the felt love of God. When we really feel this,

when we really get it, when at a guttural sense, we know it's true.

The felt love of God makes heroic Christians.

If you read to the end of Romans,

you get introduced to Paul's entire missionary team.

Most people believe that he was in his sixties when he was writing this from a

jail. And if you know much about Paul's writings,

he was anticipating getting to go to another city eventually a 60-year-old in

that day and age. That was like, you're,

you're on your deathbed 'cause of medical conditions and all that.

And he commends this whole team. And what I think Paul's doing, he's going like,

you need to know that the team that I get to do this with,

they all believe this so confidently and securely that they were willing to

leave home for it. They were willing to spend their lives on it.

They're willing to spend their resources on it.

They're willing to give everything for it.

'cause when you get it that at that level you'll say, Jesus,

here I am semi me and I don't care where it is,

but I will go because what you did for me. And I want the world to know,

it leads to heroic Christians who are willing to go out on this mission no

matter the cost. Because we know we're rich, we know we're safe,

we know we're loved, we know we'll never be condemned.

And we know that we're gonna be there in the end when it's all done.

And we're all gonna say he won. So here's the question,

have they captured your heart?

Have these questions sunk deeply for you? Like that's what I wanna,

I wanna respond tonight together. I would love if you just,

if you'd be willing to bow your head and close your eyes just so you can have a

little personal space. And what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna,

I'm gonna restate each question and I want you to at least think of it,

try to connect with at least one. You might need all five of 'em today, ,

but I want you to personalize them because I think that's what Paul wants us to

learn to do is this is almost like a catechism for life.

How we're gonna get through this one. So the first one, and again,

if this is the one you need to say I, I just want you to personalize it.

So if God's for me Who can be against me,

if you wanna say that quietly, if you even wanna say it out loud,

that's the one you need right now.

If God's for me who can be against me?

Second, if he didn't spare his own son,

but he gave him up for us all,

how will he not also with him graciously give me all things.

Third, who's gonna bring any charge against me?

It's God who is the one who justifies.

And I'm his elect chosen by him

who's there to condemn me. Jesus Christ.

The judge is not gonna, who's left in my life that's got a bigger word,

a bigger voice than Jesus.

And can anything or anyone separate me from the love of God

in Christ Jesus?

The answer is no one and nothing.

Father, would you help us to believe this?

Help us with our unbelief.

Help us to so deeply believe that you are for us, that you are with us,

that you overcome and that you will never reject us

and you'll never leave us. Oh, help us to believe these truths.

No one in nothing can thwart what you are doing and what you will do.

And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you Jeff, for sharing those powerful truths of God's word with us.

You know, I like how Jeff, toward the end, he said,

the appropriate response to all of these truths,

to all of the questions answered and know when nothing is worship.

And one of the ways that we believe we worship as Christ followers is through

song.

And another way is through reading his word and prayer and another way asking

questions. As Jeff said, another way is through our financial giving.

And I was reminded in that second question,

he who did not even spare his own son,

He's willing and able to give us all things. Here's the deal,

we will never outgive God.

And so our giving financially from that act of stewardship that he's placed

in our hands, we get to worship him through our financial giving.

My family and I do that through just direct deposits, online giving.

And there's multiple ways we don't take up an offering here at hope,

but there's multiple ways to give. You can see those ways there on the screen.

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