Purpose In Pain | Ayren Nelson

How are we doing? Hope. We need church.

We are honored to have you both in person and online. Come with you.

Stand up and sing with us. There's joy in the house today. Come on,

put those hands together.

Come on. This is the.

Day.

This is the day you made. Oh,

so rejoice, Cindy, glad rejoice and be glad in it.

Come on every hand together.

Come on where I,

that you're more than enough me.

You are faithful, you unfaithful to your promise.

You are strong. And I,

when I'm standing in your presence, I,

everything I you believe.

It.

Ing out the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength.

The joy, the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Soul, bless name

joy. The joy.

Is my strength.

Jesus,

you are worthy of all my praise.

You're faithful to your promise. You're

I, I

The joy, the joy of the is strength.

The.

Joy, the joy of

is me.

Oh, that.

Is say the joy.

The

holy,

holy,

the Spirit

joy.

The joy of the.

Lord is ing my,

oh my bless his name, that

name that soul.

You see,

the.

For

fight has lifted

God, the battle long to

the

and.

Against me.

Jesus.

For

I see the.

Ashe.

I

oh.

The

Come on.

Re, you, us.

Nothing can stand.

Against the crown. You in the.

We've got a new song to introduce today.

And I love this song because it declares the holiness and the true nature of the

one living God. So Lord, right now, we just cry out, holy,

holy are you.

God.

You are worthy Jesus.

Thousand generations falling down in

to sing the song of.

And.

All

and all who will believe,

will sing the song of ages to the Lamb.

Your name is the highest,

your name is the greatest in your name

is stands above

thems powers. Position your name

stands above them all. Cry.

Holy.

All creation cries.

Holy.

He'll, dead.

Holy.

Holy.

Forever.

And if

you've redeemed

in freedom

ing,

sing.

Forever.

The.

And.

Name is the highest name is the

name stands

above all

name is the highest.

Your name is the greatest in.

Your name,

the king.

Come on y'all. Let's give God some praise.

Well, listen, welcome to Hope Community Church. My name's Dwayne.

I'm one of the pastors here.

And this has already been a wonderful opportunity for us to glorify God.

And that's the goal tonight. Uh, if you are new to hope,

I want to extend a special welcome, uh,

to you and let you know that we're glad that you are here today. Uh, listen,

we are excited about this time together.

We've been in a series for the past few weeks that we've been calling verse by

verse. And today you're gonna hear from Aaron Nelson. Now,

Aaron is a part of our teaching team at Hope.

It is gonna be a phenomenal message. I've had the privilege of hearing it,

and we're gonna have you outta here in about an hour, uh,

at the end of service today. If you're new, we'd love to meet you.

We have an area called Next Steps. As you exit, please make sure you stop.

Let us know that you were neither, you're new,

and if there's any way that we can possibly serve you, uh,

we will do everything that we can to help have you feel welcome,

and also to help you to take steps of faith as you follow Jesus,

maybe even some of you for the very first time. Now, last week, uh,

if you were here,

you know that we kicked off a whole slate of classes that are ahead. And so,

uh, classes at Hope Community Church are a great way for people to grow in their

relationship with Jesus Christ.

And one of the best classes is a class called Hope for Parents.

We have seen some phenomenal impact in that class,

and God is clearly on the move. So in just a moment,

I'm gonna have you greet your neighbor,

take a seat and check out this story from Hope for Parents. Go ahead,

greet your neighbor, take a seat, and then we'll watch this video.

All right. We are Rhonda and Brad Brower.

We have been married for almost eight years,

and we have two boys, Kayden, who is five, and Callen,

who is two and a half.

Originally,

when we started thinking about how to just improve our parenting,

I think, um, we really felt that there was a,

a war on the family, you know, that, that life was just,

just seemed to be getting a little chaotic, a little out of control.

As our kids began to get a little bit older,

we noticed that they were getting their own personalities and they were,

you know, starting to wanna make their own, uh, decisions.

They were becoming more independent, and we just needed some help.

We needed some assistance. We wanted people to speak into our lives.

That had been where we had been. I think that was probably the,

the main emphasis of why,

what drew us to hope for parents as we started the Hope for Parents class. Um,

some of the things that really stood out to us was just the idea that

what our calling is as parents, what God calls us to really do as parents,

how we're to, um, lead our kids, how we disciple our kids, and, and, and really,

um, defining what that role is. And there's this concept of my me kingdom,

which really just takes us back to our sin disposition right now.

Every time I can see a situation where my kid is having,

or my child's having this, uh, you know, sinful disposition,

I can really relate it to my relationship with God.

And I can start to relay that to my children.

I can start to respond with grace and understanding and love and forgiveness.

There was one particular, um, defining moment or even like come to Jesus moment,

um, with our oldest Caden, Caden participates in soccer at XL Sports at Apex.

And, um, it was Wednesday,

which happens to be the day that I have my Mitten's group happens to be the day

where, you know, I'm studying and I'm, I'm reading through, um,

the Hope for Parents Study Guide and, uh, the coach comes off the field,

taps me on the shoulder. I was not paying attention unfortunately, and says,

Hey, Caden's not gonna be allowed to,

to participate in practice for the rest of practice. Um,

he's really had a challenge pushing other kids. And,

and it was just having these, like physical altercations,

wasn't listening to the coach and was asked repeatedly, um,

to stop doing what he was doing. And so as I was driving home,

I was texting with my, um, hope for Men's group, uh, or Hope for Parents Group.

And, um, they were saying, Hey, see, this is an opportunity.

This could be an opportunity to put, um, you know,

what we've been learning into practice. Um, and I set Caden down. Um,

and what that conversation sounded like was, you know, Hey bud, you know,

let's talk through what really caused this. And he said, well,

I was being pushed first. And his natural response was, I'm going to push back.

I'm gonna defend myself, I'm gonna do this. We sat there and we prayed together.

We asked for forgiveness, um, for both of us, right?

And so one of the things that came out of this is it was probably the most joy

I've had in disciplining my child. Um, there was no regret,

there was no guilt or shame of like, did I do the right thing?

Did I do the wrong thing?

It was just an opportunity to show him that there's nothing he could do for me

to love him anymore. There's nothing he could do for me to love him any less.

And it was the same response that we get from our God and our father every

single day. Some of the things that we've taken away from,

from the Hope for Parents class is that we're not alone. Um,

you know, in raising our children that the challenges that we see as parents,

we're not on an island that,

that other parents are going through these things as well.

And we have a community that's bought into, um,

really partnering with us to do the best job we can, we can, um,

to raise our, our kids, um, in the light of the gospel.

That's, uh, that's such a beautiful story, man. I love that. Um, hey, look,

we're gonna go ahead and hop right into things here. Uh,

but I wanna start off really briefly, uh,

by giving you a little bit of a peek behind the curtain,

and I mean that literally, okay? Uh,

normally right before I come out here to share, uh,

behind that curtain right over there, uh,

I stand there and I pray a prayer that says, uh, holy Spirit,

even though I'm gonna have on a microphone,

I pray that your voice will be louder than my own.

Pray that every time before I get ready to walk out here.

But then we come out here and we start talking and we get in the groove and

maybe the confidence sets in and stuff. I'm like, yeah,

I think the Holy Spirit spoke through that. Um,

but what I wanna do is I actually wanna leave some space.

I wanna leave some room for the Holy Spirit to speak for himself before you

start to hear from me. So, uh, as you probably know,

over the past couple of weeks, we've been in this series called verse by verse,

and we've been walking through Romans chapter eight verse by verse.

And so we're gonna continue to do that here today,

but I actually wanna lead you, uh, through an exercise, uh,

to try to help familiarize you with the text before we get into it. Uh,

hopefully you've been reading along in this chapter with us.

Maybe you've read ahead a little bit and so you kind of anticipate what we're

gonna talk about today. But the passage we're gonna look at,

it's so rich that there's no way I'm gonna be able to cover everything in there

in the limited time that we have today. So, uh,

we're just gonna leave a little bit of margin. I'm gonna lead some,

leave some space for the Holy Spirit to speak. And so I'm gonna start, uh,

by reading our passage and then we're gonna put it up on the screen.

We're gonna let you read it silently to yourself,

and then I'm gonna read it one more time. Okay? So let's go ahead and start.

This is Romans chapter eight, verses 26 through 30. And it says this,

it says, likewise,

the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know

what to pray for as we ought,

but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too

deep for words.

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit because the

spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good,

for those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he for knew.

He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that

he might be the firstborn among many brothers and those whom he

predestined, he also called,

and those whom he called he also justified.

And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

Listen, as I mentioned, there's a ton in there. And so, uh,

here's what we're gonna do.

I'm just gonna pray for you really quick at all of our campuses. Uh,

I'm gonna pray that over the next minute or so as you read through this passage

on your own, just as the Holy Spirit will speak loudly and clearly to you,

will you pray with me? Father, thank you.

Thank you for the depths of the riches of your word.

I just pray right now that as my friends, uh, read slowly through this passage,

and as we get ready to dive into this together,

that your Holy Spirit would begin to reveal to us the truths that you have for

us, uh, in this passage. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Go ahead and read this passage to yourself.

I'll go ahead and, and read it one more time, and again,

just kind of sit under it. I want you to listen. I've,

I've been staring at these five verses for weeks, ,

and they're kind of in there and I've been thinking about them.

I've literally been losing sleep over them,

thinking about all the stuff that's in here. And so I just want you for,

for the moment, uh, don't think about the weather,

don't think about the drive here,

don't think about the argument you got in with your kids.

Just focus in on these few verses. I'm gonna read it one more time. Likewise,

the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to

pray for as we ought,

but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit because the

spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good,

for those who were called according to his purpose, for those whom he for knew.

He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he

might be the first born among many brothers and those whom he

predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified.

And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

Listen, the Bible tells us that the word of God is living and active.

And I think there's a reality that there may be some things you recognize on the

second reading that you didn't catch in the first,

and there's probably some things you picked up on in the third reading that you

didn't notice in the first or in the second. Uh, and as we go through that, man,

there's just so much.

So I just wanna take a quick poll of the room at all of our campuses,

wherever you are, you can play along with this. Uh,

raise your hand if you are familiar with that passage before today.

Okay,

raise your hand if you are like familiar with some of that passage before today.

Okay. Probably Romans 8 28, right? The all things work together for good.

That's the one that I think a lot of us are really common with. Uh,

how many of you, during that time of reading, uh, by show of hands, um,

how many of you had something you noticed in there that maybe you didn't notice

before? Or maybe that the,

the Holy Spirit just kind of pointed out to you and said, Hey,

did you ever catch this part? If that was you, go ahead and raise your hand.

I think that's really cool. Alright, now, how many of us, um,

had a moment somewhere in there through reading these five verses where you say,

yep, that's confusing. I don't really know what that means.

And that word's too big. Anybody? Yes, those are my people, .

That's right. Listen,

these five verses are really tough to wrap our minds around.

As a matter of fact, they are five of the most, uh, controversial, uh,

most debated verses in all of scripture. Uh, Romans eight,

we've talked about how it's kind of the pinnacle of this letter to the Romans.

However, uh, there's these few verses,

it's kind of a spot that a lot of people don't really know what to do with them.

So what happens? Well,

the first part's a little bit confusing and the back part's a little bit

confusing. So we just kinda move both of those to the side.

We pull out that one in the middle verse 28, and we say, yo,

let's stitch that one on a pillow and send it to grandma. Right?

All things work together.

That's the part that we really like and we find ourselves kind of bogged down

and confused in these other words,

like called and glorified and justified and predestined and all this stuff.

And there's a, a, an ancient, um,

argument that has come out of this passage about, well,

what is the heart of God really? Like, what's my life really like?

Has everything been predetermined for me or is there free will? Let me tell you,

I'm glad you came this weekend,

but we're not gonna answer all of those questions .

We can't possibly do it in the amount of time that we have together.

But what I do wanna do is I wanna hone in on one word that's in there that I

think offers, uh, so much richness and so much meaning

that our understanding of that word actually changes the way we view the five

verses in totality. And it's not one of the big ones,

it's actually one of the smaller ones that's in there. It's the word. Good,

good. It's, it's probably the least complex word in the entire passage. However,

I think it's the one that leads us down the path that complicates everything

else that we read here. Lemme tell you what I mean.

I have a group chat with a group of friends of mine, uh,

five guys who I love dearly. And this thing is going off all day,

every day. Like I, I wish I could,

like my phone is on do not disturb mode right now because I guarantee you it's

blowing up. And so, uh, I've put this chat in mute because,

uh, I could walk away from my phone for five or 10 minutes and I come back and

there's 90 notifications. I'm not kidding you.

And I'll go back and I'll start to see, man, what are these guys talking about?

I bet you they're just sharing bible verses and praying for one another and

being super encouraging.

And actually I opened up the chat and they are going at each other's throats

because someone somewhere has used the word good in a

statement. Lemme tell you what I mean.

A few days ago somebody commented and said, man, just saw this movie.

It was really good.

We have been arguing for the last three weeks about what makes a movie good

. Somebody else I'll tell it's me will put in a statement like, man,

y'all wanna drive to Chapel Hill and go to raising cans? That place is so good.

And somebody will say, yeah, it's good,

but it's not as good as this other place.

We have one guy who was convinced that Carson Wince is a good quarterback.

That was enough to erupt friend groups. Okay?

We we started little side conversations like,

can you believe he said this? And yeah,

I knew we couldn't trust him to begin with. Like it,

it's crazy what this word good does and why is that?

It's because good is probably the most relative term in the English language

and we use it all the time, right? That taco was good.

I hope we get good weather this weekend. I know my kids are good,

she has a good sense of humor.

We use it all the time and it can always mean different things in our

vernacular. The word goods mean good means so many different things.

The problem is we take our vernacular and we bring it to the Bible and now we

start misinterpreting stuff in here.

I think one of the issues that we have when we look at this,

this passage is our misunderstanding of the word

good. And that verse in particular, Romans 8 28,

that God works all things together for good. Well,

when we bring our presuppositions to that verse,

we end up with some problems because a lot of us have lived life and a lot of us

know it's not all good. Lemme tell you, as a matter of fact,

while I was working on this, this, um, this, this passage,

I was reading through it and studying on it and all this other stuff.

I got a notification from Apple News and it was a headline, uh,

about something called a hammerhead worm that's popped up in Texas.

And, uh, we're just gonna show you a picture of it, uh,

and we're gonna show you the headline. It says,

A foot long worm from hell is invading Texas, and it's really hard to kill.

And I see that headline and I see that nightmare fuel of a picture.

And I look at the text and I say all things , like God created that.

Is that good? Is that possible that even that thing can be good?

And and here's what I started to realize, and here's what this,

what this picture and this headline taught me

is that it's not saying that that thing is good.

And I learned in that moment this truth that I hope you carry with you as you

continue to study through the book of Romans.

Proper interpretation requires a proper reading.

If you read the passage wrong,

you're gonna come to a conclusion about what it means in a wrong way.

So the passage does not say that everything that happens in our life will be

good.

The passage does not say that God will only do things that are good in our

lives. What does it say? It says,

and we know that for those who love God,

all things work together for good,

for those who are called according to his purpose.

We've been going through this series verse by verse,

but I want to go through this verse word by word, okay?

Because there's so much richness in this alone. The first thing is we know,

well, how can we know? How can we know this?

How do we know this? How can we be sure of this? Well,

we're gonna talk about that in just a little bit, but what is it that we know?

We know that for those who love God,

and that part's really important because it doesn't say that

all things work together for all people.

It says that all things work together for those who love God.

And so I just wanna tell you that if you're here,

if you're at any of our campuses, if you're watching online, uh,

I know that in a room this big,

there's a chance that there's someone who does not have an active relationship

with God, who would say, yeah, I don't love God.

Lemme tell you what we're gonna talk about for the next few minutes.

It's a promise that we get from scripture,

but it's a promise for a particular group of people that there's something that

happens when we are grafted into the family of God,

of every circumstance that we've ever talked about or that we've ever been

through,

those who love God. It says that God such a simple,

it's a three letter word, but it means everything.

There's only one who is capable of fulfilling the promise that we're about to

read. There's only one.

It says that God will work all things together for

good. And here's our problem portion,

because we think all things really even that hell

worm that we looked at . Listen, that's,

that's not what this verse is talking about.

And I'm not saying that God can't use the hell worm to do whatever it is that he

wants to do,

but we're specifically talking about the lives of those who love him and those

who are. The next word is called.

And that word called it means personally invited by him

according to his purpose.

And what is his purpose for those who love him.

It's good that word that we haven't defined yet,

but keep reading because the next verse is going to,

I believe that scripture interprets scripture.

We let God speak for himself through his word. Because here's the problem,

back in the beginning of time, right? God creates everything.

He looks back on it, he says it's good,

but then we reach Genesis three and it says that Eve saw the fruit that was on

the tree and thought that it was good for food.

So how does humanity get into the issue of good and evil to begin with?

God defines something as good, and then Eve defines something else as good.

Our misinterpretation of the idea of good is what leads us to sin.

It's us thinking that we know in some way what's better than God.

So let's let God define what good is for us. Romans 8 29 says,

for those whom he for knew,

he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he

might be the first born among many brothers. Now,

before we get into the foreknowledge and the predestination and all that sort of

stuff, all the stuff that leads to debates like we talked about earlier,

God defines good in this verse. And if you're not careful, you may miss it.

You might just skim right over it.

Romans 8 28 is not saying that everything will be easy.

It's not saying that everything will make sense to us.

It's not saying that everything will be great and extravagant and lavish,

but somehow the God of the universe can take every circumstance of your life,

all of them, every single thing you've ever experienced.

He can take all of those things and work them out for good sub in right here,

you being conformed to the image of Jesus.

That's what the good is that Romans 8 28 talks about. Now, I don't know,

maybe we just can't fit that on grandma's pillow,

but God can take every aspect of your

life and use it to conform you, to make you more into the image of Jesus,

which is his number one concern for you. It's not about getting a bigger house,

it's not about getting a promotion, it's not about getting more money.

It's not about having red or well-behaved kids.

It's not about any of those things. While it might be included,

his ultimate purpose, the ultimate good for your life is that you

fill in the blank here, use your name.

God's goal is for Aaron to be conformed into the image of Jesus.

And when I put my faith in him, all of the things,

the good and the bad,

he uses as a tool to shape me into the image of Jesus.

And if you have a hard time believing in this, I just,

I just want you to think about like the people who you know who follow Jesus.

Maybe even it's your own story. Can I tell you, I've, I, I,

I think I've almost never, I'm,

I'm pretty sure I think I've almost never met someone and said, Hey man,

can you tell me your story about how you came to know Jesus? And they were like,

man, life was going good. I didn't have a care in the world.

All my bills were paid, everything was fine.

And then I just woke up one day and said, yeah, Jesus is it.

That's almost never how it goes. You know how it usually goes, man,

I was in the darkest place in my entire life.

She just broke up with me. I just got laid off.

I got this cancer diagnosis and

man just there, it was in the middle of all my brokenness. I,

I had my face to the ground. And when I looked up,

I saw Jesus standing there inviting me to himself,

beckoning me to himself. I hit rock bottom.

And that's actually what led me to the Lord.

It could it be that in that moment God was working

all things together, even the worst season of your life to call you to him.

I mean, think about our faith.

Every year we celebrate a day and call it Good Friday.

You know what happened on that good day?

An innocent man was brutally murdered for the entire world to see.

But why do we celebrate it?

Because somehow God took that and he used it for

the purpose of conforming us into the image of that man,

that sacrificial man who hung on a tree and had a perfect relationship with God.

That is what our God does with everything that happens in our

lives when we put our faith in him.

And what a beautiful gift that is, right? I think that's actually the good news.

The good news is not that only good things will happen.

The good news is that in spite of the bad things, that's not the end.

I love this verse. I think there's so much truth in this verse,

but you know what I've learned specifically about Romans 8 28,

I've learned that there are people who love it and there's people who hate it.

The people who love it are usually pain adjacent

, right? You see somebody else going through something, amen.

All things work together. Jesus loves you don't give up yet.

You know who hates that verse, the person that's going through it. I mean,

just imagine right now that me and you were both up here standing on the stage

and somebody ran up and punched one of us in the nose. Okay?

Let's say I'm the one that gets punched. If you look at me and say,

all things work together, you gonna be bleeding with me? Okay, ,

because I've learned something,

I've learned that pain distorts perspective,

the person who's standing here with a bloody nose doesn't want to hear all

things work together. But can I,

can I just like for a moment remind you that the truth doesn't change despite

what you're going through?

Just because you don't want to hear Romans 8 28 doesn't mean that you don't

need to hear Romans 8 28 just because you're looking through the lens of

some sort of suffering or some sort of pain that doesn't negate this

eternal truth from scripture.

This is why it's so important to surround yourself with community,

because in those moments when life hits you so hard that you don't have a way to

think straight and you're just questioning, man, where is God in this?

You need someone with a right perspective to be able to say, listen,

I know you don't want to hear this,

but could it possibly be a reality that God who knows,

all sees all cares about all,

can somehow take this thing that maybe he didn't even want to happen to you in

the first place?

Could he take that pain and still somehow use it to fashion you

into the image of Jesus? And now, listen,

I'm not saying this gives you a license,

license to just start throwing Bible verses at people.

I'm not saying that as soon as you see somebody hurt, you just say, oh,

Romans 8 28. And they're like, I don't wanna hear it right now. You don't say,

ah, well believe it anyway. Like that's not what I'm telling you to do.

But what I am saying is,

if you're the person who's going through that painful thing,

I want you to know this verse isn't about suffering.

It's not see in our humanity,

we think the all things we think that means, like just the bad stuff. But no,

it's the bad stuff. It's the good stuff, it's the great days, it's the bad days.

And that's a whole other series that we don't have time to get into. You get it?

This verse isn't just about suffering,

it's about the faithfulness of the God that we serve. Last week,

Dwayne talked to us about the importance of having eternal perspective, right?

And, uh, uh, if you weren't here last week,

there's a passage of scripture I wanna read to you that I think, um,

will help you wrap your mind around this idea about what eternal perspective is.

Okay? Second Corinthians four 16 through 18. It says this, it says,

so we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away.

Our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light,

momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all

comparison as we look, not to the things that are seen,

but to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen are transient,

but the things that are unseen are eternal. Now, Aaron,

why do you go bringing in more confusing verses?

Are you really telling me that the stuff I can see,

don't look at it , but the stuff I can't see,

I'm supposed to fix my eyes on that.

Can I just paraphrase that quickly for you that what this verse is calling us to

is to fix our eyes on God? Because, uh,

eternal perspective is not knowing what's waiting for you around every corner.

That's not it.

Eternal perspective is fixing our eyes on the one who actually does know

all and who has actually seen all and who marks the end from the beginning.

That's eternal perspective.

It's not being prepared for everything that comes your way.

It's trusting God regardless.

There's a story that I heard a while ago that I, I I know this is,

this is like heady stuff, I get it. But I think this kind of helped me,

you know,

put myself in perspective a little bit more here and try to help me understand

what this verse is about. There's a story, uh,

about a village farmer and his son. And, uh, they were pretty poor.

They worked on a farm, but they had a horse.

And one day that horse runs away and his neighbors hear about the horse that ran

away. And they come to him and they say, Hey man, that's unfortunate that your,

your horse ran away. And this village farmer looks at them and says,

maybe it is and maybe it's not. I'm like, what do you mean, dude, you,

you have your horse and your son and the horse is gone. Well, the next day,

uh, that horse that ran away brought a whole crop of wild horses back with it,

and they go, man, you're so lucky. Like, yeah, you lost that horse,

but then a group of wild horses came back.

Now you have more horses than you had before. And he goes, yeah, maybe,

or maybe not. Like, what's wrong with this dude? ? Well,

the next day his son was trying to break one of these horses,

and while doing so,

the horse bucks him off and comes down on top of him and breaks his leg and they

go, man, what's up with this guy? Man,

you feel like you're going up and down and up and down. It's like, man,

how bad that one of these wild horses broke your son's leg? And he goes,

I don't know, maybe yes, maybe no.

The next day there were rumors, uh,

about a neighboring village that was going to attack his village.

And so they went around and started drafting people for the military.

And when they came to get the man's son, they go, oh wait,

we can't take him because his leg is broken. They go, man,

you're so lucky that your son's leg was broken. And the man just goes,

you probably know it by now, maybe yes, maybe no.

Listen, this parable is said and it's given kind of this way to say, man,

listen, you never really know how your luck is gonna work out,

so just don't trip yet. Don't, don't freak out about it. But, but listen,

I I don't think it's a perfect example because we think, like in my brain,

I'm like, well, what if the story keeps going? Like, yeah,

something's gonna be bad,

but then it's gonna end up good and then something's gonna be bad,

and then it's gonna end up good again. But the reality is, is man,

the difference between that story and what we're reading about in this passage

is there's not always a guarantee that something good is gonna happen next.

People die.

People get sick and don't get better.

You lose your dream job, you, you get in the car accident.

But the beauty about this eternal perspective is that even if I have bad day

after bad day after bad day after bad day,

there is an eternity that God's already secured for me.

Even if I die on my worst day,

it is a gateway to what's next for me.

And the beauty of this is that we have a God who has been working on this since

the beginning of time. I wanna look at our,

the last two verses of this passage here.

This is verse 29 and 30 talking about God.

It says that for those whom God for knew,

he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that

he might be the first born among many brothers.

That's just another way of saying, listen,

Jesus is going to be the first one like Jesus,

but God is working to make sure he's not the only one .

That there are gonna be people who come after him who resemble him and live like

him and love like Him. Jesus will be the firstborn among many brothers,

and those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called,

he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. And Aaron,

you got three minutes. How are you gonna unpack all that? I'm not ,

but I do wanna give you this tool that I hope is helpful for you,

that as you start to, um, work through this on your own, uh,

hopefully this is wet,

your appetite to dive back into the scriptures a little bit more. Uh, here are,

uh, what the,

what these verses give us is five attributes of God that remind us that

he's trustworthy and that everything is gonna be okay.

Here they are. We're gonna throw 'em up on the screen for you.

These attributes of God he has for knowledge,

he predestined, he's called, he justified,

and he glorified to break these down for you.

The idea that God has foreknowledge, it just means that he knows all,

all, there's nothing that ever catches him off guard.

He predestined. It means he, he has orchestrated all things.

This is that working together that we're talking about called He has invited us

into his family. He's justified us,

which means he forgives all of our sin and then he glorifies us,

which means that he's going to perfect everyone who loves him.

And I love this list because this passage brings us through a timeline

of that for, I'm trying to point here that foreknowledge,

that happened before the beginning of time,

before the beginning of the universe and that glorification part down there that

happens way past what you could ever imagine.

That's the day when we're in the new heaven, the new Earth.

We're spending time with Jesus and he's making all things right.

He's got it all covered.

He's been thinking about it before you got here and he finished.

Whatever's gonna happen after you get here or after you leave here,

I want to read, um, revelation 21

verses one through six because these verses show

us what all things are working towards.

This is John talking, and then he says,

then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven,

and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city,

new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as

a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

behold the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with

them as their God. Check this out.

He will wipe away every tear from their us,

and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former

things have passed away.

And he who is seated on the throne said, behold,

I am making all things new. Also, he said,

write this down for these words are trustworthy and true. He's saying,

you can take this to the bank. He said to me, it is done.

I'm the alpha, the beginning and the omega,

the end to the thirsty,

I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

That's the glorification that we have to look forward to.

And you might be thinking, yeah, Aaron, that sounds great,

but right now it still hurts.

I still feel the pain.

I I I love that I get to hope for one day, but, but right now, like I,

I don't know how to find the comfort that I need from God.

We're talking about this idea of good.

And when all of our definitions fall short,

the only thing that we can really fall back on is that God is good.

And if you're wondering if you're here today,

you don't have a relationship with God,

or maybe you do have a relationship with God,

but I never thought about this before. This is how good God is.

Okay? Romans 8 26 through 27,

It says, likewise,

the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray for as

we ought,

but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings that are too deep for

words.

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit because the

spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

What does that mean?

It means that God has placed his spirit inside of you

so that when you don't understand everything that's going on in there,

when your mind confuses you, when your heart confuses you,

when you wanna turn and walk away from God when there's so much pain that you

don't know how to articulate it,

God inside of you communicates to our God in heaven and says, Hey,

let me fill the gap. Let me pray for them.

Let me offer that right perspective, that eternal perspective. Aaron,

how does that work? I don't know, , I don't get it.

But maybe that's the point. We don't get it.

We don't know.

We may never get it or know on this side of eternity,

but we can trust the one who does the one who truly has

eternal perspective. Listen,

every now and then we do these messages where it's like, well,

what do I do next? Man? Just

Ask God to help you, trust him.

That's really what it boils down to. But

if I had to give you four practices that help us trust

the one with eternal perspective, here's what I would tell you to do.

First of all,

I mentioned earlier that there are some people who you have not professed

a love for God.

You've not professed a wanting to have a relationship with God.

And can I tell you, man, these promises that pain doesn't go to waste.

It's not the reason we opt in. We don't just say, Hey,

I'm gonna follow God because then everything will make sense and we follow God

because man, he's the realest thing that the world has ever known,

and he's the one we were designed to be in relationship with.

But on top of the goodness of who he is,

he also offers us the promise that he will make all of the wrong, right?

So I wanna invite you, man, find somebody around you,

find somebody in our next steps area and talk to them and ask them, man,

what does it mean to have a relationship with Jesus?

Because I think that's what I want. That's the first thing.

The second thing, and this is something that I think all of us can practice,

is to put something somewhere around you. Maybe it's a mirror at home.

Maybe it's in your car.

Maybe it's a note in your phone right now that has this sentence.

It just says blank it not the end because of what God

did in the beginning. Whatever it is I'm going through right now,

this is not the end because of what God did in the beginning.

What did he do in the beginning? He for knew,

he predestined and he called and he justified.

And one day we're all gonna be glorified, and that is when we celebrate.

The third thing I want you to do is to draw a map of God's faithfulness.

Maybe you're in a season of life right now where you're like, man,

everything's chilling for me if I'm honest, like I'm, I'm really,

I'm in a good spot with God. I I trust him. I,

my devotional times have been incredible. Like everything's just going well,

listen, right now,

while you have that clarity of thought before the pain distorts the perspective,

I want you to think back to the darkest season of life you've ever been in.

And I want you to think about how that thing has drawn you closer to Jesus and

write that down. Because one day you're gonna need that clarity of thought.

You're gonna need that perspective to remind me, Hey, yeah,

God did it with that, and maybe he can do it with this too.

And then finally, if you're here and you say, man, I look,

I don't know if I have any of those stories. At least I can't recall any.

I wanna encourage you to listen to the stories of others, to ask them, man,

how has God been faithful in your life? 'cause I'm,

I'm having a hard time finding it right now,

and so I just need to be encouraged by something. And so, uh,

find someone sitting around you, find someone in a small group, uh,

maybe there's a friend of yours who lives in another state who you know,

follows the Lord, call them and say, Hey,

can you just refresh me with a story of how good God is?

Maybe you need that right now.

I think those are practices that are helpful for all of us. Uh,

before we get outta here, let me go ahead and, and pray for us.

Dear Lord,

I am encouraged by the reality that right now I don't have to pray a perfect

prayer.

I'm encouraged by the fact that I don't have to pray in a way that meets

everyone right where they are in every situation they've ever been in.

Because your word just reminded us that your Holy Spirit

fills in the gaps. God, you know,

each person in this room intimately and deeply,

deeply and so Holy Spirit,

I just ask you to pray on behalf of all of my friends here today,

we thank you that you do that. Father, we love you.

Thank you for making all things work together.

Thank you for loving us. In your son's name we pray, amen.

I've carried a

see you now. I'm laying it down

to

done

my heart, a soul, a.

A

the reason my heart,

a soul. So

is running light. Come on from,

and

now come on, just as I'm you.

My heart needs a soul. Needs a

heart.

Come on y'all. Let's give God some praise. Yeah.

And uh, just for a moment,

can you let Aaron Nelson hear that was a phenomenal message? Like, yeah,

praise God.

I'm so thankful for the work, uh,

in wrestling with the text that has been put in, um,

to really help us all to grow in our relationship with Jesus.

And as listening to that sermon, uh,

what I know is that as you hear a message like that and it begins to tug at

your heartstrings, right, um, we have an opportunity to respond.

And one of the ways that we can respond, we just did,

we responded through worship,

but there's also an opportunity for us to take steps of faith.

And so in the beginning of service, we talked about, uh,

stepping into the next steps area at one of our physical campuses,

or if you're watching online,

letting us know how we can serve you as a church to help you to take those next

steps of faith.

But whatever it is that God may be pulling at your heartstrings to do,

I don't want you to wait another moment to do that.

I want to encourage you to move forward by faith and we will serve you any way

that we possibly can. As you take those steps of faith.

Just know that we are a church that loves you and wants to walk alongside you on

your journey to follow Jesus. Now, uh, at Hope Community Church,

we do like to share every week, uh,

ways that you can get involved and next steps is a great way for you to get

involved. We also like to share ways that you can give here at hope.

And there's a couple ways up on the screen there should God so be pulling your

heart to give.

Just know that everything you do makes a difference in how we are able to make a

difference in our communities, in and around the triangle. Guys,

we absolutely love you.

This has been a phenomenal time of worship and we're hoping for many, many,

many more. So we hope to see you back here next week. God bless you guys.

We'll see you soon.