Christ Sustains Us

If we don't hear directly from him, and if we don't have the Holy Spirit working in our heart, let's just close our Bibles, get up, and let's go home.

Man, I'm I'm I'm desperate for us to hear from the Lord this morning.

And I don't know what's going on in your life, but I would imagine you are at a place or you you have been or will be where you desperately need to hear from God.

You need him to speak to you.

You need him to work in your life.

My name is Russ.

Great to have you with us this morning, especially if it's your first time.

Um we hope that you are blessed with the presence of God.

We hope that you are welcomed with warmth from our family.

Um we'd love to have more information and get to know you a little bit better so you can fill out what we call an encounter card.

Um, there's some actual cards out in the lobby.

Somebody may have already given you one.

You can do it on your uh app on your phone electronically.

Um but the main thing is we want to help you take some real practical next steps in your life, hopefully, where God can make a difference and even use you.

God has a purpose for you.

Um I I think back to college, I had to take an elective back in college, and it was one of those electives that um that you had to have an elective, but and you look at the choices, and you think, I'm gonna take this elective, and it was a one-hour class, and it was a life skills class.

And it was all types of stuff that was real practical in there.

But and one of the things that we had to learn was how to do basic maintenance on a vehicle, a car.

And so we had to we had to study and we had to take a test, and and most people ace the test.

I mean, especially, you know, you know those students that are just like, we're gonna make a hundred.

We're gonna make a perfect day.

But then the professor took us outside, and he says, All right, everybody has to actually change the tire on this vehicle.

And so all those students that made an A, even some that made a hundred, they didn't even know where to find the jack in the car.

See, it's one thing to have some knowledge about something, it's another thing to actually have to practice it.

My kids, they're all 15 and older.

And so when they turn 15, what do they get excited about?

Driving.

And so they got they got to study and they've got to go take a test.

They've got to pass the test.

They don't drive at 15, they drive at 16 for the test.

So at 15, they go in and they ace it.

And you walk out of the car, and I'd walk out in the car, and I just handed my keys to Josiah, to Abigail, to Caleb.

I said, Hey, you're driving.

I'm gonna tell you, boys and girls are different.

The boys are like, Yeah, you give me the keys.

I can't wait.

Abigail, I'm driving home.

I can't drive home.

I said, You're driving home.

You passed the test, you aced it.

You're driving home.

Dad, I can't drive home.

I said, You're driving home.

We've practiced.

And so we get out on the road, it's hilarious.

I mean, she's driving like, no, no offense to anybody.

She's driving like a little grandma.

And this huge 18-wheeler is coming up beside her on the road, and she said, Dad, he's passing me, he's passing me, he's passing me.

I'm like, Yeah, he's passing you, you're going 30.

So it's it's a whole different thing to acquire knowledge, pass the test, and then actually live it out.

Practice it, embrace it.

And for those of you that like to cook, you come across a recipe.

This is I love this.

You see it online, or you have it in a cookbook, and then you realize halfway through actually preparing the meal, this is the disaster.

That's me.

And so in Romans chapter 8, where we are, Paul takes a very sharp turn where he goes from talking about this is what you have in Christ.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Because last week we we we we looked at the first part of Romans chapter 8, and that first verse, there is now therefore no condemnation for those in Christ.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And he goes on and he talks about our life in the Spirit, our need and our desire and our dependence on the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the battle that we have with the flesh.

And in essence, he's saying, This is what you have in Christ.

And then he gets to verse 18, and it says, This is what you will experience in life.

So, man, he is he is driving, and it is a hard turn.

And so we all have to deal with the reality of life and the grind of life and what life throws at us.

Because it's one thing to know the vertical truth about Jesus, it's another thing to horizontally live it out.

One of my friends and I were talking about this.

Spiritual maturity happens when what we know, in theory, becomes what we experience in life.

And so, what we have in Christ, and this is where we're going, what we have in Christ is the hope that sustains us in the everyday, mundane, and painful grind of life.

And so the big idea, and this may sound cheesy, it did to me a little bit, but it's so memorable.

Christ sustains us in what pains us.

Let me add it this way: Christ sustains us in and through what pains us.

And so Paul says this.

I love this verse.

Maybe one of my favorite in the Bible.

He says, yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

And so Paul is not speaking in a vacuum here.

He's not speaking as somebody that's talking about theory.

He knows personally what he's talking about.

2 Corinthians 4, 8 through 10 is sitting on the screen, but let me just read it.

Paul is talking about his own experience.

He says, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair.

We are persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be also manifested in our bodies.

And so Paul is talking about being beaten down at every turn where he's taking the gospel, every place he's going, sometimes feeling confused, sometimes feeling unsure.

Paul was physically beaten and put in prison multiple times.

It was just routine in his life.

He was shipwrecked and left for dead.

He was rejected by other believers because of his former life.

He was a persecutor of the church.

And so a lot of Christians didn't know whether they could trust him or not.

His friends and his partners in ministry out in the mission field, they would leave him.

They just left him.

I'm not going with you anymore.

Scripture tells us that people look down on him because of his physical appearance.

So Paul is not speaking in this passage out of theory.

He is speaking out of his personal experience of present suffering.

And so I want to ask you this question.

So give you a second to think about it.

My present suffering is.

Things that you that are happening that aren't aren't jiving with you in your life.

So what is yours?

Fill in the blank.

My present suffering is.

And if you don't have something significant, you will.

In that space.

My present suffering is COVID.

This is what I think of COVID.

COVID stinks.

And I would prefer another word, but my wife gets mad when I use it.

It's just been a rough couple years.

But for many of us, it's something more, it's something different.

It's a marriage under strain.

It's parenting kids in a crazy age without sleep.

It could be physical health, cancer.

I think of our online pastor that's online ministering right now, Kevin Gibson that is hanging on, dealing with terminal cancer.

It might be friendships that have gone bad, family relationships that have gone bad.

It could be financial loss.

It could be the pressure that we've had the last couple of years on a business or on your finances.

It can be loneliness and depression.

Maybe it's caring for older parents or the loss of a parent or the loss of a loved one recently or in the past.

Maybe it's anxiety.

Maybe it's, I mean, we could go on and on and talk about the pressures that are unwanted and not undesired in our life.

And then right in the middle of that, Paul says, the suffering of this present time, the suffering of this present time, whatever it is you're going through, whatever it is you're experiencing it.

And I was talking to Hannah this morning early, and I was talking about how Dylan, one of our young guys, he's one of our young bucks preaching, he's preaching in down in his social circle today, and I thought, you know, Dylan's going to do a great job.

But there's something about being in ministry for 27 years and walking with people and understanding personally a bit of suffering and understanding it with the lives of people.

And there's just something about the experience of being able to speak into it.

Because I've been there or I understand how people have been there.

One of the things that I heard from one of my mentors earlier, he said, Russ, if you preach encouragement to hurting and suffering people, you'll always have an audience that will listen.

Because people need encouragement.

And so at some point we've got to come to this notion, this place in our life where we move, we transition.

Instead of expecting easy and then being frustrated and surprised with the hard things in life, expect the hard and then be thankful for the easy.

Can we just say hallelujah?

For the cross.

The redemption of creation, the reconciliation that has been lost between us and our Heavenly Father.

Our bodies will be made whole and forever will be in glory and in peace.

No more tears, no more hurt, no more war, no more division.

Forever and ever and ever glory in the presence of the Lord.

Paul says, Don't miss this.

Don't miss this.

It is everyone.

It is global.

It is a it has affected all of creation.

Verse 19, he says, for all creation is waiting eagerly for the future day when God will reveal who his children really are.

And the picture is this.

Listen, the picture I want you to get is it's a child.

We are like a child that is hidden behind a fence.

And we can't get to the other side, and there is a parade outside.

There are uh animals and there are balloons, and you can imagine everything that would excite a child, and and and the little child, all he's got, all this little boy has is a tiny little knothole to look through.

And that's us.

In this present suffering, we get a glimpse and we get to see a little bit, we get to taste a little bit of it and worship.

But then on the other side, I'm telling you, Paul is saying there is something that is going to be beyond what you can imagine.

Verse 20, for creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it.

See, we wanted to have things our own way.

Humanity, let's look back.

Adam and Eve said, God, we can figure it out better than you can.

So they disobeyed, they rebelled.

It was passed down.

We were born, we're all born into sin.

And because of sin, Romans 5.12, Paul says, Because of sin, death has entered the world.

And it's infected all of us, and in ways that we can't even understand.

And what it's done is it's subjected creation, all of creation, to a frustration, not by its own choice.

He says, so for creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

In hope.

That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

And not only creation, but we ourselves.

We have the first fruits of the Spirit.

We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

There's a lot there.

Paul is saying, in this life, even the beauty of creation, the best the world has to offer us, doesn't function completely unbroken.

He uses the word groaning.

You ever groan?

He uses the word groaning.

It's a normal part of my life now.

Groaning.

I hate it when I drop stuff because I know there's a groan coming.

I mean, it's just groaning.

Sometimes your kids, they're young and they groan.

Hey, it's time, your turn to take out the trash.

Oh.

Clean up after yourself.

Oh.

And then they don't clean up after themselves, and you have to do it, and it's oh.

We groan, we groan when we stub our toe.

We groan when we slam our fingers in a door.

You say a lot of things then.

And it probably ain't speaking in tongues.

We groan, we groan about things that are of little importance.

We groan about things that are of great importance.

We groan.

And he says the spirit in us groans.

Let me explain it.

So you think of the thing that you enjoy the most about all of creation.

And let me boil it down.

We're either beach people or we're mountain people.

I mean, that's just overly simplifying it, right?

You either like to have your toes in the sand, you like to have a beautiful sunset, you love to have the sound of the ocean kind of lull you into a sleep.

You like to cook in the glory of God's Son all day.

Or you like a crisp morning in the fall in the mountains, and you want to sit on a porch overlooking a beautiful chasm that God has created and drink coffee and have your Bible open and then you take a picture of it because you want everybody to know you're having a quiet time.

Put it on Instagram.

Doesn't count if you don't.

I think of the beauty of all creation.

I love I love I'm more of a mountain guy, but I love the beach too.

I love it all.

Paul is saying all of this that we look at, we say is beautiful.

It has been subjected to futility.

Everything that we look at and we find beauty in has the potential to wreak havoc.

In a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake, a mudslide, all of those things that produce beauty and bring us a sense of what God can do has been subjected to the futility of a broken world because of.

What?

Because of sin.

Sin.

He says, and we know this, it's affected not only creation, it's affected us women.

There is a curse that has affected how childbirth is experienced.

I've got three kids.

I was in the room for every one of them.

And it's a beautiful, it's it's it's one of those incredible experiences in life.

Never forget it, it'll change your life, but it involves pain.

And all the women said, And that's just part of the part of the result of the curse and the sin.

My wife may get in trouble.

I didn't ask permission for this, but can you we keep this just between us?

So because she's not here yet, I don't think.

So so she she had an epidural for our first two children that were born, and she still experienced pain.

And so she went into labor.

She had to be induced on the first two.

She went into labor with Caleb, and we we're in the hospital, we're sitting there, we're pros, right?

Because it's our third child.

And the doctor comes in, he says, you know, Miss Butcher, it's if you want an epidural, it's time.

And I'm I'm waiting for her to say, okay, bring it in.

And she says, No, I'm I'm going natural with this one.

The doctor says, okay.

He starts walking out.

I say, hey, don't you leave yet?

Hang on a second.

Hang on a second.

We haven't even talked about this.

Because you don't know what this does to me, honey, is what I said.

Doc, bring the epidural.

If she doesn't want it, I'll take it.

All right, I can't share this the next service, so please, that's just between us, because I've learned to ask permission.

I forgot to for that one.

Here's the point.

Even the best things in this world do not function.

Right.

And Paul says the world is subjected to futility.

Bondage to decay.

God Himself has imposed upon his awesome creation a temporary restraining order.

And it's all because of sin.

It's the repercussions of brokenness.

It's the repercussions of our rebellion against God.

But hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus, for the gospel.

The good news that Jesus steps into this futility.

Jesus steps into the brokenness.

Jesus himself becomes a human being.

God becomes flesh to step in the middle of it, to rescue us, to save us, to restore us, to save us from the futility of this world.

And he offers us an eternal redemption that is so grand, that is so big, that is so wondrous.

It's beyond what we can even understand, right in the middle of the present suffering.

We know there is a hope, and we're just looking through the knothole.

And on the other side, God is going to blow our mind.

Yes.

Come on, Baptist.

It's okay to clap in church.

Yeah, one Pentecostal friend back here.

Thank you.

Listen, biblical faith never asks you, nothing in the Bible asks you to deny the reality of this hard, harsh world.

What biblical faith does is invites you into a different life right in the middle of it.

Paul goes on, and the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness.

For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will.

In this verse, man, we could do it.

I just do one sermon on this next verse.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Praise God.

For God knew his people in advance.

And he chose them to become like his son, so that his son would be the firstborn among many.

Brothers and sisters, God chose you.

This might be the most important part.

We feel weak.

We feel weak.

Helpless?

There's nowhere in the Bible that teaches that you are going to go through your whole life with complete composure and without experiencing brokenness.

That is not in the Bible.

But it does give us hope that when we feel weak, the Spirit of God in us can pray on our behalf.

Sometimes when we don't know what to say through groaning.

When we're helpless, the Holy Spirit accepts the invitation to step in to help us.

Sometimes, church, the authentic Christian life is not people who always know what to do or even how to pray, but simply people who have the Holy Spirit helping them in their weakness.

Christ sustains us in what pains us.

We're given this hope.

When we were saved, verse 24, if we already have something, we don't need hope for it.

But if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.

Patiently and confidently.

He explains to us how hope works.

Hope is a word that is important.

More than that, it's a word that needs to resonate in your body.

It needs to resonate down to your soul.

And it needs to be, it needs to move beyond theory and academic understanding in your mind to practical application in your life.

You don't just know it theologically, you live it.

And so our culture defines hope as optimism.

Paul, in scripture, tells us that hope is a confident expectation, an anticipation, an absolute certainty that we lean on and put our weight in.

Hope is a choice.

You've been wondering the whole time.

Well, they're not sponsoring our service, okay?

I wish they were.

Hope is a choice.

Hope is about leaning into what we know to be true and what we anticipate is to come.

And it's knowing that our faith has a firm foundation.

That when the weight of life comes, it's not going to crush us.

That's practical hope.

It's a choice.

When the experiences come that potentially will crush us when hope is weak, when it's not real, it's not practical.

That's what happens.

It crushes us.

And many of you have experienced one or both.

And we're weak sometimes.

That's when the Holy Spirit has got to sustain us.

God wants us to get to a point where He will change us with a hope that is a reality that is practical and practiced in our life.

Here's three things to think about.

Hope determines the foundation of our personality.

Hope dictates the purpose of our life.

Hope determines your ability to endure.

What do you mean by foundation of our personality?

We all have a disposition.

We all have a personality and we are predisposed.

And you're around some people that you work with, some people that you live with, some people, and they just never have joy and hope.

Their disposition is just always about what's wrong.

And those are miserable people to be around, right?

The world is looking for a people who will be different than in the middle of the pain and the brokenness, that there is a hope that changes their disposition.

That they smile.

Yeah, life is falling apart.

Life, maybe an experience has taken your breath away.

Hope dictates the purpose of our life.

What do I mean by that?

God's called you to join him in his mission.

God has called you to be a partner with him.

He hasn't called you to live in just permanent pain.

He wants you to know what's on the other side of the fence so you can anticipate and in this life help other people learn and know about Jesus.

He's called you to serve, he's called you with gifts, he's called you to be a part of the body of Christ and to let your gifts be used to bring him glory.

And then hope determines your ability to endure.

Sometimes we just have hard life and hard things happen, and we've got to persevere and we've got to endure.

And sometimes we've got to just let hope sustain us.

The Chronicles of Narnia.

At the end, he says, as Aslan spoke, he no longer looked at them like a lion.

But the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.

And for us, this the end of all stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.

But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story.

All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page.

Now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than before.

You know how we say around here, the best is yet to come.

It's biblical, isn't it?

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you would move in our hearts in such a way that we would move from discouragement to joy, from hopelessness to hope.

God, that you would draw people this morning who are outside of Christ, draw them to a personal relationship with Jesus.

And maybe that's you this morning.

Your practical next step is simply to say yes to Jesus.

I talked about how Jesus came to rescue us from this broken world.

He came to restore the relationship that we that was broken with our Heavenly Father.

He reconciled us and we respond simply by saying yes to Jesus.

Jesus said, Repent and believe, repent and believe in the good news.

And the good news is that Jesus has saved us and he will restore everything that's been broken.

Maybe for you, your next step is to go public with your faith.

Maybe through baptism, don't put that off.

And for some of us this morning, it's for you to step away from feeling helpless and position yourself to experience practical hope and you make that decision and say, yes, my firm foundation is in Christ.

So I want to encourage you this morning as we're going to sing.

Let this be a song of response that encourages you.

Maybe that God would give us a peak beyond the knothole.

Knowing that something greater is coming.

Father, thank you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

You can stand.