The Greatest Chapter - Romans 8:29-31

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

Let's to be able to do this in a church that I have attended for

so long. For those of you who don't know

me, I've been here for 14 or 15 years now.

I grew up in this church and yeah, I felt, felt God's calling

when I was 16, but didn't answer it unfortunately.

And now I'm deciding to, to pursue seminary and I'm, I'm so

thankful to have you guys in the support system and you guys have

been amazing. And I appreciate any and all

feedback, even if it's it just, it wasn't bad.

I'll take that. All right, so this morning I get

to take us through, continue us through our Romans 8 series.

And this morning we're going to be in Romans 8, verses 29 to 31.

Romans 8:29–31

So I invite you to open your Bibles up to that.

There's Bibles underneath the seat in front of you if you need

some or the Bible app on your phone's a great place for that

as well. But before we dive into the text

itself, I want to kind of have a moment of honesty.

If you're honest, there are moments in your life where it

feels like something is against you.

Maybe you walked in just this morning with that feeling, with

that, with that tug. You try to grow spiritually, but

something is is pulling you back.

You want to trust God, but doubt starts to creep in.

You take a step forward and then temptation, discouragement, or

even failure is waiting for you. In those moments, it doesn't

just feel random, it feels targeted.

It feels directed at you and it feels like a battle because it

is. The Bible is clear to us.

The Christian life is not passive.

There is a real spiritual war happening.

But here's the question that we have to ask.

How do we fight? Do we fight out of fear?

Do we fight in hope of earning victory?

Do we? Do we fight hoping that God is

on our side? Or do we fight knowing something

deeper is already true? Let's read our text, Romans 8,

Romans 8:29–31

verses 29 to 31, reading in God's name.

For those whom He foreknew 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.

What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Here is the reading of God's Word.

This passage answers that question that we just asked.

How do you go into battle? The answer is this.

You go to battle with God already on your side.

Just to give you an idea of where we're going in this

passage today, here are my three points that we're going to

discuss. Point #1 is that your identity

was settled before the battle even took place, .2 is that the

battle is very real, .3 is that we have the promise that we do

not fight alone. Two weeks ago when I got to give

the sermon, we talked about prayer and how you're never

praying alone. We have the promise of the Holy

Spirit interceding for us in prayer even when we don't have

the words to say. And in this passage, we see

something similar, that we never fight alone.

Taking us into point #1 Paul starts before the battle even

begins. He says you were foreknown,

predestined, called, justified, and glorified.

That is what theologians often call a golden chain, because

once it starts, it cannot be broken.

Think of it like a chain where every link is being held

together by God Himself, foreknown, predestined, called,

justified and glorified. There is no weak link in that

change because you're not the one holding it together.

God is. I want us to notice something

here in this passage. There is no uncertainty.

It doesn't say maybe you'll make it if you try hard enough.

It speaks as if it's already been done.

Even glorified, which has not happened yet, it's still spoken

in the past tense. Why is that?

Because from God's perspective, your future is already that

secure. Let me ask you something.

Do you live like your identity is secure or fragile?

Because how you live? Answering that question is going

to determine how you fight. Here's where spiritual warfare

begins. The enemy doesn't start by

attacking your behavior. He starts by attacking your

identity. Think about the very beginning

in Genesis. The serpent doesn't show up and

say go ruin your life. He shows up and says, did God

really say? He plants that seed of doubt and

he twists the truth and he confuses your identity and he's

doing the same thing to you. God doesn't really love you.

You're not actually changed or capable of changing.

You're always going to struggle with this.

You've gone too far this time. Now, let me be very clear.

The enemy can make you forget who you are, who's you are.

He doesn't even have to fight you.

You're going to defeat yourself. If your identity is based on

your performance, then every single failure is going to shake

you to the core. But if your identity is based on

God's work, then even your failures can't undo that.

Church, what lies have you been believing lately?

What sentence has been repeating in your head day after day?

Because that might not just be your thoughts, that might be the

battlefield. And I want to encourage you with

this. You don't fight for identity.

You fight from identity. You're not trying to become

someone that God loves. You're fighting as someone that

he has already set his love on. But the battle is real.

Paul asks a question. Who can be against us?

Now don't misunderstand that. He's not saying no one is

against you. He's saying no one who is

against you can ultimately win because there there is an enemy.

Jesus says this to Peter. Satan has asked to sift you like

wheat. That word sift in this context,

is powerful. It means to shake violently, to

separate, to find the weakness. Let me give you a visual.

Imagine taking a sieve and shaking wheat.

Everything that's loose and everything that's weak is going

to fall through. That's what the enemy is hoping

will happen to your faith. He wants to shake your life with

pressure and temptation and discouragement and even failure.

He's hoping that what's inside you will not hold.

It's kind of like when pressure hits your life, whether that's

from stress, temptation, exhaustion, and suddenly what's

inside you truly comes out. You ever notice that when you're

tired, discouraged, or overwhelmed, the things that you

thought you had under control are slowly coming out?

That's not random, but that's pressure revealing what's truly

inside. And here's the thing.

Satan rarely shows up in obvious ways.

He doesn't walk into your life and announce that he's there.

He works subtly. There's this idea from CS Lewis

in the screw tape letters where he says the safest road to hell

is the gradual 1, the gentle slope, soft under foot without

sudden turns. Nobody wakes up one day and

thinks, I think I'll walk away from God today.

It's small compromises. It's spiritual laziness.

It's the idea of I'll deal with that later.

But over time, your heart slowly drifts.

It's not sudden rebellion, but it's a slow drift, numbness and

compromises. The enemy would rather slowly

distract you than to suddenly destroy you.

And you may ask, how do we? How do we know?

How do we know his presence? How do we know the truth?

How do we follow and fight the right way?

His main tactics are lies, things that sound almost true

but aren't. Accusations, not conviction that

leads to repentance, but it's shame that leads to hiding,

isolation, the idea of don't tell anyone.

Handle this one on your own distraction, keeping you

spiritually numb, busy, and distant from God.

Now here's where things may get a little uncomfortable, but it's

real. Sometimes the greatest threat in

your spiritual life is not that Satan is against you, but it's

that you agree with him. Think about it.

He whispers a lie and you repeat it in your head all day long,

maybe for weeks at a time. He brings accusations and you

sit in shame. He tempts you and you willfully

walk into it. He nudges you towards isolation

and you choose to withdraw. The enemy may whisper it, but we

echo it and allow it to control us.

Let me give you an example. When I was in high school, I

wasn't exactly the best behaved kid, believe it or not.

I made some pretty stupid, pretty dumb decisions.

And one night after a band event, it was late, the parking

lot was empty and my friend had just pulled out.

So I threw my car in reverse, hit the gas maybe a little

harder than I should have, and immediately heard a loud crunch.

I backed into the only other vehicle in the entire parking

lot. But in that moment, I wasn't

thinking about the car. I was thinking I am in so much

trouble. Fortunate enough I had my sister

in the passenger seat with me who immediately pulled out her

phone and called her parents and all I could think was I wish she

wasn't here so I didn't have to call my dad.

I wanted to avoid him completely because in my mind I thought he

was going to be angry. I thought he was going to be so

disappointed. I thought he was going to be

upset with me because the thing that he had given me to take

care of, I had just ruined. We got the whole situation

figured out. Fortunately, I knew the the girl

in my class that drove that vehicle got it all figured out.

It's not on my record, so if you want proof, it doesn't exist.

But we got home and I was still avoiding him.

I was still avoiding my father. I did not want to have that

conversation. But he just walked up to me and

instead of yelling, instead of getting angry, he just hugged

me. And he said it's OK, No one got

hurt. Now that that moment stuck with

me because what I expected was not who my dad actually was in

that moment. And we do the same thing to God,

but we mess up spiritually instead of running to him.

We avoid him. We don't pray, we don't open our

Bible, we tell ourselves, I'm going to come back to this when

I'm doing better. But listen carefully.

That's not just you and your thoughts, that's the enemy

shaping how you respond to God. Where are you self sabotaging

yourself right now? Maybe it's a pattern you keep

feeding into, maybe a lie that you keep believing.

Maybe it's a place that you keep running to instead of running to

God. That is where the battle is

happening. But we don't have to fight

alone. We get to turn the corner

because if all we talked about is this battle, it starts to get

really heavy. But Paul doesn't leave us there

in the battle. He says God is for us.

Everything changes right there. Let's go back to Peter for a

moment. Jesus said Satan has asked to

sift you. That's terrifying.

But then he follows that by saying, but I have prayed for

you and that changes everything. Think about what that means.

Jesus knew the attack was coming.

He allowed the testing, but He secured Peter's faith and his

future. Peter would stumble, but he

would not be destroyed. And that's the same truth for

you if you are in Christ. God is not neutral towards you.

He is not distant from you. He is not waiting for you to

fail, but He is for you. Let me say something clearly

about this. You are not entering a fair

fight. This is not you versus Satan.

This is you with the God of the universe for you against an

already defeated enemy. So what does it mean to go to

battle? This is where we can get a

little practical. If God is for you, then fight

like it. One way we can fight is to fight

with truth. When Jesus was tempted, he

didn't argue, He responded with scripture.

You don't defeat lies with feelings, you defeat lies with

the truth. So ask yourself this, do I know

the truth well enough to recognize a lie?

Another way we can fight is to fight in prayer.

Church, we talked about it two weeks ago.

Prayer is such a powerful thing. Even if you don't have the right

words to say. Sit with God, allow the Holy

Spirit to intercede and pray the words that you don't have.

Prayer is not calling for backup.

It's stepping into the reality that you are not alone and God

is already in the fight. The next way we can fight is to

fight in the light. Church isolation is where the

enemy wins. Sin grows in secrecy, but it

dies in the light. So I want to challenge you with

this. Who in your life knows what

you're truly struggling with right now?

The last way we can fight is to fight with confidence.

It's not arrogance and it's not self-confidence.

It's God confidence. Peter was warned, he was sifted

and he failed publicly. He denied Jesus three times and

by all accounts it should have been over, but it wasn't.

Why? Because Jesus being for him was

so much greater than Satan being against him.

What battle are you in right now?

Where do you feel attacked? Where do you feel weak?

Now ask yourself, am I fighting like God is for me or am I

fighting like I'm on my own? Churchill, let's not go into

this week wondering if you'll survive.

Don't go into this battle hoping or thinking that you're strong

enough. You go to battle with God on

your side. And if God is for you, then who

can truly be against you? I want to close this in prayer

and let's sing in response to this wonderful news that we

have. Dear Heavenly Father, you know

the battles that we're walking through right now.

You know where we feel weak and where we feel stuck, where we've

been isolating ourselves and believing lies.

It got so often, instead of running to you, we avoid you.

But thank you for reminding us today that if we are in Christ,

you are for us, not because of what we've done, but because of

what you've done. Help us to live in that truth

this week. When when lies come, remind us

of what's true. When we feel alone.

Remind us you are with us when we're tempted to run.

Draw us back to you. Give us the courage to step into

this week not in fear, but in confidence in God.

Confidence because you are on our side.

We love you and we trust you. We pray these things all in your

mighty name, Amen. Thanks for listening to the ERC

Sundays to support the work God is doing.

An Amazed Rd. church. Visit amazedrdonline.org/giving.