The Greatest Chapter - Romans 8:28-30

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.

Good morning. Good morning.

It's good to see that you all have made it before spring again

in 2026 happens. I don't know what's happening,

Kristen. I think you spoke a lot of truth

even when you were just kind of talking about upcoming

opportunities and stuff like that.

But where you failed to speak the truth was because of

whatever we think is going to happen.

I'm not leaving today. So you know, there's that.

But anyway, well, welcome to our series and perhaps the greatest

chapter in the Bible as it's been described.

I forgot my little clicker. There we go.

So, but welcome to Romans 8. We have been in, I think this is

the 7th or the 8th week we are in this chapter.

And this is really a, a fairly brilliant chapter of the Bible.

I mean, the whole Bible is inspired.

It's the word of God. But this chapter in particular

is brilliant. And I know that to be true

because last week Dom, who's one of our seminarians, well, we

only have one, but he's a seminarian.

And so anyway, do we have more than one?

No. No.

Anybody else want to go to seminary?

It's a blast. Hebrew and Greek.

No. OK, fine.

Talk to me afterwards. I'm here.

I'm not leaving anyway. So yeah, one of the reasons why

I know this chapter is brilliant is because Dom was preaching on

Romans 828 last week. And then we took a bunch of time

during the podcast this last week to continue to dive into

Romans 828. And then I came upon it this

week and I was like, we're not done.

We are not done, friends. There is more to mine out of

that. And in fact, it is kind of at

the heart of the things I'm going to be talking about today.

And so, yeah, one verse, just carrying on and on and on.

That's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing at all.

We should always dive deep into God's word, mining out

everything that we can from it. And so that's how I know Romans

Romans 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8 is absolutely brilliant because we just keep

on staying in the same place. So this morning, though, if you

know me, you know I'm what we would call like a three-point

preacher. I don't have three points.

I have dose points. And so first of all, we're going

to go back into Romans 828 and we're going to see, we're going

to ask the question, what does it mean to love God?

What does it look like? What does it mean to love God?

And then if you don't read Greek, there's a Greek word

behind me and it says to Telestai.

And we're going to get into all of that too.

So without any further ado, why don't we just read the three

small, the short verses that we have?

And it's still too much content for what we have time for today.

And that's why I show you that so you know where we're going

and you know that I know that I'm not covering all of the

details of this text, even though it's only three verses.

Go, go. Hey, there we go, and I'm done.

Think outside the box. I am so glad you made it here

this morning. You have no idea.

You have no idea how happy it makes me that you are here to

give that joke. By the way, if you don't know

Megan, she is extremely good. She, her timing is impeccable.

And I know that because she's I've known her for years and

she's in my life group. And so yes, that happens all the

time. Why am I not surprised?

Anyway, where are we at again? Again, audience participation

welcome, but not always helpful. Not always helpful.

Oh my gosh, friends, good ish. No, I'll take one of those.

Thank you very much. And you're like, you're the

pastor. You're supposed to have the

whole Bible memorized. Don't say that.

That's not that's not a thing that we do anyway.

We're going to be reading from actually if you, if you want a

Pew Bible and I, we are on page like 944 nine.

Well, no, nine, yeah. 940-4945, yeah, 944.

So if you want to grab one of those or if you have a phone

that you use for with a Bible app, I strongly encourage that.

It helps keep you in the word often as it sends reminders and

things like that. But we're going to read Romans

828 or 828 through 30. Man, we are starting off strong

today. We are really getting after it.

All right, reading in Jesus name.

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 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.

Here ends the reading of God's Word.

May it be blessed. So I'm going to keep moving

despite the box problem. And I would like to start.

I'd like to start with a story that I think makes a lot of

sense. There was a very young man, 5-6

years old, kind of somewhere in there.

Notice I didn't say 6-7. You guys have infected me this

morning with something madness, some kind of madness.

We are going to tighten up, I promise.

Thank you. Thank you.

OK, so young man, around 5 or 6 years old and what happens is

he's got a dad and he so he go, he goes outside one day and he

finds this super cool shiny rock and he is so proud of this

thing. He just loves it.

So he brings it back to his dad and he's like, dad, I'm going to

give you this rock. And dad's like well, thanks son.

And then his son looked at him and says, now can I have a

cookie? OK, go have a cookie.

And then the next day the kid goes out because he loves

exploring and stuff and he finds like the best stick ever.

And if you're not a a boy, you don't understand why that's

cool. Like we turn sticks into awesome

things when we're young. It is not simply a stick.

It is a sword. It is a shotgun.

It is something cool girls, you may not get that, but we do It's

awesome. So he finds this great stick and

he brings it to his dad and he presents this stick and he's

like, dad, this is the best stick ever.

I want you to have it. And his dad goes, thank you,

son. And then the son looks at him

and says, can I have a cookie? OK, go have a cookie, son.

Third day, son goes out and he's just kind of roaming around and

he finds this big, like, fully blown dandelion.

I know it's not a flower, I understand, but this kid loves

it. And he brings it back to his

dad. And his dad goes, thank you for

the dandelion. Did you want a cookie?

No, no, Dad, I I don't want anything.

I just, I just wanted you to have that.

Here's the point of that story. The point of that story is that

the dad understood at the dandelion point that his son

really loved him because he wasn't looking for anything in

return. He just wanted to give him

something, right? That's how his dad understood

that his son loved him. And so here's the thing, I know

that oftentimes we are more like the first two days of that kid

bringing God something and then asking for something in return.

See, God, I brought you this. What are what are you going to

give me back? But we need to be more like the

child on the third day. The thing is, when we are the

child on that third day, what we're doing is we're act, we're

actually exercising mature love. That's what we get to do.

It's a mature love. And I think too often there are

Christians, and I've known plenty of them, and I've been

one of them myself on not great days.

And it's not so much that we love God for just who he is, but

it's more like we're like, hey, God, I did this thing, can I

have a cookie? And that's not really mature

love. See, because The thing is, real

love, mature love, it doesn't love because of any potential

benefits. It loves just for the sake of

the beauty of the object of affection.

That's what real love does. That's what mature love does.

Yeah. Let me say it this way.

Let's move forward. So drive me crazy.

No, let me say it this way. When you start dating somebody

or, or something like that, what happens is there's a lot of

excitement there. And some of that excitement

comes just because of maybe some perceived, I'll say it this way,

some, some perceived affection benefits.

I don't think I need to say more than that.

And so that's where it kind of starts for a lot of people.

But The thing is, that's not mature because mature love

shifts from receiving benefits to just loving that person for

simply who they are. And when mature love develops,

what happens is we see love that lasts a lifetime.

We see marriages that last a lifetime when there is mature

love. However, on the other side, we

see the opposite. When there isn't mature love,

when the relationship is still just transactional.

I did this. Give me a cookie.

When the relationship stays transactional, the relationship

always fails. Every single time it fails.

Why? Because it was never really

about a deep, mature love. It was never about loving them

just because of who they are. It was about what am I getting

in return? And that's transactional love.

And that's not helpful. And I'll say this, some

relationships are actually meant to be transactional, and that's

OK. Let me give you an example.

My relationship with my insurance guy is completely

transactional. It really is.

I think he's a nice guy. Like I don't know him.

We don't hang out outside of like ever.

We don't hang out. And and here's the thing, like

if he seems like a really decent guy, but if somebody else were

to come along and to give me a better rate, I'd be like, see

ya, peace out. We're no longer in a

relationship that's a transactional relationship.

And some of them are built that way and that's OK.

But I think the crazy thing is, and it is insane, we treat our

spouses that way. Sometimes we treat our children

that way and they feel it as if your love could be taken away

because they didn't perform. And worse than all of that, we

can treat God that way. If you're not sure, if you've

ever done that, let me just help you out.

Maybe it sounded something like this.

God, I read my Bible, I prayed, now bless me.

God I worshipped, now help me. God I, I, I, I went to church.

I did it. And in fact, I did it two weeks

in a row. Now fix this situation that I'm

in. God, I volunteered, I gave, I

did all these things now give back to me.

You see all those ways are just simply transactional ways of

being in a relationship, transactional ways of attempting

to love and it's nothing more than pain in order to get paid

back. Thank you for removing the box.

I just see him celebrating in the back.

You're the best. No, but but that's the thing,

we, that's not mature love, that's not maturity at all.

That is, and I'm going to say this gently, that is an infant

Christian. I'll say it more bluntly, that

is a baby Christian. That's a baby Christian move.

And, and I'm going to give you some really good advice.

And I say this with all due respect and love in my heart and

real care for you. I mean it, grow up.

Grow up instead of I know Jesus died for my sins, but no, no

more of that. Grow up.

God has seen the worst of me and he sent his Son to die for me.

I love him, my eternity is secure.

I have nothing to fear in this life or the next.

I love Him, my Lord and my Savior.

He loves me unconditionally. I love Him, and because I love

him, I want what He wants. I want to go where He wants me

to go. I want to see people the way

that He sees people. I want my heart to break for

what breaks his. I love him.

Do you see the difference? Maybe more importantly, do you

feel the difference in those two different things?

See, a transactional relationship, it always wants

more. It always wants more proof.

And in fact, transactional relationships, most of the time

they function around what have you done for me lately?

That is not how God loves us. Because if God said what have

you done for me lately? Even our best praises are

nothing more than filthy rags. God doesn't love us that way.

He loves us in our imperfection. He loves us in our sin and man,

we ought to love God the same way.

If we're going to grow, if we're going to grow up, we've got to

do that in love. We're not going to will

ourselves into it. This is not the sermon that's

going on the podcast. This is how this works.

This is how this is supposed to work biblically, growing in love

and growing in maturity. Second, Peter 318 says, But grow

in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus

Christ. Do you see it grow in grace,

grow in knowledge? So I'm going to be incredibly

pragmatic about this because often times we'll say things or

I'll talk to somebody and what'll happen is maybe they

even kind of like what I say or they're they're thinking about

it, but they'll come back and they'll say, but Pastor Chris,

you didn't give me any boxes to check.

You didn't tell me what to do. You didn't tell me how to do it.

So here's the thing. I'm going to relieve you of any

of that stress, and I'm just going to tell you how to do it

right so that way you can walk out without excuse.

Lucky you. Here's how it starts.

We start with baptism. We start with baptism.

Be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and the gifts of

the Holy Spirit. In your baptism, you are buried

with Christ. That's what the Bible says.

And then that means you are resurrected with Christ into new

life. Be baptized #2 join a life

group. I know that sounds like I'm just

advertising for something we do, but Christian community matters.

Christians were never meant to be an island.

That is, I don't think you can read this Bible and then go home

and say, you know what? I don't need to go to church

anymore. I don't need to be in community.

You won't find that in God's Word.

And so if it's not that man, go to men's night, go to women's

nights, go to Bible studies, do something to engage your faith

inside of a community. This is how God wants to grow

you. Serve with others.

Serve with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Serve right? There are so many places where

God is already working, where He is doing good work through

broken people like just you, just like you and me.

And The thing is, maybe you're like, well, I'm not gifted to do

any of the things that I could volunteer for.

You know what? See a need, Fill a need.

Maybe we aren't filling all the needs here at Maeus Rd.

Church. And in fact, that's probably

true. We are far from perfect.

Well, guess what? You just became the executive of

that board. Congratulations.

See a need, Fill a need. Serve with your brothers and

sisters in Christ. Because The thing is, every

single day, in order for God to grow us, He's asking us to make

it a little bit less about us and a little bit more about

somebody else. That's good for us to do.

And pray. Yes, I know that seems obvious.

Pray. 1st Thessalonians 517 says pray without ceasing.

Why pray? Because prayer is your intimate

connection to God. You want to talk about building

a relationship? You want to talk about building

love. Guess what you can't do with

your spouse or a friend. You can't build and create

mature love without communication.

So pray when you're at the dinner table.

Pray when you wake up. Pray when you go to sleep.

Pray when your kids are driving you mad, you'll need it.

Pray when your boss is the worst.

But just pray. Have that intimate connection

and communication with God. Watch what He does with it

because it builds love. And finally, friends, dig into

His word every single day. You know, I talked about this

before, but most people when, when they're in a bad

relationship and they they're honest about it, one of the

things, the key things that they say is my partner stopped

pursuing me when we were dating, man, they were, they wanted to

be around me all the time. They're always active.

They're always wanting to be around me.

My partner doesn't pursue me anymore, friends.

We have to pursue God inside of his word, have to pursue God

inside of his word every single day.

And we as we seek him every single day, we will fall more

and more in love with him every single day.

Because I promise you this word, this word of God's man.

If your heart doesn't melt at this, when you read what Jesus

has done for you and you read the extent that God is gone for

you, if that doesn't melt your heart, friends, I don't know

what will. This is how again, I just was

very pragmatic with you. I gave you the ways.

Right, but this is how we grow into mature love.

This is how verse 29 would say that we are conformed to God's

grace. It's how we mature.

These are the ways that we do it.

And let me go back because maybe I offended some of you.

I do. I love baby Christians.

Now, I'm not just talking about babies.

I'm talking about baby Christians new to their faith.

And here's why I love them. There's good reason for it.

Oftentimes they're incredibly enthusiastic, which I am too, if

you haven't noticed. They're incredibly enthusiastic

about their faith. And there's an energy there and

that's a lot of fun and that's really cool.

And there's a, there's a, there's a simple faith that they

have. They just simply believe.

And God actually calls us to believe quite simply, because

nothing is terribly complex about salvation.

So he calls. But here's the thing, here's

where it gets really sad and I've watched it and Lord help

me, I've seen it in this building when you are still a

baby Christian, 5101520 years into having this faith and you

are just stuck in this infancy and and you're still living for

yourself. And here's different ways you

can see that. If you're not sure if you're

still a baby Christian, guess what?

I'll give you some ways. Again, very practical.

If you're still living for yourself, baby Christian.

If you still have identity issues, how do you know you have

identity issues? Because nobody's allowed to

criticize you without you blowing up.

Because your identity is not firmly built in Christ.

It's not level and steady because you are a child of God.

No, you're all over the place with your identity because you

are not brought up into who Christ says you are, baby

Christian. When things go wrong or you're

like, Oh my gosh, the Lord is punishing me.

It must be the Lord punishing me because of course, it's not as

though I didn't know that he put his Son on the cross for my

sins. Come on, guys, God has already

punished his Son. He's not punishing you.

And if that's your mindset, baby Christian, well, guess what,

baby Christians, it is absolutely time to grow up.

Because to have a mature love for Goddess, to trust Him on the

hills and in the valleys. To have a mature love for

Goddess, to find our identity in Him.

Not in our performance, not in our bank accounts, not in our

career achievements. To have mature love is to want

what He wants, to seek after his heart.

And to have a mature love of God is to see the infinite beauty in

the Father and the Son and in the Holy Spirit.

To deeply desire to dwell with Him, to trust in Him even when

it looks like your prayers aren't getting answered at your

pace, even when it looks like life isn't going your way.

To love Him despite the circumstances.

That's a mature love. Now again, you might say to me,

all well and good, but am I supposed to just will myself to

love God more? Oh, I'm going to love God so

much. It's going to be great.

Is that how that works? No, not really.

Let me thank you. Let me tell you a story to maybe

kind of illustrate how this works.

There was A and I'm a former art teacher, so this story makes a

lot of sense to me. But there was a master sculptor.

Everybody around knew that this guy was a genius.

He could make the most beautiful, lifelike things

seemingly without flaw, without, I mean, they were perfect.

This sculptor, he took on an apprentice and The Apprentice

watched him work. And for weeks and weeks and

weeks, he watched the sculptor work.

And after a while The Apprentice would look at him and say, all

right, it's done, isn't it? No, no, it's not finished yet.

And every single day for weeks on end, this apprentice just

kept on asking him at the end of the day because he thought it

was great. It's done, isn't it?

No, not yet. And then one day, the sculptor,

he kind of brushes off his hands, gets the dust off and he

looks at it and he says it is finished.

The Apprentice looks at him and he said, all right, I got to

know. How did you know that it was

finally done? And the sculptor said when there

was nothing left to remove, when there was nothing left to add,

when nothing was left undone. Only the beauty that I had

intended all the way from the beginning, that's how I knew

that it was finished. You see, it is easy to be in a

deep, mature love with God when you can see that He as the

sculptor, He looks at your raw form.

He sees all the flaws, but he sees things that nobody else can

see in you. And in fact, he sees those

things and he's willing to spend his life.

He's willing to shed his blood and his energy and everything

that he has to shape you, to mold you, to make you the

perfect thing that he can see inside of you.

And that's exactly what Jesus did when he hung on the cross.

He didn't say I'm done, I'm finished.

No, he said, it is finished. This is the Greek word to

telestye. It is finished to Telestye and

and it's it's like him saying I have made them into my

masterpiece, I have secured their beauty, I have shaped them

perfectly and I have made them absolutely righteous before my

father. I have done that.

I have put in the work, I have put in the sweat, I have spilled

my blood for that very purpose, to shape them and to form them

and exactly who you knew they could be.

That's what Jesus has done for us.

He has given His entire life, all of His energy, everything to

shape you into God knows who you can be.

And listen friends, I understand that on some days that doesn't

feel like you, that you feel that less than perfectness.

I know you do, because I do too. But here's verse 30 tells me

that I know everything I just said is true.

Let me explain that to you. It says.

And those whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom

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

also glorified. So let me ask you a few things.

Do you notice the process here? It is a process.

It's a chain of events. Who's doing the work?

It's not me, it's not you, it's him doing all of the work and

and do you see the perfectly, the perfect consistency of his

effort? It's perfect throughout this

chain of events that God is always doing in our lives.

And let me ask you one more question.

What tense is this in English class, friends, It is in the

past tense. How is that possible?

Because we are very much in the present tense.

How is it possible that God has predestined and called and

justified and glorified? How is it possible?

That's in the past tense to telesty is how that's possible.

It is finished, it is done. When Christ gave his blood on

the cross, he said it's finished and he meant that it is done.

And when you can take that truth, when you can take that it

is Finnish language and you can put that into your heart and you

can let that indwell into your soul.

When you start meditating on who God has made you to be, how he

shifts your identity, how he shapes you into exactly what

you're supposed to be. Man, doesn't that melt your

heart? Doesn't that melt your heart to

know that He was perfect and he looks at you and he sees all

your imperfections, and despite those imperfections, He loves

you enough to give his own life? Doesn't that melt your heart?

That's how mature love is created.

Dwelling deeply, enrichedly on the fact that God gave his one

and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not

perish. To have eternal life.

My friends, if you are still hanging out in Christian

infancy, I'm asking you, I'm begging you to think more, to

think more about how God has loved you, to think about

everything he's done for you. Man, that'll, that'll change

your heart. I know it has mine.

Let's pray our Father in heaven. It is so good to know, to have

confidence, to have assurance that you have done everything

necessary to buy our lives, to buy our salvation.

Father, there's no work left to do.

You've completed it. It is finished.

So Lord I I pray that as we come to the table, as we come to

receive your body and blood broken and shed for us, oh Lord,

that we would fall in love with you all over again, knowing it

cost you everything to love us. Father, may we return that love

over and over again. May we grow up in grace and

knowledge because of your spirit and by what you've done.

Father, we pray all these things in Jesus name, Amen.

Friends, as I just mentioned, it is a Communion Sunday.

So man, I, I'd love for us to just be so very present with

that. So very present with that.

And part of that is just hearing what God's Word says.

So I'm going to take the time to do that.

I'm going to take the time to read God's Word directly to you.

Let it dwell richly in you. When they place, when they came

to the place called the skull, they crucified him there along

with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.

Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what

they're doing. And they divided up his clothes

by casting lots. The people stood watching and

rulers sneered at him, and they said he saved others, Let him

save himself if he is God's Messiah, if he is God's chosen

one. The soldiers, they also came up

and they mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar

and said if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

There was a written notice above him which read this is the king

of the Jews. One of the criminals who hung

there hurled insults him, Aren't you the Christ?

Save us, save yourself. But the other criminal rebuked

him. Don't you fear God, he said,

Since we are under the same sentence, we are punished

justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.

But this man has done nothing wrong.

And then he said, Jesus, Remember Me when you come into

your Kingdom. Jesus answered him, Truly, I

tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.

And then from noon until 3:00 in the afternoon, darkness came

over all of the land. And about 3:00 in the afternoon,

Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eli M Eli Lemis Aboxenai, which

means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And later, knowing that everything had now been finished

and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I'm

thirsty. A jar of wine vinegar was there,

so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on the stalk of a

hyssop plant and lifted it to Jesus's lips.

When he had received the drink, Jesus said it is finished to

telestye. And with that he bowed his head

and he gave up his spirit. Friends, when we come to the

communion table, God calls us to self examination.

What does that mean? That means that we have a chance

to do business with God. We have a chance to confess

because in first John 19, the Bible tells us that if we

confess our sins, He is just and He is righteous and He will

forgive us of all of our sins. Confession matters and you don't

have to do it to the world. You just give it to God, leave

it at the foot of the cross. So we're going to take just a

little bit of time here so that you can do that with the Lord,

and then we'll come to his table.

Thanks for listening to the ERC Sundays to support work God is

doing an Amazed Rd. church. Visit amazedrdonline.org/giving.