Leftovers - Romans 8:26-28

Happy Monday. We're back in with the ARC

Leftovers podcast. I'm Pastor Matt.

Pastor Chris is here as well. And third chair got Dom Wiese

here. I like the third chair.

Third chair. I do.

I like it. I'm just, it feels, it feels

natural as I sit here. Normally it's just us staring at

each other's eyeballs in a not intimate way, but just weird.

It's Monday. Mondays are weird for me, so I

just make it weird on Monday. So I'm glad we do the podcast

today because it's my weirdest day of the week.

But it it's nice to have somebody to my left.

It's nice. I like it.

Yeah, it's good to be here there.

You are sorry. I got a crisp in my ears on that

microphone. There microphone is better than

ours for some reason, even though it's older.

All right, so Dom's here. He's given message yesterday in

case you weren't at church. He's in his first year at

seminary. And there's preacher class this

semester, homiletics. And I had to give a couple of

live preaching sermons. You have to give one to your

class as well, too. You were saying you got to, you

have to preach to the class. Yep, 11 in class and then 2IN

congregational settings so. OK, so this was number 1.

You did Romans 826 through 28 in our series this week.

And you did really well, man. And we, I, I knew you were going

to do well, but we made you preach to Chris and I last week

before before we just let you loose on Sunday morning.

And what, what can he say? He's just a free roam to say

whatever he wants. We gave him the stage.

We. Don't do we don't do open mics

around here. Not really Like it's it's

dangerous. Yeah, who knows what will come

out So, but I got to listen to the podcaster say so.

Thank you for posting that, right?

Away 'cause. I got to listen to it on the

road trip back from confirmation weekend at inspiration point and

it was it was great. I was I was so happy like it

just it turned out so well. So thank you.

You did awesome job, Dom. Yep, handle the text really

well. Your your presence and cadence

and all, all the things, things, the metaphors, analogies,

personal stories that you used like, yeah, just season pro

right out of the gate, man, it was great.

Very, very thoughtful and well communicated.

I heard that from a lot of people.

I'm not just saying that like there were people that came up

to me and said, hey, Dom came out really well.

So you think there's a problem here, though.

Here's the potential problem. So like if you're in like a

casual bowling league, usually in like week one or two, they're

like, hey man, don't play your best because you know, then you

got to live to that standard all season long because like he's.

Preaching in two more weeks, you know, right?

Do you think you just hung yourself out to dry because you

had such a good sermon? Potentially.

I did say I was going to set the bar pretty low, but I don't, I

don't know if I successfully managed to do that.

But also, I, I mean, you guys talked about I, I got to 1st

give it in front of both of you. I think I was more nervous for

that than I was actually on Sunday morning.

Like it's weird to preach to us. It's empty room with a couple.

Guys, yeah, when I and I can see you guys taking your little

notes, writing on your notepads and I'm like, oh, I hope they're

writing good things, but. I was I was taking some notes

and I was like, yeah, that. But really, honestly, I, I

people, I think I mentioned it before on this podcast, but

people before in this church like you, there are people here

who were here for my very first sermon ever.

Sure. And that are still here.

This is all my. Some of them, yeah.

And, and yes, good job because I don't, I don't know, man.

Like I look back and I kind of wince a little bit.

I don't think you'll look back and have to like wince as much

as I did. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of

good comments, but there were a couple people that came up to me

and very, I won't, I won't name names, but he's a very blunt,

direct person. And he just came up and he

straight up said he's like, man, I was here for Chris's first

sermon. I was here for Matt's first

sermon. And you crushed it, like better

than both of them. And I'm not saying that as like

a, a personal like hype, but I, you know, I have the benefit of

learning from both of you and being able to put together, you

know, a little bit of a combination between the two of

you on, on how you write and how you preach and how you talk to

the congregation. So I mean, I definitely had the

advantage in that situation. And I will.

So I'm not even offended by that.

I I agree your first sermon was better than my first sermon.

Absolutely. Me too, in in all the ways in,

in the teaching, in the delivery and in all the ways it was.

I will, I will say and thank you for, I mean, gleaning that from

us too. I do remember my first sermon.

I was not, and this isn't calling anyone out, throwing

anyone under the bus, but like I also wasn't really coached and

it was a one. It was a one off.

Like I wasn't, I wasn't in the middle of a series.

It was it was preacher's choice and I didn't, I didn't pre

preach it to anyone like I I had no insight or run up or

anything. I'm not even sure what like it.

It basically was open mic. It was it was youth bastard.

Basically everybody else is gone.

So youth pastor is getting it today and there's nothing we can

do about it. So no, I but that being said, I

didn't like that. Like that's not the way it

should go. I think the way it should go is

like, yeah, we should be making sure you're confident and

refined in what, in what you're saying too.

And yeah, it wasn't even a it was not a let down Sunday at

all, which is crazy to say. But like others, I think people

get that there's plenty of churches that like, if it's not

the main preacher, it's like, well, and I feel like we don't

usually have that. I know we're different

stylistically from each other, but I don't think there's

usually, like, cavernous drop offs between the two of us week

to week. And you stepped right into that,

man. So well done.

Yeah, I. Think, I think my first sermon.

I don't know. I'd have to, I don't know if

anybody's got it, but it was probably like 36 minutes.

Oh yeah, mine was long. Of just madness and just pouring

out of emotion and like, it was basically like a very long

testimony and it was, I don't know, man.

It was probably what I needed in that moment, but I don't know

that that's what our congregation needed in that

moment. I think they were just, I think

all the people here, they were just kind enough to just allow

that. I bet I know someone who has it

hidden away somewhere. We could we could dust that up.

Nope. Nope, I'm good.

I'm. Good.

I need to see it for research purposes.

I'm in school. I need to I need to study all

the content I can No. Let's never do that, please,

please. So Dom, just before we jump into

text, let's just get a little bit more of a, a catch up on

life for you right now. Seminary where you're, you're

taking classes at Lutheran Brethren seminary, but like

doing that online. What's, what's the program?

What's the goal? Like what, what are your other

classes and stuff that you're taking into in right now?

What's Year 1 seminary been like online?

Yeah, it's, it's been interesting.

I'm glad I got the conversation with both of you and the insight

of, you know, one of you did it fully remote, one of you did it

while living there. So I got the pros and cons of

making that decision. But I think the remote taking

classes and staying here is, is definitely the better decision

for me because I get to stay and be a part of the congregation

that we're we're growing and we're building and it just, it

truly does feel like home. But the classes have they've

been great. It's, it's a little weird just

because I'm, I've never been fantastic at school.

I mean, I'll just be honest with it.

I've never been the straight A every single assignments on

time. But in this setting, it's, it's

a lot easier to stay involved and stay engaged because it's

something that I'm so passionate about.

And I, I truly feel like I finally found where I'm supposed

to be. And so I'm going for the diploma

of Christian Ministry, which is the same classes and everything

you would go for, for the masters of Divinity.

I just don't have my bachelor's yet, so I can't get the master's

right. But yeah, the classes have been.

Great semantics, yeah, As far as the degree.

Hierarchy goes and if I ever go and finish a bachelor's degree

in anything, then I just let them know and they'll give me my

masters and. A.

Fancy piece of paper on your wall.

I've got a couple of them and I don't know that they do a lot

for me when I'm when I'm when I'm feeling down, I don't look

at them and go, Oh my gosh. But I'm this great thing.

It doesn't work that way. I wonder about that sometimes

because you have you do have yours hung on your wall and I

don't. So I wonder if people are ever

like, did Matt go to school this?

Guy is just shooting at the hip all the time.

All the time. You know what?

Actually, can we get them checked out?

Anyone background check? This guy, I'm going to, I'm

going to Doctor Phil myself for a second.

Like I'm just going to do some self analysis and maybe maybe

the reason why I put them up there is because I'm such a

weirdo that like I need people to know that like I, I really

did do all of these things. I really do have these degrees

despite my my strange personality, you know, like I've

done the work people and this is the proof self.

Validating. I know I've come off really

weird but like, I promise I did the things I think I think.

That's why they're on the wall. I've never thought about it, but

that's probably why they're on the wall.

I'm just being honest. Like come.

On you're fine, we love you. We're not.

We're not questioning it most of the time.

That could you know what that could be 51%?

Almost no one that's come in here for the first time on a

Sunday had been like, why is that dude up there?

Well, almost no one now. I have completely shrank and I

have no confidence coming into this Sunday.

I am toast. This is not going to go well for

me on Sunday. You'll be great.

Oh dude. Yeah, the neurotic emotional

state of the of the Sunday preacher.

Something to behold. Yeah, it really is.

If I I think honestly, and I won't go too far, but I think

honestly, if somebody could be in my head the 5 minutes leading

up to like going on stage and and and preaching, they'd be

like, there's no way this is going to work out just because

like I've never, I've never gotten over the nerves of it.

I never have. And I tell people that and

they're like, I, I don't, I can't tell.

And I'm like, I know you can't because despite my weirdness, I

do have a pretty good poker face.

But like, it's never left me. It's been over a decade and

still every Sunday, like there's a lot of nerves.

And I think, I think part of it, if I can be serious for a

moment, part of that is just the weight of teaching God's word.

I take that extremely seriously. And so often times my prayers

leading up, you know, that 5 minutes even before I go on

stage, my prayer is just Lord, I, I, I don't want them to hear

me like I, I need you to speak because they just don't need to

hear from me. Like I'm just a guy.

And so I've never gotten over that weight of responsibility.

And and I and I hope I never do because if I do then I I should

probably quit. Yeah, it's a it's a crazy

burdens like self reflection all because like even afterwards,

there's still the how how did this hit?

Did this, did this change? Did this work?

Did this move? Like there's sometimes you get

that personal like verbal validation from people of of how

it affected them. Sometimes you don't always.

And even then even when you do, you don't get it from everyone

either. Like so like how how far did

this reach? How did this, yeah, did this hit

everyone that way? Was it just this smaller group

of people did did I just whiff like.

And hopefully that's I don't think that's ever really been

the case. I I haven't experienced that

where it's just like nobody got it.

But yeah, it's an it's a weird burden.

Not, not a weird burden like it's warned in the Bible, like

those those preaching and teaching held to a higher

standard. But there is that sort of

burdensome mentality to it. And I think that's part of it,

you know, that where the Bible talks about the, the higher

standard of those who are going to teach in, in the judgement,

potentially they're within for wrong teaching.

I just take that super seriously.

I mean, The thing is, I, I think about that.

And if I were to, you know, have Jesus in the audience, I would

hope that I would still be able to say the same things, you

know? And if I can't say the same

things with Jesus in the audience, then I shouldn't be

saying it at all. That's an interesting way to put

it. If Jesus in the audience, I'm

not preaching, he's preaching. I'm not preaching.

I think you can do this off the cuff.

I think you can do it with no prep.

He's that good, I suspect. Now I'm just oh, man, now major

squirrel moment. Who?

Who's on the green team? Who, like, just ushered Jesus

into his seat? Like, what are you doing?

Who do you pay? You're paying attention Now get

that. Get that dude up front.

Jesus walked in and nobody knew about it.

Yeah, that would be funny. That would be.

Oh, man. OK, so we're diving in.

Welcome to the podcast down. We're going to need Aaliyah if

there's anything that you left out or felt like you couldn't

dive deeper into or things that we thought maybe could have been

touched on a little more in the message too.

So off the off the jump here. Romans 826 through 28.

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

what to pray 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.

So just I'll go to you right away.

Dom, is there anything that maybe you touched on and just

wish you would have or could have spent more time on and just

drawn a thought out a little more on that?

Or was there anything in here that you just you saw and was

like, hey, this isn't where we're going today, though like

that. That's that's just part of this

text that we're not going to touch on.

I think the two things that really stuck out to me right

away kind of in context and I touched on both slightly, but

didn't really dive into as deep as I could conversationally.

But in this chapter we get to see three things are groaning

like creations groaning, believers are growing groaning,

but the spirit is also groaning. The spirit groans for us when we

don't have the words, and that's just right away.

Reading through this passage as we walked up through our last

couple weeks like that really stuck out to me here that it's

not just us, but the spirit is also groaning.

I just think that's a really cool.

Like I've never visually even thought about it that way.

It is interesting to kind of equate and we were talking about

this a little earlier at at staff this morning too, just the

the struggles of Jesus, like if he how how frustrated was he

with people like in general preaching these things to to

either hard hearted Pharisees or the rich young ruler who went

away sad for he had much wealth like just he got the truth

straight from Jesus. Jesus answered his question

straight up. He was just hoping for a

different answer and that and he just didn't want to digest the

truth in that way. So some of those just sort of

like, did Jesus get frustrated or, or angry or, or just like

wondering, wondering about how that worked.

It's so I think it's interesting the connection you made in, in

all those, in all those groanings, like the, the spirit

has a similar frustrated or or guttural response to the way

things are to, to, to the sufferings of man.

There's a lot of suffering in this passage too, right?

Like we're we're, we're talking a lot through that and groaning

would be I think usually a negative thing.

Is there a positive grown? I suspect yeah, I have a Well,

let me share you a short story, if you don't mind.

Coming out of Life Group A couple weeks ago, I think maybe

one of the most powerful moments of prayer I've ever had in my

life came a couple weeks ago at Life Group.

And, you know, so our group at at the end of kind of answering

the questions and kind of dialoguing about the text and

talking about life and all that kind of stuff, What we do to

wrap up our time, as we say, OK, how can we be praying this week?

And so, you know, people go around the room and stuff and

often times, you know, we're praying for people that I don't

know and that's fine as we ought.

But somebody brought up like, and I got to be careful here,

otherwise I'm going to get all weepy.

But somebody had brought up like this, this little girl, she's

like 3 or whatever, going through a lot of medical stuff.

And so we're writing down the list and OK, I'm going to, I'm

going to pray for us at the end. And I got to that little girl on

the list and I just couldn't talk.

And I just, I like, see, there it is again.

I just, I just like cried and I could hear like other sniffles

in the room and stuff. And I'm just like, this is what

that is. This is that like I don't have

words, but God knows. So that was like one of the more

like, and I thought about this text too, like the Spirit is

interceding in that moment and I don't know, maybe the best

prayer I've ever had. And I didn't say words.

And yeah, anyway, I got to stop. Like it's too much.

No, I I think it's a really interesting connection because

of the the groanings too deep for words.

Like even in those moments where we don't understand or we would

seemingly be crying out for a solution.

Sometimes there aren't words to say.

Even even the one who holds the world, who has the power to do

and resolve and heal and and and do all those things groanings

too deep for words that there aren't words in in some of these

situations that I think that's interesting that you connected

all those groanings throughout the past of the way that the way

that creation is is suffering subject to sin, the way that the

followers of Jesus are are suffering subject to sin and

then the spirit in a. Break my heart for what breaks

yours sort of way is is responding to these struggles to

these sufferings in a in a way that is still is still in

strength is is still interceding is acting in our weakness, but

is maybe not solvable with with a word right.

Yeah. So no, I think that's, I think

that's a really good connection. But also, I mean, yeah, we just

talked about it for 7 minutes. So that that would have taken a

big, a big part of what you were going into there.

So. That's also why, you know, I got

to use the story of, of my father and kind of that whole

thing. And, you know, I, I tried to

avoid it just because I'm like a first sermon.

I don't want to bring that up like I don't want to.

I don't want to be that heavy on the first sermon, but it did.

It just fit perfectly into that message and, and truly in that

moment, like there were no words to pray.

There was nothing to say. It was just and it I wasn't even

necessarily like at the point of weeping.

I was just so overwhelmed with emotion and and lost that it's

like I couldn't have emotion. I couldn't even cry in the

moment. I was just sitting with God, and

I knew that even even though I couldn't get the words to come

out, and even if I did say words, it wouldn't have been the

right thing in that moment. But the spirit in that moment

was there, was interceding for me in a way that I could never

do on my own. Yeah.

Was there? That was the first one.

Was there a second sort of thing that you could have gone into

and just steered the message in a different direction?

So further along after I'd been studying this text for a bit,

you know, we always look for where is Jesus in the passage?

Like where is he in that moment? Where, where can we see glimpses

of Jesus all throughout Scripture?

And this is one of the really, really cool moments.

Again, I, I touched on it very briefly, but in, I think it's

Romans 834, we get to see Jesus the Son interceding at the right

hand of God. So in this, in this chapter and

in these passages, we get to see that he's interceding at the

right hand of God. The Spirit is interceding within

us in this passage and the Father is searching our hearts

and he's truly listening and he's truly hearing the things

that maybe we don't even have the words to say.

So throughout this passage, like getting to see the Holy Trinity

all at work together is, is kind of a beautiful, like theological

thing that I've never really thought about in prayer

specifically. Like when you're praying, it's

all three, all three are working together, all three are present,

all three are there doing slightly different things.

And I've never I've never even thought about prayer like that

until preparing for this sermon. I think that's really good and

that tied into a lot of our small small group last night

life group was we we jumped ahead another versed in thinking

about how all things all things working together for good is

really most certainly about the end game.

Like there might be it might be a job life of struggle, but we

know that we know the end and verse 29 that the to be

conformed to the image of his son you you reference verse 34

was raised who is at the right hand of God indeed interceding

for us like we know how the story ends.

We know who's holding it this momentary struggle, this

momentary suffering not worth comparing to the glory that is

that is to be revealed. So no and even in even in

prayer, even in those answers that aren't immediate or the

answers that don't come the way we want them to or or that we

feel a prayer is unanswered. And we talked about this in my,

in my life group last night too, that a lot of the time I think

we approach a situation asking God to like fix it or get us out

of it. And, and that's, and there are

some situations maybe that are like, we are powerless to, to

deal with, to solve, to reconcile, to heal, whatever.

But also like, maybe you're in this situation because God's

working on changing you. Maybe it's not the situation

that needs to change. Maybe it's how you're molded and

and shaped and grown in this considered pure joy.

My brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, suffering

produces in endurance and the perseverance of your faith.

Like I think we we too often just want the bailout parachute.

Just Get Me Out of here when it when it's.

No, I'm I'm refining you through through fire.

Like, yeah, so. Well, and I this this talk of

intercession, it man that is so, so important for the Christian

to understand because, you know, I, I've known any number of

Christians and it's like, yeah, I know Jesus died for my sins

and that's all well and good. But here I sit in whatever

suffering or misery and, and great, I've got this, I've got

this end game in mind. And that's all well and good,

but right now, who's with me? And The thing is like, as the

Spirit is interceding, as Jesus is interceding, as God is

searching the heart, we are, and you mentioned it yesterday, we

are not alone in any of these things.

And so with this level of comfort that the Trinity gives

us, if we can, if we can just kind of sink into that a little

bit, even when we might be alone in a situation or a scenario, we

never are. There is this power imbued in

the believer through the Holy Spirit that allows us to have a

level of comfort and a level of peace that is just not available

anywhere else. I don't care how many self help

books you read, that power that that peace is not available

through anyone else but God the Father, the Son, the Holy

Spirit. It's just not there.

So some of the, some of the other things I think in here and

you did a really good job drawing it out the, the spirit

working in our weakness. That's, that's the opening, the

spirit helping us in our weakness.

I, I thought you did a really good job talking about the hope

that we have in weakness, but also the strength in which the

spirit works and, and also how the spirit in times we are

strong. It's the, it's the strength of

the spirit still working. It's not like an exclusive thing

to OK, we're in a weak moment and God shows up.

Like I think you did a good job of drawing that out that it's

it's in those weakest moments that we tend to lose sight of

God. But also do we maybe what I kind

of thought of was like in those moments of strength, are we also

apartment to lose sight of God in that?

Well, it's going pretty well. I feel like I got this thing

handled and got this thing under control.

So God's strength also seems less than in in the moments that

is going well because it it seems like, oh, I got this.

But yeah, so that that the spirit bringing those words.

I thought, I thought, I mean this these verses, they kind of

preach themselves too, but like, but we do not know what to pray

as we ought. I feel like that's a lot of

people, right. Just just raise their hand and

like, yeah, I don't I'm not going to pray.

I don't know the words to say. I don't have the right words.

How do I how do I pray? We're actually going to get into

a question next week on the Lord the Lord's Prayer.

We're going to do an ask ask me anything episode and one of the

questions is on the Lord's Prayer.

So a little bit deeper into that of how we ought to pray.

That'll be coming next week. But even the spirit, we already

talked about the groanings too deep forwards something beyond

that. There's a feeling, there's an

emotion, there's a there's a sort of shared sorrow bearing

each other's burdens in the like.

Yeah, this is terrible and even in my strength to solve this

like I the the empathy in in the spirit for yes, knowing

understanding in the person of Jesus, every every struggle,

every hardship that he that we could experience, he

experienced, yet he did not sin. Like that's the, that's the

strength we have to stand in that.

Think about the sorrow that Jesus experiences it and and

I'll just name it too. I'll just name too.

But you know, the sorrow at Lazarus's tomb, He knew what he

was going to do. And yet he wept and it was an

angry cry. OK, So like he knows what he's

going to do, but he like basically angry cries anyway.

And then as he's approaching the city before his crucifixion,

that that Holy Week, he just, he cries again.

And, and he's just, he's really upset as he looks at the city,

as he looks at these people. And he's like, I want this so

bad for you. And how, how are you not

receiving it? And so I think those are two

picture perfect moments of like this is this is how God's heart

breaks because he wants salvation for his people so

badly. So I, I just that that resonates

with me, especially those two moments.

Yeah. Well, in the, the weakness, you

know, in, in our culture, we see in when we view weaknesses

failure. But in this text we're, we're

shown that it's, it's not it's, I think in I think it's second

Corinthians somewhere Paul says my power is made perfect in

weakness. Like when you are weak is when

God is, is working in the most powerful ways that you can't

even see in the moment. And yeah, that led right into

the, the imagery of, you know, Jesus could have saved himself

at any moment. He could have called upon a

legion of angels to come and save him, but he didn't.

And that looked like weakness. But it was in that weakness that

he conquered death, which was the the only thing we truly had

to fear because we had no, we had no promise after death at

that point. And so he, in his weakness, in

that moment of weakness, we wept and we saw him and we're, and

we're thinking what, you know, if he is Jesus, why didn't he

save himself? Why didn't he call upon that

legion of angels? But it was in that weakness that

he he conquered everything. Yeah, that's so good.

Yeah, and isn't it funny how Satan and death itself is

seemingly mocking Jesus on the cross?

I mean, you're, you're looking at people who are absolutely

thinking, man, this bet is cashing in.

This guy is not the Messiah. And that weakness just turns

over on the third day and it changes the world.

It changes all of eternity. And that is that is the

greatest. I mean, that's one of the

greatest things about Christianity because every other

religion on the planet says do more, try harder, you know, do

this yourself. And maybe, maybe at the end,

you've done enough, you've tried enough, You've whatever to like,

earn God's love and respect. Christianity says it is in

weakness. Well, we've said this before.

All you need is need, and Christianity is the perfect

picture of that. The cross is the perfect picture

of that. Yeah.

That's so good, so good. This is really short passage.

There's no what what meat is left on the bones here.

Gentlemen, we know that for those who love God, all things

work together for good for those who are called according to his

purpose. I think in my experience this

verse is misquoted and mischaracterized a ton.

There are there are conditions in this statement right.

I think this is very often quite it gets muddled up with the

Joseph verse in in Genesis of when he's reconciled with his

brothers and what what you intended for evil, God worked

for good, which which is what that verse says.

And then but we we kind of just lump it into God works all

things together for good like he did for Joseph.

That's not what this verse. That's not what this verse says,

right. What are the conditions?

We know that for those who love God.

OK, so, so First off, and, and again, this isn't some

prosperity gospel like join the club and your life's going to be

perfect sort of thing. Love God, love people.

Those are the condensed commandments right from Jesus.

So for those who love God, all things work together for good

for those who are called according to his purpose.

All right, so that there is there is a condition in there.

And I even think, I think it's a 2 step condition, if it, if I'm

reading this correctly, because I, I think there is, and

scripture talks about this too. Like, are you, are you still in

baby Christian mode that you do that you love God and and you

can say that and I and I love Jesus and I believe in Jesus and

I'm here for Jesus. But like, are we supposed to

stay? Is that is that enough?

Sure, I I do think that's enough for salvation.

Is that everything that we're called to as disciples of

Christ? No, it's not.

We're we're not called to stay in that state of oh, this is so

good and Jesus so good and all the and all the things.

No, we're, we're called according to his purpose for

what? Well, lots of things you just go

back to the Great Commission and we can do that.

Go therefore, therefore and make disciples, baptizing and

teaching, love God, love people. There's a lot of things in

there. Even Ephesians 289 and 10, yes,

for by grace you've been saved through faith, not of

yourselves, but it's it's for the good works that God planned

in advance for, for those that love him, right.

So there's kind of A2 fold thing loving God from the get go and

understanding what Jesus did for you, but then kind of in a

Jamesian way, are you are are you living a faith out in works?

Are you, are you showing that faith by your works called

according to God's purposes? Are are you acting out God's

purposes? Then in those things God works

all things together for good. Am I?

Am I off the map here? No, I think I, I definitely

agree with that view. I mean, we're called according

to his purpose. I mean, we have the choice to

walk down any path we have. We have the choice to, to go

anywhere that we, that we want to.

We have free will to choose where to go.

But when you're walking with Christ, that is when you know

things are working according to His for His purpose and for our

good. And that's what I think the

focus is you. You said that yesterday, even

the the song we sang his, his glory and my good, like his

glory is the main thing, right? And his his glory is our good,

even in even if that doesn't feel good.

And that was one of the discussion questions you asked

about about the passage too. For life groups like is good our

our comfort and blessing. It can be, I thought like it can

be manifested in that. But even when it's not comfort

and blessing, if if it's God's glory, there is good in that

right? You know what, thank you for

this podcast because so just a preview this upcoming Sunday,

we're going to, we're going to cover 28 through 30 and you're

like, we already covered 28. Well, I have just been inspired

when we cover 28 this Sunday, we absolutely have to actually

define what does it mean to love God.

Because you are right, that is a conditional thing.

Well, what does that really mean?

Guess what we shouldn't take the time to do in this podcast is

iron all that out. I guess what I am going to do

this Sunday. Now we have to out of the gate

define that conditional statement.

What does it really mean to love God?

What does that look like? So thank you.

There's, there's .1. I wondered.

What you were scrolling so furious man.

Dream journal there, but. .1 Dream Journal.

You don't keep that by your night stand, brother.

Brilliant, brilliant sermon inside.

No, the dream journal, the brilliant ideas that you have

while you're sleeping, so you can just write them down right

there. Do I have ideas while I'm

sleeping? You seem like the kind of guy

that would just like jolt awake in the middle of the night.

I don't. Know if that's good or bad?

Great dump. Scott by job.

I think I've got it. Come on, back me up on this

people. Oh my gosh.

Well, no. But you know, we, we absolutely

have to figure out what does that actually look like.

So now we're definitely going to do that this Sunday.

Sweet. I'm glad we gave you a jumping

off point there. All right, gentlemen, anything

else here that you'd like to unpack or, or take a couple

layers off? I think we've, I think we've

rifled through these 3 verses pretty well, but.

Yeah, and I mean, I said it on Sunday like it's only three

verses. It's a relatively short passage

to preach on, but there's so much there that, you know, I

kind of tried to piece together everything as best I could

without spending a ton of time. I mean, we spent ample minutes

on several of these topics diving into, you know, what does

that look like? And it sounds like we're going

to spend some more time in those things.

So I'm very glad we got to, you know, dive a little more into

this because even something as simple as 3 verses can hold so

much depth and and so much more than what we can get to on a

Sunday morning. God's word is living and active,

baby, it goes hard. I said it.

I said it just the way I said it.

And Matt's laughing at me. It's fine.

It's fine. So glad that you're preaching on

Sunday. You, you have so much time to

pick the right words. You saying those were the wrong

ones. I think those were the wrong

ones. But you got six days, so it's

fine. Jesus only needed three.

You have 6. It'll be it'll, it'll be a lot

can happen in three days. Even more can happen in six.

All right, love you, brother. All right, thanks, guys.

This was good church. We appreciate you listening in

and being encouraged and filled with God's Word.

Invite you one more this Sunday. Easter is a few weeks away.

Help us pack God's house on that joyous Sunday.

And we're so grateful that you're part of our community

here into it. Have a blessed week.