December 1, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
All right, we’re going to be in Romans tonight, Romans 8. We’re going to do the trifecta of the Romans 8 and not verse 8, but verse 18, 28, and 38, all kinds of famous verses. And it’s all kind of part of one stream of Paul’s logic.
I’m not going to read verses 18 all the way through verses 39. I’m going to focus on these three verses. They all kind of tie together, and it really is. They really tie together about hope.
Hope is one of the three cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. Paul says these three remain: faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love. But hope makes the top three. All right. Hope is one of the big three. And we tend, I think, more than even the other two. All three of them, we make the same mistake.
All three of them, we think, are just incidentals that happen to us. They’re just. We fall in love. It’s like, oh, I didn’t see it coming. And that often is true of romantic love. you’re young, and your hormones are raging, and here she comes walking down the street. you’re smitten all right. And that certainly was the case when Jill called me up and asked me out, and we went out on a date, and I was smitten. And it kind of happened to me.
It was like, wow, I wanted a girlfriend, but I didn’t see that one coming. And so we tend. And that’s our narrow kind of interpretation of love. But love, that’s not love. That is hormonal infatuation that teenagers experience. And it’s God’s trick to propagate the planet. Love is what they never show you in the movies.
After a dozen years or so of marriage, and you wake up in the morning and you roll over and face each other, and instead of thinking, oh, my gosh, I’m smitten, you think, my goodness, I didn’t know your breath could smell that bad. You know, go brush your teeth, woman.
So my wife’s a delightful person. I love her dearly. I really do. I won the marriage lottery. But she has a lifelong love for garlic and onions both. And there’ll be nights we’re lying in bed, and she’ll roll over and, boom, just get blasted. You just kind of flip to the other side. It’s like, whoa.
So anyway, that’s love. That’s what love is. And love is intentional. It takes intention, all right? There’s intentionality to it.
Faith, the same thing. Faith is not something that just happens to us. When we go to church and we sing our three favorite songs and we get inspired, we feel faith rising up, and we sing the song, God of Miracles, come. Oh, and we feel him coming.
It’s so great. No, faith is something that I love. What the Bible says about David, he strengthened himself in the Lord. David had. It was during that time when they weren’t singing his favorite Psalms. And his mighty men wanted to kill him. And his wife and his children had been kidnapped and plundered.
And he was all alone, and he strengthened himself in the Lord, and he remembered God’s faithfulness to him. You were talking about the Psalms, Nicole. That’s what a lot of the Psalms are, is Israel and David remembering God’s faithfulness.
You talked about those historic Psalms where you did this for us and you did that for us. Those actually build our faith. That’s what the Bible does. It builds our faith. We remember God’s faithfulness.
I just quoted Lamentations 3:22-23. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God.
22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. (Lamentations 3:22-23, NLT)
It’s not a bad habit to get into, to wake up in the morning with a Bible verse on your lips. I’ve already said, many mornings I wake up and the first words that come out of my mouth aren’t. I mean, my first thought may be, man, woman, did you have to eat all those onions? But my first words are.
My first words are, who have I in heaven but you? And besides you, I desire nothing on earth. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my life and my portion forever.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth.26 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever. (Psalms 73:25-26, NLT)
And so that’s faith. You build yourself up in the Lord, you choose to build yourself up in faith.
Hope is the same thing. Hope is the same thing again. You can go to a church service and hear a magnificent song or listen to a scintillating sermon, and you walk out filled with hope.
But where you strengthen yourself in the Lord and where you practice hope is when the doctor gives you bad news, or there’s so much of the month left, and there’s this much month left and this much checking account left. It’s like, yeah, what do we do here? And then you remember and you have hope.
And these three verses we’re going to look at tonight are all verses of great hope. They’re verses of hope.
And so Romans 8:28 and Romans 8:38-39, Romans 8:18. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.
18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. (Romans 8:18, NLT)
Romans 8:28. For 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.
28 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. (Romans 8:28, NLT)
And then 38 and 39. For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow. Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord God.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, NLT)
May the words of my mouth, the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14, NLT)
All right. The Bible does not shy away from suffering. One of the most ignorant statements ever made by one of the most dastardly figures in human history, who has caused or at least partly been responsible for untold millions of deaths and harm and havoc on the world, was a man by the name of Karl Marx.
And he is celebrated in academia. It’s just crazy. They don’t celebrate Hitler, but they celebrate Karl Marx. At least some do. It baffles me, but Karl Marx said religion is the opioid of the people.
In other words, it’s the drug we take to make us feel better. But in fact, the Christian religion is. What is it? Somebody said Christianity is for people who can’t handle reality, or something like that. I can’t remember the quote.
Anyway, somebody turned around on atheism anyway, but. But the Christian religion does not run away from suffering is what I’m trying to say here. It doesn’t run away from the reality of suffering. For goodness sakes.
The main symbol that has gone down for 2,000 years of the Christian faith is not a smiley face emoji or not a little heart that you put on the end of your text. The symbol for the Christian faith is a Roman symbol for cruel death, the cross. And it’s become a universal symbol of hope.
Why? Because Jesus transforms suffering. And Romans 8:18 talks about it. It says that the sufferings of this world cannot be compared to the glory to be revealed to us. But it doesn’t run away from the sufferings of this world.
And if you think about it, if you really think about the sufferings of this world, that’s an incredible statement. All right. That doesn’t mean my temporary headache can’t be compared to the glory to be revealed later, though that’s true. It means Auschwitz can’t be compared to the glory to be revealed later.
It means the horror, the hell of war can’t be compared to the glory to be revealed later. It means the suffering of six years of battling cancer and chemotherapy only to lose the battle can’t be compared to the glory to be revealed later.
It means that the sufferings on this planet that human beings experience are temporary, finite and done finally. And then the glory is forever. And dear ones, temporary, finite and done can’t be compared to forever. You’ve heard it said Kevinism 101.2 or whatever.
The sufferings of this world now seem enormous. One day will appear to us like a gnat’s eyebrow, like the pimple on the butt of a water buffalo. All right, if you don’t like gnat’s eyebrow, that’s it. And that’s hope. That’s hope.
Whatever the doctor says, whatever you’re going through, whatever the tragedy is, whatever the crisis is, we can always say this is finite. But there will come a day when this will be gone. And all that will be left, every tear will be wiped away. There will be no more death, no more pain, no more suffering.
There will be glory and goodness that we cannot imagine. World without end, forever and ever. And some people think, well, that’s just going to be boring. Bet it’s not, because boring is suffering. All right?
Some people say, well, I don’t want to go to heaven. It’s just going to be one long church service. It’s like, no, it’s not. There will be games. Anybody enjoy Thanksgiving? Anybody enjoy food with your family or what?
Also, it wasn’t just Thanksgiving, people. I mean, it was bigger than that. It was Jamie’s birthday. I mean, it was a huge holiday. And so listen, what C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis says it this way.
The things that seem like trivial, passing distractions here on earth, our holidays, our vacations, those moments of joy and celebration which aren’t the normal grind of life here on earth. He says that is the normalcy of heaven.
And CS Lewis is not short of good quotes. Joy, he says, is the serious business of heaven. You are destined for joy. We get tastes of it now, right? We get glimpses of it now. It’s one of the things that churches, we gather together in fellowship.
One of the things we do here, one of the most important things we do on a Sunday night or a Sunday morning, is rehearse for heaven. It’s dress rehearsal for heaven.
We sing songs, we lift our hands. We love each other, but we don’t deny the suffering. This isn’t a drug to anesthetize the pain of suffering. This is hope, which doesn’t anesthetize the pain, but it conquers the despair. It conquers the despair.
And there is hope. And it is a big hope, people. I can promise you, I don’t care how big your hope is tonight. I can promise you. It’s too small. Your hope is too small. You can grow it. And here’s how you grow it.
You remember stuff like this in the midst of your pain. You remember stuff like this, and you cling to the hope. Lamentations 3, which I quoted to you earlier. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God.
Jeremiah wrote that verse as the children of Israel were being taken into exile into Babylon and Jerusalem. The temple in Jerusalem, Solomon’s glorious temple, Israel’s magnificent symbol of God’s presence among them, was lying in a smoldering heap as the Babylonians had taken Israel into exile and destroyed the temple.
And Jeremiah’s book is Lamentations. It embraces the suffering. Oh, my gosh. I couldn’t believe that this finally happened to us because of our sin. And it’s a book of woe. I mean, that’s the name of the book, right? Lamentations. It’s a book of lament, but right smack in the dab, in the middle of Lamentations.
And pretty much literally right in the middle of Lamentations, pretty much the literal middle of Lamentations. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God.
Dear ones, hope. Jesus commands us. Hope, hope. This story is going to end well for you. This story is going to end well for you. To get to that finish line, there will be suffering. I wish I could say there wasn’t going to be, but there is. There are troubles between now and the finish line.
All right. There are troubles. I’ll be 66 in a couple weeks. I’ll be 66 years old. I can’t remember. I don’t think I’ve ever had a day where like, wow, today is a completely, absolutely no problem, trouble free day. I haven’t had that day.
I’ve had good days, I’ve had bad days, but never had a trouble free day. And you know what? I’ve resigned myself that that day ain’t coming in this world. My wife doesn’t like it when I say ain’t, but you know, she ain’t here. She’s not the boss of me when she’s not here. I’m a. I’m a pretty brave fellow.
Glory awaits. Romans 8:28. For I am convinced that God causes all things to work for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
28 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. (Romans 8:28, NLT)
All right, I am not a Calvinist. God does not cause all things. He causes all things to work for the good. My picture of that is if you’ve ever seen the grand chess master. And he goes to, like, Stanford, you know, where all the smart people go to school. Iko. Not like University of Virginia, that little trifling state school. But you know, he goes.
Now, I will say Stanford does have some competition in California. Not Berkeley. It’s not UCLA. It’s Cal State University, Chico. Chico State is really the Harvard of the West Coast. So it’s kind of hidden up there, but yeah. So anyway.
But they go to this, you know, they go to Stanford or Harvard or one of those schools, and they get the brightest and the best chess players out there.
This chess master goes through, and he’s playing all these kids in chess, you know, and he just walks to the board, goes to the next board, watches the board. He does not cause their moves, and he wins every game. He wins every match. He doesn’t cause their moves, he doesn’t tell them where to move their chess pieces. But he is so much better at chess.
He always has the counter move. God doesn’t cause everything, but he always has the counter move to whatever our own sinful habits and practices bring up, or whatever the demons of hell bring up. God always has the checkmate move.
And the ultimate checkmate in history is the first Easter Sunday. That is the ultimate checkmate. It’s like you put the son of Glory to death. And in his death, instead of having victory over him, he conquers sin, death, and Satan, and raises from the dead and starts a whole new kind of humanity spreading on planet Earth. That’s going to spread until his glory covers the Earth as the water covers the sea.
And we’re all a part of that great checkmate move that Jesus did. And so that’s the ultimate. God causes all things to work for the good. The worst thing that happened in history, the only person who never deserved to die, died a criminal’s death.
And God turns it around for eternal salvation for the human race and heals the universe through it. All right? So if God can do that, he can handle the fact that you got fired. He can deal with it, all right? He can deal with your relationship woes, with your financial woes, with your health woes. God will take everything that doesn’t seem to be working out right and turn it for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. You can rest on that. You can rest in that.
I mean, we all have stories, right? We all have stories where something happened that seemed terrible. And two years later we look back on it go, oh my gosh, that actually opened the door for X, Y and Z to happen. And it wasn’t terrible at all. I mean, the situation seemed terrible. It was painful at the time, but look at all the good that came out of that. And so God just does it.
I remember, I think I’ve told this story I might have told a couple weeks ago, but I was a young pastor, an associate pastor at a church in Visalia, California, and I wanted to be a senior pastor.
I wanted to be a senior pastor. It wasn’t that I was dissatisfied. The senior pastor that I was working for was a wonderful man. It was a wonderful church. They were nice to my wife and me. It’s just I had years and years of years. I had like three years of sermon ideas on my computer.
I just wanted to preach. Listen, there are parts of my job that I don’t like. There are parts of what I do where it’s like, I want to retire. All right? And they’re tragic. I mean, I’ve buried children. All right.
I had an old man today who was married 59 years, almost reached his 60th anniversary. His wife died a month ago. We buried her a few weeks ago. And she was. She loved the holidays, right? And on her. The day we did her funeral, he was doing well. He spoke and he was doing great.
But then, you know what happens when somebody you love dies? All the well-wishers leave in about two weeks. And then, like a tsunami, comes in grief. And, you know, it hit him. So predictable.
She loved the holidays. He was just. He was crushed this morning. And, you know, this United States veteran Marine in his 80s, just sobbing in front of me. And I got no magic words except to tell him God is the God of all comfort and what you’re going through is completely normal.
But those aren’t even the hard ones. The hard ones are the mother whose daughter was an on fire Christian as a teenager until she was molested by a youth pastor, which then sent her into kind of this split kind of personality where for a while she’d be an on fire Christian and then she would turn into a promiscuous alcoholic and just bouncing back and forth and could never get free of that. And so in her despair, had attempted suicide several times and failed until, of course, the last time.
And I was at this woman’s house because her daughter had succeeded and she was driving her granddaughter, the daughter of this woman who she and her husband had custody of and were raising up to her house. And I was in the house with her husband who already knew, and she saw us there and her husband said, take the little girl down to the neighbors.
And she took the little girl down the neighbors. And she knew and she walked in the door and she said, she did it, didn’t she? And I said, yeah, she did. This woman just fell to the ground, and I fell to the ground with her, and we just wept there.
Want to quit? Want to. But God takes even that, and He turns it around, and they came through it, they made it. And I didn’t quit, by the way. I’m not going to quit until God says. Listen, I’m either going to get too old and too demented.
You know how I go down rabbit trails and can’t find my way back? You know how that happens when that just starts happening? You know when that is all that 30 minutes are you guys got to tell me. It’s just, you know, hang it up, son. you’re done. All right?
But this I would do. This I would still do. I would do this three times a day, six days a week. If all my job was was preaching, man, that would be great. And that’s why I wanted. I wanted. I didn’t want to be associate pastor anymore.
So, yeah, I got back on that rabbit trail, didn’t I? Ain’t done yet. Am I all right? Oh, yeah, man. I’m going crazy on that one. I’m not done yet. Or am I? So at that time, I was in the United Methodist Church, which means I couldn’t apply to another church and say, hey, give me a job. I had to wait for the district superintendent, who worked for the bishop, to say, you’re appointed to this church. They sent you. They appointed you. I was at the mercy of the bishop, but you put in your request and say, I’m ready to get a church.
And for two years, I was ready to get a church, and they didn’t give me one. I remember the last time one of my friends got the church that I wanted to go to. He didn’t even want to move, and I wanted to move. He called me and said, Kevin, I’m going to this church. I was so hurt. I was so devastated. It’s like I got to spend another year being an associate pastor. Why? My friend John, who didn’t want to move, got moved to the church I wanted to go to.
And why did the bishop do this to me? And why did the district superintendent do this to me? And, God, why did you do this to me? You ever whine to God? Am I the only one who whines to God? I mean, you read the Psalms, how long, O God? How long will I suffer? And so I just started whining, God, why did you do this to me? Why didn’t I get that church? It’s so unfair.
And my devotion that day, I didn’t know this, but I was reading through a devotion that day. So I thought, well, I’m feeling bad. I should probably pray. I opened up my devotion, and the Scripture that day was from the Book of Job, and it said, who are you to question me? Gird up your loins and I will question you.
That really. That was why, God, I opened the Bible. Who are you to question me? Gird up your loins. I don’t even know what gird up your loins means. I don’t know how to gird up your loins. I don’t know. I got to do a study on gird up your loins.
I maybe don’t want to know what that means, but whatever it meant, the minute I read that man, I assumed the Muslim position, all right? My nose hit the carpet, my little tuchus was in the air, and I repented. you’re God and I’m not. You are smarter than me. You know what’s going on better than me. Forgive me for whining. I got a great job. I got a great family.
I got a million things to be happy. I can wait another year. I can wait another 10 years. If that’s in your wisdom, you’re God and I’m not. And it came to pass that a year later, I got the call from a DS at another church. That town and that church launched Jill and I into our future and into our ministry much more than the previous one would have. It was so much better.
Romans 8:28. Bam. Hit me. God causes all things. Sometimes it won’t hit you in a year. Sometimes it’ll take 10 years, sometimes it’ll take 20 years. Sometimes you won’t see how it hits you until you get to heaven and you look back and you go, oh, there was a. That’s a Romans 8:28. That’s a Romans 8:28.
God always has the right chess move. He’s smarter than you. He’s smarter. Whenever I tell that story, Isaiah, I think of Caleb Wiley, the chess master of our little group of boys, that they’re all young men now that I was a part of a discipleship group with. And Caleb was.
All these boys were brilliant. They were all really bright boys. All their dads were engineers. They were just. I love being with them. They’re all smarter than me. I took him to a baseball game one time because I wanted to get him involved. I was the only one who liked baseball.
They were all science boys and coders. And I took them to a baseball game. And the biggest discussion at the baseball game wasn’t, you know, this hitter’s batting average or this pitcher. It was a piece of paper flying down from the.
Floating down from the third deck, you know, a hot dog wrapper floating on the wind. And we. And they began to talk about when that hits the field, would a player step on that and slip on it? And they decided that the coefficient of friction was not great enough.
And so they’re at the baseball game talking about the coefficient of friction. And I thought, this is the most interesting baseball game I’ve ever been to. But of all these smart boys, at least he was the best.
I don’t know if he was the smartest, but he was the best chess player for sure. And I walked in one time, and Caleb was playing chess with Curtis. I know enough about chess to look at the board and say, oh, he’s holding his own. You know, it’s a pretty even match.
And I go, Curtis, that’s great. you’re holding your own with Caleb. And he said, well, he spotted me his queen. If you know anything about chess, you know that’s your most important piece.
And Caleb said, I won’t play with my queen. All right? That’s God. He can spot you his queen and still win. All right? Or poker. To use a poker analogy, he can win with a pair of twos. He can win with any hand, and he does.
When we yield ourselves to him and trust him, he will cause all things in your life to work for good. Not if you resist him and do it your own way. And you’re on your own. Sucker. You know, I miss the days when you had to take peace because the smartest teachers at any school were your PE Teachers.
They knew that there was one solution to every problem. Take a lap. Just take a lap. And I just realized as a pastor now over all these years, sometimes, you know, you give people great advice and they don’t take it. And it’s like, all right, you know what? They got to take another lap. They got to take another lap.
But when you’re done taking laps and you go to God and say, hey, I will submit to your way. God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
28 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. (Romans 8:28, NLT)
And then the final verse that we’re going to look at is Romans 8:38-39. For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow. Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
No power in the sky above or in the earth below, indeed in all creation, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, NLT)
This hope is sure. I am convinced. I mean, we just look at life, and even though we’re Christians and we know it’s not true, we still, and this is true, the worst thing is death. The Bible doesn’t say death is a good thing. It says death is an enemy. Death.
In fact, if death was a good thing, death would be the final answer. Death isn’t the final answer. God’s answer to death isn’t more death. God’s answer to death is resurrection. God is the God of life. All right. I am the way, the truth and the death. No, I’m the way, the truth and the life. The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23, NLT)
Life is the prize, not death. That’s why we celebrate the birth of a child and we mourn the loss of a loved one. That is natural. That is good. That is true. But here’s the thing. Death cannot separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Death will separate us temporarily from our loved ones in this world. Like that dear brother I was praying for this morning, his wife of 59 years. And now they’re separated, and he’s feeling that separation poignantly. He’s feeling that separation as he should. That’s normal. That’s grief. But it’s not permanent.
And she isn’t grieving. She isn’t grieving. I almost went ain’t again, Isaiah. But I stopped myself. I was hoping for another ain’t. All right, I’ll bring it on. I’ll bring it on. She ain’t grieving, man. I’ll tell my wife I said, Isaiah likes the aints. So there. All right, so she isn’t grieving. She’s seen the face.
And for years I was one of the things I studied for years. I just got into it for a while, was reading books on near death experiences. Now, near death experiences, they’re not in the Bible.
I mean, there are some in the Bible, but what I’m saying is these people’s stories are not biblical. They might not be true, but it is amazing.
And if you want, probably the most research done on them was by a pastor by the name of John Burke. He wrote a book called Imagine Heaven where he chronicles over a thousand what they call NDEs, Near Death Experiences. There’s been a lot of research now done on these things.
Some of them are negative, by the way. Some people have experiences where they go to hell. Did you want this back, by the way? I just took it. You gave me this joke; it was in my pocket. I’m a little ADHD here, all right? So near death.
But the positive ones are remarkably similar and remarkably kind of consistent with what we could piece together from the Bible. One of the things that is consistent is people who see Jesus and experience his overwhelming love, who are sent back to earth to be with their loved ones, who they still love, are devastated when Jesus says go back. They don’t want to go back.
Even mothers of small children, who you would think. But what they experience when they see Jesus is his goodness is so overwhelming, they finally have peace that mothers in this earth seldom have, that my kids are going to be okay. He’s got them. He’s got them.
Sometimes my wife. This is kind of typical. My wife will express her concerns for our children and our grandchildren and their spouses, and she’ll express them to me and Brian. I’m a good husband. I do what you do. I listen. I listen empathetically.
And I tell her, if my eyes are closed and I’m slowly nodding, it just means I’m listening more carefully. And she gets done. And I know she doesn’t want me to fix it, which is good because I’m not going to.
Back in the old days, I tried, and I realized that was a mistake. I know she just wants me to listen and to comfort her and to say. But here’s what I say, and it’s not a cop out. It’s the truth. It’s going to be all right.
And here’s how I know it’s going to be all right. We’re followers of Jesus. This problem cannot separate us. Are our children who are followers of Jesus? Are our grandchildren who are under the household covering of followers of Jesus? This cannot separate us or them from his love. And it’s going to be all right. Neither life nor death. He cares.
I tell parents this all the time when they come and they talk to me about the woes of their children. I say, you know who loves your kids more than you do? Right, Moms. He loves your kids more than you do. He just does. Dads, He loves your kids more than you do.
So our hope is sure. Neither angels nor demons, principalities and powers. Paul tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and spiritual forces of wickedness.
And as C.S. Lewis points out, there are two mistakes people typically make about devils. Modern, sophisticated, rational man. The philosophical worldview that dominated our universities and our worldview for about 100 years is called, you can call it naturalism or scientific naturalism or, I don’t know.
There are different ways, different. But basically, that matter is all there is, and we understand the universe through science. And our understanding of matter, that that’s all there is in the world. All right, Paul says that’s not true. There are demons, and one of the mistakes people make is not believing in demons enough. And so they’re fighting a battle that they’re only fighting half of it. You know, they’re only fighting half of it. They don’t know what they’re up against, and so they’re fighting with one arm tied behind their back.
The other problem people make is they give demons too much credit and too much power. Oh, spiritual warfare, Pastor. the Spiritual warfare is so strong. I’m overwhelmed by the Spiritual warfare. The devil’s beating me up.
Well, you know what? The Bible doesn’t say the devil gets to beat you up. It says you get to beat the devil up. Beat the devil up. Listen, I got no dog in the fight. Well, I kind of do now, but for years I had no dog in the fight between.
I know you homeschoolers are going to get mad at me about this. Between homeschooling, private schooling, or even public schooling. And I had, you know, a church full of. I had a church full of public school teachers and a church full of homeschool moms. All right? Potential dynamite keg. It worked fine. No problems.
And one of the problems was I would tell people, I got no dog in this fight. Here’s the only dog I have in the fight. Here is my philosophical place. Where I stand. It’s parents, not the government, who are the best equipped to make the answers for the education of their children.
And so if you think this is the best for my child, good for you. If you think that’s the best for my child, good for you. If you think that’s. But you as parents are the ones who I want to entrust with your children.
But one of my problems with the homeschool crowd, even though I like the homeschool crowd, is one of my problems with the homeschool crowd is some of them were all about protecting their kids from that terrible world out there and the devil. And I thought, no, you got it backwards.
If you’re homeschooling your kids, great. But here’s ought to be your philosophy in homeschooling your kids. Not protecting them from that terrible world out there and the devil, but raising kids that terrible world out there and the devil need protecting from.
We’re on the offense, not the defense. I do not like the Christian bunker mentality. Oh, my gosh. The world’s getting worse and worse, and we got to hide out and protect ourselves till we get raptured. Knock it off.
We were called to go, not hide, into all the world and make disciples and to lay our lives on the line for that. And I’ve cast demons out of people.
And one of the things I do when I cast demons out of people, and the devil and the demons don’t seem to be budging, is I remind them of this. I simply say, you know and I know that my boss. And I’m not doing this as trash talking. I like to trash talk, but I don’t trash talk demons. Not yet. I will one day, but not yet. But I say this, you know and I know.
I just state the fact that my boss died on the cross and rose from the dead and therefore thoroughly defeated and humiliated your boss and all the powers of your kingdom. And I’ve never had a devil refute that.
So, yeah, they’re real, but they’re not omnipotent. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. All right. You have authority over them. The only power, in fact, they have comes when we invite them or agree with them or our parents, our ancestors invited them and agreed with them. That’s it.
They operate through invitation and agreement of humans. That’s why I tell people you can’t get rid of devils you still want to play with. All right. Oh, I’ve got this terrible addiction. I think it’s demonically energized. Well, let’s cast out that demon of addiction.
Good, because then I can drink freely without that. No, no, no, no. You can’t get rid of devils you want to keep playing with. All right. But once you agree with God and once you invite his power in and are real about it, they yield. Why? They can’t separate us.
They don’t have that power. That power was taken away from them through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Christ is the victor. They have no power. Neither death nor life, neither the worries of this day nor the future, can separate you from the love of God. What they can separate you from is the joy of today. That’s what worry will do. Worry will rob you of the joy of today. It will rob you of the joy of today.
My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and the worst time of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is when you don’t have Alzheimer’s bad enough to realize you have Alzheimer’s.
Once you reach that point, you’re good. I mean, you’re not good. But it’s not as devastating.
If I ever get diagnosed with that and it progresses, I’m going to lie to my kids and pretend I’ve reached that point before I have. Just to jerk them around a little bit. That’ll be fun. That’ll be a little. Well, I’m just doing this because I don’t know any better.
But when she had it, and she knew she had it, she was scared, which is understandable. And she would call me, and we’d talk about it. I said, Mom, the fact that you’re calling me and talking about it is a good reason to enjoy today. Mom, enjoy today. You have enough sanity to enjoy today. Enjoy it, and don’t let the fear of the future. We’ll be here for you in your future. We’re not going to abandon you. your kids are going to. And my sister and brother-in-law did a great job.
The rest of us helped, but they carried the big load. And I’m forever grateful. We were there for her the whole way. But why she could still know that, hey, this is happening to me. She was afraid, but I would try to tell her, don’t let it destroy your today. You may never reach that point of total dementia. A drunk driver may take you out today. you’re 12 ft away, people. Every time you get in that car, you don’t know, so why not? And, oh, now I got one more thing to worry about.
No, just enjoy today. You don’t know how many tomorrows you got, but today I’m in a room with people I actually enjoy. I like everybody in this room. All right, that’s true. This is not flattery. Every single one of you make me happy to see your face. There’s not a one of you that I want to hide from. I’ve been a pastor for 40 years. There’s been people I’ve wanted to hide from, but you’re not in that list. All right? you’re good, Zach, you’re good. All right. Don’t mess it up, man. Just saying.
But right now we’re good. All right? Good. I’m happy. I’m happy. Every time I see the Kagawas, I’m happy. All right? Every time Mark follows me out to my car, I’m happy. Life is good.
So, dear ones, worry is projecting, is giving the devil power over by infusing fear in your life over a future that is most likely not going to happen. You are all worried about stuff, or at least tempted to be worried about stuff. Three months ago, and you couldn’t tell me today what that stuff is, why it evaporated. It’s gone.
And here you are. Here you are. I don’t know how many times I didn’t think I was going to. As a young pastor with three little kids, how many times I didn’t think I was ever going to have enough money and get out of debt. And it just seemed like. And here I am. I don’t know if you can believe this about me.
My appearance maybe would give you cause to believe this. I have been poor for a lot of my life, but I have not missed many meals. I’ve had a roof over my head. I’ve had cars that run. Not always the car I wanted. I got the car I want now. Not always. Didn’t always.
Dear ones, I’ll tell you what you know. You may not think you have enough today, but one of these days Kagawa Farms is going to be huge. you’ll have more bunnies and pigs than you know what to do with. Maggots, too. Who knows that there might not be six horses one day in your future? And Jamie will be happy with it. God causes all things to work for the good.
All I’m saying, dear ones, is don’t let worry rob you of the joy of today. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness. And what does he say? All these things shall be added unto you.
33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. (Matthew 6:33, NLT)
First. Peter, five, seven. Cast your cares upon him, for he cares for you.
7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:7, NLT)
Philippians 4, 6. Be anxious for what? Nothing. But in all things with thanks. Make your requests known to God. And here’s the promise and the peace of God which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (1 Peter 4:6-7, NLT)
Well, God, this problem is just overwhelming. How are you going to solve it?
My wife and I heard a preacher one time, and he said this because the Lord promised him a new building, and they didn’t have the money for it. He’d always go to the Lord and say, Lord, how are you going to provide the money for the new building? And finally, he felt like the Lord said, hey, Joe, get the how out of here.
So my wife and I, when we have a problem, we just say, okay, God’s going to take care of this. But how? We go get the how out of here. Get the how out of here. He didn’t have to tell you how.
Isn’t it interesting? When somebody tells us that our prayer is going to be answered, we smuggle into that what the answer is going to look like. And it hardly ever does look like what we smuggled in. Don’t blame yourself for that. I think it’s impossible not to.
I actually think, you know, somebody says, okay, God’s going to answer that prayer. You know, oh Lord, I’m in deep financial need. Oh, God’s going to answer that prayer. There’s going to be a check in the mail, and there’s no check in the mail.
But over here, you know, somebody gives you something else, something else happens where the need is met. When I was a poor associate pastor and we were poor, I mean, we’re not poor by world standards, poor by middle class American standards. Right? You know, just we’re struggling.
We’re making one income. We got three little babies at home. We’re living in a parsonage. Despite what you think about preachers is, you know, we don’t all have private jets and, you know, you know, a, a fleet of SUVs. And so at the time, we were oftentimes at the end of the month was coming the end of the month feeling, it’s like there’s not enough macaroni and cheese and ramen in the cupboards here. And the Lord just said. And we tithed and trusted the Lord to provide, and he did. But it wasn’t always with money.
There was a couple in the church who were pretty well off. He was a pediatrician. And my wife would occasionally work for him transcribing medical doc, you know, he would tape and she would transcribe. And so that she was doing that for part time to make a little bit more income.
And they were a kind couple. And his wife, she was a business consultant. I don’t know, she wore nice clothes and looked important. And they had twin daughters. And their daughters were a year or two older than my daughter.
And this woman would love to shop for her daughters. And she shopped at stores that they actually wouldn’t let us into without an id, you know, like Macy’s and Nordstrom’s and all these, you know, if it didn’t have, you know, if it didn’t have the word flea in it or mart in it, we couldn’t shop there. You know, it had to be a flea market or a Kmart or a Walmart. But every year this woman would buy.
She had two daughters and she would buy all these foo foo, you know, she liked to dress up her little darling daughters and she’d buy them all these nice clothes and they’re kids, so they grow out of them. Every year we get this huge box of clothes that have been probably worn once each for my daughter.
She was the best dressed poor kid ever. And wasn’t money, but it’s what money would have is better clothes than our money could have bought, right? We lived in an agricultural neighborhood and oh my gosh, zucchini.
What is it about zucchini that people think you actually want more of that? But we get zucchini and oranges and citrus and, you know, just boxes dropped on our door. It’s like, you know, it got better when I moved to Oakdale. By the way, when I was in Visaya, it was citrus fruit. When I was in Oakdale, one of the families I visited, this guy was a cattle rancher. I would visit his wife who had cancer, and I’d pray for him. As I was leaving, he said, pastor, come here.
And he’d take me to his freezer and open it up, and he’d just take out a box, and he’d start loading. This is better than oranges. I got some sirloin and ribeye. Do you like that? Just a little bit. Just a little bit.
And so, God is good. Worry is a robber; it’s a thief. And it cannot separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And the final thing I want to say is tonight that love is pointed at you. That love is pointed at you.
It’s pointed at me. It’s pointed at me. And how do I know it? I remember the story that God became a man. He committed no sin. He was pure love.
He fed the hungry, he healed the sick, he cast demons out of people, and the world turned on him. The people who he called to be his own turned on him. Not all of them, but many, and were shouting out crucify him.
His friends, who he had loved for three years and traveled throughout throughout Galilee and Jerusalem for three years with, except for John, ran away, abandoned him. One of his close friends betrayed him. The Roman government, who were cruel, but also known for their non partiality and fairness.
And when Pilate saw Jesus, you see this in the there’s no reason to kill this man. I’m not going to kill this man. There’s no reason to kill this man. There’s no justification for it. But even Roman impartiality caved to political pressure and expediency.
And then in his experience, because all of sin was heaped upon him, he could no longer even see the Father’s love. I don’t believe that people say, oh, God, because he cannot look on sin, turned his back on him. I used to believe that. I don’t believe that anymore.
If God couldn’t look on sin and turned his back on him, he wouldn’t look on us. I believe the Father’s love never left Jesus. But I believe Jesus experienced Psalm 22 on the cross. He experienced darkness. Loi loi lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? (Psalm 22:1, NLT)
And in the midst of all that, he looked upon the people who spat upon him. He looked upon the people who yelled, crucify him. He looked upon the people who slandered and lied about him. He looked upon the people who beat him to a bloody pulp on his back, who put a crown of thorns on his head and nails through his hands and his feet. He looked upon the people who were mocking him upon the cross. And he said this: Father, forgive them.
And you know what else he did? He said it to me. I like to think if I was there, I wouldn’t have been one of those. Crucify him, spit on him, mock him. Yeah, like I wouldn’t have been mocking. Come on, that’s my sweet spot.
And he said. I know it. He stood before the Father in heaven and he said, you know, Kevin, the Father says, yeah, Father, forgive him. Today at that young Life camp, he put his faith in me. Father, forgive him. He’s my brother. He’s your son. He’s ours now.
And God’s powerful love has now shone down on me for nearly 50 years of my life. And there have been sufferings, terrible ones. Mostly not my own. Mostly, as I already shared, the story of what I call opposite other people’s pain. And, man, it’s real. It does not wash off my shoulders easily.
I try to take it to the cross, but I actually do. I kind of love people enough that it hurts when they hurt. You know I’m not a complete hack as a pastor, right? I actually love you. So when you’re hurting, I hurt. I do. But he is good, and he will be good forever.
And, dear ones, this is our hope. This is our Thanksgiving. This is our Thanksgiving that nothing in this universe we live in, not a cancer diagnosis, not a financial crisis, God forbid, not the Russians launching nukes. That wouldn’t be a good thing. Nothing.
Mick’s not here, but I’ve just got to say it. Not the Yankees winning another World Series or the Patriots or now the Chiefs. I’m a sports fan. It’s grievous to me.
Nothing, not the death of a loved one, can separate us from the one who said, father, forgive them. They know not what. He came for you. He came for you. He came to put you in his arms and to love you forever.
And that’s where you are. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Dear ones. Father, forgive them this meal. Please believe this. I don’t know how much I can beg you to believe this, because I know how it is. I have no problem believing this for the Millers. Does God love the Millers?
And has he forgiven them for all their sins? Oh, heck, yeah. I just believe that for you guys, you know? I believe it for you guys. I believe it for everybody in this room. You know? Then I look at me. Well, yeah, but my sins. My sins are smellier than theirs, you know? It’s like it’s not true. I hope you look at me and go, oh, yeah, God can love, Kevin. Okay. Thank you. I needed that reassurance. I was teetering there. I was teetering there. He said, ain’t one too many times. There we go.
All right. And so I pray that tonight, as you take this meal, you’ll believe it. you’ll be assured of it. you’re a New Covenant forgiven, child of God. And his love, which is the greatest power in the universe, is pointed right at you tonight.
So take this meal and be thankful. Amen.
Praise be to the God and Father. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. For in his great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Lord, I pray that every day we would choose hope. We would choose faith, hope and love. And we would intentionally build ourselves in those great virtues by Your Spirit, Lord, May it be so. I ask it in Jesus’ Name.
And now the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in that peace to love and serve the Lord. Amen. Amen.
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