May 18, 2025, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
All right, we’re going through Romans. We’re in Romans 8:28-39. Some great passages here. Let me read them for you.
28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified. 31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? 33 Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:28-39, CSB)
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.
I had a dream the other night, Brian. And in the dream, you, me, and Ats were on a cruise ship. And it went down. We got onto a lifeboat, and it was just the three of us on the lifeboat. It didn’t look like they were going to find us. Things were getting dire. We were getting thirsty. The sun was beating down on us.
All of a sudden, you found Brian. You found something in the water. You pulled it out and brushed it off. It was a bottle, and a genie popped out. The genie said, all right, I’m giving you guys three wishes. One for each of you.
Great. Great. So he looked at me and he said, all right, what’s your wish?
He said, man, I just miss my family. I miss my wife, my kids, my grandkids. I want to go home. Boom, I was gone.
Went to Ats, and he said, Ats, what do you want? He goes, same thing, man. I just miss my family. I miss my pig farm, you know, I just want to go back to Hansville and be with my kids and my rabbits and all my chickens. You know, those chickens, they land on my shoulder. They really like me. PCan hardly eat those things. They’re so nice to me.
Okay, I want to go back. Boom. Ats goes back to Hansville, looks at Brian. He goes, Brian, what do you want? Brian goes, man, I wish I really. I really miss my friends. I wish they were still here.
All right, so Romans 8:28-39. We’re going to talk about God’s faithful love. And this verse is probably one of the most quoted, probably right up there with John 3:16. I looked one time at the most quoted, the most known Bible verses by country.
And in America, it’s John 3:16. It’s not in other countries. I forget what some of the other ones were, but it didn’t make it to any other of the countries.
And it’s very interesting, which kind of shows maybe how much culture influences, you know, people’s reading of the Bible. But this one, it’s John 3:16, is number one in America.
I don’t know where this one ranks, but I bet it will make it in the top 10. Romans 8:28.
28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, CSB)
It would be interesting to do a study on that and see what the most quoted and memorized Bible verses are. They’re all good news ones, I’m sure.
Jeremiah 29:11.
11 For I know the plans I have for you” this is the Lord ‘s declaration “plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11, CSB)
Will, whenever I talk about Bible verses I’ve memorized, Proverbs 3:5-6 comes up a lot like a gold ring. No, that’s my other favorite one. Proverbs 11:23.
Like a gold ring and a pig snout, so is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion. I don’t know if that made any country’s top one or not, but Proverbs 3:5-6.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6, CSB)
But this one is quoted a lot. God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him, who’ve been called according to his purpose. And so this one tells us that God is always working. God is always working. Psalm 121. He who keeps watch over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. All right?
And so God is always at work in your life. And there are times we sing the song Waymaker, even when I don’t feel it, he’s working. Even when I don’t see and he’s working. And many of us have had this experience in our Christian life where we went through dry seasons. We felt like God wasn’t present, he wasn’t working.
And then when we get to the other side of that season, we kind of look back and we go, oh, my goodness, God was at work in that.
How many of you remember? It was so popular in the 90s, the little plaque. Footprints. Remember Footprints? Okay, here’s one of the occupational hazards about being a pastor. People think you want religious knickknack, all right? They think, you know, so they’ll give you, you know, religious-like things. And, oh, I think the pastor would like this.
And I remember, you know, the last time I got footprints, and I thought, oh, great, now we have one for the extra bathroom, you know, to hang. You know, I think I had, like, seven of those plaques. Footprints.
My favorite one was Josh D’Intinosanto, though. Somebody gave me the. Somebody gave me baby Jesus soap on a rope. I’m not kidding. Christmas nativity soap on a rope of Mary holding the baby Jesus. What do you do with that? I’m telling you, I don’t. I’m not very religious. I don’t. Religious artifacts, but there’s something about.
I just can’t rub my pits with baby Jesus. I can’t do it. I can’t use that soap. I can’t do it. And then Josh, I don’t know where he found this, got glow in the dark baby Jesus soap on a rope. I’ve lost it, but I got a feeling if I found a Geiger counter in my house, I would find it. There it is. There it is.
But the truth of that footprint story is that when we don’t feel like when we felt most God abandoned oftentimes was the times he was doing the most work in our lives.
God causes all things to work together for the good. All right? We quote this verse during the times of the bad. God is with us and working during the times of the bad, during the hard times, during the struggles.
And so never despair. Don’t despair. God is working, all right? And he’s working for the good of his people. People who have. And his people are the people who have faith in Jesus. That’s the whole point of the first half of the Book of Romans.
How do you know you belong to God? How do you know you have peace with God? How do you know God forgives your sins? Do you have faith in His Son, Jesus? That’s the condition. All right, there’s one condition. That’s the condition.
It’s expressed in the book of Acts 3 ways: Repent, believe, and be baptized.
But basically, it’s have faith, loyal trust, loyal trust, loyal allegiance to God’s Son, revealed in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the work he’s done for us in his life, death, and resurrection.
And when we put our life into those hands and into that story, then we are made right with God. We are declared righteous.
God’s looking for people who believe in him, who trust him. And so that’s the deal. God works for those people’s good. It’s not that he doesn’t want to work for other people’s good.
They’re like the people in Psalm 91 who are outside of the shadow of his wings. You can put yourself outside of the provision and providence of God, and I don’t recommend it. But you can do it by not having faith, by relying on yourself. But God works for our good, not just in many things, not just during the hard times, not just during the good times, not just sometimes. But God works for our good in all things, all the time. God works for our good in all things, all the time.
One of the interesting questions you can ask people who are going through a very rough patch in their marriage and are considering getting a divorce is, well, you’ve told me that this marriage is over. Here’s another question you can ask, and that is, is God done with you in this marriage?
See, we tend to look at our lives and think, well, it’s about me. Is my marriage over? But wait, what about the work that God is doing on you in this difficult marriage?
Is he done yet? Is he done? Because God is working for good in all things, and he’s working in your life in those situations to make you more like Jesus. It is for those who love him. It is for those who love him. And we are among those who love him. You might think, man, I wish I loved God more. I wish I loved God more. But you love God some. You love God some. I know it. I know you. I know each one of you. You love God some.
You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love God. Some people go to church because they’re trying to earn brownie points with God. Some people go to church because they want to look good. Some people go to church because they’re making good business connections.
In some places in the world, in some places in the United States and some counties in the United States, if you didn’t go to church, you couldn’t get elected to Congress or you couldn’t run your used car store.
You know, you need to be a deacon at the Baptist church or a trustee at the Methodist Church. You need to be trusted. And, you know, you’re a good churchgoer. That isn’t the case in the Pacific Northwest, all right? You get no props for going to church.
And I don’t know if you noticed the Firehouse Church is not a great church to make lots of business connections. All right? So I’m convinced you come here because you love God, all right? Or if you’re one of the young ones, I’m trusting that you love God.
But just in case that’s not true, Emi, then I just say, you got a drug problem, your parents drug you to church, they drug you here tonight. So. But it’s good for you. I’m glad you’re here. All right? And I’m pretty sure you love God, too. Do you love God, Emi? Yeah. I knew it. I knew it. I could see it in you. All right? So you know, Jacob, you and Isaiah, you had the same thing growing up as kids. You got a drug problem, didn’t hurt you none, all right?
You both turned out pretty well. Pretty well. So you’re those who love God, and you’ve been called according to his purpose. He then goes on to tell us what that purpose is. This is what he does.
We are to be conformed to his likeness. God foreknew us. God is omniscient. He knows all things. This causes great theological perplexity because we think if God knows all things, then he must cause all things.
Romans 8:28 doesn’t say he causes all things.
He says he works all things together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, CSB)
And so it doesn’t say that God causes everything, but he does know all things. It says God predestined us. But predestined does not mean predetermined. It doesn’t mean, as some would think, that God wrote a script before the foundation of the world, decreed everything that would happen. And we are simply here and now playing out that script.
That is not the story of the Bible. That is not the story of the Bible.
29 For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Romans 8:29, CSB)
Predestined doesn’t mean predetermined. It means that God has a destiny for us. In fact, the very next verse, it says what the destiny is: to be conformed to the image of his son, Jesus, the firstborn. That’s God’s destiny.
If you’re a parent, you had a destiny for your kids. Ats and Aiko, we were just talking about this. You gave your kids specific middle names to signify destiny. This is the destiny for our kids.
You know, nobody has kids and says, man, I hope this boy, this girl grows up to be a drug-using street person with no purpose in life, no direction in life, and just dies at a young age of some terrible disease, in cold and misery. That’s my destiny for my kid. Nobody has that destiny or nobody has a.
You notice. You notice. You give your kids very specific names. You know, names. There are names that don’t make it in history anymore. All right? After the 1940s, very few Adolfs.
Not a lot of little Adolfs running around. There’s not a lot of Jezebels. Alright? Well, there are a lot of Jezebels, but there’s not a lot of them named Jezebel.
What’s that? Mostly cats? Yeah, you can name your cat Jezebel. You can name your cat Adolf if you want. I’m fine with that. But there’s, but there’s not a lot of Jezebel, so not a lot of Ahabs, alright?
I haven’t noticed a lot of Judas’s and Pontius Pilates. All right? There are names that don’t make it. Why?
Because we want our kids to have a different destiny. Some, some mothers are so sure, you know. Some mothers are so sure. One mother had twins and somebody said, what cute twins. And it was like, oh yeah, this is, this is, this is Johnny the doctor and Tommy the lawyer. They have a destiny.
My dad named me after Kevin o’ Shea, an Irish guard for Notre Dame’s basketball team, one of their early great scoring guards. And he named me Kevin after Kevin o’ Shea.
And I played basketball all the way through high school with no skill, but I played.
Your parents have a destiny. God has a destiny. He has a predestiny. Very interesting. The Book of Revelation talks about names that are blotted out of the book of life, not added in. I believe God has a destiny. I believe everybody is predestined to be conformed into the image of his son.
Some, as is the case of some children, don’t enter into their parents’ destiny. Some don’t enter into God’s destiny for them.
But we are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
This is so underrated in Christian theology and Christian eschatology. It’s so underrated and not here because you know what I’m going to say next. The good news isn’t that we just get to go to the good place. The good news is we get to be like Him. We get to be like him. Eternal sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of Jesus, coheirs with Christ.
The promises of Christ likeness, the promises of us becoming like our elder brother Jesus, are so common in the New Testament we become dull to them, and they don’t excite us. But this excites me. This excites me that I’m going to be good, as good as Jesus. All right. And for my whole life, the devil’s been beating up on me that I’m no good. But the Bible says I get to be as good as Jesus. And last time I checked, he was good. He was really good.
And in fact, that work is already at work in us. And that’s the things he causes to work for the good in our lives according to his purpose. When bad things happen to us, he causes us to be more like Jesus. And so, dear ones, that is our destiny: to be conformed to the image of his Son, the firstborn.
How does he get us there? First of all, he calls us, he invites us. At some point in your life, either through your parents, your church, a camp, an evangelist somewhere, God called you.
Even Muslims who have dreams about Jesus go to somebody who then calls them to repentance and faith. I remember I went to a Young Life camp, and I was 16 years old. I went to this camp I think I was 15 actually I went to this camp because they said, hey, this is a camp about Jesus, and they’re going to talk to you about Jesus, and you’re going to learn lots about Jesus. No, that’s not why I went to camp. My young Life leader was sneaky.
He knew that’s what the camp was about. He just told me there are three girls for every boy at camp. I knew I needed those odds. I needed those odds. So I went to camp. But they sneakily told me about Jesus. And the speaker called me. God used that Presbyterian minister and he said, behold, I stand at the door and knock. And anyone who hears my voice and opens the door, I’ll come in and sup with him. And he with me. And God called me.
And I had a rookie Young Life leader who didn’t know what to do with me because I argued about everything. He was 21 years old, so he took me to a veteran young life leader who was 22 years old.
I went to his cabin, and he called me, and he talked about Jesus. He talked to each of those boys about Jesus. All of those boys gave their lives to Jesus, or they already had given their lives to Jesus.
It got to my turn, and I was the last boy. And they said, well, what about you, Kevin? How are you going to respond to this?
Even though I’ve gone to church my whole life, I’d never heard such an invitation that I could have a personal relationship with Jesus. I was being called, and I remember thinking, this camp is a setup. They have set me up for this moment. I wasn’t stupid. I knew now it wasn’t about getting a girlfriend.
I knew that was their sneaky device to get me up to this camp so they could get me to this point where I felt this intense pressure to give my life to Jesus. But it wasn’t that they were putting pressure on me. The words that the speaker spoke had impacted me deeply.
And going to church for all my life and being afraid of God and thinking God was angry at me, this idea of a God who wanted to save me and love me and have a relationship with me was tugging on my life like you couldn’t believe.
But because it was a setup, and I don’t know if you know this about me, but better you know it now than I’m a contrarian. If somebody has an opinion, I like to argue with it. And you know, I like to take the other side.
And so I said, no, I’m not going to do it. Well, the old, experienced young life leader, I thought he was going to scold me afterwards, but he shook my hand. He said, hey, that probably took a lot of courage with everybody, you know, not to succumb to peer pressure. But, you know, he could tell it was working on me. He says, keep thinking about it, though. Keep thinking about it.
So then I go outside and I’m standing outside and around the corner. They didn’t know I was there, and they never used my name. But I recognized my leader’s voice, my young Young Life leader. He’s talking to the old Young Life leader, their combined ages being 43, really experienced, seasoned men of God.
They’re talking, and I can tell they’re talking about me, because in this exasperated voice, my leader is saying, I don’t know what to do with this kid. He’s got an argument for everything.
The other kid in our cabin was really sweet, so I knew they weren’t talking about Danny Pedersen. He was just this big old sweet kid. Knew they were talking about me.
Then the experienced Young Life leader said, hey, man, don’t worry about it. That’s groovy. It’s far out. That’s right on. That’s how they talked back then.
Let’s go pray for him. And they went and prayed for me. And then I prayed. I told you a story last week, didn’t I? No. I’ve told you this story before. But I gave my life to Jesus. Two weeks later, he called me.
I can’t remember what stories I tell in Poulsbo, what stories I told in Bremerton. Anyway, you guys are great. I repeat my stories, and you indulge me. Think how hard it is for my dear wife. She’s heard that testimony 413 times.
So here you go. He has called us. He does that. He uses us to call other people. That’s our job. God is the initiator. But we respond, and then he justifies us. We are justified by faith. Romans repeats that over and over again. How is it when he calls us, how are we to respond? It’s not by saying, okay, God, I’m going to fulfill all the laws. I’m going to obey you perfectly the rest of my life. I’ll make a deal with you. If you let me go to heaven, I’ll never cuss again. No, it’s not that.
It’s none of those things. We put our faith, our allegiance, our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are made right with Him. And then ultimately, he begins the process the minute we do that, and he continues it. And then when we encounter him in the beatific vision, when we see him, we are glorified, and we become conformed to his image forever and ever.
And that is the happiest of all endings. It’s also the greatest of all beginnings. He glorifies us in Him.
Now you read that? Yeah. What’s the difference between predestined or predestined, but not predetermined? What’s the difference between predestined? Predestined is he has a destiny for us, but we choose whether or not to enter into it. Predetermined is it’s already been determined before all history who goes to heaven, who goes to hell, and some people use the word predestined to mean that. I do not believe that’s what the word means. I don’t use it that way.
God has a destiny for us, but he has not determined who has been saved. We’re going to get into this even deeper in the next couple of weeks as we get into Romans 9. But anyway, it’s a division within the body of Christ. The vast majority, historically and currently of the body of Christ agrees with the position I articulated. But some don’t. And that’s fine. We’re still their brothers in Christ.
They like to argue about it a lot, which doesn’t make any sense to me, since if God already wrote out the script, why are you trying to convince me? But I guess that was in the script too. So there you go.
So, all right. He glorifies us in Him. Now, to prove my point, all of that is about what God has done. God foreknew us. He predestined us. He called us. He justified us. He glorified us. There it is. It’s settled. God does it all. But not so fast. Acts 2:37-38.
Peter continues to preach. And the people say, after Peter is done preaching, the people say, what must we do? And Peter doesn’t answer. Nothing. God’s done it all. In fact, Peter answers that question. Here’s what you must do. Repent and be baptized, each one of you.
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38, CSB)
That’s Peter’s answer in Acts 2:38.
Acts 16:31. Same thing. Paul and Silas are singing in jail. There’s an earthquake. The jail doors open. The jailer thinks everybody’s going to escape, and so he’s going to commit suicide. But Paul and Silas say, no, nobody escaped. They stop him.
And he is so moved by that and by what he heard Paul and Silas singing praises after they got beaten in prison. God had been working on him. He’s so moved. He looks at these guys with a sword to his gut, ready to fall on the sword, and he says, what must I do to be saved?
And Paul says, what must I do? Paul doesn’t say nothing. Later, I’m going to write a book to the Romans and I’m going to write five things. And that just explains it all. And God just does it all.
Paul doesn’t say that. He says, you must believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And then he prophesies. He doesn’t say this, implying that if a man is saved, his faith is imparted to the rest of his family. He says, you shall be saved, you and your household.
31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved you and your household.” (Acts 16:31, CSB)
He prophesies it. He knows that as this man comes to Christ, his whole household will come to Christ.
Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Throughout the book of Acts, it’s a three-part formula.
They’re not always mentioned, all three of them, but they repeat time and time again. Repent, believe, be baptized. Repent, believe, be baptized. That’s our part. That’s what we do. We believe in Jesus. We repent. God doesn’t do that for us. God doesn’t make that an irresistible gift. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that those things are an irresistible gift. We do those things. That’s our response. God does the heavy lifting. Absolutely. God does all the heavy lifting. Listen, you couldn’t die for your sins. You couldn’t atone for your sins.
You couldn’t live righteously enough to earn your way into God’s eternal heaven. You can’t conform yourself into the image of His Son. That is the power of God by his spirit that does all those things. What he’s looking for in us is our agreement with him. Will we sign up? He won’t force us to do it. It’s not irresistible that grace is available to do it. But will we open the gift or not? And that is our part. And then Paul finally finishes talking about God’s goodness with five rhetorical questions.
31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? (Romans 8:31, CSB)
There is no bigger power in the universe. God is on your side. I’ve said it. I’ll say it again. I’ll say it again. Tonight we’re playing a game we’ve already won. God is on your side. If God is for you, who can be against you? All the powers of hell could not hold Jesus Christ in the grave. And all the powers of hell are not more powerful than one drop of his blood. Dear ones, I have great news for you tonight.
God is for you. God is for you. God is for you, he’s for your family. God is for you. Life is hard. God is for you. God is for you.
If God did not spare his own son, how will he not graciously give us all things? God is so for you. you’re a co-heir with Christ. He will graciously. The word grace means gift. He will gift us all things.
Any of you grew up on a rich daddy, right? Wanted a rich daddy?
I’ve told God as a pastor of a church in the Pacific Northwest, God, I am not greedy. I just want one tithing professional athlete. That’s it. You know, one 2 million-dollar-a-year contract. Doesn’t have to be a starter. Doesn’t have to be a 50 million a year guy. One 2 million-dollar-a-year guy who’s got the conviction to tithe. And we’re good people. We’re good. We’re sailing. Well, guess what? I don’t need that. I got a rich daddy. You got a rich daddy. you’ve got a good and gracious daddy.
And he was going to conform you to the image of his son. And you are going to be for all eternity a co-heir with Christ.
You’re living in the now and not yet. So you experience some of those riches now, but they will come over you like a tidal wave one day. He did not spare his own son. How will he not also graciously give you all things?
And then you hear this voice and you call yourself a Christian. A real Christian wouldn’t do that. Paul says, who will bring any charge against us since God has justified us?
And you call yourself a Christian. Next time the devil says to you, and you call yourself a Christian, say actually Jesus calls me one. The Father calls me his child. Jesus calls me his brother, his sister.
Don’t argue with your voice with the devil. Argue with heaven’s supreme court. God has looked at you and said, not guilty. There’s no appeal. There’s no appeal. God has spoken. Shame off you. Guilt off you. Condemnation off you.
You are justified, and you have peace with God. His blood has made it possible. God, who can bring a charge against that? The devil can’t. If he could, he would have held Jesus in the tomb. He didn’t. It’s proven. It’s settled. It is finished. Tetelestai. The work is done. God’s son died on the cross. That is historical. It is cemented into history.
All of hell. They would love to lift that cross out of the ground. They would love a mulligan. They would love a do-over. Let’s not kill him this time, boys.
That was a big mistake. Let’s not make him the eternal sacrifice. Let’s not do that to him anymore. They did it. It’s done. Jesus proclaimed it in their face. They didn’t even know when he said it what this meant. But he said, it is finished. I did it.
And then he snatched the keys of hell and death from the hands of the evil one and rose victoriously from the dead. And then he began to gather his forever family. And then the devil very weakly tries to intimidate us and say, well, you’re not perfect.
You’re not a very good Christian. Can you cuss if it’s accurate? I don’t know. Can you say? I’ll say it. Shut the hell up. Hell. Shut up. Hell. Shut up.
You can’t bring a charge against me. It’s one of the nice things about preaching to a small church. Less people to offend. Hell, you can’t say anything against me. Who can condemn us? Christ is interceding for us.
We tend to think of interceding as praying. But interceding literally means to stand in the gap. Interceding means to be a bridge builder.
Christ has built the bridge between our sinfulness and a holy God. And he forever intercedes for us. He intercedes for us. He’s forever our high priest. He makes intercession for us. He atones for our sin. It is done. It is covered.
Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1, CSB)
And then who shall separate us? There was a moment on the cross when Jesus felt separated. He wasn’t, but he felt it. And he prophesied. Psalm 22:1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Well, had God forsaken him?
Didn’t look like an Easter morning, did it? Didn’t look like an Easter morning. Didn’t look like it in the Ascension. No, God had not forsaken him. Even when you feel God forsaken, there’s no power in creation.
As I already said, all the demons of hell, the past or the present, your sins of the past, the present, height nor depth there’s nothing. I forgot one. Right. Past or present, height nor depth, angels nor demons. What’s it? Oh, life nor death. There’s nothing, no created thing that can separate you from his love.
People talk about eternal security.
Am I eternally secure in Christ? And here’s my answer when people ask me that. Am I eternally secure in Christ? Yes, you are eternally secure in Christ.
Oh, then I can’t lose my salvation. No, I didn’t say that. I said you’re eternally secure in Christ. Well, then how can I lose my salvation? Well, stop being in Christ. Stop being in Christ. That’s called apostasy. Don’t do it.
All right, you say, well, where is that in the Bible? Well, it’s in Romans 11. This is Romans 8.
In Romans 11, Paul is talking to the Gentiles and he says this. In Romans 11:22, he says this. He’s talking about the Gentiles who have been grafted into God’s Eternal Tree and his family.
Therefore, consider God’s kindness and severity, severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you. And then there’s this condition: if you remain in his kindness, otherwise you too will be cut off.
22 Therefore, consider God’s kindness and severity: severity toward those who have fallen but God’s kindness toward you if you remain in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. (Romans 11:22, CSB)
1 Corinthians 15:2. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15:2. Now I want to make clear for you, 15:1.
I want to make clear to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold to the message I preached to you. Unless what? You believed in vain.
1 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you unless you believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2, CSB)
All right, dear ones, don’t believe in vain. Well, how do I not believe in vain? Hold to the message that God preached to you. Jesus Christ is going to hold onto your hand. You hold on to his. There’s no created thing outside of.
There’s no outside force that can yank you out of Jesus’ hand. You are secure in Christ. You are secure in Christ.
If you mess up tonight on the way home and somebody cuts you off and you say a bad word and you say, well, my pastor said a bad word in the sermon, so I have a gimme. No, you don’t. I used it in the context that’s meant to be used in. But guess what? You don’t lose your salvation. You didn’t lose your salvation. You are secure in Christ.
Now, I tell people, you can’t sin away your salvation, but here’s what sin does do. Continual patterns of unrepentant sin harden our hearts toward God and can lead to apostasy. Right? Because it’s like, I don’t want to be with him anymore because I feel too guilty. I feel too ashamed. It’s too hard. Most people who walk away from their faith did not start with intellectual reasons to walk away from their faith. In fact, I would say none of them did. The reason they walked away from their faith is they didn’t want to quit smoking weed.
They didn’t want to. They wanted to move in with their boyfriend, and they knew God didn’t want them to move in with their boyfriend and it was too hard not to move in with their boyfriend. And so they said, you know what? How could there be a loving God if there’s all this evil in the world? I’m moving in with my boyfriend. That’s how it works. That’s how it works. But don’t do that. Remain in Christ. He doesn’t take away your a after you’ve given him your life. Be secure.
You can drive home secure tonight. You will drive home secure tonight. I am completely secure. All of you are in Christ. I don’t see any of you sitting on the edge of the diving board of apostasy. I don’t see any of you teetering like, I don’t know. You are secure in Christ, dear ones, so remain in Christ.
This is a great passage. Nothing in all creation shall separate us from the love of God. That is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Remain in Him. It is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so, dear ones, this is God’s amazing love and God’s amazing faithfulness.
39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39, CSB)
He has done everything necessary for our salvation and his desire is to conform us eternally into the image of His Son. And he has done everything necessary to accomplish that. And he will see it through to the end. God will perfect the work he has begun in us. There’s only one condition, that we believe in him and we don’t stop believing in Him. That’s it. All the other lifting he has done. Everything else necessary, he has done.
People say, well, you’re preaching salvation by works. No, I’m not. That’s not a work any more than opening up a Christmas present is a work.
When I got that 10-speed bicycle from my parents one Christmas, I didn’t earn or deserve that, but I wasn’t stupid. I rode it. That wasn’t a work that didn’t earn me that bike. That was just responding to the incredible gift that bike was.
Remember your first nice bike? Wasn’t that a cool gift, Brian? That must have been a cool gift for you.
I mean, it set you on a path of nice bikes. My wife went out of town, Brian, and I said this. I said, well, you’re going out of town, so what’s it going to be?
She says, what do you mean? She says, I have too many tennis shoes. I’m going to buy a pair of tennis shoes, a leather bound Bible, or a car. And she goes, Bible? I said, okay.
She got back. I said, I didn’t buy any of them. She goes, really? I goes, no, I got two new pairs of pants though.
But yeah, she’s out of town this week. I only got one more day. I could still get the Bible. All right, dear ones, it’s a gift. God’s gift to you. Receive it and stay in it. In Jesus’ Name.
One of the ways, remember I said that the path to apostasy is unrepentant sin. We don’t lose our salvation by sin, but it is the path that hardens our heart. And so we need to practice things that soften our heart. And religiosity doesn’t do that.
But doing those things, not with a heart of religiosity, but with a heart of relationship.
When we were singing those songs tonight, I’ve sang that song a hundred times. I’m coming back to a heart of worship. But you know what? I was coming back to a heart of worship singing that song. I was. And then bless the Lord. I was blessing the Lord. I wasn’t just going through the motions.
I could sing of your love forever. How many of you hate repetitive songs? All right, yeah. 41 times, Brian. 41 times they repeat that phrase.
I could sing of your love forever. They ought to add one more phrase, probably in this song. 41 times we sing that phrase. But I was doing it. I was doing it. I was in it. I was in it. And so don’t go through the religious motions. That does us no good at all. It can do harm. But God has given us means of grace. He says, I’ll meet you here. I’ll meet you when you worship me. I’ll meet you when you pray. I’ll meet you when you open the Word and study the Word.
I’ll meet you when you love the poor. I’ll meet you when you evangelize. I’ll meet you when you serve. And he says, I’ll meet you at my table, and I’ll nourish you with my body and blood.
So be nourished tonight. For on the night he was betrayed,
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19, CSB)
he took bread and he broke it. He gave it to his disciples and said,
32 In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. (Luke 10:32, CSB)
this is my body which is given for you.
In the same way, after supper, he poured out the cup, gave it to his disciples and said, this is my blood which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you get together, do this in remembrance of me.
And so, dear ones, come to the table of Jesus and meet him here. He loves you.
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