Bible Guys Classics: Romans 8 Part 2

Hey, guys, we're here for another episode of Bible Guys, and it's also Super Bowl week. So today we'll be talking about the Super Bowl. We're talking about persecution and then some really good news, some hope at the end of today's message. Yeah. So he's Kyle and I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible Guys. Okay, So Jeff, this week is Super Bowl and we've got the Chiefs. We've got the Eagles, and both of us will definitely be. Watching the game. And so for our listeners, I actually want to hear your prediction. I'm gonna give you mine, and then I also love to hear everybody else's prediction, and we'll see who's right. I think I saw a thing here recently that in the in the championship level, not the Super Bowl, but in the you know, the the two divisional championships that Brady and Mahomes have been in the last ten Wow, right, that's amazing. Mahomes is the new is the new. Go right, He's not the goat yet, but I mean, but he's dominant. But this year, I think that the Eagles are a stronger team all the way around than Kansas City. They've kind of just breezed through the last few I mean, I know they've obviously had a couple injuries against players again that they've played against, but it just doesn't seem hard out there no past week. They drove down the first drive and looked at Jalen. They just made it look easy. They're super balanced. There's a strong team on defense and offense. They've got some real weapons. I'm just not sure. So the thing with Kansas City is they put up a ton of points, right, so if Mahomes being hurt, if he is healed up a little bit better and his mobile, I think that their offense is very dangerous. I just think their defense can stop Philadelphia. So I think it'll be a close game. But I think Philadelphia is gonna win. But the only thing is I think it's going to win. I would say I think the Chiefs have had more experience offensively when it comes to these types of situations. I think it's gonna be a high scoring game. I think it's going to be close, and I think at the end, I'm going to go Chiefs only. Because I think it's going to come now. I think it's going to come down to something close to the end, and I'm going to be a gun slinger game back Mahomes really against I mean, at the end of the. Game, he's he's the clutch that he has a will to win, he said, kind of minds. Honestly, little Aaron Rodgers can't stand the guy, but lawyer Rodgers, and in the game, you don't want him getting the ball back. And then also the Eagles, I know they got some some veterans on defense, but I'm trying to think about their do they have a lot of any veterans on offense who've been there before. I know they're in the Super Bowl f years back. I'm trying to think there's any returning. I just think they're so talented and fairly deep. Yeah, you know, in the run game, the receiving game, they've got going to receivers. Beat their teams up. Okay, So my I'm going to go with oh man, I'm going to go with thirty to twenty seven. Oh about thirty to twenty seven Chiefs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think it's going to be a high scoring game too. I just think that the Eagles are going to win. So I've got thirty five thirty one, Okay. Thirty five thirty one. Okay, so it's going to be a gunslinger game, I think, yes, yeah, just because both sides have the ability to really put that ball down the field. Yes. We'll then to ask you one before we get in the bottle. We're talking about football here. What's your go to like like when you think about Super Bowl? It's also super snack time, right, Super th time? What's your like goach when it comes to sitting owt watching football? What's your go to? Traditional? Wings? Okay, phone in wings? Nice? You gotta have them. I like it. I actually just last couple of years I started barbecuing, and I feel like if I can get anything in the bar like wings, ribs, anything like that, that's money. So I don't I haven't really planned that part of it out yet, but definitely. Looking for I think for us, we've got to fire up the grill and make something happy good. Yeah. All right, So. Today we're going to get into Romans eight and continue on where we left off from yesterday's message. Here, I just want to encourage you to interact with us on YouTube, Facebook, give us comments, and also if you're not following our Facebook page, one of the really cool things that we do is we actually give daily content, daily scriptures, daily encouragement, things inspire you. So if you're not following, make sure liking our page, make sure to do it, and just another thing to just walk you through your day. So Romans eight, starting in verse eighteen, here is what Paul had to say. Yeah, what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time, and we believers also grown even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a fore taste of future glory, or we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering, We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us, which I'm looking forward to We were given this hope when we were saved. That says parenthesis. If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't have yet yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently. And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father, who knows all hearts, knows what the Spirit is saying. For The Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God on our call, according to His purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose him become like his son, so that his son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. And it says this, what shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us. Who can be against us? Since He did not spare even his own son, but gave him up for us all, won't he also give us everything? Else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own no one? For God himself has given us right standing with himself, Who then will condemn us? No one? For Christ Jesus died for us and was raised delight for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God's right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted or hungry or destitute, or in danger or threatened with death as a scriptures say, for your sake, we are killed every day. We are being slaughtered like sheep, and he answers by saying no. Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Either 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. Wow, I think that that stretch trait there's one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible. Here. It fantastic. I just want to see even as like a youth, I just think back like youth pastor day. I mean not to say that this isn't something we go to a lot, but it's such an encouragement to so many people who are just feeling down and now just a reminder or just wondering about whether or not they're loved, or they're valued, or they matter. So I agree, Well, it's such a great ending to the struggle that Paul's been articulating for several chapters. Yes, between death and life, between the law and the spirit and the flesh and walking in God's spirit, all these things. He literally says he's a miserable person. Yep. And then finally by the end of this chapter, at the beginning he said there's no condemnation, and by the end he's like, there's nothing that can separate me from the love of God. It's absolute, total delight in the fact that God loves him. He literally tells us in the last portion, Hey, we can go to him. He's our abba father, he's our daddy. And if we can just understand we're living in the struggle of this life. But the promise, the hope that we have is total, absolute, pure acceptance, love and joy, and nothing could ever separate us from God's love. That's pretty powerful. So because of that, nothing can never separate from God's love. Let me saying we can endure anything. We can go through anything. It doesn't matter what the cost is, doesn't matter the crisis. We can go through anything because this life is temporary. That's ready to you turn it. And that's ultimate trust you have. That's the hope you have. That's that joy that goes beyond your circumstances. It's funny because we see that even in the Old Time. We see so many people who displayed this trust in God Old Testament through the New Testament. And you have Paul, who you've just seen it all. He's seen a lot and he's about to see a lot more. We'll talk about persecution today. He's about to see a lot more. And this is the hope that gets you through. This is the hope that people hold on to, that trust in God. Well, he mentioned, we share his suffering in the last you know, yesterday, and then today it picks up, and what we suffer is nothing compared to the glory that he'll reveal to us later, you know, suffering, we think immediately. Paul's talking in the context of the Roman persecution of Christians, also the Jewish persecution Christians at the time, and the misunderstanding, the being ostracized, losing their businesses, sometimes being put in prison, being beaten, you know, being separated from family, all those things. So that that's a big part of it. And even today, according to there's several organizations that track global persecution. They're saying that we're in a time right now where it's one of the hottest times for persecution in Christian history. And so there's a couple different organizations, the Voice of the Martyrs, Open Doors, a couple others that track that kind of stuff. On Open Doors, they said, right now, three hundred and sixty million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith and sixty million that's more people than live in the United States are suffering persecution today. And that persecution can range anywhere from just full on ostracization, you know, from their family being banished from their homes or whatever, to being beaten or being put in prison. To give put that in perspective, one out of every seven Christians in the world are persecuted, one out of every sin. Yeah, one out of five Christians in Africa are persecuted often and regularly, whether violence or legal persecution or whatever. Two out of five forty percent of all Christians in Asia are living under persecution. And you know, these persecutions can be over fifty six hundred Christians were murdered last year only because they were Christians. There were over two thousand churches were attacked by you know people, evil people that were trying to destroy those churches. And most of those two thousand churches were attacked while church services were going on, right, Bombs going off in northern Nigeria that came in and shot up the place, and you know, stuff like that. And then over almost five thousand Christians were arrested last year only because they were Christians, you know, put in prison. So that's pretty extraordinary. Over any given season, there can be tens of thousands of people that are being detained during the day being questioned why did you go there? Who are you talking to? You know, that kind of thing. It's just astounding. And it's interesting because you've been around the world and witness churches church movements, and I've had the privilege of going to a few different countries and seeing things, and it's interesting the way people worship in those In those. The joy and freedom in their worship is unblievable. And the way the preachers preach and the way they talk about things like it's like people who legitimately feel like their life is hanging on a rower at the balance and on a rope and there, and so when you hear what they have to say, it's like it's a completely different context than the types of preaching and things that we worry about in this day and age. Right, And persecution is the norm for Christianity and has been for two thousand years, right, So that's godly people, people who are truly on God's word. There there have been people who've claimed to represent God that also do a lot of persecution or have done persecution in the past, But for those that are truly christ centered, persecution has always been a part of the Christian walk. It's kind of an anomaly for those of us who live in the West, particularly those who live in America, where we live in peace. But what I have noticed is where the Church is persecuted, the church is strong. Where the Church is at peace and not prosecuted, church tends to be pretty weak. That produces weak Christians that are self centered. It's hard to be a self centered Christian when you know as soon as you go public with your faith, you're probably going to be arrested or you're going to be persecuted. So there's no personal gain, right what I mean, it's like Jesus, he says, count the cost. That's what for people. Hey count the cost, and it's like, hey, following him there was going to require to lay down certain things, and we see that right throughout the different countries where they're laying it down. Therefore they're kind of the cost and it honestly feels more real that. So that's part of the struggle, that's the part of the suffering. The other side of it, he pivots a little bit away from persecution into just the normal struggles of light, and he says, he says, all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal whose children really are against its will. All creation was subjected to God's curse. I want to ask about that. What are your thoughts on that part? And then just a little further, it goes down and it says, we know that all creation verse twenty three has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. So because sin exists, so God made everything perfect, and the Bible says, when it was all done, his six days of creation were done, he looked and he said, it is very good. There was no disease, there was no violence, there was no brokenness, there was no broken marriages or broken relationships, there was no fear, nothing. It was complete and total, perfect innocence. And then sin broke it all. This self centeredness, this know it all kind of idea, going after you know, wisdom and going after the knowledge of good and evil destroyed everything. So now all of creation grows. There was no death of any kind prior to sin, but now sin has broken everything. So it's not that God, you know, sometimes we blame God for all the bad things that happen. Oh, my grandma got cancer, and you know I had cancer, And it's natural for people to blame God for the diseases that happen in life. And God's like, I'm not to blame, right. It's the sin that happened in the world that created all of this brokenness, and it's the fact that we're living under a curse. So we desire paradise. That's why socially there's all these social engineers out there trying to create a utopia. It's just not going to happen. It's not possible because we live in a sinful world, and so we desire paradise. But we broke paradise with our sin. But what God's promising, and this is the hope we have, is paradise restored in heaven, right, right, So he rescues us from this curse and brings us into his blessing in favor. So it's not that God has done all these things to us. These are all the consequences, all the horrible things that happen in like the suffering that we have. But he says, any kind of suffering that we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory see late Maya. I have a ten year old who she I mean, both my daughters are amazing. She's just funny, funny, sense of humor, sassy, witty, all that sort of those sorts of things. One thing she'll do is whenever she like maybe acts out of out of line or gets you know, irritable and wants to apologize, one of the things she always says, she'll she'll be like, you know, you're a walk away up, like, darn. You Eve, so Jesus, I'm like, that's right, remember, Like we're like and it just remind her like we're gonna make mistakes, you know, we're sinful, and she's like, god, darn you Eve, something goes wrong. I just laugh about that. And one of the other things, let me finish it before going that. You know, I think one of the great fears that we have one of the reasons why we're so afraid of suffering of any kind, whether it's persecution or whether it's it's uh, you know, disease or sickness or death. We're afraid of death. Right, Paul writes in Corinthians, he said, oh death, where's your sting? Where's your victory. There is no victory, but we're afraid of it. And what he's saying is nothing that we go through even comes close comparing to the glory that we can see in the future. God gives us grace even in our suffering. That's a big part of Paul's theme. Remember when we were a couple weeks ago, Chris and I were talking about where God said, my grace is sufficient for you. My grace is enough. God gives us grace or those things. We don't have to be afraid as we begin to face that He's delivered us from the terror and the fear of death, and he has given us hope that goes way beyond I just breathed my last breath here and I wake up in heaven, and that hope should supersede any kind of fear of all these other struggles. So you're going to. Want to something because I think so many people might read twenty six Let's go to twenty six er. A second Moly Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants to pray for, but the Holy Spirit praise for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. Imagine somebody's hearing this for the first time. You're like, what does that that's a new thought. Well, I think for some Christians they're afraid to pray because they don't know how to pray. I hear it, I'll say, oh no, I don't want to pray. I don't know how to pray or whatever. So like somehow you might mess it up. You know, maybe you watch some Halloween movie and somebody messes up some kind of witch's incantation and something bad happens. That's not what prayer is. Prayer is not some kind of incantation that you have to say it exactly the right way, and if you mess it up, God's going to be mad. Instead, you bring your needs and your desires, your fears, your brokenness, all of your cares, and you bring them to him. But we don't always know the way to pray. I don't know what God's will is all the time. You know, I know what the circumstances are. I sure would like him to intervene and resolve it, but I don't know what the best resolution of everything is. So I don't have to be afraid to messing it up. I can bring my concerns my way, but the Holy Spirit translates my words in ways that we can't comprehend, and he then aligns it says that he brings these things the Father, who knows all hearts, knows what the serious is saying. For the Spirit leads a believers in harmony with God's own will. So the Holy Spirit can take the core of our needs even as we're trying to express them as best we can, and he'll take that to God in a way that aligns with God's will. Worry about messing up the words. I mean, think how many times we have these prayers where it's like someone's like, I just want to you know, I want this relationship to work out, and I just want to be happy. I want to be had joy and content whatever I feel like, the Spirit is kind of like, hey, I got something for you. It may not be that you know what I'm saying. So I do think there's an example of most times where God gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want that moment, and I'll answer the prayers in that way. So our motives are never perfect right. Our perspective is never the perfect perspective. Our awareness of the circumstances or even why they happened aren't perfect, so we can't know how to perfectly pray. And I found myself on a number of occasions just needing God but not knowing how to ask. And so I'll say that I don't even know what to say. I'm just coming to you because I trust you to solve this. I don't even know how to ask for it, and God will, right, So that's really good. I think that that's a big part of it. And then to move on and talk about you know, so the Holy Spirit prays in line with God's will and when we don't know how to but then the very next verse ses and we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to this purpose. M I know you've taught that. Yes, Yes, what's your perspective on that? Yeah? I think that when it comes to God working for the good of those who love him, I do think that there's a way in which you see so many stories of examples of people like Joseph Daniel, you know, people who love God, and I do think there's a way in which God is working for us, and hard to see it in the moment, but like you're saying, there's certain perspectives that you have as you go down the line. And for me, I always tell people like, even in my own life, there's been certain times where like I look at how God has provided for what I, you know, need in long run, and I do believe that as I follow him, he has worked things out for my good because I do love him. Even there's moments when I run away. There's moments where I'm not always consulting him. Somehow he works things out, or sometimes I do fall flat on my face. Sometimes I do struggle. Sometimes I do have these challenges, and I begin to realize, Hey, maybe God was trying to teach me a. Lesson even through that. But even the challenges I go through are still for his that's still working. On my behalf. Even the challenge that go even the struggles when things aren't the way I want them to go. I begin to realize, Oh, God was actually working for my good behind the scenes, even through the obstacles and even through the challenges. And I think he knows that he's talking This is the people group he's talking to. We're about to go through even more the persecution, like we they've already been experienced, but they're about to go through a lot more, and it's a reminder of them that that He's working for your good. Yes. So I have a love hate relationship with this verse, by the way, because people are quickly quoted every time bad happens in your life, and sometimes you're not ready to hear. You mean, like somebody gives you that advice, O, God causes all things to work together. They're like, well, but it's terrible. So so there's that. But I think when you read a verse like that, you got to be careful to read what it's not saying as much as what it's saying. It does not say God causes all things to happen. Yeah, I don't say that so evil causes things to happen in the world, the curse. He just references the curse just a few seconds, you know, a few verses ago. The curse that we live under causes so many of the horrible things that happen in our life. This is not what God wanted for us. This is the most of what happens to us is the consequence of the curse that we live under because of sin. So it's not what God wanted for us. God didn't cause all these bad things to happen, but it does say he can cause the things that do happen to work out for good and for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So this is one of the benefits of having faith in Christ, is because I love God and I'm called according to his purpose. Then he says, I'll step in and I'll take even the bad things that happen in your life, and I can make them have a good outcome. And then the whole rest of that passage is nothing's going to separate us from God's. Yeah, And how many people have you witnessed like that right where they went through an immense tragedy that you and I can't even fathom, and then they look back and they're like, man, I'm so thankful, Like I'm there was a tough circumstance. It was not what I want, it's not what God wanted, But look at what He's done through this. I think that's really great. So go today as we wrap things up. Verse thirty one says, if God is for us, who can ever be against us? Yes, So we need to make sure that we're in alignment with God's will, and if God's for us and we're for God, nothing could ever stand up against us. That's right. What a good reminder. Hopefully remember that that confidence, having the confidence in Him, confidence of the Spirit as. We go throughout our day. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us. We'll see you guys tomorrow for more of the Bible. Guys,