Northside Church - Sydney
Anchor Points Week 4: I'm More Than A Conqueror
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. 1988 saw the combination of two of Hollywood's actors at either ends of the spectrum, Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed up together in a movie called Twins. You see, the two brothers were part of an experiment to create the most perfect human being in the world. And they didn't get two, they only got one. And poor Danny DeVito, if you know his stature, about four and a half, something feet. Never knew that he had a twin, they were separated from birth. And the reunion happens in the most unlikely of circumstances. DeVito, who's sort of become a bit of a low life in the streets of Hollywood, is being chased down by a couple of gang members and he's currently being beaten to a pulp until a hand reaches in and grabs one of these big guys and literally throws them through a wall. And as he's trying to come to, he sees this incredible big muscular person in the person of Arnold Schwarzenegger and he discovers that it is in fact his brother. And so as these down and out, these gang members who are bumps on their head, somewhat dazed or lying there on the floor, he stands over the top of them and he says, "You're messed with me, you're messed with my whole family!" You see, DeVito had this incredible confidence because he had a relative that was bigger, a relative that was stronger, a relative that was more powerful. And we Christians, we operate in much the same way. We say, "You're messed with me, you're messed with my whole family!" You see, we see in God someone who is bigger, someone who is more powerful, someone who is stronger, verse 31 says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" You're messed with me, you're messed with my whole family. And so the anchor point we look at this morning is that in spite of troubles, Christians rest assured that they're more than conquerors. All users are quite a rare word here, it's almost like a little nickname that he uses, it's really translated that we are over overcomers, we're above those that overcome. We are more than conquerors, literally means that. How are we more than conquerors then? How are we more than conquerors? It's in this riddle that I've got for you this morning, you see, and this is where we're headed this morning. What does God and Clint Eastwood have in common? They're both in the good, the bad, and the ugly. And that's what we will see this morning, verse 28 of this passage says quite clearly that God is in the good, the bad, and the ugly, verse 28. And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those that love him. And so if we're anchored to this truth, what will it mean for our lives? First of all, we see that God is for us in the good. What that means is that we as Christians always live a life of gratitude for the good things. We think about Romans chapter 1, Paul talks about the way that God gave the world over to its own desires, its own way of running things. And what does he say? The world's going to junk. In 2 Corinthians 4, 16, he says though outwardly we're wasting away inwardly we're being renewed day by day. What he's saying is that the general world around us has a state of entropy to use a scientific term. It's cooling off, it's wearing down, it's decaying. And so in that sense, Paul knows how Paul's not saying that things work for good in and of themselves. If we look around the world, it's not a nice place. And so Christians don't believe that the world is necessarily a nice place or the world is necessarily going to be a happy place. They see that there are tragedies. And for those of you this morning that are a bit battle scarred, you'd understand that. And you know, some people are really shocked by the hardships of life and what is happening around them, but not Christians. See Christians can maintain a positive view of life without adopting this sort of aspartamine artificial sweetener, this unrealistic view of things, because we know that when you're a Christian, good is good because it's from God. That is the truly good things. The truly good things in life are from God. So whenever we as Christians are seeing good things happening in our lives, blessings happening in our lives, we say because of his sovereignty. And that's what the early parts of this chapter were saying, these early verses, that if anything is good happening in this world, it's from God, because the good things are God things. But we also see that God is for us in the bad, you see, if God is for us in all things, then it also means that God is for us in the bad things in life. As always, Guinness said to suffer is one thing, to suffer without meaning as another, but to suffer and choose not to push for meaning is worse of all. The anchor point we got this morning is that God is for us in the bad. And see, when we understand it, it helps us to see God's purposes in life's difficulties, in life's challenge, in life's hardships, in life's pain, it affords us at least some meaning in the midst of the suffering and the pain. And what we see is often in life, there's two types of purposes that God is playing out in our lives. There's one that's really easy to understand and there's one that's impossible to understand. You see, the easy one to understand is the purposes that we can grasp. You see, you might think that your biggest problem is in your circumstances, your job, your finances, your career, but you see, it's not circumstances that can destroy your life. It's things like selfishness and pride and denial about the things that are eating us up inside, things are in us that are flawed. And most of all, for us, it's that false delusion that we can somehow live a good life without the presence of God. If the good things are the God things, then we delude ourselves to think that we can have a good life outside the presence of God at the very center of our lives. And look, those of you that are a little bit further on in life, you've got it. You've experienced it. It's insight. It's wisdom. You've been through some of those challenges of the pains. And look, I'm sure I've spoken to every one of you for all the hurts and the suffering that you've been through. For what you've learned, you wouldn't want to trade it, because as first Peter chapter 1 verse 3 says, though now for a little while you're suffering trials of all different kinds, that they are there so that your faith, which is worth even more than gold, gold which even perishes in the fire, may be proved genuine. What it's saying is that mysteriously God works in the midst of the bad things in life, things for good in and through us, in verse 29 of this passage it says, and it gives us a hint that we are being conformed into his likeness. The way that God shapes us, the way that God molds us often is in the bad in the challenges that we face. God is for us in the bad and he shapes us for the good in the midst of that. Now, is that it? No, you see, there are purposes that God works in ways that we can't understand. They're the ones that are the most difficult. You just can't understand why the bad things are happening to us. You know, there's a saying in theology, finitum, non-capax, infiniti. I didn't study Latin, I just got it out of one of the commentaries, but look, here's what it means. The finite cannot understand the infinite. And in simple terms, what I'm trying to say this morning is that the eternal perspective always belongs to God. What are you saying, how do I explain it? Look, Dad was telling me a story on my 30th birthday a couple of months back. He said, as a toddler, I thought it would be really wise to go rolling down the driveway. And so, as a result, we had a very steep driveway and I rolled all the way down over and over again and until the only thing that stopped me was a rock straight into the side of my head and I split my eye right open and he carried me down there to the doctors and he waited in the surgery and he went into the waiting room and the doctor took a look at the cut above my eye and he said, well, let's just get straight to it then. And Dad said, well, okay, is he going to have an anesthetic? We're going to give him a needle or something? And the doctor said, well, no, the needle's going to hurt him more than me just stitching him up without the anesthetic. And he said, besides the sort of pain that he feel now, he won't remember in the grand scheme of things in his life. I thought that's biblical part of the part of the way that that God operates is is he saying in light of in light of eternity some of the pains that we feel here and now they're going to get swallowed up. But what must have been the hardest thing was for Dad when he had to literally pin me down there on the table and hold my head still. As this doctor started to stitch my poor little eye up and he said I was just I was so in shock that I sort of wasn't even crying to see his big eyes looked up at him and sort of almost going, Dad, what are you doing? What are you doing to me here? And I look back and I want to now as a little kid. The only thing that stopped pain from being horror was the comfort of knowing that the one who was right there in the midst of it, the one whose eyes I was staring into was my father and I can trust him. Even in the pain I can trust him. And that's what we as Christians anchor to as well. Perhaps the greatest anchor point for we as Christians in the middle of the most pain and suffering and hardship in our lives we can look into his eyes. And in some sense as we will be saying, God, what are you doing to me? And yet we can say God is for me, God is for me, God is for me. We can say, Christians don't just, we don't just conjure up some Dutch courage in order to get through life. No Christians say, Lord, I don't understand you in this situation, but I understand why I trust you anyway. The Calvin said, man, and woman cannot be properly understood or understand themselves apart from their relationship to their creator. What he's saying is we've got to start a God first. And how often in the 21st century do we start from within ourselves and then our circumstances and then the other friends around and then maybe we might get to God two or three steps down the track. Calvin says, no, there must be a divine, musing of the divine Godhead of God. You are God therefore I am. You are the creator therefore I am the creator. You are the king therefore I am the servant. We must start with the Almighty God and then descend down into our humanity only when we have done that. Can we begin to understand why? Because look, if you've got an infinite God, if you've got an infinite God this morning in your life, if you've got a God that is beyond understanding, then of course he can permit things to happen, of which you've got no idea why they're happening to you. And realistically it would be the height of arrogance not to think like that with an eternal God. What I'm trying to say is God is working out his purposes in all things so you may not feel it now this morning. God is for us in the bad. It means the pain as well and sometimes we're not going to understand. And because we see his purposes in that then it gives us a balanced view of suffering. Some people try and avoid suffering. Some people try and embrace suffering - come on, bring it on. Some despair and say nothing can come out of this, but Christians don't say that we'll accept or we'll embrace or we'll avoid suffering. Not as a gospel except or embrace or avoid suffering, the gospel swallows it up. Totally swallows it up. I said this to the guys the other week in the night's surface that it all has to do with hope. In the English language we mistranslated all the time, hope means some sort of uncertainty about what might be happening in the future. But not with God, biblical hope says that we have an assured conviction of the triumph of God. We do as Christians and that's what I don't want to ruin the story - revelation. We win. We win. We have an assured conviction of the triumph of God, but in the meantime Paul says in the earlier parts of this chapter Romans 8 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. Second Corinthians he says, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all so we fix our eyes, not on what is seen but it was what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." The doctor is saying, "Look, the sort of pain that he's going to experience now, he's not going to remember in comparison to the rest of his life. Look at the sort of pain that we're experiencing now, are you going to remember, Christian, what that pain is going to be like when you're 1,386,428 years old, our light and momentary troubles. We start with the Godhead we descend into our humanity, God in his providence is working all things for good and it doesn't mean as Christians that everything will be good. But what it does mean is that bad things still happen to us but they're only proximately bad, they're never ultimately bad, they're only ever in the short term and not in the long term because the triumph of God's goodness in all things means that he can turn tragedy into triumph. He will turn tragedy into triumph. That is our anchor point this morning and so the best way to sum that, what I'm saying up is in Jonathan Edwards, one of the great preachers of America and his very first sermon as a 17-year-old, his outline simply went that your bad things will turn to good, your truly good things will never be lost and the best is yet to come. God is for us in the bad, he's not just for us in the good, he's for us in the bad. And finally we see this morning that God is also for us in the ugly, what do you mean? Because chatting to a friend the other day and they went to a friend's place and they were of South American background and they were deeply religious and they were looking around there and this place had all these various statues and stuff of Jesus but it was Jesus on the cross. And so wherever you looked around there was Jesus hanging from the cross, there was Jesus again hanging from the cross and the nails and the blood and they said it was morbid, it was depressing, it was ugly. And isn't that exactly it? At the cross we see that it's in the ugly how God comes to us. I mean if you're trying to sell Christianity like fragrances, you'd be getting scarlet Johansson or Ralph Fiennes or someone good to sell it but what's our poster kid for Christianity? It's a broken and it's a bruised and it's a battered Jesus Christ, it looked pretty crazy up there on an ad shell out there next to the bus stops. Ugly is how God comes to us, Isaiah 53 had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. God is for us in the ugly because God is for us in the cross. How verse 32 he gave his own son, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? You see that not only shows us how God comes to us but why God comes to us. Verse 29 and 30, we didn't read it this morning because it's some of the verses in Romans that gets us caught off in a debate that could, well it's literally been going on forever between free will and determinism, between Calvinism and Arianism, verse 29 to 30 for those God for knew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called and those he called he also justified and those he justified he also glorified, you see we skip over because of the debate and that would be a whole nother sermon this morning but I want to touch on something here. Because often when we read the word for new we think, we think we're translated as that God foresees, that God is somehow looking into a magic crystal ball for your life and has every step that you're going to make planned out, that's how we see this predestination thing happening, but it says he foreknew and when the Bible talks about knowledge, it's not just about head space, it's always about relationship. And so when it talks about knowing, whenever the Bible talks about God knowing in some way it always is talking about him setting his love upon someone in a personal way. That's what it means when it says the Bible talks about setting his love, you see what this is saying? What it's saying is that God said his love on us way back before the beginning of time. What it shows us this morning is that ugly shows us, the ugly shows us that he loved you before you could ever love him. In other words, our love doesn't awaken God's, God's love awakens ours for him. That's what it means in some of these passages that we get so confused about beforehand and so as the UK Bandi Eels put it, I guess in some ways God says my love is an ugly love, but it lasts a long, long time. God has been putting his love towards us for all eternity and before time and Paul puts it this way that whilst we were in still in rebellion Christ died for us. God said his love upon us, the uglier the cross shows us that if God was for us, it shows us that if God was for us before we were for him. You know what that means? If God was before us, before we were for him, you know what that means? It means no matter how much you, if we're not the ones to evoke, if we're not the ones to elicit, if we're not the ones to conjure up, if we're not the ones to construct the sense and the feeling and the rights and the privileges of the love of God in our lives, if the love of God has come upon us not from our own merit, then the ugly, the cross gives us the confidence that our ugly stuff can't stuff it up, then our ugly stuff can't stuff it up because look, we earn it, if you didn't earn it, you can't lose it. What do you mean? Look, do you see God as your employer or God as your father? What happens when an employee stuffs up, warning number one, warning number two and all other sorts of industrial relations laws which thankfully God, even God, sort of can't solve in this country at the moment, but what happens when you see God as your father? What happens when a child continually stuffs up? You don't get a warning when a child stuffs up, it explodes the love in the direction of the child in a way they'd never experienced before, come here, come on, let me show you, is God your employer or your father? So when your ugly stuff gets in the worry of your relationship with God, Paul's application for us this morning is really simple, it's think. This is a clinical legal argument at the end of this chapter that Paul from his legal background is getting through, it's so logical he says, think, how many of you have felt afraid, verse 31 he says, think if God is for us who can be against us, how many of you have felt worried, verse 32, think he gave his son, why don't he give you all things? How many of you have felt guilty, verse 33, if God is one who justifies, made you write with him through the son who can bring a charge that could really hurt you? If you felt unacceptable verse 34 it says, the one who died for you was sticking up for you at the right hand of the father as we speak. How many of you have felt unloved, verse 34, I've no trouble, no hard times, no hunger, no homelessness, not even the worst sins in the Bible can separate you from his love. How? It's in the ugly and it's like if you're a young man you would have seen the songs that have been out there, U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi, you ugly, oh, you ugly, you see in some ways I was sick, it's part of the Christian story, we ain't got no alibi, but in Jesus Christ at the cross he gives us an alibi, the cross he became ugly so you can become beautiful. God is for us in the ugly and the ugly transforms, ugly into beautiful fear, into confidence, worry and a comfort, guilt in the innocence, disapproval into approval, that is how we know that we are more than conquerors, that's how we know that we're over overcomers, all the things that crush us internally, guilt, worry, fear, anxiety, unacceptance, a wiped away at the cross of Jesus because we know that God is for me, or you might be saying how do I know that God is for me this morning, how can I have this unshakable confidence? And I think religion always boils down to these two questions, is God there and is God good? And that's what we see in the ugly at the cross, it can be hard to fathom, that's why like Martin Luther when he was reading the story of Abraham's pending sacrifice of Isaac to his kids and his family, his wife Kate interjected and she said I can't believe that, I can't believe that God would do anything like that, expect someone to send their son to die and Luther says, but Katie, he already did. God is for you in the ugly at the cross, in the sending of his own son and the doubts about the father, whether he's an employer or really a father, are silenced in the son. Silenced in the ugly Romans 38 chapter 8 verse 31, nothing can separate you from the love of your God, God is for you because God loves you this morning. Do you know that? Is it tangible? Can you taste it? Is it palatable? Is it portable? Are you anchored to that this morning? Because it's one thing to have an anchor, as I was thinking before, it's one thing to have an anchor, it's another thing as I discovered when I was on my mate's boat once and I threw it over the side of the edge and it went down and it went down and it went down and I'm watching this thing go out until I saw this flick go past me. It's one thing to have an anchor, it's one thing not to be connected to the chain. You see, it can sound really clinical here this morning, but we've got to remember Romans 8 is not a chapter about legalities and thinking it's a chapter about the spirit and the spirit of God is the anchor that anchors us to the conviction that we are anchored in Jesus Christ. It's the chain to the anchor, the spirit of God. I'm trying to say this morning that if you're in Christ, God sends His spirit to assure you of that. Our greatest problem is that we don't preach it, we don't teach it, we don't beat this into our heads, we don't experience it. This anchor point in our lives that we are more than conquerors. We are more than conquerors. Why? Because it's what God has in common with Clint Eastwood. They're both in the good, they're both in the bad and the ugly, the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the point this morning. In spite of hardships and trials, Christians are more than conquerors over overcomers because God is for us. So where are you at this morning? What is your life looking this morning? If it's good, then praise Him, praise Him brother and sister, praise Him, be grateful, have gratitude for the things that have come into your life from the God that is good, the truly good things. Friend if life is bad this morning, I just comfort you from what we see in His Word that God is working all things for the good of those that love Him this morning. May not feel like it. You might be staring at His eyes this morning asking Him why, but He will ultimately triumph through the worst of your circumstances. This morning in the ugly, look, if there is stuff in your life that you're not proud of, if there's stuff in your life that is keeping you from your relationship with God, if there's stuff in your life that you're constantly trying to brush beneath the carpet, and you understand that God in the ugly and the cross has wiped all that away. Paul is saying, you've got to think, you've got to think about this, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Verse 38, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of Christ that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord," nothing, nothing, nothing, let's pray. Father we need your spirit this morning, we need your spirit for those who aren't anchored this morning to know this, to experience this, to feel this Father God, that you truly are a God who is in the good, the bad, and the ugly. Here I pray for those that are hurting in this morning, Father I pray for those that are struggling this morning, for the answers that we can't give them, that they might just experience your love through your church, through the presence of your people, Father they may be able to preach to themselves the reasons why we trust in you as a God who is good, and has shown us all of that in the sending of your Son Jesus Christ. Father, this morning, may we come to live and breathe and to walk out in our lives and all that faces us this week no matter what trial comes our way, may we live out with the confidence that for whatever comes our way, you mess with me, you're going to mess with my whole family, that there's one plus God always equals a majority in this world. So Lord, I just pray in that spiritual sense that that might be real for us as Christians this week. Father, for those that don't have that confidence in their life, for those that haven't accepted Jesus Christ into their life, for those that are up against trials and the questions that are being posed and crying out into the darkness and the void, wondering if anyone is there, Father, I pray that through your spirit this morning that they might understand that there is and that you're good and that they can move into relationship with you through faith in Jesus Christ. If there's someone here this morning like that, Father, I pray that they feel they can just come out and to pray with us up the back, ask questions and to begin the great adventure that is Christianity. So, Father, thank you. Thank you that we're overcomers, we come to live and breathe and to know that, experience that this week in our lives, and we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]