We are almost done with the series we've been in for a little while called Child of God. We've been talking about what it really means to be a child of God. And if you're just joining us, we're in this section of Scripture, Romans chapter 8, and it might be the climax of the entire New Testament. And I say that because it's one of those chapters where if you were to take a thousand Christians, take a million Christians all over the world, a million Jesus followers, and say, hey, what's your favorite scripture? What verse in scripture just speaks to you? I promise you, a significant percentage are going to quote Romans chapter 8 at some point in time. Some moment in Romans chapter 8. There's just so many to choose from because it's one of the most climactic and exciting sections we have in the entire New Testament. And it's all about, at least the second half anyway, that we're covering right now is all about what it means to be a child of God. Romans chapter 8, verses 15 through 16 says it this way. Instead, you received God's spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him Abba Father. That word Abba, it's personal, it's intimate. That's the word, it's an informal word. You would actually hear children in the Middle East say Abba as they would run toward their dads. Now we get to call God Abba Father, for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. Now that's language that we're used to. Even if you're someone who hasn't grown up in the church and you're not even sure what you believe about the whole Jesus thing, you might be comfortable saying, Yeah, I'm a child of God. I believe that there's a God and I'm a child of God. But understand that when Jesus walked the earth, calling yourself a child of God, saying that God is your father, that could get you killed. And we know that because it did get Jesus killed. In fact, that was one of the major accusations that those opposed to Jesus laid at his feet. They said, Hey, you've called God your father. And if you call God Father, that means you're claiming an equal status with God. It's like you're saying that you're equal to God. And Jesus didn't have a response to them because the reality is he is. But Jesus called God Father, and it was it was blasphemous, it was scandalous, it was shocking, it was incredulous. But here's the the crazy part is he didn't keep that that relationship to himself because when he was asked how to pray, Jesus said, Pray like this, and he began the prayer, our father. So, yes, Jesus is the son of God, but through faith in Jesus, he brings us into the family. And now you are a son or a daughter of God. It's not a metaphor. You're not like a son of God, you're not like a daughter of God. He loves you, and just as gently as that father is comforting his child. Seriously. Just as lovingly as that father just took his child out and is comforting his child, when you're struggling, that's the way the father wants to approach you. He loves you. He holds you, he cares for you, he wants to listen to you, he wants to meet your needs, he wants to comfort you in your troubles and in your sorrows. Because he loves you. Why? Because you're his child. And that makes you pretty important. In fact, it goes on. In the verse 17, it says, Since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. And if you're like, what does that mean two weeks ago? We talked about that. Encourage you to listen to the podcast. But if we're to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that he will reveal to us later. Because you are a child of God, because you're the son or daughter of God, you're you're an heir. You have an inheritance, you have something to look forward to. You have something to hope for. And we talked about this last week. Children are really good at hoping. Children are really good at looking forward to things. That's why you have to be careful, like saying anything around children. Like if you just hint that you might go do something fun around your kids, right? If you have kids, they're like, We're doing that? When are we doing that? 10 minutes? 15 minutes, I get my shoes on right now. You gotta be careful with kids. They're really good at looking forward to things. They remember every little promise of fun that comes out of your mouth. So you can't be flippant when you talk to your kids about something enjoyable. Because they're so good at that. There's no 10-year-old in the world who believes that his or her best days are behind them. Right? There's no such thing. Like kids are like, all the good stuff lies ahead, all the good stuff is ahead of me, but here's what's awesome: if you follow Jesus, it doesn't matter if you're 20, 30, 60, 100, all your good days are ahead of you. Because you have an inheritance of God's actual glory and you have that to look forward to, and you can clap for that. It's all right. You can clap for that. That's exciting. And so we've been diving in week by week. What does it actually mean to live as the children of God? Because here's the challenge. It's one thing to believe this intellectually, it's one thing to be okay with the idea that you are God's child. It's another thing entirely to live that out on a day-to-day basis. In fact, one of the most famous stories that Jesus told, maybe the most famous story, is the story of the prodigal son. And if you know that story, there's a father, he has two sons, and the youngest son, he really disrespects his father in a tremendous way, says, Look, I really don't want to wait around for you to die. I'd rather just have my inheritance now. And the father gives him the inheritance and he goes off and he wastes it, he squanders it, he lives a very wild lifestyle till he has nothing left, and he's desperate, and he comes home broken, just hoping that his father might let him be a worker in his fields. But the father runs out, embraces him, says, Hey, I'm so glad you're back. You're my son. He restores him to his place as a son, and he throws this massive party and invites everyone to come to celebrate that his son has returned. But there's another brother, the older brother, and he's not so happy about the party. And you can understand why he's the one that's had to pick up the slack when the little brother was gone and he's had to take care of everything. But he says to the father, Not once have I ever had a party. Not once have you ever had a feast on my behalf. And the father looks at the son sort of confused and says, Son, everything I have belongs to you. At any moment in time, you could have had this. At any moment in time. If you wanted a party, all you had to do was say the word. And the reality is that older brother, he's the tragic character in the story because he's a son who is enjoying none of the benefits of being a son. He's a son who has been living with the mentality of a worker. When the whole time he could have been enjoying being an heir. And I know so many Jesus followers who love the Lord and they recognize that, yeah, God has adopted me, but they they just refuse to live like an heir. They refuse to enjoy the love that God has for them, to enjoy what God wants to do for them. Instead, they they decide to live this life as if they're they're working for it, as if they're earning it. Look, you cannot earn an inheritance. You can earn a wage, but God doesn't pay us wages. He gives us an inheritance because we're his children. You don't earn an inheritance, you enjoy an inheritance. And so we've got to be people who enjoy being God's children, really learning what it means so we can experience that. If you want to see your day-to-day life get transformed, then day to day live as a child of God. Let that be the identity that shapes the way you see the world, you see God, you see yourself, everything. You are the son and the daughter of God, and we gotta live that way. Romans chapter 8 helps us understand what that means. Now, last week we talked about hope, like I mentioned a few minutes ago. We have things to hope for, we have things to look forward to. But today we're gonna talk about something that comes part and parcel with hope, with looking forward to something, and that's that's waiting. Because children are amazing at looking forward to things, right? Waiting for things, not so much. But part of looking forward to something is waiting because there's this period we find ourselves in right now, and this is where we're we're at for the most part, as Jesus followers and our in our journey of faith, too, is Jesus has done something for us. He's changed our lives, and we have something to look forward to. We have this amazing hope to put our trust in, to look ahead with excitement. But right now we find ourselves in the meantime. We're kind of just doing life day by day, dealing with all the problems and all the issues and all the things that go along with daily life, excited about what God has for us, but trying to figure out what to do right now. And we're waiting. And children are terrible at waiting, but they're forced to, right? A few days ago, my five-year-old Judah asked me if we could do something together, just the two of us. And I was like, absolutely, and I was finishing something up. I said, Man, in one hour, one hour, we're gonna do it. And in that one hour, he asked me if it had been an hour at least 25 times. You know, and and I'm like, No, it's we're not there yet. Dad, has it been an hour? Judah, you you asked me that not 30 seconds ago. It hasn't, and I realized I haven't told him how to tell time, so it's really my fault. I should probably teach him that. That would that would help me out. But he just like he couldn't wait. Think about think about children for a second, and actually, those of us, some of us, this is easier than others because the distance is a little bit shorter, but those of us, like all of us in the room, you guys watching from home, think back to when you were a child and how much time you spent waiting for something. Like all those mountaintop moments that that happen in life, all those moments that everybody says, yeah, those are the moments that you'll never forget. Like they're always something you have to wait for as a kid. You know, maybe it's getting your first car, graduating, getting married, having children, some awesome experience that's like a bucket list experience for kids. That's all way out in the distance. You just have to wait. And really, practically, as a child, you spend a ton of time just waiting. I tried to think like what experience from my childhood or my kids' childhood most epitomizes just waiting, being in the meantime. And what jumped in my mind was driving in a car with your parents, or being driven in a car by your parents. We we do a fair bit of driving because we've got lots of stuff to do, and and we're taking this kid here and that kid there. We do a lot of stuff here at the church, and so um a few years ago we had to get a minivan, which was super exciting. That was a bucket list item. I've been waiting for that since I was seven years old. Like one day I will own a Kia minivan, and my life will be complete. Definitely wasn't afford must staying, no, it was a minivan from the time I was a kid. So we got the minivan. Now all of our kids can fit in one car, and we we drive a lot, and one of the things that comes with driving or being driven as a child by your parents is you wait. And it's frustrating, right? Because you're not in control of the destination, you're not in control of the route that you take, you're not in control of the pace that you're going, and you sure as heck aren't in control of the music that you're listening to. Um and that's that's the like sometimes my kids will be like, Dad, can we please listen to whatever they want to listen to, whatever playlist? And and sometimes, pretty often actually, I'll relent and be like, Yeah, absolutely. And I'll listen to it for like 15 minutes, and then I'll go, like, you know what? No, no, I earn this. Okay? Like, I'll have these memories of riding in a car with my parents as they listen to their music. And and I'll think to myself, no, no, no, I've I've earned this. It's my time. And I don't know if parents, if you've had this experience where you're driving somewhere, you're listening to your stuff, and you're excited, and you look back in the rearview mirror, and your children just look like they are dying minute by minute on the inside, you know? And I I can remember, I can relate because I can remember being there. In fact, I spent some time this week like thinking back. We used to take these long drives as a family because I'm from southern Missouri, but we moved a lot, so I lived in Wisconsin and then Tennessee and then here in Georgia, and we'd always drive back to visit family. And I would love those drives in the sense that I missed my family. I missed my grandparents and my older brother and sister, and I looked forward to going and being back with them. But the drive was long. And what made it longer, so much longer than it needed to be, was the music my parents would choose for the drive. And they did not have our best interest at heart. It wasn't, what would our the filter was not, man, what would our kids just really enjoy? No, no, no. It was always the same thing. Mom and dad would would buy a CD. It would be a greatest hits collection of some band that they had nostalgia for. And they'd be all about it. And the hard thing is, like, as a as a kid, I would rather just listen to the radio, even if it was their station, because at least there was some variety. At least there would be like a commercial, I would look forward to the commercial breaks, like, oh, finally a commercial. But no, no, no, the greatest hits album, and they'd have it like, oh, they'd open it up and that plastic that you tear off of a CD case, and and and they'd listen to it just like two, three times before they would change it. Because when you have a brand new Greatest Hits album, like you want to let it cycle a few times. And so I tried to think like which greatest hits album just made me want to jump out of the car the most. And there were a few options. There were a few options, and I'm I might offend some of you because just understand, I was young and it wasn't my music, okay? So, like, there was this band Three Dog Night. Does anyone know the band Three Dog Night? Okay. You're showing your age. I'm just joking, you're fine. Um, my parents' age. Look, there's nothing wrong with Three Dog Night, but a person my age should not have like an encyclopedia, encyclopedic knowledge of three dog night songs. Like, that just should be something. You should talk to someone my age, be like, Three Dog Night? And you're like, what does that mean? And and the lyrics, like Jeremiah was a bullfrog, should not be jumping in my mind the second you say that. And if those of you who know that band, you know that. Uh James Taylor, there was a James Taylor.

No.

I am look, I'm gonna offend you. I'm just telling you, don't leave a church because your pastor doesn't like James Taylor. All right, there's gotta be a better reason to leave a church. Nothing wrong with James. Great guy. Every song is the exact same song. I'll show you, and I'm not a good singer, but listen, okay? Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain because I'm going to Carolina in my mind. That's two different songs, but I just smushed them together, and you know, James Taylor fans, it's the same song. Okay? Oh, Mexico, sounds so simple, I just want to go to Carolina in my mind. It's the same song. And when you're 14 years old and you've heard it eight times, you're just like, but that wasn't it. So I thought of like, what was what song, what is the one song that most just it just takes me back to that feeling of being in the meantime waiting and wanting to just go away, like wanting to close my eye, like what was it? And here's what I settled on. Uh, in 1997, we were driving from Wisconsin to Missouri, and uh, and my dad bought uh Chicago's Greatest Hits, Volume 2. Volume 2. I never forget the title, volume two. And uh that was their later years, and I just want you, I'm gonna set the stage and then I'm gonna share my misery with you. Okay? Here's the setup. It's 1997, you're 14 years old. Because it's the late 90s, you listen to a really loud grunge rock, uh, and maybe a little bit of late 90s RB because that's just what it is. And so you're at that stage of life where the louder and the angrier it is, the more you're like, yeah, that's my music. Because you're 14. And you're driving with your parents, and you've been in the car six hours, and then this song comes on for the third time. Guys, go ahead. We're just gonna enjoy this for a second. And you're sitting with your little brother in the back, and you just look at him like this, like, you know, you can't do it. And the title is hard to say I'm sorry. It's not hard to say you're sorry. Just say it. Like that's where you're just like we can be done. We can be done. That's only 20% of the song. That's it. The song is five minutes long. And again, it is not that it's not that hard to say you're sorry. Just say it. And so I just I have these memories. And that's just like that's what life is like as a child. You're just you're just waiting. And and you want to get to the destination, you want to get there, but in the meantime, you're just sitting, you're waiting, it's mundane, it's monotonous, and you don't like the soundtrack of your life. Okay? But that's where we find ourselves a lot. Like that's that's where we find ourselves so often in life. You know, I'm looking forward to, I'm looking so forward to the day that I get to look at Jesus face to face. I can't wait for that, but I have to wait for that. I can't wait for the day where sin has no more effect on my life. I can't wait for the day where temptation has zero effect at all. Where it's been put to death, where where the Bible says that all sorrow is gone, there are no more tears, there's no more crying, there's no more mourning, there's just celebration. I can't wait for that, but I have to wait. And right now, like all of us, we're just I'm in the meantime. And and I'm I'm waiting, and I'm dealing with all these issues in life and all these struggles, I've got all this baggage, I've got to work through it, and I'm not always enjoying the drive. So the question is, how do we how do we make the most out of the meantime? Because that's where we're at. Beyond just changing the music. You can always do that. And so, with that in mind, let's let's jump back into Romans chapter 8. We're gonna go verse 24. Romans chapter 8, verse 24. We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't 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. I love that, by the way. It uses prayer as an example. And I hear very often people say, I don't know what to pray, I don't know how to pray. Good news, you don't have to. You can pray wrong. And the Holy Spirit's up there like, this is what they're really trying to say. That's awesome. It means you can't you can't mess it up. And so if you're someone who's like, I don't know how to pray, I struggle to engage God in prayer, I don't like to pray, you don't even have to know how to. Because you have an interpreter, the Holy Spirit, who's praying on your behalf. That's a really cool thing. The Holy Spirit helps you. And then it goes on, it says verse 28, 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. So there's a few, we'll look at two major truths that will transform life in the meantime. If you can really believe these, bank on them and build your life around them. Number one, the Holy Spirit helps us. So it says, the Holy Spirit helps us. What do we do in the meantime as we wait, as we have this hope that we have to look forward to, but but we're waiting. What do we do? We recognize that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. Now, we all know what it's like to have someone help us who isn't helpful. Like you've all had someone at some point in life say, I'll help, and you're like, Yay, but you find out really quickly, I just I would be so much better off if you just leave me alone. I could get this done so much faster because that help is not very, very helpful. But how many of us have had the flip side of that where someone helps you and like help means they do it? It's great. I had this thought a few years ago. We were having uh dinner with a couple here at the church that we didn't really know well at all, but we wanted to get to know them. And and Megan was talking to the wife. And you have you ever been in that situation where it's like a couples date, you don't know the couple, and like the terrifying thing is that your wife is really engaged with the wife, because then you have to like one-on-one with the guy. You're like, oh, okay, well, here we go. What do you do for a living? You know, like that's like where because guys don't you don't look at a guy and be like, what are you dealing with emotionally right now? No, you know, what do you do? And so so the guy I was gonna cross from, didn't know him. Megan and his wife are just they're they're locked in. And I'm like, all right, I gotta do this with this guy. And so I'm like, what do you what do you do? He's like, Oh, I do, you know, web stuff is what he said. And I at the time I was actually in the process of trying to build a new website for the church, and that was something that I used to be in charge of and and like know enough to sort of be dangerous, but I was definitely not good enough at it to really know what I was doing. I was like, oh, web stuff. Well, hey man, no pressure. But if I'm actually building a new website for the church, if if you wanted to help out, that'd be that'd be cool. It'd be good to get to know you better. But really, deep down inside, I just wanted help with the web stuff. Um and he's like, Yeah, I can help with that. Now, what I Did not know, because he said just web stuff, is that he he actually didn't just know web stuff, he was the founder of a web development company. And so by knowing web stuff, it's like he knew like every single thing you could know about the internet and building a website. And so he came over to the house, we got to know each other, became really good friends, and uh and and by helping me build the website, what he he just built the website. And I just kind of sat there and was like, yeah, that was that's great, that's cool. And I wrote a few words here and there, like you know, and he'd be like, maybe this will change it a little bit. It was awesome. And so he he helped me, right? See, when you have that kind of help, it's awesome. And so the question is, what kind of help is the Holy Spirit? When the Holy Spirit helps you in your weakness, what kind of help are we talking about? Well, let's let's get an example. Um let's actually look at Romans chapter 8, verse 11. And I apologize to the guys on the back because I'm skipping way ahead. It says, the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by the same spirit living within you. Okay, Jesus was raised to life by the power of the Holy Spirit. So if the Holy Spirit could help Jesus with death, what can the Holy Spirit help you with? The answer is anything. Now, if you're new to the whole Jesus thing, the Holy Spirit is God's actual spirit. It joins with you to affirm that you're God's child. When we say God, usually we mean God the Father, uh, but God is really God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And if you're like, that's confusing, it's three, no, it's one, but it's three. Like the best example I can give you, if that's new to you, is yourself. Um because you have a physical body and you have a mind. Let's look at that. And your body and your mind are both you, but they're also both different because your mind and your body have arguments all the time. I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands of how many of you are on a diet right now. Um, but like if you've ever been on one, you know what that's like. Because your body is like, you know, sugar, ice cream, and your mind is like quality of life later on, or more importantly, bathing suit, whatever is most important to you, you know. When you when you hit that stage of life I'm in where your your your children are now embarrassed uh by your physical form, you know, and you realize you're like, oh, I have a dad bod, and they don't like that. So, you know, and so you know, you have this mind-body dynamic, right? Where you're like, I I my mind is saying something different than what my my body is saying. Well, that's two of you being one of you, okay? You also have a spirit. And sometimes your mind, your body, your spirit, they're all having different perspectives, and that's that's a mess. Well, you're like that because you're made in the image of God, and He is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, except He's not fighting with Himself. He's He's at harmony there. But you reflect God. And so just like all of those aspects of who you are are all you, even though they're all a little distinct, it's the best analogy I can think of to how God is. Now, God the Father, we tend to understand, like creator, God, worship him, throne, that kind of stuff. Jesus the Son, that's easy for us to visualize. Holy Spirit, that's a little tough because it's spiritual. But the Holy Spirit lives in you if you've given your life to Jesus. And what's the Holy Spirit doing? Well, the Holy Spirit is uh is helping you. The Holy Spirit's helping you be the new creation that you are meant to be. The Holy Spirit's helping you become the person that you're going to ultimately one day fully become. The Holy Spirit is your helper. In fact, sometimes the Spirit's described as the advocate. John chapter 14, verse 7. Jesus said, He's the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him because it's not looking for him and doesn't recognize him, but you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you. John 14, 26, he says, When the Father sends the advocate, and that's the Holy Spirit, and that word advocate, it means helper, and it means helper in a very official, intense way. But when he sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything. He'll remind you of everything I've told you. John 16, 13 through 15, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, but will tell you what he's heard. He'll tell you about the future, he'll bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me. So the Spirit is doing stuff. The Spirit is teaching us and guiding us and giving us glimpses of what lies ahead of the future. I've had those moments where I do believe that the Lord has shown me something that hasn't happened yet. Not in this, like, I saw this picture and you know, don't drink that coffee, Megan, it's gonna burn. Like, not like that. But like I was I was praying about my daughter a few months ago. And I was just like, Lord, just help me understand how I can be the father that she needs. And what I heard from the Lord was don't hold on to her too tightly because she's gonna go to many places. And I was like, I don't like that, God. I would like you to redo that one. Like, she's gonna live with you until she's 30, right? Maybe I don't want that. But but like the Lord's giving me a glimpse of, oh, okay, this, and I look at my daughter and I'm like, the way she's wired, and she's very adventurous. Okay, she's gonna go places, so I need to love her, but I need to be okay to let go. That's the Holy Spirit like prepping my heart for what's gonna have to happen one day. So the Holy Spirit's your helper. Here's what where this matters, really practically. We all have weaknesses. That's one of the things I love about his hands, is this is a church where you don't have to hide your weaknesses. But we have weaknesses. But but it's it's interesting because although we need to be good at knowing what our weaknesses are and owning that, that's a part of being a healthy human being. We also have to understand that your weaknesses well, they can become your strengths. Not on your own ability, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, very often I will hear Jesus followers talk about their weaknesses and say things like, you know, I really struggle with this, you know, I have a hard time with this, so I've always really struggled with this. And you can kind of insert whatever you want to insert there. Sometimes it's a specific, you know, issue, sometimes it might be an addiction, it might be a sin type issue. Sometimes it's just like a personality thing, like, oh, I'm not very good at this and and all that. And you're talking about about your weaknesses. Very rarely do I hear someone finish that up with, but the Holy Spirit's my helper. And so it's all good. Because, yeah, you know what? I'm not very good at this, and I do struggle with this, and I do have this particular weakness, and it manifests in all these different ways, but it's okay because the Holy Spirit is helping me, and one day that weakness will be a strength because the Holy Spirit is at work within me. We have to believe deeply in the helper that we have. God has given you help, and it's good help. It's not the help that doesn't help, it's the help that kind of does it for you. The question is, and I've said that phrase like four times today, so there's lots of questions that are today. So uh the question right now is are you helpable? Now, sometimes I'm not a very helpable person. There's there's days where I just I know I need help. Like there's times where Megan looks at me and I'm like, don't help me. I know I need it, I know everything you're seeing right now indicates to you, come save the ship. It's going down, but not right now. Just let me sit here in this state for a moment, you know. Sometimes I'm not helpable. But sometimes we can be like that with God. That's why Jesus would often ask, What would you like me to do for you? And he would do that in obvious situations. Someone was blind, they come up to Jesus. What would you like me to do for you? Well, what do you think? But you know what? Some people aren't very helpful. And it's really hard to help someone who won't receive help. We've all been there. That's frustrating, right? That's like that's disheartening. And I think about how many times I must have disheartened God. It's a good thing he's God and He's so loving and gracious because there's been times He's I'm here to help, and I'm like, nah, right now. Am I helpable? Am I willing to receive the help? It's one thing to admit your weakness, it's another thing to receive the help, but trust that that Holy Spirit inside of you is your helper. So, what do you do in the meantime as you're dealing with life, as you're waiting for that future glory, as you're struggling with all your issues, you receive the help, and day by day you bank on that, you believe that, that yes, I struggle, but I have a helper. Truth number two God is working it out. I love this one. God is working it out. Verse 28 said that God works everything together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Now, now, this is one of those verses, by the way, Romans 8.28. This will show up in a lot of people's favorite scriptures list, but they'll only quote the first half of it. They'll say, I love Romans 8.28, because it said God is working everything out. Well, it says that, but it also says, for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. It's kind of like Romans chapter 8, verse 1. It says, Now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. But a lot of people like to quote the first half of that. There's no condemnation. Well, say the other part. Here's what I'm saying. We read the scriptures like this, and sometimes the enemy, Satan, will come in and try to give us doubt and be like, hey, are are you one of those people who loves God? And are you called according to God's purpose? Well, let me ask you the question. Do you love God? Anyone love God? You're like, I love him. I'm not always good at loving him, but I love God. Okay, great. Done. I love God. I'm not always good at showing him love. I'm not always a good lover in that sense. But I love him. And I'm trying to get better day by day at just loving God. So if you love God, you love God. Are you called according to his purpose? Number one, you you want to be. Romans chapter 12, verse 2 says, Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you. This is his purpose, which is good and pleasing and perfect. So if you want good, pleasing, and perfect, if those are superlatives, adjectives that you would like to describe your life, then you want God's purpose. You want his will. And as far as how do you know if you're called according to his purpose, to his will, well, if you love him, do you desire what God desires? I heard a pastor once say, and this was a little bit of a mouthful, but it like you chew on it, you think about it. If you knew what God knows about you, you would desire for yourself the things that God desires for you. So if you knew what God knows about you, you would desire for yourself the very things that God desires for you. In other words, you want what God has. You want to desire what God desires. And so you can ask yourself that question: do I care what God thinks? If God tells me, if God shows me this is what is right, this is what is good, does that matter to you? Are you willing to pivot and go, oh, okay, Lord, all right, I'll put my focus there. And if the answer is yes, that you desire what God desires, well, great. You love him and and you're called. You hear his calling, you listen to his voice when he tells you to do something. And if that's the case, if you love God and and you're you're listening to him, you're willing to do what he says, the good news, he's working everything out. He's working it all out for your good. And that's a beautiful thing. Because what is what does everything entail? Is it just the good stuff? No, no, no, no, no. He's working out everything. All things. The good, the bad. He can take it all and make it into something awesome. I had a really strange experience with that. Worship team, you guys can make your way out. I had a really strange experience with that right whenever COVID hit. So end of eighth grade, my family moved from Wisconsin to Tennessee. And up to that point, like my identity as a you know, middle school kid was I played basketball. But when I moved to Tennessee, they had tryouts for the ninth grade team at the end of eighth grade, and I had lived there for a week and I went to tryouts, and there were 80 guys trying out. I didn't know any of the coaches, none of them knew me, and I just had kind of an off day and I got cut. And I'm like, I just moved here, basketball's my that's my thing, and I'm not on the basketball team. What do what do I do? So I start in ninth grade, which is a great, you know, when you're ninth grade is awesome when you're a guy and you haven't hit puberty yet. It's a great thing. It's awesome because you know, you're walking the halls with like, well, that guy's got a beard, you know? And and you're just you just feel so self-conscious. And so I'm in ninth grade, got cut from the basketball team, I was a late bloomer, and uh I'm like, oh, I know what I'll do. First day of school, our school has this like TV station. And what it really was was uh school announcements, but you could be on the camera and give the announcement. I'm like, oh, I'll do that. That sounds fun. Guess what is not a straight shot to popularity in ninth grade? Uh being on the morning announcements at your school. Okay? Like first day, I camera comes on, and I'm like, I've made a terrible mistake. I do not want to do this, and everyone knows me, but they don't like me, okay? Because I'm the new kid, like, oh, you're that nerd on the T. That was like my identity, it was great, loved it. Um but I but I did it. I did it for a year. Every morning, like, camera comes on, and I'm like, uh, you know, uh Mrs. Uh Smith's class today, like it was this awful. And I remember thinking, like, why did that happen? Because I grew a little bit, sophomore year on, played basketball, didn't do the morning announcements anymore after that. I always looked at that season like, what a wasted, weird year of my life. Where the thing that I did was be on a camera and the light comes on until the very first Sunday that we did our online. And COVID hit, and there's no one in the room, and we couldn't meet, and I'm sitting right here on the stage, and I'm at this little table, and there's a camera in front of me, and I remember being like, Oh, I've done this before. Oh yeah, I hated it, but I did it, and it was weird because I was able to go back and be like, Oh, yeah, and I even could remember like things that I would do that were helpful. Uh, and so it was awesome because because, like, oh god, you used that that terrible year, ninth grade, where I had no idea what I was doing, and I chose this thing, and I'm like, why did I choose this? Why did I do this? I didn't know back then that 23 years later, I'd need to be on camera, and and I was like, wow, God works everything together. He uses the good, he uses the bad, he uses all of it, he works every little thing together. And here's what's cool it's for your good. He works all things together for your good. That means one day you will have the perspective, one day you will have the ability to look back at your life and you will see every little moment of your life, and you will see God's hand in it, and you'll be able to understand how God used that and this and that and this and that thing that you hated, but that thing that you loved, and he blended all of it together to bring you to a place that you could never have been otherwise, and it'll be glorious and wonderful, and you'll look at God and be like, Wow, you did that, and you did it for me! That's awesome! That's awesome! But but when you're in the you're in the you're in the meantime, when you're just waiting, you're just a kid in front of a camera getting made fun of in the ninth grade, right? It doesn't feel great in the moment. So here's what here's what I'm trying to say as we wrap up. We've got a couple people getting baptized, which is awesome, so stick around for that. Um, what I'm trying to say is this being a child, it's about looking forward to the future, but it's also about waiting. And the waiting is often, it's often rough. You know, it's it's longer than you'd like it to be, it's a slower go than you'd like it to be, and you don't always enjoy the soundtrack, you don't always enjoy the circumstances, and there are all these things that you're not in control of, you just have to sort of deal with it, you just have to deal with it. But the Holy Spirit helps you in the meantime, and right now, no matter what you're going through in the meantime, right now, God the Father, He's working everything out, He's working all things together for your good. So if you're going through it right now, if life is not what you want it to be, good news. The Holy Spirit will help you, and God's working it out. It's gonna work out for your good. If you're if you're struggling right now, if there's some situation and you feel like it's just not working, I don't know what to do, I'm frustrated. Great news! The Holy Spirit's gonna help you with that, and God's working it out. And you can take that to the bank and believe that. That's what we've got to believe every single day. The days that you don't like, the days that you wish weren't happening, you can say, you know what, I don't enjoy today, I'm not digging the soundtrack. But the Holy Spirit is my helper, and my father is working it out on my behalf. Believe that, trust that, bank on that, enjoy that, like begin to say that out loud. Like, honestly, this week, when you're struggling, when you're mad, even if you're like, Holy Spirit's my over. God better be working it out, right? You know, that's okay. But we gotta say these things out loud. We gotta believe these things because the Holy Spirit is helping you, God is working it out. That puts you in an amazing place. So enjoy the meantime, make the most of it. Because God's using it. Let's pray. Father God, thank you so much. Lord, thank you for this amazing church, these amazing people, this opportunity to be together and to worship you and to be in your presence. And Lord, we just pray that you help us in the meantime, that you help us in our waiting. Because we don't like to wait. That's part of being a child, Lord. We just we don't like to wait. But you know what that feels like. Jesus, you you waited. You spent so many years waiting for the right moment to begin your ministry, waiting to save us. That must have been hard for you. Help us wait, help us have patience. Lord, as we're just dealing with life on a day-to-day basis, struggling in the meantime, Lord, I pray that you you give us the trust that your spirit is helping us. Holy Spirit, you're in us, you're helping us, you're working in us. Father, give us the faith to believe that you are working things out even when it doesn't seem that way. You're gonna work it out. You're gonna help us, you're gonna work it out. Help us believe that with every fiber of our being, help us build our lives on that truth so that we can look forward to what's ahead with hope. Even when we're not enjoying the journey. We pray this in your name of Jesus. Amen.