The Golden Chain of Redemption: God is for Us!

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Romans 8, we've been going through verse by verse through this awesome, awesome message.

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Romans chapter 8, we're going to actually be tonight in verse 31. Romans 8, verse 31 to start, but we're going to kind of have to go backwards and forwards and kind of hang out in certain spots.

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Start with this. Pray with me as we enter into God's word, Father, come to you,

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Lord, and we just have to acknowledge first and foremost that we are treading on glorious, magnificent, transcendent ground.

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Father, I don't know how anyone can, in ourselves, even grasp this,

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Lord. This is so far beyond, I think, a creature's ability to grasp, God.

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I just don't know. Father, you know how I've struggled with this this week on how to clearly communicate this in its fullest,

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God, and I just hope that by your spirit, God, that you would touch, Lord, you would speak, that you would get me fully out of the way.

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And then, God, that you would show up in a mighty way, that you would speak to your people. Help me,

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God, to express the glory of the gospel in the Father giving the Son. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So let me read the text first. Romans 8, 31, it says, what then shall we say to these things?

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If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, with him, graciously give us all things?

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Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?

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Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

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I mean, you talk about passages of Scripture that have just transformed the lives of people.

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I mean, you're in it. I mean, if you want to talk about passages of Scripture that have been the anchor of people's souls for thousands of years,

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I mean, you're in it. I mean, you talk about, if you did a survey, like, what are some of the most popular anchor verses for people throughout their lives, for the saints of God, through the worst of all trials and tribulations?

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I mean, we're hanging out in this spot today. Romans chapter 8, starting at verse 31. And I want to say, as you heard me talking to God, I don't know, humanly speaking, how anyone can fully express this

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God and His love. I don't know that I can do it. This week, I struggled praying through this.

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I was on the way here today praying and just asking, how? How do I do it? I mean, I know what I have prepared, and I know what

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I want to talk about, and I know what I want to express, but at the same time, I don't even know that I'm going to do any justice to the beauty of this, and I'm sort of settled on that.

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I'm good with that, actually, because that just expresses that this is the true and living God. The fact that you can come to something that's so transcendent, so huge, and so much bigger than us, that humans look into this, and we just look confused at it.

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How does someone love like that? How does someone give graciously like that? Because I'm not like that.

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I don't know anybody that is like this. I mean, consider for a second how God is for us.

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In the text itself, if you've missed the last couple weeks, let me go backwards for a second to sort of catch us up to this point where Paul is essentially breaking out now.

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That's really what's going on here. If you just open the book and you're in this verse, you say, what then should we say to these things?

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If God is for us, who can be against us? That's good, but not so spectacular until you take into the context in the background, the noise of what's been going on up to this point.

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If you're there, then you understand the freak out moment for Paul, which is really what's happening there. If you can consider

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Paul expressing this message as he's going through it, he's essentially saying, with all this, what then shall we say?

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He's not simply kind of, I couldn't imagine Paul being monotone here saying, well, then what do we say to these things? God is for us, who can be against us?

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I kind of think he's freaking out because as I read it, I do, and I didn't write it. And so it's pretty amazing.

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If you think about how is God for us? Now, let me just start and lay this out.

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You gotta pay attention to who is being spoken about in the text. When it says, if God is for us, the us is very particular.

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It's not saying if God is for us, meaning every single person who's ever lived. There's a particular group of people being talked about here.

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We were just in the golden chain of redemption about God foreknowing a people to save, about God predestining, about God calling, about God justifying, about God causing all things to work together for good to those who love him.

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You see, there's a particular thing that the child of God has to grasp onto here, understanding that these promises are not general promises for every single person who ever lived.

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These are specific promises to God's people, that the Father is choosing these people to enter into relationship with.

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You gotta grasp that because I don't think that you get the weight of what Paul is saying here, and then what shall we say to these things?

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If God is for us, I don't think you're gonna get the full weight of that until you understand that this is the shepherd and his sheep.

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This is God giving up everything for a particular people, and that's why you can freak out about this.

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What does it mean that God is for us? Just go backwards for a second. Just look at verse 28, popular verse.

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I hope you know it. If you don't, underline it now and don't go to bed tonight until you memorize it. Got that?

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Romans 8, 28. You need to know this verse. How is God for us? First, let me just say in the text, how is

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God for us? Number one, God is for us in causing all things to work together for good to those who love him.

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I'll read the verse for you, 28. And we know that God causes all things.

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What things? You can say it one more time so you can grasp it. What is it? All things to work together for good to those who what?

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Love him. And are the what? Called according to whose purpose?

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His purpose. That's a particular people promise. That's not a general view of, you know, hey,

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God's gonna work all things out for you, dude. Like you don't even know where the person's at. This is a promise for God's people that he causes all things to work together for good to those who love him.

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Those that are called according to his purpose. So how is God for us in the text?

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Let me just settle your souls on this one with the word of God. This God declares the end from the beginning.

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Do you get that? The end from the beginning, everything in between, all the details of all the universe are in his sovereign hands.

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You hear people talking about there's not a maverick molecule in the entire universe. It's a pretty stinking big universe.

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God's got everything under control. It's huge. Do you guys know the story right now that's going on where we sent off these things 35 years ago to go across the

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Milky Way, right? And they're getting to the threshold now where it's the end now of the

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Milky Way. And they're about to pass into interstellar space, right? And like, everyone's freaking out.

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Like, what's it gonna be like? And what's it gonna feel like? And is there gonna be like some weird situation that we're not even sure of?

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Like, when you escape the Milky Way and you go into interstellar space, like, we're like, ooh, what's that gonna be like?

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And this really is pretty cool to think about. But if you think about God, he knows all things, decrees all things.

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There's nothing on interstellar Milky Way -ish space that's outside of that that he doesn't know about, decree, move, and is sovereign over.

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Have you thought about that? We're confused as to what's it gonna be like and how cold it's gonna be. Is it gonna vacuum?

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And what's it gonna be like when it gets out of the solar rays? There's all kinds of questions. God is sovereign over all of history, all that stuff and all your stuff.

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That God causes all things to work together for good in Israel's history, in your history.

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I mean, consider for a second, you've got the most gruesome act committed by our hands in the history of mankind.

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The innocent son of God comes. Light comes into the world. And that men love darkness rather than light.

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They flee from it. Jesus comes to his own. And his own don't receive him. Jesus comes as life and goodness and righteousness.

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And what do people try to do? The religious leaders try to trip him up. They're trying to get him condemned. They're picking up stones to kill him because he tells them the truth.

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Here's the righteous one, love incarnate, God manifested in the flesh, that God comes and walks among us and we hate him.

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And that all these people come together to conspire to bring Jesus to a murderous end.

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That Jesus is beaten and has his face punched in, his beard pulled from his face, a crown of thorns smashed into his head.

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That Jesus has the cat of nine tails rip open his back. That Jesus grieves as they bring nails through his wrists and his ankles and that they spear him in the side.

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That Jesus is in agony, receiving the punishment from the father for all the sins of his people.

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That Jesus goes through all this process and is murdered on a tree. And you think that's a wicked thing.

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All the darkness in people's hearts to bring Jesus to that place. But what does the Bible say? It says that all these people, in Acts chapter four, the prayer was that Herod, Pontius Pilate, the

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Gentiles, the people of Israel were gathered against your holy servant Jesus to do whatever your hand had predestined to occur.

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God causes all things to work together for good. Every single detail works together for good to those who love

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God, including the murder of the righteous one on a tree. That's glorious.

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And listen, if God causes that event that he planned before the foundation of the world, doesn't the

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Bible say that? That Jesus is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

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And the Bible talks about God's plan for all people that your names, your names, your names were written in the lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world.

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You want to know how God is for you in causing all things to work together for your good. That's got to trip you out.

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It's got to trip you out. Because if you think about your past, you've got to think about where you've been and where you're at.

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And that God is also sovereign over that point, bringing you to that. Do you understand that? All that, that mess behind you,

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God is in that. He doesn't waste that. He is in control of even your mess to bring you to the place that you're at now.

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God causing all things together to work together for good means God is for you.

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And that's got to blow your mind. It has to change your life because you have to have a different perspective now.

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You can't live like an unbeliever anymore if God is for you, can you? How do you live your life like they do?

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I mean, when an unbeliever, someone that doesn't know God, walks through life and worries about what they're going to put on, what they're going to eat, what they're going to wear, what tomorrow is going to bring.

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Jesus says in Matthew 6, they got every single reason to do that. They don't know him. He's not their father.

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So when you hear the fact that God is for you in causing all things to work together for good, it has to change your perspective.

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He is militantly for you. Every detail of the universe doesn't come to pass without his providential control and without him straining it first through his hand.

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Every detail, even down to the ugliness. All things work together for good.

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God is for you. I think our perspective has to change. If you take this into consideration that God is for you and causing all things to work together for your good, it has to change your perspective.

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I think about John Piper at this point. When John Piper was diagnosed, I think with prostate cancer,

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I think is what it was. When he talks about the situation, I mean, it blows my mind and it hits me hard to think like, have

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I been impacted by the truth of God in such a way that that's how I respond to that situation? He says he gets told that he has prostate cancer.

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And then as he's leaving the doctor's office, what he's thinking is this, God, help me not to waste my cancer.

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Help me not to waste my cancer? Yeah, yes, don't let me waste my cancer because I know that you're for me.

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And that you cause all things to work together for good, even my cancer, even this, even the brokenness that's all around me.

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God is for us, causing all things to work together for our good. You have to see when Paul says, God is for us, who can be against us?

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In that he causes all things to work together for our good to those who love him. Do you love him?

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Do you love him? Then you're called according to his purpose. If you've fallen on Christ, turned from darkness to light, then he is for you.

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He has sold out, given everything for you and your benefit and your good. That has to change your perspective.

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It has to. How else is God for us? God is for us, who can be against us?

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God is for us in the golden chain of redemption. We've talked about that, right?

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The last couple of weeks, we've been talking about the golden chain of redemption. The wording golden chain is not in the text.

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It's a theological term that we've sort of, brought to the text to give you the picture of what

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God does there. Golden chain, because it can't be broken. And it's a chain. What we talked about is this, all these points are something that God does.

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Okay, now walk with me for a second here. If you look up at the text and you can see in verse 29, look what it says here, follow me.

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It says, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

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In order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and those whom he predestined, he also called.

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And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Okay, so ready?

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If God is for us, who could be against us? How is God for us? In this plan of redemption, the golden chain of redemption.

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And you got to walk with me here because you got to hear all the beautiful details that kind of are humming in the background as we move to God is for us.

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Number one, he foreknew people. Foreknew doesn't mean that God knew stuff about you.

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It means that God chose you, that he chose to enter into intimate relationship with you.

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The same details that would be lurking in the background of Deuteronomy chapter seven, where God says that he chose

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Israel, not because she was more numerous or because she was greater in some way, but because he loved

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Israel. And in the same way, we think about God's foreknowledge that God chooses to enter into intimate relationship with a person.

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If you consider that for a second, stop and think about, get past the

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Christian terminology that we all know, right? Stuff we get jaded to, terms like cross and resurrection and garden and suffering of Christ.

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Admit it, you get jaded to that stuff because you hear it often. And so a lot of times it just becomes something that's just part of the lingo, right?

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We're in our ghetto and that's how we rap on the street. We chop it up with these words, right? And you start to just sort of get jaded to them.

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But if you stop to consider the fact that God foreknew that as God sets the plan in motion to redeem and that Christ would die, that in his mind, if we could even understand the complexity, and we can't, that God's perfect knowledge in his decree is you're in it.

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You're in it. Before Adam and Eve, before the fall, before the ugliness of the exodus and coming out of there and the wandering in the wilderness and all

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Israel's failings and everything going on leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus, that in God's mind was this plan, the father sending the son to give everything to redeem you.

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Don't let that be something that you just miss because we don't deserve it.

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We shouldn't have it. And I think we get away from that. We sort of recite the idea, oh, yes, we're totally depraved and we're not righteous.

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We're not good. We don't seek for God. We're ungodly. We're helpless. We're sinners. And all of our righteousness are as filthy rags or something like that.

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Like we start throwing those things out. But to fully embrace the beauty of that God foreknew to save you, and it wasn't based on anything in you.

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It wasn't like, oh, there's hot stuff. Oh, this person will choose me. There's none who seeks for God. Or this person is more spiritual or more active in some way or more loving or more good.

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That God determined in his sovereign grace to save. That God predestined.

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That there was a plan of God to give up the son, the most supremely valuable possession ever.

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That God gives Jesus to die for sinners, for rebels. That's God. It's God for you.

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How is God for you? He predestined you. And that God, he's for you and that he calls you.

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And we talk about the call of God, right? What does the call of God do? It creates what it commands. That God foreknows, he predestines.

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And when he calls, he provides everything necessary to bring you. I mean, think about that for a second.

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I gave you the picture of Lazarus. You know the story of Lazarus? Stinking dead man, rotting corpse in a tomb.

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To where everyone, when Jesus says, move the stone, they say, he stinketh. He's going to smell, right?

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He's a rotting, nasty, stinking corpse. He's dead. And women are freaking out, right?

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Jesus, if he'd only been here, my brother wouldn't have died. You're standing in front of the one who is the resurrection and the life.

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The one who spoke and light came into existence. The one who created all things, every creeping thing, every flying thing, and human beings.

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Glorious, you're talking to him. He's the creator of life. If you'd only been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life.

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Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. That's a glorious thing. It's a glorious thing.

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And the picture there, in that story of Lazarus, it's a real story. It really happens. Jesus really raised a dead dude.

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He came hopping out of the tomb with his grave clothes on. Some people believed, some people didn't, which is amazing to me.

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Which goes to show that evidence is never a problem for the unbeliever. Not ever. It's something different going on, spiritual in nature, to reject a dead man rising from the dead.

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But Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth. And he provides everything necessary for Lazarus to come.

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Lazarus isn't looking for Jesus. He's not in there, kind of like, tapping it, wait a minute now, he's gonna come back and I'm gonna respond in some way.

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He's dead. He is dead. And death is ugly. And you have to get the picture of corpse you know, just quick touch on this, is that for those of us in this room that have been to a funeral, you gotta appreciate

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God being for you and his calling you because the picture of us spiritually is dead before Christ.

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Paul says Ephesians chapter two, we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but God made us alive together with him.

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Who made us alive? God made us alive. We're dead. And just like Lazarus, spiritually dead, unmovable.

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I've done funerals over the last couple of years and I hate to do funerals. I have a hard time doing funerals.

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I do. I have a hard time doing funerals for believers because I can't keep it together.

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I get too emotional. I get too wrapped up. I have a hard time not just losing it. And I can't as a pastor,

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I can't lose it at a funeral. I got asked a couple of weeks ago to do a funeral for someone whose baby died at birth and I couldn't do it.

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I couldn't do it. And you know what I'm saying, right? If you've been to a funeral, you know it's this cold, dark death and there's nothing you can do.

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I did a funeral a year and a half or two years ago for a young man I didn't know.

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It's a teenager that committed suicide. And his body was, this place is packed out with people.

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You couldn't move in there. There are people like streaming out the doors. I come to this place and I don't know him, but I knew the mom and I had to do the funeral for her.

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And I can touch this kid's head. I could touch his head from where I was standing.

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And it's just this coldness, this darkness and this, everyone knows there's nothing you can do.

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You have to appreciate God being for you in the call because that's God calling a dead person to life.

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And you know how spectacular that would be. Years ago, about 2003,

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I had a close friend of mine die. And the worst part of the funeral, the worst part of the funeral,

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I was fine the whole way because he was a freak. Eric, he's with Jesus now and he's good, but he was a freak.

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We would go out, I can remember times we'd go out after Bible college, we'd walk into a restaurant and he would make, he would be talking and he'd say, hold on one second.

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And he would make sure he'd stop everything, hold the music so he can give a track to the person behind the counter. He's given like a buck 25 to for the soda.

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Hi, I'd like a Pepsi, please. And do you know Christ? The person's like, whoa, hold, I'm giving you

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Pepsi. I am not, this is not the conversation I had intended, right? He didn't care.

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He'd say, do you know him? They'd be like, oh, I'm just taking your order. Can you let me go? They'd be like, well, do you need to know that we're all sinners and that Jesus died?

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I'd be like, oh, this is uncomfortable. You know, that's the kind of guy Eric was.

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And Eric was just liked it everywhere he went. He'd give somebody a track. And the crazy thing is, is Eric was crippled.

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He was a little guy, a little black guy. He was crippled. He was deformed. His whole body was deformed.

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His hands were deformed. His knees were deformed. His whole body was deformed. He died at 33 because his heart just stopped. And the hardest part of his funeral was where he was at the front, open casket.

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Everyone is fine because everyone knows where Eric is. So it's a celebration. Until his little five -year -old walks up to the casket and she starts talking to her dad, asking him to get up.

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It was the most horrifying experience of my life. I lost it. And that's what you have to consider because everyone started losing it at the funeral saying, you can't.

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It's a dead person. It doesn't move again. And that's the call of God.

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How is God for you? You were just as dead spiritually as that. Just as dead, just as alienated.

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And God says, come forth and you come. Tell me God's not for you. Who can be against you?

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Do you love Jesus? Then you're his. God is for you. You have to embrace this.

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You have to fall on this, the golden chain. What is it guys? Foreknown, predestined.

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What do we get? Called, then what? Yeah, justified.

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If you're an apology at church, we are freaks about justification. We are, we're weird about it.

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And you should be weird with us about it. Because justification is God declaring you righteous.

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How is God for you? He has declared you righteous through faith in Jesus. He's credited to you

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Christ's righteousness and credited your sins and guilt to Jesus. That God counted

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Jesus as the rebel and counts you as the righteous one as a gift by his grace through faith.

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God is for you and he's already declared you righteous. That's a past tense reality for Christians. You think you're going to heaven?

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Oh, I don't think, I know. How could you be so arrogant? I'm not, it's got nothing to do with me.

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I'm not in this story. It's his story. He has joined me to his son. Christ laid it all down for me.

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He knew me and he gave his life for me. That Jesus is the righteous one counted as the rebel pierced through from my transgressions.

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And then through faith in him, God declares me righteous. That's why right after this, Paul says, who's going to bring a charge against God's elect?

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There's the word who elect. God is the one who what justifies.

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He's declared you righteous. God is for you. And then he's already declared you righteous.

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And so you can say with Paul in Romans 5 .1, therefore, having been declared righteous through faith, we have peace with God.

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You see, Christians aren't working to get peace with God or trying to get justified. We have been declared righteous.

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We have been justified. And we have, have, have, have peace with God.

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How has God for you? He did it. He did that. And then also, what's this?

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What's this last one? All those who may be justified, he also what? Glorified. You know where you're going?

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Conform to Christ's image, to glory with God. That's how he's for you.

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He that began a good work and you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. What's the text say? I want you to just end this text. Watch verse 29.

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For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. How has

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God for you? He looks at you. He says, righteous, peace, forgiven, child, loved.

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Anyone else who says, I'm not done. I'm not done. And I'm going to finish.

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You see, God's not done with you as a believer until you are moving towards that conformed image of Jesus.

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Do you see? He's already declared you righteous. You already have peace with God. You are already judicially right with God forever as a gift.

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But then he says this, you will be conformed to the image of my son. And does he have the power to do it?

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Well, he's the kind of God that raises dead guys. So I'm sure he can do it. The next thing is, this is the hard part.

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This is the hard part because I don't know how to do it. I just, I don't.

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I don't know how a human being can do this because it's beyond our human capacity,

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I think. God is for you in that he delivered over his son.

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Let me read it to you. It says, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

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Now, just consider for a second. I got two sons and I love you guys.

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I think some of you guys are stellar. Not like my son's stellar, but you're stellar.

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You're awesome. I love you. You guys love me back. And we have a relationship of intimacy with each other and we cherish one another.

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We love each other. Jesus says, the world's gonna know you're my disciples by your love for one another. And we do it. We love each other.

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And I love you. I got two sons. I can't give them up for you. And I love you. Me, I think so.

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Yes, me. Jesus says, greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. And so I think honestly, if you ask me, my kids are out of the way.

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Yeah, I'll lay my life down for you. I try to do it all the time. It's always in the back of my mind as a pastor. Am I laying my life down for the sheep like Jesus does for his sheep?

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That's my role as a pastor. And I think that if I ever had to give my life for Christ, for the gospel, for you, I'd say, yeah, you could take my flesh.

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That's cool. But when you think about my sons, these are my boys.

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I can't do it. I don't have that kind of love. And so I think that the glory here in God giving over his son is that as a father,

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I don't understand it. Take my life. But this is the father giving the son and the real majesty of this moment cannot be understood apart from real solid doctrine.

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People say, don't give me doctrine. Just give me Jesus. Well, that's stupid. That's stupid because you can't understand

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Jesus and cherish and celebrate Jesus until you know what he's like. You don't have that without doctrine.

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And the doctrine of the Trinity is something you got to wrap your mind around to understand the beauty of God delivering his own son for you and that God is being for you in that.

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So let's talk about the Trinity real fast. Consider for a second the fact that there is only one God, none before, none after.

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Before me, there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. That God is the one and only true and living

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God. Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad. Hear O Israel, the Lord our

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God, the Lord is one. There is only one God. God says, is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other God.

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I know not one. He is God alone in the heavens above and on the earth below. There is no other one

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God. And yet John 1, 1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was

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God. He was in the beginning with the Father. All things that came into existence, nothing could come into existence except through him.

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That's what the text teaches us about Jesus, that Jesus, ready? In the first part of the text, get this, because you got to get this to understand

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God delivering his son up for you. Grasp this, one God, limitless, eternal, transcendent, not dependent.

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You and I are dependent upon so much. You're dependent right now upon what?

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Well, at least gravity. Gravity is good. You're dependent upon oxygen.

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You're dependent upon water, food. You're dependent upon light. God is not dependent upon anything.

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He created the universe, it leapt into existence. He is outside of space and time. He speaks light into existence.

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He says, be, and it is. He says, go, and it does. That's the kind of God that he is.

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Limitless, eternal, not dependent, transcendent, immeasurable, knowing all things, this

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God. And yet the Bible says, watch, the Father is God. The Son is

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God. The Holy Spirit is God. There are three persons who share the one being, one essence of God.

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Now watch this. John 1 .1, in the beginning was the word. It says in the

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Greek, en archein halagos. In the Greek, that's basically saying, go back, and back, and back, and back, and back, with no reference point to beginning.

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In other words, from eternity past, the word was already there. Who's the word?

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Jesus. And watch this. It says, and the word was proston theon, face to face with God.

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That from all eternity in the past, Jesus and the Father were in intimate fellowship in delighting love forever.

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Can you grasp that? That God didn't need you and me? People are thinking, like, why

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God create people? Because, well, he needed some people to hang out with, right? Like, I don't know. No, like God was forever perfect, needing nothing, limitlessly happy and joyful.

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The Bible calls God the happy God. What? What? The God is happy.

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He is happy and full of joy and delight. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that the Father was always delighting and loving the

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Son, the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son, that there is an intimate fellowship, perfection of love within the

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Godhead. And God is for you, because he took what is the most supremely valuable possession.

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The Son that he was in intimate fellowship with for all eternity, and he delivered him over for you.

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And what's the glory of that? The glory of that is this. God demonstrates his love for us and that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. That Jesus was delivered over for the ungodly.

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What does the Bible say about me and you? It says we're enemies of God, hostile, not able to obey the law of God, not able to please

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God, not able to come to God, no God seekers, not righteous, helpless, ungodly. The story gets deep and it gets ugly, and it does that very, very quickly.

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And you see, here's what's amazing about what I told you at the beginning, about my sons, is

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I love you. I do. I love you. Some of you are kind of, no, see,

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I love you. You mean the world to me. And I know that you guys love me back. But you see, the glory of the gospel is this, is that perfect love gave up what was supremely valuable for people who hate him.

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How is God for you? He delivered over the most supremely valuable possession of all of eternity for rebels who hate him.

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And do you understand something? That there is no difference, spiritually speaking, between you and I and Pilate who delivered him over and the

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Jews who wanted him dead and the Romans who pierced through his side. Do you know there's no difference?

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That you and I are part of that same lot of humanity of rebels. And you know what the Bible says?

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He mercies whom he mercies and he hardens whom he hardens. That God determined to save rebels, that is majestic.

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I think that you and I will understand God being for us in greater detail and more vividly, and it'll impact us more when we behold the ugliness of the crucifixion.

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The ugliness of the crucifixion. I think all of us can say, well, I've seen the Passion of the Christ. I went and saw it at the theater. I know what that was like.

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I was eating popcorn and drinking soda while I was watching the crucifixion of Jesus. What? What? Anyways, we have to behold the ugliness of the crucifixion to understand

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God being for us because when you think about what the Bible says, start back in the Old Testament. Start back in the

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Old Testament. And consider this for a second. When sin entered the world, guys, and this is heavy. When sin enters the world and man falls into sin, who is the one who solves the problem?

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What is the first thing God says? That it's the woman's seed who's gonna crush the head of the serpent, maybe be wounded in the process.

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And then Adam and Eve have this like bootleg attempt to try to cover themselves up, right? With like fig leaves.

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But what does God do? What does God do? He rejects their fig leaves and after saying he's gonna send

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Messiah, the woman's seed, what does he do? He has the first animal sacrifice killed. Who killed it?

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God did. And what was that portraying? That you need a perfect innocent sacrifice and you needed a covering because God covered

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Adam and Eve in the skins of the animal. Who killed the animal? God did.

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And in Isaiah 53, when you move forward now to 700 years before the time of Christ, it lays out the entire ministry of Jesus and his death, it's there.

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His resurrection is there. And what does it say? Is that basically the Jews were gonna think he was being killed for his own sins, but he was being delivered over for them.

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He was pierced through for their transgressions. He was crushed for their iniquities. The chastening for their wellbeing fell upon him and by his wounds we are healed.

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All we like sheep have gone astray. And the Lord, who the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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What? People had this debate years ago when remember the

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Passion of the Christ, the movie came out, right? There was a debate that kind of sprang up for a little bit. It kind of got hostile for a bit.

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Then it came back down again. There was actually a scene I hear Mel Gibson actually took out of the movie where the

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Jews were basically, he was just quoting scripture what the historical record says, where the Jews were basically saying, crucify him, crucify him.

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We have no king but Caesar and they're doing all this. And that Mel Gibson was being pressured by Jewish groups to take the scene out because it made the

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Jews look responsible for the death of Jesus. And so the debate ensues. Well, who is responsible for the death of Jesus?

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Was it the Romans? Because people who want to protect like feelings say, oh, it wasn't the Jewish leadership.

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It was the Romans. Ah, the Romans did it. And Romans are like, hey, what's up? Are you blaming us?

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What are you talking about? We're doing our job. Oh, no, it was just Pilate. Oh, it was Herod. He was a wicked man. So who was it?

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Who killed Jesus? You know who killed Jesus? God killed Jesus. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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It pleased the Lord to crush him. Who killed

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Jesus ultimately? And you can't understand how

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God is for you until you grasp that or at least try. I don't think we can.

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I just don't. I don't know how love in the Godhead, Father loving the

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Son from all eternity, that the Son could willingly lay his life down for me and say, I'll take it, Father. I'll do it. I'll lay my life down for the sheep.

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And that the Father sends his Son into the world to save sinners. And that the mission is the

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Father says this. Ready? John 6. I love it. John 6, my favorite. John 6, Jesus says, I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me.

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And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose none of all that is given to me.

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Can you imagine the conversation? I don't even know what this is like, but it has to be pretty stinking awesome that at some point in history past, that the

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Father says to the Son, you go. Jesus says, yes, I will go. Send me. And that the

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Father gives him a mission. You lose none of all that I've given to you. And you raise it up at the last day.

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That's majestic. And that in that, even in the ugliness of the crucifixion, here you have innocence on a tree.

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That Jesus has his back torn open to where organs had to be exposed. His back shredded.

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Shredded. I saw a picture. I was looking this stuff up on the internet to do some article. I saw a picture of a guy who was in a gang fight,

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Chicago or something like that. And somebody had like, when he was running away, slashed at his back, just cut him twice, little gashes.

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And it was so disturbing looking. It was ugly. And it was so disturbing. But to consider that's nothing, nothing compared to the torture of Jesus.

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That Jesus has his back torn to bits, to shreds, can't even ultimately carry the cross to the place of the crucifixion.

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And then they nail him to the tree. He's bleeding out. And they're mocking him at the foot of the cross.

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But the real ugliness that I think is something that's so mingled together with pain and beauty is this. Watch this.

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When God turns the lights out on Jesus on the cross and the earth goes dark, that Jesus keeps saying at the beginning, what does he say?

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Do you see the ugliness and the beauty that's there?

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Is that here you have Jesus who knows the father, who is intimately in relationship with the father.

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And the father is pleased in the son. What does the father say in the baptism of Jesus? This is my loved son in whom

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I'm well pleased. That's his son. And that Jesus still calls him

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God. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That Jesus receives this penalty and he's still calling

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God, God. And at the end of this ugly moment where God counts Jesus as rebel, at that moment,

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Jesus is as hideous as murderer, rapist, liar, thief, child molester.

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Jesus is counted and looked like the rebel. And then after all of this,

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Jesus says what at the end? This ugly yet beautiful moment,

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Jesus says, father into your hands, I commit my spirit. Now you can't understand how

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God is for you until you can start to taste that. That has got to be something that has to change your life.

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Have you embraced this yet? Have you allowed yourself the moment with God where you fall on this truth and you say, nothing else matters,

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God. You're for me. You're for me in my past. You're for me in my present.

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You're for me in my future. You're for me, God. Listen, God has demonstrated his love and commitment to you and I as his people in this.

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He gave up what was most supremely valuable. There isn't anything greater. Do you understand that? There isn't anything greater.

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All of us are so stingy. What do you need from me? I'll think about it. What do you need from me?

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All right, I think I can handle that. Why? Because it's not at that breaking point, that threshold where I don't go any further.

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God has given you the ultimate. There is nothing else. There isn't anything larger. And I thought for a moment this week,

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I'm trying to think of like analogies and God like slapped me down like so fast. I was trying to think of like analogies of like giving something up, right?

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That's really valuable. And then I was like, God was like, eat? No, because there isn't anything to compare this to.

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There isn't anything to compare this to. You can't give an analogy of this. You can't give an accurate portrayal of this in anything other than this triune

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God, the father giving up the supremely valuable son. That's the story. And that's all you need to hook into.

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So what? I want us to think about the so what in this.

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God is for you in your past. I want you to think for a second about where God has brought you from.

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I don't know how some of you guys in this room, you're brand new faces. Hi, welcome to Apologia.

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But I don't know where you were before you came into this room tonight. Some of you, I do.

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Some of you, I know your stories. I know where God has brought you. I don't know all the details. But here's what

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I can say for certain. If you belong to Christ, all your past is

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God's story in your life, for your good, for his glory.

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He is for you. That's the truth. That's not my word. That's his word.

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He's for you. The next thing is, is he's for you in your present.

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How will he not with Christ graciously give you all things? What do you think that God, if he gives up his own son, he's gonna be stingy with something else?

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Like, I can't do that. That's a little too much. Calm down. Like, you know, he's already given you everything.

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There's nothing else for God to display as more sacrificial, anything more valuable.

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He's already given everything. Will he not also give you all things? He's given you everything.

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The next is this, that God is for you in your future. You know where you're going, right? Jesus is a perfect savior.

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He does not fail, period. And he knows where he's taking you when you go.

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So close your eyes to be with Jesus like Luke's grandfather just did. He's probably Pentecostal now.

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He's doing a lot of dancing, a lot of shaking. So Luke wanted me to share that with you.

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But he's for you because he has completely given all to save you, but he is going to conform you to his son.

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He's for you. He is absolutely for you in your past, in your present, in your future.

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And I want to say this last thing. There's a verse in the Psalms. The Psalmist says this, some trust in horses, some in chariots, but we will trust in the name of the

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Lord our God. This is a God that you can fall on, rest in, and you can have absolute, total peace and completeness in because there is no one and nothing more worthy of your trust and your rest than God.

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You don't need to rest or rely on anybody or anything else but him. This God is for you.

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This God is for us. Now, what do we do? Chase him, fall on him.

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You should take deep breaths, drinking in his grace every day of your life.

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This has to change you. I talked about this on Thursday, right? We were at Thursday. Some of you guys were at Redeemed Rebels. What did I say?

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This has to start changing and transforming you. It has to because watch this.

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In a minute, we're going to pray. We're going to do communion. We're going to leave Koinonia. We're going to eat together afterwards, but I have to ask you a question.

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How are you allowing the truths of this message and his word to actually transform tonight, to transform tomorrow morning, to transform tomorrow afternoon, to transform the next trial that hits you?

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How are you letting this change you? How are you pursuing having this change you? Because you can be like a lot of people are.

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You can listen to a talking head for 45 minutes. You can go, oh, that's nice. And you can leave and then nothing. Or you can actually, for a moment, grab a hold of this and you can look up to God and you can say,

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I am so in awe of you. And God, I give up all my attempts to pursue anything else that's less worthy than you.

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You are for me and that is enough. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, for your goodness, this message.

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Thank you, God, for these truths. I just pray, God, that in some way, by your spirit, you've done what only you can do to transform our hearts and minds, because this is huge.

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I know, Father, that there are people in this room that perhaps don't know you, that never turn from sin to you.

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I just pray tonight you would grant eyes and grant hearts to believe. Father, I pray that you cause people tonight to fall on Christ, to trust in him for salvation.

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And I know, Lord, there are people in this room who do belong to you, they're yours, and they still have not let go of trusting in other things that are so less worthy.

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Please grant that tonight, God, your people the ability to rest in you, to know that you're for us,

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God, and you are worthy of all praise. Let this, Lord, just bring about within us all a pursuit of you that is never -ending, always thirsty, but always full.