WWUTT 1281 All Things Work Together for Good (Romans 8:28)

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Romans 8 .28, For those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

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We can feel like this verse gets a little overused, but we should not overlook this truth when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

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Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Well, we've been doing a study of the book of Romans. We've been in chapter 8, and today we get to some of the most famous verses here in Romans chapter 8, verses 28 through 30.

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The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

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For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his

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Son, 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.

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Now Romans 8 .28 is a fantastic verse. It's one of my favorites. I quote it all the time.

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I think it tends to get a little overused. It tends to get a little abused. And so most of the time when we hear it, we kind of roll our eyes at it.

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It's become a platitude. It's one of those things that you say to tell a person that everything's going to be all right.

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It all works out in the end. God is doing something good with this. When he closes a door, he opens a window.

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It's some sort of colloquialism like that. And so we've lost the meaning and the intention of what is being said here.

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This is not the first time we've heard such a sentiment in the Bible that God is working all things together for good for those who love

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God and are called according to his purpose. When you go back to the Old Testament, in fact, it's possible that Paul is even quoting from Ezra here.

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When you go to Ezra 8 .22, and it says the hand of our God is for good on all who seek him.

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And maybe Paul has that in mind as he mentions that here in Romans 8 .28. But there's something else to that quote from Ezra 8 .22.

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It also talks about those who will fall under the wrath of God. Here's that quote again.

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The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him. And the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.

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Now Paul obviously doesn't talk about the wrath of God here, but that will come up later on in the book of Romans.

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We also have this understanding of God working good for his own in Ecclesiastes.

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Now Ecclesiastes tends to be a very gloomy sort of a book, but nevertheless, here's one uplifting sort of a statement that you have in Ecclesiastes 8 .12.

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Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear

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God, because they fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like a shadow, because he does not fear before God.

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So like the statement in Ezra, you have the contrast between those who love God and those who forsake

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God. Those who love God, who fear God, it will be well with them.

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Ultimately, things will go well with us who fear the Lord and seek him and desire to do his ways.

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And so Paul is not coming up with anything new here when he mentions that. He is calling our attention again to the goodness of God for those who fear him.

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We know, because he says here as he starts this in Romans 8 .28, he says, we know that for those who love

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God, all things work together for good. We know that. He's reminding even these

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Roman Christians of this truth that has been the character of God for his children ever since they were introduced to Christ as Savior.

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They know that in Christ, we have come to know that in Christ, God means good for us and not harm.

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That's the very promise of the gospel itself. We do not have the judgment of God upon us anymore.

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We have the love and affection of God through Jesus Christ, our Savior. We have come to know this from the moment that we believed in Christ.

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We put faith in him. We turn from our sin and desired the righteousness of God from that moment.

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We have known the goodness of God for us, that he means not harm for us, but good.

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So we know that for those who love God, the love of God that we have through the work of the spirit in our hearts, not that we will ourselves to love

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God, but the spirit has been poured into our hearts. You know, Paul lamenting before in Romans chapter seven, the the war between his flesh and the spirit.

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How do you overcome those tendencies, those desires of the flesh? It is only by the power of the spirit of God within a person, which

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Paul then comes to in Romans chapter eight. You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.

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So it is through the spirit of Christ that we are able to do those things that are pleasing unto God. And with the spirit of God in our hearts, we love

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God. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.

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Now, there's actually a couple of different ways that this could be translated and and you can find it worded in different ways in various different translations.

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None of them are probably wrong. I don't know why. Maybe it's the way that the Greek is worded. Maybe there's a variance in the manuscripts, but you can word

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Romans eight twenty eight a few different ways. Some manuscripts say God works all things together for good.

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That's probably the popular way that you've heard it. God works all things together for good for those who love

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God and are called according to his purpose. A little bit different order that we have there. Another way that it could be said is that God works in all things for the good.

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And we know that's true as well. That's the providence of God. He is working in all things to bring about our good.

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And in this case, what we're reading about here is our own sanctification. We'll go on and talk about that a little bit more here.

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But again, we know that for those who love God, loving God, according to his spirit that dwells within us, all things work together for good.

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Everything that happens works together for good. Now, remember where we've come from when we get to this particular passage.

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We've talked about how the we've talked about the sufferings of this present time. That was back in verse 18 with Paul saying,

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I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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And we talked about the groaning of creation, how all of creation has been subjected to futility from the time that Adam and Eve sinned in the garden until Christ returned.

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So why do we see so much chaos and devastation in the world? Why is there so much evil?

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Why are we still fighting against temptations? Why is there death?

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Why is there suffering? All of these things are the result of sin, the curse that has been put upon all creation because man had sinned against God.

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And Paul personifies creation by talking about how the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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We know that all of creation has been groaning in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

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Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We go on to read in verse 26, we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

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And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

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That's what we've read so far in this section of Romans eight. By the time we get to Romans eight, 28, we, as we struggle, as we continue, even here in this present life, as we fight against temptation, as we long to be set free from the corruption of the world, as we groan inwardly anticipating for that glory that we will, that we will receive when we meet

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God on the other side, when we see him face to face, all of these things that we struggle and labor through, we are tempted to look at our difficulties and our circumstances and, uh, and despair and not even necessarily despair to the sense of hopelessness and thinking that all of this is meaningless.

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It's not going to amount to anything. Is God really there? You know, I'm not talking about despair to that sense that we just fall into utter doubt, but just the general dissatisfaction that you have with the world in your regular day to day.

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You woke up today, not in heaven. So there's going to be a disappointment with today.

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At the same time, we know that God is working something great in this day. So we're not too disappointed.

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We're disappointed that it's not heaven. But one of the benefits of being here where we are right now is that you still have more sanctification that you can receive before we reach that glory that we will have with God forever in heaven.

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I think it was John Gerstner that I heard say this one time, the benefit that you have right now, the benefit over those who are in heaven with God is that you can continue in sanctification and pursuing holiness and Christ likeness.

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Whereas in heaven, those who have died and have already gone to be with the Lord, they will not be sanctified any further.

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There's nothing more that they do to attain more holiness, but you can continue to work in that as you are aspiring to be like Christ, as God is working these things in you, pursuing

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Christ likeness. So that's one of the benefits of where we are right now in the life in which we exist.

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You may have very difficult things that you have to face today. You may have tough trials in your circumstances, in your life, in your own personal situation, whatever it might be.

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You might be personally acquainted with anxiety today. And yet there is a joy in knowing that you can cling to Christ in the midst of all of this.

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It reminds you to draw near to God and to long for his kingdom because you know this world really isn't satisfying.

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So you long all the more for the kingdom. You read God's word. You have that transformation of mind so you may more fully have the mind of Christ.

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All of these things play into your sanctification to be more Christ -like, to grow in godliness.

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And this is perfecting that person that you will be presented to God as in glory.

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Remember the word of Paul to the Philippians, Philippians 1 .6, I am confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.

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So he began this good work and he is going to complete this good work when you are presented to God in splendor on that wonderful glorious day.

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So this sanctifying work is still happening now. You can rejoice in that though there are trying and difficult things that you may face today.

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We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

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So it's in light of that that this verse becomes very hopeful where we need to be careful about how we use this verse is once again making it that platitude whenever somebody is going through a difficult thing, we just say, oh, you know,

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God works all things together for good. It's not that it's necessarily wrong to say that because I think that even in our difficult circumstances, we need to be reminded of the word of God, most especially in those circumstances.

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There seems to be this this this growing, prevailing idea that whenever somebody is suffering that we need to behave as Job's friends before they started talking.

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Do you know what I'm talking about? So in the first couple of chapters of Job in Job one and two, where you have all of these horrible things that have come upon Job is his children dying, his servants being killed, his livestock either being stolen or destroyed, and then eventually even loses his own health.

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And he's got a nagging wife who says, curse God and die. All of these terrible things that happen to Job and his friends see him.

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And when they see him from afar, they mourn and they weep. And then they come and they just lay down with him on the ground and they cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes and just weep with him.

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And so it's commonly said that Job's friends did real well with them.

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They did real well with him when they were mourning with him. But then they got real stupid when they opened their mouths.

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That's when they were no longer the good friends that Job needed when they tried giving him advice and it was terrible advice.

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So they were good just weeping with him on the ground. But then when they tried to talk with him, that's when they were kind of pathetic.

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And so there's this idea that we take that notion and we apply that to how we need to associate with one another or how we need to love and be affectionate with one another when it comes to a person who is mourning or who is experiencing a serious loss, whether it's somebody has died or a terrible diagnosis or just everything in life has suddenly gone wrong.

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Any of these things, some sort of tragedy has taken place or just a massive depression and anxiety has overcome that person.

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We need to be as Job's friends and just lay there on the ground with him. After all, as it says coming up here in Romans chapter 12, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

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Now there's a particular context to that verse, and we'll talk about that when we get to Romans 12. But even that verse in Romans 12, that's not what that is saying.

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And that's not necessarily the example of Job's friends that we should be following.

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Just because we don't regard them as ignorant until they started talking to Job doesn't mean that they did everything right in the first place.

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Now I've used this analogy before, too, or I've used this example before. I have said, likewise, that Job's friends did real well with him when they just wept with him.

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But then they got really ridiculous once they started trying to give advice to him. And then they're basically blaming him.

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It's your fault that all this stuff happened to you. You've done something evil. So that's why God has caused all of this to come upon you, which is horrible.

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And God even says at the end of that whole ordeal that Job needed to go and sacrifice for his friends because the anger of God had come upon them for the wicked things that they had said to Job.

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Now, that can still set a good example. Maybe there is a circumstance in which it's just good to weep with your friend for a little while.

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But don't ever be of this idea that that's the only way that we approach sympathy, that the only way that we approach sympathy is just to weep with those who weep.

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Don't be of that idea, because we always need the word of God. And the only hope that we have is the word of God.

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So in those circumstances, we really do need the word of God. And I hope that when

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I go through something difficult like that, if I ever go through a major loss or a serious, deepening sadness, that somebody who's going to come alongside me is really going to do more than just cry with me, but is going to remind me of the good word of God that gives us our hope and our peace.

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It's here in God's word. We have no other comfort, no greater comfort than God's word.

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A friend coming to my side and putting his arm around me is not a better comfort than the word of God.

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So I do hope that I have those friends that are going to come to me and they're going to remind me of the good promises that we have here.

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Now I think that we need to be tender in how we do that. It can come across very unsympathetic whenever you say to a person who is struggling, hey, we know that all things work together for good for those who love

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God and are called according to his purpose. You can say that in a way that sounds very insensitive.

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I remember when my dad lost his job. This was about 10 years ago, not quite that long ago.

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But he lost his job. It was an incredible loss. And there was a man who called him up. He was waiting on line one, you know, something like that.

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Dad was notified, hey, so and so wants to talk to you. And dad was like, oh, I bet you he's got some really encouraging words to say to me.

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And he really didn't. It was as bad as Job's friends. In fact, this guy started talking to my dad and saying, you know,

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I think you need to go read the book of Job because you'll find when you read Job that you might have done something wrong.

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And that's why God has caused this calamity to come upon you like this, that you've lost your job in this way.

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And so I think you need to read Job and that would be really helpful. It's like the guy totally missed what

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Job's friends were guilty of there in that very book. Anyway, so there is certainly a way where when we don't know the word of God rightly, when we don't handle it in the right way, we can use it in that sort of a way that becomes very unsympathetic toward a person and the struggle that they are going through.

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Romans 828 tends to be that quintessential verse to say that all things work together for good.

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I still think it's a good promise and it's a good reminder, but you need to go a little bit deeper than that and probably at some point do a study.

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This is in preparation for whenever you're going to be able to serve as a as a good counselor and a comfort to a friend who is in need.

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Do a study for some of those verses that are going to be comforting in those trying times. And in fact,

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I would say a good study to go through as you're trying to figure that out would be to just go through Second Corinthians because there you've got a good portion of things there.

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Paul basically going through his autobiography of all the difficult things that he went through, even to the point of believing that he had received a sentence of death.

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But this was to make us rely all the more on God who raises the dead. That is a great book to at least begin that kind of a study.

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But you want to equip yourself early. You want to know what passages that you can go to to help be a comfort to somebody else.

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And as somebody is going through a difficult trial, maybe reading the Psalms with them and doing so not to cheer them up like the intention is not to cheer up the friend.

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I just want to see you smile. OK, the intention is to bring them to God. Help to bring their focus back upon the

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Lord who is still with them and is still upholding them even through this difficult circumstance that we may lean all the more on Christ, knowing it is he who raises the dead, knowing it is he who is making all things new.

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It is he in whose presence we are going to be brought into when we pass from this life into the next.

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Christ is who we are looking toward. So help to bring a friend's eyes back to Jesus in in sympathy, in love.

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Whenever we go through those hard trials that remind us that this world is just fallen and corrupt and there's nothing but disappointment here.

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It's especially in those circumstances we need to remember. We worship a God who stepped into human flesh for us and overcame all of all of this for us.

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So as Jesus said to his disciples in this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart for I have overcome the world.

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And as we're going to read when we go on here in Romans chapter eight, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

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We'll continue in this section, Romans 8, 28 through 30 tomorrow. Let's pray.

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Heavenly father, we thank you for this reminder, knowing that you are working all things together for good, for those who love

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God and are called according to your purpose. There is something good that you're doing for us today that we may not see and we may not recognize now, but soon we will.

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And I pray that you give us strength and resilience and a focus upon you, that we may continue to place our trust in you, not relying on there being any sort of resolve or satisfaction in this world, but may we be fully satisfied in Christ and looking forward to how you're going to work this thing for our good and ultimately for your glory.

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We praise your great name and it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with pastor

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Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

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.com and click on the give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our