Hope Through Weakness

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. So we're in Romans chapter 8, and we're going to be reading in verse 26 to 30 today. But let's pray before we do. Lord God, as school begins again here in Lee County, as students come back to the university as well, and that begins next week, Lord, as so many things are going on in our lives, as you know the things well beyond that, Lord, the difficult things, the tough things, we come before you today to hear a word of hope and a word of goodness and grace. We need it. We all need it, Lord God. We need to hear your promises again, your love once again that never fails and never gives up on us. And we pray, Lord God, that you would be working in this time. And not only here at Thrive, Lord, we thank you for many Christian churches that share your gospel across this entire Southwest Florida area. We pray for the whole Christian church down here right now today that you would give that hope, that joy, and empower us to go out with that hope to this world. All this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So, Romans 8, 26 to 30, Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 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. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. I think this week and next week, when we look at what shall we say to all these things, if God is for us, who can be against us? And we go to the end of the chapter, we're getting at why I titled this whole thing, Hope for a Hopeless World. We have a hope indefatigable, don't you love that word, indefatigable, that cannot be defeated. We have a hope so foundational that it becomes our identity, our purpose, our direction. We have a hope that cannot be taken away from us. And in these words today, I think we're going to learn three things that are just foundational for why we can have that hope. And these three are, bad things turn out for good, good things can never be lost, and the best things are yet to come. That is true for everybody who follows Jesus. Do you know that? Can we say those together? Because I think you can repeat this, kind of a summary of this chapter and of these verses during the week. Bad things turn out for good, good things can never be lost, the best things are yet to come. Now here's a literal translation of Romans 8.28, because people use this. This is one of the passages you may have memorized at some point in life, or you think you know what it exactly means. We're going to look at what this means today. And this is a literal, almost word for word from the Greek. We know now that to those loving God, God works all things together for good, those being called according to his purpose. Now a number of Christians look at this passage in Romans 8.28 and think that it says, when you become a Christian, you know all those bad things that happen to other people? Well, a little less is going to start happening to you, because you believe the blessings are going to come down, and God is going to protect you and keep you safe from the bad things of life. It's not what it says. It's not what it says. But they use Romans 8.28 to kind of justify this, I'm good now, I'm in good shape. But this passage says nothing about the Christian life being comfortable or safe. It doesn't say anything about making your life easier now that you're a Christian. And in fact, I have a feeling, you know who wrote this chapter? Paul, right? Paul. If you read through his life in the book of Acts, and what we know of him, I don't know if Paul would say, yeah, my life is easier because I'm following Jesus. I think he would probably say the opposite. Because I'm a follower of Jesus, my life is tough. All sorts of bad things happen to him that I hope never happen to me. Do you understand? I mean, I don't really want to get flogged, do you? And I don't want to be thrown into prison in chains, do you? Or shipwrecked? No. So, those are just some of the things that happened. He had a number of other things that happened to him as well. So, we've got to get a reality check on what this passage actually means. And I'm going to have three corollaries of what it means that bad things work out for good. First of all, A, all things happen to Christians. So, Christian circumstances are no better than anyone else in this world. And if you haven't realized that, y...