God is Working Everything Out for Good

Please bow your heads for the prayer of Illumination.

Prepare our hearts. Oh God, to accept your word silence us any voices, but your own so that we may hear your word and also do it through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Our first scripture reading is Selma 5 verses 1 through 8. You can find it on page 490 in your pube Bible.

Listen to my words or Lord, attend to my siding, listen to the sound of my cry, my king, and my God for to you, I pray all Lord. In the morning, you hear my voice in the morning. I plead my case to you and watch for your not a God. Who Delights in wickedness, evil will not sojourn with you. The boastful will not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers, you destroy those who speak lies the Lord of horse, the bloodthirsty, and deceitful, but I threw the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your Holy Temple in all of you. Leave me alone in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me. The word of the Lord.

All right, I'm curious whether any of you have a favorite Bible. Verse favorite Bible verse anyone kfu hands, and does anybody have one memorized, any Bible verses memorized, anybody doesn't show off time. I'm just curious and right. A q a few. Yeah, you got one, some maybe even more than one. Well, here's True. Confession time, when I found out that for our Pulpit, swap sermon series this year, was that, that we were, it was going to be drawn from the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Rome, and that my particular assignment was that, I could choose to preach from anything. From Romans chapter 5 to Romans chapter 10, my pulse actually quickened a little bit. Is that kind of a Bible geeky thing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I mean, you know, six months ago which shows that we are going to we're going to kind of preach a sermon series. Looks like a stone skipping across the letter to Romans not not trying to go into the deep deeper depths of

Rich the illogical letter that, that he wrote. But instead the kind of pause here in there and enjoy the word, we could receive from God in those places, but I couldn't help but getting a little excited and I couldn't escape the gravitational. Pull of my favorite passage from all of scripture because it's in in that Romans 5 through 10 segment. So we're going to we're going to have that as our as our scripture reading today or main preaching text. But before I do that I need to set up this reading of God's word by starting honestly with a real Downer. Okay. Has anybody read the news recently? Okay, I see a lot of a lot of hands went up there and, you know, I've noticed that the news reports in the last, I don't know, 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months or so. See, do they seem particularly harsh? What you see in the news? I don't particularly enjoy naming too much Doom and Gloom on a beautiful Bellingham summer day. But wow, It's not just the usual. Seemingly unending violence in war-torn places like Ukraine and Gaza. It is not just the divisive politics with what seems to me to be a growing disaffection and Division and unrest here in the US Now we've got even more. We got a worrisome hot war that seems so much more likely to engulf the entire Middle East. We're daily. It seems about acts of violence. Just interpersonal. Violence are shocking. A political assassination, 6 weeks ago in Minnesota. Just this past week random slaying of innocent hikers, in a state park in Arkansas. We hear about deportations of people without due process. And without getting too political. we read about changes in policy and in practices at our national or International level, That seemed at odds with our calling, the calling of our Christian faith. Is that a fair thing to say,

The news is just.

Can I get an amen? St.james. Okay. And I wonder, do you ever think sometimes that the world is coming apart at the seams? I do at times and I look at the news. Anis happenings that cause human suffering or not just happening in The Wider World either. We have plenty of suffering locally to don't, we? The cost of food.

The cost of housing, have you gone and price rental properties recently? How do people do that? Challenges of school and work and home. I expect you may have your share of sufferings Just Right In This Very Room at st. James, a group of this size gathered together. There's bound to be some heartbreak here recently at Cordata, we had three Memorial services in 6 days. So, three families facing heart-wrenching challenge that comes with death of a loved one. It seems at times that all of human life is beset with suffering. And often that suffering involves, as we think about it, some kind of separation. separation from people or places, or ways of being that, we dearly love that, we cherish That's a real problem. May be the biggest challenge in life that separation that causes suffering. Even the choices that we make in life necessarily separate us from some other option. That's, that's just the way of it. We can't do everything and so when we do anything, we must exclude something else, right? What we have to leave behind as a source of a lot of pain and human lives. Even the most innocuous innocent natural thing like growing up involves leaving something behind. We don't stay young, forget forever. I better get an amen there afternoon. Yes, I'm 22. Their partner here with him

And so, we don't stay young forever and so we leave behind our young adulthood with all this brimming potential. We want a deeper relationship with one person and so we have to separate from someone else. We come to love someone and then they go away from us off and painfully. So, There's a book written a while back with the title. All our losses, all our griefs. And doesn't that title speak volumes to be human is to have grief and to have lost. No one is able to escape that anyone who has loved even remotely anyone or anything else will suffer the grief of loss. And we'll know the painful experience of Separation. How do we deal with that Universal human reality?

And it right about now you're thinking wow this Cordata guy is really about the bad news, you know?

But we're not done yet. Because God has a word for us. The Apostle Paul in the 8th chapter of his letter, to the church in Rome, where they understood suffering to be the Church of Jesus Christ in Rome, which was aligned against the church, trying to put the church to death, to squash it out. They understood suffering. And so Paul writes to the church in Rome and in these eight chapter of his letter to the church, in Rome has a lot to say about this Dynamic that I've been describing. He understands the power of Separation human life at a, at a cosmic level Separation not only from one another, in the painfulness of Human Relationships. But also separation from God, The God Who Made Us, And so he mentioned some of the forces that we face this this Preamble is just a few verses after what's actually printed in our bulletin as the text for today. This is from Romans 8:35 and Paul says this, Who shall separate us. From the love of Christ. Shop trouble or hardship or persecution or famine, or nakedness or danger or sword? Think about that list. Hardship. Life is hard, is it not? Life is hard. It's a struggle for many of us, maybe most of us, the things you and I face each day, a lot of it is just not particularly easy.

He mentions distress as a frequent force in our lives. I already went through the Litany of things that we see in the news and that's distressing enough. But but again, we all have our personal versions of things that understandably caused us trapped. We can't get done what we want to get done. So we're in distress, maybe we do get through most of our to-do list of Life Essentials, and still, it's not enough, right? Or more importantly, heart-wrenching things are happening in the world and we feel powerless to do anything about it, to make it stop famine in Gaza. Distressing.

Next on the list persecution, we think all that and you know that only happened two thousand years ago. But think about it persecution is happening today all the time. Persecution against people for their religion. Christians are certainly persecuted in parts of the world, but also people of Many religious beliefs or persecuted. People are persecuted daily based on their gender, their race, their ethnicity, by their inclusion in one group or another by their biology or their social arrangements for their beliefs. All of that leads to pain and separation of persecution the list. Goes on, at Paul names. These deep challenges that cause suffering in life family already mentioned, Gaza, nakedness or Peril or sword. We can think just by reading the news of places in the world where that's happening and maybe even have some Echoes locally. We might use more modern terms than Paul Dost understand these things, but they never go away, hunger and poverty, and illness, and violence the forces that separate us from our loves our many. the weight of all the separation and suffering can threaten Don do us and makes us want to curl up at times in the fetal position and just grown for lack of knowing what to say,

Other than accepting this Grim reality with a shrug or retreating into retreating into ourselves. What can people, especially those of us who follow Jesus? What can we say about these things? And here's finally, where we receive some good news. Help in time of need is Romans chapter 8. Starting at verse 26 as Paul speaks to A persecuted suffering Church. Hear God's word.

For in this, hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have. But if we hope for what we do, not yet, have we wait for it patiently. In the same way the spirit helps us in our weakness. We don't know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans, and he who searches our hearts knows, the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God And then he hears the heart of it. And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called, according to his purpose. For those God, for knew he also predestined to be conformed, to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters and those he predestined he also called and those he called he also Justified those. He justified he also glorified What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Prince. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

I wonder if you've heard about the spirit of God, not just spirituality generally but the spirit The particular Spirit The Advocate who Bible, the Bible calls are true friend. The one who constantly reminds us and teaches us about Jesus, about God, about our true selves. The one who is within us as a people of Faith, Like a spring of living water gushing up to eternal life, that's very same. Spirit is also interceding for us in the face of suffering. I'm going to tell you now something that's maybe a little bit too personal. That's okay cuz I only come here once a year and I will have ceased being embarrassed by the time I see you again.

When I get stressed about the news and I'm reading the news and it's all about suffering and violence and and just awful stuff right away. It's just about work about money. Sometimes anybody gets stressed about money, you can? I see some hands? Or when I start thinking, I'm not a, I'm not a good husband, or a good parents or son, or friend. This is what happens to me. I groan in my sleep.

Yeah, it's not pretty. It's And I didn't used to be aware of this happening until my wife started occasionally, telling me, hey, honey, last night was a real Groner.

And I don't think she was saying that as a good thing.

And when I realized what was happening, what I thought I was doing that groaning in my sleep. I thought something must be really wrong with me. Oh boy, I need therapy now. And that may be true. But when I, when I read this passage from Romans 8, I realized, oh, I'm just a, I'm just human. Was having the experience the people of Faith have been having for 2000 Years, everybody grounds, right? I bet many of you here at St, James Prez have things that you grown about. I was, I was actually having a very pleasant conversation with some of you before we started worshipping, I wasn't a very growney conversation but we started talking about things and we're talking about how man, you know, the parking at the at the Trader Joe's over on James Street, you know, but it's better now. It's better now. Because there aren't as many Canadians coming down. Oh no. There are as many Canadians coming down. What's that going to do to the the Whatcom County economy?

You know, it on and on it goes, right? There's always something to groan about Let's imagine the news both world and personal and local and and just acknowledged has been pretty bad lately. But you're you're here at this beautiful place in Fairhaven and the guest preacher has been going on way too long about suffering and separation and other depressing things. I bet you have got a good grown in you. Yeah, so that's grown together. How about it on three, one, two, three.

That's enough. That's all good. Then it is there a Jose Jose Well, here's the thing. The Bible says that that grown can be a prayer

The grown is, is a prayer. We sometimes often. Don't even know where are grown. Might be coming from. Maybe it happens to you, like it does to me in the middle of the night and you're not any consciously aware of it. I get this. The Bible says that the holy spirit groans for us when we don't even know how to pray.

God loves us so much and is so involved in the lives that we who have cast our lot with Jesus. That God is within us, Redeeming the suffering and repairing the separation that the world dishes out.

Now. I want to go on and talk about this Romans chapter 8 passage. You may have noticed that it mentions the most Presbyterian of words predestination. Okay. And I could give you an extended teaching on the doctrine of predestination and free will. All in favor of getting out, so I don't do that. But, you know, I've decided to skip over that part of the sermon because when I was in Seth's office before the service, I saw a mug on his desk and it said it said it's doctor. Right.

And I'm not a doctor, I'm not a reverend doctor. I'm just a reverend mister. And so I'm going to tell the Reverend dr. Seth Thomas that he needs to give you a sermon on predestination

Cuz he's way more qualified to tackle, that than I am. And besides I think the main takeaway of this word of the church, is to focus on this. Who is the actor here in this passage? Who is the prime, mover in the face of the suffering of the world? Who's the one who makes the verbs happen in this passage? Is it us slogging, our way through foreknowledge and predestination through election and justification, until we finally arrived at glorification. No. The prime mover that Paul reassures the church about here is the same one who intercedes and groans for us when we don't even know how to form the words to pray. The Living God. The words of Paul focus on the work of God. So God chose you and me. God called us. God justifies us. Meaning meaning God makes us righteous in God's eyes.

And God Is glorifying Us slowly, but surely making us more christ-like. Not primarily for the perks of heavenly retirement cities, you know, that picture that we sometimes might have of sitting on the puffy Cloud. One day when are spotless roads, their feet up and I are, I don't know where beverage holder. I don't know how that works. But picture of personal Comfort. That's not primarily. What's what? This passage is talking about. If we pay attention, we'll see, God is doing all these things. Not primarily for our comfort and convenience. There are some Comforts in a life of Faith. But the primary thing that this passage is saying is that this is an order for us to be conformed to the image of God's son,

the first born of a large family.

So our answer in the face of any sin and he suffering any separation, any uncertainty. Is that we are united with God through Jesus Christ bound together in his life and death and Resurrection.

And therefore there for nothing can separate us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, in Jesus Christ.

If you and I want the reassurance, that can be found. No, that no other way. That is the answer. That is the focus. Now course, it's not easy to embrace that, there's still going to be suffering in your life and mine. We're still going to experience the pain of loss, but we don't suffer as those who have no hope know if God is for us, who can be against us.

God's plan is, and always has been to redeem creation. And to restore us to the image of God in which we were called into being and meant to live. In Christ, God is at work, recreating, you and me to become exactly who we were meant to be.

In other words, right? In the face of all that bad news in the world, we get to Proclaim that God is working everything out. Now I'm banging the pulpit. Look at me. It's In the face of all that bad news we declare that God is working everything out for good. For those who have been called, according to his purpose, that is you and me.

God is working everything out for our good. In spite of the news, God is working everything out for our good in spite of the suffering in the world or that we may have personally, God is working everything out for good, for our good, in spite of the separations, we experience, God's working everything out for your good and mine. In spite of the fact that money is tight and work is hard and we can't do what we used to be able to do. And what's wrong with that younger generation? Or that older generation anyway, and Social Security, ain't that secure and everything we buy break sooner than it should. And so many relationships are broken or missing and it may be at least partly my fault. Still. God is working everything out. We're good. People of St. James. Are you going to pick up that mantle of goodness, that God is laying down before you and your life? Are you going to receive it? Are you going to cooperate with the transformation that God is willing and wanting to do in you? That's not a bad place to start today.

If you've never dialed in on one particular verse to memorize I got one for you, Romans 8:28.

And I wonder in the face of all the suffering in the separation. The world can throw at us in this life. Can God is working everything out for our good? Be The Confident hope that we live by

Will you pray with me?

God Of Heaven and Earth. What a relief, and even a joy that you are at work in the world and in our life together as your people. in the face of some pretty awful news in the world and maybe even in our day-to-day struggles and doubts, you're the one who gives us hope in the face of human sin and suffering and separation that we all experienced in one way or another, you give your spirit to intercede on our behalf to become a well of Living, Water springing up to eternal life. Oh Lord. Will you drive this truth down into the marrow of our bones? So that we know that are groaning is you working out everything for our good. We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.