Robby Takes His Own Advice About Listening to God

So, today on Bible Wonders, we're going to wonder about Romans 8.28, and I guess it starts out with wondering, does Robbie take his own advice? So, this week on Maslin Journey, we were talking about the joy of hearing from God, you know, his sheep hear his voice, and we were talking about one of the things that somebody asked me, you know, what's a good piece of advice you would give somebody, and the advice I gave that night was that when God tells you something, believe it and act on it.

When you feel like that's something that came from God, you know, believe it and go check it out. Well, this morning in my quiet time, I was, I've been working on a sermon actually for Peace Church this week, and I've been in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 4, and so when it came time for me to just kind of ask God where we're going this morning, which is one of the joys of my time with the Lord every morning is I like to ask God where we're going, and either a word or a scripture passage or something like that. And so this morning, he says to me, Romans 828.

And I thought, oh, I just made that up in my head. I know what Romans 828 is, and that couldn't have anything to do with what I've been studying. Fortunately for me, God is persistent and I said, no, Robbie, I mean it. Romans 828. And so I said, okay, I'm going to take my own advice and believe that I heard what I heard, which was Romans 828.

And I went there expecting that I knew what I was going to find, but no, I didn't at all. What I'd been looking at in Ephesians 4 had to do with the concept of all, you know, that God is in all things. And you may know that Romans 828 says that, you know, all things work together for good for those that are called according, you know, that love God and are called according to his purpose.

So I said, well, there's that's interesting. That word all is in both places. So I decided to study that word all and oh my goodness, what a treat God had for me as I began to look deeply into that word all that Paul used. And Paul was very familiar with the word in Hebrew, which I had missed.

In fact, the first time that we find that word in the Bible, which usually gives us a good idea of of where God is going with the word is when he told Adam that he was going to, you know, suffer all these things all the days of his life. And so that word all right there is in Hebrew, a huff and a lament. And when I looked at it, I was like, well, that doesn't make sense to me.

Why would a huff and because I knew that a huff was a crown. And it might mean to suppress something, but it also is I went back and studied the letter. It means potential because it's like an upside down huff is like the palm of God's hand. And since you receive things with your palm that the that the idea of this all is that it has phenomenal potential every single day of your life has all kinds of potential.

And it could be potential for this or potential for that. But when God was talking about all things, you know, there's all this potential in every single moment that you have. And what a beautiful concept is I began to think in the second letter being a lament has to do with, you know, your heart.

And when you really put the two together, you get this concept of an understanding heart, like taking all the potential into your heart and your heart understands all the potential and all of a sudden, all becomes just spectacular. I process that some I went, wow, all there's so much potential in God is in all and through us all you know, all that that I've been studying in, certainly, both Romans 828 and Ephesians four, five and six. So as I furthered my way through Romans 828, I landed again on that word called. And I said, Well, that's interesting, because that word called is, you also find a little bit above Ephesians, it may be four, or four were, you know, the hope of your calling. And so I said, Well, that's interesting that words there in both places, the word all is in both places. And now this word, calling is there. So I decided to take another look at calling. And when I looked at calling in the Greek, what a joy, what a surprise was waiting for me there.

I'm usually not a huge Greek fan. But it was this time for me, and it immediately said something that really led to the Hebrew understanding of the word, which it means invited to the banquet. Like, Oh, wow. As soon as I saw that I was like, what a treat to be invited to the banquet. And so as I began to process that a little further, and I and I pushed into that in Hebrew. I realized that the first place that you find that word in Hebrew is in kings where the people were called to certain people were invited to Solomon's coronation.

And this concept of being invited Jesus talked about it time and time again, and you got to have on the right clothes. And it reminded me of something really, really spectacular that I'd seen one time it was Salem Rescue Mission banquet, that I'm trying to remember the name of the Panther player. That was a defensive back for the Panthers. He was giving this talk and he talked about how he spent his entire life trying to get into the Super Bowl, you know, that he'd worked so hard and practiced and practiced and all this stuff. And they finally, they got into the Super Bowl.

And if you're a Panther fan, you know, they, the Panther, this was the first Super Bowl that they were in, of course, they lost both of them. But this particular one, they lost right at the end, had to do with a missed field goal and this kind of stuff. And he said, it was such a shock, because he looked up at the scoreboard and the game was over. And he said, and they drew a rope, and they literally pulled us off the field.

And you'd worked your whole life to get to this place. And then at last minute, you're getting pulled off the field. Was again, to think about that this morning, I thought, well, the reason they were getting pulled off the field is they had on the wrong clothes.

In other words, I forgot who won, probably the Patriots won that year, I don't remember. But whatever clothes they had on, they had on the right clothes to be on the field because they were the winners. Well, you know, all things work together for good for those who are invited to the banquet. But man, I mean, including we got to get on the right clothes. And so as you're listening to this, I hope you feel like man, all things work together, as we get an understanding heart of the potential of all that's going on. But more importantly than all that, if you're listening, and I hope you are, and you don't know if you have the right clothes, like, oh my goodness, here's how you get them.

Okay. You asked Jesus for his blood, right? He died, so that you would be covered in that blood so that you would be able to stand in the presence of God. And when the game is over, and we're all invited to the banquet, when you are waiting for your seat at the table, right, you got to have on the clothes that have been washed white in the blood of the lamb. Okay, this is your opportunity to ask Jesus, like he did this for you so that you could be invited to the to the banquet of banquets of feast of feasts of beats all Super Bowl games you could ever imagine playing and you spent your whole life for this moment to be invited to this particular banquet.

If you've never done it, wash your wash your clothes today in the blood of the lamb. And of course, feel free to email me call me. I'll even give you my phone number on this podcast. If you want to talk to me about this call me 336-909-2779. That's Robbie Dilmore phone number. Be glad to talk to anybody anytime 336-909-2779. God bless