Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, February 9th. Have you ever felt like everything just keeps going from bad to worse? Even when you're overwhelmed, God's grace can help you rise above. Listen to today's podcast, Out of This Wreck I Rise. If you'll turn to Romans chapter 8, And beginning in verse 31 and verse 39 are probably some of the most comforting and reassuring verses to be found in the Bible anywhere.
And Paul deals with a problem here that all of us face, and that is how we're to respond to circumstances and difficulties. in our own life. And when a person understands what that means, sometimes they come out of it shouting, out of this wreck. I rise as conqueror, not as victim. And so he says in verse 31, What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, Who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, How will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns?
Christ Jesus is the one who died. Yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand. of God who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword.
just as it is written, For thy sake we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we We overwhelmingly conquer. Through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities.
No things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God did not make us to be immune from trouble. But rather He promised to be with us through the trouble. He didn't promise to always remove the trouble. But he promised to be with us through it.
He knows that real character is formed best by not evading problems and heartaches and burdens, but by learning to endure them until God has finished what He's set out to do in our life. God knows that spiritual maturity is not the overflow or the fruits of a life of ease, comfort, and pleasure, but what? Tribulation, trial. temptation and testing. And if that be true, the goal of a believer should never be to avoid all problems, all heartaches, all difficulties, all disaster, all calamity, but rather to learn how to respond when these things come into our life.
Now When you and I think about the things that we go through, the difficulties and the hardships that you faced in life, and the things that people face every day. What is our response to be? Is it to be defeat? Or is it to be Won a victory. Even though you and I strike out.
That doesn't mean we're down. We don't have to give up. We don't have to throw in the towel. We don't have to surrender to our circumstances. We don't have to settle for life.
Regardless of where you are today in your circumstances, you still have the privilege and the power to become the person that God Almighty wants you to be. But it's a matter of seeing things from God's perspective and not as the world's perspective. seeing not the circumstances, but the person who lives within you. And so I want us to look at this passage in the light. Of all of this and where you may be.
And the first thing I want you to notice in this passage here is that Paul. Does not see his circumstances as problems and insurmountable, impossible situations, but rather as a challenge. That is, look at your challenging position. Listen to what he says. He catalogues Seven major trials, heartaches, testings that have always affected the body of Christ, individually and as a corporate body.
And he says of them in verse 35. Tribulation. That means great pressure. Distresses, that means being crowded into a narrow place. persecution from others, famine, nakedness.
peril or danger or sword or death. That is what he's saying is as we face each of these things, What is our response to be? Is it to see them as impossible situations and blame someone else? Or is it to see your situation as a challenge to your growth and your spiritual maturity?
Now let's take these words. What kind of circumstances and situations and heartaches and burdens are people living in today? Divorce Separation, divided from their children. Financial disaster, calamity, loss of job. Frustration, anxiety about the vocation because there's an imminence of the possibility of the loss of their vocation.
Suffering, a lifetime handicap, illness. Disease under the point of death. Broken relationships. Full of fears and anxieties and frustrations and worries that you can't quite put your finger on. Root causes of bitterness down in your life that you can't seem to trace.
And so you find life oftentimes just crowding in. As he says, a place of distress, he says it's like being crowded in and the situation's getting narrower and narrower. Tribulation, the Greek word means increasing pressure. More and more pressure. And so all of us find ourselves in situations like this at times.
And what is the response to be?
Well, I believe in this passage he tells us what that response is to be because you see, when these things begin to come upon us, they are trying and they are testing. We feel hopeless sometimes and helpless and harassed by circumstances and situations that we would like to push out of our life. But sometimes, because someone else executes them, it isn't something you and I can always push away.
Sometimes it's because God has allowed us to be in a situation where we find ourselves in a strait. and we'd like to break out and we'd like to push it away, but somehow God won't let us push it away. What is their response? Are we to give up? Blame God?
Blame someone else? Are we to mature in that situation? Or to fight back at our circumstances? Are we to try to remove the circumstances or to ask God, Lord, what are you saying to me in these circumstances? Listen.
This is always the proper question. Whatever your circumstance and whatever your situation, the proper question is, God, what are you saying to me? Because I want to tell you, my friend, he never loses an opportunity to teach us something, to stretch us a little bit further, to grow us up a little bit more, to mature us. He never overlooks a single situation of testing and trial, tribulation and temptation to teach us something that he knows we need to know, which will shape us and conform us into his likeness.
So, what is your response when you get to those situations? Do you blame God? Do you blame the devil? Do you blame others? Or do you blame yourself?
And sometimes we're in one of those situations as a result of one of those four reasons. It may be that God has placed us there, it may be something that we. have done to ourselves. It may be something that we can look and say that person is responsible. But regardless of why it's there, why you're where you are, the question is, Lord, what are you attempting to teach me?
And if I'm able to ask that question, I will not see my present circumstances as difficult as they are. I will not look upon the circumstance, but I'll be focused upon God. I will not see it as an impossible situation, but an opportunity for God to work out and to work in something in my life that He feels is necessary in order to accomplish His perfect will.
So when you look at the catalog of things here, That he says in verse 35, and then you translate them into your own lifestyle. What is it that you brought with you today? And you've already identified as you read these things or heard them: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, neck and perilous sword, you've already translated those into your own situation. Divorced. Families left.
All alone, finance is coming to an end, hard to make an ends meet. Separated from the people you love the most, all kinds of difficulties and fears. You've already translated all of that, and so you're feeling the pressure, and you're feeling the crowding of your circumstances, and so the question is: what am I to do? And how am I to respond? And I believe in this passage of Scripture, especially in one verse, because it all sort of revolves around this one verse.
I believe here is God's answer. for God's people to be victorious over and in and through any circumstance he allows them to be placed in. Look, if you will, in verse thirty-seven. But in all these things, we overwhelmingly Conquer through him who loved us. Or the King James says, but in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Now, I want us to look for just a moment at that word here, conquer. Because he's talking about here, having looked at the circumstance, here is a tremendous comforting promise from God. Listen to what he says. In all these things, we are overwhelming conquerors through these things. Look at the word, conquer bear.
It is the word in the Greek nekao, which means to conquer or to be victorious. But this Greek word here is hupernikao, which means to overconquer. That word, in essence, means a superconqueror. And here's what Paul is saying. In all of these things, what things?
All of our circumstances, tribulations, distresses, persecutions, famine, neckedness, perilous sword. He said, in all of these things, we overwhelmingly, that is, we are super conquerors. We do overcome. We are overcomers of all of these things through him that is through the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us. Here's what I want you to see.
That verse can be read backwards or forwards. Watch this. Through him that loved us, we overwhelmingly conquer in all these things. You can read that verse any way you want to read it, and it all comes out the same way, that from God's viewpoint, now watch this, from God's viewpoint, every single one of his children, from his viewpoint, is already a conqueror. He said, not only a conqueror, but a hupurnakao, a super conqueror.
What does he mean by that? He simply means that not only do we overcome the situation, not only are we able to survive, it isn't just a matter of merely survival, it is overcoming. Hyupanakao means, superconquer means not only do we overcome the situation, but we learned that it was an exciting circumstance in which we found ourselves. We learned something about God, we learned something about ourselves, we learned something about others. Our own spiritual life was deepened.
We grew in the experience. God taught us something we couldn't have learned any other way. We've come out victorious and excited and challenged and more committed. That is a super conqueror. That is, we glean and squeeze out of that circumstance in that situation, as painful and as difficult as it may be.
We squeeze every ounce of spiritual growth and maturity and knowledge and understanding and spiritual depth that was possible for us to squeeze out of one trying experience. We are, he said, super conquerors.
Now, my friend, we'll look at ourselves in one of two ways. We'll either see ourselves the way Satan would try to convince us, or we see ourselves the way God sees us. The devil says, you are defeated, you are wiped out, you are finished, this is it, you might as well give up. That's what Satan says, but what does Jesus say? He says, you are a super conqueror in all these things.
Listen. The extent to which you and I, he says, are conquerors, he says there are no boundaries. Listen. Persecution, distress, nakedness, peril, sword, all of these things. He says, in all of these things, the reason Paul mentioned all of those is because they cover every realm of life.
He says in every single circumstance, whatever your situation is, he says you are to see yourself from God's point of view, and that is that God has made you a conqueror.
Now, how is it He's made you a conqueror? Because when you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, what happened? The Bible says the Holy Spirit came into your life, sealed you as a child of God, and you became one of God's children. And as a child of God, he says, Jesus Christ is living his life in and through you.
so that whatever circumstance you move into, whatever valley God leads you through, whatever circumstance you get yourself in, you are never there alone. You can't be there alone. What does he say? He says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
So that when he says, in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer, what is he talking about? He's talking about. That because of our relationship to him, we do not have to believe Satan's lie. We can believe God's truth. And God says, listen, doesn't make this whether you feel like it or not.
God says we are conquerors over every sort and every type. Of experience that brings circumstances that put us in a distressful situation. But notice how he says it also. Not only does he say, we overwhelmingly conquer, And that is because of our relationship to him there. But secondly, notice what he says here.
He says in verse 35: who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Verse 39. He says, What's able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus?
Now, listen. He says, because we are who we are. That nothing in existence can ever separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. He says here in looking at these two lists There is an unfailing love, an unalterable, unchanging love of God that is always present with us whenever we are facing anything. And you see, whatever the circumstance may be that you happen to be in today, Whatever it might be, as we listed just a few, and there are multitudes and multitudes and multitudes of seemingly impossible situations.
The question is: what does God say? God says that in all these circumstances, in all of these things, he says nothing can separate you from God. He says, not only that, he says you are more than a conqueror. He says you are a superconqueror. That is, you have the privilege of learning and becoming and developing.
Your character has the privilege of being shaped and formed in these difficulties and trials, in the furnace of trial and stress. You have the privilege of becoming what you probably would not become were it not for the difficulties and the heartaches. What did Paul say? He said he used to try and pray and ask God to remove the thorn of the flesh, but then he learned the most beautiful lesson. That when he was at his most weakest moment, he came forth as conqueror.
So therefore, he began to thank God for the difficulty. He began to thank God for his trials. He began to praise God that he loved him enough to want to develop him and strengthen him and build him and form character in his life. He began to thank God for his trials and his heartaches. How do you respond?
When these things come into your life, do you see yourself as a conqueror? Or do you see yourself as a defeated foe? Do you believe what Satan says about you? You can't make it. You're too weak.
This is just the way you're going to have to live. This is just the way you're going to have to be. This is just the way you were born. These are your circumstances. You can't ever get out.
Things won't ever change. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. And that's just the way it is. You might as well give up and settle down for a settle for life. That is, you can just count yourself as defeated because life has dealt you a death blow.
And I want to tell you, my friend, you don't have to live in defeat. You don't have to surrender to your circumstances. It doesn't make any difference what they are. You say, but you don't know how awful my circumstances are. Let me ask you this: Are they any worse than this?
Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or death, the sword. Your circumstances any worse than that? Listen to what Paul said. He said, In all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through Christ who loved us. That is, listen.
Having looked at the whole gamut, And in those seven words, you can put all the difficulties and hardships that people ever face. You can find a place to slot them in one of those seven. He says, in all these things, Almighty God, when he came into your life through Christ, he made you then and there. A super conqueror over all these things. And the question I'm asking is this, are you willing to appropriate for yourself?
Are you willing to believe what God says about your circumstances and you in your circumstances? Or are you going to continue to believe what Satan says? Jesus says you are a super conqueror. You're not a defeated foe. Listen, watch this.
You may suffer. periods and experiences of defeat. But that doesn't make you defeated. Listen, you say, but I've had a whole string of defeats.
So what? You are still a conqueror. Listen, you know what we do? We mix and confuse experiences with who we are. There may be experiences of defeat.
There may be times of distress. There may be times of discouragement, but that doesn't make us a defeated foe. He says we are super conquerors through him that loved us. Thank you for listening to today's podcast titled, Out of This Wreck I Rise. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station.
And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
