Hope: The Greatest Chapter in the Bible

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. A lot of us say that we want to live by faith, but the moment we can't see or understand what God is doing, we throw up our hands and we say, God, are you even there? God, why wouldn't you do this? We say that we want to live by faith, but we also want to be able to understand why every bad thing happens in our life. I get it. That's why that happened. And it was producing this in me, but that's not walking by faith.

That's walking by sight. Hey, thanks for joining us today on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovich, and I hope your week is off to a great start. Let me ask you something. In your darkest hour, have you ever been able to sing and really mean the words to this classic hymn? Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.

It seems impossible, doesn't it? Well, today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. shows us the myths we believe about suffering as believers and how we can have hope in our suffering, knowing that God is going to finish his good work in us.

Let's join Pastor J.D. as we continue this week in the greatest chapter of the Bible, Romans Chapter 8. Romans 8, you remember, is regarded by many to be the greatest chapter in the Bible. Well, this weekend, I want to talk about one of the most famous verses in that chapter, arguably one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible, and that is Romans 8.28. And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Some of you have a t-shirt with some phrase from that verse, bedazzled on that t-shirt, or you got a coffee mug with some part of that, or you've got it crocheted on a pillow somewhere in your house, in your bed, or hanging up on your wall. We love to quote that verse to each other when bad things happen. Hey, don't worry. Don't worry. It's all going to be fine because, you know, all things are working together for good for the ones who love God.

But here's the thing. If you are honest, and I feel like my job here at the church is partially to make you honest about things that you don't want to verbalize in church, so I'll just verbalize it for you. If you are honest, sometimes that verse feels hollow.

Sometimes that verse even feels frustrating to hear because, sure, while sometimes you can see good things that God is bringing out of your bad things, sometimes you can't see any good thing that could possibly come out of this bad thing. See if you can relate to this. Brad Hambrick, who is our director of counseling here at the Summit Church, tells a story about a girl that he calls Natasha.

He says while the names and a few of the details of this particular story are fictional, he said this story corresponds to dozens of similar stories that he has heard in his counseling office over the years. Let me give you a warning. This is kind of heavy, but I want you to press in on this. Natasha. Natasha and her husband had longed for a child, and they finally conceived after five years of trying. They learned that their child was a girl, and so they decided to name her after Natasha's mother, who had died when Natasha was just an infant.

Throughout the pregnancy, they read every book on what to expect. They prepared a dream nursery complete with this baby girl's initials on the wall, embroidered on the blankets, and painted on the wall. Everything was set, but tragically, their daughter was born stillborn, suffocated by the umbilical cord. The only visual memory that they have of her is of her blue, lifeless body and the sense of guilt that they had somehow failed to help her when she needed. Not knowing how to deal with the pain, which many times couples in a situation like this don't, their marriage deteriorated.

They started to take it out on each other, and they started to lash out at each other, and the volatility tore them apart. Natasha's husband, in a pursuit to find some kind of escape, he begins to have an affair at work. He finds life, he says, in conversations with a co-worker and convinces himself that he really is in love with this other woman. When Natasha finds a couple of questionable emails on his computer, he lashes out at her and he blames her. He leaves and promptly files for divorce.

Within a year, he is remarried and has a child, a little girl. Natasha's dream life is being lived out now by another woman. Because Natasha was not really a fighter, she lost big in the divorce settlement, and she has to get a second job as a waitress just to make ends meet. As she's driving home late one night from that second job, she falls asleep at the wheel and she has a wreck. She totals her car, which she cannot afford. In the process, she also crushes two vertebrae in her lower back.

That requires surgery, more money she does not have. For the rest of her life, she's going to experience limited mobility, chronic pain, and she's going to be labeled disabled. People at her church and her small group try to comfort her with verses like Romans 8.1.

Romans 8.1, there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. And while she can give mental and theological assent to that verse, while she can nod her head, it doesn't change her feelings. She feels abandoned by God. She feels rejected. She feels like she's cursed. But she says, even that verse is more bearable to me than Romans 8.28, that we know that all things work together for good of those who love God. When friends try to comfort her with that verse, she knows they just don't understand.

Sometimes she even gets angry when they're quoting it. What possible good could God be bringing out of this? What silver lining is there in this dark cloud?

How could any of this work out for good? Here's a question. Have you ever dealt with somebody in that kind of situation? Or maybe if you've gone through this yourself, maybe you're right in the middle of it this morning.

Suffering is the number one reason why people stop believing in Christianity, why people stop having faith in God or following Jesus. I saw that recently. There's a show on Netflix that some of you've seen, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Jerry Seinfeld hosts it. And one of the episodes for this season is Ricky Gervais, the creator of The Office, who is a very famous atheist. And what he says, Jerry asked him about that in the show, and Ricky Gervais says, yeah, people often ask me if I pray. He said, I stopped praying because why would I ask God to help me find my keys if he stood by and did nothing during the Holocaust? They look at him and say, I just don't see purposeless suffering.

I don't see any possible good coming out of these kinds of things. So I just can't believe that there's a God who is there. Maybe you're not quite there, but maybe inwardly you struggle to feel close to a God whose ways you just cannot understand. So I want to talk to you about what Romans 8 28 actually means. Now I want to give you a handful of myths, three in particular, that Christians believe about suffering that Romans chapter eight addresses.

We're going to look not just at Romans 8 28, but the context of Romans 8 28, which is verses 18 through 30. Here's myth number one that Christians believe about suffering. Myth number one, if we live well, we can avoid suffering.

Many Christians believe that if they live like they're supposed to live, they can avoid or at least minimize suffering. But I want you to notice that Paul in this passage assumes that suffering is part of the believer's life. Verse 18, he says, this present time has sufferings. Verse 23, we groan under those sufferings. Verse 21, all of creation of which we are a part is subject to futility.

It is in bondage to corruption. There is nothing in this passage that assumes that if you are God's child, you can avoid these realities. In fact, it says quite the opposite. Jesus, in fact, told his disciples in this world, you are going to have tribulation.

And if anything, it's going to be worse for you than, than those who aren't God's children, because you also have Satan that is gunning for you. There's nothing that indicates that if you live like you're supposed to live, that you will avoid tribulation. By the way, a related assumption to this one that many in our culture believe is that life by itself, it just inevitably turns out positive. That the universe is somehow wired to turn out for good. It's structured so that every dark cloud will eventually have a silver lining.

I call it the Little Orphan Annie philosophy. The sun will come out tomorrow. I know that tomorrow is going to be better than today, and today's troubles are just very temporary. But I want you to notice that this passage actually indicates the opposite. Creation, Paul says, is in bondage to futility. It can't escape it.

This is where it's all headed, futility and corruption. In fact, it's only, Paul says, through God's special intervention on behalf of believers that anything turns out for good. By the way, your CSB translation, or at least that's what I'm preaching from, actually doesn't serve us well here in the way they translated this verse. Because the way they write it is all things work together for the good of those who love God, and it makes it sound as if maybe somehow just, you know, creation is wired so that it just naturally turns out great.

Somehow naturally things are going to work out for good, so don't worry, be happy, hakuna matata, whatever, you know, everything's going to be fine. But the actual, the way it's written in Greek indicates that God is the one who is making this happen. God is the one who is working all things out together for good. The universe, creation's going the opposite direction.

It's only through a special act of grace toward believers that God redeems bad circumstances for good. By the way, a good illustration you might think about this summer if you're at the beach on a beach trip. When you're walking through the sand, that sand you feel between your toes.

They tell us that every grain of that sand at one point was part of some mountain, some rock formation, but that great mountain eventually dissolved into grains of sand. That's where everything is headed. It's all in bondage to corruption, and it's all, all even the greatest things are going to ultimately dissolve. That's myth number one, is that if we live right, we can avoid suffering. Myth number two is that suffering always points to some sin that we need to confess. The idea here is that in suffering, God's always trying to get your attention in order to correct some error in you, to expose some sin that you need to confess.

And let me be really clear, okay, sometimes that's true. Affliction is one of God's choice tools to wake us up. So the author of Psalm 119 says, before I was afflicted, I went astray.

God put Jonah in the belly of a whale in order to get his attention. Sometimes he does that metaphorically speaking to us. Sometimes we say, God puts us flat on our back, so finally we'll be looking the right direction.

Maybe that's happening to you this morning. But the point is, that's not always the case. The suffering Paul talks about here in Romans 8, there is no indication that it is in response to anything wrong.

Paul didn't say, well, this is happening because this over here is happening. In fact, in the book of the Bible that deals most with suffering, the book of Job, God makes clear that Job was not suffering because of his sin. In fact, God says, Job was the most righteous man alive on earth at the time.

And of course, we know that Jesus was the most righteous person ever to live, and he suffered more than any of us. Not all suffering is trying to correct something in you. And by the way, if it is, because you have a heavenly father, I feel pretty safe in saying he'll let you know what he's trying to correct pretty quickly. Isn't that what a good father does? I mean, good father, if I discipline my children, I let them know very quickly what is connected to what. When they were kids, I didn't just walk in the room and spank them. Daddy, why? You figure it out. I'm just generally displeased with you, and you just need to figure out what this is for. No.

No. If I was going to discipline them in some way, they knew exactly this is happening because of this. I can pretty confidently tell you that if the heavenly father sends suffering into your life to get your attention or to wake you up, you will very quickly know what it is. And if you don't know what it is, that's a really good chance that that suffering is not like Jonah's wake-up call. It's more like Job's mysterious suffering, the kind of suffering being talked about here in Romans 8. That's myth number two.

Here's myth number three. We will always be able, this is the big one, we'll always be able to find the silver linings behind our dark clouds. This is where everybody uses Romans 8 28 the wrong way. They say, well, you know, the Bible says all things work together for good, so where's the silver lining behind this dark cloud? What's the good? And of course, listen, sometimes you can see it, right? The car accident wakes up an alcoholic to the severity of his addiction.

A painful breakup you go through actually frees you from a bad or a lesser relationship to open you up to the right one. In fact, we know here at the Summit Church, it's very personal to us because our church was planted in 1962 by a guy who actually was headed to the mission field but found out his son had a heart defect, so he had to move here to Durham so that he could have his son at Duke Hospital for about the space of a year. And during the course of that year, he planted Homestead Heights Baptist Church, which became the Summit Church. So it's easy for you and I to be like, see? See, it looked like it was unfortunate, but God was using that for good. Thanks for listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. If you'd like to know more about this ministry, visit us online at jdgreer.com. You know what? We appreciate you. Yes, you, our listeners. We love being a source of encouragement for you each day because we know that there's no greater joy than having a relationship with Jesus. Did you know that these Summit Life broadcasts are only one of the ways that you can keep up with Pastor J.D. 's ministry? There are emails, blog posts, our entire sermon library, and so much more.

But if you're like me, I spend a good amount of time on my phone. And did you know that you can follow Pastor J.D. on social media?

Why not get some biblical wisdom and encouragement as you scroll? Just search for Pastor J.D. Greer on Facebook, at Pastor J.D. Greer on Instagram, and at J.D. Greer on Twitter. Follow along on all your favorite social media platforms and stay up to date with this ministry while also filling up your timeline with encouragement from God's Word. Now, put your front away for just a few more minutes and let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor J.D.

Greer right here on Summit Life. Sometimes we discover how a painful or confusing chapter of our lives prepares us for some challenge later on. Remember Pastor Brian LaRidge? He told an illustration about this that we all, at least if you're over 40 years old, you relate to. He told the Karate Kid, one of the great movies from the 1980s when movies were at their apex, okay? Karate Kid.

Daniel, in case you are younger than 20, Daniel is this kid who keeps getting beat up. So he goes to Mr. Miyagi. So Mr. Miyagi can teach him karate. But Mr. Miyagi has to do it quickly because Daniel has just entered a karate tournament that's three weeks from now and he doesn't know any karate. So Mr. Miyagi has three weeks to teach him to be a black belt, which is a little unrealistic in its premise, but you know, whatever. All right, so he shows up to get, you know, learn the karate lessons, but instead of learning karate moves, he's given household chores to do.

Wax on, wax off. And he does that for a day. And then he goes back the next day and he's got to paint the fence.

And then he's got to sand the floor. And at one point in the movie, he just loses his mind. He starts yelling at Mr. Miyagi like, you're wasting my time. I don't know what we're doing.

I'm just out here being your handyman. And that famous scene, Mr. Miyagi says, okay, you know, show me a wax on wax off. And now Daniel has learned these great blocking skills and now he's learned all this great stuff. And he realizes that all this stuff that seemed like it was crazy and chaotic was actually being used to form in Daniel the things he would need to win at the karate tournament. And Brian Loretz correctly explains that many of us have points in our lives where we see that, right? You see how some chapter you went through, some pain, some boredom. Man, God was using that to put in you a skill that you would need for something he had for you later on. You had your Mr. Miyagi moment. You're like, I get it now.

God did that in me so I could do this. But here's the thing. You can't always see that, right? I mean, because you look back at, Natasha couldn't see that.

You look back and you say, well, I don't see, where's my wax on wax off moment? How is this producing in me that kind of character? When this chapter Paul indicates that, watch this, much of the good that God brings out of our sufferings is going to be manifested only in eternity. But look at verse 18. He points to a glory that is, see this, going to be revealed. Not even is being revealed, but going to be revealed. It's in eternity.

It's not experienced now, or at least all of it. Verse 25, Paul says that we have to wait for that glory. We eagerly wait for it with patience. Look at verse 24, even clearer. We are saved in hope, but hope that is seen, well, that's not actually hope. If you can see it, it's not hope, it's sight. A lot of us say that we want to live by faith, but the moment we can't see or understand what God is doing, we throw up our hands and we say, God, are you even there? God, do you curse me?

God, why wouldn't you do this? We say that we want to live by faith, but we also want to be able to understand why every bad thing happens in our life. We want to be able to say, oh, I get it now. I get it, that's why that happened, and it was producing this in me, but that's not walking by faith, that's walking by sight. Faith means trusting God even when you cannot see him. Faith means, Paul says, waiting patiently until the end to experience resolution.

Walking by faith means not declaring a verdict over your life until you experience the glory of eternity, and realizing that sometimes you're not going to see the end, and it's better just to keep your mouth shut and not declare the verdict. I can't help but think of one of my favorite little stories about the, I told you this, the bird who gets a late start flying south for the winter, and because he gets a late start, it turns colder than when it's usual, and so his wings freeze. They form ice and freeze while he's up trying to fly south, and so he can't fly, and he has a crash landing, and he thinks, this is terrible.

I'm not going to be able to fly south for the winter, and I can't fly. I'm going to die right here. Along by comes a cow, and the cow walks right over top of him and drops manure on his head, and he thinks, well, this just went from bad to worse. Not only am I going to die here, I'm going to die smelling like manure, but the manure is warm, and the manure thaws his wings, and he realizes that he's going to be able to fly again, so he starts to flap his wings and chirp, chirp, chirp, because he's so happy. Well, that gets the attention of a cat nearby, and the cat comes along and eats him, and this story teaches us three things about how God works in your life, okay? Number one, number one, not everybody who drops manure on you is your enemy. Number two, not everybody who digs you out is your friend. Number three, sometimes when you're in manure, it's helpful just to keep your little chirper shut and wait until the ends of the story. Sometimes it's helpful when you're in the midst of these situations when you don't know what God is doing to just keep your mouth shut and wait patiently for the end of the story, for resolution, for God to resolve it in eternity, or you think of it this way. You ever notice how in the best movies, the best TV shows, the best books, they usually create tensions that don't resolve until much later?

You ever notice this? In fact, since I've praised 80s movies, let me doggone 80s shows. Remember the shows we used to watch in the 1980s, the series? They had one problem, at least we realize now, is that every show, The A-Team, Dukes of Hazzard, whatever, they all resolved every episode. You'd have a problem, it'd resolve that episode. It was not like these long arcs. Now, the best shows, the kind that you binge watch, have some problem that gets introduced, and it takes like eight seasons in order to be able to resolve that problem, right?

I mean, you know what I'm saying? And that makes a much better show, because as that tension, it's like there's a lot of resolution coming, but you've got to wait for it. What Paul would be saying is that our lives are going to be like that, and some of us have wanted this quick resolution in every chapter, and Paul says, you're not going to get that. Some of these things are resolved only in eternity. There is a long arc of what God is doing, and that is, he is writing into us his beauty. So those are three myths that Christians tend to believe about suffering that bewilders them. So let's turn that around now, and we'll say, okay, well, if those are the myths, what hope does God actually give me in suffering? What is Romans 8 really promising to me?

Let me give you four things, okay? First one, verse 28, God promises, letter 8, he is promising that he is using all things, all things ultimately, to make you more like Jesus. People always overlook the last part of verse 28, which might be the most important part of the verse. We know that all things run together for good for those who love God, who were called according to his purpose. What is that purpose? What is God's purpose in you? Well, verse 29, he tells you what it is. For those he foreknew, he also predestined, that means purposed, to be conformed to the image of his sight. God's purpose that he is working for in all things in your life is to make you more like Jesus. The good, the good that he is working all things toward, is not so much about giving you better circumstances, as it is making you a better you.

A you who is more like Jesus. Invariably, at every moment, God is working toward that end. That painful chapter in your marriage, that setback at work, that chronic illness, all of it was for this purpose. And there will come a time, there will come a time, if you submit to God in faith, when you see that all the painful chapters, all the painful heartaches, all the tears, disabilities, all the disadvantages, all the disappointments, even those seasons of boredom and loneliness, all of them were used by God for one purpose, and that is to mold you more into the image of Jesus. What that means is that when you're in the midst of some kind of pain or boredom, instead of asking God to get you out of the trouble, you should also be asking God to what you should get out of the trouble.

There's nothing wrong with asking God to get you out of the trouble, that's natural, but you should also be saying, God, if the reason that I go through this is to make me more like Jesus, not only am I interested in getting out of this trouble, I want to know what you want me to get out of this trouble. That make sense? Somewhere, at some time, in some way, in eternity, you're going to have a Mr. Miyagi moment, and you're going to realize that the wax on, wax off, sand the floor, paint the fence moments, were teaching you to be more like Jesus.

There's nothing wrong with that. There's another story I've told over the years to illustrate this. I've told you it's like a tapestry. If you go on a tour at Biltmore House, they have these beautiful tapestries, and on the one side, it looks just perfect. Every string is in the right place that makes this elaborate work of art, but I've told you, if the tour guide flips it over for you, you'll see that on the back, it's this chaotic, jumbled mess that looks like all these strings are just going to random places. I've told you that that's what our lives feel like, is this random, chaotic mess. One day, God's going to flip it over, and you're going to see that it was all being woven for the face of Jesus, Christ's image in you, and that kind of thing.

So there is something happening in your life that just feels like it's scarring up. But one day, one day, what Paul is saying is, Christ is using all these things to form Christ in you. God has promised to use everything happening in your life, things you can see and things you can't see, to make you more like Jesus. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. If you missed part of today's teaching, you can listen again online for free at jdgreer.com. This month, we have a very exciting featured resource that we've selected for our generous supporters. It's the first volume of a two-part Bible study called The Gift of God that walks us through the book of Romans, written by our dear friend, Pastor Tim Keller.

The book is made up of seven studies, each tackling a chapter of Romans, and it'll take you through those passages while giving you application questions and prayer prompts that Pastor Tim put together. We'll send you this study as our way of saying thank you for your gift of $35 or more to this ministry. To give now, just give us a call at 866-335-5220. Or you can donate online right now at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow, we'll continue this teaching called Hope, so be sure not to miss it. That's Tuesday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program is produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.