God Is for Us

Last week, Dr. Ward gave a sermon entitled, God's Love for You. When I listened to the sermon, I was struck immediately, was, uh-oh. I gave a sermon last Sabbath in Rustin, and I'm going to give it today as well, because I think my sermon, although given at the same time Dr. Ward gave his, I think they dovetail rather well. I'm wondering if God may have something for us He wants us to hear. The title of my sermon is, God is for us.

God is for us. I'd like to turn to John 644. We are in John 665 in the sermonette when we started. We understand from John 644, some of you know it by heart. I'm confident of that.

We understand from John 644 that God the Father calls individuals during this present age to have a relationship with Him in Jesus Christ. He wants that relationship to develop so that we might receive salvation, eternal life in the Kingdom of God. In John 644, Jesus said, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. So there's that, in essence, you see the beginning of the conversion process, which starts with God the Father, and we also see the end of the conversion process.

I will raise him up at the last day. We'll be given those immortal spirit bodies. We glorified, like Jesus Christ, members of the divine family. So Jesus does say that coming to Him and building a lasting relationship with God is a process of conversion as we understand it that God the Father starts. And I hope you've thought about that through the years. The Father begins all that we come to know about Him. He begins that process. Now, of course, our part is to decide when called how are we going to answer that call. It can be seen as an invitation.

We have to choose either to accept or to reject God's invitation to salvation. If we accept it, then we have a rather clear process to follow. That process was revealed rather succinctly by Peter in Acts 2.38. And again, I suspect this is well known to us. We reviewed this particular scripture during the time of Pentecost. Acts 2.38. Peter said to them, they want to know what do we do? And he said, Repent. Let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, forgiveness of sins.

And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. When we receive God's Holy Spirit, God's very life essence is in us, beginning within us a new life. A new life, and we become saints. We become the chosen of God. And thereafter, we know what comes after that. We heard about it in the sermonette. We have to remain committed to that decision we made. We have to remain committed, continuing on to perfection, living every day in faithful submission to God and doing His law, practicing love towards God and love towards neighbor.

As easy as it can be sometimes and as difficult as it can be. When do we stop doing that? When? Never. Never. We do it until the day we die or Christ returns. And after Christ returns, we do it even better. We do it even better. It's very encouraging when you think of it.

Those who Christ returns in are also known as the first fruits of salvation. They're the first fruits because there's a much greater harvest coming. After the millennium, after the thousand years of the kingdom, every human being will be given a full opportunity to know God and to choose salvation. God's desire is that all people, all people, even the people, in times past, people alive today and in the future, people who are living in a world terribly blinded by Satan and society doing things that we know they should not be doing, even they will have that chance to understand that the blinders are taken off, as we might say.

God's desire is that all people would repent and receive his gift of salvation. We know that from 2 Peter 3, 9. Let's go ahead and read that. 2 Peter 3, 9. Someone may hear this some day, this message, and they may need to remember this.

That God loves all people, because that's not part of what is always said out in the world.

2 Peter 3, 9. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all, all people should come to repentance. He wants everyone to repent, to come to have that right relationship with him, and that right relationship with us, too, as the body of Christ, the church. An answer, you know, a lot of times people say, well, why does God do that? Why is God doing this? The best answer I can come up with, Dr. Ward talked about Last Sabbath, in his sermon, is 1 John 4.8. Why? The best answer I can come up with is God is love. Yeah. God is love. And that's why. He wants more people to experience what he and his son, Christ Jesus, know and what they are. Now, all this being said, our calling, God's part of this. He begins it, actually. He remains involved through his Holy Spirit. All this being said, there are still the times when even we who have accepted God's calling, who have even followed God for many, many years, some of us for decades now, there are times when we can begin to have doubts. When we can begin to have doubts about a number of things, we can have doubts about our calling. We might question whether we were... Did we make the right choice to commit ourselves to God?

Perhaps after giving into an old temptation for the umpteenth time, and I'm not sure what umpteenth means, but it's many, many, many. And it certainly seems to describe how many times we have to fight temptation and fail and keep on chopping away at it. Perhaps after giving into an old temptation for the umpteenth time, we begin to get discouraged. And discouragement can lead to despair, and all that also ties in with doubt. We begin to wonder... We begin to wonder, can I ever overcome my old sinful ways? We might even wonder, did God make a mistake in calling me? Did God make a mistake? I heard somebody chuckle, but sometimes we might think that way. Because doubt and despair, they attack our faith. They attack our conviction. We might even wonder, can I really endure to the end?

We need to not let those doubts take rain in our hearts and our minds. We cannot allow that, because that undermines our commitment that we made to God. The commitment that we continue to work forward for the rest of our lives. My purpose today is to encourage us. My purpose today is to encourage us not to be giving in to doubts about our calling, not to be giving in to our doubts about our commitment to God, not to be giving in to our doubts about God Himself and His love. Instead, I want to encourage us to cast doubt away and put our faith and trust fully, totally, completely, however you want to say it, in God. In His way of life. And we need to endure to the end. And so again, the title of the sermon is very encouraging. God is for us. God is for us.

Now, I assume, perhaps I assume wrongly, but I do assume there are times that we have all become discouraged. And when doubt has kind of creeped in to our thinking, it happens. We can become terribly discouraged by our failures to resist sin, but again, rather than fixating on our failures, becoming filled with those doubts and fears. The best thing we can do at that point, we get doubt creeping in, stop right there and talk to God, pray to God, confess our sins, confess our doubts, our anxieties to Him. We heard the sermon at Mr. Lucas. Where else are we going to turn to for help in such spiritual matters? But to our great God. To our great God who knows this intimately as we will see. And again, God the Father called us. We have to believe it. We have to believe that He knows what He's doing. We have to believe God knows what He's doing, even though we don't always see it. We have every good reason to trust God, because rather than we know that God does not make mistakes. He does not make mistakes. Although we certainly do, don't we? We tend to do that ourselves. But we are not quite like God totally yet. One day we will be. The mistake we must not make, of course, then, is to question or doubt God's love, to question or doubt God's purpose in our lives and His purpose for all humanity, for that matter. Let's go back, for example. Let's go back to Job. Job, we remember Job, I believe. Righteous Job. Let's turn to Job 38.

Job was blameless before God, but Job had to learn a thing or two, which God wanted Job to become more perfected. And so God allowed Job to go through some unexpected trials and travails.

To cut the story short, I still want to do that. Job thought he had due cause to question God. He thought he had due cause to question and even began to doubt a little bit about God's justice towards him. And when Job made the mistake of justifying himself rather than God, God took the loving kindness and time to adjust Job's perspective. Do you recall how God adjusted Job's perspective? Of course, he did it over many chapters in the book as we read it. But if we look at Job 38 verse 4, there's one particular question that he addressed to Job that really seemed to be the question and immediately got Job thinking a little bit better way. Job 38 verse 4, verse 3 God tells Job, Now if you prayer yourself like a man, Okay, stand up straight. Let me ask you something, Job. I will question you and you shall answer me. And here's the question.

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Well, what's he talking about? The creation. The very creation. Job, if you think you want to ask me a question, well, were you there? Were you there? Tell me if you have understanding, God says.

Whenever we begin to doubt God's reason for calling us, we could be making somewhat of a similar mistake. We could actually be questioning or doubting God's whole plan, his whole idea of creation. Job quickly realized that he was in no position whatsoever to question or doubt God. How about us? Sometimes doubt makes us ask questions that when we're a little less doubtful and our faith less shaken, we would know better than to ask. I suggest we might want to remember the Scripture. Maybe you want to put this Scripture, Job 38.4, on your refrigerator. Write it down. Put it up there. Do you have an inspired refrigerator door? You might want to put that Scripture up there. Memorize it to help us keep perspective. On the other hand, this same Scripture gives us every reason to trust God. God did create everything, meaning he created the whole universe. He created us. God is exactly where we need to turn to when we have doubt. We can trust God. Isaiah 29, verse 16. Let's look there as well. Isaiah 29, verse 16 has something to say about clay and pots and potters. Remember? We also don't want to be clay pots criticizing, doubting our Master Potter's purpose or design, even his design in our lives. Isaiah 29, verse 16. Isaiah was inspired to write these words.

For shall the thing made say of him who made it, He did not make me? Of course, some people want to do that. Maybe we did, too, until God called us and got sense in our heads.

Someone said He did not make us. Here's the other question. For shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, He has no understanding? It seems to me that whenever we begin to doubt God's reason for calling us or doubting God's purpose in our lives, we could actually be telling God, God, you don't know or you didn't know what you were doing when you called me.

That is not a position we should be in. That's not something we should be telling God. That would be a mistake. Instead, we need to be going to God and asking Him to help us trust Him more, to believe Him more, to help us get rid of this doubt.

And He will help us. Let's talk a little bit about King David. King David was a man very much like us. Scripture records how his life was filled with many ups and downs. You can read the histories and kings and chronicles and Samuel.

And David is very much like us. And of course, we remember that he had his troubles. He had doubts and fears. They recorded throughout his Psalms he wrote. He also had a lot of statements about faith and trust and praise for God. It's all there. He's very much like us. And ultimately, God called David a man after his own heart. And you can read that in Acts 13.22. And Acts 13.22 will also tell you that he was a man after God's own heart because David was faithful to do God's will.

He was faithful to do God's will. And yes, we know David admits he had doubts, but he always trusted God. And David becomes a good example for us in that regard. Yes, David committed sins. We're very familiar with him, the matter of Uriah the Hittite. But David also trusted God and was always good to repent of his sins. And through his lifelong relationship with God, it becomes obvious that David came to understand much about God.

And that isn't too hard to understand, is it? How much did we know about God when we were first baptized? Enough. Enough to become convicted that this is what I need to do. I need to be baptized. How much do we know God after a year? How much more? Two years. Of course, it's relative, depending on how much time you spend getting to know God. But we know much more about God as years go by.

The same thing was true for David. David came to understand deeply God's love for him and all humanity, and he understood what our response to God's love for us should be. Our response to God's love for us should be more profound commitment, more profound trust, more profound faith and assurance. And that understanding helped David to put aside his doubts and fears.

That helped David to trust God totally in every aspect of his life. Now, David describes his love and trust for God in many of his Psalms, but I want to go to the same psalm Dr. Ward spoke on Last Sabbath, the same psalm I was referring to in this sermon when he gave it Last Sabbath, and that's Psalm 139. Psalm 139. In Psalm 139, David especially reveals why we need never doubt God's love and his good purpose for us.

And it has to do with God's intimate knowledge of every one of us. He knows us intimately. We can go to him because nobody knows us like God knows us. We need to believe that.

So how well did God know David? How well does God know each of us? Why should that mean we should trust God more? We find some of those answers starting in verses 1-6. I'm going to approach this in segments going through Psalm 139, kind of following the breakdown the editors and most of our Bibles give us in Psalm 139. So let's begin verses 1-6. And here David begins. This is a psalm of praise to God and devotion to God. David writes, verse 1, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up.

You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Again, look at this. David's setting up this description. You know when I get up, you know when I go to bed at night, you know everything I'm doing, you know my thoughts.

Verse 4, continue on, He said, For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it already. You have hedged me behind and before. That's a reference to how they used fences made of hedges back in the day.

And they were used to protect animals, keep animals in and animals out. The idea of God protecting him, guarding him. You have hedged me in and behind and before. You laid your hand upon me. Probably in guidance, but probably also a little bit of discipline.

You know, God's our Father and we His children. He's going to discipline us and guide us. In verse 6, David says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. I cannot understand it. In the vernacular, may I use a vernacular? In other words, David says, It blows my mind what you're doing. I cannot understand it. It blows me away. That's part of what David's saying. He's trying to understand just how much God loves him and knows about him.

David understood that God is all-knowing. He understood that God knows what we do. Even the things we say are thoughts, too. He recognized that God protected him and guided him. God cared for him and knew him, we might say, inside and out. How thoroughly God the Creator and His Maker knew him and cared for him, again, I say, it blew him away. He just was taken away in a good sense. And, brethren, we should feel the same way. Because God knows us this way as well. Do you believe that? Do we believe that? We need to. We need to. And he cares for us in the same way as we're going to proceed here and see. This is why we can trust God and need not give in to doubts and fears.

Going on now, verse 7 through 12, David continues, he says, Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I send to heaven, if you have wings like a bird, and of course today we can, right? We can get on an airplane and traverse the continent in a few hours. David said, if I send into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, that's the translator's version, it's shul, if I make my bed in the grave, meaning if I'm dead in the pit, wherever it might be. Behold, he says, behold, you are there. God's aware of it.

If I take the wings of the morning, reference to the east, the dawn, and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, the sea was to the west. David is saying, from east to west, God, you are there. There's nowhere I can go.

Even there your hand shall lead me, guide me. Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall fall on me, even the night shall be light about me. God could see us in the dark.

Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to you. Sometimes we as human beings do secret things. Human beings do sinful things in the dark when it's hard to be seen, but God sees. God sees all.

And so David realized that God is omnipresent. He's there wherever we are. God is there. God created this universe as if God, if you can imagine this, because this kind of blows my mind away, God created this universe of what is it? 13.3 billion light years or whatever it is. I don't remember now. That space telescope out in space can't see the edge of the universe yet. But God's got it. God created it. It's as if He exists outside the universe and throughout it. He created it. He created time. There's no place He could go where God would not lead Him and guide Him. We understand the science a little better, but David understood what he understood then. It was enough for him. In verse 13 through 16, David expresses all for God's power, even in regards to his own life. Verse 13, David says, For you formed my inward parts. You formed what's underneath my skin that I can't normally see. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. To the depth of his being, David recognized that God had done something absolutely marvelous and wonderful in creating him. And not just him, but he could see it. As we said, God's love meant that he created humanity in his image. David recognized some of this as much as he could grasp. Verse 15, David says, My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, meaning within his mother's womb, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. That phrase, lowest parts of the earth, a lot of scholars say that is a metaphor referring to David's development in his mother's womb, that most secretive of places it would seem, poetically speaking, or metaphorically speaking. Verse 16, he says, Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed, he, David being yet unformed, and in your book they all were written the day's fashion for me, when as yet there were none of them. So again, David's saying he believed, he understood that God had created him. God had formed in his mother's womb, he knew him while he was yet an embryo. He was a few cells big, and God already had a plan for him. He already had a purpose laid out for him. And of course, God has a purpose laid out for every human being.

And we can say the same today. Truly, God is aware of us. God is that powerful. He knows us. We can trust him. Then in verses 17-18, David humbly declares what he had come to understand, that God's thoughts were continually upon him. And as Dr. Ward referred last, spoke of last Sabbath, that's because God is so full of love for us. He loves us. And again, we respond to that love by trusting God and loving him, and not having doubts about our relationship with God. David said, verse 17, How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. And when I awake, I am still with you.

God's always there. God knows him. God is all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful. And thus, David realized, he questioned, then how could he possibly doubt God's loving will and purpose for him? How could he doubt God's love for all people? And of course, we can also understand this. When God's Holy Spirit dwells in us, as we understand from Scripture, the laying on of hands, as his Holy Spirit, is there any place we can go when God's Spirit dwells in us, where God is not? These Scriptures become even more true when God's Spirit dwells in us, when we become the begotten children of God.

So after considering God's love and power and his presence in his life, it's interesting that David's tone sharply changes, though. Verse 19, his tone changes, and now he expresses anger, not towards God, but towards those who hate and reject God. Yes, we hear a lot about that nowadays. Verse 19, 22, David says, this is part of his prayer, his song to God, O that you would slay the wicked, O God, depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men. For they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain. And we hear that all the time. It's hard to find any program on television that does not take God's name in vain, that they're not being derogatory towards Christians, towards those who follow God. David's angry about that. Why would he be angry about people not liking God, not loving God, people hating God? Because he had come to love God so much. He had come to understand how much God meant to him, and how much God should mean to them. He says, verse 21, Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate you? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them as enemies.

Now, of course, Jesus Christ would tell us, love your enemies. Don't hate people. In essence, David, we can understand he hates what people are doing and saying about God. He hates their wickedness towards God. If these people should change and repent, do you think David would hate them anymore? Of course not. He hates them for their hatred towards God. He hates, in essence, as Christ is telling us, we need to hate the sin. Even the people out there in the world saying the hateful things, they do say, it can anger us, it can give us this righteous indignation, we might say David is expressing here. We must not hate them. We must understand they don't understand it. We need to understand they don't understand. Just as we didn't understand until God opened our hearts and minds by the Father's calling.

And so, David, in essence, is saying, how dare the wicked say such wicked and hateful things about God? And so, David declares his stance against those who hate God and those who come to love God and trust God. They and we, we will share David's indignation for this sort of hate towards God. Hate without understanding.

And then David's complete trust, and God is made clear in these ending lines, verses 22-23. And again, as we start in verse 1, he concludes with this thought that he wants God to search him, to keep searching him. Verse 23 says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, means prove me, and know my anxieties. That's interesting. David had anxieties. We'll come back to that. And see if there's any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. And so, David asks God to search him. The Hebrew word is kakar, and it does mean to examine intimately. Really look at me carefully, God. You who know all my thoughts, my rising up and going down, examine me. He wants God to try him, meaning to prove him. Test his mettle. Test his conviction so he can see how he needs to improve. Test him on his anxieties. That word, in New King James, is anxieties. It's the Hebrew, it's saraf, meaning disquieting thoughts. It can also be interpreted anxious doubts. David had anxious doubts, like you and I have anxious doubts. He wanted God to reveal any hidden wickedness in his own heart, so that he might see them and repent. And David seemed to understand, he understood that his anxious doubts quite possibly revealed his lack—well, it would have, I guess— what anxious doubts revealed a certain lack of complete and total trust in God. He recognized he needed greater depth of trust in God. That's what he wanted. That's what we want. That's what we need. And so David humbly sought God's help in confronting any doubts he had and in subduing them, so that then he might have greater faith and greater trust in God. In some ways, this psalm gives us direction and instruction on what we need to be doing when doubts afflict us. And I know right now some of us are saying, no, I don't have any doubts. I'm fine.

But what happens in our lives when great tragedy unexpectedly comes upon us? What happens when we have a long-term illness or crisis in our lives? Well, David provides the answer. Go to God who knows your every thought. He knew you since before you were the twinkle in your parents' eyes. He knew you. He's there for you now. We can go to him. We can trust him. Through David's inspired psalm, God wants us to know how very precious we are to him, how very much he loves us, and how we need to respond to his love. We can trust him totally, and we can love him totally. God thinks about us all the time. He wants us to trust him completely. And so David's prayerful response to God should be ours as well. We need to want God to help us subdue our doubts, to have greater faith and trust. And so we need not doubt God's purpose. We need not doubt God's love for us. God knows what he's doing. He's not making mistakes. We just get a little shaky in our faith at times. And we need to go back to him real quick to get rid of those doubts, that shakiness. Now, the same message of trusting God appears in the New Testament. Let's look at Romans 8.31.

Dr. Ward's sermon, Last Sabbath, he ended his sermon. I don't think this is the last scripture of his sermon, but it was towards the end of his sermon. He also took us to Romans 8.

Again, I sense that there's something God wants us to know, and I hope I'm able to help us understand what that seems to be. Romans 8.31. It seems that Paul, I would assume, knew Psalm 139 very well. Paul was a great scholar of the Bible at that time, which is what we would now call the Old Testament. And I can also say that, and other scholars have noticed this too, that Paul's exhortation in Romans 8, to trust God, bears similar meaning and tone, and even certain structural traits, as we find in Psalm 139. It should strike us that God obviously inspired David and Paul. This is God-inspired all scripture we have here. Well, here's Paul's powerful declaration and exhortation to trust God. Romans 8.31. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? All things is a Greek word, pos, p-a-s, and it does mean all, everything. We understand that to also suggest all creation, the universe, everything that's created. That hints at salvation, that God will give us eternal life as divine children in his family. Continue in verse 33.

Job learned that. Also, he learned a lesson about that.

Only God can condemn. There's no higher authority than God.

I think we know that answer. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Ourselves. That can happen when we allow doubt, fear, anxious care.

We've been taught about the four enemies of faith. Human reasoning, apart from God, thinking without thinking being guided by God's word and faith.

Shall tribulation or distress, and here Paul starts doing sort of like David is doing, giving these contrast of metaphors, just how broad and deep and high is God's love, and we can trust him. Shall tribulation, shall anything, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword? No. That shouldn't separate us from God. Not if we don't let it, not if we hold true to our conviction and our faith, especially our faith. Because we're not strong enough on our own. We have to cling to God's faith. We have to cling to Christ. In us, using his faith and his will. Ours is too weak as human beings. Verse 36 says, written, For your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Reminded, we must willingly sacrifice our lives, submitting our will to God's will. We should be like little humble lambs, willing to lay down our lives in order to obey God, submit to him, love others, love God according to his will and way. Verse 37, Yet in all these things, Paul says, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, through Christ. We're conquerors over all troubles, all sins, all powers, all doubts, through Christ, through his sacrifice. Not in ourselves. We can't trust ourselves. Verse 38, For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created things shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God is for us, Paul says. Who then can be against us? Only ourselves, again, should we reject God. Of course, this whole sermon is about not rejecting God. That's not the direction you and I are going to go. The Father has called us now to be among those firstfruits. So surely God knows. Wouldn't you think God knows? The Father knows and Christ knows that we have the potential now because of his love in us and with us to be worthy of receiving salvation? That's what our trust is about. And if we have accepted God's calling through repentance and baptism, receiving his Holy Spirit through the laying on hands of God's ordained ministry, then we do have what it takes to receive salvation. We just have to stay close to God, keep repenting, keep seeking forgiveness, keep moving forward. And it's also vital, then, that we have God's Holy Spirit in us. We are in Romans 8. Let's look at verse 9. Romans 8, verse 9. This is something Paul said earlier. For Paul states earlier in Romans 8, verse 9, without God's Spirit, we are not God's. Verse 9, but you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells you, Paul said. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. So, yes, once we accept God's calling, we need to follow through. We should want to follow through. We must go on to perfection. We must trust God and not doubt his love for us. But, as I said earlier, even knowing all this, even sharing what I'm sharing with you today, and my knowing this too, it's easy for doubt to still creep in sooner or later. It's going to try because we're human and we're weak.

And we still sin because of our human nature. So when we sin and our regret goes deep, that's a time if we don't get close to God, go to him in repentance instead of just letting ourselves fester and beating ourselves up for our sin and our regret. We need to get to God, confess our sins.

Let's recall what Paul had to deal with. You see, I really, this section, Romans 7, Romans chapter 7, you know, as mighty as a man of God, spiritually speaking, Paul was, as faithful as Paul was to God, he admitted that on his own he was no match for sin. On his own, he too had been overcome by doubt and discouragement, everything we face too. In Romans 7, we find Paul's description of what sin did to him and how he made him feel. I know we're familiar with this, but it is so important to understand. Paul writes this, describing his anguish about sin in his life. Romans 7, 14, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal. We human beings are still flesh, under sin, sold under sin. Verse 15, he explains what that's about. For what I am doing, Paul says, I do not understand, meaning that the rebelliousness is wrong attitudes sometimes, is wrong actions. For what I will, or some translations say, for what I will or what I want to do, according to God's law and way, that I do not practice, but what I hate, meaning sin, that I do. You ever do that? Yeah, me too. I hate it when I do that. And so we should. So we must. If then I do what I will or want not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. God's law tells us right from wrong. He tells us when we're doing what we shouldn't. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me, that old man, that old carnal person we need to keep conquering. Verse 18, for I know that in me that is in my flesh nothing good, nothing good dwells. Wow. For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I want to do, that I do not do. But the evil I will I want not to do, that I practice. You don't see Paul getting expressed in his frustration to see him writing this. Now if I do what I want not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find in a law that evil is present with me the one who wants to do good. For I delight. I really love the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. And here's that wonderful question, that powerful question, as if he's crying out. He says, Oh wretched man that I am! Don't we feel like that. Who will deliver me from this body of death? It's a body of death because of sin.

And he gives us the answer. He gives us the answer. I thank God. Who will deliver me? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It's through Jesus Christ our Lord. Going to God, seeking repentance, seeking God's forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice in our place for sin. We go through Christ. Ask God's forgiveness through Christ. So then Paul says, With the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. And so Paul does a rather excellent job. I'm not one to judge, I guess I shouldn't, but boy, this talks to me. I think it talks to all of us. He's talking about what we go through, our struggle. And we can find this frustration, and that frustration being a source of discouragement and doubts. It can make us feel like we're failures, that we're never going to beat sin, we're not going to make it.

We will make it. You see, Paul also knew that though he and we must vigorously resist temptation and sin, it's only through humbly confessing our sins to God, sincerely repenting of them, diligently seeking God's forgiveness through the shed blood of Christ that we can conquer sin. Only through Jesus Christ our Lord, only through faith in Christ's sacrifice for our sin, can we be overcoming sin and death forever so that we might receive salvation.

In other words, Paul's saying, well, where else can we go? We heard about that in the sermonette. Where else can he go? Where else can we turn to? Only God. Only God.

And so, we must never forget Philippians 4.13. Here's another scripture to put on your refrigerator.

Philippians 4.13. We're not powerful enough. We can't fight sin. We cannot overcome our doubts and discouragement on our own, but only through Jesus Christ. Philippians 4.13 reads, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. If you haven't committed that one to memory yet, I recommend we work on that. Or at least know the very powerful meaning.

Christ gives us the strength of faith and the worth all to throw off sin's death hold.

What then shall we say to these things? Romans 8.31. If God is for us, who can be against us? With God's help, we can do it. Whenever our faith falters or wavers, doubt wants to creep in, we must get busy and draw closer to God through prayer, study, fasting. These things we know to do, but brethren, do we do it.

Do we do it when we need to do it? And so often it is that whenever God feels distant to us, I'll throw this out there, too. Sometimes, when we begin to doubt, we feel that somehow God has shifted. God has moved away from us. Something has happened. We don't know what it is. We know what it is. We've moved. We've shifted. Our priorities aren't where they need to be. Our priorities are not on God. Our thoughts aren't on God enough. Our lives are shifting away from God's priorities, what God says we need to do.

We need to recall Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59, verse 2. This explains a lot of times when doubts creep in, it's because we've allowed ourselves, because we're human and we get distracted and we're physical. Sometimes we don't emphasize the spiritual in our lives. Isaiah 59, verse 2. But your iniquities have separated you from God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear you. Yeah, sin will separate us from God. That's why we need to repent. We need to get right. We need to stay humble and repent and close to God. That's why some of us, I know, we've heard these things all our lives, it seems.

Study your Bible, meditate fast, all these things. But the reality is, that's what we do as physical human beings, to get God's Word in our head and our minds and to get ourselves more sensitive to God's influence in our hearts and minds through His Spirit. And it is so wonderful, brethren, that we can trust God. Think about that. That's what David Psalm 139, in Elsewhere, he's praising. We can trust God. We have the God who created the vast universe there, listening.

He knows us. He knows what we need. He's wanting us to ask. He's wanting us to ask. He's wanting us to turn to Him. You know, Paul talks about our need to endure to the end. After baptism and laying on of hands, we're not done. We have to keep on trucking. We have to keep moving forward. We have to keep moving forward towards God and becoming more like He is. Paul talks about that in various ways. He talks about that endurance to the end in various metaphors. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 9.24. Paul describes our need to endure in faith and to salvation in terms of a foot race here and also in terms of a boxing match. Can you imagine some of us in a boxing match?

How about a spiritual boxing match? That's what Paul's talking about. 1 Corinthians 9.24. Paul says, Paul says, Paul says, It's a metaphor, a physical race, but the spiritual race for salvation. Well, to endure, we don't run to win salvation. We run so that we might be worthy of receiving it. We can't earn salvation of our own. It's a gift. Run in such a way that you may obtain it, Paul says, and everyone who competes for the prize is temperate, meaning they discipline themselves in all things.

Now, they do it to obtain a perishable crown, those in a physical race, but Paul says, for us in the spiritual race, as it were, we do it for an imperishable crown. Therefore, Paul says, I run thus, not with uncertainty. You ever seen some of these funny races people do? You get somebody that doesn't even have the right track shoes on? You ever seen that? They don't know how to run. They're just kind of flopping, as it were, lopping down the track.

Their last... I can describe that because that was always me. That was always me in the track meet. Oh, I loved the track meets. I didn't know how to run. I'd never really prepared myself, but I got in there and gave it my best. Paul's talking about... Paul says he's going to run. He's going to prepare himself with certainty, God's way, so he can run this race. And then Paul also says, still in verse 26, he says, Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air.

The word fight there is the Greek word putil, and it refers to box with the fist. He's talking about being in a boxing match, a pugilist. A pugilist, they used to call it in the old days. A boxing match. So he's not just throwing lame punches. He's just not whipping in the air. He's fighting and making contact to knock out the competitor, which in this case is anything that's trying to keep him from enduring to the end.

So I don't beat as one. I'm not as one who beats the air. I discipline my body and bring it into subjection. Lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. We're going to come back to that in a bit.

So the point here is that God has called us to this race. God gives us all we need to endure to the end and to succeed. Don't doubt it. God wants us in this race. He gives us all we need to succeed, one step after the other. He's also the one who's called us through the spiritual fight. He gives us all we need to keep punching, to keep blocking blows, to even take a few things on the chin, but we don't fall down because He's there to help us to stand.

He will not let us go down for the count.

We will gain the crown because God is always with us if we don't give up, if we don't quit. We must stay in the race, stay in the fight. And even Paul admitted his need to keep disciplining his mind, his body, to keep doing everything we're talking about, studying God's Word, praying, practicing faith, all of these things. Keep repenting of sin. He said, lest, in verse 27, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Paul recognized he was like us. He was human like us. He could fail. He knew he could not become comfortable, complacent with sin, and neither can we. Paul knew what Ezekiel 18 verse 4 said, and you can jot it down. Ezekiel 18 verse 4 says, and it's still true today, The soul who sins shall die. Those who sin without repentance, you, we, will die. Paul knew it. It hadn't changed. It still hasn't changed. We must confess our sins. Repent. Seek God's forgiveness and help through faith in Christ's sacrifice. Ephesians 6, 12. We mustn't doubt God's decision to call us to be victorious. What Paul here describes is a spiritual wrestling match. Ephesians 6 verse 12. Again, well-known verses. Do we grasp their meaning? Do we believe what he's talking about?

Ephesians 6 verse 12. Here Paul uses a metaphor of a wrestling match, a spiritual wrestling match. He says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. And that word wrestle does refer to the ancient Olympic style. I'm not talking about world...what is that? World Federal Wrestling? World Wide Federal Wrestling? You know, the fake...no, shouldn't have said that, probably. He's talking about the old wrestling style like we do in school. Throwing people down, getting their backs pinned down. It's part of the reference he's making, and it's not easy to do. People can be slippery. It's hard to pin people down. It's hard to pin the things that are against us down. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. So Paul's telling us we have to keep wrestling. We have to keep grappling. Pinning down the self. Pin down Satan. Pin down the world. Keep throwing down those temptations to sin. Keep turning to God for strength of faith to defeat sin, because we don't have the strength on our own. Continuing on here, God has also called us to the spiritual battle Paul describes. Continuing verse 13 through 18. God has given us the armor. God has given us the orders of what we must be doing. When we do these things, brethren, there's really no room for doubt in our lives. Verse 13, therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand, meaning stand firm. Dig in our heels. Take the stance. Take the blow, but don't let it knock you over. Stand. Therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shodged your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Among those fiery darts are doubt, discouragement, and despair. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We can't allow our sword to rust, to corrode, to dull, because it's lack of use. We have to know God's Scripture. We have to let God help us get it in our heads and our hearts, that we would live it. In verse 18, how powerful is this in that spiritual battle? Verse 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, praying for God's help and praying for one another. We are not in this battle alone. And that's part of the reason we so enjoy fellowshiping every Sabbath. That's so much the reason why God commands we get together in person. Of course, if we are unable to, it's understood. But we need to help one another. We need that contact with each other, every Sabbath. God is for us. We must not doubt God's support in our time of need. We must trust God, put on that spiritual armor that only God provides, and so stand firm against the enemies of faith, reject those temptations, resist the influence of this world, those that influence this world, becoming more insidious and wicked.

And when we sin, be firm in faith, and seek repentance, God's forgiveness through Christ, and He will forgive us. And then we have to keep fighting. We have to keep fighting the good fight of faith. 1 Timothy 6, 12. And don't doubt, God is for us. Satan is not for us. Our carnal selves are not really for us. And certainly, this world is not for us. Only God is for us. So God has graciously called us to understand His promises of everlasting life, and He wants us to learn, brethren. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 7. He wants us to learn to trust Him in how to walk by faith, not by sight. There's another good scripture to put on your inspired spot in your refrigerator.

To walk by faith, not by sight. So when we are truly doing our best to walk by faith, doing our best to believe and obey God, to yield to His word and spirit, then we should not doubt that God is with us in our calling, in our efforts. But if doubts burden us, if something's nagging at us, if something's tugging at the back of our mind, that something's undone, there's something I need to be doing according to God's way, and I'm not doing it, if that's what your conscience is telling you, then you need to examine. We need to examine ourselves more carefully. And as God, as David did, to help us search and see what it is we need to work on, there may be something we're not aware of that God will reveal. We need to see if there be any wickedness of sin in us that we need to put out. And if we ask God for help, and we need to, then we can trust God to help us. Because again, the Father knows us, and He did not call us to fail, but He called us so that we might receive His gift of eternal life. So keep fighting temptations. Keep wrestling against our carnal nature. Keep fending off those fiery darts of doubt. Keep up the pace as we endeavor to persist in faith into the kingdom, eternal life. Do not doubt, but know and trust that God is for us. And so then, let us be faithful believers and doers of God's Word, walking by faith, not by sight, always and ever, unto salvation in the kingdom of God.