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[0:00] New Testament book of Romans, chapter 7. I'm going to begin reading from verse 7.

[0:11] ! Romans 7, verse 7.! For I would not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet.

[0:39] But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.

[0:51] For apart from the law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

[1:06] I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death.

[1:26] So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. Did that which is good then become death to me?

[1:41] By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful.

[1:59] We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do.

[2:12] For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.

[2:28] As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.

[2:46] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do.

[2:59] No, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

[3:23] So I find this law at work. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law.

[3:38] But I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

[3:54] What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Oh, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[4:10] So then, I myself, in my mind, am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature, a slave to the law of sin.

[4:21] And then, look over at chapter 8, verse 28. Chapter 8, verse 28.

[4:32] And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

[4:45] Well, Balak, king of Moab, had a big problem. And if you were him, you wouldn't want to be in his shoes because this huge group of people were coming out of the desert.

[5:03] They had invaded Moab's neighbor, the Amorites, and they had killed two kings of the Amorites. The Amorites are basically no more. And now this army that just had come out of the desert, apparently out of nowhere, is headed towards Moab.

[5:20] And his people are terrified. And Balak was not altogether a terrible king, and he wants to do something to rescue his people. And he knows that he can't stop them.

[5:31] He can't stop this vast army that's coming. And he says to himself, I need supernatural help. And so he wrote a letter to the best guy in the business when you have a problem like this.

[5:47] And he sent it with some messengers. And this is how the letter goes. Dear Balaam, a people has come out of Egypt, and they cover the face of the land, and they've settled next to me.

[6:00] Now come put a curse on these people because they're too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed.

[6:16] Sincerely, Balak. And Balaam said, let me think about it a little bit. And he thought about it, and after some consideration, that night God came to him and said, you must not put a curse on these people because they're blessed.

[6:32] I've blessed them. Now Balaam was eager for money, and so eventually he decided to go with the messengers anyways. And maybe you remember what happened next.

[6:46] Balaam stood up on a high mountain with Balak right there next to him, and they looked down upon the tents of Israel. And they're stretched out across the plain. And so now he has this nice high view, and he gets ready to curse them.

[7:00] He gets all warmed up to do it. And when he does, instead of cursing, out of his mouth came what? Blessing.

[7:12] Came blessing. There's a movie Jim Carrey was in where he was a perpetual liar, and somehow supernaturally he was forced to tell the truth. And so whenever he went to tell a lie, out of his mouth came the truth.

[7:26] He didn't want the truth to come out. He thought it would be best to lie, and yet he couldn't help himself. He couldn't stop himself. Well, the very same thing is happening here with Balaam.

[7:37] He's doing his best to curse him, curse them, but it's comical, because every time he gets ready to do it, instead of cursing, out comes blessing. So just listen to some of the things he says.

[7:50] How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? I have received a command to bless. He is blessed, and I cannot change it. There's no sorcery against Jacob.

[8:02] There's no magic. There's no supernatural help that will work against Jacob. And so he tries again. May those who bless you be blessed, and may those who curse you be cursed.

[8:13] And that was the point where Balak got really angry, because now these curses, instead of going out on Israel, are landing on Balak, and he's paying for this operation, and so he's not too happy with that.

[8:32] Now, Christian, that's a wonderful illustration of what is true of you. What is true of you. So you can look around the whole world.

[8:42] You can look into heaven. You can look on the earth. You can look into yourself. You can look into your children. You can look into your parents. You can look into your friends. You can look into your enemies. And Romans 8.28 says, God works all things together for your good.

[8:58] So we're blessed. We are blessed. So to be cursed of God is to have everything work against you. We talked a little bit about that last Sunday evening.

[9:12] It's to have everything work against you. All your best things work against you. All your worst things work against you. There's just no escaping it. Everywhere you look, heaven, earth, your friends, your family, everywhere you look, if you're under the curse of God, those things work against you.

[9:32] And the only way to come out from underneath that curse is to come into Jesus Christ who bore the curse. Who bore the curse in his body on the tree.

[9:45] And so, the only place to escape the curse is to get into Jesus Christ. But, if you are in Jesus Christ, if you have closed with him and you're friends with him and now, by faith, you've trusted in him, then the world, instead of being full of things that will hurt you and do you bad, is full of things that will do you good.

[10:13] And it goes so far as this. That even our sin, the remaining sin that we struggle with, that we are frustrated with, God uses it for our good.

[10:33] God is so intent, so focused on doing us good that he will even use our remaining sin to do us good.

[10:46] Now, I quoted Richard Sibbes last Sunday evening and he says, a Christian conquers even when he is conquered. When he is conquered by some sins, he gets victory over others more dangerous such as spiritual pride and security.

[11:01] And so, I had Romans 7 read. And Romans 7 is talking about the power of remaining sin and how it grieves Paul. He's not happy with it.

[11:13] It's so frustrating. And haven't we, as Christians, gone to Romans 7 and even as it was just read and we relate to it, don't we? That's not just Paul's experience.

[11:24] This is our experience. The things that I want to do, those are the things I have such a hard time doing and the things I don't want to do, amazingly enough, those are the things I keep doing.

[11:42] And so, what I want to say this morning is that the promise of Romans 8.28, it has arms that reach around and it even goes back into Romans 7.

[11:57] And it says, this too, God uses for your good. This frustration, this fight, this falling down, God says, I will even work that for your good.

[12:11] Now, we struggle to believe, but we do believe that God uses our trials and our difficulties and our painful things, our hardships. God is using those for our good.

[12:24] But this promise in Romans 8.28 is even bigger than that because he even uses our remaining sin. Our sin against him, he turns for our good.

[12:35] That's how much he is for us. And so, today I want to just look at what are some of the things, and this is just selective, I've thought there's others, but what good does God work using our remaining sin?

[12:50] And I want to look at three things. And as we do, I want you to start looking into your life. Look for these good things coming to you.

[13:01] And when you start to see them, it can be very encouraging. And sometimes we think our sin is just too much. God will use my difficulties and my trials, but my sin, that's a dead end.

[13:12] That's just bad. There's nothing good that can come of it. God can't use it. And so we think that somehow God can use our trials for our good, but our sin, that's just, it's too much.

[13:26] God's heart of blessing turns away when I sin. And that's simply not true because Romans 8.28 says, all things work for good.

[13:39] And all means all things. And so what I want you to do is to say, look, here I am. I'm struggling in the sin.

[13:50] And I hate it. And I want it gone. And why won't God take it away? And part of the answer is because God has good to do you through it.

[14:05] He has good to do you through it. Now, that doesn't mean that you resign yourself to your sin. It doesn't mean you say, oh, then it's okay that I sin.

[14:17] No, that's not what the point is. Sin is evil. Sin is against the God who loves you so much that he'll even use your offense and your faults against him to do you good. And so are you really going to turn around and now say, I'm going to sin against his grace.

[14:32] I'm going to sin against his love. Well, that's the devil's reasoning. No, this truth is for our encouragement. This truth is to help us. This truth is to give us stability and heart as we continue to fight our sin.

[14:44] It's not an excuse to sin. And so what does, what good does God use our sin for? Or what good does he work through it? Well, three things.

[14:56] And the first is that God helps us to see ourselves through our remaining sin. He helps us to see ourselves. Now, children come into the world and they're very blind and very naive about what's in their hearts.

[15:12] And so teenagers and young people can be very unaware of themselves and what's going on inside. And that's why they need parents to help them.

[15:23] Help them see what's going on. Why are you acting this way? What's going on underneath your heart? And so we're the very same way. We as Christians, we come into the world and God begins to open our eyes and we start to see ourselves.

[15:38] We start to see the world. We start to see God. We start to see sin. But still, we're like newborns who are just beginning to use our eyes. Well, one way that God helps us to see what's inside of us is our remaining sin.

[15:54] And it can be so hard for us to see ourselves. Now, why do you need to ask other people to point out your sins to you? And why is it that you can see other people's sins and yet they can be so blind to it?

[16:10] Now, maybe you know someone who is so blind to their sins. But it's certainly not you, right? But Jesus says we have planks in our eyes.

[16:21] We have planks. We have two-by-fours in our eyes. And if you have a two-by-four in your eye, it's kind of hard to see. It's hard to see yourself. And so, what does God do?

[16:35] Well, he lets sin remain in you. He lets it stay in there to show you yourself so you can learn about yourself, so you can learn the evil of sin.

[16:48] Now, we can learn a lot by reading books. We can learn a lot by listening to people. But some things only the enemy can teach us.

[17:01] Some things only the enemy can teach us. The enemy teaches us where you are, the enemy teaches you where you're weak. You can think you're strong, but after you fall again and again and again, you realize, oh, I am not strong.

[17:14] That's where I'm weak. The enemy teaches you where he is strong. Sometimes the enemy is our best teacher. And so, God lets this terrible teacher stay in school.

[17:26] He's always the principal. He never lets the teacher get out of hand, but he still, he doesn't let the teacher go too far, but he leaves that teacher in the school for a time because there's some lessons that only this teacher can teach.

[17:42] And so, remaining sin, lesson by lesson, shows me how wicked I am. How wicked I was.

[17:54] How stubborn sin is. We can be so naive about how easy it's going to be to defeat sin, and yet, after we fall and we fall, we learn that I can't do this alone.

[18:04] This sin is too hard. I need God's help to do it. And I don't learn those things by reading about it. And I don't learn those things by listening. I learn it in the fight.

[18:16] And so, as we go on in the Christian life, we get to know more about ourselves. We get to see what's down there. We get to understand ourselves. We get to understand other people's sins. We get a better look and understanding of other people.

[18:31] And that's the second thing that God teaches us through our remaining sin. He teaches us how to love and to help others. Now, that might sound strange, but that's really how it works so much of the time.

[18:43] He teaches us how to love and to help others. So, Paul, writing to the Galatians, says, if anyone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should go restore him gently.

[18:56] So, there's the kind of people that are to go help people. It's the spiritual. And there's a way that they are going to help them. It's gently. Now, my question is, where does spirituality and gentleness come from?

[19:11] Where does those things come from? Well, spirituality and gentleness don't come from never struggling with sin. They don't come with always being right and strong.

[19:26] Spirituality and gentleness come from struggling with sin so often. knowing the power of sin and the pain of sin and the grace of God.

[19:41] And so, were the Pharisees good physicians? Were they good physicians? Were they good at helping other people? Were they good at going and restoring people who were in their sin? I would challenge you to find one example of the Pharisees going to a sinner and then gently restoring them.

[19:57] Well, why didn't they do it? Because they were good and strong. They had their acts together and in their minds, they just couldn't understand why these people couldn't get their acts together. Gentleness and meekness and spirituality get worked into us.

[20:13] God works them into us as we know what it is to fall into sin. And so, we have tasted the bitterness and we have felt the power and we aren't naive anymore about ourselves.

[20:25] we aren't naive about how easily we fall. But at the same time, we have tasted the grace of God.

[20:38] We've tasted the grace of God. See, people who think that they sin little, they need little forgiveness and so they love little. They love God little and they love other people little.

[20:51] But if you're dusty and you're dirty and you're struggling and you're fighting and Jesus has come to you again and again and he's helped you and he's met you and he's had mercy on you and he's forgiven you and you've tasted the sweetness of grace, well, what happens?

[21:07] Something happens in your heart. Your compassion grows. Mercy grows. Your love grows. You become more like Jesus. You become more understanding and more patient and more kind and more sympathetic.

[21:20] You aren't shocked and appalled at what other people are doing. If you're always surprised at what people do and can do, that just shows you how little you know of your own heart.

[21:32] And so we don't put them off because how could we? If we've walked the dark halls of sin, we know what it is. We know where they're at and we can't be very well surprised at other people.

[21:43] But along with this compassion for others, there does become this growing hope. Isn't that funny? out of the struggle against remaining sin.

[21:55] If we are met with the grace of Jesus Christ, instead of bringing us to despair, it brings us to a greater level of hope. Hope for them. Hope for their situation. Because you yourself have been down and out.

[22:08] You have been defeated and God has raised you and you have sinned and he has forgiven you. You've tasted again and again the renewing grace of God. And so you're not afraid that, oh, now there's no hope for them.

[22:21] It's lost. They're gone. They're done. No, there's hope for this situation because if God raised you, he can raise them. If he's helped you, then definitely he can help them. And so you not only sympathize with them because you yourself know the power of sin, but you have good news for them.

[22:39] You have good news for them. And it's not just the gospel that you've read in the scriptures or you know in your head. It is that. But it's the gospel that you have read out of your life.

[22:49] out of your history, out of God's dealings with you. And so remaining sin, it prepares you to help others.

[23:01] It prepares you to help others. Remaining sin prepares you to point others to Jesus. Remaining sin prepares you to love people in their sin, which are the only kind of people there are.

[23:19] If you're going to love anyone, if you're going to help anyone on this side of heaven, you're going to be loving and helping a sinner. And if you can't love and you can't serve sinners, then you can't love and serve anyone.

[23:36] So again, look for these things in your life. Romans 8.28 is working itself out in the midst of Romans 7. In the midst of this and your life, in this confusing and frustrating and sad battle against remaining sin, God is still at work.

[23:55] He's still a blessing. And his blessing is so great that he'll use anything and he'll use everything. Someone said, in the divine economy, nothing is wasted.

[24:10] Not even sin, evil, or death. He uses everything. And so he feeds the 5,000 and then he picks up the seven baskets of bread and then he uses those.

[24:23] He picks up all the leftover pieces and uses them too. Now, you probably know that if you're a Sioux Indian and you're on the plains and your main resource is the buffalo, when they killed a buffalo, did anything go to waste?

[24:43] No, they were incredibly ingenious about what they did. So they used the hide, the meat, the hair, the horns, the bones, the organs, everything got used. Well, through our sin, God is teaching us.

[24:55] He's not wasting it. It's not a dead end. It's not complete. It's bad, but it's just not useless to him. He uses it to teach us how to help and love others.

[25:06] He teaches us how to see ourselves. And now the third way God uses our remaining sin is he destroys that pride within. We all want to be humble, but we all don't necessarily want to go through what it takes to be that, to be humble.

[25:28] What did Richard Sibbs say again? Well, a Christian conquers even when he is conquered. When he's conquered by some sins, he gets victory over more dangerous, over the more dangerous, such as spiritual pride and security.

[25:46] You know what the two greatest sins are? Pride, self-righteousness. Because those are the sins that will keep you away from Jesus forever. Now, are some sins more dangerous than others?

[26:02] Well, let me ask you, are some diseases more dangerous than others? Now, let's suppose you have a cold. Some people have colds, I'm sure. Now, generally, a cold won't kill you.

[26:14] But, HIV will eventually turn into AIDS, and you'll eventually die, not treat it. AIDS destroys your immune system.

[26:26] Now, if you have a cold, it's pretty obvious, right? Your nose is running. If I go to your house, there's probably Kleenexes everywhere that you need to throw away.

[26:38] And, you know, your face is all red, your nose is all yucky, you're a germy, icky mess. And you say, don't, I don't want to shake your hand, please don't touch me.

[26:50] Now, but the person with the HIV, the person with the HIV, for years and years, they could have no symptoms at all. No stuffy nose, no big red nose, no Kleenexes, no coughing.

[27:04] They look okay, they look as healthy as can be. You don't look like a germy, icky mess. Yes? And that's what spiritual pride is like. That's what spiritual pride is like.

[27:19] You can't see it. But yet, on the inside, it's getting ready to work death. So AIDS, they don't die of AIDS, they die of opportunistic infections, OIs.

[27:32] And so, people with AIDS, they don't die generally of AIDS, they die of pneumonia. pneumonia, and meningitis, and they die of thrush that gets out of control.

[27:46] That's spiritual pride. And so, what would you rather be cured of? Your cold? Or would you rather be cured of your HIV? Would you rather be cured of that one fairly obvious sin?

[27:59] And the answer is, obviously, yes. Right? We all want to be cured of the cold. We obviously want to be cured of our obvious sins. But for now, would you rather be cured of that one fairly obvious sin or the HIV underneath, the pride that is buried within, that produces all the other sins, that great sin underneath all the other sins, the pride that makes you so angry, the pride that makes you so self-righteous, the pride that makes you so sinful in all of its different looks and fashions.

[28:30] God has to find a way of laying bare your pride, lowering your pride. And so, no superficial treatment is going to work. Now, if he takes care of your cold, but he leaves you with the AIDS, what good is that?

[28:51] So, instead of curing your cold, he uses your cold to treat your AIDS. He uses your surface sins to fight against your deadly disease underneath. So, he's using that remaining sin to humble you, to teach you to trust in Jesus, to work faith in you, to work thankfulness into you, to humble you, to strike at the very root of all your sins.

[29:16] And that's why sometimes we're saying, I prayed for God to take care of this. I prayed for God to take away this sin, and he's not answering my prayers. Why won't he take away this sin? We've all been there, haven't we?

[29:28] We all want to be completely done with it. But brothers and sisters, we have to realize God is answering that prayer. But he's answering it in a better way than what we or you and I could have planned.

[29:43] And so, you went to the doctor for a cold, and he's treating your HIV, your AIDS. And so, should you complain? No. We trust him.

[29:56] We trust him to trust him to know what he's doing. In due time, he'll take away all of our sins. He'll take away all of them. But he knows what he's doing. He's turning the poison into medicine.

[30:09] He's using the lesser disease to fight the greater one. Now, some of those things are just, those are just some of the things that God is using remaining sin for.

[30:21] Now, as we end, I want to ask, like, how can we be sure? Why can I be so confident? Why can I have hope that this is actually going to be the way it is?

[30:33] And so, we're talking about reasons to believe this. Because this is one of the hardest things to believe. That God will even use my sin to do me good? That's a stretch. Well, how can I know that he will do that?

[30:45] How can I know that he's that committed? Because it sure seems like if anything would disallow me from God's blessing, it would be my sin. And so, how do I know he's not going to let me go?

[30:56] How am I going to know he's going to keep doing me good? Well, again, I have three answers. And the first is that you, we are his people. He is our God. He is our God.

[31:06] We are his people. He has tied us to himself in covenant love. He has promised everlasting love to us.

[31:19] We are his people. He is our God. Now, Romans 8.28 is a promise that doesn't come and go based on the daily ups and downs of our performance.

[31:33] Romans 8.28 isn't just true in your righteousness. It's not just true when you are obeying. God doesn't decide to work all things for good only when you are good.

[31:47] He does it because he has called you according to his purpose. He has predestined us to be like his son. And before we had done anything good or bad, he had chosen us in Jesus Christ.

[32:00] He had set his covenant love upon us. His promised, blood-sealed oath to do us good. And so, do you only have grounds to believe that God will do you good when you are obedient?

[32:16] No. You as a forgiven, in Christ, called child of God, have grounds to believe that God will work all things for your good even when you're in the thickest battle against sin, when the war is the hottest.

[32:37] And I dare say you have the right to believe his ultimate good will and purpose towards you even when you're at the bottom. Because it's not resting on your performance and it's not resting on your obedience.

[32:49] It's resting on his love for you, his promise to you. And so, after you've done the things that you did not want to do, again, and after you failed to do the things that you wanted to do, again, you might not feel it.

[33:08] You might think, I am so unworthy, and you are. How can God do good to me now? Because it's based on his promise. It's not your performance.

[33:19] You're his, he is yours, and he's your physician. He's your God to be your physician. Does the doctor only try to heal the healthy?

[33:31] No. It's the sick that need the doctor, not the healthy. And he's your God. He is your physician, especially in your sin. He's your father. And is a father only a father when his children are good?

[33:45] Or does he still move forward in love when they are bad? Now, we need to be very clear. The way he treats us, the treatment of them might change.

[33:55] Instead of getting ice cream, we might get a spanking. And instead of being happy as can be with us, he might be angry with us. But the ice cream and the spanking are coming from the same place of love.

[34:08] It's coming from the same commitment. These are my children. Remember, it's the illegitimate child that doesn't get disciplined. You don't care about them. They're not.

[34:18] You're just pretending like they don't exist. But a father who loves his children is committed to do them good. He disciplines them. And so God is your father. He's ours.

[34:29] We are his. He's married to us. And and does a husband only love his wife when she is doing exactly what he wants her to do? Men, if that's you, I feel sorry for your wives.

[34:42] Isaiah 49 says he engraves us on the palms of his hands. Never can forget us because carved in scars.

[34:55] There we are. He sets us like a seal on his heart. Seal that can't be broken. Isaiah 43 says he'll give kingdoms for our ransom.

[35:06] When he sees us in danger, he'll give other kingdoms for us because he loves us so much. And so in love, he either shields us from evil or he uses that evil for our good.

[35:19] His love won't let him do anything less than that. Now, do you see how this question of will God use my sin, even my sin for my good?

[35:31] It gets right down to the bottom of the gospel. Because if we think that God does us good based on our goodness, however slight that is, however small that might be, then we're going to find it impossible to believe that he would use my sin for my good.

[35:49] Because how could he? His good will stands or falls on my on what I'm doing, on my performance. But if our hope is Jesus Christ, if our hope is his performance, his life, his death, if it's Christ alone, then we can have the wonderful audacity to say with Paul, I know that in all things God will work for our good.

[36:09] And he will even use my remaining sin for my good. Not for my sake, but for Christ's sake. Because my standing is secure. My standing is secure.

[36:23] Because Christ has sealed the new covenant in his blood. Christ has guaranteed the covenant covenant of love in his blood.

[36:36] Now, how can we know that this is true? How can we know that he can do this? Because he has all power.

[36:48] Because he can do it. He's all powerful. And even the devil must serve our good. We believe that, don't we? That God, in his power, is able to wrangle and tame the devil and turn him for our good?

[37:05] Now, if God can use the devil and his rebellion and all the angelic rebellion, can't he do the very same thing with our remaining sin? If he can tame wild, angelic rebellion, can he tame and turn the sin of our own heart to do us good?

[37:20] You see, God doesn't need ideal conditions to do us good. He doesn't need ideal conditions. He doesn't need just the tool that's just right. In Sunday school, we were talking about that last week.

[37:33] About, you know, some tools are made for this job, and when you try to use a tool for a different job, it's not good. Very inefficient. But God is so powerful that he can do, he can use tools that aren't ideal.

[37:47] Ideal. He doesn't need things to be just right. He doesn't need you to be just right. He doesn't need, he's strong enough to use terrible tools and still do good with them, because his kingdom rules over all.

[38:04] Now, why can we be sure that God can and will even use our sin, our remaining sin for our good? Because he's strong enough. And then the third reason is, is he's smart enough.

[38:16] He's wise enough. He knows how to write, draw a straight line with a crooked stick. He knows how to get Joseph down into Egypt through the sin of his brothers to save many.

[38:38] He knows how to use a Judas to destroy Satan. He knows how to bring life out of death. So think about the cross. Think about the cross.

[38:49] Could there be a, humanly speaking, worse, weaker, foolish, more foolish way to win? And yet God is so wise that his folly, his apparent folly, is wiser than the greatest wisdom of men.

[39:05] And so, out of condemnation, he brings justification. And he brings salvation out of damnation. He brings life out of death. He brings glory out of shame.

[39:20] He's wise enough to do that. And so the cross says, doubt no more. The cross says he has the love to do it. The cross says he has the power to do it.

[39:31] The cross says he has the wisdom to do it. And this is another key lesson that the cross teaches us. The cross teaches us that God's ways are pretty much the complete opposite of the ways that we would have chosen.

[39:49] We would not have thought of that. We would not have planned that. That would not have been the way of salvation for us. The cross says this is the way that God works.

[40:00] It's pretty much the complete opposite of what you are thinking. And so he thinks he does things in a way that we never would. And so we have to be careful that we don't put God in our box.

[40:12] And when we say, you know what? God can't use your remaining sin for your good. And we feel that. You know what we're doing is we're shrinking God to our understanding, our power, our thoughts, and we put him in our box.

[40:27] And so the cross blows our boxes up. And he says, this is what God does. This is how he does it. He takes incredibly evil and wicked things that are evil and wicked in and of themselves.

[40:41] And he uses them for good. Now, what do you take from that? Well, I hope you will take encouragement from that. I hope you take encouragement from that. And if anyone here, we're going to come back.

[40:52] I'm coming back to this point again. If anyone here starts to think, well, then why not just go on my way in my sin? Well, if you are arguing that, one of two things are true.

[41:05] One, you don't hate your sin to begin with. You're just looking for an excuse to do it. And so you're probably not saved. So if you're going to take this and argue that, one, you're either not saved, or two, you are badly mistaken about, or you're just incredibly misguided Christian.

[41:26] Because now, are you really going to turn around and take the goodness of God? And you're really going to do this to the one who loves you so much?

[41:41] You're going to take his wonderful promise and provision for you, and you're going to smack him in the face with it. Jesus died to win this very blessing upon you.

[41:52] And so now will you go and turn around and glory in your sin? No, this truth, it should encourage us. This truth should make us love him more, to trust him more.

[42:08] And this truth sustains us in our fight against sin. This is, okay, I'm going to keep going on because God has not abandoned me yet.

[42:18] I'm going to keep fighting. And so let this truth make you love him. Let this truth make you trust him all the more. And let this truth sustain you in your fight against sin.

[42:30] Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are so committed to us that not only would you send your son for us, which is the greatest of all blessings because we have done nothing to deserve it, but that you would be so patient and bear with us in our disobedience, in our sinfulness, even after we have been saved.

[42:51] And you are so committed to our good that you will not let these things even go without doing us good, without helping us to see ourselves, without helping us to become more like Jesus, without helping us to grow humble and contrite before you, to put away our self-confidence and our self-righteousness and our self-sufficiency, and to lean more and more on Jesus Christ.

[43:20] Thank you that you would even use our sin for doing us good. Please keep everyone here from using this truth as an argument to sin, but make it to bind our hearts closer to you.

[43:40] Since you have loved us so much, help us to love you in return. We pray for those who are lost, that you would open their eyes to see how good you are, how kind you are, and that the gospel is so good that they can come in their sin, out of their sin, right where they are, and come and trust in Jesus and be saved.

[44:03] Pray that you would do that even this day. In Jesus' name I do pray. Amen. Amen. Well, as we close, let's take our grace hymns and turn to number 28.

[44:15] 28 in our grace hymns, and in this song, we ask God to occupy my lowly heart, own it all and reign supreme, conquer every rebel power, let no vice or sin remain that resists your holy war.

[44:33]  You have loved and purchased me. Make me yours forevermore. Let's stand as we sing. Number 28. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.