Understanding the Importance of Theology in Our Lives

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Romans chapter eight.

Romans, chapter eight.

We've been studying why theology matters.

What we believe affects what we do.

What we believe affects how we think.

What we believe really gives us hope.

Or maybe what we believe doesn't give.

Us hope, depending on what we believe in.

And here In Romans chapter 8, we.

Are seeing the type of confidence that we can have in the Lord, and more specifically, the type of confidence that.

We can have in the salvation that.

He has extended to us.

And so we see at the very.

Beginning In Romans chapter 8, we are reminded that when we are in Christ.

When we trust finish and we no.

Longer have to have that guilt upon our life, there's.

There's.

By the way, there's conviction, right?

Because there's times in our life as.

Christians that we sin and God works.

In our life with that.

But there's no more condemnation.

The comfort comes by knowing this, that when the conviction comes, I can confess.

And I can be restored.

Condemnation is this.

Condemnation is this.

I'm guilty and I can't fix this, and now I have to face the charges.

But the confidence that we have in him is this, that when we sin, we know that we can find forgiveness in him.

And so with that, excuse me, with that comes verse nine.

He says, but ye are not so in the flesh, but in the Spirit.

If so be that the Spirit of.

God dwell in you.

Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

And so the Bible says, to be.

A believer means to not only know that we have freedom from condemnation, from punishment, but we are also given the.

Indwelling of the Spirit so that we.

Can walk in confidence knowing that God is with us.

You've maybe heard in Scripture that the Bible says that he's never going to leave us nor forsake us, that he's.

Going to be with us through the storms.

Well, how can that be?

Well, the only way that that can be is that the Lord is obviously omnipresent.

But not only is he there with us, he's there in us, in the indwelling of the Spirit.

So the Bible says the determining factor of whether or not someone is a.

Believer, a child of God or someone.

Who is lost and not a child of God is what the indwelling of the Spirit.

That's what verse nine tells us.

We can't say that we're Christians and.

We not have the Spirit.

Now there's times in our life as Christians that we can have the indwelling of the Spirit.

But what has Paul been talking about?

Are we led by the Spirit or.

Are we led by the flesh?

As a Christian, we can have the.

Spirit indwelling us, but we can feed the flesh.

We can go after the way of the flesh and go back to the spirit of bondage.

But the Bible says that we don't have the spirit of bondage.

Verse 15 of Romans 8.

But we have been what we have received, the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, abba, Father, meaning this.

You don't have to live in the sin that defines you like before.

Now we are adopted into the family of God with full benefits, with full blessings.

And we can tap into his guidance.

His strength, his wisdom, his peace.

And no longer do we have to.

Go back to the flesh.

But when we go back to the flesh, we can feel that conviction, perceive that conviction, confess our sins and reunite.

Ourselves with him, just as a child who has walked away from his parents can come back and that is restored.

And so he says in verse 16, it is the Spirit itself that bears witness with our Spirit, that we are.

The children of God.

The Spirit confirms in our heart that.

We are his children.

The Spirit tells us that he's there with us.

There's that comfort, there's that strength, there's that peace that only comes through the.

Indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit.

Indwelling means the Holy Spirit lives within us.

Filling means that we are following and obeying the will of God in our lives.

So we left off in verse number.

17, and this is really our main thought this morning.

We're just going to look at verses 17 and 18.

Now we're going to look at a lot of other verses, but these are our main verses for the day.

Verse 17 says this.

And if children.

Now we'll stop right there.

If we are children.

Everybody in this world that's walking around.

Is not a child of God.

The Bible says that we are children of God through faith and through the indwelling of the Spirit.

So we can't say that what he's about to talk about is for everyone.

This is a promise of a blessing that is found only with God's children.

So he says the big question is this, are you his children?

And he says, if you are his children, verse 17, then heirs, meaning this, if I'm an heir, I receive everything that my father owns.

If I'm an heir, I get to partake in everything that he is partaking in.

And so he says in verse 17, heirs of God.

And so what that means is, if.

We are believers in Jesus Christ, if we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us.

We, we are heirs, as it says there, of God, and joint heirs with Christ.

If so, be that we suffer with.

Him, that we may be also glorified together.

I want you to think about two different things there.

He says, when we are in Christ.

When we are joint heirs with him, we identify in multiple ways, but two main ways.

One, through his suffering and two, through.

The glory that we find together with Him.

And that's what we're going to talk about here today, Suffering in our salvation, but also the longing for the glorification of our salvation one day.

Now, I'm going to use an analogy here this morning that maybe will resonate, maybe it won't.

Anytime I try to do an analogy, I, I, I stress about it's just going to communicate, but let's try it.

So I'm going to add, my children have not been prepped on this.

This is not something that I prepped them on.

And I promised I wouldn't do this, but I've broken my promise.

So I need both of my children that are present.

Micah and Nora, come on up here.

Come on up here.

Okay, so what I'm going to do.

I'm going to give my two children everything that I have in my suit.

Pocket right here, all the money that's in my suit pocket.

Now, do you think I have a lot of money in my suit pocket?

No.

She has no faith in her father.

Okay, so I'm going to give you an analogy as my children.

Now, I have another child.

He's not here right now, and he's, he's in the nursery, so we can't.

Pull him out for that.

But just picture that these are my children and I am their father.

And I'm going to impart to them what it means for them to be my children.

This is their inheritance in my pocket, all right?

And I'm going to pass it along to them.

Now, the blessing for them is that.

Hey, I get to have everything that dad has.

The suffering for them is that, hey, you know what?

I don't have that much.

And so the idea for them is this look, whether or not I want to be in someone else's family with more money or a different path, look, they are part of my family.

They are my children.

They cannot deny that.

And I would not deny them.

And I want to give them everything.

That they possibly can have.

And so what I will do by way of illustration is I will give them.

And you gotta.

You gotta share this, but don't tear it in half, okay?

I've got one crisp dollar bill that I'm going to give to them.

Now, again, that's the joke, is that it's not that much, but I'm going.

To give that to them and let Mike go.

Hold it.

Because he's the eldest, okay?

And, and so the idea would be this.

They are partaking in my blessing.

Now, the bigger picture is this.

If, if, if in the case we.

Look at God as our heavenly Father.

He has no limitations to what he has in his pockets, right?

Well, we know that his wealth is infinite, but we're not just talking about material wealth.

We're talking about the spiritual riches that.

We find in Ephesians, right?

The spiritual prosperity that God imparts to us.

And so sometimes in our life, you know what, my kids, at some point, maybe, if they haven't already, might say, you know what?

I wish some of you have had.

Children, maybe have heard this.

I wish that I wasn't part of that family.

I see that family over there having more.

I see that path over there looking better.

But the truth is, is that we.

As believers are sometimes to be tempted to think maybe that other way is.

Not as bad as what my dad or what the Bible says.

Maybe God's way isn't going to bring me what I need.

Look at all the suffering that I might be facing.

Look at all this pain.

And so that's what Paul talks about here in Romans, chapter 8.

Paul talks specifically about, yes, when we are identified in Christ, we will go through struggles just as he did.

But.

But there's something bigger about being in the family of God.

And that's what we're going to talk.

About here this morning.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Split that, okay?

But don't tear it apart.

Okay?

All right, Very good.

Thank you, guys.

So the picture is this morning is that God has a blessing for us.

We know that.

And the Bible tells us that it's.

Not just for eternal because we know that God is here to bless us and give us life and life more abundantly here and now.

But the bigger picture, the eternal perspective.

Is that I'm living for More.

And so he says here in verse 17, that we are identified in Christ.

That will bring suffering.

Why?

We know Jesus suffered physical suffering, emotional.

Suffering, even to some degree, spiritual conflict, spiritual suffering, persecution through doing what is right.

Sometimes we as Christians can be persecuted or hated on for our own sin, for our own problems, for our own bad decisions.

But it even hurts sometimes more when we're doing the right thing.

And persecution comes.

Well, think about it.

On the biggest picture, Jesus was perfect in every way and was still betrayed, was still put on a cross, though he went willingly.

So he says, yes, there's going to be suffering.

Paul says here there's going to be to be pain, there is going to be persecution, there is going to be confusion.

Unless you think that Paul doesn't understand.

Confusion and pain and suffering and persecution.

We need to go back to our study in second Corinthians.

Take your Bibles with me.

And I want you to see this.

I want you to see what the testimony of Paul was in the midst.

Of his earthly ministry.

Because sometimes the temptation is the thing that Paul was living in a resort.

On the beach, living the good life.

And saying, hey, guys, trust me, it's worth it.

But the reality is, is that here.

In Second Corinthians, chapter four, we are reminded about what Paul went through.

We are reminded his circumstances of difficulty.

But we are also reminded here in.

Second Corinthians of his perspective in the midst of the difficulty.

Because it would be easy as a Christian to quit when it gets hard.

It would be easy to doubt when things don't go our way.

Why?

Because we think, well, if God loves me, why does he allow this to happen?

That's a big question.

It's a deep question that we're going to address here in a little bit.

But here in second Corinthians, chapter four, we see in verse eight, Paul is about to give his, for lack of.

A better term, his testimony of what he has gone through to the church at Corinth.

But, but right before, but right before, you need to see his perspective going into this.

Because the reality is, is that if we have a materialistic, earthly, fleshly perspective going into the difficulties, we cannot have this perspective.

But he says in verse seven, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power of God may be the power may be.

Of God and not of us.

Meaning this, he was like, we go through difficulties and God has blessed us.

In these bodies, but these bodies are.

Not here for us to glorify ourselves.

Our bodies and Our life is given to us so that we can glorify.

Him, so that the power of God can be seen in us and through us.

Not the power of Pastor Josh, not the wisdom, but the power of God resting on us in the midst of difficulty.

So look at verse number eight with me, some of the most encouraging verses, but also difficult to really take in our own life.

It says, we are troubled on every side.

The way that Paul mentions is this.

He says it feels like we have.

Trouble on every side.

On the front, on the back, on the right, on.

On the left, every angle.

It feels like we're being surrounded with trouble.

But the.

What does he say?

He says, yet not distressed.

Sometimes as Christians, we can walk in this life distressed.

Why?

Because we cannot find a path that leads to just smoothness.

It's trouble on this side, trouble on this side, trouble on this side.

Paul says, that's okay.

Why?

Because we're not distressed.

Well, how can you not be distressed?

Well, he's going to get there and he's going to explain how this all comes about.

He says, we are perplexed.

We are confused, but not in despair.

Sometimes we can be so confused that we find our place in despair.

But he says, no, I'm not in despair.

Persecuted, but not forsaken.

Cast down, but not destroyed.

Why always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that.

The life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

Meaning this.

It's all for his glory.

If I go through a struggle, it's.

Just about his power working through me.

For we which live are always delivered.

Unto death for Jesus sake.

Meaning this is what we should expect.

Difficulty.

That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

Meaning this.

All I go through is so that Jesus can be glorified, so that I can praise him for the victory.

He goes on to say more, says we having the same spirit of faith.

According as it is written, I believe.

And therefore I have spoken.

We also believe and therefore speak, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall, what does it say here?

Raise up us also by Jesus and shall present us to you.

Meaning this.

I look forward to the day that the Lord glorifies, not that I glorify myself, that I am reunited with him.

When I understand that it will all be worth it.

And so in that time, whether good or whether bad, we know this in Philippians, he says, I know how to be hungry.

I know how to be full.

I know how to not have money.

I know how to have money.

He says it's going to be circumstantial ups and downs, but the only thing that we can say at the end is, look, I am longing for the.

Day that I'm going to be with my Savior.

That's what I'm doing it for.

So go back to Romans.

Go back to Romans with me, okay?

So he gives us that perspective.

We can.

So Paul understands.

I know what it's like to be distressed.

I know what it's like to be perplexed.

I know what it's like to be persecuted.

But you can have this hope in the glory that is to come.

So he says in verse 17 and.

Romans 8, so if you're identify with him, you're going to suffer with him.

That's not the end of the world.

He's actually going to tell us in.

Other passages of Scripture that it can.

Can be considered a blessing to go through difficulties for him.

Why?

Well, back in Second Corinthians, chapter 12, he says that it's when we are weak that he can be seen strong.

And Paul says, then that's when I'm going to glory.

That's when I'm going to boast.

That's when I'm going to be joyful.

In the midst of my persecutions.

Why?

Because that's going to be seen in.

The world as God's power working through me.

So he says, yes, there is that.

Suffering that we might face, but is that suffering enough to make us quit?

Is that suffering worth it to turn back to the things of this world?

Well, we're reminded in Mark, chapter 8.

Verse 36, something very interesting here, because.

There'S a lot of people that might be tempted to think that the struggling or the suffering or any pain that.

We might face is a reason to quit.

But Jesus says something completely different here in Mark, chapter 8.

Mark, chapter 8.

We'll actually start in verse 34 when.

Jesus calls his disciples to follow him.

He never promises them easy circumstances.

He actually promises them the opposite.

But he says something so meaningful here in Mark chapter eight that I think all of us need to meditate upon what he says here.

Because he says, do you want to follow me?

Do you want to be my child?

Do you want to be an heir of the blessings of salvation?

Then he says in verse 34 of.

Mark chapter 8, and when he had called the people unto him with his disciples, also he said unto them, whosoever.

Will come after me, let him deny.

Himself and take up his cross and follow me.

There's a lot packed into that Verse.

To be a disciple of Jesus means to what does it say there?

To go after him.

Many of us have done that.

Many of us have said, lord Jesus, I want you, I want you to teach me.

I want to follow your, your word.

I want to be in the church, I want to love you.

But then it says, then let him deny himself.

Sometimes we're tempted to want the things of God.

I want to be an heir of Jesus, but I also want to be.

An heir of this world.

I want to, I, I, I want what I want and I want what God wants and I kind of want.

To merge those two together, the best of both worlds.

But the Bible says no, that's a.

Double minded man who is unstable in all of his ways.

Jesus says deny himself and then there's more and take up his cross.

Now we, we've heard that phrase.

Well that's my cross, the bear.

Think about what that means.

What was the cross at that time?

It was a way of execution.

It was a symbol of death.

So for me to take up my.

Cross, that's not just a little minor inconsistency.

We call them first world problems.

You know what?

I didn't get my coffee today, so just my day is just not the way it needs to.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Oh my this or my that is not performing well.

That I thought it should perform.

Folks, we've got a lot of what.

We would call first world problems that we think is suffering for Jesus.

But folks, that's not what he's talking about here.

He's talking about dying to everything in our lives.

He says to mortify the flesh, deny himself, take up the cross and then follow.

That's the path.

But then he goes on to say something.

He Jesus always gives the bigger picture.

Just for whosoever will save his life shall lose it.

But whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's the same shall save it.

For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world.

And lose his own soul?

What shall a man give in exchange for a soul?

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him Also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh into the glory of his Father is with his holy angels.

So he says this, what does it profit a man?

What does it profit a person?

To chase after all the things of this world and forget what God has.

Called us to do profits us nothing.

It's a Waste.

At the end, it'll just be, as the Bible says, things that moth and rust can corrupt.

So what matters is the thing that lasts for eternity.

Number one, my profession of faith in Jesus Christ and my salvation that I find with him, but also the things that I do for him that will impact eternity.

So go back to Romans, Romans, chapter 8.

He says that there, yes, is an identification with the difficulty, but there's also an identification with the glory, with.

With ultimately our ultimate reward, and that is to have glorified bodies reunited with him, walking with him for eternity and being with our Savior.

So Paul says this in verse 18, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time.

He's talking about the here and now, the.

The years that we have on this earth.

He says that I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not.

Worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

And he's speaking of the end.

He's speaking of that restoration with him.

He's speaking of heaven.

He's speaking of our eternal destination.

And so he says, hey, basically, in 2025, Pastor Josh terms is this.

The things that we're going through right now are, are not going to even matter.

When we see the grandeur of the glory of God and in his presence.

In his perfection, we're going to say, of course it was worth it.

That was nothing for me.

That was easy.

That was light work in comparison to the blessing that I'm receiving right now.

So Paul appeals to, again, the eternal perspective, the eternal glory, our eternal destination.

So there's more here, but because basically.

Paul is saying this, if you're living for eternity, everything is going to make sense.

If you're living for heaven, everything that you go through now is just pointing people to heaven.

And that's the kind of perspective that.

We have to have.

But he says in another passage, which.

We'Re going to look at here in a few moments, that if we're living for this world and the blessings of Jesus just in the here and now, and that's it.

That is hopelessness.

That is.

That is.

That is not enough.

Because if I'm serving Jesus for the approval of man here today, that is going to give me temporary satisfaction, but.

It will not give me eternal satisfaction.

Because a person can turn their minds away.

And then, am I serving for someone's.

Approval here on this earth?

Am I serving for praise?

Am I serving for position?

Am I serving for some kind of payment?

Am I serving for anything outside of the glory of God and the eternal Riches in him if I am, that will eventually fall away.

And we will be, as the Bible says, very miserable.

I want you to see that in First Corinthians, chapter 15.

This is such an amazing passage of Scripture.

If you know anything about First Corinthians.

15, Paul starts with the Gospel and.

Then he merges eventually to the hope that we have in glorification.

Now, what's glorification?

Glorification is that one day.

So.

So there's this.

I'm going to get a little bit theological.

I know it's Family Sunday, so kids, you know, put your thinking caps on.

Adults, put your thinking caps on.

So at the moment of salvation, we are.

We are justified.

That's declared righteous.

Okay, so you know that word justified.

But there's a word that should hear.

In the Bible called sanctification.

There's something called positional sanctification.

What is that?

That's the moment of our justification in salvation.

We are positionally taken out of the world and in our sin and in darkness.

And we are moved, as the Bible says, to marvelous light.

We are moved into the family of God.

We are moved into salvation.

We.

But that's not the end, because then there's something called what we would call progressive sanctification.

That's our spiritual growth.

So if we're saved Today, hopefully in 20 years, we're not where we were 20 years ago.

We're growing more and more like Christ.

That's what we would call progressive sanctification, to be more like Him.

But ultimately on this earth, before we get to heaven, we are never going to reach perfection.

But there is one day when we get to be reunited with our Savior.

And.

And some scholars call this perpetual sanctification.

Which means I'm going to be with.

Him forever and I'm completely sanctified.

That's what we call glorification.

One day, there will not be this.

Physical flesh that we struggle with today.

And I'm not just talking about the pain that we feel, because some of us that are getting older, we know that when we wake up, those aches and pains are getting stronger and stronger.

That's not just what we're talking about, even though we do have salvation from that one day, but I'm also talking about that sinful flesh that rears its ugly head over and over again.

And we, even, as much as we are being sanctified in Christ, so then we still struggle with that sin.

Paul even talked about it.

The things that I want to do, I don't do, and the things that I don't want to.

Do I keep doing that?

One day we will be saved from that.

In our glorification, there will no longer be the pain of that sinful flesh that we have to wrestle with every single day.

And that's hard for us to imagine.

Why?

Because from the moment we were born till the day we die, we struggle with that flesh, and we don't know what it's like to be without that.

But one day, the Bible says that.

We will experience no longer the pool.

To sin, but ultimately 100% towards glorifying.

God in every way.

And so we get to First Corinthians, chapter 15.

Paul says something so amazing here in verse 19.

He says basically this.

If all we're living for in our Christian life is the here and now, it's going to be.

There's not going to be satisfaction.

First Corinthians 15, verse 19.

He says, if in this life only.

We have hope in Christ, we are of all men, most miserable.

You say, what is he talking about here?

Jesus?

We're not supposed to have hope in Christ right now.

No.

But he says, hope in Christ now and hope in Christ for eternity.

Because if all we're living for is.

The here and now, and then when we die, it's over.

That's most miserable.

That means, hey, look, we can just try to do all we can now, and then that's it.

We don't have any hope for eternity.

But First Corinthians, chapter 15 is all about having hope in the more, in.

The eternal, infinite grace forever.

And so we see a lot of Christians who are living their lives as.

As people who are miserable.

Why?

Because they're living for the here and now.

And in the here and now, hey, that's going to fulfill for a moment.

But maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in 20 years.

But one thing that will never fail us, the only thing that will satisfy.

As we see in Scripture, is that eternal hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

So he says, keep it in the forefront of your mind.

Keep it in the forefront of your mind.

The whole picture.

The whole picture.

So going forward, we see In Romans, chapter 8, verse 18, he says the suffering of this present time, the sufferings.

So he actually puts it plural, there.

It's like, it's not just like one thing that you're suffering with the multiple difficulties that you're going to face in this present time are not worthy.

They're not even, like, in the ballpark.

They're not even close to being compared.

To how great that glorification will one day be.

There's so many other passages of the scripture that we could go to, but I think one that's very common when we're dealing with this idea of treasures on earth or treasures in heaven is in Jesus's teaching in Matthew, chapter six.

Most of you know this passage.

If you don't know this passage, this is a wonderful passage to study when it deals with, am I living for here and now, or am I living for eternity?

And it says in Matthew, chapter 6, verse 19, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.

Folks, anything that we have here on this earth that's material can be taken away from us.

It can rot, it can break, it can be taken.

And I don't know about you, but.

Sometimes in my life that I felt.

The most violated was when someone stole from me.

Just like, come on, why are you doing that?

I work for this.

I do everything that I can, and someone takes that away from me, and they didn't work for it.

But the reality is, is that life in and of itself outside of the gospel, outside of the Lord, is unfair.

But then he goes on to say this, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, where thieves do not break through nor steal.

Meaning this.

The things that you store away and.

Invest into the kingdom of God, into.

The things of God, those are the things that nobody can take away from you.

It.

It will never run dry.

And we're not just talking about salvation.

Even though salvation is the greatest gift that we can lay up.

But we know that even after that, we're called to do things that will impact eternity from first and foremost telling other people about the blessing of God, telling other people about the gospel.

And then as we tell other people about the gospel, then teaching them, as the Great Commission says to teach them and to lead them into a path.

Of obedience to Christ.

These are all things that are going to last for eternity.

Giving to the work of God, serving in the work of God, lifting up other Christians in the work of God, giving other people that don't have what we have help in.

That's a blessing that God has called us to live out in our life.

That's what's going to last for eternity.

Sometimes I grip so tightly to the things that I have in this world.

And I don't have much.

And so, you know, one of the.

Common misconceptions is that people that have.

A lot don't want to let go of that.

And sometimes that is the case.

But let me tell you a little secret.

Sometimes people that don't have very much.

Don'T want to let go of that either.

Okay?

And the reality is, is that sometimes it doesn't matter If I've got $1 or a million dollars, I can hold tight to that so tightly that I have relinquished my tight hold that I want to have on the Lord.

And I focus on the things that.

I have in this earth, and I.

Can miss out on what God has.

Called me to do.

Now, the ultimate reality is that even if I'm not holding on to the Lord, he's holding on to me.

But at the end of the day.

We have to come back and we have to see that Paul is saying, it's this perspective of the eternal.

It's the perspective, because what does it.

Say at the end of that passage?

In Matthew 6, verse 21, Jesus says this, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So where you're treasuring, what you're treasuring, that's where your heart is.

So at the end of the day.

If we want our heart in Jesus Christ, that's what we're going to treasure.

That.

That's something that, as a Christian, we have to.

We have to get to a place in our life where we say, is there anything that's pulling my affection away.

From my Lord, away from his work in my life?

You know what?

Let me use the example of a marriage, right?

If I.

If I have my wife and I say, okay, I know I need to love my wife, but I have.

I have a problem with loving her, so what am I going to do?

Well, it's not going to other things.

Because that's sometimes what it is with us when we.

When we're struggling with our love for God, we go to places that aren't even related.

And so I have to give my wife 100% of my love.

Because God has called me to love my wife completely, not love my wife 50% and someone else 50% not love my wife 99% and love someone else 1% with my marital love.

So what do I do?

I remove anything away and I remove.

Anything in my way that's causing me not to love my wife 100%.

It's the same thing within our spiritual lives.

If something is getting in the way of me loving the Lord with all my heart, I need to get that out of my life.

I need to stop loving that, and I need to remove it, not just.

Move it back a Little bit.

I need to take it out.

If there was an infection on.

On your part of your body, and they say, okay, you can just cut it off a little bit, but it might come back later, or you can.

Cut it all the way out and.

Get rid of it, and it's gone.

I don't know about you, but for me, I'd say, like, let's.

Let's take the drastic measure.

Let's get it out of my life.

And the truth is, is that Paul says there are things in our life that can cause us not to have that eternal perspective.

And instead of just trying to put it back on the priority lines, sometimes we just got to get that out of our lives.

Now, I'm not saying that we have.

To not have any hobbies or not.

Have any friends or not have any.

Things that we do for entertainment, I'm not saying that.

But if it's stealing away the love that should be appropriated to the Lord.

I've got to get rid of it.

Like, I'll use back to my marriage.

Okay, let's say, for example, I'm.

I'm loving this sports team so much that it's not just a nice hobby that I have, but it now is stealing away my love for my family.

So say, for example, my kids have a big event coming up, and I say, well, I can't come to that event.

I've got a.

Now, some of you are like, you can tape it.

But, you know, let's just say for.

A way of analogy, I say, I've got to watch my sports team.

I've got to be there.

Okay?

Now, my wife, if she's a good.

Wife, recognizes that, hey, Pastor Josh has taken it farther than just, it's a nice hobby.

It's been something that is stealing away from things that he should be doing in his life.

That's what a Christian is sometimes.

A Christian, hey, we can have a good time.

We can have hobbies, we can have things that we do.

But if it's pulling us away from what God wants us to do, that's when it's a problem.

And that's what Paul is talking about.

You lose your eternal perspective, and then.

It'S tempting to go like this.

Well, you know what?

They don't want me at that church.

I'm.

Yeah, whatever.

Or.

Or if I'm serving in this ministry and no one's happy about me serving here, then fine, I'm just gonna go.

And we see people losing the passion for serving God because other people steal it away.

Now, I Get that I've.

I've had my passion stolen away because.

Of certain circumstances in my life.

But the remedy to that is loving God so much that it doesn't matter what's going on around you.

And that's hard.

That's hard.

I struggle with that.

I struggle with, Lord, look, I'm pulling everything out here for you.

I'm doing everything that I can.

Why?

Why can't it just seem to work out this one time?

No, at the end of the day, it is working out.

Whether you have your expectations or not met.

God's expectation is that you're just faithful to him.

That's what he says here.

He says, those sufferings that you're facing now, those sufferings might come from you.

Doing the right thing or maybe the wrong thing.

There is a time and a place to stop things, but only when God tells us to stop, not when someone.

Else tells us to stop.

Someone came up to me today and they said, when?

I'm leaving here today.

And if you want to say this, feel free.

It's open door.

But you said, you know what?

You just need to stop preaching.

You know what?

It's just like, it's not working for you.

The idea for me would be I.

Could be like, oh, maybe they're right.

Maybe the call that I think God.

Has for me in my life is wrong.

And so, you know what?

Maybe I'll just try to go find something else that God wants me to.

Or I could say, lord, when you tell me it's time, when you tell me it's time.

And the idea for us as Christians is everyone has an avenue of service.

Everyone has an avenue of ministry.

And there's a time and a place to adjust those things.

And so sometimes God changes the roles.

Sometimes God changes our path.

For some of you in this room.

You say, you know what, Pastor?

I can't serve the way I served 50 years ago.

You should have seen me.

I was on the bus routes.

I was knocking on doors.

Today, I can't even barely, you know.

Get out of my house.

Well, praise God for what he's given you.

Today might not be the same as.

It was 50 years ago, but he's given you something.

And the Bible says to redeem that for the.

For the days are evil.

And sometimes God has us to take breaks, and sometimes God has us to take rest and all those types of things.

But what I will say is this, as a Christian, we have a bigger picture to live for.

So whether or not I'm a pastor, God still has an eternal expectation for me.

Whether or not you're a Sunday school.

Teacher or a ministry leader or a ministry worker, at the end of the day, God has a bigger plan for you.

Your identity is not in your ministry role.

You know what?

One of the things I struggle with.

Greatly, and I just.

I'm going to confess it.

Some of you in this room know me well enough to know that I don't.

I'm not going to try to set any false pretenses.

There was a time in my life.

Where my identity was wrapped up in my role as a pastor.

Everything in my life was that is that is it.

If I'm not a pastor, I don't.

Know what I could be.

And you would say, well, that's good.

Pastor should have that role.

No, because my identity is not in my title.

My identity is in Christ.

So no matter what comes my way.

I still have my salvation.

I still have my hope in him.

But oftentimes we wrap up our identity in something that's not.

What does he say here in Romans 8?

And if children, child of God, first and foremost, all of us, if we.

Are believers, we're children of God, and then God decides and blesses us in different avenues.

But at the end of the day.

If we're believers here, we're all on.

The same equal level.

We are all children of God with different calls and different paths in our life, and there's different sufferings.

But at the end of the day.

He says, it is worth, is worth it.

I'm going to go to one last passage of Scripture and then I want to conclude again, it's another Pauline epistle, the Book of Philippians.

You know anything about the book of Philippians?

Paul says, rejoice in the Lord, always be content.

And where you're at again, where is he at?

He's in jail.

He's in prison.

And in the book of Philippians, Paul has a perspective at the end of chapter three that I want you to see.

And then we'll conclude our thought here this morning.

Folks, I'm not saying that what we're talking about is easy.

I'm actually going to tell you that it's impossible.

Outside of the Holy Spirit guiding your lane, there is no way to look.

At something that we don't fully believe.

In and trust in that for everything that we do.

There's a lot of people that I.

Believe truly are not convinced that the.

Glory of God is going to be enough, that we need to find glory somewhere else.

But here's what he says in Philippians chapter 3, verse 20.

He says, and he's talking about people who are living for themselves.

He's talking about people who are living all about their flesh.

And he says, for our conversation or our citizenship is a good word there.

For our conversation is in heaven.

He says, really, if we're Christians, we're citizens of heaven.

Ultimately we're just pilgrims passing through.

For our conversation is in heaven, for whence also we look for the salvate Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall.

Change our vile body.

That's he's talking about our flesh that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.

He's.

He's describing glorification according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto Himself, Meaning this.

When we look at the things that we have in this world, the news, our circumstances, our pain, our persecution, whatever it is, we have to remind ourselves that this is not our eternal home.

We might spend, if we're super healthy, a hundred, one hundred ten years here on this planet.

That's like super healthy and very fortunate.

But at the end of the day, we have eternity.

That hundred years is just a dot, a little tiny microscopic speck on the map of eternity.

And so if we're living for that.

Little spot, that little speck, we are.

Missing the bigger picture.

He says, hey, our conversation, our citizenship is not here, even though we are called to be good citizens in the land that we are in.

Ultimately, the biggest picture is that we are citizens of heaven.

And if we live that way, we'll.

Be a lot more focused on what we're doing.

I want to bring as many people to my home as I can.

If I could take you all back to Tampa, Florida.

Some of you have been to Tampa, Florida.

It may or may not be what you love, but I love my hometown.

And I would love to bring you.

Guys there and show you my old church and show you where my old stomping grounds were.

Okay, you wouldn't have to twist my arm.

I'm going back soon.

If you guys all want to come.

With me, you can.

But the idea would be this.

If we are proud, if we have glory, if we are excited about where.

We are from and where we are going, we will tell others we're not ashamed of our hope in Jesus Christ.

And so a good citizen that decides.

To want to believe in what God has called us to believe in, we are to project that in the way.

That we live, by the way that we love, by the way that we serve, by the way that we sacrifice.

By the way here, here it is, by the way, that we suffer.

Do you know that there's a biblical theology on suffering?

Say, no, no, no, no, no, no.

We're not called to suffer at all.

Where have you been the last hour?

You know?

But the idea is this.

There is a biblical theology of suffering, and it's resting in the eternal being, driven by the Spirit and looking for that being the light of the testimony of Christ in our life.

So you've heard people suffering for Jesus.

Well, truly, that's what we are doing so that people can see who we are.

Now.

There's glory in that.

I wish I could tell you that there isn't going to be suffering, but I will say this.

There is suffering, but God has given us a good life, too.

If we really sit back and think about it sometimes, we often only think about the negatives.

But think about all the blessings that.

God has given us in the midst of the suffering.

Folks, I'm going to tell you one of the strongest lessons that God ever taught me was in one of the hardest points of my life.

I didn't understand it in the time.

I did not want to go through suffering.

But in the midst of that suffering, God revealed to me a truth that.

Has impacted my life that will I will never, never forget.

And so sometimes in the midst of suffering comes the greatest blessing.

And I pray that you're not in those times of suffering and feeling alone and feeling hopeless and feeling empty.

If you are in the midst of.

One of those seasons of suffering right.

Now, go to him, cling to him.

Find solace in his peace, in his comfort, and be perceptive to what he's telling you in this time, because it.

Might be a lesson that will impact.

Your life for eternity.

I can tell you there was a.

Time in my life where I believed.

I had an agreement with God, that if I did this, God would do this.

And when God didn't keep that expectation of my life, I was ready to say, God, why?

And he revealed to me that there the only expectation that he asked for me is to save me.

And the only expectation he has for me is to be faithful.

And that's it.

And I had to learn that in.

The midst of a suffering moment.

Some of us can say, I don't know why.

And let me tell you this.

Sometimes there isn't an answer on this side of heaven.

Sometimes you will never know the why behind the loss.

But I will tell you what Paul says, and I believe it, that one day we will see it all for what it is, and why God did what he did and why he allows what he allows.

And one day he makes it all right.

One day we will say, I believe it, that it was worth.

Was worth it.

And that's what Paul is telling us here.

Romans, chapter 8.

Anticipation for Glory.

Well, we'll come back here in a few weeks and we'll continue to see that that anticipation for glory should drive what we do in the here and now.

It should change what we say.

It should change how we live.

And we'll come back to look more about that in the way of application later.

Well, I'm going to ask if you're able to, for the next few moments, to stand with me, every head bowed, every eye closed.

It's a simple message.

What are we living for?

Are we living for the here and now?

Are we living for eternity?

Where's our affection place?

Where is our treasure at?

Where is our heart at?

Folks, we can say whatever we want to say.

I can.

It's so easy for me to say, well, my focus is on eternity.

But if my life is not looking like that, I can say whatever I want to say.

But what Jesus said is, it's where your treasure is.

That's where your heart is.

So here's a good test, here's a good evaluation.

And we never want to be evaluated.

But here it is.

The evaluation is, where are my treasures placed?

What do I think about what do I dream about?

What do I long for?

When no one's around, that will indicate.

To me where my heart is.

And if it's not in Jesus Christ, if it's not in his will, if.

It'S not in his way, hey, it's time to reevaluate and then say, how can I change?

What can I get rid of or add to my life that will allow.

Me to love him?

Am I appropriating the love that I should be giving to the Lord to.

Someone or something else?

If so, get that right with him today.

There's no shame in the admission that.

I'm not where I need to be.

And really, the truth of the matter is, is that nobody is exactly where we need to be, and so we.

Need to be striving after Him.

Maybe you just need to be reminded of the glory that it will be to be reunited with your Savior.

Maybe you've been living in the shortsighted.

Future of saying, well, look at this world, look at my life.

Go to what he has given you in the hope of salvation.

If we live this way, things will change.

Things will be different.

Let's not be comfortable with being status quo Christians.

Let's be Christians that are willing to.

Change the world because of our hope in Jesus Christ.

Lord, I pray that you'd be in this time of invitation, working hearts and lives.

Lord, I pray that there's someone here today that does not know you, that does not have the hope of Jesus Christ in his or her life that today can be the day of that glory.

Today can be that day of that confidence in Jesus and only him for what he has provided for us in salvation.

Well, I pray that there's others here today that maybe need to be re reminded of the glory of that salvific hope that we have in you.

Pray that you be in this time of invitation, working hearts and lives.

Jesus name Amen.

As the music plays if you're suffering here today, come to Him.

He is the remedy to all of our suffering.

If you need Jesus as your Savior, we've got some folks up here in the front that can talk to you about the Bible.

Men, men, women, with women, and we can show you in the word of God what it means to know him and be a child of God.

Remember, the promises are only for the children and the children are only found in faith in Jesus Christ.

So that's something that you need here this morning.

Remember, Jesus loves you.

He died for you.

He rose again on the third day for you.

And if you believe in that, the Bible says you can be His.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro@middletownbaptistchurch.com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow along for future podcast and updates.

Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.