Purpose #3: You Were Created To Become Like Christ Series

Romans 8:28-29

Purpose #3: You Were Created To Become Like Christ

Growing through tough times

Introduction

A. Sometimes life is easy

B. Sometimes we learn, grow, and laugh the whole entire time

C. Let me give you some good advice, enjoy those times!

D. Those times will not always be there

E. Those times will come and go

F. But the question becomes Are you growing trough tough times

G. Let me show you this video of some people who are going though a tough time

H. (Show Bonnie Witherall)

I. Tough time for all of them huh?

J. But yet noticed how there are handling it

K. They are moving on and learning from it.

L. Today we are going to look at how to grow during tough times

M. We are going to examine the verse that always gets quoted to us when we are facing a difficult situation.

N. Romans 8:28

I. We know

A. Explanation

1. Have you ever thought of live with out Jesus

2. I have.

3. I do not like it

4. It scares me completely

5. Knowing what the Bible says “All of sin and fallen short of the Glory of God”

6. And the wages of sin is death. Understanding that I have sinned countless of times

7. That would leave me with no hope

8. Life would not have any meaning

9. I would live in a constant state of terror

B. Application

1. But here is the thing, get this “We know”

2. We know we have hope

3. Our hope is not based on positive thinking…

4. Our hope is not based on wishful thinking…

5. Our hope is not based on Natural Optimism

6. Our hope is based on the truth that God is in complete control of the universe al all time, and he loves us

C. Illustration

1. When I was flying this week into Chicago. I admit I was a little scared. See I like to be the one in control. When I am in the car, I am driving about 90% of the time. I like the control. I feel more comfortable. But here I am in a plane having to put my hope in the Pilot

2. I know the pilot has to go through extensive training

3. I know that they have to check everything out on the plane before we take off

4. I know they have backup systems just in case

5. But it is scary to have to completely trust that pilot to get me there safe

6. But our hope in God is real. There is no scary part in it

7. God in control folks

8. Not only is he in control, he loves us

9. Now that is the person we want flying our plane

10. Because we know… because we have that correctly placed hope, we can proceeded with the rest of the verse

II. That in all things

A. Explanation

1. How many of you have ever said, “What good can come out of this?”

2. Let’s be honest, I believe we all have said that time and time again

3. We know that God is Holy, Psalm 99:9 tells us that

4. We know that what we do is not always holy

5. We know that we make mistakes,

6. WE know that we sin

7. We know when we do not do the things we should do

B. Application

1. Here the good news, God’s plan for your live involves “ALL” that happens to your

2. Death of a loved one, illness, debt, disasters, divorce,

3. God takes “all of them”

4. And what He does with them is amazing

C. Illustration

1. Think about it folks, God up there hanging on the cross, the cross does not mean as much to us today as it did back then, how about picturing an electric chair.

2. When He was on that electric chair, he did the most wonderful act of taking all the “Bad” in this world and making it good

3. Because of what he did, we have salvation

4. Think about it, he took the bad, and make it Good

5. He did that for “All” things

III. God works

A. Explanation

1. There is a popular world view out there called deism

2. In fact, many of our founding fathers on this country, including Thomas Jefferson, were deist

3. Now deist believe God Created the Heaven and Earth

4. They do not believe in evolution

5. However, they believe that once God created the Earth He sat back, and is still resting

6. They do not feel that he has any active role in the Earth today

B. Application

1. That is not true

2. See if you believe that God is love, if you believe that God loves us