Good Morning, Church! This is the day the Lord has made and we REJOICE and we are
GLAD in it.
*Who watch the FIFA games? And . . . sorry if you don’t agree with me, BUT . . . Que
Viva España! Hurray, Spain!
BUT, before I keep celebrating and rooting for España, how about we pray?
*Holy Spirit, thou art welcomed into this place.
Open our eyes to see,
Open our ears to hear,
Our minds to understand,
And warm our hearts to believe.
Now may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be
pleasing in your sight, Oh Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.
We live in a culture where winning is more important than the lessons we can learn in
life.
Winning satisfy our egos. We feel better about ourselves.
Winning makes others respect us, or so we think. (wink)
Winning defines our self-value and, sadly, we continue to pass, share, and perpetuate
that narrative.
So, if we do not win, then we loose. And what happens when we loose? How do we
handle that? How do we feel about that. Well, sadly and painfully, we shame and
embarrass those who do not measure up.
*A few days back, Spain outlasted Argentina on a 1 to 0 score to win the World Cup
championship, aka FIFA.
España is now known as a world-class champion, or a conqueror in soccer.
But, Spain/España got that victory thanks to one player, Ferran Torres.
But something unexpected happened at the end of the game.
*Ferran Torres from Spain and the legendary Leo Messi from Argentina embraced.
WHY?
Two opposite contenders for the World Cup . . . playing to conquer a world title to win
RESPECT and world recognition.
In order to make it to this event, athletes have sacrificed a lot, some have risked or
sacrificed everything.
The Roman culture was one, like the Greeks, about competition. Their winning was with
force. Their tactic was intimidation and there was no compromising.
And, throughout the history of humanity, sadly, every culture and country have
attempted to gain respect using force.
The apostle Paul is ministering to people from a tough cultured society and generation.
They wanted the gifts and blessing that “came” with the Gospel of Jesus Christ without
giving up their pleasures and without accepting correction.
So, the challenge is, how am I, are we like the Romans? (Something to think this week.)
*To give them encouragement, Paul tells them, you do not have to do this by your own
strength. You are not alone. We have been given a comforter, an intercessor, someone
who will lead us and guide us through the process.
Of course, this is the paraphrase version according to Pastor Liz.
*The real version reads: the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to
pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
(Romans 8:26 nrsv)
There is a phrase that we are a little too quick to use without understanding the context.
*If God is for us, who is against us? in Romans 8:31. This is NOT about trivial and
mundane things. Paul is not referring about well, too bad you don’t like it because God is
on my side. *NO, Because it is not about God being on our side. Instead it is about we
being on God’s side.
Paul is talking about our spiritual journey and when trials, temptations, and tribulations
come to assail us. Paul is saying, God is for us, because we have been given the Spirit
*who will lead us, guide us, convict us, convince us, teach us, correct us, and even when
thing do not go our way, God is present to sustains us.
How do we know? How do we know God’s Love?
*Verse 32 says, He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will
he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against
God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
God is the one who justifies. Justification is not how we understand it in our human
terms. For us justification is finding a way to excuse our sin or our behavior.
Justification in God’s language is God’s legal act of pardoning guilty sinners and
declaring them righteous. Grounded in Christ’s death and resurrection.
What does all this have to do with being a conqueror, or actually, more than a
conqueror? *Romans 8:37 is one of the most quoted verses of the Bible,
in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us.
To be more than a conqueror means what Paul shares on verse 35,
*I means that there is NOTHING that will derail us or separate us
from the love of Christ?
Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword?
No disagreements with our siblings in Christ,
No misunderstandings, . . . etc.
The love of God through Christ Jesus goes above and beyond everything and anything.
*That is why in spite of playing on opposite teams, due of a previous common history,
Ferran Torres & Leo Messi were able to hug and appreciate each other. . . regardless.
*That is why in September we are starting the pastor’s Bible Study on a book entitled
UNOFFENDABLE. And, IF I have to do it twice a week in order to accommodate people’s
different schedules, I’ll do it.
We are more than conquerors when even when things don’t go my way, I continue to
live a life led by the Spirit of the Living God.
This is the word of the Lord for the People of God.