Sometimes our hearts stoop because of things we encounter. But Jesus speaks for us at the right hand of God. Let’s receive the truth about who we are in Christ. (Romans 8:28-39)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon # 11439
6:30 PM on 3/18/2018

P. Schaller

Prov. 12:25, where is everybody tonight? Empty chairs. Makes my heart stoop. Heaviness in the heart of man makes it stoop. I was sitting on the stoop the other day. What does it mean? But Pastor T.J. and the girls singing, a good word, makes it glad. I need a good word. How about it? Does it ever happen to you that you get heavy and don’t know why? Dumpy, down in the dumps, moody, melancholic, a little bit of news there and a little bit of news there, worry, anxiety and the whole thing together is a cocktail of stooper! My heart is stooping. When you come here you make me glad. You build me up. We work hard around here. We need people to come and listen to us. You might say I don’t have time. Make time. Crawl in here. Get in here and be in here. Everyone on the internet shame on you. Get in here and fill the house of God. A good word makes it glad. Have you ever had a mood come over you and you worry about everything? Things were so good you worried it will go bad! Things going good, too good for too long, so there must be bad around the corner. Ever happen to you? We made the point! You can go home now!

vs. 25. Say it with me. Heaviness in the heart of man. Say something to your neighbor about heaviness. Heaviness makes the heart stoop. My girlfriend doesn’t love me anymore. I got a parking ticket. I had a birthday and no card. Not one person cared about me. Heaviness in the heart of man. Big diet on the news networks. I’ve been studying and my heart is stooping. I go to church and my heart is troubled.

Ps. 77, I had a wound and it was running in the night. An infusion of a running sore, an infection in my body and I complain.

vs. 2. My sore ran in the night and ceased not. My soul refused to be comforted. An infection. A sore arm or shoulder. An infected foot. A joint worn out. I refused to be comforted. I remembered God and it didn’t help.

vs. 3. I complained. My spirit was overwhelmed. Do you know in the 19th century there was no psychology teaching? Nothing about psychology. When you had a pastor in a village in Europe or U.S. and they preached the word, they didn’t have to know the psychology. God is the health of the spirit of man, the soul of man. A lot of people need to be told get up, get going and believe God. I remembered God and was troubled. Sometimes the thought of God is linked with my failure as a believer. I think of how much I don’t love him or how much I don’t pray. I think of how much I have failed in doing what he would like me to do. I condemn myself automatically. I’m in more trouble than before. Trouble in body, soul, and spirit is overwhelmed. That’s what it says. Read it tonight or all week long.

vs. 4-5 So troubled can’t speak. I’m so troubled I can’t go to church, can’t make a phone call, stooping, heaviness. This is the idea of this psalm but he makes his way.

vs. 5. I remembered Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I remember Joseph in jail. I remember God delivering. I remember who God is.

vs. 6. I started to search. I know God is there somewhere. I know God is the strength of my heart. I know God will quicken my spirit. I know God is there. Somehow he will hear my cry and he will help me and deliver me.

vs. 7-9. These are great words.

vs. 10. Right hand of the Most High. The right hand. Who is at God’s right hand? Christ, five times in the N.T. he is seated at the right hand of God. He cannot fall off his chair.

1 Sam 1: I’ve never thought of this before but in my meditation today I thought of this chair.

1 Sam 1:9, Eli the priest sat upon a seat. In the O.T. tabernacle there were no chairs, no seat for the priest to sit down. By the post there was a chair where he sat. Technically there were to be no seats there because the work is not finished. When the priest offers the blood he can’t sit down. He has to work and serve but not finished. Table of incense and the lampstand, the Ark of the Covenant, the blood but no chair. He sits on another chair.

1 Sam. 4:15, I’m happy you are here listening. I’m happy these words are eternal words. Eli was 98 and his eyes were dim and couldn’t see.

vs. 16-17. Bad news. Real bad news.

vs. 18- He fell and his neck broke. This priest is different from our priest. Our priest is seated at the right hand of God and he’s not 90 years old. He’s eternal. His eyes are not dim. He sees everything. He can’t fall backward and break his neck. He’s been raised from the dead. Heaviness in the heart of man makes it stoop but a good word makes it glad. Rom. 8. One of the most amazing portions of Scripture a believer could ever memorize and hide in his heart. These are words that lift us up and encourage us. When our garments are filthy like Joshua. When our mood is negative like some of you tonight. When I am discouraged and we sit in a chair and could fall over backward and break our neck because it is stiff. Pride is how we are broken. Regardless of all that terrible news, my sore runs in the night. My soul is depressed and my spirit overwhelmed when I think of God.

But not this God, Rom 8:28. Another way of saying it is to them that are saved. I could prove it to you in the text but that is the meaning. Everything works for good to the child of God.

vs. 29. We couldn’t get any deeper than God’s foreknowledge. He has chosen you, saved you, made your like secure. This is a good word that makes us glad. Whatever makes our heart stoop? There are chairs people sit in and not the chair Christ is sitting in. People fall over backwards and break their neck but there is Messiah, King of Kings, the Christ and because of me he said everything works for good in your life. You realize the finished work and who God is.

God is not condemning you, Rom 8:1. He’s your best friend. He’s not picking you apart and making you feel guilty. Sometimes the thought of God does overwhelm when I think of God. I need to go to the God of grace and love, of mercy. The God that says these things.

vs. 29. That word throws us off sometimes. I walked over here and was that predestinated that I walked over here? I walked over here again and was it predestinated? The only footstep that was predestinated was Christ. He always obeyed the Father. It has nothing to do with going over there and predestinated. This is deeper. The end game is you and I are conformed to the image of Christ guaranteed.

vs. 29-30. You got to get stirred up in the meaning of those words. Let it seep in and get the feeling of what he is saying.

vs. 31. If we had the time we could go over it a bit. They are extraordinary things, incredible things. A man is sitting in a chair on earth, falls back and breaks his neck and dies. Jesus comes into the world, dies on the cross, is raised from the dead, seated at the right hand of the Father and no way can he be taken down. No way he could fall off that chair or be demoted or put down in a lower place. No way he can die or ever accuse you and me. It would be double jeopardy if he is judged for my sin and then judges me. If he is judged for my sin, then I am not judged for my sin. We are free.

vs. 31. It’s time to whoop it up! Have a jig. It’s time to say devil is standing at the right hand of Joshua and says Joshua was clothed with filthy garments. The meaning is human excrement is on his clothes. He smells. And urine is in his garment. He is the high priest. Satan is at his right hand accusing him saying you are filthy. He could say I am. You are filthy by the Law of Moses. You are unclean. He could say I am. Then there was a voice and the angel said change his clothes. Change his clothes. Heaviness in my heart makes me stoop and maybe it’s because I smell my bad clothes. I’m sitting in a chair where I could tip over. Maybe because I’m filled with myself. Maybe that’s the meaning of heaviness. Filled with himself and his own disappointments and problems. This is different. This is God. This is Christ. What does it matter? When you hear these words, he is risen! He is risen! He is risen! What about that. Everything else is dim in the eyes of his glorious grace and great mercy. If I spared not my own Son but gave him up for us all, how shall he not freely give you all things?

vs. 32. But Lord. Jesus is saying come on. You go to the tomb and stumble a little. Your shoe is untied. He is risen and you are saying my shoe. Talk to me. My shoe. Peter is saying where is he. Mary is saying he is risen. Rabboni. They were crying about our shoe or a mood. Get out of your mood by faith. Reckon on the one seated at the right hand.

vs. 33. Take a nap. Cool it. Chill out. Receive grace. Receive from me. Go to the church and sit there and get built up. A good word makes your heart glad. I need good words that’s why I’m here tonight. We are serious about it for more than 40 years.

vs. 33-34. Paul goes with this next phrase, “yea rather.” Christ died would be enough but Christ died, yea rather – he is pouring it on now. He is risen again. He’s pouring it on. At the right hand of God seated there in a place where the Jewish law could never have a priest sit down. It is finished. He is seated. There is no more work to do on our behalf.

vs. 34. He is praying for you on a Monday morning. On a Tuesday night. He makes intercession for us. He is on our side. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? vs. 35. He goes through a long litany of experiences on the earth and in the demonic realm. He can’t find anything that could separate us from his love. Just let God love you. Let God speak to you based on the finished work. We need good words. We are in a difficult world. We need good words. Shake it off and receive what God says to you about you and be encouraged in it. Famine, nakedness, peril or sword. Yes those things exist even for the believer. He may be naked, in a famine, in a prison cell, may be persecuted or slaughtered like the Islamic ISIS murderers who beheaded those Egyptian Christians a while ago.

vs. 36. But no!

vs. 37. NO! It doesn’t matter. He has risen and is at the right hand. He died and he is risen. Yea even more he is at the right hand of God and he prays for us. A good word makes my heart glad. I need to enter this coming week with a fortification in my spirit. Whatever capacity you are living in, these words are words of life. They edify us and build us up in the most holy faith. Nay! He must have been Danish! Nay! Say it. Nay! Nay! Be brought to the slaughter and looks like we are dust, toasted. Don’t be deceived though blood is in the ground. We are not there. We are with him. We are absent from the body present with the Lord. He overcame death. He justifies us. He doesn’t make us guilty. We are as he is in this present evil world.

1 Jn 4:19. God is for us. Who can be against us? The sword brings me immediately into the presence of God. He is risen. Everything is changed now.

vs. 38-39. Wow. Great stuff. This is what builds a church, builds a believer. This is why we want to Poland, have Body life, and encourage each other. This is why it is hard to say goodbye. God bless you, and it takes an hour to get home. It’s a good word. I need a good word from God. A word that is deep. I need God’s reality. I need God to speak to me where we are living because life can sometimes be messy. We are not seated on a chair where we can fall over and break our neck. We are seated with him in heavenly places in a seat that is secure. We are with our God and when we are with our God we do valiantly. We are encouraged and loved by him always and he will never fail us.

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