Good morning, my name is Rob Duffy and I am grateful for this opportunity to share with you this morning.  A few years ago, I was challenged regarding the topic of predestination by two former pastors in a bible study I attend so I reached out to Rusty.  Of course, this means in God’s infinite wisdom, and sense of humor, Rusty asked me to speak on predestination today.  This morning we will also be covering the Holy Spirit intervening on our behalf and our victory in Christ in Romans 8:26-39.  I am praying the Holy Spirit intervenes today so that Christ will use this time to reveal His victory in each of us.
 
Before I jump in, I want to take a moment to share a little more about me and my testimony.  I have been married to my best friend Beth for almost 32 years.  Thank God she is a strong woman of faith, as you will understand as I share more about me.  We have three awesome children, Charlie, Tyler and Rose, two wonderful daughters-in-law, Shelby and Cassidy, and the latest addition to our family, our granddaughter Livia June Duffy.
 
I was born and raised in Southern California by loving parents with an older brother and two younger sisters.  Our family, to include grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins were very close, and they all had a significant influence in my life.  We were always very involved in the church, my Grandma Holdcroft led me to Christ when I was six years old as my Sunday School teacher.  My dad and both my grandpas were leaders and teachers in their respective churches, my mom was a Sunday School teacher and led vacation Bible School.  My brother and I were involved in our children’s church puppet ministry and all my siblings were involved in teaching Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, mission trips and our youth group.  I tell you all this because until a few years ago, I was caught up in the activity of church but didn’t truly understand God’s grace.
 
Contrary to all the above, I was the kid growing up that was not afraid to push boundaries.  My buddies knew that I didn’t have much fear so they always said, “Duff will do it.”  I could give you hundreds of examples, but I don’t want to bore you.  One example was a day over the summer, we were playing baseball at the elementary school and our ball went on the roof, so we found a drainage pipe that went just shy of the second story roof top.  Of course, I said I can climb it to get our ball.  At that same elementary school, if you got in trouble at recess you had to go stand on the wall, my mom said to me one time, Robert, I just wish I could come to school one time and not see you standing on the wall.  Side note, my elementary school principle went to our church so he had free reign from my parents to paddle me.  I continued to push boundaries through junior high, high school and college.  So yes, this is another reason to pray for Beth as I still have not grown up much.  I played all sports growing up but was drawn to football.  I was blessed to have men of faith throughout my football career, from youth football up through college. 
 
Beth and I met in college, she played basketball and ironically, four of her teammates married four of my teammates.  We served in Germany while we were in the Army and when we got out, we moved to Ohio, where Beth is from just outside of Cleveland.  Less than a year later we moved to Green Bay, Go Pack.  Our desire to get us closer to family brought us to Indy and that is where we met Rusty at Northside over 24 years ago.  Rusty asked Beth and I to help him start Upward Basketball, a program that led all three of our children to Christ.  I learned during that time that I could combine three of my passions, Christ, kids and sports.  I coached and served on youth sports board for the next 20 years.
 
As the journey of youth sports began to wind down, I learned that I did have a significant fear, a fear of failure.  I was so competitive in everything, and some would argue that I still am.  I saw anything short of perfection or what I perceived to be success as failure.  The evil one latched onto that fear, and as Nick Ford said a few weeks ago, the evil one attacked the personal side of sin, “I am a failure”.  The power of sin told me I was a failure as a husband, a father, a coach, a business leader, you name it.  I knew this was not true, and I am not saying this to boast, but I have been successful in all those areas through Christ.  However, the doubts mounted, and I turned to alcohol to mask the feelings of failure.  The power of sin was attacking my flesh which was causing my faith and my relationships to suffer.  Flash forward a few years and Rusty suggested I meet with Luke Dunnuck to go through the Romans study.  Luke and I could not be more opposite in terms of personality, and the worst part is that Luke beat me in the fourth-grade rec football championship game back in 2003.  Talk about failure.  But seriously, Luke and I have several of the same passions that unite us, Christ, our wives, our families, and of course football.  God, and Rusty, foreknew that this study would open my eyes, talk about predestination.  Luke and I are involved in several studies now, one of them is with guys we have coached with over the years.  What a blessing it is to see these guys walk with Christ.  And yes, we are also in the Friday morning varsity study, or as we call it now, the “apes and peacocks” study.
 
We are reading through the Old Testament in the Friday morning study and one of the things we talk about is that we all fall into the same power of sin trap that the Israelites did, the Israelites align with God to reach the pinnacle, then they fail miserably, then God saves them, wash, rinse, repeat.  The power of sin still attacks my flesh, and in my flesh, I still sin but now I know I am perfect in Christ.  As the song by Mercy Me says, “the cross has made you flawless”.  Let’s dive into the Holy Spirit intervening on our behalf, predestination and our victory in Christ.           
 
Romans 8:26-39
 
          26      In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;
          27      and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
 
At times, we do not know what to pray for, the good news is that the Holy Spirit does, and the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf.  When Beth and I first moved to Indy, I had taken a job here that was a train wreck.  I was distraught because I left a great career in Green Bay, moved our family here and we were in the process of building a house.  About that time was when Rusty asked Beth and I to start Upward Basketball.  I thought, God, what is this?  Through my prayers I felt like God said trust Me.  Beth and I agreed to work with Upward, and it should be no surprise to anyone that things started falling into place according to His perfect will.  The Holy Spirit intervened.  God knows our heart, He knows our needs before we do.  Many of you know Woody Cumbie, he came to one of my football games and asked why I didn’t pray for victory before the game.  I prayed with the teams I coached before every game.  He said to me, God knows that’s what you want so you might as well ask.  That does not mean we will win, but it does mean the will of God will be done and that is what we truly need.  My Grandpa Holdcroft, a man I love and respect dearly, used to pray without ceasing.  God used him to pray for his large family of children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and the community of believers.  At his funeral, the church was standing room only and flowing out the doors.  The Holy Spirit used him to intercede praying for others.  I wish he were alive today so we could just sit and talk about grace and peace, I know he got it.     
 
          28      And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
 
I was so focused on failure; I could not get past it to see the awesome good God was laying out.  I was in this beautiful forest, a God of grace and peace, a beautiful loving wife, wonderful children, a great career, coaching success, and all I could see was the one or two trees that didn’t fit with the picture in my mind.  Yet, this was all part of God’s masterful plan.  I was and still do waste so much time worrying versus trusting and resting.  I used to read the Bible and get so frustrated that I didn’t understand all of it, every word, every verse, every story, every theme, yet I knew that God reveals what He wants us to understand through the Holy Spirit.  I learned to change my focus while reading the Bible through many mentors and a book I read from Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, he called it the SOAP Bible study method.  S= Scripture – read the scripture. O=Observation – what stood out to you, what does it say, what is the context?  A=Application – What does this mean to me?  How does this impact my personal journey?  P=Prayer – Ask God to help you apply this truth to your life.  God will work out His plan for you according to His purpose, what can be better than that?
 
So here we go,    
 
          29      For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
          30      and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
 
I will address this straight on since this has always confused me and while I still need to study it more as we always need to dig deeper, here is how I see it.  We need to read the words in order, pay attention to the verb tense, the context of 66 books and verses before and after.  God knows everything, past, present and future.  God foreknew you would accept Him and believe in Christ.  This does not take away your freewill or choice, He knew you would choose Him, so you were predestined to be conformed to His image.  God calls everyone, but only some choose to follow, and those that follow are predestined to be justified and glorified.  As I said, I am a football guy so the way I think about it is when I was coaching, I would call plays to see how players would react which would tell me what to do next.  Typically, I studied film in advance to see how the players would react to plays so I knew or foreknew what to do next.  Once I saw the decision the players made, I knew or predestined, the play I would call next.  The player still had the choice to stay with his responsibilities and execute his assignment, but I knew the decision they would make and the result.  And since we live in Indiana, I will use a basketball example.  I coached my daughter’s travel and AAU basketball teams and over time I realized the girls would run plays to run the plays.  They followed the rules of the play exactly how I told them to run it versus exercising free will to adjust as the play progressed.  My intent was for them to run the play to get an open opportunity to score, to exercise free will by shooting the open shot or attacking the basket.  I saw that they were predestined to run the play and I foreknew the outcome would be them continuing to run the play.  I scrapped the offense, or the law, for them in sixth grade.  We established three formations with guiding principles for each formation, the goal of each move was to find the opening and score.  I gave them free will to make a choice, and in our case, the hope of scoring a goal.  God laid out the play through Christ and it is our choice to follow him; however, when we choose to follow Him, He predestined each of us to be His children, justified and glorified saints.  This is significantly better than scoring a touchdown or making a basket.  In Ephesians 1:5, Paul emphasizes this critical fact, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will”.  I encourage you to read the rest of Ephesians 1, so you clearly see the progression of God’s plan laid out through Christ according to His grace.
 
The next few verses are so powerful, just think about what Paul is saying here.
 
          31      What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
          32      He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
          33      Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;
          34      who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
          35      Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
          36      Just as it is written,
         “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG;
         WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.”
          37      But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
          38      For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
          39      nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
Who is the One that is able to justify us?  God is the only one that can justify us, so if He justified us through His only living Son, Jesus Christ, who has the authority to condemn us?  Jesus overcame the condemnation and sin of this world through His death, burial and resurrection. 
 
1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”
 
Christ intercedes on our behalf and once He indwells us, we have the ability to conquer every hardship.  How can the evil one or anything of this world separate us from the love of Christ?  His love is always there for us and He will do absolutely everything to help you understand hope in Him.
 
I will leave you with this verse, Philippians 4:8  “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”  See the forest through the trees so you can realize God’s perspective for you.

Romans 7
1 Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives? 2 For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband. 3 So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress.
 
4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.
 
Sin’s Use of the Law
7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! But I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. 13 Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure.
 
The Problem of Sin in Us
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. 19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. 22 For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.
 
Romans 8
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. 6 Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. 10 Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.
 
12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, 13 because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
 
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. 23 Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
 
26 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
 
28 We know that all things work together for the good[l] of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.
 
31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? 33 Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
 
Because of you
we are being put to death all day long;
we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.[m]
 
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
Brent Absher
Brent, you have obviously been through a major crisis. You come here every week. Why?
What are you hearing?
In the midst of pain, where are you finding joy right now?
 
Robert Baldonado
Robert, I want to hear about your journey and your choice to jump ship from your previous church to Leavener after you married Haley.
Can you be a hippie and love Jesus?
 
Bogdan Calin
Bogdan, I would love it if you talk about your personal journey… coming to know Jesus, praying for your parents to understand what you believe, your struggles and trusting through the future.
 
Sven Christiansen
Sven, you grew up pretty legalistic, if I might say (I was one).
But you are fishing with a different perspective now. How has that changed your ministry?
 
Mike Schnese
Mike, you’ve had your share of struggles (share as much as you want) but you come here every Sunday and listen.
What does your faith mean to you now?
 
Bill Shepard
Bill, I just want people to know you.
You and Anna have been coming for years now…
Why are you coming?
How is this message impacting your family?

Coming!