| Teacher: Rob Duffy Series: Romans (Acts) |
Rob's Notes | |
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.
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.
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