What You Know Trumps What You Feel

Tom Shrader delivers a one-point message emphasizing that what believers know from God's Word must take precedence over their feelings. Using Romans 8:28 as the foundation, he explains that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him, even when circumstances feel overwhelming or confusing. Through personal illustrations and biblical examples like Joseph's story, Shrader demonstrates how Christians can find stability and hope by anchoring themselves in God's promises rather than their emotional responses to life's trials.

“What you know trumps what you feel, and you've got to go through that again and again and again.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Miscellaneous

Recorded: June 26, 1905

Duration: 46 min

Themes: feelings, truth, hope, trust, peace, trials, faith, promises, overwhelmed by circumstances, struggling with emotions, facing difficult times, new believer, doubting god's goodness, processing trauma, dealing with confusion, seeking stability

Scripture: Romans 8:28, Romans 8:35, Romans 12:1-2, Genesis 50:20, James 1:2-4, Romans 5, Nehemiah 4:14

Theological Themes: biblical authority, scripture, providence, sovereignty, romans, god's word, divine promises, biblical foundation

Full Transcript

We have an unusual situation this week. The calendar unfolded for us to finish up the series, and the tapes are there by the door. You can grab them on the way out - the tapes or the CDs or the MP3s, whatever you want. We finish that series, Getting Control of Your Life, and I think really some good stuff in there.

So we have this one week, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with one week. I'll tell you how I arrived at this. I was in Houston, as most of you know, a few weeks ago, invited in there to teach at a church. When you go in, my experience has been this - when you go in, and this just happens to be a fairly large church - the week before I was there in the campuses, they had 18,000 people in church, so it's a big church.

So you go into a place like that, especially when they don't know you, and the flinch that most people have is to try to impress them with how smart they are. Well, I have years ago abandoned that fruitless effort. I don't even try to pretend that. Then it's to try to dump like this greatest hits thing - here's five points and they come together. I gave that up.

Learning to Keep It Simple

Here's what I've learned, and this is really smart. I've learned this from being in so many situations like that. When you get an opportunity like that, keep it as simple as you can. So here's what I did. I took something that kind of keeps coming up for us, and by that I mean it's a phrase or an idea that we've touched on through the year, but we haven't nailed it down. I took that phrase and built 30, 40 minutes around that, and now that that's done, this will go into something where we'll think it and rethink it and rework it.

So I have today one point message. If somebody says to you, hey, I couldn't get the Schrader's thing today, what did he say? Because so often, they'll go, what did he say, and you'll go, I don't know, there was a bunch of stuff, there were a lot of points, it was very confusing. He looked great, but it was confusing, and I don't know, and all that goes with it.

So here's the deal. One singular point. There is no way you cannot get the point of this message.

Establishing Our Foundation

Now, we've got to establish a couple things. Number one, because this becomes absolutely crucial to this. For most of you in this setting, for many at noon, and a lot of the people who get the tapes, most of you would be legitimately followers of Christ. You're Christians. Some of you would be religious people. Some of you would be searching or asking questions, and some of you might even be antagonistic. They did a bait and switch and got you here. You thought it was breakfast, and they just scammed you into this, and you've got at least enough courtesy to not leave.

So understanding that there's that difference in terms of demographic, we need to establish a couple of things. Number one, here you go. The Bible is the Word of God. We've got to accept that in this premise. Now, when I say got to accept it, I'm not trying to get you to believe something that isn't true. I think if you go back and you can order them off the website anywhere you want, Christianity 101. We spent an entire session on the Bible is the Word of God doctrine. Why is it true?

When we talk about doctrine, by the way, so often when you hear that word, you have these negative thoughts - so dry, so dreary, so heavy. Well, doctrine is there because it's true and it's important, but it has a practical ramification.

Where We Get Our View of God

So where do we get our view of God? How do we understand who God is? Because everybody comes with an opinion. I can go down today, stand at Fashion Square, let you pick out what you think is the least likely person to be a theologian, and I will prove to you in a matter of minutes that they have a theology. I'll just simply ask them, what do you think happens when you die? Is there a God? And they will have a theology. It won't be formalized. It won't be systematized. It won't be in a book, but everybody has a theology.

The question is, where did that theology come from? Where does it find its source? I, for many years, had a theology that was cut and paste, and it was nothing more than my own opinion. If somebody said something and it sounded good to me, then I would embrace that. I loved that. And that's how a lot of people get their theology. Or they hear something over here, or they see something, or they read something.

But not every opinion is equally valid and true on every topic. And when I come to God, God has manifested Himself in three ways. You look around, you look at the stars, look at the moon, look at the clouds, and you go, ooooh, there's a God. The second way is, Jesus came and lived here. The third way is, God has inspired the authors of this book, and we have His infallible word here.

The Bible's Practical Value

That is, not only is it good for us to understand who God is, but it now helps us understand how to live. The Bible is good for doctrine, reproof, rebuke, correction, training, and righteousness. The Bible tells us, remember the old catchphrase for us? The Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right.

I came across this the other day in some study. J.T. Fisher, an American psychiatrist, writes this. And it's a little wordy, I'll do the best I can. If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by most qualified psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene, and if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage, if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable living poet, you would have an awkward and incomplete summary of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison.

Now here's two key sentences. For nearly

For 2,000 years, the Christian world has been holding in its hand the complete answer to its restless, fruitless yearnings. Here rests the blueprint for successful human life with optimum mental health and contentment. That's two powerful statements by this psychiatrist. Here in your hands, in this book right here, for 2,000 years you've been holding the complete answer to life's questions, your restlessness, your fruitlessness, your yearning.

I remember an interview with Sally Fields where she's talking about how since she was a little girl she's had these strange feelings, these yearnings. Every person has that. That sense of who am I and why am I here and where am I going and what's life about. How do I find the answers and how do I find peace? In all of life, for a non-believer I think, and for a believer as well, but for a non-believer it's all a succession of broken dreams thinking that each of them would provide what I wanted.

If I can just get this girl to date me, I'll be happy. If I can get her to go study with me, I'll be happy. If I can get her to be engaged to me, I'll be happy. If I can get her to marry me, I'll be happy. If I can get her to divorce me, I'll be happy. So I go through this whole cycle because I think I'm going to find happiness in her, and then it's her, and then it's her. Or if I can close this deal, I'll be happy, but now it's that deal. If I can invent this product, and it's just endless things.

The Foundation of Truth

Here's the first thing: The Bible is the Word of God. Here's the second thing: Jesus is the only way to salvation. I find salvation in Christ and Christ alone and nobody else.

Someone wrote me a letter not long ago. I had done a funeral for a family member of theirs, and apparently at the eulogizing teaching part of it, I said that many of this person's family members would probably not see them in heaven. Didn't know Jesus. Of course, this guy took the opportunity to write me to say that that was arrogant and cold and not loving, not sympathetic, that at a time when I should be giving comfort and support, I wasn't giving any at all.

I said, well, so I'm constructing the letter back that basically says, okay, so I'm a doctor. You come to me and you feel fine, but in a routine exam, I find that you've got this cancer and that you're going to die. Now, because I don't want to upset you and I want to comfort you and alleviate your suffering, do I just say, everything's fine, everything will be okay? No, I'm going to say to you, we've got this disease, we've got to try to treat it, we've got to try to deal with it.

The Remedy for Sin

Every analogy breaks down, and that one does too, because our sickness here is sin, and there is a remedy. It isn't fatal. You can be delivered from it. Stay on that medical analogy. If you were sick and I had the medicine and didn't give it to you, you'd have John Edwards on the phone suing my socks off, right? You'd be all over me because that's malpractice. You're sick and I've got the cure and I withheld it from you.

Well, you're sick, if you don't know Christ, you're sick with sin, and the only answer is Jesus. I find it almost impossible to not sound arrogant when you say that, because what you're saying is, this way is right and every other way is wrong, and by any measure, that's pretty limited and pretty narrow, isn't it? And pretty intolerant.

It's becoming a minority view. Boy, I'll tell you, it seems to me the best thing you can be is tolerant. Tolerant, tolerant, tolerant. Yet it is amazing how intolerant the tolerant people are of this message. I thought anybody could say whatever they wanted to say. That's what I got out of this. You're opinionated. Get to say whatever you want to say. Until you say this. And you know why? Because a lost person hates Christ. And they can mask it, but they can't hide it.

The Only Way

So, as always, be offensive. Jesus is the only way. I don't know how to say that any more lovingly. I don't say that arrogantly. If it were me, I would have it so we all went. But that isn't the way it is. That's Jesus' role.

Now, all of that affects how you behave. Here's what Paul writes in Romans 12. We use Romans 12 a lot. Talk about Romans 12 a lot. This is from a paraphrase. Eugene Peterson, The Message: "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around, and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him."

Listen to this. This is a great phrase. This is a paraphrase of Romans 12 too: "Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God, and you will be changed from the inside out."

The Narrow Way

So here you go. One point message, based on the fact that we understand the Bible is the Word of God and Jesus is the only way to salvation. There is no other way. That's what Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."

I got a call one day from a guy whose girlfriend had been to a church or a study or something and she just had problems with what we were teaching. Would I meet with her? I said, absolutely. So she calls and she comes in and we're talking and we're just kind of bantering. I said, well, tell me what you think. And she said, well, I just think what you taught is very narrow. And I said, well, there's no question about it.

that it's narrow. It's very restrictive. I said, "No question about that. That's what Jesus said: enter by the narrow way." I said, "What do you believe?"

She said, "Well, I went to this church once and here's what the guy said. It's like there's a wheel and God's the hub and we're all on the outside and religions are the spokes. We can take any spoke we want to get to the hub which is God in the middle."

I said, "Wow. That's wrong. That's goofy."

She said, "But it makes me feel good. That makes me feel good."

I said, "That has nothing to do with anything. Is it right?" I said, "Imagine going to the doctor and the doctor says, 'You know, you've got this sickness. I'll give you morphine. I'll mask the pain, but I don't deal with the sickness.'"

She said, "Well, I happen to be a physician."

I said, "That's perfect then. You understand exactly the point I'm making to you. Is there a right answer here?"

The Truth About Religious Claims

Think about it. Think with me. If you've got one religion that says Jesus is the great prophet, you've got another whole bucket load over here that says Jesus was a good man but not God, and then you've got this thing in the middle that says Jesus was God come in the flesh who died on the cross. He wasn't a good man. He was God. He died for a purpose to save you from your sin.

They cannot all be right. They could all be wrong, but they can't all be right. God isn't some hub in a wheel with spokes. God's the creator of the universe. He sent His son, Jesus. If I believe in Him, I have eternal life. That eternal life changes the way I live. I'm no longer conformed to this world.

The Central Truth That Changes Everything

All that being said, here's the singular point. One single point in this lesson. This is very important, and this is something that you can use. This is something that many of you will use today. Virtually all of you can use in a week, and you'll use it all your life. When you grab this, this is huge.

What you know trumps what you feel. We've used it as a phrase before, but I want to expand. What you know trumps what you feel. You've got to go through that again and again and again.

A Christmas Day Reality Check

A couple of years ago—I say a couple, maybe five years ago now—Susan had this idea that she wanted to build a memory, a family memory. It was going to be all of us going to Disneyland on Christmas Day. We were going to get up Christmas morning, fly over to L.A. or Ontario or somewhere, drive down to Disneyland, spend the day, fly back.

So we fly over. One of the freeways was closed. We got a little bit lost. All that stuff, no problem. We finally get there. Here's the missing part of this: we always go to Disneyland in March. We just take the kids out of school and go when nobody's there.

What no one told me is that Christmas Day at Disneyland is one of the busiest days of the year. So we're pulling up, and I'm saying, "Boy, there's a lot of people here. There's an awful lot of people here. We're in line to get into the parking lot, Susan. There's a lot of people here."

Then we got in. We're so far away—literally so far away, and they were constructing that other thing—that we had to ride a tram a long time to get there, stand in line to give them a couple grand to get the four of us in. Then I got in, and I'm thirsty. I'm saying, "Well, I want some water." I stood in line 15 minutes to give them $5 for a bottle of water.

I said, "Susan, we're building a nightmare here. We're not building a dream. We're building a nightmare here. This isn't good."

She said, "Tom, just don't ruin it."

I said, "I'm not going to ruin it. I'm not going to ruin it. All these people are ruining it for me. That's the problem."

The Power of Perception vs. Reality

So I said, "Look, guys, here's the deal. We aren't going to just be able—because when we go in March, we'll go through Splash Mountain, get around, and get back on. There's no line. There's nobody there. We're going to have to be very selective here on what we want to do. We're going to have to be very precise. What do you want to do?"

"Let's do Star Wars." Well, I've never been there when there's lines. So we get in line, and we're in line, and these people are brilliant. Because we're walking and walking and walking and walking, and after about 20 minutes, I'm right back where I started. I'm just on the other side of the bar.

So we're in Star Wars for now, let's say, an hour and 15 minutes. We get in. We get in the ride. Have you been to Star Wars? Been in the ride? You're running through the canyons, and there's enemy fire, and there's stuff happening.

If you get off of that ride, and I say to you, "What was the ride like?" you would say, "It's very important, it felt like we were going 100 miles an hour. It felt like the enemy was firing. It felt like we were diving and shooting and racing through the canyons." That's what it felt like.

Were you going 100 miles an hour? No, you didn't move at all. Were you diving? Well, you go down about this far and to the right and left about this far. Here you go: what you know trumps what you feel.

When Feelings and Truth Collide

Because in life, you're going to have all sorts of these feelings that are going to come in, and I'm not anti-feeling. I'm a big feeling guy. I feel really good right now because I'm going on vacation. I'm not against feelings. I'm just saying your feelings and what you know can conflict. Your feelings can confuse you, and what you know trumps what you feel.

I got a call on a Thursday. It was after a PL. It was about 7 at night, and the phone rang. Susan's trying to—you can hear her kind of going, "Are you selling timeshares from Sedona? What are you doing? No, no, no. All right, let me get them."

I come to the phone, and there's a gal crying, and I can't understand a word that she says. The phone drops. Someone picks it up, identifies who the other lady was—somebody that I know from one of the studies and from church—and said she just got a call her husband's

She said, "Will you come over?" I said, "Sure. You're going to have to tell me how to get there because I've obviously never been there." So I went over.

About an hour before she got the call saying her husband was dead, she had gotten a call from her husband planning the next day. "Here's what we're going to do this weekend when I get back," he had said. He was over doing some helicopter training on the coast, and these two helicopters had collided.

So I get there. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation like that, but in those situations, every time someone comes in the room—people are starting to come in—every time they come in, the person relives the whole thing. "What happened? How did it go?" We go through this whole process, and we're getting nowhere. I'm trying to be gentle, and I am gentle, and I'm trying to be kind. So I said, "Come on, let's get outside where we can just talk."

Walking Through the Pain

We're walking and talking, and she's just numb. You can imagine—you don't have to stretch to figure out what she's going through. She said a couple of times, "Tom, tell me it's going to be okay." And I didn't.

At one point—I could take you right where we were standing—I said, "Tell me what you feel." She said, "I don't know." I said, "No, no, no, just dump it. I don't care. Just dump it. What do you feel?"

"I'm angry," she said. I said, "Angry at who? At God?" She said, "I'm not angry at God. I'm angry at the control tower, the other pilot. I'm wondering, did I do something? Is there something I've done in my life to justify this? Is this punishment? I'm wondering about the future. What do we do with the helicopter? What do we do with insurance? What do we do with all of this stuff? I'm worried about my daughter and me. How do we survive?" All this stuff started coming out.

I said, "All right, done?" And I said, "Now, tell me what you know."

The Power of Truth Over Feeling

"I know God won't test me beyond that which I can endure. I know He'll never leave me or forsake me. I know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I know that if I seek first His kingdom, He'll take care of all these other things. I know greater is He that's in me than he that's in the world." And she listed about another half dozen things.

I said, "Now, let me tell you something. Everything's going to be okay. Because here's what you've got to get your arms around. Here's what you're feeling. What you know trumps what you feel. You may feel way distant from God. You may feel like God's moved away from you, but He hasn't at all. He'll never leave you or forsake you."

The application here goes way beyond that. I deal with people all the time that say, "I don't know that God could ever forgive me. Here's what I've done." And they'll lay out these horrific things. I'm saying, "Well, at that point, you've complicated it even further, because you're calling God a liar, because He says, 'If you confess your sin, I'll forgive it.'" What you know trumps what you feel.

Romans 8:28 - The Foundation

One verse: Romans chapter 8, verse 28. Let's turn there. We've got about 20 minutes, and we'll unpack this a little bit and send you on your vacation way.

Romans chapter 8, verse 28. I didn't do it here, and my intention is never to embarrass somebody. But if I said, "Quote Romans chapter 8, verse 28, without looking it up," oftentimes, as a group, we will get something like this: "All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose."

I'll spend four or five minutes, and we'll work our way through this. I'll say, "Now, do we have agreement here? This verse says all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose." And everybody will say, "Yeah, we agree with that." That is true. That is an accurate reciting of two-thirds of the verse.

But the first part of the verse, Romans 8:28, begins with this: "And we..." what? Know. See, what I know trumps what I feel. "And we know."

It's a Fact, Not a Feeling

In my Bible, this is the first point. I would write next to verse 28 the word "fact." It's not conjecture. It's not wishful thinking. It's not hoping. It's not speculation. "And we know." How do we know? Because God said so. God said it's true. "And we know."

So the first point—four points. First point: it's a fact.

Second point: this verse is about God. See, if I start where we typically start—"all things work together for good"—that verse is about us. But that's not where the verse begins. "And we know God causes all things to work together for good." And we know God's at work.

God's Character Revealed

Some of you have been in here when we've talked about this before. If I had a Bible, and the Bible only had one verse in it, and this was the only verse that I had—Romans 8:28—if that was the only verse I had, and it's a Bible, it's from God, and I know it's true, that verse alone tells me an awful lot about the character of God. It tells me an awful lot about the attributes of God.

For that verse to be true, there are many things that are at work, but there are two huge points that I can learn from this verse. Number one: God must be all-knowing. Number two: God must be all-powerful.

If I'm going to work everything together for good, then I have to be all-knowing. If God's got something going on, and He's watching your life, and He's all-powerful but not all-knowing, He's watching your life, and all of a sudden something happens, and He goes, "I could have stopped it. I'm all-powerful, but I'm not all-knowing."

If He's all-knowing but not all-powerful, He could be looking at your life and saying, "Oh, don't go there, don't go there, don't turn there. I wish I was all-powerful."

So that verse, to be true, tells me that God must be all-knowing, and God must be all-powerful. Because here's what this verse says: all things work together for good.

God Causes All Things to Work Together for Good

God causes all things to work together for good. Everything. It's not saying that everything is good. It's not saying sin is good. God is saying, "I can take even sin and work it out for good." God is saying, "I'll take everything that comes into the life of a Christian, and I will work it together for good."

There's a sense in which we don't even know when something happens to us if it is good. Now, I'm not speaking morally. We know sin is wrong. You know morally what's right and wrong. I'm saying circumstances.

All of a sudden, you come along, and you have this financial disaster. By any estimation, this is awful. Then all of a sudden, two years later, you're sitting there saying, "You know what, that was the greatest thing that ever happened to me." Isn't it amazing how often you hear that from somebody?

Examples of God Working Things for Good

I was watching the other night the Olympic Hall of Fame, and they were inducting a guy in a wheelchair who earned gold medals in three sports: basketball, track, and tennis. This guy was an amateur tennis player, a highly ranked amateur tennis player, who hurt his back as a young man and is now in a wheelchair. When he came out, you could have written the script. The first thing he said was, "When this happened to me, I thought my life was over. I thought it was the worst thing that would ever happen to me. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Remember Dave Dravecky, the Giants pitcher? Dravecky's throwing one day, and his arm just kind of blows apart. They reconstruct it, he's back out a second time, and he's pitching. As he's pitching, his arm literally snaps. I've talked to some guys who were on the field in the dugout that day, and they said it was like a gun exploded in his shoulder.

They go in, and now they begin to do all the work. They discover it's cancer, and they have to amputate the arm. Now, I know Dravecky's a Christian, so I know Dravecky's been praying, as any Christian would assume, "God, give me opportunities to share my faith." And God said, "No problem, Dave. I'm going to give you a platform where you can speak to millions. I'm going to get you on prime time with Barbara Walters sharing your faith. I'm going to need that arm to do it."

When Tragedy Becomes Victory

In a sense, the cancer and the amputation is an answer to prayer. That has always been my theory. One day, I was in a meeting with Dravecky, and I said, "Can I run my theory by you?" And he said, "That's exactly true. That's exactly right."

See, when we pray and say, "God, here's what we want," and something comes into our life, and it's not a moral issue—don't throw me under the bus here on the moral stuff, you can know what's morally right or wrong—these are circumstances. You don't even know good or bad.

We look at these things that are in our life, and we say they're great. We just had this discussion this morning, sitting up here waiting for you to come, talking about people who get a lot of money and talking about how often that's a curse. "Wait a minute. You're telling me it's a curse that I got hundreds of millions of dollars?" Well, it's going to screw your life up. It looks like the greatest thing, and it becomes the worst thing.

Everything Will Be Okay

God's going to take all these things in your life and work them together for good. So the first point is, it's a fact. The second point is, it's about God. Here's the third point: ultimately, for the Christian, everything will be okay. Everything will be all right. Ultimately, for the Christian, in the ultimate sense, nothing bad can happen to us because God works it together for good.

Joseph's Story: From Slavery to Leadership

I'll give you an illustration from the Old Testament. Here's Joseph. Joseph was kind of a young, cocky kid, kind of sticking it to his brothers a little bit. He's his dad's favorite. They come, apparently, from a dysfunctional family, although I've begun to believe that dysfunction is just an adjective that ought to be attached to family. That's just how that goes. It's just kind of the way family is, in a lot of instances. Not mine, but a lot of instances.

But as dysfunctional as your family may have been, I would suspect none of the siblings ever sold another one into slavery. His brothers sell him into slavery. In fact, they were going to kill him. There was one there who was probably an ancestor of Milton Friedman because he said, "No, let's sell him and make some dough on this deal." So they sell him into slavery.

He goes and gets sold again. He gets sold and ends up with a guy by the name of Potiphar, who's a captain's guard. He's got a position of leadership, prominence. He becomes Potiphar's right-hand man.

Falsely Accused and Imprisoned

One day, Potiphar's wife—and that's all we don't know her name, it's just Potiphar's wife—and they, in that day and age, were much more sophisticated and subtle than they are now. She came to him and said, "Sleep with me." He runs away. Remember the story? She grabs the toga. He runs off naked. She's standing there with the toga, and she concocts this story for Potiphar.

I personally believe that Potiphar didn't believe her. I think he believed Joseph. But he had to have some dignity here. Otherwise, if he believed her, he would have just killed him. He puts him in the dungeon, the lowest part of the dungeon, and there he is.

I'm suspecting—I just know me—I'm suspecting if that's me at that point, I'm sitting there saying, "God, I don't understand this. I did everything that was right. She was there available for me."

I could have had her. I could have done it. I could have used the Clinton line. I could do it because I could. There's a strong defense. I could have, but I didn't. He's now in the dungeon. And in the dungeon, apparently, he's not bitter and angry because the Scripture says, and they could see God was with him.

He rises up to become the second most powerful man in Egypt. At the time, there's a famine in the world, and his brothers are sent by his father back to him, because he's controlling all of the food and the grain. Sent him back to him to ask for the food. They come in. He recognizes them. They don't recognize him.

Remember the story? And then after a little bit of time, he can't contain himself anymore. He reveals himself to his brothers, and his brothers are petrified because they know what they'd do if they were in His shoes. They'd kill him. He didn't. Genesis chapter 50, verse 20. Here's what Joseph said: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."

God's Promise Has Limits

Why? It's a forerunner of Romans 8:28, because God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. So first of all, it's a fact. Secondly, we understand it's about God. Third, everything's going to be all right.

Here's the fourth thing, and this is an important, huge note. This verse does not apply to every person in the world. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, my intention here is not to give you any comfort. Let me read it to you: "And we know God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love Him and those that are called according to His purpose"—those that are followers of Christ, those that are Christians.

So if you're a Christian, here's what I'm trying to do to you as a Christian. I'm trying to get you to see that you can know that even though bad stuff happens in your life, yucky circumstances, things you would never choose in a million years come into your life, you don't have to be discouraged, you don't have to despair, because you know God causes all those things to work together for good. So if you're a Christian, my intention here is to give you a sense of how big God is, how powerful He is, how all-knowing He is, how mighty He is, how much He loves you, how much He cares for you. My intention is to give you comfort, to give you reassurance, to support you.

If you're not a Christian, I don't want you to derive one ounce of comfort from this. There should be no comfort from you. There should be no reassurance to you. There should be absolutely no alleviation of pain derived from this message to you, because this message isn't for you. Everything is not going to be okay for you. Everything is not going to be all right for you. Life is going to stink, it's going to be difficult, and when you die, according to the scripture, the wage of your sin is death and you'll spend eternity in a place called hell, separated from God forever. It's a really, really strong message.

The Permanence of God's Love

Isn't that a great truth, though? For the Christian, what I know trumps what I feel, and there'll be all those competing feelings. By the way, Paul goes on after this to talk about how permanent this is. He's saying, "If God's for us, who can be against us? Who will separate us?" Verse 35: "Separate us from the love of Christ." That's not our love for Him, but His love for us.

And then he lists all these things: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, sword. "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

And I guarantee you, I was not just hyping you up at the beginning. I guarantee you, this is stuff you can put to work right now, today, in your life, and throughout your life.

Elizabeth Grace Kelly

You can't see this in my Bible. This is a Bible I use most of the time in here teaching. I'll use it on special occasions. I'll use it a lot at memorial services. And this is a card. This is from a memorial service. It's dated July 9, 2003. Born July 9, 2003, Elizabeth Grace Kelly. One pound, no ounces, 11½ inches.

It's a great story here. I may have told you before. On the front you can see the little footprints in the hands. Elizabeth was born at 24 weeks. Her parents had been trying to get pregnant for 10 years. Her dad was so convinced when his wife got pregnant, when Stacy got pregnant, that it would be a girl, that immediately when he found out, he just painted everything pink. And it was.

And absolutely, at the 24th week, they lose this baby. And they come in, obviously, to see me as we talk about it and talk it through. And it was magnificent to watch them. It was yet another reminder of what you know trumps what you feel.

Because there were some why questions to which I am absolutely impotent to answer. If there's a question that starts with a why, I almost can't answer it at all. That's just the way it is. And you watch these people in an excruciatingly painful situation. And you watched in the midst of this, and even in the midst of their tears, a sense of peace and comfort.

Right now, Stacy's in the 28th week of another pregnancy. Zach, the boy, this time. And apparently a mother and son are doing well at this point. But I watched him in the middle of that pain.

Another Story of Faith

I have another one that I just—this is from July 2nd this year. This is another lady that right after she got pregnant, the doctor said there's no way this baby can survive. And she said, "Well, I'm not going to do anything but carry this baby as long as I can. Maybe God will do a miracle." So she's walking around pregnant.

And when you're walking around pregnant, here's what happens. Everybody says, "When are you due? I'll bet you're excited." And all the time she's knowing probably she's carrying around

The Reality of Real Pain and Real Loss

What will ultimately be a dead baby. It was, in fact, Lydia Joy who died. What are you doing in the midst of that? Because that's real stuff. That's real pain. And what you know trumps what you feel at that moment. And what you know is that God's greater than all of this. And that God's in control. And as painful as this can be, God's going to work it together for good.

The Multicolored Nature of Trials

See, here's what James writes. In James chapter 1, James writes this. Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials. Now the term various trials there in the Greek is literally multicolored, like Joseph's coat of many colors. These trials are multicolored. They come in all sorts of varieties.

It may be a trial like we just talked about with these babies. It may be a physical trial of pain or suffering. It may be an economic trial. It may be sickness. It may be a broken relationship. Here you go. It may be the trial - here's the toughest one of all - the trial of prosperity and health.

Count it all joy when you encounter various trials. Why? Listen to verse 3, James chapter 1, verse 3. Knowing. Uh-oh. Here we go. Because what we know trumps what we feel. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And endurance has its perfect result or maturing result in you. Very similar to what Paul writes in Romans 5 when he says rejoice in tribulation because you know it brings about perseverance.

The Gym Illustration

You've got like four minutes here. I'm in the process of - I'm in the gym, out of the gym. I was there three times last week. I've got to go today. My mind's struggling here. But one thing I know, it's easier than when I started.

My first day at the gym, I go into the gym. They said, do you need a trainer or somebody to show you how to use these machines? I said, absolutely not. I don't need anybody to show me how to use these. I'm a guy. So I get on this machine, one of these elliptical things, and really all you've got to do is kind of pay a little bit of attention. But I've got the wrong glasses so I can't really read.

So finally I say, what kind of workout do you want? I go, I don't know. I'm manual. I can pick my own. I'm the captain of my fate. What do you weigh? Ooh. I punch that up. How fast, or how much resistance do you want? I thought, what are the choices? One to 20. 15, I guess. 15. How long do you want to do this? Half hour, you think? Half hour.

The First Workout Disaster

So I punch in a half hour. So I start. And I'm starting. And I look down and it says 29.59. I say, oh, it counts down. So I'm doing this and I'm doing this. And I'm kind of looking around. I'm trying to throw my towel over it because I don't want to look at the clock because that will bug me. So I'm looking around. I'm trying to look at other people. I'm doing everything. You know, my stomach's kind of moving a little. I'm thinking, I don't feel good. I've got to be close to done. I turn it off and it's 27.28. I say, wow, we've got a long ways to go. So after three minutes, I get off.

There's a little girl, and I cannot describe this. She's this big. She couldn't weigh 100 pounds. And she's going through the machines I was going to go through. So I thought, you know what, I'll just follow her through because I'm not feeling really good, and I don't want to be moving a bunch of weights around. I'll look like a goof doing her thing, but that's all right. I got on the first machine and I went like that. And so I did a few more. I went to my car and stopped three times on the way home. It's a mile and a half to get sick.

Now when I go in, I'll go like 40 minutes. I could go a while. It just feels like I could go forever, but I get bored pretty fast. So I'll go 32 to 40 minutes, and then I'll do my weights, and then I'll do my stuff.

Suffering as Spiritual Aerobics

But what happened in there? Well, there's this aerobic thing you do that you take your body. I don't understand it. I don't even like it. But you take your body and you push it, and the further you push it, it then has the ability to go even further.

Here's what I want you to see, and we're done. According to God's Word, suffering is the spiritual aerobic. If you say, I want perseverance, I want to go the distance, I want to persevere to the end, spiritually speaking, I want to break the tape, then here's what God says. You need to know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, that the tribulations produce perseverance. So when you pray, God, I want to break the tape, God, I want to be strong at the end, He hears, God, let me suffer.

Remembering God's Faithfulness

It ties right into what we saw. We're done with Nehemiah 4:14. He says, in the midst of all the suffering and pain, he says this. Do not be afraid. Remember what God has done. Remember God is great and awesome. And that's what suffering does.

There's some times when you're in this, and you're in it so far, you're saying, there's no way I can survive, and two years later, you don't even remember what it was. And you begin to learn how reliable God is, and He'll never leave you or forsake you.

The Punchline

Here you go. Here's the punchline. This is the close. One singular point to remember the rest of your life, and you'll be able to use it all through your life. What you know trumps what you feel.

What you know from God's Word to be fact. That you know He'll never test you beyond that which you can endure. And that you know that He'll always provide you an escape. And that you know He'll never leave you or forsake you. And that you know that if you seek first His kingdom, He'll take care of all this other stuff. And that you know that greater is He that's in you than he that's in the world. And you know that ultimately to be absent from the body is to be present from the Lord.

And your feelings may start to lie about those, or bring doubt or confusion. But what you know trumps what you feel. That's really important. That's a great lesson.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for that truth. Thank You that You are a God who is unchanging. Thank You as a God who loves us even

Father, thank you so much for Jesus Christ. My prayer is that You would touch each and every life here, and we would grow in our love for You and our desire for You. God, thank You.

We pray that this time away would be a time for all of us - some rest and relaxation, some time where we're away. And yet we're not away from You. We're studying. We're reading. And when we come back together again in September, we are ready to go - to be Your people living lives that bring honor and glory to You.

Father, we pray that to You this morning. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Have a great week. We'll see you in September.