Audio Recording Sermon Manuscript: From time to time I get a certain type of dream that prevents me from sleeping peacefully. These dreams are not what you’d call scary. The best word for them would be “annoying,” because there’s always something that is wrong that I can’t get right. It is always something very minor, unimportant. I get obsessed with it in my dream, and I can’t get it to come out right. It feels like all night long I wrestle with this stupid problem. Then I wake up with a headache. If my brain were operating normally, I wouldn’t be concerned at all and would move on with my life. This would be the sensible thing to do, because there are some things that we just shouldn’t worry about. This rule applies not just to dreams, but also to real life. Sensible people know how to sweat the small stuff. Don’t worry about the small stuff so that you can devote your energy to the big problems. Maybe, then, you can solve some of those big problems. But Christian wisdom goes one step further—a step that is too far for reason. “Do not worry about anything,” Paul says in our epistle reading. Well I don’t know about that! Don’t worry while you are waiting for the results of the biopsy of the tumor? Don’t worry while your child is lying sick in bed? Don’t worry while your child is lying dead in a coffin? And are not these just a few of the many examples of things that we might reasonably worry about? Haven’t we had enough things to worry about just this year alone? How can you say don’t worry about anything? There is a reason behind what Paul says, and it is this: “If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him? … What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … Neither death nor life, neither angles nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is what Paul says in Romans chapter 8. The key thought to all of it is this: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Everything else must give way. All other things are merely created things—things that God has made and has control over. So if it seems that these created things are winning against us, that simply can’t be case. Their victory must only be a temporary victory, assuming, of course, that God is for us. But we need not be in doubt about that either, for we know that the heavenly Father did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. This is how we know that God is for us. The deed is done. God has declared his solidarity with sinners and promised their salvation. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. God most certainly is for you and for all people. You and all people are invited to believe this! If God is for you (and he is), then everything is going to turn out fine. Although this kind of sounds like little orphan Annie singing, “The sun will come out tomorrow,” it is quite different. Because little orphan Annie, together with all natural flesh, do not have true hope. The best that they can hope for is a return to normalcy. If you get sick, the sun should come out tomorrow, and you will get better. If you lose your job, the sun should come out tomorrow, and you’ll get a different one. But there is an iron clad limit to these hopes. All these hopes must bow to reason. If the hope is unreasonable, then you can kiss your little orphan Annie goodbye. At the deathbed nobody sings, “The sun will come out tomorrow,” for the very good reason that the sun won’t come out tomorrow for that person who is lying there. Tomorrow that person will be dead, and apparently won’t be able to see the sun. The hopes are limited by what it appears that this creation is able to provid