Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior
Jesus Christ Amen. So dear fellow children of God, have you
ever had a life situation stress you out? You know the kind that I'm talking
about right? The ones where you find yourself awake at night because you
can't get whatever it is that's going on in your life you're out of your head. You're
just so consumed, so wrapped up with the situation whatever it might be and
you just don't know how this situation is going to resolve itself. You don't
know how it's going to turn out in the end and there's just a whole lot of
uncertainty. So if you think about the times in your life when you find
yourself under the most fear, the most worried, the most anxiety, I think what
you would find is that at the bottom of that fear, worry, and anxiety sits
uncertainty about the future where you just don't know what's going to happen.
And so today in this section from Romans chapter 8 that we're going to look at
what we find is that God gives us the solution to our stress. It gives us the
solution to our fear, the solution to our worry, the solution to our anxiety and
also the solution to that uncertainty that so often lies beneath it. And so
let's read together now from Romans chapter 8 verses 28 to 30. And we know
that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been
called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined
to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he
called, he also justified; those he justified he also glorified. And this is
God's Word. Now the whole point of this chapter of Romans it's all about
how the Christian deals with difficulty, with suffering, with hardship. And so
through the chapter Paul's made several points. he stated
that the coming glory that's ours in Christ that it is so great that it's not
even worth taking the time to compare it with whatever our troubles are in this
life. And then he's encouraged us in those times of trouble to carry in to
the Lord in prayer with the promise that the Holy Spirit will help us and guide
us in those prayers. And now in today's section he moves into the confidence
with which we can face all of these troubles and hardships. And he moves into
this confidence with a declaration. he says: we know that all things work
together for the good of those who love God who have been called according to
his purpose. And so, what we're going to do first is we are going to unpack this
marvelous declaration so that we have an understanding both what he is
promising us here and also what he's not promising us here. And so, we start with
the phrase all things. All things simply means everything in life. It means
prosperity, it means poverty, it means tragedy, it
means triumph. It means joy, sadness, things pleasant, things painful, smooth
days, rocky and difficult days, and of course
everything in between all of those. So when we say all things, we don't have to
make it too complicated do we. All things means all things. It means the whole
realm of your life experience. All things work together he says. To work together
with another person is to cooperate toward a common goal. When my wife and I
ask our children, tell our children, to pick up the living room, what we're
asking them to do is to work together. Work together toward the common goal of
having a living room that you can walk through without tripping and falling
over a toy. That's working together. That's cooperating. And so what Paul says
here is that all things in our life they all cooperate, they all work together
toward that common goal. And so, what's the common goal? he says that the common
goal is your good, Now that's the phrase that I think requires the most
explanation. What does Paul mean by good? And to understand that, to understand what
is getting it here, what we have to do is we have to lift up our minds for a
moment. We have to lift them up outside of the
day-to-day. We have to lift them up to see the big, big, bigger picture of life.
And thinking of the big, big picture of life, what is the greatest good that can
happen to a person? What is the greatest good that a person can experience and
have in this life? Is not the greatest good to know God. to be close to him, to
be loved by him, to live forever with him. Wouldn't we say that that's the greatest
good that can happen in all of life? And so, then when Paul says here that all
things work together for good, I can tell you what he's not promising about. he's
not promising about pleasant life circumstances. This is not a promise
that if you lose your job that you'll get a better paying job in a few months
down the road. This is not a promise that if your significant other breaks up with
you that you know sometime down the road you'll find someone who is better, who is
more attractive, who is kinder and things like that. And this is not a
promise that if you experience something really hard and bad in your life that
you can expect something good to come right on the horizon of it. That's not
what Paul is promising here. But what he is promising is that everything in your
life, everything that happens to you, everything that happens to those around
you, it all serves it all works together to bring you closer to God. So, what does
that mean in real life terms. Well it means then if all things work to bring
you closer to God, well that means that everything you experience serves or can
serve to refine and purify your faith. It can serve to lead you to cling to God
into his word more tightly and to work the trust on him more and more and more.
And as this happens your character is also refined so that your character
becomes a greater and clearer reflection of God's character. And he uses these events
then to teach you patience, empathy, compassion, humility, kindness and does them all
as you are drawn closer to Him. And so, if you think, about it how can this be? How
can it be that every event in your life works to accomplish these things? Well
there is only one way possible. And that's because God is in charge of
everything. He is the one who's governing, he is the
one who is guiding, he is the one who is leading, directing those events toward
his desired outcome. All things work together for your good. That's the one
making it happen. And then finally we get who this promise is for. We look at it and
notice it's not a blanket promise for humanity. Rather it's a specific promise
that applies to a specific group of people. And Paul identifies those people
as those who love God who have been called according to his purpose. So, two
phrases, those who love God, and those who have been called according to his
purpose. Both of those phrases are talking about the same group of people.
Who are those who love God? Well, those who love God are the ones who have been
called to faith in Jesus Christ. You see it's only the good news of God's saving
work for you in Jesus. It's only that good news that produces faith and it's
only that good news that actually leads us to be able to love God and makes us
want to love him. And so then what this means is that this
promise is for you. And then what that means is that whatever it is that
stressing you out, God's got it under control. In the end the particular event,
the particular situation, it may turn out this way. It may turn out that way but
the end result is the same. God's going to use that, he is using that, to bring
you closer to him. Now the challenge in all of that is believing it right. I mean
not just believing it like yeah, I know that's true, but believing it to the
point where we actually kind of start to let go of some of the things that bother
us, some of the things that we worry about, some of the things that stress us
out in life. And so perhaps the strongest way that we can see God actually working
this truth out is in the life of Jesus Christ. Actually, the death of Jesus
Christ. Because you look at Jesus' death, and I don't know that there's a
greater indictment on all of humanity than the death of Jesus Christ. Consider
all the factors that were at play in Jesus death. You had jealousy on the part of
the religious leaders. You know they were jealous of Jesus, that the people
followed him, and that they liked him, and that they listened to him. And the people
who were jealous were the ones who you would think would have known better. They
were the ones who were instructed in all of their teachings. So, you had
jealousy and then on top of that jealousy, you
had injustice in the legal system. It's such a great injustice that would allow
an obviously innocent man to be put to death. On top of that injustice you had
political expedience on the part of Pilate who instead of doing what he knew
to be right allowed an innocent man to die for the sake of preserving his high
office in the government. You had fear on the part of his disciples when Jesus was
arrested. They all ran away from him. Of course all this on top of the physical,
emotional, and spiritual suffering that Jesus endured. All of that, but what did
God do with all of those events? Well, he broke the power of death by raising
Jesus from the dead. By those events he delivered the world from sin and from
death. By those events he declared you and I to be righteous and holy and forgiven
of everything wrong that we've done and welcomed us into his family. he
accomplished all of that by one of the most heinous events in all of human
history. You see what this clearly tells us is that our God is so great that he
has the power and the might to even use evil to bring about good in our lives
and good in the rest of the world. And if he can do that in such a grand scale, so
the big scale is in delivering us and saving us from death, if he can do that,
then can he not also make that work out in the details of your life and in the
details of my life. And you see that's what the Apostle Paul moves to next. he
moves from the big promise God works everything for good, and then he invites
you to see how he's done that for you. What he invites us to do is to see God's
working in your life. To see that working from the quiet recess of eternity in the
past and then forward, forward into the boundless future. he invites you and me to
come with him on a journey to see the chain of our salvation from eternity in
the past into the future. he says for those God foreknew he also predestined.
And those he predestined he also called. Those he called he also justified and
those he justified he also glorified. You see this chain is true of all Christians.
If you were on one end of this chain, you were on the other end of this chain, and
so every link of this chain that we're going to look at it applies to every
single one of you. And so the first link in this chain is
foreknowledge. That God foreknew you. To foreknow it means to know ahead of time.
Yet it means more than that. It means before you were born, he knew you. Not
just in the sense of he knew your name or he knew what you were going to be
like, but it means that he set his love on you ahead of time. he set his love on
you from the time before the world was created. And then from there, there's
another promise. Those he foreknew he also predestined. To predestined
something is to set its path ahead of time or to fix its future. And
so, then what we know is that on all of those on whom God set his love
beforehand, that all of those people also had the eternal destination laid out for
them. that eternal destination laid out for them in advance of all time and
history. Now I'll make a little aside comment here. A challenge that we get with the
word like predestined is we hear the word and we often want to force our own
thoughts or in our own understandings onto that word and what often happens is
their own thoughts and understandings go beyond what God wants to communicate to
us through it. And so, if we focus on what Paul says here rather than speculating
about what he doesn't say, we can find great comfort in this truth that God
foreknew us and then he predestined us. You see what Paul is saying here to the
Christian, what he's saying here's to every single one of you is that God knew
you and God loved you before the world began, and in that love he sets you on a
path to be with him forever. And so, what that means is that you, the Christian,
every single one of you, you are not an accident. You are not here by
happenstance or mistake. You are here today because God chose you. You're here
today because the Almighty God of the universe wanted you to be here and he had
his eye and his heart set upon you from all eternity. he foreknew you and he
predestined you. The chain then continues. Those he predestined he also called.
See with this link the Apostle moves from events that happened in all
eternity to events that take place in your life. You see he saw to it that at
some point in your life, whether it was a little child or whether it was as an
adult or anywhere in between, that you heard about
Jesus Christ. And not only that you heard about Jesus, but that you also were led
to believe in him. You were called and then by that faith the next link in the
chain happens. Those he called he justified. To be justified is to be
declared not guilty of any wrongdoing in court. And so, in a divine sense to be
justified by God is to be declared not guilty of any sin before God and to be
declared not guilty of any sin by God himself. Well he can do that
because he took away your sin. he took away your misdeeds. he took away every
time that you did less than what you should have, and he also took away every
time that you carried through and did more than what you should have. And he
placed them all upon Jesus Christ when he died for them on the cross and that's
how we're justified. And then there's the final link. Those he justified he also
glorified. Maybe this one is at least in the language perhaps the most
interesting. You see Paul in this chapter he talks about a coming glory. You know a
glory that will be revealed in us. And so you might expect him to talk about glory
in a future tense. Those he justified he will also glorify. but that's not the
way he talks. Instead he uses the past. Those he justified he glorified. So
why does he talk that way? Well there's two reasons. First of all, this coming
glory, though it is coming, it is already the possession of those whom God
foreknew, predestined, called and justified. And so, what that means that
this glory already belongs to you. It belongs to you today. And so, in that
sense, you have been glorified because that glory is your possession. But then
secondly with that, this coming future glory is it is so fixed, it is so certain,
and it is so rock solid that Paul can speak of it as an accomplished fact even
though it has yet to happen. Because so certain is the promise and word of our
God. he says it, it happens. There's no wandering or wavering about whether or
not it will come true. So, let's now put this all together. What do we see? We see
that God has been directing the events of all history from one end of time to
the other. And he's also been directing the events of your life from one end of
your life to the other. All with the simple goal of you
being with him and glory forever. So, I'd like you to think for just a minute
about what all of this means in your life and what I'd like you to focus on
just think about what we're the chain of events that happened in your life that
brought you here today. The chain of events that made you a child of God and
brought you into his house and that made you believer. What were the
circumstances in your life that helped to bring it about. Maybe it was a spouse
who first brought you to church. Or maybe it was a friend who first invited
you and brought you and so on. And you can think back well what were the events
that led to knowing that person. We can think, well, I would not have married this
person if not for this event that had happened a year before that. I would not
have had this friend in my life if not for that choice that I made three years
before. And it's fascinating. Well, what's happening through all of those choices
and all of those life events? Well what's happening is God's walking you through
this golden chain of events. God is working all things together in your life
for your ultimate good. That's what he's doing. Now does that mean we always
make the best choices and never make choices we wish we'd have back? No, it
doesn't mean that. Does that mean that we never say and never do things that we
regret and wish we could have back? No of course not.
Does that mean that that we can be flippant with our life choices and that
we don't need to put due diligence. And - no, of course not. But our God is so
great and so wonderful and so magnificent and so loving that he uses
not only our good choices but also our bad ones. And that he uses not only our
moral triumphs but also our moral failures. he uses it all to bring us
closer to him. So, let me make this a little more real for you if it's not
real already. You see I'm a pastor, I'm a pastor here, and I'm a pastor in general
because while I went to college and Seminary, the one that our church body
runs in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I can say with the pretty high degree of
confidence that I probably would not have gone on to that college and seminary
had my parents not sent me to a Lutheran High school, to Luther Prep in Watertown
Wisconsin. And readily I'll say it was not my choice to go
there. My parents said you're going whether you're like it or not because
your brother's going, and he wants to go, and we'll let him decide for you. But my
parents would not have sent me to that high school if we weren't attending the
church outside of Austin, Texas, that we were attending at the time. You see the
pastor there, the one who preached here a few weeks ago, maybe you remember him. he
was really important. he encouraged my parents to give it a shot and they did.
Well, we wouldn't have been in that church if my dad hadn't taken a job that
moved us to Texas. But we wouldn't have been in any church if my parents hadn't
sought out a different school when I was in first grade back in Phoenix at
the time when they were young. And the school that they ended up finding was
Lutheran school at one of our sister churches down in the valley. And so then,
and it was through that school actually that brought my family into church. And
so then, what was the event that caused my parents to want to seek out a
different school? I was very young at the time, but I believe it had something
to do with the sex education policy that the district wanted to implement at an
elementary school level. That's what made my parents say no we're done with this.
We need to find a new school. So, then you could say in a sense I'm here today
because of a sex education policy instituted back in 1985. But now I want
you to think a little bit bigger picture from that. If you are blessed then by the
preaching and teaching and ministry that I carry out on God's behalf, and God's
blessed you through that, then that sex education policy was written but with
you in mind. God used that event for your good and for your blessing. You see all
things work together for good for those who love God. So then if you find
yourself worrying about something, if you find yourself stressing about what's
going on in your life, take yourself back, not just to the beginning of your life,
but take yourself back to see what God has been doing for you from all eternity.
You see from all eternity he set his love upon you and having set that love
upon you, he sent his Son to save you, to live perfectly in your place, to die in
your place, and to rise again. And in that he set you on your path of life, and he
guided your days and your steps so that you would hear
about the Savior. Not only hear about him but believe in him and t hen eternal
glory that's in store for you by faith in the Savior so certain it is
as if it has already happened. And so what does this mean? It means that
however, the situations in life that you're dealing with turn out. whether
they turn out in your favor in this life, or turn out against you in this life. in
the end it will be okay. We know that because if God has arranged and ordered
and used all of the events in your life with the ultimate goal of your eternal
life, well, then can he not use this situation that you're dealing with as a
step in his plan to bring you closer to him. Or a step in his plan to bring other
people closer to him. Of course, he can do that and of course he will do that. So
you don't have to worry about it. You don't have to have fear. You don't have
to anxiety. You don't have to lose sleep over at all because God's got it. And
he's also got you. See a life in this world, it can be hard, it will be hard.
There's no denying that. But you friends, you were chosen by God and you're dearly
loved by him. he sent His Son for you, he gave up his Son for you. And there's no
denying that either. So, the same God he can and he will use everything for your
good. Amen
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