Romans 8:28

Introduction and Context: The Spirit of Adoption and Suffering

0:04 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, December 4th, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you turn with me please in your Bibles to the chapter from which, God willing, we will be reading in our consecutive reading next Lord's Day morning, Romans chapter 8. The 8th chapter of Romans, and I shall read in your hearing verses 15 through verse 30. Romans chapter 8, beginning the reading at verse 15.

0:45 For you received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him.

1:28 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present day. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us. The earnest expectation of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the land of God.

2:03 For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it into the land of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it into the land of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, that is, the redemption of our body.

2:33 For in hope were we saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. And in like manner the Spirit also helps our infirmity, for we know not how to pray as we ought.

3:00 But the Spirit himself makes intercession. He makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that to them that love God, all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.

3:35 For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And whom he foreordained, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also called.

4:05 Glorified. Now let us again ask the help of the Spirit of God upon the ministry of the Word, that God may enable us to have that alertness of mind and that teachableness of spirit, and that he, by his own Holy Spirit, will attend the proclamation and the reception of this, his own Word. Let us pray. Our Father, we would hear again the words of our Lord Jesus, addressed to each of us, saying, Without me, you can do nothing.

The Purpose of the Sermon: Comfort for Tried Saints

4:44 We confess that we are slow to unlearn the ways of creature confidence. We would acknowledge in your presence that again and again, our own barrenness has been the humbling testimony of our creature confidence. And we would now repudiate all confidence in ourselves, or in our ability to understand or to proclaim your truth, and pray that the Holy Spirit will be present in our midst, enabling preacher and hearer alike to receive the Word with understanding and with faith. We ask through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now according to the scriptures of both the Old and the New Testaments, there is always a frightening possibility that men and women may be deceived concerning the true state of their souls before God. The warnings against self-deception are found in the Old and the New Testaments.

6:03 The account of those who were deceived and others who engaged in the wretched work of aiding, but aiding in their deception concerning such matters, the scriptures are not silent. And out of genuine love for your souls, lest any of you be deceived, I preached a series of some two dozen messages throughout the summer months under the title, Are You For Real? And having received many solid reasons to believe that, many of you have come through that series with a renewed conviction that you are for real, that you have indeed, by the grace of God, come through the narrow gate, and that you are upon that restricted or compressed way that leads unto life out of the same pastoral concern that precipitated the series of sermons seeking to enable you to search, and to try your professed experience, I have been bringing a briefer series calculated to encourage, to comfort, to strengthen,

7:22 to fortify those who are indeed upon that compressed way which leads unto life. Together we've considered Philippians 1, 6, Psalm 37, 23, 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24, and Hebrews 7 and verse 25, which in turn gave birth to several other sermons dealing with various aspects of the high priestly intercessory ministry of Christ which secures our ultimate salvation. Now this morning we take up another of these texts for tried and tested saints. One servant of God said, if a Christian had only two texts to accompany him in his earthly sojourn, these two would be sufficient. One taken from the Psalms in which God says that he is a sun and a shield to his people. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. And the text that God helping us will consider this morning, Romans 8 and verse 28, and we know that to them that love God, all things work together for good,

8:47 even to them that are called according to his purpose. This is a text which embodies one of the most fundamental but astounding realities connected with the experience of the true people of God as they make their way along the restricted way that leads unto life. It is a text which has by the blessing of the Holy Spirit when mixed with faith quieted many a torn and grief-stricken pilgrim upon that narrow way. On the other hand, it is a text ignorance of which or unbelief with respect to its assertion can only render the true child of God in great measure, unstable, confused, and vulnerable to the attacks of his arch enemy, the devil. And so I want us this morning to come to this text with dependence upon the Spirit of God that he would write it upon our hearts that we may be able to enter in as one mighty chorus and say as an affirmation of intelligent faith today, and that love God,

Consolations for Suffering Saints in Romans 8

10:14 together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. Now before we examine the amazing teaching of this text, let me take just a few minutes to put it in its proper setting. And this is why I read the relatively lengthy passage in your hearing. In verses 15 and 16 of this chapter, the Apostle has asserted that all Christians have received the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of Adoption.

10:53 And as the Spirit of Adoption, he enables us to cry from our hearts. And you have the word Father in Aramaic, and then you have it in Greek. It's not two different things, but he enables us to cry. That is, Father, to cry.

11:14 Not as something learned from someone else, that which is induced by the Spirit's own power, that which is induced by the Spirit's own power, that which is induced by the Spirit's own power, that which is induced by the Spirit's own power, that which is induced by the Spirit's own power, but in your own words. But what the Apostle says is true. Since we think that the Holy Spirit knows who God is, and that we witness with our own eyes that Jesus Himself, not mar beautifully, with or in conjunction with our spirits that we are indeed children of God. Spirit's ministry here is underscored in terms of His enablement that we may address God in terms of our true relationship to Him. He is our Father. And of giving us that heightened confidence that we are indeed His children.

12:25 But then in verse 17, He goes on and says, If children, then we are those who are legally out to receive an inheritance. We are heirs joined with Christ. There is an inheritance yet to come to us. And it is God Himself who has appointed us to obtain this inheritance.

12:56 And according to this passage, that inheritance will be fully ours and we will come into the realization of it in our experience when we are glorified with Christ. He has already been glorified. He is at the right hand of the Father. When He comes at His second coming, we shall be glorified with Him.

13:21 However, between our present status as the children of God, indwelt by the Spirit who enables us to address God in terms of our true relationship to Him, in terms of that reality, we call Him Abba, Father. He bears witness with our spirits, enabling us to clear our title to true status as sons and daughters. We are marked out to receive a full inheritance, to be glorified with Him. Notice the language, If so be that we suffer with Him, that we make with Him.

14:03 As surely, every true Christian has received the spirit of adoption. As surely as the spirit of adoption in every true Christian enables him to cry, Abba, Father. As surely as every true Christian has, to some degree, the spirit bearing witness with His spirit of His true identity. And as surely as every true Christian will be glorified with Christ,

14:38 will suffer with Him between now and His being glorified with Him. Do you see that in the passage? Do you see that in the passage?

14:51 Yes, no. If you don't see that, I'll pack up the home. The rest is meaningless.

14:59 From the word of God, in restricted way that leads to life, whatever joy, there are many. Whatever blessings, and there are many. Whatever ecstasy, and there will be. Whatever seasons of abundance, there are many.

15:18 Whatever seasons of abounding and overflowing exaltation in God and in His mercy, and there will be many. There will always be an accompaniment of suffering. It is only those who suffer with Christ, according to this text, that will be glorified with Him. Now, if that's so, and it is, then the apostle as a sensitive pastor desires to buttress and nerve the people of God for their portion of suffering while they await their glorification.

15:59 And so, in this section of Romans 8, he gives three solids for encouragement to the people of God in sufferings while willing to be glorified with Christ. Consolation number one is covered in verses 18 to 25 and is summarized in verse 2. Verse 18, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time ought worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward. He says, as the first ground of consolation, there is a vast disproportion between the sufferings connected with our way to the celestial city and the glory that awaits us when we arrive at the celestial city. They're not even worthy to be compared. He doesn't say they can't be compared. It's apples and bananas.

17:10 It's even not a comparison. That's the first ground of comfort. My present sufferings, whatever they may be, in whatever combination, for however long they may come upon me, they are not worthy to be compared. With the glory that shall be revealed.

17:32 Hence, Paul can call them in a parallel passage in 2 Corinthians, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not on the things that are seen, of which our sufferings are of a very real part, but on the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal, including our suffering, but the things that are not seen are eternal. That is the glory that awaits us. But then the second ground of consolation for the suffering saints as they make their way to glory is given in verses 26 and 27.

18:18 And in like manner the Spirit helps our infirmity. The word for infirmity is the general word for weakness, asthenia. And he points to our presence, state as one of weakness. Some would limit this infirmity to the inability to know how we ought to pray as we ought.

18:41 But I cast in my loft with the expositors who say no. Our infirmity is the present state of our pilgrimage. It is the state in which infirmity marks our steps. And as true children of God who have the spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry, Abba, Father, what does the child of God instinctively do when he's made conscious of a concentrated eruption of a given infirmity?

19:13 Well, he calls upon his God, doesn't he? Yes, but there's a great problem. When we do, we don't know how to pray as we ought.

19:25 Likewise, the Spirit helps our infirmity, for we know not how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit is there, and the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Here is the second great grounds of consolation. We not only have what the Apostle says is this disproportion between the sufferings of the present and the glory that awaits us, but in our perplexity of wondering how to pray, in the consciousness of our infirmity, we have an intercessor within as well as an intercessor above. We've contemplated together the intercession of Christ at the right hand of the Father. Here is an intercession of the Spirit in the theater of our own hearts. And I say it reverently, you have God praying,

20:25 knows the mind of God, answering according to the will of God. Tremendous consolation. In a period of suffering, when trying to be submissive to God, and yet recognize that this particular infirmity may be there as a trial to our faith to be removed by aggressive, importunate prayer of which we heard in the previous hour. Or is it there to be embraced as a discipline?

20:57 In the case of Paul, 2 Corinthians 12, we know not how to pray. And in such times, it's not our groaning, but their.

21:08 This indictment of yearnings that cannot find articulation in words. And it is the Spirit himself. Look at the language of the text. It is the Spirit himself making intercession with groanings, which cannot be uttered.

21:27 We have the consolation of this dimension of the Spirit's ministry shrouded with much mystery. And it's not my purpose to even attempt to expound it, but setting the framework for this third ground of consolation. And what is it? It is the marvelous encouragement that we know, while in this present stage of our pilgrimage, with its suffering, with our felt infirmity, with the very things that we read about in Romans 7, our remaining sin plaguing us, a hostile world seeking to trip us up, providences that baffle and confuse us. Were we to attend to read the heart of God in what the hand of God dispenses, surely we would utterly misread his heart. And yet in the midst of that, we can have the consolation of knowing, knowing that if we are in the true people of God, every single thing is working together, working in cons, working to a divine action and design to produce good in the life of the child of God. So here then, in this text,

The Distinctive Identity of the True People of God: Lovers of God

22:52 we have the third of Paul's encouragement to the true saints who know that suffering will be their portion until they are glorified. Now as we come to the text itself, I want you to consider with me the text under these two heads. First, the distinctive identity of the true people of God. For whom is this text given?

23:22 Who has the right to take this text as a scroll from God and to place within his own bosom as his companion throughout all of his earthly pilgrimage? Who has a right to do that? Who has a right, as it were, to take this check that comes down from heaven and to place his name in it, make out to the order of? Well, in this passage, the distinctive identity of the true people of God is set before us in two ways.

23:57 They are given a specific identity in two ways. One with respect to their own subjective activity and one with respect to God's sovereign activity. In a sense, the text is like a sandwich. And the heart of the sandwich, the meat of the sandwich, that which the deli piles up between the two slices of bread, is the wonderful assertion, all things are working together for good.

24:29 Whom are those words intended? Well, let's look at both slices of bread. For you see, those words are bounded on the one hand with the words to them that love God, and on the other, that are called according to his purpose. There's more words in the text identifying the true people of God than there are to set out the great blessing that is held out in the text.

24:57 So it must be important. And the first thing we learn about them is they love God. And these words come first in the original as reflected in the 1901 translation. And we know that to them that love God, the prevailing disposition of the hearts of the people of God is one of loving God.

25:26 God is their chief delight, the supreme object of their affections, the fountain of their greatest joy. And they love God is the stuff of their own imagining. When Paul read to them that love God, letters in Greek, three letters in English, is which the upon packing

26:06 revealed about himself as he really is and not as men would seek to shape and to form him. Think of what he's asserted about this God in this epistle alone. It began in chapter one by focusing in verse 18 and following that the rod is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The God, whom Christians love, whose love to God is an identifying mark of their true state.

26:44 They love a God who pours out wrath upon ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. They do not love the creatures whom he has made. Well, you may not be able to imagine such a God, but he exists, my friend. And any other God is an idol of your own imagination.

27:10 He's the God described throughout chapter two who will judge in the last day all of the unrighteous and the impenitent, who store up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds. He speaks of tribulation and anguish upon every soul of him that does evil. Who is this God whom the true people of God love? He is the God revealed in the opening chapter of Romans as a God of infinite and inflexible holiness and righteousness.

27:48 A God who is of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. A God who will judge sin and transgression. But thank God he is also the God who is unfolded to us beginning in verse 21 of chapter 3. This God who is now revealed in the gospel of his Son, a way of righteousness.

28:10 The God who so loved the world is to give his only begotten Son that his Son might, in the language of the psalm with which we opened our worship this morning, become the sin-bearing substitute to propitiate, to turn away the wrath of God by taking that wrath upon himself. In the language of chapter 5, God commendeth his own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This is the God who sent his Son and sent his Son to die in the room instead of sinners raised him from the dead. This is the God who says, I have conceived and will implement a way whereby guilty, hell-deserving sinners can be brought back into my favor and acceptance at no expense to my holiness and righteousness. I will conceive and implement a way whereby I will remain just, and yet the justifier of those who believe in my Son. That's the God. When Paul comes to Romans 8, 28, we know that to them that love's distinctive identity

29:29 of the true people of God is that they love. It's the case there is nothing in God and nothing from God for which the saints do not love God. There is nothing in the saints that love God. Now, this was not always true of them.

29:58 For in this very chapter he had said in verse 7, the carnal mind is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. The mind of the flesh does not love God. It's enmity against God.

30:18 Whatever polite religious expressions it may give of tipping its hat to God, get down through the crust of externals and you find in the heart of every unregenerate man, woman, boy or girl one massive clenched fist raised in the face of God. The carnal mind, the mind-setting disposition of everyone who is not indwelt by the Holy Spirit is one massive clenched fist against God. And it is manifested by a resolute refusal to have one's heart and life and affections and desires and thoughts and time and all of it is dictated by the law of God. The enmity to the person of God is manifested by insubordination to the law of God. And it can never, never be otherwise unless God himself comes with a gracious intrusion and changes the state of affairs. But thank God he has come.

31:27 And the distinguishing identity of all of the true people of God is that they love God. And my friend, you need look for no further index of whether you're a true child of God or not than this. Do you love God? Do you love God?

31:48 And you children especially, who by parental discipline and by the education of your conscience have not and many of you will never be able to abandon yourself to the grosser forms of sin that mark our society, the question is not whether you do this or that or don't do this or that. The question is do you love God?

32:14 You sit there and just sing his praises in this very building Sunday by Sunday. You love your favorite football team. You love your favorite basketball team. I've seen you kids out on that playground get excited with your mouth and your lips.

32:32 Why? Because you love the game you're playing. You love and nothing wrong with that. But you stand here mute.

32:41 Why don't you praise God? Because you don't love God. You love what your friends will think. It ain't cool to sing out and to praise God.

32:50 If one of your friends should see you, they say, are you becoming Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes? If you love God, you manifest it by wanting to praise him, by delighting when the Lord's Day comes. You don't look at Sunday as bummer day.

33:08 You look at Sunday as the day, the best of all the week. You can be in the midst of those whose mouths are not full of the language, that you have to hear at the school and on the playgrounds. You long for a day when you can read your Bible, when you can be with mom and dad and go over your catechism and have more time to spend with those who love the same God. And that's true of any child, teenager, adult.

33:39 The mark of anyone who is among the two people of God is they love God. Do you love God? That's what I'm asking. Do you love God?

33:48 If you don't love God, then this promise has nothing to you. This promise does not apply to you. This marvelous text is the possession of those that love God. But now, if we ask the question, how did they come to love God?

The Distinctive Identity of the True People of God: Called According to Purpose

34:03 Look at the last part of the text. It moves from their subjective experience. They are lovers of God, and they are described as the ones who are the called according to purpose. And the word for called, for you Greek students, is kleitos.

34:23 It's a word that's used in the same way saint and believer is used to describe true Christians. It doesn't mean those who have simply been summoned through the gospel, but those whom God has powerfully not only summoned, but by the secret but certain operations of His Holy Spirit, actually brought to partake of the blessings of gospel grace in the Lord Jesus. They have been brought to repentance and faith. And this is why in passages like Jude 1 and Revelation 17, 14 and 1 Corinthians 1, 24, this same word is used, and it's clear in those contexts that it's referring to believers and to believers only. And here the apostle, in giving the distinctive identity of the true people of God, moves from their subjective expression of their identity, they are lovers of God, to that marvelous objective activity of God, which made them lovers of Himself. They have been called by God, and called according to purpose. And this word purpose, with but one exception in the New Testament,

35:43 refers to God's eternal sovereign design of grace to His own. Second Timothy, 1, 9 is perhaps the best commentary. He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own. Here's our word, purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

36:11 They are the call according to purpose. This God who calls in the gospel, the gospel which sets out the love of God to sinners, this gospel that calls sinners to repent and to believe, this gospel that God makes effectual in those whom He describes in the subsequent verses, the same group of people, but called according to purpose, are those who are foreknown and predestined, and eventually are called. You see, calling here is the result of God's foreknowing and foreordaining, and having called justifies, and having justified them, He also will glorify them. So you see, this distinguishing identity of the people of God is that whatever their differences may be, and there are many, this they have in common. They are lovers of God, and they have been called by God according to purpose. Now that's the distinguishing identity of the true people of God.

The Exalted Privilege: All Things Work Together for Good

37:31 Now consider secondly the exalted privilege of the true people of God. What is the privilege of everyone who is a lover of God, who loves God because God first loved him, and he's come to know of that love by the effectual call of God that has brought him to repentance and faith? What is the exalted privilege of every one of them, from the most immature to the most mature, godly, Christ-like saint? What is the exalted privilege?

38:07 Well, look at the text. And we know, we know, we know, that to them that love God, all things work together for good. The essence of the privilege, let me state it this way, it is to possess a present and a certain knowledge that all things that transpire in this life of present suffering and infirmity are constantly and infallibly working together in concert for my highest good. That's the privilege.

38:49 In its essence, to possess a present and certain knowledge that all things, all things that transpire in this present suffering and infirmity are constantly and infallibly working together in concert for my highest good. Now, how is that expressed? Well, look at the words of the text. We are knowing, the apostle says.

39:17 We are knowing. We are...

39:23 And the particular construction in the original refers to a fact that is well known. And generally accepted. When you have, you Greek students, the oid amen hoti construction, it refers to a fact that is well known and generally accepted. He used it in verse 22.

39:46 For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. We know that this world has been cursed by God and is under a curse. And it is yearning for its liberation that will come in conjunction with the glorification of the saints, particularly when they are given their resurrection bodies. It's used earlier in 714, the very passage read in our hearing.

40:16 For we know spiritual. This is a fact acknowledged and recognized. We know that the law is spirit. It is not something that merely touches external deeds, but it touches dispositions and attitudes of the heart and mind.

40:35 And the basis of that knowledge for Paul and all who with him can say we know is ultimately the word of God. We do not know this primarily by experience. We know it because God affirms it and God illustrates it profusely in the scriptures and then thank God every Christian who has any experience validates it in his own experience. But it's one thing to have what I know validated by my experience.

41:10 It's another thing to try to learn it from my experience. And Paul says we know. We know. And what are we knowing?

41:20 He says we are knowing that all.

41:24 Now whenever you find the word, you're just like the word everyone and all and the world. You've got to look at the context and see what the limits of the terminology are. And in this context, obviously, the primary reference would be to the all things of our sufferings and our afflictions that mark us in this present stage of our pilgrimage. The all things of our sufferings, our afflictions and our infirmities.

42:02 But there is some compelling reason to limit the all things to that in the remainder of scripture. Then we are oriented to see in those words not only that which is immediately under consideration, but when the rest of scripture indicates that all things means indeed every created reality under the sovereign providential care of God is indeed working together for our good. We are knowing, Paul says, that all things together. Now notice he doesn't say all things are just working, but working together.

42:44 He uses a compound word, the word to work, with a prefix that means together. Same word used in 2 Corinthians. We are workers together with God in the gospel. God is working.

42:56 He calls us alongside to be workers with him. And the text says that all things are working together. And as I sought for something to illustrate, if the only illustration that came to my mind, and for you who have never seen this, I'll just have to describe it. It would be a transmission, not an automatic transmission, but a five-speed transmission.

43:24 If you were to loosen the bolts that would enable you to put that transmission up on the table, and you were to take away the outer casing without dismantling any of the gears, what would you see, you would see, would be an amazing combination of gears of different shapes and sizes, which when the drive shaft is connected to them, they all turn and work together to move that car from zero to whatever the legitimate speed might be when he's up in the fifth gear, so that it may accomplish its purposes as a motor vehicle. Now, it's in the combination of those gears, in precisely the shape and size that each one has been made, in relationship to all of the others, precisely as it has been placed by the engineers in the transmission, that when it is properly put together and mounted on the car and a man gets in, it moves smoothly through the five gears, they are all for a certain end. However, if I simply drop the transmission, take off the casing, then take apart all of the gears and spread them out according to size and weight on the table, they may cause me to be amazed that all of that stuff was in there when I worked through the gears, but they are not. They are not working together for any good.

44:53 Spread out on the table, they're just a bench full of gears. But put together according to a wise design and an intelligent plan, they accomplish a marvelous thing. They enable the power transmitted from the engine through the drives to propel. Well, that's the picture here.

45:20 I'm not saying we know that every single thing is related as an event is working together for good. No, the gear in itself is just a gear, but it's in the coming together and in the meshing of all of these things that the privilege of the true people of God is to be seen, that all things are working together for what? Look at the text. For good.

45:51 It doesn't say for immediate comfort, for immediate joy, for personal advantage and promotion, but all things are working together for good. They are detrimental but beneficial. Paul used the word good in Romans 13, 4 in a way that may help us to grasp what he is saying. Speaking of the civil authority, he's a minister of God to be for good.

46:30 His presence is designed to be beneficial. Again in chapter 15 in verse 2, let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good unto edify. Let us seek to please our neighbor by doing the beneficial thing that will result in his being built up in his Christian faith. And here is this marvelous statement that I of God, one who loves God, called according to divine purpose in the path of suffering and infirmity and affliction as I make my way to the celestial city.

Implied Realities: God's Sovereignty and Unchanging Love

47:12 It is my privilege to have a present and certain knowledge that all of the things that transpire in this life are constantly and infallibly working together in concert for my highest good, however intense the present pain and disappointment may be. Now what are the implied realities that make such a knowledge possible? Well, obviously the implied realities are God's absolute sovereignty over everything that comes within the orbit of the all things that touch my life. How can I know that all things are working together, let alone working together for my good, if someone's not controlling? The text alone would be one on which we could rest the absolute sovereignty of God over every single atom and subatomic particle in God's universe. How can every single thing be working together at all, let alone working together for a specific design that God says will always be my ultimate good,

48:33 unless God, if ever we're to hope that putting them together in a transmission casing is going to mean that the car can move smoothly through the five gears and attain to highway speed? If everything's up for grabs, if everything's at the mercy of brute chance, or a God who, as one leading Christian writer recently said, will never, never force his will on any one of his creatures, our prayers may influence God to do that, but God would never take the initiative to do it. You see, if we have man in control, worse yet, one who's far more mighty than we are, the prince of darkness, then this text could simply never, never have been written by the Holy Ghost. As the Shorter Catechism says, God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions. And it's because of that truth that Paul can write as he does.

49:53 He is employed. He is implying this reality and asserting this. God's absolute sovereignty over all things expressed in his specific providential control of all things. And the second implied reality is God's unchanging love and purposes of grace toward his own.

50:15 God's unchangeable love and purposes of grace toward his own. When he says, we know that all things are working together for good, to God-lovers who've been called according to purpose, he can make that assertion because everywhere God reveals, he has an unchanging love and immutable purposes of grace toward his own. And that's what launches Paul into verses 29 and 30, which I'm not going to attempt to expound this morning. You see, people say, well, you know, Pastor, when I come to church, I don't want theology.

50:54 I just want a nice little bite. My friend, this is one of the most well-known promises in all of Christendom. And yet it is packed through with the highest theology imaginable. It has the theology of God's effectual calling.

51:12 It has implicit in it the theology of God's absolute sovereign control over things. The immutable purposes of love to his people.

51:28 Shouting is made when these aren't in the appropriate places. Jump as high as you want in the appropriate places. But when you come down, you've got something more than mush under your feet. You've got these granite blocks.

51:53 Solid biblical truth of a sovereign God who orders everything in his world, whose heart is toward his people with immutable purposes of love and grace. And therefore, and therefore alone, can we say with Paul, we know. We know! That to those of us who love this God, all things are working together for our good.

Application: Peace for the Future

52:21 Now, by way of application, what does this say to us in practical terms? Well, to the true people of God, this is the first thing it will do. If by the grace of God we lay hold of it, it will impart a deep, settled peace with respect to all of the unknown things of my future. Many a child of God wastes spiritual and mental and emotional energy wondering, what if in my family history I will most likely be unusually vulnerable to this or that illness? In terms of this, that, or the other, it appears to me that I may well be. And you're constantly anxious about the future. Child of God, if you get hold of this truth, I know that whatever things will comprise the all things of my life, for however long God keeps me on the restricted way that leads to eternal life,

53:33 all along the way, things will be like a well-matched gearbox over which God presides, all things to my own will. But something before my eyes that seems to have written all over it, evil, destructive, I can say no. It will work together for good, because God has said it, because God has declared it. It's not my ease, my pleasure, my material prosperity that God has committed to, but my good. If we read on in the passage, that greatest good is conformity to the likeness of his dear Son. . saints who cannot think of the future without deep disruption of your peace. Pray this text

Application: Submission to Present Dark Providences

54:35 in until God weaves it into the very texture of your soul. We know working together for good to all those who love God, to those who are the called according to purpose. Secondly, it will enable me to render a principled submission and believing response to the dark providences that presently accompany me. See, it will not only relieve me of sinful anxiety about the future, it will enable me to render a principled submission and a believing response to the dark providences presently accompanying me. I am sure that there are not a few of you sitting here this morning with dark providences accompanying you. Now what are you going to say? Are you just going to render a reluctant sort of stoical submission, God's boss, and I know I can't throw him over, and I know somehow he is in control? What a difference when you can say, Lord, I don't have a clue

55:51 how any good can come out of this, but you have said that you are worthy of my trust all the time. All things are working together constantly for my good. Otherwise we are going to be like old Jacob. Right at the time when things in the plan of God were never better, he said, all these things are against me. All these things are against me. You want me to go down to Egypt? I already lost one of my sons, and the other one is being held hostage. And never, never was he closer to being able to say by sight, all things are for me. But it didn't change reality. God was ordering everything from that spirit of envy that caused

56:37 Joseph to be sold into slavery, and all of the events, just going through that portion yesterday, I told my wife, there's something thrilling. It's like I've heard it for the first time, listening to those chapters in Genesis on the life of Joseph. Oh, dear child of God, if you get hold of this text, whatever dark providences are presently pressing in upon you, you can look them straight in the eye and say, I know that all things are working together. They're meshed. They're in sync because I love God. And I love God because he first loved me and effectually called me into the orbit of a saving response to his love in Christ. And if that God did that for me, then surely he can't have a gram of meanness in his heart.

57:30 He's worthy to be trusted and to say, through your tears, and to say through the bitterness and the pain of that present dark providence, all things working together for my good. And then thirdly, child of God, it will affect a blessed liberation from the crippling effects. Hear me now. It will affect a blessed liberation from the crippling effects of vain regrets.

Application: Liberation from Vain Regrets

58:08 Over my past failures and sins. You see how we've covered future, present, past? Am I speaking to some who are crippled because you live with vain regrets? I didn't say periodic renewed penitence and humiliation for your past failures and sins. That's biblical.

58:33 David, as a man long since forgiven, said, remember not against me the sins of my youth. And as he came to me, I said, I'm not against you. I'm not against you. I'm not against you. I'm not against you.

58:40 I'm not against you. I'm not against you. I'm not against you. I'm not against you.

58:41 He said, you will put your hand upon your mouth and never open it again for shame when I have forgiven you all of your sins. There is an aspect of an ongoing disposition of brokenness that upon the remembrance of past failures and sins, there is a deepening of our humiliation and a reaffirmation of our repentance. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about vain regrets. Vain regrets looking back and saying, oh, God, if only I hadn't. Oh, God, if only I had. Lord, if only I could. Those are vain regrets.

59:19 You can't do what you should have done. It's vain to you for present.

59:33 I'm a child of God without attributing to God anything of the moral defilement of our sin in its origin or in its performance. If I can't believe God overrules even my sins for good, then I've had it. Isn't that what we studied last week? Simon, Simon, Satan's desired all of you to sift you as wheat, but I prayed for you, Simon, that your faith fail not. And when you have turned again, clearly indicating, Simon, you're going to turn away. You're going to sin. You're going to need a new conversion. You're going to need a fresh turning from your sin of denial of strength in your brethren.

60:15 The clear implication being the experience of your denial and its humiliation and its, the subsequent self-revelation and repentance and appropriation of my pardoning grace is going to make you more fit to strengthen your power.

60:36 All things, all things stop your vain regrets. Learn, ask, yes, apply the biblical principles that you will be wiser from past failures and follies. But the negation of this truth, all things, all things are working. Together, God grows some of his most exotic and beautiful flowers on the dunghill of our sin.

61:18 You hear me? He grows some of his most exotic and beautiful flowers right on the dunghill.

61:27 The dunghill is all our doing. The flower is all his grace.

61:34 Where would you and I be without Psalm 51 and Psalm 32 and Psalm 6? Those are some of the exotic flowers. Those are the flowers that God grew on the dunghill of David's horrible sin. Where would we be without Peter's denial and his subsequent repentance and restoration to usefulness?

61:58 Where would we be without the record of John Mark, who folds under pressure and goes back to mama and to auntie and to home base? Later on, Paul says, bring Mark with you for he's profitable. Where would we be? Where would we be without those exotic flowers that God has grown on the dunghill of human failure?

62:27 This text enables us without in any way turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and thinking, well, then let sin that grace may abound. No, because a man who loves God, according to first John five, three, this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And a man who truly loves God does not contemplate willfully sinning against God. Well, in order to bring glory to God, that's blasphemous.

62:54 So you see, God is hedged up this truth by just the way he describes his own. If you love God and you've been called according to purpose, you've been called unto holiness and your heart is set upon a life of holiness. But you do not attain what your heart desires when you have gone in true repentance and sought forgiveness according to the promise of God. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.

63:22 And. To cleanse us from all unrighteousness, lay hold of the promise, ask the spirit of God to seal it afresh to your heart and with the fresh scent of his pardoning kiss upon your cheek. Go forth to serve him unhindered by vain regrets. You say, Pastor, what's the text say for those who don't love God?

Warning to Unbelievers and Concluding Exhortation

63:51 It says nothing. You've got to live in this cruel dog eat dog world. Not only with men ready to consume you, but with this very dog having a controversy with you this morning for my Bible says the wrath of God is abiding upon those that believe not right now it is a bite. It hasn't come down upon them, but it abides over them like a mighty boulder hung by a cable that is being strained to its capacity.

64:29 And. Just one added pressure on that boulder would snap the cable and bring it down upon your head. So the wrath of God hangs upon your head. If you don't love God, if you have embraced his general overtures of mercy and pardon in the gospel, my friend, in a very real sense, your existence is a life dodging the bullets of divine wrath, but you won't dodge forever.

65:05 Can't we make. You jealous to become a Christian or if we could through jealousy alone, make you say, what a wonderful thing to be in such a place where you'd know that every single thing that transpires in your life is conspiring for your good. Not because of your cleverness, not because of your ability to plan it all out, but because there's a sovereign God who lives and who governs from the heavens and he is putting it all. Together and managing it for my God.

65:42 Oh, that we could make you jealous to go to our God in the only way you can go to him through the savior whom he sets before you as willing and able to receive all who will come to him and embrace him as they're all as their only hope of mercy as their only mediator between God and man. Well, dear people of God. I feel. A text like this, all I can do is preach around it.

66:14 Make God preach it into the depths of your being until it becomes one of your constant companions at the level of consciousness. All things are working together for good. I can't see how, but I know it because almighty God upon his throne who loved me in Christ and called me by his grace. His Senate.

66:39 And there I rest. God help us to take that posture. And if we do, then the carking worries about the future will be buried in the wonder of this truth. And with respect to my own present status, I will give principle submission and a believing response to those dark providences that are calling to me now because I've not embraced them as part of the all things that are working for good.

67:10 And then I will not be crippled by vain regrets about the past. I'll be able to say with Paul, forgetting the things that are behind, I press towards the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us pray. Our father, we thank you for your word.

67:36 We thank you for the marvelous truth that you, having laid your hand upon us, have not left us to work out. All the decision. Our lives and all of the changes to scheme and plot and plan that you have committed yourself that everything shall conspire for our good help us by your grace to be strong in faith to take hold of you in this promise and to be delivered from everything that is a contradiction of a present confidence that it is true. We pray for those who do not have.

68:20 Any right to this promise. They do not love you. They've not been called by you. Oh, Lord, give them no rest until they do love you until they do trust in your son, until they do repent of their sins.

68:37 May this word be effectual to create in some a holy jealousy to be in such a safe place as every child of God is found this morning. Seal then your word. We plead. In Jesus name.

68:52 Amen.