Romans 8.28-31. Romans 8, 28, we know that all
things work together for the good to those who love God, who
are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew, he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, so that
he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And
those he predestined, he also called. And those he called,
he also justified. And those he justified, he also
glorified. What then are we to say about
these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Let's
pray. Heavenly Father, full of grace
and mercy, thank you for the traveling mercies extended to
Pastor Bill and Ms. Lynn. Put a hedge about him,
sharpen his mind, discern his speech, and fill his heart with
the Holy Spirit. Be with Pastor and Pam, the praise team, elder
board, nursery workers, our local and national leaders, especially
our president, please guide him. Let your name receive all glory,
honor, and praise through this sermon. We ask these things and
pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. If you have a Bible, you can
turn back to that passage that Dr. Pasolaco read, Romans chapter
eight. And as he said, a very familiar
passage of scripture. And I'd like to try to shed a
little additional light on it this morning. Romans chapter
8, verse 28, and we know that all things, not just some things,
not just most of the things, not even just the good things,
we know Work together. Some translate
it, God is working in all things. All things work together. They
look like they're going this way and that way and the other
way, but God's making them work together. They work together
for our good. Now you need to know this, that
this epistle of Paul to the Romans is written to believers, written
to Christians. You can't claim any of this if
you're not in Christ, but you can claim all of it if you are.
We know that all things work together for good, he says, to
those who are what? To those that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose. May the Lord
out of his blessing to the reading of his word. Let God's people
say praise the Lord. You may be seated. I have taught
our people at Grace Church that this is a this is a hymn book. H I M. It's about him. It's about him. It's all about
him. He's my prophet. He's my priest. He's my king. He's my lawyer. He's my righteousness. He's my
strength. Without him, I can do nothing.
This book is not about Israel. It mentions Israel. This book
is not really about just the church. It mentions the church.
He is the theme of this book. And when you read the Bible,
don't just go trying to collect facts, theological facts, but
look for him. Charles Spurgeon once had some
young preacher boys lined up, and he said, I'm going to give
you five minutes to prepare a little message, and then I want you
to present it, and then I'm going to critique it. I'm going to
criticize it. I'm going to tell you what you
need to do. And they did that. And one young man came over to
Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon, if you don't
know who he is, he was an English preacher called the Prince of
Preachers. Died in 1892. And he went over and he said,
pastor, I could tell that something wasn't right in my presentation. He said, did I speak clearly?
The pastor said, you spoke very clearly. He said, did I make
my points well? He said, you made your point
very well. I could follow you very easily. He said, well, what
was wrong? I could tell something was wrong. What was wrong? He
said, there was no Christ in your message. He said, but Christ
wasn't in the text that I used. Spurgeon said, Christ is in every
text and it's your job to find it. Okay. I'm not a religious person. Religion has to do with do's
and don'ts and ups and downs and all that. I am in love with
a person. I want you to listen to this
now. Listen to this little poem, little phrase that a man wrote. For every pain we must bear,
there is a reason. For every falsehood that is said,
for every tear that is shed, there is a reason. For every
grief, for every trial, for every weary, lonely mile, there is
a reason. We will trust our Lord as we
should, knowing that all this will work for our good, because
our God is the reason. In 1947, which was a long time
before many of you were ever born, a 21-year-old man named
Henry Thomas Mahan became the song leader and the assistant
pastor of the Pollard Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
That church, the Pollard Baptist Church, was the largest southern
Baptist church in the eastern part of the state. The pastor
was named Don Wells, and Don Wells wanted to have a meeting.
He wanted to have a two-week meeting, but he didn't know where
to look or who to ask, so he asked a fellow named Dr. Charlie
Stevens, who was a school Principle Dr. Stephens. Do you know anybody?
He said yes, sir. I do. He said I would recommend
that you have Ralph Barnett Ralph Barnett, who is he? He said well,
he's billed as the evangelist who is different Brother he was
different And so they had that meeting, they scheduled that
meeting with Barnard, and when Ralph Barnard was introduced,
and it was a large church, and it had a balcony like this, and
the balcony was filled, the balcony was across this way, filled,
church was packed. 21-year-old Henry Thomas Mahan
was right down on the first row. And you never knew what Ralph
Barnard was going to do. He wore his glasses like that. And he stood up there in the
pulpit, you wonder if he even knew where he was. And all of
a sudden he looked right down at this 21-year-old assistant
to the pastor, song leader, Henry Mahan, and he said, son, and
Henry looked around, yes, I'm talking to you. He said, do you
know Romans 8, 28? And Henry said, yes, I do. He said, stand up and let's hear
it. So Henry stood up and he said, we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God. And he sat down. Brother Barnard stood there and
he said, is that all it says? No, sir, that's not all it says.
Well, stand up, son, let's hear all of it. So he stood up and
he said, we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose. And suddenly, as if a new energy
had been infused into him, Ralph Barnard said, purpose, purpose,
purpose. He said, son, God never does
anything by accident. He does it on purpose. He said,
if you will learn that, if you will learn that, he said, not
only will the gospel open up to you, but he said all of the
word of God will open up to you. God never does anything by accident. He does it on purpose. And later that evening, the pastor
and the evangelist when some other people were going out to
eat, and they walked past Henry, who was sitting in the hall with
his Bible open, and they said, Henry, would you like to go out
with us? He said, no, sir, I'm gonna do what you said. I'm gonna
search this Bible for the word purpose. I'm gonna see what it
says about it. Now, was that evangelist right? Well, let's
start at the beginning. When the Lord Almighty created
the heavens and the earth, Did he do it accidentally or did
he do it on purpose? Did he determine that he would
create a universe, a cosmos on purpose? That he would create
galaxies populated with millions and millions of stars and planets
that he would create a habitable planet called Earth lighted by
millions of stars and a moon by night and a sun by day. Is the universe an accident? I say he created it on purpose.
The Earth rotates on its axis, doesn't feel like it, but it
rotates on its axis at 1,000 miles an hour at the equator.
What would happen if the Earth rotated at only 100 miles an
hour? Just for starters, days and nights
would be 10 times longer. Every 24-hour day period would
lengthen to 240-hour days. How'd you like to have an 80-hour
work shift? You're going to work today? Yeah.
When are you getting off? About three days. What would happen
to our vegetation? What would happen to the grass?
What would happen to the trees? What would happen to the crops?
Everything would either burn up during the day or freeze during
the night. Is it an accident that the length of our days is
perfectly suited for humans, for animals, and for vegetables?
Is it an accident or was it designed that way on purpose? Our sun
sustains life on earth and it has a surface temperature of
about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Is that an accident that the
earth is just far enough away from the sun to be warmed by
it and not burned up? The moon is 186,000 miles from
the earth. Suppose it was only 50,000 miles
away from the earth. Would anything change? You bet
it would. Twice a day, all the oceans would
cover the earth. Tides would be so large that
we'd all drown. Is that by accident? All the
planets move in their orbits. and they move in perfect harmony.
Ever wonder why they don't crash together? The harmonious relationship
of the planets is perfectly uniform to ensure continuous safety for
those of us who live here on the earth. Was that by design? Was that by purpose? Or was that
by accident? The exact number, weight, and
measure in every part of everything that you see in the heavens guarantees our security here
on Earth. The air we breathe, 99% of it
is oxygen and nitrogen, 21 parts of it and 78 parts of it. The remaining 1% composed of
all kinds of things, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, argon, helium, krypton,
neon, all these things. So just so we can breathe. and
breathe without laboring. Did you realize that a child
has 60,000 miles of blood vessels? And a human being, a grown adult,
has 100,000 miles. You know that there's 100 trillion
cells in your body? That your body is made up of
206 bones, 600 muscles, and 78 organs? That you have a circulatory
system, you have a respiratory system, you have a digestive
system, you have a skeletal system, your bones, you have a muscular
system, you have a nervous system, you have a reproduction system.
Is all of that by accident or by design? You, my friend, as the Bible
says, are fearfully and wonderfully made. Fearfully and wonderfully
made. Now did God create man and put
him on the earth on purpose? Or are we just the result of
evolutionary accidents? Are we merely the products of
chance? Random mutations or did the Almighty God create his own
purpose? I I wandered down in the basement
this morning to Dr. Pasilakwa's class nice class
large class You ought to make yourself available to go down
there and I noticed he had a piece of paper there on the front And
one of the things that said on that paper is basically this
I'm paraphrasing Says that God prepared a Savior Before there
ever was a sinner Did you know that there was a savior before
there was a sinner? What does that mean? It means
God knew that when he put man on the earth, he knew it was
going to fall. All that was by design, all was
that all that was done on purpose. Now, listen, this is where we
get personal. I don't know your life story. I don't know where
you came from. I don't know where you were born.
I don't know who your parents are. I don't know about your
growing up years, but I know this. Nobody is born into this
world by accident. Oh, you say, Brother Sasser,
you know, I don't even know who my mom and dad are. Well, that's
all right. You're here on purpose. There's somebody bigger than
your mom and dad. We were telling Dr. Pasolacua and Lydia last
night about how Lynn and I met. Her dad was in the radio business.
He came down to southwest Georgia He had been hired by a fella
who had an AM radio station who wanted to have an FM radio station. That's back in the days when
nobody had FM stations. And she came down to Georgia
to visit her dad. And while she was there, we met. And as I stand here today, we
have a son 54 years old. What are you talking about, man?
54 years old. We've been together since the
last century. Like I told a couple one time
that came to us from Samaritans Council, and they'd been married
about 30-something years, and they were having trouble, and
I was telling them they needed to stay together. And then I
said this. I said, besides, who would have either one of you?
You better stick with who you got. Who would have either one
of you? Now listen to me. Nothing with
our God is by accident. Nothing. I want you to turn in
your Bibles. I'm not gonna have you turn to a lot of passages,
but turn to Ephesians. That's another favorite book,
I'm sure, here. Chapter one, over just a few
pages. You got first and second Corinthians
after Romans. And then you're gonna come in
to Galatians and then Ephesians. Ephesians. chapter one. And again, this is written to
Christians. And this is what he says in Ephesians chapter
one. By the way, you probably know
this, but the first 14 verses of chapter one is one sentence. It's broken up by semicolons
and colons and all that. But Paul started talking about
the grace of God and he just couldn't quit for 14 verses.
So the first 14 verses, one sentence. So when he gets to verse 11,
look what he says. He says, we have obtained an
inheritance and this inheritance was predestinated. And it was
predestinated according to the what? Purpose. of him who works all things after
the counsel of his own will. Guess what? If you're saved,
God saved you on purpose. A woman came to Ralph Barnard,
the same guy I mentioned earlier one day. Brother Barnard, I've
been listening to you preach. I'm having problems with some of
the things you're saying. My experience has been so varied
and so, you know, I just, I can't reconcile it. He said, well,
sister, do you want to fight or do you want some answers?
No, she said, I don't want to fight. I want some answers. He
said, all right, are you saved? And she said, yes, sir. Yes,
sir, I'm saved. He said, Christ is my righteousness.
Christ is my hope. Christ is my salvation. I'm leaning
on nothing and no one but the Lord Jesus Christ. So he said,
did Christ save you all by himself or did you help him? Oh no, she
said, he saved me all by himself. He said, all right, I just have
one question for you. Did he save you accidentally
or did he save you on purpose? She said, I think I see it. I
think I see it. Now my friends, listen, the fact
that God is sovereign, this is very, very important. does not
rule out your responsibility for your
will. You've got a will, you've got
a will. And I'm gonna show you this in
just a moment. But he says here in Ephesians 1 11, that those
who are in Christ have an inheritance on purpose. He says this inheritance
was predestinated. He said this predestinated inheritance
is according to God's purpose. And he says that the purpose
of God, we quit reading there in verse 11, is involved in all
things. Look at that. According to the
purpose of him who works most things, works all things after
the counsel of his own will. He works all things. God's not asking for my permission. It's not about me, it's about
Him. It's not about you, it's about
Him. The whole of what we believe, the whole of what we stand for,
The whole of where we need to come to is simply stated by our
Lord Jesus Christ when he taught his disciples to learn to say,
not my will, but thine be done. Have you ever thought of it like
that? See, salvation is bowing to his will. I got two hours sleep last night. I'm surprised I didn't have any
voice this morning to sing. Two hours sleep. And I know the
Lord did it on purpose. I know it's for my good. Henry
Mayhem, the fellow I mentioned is 21 years old. I was with him
at a meeting once in Alabama. And Henry was preaching on God
being in charge of everything. He said, the Lord's in charge
of everything. He said, when you drive down the road and the
car kicks up the dust, every particle of dust falls exactly
where it's supposed to fall. And he was going on and about
that time, a wasp flew up his leg and stung him. And he grabbed his leg and he
looked up and he said, what was that for? I tell you, when you start saying
God's in charge, you're going to find out in a little while,
if you live a little while, whether you believe that or not. The
safest place to be is bowed down to His will. That's the safest
place to be. If we can just learn that and
quit fighting about, well, I don't know about this or don't know
about that or don't know about the other. I don't understand
life and I've been here a while. You know what? I've learned that
this little, not my will, but thine be done has taken the guesswork
out of all of these things for me. I just learned to say, as
it says in Ephesians 111, he works in all things after the
counsel of his own will. My wife's dad went to Georgia
to build a radio station, but he went to Georgia to build a
radio station so she could come down and visit her dad, so we
could meet, and so we could get married, and so we could have
a son. He was behind all of that, and
he's behind everything in your life too. The eternal counsel
of God is the expression of the sovereign will of God. If the plan of God is according
to his, let's look at it again, Ephesians 1 11, according to
the counsel of his will. Now that counsel has to do with
like some folks getting together and planning some things. But
what this tells us is before way back in eternity, God had
a council. The Father, the Son, and the
Spirit were in attendance. And it was determined before
the foundation of the world what would happen in time, space,
and history. Remember this, you know the word
history? History is His story. His story. His story. His eternal counsel and purpose
and will is worked out in history. That we must understand what
the end of the purpose of God is. That is, what is the purpose
of the purpose of God? The purpose of the purpose of
God is to bring glory to himself, but particularly bring glory
to his son. Let me just quote this for you.
It's in Romans, it's Romans 11, 36 Romans chapter 11 verse 36. This is what it says It says
of him through him and to him are all things to whom be glory
forever. Amen Everything is of him. He's the source of all things
Everything is through him all that he has purpose in his eternal
counsels. He brings the past and through
the second person of the Godhead, the Messiah, Jesus. And everything
is to him, it's for his glory. The end of the purpose of God,
the purpose of the purpose of God is the glory of God. Secondly, now I'd like for you
to turn to the book of Acts. I know you've seen these passages.
Let's turn back to the book of Acts. Let's go to chapter three. and then I'm going to be through
here in just a minute. Acts chapter 3. I want you to
understand, as I have said already several times, that people get in a fuss and
a fight over wills. Well, I've got a I've got a free
will, they say. They really don't know what they're
saying. Your will is really not free. I'll tell you how free
your will is. Why don't you determine, why
don't you will that you won't eat till next week at this time?
This afternoon, your will is going to give in to your belly.
You ain't got no free will. Your belly is more powerful than
your will. You see what I'm saying? There's only one being that has
an absolute free will, and that's God Almighty. There's nothing
that coerces him. There's nothing that forces him.
There's nothing that makes him. You can't set up a circumstance
to cause him to change his mind about anything. He is absolutely
free to do according to his will, but we're not. We're free within
the confines of our nature. Let me ask you this. If a dog
were coming down the aisle right here and I said, I see a dog
in this church. You'd say, well, brother Silas,
I don't know if he's a dog or not. Let's wait and see if he barks. Here's what I'm asking you. Does
the dog become a dog when he barks, or does he bark because
he's a dog? Does a person become a sinner
when they sin, or do they sin because they're sinners? You need to learn that. A duck doesn't become a duck
when it quacks. It quacks because it's a duck. And we sin because
we're sinners. And I want you to realize this,
you've got a will and you can use your will, you can make your
decisions. The day when you eat, you can
decide whether you want a McDonald's or whether you want a steak or
whether you want a hot dog or whatever, you've got a will.
But here's what I want you to know, God's got a will too. God's
got a will and listen, by nature when I came into this world for
many years in my life, I wanted my way, my will. I didn't want
God's way and God's will. And so as Barnard used to say,
he said, yes sir. He said, you got a will. You've
got a will and God has got a will. And he said, you want your way
and God wants his way. And he said, there's a battle
of wills between your will and the will of God. And he said,
you better pray that he wins because if you win, the prize
is hell. If you win, the prize is hell. Say, I don't want to win. I don't
want my will. I don't want my way. We've all
gone out of the way, his way. I don't want my works. I want
the works of Christ on the cross. You see what I'm saying? All
right, look here in Acts, and then I'm gonna close. Acts chapter four. Acts chapter four. Now the apostles were very excited
and they'd been preaching everywhere in the name of Jesus. And so
the Jewish rabbis, the doctors of the law, the scribes, they
came out and they said, we don't want you preaching and talking
about this fellow Jesus. Now we don't want to hear any
more of it. And they said, well, whether it's right to listen
to you more than to God, you'd be the judge of that. But we
can't help but speak the things which we have seen and heard. And so they threatened them and
they said, now you go back to your group of folks. Here it
is now, Acts chapter four, verse 23. And being let go, they went
back to their own company and they reported all that the chief
priests and the elders had said unto them. And when they heard
that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord. They
prayed, although like they were one person, and they said, Lord,
you're God. You made heaven and earth and
the sea and all that in them is. Now, you see, they said,
Lord, you're God. We got a friend in our congregation,
Dr. Nelson Foster, the medical doctor. Years ago, Nelson was having
some problems. I'm almost through now. Nelson
was having some problems and he sat down with a friend of
his and he said, I want to tell you about these problems. And
Nelson, a very smart guy. So after he talked to him, his
friend said, well, Nelson, I'd like to, I'd like to tell you
something. I think it'd help. He said, all right, what is it?
He said, Nelson, there's just one God and you're not him. There's one God, and you're not
him. So here it says, the Lord, he is God, watch it now. He made
everything, he made the earth, the heaven, the sea, and all
that in them is, verse 25, by the mouth of your servant David,
he said, why did the heathen rage? Now that's a quote from
Psalm 2. Go back and read Psalm 2, it starts out that way. Why
did the heathen rage? Why did the people imagine a
vain thing? What were they imagining? They were imagining that they
could overthrow God's will. and have their own will. So he's
quoting that, he's quoting Psalm 2. Watch this now. Verse 26,
the kings of the earth stood up, the rulers were gathered
together against the Lord and against his Christ. It is true,
he says, verse 27, it is true, against your holy child Jesus,
whom you anointed, Herod Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, that's
the Romans, And the people of Israel were gathered together,
look at the 28th verse, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
determined before to be done. Now, let me say this. You know
Herod, you've heard about Herod in the Bible. I'm sure they've
told you he was a king and he hated Christians and he was afraid
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they took Jesus to Herod
to see what he would do with him. And they took him to Pilate
to see what he would do with him. And then the Roman government,
they were the ones that crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. The people
of Israel, the Jewish leaders stood up and said, crucify him. He said, well, I got a robber
over here and a thief. Why don't we crucify him? No,
they said, crucify Jesus and let the thief and the robber
go. His name was Barabbas. Bar means son of, Abbas. He was
the son of Abbas, Barabbas. Peter is called Simon Bar-Jonah. He's the Simon, the son of Jonah. Now notice that Herod, Pontius
Pilate, the Gentiles, they were all gathered together. What were
they gathered together to do? What they wanted to do. And what
did they do? They crucified Christ and they
put him to death. But the next verse says they
did what God had determined before to be done. My dear friends,
listen to me. I'm gonna give you an English
lesson. Remember when you learned in your English class, did you
learn the difference between can and may? If you're like me,
when I was a little boy in third grade, I raised my hand. Yes,
Bill. I said, can I go get some water? Yes, you can. I stood up. She said, but you may not have
a seat. What was that about? When you
say, can I, you're talking about ability. Do you have the ability? Do you have the strength? Do
you have the knowledge? Do you know where the restroom
is or the water fountain is? Of course you have the ability,
but I'm not giving you permission. That's the difference between
can and make. Now listen to me, all of us, all of us have permission
to come to Christ. You got permission. But what
does the Bible say in John 6, 37? No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me. Draw him. Did you find an interest
in your heart? for the Lord Jesus Christ? Do
you find any kind of interest in your soul? Say, I'd like to
know Jesus. I want to know Jesus. I want
to know what it is these people are talking about. I want to
have a relationship with him. And let me tell you what, if
you have that desire in your heart, it's because the Lord
is working in you. And perhaps it is to draw you. And when he calls you, And this
will absolutely be the last thing I'll say. When he calls you,
he will call you with what we call an effectual call. What's an effectual call? Well,
you got a bunch of kids playing on the floor. And dad is trying
to read the newspaper. And these children keep praying.
They're disturbing dad. So he said, boys, settle down.
And they just keep playing. And he says, boys, settle down. And they keep playing. And he
said, boys! That's the effectual call. That's the effectual call. When
he says it that way, he got your attention, didn't he? I can stand
up here all day long and tell you to come to Christ, come to
Christ, come to Christ, believe on Jesus. But when he calls you,
He'll get the job done. Are you interested? Are you interested
in Christ? You may come, you may come, but
you may find out that you can't come. You may find out you don't
have the ability. You don't have the desire. You
don't have the interest. Pray that God will give you an
interest in his son. And then you'll know that your
life here is not in vain. You're here for a purpose. You're
here on purpose. And that purpose is to glorify
the Lord and to enter into his army to serve him. I told Dr. Pasolacqua and his wife, everybody
is in the ministry that's a Christian. See, the ministry is not just
up here. If you're in the Lord Jesus, if you believed on him,
you're in the ministry. You are to serve Him and to glorify
Him wherever you are, however you can. We all have different
abilities. We all have different experiences. We have different talents. All
of these things just brighten the corner where you are. Now
remember this now. Don't forget this. All things
work together for good. Everything you've experienced
in your life if you come to Christ You can look back and you'll
be able to see the hand of God in it It all worked for my good
and it worked for his glory to those who love the Lord How did
they come to love the Lord to those who are the call? According
to his purpose Our father we call upon you in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for our this day that
you have made. We rejoice and we are glad in
it. Thank you for your word. Thank you for sending your son. Thank you for the Holy Spirit
that honors your word. We pray, Lord, that today the
Holy Spirit may come and work in our hearts that we may be
brought to the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. Thank you.