We have the mention of the Lord
in the translation I have before me. It's 12 times and another
translation I looked at was 13 times and as Norm just pointed
out to us, the Gospel's about God. It's the Gospel of God and
it's the Gospel about God and it's the Gospel declaring the
finished work of our God. And so in this brief time I have
with you I really will read these verses and then we'll just define
the words and prayerfully let God speak to our hearts about
the wonders of saving, redeeming, eternal love. Romans 8 verse
28, And we know that all things work together for good to those
who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to
the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined
these he also called, whom he called, these he also justified,
and whom he justified, these he also glorified. And so often people call this
the golden chain, five wonderful activities of God, sovereignly
from before the foundation of the world and until the new creation,
bringing all things to bear in this universe for the good of
his people. And so often we actually look
at the world around us and we tend in our flesh not to see
that God is working, that the God of the Bible is a God of
purpose. and Simon read it in Psalm 136
and it's in Psalm 72 verse 18. It said, Blessed be the Lord
God, the God of Israel, who only does wondrous things. And so really what these verses
are saying is that all blessings, privileges and benefits of grace
flow to us from and were infallibly secured to us by God's eternal
purpose of grace. according to which he created,
rules and shall dispose of the universe, every little tiny bit
of it. So God is a God of purpose. Isaiah says that in Isaiah 14,
the Lord of Hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought,
so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall
it stand. Isaiah 46.9 says, For I am God,
and there is no other. For I am God, and there is none
like me. declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying,
my counsel will stand and I will do all my pleasure. And so everything in this world
comes to pass and is ruled according to the sovereign, eternal, unalterable,
all-exclusive and sure purpose of our God. For the salvation
of his elect, every purpose of the Lord shall be performed. and that the purpose of God according
to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls. So the purpose of God is absolute
and unconditional. And so this is the Gospel that
we declare, the Gospel that has formed this church and causes
us and continues to cause us to be knitted together as we
gaze upon our Saviour. And so these verses begin with,
and we know. And who is the we that he's referring
to here? We know. Obviously all people
don't know. The we in Romans is a specific
we, isn't it? And through him, Paul talks in
Romans 5.1 says, through him we have received grace and apostleship
for the obedience of faith among the nations for his name, among
whom you are also called of Jesus Christ to all who are in Rome
beloved of God, called to be saints. But they're called to
be saints out of a pool of Adam's flesh, a mass of humanity from
whom God calls his special people. And we need to be reminded, and
Romans continues to remind us, of who we are in our flesh. Romans 3.10 are famous verses,
aren't they? It's just a litany of Old Testament
passages and there are many, many others, but God the Holy
Spirit brings these to us. There is none righteous, no,
not one. There is none who understands.
There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable.
There is none who does good, no not one. Their throat is an
open tomb, and with their tongues they have practised deceit. The
poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of
cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways and the way of peace they have not known. There is
no fear of God before their eyes. As much as this world and as
much as our flesh wants to exalt the wonders of humanity, God
will not allow it. There is nothing in the scripture
that allows us to exalt the worth, the work or the will of man. In fact, God's salvation comes
to two groups of people, to those who are ungodly. There are two attributes of God's
people who are saved. They are ungodly according to
Romans 4 verse 5 and if you turn over to chapter 5 there is a
description of God's people. In verse 6, those who were without
strength. In verse 10, they were enemies. In verse 19, through one's man's
disobedience they were made sinners. and according to Romans 8, this
same chapter, for to be calmly minded is death, but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against
God. And that is the state of the
we. The we were all part of that
group of people. For these people who God calls
and Paul talks to now and claims to be one of, and thankfully
to God there is a multitude beyond number who say, we. We know that that's what we were
like. We were like them. We lived amongst them. We practised
the things they practised. And if we don't think that that's
true of us, then may God come and show you who you really are,
because only God creates sinners. Sinners are precious. The average
person on the street doesn't see himself as God sees him,
because his mind and his eyes are blinded. But there is something
that's wonderful about the we, isn't it, in Romans 8. This group
of people who were out of that mass of Adam's fallen humanity,
there is a group called we who know. They are people who have
been called by God and now they say we know. The promise of the New Covenant
in Jeremiah 31 and many other places is that no longer will
a man teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for they will all know me from the least of them to
the greatest of them, declares the Lord, because I will forgive
their iniquities. Romans 1 tells us that all humanity
knows about God. There is no such thing, according
to God, as an atheist. People who claim to be atheists
are just telling lies. God says that they know. If you turn into Romans 1, they
know about God. God says that they have had his
truth shown to them, verse 19. and it's clearly seen, his attributes
are clearly seen, verse 20, being understood, verse 20. So although
they knew God, they did not glorify him as God. So there is a knowledge. that people have of God and his
existence. And the religious world and the
world around us knows an awful lot about the Lord Jesus. All
you need is an encyclopaedia. All you need is to go to church
and you'll know about the Lord Jesus. You'll know about what
he did. You'll know about his miracles.
You'll know about his death. you may even know about his resurrection. But there is a knowledge of God
which is absolutely of no benefit to human beings whatsoever. The
knowledge in Romans 1 is a knowledge that leaves people guiltless
before God but it's not a knowledge that saves people. In 2nd Corinthians
Paul describes himself prior to his conversion and he says
that although he knew Christ according to the flesh, Yet now,
having seen Him, having seen Him with spiritual eyes and being
on that road to Damascus and having the glory of God revealed
to him, he no longer sees Him that way. Isaiah was transformed
when he met the Lord Jesus in the temple, as we saw last week,
and the scriptures are just full of wonderful, wonderfully expressive
meetings of people with God. And so often I keep reminding
us to go through the scriptures and visit with Job and meet with
Job as he met God, Job who was a righteous man. is caused to
see God in his glory. And Job says, therefore, having
heard about the Lord Jesus and now having seen him, he said,
therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Isaiah pronounced woes on other
people. He met the Lord Jesus in the
temple and all of a sudden Isaiah is pronouncing woe to himself. Woe is me, for I am ruined, because
I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean
lips. For my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts. John the Apostle meets the Lord
Jesus in Revelation, taken to heaven, and when he, an old man
and an apostle, a saved man, meets God afresh in his glory,
he falls down as though he is dead. So there is a knowledge
about God But saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus only comes
when God himself reveals himself to people and he'll only reveal
himself to his chosen ones. And so we are brought to face
the reality when we meet God of who we really are. Instead
of the measure of righteousness being what we see amongst human
beings, the measure of righteousness now is that holiness, that righteousness
that Norm talked about, perfect righteousness. And when sinful
fallen flesh meets God, it's caused to cry out. And so the Lord Jesus is revealed
to his people and then they say, we know him. And that's really
the essence of what church is about, isn't it? That God is
revealed. The Lord Jesus is lifted up.
The Lord Jesus is proclaimed. for what he has done for his
people and for who he is. And we pray that God would cause
his people to meet with the Lord Jesus because it's only by meeting
him and by knowing him in his true character that salvation
comes to people. They can know an awful lot about
the Lord Jesus. They can know a lot about God.
Just ask Nicodemus. But knowledge is not necessarily
saving knowledge. The knowledge that God is talking
about here is intimate love relationship. God's children are taught by
God. Saving faith does not come from knowledge but a saving relationship
with the Lord Jesus brings with it knowledge. knowledge of the
person who is God Almighty. This is eternal life, says the
Lord Jesus in John 17 3, that they might know you the only
true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And this is all
the work of the Holy Spirit. So, believers, understand the
truth, believe the truth and receive the love of the truth.
truth about God and His ways, truth about themselves. and sin. Paul, who wrote these words,
talked about himself being a wretched man living in a body of death
with a carnal mind that is enmity against God. And believers understand
about the Lord Jesus and his atonement. They understand about
grace and salvation. They know. Paul says they know. God says they know because they
are taught of God. So regenerate, enlightened, saved
sinners have the ability to distinguish the things that differ. They
know the difference between grace and works. They know the difference
between free grace and free will. They've been called out of darkness
into God's marvellous light. So Christian life is a walk in
the light. not a groping around in the darkness,
a light that shines on who the Lord Jesus is and a light that
shines on who we are. And so we know, we know. And we know that even though
our love is weak, that those who have been regenerated by
God, they love God. We know that all things work
together for those who love God. And we love God because he first
loved us. And we love God in the fullness
of his character in the Lord Jesus. And we know that this
God is absolutely sovereign. As the next words say, all things,
all things work together for good. It's a valuable exercise
that our friend John did just a while ago is to go through
the New Testament and just look at what the all things mean,
read those verses in their context and it's amazing. All things. Even sin in the life of a believer
is part of the all things because God is absolutely sovereign. All things work together because
God is doing the working for his people. He's absolutely sovereign. There is not a molecule, not
an atom in this universe that doesn't move exactly according
to God's decree from all eternity. That is the world we live in.
That is the air we breathe. God is either absolutely sovereign
or we need to find another name for him. There can't be any partial
sovereignty. And then he has a description
of God's people. They know and then they are the
called, which is one of the titles of God's people. They have actually
heard God speak to them. They have heard the sound of
the Gospel. As the Lord Jesus says in John 10, my sheep, my
sheep, hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and
leads them out. When he brings his own sheep,
he goes before them, and his sheep follow him, for they know
his voice. I am the good shepherd, I know
my sheep, and I am known by my own, as the Father knows me,
even so I know the Father. and I lay down my life for the
sheep. My sheep, verse 27, hear my voice
and I know them and they follow me. And as we have said earlier,
all things work together because God has purposes. They all work together because
of his purposes. So, the purpose of God, as we
keep reminding you, is eternal. The purpose of God includes all
things. The purpose of God has the benefit
of God's elect for its particular design. People might say that
God's working all things for the good of everyone. The scriptures
do not say that. God is working all things for
the benefit of His particular people. Everything that God has
purposed is for the ultimate spiritual and eternal benefit
of His covenant people. The purpose of God, as we said
earlier, is immutable. It's unchangeable. It is sure. God says, my counsel shall stand
and I will do all my pleasure. What God does, he has always
purposed to do. So, at every event in our lives,
at every moment in our lives as we look back, we can say,
according to the scriptures, God was in charge of that. every little tiny event. And
when we look forward, we look forward to a sovereign God working
His purposes for the good of His people. And at every moment
of our lives, we then look back and say, God has done that. God's ultimate end is to accomplish
the eternal salvation of his people and to get glory for his
great name. And so in the context of Romans
8, this amazing passage is the context of a group of people
who Paul is talking about their sufferings and their groanings
as they live in this world. Persecution coming upon them,
sin, challenging them, false teachers, causing them to look
to themselves and look to the law and not look to the Lord
Jesus, all those sorts of things. But in this context, he talks
about those whom he foreknew. And I know so many people say
that the foreknowing here is God just being incredibly wise
and clever. And the Psalms in Psalm 147,
5 say, Great is our God, mighty in power, his understanding is
infinite. So there is a sense in which
foreknowledge means God knows everything. There is nothing
that happens by accident. But that's not the foreknowledge
here. The foreknowledge here is a foreknowledge
of people. It's for those whom he foreknew. It's an intimate love knowledge
that God has and he always sees his children as perfectly loved
in his sight because he always sees his special children as
the bride of the Lord Jesus. Before they fell in Adam, they
were loved intimately and they were loved infinitely. And so
there are There's more than knowledge. It's actually a knowledge that
brings a love relationship. God's knowledge is infinite,
but the foreknowledge here is God's intimate, passionate love,
as we saw last week, the zeal of the Lord. for his bride will
accomplish all things. So God does know all about what
people are doing. There are people who come to
him on the last day and bring their good works. They bring
their righteousness and they say, I have done, I have done,
I have done. And the Lord Jesus says to them
in Matthew 7, away from you, away from me, I never knew you. Now he knew all about them. In
fact he calls them lawless ones. So the knowledge that he's talking
about here in foreknowing is more than just knowing about
people. It's actually a foreknowledge of his people. It's a covenantal
love relationship. Jeremiah was called as a prophet
of God and God says of Jeremiah that before he was formed. Before I formed you in the womb,
I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified
you. I ordained you as a prophet to
the nation. So there's a foreknowledge of
God which is infinite love relationship. There is the predestination,
he also predestined, which is to limit in advance, to determine
beforehand, to ordain. It's just another way of talking
about God's eternal purpose. And predestination is just God's
sovereign rule of all things. All things, including the death
of the Lord Jesus, were done according to the determination
and the foreknowledge of God. Even the most wicked act in all
of the world happens because God has predestined it. But this predestination has a
purpose. These people would be conformed
to the image of his son. We are, in the scriptures, said
that we are to be partakers of the divine nature. As he is,
so are we in this world. This is how our love is made
perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgement because
as He is, so are we in this world. But the conforming is a work
that God does. As I said at the beginning, there
are 12 times in these 3 verses that the work is God's work and
that to be conformed in our translations, that to be there has been added
by the translators to give us the sense that it is God who
powerfully and purposefully works. This is not about just a moral
improvement campaign. We need more than reformation
of thoughts, words and deeds. He's talking about new birth,
new creation. All that man in his natural state
does is sin all of the time. The hope that Christians have,
the hope of glory is Christ in them, the glory that will be
revealed in us because our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly
await for a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform
the body of our humble state into conformity with the body
of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has even
to subject all things to himself. The ultimate aim of God's people
is that they will be conformed to the Lord Jesus. As 1 John
3 says, when he comes, we will see him as he is because we will
be like him. As for me, I will behold thy
face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness. We'll be satisfied. because we
will be like the Lord Jesus. This is God's great purpose,
a miraculous purpose, a purpose of grace. and the Lord Jesus
will have pre-eminence in all of this in order that he might
be the firstborn, the one with the rights of inheritance, the
one, the holy one who opens the womb. So even though he calls
his children brothers and sisters, even though we are his bride,
he will be the firstborn. He will have the pre-eminence
and those He then works in their lives
to call these people. He calls them because they belong
to him in all eternity. He calls them because in God's
eyes they are his dearly loved children and at a time of his
love he'll call them. There is a call that goes out
to all humanity. But that call is not the call
that's being talked about here. There is a special call. My sheep
hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and
they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of
my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of
the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." There
is a specific call that comes to God's people and all of these
things are absolutely essential for salvation. But for those
whom he called, for those who hear the words of God as he calls
them specifically and calls them by name, reveals them to themselves
and to the Lord Jesus, he also justified. And justification
is just a simple declaration in a court of law that there
is no guilt. They are justified according
to Romans 3 freely, 3.24, freely by his grace. And freely means
that there is no cause in us. Nothing in us that would cause
God to justify us, all of the cause is in Him. In Romans 4.5,
to him who does not work but believes on him that justifies
the ungodly. And there we have the two requirements
for getting into heaven. One is that you must be ungodly
and those who have met God know their ungodliness. and then they
are caused by God to believe. It is God who justifies. He justifies God's elect. Jesus paid it all, all to him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
he washed it white as snow. So God's people were justified
before the beginning of the world when the Lord Jesus stood before
God the Father and said, I will be the mediator, I will be the
representative, I will be the guarantor for these people. And at that point, before the
world began, God the Father looks to the Lord Jesus to honour the
requirements of God's people. the requirement for them to be
holy, the requirement for them to live under God's commands
with absolute perfect obedience, not just in their flesh but in
their minds as well. In their spirits they have to
be perfect. God saw the Lord Jesus slain
from before the foundation of the world. The elect are justified
before they come to faith. And faith is the evidence that
they are justified people. Faith is the evidence and faith
is the substance. Justification that we had in
eternity is the cause of faith. and faith is the effect of God's
work and the effect of justification, that we are cleansed. It's an
interesting exercise to go through passages like Jeremiah 31 and
others where when God talks about knowing people, immediately he
then refers to the fact that sins and iniquities will be no
more. In Ezekiel 36 it's the same pattern. When they see God, They will
see Him in His sin-bearing work and they will abhor themselves.
They'll see themselves for who they are. And the final link
in this amazing chain is that those whom He justified, He also
glorified. That glory is the end of all
of this. Glory is the beginning of all
of this because I have given them, says the Lord Jesus, the
glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one. And
his desire, his parting words to his apostles before he went
to the cross were, Father, I desire that they also whom you have
given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you
have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the
world. That's the hope for Christians
in the midst of suffering, in the midst of a world that they
may not understand, in the midst of all sorts of things which
defy comprehension. We actually have a God who is
ultimately and infinitely sovereign and then he loves his people.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should
be called children of God and so we are. And the reason why
the world does not know us is that it did not know him. The
world didn't recognise the Lord Jesus. They didn't see Christ
in Christ and they crucified him not knowing what they were
doing. But we have seen him. We see
him through the eyes of faith. and the glory that he had before
the world begun and the glory that he has in heaven right now
is the same glory that he gives to his people. And it's a glory
that's a gift, isn't it? And so we behold the Lord Jesus
in his glory. That's the aim of church, isn't
it? That the Lord Jesus would be held up as glorious. He would be held up as God. and
as we behold him in his glory as 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, but
we with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to
glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord. So we gaze at the Lord
Jesus. If you walk away from church
looking at yourself and your activities you have missed the
mark that we aim for. We gaze at the Lord Jesus, we
admire his person and we have our souls ravished with his love
and we are led to imitate what we love and through the Spirit
of the Lord we grow up into a desire to be like him, to resemble what
we love and to imitate what we admire. Precious Jesus, says
Robert Hawker, Be it my portion to behold thy face in righteousness,
that when I awake I may be satisfied with thy likeness." So these
are the things that God's children know. And we all know people
who say they don't know those things. They might say all sorts
of things. They say that God loves everyone
all the same. But God's children know. They
say that God seeks the salvation of everyone. But we know. They say that Jesus died for
all mankind. But we know. They say that Jesus
made it possible for all to be saved. But we know. They say the Holy Spirit is trying
to save everyone. But we know. They say that people
can lose their salvation. but we know. They say that a
man must make a decision for Christ, but we know. They say that faith is man's
work which God then rewards, but we know. They say that the
Gospel is an offer freely available to all, but we know. There are a group of people in
heaven now who know. God's children on this earth
know. We know. We know with the eyes
of faith, with the eyes of grace that the Lord has given us. And
we see our Lord Jesus as high and lifted up. And may he give
us the grace in this year that's ahead of us to proclaim him in
his glory, to proclaim him in his deity, to proclaim a finished
work on behalf of his people, nothing left for man to do but
to gaze upon the glory of the Lord in the beauty of his holiness. and then he will work in his
people, faith and love, and knit his people together, that the
Lord Jesus will get all the glory for all of this activity in these
verses is him, his work, his work from before the foundation
of the world and his work into the new creation. It is all one
beautiful package that glorifies our Saviour. Let's pray.