How's that sound? While we're
here. It's why we are here. Turn to
Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. Let's pray
as we get started. We thank you, Father, for tonight,
Lord, for just the privilege and the honor it is to gather
around your word. Lord, I thank you for these young
people who are here tonight. Lord, I pray for the ladies in
our church who have given birth or are giving birth. Lord, I
pray for all the others who are dealing with illness and physical
problems. Lord, I pray for those who are
working. I pray for those who are just constantly enamored
by life. Lord, I pray that the word that
you give us tonight, God, would be sufficient for our joy, even
though we don't get to stay together forever. We don't get to sit
in the teaching of God's word, Lord. There is a day that we
long for where we will never depart. We will always be with
each other and we will be with our Lord Jesus. And that is the
topic of our discussion tonight. So I pray that it would be an
honor to your name, Lord, and that we would just open our hearts
and minds by the Spirit to hear and heed the Word that we're
learning. And God, I pray these things
in the name of Christ. Amen. All right. So we're at the last thing in
the chain, which is glorified. So let's read Romans 8. looking
at verse 28 through the end, and I'm going to go ahead and
read all the way through the end of the chapter. And we know that for those who
love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called
according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He
also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, and
that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those
whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called,
He also justified. And those whom He justified,
He also glorified. What then shall we say to these
things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did
not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He
not also give Him, excuse me, how will He not also with Him
graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who
is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.
More than that, who was raised, was at the right hand of God,
who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, for your sake we are all being killed all the
day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No,
in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who
loved us. For I'm sure that neither death
nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things
to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else
in all creation will be able to separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. So let's think about this for
a moment. What have we learned thus far
about the certainty of salvation? That is the point that Paul is
trying to teach here tonight. And I pray and say like I do
every single week that you all have been reading this text.
Please, please, please read the Bible. It does so much more if
you're reading this text to come in here on midweek and then to
hear it taught and to interact with it in a holistic way and
then an explicit way than if you just come in here on Wednesday
or come in on Sunday and just sort of pick up the pieces from
the week before. Seven days outside of the Word
is terrible. And I would say that it is probably
detrimental to your faith. Please be in the scripture and
please be in the book of Romans and in the gospel of John. Now
when we look at the certainty of salvation here, we need to
understand that this is what Paul is doing as he closes out
this chapter. And he's not closing out this
chapter, he's segwaying into his next thought, which is one
letter. It's not this and then this and then that and then this.
He's not teaching in segments. But when we think of the idea
of glory, what do you think about? You think about God, for God
is due all glory, is due all honor, is due all praise. We
think about something being glorious, we automatically think and consider
that being something that applies to or belongs to God. I mean,
we've seen glorious sunsets, we've seen glorious pictures,
we've heard glorious music, so we use that term in a way that's
supposed to give us the feel that there's something grand
or majestic about it, something breathtaking. When it belongs
to God, though, glory and its original intent deals with the
idea of heaviness, weightiness, gravity. Paul would use it to
teach the Corinthians in the second letter. He says that this
present suffering is preparing us for a weighted glory or a
weight of glory. So think about the glory of God
being a pressing down of heaviness, just the supremacy of His presence,
of His being, and the seriousness of God's person weighting down
those who are in His presence. Imagine what Moses thought about
when he was standing in the presence of God on Mount Sinai and the
glory of God was walking with him and or he was walking with
God, and the presence of God was waiting him down. He asked
to see what? What did he ask to see? He asked
to see God's face. And God told him that he could
not bear to see his face. And so what God did was allow
him to look at the shadow, if you will, of the back of his
glory. And so glorious was God's presence that it caused Moses
to have a glowing about him that the Israelites when they saw
him could not bear to stand to look at the face of Moses. So
if that's what glory is all about, and glory, and that doesn't even
scratch the surface of what we should understand about glory,
but just in the defining of the term, if that's what glory is
all about, then how is it that we are going to share in the
glory of Christ? How is it that we are going to understand glorification,
which is that, if we were to define it literally, it means
that we are going to be glorified as Christ is glorified. So the
weightiness and the heaviness and the gravity and the seriousness
of the existence of the worth of Christ is going to be given
to us. We're going to be made in that way. Glorification. This is the final sense of our
salvation experientially. In other words, we will experience
the fullness of our salvation in the time of glorification.
Glorification, as Paul says it, is a finished work of God, but
it's not presently accomplished, even though it is a guarantee.
That's why Paul uses the past tense in all of these things,
so that there is a certainty with us when you and I read the
scripture, when we understand the perfection and the fullness
of salvation, we know that it is something that God will certainly
do. Now there's been a lot of controversy
throughout, I don't know how many years, but let's just say
in my lifetime, it's been like this my entire lifetime. People
like to segment salvation into certain parts, and they like
to try to think that glorification is a process that we yearn toward,
we do yearn to see it, but that we grow into, that we get a little
bit more glorified, and a little bit more glorified, and a little
bit more glorified, and they like to use the term sanctified
as the process through which we are being prepared for glory. Now, of course, we can talk about
setting apart our thoughts and minds and hands and set apart
some things. God can show us that in the word.
But in a sense, spiritually, we are sanctified fully in Christ.
We have been set apart because we've been given to Christ. And
so because of that, we know that glorification is not something
that we're becoming. It's something that we will be.
We're not glorified a little bit now and we're going to be
fully glorified in the future. We are going to be completely
glorified in all ways from start to finish at the day of Christ. And so this, in the final sense
of our salvation, we will experience at the day of... The Bible says,
or Scripture says, it's the day of judgment. It's the day of
the Lord. So I want us to think, and you
can turn back in your Bibles, all of you who have them there,
to Romans chapter 5. We think about what this glory
will look like. We need to ask ourselves, what's
in view here? What is it that God has done
for us that we might be able to be glorified? How is it that
we can share in the essence of the weightiness of Christ? How
is it that we can say that we'll be like Him? How can God do such
a thing? When Romans 5, starting in verse
6, it says, For while we were still weak, at the right time
Christ died for the ungodly. Now I want you to see that for
a moment. We looked at justification last week and we saw that being
justified is a judicial work of God whereby He declares us
what? He declares us righteous, that's
right. So we are declared righteous
and because of that we know that we are not standing in a place
where we are good enough to be declared righteous but that we
stand on the shoulders of another one's righteousness and that
person is Jesus Christ. So that Jesus, when then He died,
He died not for a good people, not for a righteous people, but
for a sinful people. He died for the ungodly. Paul goes on to give the example
that one will scarcely die for a righteous person. Though perhaps
for a good person, one would dare to even lay down his life
and die. But God shows His love for us in this, that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us. He said Christ died for
us while we were sinners, not while we were striving to be
better, not while we were getting a little bit more holy or a little
bit more moral. God died, Christ died for us
while we were still sinners. Since therefore, verse 9 of chapter
5, we have now been justified by His blood. We've been justified
by the blood of Christ. Christ's death, His suffering
on the cross and His death satisfied the wrath of God. That is where
we understand the crux of propitiation. God's wrath has been satisfied.
He no longer has a judgment against us because Christ paid the judgment. The blood of Christ has certainly
declared us righteous, has certainly given us what? Has given us forgiveness,
has paid the debt, has canceled the record against us that God
has had in his courts to say this person must die forever
because he is indeed a sinner. No, we don't die because we are
sinners. We have been made alive because
Christ died in our place. as sinners. Christ took the wrath
of God. Christ's obedience has been given
to us as our righteousness. So there is no part of salvation
that stands on our shoes. There's no part of salvation
that stands in any way that causes us to have to do anything whatsoever. Because salvation is all of Christ.
Salvation is all of God. And He's done all of the work
while we were enemies. So in chapter 5, verse 10, Paul
says this. Well, in verse 9, since therefore
we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we
be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For, it's an explanation
of what he means there, verse 10, if while we were enemies
we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Now think
about this comparison he's about to give. If while we were enemies,
we were justified by the death of Jesus and made, what, friends? Much more, now that we are reconciled,
shall we be saved by His life. So the righteousness of Christ,
His resurrection, His obedience, everything that Christ is, He
is the righteousness of God, is ours to claim. So in that we now shall be saved
by his life. Glorification is the culmination
of all the work of redemption. So it is the final place of salvation. Salvation is complete in glorification. But it's not just that we're
glorified and now that because we're glorified we're finished.
Though we are finished in a sense of what? What does glorification
look like? Well, it's experiential. It all
rests in the person of Christ. It doesn't rest in us. Even though
we will be made like Christ, salvation isn't granted to us
because now we are made sinless. It was granted to us because
Christ was sinless. It was granted to us because
Christ gave His life and took the penalty of our sin. Christ's
person, Christ's glory, Christ's work is the foundation of our
salvation. His person, His work, His glory is the hope of our
salvation. He, in everything that He is, is the assurance
of our salvation. So we're not growing in the sense
of measurement. We're not growing in a sense
of salvation, but we're growing in our understanding of the glory
of Christ to be revealed in us and the glory of Christ that
is to be revealed to us on the Day of Judgment. Paul explains
this in a way that he uses the illustration of marriage. And
he says in Ephesians 5, 27, so that he, Christ, is the subject
there, might present the church to himself in splendor, without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without
blemish. So we understand glorification
in the work of Jesus Christ in salvation is that what he will
do, what he has accomplished is to declare us righteous through
his blood, What he has accomplished is to declare us righteous through
his obedience. But what he will do is make us
such in our glorification. But until that time, there will
be no such measurement of perfection except the person of Christ.
Paul talks in that Ephesians 5, he's talking to husbands who
should love their lives as Christ loved the church. Jesus gave
himself for the church, and in turn, husbands should lay down
his life for his bride. Jesus laid down his life for
the church in order to present her blameless, without spot or
wrinkle, that she may be holy without blemish. So, therefore,
we understand salvation finishes in glorification. Paul tells
Timothy, therefore I, himself, saying he endures all the suffering
that he has had to deal with, he endures everything for the
sake of the elect of God, that they also may obtain the salvation
that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. And I could take
two or three hours and continue to deal with what glory looks
like, and it might be beneficial for us, but if I spend too much
time there, then I'm going to really take us out of the text
of Romans to a degree that I don't want to do tonight. But what
does glorification look like? I wish that we had a list of
everything that it would be. I wish it would be so clear to
us, but I'll be straight with you. I don't think words could
explain the weightiness of glory. just as words could not explain
the weightiness of the glory of God, words cannot explain
the weightiness of the glory that we will share with Christ
Jesus. But we will share in glory. It's not that we will become
divine. It's not that we will become God. But let me say this,
it's something that I've been thinking about for months, and
this will be the first public phrase or exposure of this phrase,
but imagine, don't imagine, remember what Lucifer wanted. What did
he want? He wanted to share in the glory
of God. Because he looked at himself
in such a way that he saw the reflection of the nature of God's
perfection and beauty and glory. And he thought to himself, I
look just as good. I should stand next to God. And
he thought in his heart, I should be next to God. So God, with
one-third of the multitude of the heavenly host, threw him
and all of them out. because they agreed. So the very
thing that the devil wanted to share in the glory of God is
the very thing that God by grace will give his church. Now think
about that for a moment. And I haven't parsed those thoughts
in any way except to understand that the only way someone can
stand righteous and glorious in the presence and with the
essence of righteousness is that God himself grants it by mercy
And then God himself effects the requirements of such conditions
through grace, by the giving of the Son, by the death of Christ,
by the obedience of Christ, and by the promises of his covenant
of redemption that he made with Adam at the fall. So in that, I want you to think
about the inner glory and the outward glory of what we will
experience. Believers, though we are regenerated,
we are converted in our minds, though we are given a new heart
and a new mind, that new heart and new mind, the Spirit of God
residing in us and all of those things together are not, are
not able, and I say able, they are not purposed to overcome
the flesh fully. Why? I don't know. But Paul makes
it very clear, we've already heard that. But the angst and
the warfare and the trials and the suffering and the temptation
and the pressure and all of these things will be washed away for
when we are glorified inwardly we will no longer have a sin
nature at all. We will no longer have anything
that can be tempted by sin. We will be forever unchangeable
in the perfection of our new inner being. So what is this inner being look
like? Well, we will be made perfectly
new forever, eternally new in our mind and our soul. But there's
also an outward glory that we have been promised that is akin
identically to the outward glory of Jesus Christ in his flesh.
that which he was given when he was resurrected from the dead.
So that which we are declared to be then inwardly will be granted
to us and we will be recreated perfectly inwardly and also outwardly. So what's the point of this teaching?
What's the point of all of this anyway? Does it really matter?
Does it really matter if we get to the depths of it? Well, I
think we could probably dig for hours and hours and hours and
look and see all the references of glory and share it in the
glory of Christ. But I think what Paul is trying
to express here is that glorification is a guarantee and that we will
escape the corruption of the flesh one day in that glory.
And it's not just something that we will be that we can't see
and long for, but it is exactly how Christ is in His human flesh.
We shall also be. We shall be made without blemish.
We shall be remade without spot. We shall be remade without wrinkle.
And get this, that is why it is a future time. at the judgment
of God, because God is not going to make us worthy of our righteousness,
of our justification in this life. For then we could boast
and say, look how well I grew, look how awesome I became, look
exactly who you made me to be. But the day when we stand glorified
with Christ, we will be certain to comprehend and apprehend the
reality of that perfection and we will give God praise for it. We will give Him the glory that
He is due. This glorification, this promise
of a new inside and a new outside is bound to the person of Christ. So just as our salvation is bound
to the purpose of Christ, just as our Redemption is bound to
the purpose of Christ just as our justification is bound and
our righteousness is bound. Our glory is bound to Him. Our
glory is bound to Him and it is on this that we stand. Conditioned how? What is the
condition of this glorification? the love of God for us in Christ. What's that? Praying for you, brother. All
right. Sydney's in labor. Praise the
Lord. But this glorification, this
perfection, this new creation is certainly guaranteed because
of the love of God for us. the love of God for us in Christ
Jesus. And I think this is what Paul,
not I think, I see this is what Paul is trying to say here, because
it is guaranteed our glory. And this glory and its guarantee
proves nothing can separate us from God. No matter how dead
and weak we may feel, no matter how weak and lowly our faith
may be, no matter what may come, our hope is in Jesus Christ,
and our promise of glory is in Jesus Christ. And so in all of
that, it is where our joy is maintained. This is the true
reality of what being sanctified is, when we stand before Christ
glorified. And this, we cannot be separated
from this promise. Because what is the question?
He says, look at verse 31. The question that he asked then,
because this is true, because God has done all this work of
salvation, because this promise is there and nothing can change
it, it is certain, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be
against us? Who can be against us? Now, if I were to take a
piece of paper and write down people who are against me, I
could write down some names. Could you? You could probably
write down some names. But according to this, no one
is truly against us. Just because someone comes against
us doesn't mean that they can do anything with it. No one can
be against us. No one can accuse us of being
lost. No one can say, because of this,
that, or this, you don't have a hope of glory. Somebody can
come along and try to entangle you in a works-based salvation
or a works-based assurance or some type of thing to say, because
you're suffering, this is not good or this is not working,
etc. You should be scared. Paul says
there should be no fear. that nothing should be able to
shake you, because no one can be against us if God is for us. He did not spare His own Son
for the sake of our glory and our redemption. So therefore,
because of that, will He not now give us all things graciously? And I'm going to talk more about
this next week. So then the question is, who shall bring any charge
against God's elect? Who shall accuse us? Who shall
say that we are guilty in any way? No, he asserts there at
the latter part of verse 33, it is God who justifies. So we're not going to miss our
glorification because of some waning in our faith on this earth. We're not going to miss our glorification
because of some weakness in our maturity. We're not going to
miss our glorification because we're not quite holy enough for
Jesus. Because Christ died. He is the one who died. So who
is there to condemn if God is the one who justifies based on
the worthiness of the death of Jesus? No one. No one, no one can bring this
charge. No one can condemn. He opened
this very thought in verse 1 of chapter 8. Therefore now there
is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. No one
shall do anything because Christ has done everything. We will
see the glory of God face to face. And when we see Him, we
will be like Him. The war will be over. The fight
will be finished. The race will be won. And we
will stand beautifully perfect in a sinless way. Literally. Literally. So Christ is the one
who died. More than that, who was raised.
So the promise of justification, the promise of glorification,
is all centered on the weightiness of Christ and His glory. It rests
on Him. Not only has He done the work,
but He intercedes at the right hand of God for us. So there
is no accuser that can cause God to say, well, maybe you're
right. Tiffin's just a little off this week. He's got an attitude
problem. He doesn't feel good. He's sinful. He's not working
his salvation out. Correct. Probably not going to
be able to glorify him unless he turns a corner. And that sounds
so silly, but that's what these people teach. That's what wolves
teach to the church. They want them to run for their
lives. They want them to feel the fear of condemnation rather
than the joy of redemption. Paul lands his plane. I remember
being a freshman in high school and this latter part of Romans
was sort of a life verse for me at the time. Jesus is interceding
for us, so he asks all these questions about who shall separate
us from the love of God. Who shall do it? Who's going
to take you away from God's glory? Who's going to rob you of that
day and your perfection? Who's going to steal away the
declaration of your justification because of the blood of Christ?
Christ's blood has been shed, beloved, and not one of His sheep,
not one of the elect will ever be condemned by God the Father.
Nobody's going to take us away from the love of God. Tribulation's
not going to do it. Distress. Let me add some things. Anxiety, frustration, fear, famine,
being hungry. National, natural disaster or
national disaster? National disaster, natural disaster,
distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, nobody,
nothing can separate us. No, in all these things, and
listen to this, in all these things, and I'll talk more about
these particular things next week, but in all these things
we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. See, the love
of Jesus is the anchor of our hope. Christ went to the cross
because of the glory of God. Christ went to the cross out
of His love for His sheep. And God will not change who He
loves. He will not be shaken. We're more than conquerors. Though
we seem to be like sheep being killed all the day long, even
emotionally sometimes, experientially when our faith is hardly there,
we have not lost the love of Christ. No, we're more than conquerors
through Christ. In verse 38-39, I'll close with
this expounding once again on this reality. Paul says, I am
certain, I am sure, I am thoroughly convinced, I am convinced that
death cannot separate us from the love of Christ, that life
cannot separate us from the love of Christ, Angels cannot separate
us from the love of Christ. Demons cannot separate us from
the love of Christ. Spiritual warfare cannot separate us from
the love of Christ. Rulers and governors and axemen and henchmen
and all these other maniacal people who rule over us and lord
of us cannot separate us from the love of Christ. the present
things, nor the future, nor any power that exists in the cosmos
can separate us from the love of Christ. Nothing can be high
enough or deep enough. There's no place where we can
fall and there's no place where we can fly that would separate
us from the love of God. We cannot escape the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We cannot escape And
if the list isn't big enough, he says in the mid part of verse
39, nor anything else in all creation. Beloved, listen to
this. Your failure, your fear, the weakness of your faith, your
sin, and your anger, nothing can separate us from the love
of Christ. Nothing. Nothing. Because it is in Christ
Jesus, our Lord. It's in Christ, the anchor of
our soul, the anchor of our hope, the anchor of God's glory is
in the finished work of Jesus. Jesus is the full revelation
of the glory of God and all of his majesty in his human person. He reveals the fullness of God's
glory. And one day we too will be like him. And there is no way that we can
be lost. None whatsoever can we be lost. And so with that, beloved, I'll
close. Because if I start talking now, I'm going to end up in the
next week. But I pray that you would be settled. And I know
you young people, you may not have the stress and the trials
of old people. But I'll tell you this. The stress
and trials of life at any age, at any decade, at any season
is enough to shake us from the root and the foundation of our
hope in the work of Christ. That's why the word of God is
essential for us to see just how solid a hope we have. Read
the Bible, beloved. Stay in the truth so that you
can be reminded of what a great salvation you have. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord, for loving
us with an inseparable love, with a love that cannot be shaken,
with a love that cannot be thwarted, that cannot be changed. We cannot
be lost. We cannot be hopeless. Everything
that we are, everything that we're going to be, are standing
before you now and for eternity is secure in Christ Jesus. And
that cannot change. And for that, Lord, we give you
all praise and glory and honor. And I pray that as we leave this
place tonight, Lord, that you be with the brothers and sisters
of our fellowship. Father, that you be with Sydney
as she goes to have this new baby girl. Lord, that you continue
to be with Brooke as she continues to labor with this pain and suffering.
And Lord, that you be with Julie as they are adoring and tiredly
adoring their new baby as well. Father, that we would rejoice
with those who rejoice, that we would grieve with those who
grieve. Father, that we would meet each
other's needs as often as we can. Lord, I pray that as we
have been here tonight, that it was for your purpose, because
that's what you say it is. Help us to rest in the sufficiency
of your gospel by the promises of your word and not be shaken.
And we pray these things in the name of Christ. Amen.