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 eighth chapter of Romans. And I shall read in your hearing
verses 15 through verse 30, Romans chapter 8, beginning the reading
at verse 15. 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. For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed to usward. For 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 liberty of the glory of the children 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
grown within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, that is, the
redemption of our body. 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, but the Spirit himself 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. 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 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. 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. 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. The account of
those who were deceived and others who engaged in the wretched work
of 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, 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, 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, and we here in this place today, we know that to them that
love God, all things are working 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 true Christians
have received the Holy Spirit as the spirit of adoption. 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, Abba, that is, father,
and to cry that cry, not as something learned from someone else. but that which is induced by
the Spirit's own work in us, enabling us so to lay hold of
the reality of our redemptive privileges in Christ, that we
do indeed believe that Through the merit of the Lord Jesus,
God has given us the status of sons and of daughters, and has
given us the very spirit of His Son, enabling us to call Him
our Father. And that same spirit then bears
witness with, or in conjunction with our spirits, that we are
indeed children of God. The Holy 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. But then in verse 17, He goes
on and says, if children, then we are heirs. We are those who
are legally marked out to receive an inheritance. We are heirs
of God and joint heirs with Christ. There is an inheritance yet to
come to us, and it is God himself who has appointed us to obtain
this inheritance. 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. However, between our present
status as the children of God, indwelt by the Spirit who enables
us to address God 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 may be also glorified
with him. As surely as 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, Every
true Christian 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? Yes? No. If you don't see that,
I'll pack up and go home. All the rest is meaningless.
If you're convinced from the word of God that in that narrow
road, in that compressed and restricted way that leads to
life, whatever joys, and there are many, whatever blessings,
and there are many, whatever heights of ecstasy, and there
will be many, whatever seasons of abounding and overflowing
exultation in God and in His mercy, and there will be many,
there will also be inevitably 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,
and the apostle is a sensitive pastor, desires to buttress and
nerve the people of God for their portion of suffering while they
await their glorification. And so in this section of Romans
8, He gives three solid grounds for encouragement to the people
of God in their sufferings while waiting to be glorified with
Christ. Consolation number one is covered
in verses 18 to 25 and is summarized in verse 18. For I reckon that
the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed to usward." 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. It's even unworthy to attempt
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. Hence,
Paul can call them in a parallel passage in 2 Corinthians, for
our life 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 are sufferings of a
very real part, but on the things that are not seen. For the things
that are seen are temporal, including our sufferings, 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. 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 present
state as one of weakness. Some would limit this infirmity
to the inability to know how we ought to pray as we ought,
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? 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. Likewise, the Spirit helps our
infirmity, for we know not how to pray as we ought, but 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 in us, being heard by the God who knows the
mind of God, and 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? In the case
of Paul, 2 Corinthians 12, we know not how to pray. And in
such times, it's not our groaning, but there is the Spirit's 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. 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 attempt 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
indeed the true people of God, every single thing is working
together, working in concert, working according to a divine
prescription and design to produce good in the life of the child
of God. So here then, in this text, we
have the third strand 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?
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. 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. But for 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 to them 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. 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. God is their chief delight. God is the supreme object of
their affections, the fountain of their greatest joys, and they
love the God who is not a God who is the stuff of their own
imagining. When Paul writes, and we know
that to them that love God, that word, four letters in Greek,
three letters in English, is a word into which the apostle
is packing all that God has 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. He
began in chapter 1 by focusing in verse 18 and following that
the wrath of God 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, they
love a God. pours out wrath upon ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men. They do not love this idol of
whom people speak, well, I can't imagine God harming any of His
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. He's the God described throughout
chapter 2 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 chapters of Romans as a God of infinite and inflexible
holiness and righteousness. A God who is a 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,
the God who so loved the world as 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 God. This distinctive identity of
the true people of God is that they love the God who is. As Octavius Winslow states the
case, there is nothing in God and nothing from God for which
the saints do not love God. There is nothing in God or from
God for which the saints do not love God. Now this was not always
true of them. 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. 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 mindset and 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 life regulated 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. 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? 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? If you loved him, why do you
sit there and refuse to 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. Why? Because you love the game
you're playing. You love to win. And nothing
wrong with that. But you stand here mute. 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. If one of your friends should
see you, they'd 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. 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, 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? 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? 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, kletos, It's a word that's used in the same
way saints and believers use 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, refers
to God's eternal, sovereign design of grace to His own. 2 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. 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
them he 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. 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? 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
presence, suffering, and infirmity are constantly and infallibly
working together in concert for my highest good. That's the privilege. 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. How is that expressed? Well,
look at the words of the text. We are knowing The Apostle says,
we are knowing. We are knowing, 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 oida men hoti construction, it refers to a fact that is well
known and generally accepted. He used it in verse 22. 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, for we know that
the law is spiritual. This is a fact acknowledged and
recognized. We know that the law is spiritual. It is not something that merely
touches external deeds, but it touches dispositions and attitudes
of the heart and mind. 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 on the narrow
way more and more validates it in his own experience. But it's
one thing to have what I know validated by my experience. It's another thing to try to
learn it from my experience. And Paul says we know. we know
and what are we knowing he says we are knowing that all things
now whenever you find the word all things in scripture just
like the word everyone and all and 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, but unless
there is some compelling reason to limit the all things to that
in the remainder of scripture. Then we are warranted to see
in those words all things, 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 are working together. Now notice he doesn't say all
things are just working, but working together. 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. 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've never seen this, I'll just have to describe it. It
would be a transmission, not an automatic transmission, but
a five-speed transmission. 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 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 working together 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 working together for any good. 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 driveshaft to propel that car along the
highway. Well, that's the picture here.
Paul is not saying we know that every single thing isolated 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. 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 for our benefit. They are not detrimental, but
beneficial. Paul uses 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 thee for good. 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 as a child 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. 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 working of all things? This text alone would be one
on which we could rest the absolute sovereignty of God over every
single atom and sub-atomic 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 unless God is controlling all things. He must control them. There must be an engineer designing
the gears. If ever we're to hope that throwing
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. 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. 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. I just want a nice little Bible. 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. It has implicit in it the theology
of God's absolute sovereign control over all things, the immutability
of His purposes of love to His people. This is the stuff of
which real godly holy shouting is made. When these truths grip
you, shout as long and loud as you want 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
of 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. 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, all along the way, all of those
things will be like a well-matched gearbox over which God presides,
always moving to my ultimate good. And therefore, when God
places 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 is committed to, but my If we
read on in the passage, that greatest good is conformity to
the likeness of his dear son. You timid saints who cannot think
of the future without deep disruption of your peace, pray this text
in until God weaves it into the very texture of your soul. We
know that all things are working together for good. To all those
who love God, to those who are 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. 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'm 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's in control? What a difference when you can
say, Lord, I don't have a clue how any good can come out of
this, but you have said that you are worthy of my trust. All
things are working together constantly for my good. Otherwise, we're
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's 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 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. 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 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. David, as a man long since forgiven,
said, remember not against me the sins of my youth. And Ezekiel
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, saying,
Oh God, if only I hadn't. Oh God, if only I had. Lord,
if only I could. Those are vain regrets. You can't
go back. You did it. You left undone what
you should have done. It's vain regrets that paralyze
and cripple you for present duties. And child of God, without in
any way 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 through his 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 me. Strengthen your brethren. clear implication being the experience
of your denial and its humiliation and its subsequent self-revelation
and repentance and appropriation of my pardoning grace is going
to make you more fit to strengthen your conscience. All things,
all things stop your vain regrets. Learn from the past. Yes, apply
the biblical principles that you will be wiser from past failures
and follies. But dear child of God, abandon
vain regrets. They are in fact a 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. Do you hear me? He grows some of his most exotic
and beautiful flowers right on the dunghill of our sin. The dunghill is all our doing.
The flower is all his grace. Where would you and I be without
Psalm 51, Psalm 32, and Psalm 6? Those are some of the exotic
flowers that God grew on the dunghill of David's horrible
sins. Where will we be without Peter's denial and his subsequent
repentance and restoration to usefulness? Where will we be
without the record? John Mark 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 is profitable for
the ministry. Where would we be without those
exotic flowers that God has grown on the dunghill of human failure?
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 1 John 5 3, 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 in order
to bring glory to God. That's blasphemous. So you see,
God has 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. And 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 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? 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 God 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 abiding. 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, 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 not 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,
which you won't dodge forever. 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 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,
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 their 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. May 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 Because
Almighty God upon His throne, who loved me in Christ and called
me by His grace, has said it. 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 principled 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. 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. We thank you for the marvelous
truth that you, having laid your hand upon us, have not left us
to work out all the vicissitudes of our lives and all of the changes
to scheme and plot and plan 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. It is a contradiction of a present
confidence that it is true. We pray for those who do not
have any right to this promise. They do not love you. They've
not been called by you. O Lord, give them no rest until
they do love you, until they do trust in your Son, until they
do repent of their sins. 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. Sealed in your word
we plead, in Jesus' name, amen.