Well, this morning we're going
to look at a common and a well-known verse. It's one in which affords
the true child of God much comfort. It's one that has been used throughout
the ages by saints, all saints alike. They've used it to run
to in the most dire circumstances and in most critical times of
need. And of course, this verse is a precious, sweet and precious
promise to usward. And we know, so says the scriptures,
that all the promises in Christ are yes and amen. So if you don't
have Christ, you have no promises. But if you have Christ, you have
all the promises. So, if the need is great, the
promise is great. Let's start reading in verse
18 through the end of the chapter, Romans chapter 8. For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation
of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of
God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly,
but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because
the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage
of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now. And not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the
redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope. But
hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why does
he yet hope for? But if we hope, for that we see
not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit
also helps our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches
the heart knows what is the mind of the spirit, because he maketh
intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did
foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his son. that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,
and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we
then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? For He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with
Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who
is He that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God,
who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? tribulation, distress, persecution,
famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. As it is written, for
thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep
for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded
that neither death, life, angels, principalities, powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, depth, or any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8, 28. This is what we're
going to look at. We're going to look at it backwards. Backwards and forwards. And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to His purpose. We're going to look at this backwards.
We're going to look at the first thought is according to His purpose. This is the central cog of this
whole book. This is the hub of the giant
wheel of providence. It's the all and the end all. God's purpose. God's purpose. There is no happenstance, there
is no luck or chance, but purpose. And it's God's purpose. And it's
on purpose always. God is a God of purpose, and
He does as He does in the army of heavens and among the inhabitants
of the earth, says Daniel chapter 4. And in context of this verse,
God in Christ has purpose before the world was, who His called
ones would be, and moreover purpose that all things would work for
their eternal good according to His purpose. If you take that
out, you've got chaos, you've got government, you've got people,
you've got chaos. to His purpose. God's doings in time, seen by
us, are ever the result of His sovereign purpose from eternity. Verse 30, Moreover, whom He did
predestinate, them He called, and them He called, them He justified,
and them He justified, He glorified. It's bookends. It's bookends. You can't jump over, you can't
quickly run to the end. God has a purpose, it's being
played out, and we're thankful. We talked last night, we are
so thankful that God does what He does on purpose. Things will
happen to us like it happened to everybody. How do you get
through it? Thy will be done. And what we're
saying is His purpose is going to be done. We're not saying
Thy will be done question mark. It's a statement. His will shall
be done. Secondly, what is according to
His purpose? Those whom are called. To them
who are the called according to His purpose. These are called
to know ourselves as guilty, vile, and truly undeserving of
such free grace. That's a calling. We are called
to trust His sin-atoning, all-satisfying Sacrifice, Christ, on our behalf. We know this. We know this. We
know we're called, and it's according to His purpose. These are called
to understand the all-sufficiency and love found only in our Savior,
Jesus the Christ. These are called out of this
world, and we no longer revel in the world's niceties, its
glitter, its pursuits, and rather we flee by the Holy Spirit from
its entrapments and false refuges. We're called. So it's a complete
package. We're called to love Him. We're
called to hate sin. However you want to phrase it.
These are called to be followers. My sheep hear My voice and they
follow Me. Another they will not follow.
Whether it cost much or the loss of friends and family, This is
the calling for which we are placed. Come what may, we trust
Him. Because He's, as many writers
say, He's too wise to err, and too loving to ever be unkind.
As one old writer said, sink or swim, we'll trust in Him.
Whether it's night or day, whether it's hot or cold, Let us be about
our Master's service. Luke chapter 2, that's what Christ
was. He was about His Father's service, His Father's business. And one thing is in 1 Corinthians
13, the greatest of these is love. Let us be about loving
one another. Loving our neighbor. Praying
for those who despitefully use you. All these things. That's
what the called do. But we can't help but do it.
We can't help but do it. Because without Him, we can do
nothing. And from Him, He says, is our
fruit found. So we desire that we would bear
much fruit. And I know the longer we live
in this world, the harder, the more things seem like they are
out of kilter. It's the globe in the classroom. It never sat upright. It was
always at an angle. Well, it seems like it's horizontal
now. I mean, just common sense stuff.
Stuff goes on that makes no sense. This does. This book. The Gospel. This promise makes sense. And by God's grace, I just keep
on saying it. Keep on saying it. Thirdly, to
whom are they called according to His purpose? And obviously
these love God because He first loved us. But all things are
working together for good. All is working together for good. And that's according to His purpose.
And it's for those who love God, because He loved us first, and
those who are the called. Now, all things working together,
this is where I struggle. It's not singularly. We're preachers
of time. And so we look at what's going
on in this country, this world, the diseases. We look at all
these different things as separate. Because that's multi-tasks. We can't multi-task. We think
we can, but we're not concentrating. But God, all things, not singularly,
but everything, everything in time and space, moment by moment,
event by event, it's like one little event or situation or
moment, While we cannot see or understand how, but the Lord
fits all these things together with purpose, with intent, for
our good, our best interest, be it a trial, a loss, a hardship,
suffering, persecution, or anything, we do not see or act as God does. So let us simply trust and follow
and worship Him. Like I said with Tim James, we
look horizontal. We need to look up. We're looking
horizontal. We're seeing everything that's
going on. Everything's chaos, out of control. No, it's working
together for His people, for our good. A single thread left
out of a weaver's shuttle does not appear much to us. We went
to, I don't know what it was, some kind of days in Indiana.
It was like a colonial days or something. where they had people,
they had weavers, and they had these expensive shuttles, you
know, hundreds, thousands of dollars, and they were telling
how they take the flax and they separate, I mean, they go all
the way to step one, like they would back in the day. And they
take it, and then they do it, and then it ends up, you know,
they separate it out, spin it and everything, you got the spinners,
and then they put it, and they got the loom, you know, nice,
not a contemporary loom, old loom, and then the lady was doing
stuff. Push it. Well, you don't need that. You
don't need that one thread. I don't think she needed that
one thread. She knew she did. She knew she did. A single thread
left out of the weaver's shuttle doesn't appear much to us. But
to the weaver, the master of the shuttle, it cannot do. It's
not complete. It's rather faulty. And we know
our God. is never faulty and He never
fails. Ezekiel 12, Joshua 21, Psalm
73, Isaiah 46, Romans 9, on and on I could go. He neither slumbers
nor sleeps. We saw that the other weekend. He does all things well. He does
all things right and righteously. We saw that this morning in Bible
class in Judges. He does as He pleases and what
He does is right And it's righteous. All things. And we know that
all things work together. Work together. Our Lord and Redeemer,
the Christ, He's the weaver. I have no patience to do any
of that stuff. And I'm glad that somebody's
doing it. I'm like, that's nice, that's really neat. play catch
or something. But it is fascinating. And the
history, thanks to my wife being the history buff, makes things
interesting. But it's really interesting when
you look at it. When we got to that shuttle,
and she's doing that. She knew what she was doing.
I didn't know what she was doing. She knew what she was doing. Purpose. But Christ is the weaver. He's
the weaver and he's made the shuttle. And each thread is set there on purpose
with intent. And then she's working on something
and she says, oh, this is what that's going to be. And then
it's like, oh, that's pretty nice. Christ is the weaver and
not one piece of tiny thread will be found misplaced when
He's done. And I know that blows your mind. It's really hard to think about
it in that way. So, He gives us the Scripture. And He says, all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to, remember, it's my purpose hands-off it's
my purpose who are we who are we but clay to question his authority he can form one
unto honor says the scriptures and one unto dishonor who are
we to question such things. And this weaving, which I would
say is our life's journey, is all for the children's well-being
and goodness and blessing. You know, sometimes I think about
small stuff, in this case, food. Why does it taste... It didn't
have to taste... All it needs to do is to nourish
us and support us. And we go on to that. You eat
it. He says in the New Testament, you eat it, it goes out. But,
He's made it taste good. Why? He didn't have to do that.
You wake up in the morning, and you see the sunrise, and you
see the sunset, and you see the way the cloud, the patterns,
and the colors, and the hues. Why did He make it beautiful?
We were coming home last week, just off our drive, and I don't
remember seeing this, but it looked like the heavens were
on fire. It was such a bright orange,
and the way the clouds, it was just lit up. I mean, it was bright
for a sunset. Such love, such beautiful. That's
part of the thread. And he says, this we know, and
we know, now that word know, That means to perceive or that
means to understand. He's given us an understanding
of who he is. He's given us a calling to know
ourselves. And we're thankful because he
could have left us blind. We don't deserve the least of
his mercies, but he has chosen to call us out of this world
to serve Him. We understand. We understand
the weaver. Our problem is we don't understand
the workings of the shuttle. But that's okay. If we know Him,
we know He's in charge. And that's what faith is called.
And faith is a privilege. Faith is a gift. We can't earn
it. We can't work for it. We can't
merit it. Faith is a gift of God. And we know. What does that mean?
We know, we understand, we perceive. How is that done? It's by faith. Well, how is that done? It's
by divine revelation. No matter how much you read,
no matter how smart you are, no matter how brilliant your
parents were, no matter how much you know Greek or Hebrew or this
or that, or the Bible, you can have it memorized. If God is
not pleased to reveal and give us faith, we will not know that
all things work together for good to them that love God and
who are the called according to His purpose. But since it's
His purpose to use the foolishness of preaching or to speak to other
people about the truth, and He reveals His Son in us, we repent
and are baptized and follow Him as... follow me as a eunuch,
you know, follow me, you know, Peter and the calling, you know,
follow me and they just follow Christ. Therefore, we know. Why do we know? Because we have
God-given faith. It's revealed to us by His free
merit and power. We are by nature blind, lame,
halt. We cannot help ourselves in any
way spiritually. He has opened our eyes to know,
to perceive Him. And this is to know God. And to know
God, you know a little bit about the weaver, and maybe a little
bit about the shuttle. I'm going to close, I'm going
to read two thoughts on this verse. In this verse, which speaks regarding
the highly privileged lovers of God who are called according
to God's purpose, it comprehends all the blessings of life that
now is and of that which is to come. All things work together
for good. God himself in his threefold
character of persons and in all his covenant offices and relations,
the father in his everlasting love and purpose, the son in
his fullness, suitableness and all sufficiency, and the Holy
Ghost in his operations, graces and influences, all minister
to this end. In every department of nature,
providence, grace and glory. And the call implies the freedom
of it, the fullness of it, the unmerited, unexpected, unlooked-for
mercifulness of it. And all referred into the divine
purpose, not human deservings, not man's merits, but God's mercy."
Robert Hawker. Now this next one, I've seen
this, I've seen his name, but never have I read anything
by him. I may have seen a few quotes
over the 30, 35 years. Thomas Moore, M-O-O-R, wrote
one book, published in 1882. It's amazing. Therefore, because all things
work together for good, to those who love God and to those who
are called according to his purpose. Therefore, let us leave all things
in the hands of Jesus, who has the whole plan of the life of
each believer always before him, and who in his infinite wisdom
causes all things to work together for good to them, so as to produce
the best results and accomplish all his purposes of love. Let
us trust Him at all times, even when our expectations of earthly
things are disappointed, or when our plans are frustrated, or
when darkness surrounds our path, or when trials and afflictions
are our portion. Be assured that when we have
attained a keener vision and a fuller understanding that our
pilgrim state affords us, we shall see that God caused all
things to perfectly work together for good to those who love Him,
to those who are called according to His purpose. We will then
testify to the wisdom, power, and love of Him who does all
things well. That's the truth. That's what
it's about. Submitting to Him and saying,
you have done all things well. I didn't understand this section,
these five years of my life. I didn't understand why you took
this person, why you took this child. I don't understand. But
I know you do all things well. Why? Because He's a God of purpose.
This God of purpose, the only God of purpose, is for us. He's not against us. Because
nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nathan, would you close us please?