Romans 8 beginning of verse 28 through 30

By any standards this is this is one of those great Bible texts, it’s one that we turn to in times of trouble and trial, when we lose assurance and we need the comfort of the word of God to uphold us and remind us of who we are what we are in Jesus Christ.

Well before you read the passage let’s pray together. Holy Spirit You are the author and illuminator of scripture. Men wrote us, they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. We ask as we read this very familiar passage that by Your Spirit You would come and deposit apostles in the lapse of each of those who are worshipping here with good news for them. Written particularly for each one, wherever they are, whatever their needs maybe, trials that are perhaps secret and some that are perhaps known. We pray You whom we call comforter come and strengthen by Your spirit and fill them through overflowing for Jesus’ sake we pray.

I’m in Romans 8:28 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 in order that He might be the first born among many brothers. Those whom He predestined He also called and those whom He called He also justified and those whom He justified He also glorified.

May God at His blessing to the reading of His holy and inerrant Word. Now you notice that Paul says “we know” he’s talking about knowledge. He’s talking about certainty; he is talking about what we believe not just what we understand but are very life system of thought that molds us and shapes us.

We come here this morning collectively as God’s people to confess there are certain truths that we that we know. We know them because God has revealed them to us. Precious truths, God’s truths strengthen us, they mold us they shape. They fashion us all in the immediate context he has been talking about, trials and difficulties, the good that we would, we do not, the evil that we would not, that we find we do, oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body. This death Paul is speaking about, the nature of the Christian life, it’s a struggle we have good intentions we want to follow the Lord we want to follow Jesus but we are constantly failing. We let Him down. Every time we come to worship on the Lord’s day, we confess our sins and we are forgiven but we keep on sinning, that’s the problem.

We’re not yet in glory, where we shall not sin. You shall say goodbye to sin forever, but here we’re in a battle, a battle with ourselves, a battle with remaining sin, a battle. We aren’t dealing with mortifying sin as Paul talks about in this particular chapter. “if you by the spirit to mortify the deeds of the flesh you will live. A constant battle, and then we’ve got to the enemy who prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We are to resist him, steadfast in the faith, were to put on the whole armor of God.

 I know this about you, if you profess to be a Christian, this morning you’re walking through trials in your personal life, in your family life, in your work life, something from the past that continually haunts you, aspirations for the future that you’ve yet to be to see fulfilled.

Paul says “we know”. We live in a world of uncertainty. Read the headline in the news feeds on your phone and you see the world is full of uncertainty. We don’t know what’s going to happen, where the tension with the Iran will go. Who knows where that’s going, it could be fearful, it could be devastating, we don’t know what tomorrow may bring but there are things that we know, things about which we are absolutely certain.

We live in a world of moral confusion; people can’t define who gives birth to the babies or what a woman is. That’s the world we live in. It’s the product, the end product, of post modernity that’s been working itself out since the days of the Enlightenment. We’ve come full circle so that there are no true truths, there are no moral absolutes. It’s why you can’t define what a woman is or a man. In that world of uncertainty.  It’s in South Carolina. In schools and universities, no matter what subject that you’re studying there’s confusion.

They want to wipe away all of the past and all of the certainties of the past, but we know true truths as Francis Schaeffer would say. The chapter begins by saying that we have no condemnation, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and it ends with no separation, no condemnation and no separation. This is a beautiful passage. It’s one of my favorite texts, I carry it with me all the time, it’s in my pocket.

This text this morning is going to function like an umbrella, I’m talking about a massive golf umbrella, the biggest that you can find. Underneath this umbrella there is peace and comfort, uncertainty and hope and assurance. Outside of that umbrella there’s uncertainty and darkness and fearfulness. I want us first of all to see the comprehensive scope of Providence verse 28. We’ve read something from the Heidelberg catechism about the doctrine of Providence because that’s where we are, we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. Jesus through Paul is saying something about life. All things, not somethings, not just the good things, not just the things that I like, not just things that I see as answers to prayer, but all things, good things and bad things.

Jesus has the whole universe in the palms of his hands he is an absolute and total control. If Jesus is only in control of 99% of the universe but there are stray molecules, as osseous proven say, if there is one stray molecule in this universe, we can’t repeat Romans 8:28, because it could come and damage us and hurt us and remove the confidence in the assurance that we have, no this is a doctrine of comprehensive Providence He’s in control of all things.

The extraordinary story of Joseph in the Old Testament. A young boy, spoiled perhaps, with all the consequences of spoiling a teenager. Joseph has nice clothes, a multicolored robe and his brothers hated him. They despise him, they wanted to kill him and, in the end, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. He was raised in Potiphar’s home and miss Potiphar took a liking to him. He was a young man. He was in his early 20s a good-looking young man. Who knows what’s going on in her marriage. She grabbed his clothes, you remember the story, and he ran leaving his clothes behind, that was a good thing, the best thing he did.

She accused him of rape and he was imprisoned for 10 years. Joseph had the gift of reading dreams, you remember, and then one day a Baker and a Butler, one had been beheaded the other had been let loose. When the pharaoh was having dreams, terrible dreams, that seem to have consequences for the future of the pharaoh and the future of Egypt. The Butler suddenly remembers that there was a guy I knew in prison and he could interpret dream. Joseph was brought into the King’s palace and he interprets the dreams. 7 fat cows and seven thin cows and they were going to be 7 years of favor and seven years of poverty filling the barns with grain to make sure that when those years of poverty came that they had enough food.

 Joseph became the second most powerful person in Egypt, in the empire that was Egypt. Imagine that this boy is now the second most powerful person in in Egypt. Then his family came and they didn’t recognize him. They came for food because there was a famine. It’s over the Middle East, but to spread from Egypt to the Levant and they came for food, you remember, there’s a moment of recognition, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and his father and he says something, he says something quite extraordinary. Remember what he said he said to his brothers? They wanted to kill him, they didn’t care that he was sold into slavery.

They told their father that he was dead. Joseph tells his brothers “You meant it for evil, what you did was evil, but God made it for good.” That’s the doctrine of comprehensive Providence. He’s got the whole world in His hands. There was a reason, there was a purpose behind these miserable years that Joseph spent in Egypt. It was to ensure the survival of the covenant family. That there’d be food for them that there’d be a line of continuity that the promise that God had made to Abraham. Abraham’s seed would be like the stars in the night sky and the sand upon the seashore. They would be wiped out but God. It’s just two words “But God” they change everything, they changed your perspective, they changed life trouble. Difficulties happen, trials are happening, things happen that you don’t want to happen, and things don’t happen that you want to happen “But God”. You know there’s a qualification in the text, to those who love God. This is not a promise to unbelievers when they die in their sins, they most definitely will not work out for good. What’s promised to the children of God, to the family of God, the Christians believers who put their faith and trust in Jesus only for their salvation, you have this huge umbrella, storms sheltering underneath this umbrella, and you’re safe and sound and secure. Faith is not an uncertain thing, you see it’s not a hope, so well maybe? No you can be absolutely and resolutely confident this morning, but because He has brought you into union and communion with Jesus Christ, because he has justified you by faith alone in Christ alone, because you’ve been brought into union with Christ, you sit, as Paul says in Ephesians, in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.

You’re sitting here, you’re in the zip code, whatever the zip code is, but you have another zip code, the zip code of the right hand of the “Most High”. Where Jesus sits enthrone and He’s holding the whole universe in the palms of his hands. Young people will say, I’ve got this, the truth is God is at work in your life molding you and fashioning you through all the trials and difficulties and the buffetings of Satan. He’s working everything for your good. What is that good, well He goes on to tell us the detailed nature of Providence. He talks about 5 links of a chain.

William Perkins was a puritan in the late 1500s he died in 1609. One of the earliest of what we call puritan.  William Perkins was a teacher of theology at Cambridge University turning out puritan preachers by the hundreds and thousands. William Perkins wrote a book called The Golden Chain. It was based on this text that we have before us this morning the golden chain. 5 links of a chain for those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be the first born among many brothers and those who He predestined, and those whom He called He also justified and those whom He justified He also glorified. Now we’re going to go into deep water, so hold on to your seat. Let’s look at these 5 links of the chain together. Those who He foreknew.

This is not Paul saying. God has the power to see into the future. Those who freely choose Him, those are people who deny the doctrine of predestination. I’m sure that you understand the doctrine of foreknowledge. To know, in the Bible, Adam knew eve, it’s a language of affection. God foreknows, He knows everything, He sees into the future. He’s in control of the future. The future isn’t haphazard, it’s planned and he’s talking about individual like you and me, those who He foreknew before eternity, before you were born. Before there was a creation when there was only God. Before there were angels, before there were archangels, before there were 24 elders, whoever they are, there was Godfather, Son and Holy Spirit in communion with each other. Three persons but one. One God and there’s a covenant. There was a covenant, a determination to save, to create, to permit the fall, to save sinners, and bring them home to glory so that heaven would be filled with the reward and the triumph of those whom the Mediator “Jesus” would save. Amos 3:2 “you only have I known of all the families of the earth.” Known in the loving sense it speaks of a divine initiative. Why are you a Christian?  You have a testimony, I have a testimony. I can give you a date and a time December the 28th 11:00 at night 1971, I became a Christian. My wife can’t remember a single day when she didn’t know and loved the Lord. She was raised in a Christian home, I wasn’t. Being able to give a time and date is not important, what’s important is that right now you’re trusting in the Jesus only for your salvation.

Why do you have the assurance of faith this morning? What’s the reason for it? You have a personal story. A friend came to you and disciplined you or your mentor disciplined you. Your minister of discipled you, your parents discipled you. You may have a different story how you came to faith, how you became a believer but why are you a Christian? But going all the way back to the very beginning, because God foreknew you, set His love upon you. He set his affection upon you. “and those whom He foreknew He also predestined”.

Don’t get alarmed by this, predestined in order to conform you to the image of His Son that He might be the first born among many brothers and sisters. There’s a plan, do you see that’s why we can know things because there’s a plan. It’s an unbreakable plan, it’s a plan that cannot be destroyed and He wants to conform you to the image of His Son. He wants you to make you like Jesus, that’s the plan, to make you like Jesus, more and more and more every day every week every month until you’re called home.

When you will be like Jesus, fully completely, now you’re in a furnace, now you’re in this world, now there are trials. “The good that I would I do not the evil that I would not that I find I do” “But God” has a plan it’s not just to make you happy it’s not just that you might fulfill all of your dreams, that’s not the plan. The plan is to make you like Jesus, pure spotless, and glorious that He might be the first born among many brothers. The plan is that you’re going to be brought into a family. That’s what churches are. Look around yourselves this is the family of God. I belong to this family. You can go to a church in China, you can go to a church in New Zealand, you can go to a church in Brazil, you can go to a church in Switzerland, or in Scotland and they’re singing the same songs and reading the same Bible and believing the same truths.

 The concept of family. They can talk about who they’re related to, cousins and 2nd cousins and 3rd cousins. The conversation can go on for hours and sometimes I have to say well stop it, enough. I think it’s one of the things that Christianity brings with it, a sense of the importance of family, without Christianity there is no family. Isn’t it a wonderful thing God has put you in a family, your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ so there’s foreknowledge.

There’s predestination and then there’s calling. It is mentioned twice, once at the end of verse 28 and one in verse 30. He’s talking here about what term effectual calling. It’s the sovereign voice of almighty God by the power of the Holy Spirit that brought you out of darkness and into light. You made a decision, yes you did, you saw the truth of these truths, yes you did, but behind it was the work of the Holy Spirit because you were dead in trespasses and unable to lift a finger, unable in your own selves to respond to the call of the gospel, but He came and called and drew you to Himself and then justified. He declared you righteous based on the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

He talks about it in chapter 3 and 4, of the doctrine of justification. Do you remember Martin Luther climbing the scala center in Rome, some of you have been to Rome, you’ve seen these steps. Martin Luther on his hands and knees, repeating the rosary as he was climbing up, trying to find peace with God, trying to find that righteousness that God demands and then sudden recalling Romans 1:16-17. The righteousness of God is not a  standard to achieve but a gift to be received by faith alone. It is the righteousness of Christ; His obedience Reckoned to my account. God made Him to be sin for us Who knew no sin that we might be reckon standard righteousness of God in Him. Justified we stand in a right relationship with God, fit to enter the gates of paradise.

R.C. Sproul would often talk about the righteousness, the imputed righteousness as the wonderful robes of Christ. You’re dressed in the wonderful robes of Christ. Well I can’t use the illustration of Sunday best because we are at the beach. If we were in Colombia this morning all the men would be would bow ties and suits and neat shoes and so on, but you get my point. Those whom He justified, you’d expect him to say sanctified but no he goes from justification from the fact that we’re in a right standing with God. He goes all the way to glorification. Notice the grammar is in the past tense He also glorified. Glorification is in the future, you’re not yet glorified, that’s in the future when your resurrection body will be reunited with your soul. There will be a glory to it the like of which you’ve never seen perhaps glimpse strangely in this world but you’ve never seen it when you stand face to face with Jesus Christ.

Paul is saying when you’re justified your glorification is absolutely certain. It’s as though it has already happened. There are no weak links in this chain. My final words to you this morning, relish these truths, draw them close to your heart, remind yourself of who you are in Jesus Christ and what you are and where you will one day. Your other trials that you have with patients and confidence and certainty. Having begun a good work in you He will complete to the day of Christ. What a wonderful text to take with you today. To give you hope and give you confidence and give you assurance to live out this life out and out for Jesus Christ your savior. Father, we thank You, thank You for your Word, thank You for Your Gospel. Thank You for Your promises. Thank You that it heals us and molds us and shapes us and renews us and invigor