At Work to Sanctify His People

Listen Online:

Transcript:

Well, we all make mistakes, don’t we? No, not Brother Ken, but the rest of us do. We all make mistakes, and some bigger than others.

I don’t mean that some of us have bigger mistakes than others. I just mean some of my mistakes are bigger than other of my mistakes. But what I’ve discovered is that sometimes a small mistake can lead you way off track down the road.

Friday, Charlie and I were trying to leave the hospital in rush hour traffic. Yeah, big mistake. Well, yeah, that was our big mistake.

My little mistake was you come out of the hospital, and it’s one of these where there’s so many lanes, there’s two left turn lanes. And I know I need to be in the right left turn lane so I can be in the right lane when we turn and go down Lincoln Boulevard and get on the highway. But I thought, there’s so many cars in that right-left turn lane.

I’ll get in the left-left turn lane, and then I’ll just get over when it’s clear. We’ve got about two miles. I’ll get over when it’s clear.

That was my little mistake, was getting in the left-left turn lane. Yeah, what I found was there was never a place where I could get over in two miles. And so I end up being in the middle lane when I needed to be in the right lane.

I end up having to drive past the on-ramp to get on I-235. By the way, we were trying to get to Norman from downtown Oklahoma City. So I really needed to be on I-35.

Sometimes if we’re just going to Moore, I’ll take the back roads. But I made that little mistake and ended up having to go further down Lincoln Boulevard. We drive down Reno past Bass Pro.

I said, well, I’ll turn here. I’ll turn right and go down that way to Shields or Broadway, whichever it’s called right there. What I find, though, is when I try to turn left, you don’t ever get a green arrow there.

It’s just a green light, meaning you have to yield. Everybody else gets green arrows, but not the direction I was going. It’s like, okay, this is bad.

I can’t even turn on shields because of all the traffic coming down Reno. So I went further down and tried to take Robinson. Some of you are not familiar with Oklahoma City geography, lucky you. Some of the rest of you know what I’m talking about.

And I end up not being able to turn on Robinson either. At some point, I had a street car right up next to me, which just really stressed me out. They’re neat to look at, but not neat to drive right next to.

And that really stressed me out. I end up down Walker, and I’m still trying to get to I-35. I’m just getting further and further away from it on the other side.

And ended up, we were late for our dinner plans. It took us close to 40 minutes to get to Norman, what should have been a 20-minute trip. And it all started out.

You know, this big problem all started out with just a little mistake of not getting in the right-left turn lane. A little mistake can quickly go very, very awry. As a matter of fact, I sat there kicking myself, not literally kicking myself, but kicking myself in the car, thinking if I could trace it back to that one choice, if I could just get in line for the right-left turn lane, all of this would have been avoided.

So a little mistake can lead us far astray down the road if we’re not careful. And I say that to you because last week I told you that if I ever start saying things that are not biblically true, I hope you’ll call me on it. I try very hard to be biblically correct and biblically accurate about what I tell you, but we all make mistakes.

And today I’d like to lead with one of the mistakes I’ve made throughout the years of my ministry. In Romans chapter 8, if you’d like to turn there with me, Romans chapter 8, we’re going to look at a passage that I taught incorrectly early on in my ministry, because I didn’t really understand what it was talking about. And probably some of you, as you read this passage, you’re familiar with it, some of you may think about it the way I used to.

And so today is not to attack you or put you down. It’s to correct what we misunderstand. It’s to correct our little mistake in this passage that can have big implications down the road, and also to wrap up this series that we’re in on God being at work in the midst of our circumstances and some of the reasons why.

We get to Romans 8. 28-30, and if we misunderstand this, it can lead to disastrous consequences when we think God has promised something that He hasn’t promised. And many people will make the mistake of thinking that God has promised them a happy life, a life of comfort, a life of ease, when God has promised no such thing, but they think God has promised this life of ease, and when he doesn’t provide, they begin to think either God doesn’t keep his promises, or God is not even real to begin with.

So we need to see what this passage actually means. Romans chapter 8, starting in verse 28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose.

For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, these he also justified.

And whom he justified, these he also glorified. So we’re going to look at those three verses this morning and say, what does that mean? Because a lot of times we will read Romans 8.

28. Perhaps you’ve been in a crisis at some point in your life where some well-meaning brother or sister has come to you and says, well, you know, Romans 8. 28, he works all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

And the implication there is that we are supposed to be comforted by the thought that God is going to work everything out where it’s just peachy and wonderful. and the reality is this passage doesn’t promise anything of the sort and as I said we can get very discouraged when we think that God has promised this wonderful life to those who love him and when it doesn’t come to pass in just the way we expect we start to think well what was wrong with what I understood before it’s either a case of me maybe I don’t love God enough I mean, it says he works all things together for good to those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. Well, all these things aren’t working out for good, so maybe I just didn’t love God enough.

Or maybe I’m not called to his purpose. Or we start to think, well, what’s wrong with God? Because maybe God apparently doesn’t keep his promises.

Or maybe he’s just not real at all. See, it’s a little mistake that can lead to bigger consequences down the road. We need to understand that this passage has nothing to do with good from our standpoint of things working out to give us a comfortable, happy life of ease.

And when I’ve taught this before, when I used to teach it incorrectly here in Romans chapter 8, I used to try to work in a caveat, an exception here. to say, well, what we see as good is not necessarily what God says is good. And we’ve got to look at it long term.

God will work it together for good at some point. In other words, we can’t bank on everything being good now, but eventually everything will be good. So we’re putting it off further down the road.

Well, that’s not even correct. It all has to do very much with God’s definition of what good is. And I know in recent days I’ve seen where people have questioned God’s goodness, have questioned even the existence of God because of the presence of evil in the world.

One man that I saw not too long ago posting on Facebook said as a reason for him not to believe in God, he said, how do you square God with the idea that St. Jude’s Hospital even exists? He said, if there’s a good God, why is there suffering in the world?

If there’s a good God, why are there children who suffer? Well, this has become a personal question to me. This has become deeply personal, as I see my child in the hospital as well.

Certainly not with childhood cancer, but in the hospital nonetheless. This is not some new devastating objection to Christianity. The problem of evil is something that philosophers and theologians have dealt with for many years.

How can an all-powerful, all-good God exist when there’s suffering in the world? Because surely if God was all-good, if God wanted our good, and He’s powerful enough to do so, then God would just get rid of our suffering. He’d just, with a wave of His hand, He’d get rid of our suffering.

And as I was pondering over this question, I don’t pretend to stand up here and say I know everything and have all the answers. I’m telling you the conclusions I’ve come to and what makes sense to me. As I’ve pondered on this the last couple of weeks, the conclusion I’ve come to is that it all hinges on what our definition of good is.

And in God’s view of everything, is it just remotely possible that there’s a different standard of what’s good than what we would look at? We would look at, in our desire to be comforted, in our desire to be happy, and say that a life with no suffering is the greatest good there is. That’s what’s good.

Everything else pales in comparison to that. But you look at who God is and you look at what God does and it becomes very clear very quickly that God’s definition of good has much more to do. .

. There’s much more to God’s idea of what’s good than just a life without suffering. The greater good in God’s view of things is our holiness.

And we see that in this passage. That God is working things together for our good. That doesn’t necessarily mean a life free of suffering.

You look at it in the context of what he says in the latter two verses, and we see that God is working toward our holiness. We have this promise in Romans 8, 28. We know that all things work together for good.

Now, Paul doesn’t even treat it as something they need to debate. He treats it as something they assume. He tells the believers in Rome, he says, we know.

We know. You hear people, you hear politicians on TV. Well, we all know that.

And a lot of times it’s something, no, we don’t all know that. You’re full of hot air. No, I don’t know that, that you just said to be true.

I would debate that. But Paul says to the church at Rome, we all know. We know that all things work together for good.

For who? To those that love God who are the called according to his purpose. And I would submit to you that there’s a question there.

Who are the called according to his purpose? now all sorts of preachers would give you all sorts of different answers what I believe it is what I believe the answer is the called according to his purpose is anybody who’s responded to the gospel call in Jesus Christ anybody who’s been called by his name anybody who’s been born again who’s trusted Christ as their Savior who’s come to him by faith whatever terminology you want to use but those who are in Christ are the called according to his purpose and if you this morning are a believer in Jesus Christ God has called you for a purpose. God has a purpose for your life.

God has a ministry for you to carry out. God has a purpose for you to be here and for you to serve him. And you know what?

On top of that, God has a purpose for everything that happens to you. We talked about this some in the last few weeks that nothing happens to us that God doesn’t either cause or allow. Now, allow is very important because I don’t think God does bad things to us.

But I think God allows us to encounter the consequences of sin, either ours or those around us. Sin doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and sin affects the entire world. Sometimes bad things happen just because we live in a bad world that’s been tainted by sin.

But even at that, just like in the story of Job, Satan can’t touch you unless God says, all right, but no further than this. Even in our times of struggle and even in our times of difficulty, God is still in control. And we can still trust that things aren’t going to get out of his control.

So for those who are the called according to his purpose, those are believers in Jesus Christ as I understand it. So this morning, if you’ve trusted in Christ as your Savior, you are part of the called according to his purpose. And God has a purpose for your life, and God has a purpose for the things that you go through, good and bad.

God has a purpose for you, both on the mountaintop and in the depths of the valley. So we need to understand that, that if you’re a believer, when you see this, those that love God who are called according to his purpose, he’s speaking to you, and he’s speaking about you. And he says, everything works together for good to those that love God who are called according to his purpose.

So as we’ve been talking through this series about God being at work, we need to understand that even if we don’t see God at work in our suffering, in our struggles, in our bad circumstances, even if we don’t see God at work, we do have the promise of his word that he is at work and he’s working all things out for our good. If you’re a believer, God is working things out for your good. We just need to make sure we’re on the same page with God about what that word good means.

And so we look at the next couple of verses here. Verse 29 gives the justification for all of this. You know, he’s working things out for good, for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

And you see that word for, at the beginning of verse 29, means because. In this context, it means because. So he gives the reason.

He gives more explanation for the idea of God working things out for our good. He says, for whom he foreknew, who did he foreknow? us.

I happen to believe based on scripture that God, we have free choice and we have moral responsibility that God has given us in his sovereignty. Those work together. They’re both taught in scripture.

I don’t understand entirely how the puzzle pieces fit together, but they’re both taught in scripture. So I just accept there are things that I’m not going to understand on this side of eternity. But I believe that even with our free choice, God looks through time and space and And he knew everything we were going to choose and everything we were going to do before he ever even made us.

So what did he foreknow? He knew everything. Who did he foreknow?

Us. He foreknew us. And it’s specifically speaking to those who were going to trust in Christ as Savior.

For whom he did foreknow, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. Now, we see this word predestination in Scripture, and it’s one of those words we like to shy away from sometimes. because it’s a complicated topic and people argue over it.

And, you know, arguing is just not as much fun for me as it was 10 years ago. But now I don’t know if it’s because I have children and I’m tired or wanted it. Maybe I’m a little wiser in my older age.

But arguing is just not as much fun as it used to be. And so, you know, I’d rather stay away from some of these things that are going to turn into arguments. But that word predestination, whether it be easier to steer away from it or not, we need to understand what it’s talking about in order to understand the passage.

Predestination is explained by some people. As the idea that God, before time began, He chose some people ahead of time for salvation, and He chose some people ahead of time for damnation, and that it really doesn’t matter any response that we have to the gospel. He’s already chosen.

Now, I’m not knocking those people. We have brothers in Christ who believe that, people that I believe are brothers in Christ who believe that. We have fellow Southern Baptists who believe that.

There are entire ministries within our convention that are geared toward that viewpoint. I’m not knocking them. Some of them are a lot smarter than I am.

But that’s not what I see in Scripture. I don’t look at Scripture and come away with the conclusion that God chose, you know, some people before the beginning of the world. for salvation and some for damnation, and it doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do.

He’s already chosen. My understanding from Scripture is that God extends the gospel call to everybody, that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and God says, whosoever will may come. God is still sovereign.

He set up the plan of salvation. He said we do it on his terms, and here it is. You come to me through Jesus Christ. And then he made the call of salvation.

He says, come to me, repent, and come to me by faith, and I’ll give you this grace that you’ve not earned or deserved. I’ll give it to you, whosoever will may come. I also believe God looked down through time and knew who would respond to that and who wouldn’t.

I want to be very clear on that, so when you walk away having heard about predestination today, you know what I mean and what I believe this passage means by this. He doesn’t say, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to salvation. He says in this passage, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

I believe in predestination, but I don’t believe it’s salvation that’s predestined. I believe it’s the plan of salvation that is predestined before the foundation of the world. He predestined, but when he looked down through time and he saw us and he knew before we were even created that we would trust in Christ for our Savior.

When he looked there, he saw us. He already had a plan in mind, which was not only to save us from our sins, but to make us more like Jesus Christ. And that really is at the heart of this passage right here, that God’s plan for us down through the ages was a little something called sanctification, that he would take us and he would set us apart and he would make us like Jesus. When the Bible speaks of predestination specifically in this passage, I believe it’s not talking about predestining some people for salvation, some for hell.

I believe it’s talking about he predestined the plan of salvation and what he was going to do with us. Not only the plan of salvation, I need to save them from their sins, we need to pluck them out of hell, but where are we going after that? It’s all about God restoring us to the kind of relationship we were supposed to have with him all along in the Garden of Eden.

And so to that end, God saves us and forgives us through Jesus Christ, but he also sets us apart. And through the work of the Holy Spirit that he sends down to indwell us, to live in us, through the power of that Holy Spirit, he begins to shape us and mold us to be more like Jesus Christ. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Now, we could go into all the aberrant theology that can be plucked out of that verse, but I’d rather just talk to you about what it actually means.

That verse saying that he might be the firstborn among many brethren means not that Jesus was created, not that Jesus was a man who became the Son of God, was adopted as the Son of God. He was born the Son of God. He was already the Son of God before he was born.

He’s always been the Son. That’s a better way to say it. He’s always been God the Son, as we learned when we looked at the book of Hebrews a few months ago.

He’s always been God the Son. But in coming to earth and making way for our salvation and providing the pattern that we’re to follow, providing the example of who we’re supposed to be like, we can now be adopted into God’s family as sons and daughters. Jesus Christ is the begotten Son of God.

He’s God’s Son by nature. You and I can become the sons and daughters of God through adoption. Not that we become gods ourselves.

I want to be very clear on all of this. But he becomes the pattern that we follow. He becomes the example that we look to.

If we want to live a life that’s pleasing to God, we look at Jesus Christ and we try to emulate him. And we can only do that through the power of the Holy Spirit. So that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom he predestined, those he called, whom he called, those he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified. There’s a process going on here where he knew us. He sent out the gospel call knowing who was going to respond.

And when we responded, he justified us. That word justified means our slate is wiped clean. God looks at the big chalkboard with all of our sins written on it, and he wipes it clean.

And he chooses not to remember that they were ever there. God doesn’t become forgetful. God doesn’t forget our sins.

He chooses not to remember them. And the Bible says he puts them as far away from us as the east is from the west. If you’re familiar with the globe, you can go to the limit of how far north you can go and you start going back south. You can go to the limit of how far south you can go and go back north.

You can never get all the way east and you can never get all the way west. It’s a beautiful picture that God says, I’m going to put your sins all the way away from you. I’m not going to hold them against you anymore. That’s justification.

We don’t earn that. We don’t deserve it. It’s a gift of God’s grace, and we receive it not by working for it.

We receive it through faith. We receive it by believing in the promise of God and what Jesus Christ did on the cross. And whom he justified, these he also glorified.

That word glorification is referring to our eventual glorified state with him in heaven. Now, you and I don’t deserve glory, certainly not in the sense that God deserves glory. but because of what Jesus Christ did for us.

And because of being covered in his righteousness, our sin is washed clean from us and we’re covered instead in his righteousness, you and I get to experience the glory of his presence in heaven one day. And the Bible does speak of a glorified body that we receive at that day and that glorious resurrection and that time where we will reign with him as joint heirs with Jesus Christ. There’s a future promise here of our glorification. And what we see here is that there’s a process at work, and God carries it all the way through.

It’s not a process of salvation. Salvation takes place at that moment of being born again, but it’s a process meaning of God’s plan to carry us forward from where we are to where he desires us to be. There’s a plan in place.

So God is always at work for our good, But that good means that God is drawing us closer to Jesus Christ and making us more like him. That good is for us to be more like Jesus Christ. And we’ve made it about, well, I want a life where I feel good. I want a life where I have what I feel like and everything just feels wonderful.

We’ve made it a life where I just want to be happy. I’ve heard where people have said to me when they’re on the brink of destroying their families, well, God just wants us to be happy. No, he doesn’t.

I mean, God probably cares about our happiness, but it’s way down on the list. I just want to be comfortable. I mean, really, we just kind of want to be left alone and be comfortable and have enough to eat and have enough money to spend on whatever toys we want and have our children be well-behaved, and that’s about all we want out of life. And we expect that that’s what God owes us.

Folks, that’s not what he’s promised. That doesn’t require us to have faith in him to rely on him. That doesn’t require us to consider anything about his will for our lives.

Folks, feelings are a poor substitute for faith. Happiness is a poor substitute for holiness. And comfort is a poor substitute for Christianity.

That’s not what it is. That’s not what it’s about. As God is working things out for our good, We need to make sure we understand that that promise is not to make us comfortable and happy and healthy and wealthy and wise, but for God to make us more like Jesus Christ. Well, how’s he doing that in the midst of our circumstances?

He’s using our circumstances to do it. I had somebody contact me a few weeks ago about problems at their church. Feeling like God had led them somewhere else, and suddenly all these people that they thought were friends were turning their backs on them.

We talked for a little bit. There’s nobody here. They live out of state.

Talked for a little bit. And then I eventually said, you know, think back to that passage, because we’ve had this conversation before. Think back to that passage in Romans 8, 28.

When God promises all things for your good, it’s about making you more like Jesus. Which is a really easy thing to say when you’re not the one in the circumstance, I admit. It’s a lot harder to keep that perspective when you’re in the midst of the circumstances.

But in a situation like that, when people that you thought were your friends, People that are your brothers and sisters in Christ, your church family, they turn on you? I mean, we don’t like betrayal, and we don’t do well with betrayal. And so the natural instinct is to come back at them. But what if we start looking at that circumstance of something God is using to make us more like Jesus?

How would we respond differently? Is it maybe that that circumstance is an opportunity for God to teach us how to show grace to people who betrayed us? I’m telling you what, nobody’s ever been betrayed like Jesus Christ was betrayed.

Look at how he turned around and dealt with those who betrayed him. Nobody’s ever been mistreated like Jesus Christ. And yet look at what he did in response. And we would rather God not use those difficult circumstances to make us like Jesus Christ. We’d rather God teach us how to be like Jesus Christ while our lives are still comfortable and happy.

But the bottom line is it doesn’t necessarily work that way. Yes, I think we need to learn to be gracious and be Christ-like in good times. folks there’s no teacher like difficulty there’s no teacher like struggling and suffering I still wish it hadn’t happened but I think I learned more and by the way I still struggle with this and have to go back and think about what God’s taught me already and be deliberate in trying to be Christ-like about it I don’t want to sound like I think I’ve arrived but I’ll tell you I learned more about how to deal with people in a Christ-like way through dealing with the aftermath of being abandoned by an unfaithful spouse than I learned in any good times in my life.

I learned more about trying to be Christ-like and learned more about sacrifice from trying to be a single father to two children under three years old than I ever learned from any easy time in my life. What I’m telling you is if you want to learn the lessons well, If you want to really become Christ-like, God uses those difficult circumstances to teach us. Because here, I’ll let you in on a little secret too.

It’s easy to be gracious and kind and maybe a little bit Christ-like when things are going well. Right? When I’m well-fed and I’ve got money in the bank and I’m getting to do the things I like to do, I’m just a delight to be around.

Now I’m saying you must never have any money or food because y’all haven’t seen that out of me, have you? I’m a delight to be around. But there’s a reason why when I posted a list of prayer requests on Facebook, everybody’s asking, how do we pray specifically for your family?

And I posted a list of prayer requests on Facebook about Carly, Joe, and about the other kids. There’s a reason why one of those prayer requests is pray that God will help us to be gracious to one another in the midst of all these circumstances. You know why that is?

because it’s not so easy to be gracious and Christ-like when circumstances are going awry. When you’re tired and you’re running to and from the hospital and homeschooling two children and trying to keep up with Charlie who’s like three more just on his own and your meal schedule is off, there’s a word we use in our house called hangry, combination of hungry and angry. When you’re tired and you’re stressed and you’re hungry and children are screaming and you’re worried about the setback the baby’s had in the hospital, Well, I tell you what, there have been times in the last few weeks I’ve not been the nicest person I’d ever want to meet.

You know why God uses difficult circumstances to teach us to be Christ-like? Because that’s where it counts. That’s where it counts.

If we can learn to be like Jesus, if he can teach us to be like Jesus in difficult times, then we can be like Jesus anywhere. So even in the bad circumstances, he’s working things for our good. We just have to remember what that good is, what that good means.

Not that we’ll be happy, not that we’ll be comfortable, not that everything will be going our way. What’s the song from Oklahoma? Oh, what a beautiful morning.

Oh, what a beautiful day. I’ve got a beautiful feeling. Everything’s going my way.

It’s not that promise. It’s the promise that he’ll use these things to make us more like Jesus. He’s got a plan.

Folks, if you’re the called according to his purpose, meaning if you’re in Jesus Christ, he’s got a plan for you. And it doesn’t stop with salvation. See, we’ve got the calling and we’ve got the justification.

We’ve also got the glorification. God is working his plan until you come to maturity in Jesus Christ, which ultimately happens when we go on to be with him in eternity.

God is working in your life to make you more like Jesus Christ. And that’s why Paul was able to write to the church at Philippi, that being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. he said I’m confident if there’s one thing I’m confident in it’s the fact that this work that God started in you when you came to trust Christ as your savior that same work God will not stop God will not rest God will not take a break until he’s brought it all the way to completion until the job is done and folks that means that God is at work even when we don’t see it even when we don’t feel it even when we don’t like it God is at work and he’s using even our our difficult circumstances in life and He’s working in our midst in those things, not to make us happy, not to make us comfortable, although sometimes He will do those things, but ultimately He’s working in those circumstances so that if you’re a believer, you end up more like Jesus Christ at the end than when you started.