June 18, 2017 God's Purpose by Pastor Josh Sheldon

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June 18, 2017 God’s Purpose Romans 8:28-30 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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We'll keep your Bibles open there, please, to Romans chapter 8. The last three verses which
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Ken read to you are going to be our text for this morning, so I'll reread them. And we know that for those who love
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God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
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For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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And those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
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If we know that creation groans, and then we find a few verses later what we don't know, which is what to pray for as we ought, we are again returned to what we do know.
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And here's something we know. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those called according to his purposes.
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Romans chapter 8 verses 20 to 30, excuse me, we have here before us these three verses, some of the most beloved verses in the entire
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Bible. I think they might be on a par with Psalm 23 or John 3 16, something like that, just for their ubiquitous popularity, where people just love to know and recite these verses, to hold on to them when things get hard, when circumstances come upon us, and the
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Christian needs to know what the goal of this is. Why are all these things happening to me?
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I can't explain it. I don't appear to have been the cause of it. I don't know what's happening. Why?
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And then they're reminded of these wonderful verses, this treasure entrusted to earth and vessels, but a treasure nonetheless, that these things are working together for good if you love
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God, if you're one called according to his purpose. There's not just stuff happening to you.
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It is from God, a circumstance he ordained before all time, that he intended before he created the world, and all that with purpose, with a good purpose for us.
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Ultimately, what these verses promise us is that if you love God, if you're called according to his purpose, that purpose being none other than to believe in his son
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Jesus Christ, if that be the case, then no matter how hard things are, these verses promise they are intended for your good, and they will indeed come out that way for your ultimate good.
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And why is this? Why is this? Well, things don't just happen.
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Things don't just happen. All things, Paul says, all things work together. All things means all things.
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It means everything. It excludes nothing. And all things work together for our good because there's an intentional
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God with an intentional purpose behind them, God the Father, and it's not the things themselves that are working.
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Understand this. Not the things themselves that are working to our good. It's God working the things to our good, which is a very significant difference.
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And so before we delve into these treasure, these cherished verses, I want to recall for us where we've been and what we've been learning in chapter 8 of Romans since we've been there.
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We've really kind of hit the brakes in this study of Romans, haven't we? When we got to chapter 8, boy, your preacher just slowed it down.
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Two, three verses at a time, and we're going to stay slow for a while. It's going to be a few weeks before we get out of chapter 8, and God willing, you'll be blessed by it.
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God willing, you'll be encouraged in the Lord by what Paul, under inspiration, is telling us about the work and the person of the
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Holy Spirit, which is really the theme of chapter 8, where all of a sudden, he just sort of appears in all this glory.
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Now, he's got mentioned prior to chapter 8, but in chapter 8, he is clearly the focus, and that's why we slowed down.
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It's so important in our Christian life and our understanding of how God the Father is working good in us, in Jesus Christ, his
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Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling us, which is why we slowed down a bit.
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The sermons have been a bit longer, our pace through the chapter slower, for good reason.
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What do we learn in chapter 8? What's leading us up to these wonderful verses that are so cherished and so counted upon, so beloved by so many people?
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What we learn in chapter 8, verse 4, that by living according to his direction, his being the
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Holy Spirit, by living according to his direction, we fulfill the righteous requirement of the law.
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Chapter 8, verse 6 tells us that by setting our minds on him, on the Holy Spirit, we have a good result, which is life and peace.
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Verses 7 through 8 assure us that the mind focused on the Spirit of God is a mind that is pleasing to God.
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Verses 9 through 11 assure us that if the Spirit of God dwells in you, the promise of the
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Scripture to those whose faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, the work he did on the cross, repentance for sin, and faith in him, the promise is the
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Spirit of God then dwells in you. And if that be the case, verses 9 through 11 tell us that he will do for you what he did for and in Jesus Christ himself, which is to resurrect you.
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You will be raised and brought into the immediate presence of God the Father. In verse 16, he, the
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Spirit, assures us constantly that we are indeed by faith in Christ, adopted by God as his
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God's true children, his sons and daughters. Verses 26 and 27, last week's text, we find him, the
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Holy Spirit, groaning in intercession for us as he fills in the gaps between our weak and our unknowing and our vacant prayers, the gap between all that and the will of God.
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And all this combines to give us a single theme kind of worked out in various ways that we can be confident in this gospel of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. You can be confident in the gospel that you read of in the Bible, the gospel that is preached faithfully, as faithfully as we can from this pulpit, the gospel that God by his
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Spirit, regenerating your soul, made you able to believe. You can be confident in this gospel and all the work associated with it.
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Everything God promises in Jesus Christ, in this gospel, is yes and amen in him, in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And this attested to us by God, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the main theme of chapter 8, which is why we have so much slowed down here.
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We started this series some weeks ago, and I made the case then that chapter 1, verses 16 to 17, is a theme of this entire book, this magnum opus, as many theologians call it.
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This wonderful book that, when Martin Luther understood it, changed the course of European, if not world, history.
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Two verses give us the theme of everything in Romans. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.
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Everything we preach in this book, at some level, ties to this overarching purpose that the
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Apostle Paul gave for all 16 chapters of this book. And Lord willing, you'll see that one overarching purpose fulfilled in the message this morning, in these treasured verses.
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You will see that you are made certain that whatever comes, whatever has occurred in your life, be it something magnificently good, like marrying a childhood sweetheart, be it something terribly hard, losing one who was a childhood sweetheart, whatever that circumstance is, and everything in between those two examples, all things intended by God for your good, and that good purpose is simply this, to become like Jesus.
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I'm going to go through these verses in a very linear fashion this morning, simply verse 28, 29, 30, and explain them a bit,
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God willing, to the encouragement of your souls as we walk through this life, as things happen to us, and we see what is intended by God, the
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Spirit, in these verses for us. Verse 28 tells us the who and the what, who and what is intended for this promise?
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Is it for everybody? If not, how is it restricted, and why?
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So verse 28, the who and the what. Verse 29 gives us the purpose. What is the purpose that God has in the things that occur in our lives, the all things driving towards an intended goal?
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What is that? Verse 29 will tell us. And then in verse 30, tells us the how of it all.
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How, what means does God use to accomplish this? Verse 26 told us something that we don't know, which is what to pray for as we ought, and now in verse 28, here's what we do know.
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We know that for a certain group of people, for a defined people, all things work together for their good.
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They are described in two ways. They are those who love God. They are those who are called according to His purpose.
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The two are linked together. Loving God, being called to His purpose. In biblical parlance, loving and knowing someone are almost synonymous.
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They're almost the same thing. We might say to know God is to love Him. The Apostle John says in 1
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John, we love Him, meaning God, we love Him because He first loved us. Now who is this meant for?
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This is particularly meant for the Christian. The one I described a few moments ago, and will continue to describe as we go through these passages.
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He, she whose faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, who have repented of their sins and fled to the cross, and there by faith in the work
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Jesus Christ accomplished at the cross, repented and known God's forgiveness.
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That's who this is meant for. And to know a God who would effect such a great salvation, who at that great personal cost,
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His only begotten Son, would effect so wonderful a redemption, to know a
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God like that has to be synonymous, has to be the same. It has to emanate in loving
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Him, does it not? To know God, to know God in what He has done, to know this
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God as one who has done this for you, we must love
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Him. To know God is to love Him. God's love, 5 .5, chapter 5, verse 5 of Romans says,
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God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. You see, others might love the idea of God, but not
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God Himself. Many people say, yes, I love the concept of a
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God who's going to take care of me. I like this God who says, let the little children come unto me. I love this idea of a
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God who says, blessed are the peacemaker, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor, blessed, blessed, blessed. I love that God.
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I don't want so much to do with the God of the Old Testament. He's angry. He poured down fire and brimstone, destroyed cities.
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He's judgmental. He's wrathful. He does things I don't like. I'll take the God of the
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New Testament, because that's the God whose idea, whose concept appeals to me.
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Many people like the idea of God, and many of us have run into them. I see the heads nodding. We have run into these.
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I might point out to them that the God of the Old Testament was much more patient than the God of the
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New Testament. That the God who's destroyed Sodom waited a long time.
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And withheld his wrath. And now he's finally spoken in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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He is done with a lot of that patience. And you read Revelation, and see the final cataclysm of God's judgment coming upon the inhabitants of the earth.
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Well, who leads that vast army? It's Jesus Christ. If you ever find somebody who is one of these, who likes the idea of God, who loves the idea and only the concept of God, and bifurcates him to this judgmental, angry
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God in the Old Testament, and this nice God in the New, we need to dissuade them of that.
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Too many people simply like the idea of God. Self -conceived idea, but just the idea nonetheless.
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It's like just memorizing facts on a subject. I can memorize. I can become somewhat competent in history, math, and accounting.
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You know, when I was in graduate school and I took calculus -based statistics, when I was good at it, I can't do it anymore.
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But I could do the derivative and the functions in my head, and I could find the instantaneous rate of change on a curve.
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You can learn things. You can become competent in some level and know this or that.
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Take a test and prove my proficiency. And in very much the same way, you can learn facts about God.
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You can just learn stuff about him. You can open our Bibles, which is God's revelation of him.
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And you can learn that he's holy and he hates sin. You can learn that he's righteous and he punishes sin.
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You can put these two together and say, because he is holy, he hates, and because he's righteous, he punishes what he hates.
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And those would be facts. You can understand these things in your mind. Intellectually, you can take a test.
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I could give you a multiple choice test, a true -false test, and you could get a lot of it right, if not all of it, because you know the facts about God.
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You could read them in this textbook that reveals God. Take the test.
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Prove the proficiency. Get your A+. And be as far from knowing God as a cockroach is from a man.
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Be as far from knowing God as a puddle is from being the Atlantic Ocean. People can recite many facts about many things and yet know almost nothing.
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And this is especially true with God and especially dangerous with God. There are facts, there are propositional truths about God that must be believed, but faith takes you beyond the propositional truth.
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I spoke about it before we prayed. The scripture gives a propositional truth. Jesus is the mighty
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God. Faith takes us beyond that to trust and reliance.
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What does it mean to us that he is God and was God in the flesh and will return in the same form as he was resurrected and ascended?
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It means something. And faith waits for that glorious appearing. Faith puts a trust.
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Faith puts reliance on it. I know intellectually and by visual inspection that this bridge looks adequate, but when you step out on it and you cross that deep gorge, a fall into which would be fatal, well, that's trust.
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By analogy, and by analogy only, that's faith. Paul writes of those whose knowledge of God is more than just this head knowledge.
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Paul's writing to those who love God, who've gone beyond the knowledge and the recitation and the apprehension of facts about God, who know
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God for who he says he is and what he says he has done and by faith apprehend that 2 ,000 years ago in his son
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Jesus Christ in the cross at Calvary did what he said he would do for the purpose he said he would do it.
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That's faith. That's not just saying true, false about God. That's not choosing A, B, C, D or writing a short essay answer.
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It's the assembling of the facts about God into this composite whole that is deeply and intimately loved and trusted.
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Who does this wonderful three -verse passage relate to?
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Those who love God. Oh, Christian, look deep within.
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Oh, you who come here week in and week out, Sunday after Sunday, look into your soul.
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Now, this moment, before God and ask him to expose to you whether you are one who simply likes the idea of God or who knows
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God and loves him. Are you one who simply memorized facts and can recite verses or do you have faith in the
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God who gave us those facts, gave us those verses for a reason? Intellectual apprehension of the gospel is never enough and it's so dangerous because God has made us so intelligent, so smart that we're able to put it together so eloquently and throughout these verses in so many different contexts and forums and yet it's just a bunch of facts too often.
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Oh, it's too dangerous that it remains there, so I warn you, I plead with you. I rebuke you,
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I encourage you. Look to your soul and be sure that it's not just a bunch of facts but it's a sure and certain knowledge that what the scripture says of God is true and right in all its parts and your full trust and reliance issuing forth in love for God who would do what he did for us in Jesus Christ is a real love.
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The greatest command Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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Be sure you are that one. The second description follows pretty easily from all that I've just said about those who love
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God, called according to his purpose. These are in a word Christians. Jesus said, you did not choose me but I chose you.
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There's a couple of Old Testament passages here that help us with this. If you'd like to turn there,
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Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse 7. I didn't note the page number in your
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Black Pew Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
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Deuteronomy 7 verse 7. God speaks of this idea of choosing.
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Paul says those who were called synonymous with chosen, those who were called according to his purpose.
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In Deuteronomy 7, 7. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the
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Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it's because the
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Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers. Why does God love anyone?
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Why does God choose anyone for his own purposes?
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We might say for his own glory and we can get that from several passages. That would open up an excursus that we would maybe never come back to and get back to Romans 8 and finish this message.
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God calls because God calls. God calls because he chooses to. And clearly nothing in us to satisfy only his own will.
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The other passage that helps us a bit here is Amos chapter 3 and verse 2. Just a few words there.
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Speaking again to Israel by extension to the church, by extension to you, you only have
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I known of all the families of the earth. Let's stop for a moment. Does that mean God didn't know anything about the
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Ammonites, the Egyptians, the Babylonians? Well, of course not.
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Known, chosen has a special meaning here.
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You only have I loved. You only have I chosen out from among them. You only have
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I known of all the families of the earth. Known speaks of that intimacy. Adam knew
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Eve, Abraham knew Sarah, and a child resulted. It speaks of that special intimacy that is the special privilege of a married man and a woman together.
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It speaks of an intimacy, a knowledge, a relationship that is that close. You only have
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I known of all the families of therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
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God loved Israel because he chose them. He chose them because he loved them. Not for anything in them we're choosing or loving, not for anything in us we're choosing or loving, but because he chose to choose and love those whom he chose.
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That's simple and I can say no more about it. These are the ones.
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This is the one. The church, severally, you individually, if you are those, if you love
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God, call according to his purpose. That's how this promise relates to you.
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And now we can look at the middle of the verse. Verse 28, right there in the middle. All things work together for good for everyone indiscriminately.
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Love God as I explained. That's our part. Called, chosen by him.
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That's God's sovereignty. For those all things work together for good.
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And here the NIV has really a better rendering. In all things
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God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose. You see that sets the emphasis where it should be.
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Now all things work together for good for those who love God. That's a true statement, but I think this is truer, pardon me, the way the
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NIV has it. In all things God, put the emphasis on God, God is working them for the good of those who love them.
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All things is everything. The circumstances we face aren't just floating around out there and somehow combining to provide us with benefit as if it's just a random thing that happened.
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Bad stuff happens to good people, good stuff happens to bad people. I know some of you have heard this, my theory about my dogs.
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We have three dogs at the house. My son's dog spends a lot of time with us, and then our two dogs. I don't know if I've used this for a sermon illustration, forgive me if it's a repetition, but you know the dogs, sometimes they just do things.
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Stuff just happens. Now if they're not eating or making a mess of the yard, what do they do?
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They usually just lay in there. Sometimes their eyes are open, sometimes their eyes are closed. They're just laying there, and all of a sudden they jump up and do something.
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Our dog Kitty will suddenly just jump up and chase her tail and lie back down. Tucker will get up, you know, start barking and jumping around.
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He lies back down. Sometimes they do other crazy things, and I wonder why they do that. My theory is that they're canine thought bubbles out there, and they're just kind of floating around looking for a canine, and they randomly fall on the head of a canine.
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The bubble opens up, and the act kind of infuses, and they jump up and do it, and then they stop.
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Well, dog trainers don't go for my theory very much, but sometimes this all things happens is really thought of in almost those terms.
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There's just stuff occurring. A bad thing happened because bad things just happened.
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Well no, that's not what Paul's saying. Paul's saying very much the opposite. God is behind them.
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God works them for good. God intended them. There's purpose to them. It's not just little bubbles of stuff that fall on you, and something suddenly happens, and now we have to see how we're going to react.
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Well, the reaction is terribly important, of course. It's not just stuff happening. It's God working in them from the smallest seeming, most innocuous thing, to the most cataclysmic.
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It is under God's direct sovereign control. It is meant for our good. It does not mean he manipulates things like a puppeteer, and he's working them out as if he's just smarter than the circumstance.
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He has ordained all things whatsoever shall come to pass, as our confession says it.
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So why do they work for our good? How can you know that the bad things that happen are for our good? How can you know that the good things that happen are meant for your good?
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The temptations that success might give you is meant for your good. The temptations that a lack of success might give you is meant for your good.
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In sickness or in health, it's all meant for our good. How can we know this?
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We usually think of all things as the hard things that happen here. Relationships dissolving, health failing, accidents, financial woes, employment difficulties.
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Well, those are of course all included. There's no promise that God was going to turn them around, make them pleasant all of a sudden.
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The promise is that they are under God's direct and providential and sovereign authority, that they are intentional, that there is purpose to them.
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And this last point bears repeating. God does not intervene and manage things so as to accomplish
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His goal. No, no, no. He intended, note the past tense, He intended them from eternity past,
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Ephesians 2 .10. He prepared good works, which the good works which He prepared in advance, that we should walk in them.
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None of it by accident. Not little bubbles of things floating around here, and suddenly they burst upon you, and all of a sudden you have a circumstance to deal with.
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Sent by God, intended by God, under God's direct, predetermined, predestined, sovereign control, and all with the purpose.
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We need to understand that it's God behind all things, that they follow His will, they meet His demands, and they meet
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His immediate, His sovereign purpose to work for our good. Lord willing, you see that there is more than just a comforting verse here, though it's a comforting verse.
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Paul is telling us in this chapter that is so focused on the Holy Spirit of God and His work in you, that we be confident that we face the difficulties of this life.
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It doesn't mean that we have to be stoic and keep a stiff upper lip and pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
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There's a place for all that, but the founding principle that whatever it is you're going through, if you're in a time of peace where things are going to be the same tomorrow as they were yesterday, and that's a good place, that's a circumstance sent to you by God, intended by God, for your good.
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And we're ready if we understand these things. If we've got that verse 28 down a bit, as much as we can, ready to move on and look at what that purpose is.
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Look now at verse 29. Look at 8 29. For those whom
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He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might become the firstborn among many brothers.
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Brothers equals brethren. It was brothers, sisters, men, women, boys, girls,
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Greek, Jew, slave, free. This is the purpose.
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All things work together for good. God is working them for good. What is that good?
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It's right here. The foreknown, the predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, the one whom we worship here this day, to become like Jesus.
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That's God's purpose. Everything that happens, all these examples I've tried to give, all of it intended by God Almighty to make you more like His Son, Jesus Christ.
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You become like what you worship, which is why I had Ken read from Psalm 135. There's many other places we could go,
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Ezekiel and Isaiah, and there's other psalms, but they say the same thing. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.
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You become like what you worship, and if you worship these false gods, if you worship any false god, you will eventually become like that.
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Even if your belief is only an intellectual belief like I was speaking of earlier in this message, you will eventually become like it.
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It's the promise of Scripture. It's the warning of Scripture. What is
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God's intent? Not that we've become like a dumb idol that has no mouth that can't lead us anywhere but to hell.
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No, not that. Become like Jesus. Worshipping Jesus, you become like Him, and this is
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God's purpose in everything He sent to you, to worship
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Christ and become more like Him, to be conformed to the image of His Son.
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There's another purpose here, and we'll get to that, in order that He, the Son, in order that He, Jesus, might become the firstborn among many brethren.
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We'll speak about that in a moment. The words foreknew and predestined are worth a little bit of time.
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They're one reasons why we know that stuff doesn't just happen. God foreknows and predestines all things from our salvation to everything we encounter in this life until such time as He calls us to Himself.
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Foreknowledge, as it's used here, means to enter into a relationship beforehand. Foreknowledge.
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Enter a relationship beforehand. How can that be?
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Can you enter into marriage before you meet the one you're going to marry? Of course you can't, but that's what the word means here.
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So you ask, before. Before what? Well, the answer is yes.
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Before. Ephesians 1 .3. Before anything. Before time. He chose us to be in Christ before the foundation of the world.
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Before you did good or evil. Romans chapter 9, verse 11. Before. Before.
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Those whom He foreknew. Those whom He entered into relationship before anything. Certainly before you were born.
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Before you were what we say is a glimmer in your parents' eyes. Before that. Before your parents met. Before your parents were born.
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Before the world upon which your parents walked was created. Before all that,
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God entered into this relationship with you, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, His only
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Son. That's what that word means. Do you see how loaded it is? Do you see how important it is?
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Predestination is another loaded term, and it's divided entire swaths of Christendom.
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And at the risk of grossly oversimplifying the matter, it is simply the enactment of God's purposes for those whom
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He foreknew. If He foreknew you, He predestined you to something. He entered in relationship with you before the foundation of the world, and by His predestining will, accomplishes that for which
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He foreknew you. It sounds circular, but those whom
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He entered into relationship with, He predestined to something. It's the enactment of His will, and that's very oversimplified, and again, months and months of Sundays just on this one word.
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We won't spend any more time. What I said doesn't say very much, but it's true, and what
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I said fits Paul's argument here. You see, the omniscient God has determined everything in advance, both the persons and the things in salvation history, with Jesus Christ as the goal.
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Everything in advance. There's no chance. There's no little circumstance bubbles floating around.
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All of a sudden, they pop on you. Nothing could be further from the truth. He's determined everything in advance, the persons, the things, everything in salvation history, history with Jesus Christ as its goal.
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Acts chapter 4 verse 28, we find Herod and Pilate that they worked together to do what was in God's hand and plan, excuse me, do what
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God's hand and plan had predestined to take place. First Corinthians 2 7, but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which
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He decreed, which He predestined before the ages for our glory. God predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will.
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Ephesians 1 11, in Christ we've obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of God, who works all things according to the counsel of His will.
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Not chance, not just a bad happenstance that occurred.
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All things meant, sent, intended by God for this one great and glorious purpose, to be like Jesus.
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Week in, week out, we preach to be like Jesus, to read the gospels, to know
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Him, to see every circumstance that Jesus ever faced, and to face our circumstances the same way, to read
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His precepts, the commandments that He gave us, the commandments He gave us through His apostles, and to follow them.
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Why? To earn anything before God? Of course not. Jesus Christ earned it all.
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Jesus paid it all because we know Him, because we love Him, because we know that He chose us.
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He called us according to His purpose, and therefore what? We worship Him. As the
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Psalm said, if we worship Him, we become like Him, because we love Him. In the last part of the verse, there's a mystery that is solved.
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Back in verses 26 and 27, Paul wrote of the Holy Spirit groaning in intercession for us, and Paul said this communication is too deep for words, and if we don't know the content, which we don't, if we don't have the actual words and phrases, which we don't, we now know, because of what
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Paul says we do know here in this verse in chapter 8, verse 28 to 30, we now know what he is groaning, what this intercession is.
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It's taking our prayers. We don't know what to pray for as we ought. He's taking that prayer.
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Note that you're not being rebuked for being lacking in content or anything like that. He's taking that prayer and matching it to God's will, and what has he groaned?
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This communication within the triune Godhead, too deep for words, unutterable by us.
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He groans this. Make this one more like Jesus.
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Is this not what Jesus prayed all throughout the high priestly prayer, but especially in John chapter 17, that the
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Holy Spirit would be with us? He would guide us. He would direct us. He would remind us of all things whatsoever that the
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Lord commanded us. He groans us to this one target.
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We pray, Lord, I need help because I stubbed my toe, and there's something
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I want to say about that, and the Holy Spirit groans. Make them like Jesus.
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Show this one what Jesus did and make him, her like that.
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Conform this one to the image of your beloved and only begotten Son. All things, every happenstance from the most fleeting to the most enduring, all concentrated by the foreknowing will of God to accomplish his predestined and particular purpose to make us like Christ.
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And this is what the Spirit fills in for us. What we are told here is of such importance that I can hardly overstate it.
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There's no chance, there's no contingency, all things combined together towards a common predetermined goal because all things are under the direct, supervening, overarching, minute direction of God our
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Father. All things. It takes us beyond the scope of the sufferings of chapter 8 verses 18 to 25.
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Those sufferings, as we suffer in this world, those are part of all things, but they're not the full extent of it.
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Everything that happens, good or bad, all things, is so comprehensive that to even categorize it is almost impossible.
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Whatever they are, because God behind them, because God the predetermining agent of them, for your good.
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Even our sins can work for our good. Not that God ordained sin, or not that we should sin in order to increase the good.
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Chapter 6 answers such nonsense as that twice with, by no means, may it never be, God forbid.
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But in the way Joseph meant it, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. In that way, even sin works for our good.
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How does that make us like Jesus? Well, Jesus never had to repent like we do when we recognize our sin, because he never sinned.
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So he, that's not what it is. But how does our sin make us like Jesus?
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Because when we recognize our sin, when we repent of it, when we mortify our sin by putting to death the deeds of the body, that's chapter 6, when we rise from our knees knowing that God has forgiven us our sins and cleansed us from all unrighteousness, then knowing that we've been cleansed, knowing that God has forgiven, having been done with that particular sin as our companion as we walk through this life, through with it, we are then that much more like Jesus.
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And that, brethren, is good. That is a good purpose. That is a good work of the
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Holy Spirit. That's the intent in these verses. It's a process we're in.
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It's a constant warfare against the old man. It's a determined putting on of the new man.
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It's always looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, as the very image to which we must aspire.
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And we pray that. Now we're praying a little closer to what the Holy Spirit is groaning. We pray, make us like Jesus.
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Oh Lord, take this successful project that got me the raise at work, and make me like Jesus through it.
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Oh Lord, take this complete lack of success, and maybe I'm going to lose my job, and use this and make me like Jesus.
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Because that's what the Holy Spirit is groaning for us, interceding on our behalf. Make them like Jesus, according to the will of God.
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Whatever comes our way, our eyes must be set on God, and what this or that trial or blessing means in our advancement towards conformity with Christ.
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The raise of the promotion. How did Christ answer the compliment? Good teacher. Man came and said, good teacher.
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Thank you, I am good. No, he said, there is only one good. That is God. That is
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Christ's image. That is the image that the Holy Spirit groans in intercession to God to make us like that.
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Has poverty come upon you? The Son of Man. Here's the image of Christ. The Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.
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Have friends deserted you? Jesus looked to those who stayed. You don't want to leave me too, do you?
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This is the image of Christ. Faith, confidence, always looking to God the Father. Have loved ones died?
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Jesus wept at Lazarus' tomb. All the while, and this is
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Jesus' image, this is the image of Christ, this is being conformed to him whom we worship, all the while giving glory to God.
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Have you been falsely accused? When the Lord was, he refused to retaliate.
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He did not return evil for evil. He trusted God to defend him. Has compromise with God been offered to you as a way of attaining to your dreams?
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Jesus was tempted four times. The devil came to him and offered him a way of attaining his purpose in coming.
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Here's the image of Christ to which the Spirit of God would conform us, the very purpose of all things working together.
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Jesus answered temptation with scripture and said, as it were, away with you,
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Satan. We've had enough. We didn't actually say that, but it does say and mark that the devil left for a more opportune time.
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This is the image of Christ to which God is conforming us. Now conformed is the
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Greek word summorphos. Summorphos.
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Morph is the midfix. It means the inner and essential and unchangeable quality or being of something.
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It's essential distinctive nature and character. And it's very different from another word which we're going to talk about just very briefly, schema, where we get scheme, the outer, the changeable, what theologians and philosophers call the accidental appearance, the accidental nature, that which can be changed by circumstances or whatever the case may be.
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Philippians 2 .7 says Jesus was born in the likeness, in the schema of men.
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His accidental form, that was temporary, that was changeable, because God in Jesus became what
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God is not or was not. He became man. So his scheme, his outer appearance, not to deceive anyone, of course, but to be truly man as he walked on this earth, but that was a changeable part of him, not his morph, not his inner quality.
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It's just a word, but it's terribly important because we're being morphed into the image of Christ.
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At the transfiguration, this is what the disciples saw beyond the schema when they saw his glory, when he was whiter than the sun, gleaming, and God spoke from heaven, said, this is my son in whom
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I am well pleased. Listen to him. What did they see? His morph.
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They saw his true, his essential, his unchangeable nature. They saw his divinity.
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Just a word, but so terribly important. God's design in all things that happen is to transform us from the inside out into the icon, into the image of Christ, not just your schema, not just the way you behave here in church on Sundays, not just the verses
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I can quote out to you. The morph, the inner man from the inside out, conformed unchangeably into the unchangeable image of Jesus Christ.
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That's his purpose. That's his purpose in all things. That's what
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God has ordained all things to do for you if you're in Christ, to morph you into his image, to make you like Jesus, not just on the skin, to love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, from the inside out.
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There's another aspect to God's purpose here. If that's to make us like Jesus, conformity to Jesus is for us.
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The other purpose has to do with Jesus in order that he, Christ, might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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Now, firstborn does not mean, of course, he was first created. Even in his advent, he wasn't created.
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He was born. God didn't change his essential character as God. He became flesh.
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He changed his schema, not his morph. Firstborn here simply means preeminence.
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If all things work for our good, all things mold us into his image, it is he, it is Christ, who stands as the apex of all
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God's purposes through all ages and for all peoples. He is the reason for all this.
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Firstborn is first in God's eyes. Firstborn is like the firstborn son who gets the extra portion of the inheritance.
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It's the reason that Isaac was so aghast at having been deceived by Jacob, because he gave the extra portion to Jacob, thinking it was
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Esau. Firstborn is the one who has preeminence. Not only is the firstborn son, in the human sense, firstborn in preeminence, first in importance, first in everything, in God's sight, and that is
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Jesus, his son. All things are made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.
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Elsewhere, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
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That's what firstborn means. First in God's sight, first in preeminence, throughout all creation.
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Your purpose in being conformed to his image is that he have the preeminence.
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Think of that. Think of that next time we respond to a circumstance that comes upon us.
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We try to define all things. We try to find the good for it, to make us like Christ. Why are we becoming like Christ?
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In order that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. He's the firstborn.
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He gets the extra inheritance, and his inheritance is us. That you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.
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What are the riches of his, of Jesus's, of his glorious inheritance in the saints? It's you.
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You and I are the reason he is the firstborn. We're his inheritance, and if we're his brothers, if we're his brethren, it includes men, women, boys, girls, slave free,
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Jew, Greek. It implies something. If we're to be his brethren, then we need to follow in his image.
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He is first, and we follow after him. Someone whose conformity to him is only skin deep after his schema and not his morph, is not his brethren.
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It's that simple. A horse is not related to an anaconda, a shark has nothing to do with a blue jay, and one whose replication of Christ's image is on the surface is simply not his brother.
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That's a scheme and not a morph, and that's not God's purpose. God's purpose is that we come into the image, the morph, the unchangeable character of Christ.
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Well finally, verse 30 explains the means that God uses for all this. I'm going to go frustratingly quickly through this for you, because these are huge words here.
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Those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified. Those whom he justified, he also glorified.
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There's so much we could say here. We could go into so much detail on every one of these hugely important words.
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They're so theologically deep. The point here for this message, God accomplishes his purposes.
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If God's purpose is to conform you to the image of his son through all things that he has ordained to come upon you, us, these verses tell you you can be assured he will do as he said he will do.
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He will accomplish his goal. His predestined will is communicated to us in our calling. He called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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A secret will that is not communicated is a secret, but is revealed in our calling. He justified you.
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Having been justified by faith, Romans 5 .1, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Why did
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God justify you? For one thing, because of faith. For another, because of his predestined will to conform us to Jesus' image, which is a condition we can hardly hope for if we're not, as he was, innocent or justified before the law.
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He glorified. He also glorified. For this, of course, we have to wait.
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We get a foretaste as we're conformed into his glorious image. His divine power, 2 Peter 1 .3,
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has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.
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Simply this, if God has chosen you, and because of that choosing, you know
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God and love God. Your faith is in his son. It was for a purpose, and that purpose has to do with every circumstance that comes in your life, is to make you like Jesus.
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And verse 30 tells us, in the simplest terms, which I need so I remember it, that God will do it.
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It is God who works in you to will and to do for his good pleasure. It is God who's doing this work, and therefore it's totally reliable, is worthy of all our faith and trust, and it's worthy of all our strain and effort.
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So also with our glorification, which is yet to come, God has decreed it, and as with everything else we studied this morning,
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God will not fail to work all things together to bring it about. Amen. Lord, we again thank you for the day that you've given us, for the time together, and for your word, for the sure and certain promises.
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I pray, Father, we would go forth in this strength and the confidence of the Lord, knowing that your word was given to us, that we may rely upon it, we may trust it, and Lord, as we know you better by studying your word more, we love you more.
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We thank you for the calling you've given us, for this time we've had together, and for your word,
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Lord, and most of all for our glorious Savior, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.