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All things for goodScripture introduction: The great eight Scripture memoryRomans 8:28–29 (ESV) — 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 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. Prayer for illumination: Sermon introduction: Listen to this news story from this week- “As the US economy spirals into the abyss, the decision to raise the debt ceiling will be a crucial one. AS GREECE shows the world how the mere mention of the word ''default'' can make global markets lose their balance,… Obama has been parachuted into the debt reduction discussions this week with Senate leaders. The parties need to agree on how to bring the deficit down before a decision can be taken on whether to raise the $US14.3 trillion debt ceiling by the August 2 deadline. If the debt ceiling is not raised, the US government would have to inform creditors that it cannot pay its bills…. Those lenders - including multinational banks, foreign countries and Americans themselves through treasuries - continue to watch on anxiously. If you thought markets panicked when Greece, with a GDP of $330 billion, was believed to have been close to a default, imagine the hysteria if the $14 trillion US economy nudges much closer.”This has me very concerned. America owes allot of money to allot of people and if we don’t pay up at some point catastrophe will soon be upon us. It seems like our country is spiraling out of control. Not only are we in massive debt, inflation is on the rise, and our countries moral compass is broken. This week in the state of New York Gay marriage was legalized. I think about the direction of our country and the future of my children and I get very anxious. I need some divine medicine for my anxious soul. Romans 8:28-30 is divine medicine for the anxious soul. It is divine medicine for anyone going through trials. Thomas Watson wrote a book on Romans 8:28 originally titled “A Divine Cordial.” Thomas Watson wrote this little book in 1663 the year after he and some two thousand other ministers were ejected from the church of England and exposed to hardship and suffering. Why is Romans 8:28-30 divine medicine for worrisome souls? Because it promises that God will use all things for good for those that love him. For us to benefit from this divine medicine we must understand it- First, how can all things work for good? Second, what is the good all things are working for? Third, for whom do all things work for good? How can all things work for good? God controls all things Look at verse 28. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good…” This verse teaches that all things will work together for our good. What does all things mean? It means all things! The only way that good could make all things work for our good is if God controls all things. But does the Bible really teach that God controls all things? Yes. The Bible makes this abundantly clear. Hear are a few examples arranged by category- First category- God controls all things in nature He determines when it will rain and he determines where the grass will grow and he provides for the animals. Several places in the psalms teach us this- Psa 147:8-9 ESV He covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills. (9) He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry.Secondary causes - God uses the laws and processes of nature to accomplish his purposes. He determines when it will Thunder- ps. 29 He controls Plagues - Joel 2:25 He makes the sun rise and the rain fall on the good and the evil- Matt 5:45 God feeds and cares for the animals- Ps 104:21,28 Second category- God controls world leaders and world history Job 12:23-25 ESV He makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away. (24) He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth and makes them wander in a pathless waste. (25) They grope in the dark without light, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man.Pro 21:1 ESV The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.God controls the details and outcomes of war- Is 46:8ffThird category- God controls all the details of your life God controls the blessings and hardships of our lives. Job 1:21-22 ESV And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." (22) In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.God planned and controls all the days of your lifePsa 139:16 ESV Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.God controls who gets saved Eph 1:3-5 ESV Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (4) even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love (5) he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,God controls birth and death and everything in between 1Sa 2:6-7 ESV The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. (7) The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.When it says the lord kills that is a cultural metaphor for the lord controls even the details of our death. God controls the seemingly random details of your life Pro 16:33 ESV The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.God controls your decisions Pro 19:21 ESV Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.Fourth category- God controls all things in his universe Psa 103:19 ESV The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.Heb 1:3 ESV He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,Col 1:17 ESV And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.Since God controls all things we can trust him to make all things in our lives work together for our good. Nothing is outside of his control. If it were he would not be able to work all things for our good and his glory. God controls Your decisionsYour relativesYour drivingYour familyYour professorsYour bossYour healthYour life and your deathYour sinful behaviorYour adversary the devilYour leadersYou may be thinking - If God controls all things isn’t he the author of evil and aren’t we just puppets? The answer is no, but that is for a different sermon. Since God controls all things he can work all things for our good. Illustration Story of joseph His brothers betrayed him… Gen 45:4-5 ESV So Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me, please." And they came near. And he said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. (5) And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.Gen 50:19-20 ESV But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? (20) As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.How can all things work for good? God controls all thingsWhat is the good all things are working for? Our conformity to ChristLook with me at verses 28-29 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 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.”Exposition-What is the good that Paul mentions in verse 28? The good is not an easy life, it is not wealth, and health. The good is conformity to Christ’s image. This is what verse 29 indicates. Paul writes “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son,…”God predetermined that Christians would be conformed to the image of his son as God works all things to this end. This is what all things in our lives our working towards. What is his son like? He is patientKindCompassionateFull of joyGracious Full of love He flees from sinHe is patient He is gentle He forgives He is self controlled He is humble He is dependent He perseveres He is slow to speak and quick to listen He is generous God the father wants us to be like his son so he is working all things in our lives so that all things will help us be conformed to Christ’s image. What is one of the best ways that we can be conformed to Christ’s image? TrialsThe immediate context of Romans 8:28-30 suggests this Romans 8:17-23 (ESV) Creation groans, our bodies groan, life is hard Romans 8:35–36 (ESV) — 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” God is in control of our trials and he uses them to make us more like Jesus. Trials have a way of making us stop and reevaluate what matters most. Most of the time we are so busy with life (careers, bills, hobbies, school, children, parents, investments, home repair, vacations, etc…) that we don’t stop and think about the things that matter most but trials have a way of helping us do this, hospital beds, unemployment, physical pain, and broken relationships have a way of making us reevaluate what really matters in life. Trials have a way of humbling us When life is going well we can be self confident and cockyWhen life is tough we are humbled as we realize our dependence on God. Lloyd Jones- “It has been the universal testimony of the saints of the centuries that it is through… (trials) they have truly got to know God. The babe in Christ knows very little about God. He knows he is forgiven, but that is the mere beginning, the first principles of the gospel of Christ. There are depths, there are riches that he knows nothing of, and sometimes it is necessary that he should be dealt with through suffering in order to bring him to that knowledge.” Trials allow us to know things about God we may not have known without the trial- His sufficiencyHis goodnessHis comfortHis tendernessHis sympathy His patience Trials have a way of making loose our grip on the things of this world while at the same time longing more for heaven. In addition, Trials have a way of revealing the father’s love to us. Good fathers sometimes allow their children to experience trials to strengthen them. Illustration- Paper route in junior high. God uses all things even our trials to conform us to Christ’s image. This will not always make sense to us in this life. Illustration- (Rear ending car in my corolla while memorizing scripture). How do all things work for good? God controls all thingsWhat is the good all things are working for? Our conformity to Christ For whom do all things work for good? Christians Look with me at verse 28 again- “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”All things work together for good for Christians. That is those that love God and who have been called by God. This is even more clear in the Greek “And we know that to the ones loving God all things work together for good”This means that non-Christians don’t have this same promise. In fact they are promised wrath- Romans 1:18 (ESV) — 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 2:5 (ESV) — 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. It may seem like their life is going wellThey enjoy their hobbiesThey are having funThey are wealthyThey have influence But they are simply storing up wrath and judgment for themselves. Whenever God gives them a blessing (due to his common grace) and they don’t give him glory and praise they are storing up wrath. The promise that all things we will work for good is only a promise for Christians. If you are not a Christian you can become one. How do all things work for good? God controls all thingsWhat is the good all things are working for? Our conformity to Christ For whom do all things work for good? Christians Application- There will be times when we will be tempted to doubt that God works all things for good. What is going to help us in those moments?In those moments we must fix our eyes on the most evil event in the history of the world and then see the good that God brought out of it. The most evil event in the world was the murder of the Son of God. Why was this the most evil event? It was the most evil event because Jesus Christ was the only person who ever lived who was perfect. He was the only person who ever lived who did not deserve to have any evil happen to him. The rest of us are sinful therefore to some extent we all deserve to have bad things happen to us. Not so with Jesus. He was perfect… But God was in control of this event and he brought great good out of it. Act 2:22-23 ESV "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know-- (23) this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.God had a definite plan to have Jesus delivered up to lawless men in order to be killed. Who will get blamed on the Day of Judgment? Act 4:27-28 ESV (Peter talking to God) for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, (28) to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. God raised up people to do whatever god had predestined to be done which was the murder of his son. In both of these passages it is clear that God was in control of what was happening. Yet who gets blamed for the evil? Sinful men. Since God was in control of this event he was able to turn this evil into the greatest good the world has ever known. If God brought good out of this event than God can and will bring good out of your calamities. Here is the next application thought- If God works all things for good we have no reason to be fearful! Christ most repeated command was “fear not.” If God works all things for our good than we have nothing to fear. This keeps us from the “what if syndrome”! What if inflation spins out of control and food is not affordableWhat if our nation collapses with all the debt we have (14 trillion)What if I lose my job?What if I lose my spouse or my child?What if I lose my freedom? What if your worst fear came to pass??? We spend for too much time worried about “the what ifs” when often times they never even come to pass and if they do God is allowing them to come to pass for our good and his glory so we don’t have to be fearful. If we are fearful we are saying that God is not good or God is not in control and both of these statements are sinful. Ruth C and John B Sproul- “For the christian every tragedy is ultimately a blessing, or God is a liar”In addition- If God works all things for good we must never grumble! We complain about the weatherthe food clothes people around usthe boss the music on the radio other drivers our political leaders school work work in general our children our spousesMany of us are fluent in two languages complaining and English.I had a professor who used to say- “a Complaining Calvinist is an oxymoron”. A Calvinist is someone who firmly believes that God controls all things. Again if we believe that God controls all things we should never complain and when we do we must repent. Finally, when someone is suffering be thoughtful and be careful. Don’t worry God works all things for good is usually not the first thing your should say to someone who is really grieving When someone is really grieving or struggling the first thing you should do is put your arm around them and cry with them and pray for them. They have Romans 8:28 in their Bibles too. Just be there with them. People need to know about God’s providence before calamity hits. And yes there may be a time to remind them of God’s providence but this probably is not the first thing you should say to a person who is struggling. Conclusion: God works all things for good! First, how can all things work for good? God controls all things Second, what is the good all things are working for? Our conformity to ChristThird, for whom do all things work for good? Christians If you don’t need this divine medicine now you will at some point. If you have not suffered you have not lived long enough. Suffering is part of living in a fallen world. You will suffer at some point. My life had been pretty easy until about a year ago. It was then that we discovered that our son had a brain tumorJust two weeks ago we learned that he needs to do Chemotherapy for a year. What has helped us in the midst of this trial? Divine Medicine. That is the divine medicine of knowing that God works all things for good. Lets pray. ................
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