Romans Chapter 8:29-31

We talk about, well, people, that's just hard. That's just hard-hearted of God, that some people are predestined to be lost. Understand something, friend. The moment you begin to talk about people being predestined to be lost, you're being unscriptural. Because whenever the Bible talks about predestination, it talks about predestination in the sense of those who are called, not those who are lost. What you've been taught. Well, Pastor David makes it clear and simple using God's Word. Stay tuned as he continues in Romans 8 with We Are Chosen. Here's David McGee. Notice that predestined word, and a lot of times we kind of trip up over that.

We're going to be talking about that today and understanding what we can know about it and really what we can't know. But also notice this, to be conformed to the image of a son. Now notice the way that's phrased, to be conformed. Does that mean you're not conformed right now?

That is what it means. We were created in the image of God, but we fell. And in our fallen human state, we don't really reflect the image of Jesus. Now when we come to him and ask him to forgive us of our sins, he forgives us of our sins, and then he begins working in us to make us more like him. It's interesting in talking to people that most people that I speak with really think highly of Jesus. A lot of them don't like the church, but they think highly of Jesus. I don't think any person that you spoke with that really knows the life of Jesus, if you said, hey, do you want to be more like that?

I think most people say, yeah. The question is, how do we get there? How do we become more like Jesus? Now we often think that the people around us need to be more like Jesus, don't we?

Everybody around me, they need to be more loving and more kind, and they need to be more giving, especially at Christmas. But is God speaking to you about the people around you? Or perhaps is he speaking to you about you, to draw closer to him, to let go of the things that are going to hold you back? Hebrews speaks of the fact that we're supposed to be maturing. We've spoken about the fact that, you know, a baby with a bottle is just a beautiful thing, right? But if a 30-year-old man came into the service with a diaper and sat on the front row with a bottle of milk, I think we'd all be going, ushers, help, you know? That's weird. Why?

Because he's not growing, he's not maturing. So a lot of times we think, well, somebody gets saved, boom, we're done. No, no, no, we've started. Theologically, it is finished. Jesus said that on the cross. But really when somebody gets saved is when God begins to work out in them this conforming to his image.

Hebrews chapter 5, verse 12 says this. For you have been Christians a long time now and you ought to be teaching others. Instead you need someone to teach you again the basic things a beginner must learn about the Scriptures. You're like babies who drink only milk and cannot eat solid food. And a person who's living on milk isn't very far along in the Christian life and doesn't know much about doing what is right.

Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong, and then do what is right. I can teach you about right and wrong, I can teach you about the Bible, but what we need to begin to do as a group and individually is to begin to apply these truths. And as you are nourished on milk, you grow up and then you begin to eat solid foods, you begin to eat meat, and then you begin to feed others on what you're learning. Now what are the things that get in the way of us being conformed to the image of Jesus? There are individual answers, but Jesus gave us a lot of information in this story he told, the parable of the sower. And in the parable of the sower he gives us all kinds of information. And it's interesting because you know the disciples, God bless them, I mean it was very difficult to be a disciple because they were trying to learn from Jesus, they were trying to unlearn all these things and Jesus tells the parable of the sower. And they didn't understand it.

And they were like, we don't understand this, can you tell us more about what you were saying? Matthew chapter 13 gives us this parable. It says, Therefore hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received the seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received the seed on good ground is he who bears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces some a hundredfold some sixty some thirty. Jesus gives us a lot of information about the enemies of what would keep us from conforming to his image.

I've kind of listed them and it's not a life lesson but if you're taking notes you probably want to jot these down. The first is notice snatching the word away. Snatching the word away. That's been going on a long time if you think about it because in the garden what was the way the enemy started messing with him? Oh did God really say that?

Are you sure he really meant that? That's going on in all kinds of forms and fabrications now on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel and talking about the word of God is not this and is not this. But I love the saying that the word of God is an anvil that has worn out many hammers. Because people for a long time have had to discredit this book.

But do you understand no one has actually ever done it? It's an amazing thing. It's tribulation or getting offended and walks away. So when you go through tribulation or persecution we are likely not just to endure it but what do we do? We get offended and we leave. Now there are some legitimate reasons to leave a church if they're not proclaiming salvation, if they're teaching heresy and stuff. Those are reasons to leave a church but all too often people leave churches for the wrong reasons.

Now if you're in a church and you're starving to death and they're not teaching the word of God, you got to go somewhere where you're being fed. But oftentimes what happens is we get offended. There's something that we don't like or somebody looks at a stranger, doesn't wave or doesn't speak or speaks and says the wrong thing and then we're offended.

We're out of there. It's one of the things that can keep us from being conformed. The third one cares of this world become more important than God.

It's amazing how quickly the details of this life and stuff grabs our attention, doesn't it? But notice the fourth thing. 25% in the parable of the sower, 25% actually grab a hold, understand it and live a fruitful life. And understand if you're a believer, if you're a follower of Jesus, God wants you to live a fruitful life.

What does that mean? Well it means He wants you to live a life filled with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. He wants you to live a life of really reproducing yourself.

In the sense of, not cloning, not in a weird way like that, but producing a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. In other words, there's an opportunity as you share, as you plant seeds to be fruitful. I think we, again, we all want to be fruitful.

And again, as we're conformed to His image, we become fruitful. It was interesting. I was looking out the bedroom and there's a tree out there. And first thing I noticed was most of the leaves were gone off the tree. But then the next thing I noticed was it was filled with birds. I mean filled with birds.

I counted like eight or nine cardinals. And what had happened was there was the fruit in the tree. And they couldn't see the fruit until the leaves fell off. But when the leaves fell off, that was all you could see. Because as you grow old, the leaves begin to color, the leaves begin to fade, and one day they'll fall off. And the only thing that will remain is our fruit, what we've done for the Lord.

That's the only thing that will be left. Jesus says as much in John 15, 16. He talks about fruit and predestination. He says, You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. That whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you. So Jesus, He's speaking about choosing us. He's saying, You know, I chose you.

You didn't choose Me. Now let's understand, you know, oftentimes we think, you know, and we have that phrase, I found God, I found Jesus, I found the Lord. And I understand that and I've used that. But let's remember that God wasn't the one who was lost. And when we made that decision for Jesus, if you've made that decision, if you haven't, I'm going to give you that opportunity today. If you've made that decision for the Lord, it's the fruit of God chasing you, convicting you, speaking to you for sometimes days, weeks, sometimes years. So He chooses us and if you will, He also chases us. Now, when did He choose us? When did this predestination thing start to take place? He saw a spark of innate human goodness in you. He saw that kind deed that you did on a cold day. Is that what the Bible says?

No, it's not what it says. Ephesians 1 for us says, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. He chose you before you'd done anything right or wrong. It wasn't that He thought that, you know, hey, you've got real spiritual potential. I'm going to choose you. And I think it'll turn out real well for both of us.

No, no, no. He chose you because He loves you. It's not that your righteousness or your goodness impressed Him.

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Contact us today because space is limited and this tour will fill up fast. Now let's return to our study. Verse 30. Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called, and whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified. Predestined. Predestination basically means God knew in advance. He knew in advance.

And we get really hung up on this, but let me help you with this. If you've ever recorded a sports game because you weren't there on a VCR, or I guess that little TiVo DVR thing now, right? And so you record it and maybe a friend says to you, hey, did you hear whoever won? You know, he says, well, they won.

Oh, okay. Well, they won. Well, I'm still going to watch the game. So you watch the game, but you know what the outcome of the game is going to be.

Well, that's the way it is with our lives. God knows in advance what the outcome is going to be. He's not sitting there guessing and going, oh, I'm going to choose this one. I hope it works out. No, He's predestined and chosen.

Now, immediately what do we do? Well, okay, so if some are predestined to be chosen, then some are predestined to be lost. And so God chooses that some people will never come to Him. God chooses that some people will be lost. No, people choose not to come to the Lord. People choose to reject Jesus as their Savior. When people go through their life and they refuse Jesus Christ, they reject Him as their Savior.

They do it day after day, week after week, year after year. With their last dying breath, God will honor that request. So, okay. Okay.

You want me to leave you alone, I will. But we talk about, well, people, that's just hard. That's just hard-hearted of God that some people are predestined to be lost. Understand something for me. The moment you begin to talk about people being predestined to be lost, you're being unscriptural. Because whenever the Bible talks about predestination, it talks about predestination in the sense of those who are called, not those who are lost. So the moment somebody, well, predestined to be lost, time out, that's not in there.

That's not in there. Man chooses, but God knows. And basically this doctrine of predestination or election means that when God chooses 100 people, He's not going to come home with 99. He's going to come home with 100. If He chooses 100, He's coming home with 100.

He's not going to lose any. And here's where the problem is. Predestination is just foreknowledge of God, if you will. But, you know, we immediately start, well, predestined and then, you know, the sovereign will of God, the free will of man. And we try to go, well, is it one or is it the other? I tell you, one of the best things I've ever heard is it's like two rails on a railroad track.

As long as they run parallel, it's a good solid teaching. The moment you begin to overemphasize one, you got a problem. I understand it's a theological term, but it's really a simple concept. But be careful about spending hours and days trying to figure out predestination. Because what happens is once you're doing that, you're using human knowledge to try to understand a deep spiritual truth and you're going to have problems. And that's what happens with people that say, well, if people are predestined to be saved, they get into what I would call hardcore, hyper, five-point Calvinism. And they go, well, if people are predestined to be saved, then we don't have to do anything. We don't have to evangelize. We don't have to talk to people about Jesus. Because those who are getting in are getting in and those who are left out are going to be left out. As a matter of fact, don't tell anybody about Jesus because you could, you know, somebody that's not really predestined to get in might think they're getting in and then you're just causing confusion, so don't tell anybody about Jesus.

Don't be involved in missionary activity. There are people that believe and think this. But see, that's where human knowledge can lead you, when you begin to try to figure out a concept like predestination. Now, it speaks about justification.

Let's go back over these terms again because they're important for us to understand. Justified is just as if I never did it. In other words, I was saved. It is for us. It's an act.

It's a done deal. Justification happens the instant you ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins. At that very moment, you're declared holy and righteous. You have the robe of righteousness around you. The next thing, sanctified, or sanctification, is being set apart. I am being saved, if you will.

It is in us. It's a work in progress. When we talked about being conformed to the image of Jesus, this is what it's talking about. We're being sanctified. We've even twisted that word a little bit. In the Hebrew meaning, sanctified means being set apart for special use.

As a matter of fact, there's kind of a word picture. You get out the dinnerware, the special dinnerware, maybe silverware or whatever, and what do you do? You polish it up and prepare it for special use, to show it off to family and friends. That's what Jesus wants to do in our life. He wants to sanctify us, do a work in us, and then go, wow, look at that. That is a trophy of my goodness and grace right there. Glorified. Glorified is the new body. I will be saved.

It's a promise for the future. Those are three, I don't want to say phases, how about faces of salvation, of being justified, sanctified, glorified. Let's look at verse 31. What then shall we say to these things, if God is for us, who can be against us?

Man, what a great verse. God chose us, God called us, God justifies us, and God will glorify us. And if you know God, if you've asked Jesus to be your Savior, that's not an if, it's a since. It's not if God is for us, who can be against us. When you come to Jesus, now you're part of the family, you've been adopted, you've been forgiven, and it's since God is for us, who can be against us? Nobody's going to defeat God. God and you, friend, are a majority.

That's something you need to understand. It's certainly something David understood when he took that field against Goliath, isn't it? Goliath and Big Burr, you know, going to take you down.

David, small scrapper, oh man, I'm going to feed you to the crows, buddy. Was David placing confidence in his ability to take Goliath down? No. Was he placing confidence in his knowledge of this slinging stone?

No. He's putting his trust in God, because he knew since God was for him, who could be against him. Do you know that, friend? If you've made that decision for Jesus to be your Savior, God is for you. Will people be against you? Jesus says they will. Jesus says we're going to have tribulation. So if you know God, he's on your side. But when I'm saying K-N-O-W, know God, understand, I'm not talking about you know God up here. You know about God. You know about the Bible. You know about church. You know about being born again.

I mean, do you know him here? So you can academically understand salvation and not have it in your heart. I love what Spurgeon said, Prince of the Preachers, a hundred years ago or so, said that the difference between knowing about God in your head and knowing God in your heart, while that difference is only 18 inches, it is the difference between heaven and hell. You have to know him in your heart. And once you do know him in your heart, you can be forgiven. But somehow we've translated Christianity to, well, it's what you can do for God.

Let time out. The Bible says while you were still a sinner, he died for you. Let me put it in this way and it may help you. Life lesson is it really is not what you know, but who you know. It really is not what you know, but who you know. If you know Jesus as your savior, God is for you. If you don't know him, it doesn't matter what you know of the Bible.

There's a lot of theologians that don't know Jesus as their savior. But if you know him, God is for you. And if God is for you, it doesn't matter who's against you. If God is for you, it doesn't matter who's against you. Man, who's on your side? God's on your side.

That's awesome, isn't it? I was the youngest of three brothers. Got two older brothers. We would fight at the drop of a hat, but that was inside the house. And once I was outside the house, they were my big brothers. We didn't scrap with each other outside the house.

We scrapped with everybody else. And what a feeling it was. My two older brothers, one is somewhat bigger. The other is, he's a lot bigger. He played college football and stuff. He's a big dude. And man, you know, when I would get in a tussle or get in the house, I was always happy to see him. You know?

It's like, hey, that's my brother. What were you saying? My friend, this is so beyond that. God is on your side. If you can grab a hold of that, it'll change your life. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

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