And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. This is a well-known verse from the book of Romans. It's often used as a means of encouragement. There's more to it, though, and it's important that we understand this verse in its entirety. Alastair Begg walks us through this passage today on Truth for Life and explains why being called by God doesn't give us bragging rights.
Ooh.
Well, we've come to arguably the best known verse in the whole of Romans chapter 8, verse 28. Many of us have memorized this since we were small. And it is We might say a classic verse. People who wouldn't necessarily know where it came from might actually know the verse. And when you come to such a verse, it's actually quite dangerous.
And the danger is essentially this. that the verse becomes dislodged from its context. And verse twenty eight uh comes after verse 27. And before verse 29. And therefore, the surrounding context, as is always true, but particularly important that we face up to it, is essential for us.
And it is a good time to remind ourselves that when we listen to the Bible being taught, that the source of the message being taught is to be the Bible itself. The source of the message is not to be the inventive creativity of the mind of the preacher. I have all kinds of crazy thoughts in my mind, all sorts of ideas that I could introduce to you quite routinely on a Sunday. They're not totally irrelevant, but they're not what this time calls for. No, you have every legitimate expectation that whatever you hear will actually be found in the Bible.
That message from the Bible is to be discovered on the part of the preacher by carefully exegeting the scriptures. And that's the technical word for doing what myself and my colleagues are supposed to do in our study, and that is look into the scriptures and exegete them in such a way that we can discover what the message is. That message then needs to be conveyed in the context of its original setting. And when that has been done, then application can be made to the context of the preacher and the listeners. The preacher then is a servant of the scriptures.
that the scriptures are not the servant of the preacher. It's very, very important that we understand that.
So that you can hold your preachers to this very standard. And that's why I mention it. And especially this morning when we come to a verse that is very familiar. And then in turn, we come to two verses, which are the basis of controversy throughout the ages of the church.
Now Keep in mind then That verse 18. Which says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Is the immediate context for this great statement in verse 28? And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. It's very possible to use uh verse 28 as a kind of trampoline.
You just sort of jump up and down on it for a while, and you can see things from a different perspective, and it may actually make you feel better as a result of the exercise. And often when I hear people quoting Romans 8:28, and I'm not immune to this myself. They tend to think of it in terms that move us beyond the realm of what Paul has actually been saying in the preceding section.
So when we read in all things, Those all things include, verse 18, the sufferings of this present time. It's not that you get through verses 18 to 27 and then you begin an entirely new section in verse 28, but don't worry about all of that stuff because in all things work together for good and so on. What? Paul is saying is that God is at work. in all things for the good of his children.
And the identity of those who are the beneficiaries of this is made clear to us. And you will notice that the ones that are the focus of this are those who love God. We know that in all things God works. For the good of those who love Him. Later on in the chapter, he's going to speak to us about God's love for us.
But right here he's speaking about the believer's love for him.
Now If you turn back just to the opening of Romans, I think it would be helpful to set this in an even wider context. The question is Who is being addressed when he writes to the church at Rome?
Well, he's writing to the church at Rome. Verse 5. of chapter one, he says through him, that is through Jesus, And for his name's sake, We receive grace and apostleship. to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And then he says, and you also Are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
to all in Rome who are loved by God, and called To be saints. The distinguishing feature, or one of the key distinguishing features, of a Christian, is that he or she loves God. Loves God.
Sometimes I remember when our children were small, I might hear them in the back seat inquiring of one another, and one might say to the other one, Do you love God? Just in their tiny little voice, such a striking question out of nowhere. Suddenly, you're driving the car, and one of them will say to the other, Do you love God? Love God. Not.
Do you have a concept of God? Do you have some kind of cerebral fascination with notions of divinity. But do you Love God. Because this verse applies to those who love God. One of the distinguishing features of God's people is just that.
That's the significance of the Hebrews and Orthodox Jews in Cleveland yesterday and every day of their lives repeating what is referred to as the Shema, which is the opening word in Hebrew of Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. And what is the very first exhortation of Moses? And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. Why? Because it is love for God that is the chief characteristic distinguishing feature of The child of God.
So, the identity of those who are included in Romans 8:28. In relationship to their attitude, if you like, towards God. Their attitude towards God is one of love. But they are also identified in terms of God's action towards them. Their attitude towards God, they love Him.
God's action towards them. They have been called according to his purpose. They have been called according to his purpose. We're going to learn this morning that the love of God's people for God. Is based upon the initiative of his love towards them.
That the calling of God is one over which we have no control. either in originating it or in being able to frustrate it. The calling of God is one which provides us with absolutely no basis for boasting. Because the initiative lies With God. Winslow, who commented on Romans in an earlier generation, has a purple passage here.
Where he addresses his congregation. A long, long time ago, in this matter of the love of God expressed in the call of God, and this is what he said to them. Has this call reached you? Has this call reached you? Ministers have called you.
The gospel has called you. Providences have called you. Conscience has called you. But has the Spirit called you? with an inward and effectual vocation.
Have you been called, spiritually called, from darkness to light? From death to life. From sin to holiness. From the world to Christ. From self to God.
Examine your heart. and ascertain. Oh, it is a matter of the greatest moment. that you know. that you are truly converted.
That you are called of God. Has the thrilling Life-inspiring music of that call.
sounded and reverberated Through all the chambers of your soul. That's the question.
So instead of immediately going to Romans 8:28, and using it as a kind of mantra. which is immediately applicable. Let us recognize that when Paul addresses this issue in writing his letter, he writes to all in Rome. And there's no full stop. To all in Rome.
who are loved by God. and called to be his saints.
So the comprehensive nature of this statement Is constrained by the identity of those it addresses. All things work together for good. In all things, God works for the good of those. who have been called According to to his purpose.
So the question is. Has this call reached you? Can you say I found a friend? Oh such a friend He loved me. before I knew him.
He drew me with the cords of love and thus he bound me to him. And so round my heart So closely twined these ties, that nothing can sever For I am his. And he is mine. Forever and forever. Why do you say that back?
Well, because he called me.
Well, what are you talking about? I'm talking about the way that he has orchestrated my life. And your life too, if you're in Christ. That is a wriggling child in Sunday school, the way children are wriggling right now. Your children are wriggling through here in these Sunday school rooms.
And the teachers who've committed themselves to the awesome privilege of having the custody of your little Children Will be sweating and getting ready to go home and have a decent lunch and say to themselves. I don't know if anything happens in that room except chaos.
Something happens. Because God calls out. through the stumbling, apparently ineffectual teaching.
Somehow or another, God used a Sunday school teacher in my life to call out to me. Otherwise, I couldn't imagine having gone home for Sunday lunch and being so concerned on a Sunday afternoon as a boy of elementary school age to ask my father, what is it all about that this lady was telling me about the love of God and Jesus dying on a cross and the forgiveness of sins and all these things. Why was I so interested in that? I don't know. Why was I so interested?
Why was I so concerned? And why would God, in the immensity of His grace, give me a father who was a believer? Who would providentially overrule the events of my life so that when I asked the question, He had the answer, so that I could then believe what was happening. God was calling. Effectually call it.
Playing the music of redemption. in a small boy's mind and heart. And if you're a Christian, you've got the same story. Not the same time frame. But you saw when somebody told you about becoming a Christian a big sign over the entryway, and it essentially said, Whosoever will may come.
And you said, well, whosoever presumably includes me. Which it does. And so you walked in. And you have subsequently turned around and looked at the archway, and on the back of the archway, it says, chosen. before the foundation of the world.
And you said, wow. You mean he loved me? Before I loved him. Yes. Do you mean that his love?
Engendered my love? Yes. And in all things, God works for the good of those. Who left him? who have been called According to his purpose.
So we have to understand then what this means that in all things God works. The King James Version has it, as I've been quoting it variably. Um Before we know The King James Version is All things work together for good. See, it helps when I pull my ears like that. Um I've obviously been doing it quite a bit throughout time.
All things, the King James version is all things work together for good. The NIV translates it, in all things God works. In all things, God works is better than all things work together for good, because all things work together for good sounds as if, somehow or another, the jigsaw. Puzzle pieces all just eventually fit themselves together. that somehow or another the things are working for good.
But in I should fight, many of the things appear to be working for bad. In Joseph's life, it was a bad deal for his brothers to be jealous. It was a bad deal for his father to prefer him over his brothers. It was a bad thing for him to get sold into slavery. It was a bad thing for him to get thrown into the jail.
It was a bad thing here, and a bad thing there, and a bad thing there. And if you'd said to him, How are things working out for you? He'd say, Working out pretty poorly. The things are all against me, but in all things, God was at work for good, which was Joseph's testimony, which you can read for yourself towards the end of Genesis.
Now, what this simply means is that all of the stuff, good, bad, and ugly, God employs for the ultimate good of his children. Says John Murray, there is not one detail works ultimately for evil to the people of God. In the end, Only good will be their lot. There's not one thing that works ultimately for evil. But in the end.
And that's again why it is so important to take verse 28 in the context of what precedes it. What precedes it is the statement concerning the sufferings. The groanings of creation, the groanings of God's people, the groaning, as we saw last time, of God towards God. And it is in that context that this truth is made known. Verse 28 does not lift us out of verses 18 to 27.
We know That in the present time we suffer, we have traveled, there is so much stuff that mitigates against us. And the encouragement of God's word is that this is not happening haphazardly. But in it all God is at work.
Now In verses uh twenty-nine and thirty. Paul then really goes on to unpack what he means. about God's purpose. All these things are working. according to his purpose.
There is in the life of the believer A quite unbelievable chain of events. And when you read verses 29 and 30, I have a suggestion for you, and that is that you immediately flip forward a couple of pages and read verses 33 to 36 of Romans chapter 11. You can understand why by the time I'm finished, even if you don't understand now. But there at the end of this great and glorious progression of thought on the part of the writer, he eventually says, Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. Unsearchable judgment, paths beyond tracing out.
So if you find yourself saying, I can't see what God is doing in this, or I can't understand how this could possibly be. You are in normal and safe territory. Because the ways of God are mysterious ways, they are untraceable ways. He plants his footsteps in the sea. He rides upon the storm.
And if you try and go to Romans 8:28 as a mechanism to try and remove yourself from the storm, to try and find yourself in a place where it all just makes perfect sense, then you are engaged in a quest that will absolutely frustrate you. And that is why, when Paul has done his best, and what an intellect, what a mind, what a heart, he eventually, as it were, finishes Romans chapter 11, falls on his face and says, Oh, the depth of the riches of the mind of God, how unsearchable are all his ways and his paths beyond tracing out. And that's when he's given us his very best under the inspiration of the Spirit. I find that very helpful, and I hope you will too. Romans 8, 29, and 30 read within the context of Romans 11, 33.
Yeah. Bow, let's look at verse 29. God is at work in all of these things. In the lives of those who love him. They love him because they've been called according to his purpose.
God foreknew them. He foreknew them. The foreknowledge of God, you should understand in terms of the foreordination of God. Why do I say that? Because this doesn't simply mean, as some suggest, That God foreknew those who would believe.
That when it says that God foreknew, for those God foreknew, in other words, He looked down and He saw those who would believe. And since they were going to believe anyway, he would give them a little help. Mm-mm. You know. God obviously foreknew who would believe.
God knows everything. Therefore, that wouldn't really be saying very much, would it? Those whom God foreknew. God foreknew everything that would take place. We've said that this morning in the Creed.
We've explained it in our songs. It's certainly true that God foresees everything that comes to pass, but is that what Paul is saying? Is that all he's saying? Clearly not. Because the knowledge that is referenced here is not the knowledge, if you like, of conjecture.
or the knowledge of something which is external to or merely factual. It is The relational knowledge. He knows everybody. He created everybody. He knows all the peoples of the earth.
He knows everything. A God who does not know the future is not God, said Augustine.
So, what is being conveyed here is the fact of God's foreordination. In fight the NIV translates Amos 3: You only have I chosen of all the peoples of the earth. And what is contained in the foreknowledge of God is once again the notion that is present in the hymn that I just quoted to you, He loved me ere I knew him. Indeed, when he speaks to his people in Deuteronomy 7, he says, And the reason I have loved you. is because I have loved you.
What kind of explanation is that? How do you go behind that? Will you go back to another I have loved you? Yeah, but why have you loved me? Because I have loved you.
And eventually say Okay. all the debts of the riches, of the knowledge of God. He loves? Because he loves. You're listening to Alastair Begg on Truth for Life with a message he's titled The Chain of Salvation, and we'll hear the conclusion tomorrow.
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Thanks for joining us today. When given a choice, most of us would prefer to hear good news before we hear bad news. But when it comes to faith, we have to grasp the bad news before we can even understand the good news and how it's good. Find out why tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life.
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