Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 11, 2019 | There's An App For That - Romans 8:28

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August 11, 2019 | There's An App For That - Romans 8:28 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's been a while, but we're in a series called There's an App for That, and it's based upon UVersion, the number one Bible app around the world.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: 27 billion chapters read last year, 409 million verses shared.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Each week this summer that I'm here, which has been one week out of the last six.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't all my fault.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: The plane didn't, you know.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, bad weather.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Um so we started 2012, the first year that UVersion started keeping statistics for favorite verses each year, and we've worked our way up to uh this uh morning, 2016, the world's favorite verse.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: But before I mention that, I should say uh some of us were in Israel, 40 some TBCers, just got back last Sunday, and we had a great time last uh weekend.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: About this time we were at the Garden Tomb.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Garden Tomb is a place, sort of an oasis in Jerusalem, actually in the Arab section of Jerusalem.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: It's noisy, there's a bus depot.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: And yet, uh 150 years ago, a British general named Gordon, uh, A.J.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Gordon, Dr.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Gordon, famous guy, was in Jerusalem, looked out of his window one day, saw the side of a hill all rocky, and it looked like a face.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: He called it the place of the skull, like in the Bible.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: And there was a tomb, actually dating from about the seventh century before Christ, there, and bought the property, and it's beautiful, absolutely beautiful, trees and everything.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: And so there last weekend, uh, 40 some of us, 50 total, 48 total, uh, celebrated the Lord's death and resurrection.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: So that was fun.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: We just uh what's another highlight?
1:49
SPEAKER_00: We baptized about, I think, 16, 18 people in the Sea of Galilee.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: We had to hold, is John Gay here, Dr.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Gay?
1:57
SPEAKER_00: We had to hold him under a little longer.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: So he sort of needed a few more sins washed away.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: He uh, let me think.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: There was this one time, there was uh uh one of the wonderful things about going in the heat of the summer, a little later in the summer, there's not as many people over there, not as many groups, but there was one group from a very large Asian country, which will in the main unnamed, and they seemed to get everywhere after we did, including the uh buffet lines, but uh as Tom and Joe here will tell you, they they don't necessarily honor lines, so they would just slide in.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And one night at the Dead Sea, there was a hotel, believe it or not, that made donuts at night.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: And they had all these toppings you could put on it, like my favorite cinnamon sugar, and and they would bring the donuts up out of the uh really healthy type, you know, oil, I'm sure, and plop them out there, and you know, the lines we'd wait in line, so forth.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: So we're up at the front of the line, okay?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: John Gay, Dr.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Gay, first in line, and so donuts get plopped there, and then a woman from this other group from a large Asian country, which will remain unnamed, slid off, slid across and bumped him out of the way and started loading the donuts onto her plate.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: And John Gay, believe it or not, this really nice anesthetist, whatever, took his fork, leaned over the top of her.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Am I right, Rosemary, and started forking donuts off of her plate onto his plate.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: We gave him an award for that, but she just turned around and just looked at him.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: So we had to hold him under a little longer, but but we should have known.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: It would have been worse because we were at Church of the Holy Sepulchre a few days later.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: It's the oldest Christian church in Christendom, built before 400, the original, the foundation built by Constantine's mother, Queen Helena.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And instead of running down to the foundation with the other group who was following me in there and looking at some of the other stuff, first century tomb that's in there, it's possibly built over the original Golgotha, this church.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a mess, you know, like the incense, but there's seven churches that fight over everything.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: They have to have a Muslim open the door to the church every morning with a key because none of the churches will allow anybody else to hold the key.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, it's just that kind of a place.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: But John Gay slid inside the door and he was sitting on a bench or a seat, which he didn't know was holy, or he didn't know, and he actually, like some of you, he crossed his legs.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And a holy man came over.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: I was gone by that time.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Holy man and gestured.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: He didn't understand what he meant, but gestured because of the indecency of crossing your legs in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: John finally figured out and uncrossed his legs.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: But witnesses say that the moment the priest turned around and left, he crossed them again.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: So he's not welcome in the Greek Orthodox Church anymore, I don't think.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, um, so we had a good time.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: We had a good time.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And I could tell all kinds of holy stories like that.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: But uh let's get back to Romans 8.28, a verse which uh is perhaps your favorite verse.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: It's certainly up there with John 3.16 and Psalm 23 as a favorite passage of the Bible for a lot of people.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: And uh by the way, let me mention, by the way, let me do a timeout, mention what's happening next Sunday because it's pretty special.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna go for the 2017 favorite verse next Sunday, but also we're gonna do TBC Discovery Day, where you put the tent out in the parking lot, and we have people like Doug Stanley out there talking about shortcore, and we talk about all the things the church is doing.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: We put all the food out there so that that'll draw everybody out.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: But that's next week.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do both things.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: So if you have any friends who have joined, according to the most recent surveys, the average, the average faithful church person who came to church three times out of four ten years ago, only comes 1.8 times a month now.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: So talk to that person, say, don't miss next week, because that's gonna be cool.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: All right, advertisement over.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: We move back to Romans 8.28.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: This great verse, which if you ask a theologian about the doctrine of the providence of God, this phrase used so often by people like George Washington and Abe Lincoln, they would say, theologians would, that the greatest verse in the Bible about the providence of God is Romans 8.2828.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: If you say, Well, what does the providence of God mean?
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, the first seven letters give you a real hint.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: It's about how God provides or cares for the creatures that he has created, starting with you and me, but you know, lions and tigers and bears, oh my, and everybody else.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, all the creatures that he's done.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: How does God care for them in his sovereignty?
7:10
SPEAKER_00: How does he take care of them?
7:12
SPEAKER_00: And this verse is the key verse for providence, and it goes like this in the translation.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: You probably learned.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Say this with me.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: This is the New King James, say it with me, here in Bulvaine and in College Avenue.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's go together, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: You've heard that verse before, right?
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I heard it every week in my family growing up.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: In Oregon, my mother loved this verse.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: We all love this verse.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Who's what's there not to love about this verse?
7:49
SPEAKER_00: But there are different translations of this verse, and some of them differ interestingly enough.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: So in our seminary moment this morning, I'm going to share with you the different versions or translations and which one you should prefer.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: The CSB is the Christian Standard Bible, which uh, even though it was put out by Baptists, Southern Baptists, no less, so that's a joke.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: It's a joke.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: I like Southern Baptists, okay?
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Some of you look horrified.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Even though it came out of Tennessee, it's an outstanding translation of the Bible, and it says, more or less exactly what the traditional, what the King James says.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: We know that all things work together for the good, it says here, of those who love God.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: And then we have a colon to let you know that those who love God is the same group exactly as this group, those who are called according to his purpose.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: All right?
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And then you have the ESV, very popular version today, especially among young people and Calvinists, the English Standard Version, and it also says pretty much exactly the same thing, though it switches two lines around.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: It says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: So these translations are very much alike, but now we have some translations.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: The New American Standard Bible, generally the most accurate, shall we say, but sort of wouldn't, accurate, and the New Living Translation, add a couple of words.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: The theology is terrific, right?
9:27
SPEAKER_00: It's just that it's I can see them sitting around in the room.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: There's usually five, six translators, you know, that do each book of the Bible in a normal translation.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, I'm afraid that people will misunderstand all things work together.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: It could be thought of as sort of Hinduism or Buddhism.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of something that just happens.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: We need to make sure they understand that God causes it to happen, which is good theology.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm just not in favor of adding words to try to clarify the Bible itself.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Put a note down at the bottom if you want.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: So God causes all things to work.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And then we have the New International Version, which I've been making fun of a lot this summer, even though it sits underneath the pew right in front of you.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And uh the NIV in Romans 8.28 does this.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: It says, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who've been called according to his purpose.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, before the NIV did this, the revised standard version did it, you know, decades before.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you can see them sitting around saying, Well, you know, really does God work all things together for good?
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And in an in an academic article by one professor who sat on this translation team, uh, he argued that no, God doesn't really use all things for good, just that God works inside of all things to bring about good things for those who love him, you see, so that sort of guards you from a possible overstatement.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, no, excuse me.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I just anyway, so I don't care for that much.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh let's just like if you took the Greek uh original and you sort of, I hate the word literal, because all those translations can call themselves literal, but if you just took the words and you translate them across, here's what that verse would say if you're sitting in a Greek translation class, and we know that to those who love God, so that's like the ESV, all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the first phrase, those who love God, and the last phrase are identical, and the middle phrase is the most important.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: All things work together for good.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm sorry, but I love charts, so this will be the end of the seminary moment.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: The NKJV, the ESV, and the Christian Standard Bible all are yes for me.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: All things work together for good.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: The New American Standard, the New Living, God causes.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: I go, well, it's okay, it's good theology, but why would you add words that weren't there?
11:56
SPEAKER_00: NIV, RSV, I go, what?
12:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, come on, don't mess around.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: So here's the translation which they use in heaven.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: So let's say this out loud together.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: All those Baptist angels say this together.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it together.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, this may be your favorite verse, or up there with your favorite verses, but you have to acknowledge, if we're honest with ourselves, that this verse is not always a soft pillow for our hearts.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's more like a hard rock against which we beat our heads.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Is it really a soft pillow or is it a hard rock?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Let me argue for a moment that it's a hard rock.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: For one thing, it's way too sweeping.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: All things?
12:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really?
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Can you think of anything that you don't think really should fit into this?
13:08
SPEAKER_00: I can.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if today you were at a memorial service in El Paso or in Dayton, you think for a moment you would even think about quoting this verse?
13:22
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: It just seems way too sweeping to say all things, including senseless shootings, fits into this.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Or take the fact that today happens to be a really significant day on the Jewish calendar.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Tisha, Tisha Baav.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Tisha means ninth, baav means the ninth of the month Av.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: This is the ninth of Av.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Jewish person, there's a decent chance that you're at the wailing wall right now, seven hours later in Jerusalem.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Because that plaza, which can hold dozens of thousands of people, is absolutely packed at this moment because Tisheba Av is the most significant day on the entire Jewish calendar all year long, to wail and mourn.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Because in his sovereignty, for some reason, God has chosen that on this day down through history, the worst things would happen to the Jews.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: That on this day, Tishebaav, Nebuchadnezzar, would destroy Jerusalem and burn the first temple in 586 BC.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: That on this day, in 70 AD, the Romans would break through and they would slaughter the Jewish people of Jerusalem, and again, that they would burn the temple on Tisheba Av.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: That in the 1500s, this is when the this is when the Queen of Sweden would cast all Jews out of Spain and start a pogrom against them.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: That this is the this is a date in Russian pogrom history and in Holocaust history that Tisheba'av for some reason is a day when you do not want to walk up to a Jew and say, but God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: No, I say that this verse can be, if we're honest with ourselves, it can be the very last verse that we should be quoting people when we go to the hospital or when we're at a visitation for someone who has died young.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: So what I want to do is, and by the way, it's not only too sweeping, but isn't it a little too sure?
15:36
SPEAKER_00: We know?
15:38
SPEAKER_00: We know?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, could you say we believe or we hope that all things work together for good?
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Or how about maybe just make it personal, Paul, for yourself?
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Why not say, I really believe that all things work together for the good, but we know this?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna give you what I think are, as we examine this verse closely, four reasons from the rest of this verse to argue that this verse really is meant by God in our very time of suffering as a soft pillow.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: For after all, this verse falls in the midst of a passage in Romans 8 that is not about good times.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know what?
16:17
SPEAKER_00: We all think that things work together for good when we're in love or when, you know, good things are happening or we win the lottery, or or somehow uh the plumber, you know, repairs our leak in only 10 minutes and doesn't charge us anything.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, when suffering happens, but guess what?
16:36
SPEAKER_00: In Romans chapter 8, in this context, there is suffering all around.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: In the verses right before verse 28, Paul is talking about the troubles and the difficulties that come to man.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: And in the verses right after this, he's talking about persecution and hunger and people killing us and so forth.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: So this verse is not out of touch with the reality.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Paul is speaking about your life and my life.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking about hard times, he's speaking about senseless shootings, and he's speaking about Tishabaav, it seems to me.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying four things about it.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Number one, not all things are good, but all things work together for good.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: Individual events, let's be honest, maybe bad.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: You have to make that clear when you quote this or when you think about this verse, that you remember that it's not saying that individual events are all good, because we know they're not all good, are they?
17:32
SPEAKER_00: They're not good for the family of that girl whose brother shot her this last weekend.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: They're horrible.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know the story of Joseph in the Bible.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: You understand that his father, unfortunately, didn't hide the fact that he loved him more than his older brothers.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: His father made him a special cloak, very expensive, of different colors and so forth.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, Joseph wore the cloak and sort of decided to smooth it out and show it to his brothers regularly and sort of uh remind them that he had a brighter future than they did.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And then unfortunately, his brothers decided to plot to kill him.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And while they didn't eventually kill him, they plucked him out and sold him as a slave to Midianite traders headed down to Egypt.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Things looked good for a moment because Joseph signed on as a servant in a very prominent Egyptian's house where he rose right to the top, but that put him under the notice of Potiphar's wife, who then got offended when Joseph wouldn't sleep with her, and so she lied about him, and then he gets thrown into jail where he nearly dies.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: All of those things were unfortunate.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: It was not good, it was bad that a father played preferences with his sons.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: It was not good, but it was bad that Joseph paraded that preference before his older brothers instead of respecting them and being humbler.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: It was not good but bad that his brothers plotted against him and then sold him as a slave, and it wasn't good but bad that he was lied about and sent to prison.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: But as you know, when Push came to shove 20 years later, and when the famine up there in Israel drove that whole family to Egypt, Joseph by then had become second to the Pharaoh, and he could stand up and say to them, You intended to harm me literally in Hebrew, you intended that for evil, evil, but God intended it for good to accomplish the saving of many lives.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: In other words, those things worked together in such a way that God used them in a wonderful way.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And tied in with that is the second point from Romans 8.28 that all things work together for good because behind them there's a God who causes them to.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, the New American Standard and New Living, their theology is right that God causes these things.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: You can't pull God out of it because this is a God who's so wise that Romans tells us he has a grand design for history and for all of his creatures.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And this is a God who's so loving that he's made sure to tell us that this grand design is kind and gracious to his creatures, and a God so powerful that he can fit in even the meaningless events of life, the pains, the divorces, the sudden deaths.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: He can fit all those things in in such a way that he can guarantee that it's all for the good of those who love him.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: You pull God out of the equation, what you have is superstitious drivel.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: You have, frankly, Buddhism.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: You put God into this, back into this, and you have wisdom and you have a personal creator who we call providence.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: All things work together, not individually, and they work together for good because behind them is a God who causes them to.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean when it says all things work together for good?
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you ask somebody, what's the good life today?
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Chances are they would describe what they would really like to have in life, which would be, right?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Good health and a good income, a good companion, children who love them, perhaps, a lot of good friends, that would be the good.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Sort of a comfortable life that has pleasure as part of it, right?
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And yet, when you come to the great philosophers like Aristotle, or you come to the Bible, you find that's not what they mean by the good at all.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And we know that's not what Paul means by the good here, because in the Very next sentence, verses 29 and 30, he explains what he means when he says that God works all things for the good of those who love him, who are called for his purpose, and then he explains, he says, for whom God has called, them he's also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: We know that all things work together, he says, for the good of those who love God, because God's purpose is that he wants them to become conformed to the image of his son.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: So what he's talking about when he says all things work together for good is not comfort, it's Christ-likeness.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Becoming conformed to the image of his son.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: That's God's goal for us.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: And some of those things we mentioned as things that we or the television or magazines tell us are good, some of those things work in the opposite direction, don't they?
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes good health, as much as we long for it and pray for it, and especially you and I devote time every day to pray for the good health of our loved ones and others in the church, am I right?
23:10
SPEAKER_00: I hope you do.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: But as much as we pray for that and one threat, we have to concede that sometimes God uses sickness rather than good health to move people, his people, to become more like his son Jesus Christ.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: That sometimes, as Romans, Philippians, and James say, sometimes trials are a better tool, as C.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: S.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Lewis says, to form us into what he wants us to become.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Or take finances, for instance.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: No one would want to be put out of a job.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: No one would want to become bankrupt, but you and I know people for whom becoming poor, becoming bankrupt, or losing their job was used by God in a mighty way to move that person back to himself and back to becoming more like Jesus Christ.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: None of us here like divorce.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: The people who've gotten divorced hate divorce worse than anybody else.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Yet you and I know that sometimes God has used divorce and pain, the pain of a family splitting up, and his sovereignty somehow used divorce to make people more like his son.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: All things work together for good, but again, good is not comfort.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: It's Christ's likeness.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: You were created, you were saved to become like Jesus Christ.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: So there you have it.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: All things work together, not individually, but together for good that we might become more like Jesus Christ.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: It sounds too sweeping, it sounds too sure.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: But Paul says the same thing elsewhere in one of our favorite verses, 2 Corinthians 3.18.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: But we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Transformed, metamorphosis.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And we're becoming more and more like Christ.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we jump off the wagon, you know, and move away from him, but these he seduces us back and we come back to him and we come more like Christ, but none of us will be all the way there by the time of our death or the return of Christ, which is why the beloved disciple says in 1 John 3 that when we see him, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: No matter whether you're two-thirds of the way there, three-quarters of the way there, or even one quarter of the way there, you will become four-fourths of the way there the moment you see Jesus Christ, and God will be so happy because that is his goal for you.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Finally, this promise isn't for everyone.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: The promise isn't one that you can quote willy-nilly to every person in the world because Paul doesn't quote it to everyone.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: He says all things work together for good.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Basically, he says to Christians, he says it in two ways.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: They work together for the good of those who love God, and then he defines that as those who are called according to his purpose.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Those are two very different metaphors.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: Those who are called is that metaphor of a shepherd calling his sheep.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I know my sheep, and I call them, and they know me, they hear my voice, they respond, they follow, they come to me, they trust me, I give them eternal life.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: They shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: So this is really talking about that moment you come to Christ through faith, you trust his son as your Savior, you lay down your deadly doing, you know, that piling up of how good you are, and you just trust him.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul equates being a Jesus follower or God lover with Christian with a Christian.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: He likes to do this.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Rest of the writers in the Bible love to do it as well.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, I know some Christians who don't look like they're loving God right now.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Or they're not really following Jesus, they're making bad decisions.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: And I say, Yeah, we all do, but but Christians by their nature, by who they are, we are Jesus followers, right?
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And we're God lovers, right?
27:45
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, you know what?
27:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about believers, I'm talking about Christians, and I am working everything in your life in such a way that I'm working it together for your good to make you more like my son Jesus Christ.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing that because you're one of mine.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: You're someone who loves God, someone who I've called according to my purpose.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: That's why I have to stop and say, you need to think for a moment.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: You need to ask if you're on the sidelines just staring at this verse this morning, or if you're inside this verse, that this is a promise given for you.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Are you one of those people who love God, that is, you have looked to him, you've seen his son, Jesus on the cross, and you've set your trust on him, set your heart on him for your eternal life rather than on yourself and all of your doing.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: And if you've done that, this is a promise for you.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: And if you've not done it, I'm glad you're here, and I would encourage you to think about that or talk to someone here about that, talk to me about that.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Because this is this is too important, right?
28:55
SPEAKER_00: This is too important.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: This is about your whole life and about your whole eternal future.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: So talk to somebody about that.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: That promise isn't for everyone.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: So basically, what we're saying, what I'm saying is this verse can be really a hard nut.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: It can be a rock against which you can beat your head, and please don't use it as a rock to beat someone else's head when they're at the moment at the dark bottom of a pit and it's black, right?
29:22
SPEAKER_00: So you don't use it that way, but you can remember this really is mint.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: This is mint as a soft pillow for your heart.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: To remind you that God is behind all of these things because you are his child and that God will cause all of the things in your life, as meaningless as individual things seem to be, as painful as they seem, he's working them together.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: And he's working them together for good.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: And what he means by that is to make you the most brilliant, wonderful person that you can imagine, more than you can imagine, because that's what his son is.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And he's doing that because you're one of his children.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And if you realize that, then even when you're going through suffering, it can just transform you.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: If you don't realize that, you're like the kid who went to get his glasses for the first time.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I came home from Milan, I came home last week from Israel, and the grandsons came over the next day, and two of them came up, and they were both so excited.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Judah, who's had glasses before, was saying, look at my new glasses, and his younger brother Asher was saying, I got glasses for the first time.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: He's so excited.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't help thinking of the story that I read years ago about uh an optometrist.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: A little boy came into the office to get glasses for the first time, but he wouldn't sit still.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't keep his head still.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: He was driving the doctor crazy or the optometrist crazy and say, optometrist pulled out something that had always worked for him before.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: He pulled out a paper bag, a brown paper bag with eye holes cut in it.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Put it over the kid's head so they keep his head still.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: He'd look up there at the E and the L and the whatever it is.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Kid starts to cry, kid starts to wail.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: His mother can't get him to stop.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Optometrist can't get him to stop.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: What is wrong?
31:05
SPEAKER_00: The optometrist said.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And the boy said, But I wanted real glasses like my big brother.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: So we're a little bit like that, boy, because when suffering hits, you know, it feels like we're, you know, got something over our heads and we can't see very well, and we don't understand.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: And the doctor, the, the, the, the, the designer, he has a plan.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: He has a reason for it.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And the reason is really good.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: But we don't see it.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And we cry out.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: That points like that.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Remember Romans 8, 28.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: We know that God causes all things.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Eugene Clark was a young man of such promise.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: He went to Wheaton College, then went to Moody Bible Institute, moved back home to Lincoln, Nebraska, really gifted musically and in other ways, and back to the Bible broadcast, noticed him and asked if he'd come help.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And he was writing songs and he was doing a program for them.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh and at age 38, something started happening to Eugene's body.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: He got arthritis, and then they seemed to fix that, and then he got another kind of paralysis, and they fixed that, and then other things started happening, and the pain was excruciating, got worse and worse.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: For 19, the last 19 years of his life, before he died in 50, 19 when he was 57 years old, Eugene was just an incredible agony.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: But he wasn't the kind of person who would respond to that pain by cursing God, you know, and becoming a cynic.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't the kind of person who even would grin and bear it, you know, the stoic who'd grit his teeth, and that doesn't matter.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't even the and he wasn't the type of person who was uh Epicurean.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't just eat, drink, and get drunk and say, who cares?
32:57
SPEAKER_00: No, he was a really godly man, and he just kept trusting God, and he kept writing music, and he was positive.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, one of the songs he wrote during that painful time before he died, we actually have in our hymnal.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: And the words go like this: such a song of faith.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: A song by someone who knows Romans 8 28.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: The song goes, Nothing is impossible when you put your trust in God.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is impossible when you're trusting in his word.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the voice of God for thee.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is too hard for me.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: So put your trust in God alone and rest upon his word, for nothing is impossible.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is impossible.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is impossible when you put your trust in God.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray and then uh celebrate the Lord's table.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the example of Jesus Christ.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Seen alone, that crucifixion was horrific.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: It was evil, as Peter told his listeners on Pentecost.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: But it fit into your grand design in such a way that we're gonna celebrate it right now.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be happy about this terrible, awful, evil thing because it fit into your design in such a way that it brings us salvation, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Bless us as we obey your command, as we take the bread and drink the cup in Jesus' name.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: So last Saturday, yeah.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, guys.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Come on up.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Um and you can go ahead and start serving, you know, this would be cool.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Do this.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh feel free to just take the bread and cup and just drink them whenever you're ready.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: So imagine you're with me and 40 some other TBCers last weekend.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: We're at the garden tomb, we're celebrating the Lord's table.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: If you ask ahead of time, they'll give you, you know, olive wood cups, uh, and they're filled with juice, and they give you bread.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And so uh the gang of uh my our 48 people were sitting right here, and Craig, my son, and I were sort of leading.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: And imagine that you can see the uh garden tomb, it's where those lights are right now from where you're sitting.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: They could look down as they're as they're eating the bread and drinking the cup.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: And I it was such a meaningful time.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: And then I came in this morning and I saw communion, the element sitting here.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: And you know what I immediately thought?
35:33
SPEAKER_00: I immediately had the same feeling that I did last weekend.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: And I realized it's because it's not at all about the place where you eat the bread and drink the cup.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: It isn't, it's about the fact that we're remembering Jesus' death until he came and his resurrection, and you're identifying with that, and you're saying, Thank you, Lord, I see, I see you on the cross, I see what you did for me.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the garden tomb, then you can kind of look over and see where he, you know, came out of the grave.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: But you can see that in your mind's eye this morning.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that?
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Lord bless us as we take your bread and drink your cup in Jesus' name.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Amen.