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Great 8: Exploring Christian Diligence

We're in the great eight, and today we're looking at three verses from Romans 8, verses 28 through 30.

"And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 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. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified."

First of all, remember that the book of Romans was written for believers. It's a book given to those who have trusted Jesus Christ as their savior. Therefore, the message of this book is intensely Christian.

Two Schools of Thought

Having said that, there are two basic schools of thought that exist concerning the matter of how people are saved. Let's go back to some basics to set the table today. There are many views within these schools, okay? But almost all views (almost, not all, but almost all views) could be grouped within one of two schools of thought.

Arminianism. This view of salvation receives its name from a man named Jacobus Arminius. People who hold this viewpoint typically believe that man cooperates with God in his salvation. Salvation is through faith in Christ, but we choose to believe when we are ready. Many who hold this view also believe we can stop believing at any time and thus become lost again. Basically, salvation is based upon the will of man.

Calvinism. This viewpoint is known in very generic terms (don't miss that, very generic terms) as Calvinism, receiving its name from a sixteenth-century preacher by the name of John Calvin. Strict Calvinism, not all Calvinism, says that God selected some people for salvation and others for hell, and those selected have no say in the matter whatsoever. In strict Calvinism, the will of man is forfeited to the sovereignty of God.

Personally, my view is diametrically opposed to that of Arminians. I lean more towards Calvinism, however it is a modified view that is held by many authentic Christians in this part of the world.

These verses have divided people for hundreds and hundreds of years, and we will not solve the puzzle today. We're not going to completely solve the puzzle of salvation in this life. Nobody will solve it, it's a mystery of God. Some of the answers to our questions, though, are found in the Bible, and in these verses.

So today's title is Spirit Life Determination. Now, when I speak of determination, I'm referring to the determination of God rather than the determination of the saints of God. That's a key point. Salvation is something that is produced by God and enjoyed by mankind. Salvation is one of those things we had absolutely nothing to do with, but it becomes reality in our lives. These verses give us the strongest arguments in the word of God for the unconditional eternal security of the authentic, truly saved believer. That's the rub. Are you authentically saved? "Well, I said the prayer." Stay with me now.

Let's dig into these verses today, remembering that we are treading in deep waters. This is a tough one. Yet there is real food for the authentic saints here.

There are two thoughts we'll consider today. They are big and mind-boggling, and they'll give us plenty to chew on.

Point One: The Determination of God's Promise

Verse 28 is a huge verse. Besides John 3:16, this may be the most beloved and claimed promise of the New Testament, and there's a good reason for that. Because life is filled with trials and troubles, and it is good to know that everything is being worked out according to the plan of a great God. There's this confidence.

Paul's statement is a shocking statement, but it is absolutely true nonetheless. Look, this is an ironclad promise of God. His reputation rides on this verse being true. And it is. He did not say that all things are good, but that they will work out for good. Whose good? God's good. It is a promise as good as the God who made it.

There's a completeness in this verse we don't want to miss. It hits us in the face, and it's the word all. All things. I looked it up in Webster's dictionary. All means: the whole of the greatest possible; every member or individual part of; the whole number or sum; every (my favorite); and any whatever. In fact, everything in the life of the child of God is working for your good, even the things you don't like, even the things you don't understand.

Let's notice a handful of areas where God is working out our good for His glory.

Sweet Things Work for Our Good

It's easy to see how sweet things in life work for us. Home, family, health, wealth, salvation, these are the stuff that make life good. They make us feel good about things, and they're blessings from the Lord meant to make us even better Christians.

Romans 2:4 tells us, "Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"

We ought to thank and praise Him for His blessings. First Thessalonians 5:18 says, "Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." One of my favorite moments in the movie Bible idiot is when Joni Eareckson Tada quotes this verse and says, "You don't give thanks for all things, you give thanks in all things."

Hebrews 13:15 says, "Through Him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name."

Sorrowful Things Work for Our Good

Think about it: a foreign invasion. We have these two big, beautiful oceans that protect us, right? Let's just say we have a foreign invasion, and many are carried off into slavery. Would that be good? Could God work it out for good? Well, yeah, He showed us that with the Babylonian captives.

There are several examples in the word of God where extremely sorrowful things happened to people, and it all worked for their good in the end. Here are five of them, take a screenshot, or jot these down:

• Jacob: Genesis 42:36
• The tribe of Judah: Jeremiah 24:5
• The psalmist, in the longest chapter in the Bible: Psalm 119:71
• Joseph: we're not even to chapter 50 yet, but look it up
• The tribe of Manasseh: 2 Chronicles 33

When you are in sorrow, when you want to see the hand of God moving for the good, look these up in your devotion. Often, the valley of suffering or the time of sorrow can out-teach any sermon or Bible study. When God allows a time of sorrow, suffering, or pain in our lives, it is always for our good and for His glory, for the people that love God. Our heavenly Father never said we had to like it, but we should strive to be thankful in our circumstances. Someone once said that the eye that is washed with tears is the eye that sees the best.

Satanic Things Work for Our Good

Paul endured satanic attack and affliction, but God's the one who gave it to him. Second Corinthians 12:6-10 lays it all out:

"For if I want to boast, I wouldn't be a fool because I would be telling the truth. But I'll spare you so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me, especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.' Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weakness so that Christ's power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in my weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

God can even use the devil to work out good things in our lives. Even satanic attack is used by the Lord to grow us in His image.

Sinful Things Work for Our Good

Now, first off, Christians ought not to sin. When we do, we suffer (the Bible tells us that. But God can take the suffering brought about by deliberate sin and use it for good. Think about Peter in Luke 22. If you combine the gospel accounts of what Peter did that night, Peter cursed and swore that he did not even know who the Lord was, to a young servant girl at a fire. Think about that) three years with Jesus, and then that.

And God used it. You have to go to John 21 to see it: "Do you love me, Peter? Feed my lambs. Do you love me? Feed my sheep." God uses all the circumstances of life for our good. It may not seem like good right now, but we can still take comfort and rejoice in the completeness of God's promise.

The Cause Behind It All

There's a cause and effect here. These things aren't just working out for the believer on their own, they're taking place because of the personal concern and work of God in the life of that authentic believer. The cause is the awesome power of God. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and able to take control of every situation in life.

It's easy to forget that God's in control, and it's flippantly easy to say "well, God's in control, so it doesn't matter" (and apathy sets in. When we get our eyes off of Him and on our circumstances, we are in for a fall. Don't forget Peter walking on the water in Matthew 14. What happened? He kept his eyes focused on the Lord, and he started walking. Then he decides to lean back and take a selfie with the boys back in the boat) his eyes come off Jesus, and he goes down. And one of the coolest things about that story is who caught Peter. Our Savior reached down and caught him.

I think of another story. Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation, was prone to periods of deep depression. One day, during one of those times, he came to the breakfast table to find his wife dressed in black garments, as if she were going to a funeral. Luther asked her, "Who died?" She said, "God." Luther got upset and said, "Woman, that is blasphemy." She replied, "It's no more blasphemy to say that God is dead than to live as though he were dead." Luther got the point and repented of his foolishness.

When life closes in on you, remember this: if you belong to Jesus, God is behind every circumstance you face. It had to pass across His desk and receive His approval before it came to you, if you love Him and are saved by Him.

There's a Condition

Please understand, there is a condition, a clause you would do well to remember. The promise in verse 28 is not for everyone, but only for those who love God. So the question has to arise: how can I tell if I really love God?

First of all, are you saved? You can't love Him till you know Him. First John 4:19 says, "We love because he first loved us."

Another question: are you obedient? John 14:15 says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." John 14:21 doubles down: "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

You have no right to claim Romans 8:28 unless you qualify as one who loves Him. Jesus is the door. John 10:9 says, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture." To be saved, He is the door into the glories of heaven and eternal life. But to the lost, He is the door unto damnation and eternal separation in hell. That's hard to hear, but that's what the Bible teaches.

There's a Consequence

There is a consequence to all of this, too. This is not a verse designed for your happiness, it is not to be taken lightly. It cannot be divorced from the verses that immediately follow it, in verses 29 and 30.

God's promise in turning everything to good is not to bless you, make you happy, make you wealthy. God is doing all this for one simple reason: He's doing this to make you more like Jesus. God didn't finish with you at salvation. He will continue to shape you until you reflect His image properly and perfectly. God's trying to make you perfect, and it ain't going to happen on this side. The whole purpose of Romans 8:28 is to teach us that God has an eternal plan, and nothing will ever be able to change that plan. God is busy reproducing Himself in each of us.

Point Two: The Determination of God's Purpose

As we move into verses 29 and 30, I'll admit they pose questions I definitely cannot give you a definitive answer on. If there were easy answers, we wouldn't have had these two verses divide the church for two thousand years.

I believe these verses merely teach us that God is working in us to reproduce the image of Jesus in every child of God (that is the truth. But how this working is carried out poses problems for many. What I hope to accomplish today isn't settling age-old doctrinal disputes) it's causing each of us to understand deeper that God is working out an eternal life process in every single believer, every child of God.

So what is God's purpose for each of us? This is based in the omniscience of God, and there are two basic interpretations of verse 29.

One group says God looked ahead through time and saw who would be saved, and these are the people He determined would be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is probably the most common view. Others say God looked down through time and, for reasons known only to God, elected certain individuals to be called to salvation.

Either group poses its own set of problems. Follow? Stay with me now. If God only predestined those He knew would believe, then God's sovereignty is forfeited to the will of man (God's will becomes the prisoner of man's will. Folks, that can never happen. On the other hand, if God picked out some people and saved them whether they wanted to be saved or not, then the free will of man is a joke) people become nothing more than mere automatons who have no say in whether they will come to God or not. This view also paints God as a creator who is cruel, as if He said, "Yeah, you know what, some people are just going to suffer in hell, and I'm going to create them anyway."

Let's complicate things just a little bit more. Ephesians 1:4-6 says:

"Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved."

This passage tells us God chose us out before the foundations of the world and saved us by His grace.

So how do we understand this problem? First, I flatly reject the notion that man's will carries more weight than God's will. God is never to be held captive to the whims of men. But I also reject the idea that God handpicked a few for heaven and the rest for hell. I don't buy that either. So let's try to untangle this by looking at what the Bible actually tells us about getting saved.

First, man does not initiate salvation. Man is dead in sin, therefore he is incapable of coming to God on his own. Salvation is dependent upon the sinner being called to come to God by the Spirit of God. Look up the two verses in John chapter 6 later in your devotions.

Secondly, the death of Christ on the cross was for the sins of all mankind. When Jesus died, He was dying for the sins of the world.

Thirdly, only those who receive the atoning death of Christ by faith are saved through His blood. John 5:24 and, of course, the great John 3:16.

Fourthly, there is no escaping the fact that believers were chosen by God before the world began, as we just saw in Ephesians 1:4-6.

But wait, the Bible says "whosoever will may come." Doesn't that mean anyone can be saved? Yes, but only if they've been called by the Spirit of God. The bottom line in this whole matter is this: Jesus died for the sins of the entire human race. His gift of salvation is freely offered to all people everywhere. However, people will not want the gift unless they are specifically called by the Spirit of God to receive it. When God calls someone to salvation, He moves in their life in such a way that they want to come. They want what He wants. God is absolutely sovereign in the matter of salvation, just as He is in every other manner of life.

Imagine it this way, a crude analogy, but stick with me. Two men are playing the game of chess. One is an accomplished master of the game, who knows thousands of strategies, thousands of ways to play and get to the end game. The other is just a novice who basically knows the castley thing goes forward and sideways, the little bishopy thing goes diagonal, and just the basic rules of the game. As the game progresses, the master skillfully moves his opponent to a place where he has no other alternative but to surrender his king to the chess master. The master has brought his opponent to a place where they both share the same will. Does this make sense? It's a crude analogy, but it makes the point that God's sovereign will is fulfilled while the will of the human is not violated. God works in our lives to bring us to a place where we will surrender to His will for our lives.

So look, salvation is for all people, but no person can be saved apart from the call of the Spirit of God. Let it be stated: no one can be saved apart from the call of God, and those who are called were chosen in Christ before the world began. Let it also be said that God has chosen out no one specifically for condemnation. God gives all humankind light, but the elect are extended an effectual call. They respond to this call, and they are saved according to God's eternal purpose. The two things may seem contradictory, but they are not. They are merely mysteries that we cannot solve on this side of heaven. It's by faith we know this is true.

Salvation is a mystery. A mystery that will not be solved until we get home in glory.

Predestined, Called, Justified, Glorified

This is also based on the omnipotence of God. The end result of all this is God's desire to make us like His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 29 tells us we have been predestined for this great honor. The word predestined means to mark off the boundaries ahead of time, that is, before we were even born, God had already determined that we would be saved and that we would bear the image of the Lord Jesus Christ in our new heavenly home. God's overarching purpose in salvation is to remake the image of His Son into every believer who is professing saved Jesus Christ over their life. Every person who really believes in Jesus, who is called His, is going to be made into the image of Jesus.

Jesus is called the "firstborn." This word comes from the same root we get the English word prototype, a perfect model that is made before a product goes into mass production. Jesus is our prototype. Just as He conquered death, so shall we. Just as He is glorified, so shall we be. Just as He is holy, so shall we be. Just as He inhabits heaven, so shall we.

How do I know this? Verse 30. Here we're told that He foreknew us and that He predestined us. Those He predestined, He called. Those He called, He justified. Those He justified, He glorified.

The whole point of the verse is this: in Jesus, we are absolutely secure. Why? Verse 28 tells us God is working out His purpose in us, making us into the image of Jesus. Why do all that work and then just toss us aside? Verse 29 tells us God has already decided that we will be like Jesus someday. It's a done deal.

In verse 30, every one of those words is in what's called the aorist tense in the Greek, a tense roughly equivalent to our past tense. We were predestined, past tense. We were called, past tense. We were justified, declared righteous, past tense. We were glorified, past tense. In the mind of God, we are already with Him in heaven. We are already sinless. We are already glorified. And we are as good for heaven as if we are already there.

The Big If

If you are saved, and that's the big if, you are saved forever. Nothing can or will derail the purpose of God concerning you. If you are saved, you will be saved forever. If you are in Jesus, you'll be in Jesus forever.

That's the big disconnect in the consumer Christianity of America. "Well, I said the prayer." The Bible does say, "Confess with your mouth." Yes. But if you just said a prayer under some emotional trip and never surrendered your life, and you're still the god of your life, and you just added Jesus on to what you already had going on, you might want to examine yourself, as the Scripture says, to see if you are indeed saved.

When you are saved, you come to Jesus and you lay down your life. You say, "I don't want this sinful life anymore. I see righteousness in You, Jesus, and I see that You're going to remake me into the image of Yourself, and I want that more than I want my next breath." You surrender your life to Christ, and He then claims you and takes your place. He takes your punishment on Himself. He becomes your substitute. That's what's going down on the cross. That's different than asking Jesus into your heart. It's a bigger thing.

And when you examine yourself and you know that you are in the faith, something happens. God sends you this peace. One of the best ways to know if you are actually in the faith is: are you sensitive to sin? Especially your own, but not just your own, the sin around you too. If sin around you causes you no sweat, and you can just go ahead and sin yourself and it's no big deal, that's possibly major trouble. Examine yourself, because when you are saved, when you are one of Jesus, and you are claiming chapter 8 verses 28 through 30, when you sin, it bothers you. The Bible says, "Daily, in keeping with repentance," we go to the Lord.

What Shall We Say to These Things?

A good way to end might be to look at the question asked in verse 32: "What shall we say to these things?" The best answer is to say, "Hey, man, glory, hallelujah, praise Jesus." That a loser like me can be declared righteous in front of a holy God, that's worth shouting about. Or we might just stand in stunned, pure amazement at the power of God. Did that ever happen to you? Do you ever just get slapped with the power of God in a way that just refreshes you and wakes you back up? Even though you've been walking with Him possibly for years, that refreshment comes, and that pure joy and amazement in God comes with it. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.

We will never get the workings of our salvation figured out while we are in this world. But we can certainly enjoy the end result. If you are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, praise God and know that you will be saved forever, and one day you will be with Jesus and you will be like Jesus.

If you are not saved, know this: if you have the desire to be, you can be, and that desire is the Spirit of God calling you to Him. It's calling you home. And if you feel that tug today, come to Jesus and be saved. Repent of your sins. Ask Jesus not just to come into your heart, but to take over your whole life, your whole being, and give up this life for the one to come.

For those of us who do know the Lord Jesus, let's live for Him and praise Him all the days of our life.