Spirit Life Determination
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Spirit Life Determination
First of all, I want to remind you today that the book of Romans was written for believers. It is a book given to those who have trusted Jesus Christ as their savior. Therefore, the message of this book is intensely Christian.
Having said that, let me say 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, but almost all views could be grouped within one of two schools of thought. First, there is the school of thought that is known as 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. According to this, many people who hold this point of view also believe that we can stop believing at any time and thus become lost again. Basically, salvation is based upon the will of man.
Then there is a school of thought that is known in very generic terms as Calvinism. This viewpoint receives its name from a 16th 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.
Now personally, my view is diametrically opposed to strict Calvinism. I lean more towards a modified Calvinism that is held by many authentic Christians in this part of the world.
I have said these things today because there are subjects that are in view of these verses. When we read Romans 8:28-30, these verses have divided people for hundreds and hundreds of years. While we will not solve the puzzle today (I'm just telling you that we're not going to completely solve the puzzle of salvation completely 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.
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. I think we will see from these verses that salvation is something that is produced by God and enjoyed by mankind. Salvation is one of those things that we had absolutely nothing to do with, but it becomes reality in our lives.
I also think it'll become clear that these verses give us the strongest arguments in the word of God for the unconditional eternal security of the authentic, truly saved believer. See, that's the rub - are you authentically saved?
The Determination of God's Promise
Romans 8:28 is a huge verse. Besides John 3:16, this may be the most beloved and claimed promise of the New Testament, and there is a good reason for that. Because life is filled with trial 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 in Paul's statement that is shocking, but it is one that is absolutely true nonetheless. 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 they will work out for good. It is a promise that is as good as the God who made it.
There's a completeness in this verse that we don't miss. It hits us in the face, and it's the word "all"—all things. In that complete list, the word "all" from Webster's Dictionary means: the whole of the greatest possible, every member or individual part, the whole number or sum. Number four is my favorite—every. And five—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 and even the things you don't understand.
Let's notice some areas where God is working out our good for his glory:
Sweet Things Work for Our Good
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. It makes us feel good about things. In fact, these are the blessings from the Lord that want us to even be 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 is when Joni Eareckson Tada quotes this verse and says you don't give thanks for all things, you give thanks in all things, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
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
Sorrowful things work for our good. Think about it now—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.
See, 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:
- Jacob in Genesis 42:36
- The tribe of Judah in Jeremiah 24:5
- The psalmist in Psalm 119:71
- Joseph in Genesis 50
- The tribe of Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33
When you are in sorrow and you want to see the hand of God moving for the good, look these up in your devotions.
Often the valley of suffering or the time of sorrow can out-teach any sermon or Bible study. See, when God allows a time of sorrow, suffering, or pain in our lives, it is always for our good and for his glory.
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
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 says: "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 weaknesses, 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
Sinful things work for our good. Now first off, Christians ought not to sin. When we do, we suffer. The Bible tells us about 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 really combine the gospel parallels to what Peter did during that time, Peter uncorked a profanity-filled tirade that he did not even know who the Lord was to a teenage servant girl. Think about that. Think about being with Jesus for three years and then doing that. And God used that. Then you've got to go to John 21 and see: "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.
You know, it may not seem like good right now sometimes, but we can still take comfort and rejoice in the completeness of God's promise. We can do that.
There's a cause and effect. These things aren't just working out for the believer; they are 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 he is able to take control of every situation in life.
You know, it's easy to forget that God's in control, and it's also flippantly easy to say, "Well, God's in control so it doesn't matter," and apathy can set in. See, 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 as an example in Matthew 14. What happened? He kept his eyes focused on the Lord, right? And he gets out of the boat and he starts walking. He decides to look back and take a selfie with the boys back in the boat, and all of a sudden he gets his eyes off Jesus and he goes down. And one of the coolest things about that story is who caught Peter? Our Savior. The Lord reached down and caught him.
I think of another story. The father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, was prone to periods of deep depression. And one day during one of those times, he came to the breakfast table to find his wife dressed in black garments. She looked as if she were going to a funeral. And Luther asked her, "Who died?" And she said, "God." And Luther got upset and he said, "Woman, that is blasphemy!" And 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.
See, 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.
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 then the question has to arise: How can I tell if I really love God?
Well, first of all, are you saved? You can't love him till you know him. 1 John 4:19 says: "We love because he first loved us."
Another question to ask yourself is: Are you obedient? John 14:15 says: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
John 14:21 doubles down on this. It's the same chapter, just a little bit later in verse 21. Jesus is talking. He says: "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."
See, you have no right to claim Romans 8:28 unless you qualify as one who loves him.
Jesus can be either good or bad. Jesus is the door. John 10:9 says this, Jesus again speaking: "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. And that's hard to hear, but that's what the Bible teaches.
You see, it is vitally important for you to love God so this great promise can be yours now and forever.
Also, I want you to see that there is a consequence to all of this. This is not a verse designed for your happiness. It is not to be taken lightly. There are consequences. This verse 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. You want to know what it is? He's doing this to make you more like Jesus.
God didn't finish with you with 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.
So the whole purpose of Romans 8:28 is to teach us that God has an eternal plan and that nothing will ever be able to change that plan. God is busy reproducing himself in each of us.
The Determination of God's Purpose
As we move into these two verses, 29 and 30, I will admit that they pose questions that I definitely cannot give you a definitive answer on. The fact is that there are no easy answers to the problems that come out of this text. If there were, we wouldn't have had these two verses divide the church for 2,000 years.
I believe that 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. However, it is how this working is carried out that poses problems for many.
What I want to do today is not settle age-old doctrinal disputes. What I hope to accomplish in telling you the truth contained in these two verses is to cause each of us to understand that God is working out an eternal plan in the life of every child of God.
These verses tell us the purpose that was mentioned in verse 28. So what has God purposed for each of us?
Let's understand, all of this is based in the omniscience of God. There are two basic interpretations to verse 29:
- One group says that 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.
- On the other hand, others say that 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. If God only predestined those who he knew would believe (he knew they would believe, and he only predestined them), then God's sovereignty is forfeited to the will of man. In other words, God was forced to accept only those whom he knew would believe on him. This forces God's will to become the prisoner of man's will. Folks, that can never happen.
Secondly, on the other hand, if God picked out some people and saved them whether they wanted to be saved or not—he just picked them out—then the free will of man is a joke. It means that people are 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 because evidently some people are just going to suffer in hell, and "I'm going to create them anyway."
As you can see, both of these views have problems.
Now 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 also tells us that God chose us out before the foundations of the world and saved us by his grace. So how do we understand this problem?
Well, first I would say that I flatly reject the notion that man carries more weight than God, that man's will carries more weight than God's will. I reject that. God is never to be held captive to the whims of men.
However, I also reject the idea that God hand-picked a few for heaven and the rest for hell. I don't buy that either.
Because I seem to be a glutton for punishment, let's see if we can untangle this matter by looking at what the Bible actually tells us about getting saved. That might be the key to being able to really process this and make sense of it in our journey.
First, man does not initiate salvation. Man is dead in sin; therefore, he is incapable of coming to God on his own. As a result, salvation is dependent upon the sinner being called to come to God by the Spirit of God. John 6:44 and John 6:65 speak to this. Therefore, salvation always begins with God. He takes the initiative.
Secondly, the death of Christ on the cross was for the sins of all mankind, of all men. When Jesus died, he was dying for the sins of the world. 1 John 2:2 and 2 Corinthians 5:15 confirm this.
Thirdly, but only those who receive the atoning death of Christ by faith are saved through his blood. Acts 16:31, Romans 10:13, and I would add 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. We just looked at Ephesians 1:4-6.
So hold on a second now, but wait—the Bible says "whosoever will may come." Doesn't that mean that anyone can be saved? Yes, but only if they've been called by the Spirit of God.
See, 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, those 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, and he is in every other matter of life.
Imagine it this way (this is kind of a crude analogy, but just stick with me): Two men are playing the game of chess. One is an accomplished master of the game and knows thousands of ways, thousands of strategies, many ways of how to play and get to the end game. The other person is just a novice who basically knows that the castle thing goes forward and sideways and the little bishop moves.
The master skillfully moves his opponent to bring him to a place where he has no other alternative but to surrender his king to the chess master. The master of the game 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. Salvation is for all people, but no person can be saved apart from the call of the Spirit of God.
Now here is where we must just kind of put this all to bed: Let it be stated that 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. 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 that this is true.
So I'm going to end this part of the discussion with this statement: Salvation is a mystery, a mystery that will not be solved until we get home in glory.
Another thing that you need to keep in mind is that 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 that we have been predestined for this great honor. The word "predestined" comes from a word that means "to mark off the boundaries ahead of time." That's what it means. 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. 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 word which we get the English word "prototype." A prototype is a perfect model that is made before a product goes into mass production. Jesus is our prototype. Just as he is, so shall we be. 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. That's the point.
How do I know this? Because of verse 30. Here we are told that he foreknew us and he predestined us. These things we've already dealt with. Now, "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? Notice in verse 28, it tells us God is working out his purpose in us. What is that purpose? He's making us into the image of Jesus. Why do all that work and then just toss us aside?
In verse 29, it tells us God has already decided that we will be like Jesus someday. It's a done deal.
In verse 30, he uses several words to speak of our journey. Now, every one of them is in what's called an aorist tense in the Greek, and this tense is roughly equivalent to our past tense. I'm not this big Greek scholar, so I had to stand on the shoulders of people who are to learn this, but it makes total sense. It's all past tense.
We were predestined—past tense. We were called—past tense. We were justified, declared righteous—that's past tense. We were glorified—past tense. In the mind of God, we are already with him in heaven. We are already sinless, and we are already glorified, and we are as good for heaven as if we were already there.
Let me give you a final word on this: If you are saved—and that's the big if—if you are saved, 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.
Now, that's the big disconnect in the consumer Christianity of America. "Well, I said the prayer." The Bible says, "Confess with your mouth..." Yes, but if you just went and said a prayer under some emotional trip, and you never surrendered your life, and you're still the god of your life, and you just added Jesus on to what you have going on, you might want to examine yourself as the scripture says to see if you are indeed saved.
Because 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." And 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.
And 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, but the sin around you? If sin around you causes you no sweat, and you can just go ahead and sin yourself, and it's no big deal, I would say you're kind of maybe possibly in major trouble. Examine yourself.
Because when you are saved, when you are one of Jesus' and you are claiming Romans 8:28-30, when you sin, it bothers you. It bothers you. The Bible says, "Daily in keeping with repentance, we go to the Lord."
So a good way to end this message might be to look at the question asked in Romans 8:31: "What shall we say to these things?" I think the best answer is to say, "Amen. Glory. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus that a loser like me can be declared righteous in front of a holy God."
Or we might, like what happened to me earlier this week in my office preparing this stuff, just stand in stunned, pure amazement at the power of God. Has that ever happened 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. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
See, 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. He's calling you home. And if you feel that tug today, then come to Jesus and be saved. Come to Jesus. Repent of your sins. Ask Jesus not just to come into your heart, but to take over your whole life, your whole being, and that you give up this life for the one to come.
May that be your journey if you do not know the Lord Jesus. For those of us who do know the Lord Jesus, let's live for him and let's praise him all the days of our life.