Romans 8 - Week 4

INTRO

ASK: What series are we in? Who remembers what Pastor Tyler talked about last week?

SAY: Last week, Tyler did an incredible job of unpacking a really beautiful section of this text and also an equally challenging section of this text. He talked more about the keys to unlock the mysteries and depth of the Bible—anyone remember the specific

“key” he mentioned (flow of thought)?

And with that key of understanding Paul’s flow of thought, we saw that first of all, the amazing part of being in Christ is that it means

we are in God’s family!

This is great news! Then, Paul’s flow of thought shifts to how, as members of God’s family,

we are going to face suffering.

This is the challenging part of last week’s text that Tyler handled so well. Because suffering is an inevitable part of living in a broken world, and there are times that we may face specific kinds of suffering simply because we are in God’s family, but the comfort that Paul offered the Romans and that is true also for us is that we don’t suffer without hope—we have hope in the eternal glory that is to come because we are in God’s family. And that’s even better news!

This week, we are continuing Paul’s flow of thought and we’re going to see how he really puts an exclamation mark at the end of this chapter by seeing that…

Bottom Line: Christians can have hope because God is for us.

Let’s pray before we dive in tonight...

BODY

Tonight we’re going to be starting in chapter 8 verse 28. So let’s look there now:

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,” (v. 28)

The very first thing we notice tonight is this truth...

God is for us in all things.

Verse 28 is one that often gets taken out of context. It’s a really beautiful promise when we understand it properly, but it can quickly get distorted. Before we move on, let’s take a closer look at it and discover if there are any keys hidden just under the surface that will help us unlock this text.

One of the keys we talked about a couple weeks ago is careful study of the words in each verse.

First, we see Paul start the sentence with the word “and.” That’s a conjunction. Any time I see a sentence start with a conjunction, I ask myself, what came directly before this sentence? In our case, it was everything Tyler talked about in last week’s message. Particularly Paul’s note about enduring suffering and being comforted by the Spirit’s presence in our lives, according to the will of God.

So, now, Paul is saying “and,” or “to add to that point…” what else goes along with God’s will for our lives and his comfort in our suffering?

“…that [for those who love God] all things work together for good.”

See, according to this text, part of God’s expressly stated will for my life is that I might be comforted by His Spirit and that I might experience his goodness in all things.

Here’s where this passage quickly gets tricky though. What exactly are “all things” that Paul is referring to? There’s a couple of ways we can answer that question right here within the text: we can look back and we can look forward. In the end, we’ll get the same answer: “all things” here mostly refers to sufferings we may face as God’s people. Look ahead to verse 35 and see the list that Paul lays out:

“tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword…For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered,” (Rom 8:35; cf. Ps. 44:22).

This coincides with what Paul was just talking about before we got to verse 28: suffering. Paul is continuing his flow of thought from last week’s message and offering even more of an argument for why we can have hope in suffering: because God is for us in all things—not just the good things.

Illustrate: You learn more from your failures than your successes. This is true in sports, relationships, school, and so many other parts of your life. (Share personal story about learning from failure at Student Life)

Apply: Some of you may be walking through some of these “all things” that Paul is referencing right now. One way to apply this text is to commit this verse to memory and remember that even in the middle of your “all things” God is for you. And he is going to work for your good and his glory.

Some of you might be in a place where you just aren’t ready to hear that. You can’t imagine anything good coming out of your current circumstance. And if that’s what God is planning to do, then he must seem pretty cruel to you. I get that. Please don’t run away or push God away if you’re walking through hurt and pain right now. Trust that he is still for you. And if you’re wondering what kind of “good” can come from “all things,” Paul is about to take us there.

Lets follow his flow of thought to the next verse:

“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 who the called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified,” (v. 29-30).

The next way that we see God is for us in this text is that...

God is for us in how he changes us.

This verse is another famous tag line from Paul’s letter to the Romans and it is another one that can easily be misunderstood if we aren’t careful to read it in context.

Side note: I guess the “key” for tonight is really learning to read the words of the Bible slowly, deliberately, and take note of how the words fit next to other words on the page—in other words, “context.” If we can all get in the habit of not just reading a single verse or thinking of the Bible as a series of “tweet-able” ideas, but rather as a single story telling one unified message, we will unlock a ton of beautiful and wonderful rooms in the castle/mansion that is the Bible.

Anyway, back to the text: this passage talks about the way God changes us. Notice Paul says: those whom God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. This is God’s predestined will and purpose for us as Christians:

to be changed by God to look more and more like Jesus! In Christian terms, this is what we like to call “sanctification.”

Some of us might not like that idea: we think things like, “I’m my own person—no one is going to tell me what to do or who to be, I am a free-thinking individual!” This is how culture often encourages us to live.

I’ve been there. And if that’s you, I would invite you to humbly consider that there may be areas of your life where change might actually be beneficial. And ultimately, what God wants to change us into is something more glorious and magnificent than we could be apart from him. He wants to change us to be more like his Son—Jesus!

In this effort, God is not working against you, he’s working with you and for you!

Illustrate: Look at this massive block of marble. Imagine being Michelangelo or da Vinci or another great sculptor. Imagine coming to this block of marble and telling it exactly what kind of beautiful masterpiece you wanted to turn it into. Imagine dreaming of this magnificent creation that would be displayed for all of history to see and admire—that is what this marble could become in your hands. But then, imagine that block of marble looking at you, the master sculptor and builder and creator and saying, “no thank you. I would like to stay just as I am. What you are attempting to do is going to be too painful and too tedious for me.” And imagine that marble walking away and never being able to realize its full potential. When God looks at us, he sees great blocks of marble that he wants to form into the image of his Son. He wants to do tough and honest work in our lives to change us and make us beautiful.

This is how “all things work together for good” for those of us who love God. The “good” we are experiencing is God’s changing work in our lives, by any means necessary.

This passage famously lends itself to much discussion and debate about how God changes us, with all the words like “foreknew, predestined, called, glorified, justified,” and we don’t have time to go into all the details and specifics in this message.

If that’s really your jam and you want to nerd out about that stuff, I’ll be here all night and we can talk through that.

Suffice it to say for the sake of this time together that God’s plan to change you for your good is intentional, it’s purposeful, and he promises that it will be accomplished.

Apply: There might be some areas of your life that God is chiseling out right now. Let him. Sometimes, our journey of sanctification involves the confession and repentance of sins as God reveals them to us.

If God is revealing a sin struggle in your life that you need to confess, talk to your D-Group leader tonight. Don’t wait. And for others in this room, the application here might simply be to be patient with yourself and with God and know that even if you aren’t at exactly the place you want to be in your journey of being changed to look more like Jesus, it’s okay. God has promised that it will be accomplished.

He is still working in your life. Don’t be discouraged!

The gospel is the greatest proof that God is for us.

“What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (v. 31-35).

This is one of the most succinct and powerful gospel presentations recorded in Scripture. If you’ve ever wondered “what is the gospel?” This text is a GREAT place to go to find out exactly what it is.

First of all, Paul again references “these things”—what is he saying? Basically, in light of all I’ve said about suffering, and our hope in the midst of it, here’s what’s really important. And then the line where we are getting our bottom line for tonight: if God is for us, who can be against us? That’s a rhetorical question: we don’t actually need to answer. The answer is obvious because of all that Paul has already said: no one can.

Why can no one stand against us? Why can we have hope in the face of suffering? How can we know for certain that God is for us? Because he proved it in the gospel.

What is the gospel?

God gave up his Son Jesus (God in the flesh)

For us all (anyone can receive the saving work of Jesus)

God justifies the elect (all who trust in Jesus) — this means he declares us innocent despite the charges rightly brought against us.

So that we are not condemned (that’s circling right back to verse 1 of this chapter) How is this possible? Because…

Jesus died and was raised and ascended to the right hand of God and now intercedes for us.

Illustrate: this means that when we place our faith in Jesus, it’s like having Jesus vouching for us. It’s on his reputation that we’re granted access, it’s because of his name that I am accepted, not my own. This is the gospel.

CONCLUSION

All of tonight’s message can be summed up in Paul’s final words in Romans 8. As the band comes up and prepares to lead us in our final song tonight, let’s read these words and let them soak in. Let them wash over you. Whether you’ve been a Christian for the majority of your life, or you just recently started following Jesus, or you would say that tonight you aren’t even sure where you stand with Jesus; hear these words and know that this is the kind of love that our God has for you and wants to share with you in Christ:

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, no angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (v. 38-39).

Bottom Line: God is for you. His love for you in Christ cannot be fully measured. And he wants to share that love with you.

Let’s pray.