What More Can Be Said??
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28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
What more can be said? Paul has just shared one of the most profound truths concerning God’s people in verse 28.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
Do we really believe this truth? It’s easy to believe when all is going well.
How about when we lose our job? Can we say yes Lord all things work together for my good?
What about when our car breaks down one week after the washing machine broke and the refrigerator stopped working? Are we able to say “thank you Lord for bringing these things to pass in order to fulfil your glorious purpose in my life”?
What about when we find out we have cancer and the doctor says “you have maybe 3 months”. Or how about when your child’s life is taken? Or your mother or your father or you brother? Do you still believe that all things work together for your good?
Faith, true faith, puts absolute trust in God despite the circumstances
20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;
21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
Tribulation will come. Persecution should be expected, But will your faith withstand when is does come? Only true faith will stand.
But if we understand and believe the word that Paul gives us that..
“All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”
What a profound truth this is.
It’s not that some things will work together for your good. It’s not even that God will take all the bad things and make them better.
It’s that God is so sovereign and so interested in accomplishing His purpose in you that he carefully ordains and structure every detail of you life to be perfectly suited to bringing about His purpose for you. It is like God has a chisel and a hammer, the chisel is every person or circumstance in your life that causes you pain or suffering and the hammer is Satan himself and God is the master artist using both to carefully chisel away anything and everything that does not look like Christ. to make you perfect. The reason why? because this was always God’s plan for you from eternity passed to eternity future and nothing can interrupt God’s plan.
This truth is so awesome that Paul is almost speechless. and in verse 31 he says
What then shall we say to these things? It’s a rhetorical question. The obvious response would be to stand in awe or to raise a hallelujah! A truth so powerful that what more can you say? So Paul’s response is to say the same thing again in different words.
If God is for us who can be against us?
Who Is God For?
Who Is God For?
Paul says “if God is for us”. So the implication is that there are those who God is for and those who God is not for.
We could turn this statement around to the negative and say If God is against us then who could be for us.
So it’s very important that we know if God is for us. So who is God for?
As this is a restatement of vs 28.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
We talked about this before that these are not two separate qualifiers but rather one stated from two perspectives.
“Those who love God” that from our perspective. So God is for us if we love Him, that is if we truly love Him. And those who love God are the called. They are the same. We love Him only because He first loved us. So all that are the called are those who love God.
We’ve talked extensively about the effectual call of God over the last few weeks so I want to focus more on the love of God this morning. Loving God equals obedience to God.
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.
21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
So those who love God obey God.
Now this does not mean that we will always obey God in all things. If it did then that would mean that Christians would be perfect and without sin.
What it does mean is that if we say we love God and we believe we are saved and yet we have a rebellious heart towards God then we are deceiving ourselves.
A true believer is one who has humbled themselves before God and has repented of their sin and their way and has submitted themselves before Christ as Lord and Savior. A person who is the called according to His purpose has an obedient and submissive heart toward God. A proud arrogant rebellious heart toward God is an unregenerate heart that has not repented. The Gospel calls for sinners to repent and submit themselves to Jesus Christ as Lord and master.
So many millions of people have made profession of faith in some facts about Jesus, that he died for their sins and rose again and yet they have never repented of their sins, they have never submitted to Christ as Lord. They believe they are saved but they are truly lost.
The promise we find in Romans 8:28 and 8:31 is only for those who love God and are the called according to His purpose.
These are the ones who God is for.
Who Can Be Against?
Who Can Be Against?
This is an interesting question. In one sense there are many that can be against us.
In fact Paul list some of these things just a few verses down.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
So we can se a great many things can be against us so what does Paul mean in posing this question “who can be against us”? The question is in response to All things work together for our good.
So Paul’s point then is that if God almighty sovereignly has ordained every aspect of my life specifically to make me into the image of Christ. Then everything that is against me in ultimately for me. No evil plan or harmful intention can ever succeed against me, ever. In fact every evil plan and harmful intention brought against me is nothing more than a tool that God is using to perfect me. What they meant for evil God purposed for good.
Conclusion
The promises in Romans 8 are tremendous. “All things work together for Good”. “if God is For us who can be against us?” What more can we say to these things?
However, these promises are for the called only. They are not for the lost. They are not for the nominal Christian. So I ask, have you answered the call of God? Do you believe in Jesus? What do I mean believe in Jesus? To believe in Jesus is to acknowledge that Jesus Christ in Lord and that all that He says about me is truth. To believe in Jesus is to abandon every idea about your life and to accept God’s word about me. Count the cost. Don’t believe lightly. God’s grace and forgiveness is offered freely but he requires you to give your life for it.
Jesus said “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”.. “What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
I’m not asking for you to come forward or say a prayer and fill out a card. I’m asking you to repent to yield to Jesus surrender your life to Him and to spend the rest of your life serving Him. That’s what faith is.
If we surrender to Christ He gives us everything and more in return.
For the believer this morning I pray that we will be able to have the boldness that comes from knowing that all things work together for our good
Isa 54:17
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the Lord.”
