A Glorious Text
Notes
Transcript
It was Job who said “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” (Job 14:1). He said that in the midst of the greatest trial he ever faced. Job is one of the great examples in Scripture of what it means to face unbearable trials yet survive them by the grace of God.
Our text today is meant as both a warning and an encouragement for believers. It’s clear by the context that by “all things” Paul means the difficult things in life.
In chapter seven Paul spoke of the difficulty of battling the sin nature. He called himself a wretched man and prayed for deliverance from this body of death (7:24). In chapter 8:22 he spoke of groaning and in 8:23 he spoke of waiting. These aren’t things we enjoy.
In 8:26 Paul says that there are times we don’t even know how to pray. If we can’t pray what can we do? Normally when all else fails we say “All we can do now is pray.”
It’s clear that Paul is speaking about the difficulty of the Christian life. That’s why in 8:31-39 Paul beautifully describes the security of the believer. He tells us that nothing will separate us from the love of God. Not life, death, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height, depth, nor any creature can separate us from the love of God!
The reality is, through trial separation from God is sometimes feared. David, in the midst of soul wrenching trial cried out to God “Cast me not away from Thy presence” (Psalm 51:11).
God understands our weakness. He knows how frail we are. Psalm 103:14 says “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” By His grace God gives us verses like Romans 8:28. We cannot live by bread alone so He gives us the hearty meat of His Word to give us strength when we feel like giving up. I want to share five things with you from this text to encourage you when you are going through troubled waters.
1. The certainty of the text.
Paul says “We know”. When we’re in the midst of a trial there are things we may not know.
We may not know why the trial has come.
We may not know when the trial will end.
We may not know how difficult the trial will become.
Focusing on what we do not know will never bring relief. Our text sets our minds at ease with certainty.
Paul doesn’t say we think.
Paul doesn’t say we speculate.
Paul doesn’t say we guess.
Paul says we know.
There are many different directions we could go with this truth but let’s settle on one. This verse means that if we are saved now we will always be saved. How could we know that all things are working together for good if one day we could end up in hell. My friend if we end up in hell all things were not working together for good! There’s nothing worse than being in hell.
Spurgeon said of this verse
“To the sinner, however, all things work together for evil. Is he prosperous? He is as a beast that is fattened for the slaughter. Is he healthy? He is as the blooming flower that is ripening for the mower’s scythe. Does he suffer? His sufferings are the first drops of the eternal hailstorm of divine vengeance. Everything to the sinner, if he could but open his eye, has a black aspect.”
It’s the opposite for the believer! The devil had better do all he can to us on this side of eternity because he can’t lay a finger on us in heaven! It is that knowledge that brings us joy!
Am I broke on this earth? I’m rich in heaven!
Am I lonely on this earth? I have a family in heaven!
Am I sick on this earth? I am healthy in heaven!
There’s an old hymn that says
I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.
But “I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
If I know I win the game why should the scoreboard bother me at halftime?
Our salvation is not dependent upon ourselves!
Our salvation is not dependent on whether or not we pass the test we’re going through!
Our salvation is dependent upon Jesus Christ and Hebrews 7:25 says “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”
We may face hell but we know we’re headed to heaven! There is a certainty in this text!
2. The situations of the text.
Paul says “all things”. Let’s think of some things God uses for our good and His own glory.
A. Sinful things. It seems odd that God would use sin. Sin is the work of the devil and it’s difficult for us to imagine that God would use evil in any way. Please hear me:
He is a wicked devil.
He is an evil devil.
He is a murderous devil.
He is a lying devil.
He is a thieving devil.
But he is God’s devil!
What Satan means for evil God will always use for good. Think of the Garden of Eden. Sin entered the world and Satan laughed. How is that used for the glory of God?
If sin had not entered the world we would know nothing of God’s forgiveness, mercy, grace. All of those things would be foreign to us. God is known in ways He could not have been known had sin not entered the world. Our love for Him is deeper because we have experienced His forgiveness. That doesn’t justify our sin but it certainly shows that God is in control of even sinful things and He is working them for His glory and our good.
Most of our worship songs center on forgiveness, mercy and grace! Forgiveness, mercy and grace don’t exist if the Fall of Man never occurred.
Even in my own life I see how God uses sinful things. God used a hangover for my own good. I was hung-over on a Sunday morning. I went to my grandmothers to get food and recuperate. One of her friends invited me to church and I was saved that Sunday night! All things! Even sinful things!
B. Painful things. For the believer, pain is not without purpose. That’s difficult for us to understand but it’s true! The more we mature in Christ the easier it is to recognize that pain often works for our own good. In our immaturity we don’t understand it.
Think of brushing a little girl’s hair. Oh, the agony! I have a daughter and I remember those days when she was young. It was like she was being water boarded when her mom brushed her hair.
Think of giving a little boy a bath. They’ll convince you that you’ve blinded them with the Johnson & Johnson shampoo.
Do you remember the story in John 9 of a man born bind? The disciples were trying figure out why he was born blind. Did his parents sin? Did he sin in the womb? Jesus said the man was born blind so the works of God could be revealed. Jesus healed the man and it testified to the glory of Christ.
But back up twenty-five or thirty years. Trying to explain to those parents that all things would work together for good would have been difficult. That’s their baby! The struggles he faced in a first century world would have been unlike anything we know. He faced those struggles for at least twenty-five or thirty years I’d say. It was a painful thing but ultimately God used it.
Just a couple of years ago I sat at a hospital with my mom wondering if she’d ever wake up. For thirty seven days she was in a coma. It was painful. It sapped the energy out of me. I made sixteen trips from middle Georgia to Jacksonville Fl within a couple of months.
By God’s grace she woke up. She surprised all the doctors and us as well. In a matter of days she was walking and talking. In a matter of months she was in church sharing her testimony of God’s grace. My sister came to one of those services. We had been praying for her salvation for twenty years. She was saved after hearing my mother’s testimony. It was a painful thing but God used it.
C. God uses everything.
God doesn’t keep us from every evil thing. God uses every evil thing for our good and His own glory.
He will use an addiction to show you He’s more powerful than a substance.
He’ll use an awful relationship to show you He’s more loving than people.
In fact, if it weren’t for awful things we wouldn’t have much of the Bible. If it were not for suffering we wouldn’t have many of the Psalms or the entire book of Job.
Thousands of years have passed and God is still using the situations of Jobs life. God is still using the situations of David’s life.
Perhaps you have someone in your life that likes to go to yard sales. Or maybe they enjoy shopping for useless things. You say to them “Why are buying that, you’ll never use it!” Or perhaps you have someone in your home who refuses to throw stuff away despite the fact that it’s likely they’ll never use it. Nothings worse than having a bunch of junk that will never be used.
Rest assured believer, there is nothing in your life that God will not use. Every situation He brings into your life He is going to use.
3. The sovereignty of the text.
Paul says these things are working together for good. It isn’t the things working for our good. It is God who is causing the things to work together for our good.
This means God is active in your life. He is the potter and we are the clay. He is molding us. He is shaping us. As believers we are not just in God’s hand, God’s hands are on us as well.
When you’re at the red light He’s molding you.
When you’re at the DMV He’s shaping you.
We have been bought with a price. We belong to God. He owns us. He has absolute right over every aspect of our lives.
God doesn’t need our permission.
God doesn’t need our approval.
He is sovereign. He is working on His creation. He knows what we need and He knows when we need it.
God never says “I can’t believe what happened to Kyle.” It was Adrian Rogers who said “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God?”
But God isn’t just aware of our circumstances He is active in our circumstances. He is working every ingredient into the recipe of our lives. He’s kneading the dough.
I don’t like raw flour.
I don’t eat butter by the stick.
I don’t drink buttermilk.
I don’t like Crisco out of the can.
But when my wife or daughter take all those ingredients and work them together and put them in the oven some wonderful biscuits come out and I love biscuits!
God is sovereign. He is taking every situation in our lives and purposefully using it for our good and His own glory.
4. The subjects of the text.
This is the greatest description of believers in the Bible. Believers are “those who love God”. How do we know a person is saved? They love God!
They love God despite the trials!
They love God despite the tears!
They love God despite the rejection!
They love God despite the cancer!
They love God despite the loss!
They love God despite the handicap!
If we stop loving God because of our circumstances we only prove that we love ourselves more than we love God.
It was Job who said “Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.” (Job 13:15)
He loved God when he lost his wealth.
He loved God when he lost his children.
He loved God when he lost his health.
He loved God when his own wife turned her back on him.
Trials should only push us deeper into the arms of our loving Savior. When an animal is pursued by a predator it heads to the safest place it knows. That could be a hole, a tree, a swamp, or a cave. When the believer is pursued by the world the flesh and the devil he doesn’t forsake the safest place he knows. He heads deep into the love of Christ.
All the trials in this world can’t erase from our minds the demonstration of love we see in Christ. We look at the cross. In the cross we see both the worst and greatest thing that has ever happened on this earth. We see an innocent man die and we see guilty people pardoned.
Is there any better illustration of all things working together for good than the cross? God doesn’t just tell us to bear our burdens. God has tasted the burdens we bear. Christ lived this text!
All things were working together!
The slander
The rejection
The hate
The lies
The injustice
The beatings
The spit
The humiliation
The splinters
The spikes
The laughter
The spear
The death
It all worked together for good. The old hymnist said:
See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.
The believer takes his eyes off of his own suffering and places them on the suffering of Christ. We love Him because He first loved us. Before we lived for Him He died for us. We love Christ in the midst of every trial because we know our trials are nothing compared to what He has endured for us.
5. The Splendor of the text.
The text ends with the phrase “and are called according to His purpose.”
If you’re wondering what that purpose is look at verses 29-30. Paul walks through the entire process of salvation.
Salvation ends in glorification.
If you are saved it has been God’s plan for all of eternity to save you. That’s His purpose for your life. We get caught up in all of these earthly purposes. We think if we don’t have some great talent or some great job we don’t have much purpose.
The truth is, it’s God’s purpose on this earth for some to be bankers and others to be janitors. For some to rich and others be poor. But it is God’s purpose for every single believer to be glorified. It is God’s purpose to fit you for heaven and it is God’s purpose to put you in heaven. It is God’s purpose to keep you in heaven for all eternity.
This one thing encourages me to endure all other things!
2 Corinthians 4:16-17 says:
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
I love to sing of heaven! I love that old hymn:
Trials dark on ev'ry hand,
and we cannot understand
All the ways that God would lead us
to that blessed Promised Land;
But He'll guide us with His eye,
and we'll follow till we die;
We will understand it better by and by.
Oft our cherished plans have failed,
disappointments have prevailed,
And we've wandered in the darkness,
heavyhearted and alone;
But we're trusting in the Lord,
and according to His Word,
We will understand it better by and by.
Temptations, hidden snares
often take us unawares.
And our hearts are made to bleed
for some thoughtless word or deed.
And we wonder why the test
when we try to do our best,
We will understand it better by and by.
By and by, when the morning comes,
When the saints of God are gathered home,
We will tell the story how we've overcome;
We will understand it better by and by.
Every saint will face adversity but every saint will enter heaven. It was Paul who said in Romans 8:18 “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
What a great verse!
The certainty of it!
The situations of it!
The sovereignty of it!
The subjects of it!
The splendor of it!