During this Easter Season we can have many questions but we can rest in Faith in the One who has all the answers! Everything is secure in His Hands. Romans 8:28-30, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose…”
- A) Romans 8:30: “Those He called He also justified…” Romans 5:1, “Since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Justification = Declared not guilty, no record of ever having committed wrong, removed from record, acquitted, legally as if we had never been accused. Marked, treated as being in a right standing before God.
- B) Romans 8:30b “Those He Justified He also glorified.”
God’s Glory is described in New Bible Dictionary: “The revelation and character and the presence of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ.” Hebrews 1:3, “The radiance of God’s glory…”
- John 1:14: “We have seen His glory the glory of the One and Only…full of Grace and Truth.” – Colossians 1:27b “Christ in you the hope of glory.”
We anticipate it, we look forward to it. It is more than we can imagine or dream about. 1 Corinthians 2:9 (Isaiah 64:4) “No eye has seen no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” No one can even imagine what God’s glory is like. We will: See God’s glory, see Christ in His glory and share that glory! Romans 8:29, ‘Predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.’
- 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Major questions people are asking today: Does life have meaning and purpose? Why am I here? Is there a God? Is this all there is? I feel so lonely, where is God when it hurts? Why did Jesus have to die? etc.
Romans 8:31-35a challenges us to consider what God has done for us in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ.
- 1. Ultimate Question v. 31,
“What, then, shall we say in response to this? (see Romans 8) If (since) God be for us, who can be against us?
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (New Living Translation): “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It is God’s way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do.”
Dr. Alexander MacLaren: “The sum of the whole matter is this: He who is one in will and heart with God is a Christian. He who loves God is one in will and heart with Him. He who trusts Christ loves God. That is Christianity in its ultimate purpose and result. That is Christianity in its means and working forces. That is Christianity in its starting point and foundation.”
- 2. Ultimate Gift 32a, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.”
2 Corinthians 5:21, “made sin” for us, and Galations 3:15, “made a curse.”
- Luke 22:42-44, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done…being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, His sweat was like great drops of blood.”
- Matthew 27:46, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Colossians 2:14-15 (NLT): “He canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross. In this way, God disarmed the evil rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross of Christ.”
- 3. Ultimate Grace 32b “how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things.”
John Newton: (Amazing Grace) “I am not what I might be, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be. But I thank God I am not what I once was, and I can say with the great apostle, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’” He gives us all things, spiritual and material. This is the “all things” in V. 28: “And we know that in all things God works…”
- John Piper: “God is taking every setback and every discouragement and every controversy and every pressure and every pain and stripping it of its destructive power and making it work for the enlargement of my joy in God?”
- 4. The Ultimate Conclusion 33-34, no ‘charge’ or ‘condemnation’
Christian Believers have a security that rests in God and what Christ has accomplished. We have the certainty of God’s promises Romans 8:35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
- Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones: “The glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it.”
Something to think about!
Your friend and Pastor, Jim