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Collierville First Baptist Church
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Well, good morning. I'm glad that you're at church today.
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If you're joining us on live stream, and I hope and pray that our families who are vacationing because of spring break, I hope you're joining us today.
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Last night I conducted a poll on Facebook.
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It involved one question.
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What's your favorite Bible verse?
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Interestingly, most of the responses centered on God's promises. They were Bible verses that contained promises from God. Now what was interesting is many of you couldn't contain yourself to one verse. You gave me whole chapters.
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You gave me sections of scripture and that's okay. I'm glad that you love the Word of God so much that you couldn't reduce yourself down to one favorite verse. Some even gave me their favorite chapters and I praise God for that.
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Some of these promises that you mentioned as your favorites.
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I think the number one vote getter was Jeremiah 29 11
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and then Proverbs 3 5 and 6 and Philippians 4 13 and John 3 16.
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Now we've made promises to our family, to our friends. We've even made promises to God before.
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Promises are made and promises are broken.
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But you need to know that when God makes a promise, he always keeps it. He never fails to keep his promises. Now today I want you to take your Bible turn to Romans chapter 8 verse 28
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and I want to share with you a message I've entitled God's Amazing Promise.
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I want us to put it on the screen if we can Romans 8 28, the words to Romans 8 28 and I want us to say it together. Let's say this together.
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And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
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That's God's Amazing Promise. Now we're going to discover today that that promise is not a universal promise to the whole human race.
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That is a promise that's made only to born again believers.
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Now the truth that radiates out of this astonishing amazing verse is a simple one. Last week's truth was the best is yet to come.
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This week out of this one verse of scripture, the truth is this, you can count on God.
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I promise you, whatever you're going through in your life today, you can count on God.
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Now this verse is misused by many because they rip it out of its context. A lot of people just want to quote the first part of that verse. All things work together or God causes all things work together for good and they stop. But you can't stop there.
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There is a part B to part A and you can't recall one part of the verse without giving the whole verse. But not only do people do that, but people are not aware of the fact that this verse is situated right after Romans chapter 8, verse 18 to 27.
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We looked at that last week. The message last week was entitled living in a broken world. Our world is broken. I know you know that.
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And suffering, the two main words in last week's text was suffering and glory.
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Suffering and glory.
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Now, because we live in a broken world, we're suffering forces believers to deal with the harsh realities of life. It's very important that we remember that the best is yet to come. Last week, we talked about the importance of developing the right perspective of looking forward to redemption, of praying with genuine confidence. I want you to know, if you're born again believer in this room today, you are eternally secure in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has you in His hand and the Father has you in His hand and nobody can rip you out of the hand of the Father or the hand of the Son. You are eternally secure in Christ.
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Now, I want us to take this one verse of scripture and I want us to pick it apart. I want us to look at it in its pieces. Okay. So number one, I want you to know about this promise. It is a confident promise.
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Notice the first three words.
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And we know and we know. Now the word know refers to an absolute positive awareness, which the Holy Spirit makes real in our hearts and our minds.
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Now, what you know is very important.
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It can change your perspective about life and about living in a broken world.
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Our ability to have this kind of confidence is based on the character of God.
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You see, God is faithful.
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God is truthful.
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God has unlimited power.
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God is sovereign.
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God is full of grace and mercy.
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God is good. God is just. And I could go on and on and on listing the attributes of God, the characteristics of God.
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I want you to know that Paul had confidence in this promise that he wrote about in Romans 8 28. And he had confidence in this promise because he had confidence in the character of God.
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You've seen God take bad stuff in your life, haven't you?
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And unbeknown to you, at some point in the future, you look back and you see how God took that bad stuff in your life and used it for your benefit and for his glory. At the time, you had no clue as to what God was really doing. But I tell you, you can know that based on the character of God, whatever you're going through right now, God will make it for your benefit and for his glory. You can know that instinctively and you can know that experientially.
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Now, here's our truth now. I want you to remember this. You can count on God. So we've got here a confident promise.
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But we also have here, number two, a comprehensive promise.
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Notice, what do we know? We know that God causes all things to work together for good.
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Notice those first three little words that God causes.
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I'll tell you, they are pregnant with meaning.
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You need to understand that every aspect of your life is under the control of the sovereign hand of God. God takes everything that he allows into your life and he uses it for his glory and for your benefit and your good. You see, only God can do that.
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Now, if you've traveled down Houston Levy Road near the construction of the new global Methodist Church, you've noticed a sign.
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That sign says, "Men at work."
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Men at work.
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There are times in our lives when we are swept up in the whirlwind of pain and heartache and suffering.
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But I want you to miss this, that God causes all things to work together for good. Do you believe that? In your heart, do you believe that? Well, look at this. God is always energetically, powerfully, and purposefully at work in your life as a believer. Even at moments that you would deem to be moments of despair. He's at work. You can count on him to be at work in your life. Now, you may not understand why you are going through what you're going through at the time,
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but you can rest assured that God is at work. Now, notice this. That God causes all things.
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Underline that in your Bible, all things to work together for good.
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Now, these two words encompass the sufferings that we read about in verse 17 and the groanings we read about in verse 23.
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Now, we love this verse when things are going great in our lives.
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But I tell you, we struggle with this verse when we're standing over the grave, the freshly dug grave of a loved one.
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We struggle with this verse when our child is sick and our child has an incurable disease.
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We struggle with this verse when things are going bad in our lives.
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In Psalm 27, David was going through a very difficult time.
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Absalom, his son, had rebelled against David, and Absalom was leading a revolt,
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trying to remove his dad from kingship and trying himself to sit on the throne of Israel.
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And David was vacillating in this Psalm, Psalm 27, between fear and faith, faith and fear, back and forth.
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His experience speaks volumes to us as we wrestle with God's amazing promise in Romans 8.28.
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In Psalm 27, verses 13 and 14, here's what David wrote. It's so important that you hear this and that you let this seep into your heart. Because some of you, let's be honest, some of you right now are going through very difficult times.
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And you're thinking in your mind, "Well, Pastor, that's not such an amazing promise to me. I just don't see how this is working."
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Listen to what David said. Psalm 27, verse 13 and 14, he said, "I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
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Verse 14, "Wait for the Lord." Hey, you may not understand it right now, David's saying. "Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage." Yes, wait for the Lord. It'll become clear one day.
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MacArthur spoke to this struggle when he wrote this.
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He said, "No matter what our situation, our suffering, our persecution, our sinful failure, our pain, our lack of faith in those things, as well as in all other things, our Heavenly Father will work to produce our ultimate victory and blessing." I love this. The corollary of that truth is that nothing can ultimately work against us.
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Do you hear that?
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Nothing can ultimately work against us.
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Is Paul saying that suffering and evil and tragedy are good?
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Is that what he's saying? No, not at all. Is he saying that things have a way of working out?
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No, that's not what he's saying.
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Is he saying that we will instantly understand God's actions?
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Absolutely not.
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Notice these two words, "work together."
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It's a translation of a Greek term from which we get the English word "synergy."
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Synergy means that different things work together to accomplish something greater than they could produce individually.
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I read about Randy Alcorn. When he was a little boy, Randy Alcorn's written a ton of books.
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When he was a little boy, he loved his mama's cakes. One day, she had all the ingredients for a fresh cake out on the counter.
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She had sugar, she had flour, she had baking powder, raw egg, and vanilla extract all out there on the counter.
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Randy, being his mischievous little self, decided that he would taste each of those ingredients individually.
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Here's his report.
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He said the only thing that tasted moderately good was sugar.
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He said everything else was absolutely horrible. He watched as his mom put all those ingredients in a bowl.
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She got the mixer and she began to mix those ingredients.
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Then she took that batter and she poured it into a pan and she put it in the oven. It came out and she put icing on the cake. Here's what he said, "It didn't make sense to me that the combination of individually distasteful things
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produced such a tasteful product."
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Now, we may not understand when we're going through hard stuff.
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We may not see the hand of God, but even though you can't see the hand of God, you can always trust the heart of God, always 100% of the time. So here's the bottom line.
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You can count on God.
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You can count on God.
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We have here a confident promise, a comprehensive promise, including all things that happens in your life, the good and the bad.
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And then thirdly, we have a conditional promise.
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Notice the Bible says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose." And that's what many people leave off in this verse.
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Many people want the first part of the verse because it seems to be a universal blessing to the whole world, to every human being.
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But I'll tell you, there's limitations here.
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It's a conditional promise.
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It's to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
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Now, notice those two words, "love God."
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If I were to walk up and down the roads of this sanctuary today and ask you, "Do you love God?"
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Every one of you would say, "Yes, I love God." If I went to the square on Tuesday afternoon and I went up to people I've never seen before in my life, "Do you love God?" The vast majority of them would say, "Yes, I love God."
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But what does it mean to really love God? We throw those two words around haphazardly many times.
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But what does it mean to love God? Let me tell you, loving God spans both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
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In Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5, Moses wrote, "Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God.
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The Lord is one.
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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
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So it's not just a symbolic type of love. It's not an emotional kind of love. It's loving God with all your heart, with all your mind, and all your soul.
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Notice Mark, chapter 12, verses 28 and 31.
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"One of the scribes came and heard them arguing and recognized that he had answered them well." That's Jesus. "Ask him." Here's what he asked Jesus.
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What commandment is the foremost of all?
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Verse 29, Mark 12, 29, "Jesus answered, "The foremost is here, O Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."
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The second is this. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." So Jesus quoted what Moses wrote in Deuteronomy, chapter 6. Let me say to you, this is not a sentimental or an emotional kind of love that Paul's talking about in this amazing promise. It is a sacrificial, consistent love that is characterized by one thing.
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You ready? It's characterized by obedience.
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Here's what Jesus said in John 14, verses 23 and 24, and it separates the men from the boys. Okay? Here's what he said.
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"Jesus answered and said to him,
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If anyone loves me, he will keep my word,
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and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him." Now look at this. Here's what Jesus said in verse 24. "He who does not love me," so in verse 23, he's talking about those who love him. In verse 24, he's talking about those who do not love him. And he says in verse 24, "He who does not love me does not keep my words. They do not obey me, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me."
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So I want you to understand that this verse, this amazing promise,
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is not a promise to everyone.
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It is a promise to born-again believers.
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A vital, ongoing love for God is a necessary prerequisite for his active intervention in the affairs of our lives.
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Now notice, not only is it a condition to love God, but there's another one here. You see it? "To those who are called according to his purpose."
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Now God's calling here is the calling to salvation. You do understand that you're not going to wake up one day and just decide, "Hey, I'm going to give my heart to Jesus today."
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I've shared the gospel with people before, and they say, "Well, Pastor, I've got too much going on in my life. I don't have time right now. I've got some wild oats I need to sow.
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But, Pastor, when the time is right, I'll give my heart to Jesus."
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Now the only problem with that is you don't control that.
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If you're a teenager, if you're a middle-aged adult, a young adult, a child, you don't control that.
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The Holy Spirit of God convicts a person of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and draws them to the Lord Jesus and helps them to understand who Jesus is and what he's done for them.
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And he compels them to come to Christ for salvation.
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Do you know what God's purpose is for your life as a believer? Let's say that the Spirit of God has worked in your life. He convicted you of sin, brought you to godly sorrow, genuine repentance. You put your faith and trust in Jesus as your Savior and your Lord. Well, let me ask you, what is God's purpose for you as a believer?
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Does he just want you to get to heaven when you die? No, no. He got more in store for you than that.
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In fact, the Bible says this. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18,
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"But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit."
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The Holy Spirit's ministry and you as a born-again believer is to transform you into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ,
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to make you more like Jesus in your attitude,
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more like Jesus in your actions, more like Jesus in your love,
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in your forgiveness, more like Jesus. 1 John 3, verse 2, John wrote, "Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.
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We know that when he appears we will be like him because we will see him just as he is." Now look, I want you to remember God's purpose for your life as a believer is to be more like Jesus every day, every single day. Look at verse 29 in Romans chapter 8, "For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined," oh, you say, "Oh my goodness, there's no word predestination." But look what it is. Look what it says. "Predestined to what?
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To become conformed to the image of his son." To be more like Jesus.
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That's God's will for your life as a born-again believer.
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Romans 8, 28 is without a doubt one of the most astonishing, amazing promises in all the Bible.
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I said to you in the beginning, God keeps his promises, and he does. Do you remember Ron Dunn?
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Ron Dunn was one of the most gifted, evangelist, pastors I've ever heard in my life. He had a way of taking the Word of God and making it come alive.
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Ron Dunn went through some very difficult things in his own physical health,
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but he went through another difficulty.
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He wrote this, I quote, speaking of Romans 8, 28.
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He said, "I've been looking for loopholes in this verse.
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I've read all the liberal commentaries.
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I've compared all the translations.
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I've studied the sentence structure and word definitions in the Greek in an effort to find something wrong with it.
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In short, to prove that it really doesn't say what it seems to say." Listen to this.
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Ron Dunn.
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This is the verse, Romans 8, 28. This is the verse I preached three days after we buried our son.
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Ron Dunn and his wife, son, committed suicide.
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And when Ron Dunn preached three days later, he preached Romans 8, 28.
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He said, "I had preached it plenty of times before,
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but that didn't seem to count anymore."
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I'll tell you, if you really want to know if you believe Romans 8, 28,
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you look at the most difficult experiences of your life and you ask yourself this question,
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"Is this promise real for me in the most difficult experiences of my life?" If you can say it's real at all points in my life,
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then you can know that you really believe this verse.
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God proved to Ron Dunn and his precious wife that his promise is true all the time and in every circumstance.
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So the truth that flows out of this wonderful verse is you can count on God.
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You can count on God.
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Ron Dunn could count on God when he and his wife stood over the grave of his son who had committed suicide.
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You can count on God when you lose your job
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and you have more bills than you have money.
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You can count on God when your spouse walks out on you.
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And it seemed like your whole life crashes before your feet. You can count on God.
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And we know that God causes all things to work together for good
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to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
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Life is not the random mess it sometimes appears to be.
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We do not always understand what God is doing, let alone welcome it.
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We're not told that he is at work for our comfort. He doesn't say that.
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He's not at work for our happiness.
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How many of you have heard Christians say, "Well, God wants me to be happy."
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Let me tell you something, friend.
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There's no word in the Bible that says that God wants you to be happy without being right with God, without serving him, without loving him, without obeying him.
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But we do know that in all things, God is working for the believer's supreme good. So I ask you today, are you a believer?
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Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior and your Lord?
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Listen, if you have, you've been called to love God.
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I mean to love him not sentimentally, but to love him sacrificially.
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You've been called to love God. You've been called to fulfill his purpose for your life, not what you want, his purpose for your life. Now this amazing promise is for you in the good times and in the hard times.
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Listen, I appeal to David who wrote in Psalm 27, "Wait on the Lord.
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You're going through a tough time. You don't see how it's working.
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Wait on the Lord.
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Count on him, trust him. He'll show you in the by and by."
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If you're not a believer this morning,
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and I would invite you to repent of your sin and receive Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.
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I wouldn't want to be honest with you. I would not want to live a day without Romans 828 as a promise that I could claim for myself.
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So I want to invite you to give your heart to Jesus today.
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I want to invite you as a believer to come to this altar and pray that God would do a special work in taking this verse of Scripture, this amazing promise, and hiding it in your heart.
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And you ask God, you come to this altar, you ask God today, "Lord, help me to wait on you." I don't understand right now. I don't understand what's going on in my life. Help me to wait on you and help me to trust you. And know in my heart that I can always count on you.
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Amen.
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I'm going to ask our worship team to come, our staff to come, and you come to a staff member or you come to the altar and just bow your knee at this altar and allow the Holy Spirit to do a work in your heart today. Let me pray.
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Heavenly Father, thank you so much
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that the Holy Spirit of God inspired Paul to include Romans 828 in this great chapter of the Bible.
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I pray for believers who are struggling with Romans 828 because they're going through such difficult times.
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I pray you'd bring them to the altar.
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And I pray that through the Spirit's power,
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you would help them to wait on you and to trust you.
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And Lord, I pray with all my heart that you would take men, women, boys, and girls who are not believers today.
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And I pray you would draw them to Jesus, that you would call them to salvation.
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And I pray you would save their souls.
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Lord, we love you. We thank you. We bless you. In Jesus' name, have your way in our hearts. Amen. Let's stand and worship.
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