He's working out his good pleasure and our good in our successes, in our victories, our
blessings, and as well in our heartaches, our disappointments, and our defeats.
He says, 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.
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.
And whom he predestined, these he also called, and whom he called, these he also justified,
and whom he justified, these he also glorified.
God the Sovereign One works all things out for good for his own because he has an eternal
plan for us.
And that plan is nothing less than that we should be part of his Son's bride, the Church
of Jesus Christ, which he has purchased with his own blood, and which he is now cleansing
with the word that he might present it to himself, a glorious church without spot or
wrinkle.
That is your destiny and mine.
For God is working in all of our circumstances.
That purpose may be realized.
I can illustrate this in a story about a little boy, a little boy who grew up like most children
oblivious to what was going on except in his life.
Children by nature tend to be rather self-centered.
The issues of life and death were not very meaningful to him, as would be true with most
children.
He grew up with a carefree attitude in the early days of his youth, as is true with most
children.
It did not strike him that it was unusual that his father was sick when that occurred
and was gone for weeks at a time in the hospital.
Life went on.
Then came the day when with two of his brothers, he went with his father to a neighbor's to
look at an implement that had been borrowed.
On the way back home, the father quickly stopped the car.
The little boy said, Daddy, what's the matter?
The daddy grabbed his chest and said, Daddy just... and he died.
I was that little boy.
And I have, from that time until this day, had struggles with that circumstance in my
life.
There have been times when I have doubted the goodness of God and I have wondered why.
But I want to stand before you today as one who will testify to the truthfulness of Romans
8.28, that even in the heartaches, the disappointments, and those events that are beyond our understanding,
are being worked out by God for good to us.
I can look back and see some of the good that God has worked out through that circumstance.
Many of you could stand today and give testimonies somewhat similar to what I have just done.
Because God is sovereign, He can take circumstances and bring them out for a good purpose in our
lives, and He always does without fail.
And to guarantee His purpose, He has taken five actions on our behalf.
We have studied the first three that God foreknew, God predestined, and God called.
And today we will look at the final two that He justified and He glorified.
The Apostle Paul surveys salvation from God's perspective.
He does not attempt to introduce man's perspective as he speaks about it in this context.
But if we were to introduce the human perspective, this is the point where it would be interjected.
Up to now, God is foreknown, God is predestined, and God has called.
All of that is evidence of His sovereignty.
It is at this point that faith on the part of man takes place.
And that faith then makes possible the justification and the future glorification.
What does it mean to be justified?
Well, if you have been with us in Romans for the last year and a half or so, this is not
the first time that you have seen this term justify.
To justify means to declare right with God.
It does mean to acquit of any charge, which would be reflected in Romans 8.1, where He
says, there is therefore now what?
No condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
That is, there is no cause for blame, for judgment, for condemnation to those who are
in Christ.
But actually, the word justify means more than that.
For it is not just the extraction of guilt, but it is the impartation then, on the other
hand, of the very righteousness of Jesus Christ.
It is a new legal position that we have before God.
It is how we are made right with God.
This idea of justification is illustrated in a parable that Jesus told and recorded
for us in Luke 18.
It says, He also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and viewed others with contempt.
As Jesus looked around His listeners, He noticed those who were self-righteous.
They trusted in their inherent goodness as they perceived it.
And they looked upon others with disdain and contempt and concluded that they were better
than these others.
To men, says Jesus, went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
gatherer, the most lowly strata of society in that day.
The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not like
other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector.
I fast twice a week.
I pay tithes of all that I get.
Here is a very religious man.
He not only attends once a week, but he attends twice a week.
And furthermore, he puts something in the offering when he attends.
In fact, not just something, he ties of everything that he gets.
This is a very religious person.
And he is a moral person.
Unlike those who were swindlers and unfair with people or adulterers or people who sold
themselves to the Romans to be tax collectors, he was a moral, upright person.
Jesus continues, But the tax gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to
lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me,
the sinner.
Here's the other man, a man who recognized his unworthiness, who knew he was a sinner,
who did not put on a pretense or a show, but came to pray and would not even look up in
prayer to God.
But in brokenness of heart and contriteness and repentance, beat upon his chest the typical
oriental way of showing sorrow.
And he cried out, Oh God, be merciful to me, the sinner.
He didn't just say, a sinner, he said, the sinner, the sinner.
Quite a difference, isn't there, in that attitude and those two attitudes?
He says, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other
man.
Jesus says that this man who came in humility and brokenness, confessing his sin and crying
out to God for mercy, was declared that day to be right with God.
And it was God who said it, Jesus himself.
He said that man went down to his house right with God, but not so the other man, who refused
to admit his own sinful condition, but felt that he was righteous in himself.
Today, in this auditorium, there are undoubtedly representatives of both of these men.
There are, I would suppose, many of us today who at some point in our life came to God
as did this man and cried out for forgiveness and mercy.
And in brokenness and repentance, we trusted in the God alone who can save.
And on that day when we did it, whether a few months ago or many years ago, we went
back home justified before God.
There may be someone or someones present who up to this point have felt moral and upright
and certainly worthy of God's consideration as he thinks about the ones who should make
it to heaven.
And yet, my friend, Jesus went on to say, everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled.
And everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted.
If today you would be justified and made right with God, it comes alone, but through brokenness,
confession of sin and repentance of it, and a reaching out to God to receive from him
mercy and forgiveness.
Now when God justifies the sinner, he cannot simply do it on a whim.
God does not sort of pick up the rug of heaven and sweep sins under it and say, well, we'll
just overlook those.
No.
God is a just God and therefore he must deal with sin.
He must have a legal reason why he can forgive a sinner who asks for mercy.
And God has provided that legal reason because 2,000 years ago he sent his only son, the
Lord Jesus, into the world and he went to the cross and there died as a substitute for
sinners.
In his vicarious, that is, substitutionary death, he took upon himself the penalty for
sin, death, so that sinners who would call out for forgiveness could be forgiven by God.
Therefore, God has a reason to extend forgiveness.
You see, when Jesus died on the cross, our sin was placed upon him.
The Bible term is that it was imputed to him, that it was put to his account, as it were,
before God.
It's a bookkeeping term.
It was reckoned to him, our sin.
And when we trust the Lord Jesus Christ, his righteousness is imputed to us.
You will recall that term impute from chapter 4 of Romans and it would be good for us to
go back and review there the first five verses.
Here we have the illustration of Abraham, a man greatly revered by the Jews, by Gentiles
and by the like.
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before
God.
For what does the scripture say?
And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
He quotes there from Genesis and there it clearly says Abraham did not work to impress
God rather he believed God's promise, and God accepted his faith and gave to Abraham
righteousness.
Now it says to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, that is by grace,
but as what is due.
In other words, God is obligated.
If a man is saved by his works, but he says to the one who does not work but believes
in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.
That word reckoned is the word impute or put to the account of.
And so my friend, when God sees faith, he accepts that faith in his promise.
The sinner can bring nothing that would merit God accepting him.
All he can do is respond by faith to receive the promise of God.
And when God sees that faith, God gives to that sinner righteousness.
He not only takes away the sin, removes it from the record, but God then gives to him
the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ perfectly obeyed the law in his life upon the earth, thus expressing the innate
righteousness that was his.
It is his righteousness that is given to us when we are justified, that is declared right
with God.
Faith is sort of the instrument that brings this righteousness to us.
I can remember as a boy working hard out there in the barn, the hay field, in weather just
like we've been having, being very thirsty and going to the pail of water and there reaching
into it with a dipper and bringing that cool, refreshing water to my lips and quenching
my thirst.
Faith is sort of like that dipper.
It reaches out and receives what God offers to us.
It brings to us, it is the instrument by which God brings to us justification.
And never forget that when God justifies, he does it once for all.
It's something he never has to repeat.
When he declares us right with himself, he does not just put us into a neutral position.
It means he takes us out of sin, or as we looked at it in Romans chapter 5, he takes
us out of Adam, for we were in Adam by our first birth.
And then he puts us into Jesus Christ because of our new birth.
So that we have a new state, a new position, a new standing before God which cannot change.
Well, you say, that sounds well and good, but it's just a little bit too simple, don't
you think?
For after all, it's got to be more complicated than that.
Surely God looks for some kind of character or turning over of a new leaf or surely we
have to do some rituals or good works.
I mean, man has to do something, doesn't he?
No.
That's the marvelous truth of the Gospel.
And it's the only Gospel there is.
All we do is receive what God provides for us through Jesus Christ.
Are you still out there on the treadmill of your own works, trying to do something to
please God and to get there and to be worthy of heaven?
And dear friend, will you realize that that treadmill is getting you nowhere?
And that your need today is to repent of your sin, like that tax gatherer, to call out to
God for mercy so that you can go home justified with God.
You say yes, but doesn't the Bible also say somewhere that we're justified by works?
Well, as a matter of fact, that phrase is found.
Would you turn over to James chapter 2 just quickly?
There may be somebody confused about this and I want to talk about it just briefly.
James chapter 2, because of this passage, Martin Luther refused to admit that James
should be in the Bible.
And yet if you look at it, you understand that James is not at all contradicting Paul.
They were good friends.
Verse 21 of James 2, was not Abraham our father justified by works?
Wow.
When he offered up Isaac his son on the altar, you see that faith was working with his works.
And as a result of the works, faith was perfected.
And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and Abraham believed God and it was reckoned
to him as righteousness.
And he was called a friend of God.
You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
You say, aha, there's proof.
No, it's not proof that we're justified by works, nor is it proof that the Bible contradicts
itself.
It's simply evidence of the fact that we have to interpret the scriptures in the light
of its context or the basic rules.
When Romans was written, the apostle Paul was talking about how to be right with God.
He was talking about being justified by God.
When James wrote his epistle, he had a different perspective.
James was not concerned about that relationship.
James was concerned about a horizontal relationship with other people.
And his point is this.
Don't say that you have faith if it's not backed up by your works.
You see, James was talking about being justified in our profession that we believe.
It's not enough just to say, well, I believe.
That faith has to be proved by works.
Faith is actually brought to maturity, to completion, to fruit, if you please, through
works.
It gives evidence that we genuinely are justified with God when our claim to that is justified
before men, as James talks about here.
We are justified with God by faith, by faith alone.
But it takes more than that with the world around us, because lots of people say they
have faith.
Our profession of faith is justified, is declared to be true by our works.
That's James' point.
Does your life bear out that you are genuinely saved?
I hope it does.
Let's move ahead to the last of the verbs in Romans 8.
This is such a marvelous truth that he glorified.
Someone has said that this is the most daring verse in the Bible because of what is said
in those two words, that he glorified.
If you consider it, it is absolutely breathtaking what God says in this verse.
To be glorified means to be transformed into the very likeness of Jesus Christ.
It is not the first time we have seen it in this chapter, back in verse 17.
It says, And if children heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed
we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Our glorification is the inheritance that is ours because we are the children of God.
We are sharers of God's glory.
He says that we were glorified.
That does not say we were beatified, made good enough to enter heaven.
It does not say that we were beautified, well, no better than that.
It does not say that we were deified, but it does say that he glorified.
He glorified us.
As you search the Scriptures for an example of what this means, you have only one.
It is that rare.
And that one example is Jesus Christ.
Go back to Acts chapter 3 and look at the words of Peter as he addresses the persecutors
of the apostles on that occasion.
A healing had taken place.
And Peter says, Why do you marvel at this miracle, this healing?
Look at verse 13.
He says, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his
servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered up and disowned in the presence of Pilate
when he had decided to release him.
Here it says that God glorified Jesus.
Do you know that there is humanity in heaven today that is glorified?
God the Son came into the world and took upon himself our humanity, though sinless.
He became flesh and blood, had a human nature just like we have.
My friend, when he rose from the dead, he rose as man as well as God.
And when he ascended back to heaven, he ascended as man as well as God.
And sitting at the right hand of God today, he is there as the God-man.
There is humanity in heaven that is glorified.
That is the illustration of what is going to happen to us someday.
For as yet we have not experienced glorification, and yet that does not mean that we will not.
I would have you observe here in Romans chapter 8 that he does not say, in fact, that we will
be glorified, but he says, he glorified its past, as are all the other verbs in verses
29 and 30.
This is what is called in the Bible a prophetic past tense.
It's the same thing that we find, for example, in Isaiah chapter 53 where it says, he was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquity.
And of whom does that speak?
Jesus Christ.
And yet Jesus Christ did not even come into the world for another 700 years after Isaiah
wrote that.
You see Isaiah was saying this, what I am writing is so certain to happen that I am
writing as though it already occurred.
And that is what Paul is doing.
When he says that he has glorified us, he means that that event is so certain that he
already has accomplished it in his own mind that is God has.
Turn to John chapter 17 verse 22.
I want to show you an amazing statement of Jesus.
I remember John chapter 17 was prayed before he even went to the cross.
And yet the marvel of this Lord's prayer is that he prays as though all of that were
already past.
In verse 22 he makes this astounding statement.
He speaks to the Father and he says, and the glory which thou hast given me, I have given
to them.
The statement of Jesus Christ even before the cross as he prayed in the garden was,
Father the glory you have given to me, I have given to them who believe on me.
You see it ties together perfectly with what Paul says in Romans chapter 8.
I want you to know that our glorification in the future is a part of, it is inseparable
from our calling in Jesus Christ.
I want you to turn now to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and look at this verse.
After speaking to them of his own lifestyle which he wants them to imitate, that is a
lifestyle that is devoted and upright and blameless, he says in verse 12, so that you
may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
Now look at that.
It would be enough if God would say that he had called us to be a part of his kingdom.
That is that someday we would be in heaven and be citizens of that celestial place.
I mean that would be enough.
But he goes beyond that.
He says that he calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
In other words, God has destined us for more than just being in heaven, we are going to
share in his glory as God.
Turn over a few pages to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1.
After speaking about those who persecuted them, the apostle says these will pay the
penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of his power, when he comes to be glorified in his saints on that day, and to be marveled
at among all who believe, for our testimony to you was believed.
That day, by the way, is the rapture.
He says, To this end also we pray for you always, that our God may count you worthy
of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power.
Look at verse 12.
In order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him.
In other words, you be glorified in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus
Christ.
You begin to understand here why we will someday be glorified.
It's because we have been called by God to that destiny.
There is nothing that can prevent that consummation to your faith.
What does it mean now that we will be glorified?
Well it includes in the first place the resurrection of our bodies.
Now we dwell in bodies that are mortal.
Someday we will have bodies immortal.
Now they are lowly.
Then they will be glorious.
Now they are temporal.
Then eternal.
So it does mean that we will have new bodies like Christ's body of glory.
But folks, it means more than that.
It means more than that.
Now that would be enough.
If I just knew that I was going to be in heaven, and that this body in which I live now is
going to be raised out of the ground and glorified and with me there.
If I knew that was my future, that would be enough.
But there's more.
Because you see, God's purpose for us is nothing less than that we would sit on the throne
of Jesus Christ with Him.
We are destined for the throne, beloved.
Now you let that sink in.
You let it soak your heart.
When it says that He glorified us, it means that we will sit with Jesus Christ on His
throne of glory.
It means that our ultimate destiny in Christ will be higher than that which Adam knew when
he was created.
Perfect, innocent, to reign over this world.
It means that the position that we will eventually assume by the grace of God is higher than
that which the angels have, for we will judge the angels.
It means that someday we will be higher in God's order of things than was Lucifer before
pride was found in him and he fell to become Satan and the devil.
And this truth underscores our security as God's children.
You see, we perceive these things, being human beings, as successive steps.
We look past to eternity when God foreknew and predestined.
And we look back in our lifetime when He called us into the fellowship of His Son.
And when we trusted in Christ and He justified us, made us right with Himself.
And then we look forward to that time when we will be glorified.
But God sees it differently.
Because that whole process that we see and experience, God simultaneously and irrevocably
purposes.
He says, it is done.
And so heaven is as sure as though you were already there.
And that's why in Ephesians He says that we are already seated with Jesus Christ in
the heavenly places.
My friend, God has purpose to populate His new universe with the glorified sons of Adam,
foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified, all by the grace of God.
Amen.
That's God's purpose.
And my friend, that's your personal destiny.
Isn't that fabulous?
He's glorified us.
Unworthy, rotten though we be.
God has purposed to lift us from fallen humanness, to exalt us to be like His Son and to reign
with Him forever.
Now that's the strength of verse 28.
That's why He says that God causes all things to work together for our good.
Because He's called us to that destiny.
That's why God is so vitally interested and involved in every detail of your life.
We look at Prince William, the young son of Charles and Diana, and sometimes we fantasize
what that must be like to be a little prince.
And as you look at that little boy, to know that someday he is going to ascend to the
throne of England.
But listen, that is a puny picture compared to you.
Because you are a prince of God.
You are the royalty of God's universe.
It does not yet appear what we shall be.
But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.
That's our destiny.
And that's why we can trust in the sovereignty of God and rest confidently, relax.
Know that God is working in our heartaches as well as our victories.
That's why we should be burdened to declare the Word of God and to share our hope with
people because we live in a world that's heading the other direction, that is moving
toward the destiny of destruction and eternal hell.
And my friend out there, among that population are those who are God's.
Just as Paul was told in the city of Corinth, as we read last week, Paul, I have many people
in this city.
Get out there and preach.
So you and I should share our faith and declare the Word of God so that God can be at work
calling out His people who are called to that destiny with us to share the throne.
And is it too much that we should then live for the glory of God and walk worthy of our
calling and have a lifestyle that is holy and pure?
Dear Christian, don't mess up your life by yielding yourself to the impulses of sin
within you.
Live above that.
That's your calling.
Don't hinder the Holy Spirit by harboring attitudes that quench His holy sensitivity
within you.
He has sealed you for that destiny.
Be done with sin.
Turn from it.
Repent of it.
And walk worthy of the calling that is yours as one who will share the throne with Jesus
Christ and His eternal kingdom.
Father, show us, I pray, as much as we can understand in our finite minds what destiny
is ours through Jesus Christ.
We are breathtaking, we are awestruck as we ponder what you have in store for us.
And to think that throughout the ages to come you're going to show your kindness toward
us.
How humbled we are by that.
How unworthy we feel.
What grace.
Our prayer is that we may live lives worthy of that calling.
And some of us today may need to make some decisions to clean up our lives and return
to faithfulness and obedience to Jesus Christ.
Others here today, Father, may sense their need for the Savior.
I pray that they will reach out, as it were, with a dipper of faith and receive from you
salvation.
Have your way in our lives as we close this service.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.