We Know

00:02 Amen. Thank you, Aaron. And greetings to each one. Those few of us that are here at the church building meeting house this morning and those that are watching by way of Facebook Live, we welcome you to this preaching, teaching hour, some time of worship there. Thank you, Brother Aaron, for sharing that. 00:21 And we just look forward to what God might have for us throughout the day today. I just keep thinking about the greatness of God over the nations and also reading through the book of Psalms and how many times He talks about the nations, the nations, the nations, and that God is glorified in the nations, 00:42 over the nations, among the nations, the peoples of the world. And just thinking about how that what God must be up to, and I'm not sure that anybody really knows, but one of the things that is true is that He will be exalted among the nations. He will be exalted in all the earth. 01:02 And so we think about the fact that such a little virus, a little virus, such a thing as a virus, not even a computer virus, can shut down the world, the world's economies, the world's travel, the world's commerce, the world's entertainment, the world's athletics, the world's and still have communication, 01:24 but many things are shut down today. And we know that by experience here in northern Indiana. So we're glad for the presence of each one this morning and wish you the Lord's blessing. For our message this morning, I've Lord has laid on my heart Romans 8:28-29, and a very familiar passage of Scripture, 01:46 one that is known by most Christians as a comfort. And one of the things that we need to do when we read this verse and look at this verse and apply this verse is not do it in a flippant way. Sometimes people, 02:05 when there's tragedy, when there's death, or you're going through a line for a viewing at a visitation hour for someone who's dead and has died, and people will say, "Well, you know," or you're going through a hard time, "Well, you know, Romans 8:28 says, 02:19 'God works all things together for good to them that love God.'" And they quote that verse and do it in a kind of a flippant manner without really entering into the pain of people's lives. There's one thing to say it just casually. It's another thing to really enter into the pain of the lives around us and apply that verse. 02:39 And that's what we would like to do this morning is enter into people's pain and remind them of the promise of God in Romans 8:28-29 where it says, 02:54 "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." And then He tells us what the purpose is in verse 29, "For whom He foreknew, 03:12 He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." And going into verse 30 yet, "Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, 03:32 these He also glorified." Now we look at the broader context of this verse this morning in verses 18 through 27. We won't read those this morning other than to pick out a few contrasts for us. In verse 18, He talks about sufferings. I don't know how many of us are really suffering yet, 03:53 but we're certainly having some are having more of a difficult time than others with sickness and maybe financial loss and some things like that. I'm not sure we're actually suffering yet, but nevertheless, we do suffer at times. 04:10 And we realize that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory. So you have the sufferings compared with the glory. And that glory is eagerly awaiting us upon the return of our Lord. In verse 20, He talks about the creation, 04:30 and this is certainly applicable here, that the creation is subject to futility. In other words, the creation, this passage says, is groaning and travailing along with the children of God, waiting for the glorious liberties. So in verse 20, 04:49 we have futility versus hope at the end of that verse, not willingly but because of Him who subjected it in hope. And then in verse 21, because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 05:08 And so you have that contrast again, corruption, bondage of corruption versus glorious liberty. And then in verse 22 and 23, He talks about the whole creation groaning, groans, and labors with birth pangs together until now. 05:28 So the creation itself, the viruses, the body, 05:34 the rocks and the mountains and the earthquakes and the hurricanes and the volcanoes and all of those things are a sign of the creation groaning within itself to be like birth pangs together until now. In verse 23, 05:54 it also says, "Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for the adoption, the redemption of the body." And so we have again the contrast between the groaning of creation and of God's people versus the adoption, 06:11 the redemption of the body that is coming soon in the lives of His people. And then in verse 26, He talks about the Spirit helping us in our weaknesses. And verse 27, that Spirit makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. 06:31 And so we have our weaknesses, but contrast that with the Spirit's intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And so you have great, great hope. You have, in a sense, in this passage, great despair. It can be great despair. 06:49 And it's counterbalanced in the life of the believer with great hope and anticipation and great strength as the Holy Spirit makes the things of Christ real to us and makes our prayers and our weaknesses and our groanings known to the Father in heaven. And then in that setting, 07:08 He says, "And we know." We know it. 07:14 That word know means to perceive with the mind or with the senses, to perceive, to understand, to grasp the fullness of this idea and this truth, this truth that all things are working together for a purpose. All things, 07:33 every aspect of our lives, every circumstance, the whole, the word all there has the idea of whatsoever and whosoever. The whatsoevers and the whosoevers of our lives are working together for this purpose. Now, one of the things that you notice in this passage, 07:54 if you have other translations of the Scriptures, is that there's two primary ways of translating this first verse, that we know that all things work together for good. 08:09 The other way is that we know that God is working all things together for good. The one has the emphasis on the all things. The other has the emphasis on the God of the all things. And I like both. 08:26 I like especially the translation that says that we know that God is working all things, puts the emphasis on God, on the God of all things rather than on the all things. If we focus on the all things, we tend to get a bit discouraged. If we focus on the God of the all things, then we're encouraged. 08:46 So we see that this morning in this verse of Scripture. And then He goes on to say that these all things are working together. They're cooperating together for good, for that which is useful and profitable for those who love God. Now, unfortunately, this verse doesn't apply to just everybody. 09:06 Not everybody can apply this verse if they don't know Christ, if they don't love God, and if they're not called according to His purpose, which every one of His children are. They can't take comfort in this verse. 09:20 And so it is a promise to the sons and daughters of God Almighty that this all things are working, and God is working in all things to accomplish His purposes. And we are called. What a wonderful thing it is to be called, to be appointed, to be invited, 09:40 to be welcomed into this great, grand design, this great, grand purpose that is being set forth. That which God has resolved to do is being performed in us, through us, and by God, the God of the all things. 10:02 Now, some of the things this verse does not say, it does not say that we understand all things. He says, "We know all things work together or in all things God works." But it doesn't say we understand all things. That would be a different sentence structure. We don't understand all things. 10:21 I don't understand all things. Spirit as His Spirit has revealed the things of God in the Scriptures and revealed those to our hearts that we might know those things and understand those things. But we don't understand all things. Let us be clear about that, that no one knows everything about everything. 10:40 There are many people who know a lot about a lot, but no one knows everything about everything. And so we can't just say, "Well, we got it all figured out here, folks." And we cannot say that with COVID-19, we understand exactly what God is doing. We don't. We understand some principles of what God is doing, 11:01 and we put some things together about what God is doing. But we don't understand all the ways of God. But we do understand this, that God is working in the all things, that He is at work. Now, the other thing that this verse does not say, it does not say that God causes all things. 11:21 We must be aware that sin causes some things, disease causes some things, man causes some things, mankind, and the devil causes some things. 11:32 And this gets into a whole interesting attempt to understand the sovereignty of God versus the free will of man and the level of freedom that God has given to man to make decisions and choices and the level of freedom that He's given to Satan to disrupt and to enter 11:51 into people's lives and into this world system and be in control of a certain number of things in this world system. And where one thing stops and the other starts, we don't understand. But we understand that God is at work, even if it's something that man is doing, that Satan is doing, God is still in control. 12:11 God is still in control. God may not cause all things, but He works in all things. And that's where our comfort is. Our comfort is that God is at work. Now, I want to spend a few minutes this morning talking about this phrase, 12:31 "We know." We know. We know that God is at work. Because there are several things in Scripture, in fact, seven or eight of them that I'm aware of where it specifically says, "We know." We perceive with our senses and our mind, 12:50 we understand this truth. And these truths are some of the cardinal truths of the Christian faith, the verities that we might say, the sureties, those things which are sure in the Christian faith that we know to be true. 13:08 And I'm going to go through some of those things this morning just briefly to compare this knowledge in verse 28 with some other knowledge in other passages of Scripture. One of the first things that comes to mind is from Job 19:25 where he says, 13:29 "I know." Maybe you can finish the verse. "I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. 13:42 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know that in my flesh I shall see God." He said, "I know this." That is one of the deep, deep truths of the resurrection. When we have a funeral service and we stand around the graveside, 14:03 we oftentimes use this verse to remind the people that there is a truth that is so profound as to give great hope at those times of loss and of death, to know that our Redeemer lives, that He will come back, 14:21 and that even though our skin is 14:26 devoured and destroyed, that in our flesh we will see God. 14:32 That's the mighty truth of the resurrection, the mighty truth of the resurrection, one of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, the resurrection that one day all those who have died in Christ and outside of Christ will be raised, 14:49 one to life eternal and one group to eternal destruction. We know this. We count on this. We live our lives in view of this. It is one of the primary doctrines of the Christian faith. 15:07 The second thing that comes to mind when I think about things we know is found in John 4:42. In John 4:42, the Samaritans had been ministered to, I guess you could say, they had been witnessed to by the woman at the well. And they came to the point where they said, 15:29 "You know, we had heard your testimony and we were intrigued." This is my paraphrase. 15:36 "But now we have met Him and we know." We know by observation, by perceiving with the mind and our senses, we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. 15:53 One of those things that we know and that the Samaritans came to know, that Jesus is the Savior of the world. What truth is there in this? It is the great truth of the incarnation, that Christ preexistent with the Father came down here to Samaritans, 16:16 to Jews, and to Gentiles, to each one of us, as the Christ, the Savior of the world. What a profound truth that we know. We know. We stake our eternal existence on this very word of God, 16:38 that Christ is the Savior of the world. As John the Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world." We know this as one of the great truths of the Christian faith. 16:56 The third truth of the Christian faith that I find in 2 Corinthians 5:1, and maybe you want to turn to these. I'm not going to turn to them necessarily other than to recite them or quote them. But you may turn to them while I speak. 2 Corinthians 5:1, we know. 17:16 There's another we know. We know that if our earthly house of this tent or tabernacle, he's speaking about the tent that we live in, the body, that though this tent or tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, 17:36 eternal in the heavens. Again, here is something that we know. 17:42 We know that there is eternal life, that there is a heaven above where God is preparing a place for all those who love Him and love His purposes and who have repented of their sins and trusted in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that for that group of people, 18:01 there is a place prepared in the heavens, eternal, that in contrast to our shaky bodies, our dissolving bodies, bodies that will be destroyed by death and destruction, that this house is eternal, a place that God is making for us. 18:23 Eternity, heaven, a prepared place for a prepared people. We know that that is a reality that we are basing our lives upon. This is one of the very faithful truths of the Christian faith. 18:43 The fourth truth of the Christian faith we find in the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 1:12. 2 Timothy 1:12, Paul says this, "I know whom I have believed." You can finish the verse with me. 19:01 "And am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." What day? The day that's to come when we stand before the Lord. You see, the Apostle Paul is telling us that there are some things that he committed to Christ. There were some sins that he committed to Christ. 19:22 There were some works of righteousness as an apostle that he also committed to Christ and himself had been committed to Christ. 19:33 And he said, "I know that the things that I have committed to Christ, he's able to hold onto and he's able to deal with and he's able to take care of against that day when I stand before him." My friend, 19:49 what a wonderful truth it is that even the sins that we commit are applied in Romans 8:28, our failures, our weaknesses, our sins, our sinful past. 20:02 God is able to even take that, wash those sins away, but use those experiences for the good of His purposes in and through us. And what we see here in that great truth of 2 Timothy 1:12 is the sufficiency of the atonement, 20:22 that Christ's blood can cover all of our sins and forgive us of our sins and wash our sins away so that we can have confidence when we stand before God on that day. We can have confidence that our sins are taken care of, 20:41 that our works of righteousness are taken care of and stored up for reward on that day, and that our own spirit and soul has been preserved, the Bible says, blameless. "May the God of peace sanctify you holy. 20:58 And I pray, God, that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord." And so again, the sufficiency of the atonement to stand and witness on our behalf against that day of our standing before the Lord. 21:17 We get a sense in this thing, these truths, that many of them are forward-looking, of heaven and of judgment and of eternity. The fifth thing goes right along with that. Number five is the truth of the second coming of our Lord, that Christ is coming again. 21:36 1 John, if you want to turn there, there's several of them in 1 John. 1 John 3:2, he says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know." Why don't you just say that? "We know that when he shall appear, 21:57 we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." We know that he is going to appear and that it's going to be a transformation again to complete this process of transformation that we're involved in today, of becoming more and more conformed to the image of Christ. 22:19 That will one day be completed with a full likeness of Jesus when he comes. And he is coming. That's another truth. We've had the resurrection. We have the eternal city, the eternal building. We have the incarnation. We have the sufficiency of the atonement. 22:40 And here again, we have the second coming of our Lord. Number six, we have assurance of our salvation, 3 of 1 John 14. We know that we have passed from death to life. Isn't that great to know, guys? 23:01 Over here, some young men here. Isn't that great to know? Isn't that great to know that we know that we have passed from death to life? We don't have to just assume that we passed from death to life. We don't have to hope that we passed from death to life. We get to know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. 23:20 Goes on to say then, "He who does not love. Is born of God, born of God. 23:26 And in fact, over in 5:13, "These things I have written unto you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God." John wrote 23:45 his epistle and he wrote his gospel in the Gospel of John. And yes, the Scripture as a whole even is to help us to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we have eternal life in this historical figure, Jesus Christ. 24:06 We know it. We know it. Now, with all of those things that we know, let's go back to our text. "And we know." What a marvelous comparison with the other things that we know. Those are some pretty major truths, 24:28 major, mighty, unshakable, immovable truths of God. 24:33 And right up there with all the best of them is the knowledge, the knowledge, the unshakable knowledge that God is in control of the lives of his people and in the world that he has created and sustains. 24:54 Wow. I don't know about you, but that's worth saying amen over. That's worth saying hallelujah over. To know it. You see, there's a lot of people that don't know this. They don't know this. Their lives consist of moving from one fearful event to the next, never able to connect the dots. 25:15 Their lives consist of moving from one pleasurable event to the next, never able to see God as the giver of good gifts. Their lives consist of pain and suffering and disaster and misfortune and trouble and sorrow without any connection to purpose. 25:37 I think that's one of the reasons in our modern society that people are in droves taking their lives. The pain of life gets so great. And they see no purpose. They see no God. They see no heaven. They see no hell. They see no love in Christ. 25:55 They see no purpose other than just a person that doesn't even want to be alive because the pain is so great. And there's no punishment. There's no reward. There's nothing beyond the grave. And when life gets that sorrowful and filled with pain, they say, "Why live? 26:15 Why live?" But for the Christian, the child of God and those people can become children of God by faith in the person and work of Christ. For the Christian, we are not left with a hodgepodge of unrelated good times and bad times. 26:36 What we are left with is a carefully planned, customized, tailor-made training course to develop our spiritual faith and maturity so that we can be conformed to the image of his Son. 26:58 And so, dear people, dear friend, this is not just random. 27:03 The things that happen to us are not just random acts of violence or random acts of kindness even, but random are not even random, but designed, tailor-made, connected things that are used of God to develop our 27:22 faith in him and to be more usable by him. Yes, we see this, that it's God's plan to take us to heaven. That's his purpose, yes. But it's more than that. He wants to save you, yes. Of course. 27:42 He wants to save us, wants to take us to heaven. 27:45 But more than right along with that, up right near those great truths is the fact that he has a son that he wants many, many, many millions and billions, in fact, of people to be just like him in our character, 28:07 in our godliness, in our holiness, in our usability that we can be used of God, that Christ can use us, that the character of Christ can be developed in us so that what we experience is not only the salvation of Christ, 28:23 but the glory of the Father that rested on Christ in whom he was well pleased may also rest on us. For if he was well pleased with his son and if we are like his son, then he is well pleased with us as well and more and more pleased as we grow to maturity. Someone challenged me just recently with a thought. 28:43 It was in a passing conversation. I don't even know if they know that they said it. I'm not even sure if I remember who it was that said it. But they said that they pray oh, yes, I know who it was - that they pray for their family, that each one would come to maturity in Christ. 29:03 I began praying that for my family, for my children, my grandchildren, grandchildren yet unborn, great-grandchildren, that each and every one would be saved, yes, would go to heaven, yes, but that they would come to spiritual maturity as believers in Jesus Christ. I pray that for our church. 29:23 I pray that for our people here at Living Water. I want to pray that for more of the church around us, Lord, that people would come to maturity, that I would come to maturity as well in representing the Lord Jesus Christ the way we ought to. 29:42 So now we can view life not as a series of accidents, but as a grand design. We can be confident from this passage and others that life has nothing that happens to us without God's approval. 29:59 We understand that from the life of Job, from the book of Job and the conversation that Jesus had or that God had with Satan. We also understand it from scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 10:13, "There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. 30:18 But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." We understand that from these verses, that nothing happens in the life of a believer except that it has gone through God's filter and qualifies us for God's power to go through it. 30:40 We also can be confident that nothing happens to us that is not a necessary part of our spiritual formation. Our spiritual formation is uppermost in God's mind, how we can become fully mature and fully functioning in spirit, 30:58 soul, and body as his children, spiritual development, spiritual formation. And that all of these things that happen around us are woven together by that confidence that it is a necessary part of our spiritual development. And most specifically from this verse, 31:20 we can tell and have confidence and be assured that nothing happens in our lives that is not usable for some good, nothing. 31:30 We know that in all things God works for good to them who are the called, who love God and are called according to his purpose. We know this. Right up there is a truth of the Christian faith that ranks with the greatest truths of the word of God, 31:50 that God is in control. 31:54 So we should be asking ourselves a question while we're quarantined, while we are shut up in our homes, while we are confined to our four corners of our yard or wherever it is that we go - some of you still go to work - we should be asking ourselves the question, "God, what do you want to teach me? 32:16 What do you want me to learn? How do you want me to develop?" But even more than that, we should be asking the question, "God, what do you want me to be? What do you want me to be? What are you making me into?" Because that then takes the focus off of our heads, 32:35 "What do you want me to learn?" to our hearts, "What do you want me to be?" And then, "What do you want me to do?" "God, what are you wanting to develop in me through this trial, this test, this temptation, 32:51 or this person?" You may be confined in your home to someone that rubs you the wrong way. Please, may it not be so, but it is sometimes in families. And tensions can mount when we're all together all the time and there's no going anywhere else, 33:11 no getting away from each other, no space. I don't know what it's like in your home. But, "God, what do you want me to be in relation to this person, this event, this experience, this confinement, this raw deal?" if you want to go that far, whatever it is you're experiencing. 33:33 This takes us through times of natural disaster, hurts that are caused by others, times of sickness, times of death. Our church family has been touched by not immediately touched by death, but death of extended families, financial stress, loss of relationships, 33:52 the aging process, childbearing, child-rearing, homeschooling, equipment malfunction, fears, 34:02 whatever it is that you're experiencing today has been designed by God to make us to be something spiritually mature, growing in Christ-likeness while not necessarily caused by God, 34:21 at least allowed by him, and designed in that allowance to test us, to strengthen us, to give us another opportunity to experience his grace, to bring us into a place of dependence upon him just like Jesus expressed and experienced his dependence. And so, 34:40 as I bring this to a close this morning, I ask the question, "Wouldn't it be sad? Wouldn't it be sad to go through life experiencing the suffering of the world around us with no purpose? Wouldn't it be sad? 34:59 Wouldn't it be sad to see a life wasted, opportunities wasted, no hope, no purpose, no design, no Father who is good in the trials and troubles of life?" Ain't that sad? Ain't that sad to die that way? 35:20 It's extremely sad, sad enough to live that way and extremely sad to die that way. But we don't need to go there. As Christians, we have purpose. There is design. There is beauty. There is Christ-likeness. 35:39 There is the image of Christ which is in our vision, in our gaze, before us, always before us, knowing with confidence that that is what God is working in us to be. There's one last thing that I mentioned earlier, 35:59 and that is that even the sins that we've committed in the past before we've come to Christ and even as Christians, when we repent and ask God's forgiveness and he restores and redeems, 36:16 he can even use those things if we commit them to him. He can even use those things to accomplish his purposes in our lives. There's no such thing as an unredeemable experience. 36:33 Even the greatest pain - and this is something else we want to know - is that even things that have been caused to us by others can be redeemed by God to work together. The word there has the idea of cooperation. It all cooperates. It all cooperates. 36:52 It all dovetails together to accomplish God's purposes. There's a poem - I don't have it with me this morning - but it talks about quilting of all things. It talks about quilting. And as we look up into the heavens, it's like we're on the underside of a quilt. 37:13 And we see the knots and we see the strands and we see the loose - maybe not loose, but we see all of the hodgepodge of stitches. And you look at the backside of a quilt top, it doesn't look very impressive. But one day, 37:32 we will have that quilt of our lives turned over and we'll be able to see the beauty of the design. Right now, we're just looking at the underside. Ultimately, we will look at the grand design from the top down. And we know that God has that design in his mind already. 37:54 We don't. Use our experiences as an opportunity would be taking this one step further. I love the story of Corrie Ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, as they were in that - I don't love them being there, but I love this account - as they were in the concentration camp Ravensbrück, 38:17 back during World War II, and Corrie Ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, were assigned to a dorm. And upon entering the barracks, they found themselves in this extremely overcrowded and infested dormitory. And Betsy challenged Corrie to give thanks. They were reading from 1 Thessalonians, 38:37 and the word was in everything, "Give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you." And Betsy asked Corrie, in their malnutritioned bodies and their matted hair and flea-infested - that's what I failed to tell you - was that that dormitory was infested with fleas. 38:58 And so Betsy asked her to give thanks for the barracks, give thanks for the circumstances, and give thanks even for the fleas. And Corrie said, "I can give thanks for many things, but not for the fleas." I don't remember if she did that or not, but Betsy persisted. And she finally succumbed. But during the months that they spent at that camp, 39:17 they realized that they had such great freedom to share the word of God without hindrance. And because of the fleas, the guards, the officers of that concentration camp would not go into that dormitory. 39:32 And so the word of God was able to have free course without hindrance in a barracks full of fleas and souls. And so when we think about that, you might look at the bottom of the quilt and say, "God, I cannot hardly give thanks to you for this." But if we look at it from the top down, 39:53 God has a design. So let us bow our heads together and pray this morning as we bring this service to a close. 40:03 Father, thank you for the great encouragement from your word and the great encouragement from Romans 8:28 and 29 and 30 and then on into 32 and following of the great love of God that you have for your people. And, 40:22 Lord, I pray that today we would experience a renewal of hope. Some are lonely. Some are discouraged. Some may be financially strapped, wondering how they're going to get through. Some may be what we call stir crazy, 40:42 just needing to get out, whatever our circumstance is. And some may even suffer disease, sickness. Lord, spare us from that, we pray. But nevertheless, make us what you want us to be in Jesus. Lord, I pray for encouragement to come the way of each one of us this week. 41:03 We pray for our government leaders who are trying to navigate the nation through this and the states through this time. We pray your blessing on those that are truly seeking to do the right thing. 41:20 We pray that we might be willing to pray and to bless those in authority over us. And we pray, Lord, for the protection physically, spiritually, emotionally of our healthcare workers. 41:36 We think of those who are laboring in hospitals and doctors' offices and doctors and nurses and specialists and healthcare workers in youth or elderly facilities and various places, Lord. We just pray for your protection. We pray for our community, that the light of Christ would shine forth in our community, 41:56 that this would be an opportunity for the church to shine as a testimony of Christ-likeness. Father, at times of crisis, your church has shown its best, has been at its best to point people to Christ through loving our neighbor as we love ourselves and loving God. 42:17 And so, Lord, we bring this service to a close this morning and ask that you would bless it for the name of Christ. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.