Romans 8:28-39
More Than Conquerors
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"Now whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate
to be conformed into the image of his Son." All these things are working together according
to his purpose, and this is it-"whom he did foreknow", foreknowledge.
Now, some people say that we're predestined because
he foreknew us, and when you foreknow.You know, our knowledge
is built on the present or past experience. But because of where God is, his knowledge is
past, present and future.
That's why he can say to us 'We're justified', that's
past, 'sanctified', that's present, 'glorified', that's future.
Because he's the one who was, and who is, and is to
come. So he sees us
from all those places. And
because of that, he has foreknowledge, knew the end from the
beginning. So, because
some say, God doesn't pick losers-bums me out, because I got
picked, I was one-but the idea is, 'whom he did foreknow',
because to foreknow means to 'to know as a fact'-it wasn't
'that God was hoping' or 'God was projecting', no 'As a fact,
he knew us from the foundation of the world, because he knew
as fact, therefore then he predestinated us to be conformed
to the image of his Son.' Well, that's ok, except is says 'Those whom
he predestinated he called.'
Now if he only foreknew that we would chose Christ,
that of course puts all of the responsibility on us, and it
messes with his sovereignty, and then it says, 'the ones he
predestinated, he called', that doesn't have anything to do
with us, that's something he did [cf. John 6:44,65], which
takes it back into his court again, which means he does everything
and we don't have anything to do with it. You know, it's funny, a couple of years ago
when people started getting saved here, I never asked, people
just started walking forward at the end of a service.
New experience. Three
or four times it happened, I looked at people and said 'Are
you here to be saved?' 'Uhuh.' 'OK.'
'Look's like this is what the Lord's doing today, if
you want to get saved, you might as well walk down with these
fellas.' And so you
pray about that a few weeks, well, I figure 'the devil's not
doing this, I probably should cooperate with this.'
[This is the principle of leaving room for God to do
something in a church service that Pastor Cymbala talks about
(see http://www.unityinchrist.com/prayer/congregation.htm).] But then, right away, I have one school of people
coming up saying, 'Hey, wait a minute, you don't ask people
to come forward, you don't no, no they're predestined, you
don't ask them to get saved, it doesn't say that in the Bible
anywhere.' So right
away, now I have to, you know, walk this tightrope cable that
if you didn't come forward and your heart came forward, you
have to make those people happy too-in the mean time I'm trying
to figure out my way through all of this.
And I just come to see what the Lord's going to do.
And I have an idea that where he is, both those things
are true. I heard someone,
Warren Weirsby spoke at a Calvary Chapel Pastor's conference
and somebody asked him, and they said "Are you a Calvanist
or an Armenianist?" He said "Neither, I'm no man's disciple,
and I don't want any man to be my disciple."
"If you're too much of a Calvanist, you rob man of
his responsibility. If you're too much of an Armenianist you rob
God of his sovereignty and glory."
He said, "I'm not interested in robbing anybody."
He said, "Besides that, you guys are pastors, you're
called to feed sheep and not giraffes."
I like that. Doesn't
explain it all, but I understand.
He said "Charles Spurgeon was the greatest Calvanist
that ever lived, and challenged people to be saved every week."
Again, and those of you who have been here awhile heard
me use this before, Hue Ross, Christian Scientist, brilliant
guy, I think he's in the Theistic evolution technichist bunk,
but, he had a photograph of a triangle, two dimensions, height
and width, and he was talking about God's sovereignty and
man's responsibility. He said, 'No matter how many times I turn this photograph around it has three
angles, three sides, can never be a circle, it's a triangle.' But then he showed a photograph of the same
object from above, and it was a cone standing on the fat end,
like a Dixie cup standing on the fat end.
And he said, "Now, by adding one dimension both things
can be true. Now it can be a circle and a triangle. What can't be true in two dimensions can be
true in three dimensions."
And he said, "As a scientist when I read the Bible,
and I read of man's responsibility and God's sovereignty,
it tells me that where this was written from enjoys more dimensions
than we do." Because
he said, "Obviously where God wrote this from, both things
are true. And they can't both be true where we are.
And when you take a position, you take a position against
some verse somewhere." What
does all that mean? I
don't know, we were in Romans 8 and we were just moving through,
I don't know, I'm trying to figure out my way through all
this. The interesting
thing it says in verse 29, "Whom he did foreknow"-which progknosko, we get prognosis
from it, to know ahead of time, progknosko, to know ahead
of time. But in Acts chapter 2, verse 23, it says "The
Christ was offered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God." And for those of you that are students, there's
something there called the Grandville-Sharps Rule, which says
"the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge", joined by
a participle, means they are the same thing, that "the predeterminate
counsel" and "foreknowledge" are both part of the same thing.
You could translate this word "foreknow" as "fore-ordained"
and that's exactly what Peter does in his epistle, he has
the same word here, and he says "But we are not bought with
silver, gold" so forth, "but with the precious blood of Christ,
a lamb without spot or blemish, who verily was fore-ordained"-instead
of "predestined"-"who verily was fore-ordained before the
foundation of the world, is manifest in these last times."
The point being, that God's foreknowledge is different
from our foreknowledge. When God foreknows something, it isn't just
that he knows something, because of who he is it's always
attached to his predetermined counsel.
There's always an involvement with it.
You know, God knows everything.
So, because God knows everything, he can't learn.
You ever think of that?
I heard this guy one time saying 'If you had a car
that could travel at the speed of light, would you need headlights?'
God knows everything, that means he can't learn, and
if he knows everything it means he can't forget-he can chose
not to remember, the Bible says. That's a choice. He can't forget. If he knows everything, it means he never says
"Oops", it's impossible. And
then, when you realize that, foreknowledge
is always attached to his counsel. So there's a beautiful part of this for us to
rest in as believers-"that whom he did foreknow"-according
to his predeterminate counsel-"he did predestinate"-prooarizo [Strongs 4309], which means to set out our boundaries ahead
of time. I don't have
any trouble with this, he can do this for me.
I like this, that he never makes mistakes and he picked
me anyhow. I'm still trying to get over that. I realized that the second I got saved, and
it's still blowing my mind today.
I think of my graduating class from High School in
1968, I don't know anybody else in my class that's a believer.
And I think Why
me? I was much more of a rascal than most, and there
were those that seemed more of a saint, and yet here I am
going to heaven [or being given entrance into the kingdom
of heaven], and I'm saved not by fate, it isn't that God was
dropping salvation out of heaven and I happened to walk under
it, it hit me on the head and I got saved. He foreknew
me. That was attached
to his counsel. I'm
elect. I like that.
Moody said, "Oh Lord, save the elect, and elect some
more." You know, maybe you're sitting here tonight
thinking, 'What the heck is he talking about?'
That's what we're thinking too, don't worry about it. But maybe you're thinking, 'That's not fair! You mean only the people that God picks get
saved?' Well, if you
don't think it's fair, get saved before you leave.
Then you'll know you were picked.
[applause] If
you're all blown out about it, and you don't get saved, you
weren't, and if you don't think that's fair, then turn around
and get saved, and you were. I don't understand the problem. "For
whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate"-set out our
boundaries, horizons, to this end-"to be conformed into the
image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many
brethren." The
head of an Order, that is, the idea is of the firstborn there. It says in Philippians that our bodies shall
be fashioned like unto his glorious body. [and in 1 Corinthians
15 Paul says,] 'This
corruption shall put on incorruption, this mortal shall put
on immortality.' We're going to be conformed, and God's predestined
us to that, into the image of his own Son. [Want a picture of what that's going to be like?
Look up and read Revelation 1:13-18.]
Just imagine that, what that's going to be like.
No more wrestling with the hypocrisy in our hearts
[or any sin for that matter], no more wrestling with our selfishness
and our anger. No more
wrestling with lust. No
more wrestling with the things that we hate about ourselves,
and never seem to have the power in and of ourselves to change.
It isn't like we're going to get to heaven and we're
saying, 'Yeah, maybe he got me there, but I'll blow it once
I get there, I know it.' No, no you won't. Or it wouldn't be heaven. That would be hell for me. Take me to heaven and give me a chance to blow
it, that would be hell, that wouldn't be heaven [or the kingdom
of heaven, which Revelation 21 shows will end up on earth
after the new heavens and Earth are created by God].
I could never enjoy that.
It would be like that monkey, 'See no evil, Hear no
evil, Do no evil.' No
he's predestined us to be conformed to the very image and
likeness of his Son [not just how Jesus looks, right now,
cf. Revelation 1:13-18, but his very character and nature!].
"Moreover" verse 30, now I couldn't handle
that much, now here's "Moreover" [On
top of that], "Moreover
who he did predestinate, them he also called [cf. John 6:44],
and whom he called"-we're the elect, and this is in a
tense that says, speaks of it as already being completed,
it's a reality-"them
he also justified, and whom he justified, he also glorified." If you can imagine that, that you are called, not you're gonna be-you is. You
are, tonight, justified. When
God looks down upon your life, he sees that value that Christ
imparted to you, he sees you as pure and holy as his Son Jesus
Christ. That is what's
on you. Not deserved,
not earned, not worked for, salvation, through grace, through
faith. And, when he
looks at us, he sees us glorified.
I'm already glorified.
[laughter] You might think, 'You don't look like it.'
'Well, you don't either.' [laughter] Jesus
said this in John 17, "And the glory which Thou gavest me,
I have given them", past tense, "that they may be one, even
as we are One." Jesus says, he's already given us that glory.
So, it speaks of something that still has to manifest
from within. You know,
Jesus in the transfiguration, he morphed, metamorphosis. What he really was shone out through his physical
frame. [The Holy Spirit
actually invisibly glows within us, invisible to humans, that
is, not to God and angelic beings.]
And some day when we're released, we're going to shine
like the stars of heaven. [Some believe, and the Bible really doesn't
make it all that clear, but some believe 1 Corinthians 15
and Daniel 12:1-3 show that we actually receive spirit bodies,
entirely, not just spirit-drive bodies which are made of physical
matter. Some believe
spirit-the spirit that makes up the frame of angels, and God
himself perhaps, the spirit horses we come riding back to
earth on-Revelation 19-is actually more dense than physical
matter, which physicists have proven is more like sponge cake.
We'll have to wait and see.
We have been
allowed to discover and understand the physics of matter,
but not of the spirit realm which God dwells in, the angels
dwell in, outside of the
Space & Time Continuum.
But if this glorification being talked about refers
to Jesus and the Father residing in us through the indwelling,
and yes, glowing Holy Spirit, then this makes sense.]
The light that is within us is going to break forth
like the stars of heaven.
What a remarkable thing.
What a remarkable day [that will be].
Now look at what Paul does.
Verse 31, "What shall we then say to these
things?" How about
"Hallelujah!" How about
"Glory to God!" How
about "I love you Jesus!" How about "Wow!" "What
shall we say to these things?"
And I don't think it just means what he's saying
here alone, I think he means the whole thing he's built since
[Romans] chapter 1. I mean, Paul just is freaking out here. He just couldn't take any more of his own writing
at this point. The
Holy Spirit got him through predestination, foreordained,
called, and he just passed out and woke up and said "What
do we say to these things?"."If God be for us, who can be
against us?" Now let me tell you something. A lot of us want to ruin it, right there again.
'I don't know, that's true, if God is for us.I go to church and see
a lot of Christians, I know he's for them, but I'm in the
if [category], if he's for
me, I hope he is.' No,
no, the class [grammatical] condition is, since
God is for us. The
language [Greek] is way more complicated, there's an "if",
and it ain't, there's
an "if", that's an "if",
and there's an "if", and it is. This is the "if" and it is, which means "since". "Since
God is for us, who can be against us?"
Isn't that remarkable?
God, now you just think about this.
This is your homework. Go away this week and think about this. God is for you, in your marriage, in your child-raising,
in your mistakes, in your struggles, in the stupid things
you do when you're like me in traffic.
God is for you, he's on your side.
You know, and some of us never get past [the thought
that] we feel God is stuck with us.
[Some of us feel] Not for us, 'our Bibles say, God is stuck with me, I'm part
of some package program, and ah, he's happy about a lot of
people that get in, and sure, God's up in heaven saying 'I
gave my Son so that anybody could get saved, but I never thought
that one would take me up on it, you know.' And we walk around thinking God's stuck
with me, you know, I'm the part of the family he don't want
to talk about. You know, he's gonna let me in and say 'Look, you're not really good for my rep, you
stay over there somewhere in the corner of the city, you know.' The very opposite is true, and because no one
loves us that way [the way God does], no one has ever loved
us that way. No one will ever love us that way but him. There are no strings attached. There isn't anything to be earned. Someone else did that on the cross. There isn't anything that we can merit or improve
upon the completed work of Christ.
And we struggle with that.
'Lord, I do, forgive me.
Oh how I want to embrace, Lord, this kind of love,
wholeheartedly Lord, I'm enjoying more of it today than I
ever have, but I know Lord it's endless.
I know I'm so aware, so often still of the things that
are wrong inside of me, that human beings would not be for
me, that they would turn away from me in all my failings and
my short-comings, their love is so conditional, Lord it's
so hard for me just to rest in and to take hold of with all
of my heart the completed work that Lord, you're for me.
And since you're for me, who can be against me? Who can be against
me?' I'm God's kid. My Dad's the King. I'm an heir to the Kingdom. And if they knew that, they'd treat me differently
in traffic, I know that. [laughter]
I just don't realize who I am.
God's for us, what shall we say to these things, these
remarkable things he's brought us through? Since God is for us, who can be against us?
The question. Since God is for us, who can be against us?
Now he asks a series of questions here now as he brings
us to a close.
Verse 32, "He that spared not his own Son,
but delivered him up for us all,"-isn't that a great word?-"how shall he not with him also freely give
us all things?" Well,
what's the major proof? Since
God is for us, who can be against us.
'God's for us? God's for us?
Lord, if you're for me, Lord, let me get this raise,
and I'll know you're for me.
Lord, if you really want to prove your love, gold,
gold, big nuggets of gold, Lord. Diamonds, they're a girl's best friend Lord. The lottery, you really love me? You'll remove this pressure from me? If I win 20 million, I'll split it with you.
[laughter] 10 percent, we'll split it Lord. Lord, if you love me, if you love me, you'll
give me this man to be my husband.'
And then it's
'Lord, if you love me, and you gave me this
man to be my husband?'
[laughter] And you have to understand, how many times after
church we have people come up and pray, and they say 'Pray
for me.' 'Are you saved?' 'No.' 'You
want prayer?' 'Yes,
my girlfriend broke up with me.'
No, no, this is not the dating game.
That's not what Jesus, Yeshua's about, not about patching
up dating relationships. He's a savior, he died for your sins, you're
a rotten sinner, you're going to hell and he shed his blood
for you, that's the good news.
That's what this is about.
God is for us. The very first evidence Paul holds out is-he
gave his own Son, and
if he's given his best, how shall he not also give us with
him, all things freely? Again, we have to understand what that means. Because there are some serious things in life.
He's going to talk about them.
Distress, famine, nakedness, peril, the sword, death,
life, principalities, angels, heights, depths, things to come,
things present, and in all of those things we find the things
that make us doubt the fact that he does love us.
In all of that pain and all of that suffering, so often,
we're left wondering, 'Lord, you've got me groaning Lord.
You've put the Spirit of adoption Lord in my heart
crying out Abba, Father, you say that your Spirit's in me,
you say Lord that you foreknew me, you predestinated me to
be conformed to the image of your Son. If you're for me, Lord, and nothing can be against
me, then why all this suffering?'
Well it says 'He's for us, we know that because he
gave his own Son, in his eternal counsels.'
He sent his Son into the world, born in a manger, human
frame, watched his son in Gethsemane sweat great drops of
blood, and cry 'Father, if there's any other way that people
can be saved, but if not, if not Father, I'll drink this cup.' Watched his Son beaten beyond human recognition.
Now see, we're starting to talk about love.
What would it cost me, I've got two sons and two daughters,
if I had all the power in the universe, to restrain myself
while I watched somebody beat one of my children beyond human
recognition for an enemy?
We were with enmity with God, that's where we were.
And not just that, and to spit in his face, to rip
out his beard, to lay thirty nine stripes on his back, to
strip him naked and nail him to a cross. And then, the things that we can't even imagine,
for the Father to take all the sin of the world, Eric Harris,
Dillon Cliebold, Adolf Hitler, every abortion, every child
pornographer, every selfish and lustful thought we've ever
had, all of our sin, the sin of the world the Father then
took and placed upon his Son, spotless Son. You know what it's like to have a son that you're
proud of, a son that has great character? And then have someone tell you, 'Oh, he's really
a child pornographer.' 'He's
really a womanizer.' 'He's
really a drug addict.' All
of that was placed on him.
And then to hear his Son cry 'My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?' What
would it cost me to listen to my son scream to me 'Dad, why? If you've all the power in the universe, why
have your forsaken me?' Jesus
at that moment was stepping into someplace that he had never
known throughout eternity.
He never asked why, because he always knew.
The Father doesn't do anything without telling me.
"Father I know you know before I ask, but I ask out
loud for those who are standing by." When he said that word "Why?" he had stepped
into our place so that you and I never have say "Why hast
thou forsaken me?" And
then the unimaginable, then God the Father firing all of his
holy wrath down upon that sin upon his Son. That's unimaginable, three hours of darkness
that all eternity was suffered there.
But when it was done, he said it was finished, today
you will be with me in paradise, it was no more to tell us,
I paid in full. 1st John it would say 'In this is
the love of God manifest, not that we loved him but that he
first loved us and sent his Son to the world to be the propitiation
for our sins,' the one who would satisfy the holy wrath of
God. God, he says,
is for us. If he's
for us, who can be against us?
How do we know he's for us?
"He that spared not his own Son."
Oh, he's not going to prove his love because he gives
us a husband or a wife, or a lottery ticket or a car, or even
because he heals a disease or.he's already done the greatest
thing and it will never be improved upon. "He that
spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how
shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" verse
32. "Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"-you
see "it is" is in italics, the idea is-"God that justifieth." That's the last time "justifieth" is used
in the book of Romans, God
who justifieth? Is
he going to lay anything to our charge?
No he's not going to lay anything to our charge, he's
the one who's justifying, he wouldn't justify us and charge
us of being guilty at the same time. And when we're brought before the Court of Heaven,
for you and I, our Dad is the Judge, Jesus, Yeshua is our
Lawyer, the Holy Spirit is our Helper, this thing's all tied
up. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect? God? No, he's the one who justifies. Verse
34, "Who is he that condemneth?
It is
Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is
even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us." Is Christ condemning us? No, he's not, he's the one who died and rose
again, ascended to the Father, who's making intercession for
us right now. He wouldn't intercede and condemn us. Who is he that condemns us? Well, there's enough. Satan condemns us. The Holy Spirit doesn't condemn us, Satan condemns
us. Condemnation is
of the devil. Somebody
writes me a letter, and I learned this from my pastor, it's
great. [this letter
said] "You're doing this wrong, and you're doing this wrong, and you're doing that wrong." and I flip
it over, there's no signature.
Well, I figure it's a coward, why should I read it. They didn't want to put their name and phone
number, it goes in the shredder.
Just put it right in there, grind that baby up.
God doesn't condemn us, the Holy Spirit convicts us,
that's something different.
Both of them [condemnation and conviction] feel lousy.
Conviction drives you to the Lord, condemnation drives
you away from the Lord. That's how you tell the difference. Satan, it says, condemns us night and day, before
the throne of God. And
the interesting thing is, his accusations are well founded. We are what he says we are. Except, that we're called, we're justified,
and glorified, the whole issue has already been settled. But he has accusations to make. People have accusations to make, you know that.
If you're not living in sin, you're not compromising,
this is the way Satan always comes, through the tongue, and
if that doesn't happen, all you got to do is get up in the
morning and look in the mirror, you'll condemn yourself. I don't need much help, I'm always feeling bad
about something without anybody helping me.
But it isn't God and it isn't Christ.
Verse 35, "Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation"-which speaks of stress. Is stress going to separate you from the love
of Christ? You may
think it is, but the Scripture says it doesn't.
'Well I feel like it is, Pastor Joe!'
I don't care. Heaven
and Earth is going to pass away, his Word is going to stand
forever. And his Word
says, stress is not going to separate you from the love of
God. Then he uses the
next word-"or distress"-which means "narrowness".
'I feel like I'm being squeezed!
I feel like I can't move, I feel like I can't escape.'-"or
persecution"-Paul's been through all of these things. He's talking from experience-"or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?"
Hey, the Church has been here for almost 2,000
years and survived all these things. Isn't it interesting, because these kinds of
outward experiences are the things that so often make us doubt
the love of God. Well
that's why he said "God's for us."
The evidence of that? "He spared not his own Son." Yes, we're groaning now. Yes, these things aren't right now. Yes, we're longing for a release and to step
into his kingdom, waiting for that day.
And that is the will and purpose of God, he's foreknown
us and predestinated us to become conformed into the image
of his Son. That's the program. But now we have to realize, none of these things
[the bad things just quoted] will separate us from the love
of God. "As it
is written" verse 36, "for thy sake we are killed all the
day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter."
We look at that and think, 'What?!
Why did you write that in there, I'm having hard enough
time following you along. What in the world does that have to do with
anything?' Well, he's
quoting Psalm 44, where Israel, as a nation, feels cast off
from God, that God has cast them off and he's finished with
them. Well, we're going
to come to chapter 11, and Paul's going to say "Hath God cast
off Israel? God forbid." He's saying, "As it is written". That's exactly how Israel felt, 'God's cast
us off, he's done with us.'
No, he's going to go and make three chapters to make
a point, 'No, that's not true at all.'
God isn't done with them, God has a plan.
When you're his covenant people he's never done with
you. For you and I
though, we go through these experiences and nothing separates
us from his love. He
says in verse 37, no, none of these things will separate us. "Nay,
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
that loved us." Verse
38-39, "For I am persuaded"-and that's passive. That means, we can be persuaded too, and should
be-"that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature"-literally, "created thing"-"shall
be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord." That sounds like a pretty airtight case
to me. Paul says "You
think something can separate you?"
Let's go through the universe and have a look around.
Can death separate us from the love of God?
No, death is the very thing that ushers us into the
presence of God, where he puts his arms around us and wipes
the tears away from our eyes. Can life, the present, separate us from the
love of God? No, he's
with us always, even to the end of the age, he never leaves
or forsakes us. Can angels?
No they're sent forth ministering spirits to minister
to the heirs of salvation.
They're taking us on our journey to get us there.
I mean, you go through the list, there's nothing here
that can-things present? No he said I AM that I AM, he's the ever-present
one, how can anything present separate us from the Present
One. Shall things to come separate us from?...No,
no, because everything is headed towards him, he is the Coming
One. All human history is moving forward, the fact
that I'm fifty now and was forty-nine last year, and forty-eight
the year before, you know, just the fact that life is going
on, we're moving forward in history, and it's headed towards
a consummation. Things to come can't separate us because he
is the thing to come. And
he died for us, and paid for us, he is our future.
There isn't anything to come that can separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus.
"Nor height, nor depth, nor any created thing"-that's you, buy the
way. Because somebody's
going to say 'Well, I'm not on the list, all of this other
stuff might not be able to separate me, but I know I can.'
I don't know, ain't you a created thing?
You're on the list here.
"nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
["Romans 8:28-39, transcript of sermon given by Pastor
Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont
Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116. ©
1996 Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia.]
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