Romans 8: 28-39
Theme: Assurance
THE REASON WE CAN BE THANKFUL
This is the time of the year that we give thanks for all that God has given us. The Psalmist writes over and over again for us to give thanks to God. But, how often have we considered why it is that we can give thanks? We are not responding to a heavenly tyrant who demands Thanksgiving from those who suffer in his presence. We have real cause to give thanks, at least those who are followers of Jesus Christ.
Some of you have had an excellent year and it is easy to give thanks. Others have had a horrible year and Thanksgiving seems quite difficult. How can we be thankful? While thinking about this topic, I thought of two singers, both who had many troubles and yet sung with thankfulness to God. One was Fanny Crosby, the blind songwriter. We sung her great hymn this morning, Blessed Assurance.
The other woman I thought of was Ethel Waters. I grew up watching her sing with Billy Graham. Ethel Waters came into this world because her 12-year-old mother was raped. Her mother really never gave her a lot of affection. Ethel was adopted by her grandmother and lived with her alcoholic aunts and uncles. She was responsible for raising herself in Pennsylvania’s multicultural, red-light district where legal prostitution, gambling, and other vices were accepted as normal. There was little stability in Ethel’s young life – 15 months was the longest her family lived in one place. She became a professional thief and stole food out of necessity. There was never a day in Ethel’s childhood that she was not hungry; cat and dog food were culinary delights. (http://www.mhmin.org/FC/fc-1193EthelW.htm) She became a jazz singer and an actress in a day when black actresses were not well recognized. Yet, God found her and she became a follower of Jesus Christ. From 1957 until she died in 1976, she would sing at the Billy Graham Crusades, the hymn His Eye is On The Sparrow. Do you remember the words the song?
Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
How is it that persons living under such adverse conditions can have such hope? Are they deceived or deluded? Is it in their emotional makeup? I believe it is because they had placed their faith in Jesus. And I think that every one of us who have come to faith in Christ can be have the same hope.
Paul said that "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." This is no fair weather promise. Paul is not singing a song of idealism or suggesting that nothing bad will ever happen to us. No, what Paul is saying is that God will bend history if necessary to make the outcome of life good for us. Can you think of any Biblical characters for which this was true? Joseph was abandoned by his brothers and sold into slavery. He was falsely accused and thrown into jail and forgotten. Yet, by God’s providence, he, a foreigner, became the second in command in Egypt. He told his brothers who had sold him into slavery "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." (Gen 50: 20)
We have a great doctrine that we don’t talk about often enough. It is called the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints. Here is what the Baptist Faith and Message says:
All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, bring reproach on the cause of Christ, and temporal judgments on themselves, yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
This is not a license to sin. It is not that you can get saved and then do whatever you please. In fact, getting saved and then leading a deliberately sinful lifestyle would indicate that you were never a Christian at all. Perseverance means that God is in control of your salvation, and not you. If you were in control, you would lose it as quickly as you got it. Some denominations teach that salvation is yours to lose. But the Bible teaches that salvation is God’s to keep. We can’t lose something that belongs to God in the first place.
Why could Paul speak with such certainty? Because he recognizes that God is in control. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. (v. 29-30)
God is in control of our salvation from beginning to end. He has planned it all out. He foreknew us. He predestined us and called us. You can’t get any more sure than that! He chose that we would be conformed to the image of Jesus.
How is all of this to be accomplished? Did he expect us to earn it by good works? Do you think we can earn such assurance? No, God himself, justifies us. He makes us right by declaring all who come to faith in Jesus to be justified. In God’s court we have been declared guilty of violating his law. We are condemned to death. But Jesus becomes our substitute, he died in our place. Because the penalty is paid by Jesus, we are declared justified. And whom God justifies, he makes certain that we complete the journey.
Whom he justifies, he glorifies. To be glorified means to be transformed into the final state of our salvation. It means to be made ready for heaven, to be in the direct presence of God. If God justifies us, he makes us holy and he preserves us until that day. In fact, our future glorification is so sure, that we are considered glorified even now!
God is for us, what a statement! Did you ever in your wildest dreams ever think that the creator of the universe would be your defender, you shield, your friend? God is for us and wants us to succeed. He, in fact, guarantees that we will. If this were a race, it would be fixed. If it were an election, the ballot boxes would be stuffed. God has rigged the universe to make sure that we will persevere and endure to the end. Those who are in Christ can’t lose, that is what Paul says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?" God spared nothing for us, including his own Son who died for us. If God loves us that much, how can the future be anything else but secure?
Life can throw everything at us and our salvation is secure. Who can bring a charge against God’s elect? No one can because it is God himself who has justified us. Who condemns us? No one because Jesus died for us, rose from the dead and even now intercedes for us. He is our Advocate with the Father. He is our Defender. He is the one who says, they are no longer guilty because I died for them, I bought them with the price of my blood, they belong to me.
So, even when the worst things of life come to us, we will persevere, not because we are great or strong or invincible. It is because God is for us and no one can separate us from the love of Christ, nothing. Life, death, peril or sword, angels or rulers of this world cannot keep us from our goal. Neither the past sins, present sins nor future sins can cause us to stumble so hard that we will lose our salvation. In fact, nothing will keep us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can keep us from God. Nothing. The reason we can be thankful this year and every year is because the One, who foreknew us, predestined us, he called and justified us and glorified us. And nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God.