Step by Step

We know, says Paul on this passage, that in everything God works for the good with those
who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose.
We are accustomed, are we not, to looking at this verse and this continuing passage from
an individual point of view.
We like to apply it to ourselves.
God loves me.
God has destined me for glory.
God makes all things work together for my good.
And I believe this morning that's a legitimate interpretation of that passage.
Because one of the significant things of the universe is that while our God is so big
and so strong and so mighty that He's got the whole universe in the palm of His hands,
nevertheless, He has an interest in you and me as individuals.
Somebody has said that if you or I were the only people that ever live and have fallen
into sin, God would still send His Son to bring us to redemption.
The message of the Bible is that God is significantly interested in people, people matter to God.
And it's that security of a relationship with God knowing that we are ever secure in
the palm of His hands that gives encouragement and boldness to God's people and the stability
out of which we can face life and out of which we can face the world.
The church is only a straw as its individual members.
Having said all that, however, this morning, as we celebrate our 40th anniversary as a congregation,
I want us to take a little bit of time and look at these verses from a collective or corporate
or church body point of view.
As the Bible makes it plain that when the curtain falls on history, God is not only interested
in bringing many individuals to salvation.
He is also interested in bringing the church to glory.
And if you look at God's dealings with mankind from the early chapters of the scriptures
to the concluding chapters of the scriptures, you see that when God interacts with individuals,
He does that not only because He is interested in individuals, but also because He is very
much interested in building a people of power and a people of praise.
And just as God has a plan for you and me individually, I believe the scriptures teach us that
God has a plan for each of us corporately.
And that corporate plan, as well as the individual plan, is that we should be conformed to the
image of Christ.
And when the curtain falls on history, and Jesus comes for His bride, He is going to come
for a bride which the Bible says is like, is pure and spotless and without blemish before
the presence of His glory with rejoicing and all through history, God is working at building
a church and alternate society through which He can demonstrate His love and His mercy
to the ends of the earth.
And so while the passage before us talks about individual Christians, we can also look
at it from the perspective of the corporate body.
And in this passage before us, we have the step by step process that God has undertaken
in Christ to build us into a people who can be glorified.
Listen again to these verses, those whom He for new.
He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be the
first born among many brethren.
And those whom He predestined, He also called.
And those whom He called, He also justified.
And those whom He justified, He also glorified.
You're at all familiar this morning with the reformed tradition of the sovereignty of God.
And you know that these two verses put together are often called the golden chain, the golden
chain of salvation comprised of five links, the foreknowledge of God, the predestination
of God, the calling of God's people, the justification of God's people, and ultimately the glorification
of God's people all put together comprising the plan that God is moving us towards, not
only individually, but also corporately.
I'll take a little time with you this morning and try to go through those steps, step by
step for just a few moments.
Understanding that we don't have the time to do full justice to any of them.
Understanding too that in some cases we'll be raising more questions than we can provide
answers.
But in the hope that we can capture together something of the heart of God, something
of what it is that God's moving towards your life, but in my life, and the church universal,
because he's got a plan, and that plan is to bring us to glory.
How does he get us there?
Well, it begins, as Paul, with the foreknowledge of God, those, how does he put it?
For those whom he forenew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
The word foreknowledge means to know ahead of time.
In the way that it's always been understood in our tradition, God has known ahead of time,
not only those that were going to come to salvation, but it means more than that.
God has a plan and the purpose that He has committed Himself to before the foundation
of the world, He had a relationship with us, He knew us not only individually and collectively,
and He has been working out that plan ever since day one of time began.
God forenew us.
And what that means is that, first of all, on an individual basis, if you're a Christian
this morning, you're not a Christian because some were along in the process of time, you
said, "I want to be a Christian."
Long before you were ever on the scene, God in His heart determined that one day you
would be born, the circumstances under which you would be born, and that in the fullness
of time you would get to know Him and you would become part of His forever family.
And I believe just as God forenew us individually, that also has foreknown us collectively.
The church has been in the heart and in the mind of God from the very beginning of time.
And I believe long before time ever began, God determined the time and the location when
there would be a people group together in some ways drawn out of darkness into His life,
moving forward into the glorious purposes of God, those whom He foredeed.
The church is not something that was man's idea.
God conceived of the church long before the church ever existed.
As we'll see later on, that's very significant because it means that God defines the parameters
of what the church ought to be.
It was present in His heart long before it was ever conceived and born in time.
Those whom He forenew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Now, predestination is not a popular topic.
Anybody that's ever tried to teach it in Catechism knows that it raises more questions than
you can ever provide answers for.
And a lot of people say, "Well, predestination, I can't believe in that because they have
a picture in the back of their mind of God playing cosmic dice, you know, Amy, me, me,
me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, you're in, you're out."
And people say that's not fair that I've got no choice about where it is that God is
taking very complicated topic.
I wouldn't even begin to try to get into it, other than to say that.
Where the Bible talks about predestination, it's not talking about it as somebody sitting
back from the beginning playing that Amy Minimini more game.
It's always used in the scriptures as a doctrine of comfort to God's people so that after they
have come to salvation, they understand that they came to salvation not because they were
so smart and intelligent or spiritual, but because God, from the beginning, had his love set
upon them and worked out his process of salvation in their lives, those some he foredoed.
He predestined.
The word predestined comes from two Greek words, pro-Horizo, pro means before, "Horizo
comes from a word horizon."
The horizon is a line of demarcation, is it not, that's as far as you can see.
It carves out a piece of territory, and what predestination is, is destiny that God has
for his people.
If you're a child of God this morning, and God has said his love on you, then he's got
a destiny that everything is working towards, and that's true again not only individually,
but that's also true collectively.
There is a destiny that God has for the church.
There is a place God is taking the church.
A destiny is that we be conformed to the image of Christ, fully restored to his character,
fully restored to our glory, fully restored to a full relationship with him, a full relationship
with each other, a people of praise, and a people of power.
Long before you and I were ever here, long before God ever made the world, God in the back
of his mind, because God does not live in the realm of time.
He said, "I'm going to make myself a peep-all, who will reflect my glory, and through whom
I can carry out all of my purposes."
All goes on, those whom he predestined.
He also called.
You see, for knowledge predestination, that's in the mind of God, eternity past, if we can
speak that kind of language.
How does the idea that lives in the mind of God come to reality in the real world?
How the process God uses is He calls you and me, by His word, by His Spirit.
He begins to work in our lives, He begins to work in our hearts, shows us what sin is,
shows us who Jesus is, brings us to salvation if you're a Christian this morning, if you're
a part of the world-wide body of Christ, then you heard the call of God.
May you have come through the teaching of your father and your mother.
May you have come through the teaching of a teacher in Sunday School or Catechism.
May you have come through the preaching and church, the sharing of a friend.
But some were along the line, there was a hunger created in you that said, "There's got
to be more to life than this."
I want to be part of who God is and part of His family, and you began that move into
the purposes of God, and again, that happens not only individually, but it also happens
as a church.
I believe God has callings on the church, and I believe that while God has a universal
call for the worldwide church of Christ, there are particular callings that He has for
particular bodies.
As we listen to His word and as we discern the leading of His Spirit, we hear His voice.
And as we hear His voice, we begin to discern something of the pattern of what lives in the
heart and in the mind of God.
That's why some months ago was a congregation.
We had opportunity to commit ourselves to a vision statement in the church, a vision
to be a worshiping community, a discipling community, a community of Karen Fellowship, a
community that is willing to lay down its life for its neighbors and to bring the lost
to salvation and witness and in service.
We didn't make that up.
We didn't just sort of dream that up and say, "Well, that's the kind of church we want
to be."
We believe that from the scriptures and through His Spirit, that's what God's been
generating in our midst years ago when I first came to this church.
I came without an agenda personally as a pastor.
I said, "Lord, what kind of people do you want us to be?"
As I listened to the heartbeat that lived in the lives of many people and I looked at
the gifts that God has given to His people, I discerned right away that one of the things
He was calling us to be was a worshiping community because I believe the call of God and our lives
collectively is that we be a place where Jesus Christ dwells among the praises of His people.
Those were two or three are gathered in His name, but there He is.
You've heard me speak of this before, but when Jesus is here, as He said, He would be,
He wants to be that in a special way among all of His people.
When Jesus is here, things happen, the darkness is broken, lives are changed.
People come to know Jesus, people are drawn into the family of God, sins are forgiven,
lives are restored, and people are given a future.
People are given a hope.
Those whom He predestined, He also called.
Those whom He called, He also justified.
The word justified means to be made righteous.
It means that we are restored to our right relationship with God in the context of these
verses and Romans chapter 8, it includes most commentators agree, the word sanctification.
Deal is not only with the washing away of our sins and the failures of the past, but
encodes the righteousness that God imparts to us by faith in Jesus Christ so that we become
a new community, what's God's purpose for the church?
What are we here for to be a new humanity, to be a people who have got their values
right, a people who have a relationship with a living God, a people in the midst of whom
the Spirit of God lives in dwells, through whom the Spirit of God can express God's love
and God's compassion towards one another and towards all of the world.
He's calling us to be a people of power and a people of praise.
How do you get that way?
Well we certainly haven't got it from Adam, and we certainly don't get it from each other,
but we get it by faith in Jesus because we are justified by faith.
And so what happens is that God foreknows us, God predestines us, God calls us, and in
the process of calling us, He points us to Jesus.
We receive the washing away of our sins and the renewal of our lives, and again just as
that happens individually, that happens corporately to the whole body of Christ as well.
If you've got eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church today,
it is to arise and to put off our filthy garments, to move forward in the righteousness
and in the holiness that only Jesus Christ can provide.
It's a time of repentance, isn't it?
It's time of sifting through our motivation, a time of counting the past, the time of
laying bare, the secret students of our hearts and of our lives.
Not because God wants to condemn or judge you to make us miserable, but because He wants
to make us right with Himself, because life is not to be had in the abundance of things.
Life is to be had in the fullness of God's kingdom.
That's the message that I shared yesterday morning with Alan Rosanna, the people that
were gathered here at the wedding, many of whom don't know Jesus.
I said, "While the world is busy trying to look after itself and to find its security
in all of its own actions, Jesus Christ is trying to establish us in a relationship with
Him so that out of that relationship with Him, why flows and our needs are met and God's
kingdom comes, those whom He justified Paul goes on to say, He also glorified."
The word glorified means to be restored to glory.
God's destiny individually and corporately for the church is for us to be redeemed from
the corruption of life and the corruption of this world and to be restored to glory
at the right hand of God.
There is coming a day in the fullness of time when the Lord Jesus returns in the clouds
of heaven when all the dross and all the sin and all the brokenness will be wiped away.
We will see Him as He is. We will be fully transformed into His image and all the authority
Adam and Eve lost so many years ago and all the heartache, the rest of the world has gone
through since that time.
God's going to wash it all away and He's going to restore us to the glory of God as He
restores us to prestige and honor and position and authority in His everlasting kingdom, those
whom He justified He also glorified. Notice the tense of that verb.
You would think He would say He will glorify, but He does not.
He says it is already an accomplished fact. You say how can that be?
Because God has finished it all in the person of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus was glorified at the right hand of God the Father sat down in glory all those
whom God knew had been ordained to life in Jesus Christ were already glorified.
As far as God is concerned, it's already all settled.
As far as you and I are concerned, however, it is a process that is being worked out
step by step individually and corporately.
Well, some before Newt, he predestined, he called, he justified, he glorified.
The challenge of the Christian life and the challenge of the Christian community is to
understand the reality of what it is that we are in Jesus Christ, what it is that God
has purposed and then to watch God lead us to that final goal where all creation will
be fully restored to the praise of His glory.
Now if you understand what I'm saying this morning, then you'll understand that has some
incredibly practical implications not only for us individually, but it has practical implications
where the church is a body, and the time that remains this morning, let me try to share
with you three or four very quick implications of this golden chain of salvation that we've
been talking about.
It means number one that you and I are in process.
We are on a journey while it's all settled in the mind of God and he knows exactly where
he is going in terms of the history of mankind and the process of salvation, God is working
out His purposes, that which He conceived of before the beginning of time, God has been
working out.
He has been working out, finding himself a people, bringing them to glory and bringing them
to His own majesty and power.
The call that comes to you and to me individually and corporately is to lay hold of that calling
with which God has called us and is seek to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
The church had its origins in the mind of God long before you and I, wherever here.
It is God who has the agenda of what the church is and where the church is going.
You and I, we have the responsibility to know His scriptures and to yield to His spirit
and to try to find out where it is that God is leading us and step by step as He gives
us courage and faith to follow Him where He leads.
What do I make a point of that?
I make a point of that because we all have a tendency to want to go so far and no further.
You have noticed that in your own life, have you not?
I'm going to share tonight the Lord willing, something of my own story, my struggle with
that particular issue where you come to a point and you say, God, I've gone this far with
you, I don't know if I want to go any further because I don't think I like the kind of trouble
that I see further down the line.
Welcome to the family, God's people have always been that way.
Remember Abraham?
God says, "Leave her the call, these come follow me to the land that I will show you where
how far he gets."
I think it does, as far as Heron, he kind of liked it there and he settled down short
of where God was taking him.
The nation of Israel.
God said, "I want to give you the promised land, I want to bring you into the promised land."
They sent the spies ahead of them, saw all these humongous giants in the land and they
said, "Whoa, it's just a minute."
Our education in Egypt hasn't prepared us for this.
Lord, we can do this, we look like grasshoppers beside them, we're like bread to them.
Thanks but no thanks.
We want to go back to Egypt.
Keith Green is a good song about that, never heard that you want to hear.
I want to go back to Egypt and it's funny, I can't think of all the words.
And they settled for the wilderness and the whole generation died off, tragic story, heartbreak
to God, heartbreak to Moses.
You say, "Well, the New Testament is different, you know, the New Covenant people, they get
the Spirit of God and they're full of aggressive zeal to go forward with God."
Well, I'll tell you, the early Christian church, they had such a cozy little community in
Jerusalem, having a grand old time loving God, loving each other, but they really weren't
very interested in the command to go out and make disciples of all ancient.
That could be hard on your health.
But I mentioned your economic status through your pocketbook.
You may recall it took a little persecution to stir them up, you know, drop a stone in
the bucket, water splatters all over the place, and everybody gets wet.
That's how obedient the early church was, Peter, you know, visiting Simon the Tanner for
Saul, probably got incense to his core of his being, seeing all these clean and unclean animals,
and God's got his mission, go to Cornelius, good Jews don't go to Cornelius' house.
Look, a revelation from heaven.
And then when he got back to the church, he said, "Well, who was I that I, you know,
who would stand God?" He wasn't going to take responsibility for that step of faith.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Most of us, if we're honest with ourselves, we have limits to our obedience.
And that's true for us individually, but that's always true for church communities as
a whole.
I'll go this far, I'll be this and I'll be that.
And I'm not suggesting at all this morning that there is merit in being radical or stupid
or standing upside down what I'm suggesting is that God's after one thing, a people who
recognize that Jesus is Lord, that He's building the church, that He's got His own ideas
of what the church ought to be, and He doesn't particularly consult you or me.
And He says, "Will you trust me?
Will you follow me?
Will you walk with me into the places that I will show you?
Will you trust me that I can cut down the giants in the land and I will give you your
inheritance, folks that's called faith?"
And faith never works until you stick out your foot in the water and the water doesn't
disappear until you're right on top of that.
We are on a journey.
We are in process, God is building the church.
He says to you and to me, "Will you let me be the architect?
Will you trust, that my plan is the best?
Will you trust that what I know, that I know what I'm doing and that with all the mistakes
that everybody's going to make, I will bring you to your destiny of glory, we're in process."
Number two, God promises the equipment to get us there.
No, if you've ever thought about this, but the church is really a funny thing, you know.
I mean, God picks an odd assortment of people to make up the church.
You have noticed that, have you not?
I see a number of you are really looking at your neighbors and you're going like this.
All right.
I mean, God takes people from every culture, every background, every form of temperament,
the patient and the impatient, the dumb and the smart and who knows whatever else, you
know.
He throws them all in one pot and he says, "Now, I want you to think as one.
I want you to move as one and I want you to love each other and show all the world
that you're new people."
You got that, huh?
Okay?
That's the mandate for the church.
And I must honestly confess that in my moments of less faith, I say, "Lord, I don't know
if you know what you're doing because I don't think you can pull it off."
I speak reverently, okay?
I mean, God and I, we carry on these kind of conversations and he's always right and
I'm always wrong, but that's part of the process.
But that's precisely how God intends to demonstrate the power of His name.
So how does He build that kind of community?
How does He keep that whole host of people on one track moving forward to the one goal
that He's got for the whole body?
Well He says, "It all flows out of union with Christ because that's the whole context
of the Book of Romans."
It is in Christ that we are right related to God, if we're rightly related to God and the
Spirit of God has His way and your life and in my life doesn't matter if we come from
east, west, north, south.
Our white, black are every shade of color in between.
If we're listening to the same drum beat and in tune with the same Spirit, then the diversity
of expression becomes a manifold demonstration of the unique character of God.
That's why in this church we unashamedly call people to commitment and faith in Jesus,
because if you're not united to Jesus and learning to grow in Jesus and move forward with
Jesus, then that kind of bringing together of a diversity of people can never take place,
the world can play at it, the world can pretend, but only until the pressure is on, only
in the church of God, when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, do you have the power to
lay down your life even for your enemy?
And that's what it takes to build the church and so on the Lord lays before us the challenge
to look at the future and to say, "Will you follow my marching orders?"
You and I, we look at our fears, we look at our hesitations, we look at our pain and we
say, "Lord, I don't know if I can know how to do that."
The Lord says to you and to me, "Don't you worry about that."
Just look to me, "I am the author and the finisher of your faith."
And in my strength, but in my righteousness, I will work out whatever needs to be worked
out for the community of saints to move to, where it needs to move to.
That means that in Jesus Christ He will provide us the resources that we need, He will provide
us the leadership that we will need, He will provide us the people whether I give mixtures,
He'll put them all together.
And we can move forward into the plan, into the purpose of God, because God's heart,
you know, sometimes, I'll tell you about that tonight, because that's my struggle.
But I wonder if God's people can just lay hold of that incredible truth, because once
we see that and once we understand that, then you can't settle for second best because
you know the heart of God rejoices when His people are being built up in love and in
honor and in obedience and we march out into the world shining with His grace.
We're in process, He provides the equipment, and because He provides the equipment, we
can face the future with a certainty of faith.
You have noticed, have you not?
Because we read the Scripture this morning, how Paul, on verse 31, goes on to make this transition.
In light of all this, He says, what then shall we say to this, if God is for us, who
is against us?
And by that question, He doesn't mean to imply that there is nobody that is ever against
us quite the contrary, because the whole context of Romans chapter 8 is the groaning of
which reveal of creation and the suffering of God's people as they are being prepared
for glory, indeed not, all through history.
To be foreard aimed and to be chosen and to be called and to be justified and to be moving
towards the glory of God means you become the object of the enemy's wilds and temptations.
It's not only individually but appropriately, can you believe that in the middle of our
music this morning is a congregation, the whole sound system goes down, coincidental maybe.
But as you move forward into the things that go ahead, then you can expect all hell to
prevail, sometimes that can be very frightening, sometimes that can send you scurrying back
to the security and the comfort of your own little small world.
Paul says when that happens, I want you to remember, there's somebody who's for us, his
name is God, made the whole universe bigger than everybody else, not only that, but he gave
his son and what you love is you.
And he goes on to say if he loves you that much that he gave you his son, will he not
also with him give you all things?
How do we know that we will have what it takes to face whatever the future holds?
Because Jesus is on the throne next to the Father, and in his might we can stand and be
strong to the praise and to the glory of God because nothing at all creation can separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are in process, in Christ we have the provisions, in Christ we can stand secure against the future,
whatever it may bring, that I want to close with this, what that means is that you and I
are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
There is a distortion about predestination and election that is often crept into churches.
That distortion is that we put so much emphasis in the sovereignty of God that it eliminates
all sense of human responsibility.
The story is told many years ago, William Kerry, the founder of modern missions, God placed
a burden in his heart to found modern missionary work by going to the nation of India.
He went to his hyper-Calvinistic Baptist church board, told him his plan and his vision.
They as one body stood up and all seriousnessly and told Brother Kerry, "God wants to save
the heathen out in India that he can perfectly well do it without you."
How's that for theology?
A distortion of biblical truth.
Because you see, if God calls us to his destiny and to his purpose, that also means that
he has called us and destined us to be a part of that whole process.
That's why Paul says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
That's why Peter says, in second Peter chapter 1, "Be the more zealous, the more the
more you call us to confirm your call and election for if you do that."
You will never fail or fall.
The fact then that God has the back of his mind, the idea of what the church ought to be,
far from making us inactive crossing our arms piously and, you know, "Okay, Sarasara,
whatever will be will be."
It gives us courage to go out and to act and obedience because we know that as we speak
the truth in love, seek the Lord faithfully in prayer, lay hold of his heart.
He will do what he has said he would on this Roxas Jesus.
I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.