You're reading verses 18 through 30 with our focus upon verse 28. So let us hear the word of God given to us through the Apostle Paul. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, For in this hope we were saved, and a hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers, and those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. Let us pray. Lord our God, Heavenly Father, we do thank you, praise your name for your holy word. We pray now, Lord, that you would, as you have promised, would write your word upon our hearts. By God, the Holy Spirit, We pray that we would grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We pray that you would sanctify us. We pray for the power, the work of the Holy Spirit in us, sanctifying us, changing us, as he, the Holy Spirit, works in us through your word. And it is in the name of Christ that we pray, amen. I think we all have favorite books in the Bible, favorite chapters, favorite verses. While we hold, of course, that all scripture is inspired by God and is infallible, inerrant, true, without error, yet I think we all have these favorite parts of scripture. Perhaps that sounds a little bit sacrilegious or wrong, but I mean, all of God's word is for us, right? We have to know it, believe it, read it, meditate upon all the word of God. But there are passages that speak to us individually in special, special ways. Many years ago, I had the privilege of being at the bedside of a man in a church who was about to die of an illness. And after my visit, about an hour later after my visit, he died. So there he was in his deathbed, and I asked him if there was a passage in scripture he'd like me to read, and he said yes, without hesitating. Romans chapter eight, Romans chapter eight. Martin Luther said that Romans chapter eight is perhaps the greatest chapter in all of the Bible. You remember it was in his study of the book of Romans particularly that he came to understand the biblical teaching on justification by faith alone. So here we are, the eighth chapter of Romans, perhaps the greatest chapter in all of the Bible. There's so much here from beginning to end. There is therefore now no condemnation, verse one, for those who are in Christ Jesus in the end. Look at verse 37, knowing all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. According to verses 26 and 27, notice he says the spirit helps us in our weakness For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So the Apostle Paul is telling us that the Holy Spirit helps us. Helps us why? Helps us in what? Helps us in our weaknesses. Helps us because of our weakness. What is our weakness? Well, our weakness is the result of sin. We fight infirmities, physical infirmities, of course, because of the fall. We are feeble. We are, by nature, sinners. We are oppressed as Christians, distressed. In the immediate context, I think one of the main things Paul is concerned about here is our despairing over this continual battle that we have as believers, the battle we have with sin, sin in our lives. But Paul's point is this, when sometimes as Christians, when we pray, we really don't know how we ought to pray. Has that ever happened to you? You go to your knees in prayer, you sense a need of prayer, but you really don't even know where to begin. You don't even know what to say because you're so overcome by afflictions, distress, persecutions perhaps, battles against sin, against the same sin again and again and again. And Paul tells us that at that time the Holy Spirit helps us, he aids us. How does he do that? He intercedes for us. The idea is to help carry a burden. Or it also has the idea of to plead on behalf of another. It is as Matthew Henry says, he stirs up in our hearts those desires which we ought to entertain. We don't always in our distress, in our afflictions, entertain those thoughts that we ought to entertain. But we entertain thoughts of despair, hopelessness, God has abandoned us. And it's then that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, reminding us of God, who he is, the many blessings that we have in Christ, the union we have with the Lord Jesus Christ, his faithfulness to us, that he will never leave us nor forsake us. So here, the blessings that we have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, those joined to Christ by faith, in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul's favorite phrase, in union We have Christ right now, the living Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God as our high priest ever interceding for us, right now pleading for you, right now where you sit. And we have the work of the Holy Spirit bringing to us knowledge, understanding of Christ, giving us faith in Christ, regenerating us, enabling us, as our confession says, to come to Christ, to profess Him, know Him as our Lord and Savior. Here He is helping us, helping us in our weakness. And Paul says that he does so with groanings and sighs. He produces these in us. Then what proof is there to us of the effectiveness of this, that this will be effective? Notice again verse 27. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. In other words, God, the father, our sovereign God, has a purpose, an eternal purpose for every single human being. And the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, always works in harmony with the purposes of God, the eternal purposes of God. This brings us then to verse 28. And here, Paul's concern is believer's assurance. That is, believer's certainty of ultimate, final, complete salvation and deliverance from everything that sin, that the fall has brought upon us, has brought upon you. Notice the connective, and in verse 28, it has two main functions here. First, it links verse 28 with the main argument of chapter eight, and that is assurance. Assurance of salvation. Assurance of salvation in Lord Jesus Christ, that he'll never ever again come under condemnation, that the believer, the elect of God. And then, so this is, what I'm saying is this is another proof of the certainty of your final, ultimate salvation. And then here we have in verse 28 a continuation of what Paul said about the Holy Spirit helping us. Verse 28 is such a wonderful, comforting assertion, proposition. Paul proves and demonstrates his assertion, elaborates on the last statement of verse 28, who are called according to his purpose. Here in verse 28, we have one of the most remarkable comforting statements ever by the Apostle Paul, based upon the sovereign power of Almighty God. Surely after reading 26 versus 26 and 27, somebody, maybe you have, maybe you've done this, if God hears my sighs and my groanings over my affliction, over my troubles, over my battles against sin, you might ask, why doesn't he deliver me right now from them? Why doesn't he? Well, here's the answer. for us, for you, right here in verse 28. So as we examine this verse, verse 28, first of all, what does he mean here? There are limitations, first of all, limitations here to this promise. Paul's statement here in verse 28 is limited in its scope. It is not universal in scope. This promise is not in regard to everyone. Not to every single person. This promise is given to whom? Paul makes it very clear. To only those who love him. To only those who love the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's something we find again and again in scripture. There is only one real true division, and this is important to understand to see, of the human race. You and I, everyone here throughout the world is on one side or the other. There is this division, this clear division between men. This statement is true only of those who love God and are called by God to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, what we call the effectual call of God, the irresistible call of God. As for all the others, all things do not work together for good for them. If you, for instance, do not love God, if you have not been effectually called by God by the power of the Holy Spirit, regenerated and given a new heart to turn unto Christ and lay your sins upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the promise is not for you. You instead are under God's wrath. Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter one, verse 18. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. If you are sitting here today without the Lord Jesus Christ, you may think that that is not true of you, but it is true of you. It is true of you. And you have no consolation in this promise. Now why is this important to emphasize? Well, because there are many, many people, even Christians, who seems like more and more today expand this, extend this to all, everyone, and that is false. It leads to a false security, and it is a false gospel. For many, it's like Browning and his poem, the years at the spring and days at the morn, Mornings at seven, the hillsides do pearl, the larks on the wing, the snails on the thorn, God's in his heaven, all's right with the world. Now is that true, biblically speaking, historically speaking? It is not. That is false optimism. All is not right with the world. All is wrong with the world. And we are more and more every day reminded in what we hear and in what we see. That's why Christ, that's why the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the words of the apostle Paul here, give us hope. Christ is coming again. Christ is coming again to make all things right. Browning's little poem, poetry, is well-written, but it is fantasy. So why is there this limitation? Well, the ESV says that all things work together for good for those who love God. Of course, what it really is saying is that God works all things for good for those who love God. All things do not work for good in and of themselves. God does it. God is sovereignly at work. God sustains all things. God controls all things. I'll never forget when I was in seminary in homiletics class, one of the sermons that was preached there was based upon Colossians 1, 15 through 17. He, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven. and on earth visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. The title of that man's sermon in that homiletics class was Cosmic Glue. Christ sustains and holds all things together, sustains all things. He is like cosmic glue. And so right now, right now, all things are, every single thing is under the control of our sovereign, eternal Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Every single thing is under his authority, under his rule. You see, if this good that Paul talks about were simply automatic, then there would be no distinction whatsoever between believers and non-believers. and all would be subject to the same things in the same way. That's not what Paul is saying. Paul says there is this big, big difference between those who love God and those who do not. There is this big difference between those who have been effectually called by God to faith in Christ and those who have not been called. We sing a hymn about it. It is not that I did choose thee. Listen to some of the words. To a sovereign mercy called me and taught my opening mind. The world had else enthralled me to heavenly glories blind. My heart owns none before thee. For thy rich grace I thirst. This knowing, this knowing, this is what he knows, and this is what you ought to know. This is what we all ought to know. This knowing, if I loved thee, thou must have loved me first. And so we have this very, very important question for every one of us drawn from our text. Do we love God? Do you love God? That is true. No one loves God perfectly. Only one who ever has loved God perfectly was the eternal son of the Lord Jesus Christ. But do you love God? Do you love our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Is he your all in all? Do you long to love him more and more? Do you repent that you do not love him as you ought? Is there anything, anyone more deserving of our love and our devotion than the Lord Jesus Christ? Let's look at the scriptures and see how many times Christ stressed the importance of love for him. It's the motivation for our obeying him. He says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. There he is with Peter, after Peter had denied him three times, there he is, and he's recommissioning Peter to go out and preach the gospel, which he does. We have a record of it in Acts. After Peter has denied him three times, he asks him, do you love me? Do you love me, Peter? Asks him three times. Three-time denial, as Spurgeon said, demands a three-time confession. Then there's a test for us, whether we love God. First John talks about this. Do you love your brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ? John tells us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that if you do not love your brothers and sisters in Christ, you do not love God. How do you know that you have been sovereignly, effectually called by God? Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? If you do, it's not your doing. Jesus said, the world hates me. If you do, it is, as the hymn says, which I read earlier, it is because of God's work in you, God's grace alone working in you, giving you a new heart, writing his word upon your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, having sovereignly changed your heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. However, these questions are not meant to evoke in anyone pride, but that you might have assurance and comfort in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because as Paul tells us, if you do love God, if you have been called, this promise is yours. You are to cling to it by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and find comfort in this when you are afflicted, whatever that affliction is. And so what is this promise after all? It is this. Your Holy Father is at work according to his sovereign eternal purposes. overruling by his providence all things, all things, no matter how formidable they may seem to you, to his elect people, to those who love him. In other words, he is at work turning them, these things, no matter what they are, how terrible they are to you, how much they trouble you, turning these things into good for you, according to his eternal purposes. So I ask you, do you believe God? Do you believe right now where you sit that God is doing this in you, for you? You see, your belief in this will affect how you react to sufferings, trials, difficulties, disappointments, battles against sin. In other words, there's hardly anything more practical for you than this, for your Christian life, for your everyday life, and for the glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Because notice, second, not only is it God who does this, but Paul says this promise applies to all things. Imagine that, all things. Even those that seem to you to be utterly against you, even seem bad for you, they discourage you, they dishearten you. A parallel to this would be Romans 5, verses one through five. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. God, our Heavenly Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ, makes all things work ultimately for your good, as a believer. Difficult to grasp, difficult to understand, sometimes a great, great mystery to us. But it is, as Augustine said, all things which happen to the saints are so overruled by God that what the world regards as evil, the issue shows to be good. But then how? do things, how do these things work out for our good? How does God do this in our lives, work all things for our good? And what really is our good? Take, for instance, trials, tribulations, persecutions that come into our lives. That's what most of us have problems with. First of all, they will awaken you. These trials, these afflictions, these difficulties that come in your life will awaken you. They will get your attention, take hold of you, shake you. Sometimes you and I need this for our good. It is dangerous to be content with ourselves spiritually, and it's so easy for us to do so, to take everything for granted, to be prideful, to be self-righteous, self-dependent. So God brings these afflictions, these difficulties into our lives, these trials to awaken us, to stir us up spiritually, to bring us out of our trance, and to pay attention to ourselves, and to examine ourselves, to see how self-dependent we are. Here's an illustration from the physical realm. Here's a man. He has physical problems. pains in his body, but he just shrugs it off. But one day he's knocked to the floor with pain and he stopped right there. So he goes to the doctor. The doctor says, well, why didn't you come to me sooner? We do the same thing spiritually. We shrug off afflictions. We ignore them. We rationalize them. We rationalize our lack of spiritual zeal, our spiritual concern, lack of concern, our independent spirit toward God, our pride, this, that, self-righteousness. And then trials come. When you are awakened, you pay attention, begin to pay attention to these things, examine these things in your life. And you begin to see how really frail you are, how weak you are, and how far from God you are, and then begin to realize more and more how dependent you are upon God. The problem you see here is that the devil is at work through the remains of the old man, through the remains of the flesh, to encourage you and me and every believer, all believers, in self-confidence, spiritual complacency, self-pride. If you're a Christian, you know that you're saved by grace, but you easily begin to think that you can live the Christian life by your own resolve, by your own fortitude, by your own abilities. But then suddenly you're overwhelmed by these things that come into your life, and you see your self-righteousness, you're awakened to this, you're awakened to your frailty, you're awakened to your self-dependence, and you see that you have not been really depending upon the Lord. Now, biblically speaking, for the child of God, that's good. That's spiritually good. That's a part of the work of the Holy Spirit in preserving us and sanctifying us. And how often do we, do you, when these things happen to you, do you respond in faith? Do you say, wow, I know, I realize now that this is good for me? Or do you say something like this? Why me? Why me? Why does this happen to me? Murmuring against God. Why has God done this to me when we should be humbled before the Lord? We all need to be humbled before the Lord. One of our basic problems in all of this is our lack of humility. The Bible tells us that pride goes before a fall. The classic passage on this is in regard to the Apostle Paul from 2 Corinthians 12, verse 7. where he writes, to keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Now, we really don't know what this messenger really was in the flesh, but we can figure back as to what his problem was. He was thinking that, apparently, that if only I could get rid of this something, an eyesight problem, get rid of this and I could better serve the Lord. What does the Lord say to him? And he says he prayed about this three times. In the Greek, that's an idiomatic expression, not three times, one, two, three, but again and again and again and again and again. Have you ever done that? Finally he hears from the Lord, you don't need this, my grace, my power is sufficient for you. So the solution, what is the solution? The solution for him was he needed to be humble, brought low, to see that all he needed was the grace of God, the grace of God, the power of God was sufficient for him. So what happened to him was good. Why? Because when you and I are humbled before God, we see things that we've never seen before. We see things that perhaps we have forgotten. We see our need for forgiveness again. We see our need for complete dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We see our need of strength and help and grace in our time of need. And in all this, we are driven back to our Holy Father, our Heavenly Father, to His Son, to dependence upon the Holy Spirit. And anything that does that is good. You and I learn through afflictions that our personal strength, our will, oh man, do we ever preach to about that? Just your will. Just have a will. Express your will, your free will. We need to learn through afflictions that our personal strength, our will to overcome sin will not do. In your Christian life, your walk, there's no such thing as self-rescue. When you're humbled before the Lord, you get up in the morning and you tell yourself not that you're going to do better today, but you plead for God's mercy. You don't focus on change in behavior, your behavior, but you humbly confess, I have a wondering heart. I have idols in my life. You don't assume that you have the power for personal change, but you know that you need to be given the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of his spirit. You have given up on self-reformation and you run to the Lord Jesus Christ for help. You see, if you and I had the power to change ourselves, there would be no need for Christ. But the truth is, Christ is our only hope, not only for salvation, but to live the Christian life. And so sometimes trials come into our lives to humble us and to remind us you and me, of our need to rely upon the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, trials, difficulties come into our lives that we would learn more and more about God, our Heavenly Father, as we look to Him. I mean more of His graces, His love to you in the Lord Jesus Christ, the greatness of our God, the forgiveness that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, His power to restore us, His compassion, His patience, His long-suffering toward all His children. How little do you and I know about God, the attributes of God, but in trials and afflictions and difficulties, we learn things about God that we would never learn otherwise. You learn of his power, his faithfulness, holiness, grace. You and I can read the story, the parable of the prodigal son and accept it theoretically, but have you known God to deal with you in that way? Have you read J.I. Packer's book, Knowing God? He says in introduction, the reason for his writing that is that he says the main cause problems that you and I have in the Christian life is because we do not know God as we ought. I dare say that there's not one here today who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as we ought. Do you know his patience with you? It's only when you've gone through trials, difficulties, that you learn how patient he is. You and I are so ignorant of God, of his ways, his characters. Of course, the word of God reveals all these things, and it is adequate, but the problem is that you and I are distracted from God, from knowing him. We're blinded by our own sin, our own self-absorption, our self-righteousness, and we get caught up in this life, the things of this life. We are hindered by them. Things stand between us and God. Things stand idle, stand between us and knowledge of God, the cares of the world. So the question is, is how do we get out of this? Do you have, do I have the strength to get out of this? Can you simply will to do so? Paul tells us in Philippians chapter two that God is at work in us both to will and to do his good pleasure. Thank God that at those times he turns trials, afflictions, difficulties into our good by awakening us to our need to turn to him. So I ask you, does it seem at times that life has dealt harshly with you? Are you bewildered by afflictions, difficulties, do you despair? Remember verse 28. But your faith in our sovereign Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, He has promised that He will be with you always, even to the end of the age. So how is this fulfilled? By the abiding, living Lord Jesus Christ. That truth will give you equilibrium in your life during the storms of life. It will enable you to praise God in afflictions. It will enable you to come to God in faith, not doubting. It will give you courage in the face of danger, give you hope in times of despair. It is this promise that takes what happens to you out of the hands of so-called fate. Isn't it amazing? The world believes in fate but doesn't believe in God, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Take it out of the hands of fate and put these things in the hands of your faithful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You are a true child of God in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Be assured that he is working out his purposes in you for his good and is able to turn all things for your good. You see, there are only two things that keep you from finding comfort in this promise, only two things. Either you doubt the sovereign power of Almighty God to do you good, or you doubt his promise. You doubt his faithfulness to you, his truthfulness. What about you? Do you doubt either one? Do not doubt God. This promise is for you as a child of God if you're joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. And for him to deny you, for him to not fulfill this promise in you would be for him to deny his son. And he cannot do that. Earlier we sang the great hymn, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, written by William Cowper. I don't know if you've ever read about him, but there was a time when he was despairing, and he intended to commit suicide, and by God's good providence, he did not take his life. And as a result of that experience, he wrote that hymn. Again, some of the words. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall not break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Let's pray. Lord, our God and heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word, for wonderful words of life these are to us. It is our prayer, Lord, that we