This is Andrew Smith, pastor of Christ Reformed Community Church here in St. Johns County, Florida. I would like to extend to you an invitation to worship with us each Lord's Day at 1015 a.m. Our address is 161 Hampton Point Drive, Suite 2, St. Augustine, Florida, 32092. You can also access archived video versions of these same sermons on our Facebook page. Additionally, our sermons are broadcast live on Facebook every Sunday morning. Now, let's open God's Word and listen to the sermon for today's broadcast. Let's take our Bibles this morning and be turning again to the book of Romans. I want to look with you together this morning at just one verse, Romans 8, verse 28. I want you to stand to your feet in honor of the reading of God's Word, just one verse, the title of the message, And We Know. Romans 8, verse 28. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. May God add His blessing to His Word. Please be seated. It has been well said that history is His story. History is God's story. In other words, the Bible teaches us that God orders all events in history to achieve His glorious ends. That is to say, let me put it another way, God is not merely the author of history, God is active in history through and through. We could say that providence is God's hand behind the headlines. Providence is God's hand behind the headlines. That is to say, the unseen hand of God may be obscured at times by the fog of circumstance, but just as we can't see the sun on a cloudy day doesn't mean it's not there, and just because we can't see God, and just because we can't understand exactly what He's doing in all the details doesn't mean that He's not there, and it doesn't mean, obviously, that He doesn't have our good intentions in His heart according to His plan as He works them out. The Bible also says that God's providence is so powerful that it overcomes the evil powers in this world that seem to believe that fate is on their side. That God himself even seizes control of things like weather patterns with his providential hand. to inhibit evil forces from gaining certain victory. In May of 1588, King Philip II of Spain, he was a Catholic king and he was determined to invade England to defeat Protestantism. He was heard to have said that he was trusting in God for his cause to defeat Protestantism. And he even prepared his navy, the biggest and strongest in the world, for this mass invasion. He referred to his navy as an invincible armada, that is, an undefeatable armada. And he prayed for victory even as he saw this armada, this wonderfully big navy, disappear over the horizon to invade England. But history tells us that God's providence sided with the English, the Protestant, because the Spanish armada was tossed in every way by a violent storm. And even as the storm came, they pressed on, the fleet pushed on, but the British spotted the fleet on July 19th. And the winds yet again slowed the armada's progress, allowing the English more time for preparation. The battle itself began on July 21st when the weather yet again turned against the armada. The heavy winds essentially favored the smaller English ships, easier to handle in such weather. And it seemed during the whole battle, history tells us, that as the winds shifted, they shifted in favor of the English, securing for them victory over the Catholics. By July 31st, it was apparent that defeat was imminent for King Philip, the Catholic King of Spain, and so word was sent to him, in part it read this, God knows how grieved I am at the present time because I had hoped to send your majesty congratulations, but I will only say that this must come, this defeat for you and us and for our country, Spain, from the hand of the Lord who knows well what he does. God's hand of providence. on the English channel. It's certainly a mystery to that. It also worked in favor of the British when the hands of Nazi Germany was choking the throats of British troops on the shores of Dunkirk. This occurred in May and June of 1940. This is a time period in which Poland and Denmark and Norway and Holland and Belgium and France all had fallen to the Nazi blitzkrieg. And the British expeditionary force was trapped on the shores of Dunkirk awaiting certain destruction like sitting ducks. And that is when England's king, King George II, called for a national day of prayer as a risky evacuation began on May 26 that lasted for 10 days, during which the weather, again on the English Channel, turned bizarre and not according to expected pattern. When the dykes were opened to halt the German advance, the wind blew in from the sea, helping this tactic to prove effective. But had the winds continued to blow in from the sea, it would have wrecked and destroyed the tiny boats and small vessels meant to transport the soldiers off the beach. But history tells us that the winds blew at just the right time and in just the right way to facilitate an effective retreat. When needed, the wind blew in favor of the English. When not needed, it didn't blow. And as a result, you know the story, thousands of troops escaped in a civilian flotilla of tiny boats because, and only because, the waters of the English Channel were as still as a pond. And this took place in the time of the year in which normally the waters were choppy. Not only that, but fog set in to hide the rescued troops as they escaped. The mystery of the winds on the English Channel. I think both of those illustrations illustrate well The simple point of Paul in Romans 8.28, because he speaks about the winds of God's sovereignty and about the fact that eventually they will flow or they will blow in favor of God's eternal people. In fact, Romans 8.28 assures Christians of the absolute sovereign goodness of God. It shows us that God's sovereignty relates to every aspect of the Christian's life from birth to death, good times and bad times, times of joy and times of sorrow. Now we need to look at it in its context because if you were with us last time We looked at verses 18-27 where the Apostle Paul compared the pain of this present life to the glory that awaits us in the next life. And then he says in Romans 8-28 that we can have assurance that God is at work in the present to bring about the good of the future. Really, the best way to look at it is that Romans 8.28 is a conclusion to all that Paul has said in verses 18 through 27. He has spoken about the fact that the creation, the Christian, and even the Creator Himself groans. But such groans in the midst of present suffering are like labor pains that will give birth to a universe, a new heavens, and a new earth, when God will, to bar the language of John in Revelation chapter 21, will wipe away every tear from our eyes, death shall be no more, neither shall there be any mourning, any crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away. And please understand that Paul does not speak about what will likely happen, no. Paul does not speak about what is probable, no. Paul does not speak about what approximates what's going on behind the scenes in our present suffering as the sovereign winds of God blow. No, Paul writes with Holy Spirit-inspired certainty. Notice the beginning of verse 28, three words, Paul says, and we know. And we know. In other words, Paul is not giving his feelings. He is writing facts as an authoritative apostle writing under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And I want you to circle the word and because that word and is a transitional word. It shows that here beginning in verse 28 is a conclusion to the present suffering that he spoke about in verse 18. Notice your Bibles in verse 18. He said, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Why? Well, Paul concludes, we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose, verse 28. And also notice that the word we there in verse 28 refers to all of those who are true believers, all of those we could say who have their future hope fixed on Christ. That is what Paul alluded to in verse 24. For in this hope we are saved. Now 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. We hope for Jesus. We hope for the return of Jesus. We hope for the day in which we look Jesus in the face. And Paul has been clear that Christians already know, based upon verses 26 and 27, that the Holy Spirit intercedes when the smoke of the battle in this world renders us unable to know even what to pray for. He says in verse 26, 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, and He searches hearts. He knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So here in verse 28, he affirms that we, that is all Christians, can know with certainty the sovereign purposes of God. And that is why verse 28 is one of the best and most comforting verses in all of the Bible. It has been likened to a pillow on which we rest our weary heads. Verse 28 is like a pillow of peace for the Christian. It gives to us what we know, because there's so many things we don't know about God's sovereign purposes. But verse 28 tells us what we can know with certainty. And by the way, Paul is someone who writes with certainty about what we know. For example, in chapter 3 and verse 19, Paul said that we know that the law shuts every mouth, proving the guilt of the whole world before God. That's not really an encouraging reality, but it's certainly something that we know. We are all guilty before God. Paul says we know this. In chapter 7 in verse 14, Paul said, we know the law is spiritual. That is, as we looked at it, the law of God is marked and rooted in the character of God, who himself is a spirit. God's law is pure. It is spiritual because it comes from God. We know that. He said in chapter 8 in verse 22 that we know, we saw this last week, that certain groans are a collective cry from creation. It's like labor pains. Creation awaits its liberation from the curse of sin. But here in verse 28, he tells us something that we know that is actually encouraging. And that is that God is sovereign. over the details of our lives. This is important for us to stop and pause and think about because we live in a feeling-based world, don't we? But I want you to understand that the Bible is a fact-based world. Indeed, there are some things that we don't know and that we cannot know. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 29.29 that the secret things belong to the Lord. we leave those to the Lord. They are secret to Him. But the Bible gives a lot of knowledge. The Bible is meant, by the way, to reason with the mind, to give us knowledge, in order to assure the soul, to give us conviction, or certainty, or assurance. And as Christians, we know that we can rest in security under the shadows of God's loving and sovereign wing. Nothing, I think, provides more comfort than the doctrine of God's sovereignty. His providence is surely a pillow upon which we can rest our weary head. So I want to begin looking this morning at verse 28 because in verse 28, Paul lists five affirmations about God's providence that we can know. Five affirmations about God's providence that we can know. Let me list them to you. Paul says that God's providence, number one, is affectionate. That is to say, it comes from His loving hand. Secondly, he tells us that God's providence is all-encompassing. That means it includes all things. All things in this world, all things in your life. Number three, he says that God's providence is active. That is to say that God is at work in the details of your life. Even the things that you might believe are insignificant, maybe they're insignificant to you and other people, they're not insignificant to God. Number four, he tells us that God's providence is assuring. That is, not only is he at work, but he's at work for your good. He's at work for my good. And fifth, Paul tells us that God's providence is advancing. In other words, His providence is working in accordance with His eternal purpose from before the foundation of the world. God doesn't have a plan B, and God doesn't switch what He's going to do on the fly. His purposes are advancing. He is sovereign over all things, and He is working together with all things to bring about the result of His glorious and eternal purposes from before the foundation of the world. So let's begin looking at these five affirmations. I'll admit to you this morning, there's a lot about God I don't know. There's a lot about God's sovereignty that I don't know, that I would like to know. But I know these five things. I know these five affirmations because Paul says we can know these things. Number one, we can know that God's providence is affectionate. God's providence is affectionate. Now, I'm reading from the English Standard Version, which might be different from some of the versions that you are using, but the next line in the ESV after, and we know, says that it is for those who love God. That is who Paul is addressing, those who love God. God's providence, we could say, is only comforting for those who love God. So understand this at the beginning. Verse 28 does not lay down some superficial sort of optimism that, generally speaking, things have a way of working themselves out. You hear people say that all the time. just chill, just be low-key, things are going to just work out. No, non-believers don't have the joy of resting in God's providence, the same as believers, and Paul is clear about that because he's writing to those who love God. The promises regarding God's sovereignty are restricted only to true believers who Paul has, in an interesting way, described as those who love God. I say that's interesting because most of the time in Scripture, The Bible focuses on God's love for us, not our love for God. I'll give you just a couple of examples in the book of Romans itself. Romans 5, 5 says that God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And then in verse 8, God shows His love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is God's love for the believer. Or skip with me to verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ. Or verse 39, 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. So normally scripture speaks about God's love for us. But here, Paul, interestingly, describes Christians as those who love God, because it's equally true that if you're a true Christian, you will love God, right? And there, of course, are verses that speak about the believer's love for God. This isn't the only one. One parallel passage that's very similar to this is 1 Corinthians 2, 9. You're familiar with it. As it is written, no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him." That is speaking about Christians. Or you could go to 1 Corinthians 8, verse 3, but if anyone loves God, he is known by God. In other words, if you truly know God, you will love God, and other people will see that in your life. Another verse is James 2, 5. Listen, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him? In fact, in the Old Testament, in Psalm 97, our love for the Lord is defined in terms of our hatred of evil. I don't know if you've thought about that or not, but your love for God can be defined in terms of how much you hate evil. Psalm 97, O you who love the Lord, hate evil. Hate evil. He preserves the lives of the Saints He delivers them from the hand of the wicked all true Christians hate wickedness They trust in God who is a loving God that he will deliver them from wickedness. Therefore they hate evil They hate wickedness and this defines their love for God it's not just the Psalms but in Exodus chapter 20, we also read about the love of God. We read that God shows steadfast love to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments. So their love is defined by our obedience. And Jesus spoke this way. For example, He said in Luke chapter 6, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don't do what I say? He put a little more positively in John 15, 14. He said, You are my friends, if and only if You do what I command you to do. So Christians prove their love for God by their obedience. That's how it's defined. Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse 9, Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with all those who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations. So more often than not, maybe more often than you think, the Bible describes Christians as those who love God. And there are other verses in the Bible that, while not using the actual word love, obviously demonstrate and express the believers' or the saints' love and devotion for God. You're familiar with Psalm 42, as the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all the day long, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. In fact, in Psalm 73, the psalmist expresses the depth of his love and devotion to God this way. He says, referring to God, whom have I in heaven but you, God, and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. This is the saints' love for God, the depth of the saints' love for God. The first passage that I ever preached from as a teenager was Psalm 84. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh sing for the joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home in the swallow, a nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise. God's people in the Bible are referred to as those who love God. Romans 8, 28. Let me give you another verse. Psalm 31, verse 23. Oh, love the Lord, all you godly ones. So all the godly ones are called upon to love the Lord. And they embrace that because they do love the Lord. Now, all these verses that I quoted to you describe the affection of the believer toward God. And in Romans 8, 28, Paul can describe Christians as those who have a strong affection for the Lord, those who love God, because it's true on the surface, if you think about it, that our love for God is rooted and grounded in His love for us first, right? Take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of 1 John. I know you're familiar with this, but it's important to press this point home. 1 John 4, 7, the middle of it says that love is from who? Love is from God. In the final analysis, love is not from you. If you love God, it's because God gave you that love. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. So all true believers love God, but He loved us first. Verse 10, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So the only way we are able to love God is because He set His love upon us first. Again, verse 19, we love because He first loved us. Psalm 116 verse 1, I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. So our love for God is a response to His love for us first. If you love God this morning, I'm happy for you, but the only reason you love God is because in eternity past, He loved you. Before you were ever around, God set His love upon you." In fact, we'll read later in chapter 9 of Romans, as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. That is the sovereign love of God before the world began, before you existed. Now, going back to Romans 8.28 and this phrase, for those who love God, here is the point. As it relates to God's providence, only the elect, only those upon whom God has placed His love are those who truly love God in return. And here is the application. Therefore, anything that befalls one of God's elect, Anything that assails the believer, any trial, any affliction, any suffering, the believer can have certainty of knowing, number one, that God ordained it, and number two, that God loves us. In other words, we can say that God's providence is affectionate. It is affectionate because for the believer, we know that his ordaining hand is also a loving hand. so that in times of trials, dark valleys, we can take Paul's Holy Spirit-inspired benediction at the end of Ephesians, the heart, where Paul told the Ephesians, grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. We are in grace, we stand in grace, we are sustained by grace which is a demonstration of God's love, and that is why we love God incorruptibly, even in the midst of pain, even in the midst of suffering. Another verse that helps apply this is James 1. Turn over quickly to James 1. I know we're sort of bouncing around different places, but I really want you to see the depth of Romans 8.28. In James chapter one, James of course speaks about trials, but in verse 12 he says, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. Now how do you remain steadfast under trial? You only remain steadfast under trial if the grace of God is sustaining you. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to who? Those who love Him, those who love Him. Paul put it this way, and this could really sum up everything that I've said thus far. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 that the love of Christ controlled him. The love of Christ controlled him. In other words, Christ's love for us in His substitutionary atonement controls our lives in such a way that we willingly and even earnestly serve Him in loving devotion through the thick and thin, in the valleys and on the mountains. We are those who love Him because we know that He loves us. His providence is affectionate, and our response of affection is just that. It's a response. to the love of God. The world cannot say that. The world loathes God in the midst of their suffering. They don't love God. The world curses God in the midst of their suffering. They don't praise God. The world, in the midst of their suffering, blames God. They don't bless God. But the Christian, because the love of Christ controls him or her, loves God with love that is incorruptible. We know and we affirm that God's providence is affectionate. That our love for Him, even in trials, points to His love for us. That's one of the greatest evidences of being Christian. Do you love God in the midst of your trials? Do you feel closer to God in the midst of your trials? Do you bless God even when he hurts you with the pain that he has ordained for your good? So it's interesting, isn't it, that Paul emphasizes our love for God in a verse that is really expressing God's love for us. And he describes Christians as being affectionate toward God because God's providence is affectionate toward us. But Paul gives a second affirmation about God's providence, not only is God's providence affectionate. There's a second affirmation, and that is that God's providence is all-encompassing. It is all-encompassing. The next phrase, all things work together for good, in verse 28, is going to require us to break down its parts, really to understand its full import. And with the second point, that God's providence is all-encompassing, I just want to start with those words, all thing. All things Working out under God's providence simply means all things. You don't need to be a Greek expert. It's the Greek ponta. It means everything. It means nothing in all the world is left out of Paul's equation when he speaks about God's providence. It includes all things. There doesn't exist one maverick molecule. In fact, in God's providence, as we are preaching on providence, Our reading from the Heidelberg this morning was on Providence. And what does it say? It says, Providence is the almighty and ever-present power of God, by which God upholds us with his hand heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things in fact come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. I think I can say that includes all things. How does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us? We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature will separate us from His love, for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they can neither move nor be moved. God's providence is all-encompassing. It includes everything. Now this includes all things that are good, it includes all things that are the worst, and all things in between. So let me give you a few things to think about. God's providence is all-encompassing. It includes all things, and that includes all things in prosperity. In prosperity of blessing, we could say. God blesses the Christian. with a lot of things. The Psalms are beautiful in the sense that they communicate to us the blessings of God. For example, the psalmist says that we are satisfied with the goodness of God. Psalm 65, blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple. We are blessed with prosperity because we are blessed with the very goodness and kindness of God. We are satisfied in God's goodness. We're also supplied, we could say, with God's goodness. Graciousness, you're familiar with these verses. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. God prospers His people. He satisfies us with His goodness. He supplies us with His graciousness. He also secures us with forgiveness. And this is why we have an assurance of pardon every Lord's Day from Scripture. Psalm 32, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and whose spirit there is no deceit. God blesses us, secures us with forgiveness. We're also settled in God's blessedness because we are settled in the truth of His Word and we walk in accordance with His Word. Psalm 112, praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments. Those who are settled in God's blessedness are those who are settled in the truth of God's Word and walk according to God's Word. We're also surrounded by, for example, God's faithfulness. Proverbs 20, verse 7, the righteous who walks in integrity, blessed are all his children after him. So God will actually bless succeeding generations after us when we follow His Word. He surrounds us by His faithfulness. He satisfies us with His goodness. He supplies us with His graciousness. He settles us in the blessedness of His Word. He also saturates us with His bountifulness. Now, I know that the health wealth preachers talk a lot about prosperity, but they twist and pervert it. God speaks about prospering believers, even in strange ways. And Prophet Malachi says, bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. It's very difficult to escape exactly what scripture says if you take it at face value, and that is when you use your money to bless the kingdom of God, he will pour his blessings upon the believer. This is the fact that God is sovereign in all things, all encompassing, including in prosperity, of blessing. But there's another way in which all things is being described here in verse 28 in the Bible and other places. All things includes not only all things in prosperity of blessing, but secondly, it includes all things in adversity of suffering. Now, not all things are good in and of themselves, but God is good in the midst of all things. That's the point. In joy and happiness, in suffering and sadness. All that seems negative in life has a positive purpose since God is in charge. For example, in all adversity. In persecution, God has promised His presence. Paul said, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer what? Persecution. Persecution. And oftentimes, this is at the hands of other people who profess the name of Christ. That was certainly true in Paul's life. He had professing Christians against him. He also had the Jews who professed to love God against him, and he also had the Romans against him. But in persecution, God has promised his presence in the midst of that sort of adversity. In fact, even as we proclaim the gospel, we know that God is with us. Jesus said, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and to the end of the world. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. He says in Matthew 28, Jesus does when He gave the Great Commission, that I will be with you always. So even in the adversity of persecution, God has promised His presence. Secondly, we could say in the adversity of ministerial rigor, God has promised certain results even when we're discouraged. As we proclaim the gospel, as we live forth the gospel before the world, the Bible assures us that God is with us. This is illustrated well in the book of Acts, if you turn back with me to Acts chapter 18. Again, an illustration from the life of Paul. He's in Corinth. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, Acts 18.9, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking, and do not be silent. There are a lot of people against you. The Jews are against you. You're going to have to shake the dust off your feet because they won't receive your message. But God says to Paul in this vision, verse 10, For I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city who are my people. That's a way of God telling Paul, I know who my elect are, don't worry about it, continue to preach and to teach. And we read in verse 11, Paul obeyed and he stayed in Corinth for a year and six months. Why? Because he knew God's presence was with him. In ministerial rigor, God has promised results. They may not be the results that we want. It may not be according to the timetable that we want, but God is with us. He's in with us in the midst of that adversity. God is with us in the adversity that we have from others who seek to harm us, so that in our prayerful cries, He promises to hear us. Psalm 91 verse 15, when He calls to me, I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble, and I will rescue Him and honor Him. You do realize today that whoever your enemies are, you can take it to the Lord in prayer, and He will protect you. That is the constant theme of the psalmist, that in the adversity that we face, in our prayerful cries, God will hear us. It's interesting because Martin Luther could never find a place in his life for the imprecatory psalms. I mean, how in the world does a believer pray judgment down on other people? Well, Luther found out the application of the imprecatory psalms because he began to be persecuted and hated without cause by enemies of truth. And he immediately resonated with David and David's prayers for the vengeance of God to be unleashed. You don't think it's viable to pray imprecatory Psalms? They are in Scripture. Of course they are appropriate to pray. And when your character is assaulted, when the ministry is assaulted, when the Word of God is assaulted, when your wife is assaulted or your children are assaulted, or as I said, your character is assaulted, you will get on your knees and pray for God's vengeance and judgment. And we have the assurance of Scripture that He will hear us, because He is the protector of His people. He is with us in our adversity. He is with us even in the gauntlet of trials. He has promised to demonstrate His tender and gracious hand. He did this to Israel, for example. We see His judgment and discipline, but we also see His graciousness. God said to Israel in Deuteronomy 8, I led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground, where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you. Why? To do you good in the end. That is an amazing thought, that even in the adversity of God's discipline, his presence is with us. In persecution, God has promised His presence. In ministerial rigor, He's promised results. In our prayer for Christ, He's promised to hear. In the gauntlet of trials, He's promised His tender hand. In tribulation or affliction, He has promised to provide consolation. I read these verses last week, I believe, blessed be the God and Father, I'm reading from 2 Corinthians 1, of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. He comforts us in the affliction that He has ordained for us. That is why the great Puritan Thomas Watson used to say that a sick bed often teaches us more than a sermon. Because in the midst of affliction, we feel nearer to God than when things are going well. in adversity, God is with us. In our weakness, He makes us stronger. That was certainly Paul's experience, was it? In 2 Corinthians 12, three times he prayed for God to remove the thorn of the flesh and God said, no, no, no, so finally Paul stopped praying and God said, my grace is sufficient for you. I will sustain you in the midst of this adversity. That is true for all of God's people for all of time. It wasn't just Paul in the New Testament. You go back to the Old Testament, to Job. Job himself said in Job 23, that he, that is God, knows the way that I take, and when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. In other words, I will come out better than before I went through these trials. That's what Job said. That was his testimony. That was what he was certain of. It's amazing that trials have a way of purifying us, drawing us closer to the Lord. So God's providence in all things includes even our adversity. James puts it this way, James 1. For you know, same language of Paul, and we know. James says, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And then he says, let steadfastness have its full effect. Don't pull up. Don't give up. Let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So please don't misunderstand me. Romans 8, 28, and I hope I've been clear, is not teaching that God prevents harm from your life. It's not teaching that God prevents bad things, that God prevents adversity from touching his children. No, he ordains adversity in our lives to turn the worst of things into blessings in disguise. Ironic blessing. So this phrase, all things, it's all encompassing. Under God's providence, it includes in prosperity of blessing, in adversity of suffering. It even includes, number three, in immorality of living. God can even bring good out of sin. That's how sovereign God is. I'll just give you one example of this. It was true in Matthew's life. Matthew was a tax collector. He had a life that was filled with all sorts of lack of integrity. God used all of that to lead him to conviction by the Holy Spirit, to true conversion, to follow after Jesus, and to walk away from his former manner of life. So don't tell me that God doesn't use immorality. He doesn't use sin to bring out good results. He did it in Matthew's life. In fact, John MacArthur says this, God does not use sin for good in the sense of its being an instrument of His righteousness. That would be the most obvious of self-contradictions. But the Lord uses sin to bring good to His children by overruling it, canceling its normal evil consequences, and miraculously substituting His benefits in their place, end quote. But you've heard people say, Well, God's sovereignty ends where human freedom begins. Have you heard that before? God's sovereignty ends where human freedom begins. In other words, God does His part, but we have to do our part. Not according to the Bible, not according to the Westminster Confession which says that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass, and that even includes in a mysterious way the fall of man. In a real sense, God knew, I think you can agree with me, that Adam and Eve would sin before the fall took place. God was not powerless to stop it. And though He didn't direct the serpent to slither around in the garden and lie to Eve, which, by the way, He did direct Satan to assault Job later, but even though God didn't direct the serpent to do that in the garden, He could have crushed the serpent's head before the fall. He didn't do that. And though it was Adam and Eve's choice to sin, since God was powerful to stop it, but chose not to, there is invariably a sense in which He permitted the fall to occur. So all things in verse 28 encompasses even immorality, the immorality of living. That is sin, even the fall itself. In fact, Paul doubles down. He says in verse 32, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? In order for God to bless us with all things, he has to use all things, even sin, even the fall, to bring about good. So if Romans 8.28 includes all things, and it's true with respect to the good that God can bring about, then that means God can even bring good out of evil itself. all things, and that is certainly true with respect to the gospel. If you ever doubt that, Peter said some interesting words in a sermon that he preached, you're familiar with these words, I'll read them to you. He said this, Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, that's God's sovereignty, you crucified and killed by the hands of godless men. So God is good, God is sovereign, but by his foreknowledge and his definite plan, Jesus was crucified and yet it's also true that godless men crucified him. And then Peter says, Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So which is it? Did God make him Lord and Christ? Did God send the Son to the cross or did sinful man? Well, God did it. And man did it, and God raised His Son to bring good out of that, raising Him from the dead. God brought good out of evil. He brought life out of death. He brought lordship out of rebellion. He made His Son King of kings and Lord of lords. And if you have trouble understanding that, just remember Jesus' words when the disciples asked Him, how can anyone be saved? Jesus said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. All things are possible. That is to say, all things bad, even the worst of all things. Because here's the reality. Without the fall and without sin, you and I could not experience the glory of who God is. Without the fall, without sin, you could not experience the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, the grace of God. which together and collectively comprise the love of God. There would be something missing about the love of God were there not sin, because we would not know Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, as we do were it not for the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord. So if through the gospel God can bring out of evil the best of circumstances, then certainly all things in verse 28 includes even the worst of things, including the immorality of living. So all things includes the fact that in prosperity of blessing, in adversity of suffering, in immorality of living, God brings out good. There's a fourth thing I want to share. All things includes even in animosity of others assaulting you. I just mentioned that with the gospel, God was able to turn the world on its head. He was able to bring out of the evil of this world good, the good of His Son, dying for sinners, salvation, making the Son Lord of Lord. and king of kings. But let's make this just a little bit more practical, because all things under God's providence includes the rebellion and animosity that others have toward you. If God can bring good out of the animosity and the rebellion and the immorality, that affected him personally, because all sin is a personal thing. You hear today people talk about, they may ask someone, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? I don't like that language. I'm not comfortable with that language. It's a saving relationship. Do you have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ? Because here's the reality, everyone has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is very personal. He is the Lord of everything. And if you are a sinner at odds with Christ, if you are a sinner and an enemy of Christ, that is a very personal thing. All people have a personal relationship with God. The question is, do you have a saving relationship with God? And if God is able to bring good out of the evil of sin against His Son and sin against His holiness, then certainly God can bring good out of the evil animosity that is tossed at you. from others. The good God who brought good out of evil, the evil of the fall, the evil of the crucifixion will also bring good out of the evil that is perpetrated against you. This is found in a story that's familiar to you, the story of Joseph. We read about it in Genesis 50, the tail end of that. Before we go to that though, everything that I'm explaining to you concerns what theologians refer to as the doctrine of concurrence. The doctrine of concurrence. It's important that when we study the Bible that we don't just give practical application, but that we draw the doctrine out because you can't apply what you don't know. The word concurrence, is simply the fact of two or more events or circumstances happening or existing at the same time. So let me put it to you simply. The doctrine of concurrence teaches that God's providence includes the idea that certain actions and decisions exercised by humans who do what they most want to do themselves in the moment, even evil actions and decisions, are still at the same time concurrently ordered to a certain end in God's providence. They're directed so, we could say, by His providential hand. So to put simply, the doctrine of concurrence simply teaches that God has the power to trump all evil actions, all evil inclinations, all evil decisions and desires, and bring good to pass through it. Now, to the story that illustrates this point. the story of Joseph. We won't turn to Genesis because you're familiar with it. Joseph suffered at the hands of his jealous brothers, right? Decisions that they really made. In fact, it's clear when you go and read the text that this was premeditated. They were harboring bitterness toward Joseph for a long time. No one forced them to put him into that pit. There was no Satan around or serpent around to tempt them to do this. They put him into a pit, they sold him into a slave caravan, and then they went home and lied to their father about his whereabouts. You know the story along the way. After being separated from his family, separated from his fellow countrymen, he was tempted by Potiphar's wife. Potiphar was essentially the captain of Pharaoh's guard and Joseph essentially was a household servant to Potiphar. She falsely accused him of seducing her and he was thrown into prison as a result. Now let me give you just a little footnote about this. This is a fact that is true about false accusers. By the way, the devil is the accuser of all accusers, usually false accusers are guilty of the very thing they're accusing others of being guilty for. And that was true in this case. Joseph hadn't seduced Potiphar's wife. She was seducing him, and he ran from that. He fled from that and left his garment in her hands. And the manipulative woman that she was twisted that and turned that around. And by a series of obvious supernatural events orchestrated by God, through dreams that Joseph was able to interpret, he rose to the right hand of Pharaoh to become the prime minister of Egypt. He got out of prison and he was the most powerful man in Egypt. And this was certainly true during the time of the famine. And that is what brought Joseph's brothers to Egypt because Jacob, their father, said, you need to go there. A decision, by the way, guided by God's providence. And so you know the story, the brothers were brought before Joseph, the man that God had put in charge over the relief programs because of the famine, the man that they had sold their flesh, their kin, their brother, and they didn't recognize him at first with all his fancy clothing and whatever else he looked like, he had matured through the years. But when they recognized him, they were frightened out of their souls and bodies. They knew this meant certain death for them. And that's when Joseph declared, in a very real personal way, the doctrine of concurrence. He basically said, while you were doing all that evil, God was doing all this good. Genesis 50, 20, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. God meant it for good. Now observe what Joseph said and what he didn't say. Joseph did not say that what they did didn't matter. He didn't exonerate them, but neither did he condemn them. Instead, he simply acknowledged in this phrase, Genesis 50-20, he acknowledged their personal and real guilt that was the result of their willful actions. But at the same time, he recognized God's use of their evil intentions for God's own glory and for Joseph's good and, ironically, for the brothers' own good. I say for their own good as well because Joseph spared them from the sword and from famine. He gave them food to eat and he didn't chop off their heads. In fact, turn back with me to Genesis. I said we wouldn't turn there, but just turn there for a moment to Genesis chapter 45 because this providence of God in preserving Joseph's family comes out. In Genesis 45 verse 7, Joseph said, God sent me before you, notice this, to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. Isn't that amazing? In spite of all of the evil, Joseph said, you know, God actually sent me here and he sent you here to be reunited with me for me to preserve our family line, which obviously meant Joseph's evil brothers. Verse 10, Joseph says, you shall dwell in the land of Goshen and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children's children and your flocks, your herds and all that you have. You see, beloved, you can never fully know the role that you are playing in God's divine plan. God had planned this all along. Two things were true. These were evil actions by Joseph's brothers, and yet concurrently, God was orchestrating all of that to preserve the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He did it all in a demonstration of grace, and he used poor old Joseph to do that as his instrument. You think Joseph knew that in the pit? You think Joseph knew that in the prison? You think Joseph knew that when he fled naked from Potiphar's wife? You think Joseph knew any of that? He didn't know any of that until the end of the story. And as with Joseph, so too God orders his providence. so that eventually God cancels out all secondary causes. And He does so without violating human will. The brothers had sinned, but in spite of this, God was sovereign. And He was at work in the whole affair. So we could say, Romans 8, 28, in every part, in all things. In the prosperity of blessing, in the adversity of suffering, in the immorality of living, in the animosity of assaults against us, God is at work in all things. God is at work in your life this morning. His fingerprints aren't just on the story of Joseph's life, they're on the story of your life. From beginning to end and all points in between. Now I can't think of a more comforting reality than to know that. Because if my life is going to be screwed up, it's going to be me that screws it up. And if I don't screw it up, someone else might screw it up. But we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. As I said at the beginning, he is not merely the author of history. He is the active agent in history. He is not merely the one who has written the story of your life, your birth date, and your death date. He is responsible for every detail, event, and circumstance in between. This is why we love Reformed theology, isn't it? We love it because it expresses so clearly the meticulous sovereignty of God, which is a doctrine which is a pillow upon which we can rest our heads. Now, I intended to get through all of verse 28, but I'm going to stop here this morning. because there's no way I can get through the rest of it. It just gets better and better and better. But I want you to turn back to Psalm 139. We'll close with this. There isn't a funeral that I preach where I don't read this passage. Psalm 139 verse 13. We'll pick up there. For you formed my inward parts. This is the psalmist David praying to God. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance." And here it is, "...in Your book were written every one of them. The days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." And the beginning of verse 17, "...therefore, how precious to me are Your thoughts, O God." The thoughts of God toward us, the plans of God toward us, the detailed way in which he has written every plot line of our lives, every activity, every relationship, every circumstance. God is completely and meticulously and sovereignly and energetically and compassionately and mercifully in charge of every detail. We can praise Him for that. We can affirm this morning as we worship God's providence. God's providence is affectionate. Our love for Him is evidence that He loves us and that He's working all things for our favor. God's providence is not only affectionate, but God's providence is all-encompassing. It includes all things. There's nothing left out of the equation. If God can bring good out of evil, He can bring good out of whatever evil is in your own life. Next week we'll look at the remaining three affirmations that describe to us the sovereignty of God. I hope this sermon from God's Word has ministered to your soul. For more information about our church, you can visit our website, www.ChristReformedcc.com. Also, for access to more sermons, articles, and a podcast I host entitled, Today in Church, His Story, you can visit www.PastorAndrewSmith.com.