Brown's Daily Word 3-16-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this beautiful and bright day. I trust you had a wonderful and worshipful weekend. Praise the Lord for His awesome power and magnificent grace.
We live in a world in which things go wrong. Pick up the newspaper any day of the week, and you will read of tragic accidents, deaths, murders, suicides, and so on. And, frankly, it so often seems to be about someone else. But, occasionally, that tragedy strikes close to home. Where do you go when tragedy strikes? Where do you find comfort when difficulty comes? Where do you find hope in the midst of trial? For us as Christians, the answer is in God Himself as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word. And one of the most precious of all comforts is found in this text. Romans 8:28 can shelter our souls in the midst of a violent storm. It is a text that can give comfort and hope in the midst of any difficulty or trial. I love what Bible commentator John Stott says about Romans 8:28. He says that Romans 8:28 is “like a pillow on which to rest our weary heads.” Romans 8:28 begins with the words, “And we know.” Verse 22 also begins with the words, “For we know.” In the space of seven verses Paul makes two assertions about what we know as Christians. Verse 22 is about the groaning of creation, and verse 28 is about God’s providential love and care for His own. Yet there are many other things we do not know. For example, in the middle of these two assertions of Christian knowledge Paul says in verse 26b, “For we do not know what to pray for.” In fact, we are caught in a continuous tension between what we know and what we do not know. There are some things about which we have clear knowledge, and yet there are also things about which we have no knowledge. And sometimes, we confuse the two! Nevertheless, in Romans 8:28 Paul lists five truths about God’s providence that we know. So, let us observe five unshakeable convictions that we know concerning God’s providence.We Know That God Works (8:28c) The first unshakeable conviction we know concerning God’s providence is that God works. Paul says, “And we know that in all things God works. . .” (8:28c). That is, God is at work in our lives. William Carey, often called the Father of Modern Missions, faced a ministry disappointment of overwhelming proportions. Carey began his missionary career to India in 1793. He labored in that country for 40 continuous years, never once returning to his native England. Carey was a prodigious translator, translating portions of Scripture into over a dozen Indian languages. One afternoon, after 20 years of plodding labor in that country, a fire raged through his printing plant and warehouse. All of his printing equipment was destroyed, but most tragically, many of his precious manuscripts were completely consumed by the fire. Of course, Carey had no computer back-up files or Xerox masters. Twenty years of nonstop labor were gone within a few hours. How would he respond to this crushing devastation? William Carey wrote to his friend, Andrew Murray, in England: "The ground must be labored over again, but we are not discouraged. . . . We have all been supported under the affliction, and preserved from discouragement. To me the consideration of the divine sovereignty and wisdom has been very supporting. . . . I endeavored to improve this our affliction last Lord’s day, from Psalm 46:10, ’Be still and know that I am God.’ I principally dwelt upon two ideas: God has a sovereign right to dispose of us as He pleases. We ought to acquiesce in all that God does with us and to us." Carey understood that it is not all things but rather God who is at work in our lives. God is, as John Stott observes, “ceaselessly, energetically and purposefully active on our behalf.” The first unshakeable truth that we should know is that God is at work in this world. It is His world. He is the Creator. He is the Sustainer. He is in providential control of all things. We Know That God Works for the Good of His People (8:28d) The second unshakeable conviction we know concerning God’s providence is that God works for the good of His people. Paul says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. . .” (8:28d). The Bible teaches us that God is good, and that all His works are expressions of His goodness that are intended to promote His people’s good (2 Chronicles 7:3; Psalm 25:8). We Know That God Works for the Good of His People in All Things (8:28b) The third unshakeable conviction we know concerning God’s providence is that God works for the good of His people in all things. Paul says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. . .” (8:28b). God works for the good of His people not merely in the good things or the indifferent things but in all things. That includes the sufferings of verse 17 as well as the groanings of verse 23. And so, as commentator Anders Nygren says, “Thus all that is negative in this life is seen to have a positive purpose in the execution of God’s eternal plan.” There is nothing that is beyond the scope of His sovereign decrees. We often do not understand what God is doing in all the things that happen to us. While we often do not understand how God is working for our good in all things, we must believe that God is working for our good in all things. That is what it means to trust God. We Know That God Works for the Good of Those Who Love Him (8:28e) The fourth unshakeable conviction we know concerning God’s providence is that God works for the good of those who love Him. Paul says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. . .” (8:28e). This is a necessary limitation. Paul is not expressing a general, superficial optimism that everything tends to everybody’s good in the end. No, if the good, which is God’s purpose, is our completed salvation, then its beneficiaries are His people who are described as those who love Him. In other words, Paul is limiting the truth of this verse to Christians only. We are reminded here of something that is emphasized everywhere in the Bible. There is only one real division of humanity ultimately. We are on one side or the other of this dividing line, and all other divisions and distinctions are finally irrelevant. This statement is true only of those who love God, that is, for Christians. As for those who are not Christians the Bible tells us plainly that all things do not work for the good of them. They, the Bible tells us, are under “the wrath of God” (1:18). Paul has already warned us in Romans 1:18 that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” That is the present position of non-Christians before God. Whatever else may be true of those who do not love God, however happy and prosperous they may be, however much the sun may seem to be shining on their heads, the terrible fact remains that they are all presently under the wrath of Almighty God. We Know That God Works for the Good of Those Who Have Been Called According to His Purpose (8:28f) The fifth and final unshakeable conviction we know concerning God’s providence is that God works for the good of those who have been called according to His purpose. Paul says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (8:28f). Our love for God is in fact a sign of God’s prior love for us. The reason we love God is because He first loved us (1 John 4:10). Because He first loved us, we have been called according to His purpose. And we then responded in love to His love and calling. But it first begins with God’s love and calling to us. Joseph was cruelly sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt. But, this was Joseph’s conviction which he said to his brothers after many years of hardship and suffering: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). Similarly, God said through the prophet Jeremiah to the Jews in Babylon after the catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). And finally, the most significant expression of God’s sovereign providence in our human affairs occurs in Jesus’ death on the cross. The sinless Son of God went to the cross according to “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23) in order that He might save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). God used the most heinous, tragic act in human history for our good. And if God did that for us in the death of His Son, then we can cling to these five unshakeable convictions we know concerning God’s providence in Romans 8:28; “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Amen.

Have a wonderful and graceful day,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqqtyuivolA