Loving God

God sent his Son, made known in Jesus. He came to love, heal and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon.

An empty grave is left to prove my Savior lives. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone.

Because I know, I know he holds the future. And life is worth the living, just because he lives. Has me to hold a new born baby.

And feel the pride and joy he gives. But raise us still, the calm assurers. This child can say some certain day he's because he lives.

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know, I know he holds the future.

And life is worth the living, just because he lives. Tim and Elaine Saunders, special parents. Let's have you out here, can we please? Hello sweetheart.

Now we've set up the barracking so that everyone's got the sort of feel of the service. Tim is a very, I was going to say unique member of the church. I suppose in one sense that is true, because not only does his dad go back to days when he was a boy at the Sunday school.

But even your grandfather. That's right. The Saunders family is one of the most long standing families in the church.

Going almost back to the day, not quite, but almost back to the day when it was founded. So it's nice to see this little tradition continuing. Boys and girls, when our Lord Jesus was on earth.

Remember I've told you on many occasions. How his mum and the man who was looking after him as his dad. They took him to the temple in Jerusalem.

And they asked that he might be prayed over. And they gave thanks for his birth. And that's precisely what we're doing right now.

Tim, it's not just Catherine we've got. Here is it. Who's your little girl? Tell us her name too.

This is Emily. This is Emily. And Elaine, why did you pick Catherine? Just because we liked it.

No further significance apart from liking it. Here's a lovely text for you. It says, our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.

Isn't that beautiful? Our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace. And obviously it had in mind the palace in Jerusalem. And the thought of spiritually that our children can so glorify God.

That they bring us pleasure as well as bring him worship and praise. Tim and Elaine, is it your desire to thank God for the gift of your further daughter Catherine? Yes, it is. You promise as best you can in creating such a Christian environment.

That when Catherine becomes mature, she'll be encouraged to put her trust in Jesus. Yes, we will. And to that end, you'd like the prayers of your Christian friends here at the tab.

Yes, please. Let me give you that certificate. And can I have Catherine? Right, would everyone like to stand please? That was good.

Loving Father, we thank you for Tim and Elaine. And now we bring little Catherine to you. We pray that this bundle of life, so pretty and so content.

Might grow up to know the Lord Jesus as her Savior. That she may become something beautiful for God. Grant to her and her sister and her parents such a sense of your presence each day.

That she might indeed know in reality that the Lord is her shepherd. Father, we offer Catherine to you. Pray your blessing upon her.

And ask for guidance and wisdom for Tim and Elaine. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Amen. There you are.

Isn't she lovely? He is the fortress, we will never be shaken. We will put our trust in God. We will put our trust in God.

Let's sing it again a little slower. Our confidence is in the Lord, the source of our salvation. We will not fear the evil day.

Because we have a refuge. In every step of strife we stay. Our hope is built on Jesus.

He is our fortress, we will never be shaken. He is our fortress, we will never be shaken. We will put our trust in God.

We will put our trust in God. He is our fortress, we will never be shaken. He is our fortress, we will never be shaken.

We will put our trust in God. We will put our trust in God. All Scripture is inspired, but some parts of Scripture seem to have a brilliance entirely of their own.

And Ephesians 1 is an example of that. Read with me from the third verse through to and including the tenth verse. If you've got the NIV version of the Bible, if you've got the AV, then just follow it too and just speak it out if you please.

Ephesians 1, 3 through to 10. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.

In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will. To the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the one He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

And He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Now let's go back to Romans in chapter 8. And we're going to look at verse 28.

You say, why do we read Scripture and explain Scripture? Well, because really we've got nothing more to say from this pulpit than what is here. Because the people have gathered not through any attraction to myself, but attraction to God's Word. And in the explaining of Scripture, God speaks to us.

And this is what we're asking. That's why when we approach this part of this service, it's equally worship. In fact, some would argue even worship more intense than when we're singing our songs and our hymns.

So let's engage still in the holy act of reading Scripture. But this time I'll read the verses to you. 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. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called.

Those He called, He also justified. Those He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? I'm coming back to this particular text because I ran out of time on Wednesday.

When in our Bible school we've been going through Romans 8 and a lot of people came. And sometimes, you know, the text so grips the preacher's heart that it sort of runs away with him, which is fine. Because the text should always have the controlling agency.

And there is a sense in which when you look at Romans 8, 28, you could say that it compresses so much doctrine and teaching that there's no one who could fully unpack it and display the goodies in front of a congregation. And the 29th and the 30th verses, which really are a further explanation of what's found in the 28th verse, they too are most compelling and most fascinating. If I had to give you a sort of subtitle to what I want to try and share this morning, and I'll pick up on some of the things that I shared on Wednesday, but advance on them and introduce new arguments from this particular verse.

But if I was to give you a subtitle, I would say it's the secret of family blessings. The secret of family blessings. You know, I used to like the stories when I was a kid when everything finished up nice and sweet.

I mean, that's not modern now, is it, amongst plays and films and so forth. You finish up and you're much less happy at the end than what you were at the beginning and you wish you'd never switched on, which is probably good advice in any case. But I did like stories that had a happy ever afterwards ending.

One of the things I associate with the United States is that when you meet friends there, they'll say, have a good day. Have a good day. It's lovely, isn't it? Have a good day.

Well, this verse, it's not just saying have a good day, it's saying have a good eternity. Have a good week, have a good month, have a good year, have a good life, have a good eternal life. Now, just before you get too encouraged by my verse, I want to tell you that it doesn't necessarily give that sort of promise to everybody.

Indeed, I'll be more specific. It doesn't give that promise to everyone. What it does say is that things work together for good on behalf of those who love God.

Do you love God? You say, well, I never expected anyone to put that question to me quite as bluntly. I don't really know what you mean. Well, the reason why I'm putting the question is that this verse, which really is such a wonderful promise, is only directed towards those who love God.

All things work together for good to those who love God. Therefore, we've got to see who loves God in order to work out whether we're qualified to enter into this particular verse and claim it as our own. Well, do you love God? You say, I believe in him.

Well, you'd be daft not to. And that's not a Yorkshire expression. That's the Psalmist David.

He says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. But then the devil believes in God. Millions of people believe in God.

The people who put Jesus to the cross believe in God. So simply to give me an answer to my question, do you love God, in the sense of, well, yes, I believe in God, that plainly is not sufficient. You say, well, sometimes, you know, I've been to a service and I've gone out with goose bumps.

And I've been so emotionally stirred. Well, good. I mean, I'd be the last person from this pulpit to preach against emotion in religious experience.

But I get goose bumps at the last night of the proms. I mean, I'm one of those Englishmen who still does like to sing Land of Hope and Glory. I nearly said Tory.

Pardon the Freudian slip. But merely feeling good in church does not necessarily mean that you love God. Because loving God is more than just knowing an emotional experience.

Loving God is more than just admitting that God is. Let me ask you a question. Do you love God because we're still trying to find out whether this text really belongs to us? For what you can get out of him or for who he is.

You remember Joseph. I mean, he was a remarkable man. You read his story in the Old Testament.

He finishes up, for no fault of his own, in jail. Now, there is a sort of daftness in modern evangelicalism which would say, well, Joseph ought to praise God in jail because he had the privilege of going there. If they pushed me in jail, my immediate reaction would not be to praise God.

But how could I legitimately or illegally get out? When something nasty happens to you, it's not easy to praise God for the event. But can you still love God in that circumstance? The mother and the father who have given birth to a deformed child, it would be more than I could ask them to do. More, I think, than scripture would ask them to do.

To thank God for the heartache within that experience. But my question is, in that experience, can you still love the God that you don't understand in terms of his dealings with you? Aren't you glad that scripture is honest? Now, Job had a tiff with his wife. You possibly never have had with yours.

But then 99% of us would probably not believe your testimony. And that goes the other way around too. And, you know, Job, he's in great difficulties.

There's a plague of boils that's erupted all over him and he's in a right old mess. In fact, he goes and sits on the local rubbish tip as a sort of, he identifies with that because that's what he feels like, just waste. And his wife comes along and says, curse God and die.

And he listens to what she has to say. You can read it in the opening chapters of the book that bears his name. And you will see that he will not agree with what she says.

He won't curse God. He doesn't understand his circumstances. He will go to the point of saying, I loathe my life.

I would not live forever. But he will not curse the Lord. He'll still praise him.

He will still love him, that is to say. Moving towards a position that Isaac Watts has in his hymn when he talks about God moving with a mysterious providence. God behind a frowning face still having love and compassion towards his servant, Job.

And in this instance, you. So here is the apostle and he's saying, we know that in all things God works. He doesn't say that in everything where you find God, the thing itself is in itself good.

But he's asking you to trust him when the things that fall out in your life are unacceptable. That he is still a benevolent God who's got his hand upon you and has an interest in your life. Can you trust God when you cannot trace God? You see, I put that question to you because I remind you we're trying to work out to whom this particular verse applies.

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. Do you try to do what he wants you to do? You see, when Jesus defines discipleship, he says, this is my disciple. The one who does what I command.

Have you a desire to be obedient to the Lord? Now you're getting the picture. I'm trying to use logic as clearly as I can for this text to belong to you. You've got to love God not just on the level of your feelings.

Your loving God is not just an acceptance of who he is. Your loving God will still be an emotion that you will direct towards him despite unpleasant circumstances. And what is more? I tell you that this text belongs to you if as a sinner you are uncomfortable about your sin.

Now let me unpack that. You see, we have a wrong conception of backsliding. Now there is no way that I want to excuse backsliding and slipping from the standards that God wants us to live at.

But I have to come at this particular point because pastorally it is so vital. There are some people who think, I have done so wrong in my life. There is no way that God who was once my Lord and Shepherd, God with whom I once felt so close, there's no way that that relationship can be reinstated.

Here's the prodigal son. He's away in the far country. Did God still retain the relationship with him? God in the parable of the prodigal is of course the father.

Now the son lived as though father was dead but did the father so perceive of the son? Not a bit. He comes back to father's house and he embraces him. And from the heart of the son there is that remorse, I am no more worthy to be your son.

So I make this conclusion that if you feel your unworthiness to claim this text for your own, it doubtless belongs to you. It's the text of failed people. Because it's only the person who is sensitive to God and his requirements, whoever goes through the feelings of remorse, horror at ever letting God down.

So those who love God are not necessarily those who have always maintained a good Christian testimony, though the Bible wants you to maintain a good Christian testimony. Those who love God are not always those who understand immediately what God is allowing in their lives. For God asks you to trust him, not just for the immediate but rather for the ultimate.

Because some of the problems in the immediate will be explained in the ultimate. Those of you who love God can have gone through a harrowing experience of backsliding and want to know that he still relates to you and that this verse is yours. And I say that one of the evidences that God is yours and that this text belongs to you is the remorse that you feel.

No backslider is ever happy in his sin. Think it through, my friends. Were you? The time that you let him down, the aftermath, the glow that had gone of your Christian faith, the enthusiasm, the sense of pride in the Christian gospel, seemed as though the gold had been tarnished.

But the fact that you were unhappy is an indication that this God and Father will continue to direct his love to you because obdurate, hard, impenitent sinners could not care a toss about God, could not care a fig, as the Puritans would have put it. All things work together for good to them that love God, to those who have been called according to his purpose. So having tried to distinguish between those for whom this text belongs and those who can have no call on it at all, I now want to try and show you something else.

And that is that the benefits of this text, despite the love that I'm arguing you must show towards this God, does not swing on your love. It swings on his purpose. Listen again.

We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who have been called according to his purpose. God is always on the driving seat. You see, my love fluctuates.

My faith is often low. But the purposes of God stand sure. God doesn't change his mind.

God has you in his sights. If there is any sense in which you can say that this text belongs to you, even using some of the surprising reasonings that I've given to justify that you might make this claim, I go on and say that the benefits of this text is not because of your love. It is because God has purposed to bless you.

And the blessings of God will not fluctuate in terms of his basic relationship with you. He does not go hot and cold. He does not turn his back.

He is not the men of the grand old Duke of York, neither up nor down. He is for those who recognize their need of his Son. What then shall we say, brothers, if God be for us? You see, the argument is there.

Paul is building up to that 31st verse. I mean, Paul knows these things that I've been explaining to you. And he compresses his teaching.

And he drives himself inexorably to that tremendous statement. What shall we say, if God be for us, who can be against us? Paul, how do we know that God is for us? Why, says Paul, he spared not his Son. Now, why did God send his Son into the world? What is the purpose? Now, there are some people who say that God sent his Son into the world because actually his first attempt to help men and women finished in shipwreck.

You know, the Ten Commandments, the prophets? They didn't achieve their objective. So God, as a sort of last move, thinks, well, I've tried everything else, so I'll bring this ace out of the pack. And he sends the Lord Jesus to the world.

That would seem to suggest that God has to sort of adjust his program. But this is entirely wrong. The purposes of God are fixed.

They're established in the heavens. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, we are told that there was a promise that one day the head of the serpent would be crushed. And that is metaphorical language.

Which, if you reason it through, means that the one who brought sin into the very nature of Adam and Eve would be dealt a fatal blow by someone who would represent God and be far superior to that malevolent force. Why did Jesus come into the world? Well, it was fixed before the foundations of the earth that such would be his job. God loved the world.

God has a plan. So in the 29th verse of this chapter, reference is made to those who God foreknew, those who God predestined, those who will benefit from the coming into this world of our Lord Jesus. God has a purpose.

And his purposes are fixed. They're not fluctuating. You see, there is a sense in which you can wrongly understand the doctrine of salvation.

You know, Jesus dying on the cross of Calvary to save you. Well, that is right. It's essentially right, but it's not entirely the picture.

The fact that the beloved Christ is on the cross to save you from your sins is not just an expression of the rescue mission of Jesus. It is the fulfillment of God's timeless plan from the beginning, if eternity can ever have a beginning, from the beginning of time. So when you see the apostle making out the reasons for the blessings that go to those who are in the family circle, he ascribes them to God.

God foreknew. God predestined. God conforms us to be in the image of his Son.

God calls us. God justifies us. God glorifies us.

Five times in the 29th and the 30th verses, the apostle Paul refers to the activity of God in sending our beloved Lord Jesus to this world. If you go to the passage that we just read together from Ephesians and chapter 1, the apostle makes it very plain. He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.

You say, Mr. Preacher, I don't understand that language. All right, let me come at it again. Let me give you the illustration.

Let me give you the explanation. I've already attempted it. But here we are at the beginning of time, before the world is made.

God knows about your treachery. God knows about the fall of Adam. God knows that the plans that he has for men and women will be frustrated by their weaknesses.

And so what does he have? Well, he has a plan. The apostle calls it the mystery, the mystery of his will, which will bring about his good pleasure. He is going to take pleasure in something that his son will achieve, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment.

Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem as a babe. The right time, Mary conceives a child. The right time, our Lord Jesus engages on his public ministry.

And the reason for that ministry is so that you and I, who've let God down, might have a representative on earth who fully did what the Father wanted to be done. And on the cross, he gives an unblemished life as a payment for your sin, as a payment for my sin. And what's the result of that? Well, if I actuate it by responding to it, by refusing to do the same as the grand old Duke of York's men, when I take this decisive step forward and claim the Lord Jesus as my own, then I move into the family circle.

And when I move into the family circle, I discover, surprise, surprise, this God has loved me even before I was born. And what is more, at the end of time, I will be identified with the spectacular ministry of Jesus Christ who will come back to this world to claim it for his own. Who made the world? Well, the scientists, or some of them, will talk about a fluke.

They'll talk about a fortuitous concourse of atoms. They'll talk about a big bang. But when you put it all together, Genesis 1 is much more credible.

God was at the beginning. He creates the heavens and the earth. Man despoils his environment.

He despoils himself. But God has not given up on the earth. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

Here comes our Lord Jesus into the world. He takes upon himself the consequences of your sin. He returns to heaven.

But he does not divorce himself from this world. No, it belongs to him. So he's going to come back, not as a babe in Bethlehem's manger.

He's going to come back in great power and glory. The Christ who was butchered at the cross will be declared to the whole intelligent universe as God's own Son. And the glory that Jesus Christ shares or has at that point in time in the future, he will share with all those who have confessed him as Lord.

So the apostle referring to such people, those he predestined, he called. Those he called, he justified. Those he justified, he also glorified.

You know, you can be sure about the Christian faith. I was up at the cemetery twice this last week. And I went near the grave of a dear lady who had been a member of the tab for some years.

She'd found the Lord in her later years. I think she was about 90 when I buried her. Her name was Nellie.

She was a beautiful lady, a professional lady. She retained her beauty and her dignity and her femininity right to the end. And when I conducted the service and the coffin was put into the grave and we concluded at least our time around the gravesite, I suddenly spotted that just alongside the grave was the gravestone of a man who'd left her to the Lord, a very well-known Baptist minister.

And I said to some of the mourners, what a coincidence that she's been buried there. And one who had a little more knowledge of the family circumstances than I, he said, it's not a coincidence, it was pre-planned. You see, she said that when the resurrection occurred, she wanted to go out with someone she knew.

Absolutely convinced that the Christ who had called her, the Christ who had saved her, the Christ who received her spirit would one day cause her to rise triumphant. And you laugh, and rightly so. But within your laughter, there is a recognition of the commendable faith of this woman.

Because as sure as the resurrection of Christ is your resurrection. O grave, where is your sting? O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? You see, the Apostle Paul, in later teaching to the Corinthians, will make this very clear, that in effect there are two classes of people in our world. There are those who follow the example of Adam, and there are those who follow the example of what the Bible calls the second Adam, the last Adam.

And you either belong in the one camp or in the other camp. Now the second Adam, the last Adam, has been raised. He's been raised as the firstfruits from the dead.

He is the firstborn, says the Apostle Paul in the 29th verse, among many brothers. And the firstborn has the right of the inheritance. Not only the right of the inheritance, he can share what is his.

How frustrating. I speak like a fool. For the Son of God to have left the glories of heaven, been born in a manger, spent time on this earth, preaching so wonderfully, living his life as such an example, dying at death and being raised from the dead, and then returning to heaven, and receiving these sumptuous rewards, this great legacy, and having no one to enrich the legacy with.

But he has. Who? Well, don't you see, quod erat demonstrandum, we know that in all things God works for the good. Of whom? Of those who love him.

I love you, Lord. I don't understand everything that you do. Some things in my life I'm ashamed of.

Occasionally, Lord, I have to say that I've slumped into the position of the backslider. But Lord, with my hand over my heart, I tell you, though I'm not much, I love you. And you're in the family.

You're in the family. God foreknew your reaction. God predestined you.

God enabled you to be conformed, to become a little bit more like his son. One day you will be absolutely like his son. You will lose all your sinful nature.

And as the firstborn has many brothers, so you are one amongst that fraternity. And as he has called you, and as he has justified you, so he will glorify you. But the apostle Paul has that brash confidence that I used in the experience of Nancy Spencer, for he puts it in the past tense.

He talks about you already being glorified. It's future. But you see, the purposes of God are inviolable.

They're bound to be. When God speaks, it happens. You can trust him.

You can trust him with your life. And therefore, when God says something, it's just as though it is already done. So the apostle, incredibly, the logic here is just mind-blowing.

It's got to be inspired. No one could have dreamed this stuff up. He talks of the experiences of the church, the family of God, as though they're all past, where some are present, and some are still future.

But this is the hope. This is the glory. This is the expectation that is ours, those who are in the family.

All things work together for good to them that love God. Mr. Preacher, does that apply to me? I don't think you'd be asking the question if it didn't apply to you. So you love the Lord.

You love him inadequately. You failed him. But you want to be back in a closer relationship.

Or maybe for the first time, you've heard the gospel explained from what seemed to you to be quite extraordinary verses when we looked at them. And you're saying, yes, this makes sense. I know there's a God.

I know that when I die, I'm not blown out like the flame of a candle. I want my life to be linked into this God's life. I want my sins to be cleansed.

Can I become a Christian? Indeed, you can. How do you become? By confessing Jesus is your Savior and thanking the Father that despite your inadequacies, he sent his Son, and his Son sent his Spirit to retrieve you, to bring you to himself, into the family circle. Part of those who share the inheritance that Jesus has won as he reestablishes the heavens and the earth, returns them to their original glory, and as he takes his arm into an eternity of eternities for us to experience a life the like of which we've only had a vague glimpse this side of eternity.

That's the gospel. So wonderful, it's almost incredible. But you know it's true because God says so.

Let's pray. If God before us, who can be against us, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It's God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus has died.

Shut the mouths of the accusers. More than that, it's Christ Jesus who was raised to life and is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And the answer is nothing.

I am convinced, neither death nor life, angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Let's stand. How good is the God we adore! How faithful an angel, O friend, O friend, as is found! Jesus Christ, our Lord, True spirit, the pride of Satan, With you praising, O all that is with us, O spirit, O all that is to come, God of glory, we exalt your name.

You who reign in majesty, we lift our hearts to you, and we will worship, praise and magnify your holy name. In Paris, you reign in glory, in eternal peace, you reign forever. Your word is mighty, it is in power, your love is gracious, you are my God.