The Purpose of God – Romans 8:28-32
The Purpose of God – Romans 8:28-32
By Pastor Lee Hemen
January 25, 2009 AM
“What is God’s purpose for my life?” I have heard this question expressed in several different forms but always it means the same thing: What is God’s will for me? However I sometimes suspect that what it really means for many of us is that what we want to know is exactly what God expects from us so that we can at do the minimum required of us! But is that truly what we should strive for in life?
If God “searches our hearts,” He then knows us pretty well. He may know us better than we know ourselves! Paul tells us that the “Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.” So we find, like Henry Blackaby writes in his book “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God,” that the proper question may not be “What is God’s will for my life?,” but rather, “What is God’s will?” Paul tells us exactly what the purpose of God is in this section of his letter to the Roman church. Let’s find out what the purpose of God is, shall we?
READ: Romans 8:28-32
Are the best things in life free? I wonder. There are those that think this should apply to God as well. That they do not need to invest their time, talent, treasure or trust in the Lord but still He should cater to their lives when they need Him. Some think that God is good only when good things happen and He is being hurtful when bad things happen. Is this true? Paul reminds us that this is a myopic view of God. In fact, we learn that the purpose of God is discovered when we realize that…
I. All things in life are for our good! (v. 28)
1. The “good” things in life must be measured by God’s standard! A lot of folks, including Christians, have a hard time with this verse, but you have to see it from God’s perspective. Paul gives us a glimpse of this when he writes, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) The truth whereby “all things” in life, whether good or bad, work “for the good of those who love” Jesus can be difficult unless we have the mind of Christ. Am I saying that an illness like cancer, an untimely death, or a freak horrendous accident works for the good of the people involved? Yes, if they “have been called according to His purpose.” Herein is the key: “His purpose.” We have an unrealistic expectation that everything in this life should revolve around us, but the Bible tells us that it does not: All things are to work to the will and way of God. When we come to Christ we replace our spiritual blindness with the heavenly eyesight of eternity. This is not all there is. Life is more than the sum total of weighing the good things outweighing the bad things that happen to us. Our lives in Him are “according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,” so that in “Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence!” (Ephesians 3:11-12) No matter what occurs in life we have confidence to approach God knowing He has the best planned for us! The purpose of God is discovered when we realize that all things in life are for our good!
EXAMPLE: Grocery shopping has become an adventure in of itself. You have to look not only at the expiration date, but the contents as well. Especially if you have someone in your family that hates coconut, or you are concerned about trans-fats, MSG, sugars, cholesterol count, calories, glutton and on and on it goes. I guess it is important for us to be aware of what we put into our bodies, but sometimes I just want to be able to buy food without caring if it is good for me or not! Don’t you? They will tell us something is bad for us, then they will say it is great. How great is it then to realize that the purpose of God is discovered when we realize that all things in life are for our good? Maybe not all foods, but anything that comes our way has to be measured by what God is doing with us.
How can we be sure that all the things that happen in our lives as believers does indeed work together for our good? Paul goes on to explain how we can rest assured that God has our very best interest at heart. He relates that the purpose of God is enjoyed when we comprehend that…
II. God has chosen us as His very own! (vv. 29-30)
1. Christians are chosen but not “frozen!” Paul writes that those “God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.” Wow! That is a pretty startling statement for those who do not understand its implications. This incredible statement does not merely mean that God foreknows what believers will do, because he does – he is all-knowing -- but that God “foreknows” them! He knows us! He knows our lives because He is involved in them as we walk with His Son Jesus. Why? Paul says it is so that we “might be the firstborn among many brothers!” Point in fact God “chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.” (Ephesians 1:4) He told Jeremiah “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart!” (Jeremiah 1:5) God has a plan for those He chooses! The Christian’s destiny is to be like Jesus: “to be conformed to the likeness of His Son!” Paul understood that “those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.” Believers are called, justified, and then glorified for the Lord’s sake! Believers are to live and move and have their being in Him! We may struggle with the idea that God picked us because we feel uneasy in thinking that there are those He did not pick, but folks, God’s ways are not our ways! In His power, authority, and control God truly knows His plan and how we fit into it to glorify Him! If you have said “yes” to Jesus, you know you were chosen of God. Paul wanted his readers to know that the purpose of God is truly enjoyed when we comprehend that God has chosen us as His very own!
EXAMPLE: We have to remember that God is not some super duper coach in the sky who is hand-picking His team, and some of us just do not measure up. In fact, we learn that it is God “who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4) However, God being who He is already knows who will and will not follow Him. He is eternal and we are not. We live a linier existence and have a beginning and an end. God therefore has provided a way for us to choose Him within our existence, but He, in His foreknowledge, has predestined those He has “chosen” or predetermined who would choose Him. We therefore cannot sit back and wait, we must respond. This is why the writer of Hebrews would tell his audience “As has just been said: ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.’” (Hebrews 3:15) Paul wrote that this is why God says, “‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) the purpose of God is enjoyed when we comprehend that God has chosen us as His very own!
We might struggle with the theological truth that God is the One who ultimately chooses, but we would do well to remember it is His creation and we are part of it. Paul would remind us that the purpose of God is made real in our lives when we grasp that…
III. God willingly gave us the very best He has! (vv. 31-32)
1. God cared enough to give His very best! In our spiritual weakness we may struggle with the fact that God has chosen us, but Paul would ask us “who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9:20-21) And we would have to humbly reply, “Yes the potter has the right to do with the clay what He desires.” The Bible Knowledge Commentary relates that “It is astounding to realize that God’s plan of salvation for people is a program that reaches from eternity past to eternity future which God will carry out perfectly.” I like that. Paul immediately asks, “What, then, shall we say in response to this?” I do not know about you but my response is “Yahoo! Hallelujah! Praise God!” We can therefore say nothing negative about God’s purpose for our lives because “If God is for us, who can be against us?” No one! What Paul means here is that no argument can stand up to the fact of God’s truth that He has loved us for all time and has chosen us! Satan may try but he will ultimately fail! It is because of this truth of the Lord that Paul asks and answers his own rhetorical question: “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?” The answer is: “He already has!” The purpose of God is made real in our lives when we fully grasp that God willingly gave us the very best He has!
EXAMPLE: A quote in George MacDonald’s book David Elginbrod speaks to those who wonder, at times, why God has made them the way they are—and who wish they were someone else. Lady Emily muses: “I wish I were you, Margaret.” Margaret answers: “If I were you, my lady, I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of. For to have been thought about—born in God’s thoughts—and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, most precious thing in all thinking.” Christians are not the mistakes or leftovers of the Lord. How do I know this to be true? Paul would remind us that the purpose of God is made real in our lives when we grasp that God willingly gave us the very best He has!
Conclusion:
What is God’s purpose? Paul reminds us that the purpose of God is 1) discovered when we realize that all things in life are for our good! 2) It is enjoyed when we comprehend that God has chosen us as His very own! And, 3) it is made real in our lives when we fully grasp that God willingly gave us the very best He has!
----
This article is copyrighted © 2008 by Lee Hemen and if you reprint it, reproduce it, or want to use it in any way, you must do so in its entirety or get the written permission of its author.
By Pastor Lee Hemen
January 25, 2009 AM
“What is God’s purpose for my life?” I have heard this question expressed in several different forms but always it means the same thing: What is God’s will for me? However I sometimes suspect that what it really means for many of us is that what we want to know is exactly what God expects from us so that we can at do the minimum required of us! But is that truly what we should strive for in life?
If God “searches our hearts,” He then knows us pretty well. He may know us better than we know ourselves! Paul tells us that the “Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.” So we find, like Henry Blackaby writes in his book “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God,” that the proper question may not be “What is God’s will for my life?,” but rather, “What is God’s will?” Paul tells us exactly what the purpose of God is in this section of his letter to the Roman church. Let’s find out what the purpose of God is, shall we?
READ: Romans 8:28-32
Are the best things in life free? I wonder. There are those that think this should apply to God as well. That they do not need to invest their time, talent, treasure or trust in the Lord but still He should cater to their lives when they need Him. Some think that God is good only when good things happen and He is being hurtful when bad things happen. Is this true? Paul reminds us that this is a myopic view of God. In fact, we learn that the purpose of God is discovered when we realize that…
I. All things in life are for our good! (v. 28)
1. The “good” things in life must be measured by God’s standard! A lot of folks, including Christians, have a hard time with this verse, but you have to see it from God’s perspective. Paul gives us a glimpse of this when he writes, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) The truth whereby “all things” in life, whether good or bad, work “for the good of those who love” Jesus can be difficult unless we have the mind of Christ. Am I saying that an illness like cancer, an untimely death, or a freak horrendous accident works for the good of the people involved? Yes, if they “have been called according to His purpose.” Herein is the key: “His purpose.” We have an unrealistic expectation that everything in this life should revolve around us, but the Bible tells us that it does not: All things are to work to the will and way of God. When we come to Christ we replace our spiritual blindness with the heavenly eyesight of eternity. This is not all there is. Life is more than the sum total of weighing the good things outweighing the bad things that happen to us. Our lives in Him are “according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,” so that in “Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence!” (Ephesians 3:11-12) No matter what occurs in life we have confidence to approach God knowing He has the best planned for us! The purpose of God is discovered when we realize that all things in life are for our good!
EXAMPLE: Grocery shopping has become an adventure in of itself. You have to look not only at the expiration date, but the contents as well. Especially if you have someone in your family that hates coconut, or you are concerned about trans-fats, MSG, sugars, cholesterol count, calories, glutton and on and on it goes. I guess it is important for us to be aware of what we put into our bodies, but sometimes I just want to be able to buy food without caring if it is good for me or not! Don’t you? They will tell us something is bad for us, then they will say it is great. How great is it then to realize that the purpose of God is discovered when we realize that all things in life are for our good? Maybe not all foods, but anything that comes our way has to be measured by what God is doing with us.
How can we be sure that all the things that happen in our lives as believers does indeed work together for our good? Paul goes on to explain how we can rest assured that God has our very best interest at heart. He relates that the purpose of God is enjoyed when we comprehend that…
II. God has chosen us as His very own! (vv. 29-30)
1. Christians are chosen but not “frozen!” Paul writes that those “God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.” Wow! That is a pretty startling statement for those who do not understand its implications. This incredible statement does not merely mean that God foreknows what believers will do, because he does – he is all-knowing -- but that God “foreknows” them! He knows us! He knows our lives because He is involved in them as we walk with His Son Jesus. Why? Paul says it is so that we “might be the firstborn among many brothers!” Point in fact God “chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.” (Ephesians 1:4) He told Jeremiah “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart!” (Jeremiah 1:5) God has a plan for those He chooses! The Christian’s destiny is to be like Jesus: “to be conformed to the likeness of His Son!” Paul understood that “those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.” Believers are called, justified, and then glorified for the Lord’s sake! Believers are to live and move and have their being in Him! We may struggle with the idea that God picked us because we feel uneasy in thinking that there are those He did not pick, but folks, God’s ways are not our ways! In His power, authority, and control God truly knows His plan and how we fit into it to glorify Him! If you have said “yes” to Jesus, you know you were chosen of God. Paul wanted his readers to know that the purpose of God is truly enjoyed when we comprehend that God has chosen us as His very own!
EXAMPLE: We have to remember that God is not some super duper coach in the sky who is hand-picking His team, and some of us just do not measure up. In fact, we learn that it is God “who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4) However, God being who He is already knows who will and will not follow Him. He is eternal and we are not. We live a linier existence and have a beginning and an end. God therefore has provided a way for us to choose Him within our existence, but He, in His foreknowledge, has predestined those He has “chosen” or predetermined who would choose Him. We therefore cannot sit back and wait, we must respond. This is why the writer of Hebrews would tell his audience “As has just been said: ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.’” (Hebrews 3:15) Paul wrote that this is why God says, “‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) the purpose of God is enjoyed when we comprehend that God has chosen us as His very own!
We might struggle with the theological truth that God is the One who ultimately chooses, but we would do well to remember it is His creation and we are part of it. Paul would remind us that the purpose of God is made real in our lives when we grasp that…
III. God willingly gave us the very best He has! (vv. 31-32)
1. God cared enough to give His very best! In our spiritual weakness we may struggle with the fact that God has chosen us, but Paul would ask us “who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9:20-21) And we would have to humbly reply, “Yes the potter has the right to do with the clay what He desires.” The Bible Knowledge Commentary relates that “It is astounding to realize that God’s plan of salvation for people is a program that reaches from eternity past to eternity future which God will carry out perfectly.” I like that. Paul immediately asks, “What, then, shall we say in response to this?” I do not know about you but my response is “Yahoo! Hallelujah! Praise God!” We can therefore say nothing negative about God’s purpose for our lives because “If God is for us, who can be against us?” No one! What Paul means here is that no argument can stand up to the fact of God’s truth that He has loved us for all time and has chosen us! Satan may try but he will ultimately fail! It is because of this truth of the Lord that Paul asks and answers his own rhetorical question: “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?” The answer is: “He already has!” The purpose of God is made real in our lives when we fully grasp that God willingly gave us the very best He has!
EXAMPLE: A quote in George MacDonald’s book David Elginbrod speaks to those who wonder, at times, why God has made them the way they are—and who wish they were someone else. Lady Emily muses: “I wish I were you, Margaret.” Margaret answers: “If I were you, my lady, I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of. For to have been thought about—born in God’s thoughts—and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, most precious thing in all thinking.” Christians are not the mistakes or leftovers of the Lord. How do I know this to be true? Paul would remind us that the purpose of God is made real in our lives when we grasp that God willingly gave us the very best He has!
Conclusion:
What is God’s purpose? Paul reminds us that the purpose of God is 1) discovered when we realize that all things in life are for our good! 2) It is enjoyed when we comprehend that God has chosen us as His very own! And, 3) it is made real in our lives when we fully grasp that God willingly gave us the very best He has!
----
This article is copyrighted © 2008 by Lee Hemen and if you reprint it, reproduce it, or want to use it in any way, you must do so in its entirety or get the written permission of its author.
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