All Things For You, Part 2

7/29/12 Title: “All Things For You 2” Romans 8:28-32
I. Introduction
A. Summary of this theme
1. If Christ is ours, then everything is ours, because everything is Christ’s.
2. 1Corinthians 3:21-22 “All things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you.”
3. It’s not just that you’re rich in heavenly things while poor in earthly things. All earthly things are yours as well.
4. 2Corinthians 6:10 “...having nothing yet possessing all things.”
5. The key to the Christian life is realizing how rich is the treasure of God’s blessing.
6. We deserved nothing. He gave us everything!
B. A message not often heard
1. It may even seem hard to believe, and yet there it is in the Scriptures over and over again.
C. Read Romans 8:28-32
1. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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?”
II. Explanation
A. Romans 8:28 and 8:32: In one sense these are two ways of saying the same thing.
1. But you need them both to get the full picture.
2. Even bad things are made to be good for us.
3. “Delivered from the evil of afflictions” WSC XX:1
a. Not delivered from afflictions, but from the evil of them
b. Now afflictions are only agents of good.
4. But more than that. There is no good thing withheld.
a. Every good tool in God’s toolbox is used on our behalf.
b. Every good treasure in His treasure chest is given to us.
c. Every good deed which God could do toward us is done.
B. The cross is the proof: 8:32 “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?”
C. This isn’t for everyone. James Boice: “God has done some things for all men, and all things for some men.”
D. When you know this, there’s no bitterness, no jealousy, no covetousness, no anxiety, no despair.
III. Questions
A. If it’s mine, why don’t I possess it?
1. Because God knows it wouldn’t be a blessing but a curse.
2. He loves us too much to give us something harmful.
3. If a son asks for a fish, would the father give him a scorpion?
4. But what if the son asks for a scorpion? Will the father give him what he asks for? Or will he give him what’s good for him even though it’s not what he wants?
5. Every parent has to take things away and say no to his child.
6. Jamie’s tract: The nail really is for her. It might be for hanging a beautiful picture up in her room, or to get in her room when she accidentally locks herself out. It’s just not for her in the way she wants it right now. The second it is good for her, it’s hers.
7. And every loving parent sometimes lets his child have things he knows aren’t really good for him, things which might hurt him, not because he doesn’t love his child, but because he know his child sometimes has to learn lessons the hard way. And so sometimes God lets us have things which are not good for us.
B. Or some might say, “But it’s not all for me, it’s for this giant group, of which I am only one.” Yes, but
1. It is for you in that the group is for you and the fact that all-things-are-for-the-group is for you.
2. If it would have been better for all to be for you alone and not for anyone else, then it would have been. But it is best for you if all things are for the group.
3. So, all things are for you.
C. How come it doesn’t feel like all things are for me? Why doesn’t it feel like I have everything?
1. Can you imagine a life more blessed than your own?
a. I sure can. I have a laundry list of things which seem to me like they’d improve my life.
b. I’d like to lose 40 pounds. I’d like for my kids to be always appreciative and respectful. I’d like for my church to be filled. I’d like for my team to win all their games. There are all sorts of jobs around my house I wish I had money to pay someone to do. And I’d love to get a new car for each of my older kids.
c. We all have laundry lists. Experientially, it doesn’t seem like I have everything.
2. Just because we don’t feel like everything is ours doesn’t mean it isn’t.
3. The experience of it as painful is also for you. He is teaching you to trust.
a. He has told us one thing and allowed us to feel another: Which one will we believe? In which will we put our confidence in?
4. Last week I said that the greatest sin is self-pity, or that all sin is a form of self-pity.
5. The first sin: Adam and Eve and the great lie: you’re deprived
6. Satan: God says everything is yours, but look at the fruit on that tree. It’s not yours, is it?
7. Let me ask you this: Why did God forbid Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
a. Well, I think that it was a matter of timing: that God would eventually have given them this fruit if they had succeeded the test of obedience. Everything was theirs. I would argue that even the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was theirs, though it was to be given to them at the right time.
b. But even if you disagree with this, one thing has to be true: whatever the reason God forbade them to eat the fruit, it wasn’t because God wanted it for Himself. It wasn’t because God didn’t love them enough to give it to them. It wasn’t because God wanted to hurt them. Somehow He was forbidding the fruit for man’s sake.
c. When God withholds things from us it’s because He loves us so much.
d. Satan wants to fool us into thinking that God withholds things because He doesn’t love us, because He’s a mean God who doesn’t give us His best. Ultimately Satan wants to persuade us that God is trying to cheat us.
e. And it often works! because when we don’t get what we want and what we think we need, it feels like it’s hurting us.
IV. Conclusion
A. "If God is for us, who (or what) can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" Rm.8:31-32
B. Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit by grumbling: When the parent lavishes love on the child, but instead of being grateful, the child grumbles because of gifts not received, or because he wants everything NOW.
C. The older son feeling deprived: “Don’t you realize that all that is mine is yours?” (Luke 15:31)
1. This is what God says to you whenever you feel deprived or jealous of others: “Don’t you realize that all that is mine is yours?”
2. Don’t you know that I love you?
D. Why has God given us all things?
1. Because He loves us. Gifts are tokens of love.
a. The problem with all privileges as earned. Some privileges just show love.
2. So why has He so loved us? Grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9)