It Was Only The Beginning Of The Real Story…

Transcript

So I’m both excited and really humbled to preach the text that we have this morning, particularly because it’s one of the most beautiful and all-expansive promises in all of Scripture, and it gets into some of the most heated debates in the church. So it’s very humbling, but I’m thankful for it, and at the same time I feel kind of bad for y’all, mainly because over the years one of the primary critiques of my preaching is that I get too Bible nerdy and I’m excited to dive in. get into the weeds and the details that doesn’t maybe easily apply in relevant ways of people’s lives, and maybe I try to pack too much in into my hour and 20 minutes. I’ve also tended to be long-winded. So pray for me, right, that I can bring these lofty truths down to earth and do justice to this text before we all get hungry for lunch, and I

pray that God will be gracious, you will be forgiving, or at least forgetful. So let’s pray. Lord, we do need your help, and Holy Spirit, we welcome you here. We thank you for that reminder and promise from last week that, Spirit, you help us in our weakness, and so we are a weak people. We don’t know how to pray as we ought. We don’t know what your will is, what you are doing in history, and even in the details of our lives, but we know you have a good purpose, and so help us in our weakness. Help me to be faithful to your Word. Help your people to be attentive to your Spirit and your truth as it is proclaimed, and I pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. Okay, I want to start with a quote by an author and literature professor named Daniel Taylor. It goes like this. It should be up on the screen.

Story-Shaped Creatures

He says, human beings are story-shaped creatures. We are born into stories, raised in stories, and live and die in stories. Whenever we have to answer a big question, who am I, why am I here, what should I do, what happens to me when I die, we tell a story. If faith were primarily an idea, the intellect alone might be adequate for dealing with it. Since it is instead a life to be lived, we need story. Story, as does life, engages all of who we are, mind, emotions, spirit, body. Faith calls us to live in a certain way, not just to think in a certain way. It is no surprise then that the central record of faith in human history opens with an unmistakable story signature in the beginning. So that quote makes me ask myself, what stories are shaping me? And I wonder if that’s a question you’ve

ever asked yourself, right? These stories might be things that were told to us, they might be the stories that we tell ourselves, but if it’s true that we are story-shaped creatures, then it’s important to know what stories are shaping us and to choose those stories wisely. And I’m not just talking about the movies you watch, the music you listen to, the books and novels you read. I’m also talking about those cultural narratives that we swim in every day that shape our vision of what the good life is, right? The narratives that tell us what success or failure looks like, or perhaps even who the good and bad guys are. So now, if you think about Romans, for a Christian, if you think about this book, you probably don’t think about stories, right? For example, our text today has some big theological words that seminary professors like to write long

books about, right? And they’re not storybooks, and they usually don’t have pictures unless they’re diagrams, and they have lots of footnotes. You know what those are, right? The little small print at the bottom with additional information that reference other books that have long footnotes at the bottom that reference other notes, and so on, right? So I like those kind of books. I read a few of them in preparation for the sermon today, but here’s the thing. I think they’re actually, of all the kind of books you can write about God, the least like the Bible. And here’s why I say that, and I apologize to anyone who’s written a theological book in this church this morning. The Bible is about 52% narrative story, right? It’s about a third poetry and songs, and it’s only about 15% law or like letter, right? And even if you think about the

laws of Moses or the logical, right, letters of Paul, in order to fully understand them, you actually have to know the story and the narrative behind them. So the approach I want to take this morning is just based on the fact that God gave us stories. And my goal is to tie in our Bible text into the stories of our lives, in the story of the scripture, rather than mainly trying to tie it into our modern theological debates, okay? If you want to talk theology, I love theology. I got some great books with long footnotes I can recommend to you. Ask me afterwards. But we’re gonna look at it, Romans, a little different way this morning. We’re gonna look at it through the lens of God as the author of the greatest story ever told. If stories shape us, then I want to, I want us to immerse ourselves in God’s story this morning. So perhaps you

The Setting

remember in high school lit class, when you studied story, right, there’s four main elements of a story. And these will be kind of the four slash three points that we’ll go through, right? It’s setting, character, plot, and theme. Our three points are the setting, the character, and the plot. And for theme, which just means like meaning or the main idea, I’m gonna leave that to you to try to discern and discover. And especially kids, pay attention. If you think you know what the theme is of this text, come and talk to me afterwards. I’d love to hear what you think. So that’s where we’re going. Let’s start with setting, okay? The setting of this text in Romans 8. And the setting is a good creation subjected to futility. A good creation subjected to futility. So we’re gonna get to Romans 8 28, and this is that long windedness

thing that I warned you about in the beginning. But we need to get the context to understand the setting of our story. So let’s read Romans 8 18 to 20 together.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation awaits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

— Romans 8

(ESV)

Now there’s something here. I don’t see if you caught it. Paul embeds a hyperlink back to the creation narrative in Genesis within this text, right? You probably know that narrative. You probably know that story. The world was created good. Our first parents were put in a garden naked and without shame. There was wholeness in all their relationships, right? With God, within

themselves, with one another, and ultimately with the creation around them. God gave them every good thing and only withheld from them what would destroy them. Then there was an act of betrayal, right? Our first parents doubted God’s goodness. They desired to have what was forbidden. They doubted God’s love for them and the goodness of his commands. And that act of betrayal shattered every relationship in their lives, and that carries down to us today and has shattered every relationship in our lives, right? A relationship with God, Adam and Eve hide in fear, and then they’re ultimately kicked out of the garden. They can’t be in God’s holy presence. We experience that today. Their relationship within themselves. They experience shame. They hid. We experience shame and anxiety. There’s sickness and brokenness in our bodies. Relationship with others, right? In the first marriage, we immediately start to see it

breaking apart, where there’s blame shifting back and forth. We see the abuse of authority. We see betrayal in human relationships. And then finally, there’s this relationship with creation, right? Where God says, hey, now it’s by the sweat of your brow you’re gonna work. There’s gonna be toil and difficulty. Now the creation fights against us, and we abuse creation to make it do our will. So that’s that biblical narrative and story that Paul is tapping into. All has been marred by that betrayal, right? But there’s still beauty in the world. You might be thinking that, wow, this is Debbie Downer. This is so negative. There is beauty in the world, right? We’re all still made in God’s image with value, dignity, and worth. But to kind of say it metaphorically, the rose has thorns, right? Every rose in this life has thorns, though maybe Portland has figured out how to get the rose, the thorns off of the rose

since we like roses around here. So there is betrayal, but there is beauty. And then, and that’s how Paul describes that. He says the creation was subjected to futility. Now here’s another hyperlink that’s here to this word futility. That’s the same word used in the Greek translation of the book of Ecclesiastes to describe life under the Sun. Okay, if you’ve never read Ecclesiastes, I highly recommend it. I like to think of it like the book that God wrote for angsty and depressed postmodern Portlanders, right? In mid-January, right, who haven’t seen the Sun in three months and they like just hang out at coffee shops drinking Cortados and reading Nietzsche. Like that’s who the book of Ecclesiastes is for. And seriously, if you’ve never read it before, never studied it, let’s meet, let’s talk philosophy and metaphysics and I’ll buy the Cortados. But in the meantime, okay, here’s the gist of Ecclesiastes. This guy, King Solomon, he’s

the richest, smartest, and most powerful man in all the ancient world and he embarks on this existential journey to try to find meaning and satisfaction in life under the Sun. He pursues political power and wealth, right, and he ultimately finds that it corrupts and it doesn’t satisfy. He tries sex. The dude has 700 wives and 300 concubines. You know what his conclusion was? Why didn’t I just stick with one? Okay, not really, but probably. His conclusion in the book of Ecclesiastes is it’s all vanity of vanities. It’s all vanity. In other words, it’s meaninglessness. Or as the message translation translates that word, it was all a spitting into the wind. A spitting into the wind. So he goes on and he pursues knowledge and education, religion and spirituality, even being poor and foolish. Like he’s like, forget it, I’m gonna be homeless. And he

just pitches a tent and hangs out on the street and begs for money. Like he does all of this trying to find what’s the meaning in life. And he discovers it was never enough. It will never be enough. There is an eternity-shaped gap in my heart and nothing in this world will fill it. And even if I did find happiness, he says, death and chance happen to everyone. Whether you’re wise or foolish, rich or poor, secular or religious, everyone dies and you lose everything that you’ve acquired in life. And so he concludes, apart from God, all of life under the sun is absurdity. Sounds like a great mid-January read, doesn’t it? So okay, that was the hyperlink. That’s the narrative that Paul is tying us into. Going back to Romans, this is the setting of our passage and the story that we find ourselves in east of Eden. Or to say it another kind of

The Characters

more nerdy way, we’ve left the peaceful Shire and we’re now traveling the scorched earth of Mordor. Right? But there’s a glimpse. Did you catch it? He subjected it in hope. There’s a glimpse of hope on the horizon of this story. That brings us to the characters. Okay, the characters in this story are you, me, and the triune God. Okay, we’re done with that long-winded intro. Let’s read our text. Romans 8 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. So what does this passage say about us and the part we play in this story? Well, it refers to people who, quote, love God. So to put it frankly, either we love God and this amazing promise in this text applies to us, or we don’t love God and it doesn’t apply to us. Either God works everything for our good, including the

most painful circumstances, or he doesn’t. So I want to help us, right? I want us to do some work in Romans so that we can know, without a shadow of a doubt, if God’s sovereign and all-powerful mercy is working for us or if it isn’t. And my prayer is that no one would leave here today being confused about where they stand with God. Okay, so that’s what I want to try to do. But I want to clear up one thing that I know loving God in this text does not mean, okay? This passage does not say all things work together for good for those who love God enough. For if that were true, right, we’d be constantly asking ourselves, do I love God enough? And by whose standard do I judge my love for God? By the standard of the law? The law says to love the Lord your God with all your

heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. How are you doing at that? Do you have a perfect love for God and neighbor? Or what if you give in to temptation and your sin hurts yourself and those you love? And in that moment of shame, the voice of accusation from an enemy will say to you, you weren’t loving God when you did that thing, so God won’t work that for good. In fact, maybe you’ve never loved God. Or who is God anyway? Maybe he’s not good if he allowed this thing to happen. And so goes the logic of hell. It’s the voice of our enemy, and Jesus tells us he comes only, only to steal our joy, kill our faith, and ultimately destroy our souls. Okay, so this amazing promise in Romans 8 28 is not for those who love God enough. So there was some standard that

you might fall below. Okay, then who is it for? Who is it for? I want us to look at a parallel passage in the book of Romans that uses the same word for love, and as I read it, I want you to notice all the intertextuality, all of the shared themes with Romans 8. Okay, you’re gonna hear themes like hope, suffering, future glory, the Spirit, and the love of God. Okay, and we’re gonna be reading from Romans chapter 5, the first five verses there. Romans chapter 5, starting verse 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces

endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Do you see those connections from Romans 8? I want to direct your attention particularly to verse 5, and I want to read it again but in the New American Standard Bible, and I’m gonna read it from there because it’s a more word-for-word translation that carries forward an ambiguity that’s in the original text, and I want to argue that it’s not just an ambiguity, there’s actually a double entendre that Paul is using here, and like a good hip-hop artist, he’s using a turn of phrase to inspire deeper reflection and to say more than one thing at a time, and I was gonna try to quote some hip-hop songs and examples of a double

entendre, and I’m like, dude, I would just look like a total nerd trying to do that. So, you know what I’m talking about. Okay, Romans 5.5 in NASB, see if you can spot that double entendre, and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. You spot it? Look at those words, the love of God. Okay, so those words in English, also in Greek, can mean something like, no dam can contain the love of God because Jesus has taken God’s wrath and set free the flood of God’s sovereign kindness for you. That’s one way to just to understand the love of God, and it’s true and glorious, but the phrase love of God can have another meaning, like in this sentence, for the love of God, why in the world would you

watch American football when God invented the perfect sport in the form of soccer? Okay, anyone gonna watch the World Cup? It’s coming up, guys. Any watch parties in this church? We got some watch parties? Let’s get together and watch Team USA get their lunch handed to them by a small developing nation. Don’t you love it when that happens? I’m patriotic, but I just, I’ve lost all hope that Team USA is gonna get anywhere in the World Cup. Good times. Okay, so the love of God, I digress, can mean either God’s love for us or our love for God. So which is it in this passage in Romans 5 and ultimately, I mean, how this applies to Romans 8? So I would argue that Daniel Wallace, he’s a Greek professor, and his Greek grammar is on track when he summarizes this verse. Okay, he says, he writes this, he says, the

love that comes from God and produces our love for God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. You hear that? Love from God produces our love for God. So who are those who love God in this verse? This is the question we’re asking, right? Those who love God are those who have been loved by God first. In other words, those who love God are simply Christians. They’re simply followers of Jesus. All believers who have put their trust in Christ have received God’s love through the Holy Spirit and now love him in return through that same spirit. And that fits perfectly with the context of Romans 8, and you can look back there. If you’re trusting Christ this morning and you’ve received the spirit of adoption who testifies to your spirit that God loves you, who stirs up within you a love and delight for your Abba

Father, and that reciprocal love is alive in your heart and confirms an unbreakable hope that you have. You could say, you could describe it as an omnipotent hope that God will get you to glory. And whatever is happening in your life, no matter how chaotic or seemingly meaningless, is being worked together for your good by a loving Heavenly Father. And if you’re not sure this morning if you have peace with God or if this experience of God’s love for you, stirring up in you a love for him, isn’t that just totally foreign? I wonder what’s keeping you from asking Jesus right now to pour out his love into your heart. If you come to him, he’ll take all your junk and baggage. He will give you his perfect wholeness and righteousness so you can stand before God and people without shame, without guilt. So the characters, those who love God are those who have been called by

The Plot

Jesus, who’ve trusted in him. Now let’s get to the plot. Finally, the plot, or you could say the narrative arc of this text. What is God doing in the world? How in the world is he gonna work this thing going on in my life right now for good? He’s gonna tell us. He’s gonna tell us how it fits into the story. So the plot, you could say the narrative arc. You’re gonna notice something unique about this story, right? What’s unique about God’s story is that the author is also the primary actor and hero. And we see that in the word purpose, right? We talked about love in verse 28, now here’s purpose. It says, he works all things for good for those who are called according to his purpose. The conviction that God will work everything for good rests solely on God’s purpose and plan. He’s

the author of history. He has a purpose that he’s accomplishing. And then as we read our next two verses, 29 and 30, he’s gonna explain what that purpose is and you’re gonna follow that narrative arc, okay? So let’s read that, verses 29 and 30.

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. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

— Romans 8

(ESV)

So before we jump in, you’re like, oh, we’re finally there. Nope. One more caveat. Before we jump in, don’t be intimidated by these theological words. Don’t skip this part and just go from all things work together for good to like verse 31, which says, if God is for us, who could be against us? Don’t skip the meat here. Too many Christians just

read the Caleb power verses, okay? It’s the kind of verses we put on our mugs or our t-shirts or if you’re really grunge or hip, our tattoos, okay? And we avoid these hard passages. Give me the mug, right, that says, all those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. Or like a tattoo from Romans 9 that just says, vessel of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory. Maybe someone has that tattoo. I don’t know. If you do, come tell me about it. But let’s be a people that embrace the whole counsel of God and not just the easy stuff, okay? So now we’re gonna dig into 29 and 30. I want you to notice that it is the foundation for verse 28, right? There’s that word for the beginning of verse 29. We heard last week, Pastor Thomas, he talked about how we don’t know how to pray as we ought, right? We don’t

know if God is going to heal us or give us the faith and courage to die well. You don’t know if God is going to restore a broken relationship or provide the comfort that we need to endure abandonment. But we pray, right, and God fixes our prayers on the way up. Wasn’t that encouraging to hear last week? So we don’t always know what to pray, but this text tells us what we do know, right? Without a shadow of a doubt, we know that God causes all things to work together for good. But that’s hard to hear, right, in the moment, right? And those people that just kind of, it’s okay, brother. All things work together for good. And you’re like, smack. I’d like to see that work for your good, right? Like, it’s not easy to hear in the moment, right? And Paul knows that. And so he

digs deeper. He gives us, he gives us the narrative, the story that we fit into and that the junk in our life fits into so our weak faith can believe, okay? How do we have that confidence? It’s God’s purpose, the sovereign plan that he is working, the story that he is writing. So let’s look at that story arc of God’s purpose and plan. And notice that these verses form an unbreakable chain. You see it in the logic, right? All those that he calls, he justifies, justifies, glorifies. There’s a chain here. God wrote the beginning of the story. He’s writing the end of it. In fact, I would argue from this text that the story is already written. Look at the first words, the first set of words. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. God is presented as the author and decisive actor initiating each of these actions. And yet still, some will argue that this

unbreakable chain of God’s purpose rests, it rests on your foreknown faith. In other words, God looking into the future saw that you would choose him, and based on your choice, he wrote the story of history to accomplish your salvation. Like a twist tie trying to hold together two steel chains, our choice cannot be the linchpin that holds together God’s eternal purpose. Rather, it’s God’s eternal purpose that creates and perseveres our faith in him. So what does foreknown mean then, if it’s not that God looked in the future and knew that we would choose him? I want us to look at two verses from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, that use the same word in a similar context, okay? Just two. This is Genesis 18, 19. And this is God talking to Abraham. And notice it’s personal, right? And it’s based in God’s plan. He says, for I have chosen you, and the ESV

translates it chosen, but literally it’s yadah, it’s ‘know.’ I have known him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised. God knew Abraham before he was ever born, chose him, and had a purpose for him. And then look at Jeremiah 1, 5. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you and appointed you a prophet to the nations. That’s God talking to Jeremiah. I knew you before you were ever born. That’s personal, and it’s tied into God’s purpose for Jeremiah’s life, and God’s foreknowledge of you is tied into his purpose for you. So do you hear it? If you’re trusting Jesus this morning, then God’s foreknowledge of you is personal, and it’s loving. He set his kindness on

you before the story began, before you had done anything good or bad, and thus your confidence in God’s commitment to your good is not based on your performance or your behavior, but only on the unchanging character and purpose of God. So what’s that purpose? What is that happy ending that God has already written? It says it here, he predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son. Why? So that Jesus would be the firstborn of my many brothers. Now we see the hero, don’t we? We see the hero of the story, and that ultimate plot twist, or as Tolkien would call it, the good catastrophe. The unexpected turn of events in a story that takes our breath away, sends tingles down our spines, not in fear, but in wonder. And their tears start falling, and we’re like, where is this coming from? I don’t even understand it, right? Here at last we arrive at what

Christians call the good news, the gospel. All that is happening in your life is a part of the story that your Heavenly Father is writing to bring you to Jesus, and then to make you look like Jesus, to bring you into his glory, and to prepare you to share in his joy. So hear the good news this morning. You were called, or for some of you, you’re being called right now, perhaps for the first time. It’s an invitation to put your hope for this life and the next in Jesus. It’s a call to turn from striving after the empty things in life that won’t satisfy, or as Solomon would say, stop spitting into the wind. It’s an invitation to look to Jesus, God himself, author and creator, entering his own story to save the day. Not through weapons, but through weakness. To conquer evil, not through superpowers,

but through sacrifice. Dying a criminal’s death on a Roman torture device. We looked at him, we mocked him, we turned away in disgust. If you’ve ever read this story, you read the Gospels, we’re in there. We’re the mockers. But his death wasn’t the end of the story. Early Sunday morning, when all was still dark, and all hopes had been dashed, the sun rose. Jesus rose from the dead, conquering Satan’s sin and death, and proving that he is the hero that fulfills every epic story ever written, and he is the longing of every human heart that’s ever lived. And that brings us to the next point in this narrative arc that’s probably the most important word in the book of Romans. Those whom he called, he also justified. When Christ died and rose again, he purchased justification for all who trust him. If you believe this good news, even for the first time today, then

God has cleared you to be innocent of sin and fully righteous. There’s been what Luther calls a wonderful exchange. Christ has taken your sins and given you his righteousness. That’s the good news for those who trust him. And then finally, we come to the last word in this chain, into this narrative arc of God’s story and history. It’s the culmination of it. And we see here that the ending has already been written, and it’s a happy ending. Those whom he justified, he also glorified. That means that everyone trusting Christ this morning will be conformed to his image. Yes, we will share in his suffering, but all will work for our good. And what’s that good? It’s not what your culture tells you, right? The vision of the good life. That’s not what you get when you log into social media or turn on the news. The good is us sharing in the glory of Christ forever.

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The Happy Ending

And this promise is so sure that this future reality is expressed in the past tense. You notice that? All those he justified, he also glorified. I didn’t say he will glorify. He says he also glorified. It is so sure it’s in the past tense. The happy ending has already been written. We can see a glimpse of this happy ending in Tolkien’s Return of the King, and this is where we’re gonna conclude. If you know the story, after the ring was destroyed, the cracks of doom erupt, and Sam and Frodo pass out from exhaustion, expecting only death. Then Sam wakes up in Ithilien, in this like paradise, to discover Gandalf is still alive. Strider, right, is revealed as the long-promised king, and all his friends are at his side. And he asks this question. I’m gonna read now from Return of the King. Just listen. He says, is everything sad going to come untrue?

What happened to the world? A great shadow has departed, said Gandalf. And then he laughed, and the sound was like music or like water in a parched land. And as he listened, the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. Maybe that’s you this morning. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. I don’t know why I cry when I read Lord of the Rings. I’m like, forgive me, forgive me, please. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring, and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased. And his laughter welled up, and laughing, he sprang from his bed. Do you see the resurrection in those words? He sprang, laughing from his bed. Do you see

Jesus wiping every tear from our eyes? Or, and I’m gonna close on this, or it’s like these words from the final page of Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. As Aslan the lion and Christ figure speaks to the children, and at last reveals his glory to them. It’s not just a story for kids. As he spoke, he no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories. And we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world, and all their adventures in Narnia, had only been the cover and the title page. Now, at least they were beginning chapter one of the great story which no

one on earth has read, which goes on forever and ever, in which every chapter is better than the one before. Let’s pray. Lord, thank you. Thank you for inviting us into this glorious story. Lord, your purpose, your sovereign hand in our lives, is better than we would have planned for ourselves. You are conforming us to Christ. You are preparing us for this day when we will meet our Savior, and we will be with him, and the true story will finally begin. So, Lord, help us to be faithful in this life. Help us to suffer well and worship you as we prepare to meet you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.