Romans 8 (Part 3)

Romans chapter 8. We're in the third installment of our study in Romans and we're not even going to get through the whole rest of the chapter today because there's just so much stuff here. Let's go ahead and read the verses beginning in verse 26. We're going to go through just verse 30 and then we'll pray. Verse 26 and following.

27

28

29

30

That's as much as we can take in one day. Let's pray. Jesus, fill us with Your Spirit. Fill us with understanding. Give us eyes and ears, and a heart to receive. We ask it in your Name; Jesus’ Name, amen. Amen. Previously, Paul had written to us about how the Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit that we are God's children. And now he's going to go on and speak of another aspect of the Holy Spirit's ministry to the life of the believer. And he brings up the fact in verse 26 that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” You know what? I could read that sentence right there and just go home. I mean, I– not that I will, but you know what I'm saying? We're going to go on and talk about how he applies that to prayer in just a moment. But just that statement alone: “the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” I could just think of that all day long and just think about all the implications of that.

What's interesting about this sentence. I don't know how many of you have a New American Standard Bible on your lap. Let me see your hands; New American Standard Bible? Well, there's just a few of you. I found that new American Standard Bible lovers love their translation. I mean they'll fall on their sword over their Sword. Well interestingly enough, the New American Standard Bible is the only one who very literally translates this sentence. Because in the Greek the words “in our” are not there. They aren't there. The English translators put them in just because they felt that it helped convey the meaning of the verse a little bit better. What Paul literally said is, “The Spirit helps our weakness.” “The Spirit helps our weakness.” Now, the reason I like that better than including the “in our weakness” is because when you say “the Spirit helps us in our weakness,” it almost gives you the impression that we go through these occasional times of weakness, and when we do, the Spirit is there to help. That's not what Paul is saying here. Paul is not saying that you and I have occasional times of weakness. He's saying that we live in a constant state of weakness. And he's reminding you that the Spirit helps us, it helps our weakness. It's a constant sort of a thing. Now, that's one thing for you and I to know that from a Biblical standpoint. It's another thing for us to realize it in our own personal lives, and yet another thing to confess it in such a way that we open our heart to the Spirit's help. Isn't it interesting? We go through difficult seasons of life, whatever it may be, and when we do, we recognize our weakness, and we usually come pretty honest by way of that. And we come before the Lord and we say, God, I need You. I need You. But then what happens? Then things get better. The Lord helps us, whatever the situation might be, and we start moving down the road. And pretty soon before you know it, we're not really thinking that we're all that weak anymore. Or at least we're not thinking about it at all. And we're just moving on and doing our own thing. And what we find in a very subtle sort of a way is that we begin to rely, over a period of time, on our own strength, on our own ability to meet the needs of life and address the issues that we're facing on a regular basis and so forth. And we don't even think about it that much until the next really difficult season comes upon us. And then once again, we're broken and we say, Oh Lord, I'm weak. Help me because I'm weak. What Paul is trying to convey to you and I is that we're always weak. And he's saying to you and I that the Holy Spirit helps us; He helps our weakness. And I really, as I said, I really love what he's saying here because this is something that Paul knew firsthand. I mean, he had to learn this the hard way– like most of us do. You guys probably remember that there was a time in Paul's life when he was afflicted with some sort of a thorn in the flesh. Whatever it was we don't know. All we know is that Paul desperately wanted to be rid of it. And he tells in his letter, his second letter to the Corinthians, that 3 times he approached the Lord prayerfully and said, Please take this out of my life. And ultimately the Lord communicated to him that there was a purpose, there was a reason, for that thing to be in his life. But what the Lord said to him in light of that conversation is very telling and very insightful for you and I so we'll put it up on the screen here so we can all see it together. Paul writes. He says, 2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, (Here's why and this is so important, for my power is made perfect (Not just in those occasions when you realize that you are a weak person but, my power is made perfect) in (the constant state of your) weakness.” (And he went on to say) “Therefore… (if I'm going to boast I'm going to) boast… gladly in my weaknesses, (I'm going to talk about the things that actually reveal my weakness. Why? Because, he says in this passage– because I want) …the power of Christ… (to) rest… (on) me. And I realize that when I'm recognizing my state of weakness, that is when the power of Christ rests on me and in my life. And so you see, an interesting sort of a scenario here. Paul says now here in Romans chapter 8, the Spirit helps our weakness. But let me tell you something that the Spirit has a real hard time doing and that is helping you and I when we feel like we don't need His help. When we're strong in and of ourselves, when we're fairly self-sufficient as it relates to how we approach our problems and how we go about solving our problems, the Spirit takes a backseat. He's just an amazing Person; very much a gentleman and takes a backseat in our lives. Isn't that a crazy sort of an idea? That He will let you and I get into the lead and just call the shots and He'll just sit back and say, okay, fine. Now the moment that you and I realize that we're not getting anywhere; in fact, we're spinning our wheels and probably even making things worse. And then we begin to confess that and we say, Lord, I need You. I am so weak. The Lord is like, Yeah, I was just waiting for you to realize that. So He steps into that position once again, where He comes alongside; that wonderful, glorious Paraclete. As the Greek says, that Helper. He comes alongside and He helps our weakness. And He's just waiting for the next time for you and I to admit that we need Him. But Paul is trying to communicate, in no uncertain terms here, that this is a constant state in our lives. We constantly are in need of His help. It's also important to take note of the fact that the word, help here, or when he says helps, it's in the present tense. I don't know how many of you remember your grammar, but what that means is ongoing. It's not past tense; it's not future tense. It's not helped or will help. It's helps. And that means it is an ongoing thing. You could literally translate this verse: The Holy Spirit keeps on helping our weakness, and that's good news. Now Paul goes on to focus on one specific area where the Holy Spirit keeps on helping our weakness and it has to do with prayer. Let's read the verse again. “Likewise the Spirit helps us (or helps) …our weakness. (if you will) For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, (then he goes on to say) …the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” This is the point that Paul's trying to make here, the Spirit helps us in prayer. And this is really an encouraging thing for people like me who have struggled with prayer. I mean being consistent and being ongoing. I just confess that to you, I have struggled in the area of prayer. And this is a good word for someone like me. Because I like hearing that the Holy Spirit is standing by my side and helping me in the area of prayer. And Paul comes right out and exposes our weakness. What is your biggest– if somebody were to ask you, what's your biggest weakness in prayer? Well, I might come up with all kinds of things like consistency or whatever. But look what Paul says. He says, “…we… (don't) know what to pray for as we ought,...” He says, that's our biggest weakness when it comes to prayer, we don't know what to pray for. “…we… (don't) know what to pray for as we ought,...” And by the way, those are the key words of the statement there, “as we ought.” I mean, we know to pray; when we get into trouble particularly. We know to pray and sometimes we even know how to pray. But because we see through a mirror darkly, as Paul said elsewhere (1 Corinthians 13:12), we don't know what to pray or how to pray as we ought and so the Spirit helps us. How? What does he say here? Look at the verse again. It says that He “himself intercedes for us” and the word, intercede means to intervene on behalf of someone. Isn't that a really cool thought that the Holy Spirit is intervening? In a situation where you don't know how to pray as you ought? You may be praying well enough, but you're not praying as you ought. Because that probably describes me most of the time. Because what I do when I see a situation that needs prayer is that I assess it with my human brain and my limited perspective. And I think Well okay, here's what's going on here, so here's how I need to pray. And you do the same thing, don't you? We just– it's natural for us. Here's the situation; here's what I need to pray… but I don't know how to pray as I ought. So the Spirit steps in to help us pray “as we ought.” In other words, what the need really is. He knows exactly what the need is and He helps us to pray as we ought. And by the way, some people– As he goes on to talk about these “groanings (that are) too deep for words.” Some people have wondered if perhaps he might be talking here about the gift of tongues, the supernatural gift of tongues. But obviously it's not what he's talking about because he said it's “groanings too deep for words.” And tongues– Guys, just remember, don't get weirded out by the word, tongues; it just means languages. To speak in tongues means to speak in other languages, but they are languages that are unknown to the speaker. But they're still languages and they're still made up of words. Paul is saying here that the intercession of the Spirit is beyond words; it's beyond human expression. It is with groanings that are too deep, too profound, to even apply any human vocabulary.

You and I don't have words to describe the groanings, the deep groanings of the Spirit Who is coming alongside to pray and help us to pray as we ought. So it's referring to a wordless communication between the members of the Trinity that language cannot convey. And that's important because God knows what we ought to pray. He knows what we need to pray. He knows what the need is in prayer. And Paul says in verse 27, look with me then in your Bible, it says, “he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit.” And obviously the converse is true. The Spirit knows the mind of He who searches hearts, or God the Father or God the Son, for that matter– because it says here, “… the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Do you understand, People, that we don't always do that? I intercede for people, but I don't always intercede for them according to the will of God. I often intercede for people according to Paul's will. (Pastor Paul points to himself) This Paul. And many times Paul's will is not God's will. And isn't it just a wonderfully comforting sort of a thing to know that the Holy Spirit is doing that work of intercession perfectly, according to the will of God. You and I struggle to know the will of God. People sometimes come to me and they'll say, pastor Paul, how can I know the will of God? As if I've got some inside track on it? There are things that God has laid out in His Word that you and I can know, and those are wonderful. But so many times we struggle to know the will of God, and we just don't know it. I mean, on very many specific sorts of levels, there are just things we just don't know. What is the will of God? And how are you going to pray if you don't know what the will of God is? I suppose you can default like I do sometimes to that prayer where I just say, Lord, Your will be done. And that's not bad, from the standpoint of praying. The Spirit goes beyond because He knows the perfect will of the Father as it relates to your life and He speaks it to the Father on your behalf with these deep groanings and so forth. It's just a, it's a beautiful picture of God's love for us. One more thing I want to bring out about verse 26 before we move on. When Paul says here that the Holy Spirit helps our weakness, there's another interesting little tidbit that you need to know about this word, helps because you've probably heard before that the Greek language is so full of information just in a single word. In English, we simply come out and we say It means helps, but it's more than that.

--- In the Greek, this word describes somebody who comes along to…. I was going to say just help, but you see it's more than that. It means someone who joins in the burden. In other words– have you ever been walking along and you're seeing somebody dragging something or trying to pick up something that they really aren't physically able to pick up? And so you run over there and you grab the other end of it, say, Here, let me grab this end and you pick up the other end and they're like, oh, thank you. And then you can make your way where you need to go because you're helping one another with the burden. It's a mutual sort of thing. That's what this word in the Greek literally carries the idea of. And so it's not that the Holy Spirit prays when you're not praying. Do you get this? This is talking about a mutual burden carrying here. So what Paul is saying here when he says the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness as it relates to prayer, he's saying, when you pray, the Holy Spirit helps and comes along and intercedes, and helps you to pray as you ought. He's not saying that the Holy Spirit prays when you're not praying. You with me? Now there are times when He just picks up the whole burden in our life without us doing anything. Like when Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

But that's not what he's saying here. He's saying, listen, the Holy Spirit comes alongside us when you're praying and you don't know; you don't really know how you ought to pray, but you're praying. He comes alongside to carry the burden with you. So this is not a stand in for your time of prayer. This is a help of the Holy Spirit that is activated when you step out in prayer, but still don't know what you're supposed to pray. That's just an important distinction, I think, to make here because you can't… you and I can't sit back and just go, Hey, well I don't have to pray anymore because the Holy Spirit's doing it for me. It's not what Paul's saying. God’s Spirit will help you; just help you as you step out in prayer, He's right there to help you carry that burden. Let's move on, verse 28. “And we know…” Oh, I love Paul's confidence. Don't you? “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” This is one of those mega verses, or magnet verses, on your refrigerator. And we love to look at it. We love to consider the wonderful promise. ---

--- But certainly this doesn't say that everything that happens to you and I is good. The fact of the matter is quite the opposite. Much of what happens to us in this life would be classified as tragic; very difficult, very painful, very hard to endure. What this passage is saying and promising us is that no matter what does happen, no matter what does take place in our lives, God is going to work it for good in our lives. How? I don't have a clue. And frankly, neither do you– until it takes place. I have attended people in situations that were tragic and had them look me right in the eye and ask me the question, pastor Paul, how in the world is God ever going to use this for good? And I have to say, I have no idea, but all I know is that He promised He would. And that's where it starts and stops for you and I. That's where faith starts and stops. He promised it. He said that He would– for those who love Him, “for those who are called according to his purpose.” I will bring this for good. How in the world? I have no idea, but He will. He doesn't say that He's going to bring it for your happiness. He says He's going to bring about your ultimate good. And by the way, you need to know what your ultimate good is, so that you don't get confused on that. Your ultimate good is to be formed into the image of Christ. Okay? It's not a new car, a new house, a new job or a raise. Your ultimate good is to be made into the image of His Son and that He promises He will do. He will bring good. He will bring good out of the issues of your life. But to whom has this promise made? To those who love God and to “those who are called according to his purpose.” Listen, to no other people is this guarantee spoken. This is not a general promise from God’s Word that applies to all people. It's very clear that the apostle Paul is giving specific guidelines here as to whom this promise is directed to those who love God and “are called according to His purpose.” The word, called means summoned. It's talking about believers, in a word. So to you and I who are in Christ today, this promise is a sure foundation. And then Paul gives us in these last couple of verses, some powerful insights into those of us who are redeemed of the Lord. And what Paul is going to do in these two verses, and this is very important, is Paul is going to– he's going to lift you and I up out of something that we're stuck in. Do you know what it is? Time. We're stuck in time, right? I wish I wasn't. In fact, I was sharing with my daughter just yesterday; we were talking about movies that we like to watch and ---

I've always been fascinated by movies that have an element of time or time travel, or future/past– stuff like that. I've always been fascinated by those sorts of genres of movies. And you can probably tell I'm a sci-fi buff and that's true; I'm sorry. That's the way it is. But anyway, it's always fascinated me because I know that I'm stuck, just like you and I. We can't move. The only– well, we can move as fast as time moves, right? I have to wait till tomorrow to find out what it's going to hold just like you. But it's not true of God. Have you ever thought about the fact that God is outside of time because He created it? God is not limited by anything He created, right? Time is a created thing and do you know that one day time is going to be gone? And we're just going to– there's just going to be eternity. There will be no time. He created time for us on this earth and the passage of time and days and weeks and months and years. But that's not always going to be the way it is. Someday it's just going to basically be gone. We're just going to live in the ever-present present, in the constancy of eternity. And if you sit and try to think about it too long, your brain will do backflips. And you just won't be able to go there, but that's just the way it is. These are the things that God has revealed to us in His Word. But God stands back from time and He sees all of human history in one fell swoop. You and I, we have to read a book to find out how things went in the past or we have to wait and see how they're going to go in the future. But not for God. He doesn't have to wait. God doesn't wait for anything. And He sees time from the perspective of eternity as: There's the timeline of human history right there. (Pastor Paul stretches out his arms to give a visual timeline.) It's always in front of Him. When God speaks of your salvation, which is what the Book of Romans is about, remember? In case you've lost track of that when we started this book. When He speaks of your salvation, He sometimes speaks into the confines of Time, but sometimes He speaks of you and I outside of time. He takes that step back from His perspective and He talks about you from the standpoint of timelessness. And that's what he's going to– that's what Paul is going to do in these two verses. He's going to talk about your salvation from God's perspective. We don't think about it from God's perspective, but here's how it goes, verse 29: “For those whom He foreknew…” Meaning He knew you ahead of time. He knew who you were, what your name was, everything that you would do, and the fact that you would come to Him by faith. “For those whom he foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. By the way, that's that good He was talking about that He's going to bring out of everything in your life. For those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, He predestined you from the very beginning to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be the first born among many brothers. 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. Those whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. Wow. This is a great couple of verses. But again God is, or Paul is, having a step back and see this thing from God's perspective and what is, what's the first thing he says? He says, those whom God foreknew– to foreknow means to know before. Before you were even born, God knew you. Before you came upon the scene, God knew your name, and He knew that you would give your life to Him. He knew it. It was never any question. He didn't sit around. Remember I said God waits for nothing? He didn't sit around going, Gee, I wonder if they're going to come. I wonder if they're going to, if this person is going to make a decision to follow Me. I'm anxious and I don't know if this is going to happen. He always knew. Always knew. What that means is because He always knew– from the very creation of the world– before the very foundation of the world, you were predestined, you were chosen, you were justified, which means of course to be acquitted. Your sins were acquitted before you even committed them. Why? Because it was based on God's foreknowledge. He knew. He knew you were going to come and take advantage of what Jesus did on the cross. Paying for your sins. He knew that. And you were acquitted beforehand. Not only that, you were glorified beforehand. You'll notice that he doesn't say, those whom He justified, He will glorify. He says, Those whom He justified, He glorified. Past tense. This is the interesting thing. When God talks about your salvation from His perspective, His foreknowledge, Him stepping back from time, He talks about it in the past tense. It's done. It's over. It's finished. Listen, it's the same as when Jesus hung on the cross; died for the sins of mankind and said,

He meant It is done. It's over. And that's the exact same way that God has always seen you. It's done. It's over. This one is a child of God. Now does that blow your mind? Because it should. I mean, it's very cool stuff. Those whom God foreknew, He did all these things to and about. And your name has been in the Lamb's Book of Life. It's interesting. The word, predestined is a Greek word that comes from two smaller root words. One of them essentially means before, and the other one means to mark out a boundary. When Paul says that you were predestined, he means that God marked out your boundaries beforehand. Before you even came on the scene, your boundaries were marked out for you. So this is a crazy thought that is wild to even consider. But like any Biblical truth, it needs to be held in tension with the rest of the Word of God. It needs to be held in balance and the balance of this truth is that you and I don't always see things from God's perspective. I mean, it's wonderful that we get a glimpse, but we often don't look at our salvation from God's perspective, do we? I mean, how many of you came to Jesus and said, actually, I've been a Christian forever..., before the world was even created, I was a believer. Yeah, child of God from the foundations. No, we don't think that way. That's the way God thinks. That's His perspective. What do we say? We say, well, actually, you know what? I think it was like July. I remember it was July 29th 1991. I remember I was going through a hard time in my life and some friends invited me to come to church and then I went over to a Bible study and I think it was in one of their homes. They just were sharing the Gospel with me and I realized that I needed to accept Jesus. And so it was the end of July back in 91 and I prayed to receive Jesus as my Savior. And then, yeah. See, that's what we do because we're creatures of time. We mark things by time, right? Now, by the way, don't get weirded out if you don't know the day in which you were saved. People come up to me from time to time, and they're genuinely worried, because they'll say, Pastor Paul, I don't really know when I was saved.

And I always tell them, I don't either. And that's true. I really don't. I'm not sure if I came to Jesus when I flirted with Him when I was about 15 or when I really truly bowed the knee when I was about 24. I really don't know. I just– at some point I just came to the Lord and all I know is I came to the Lord. But what day I'll have to look in the Lamb's Book of Life sometime. Of course my luck it'll say from the foundations of the earth or something. And there won't be a date there, but I suppose I can ask. As if it's really important, but see, it is. It's important to us from our perspective because we're time centered and since we're caught in time, we think of that. How long have you been a believer? Well, I've been a believer for about 7 years. Well, the Bible says that you were in Christ before the foundations of the earth. Really? See, we don't think that way. So the balance of this truth that you've been chosen before the foundations of the earth is that sometime within the course of time you had to also choose Christ, right? You see, we chose Him. He chose us from the foundations of the earth. These things go together; that's the balance. The balance is that the Bible says also that we are free– human beings with a free will and we have to choose Him as our Savior and King, which means we exercise faith in Him and His finished work; the finished work of Jesus on the cross. You with me? I need to tell you quite honestly that there are some people who vehemently disagree with me on this point. And they're lovely Christian people, and they're welcome to their opinion. But there are people who just– well, there are people who have a tendency to gravitate to one extreme or the other in this particular thing, and they'll either stand over here on the side of predestination and say, Well, this is what the Bible says: We've been we're predestined. And they focus on the fact that God chose us and they put their flag in the ground and it says, chosen by God. And they defend their flag with all that is in them. And then you’ve got people over on the other side, who don't really particularly like those people over there and they've got a they've got a flag in the ground and they focus more on the passages that have to do with the fact that we have to exercise our free will to embrace the work of Jesus that He finished for us on the cross. And they focus more on that free will aspect of it and that's what's on their flag; it says free will and they've got it in the ground there and they defend it with all their worth.

And there are even names for those two positions. But I don't care a snit for names, nor do I care about being in any particular group. All I care about is telling you what's in the Bible. And the fact of the matter is both of these truths are in the Bible. And if you're having a hard time reconciling the fact that both of them are in the Bible, that's your problem. Because you know what? I can't reconcile it either. Don't ask me to, don't ask me. Don’t ask me, pastor Paul, how can you reconcile the fact that we've been chosen from the foundations of the earth and then we also choose Christ? It either has to be one or the other. All I'm telling you is the Bible teaches both. That's all I'm saying. Don't ask me to defend it except just for the Scriptures that say this is what the Bible says. That's all I'm trying to do. I'm not smart enough to figure this stuff out, so don't even ask. Okay? I'm simply telling you what the Bible says. And I think there's a point where you and I have to be more concerned with what the Bible says than being part of a group, you know? So it's obviously very clear that predestination is found in the Bible. We just read it here in Romans chapter 8. Well, somebody might ask, well, where in the Bible is the idea that the exercise of our free will is necessary also? Well where is it not taught? I mean, it's just as pervasive in the Scripture. I mean, throughout the entire Bible, humans are portrayed as having been created with a mind and the will of their own. I mean, go all the way back to Genesis and you find Adam and Eve in the Garden who are created with the ability to obey or disobey God, according to the choosing of their will. It starts there. And one of the, one of the greatest Old Testament examples of people being called upon to exercise that choice is in the Book of Joshua. Let me show you this one. You guys know this; this is Joshua speaking. He says,

“And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, (then okay, fine) choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But (listen) as for me and my house, (we have made the choice and) we will serve the LORD.” What is Joshua doing? He's saying, we've made the choice. We've exercised that freedom to choose and the same choice in front of all of you. So choose this day who you're going to follow. And frankly, this idea runs throughout the Bible. It makes its way into the New Testament where the life and death of an individual is predicated upon whether they accept and embrace the work of Jesus on the cross. And one of my favorite passages, frankly, about this call to choose is when Jesus was in Jerusalem during one of the feasts. And it's actually recorded for us in John chapter 7. It says this:

On the last day of the feast, the (it was the) great (greatest) day, Jesus stood up and (He) cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” And He was saying, “let him come to me.” He's been talking about the fact that He is the One who has living water. So if anyone– He doesn't say if anyone is predestined; that's God's perspective. You don't talk to people who are stuck in time from God's perspective and base salvation on it. It's cool to read it here in Romans 8 and to see this glimpse of God's perspective. But I don't go around talking to people that way. I talk to people from the standpoint of you're just like me; you're stuck in time. And as a person who is a slave of time, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day! So what is it? What's it going to be? Do you want Jesus Christ in your life or not? Today is the day! And then of course, there's that wonderful passage in the Book of Revelation, chapter 3 that speaks of, What are you going to do?

Behold, (Jesus says) I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and (makes that exercise of his free will to open) …the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. Again, Jesus is appealing to you and I from the standpoint of our perspective now, in time. I'm standing at the door and knocking. It's going on in the present tense right now, right here. It's not back then; it's– there's no guarantee of tomorrow. Right here, right now, Jesus says, I'm knocking. Will you open the door? Will you exercise your free will to choose Me? So you see, this is a very pervasive sort of a thought, but they're both in the Bible and don't try to tell me they're not. And if you say, well, that's ridiculous. How can they be compatible? Listen, it's compatible if God says it's compatible. I mean, that's pretty much where we have to leave it. So what does Paul say about these people? Those of us who from God's perspective are predestined? Again in verse 30, “those whom he predestined he also called, (that means He summoned) and those whom he called he also justified,…” Remember we said that you've already been acquitted? It's a done deal. From God's perspective it already happened; happened before you even came around. And then finally, to “…those whom he justified he also glorified.” This is referred to as in the prophetic past tense. He doesn't say, and those whom He justified, He will glorify. Here's the point guys, you've already been glorified. Now for you and I, we're still waiting for a future event because we are within the context of time. So I have to wait. God doesn't have to wait. He doesn't wait for anything. He says to me, Paul, it's done. It's done. You've already been glorified in My sight along with My Son. It has already taken place and all those who are in Christ have received the glory and you're just waiting for the day for it to actually be manifest. But in My perspective, My promises are so sure what I say is, It's done. I don't care if you see it or not. See that's the essence of faith, you guys, is that we believe so strongly in the understanding that what God says is a done deal. That is what faith is all about: God, I believe you. I believe Your Word. I don't question it. You say it. Good enough for me. Done. That's faith.

--- Isn't it interesting that even when it refers to our salvation, most of the time the Bible refers to our salvation, it refers to it from God's perspective. It says you're saved. Past tense. But do you know the Bible also talks about those who are being saved? And it talks about how when Jesus comes, He will bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him. And you read something like that and you go, Well now, wait a minute. He's going to bring salvation. I thought I was already saved. Well, yeah. From God's perspective, it's a done deal. From your perspective, the fullness of your salvation will be brought when He returns. You've only received a down payment– just a down payment, just a little bit, but then you will receive it all. But as far as I'm concerned, it's done. I can talk about it as if it's in the past tense. I am saved. I am going to Heaven. In fact, do you know what the Bible says? It says that you and I are seated with Christ in heavenly places.

Isn't that amazing? See, that's God's perspective. It's done. It's finished. You're already there. What a glorious God we serve Who is not hindered or hampered by the confines of time and space and matter, but who is outside all of those who is Himself all powerful, all knowing and able to save to the uttermost, amen. ---