Over the last few months, I've been listening to audiobooks a bit more. It's great walking around the city, doing chores around the apartment, and it's a great way for me to get to read a more variety of books and genres. I've had a chance to get to read several fiction books, biography, some poetry even, genres that I normally wouldn't get a chance to read. But one of the things that I've noticed when listening to these books is that even if I've only paused it for a minute or two, when I resume the book, I often have to go back a little bit to remember where I am. It'll be a minute. I'll jump back in and who are they talking about right now? I don't remember where we're at. And I imagine that that's much the case with this Roman series. Um, especially since it's been almost a month since we've been in the passage. And so I don't want to start with, with, uh, some recap, um, kind of covering back, uh, what we've seen. And then I think we'll also be fitting, um, for us because our passage tonight is also at the end of a large section. And so Paul is really kind of bringing together and closing out an argument that he started making all the way back in chapter five, really. We see a crescendo of that argument and really specifically him teasing out what the gospel is, what it means, what the significance of believing the gospel is in the life of the believer. We see for Paul and for us that the gospel isn't something that's just preached to the nonbeliever. It's not just good news for those who are far off, but it's gospel and the good news of the kingdom of God that continues to be good news for us. as believers day in and day out. Despite decades of a Christian life, one should still be able to say that the truths of their salvation are good news. And that's why all the way back at the beginning of this Roman series, back in July of last year, we began with a study with Pastor Liam telling us that the book of Romans is about the gospel. The entire book is about the gospel. And Paul's central purpose in writing to this church, the central message, the central thing we want to take away from this is a deeper, more full understanding of the gospel. We've been seeking to do that by following Paul's logic through the book of Romans. In doing so, we spent several weeks in chapters one and two where Paul really lays out the problem, a problem aptly summarized in the words of our confession that we just read. The fall brought mankind into a state of sin and misery. That is, Adam and Eve's sin, the sin in that garden, the sin of our first parents, brought the world under sin and death reigned. And Paul is clear in the early chapters of this book that this sinful, wretched state of man is deserving of God's wrath. That because mankind not only sinned in our first parents, but continually persists in sinning against him and in suppressing knowledge of him, that is revealed all around us. Paul is keen to highlight the just wrath of God in chapters 1 and 2, the problem that the gospel seeks to address, that mankind's grievous sin and God's righteous judgment. Chapters 3 and 4 then, Paul begins to address this problem. He's laid out the sinfulness of mankind, the irreducible failure to live up to God's covenant that he's given to us. And he tries to begin to explicate how God has reconciled this gap. And in three and four, he begins to say that justice is upheld, that there is hope. For God held back his wrath for a time. He passed judgment over and ultimately poured it out against his one and only son. That in a surprising turn of events, we are wretched sinners. are identified with his son in faith. And it's a point that Paul then drives home in chapter four with the story of Abraham, that even Abraham all the way back in the Old Testament is saved by faith. He's saved by believing a word of promise and looking forward to Christ. That's the solution that Paul presents to our problem. And then in chapter five, the beginning of this larger section that we're closing out tonight, Paul, having clearly laid out a problem and a solution continues with a brilliant summary of the gospel, particularly again, the gospel for believers of what the good news means in the life of believers and gives a summary in chapter five, verse one saying, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God. We sin in our first parents, we continue to sin day in and day out, have peace with God in Jesus Christ. And this is the gospel. It's this idea of peace, this new life that Paul explains over the course of the next chapter of next three chapters from five to eight. It's a peace that comes from being baptized into Christ's death. finding ourselves no longer in Adam, but in Christ, no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness and no longer under the law, but alive in the spirit, ever yearning, ever groaning with the world and with his spirit for our final redemption. And so having laid out the problem, laid out the solution to that problem in God's redeeming work and an explicated and explained what that gospel means for us in a day to day life. we come to our passage tonight. And in 828 to 39, Paul has reached a crescendo of this, as I said. And he's addressing something that I think is pretty reasonable. That is, that this gospel, this good news, this new life, it's wonderful. And if we really think about who we are, we're a little bit scared that we might lose it. When we meditate on the gospel, when we meditate on this life, that somehow the mystery that we share in the life of God and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, that our sins are no longer counted against us, that as chapter eight begins, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When we think about those things, when we think about who we are, we think about our sin and the way that we can't help but sin oftentimes, at least that's how it feels. We feel like, how do these two things reconcile? We worry that we might lose that salvation. We might lose that. And we also at times feel that the world around us is warring against us, that the world around us is conspiring to take that from us. And so Paul, in our passage, is both addressing those two things. He's addressing the internal, personal angst that comes from understanding our own sinfulness and understanding the great gift of the gospel, as well as understanding the evil of sin, death, and Satan, and those conspiring against us to take our salvation, to try and crush those that are in Christ. I think those are common things. that we experience in the Christian life. It is this confidence, confidence in the face of these things, an assurance of our salvation, an assurance in the promise of a future glory that Paul is concerned about. That though the fall has brought an estate of sin and misery, that for those who have believed the word of promise, who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation. And so he's explaining how this is the case and trying to, get us to believe it and get his audience to believe it. But before we really get to the main point, to the end point of assurance of this future glory, we need some more information. We need some backstory. Paul is in some sense saying that all of the sufferings of this life, anything that sin, death, and Satan rots against us, anything that the devil can throw at you is meaningless in that it bears no weight. It doesn't actually make you tremble when you think about the future glory that's ahead of you. And without the context, without the right context for that, Without all the information, that can sound a bit trite. It can sound like the well-meant but sometimes painful words spoken in comfort of friend's death of, oh, you'll see them again, or you're in a better place. And you kind of think, yeah, but they're still dead. And we can be tempted that when we see the grievousness of sin, when we see death around us, When we see children dying in house fires, we can say the sin and suffering of this world is pretty bad, pretty grievous, and it matters. And so with Paul, we need to have the right context. We need to understand what he's arguing. And so tonight, while the main point of this passage is a comfort and assurance brought by a hope and a promise of a future glory, We have to start with two other points to lay the groundwork. We first have to start with a triune framework. We have to understand who the God is that's making these promises, and we have to understand the end of election. We just have a triune framework, and we have to understand the end of election. And so firstly, a triune framework. By this, again, I mean a clear understanding of the who behind our salvation, who the good news is coming from. But why is this important? Isn't just saying God, it's the good news of God, God's the one that's giving it. Isn't that enough? Well, not really. Who our God is dramatically matters. And we know that in our own experiences. We know at some basic level that who it is that's giving us a promise, who it is that's giving us a guarantee matters. Maybe we've had a friend or a relative who gives us promises, who gives us some words of encouragement or assurance, we just don't really buy it. Maybe that's because they've oversold a story in the past, maybe that's because they've lied to us in the past, but we don't really buy that. And so when we come to this passage, we have to know who it is that's giving us the assurance. We have to know who's giving us the confidence. And this who concern is one that Paul shares. It's one that is shared throughout the New Testament as well. That the good news of the gospel The New Testament authors are keen for us to understand that the good news of the gospel that they're proclaiming has a uniquely Jewish flavor to it. It's not a good news from Zeus. It's not the good news of Poseidon. It's not the good news of the emperor who's conquered a far off land. It's a declaration of victory and a telling of the mighty works of the God of Israel. It's that God that Paul goes to such lengths to defend in chapters three and four. It's that God who he goes all the way back to Abraham to show his promises stand, his promises are true. It's immense important for the New Testament authors to show how the gospel is a continuation of redemptive story rather than something totally new. And that's because God acts in the Old Testament. His promises to Abraham, his bringing Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus, even his judgments in the exile are examples of his faithfulness. They're the evidence that is pointed to, to say, no, God is faithful. He told Abraham this would happen, and it happened. He told Israel he would save them. He did. He told them if they sinned, they would go into exile, and they did. They're all testaments to his promise. It's so important for us to understand that. But we can't leave it there, we can't just leave it as the God of Israel. Because that would essentially be pausing the story halfway. For Romans and the New Testament as a whole, sees itself as self-consciously developing and going beyond what the Old Testament says. And the chief way it does this is by unfurling the deep mystery of the Trinity. You see, Israel's God, our God, is always irreducibly triune. There's never a time when God was not trying, never a time when the son wasn't very God of very God. And yet it is clear that God's trying nature is more clear in the new Testament than it is in the old Testament. The old Testament we see veiled hints, but in the new Testament it breaks forth with clarity. As Bob Lethem writes at the center of new Testament message is the unbroken relationship between the son and the father. That is, It really actually is only in Jesus that the work of God in the Old Testament finds its fruition and finds its fulfillment. It's in Jesus's life and resurrection that God shows himself to be vindicated. It's in Jesus that God shows himself to be trustworthy. And we must be clear and confess with the church that God's works of redemption, his works in Christ, his works of salvation in the Old Testament, these works are one. They are indivisible. That is, that even though one person of the Trinity may come forward, Christ may be emphasized at one point, and the Father may be emphasized at another point, that this is only one person of the Trinity coming to the front of an undivided Trinitarian act. Father, Son, and Spirit are at work in all of this. This is so important to understand for our passage. Again, it's hard to see on the surface of our passage but it is the underpinning, the meta narrative that Paul is working with that you have to understand to understand the confidence that he has looking forward. And something that we see throughout the pages that God is working one eternal plan that before time even began, before it was even created by God, God as father, son, and spirit had planned and covenanted to redeem a people and that this plan sometimes called the covenant of redemption, is one that is perfectly agreed upon by each member of the Trinity. It's not that the father made out a plan and then told the son and the spirit what to do. No, they shared in this plan in perfect agreement. There was no subordination. There was no lesser gods. They were perfectly in agreement in a plan to redeem a people. And they did so out of an abundance of love. The father loved his elect in eternity past, and he did so in the son, and he desired to give the son and inheritance doing so by uniting a people to the son by the Holy Spirit. And this is what we see in scripture. It's what we see in the text before us. For most of chapter eight, before we get to our passage, Paul has been largely speaking about the Holy Spirit. He speaks of the Holy Spirit groaning along with us in creation. He speaks about the spirit interceding us. The Spirit comes to the forefront to where he's mentioned nearly 20 times in just this chapter. But as we come to our passage, we see that in 8, 28, and 29, it's the Father that becomes the primary referent, the one who comes to the forefront in this undivided act of God. The Father is said to be the one who foreknew us and who predestined us in verse 20. He's ultimately for us in verse 31. And he is the one who holds us fast in his love in verse 39. And yet, we also see that many of these actions, much of which are the father is said to be the one that's doing, are qualified. They're not solo missions that the father is doing by himself. Instead, God predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son. He is for us, namely, in the giving of his son unto death. and he loves us in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And so we see that while Paul may have a primary referent that he's thinking about, that the father may be coming to the forefront, but Paul is clear that the salvific work of God, this gospel that he's trying to get the believers to understand in Rome, the gospel that we need to understand as it applies to our daily life is one that is at its root from the triune God. And so working out, of an eternally writ covenant of redemption and history in each of our individual lives. That's something before time even began. And the overwhelming love of the Triton God, they set this plan apart. And in our lives, in our salvation, as we share in the fellowship of the spirit, we partake in that now. You see, it matters who a promise is coming from. Paul is writing and laboring that we might have assurance of salvation. and have a hope of a future glory, we have to first be in lockstep with him on where that's coming from, who that God is. And that God is the God of Israel, the God who showed his covenant faithfulness, his covenant loyalty to the people of Israel, and that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the triune God. Now secondly, holding on to that triune framework, holding on to who the gospel is coming from, we also need to take a look at the end of election. Some of you who grew up in Presbyterian context might think Romans 8, Romans 9, and think, ooh, doctrines of grace, Calvinism, these types of things. And indeed, they're the wonderful things, and we could spend an entire sermon on just Romans 28, 9, and 30. We could spend an entire sermon just working through the doctrines of grace. And people have, and it's worth pursuing. to get a grip and to get a full understanding of the entire passage before us, we need to understand that 29 and 30 that these verses are fitting in a broader context into a broader argument. When Paul writes that those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn of many brothers, that those whom he predestined, he also called Those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. We get what sometimes is called a golden chain. It's an explanation of an order of salvation. It might be fair to say that this is one of the most well-known passages in some of our contexts. We have young kids that memorize it as part of the Sunday school series. It's one of the first passages that kind of people memorize. It's wonderful. It's at the core of a reformed confessions. It's at the core of a right understanding of God as God, who is someone who acts on our behalf, that we don't save ourselves, but that God saves us. That sometimes is summarized in the acronym TULIP, and that traces the gospel as Paul has presented in many ways. It's total depravity that the state of sin and suffering that affects us all, we're totally depraved, but that there is unconditional election, that based off of nothing that's in us, and no faith, and nothing that God has foreseen in us, but unconditionally God saves us in his grace, that he does so for the elect in Christ, and that all those who he has chosen will be called irresistibly. There's this irresistible grace, and that those who are called will persevere to the end. You see, we get A summary of this, this, this text of 29 and 30 is in many ways a cornerstone to many reform doctrines and is a balm to the soul. It humbles us and reminds us of God's initiating action, but it's easy to miss the point here as well. As Doug Mu, a reformed commentator himself reminds us, we must remember that Paul does not intend to give a complete picture of his, and still less New Testament, soteriology. He's not trying to give a full length tome on the doctrines of salvation. And these verses have a definitive role to play in the arguments of this chapter. That is, to be frank, the doctrine of election, the tulip in these verses is not an end to itself. It serves a bigger, more important role for Paul. And if we can look at a closer look at verse 29, where that predestination that God has said to have worked has its end, it has a telos. And that is that those whom he foreknew and predestined, they would be predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. that in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. That is the whole point of predestination. The ultimate end of election is that God might set aside a people that look like his son for his son's preeminence. God's electing acts and his saving work throughout history find their ultimate purpose in the exaltation and praise of the son. And as an aside, this rightly understood ordering of an election is ever present in the best of the reform tradition. If you hear the disparaging of predestination of election as something that's cold or malice off to the side, that's really usually just cage stage people who are really excited about this but haven't placed it in this broader context. It's not how the doctrine is used. We see this perfectly enshrined in Westminster Confession of Faith 3A. where the divines write, the doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care so that all men taking heed to the will of God revealed in his word and yielding obedience to it may, from the certainty of their effectual calling, be assured of their eternal election. See, the divines understand the end of election. It's not a doctrine unto itself. It's not something that just is a box to be checked to check off your orthodoxy. No, the doctrine of election is a richly pastoral doctrine that has its end in assurance and the praise of Christ. And when we understand that, when we start to understand a triune framework that Paul is working with, We understand that there's one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect communion before time began, who covenanted to redeem a people and set them aside, make right standing for them and did so in Christ so that that people would now finally look like Christ and ultimately be conformed to his image for God's glory. When we get that, when we start to understand Paul's logic in the passage, we understand the sheer weight of the argument that he's leveraging towards his ultimate end of the assurance of the saints and the hope of glory. And coming to our third and final point, we really understand the main points of the passage. Really all of that is introduction in some ways. All of that is who the God is that's giving us this promise and why Paul brings in 29 and 30. 29 and 30 is the sheer weight of the salvation, what the salvation is and what the end of it is, the glory of Christ and the exaltation of God. And all of that is weight to Paul's broader argument of assurance for the believer and the future glory that we look forward to. And indeed, verses 31 to 39, as one of our elders said earlier today, can sort of preach themselves. We get this question, we go back to this question that we started with of how do I lose, or what if I lose my salvation? What if I lose grasp of this wonderful good news that's in my life? What if my sin overtakes me? What if Satan finally crushes me? And we see that if God is for us, who can be against us? This triune God of the Old Testament is working a plan and We get lists throughout this passage, lists of things on this earth of tribulation, of distress, of persecution, of famine, of nakedness, of danger. We get these lists. We get lists of the heavenly things. We get lists of rulers, present things, future things, no powers, height, no depth, no anything in all creation. These lists that Paul is meditating and saying, what could possibly separate me from the love of Christ? What could possibly? Take this away from me. And the answer is nothing because it doesn't rest on you. It's not about you. It's about God's plan. It's about his desire. It's about the father's desire from eternity past to exalt the son by uniting a people to him by the spirit. This gives us immense purpose. It gives us immense confidence as we face this life. And it gives us a hope that when we face trials, when we face difficulties, when we face monotony, when we feel like things are meaningless, we're reminded that we have been brought into a story, we've been brought into a salvation that is for the greatest purpose that could ever exist, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That our very salvation is about the glorification of Christ. That's what it means when he says that we're more than conquerors in Christ. If you thought about that, what does it mean to be more than conquerors? Being a conqueror is the best thing, you've won. Well, it's not just that you defeat your enemy, it's not just that for the Christian, persecution, monotony, suffering, it's not just that these are ultimately crushed, it's that they're for your good. And you start to ask, well, what does that mean? What does it mean that they're for my good? What does it mean that Suffering is for my good. Well, we go back to the end of election, this whole point, this whole purpose of what the triune God is doing in our salvation. It's to make us look like Christ. It's to make us the image of Christ and to glorify God. And so the triune framework in the end of election gives us this assurance that God is working despite what sin does in our lives, despite what the devil does, despite the frustrations and exhaustions. God is working to conform us to the image of his son and does that by his word, by ordinary means of grace. by the sins of this world, he works for his glory. And that's not to say that he is any way culpable for sin, but that all things, all things work to the good of those who believe in him, because that ultimately is to the glory of Christ. It's ultimately to the final end, the conformity to the image of Christ. This is the assurance that Paul is giving us. This is the hope of a future glory. It's a hope that what is happening now, that as we wrestle, as we just groan against the sufferings of this life, that we are now being made to look like Christ. that in those, as we set our minds on things above, as we mortify a sin, we're being made to look like Christ and we will be made like Christ. As verse 30 says, we are glorified. Paul uses a past tense there because it's so sure, it's so confident that you can talk about it like past tense. You are glorified. You will be made to look like Christ. And so as we go from this place, as we see the sadness of the sin and death in this world, as we see new stories of just the tumult that comes from sin, we can be questioned just what am I against this? How do I deal with this? And the answer is, is that you have a God, a triune God who has worked a plan of redemption that he set before time even began. And he did so and chose you, not because of anything that you did, but chose you unconditionally to be conformed to the image of his son. That is your confidence, that despite anything that flies against you, God is working for his own glory. God is working for the glory of his son. And he's doing that in you now. Let's pray. Father, God, we praise you and we praise you for your unsearchable riches. your matchless wonder and your good plan that you have laid forth. God, we know that we are in no way worthy of that. And yet you have called us in your son and you have set us right with you by his work, by his life and death. We ask that this night you would grant us assurance that we might glorify you and that we might grow in confidence. And that in so doing, we might even now look more and more like your son. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.