"All Things Work Together For Good"
MF Blume
MARCH 15, 1999 am
Roma 8:28-39 And we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to [his] purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them
he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he
justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things?
If God [be] for us, who [can be] against us? He that spared not his own
Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely
give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?
[It is] God that justifieth. Who [is] he that condemneth? [It is] Christ
that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? [shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy
sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
When Paul said that we need the eyes of our understanding enlightened
so that we may know what riches of inheritance we have, he was trying to
tell us that we have an inheritance in Jesus that we have not even seen
yet, let alone entered into!
The Gospel is a lot more powerful than all of you think.
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I say, "All of you," because there is something about the Gospel and what
the cross accomplished for us that every one of us do not know.
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All of us are growing in the Lord.
I want to discuss one aspect of the cross that I never saw before.
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And we shall know this truth, this part of the Gospel, and as with the
other truths we know of it, it shall make us free.
Life brings us all sorts of experiences.
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In recent years, psychology has been a popular method of looking
at our own lives and figuring out what makes us what we are in our personalities.
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It shows how early troubles and bad experiences shape us into what
we now are.
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We discover the past experiences are the reasons for our present weaknesses.
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Touchy people are those who were nagged and criticized during their younger
lives.
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Those who cannot take constructive criticism were always destructively
criticized when younger and think all criticism is to their undoing.
Psychology can sometimes bring a person to place where perhaps God can
speak to one, since one sees one's need for help.
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But looking to your past outside the understanding of the blood of Jesus,
and seeing how your mother and father, after recalling what they did to
you in failing to properly raise you 100%, can only discourage you.
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Every one of us were raised by imperfect people.
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And the reason they were imperfect, is because they were raised, in turn,
by imperfect people.
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And their parents were imperfect, and their parents were imperfect, and
so on and so on.
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And you will go back through every single generation and find that everyone
was raised by imperfect people as far back as Adam.
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And if you have children, you will raise them imperfectly, too.
So do not despise your parents.
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Do not despise your past.
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Psychology points you back in time, but the Gospel also points us back
to the cross where Jesus Christ died as us.
We can mull over our pasts and become discouraged and disheartened until
we are left with a hopeless feeling.
When one becomes a Bible-Christian, and not just what is casually called
a Christian today -- but a real one -- the Lord causes old things to pass
away and all things become new.
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We are changed and made new creatures!
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The term NEW CREATURES means unprecedented and best!
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We are not the people we used to be.
Yes, we still can say we have a past, but there is a deliverance from our
pasts and from the hopelessness our pasts can send forward to us today.
The thinking back into our pasts and finding why we are what we are
today, can be a no-win situation.
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We can despair over our pasts, and regret our parents' failures in raising
us.
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We can barely stand to think about the way we were treated, and some can
barely stand to think of our parents.
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And if we grow weary after so much regretting and remembering that, we
become older in age and have raised up our own children, and then can start
regretting the way we raised our children!
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(And if we think about it long enough, if we grow older and see where we
went wrong, and regret how we raised our kids, is it possible that our
parents saw the failure they did, too, and also regretted what we regret
in their influence upon us?)
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We can despise our parents and even despise ourselves.
What a cruel informer psychology can be!
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Knowledge can sometimes make us worse than if we never knew it.
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Adam found out the knowledge of good and evil, alright.
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He learned the difference between good and evil by doing evil and not doing
good.
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What a sad way to learn good and evil!!!
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I'm sure Adam would have told you that he had been better without the knowledge
of good and evil.
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Thanks a lot, serpent!
Psychology has helped many people, but it cannot free you.
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It is self trying to help self.
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Someone said, "God helps those who helps themselves."
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That is only true if what they mean by "help themselves" is reaching out
to God.
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Reaching out to God is really helping yourself.
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But if it is simply you trying to fix your problems in your human weakness,
then you actually hinder God from helping you.
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After trying and trying to do good and stop doing evil, in Romans 7 Paul
gave up and cried for God to deliver him!
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And God did!
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GOD IS CROWDED OUT FROM HELPING, BY THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES.
Paul said Christ liveth in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me. I DO NOT FRUSTRATE THE GRACE OF GOD. (Gal 2:20-21).
Your past may have truly damaged you.
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Whether you are plagued by what your parents did to you, or what you did
to your children, you are hurt all the same.
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BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS!
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Did you ever stop to realize that God can do exceeding abundantly above
all you can ask or think?
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The same past that can drive you downward to such regret and hopelessness,
was REDEEMED, ALSO, WHEN YOU WERE REDEEMED.
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It was taken and put back into the hands of God where it should have been.
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And God takes the PAST and throws it into everything else that is part
of our lives, and includes it in the ALL where we read that ALL THINGS
WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THEM THAT LOVE GOD.
All things really are ALL THINGS.
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Even your past!!!
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The failure your parents made in raising you!
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The failure you accomplished in raising your kids!
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ALL OF IT WORKS TOGETHER NOW FOR GOOD!
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What a mighty God we serve!!!
WORK TOGETHER
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Read it again.
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All things WORK TOGETHER for good.
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Past, present, future, bad experiences, good experiences, all of it.
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Every single one is orchestrated by God and pieced together.
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And they begin working.
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They work TOGETHER.
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And the accomplishment that these things now begin to work together towards
is GOOD.
Whatever God does is good.
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Anything He touches is CHANGED to do good, if it was not doing good already.
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Read Genesis 1 and see how God said it was good every time He did something.
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But did you notice that He said it was VERY GOOD in one of those instances?
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It was the work of making man in his image by taking dust of earth and
shaping it, rather than simply speaking it.
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He went further with man than with any other thing.
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And when He was finished, he said IT IS VERY GOOD.
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That is why He sees the sparrow when it falls to the ground, bereft of
life, but MUCH MORE He cares for us.
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He only SPOKE the sparrow into existence, but HE SHAPED US.
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And though man is away from God and alienates himself more and more in
a life of sin outside of God, when God redeems that person, He takes everything
about that person, and everything that will ever happen to that person,
and causes each part to WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD.
Though we may not see how it can be done, nor see how our past could possibly
work together for good, God is still God.
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Somehow, even your past failures and your failed past, is taken by God
and turned around to actually benefit you and work together for our good.
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Who knows where our experiences may have sent us to, if we never came to
know the Lord?
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Who knows what damaged souls we would leave this life as?
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But thanks be to God that HE PICKED UP THE PIECES AND PUT THEM TOGETHER
AGAIN, and when they all came together IN HIS HANDS, THEY BEGAN TO SOMEHOW
WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD.
Hebr 12:6-10 For whom the Lord loveth
he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure
chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom
the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all
are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have
had fathers of our flesh which corrected [us], and we gave [them] reverence:
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and
live? For they verily for a few days chastened [us] after their own pleasure;
but he for [our] profit, that [we] might be partakers of his holiness.
Our parents failed because they only corrected us when we were pains in
their necks!
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It was for their own pleasure they chastened us.
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But God does it for our own PROFIT.
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You have to trust in what the Word says.
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Stand upon it.
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It is a ROCK that will never allow you to fall.
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And the WORD SAYS that all things work together for good.
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It does not matter if you cannot figure out how.
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The Word still says that all things work together for good.
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God is greater than you and I.
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He can do beyond what you can ask or even think.
Brother Ed Goodwin was in prison in younger years.
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God took hold of his life, and turned around that dark past, and worked
together for Ed's good.
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And now Ed is Nova Scotia Chaplain for the UPCI!!!!
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God took his past and worked it together for GOOD!
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Think of it long enough, in faith, and you will soon see a revelation of
how God took your past and turned it around TO HELP YOU BECOME MORE GODLY!
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He is a miracle worker!
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Satan used these past experiences to erode you away.
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But God is bringing deliverance from the regret and the despair and damage
this morning.
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TRUST THE CREATOR TO PUT THE PIECES OF YOUR LIFE BACK TOGETHER, Because
He is!!!
Somehow, the failure of your parents is working together for your good
NOW.
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Somehow the mistakes you made in raising your kids is working together
for good NOW.
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How?
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I may not know and you may not know, but God does, and He makes sure it
does happen!
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His Word said it!
Do not regret your past anymore.
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Be delivered from it all.
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They are now holy instruments in God's hands to shape you more into the
image of Jesus Christ.
Roma 8:35 Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? [shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Can these things separate us from God's love?
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We know that all things work together for them that LOVE God.
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Can these things stop us from loving God?
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Even the scripture says we are sometimes led to trouble.
Roma 8:36 As it is written, For thy
sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter.
But the answer is:
Roma 8:37 Nay, in all these things
we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
No, they cannot separate us from God's love.
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In all of these negative things, we are more than conquerors.
And we read of TEN THINGS that people think might separate us from God's
love in verses 38-39.
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death
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life
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angels
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principalities
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powers
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things present
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things to come
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height
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depth
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any other creature
All these things WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD.
Let the truth MAKE YOU FREE from the misery of the past.