I. EXORDIUM:
Are you called according to His purpose?
Yes. To endure both good and bad, for it will work together for my own good.
II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:
Believers/unbelievers
III. OBJECTIVES:
To show that GOD calls us and turns all things in our lives, whether good or bad, into good things.
Psalms 84:11 (Amplified Bible)
For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
IV. TEXT:
Romans 8:28 (Amplified Bible)
We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.
V. THESIS:
Praise, worship, glorify, adore, bless, honor, acknowledge and thank You very much LORD JESUS for all things work together for me for good because of Your Love for me and Your Calling, for this is Your design and purpose.
VI. TITLE:
All things work together for our good
VII. EXPLICATION:
A. Author: Apostle Paul
B. Date written: 57 A.D.
C. Place written: From Corinth
D. Purpose: To prepare Roman believers for his long awaited visit.
E. To whom written: Roman Christians
VIII. MAIN BODY:
Romans 8:28 (Amplified Bible)
We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.
Romans 8:28 (New King James Version)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
A. We know that all things work together for our good
"We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good"
Romans 5:3-4 (Amplified Bible)
Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.
And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation.
Genesis 50:20 (Amplified Bible)
As for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are this day.
Psalms 46:1-2 (Amplified Bible)
To the Chief Musician. [A Psalm] of the sons of Korah, set to treble voices. A song. GOD IS our Refuge and Strength [mighty and impenetrable to temptation], a very present and well-proved help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains be shaken into the midst of the seas,
Deuteronomy 8:15-16 (Amplified Bible)
Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, but Who brought you forth water out of the flinty rock,
Who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.
Zechariah 13:9 (Amplified Bible)
And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined and will test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will hear and answer them. I will say, It is My people; and they will say, The Lord is my God.
2 Corinthians 4:15-17 (Amplified Bible)
For all [these] things are [taking place] for your sake, so that the more grace (divine favor and spiritual blessing) extends to more and more people and multiplies through the many, the more thanksgiving may increase [and redound] to the glory of God.
Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day.
For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!],
GOD will reverse the tables in favor of us, He will do something that will make the bad experiences in our lives to work for our own good.
ILLUSTRATION: When I look back at my life, and ask myself why GOD allowed this bad thing to happen to me, now I know and I put on a smile and rejoice in GOD because it had made me stronger with full endurance in and through Him. We can't say that we're strong until we're tested, until then if we can say we're strong when we're weak then that's about it, we have learned to trust GOD alone in our bad circumstances as well as the good. It's easy to trust GOD when we have money, we have high position in a company but how about if these are all absent, can we fully say that we trust Him? So GOD allows all things : good and bad to pass to our lives to make us stronger people of GOD. And don't worry, it's just a test, GOD will not allow us to be overcomed by it.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (Amplified Bible)
For no temptation (no trial regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently.
Joel 3:10 (Amplified Bible)
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong [a warrior]!
Psalms 66:12 (Amplified Bible)
You caused men to ride over our heads [when we were prostrate]; we went through fire and through water, but You brought us out into a broad, moist place [to abundance and refreshment and the open air].
B. This is intended for those who love GOD, and to those who are called according to His purpose.
"to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose"
No one can say I love GOD, but He has to be called to salvation.
Matthew 20:16 (Amplified Bible)
So those who [now] are last will be first [then], and those who [now] are first will be last [then]. For many are called, but few chosen.
Matthew 22:14 (Amplified Bible)
For many are called (invited and summoned), but few are chosen.
ILLUSTRATION: Majority of the people I've talked to, in fact all of them, only like the benefit, the good, the wealth, but when you say they have to endure hardship for the LORD JESUS and be insulted and persecuted in JESUS's Name, they back out, it's a pity, they never realized that there are blessings included in it.
Luke 14:27 (Amplified Bible)
Whoever does not persevere and carry his own cross and come after (follow) Me cannot be My disciple.
1 Peter 5:10 (Amplified Bible)
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace [Who imparts all blessing and favor], Who has called you to His [own] eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself complete and make you what you ought to be, establish and ground you securely, and strengthen, and settle you.
1 Peter 4:16 (Amplified Bible)
But if [one is ill-treated and suffers] as a Christian [which he is contemptuously called], let him not be ashamed, but give glory to God that he is [deemed worthy to suffer] in this name.
We are sharers in His glory but before that we also need to suffer for His Name's sake.
Acts 5:41 (Amplified Bible)
So they went out from the presence of the council (Sanhedrin), rejoicing that they were being counted worthy [dignified by the indignity] to suffer shame and be exposed to disgrace for [the sake of] His name.
2 Thessalonians 1:5 (Amplified Bible)
This is positive proof of the just and right judgment of God to the end that you may be deemed deserving of His kingdom [a plain token of His fair verdict which designs that you should be made and counted worthy of the kingdom of God], for the sake of which you are also suffering.
Mark 4:16-17 (Amplified Bible)
And in the same way the ones sown upon stony ground are those who, when they hear the Word, at once receive and accept and welcome it with joy;
And they have no real root in themselves, and so they endure for a little while; then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, they immediately are offended (become displeased, indignant, resentful) and they stumble and fall away.
We are not called "good ground" if we can't endure trouble and persecution for CHRIST's sake. GOD needs to till the ground of our heart and turn the stony heart into a good garden soil that will yield fruits for Him, because of the Seed of the WORD - the LORD JESUS planted deeply into our hearts.
Mark 4:5 (Amplified Bible)
Other seed [of the same kind] fell on ground full of rocks, where it had not much soil; and at once it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil;
I'm amazed at how people will tell blatant lies just to save them from hell, even doing it in the face of the LORD GOD who knows everything.
2 Peter 2:9 (Amplified Bible)
Now if [all these things are true, then be sure] the Lord knows how to rescue the godly out of temptations and trials, and how to keep the ungodly under chastisement until the day of judgment and doom,
Luke 14:27 (Amplified Bible)
Whoever does not persevere and carry his own cross and come after (follow) Me cannot be My disciple.
Luke 14:33 (Amplified Bible)
So then, any of you who does not forsake (renounce, surrender claim to, give up, say good-bye to) all that he has cannot be My disciple.
Luke 6:46-49 (Amplified Bible)
Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not [practice] what I tell you?
For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words [in order to heed their teaching] and does them, I will show you what he is like:
He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or founded on a rock.
But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great.
Luke 13:25-27 (Amplified Bible)
When once the Master of the house gets up and closes the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door [again and again], saying, Lord, open to us! He will answer you, I do not know where [what household—certainly not Mine] you come from.
Then you will begin to say, We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.
But He will say, I tell you, I do not know where [what household—certainly not Mine] you come from; depart from Me, all you wrongdoers!
Matthew 7:21-23 (Amplified Bible)
Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven.
Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name and driven out demons in Your name and done many mighty works in Your name?
And then I will say to them openly (publicly), I never knew you; depart from Me, you who act wickedly [disregarding My commands].
John 13:13-17 (Amplified Bible)
You call Me the Teacher (Master) and the Lord, and you are right in doing so, for that is what I am.
If I then, your Lord and Teacher (Master), have washed your feet, you ought [it is your duty, you are under obligation, you owe it] to wash one another’s feet.
For I have given you this as an example, so that you should do [in your turn] what I have done to you.
I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, A servant is not greater than his master, and no one who is sent is superior to the one who sent him.
If you know these things, blessed and happy and to be envied are you if you practice them [if you act accordingly and really do them].
IX. CONCLUSION:
Praise, worship, glorify, adore, bless, honor, acknowledge and thank You very much LORD JESUS for all things work together for me for good because of Your Love for me and Your Calling, for this is Your design and purpose.
