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May 5, 2002
6th Sunday of Easter
Romans 8:28-30
Pastor Joel Zank

OUR GRACIOUS GOD DOES IT ALL!

(Romans 8:28-30) And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

In Christ Jesus who alone is our comfort and the assurance of our salvation, dear brothers and sisters,

Gutzon Borglum is a name well known to all who have visited South Dakota's famous Mount Rushmore. Borglum is the sculptor who, for fourteen long years, worked to carve in stone the likeness of four of our nation's greatest leaders. If you have seen his work in person, you no doubt left Rushmore marveling at its detail and beauty. But if you took the time to visit Borglum's studio where the records of his plans and progress are kept, you marveled even more. For it's there that you learn that this sculptor's tools were not the delicate instruments with which artists normally work. No, he etched in stone the life-like faces of four presidents using nothing but dynamite and air-hammers as his tools.

What a craftsman, what an artist that man was, but oh how his work pales in comparison to the work of the Master Sculptor, our gracious God, who as the apostle says, is at work in our lives, carving, shaping, conforming us to the likeness of his Son, Jesus. Whether we always realize it or not, God's work of sculpting us goes on everyday. He uses the events and happenings of our lives to form us into the humble, loving image of his Son. Why? So that we who look like Jesus spiritually may live with him eternally. Today, with this picture of God as sculptor in mind and with our Lord's eternal purpose before us, we take as our theme: OUR GRACIOUS GOD DOES IT ALL. First, he planned out our salvation in eternity, and now he carries out his plan in our lives.

In the year prior to beginning his work on Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum was given complete freedom and authority to choose which of our nation's presidents he would immortalize in stone. As it turned out he chose the four men he believed did the most to forge this country into a great nation. His choices were based on the accomplishments and successes of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Likewise our Master Sculptor, the Lord God was also at liberty to choose ahead of time the people he would sculpt and carve as his own. Paul says, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son" (v.29). But there is an all-important difference between the way God chose his subjects and the way Borglum chose his. Borglum made his choice just a short time before he went to work, basing it on men's accomplishments. Not so with God! He made his choice back in eternity. And his choice was based not on how great we were going to be or become, because even back then, back before time began, God knew that the people he was choosing as his own, including you and me, would all be born sinful-all doomed to hell by nature. So why choose us? I understand why Borglum picked the men he did, but why would God pick us? Why? For one reason and one only: because God is love, and in his love, God would have all people to be saved, that is kept safe from punishment. So you see, we didn't, we couldn't do anything to be among God's chosen. Our Gracious God did it all. He did everything, and he did it with Jesus Christ in mind as Paul explains in Ephesians 1:4-5, "For [God] chose us in [Jesus] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will..."

"In accordance with God's pleasure!" Think of that! It pleased God to predestine us. The word "predestine" means "to mark out boundaries ahead of time". So before you were ever born, before the world was created, God drew you and all his chosen ones into the blueprints of his gracious plan of salvation. In advance of time itself God marked out the boundaries of your earthly existence so that his purpose for you would be fulfilled.

And what is that purpose? Paul says in our text that God wants us to be conformed to the likeness of his Son so that Jesus might be "the firstborn among many brothers." It's God purpose to have us related to him through Jesus. Paul said the same thing in the Ephesians passage I quoted a moment ago. God chose us "...in Jesus... he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ." Notice that it is clear from both passages and all of Scripture that in order for us to be sculpted into God's family portrait, Jesus Christ and his saving work first had to be in the picture. Before Gus Borglum bothered to pick the presidents he would sculpt, he had to choose a mountain on which to do his work. Before we sinners could be the chosen people of God, God had to choose a mountain on which to do his work, not Rushmore, but one called Calvary. It would be there that Jesus, having taken on our likeness would step in as the substitute of sinners, suffer and die in our place and thereby earn for us a chosen place in God's family. With the mountain chosen and the work of Christ as good as done in eternity, God chose your faces and etched them along side of Christ's on Calvary.

Already in eternity God planned to see to it that during your lifetime on earth Jesus would become your brother. He planned that Jesus' cross and his payment for sin would count as yours. He planned that Jesus' holiness would cover you; and like Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, the first to rise never to die again, God planned for you to leap from the grave to life everlasting. All this God planned for you before the world began. Do you sense the comfort and assurance God wants you to have through this truth? Or is human reason keeping that from happening? Reason likes to turn and twist this beautiful truth into something ugly. Human reason wants to conclude that if God in eternity chose some people for heaven, that must mean he's chosen others for hell. But God says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts"(Isaiah 55:9). In other words, God's love and truth go far beyond all reason and understanding. And that's fine because where reason fails, faith prevails! God has given us faith that simply and quietly takes him at his word when he says that it's not just us that he loves, but the whole world. Faith puts doubt aside and believes Scripture's promise that God takes "no pleasure in the death of the wicked..." (Ezekiel 33:11) but rather "wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4).

God tells us that he chose us in eternity not so that we can blame our neighbor's unbelief on God, but so that we can be comforted with the truth that we are God's legitimate children rather than spiritual accidents. You and I are in God's family not because we got lucky, and certainly not because we did something to earn God's favor. We belong to him because our Gracious God planned out our salvation in eternity and now carries out his plan in our lives.

Listen to how Paul crosses the threshold that lies between time and eternity. He says in verse 30, "And those God predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified;" God's eternal love for us sprang into action the moment he created time. In fact our eternal God stepped into time in the person of Jesus to live and die and live again for us. In time this same Jesus came stepping into your life and mine through the miracle of faith he worked in us at our baptism. Through that gift of faith, the faith he continues to nourish and strengthen with Word and sacrament, he calls us to believe his promise that we are justified, that is, declared not guilty of all sin by reason of his payment for our sin in hell.

And "....those he justified, he also glorified." Keep in mind, as Paul says this he is gazing at a plan of God that begins in eternity, crosses time in the blink of an eye and once again enters the timelessness of eternity. Right now through faith in Jesus we share in the glory of his victory over sin, Satan and death. But we are still waiting to be perfectly glorified in heaven where sin and its terrible effects of pain and sorrow, sickness and death will never again be able to touch us. As I say, this glory is in our future, but with our trust in God who holds the future, even this glory can be spoken of as an accomplished fact as Paul does here.

Meanwhile as we wait for that glory, God is working in our lives to preserve us as his own so that nothing can steal us away from him. He's sculpting us, busy using the happenings of our lives to keep us as the dear children he has planned and called us to be. We, of course, would have him do his sculpting with the most delicate of tools, the smallest and sharpest of chisels. Oh, we know we have some rough edges that he needs to work on-sinful pride, greed, impatience, doubt-you name it, but we wouldn't want God to chip away too much, too fast that might hurt. It might hurt a lot!

Thank heavens that the Master Sculptor is under no obligation to do things our way. If he were, we would all perish. But that won't happen because God is his own boss, knowing exactly what to do in our lives and when to do it. Because this is true there are days when God uses dynamite and jackhammers to shape us and conform us to Christ's image. Since were not made of stone, but rather flesh and blood this can be quite painful, but that's all right, God knows how to use pain in our lives as well.

You see, my friends, just as we are not spiritual accidents, so nothing that happens in our life is an accident. Once again, human reason influenced by our sinful doubt always questions this truth, but not faith. So it is to faith we appeal and not to reason when you and I comfort each other at the funeral home, in the hospital, in the face of layoffs, and family problems and distress of every kind. At all such times and in all such troubles we comfort each other with a truth known to us only by faith--the truth that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him" because he first loved them, those who have been called according to his purpose, the purpose of sharing his glory in heaven forever. Paul says we know this blessed truth, and so we do by grace. God could have kept this a secret. We sinners don't deserve an explanation for the hurts and pains we experience in life. But in his great mercy God wants us to know that these troubles are not a punishment, but only the result of his sculpting. They're part of his eternal plan for us. So encourage one another with this truth and remember, you are the chosen people of God, masterpieces under construction, each of you an eternal work in progress by our Gracious God who does it all for Jesus' sake. Amen.