IT’S ALL FOR OUR GOOD
Romans 8:28
My brothers and sisters, there are times when some verses in God’s word to the believers does not make good sense. For example, in one scripture alone it gives us four things to do that appear to not make good sense. Matthew 5:44 tell us to; love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hates us, and to pray for those who despitefully uses and persecute us. Now there are some super Christians that finds this easy to do. But if the truth be told, it is contingent on what day that you might catch them and they too will agree with the rest of us, that sometimes some verses in God’s word does not make sense. For further review let’s look into the Old Testament we would see Joseph’s brothers plotting to kill him, because of a dream that the Lord gave him concerning the submittion of his family and others. So instead of killing him they sold him for twenty pieces of silver. And he said to his brother when they came to Egypt after being enslaved, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” Then we witness Job suffering afflictions in his flesh and being falsely accused by his so called friends. He went through this simply because in Job first chapter, God testified about Job before Satan, then allowed Satan to afflict his flesh but not his soul. Then I looked at the text that is before us and realized that if the text would have said “And we know that things work together for the good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” I would not have a problem, but it didn’t say that because I left out one key word that is important to the church and that word is (all). Now if the late Rev. David Durham Pastor of Mt Sinai Baptist Church was here, and we would asked him for the definition of all, he would tell us that all means...all.
Last week we talked about the “Spirit Within”. We found out that in times of distress and joyful situations, we do not know what to pray for. But glory be to our God, we have the Spirit, the Holy Spirit within us that intercedes for us with moaning and groaning that cannot be uttered. And He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
This week we will search verse 28. In this text we will see how the Lord works in every situation whether good or bad. We might not fully understand what God is doing in every situation, but regardless of what we are going through God is in full control, in other words in all things God works for the good of us who loves Him. Everything might not feel good or the situation might not look good, but God harmonizes them together for our ultimate good. So let’s take a look at the benefits of all the things that works for our good.
First of all this is a free standing point that runs in conjunction with the text. . .
1. GOD WORKS AHEAD OF OUR PRESENT SITUATION
We must understand that although God knows all of our problems, He does not just dabble in our problems, He resolves them. Yet, while we are occupied with the problems that we are facing right now, The Lord has straighten that out and is now working on tomorrow’s and next week’s problems and blessings through His sovereign power. This why we must learn to take our problems to the Lord and leave them there. Now that does not mean for us to give it to Him then worry about them, but it means to give them to Him and trust Him for the answer. I’ve said this before our biggest problem, is not that we don’t believe in the Lord, our biggest problem is trusting Him for what He promises. So we must realize that God works ahead of our present situation and it is up to us to believe that the answer to our right now problem is awaiting us for delivery. Let me help you. I told Alonzo that if he wanted a learners permit that he would have to (1) act responsibly and (2) he would have to make the effort to get the necessary papers to get it done. Now if he would ask I will take him to get the papers, but I will not stand in a line to get them. I hope you understand this illustration. You see the papers are waiting on him to pick them up but he has not taken the steps to get them. Now he have to do something to receive delivery. I hope you get that. The same with us. We must first put our faith into action and we must have enough faith to believe that the Lord has heard us because we asked according to His will as found in 1 John 5:14. The problem with many of us is that we can talk faith, but when the rubber meets the road we will discover that we do not walk faith. That is why every leader in the church should be able to enthusiastically share the vision that God has set before the church. The other thing is that we must act upon that faith. I learned this lesson from Sis. Hart. When we were searching for a house, we look at many and I basically wanted what Cheryl felt was enough house to clean without tiring her out. All I wanted was a yard to work in regardless of its size. But the lesson I learned from Sis. Hart was that once we found that house, she immediately started packing for the move. Now although we were pre-qualified for the house we still needed a thorough credit check and a settlement date. But Sis Hart kept bringing in the boxes and she kept on packing. Her secret was that we had prayed and asked the Lord for the house and we both claimed the house as ours, so she had enough faith at first for the both of us. Then I realized that we did not ask amiss. She knew that the Lord had answer our prayers before the settlement company had reviewed our application. So in this case the Lord was working ahead of our situation.
Secondly, in all things . . .
2. HE KNOWS THE GOOD IN EVERY SITUATION (v.28a)
“And we know that all things work together for the good to them that love God,”
As the people of God, we must understand that God has the inside track on the good in every situation. Now, what might not look promising to you, it is the right situation to improve your spiritual condition, because it is the right situation for us to see the move of God. And some times as I had said to you countless of times, God has to sometimes do something to us in order to do something for us. If we would be honest about it we can think back on what appeared to be a terrible time in our lives. We might have had a car repossessed, or lost a house, or we might’ve lost a job because according to us the boss didn’t like us. But what ever that terrible time was, you should think of how the Lord brought you out. If you would not have lost the car, you would have never found your way to church. The house might’ve been too much to afford anyway, and if you would not have been fired, your attitude would have never changed. But regardless of what you been through, take a look at yourself and see where the Lord has brought you. It’s not because you have good credit, it is because you have God Credit. You are better than what you were because of the Lord’s intervention. The reason is because the Lord can see the good in everything, and we can only see the good in the things that are good. I told you last week about my situations at the Department of Commerce. At how the powers to be shut down the whole Office of Publications. I cannot answer for many of them, but I have a couple of golfing buddies that were once my superiors and now they are in their retirement, they are doing just fine, one of them works for his church and volunteers at a school and the other helped his son to open a Ice Cream franchise called Rita’s, and as you can see, I’m blessed because I pastor one of the greatest church in the Washington D.C. area, but if we would’ve gotten stuck on the events of our terrible times, I believe that we would have never walked into our blessings. So, the Lord knows the good in every situation.
The final, this point is for us. . .
3. WE MUST KNOW THE PURPOSE OF OUR CALLING (v.28b)
“And we know that all things works together for the good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.”
The Preacher’s Commentary bring to light something that we can truly say works for us.
It lets us know that Romans 8:28 should be a favorite verse for the Christian church. It must be applied to those who clearly exhibit a deep sense of purpose in their lives. We must demonstrate a love for God through a life of obedience. It should not be seen as grounds for believing that “everything will work for the good” because God has committed Himself to sorting out the mess of our lives and relieving us of the consequences of our actions. It is eternal rather than temporal good which God has in mind. He works” according to His purpose” which is far greater than the elimination of the hard times of the present or the guarantee of smooth sailing under blue skies in the future. The Lord is in the “good” business of making redeemed sinners like their elder brother, the Lord Jesus, with the purpose of lifting up the kingdom of God. That is our calling, to lift up our Christ and His kingdom.
CONCLUSION
Well I can’t help but to think about the Lord on the day that He was crucified. There were two thieves there with Him. One was mocking Him along with the crowd and the other did to, until he realized who Jesus really was. But while the others mocked Jesus, this thief said, “Lord, when thy come into thy kingdom, remember me.” You see for once in this man’s life, he did not let the situation dictate his eternity. He realized that his bad situation had some good in it, and that his life was going to expire when the Lord’s life would start anew. And if he had any chance of living again, it was going to have to come from the Savior Himself. And I believe that thief joins in with us as we sing on Resurrection Sundays, “He did not come down from the cross just to save Himself, He decided to die just to save me.”
