Series: Mythbusters
“Everything Happens for a Reason”
Romans 8:28
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Over the last few weeks, we’ve been in a series of messages called Mythbusters. We’re focusing in on spiritual myths – we’ve also called them spiritual urban legends. These myths or legends are based on false understandings of scripture and they always lead you down the wrong path.
This morning, we’re going to look at a spiritual urban legend – a spiritual myth – that is
pervasive and persistent. It’s one that usually comes up in the midst of a tragedy, a difficult time, a death or a loss, a breakup or a divorce.
Have you ever had something bad happen to you and people come to you with good intentions – they mean well, they’re trying to be helpful – and they say things like: “God must be up to something.” Or “God doesn’t make mistakes.” Or “You must be very special for God to trust you with this.” Or “This is a blessing in disguise. It’s an essential part of God’s great and wonderful plan for your life.” Or “Isn’t it good to know that everything happens for a reason?”
The words vary but the message is always the same: Someday you’ll be glad this happened. That’s the spiritual myth for today: everything happens for a reason.
I’ve noticed that none of those who are so quick to proclaim your difficulty a blessing seem eager to get blessed the same way in their own life. In one sense, they’re on the right track. No matter what happens, God is in control. He is the King of the universe and he is good.
However, that doesn’t mean He’s the direct cause of everything that happens. It doesn’t mean that everything that happens is something He wants to happen. And it certainly doesn’t mean that everything that God allows is good.
God did not cause Lucifer to rebel. He didn’t cause Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. He didn’t cause David to sleep with Bathsheba. He didn’t cause Cain to kill Abel, the tower of Babel to be built or force the crowd to cry out for Barabbas. He didn’t coerce the Roman soldiers into killing Jesus. Those who carried out these evil deeds bear full responsibility for their own actions. They can’t blame God. Adam tried. It didn’t fly.
Misunderstood Verse
It all begins with a misunderstood verse. Where did we come up with such an idea – that everything happens for a reason? Like most spiritual myths, it comes from a combination of wishful thinking and a twisted interpretation of a few key Scriptures. In this case, one verse in particular gets the spotlight - that verse is Rom. 8:28.
No other verse gets misquoted as often when it comes to trying to make sense out of life’s trials. It’s the favorite proof text for the “everything-is-good—if-you-wait-long-enough” crowd. It’s plastered on coffee mugs, posters, greeting cards, and all kinds of Jesus junk. It sounds good. It sells well. But Rom. 8:28 doesn’t say or mean what most people think it does. It doesn’t even apply to a large percentage of those who turn to it for comfort.
One of the sources of confusion may very well be that most folks who quote this verse quote it in the King James translation. Rom. 8:28 in the KJV: 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.
Remember that the KJV was done in 1611 and written in what is known as Elizabethan or Shakespearian English. It might have been a clear translation in the early 1600’s but language changes.
When I was a kid, my mom would have chastised me for calling someone a dope. Then it became a word that referred to illegal drugs. But today, when kids call something dope, it’s high praise: “That car is dope.”
A more accurate translation for modern English is the NIV. Rom. 8:28 in the NIV reads: 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.
The difference may seem subtle but it is significant. The KJV has as all things working together. The NIV has God working in all things.
It doesn’t say that everything that happens is good. It simply says that God is at work in all things. If you’ll read this verse in context, you see it much more clearly.
Turn in your Bibles to Rom. 8:28-39 – 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 image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now think about it. Are the things mentioned in here good? Trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword? NO!!! Paul’s message is not that everything happens for a reason. The message here is that no matter what happens, no bad thing that ever happens, can affect God’s love for us.
Let’s get a little more personal. Did your parents divorce? Or that divorce that you went through – were they good? Did it happen for a reason? In Mal. 2:16a, God says, “I hate divorce.”
What if you were abused as a child? Was that good? Did it happen for a reason? Jesus said in Matt. 18:6, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Those who pin every disease, financial disaster, and betrayal on the direct action of God are headed down a logically indefensible path. If these things are really an expression of God’s goodness, they would have shown up in the Garden of Eden – before the Fall. And if these things are really an expression of God’s goodness, they will surely play a prominent role in heaven, where God’s goodness and blessings reign supreme. Yet, we know that’s clearly not the case.
There’s something in the Romans 8 passage that a lot of people miss altogether. This promise is not a promise for everyone. It’s not even a promise for every Christian. It’s a promise for a specific kind of person, one who meets two important criteria. The first criterion is this: 1. Loves God.
So, who is that? Well, based on what Jesus and the writers of the New Testament say, those who love God are those who obey His commands. Jesus says in Jn. 14:15 – “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” John writes in 1 Jn. 5:3 – “This is love for God: to obey his commands.”
The second criterion is: 2. Has been called according to His purpose. Those who are called according to His purpose are those who have become followers of Jesus. 2 Tim. 2:9-10 – He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
That leaves out a lot of people. It may leave you out. It leaves out the person you work with who has no interest in spiritual things but just found out she had her third miscarriage. God loves her, yes. God has a preferred future for her if and when she turns to Jesus. But Rom. 8:28 has nothing to say to her present heartache.
These conditions also leave out the really nice guy who lives next door to you, who you’ve been trying to witness to and been inviting to church, who lost his job several months ago and may be facing foreclosure on his house. When you tell him that God must have something better for him, it might make him and you feel better, but it’s wishful thinking. God doesn’t hold this promise forth to those who aren’t followers of Jesus, no matter how nice they are.
These statements might be surprising to you. But here is something that might surprise you more. Some Christians are even left out of this promise. If you’re living in deliberate disobedience to God in some area of your life, God doesn’t promise that he’s going to step in and fix the mess that your disobedience has created.
Just ask David and Bathsheba. Sure, David was forgiven. Sure, he was used by God to write Scripture after his sin. And yes, God brought some good out of their union in an amazing son named Solomon. But all in all, it would have been far better if David had never laid eyes on Bathsheba.
Their firstborn died in infancy. David spent the rest of his life at war. His family was a dysfunctional mess. None of which qualifies as God’s wonderful plan for his life.
The beauty and promise in Romans 8 is not that the bad things will eventually prove to be a good thing. The beauty and promise of this section of Romans 8 is that no matter how bad things may get, God’s ultimate and eternal purpose in the lives of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose won’t be thwarted.
Misplaced Blame
The misunderstanding of Rom. 8:28 causes a lot of people to misplace the blame for their situation. Those who assume that everything that happens has God’s fingerprints all over it fail to distinguish between what God allows and what God causes and between what God permits and what God prefers. The Bible clearly tells us that there a number of situations where the dark trials of our lives have nothing at all to do with God’s wonderful plans for our lives. Don’t blame God.
Sometimes the trials and hardships we face are the results of sinful choices. They’re self-inflicted wounds. It’s not God’s doing. It’s our doing. We’ve rebelled against God’s way of doing things and that never works out well in the long run.
Sometimes bad things happen because we live in a fallen world. It’s no coincidence that the first event mentioned in the Bible after the fall of Adam and Eve is about a bad guy killing a good guy. That’s what happens in a fallen world. Bad people do bad things and good people get hurt.
Another by-product of living in a fallen world is what some call the “wrath of Mother Nature” – earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes. Larry Osborne points out that Mother Nature has been in a bad mood ever since Adam ate the forbidden fruit.
And don’t forget Murphy’s Law – Anything that can go wrong, will. Adam knew this principle as weeds in his garden. We know it as the reason the other line always moves faster and why the later we are for an appointment, the more traffic signals we hit.
The universal impact of The Fall is all around us. As Christians, we don’t have a promise of protection. When it comes to the consequences of the fall, we aren’t offered immunity. We’re offered eternity.
Another reason that bad stuff happens is that sometimes we make foolish decisions. These aren’t necessarily sinful decisions – just dumb decisions.
Every one of us has done it. Either we’ve failed to check out the facts or in some way we put two and two together and got any number but four. No matter how or why it happens, once we’ve made a bonehead decision, bad stuff usually follows.
Picking the wrong stock can wipe out your portfolio. Picking the wrong partner can destroy our business. Picking our nose in public can ruin our social status. It’s ludicrous to blame God or assume that He’ll jump in and fix every idiotic decision we make.
The message for us in this passage of Romans 8 is not that God promises to keep us from making dumb decisions or to fix whatever we break. The message is that he promises to continue working for our eternal good no matter how many dim-witted judgments we make along the way. God gives us free-will. Use it wisely.
Miserable Consequences
The belief that God is the direct cause of everything that happens and has a specific reason and blessing for it is not only untrue; it has the potential to produce great spiritual harm. Here are just a few of its most significant potential negative consequences.
The first potential negative consequence is anger at God (add this one to your outline). When you blame everything on God, it leads to an unjustified anger at God. Most of us can probably tell about someone we know who wants nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity primarily because of some injustice or great tragedy for which they blame God.
When we proclaim that God is the direct cause of everything that happens, we hand the Devil some powerful ammunition. His argument goes something like this: “If God is responsible for your mess, he’s obviously not very good or not very powerful. Why waste your time following a God like that?” It’s an accusation that rings true for many who have suffered – especially those saddled with a heavy burden of injustice or the oppressive weight of a major tragedy.
Ironically, the core belief that fuels their bitterness is the same belief that gives great comfort to those who see God’s hand and blessing behind every tragedy. Both groups see God as directly responsible for everything. The difference is in how they interpret what happens.
The everything-will-eventually-prove-to-be-good crowd sees everything that happens in light of their previous convictions about God’s goodness. The God-can’t-be-trusted crowd judges God’s goodness in light of what actually happened. It’s not a surprise that they come to completely different conclusions.
Another potential negative consequence is glossing over sin. Let’s be honest. Let’s be real. There’s not much reason to fear sin or its consequences if everything comes out in the wash anyway.
I’ve heard people defend their participation in an affair as part of God’s plan because the new union resulted in a happy marriage. I’ve heard people claim that God must have orchestrated a bitter church split because it led to the birth of a dynamic new church. One preacher told about someone who claimed that God was behind a murder and the subsequent conviction of the murderer because the murderer met the Lord in prison. That kind of thinking is simply nonsense. God never approves of any kind of sin.
Still another potential negative consequence is irresponsibility. (Add this one to your outlines as well.) When this particular spiritual myth is taken to an extreme, it can produce an epidemic of irresponsibility. After all, if God guarantees that everything will eventually work out for good no matter what, who cares what I put into the equation? God will fix it. He has to. He promised.
Sometimes this manifests itself in a pattern of ridiculous risk-taking that is labeled as “steps of faith.” These people say, “We’re trusting in God.” But basically what they do has nothing to do with following God’s leading. God hasn’t told them specifically to do anything. But like the fool in the book of Proverbs, they ignore all of the warning signs of danger, the advice of good and wise friends, and keep going in their pattern of risk taking. They are confident that if things don’t work out, God will bail them out.
When God doesn’t rescue them, they get mad at God. It’s not God’s fault. It was their fault because they ignored the warning signs along the way.
There are two other potential negative consequences. The first is are unrealistic expectations and the second is misplaced hope. It particularly shows up in those of us who face long-term suffering.
When you see God as the direct cause of your problems, there is the possibility that He will correct the problem. There is great hope in that. But if he is the cause of your problems, you also seem him as the author of your own private hell. And in that there is great despair.
Miscellaneous Questions
The first question is: Can a bad thing ever be a good thing? Obviously, there are situations where God takes something bad and uses it to produce something good. The ultimate example is Jesus’ crucifixion. His death made the payment for our sin.
We can see another case in the misfortunes of Joseph and his subsequent rise to second in command in Egypt. God was obviously at work behind the scenes when Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers, falsely accused of attempted rape, jailed, ready for early release, forgotten, and finally brought before Pharaoh to interpret a bizarre dream.
When Joseph’s brothers eventually came to ask him for mercy despite their despicable act of selling him into slavery, he responded with these words in Gen. 50:20: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
Lots of folks have turned to these words as support for the notion that whatever happens to us is always part of God’s plan to bring about something better. But notice that Joseph didn’t call his brothers’ evil actions good or necessary. He didn’t say that everything happens for a reason. He simply pointed out that God was at work despite their evil intents.
Hindsight is 20/20. And when you’re using hindsight, it’s easy to see that God used the brothers’ sin to position Joseph for a high post in Egypt’s royal court. And in the process, God provided food for Joseph’s father and brothers and put them in a setting where a small nomadic clan could grow into a great nation.
But please pay attention to one thing: there is no indication that the strength and integrity with which Joseph endured his injustices was based on an underlying belief that God was up to something special. Joseph had no clue as to what God was doing. Joseph only knew that righteousness was the path to take and would one day be rewarded – either in this life or in eternity. Just like Joseph, it’s nearly impossible for us to distinguish which of the painful events in our life result from God’s orchestration, which ones He is planning to use, and which ones He’ll simply overcome in eternity.
But at the same time, it really doesn’t matter. Every trial or hardship calls for the same response: obedience. We are to do the right thing no matter what the outcome. Sometimes, as in the case of Joseph, our obedience will be rewarded in this life. Sometimes it will be rewarded in the next one. Only time will tell.
The second question is: If God is going to fix things someday, why doesn’t He do it now? If some things that happen in our world aren’t what God wants, why doesn’t he step in and take charge? Why doesn’t he shut down evil and be done with it?
The answer is simple. God lingers because for every day He delays, more of His former enemies become His friends. 2 Pet. 3:9 – The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Theologians will be arguing about the details of Jesus’ return until He actually shows up. But all sides agree that when Christ finishes His work, evil will be history. Satan will be done. And those who have ignored God or chosen the path of rebellion will be out of second chances.
So, do you really want Jesus to come back and take charge tomorrow? I don’t. I still have too many friends and loved ones who don’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Some are on the fence. Others are nowhere close. But every day Jesus holds off returning, he gives these friends of mine another opportunity to submit to his reign. Once He shows up, that chance will be lost forever.
The third question is: Are we supposed to be looking for a silver lining or a path of obedience? Those who insist that God directly orchestrates everything for an ultimately good purpose spend a lot of time looking for that purpose. No matter what happens, they’re always searching for the silver lining. And even when it’s not there, they seem to find it.
Psychologically and emotionally, that might appear to be a good thing to do. After all, it can help us keep a positive outlook. But the benefits are only a mirage leading to disappointment and disillusionment when the harsh truth of reality sets in. When life falls apart, there’s something far more important to look for than a silver lining. Once again, it’s the path of obedience.
The path of obedience always takes the high road. It tells the truth even if the truth brings pain. It refuses to return evil for evil, even when vengeance is within reach. It’s thankful, even when there’s not much to be thankful for. Obedience walks with integrity, even when no else does. It does the right thing, even when the right thing doesn’t work out so well.
God hasn’t promised that everything will always “work out” in this life. But He has promised that, no matter what happens, He will never leave us or forsake us. He’s also promised us this section of Romans 8 that no matter what life or the enemy might throw our way, His good and eternal purposes can never be thwarted.
Close
Tim Keller is a preacher and an author. He gives us some insight. He points to the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus is standing there with tears rolling down his face. Jesus isn’t smiling. He’s angry. He’s upset. Why? Because death is a bad thing.
Keller says, “Jesus wasn't thinking, “They [Lazarus’s family and friends] think that this is a tragedy, but no harm done! I'm about to raise him from the dead. This looks like a bad thing, but it's not. It's really a good thing! It's a way for me to show my glory.”
Keller points out that there is no place in the Bible that teaches us that bad things are really blessings in disguise or that every cloud has a silver lining. Jesus is upset because he hates death. He hates loneliness, alienation, pain, and suffering. But Keller says, “Jesus hates it all so much that he was willing to come into this world and experience it all himself, so that eventually he could destroy it [death] without destroying us.”
Here is my favorite statement by Keller on this issue. He said, “Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you'll become like him.”
(This series freely adapted from Larry Osborne’s book:
Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe)
