Alba 2-13-2022
ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD
Romans 8:28
In Robert J. Morgan’s book, The Promise, he tells the story of John Peterson. When John was a teenager he had a remarkable singing voice and was in high demand as a performer.
His greatest ambition was to become a famous vocalist. “Only in singing did I feel competent and confident,” he wrote. “Here was at least one place where I could excel. I knew it, and I made the most of it.”
John became known as “the singing farm boy.” Local radio programs were featuring him and his future as a singer was bright.
Then, one summer he found a job in a factory, working at a machine that made canvas wheat binders. It was a noisy factory, and John’s machine was especially loud.
He couldn’t hear anything else; he could barely hear himself think. So he spent the whole day singing at the top of his lungs as he worked—all day, every day. Too late, he realized that he was abusing and ruining his vocal cords.
There was nothing the doctors or speech therapists could do. “I put such a strain on my faltering voice through overuse and inexperience,” he wrote, “that I damaged it beyond repair. When I realized fully what had happened, that my voice would never again be beautiful, I suffered such an emotional shock that it took months before I recovered. Singing, I had the power to thrill people, and suddenly it was all gone.” He was heartbroken.
However, John’s inability to sing forced him to pursue other talents that he had been neglecting. Peterson later wrote, “With my voice damaged, I turned more and more to writing and that talent was allowed to emerge and develop.
“What at first seemed like a tragedy was used for good, and the course of my life began to take shape in a quite unexpected way.”
For those of you who may recognize the name, you know that John Peterson went on to give us such wonderful hymns as “Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul,” “Surely Goodness and Mercy,” “Springs of Living Water,” and “Jesus is Coming Again.”
I tell you that story to tell you what it says in Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
Romans 8:28 is one of the most famous verses in the Bible. In a recent search analysis, it came up second to John 3:16 as the most searched for verse in the Bible. It has also been misunderstood.
When we read Paul’s words in Romans 8:28 that says, “we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose” what we hear is “we’re gonna get what we want.”
But that way of thinking is not a message of God’s righteousness at all, that is a message of self-righteousness.
Too many people, even Christians, feel that God should be available to ensure that they never face opposition or that they are never subjected things that hurt their feelings.
God, the Father, is transformed into a sort of celestial grandfather who does what He can to make life comfortable for the self-centred soul.
If some well-meaning individual has cited this verse to you at a time of trial, you may have questioned whether this could be true. In fact, you may have silently questioned the Lord, “All things? Really? All things?”
We would benefit from exploring this concept, correcting some of the misinformation that circulates among the saints by seeking understanding of what is actually said.
There is nothing in the make up of our universe to make us optimistic that everything will eventually work out to the satisfaction of all people.
Often we hear a shortened form of the promise that goes like this, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” Here this verse explains that God does NOT give this promise of “all things working together” to everybody in the world.
This promise is for believers in Jesus Christ. In effect, Paul says that if you don’t LOVE God, you can’t claim this promise. If you don’t LOVE God, everything isn’t someday going to work out for “Good”.
If you do not love God, eternal optimism is not in view. If you don’t love God, pessimism is in view for you because “all things” in your life are NOT going to work for “GOOD”.
I remember in the gospel of John how Jesus said that if you love me, keep my commandments.
If we're going to love the Lord it cannot be primarily by our emotions or by some feeling. Love is not a feeling, it is a choice that is evident in actions.
We have to choose to do what God said based on His scripture instead of doing what we feel like doing. When we are busy following His will, we can see the good that He works in our lives.
If we are involved in doing things that are not according to His word, it affects our ability to see how much He works it out for our good. Too often Christians stay in the same old spot because they don't believe that God will work their life situations their for good.
If we love God, we are doing our best to follow him. If we love the Lord, we are focused on doing what He said. This does not mean that we are perfect, but it does mean that we are focused on truly loving the Lord.
Some time ago in the devotional booklet, Our Daily Bread, it had a prayer that read, “Lord, it is easy to let my circumstances change how I understand You. Help me to remember that You are good and faithful, even though I can’t see everything and may not understand how You are working.”
Those who can claim the promise that all things work together for good is only for those who love the Lord. But in this verse there is more. It also says if you are not called according to God’s purpose, you can’t claim this promise.
What Paul is expressing to the Romans in this passage is that God is looking out for the well-being and the continual building up of His people, those who are called according to His purpose.
The cross is God's purpose. His purpose is to save us from our sins through the death, burial and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. His purpose is to sanctify our lives so that we become more like Christ in our thinking and actions.
God's purpose is that we will really love Him and conform our lives around His perfect will. If we stubbornly insist on doing things our way, we are not conforming to His will.
These who love God and are called according to His purpose are the ones who can count on this promise being fulfilled in their lives.
Now that we know to whom the promise applies, let’s ask what it means. Specifically, what is the “good” to which God is working all things?
It can’t mean that we will always get what we want or even what we think is good in our opinion. We must be careful to define “good” in God’s terms, not ours.
The Bible is full of occasions where God turned things around; making good out of what is evil. You may remember that in the Old Testament Joseph could look over his life and see a life that had been filled with disappointments and sufferings.
Joseph’s brothers hated him out of jealousy, so they threw him into a pit, then they sold him into slavery. Later, Joseph was falsely accused by a woman who tried to seduce him and then screamed rape. He was put in prison.
Someone powerful promised to get him out, but forgot. To put it mildly, Joseph could have been very discouraged about his future.
Years later through an amazing sequence of events, Joseph became second in charge of all of Egypt. During a horrible seven-year famine, God used Joseph to save the nation of Israel. In the last chapter of the story, Joseph confronts his brothers.
In the capstone message of the whole story, Joseph was able to say to his brothers—who were responsible for his misfortune, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good…” (Gen. 50:20).
Joseph does not minimize what they did. He faces the fact that his brothers intended to harm him. But God. I love those two words. “But God meant it for good.” Yes evil is real and terrible, but God.
Here is the great truth, our deepest confidence: God is greater than evil. God weaves the ultimate tapestry. We only see a few of the threads, but God sees it all. Evil cannot and will not triumph.
Whatever is against us, if we are looking for His ultimate purpose in our life, and in the lives around us, God will work it for good. This promise is reserved for the faithful who put their trust in the fact that God can and will make all tragedies into victories.
This promise does not mean that nothing bad will ever happen to Christians. The heart of this promise is that God will use even a tragedy to produce a good result.
The Bible doesn’t promise us an escape from suffering. If it did, then everybody would become a Christian just to avoid accidents, troubles, heart attacks, cancer, etc.
Also, if Christians were somehow divinely protected from experiencing opposition, injury or pain, everyone would choose to be a Christian.
This might be good motive for being “religious” but it is a poor motive for being a Christian. The reality is that bad things happen to good people. However, that is not the end of the story.
Christians suffer—some suffer to the point of death. If that was all there was to the story, there would be scant reason to even consider becoming a Christian. There is far more to the life we now live. There is far more to the struggles Christians have now.
People like to say, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”. But that is not what scripture says. God will most certainly allow you to experience more than you can handle.
The better saying is, “God won’t give you more than He can handle!” So in faith you can trust Him to handle it.
Now Romans 8:28 doesn’t say that everything that happens to us is good. But God is big enough to take anything that happens in our lives - anything that we give to Him and allow Him to use - He can take ALL THINGS and turn them to our good.
Whenever we read this promise of God, our tendency is to redefine “good” to suit our own imaginations. We read the words and we imagine that it should refer to an immediate benefit.
You probably have met people who claim to be upset with God because he’s never “delivered the goods.” Give me the money, Give me the health, make things more comfortable.
Worldly people who believe there is a God, and carnal immature Christians, only invite God into their lives when they need rescue. And then after the need passes they quickly kick Him out again.
A lot of people think God is some sort of divine pizza delivery boy who’s supposed to whip up some concoction to satisfy their every whim and fancy and deliver it to them piping hot.
Jesus did not come into this world to satisfy our sweet tooth. He didn’t come to top off our lives with whipping cream and cherries.
He came to be the main course – offered up for our salvation – and He picked up the tab ensuring that heaven is ours today, tomorrow, and forever.
Jesus didn’t come to be a financial guru and straighten out our bad stock investments. He came to pay our debt to sin, so that we might be rich in his mercy.
And Jesus didn’t come to be our fashion coordinator, lining our closets with the newest fashions. Instead, He came to clothe us with His robe of righteousness; to dress us in His undeserved love, so that we might be beautiful for all eternity.
In Jesus Christ, we have an iron-clad, unfailing, all-encompassing, God-given guarantee that every single circumstance of life will sooner or later turn out well for those who love him.
Because God promises, “that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
CONCLUSION:
In 1991, a fire raged through Oakland, CA destroying a number of houses in its path. One of those homes belonged to a preacher. His home was totally destroyed, reducing most of the family’s possessions to little more than burnt ashes.
But one item did survive intact: a small porcelain rabbit figurine. The next Sunday, the preacher took the item into the pulpit and explained his recent loss. holding up the small figurine, he noted that it was the sole surviving keepsake from the fire.
And he dwelt on the unusual fact that it alone survived the flames.
Why, he asked, would this small item escape damage when nothing else did? He smiled and said: "Because it had already been through a fire once."
That which Satan would use to destroy us is the tool God can use to transform us, to make us stronger in our faith.
When we allow God to work in our suffering, God can use our pain to strengthen us as metal worker uses fire to refine gold and silver and burn off impurities in those metals.
The metal worker puts the metals into the furnace and exposes them to the fire. The heat from the fire melts the silver or gold into a liquid substance… and the impurities float to the top and are skimmed away.
The resulting metals are purer and thus more valuable because they’ve been ‘refined.’ In Psalm 66:10 the psalmist praises God “For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”
God can use our suffering to purify us, to change us, to transform us and make it good.
