Romans 8:28-30 – Polluted Streams Still Turn Turbines
Read passage.
Once there was a river. It was a wide river with many docks and wharves along its shores. It provided income for many with its sport fishing and recreational opportunities. It provided leisure for many with its beautiful sunrises and pristine waters. It was a beautiful river.
But it was not perfect. At times sewage from the many homes and cottages along the shore would cause an unpleasant odor to rise from the beaches. Unregulated industrial waste, from companies and businesses that should have known better, flowed unchecked into the river. Years of dumping garbage by people who never thought that their actions would ever hurt anything or anyone had created a murky brown color into places along the river as well.
And this river felt it. It would groan, yearning for the better days when all was carefree, when its beauty and innocence were all it reflected. It sometimes wished it didn’t know what it hadn’t known when it was young either.
And it cried out to its creator, “Why have I become like this? Why has pollution from many streams flowed into my waters? Why has the thoughtlessness of others caused such a pain within me? Why have you allowed so much waste into me? I didn’t ask for it, nor did I do anything to earn it. Yet I am polluted. Why, Creator, have you allowed all this into my life?”
But there was no answer. Day after day, the streams of pollution flowed into the river, and though they failed to corrupt the river completely, they were at times unbearable. And yet the Creator did not answer the river’s questions.
But what the river did not know was that down stream several miles, a plan was being formulated. Some engineers were looking at the river, so beautiful and yet so imperfect, and were considering a new power source. If they placed turbines in a large dam that regulated the amount of flow, they could supply the area with electricity. The river could provide many people with much-needed power.
And when the dam was built and put into action, it wouldn’t matter so much that the river had pollution. It wouldn’t matter how many polluted streams flowed down from the hills. In the end, the entire course of the river would be usable for greater purposes. It would all be worked together for good.
I think that in a sense, this is what God has planned for us. Today’s Bible passage is a commonly quoted one. It’s a truth people cling to. It’s an anchor for the soul in the storms of our lives. People need to know that trials and troubles will not be useless, but have some purpose in our lives. People can suffer any kind of “how” as long as they know there is a “why” to it all. Let’s look at the passage to get this idea grounded a little better.
V28 can be worded in several different ways. The NIV chooses this: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” Now, one thing I like about the NIV is that at the bottom of the page, it sometimes offers different ways that the passage could be worded. For example, the text note for this verse says it could also be worded like this: “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God.” That’s the way most other translations word it, and that’s the way I’m most familiar with too. And the passage could also be worded this way: “We know that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good.” That’s a great thought too, and not untruthful either. God uses His people to bring about His will on earth.
But I think the essence of this verse is better described this way: We can be confident that no matter what happens in life, good or bad, God brings it all together to achieve His purposes. God can take pain, suffering and hard times to make them useful to us, for His plans for our lives and the lives of those around us. This section follows last week’s thoughts that we don’t know how to pray, and we don’t know what to pray for. So, even though there are things we don’t know, still, there are things we can know, things we can be sure of, that no matter how much pollution we get inflicted with, God can make use of it anyway. That’s a serious encouragement.
Well, what are His plans? What is it that He’s trying to accomplish? What is He trying to bring about? If we, as v28 says, have been called according to His purpose, what is that purpose?
We have been called to get on board with His program, with His agenda. The life we live is not our own. We don’t get to decide to do only what we want to do. We have been given a purpose, and that purpose, why we are still here, is to become more and more like Jesus. To conform to the likeness of Christ. To look more and more like Jesus. To act as He did. To love as He did. To make a difference in this world as He did. That’s why we are here. That’s our purpose. We have been called to conform to Christ.
Now, just because we can sum up God’s purposes for us so easily, that doesn’t make them easy to bear. Sometimes God’s plans for our lives hurt. Do you remember the 1st time you felt disappointed at God? Do you remember the 1st time you prayed for something that you didn’t get it? Do you remember the 1st time you were convinced that God would do one thing and He did another? Do you remember the loss, the emptiness, as if some big guy came up and planted his fist deep in your belly? I think we have all felt that way, if we were honest. Unfortunately, disappointment with God, expecting one thing in life and getting another, is part of learning to trust who He really is, instead of trusting in an image of who we think He should be.
And until you learn to accept God’s purposes for your life, you will never really learn to trust Him. You will never get past a misleading image of Him. You need to understand that your pain is part of His purposes for you. After all, all things worked together for the good in Jesus’ life, too.
Think about what Jesus went through. He was betrayed by a close friend. I know that Satan had entered Judas’ heart, but there must have been something that led Judas to that point. Perhaps seeing his plans of overthrowing the Romans going up in smoke did him in. Perhaps greed. Who knows? At any rate, the Jewish leaders needed a legal witness, and Judas was to be it.
And speaking of those leaders, had they not been so jealous of Jesus’ popularity, they would not have acted how they did. They didn’t enjoy being called empty graves and dangerous snakes. They felt they had to get rid of the competition.
Then there was Pilate, who had no reason to hand Jesus over to the executioners. Other than wanting to please the crowd, not wanting to cause a riot, not wanting to look weak before his superiors. Pilate was a coward.
And of course, the crowd was fickle. From praise to punishment, from glory to gore, all within 5 days. They were afraid of banned from the temple by the priests. They were afraid of the consequences. So they followed a mob mentality, and with one voice they asked for Jesus’ death.
Now, the disciples could not do anything to turn the tide in this. They were powerless to stop all this from happening. That doesn’t mean they had to turn their tails and flee, though. Just because Jesus told them not to fight it all, doesn’t mean they were supposed to run, either.
All these factors led to Jesus’ death. Yet, truth be told, it never was in the hands of people – neither Judas, nor the priests, nor Pilate, nor the crowd, nor the disciples could stop what was happening. It was always in God’s plans. God orchestrated the murder of Jesus, and used people’s sins and mistakes to do it. Watch what Jesus said about his arrest…
Jesus told Peter to put his sword away, and then he said this: “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” The cup, this course of action, was not determined by the soldiers, but by God. At that same time, Jesus also said, “But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” Soon after that, in the 6th and last trial of the morning, Pilate threatened Jesus to speak, because of the power that Pilate held over Him at that moment. But Jesus simply said, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.”
You see? Jesus’ death, perhaps the greatest travesty of all time, was never out of God’s hands. He was in control of the whole thing. It was used for the redemption of mankind, for the glory of God. God shows His love and holiness, and we are invited to be part of it.
What’s more, the death of Jesus was not even an afterthought. It wasn’t even just a situation where God saw something evil and said, “Hey – I can fix this!” No, it was part of God’s plan before you and I were even born. Revelation says that Jesus is the Lamb “that was slain from the creation of the world.” That is, for Jesus to die was God’s plans from the start. The wisdom of God knows what is best, the power of God can make it happen, and the love of God will make it happen.
Which is good news for us, that God’s plans and purposes for you can never be thwarted by anyone else. If you love God, which is simply a definition of a Christian – Matthew 22:37 – then come what may, God will have the final say. He can take those travesties and tragedies that happen and use them to point to Himself. He can use those pains and problems and draw us closer to Him. He can use even evil things to make you more like Jesus. That’s good news for Christians.
But not for non-Christians. No, for them, a tragedy is simply that. God doesn’t promise that all things will work together for good for everybody. For others, bad things remain bad things. Good may come out of them, but He doesn’t promise it. That’s a great reason to be faithful to God, to love Him, and to accept His purposes. God will never waste a tragedy in a believer’s life.
So think about what throws your life into difficulties. What sends you into a tailspin? What makes you wonder if your life is turning out OK? Is it your financial situation? Is it those lost causes you have been praying for since you don’t know when? Is it a health-related thing, or should I say, an unhealth-related thing? Is it some fragment of your life that just doesn’t seem to fit in with what you think a Christian should have, like loneliness, stress, depression, sin, worry, tension, addictions, marital problems…?
Well, some of these can be dealt with, and some need to be endured. But they are all streams of pollution flowing into our river of life. But the plan is that through all this, God’s desires for you – to look more and more like Jesus – can happen. None of these is beyond God’s capabilities of repair. Each of these streams can be transformed into useful energy in powerful turbines designed by a loving Creator. Today trust those streams of pollution into God’s capable hands to be used for your good, and for the good of other Christians as well.
