A
Study of the Book of Romans
Lesson
# 20
“God’s Glorious Promise”
Romans
8:28-30
Most individuals who have been Christian’s
any length of time know Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things
work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to
His purpose.” We believe
it to be true, but sometimes it is because we chose to believe even when it seems to fly
in the face of reality.
Sometimes we may feel like the parakeet
that Max Lucado tells of in his book “In the Eye of the Storm.” “Chippie the parakeet
never saw it coming. One second he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next he was
sucked in, washed up, and blown over.
The problems began when Chippie's
owner decided to clean Chippie's cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment
from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick
it up. She'd barely said "hello" when "sssopp!" Chippie got sucked in.
The bird owner gasped, put down
the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie -- still alive,
but stunned.
Since the bird was covered with
dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held
Chippie under the running water. Then realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she
did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . . she reached for the hair dryer and
blasted the pet with hot air.
Poor Chippie never knew what hit
him.
A few days after the trauma, the
reporter who'd initially written about the event contacted Chippie's owner to see how the
bird was recovering. "Well," she replied, "Chippie doesn't sing much
anymore -- he just sits and stares." [Max Lucado. In the Eye of the Storm
(Dallas:
Word Publishing, 1991) p 11]
Tonight I want to
explore in some depth what that verse means. I believe we will find that it does not mean
what some people believe it means. But if you will examine what it does say, you will find
it one of the most positive statements in all of the Bible about what God is doing even in
the midst of the most terrible situations in life.
When dealing with
Romans 8:28 we immediate are confronted with some problems.
First, Romans 8:28 is
often misused.
In dealing with
this passage we are almost too familiar with it, in that it has become a Christian
cliché. And often when it is cited and used, it is misused. Well meaning Christian’s
throw it in the face of those are suffering as if is the answer to every conceivable
situation one faces in life. I’ll bet you have seen it happen, I know I have. Someone
is going through some kind of personal tragedy and a well-meaning person will approach
them and say, “Well
just remember all things work together for good!” Most often those words do not bring the relief that
they intend and in fact my make the individual feel even worse because now they feel
guilty for their pain. When it misused in such a way, it produces the opposite of the
effect intended by the Apostle Paul.
Secondly, Romans 8:28
seems to be unsupported by reality. Paul
says, “And we know
that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to
His purpose.” What I
want to focus our attention on is that Paul says, “we know.” And
we want to ask, “Paul how can you be so sure.” If the truth is told most of are not as sure as
Paul was. We hope all things work
together for good, we believe they do.
But do we really know for sure?
First, God’s
Promise (v. 28) “And we know that all things work together for
good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to
His purpose.”
It is important first
of all to understand what Romans 8:28 is and is not saying. The text is not saying
that “all things are good” or even that “the sum-total of all things is
good.” It says, “all things work together for good.” This is one situation where a look at other
translations of this verse is helpful. The New American Standard translates it, “God causes all things to
work together for good.” The New International Version says, “in all things God works
for the good.”
Did you notice the difference? In the KJV God does not come in until the end of the verse. In
the other two versions, god is at the beginning. These translations help us to see that this
verse does not
say “all things are good,” but rather that God is at work in all things – whether they are
good or bad to bring about His purpose in our lives. The Bible never asks us to pretend
that a tragedy is not a tragedy or to pretend that our pain is not real. The point is that
we must see the active involvement of God in the process.
Our danger as humans
is that we will judge what we can not see by what we can see. If we cannot immediately see
a purpose, we often assume there is not one.
Let me use some
illustrations to make my point. “The great composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) lived much of
his life in fear of deafness. He was concerned because he felt the sense of hearing was
essential to creating music of lasting value.
When Beethoven discovered that the
thing he feared most was coming rapidly upon him, he was almost frantic with anxiety. He
consulted doctors and tried every possible remedy. But the deafness increased until at
last all hearing was gone.
Beethoven finally found the
strength he needed to go on despite his great loss. To everyone’s amazement, he wrote
some of his grandest music after he became totally deaf. With all distractions shut out,
melodies flooded in on him as fast as his pen could write them down. His deafness became a
great asset.” [Daily Walk, August 9, 1993]
Through his deafness God provided some of
the world’s greatest music. And through another man’s blindness God provided a
way for all blind people to see.
“It was 1818 in France, and
Louis, a boy of 9, was sitting in his father’s workshop. The father was a
harness-maker and the boy loved to watch his father work the leather. “Someday
Father,” said Louis, “I want to be a harness-maker, just like you.”
“Why not start now?”
said the father. He took a piece of leather and drew a design on it. “Now, my son,”
he said, “take the hole-puncher and a hammer and follow this design, but be careful
that you don’t hit your hand.”
Excited, the boy began to work,
but when he hit the hole-puncher, it flew out of his hand and pierced his eye! He lost the
sight of that eye immediately. Later, sight in the other eye failed. Louis was now totally
blind. A few years later, Louis was sitting in the family garden when a friend handed him
a pine cone. As he ran his sensitive fingers over the cone, an idea came to him. He became
enthusiastic and began to create an alphabet of raised dots on paper so that the blind
could feel and interpret what was written.
Thus, Louis Braille opened up a
whole new world for the blind—all because of an accident!” [Bits and Pieces, June, 1990, pp.
23-24]
Through another man’s
confinement God provide a vision for something that would benefit all mankind. “In 1832, French engineer
Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps was traveling on the Mediterranean Sea. When a fellow passenger
became sick with a contagious disease, the ship was quaran-tined. The confinement was
terribly frustrating for de Lesseps. To help pass the time he read the memoirs of Charles
le Pere, who had studied the feasibility of building a canal from the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean. That volume led the engineer to devise a detailed plan for the construction
of the Suez Canal, which was completed under his leadership in 1869. That quarantine 37
years earlier proved to be immensely valuable to de Lesseps—and to the world.”
[Daily Walk, April 25,
1992]
God can even work miracles through what may
seem like senseless tragedies. “I once read about
farmers in southern Alabama who were accustomed to planting one crop every year—cotton.
They would plow as much ground as they could land plant their crop. Year after year they
lived by cotton.
Then one year the dreaded boll weevil
Then you know what those farmers
did? They spent some of their new wealth to erect in the town square a monument—to
the boll weevil. If it hadn’t been for the boll weevil, they never would have
discovered peanuts. They learned that even out of disaster there can be great delight.” [Roger Thompson, Source unknown]
What I want you to understand is that we
cannot judge what we can not see by what we can see. Just because we cannot immediately
see a purpose, doesn’t mean that God does not have one. Remember God is at work.
But behind God’s Promise is …
Second, God’s
Purpose (v. 29)
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of
His Son, that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren.”
It is not my purpose tonight to be drawn off
into a theological discussion of election and predestination. I want us to note that this
passage does not have much to do with the “fact” of God’s sovereign
choosing of an elect people as it does the “why” or His purpose of choosing
them.
There are two central facts that we need to
take note of
· He Chose
Us – “foreknew”
(prognostikos)
is the word we get
prognosis from. Before the world was even formed, he chose you to be a part of His family.
In Ephesians 1:4-5 we read, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. (5) having predestined us to
adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”
But God not only
choses us he …
· He Changes us –
“predestined”
(prohorizo) it is the word we get horizon. The horizon
is the distance between sky and the earth. God has already predetermined what he wants us
to be. This verse tells us that God had a purpose for saving us. The main reason God saved
you was not to take you to heaven when you die. According to this verse his main purpose
in saving you was to make you into the image of His Son, Jesus. First, he desire to make
you in the image of Jesus in your character and finally, bodily by giving you a glorified
body. God is not committed to making your healthy, wealthy or wise, he is committed to
making like His son, Jesus Christ. And whatever it takes to make you more like Jesus is
“good.”
If the only purpose in
saving you was to take you to heaven when you die, then the kindest thing we could do for
a person who accepts salvation would be take a gun and shot them. “Alright your
ready for heaven, so off you go.” God
saved you to conform you into the image of his son, which brings us to the next major
point!
Third, God’s
Process (v. 30)
“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He
also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
The “called” are those who not only have received an
invitation, they have accepted it. This does not destroy or disturb the fact that “whosoever
will may come” and “whosoever believeth.” Henry Ward Beecher quaintly put
it, “The
elect are the whosoever wills and the non-elect are the whosoever won’ts.”
· He Calls
Us – “these He
also called”
The
Christian life can be pretty much be
* “Come
To Me.” (Matt 11:28)
“Come to me, All you who labor
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”
Jesus is calling for
us to lay aside our burden of sin. It is the call of salvation.
* “Follow
Me” (Mark 1:17)
“Follow me and I will make you
fishers of men.”
The second call of the
Lord is the call to discipleship. This
is the recognition that the Lord has a ministry and a place of service for each of us.
* “Abide
In Me” (John 15:4)
“Abide in me, and I in you. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you,
unless you abide in me.”
This is the call to surrender ourselves to
the control of the Holy Spirit. This is
a recognition that Christian’s are to
be continually being filled with the
Spirit (Eph 5:18). This filling is a constant renewal of the believer’s life for
strength and action.
· He Claims
Us – “these He
also justified”
This of course is
the subject we have examined numerous times in our study of Romans. We need to remember
that “justified’ means simply that by accepting what Christ has done on our
behalf on the Cross we are “just as if we had never sinned.”
· He Completes
Us – “these He
also
That happens after the
second coming of Christ when the soul and body are reunited. It
has not happened yet but God is so sure of it happening
that He speaks of this as a past occurrence, when in fact is yet future. If we are
struggling through tough times, it is reassuring to “know” that God is working
through them to bring us to maturity in Christ.
Conclusion
“Professor E. C. Caldwell
ended his lecture, “Tomorrow,” he said to his class of seminary students, “I
will be teaching on Romans 8. So tonight, as you study, pay special attention to verse 28.
Notice what this verse truly says, and what it doesn’t say.” Then he added,
“One final word before I dismiss you—whatever happens in all the years to come,
remember: Romans 8:28 will always hold true.”
That same day Dr. Caldwell and his
wife met with a tragic car-train accident. She was killed instantly and he was crippled
permanently. Months later, Professor Caldwell returned to his students, who clearly
remembered his last words. The room was hushed as he began his lecture.
“Romans 8:28,” he said, “still holds true. One day we shall see God’s good, even in this.”
[Our Daily Bread, 12-19-91]