28 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 likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
If there is a bible verse that Christians love to quote it is Romans 8:28. We've probably heard it from others when we are experiencing times of trouble in our lives and we've probably shared it with others when they are going through a rough time. I think we can take comfort in knowing that God says that "in all things God works for the good..." ALL. THINGS. Not some things, not a few things, not things once in a while when He feels like it--it says ALL THINGS.
This is easy to say when things are going well, it is easy to quote to others. But do we really believe that all things work for the good? What about when a friend's wife leaves him? What about when a couple waiting for children still does not have any answers to their desire? What about a seemingly healthy mom gets diagnosed with cancer and she is left to face this illness alone? What about the untimely deaths of loved ones? Do we really honestly believe that ALL THINGS work for the good??
Again, I looked up this portion of scripture in different translations and I like the Message version:
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
I like how it gives us the picture of being in a pregnant position. In essence, vulnerable and cautious and growing. The spirit of God keeps us close to God when we are at our most vulnerable, when we are cautious, and we are growing in our dependence on Him. I like that. Most importantly (verse 29) "God knew what he was doing from the very beginning" and we need to remember that during our times of uncertainty. God knows all and sees all. All that happened in the past, all that is to come in the future, and all that is happening now.
Not matter what the translation, the message is the same. I like this commentary's thoughts:
From my study I am inclined to view the KJV as the most faithful to the original wording of Paul. But the difference is not so great that you have to take my word for it I think.
All the versions mean basically that God is so supremely in charge of the world that all the things that happen to Christians are ordered in such a way that they serve our good. Tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and peril and sword all work together for the good of those who love God.
So the rugged hope of the believer is not that we will escape distress or peril or hunger or slaughter, but that Almighty God will make every one of our agonies an instrument of his mercy to do us good. "You meant it for evil," Joseph said to his brothers who had sold him into slavery, "but God meant it for good." And so it is with every calamity of those who love God. God meant it for good!
He goes on to talk about Romans 8:28 being the foundation:
When it comes to the architecture of promises, there are not any bigger buildings thanRomans 8:28. This structure is absolutely staggering in its size. It is massive. The infinitely wise, infinitely powerful God pledges to make everything beneficial to his people! Not just nice things, but horrible things, like tribulation and distress and peril and slaughter. What brick would you lay on the top of this skyscraper promise to make it taller? "All things" means all things.
If you live inside this massive promise, your life is as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. Nothing can blow you over inside the walls of Romans 8:28. Outside Romans 8:28 all is confusion and anxiety and fear and uncertainty and straw houses of deadening drugs and tin roofs of retirement plans and cardboard fortifications of anti-ballistic missiles and a thousand other substitutes for Romans 8:28.
Once you walk through the door of love into the massive, unshakable structure of Romans 8:28 everything changes. There comes into your life stability and depth and freedom. You simply can't be blown over any more. The confidence that a sovereign God governs for your good all the pain and all the pleasure that you will ever experience is an absolutely incomparable refuge and security and hope and power in your life. No promise in all the world surpasses the height and breadth and weight of Romans 8:28.
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What then is the foundation of Romans 8:28? Where do those who love God find certainty that tribulation and distress and famine and nakedness and peril and sword and slaughter will in fact work together for their good? The answer is that those who love God are also those who have been called by God, and that this call is based not on something as wavering and uncertain as my commitment to God but only on his eternal purpose of election by which he set his favor on me without any respect to my action at all.
Our confidence that all the hard and happy things in our life will in fact become the servants of our good is based not merely the fact that there is a promise in the Bible, but also on the fact that from all eternity God in his great mercy has chosen us to enjoy his banquet and has given us evidence of our election by calling into being (out of stone!) a heart that loves God—has he not?!No matter what life throws at us...even remarkable tragedy that we cannot understand...we can be secure in the foundation of knowing that God already knows and that He has it all under control.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 9:1-5
1 comment:
Great thoughts by Piper. I totally didn't look at the schedule and had started a post (also late!) on this so I'm just going to add a few things here in the comments....
All things. ALL things. Including the bad things - things like suffering, struggling with sin, even sin itself. Even those bad things are overruled by God for our good - both now and in eternity.
The bad things we go through refine us. I love MacArthur's explanation of just some of the ways God can turn bad things into good.....
They teach us to hate sin. They help us to see our fallenness. They motivate us to desire God. They conform us to the sufferings of Christ. They drive us to prayer. They cause us to be humbled. They give us data with which, and experience with which we can help others. They cause us to be thankful for God's deliverance. They cause us to love God's grace, and to long for heaven.
And of course, God also works all things for good in eternity. Everything we go through is moving us ever closer to the ultimate glory of the presence of Jesus Christ and our own glorification. Nothing can withstand that.
the Spirit of God ministers to us in keeping us, in upholding us, in interceding for us, that we may be kept to that day of final glory. So what the verse is really saying is that nothing can happen to us to overrule God's ultimate plan for our good in Christ Jesus.
But there is a qualifier, or a "catch" - that promise is not for everyone. There are two qualifiers - this promise is for people who love God and people who are called - and really those are simply two sides of the same coin. People who love God are believers, Christians, the redeemed, children of God. From God's perspective, we are the ones He has called. Over and over again throughout the Bible, people of faith are identified as those who love and obey God. True salvation isn't just belief - because the demons believe and tremble, but certainly do not love God. True salvation produces people who love God, and true love is demonstrated in obedience. We cannot love Him perfectly here on earth, but we do love Him much and we are identified as those who love God.
We love God. When we love God we are thrilled with who He is, we trust in His power, we seek communion and relationship with Him, we experience peace within our soul, we are sensitive to God and what hurts Him (our sin!), we love what God loves, we love who God loves, we long for His return and, perhaps above all, we obey God and when we fail we repent because we long to be obedient.
How can we, mere humans, love like that? We certainly can't, not in our own power.
The only way we could choose to love God is for Him to love us first, to call us to come to Him. Many hear the external call but few are chosen, or hear the internal call. Many hear the gospel message, but few truly respond.
All things do work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose....The supreme illustration of that, in all of the eons of time, the supreme illustration of that is the death of Jesus Christ. The worst thing that ever happened in human history, the worst thing any person ever did turned out to be the best thing that ever happened. And that's how God works to overrule everything for our ultimate good and glory.
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