Sermon: Sunday, 16th February, 2025
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Romans 8:28
There are times in our lives when we wonder what on earth God is doing. I remember a Christian lady I knew who got cancer. Shortly after that she tragically lost her son. And not long after that she was brutally attacked. I don’t understand why all of these things happened to her. There’s great mystery in these events. There is no easy explanation to this level of suffering. I also remember my friend taking early retirement in order to get involved in a mission in central Europe. On his first trip he was in a car accident and died. This made no sense to me. Why had God allowed this to happen? To this day I do not know. There are a lot of things we don’t know the answers to. Satan wants us to focus on these things and have them drown out the things God has revealed to us!
We all have experienced suffering to one degree or another. We experience physical and mental ill health. Life can be full of disappointments, not working out as we had hoped. We face unemployment, addiction, bereavement, being mistreated by others, difficulties in our families and problems at work. Life as a Christian is never easy. We battle against sin and temptation and we fail on a daily basis. Have I cheered you up yet? It is no wonder that we groan (Romans 8:23), longing to be free from living in this fallen world, full of its pain and suffering.
When Christians go through times of suffering, we don’t always react in a godly way.
We might become bitter – feeling that life is just cruel.
We might feel distant from God – and feel that carrying on communicating with God is pointless.
Our prayer lives dry up.
We might feel that God doesn’t care. The disciples felt like that in the boat during the storm: – ‘Don’t you care if we drown?’ they ask Jesus. (See Mark 4:38)
What can keep us from doubting God’s love and goodness during our times of suffering? What’s the antidote to becoming disillusioned with God?
Well, God does not usually answer our ‘why’ questions. Why has this happened to me? Why has life worked out this way? Most of the time, we don’t know. But there is a reason to continue to trust our heavenly Father, even when things go wrong. Why should we trust Him? We trust him because of the magnificent promise he gives us here: ‘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.’ (Romans 8:28)
1. How Powerful is God?
This verse teaches us about the providence of God, one of the most helpful teachings God has given us to help us to trust in him.
Shorter Catechism
Q11: What are God’s works of providence?
A: God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.
In other words, God is in control of all of the events in our lives – good and bad. Life is not just down to chance. Our lives are not out of control. If we can believe the promise of this verse, it will transform the way we look at our suffering. It is a precious promise.
Let’s be careful we don’t misunderstand this verse. Paul is not saying that everything that happens to Christians is good. Many bad things happen to us. We are hurt by others and we experience much pain. What is he saying then? He’s saying something profound – all things, including bad things which happen to us, are ultimately working for our good. That means that although it seldom feels like it at the time, it is good that they have happened to us.
RC Sproul: ‘The bad that we experience is redeemed in the providence of God. This means that God brings good out of the evil we experience… These bad things are truly bad things. But they are only proximately bad things; they are not ultimately bad things. They are blessings in disguise.’
Many bad things happened to Joseph. He was hated by his brothers and sold into slavery. In one act of evil, he lost his freedom, his culture, his language, his family, and almost everything he had ever known. Whilst in Egypt, he was falsely accused and imprisoned. For years, he endured enormous suffering and pain. But Joseph did not become bitter towards God. He did not become disillusioned. Why not?
In Genesis 50, when Joseph considers all the suffering and pain he experienced at the hands of his brothers, he is able to see the providence of God in it all. He can see that God has been orchestrating everything that happened. ‘But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.’ (Genesis 50:19-20)
In Joseph’s life, God bends evil to accomplish his good purposes. Joseph’s family are saved from the famine. This is the family from which the Lord Jesus would come. Our view of what is happening in our lives is so limited. But God sees the whole of history and oversees all the details of the lives of his children.
Cancer is not good. Death is not good. The evil actions of others which hurt us are not good. But God is so powerful that even these things result in our good ultimately. Friends, this is God’s superintendence over your lives. His providence. His control. Nothing ever takes him by surprise and nothing can thwart his eternal purposes for us.
The best example of God working all things for the good of his own is found in the life of Christ himself. Many bad things happened to him. He is lied about. He is rejected and falsely accused and sentenced to death in a kangaroo court and mocked and flogged and brutally killed on the cross. Were those who handed Jesus over to be crucified responsible for his death? Of course they were. Their actions were wicked. However, we must also ask: was God in control? Did the crucifixion have a purpose? ‘This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.’ (Acts 2:23)
God worked the evil actions of Judas and Herod and Pilate and the Sanhedrin for good, resulting in the salvation of millions upon millions of people- as many as the stars in the sky. How powerful is God? So powerful that he bends evil for good. Yes, this is mysterious. Is this a God we can worship? A God who is that powerful? It certainly is.
Let’s spend the rest of our time focusing on Romans 8:28.
2. God is working for good
Imagine for a moment that there is no God. What could we say when going through pain and suffering? There would be no reason for the suffering. There would be no order to it. The events of our lives would just be random. We would be victims of chance. We would be without hope. Imagine that there is a God but that he is not sovereign and that he is not good. Again, our suffering would just be meaningless at best, or cruel at worst.
However, this truth is wonderful. God is not only involved in the details of those in the Bible, like Joseph and Moses and Jesus, but he is involved in the details of our lives too. God is working in your life. And because he is a good and compassionate and wise and all-powerful God, logically, he is working for our good. He promises this to be the case. God is very much ‘hands on’ in our lives.
However, we must be careful not to misuse or misunderstand this verse, thinking that everything that happens to us is good, especially with a narrow understanding of ‘good’. Our good is not the same thing as our pleasure or our happiness or our comfort.
Douglas Moo: ‘What God promises us in Romans 8:28 is not that every difficult experience will lead to something good in this life. The ‘good’ God may have in mind may involve the next life entirely. He may take us out of a secure, well-paying job in order to shake us out of a materialistic lifestyle that does not honour biblical priorities and we may never have a good job again’.
I believe Moo is right. It will not be until eternity that we will understand many of the things which happened to us in this life. Joseph was blessed enough to see some of the reasons why God has allowed him to suffer; but remember that for years and years, he had no idea why. And many of us will not know why in this lifetime.
What is the ‘good’ God ultimately has in mind for us? It is not health and wealth in this life. The purpose is given as follows: ‘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.’ (Romans 8:29) God’s plan for us is to mould our characters into the character of Jesus. He wants to make you more like Jesus. Making us more like Jesus will involve massive work on God’s part, and suffering is one of the tools he uses for that. ‘… we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.’ (Romans 5:3-4) God is like a master sculptor, chipping away at all that is amiss in our lives.
Sometimes as children we are asked, ‘What would you like to be when you grow up?’ We might want to be a vet or a nurse or an engineer or a painter and decorator. But when we ‘grow up’ spiritually, we will all be like Jesus. And we will be part of a great family gathering in Heaven, where we will all be the people God intended us to be. (See Romans 8:29) And Jesus will be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, including us if we love Jesus. That’s what things are working towards. That the ultimate ‘good’ God is working towards, and it will be for His glory.
3. God is working all things together for good.
The word ‘all’ is both a challenging and comforting word. ‘All’, of course, includes the good and the bad experiences in our lives. It even includes our sins. He can work them for good.
David’s sin of murder and adultery was a great evil. But did God work it for good? I believe he did.
What about Peter’s denial of Jesus? Peter learned many tough lessons through that sin, resulting in his spiritual maturity.
Robert Haldane: ‘It is not sin in itself that works the good, but God who overrules its effects to His children, shows them, by means of it, what is in their hearts, as well as their entire dependence on Himself, and the necessity of walking with him more closely. Their falls lead them to humiliation, to the acknowledgement of their weakness and depravity, to prayer for the guidance and overpowering influence of the Holy Spirit, to vigilance and caution against all carnal security, and to reliance on that righteousness provided for their appearance before God.’
Of course, this truth should never cause us to take sin lightly. We must always battle against sin. But what a wonderful thing to know that God’s promise here is so powerful that nothing in our lives is wasted with God, not even our sins. We don’t say ‘everything happens for a reason’ just to make ourselves feel better, but because it is the truth, even if we cannot understand how this could possibly be so until we are in Heaven.
Think of all the things you have gone through in your life. They have a reason and a purpose in God’s hands. Paul himself knew this to be true. He had a painful condition which he called his ‘thorn in the flesh’ but that too had a purpose, so that he would not become proud and so that he would experience even more of the grace and love of God. That did not mean it was easy for Paul. In fact, it was so painful that he begged and begged for the thorn to be removed. God is using your depression for good and your failures for good and the hurt in your family for good and the closed doors of opportunity for good. Do you believe that? That is the promise. Trust in it.
4. The qualification of this promise.
This promise is not for everyone – it is only for Christians.
‘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.’ (Romans 8:28)
Sometimes, people who aren’t Christians say, ‘Everything happens for a reason’. But the promise of God working for good is only for those who love Jesus. It’s an exclusive promise. Christians are not just those who believe in God. They are those who love God. We don’t love him perfectly, but we love him who gave his one and only Son to die on the cross for us. And the reason we love Him is because he first loved us and called us into the circle of his love.
Do you want to be able to claim this magnificent promise today? Then you need to be on the narrow road that leads to eternal life. You need to be able to say like the psalmist: in Psalm 116: ‘I love the Lord because He heard my voice; he listened when I cried to Him for aid.’ (Psalm 116:1)
Challenge: can you rest in this wonderful promise. If you can say that you love Jesus, there is great peace to found, even right in the middle of our suffering.