All Things Working Together For Good | Romans 8:28 | Pastor John Miller

romans 8 28 paul says for we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose if you are a child of God you not only have a new life you have a new relationship you have a new hope you have a new help but tonight in romans 8 28 we begin to section of a new knowledge and that runs from verse 28 down to verse 30 paul says we know that all things work together for good to those who love god and are the called according to his purpose as christians we have absolute assurance of God's and i'm going to call it providential care now the word Providence is not in the Bible but the concept is from Genesis to Revelation so we can be sure of as God's people of God's providential care that every circumstance of our lives are under the control of an all-wise all-powerful all-knowing all loving father in heaven now that ought to just bring joy to your heart if you are his child nothing can come into your life but what it has to be filtered through your father who is in heaven every hurt every pain every heartache every situation every circumstance must be filtered through and under the control of God your father who is in heaven now Paul in Philippians chapter 1 verse 6 another verse that I would use to parallel with romans 8 28 he said being confident romans 8 28 says and we know Paul in Roman or Philippians chapter 1 verse 6 as we are confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ you ever started a project and never finished it i have i've got something that still really bothers me when I was a teenager I promised my mom that I would paint the house I got it half painted than went surfing and I'm not exaggerating for years and years the house was half painted I just said that's what you called the half paint look it's a new style you know you just paint half the house and I'll be honest when I get to heaven I'm gonna have to apologize to my mom mom I'm sorry I never finished painting that house for you and maybe you start to read a book I do this all the time start to read a book and you poop out about halfway through or you have a project I'm going to are you I'm going to go to the gym four days a week and you go about once a year and you set out to do something you never finished now I say that because God doesn't do that when God starts something God finishes it amen and he which hath begun a good work in you will complete it unto the day of Jesus Christ what begins with grace will end in glory beginning of grace is the end of glory what God starts in your life God will complete God will bring you to glory and you can rest in that all the way through Romans opens with no condemnation it ends with no separation and in between there is no defeat and we're in a marvelous section of the book of Romans that you don't want to miss the next few Wednesday nights and so Paul introduces us to five facts about God's providential care in verse 20 if you're taking notes I want you to write them down and this isn't just a cutesy little outline or a great little homolytic way to divide it up these are essential points that are from this text that if you get them it'll transform your life the first fact of God's providential care by the way providential care means that God is ruling and rain and working in your life that God is providentially overseeing guiding protecting watching over your life the first fact I see is it certainty write that down we can be sure and certain that God is providentially caring for me this is seen in the phrase verse 28 all these points are drawn from verse 28 and we know stop right there and we know we know what was it we know we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose you know there's things that we don't know but this is something we do know if you back up in the text and verse 28 or verse 26 excuse me he says likewise also the spirit helps our infirmities for we know not verse 26 what we should pray as we are but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered now he's speaking about the sufferings that will lead to the glory and at the end of this section he comes into verse 28 all things including the sufferings and one of the problems that we have in this world right now is that we're limited with knowledge and we don't always know God's will and we don't always know how to pray according to the will of God but we have a helper it's the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit groans within us now we're groaning but it's a kind of a joint participation of the Spirit of God working in the child of god groaning according to the will of God I'll never forget my dad it's just a great great man of Prayer knee he's still alive he's still with us he's 90 years old and but he's just a man of prayer and there were so many times that I would listen to him praying and he would just stop saying words and just start to cry and just start to groan and start to agonize before the Lord I'm sure that a lot of those grown ones were for his son that God would work in his son's life as a matter of fact during my wayward yours my dad went away to a men's retreat like the ones we have and he tells me the story after my conversion he says that a group of men went up on a mountain and they all band together and began to pray for their prodigal sons I was one of them and God answered that prayer and I'm here today because of those prayers so if you're a mother or a father and you got a prodigal son or daughter the Holy Spirit groans he groans within you and you intercede from your heart but what a neat thing to know that he comes along to help me my weaknesses and you don't know how to pray you don't know what you should pray but he's helping you but there is something we do know we do know we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose now we can't tarry too long on this point but I want to point out what he doesn't say he doesn't say we see he doesn't say and we see all things working together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose have you ever been going through a difficult time and you've actually said god I don't see what you're doing I don't see how any good can come out of this I don't see why you allowed it I don't understand I don't know lord I just can't comprehend and that's that's because we walk by faith not by sight and even though we can't see all things working together for good we can know and notice he doesn't say and we feel all things are working together for good to those who love God and are called according to us but we can't see what God is doing and we don't always feel God working I've been there a thousand times god I can't I can't see I can't see what good can come out of this I don't see your purpose or your plan and God I don't feel you I I I don't sense your presence anymore in my life and I just feel that you're so far and I don't sent your peace or I back to joy of the Lord and I don't feel all things but we do know all things there's a vast difference you say well how do we know all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose well the answer to that could be quite lengthy but let me give you a couple quick points we know that because of God's person God is the one working all things together for good and God is good amen if everything that comes into my life must be filtered through God and I believe god is good god can let out nothing in my life but what it will serve a good purpose for my good and for his glory when I face a reversal or an opposition or a seemingly tragedy or I don't see or feel what God is doing I fall back on what I do know that God is good and I can trust him the second way that we know that all things work together for good is again God's promises God has given to us his word and the Bible tells me that all things work together for good and I believe it God said it I believe it that settles that they meant so I know that he's a good God and I know his word is true and he can be trusted and relied upon and then the third answer is of course based on that as we know by faith that's the simple answer we know by faith because we trust his person and we rest in his promises someone said I know not where as Islands lift their fondant palms in the air I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care how good that is even if you're in the hospital or you've lost employment or you have a rebellious teenager God is in control and you can rest in him and know for sure the second thing I see about God's providence in this verse is the extent of his providential care and this is a but it says in verse 28 all things now I looked up that phrase in the Greek and you know what it means it means all things that awesome all things actually means all things every event of our life is under his beneficent sovereign control even our suffering as he mentioned it back in verse 17 he says if we suffer with him we will be glorified together and even our groanings in verse 23 and in verse 26 when we grown it is all according to his will and he is working all things bereavement illness disappointment children who caused us pain lack of fruit and Christian service everything comes under this heading all things I love with Ozil sander said he said the circumstances of the Christians life are ordained of God there is no such thing as chance love refuses to believe that God is not interested in every detail of life everything is permitted and designed by him for his wise purposes he will not cease his supervision for one moment and to that i say Amen and amen and amen jesus said it like this not one sparrow falls to the ground but what God knows about it right some said God attends the funeral of every Sparrow and guess what you're more value than many sparrows the Bible says not one here falls from your head but what God takes note of that some of you old-timers don't put much make him make it very hard on God he looks at your head and just goes to 0 used to have waves and all you have is the beach but I want you to know is those hairs disappeared you go yeah it's easy for you to say faster jump every hair that comes off your head God actually changes in this calculator you punches the number and he knows how many hairs are on your head it's really a figure of speech for saying God is concerned about every detail of your life so whatever it is that's bothering you right now God is in control it's part of this providential care all things literally means all things we don't need to be afraid God is in control let me mention the third aspect of God's providential care it says in verse 28 that they work together notice that little phrase work together you need to understand that individually and separately and by themselves these all things may not be working for good but God is able to take everything in your life and he homogenizes that he blends it together and he works it together for your good now lest I forget I think it's a little later in my message this evening but lest I forget let me make this clear that all things includes what we would call bad things like I said bereavement and loss and pain and disappointment and lack of fruit and Christians or whatever it might be that saddens our heart that would be included in all things but what God does is he takes all these things and he works them together for our good and for his glory now something by itself may not be what we call good but when God is working together he produces good out of it in other words rather than not allow evil to exist God chose to bring good out of evil we know that God intermingles all things for good to those who love him and one of the best illustrations there's many but is out of cooking and I'm not a cook by any stretch of the imagination but you people that take ingredients raw ingredients like maybe when you make a cake and you blend the flour and the sugar and I don't even know what goes in a cake okay I should have done a little research on my illustration but you know you take all this stuff and you know you blend it together and your pop it in the oven and you bake it now it comes a delicious cake I know the eating part I don't know the cooking part but if you were to just take raw flour and go throw it in your mouth or take some other ingredients that you use for making a cake and try to eat it separated from the rest of the ingredients baked in the oven and you try to eat it would be horrible so life is full of these bitter experiences but when God puts them together in our lives and then he puts it in the oven and he blends it together and works together it comes out for our good he's working continuously and he is working purposely and I believe that he's working seasonally that there are seasons to life you know if our lives were all summer then it would not be that great III love the fall if I just picked the time of the year my favorite is autumn or fall and even winter way over summer and I just kind of have to I just kind of persevere through the summers and i can't wait for you know october to come and november to come and what a blessing that is but you know your life is like seasons you have life is like season i'm living in barstow all and august all year round and I don't believe that I believe that God kind of has seasons to our lives and periods to our life and when he teaches us and makes us and shapes as molds us and there's periods to our life and I believe it a Christian every stage and phase of your life is marvelously and beautifully controlled by the providential care of God let me give you my fourth point tonight from romans 8 28 about god's providence and that is results of his providential care the results of God's providential care are seen in that little phrase for good and we know all things work together next phrase for good why is God working in my life not to destroy you not to ruin you not because he's mad at you not because he hates you but he wants to make you like Jesus Christ one of the most important things for do you understand is once you become a Christian you begin a lifelong process known as sanctification and the goal of sanctification is likeness to Jesus and you will not be perfectly like Jesus until you are glorified so it starts with justification we get this enrollment we are declared righteous and then it moves into sanctification we live righteously and then it moves into glorification and that's when we're free from sin we're in the presence of God and we're perfectly like Jesus Christ but the goal of sanctification and what God is doing in your life tonight is trying to make you like Jesus if you were to come up to me tonight say pastor john i don't know what god is doing in my life I don't know what God's will is from my life I can give you the answer you know what is this he's working in your life to make you like Jesus do you want to be like Jesus I want to be like Jesus now there's a big gap between me and Jesus and I got a long ways to go but to be like Jesus to see how he sees to feel how he feels to live the way Jesus live that's that's my prayer and only the Holy Spirit can produce that in my life and for that to happen I have to spend time in the word have to spend time in prayer and then God has to allow suffering and sorrow and difficulty and sometimes even misunderstanding and rejection and bereavement and loss and pain and other disappointments because he's molding and shaping and chipping and trimming some of you he's dynamiting why am I always going through a suffering and difficulties because you got a lot of stuff to blow up in your life there's a lot of rough corners they need to be knocked off and the sooner we surrender to Him and yield to him the sooner he can mold as and make us and shape us look at verse 29 back up in Romans 8 2 verse 29 verse 29 are not back up but go ahead excuse me he says for whom he did foreknow this is next week study he did predestinate to be conformed here it is to be conformed into the image of his son that he might that you might be the firstborn among many brethren that is what God is doing in your life we want to know who do i marry what job do I get how many kids do I have what kind of car to buy but Jesus is concerned about making you like him God is working to produce Christ's likeness in your life here's another quote one of my favorite by oswald sanders he said every adverse experience when rightly received catch that rightly received can carry its quota of good bodily pain weakness cause us to feel off frailty perplexity reveals our lack of wisdom financial reverses point up how limited our resources our mistakes and failures humble our pride all these things can be included in the term good Paul said God gave me a thorn in my flesh a messenger of Satan to buffett me theologians have been perplexed since Paul wrote those words what specifically was his thorn in his flesh the answer we don't know just thought i'd share that with you he's not always going to tell us what the thorn was we don't know i think fittingly so so that we could all identify with it Paul's thorn was some weakness in his flesh but God gave it to him God it gives only good gifts now in the context we know why God gave it to him we don't know what it was but we didn't know why God gave it to him you know why God gave it to to keep him humble yeah I'm not interested in being humble I'm interested in being comfortable there's your problem if you don't value character then your trials are going to upset you if you value character over comfort then you will accept sorrows and allow them to make you more like Jesus and you'll come out better rather than bitter if your highest goal in life is to be comfortable rather than to be conformable then you're going to be bothered all the way through life with everything that upsets you but if your goal in life is to be like him to be like Jesus to be like Jesus Christ then get ready to be thrown into the tumbler get ready to go through the fire get ready to go through sorrow and suffering a loss because God is going to answer that prayer and he's going to mold you and shape you and make you more like Jesus Christ but we need to rightly respond to what we might say is bad now in and of themselves like the ingredients in a cake they may be bad but when they're put together by God in our life they are working together for our good here's the fifth and the last point I want to make in romans 8 28 about the Providence of God and that is that it has limitations it has limitations and that there are the objects of his providential care listed in those for whom all things work together for good now all things is unlimited but the objects of his providential care are limited and he describes them in verse 28 them that love God first of all for whom dissolve things work together for good to those who love God and then secondly to those who are called according to his purpose you know the more I think about it the more more blown away I am by it and one of my prayers tonight was is that I wouldn't get in the way of this text one of the hardest things to do to preach of text like that is not messing it up is not taking an amazing text and confusing people or clouding it up I want to be clear when it comes to this text and let the text speak and in this statement them that love God I believe this was all my heart if you want to have all that God wants for you and you want to have amazing life beyond your wildest dream and your craziest comprehensions you want to be blessed out of your socks or out of your flip-flops or out of your Nikes or whatever you got on your feet I don't know love God with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself on this hangs all the law and the prophets if you love God with all your heart nothing bad can happen to you you I can love God my car still blows up I still love God and my cars on my my kids aren't walking the way I really wanted him to I can love God and I was just diagnosed with cancer yeah but nothing bad is going to happen to you because God is working all things together for your good and for his glory and I believe that with all my heart I was meeting with a young guy from our church the other day he was not married and I just felt impelled to say to him I said look I'll give you I'll give you one of the ingredients too happy lamb I'm like twice your age and then down the road a little bit let me give you some advice love God with all your heart all your strength all your soul I'm I don't let anything get in the way of your passion and your devotion and your love for God because you love God you're going to seek him in his word if you love god you're going to pray if you love god you're going to be in church if you love god you're going to marry somebody that loves God if you love god you're going to be the parent you God wants you to be the worker to God once the servant God wants you everything in life is going to come into line if you just love God so if you're struggling tonight with your life and the priorities of your life and seems like your life is kind of helter skelter and it doesn't make sense and you don't know why all these things are happening check your motive times they don't do I love God supremely do I just say I love God but I don't really love him by my actions the way I've spend my time we spend my money the way I spend my resources do they manifest that I really do truly love God I believe that if we just love God I think of my children my grandchildren I want the best for them I want them to have a wonderful life and if they could just do this one thing and love God just love God with all they've got that's all that that's all they need to do it's great to go to college it's great to do this and achieve great things but you know what if we just walk humbly with our God and love God you're going to be okay life is going to be blessed so those with whom God is working for good are those who love God and it is our love for God that's referred to in that verse the Bible is all about the love of God for us here in this love not that we loved God but that he loved us and gave himself for us but this is a verse that actually says that those for whom all things work together for good are those who love God and then secondly we're called according to his purpose now from a theological perspective you might say loving God is man's part called according to his purpose is God's part God calls us and we love him so God's love for us is the love that we respond to so we're responding to God's love for us John Stott said God God's love for us found expression in his eternal purpose and this historical call so God has a saving purpose and is working in accordance with it life is not the random random mess which it may seem to appear so God in His love calls us and we in our response love him with all our heart soul strength and mine now this is referring to Christians them that love God and are called according to his purpose is referring to Christians that is true that you could be a Christian and your love for God can grow cold but in this passage it's using these phrases them who love God called according to his purpose for Christians why do I emphasize that because this promise is not just for the deeper life club this promise is not for the super Saints so if you're a Christian tonight but you don't really love God then you can't claim this promise now I have to be honest here that this phrase is referring to Christians there's a lot of statements in the Bible about Christians that Christians don't often realize it's all-inclusive it's all or nothing if you're a child of god you're described year as loving God and your described here is called according to his purpose and then he goes into the five unbreakable chains for this child of God in verse 29 for whom he did foreknow them he also predestined to be conformed into the image of his son that they might be the firstborn among many brother moreover verse 30 whom he did predestinate them he also called link number 3 in the chain and whom he called them he also justified link number 4 in the chain and whom he justified them he what you've heard me make the statement that what begins with grace ends in glory that's what this verse is teaching he calls you it'll end in glorification these are five links in the chains that cannot be broken whom he calls them he justifies whom he justifies them he glorifies he predetermines what he's going to do with this make us like Jesus and then he will glorify you one day marvelous marvelous marvelous marvelous text it's referring to every child of God now the Bible is full of examples and we can't tarry on them but I'm going to mention them and then we'll wrap this up take Jacob for example in the Old Testament remember when Jacobs beloved son Joseph was sold by his brother the boys came home with that coat that is their dad had made for him they tore it up and they put Rams or goats blood on it and they gave it to their dad would you say that's a bad experience he didn't know but we know the story but didn't know he thought his beloved son was killed by an animal killed by wild beasts and then Joseph went to Egypt and he was sold by Potiphar and he went into that thing there and then the famine came and the boys had to go down and they went down and then one of the other sons was put in prison and they come back and all these things were happening and I say all this to get to the point Jacob when he was just overwhelmed he made this damages all these things are against me and I when I read that I think man I've been there everyone's against me all these things are against me nothing seems to go right all these things against me but we know that God was working behind the scene and that God was working all things for his good if you could jump into the story say Jacob know all these things are not against you God has a plan Joseph is still alive he's down in Egypt he's actually second to Pharaoh he's got a beautiful crash pad down there he's got all the grain and corn it unique and you're going to go to Egypt and he's going to feed you and take care of you and it gonna be having is gonna be awesome Joseph just hang in there buddy it's all going to work out you see the problem is is we can't see the end of the story we're just looking at it from from right where we can and Slyke all these things are against me know they're not behind this thing God is working and then how about Joseph Jacob Joseph would you say that it's a bad thing to have your brother's cell you can you kind of imagine being at a support group sharing what you've been through so Joseph what's your story yeah when I was about 13 my brothers sold me I was taken away to Mexico and I became a slave you know they went to Egypt he got purchased and then he got a job and things were going somewhat smooth and then Potiphar his wife you know lied about him and he was arrested and thrown in prison and he was in prison and after all that time and all those heartaches and all those bitter experiences you know his God was working them together and baking it together Joseph said you meant it for evil but God intended it for what good I thank God for the bitter things they'd been a friend to grace they drive me from the path of these to storm the secret place thank God for bitter things they drive you into the presence of God and on your knees Joseph Jacob then there was Jeremiah who lamented and cried in the kind of place of the Lord he said I know the plans I have for you God speaking through Jeremiah declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a future hope and then last but not least as I said we could go on for some time but last were not least and this is one of those just amazing ideas that all of this could be wrapped up in the cross of Jesus Christ and this introduces us to our communion tonight they rejected him they spit upon him they mocked him they crucify him he suffered and he died and he was buried in a tomb go bad really bad He healed the sick he gave sight to the blind he raised the dead he spake like never man spake we had hoped he was the Messiah we had hoped in him and now he's crucified remember the two on the Emmaus Road how downcast they were you might feel how this is so bad this is so bad and when you look at the cross from a human perspective you would classify that as being a bad thing but what did God do through the cross the greatest victory the greatest victory in human history or in the whole plan of purpose of God in redeeming mankind took place in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ all of history revolves around Mount Calvary and what in a human perspective was the greatest defeat and tragedy God turned around and brought salvation and brought hope and brought healing and one day even creation is going to be restored through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ upon the cross we cannot even begin to fathom or comprehend how God took what seemed to be a tragedy the death of Jesus Christ and he turned it around and out of that came salvation for the whole world and I think that in that there is a principle that sorrow and suffering leads to glory that God reverses what is bad and he uses it for our good and for his glory and that's why when Paul comes to the end of this doctrinal section of the book of Romans in the 11th chapters o the depth of the wisdom of the knowledge of God how unsearchable errs ways they're just past finding out of him and through him or to him are all things to him be glory both now and forever forever and ever Paul Paul basically in those words just kind of blew up he goes I just I just can't even fathom how amazing God's wisdom and even in the world today we look at the world and we owe the tragedy in the sorrow and the hurt and the pain there's a new world coming Jesus Christ is going to return and he's going to set up his kingdom and he's going to rain and righteous it's that kind of flow into the eternal state so sorrow and suffering and tragedy God uses for good so take this verse memorized it put it to memory and remember that all things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose let's pray

Channel: Revival Christian Fellowship

Views: 8,885

Rating: 4.8198199 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: aj61A1ojL_s

Length: 39min 1sec (2341 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 10 2016