“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

WE come now to this wonderful verse which has been a source of comfort and strength to God’s people all down the ages. It is another of the many blessings from the Holy Spirit which the apostle Paul opens up to us in this glorious chapter. The strength and power in this revelation is not only in the words of the verse itself, but in the foundation of the blessing revealed in the next two verses also. These following verses are a cause of problems to many Christians, but if we are not prepared to submit to the revelation given us in verses 29 and 30, much, if not all, of the strength on verse 28 is removed.

ALL THINGS.

The first thing we need to understand, if we are to appreciate this verse and all it teaches, is the importance of taking hold of the meaning of the words ‘all things’.

It is easy enough to believe that God is working for our good when things are going well, but is it also true that God is working for our good if things are not going well, and we are facing trials and difficulties. The truth is that nothing can be excluded from the meaning of the words ‘all things’. In fact God works for our good in a much greater a way when things are difficult for us than when all is going well. When things are easy, we tend to free wheel in our Christian life, and so growth is slow if at all. However when we are suffering in some way, we seek the Lord and seek for answers. By this we learn to grow spiritually.

All things means all things in our lives. It means all things that happen and occur in our lives. This includes all the trials and sufferings we experience and have to face. It includes sickness. It includes persecution. It includes difficult circumstances we have to face and go through. It includes also our sins and failures.

Can our sins and failures be included? This seems very hard to accept. We may well accept that trials, difficulties, and persecutions are included. We can accept that sickness of mind and body is also included. But can we really include our sins? The fact is that if ‘all things’ really means what it says, it must include everything that happens to us in life, and so must included our sins.

This does not mean that God is responsible for our sins. We are solely responsible for our sins and all the evil that we do. But this does not negate the truth that even our sins are made by God to work for our good. We may not be able to see this at the time, but later, or perhaps only in heaven, we will see that this has been true. Even if God does not create the evil, he does create the consequences and order the consequences that follow for the Christian when they sin.

APPRECIATING THE GOOD IN THE ‘ALL THINGS’.

What is the good that we receive through the difficult experiences in our life?

Take first of all the problem of being allowed to fall into sin, and sometimes grievous sin. The parable of the Prodigal Son or better the Lost Son is very helpful here. This is a well known parable of Jesus. I am beginning to see that it holds teaching that we grow into all through our lives. The son was very wilful. He wanted to go his own way. He took all that his father gave him and wasted it. He forgot his father in the doing of this. But we need to notice that he is always called a son. While he was wasting his life and substances he forgot about his father, but when he found himself in need, he remembered his father. This is significant. He also looked to his father in his need. Further when the father was explaining the reason for the festivities, he speaks of the prodigal as his son, though lost for a time. The father never ceased to own his son, or ceased to love his son.

Then we see that the father did not resist the will of the prodigal son. The father just divided the inheritance, and allowed him to do his own thing. Why did he not refuse the inheritance? Or why did he not just do something else to stop his son behaving foolishly and badly? The story would suggest that the father had authority to do so, yet he did not. Think for a moment of the result of the father preventing his son from going off. The son would have begun to resent his father at the least, and perhaps turned against him altogether. Even if he had submitted to authority he would have done it out of compulsion and not love.

Far from allowing the son to wander off and make a complete mess of his life, the father taught the son things he would never have learnt at home. He would not have learnt the sinfulness of his heart. He would not have learnt his weakness and folly. He would not have learnt to be humble and contrite before his father. Further to this, when he did repent and return to his father, the lost son learnt how much his father loved him, and of his father’s mercy and graciousness which he could not have learnt in any other way. His actions in leaving his father and wasting his inheritance was very bad and his own fault, but the father allowed him to sin in this way for the greater good that resulted.

Finally, the son would serve his father and obey his father henceforth, not from duty, but for love. Having appreciated the greatness of his father's love for him, his love for his father would have grown. Also what wonderful blessing and joy the lost son experienced when he did repent and return. There was a knowledge of his father after he returned that the elder son who had remained never learnt. The elder son showed that he had learnt little and grown little.

It is true that if human beings began to act like God acts sometimes in allowing us to fall into sin we would without doubt do great damage. With God it is different. His wisdom and love is infinite, and his love is everlasting. If he allows us to be wayward, also he has promised never to lose us or let us go. Paul tells us in Hebrews 12 that God chastens us for our good, and because he loves us.

Then there is the fact of trials, difficulties, and even sickness which we are called to endure and suffer. These things are hard to bear. They seem to be undeserved and without purpose. We are not able to understand them, but they do work for our good.

The case of Job is a very good example. Satan was permitted by God to afflict Job, and although the suffering was awful, yet in the end Job came through with greater blessing and understanding than before. He knew God more deeply. He had learnt humility. God also blessed him more than before.

Then there is the testimony of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians. He was sent a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him. We are wisely not told exactly what this thorn in the flesh was. I believe we are not supposed to speculate about it. We may be sent a thorn in the flesh, which would be something entirely different, but the purpose would be for our good. For Paul God told him that he had to endure the thorn, and God was not going to grant his request to have it removed. Why was this? It was because Paul needed to be kept humble and dependent on God, specially after the exalted experience he had been given. Paul was taught by God through this thorn that God’s strength was made perfect in Paul’s weakness. Paul learnt to trust and rest in God which he could have learnt in no other way.

We could multiply such illustrations but perhaps enough has been said to cause us to always trust God, and rest on his purpose and love, even when we are suffering.

WE KNOW.

This expression used by Paul in this verse needs to be noted carefully. It tells us that God does not act in our lives, specially in things that are difficult and painful, without giving us an explanation. Paul is appealing to this and reminding us of it.

It is true that often we have said and complained ‘Why is God doing this to me’; or ‘Why is God allowing this to happen to me’. The truth is that we know that it is for our good.

At first in the early part of our Christian journey the knowing is not so clear, but experience makes things certain. We prove God to be faithful because he does bring us through better and more blessed. There is also the testimony of the Spirit who bears witness with our Spirit that we are God’s children and therefore loved and protected everlastingly.

The Spirit’s testimony commences with the Bible. He leads us to understand that God is watching over his people. He leads us to understand that Jesus will never leave us or forsake us, and so what happens to us, in the end, must be for our good. He leads us to examples of things in the life of the saints of old, and how they turned out, and so we see that God works things for the good of his people.

Through the Spirit we hear the words of Jesus that the Christian life is taking up a cross; and that the world will hate us as it hated Jesus, and so on. From all this when we stop and think in times of need and pain, we know that God is working all things for our good, and so we can go forward with assurance. This knowing is a fact of being born again and children of God.

WHO THE PROMISE IS FOR.

We need to note this carefully. The promise is limited to a certain sort of person. It is not true to say that God is working for the good of all. He is only working for the good of those who love him, and are his called ones. In fact for the rest of the world’s population, until they become ones who are called and so love God, God does not work for their good, but rather works wrath towards them, and unless they repent and turn to the Lord, God will work for them final damnation. When people gain their millions and live easily and have good health, and also have all they want; it seems it seems to me this is God’s wrath, because it keeps them in the broad way that leads to destruction.

It is only those who love God that are so blessed. But notice the fact that the reference here is to those who love God. Why did Paul not say ‘those who trust in Jesus’, or ‘those who are disciples of Jesus’, or some other such expression. After all he is speaking of Christians, and saying that Christians know God is working for their good.

The fact of the matter is that loving God is the only real test of the reality of our Christian profession. Love for God reveals that faith in Jesus as Saviour is real. People can say that they believe, but their faith may be shallow like the seed sown on shallow rocky ground, or may be like seed sown on ground full of weeds. Faith in these situations always ends in disaster and is proved to be spurious. Good seed always brings forth the harvest of love for God and for Jesus, which is seen in a life which seeks to be Christ like and show love by obedience.

This is very challenging and searching, but we need to face it. Unless we love God and Jesus, there is no sure indication that we are children of God. True children of God have the spirit of adoption and by the Holy Spirit come to God as our dear Dad - Abba Father. Loving God means a desire to please our dear Father.

CONCLUSION.