All things work for Good

Romans 8:28

All things work good!

Romans 8:28-30, 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. 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. 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 whole of Scripture was a feast for the soul then Romans 8 was the main dish. Paul, in the epistle to the Romans, is discussing the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. He talks about man's condition in sin in the first three chapters.

Towards the end of chapter 3 and all the way through chapter 7 he talks about justification and its fruits. In chapter 8 he gives to us the great reality that justification is eternal, that whoever the Lord justifies He glorifies.

We are eternally secure and will persevere in faith to the end. That great truth of chapter 8 is summarized in those three verses. They sum up the whole doctrine of eternal security. ➢ Whoever the Lord foreknew He predestined, ➢ Whoever He predestined He called, ➢ Whoever He called He justified, and ➢ Whoever He justified He glorified.

Nobody is lost in the process and that is because "God causes all things to work together for their good." Justification is eternal. The Holy Spirit who secures us in a no-condemnation status. We will never be condemned. We are secured eternally as justified in a no-condemnation status because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

V 2-3, the Holy Spirit who frees us from sin and death. V 4, the Holy Spirit who grants to us the fulfilment of the law by giving us the righteousness of Christ. V 5-11, The Holy Spirit changes our nature. V 12-13, the Holy Spirit empowers us for victory over sin.

V 14-16, Holy Spirit confirms our adoption as children of God. V 17-27, the Holy Spirit who guarantees our eternal glory.

So, the Holy Spirit does this securing work, keeping us in a no- condemnation status. V 28, very familiar to Christians, is perhaps the most highly regarded of all promises that believers enjoy because it is so comprehensive.

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. "All things"there that is so comforting. The security of the believer.

• The extent,
• The recipients,
• The source.

The certainty of security comes in verses 29 and 30. The extent of security; it covers all things. The recipients of this security: Those who love God. The source of their security: They are called. The certainty of their security: Whoever He foreknew and whoever He predestined and whoever He called and whoever He justified, and He glorified.

The extent of our security.

How secure are we? "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good." That is the extent of our security.

• No matter what pain,
• no matter what problems,
• no matter what failures,
• no matter what difficulties,
• no matter what disasters,
• no matter what sins,
• no matter what suffering,
• no matter what temptation,

All things work together for good. The extent has no limits. There is nothing that qualifies the "all things." Absolutely, all things work together for good. God takes anything and everything that occurs in a believer's life. God makes it work together for the believer's ultimate good.

This is the greatest promise that we can have in this life. There are absolutely no limits on this statement in this context. It is limitless. V 32, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

If God would give us the best gift, which is His Son, to save us when we were sinners, won't God do whatever is necessary to keep us now that we are His? He will freely, without restraint, give us all things, whatever the extent, whatever the amount, whatever the intensity, it all is woven together by God for our good.

The verse starts with this confidence, "And we know..." This isn't something that is

• ambiguous.
• possibility.
• potential.

This is something that we know that God causes all things to work together.

"Work together,"it's the Greek verb from which we get “synergism.” Everything is synergistic, everything blends, and operates cooperatively.

Psalm 25:10, All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies. That is an Old Testament parallel promise, to those who are His, who keep His covenant, who believe in Him, who follow Him, all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.

All things then are synergized by God, woven together, brought together to produce good. All things are not necessarily good in themselves. But God takes all things and weaves them into what is good. Agathon, the Greek word means "good in the purest and truest sense,"what is morally good, what is practically good.

kalos, is another Greek word and it means "what is beautiful, or what looks good, outward goodness, outward beauty." God is taking everything that happens in the believer's life, no matter what it is, and effecting out of it ultimate good, moral good, practical good.

Kalos appeals to the eye, Agathos appeals to the soul. No matter what happens in your life it will turn out good. That is the reason you could never lose your salvation because no matter what happens it turns out Good. V 35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

V 34, Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. If everything works together for good, then nothing could possibly cause us to lose our salvation.

God calls, justifies, glorifies, and nobody falls through the cracks, everything is causing ultimately their eternal good.

Deuteronomy 8:16, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—

Psalm 145:7, They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, And shall sing of Your righteousness.

God is good.

Jeremiah 24:5-7, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans. ⁶ For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. ⁷ Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.

The Israelites were taken into captivity who will come back, and He says in spite of their sin, in spite of having to be taken away, I will do good to them. It is the character, and the nature of God to express Himself in goodness toward those upon whom He sets His love.

He is a God of goodness.

Genesis 50:20, But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.

God makes things turn out good.

It's not automatic, it is by the working of the Holy Spirit that it happens. V 26, we don't know how to pray so the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. We don't know how to hold on to our salvation.

We don't know how to hold onto our faith. We don't know how to confront the issues of life. We don’t know how to battle the kingdom of darkness. We don’t know how to avoid the temptations that would absolutely overwhelm us.

So, the Spirit of God is there, constantly interceding for us in this groaning before the throne of God. God, who searches the hearts, knows what the mind of the Spirit is because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The Holy Spirit is always interceding for us, praying, and coming before the throne of God in perfect harmony with God's will.

What is God's will? Being predestined, called, justified, and to being glorified.

✓ God's will that nobody gets lost in the process. ✓ The will of Jesus is that He wanted to keep all that the Father gave Him. ✓ The Spirit is the one who works out that will of God and that desire of Christ by holding onto us, interceding for us incessantly as the great Priest who dwells within us.

The yearning of the Holy Spirit, the groaning is that we would come to final glory. He is interceding always with these inexpressible communions between the Trinity that we might be brought to glory. Because of that that verse 28 is true, all things are working together for good because the Holy Spirit is interceding for us.

Because the Son at the right hand of God is interceding for us as our lawyer of defence and our advocate against any who would come to condemn us. Because the purposes of God are being carried out. The whole of the Trinity is in harmony that all who have been predestined before the foundation of the world will be brought to glory, that plan is unfolding.

Due to the consummate cooperative work of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, everyone who truly comes to faith in Christ will be brought to glory.

1 John 2:19, They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

Why? Because that's the Father's plan and will. The Son’s intercessory goal. The Spirit's intercessory goal, to sustain us in a non- condemnation status and bring us to glory. The good here is eternal glory. That doesn't mean that the only good is going to be realized in eternity, the good here is going to sustain you into eternity. It involves your eternal glory, and getting you to that.

What do you mean by 'all things'here? There are no limits. There are only two kinds of things that can happen to you.

• Good things and
• Bad things.

The only things that can happen to you are good things or bad things and in either case they work together for good. The good things that work together for good. That's obvious! The best thing in existence in the universe because God is perfectly holy. He is pure goodness, and His nature works for our good.

God’s Power His great power works for our good. His great power supports us in trouble.

Deuteronomy 33:27, Had I not feared the wrath of the enemy, Lest their adversaries should misunderstand, Lest they should say, “Our hand is high; And it is not the Lord who has done all this.” ’

Remember Daniel? Jonah? The three Hebrews in the fire in Babylon, all supported by God's great power.

2 Corinthians 12:9, And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

✓ It is God's power that provides all that we need. ✓ It is God's power that conquers our great enemy Satan and all other enemies. ✓ It is God's power that carries us to victory. ✓ It is God's power by which we overcome the flesh and sin.

It is the God's power that works for our good. God’s Wisdom His great wisdom works for our good because it is His wisdom that instructs us. He has given us the guidance through His Word.

Psalms 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.

The wisdom of God is revealed on the pages of Scripture. As we expose ourselves to the truth of God, that great wisdom instructs us and leads us in a path of obedience. Therefore, it leads us in the path of blessing and the path of joy.

Luke 11:28, But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” So, the goodness of God's very nature leads to goodness for us, His power, His wisdom.

✓ It is His wisdom that gave us the gospel. ✓ It is His wisdom that provided the path of righteousness for us. ✓ It is His wisdom that devised the saving plan in Christ. God’s kindness. His great kindness leads us to repentance.

Romans 2:4, Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

God is kind and His kindness works for our good. We could also say beyond God's nature. Everything in God's nature works for our goodness, His grace, His mercy, His compassion, even His law, which calls us to the obedience that produces blessing.

God's promises. God's promises work for our good. The precious promises of God are the supply for the troubled soul when guilt comes. We read in the Scripture that He keeps mercy for thousand generations. He promises to be gracious to the humble.

James 4:6, But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

When we disobey His Word, we still have the promise of His forgiveness.

Hosea 14:4, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away from him. I will heal their backslidings.

Micah 7:18, Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? ✓ There is grace with Him. ✓ There is mercy with Him. ✓ There is forgiveness with Him. ✓ There is pardon with Him.

Psalm 91:15, He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honour him.

Psalm 37:39, But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble.

When deprivation comes and we are out of human resources.

Philippians 4:19, And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Psalm 37:25, I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread.

Genesis 32:12, For You said, ‘I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’ ” God's promises secure the goodness of God to us. So, God's nature is good and brings us goodness. God's promises are good and produce for us goodness. Not only does the very character of God, the very promises of

God work for our good, but all of Scripture works for our good. All of Scripture works for our good.

Acts 20:32, “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Everything that the Word calls for produces good. Worship, obedience to all the commands of Scripture, all the means of grace that are there applied, singing psalms, hymns, spiritual

songs, and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Submitting, obeying all the Scripture works for good. Prayer works for our good. Prayer is the key that unlocks the treasury of God's mercy. Prayer keeps the heart open to God and shut to sin.

Prayer relieves the uncontrolled hearts and the swellings of lust. It is the dispeller of sorrow because it vents the grief, it eases the heart.

1 Samuel 1:18, And she said, “Let your maidservant find favour in your sight.” So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

When Hannah had prayed in her sorrow, she went away and was no more sad. These are good things. We can go beyond the character, the nature of God, the promises of God, the Scripture and all its fullness and all that it calls for, let's talk about angels.

Angels are good. The holy angels.

Hebrews 1:14, Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?

We don't even know what's going on, but all the time the angels are assisting in bringing us to glory. They are sent out to render service to us so that we will inherit our salvation. They protect us from those things that would destroy us.

Matthew 18:10, “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.

God is in heaven and watching His children. If you despise them or belittle any believer, it shows up as concern to God and the angels are always watching God's face, as it were, to pick up that concern to be dispatched by Him to the aid of those believers.

God in His nature works for our good, God in His promises works for our good. God in His Word has produced all kinds of means spiritually to produce our good. God has even given to the holy angels the assignment of working for our good. They are always beholding His face so that they are in ready contact with Him to be dispatched to the aid of those for whom He shows concern.

Believers work for our good.

2 Corinthians 1:24, Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow workers for your joy; for by faith you stand.

We are workers with you for your joy. The Lord has distributed through the entire body of Christ spiritual gifts. I have the gifts in the area of teaching and preaching, you have gifts in various areas, and those gifts are to be used for the strengthening of believers.

Hebrews 10:24, And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, So, we come together to worship with the purpose of stimulating each other to goodness. Saints work together to produce good in each other's lives. That is the reason why Jesus said in Matthew ¹⁸ that if you lead another believer into sin you had be better off to be drowned with a millstone around your neck and thrown in the deep sea.

You never want to lead another believer into sin, you always want to do good to them. ✓ Our good God is doing good for us constantly as an expression of the goodness of His character and His nature. ✓ Our good God has made to us great and precious promises.

✓ Our God has given us His good Word, which ministers good to us as we learn it and apply it and obey it. ✓ God has called the good and holy angels to our aid to do good for us. ✓ God has designed that saint within the church minister mutually goodness to each other.

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. Not just good things that work for our good, but it's bad things that work for our good.

If everything went exactly the way we wanted it to go, we wouldn't even ask the question whether our salvation would be sustained.

Can we lose our salvation? If all there was good. But in spite of all that God does, ➢ He has promised and pledged to us, ➢ All that's in His Word, ➢ The work of holy angels, ➢ Believers’ mutual goodness of believers, Our lives are still filled with bad things.

Job 5:7, Yet man is born to trouble, As the sparks fly upward.

John 16:33, These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

We have bad things in our lives and those become the real issue.

Can bad things separate us from God? Can bad things bring us out of a no-condemnation status into a condemnation status? Can bad things cause Christ not to love us anymore? Can bad things cause God to remove our salvation?

There are three categories of bad things.

• a) Suffering.

Suffering is bad. Reflective of the curse. Adam and Eve didn't suffer in the garden before the Fall.

• There wasn't any pain.
• There wasn't any sorrow.
• There weren't any tears.
• There wasn't even any death.

But the first area of bad things that we must deal with is suffering. Life is just full of it. It starts out at the beginning and stays there and maximizes itself at the end in the horrors of death.

Ruth 1:21, I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

Exodus 4:11, So the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Job said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord takes it away."

Jeremiah 24:5, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away

captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans. God says I am sending Judah into captivity in Babylon for their good. That was a bad thing as far as they were concerned. It involved the destruction of Jerusalem. It involved literally levelling the city of Jerusalem. It involved the massacre and death of many people. But it was suffering of rather monstrous proportions.

But even suffering which is bad can work for good.

1 Peter 5:10, But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

James 1:2-4, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. ⁴ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Suffering produces good.

Why? ➢ We learn how to deal with pain. ➢ We learn to help others deal with pain. ➢ We learn compassion. ➢ We learn patience.

➢ We learn gentleness. ➢ We learn trust. ➢ We experience grace from God and mercy and sustenance. The goodness of God can come out of suffering. Joseph, his brothers threw him in a pit, sold him off as a slave. He was thrown into prison but in the end it all worked together for good, and that's Genesis 50:20, you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.

Job man who suffered. Lost everything he had, absolutely everything, all his children died, lost all his wealth, crops, land, animals, and everything. Then he got ulcers, and he got boils. He was a catastrophe without parallel. Through it all God was working good.

In the end he says.

Job 42:5-6, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. ⁶ Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” He learned the greatness and goodness of God through it all. Paul, burdened in 2 Corinthians ¹² with a thorn in the flesh, prayed three times the Lord would remove it. The Lord said I am

not removing it because it humbles you and, in your weakness, you are made strong. When you are at the end of your own resources, then you must turn to Me and then you become strong. Even his blindness in Acts 9 drove him to Christ.

Suffering is good. God uses it to do several things. He uses it to teach us to hate sin. When you look at all the suffering in the world as Christians, you don't ask the questions that the world asks. The world says, why has all this happened, right?

They don't understand because there is no recognition of the impact of sin. But when we look at the suffering in the world, we hate the sin that caused the suffering. Jesus was at the tomb of Lazarus, and He started to cry, and you might ask the question, why is He crying?

He is about to raise Him from the dead.

He wasn't crying because Lazarus was dead, He wanted him dead, that's why He hadn't come. When Lazarus was sick, they sent a message and said, "Come down here, he is sick." Jesus wanted him dead because He wanted this massive miracle of the Passover season because it was all part of orchestrating the cross and the resurrection.

So, Jesus wanted him dead. When He came down there and He saw the family in sorrow and weeping and the torment of having lost their beloved brother, then He wept. He wept not because Lazarus was dead, but He wept because He could generalise from that experience all the suffering of all humanity through all the years when loved ones die. He could see the consequence of sin.

Suffering teaches us to see the evil that is in us. Whenever we suffer, we are reminded that we are still fallen. The corruption of our hearts just boils up in our suffering.

You suffer and what happens? You get impatient and become bitter. You begin to question God. You could even get angry, or you could wallow in your self-pity. You can become very self-centred and prideful and make everybody serve your pain.

Suffering is good also because it will drive you to God. When you get to the point where you have nowhere to go, you wind up going to Him and that's good. When there is a disaster or suffering somewhere, we are compelled to pray. In prosperity the heart is easily distracted.

In prosperity the heart is easily divided. Suffering drives us singularly to God.

• b) Struggling.

Struggling has to do with the moral, spiritual battles we fight. Struggling to battling temptation works together for good. Struggling sends us to our knees to pray. When the believer sees the enemy coming, he runs into the presence of God.

Psalm 42, tempted to despair, David was driven to God. The struggle with temptation drives us to our knees. Struggling devastates our spiritual pride. It shows us that we are weak. Anybody who parades their pride, anybody who thinks they have arrived spiritually.

Just when you think you have arrived spiritually, here comes that wave of temptation and that struggle. You lose the struggle and you have to go back and ask yourself whether you have really as much spiritual maturity as you think you have.

So, even the struggle with temptation is good for us. It causes us to lean on the strength of Christ. So, suffering can work together for good. Struggling can work together for good. Even temptation, amazingly, can produce good.

It can send us to prayer, break our pride, teach us how weak we are, force us to lean on Christ, to long for heaven. Peter, who lost the battle at the arrest of Jesus, lost the battle, the internal battle with temptation, denied Christ, went out and wept bitterly.

Those were tears of a man who had learned lessons. He learned so much about his weakness. He learned so much about the wiles of Satan. He learned so much about the importance of praying instead of sleeping. But even temptation could be turned into good for us if we learn those same lessons.

Suffering is bad that produces good. Struggling is bad that produces good.

• c) Sin.

Sin is bad that works together for good. This is the most notable thing of all. Even the sins of believers work for their good.

How sin work together for good? How can God cause sinful things to come out for good? It's not by the nature of the sin, but it's by the nature of God's grace and mercy because it is God who brings light out of darkness and sweet out of bitter.

This in no way lessons the vile, filthy nature of sin but it shows that sin, cannot ultimately triumph in the believer because God overrules it with His grace, and it turns out good.

How can it be good? Because it gives an opportunity for God to demonstrate grace and that's good, because it is covered by the righteousness of Christ and that's good.

Should we sin, that grace may abound? No!

Our sin deserves eternal hell. Now as believers our sin still deserves eternal hell as much as it did before we were saved. It doesn't change. It's still wicked. It's still sin. It's still an offense to God. It's still deserving of damnation and eternal punishment.

But God in His mercy through Christ overrules that. That's the point here. The point here is not just that suffering in life and struggling in life God works together for our good in life, the real point here is everything that happens in life, the worst of which is sin, is not at all able to overrule the saving purpose of God.

A greater devotion to God and Christ, more worship, more prayer, more Bible study, more faithfulness, more ministry, then there's good out of that. The good that He's talking about here is the good of eternal glory. There isn't any suffering in life that can alter your eternal glory and there isn't any struggle in life that can alter your eternal

glory and there isn't even any sin in life that can alter your eternal glory. Everything works together for your good in time and your glory in eternity. All the matters of life, whatever they are, good, bad, all are being worked together by God.

Good things like ✓ God's nature, ✓ God's promises, ✓ God’s Word, ✓ Prayer, ✓ Angels, ✓ Believers are working for your good. Bad things like suffering, struggling, and sin work for your good by teaching you to hate sin, see your fallenness, humiliated before God, to desire God, to conform to Christ, to pray, to be penitent, repentant, long for God's grace, be grateful for forgiveness.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ because everything works together for good, which means our eternal glory. If everything works for our ultimate glory, then nothing can alter that! Absolutely nothing.

Everything in the life of a believer works for their good. Conversely, nothing in the life of an unbeliever works ultimately for their good, nothing. Their good or their bad is, before God, wickedness and it only produces eternal judgment. This is the distinction that Paul is making.