If you have been a Christian for some time, then you may know several Bible verses that are special to you. Perhaps your mom and dad used to say them with you every night before bed. Maybe a Sunday School teacher challenged you to memorize them. Perhaps when you first became a Christian, this verse was one of the means God used to convert you. One of my favorites is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Another favorite is Matthew 11:28 where Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
One well known passage that is rich in comforting the hearts of God’s saints includes Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Now one of the great dangers for any study, but especially Biblical study, is taking verses like this out of their context.
What do we find when we look at this passage contextually? Paul had just finished encouraging these beloved believers with a word of hope. He taught them that hope never comes in isolation but grow and abounds like a plant only in the nursery of sorrow and suffering. Paul guaranteed his listeners that suffering is a normal fixture in the Christian life. In other words, it is inevitable.
What are we to do in this midst of such promised suffering? We certainly don’t want to rely on our own strength or abilities. Instead, in the moments of our weakness when the world appears to be crumbling around us, and we are struggling so deeply God comes and comforts us with His promise, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
What is so magnificent for the believer, to whom this promise alone comes, is that this promise is building on all the promises which have come before already. The hope and promise that God places into our hands is not one of mere conjecture or hopeful probability as if God does not know the end from the beginning. God’s desire for you is to look at Him immediately in your moments of great need and lack. Sadly, what is all too often the case is that people only look to God as their last option when things go awry if they look to Him at all. God instead is teaching you a better way.
God’s desire for His people is simple. When you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, “all things work together for good”. When you love Him with your heart and how you live your heart, “all things work together for good”. When you step towards Him in hope and trust you can have this unshakable guarantee that your miseries and hardships are not granted the right to have the final word.
As we ponder over one of the Christian’s greatest promises, I am reminded that I am not the first person to consider the sweetness of this promises. I’m so thankful that other pastors and Christians have mediated on this promise of God and one of the great summaries of what is entailed in this verse comes to us in that teaching tool of the Reformation still used in churches today. I’m speaking of the Heidelberg Catechism. There we read about God’s freedom as our Sovereign King, to guide the entire universe including the hearts and wills of men and women to accomplish His plans for the good of His people and His eternal glory. In theology this is understood as God’s providence.
Here’s what we find in this catechism question: “Question 27. What do you understand by the providence of God? Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty- all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand.” That last line especially lives an abiding comfort in my heart and in my home.
If you are a Christian, do you understand this abiding promise for your world? Do you know that “all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand”? Is this your great comfort? Well, we know that not all fatherly hands are good are they? Some fathers are shameful to their title by their abandonment, or negligence, or harshness, or vile wickedness and abuse. But we are always to judge our earthly fathers by our heavenly Father and never the other way around. As we do so we learn that our heavenly Father is kind and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
How does that affect your view of your circumstances? Even on the very worst day of my life, my God is still in control and able to bring about my good to His everlasting glory. Good can make beauty rise from the grave. Whether it has been the joy of a new opportunity, or even the horror of a literal or figurative death; good is on the believer’s horizon. The great promise of God enables us to continue as we rest on His wisdom, and not ours. Even when we, like Jonah, recognize that the only way to get out of the storm is to dive right into it. Your worst failures and the failures of others are even able to draw you closer to the Lord for your good.
Therefore, my hope for you beloved is that you would draw near to Christ and trust Him all the more even when life appears wrong, unfair, hopeless, and wicked. God places His promise right into your hand saying, “Cling to this my son.” or “Hold fast to this my daughter.” We must do so. But this gift is not universal for humanity. It comes to the Christian and to the Christian alone. So today if you are far from God come to Him in humility. Do not hide your sins. He sees them. Do not hide your stains. He can wash them. And the power and glory of the Gospel is that not only is He able but even more sweetly He is willing. He Himself has promised this to us as He said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28)