Every Thing Is Good For Me, Right? 

Romans 8:28-30

 Sermon by Pastor Dennis R. Gleason -- July 17, 2005

²⁸And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. ²⁹For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters. ³⁰And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory.

One stormy night an elderly couple entered the lobby of a small hotel and asked for a room. The clerk said they were filled, as were all the hotels in town. "But I can't send a fine couple like you out in the rain," he said. "Would you be willing to sleep in my room?" The couple hesitated, but the clerk insisted. The next morning when the man paid his bill, he said, "You're the kind of man who should be managing the best hotel in the United States. Someday I'll build you one." The clerk smiled politely. A few years later the clerk received a letter from the elderly man, recalling that stormy night and asking him to come to New York. A round-trip ticket was enclosed. When the clerk arrived, his host took him to the corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street, where stood a magnificent new building. "That," explained the man, "is the hotel I have built for you to manage." The man was William Waldorf Astor, and the hotel was the original Waldorf-Astoria. The young clerk, George C. Boldt, became its first manager. Source Unknown.

First of all, God has a plan.

People often speak about making plans. In fact we often hear “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Jeremiah 29:11-14b tells us: ¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. ¹²In those days when you pray, I will listen. ¹³If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. ¹⁴I will be found by you,” says the LORD.

When God gave Noah instructions about building the ark, it wasn’t raining. The building of that large boat proved to be the salvation of his family and of the animals that came to him to be saved from the flood that was coming. And it was coming. When the day came that the rains began, God shut the door on Noah and his family and all those animals.

The planning, the preparations and all the hard work Noah had been given to do resulted in the salvation of all those on the ark.

Years ago an elderly minister carried with him a book mark that was made of silk threads that seemed to be without any reason or purpose. When he called on a home in which there had been some tragedy, trouble or sorrow, he would frequently show this bookmark, presenting the side with the intelligible tangle of threads. When the troubled person had examined the book mark carefully, the minister would ask the person to turn the book mark over. And when the person did so, against the white silk background, the words “God is Love” stood out before them. In the midst of the tangled threads of our lives, there is for the one who has been called by God a divine plan. Once we are at peace with ourselves and the plan, we can be at peace with the world around us because we are at peace with God.

We know that there is a divine plan…by faith in the fact that God says there is a plan, and that the plan will not harm me…but will give me a hope and a future. If we have been called of God we will know there is a plan.

One of the chief passages of Scripture we can call on regarding this is in Ephesians 1:3-12: 

³How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. ⁴Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. ⁵His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.

⁶So we praise God for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his dearly loved Son. ⁷He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven. ⁸He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

⁹God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure. ¹⁰And this is his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. ¹¹Furthermore, because of Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us from the beginning, and all things happen just as he decided long ago. ¹²God’s purpose was that we who were the first to trust in Christ should praise our glorious God.

The second thing we note is that if you are at all familiar with the Bible, it is clear that God is working out all things according to His eternal plan.

This divine plan does not need human support. His plan rests upon its own foundation and needs no human support. His plan is centered in the glory of God, the Glory of Christ and the glory of the elect whom He chose before the foundation of the world. God is absolutely perfect and he must glory in his perfections, as there is nothing better. That is why any deviation from the will of God is a sin.

Because God is love, and the center of his love is Christ; he must have his plan center in the person and work of his son Jesus Christ. And the plan of God includes the glory of the elect…that is those who have been called according to his purpose.

Because of this our lives are not the result of haphazard, blind chance. All that comes about in our lives is the result of the eternal plan of an all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving Father. Everything helps to secure the good of everyone who loves God, those whom he has called in fulfillment of his design.

This text is one which divides people. There are those who do not love God, and who have not been called according to His purpose. The events of life do not work together for their good. That is a sad fact of life, but it is true. Those who do not love God are ruled by their flesh and ultimately by the devil. The things that come about in their lives are things that are according to the will of Satan. The whole world is lying in the embrace, if you will, of the evil one. For the unsaved, all things work together for their ill because they do not love the Lord.

But the person, who has been chosen according to God’s eternal purpose, has been surrounded by the protective care of the Holy Spirit. Nothing can touch us until it has passed through the will of God.

Examples of what I mean by this can be found in the story of the demons cast out of the Gadarene demoniac. These demonic spirits asked for permission to enter the pigs. They could do nothing until they had secured permission from the Lord. (Matthew 8:28-32)

And then there is Job. We know that Satan could not do anything to Job; he could not touch his family or property until he received permission from God. Anything he did to touch Job had to have prior permission.

What we learn from this is that no power of evil can touch one who loves the Lord and who has been called according to his purpose unless God permits it.

All things work together for good.  God is pursuing a definite purpose that leads to a definite end and we can live in quiet assurance that all is well with us…even if we are passing through deep waters.

And Paul says, “We know…” it! We know that all things are working together for our good. We have that assurance.

Job went through a series of unparalleled catastrophes in his life.

Did they work together for his good? His barns were destroyed by fire, his cattle were stolen by bandits and his children were killed by the storm and fire. The fire also burned away the dross in the soul of Job. The loss of material things brought him to weight the true worth of earthly things and to esteem them as nothing when compared to God.

And then we might ask…What about sin? Can things which come about because of sin, work together for the good of those who love God?

Well, it was the sin of Naomi’s son in marrying the Moabitess, Ruth, when the law strictly forbade it, that brought Ruth into the fold of God. She would never have had Naomi as a mother-in-law if the sin had not been committed. It is because of that sin the she later is able to say “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; whither thou goest I will go; whither thou goest I will go; whiter thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people will be my people and thy God my God.” (Ruth 1:160.

The sin of her husband in marrying her brought her into widowhood which later put her in the line of the mothers of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus. She had been chosen by God for this purpose and the Lord caused human events to work out in such a way that even in human sin, He was able to bring about his purposes.

The obvious question is this:  Does this make God a partner to sin or does it mean that God condones sin in some way? Absolutely not!

God could never have worked with the human race if He had not worked with us as sinners. We are sinners, and the whole pattern of the live we have is made by the interweaving of the acts of our Adamic nature and the results of those acts.

Because we have the old nature as part of us even after coming to know Christ, it is also true of us as believers.

For another example, let’s think about Joseph for a few minutes. His brothers were quite jealous of him. He was his father’s favorite and they all knew it. He had, unwisely perhaps, told them of his dreams in which their sheaves of wheat had bowed down before his own sheaf of wheat which stood upright. He told them of his dream that the sun, moon and eleven stars had bowed down before his star. They had been angered at the thought of his supposed arrogance in thinking that his family would bow down before him.

The result of that anger was the conspiracy to kill him. But instead of killing Joseph, they sold him to Midianite traders, who in turn, sold him into slavery in Egypt. While in Egypt the lustful fury of a woman scorned brought Joseph down into prison in Egypt. Finally, the forgetfulness of the man who had benefited from the interpretation of his dream doomed him to years of wasting in the prison.

Suddenly, however, we see God’s hand in all of this. We find Joseph delivered from prison, exalted to be governor of Egypt, and in charge of all the economy of the land. His position makes possible the salvation of a small family from Judah.

When Joseph made himself known to his brothers he said to them: “Come near to me, I pray you…I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. “ (Gen 45:4-8)

Our text makes it clear that as believers we not only love God but do so because we have been called according to His purposes.

Unbelievers are by nature dead in trespasses and sins.  They will do any thing, even to the point of becoming very religious, if they can remain master of their own wills and be saved by their own efforts. As long as the flesh is allowed even the barest thread of merit, man will recite creeds, sing songs, bow in prayer, and go through long rituals of religion. But at the moment he is brought to utter bankruptcy and left naked before the sovereignty of God, he rises in a fierce hatred to defy the truth of the true God of the universe.

The ultimate expression of that anger is to be found in the death of the Son of God on the Cross of Calvary. Men rose up in hatred of Jesus and they mocked him, beat him and then killed him. And even that…God has used to bring about good for us…providing us with salvation and all the other expressions of the love and kindness of God toward us.

Let’s sum all of this up in this manner: 

·        If all things work together for our good, then all the attributes of God, all the works of Christ and all the gifts and powers of the Holy Spirit are at work for our good.

·        There is no will or act of creatures, men, angels or demons that can do other than work for our good. No dog can bark against us, no man can speak or act against us, no sinister power of evil can be against us, but all must be for our good.

·        There is no phenomenon of nature-fire, flood, storm, earthquake that can work us ultimate ill.

·        The law of gravity cannot trip us up or cause anything to fall upon us unless it has first been sifted through the will of God’s purpose for our good.

Every experience in our individual circumstances, whether temptations, or whatever concerns us, humbles us and forces us to rely on Him who alone can satisfy. All things work together for our good; other wise the Lord would not permit them.

Note that it is ALL THINGS that work together for our good…when we love God and are called according to his purposes.

 --Dennis Gleason