“Bible promises: All things work together for the good”
Romans 8:28
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Born in July of 1965, Victor Marx is an author, speaker, and humanitarian. He’s earned a seventh-degree black belt in karate/jiu jitsu and he holds the world record for disarming a gun in 0.8 seconds. He served as a Marine for three years and shares a family of five children and five grandchildren with his wife Eileen.
But before he was able to do any of those things, he first had to recover from his childhood trauma and pain.
You see, he was born in the deep south in Lafayette, Louisiana, the son of a drug dealing, street fighting member of the Cajun Mafia. When he was a boy, his mother had six different husbands, he attended fourteen different schools, and he lived in seventeen different houses. A neighbor abused him, then locked him in a commercial freezer to freeze to death. His own father beat him, held him underwater, and electrocuted him. And after suffering for years from mental illness and PTSD, whenever he thought of God, (which didn’t happen very often), he thought of Him as some sort of a sadistic, crazy, unloving God. And if he was somehow supposed to be a “child of God,” he felt as though he was nothing more than a stepchild who got the leftovers…
…Until he asked God a question. He said, “God, where were You? You know, Jesus, if You’re so loving and You love ‘all the children of the world,’ what about me? Why did You allow all that to happen to me?”
But that’s when he began to realize that there was a reason for his pain and that his suffering had a purpose.
He said, “The greatest thing is, God promised me He would redeem it. And I love redemption. You know, redemption is when someone drinks a soda and throws the can on the side of the road. Then someone else comes by and says, ‘This is trash to you, but it’s money to me.’ And that’s what God did for me. He picked me up. He said, ‘Other people consider you trash, but I’ll redeem your life. Watch what I do.’” And he said, “Sometimes the greatest faith is never giving up.”
If you want to know more, you can read his book, With God, All Things are Possible.
So far in our time together, we’ve looked at quite a lot of promises--Bible promises--like God’s promise to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, “He will crush your head, and you will crush His heel” (Genesis 3:15), and Moses’ promise to the people of Israel, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6), or Ruth’s promise to her mother-in-law Naomi, “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16), or Isaiah’s promise, “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31), and Jesus’ promise, “In My Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
Page through the Bible and you’ll find more than eight thousand promises that are just as important and just as relevant as the day they were first spoken. They’re our solace in sorrow, our strength in weakness, and our light in darkness. As one author wrote, “And knowing these promises allows us to navigate the complexities of life with faith and hope, anchored in the knowledge that God is with us, guiding and loving us through every moment.”
So it is in the words of our text, from Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 8: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God…and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:18-19, 23).
Then he wrote: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
It’s easy to say that Paul’s letter to the Romans is one of the most beautiful books as well as one of the most important books in all of the Bible. It’s what St. John Chrystostom once called the “fullest and deepest compendium of all sacred foundation truths.” And it’s what Luther called the “masterpiece of the New Testament” and “the chief part of the New Testament, and the very purest gospel.”
And it’s no surprise, for it’s here that we find words like these: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16), and “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
And nowhere is that gospel more beautiful or more powerful than here in the words of Romans chapter 8: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Romans chapter 8, verse 28 is one of the most beloved, most encouraging, most quoted, and most memorized verses in all of the Bible. When you’re sick, it’s like medicine to your soul. When you lose a loved one, it carries you through. And when you’re crushed and beaten by all that life brings, it gives you hope to go on.
As one commentator wrote, “Romans 8:28 gently tells me that if I trust Him through my tears, He will give me reason to laugh; if I trust Him through my pain, He will teach me to praise; if I trust Him through my grief, He will afterwards show me all the good that came with it and through it. He will show me the precious flowers in the dry desert, the beautiful blooms against the sharp thorns, the gentle petals beneath the vicious skies. For behind every black cloud is a bright, yellow sun, behind every dark night is a bright day, and behind every frowning providence is a smiling face--the smiling face of the God who works all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.”
But as beautiful and as meaningful as these words are for us, for others, they feel like salt in an open wound. I mean, think about it--”All things work together for our good”? Really? Really?! Maybe some things, but definitely, definitely, not all things.
Now before I say anything more, let me remind you of the one who wrote these words. It was the apostle Paul, you know, the one who was whipped, beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked, and spent a night and a day adrift at sea; in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from his own people, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the wilderness, in danger at sea, and in danger from false brothers. He went without food and without sleep. He was cold and exposed. You’ve heard of a “chick magnet”? He was a “pain magnet”!
And do you know what he wrote? He wrote, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Let’s look at that word “all” for a moment. As Paul wrote, “All things work together for good.”
What’s “all” mean? It means all things, everything, absolutely everything. God is orchestrating everything for our good.
So what’s that mean? It means that nothing in this life and nothing in this world happens by chance. Somehow it’s all part of His plan.
“But wait just one minute,” you say. “Are you telling me that bad things are good, like divorce is good or abuse is good or war or sickness or tragedy or kidnapping or murder are good?”
No! Not at all! That’s not what the Bible says.
Instead, it says that all things--even the bad, sinful, hideous, and hateful things that happen--even though they’re not good, they work together for our good. Somehow God is able to take the absolute worst of our situations and the darkest of sins, and He makes them part of His plan.
Think about it like this--imagine you’re about to make a cake. And before you do anything else, you first get all your ingredients together, like flour and sugar and eggs and butter and milk, salt, vanilla and baking powder. Then you mix them all together. And finally, step number three--you put it in a pan and slide it into the oven. So far, so good?
Now before you did any of those things, how about if you would eat the flour all by itself, or the raw eggs by themselves or the baking powder or the salt or the sugar? Does anybody want to try? Probably not! For flour all itself, or eggs all by themselves, or sugar all by itself isn’t very good at all. What is good is when you mix them all together, put them in a pan, and bake them at 350 degrees for twenty to twenty-five minutes, that you end up with one delicious dessert!
Or think about it like this--imagine you’ve got a birds eye view of an automobile manufacturing plant that spans hundreds of acres and employs thousands of women and men. Day and night, trucks bring in raw materials like glass and engines and wheels and seats and carpeting and doors and frames. And at the other end, what do you get? You get a truckload of beautiful, brand new cars!
So what happens in between? I really don’t know. All I do know is that somewhere in the middle of that plant, there are highly trained and capable hands that take those raw materials, put them all together, and build those beautiful, brand new cars.
Or think about it like this--suppose you have a watch--not a smart watch, but an old, mechanical pocket watch. And suppose you decided one day to open it up and look inside.
So what would you see? You’d probably see some wheels spinning clockwise, while others are spinning counter-clockwise, and still others are moving back-and-forth. And you’d say this is madness. This is crazy. How can one wheel spin in one direction and another spin in another direction? How is all this possibly going to work?
But to a master watch-maker, it all makes perfect sense!
So it is with us! As Paul wrote: “All things work together for our good” (Romans 8:28).
How do we know it? We know it not by looking at the events of this life, but by knowing God. We know it not by studying the pattern of the cloth, but by knowing the Designer of the fabric. We know it not by listening to the notes of the symphony, but by knowing the composer of the music. And while we don’t know why children die or planes crash or families break up or good people get sick and die, we do know that God is at work, and He will work all things together for our good.
Horatio Spafford was a devout Christian and wealthy Chicago lawyer. He had a thriving legal practice, a beautiful home, a wife, four daughters, and a son. In 1871, at the height of his financial and professional success, he lost his young son to pneumonia. Later that same year, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed most of the real estate investments that he owned.
Two years later, he wanted to give his wife, his daughters, and himself time to recover from the tragedies they experienced, so he decided to take them on a vacation in England. But he was delayed on account of his business, so he sent his wife and daughters on ahead. Tanetta was two, Elizabeth was seven, Margaret was nine, and Anna was eleven.
A few days later, on November 22, 1873, he received the news that another ship had struck his wife and daughters’ ship. Two hundred and twenty-six people lost their lives that day, including Horatio’s four daughters. Only his grieving wife survived.
And as he sailed to England to be with her and traveled near the very place where his daughters died, he wrote a hymn. Part of it goes like this: “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.”
And how is all this possible? Because of what happened on that awful Friday on a hillside just outside of Jerusalem. For it there on that hill that a Man who had done no wrong was lifted up on a cross to die. Despised and rejected, forsaken and disbelieved, He accomplished what we could never, ever do. He died so that we might live.
And if He loved us that much, then we know that, no matter what, “all things will work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
And that’s a promise!
We thank You, Father, that all of Your promises are good and kind and true. Help us in the midst of things we cannot understand to find our hope and help in You, for Jesus’ sake. Amen