Praying House to House. A sermon series designed to fuel genuine prayer with true thoughts about God.
Romans 8:28-30
Wouldn’t you love to pull this from a fortune cookie? God will cause big things, small things, bad things, pleasant things, sinful things, miraculous things, planned things, mistaken things – ALL things to work together for good to you!
BUT: 1. God’s definition of good might be different than yours. 2. This promise isn’t for everybody.
God’s Definition of Good
When you read Romans 8:28, an image of yourself at a BBQ on a sunny day with a happy family and new clothes might pop into your mind. A comfortable life free from suffering. This isn’t the kind of good God’s talking about. Tennis is good exercise. He’s talking about making you look like Jesus. What makes me so sure?
1. It would be weird for Paul to suddenly slip in a huge promise about material blessings, like that tennis line in the paragraph above. Romans is about God drawing people to him in Jesus, not about comfortable circumstances.
2. Paul unpacks on this promise in 8:29. It’s about being conformed to the image of Jesus.
3. Romans teaches that Christians will face suffering (see 8:35-39).
4. Paul is suffering as he writes Romans (see 9:2).
5. The rest of the Bible is about God drawing people to himself through Jesus – not about physical comfort.
6. Jesus is our example and even he didn’t experience this kind of comfort.
7. Finally, the most famous verse about what God did to be good (loving) toward us: John 3:16.
Why does this matter? Because you will be tempted to fall back on this verse when the worst happens. You’ll want to believe that the terrible events in your life are good events in disguise. That’s not what this verse teaches. It teaches that God will cause even the bad events in your life to work together to make you look more like Jesus.
Not For Everyone
My wife is an amazing cook. Her food is delicious and nutritious and it’s good to me. However, my four-year-old son only likes toast. Since he’s not concerned with flavor and nutrients, my wife’s good cooking isn’t good to him.
And so it is with this promise. It only tastes good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
If you don’t love God, being drawn into his family through Jesus, taking on the family resemblance over time, isn’t good to you. If you aren’t called out of your own purpose and into his, all this talk of justification and glorification isn’t good to you.
BUT: If you do love God, if you are swept up into his purpose; hang on to this promise with white knuckled perseverance. God will cause all things to work together for your good.
Discussion Starters
· Read Romans 8:28-30 and list the things God does for his people.
o Which of these do you think people most often attempt to accomplish on their own.
· What does it mean to love God? (See Matthew 22:34-40; John 14:15; and 1 John 4:20-21 for ideas.)
· What does it mean to be called? (See 1 Corinthians 1:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:13-14; and 2 Timothy 1:9 for hints.)
· What purposes of man often stand opposed to God’s purpose?
· What would it look like for you to be conformed to the image of Jesus in your setting in life?
· How should the fact that God is Sovereign effect the way we pray?
· How can you serve each other as a group in light of this passage?
· How can your group to pray for you? Pray together as a group.
P.S.
I’ll be out of the pulpit for the next two weeks, so there will be no sermon posts until the week of Sept. 20. Later!
