(based on Romans 8:28-30)
“Trust dies, but mistrust blossoms.” Though attributed to the Greek playwright Sophocles around 2,500 years ago, I wouldn’t fault you for assuming this quote was written in 2020, for it surely fits today as well as ever. Those more easily trusted only a generation or two ago are more commonly mistrusted today. Our trust in doctors has eroded as we become aware of pharmaceutical payouts and bonuses for pedaling certain pills, and hospital protocols or insurance limitations. Journalists and reporters used to do an admirable job of presenting the facts and details of an account in an unbiased manner, but today openly reveal – even overtly in the headline itself at times – their personal opinions, shaping their slanted writing. While “trustworthy” may never have been a common description applied to politicians, we trust them less today than ever. Sports heroes dope and cheat, charities and crowd-funding efforts are mired in scandal, and even religious leaders and their ministries mislead. Trust is not easy to come by today.
That may be a contributing factor in why Romans 8:28 can come across as such a polarizing passage. In a society that breeds mistrust, even the words and promises of God are brought into question – both inside and outside the church. So Paul’s statement in verse 28 receives a mixed response. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (v. 28). Some things? Sure, but “all things?” We can read the verse, we rattle it off to others going through hardships, but to actually trust that it’s true that in everything – everything – God is at work for our good? Well, it may be a pretty tall order for many of us to buy into that one.
Good? Everything? Tell it to the mother who just miscarried. The spouse crushed by infidelity. The classmate mortified by what was posted about her on social media. The exhausted single mom straining to raise her children. The dad who discovers his adult son living on the streets. Stretched and stressed caregivers. Cancer. Unemployment. Abuse. Good? Everything? Can you really blame the unbeliever for scoffing at this verse when it pushes us as Christians to the limits of our own faith to fully trust it?
Let’s stop right there and reflect on one key understanding of this verse. If we don’t understand this, we’ll remain perpetually puzzled by this passage. Moreover, it could then have the exact opposite effect that God intended – it could drive us further away from God instead of closer to him. That key understanding is this: God’s “good” is not the same as your “good.” God is not promising here that he will work things out for good according to how you define and determine what is good. Now you may not wish to hear that right now, but it has been my experience that his good is always greater than my good.
One may actually appreciate that God’s “good” is greater than our “good” if we review some of what we thought was good at any given time in our lives, only to have experience later reveal otherwise. That boyfriend or girlfriend that we had our heart set on didn’t turn out so well. The job we thought would be best for us left us worse off than when we started. More money created problems instead of solving them. And how many times didn’t we think we knew better than our parents just to end up learning the hard way they were actually looking out for our good? Looking back at our own ideas of what was good and best over the course of our lives serves as all the evidence we need to see for ourselves that our own ideas of what is good miss the mark nearly as often as they hit it. Our notion of what is good is flawed.
While that may be the case, you still may find it quite a leap to believe that God’s good is any better. Let’s allow him speak for himself and make his case. He doesn’t hide what his idea of good is. He spells out exactly what his purpose for us is: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (v.29-30). Now there’s a lot of theological jargon there, but if we break it all down, God’s purpose is for you to be numbered among the many brothers and sisters in his family, and for that to happen, a pretty big change has to take place: “being conformed to the image of his Son.” Put another way, God wants you in his family, and to be numbered among his family, you have to be like Jesus. That is God’s good purpose – for you to be like Jesus.
Think of what that means! The fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (cf. Gal. 6) – these would all be fully yours, all the time. And consider how we see Jesus live and treat others in the Gospels – who wouldn’t want to be like Jesus?! Always forgiving, always caring, always genuine, always longing to carry out the Father’s will. Perfect. Holy. Without sin and therefore without guilt.
Oh, to experience that alone – no guilt! But the image of his Son, the image of Jesus in all his righteous glory – it is so far beyond our reach, so far out of our league. We could never attain it. The fruits of the Spirit so often serve as reminders of all that we’re not. Our animosity in place of love, bitterness instead of joy, quarreling in place of peace, impatience, cruelty, wickedness, unfaithful, harsh, out of control – these are all our spoiled fruits! As if our own spoiled fruit didn’t condemn us enough already, we return back to this promise of God to work things out for good and are reminded of how our trust in that very promise is so lacking. How on earth should we ever hope to be numbered among God’s family? We are nothing like the Son. Surely there is no place at the table for the likes of you and me if we must be like Jesus.
And this is where God’s good far exceeds what we could ever hope for or imagine. His good will be carried out, and nothing can stop it. Paul used the words “foreknew” and “predestined.” Those terms, which are the basis for the Bible’s teaching on what we call election or predestination, simply mean this: God determined that you would be numbered among his family. Period. It is that simple. You belong to God because God determined that you would belong to him, and he determined that not only long before you were born, but even before he brought creation into existence. He didn’t save you by peering into his crystal ball to see that in the future you’d believe or do enough good works for him to include you. He saved you because he wanted to save you. That’s grace, pure and simple.
What Paul then does to demonstrate this is lays out every step God took along the way to ensure it would happen. He chose you, he called you, he justified you, he glorified you. Notice what role you play in all of it? Nothing. From start to finish it is all God’s work. You do nothing but receive it. Since he chose you, he then called you to faith, made possible because in Jesus, who paid for your every last sin, you have been declared free of all guilt, and all that remains is glory, in part now, but fully when we’re brought home to heaven.
God’s good is that he wants you to be like Jesus so that you can be a part of his family. God’s good is that because of Jesus, and through faith in him, you now are a part of the family.
So then, if God has addressed every necessary detail to bring you into his family, is there even a sliver of a chance that he somehow could be unconcerned about your day-to-day life? Could you really fathom that the gracious God who handpicked you for his family even before time itself existed, could for a second, a minute, and hour, day, week, etc. not care about you or your life? Impossible. No, the God whose greatest good for you has already been accomplished in and through Christ Jesus, will also continue to orchestrate the ups and the downs in your life for your own good.
To us it might look at times like the underside of a hand-woven rug. It appears to be full of loose ends and mismatches through and through. But to see that same rug from the other side is to reveal a beautiful work of art. Here on earth we see our lives as the underside of the rug. Home in heaven we’ll see a different view, the top-side, the life that God was weaving and working into a thing of beauty. So no, you may not always see the good that God promises to bring out of all things in your life, but you can still trust him in that promise. You can still trust him because he’s already taken care of your greatest good. He’ll do the same in your life today, tomorrow, and the next day, all the way up until we get to the place where there’s only good all the time.