All Things for Good?

Romans 8:28

By Pastor Josh Wamble

The Sunday School class I teach has been studying Paul’s letter to the Romans for several months now.  This letter is full of rich truths about what God has done to save His people.  He tells his readers what God has done, but he spends much more time and goes into much more details explaining how he has provided salvation and how that salvation is consistent with God’s righteousness and goodness and how He has been working to this end since the beginning of time.  He refers to the Old Testament time and time again.  He reminds his readers of how God called Abraham and justified him by faith—the same way that the gospel saves us today.

In chapter 8, Paul begins explaining how one aspect of God’s saving work is to redeem His people and deliver them from the power and influence of sin.  He describes how the Holy Spirit works in the life of believers empowering them, confirming and affirming them, and even interceding for them when they don’t know what or how to pray for themselves.  In verse 16, he starts explaining how even though salvation is sure it doesn’t always seem like it or feel like it.  He tells them that salvation has been fully accomplished.  “It is finished.” just as Jesus said.  However, believers do not currently experience the full effects of this salvation.  Instead, Paul tells believers that they still suffer in this life.  He explains that this is necessary until the whole creation experiences the transforming effects of salvation but that the Holy Spirit helps in this suffering.  In verse, 28, Paul writes one of the best-known sentences in the Bible.

And we know that God causes all things work together for good to those who love God, 

to those who are called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28 NASB)

This verse has brought much comfort to believers throughout history.  In fact, many would claim this as their very favorite verse in the whole Bible.  However, it does raise a few questions.  I want to spend the space I have below to think through three aspects of this verse—two things it does not mean and one thing that it does mean.

1. It does not mean that all things work together for good for all people.

The promise that God makes here through Paul is that all things work together for good for those who love God—those we are called according to his purpose.  God has committed Himself to His people.  He works for their benefit, and He opposes those who oppose them.  The Bible is clear that there are people who will continue to rebel against God, refuse to worship Him, and resist his grace and mercy in Jesus Christ to the vey end.  While His patience is vast, it will not last forever.  Eventually, they will receive perfect justice.  On that day, they will bow before the Lord, but not willingly.  In the meantime, God does not work for their good.

2. It does not mean that all things are good.

The promise that God makes here through Paul is that all things work together for our good.  Until salvation is fully realized, believers continue to live in a fallen world where things are not the way they ought to be.  In Romans 8:22, Paul says that all of creation groans and longs for sin to be done away with and its effects to be completely reversed.  Until then, death still reigns, and we grieve over ones that we have lost and still love.  We fight against corruption and sometimes fall victim to it from those outside of us and even from within our own selves.  We strain against an unjust system and suffer unfair outcomes.  We deal with pains and sickness and bodies that are wasting away from disease and cancer and old age and injuries from hard labor.  We weep as we see those that we love suffering from these things as well.

3. It does not mean that all things work together for our good.

We weep and suffer and long and fight in this world, but we do so with hope knowing that the day is coming when all of those things will be brought to nothing—when God’s promises will be fulfilled, and all things will be made right.  And, in the meantime, we live now even in the midst of all this suffering trusting that God is good and that He can be trusted.  We do so trusting that He really is working all of this together for our good.

With this knowledge and this assurance, we can repeat some of Paul’s other words:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared

with the glory that is to be revealed in us.  (Rom. 8:18 NASB)

Living Now in Light of the End:

2 Peter 3:14-18

By Pastor Josh Wamble

Peter spends the end of his second letter reminding his readers of the promise of the Lord’s return.  He tells them that they can be certain that this promise will be fulfilled even when things on earth don’t seem like it.  He tells them (and us) that we should live our lives here and now in light of the fact that He is coming again.  He gives them (and us) four specific instructions on how we should live while we are waiting on the Lord.

1. Be Diligent (2 Pet. 3:14)

He tells us to “be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace.”  In 3:10, Peter reminds his readers that Jesus will come back like a thief in the night.  We know that He will return, but we don’t know when that day or hour might be.  We should diligently strive to be found ready that day and hour does come.

2. Count the Lord’s Patience as Salvation (2 Pet. 3:15)

We should be waiting for the Lord’s return expectantly reminding ourselves that it could come at any moment, but not out of fear.  We should be longing for Him to come back and looking forward to that day when our hope of full salvation becomes reality.  Yet, we should also be patient trusting that the Lord’s timing is wiser than we might be able to understand.

One reason for this patience is our understanding that the Lord’s delay is not a purposeless delay.  Peter tells us that his patience is an opportunity for salvation.  I am thankful the Lord delayed his return until after 1997—that made all the difference in my life.  If he had come back before then, I would be experiencing his judgment right now instead of his grace and mercy!

As Peter says, we should count his patience even now as salvation.  We should be making the most use of the time and sharing the gospel with those around us who have not believed, praying for people to come to repentance and faith, praying for the Lord to call more people to Himself, and praying for Him to call more people as pastors and missionaries to work for the salvation of the world which is white for harvest.

3. Take Care (2 Pet. 3:17)

He also tells us to take care or be on guard—to be watchful and mindful because many lawless people are leading others astray.  We are aware of cults and false teachers and other unbelieving people around us actively working to lead people away from the truth of the gospel.  We should be on guard lest we should be led astray as well.

This is happening in a much more subtle way as well.  The very culture around us and the society we live in is constantly telling us how we should be living—what we should value and which sins we should be accepting and even celebrating and how we should be tolerant of various different views even when they are contradictory to the gospel and to one another.  The devil is very tricky in how he has orchestrated this.  We are bombarded with these messages persistently in the books that we read, the TV shows and movies we watch, the music we listen to, the news that we consume—almost everything around us is leading us away from the ways of God.  It’s in the air we breathe.  If we are not actively taking care and guarding what we think and how we think and what we value, we will passively be swept along.

4. Grow (2 Pet. 3:18)

As we await His return, we should work to be found pure and at peace knowing it is the Holy Spirit working in you but using the means He has provided—His word, prayer, His church.  We should be seeking the Holy Spirit and examining ourselves and rooting out sin in our lives—confessing it and repenting of it.  As we do so, as we continually grow in the grace of our Lord, Jesus, we will find it easier to be diligent and see God’s timing from His perspective and guard ourselves and each other from the dangers all around us.

Peter says all of this is to the glory of Jesus Christ.  As we live more and more with the perspective and outlook of God, as we more and more value the things he values and judge our own world rightly, as we more and more live in the image of our savior, as we are slowly and progressively transformed into who He would have us to be, the true value and worth and glory of Jesus is seen.

Let us long and pray for the Lord to return soon, let us also make the best use of the time that we have.  Working by the power of the Holy Spirit for our own holiness and for the good of those around us that they might also come to believe.

Bug Bites and Sin:

Immediate vs. Delayed Results

By Pastor Josh Wamble

A group from our church just returned from a week serving with Steve and Carol Thompson and the staff at Camp Chacauco in Patate, Ecuador.  There were over 170 kids who attended camp during the week.  Many of them were from Baptist churches that the Thompsons and their team have planted in the surrounding towns and areas over the years.  Others were from catholic churches in those areas.  It is a testament to the reputation the Thompsons have built over the last 37 years that these catholic families would send their kids to an evangelical camp.

We had a great week of serving together.  We washed 1800-2400 dishes each day!  We tried to sing songs in Spanish while doing the movements that went along with them.  We got to know and care about kids with whom we could barely communicate.  We worshipped, celebrated a baptism, and shared the Lord’s Supper in a joint worship service with three local churches.  We split up among four teams and led the kids in competitions and activities.  Some of our group even participated in a huge obstacle course involving racing up a mountain, crawling through mud, sliding down a muddy hill, and forming a human pyramid with kids standing on each other’s shoulders 4 or 5 levels high to reach prizes on top of a pole.

There really was only one negative from the week which was that many of us left with multiple bug bites on our legs, arms, hands, and other parts of our bodies.  Over the last week or so, I have caught myself scratching the bites, sometimes to the point of bleeding.  Of course, I know this is bad and only makes the situation worse in the long term, but in the short term it brings relief and makes them feel so good.  This situation has had me thinking about several passages in the proverbs that warn about the consequences of sin.

In Prov. 9:17-18 folly is personified, and she says to a man, “’Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’  But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.”  The temptations of sin are often like the temptation I have to scratch these bug bites.  Sin often promises immediate rewards.  Temptations come to us promising pleasure.  Sin presents itself as delightful.  We may find ourselves in a situation where lying seems like a way out of a bad situation.  We may be tempted to do whatever it takes to get what we want.  This is what John talks about in 1 John 2:16, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

Over and over, the Bible warns us of the fleeting pleasures of sin.  Scratching bug bites may provide immediate relief, but it leads to worse itching and sometimes even infections in the end.  Sin is the same way.  It may promise pleasure or a good result, and it may even provide some pleasure or solution for a short time.  But, as Prov. 9 says, it ultimately leads to death!

Salvation not only changes our position before God—guilty vs. not guilty, it also changes our natures and how we see the world around us.  May God help up to see sin and temptation for what it is.  Sin is deceitful, may we fight it in our own lives by looking beyond its immediate promises to the ultimate reality of what is being offered—death!

Hearing from God

By Pastor Josh Wamble

If you are like me, you sometimes wish you had lived during the days of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) or the days of the prophets (Moses, Ezekiel, Isaiah, etc.).  Wouldn’t it have been neat to have walked with Jesus as one of His disciples?  In John 21:25, John tells us that Jesus did and said lots of things that did not make it into the gospel accounts.  In fact, he says that if everything he did and said were to be written down, there would not be enough books in the world to contain it all.  Wouldn’t it have been great to have witnessed and heard all that Jesus said and did?

If you are like me, you may sometimes think that life at those times was more connected to God and that he was communicating to his people much more commonly than today.  I mean just look at some of the events of the Old Testament.  God walked with Adam and Eve.  He appeared to Noah and Abraham multiple times.  He led his people with a could of smoke and a pillar of fire.  He spoke to prophets like Moses and gave them messages directly to the people.

In the New Testament times, angels appeared to Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth and Zechariah.  Jesus did many wonders and miracles.  He spoke with very words of God authoritative and true.  The Holy Spirit appeared in such a clear way that He was seen physically in a dove or in tongues of fire.  He allowed people to preach and hear in their own languages so that the gospel message would spread quickly among the people and nations present at Pentecost.

We sometimes look back on these events from our vantage point with envy wishing we could have the same kinds of experiences with God that people of other generations had.  Thinking like this shows that we misunderstand how God has worked throughout history.  This misunderstanding goes in two directions.

First, we overestimate how often people heard the voice of God in the past.  We often collapse the OT history into a much shorter time frame than it actually happened in.  We think that God speaking was much more common than it actually was.  In the first chapters of 1 Samuel, we read about God calling Samuel toward the end of Eli’s life.  In 1 Sam. 3:1, it says “the word of the Lord was rare in those days.”  God wasn’t always speaking during the OT history.  In fact, there were years and decades that passed between the times that God spoke to different leaders and prophets in the Old Testament.  The period between the Old Testament and the New Testament lasted for about 400 years.  In those 400 years, God did not speak once!

Secondly, we underestimate how often people hear the voice of God today.  Samuel says that the word of the Lord was uncommon in his day.  Today, it is so common that it is often taken for granted.  Today God is continually speaking to his people from His word.  If we want to hear a word from the Lord, we just need to open our bibles and start reading.  We may be tempted to think that having a first-person encounter with God is better than reading a book that is hundreds of years old.  Peter didn’t think so.  He was one who walked with Jesus and sat at His feet as He was teaching.  In his 2^nd letter, he reminded his readers that he was there with Jesus.  He says that he saw the Lord Jesus in the fullness of his glory on the mount of transfiguration, and he heard the voice of God the Father announcing that this was his Son and that He was pleased in Him.  Peter says that he had this first-hand, eye-witness experience.  But, Peter says there is something better than his own experience—the prophetic word which is even more true or more fully confirmed.

The word of God recorded in the words of Scripture are better than personal experience with God for several reasons:

1. It is always there and always available. We can hear from God anytime we want to or need to.  All we have to do is pick up our Bible.
2. It remains the same. There is not a chance of misremembering what God actually said as with firsthand experiences.
3. We can read it and study it together, each hearing the same message from God.
4. We can trust that it is really God speaking. Satan can counterfeit experiences, or we can misunderstand our own experiences.  We can trust that what is written for us in His word is really the Words of God preserved for His people.

May we value the scriptures as God’s very word.  May we pay attention to them and treasure them just as we would if God were audibly speaking to us right now!  May we trust that the written scriptures are even better than an audible spoken word!  May we believe it to the point of putting it into practice in our lives!