Together for Good

Today on Renewing Your Mind... If in fact everything that happens to us is working for our ultimate good, would it not follow that ultimately everything that happens to us is good? If God is working in it and through it for our good, then we have to say ultimately it was good that it happened. I think all of us, when we come to Romans 8.28, can have an intellectual understanding of that promise.

But when we're walking through the darkness of grief, loss, or suffering, it's far more difficult to rest in it. We're pleased this week to air portions of Dr. R.C. Sproul's series, Providence, God in Control.

The title of today's message, Together for Good. One of the things that I like to do with my seminary students where I teach is to ask them trick questions. One of my favorite trick questions is this one, who was the greatest prophet in the Old Testament? Now, when I ask that question to my students, they'll usually give answers like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Daniel or whoever happens to be their favorite Old Testament prophet. And I say, no, no, no, no, the greatest prophet in the Old Testament was John the Baptist.

And as soon as I say that, they get all upset and they say, that's not fair. That's a trick question. He's not in the Old Testament. We read about him in the New Testament. I said, yes, we read about him in the book called the New Testament.

But the period in which he appears in redemptive history is still the age of the Old Covenant. Jesus says that the law and the prophets rule until John. That is up to and including John. Well, that's one of my trick questions.

The other one is the one I'm more interested in for our consideration today. And the question is this, and see if you can answer it. The question is, what negative prohibition does Jesus give more frequently than any other negative prohibition in the New Testament? Now, you think hard about that for a minute. What negative prohibition does Jesus give to his people in the New Testament more often than any other one?

Well, remember I said it's kind of a trick question. The answer is fear not. Jesus says it so often that we don't even read it or hear it as if it were a negative prohibition, do we?

He says it so often, it almost takes the place of a greeting. Because when Jesus appears before people instead of saying hello or shalom, he says, don't be afraid, fear not. Now, there are reasons for that. Certainly one of the reasons is that Jesus himself, when he manifested the majesty of God, the awesome, holy, transcendent power that he displayed frightened people. And he would have to assuage these fears.

He would have to speak to calm them down. But there's another reason I'm sure why our Lord had to say this so many times. I think it's because he understood something very basic about us that we are given to fear, aren't we? That there are many times and many occasions in our lives where we are frightened. And obviously one of the most frightening things about our lives is the unknown future. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. We don't know if tragedy will befall us at the next turn.

We don't know if we'll be stricken with a painful or even terminal disease. And these things frighten us. Now, how would you feel if Jesus himself spoke to you today and said to you, don't be afraid. From this moment onward, nothing bad will ever happen to you again.

What would that do for your fears? Wouldn't that put a little extra skip in our walking and a little extra lilt in our voice as we faced tomorrow and as we face the future? Well, today what I want us to consider is that in a very profound and real sense, Jesus has made that commitment already to us. It's an indirect promise, and it's one that we don't always quite grasp in its full implications.

And yet we're familiar enough with us that frequently when polls are taken about what people's favorite verses are in the New Testament, this particular verse that contains the promise that comes to us indirectly from Christ, that promise is found in Paul's letter to the Romans in the eighth chapter. Romans 8.28 says this, for we know that all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose. Now you say, wait a minute, R.C., the text doesn't say that only good things happen to God's people. It doesn't say that God will never allow anything bad to happen to you.

Well, I have to agree quite simply that's true. Those words are not found in the text. I'm inferring something here from the text that I want us to examine. The text simply says that God is at work in such a way that all things, that is everything that we encounter, everything that happens to us, everything that we meet, everything that befalls us, God is working together for good. Now again, that doesn't mean that everything that happens to us is, when considered in itself, a good thing. But God is saying here that in His providence, He is making everything that does happen to us work for our good. So now we have to put our thinking caps on a little bit, and I ask you this. If in fact everything that happens to us is working for our ultimate good, would it not follow resistlessly that ultimately everything that happens to us is good?

If God is working in it and through it for our good, then we have to say ultimately it was good that it happened. But you notice the word, you hear the word that I'm saying that's kind of the qualifier word, it's the fine print that I'm speaking, and that's the word ultimately. Now when we speak in the language of philosophy or of theology, we often make a distinction between the ultimate and the proximate. And that distinction, which can be a technical thing, is really a distinction between the remote, that which is far away, out of our immediate vision, out of our immediate grasp, between the remote and the near, that which is near at hand, that which we do see, that which we do embrace that is happening in the here and now. Now earlier in our study of providence, you will recall that we made an important distinction about causes. And we made a distinction between primary causality and secondary causality.

Again, that's a little bit of an abstract thing, and I realize that. But what the theologian is getting at when he distinguishes between primary and secondary causality is this. You remember the story of Joseph, where when he was reunited with his brothers, and his brothers were terrified that Joseph would enact vengeance against them. And their fear, you know, they're apologizing and all that, and Joseph says, don't worry, you don't have to be afraid.

You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. What Joseph is saying is, there were two agents involved in my affliction, two causal powers working. It's because of you in this world, Joseph is saying to his brothers, that I was sold into slavery, and that I was thrown into prison, and that I endured so many years of pain and affliction. You were the cause of that. Yet at the same time, in that human causal chain, Joseph recognized that beyond the actions of his brothers, above the actions of his brothers, stood the overarching providence of God. And he's saying, you may have caused these things proximately. You may have been the near at hand cause.

You were the secondary cause. But Joseph is saying to his brothers, but I understand that even you do not have the power to sin against me unless it is somehow within the realm of God's overarching providential government of my life. And so ultimately, God's intentions were being worked out, and His intentions were absolutely righteous and good and holy. And He is even able to bring good out of your evil. That's the fundamental lesson that we have been struggling to understand as we examine this biblical concept of providence. And there is no statement in all of Scripture that crystallizes this more exactly or more clearly than Paul's summary in Romans 8.28. All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and for those who are called according to His purpose.

Now, I brought with me today the New American Standard translation of the New Testament, and it gives a slightly different twist in the words that it chooses to use in order to translate Romans 8.28. Let's listen to that. The way they translate it is this, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.

Do you hear that? That God, who is the primary cause of everything that happens, has the power in His providence to make every single thing that happens to us work for our good. Now, if I really believe that, you understand there are different levels of our confidence of belief in the things of God. I always like to say that there is a big difference between believing in God and believing God. I am confident that God exists. I put my faith in God, but my faith is like the faith of Peter and others who said, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief, because we tend to vacillate, we tend to struggle in the moment of crisis when we are called upon to trust the promise of God. Who in the world looks forward to pain, save the masochist?

Who looks forward to the death of family members or to friends? Who looks forward to wars and all the rest of the evils that befall our existence in this world? And when they happen, it is exceedingly difficult to hold firm in the confidence and in your faith and in your belief that God is at work here for good. That's the real test of the Christian life is to what degree we are able to trust God for tomorrow.

And yet it is precisely at the point of our trusting and believing the promise of God that these things are working together for our good. That is the anecdote to fear. When I was just a little boy, my mother would pray by my bedside at night, and she would pray children's prayers and little prayers that were easy for me to understand. And I had to memorize the one that I didn't particularly like. I found it scary now I lay me down to sleep.

Remember that one? I pray the Lord my soul to keep. So far so good if I should die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take.

I mean, every night I went to bed a little bit uncertain whether I was going to wake up in the morning because I had to deal with that idea at nighttime. And I found it frightening. But the other one that she taught was the 23rd Psalm. And the Lord is my shepherd. It's an upbeat psalm.

It's a psalm of trust in the care of divine providence that my life is in the hand of the shepherd. But the part of that prayer that always got my most intense interest were the words, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. You've prayed that. You've read that.

You've heard that. But it's one of the hardest truths of God to believe in the sense of getting that faith beyond our brains and into our bloodstream. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

I am not at the place in my life where I can say that with certainty. There are things that lurk in the valley of the shadow of death. There are things in those shadows that frighten me. And I suspect they frighten you. And we learned to be afraid of the dark when we were little children too, didn't we? And yet the psalmist says, even if I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid of any evil.

Why? For thou art with me. I once heard an old minister say God has never promised His people that they would be exempt from walking through the valley of the shadow of death. He never says you will never have to go through the valley of the shadow of death. What God has promised is that when we do go into the valley of the shadow of death, that He will go with us. And what does that do to your courage if you really knew that He was there? Again, if Christ in physical terms, in His incarnate form, would walk into our rooms today and say to us, say to me, R.C., this afternoon, I want you to go through the valley of the shadow of death, and I'm going to walk out there with you.

I know what my response would be. I would say, Lord, if you're going with me, let's go. What do I have to be afraid of?

If you're here, but my fear is He doesn't really mean it, that maybe as soon as I step foot in that valley, He'll leave. It's so hard to put our trust in the promise of God's presence when we cannot see it. It's like the little children during the Korean War who were in fear of starving because food was so scarce, and the orphan children were gathered in some of the camps, and the children couldn't sleep at night, and they weren't getting enough rest because of their fear. And their principal fear was they wouldn't be able to survive another day because there'd be no food. So one nurse came up with an idea that when she tucked the children into bed at night, she gave them a piece of bread to hold in their hand, and they dozed off to sleep in great calmness of spirit without a problem because their security was not a blanket.

It was a piece of bread because they had tangible, concrete evidence that their future care was being provided for. This was an example of human providence. But God is saying, even if you don't see Me, even if you can't see Me, even if you can't touch Me, I will be there even in the valley of the shadow of death. And so when Paul tells us that all things work together for good, he is saying that not because he is just given to optimism or because the apostle is whistling in the dark, but he is teaching us a premise. He is teaching us something that is a law of God that God has promised and committed Himself to, that by His providence He guarantees His presence in the midst of suffering and not only that, His absolute promise that no matter how things happen to us or what things happen to us in this world, God will redeem them because the God of providence is a redeeming God.

As Dr. R.C. Sproul said today, no one looks forward to famine or war or suffering or losing a loved one. It is right and good to grieve in those circumstances. But in our grief, we can rest in the knowledge that in His providence, God is working all things for our ultimate good and His glory. We've heard a message from Dr. Sproul's series, Providence, God in Control today here on Renewing Your Mind. I'm glad you could be with us today. This series is helpful in every stage of life. Whether we're experiencing joy or grief, we need to be reminded that everything has a purpose and that all events occur according to God's eternal plan.

That knowledge brings both comfort and humility. We'd like to provide a digital download of the full series to you. There's a total of 15 messages from Dr. Sproul, and when you contact us today with a donation of any amount, we'll also include the hardbound 25th-anniversary edition of R.C. 's book, The Invisible Hand. In it, Dr. Sproul writes this.

He says, So request these resources today when you call us at 800-435-4343 or when you go online to renewingyourmind.org. When Dr. Sproul founded Ligonier Ministries in 1971, he wanted to help growing Christians understand their faith more deeply. And so he taught on a range of topics, including biblical studies, church history, theology, and worldview studies.

My first exposure to R.C. 's teaching was more than 30 years ago in a Sunday school class which used some of his teaching series. So if you are a Sunday school teacher or a small group leader, let me encourage you to consider requesting this series. Again, our phone number is 800-435-4343. The title of the series is Providence, God in Control, and the book is The Invisible Hand. You can also make your request and give your gift of any amount online when you go to renewingyourmind.org. Tomorrow Dr. Sproul will address the problem of evil in the world, and we hope you'll join us for the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. .