Romans 8:28
Superficial, Stubborn, & Stunted
The verse that we are looking at this morning is one of the essential
verses of the Bible. Essential verses are verses that as a Christian,
you commit to your memory and keep them near to your heart. Some
will be essential to you because of the road you have traveled and
what they meant to you on the road. Others are essential to all
believers because of the truths they share.
John 3:16 is an essential salvation verse.
1John 1:9 is an essential forgiveness verse.
Our text, Romans 8:28, is an essential comfort verse.
Let’s look at it with three thoughts this morning.
I. Romans 8:28 is a Christians’ Verse.
Romans 8:28 And WE know…
A. The "we" of this verse is the Christian.
1. Everything in this verse speaks to the Christian.
2. Nothing in it speaks to the non-Christian.
B. There are differences.
1. We have become a society that despises differences but
they do exist.
a. There are differences between men and women, between
races, between nations, between citizens and non-
citizens, between those with and those without.
b. I am not saying all of those differences are good or
are right, but they do exist and denying that does
not make them go away.
2. The biggest difference of all is the difference between
Christians and non-Christians.
a. There is a difference in how Christians and non-
Christians live.
b There is a difference in what will happen to a
Christian and a non-Christian after this life.
C. This verse is only speaking of what happens to a Christian.
1. It is promising that God will make everything that happens
to a Christian work for the Christian’s good.
2. God makes no such promise to a non-Christian.
D. Let me illustrate that by talking about heaven and hell.
1. Christians go to heaven once this life is over. Non-
Christians go to hell.
2. There is nothing good for the non-Christian in hell—
nothing.
3. Hell is forever judgment for sin. That is all it is.
a. Hell will not refine the sinner.
b. Hell will not revive the sinner.
c. Hell will not purify the sinner.
d. Hell’s purpose is not to cause the sinner to repent.
4. All hell will do is torment the sinner for that is all
that hell is.
a. \\#Luke 16:23, 24, 25, 28\\ The account of Lazarus and
the rich man, the word "torment" is used to describe
hell.
b. \\#Rev 14:10-11\\ use the word torment 2x to describe
that awful place.
c. \\#Rev 20:10\\ used the word once.
E. I emphasize that to help the non-Christian to understand that
Romans 8:28 is a Christian’s verses.
1. It applies to the Christian life and to God’s power in the
Christian life to make everything work for our good.
2. It has no application to the non-Christian at all.
II. Romans 8:28 is a Comforting Verse.
Romans 8:28 … all things work together for
good….
A. This is the heart and soul of this verse.
B. There is a salutation in front of it and two conditions behind
it, but this verse contains a blanket promise for those to
whom it is addressed and will meet the conditions.
1. It is a personal promise from God that He will cause
everything in our lives—both the things we like and the
things we do not like—to produce good.
a. We do not like sickness or disease, but God promises
to make sickness and disease work for our good.
b. We do not like poverty or pink slips, but God promises
to make poverty and pink slips work for our good.
c. We do not like disappointments, betrayals, old age,
layoffs, cancer, flat tires, computer crashes, death,
cell phones in the toilet, pink eye, traffic jams,
or a million other things, but God promises to make
every one of the things we do and don’t like to work
out for our good.
2. Let’s be certain that we understand.
a. God does not promise that bad things will not happen.
b. He promises to make the bad things work for our good.
3. It is this part of the verse that makes it a blessed
verse.
C. How will God do this? God can accomplish this by many more
means than I can think of but basically, He does it by
changing the effect and meaning of the bad things in our
lives.
1. Changing the Effect
a. Changing the effect is solely God’s job.
b. When bad things happen, the effect we most often see
the effect it has on us.
(1) Maybe it was something so minor that it irritated
us.
(2) Maybe it was something so major that it
devastated us.
(3) Regardless, it is the impact on us that we see
c. This is normal.
d. However, once we step back a little, Christians are
often able to see how God used that bad event to
produce something good.
(1) Often something much better than just good.
(2) Often something miraculous.
e. In fact, God ALWAYS does something good and God often
does something miraculous with every problem and
difficulty.
f. The problem is we often focus so much on our
hurt and disappointed that we do not see the good
that God does.
2. Changing the Meaning
a. While it is God’s job to change the effect, it is
always our job to change the meaning.
b. Most people remember things.
(1) That is also normal.
(2) Most like to remember the good (birthdays,
special events, good times) and most simply
cannot forget the bad.
(3) But in this verse, God promised to work a good
out of every bad.
(4) That means if we will look, we can always find a
good to remember with bad and prayerfully, one
day, we can good to remember instead of the bad.
(5) That does not take away the bad, but it can
change the meaning of the bad and change our
view of it.
III. Romans 8:28 is a Conditional Verse.
A. Two conditions are placed on the Christian to whom this verse
was written.
1. Remember, There is a salutation at the front and two
conditions in the back.
2. It seems that the conditions further limit those who can
claim the power of this verse.
3. So God is saying that you can even be a Christian and
still not have all things working together for your good.
B. What are the two conditions?
1. "to them that love God."
a. That seems plain enough but to understand it, we must
give some sort of definition to the word "love."
b. The simplest definition of love might be to treasure
Him, to value Him, to feel some strong devotion,
loyalty, and affection for Him.
2. "to them that are called according to His purpose."
a. To be called means to have heard from God concerning
His purpose for your life.
b. To hear from God requires some measure of
communication with Him and some level of obedience
to Him.
C. If I am reading this correctly, to have all the things that
come into your life to work for your good, some measure of
affection for God must be present; as well as, some measure
of surrender and growth must be taking place.
1. This promise does not apply to superficial Christians.
a. That is to Christians whose love for God has waned.
b. Sadly, the Bible makes it clear that Christians can
sink to such lows.
Revelation 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat
against thee (church at Ephesus), because thou
hast left thy first love.
c. If the condition of this verse is to love God, to feel
some affection, loyalty, and devotion to Him, and we
have allowed our hearts to grow cold and indifferent
to Him, then we no longer meet the condition the
verse no longer applies to us.
2. Neither does this promise apply to stubborn Christians.
a. Some who claim Christ will not surrender to Him.
b. We often refer to theses as backslidden Christians.
c. Some who are backslidden might say that they love the
Lord, but they cannot say that they are called
according to His will for they are refusing to obey
God’s will.
3. And neither does this promise apply to stunted Christians.
a. Stunted means they are not growing, that they do not
have fellowship with God.
b. Christians who are stunted may still claim they love
the Lord but they cannot claim to be called according
to His will for they are not in fellowship with Him
and do not know what the will of God for their life
is.
c. They may know what the will of God for their life WAS
but not what it IS.
D. Why is this so?
1. I do not see that the Bible directly answers that
question, but I believe we need to at least consider it.
2. Why would God not promise to work to make all things work
for the good of the superficial, the stubborn, or stunted
Christian?
3. I believe the answer is because God must bring things into
the lives of those Christians which were not a part of
His original good plan for them.
4. The Bible makes it clear that God does bring bad things
into the lives of Christians just to get them back on
track.
a. In speaking of the Lord’s Supper, Paul wrote:
1Cor 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh
unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to
himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among
you, and many sleep.
31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should
not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of
the Lord, that we should not be condemned with
the world.
b. There can be no doubt that Paul was speaking of the
Christian for he used the personal pronoun "we" in
both verses 31 & 32.
c. Paul was speaking of Christians doing something they
should not do and having to endure consequences that
they should not have to endure.
(1) What were they doing? \\#29\\ eating and
drinking of the Lord’s Supper unworthily.
(2) What were they experiencing? \\#30\\ weakness,
sickness, and even death.
d. That these consequences were not part of God’s design
is evident because Paul told the Corinthians that if
they would use proper judgment, they would not have
to be judged with such things \\#31\\.
e. What does this mean?
(1) It means that bad things can happen to
Christians who willfully or foolishly do wrong.
(2) These things were not part of God’s plan for
the lives of the believers and they come just
because Christians won’t use Christian judgment.
(3) Of course, in one sense, these bad consequences
can still be good if they help the Christian to
repent of his failing relationship with Christ
and get right, but they are not good in that
God never intended us to have to bear those
scars or to live with those consequences.
E. So Romans 8:28 should convict us if we are superficial in
our love, stubborn in our walk, or stunted in our growth.
1. If we want God to make everything work for our good, we
need to meet His conditions.
2. Every problem, every potential problem, should move us to
get as right with God as we can be and to stay as right
with God as we can.
This verse is essential. Every human being is going to have a Romans
8:28 day and most of us are going to have a lot of them. When that
day comes, you want to be the Christian that it was written to and
be meeting the conditions that are required so that you can have the
comfort that it offers.
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