Audio Transcript
“Everything happens for a reason.” You’ve heard the line. Maybe you’ve said it to others. Maybe you’ve recited it as a reminder to yourself. It’s a cliché — a well-meaning cliché, but it’s a cliché. People who say it are normally genuinely concerned. But the problem is that we don’t live on slogans like this one; we live on divine promises. Can we ground such a claim on the bedrock of God’s unchanging word? Today on Ask Pastor John: everything happens for a reason.
We get there by reading Romans 8 together, today and tomorrow. It’s an amazing chapter, Pastor John — so amazing that, in your book Providence, you call Romans 8:28–39 “the greatest section of the greatest chapter of the greatest letter in the greatest book in the world” (613). Can’t say it stronger than that! And to it we return today through Lucas’s question. Lucas lives in Northern California. “Pastor John, how does Paul’s promise in Romans 8:28 that ‘all things work together for good’ reframe our understanding of suffering, inviting us to trust God’s providence even during pain and hardship? When facing difficult circumstances, how does embracing God’s comprehensive sovereignty foster patience and hope rather than despair? I’m just beginning to make these connections and would love to hear your thoughts.”
The reality that Romans 8:28 expresses is precious beyond measure. For Christians, this reality is the rock where our feet can find some measure of stability and sanity and hope when waves of disappointment, frustration, grief, loss, betrayal, abuse, disability, and disease break over our souls, sometimes with unremitting and lifelong suffering. This is a precious rock of stability and sanity and hope unless the Christian has been badly taught. And unfortunately, millions have been badly taught about God’s sovereignty in their suffering.
So, I would encourage every Christian to do a deep dive into Romans 8 so that you are well taught by God concerning the meaning of Romans 8:28 and can have a rock to stand on when your time of baffling suffering comes. That’s why this verse is in the Bible: to preserve our faith in the loving purposes of God in our life when everything around our soul gives way.
Let’s get this glorious verse in front of us, and let’s be sure to see it in its context so that we don’t read our own tendencies into the verse. We want to get God’s word out, not our mere human preferences in.
Uncertainty in Prayer
Let’s start with Romans 8:26–28: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know” — now, pause there because that’s going to contrast with verse 28, which says, “but we do know.” So here’s what we don’t know: “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
“Our suffering is in the hands of an all-wise, all-good, all-powerful Father.”
He has just spoken in Romans 8:23–25 about the groaning of our bodies as we wait for redemption — pain, suffering, calamity, disaster — all kinds of things because of this fallen world. And so the uncertainty of what we should pray for relates most immediately to our physical condition in this world. What should I ask for in this broken world, where physical evil is going to eventually take my life? Should I always pray to be spared? What should I pray for? I mean, Paul really wrestled with this, like his thorn in the flesh, asking three times, “Take it away. Take it away. Take it away” (2 Corinthians 12:7–9). And God doesn’t take it away. And he must have been perplexed, like: “What else should I not pray for, or what else am I going to get a no to?” And he says, “Very often, we just don’t know what to pray for.”
The Promise Applied
And then comes glorious Romans 8:28, concerning what we do know. Over against not knowing what we should pray for, he says, “[But] we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Now, this is a promise given to Christians, not everybody. From God’s side, these people whom the promise applies to are called by God into being a Christian. That means he called them from death to life. He saved them, he caused them to be born again, and he did it according to his eternal purpose in Christ to glorify his grace in their salvation. And then, from the other side — they’re called from the human side — he says, “They love God.” So, he calls us, and we love him. There’s the objective work of God. There’s the subjective response of man defining the Christian that verse 28 applies to.
We are Christians because God took the initiative to call us, and we are Christians because that call created in us a heartfelt love for God. Those are the people to whom this verse applies. And sandwiched in between those two descriptions of Christians as “lovers of God” and “called by God,” we see this astonishing promise. “All things work together for good.” Four simple Greek words: panta synergei eis agathon. I don’t think there’s any reason to limit the word panta, or “all things,” and it especially includes suffering because the main thrust of this section (from verse 18 to 28) has been to deal with the corruption, futility, brokenness, and misery of the created world after the fall. That’s been the context. So, it’s a strong and comprehensive statement. That’s why it’s so glorious. That’s why it’s so many people’s favorite verse.
Made Like Christ
All pleasant things, all painful things in life — the life of a child of God — are being woven together by God into a fabric that God calls good. That’s the image that Corrie ten Boom used. That’s why I thought of it. When she was suffering — I mean, she spent time in a German concentration camp — and as she looked back over her life, she said it was like God weaving a tapestry that she could only see from the underside, with all the loose, tangled threads, but God could see it from the top, with its bright, beautiful, purposeful meaning. And that’s what we’ll all see someday. God gives us little glimpses of it now, but not all of it.
Paul tells us more specifically what the good is right here in this passage. In this chapter, right in the next verse, he explains, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). That’s the ground for the good in verse 28: “be conformed to the image of his Son.” That’s the ultimate good that God is working in all believers: “to be conformed [finally] to the image of his Son.”
“God’s total control in our lives goes hand in hand with the sweetest, most intimate care for his cherished children.”
Now, that is simply staggering to think that we — every Christian — will one day be like the second person of the Trinity, the Creator of the universe. You’ve got to let that sink in. You just cannot read over that. It’s just mind-boggling. We’re going to be like the Creator of the universe, and that’s true physically and morally. Philippians 3:21: “[He] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” And Colossians 3:10: “[You] have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”
Meant for Good
Even if we must suffer every day of our lives on this planet and have none of our earthly dreams fulfilled, this life is but a vapor’s breath compared to eternity. So, Paul says, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory” — indeed, “an eternal weight of glory” — “beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). That’s the good. In other words, it is all working for our glorious good — yes, even the evil done against us, as it says in Genesis 50:20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Meant it, not used it: “Meant it for good.” Yes, God is that sovereign. James says, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). “This or that” is comprehensive. It’s meant to be detailed and exhaustive. “If the Lord wills.” And if he doesn’t, we won’t do this or that.
Paul says, “[God] works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), and that “all things” is the same “all things” of Romans 8:28. This is good news to believers who suffer because it means our suffering is not random. It’s not ultimately in the control of a malevolent spirit. It’s not in the hands of a fumbling, bumbling God. It is in the hands of an all-wise, all-good, all-powerful Father. That’s the way Jesus argued. I’m not putting pieces together in a logical way and drawing this out. I’m just following Jesus.
Listen to what Jesus says. This is how Jesus comforts us. He says in Matthew 10:28–30 that we should “not fear those who kill the body.” Why not? “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Now, that’s meticulous providence. That’s God’s pervasive sovereignty: Not a bird in the universe on the planet falls to the ground apart from your Father. “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.”
Now, what does Jesus make of that? You can get all kinds of arguments going about God’s sovereignty, and that’s not where he goes. Here’s where he goes: “Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31). Now, that’s precious beyond language. God’s total control in our lives goes hand in hand with the sweetest, most intimate care for his cherished children.
