Romans 8:28 – Superficial, Stubborn, Stunted – Bible study

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. Lets 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 Christians 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. Hells 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 Christians verses. 1. It applies to the Christian life and to Gods 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 livesboth the things we like and the things we do not liketo 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 dont like to work out for our good. 2. Lets 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 Gods 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 Gods 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 Gods 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 Lords Supper, Paul wrote: 1Cor 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lords 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 Lords Supper unworthily. (2) What were they experiencing? \#30\ weakness, sickness, and even death. d. That these consequences were not part of Gods 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 Gods plan for the lives of the believers and they come just because Christians wont 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.