Running To Win

Guest (Male): Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Only a Christian can be certain that all of life is heading toward a future glory. That's why we can know that all things, even the bad things, work together for good for those who love God. For a challenging message on a famous Bible verse, stay with us.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

Dave McAllister: Pastor Lutzer, it’s tough for many to believe that all things work together for good. Sometimes life is so hard that even hope slips away. How can we be sure that He’s working for our good?

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, that’s an excellent question, and it’s not easy to answer it. But I will say this: you and I don’t need to know what that good is. We only see a part of the picture. We’re going through trials and, as you mentioned, we may feel entirely hopeless. But thank God that behind all of that is God working things that we do not understand, and we don’t have to understand in order to believe that all things work together for good, not for everyone, but for all those who love God.

Speaking of the love of God, I’m holding in my hands a book by Jerry Bridges entitled *The Pursuit of Holiness*. If you and I love God, we’re going to pursue holiness because God says, "Be holy like I am holy." What does that mean to you? How do you move from point A to point B? I believe that this book is going to be of tremendous help to you in your spiritual journey, and today is the last day we’re making it available for you.

Chapters include issues regarding the weakness of our wills, how it is that we go from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, what it means to have discipline, and the relationship of discipline to our spiritual growth. Here’s what you do: go to rtwoffer.com. That’s rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. But now, let us listen.

So I begin today with a question: where do we go when the days are dark and the nights are long? Where do you go when you suffer unexpected loss: the death of a child, a mate who leaves you, a retirement fund that shrinks into nothing? Where do you go when you’ve messed up? How do you hang on to your faith when it seems that everything that is working for you is working against you? When the friends who should be helping you are actually becoming your enemies? Where do you go when life falls apart? That’s the question.

And today I do have an answer. The answer is found in a very familiar passage of Scripture, a great promise that all of us have memorized. We all know it very well: Romans 8:28. "And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." You may turn to it there in the Scriptures, and I’m going to give you some introductory comments before we take the text apart and be changed forever because we’ve heard God’s word applied by the Holy Spirit.

First of all, let’s keep in mind that this awesome promise is a promise, and it is not an explanation. It is a promise; it isn’t an explanation. It’s not as if it enables us to read the fine print of God’s diary so we can see exactly why God is doing it, so that we can look back and say, "Well, now I know why that infant died," or "Now I know why I lost a son in a car accident." It’s not that kind of a verse. It gives us the promise that God is working toward our good; it does not give us the details as to how it all fits in. The promise is that it does, but you and I don’t see it.

Secondly, I need to say that it is not a quick cure for sorrow. This past week, my wife and I attended a funeral of a friend of ours whom we’ve known for 35 years. He died at the age of 64. Now catch this: two and a half months ago, he had a physical exam and passed with flying colors. About two weeks after that, he realized he had a very rare form of cancer, and his funeral was this week. Did we go to his grieving widow and his children and say, "Now dry your tears because, after all, all things work together for good to them who love God, so get on with it"?

No, we didn’t do that because that would have hurt, and it would have been wrong. It is true that all things work together for good, but this is not a substitute for sorrow. This is not some kind of an answer so that we can apply it to life and we no longer have any pain. That’s not the kind of verse this verse is. It is a promise, indeed, but it is also given to some people but not everybody. There are many of you listening to this message today to whom this promise does not apply. It applies only with those within a certain circle.

And the people to whom it is applied are specified in the text itself. "And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God." I’m actually quoting the King James; it’s stated a little differently, the word order is different in this translation. We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are the called according to his purpose. First of all, you have to be a God-lover. Now, you and I don’t love God naturally. In fact, the people to whom this verse was given, namely all of us at one time, we either hated God, feared Him, or were indifferent to Him.

It is God who creates a love for Himself within the human heart when we’re converted. This is a supernatural love. So I have to ask you today: are you a God-lover? Do you fundamentally love God? At prayer meeting the other night, I asked everyone to talk out loud simultaneously and simply tell God why we individually loved Him because we all love God if we are born of God. Second, notice it says that they are the called according to His purpose. This is not the general call.

This is not the call that Billy Graham might give as he preaches to a large crowd and says, "In a moment of time, I’m going to ask you to come, hundreds of you. You simply get up out of your seats and I want you to come." It’s not that kind of a general call because there are many millions who hear that call. This is a different call. This is an internal call. This is the call of the Holy Spirit to the elect. Very good word, by the way, that is used in Scripture.

And please come next time in the next message in this series. Overwhelmingly, we’re going to be talking about predestination and election, and we’re going to allow the Bible to simply say what it says about these matters. That’s a great idea. But at the end of this message, if you are outside of the circle that I’m talking about, I will tell you how you can find out if you are the called and give you an opportunity to respond to Christ so that you can be among the called as God calls you.

So this is not just a general promise to everyone. This is for those who love God, who are called. It’s another definition of being a Christian. If you don’t love God and you’ve never been called, you’ve never been born again. Now with that introduction, what I’d like to do is to give you four aspects of this overwhelming promise, this unbelievable promise that is found in Romans chapter 8 verse 28, which virtually everyone knows by memory.

I was witnessing to a healthcare worker in the hospital about a week ago. In fact, I invited him to church this Sunday. If you’re here, please come up later and introduce yourself. I was trying to lead him to assurance of faith because he didn’t have assurance of faith. And so we prayed together, and I said, "I’m going to be preaching on Romans 8:28." And he knew the verse and was able to quote it. It’s a well-known verse. Let's now look at the four aspects of God’s providence and God’s care for His people.

Are you ready? Everyone ready? Number one, please notice the certainty of God’s promise. The certainty of God’s promise: "And we know." Now, if you glance back in verse 26, it says we don’t know. Paul says we don’t know how we should pray as we ought. We just don’t know how we should pray. But he says we do know something. We know that all things work together for good. In Greek, two words for know: one is *ginosko*, which means to know by experience. We experience love; we say, "I know this person by experience."

This is not the word that’s used here. This is *oida*. Because *oida* is the kind of knowledge that comes through revelation or propositions. If you’re doing, for example, mathematics, you can’t say that I’ve experienced that two plus two is equal to four. It is a proposition that is grasped by the mind. And that’s what Paul has in mind here. He’s saying that we know that all things work together for good. We know because God has revealed it. We’ve not experienced it. There are all kinds of things that we’ve experienced that have not been, so far as we can see, for our good.

But Paul says all things work together for good and we know it. We know it through the Word of God, through the promises of God, through the prompting of the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God. We have that down-deep settled assurance: we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Last night, Rebecca and I were out having dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Easley. Before we left, Michael, who probably is ten years or so younger than I am, said to us, "I have a question for you: as you grow older, is your faith in God strengthened or is it challenged?"

Do you doubt your faith because of all of the sorrow and the suffering and the sickness and the unanswered questions that we have in life? Rebecca answered that indeed her faith was stronger, and I agreed with that. But then I added this: my faith is stronger, but the mysteries are greater. The mysteries are greater. I don’t know why God takes a child at the age of five. I don’t know why a mother dies of cancer at the age of 37 leaving three children. I don’t get that.

And my parents continue to live even though they’re anxious to go to heaven at their old age. I don’t get it. The mystery of God. Long ago, I’ve tried to figure these things out, but I’ve stopped trying to figure them out because they’re above my pay grade. I just can’t get my mind around why God does what He does. But my faith is strong. I believe absolutely that God works all things for good to those who love Him. So we know, we know. That has to do with the certainty of God’s purposes.

Secondly, notice this aspect: it has to do with the comprehensiveness of God’s purposes. The comprehensiveness of God’s purposes: "We know that all things." Each of these aspects has the phrase "we know all things." Underline "all things." All things means everything works together for good. Life is haphazard; it doesn’t fit. There are no neat categories. But God takes these categories and He makes them neat. He finds a place for them and He works these things for our good and His good too, as we shall see in just a moment.

Now, the question is: what does He work for good? Well, obviously He uses righteous things for good. His people, the Word of God—all these things are used for our good. But He also uses the negative things, and that’s clearly what the Apostle Paul has in mind. He uses reversals. He uses losses. He uses health issues. He uses people who turn against us. He uses losses, not only of a child, of a spouse, of a relative, or of a parent, as Rebecca is experiencing today.

He not only uses those kinds of things but also losses on the stock market. I think of 10,000 people dying because of the turbulence of the stock market. In the life of a Christian, God uses these things for good. Our enemies are used for our good. As a matter of fact, we need our enemies and our enemies need us, and they are there for our good. Keep that in mind because all things work together for good to them that love God. Anything that we would call affliction, it says in Psalm 119 verse 67, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but I have kept Thy word."

God uses affliction. All things. Oh, you say, "But Pastor Lutzer, you haven’t gotten to the big thing yet." I know exactly what you’re thinking if you’re tracking with me today. You’re saying, "I understand all that, that works somehow for good. But what about our sin?" You know, those of us who were in prayer meeting the other night and what a marvelous time we had as the Holy Spirit came upon us and enabled us to pray in the Spirit and cry up to God on behalf of ourselves and our church and our country.

In my small group—and we broke into small groups about three times for 20 minutes each time—there were three men. Two of them had ruined their marriage because of their own sin. And now they were repenting, they were calling up to God because they’d like to reestablish their relationship with their wives. Does that work together for good? What do you mean all things work together for good? Pastor Lutzer, I have blown it. If you knew my sin, if you knew what I’ve committed, God, how could that possibly work together for good?

But the very fact that they were repenting, the very fact that they were there calling on God is an indication that God’s in the business of taking even sin and working it for good. Now, we must tread very carefully here. Sin is never justified. Sin is never a good thing. You should never sin so that God will have something to use to display His grace or to work something for good. That is wrong thinking, as the Apostle Paul clarifies in the book of Romans, and will lead you down a false path, and that path may have many pitfalls from which you may never recover.

But having said that, God is able even to take our sin, to overrule it, to weave it, to use it in ways that we cannot even fathom to help us to see ourselves and our great need, to expand His grace because the Bible says that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Let me give you a list of things: evil, sin, false accusations, injustice, broken relationships, cruelty, betrayal, hatred, jealousy, abandonment.

You say, "Pastor Lutzer, can all of those things work together for good?" The answer is yes, because everything that I just read to you was all a part of what Jesus experienced in His last hours on the cross as He went to Calvary. And God worked that for good. As a matter of fact, that is the quintessential example of how God takes something that is thoroughly, entirely evil. The Bible says that wicked men crucified Christ, and God takes those wicked men and what they do and holds them fully accountable.

And yet out of the crucible of human failure and sin and betrayal and what have you there at Calvary, He displays His grace. And if we can take that as a microcosm and help us to understand that all things work together for good. What is it that you are experiencing today? What disappointment? What hopelessness? What dream has been shattered? What child has disappointed you? What hopelessness has come to you as a result of some news that you received this past week? All things work together for good to them that love God.

What the Apostle Paul is saying is that God’s sovereignty is such over the affairs of men, His ability to intervene, His ability to cancel sin, His ability to be able to use the very pains of life is so great that we can say with confidence: we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Notice how far we’ve come: the certainty of God’s purposes. We’ve talked about the comprehensiveness of God’s purposes: all things work together for good. And now we speak about the means of God’s purposes.

How are they brought about? Now you underline the phrase "work together." *Sunergeo* in Greek, which really means from which we get the word "synergism." Here you have events, you have confluence. I always hoped I’d have a chance to use that word; I love the word "confluence." Here you have the coming together of the purposes of God, the interweaving of His purposes because He sees around corners and He knows the outcome in ways that you and I cannot possibly fathom, and He works them together for good.

When I was a boy out in the farm, as farm boys we loved to take things apart. My oldest brother was able to take a tractor apart and put it together again and the motor would run. If I had done that, we’d have been able to buy the farm next door with all the parts that would have been left over if I had taken it apart. But I remember taking a clock apart. It was one of these clocks that didn’t run, which means it was right twice a day, something like some people I know.

But I took it apart, and one of the things that I noticed in the back before I did, as you tried to get it to run when you wound it up, is that there were some little wheels. It was full of little wheels. I love these little wheels. But some of them were going counterclockwise. Some of them were going the same direction as the clock. Some of them were going faster. Some of them were going slower. And some of them were going, yes, counter the hands of the clock.

Now, if all that you had was the back of the clock to look at, you’d say to yourself, "What possible sense does this make? This is just silly. Here you have a wheel that is in opposite purposes to the purpose of the clock." But actually not. My friend today, you may be having a very, very bad day. But mark my word: from God’s standpoint, it may be a very, very good day. When everything is against you, when one thing falls on your life right after another and you are coming up for air and you’re saying, "How can I take all this stress?"

How can I take all this disappointment? How could this have happened, which I could have never predicted? At that moment, God may be saying, "It’s all working against you, but I’m working for you, and I am working for you to bring about good."

Dave McAllister: Well, I don't know about you, but just listening to that is a tremendous blessing to me. There’s so much in life that we do not understand, but we don’t have to understand it in order to keep trusting and believing. But how do we develop a life of discipline? Discipline that takes hold of the promises of God, discipline that depends upon God and therefore is effective in moving us along the journey of life.

I’m holding in my hands a book by Jerry Bridges entitled *The Pursuit of Holiness*. I believe that this book is going to be a tremendous help to you. It was a help to me as I considered what it meant to run the Christian race successfully. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. And listen to me carefully: this is the last day we’re making it available for you. I sure hope that you have a pen or pencil handy. I’m giving you time so that you might be able to write down this info.

What you do is you go to rtwoffer.com. That’s rtwoffer.com. Finally, you’ll discover what it means, for example, to put sin to death, as the Apostle Paul admonishes us. These are the kind of questions this book answers. Here’s what you do: go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. As I mentioned, this is the last day we’re making this resource available for you. Here’s what you do: you go to rtwoffer.com. Of course, rtwoffer is all one word. rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God’s roadmap for your race of life. The hand of God moves in the lives of His people to bring about good even when what’s happening is bad. Through the eye of faith, believers can be sure that a better day is coming, and we can live triumphantly no matter what comes our way. Next time on Running to Win, why even events going in the wrong direction can still be part of the good toward which God is taking those who love Him. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.