Exodus 3:1-17: Moses and the Burning Bush

INTRODUCTION

I graduated from the University of Kansas. The year the university opened its doors in 1866 its first chancellor chose as the great seal of the university a picture of Moses bowed before the burning bush.

The center of the seal is a picture of Moses bowing before the burning bush. The inscription on the seal reads (as translated from the Latin): “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt,” which is from the Bible, Exodus 3:3.

According to promotional material put out by the university, the fire in the burning bush represents knowledge in many myths and stories. The bowed figure of Moses represents the humble attitude of the scholar in his unquenchable pursuit of truth and knowledge.

That seal with Moses and the burning bush is on my diplomas.

In a stained glass window of the university chapel where we were married is a picture of Moses and the burning bush.

Smith Hall, which houses K.U.’s Department of Religious Studies, has a large stained glass window depicting the burning bush and outside the building, facing the window is a huge statue of Moses kneeling before the burning bush.

I think it is interesting that my university uses that image to depict its mission. But that is not really what the story is all about.

Today I want to talk about this famous story, one of the most important in the Bible.

BACKGROUND

You remember the story about how the cruel ruler Pharaoh decreed that all the Hebrew boy babies would be thrown into the Nile for the crocodiles to eat.

When Moses’s mother saw how beautiful her baby boy followed the Pharaoh’s instructions by making a little boat of bulrushes and setting it among the reeds at the water’s edge, so it wouldn’t float away.

When Pharaoh’s daughter came to the river to bathe, she saw the little boat, saved baby Moses and raised him in the palace as her own child.

When Moses grew up he was educated. He had prospects for a good life, but he got into trouble.

Moses had learned that he wasn’t an Egyptian but a Hebrew, and the Hebrews were the slaves who built Pharaoh’s building projects.

It so happened that one day Moses was out and about and saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. This offended Moses’s sense of justice. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

But now Moses’s life was in danger. So he fled far from Egypt into the land of Midian and sat down by a well.

Then the seven daughters of the priest of Midian came to draw water from the well. Moses watched as they filled the trough for the sheep and goats. Then some rough shepherds came and drove the girls away from the water they had drawn so that their sheep could drink it.

We don’t read that Moses beat up the shepherds, but we do read that Moses watered the girls’ flock.

In these two stories we learn that Moses, although he was raised a prince, had sympathy for people who were poor and oppressed.

The father of the girls invited Moses home, put him to work and gave him one of his daughters for his wife.

And so Moses because a shepherd and passed some years keeping the flock of his father-in-law.

Moses no doubt thought that the interesting part of his life was over. He assumed that he would live and die in the wilderness of Midian, as a shepherd.

I. One day when Moses was out with his sheep something really amazing happened. We read about this in Exodus 3.

A. “Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning yet it was not consumed.”

In scripture fire is a symbol of God’s presence and of his holiness. Fire symbolizes God purifying, cleansing, and consuming sin. The writer of Hebrews writes, “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28).

So Moses said to himself, “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”

And God called out of the bush: “Moses, Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here am I.”

Then God said “Do not come near: put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing in holy ground.”

In those days, it was considered respectful to remove one’s sandals when entering a holy place.

Israel’s priests performed their duties barefoot.

People came into the presence of a king barefoot.

Muslims even today preserve the custom and show their respect for their god by entering their Mosques barefoot.

B. “And God said: ’I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (v6).

Moses knew that he was from the Hebrew people. But he had been raised in Pharaoh’s court.

Perhaps he didn’t know much about the faith of the Hebrew people, but he had evidently heard of his ancestors: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

C. Now that God had Moses’s attention, he said, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (3:7-8).

And God told Moses that he would send him to Pharaoh, and he will lead his people out of Egypt.

II. But Moses has a problem. He has been away from the Egypt for years. Why would anyone believe him?

A. Why would Pharaoh listen to him? Even more of a problem: why would the Hebrew elders listen to him?

Moses has grown up in the court of Egypt. He doesn’t even know the name of Israel’s God.

The name of Israel’s God—Yahweh—appears many times in Genesis. (The name “Yahweh” doesn’t appear in our English Bibles because whenever that word appears in Hebrew the translators have substituted the word “The LORD,” written in capitals.)

But we read in Exodus 6:2 that God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by another name, which means “God Almighty.”

So God gives his name to Moses. He says, “I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD (that is, Yahweh) the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: this is my name for ever.” (The name Yahweh in Hebrew means “I Am.”)

It appears that knowing this name would authenticate Moses’s mission to the elders. Moses had been raised as an Egyptian. Perhaps he didn’t have the knowledge of the faith of Israel that the elders would have had.

In those days, names weren’t just labels. Names revealed character. And this name “I AM” revealed God as the Eternal, Unchanging One. The one who exists in himself, who is all sufficient, and the one who causes everything else to exist.

We change. We sin and we repent and sin again. We learn and grow. We change our minds. We gain wisdom and sometimes become foolish.

But God is always the same. He is always wise and gracious and righteous.

When God says, “I am who I am,” he means, “You can trust me through and through.”

From this point on in the Old Testament God is usually called Yahweh, the word translated in our English Bibles as “The LORD.”

B. So this is the story of how Moses was called by God for the greatest mission so far in history.

Moses will be the greatest leader the Hebrew people will ever have until Jesus comes.

Moses will be God’s instrument to bring about miracles of judgment on Egypt to bring about a change of heart in cruel Pharaoh.

Moses will lead his people out of slavery into the desert of Sinai, where they will become truly a nation.

Moses will receive God’s law including the Ten Commandments, the instructions for the true worship of God, and the laws for the nation of Israel.

Moses will save the nation from destruction when they sin by interceding with God for them.

He will lead them up to the border of the Promised Land—the land flowing with milk and honey that will be their homeland.

APPLICATION

So what is the meaning of the story for us?

We are not Moses.

We have not seen any great vision of God. We have not been given any great mission.

I will tell you why I think this story is so important.

The story of Israel is our story.

The story of the liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt is the background for the story of Jesus.

According to the New Testament, we believers are also “Israel.” The story of Israel has become our story.

The early Christians understood Jesus as the Deliverer from the slavery of sin. That is why he is called our Savior. That is why Jesus is called “The Lord,” it’s the name used of God in the Old Testament.

Jesus is “the Lord”; Jesus is also the New Moses. Jesus brings us the law for living in his parables and  in the Sermon on the Mount and his other teachings.

When Jesus’s enemies tried to make fun of the truth of the resurrection of the dead, Jesus used the story of Moses at the burning bush.

He told his enemies these words of God to Moses: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

By this, Jesus declares that when God binds a person to himself in the covenant relationship of faith, that bond can never be broken. Even death cannot break that bond. The one whom God has taken to himself he will never let go. Even though we die, we will rise again to live with God.

And Jesus clearly referred to this story when he told his enemies, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” His enemies, knowing that in those words, Jesus was claiming to be the LORD of the story of the calling of Moses, took up stones to kill him.

For these reasons, it is important that we know the story of Moses and the Burning Bush.

CONCLUSION

Each of us has a part to play in God’s work in the world.

A few of God’s people have great parts to play, such as Moses did.

Most of us have less important parts in God’s story.

But all of us are to be laborers in God’s vineyard of the world.

All of us have a part in bringing in the Kingdom of God.

When we pray “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are committing ourselves to participate in that great work of redemption.

We pray, we love, we serve, we give. And so we bear witness to the unbelieving world that God is our Father and Jesus is our Savior.

May God help us to be faithful—as Moses was faithful—to that which he has entrusted to us.

Mark 3:31-35: What It Means to Be a Member of the Family of Jesus

INTRODUCTION

You will remember that during Jesus’s life he was often attacked by those who were out of sympathy with not in sympathy with his message.

Some of his enemies felt threatened because he was associating with notorious sinners, with tax collectors and prostitutes and people who didn’t live according to all the rules of their religion.

Some of his enemies became so alarmed by his teaching and behavior that they said he had a demon.

It is hard enough to be attacked by our enemies.

But there was something even worse for Jesus.

His family also became alarmed. The quiet, responsible Jesus who had lived with them for 30 years, the son and older brother they had depended on after Joseph had died—this son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Juda, and Simon and of sisters also whose names we don’t know—had been acting strange lately.

He had left home and was preaching a kind of message no one had heard before, gathering crowds, and healing people of all kinds of diseases.

He was surrounded by noisy crowds. People were leaving their homes to follow him. He was becoming a controversial figure.

His family, who loved him, became worried that he had become unbalanced—a fanatic—unpredictable—what we would call “mentally ill.”

We read about this in Mark 3:19-22 we read: “…and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons’” (NRSV).

Now let me read the verses we are going to consider today:

And his mother and brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.”

And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

I. Some have been offended by what they consider his harsh words about those who were nearest and dearest to him—his mother and brothers and sisters.

A. We know that Jesus had a tender regard for his mother.

We see this in the story of the cross. As Jesus hung dying on the cross, we read, “He saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, and he said to his mother, ‘Woman behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ and from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:26-27).

In this way, even in the extremity of his pain, he was able to make provision for the care of his grieving mother by committing her to the care of his dearest disciple.

This is one of the so-called “Seven Sayings of Jesus from the Cross.”

B. We also know that until later his own brothers didn’t believe in him. We read this in John 7.

C. No, Jesus wasn’t rebuffing his family. Jesus was using this situation to teach his disciples—and us—something of the greatest importance.

Jesus often used situations that arose in the course of his life to teach lessons.

These were what teachers call “teachable moments,” opportunities to use an unexpected situation to teach important lessons that his hearers would never forget. For example, a teachable moment may come when a child misbehaves: the teacher stops the lesson he or she is teaching to talk about the more important lesson of courtesy and respect.

Do you remember the story in which James and John came to Jesus and asked to have the privilege of sitting at his right hand and left hand in the Kingdom of God? Jesus took the opportunity to teach his disciples and us wherein true greatness lies: he said (Mark 11:43-45), “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came, not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Do you remember that when parents brought their little children to him to be blessed, and the disciples tried to shoo them away? Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:13-15).

II. When Jesus’s family came to rescue him from the crowds because they thought he was becoming unbalanced was just such a teachable moment.

A. In those days families stayed together. They worked together in the family business or on the family farm.

They lived in the same village and maybe in the same house. They didn’t split up and go far away like families do here and now.

I have a brother in Argentina, another in Florida, and one in Arizona. I have sisters in Kansas and Chicago.

We don’t see each other very often. I feel closer to some of them than to others, but we have grown apart because we see each other so seldom.

It wasn’t so in the Palestine of Jesus’s time. Jesus’s seeming rebuff of his family would have surprised and scandalized those sitting around him more than we can imagine.

And for that reason, the lesson he taught them that day was never forgotten.

B. Notice the lesson Jesus draws from this situation.

We read that he looked around at the people sitting before him. His eyes rested on one and on another—it was a searching look.

These are the ones who have responded to his message.

Among them were people who had left family and friends and jobs to follow him, to learn of him, and to become part of his mission to the world.

As a former teacher, I can tell you how satisfying to have students who are attentive, who want to learn, who hang on every word with a thirst for knowledge.

This pleased Jesus too.

And Jesus said to them: “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

They might have been surprised that they were “doing God’s will” when all they were doing was sitting listening to him talking.

Doing God’s will means, first of all, choosing to be with Jesus when people all around were saying, “Stay away from him.”

You are doing God’s will by being here this afternoon.

Obedience begins with listening to Jesus.

But it doesn’t end there.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me…”

Jesus’s true family—his sisters and brothers and mothers—are those who are obedient to his commands.

They listen to his voice as it comes to them in his Word—as it comes to them in their consciences—as it comes to them in the words faithful believers.

And then we live our lives to please him—by telling the truth when we are tempted to lie, by visiting the sick, by our generosity, by serving the needy, by loving the unlovable, by bearing witness to God.

Many of you have lived your lives like that. And you are still finding opportunities to serve him, even here at Village Ridge.

Jesus made it very clear in his teaching that it isn’t the one who says he or she believes in Jesus who will enter the kingdom of God on the last day; it isn’t even the one who goes to church; it’s the one who makes it his aim in life to do God’s will.

Sometimes it’s a painful sacrifice to obey Jesus, but for the true believer, there’s no other option.

CONCLUSION

An old woman in Scotland said to her pastor: “That was a grand sermon you preached last Lord’s Day.”

Wanting to test the sincerity of her remark, the pastor asked, “Do you remember the text I preached from?”

“Ah minister!” she answered, “I don’t remember the text or the words, but I came home and took the false bottom out of my peck measure.”

A missionary-translator said, “For a long time we were looking for a word for ‘obedience.’ One day as I went home from the village my dog stayed behind. I whistled and he came running after me at top speed. An old man by the roadside said with admiration: ‘Your dog is all ear.’ I got hold of that expression and found in it the perfect word for ‘obedience.’”

The most common Greek word for “obedience” in the New Testament is “hupakoe” which is built on the word “akouo,” which means “to hear.”

A Muslim converted to faith in Christ.

This is his first prayer as a Christian believer: “O God, I am Mustafah the tailor and I work at the shop of Muhammad Ali. The whole day long I sit and pull the needle and the thread through the cloth.

“O God, you are the needle and I am the thread. I am attached to you and I follow you. When the thread tries to slip away from the needle, it becomes tangled and must be cut so that it can be put back in the right place.

“O God, help me to follow you wherever you may lead me. For I am really only Mustafah, the tailor, and I work at the shop of Muhammad Ali on the great square.”

Every morning and every evening let us remind ourselves that we have been called to obey God. Let us pray that we will love to do his will, no matter what the difficulty, and let us pray that we will never flag in our zeal to please him. Let us keep this resolve strong in our hearts until the end of the road.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9: What Does It Mean to Love God with All Your Heart?

INTRODUCTION

In 1945 Rabbi Eliezer Silver was sent to Europe to help reclaim Jewish children who had been hidden during the Holocaust with non-Jewish families.

Some of these children had lived with Gentile families for years. Many were so young they could hardly remember the life before they were rescued.

Here is how he was able to discover the Jewish children.

He would go to gatherings of children and loudly proclaim:

“Hear, O Israel:

The Lord our God is one Lord;

 and you shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart,

and with all your soul,

and with all your might.”

Then he would look at the faces of the children for those with tears in their eyes.

The children with tears in their eyes were those with a distant memory of their mother putting them to bed each night with these words.

This was the first prayer that little Jewish children have been taught since ancient times—long before the time of Jesus.

Mary probably put little Jesus to bed with these words.

It is traditional for Jews to say these words twice daily—just before dawn and just after sunset.

When they say these words they are supposed to say them slowly and distinctly, and they are instructed to put their hands over their eyes so as to avoid any distraction.

And according to custom, these are the last words the Jewish believer will say before death.

The story is told of a Jewish soldier who threw himself on a live hand grenade to save his comrades. And as he did so his comrades heard him say these words.

We read that Jesus quoted these words as recorded in Matthew 22 and Mark 12, and the scribe quoted the words to Jesus in Luke 10.

I. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is the most important part of scripture to Jewish believers.

A. The entire passage reads:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord;

and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul,

and with all your might.

And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart;

and you shall teach them diligently to your children,

and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,

and when you walk by the way,

and when you lie down,

and when you rise.

And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand,

and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

The Jews call this the Shema Yisrael after the first two words, “Hear, O Israel.”

Usually it’s called simply the Shema, which means in Hebrew, “hear.”

B. The Shema was considered a confession of faith—and a prayer.

In saying it the believer confessed—in a world of many gods—that he or she belonged to the one true God.

The believer professed the intention to love the Lord his God with all his or her being.

Prayer doesn’t have to be asking for something or thanking God for something.

Prayer can simply be affirming a truth about God—reminding myself of what it means to belong to God and to be one of God’s children.

C. Notice how important this prayer is as it is presented in Deuteronomy:

These words are to be upon their hearts.

They are to teach them diligently to their children.

They are to talk of them when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise.

They are to bind them as a sign upon their hand,

They are to be as frontlets between their eyes.

And they are to write them on the doorposts of their houses and on their city gates.

Christians and most Jews think of binding them as a sign on their hands, and having them as frontlets between their eyes and writing them upon the doorposts of their houses as figurative language.

But orthodox Jews came to take the words literally.

Even today orthodox Jews recite the prayer with little boxes containing these words tied above their foreheads and on their left arms. They are called “phylacteries.”

By the door of his house, the Jewish believer has a little box attached to the doorpost called a “mezuzah,” which contains these words. They believe that the Mezuzah protects the home.

When the believer leaves his house, he touches the mezuzah and repeats the words.

II. Why does God say “heart,” and “soul,” and “might”?

A. The “heart” in scripture never means the organ in your chest that pumps blood.

To the ancient person the heart meant the center of your life.

The heart was the part of you that you think with, feel with decide with.

Evil desires come from the heart.

The heart can be disobedient, hard, faithless, dull, and far from God.

Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (17:9).

But the heart is also where God dwells with you.

In Ephesians 3:17 Paul prays that God will grant the believers to be “strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man”—that means the heart—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The heart is where we keep the Word of God: “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

So when God asks us to love him with all of our heart, he means with all our intelligence, all our feelings, and all our will.

B. After it says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, it says, “…and with all your soul.”

I used to think of my soul as the little invisible thing inside me—about the size of a walnut—that flip-flops up to heaven when I die. But your soul in the Bible is the whole you—your whole life.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will you give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

In the gospels the words “soul” and “life” translate the same word in Greek.

Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life (or “soul”—same word) will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (or “soul”—same word).

So my soul is really another way to say myself, my whole self.

C. Then God tells us to love him with all our might. By this we see that our love for God must be complete—with all the powers of our mind and body. With our time and money and energy.

D. Maybe I should remind you that in the Bible love is not mainly a feeling. Love, in the Bible, is a way of behaving.

To love God isn’t to have fond feelings about him.

God isn’t telling us to feel the strong emotion we call “being in love.”

Love is a way of behaving.

To love God means to put him first.

It means that I want to please him in all that I do.

It means obedience and trust and service.

It means loving those whom God loves—my family, my friend, my neighbor, and even my enemy.

CONCLUSION

Do you remember that motto that we used to see on the walls of many homes: “Christ is the head of this house, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation”?

I may be thinking about whatever occupies my mind, but I am always aware that Jesus is with me.

He is listening to my conversation.

He is sitting beside me while I watch TV, or read a book.

Jesus is my companion.

I’m not thinking about him all the time, but he’s always there in the background of my mind.

And if something good happens, I have the impulse to say, “Thank you, Jesus.”

And if a problem arises, it’s just natural to say, “Help me, Jesus.”

And to keep Jesus in mind we pray every day.

We call to mind scripture. We go to services. We speak of Christ to others.

To help them feel that Christ is present some believers keep a picture of Jesus on the wall.

Others display a scripture verse prominently in their room.

Catholic Christians hang a crucifix by their bed.

Or we may keep our Bible on a table where we will see it often, and where we can, any time we like, pick it up and read.

My grandmother used to sing hymns while she did her housework.

Here is a prayer that I use. It is from St. Columbanus, who died in AD 615:

I beg you, most loving Savior,

to reveal yourself to me,

so that knowing you, I may desire you,

and desiring you, I may love you,

and loving you I may ever hold you in my thoughts.

When we are ever holding Jesus in our thoughts, we are learning to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might.

Romans 8:28: Do All Things Really Work Together for Good?

INTRODUCTION:

Have you ever noticed that sincere, earnest Christian believers experience most of the same troubles and tribulations as other people?

Our teeth decay. We get cancer. Our hair falls out. We get arthritis and diabetes and heart disease, at about the same rate as everyone else.

Sometimes our marriages fail.

Christian believers lose their jobs. Sometimes our children die before we do.

We had a nephew who died of cancer. His grandmother wept: “Why couldn’t it have been me? I’ve lived a long time, and he was so young!”

Tragedies happen to us and to those we love—and we wonder.

Why? Why? Why? Why does God let these things happen? It would be so easy for him to make our lives all good by just tweaking it here and there with a few little—very little miracles.

In the early centuries Christian believers had all these problems and the added one of persecution for their faith.

St. Paul warned the believers: “Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

Believers through the ages have taken comfort from Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

But is it true? Is it really true? Sometimes when sorrow presses us down, it’s hard to believe that all things work together for good.

I. Often this verse is misunderstood. And when it’s misunderstood, it can really stumble Christians. It can make it hard to believe in the goodness of God.

A. First of all, I want to tell you some things this verse does not mean:

It doesn’t mean that everything that happens is good.

Plenty of things are bad in this world—really evil.

Evil doesn’t come from God.

This world is a battlefield between God and the powers of darkness.

Paul had a painful affliction. He called it “a thorn in his flesh,” but he didn’t say it came from God: he called it “a messenger of Satan to torment me.”

The Bible says: “We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19).

“All things work together for good…” doesn’t mean, as some people say that “everything happens for a reason,” as if God intended every tragedy to happen for some purpose of his own.

Sometimes the “reason” things happen is because of human sin: “He lied to her and broke her heart.”

Sometimes the “reason” something bad happens has to do with the laws of nature. “The car’s brakes failed. It careened into the path of an oncoming truck.”

Another thing Romans 8:28 doesn’t mean is that whatever happens is God’s will.

Lots of things happen that aren’t God’s will.

It’s not God’s will that people sin.

Plagues and tragic accidents aren’t God’s will.

People make stupid mistakes that cause grief and sorrow.

Through no one’s fault babies are born with birth defects.

These things happen because there’s randomness—what we call chance—in nature.

Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus. God weeps with us in our sorrows.

B. Just because we are believers—doesn’t mean that we lead charmed lives.

Imagine a world in which all our prayers were answered in just the way we want.

Imagine if good people never experienced disease, or disappointment, or struggle with work, or relationships, or weakness, or old age.

Imagine if all of us believers lived always tranquil lives—no disappointments, no stresses, no loss or sorrow—and then we would grow very old, still in perfect health, and one night fall asleep and wake up in heaven.

Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world? Or would it?

What would we miss in a world like that?

We would lose our opportunities to gain wisdom.

I walked a mile with pleasure;

She chattered all the way,

But I was none the wiser, for all that she did say.

I walked a mile with sorrow,

And not a word said she,

but, O, the things I learned that day

When sorrow walked with me.

We would miss the opportunity to grow strong in faith through our struggles.

We would lose our opportunity to learn compassion because sorrow is God’s classroom for compassion.

We would miss the opportunity to prove that our faith is real.

C. In a perfect world our lives might even be less joyful.

I once taught in a school with a much older woman who seemed to me to be very wise and good.

Although she was cheerful, she had experienced a great sorrow in her life.

Her name was Goldia.

Goldia had always looked forward to being a grandmother.

But one day her husband and two daughters were killed in an auto accident. She was left alone.

She got great comfort from a poem by Edward Markham, which she told me.

It goes like this:

Defeat may serve as well as victory

To shake the soul and let the glory out.

When the great oak is straining in the wind,

The boughs drink in new beauty, and the trunk

Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief

Can know the might rapture. Sorrows come

To stretch out the spaces in the heart for joy.

D. A woman named Peggy lost her 28-year-old daughter to cancer. As she mourned and suffered she poured her broken heart out to God. She offered herself and her suffering to God just as Jesus did on the cross.

That hasn’t made her suffering any easier, but now everywhere she goes she meets people who have lost adult children to death. Peggy sits next to them on airplanes, meets them in the supermarket, and bumps into them on vacation. She shares their suffering and offers them Christ and his comfort. Her suffering, united with Christ’s suffering has meant salvation for many.

When you are experiencing pain, offer your pain to God. Ask him to use it for the comfort of others.

So often it is people who have known great sorrow or great pain who have great sympathy for others in need and are most useful in the world.

II. So what does it mean that “All things work together for good…”?

A. It means that God in his infinite power and wisdom can somehow fit even disasters into his plans for goodness for the people he loves.

He can weave bad things together to make good outcomes.

There’s a story in the Bible that is often used to illustrate this truth. It is the story of Joseph.

Joseph’s tragedies began while he was still a lad. You know the story.

He was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers.

As a slave in Egypt he was falsely accused of a shameful crime and put into prison—where he languished for several years.

But through a series of improbable events he came into a position of power and authority and was instrumental in saving thousands of lives—both of the Egyptians and of his family.

At the end of the story Joseph’s brothers come to him to beg forgiveness for their terrible deed. Joseph weeps and says, “Fear not for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:19-20).

Sin is sin. It was not good that my friend Jim was a hard-core, career criminal. It isn’t good that he was a thief and a violent man. It isn’t good that he hurt many people.

But it is good that he found Christ. And as a humble, repentant, Christian believer he can go into prisons and tell the good news of the gospel with special effectiveness—because he has been where his hearers are. God has brought good out of evil—not the good that could have been, but good nevertheless.

Many times people are convinced of the truth of the gospel by watching how believers respond to pain and sorrow.

When we become old and pain and sickness come, and many of the things we used to enjoy are no longer available—now is our chance to show that God is real.

You have strength from God. Let people know. The strongest evidence for the truth of God is the courage and hope he gives his people in the midst of suffering.

B. A pastor tells about a woman in her congregation who became engaged to be married.

She was so excited. She told her pastor, “I’m 60 years old, and I’m getting married for the first time!”

A week later, the woman was hospitalized with complications from a cold.

Then she had a stroke. A few days later she died.

When the pastor visited woman’s mother to plan the funeral, the grief-stricken mother’s first words were: “It just didn’t turn out right.”

Sometimes things “just don’t turn out right.”

You have had this experience. I have had this experience. Sometimes it just doesn’t turn out right—not in our lifetimes. But there is another world beyond this. And we have faith that God is able to make things right in the end.

And that is what Romans 8:28 means. God will make it right in the end.

CONCLUSION

One thing more. Our verse ends with words “…to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

It’s not automatic.

Part of it depends on us. Sorrow can make us bitter; sorrow can make us give up on God.

A proverb has it: “The same sun sweetens the apples and sours the milk.”

Do we respond to trouble by clinging more closely to God?

Do our sorrows make us more determined to live for God?

Does our sorrow make us more sympathetic to others who suffer—more eager to help?

Do our troubles make heaven more real to us and the things of earth less important?

Our troubles can mold us into Christlikeness.

We can share with Christ the sorrows of the world.

A thousand years from now we will look back and say, “It was good. God made everything work out right.”