What God Starts, He Finishes

Romans 8:28 may be the most quoted verse in the New Testament. It's also one of the most misused.

It shows up on coffee mugs and on the greeting cards we hand to people at funerals. "All things work together for good." It gets pulled out of context and offered as a band-aid for grief. A woman loses her husband, and someone at the funeral leans in and says, "Remember, all things work together for good." She walks away wondering what's wrong with her, because nothing inside her feels like it's working for good.

A man loses his job at fifty-four. A family watches a parent disappear into dementia month by month. And someone in the church says, "All things work together for good," and it lands like a slap instead of a comfort.

The problem is not the verse. The problem is what we've done with the verse. Paul never meant Romans 8:28 to be a quick fix. He meant it as the bedrock truth that holds the believer up when nothing else will. And the only way to hear it the way Paul meant it is to read all three verses together, in the order he wrote them.

This is the closing argument of Romans 8. After everything Paul has said about the Spirit and the adoption, about the suffering and groaning that come with being God's child, he ends up here. God is working. And he will finish what he started.

Open your Bible to Romans 8:28-30

Romans 8:28–30 NKJV

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

Paul opens with words every Christian has heard. "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

GOD IS WORKING IN ALL THINGS FOR YOUR GOOD (v. 28)

Notice what Paul says carefully. He says all things work together for good. That's different from saying all things are good. The cancer isn't good. The funeral isn't good. But Paul says God is taking even these things and weaving them into something good.

GREEK NOTE: The verb "work together" (synergei) is in the present active tense. The same verb gives us the English word "synergy." It means to work together with, to cooperate. God is the one doing the work, and he is constantly causing all the events of the believer's life to cooperate toward an end. The present tense matters. He is doing this work right now in every event that touches your life.

Paul also limits the promise. The good in verse 28 belongs to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. That phrase is a description of every believer. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit who lives in you has produced love for God, and you are one of the called. The promise of verse 28 is for you.

Joseph in Genesis 50 lived this verse before Paul wrote it. His brothers sold him into slavery. He spent years in an Egyptian prison for a crime he didn't commit. By any human measure, his life was a disaster for more than a decade. But years later, when his brothers stood before him terrified, Joseph said, "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good." The same events. Two different perspectives. The brothers saw evil. God was working good.

That's what Paul is saying happens for every believer. The events that look like setbacks, even disasters, are being woven by God into something he intends as good. We may not see how on this side of glory. But God is working.

Sticky statement: What God starts in you, he finishes.

Now Paul tells us what the good is. And here is where the misuse of Romans 8:28 falls apart. The good Paul promises is a Christlike life. Comfort isn't on the list.

Romans 8:29 NKJV

29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

GOD'S PURPOSE IS TO MAKE YOU LIKE CHRIST (v. 29)

Paul packs three big words into this verse. Let's take a look at them.

He starts with foreknew.

In English, that sounds like God just knew ahead of time what you'd do.

But the word Paul uses goes much deeper than that. In the Bible, when God "knows" a person, he is setting his love on them. He's choosing them for relationship.

When the Lord says of Israel in Amos 3:2, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth," he isn't saying he was unaware the other nations existed. He's saying he had chosen Israel for a covenant relationship. That's the kind of knowing Paul is talking about here. Before the world began, God set his love on every believer in this room.

Then comes predestined.

And like the line from the move, “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

There has been much confusion surrounding that term. Many people confuse the terms predestination and election.

These refer to different things. And the doctrine of election, whatever your understanding of it is as it relates to free will, is like tying to understand the doctrine of the Oneness of God, and the trinity. The Bible teaches both. Our job is to leave how it works up to God.

For the follower of Jesus, share the Gospel. Leave the rest up to God.

For the person who is not sure of their relationship with God, trust Jesus for your salvation. Leave the rest up to God.

Now, back to predestination. This word means God decided the destination ahead of time. The destination in this verse isn't heaven, although heaven is part of it. It’s not who would be saved, and who wouldn’t be saved. The destination Paul names is being conformed to the image of His Son.

God decided, before he made the world, that the people he set his love on, and who trust Christ as their Savior, would one day look like Jesus.

The commentator Warren Wiersbe is helpful here. He reminds us that predestination in Romans applies only to saved people. Paul never uses this word to teach that God predestines anyone to be condemned. The doctrine is meant to assure the believer who is wondering whether God will see them through. Predestination here is a word about where the believer is headed. And the answer is: Christlikeness.

Remember, many of those Paul was writing to were being persecuted for their faith. They needed comfort.

Which brings us to the destination itself. Conformed to the image of His Son.

GREEK NOTE: The word "conformed" (symmorphous) means to be shaped to match the form of something else. The same root gives us the word "metamorphosis," used of the change a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. Paul is saying God is in the business of transforming believers, slowly and over time, into people who look like Jesus.

The good God is working toward is conformity to the image of His Son.

That changes how we read every painful thing in the Christian life. The cancer that doesn't get healed. The prayer that doesn't seem to get answered. God is using all of it, every moment of it, to make you more like his Son.

That is not an inconsequential good. That is the greatest good a human being can experience. To be made like Jesus Christ. To have the impatience worn out of you and the bitterness softened into mercy. Every follower of Jesus in this room is being shaped by the hand of the same God who shaped Jesus in his human nature.

John Newton, the man who wrote "Amazing Grace," wrote another hymn about this. He titled it "I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow." In the hymn, Newton describes asking God for more faith and a deeper knowledge of himself. He expected God would answer by sending him sweet times and obvious blessings. Instead, Newton wrote, God sent him trials and losses. And Newton came to see that those were God's answer to his prayer. The very things he wanted to escape were the very things God was using to make him like Christ.

That's what verse 29 is describing. The painful things in your life are part of the plan, the very tools God is using to shape you into the likeness of his Son.

Sticky statement: What God starts in you, he finishes.

Now Paul gives us his closing assurance. He gives us five verbs, in a chain, that describe what God is doing for every believer.

Romans 8:30 NKJV

30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

GOD'S PLAN CANNOT BE BROKEN (v. 30)

Foreknown. Predestined. Called. Justified. Glorified.

Five links. One chain. Not one of them breaks.

The Reformers called this the golden chain of salvation. From eternity past (foreknown and predestined), through the moment God called you and justified you in Christ, all the way to the day he glorifies you forever. Every link is forged by God. Every link holds.

GREEK NOTE: Notice that "glorified" (edoxasen) is in the past tense, even though glorification is still future. Paul writes it as if it has already happened. One commentator explains it this way: "Glorified is in the past tense because this final step is so certain that in God's eyes it is as good as done." That's how sure God's plan is. The future is already finished in his sight.

This changes everything about the Christian life. God started your salvation before the foundation of the world, and he is the one who will finish it when Christ returns and glorifies the bodies of all his children at once.

That's why Paul could write Romans 8 the way he did. He's been through the suffering and groaning of the believer's life, and he ends here, on a chain of five verbs, all in the past tense, all of them done by God. The believer's hope rests on what God has done and what he will do.

Sticky statement: What God starts in you, he finishes.

APPLICATION

So what do we do with this?

Start by letting Romans 8:28 be what Paul wrote, instead of what we've made of it.

When suffering comes, don't reach for the verse as a band-aid. Don't quote it at people who are grieving as if it should make their tears stop.

Read all three verses together. Remind yourself what the good is. The good God promises is being made like Christ. Then remind yourself who's doing the work. You're not. God is, and he will finish what he started before the world began.

Here is one thing to try this week. Pick the most painful thing in your life right now. Not the one you've already worked through, but the one that still hurts. Then write down two questions next to it. What is God using this to shape in me? And how is this part of God making me look more like Jesus? You don't have to answer the questions to your satisfaction. Just allow the Holy Spirit to work, and let them change how you read the suffering.

If you've never trusted Christ, this passage describes a chain that has not yet started for you. The good news is that the same God who has been calling believers since the foundation of the world is calling you today. Trust Christ, and the chain begins. The God who foreknew and predestined every believer is calling you now, and the same chain that holds every believer will hold you all the way to glory.

VISION (CLOSE)

One day, every believer in this room will stand glorified. The chain that started before the world began will reach its final link. We will see Jesus, and we will be like him, and every painful thing we walked through in this life will look small next to what God has done.

What God starts in you, he finishes.

Let's pray.