Why we fail to trust in God

Romans 8:28

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

1. INTRODUCTION

a. It’s hard to stand up here today because I feel inadequate to stand up here before you. I am ashamed that I failed you but more importantly, I feel ashamed that I fell short to the calling that God has called me to. All this week, I’ve been thinking about what I could have done better and even if I think about it, and I dwell upon it, the reality is, I can’t go back into the past and change what I did.

b. Some people might understand and some people might not understand. But I am sorry to those of you for failing to model Christ to you. This is why I feel inadequate to stand up here today. In the same way though, I want to remind you that this is the reason we must look to Jesus and not to man.

c. When I say that I will make mistakes and I will fail you, I didn’t lie to you. To those of you that I have failed, I apologize and ask that you would forgive me. In the same way though, I want to remind you that God will never fail you. Even when we fail each other, God will never fail you.

d. I know Romans 8:28 is about salvation but this text helps us understand the greatness, the victory we have in Christ. When we don’t see the greatness of His salvation, it’s ultimately because we fail to trust in His promise. What is His promise? The promise is that there’s nothing in this world that can separate us from the love of Christ. No matter the greatness of our obstacle or tribulation, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. This is exactly what Paul is reminding us in today’s text. We fail to trust in God when we fail to see His love and we fail to see His calling.

2. BODY

a. We fail to see God (8:28a)

i. This is one of the most monumental verses in the Bible. The Old Testament version of this text comes in Genesis 50:20. Joseph says this verse to his brothers who had sold him and caused him to live a life of difficulty. After all his adversity, when Joseph meets his brothers after they had sold him, he tells his brothers that you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present reality. This is the same verse that we have gone over for our text for today.

ii. The context given to us from verse 26 is speaking about our weakness. In our weakness, we don’t know how to pray as we should. This is a reminder that when we go through suffering, we fail to trust in God. How do we fail to trust in God? We fail to see the love of God in our sorrow. Adversity challenges us because it tests us to ask us what and who we believe in.

iii. If we think about this, adversity challenges us in a good way. It is there to remind us to whom we belong. Verse 26 starts with “in the same way.” In the same way that we eagerly wait for the hope we do not see (8:25), the Spirit also helps our weakness. What is our weakness? Our inability to see the hope in which we have been saved (8:24). Because we don’t see the hope in which we have been saved, the result is we are in weakness.

iv. We must see clearly here that Paul does not say that the Spirit removes our weakness; it is still there, and we live our whole life in conditions of weakness. What the Spirit does is to help; he gives us the aid we need to see us through. Weaknessis not sin nor is it suffering. Paul is telling us that the idea of weakness itself is not sin. Paul is simply referring and reminding us that we are not the spiritual giants we would like to be or we think we are. We think we are better than what we actually are. But Paul tells us, the Spirit helps our weakness. We are weak and we are prone to trouble.

v. What Paul is explaining here is that because of our weakness, because we are not as strong as we think we are, we don’t know how to pray as we should. You see, when we face adversity, because we are weak, we don’t know how to deal with it. And because we don’t know how to deal with it, we don’t know how to pray as we should.

vi. The reality of adversity is that it leaves us blinded and questioning. But Paul tells us an important lesson in verse 28. Yes verse 28 is about salvation because it leads us to verse 29-30, the order of salvation, but what I love about verse 28 is that it tells us the greatness of our salvation. Why is verses 29-30 so beautiful? Because God is working in us.

vii. What Satan uses through adversity is to blind us towards this very thing. He blinds us to see how God is working. Paul says that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God. Look at that. How does Paul start verse 28? And we know. We know this for fact, not through experience but we know this as truth, as knowledge of who God is. It is not an experiential knowledge, but an age-old truth about who God is. We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.

viii. This was a beautiful and painful reminder to this past weekend. If you don’t know what I am talking about, if you don’t know why I am apologizing, then that gives you more of a reason to come camping next year. But I am apologizing to a lot of you here today because I failed to model the very truth that Paul wrote in this verse. What did Paul write? He wrote that we know God causes all things to work together for good. I forgot to see the goodness of God working and I was short sighted. And because I couldn’t see His goodness, because of my weakness, I made a mistake.

ix. What is Paul saying here? Paul is saying that God causes all things to work for our good. Paul is not saying God makes everything good in the sense that it’s easy or perfect. But rather, God causes all things to accomplish His will. It’s not that God is at our mercy and His job is to make our life easier. No, rather, in our weakness, He will guide us through our trials to see what He is doing, how He is sustaining us and watching us.

x. This is what is so beautiful about this verse. Because even through my mistake, God causes all things to work together for good. God can accomplish His purpose even when I make a big mistake. There is nothing that can thwart the plan of God. There is no sin too great that can deter God from accomplishing His will. When we think about that, even though I made a mistake, I know that God will make His will known and He will accomplish what He wills through my mistake.

b. We fail to see God’s purpose (8:28b)

i. Not only do we fail to see God and what He is doing, but we forget to see that we are called according to His purpose. Similar to the story of Joseph, Paul tells us that God works all things together for those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose. What does this mean?

ii. Paul is telling us and all those to whom he wrote, that in our weakness, when we don’t know how we are to pray and we are discouraged, Paul reminds us that God is causing all things to be exactly what God has purposed in our lives. What this means is, God knows exactly and has caused all these things to happen this way because He will accomplish His purpose despite how bad the situation may look.

iii. That is the exact definition of the cross. This is why most people don’t understand how the crucifixion was a success. They don’t understand how Jesus, if He truly was God, how could God die to His subjects? How can a God die to His creation? If we take that to its logical conclusion, we can say Jesus’s death on the cross was a failure. But when we read what Paul tells us here, Jesus’s death was exactly what God had planned. God would send His son to die on a cross so that He would prove that no power can separate all those who are in Christ apart from Him. This was the whole purpose of Romans 8:1.

iv. How can there be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? There can be no separation for those who love God from God because through Christ’s death, He overcame death. He had defeated death by His resurrection.

v. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness when we were dead in our sins, God demonstrated His own love toward us while we were yet sinners and died for us so that we would be alive in Christ.

vi. We fail to trust in God when we forget that everything that is happening in our lives is exactly what God has planned. God has allowed the things that are happening to us to help us see God’s purpose.

vii. This is exactly what I was not able to see and this is exactly what caused me to become discouraged. But as Paul wrote in Romans 8:28, in our weakness, God causes all things to work together, He uses all these things whether they be good or bad, to work together to accomplish His purpose. What is His purpose? His purpose is that we would see the beauty of the Gospel, that we would recognize our sinfulness and our need for Him. It is precisely when we are at our lowest point, that we see the cross in full glory.

viii. I hope and pray you all know that I love you all. I was not able to express this in my actions or my words, and I may have hurt you, but I want to remind you that God is at work. Even through my failure, our failures, God is at work. And God will use all things to work together for all who love Him to work according to His purpose.

ix. We may be discouraged but be encouraged that we serve a God who is able, a God who is all powerful and a God who loves us. May we continue to grow in our love for Him, and live to live lives that please Him.

3. CONCLUSION