Everything That Happens is for Your Benefit (Conclusion)

We’ve been talking about Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not with Him freely give us all things?”  and John Piper’s statement, “Nothing will ever enter your experience as God’s child that, by God’s sovereign grace, will not run out to be a benefit to you.”

The basis for this statement is Piper calls this, the “solid logic of heaven”. 

What does Paul mean by all things?  There may be many things that we think that a gracious and wise God would give us – health, safety, more success, a spouse, believing children, a long life.  But God may not give us these things.  What does he mean by all things?

There’s a sense that the verse is more understandable from a human standpoint if we read it, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will he not with him freely make everything a gift.”   He has demonstrated the unfathomable love that he has for us, why would he withhold any blessing or benefit from us, why wouldn’t he take everything that happens in our lives and make it a loving gift?    

So now with this in our thinking we read on…

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors (Greek – “hyper-conquerers”) through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:31-39, ESV)

So, as Piper states, “we overwhelmingly conquer not by escaping these terrible things, but by watching God turn these enemies of our joy into servants of our good.”

He continues, “The great promise of this verse, guaranteed in the logic of Romans 8:32, is that nothing will ever enter your experience as God’s child that, by God’s sovereign grace, will not turn out to be a benefit to you.  This is what it means for God to be God, and for God to be for you, and for God to freely give you all things with Christ.”

“You must believe this or you will not thrive, or perhaps even survive as a Christian, in the pressures and temptations of modern life.  There is so much pain, so many setback and discouragements, so many controversies and pressures.  This means we can know and believe that God is taking every setback and every pressure and every pain, and stripping it of its destructive power and make it work for the enlargement of my joy in God.”

God makes tribulation into a gift.  Problems a gift.  Difficult relationships, a gift.  Enemies a gift.  Others sins against you, a gift.  Car breaks down, a gift.  Difficult parents, children, or spouse – a gift.  No job – a gift.  Stretch on this one – your own sin and failure – God is big enough to make that into a gift for you; he is enormous – he is that powerful; that awesome.

“God reigns so supremely on behalf of his elect that everything which faces us in a lifetime of obedience and ministry will be subdued by the mighty hand of God and made the servant of our holiness and our everlasting joy in God.  If God is for us, and if God is God, then it is true that nothing can succeed against us.  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will infallibly and with him give us all things.”  He will make everything a gift – everything: problems, failure, sin, setbacks, loss, even death – all things.