Bill Johnson - Why All Things Work Together for Good?
It says here, «If God is for us, who can be against us?» In verse 31, he is not saying nobody can be against us; he is just saying anyone who is against us doesn’t get to vote. They don’t have a say in the outcome of things. If God is for us, who can be against us? Think about this with me: anyone who sees you the way the Father sees you would never be against you. Anyone who is in opposition to you, anyone who, for whatever reason, has picked you out as a target to insult, reject, hurt, or whatever, none of them see you the way the Father does. Everyone who sees you through the eyes of the Father is for you.
So, he says, «If God is for us, who can be against us?» No one. No one. He who did not spare his own Son but delivered Him up for us, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? I’ll be honest with you: that verse is the reason I felt I was to bring this portion of Scripture to us today. That verse—if God went to such an extreme by giving us His Son, how could we ever question Him to not delightfully, willingly, joyfully provide everything else we will ever need, not only now in this life but throughout all of eternity? He will. He set the extreme standard in the sacrifice of His Son; then, everything else is automatically included. It’s important that you and I think that way.
It’s important that we realize that in this love of God, which you could never exhaust and could never explore in its entirety, it will be continuously opened up to us in new levels throughout all eternity, and never will we exhaust that love of God. It is 100% focused on you, on your family, on your situation, on me right now. He goes on; he says, «Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?» Do you understand there is no one who has authority to stand before the Father to accuse you? The devil is called the accuser of the brethren, but he doesn’t have a hall pass there. He doesn’t have the legal right to bring any kind of accusation against you, and the reason is that your lawyer is Jesus, and He Himself has already taken care of every legitimate indictment against you.
God’s forgiveness is so complete; it is so comprehensive. We’ll look at it a little bit further in this chapter, but it is so absolute and so complete that He actually changes how He sees us. The blood of Jesus has made me clean. The blood of Jesus not only deals with the record of sin; the blood of Jesus goes to the root and changes the nature that that sin grew out of. It is that complete. So when the Father looks at you, every one of you who have surrendered your life to Jesus, who have put your faith in Christ and declared Him to be your absolute Lord and Master, every one of you, the Father looks at you and sees His Son, Jesus. No one can accuse Jesus; therefore, no one has the right to accuse you.
Verse 34: «Who is he who condemns?» It’s Christ who died and furthermore is risen, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. I had a conversation with my uncle, who is now at home in heaven. He was such a wonderful man, a wonderful man of God, David Morgan. I had a conversation with him quite a few years ago, and he was talking to me about this chapter. He memorized entire books of the Bible, and so when we had conversations, he had such depth of understanding of these portions of Scripture. But we were talking about Romans 8 once, and he said, «I found out why verse 28 is real.» What does it say? It says, «All things work together for good.»
Why can we say all things work together for good? Well, take a quick look at the last part of verse 26. It says, «The Holy Spirit Himself makes intercession for us,» and then jump over here to the end of verse 34. It says, «Jesus also makes intercession for us.» So here we have the Holy Spirit and the Son of God interceding before the Father on our behalf. Sandwiched between these two realities, these two great intercessors, is the promise: everything works together for good. Our confidence in God resolving every situation for His glory has nothing to do with our great faith, skill, gifts, ministry, or whatever you want to add to it; it has to do with the Holy Spirit interceding. Jesus intercedes. No wonder all things work together for good. I sometimes jokingly talk about praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues, which is such a wonderful privilege.
All the gifts of the Spirit are to enable us to serve others. Except for that one, that one particular gift brings edification to us. But I have jokingly talked about praying to God and said, «Oh God, I need a 700-horsepower Corvette; that’s really what I need.» And then I follow that prayer by praying in tongues, and the Holy Spirit prays to Him and says, «Man, don’t give him that Corvette; he’ll kill himself if he has a car like that.» The Holy Spirit always prays with such precision and such accuracy that it’s a glorious thing to join our faith in praying in the Holy Spirit. He intercedes for us, and here Jesus also intercedes for us. And then from that place, with those two interceding for us, He moves into these decrees of what is there in existence that can separate us from the love of God.
Look at it here in verse 35: «Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril?» Perhaps we could call pandemic peril a sword. As it is written, «For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are counted as sheep for slaughter.» Yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors. Do you remember in Joel, it says, «Let the weak say, 'I am strong'»? It’s really important that we manage what comes out of our mouth. It’s important that we don’t talk out of the flimsiness of our emotional life, which is up and down. It’s important that we don’t craft our conversation according to circumstances that one day are extraordinary and the next day are very challenging and difficult. It’s important that we design our decree out of what God says. Let the weak say, «I’m strong.»
So, in our greatest points of frustration, difficulty, or weakness, we make this bold confession: I am strong. I am strong because I am in Christ. I am strong because Christ is in me. And we make these confessions. Here’s another one: we are more than conquerors. I am more than a conqueror. I’m not just victorious; I’m a happy, victorious person. I’m more—I’m above and beyond a conqueror. Why? Because we are riding alone on the absolute victory of Christ in His death and in His resurrection. His resurrection becomes my resurrection. No wonder I’m more than a conqueror. I would encourage you to say that even over yourself, even right now: I’m more than a conqueror. I’m a conqueror beyond. I am above and beyond what a conqueror looks like. I’m a victor in the victory of Christ. For I am persuaded, verse 38: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of Christ, from the love of Jesus our Lord.