“Something good is happening”

If practiced, this blog and the sermon tied to it -- will change your life.

When we think of Romans 8:28, we think of it as something we’ll realize in the future.  “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and who are the called according to his purpose.”  So we receive comfort from that scripture that eventually, in the end, things work out for good. Even the really bad things that we go through will work out for good.

But there’s so much more than waiting and knowing that everything will eventually work out. This blog and a recent sermon can change your life if you practice what is taught in them.

I recently gave a sermon on “How to have Perfect Peace in troubling times”.  The points I gave in that teaching are actions and thoughts I still have to consistently apply in my life, but when I do, I have peace, just like Philippians 4:6-7 promises. I hope you hear/watch the sermon.

Now I want to add another dimension to it that I didn’t have time to fully explain when recording it.  

Here it is: Instead of looking for things to eventually work out for good, start to realize that we don’t have to wait to know good things are already happening.  I now realize that I don’t have to think “good things will come” – but good things are already happening, even if I don’t see them yet.

Do you see the difference? I hinted about that when I taught that we should actually thank God even BEFORE we see the answers, knowing that God is already working!

Remember the examples I used? Jesus thanked God for having heard him about raising up Lazarus – while Lazarus was still dead (please read John 11:33-45). Paul and Silas began to praise and sing and worship God WHILE still in stocks and bound by chains in a dungeon, but it was when they began to praise that God loosed their chains (read Acts 16:22-34, especially verses 25-28). King Jehoshaphat when facing a huge invading army, moved the choir to the front lines, ahead of his Delta Force and Seal Teams that had been in front. Be sure you study that sermon. WHEN they began to sing – as soon as they began to praise and sing – God had the enemy soldiers kill each other and Judah did not have to fight. (See 2 Chronicles 20:20-24),

A similar story can be found about King Asa of Judah against a million Ethiopians (2 Chronicles 14:9-15). When Asa confessed his faith in God, his trust in God’s power – while the enemy forces were still there in front of him, that God completely routed the enemy forces and gave complete victory. “Something good is happening” could have been Asa’s thoughts even before God intervened visually. But Asa, like all of us, had times of great faith and times of weakness, so it’s something we must watch carefully.

In all these cases, their actions and thoughts of praise and thanksgiving happened before the deliverance, but as soon as they acknowledged God’s goodness even while still “in trouble” as far as they could see, God sent deliverance.

We must get beyond thinking “if only this or that would happen, THEN I’ll have peace.”  But that’s how we often think. Start thinking “God is working already though I don’t see how or where yet, and something good is happening already.”  So we learn from Paul and James to thank God IN the trial and FOR the pain and suffering, knowing God is working something we need, something good, for us already.  

In my own life, in several cases, it was only when I truly began to actually thank God IN and FOR my cancers, knowing that He could heal or do whatever he wanted, and I trusted Him -- that they disappeared. I don’t always do that so well, but when I do, it’s often so amazing what God does. But we also have to trust God even when his answer is that we must go through the trial, just as he answered his own Son. All of us will eventually die if our Savior doesn’t return soon. And even that’s fine too because we trust Him.

But trusting and praising before we see the results we hope for, are not easy to do from the heart, and really meaning it.  “Good things are happening” – is the thought we should believe while in the worst of troubles, even the ones we brought on ourselves. Things will work out for good even for sins we did, that we have deeply repented of.  “ALL THINGS” has to mean “all things” doesn’t it?  I used the examples of the brothers of Joseph who sold him into slavery, but Joseph says clearly that God intended it for good, to save people alive.  In another example, even the murder of Uriah and the adultery with Uriah’s wife, though there were terrible consequences, something amazing came out of that. What amazing things?  Full details are in that sermon on “Perfect Peace in troubling times”.

We need to see God is already working. Elisha had to pray for God to open the eyes of his assistant, who was worried about the army that had come to arrest them. God was already acting. Elisha perfectly knew this, but it was only when God opened his servant’s eyes that he saw the countless angelic forces invisibly overhead already there, already prepared to intervene to protect them. Read the story in 2 Kings 6:11-23.

This is where we must grow to: having peace IN and FOR the pain, for the storms of life around us, knowing our God is already working, even while “the storm” is still raging. Our own fiery angelic armies are already around us, even though all we can literally see are the problems still in front, for now.  Something good is already happening; not something we have to wait for, but knowing God is already acting – unseen for now – behind the scenes.  

God spoke to Joseph while he was still in a horrible dungeon. When God freed the Israelite slaves out of Egypt, God not only liberated them, but had them come out with great abundance, as God had let them spoil the Egyptians (Exodus 12:35-36) with a lot of gold, silver and expensive garments. God’s power was evident while still in Egypt. Even Jesus Christ’s story – includes how God had to call him while he and his parents were still in Egypt (read Matthew 2:19-23). Even the news that fierce Herod Archelaus was reigning in Judea – so they moved to Galilee and Nazareth –was all part of God’s plan, that he would be called a Nazarene (not a Nazarite. Jesus did NOT have long hair.) 

So once we truly understand that God is working in our lives, even in the “bad times”, when we acknowledge him and ask for his deliverance, we can come to see that “Good things are already happening!”.   We trust Him so much that in fact we start to experience the peace of GOD himself, a peace beyond description as Philippians 4:6-7 says.

Be sure you watch/hear the full sermon and re-read this blog. When practiced, this can change your life.