Dale Partridge - PART TWO： God's Sovereignty and Man's Will

00:00:00.000 Amen. Well, what a blessing it is to continue this passage in Romans.

00:00:08.660 Romans 8.28, this is part two. And yes, there is a part three.

00:00:16.240 The title of the sermon is God's Sovereignty in Man's Will.

00:00:20.620 As we have seen over the past several weeks,

00:00:23.660 God has not left his people to suffer without divine support.

00:00:33.580 So although we groan in this world, our bodies groan, creation groans, we do not do so without

00:00:40.260 support. We have the promise of no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We have hope

00:00:47.720 that we will have future glory, not only in our bodies, but also in this world being restored.

00:00:54.300 We have the reality that the Holy Spirit intercedes.

00:00:58.440 And when sorrows get too deep, that God actually sends the Spirit to convey the groanings that we have in our prayers to the Father.

00:01:10.840 And then as we learned last week that God also, in the midst of all of those realities and supports, that he works all things together for good.

00:01:23.660 for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

00:01:29.980 Now, if you've been here for any number of months, you'll know that I typically teach maybe two to

00:01:35.020 five verses at a time. Last week, I made it through all of three words. This week, we're going to get

00:01:42.780 through Romans 8, 28, and I titled it with B. Next week will be C. And so my pace really should

00:01:52.860 communicate the gravity, the seriousness, the degree of importance of the content that we are

00:01:59.320 covering. This single verse contains more essential theological substance than many

00:02:07.600 entire chapters of scripture. It is that significant. Romans 8.28 is kind of like an

00:02:16.500 atom. It's incredibly small, but in it has all the foundational and fundamental building blocks for

00:02:24.000 the rest of human life. And before I begin, I want to remind you that we were talking about

00:02:34.480 God's providence and God's sovereignty and how that all works together. I couldn't even dive

00:02:39.920 in to the ocean of sovereignty because I had to overcome the obstacle of free will. Now, if you

00:02:50.100 didn't get a chance to hear last week's message, it's available on our Kingsway podcast. It's also

00:02:55.780 available in the ReLearn app. Please go back to listen to that if you have not. But what I did

00:03:02.120 in that sermon is I wanted to overcome that reality because we often fight in American

00:03:09.460 Christianity for this concept of free will. And it is impossible, it is impossible to fully grasp

00:03:18.420 the glory of this text if you're not first willing to crucify the idea of self-determination.

00:03:28.020 If you're not willing to let go that you are essentially sovereign in your salvation,

00:03:33.780 sovereign in the perseverance of your soul, sovereign in the events of your personal life,

00:03:38.500 in whatever degree that might be for your individual circumstance,

00:03:42.240 we have to eliminate any idea that we initiate or sustain our salvation

00:03:46.880 or that we are in control of our lives.

00:03:51.060 Which in a culture of America that is independent and autonomous

00:03:54.500 and focused on freedom and individuality,

00:03:56.740 it is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

00:04:03.420 Last week, I spoke about the doctrine of providence

00:04:06.200 and God's sovereignty and their relationship.

00:04:09.940 Providence and sovereignty are very similar doctrines.

00:04:13.520 Providence is really the intentionality of sovereignty.

00:04:18.260 Sovereignty is that God is supreme over all.

00:04:22.180 Providence is the action of that sovereignty.

00:04:26.300 And I highlighted the distinction between free will and free agency.

00:04:32.860 These are very important terms because they help us understand things that are difficult

00:04:38.140 to grasp.

00:04:40.060 But I talked about this distinction is that created beings do not possess free will in

00:04:49.320 the sense of being able to act independently of external authority or influence.

00:04:55.360 That's not a thing.

00:04:57.580 That's not a thing because the notion of having a completely uninfluenced, impartial, unconstrained 0.96

00:05:04.640 will is a foolish idea.

00:05:07.800 It's an unbiblical idea. 0.99

00:05:10.860 What we do have is free agency.

00:05:13.600 It's the freedom to operate within our nature.

00:05:17.220 It's the freedom to operate within our nature.

00:05:19.840 it's a it's a freedom to operate within a framework of either fallen or saved either

00:05:28.880 enslaved to sin and satan in the flesh or enslaved to christ and righteousness and glory

00:05:35.240 we cannot transition ourselves from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive

00:05:43.080 we cannot change our nature freely nor can we shift our destiny from being lost

00:05:50.640 or being saved that has to be of a divine intervention that has to be done

00:05:57.320 by the work of God in this transformation of our nature directing

00:06:02.280 our our destiny and in changing who we are it does require the hand of God it

00:06:07.560 is not something that we can do on our own we don't born ourselves again we

00:06:12.980 We know this, we do not cause or become the catalyst for the new birth.

00:06:17.800 We know that we had no consent in being brought into our natural birth and we know that that's

00:06:22.520 the reason that Jesus used that metaphor and that illustration in John chapter three is

00:06:26.560 that we don't have any involvement in our own birth.

00:06:30.940 Why therefore would we think that we have some sort of involvement in our spiritual

00:06:33.920 birth?

00:06:39.060 Like our natural birth, the process happens sovereignly, without our consent, yet for

00:06:47.160 our ultimate good.

00:06:49.380 It's for our good.

00:06:51.300 And what you're going to see over the next several months as we get through Romans 8

00:06:54.620 and 9 is God's hand on you before you were born and God's hand remaining on you until

00:07:04.380 you're with him.

00:07:08.720 That's the heart of this passage of the passages to come.

00:07:15.040 Not only does God provide us divine assistance to endure our present sufferings, but he also

00:07:24.440 works the Christian sufferings together in some sort of masterpiece that includes initiating

00:07:30.700 and sustaining our salvation.

00:07:35.580 And this is important to understand because for the next 43 verses, we are going to be

00:07:42.260 discussing how God has elected you before the foundation of the world, how he has predestined

00:07:51.140 you, how he has called you, how he has justified you, how he will sanctify you, how he will

00:07:57.340 glorify you.

00:07:58.660 All of these things will be covered.

00:08:04.480 If you're willing to let go and submit to the sovereignty of God and let free this love

00:08:14.740 affair with the idea of ultimate free will, you can rest in the beauty of God's providence

00:08:25.260 over your life.

00:08:27.260 And so we're going to look at our text again.

00:08:28.820 It says,

00:08:32.500 Last week I covered the first portion of that verse that says,

00:08:49.580 And we know, which speaks to this self-evident nature of this passage of Scripture.

00:08:56.620 The substance of this verse is that God works all things together, all things.

00:09:07.840 You're going to see that God works your trials and your tragedies into triumphs somehow.

00:09:15.760 You're going to see that God turns your sorrows in some way into some form of sanctification.

00:09:22.340 you're going to see that God throughout the scriptures does this. And we know this because

00:09:27.320 we can look to the old Testament. We can look to the new Testament. We can look to the Testament

00:09:31.400 of our own lives that God takes the garbage of our lives, the suffering of our lives,

00:09:36.400 the obedience of our lives. And he works it all together in this beautiful masterpiece

00:09:39.980 for our good and his glory.

00:09:43.240 Now, these divine workings, they might not be for your material good.

00:09:55.000 They are certainly for your spiritual good.

00:10:00.880 So today we shift to this heart of chapter or verse 28.

00:10:06.440 It says that God causes, God causes all things to work together for good.

00:10:16.560 I want to point out the very obvious fact that we as Christians also try to work our lives for good.

00:10:24.740 We are also trying to work all things together for good.

00:10:30.000 The difference is our limited foresight and our lack of capability.

00:10:36.440 and capacity to take the mistakes of our lives

00:10:40.700 and turn them into meaningful realities.

00:10:45.820 But here we see the word, if you look down in your Bibles,

00:10:48.360 it says causes.

00:10:50.440 We see that God causes all things

00:10:54.080 to work together for those who love him.

00:10:58.080 The word causes is sunageo.

00:11:01.720 It's a Greek word that means to put forth power to assist.

00:11:08.400 If you think, listen to that word, synegeo, it actually is where we get the English word synergism.

00:11:15.320 And I don't want you to let that term synergism stumble you because it can.

00:11:21.500 It's not referring to the realm of salvation.

00:11:24.020 This context of this passage, it's not talking about being saved.

00:11:28.600 For example, God does not cooperate with the wicked at all.

00:11:32.280 We know that.

00:11:33.280 And so the synergy spoken of here, it's speaking to the divine support of the actions of people

00:11:38.820 who are already saved.

00:11:41.100 So this is the context that Paul is talking to people that are already born again believers.

00:11:47.640 And he's saying, for those who love God, God works all things together for those people.

00:11:53.700 Now, we know that our salvation is not achieved through some sort of synergistic process.

00:11:59.420 We don't cooperate with God in borning ourselves again.

00:12:03.500 But once we've experienced regeneration, once we've been born again,

00:12:07.800 once we've been given a new nature,

00:12:09.460 God begins to further intercede and cause our lives in a deeper and a greater way to work together for our good. 0.93

00:12:18.360 In fact, he does this in a way that he does not do for the pagan, as we will see shortly.

00:12:23.860 But God providentially works not only in our salvation,

00:12:27.660 but also in his children's, what we talked about, free agency.

00:12:31.060 In our decisions and in our actions, we're not robots,

00:12:34.000 but we're actually making these choices.

00:12:35.960 And he works together with us in that reality to take our finitude,

00:12:39.740 to take our small things and make them infinitely greater and better

00:12:43.840 than we could do on our own.

00:12:44.880 So, the next point that I want to focus on is the word causes is in this present and active tense.

00:13:02.140 Too often Christians believe that God is reacting, that God is responding and kind of reworking the mistakes of our lives.

00:13:12.940 But again, this text isn't reactive.

00:13:17.220 Pay attention here.

00:13:18.880 This will change the way you view God.

00:13:23.460 The text isn't reactive, it's proactive.

00:13:27.200 God is actively exerting power to orchestrate the circumstances of your lives

00:13:31.820 for the Christian's ultimate good and for God's ultimate glory.

00:13:34.960 How this occurs, how it works, without God being the author of sin, without God being the author

00:13:51.120 of evil, it's a place of contention for many Christians because there is a mental mystery

00:13:58.580 there and we're going to see it. We're going to see that there are three great mysteries in the

00:14:02.620 Bible, right? There's the Trinity, there's the hypostatic union, and then there's God's

00:14:06.000 sovereignty and man's responsibility. You can study down to the core and you end up at a black 1.00

00:14:10.580 door that you cannot open. It is a mystery. We cannot possibly comprehend the reality

00:14:17.240 of those three portions of the Bible. How can God be completely sovereign over all events,

00:14:25.620 all events, causing all things to work together while not being responsible for the sin or evil

00:14:33.800 within those events. Think about that for a second. The wind and the waves obey Christ.

00:14:47.680 Yet when I was 18, I watched 300,000 people die from a tsunami.

00:14:51.860 could God not have stopped that or did God cause that did God use the means of a natural fallen

00:15:00.020 world to take the lives of 300,000 people he certainly did in the flood

00:15:04.980 you're going to wrestle with the truths of providence

00:15:11.560 if you spend time and I'm not asking you to come to a resolute comprehension of these realities

00:15:21.460 I was watching John Piper this morning at 76 years old fight with these doctrines.

00:15:31.060 He wrote a 700-page book called Providence, and he's wrestling with these truths.

00:15:42.360 In the Old Testament, we see that God presents his servant Job to Satan.

00:15:47.780 Have you considered my servant Job? God says to Satan. He permits the loss of his livestock,

00:15:57.180 the death of his servants, the death of his children, the destruction of his property.

00:16:02.060 And in Job 2.7, he permits Satan to personally afflict Job with boils from the head to his feet.

00:16:10.160 And at the end of the book, in Job 42 11, it says, quote, then they came to him, all

00:16:20.860 his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before and ate bread with him in his house.

00:16:27.700 And they showed him sympathy and comforted him, pay attention, for all the evil that

00:16:33.680 the Lord had brought upon him.

00:16:37.880 What do you do with that?

00:16:40.160 What do you do with a verse like that?

00:16:49.180 Calvin points out that when wicked men stole Job's possessions, Job recognized that the

00:16:55.440 Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

00:17:02.680 So wicked men come, the Chaldeans come and they take from Job. 0.94

00:17:08.620 Job assigns this taking to God. It is the Lord who has taken away. So although it was sinful men 0.94

00:17:19.500 and their actions that deprived Job of his possession, Job attributes the loss to the Lord

00:17:24.900 yet without sin.

00:17:32.980 We hear that Job says,

00:17:34.780 should we not receive good from the hand of the Lord

00:17:38.780 and not also receive evil?

00:17:43.700 In terms of justice, Job realizes that God can take

00:17:46.840 because he is the author of what you have.

00:17:50.080 He can take life because he is the author of life.

00:17:53.000 He can take health because he is the author of health.

00:17:56.780 He can take possessions because he is the giver of those possessions.

00:18:01.900 But when those possessions are taken through evil, yet God-ordained means,

00:18:12.200 when your daughter is taken by a drunk driver,

00:18:23.000 When there's murder or deception or theft or malice

00:18:27.800 or natural disasters from a fallen world,

00:18:30.440 Job points out that God is not the one responsible

00:18:33.700 for the evil.

00:18:37.840 Again, he says, shall we receive good from God

00:18:40.360 and shall we not also receive evil?

00:18:46.980 If that just doesn't make your mind bend,

00:18:53.000 So what we're learning is that God's sovereignty is such that he can use both the sinful actions

00:19:02.340 of men, he can use the demonic, he can use the reality of a fallen world, the rage of weather

00:19:08.020 to achieve his purposes without being morally responsible for them while still remaining

00:19:13.680 holy and good and righteous and kind and merciful and compassionate.

00:19:18.640 it. That is that God can work through the free agency of individuals. He can work through demons.

00:19:28.500 He can work through nature while still holding those entities accountable for their wickedness

00:19:32.980 and still remaining morally righteous. We can take God off of trial somehow for this reality.

00:19:41.820 And I'm going to give you some more examples.

00:19:43.440 in the Old Testament in Genesis 50 verse 20

00:19:48.520 we see that God uses the sinful actions of Joseph's brother

00:19:52.100 to sell him into slavery

00:19:54.980 after many years of suffering

00:19:59.360 Joseph says to his brothers

00:20:00.660 his brothers are expecting some form of revenge

00:20:04.240 and Joseph says and as for you

00:20:08.040 you meant evil against me

00:20:11.240 but God meant it for good

00:20:13.240 in order to bring about this present result,

00:20:17.120 to preserve many people alive, end quote.

00:20:22.800 Again, we see this free agency of wicked men

00:20:26.800 or even of saved men

00:20:28.600 that God is using them in evil circumstances,

00:20:35.340 working it all together for the good of Joseph,

00:20:38.600 for his brothers, for the entire nation of Egypt,

00:20:41.000 and for the incredible future of the church.

00:20:47.840 If Joseph can go to prison for years

00:20:54.480 and God uses that means to keep the 12 tribes of Israel alive 0.94

00:21:02.420 so that the line of Judah can be sustained, 0.59

00:21:08.880 so that David might be born 0.97

00:21:11.620 and so that the Messiah might come

00:21:15.280 so that the Messiah might die.

00:21:21.760 There is a beautiful providence of God working together

00:21:25.400 all of these things for good

00:21:26.800 even through the works of what we would call evil.

00:21:33.940 J.I. Packer once said to the tension

00:21:36.580 that you should feel

00:21:38.600 He says,

00:22:08.600 our tidy minds, but there is no escaping the tension if we want to be loyal to the facts of

00:22:15.160 scripture, end quote. John Piper says, believing that it's true does not require that you believe

00:22:23.600 how it's true or understand how it's true. We do it every day. I don't know how satellites work.

00:22:30.880 It's true. I don't know how they work. I don't know how cell phones work. I don't know how

00:22:34.780 Wi-Fi works, okay? I know that it's true. I have no idea how it's true. So there is nothing,

00:22:47.040 there is nothing in your life that happens independent of God's permissive will

00:22:59.420 or God's decretive will?

00:23:02.840 God's permissive will allowing things to happen

00:23:06.060 or God's decretive will providentially causing them to happen?

00:23:13.200 There are dimensions in these realities that we don't have time

00:23:16.340 to do a New Testament class or Old Testament class

00:23:19.360 on the sovereignty and providence of God's will,

00:23:21.880 but understand that there are categories of thinking about this properly.

00:23:26.120 but what I want you to see is that this is important because our lives can often feel

00:23:32.660 if you've had any degree of suffering, if you've lost a child or had any form of sickness or

00:23:39.280 struggle with depression or had anxiety or had someone die from suicide or whatever it may be

00:23:45.000 D, it can feel like our lives are under the control of Satan. It can feel like we are

00:24:01.320 operating at random. It can feel that God cannot use our failures or mistakes to make good from

00:24:10.800 this it can feel that our mistakes or our sufferings have left us in a place

00:24:16.840 that are too far beyond God's restoration again if you have not felt

00:24:23.460 that you're just not old enough all of these things come for us we can easily

00:24:29.400 fall into this concept of dualism that God and the devil are fighting together

00:24:34.360 and that that you know the devil's one today you know he took something that I

00:24:39.900 didn't expect and God couldn't stop him that God is somehow you know wishing

00:24:47.380 that he could oh man I wish I could have stopped that one I didn't exceed I

00:24:51.540 didn't see that car accident coming but what we learn from this passage what we

00:25:01.000 learn from the responses of Job in Joseph in trials that are far more

00:25:07.680 significant than anyone in this room has ever experienced, is that even when life is falling

00:25:15.240 apart, even when things are crumbling, they're crumbling in the hands of God.

00:25:24.460 They're crumbling into dust, but they're in the hands of God. And you know who creates great

00:25:30.520 things from dust? God. God creates wonderful things from

00:25:38.960 nothing, from terrible circumstances. He takes the most

00:25:44.340 unworthy and seemingly incapable ingredients and works them

00:25:50.340 into something that is majestic and good. He does this

00:25:57.580 for his kids. He does this for all of his children. He causes all things to work together.

00:26:07.240 Our suffering, our sinfulness, our sickness, our health, our finances, our tragedies,

00:26:13.500 our righteousness, everything, our obedience, all work together in a way to produce

00:26:18.420 a result of sanctification, a result of conformity to the image of Christ

00:26:23.760 that we could not produce on our own.

00:26:29.020 Thomas Watson, the great Puritan,

00:26:33.360 speaks to God's use of suffering for sanctification.

00:26:36.520 He says, quote,

00:26:38.060 Afflictions work for good as they make way for glory.

00:26:44.820 Not that they merit glory themselves,

00:26:47.080 but they prepare us for it

00:26:48.520 As plowing prepares the earth for a crop,

00:26:54.500 so afflictions prepare and make us ready for glory.

00:26:59.220 The painter lay his gold upon dark colors,

00:27:02.540 so God first lays the dark colors of affliction,

00:27:05.900 and then he lays the golden color of glory.

00:27:09.320 The vessel is first seasoned with fire

00:27:12.420 before wine is poured into it.

00:27:15.020 The vessels of mercy are first seasoned with affliction.

00:27:18.520 and then the wine of glory is poured in it thus we see afflictions are not prejudice are not

00:27:27.720 prejudicial there we go prejudicial but beneficial to the saints

00:27:33.880 so in the context of this entire chapter

00:27:38.440 in the context of chapter 8 that god says that there is no condemnation for those who are in

00:27:43.800 Christ Jesus, and that you are groaning for glory, but these present sufferings are not worthy to be

00:27:49.300 compared of the glory that is to come. And that God has not left us without promise, and that God

00:27:54.520 has not left us without divine support, and that God has not left us without providence, working

00:27:58.340 all things together for our good. We might groan. We might suffer. We might experience tragedy.

00:28:08.180 We might not understand.

00:28:11.100 But what Paul is teaching us here is that we are not left alone.

00:28:17.240 We have an incredible arsenal of divine support.

00:28:23.160 Do you want to see what lonely looks like? 0.99

00:28:25.580 Look at the pagan marriage. 0.99

00:28:27.280 Watch them fight over triviality and have no solution. 0.94

00:28:32.640 Watch them suffer as they watch their children die.

00:28:36.040 That is not you.

00:28:39.600 Praise God, right?

00:28:42.180 Imagine walking in this world of death and sorrow and suffering and sickness and not having this.

00:28:54.460 And that is the point that I move on to is that this assistance is not universal.

00:29:01.340 It's not.

00:29:02.300 Paul qualifies this providential support

00:29:07.960 and the next part of this verse,

00:29:10.580 it says to those who love God.

00:29:13.080 God works all things together to those who love God.

00:29:18.760 First, I want you to notice that it doesn't say

00:29:20.860 to those who believe in God.

00:29:24.900 Look down.

00:29:25.920 It doesn't say to those who believe in God.

00:29:27.840 James 2 9 teaches that even the demons believe the mark of a genuine believer is

00:29:39.220 that you love God do you love God does your life order around it do you submit

00:29:52.740 everything to Him. 1 John 4, 19 says, we love because He first loved us. You want to know why

00:30:04.860 you love God? It's because God, before the foundation of the world, first loved you.

00:30:13.200 So your love for God becomes this great evidence of identity.

00:30:16.440 yes it must be paired with obedience and yes it must be paired with lordship and yes it must be

00:30:23.940 paired with fruit and yes it must not be blind without the comprehension of the gospel yes it

00:30:28.540 must be all those things it's not that we are saved by faith alone you know we know that that

00:30:34.820 we are saved by faith alone but faith that is never is alone we were going to have fruit we

00:30:40.440 are going to have trust but it's going to be evident that that love actually permeates and

00:30:45.100 saturates every possible area of our lives. And if you love God, according to the testimony of

00:30:53.960 the scriptures, the promise of providence becomes a great assurance of your salvation.

00:30:59.380 Because you're about to see in the next couple of verses, as we go for the next few weeks,

00:31:03.920 that if you love God, you are blessed. You are carried. You are absolutely in a place of favor.

00:31:15.100 Second, if you look down, it implies the inverse truth.

00:31:23.300 Benevolent providence is not a privilege of the pagan.

00:31:27.120 Benevolent providence is not a privilege of the pagan.

00:31:30.600 Outside of Christ, you are an enemy of God.

00:31:35.220 Ephesians 2.3 calls non-believers children of wrath. 0.71

00:31:40.540 Romans 5.10 calls them enemies of God.

00:31:42.680 Romans 1.30 calls them haters of God.

00:31:44.280 Ephesians 2.6 says that there is a hostility between them and God.

00:31:50.780 Outside of Christ, you are the adversary of God.

00:31:55.520 You are his enemy.

00:31:57.740 The creator of the world is not benevolently preparing you for glory, but is leaving you for justice. 1.00

00:32:05.340 the only form of providence that exists for the pagan 0.98

00:32:11.300 is the working together of God's wrath 1.00

00:32:15.520 to execute justice for you to burn 0.97

00:32:17.800 Hebrews 10 27 says of these people

00:32:25.600 that there is quote

00:32:27.100 fearful expectation of judgment

00:32:30.000 and a fury of fire

00:32:32.360 that will consume the adversaries

00:32:35.900 Four verses later, it says,

00:32:38.080 it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.

00:32:42.520 Ultimately, you are either in the hands of benevolent providence,

00:32:46.620 heading toward eternal bliss,

00:32:48.760 or in the fists of wrath,

00:32:51.780 heading towards eternal justice.

00:32:54.740 There is no neutrality.

00:32:56.400 You are not in some middle ground.

00:32:58.900 You are either one or the other.

00:33:00.760 You are either all in with Christ or you are all in for doom.

00:33:11.660 What does this mean?

00:33:15.260 Where's the application?

00:33:17.580 How does providence, that God works all things together,

00:33:21.800 how does this actually hit in your life today?

00:33:26.820 Okay. First, it's important to clarify that I don't want this to just imply that you only

00:33:36.460 recognize God's sovereignty in times of suffering. Yes, that's probably the most difficult time

00:33:43.720 to recognize God's sovereignty. When the phone call comes of a loved one that's passed,

00:33:51.900 we get to feel the tension of sorrow and joy bouncing back and forth that mom is dead but

00:34:00.020 i'm also glad that mom was a believer and the joy that that comes back and forth and

00:34:04.400 the suffering and sorrow we get to do those things we will do those things

00:34:08.360 but you also need to acknowledge that god's sovereignty occurs in moments of comfort

00:34:16.200 and moments of happiness.

00:34:22.300 Too often we stumble over the fact that God is sovereign in miscarriage,

00:34:27.120 but we don't realize the fact that God is sovereign over the vacation.

00:34:38.940 We don't remember that God is sovereign over your great sleep cycle

00:34:42.500 and that your liver is functioning normally

00:34:44.280 and that you were passing cars at 60 miles an hour today at five feet apart and didn't hit

00:34:49.920 and that your plane landed earlier this week and that your vacation schedule is going to be great.

00:34:55.420 All of these things that God is sovereignly, faithfully, lovingly, kindly working together in your life.

00:35:04.080 I once heard a quote along the lines of the entire body forgets its health in the stubbing of one toe.

00:35:14.280 We must learn to be like Job.

00:35:19.840 We must learn to be like Joseph

00:35:22.940 and see the providence in both good and evil.

00:35:27.580 And the things that happen to us that are difficult

00:35:30.160 and the things that happen to us that are good

00:35:32.440 because how much good do we deserve?

00:35:35.800 None.

00:35:36.280 we must rest in the fact that

00:35:43.540 even when providence comes in the form of suffering

00:35:46.700 God will work that

00:35:49.460 for our good

00:35:50.800 second

00:35:53.680 it's natural to trust in ourselves

00:35:57.380 it's natural

00:35:59.300 it's natural to believe that our future

00:36:03.480 is somehow in our control 0.84

00:36:06.000 We do this foolishly.

00:36:07.360 It's natural to use our eyes and our ears and our minds to try to interpret reality.

00:36:15.120 It's natural to see affliction and suffering as some form of attack or, you know, anger from the Lord.

00:36:26.240 But understanding the doctrine of providence allows you to, as Proverbs 3.5 says,

00:36:32.020 lean not on your own understanding.

00:36:35.320 Don't do it. Don't do it. This is a wonderful message because today your

00:36:48.080 suffering may not be great. And my hope as a pastor is that by God's grace you

00:36:56.980 will get to hear sermon after sermon after sermon that will strengthen you

00:37:01.940 in the truth of the Lord so that when those times come, I don't have to preach to you in the hospital

00:37:08.880 bed. I don't have to come up with all of the passages of scripture. Yes, you might need

00:37:16.760 reminder. Yes, you might need support in those moments. But truly, this is the preparation of

00:37:23.360 the Lord for your life in the times that will come that are difficult. You don't want to prepare for

00:37:31.220 suffering in suffering. You want to prepare for suffering far before the

00:37:36.180 suffering comes. You want to be anchored far before the storm. What a blessing it

00:37:45.180 is to go through these verses. Jeremiah Day once wrote, quote, the longer I live

00:37:53.840 the more faith I have in providence and the less faith I have in my

00:37:58.040 interpretation of it. This is the appropriate posture for the Christian. God says, for as high

00:38:07.400 as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than

00:38:13.400 your thoughts. Trust or faith presumes inability to understand, inability to see, inability to hear.

00:38:27.900 You don't trust in something that you see or hold.

00:38:32.020 You don't hope for something that is here.

00:38:37.840 It requires us to depend on the promises and providence of God.

00:38:42.000 That's what trust and faith require.

00:38:47.080 Now, this shouldn't only occur in reaction to trials.

00:38:52.140 This is my point number three.

00:38:53.740 this should occur in anticipation of providence.

00:38:59.420 James 4, 13 through 15, it says,

00:39:02.120 Come now, you who say,

00:39:04.900 Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town

00:39:07.400 and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.

00:39:10.500 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

00:39:13.600 What is your life?

00:39:15.020 For you are a mist that appears for a little while

00:39:17.940 and then vanishes.

00:39:19.420 Instead, you ought to say,

00:39:21.000 if the Lord wills, pay attention here, we will live and do this or that.

00:39:29.280 You don't even know if you're going to be alive tonight.

00:39:33.260 What pride, right? What pride do we have?

00:39:38.260 We don't even take the time to go, Lord, if you will it, then I'll brush my teeth tonight.

00:39:42.300 We put plans out there and vision without recognizing that it's all in the hands of providence.

00:39:55.620 The doctrine of providence is not just a safety net that works your failures together for good.

00:40:02.120 It's a truth intended to produce the acknowledgement of your finitude and produce a sense of humility in your life.

00:40:10.220 You depend on providence.

00:40:13.720 You depend on the benevolence of God.

00:40:19.620 And what should that do?

00:40:22.640 Children, what should that do?

00:40:24.800 It should drive you to dependence in prayer.

00:40:28.420 It should.

00:40:29.020 It should take you to prayer.

00:40:31.060 You have plans today?

00:40:32.700 Take it to prayer.

00:40:33.940 If the Lord wills it.

00:40:35.220 It should compel you to take everything to the Lord in prayer.

00:40:46.480 It should call us to recognize our inadequacy without benevolent providence.

00:40:53.660 Pride says, look what I have done or look what I will do.

00:40:59.160 It's easy to look at the painting and forget the painter.

00:41:02.900 It's easy to look at the masterpiece, but forget the master behind it.

00:41:10.040 Philippians 4.19 says,

00:41:12.800 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

00:41:19.960 My God will supply every need of this congregation according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

00:41:33.800 Do you believe that?

00:41:37.580 This is the promise that we must trust in.

00:41:41.260 In this church, here at Kingsway, God will supply every need for this congregation.

00:41:48.160 We have plans for the city.

00:41:50.920 We have plans for this church.

00:41:52.680 We have plans for a homeschool co-op.

00:41:55.060 We have plans for a seminary.

00:41:56.780 We have plans for publishing more books.

00:41:58.940 We have plans that many generations from now,

00:42:01.420 the Lord might sanctify this town, 1.00

00:42:03.720 Christianize this town, 0.85

00:42:05.320 proclaim the gospel through this town,

00:42:07.000 that it would change and be a beacon of light

00:42:09.180 to the rest of this country.

00:42:10.720 We have plans.

00:42:17.020 But our duty is to sit before the Lord in prayer.

00:42:19.960 and to rest and say, oh, Lord, if it's your will,

00:42:25.560 would you come bless this place?

00:42:27.880 Would you come bless these people?

00:42:30.140 Would you come build a root and a foundation of gospel doctrine

00:42:33.540 so deep in the hearts of this founding church

00:42:36.720 that there could be a gigantic work of the Lord built on top of it?

00:42:44.940 What an amazing thought.

00:42:49.960 I often pray that your families would be strengthened,

00:42:54.480 that your marriages would be strengthened,

00:42:56.600 that your children would be obedient,

00:42:58.300 that the gospel would penetrate deep into the homes,

00:43:00.940 because I know that this congregation requires maturity.

00:43:07.780 For all that we desire,

00:43:09.960 all the plans that we've put before the Lord,

00:43:12.400 it cannot happen without the Lord first blessing this.

00:43:19.960 the faithfulness of you men and women and children.

00:43:26.640 And so let's be faithful in our endeavors.

00:43:30.460 Let's wholeheartedly submit our lives to providence

00:43:35.100 in the good and the bad.

00:43:38.360 Amen?

00:43:39.200 Let's pray.

00:43:40.960 Father, we thank you.

00:43:45.480 Lord, we trust you.

00:43:46.700 lord help us to recognize providence lord that we would not operate as blind men and women

00:43:57.460 but lord that we would see that all things are being orchestrated for our good and lord that

00:44:04.020 you would allow us to grasp to comprehend some degree of the majestic realities that are

00:44:14.800 happening around us. Lord, that we would trust that we would be an absolute light to the world

00:44:25.600 in the midst of tragedy. Lord, that we would also glory and praise and honor you in the midst of

00:44:35.000 comfort. We pray that you would bless this congregation, that you would do a mighty work

00:44:42.780 through us.

00:44:47.820 And Lord, we thank you

00:44:48.980 for working all things together for our good.

00:44:52.160 In Jesus' name, amen.

00:44:54.920 Amen.

Dale Partridge - March 08, 2024

PART TWO： God's Sovereignty and Man's Will

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