Dale Partridge - March 08, 2024


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


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44 minutes

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5,501

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309

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Summary

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Part 2: God's Sovereignty in Man's Will. This sermon continues our discussion of the relationship between God's sovereignty and our own will. In this sermon, Pastor Ken continues the theme of the book of Romans and emphasizes the role of divine intervention in our lives.

Transcript

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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.