God's Providence:

My name is Griffin Harris, and I have the privilege of being a leadership resident over at Traders Point Christian Church this year and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to proclaim God’s word to you all this morning!

We decided to start feeding him dog food instead of razor blades.

You all should have a Bible with you this morning and if you do, please turn to Genesis 37. To give you a little help, Genesis is the first book in the Bible so I hope you can track that down. So as you may or may not know, the topic for this morning is God’s providence.

I’m a huge theology nerd so when I got an email from Marshall about what topics were available to preach on in the spring and I saw God’s Providence I got all giddy and excited.

So just so we have a little bit of background as to what it is we’re talking about today, I want to give you a definition of what God’s providence means.

God’s providence can be defined as “God’s governance and care for his creation”. I know that sounds like a mouthful so repeat that with me one more time:

“God’s governance and care for his creation.”

Let’s break that down into a few more easily digestible pieces.

What is governance?

When you hear the word ‘governance’ the first word that probably comes to mind is government and that is a bit of a touchy subject at the moment or, well, for the whole of human history. God’s governance of his creation is unlike any type of government that we’re used to in our world.

Hebrews 1:3 says: “3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”

Colossians 1:17 says, “17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

And Nehemiah 9:6 says, “6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”

The first takeaway I want you to have is that:

The universe as a whole relies on God to continue to exist.

God, in his providential power, affects every breath that you breath, he is mindful of every little bird you see in the sky, and purposefully and carefully clothes every blade of grass that we don’t think twice about.

Creation stays created solely because of God’s providential governance.

What is care?

Secondly, let’s address God’s care for his creation and how providence works into that concept.

As I mentioned before, God is aware of and actively caring for every bird that poops on your parents car and every flower that you see growing on the side of the road. Jesus says as much in Luke 12:24-28:

Luke 12:24–28 ESV

24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!

Something I think is so cool from this passage is when Jesus says, “If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?”

Jesus is essentially saying that it’s as easy for God to take care of all the birds of the air as it is for us to breath! How often do you think about breathing? How often do you take a minute to pause and think, “ope better remember to breath today!”? You don’t have to think about it, not really.

It’s as easy for God to care for the millions on millions of birds who we don’t give a second thought to as it is for us to breath.

When I was a little kid, I had a hamster. I begged and begged my dad to buy me that hamster. I promised him I would take care of it, that it wouldn’t die, that he’d be my best friend.

I mean, typically when you have a pet they have a much better chance of surviving than they would if they were just wild and out roaming around. My hamster didn’t have to scavenge for food, all I had to do was put a quarter sized amount of peanuts or whatever hamster’s eat in his cage.

What do you think happened to my hamster?

He died, yep, I still have a memorial to him in my closet that says, “RIP Hammy”.

God rest his soul.

If I can’t even keep a hamster alive on my own, I have zero hope of keeping myself alive and Jesus knows as much.

In verse 22 of that same chapter, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing,” and he closes the chapter by saying, “Seek his Kingdom, and these things will be added to you,”.

Stop worrying about what only God can do.

I don’t want you to think that God is handing these birds their food one by one all day.

That’s not what we experience in our lives either.

Despite how much I wish it were true, when I close my fridge and go back five minutes later hoping there are more snacks in there, it’s never the true.

What Jesus is saying is that stop worrying about the food and the clothes because it will be there for you to take when you need it.

I know I mentioned Genesis 37 a long time ago and it’s finally time to turn there.

Genesis 37 and 39 through 46 explores the story of a man called Joseph.

The passage is too long for us to really read and explore in depth, so I just want to give a 1,000 foot overview of Josephs story.

Joseph had eleven brothers, but Joseph was special, Joseph had dreams.

Not the kind of dreams where your dog walks up to you on his back legs with a suit and flip flops on and talks to you in an Australian accent, like my dog does in my dreams.

He had dreams of the future.

One dream that set his brothers off was a dream that they would all bow down to him.

If you have any siblings, and especially if you have younger siblings, the idea of bowing down to them puts a sour taste in your mouth.

The only reason I would bow down in front of my little brother when I was younger was to tie his shoe laces together and trip him.

Joseph’s brothers hated this so much that they were going to kill him.

Instead of killing him however, one of the nicer brothers, Reuben convinced his brothers to throw him in a giant hole that Joseph wouldn’t have been able to get out of.

Reuben did this for a reason though, he planned on rescuing Joseph out of the hole later on.

However, Judah instead thought it would be a better idea to sell him into slavery.

So Joseph is sold into slavery and is carried off to Egypt.

But God had his hand on Joseph.

Joseph was bought by a man named Potiphar, a man very high up in the Egyptian government.

Joseph was a man of God, and because of that, he worked hard at everything he was put in charge of.

He was honest, he was compassionate, and the Lord was with him.

Genesis 39:3 reads

Genesis 39:3 ESV

3 His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands.

That’s another thing we need to recognize with God’s providence, when you work for the Lord, it isn’t you who is successful, but God who is causing you to succeed.

Joseph must have been a good looking man because Potiphar’s wife was really into him.

She approached him and tried to get Joseph to sleep with her, but because Joseph was a godly man, he refused.

She was furious and told her husband that Joseph had instead tried to sleep with her.

Joseph ended up being thrown into prison, falsely accused.

But God was still with Joseph.

A lot of events went on within the story and I encourage you to read it for yourself but just so we have enough time, I’ll jump ahead a bit.

Joseph, through being faithful to God, eventually got out of prison and rose in the ranks of the Egyptian government, rising to become second in command to Pharoah himself.

Do you remember at the beginning of Joseph’s story I said that Joseph had dreams?

Well at some point, he had a dream that a famine was coming and because God had given him not only these dreams, but had put him into a position where he could effectively act on these dreams, Joseph was able to prepare for the famine, stockpiling food for when there would be little available.

This famine was much large than just Egypt, it stretched all the way to Canaan, to Joseph’s homeland, where his brothers and father were still living.

Joseph’s family made the trip to Egypt because they heard that Egypt had food.

A lot of back and forth happens, and Joseph’s brothers made multiple trips back to Canaan and back to Egypt.

Eventually, Jospeh revealed himself to his brothers and what he said is beautiful.

Genesis 45:4–8 (ESV)

4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Joseph wasn’t angry with his brothers for selling him into slavery, Joseph recognized that it was not their doing, but God’s so that life may be preserved.

God manipulates world events for the benefit of those who put their trust in him.

What’s important to hone in on is that the Lord is the one who initiated this event.

God is working in and through you and everyone around you to bring his plans to completion.

This past April, I was on my way home from school. For a little bit of context, I am a masters student at Indiana Wesleyan and I am in my second year. But last April I was driving home from IWU, just talking to my wife about what we wanted to have for dinner for the next couple days.

It was a beautiful evening, not too hot, not too cold, the sunset was beautiful but it wasn’t too bright.

Really it was a relaxing drive home.

Then, all of the sudden, out of the left corner of my eye, I see someone flying across the intersection coming straight toward me. I tried to swerve out of the way, but apparently they gunned it trying to beat me across the intersection.

If you’ve never been in a car accident, it’s scary.

One minute, I was driving home, talking to my wife, the next, I was spun out into the grass with blood on my face and a totalled car.

The passenger of the car got out and came over to check on me and I was okay, just a mild concussion. And when I got out the first thing I heard was “my mom is going to kill me!”

Yeah she’s gonna kill you if I don’t kill you first!

I was mad, and it took me a long time to cool off so after both cars had been towed away and the scene had been cleaned up, I was sitting on the side of the road waiting on my wife to come pick me up.

The passenger, he was a boy close to the age of some of you, lived across the street from where the accident took place. He walked over to me and asked if I was okay and if I wanted to come over to their house to wait for my ride.

I was still upset and what I wanted to say to him was absolutely not.

But I felt God’s touch on my heart.

He was telling me to be patient.

Instead of getting mad at the boy, I kept my cool and we were able to just talk.

Eventually, he asked me, “Why are you so calm?”

I told him that because I have Jesus, my life is so much more than the car I drive, or whether or not the clothes I had on had blood on them. Because of that car accident, I was able to share the gospel with that kid.

Nothing miraculous happened, he didn’t fall to his knees and accept Jesus, but God planted a seed.

To see how God is working behind the scenes, we need to listen and be patient.

It took me a while to see it, but God let that accident happen to plant a seed of hope in that young mans life.