Rediscovering God's Providence
Notes
Transcript
Disturbing trend
Disturbing trend
Gallup conducted a new poll this year on the status of Faith in America.
According to the poll, the belief in God is at an all time low.
Only 81% of Americans say they believe in God.
For perspective, Gallup has been conducting polls like this since 1944. In the 1944 poll, 98% of Americans believed in God.
For the next several decades, the polls held steady at 98%
It wasn't until 2013 that belief in God first dipped below 90% to 87%. The poll then held steady at 87% until this year when it dropped all the way down to 81%.
a 6% drop may not sound like much, but 6% of the American population is approximately 16,885,314 people.
that means almost 17 million fewer Americans believe in God than did just a couple of years ago.
To make the findings even more disturbing, among the age group of 18-29 year old’s only 68% say they believe in God.
More Disturbing Findings
More Disturbing Findings
If that’s not bad enough, the next question they asked was whether or not God hears prayers and whether God can intervene on a persons behalf.
Only 42% of Americans believe that God hears our prayers and that He is capable of intervening on our behalf.
28% believe that God hears ours prayers but that He is powerless to intervene.
The other 11% that actually believe in God believe that He neither hears our prayers nor can intervene for us.
A Brief Analysis
A Brief Analysis
Americans are abandoning their belief in God at a very alarming pace
But even more so, they are abandoning the belief in a God who hears them and is active in their lives.
It is a return to Deism. which was the belief that God created the world and established its rules and laws and then withdrew and left us to ourselves.
As a country We have largely either abandoned God or we have neutered Him in our minds.
If the God we believe in, and the God we are presenting to the world, is a God that can’t hear our prayers, or hears them and is powerless to answer, then it is no wonder that we are abandoning our belief in Him. Such a God is not the God of the Bible and is not the majestic and mighty God of the Universe worthy of all praise honor and adoration.
Recapturing the Glory of God
Recapturing the Glory of God
We have lost sight of the power, glory and splendor of God. We have rejected the truth that He is the sovereign God of the universe.
We have not only rejected God’s sovereignty, but we have replaced it with the belief that we are truly the ones that are sovereign.
Pastor Jeff Durbin said it this way:
“What has plagued humanity since the very beginning is this - We think we’re sovereign, It was the lie that got Satan cast out of God’s presence, it was the lie that got humanity cast out of the garden, its the lie that we embrace all the time - that we’re the sovereign and we will determine. Here’s the truth: you will never be the sovereign in God’s universe, He is; and nothing will ever change that,”
As humans, and especially as Americans we do not like the idea of anyone, even God, being sovereign over us.
We worship the self and our own imagined autonomy.
In doing so we have incrementally removed God from the equation.
Like the Deists we no longer see and acknowledge His hand at work in our lives and in the world around us.
We are quick to attribute the happenings of the world to fate, or luck, or happenstance, or most often to our own human machinations. We no longer perceive a God who is intimately involved in the upholding and governing of His creation.
Providence
Providence
In short we have abandoned the idea of divine providence.
One definition of Providence was given in the Belgic Confession of 1561:
We believe that this good God, after creating all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to His holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without God’s orderly arrangement.
Theologian Louis Berkhof defined Providence as:
“that continued exercise of the divine energy whereby the creator preserves all His creatures, is operative in all that comes to pass in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end”
I could give many other definitions but the bottom line is this. God is in control and He takes an active role in the upholding and governing of His creation. He is involved in the little things just as He is in the big things.
The book of Daniel puts it this way:
At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”
Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man of his time. He ruled over a vast empire, but with that power came great pride and the Lord humbled him. at the end of this humbling, the man who ruled most of the known world declared that God’s dominion extends over all time and over all people. He does according to His will and none can stop Him, nor can they question Him.
Job came to a similar conclusion when the Lord appeared to him and humbled him when He had accused the Lord of being unjust and unfair.
Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job is actually a tremendous example of God’s sovereignty and providence, even in the midst of our greatest suffering.
God is the one who first brought Job to Satan’s attention. He is omniscient so He knew when He did it what all would come from His words
God set the boundaries for how and to what degree Satan could attack Job
He then reestablished the boundaries to give Satan even greater freedom to assault Job.
Job was a righteous man and he went through great suffering despite his righteousness.
God never answers Job’s demands to know why this all is happening. He simply shows up in His glory and and compares His knowledge, wisdom, and power to Jobs lack thereof.
Job was humbled and no longer needed an answer but instead placed his faith in the character, wisdom, and power of God without ever learning why.
But the end result was that before he had known God by the hearing of the ear, his eyes saw Him.
Isaiah puts it this way
“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
He is God and there is none like Him. He knows the end from the beginning. At the foundation of the world He knew everything that would ever come to pass.
His decrees and His purposes will all come to pass and He will be the one who brings them to pass
The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all.
A person’s heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.
We can make our plans exercise our free will, but in the end God remains sovereign and He will will be done,
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.
God has an eternal plan for His creation and He will see it accomplished.
This is the hope we have as Christians. That God has an eternal plan and that we will be with Him in the culmination of all things in the consummation of His kingdom.
If God is not sovereign and He is not providentially working all things to their appointed end, then we have no true grounds for our faith that He will accomplish what He has promised.
Providence in the Little Things
Providence in the Little Things
It is not just in His grand plan of the ages that we see His providence at work.
Its not what some imagine, that God is directing a big picture scheme but He is hands off to everything else.
No. Every small thing in this world is but a part of the tapestry God is weaving through the ages.
God is concerned with even the small and seemingly insignificant matters of our lives
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
God’s providential care is so meticulous that even a bird will not fall to the ground outside of his providence.
Jesus points out that their value is less than a penny but God still cares. How much more does He care about us?!
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, 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. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
In this passage we see God’s providential care over nature but Jesus says “How much more is his care for us” Do not be anxious but trust in His providence.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
God knit us together and made us fearfully and wonderfully. And He did so with full knowledge of everything we would ever do or face in our lives.
It says that every day of our lives was written in His book before we were even born.
That means nothing in our lives comes as a surprise to Him. His plan encompasses everything and He created us perfectly with that in mind.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
God works ALL things to our good.
Not just the good things but all things.
even our sufferings and afflictions.
far from being a distant hands off God who lacks the ability or desire to intervene on our behalf, He actively works ALL THINGS together for good.
Some examples of Providence
Some examples of Providence
The story of Joseph
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
The story of Jonah
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
On the front porch of his little country store in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln and Berry, his partner, stood. Business was all gone, and Berry asked, “How much longer can we keep this going?” Lincoln answered, “It looks as if our business has just about winked out.” Then he continued, “You know, I wouldn’t mind so much if I could just do what I want to do. I want to study law. I wouldn’t mind so much if we could sell everything we’ve got and pay all our bills and have just enough left over to buy one book—Blackstone’s Commentary on English Law, but I guess I can’t.”
A strange-looking wagon was coming up the road. The driver angled it up close to the store porch, then looked at Lincoln and said, “I’m trying to move my family out west, and I’m out of money. I’ve got a good barrel here that I could sell for fifty cents.” Abraham Lincoln’s eyes went along the wagon and came to the wife looking at him pleadingly, face thin and emaciated. Lincoln ran his hand into his pocket and took out, according to him, “the last fifty cents I had” and said, “I reckon I could use a good barrel.” All day long the barrel sat on the porch of that store. Berry kept chiding Lincoln about it. Late in the evening Lincoln walked out and looked down into the barrel. He saw something in the bottom of it, papers that he hadn’t noticed before. His long arms went down into the barrel and, as he fumbled around, he hit something solid. He pulled out a book and stood petrified: it was Blackstone’s Commentary on English Law.
Lincoln later wrote, “I stood there holding the book and looking up toward the heavens. There came a deep impression on me that God had something for me to do and He was showing me now that I had to get ready for it. Why this miracle otherwise?”
Providence should strengthen our faith
Providence should strengthen our faith
When we truly come to understand and believe in God’s providence it should strengthen our faith exponentially.
We become cognizant of the fact that God truly cares about us and our needs. Even the smallest matters are not too insignificant for His care.
We come to realize that it is not left to us alone, but that we are co-laboring with God Himself and He is the one in charge of truly effecting change.
We are the junior partners in this partnership.
It should give us faith that we can accomplish what seems impossible for God is with us.
It should ease our minds and souls when we seem to fail, because God remains sovereign
When we are suffering and going through affliction we are sustained by the knowledge that God is sovereign and we rest in His character and goodness despite our pain and confusion.
We may never know the why but we can trust in the who,
When we are lost and feel all alone, we can combat those emotions with the truth that God Himself is with us and will never let us down
When everything seems to be falling apart and we are under immense pressures we can stand and persevere because God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Bringing it together
Bringing it together
In a world where so many have lost their faith in a God that is actively involved in their lives, we need to get back into our Bibles and rediscover the God of Providence.
We need to rediscover the greatness and majesty of our God.
We need to take the path of John the Baptists and realize that we must decrease so that He might increase.
If we want any hope of saving our nation. Of reaching the lost, we must lift Him up so that He might draw men to His side.
And we cannot lift up an image of Him that is nothing more than a pale shadow of who He is.
Wed need to rediscover the true and terrifying God and then share Him in all His majesty.
We also must experience for ourselves and share with others the reality that He is not a distant God.
He is actively and intimately involved in our lives and that He not only capable of intervening on our behalf, but that He is already doing so.