God's Sovereignty

Trusting in the sovereignty of God does not give us license to live lax or laidback lives. Knowing that God is actively governing and guiding life’s events is a comforting realization. It rightly dispels fear and anxiety, but it should not quench our passion or drive to attack each day with zealous intent. Consider Paul’s confidence in God regarding the salvation of the elect. He obviously believes that “as many as are appointed to eternal life believe” when he proclaims the gospel (Ac.13:48). And yet we see his passionate determination as he describes his evangelistic fervor: “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others” and “God is making his appeal through us:  we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2Cor.5:11; 20). There is no “letting go and letting God.” Rather, there is an underlying confidence in the providential work of God as we give ourselves wholeheartedly and passionately to the work he has called us to do. So whether it is evangelism or financial planning, prayer or childrearing, the biblical model is to trust God fully and work at it with all of our heart.

God's Involvement

Some say that those of us who do not believe that God continues to regularly suspend natural law in our presence the way he did through the apostles and prophets in Scripture, somehow “put God in a box” or seek to diminish his work in the world. But if you think it through, it is actually quite the opposite. Those who ardently seek the supernatural alteration of “nature’s laws” are usually relegating the non-supernatural intervals to those times “between God’s work.” They imply that when God sees us “backed into a corner” he then “shows up” to bail us out or make a statement for his glory. But consider those of us who claim that God is active and at work every day, in every situation, working “everything after the counsel of his will” (Eph.1:11). We will be the ones inclined to proclaim that “his mercies are new every morning” (Lam.3:22-23) and that every day “the heavens declare the glory of God” and that “day after day they pour forth speech” (Ps.19:1-2). We will be the first to recognize that God is always working powerfully and sovereignly within the natural laws that he made, never surprised by our circumstances or the dilemmas of our lives. We will be apt to affirm that he sovereignly guides us through the challenges of our lives and that Christ indeed “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col.1:17). There will be no doubt as we trust our wise and mighty God that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Ac.17:28).

-Pastor Mike

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Suffering and God's Plan

So often we are surprised that God “would allow” suffering, pain and death. But actually, these unpleasant realities are the promised outworking of God’s response to sin in Genesis 3. Our Creator has clearly and consistently maintained that the wages of sin is death – and all the painful corruption that goes with it. The absence of suffering and pain in a sinful world would be a legitimate cause to question the truthfulness and faithfulness of God. However, that doesn’t make it feel any better, not to mention that it leaves millions of people bristling at a God who doesn’t relieve their pains. Before you join in, remember that God’s sentence of death on humanity’s sin is a disguised opportunity for his grace. If Adam and his descendants didn’t decay and die, they would be forever separated and banished from God’s perfect fellowship and his perfect gifts. Barring the first couple from the Tree of Life was, as it turns out, an incredible act of grace. A holy God cannot engage in perfect union with fallen creatures. But in God’s plan our eventual physical death allows for a new start. God sent his Son to purchase for us the ultimate “new start” wherein we could be spiritually and, one day, physically remade without reference to sin and its affects. Because of death, and all it’s ugly and painful implications, those of us who cling to God’s redeeming grace will finally be released from the just consequences of sin and enjoy a new reality, basking in the perfection only briefly experienced in the Garden.

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The God Who Is

God, by definition, is “Almighty.” In our desire to “humanize” God and relate to the softer and gentler side of Deity we often lose sight of the fact that the God who actually exists is a God who possesses all authority, all power, and all dominion. He is a Being who is unchallenged in his rank, sovereignty, and supremacy. He speaks things into existence, and at will chooses things to come to an end. There are times in life when we sense the profundity of this core truth with fresh insight—usually in some circumstance when we’ve reached the end of our own strength. Hannah, for instance, facing her own inability and experiencing God’s sovereign power over her reproductive life exhorts her generation: “Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth… The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts” (1 Samuel 3:3, 6-7). Don’t wait for some crisis or trial to sharpen your focus on the God who is. As the psalmist wrote, “Let the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm… Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you” (Psalm 33:8-9, Psalm 20-22).

For more sermons and devotionals on The God Who Is, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org. 

Life's Detours

We all experience life’s detours—those unexpected twists and turns which disappoint and frustrate us because they’ve disrupted our well-laid plans. When the next one comes our way, let’s be careful how we respond. If the disappointment turns into anger and bitterness, then we know we’ve clearly lost sight of one of the central tenets of biblical Christianity—namely, that God is sovereign. Of course this is not some kind of fatalism that gives us license to rejoice in our failures or the sins that others commit against us. God’s sovereignty doesn’t preclude the fact that sin is sin and worthy of our regret and repentance. But it should keep us from wallowing in our hurt and becoming disgruntled when circumstances beyond our control take us down an unforeseen path that lands us in a place we didn’t want to go. In part because none of it was “unforeseen” to the God who loves us, and more importantly, because the “twists and turns”, we are told, are all a part of his wise plan to accomplish with our lives something better than our well-laid plans ever could (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28; Psalm 119:71; Proverbs 19:21; Acts 2:23-24; etc.). So let’s trust in our sovereign God and get over our disappointment quickly. He is working out a plan that will glorify himself, and will be good for us in the long run.

For more sermons and devotionals on Life's Detours, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org.