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God's Invisible Guidance. Part 1 By Greg Lee

...who is married will know how often the words are said to me,
you idiot.
In fact, you'd be amazed how often I say them myself.
For instance, there was the time that two mates and I spent three months
building a treehouse in the middle of dense bush,
and then on the day we finished deciding it needed a fireplace.
You idiot.
By the time the fire brigade and the local residents had finished,
20 whole acres of bush reserve were now cinders.
Then there was the time...
Oh, it's okay, because I didn't live near there.
Then there was the time when I was walking in the Gold Coast
with my girlfriend and her family,
and I saw two fellows on the other side of the road jumping on a surfboard.
I have no idea.
They were stomping on it and destroying it,
and I looked over and thought very smugly,
what a pair of idiots,
and just as I reached it, I walked straight into a pole.
You know what they called out, don't you?
You idiot.
But the time I really knew it was my first day snow skiing.
I had half an hour lesson from a Swedish guy
who spoke English about as well as I speak Swedish,
and I decided to hit the slopes.
But instead of retiring to the beginner's slope,
I thought I was ready for the black run,
the most treacherous slope on the resort.
I knew I was in trouble when I reached the chairlift.
In fact, before I got onto the chairlift,
because I fell over at the front of the line
as the chairlift hit my bottom.
When I did get on, on the fourth go,
with people swearing at me and doubting my parentage,
the lift just kept on going up and up.
We passed all the points where same people get off.
I began to see mountain climbers and Sherpas
climbing their way up the hill.
When my nose bled with the altitude, I finally got off.
At the top of the black run.
And I knew I was an idiot the minute I got there.
All the people I loved were little hundreds and thousands
down in the distance, and between them and me
was every obstacle you can imagine.
There were trees dotted here and there,
almost strategically placed to break my fall.
I knew they would be my breaks.
There were other skiers, swooshing gaily backward
and forward along the slopes, showing off.
I wanted them to be my breaks.
But the most immediate problem was the takeoff.
I kind of expected this little swooshy bit,
where you just kind of jump out of the lift
and roll down the hill, but what I saw was this fall
that I would have been afraid to bungee jump down
and I just stood paralysed at the top of the hill,
rooted there with the people kind of waiting behind me.
And I looked and saw one horrible choice
after another faced me.
And I knew my future was in very grave doubt.
Amazingly enough, you may feel
that you are in the same place.
You see, you stand at the top of a precipice.
And between where you stand now
and the very end of your life
are any number of obstacles and decisions
and you have to figure out how it is
you're gonna navigate your way.
You see, between here and the bottom of the slope,
you have some massive decisions to make.
In fact, most of them will be in the next five years.
Who will you marry?
I tell you now and you'll laugh, but it's true,
most of you will be married in the next five years.
Well, you didn't laugh, but that's okay.
What career are you gonna spend
the next 40 years of your life on?
How are you gonna choose where it is you'll live?
I spoke to someone at dinner tonight,
that's one of the biggest decisions
they're facing in the next six months.
I told them, God wants you to live in Newcastle
and to stay at that church.
Will you marry?
Will you have children?
How many children are you going to have?
What church are you gonna be a part of?
How are you gonna spend your money?
All of those decisions lie before you
and all of them are huge.
In fact, all of them, if you get them wrong,
have terrible consequences.
If you choose a boring career, you could spend years,
day after day after day, hating getting up in the morning.
If you choose the wrong partner in life,
you can spend the rest of your life in misery.
A bad church can destroy your relationship with God.
You see, wrong choices can be huge trees to run into.
How are you going to make your decisions?
When they come, how are you gonna choose?
You see, decisions are never easy
because you see, we never have all the information.
We never have everything we need to know
about any one decision.
There are all sorts of things
that we never would have considered
and then even when you think you've made the decision,
we never have the power to bring it exactly about
because something else could happen
which means that no longer is that decision even possible.
You could decide that you're going to marry this girl
and on the way you get hit by a bus and marriage,
that's no longer an option.
You see, even if we know what decision to make,
sometimes we can't bring it about.
So how do you decide?
And it's even harder if you're a Christian
because then you've gotta figure out
what God wants as well.
You see, in some ways, making decisions for non-Christians
is actually much easier.
You just apply the Braveheart principle.
Remember Braveheart?
Right after William Wallace's dad dies,
he comes to him in a dream
and William Wallace is lying there next to his dad
and his dad says, William, follow your heart.
That's how non-Christians make decisions.
They just find the one thing deep inside
they really wanna do and then they do it.
But most of us here are Christians.
Do we just follow our hearts or do we follow God?
You see, what does God want me to do with my money?
Who does God want me to marry?
What job does God want me to do?
Has he called me to be this or does he want me to be that?
Is it God calling me to be a surgeon
or is that just me in my heart wanting that?
How can I know what God wants?
How can I know where God wants me to go?
See, that's the big question
we're gonna find out this week.
How does God guide and what does God want for my life?
If you look on the outlines in front of you,
you'll see I'm gonna be doing four talks with you.
Tonight is going to be God's invisible guidance.
Tomorrow night we're looking at God's visible guidance.
Then God's wonderful plan
and then finally guidance and work.
But since it's God we're looking at,
why don't we pray and we'll ask for his help.
Now, great God, we thank you
for this most precious of all things, our lives.
We thank you that you have given us birth.
We thank you that you've created the world in which we live,
that you've given us our lives
and that you've given us the freedom
and the ability to be here this week.
Father, what an honor.
What a privilege to spend a week looking at your word.
Father, so few people even have it
and yet we have a whole week to devote ourselves to it.
We pray this week that you would be our teacher.
We pray this week that you would show us life-changing things
and Father, we pray that you would change our lives.
We pray this week that you would mold our minds into yours
that we might think as you think,
love the things that you love,
that we might rejoice in your dear son
and that you might guide us.
And we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.
If you wanna boil everything you need to know
and pretty much everything you'll learn this week
down into one verse, it's 1 Timothy 6.15.
Have a look up on the overhead, 1 Timothy 6.15.
God, the blessed and only ruler,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light
whom none has ever seen or can see,
to him be honor and might forever, amen.
That's really everything you need to know about life.
Really, let alone guidance.
There is one God and he is invisible and immortal.
You can't see him but he's always been here
and he always will be and he is the king.
In fact, he's the King of kings.
When you gather every king who's ever lived,
they're all paupers next to him.
He is the king and so to this king
belongs honor and might forever.
This week, you are going to look at
literally hundreds of verses.
I imagine you've already looked at about a thousand
in the first seminar today, haven't you?
You're gonna look at hundreds of verses
in the talks, in the seminars, in your Bible studies
but really, if by the end of this week,
you've understood that verse, then guidance is a cinch.
God, the king, deserves all honor and might.
That's at the heart of guidance
because you see, to rightly understand
any topic of the Bible, we need to start with God.
You see, in our thinking,
most of the time, we start with ourselves.
What is it that I need to know?
What are the issues facing me?
Who should I marry?
What job should I do?
All of which are good questions.
They're right questions but they're not first questions.
You see, our worldview tends to be egocentric.
Anyone here ever seen the movie Beaches?
It was Bette Midler's best movie and it was still awful.
It was, oh, it's a terrible movie.
I keep saying, there's a woman under the one who dies,
I was glad when she died.
The world was a more interesting place without her in it.
But anyway, there's this bit where Bette Midler,
she's a fictional character.
I'm not being rude.
That's not as if there's a real person here.
Mind you, the actress, but no, I don't wanna go there.
There's a bit in Beaches where Bette Midler
has been talking to this fellow for about half an hour,
nonstop, about herself and she stops after about half an hour
and she says, look, enough about me.
What do you think about me?
Now, that's pretty much how most of us view the world.
Even as Christians, we think about our issues,
our lives, our guidance, but strangely enough,
those actually aren't the big questions of the Bible.
The big issue in the Bible is always God.
To say, come back with me to the very, very beginning
of the Bible, to Genesis 1.
Genesis 1, verse 1, and see what seems so obvious.
Genesis 1, verse 1, it's the easiest verse to find.
Genesis 1, verse 1, look how the Bible starts.
Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning, God.
You see, the Bible is about God.
But not just the Bible, the whole world is about God.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
You see, if we're gonna understand guidance,
in fact, if we're gonna think rightly about anything
to do with our jobs, our marriages, our churches,
our futures, to understand any of these things rightly,
we must understand that the key is to start with God
and who he is.
If we start with ourselves, it's like looking through
a camera with the lens cap still on,
all you see is blackness.
And so that's what our first talk is about.
We're going to start with God.
And the first thing I wanna share with you
is the most stupefyingly obvious thing.
But it's what the world forgets, and it's what we forget,
and that is there is only one God.
You see, people look for guidance in the most absurd places,
from the stars to their palms to tea leaves,
but there is only one God.
Remember 1 Timothy 6.15?
God the blessed, the only ruler, the King of kings,
the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and invisible.
You see, there is only one God.
And God says it to Israel again and again.
Look at these verses, Deuteronomy chapter four, verse 35.
Deuteronomy four, verse 35, you were shown these things,
Mount Sinai, the big mountain on fire,
you were shown these things, so that you might know
that the Lord is God, besides him there is no other.
Or the next verse, verse 39,
acknowledge and take heart this day,
that the Lord is God, in heaven above and on earth below,
there is no other.
Or Isaiah 45, verse five, I am the Lord, there is no other.
Apart from me, there is no God.
You see, in the class labeled gods,
there is only one member, and that's the Lord, Yahweh.
Now friends, this is a terribly politically incorrect
thing to say, even among Christians.
You see, our culture's so wrapped up with the idea
of pluralism, that everyone finds their own truth
and relativism, that basically truth is democratized,
we all make it up for ourselves, to say that there is
one God and everyone else is wrong,
is the greatest sin you can commit.
Friend of mine sent me an email the other day
saying she'd offended every single person in her workplace
and what should she do?
You see, they came to her in a discussion and said,
look, you're a Christian, aren't you?
And she said yes, and they said, why is it then
that the Christians and the Buddhists and the Catholics
and all these people don't get together,
they're all paths to the one God, aren't they?
You see, that's actually how our world thinks.
If there is a God at all, if he's not just some sort of
magical fairy figure, then we all find our own way to him.
You choose your God, I'll choose mine,
you're a Buddhist, I'm a Jew, but it doesn't matter
in the end, we're all right and all of us
have to just try and figure out how we're gonna,
to make our own decisions in life.
I mean, you're guided by the Bible,
but I'm guided by my number charts.
And so when my friend showed them Isaiah 45,
they were mortally offended.
To be told that a billion Indians and countless Muslims
are wrong is terribly offensive.
Australians would rather be told anything
than that they are wrong.
And so when you walk into the chaplaincies
at most of the universities on our,
well, to a degree on our campus,
but certainly on campuses around Australia,
if you walk in and say there is only one God
and everyone else is wrong, you'll be held down
even by the Christians.
They'll say, how can you say something
that's so controversial?
How can you say something that's so insensitive?
What about Allah?
What about the truth and the beauty
within the Muslim scriptures?
What about the Hindu gods?
You see, most university chaplains these days
are all for interfaith, prayer meetings.
You get the Christians together,
and you get the Hindus and the Muslims and the Mormons
and the Baha'is, and they all gather together.
And of course, you don't wanna be taking Jesus in there
because, well, the Muslims don't really believe,
well, they don't believe Jesus died,
and Jesus is kind of offensive.
We just wanna pray to God,
although it'd be good if you didn't call him God
because that's kinda got masculine overtones.
Well, just pray to the big spirit,
and that's where our world has ended up.
But Deuteronomy chapter four, verse 35 says,
the Lord is God, besides him there is no other.
There is only one God who guides, friends.
There's only one God who exists,
and this God created the world.
Our passage for tonight,
the one we're gonna keep coming back to again and again,
is Psalm 104, so come to Psalm 104.
And we'll start in verse one.
Psalm 104, praise the Lord, oh my soul.
Oh Lord my God, you're very great.
You're clothed with splendor and majesty.
He wraps himself in light, as with a garment.
He stretches out the heavens like a tent,
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their water.
He makes the clouds his chariot,
and rides on the wings of the wind.
He makes winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants.
He sets the earth on its foundations.
It can never be moved.
You covered it with the deep, as with a garment.
The waters stood above the mountains,
but at your rebuke the waters fled.
At the sound of your thunder they took flight.
They flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys to the place
you assigned to them.
You see who God is?
He stretches out the heavens like a tent,
and the skies are like beams in his house.
He sets the foundations of the earth,
the footings of the earth,
and the water goes exactly where he wants it to go.
You see, Yahweh alone is the creator
of everything that we see.
And when we meet this creator,
we learn something about ourselves.
That we are nothing in comparison.
Keep a finger in Psalm 104 and flip back to Psalm 8.
Psalm 8 is David's reflection on the creation.
Psalm 8.
Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name
in all the earth.
You've set your glory above the heavens.
From the lips of children and infants
you've ordained praise because of your enemies
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the works of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you've set in place,
what's man that you're mindful of him?
The son of man that you care for him.
See, David looks at God's creation and he says,
God, you are so big, you're so majestic,
you're so far above the heavens.
How massive you are and how tiny am I.
Your glories above the stars,
the things that we took thousands and thousands of years
just to reach with little tiny tin machines,
your glory's above them.
When I look at the moon and the stars, what am I?
Who am I that you should even think about me?
Have you ever had David's experience?
You stand there and you look at the sky
and you just realize how unutterably small you are,
how infinitesimal, how thoroughly insignificant
and puny you are, that's a healthy experience.
Tonight before you go to bed,
just slip off down the lake by yourself for a moment
and look at the creation and feel how massive it is.
Realize that amongst the vastness of the night sky
beside the sheer bulk of even small hills,
beside the great vastness of the ocean,
how minuscule we really are.
The psychologists amongst us would cringe
at the notion that we're nothing, wouldn't they?
Mind you, so would the scientists and the engineers.
Everything about university is a monument
to how wonderful you and I really are.
Oh, we can build such lovely things
and we can find out such extraordinary things
and how great are we?
We really are such intelligent people.
Buncombe.
David looks at the world that God made
and says, who am I?
What a little twerp I am.
How massive you are, God,
because you're bigger than even this.
Your glory's above all of this.
I'm just one small insignificant creature next to you, God.
You see, friends, to understand God,
we need to have a Copernican revolution.
Remember Copernicus?
He was a Polish astronomer.
He lived in the 16th century and he was the man
who realized that the sun doesn't revolve around the earth.
No, the earth revolves around the sun.
See, for centuries, people had thought that the sun
and all of the other planets revolved around the earth,
but he said, no, no, no, no.
It's the other way around.
The earth revolves around the sun.
He said, in the middle of it all sits the sun on his throne,
like on a royal dais and ruling his children,
the planets, as they circle and revolve around him
and it was an extraordinary idea to people.
They just couldn't get it.
It was so outlandish.
He was declared a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.
People just could not grasp the idea
that the earth wasn't at the very center
of the whole universe.
But as people slowly began to understand
that Copernicus was actually right,
his words created a revolution.
Men and women finally caught on
as they realized the earth wasn't the center, the sun was.
And friends, that's the revolution we need to have.
We need a revolution that takes us out
from the center of our lives and puts God there.
We need a revolution that says that God alone is God,
that he created me and the universe
and that it all revolves around him.
My life revolves around him, not me.
See, we need to realize
that we are not the center of the universe.
The universe doesn't revolve around me.
No, the universe revolves around God.
You see, because we're selfish,
we think our lives are about us.
We think my life is about my career
and it's about my marriage and what do I want
and where will I live and how can I be happy
and our parents just reinforced the whole thing
by saying to us, look, whatever you want, dear,
whatever it is that makes you happy.
But friends, really, who gives two things
what makes you happy?
God, you're not the one who's at the center of the universe.
Who said what you think, what I think isn't?
Who said that's important?
No, David said, oh Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name?
How great are you?
You see, God is the one who is the creator of all things
and if we are to catch even the smallest glimpse
of guidance, if we're to get even the biggest whiff
of wisdom, it can only come from this,
knowing that God is God and I am not.
We need to have the Copernican revolution
that puts God at the center of everything,
including my life.
I'm merely a satellite.
What's really important is what does God want for me?
What does God think is important in my life?
Where does God want me to go?
Where is God going himself?
They're the really crucial questions
because you see, God is the center of the universe
and this God rules his universe.
God rules his world.
In fact, when you look at the God who rules the world,
you see that nothing happens without God wanting it to.
Point four, God rules his world.
As the one God who created the world, God also rules it.
For a start, God sustains it.
Just flip back to Psalm 104,
you should still have a finger in it.
Look in verse 10, Psalm 104 verse 10.
God makes springs pour into the ravines.
It flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field
and the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the air nest by their waters.
They sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains.
From his upper chambers,
the earth's satisfied by the fruit of his work.
He makes grass grow for the cattle
and the plants for men to cultivate,
bringing forth food from the earth,
wine that gladdens the heart of men,
oil to make his face shine
and bread that sustains his heart.
The trees of the Lord are well watered.
The seeds of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nest.
The stork has its home in the pine branches.
The high mountains belong to the mountain goats.
The crags are a refuge for conies.
The moon marks off seasons
and the sun knows when to go down.
You bring darkness and it becomes night
and the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and they seek food from God.
The sun rises and they steal away.
They return to lie down in their dens.
Then man goes to work in his labor until evening.
How many are your works, oh Lord?
In your wisdom, you made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
There's the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number,
living things both large and small.
There the ships go forth and the leviathan
you frolic form there.
You formed frolic there.
I'm glad no one picked that up.
These all look to you to give them their food
at the proper time.
When you give it to them, they gather it up.
When you open your hand, they're satisfied.
When you hide your face, they're terrified.
When you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your spirit, they're created
and you renew the face of the earth.
You see, just as God created his world,
he sustains his world.
From the sun and the moon on their daily trek
to the lion and the eagle,
right down to the little rabbit that's in the mountains,
everything's sustained by God.
The fish in the sea, the leviathan, the birds,
the cattle, the stalk, the donkeys,
day after day, season after season,
everything is sustained by God.
We get our food from God.
You see, the dinner you had tonight,
we thank God for the cooks
and we think the food came from the cooks
and before that from the shopping center
and before that from the farmer.
Verse 27, we look to God from our food in the proper time.
He gives it to us and when he hides his face, we starve.
That's why we thank God for the food
because if he didn't give it to us day after day,
we'd starve.
In fact, God sometimes does that when he controls nature.
Come with me to Amos, chapter four.
Amos, chapter four, which is right after Joel
and right before Jonah.
Amos, chapter four.
Amos, chapter four, and look in verse six.
Amos four, verse six.
God says to Israel, I gave you empty stomachs
in every city and lack of bread in every town,
yet you haven't returned to me, declares the Lord.
I also withheld rain from you
when the harvest was still three months away.
I sent rain in one town but withheld it from another.
One field had rain and the other had none and dried up.
People staggered from town to town for water
but didn't get enough to drink,
yet you haven't returned to me, declares the Lord.
Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards.
I struck them with blight and mildew.
Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees,
yet you haven't returned to me, declares the Lord.
Do you see the extent of God's control?
He can make it rain on one paddock
and on another paddock 20 meters away, dry as a bone.
Massive storm clouds do the bidding of this one.
Even locusts, thousands upon thousands,
millions upon millions of locusts flying
right where God wants them to fly,
right down to the little microscopic beads of mildew,
blighting the plants that God wants to blight
and leaving the ones that he doesn't.
But in fact it goes further than that.
God's in control of humans as well.
God's in control of nations.
Psalm 33, verse 10.
The Lord foils the plans of nations.
He thwarts the purposes of the people.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.
You see, God controls the nations,
even the nations that have their own kings.
Next verse, Proverbs 21, verse one.
The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord.
He directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.
You see, John Howard thinks that he's in control
of our country.
He says we're going to war in Iraq.
So we go to war in Iraq.
But John Howard isn't in control of our country.
If God doesn't want us to be in Iraq,
Australia won't be in Iraq.
The Labor Party will come to power.
He could send Jesus back.
There could be an uprising.
God could do any number of things
to get Australia out of Iraq.
George W. Bush isn't in control of the United States.
God is in control of the United States.
The king's heart is in the Lord's hand.
He directs it exactly where he wants it to go.
In fact, God even created his own nation.
One of the most extraordinary passages in the Bible
is Genesis 15, verse one.
Come back to Genesis 15, verse one.
This is God creating a nation out of a hundred year old man
and his barren wife.
Genesis 15, verse one.
Genesis 15, verse one.
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.
Don't be afraid, Abram, I am your shield,
your very great reward.
But Abram said, oh sovereign Lord, what can you give me
since I remain childless and the one who will inherit
my estate is Eliezer of Damascus.
And Abram said, you've given me no children,
so a servant in my household will be my heir.
Then the word of the Lord came to him,
this man will not be your heir,
but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.
He took him outside and said, look up at the heavens
and count the stars if indeed you can count them.
Then he said, so shall your offspring be.
Abram believed the Lord and he credited to him
as righteousness.
You see, right there God creates a nation out of nothing.
A dead womb and a pair of geriatrics.
And God controls the nations around them.
God foretells the slavery in Egypt
and the conquest of the promised land.
Look in verse 14, know for certain that your descendants
will be strangers in a country not their own
and they'll be enslaved and mistreated 400 years.
But I'll punish the nation they serve
and afterwards they'll come out with great possessions.
You see, God controls every facet of his people
and not just his people, every nation's under God's control.
Egypt, Israel, the Canaanites, the Perizzites,
the Hittites, the Gergashites,
they've never even heard of God.
But God foretells 400 years their defeat.
But not just the nations.
Every single event that ever happens
comes from the hand of God.
Every single thing that ever happens
happens because God wants it to.
Ephesians 1 verse 11 says that God works out everything
in conformity with the purpose of his will.
Everything that ever happens happens because God wills it.
Did the sun rise this morning?
Well, it happened because God wanted it to.
Did it set this evening?
Well, it happened because God wanted it to.
You know, I say, well, hang on a minute.
That happens every day.
No, not every day.
In Joshua 10, the sun stayed at midday for 24 hours
because God wanted it to.
Every single thing that ever happens
happens because God wants it to happen.
Things of chance or luck.
No, Proverbs 16 verse 33.
The lot is cast into the lap,
but every decision is from the Lord.
That's why the disciples could use the lot
to select Matthias in Acts chapter one.
Even the things that seem to be
of the tiniest little insignificance.
Come to Matthew, Matthew chapter 10, verse 29.
Matthew chapter 10, verse 29.
Matthew 10, 29.
Matthew chapter 10, 29.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground
apart from the will of your father.
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered.
So even the little birds fly and die.
Do it according to the will of God.
The hairs on your head, even their number,
is determined by God.
If God wanted to send you bald today, He could do it.
Don't worry, it's a sign of higher intelligence.
You see friends, there is not one event
that has ever happened on this planet
that happened without the will of God.
Even you.
Everything you do is decided by God.
Your birth, Paul says, in God we live and move
and have our being.
Your decision to come here to Wintercon.
God decided that, Proverbs 16, verse nine.
In his heart a man plans his course,
but the Lord determines his steps.
You see, you thought you were the one
who decided to come to Wintercon, but none of it was God.
You say, well in that case I'll go home.
Well don't worry, if God wants you to go home,
you will go home, Proverbs 20, 24.
A man's steps are directed by the Lord.
How then can anyone understand his own way?
See, we don't even know where we're going.
Proverbs 19, 21.
Many are the plans of a man's heart,
but it's the Lord's purpose that prevails.
You see, no matter what you think,
no matter what you plan, no matter what you aim to do,
God will prevail, whether you are a Christian or not.
Proverbs 16, verse four.
The Lord works out everything to his own end,
even the wicked for the day of disaster.
You see, from the moment of your birth
to the moment of your death, nothing you ever think,
plan, aim, decide, or do is out of the control of God.
Even your conversion.
Did you think that you chose God?
No, God chose you.
Ephesians 1, verse three.
God chose you before the creation of the world.
He predestined you.
2 Thessalonians 2, verse 13.
God chose you from the beginning.
Or Acts 13.
In fact, why don't you come with me to Acts 13.
It's such a good one.
Acts 13, verse 48.
Acts 13, 48.
Acts 13, verse 48.
When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad
and honored the word of the Lord,
and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.
You see, even the very day of your conversion
was appointed by God.
Everything that has ever been done to you,
for you, by you, through you, against you,
with you, has happened because God wanted it to.
Which simplifies guidance terribly, doesn't it?
Because whether God tells you what he wants for you or not,
whether God speaks to you or not,
whether you want to listen to him or not,
your life will go exactly where God wants it to go.
Whether you're a Christian or not,
whether you acknowledge God or not,
God will make of your life
exactly what he wants to make of your life.
This is God's invisible guidance.
God rules everything.
Which is why it's so wonderful
that God acts for our good.
You see, right about now,
there are some of you who are very afraid.
Some of you who don't like what I'm saying very much
because what I'm saying takes control of your life
out of your hands, doesn't it?
The idea that God is sovereign
is something that we find deeply, deeply terrifying
because, well, it means I'm no longer in control of my life
and how can I trust God?
Well, friends, come with me
to one of the most wonderful verses of the Bible.
It's the verse that will be sold to you
every time you go through something hard
in your whole life.
But it's a wonderful verse.
It's Romans 8.28.
Romans 8.28.
Romans 8.28.
Romans 8.28.
And we know that in all things,
see, again, there's God's control.
In all things, God works for the good
of those who love him,
who've been called according to his purpose.
For those God foreknew, he also predestined
to be conformed to the likeness of his Son,
that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those he predestined, he also called.
And those he called, he also justified.
And those he justified, he also glorified.
You see, friends, God works for our good in all things.
This is the wonderful doctrine of providence,
that every single thing that ever happened to you
happens not just because God wanted it to,
but also because God says it is for your good.
God works in everything for your benefit.
Did you get into medicine?
Wonderful.
God knew that that's what was best for you.
Did you fail miserably in your first year?
Wonderful.
That's what God knew was best for you.
God works in everything for your good.
Now, friends, isn't that just the most wonderful thing?
The most comforting notion that the great God,
who is in control of all things,
that nothing ever happens outside of his will,
this God knows you and works for your good.
That's a wonderfully comforting notion, friends.
It releases you from a world of worry.
You see, there are lots of Christians in the world
who believe in God's second best,
that it's possible to make wrong decisions,
to make mistakes,
and you end up outside of God's best for your life
and into God's second best.
And then when you make another mistake,
you end up outside of God's second best
and into God's third best,
and by the time you die,
you're into God's 8,654th best and your life is a misery.
But friends, that's not true.
The sovereign ruler of the universe knows you
intimately enough to have chosen you
before the creation of the world,
and he loves you and he's working in everything
for your good.
You cannot miss God's best for your life.
God's not a tyrant playing with the Lego pieces
of the planet and of the universe.
He's a father who's working for your good.
And on Wednesday night, we're gonna look very closely
on what God is working towards,
but we're about to have a break.
What have we seen?
Well, we've seen that Yahweh, the Lord is the only God.
He created the world and as the creator,
he rules his world.
He sustains it, he rules nature, he rules nations.
Nothing can happen outside of the will of God.
No word, no event, no life, no death.
And this God does all that for our good.
Let's break.
We'll have a song and then we'll come back
and answer some questions.
So what we've seen is that God is in control of everything.
Nothing ever happens outside of God's will.
If you look down at point G on your outline,
you'll see there are a couple of questions
that people will generally ask.
And the first one is, is God's will the right word?
Because you see, there'll be some people who say,
look, it's not so much that God wills what's gonna happen,
but God knows about it beforehand.
Put up your hand if you've ever heard that idea.
The idea that God knows things rather than deciding them.
That is, it's not that God decides
who'll become a Christian,
it's just that he knows who the people will,
who will become Christians and he says,
well, okay, I'll choose you then.
Well, there are three quick responses to that idea.
Firstly, even if the Bible does teach that God knows,
it also teaches that he wills.
That is, God knowing things isn't a replacement
for God willing things.
No, he knows what'll happen
because he decides what'll happen.
Ephesians 1, verse 11, the passage I showed you earlier,
God works out everything in conformity with his will.
The second thing though to say about this
is that knowledge in the Bible
is usually relational anyway.
That is to say that God foreknew things
isn't to say that he knew what we would do,
but it's to say that God had a relationship with us.
To say that God foreknew us
is actually to say that he related to us,
which involves his will.
But really, it's actually impossible to know something
without willing it anyway.
Say for instance, Moses.
What time is it now?
It's quarter to nine.
Say I was to tell you that 9.05,
I know that Moses is going to pick his nose.
How could I know that for certain?
Well, I couldn't know it
because I've seen him do it often enough
that it's just like clockwork.
But really, for me to absolutely have
thoroughgoing certainty of this,
I'd have to have complete control of the event.
You see, unless I have complete control
over Moses picking his nose,
I can't be certain that he'll actually do it.
Someone could stop him.
Oreo could pick his nose
and Moses could see what a thoroughly disgusting habit it is
and he wouldn't do it.
Someone could give him a hanky.
You see, any number of things could happen
which would stop Moses from picking his nose
and unless I'm in complete control of the event,
I can't know it for certain.
For God to know for certain something will happen,
he must will it.
But the reason people really wrestle with the question
is because of our next question.
If God is in control, what role do I play?
How can I be held responsible for my actions
if God's in control?
Why would God condemn me for my sin
if God wanted it to happen?
Well friends, the answer to that
is that the Bible never denies
that we are responsible for our behavior.
Putting it the other way,
the Bible always asserts
that we are responsible for our behavior.
I won't say that we have free will
because we're gonna see later on
that the idea of free will is just nonsense
but God does not deny our responsibility.
God is just so powerful
that he is able to give us responsibility
and still be sovereign himself.
That is every human act has dual authorship.
Moses chooses to pick his nose
but God also chooses
and God's choice comes first.
God doesn't choose it because Moses chooses it,
Moses chooses because God chooses.
God is just that powerful.
Now, the perfect example here is Jesus' death, isn't it?
You'll see up in the overhead
a series of passages.
Just look up one of them with your neighbor
to see who was responsible for Jesus' death.
Just pick any one of them at random
and see who was responsible for Jesus' death.
Okay.
You tell me
who's responsible for Jesus' death.
Sing out who it was and what passage.
Which passage?
Acts 4, the Pharisees.
Who else?
Judas in Matthew 26 and Luke 22.
The crowd, which passage?
Matthew 27.
The high priests in Acts, yeah.
Satan, whereabouts?
Luke 22, anyone else?
The soldiers, whereabouts?
Mark 15.
Any others?
Pilate in John 19.
But listen to how Peter describes Jesus' death in Acts 2.
Men of Israel, listen to this.
Jesus of Nazareth was a man credited by God to you
by miracles, wonders and signs
which God did among you through him as you yourselves know.
This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose
and foreknowledge and you, with the help of wicked men,
put him to death by nailing him on a cross.
You see, it was God's set purpose and foreknowledge
that Jesus would die.
Along with the crowd, along with Pilate,
along with the Jews and Satan and the soldiers
and everyone else, it was God's will that Jesus die.
God's sovereignty doesn't actually negate
that we are responsible for our actions.
No, Acts 4, verse 27, Acts 4, 27.
Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles
and the people of Israel to conspire against Jesus.
They did what God's power had decided
should happen beforehand.
You see, right next to each other,
we have the will of God and human responsibility
for our actions and God is powerful enough
to ensure that both take place.
Now, our problem with all of this is that we're idolaters.
Our problem is we keep trying to remake God in our image,
mainly because we think that God is like us.
So you think about it in these terms.
I want Moses to pick his nose.
I really do because it'd be fun for us all to watch.
Now, what's the only way I could make absolutely certain
because Moses doesn't want to pick his nose, he's a doctor.
He knows that that's an evil thing to do
and what would stop him from being able to break my will?
Well, the only thing that could ever give me
that sort of control over Moses
that means that he could never thought my will
is to remove his will, isn't it?
The only way I can have complete control over Moses
is to give Moses no control over himself at all.
That's just the way it is as a human being.
The problem for us is we think God is like me.
We think, well, if I've got control over myself,
how can God do it?
But friends, what makes you think God is like you?
No, God's God, remember.
Just because you can't have complete control over someone
without giving them control
doesn't mean that God can't do it.
God's the creator of the world.
God is more than capable of giving you 100% responsibility
for your actions and maintaining control.
The fact that God acts doesn't mean that we don't.
In fact, God's sovereignty is a wonderful incentive
for our activity.
Take a look at this verse in Philippians 2.
Philippians 2,
therefore, my dear friends,
as you've always obeyed, not only in my presence
but now much more in my absence,
continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling
for it's God who works in you
to will and to act according to his good purpose.
You see, why is it that we work out our salvation
with fear and trembling?
Well, it's because God works in us to will and to act.
See, God's sovereignty doesn't stop us from acting.
God's sovereignty actually spurs us on to act.
But the real question people ask is, the third question,
but what about when we do evil?
Does God will evil things as well?
And if God does will evil things,
then isn't God evil himself?
Well, why don't you chat with your neighbor
and see what they think.
Is God tainted by sin even when he wills it?
Chat with your neighbor and see what they come up with.
All right, what do you think?
Is God tainted by sin if he wills it to happen?
What do you reckon?
What did your neighbor come up with?
Dob them in.
No, he came up with something for a reason.
Okay, that was for a reason, yeah.
Tom?
If sin is rejecting God,
God doesn't just have to pursue that.
Like God can't reject himself,
but God can do sin.
Okay, so nothing God could ever do is sin by definition,
because sin is going against God's will.
So if God wills something, no matter how evil it is,
it's not sin.
Okay.
We have a philosopher in the front row.
And a lawyer, I suspect.
You can leave this to the audience if you'd like.
Yes.
But if God wills it, is that, yeah, do you know what I mean?
Anyway, if you go, if God wills it,
it takes responsibility.
If God is responsible,
then you don't say to him,
if God is responsible,
then you don't say to him.
Yeah, yeah, I think a couple of us
are circling around the right answer.
The first thing to say is that God is behind
everything that happens, good or evil.
Remember the passage we looked at from Isaiah earlier?
You can see it up on the overhead.
Isaiah 45, I am the Lord and there is no other.
Apart from me, there is no God.
I will strengthen you, though you haven't acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting,
men may know that there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, there is no other.
I form the light and create the darkness.
I bring prosperity and I create disaster.
I, the Lord, do all these things.
You see, whether it's prosperity or it's disaster,
both of them come from God.
A lot of Christians kind of have this sense
that my life is this continual tussle
between God and Satan.
And when things are going well,
that's a sign that God is winning.
So when I do well in my exams and I get a girlfriend
and I have a really great flat and I get a car,
that's all God, but when I fail my exams
and I get thrown out of my flat and I have a car crash,
that's Satan winning and there's this constant tussle.
No, God says, I form the light, I create darkness.
I bring prosperity, I bring disaster.
Feast, famine, earthquake, tornado, flood.
The Lord does it all, even sin.
Remember Jesus' death.
Jesus' death is the greatest sin ever committed, isn't it?
Was there ever a greater sin than to kill God himself?
But God willed it.
How can God be responsible for sin
and yet not tainted by it?
Well friends, the best explanation I've ever heard
is one that C.S. Lewis coined
and he coined it in terms of wide lenses and narrow lenses.
With the narrow lens, with the lens narrowed in,
all we can see is the evil of an event.
That is all we can see is the hatred
and the jealousy of the Jews.
All we can see is Pilate's cowardice
but as we move back to the wider lens
and we see God's sovereign plan,
we see God working for good.
That is, God can use the evil intent
of human beings for his own good.
God can use Satan to accomplish good
but God himself is never evil.
Psalm 145 verse 17 says that God is righteous
in all his ways.
He's never guilty of sin
but he does use evil for our good.
Romans 8, 28, God works for the good of those who love him.
You see, in his power, God is able to use
even the evil acts of humanity
with our evil motives for his good plan.
Even the most evil act in history, Jesus' death.
So there we have it.
The creator of the world is ruler over heaven and earth.
No act is beyond his control.
No matter how many forces or motives
or thoughts are involved,
which leads us to the question of how we ought to respond.
And there are two responses
that I wanna share with you tonight.
One right and the other one wrong.
But before we get to them,
we're gonna stand up and have a break
and then Romans 1 is gonna be read out to us.
Romans 1, 18 to 32.
So stand up, have a stretch but try not to leave.
The great tragedy of God's guidance
is that every human being responds to God's guidance
in the wrong way.
That is, the wrong response to God is the universal one.
You see, we've all seen the sovereign God, Romans 1, 18.
Look in Romans 1, 18.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
against all the godlessness and wickedness of men
who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
Since what may be known about God is plain to them,
for God's made it plain to them.
For since the creation of the world,
God's invisible qualities,
his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what's been made
so that men are without excuse.
So in a sense, I've wasted my breath to you tonight
by telling you everything I've said
because you already know it.
And in fact, you knew it long before you opened a Bible.
We've all known that God's the creator
and we all knew that God has eternal power.
We knew it exactly the same way that David knew it.
All we had to do was look up into the sky
and see the creation.
Verse 19, God has made his rule plain to us
through the creation.
You see, to see God's sovereignty,
all you need to do is look at the world
because if God has the power to create all of this,
don't you think that he has the power
to run your little life as well?
Don't you think that the God
who created the mountains and the stars and the sun,
don't you think that the God
who controls the temperature of the sun
so that it gives just exactly the right amount
of heat and light could actually control your life as well?
No.
This great God, all you do to see his power,
all you need to do is look around you.
But the great problem is that
that's exactly what we've done.
And in seeing God, each of us has chosen
to ignore his guidance.
The universal response to God's sovereignty
is to suppress the truth,
to suppress the truth that God exists,
to suppress the truth that he rules us
and to run lives our own way.
Romans 1 verse 18, we suppress the truth by our wickedness.
You know what's funny?
Everywhere in the world you look,
you see people who are desperate for guidance.
Every magazine you open, there are horoscopes
and numerologists and palm readers,
but the one place that people refuse stubbornly
to look for guidance is to the sovereign creator.
Even though we can see him as plain as day
in the mountains themselves,
we create all other manner of garbage as forms of guidance.
We call it following our hearts.
Listen to your heart, be true to yourself,
let your heart be your guide, follow your heart.
But the great problem is when we listen to our hearts,
what we hear is suppression.
Suppression of the fact that God made us,
suppression of the fact that we ought to be worshiping God,
verse 21.
You see, God has been guiding us
from the very moment he created us,
guiding us to thank him, guiding us to glorify him,
showing us his sovereign power,
but we've all responded by suppressing the truth.
And you know the way we've suppressed the truth?
Religion.
Look in verse 23.
We've exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images
made to look like mortal men, birds and animals and reptiles.
You see, our way of suppressing the truth,
the classic human way of suppressing the truth
is to worship other things,
to worship inanimate blocks of wood and stone
and to bow down to the wood and say, you are my God.
You see, you thought all religions
were just attempts to find God,
but no, no, no.
All religions are just attempts to run away from God.
That's what's wrong with the bridge diagram.
You've heard the bridge diagram, haven't you?
It's the bridge to life.
It's basically two cliffs.
On one cliff, we have God.
On this cliff, we have us.
And between us is a great chasm
that we try to cross.
We try to cross it with our good works.
We try to cross it with our religion,
but the only way to cross it is by Jesus' cross.
And we cross over on Jesus' cross.
What's wrong with that diagram, friends,
is that we are not on this cliff
trying to get closer to God.
No, we're the ones that are digging the hole.
We're down the bottom,
and Jesus parachutes down to the bottom,
picks us up and takes us onto God's side
because you see, we suppress the truth.
Buddhism is not the search for God
any more than philosophy is the search for wisdom.
Both of them are just elaborate hiding places.
You see, friends, we've become wise fools.
Look in verse 22.
Although they claim to be wise, they became fools.
Instead of gaining guidance and wisdom
from the sovereign creator,
we've suppressed the truth and become fools.
And in doing it, we've become trapped.
We've lost our freedom of will.
There is no such thing as free will, friends.
Free will is a fallacy.
Look in verse 24.
Therefore, God gave them over
to the sinful desires of their hearts.
Or verse 26, because of this,
God gave them over to shameful lusts.
Or verse 28, furthermore,
since they didn't think it worthwhile,
to retain the knowledge of God,
he gave them over to a depraved mind.
You see, human beings aren't free.
No, we've actually been given over by God
to slavery, to sin.
Even if our world wanted to follow God's guidance,
there's no way we could.
We're slaves to our rebellion against God.
That's the first response to God's sovereignty.
The first response to the sovereignty of God,
the universal response, is sin and slavery to sin.
The second response, though,
is the one we'll be working on this week.
It's repentance and faith.
The first part of guidance
is simply to turn from our rebellion.
Really, it's to recognize what we started with
at the very beginning of tonight,
1 Timothy 6, verse 15.
To recognize that God alone is the Lord of lords
and the King of kings, not me.
Repentance is undergoing that great Copernican revolution
where I say, I am not the God of my world.
I'm not the center of my universe.
God is, and from this point on,
I'm going to live with God as the ruler.
That's what repentance is.
A lot of people think repentance
is feeling sorry for your sins.
I go out on Friday night, I get drunk,
I sleep with someone I met at the brewery,
and on Saturday morning, I feel sorry for it.
I've repented.
But friends, repentance isn't sorrow.
Repentance is changing your mind.
That's what the word means.
It's changing your mind and then changing your behavior.
I used to think this, that I was the center of the world
and I can do whatever I want.
Now I think this, that God's the center of the world
and I can only do what he wants.
Repentance is that change of mind
and the change of behavior that goes with it.
Now you may or may not feel sorry.
Sorrow is not a good indication of repentance.
When I first became a Christian,
I used to go out every weekend with my mates
and I'd get drunk and then the next day,
I'd go to church and I'd feel wretched about it.
I used to feel terrible every Sunday night,
but I hadn't repented because the next Saturday night,
I'd go out and do it again.
My actions hadn't changed.
That's the first right response to God's sovereignty,
repentance, but the second right response is trust.
How should we respond to a God
who has our whole lives in his hand for good?
Will you trust him?
Trust that God is working for your good.
Trust that he loves you
and that he does have a wonderful plan for your life.
You see, friends,
Christians are, of all the people on earth,
the ones who know how not to worry.
Friends, God is in control.
That's such wonderful news.
God's in control of everything in your life
and he's working everything for your good.
Do you know what a wonderful thing that is?
You don't have to worry.
God's got it under control.
There's no way you could ever miss
God's guidance for your life.
There's no possible way you can muck it up from here on in.
God is working to ensure that the very best thing
that he wants for you will happen in your life.
You have an armchair ride
with the most powerful pilot in the universe,
directing you to the exact place where he wants you to go.
Isn't that wonderful news?
It's fabulous news.
It's impossible to miss God's will for your life.
Are you worried about finding a husband or a wife?
Don't worry about it.
Are you worried about getting the wrong career?
Don't worry about it.
Are you worried about where you'll live?
God has those things completely under control.
Now, there are some of you here who are born warriors.
You've worked out everything down to the last detail.
You're sitting there thinking,
yes, but of all the people in the world,
it'd be me who makes the mistake.
I'm the one person who could muck it up
because I muck up everything unless I plan it right.
Don't worry, friend.
It can never happen.
God's been in control of the world now for billions of years.
He can keep it in control with you.
But for some of us who were never organized,
who constantly muck it up,
who constantly forget, who constantly fall apart,
friends, this is wonderful news.
This is the one thing we can't get wrong.
This is the one thing in the world
that God has under complete control, so don't worry.
Friends, to finish with,
I want to introduce you to a wonderful proverb,
and it's well worthy of being your screensaver.
That's Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6.
This is the verse to have at the bottom of your essays,
to have it when you hand them in.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways, acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Let's pray.
Let's pray.
Our great God,
has such wonderful news that you're in control.
We praise you that you alone are God.
We praise you that you are the creator of our world.
We praise you that you control our world,
and we thank you.
We thank you for giving us life.
We thank you for giving us food.
We thank you for getting us into university.
We thank you for all of the things that you've given us.
We thank you for the people who love us,
for your word that sustains us.
And Father, we praise you
that you are in control of all things.
And Father, we know that that means we ought to trust you.
Father, we pray that we would trust
that you're at work for our good.
What a wonderful thing.
But Father, we also pray that you would teach us
to acknowledge you as the center of our lives.
We pray that you would show us all of the ways
that we're placing ourselves, and our desires,
and our wishes, and our motives.
We pray that you would show us all the ways
where we are putting ourselves at the center.
We pray that we would have that Copernican revolution.
To seek your will, your pleasure,
and your plans for our lives.
We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.