2024-10-20 Sermon Notes1
💡Big Idea
Takeaways and Next Steps
📖Bible Passage
Psalm 104:27-28
These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season.
You give to them; they gather. You open your hand; they are satisfied with good.
Points
- God actively provides continually for all of creation each day.
- This stands in direct contrast to deism which teaches that God created the world and then left it behind to work without Him. As if he were a clock maker, making the gears, and winding the clock, and then leaving it be.
- Such a god would not be worth praying to for he would not hear or care for your prayers.
- This is not the God we see in the Bible, who actively sustains creation moment by moment. All creation is utterly dependent upon Him.
- Today, many people in our land are effectively deists.
- John 5:17: But Jesus answered them, "My Father is still working, so I am working, too."
- This stands in direct contrast to deism which teaches that God created the world and then left it behind to work without Him. As if he were a clock maker, making the gears, and winding the clock, and then leaving it be.
- The Bible uses many different words to describe God's providence"
- God's reign
- God's ordinances
- God's guidance
- God's care:
- 1 Peter 5:7: He cares for you
- God's upholding:
- God's seeing, God's eye, God's visitation, the breath of the almighty,
- God's hand
- Psalm 104:28: You open your hand; they are satisfied with good.
- He's got the whole world in His hands.
- God does not have hands as we do. God is spirit.
- The bible uses the phrase hands many times for various meanings.
- Raising your hand: This idiom means bringing violence
- God's providence is God's power of preservation.
- Every single breath we have is God's preservation.
- Without God we die. Psalm 104:29
- This is providence with respect to the life of the creature
- Every single breath we have is God's preservation.
- God's providence is God's hand of cooperation
- This is providence with respect to the actions of the creature
- 1 Corinthians 12:6: the same God works in all
- Everything you do and did God worked in.
- Even when you sin, it is God who decreed your sin.
- (He does not tempt you to sin, nor is He the author of your sin, but you sinned because He decreed that it would happen. This is a mystery to us.)
- We are completely responsible for all our actions and thoughts.
- And yet it is God who works all in all.
- Genesis 50: Joseph: "What you meant for evil, God meant for good."
- Psalm 76: "Even the wrath of man shall praise the LORD."
- God's providence is God's act of government.
- This is providence with respect to the purpose of the creature
- God rules and overrules all things to accomplish His eternal plan.
- Which He executes through his Son.
- If you are a child of God, then providence is an extremely comforting doctrine to you, because it means that all things work together for your good.
- The magicians of Egypt didn't say until the third plague "This is the finger of God."
- They should have said that of every plague.
- We believers should see God's hand everywhere.
- Faith understands that everything is the mercy of God because I only deserve death and hell.
- Calvin: "When you walk by unbelief, everything you see is secondary causes. But when you walk in belief you see the truth, that everything is caused by God."
- We need to feel God's hand even in the moments of poverty and lack.
- God provides all things, even the bad things.
- The bad things are meant to be for our good.
- Sickness, drought, tears, sorrow and even chastening all come from our Father's hand and only for our good.
- When you feel God's hand it makes you patient in adversity.
- Providence does not mean everything feels good, or that you no longer feel the pain of adversity, but it makes you grateful to God for all that He gives you, and hopeful that even the pain you experience will be used for your good.
- Christian patience in adversity is not merely passive.
- it does not just tolerate adversity.
- it does not say "God decreed it so there's nothing I can do about it."
- Christian patience in adversity is actively choose to trust Him and submit to Him despite adversity and because of His goodness.
- Job said "God slayed me, yet will I trust Him."
- Christian patience is more than just silence.
- There can be much rebellion even in silence.
- This is how Abraham responded in Genesis 22 when he was told to sacrifice his own son. He does not disobey. He did not obey with resentment. No he obeyed confident that God's promises could not fail.
- ⭐ Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.
- God provides all things, even the bad things.
- Thankfulness in prosperity:
- "You open your hand; they are satisfied with good."
- Sometimes God blesses us with so much abundance.
- Why is God so good when we are so undeserving.
- Thankfulness in prosperity means that in the good times we do not give ourselves the credit but instead give all the glory to God.
- But this is not natural for us sinners.
- There was only one of ten lepers who brought their offering to the temple after being healed by Jesus.
- But this is not natural for us sinners.
- It is an attitude of life.
- Trust in God our Father:
- We can rest assured, confident knowing that nothing could possibly take God away from us, nor us from God.
- This is a holy optimism.
- Spurgeon: God's people have the best of both worlds. A true joy that the world is not to know, and the best is yet to come.
- How is this possible? How can God be so merciful to an unworthy sinner as I am?
- The answer is because He brought His hand against His own Son. The One who was sinless, spotless.
- Jesus was bound for us:
- Proverbs 5:22
- Everything that was done wrong by the first Adam was undone by Jesus.
- Martin Luther: "God bound God. Who can understand this?"
Application
Further Study
💬Discussion Questions
2024-10-20 Sermon Notes1
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💡Big Idea
Takeaways and Next Steps
📖Bible Passage
Points
Application
Further Study
💬Discussion Questions