11-03-13 Good God - Sovereign God

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

We are returning to the 4^th chapter of Philippians this morning,

to the passage in which Paul offers us

a six-verse summery

of the principles he has been offering us throughout this whole letter.

If you’ve been with us the past few weeks

you know that this short letter,

written by Paul to the Christians at Philippi,

is a sort of survival manual

for the tough times in our lives.

This is a book for the times

when we feel imprisoned by our circumstances,

a book written for mental

and the emotional winters of our lives.

Paul wrote the letter

from his own literal prison in Rome,

a prison he’d been in for several years,

waiting for his trial before Caesar

on charges of treason against the Roman government.

It was a trial that could easily end

with his immediate execution.

There was no appeals process with Caesar.

We saw last week

that Paul was not offering us

nice platitudes

and wise sayings in this letter.

Every principle he offers us

has been tested in the “real life” of his own experience.

In fact, Paul’s prison ordeal in Rome

was actually one of the better times of his life.

In his second letter to the Christians at Corinth

there is one section in which Paul

offers his credentials as an Apostle.

He’s frustrated with the Corinthians

because they are trotting after

every false teacher who comes along,

men who apparently were sucking the Corinthians

into a twisted legalism,

offering them a list of rules guaranteed to earn God’s approval,

while at the same time elevating themselves as if they were God’s gift to the human race,

and milking the Corinthians

for all they could get out of them.

Sounds a lot like so much of what we have

being shoved down the throats of the people of God today

under the banner of Christianity.

Paul describes them in 2 Cor. 11:20

when he says to the Corinthians,

For you tolerate it if anyone enslaves you, anyone devours you, anyone takes advantage of you, anyone exalts himself, anyone hits you in the face.

I know this is a little side track, but

comments like that in Scripture

make it clear that there has been

a market and audience

for legalistic religion

since the day the church started.

But in that discussion

Paul offers his credentials

for his own apostleship.

And listen to what they are:

2 Cor. 11:22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.

2 Cor. 11:23 Are they servants of Christ? I speak as if insane I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death.

2 Cor. 11:24 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes.

2 Cor. 11:25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.

2 Cor. 11:26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren;

2 Cor. 11:27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

2 Cor. 11:28 Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.

That’s the world in which Paul

tested and found true

the principles he presents to us

in this letter.

We’ve spent two weeks on the first

of those principles,

the one contained in Paul’s call

for us to:

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

In those two weeks

the main thing we saw Paul telling us

was that if we begin

by looking at our circumstances

and then try to determine

what our God is like

on the basis of what we see there,

we’ll always get ourselves in trouble.

If Paul would have done that

he would have looked at his present situation,

his chains,

his loneliness,

his imminent death,

and all that he had undergone in the past -

the beatings,

the hunger,

the thirst,

the sleepless nights,

the cold and the exposure,

and he would have said,

“What? This is the kind of God you are? This is the way you treat your children?”

Those questions seem reasonable

and logical to us when we begin

by looking at our circumstances.

There is a huge part of every one of us

that believes good things should happen

to good people,

and bad things

should happen to bad people,

and since we are now God’s people

it just follows that good things should happen to us.

And then we bring our cultural definition of “good” into that equation

and wonder why God doesn’t make

all of His children healthy,

handsome or beautiful,

wealthy,

and wise.

If we buy into that mentality

we are prime targets for one of Satan’s favorite attacks.

During the hard times in our lives

he will turn our eyes onto our pain

and then ask us the question,

“What kind of God

would allow this to happen to you?”

In other words,

he will seek to get us to begin our day

by looking at our circumstances,

so that we will then run in fear from our God,

or question His love for us,

or doubt His willingness

and His ability to bring us through that day.

In this letter to the Philippians

Paul presents the alternative.

Paul offers us the truth.

He says, don’t begin the day

by looking at your circumstances,

begin by looking at your God,

and keep looking at Him

until you once again see Him correctly.

Look at His love for you,

a love so profound that He chose

to die Himself in your place for your sins.

Look at His sure and certain promise

that He will never leave you,

never forsake you,

and His assurance that nothing

that ever enters your life

will be able to separate you

from His love.

Look at His assurance that

He can and He will work all things together for good in your life.

Look first at Him

and as you do so two things will happen.

First, you will “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”

You will find your spirit

so thankful,

so grateful that, no matter what the day ahead may hold,

you are one of the few,

one of the honored ones

who will be able to share that day

with your God,

immersed in His love,

held secure in the palm of His hand.

And, second,

you will see your circumstances

not as huge question marks

about the character of God,

but rather as added opportunities

in which you will once again

discover your God true,

and His love adequate.

And before we move on to verse 5

I want to add one additional comment.

It is common practice for us

to attempt to understand why God allows something to happen in our lives

by looking at the results it accomplishes.

God allowed me to miss the flight

so that I would then meet this person as I waited for the next flight.

God allowed this sickness in my life

so that I could witness to my doctor,

or my family.

God allowed Paul to be thrown into prison

so that he could then witness to the guard.

We do this, obviously,

because it is easier for us to relate to pain

if we feel it has accomplished something good in our lives.

We want value for our investment.

Without plunging into a massive study

on evil and its intrusion into our lives,

I would just like to offer a warning

and an understanding of what I consider to be a “mentally safe place”

for the Christian when he or she is going through pain.

First the warning -

to the best of our ability I believe we should fight against the desire

to explain or justify our suffering

on the basis of the good

we see coming out of it.

Certainly we have all seen times

when God has brought great good

out of something in our lives

that at the time we viewed

as a hideous evil.

That’s one of the many things

God does best.

Whatever we place into His hands

He can and will reshape into good in our lives.

But seeing the good He brings out of the pain

is not the same thing as justifying the existence of the pain

on the basis of that evil.

I didn’t say that very well.

Let me try again.

If we begin with the belief

that God allows evil into our lives,

or allows pain into our lives,

SO THAT He can then bring some good into the world through it,

it won’t be long before

that belief system will destroy

our trust in God,

and our faith in His love and goodness.

What we do

when we start thinking in those terms

is to subtly place ourselves

into the position of being qualified

to pass judgement on the actions of God.

If we can see sufficient good

coming out of some pain or evil

then God “passes”

and we mentally grade Him as a Good God.

If, however, we hurt deeply

and at the time we cannot understand

what good could possibly justify

the pain we are going through,

it will undermine our trust in God

and our ability to rest in His love

and draw strength from Him.

The fact is,

rarely does Scripture ever link pain or suffering with the good that comes from it.

In fact the only instance I am aware of

is in the suffering of Christ Himself

where we are told that He suffered death

so that we would not have to.

But, as we look at the lives of Christians

in the New Testament,

we never see them saying,

“I suffered this evil

so that this good would come from it.”

If we buy into that mentality

the result in the end

will be to bring us right back

to attempting to evaluate God

on the basis of our circumstances.

We will look at the external results we can see from our pain,

in ourselves or in others,

and evaluate whether or not

it justified the suffering.

And our God will be truly good

and trustworthy in our eyes

if we feel He brought sufficient good out of it.

Paul does not say,

“I rejoice in the Lord

because He brought 12 guards to Himself

through my imprisonment.”

He says simply, “Rejoice in the Lord!”

So where is the safe mental ground?

First, we begin by affirming the truth about our God:

• God is ultimate good.

• He can do only good.

• He loves us with an everlasting love.

• His commitment to go with us through every aspect of life is an absolute certainty. He will never leave us,

never forsake us.

• We will find Him adequate for the storm.

And then affirm the truth about our circumstances:

• They can never separate us from His love.

• Our God can and will work all things together for good in our lives.

He will bring good

out of the evil.

And right there is the crucial distinction

that I want to make with this whole thing -

God does not bring the evil

so that it will then produce the good,

but He does bring great good

out of the evil that touches our lives.

Maybe an illustration will help here.

Picture a father who has a 15 year old daughter on the High School ski team.

The daughter’s frantic school

and athletic schedule has resulted

in the father and daughter

growing apart.

They rarely have time to talk

or just to share life together.

Then at ski practice one day

the daughter takes a terrible fall

resulting in severe damage to her knee.

The damage is so severe

she has to be in bed for several weeks

with the leg immobilized.

During that time the Father spends every evening with his daughter,

helping her keep current with her school work,

reading her text books to her,

talking with her,

laughing with her,

crying with her,

going through the whole ordeal with her.

When she finally returns to school

both father and daughter realize

they have come away from that tragedy

with a depth of friendship

unlike anything they have ever shared before.

The father brought great good out of the evil.

That’s what our God does -

He brings good out of the evil in our lives.

He uses the pain to change us,

to conform us more and more into the likeness of Christ.

He teaches us about Himself,

His love,

His care,

His strength,

His forgiveness,

His sufficiency for our every need.

He goes with us

through whatever it is we have to go through.

Now,

let’s back up to that father and daughter again.

The daughter is into her frantic activities at school,

and the two of them are drifting farther and farther apart.

Then one evening

as the daughter comes into the house

following yet another late practice

she is greeted at the door

by her father holding an iron bar in his hand.

As soon as she enters

he takes the bar and clubs his daughter on the knee,

resulting in an injury that puts her in bed for several weeks.

As she’s recuperating

her father spends each night by her bed

helping her with her school work,

reading to her,

keeping her company,

and he tells her,

“Sweetie, I knew we were drifting apart

and I had to do something

to give us a chance

to spend more time together.”

We hear an illustration like that in a human relationship

and it makes us feel sick.

What kind of a hideous, twisted person

would ever do such a thing?

And yet in the church world

we frequently attribute the same behavior to God,

and then wonder why

we have trouble trusting Him.

We say to ourselves

and to others,

“God brought this trouble

or that disaster into my life

so that He could bring this good out of it.”

The truth is that sin

and pain

and evil touch every one of our lives

because we are sin-scared people,

surrounded by sin-saturated people,

living in a world deeply corrupted by the consequences

of thousands of years of people’s sin.

But the greater truth is that

any evil,

any pain,

any suffering we choose to place into the hands of our God

He will reshape into great good in our lives.

Rom. 8:28 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.

Rom. 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;

Rom. 8:30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

I know we’ve been on this one statement,

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

for three weeks now.

I know, too, that there is a danger

in saying to much about a verse

because we then run the risk

of taking what is intended to be clear and simple,

and making it complicated and confusing.

With that in mind,

I want to add one final statement

with the hope it will help simplify

what I believe Paul is saying to us.

We are created beings.

Through Christ we have entered into

a living, eternal relationship with our Creator.

It is impossible for us to enter into that relationship

without the awareness that

our God has both the right

and the power to be sovereign in His dealings with us.

He created us

and He can and He will do with us

whatever He chooses.

Who’s going to stop Him?

Added to that is the understanding

that our relationship with Him

begins at the point where we choose

to submit ourselves to Him.

In a single phrase,

OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!!

Added to this is the fact that

all of us have at one time or another

experienced being under some human authority

who abused that position in our lives,

someone who used that authority

not for our good,

but for their own selfish desires.

And then added to that

is our awareness that we have in our own lives

things that merit God’s judgement,

God’s anger,

God’s wrath.

We ARE guilty.

All of those things go together

in the lives of many Christians

to make us unsure about how we should go about approaching this God of ours.

We’re like Maurichi.

Maurichi was a sheep dog I met

many years ago

when I spent some time with a shepherd in the high Cascades in Washington.

Maurichi had been raised by a cruel master

who beat him often

and for no reason.

He was a great sheep dog,

but when he came to us he was terrified

of human beings.

Every morning we would have to begin

by petting him and scratching him

and loving him

until he remembered once again

that now he was safe,

and no one was going to beat him any more.

Then, every few hours throughout the day

Maurichi would suddenly stop working

and come cowering, crawling back to us,

expecting to be hit,

hoping for love.

We’d love him up again,

and then he’d remember once again that he was safe,

and he’d take off running once again.

When Paul says,

Phil. 3:1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.

and when he begins his final summery statements by saying,

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!,

I see him telling us that there is a crucial priority in the Christian’s thinking about God.

We do not begin by recognizing that He’s Sovereign,

we must begin by understanding that He is GOOD.

Only then can we affirm His sovereignty without fear.

There is one added piece of this of this whole issue

that we haven’t had time to get into today,

and that’s the whole area of God’s discipline in the life of the Christian.

When does He discipline?

Who does He discipline?

How does He discipline?

What is the difference between

God’s discipline

and God’s wrath?

Is God’s discipline

the same thing as the pain

caused by the effects of evil in our lives?

Any discussion about pain

and us

and God is not complete

without talking about

this crucial area.

And so,

next week we’ll look at the discipline of God.