©1999 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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2/21/99
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Good God - Sovereign God
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Phili. 4:4
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2/21/99 Good God - Sovereign God
Phil. 4:4 ¶ Rejoice in the Lord always;
again I will say, rejoice!
We are returning to the 4th 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 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 emotional winters of our lives.
Paul wrote the letter
from his own 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.
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 where 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,
while at the same time elevating themselves as if
they were God's gift to man,
and milking the Corinthians
for all they could get out of them.
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"
to that equation
and wonder why God doesn't make
all of His children healthy,
handsome,
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.
1. 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.
2. 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.
Ex. God allowed me to miss the flight
so that I would meet this person as I waited for
the next flight.
Ex. God allowed this sickness in my life
so that I could witness to my doctor,
or my family.
Ex. 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 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 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?
1. 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.
2. We 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
I want to make with this whole thing -
God does not bring the evil
in order to 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 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 sick, 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 sin
and pain
and evil touch every one of our lives
because we are sinful people,
surrounded by sinful people,
living in a world scared by the
consequences
of thousands of years of man'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 in so doing
we 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.
Q. 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 incomplete
without talking about
this crucial area.
And so,
next week we'll look at the discipline of God.