Be encouraged: God is in Control

I struggled all day yesterday to put together a message on the sixth of Christ’s seven letters to the church, as recorded by John in the book of Revelation.

I had worked all day to try to catch up on the sermon work I would have done through the week had I not been doing ministry in Haiti, and it just wasn’t coming together.

Then, about a third of the way into the message, at midnight, I lost everything I’d written. Sometimes, I really hate computers.

But then it became clear to me that I was struggling so much because I was trying to work my own plan to teach the next installment of our series on Christ’s letters to the church.

I had a plan, and there was nothing inherently wrong with it, but it does not seem to have been God’s plan.

So, as I am inclined to do at times like this, I prayed and I began to look back over the things God has been teaching me during the past week.

A couple of weeks from now, I intend to give you all a report on my trip to Haiti, along with some photos and a couple of videos.

But today, let me share with you the thing that God revealed to me over and over again during my trip: God is sovereign over every single part of our lives.

Let me give you a personal example.

During the second leg of my trip home on Friday, the flight attendant gave me a Coke and a bag of chips.

As I drank the Coke, I noticed a weird tingling sensation in my jaw. I didn’t really think much of it, but after we had landed in Richmond and I began to drive home, I began to drink a Monster, hoping the caffeine would keep me awake.

The tingling was worse, and my jaw had begun to ache. Feeling the side of my face, I could tell it had begun to swell.

By the time I got home, the left side of my face was swollen as if I’d been hit with a baseball.

On Saturday, I went to Patient First and found out that I had an infection of my salivary gland, something completely random and unconnected to Haiti, according to the doctor. He prescribed an antibiotic, which has worked marvelously. Now, I have no pain, and the swelling has subsided.

What does this have to do with God’s sovereignty? Well, I can tell you that if this infection had started while I was in Haiti, my ability to get a diagnosis, much less the antibiotics I needed, would have been severely limited.

It wasn’t working, and I knew it wasn’t working,

Here’s another example:

One of the days I was in Haiti, I went with a team that was on the ground to visit a community called Chaden. My friend Josh Worrell had asked me to visit a woman there with whom he had been sharing the Gospel during his own visits.

My translator and I, along with a couple of visitors from California, walked to the place where this woman lived, in a compound with her father and her sister’s family.

Arriving, we learned that the woman we had come to see was not around, so we sat down in the shade with her father and her sister and began to talk with them.

Now, when we do evangelism in Haiti — or anywhere, for that matter — it is important not to simply walk up and say, “Do you know Jesus?” We have to establish a relationship with the people we are there to see.

And in this case, it was culturally appropriate to make most of our conversation with the father.

So we talked about his life and his family. I learned that he had stopped going to church when his wife had died, and I asked what he missed about it.

His response gave me the opening to tell him the gospel.

But it was clear as I spoke to him that his heart wasn’t soft for the message, and I was becoming discouraged about the visit. As I was wrapping up and getting ready to ask if there was something we could pray for, I happened to glance over at the daughter who had been sitting and listening.

I have never had the experience of actually SEEING God at work on someone, but the expression on her face was absolutely clear. HER heart was soft.

And just as I was about to tell my translator that we should ask her if she wanted to accept Jesus as her savior, she spoke.

“What can I do to be saved?” she asked. “I was thinking I would do this on Sunday at church, but can I do it now?”

Hallelujah!

We gained a sister in Christ that morning, and it was all because of the sovereignty of God.

We had a plan to talk to her sister, but she wasn’t there. We changed our plans, and talked to her father, but he wasn’t ready.

But she was ready, and God had her there and had us there, and all of this came together for the salvation of one lost soul.

You know, my friends in Haiti asked me many times last week when I would be back. My response was always the same: I do not know, but God has a plan.

Psalm 135:6 NASB95

Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.

God is free to do as He wills. He knows the end from the beginning; He is the potter, and we are the clay.

It was His will that His son would take on human flesh, having been born of a virgin. So He made it happen.

We can stand in opposition to His plans, but His plans will not be thwarted.

2 Chronicles 20:6 NASB95

and he said, “O Lord, the God of our fathers, are You not God in the heavens? And are You not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in Your hand so that no one can stand against You.

2 Chro

He is king of kings and Lord of lords. He is Lord of heaven and earth. All that is in heaven and all that is on the earth — including you and me and that woman in Haiti — belong to Him. We are His subjects. As the Psalmist wrote, His throne is established from of old. He is from everlasting to everlasting. “Heaven is my throne,” He says, “and earth is the footstool of my feet.”

We like to put God in a box, even when we’re talking spiritually. “Prayer changes things,” we say, as if God’s plans are subject to our desires. But God’s plans — like God Himself — are eternal. He is not constrained by time or circumstance. He is not deterred by happenstance.

God is sovereign over all creation. He “created all things, and because of (His) will they existed and were created (). He is sovereign over human life. James put it this way:

James 4:13 NASB95

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”

James 4:14 NASB95

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

James 4:13

James 4:15 NASB95

Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

If the Lord wills, we will live.

He is sovereign over the most minute details of your life. Jesus said that not one sparrow falls to the ground without His Father knowing and that even the very hairs of your head are numbered by Him.

Even your suffering is within God’s sovereignty.

1 Peter 3:17 NASB95

For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.

Note there that Peter says our suffering happens within God’s will. He uses it to accomplish His plan.

But kings, especially in biblical times,

But God’s sovereignty isn’t demonstrated only in our personal lives. He is also sovereign over world history.

Prov God is sovereign over the He who determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name will not be derailed by the plans of man.

Proverbs 21:1 NASB95

The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.

God is sovereign over the He who determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name will not be derailed by the plans of man.

That’s a hard one for us to understand sometimes. Why does God allow evil rulers? In the Old Testament, He used Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem and take the people of Judah into exile. To most of them at the time, it must have seemed that He had forgotten them. But it was all part of His plan to redeem them and to redeem mankind.

As Jesus was hung on that cross on Calvary, most of the people who had followed Him lost hope. Here was the man they had thought would save Israel from its Roman occupiers dying at the hands of those same Romans. But God was sovereign over that, too. And He said as much to Pontius Pilate.

John 19:7

John 19:7 NASB95

The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.”

John 19:8–10 NASB95

Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; and he entered into the Praetorium again and said to Jesus, “Where are You from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to Him, “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?”

John 19:11 NASB95

Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”

John 19:11

The very authority to crucify Jesus had come from God Himself.

God had a plan. Jesus understood this, even if it was still a mystery to everyone else involved.

I do not know what God’s plan is for me, but I know that He has a plan.

I do not know what God’s plan is for you, but I know that He has a plan.

I do not know what God’s plan is for this church, but I know that He has a plan.

And God’s plan will not be thwarted, because God is sovereign over all.

He is free and able to do all that he wills. He reigns over all creation, and His will is the final cause of all things.

Why was I in that community in Haiti last week? Because God willed it. Why was the woman we had gone to see not there? Because God willed it. Why was her sister there? Because God willed it.

God had a plan for her, a plan to redeem her and to give her eternal life with Jesus. He would have accomplished His plan with or without me. But my obedience to His calling to be in that place at that time meant that I would be blessed to see her face at the moment that God brought conviction to her tender heart.

What pains are you experiencing in your life today? How are you suffering? What burdens do you have that seem too great to bear?

Let me give you a new perspective.

God is completely in control.

None of this is a surprise to God. None of this is too hard for Him. None of this is out of His reach.

God is in control.

And if God is in control, then the best thing for us to do is to let go of the wheel and let Him drive.

He knows where He is going with all of it. Our part should simply be to trust and obey.

Be encouraged by that, because if

Our plans fall apart, but God’s plan never will. Our plans blow up in our faces, but God’s plan will make all things new.

Charles Spurgeon once said, “We believe in the providence of God, but we do not believe half enough in it.”

Believe this: God is in control.

When we really believe that God is in control, then we can stop worrying about the future.

God is sovereign over it all. Let’s let Him work His plan. Let us resolve to let go of the wheel and trust that He knows where He is going.

Be encouraged: God is in Control

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