Providence: God's Hand in a Fallen World
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
The Greek Stoic philosophers had a way of living that recognized what could and could not be controlled. They thought that if we go around out lives trying to control what cannot be controlled we end up only controlling ourselves. Some went as far as to emotionally distance themselves from grief so that they would be far away from wanting to change the uncontrollable. They accepted that they can’t control things outside themselves, but they can control their reaction to the things around them.
The Christian worldview is much more comforting than what the Stoic’s put forward. While there is great wisdom in not letting our emotions control us by trying to control what we cannot, we have the added joy of knowing who does control what is uncontrollable. But for many Christians, this becomes a source of confusion and even frustration, not comfort because if God is in control why does he still let unpleasant and even painful things happen to me and those I love? In the story of Joseph we have never seem him emotionally lash out at what he couldn’t control. Instead, long before the Stoics, he had learned the secret of leaving what is in God’s power in God’s hands and only concerning himself with how he was going to respond and act in those situations. This attitude left him open to see the ways that God was going to use his suffering for good and readied his heart for forgiveness and reconciliation.
Providence in the lives of Joseph and Christ
Providence in the lives of Joseph and Christ
Joseph’s life has been a story in which God has continually acting in mysterious ways. Many of the steps in that grand plan have been unexpected and unexplainable in the short term. They remind us of the book of Job with a very similar story of Job not getting what the righteous are supposed to get, but instead having affliction. What ended up happening for him was a move towards a heavenly perspective, taking his eyes off of the limited view he has and putting it on God’s perfect and unlimited perspective.
Providence through sin
Providence through sin
God’s providence not only appears in the midst of a sinful situation, it is worked through the brothers’ sin.
The brother’s responsible for their sin, but God worked through it nonetheless. God is not reactive to their sin, instead he shows his will through their sin.
Providence against sin
Providence against sin
However, this providence does not working with their sin, but against it. The very purpose that their hatred had is undermined by working for Joseph’s good, as well as the good of all the house of Jacob. God’s love for his people is demonstrated by his ways of overcoming and combating their sin.
Providence Victorious over sin
Providence Victorious over sin
The crowning verse of this passage is verse 8,
So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
This verse encapsulates all that God has done here. Let’ break it down piece by piece.
“So it was not you who sent me here” this denies the control that sin claims to have and that the brothers thought they had over the situation. Even in regret, it is wrong and arrogant for us to think that we could ever do something to hinder or even counteract God’s greater purpose. That power is simply not in our hands.
“But God.” Although God is never the author of sin and evil, he nevertheless is completely in control of it and it’s consequences. Ironically, sin in its nature is rebellion against God, yet it cannot escape his sovereign hand, showing him to be victorious even in seeming defeat.
Such was the case with Christ on the cross. Although he was betrayed by Judas, abandoned by his disciples, persecuted by the priests, reviled by the people, and crucified by the Romans, there was no point that God was not completely in control of the situation. In fact, the Scriptures go as far as to say in Isaiah 53:10
“Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief”
Although it was the Romans that crucified Christ, it was God that put him to death. It was the Father than put him through suffering and who crushed him on the cross and the power that sinful men thought they had over the son of God was at all times an illusion, a fact Christ pointed out to his disciples when he said to Peter
Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”
This was an act of unbelief for Peter because he believed that Christ was not in control of the situation. The cross didn’t happen because things got out of God’s hands, nor did Joseph go to Egypt because God lost control but just happened to make it all work out. God’s hand was directly involved with both of those events, as well as all others, showing himself to be sovereign and in control.
“Made me a father to Pharoah.” God’s Kingdom does not respect the boarders set by men. While Pharoah may be the greatest king on earth, not only has God’s chosen one gained such authority in his kingdom but Joseph claims to be as a father, having more authority than Pharoah and being above him. This is because Joseph’s authority did not come from man, but from God.
In the same way, Christ’s suffering led him to have authority over all the kingdoms of this world.
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
In practical aspects, the Kingdom of Egypt had essentially come under the hand of Joseph. Much greater is Kingdom of Christ when it has overcome the Kingdom of the world so that it has become his Kingdom.
The End of God’s Providence Revealed: Blessing for the people of God
The End of God’s Providence Revealed: Blessing for the people of God
What we end up seeing in the providential work of God is an overarching focus on the victory of his Kingdom and blessing for his people. What God’s doing is invisible, but it is also sure and it is also best. God’s will is always best, because that is what it means to be the sovereign Lord of everything. What we are prone to in our sin is a entitled attitude that places our human rights above God’s divine right, our comfort above God’s glory, and our life above his eternal purposes. Sin, at its core, is to rebel against what God is doing by imposing, or attempting to impose, what we want to do and what we want to happen. We forget the purpose of our own creation, which we have foolishly come to think is centred around ourselves, and so anything that doesn’t serve our foreseeable benefit is seen as an evil while things that do benefit us are seen as good, but this is not at all how God defines good and evil. What is good is what gives him glory and brings people to come enjoy and worship him in his glorious splendor. That is the essence of good in this world and in all worlds. Evil, then, is all that diminishes God’s glory in the sight of his creation and detracts people from his splendor. Providence is always working for good, but it is a good that compliments God’s glory. With those definitions in place, we can start to see how God uses a frowning providence.
Frowning Providence
Frowning Providence
The Puritan Thomas Boston wrote a book on God’s providential work in human difficulty and suffering called The Crook in the Lot. What that means is that every man’s lot, that is every man’s life and condition which God has sovereignly put them in, is bound to have crooks in it and is based on
Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?
All wood is bound to have knots in it, although one piece of wood may have more knots than another. Maple wood is relatively knot-free compared to apple wood, but then maple is bound to have knots. So also every life is bound to have crooks, difficulties, struggles, pains, sufferings, trials, griefs, disabilities, losses, and limitations. While one life may look more knotted than another, all wood is knotted and every life has crooks in their lot.
Some difficulties we have control over, sure, but many we do not. Joseph did have some amount on say over how he was treated in prison and he took advantage of that by being a trustworthy, faithful man that was eventually put in charge of the prison, but he had no say in the fact that he was in prison to begin with. His betrayal, slavery, and imprisonment were all crooks in his lot, a frowning providence that God was using for his glory and for bringing people to his splendor.
Why does God use a frowning providence when he could use a pleasant one?
In a frowning providence, God shows himself as God over all in all times and situations.
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
God is not involved in a duality, and he shows us this in his complete control over well-being and calamity. God is not just in control of COVID 19, God created that virus, he was behind it transferring from bats to humans, he predestined exactly how many infections and deaths there would be, and he remains good in all of it. God is a good God, but he is not only God over the good.
A frowning providence is necessary in a sinful world. Although God may not be punishing Joseph for his sin specifically, Joseph is still a sinner in a fallen world. God’s providence forces us to recognize the destruction that sin brings to our souls by seeing the devastation it brings to the world around us. Christ first forgave the sins of the lame man before he healed him, displaying the root of all lameness is sin, although it may not be his sin in particular. Christ himself endured the hardships of a fallen world including grief, loss, fatigue, and of course physical and physiological suffering. God is not the author of sin, for how could a king be the leader of a rebellion against himself? But God does stand sovereignly in control of it and all the negative things it brings to this world.
A frowning providence is purifying and maturing. Even Christ, as a man, needed to undergo the process of suffering in order to be the perfect saviour of humanity
Hebrews 2:10 (ESV)
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
It will help us rely on God rather than his creation.
It will have us pining for a world to come, not the world that is.
It will
A frowning providence puts us in the footsteps of Christ, the ultimate image-bearers. A servant is not greater than his master and, while Christ did save us from the eternal and relational consequences of our sins, in this world he has us still walk with a crook in our lot so that we walk in the same manner as Christ.
Smiling Grace
Smiling Grace
This story of course ends on a happy note, as Joseph explain the good that God had done through those bad things that had happened to him. Finally Jacob is called Israel again at the end of our text as his hope in God is reignited.
What we are reminded in this text is that the troubles that God’s people face are, indeed, short lived. Behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face. God’s purposes in the use of hardships and calamities are never evil in intent, but rather work for the ultimate good of his glory and our joy in him.
This gives us hope though difficulties persist.
This gives meaning to the crooks in our lot, knowing that each one was placed with love and for good.
This causes growth in our faith.
Providence victor over sin and destroyer of guilt.
Providence victor over sin and destroyer of guilt.
In our text, God’s difficult providence provided a way to destroy sin and its guilt.
Sin by undoing it in the hearts of Joseph’s brothers and reversing its evil intentions.
Guilt by giving the perspective that it was God’s hand at work that brought Joseph to Egypt as a slave. It was God at work, and therefore there remains no guilt for the repentant brothers. Indeed, although God was not the author of the hatred in their hearts, it was God who brought Joseph to Egypt. It was not God who authored the adulterous desires of Potiphar’s wife, but it was God who caused Joseph to God to prison. They were his design, and knowing this makes reconciliation possible.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Providence is God’s provision in a fallen world and so many of God’s providences may not show themselves to be that until some future day. This is not an empty sentiment that we throw around to people’s whose problems we don’t want to take the time to understand. It doesn’t erase our problems or the pain in them, but it does give hope. It dispels despair. It cleans out the the infection of guilt and blame so that the wounds we inflict on one another in sin can be healed in reconciliation. The sovereignty of God may not light up where you are, but it does illuminate where you are going, where God is lovingly taking you. It contextualizes our suffering and hardship by putting God in the drivers seat. We worship a glorious God who throws knots and crooks into our lives for a greater good for us, for his people, and for his glory. God does not do this from a distance, unfeeling and distant.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Christ was willingly exposed to suffering in part so we can understand that God does not have a smooth road for his elect. It is a road full of many of the struggles John Bunyan illustrated in the Pilgrims Progress including doubt, temptation, persecution, fear, loss and many other things. We are not walking a road that God himself did not willingly and perfectly walk. Once we have accepted God’s hand in the difficulties and pains in our lives, we will trust him in a way that is not possible in any other circumstance because we know that God loves us with the same love he has for Christ, and if Christ suffered in this life we can walk that same road with visions of glory to come. I want to close by reading the words of a hymn written in 1773 by William Cowper.
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill;
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ev'ry hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow'r.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain