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Providence

Gen. 37:5-11, 18-36 and 50:15-19

Rev. Dustin Salter, 11.05.06

We're going to be looking at portions of Genesis 37 and 50. As we get started, I want to give Tim Keller credit for some of the ideas in this sermon. His study on the book of Romans helped me tremendously. If you have never worked through that, I highly encourage you to get that study on the book of Romans. It was very helpful to me.

A little bit of a long passage, but we need to see it all. People of God, this is not the opinion of men. This is the word of God; we are wise if we give our attention to it.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.

How was Joseph able to forgive his brothers? And not just to forgive them, but to bless them and their little ones. To provide for them and their children. I would have killed them, or at least put them in the cistern for a good long time before I let them out. How was he able to forgive his brothers and provide for their children? He trusted in the providence and the goodness of God.

This morning we want to look at the doctrine of God's providence from the life of Joseph. Providence is a word that has dropped out of our vocabulary, but we need to reclaim it. We need to reclaim the doctrine of God's providence, because providence answers the question "Is there anyone controlling or directing my life?" What is providence and how does it work?

First, what is it? Providence is God's invisible hand bringing his will and his plan to pass in our lives. The doctrine of providence teaches that there is a God who is infinite and personal and who controls and directs all things for his glory and for our good. One of the best illustrations of the doctrine of providence is the life of Joseph. Now, as we get started, providence has to be contrasted with coincidence. Coincidence says that the circumstances of our lives are just that: mere coincidence, just mere chance. Providence says that God has planned all things and brings all that he has planned to pass. That's what providence is.

Now how does it work? It works paradoxically. We need to say two things here about the doctrine of providence. God controls all things and the decisions and the choices that we make are real. Biblical Christianity says both of those things are true. God had a plan for Joseph the whole time, God's will would be accomplished in his life, and Joseph's brothers were fully to blame for their treatment of Joseph. Providence, then, is paradoxical. God's plans will be accomplished in our lives, and yet our decisions and the choices that we make are real. Providence is not fatalism, and it's not autonomous freedom. Let's look at each one of those briefly.

First, it's not fatalism. We're not talking about fatalism. Fatalism says your future is totally fixed. Philosophically, this is called determinism. Theologically, it's called hyper-Calvinism. This position says that no matter what you do, no matter what choices you make in life, you can't change your future at all. It's completely fatalistic. No matter what choices you make, you can't change anything; your future's absolutely, totally fixed. On the fatalistic approach, we're reduced to robots. Fatalism makes us passive and say, "Who cares? It doesn't really matter what I do with my life because my decisions aren't real anyway." Scripture rejects that view. Who was responsible for selling Joseph into slavery? His brothers. Look at Genesis 50:20a: "You intended to harm me." His brothers even asked for forgiveness in verses 17-18, demonstrating that they knew that they were responsible for their actions. Biblically, choices are real and choices have consequences. The most underrated film in 2003 was Man on Fire. Denzel Washington played a Special Forces guy who was also an alcoholic. His alcoholism -- his drinking -- affected his life. The doctrine of providence takes human choice very seriously.

The second option is autonomous freedom, total freedom. This option says your future is totally free. Theologically, this is called open theism. Popularly, it's the wisdom given to Marty McFly in that cinematic classic, Back to the Future. Do you remember what Doc Brown says to Marty at the end of the trilogy? Doc Brown says, "Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one." Providence rejects that position, because providence teaches that God directs and controls all things for our good and his glory. Look at the second half of verse 20 in chapter 50: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."

Providence is God's invisible hand bringing his will to pass, and yet providence is paradoxical because while God controls and directs all things, our decisions are real within the scope of his sovereignty. The Westminster Confession of Faith is beautifully, wildly balanced on this difficult subject. It's wildly balanced. Listen to how it puts this in chapter 3, paragraph 1: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

What do we know about God's invisible hand? Four truths from Keller's study on Romans that helped me so much:

1. There is a plan. It is not coincidental; it is providential. There was a plan for Joseph's life the whole time, and there's a plan for your life, too.

2. The plan is perfect. You know what I would have said if I was Joseph? "This is a bad plan, God. This is a bad plan! Don't you have a plan B? Because if you have a plan B, now's a good time to move there. Because I'm in the pit, I'm in the cistern, and by the way, there's no water in here either. Can't we move to plan B?" Proverbs 16:33 says, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." The plan is perfect. Coincidence says there is no plan, but providence says God is always accomplishing his plan for our good and his glory. Now, you read the story and you can say, "But this was such a bad deal for Joseph! An innocent man, who was continuously done wrong for the whole of his life. This is a crime." And you'd be right. You'd be right if you have that objection. The only bigger crime occurred thousands of years later when Jesus Christ, a truly innocent man, died for a guilty man. That was a crime, that an innocent man would die for a truly guilty man.

3. The plan is exhaustive. When she was very little, our family called our now 2-year-old daughter, Meredith Hope, "The Rooster" because her hair stood straight up on her head, like a rooster. Jesus says that even the very hairs on your head are numbered by the Father, in Matthew 10. God knows every detail of our lives, down to the texture and the colors of Joseph's coat. The plan is exhaustive down to the details.

I've tried to illustrate this to college students in the past this way: God knows your wedding date. You don't. Your responsibility is to marry a Christian. God's responsibility is to know your wedding date. God knows your exact wedding date. Girls, God knows the exact dress you'll be wearing. Guys, God knows the exact location of your honeymoon. Hallelujah. The open theism says that God is surprised by the future, but biblical Christianity says that God controls and directs the future for his glory and for our good. In fact, God planned for you to be sitting in the exact chair that you're sitting in. All of your life has been directed to this very moment, down to the chair that you're sitting in this morning. Nothing is mere coincidence.

We worked our way through The Horse and His Boy awhile back, which is a book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. If you haven't read it, you need to read through it. The boy, Shasta, is an orphan. He goes on this grand adventure. We find out later, he's really a prince. All of his life, he thought he was an orphan with no one to care for him. Along the way, he meets Aslan, the Christ figure. Aslan says this to him about his life as an orphan (or so he thought): "I was the lion you do not remember, who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat wakeful at midnight to receive you." Nothing is mere coincidence. Aslan watches the boat; Aslan directs the boat.

What did Joseph understand that we don't understand? Joseph understood that there are two hands in the world that control and direct all things, and he entrusted himself to those two hands, no matter what his situation in life. Entrust yourself to those hands. They are good hands. They never remove themselves from the boat of your life. John Newton said it this way: "God, what you will, when you will, where you will."

One question I get is "Dustin, where'd you go to college?" A place you've never heard of, for a good reason: Livingston University. A place so far removed from civilization that we had to drive an hour to see a movie, 30 minutes to get a McDonald's hamburger. For fun we'd hang out at the local truckstop eating cheese fries because there was nothing else open at night. Whenever I get letters in the mail from Livingston University asking for money, they go right into the trash can. I'm never giving money to my alma mater. Never. It is the most forgettable place in the world. It would be erased from my memory, save one thing, or rather one person: my wife. I met my soul mate there. Nothing is mere coincidence.

Interstates 59 and 20 run right by the exit for Livingston University, exit 17, the most forgettable exit in the world. But if you ask my sons, Jacob or Nathan, what happened at exit 17, they'll tell you, "That's where my dad met my mom." The invisible hand of providence is always working. Though hidden to us, it is real nonetheless. You see, God doesn't just know the future; he actually controls it. Proverbs 16:9 says, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." In fact, Genesis 50:20 is engraved on the inside of my wedding band to remind me of God's providential care in my life.

What happens when life doesn't turn out as you thought it would? It certainly wasn't turning out the way Joseph thought it would. You must trust providence. You must radically trust providence. You see, there was no way for Joseph to see the end of the story in the middle of the story. We read the ending in chapter 50; he couldn't read it when he was in 37. You can't say, "God, if you let me know what's going to happen by next month, then I'll trust you. God, if you let me know what's going to happen by next Saturday, then I'll trust you. God, if you'll let me know what's going to happen by next semester, then I'll trust you." You can only see the hand of providence at the end of the story. You can only see him after it's over. In the middle of it, you have to trust and pray like John Newton: "God, what you will, how you will, when you will."

This is a problem that I've had in my own life in the past six months. I wanted a guarantee that everything would be ok when I moved to Furman. I wanted a guarantee that I could raise all the money, I wanted a guarantee that students would come to RUF, I wanted a guarantee that my house would sell in Ft. Worth, I wanted a guarantee that everything would go ok. The guarantee is never an easy life. The guarantee is a changed life, which in the end is the best kind of life: one that changes us, more and more, into the image of Christ.

4. Much of the plan is secret. Deuteronomy 29:29 is one of my favorite verses. It says this: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children." What if we did know the future? We would either dread it or we would be tempted to long for it and live in it. Here's what I mean. What if we did know the future and what was going to happen to us? On the one hand, we would be tempted to dread the future because of the horror and the tragedy that is ahead for us. Or, on the other hand, we would be tempted to long for the future and to actually live in the future because of the happiness and the joy that is ahead for us. Either way, we would be paralyzed in the now. Either way, we'd be paralyzed in the now to do what God has called us to do here, and to be who he has called us to be in the now.

My boys learned to shoot a gun this summer, something I've never learned to do. We tend to think that God's will is like a moving target: we've got to fire correctly to hit it. God's will is not a moving target. You really can't miss God's will in the way that we normally think about that. You really can't miss it. You can rebel against it, but you really can't miss it in the way we normally think about that. Why? Because God's will is not a dot to find; it's a framework in which to live, the framework of the Scriptures.

Now, suffering. Why does God allow dark providence to come into our lives, as he did in Joseph's life? Why does God allow suffering to come into our lives? We don't always know. In fact, most of the time we don't know at all. Hard legalism says, "God is punishing you for your sin! That's why this tragedy has come into your life; that's why this horror has come into your life. You're being punished because of your sin." But you see, Joseph's life is proof that isn't true! One reason is to make us more dependent on God.

You see, the real question is not "Why does God allow suffering in our lives?" The real question is "How will we respond to suffering?" Suffering will either make you a bitter person or it will make you a beautiful person. Earlier we sang "Thou Lovely Source of True Delight," which is a hymn about Jesus being our delight and our comfort. If you can look at the words again, I'd like to highlight them in stanzas 1, 3, 4, and 5:

Thou lovely source of true delight whom I unseen adore,
Unveil Thy beauties to my sight that I might love Thee more,
Oh that I might love Thee more.

'Tis here, whene'er my comforts droop and sin and sorrows rise,
Thy love with cheering beams of hope my fainting heart supplies,
My fainting heart's supplied.

And ah! Too soon the pleasing scene is clouded o'er with pain.
My gloomy fears rise dark between and I again complain,
Oh and I again complain.

Jesus, my Lord, my life, my light, oh come with blissful ray;
Break radiant through the shades of night and chase my fears away,
Won't you chase my fears away?

After I sang that hymn for the first time, I checked out the author, Anne Steele. I thought, Anne Steele understands something that I don't understand. I wonder what her life was like? So I decided to do a little reading about the author of this hymn. Listen to what her life was like:

"Anne Steele lived in England from 1716 to 1778. She was born in Broughton, where her father, who was a timber-merchant, preached at the Baptist church for 60 years -- most of the time without receiving a salary! She actually lived only 15 miles from the great Isaac Watts, although it is unlikely that they ever met. Her mother died when she was 3 years old, and when she was 19 she suffered a severe injury to her hip, rendering her an invalid for most of her life. When she was 21, she was engaged to Robert Elscourt, but the day before the wedding he was drowned while bathing in a river! She never was married, and assisted her father in his pastoral labors for her whole life, although for the last 9 years of her life, she was never able to leave her bed. Still, in spite of all of this, her disposition was described as 'cheerful and helpful' and her life as one of 'unaffected humility, warm benevolence, sincere friendship, and genuine devotion.' "

Anne Steele understood that Christ is the source of true delight. That the Lord Jesus Christ himself is the source of true delight, not circumstances. Our circumstances change. They can never be the source of our true delight. One of my favorite hymns is "It Is Well With My Soul." Horatio Spafford, the author of the hymn, was an attorney in Chicago. He decided to take his family on vacation to England. At the last minute he had to stay behind on business, so he sent his four daughters and his wife ahead to England. The ship that they were on went down. His daughters all died. He got a cable from his wife that read, "Saved alone." He jumped on a ship to meet his wife, and it is believed that when he crossed the spot where the ship went down and his daughters died, he penned the hymn "It Is Well With My Soul."

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
"It is well, it is well with my soul."

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control:
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And hath shed his own blood for my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
And the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend;
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Suffering makes people bitter or it makes people beautiful. How was Joseph able to forgive his brothers? He realized that there was an invisible hand that was always controlling his life. He entrusted himself to those two hands. Aslan guides the boat. He guides the boat. He never takes his hands off of the boat.

Entrust yourself to those hands. They are good hands.