Friday, March 11, 2011

Abiding In Christ by a Feasting Faith

Abiding in Christ means that as a believer you continue to trust in him and stay ever close to him.  It is an intimate dependence upon Christ as one’s savior and Lord.  This abiding is marked by feasting faith, dependent  Word  saturated prayer, obedient love and abounding joy.  Today we are going to look at the mark of feasting faith. 

The intimacy of abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in you as one who trusts in him is pictured in this image of a grapevine and the branch.  The branch is connected to the vine.  If this connection is a vital, real and healthy one then the branch will suck sap from the vine and that life flowing sap will give power to the branch to bear many clusters of grapes. 

Yet this is not a wild vine with its many branches.  Wild unattended vines are not as productive or even productive at all in comparison with tended vines.  When you see a grape vine filled with branches that are bearing clusters of grapes you can be sure that they are well attended.  The vine dresser has been at work.  He cuts away every non-producing branch. Those branches take up space and are not drawing sap in the right way from the vine to produce fruit.  Whereas all those branches that bear fruit the vine dressers prunes.  He cuts them too but not completely off from the vine.  He cuts them so that more of that life-flowing sap from the vine will produce more fruit. 

Jesus teaches that he is the true vine.  He is the true source of life.  He also teaches that God the Father tends to the vine and branches.  The Father is the vine dresser.  He is sovereignly working overseeing the relations or links between the vine and its many branches.  There are only two kinds of links between the branches and the vines.  There may be a formal link but not a vital one.  The branch is connected in some way to the vine: formal profession of faith etc. Yet if there is no fruit there is no real union and the Father will cut that branch off.  The other link is a real, vital link.  There is true saving faith – a real possession of Christ.  This branch will be drawing life from the vine and there will be fruit.    The lesson here is that fruit is evidence that the link between the branch and the vine is vital and real.  Where there is no fruit there is no real link, no saving faith.

Faith as one key aspect of what it means to abide in Christ is implied throughout this text.  The bond or link between the vine and the branch is the believer’s union with the Lord Jesus Christ and this union is a faith/grace union. Yet it is stated clearly in John 6:56.  “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”  If you are to abide in Christ and Christ to abide in you then you must have a feasting faith in Christ.  The backdrop here is Jesus’ teaching that he is the bread of heaven.  He is speaking figuratively of his saving work: his obedient life and death secure life for sinners.  To feed on his flesh and to drink his blood is by faith to appropriate Him and the benefits of his saving work into your life.   Now you do this when you initially repent of your sins and believe the promise of the Gospel, which is all who believe on Christ, will be saved.  When you do then you start to take in eternal life and such life changes you.  Yet this initial faith-response to Christ that brings his life into your soul will become a feasting faith that keeps you ever near him, ever depending upon him, ever reveling in him, ever intimate with him – hence abiding in him.  Feasting faith is abiding faith.  One of the evidences that your faith in Christ is real and saving is that it is more than a bare profession but rather it is a feasting faith that keeps intimate communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and there will be fruit in your life.

True faith in Christ continues to feed on his flesh and continues to drink his blood.  True saving faith in Christ feasts on Christ all the time.  This means that those who have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ continue to look in faith to Christ and in so doing continue feeding and drinking from him.   Just like you don’t live on the first meal you ate after you were born neither do you rely on your initial faith-response to the Gospel.  Faith doesn’t rely on its initial response and receptivity to Christ, faith continues to feast on Christ.  You go to him daily, regularly – you draw into your heart the nourishment of the Gospel.  It is not only good news to the ears it is good food for the soul.   There will be no abiding in Christ nor Christ abiding in you unless you are continually feasting on him with relish and finding that he indeed satisfies your hunger and slakes your thirst.  It is this that keeps us in vital and virtual dependence and relationship with Christ.

Faith feeds on Christ and drinks from Christ.    All these Gospel realities become the food and drink of the soul that settles your heart, gives you strength, stabilizes your desires and tastes really, really, really good to your soul. There is growing contentment and peace. Here is food that not only tastes infinitely good but is also infinitely good for you.  As you feast on Christ from him the nourishing sap of the vine courses into your life (the branch) and there is a living vital connection and you grow and produce fruit.  The branch is feeding from the vine.  Feasting faith in Christ is how we feed our souls from the true life that he gives.    So let us make sure that we are indeed abiding in Christ by exercising a feasting faith! 

Divine Concurrence

God’s providence includes concurrence between what are called natural events, as well, as human actions and God’s acts.

Divine concurrence means that God directs and works through the particular properties and characteristics of the things, animals and people he has created while they work or fulfill their created functions that also have an impact or affect on their surroundings or environment.

Wayne Grudem writes: “A botanist can detail the factors that cause grass to grow and a meteorologist can give a complete explanation of factors that cause rain (humidity, temperature, atmospheric pressure…) Yet Scripture says that God causes the grass to grow and that God causes rain.   This shows us that it is incorrect for us to reason that if we know the ‘natural’ cause of something in this world, then God did not cause it.  Nor is it correct to think that events are partly caused by God and partly by factors in the created world.  If that were the case, then we would always be looking for some small feature of an event that we could not explain, and attribute that (say 1 percent of the cause) to God.  Rather (the Scriptures) affirm that such events are entirely caused by God.  Yet we know that (in another sense) they are entirely caused by factors in the creation as well.”[1]

God is at work fully behind the scenes (as it were) directing the grass to grow, the rain to fall, the earth to rotate around the sun, the free choices that people make while each thing, animal or person is functioning fully according to their created characteristics and properties.  It may be said that God is always the “primary cause” while the characteristics and functions of created entities are the “secondary causes” of all that transpires in this world. 

This is certainly the case with God’s dealing with people who are active in  carrying  out what they determine to do and in how they respond  to  various  circumstances  they  face,  (like  unplanned  for  occurrences  or  situations over which they have no control, i.e. the weather)  God  is nevertheless at work in and through all these things fulfilling his purposes.  This can be seen from the account of Joseph's life.

Whereas, Joseph's brothers acted out of hatred for him,  intending  to  do  him  harm  when  they  sold  him  into  slavery.  God was however, providentially concurring in and through their actions to fulfill his purposes.

In 1 Samuel 9, Saul and his servant go to look for two of his father's donkeys that are lost.  They were not successful and his servant suggests they go inquire of Samuel the man of God.   So  they go to see if  Samuel  could  tell  them  where  to  find  the donkeys.  This particular event and their choices were used by God to fulfill his purposes.  "They went up to the town and as they were entering it, there was Samuel, coming toward them on his way up to the high place. Now the day before Saul came the Lord had revealed this to Samuel: "About this time tomorrow I WILL SEND you a man from the land of Benjamin.   Anoint him leader over my people Israel; he will deliver my people from the hand of the Philistines.   I have looked upon my people, for their cry has reached me.'”

Saul was doing all he could to solve a problem he had.  God was, at the same time working in and through these events to send Saul to Samuel.

God's providential concurrence includes every day events and decisions we make.  This is certainly the point in the following verses:
  
In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9

A man's steps are directed by the Lord.  How then can anyone understand his own way? Proverbs 20:24

I know, O Lord, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.  Jeremiah 10:23

This is why James cautions us against being presumptuous when we make our plans.

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and  make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.”  James 4:13

Application

1. Affirm that God is even now working His plan

We need to see that despite the naturalistic and materialistic worldview of our secular culture God is intimately and purposefully working broadly and minutely in the universe and in and over human affairs.  Yet, at the same time, His providence cannot be easily or readily interpreted apart from a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and a humble dependence upon the teachings of God’s Word.

2. Give care in the reading of God’s providences in your life

God’s providence like his sovereign will is shaped by his wisdom and goodness but also his by justice and righteousness.  So we must never even in those dark providences of God charge him with evil or injustice toward us.  Nor must we necessarily read his abundant providences as marks of his favor on us because of our moral goodness.  It is also hard to interpret his work of providence by drawing such inferences from them.  The writers of inspired Scripture themselves struggled with this.  Job’s so called comforters were certain that the tragedies that God sent upon Job were due to his failure to confess his wickedness so they go to Job to urge him to be honest and confess.  We know from the story that they were wrong.   The writer of Psalm 73 complains to God that the unrighteous rather than God’s people always seem to prosper.  So God’s people will at times experiences those hard providences of God but not always and this is true also of unbelievers.  So we see that both good and ill come from God’s providential work.

Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord ordained it?  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?  Lamentations 3:37-38

So even now God is working to carry out blessings and judgments. 

3. Thus God’s sovereignty and providence should motivate us to truly fear him. 

We have all sinned against him.  God is speaking to us even in his providential dealings calling us to himself, as C.S. Lewis stated: “God whispers to us in our pleasures and shouts to us in our pain.”  Our culture basically has no tolerance for the true and living God.  Yet we must be very guarded against having this attitude infect our understanding of God’s dealing with us and with this world.  Rather we should fear Him but not run from him but rather fear him and flee to him seeking his mercy. 

God’s providence can be like the bitter water of Marah that the children of Israel encountered as Moses brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 15). It was undrinkable.  Yet they desperately needed that water.  Just as we need to come to terms with God’s providence.  What makes the providence of God a source of true comfort – what makes it drinkable as it were?   It is the Gospel of God’s grace.  The Gospel is like the tree that God showed Moses and had him throw into the bitter waters of Marah and the waters became sweet.  Thus the way to interact with God’s providences is to hold fast to Christ by believing the Gospel.

We can never be certain with God’s providences if we are experiencing his blessing or his judgments – both come from God in his providential dealings with people.  The only place we can go to discover the love and blessing of God for the undeserving is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Here is God’s love for the world expressed.  Here the message goes out that God is not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).   Only as we see our sin, only as we agree that we actually do deserve God’s just judgment, only as we are truly humbled by this and thus see why we need Christ and his sacrificial death will we come to know God’s love.  From the safety of the cross we can be assured that even when God sends those difficult and dark providences into our lives they are not marks of his judgment but signs of his working a deeper and necessary faith in our hearts.  Then we can take these texts to heart and strengthen our confidence in his Fatherly care and control over our lives. 

4. Thus, the only proper and safe lens through which to read God’s providence for you is the Gospel.

It is the truth of Scripture that only those who seek refuge in Jesus Christ as savior and find his cross their refuge from deserved judgment can be assured that God’s providences are designed for their good.  Apart from Christ they are not.  Apart from Christ even the welcomed providences of God only increase the ultimate judgment on those who remain in their rebellion against Him. 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good?  For those who are called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28

We only truly can love God if we see our need for the Gospel – as we embrace the call of Christ to believe on Him, we embrace God’s love for sinners.  We can only truly love him if we know that he first loves us.  Our love is reflexive of His love in the Gospel.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Jeremiah 29:11

We have no warrant to take this promise to ourselves unless we take it through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is true of this promise:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make straight your paths.  PRO 3:5-6

God is at work through his providence but it is the work he accomplished in Christ that enables us to embrace his providences in such a way that strengthens our faith which is good for our soul and which truly brings him glory.  


Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His holy will abideth;
I will be still whate’er He doth;
And follow where He guideth;
He is my God; though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me by the proper path:
I know He will not leave me.
I take, content, what He hath sent;
His hand can turn my griefs away,
And patiently I wait His day.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His loving thought attends me;
No poison can be in the cup
That my Physician sends me.
My God is true; each morn anew
I’ll trust His grace unending,
My life to Him commending.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He is my Friend and Father;
He suffers naught to do me harm,
Though many storms may gather,
Now I may know both joy and woe,
Some day I shall see clearly
That He hath loved me dearly.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Though now this cup, in drinking,
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it, all unshrinking.
My God is true; each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
And pain and sorrow shall depart.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to Him I leave it all.
By Samuel Rodigast


[1] Wayne Grudem – Bible Doctrine page 145

God's Providence

 
The sovereignty of God is His Lordship over all that He has created.    Because God is sovereign all things that occur in the universe do so ultimately by  His direction or permission. He works all things after the counsel of his will.   God’s sovereignty includes his eternal plan or counsel – what may be called his decrees and His work.  He carries out his plan through his works of creation, miracles and providence.

God’s sovereignty means he is both outside of, above and over all that He has created and remains self-sufficient and independent from all that He has created.  As the omnipotent and exalted (transcendent) Lord he has the inherent authority to govern the universe and the power to exert governing control over the universe.  Yet he is also intimately near and with all that He has made.  His authoritative and controlling presence is engaged in preserving and governing what he has created and this is what the Bible teaches concerning God’s providence. 

The Providence of God is God's personal involvement with his creation, whereby he sustains and preserves all that he has made, as well as, oversees (governs) the flow of history, guaranteeing that all events, including the free choices of human beings result in the ends that he has appointed.  Providence includes God's sustaining and preserving of what he has created.   He is separate from but involved in and with his creation.

You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.  Nehemiah 9:6

My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. Psalm 63:8

For in him we live and move and have our being.  Acts 17:28

He is before all things, and in him (Christ) all things hold together. Colossians 1:17

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:3

The Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof identified various ways in which God's providence is exercised:

1. His providence is exercised over the universe as a whole.

The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.  Psalm 103:19
        
God works out EVERYTHING in conformity with the purpose of his will...Epehesians 1:11

2. His providence is exercised over the physical world.

The order we experience in nature is not simply the result of natural laws established at creation and left to run on automatic. The order in nature is the result of God's superintendence of what he has made.

God’s providence is seen in his control over inanimate creation.  God causes such things as the wind, hail, snow and frost – even natural disasters as hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and ice storms and he is the one who causes the earth to flourish. 

He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.  He gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.  He hurls down his crystals or ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold?  He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.  Psalm 147:15-18  (See also Psalm 148:8; Job 37:6-13; 38:22-30,32; Job 38:12 ).

He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightning for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.  Psalm 135:7

He covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth, he makes grass to grow on the hills.  Psalm 147:8

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:45

3. His providence is exercised over the animal kingdom.

The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. Psalm 104:21

Speaking of the creatures of the ocean: “These look to you to give them their food in due season.  When you give it to them they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.  Psalm 104:27-28

He gives the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry.  Psalm 147:9

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  Matthew 10:29

4. His providence is exercised over a person’s birth and life including one’s free choices and plans.

Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16

But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man. Galatians 1:15

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. Proverbs16:9

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. Proverbs 19:21

5. His providence is exercised over what appears to be accidental or insignificant.

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Proverbs 16:33

And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Matthew 10:30

6. His providence is exercised in the protection of God's people.

I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8

He will not let your foot slip--he who watches over you will not slumber. Psalm 121:3

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God?’ Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might he increases strength.  Isiah 40:27-29

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

7. His providence is exercised in providing for our needs.

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  Deuteronomy 8:3

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19

Your Father who is in heaven…makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  Matthew 5:45

You cause the grass to grow for livestock and plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.  Psalm 104:14-15

8. God’s providence includes His sovereign rule over history seen especially in the affairs of nations. He rules over the affairs of kings, rulers and nations carrying out his plan for history.  Nations rise and fall at his command.
  
For dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.Psalm 22:26

The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. Psalm 103:19

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. Proverbs 21:1

He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them. Job 12:23

At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.  His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.  He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: "What have you done?" Daniel 4:34-35

He governs the nations of the earth carrying out his purposes through their rulers and policies.  See Isaiah 40, also the entire book of Esther is a subtle literary exposition of this doctrine.

Because God is sovereign and governs the earth and its nations, we should put our ultimate confidence in him and not in the power and might of nations.

From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth-- he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. Psalm 33:13

No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. Psalm 33:16-17

It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.  Psalm 118:8-9

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help. Psalm 146:3

The Triune God exercises His sovereign Lordship over all that He has created.  He governs all things and all people.   William Cowper who suffered from severe episodes of depression and was befriended and discipled by his pastor John Newton captured well the truth of God's providence in his hymn "God Moves In a Mysterious Way."

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 every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

The Gospel and God's Sovereignty

 
The grace of God is powerfully communicated to us in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul calls the Gospel the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16-17).  I want to begin by looking at the Bible verse the ESV study Bible calls the most famous summary of the Gospel in the entire Bible.  Of course that is John 3:16.  The reason to begin here is that we can really only embrace the sovereignty of God for our lives if we embrace the Lord Jesus Christ.  As we look at God’s sovereignty through the lens of the Gospel we begin to see just how wonderful it is that our God is indeed in the heavens and he does all that he pleases (Psalm 115:3).  The Gospel of grace enables us to rest in God’s control and not our own. 

God loved the world by giving his Son for the world.  Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so all those rebellious folk who had been bitten by the serpents God sent as a judgment for their sins might look up at that bronze replica of the very snakes that at injected them with their venom and live.  That bronze serpent was a type of Christ who was lifted up on the cross so that all who now look to him (believe in him) might not perish but have everlasting life. 

The word ‘world’ has to be understood in two senses.  First, it is set in contrast with the exclusive idea wrongly held by many in Jesus’ day that God only loved the people of Israel.  The world consists of all the Gentile peoples for whom God had raised up Abraham to be a blessing. (See Genesis 12:3 and Isaiah 49:6)  God’s love is for all people without distinction.  Second, the word ‘world’ is ethically colored in John’s writings.  It is the world system comprised of people who oppose God.  So we are told in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  Yet God loves the world!  He loves that which does not love him.  It might be expressed in this fashion: God loves the men and women of the world (and so should we) but God does not love the world of men and women (and neither should we).

So in loving the world and not just the people of Israel God demonstrates in one sense the universal nature of his love in that he loved all kinds of people without distinction.  But it also demonstrates the amazing grace of his love – in that he loved that which did not love him.  He loved his enemies. He loved the men and women of the world whose very hearts shape the values of the world, which in turn continues to contaminate the hearts of the men and women of the world.  He loved a rebellious world or the men and women of a rebellious world system.

We (apart from God’s grace) are part of this world.  The good news is that God loved the men and women of the world (Jew and Gentile alike) that he gave his Son.  Here is the free offer of the Gospel: whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.  Jesus is given by the Father and this means that he lived the life we could not live and he died the death that we all deserve.  Now the offer is this: come to Jesus and you will not perish (a reference to hell and judgment) but have everlasting life.  Jesus will not turn anyone away who acknowledges why he or she needs Him as  the rescuer and turns from their sin opening their heart in faith to receive him as their savior.  It is that simple and that wonderful. 

It is the Sovereign God who loved the world in this way by giving the world his Son and who now makes this offer of the Gospel to anyone who would want it.    What does it mean for God to be Sovereign?

A sovereign is a supreme ruler.  The Bible indeed reveals that the Creator God is the supreme ruler or governor of all that He has created. (1Timothy 6:15-16; Acts 4:24-31)

God’s sovereignty is seen in the Bible in the eternal plan or counsel of God and in his works.  Thus the Triune God planned his work and is even now working his plan.  God doesn’t act arbitrarily or whimsically. He doesn’t make up things as he goes along. He first established a wise and well considered plan by which he now is working.  He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass and by his providence and miraculous power preserves, governs and carries out all things according to his plan or purposed counsel.   

This plan of God is also referred to as God’s will, God’s purpose, God’s pleasure, (or what pleases God); God’s counsel and what God ordains.  (Ephesians 1:11; Revelation 4:11, Psalm 33:4-11, Isaiah 46:9-10, Lamentations 3:37-38, Hebrews 6:17, Job 23:13, Job 42:2, Isaiah 14:24, 26-27, Psalm 115:3, Psalm 135:5-6, Daniel 4:34-35).

God’s will is eternal – it precedes his work of creation and is the basis of that work. It encompasses all things. His will in unchangeable.  His will cannot be frustrated nor will it fail to be fulfilled.   God’s will of decree is different than God’s will of desire or preference.  God actually decrees many things which he disdains.  He permits His revealed will to be disobeyed and His name to be dishonored.   It is God’s will that we love him and one another yet we don’t.  So we need to make a distinction between God’s secret will of decree that foreordains all things and his preceptive or revealed will that tells us how we are to understand him, live before him and in relationship with one another.  (See Deuteronomy 29:29).

God’s secret will or counsel and God’s work in carrying out that will – what we can call God’s providence and his miracles govern all that comes to pass.   Yet we must not abstract God’s will and his work as he executes His will from His attributes of wisdom, knowledge, goodness and justice.  God’s secret will is the ultimate reason for all things.  Yet God’s will is not arbitrary.  There is indeed a great deal of mystery surrounding God’s will but this does not mean that God’s will is capricious.  God’s wisdom, knowledge, goodness and justice shape his plan and shape how he carries out this plan.  We who have come to trust in Jesus Christ for God’s promised salvation must also trust in the wise, good and just purposes of the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth.  So God has planned his work and he works his plan. 

Paul states clearly that God works out all things according to the counsel of is will.  His will of decree is what ultimately governs all things that occur and take place in all of God’s creation. God’s plan encompasses and governs the following:

Ø      the creation and the fall – which includes the introduction of sin and evil into God’s creation
Ø      nature: inanimate creation and animate creation i.e. animals
Ø      seemingly random or unimportant events
Ø      the affairs of nations and the flow of history
Ø      the various aspects of our lives from the smallest to the largest and this includes the plans we ourselves make 
Ø      the presence of evil and the schemes of the devil
Ø      Salvation
Ø      the final judgment
Ø      the ultimate consummation of all things

God’s sovereignty calls us to worship him.  It was the case with Paul.  When he concludes his section in Romans (chapters 9-11) where he sets forth the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in grace he worships God. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.  Romans 11:33-36

Only those who embrace the free offer of the Gospel and open their hearts to Jesus Christ as their savior will be moved to worship God for his sovereignty.  Likewise we can find great help from this teaching.  Isn’t it wonderful that he has ultimate control and not us?  Isn’t it wonderful that He is in charge and not us (we submit to his authority)?  Isn’t it wonderful that he is sovereignly present in our lives working out his purposes for us?  Isn't it wonderful that it was His sovereign will that His Son come into this world so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life?