Good Morning!
As the end of September is upon us and the cool weather of fall continues to make its presence known one of the many blessings that comes with that, outside of college football and too much pumpkin spice, is an opportunity to start thinking about the close of the year. October is as good a month as any to take stock of the year that has passed (and still has a quarter to go) and to begin to think through what 2022 holds. In October 2019 we held a planning meeting to get all the different groups at Bethany together to make sure we were all on the same page and had our calendars in order. Women of the Church, Appalachia, the Deacons, Christian Ed, etc... all made presentations as far as budget needs and what their proposals might be for their ministry labors for 2020. It was a helpful time for everyone to get a better idea of what we all did and how we could support one another’s work for the kingdom at our church.
The best laid plans of mice and men as the say.
Through that in our prayer and worship help today I want to talk a little bit about something I mentioned in the sermon on Sunday from Genesis 2:4-14. The 3rd Commandment of all the commands of the Ten is probably the most misunderstood and misused. A lot of folks think that it’s only about cussing. While Paul in Ephesians 5:4 says, “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking…” and James notes, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing? My brothers, these things ought not to be so” neither apostle has in mind violations of what the LORD wrote in the tables given to Moses. The concern is more about how Christians should be imitators of Jesus and live in light of their profession of faith. One’s tongue is the truth-teller of where the heart is. The 3rd Commandment is far more concerned about how we use the name of God and how we speak to God. What I was talking about as I preached was the tendency we have to imagine either “how things might have been” or to tell the Lord how the future is going to go. The older Puritan writers referred to this as “murmuring against Providence”.
Paul has a word for us from Philippians 2:14-16:
Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
The sin of grumbling before God’s will is when we sit around and wonder what life would have been if only we had done x or y or z, or if the Lord had only made us tall, or skinny, or broad-shouldered or whatever: I could have been this or that. God didn’t make you that because He had a purpose in making you who you are. Sometimes when we read Romans 9 for example and see the apostle wax eloquently about clay and bowls and cups and all that jazz we only think of it in the abstract, yet here we see the practical blessing of theology. Understanding that Jehovah God is the author of who we are, where we are, and what we are changes everything about how we live and move and have our being. There is such consolation and peace in being comfortable in how God made us. Because in doing so we confess our faith in the power and wisdom of the Lord. If He wanted me to play in the NBA He would have made me taller, but He didn’t to the praise of God’s eternal glory. If I was that tall I’d never played soccer at Shawnee State and met my lovely wife and had four wonderful children who make smile daily. What an awful past and future I would have experienced if it had not been for the mercy and goodness of God in making me who I am! Murmuring against the Lord’s providence is one of those transgressions of the 3rd Commandment that is not only a sin against Jehovah, but think for a moment how it affects everyone else in your life? It is truly the arrogant and selfish person who would wish calamity on others just so “things would be different” in ways that most certainly would be worse for all involved. It is a great mercy to our own souls, as well as those around us, when we rest in the providential acts of God not only in Creation, but in His ordaining of history for His glory.
For those of us who have lived more than five minutes we know the future is unpredictable. Not just in the sense of we no longer have the gift of prophecy, but there are so many variables and people involved in making decisions that affect us it would be foolish to even try to figure out what paths the prospects of time will take.
This is where the Lord’s grant of faith and hope comes in. It’s where the doctrine of providence really hits the road of life.
Going back to Paul once again he says in the book of Hebrews,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
This definition is one we are quite familiar with, but think about how it applies to what we’ve been talking about. The worlds were framed by the word of God. Just as He spoke creation into existence He has breathed life into your mouth after forming you of the dust of the ground, molding you in exactly the way He had planned from before the foundation of the world. How beautiful and wonderful is this truth! As you go about your day today and as you face challenges remember this from Psalm 139:
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.
God made you who you are, and He remade you in the image of His Son Jesus Christ despite your sinfulness. Who are you to grumble against His design? Be thankful for His providence and live in the peace of His purpose.
For today’s reading here is some more on this subject:
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/providence-of-god
As always if you need anything always feel free to give me a holler!
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church