Viewing entries tagged
Providence

Breathtaking Moments

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Breathtaking Moments

As we begin Chapter 3, Solomon is going to press the argument he is making further by describing the activities of this God in our world. This is the key section in the entire book of Ecclesiastes, and it should be clear now that Solomon’s argument is not that everything is meaningless or futile - our striving may be futile, yes, but life itself cannot be, for God is, like a masterful conductor, setting every event and season of all of our lives together for his purpose. This is not the work of an absent, disinterested God, but of a God who is intimately involved in the day-to-day, moment-to-moment unfolding of our lives. And the key idea of this section - the answer Ecclesiastes gives to the problems of the breath and the dish is that: Every Moment of Our Lives is Appointed By God and Therefore, there is beauty to be found in the breath. 

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Providence and Reconciliation

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Providence and Reconciliation

We’ve seen that the great theme that runs through Joseph’s life is the providence of God. We’ve considered how the doctrine of providence is a comfort in suffering, as Joseph learned as his brothers sold him into slavery and he suffered through unjust imprisonment. We’ve considered how the doctrine of providence can allow us to keep our composure when everything in us screams payback, as Joseph was able to do when his brothers unknowingly presented themselves at his mercy, and he had the motive, power and opportunity to destroy them.  And today we are going to consider one more benefit to the reality of God’s providential rule of the universe - the doctrine of providence can provide for us fertile soil in which forgiveness and reconciliation can bloom. 

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Providence and Payback

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Providence and Payback

The life of Joseph is to teach us a great deal of the doctrine of divine providence. The moral of the story is repeated at the end of the book - what man intended for evil, God meant for good. Last week, the big idea was that the more clear our perception of God, the better equipped we are to interpret life events, and this is true in this case of understanding God’s providence. A few weeks ago, we explored together how the doctrine of God’s meticulous providence is a comfort in our trials and suffering. This week, as we look at this first interaction between Joseph and his brothers as they come before him in Egypt, I want to explore how an understanding and trust in God’s providence can restrain us from taking vengeance into our own hands, can protect us from being taken advantage of by wicked people, and can allow God room to work in the lives of ourselves and others. 

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Providence and Suffering

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Providence and Suffering

We’re starting this morning with perhaps not only a big question, but perhaps the biggest question - for many people, the only question that matters. Where is God in the face of evil and human suffering. Or as our upcoming Dig and Delve apologetics conference theme puts it this year: Life Hurts. God?

The problem is set in both emotional terms and philosophical terms. Emotional terms are what people faced this weekend. When you lose house or health or loved ones, you are not thinking in philosophical terms, you just want to know God, What’s up? Where are you? Why are you dong this? Just leave me alone! I hate you! That’s the emotional terms. To be honest, there is no good answer to the emotional terms. Time and healing are a start.

Then these are the philosophical terms: In the face of human suffering God cannot be present, good, and loving and all-powerful. If he is all-powerful, he cannot be loving or good, for he is not intervening to stop the hurt. If he loves us, then he must not be powerful enough to stop the hurt, or is not truly good. If he is good and powerful, than either he does not care enough to stop the hurt, or he is simply not there. To be honest, most modern Evangelical Christian answers do not address this question adequately, and we often give an answer that limits God’s power. Now we would never say that God is not all-powerful, for that would be explicitly against the faith that we have received. But we might say things like, God’s greatest desire is to love and be loved by his creatures, and so he submits or limits the working of his power and his divine will to preserve the freedom of our wills. This means that he will not, in fact cannot, override all the evil that occurs in the world. In other words, God is let off the hook in regards to the evil and suffering in the world because he desires human freedom over all things.  This is the most common answer given in the Western  church today - perhaps this is not surprising as our Western culture exalts radical individualism and human freedom over all things. Yet I do not believe that answer is particularly Biblical or helpful. I do not believe it to be Biblical, which I intend to demonstrate through this story of Joseph today. And I do not believe it to be particularly helpful. Imagine if that i the answer you have to cling to when your world falls apart and a tornado runs through your neighbourhood, or you are sexually assaulted, or you are accused of a crime you did not do. Does it help you to be told that since God desires to be loved by humans freely he lets us suffer as he does? God respects your autonomy enough to let your life be destroyed and the tears flow from your bed?

I believe that there is another answer to the problem of pain, and the answer is not that God is helpless in the face of human suffering, but that God actually providentially transforms our suffering to bring about our ultimate deliverance, to his own Glory and the magnification of his goodness, power, love and presence. 

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ONWARD: Good Cops/Bad Cops and God

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ONWARD: Good Cops/Bad Cops and God

These past few years have seen the role of law enforcement spark controversy in various communities. While African American communities have always had what could be charitably described as an “uneasy” relationship with government authorities, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin was significant, for as I observed last week, while there have been many eras throughout world history that could be characterized as an “age of rage” the internet has brought the rage home to many of us, almost to an overwhelming degree. After Trayvon there was Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and the hashtag, #BlackLivesMatters became a movement, and a polarizing one at that. Those who defended the police as those who are trying to do an impossible job, employed the counter hashtag #bluelivesmatter, and lines were drawn in the sand.

This all corresponded with the rise of Donald Trump, who promised to restore law and order in American cities as part of his pledge to make America Great Again, and after his unlikely victory protests erupted in various american cities, sometimes erupting in violence as we saw last month in Charlottesville between the Alt-Right and Antifa, and sometimes it seems that anarchy rules on the streets. If America is a boiling pot, there are times when the waters spill over into Canada. The alt-right is here. Antifa is here. The anarchists are here. the government is here.

I don’t bring this up today to be sensational or to try to preach from the newspapers. But only to state that there are serious questions being asked today about the legitimacy of government to enforce laws and the manner in which our governments in particular enforce the law, and as Christians we not only live in this nation under the law, but we work with and go to school with and drink coffee in the shop with people who either distrust or defend, or sometimes detest the government and law enforcement, and we get in conversations, in which people may ask us, what do you think, and so often our answer as Christians is, I try not to get involved in all that.

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