Acts 17:24-28
If you would please turn in your
copy of God’s Word, it’s listed in the bulletin, Acts 17, in
a whole bunch of verses. But we’re going to read verses
24, I believe through verse 28. So Acts chapter 17, verses 24
through 28. In a few moments, we’ll read
before we read, we want to pray, but let me mention next week.
We’ll look at the whole passage, the whole context of Paul making
his way to Athens, Paul finding common ground with the. the philosophers
and those discussing the new things of the day and how he
introduces them to the God that he knows and loves, the God that
met him on the road to Damascus. But today I want us to think
about the doctrine of providence from these few verses. And before
we read, let’s turn again to God in prayer. Pray with me.
Lord, we give you thanks that you have not left yourself without
witness in this world. We understand that the world
and everything in it shows your wisdom and your power, your creativity
and your glory. But it takes your word. It takes
your revelation to make the way of salvation through Jesus Christ
known to man. And we thank you that you have
preserved copies of your word, copies of the pages from the
pens of holy men of old who were carried along by your Holy Spirit.
And we thank you that you preserve these, and we have them in our
laps, in our language, on our telephones. And most importantly,
we have it in our hearts. And so we pray now that in these
moments, the words of your scripture would be recognized by all of
us as from you. And we pray that you would use
the words from my mouth to make known the words of God to these,
your servants. We pray it in Christ’s name,
amen. This is the word of the living
God. Chapter 17 of Acts in verse 24, it says, the God who made
the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth
does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human
hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all
mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every
nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having
determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling
place, that they should seek God and the hope that they might
feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually
not far from each one of us, for in him we live, move, and
have our being. Amen. The word of the living
God. I think if you turned on your
television this morning and made a quick gander at the headlines,
or maybe some of you still pick up the daily paper out at the
end of the sidewalk, maybe you had your car radio on the way
here, you heard the bits and pieces of the news stories. I
won’t name these stories. They probably bring terrifying
images to our minds and hearts, but we know what’s going on in
Ukraine. taking place in this part of
the world, that part of the world. I’m sure you all watch your retirement
accounts. You wonder about who will be
the next president. You think about a doctor’s visit on Tuesday
and what news that will bring. We received this weekend a prayer
request from our kids’ school. One of the children has something
serious, but they don’t know what. My family has just observed
the death of our loved one. And on and on, we could list
these hardships, examples from the news, our own church body,
our own lives. And one of the things that I
think we have to grapple with as Christians is what we call
the intersection of real life and true theology. What do we
do when life comes at us fast, as the TV commercial says? Isn’t
that the Nationwide or something commercial? Life comes at you
very fast. Better have your Nationwide.
No, life comes at you very fast. You better have your theology.
That’s the commercial, isn’t it? At least that’s the one that
will come to you today. Life comes at you quick. You
better have your beliefs straight. And so as we think through the
biblical and theological truth of the doctrine of the providence
of God, it will help us better answer the questions like why,
or where are you God? I thought you loved me. I thought you were good. I thought
you were in control. Now we know the world’s answers.
They’re key words like chance, right? By chance, it happened.
By coincidence, it happened. It was fate. Or maybe we’ve heard
of Rabbi Kushner, who wrote the book, When Bad Things Happen
to Good People. And you know us good biblical theologians,
we straighten that out. Bad things don’t happen to good
people. There are no good people, except one, Jesus, right? But
the premise was God exists. But he’s not in control because
bad things happen. Bad things happen because God
is unable to do in the mix of tragedies, those sorts of things.
Maybe you’ve been to the funeral of a child. Tragic loss at a
young age, life snuffed out a little too early, and a well-meaning
preacher gets up and says, well, God’s hands were tied. He would
have been there if he could have been. You’ve probably heard that
in our American Christian culture. I think what we’ll see from the
scripture today, that is never the case. Brothers and sisters,
God’s hands are never tied. If God’s hands were tied, I wouldn’t
want to serve him. And I’d pick a more lucrative
career. It’s a tough thing for us to have the intersection of
real life events and our biblical theology. And so I think we’ll
take a look at this today and see how the scriptures root us
in truth, and maybe even more importantly, root us in the character
of God. First, I want us to think about
a definition of the providence of God. Providence is a strange
word, but it ought to be a word that’s on our lips every day.
You know, in a couple of Fridays, I think it is, Did I wear my
green tie? I can’t see. There it is, yes. What do we wear on the 17th?
Green, why? But it’s so you won’t get pinched.
See, George is already ready too. We have so much pain from
before we get ready in advance. But what’s the idea? Irish brings
good luck. Right, I’m Irish. My family came
over 100 years ago. But I don’t believe in luck.
I hope you don’t. I believe in the providence of God and our
catechism defines it so well. The providence of God is defined
as God’s most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving all his
creature, preserving and governing all his creatures. and all their
actions. Now I know that brings up a whole
load of questions like the problem of evil, the problem of pain,
is God the author of sin and you’ve gotta come to men’s lunch?
Or to the ladies confession of faith Bible study to get that
figured out. That’s my plug, but not this Wednesday for the
ladies. God’s providence, his most holy, wise, powerful, preserving
and governing all his creatures and all their actions. Couldn’t
you sleep at night You can get a good night’s sleep with that
on your brain. Because sometimes in this life,
all we have is truth. Sometimes in this life, all we
have is the knowledge of the character of God told to us through
the pages of scripture. And it causes us to throw away
words like chance and fate and luck and, well, God’s hands were
tied and all the sorts of things we hear in the world today. And
we’re comforted with the truth of the scripture. God is at work
directing the universe. God is at work directing the
affairs of men. God is at work directing the
hearts of all mankind. God is at work among his righteous
and even among the unrighteous. And you flip the news channel
on, and you start to wring your hands and say, are we going to
go to war with China? Are we going to go to war with
Russia? Is there going to be World War III? And we wring our hands,
and then we pull up our stock account and say, am I going to
be the Walmart greeter? We wonder, are we going to run
out of money? We go to the doctor on a Tuesday, and we start web
MDing it. Right. Self-diagnosing. And we
come up before we even go to the doctor. I’ve got 80 things
I could have. And then we go to the doctor
and he says, you’re healthy as a horse. But we cause ourselves so much
undue pain. And so it’s good for us to have
this doctrine of the providence of God in our minds. God’s providence
is his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all
his creatures and all their actions. And you’re probably saying in
your head, he’s quoting the catechism, how about the Bible? Well, let’s
think about examples of God’s providence in the Bible. Presbyterians
have this tradition that we’re easing back to in the life of
our church of singing the Psalms. Psalm 121 is well-known among
old Presbyterian traditions as the traveling song. I lift my
eyes, up to the hills. Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. You know, we get in our cars
today with airbags and lane departure warnings. We get in our cars
with front end sensors that tell us if we’re looking at our phones
and following too closely. We get in our cars with all these
safety features and it’s almost idiot proof in some ways. You
know, we have these frames that are made now to crumple the right
way under impact. But you think about a family
that loaded up their horse and their buggy with all their life’s
possessions and went off on a journey. Didn’t know what would come to
them on the side of the road. No AAA, no cracker barrel. How do people do it? No wayside stations. And so as
a family would, in that church tradition, get ready to leave,
they would gather and sing the 121st. I lift my eyes up to the
hills. Where does my help come from?
It comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. We
all know the story of Joseph. Joseph was the bratty, beloved
young son of Jacob. He dreamed dreams. Oh, I dreamed
that you, my brothers, would one day bow down to me. And then
his father, and they already hated him. You Wednesday nighters,
we studied this a few months ago. They hated him really badly
already. But that coat of many colors.
Oh, it said daddy’s favorite boy across it, right? They hated
him with such a hatred. They couldn’t hate him any more
than they did. And they put him in a pit and
we’re gonna kill him. And one of the brothers said,
no, we can’t do that. So they sold him to the Midianite traders. He ends up in Egypt. God was
sending him before the famine and through all his trials and
tribulations, all the betrayal of his family, all the missing
of the moments of life back in the promised land, he finally
makes his way to be the steward over Egypt and seven years of
good times He prepared for seven years of famine, and God, through
Joseph, fed the entire face of the earth. And remember when
the brothers had just left the father’s funeral, and they said
to themselves, as they often did, this is the day Joseph will
take out his anger upon us. And they go to him and they make
up some cockamamie story about what dad said to do, and he said,
you know what, brothers? What you meant for evil, God,
has meant for good, the providence of God. And then there’s Esther
who rose up, as she says in her own words, for such a time as
this. She had the king’s ear. And when it came known to her
through her ancestor who was looking over her, that Haman
was going to exterminate the Jewish population in that foreign
nation where they had been deported. She was able to speak into those
words into the ear of the king. Haman was hanged on his own gallows
and the Jews were saved through Esther, who was born for such
a time as this. And you think of other stories
like Job. Job suffered the greatest of
any patriarch in the history of God’s people. And it was all
under God’s sovereignty. You remember every day Satan
had to come report to God, where have you been? I’ve been, well,
a little of this, a little of that. Have you considered my
servant Job? Yeah, he only serves you because
you give him stuff. Sort of the gist of it, isn’t it? God says,
fine, take everything but his life. And so Satan did. And Job
still worships God because he believed that everything is from
God’s hand, whether good or whether bad. And Satan goes back up into
the court of the heavenlies and he answers to God, where you
been? Well, rambling about. Have you considered my servant
Job? Yeah, he loves you because you give him stuff. Well, take
everything but his life. Give him the worst boils, give
him the worst of whatever, and Satan does that. And we see it
for about 38 chapters, Job wrestling with the why question, with the
what question, with the do you love me question, are you good,
God question. He wrestles with who’s in control,
who’s at the helm. And after about 38 chapters,
and if you’ve read through Job, it’s a workout. God thumps him
on the head time after time after time with, I am God and you are
not. I am creator, you are creature. I threw the stars into the galaxies
and you can hardly count them all. And so in this divine brow
beating that God gives to Job, we learn of the doctrine of the
providence of God, just as we do in the life of Esther and
the life of Joseph. And then we get into Jesus teaching
the Sermon on the Mount. Are you not more valuable than
the sparrows? Solomon in all his splendor was
arrayed better than the lilies of the field. I know when a sparrow
falls from the earth and he says, I even know the number of the
hairs on your head. That’s why every fourth or fifth
Sunday or so. And at yesterday’s funeral, we
use that Heidelberg catechism. What is my only comfort in life
and in death? Only comfort, not one of the
10, not one of the top five. What is your only comfort? It’s
that I belong to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ. He has
bought me with his precious blood. Not a hair can fall from my head
without it being the will of my heavenly father. God’s works
of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving
and governing all his creatures and all their actions. We see
it in the Psalm 121, traveling Psalm. We see it in Joseph. We
see it in Esther. We see it in Job. It’s in Jesus’
teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and in Paul in the book
of Romans. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.
over and over gives account of the sovereignty of God, the governing
work of God, the hand of God. You know, this, this word providence,
if you break it apart, pro you language folks pro means before
or first. And then the, the, the video
sounding word to see God’s God sees he knows he’s, he’s at work
in human history. And I think this is most clearly
on display in the life of Jesus Christ. We get to the book of
Acts where the risen Christ is in the upper room with his disciples
for about 40 days. He’s given them how to do church
planting 101. And then the day of Pentecost
comes. Jesus has already ascended up
into heaven where he’s seated at the right hand of God. He’s
ruling and reigning over his people from the throne of glory
through the apostles and prophets and now ministers. and elders
of the church. But the day of Pentecost comes,
the spirit comes on them. They go into all the world, preaching
the gospel in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of
the earth. And we’ve made it now through in our study of Acts,
most of Paul’s second missionary journey, he’s made it into Europe. And Paul says, or rather Peter
says at the beginning of the book of Acts, When the Jewish
authorities are questioning them in the temple, who is this you’re
speaking of? Why are you doing this? You’re not supposed to
be here. This is the job of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin.
This is the job of everybody, but you, you need to get out
of the temple. And Peter stands up and gives a speech and he
accuses them of putting to death the Lord of glory. He, he, he
puts it before them. He indicts them of killing Jesus. But he puts an important phrase
in there. He says it was according to the definite plan. It was
according to the foreknowledge of God that Judas betrayed him. It was according to the definite
plan and foreknowledge of God that the leaders offered the
40 pieces of silver. It was according to the definite
plan and foreknowledge of God that the people would rise up
and say, crucify, crucify, give us Barabbas, put this Jesus to
death. It was the definite plan and
foreknowledge of God that Pontius Pilate and Herod and all the
evil men of that day would wash their hands of Jesus and say,
you do with him as you wish. And it was the definite plan
and foreknowledge of God that one man would go to a cross to
take the sins that we received from Adam and to bear them and
to bear the full wrath and punishment for those sins on that cross
so that we might rise in his resurrection to eternal life. Brothers and sisters, the providence
of God meets at the cross. And so when you’re at the doctor’s
office or you’re watching the news and wondering about China,
you’re looking at your brokerage account and saying, do I have
more years of life than I do money? Or you’re seeing the price
of your grocery bill or whatever it is that worries you. You think
about the cross and how God always has a perfect plan. God always
has a perfect way. God always has a perfect end.
God does not leave out any of the details, not a single one.
You know, one of the things I used to text to my mom fairly often,
she would, in her sickness, be trapped in that body, that sick
body. And I would remind her of R.C. Sproul, no maverick molecules. No maverick molecules, not even
a one, not one has gotten loose in her body or your body. Not
one has gotten loose in the governing powers of this world. Not one,
not one thing has gotten loose that God is not in control of. And the real question is, do
you believe this God who governs this way? who preserves this
way. And yes, he lets you go through
dangers and toils and snares. It’s for his glory, it’s for
your good. But do you believe in that God? Otherwise, you’re
fashioning an idol. You know, in the American church,
when we hear people, they pat us on the head and say, well,
God, I wish God had been there, or his hands were tied. You know,
we get patted on the head with really dumb things in the American
church. It’s Christianese, isn’t it?
Pat people on the head with the Bible. and with the true words
of the gospel and the true words of the reality of who God is
and what he’s done. You know, back during the World
War, there was an evening newscast and the newscaster would sign
off every night, good night and good luck. That’s not a way to
think, is it? That’s not a way to believe,
but it is very common for people to use the word luck or coincidence,
or it’s a crapshoot, or it’s a gamble. Or I love this one,
the bumper sticker. God is my co-pilot. You poor
soul. You need to switch seats. And
he doesn’t need a co-pilot. Aren’t we grateful God is at
the helm? We do not have to wring our hands
and say perhaps, or maybe, or if only, or I shoulda, woulda,
coulda. Every moment of every day, every action is tailor-made
by the hand of God to bring about His glory and your everlasting
good. And if you don’t believe that,
run it through the cross. where according to the definite
plan and foreknowledge of God, he was in his most holy, wise
and powerful way, preserving and governing all his creatures
and all their actions for the salvation of his children. What a great blessing it is to
know that. May we treasure these things in our hearts. Do pray
with me. Lord, as we approach your holy
table of communion, as we will hold in our hands the emblems
of your suffering, the emblems of your death, your torture,
your hardship, your pain, your torment, the weight of the wrath
of God due to us for sin that came to you. Help us to glory
in you, God, and your good, gracious, wise, and holy plan. We thank
you that our hairs are known, the birds are known, The flowers
show us how caring and gracious you are. But Lord, let the blood
and let the body show us how much you love us. You love us
with an everlasting love that will never, ever let us go. And
we thank you for this and bless you for this truth in the name
of Christ, our Savior. Amen.