Our church-wide reading this week focused on the sovereignty of God over people. (pages 46-54)
Trusting God: Jerry Bridges
https://pastorjonbeck.com/reading-list/ (for more info about the book and how to order one for yourself)
Central Idea
God works in the hearts of people to move them to fulfill His purposes. Any treatment, good or bad, that we receive from another can be seen as part of God’s plan for us.
God Prompts People
How are we to respond when we find ourselves seemingly in the hands of someone else, when we desperately need a favorable decision or a favorable action on that person’s part? Can we trust God that He can and will work in the heart of that individual to bring about His plan for us?
Jerry Bridges, Trusting God (NavPres, 2023), 47.
Proverbs 21:1
The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. (ESV)
We can trust God. He does sovereignly intervene in the hearts of people so that they make decisions and carry out actions that accomplish His purpose for our lives. Yet God does this in such a way that these people make their decisions and carry out their plans by their own free and voluntary choices.
Jerry Bridges, Trusting God (NavPres, 2023), 47–48.
Ezra 1:1
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: (ESV)
God Restrains People
In fear of his own life, Abraham lied about his wife, Sarah, saying she was his sister. As a result Abimelech moved to take Sarah as his wife. God, however, kept Abimelech from carrying out his plan. He said to Abimelech, “So I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her” (Genesis 20:6).
Jerry Bridges, Trusting God (NavPres, 2023), 52.
God can restrain not only people’s actions, but even their most deeply rooted desires. No part of the human heart is impervious to God’s sovereign but mysterious control.
Jerry Bridges, Trusting God (NavPres, 2023), 54.
Truths To Consider:
The Bible acknowledges both God’s sovereignty and people’s freedom and moral responsibility, but it does not attempt to explain how they are related. This is because God is infinite in His ways and being, which surpasses human comprehension. There will always be mysteries about God that we cannot fully understand. The relationship between God’s sovereign will and human freedom and moral responsibility is one of these mysteries.