Blog
“The Work of God Today”
Categories: Sermons
Sometimes, I think brethren tend to a kind of Christian deism. They talk like God did all of this amazing stuff thousands of years ago, but since the completion of the written word, He has backed off and left the world to its own devices. Now, there’s some truth to this. I don’t think any of us should expect to see miraculous signs today. However, it doesn’t consider all of the other things that aren’t miracles that God still does.
It’s important for Christians to understand this. I was talking to Billy Tanner a few weeks back, he suggested that we would all benefit from a study of the topic, and I agreed. By the way, as always, if you want teaching on some topic, let me know, and I’ll do my best to work it in. I envision four sermons in this series, one each for the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but I’d thought I’d kick things off by considering the works that all the persons of the Godhead are involved in. With this in mind, let’s look at the work of God today.
The first of these works that I want to examine is that GOD KNOWS US. Let’s read from Psalm 139:1-3. This is hard for our limited minds to understand. Because God is everywhere and knows everything, He constantly is with us, and He knows everything that we do, say, and even think. He knows us better than our parents. He knows us better than our spouses. He knows us better than anybody.
If we truly understand this, it can be a source of tremendous comfort for us. It means that if we need something, He knows all about our needs before we even ask. When we are in the middle of temptation, He is right there in the middle of it with us, and He surely will strengthen us if we ask Him. When we are lonely, we never truly are alone. When we spend years or decades fighting to do the right thing, even when it’s hard, He knows our struggles, and He is pleased with our desire to be faithful. When we are suffering, He is there to share and ease our pain. On and on and on—every blessing we can know comes from the presence of God in our lives.
Of course, these blessings are for the righteous, and if we are not living righteously, then God’s perfect understanding of us is a source not of comfort, but of terror. He sees the evil we do in public, but He also sees our secret sin. It is impossible for us to hide the tiniest trace of evil from Him. When Judas plotted to betray His Lord, Jesus knew it all. When Ananias and Sapphira lied to make themselves look good, they quickly found that they were lying not to men, but to the Holy Spirit.
It’s vital that we understand all this, because God’s perfect knowledge tells us everything we need to know about how we should live our lives. Do you want to go through life constantly being terrified because God is watching? Me neither! On the other hand, if we are willing only to live for Him, His presence will become the source of unfailing joy.
Second, GOD CALLS US TO HIMSELF. Here, let’s look at a familiar text, Acts 2:38-39. I want to focus, though, not on the baptism part, but on the promise-of-salvation-and-life part. Peter says that this promise is for those who are near, the Jews, and for those who are far off, the Gentiles. Indeed, the promise is for everyone whom God calls to Himself. Whom does God call? Everybody!
To me, this is one of the most beautiful things about Christianity. The expression of God’s love is universal. We could be a no-counter in the world’s eyes. Doesn’t matter. God loves us. We could be poor. Doesn’t matter. God loves us. We could be the most wretched, vile sinner under heaven. Doesn’t matter. God loves us.
That’s easy to say. I can tell somebody, “I love you,” yet have a heart filled with indifference and contempt. That’s not how the love of God is. Instead, He has proven His love for us by inviting us to live with Him forever. Jesus offered Himself to make that possible. I think the idea that the Bible is a love letter can be carried too far, but it is nonetheless true that everything that the Holy Spirit ever has revealed proclaims God’s love and the good news of His invitation to us.
This too is something that ought to change our lives once we understand it. The world assigns value to us and offers meaning to our lives only to the extent that we are useful. If you can hit a ball over a fence or shoot another ball through a hoop, the world will throw millions of dollars at you. Then, once your career is over, the world doesn’t care if you end up sleeping on a heating grate.
Not so with God. Every one of us is intrinsically precious in His sight. He wants all of us to live with Him so that He can cherish us for eternity, and that is the definitive statement of what a human being is worth.
Finally, HE INDWELLS US today. Turn with me to Romans 8:9-11. For some reason, discussion of indwelling tends to center around the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but this text makes it clear that all three persons of the Godhead are involved. In v. 9, we’ve got the Spirit of God, generally identified as the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of Christ. Then, in v. 11, we’ve got the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead, and that’s the Father. There are also plenty of other passages that talk about the Father and the Son abiding in us.
So. . . what does this mean? I think the key to understanding any kind of spiritual indwelling is to go back a chapter and look at Paul’s discussion of the indwelling of sin in Romans 7. When he says that sin indwelt him, he doesn’t mean that he had a little sin demon that lived inside his head. Instead, he means that sin dominated, controlled, and enslaved him.
That’s what the indwelling of the Spirit, whichever Spirit you pick, is about too. It is about God having control and dominion in our hearts. Everybody is either indwelt by sin or indwelt by God. There is no third way. One of the two is always going to be controlling us.
Obviously, one of the means that God uses to exert His influence and control is the word. Through the word, He instructs us in righteousness and motivates us to obey. Anyone who does not seek God in His word will not be indwelt by Him.
It may be that God operates on our hearts in other ways as well. For instance, in James 1, James promises that God will give us wisdom if we pray for it in faith. Is that prayer answered only as we study the word? I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t think the answer to the question is that important. So long as I can be confident that God will answer my prayers, I’m not concerned with how He does it.
