God’s Plan and Sovereignty

I had been wandering off spiritually, not praying, not reading the Word of God, just doing whatever I felt like doing. I felt guilty everytime, sometimes I just gave certain justifications and excuses to clear the guilt, and recently I forced myself to pray, read the Bible, and listen to a sermon.

I stumbled upon Rev. Stephen Tong’s sermon on youtube on Ephesians 1:5-9. I always searched for his sermons because somehow I felt most rebuked by his preaching (probably because it’s in Indonesian) and culturally closer to my experiences and situation.

He argued that most of the churches had been declining spiritually due to the fact that they focus too much on human’s experience of God, on the crystallization of the human experiences in the history that they failed to see through God’s eyes. Not only do we have to look near and far, but we have to look from top down (through God’s eyes).

Besides, what I think is really affirming is when he mentioned that there are four type of God’s Sovereignty:

1. God’s Eternal Plan

His unchanging plan which exists before the world, before the concept of time and space, before there are any creature besides God Himself. The plan that was in Him, in His eternity

2. God’s Control/Sovereignty in the history

God leads and controls whatever that happened in the history of mankind. It is more difficult for those from the Western part of the world to accept this fact since more often than not every single part of their lives are planned and organized very well. However, spiritual things go beyond man’s understandings.

One of the example he gave was about Jude, the author of the Book Jude in the Bible who originally wanted to write a book on God’s salvation works but God’s controling, God’s push and burden were so strong on him to write on the end of the world. This is because Paul at that time was already writing the Book of Romans, about God’s salvation works.

Therefore, we as Christians have to obey Him and be sensitive to His plans to be able to see God’s plan.

3. God allowing sins and unpleasant things.

This is clear where God allows human beings to not obey Him. Because at times, man is so daring to misuse his/her freedom that God gives them. God’s control and sovereignty is to give freedom to men and to allow them to act unpleasing to Him.

4. God giving the disobedient over to sins

As in Romans 1:26,28,30.

It is still under God’s power. And in God’s sight, these people who are given over to sins still have to be responsible to God, the Judge of this world. It is at this stage that people nowadays think that they are FREE, that God does not exist, but sadly, they are just in a stage, very slippery slope towards eternal death.

One very rebuking point to me, who complains a lot about God, to God when I was faced with a small bitty bit of problem and difficulty is this:

Be grateful to God who still meddle in our lives. Giving us hindrance, difficulties, pain, waking us up to the fact that we’re wrong because we, human beings, are just too dangerous to be left with freedom and without any obstacles because in our smoothness of life, we sleep spiritually, we pride ourselves, and slowly leaving God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that if we’re sitting in a very comfortable chair, it is rare for us to not be drowsy.

A sleeping spirituality is even worse than animals.

God wakes us up by whipping us, giving us failure, to remind us that we are human beings, limited creatures who can’t do anything without Him.

Rev. Tong, then, cried out with these two sentences that had so far been stamped firm in my heart. He asked us to tell God that

“I’d rather be in Your hands, to go through difficulties, than to be in Satan’s hand and be prosperous.

I’d rather be under Your teachings, guide us, O Lord so that we can be perfect, than to be free to do whatever I want but blinded by Satan in his plan”

It is true that sometimes God gives us something so beautiful, something we can be proud of, something so secure, OUR DREAMS and suddenly take them away to tell us that we have misused those things or that we are not the OWNERS of those things. And at those times, we just cry, angry, and are disappointed at Him. Maybe we started telling Him, “Why did you do this to me, God? I hate you, I don’t trust you anymore”

It’s exactly at those times, God will say

“I don’t care about you trusting me or not, but you have to care about WHY I DESTROYED YOUR DREAMS”

“You are pained by your lost of worldly things? I am pained because I lost you”

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