After laying some foundational truths about God from Scripture in chapters 1 – 3, namely His love, goodness, and providence pointing ultimately to His sovereignty, Bridges, in this chapter, and for the next few chapters communicates the scope of God’s sovereignty.  This chapter deals specifically with God’s sovereignty over people.  This great doctrine is not short of any static. The long standing and controversial conversation goes like this:  (a) If God is completely sovereign, then we are not free morally responsible beings.  (b) If we are free morally responsible beings, then God is not completely sovereign.

Bridges answers this wrong thinking from Scripture showing us that God is indeed sovereign over people, yet man is culpable for His decisions.  But there is one underlying issue that Bridges doesn’t let us forget when we are thinking about this subject – God’s will being accomplished.  We err when we isolate our circumstances (joys and pains) from God’s purpose to conform us to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29) and work all things for His glory (Rom. 11:36), which is why all things exist.

Bridges shows us that:

1. God prompts people to carry out His will. (Ex. 3:21-22, Eze. 1:1, 1:5, 6:22, Dan. 1:9)
2. God often restrains people from doing what is contrary to His will. (Gen 20:1-6, 35:5, Ex. 34:23-24)
3. Sometime God doesn’t restrain evil, but turns those evil and wicked acts to work for His people’s good and His glory. (Gen. 50:15-20, Isa. 53)

Bridges also reminds us, that the sinful acts of men don’t have their origin in God. (James 1:13:14)

Thoughts and Questions for Reflection

 I applaud Bridges for helping the reader see that all right thinking and living must start with a right thinking of the character, nature and revealed purposes of God.  Too often our default thinking and living is self-centered, comfort driven and “right now”, instead of God-centered and eternal.

• After reading this chapter, has your view of God’s sovereignty changed?
• How has this chapter benefitted you as you consider the circumstances of your life – past or present?
• Are you comforted knowing that God, at times, changes the hearts of men (even yours) to accomplish His will?

Chapter 3

We can summarize this chapter in three key statements:

1. God does whatever pleases him.
2. God exercises absolute control over the actions of all his creatures.
3. God’s sovereignty is not always apparent.

Thoughts for Reflection

This chapter raises a few questions that I think we’ll explore in greater detail later on. But for the time being, we can probably see how #3 above is one piece of the puzzle that throws a wrench in the other two. (Pardon my mixed metaphors.)

I mean, it’s a lot easier to believe that God’s sovereign control is for his glory and our good—even when bad things happen—if we can see immediately how the bad thing contributes positively to good in the end. But you know that’s not how life works, and that’s why we’re reading a book about “trusting God.”

Trusting God means that we choose to believe that God IS in control and his plans ARE good, even when we can’t see the end of the story. That’s why Bridges points us to the divergent ends of the stories of Peter and James in Acts 12. Trusting God means believing his plans are wise and good, even when your husband (or parent or child) dies.

It’s also one of the reasons we get a bird’s-eye view of lots of other stories that actually end well—Job, Joseph, Daniel, Esther, Ruth—even when those characters didn’t know in the middle of the story how it would all end. The Spirit of God, speaking through human authors, was conditioning us to see how God acts in history, so we can respond with faith now, even though we can’t see the particular from the vantage point of the present.

Some Questions for Further Reflection

1. How should we think and speak about the plans we make, in light of the reality that God is sovereign over them?

2. What events in our past are most difficult for us to believe God was sovereign over? If we think there’s no way he can accomplish his glory and our good through them, what are we NOT believing about him?

3. What does Bridges mean when he writes, “Trusting God is not a matter of my feelings but of my will” (52)? Are you the kind of person who’s inclined to be ruled by your feelings? What sorts of lies about God can they lead you to believe?

4. Bridges argues, “Our first priority in times of adversity is to honor and glorify God by trusting him” (52). I think he means here that we have to prioritize God’s agenda over our own. What do we have to believe about God’s agenda in order to do this?

5. (Bonus) Does God care if Tim Tebow or Jeremy Lin play well and win games? Here’s a little something more to read if you’re interested.

(EDIT 2/9/12: We are experiencing some technical problems with the emailing of these posts. As a result, some of you mistakenly received an old post from our Counterfeit Gods reading.  We’ve also seen delays in the sending of current posts.  If you’re reading this in an email you probably received it a day or two late. We hope to have this resolved soon!)

By Bob Perez

Chapter 1 and 2

Today begins our discussion of our next book, Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. We’re looking at chapter 1 and 2.

The book’s first chapter, Can You Trust God?, begins by introducing the foundational idea that adversity and pain affects us all, Christians and non-Christians alike.  No matter how big or small, whether on a large scale or at a personal level, we all experience varying kinds and magnitudes of adversity or “anxiety producing events”. The question that invariably comes up, especially when the suffering is severe, is “Where is God in all of this?”  The idea being, how we will view God in the midst of our suffering?  More precisely, and the main point of the chapter, Bridges asks ¨Can you trust God?”.  He provides three essential truths about God from Scripture (that will be elaborated on in the rest of the book) that we must believe if we are to trust Him in adversity:

1. God is completely sovereign
2. God is infinite in wisdom
3. God is perfect in love

Chapter 2 discusses the providence of God. Namely the relationship of God’s sovereignty and goodness and how that relates to the care, superintending and interaction with all that He’s created. Bridges gives us his definition of providence: God’s providence is His constant care for and His absolute rule over all His creation for His own glory and the good of His people.

 Thoughts for Reflection

Bridges says that it is just as important to trust God as it is to obey Him. Why is this so?

Think back to a recent time when you experienced significant adversity or trial in your life. Were you able to trust God in the midst of it? If so, what did that look like, how did that play out?  If not, why? What role did God’s Word play?  What role did fellow believers fill in enabling you to trust God at that time?

Bridges states that “Rather than being offended over the Bible’s assertion of God’s sovereignty in both good and calamity, believers should be comforted by it¨.  He cites Isaiah 38:17 and Lamentations 3:32-33.  Why is it that we may fail to find comfort in God’s sovereignty in difficult situations? Specifically, what lies do we tell ourselves at these moments?  How does unbelief manifest itself?

Based on the fact that God is God and we are not, there are things that we are simply not able to understand (Romans 11:33). His infinite wisdom far outpaces our ability to understand.  When we encounter adversity, especially of the extreme kind, we won’t always understand why. We must learn to trust God in spite of this.  How often do we sin in our insistence on understanding in these situations?

Bridges says that the twofold objective of God’s providence is His own glory and the good of His people, and that these are not opposed to each other but always in harmony.  Do we understand this relationship? Is this comforting when we are going through trials? Can we point to scripture to support this harmonious relationship between God’s glory and our good?

Matthew 10:29-31 is one very obvious place in Scripture that rules out deism. Christians however can function as deists due to faulty thinking.  Read this passage and meditate on the weight of the reality of God’s sovereign care over His creation. Do we grasp how much more He sovereignly cares for, governs the affairs of, His children who were bought by the blood of Christ?

We serve an all-powerful, infinitely wise, perfectly loving God who delights in bringing glorify to Himself and good to His people! We can and should trust Him!

When

February 6, 2012
6:00 – 7:00 pm

Where

High Pointe Baptist Church
Livingston Room