Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
1. 1 Corinthians 1. I had some time this week to
really sit and do some thinking, and after all of my thinking
was thought, after all my thinking was thunk, this is the conclusion I came
to. The Lord's ways are not our ways. The Lord's ways really are not
our ways. God is sovereign. I'm about to say some things
that we know and have forgotten, and I'm about to remind us of
them, and then we are going to forget them by halfway into this
Bible study. And so I'll remind them to us
again at that point, okay? God is sovereign. We know that. We do know that. We forget it all the time, but
we know that. God controls everything. Sovereign means sole reign. The only one in control. He controls everything. You know
the scripture says that a hare can't fall out of a head unless
God gives it permission first. It says a bird can't fall on
the ground unless God gives it permission first. The wind follows his flight path. You know Job, you read the book
of Job where he's having this conversation with God and God's
saying, where were you when I did all these things? Can you make
the lightning say, here I am? God can and he does. All of these things, the sea
rages or is calm according to his command. Well, now that's
the wind doing that. Well, who controls the wind?
Well, you know, that's the moon. Well, who controls the moon? We're having all this snow this
year, it's a big year for snow. Think about all the snow everywhere. You know there are no two snowflakes
alike. Well it just happens that way.
No, God makes them to be that way. Every individual snowflake
is created by him. God is sovereignly in control
of everything. Nothing happens outside of his
predetermined counsel and foreknowledge. He works all things after the
counsel of his own will. Do you know that the scripture
says even our very steps are ordered by God? I love the account of when David,
this is in 2 Samuel 16, David was traveling with his men, he
was traveling with his soldiers and they were traveling by a
ravine, a mountain, something like that. And there was a guy
up on that hill throwing rocks at David and cursing him. And they were traveling along
and he was just going right with them. And he just kept throwing
rocks and cursing David. And one of David's captains said,
he said, who is this dog that he would curse my Lord the King? He said, let me go up there and
take his head off. Give me just a second, I'll be
right back. And this is what David said, and think about this.
David said, no. The Lord said to him, Curse David. Don't do it. The Lord said to
him, curse David. He said it could be the Lord
means good to me through his cursing. That's something, isn't it? That's
something, isn't it? Everything and everyone goes
the way that he wants it or them to go. Knowing that is what makes some
things so puzzling to us when they don't go the way we think
they ought to go. Knowing that he is the cause
of everything, it makes us wonder sometimes, why did that go the
way it went? You know, that's not how I would
have done it. That's just not how I would have
done it. It's not the outcome I would
have chosen. Why did that happen? That's really what 1 Corinthians
1 is talking about. God's ways are nothing like our
ways. What you would naturally think
he would acknowledge as wisdom, that's not what he acknowledges
to be wise. what you would naturally think
he would choose. That's not what he chooses, who you naturally would think
that he would call. That's not who he calls. He does nothing according to
how man would do it. Nothing. Look at first Corinthians
one verse 18. It says, For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it
is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Where is the wise, where is the
scribe, where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews
require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach
Christ crucified. Unto the Jews a stumbling block,
unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called
both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom
of God. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise. And God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.
and base things of the world, and things which are despised
hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to nothing
things that are." Why? Why would he do it like that?
Verse 29 gives us the answer, that no flesh should glory in
his presence. When things go the way we think
they ought to go, and this is so true, all right, this is so
true. It's just so true. I want us
to really get a hold of this because we need to acknowledge
him. where we need to come with all of this. We need to acknowledge
Him, okay? When things go the way that we
think they ought to go, we try to give our hand some of the
credit for how it went. All right, let me say that again.
When things go the way we think they ought to go. All right,
that's how I thought it ought to go, so that's how I did it.
When things go the way we think things ought to go, we try to
give our hand some of the credit in how it went. If everything
went the way we thought it should go, we would start to think that
we were ordering and reigning over the things in our lives. But when we're stopped in our
tracks and we're left with nothing else to say but, it's the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. That's the moment that the glory
has nowhere to go but to him. That really is the moment. This
has been an interesting month for me. This has been a very
interesting month for me. I was supposed to go to Danville,
Kentucky on Sunday, January the 5th. That was three Sundays ago. I was going to preach for them
that morning and then I was going to go to Lexington, Kentucky
that evening to give a information service on our Africa trip. And the Lord God Almighty sent a major snowstorm and stopped
me from going. And I understand that his purposes
were much greater than little old me, but that's one of the
things that happened. He stopped me from going. And
then brother Angus was here last Sunday, the 12th. He ended up having to come here
early. because he had a whole itinerary
that just got completely messed up by another snowstorm. Everything just completely got
all out of whack for him. There were people he was going
to go see that he didn't see. There was places he was going
to go that he didn't go. And then we had a TV broadcast
taping Tuesday morning about 10 minutes in on one of them.
The battery on the camera just died. I mean, just like we had
to buy a new battery. It just died. Brandon, I was bringing my message,
and Brandon just, everything just died. See you later. I went home. Then I woke up Wednesday sick. Angus flew to Florida. Hannah brought him to the airport
and he flew to Orlando for the conference, which is the whole
reason why he came to the States. He was supposed to preach for
Greg that night. They were going to have a regular
Wednesday service. They canceled their service after
the conference. We cancel ours before the conference.
But he was going to preach for Greg and then he didn't because
he wasn't feeling right. He ended up getting sick. So
sick, he missed the conference. He's in a hotel room in Orlando,
Florida right now, sick as a dog. I don't think he has the flu.
He has something else. He came all the way from Australia.
All right, now, let's rewind a minute. God is sovereign. All right,
who is controlling all these things? Who controls germs? Who controls germs? Who controls
circumstances? Who controls...I mean, really? All right, let
me back up and continue this a little bit, okay? Wednesday,
I woke up sick. I couldn't preach. Even though
I already had a message prepared to bring to you that night, I
was already finished studying. I had a message prepared from
Psalm 86. So I woke up sick, I sent a group
text out to the men who preach here, and I told them, man, I
know it's last minute, I'm just gonna cancel the service. I do
not want you to feel pressure. You're all working. It's okay,
I just can't do it. I'm gonna, early afternoon, announce
the cancellation. If the Lord lays something on
one of your hearts, let me know, but I'll just cancel. Luke gets
in touch with me and he said, I believe the Lord's laid something
on my heart. I said, great. At 7 p.m. I turned the streaming
on. Luke said, the message is gonna come from Psalm 86. Obi
got up and read Psalm 86 as a scripture and I thought, well, that's interesting.
Luke got up after him and said, go back to Psalm 86. Same Psalm I was gonna preach
to you from. And I thought, well, they were
meant to hear Psalm 86 tonight, just not for me. But if we stop for a second and
really think about our God's absolute sovereign control over
everything, everything. We can't help but wonder, you
know, I can't help but wonder why would he let me work for
a whole day on Psalm 86, believing it was the message to the point.
I finished all the notes. I can't tell you how often I'll
start in on something and write and write and think and study
and turn and this and that, only to say, you know what, this is
not it. And I just set it aside. But I finished this, you know,
the end, period. I can't wait to bring that to
him, I'll look forward to that. Only then to make me sick so
he could lay the same text on Luke's heart, you realize how
many scriptures he had to turn to? Why would he bring a man halfway
around the world only to let him sit sick in a hotel room
and then turn around and go home? You know what I truly believe
the answer is? I believe this with all my heart. That no flesh
should glory in his presence. You are nothing. He is everything. I am nothing. He is all. Everything that he does, number
one, is for his glory. May we never lose sight of that.
You know the greatest disaster that could happen to this church,
this congregation, is that we lose sight of his glory. And somehow this starts to become
our glory. My glory, your glory. We may not understand why he
does what he does, but we understand that everything he does is accomplishing
his will and purpose in bringing glory to himself and good to
his people. Over in Acts 16, Paul wanted
to go to Asia. And Asia, I'm sure he had it
in his mind he was going to go on this big crusade throughout
Asia and God would not let him go. So then he decided he was going
to go to Bithynia and the Lord wouldn't let him go. He ended
up in Philippi. He was just walking around the
city of Philippi. Why? Well, it's because there
was a woman meeting with some other women down by a river named
Lydia. And it was God's purpose and
glory to save her and her house. Paul didn't know anything about
her. He had a whole, you know, continent
or country or whatever on his mind. It was one woman. and her
house." Thank God for that, for those three words. And I'm sure Paul, after he got
there, realized, I know why I didn't go to Asia. As soon as Paul left Lydia's
house, the Lord threw him in jail, still in Acts 16. If you
just read Acts 16, as soon as he left Lydia's house, the Lord
threw him in jail. Why jail? It's because it was
God's purpose and glory to save the jailer, the jailer of that
jail. and his house. Think about how much glory to
God and good to his people came from Paul being thrown in jail.
That man was constantly being thrown in jail. How many times
did he go to jail? The Lord God said, I'm going
to send my gospel all over this world. How are you going to do
it? I'm going to keep throwing my
messenger in jail. Well, that's not how we would have done it.
That's not what I would have done. We have most of the New Testament
of God's word because the Lord wisely threw the penman of it
in jail. Think about how much glory to
God and good to his people came from the way he chose to save
his people. He said, I'm going to kill my
own son. That's not how we would have
done it. That's not how we would have done it. God said, I'm going
to lay their sin on him. I'm going to take all of their
vile, filthy, wretched, and I'm going to lay it on this spotless,
innocent, holy God-man. That's not how we would have
done it. God said, I'm going to bring
judgment to them on him. This is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to just pour out all of my anger, all of my fury. I'm going to pour it all out.
That's owed to them. I'm going to pour it all out
on him. All judgment on Christ so that I can justify them in
Christ. That's not how we would have
done it. But seeing the end of it all,
we see that it was the only way it could have been done. There
was no other way that salvation could have been possible. It
was the only way it could have been done. And that's what we're
going to see come the end of every single thing that our Lord
brings to pass, every single thing. Psalm 145, 17 says, the
Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works. Romans 11, 33 says, oh, the depth
of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out. We don't understand
his judgments and his ways, but he does. He does, with him it's
all wisdom and knowledge, all of it. Mark 7, 37 says, he does
all things well. So with that being said, in everything,
no matter how it goes, no matter how it goes, we can look to Christ and trust
him in it, no matter how it goes. We can look to Christ, we can
trust him in it, knowing that even though we can't see it,
whatever it is, glory is being given to him. Good is being given
to his people. And things have gone the way
they've gone because it was the only way they could have gone.
He only does what? He only does what's right. Verse
30 right here says, of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God
has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. We are going to constantly be
reminded of the fact that there is no room for us to glory in
ourselves. There's no room for me to glory
in myself. There's no room for you to glory
in yourself. No flesh is going to glory in
his presence. Any man glory, let him glory
in the Lord. By God's grace, that's what we'll
do. We'll glory in the Lord. Amen.