My Times Are in Your Hands (Part 4 of 4) — 12/16/2020

[Music] foreign [Music] there are many benefits that come to us when we realize we can fully trust that god knows what he's doing today on truth for life alistair begg teaches us how we can foster a sense of personal responsibility for our choices and keep from wallowing in self-pity we begin today in psalm 31 for the final message in a series titled my times are in your hands [Music] samus says i was only one place i can go i can only say my times are in your hands prosperity mustn't be the occasion of my pride uncertainty mustn't be the occasion of panic and thirdly adversity must not become the occasion of self-pity when david is subjected to abuse first from his own son and then from people around him it's his confidence in the providence of god that gets him through one day he's walking down the street and a guy called shimai approaches and he cursed as he came out and he began just to curse and abuse david and furthermore he pelted david and all the king's officials with stones but the king said what do you and i have in common you sons of zerah in other words i'm not thinking the same way as you chaps if he is cursing because the lord said to him curse david who can ask why do you do this then david said to abishai and all his officials my son who is of my own flesh is trying to take my life how much more than this benjaminite leave him alone let him curse for the lord has told him to it may be that the lord will see my distress repay me with good for the cursing i'm receiving today but the fact is it may not and whether it is for good or for real my times are in his hands now loved ones you know that in the years that have passed between us we have lived with one another through cries of anguish and pools of tears and we've sought to get to grips with this thought even in the middle of the storm and the fact is that in the middle of the storm it can sound trite to say these things although it isn't and often it will be time the passage of time the change of circumstances that allow us to look back over our shoulders and begin even with a whisper of a child to recognize that there is no trying or even tragic circumstance but that god has sovereignly permitted it you see logically there is no other choice you either have to be a deist or a pantheist or you believe in the providence of god you either have to say i am i am being buffeted by a blind and personal force or i am a drift on the sea of chance or it is there there is a providential god who orders the affairs of time if the providential god of orders all the affairs of time then by his permissive will he allows things to pass to us through his hands but they do not take him by surprise he's sovereignly involved in the life cycle of the sparrow and therefore he is profoundly involved in the circumstances of those whom he has made the special objects of his love and therefore with confidence even in the face of difficulty we can be assured that since the fatherly providence of god has permitted these things he has done so for our good and his glory and he will sustain us and he will watch over us in the midst of them and even if it takes to heaven he will then make clear to us what now we see through a glass darkly i don't want to in any sense appear to be healing the pain of my people lightly time has passed now since diane cercely went into the presence of christ i was thinking of diane and what an illustration she was to those who knew her best of a child-like trust in the providential care of god a bright and attractive youngster who suddenly contracts this very debilitating disease which literally closes her down in terms of her ability to play the sports that she enjoyed to engage in the activities which had marked her earlier years and yet how along that pilgrimage of pain she meets with christ she discovers the reality of his presence in her life the nature of forgiveness and a joy that passes human understanding she doesn't allow the uncertainty of her days and they were certainly uncertain to be the occasion of panic she still even though her hands were debilitated by her disease made the meals for her dad and delighted to do so she still enjoyed the company of her family and her particularly her nieces and her nephews she still labored hard to make them gifts and so on and she even on the 4th of july in 1995 founded in herself to write a letter to her parents in prospect of her passing so that they would know exactly what it was she desired this is what she says to her folks it's difficult expressing all that this life and my future eternal life mean to me this verse expresses a little of my feelings and my gratitude to god for the life the family and the friends he has given me and then she quotes job 10 12. you gave me life and showed kindness and in your providence watched over my spirit and in your providence watched over my spirit i am increasingly convinced that the great issue of our day with paganism is the doctrine of god and there is nowhere that the doctrine of god is seen to challenge the godlessness of our age than in humble bold affirmations of the doctrine of providence and the key to her lovely life was her willingness to say my times are in your hands i've spent the majority of my time there i want just to tell you what the other three phrases are if you've stayed with me what we've said is that my times are in your hands therefore i am not trapped in the grip of a blind force i'm not tossed about on a notion of chance and being trained in the school of providence my times are in your hands therefore prosperity should not be the occasion of pride uncertainty should not be the occasion of panic and adversity should not become the occasion of self-pity and finally my times are in your hands one there is a responsibility to be faced a responsibility to be faced you see this little phrase of psalm 31 15 does not relieve us of the need to accept personal responsibility for our lives if we were to treat it in that way then we would be fatalists although the lord is overruling all things according to his purpose you and i are still responsible to him for all that we are and all that we do therefore we must be sensible in our decision making we must be righteous in our planning and we must recognize that while as this as the proverbs say a man's heart devises his way the lord directs his steps so we make realistic decisions i think that i might move to milwaukee we sit down and weigh the circumstances out and then we make the move we don't wait for something to fall from the sky a package with milwaukee written on it not if we're sensible nor do we rely on our own insight but we take the events of our lives and we lay them out and we make sensible decisions and a man's heart devises his way and he looks over his shoulder and he discovers that the lord directs his steps we do look ahead we do make plans we do put our affairs in order but we do so always in submission to his will nehemiah faces the challenge of the enemies in the building of the wall and he recognizes they have to do something and do something they will so they post a guard but at the same time they pray to god in second samuel 10 the word of exhortation is be strong and let us fight bravely for our people in the cities of our god the lord will do what is good in his sight see all the time i meet people whose reaction to the events of life is to sit down on a big chair somewhere and say well the lord will do what is good and right aha and what are you going to do oh nothing i'm just going to sit here and wait till he does it not a good plan on the other hand you have other people who are totally frantic in their in their endeavors trying to take care of everything fix everything move everything do everything as if somehow or another the destiny of the world depended upon them and then every so often you'll meet somebody who has grasped the wonder of this truth and there is about them a fragrance and there is about them a busy restfulness and there is about them a restful action because they recognize that the providence of god does not remove them from the realm of responsibility secondly to the end my times are in your hands therefore there is a humility to be fostered it's the other side of the coin from the prosperity truth prosperity shouldn't yield pride therefore providence should yield humility when pharaoh calls joseph and he says i've heard that you're pretty good at interpreting dreams everybody's talking about you everybody's mentioning your name he said i had a dream last night and i'd like you to interpret it what does joseph say i can't but god can now who was doing the interpreting of the dreams joseph why would he say he can't because he can't but god can jesus comes to the man with a withered hand whose hand is trapped by his sight he says stretch out your hand it's the one thing the man couldn't do and he did who stretched it out him who made it possible god so do you think the man went around going hey hey hey look at me look what i did look what i did no everybody he met he said you see that jesus of nazareth you just see him going around the corner there he came up to me and he said what people have been saying to me as a joke for years kids have said to me in the street hey old man stretch out your hand and he said it and i couldn't but i did i love that david and goliath goliath big smart guy big tall guy big tough guy david wee guy five stones sling a lot of shouting a lot of pre-match warm-up a lot of rhetoric the big guy says to david am i a dog you come at me with sticks and the philistine curse david by his gods kamiri said now give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and david said to the philistine you come against me with sword and spear and javelin but i come against you in the name of the lord almighty the god of the armies of israel whom you have defied listen to this this day the lord will hand you over to me and i will strike you down and cut off your head and today i will give you a carcass and the carcasses of the philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and the whole world will know about little david and his sling no and the whole world will know that there is a god in israel see we want people to know about us and our sling and nobody knows about us and frankly nobody cares about us we started getting concerned about people knowing that there is a god in heaven then they might find out about us but it's only because god knows he can trust us enough to be small enough to give him all the glory until he gets us there then we aren't going any place don't talk about parkside church talk about jesus we'll talk about buildings talk about the building that isn't made with hands at every level our lives are utterly dependent upon god so instead of drawing attention to ourselves displaying pride in our power and our achievements we are to humbly acknowledge our total trust in god's providential upholding rule we have a real problem with this i have a i have a problem with this i i think until we admit this we're going nowhere until we until we quit being the generation with the bumper stickers on the back of our minivans that say i have an honor student here and i have an honor student there and i have an honor student everywhere we're in difficulty we really are in an earlier generation that was nothing other than blowing your own trumpet we live in a generation of trumpet bloors drawing attention to ourselves and our achievements and we can't even speak but for the providence of god finally it is not only a humility to be fostered and a responsibility to be faced but there is a security to be found this is the great security in life says calvin ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it and if you think it out it's true instead of living in the fearful expectation of what fate may bring instead of viewing the world as a tumbleweed blown in the winds of chance the humble believer fearlessly commits himself to god and again calvin his solace is to know that his heavenly father so holds all things in his power soul rules by his authority and will soul governs by his wisdom that nothing can be fall except he determine it now that's not to say that we like everything that befalls but it is to say that we need not be concerned that we picked something up that we weren't supposed to get here is the security dad's got it under control it's corey ten boom in that lovely wee book where she talks about needing a railway ticket to somewhere she'd never made a journey before she was going on the train she wondered what it would be like her father said corey i'll take care of it she would go to him every day and say did you take care of it and he'd say corey it's three months before you make the journey relax and she would go to him and say did you buy the tickets and he said yes i bought the tickets and she said can i have the ticket he said why would you possibly need the ticket you don't go for nine weeks and she said the more i went and the more i asked and the more i continued against him i realized that i never trusted my dad i didn't believe that he would take care of me i didn't believe that if he had the ticket he would keep the ticket and wouldn't lose the ticket and i couldn't be sure that he would give it to me on the day and i learned in that lesson that god gives you the ticket on the day you make the journey and as i have observed people going through heartache and difficulty and to the limited degree that i and my own pilgrimage have faced that in the loss of loved ones and then failure and examinations and in disappointment in relationships and so on isn't that the case god gives the ticket on the day we make the journey therefore we must trust him and on the day that i make the journey from time to eternity i presume he's going to give me the ticket on that day and if that's today then the ticket's on its way and if it isn't then why lie awake and look at the ceiling wondering if it might be my times short or long richer poor sadder happier in his hands zechariah 2 8 he who touches you touches the apple of my eyes psalm 55 2 cast your care upon the lord he will nourish you isaiah 49 25 even though a mother may forget her children yet i will not forget you i'm not at the mercy of arbitrary and personal forces i'm in the hands of my heavenly father and he who employed the words of the same psalm psalm 31 verse 5 when jesus says to his father and into your hands i command my spirit he's quoting the very sam we're looking at here that same one who used these verses is the one who says to us this morning to a group like this come to me all ye who are weary and are heavy-ladened come to me with all your burdens and all your fears and all your panics and all your anxieties and all your heartaches and all your disappointments i want you to come he says i want you to come to me and take my yoke upon you live underneath my jurisdiction live underneath my hand because my yoke is easy and my burden is light and you will find rest for your souls i have self magazine lying on my floor the whole issue is on spirituality why buddhism is hip why meditation is helpful and so on and the devil looks on it and says my department has done a wonderful job nobody would ever glean from it that our times are in god's hands the last thing to say is simply this just in case you were wondering no i do not have all my questions answered in my own life as i've told you before i would still have light if i could write my own chapters to have had my mother see me graduate to have had her know that i married this american girl that came over to our house to have her see my kids to have her come to park site to have her here for christmas and there isn't a year passes but that i think down the exact same avenue but that's just me where is sanity where is security my times are in your hands in other words father knows best [Music] a simple reminder from aleister begg that we can find confidence in knowing that there is a god who holds us securely from a final message in our series my times are in your hands you're listening to truth for life with aleister begg perhaps that simple reminder hits home more deeply than ever before as we reflect on the difficulties all of us have faced over the last year aleister is with us today to talk briefly about some of these challenges and how they relate to our mission here at truth for life aleister well thank you bob today we concluded our study in the doctrine of providence finding god's hand in the midst of trials and difficulties and i think it would be hard to find anyone at the end of this year who has not regarded 2020 as a year of particular challenge and difficulty and so it's a wonder that we can turn again and again with confidence to the bible and that's why we've been teaching it throughout the year that's why we've made it our goal in life to try and teach the bible in a way that is clear and helpful the bible turns our gaze always towards the lord jesus and when we see him we see him as a shepherd and a guide and a friend and the one who brings hope out of hopelessness and your partnership of course is what makes it possible for us to convey this message your giving covers the cost of our daily programs and so as we look to the end of the year to meet our financial obligations we would ask you humbly and straightforwardly to reach out to us today with a generous year-end donation your giving goes directly to the teaching you hear on truth for life and i thank you for it thank you aleister you could be part of the team that brings clear bible teaching to listeners around the world in the new year will you give a much needed year-end gift today you can donate right now by going to truthforlife.org donate or call us at 888-588-7884 and when you give we want to invite you to request a new book titled exploring the bible together this is a family devotional plan that will take you through selected readings from genesis to revelation in one year now don't be intimidated even though the book includes a full year of devotional material this plan calls for your family to read just a few verses a day it's perfect for busy parents who want to make sure that they're engaging with their children in worship and in bible reading each day every entry in exploring the bible together combines scripture reading a discussion question or two key spiritual lessons and a closing prayer it doesn't take a lot of prep and you can help your kids actively read and respond to the bible request a copy of this book when you give by either tapping on the image you see on the mobile app or by going online to truthforlife.org if you'd prefer you can call us to request the book call 888-588-7 and ask for exploring the bible together while you're online making a donation take a minute and visit our store where you will find the series my times are in your hands on usb as aleister mentioned this study is relevant for all of us as we reflect on 2020 so we've created along with this series a helpful study guide you'll find it a great encouragement personally or you can use it in a group setting learn more when you visit truthforlife.org store i'm bob lepin thanks for joining us be sure to listen again tomorrow when we feature a special message from the book of ecclesiastes titled chasing the wind we'll learn how to deal with the kind of disappointment that inevitably comes when we focus on pursuing pleasure the bible teaching of alistair begg is furnished by truth for life where the learning is for living

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 6,152

Rating: 4.9523811 out of 5

Keywords: Christian Thinking, Dependence on God, Faith, Fear, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament, Pride, Sovereignty of God, Suffering

Id: mMOfbZPTXJ0

Length: 25min 0sec (1500 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 16 2020