Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Acts 2:14a, 22-36; John 8:48-59
We've come to believe that many things in our world are the result of randomness. We survey the damage in the wake of a natural disaster and see a house that is barely touched in the middle of the rubble that used to be a neighborhood and it
looks very random. We hear about a crime in which the perpetrator confesses that he just picked out a victim for no particular reason and it confirms our sense of randomness. Science explains our existence as a species as the result of beneficial, random mutations. Sociologists tell us that we become the people we are because of the family or community of which we are randomly a member. As a society, we embrace the idea that accidents, diseases, success, relationships, and many more of the elements of our lives are driven, in whole or in part, by randomness.
In contrast to seeing our existence and experiences as random, God’s Word declares that they are driven by “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” He makes it clear that He created us intentionally and specifically. We are not the result of a random process that just happened to work out well for us, but of God’s marvelous design and expert craftsmanship, created for specific roles in His plan for the reconciliation and restoration of His creation. It goes against most of what our culture understands as truth, but we are uniquely crafted by God for the particular reasons that He has chosen. We don’t choose our own paths or destiny. We’re not being carried along in a stream of randomness. We are integral participants in the plan that God laid out before the foundation of the world that is now unfolding in our lives under His guiding hand.
Knowing that God has a definite plan is one thing. Understanding it is another. Some parts of God’s plan are confusing and troubling. When His plan calls for suffering and hardship in our lives we might be tempted to reject the idea that a loving and gracious God could want such things for us. We might even view Him as capricious — even random — and see ourselves as pawns in His hands. But He assures us that the challenges we face in our lives are part of a plan that unfailingly leads us to good things. We can be sure of this because He Himself bore the Cross and suffered death for us “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”
Audio file of the sermon "The Definite Plan and Foreknowledge of God."
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