Latest / Reformed Thinking / Providence Performed: God Working in Us What Is Pleasing in His Sight

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Providence Performed: God Working in Us What Is Pleasing in His Sight · Reformed Thinking

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O Imagine you're standing out on a sun baked racetrack, like the
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asphalt is just radiating heat right through the soles of your
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shoes. Oh man, yeah.
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You can feel it. Right, and someone tosses you
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the keys to this multimillion dollar high performance race
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car. OK, I am tracking with you.
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You slide into the driver's seat.
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You smell the leather. You see the dashboard gleaming
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with all those digital displays. The steering wheel feels, you
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know, perfectly molded to your hand.
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Sounds incredible honestly. It does, and the track ahead is
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just completely clear. The air is still.
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But then you were given 1 strict unbending command.
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Drive. Just drive.
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Yeah. You have to complete the circuit
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in record time. So you press the pedal to the
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floor and nothing happens. Nothing at all.
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Nothing. You turn the ignition.
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Silence. No roar, no vibration.
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You pop the hood. You step out into that
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blistering heat. You look inside the engine Bay
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and you realize something absolutely devastating.
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Oh, no. There is no engine.
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That it. Wow, that's a brilliant shell of
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a car, right? Like you have all the mechanics
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of motion, all the structural design intended for speed.
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Yeah, aerodynamic erfection. Right, aerodynamic erfection,
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but zero internal capacity to actually move an inch.
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You have a command and you have a vehicle, but you lack the
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actual Causeway. Welcome to Reform Thinking.
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You were the third person in the room with us today for a deep
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dive into the Christian doctrine of Providence.
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We are so glad you're here with us.
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We are, and today we are looking at the final chapter of Hebrews,
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specifically verses 20 and 21. Our mission today is to take two
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incredibly dense theological sources that dissect this text
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and break them open for you. And the core thesis we are
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looking at today is just staggering.
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I mean, it really is. It's huge.
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The assertion is that God does not just demand obedience from a
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distance. He actively creates that
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obedience within His people. Right.
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It is not just some proposal waiting for your signature.
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It is an unfailing performance on his part.
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Yeah, the law tells you to drive, but without the engine of
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grace you are going nowhere. The theological weight of this
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text, I mean it really cannot be overstated.
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Modern secular philosophies continually tell us that human
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flourishing is the product of sheer will.
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Oh, all the time. Right, they insist.
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You are the pastor of your fate. You are the undisputed captain
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of your soul. We hear this in corporate
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boardrooms. We hear it in self help
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seminars. We just absorb it through
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cultural osmosis, you know? We do, but the sources we are
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looking at today assert something radically different.
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They argue that apart from Christ, humans can do nothing.
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We are entirely dependent on divine action for any genuine
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obedience. OK, let's unpack this because if
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we are going to grasp the gravity of Hebrews chapter 13,
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we have to step back into the 1st century setting.
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We. Really do.
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Context is everything here. Who needed to hear that they
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lacked the engine? Like who was receiving this
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letter and what were they actually facing on a random
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Tuesday morning? Well, the original audience
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consisted of Jewish Christians who were living under the brutal
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hostility of the Roman Empire. Historians placed this likely
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during the reign of Claudius or, you know, the early darkening
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days of Nero. So things were getting really
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bad. Very bad.
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We are not talking about abstract philosophical debates
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and some comfortable air conditioned Academy.
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These believers were actively losing property.
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Imagine being a Baker Oregon tradesman in Rome and suddenly
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your non Christian neighbors just refuse to buy your goods.
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Because you're a Christian, right?
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And then the local magistrate comes in and confiscates your
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shop because you refuse to offer a simple pinch of incense to the
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genius of the emperor. They were just losing all their
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societal standing. Exactly.
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I mean, precisely. Their physical security was
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entirely compromised. The friction of existing as a
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despised minority in a Pagan culture, combined with
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aggressive ostracization by their unbelieving Jewish
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brethren had just worn them down to the marrow.
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That makes the situation so much more visceral, like they are
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exhausted. They're looking around, seeing
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their homes confiscated, watching their friends get
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dragged into the streets or imprisoned.
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It was relentless. And they are waking up in the
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middle of the night, wondering if following this invisible
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Messiah is actually worth the cost.
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It's just a terrifying way to live.
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It is. And that brings us to the
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primary temptation they faced Apostasy.
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Giving up entirely. Yeah, they were severely tempted
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to abandon the finality of Christ and retreat to the
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familiar, legally protected shadows of the Old Covenant
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Levitical system. Because Judaism was legal.
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Right, right. In the Roman Empire, Judaism was
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a recognized legal religion, a religiolicita.
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The Romans respected antiquity and Judaism was ancient but.
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Christianity was new and suspicious.
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Completely Christianity was increasingly viewed as an
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illegal, subversive superstition, so stepping back
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into the local synagogue meant immediate safety.
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It meant getting your business back.
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Yes, and it meant your children wouldn't be targeted.
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But the author of Hebrews recognizes this urge to retreat
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as literal spiritual suicide. I want to pause on that
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psychology for a second, though, because why is a tangible ritual
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so tempting when faith gets hard?
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That's a great question. Think about our own nature when
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the world feels chaotic today, when a listener is facing a
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crisis at work or, you know, a total breakdown in their family,
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people instantly crave a checklist.
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We do. We want control.
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Right. We want a visible ritual, a set
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of physical steps we can measure, rather than trusting an
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invisible reality. It just feels safer to check a
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box than to trust a resurrected savior you cannot see.
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The Jewish Christians had temple, we had the priests, the
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incense, the sacrifices. It was sensory.
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It was right there in front of them.
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But the sensory nature of the Old Covenant was part of its
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design and also its massive limitation, right?
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It was. And that brings us to the fatal
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flaw of the Old Covenant administration.
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It demanded perfect obedience, but it could not generate the
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spiritual life necessary to produce that obedience.
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I. Had the rules but no engine.
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Precisely the historical tragedy of the nation of Israel was this
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covenantal failure. I mean Moses himself stood
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before the people of Israel after seeing all the miracles in
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Egypt and he lamented this in Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 4.
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How did he say? He told them to this day the
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Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or
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ears to hear. The law written on stone tablets
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condemns it points out every single flaw, but the Spirit
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gives life. The law kills.
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Yes, the author of Hebrews knows that if these exhausted
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Christians go back to the synagogue, they're going back to
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a system of stone that simply cannot save them.
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So how does the author counter this?
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Because if I am writing to a group of terrified people who
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are about to lose their homes, my first instinct might be to
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just give them a pep talk or a linger of survival rules, right?
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You want to be practical. Yeah, I might say hang in there.
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Here are five ways to endure persecution.
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The author totally anticipates that very human urge and he
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completely subverts it. Notice his method here.
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He does not start his letter by giving them a behavioral
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checklist. He doesn't start with rules.
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Not at all. Instead he spends 10 solid
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chapters doing nothing but proving the absolute supremacy
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of Jesus Christ. When chapters. 10 chapters.
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He methodically demonstrates that Christ is superior to the
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angels. He proves Christ is superior to
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Moses. He proves Christ is superior to
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Aaron just. Hammering the point home.
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He is Christ ministers in a better Tabernacle, He offers a
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better sacrifice, and He mediates a better covenant based
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on better promises. He is essentially saying why
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would you go back to the shadow when the substance has actually
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arrived? I think we need a better way to
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visualize this than the usual analogies.
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Let's think about an architect's blueprint.
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OK, I like this. The Old Covenant was like a set
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of incredibly detailed blueprints for a massive
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mansion. The blueprints show you where
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the walls are, where the roof is, where the foundation goes.
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You can study the blueprints all day.
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But you can't live in them. Right.
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You cannot sleep inside a blueprint.
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You cannot take shelter from a storm inside a piece of paper.
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The blueprints were meant to point you to the actual
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building. And Christ is the building.
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Christ is the actual shelter. So the author of Hebrews is
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telling them you are standing inside the solid fortified
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mansion and you are terrified of the storm outside, so you are
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trying to run back out into the rain to hide under a piece of
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paper. Oh, that is a phenomenal way to
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visualize it. The shadows are completely
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useless when the substance is standing right in front of.
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You exactly. I mean spot on.
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And that massive theological setup in the 1st 10 chapters is
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what makes the severe commands of chapter 13 even possible.
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After proving that the substance has come, the author finally
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issues his commands. What does he ask them to do?
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Well, in chapter 13, he tells them to show brotherly love, to
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show hospitality to strangers, to remember those in prison, to
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keep the marriage bed undefiled, and to keep their lives free
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from the love of money. That is a lot to ask of people
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who are losing everything. It is he is asking people who
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are actively losing everything to share what little they have
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left. He knows exhausted, terrified
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believers cannot accomplish this in the flesh.
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You need the engine. Right.
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And this leads perfectly into the benediction in verses 20 and
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21. The theology guarantees the
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obedience. The author is about to show them
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the engine inside the car. Here's where it gets really
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interesting. Let's shift into the mechanics
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of the text and do a phrase by phrase exegesis of verse 20.
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It begins with the phrase. Now may the God of peace.
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Yes. Why does he choose that specific
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title? Why not the God of power or the
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God of endurance, considering what these people are going
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through? That title, The God of Peace, is
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highly specific and deliberate. It is easy for us to read that
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and think it refers to a sentimental calm or a tranquil
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mood, like a quiet morning with a cup of coffee.
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Like an inner Zen or something, right?
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But in this context it refers to objective reconciliation
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achieved through the cross. It means the cosmic war between
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a holy, wrathful God and sinful man has ended.
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It's an objective reality. It is a legal standing.
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The holy Judge has been fully satisfied by the blood of the
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Son. The reason he uses this title
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here is absolutely crucial for the Believer's psychology.
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How so? You cannot pursue sanctification
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from a place of terror, hoping your good works will somehow
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purchase your acceptance. You must pursue holiness from a
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place of established, unshakable peace.
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That reframes everything. If I am trying to obey God
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because I am terrified he is going to strike me with
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lightning if I fail. My obedience is just a form of
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self preservation. Just fear, yeah.
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But if the war is already over, my obedience becomes a response
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of gratitude. Precisely.
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Then the text moves to the next phrase discussing the
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resurrection. It says, Who brought again from
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the dead our Lord Jesus. The resurrection here is
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presented as the Father's supreme vindication of the Son's
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atoning work. It is the ultimate receipt of
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payment. The receipt.
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I love that. When Christ was on the cross, he
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bore the infinite penalty for sin.
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If he had remained in the grave, it would mean the penalty was
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not fully paid. Death would still hold the
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claim. But he didn't stay in the grave.
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No, God did not just reverse a physical death.
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He publicly declared that the sacrifice was accepted.
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The debt is entirely cancelled. So I mentioned it right here.
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The author brings us up right before talking about our
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obedience because he wants the readers to deduce something.
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If God has the power to conquer death in Christ, He certainly
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has the power to conquer indwelling sin in you.
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Oh wow. Next we see Jesus called the
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great Shepherd of the sheep. I feel like we lose the edge of
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this metaphor today because we see so many soft pastoral
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paintings of Jesus holding a lamb.
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We really do. But to a 1st century Jewish
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audience, calling Jesus the Great Shepherd carries a massive
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prophetic weight, doesn't it? It carries an enormous, almost
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aggressive weight. This invokes the prophetic
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promises of Ezekiel chapter 34 in the Old Testament.
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The false shepherds of Israel, the kings, the priests, the
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leaders, they abuse the flock. They're terrible leaders.
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They fed themselves instead of the sheep, they clothed
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themselves with the wool, but they let the six sheep die and
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the lost sheep wander. Yahweh spoke through Ezekiel and
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pronounced massive judgement on those leaders.
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You fire them basically. He did, and he promised to step
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in personally. He promised to set up 1 shepherd
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from David's line who would actually feed and guard the
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flock. And that's Christ.
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Christ is that sovereign leader. He owns the sheep, He guides
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them. He fights off the wolves, and
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unlike human leaders who fail and abandoned their posts, he
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never loses a single one. Then we get this phrase by the
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blood of the eternal covenant. What is the author referencing
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here? Blood sounds very archaic to a
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modern ear. Why couldn't God just declare
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the covenant with words? The shedding of blood in the
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biblical framework is the required mechanism for
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atonement. Without the shedding of blood,
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there is no forgiveness of sins. This phrase roots back into
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Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. Those passages promise a new
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covenant where God will actually write His law on the hearts of
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His people. The blood of Christ is the
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currency that secures this internalized law.
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It buys the new heart. Yes, the old Covenant was
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ratified with the blood of animals, which had to be
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repeated endlessly. The new covenant is eternal
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because the blood of the Son of God has infinite, inexhaustible
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value. I'm stuck in the grammar of this
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section. In the sources we're looking at,
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the text says God brought Jesus from the dead by the blood of
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the eternal covenant. What does that even mean?
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How does blood raise someone from the dead?
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What's fascinating here is this is one of the most astonishing
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grammatical features in the entire New Testament.
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The prepositional phrase by the blood of the eternal covenant
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strictly modifies the resurrection.
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OK, break that down for us. Think about the legal
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ramifications of this. It means the blood bought
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perfection of the finished work, legally demanded the
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resurrection. Amanded it.
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Yes, Christ's perfect active obedience in keeping the law
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throughout His life, and His passive obedience and bearing
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the infinite wrath of God on the cross constituted the full
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payment of our debt. Paid in full.
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Because the blood of the covenant was entirely sufficient
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to satisfy divine justice, Death had no legal right to hold him.
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The Father had to raise the Son. Because the Ledger was balanced,
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the blood forced the resurrection.
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That is incredible. So verse 20 establishes all
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these objective facts of history.
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We have the God of peace who ended the war.
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We have the vindicated resurrection acting as the
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receipt. We have the Great Shepherd who
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guards the flock, and we have the covenant blood that
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satisfied justice. All of that history is acting as
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the massive foundation for the direct personal application we
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are about to see in verse 21. The author lays down the massive
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concrete foundation before he builds the house.
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The text moves from the divine agent and historical vindication
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directly into the divine provision for the believer
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today. What does verse 21 say?
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Verse 21 says Equip you with everything good that you may do
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his will. Let's dig into that word.
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Equip The sources indicate the original Greek language here is
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incredibly specific and it just totally changes how we should
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read this. Oh.
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It really does. The Greek verb used here is
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Qatar to sigh. Let's look at the grammatical
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mood first, because it tells us the author's tone.
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It is in the arist active optative mood.
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The optative mood. Yes, and the optative mood is
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quite rare in the New Testament. You only find it about 68 times.
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It is not a command and it is not a simple statement of fact.
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It is used to express a strong, fervent prayer or a confident
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wish. So he's praying this over them.
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The author is praying this reality over his exhausted
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readers. But the lexical definition of
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the word itself is what is truly stunning.
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It carries the meaning of making fit, restoring, preparing, or
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bringing a broken thing into proper working order.
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Restoring something broken. Yes, to give you a perfect
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parallel, it is the exact same word used in Matthew chapter 4
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verse 21 when describing James and John sitting in their boat
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mending their fishing Nets by the Sea of Galilee.
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The net analogy is brilliant. Let's think about a listener who
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is struggling right now. Maybe they're driving to work,
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fighting an addiction they just cannot seem to beat.
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We all have those struggles. Yeah, or maybe they carrying a
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deep bitterness toward a family member and every time they try
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to forgive, they just fail. Sin fundamentally toward the
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fabric of our humanity. We are broken Nets.
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That's a great way to put it. When you try to cast a broken
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net into the water to catch fish, the water just rushes
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through the holes. The fish swim right through.
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We are completely incapable of holding anything, let alone
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doing the massive holy will of God.
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We can't do it on our own. So when the text says God equips
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us, it means God is sitting on the shore taking the torn,
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frayed cords of our soul, and he is actively mending the broken
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faculties so they function according to their original
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design. And notice the vast scope of the
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provision as well. The text says.
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He equips us with everything good.
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There is zero room for synergistic deficiency here.
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He doesn't just give us half the equipment.
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No, God does not provide 90% of the equipment and ask you to dig
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deep into your own pockets to find the remaining 10%.
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He provides the absolute entirety of the necessary
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equipment for your sanctification.
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Every bit of it. Every ounce of patience, every
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ounce of courage, every ounce of purity you need to do His will
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is supplied by Him. But the syntactical brilliance
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of this verse continues. What's next?
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The text says we are equipped that you may do His will,
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followed immediately by the phrase working in us that which
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is pleasing in His sight. I want to slow down here because
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when I read the source material on this next point, I actually
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stopped and read it 3 times. It has to do with the word do
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and the word working. Break this down for us.
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The author employs A rhetorical device called a peloton.
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Poly what? At Polyptoton, this is a
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syntactical pun using words derived from the exact same
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root. The phrase that you may do uses
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the Greek word poyasai, and the phrase working in US uses the
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word poyoshan. Both of these words derived from
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the identical root verb poyish. So they are basically the same
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word. Yes.
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So if you were to read this literally, preserving the pun,
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the text says we do the will of God because God is doing in US.
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God's internal doing causes our external.
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Doing it is wild. Furthermore, the word describing
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God's action is a present active participle.
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This indicates continuous, ongoing divine activity.
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God is not just winding you up like a toy and walking away.
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He is continuously doing the work inside of you so that you
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can do the work outside of you. OK, I have to stop and push
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back. Here I am putting myself in the
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shoes of a listener who might be feeling a bit alarmed by this.
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Sure, it can sound intense. If God's internal doing causes
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my external doing, do I even exist as a moral agent?
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Does human effort matter at all? That's the classic objection.
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If I am listening to this, I might think, Crate, I'm going to
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go home, sit motionless on the couch, eat potato chips, and
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just wait for a bolt of lightning to make me holy.
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Because if God causes the obedience, I must be a robot.
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This sounds like a recipe for quietism, where we do absolutely
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nothing and just, you know, let go and let God.
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That is the natural objection, but it completely misunderstands
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the mechanism of grace. This brings our conversation
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directly into the concept of compatibilism.
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Compatibilism is the biblical reality that God's sovereign
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decree over the human will perfectly coincides with genuine
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human volition. They work together.
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They do. God does not violate the human
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will. He does not put a gun to your
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head and force you to act against your desires.
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Instead, he resurrects the human will.
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It changes what we want. Yes, he illumines the darkened
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mind and renews the dead affections.
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Think of Psalm 110, verse three. It says your people will offer
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themselves freely on the day of your might.
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We offer ourselves freely. We choose Him freely and we act
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willingly precisely because He has changed our nature to make
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us willing. We act the miracle, but He
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causes it. Let's look at this specific
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example the sources bring up to illustrate this.
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It involves the Apostle Paul and his Co worker Titus in Second
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Corinthians chapter 8. Oh, this is a perfect example.
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Paul writes that God put in earnest care for the Corinthian
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church into Titus's heart. God actively placed that
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specific desire there. God caused the desire.
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Yet in the very next verse, Paul says that Titus went to Corinth
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of his own accord. If you ask Titus why he was
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packing his bags and traveling to Corinth, he would say because
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I want to go. I care about them.
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It was his choice. It was entirely Titus's free
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choice, yet God sovereignly placed the desire in his heart.
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This raises an important question though, about how we
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experience this daily. We need to consider how a
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believer actually lives this out.
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Yeah, what does it feel like? When a believer wakes up and
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fiercely fights a specific sin, or when they go out of their way
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to show radical love to an enemy who has wronged them, it feels
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like intense exhaust, exhausting human effort.
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It feels like work. They are sweating, they're
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crying, they are babbling their own flesh.
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And it truly is human effort. The believer is thinking,
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choosing, and acting. But the bedrock beneath that
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effort, the hidden spring providing the actual water for
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that action, is the relentless, ongoing activity of the Holy
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Spirit. So what does this all mean?
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Let's step back and look at the landscape of church history.
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If this concept of God mending the net and causing the obedient
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was settled in the 1st century, why do I feel like I constantly
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hear opposite ideas today? Because human nature fights this
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truth constantly. How does this doctrine defend
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the Church against the major historical heresies that have
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tried to distort this? Throughout Church history,
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whenever you sever human obedience from divine provision,
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you immediately grift into heresy.
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The human mind is naturally wired to want the credit for its
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own salvation. We want to be the hero.
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We do. Let's go back to the 5th
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century. You had a British monk named
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Pelagius. Pelagius looked at the moral
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laxity in the Church and decided the solution was to emphasize
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human free will. What did he argue?
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He argued that humans possess an inherent moral capacity to obey
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God entirely without internal grace.
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He believed Adam's sin only affected Adam and that we are
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all born as blank slates. In his view, grace was just a
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good example set by Jesus. So Pelagius essentially told
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people you have the engine, you just need to press the gas pedal
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harder. That is precisely his argument.
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But Augustine of Hippo, who had lived a life of severe
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debauchery before his conversion, he knew from his own
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agonizing experience that the human will is completely
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enslaved to sin. Augustine knew better.
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He did. Augustine provided A crushing
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rebuttal to this error with a famous prayer he prayed to God.
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Command what you will and grant what you command.
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Grant what you command. Augustine recognized that God's
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demands are absolute, but God must sovereignly supply what he
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demands or man is just doomed. So Augustine crushed Pelagianism
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in the 5th century, but this idea didn't stay dead, did it?
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It feels like the human ego just repackaged it over and over.
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What happened in the 17th century?
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In the 17th century you see the rise of Arminianism, the
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followers of Jacobus Arminius, known as the Remonstrance.
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They argued that grace is necessary, but it is synergistic
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and ultimately resistible. Synergistic, meaning we
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cooperate with it. Right, they taught that God
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offers grace to everyone equally.
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But the ultimate deciding factor, the final tipping point
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of salvation, is a human choice. So God does 99% and we do the
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1%. Yes, and this theology
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essentially teaches that God tries to save you, but you hold
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veto power over the Almighty. This dethrones God and elevates
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the fallen human will to the position of supreme arbiter.
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That's a dangerous shift. It is, and while we are
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discussing historical deviations, we must mention the
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Roman Catholic error codified at the Council of Trent in the 16th
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century. How did Trent handle this issue
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of internal working and justification?
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Trent taught the concept of Infused righteousness.
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They conflated the legal declaration of justification
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with the internal process of sanctification.
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They mixed him up. They taught that God infuses
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grace into you, making you internally righteous, and then
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based on that internal change, God legally accepts you.
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They made your internal transformation the actual ground
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of your legal acceptance before God.
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But the biblical text, as we saw with the title God of Peace,
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insists that justification is based solely on the imputed
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righteousness of Christ outside of us, and sanctification is the
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fruit of that established peace. Those are the historical
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deviations, but I look at modern church culture and I see the
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exact same counterfeits dressed in modern clothing.
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Oh. Everywhere.
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Modern seeker sensitive pragmatism functions almost
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identically to Pelagianism. You can turn on the radio today
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or walk into a mega church and hear sermons that treat the
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Bible like a self help manual for behavioral modification.
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Just practical tips. Yeah, it's 10 steps to a better
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marriage or Five ways to Conquer your anxiety.
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It relies entirely on human willpower.
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It assumes the listener has the inherent strength to just try
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harder. It's all law and no gospel.
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It completely ignores the terrifying reality that without
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the sovereign mending of the Holy Spirit, we are broken Nets
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incapable of holding a single drop of true righteousness.
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In addition to the pragmatic self help culture, you see
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liberal theology and certain modern social movements offering
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another massive counterfeit. What's their angle?
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These ideologies consistently locate the root of human
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brokenness in external systemic structures rather than the
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totally depraved human heart. The problem is out there.
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Right. They argue that if we just fix
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the political system or reorganize the economy or
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dismantle the hierarchy, humanity will naturally
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flourish. They offer a salvation based
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entirely on human activism and structural reorganization.
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So they deny the internal problem.
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While social structures can certainly be corrupt and require
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reform, the biblical text declares that the core problem
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is internal. True righteousness is
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exclusively the fruit of a heart that has been sovereignly
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regenerated and equipped by the God of peace.
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So if we throw out moralism and we throw out self help and we
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realize the system isn't going to save us, we still have a
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practical problem. The Bible is full of
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imperatives. It.
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Definitely is. We are commanded to love, to
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forgive, to be holy, to flee sexual immorality.
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If God is doing the working, what do we do with all these
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commands? This leads us to what
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theologians call the third use of the law.
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Yes, the Protestant reformers talked about 3 uses of the law.
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The first use is to restrain societal evil.
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The second use is to act as a mirror, showing us our sin and
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driving us to Christ. But the third use is different.
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But the tertius usis legis, the third use of the law is
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specifically for the believer. The law can never justify us.
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It has no capacity to save. However, it remains the exact
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standard and guide for the obedience that the Spirit
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produces in the believer. It shows us what the mended net
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is supposed to catch. Precisely.
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The Spirit does not produce a vague, abstract sense of
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spiritual goodness. He causes believers to walk
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specifically in God's revealed statutes.
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Acceptance with God is the root of our obedience, never the
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fruit. But the food still has to be
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there. But make no mistake, faith
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without visible fruit is a dead faith.
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The God who justifies always sanctifies.
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The sources make a critical distinction here, though.
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Holiness is not just cold mechanical rule keeping.
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It is not just gritting your teeth and avoiding bad things.
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If we connect this to the bigger picture, we have to ask why God
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requires his transformation in the 1st place.
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The doxological goal of the passage is right there at the
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end. To whom be glory forever and
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ever, Yes. The reason God equips us and
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works in US is to make our faith visible as a public display of
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Christ's supreme worth. He changes us so that the
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universe can see how glorious his Son is.
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The Puritan view detailed in our text captures this perfectly.
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They understood that true holiness is not asceticism.
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No, not at all. Asceticism is the medieval idea
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that you punish your body, you starve yourself, and you deny
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yourself all joy in order to impress God that starves the
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soul. It's miserable.
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It is on the flip side, worldly hedonism says you should indulge
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every fleshly desire you have that poisons the soul into
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destruction. True holiness, according to the
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Puritans, is supreme happiness in God.
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Supreme happiness. I love that.
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We obey because we treasure the Great Shepherd above all earthly
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things. Sin is an idolatrous preference
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for anything over God. Holiness is preferring God over
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everything else and acting in joyful accord with that
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preference. Think about how that realization
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alters the entire motivation for the Christian life.
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You are no longer obeying out of a legalistic terror of
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condemnation. You are not trying to bribe a
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celestial judge. You're safe.
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You are safe. You are obeying out of a restful
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assurance that the God of peace is actively supplying the
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strength for the very things He demands.
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You strive fiercely. You sweat and bleed and your
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fight against sin, but you do it from a foundation of absolute
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peace. Let's bring this entire deep
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dive back to your daily reality as a listener.
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Think about your life tomorrow. Maybe you have a frustrating
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conversation waiting for you with a difficult family member.
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We all have those. Or maybe you have a private
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struggle with a temptation that nobody else in the world even
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knows about. You must strive against that sin
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fiercely. You must put forth maximum
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effort to love the people who annoy you.
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You can't just be passive. Right, but you do it entirely
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from a posture of restful peace, knowing the engine of grace is
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running within you. You are a mended net.
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I want to offer a word of comfort drawn directly from the
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text for anyone listening who just feels utterly defeated
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today. That's so needed.
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The Great Shepherd does not despise bruised reeds.
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If you are a believer and you feel the agonizing, exhausting
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resistance of remaining sin in your life, you might be tempted
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to despair. You might think you're failing.
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You might look at your repeated failures and think God has
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abandoned you, but that very struggle, that hatred of your
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own sin, is proof of the Spirit's life within you.
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Dead bodies do not fight. Oh.
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That's powerful. Only living things struggle.
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The God who raised Christ from the dead is actively working in
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you. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
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is the historical proof that God's prevailing Providence is
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vastly stronger than your daily instability.
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We want to leave you with a final thought to consider today.
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Think about the hidden battles you fight, the ones that never
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make it to social media. The quiet moments, yeah.
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What if the most unseen, hidden act of resistance against a
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specific sin today, an act no one else will ever know about?
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A moment where you bite your tongue instead of speaking in
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anger, or you turn your eyes away from a screen when you are
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alone in the dark? What if that invisible act is
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actually a cosmic display to the heavenly realms of Christ's
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complete victory? It's beautiful to think about.
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What if our hidden spirit wrought obedience is the very
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theater of Christ's glory? The engine has been placed
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inside you by the God of Peace. Thank you for joining us for
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this deep dive. Rest in the God of peace.