This is a message by Pastor Mark Fox of Antioch Community Church in Elan, North Carolina. For other sermons from Antioch, you can visit the church website at antiochchurchnc.org. Now, let's turn our hearts to the word of God. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please. And they came near. And he said, I'm your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on the earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made of me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. and Acts 22 verses 22 through 24. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, the man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Well, I add my good morning to the womanless crowd today. Actually, we have plenty of women here, but we know we're missing about 40 at the beach, and I'm sure they're not watching right now. But those who are watching, welcome. It was the summer of 1986 and Cindy and I were in Haiti with the New Directions team with the ministry that J.L. Williams started in 1968 and it was a singing group, it was an interracial, racially diverse group. Kids from all over the country and sometimes from other countries as well would come to be a part of this ministry to proclaim the gospel through music and through the word. Some of you in this room were part of that ministry back in the day, right? I was grateful for the two years that Sidney and I had to be a part of that, to lead the summer team in 84, 85, and 86, but during those two years also to travel with Damascus Road, which was a smaller ministry team of four of us, and we traveled up and down the East Coast and sung in a lot of different places, and it was during those two years that I found a passion for preaching. I was grateful for that, and I was grateful for the opportunity that J.O. had given me. I saw hunger for the Word in the churches that we visited. I will never forget, and I discovered also during those two years that I really didn't want to be a traveling evangelist. That was not my calling eventually. But I remember preaching in a church in Ohio, and I'll never forget the people telling me, yeah, the pastor's not gonna be here this week. He didn't wanna be a part of this revival that's taking place in the church he pastors. And they said that what he often preached on on Sunday mornings had to do with crystals, the power of crystals, and how they can work miracles in your life. So as you can tell, as you would imagine, the people there were starved for the word of God. And they ate it up that week as we ministered for several days. And so God, there was a birthing in me, a passion to be in one place with one group of people and to grow up with them and to proclaim the gospel to them. And I'm going, hmm, wonder where that could possibly be. Well, God was reviving in me a calling that He put in my life when I was 15. accepted them, but then when I got to college I'd run from it, and he was renewing that call again to be in a local church and to serve as a pastor. And the exciting thing for me was in the summer of 86, before I went with the team to Haiti, we traveled in the States, but before we went on our trip to Haiti, the pastor of the church where I was serving as an elder said, Hey, we want to make you the associate pastor here. And when you come back from Haiti, we'll start the ball rolling and get that thing in place. So I was excited because, you know, I was ready to be in a church. I was ready to be local and not traveling. We had one child and one on the way, and so it was time for us to settle down. So we came back from Haiti only to find that the elders had met. I was an elder, but they had met without me. and decided that while I was gone, no, we're not going to hire him right now. We're gonna put that off for a few years probably because we need to build a church building. The church we were in was meeting in the New Directions building at the time. So I was a little hurt, not a little bit frustrated over what I believed to be a broken promise. And I can tell you for a fact that as a young man of what, 20, how old was I, in the 20s, doesn't matter. My thoughts were 10 times more on what they had done to me than on what could possibly God be doing in this change of events. All I could see was that people I had called brothers had done me a disservice. I've heard it said often that we live life forward, but we don't really understand it until we look backward. And so God had other plans for me in His divine providence. And that's what I want to talk to you about this morning, the providence of God. We're obviously skipping ahead for today just to look at this one little section in Genesis 45 and then we'll look back and look over in Acts chapter 2 as we've just heard read. since we're in the season of the cross. But I want us to be reminded of the powerful providence of God in all things, in all things. We've already seen it in the life of Joseph, haven't we? The whole way. We've seen it in the book of Genesis, the whole way, the providence of God at work in the life of his people. And it's so important that we understand it. John Calvin wrote, ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries. That's a strong word. The highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it. So let's look at these passages today from two main points. God's providence and our response. God's providence and how do we respond to it. Now John Piper has written a lot on providence, God's providence. I'm going to use some of his notes here as he tells us that the word providence comes from the root word, the Latin word provide. And if you break provide into two parts, pro means forward or on behalf of, and vide or vide in Latin means to see. So you might think provide would mean to see forward or to foresee, but that's not what provide means. It means literally to supply what is needed, to give sustenance or support. So the root means to provide what is needed to give sustenance or support. So providence is the noun that's come to mean the act of providing for or sustaining and governing the universe by God. God has providence over the whole universe. Now we say sometimes in English, we'll say, okay, I'll see to it. I'll see to that. I'll take care of that. In a micro sense, you know, if your wife says trash cans are full, right? As a good husband, you say what? I'll take care of it, right? I'll take care of that. I'll see to it. You are providing. You are giving. You're exercising providence in that moment because you're acting on what you know needs to be done. In the macro sense, God says the universe needs taken care of. I'll see to it. I'll see to it. The universe is in his hands. We've already seen this in the book of Genesis. Remember the story of Abraham when he was going to go up the mountain and sacrifice Isaac? Remember that? And so, on the way up the mountain, what did Isaac ask him? You guys remember that? He says, Father, I see that we have the fire and we have the wood, but what? Where's the sacrifice? He said, where is the lamb? This is Genesis 22, 7. Where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham didn't say, you're it, tag, you're it. He didn't say that because Abraham knew by faith that God was not going to let Isaac be the sacrifice. Or even if he did let him be sacrificed, God was going to raise him from the dead. He said, we'll return. He's told his servants, we'll return to you. But what he says, Abraham answered, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. God has providence in all things, Isaac. And we are both going to see how God is going to provide for this. He's going to provide the lamb and of course we know that he did and when Abraham saw that ram locked in the thorns in the thicket he named that very place remember he named that very place the Lord will provide or Jehovah Jireh or Jehovah Uri however you want to pronounce that the Lord is provider the Lord has providence God said Abraham I'll see to it Abraham said to Isaac God will see to it and then God He did just that. Joseph also understood this. If you were paying attention when David read that passage a while ago, Joseph understood that God's providence had been active in his life, but all the brothers could see when they realized whose presence they were in, all they could see was their own sin. He says twice that they sold him. He says, you sold me here. He doesn't sugarcoat it. He doesn't dismiss it. He doesn't put his arms around his brother and say, guys, it's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. No, they did do something wrong. And he acknowledges that. You did it. Twice he says, you sold me. But then he says, but God sent me. God sent me here. You sold me, God sent me here. You exercised agency in this, you did it, and you're responsible for what you did, but God, check this, promise of God means God is ultimately responsible for all things. And he works even through the missteps of man. as he did in Joseph in his life. He said, God sent me before you to preserve life. That's providence. God saw to it. God saw to it from the earliest days of Joseph's life that Joseph would be in a place and a position to be the rescuer. And God saw to it in Jesus' life as well. Peter's preaching to the crowd on the day of Pentecost. People are saying, these people are drunk. What are they doing speaking other languages? What is going on? And Peter stands up and says, these people are not drunk. They're filled with the Holy Spirit. And then he says to them, Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Hey guys, God saw to it. But you crucified and killed Jesus by the hands of lawless men. You're guilty. You did it. And so did we. Right? We're all responsible for Jesus' death. While we were yet sinners, what? Christ died for us. So our sins put Jesus on the cross. We did it. We were guilty. But God saw to it. God's providence was on display on the cross. I like what Piper says again. He says, God never simply sees without acting. He's God. He's not a passive participant in a world that exists without His sustaining it. Wherever God is looking, God's acting. If God perceives, He performs. If He inspects, He effects. In other words, there's a profound theological reason why providence does not merely mean foreknowledge. Don't make the mistake of telling people or thinking in your own mind that God's providence simply means He knew ahead of time what was going to happen. What does that make God? A passive bystander. A spectator. He's looking down the corner of the time to go, I wonder what Joseph's going to do now, right? When this woman's appealing to him to come and lie with me, she says, I wonder what he's going to do? God is not a passive spectator. He's an active participant as provident God. Piper goes on to say, when God sees, he sees too. His seeing is always with a view of doing. I love that, because to know that, to understand that, and I'm still trying to learn that, wrap my brain around it at 65 years old, but to learn that and to grow in that gives us greater peace and greater joy. Because we know God's in control. It doesn't give me license, but it gives me liberty to live in God and to do what God's told me to do. And I know I won't do it perfect. I'm going to sin, but God has that. He's got it. He sees to it. He's using even my missteps for His ultimate purposes. It brings clarity to our thinking when all we can see sometimes, as I did as a 20-something, is that everything's falling apart. The wheels have come off. Everything is going wrong. What I thought was gonna happen is not gonna happen. Oh, Lord, what am I gonna do now? And God's just laughing. He's chuckling. He said, I got this. I'll see to it. John Cobb's lying in a hospital bed right now, and I went to visit him yesterday. And we talked about that. The promise of God is that God has John right where He wants him for such a time as this. God's gonna see to it. It gives hope, it gives strength for our obedience. What's the clearest biblical expression of this dynamic of our agency and God's providence, right? He's ultimately responsible. Paul said it like this. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That's our job. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do or to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2, 12 and 13. Powerful picture of those two things coming together in one place. Peter said, you crucified him, you lawless people. God said, from before the beginning of time, this is my purpose, my son will be sacrificed for all mankind. Joseph said, you sold me, you did it, but God sent me here. God did it, for it is He who works enough both to will and to do for His good. Hey, brothers, God was working in you, even in your sinfulness, to work out His plan for the salvation of His people, so that the rescue could be complete in Egypt. Again, Piper writes, what Paul makes plain here is how fully our own effort is called into action. We do not wait for the miracle, we act the miracle. Our work does not follow God's work, rather our work is the simultaneous effect of God's work. So if that's true, then what is our response to providence? two common responses to the providence of God are both fully, I think, fleshed out in Jesus' parable of the talents. Remember that in Matthew 25? We're not gonna go and read that, but remember the parable of the talents? Jesus told a story about a manager who owned property, owned stuff, and he left it in the care of three men. He said, I'm going away, and I want you to manage these things for me. And one guy, he gave five talents, and one guy gave two talents, and one guy gave one talent. a measure of currency, so they were given a certain amount of money and property, stuff that he owned, and he went away. Right? And what happens? When the master went away, two got busy multiplying their master's money. What did the third guy do? He dug a hole, right, he hid it, he bared it. Why? Because he was afraid of the Master and he didn't trust the Master to do good by him and therefore he did nothing. Scott Hubbard writes this, he said, few doctrines have inflamed more holy ambition in the hearts of God's people. When some hear that God rules over galaxies and governments, over winds and waves and over every detail in our little lives, they get busy doing good. Christians gripped by providence have built hospitals, ended slave trades, founded orphanages, launched reformations and pierced the darkness of unreached peoples. That's what those two guys did. The five-talent guy and the two-talent guy got busy, right? Working to do what the master wanted them to do because they trusted the master. They knew the master had control and they were going to do everything they could to make him look good. And Christians who believe in the promise of God will do that. But the promise of God has also been used to excuse passivity, sloth, status quo. When some hear that God reigns over all, they reach for the remote. They kick up their feet. They take sin a little less seriously and they bury their talent in the ground. Six feet under. Oh, they may do good stuff when opportunity arises, when people knock on their door and say, hey, can you loan me a loaf of bread? But they're not going to go looking for it. Right? God's got this, they say. I can just sit back and take my ease. Two different stories, two different results. You know, Hubbard told the story of when William Carey, and by the way, I love this quote, William Carey lived in the late 1700s, early 1800s. He said, I'm not afraid of failure. I'm afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter. He was the pioneering missionary to India. I think he was the first missionary to leave American soil to go to another country and proclaim the gospel, if my memory from perspectives class is correct. William Carey believed that God was calling him to go to India, to go to unreached places, to go to people who've never heard the gospel. And he went to an older pastor. He's a young man, William Carey, at this point. He goes to an older pastor and he excitedly shares what he believes God's calling him to do. You know what the older pastor said? Sit down, young man. Sit down and be still. When God wants to convert the heathen, He will do it without consulting you or me. You see the two different views of providence there? One led to a zeal to do something that God has put on your heart to do for His glory. The other one is sit back, relax, be still, don't raise a fuss. God's got this. God does have this. But the glory of this thing, the amazing thing is that God uses us to fulfill His plan for the world. You know, if that's our view, just to sit and wait idly for God to do something, then we're not going to do anything. You know, many Christians will use the phrase open door. I'm just waiting, I'm just waiting for there to be an open door. Now, there's some truth in that. Paul talked about open doors, and the Bible talks about doors being open and doors being shut. I love that passage in Revelation 3, the church in Philadelphia. God says, I've opened a door for you no man can shut. But let's think about the open door thing when it comes to providence. I think Paul prayed for open doors. I think he looked for open doors. You know what I think he also did? He turned some handles. Right? He turned handles to see if the doors would open. Classic example of this in 1 Corinthians 16, he writes about being in Ephesus. He says, So that begs the question, how did Paul get to Ephesus? Did he get a letter in the mail postmarked Ephesus and said, please Paul, come to Ephesus, preach the gospel to us here, we need you? No, he did not. He's passing through Greece. You can read Acts 16 and you'll see this. He's passing through Greece, he comes to Ephesus, part of Greece, and there he found some disciples. What happened next? Well, he talks to them. He finds out that they only have had the baptism of John. In other words, all they knew was John the Baptist preached about repentance. Repent, because the kingdom of God is at hand. They had believed that. They'd been baptized by John. And Paul said, but look, you need to understand, John the Baptist was pointing to Jesus. It's Jesus you need. Jesus is the Messiah. He preached Jesus to them. And they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. There were 12 of these men. Now they're Christians. Now they're followers of Jesus. And Paul may have said to them, Hey, you 12, let's do this. Let's go to the synagogue, since we're here. Again, did Paul get an invitation to preach in the synagogue? There's no indication of that in the text. He said, let's go to the synagogue. and see what happens. Now he may not have taken those 12, but I suspect he did. I think 13 of those guys walked into the synagogue. Followers of Jesus into the Jewish synagogue where they were still looking for the Messiah. And Acts 16 tells us they stayed there for three months. He proclaimed the kingdom of God to the Jews in Ephesus for three months in the synagogue. And then when there was resistance to his preaching, this is all in the text, He took the disciples, it was more than 12 now, people who believed what he said about Jesus, he took them. to the Hall of Tyranus. I love that. It doesn't say he, you know, he said, all right, we'll just start a house church, you know. They went to a building. It's okay to meet in buildings. They went to a building called the Hall of Tyranus and there he preached and he taught for two years. You know what the text says in Acts 19, 20? Catch this. He stayed there for two years so that, I'm quoting, all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Ephesus was part of Asia Minor, okay? And all the residents of that part of the known world in two years had heard the gospel. Why? Because Paul got an invitation to come to Ephesus and preach? Because Paul got an invitation to come to the synagogue? No, because Paul took an opportunity when he found some disciples to preach the gospel. He didn't wait until the divine hand of God picked him up and moved him there, transported him to that place. He turned the handle in Ephesus and the door opened. And he says, I'm staying here, at least until Pentecost, because there's a wide and effective door for ministry. But, and there are many adversaries. Scott Hubbard again, too often by saying there was no open door we mean there was no obvious divine orchestration of events that made our path unmistakable. Someone might say I didn't share the gospel because no one seemed interested or I didn't have that hard conversation because we just never ran into each other or I didn't confess that sin because there didn't seem to be a good time. Providence if distorted can excuse us from all manner of uncomfortable duties. You know, when William Carey gazed toward the nation of India, and remember this was a long time ago, how many people live in India now? A billion. But at that time there were 50 million Muslims and Hindus living half a world away, two oceans away. He did not see what others might call an open door. And that's possibly all the pastor saw was, it's a long way away, God will take care of it. Cary went anyway, believing in the providence of God. and that God would make a way where there is no way. And now, today, India is still bearing the fruit of His faith. What's the whole point today, guys? Nothing in your life, nothing in my life is an accident. So let's pray daily that God would open our eyes to see the good that He's doing in us and through us. to have confidence that we're not on the shelf, you know, our work is not done, that we've disqualified ourself or that God can't possibly use us because we whatever, we're not a missionary crossing the ocean. God's using you right now where you are and he will continue to do that. Let's rejoice in who we are and learn day by day to put away the unrighteous thoughts that flood our minds and tell us we're not worthy or we're not able to be used by God. You know, Vic mentioned that book of catechism that we've been, or liturgy that we've been using in our personal devotion. Some of us have been, it's called Be Thou My Vision. And I want us to read together, as we close this sermon, I want us to read together two parts of the Heidelberg Catechism. You guys read any of the Heidelberg Catechism? It's older, I think, than the Westminster Catechism. But both together give us a great understanding by questioning the answer about who God is and who we are in God. So I'm gonna read a question, and then you're going to read the response. Let's all stand together. This is from the Heidelberg Catechism, and I'm going to read question 27, which is, What do you understand by the providence of God? Let's all read this together. Providence is the almighty and ever-present power of God by which He upholds, as with His hand, heaven and earth and all creatures. And so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things in fact come to us not by chance, but from His fatherly hand. Well then question 28 says, how does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us? Let's read it together. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love. For all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they can neither move nor be moved. Father, we're thankful for your providence in our lives as it was in David's, or in Joseph's, and in David's, and in Jesus, your son, and thankful for your providence that would put him on the cross and raise him from the dead so that we can live in your providence as well and proclaim your praises to those who don't know you and to those who do. Lord, help us to walk that life out, to will and to work as you work in us. for your good pleasure. In Jesus' name we pray. Thank you for listening to this message by Pastor Mark Fox of Antioch Community Church in Elon, North Carolina. Antioch meets every Sunday for worship at 10 o'clock a.m. at 1600 Powerline Road in Elon. You can download other messages by Pastor Fox at antiochchurch.cc. You can also learn how to order his books or subscribe to his blog at jmarkfox.com.