Psalm 139:13-16
1 God Protects Us: While I was living in PNG, some friends and I arranged to visit an Australian couple living four hours’ drive along the coast. I promised that we would arrive for dinner before dark on Friday night. School finished at 2.30pm and a quick getaway would get us there between 6.30 and 7pm. But my friends dithered around and we didn’t leave until 3.30pm. This meant that I had to put my foot down! Most of the road was a gravel surface and we slithered and slid around corners for mile after mile. We passed an open truck carrying a load of PNG passengers, and they watched with interest as we sped past. Finally, I took a bend too fast, and my huge land cruiser went off the side of the road, and would have tumbled down the embankment if not for a shoulder of soft dirt where we landed safely – bogged but undamaged! God had already protected us from death or injury! Soon the truck we had passed came to our aid and towed us out. It so happened that the truck carried a bunch of Christians on their way to a Christian camp – and they had been praying for us from the moment they saw how recklessly I was driving! God brought these people to our assistance on His behalf! He had planned this protection long before we had set out on our journey!
Psalm 119:5 says, “You hem me in – behind and before! You have laid your hand upon me! Despite our own foolishness, God really does care! He goes before us and literally “hems us in” from danger!
There are nearly seven billion people in the world, but God cares about each one of us as individuals, as our reading this morning clearly demonstrates! His protection is greater than we could ever imagine or expect! Verse 16 says that “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be!” Isn’t it amazing that God has planned out every day of the lives of seven billion people long before they were even born!
2 God Selects Us: One of our church members comes from a non-Christian home but about five years ago he met a Christian who is also linked with our church, who had a profound influence on him. Although he still struggles with constant temptation, since we started this group he has led quite a few people to be part of our own church. Let me read you one of his experiences in his own words:
“Last night I went to the Greengate (Hotel) to meet up with Michael again. I met some Christians there, who do a Bible study in that pub on Monday nights. I noticed this group while I was approaching the bar to buy our last drinks. I had noticed before that these particular people would just walk past the bar, and I wondered why they were doing Bible study at the Greengate! At the bar I felt a sudden urge to go over and chat with them. I related to them how I had become a born-again Christian. I knew that this experience was the Lord bringing Himself more into my life - even in a pub where I had previously been socializing, with the devil trying to control me! I also recognize that the Lord is teaching me that He is with us everywhere - even places where you least expect Him to be!”
From this account, we can see, as Jesus tells us in John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last!” Please notice that God calls us to bear fruit – not like the fruit we buy that will quickly spoil, but “fruit that will last!” God’s call is irrevocable – in other words, He cares about us enough that not only does He choose us, but He won’t let us go, even if we fail Him along the way!
Why are you here this morning? Not just because you agreed to come, but because God loves you enough to make sure that you are here! There is something He wants you to hear today that could change your life forever!
3. God Corrects Us: When things go wrong for us, we often don’t see this as a sign of God’s care, but Proverbs 13:24 tells us that “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him!” God is our Father (our Dad) who disciplines us to bring out the best in us!
Once as a school principal, I had a neighbor of the school complain that someone from the school had burned part of his fence down! When I found the culprit, I took him to the aggrieved neighbor to make amends! The neighbor turned out to be the pastor of a local church, and he arranged special church help for this boy, who was eventually baptized and a witness for Jesus, to his friends!
Job, who experienced more suffering than any of us are ever likely to have, wrote this in 5:17, “Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty!” No-one knows us and our needs better than God does, as verse 1 of our reading today shows.
4. God Resurrects Us: He brings us back from the dead – spiritually in this life and bodily in the next! Romans 5:8 tells us that “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” He doesn’t wait until we reach a certain level of righteousness, He accepted us as we are! On Friday I attended a Serbian Orthodox funeral for the father of one of my friends. As most of it was in Serbian, I didn’t follow it very closely, but I was given a written translation. Most of the service involved the priest begging for mercy for the man who had died. There were also seven prayers directed to Mary, asking her to get involved in his forgiveness.
But when we’re dead it’s too late! Jesus has already died and paid the price for our sins! We can receive forgiveness and eternal life now! We don’t have to wait for some priest to beg us into heaven! And it wouldn’t work if we did! Let’s accept His death for us as our entitlement to live with Him forever, and recognise that He cared enough for us to let this happen!
1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He care for you!”
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