When you go out in the country at night and look up at the sky, you can see far more stars than you can in the city. The darker the night sky, the brighter the stars shine. The darker our world, the brighter God’s people can shine.
That’s what we’re talking about in our message series “Shine in a Dark World.” Rather than getting upset with the darkness, we can see it as an opportunity to let Jesus’ light shine through us.
Today, our message is entitled “Trusting God’s in Control.” Or sometimes, closer to home, we fear that the situations of our lives are out of control. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The Bible teaches us that God is completely in control at all times.
Psalm 135:6 (ESV) Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.
No person, no spiritual being, no situation can stop God from doing what He desires to do. God is sovereign, which means that He has supreme authority and power over everything.
Matthew 28:18 (ESV) And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
How much authority or power does Jesus have? All authority. Where does Jesus exercise His authority? In heaven and on earth, which encompasses everything there is. We can rejoice in God’s sovereignty because He is also loving, good and righteous. God always does the right thing, the loving thing. He does what is best for every person, for every nation and for our world.
Even though God is sovereign, He has given the people He created free will. Free will is the ability to make choices, either good or bad in this life. How can God be sovereign and man have free will? We may not be able to reconcile these two truths with our minds, but God’s Word affirms both of them.
As human beings, we have a choice to make. The right choice is to surrender our free will to God’s sovereign power. When we do that, God works in us to give us the best possible life we can have.
John 3:16 (ESV) “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
God in His sovereignty, offers eternal life to everyone. Yet, we must choose of our own free will to believe in Jesus in order to receive God’s free gift of eternal life. Today, we’re going to learn how to trust that God’s in control in our dark world. And we going to discover how to submit ourselves to His will in all of life. To introduce our message today from the prophet Jeremiah, let’s watch a video called “The Potter’s House.”