What's God Doing?

Message I have for you today is titled, What's God Doing?

What's God Doing?

If you brought your Bibles, turn to Psalm 33 and Revelation chapter.

And while you're turning there, let me just say that this question, what's God doing, is one of the most common questions, or at least the subject matter of that question, is one of the most common things that I deal with as a pastor.

Part of my function pastorally is to help people figure out what's God doing.

And I would venture to say that every one of us in the room today have one or more areas of our life where there's situations or circumstances we're dealing with, and we're asking the question, what is God doing in this situation?

Sometimes we ask it out of frustration.

Sometimes we ask it out of curiosity.

But almost every time that I've been asked the question, help me figure out what God is doing, it's asked out of sincerity by people really wanting to know what is God doing in the situation of my life.

So, Psalm 33, if you're there, let's read in verse 13.

The Lord looks from heaven, he sees all the sons of men.

From the place of his dwelling, he looks on all the inhabitants of the earth.

He considers all their works.

Now, just a reminder as we approach this subject today, that you're not a number, a statistic, something that God does in a generic way, but he knows every person individually, and one of the things that he's doing in the circumstances of our life is he's fashioning his nature and character in us individually.

That means he's working individually in the situations of your life and my life.

Now that ought to be good news.

If you're dealing with something, you're not dealing with it alone, you're not dealing with it in a way, an uncaring response from a God who's very distant and doesn't really know what your situation is.

He knows every situation.

All means all.

And you and me are part of all.

So God, regardless of what you're dealing with today, God is in the middle of your situation.

Now turn to Revelation chapter 3, and I want to start in verse 20, because that's a verse that we're mostly familiar with.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

I'd venture to say you've heard this.

Many of you, maybe even you've memorized it.

Revelation 3.20.

I'm going to read this out of the message Bible, so just follow along in your translation here.

If you've memorized it, you can say it under your breath with me as well.

This is Jesus' statement to the church at Laodicea, but we we quote it like this.

It says, Look at me.

I stand at the door, I knock.

If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you.

Now, you may have memorized that verse, you may be familiar with it.

I memorized the King James, behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone will hear my voice and open the door, I'll come in and sup with him and he with me.

Anybody there in that response?

I always thought that was a response, a salvation response.

But what was being said there is God is knocking on the door of our heart.

He wants to come into our life, and he does so at salvation.

That's true today.

If you don't know Jesus Christ today, you'll have an opportunity at the end of the service to come down and receive Jesus as your personal Savior.

There's a claim that he's made on your life, and he's made provision for you to have eternal life through Jesus Christ.

He's knocking on the door of your life today.

That is certainly true.

But if we put it in the context of the message that was to the church at Laodicea, it carries far more meaning than that.

And that's what I want to look at.

If you'll go back to verse 17, we pick up the dialogue of what Jesus was saying to the church.

You brag, I'm rich, I've got it made, I need nothing from anyone, oblivious that in fact you're a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare, and homeless.

Remember a few weeks ago, Pastor Robert talked about those that are poor in spirit, and the the definition of poor in spirit is just what Jesus was declaring there.

You and I are poor in spirit today, whether we recognize it or not.

So Jesus is saying, you that say you're rich, but you're not.

In fact, you are pitiful, a blind beggar, threadbare, and homeless.

Here's what I want you to do.

Now here's the insight when we say, What's God doing?

What God is doing for you and me is to bring us to a place of asking the question or responding to what he's saying.

Buy your gold from me, gold that's been through the refiner's fire.

Then you'll be rich.

Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in heaven.

You've gone around half naked long enough, and buy medicine for your eyes from me, so you can see.

Really see.

The people I love, I call to account, prod and correct and guide so that they'll live at their best.

Up on your feet then, about face, run after God.

And then we're back to verse 20.

Look at me, I stand at the door, I knock.

If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in, sit right down, and sup with you, have supper with you.

Now here's the issue that Jesus is addressing there.

There's the potential in our lives that we are unaware, either because of denial or because of self-sufficiency or some pride in our life.

We're unaware of our real condition.

Part of the reason that we ask the question, what's God doing, is we really are unaware of what he might be trying to do, and we get bogged down in the details rather than seeing the big picture of what God is doing or saying.

Jesus invites us to buy from him three things gold, which I believe represents our faith.

Gold is a commodity that when it's refined, the refining process makes it even more pure.

The purest form of gold is almost like a mirror.

You can see your reflection in it.

It is made into beautiful things, and it's a trading commodity.

Now, think about your faith.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God.

It's a trading commodity of the kingdom of God.

It is turned into beautiful things.

Jesus numerous times in the New Testament said that by someone's faith they would receive the work that they'd asked for in God.

It's turned into something of precious work.

And it's made into beautiful things.

Our faith produces those things.

Heavenly garments, uh, I think represent the observable qualities of godly character in our life.

And the I salve that he's saying, buy from me uh medicine to put on your eyes.

That's God's wisdom and understanding in the situations that we're in.

So Jesus comes and he knocks on the door of our heart and he says, Will you open the door and buy from me these things, these commodities?

If we're not careful, we just simply think, well, how do I buy gold from Jesus?

How do I buy garments from Jesus?

He it's it's a process that I don't quite understand.

Unless we take it out of the context of, he's not talking about gold in the sense of gold.

He's talking about a commodity like faith.

He's not talking about heavenly garments, he's talking about our character.

He's not talking about medicine, he's talking about wisdom and understanding and how do we what will we do?

Will we open up the door of our life in order for God to put these things into it?

Now, sometimes, I don't know if you're you're like me, but sometimes I respond to God when He's knocking on the door of my heart like I do a door-to-door salesman.

You ever had a door-to-door salesman come to your door?

A few weeks ago, Jan and I were in the house, and we have these windows in the front of our house, the blinds were open.

We saw this guy walking up our sidewalk, and I said to Jan, you get the door.

She said, No, you get the door.

I said, No, I'm not getting the door, you get the door, and we both headed toward the back of the house.

It's like, we're we're we're not, we're gonna pretend we're not there.

Sometimes when Jesus knocks on the door of our heart, we're internally having this dialogue saying, You get the door, I'm not getting the door, you get the door, I'm not getting the door.

And we head to the back of the house.

Jesus, in the situations of our life, is knocking on our heart and he's saying, Will you buy from me?

Will you buy faith refined in the fire?

Will you buy a character, moral and spiritual character for your life that has been produced by my work in your life?

Will you buy wisdom and understanding so that you can really see what I'm doing in your life?

Well, it's a work that God's doing.

So we say, What is God doing?

And I've got some questions for us as we try and understand this process.

And the first is, can we receive these things and avoid God's refining work?

Is it possible to just open the door, grab the things that God would offer to us without going through a process of His refining?

Look at Isaiah 48 and verse 10.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver.

I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

First Peter 1, 6 and 7.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials.

That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

First Peter 4 12, beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you, but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

When we ask the question, what is God doing?

I believe one of the greatest hindrances to understanding what God's doing is we become focused on the details of our situation as if they are the purpose of God's work.

And we completely miss the bigger picture.

Let me give you an example of this.

When I was 16, the first year I drove, I had four accidents.

All of them unique in their situation, and none of them my fault.

I'm fighting the urge to tell you about each one right now, just so you'd understand.

Lost my insurance two times during that first year, and I was focused.

I had committed my life to Christ before these accidents took place, and I was really wondering, God, what are you doing in these situations?

I thought, I know what he's doing.

He doesn't want me to drive down this street anymore.

I drove down this street, and because I went down this street, I was involved in an accident.

Because I was out this late at night on a snowy uh night, uh, I slid on a road.

That's what he's saying.

Don't drive on snowy roads.

One day after my fourth accident, I was contemplating these accidents.

I was contemplating what had taken place in every one of these accidents.

And kind of to me, what was miraculous, though each of them could have been serious, it could have involved serious bodily harm, none of them did.

None of them did.

And I was thinking, God, you've really been awesome in protecting me and in the process of this work.

And just like that, the Lord said to me, I've been trying to reveal to you, Todd, uh, Tom, that I am uh covering.

Hello, God.

I've been trying to reveal to you, Tom, that I am sovereign in the events of your life.

That things that are taking place in you are bigger than you know yourself.

And now that you realize that I'm the one who has his hand on your life, you'll not have another accident.

And I thought, all right.

Now, wouldn't you think that'd be good news for your dad who'd been paying for these repairs of these cars?

I went and told my dad, Dad, guess what?

God spoke to me today.

He was of the mind that God didn't really speak like I was uh revealing.

Didn't he didn't know God like I knew God at that point in his life.

And I said, God spoke to me today, and I'm not gonna have another accident.

He went.

Right.

It was true.

It was true.

It was a sovereign work that God did.

And what God didn't want me to do is to be be bogged down in the the details of with each accident to figure out, God, what are you doing here?

What are you doing here?

What he wanted to do is reveal something far greater, and I and hear me now.

Don't get bogged down in this.

I'm not saying God caused the accidents.

He didn't.

I'm not saying that that God worked in those situations to bring this about.

I am saying that he did a work through those things to reveal something far greater than the circumstances that I was dealing with.

I don't know what situations you're dealing with today, but I can tell you apart, above those circumstances, is something far greater that God wants to work in your life.

These circumstances are simply a refining work that God is doing.

Now, when I think of refining, here's what it means to me.

In my college years, I spent five years working for my father-in-law who had a plumbing, heating, and cooling business.

And in the 70s, uh, it wasn't like it is today, where you can plastic pipe and a little cleaner and glue, and you you know connect a pipe and it's connected.

We we had we dealt with cast iron pipe, especially underground.

Cast iron pipe and lengths of four, six, eight, ten feet long, with a bell hub on it.

We'd slide one piece of pipe into the bell hub, then we put some yarn on the inside, and we would take some molten lead and put it around there and then caulk it in so that the the pipe didn't leak.

Every truck in my my father-in-law's fleet had a furnace, a little pot of propane gas, like you use for your cooking uh your uh grill now, a propane gas with a uh a ladle on top that would be heated by the fire.

And we we had these five-pound ingots of lead.

And so we'd pull an ingot out, set it in the pot, turn the pot on, and in a matter of a few minutes the lead would be molten.

Every time I put an ingot of lead in there, it was silvery, shiny, almost like silver.

I could never see any impurities that were a part of it, but every time it got heated, there was always a black, crusty film over the lead in the pot that was molten that had to be scraped away before we poured it into the to the bell of the cast iron pipe.

God is doing a work in us.

He's attached, he's produced a situation that is not unlike a furnace pot in our life to turn up the heat so that some impurities are revealed in our life so that they can be scraped away and the true nature of what God is doing be revealed in our life.

Are you uh have you got a situation that's the the furnace has been the the heat's been turned up a little in?

It's God's work to reveal something, and he's saying, Will you buy from me the testing of your faith here?

Will you buy an increased measure of trust in me in the circumstances of your life, even as this situation heats up, will you not look at the details, the specific details so much as the bigger picture of what I'm doing in your life?

The good news about this is Romans 8 says, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose.

When God's doing a refining work in your life, the refining work brings uh brings impurities to the surface to be skimmed off and reveals things that produce the greatest quality and depth of relationship that you can have with God.

Remember, God is looking from heaven and he sees all the events of our life, and his desire is to deepen the relationship that we have with him.

So we can't escape the refiner's work.

Second question is this What's chastising or chastisement?

And can we avoid in this process being chastised by God?

Job 5 17 says this Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects.

Therefore, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, for he bruises, but he binds up.

He wounds, but his hands make whole.

Proverbs 3 11 says, My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest his correction, for whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as a father, the Son, in whom he delights.

Hebrews 12 5 says this, and have you forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you speaks to you as to sons?

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him, for whom the Lord loves.

He chastens and scourges every son whom he receives.

Now, this word chastening we don't understand today.

We don't understand it because it's really not a commonly used word in our English vocabulary.

In your Bibles today, depending on what translation you have, it's probably translated discipline or correction.

And so we then draw it through the grid of our own experience and we think, I know what correction is.

I know what discipline is.

In a day before today, when I was growing up, when my dad would, he would apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge, and I got the message.

Sometimes in the process of that, I know that there are people in here today, and you've been abused in a corrective process.

You have been penalized for the things that you've done wrong, and so you equate every bit of correction from a penalizing standpoint.

It hurts.

It hurts.

You've been spanked hard, maybe even abused multiple times.

Maybe you've been hit in places you shouldn't have been hit.

Maybe you've been spoken to in an abusive way, and so you think that's the way God does with me.

And I'm not into this chastising business.

But this word chastising doesn't mean that.

The word chastising actually is a word that means tutorage.

God is committed to tutoring us into the nature and character and qualities that He that reflect Him and produce those things in our life.

If you've been hurt today by punishment, by some abusive situation, it's going to be hard for you to receive the tutoring work of God.

Because even in tutoring, it's hard.

It can be embarrassing, it can be frustrating.

Let me give you an example of this in my own life.

When I was about 10 years old, my dad, I I, one summer I decided I wanted to uh mow yards.

And so I convinced my dad to allow me to use the family lawnmower in Canvas, the neighborhood, uh, to get some lawn business.

I finally found a family, a lady that would, uh it was a widow lady that lived a couple of blocks over from us, who said she would allow me to mow a yard.

And she told me when she agreed to it, it was early in the week, and she said, now I need my yard mowed before the weekend because I'm having family guests in town and I want my yard to look great.

I said, Yes, ma'am, I'll I'll be back and I'll take care of it.

So each day went by, and there was always something in the day that came up that, you know, I'll I'll do it tomorrow.

I don't want to do it today.

You know, I've got I want to take care of this.

And finally, Friday came, and a bunch of my friends were playing ball down at the school yard, and they asked me to come play, and I thought, uh I guess I don't really want to mow yards this summer anyway.

So I blew it off and went to play ball with my friends.

We're sitting at dinner that night, and my dad, the phone rang, my mom answered the phone, and uh she said, Oh, really?

Now, sometimes, oh really is not a good thing.

And she said, I'm sure Jim will want to talk to you just a minute.

So then my dad gets up and goes over the phone.

I'm still eating my dinner and I think everything's okay.

It's you know, it's cool.

And uh, so my dad says, Is that so?

Oh really?

Now, when your dad says, Oh really, that's really not good.

And he said, uh, he did, did he?

He said, We'll be right over.

And he hangs up the phone and he said, Did you tell Mrs.

Jones that you would mow her yard by today?

And I went, uh.

Well, um, Dad, I don't want to mow yards this summer.

And he said, Too late.

You committed, you made a commitment, and get your stuff, we're going to Moore Yard right now.

I said, Dad, I'm not done eating.

He said, Get your stuff, we're going right now.

And he walked over with me, me pushing the lawnmower, walked over to this lady's house and stood on the front porch talking to the lady with his arms folded while I mowed the yard and said, Ah, ah, you missed that spot right there, right there.

Come back, come back, make the line straight and don't miss any spots.

Follow your wheel mark in the grass.

I mean, it was humiliating.

And this lady had this smirky smile on her face.

She was enjoying the whole thing.

Got to edging the sidewalks and things like that.

My dad said, Come here, you missed this part right here.

Then he had me sweep all the grass and pick it up.

And then to make things totally worse, he wouldn't let her pay me.

After all this work, he wouldn't let her pay me.

What was my dad doing?

Tutoring me.

I was under a point of chastisement by my father for what I had done, and he was creating in me a nature and a character that lived true to my word.

Not unlike what God does in the circumstances of our life.

He chastises us, not to punish us.

Jesus took the penalty for all of our sins and failure.

It's a tutoring mechanism.

Well, one other thing I just want to say in this, and that is God uses people and situations to chasten us as his sons and daughters.

You know, it'd be nice if we could say, oh God, I just accept any of your correction in my life, any of your work to tutor me in my life.

But he does it in the context of a work extended through people.

2 Samuel 7 and verse 12.

This is God's statement to David about his son Solomon.

And this is what he says: When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be his father, and he shall be my son.

If he commits iniquity, I will chastise him.

For the with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men.

But my mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you, and your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you.

Your throne shall be established forever.

God uses people and situations to bring his chastisement into our life.

When Jan and I had been married about five or six years, we developed a friendship with a pastor.

And the friendship involved us going over to their house for dinner and different things.

And it was a friendship.

They got to see us in our natural state, so to speak.

And one day we're over at the house, and this guy was about maybe ten or twelve years older than I was, and he said, Hey Tom, can I talk to you a minute?

And I said, Sure.

And he said, have you ever noticed that when you tell stories about Jan, you always tell them in a bad light?

What I felt like saying was, shut up.

We're here to have dinner and to have fun, and we're not here to get a lecture.

I said, really?

Hiding the true nature of my feelings.

I said, really?

What do you mean?

So he started telling me about situations that he had observed and stories that I'd told on Jan that were embarrassing to her.

I thought they were funny.

They were funny because they were at her expense.

I wasn't telling them on myself.

What was he doing?

Tutoring me, chastising me for my behavior.

No chastisement seems pleasant for the moment.

This is my third point and my last one.

How can we be trained by what we've experienced?

Hebrews 12 11 says, no chastising seems to be joyful for the present but painful.

Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

The word, the statement, peaceable fruit of righteousness, it means a satisfied state of observable moral and spiritual character.

Here's the thing it's possible for us to go through a process, a process of refining, a process of chastising, and miss the training mechanism that God has in that moment.

Do you and I want to have the character, the nature of God developed in our life?

If the answer to that is yes, I can tell you, regardless of the circumstances, if you want to know what God is doing, God's looking down from heaven individually into your situation, fashioning your heart and life into his nature.

If you want to be trained by it, here's what it means.

The word trained means to practice in a completely vulnerable state.

When I played football, every once in a while, usually toward the end of the week, we would go out to practice and we would be, I was an offensive tight end and a defensive end, and the linemen, the regular guys, would be in full pads and helmets, and it'd be full speed practice, and the quarterback would be in a helmet, t-shirts, and shorts.

And the coach would say, I don't want anybody to touch the quarterback.

No tackling, no, no, the quarterback in this instance was practicing in a completely vulnerable state.

If any one of us guys, while we were practicing in full contact, if we would have slid off and thought, you know, now's my time to get the guy.

I'm going to make a point.

I'm going to, I've got an open shot and I'm going to tackle him.

If any one of us would have made that statement, they would have carried the quarterback off and stretcher.

The quarterback had to depend upon the authority of the coach in this situation in order to practice in a completely vulnerable state.

He had the option to go back in and put on his pads, put on his shoulder pads, and come and protect himself, or he could trust in the coach's whistle and in his ability, his authority, to keep us from causing injury to our quarterback.

In this scenario, God's the coach in our lives.

The question is if we're going to be trained by this so that the observable qualities of spiritual and moral character are developed into our life, we're going to have to put our trust in God.

We're going to have to practice in a completely vulnerable state so that what He desires can be produced in our life.

Bow your head if you will.