Father Knows Best Series

INTRODUCTION

• It’s A Wonderful Life Clip

• SLIDE #1

• It is too bad that not every story has a happy ending like the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

• When we are not experiencing joy in life it can be unsettling.

• You sit there and wonder, “Where is God, why is this happening to me, God; do you care that this is happening to me?”

• It is so easy for us to acknowledge that God knows what is best for us when things are going well for us, but as soon as times get tough, it is so tempting to start to question whether God knows what He is doing.

• When we think about God and His place in our lives, it is easy to want to put Him in the position of taking care of my wants, needs, and desires, but is that all God wants to be to you, the big butler in the sky?

• Over the past three weeks we have been exploring the blessings of coming to God’s W-E-L-L for refreshment.

• SLIDE #2

• Work, energy, Lordship.

• Today we start we look at another blessing we receive from God when we come to His WELL for refreshment, His LORDSHIP!

• I hope that you; maybe for the first time, are starting to come to the well and I hope that you are drinking deeply from it.

• We want to take advantage of Christ’s work in the cross that saves us. I believe we would like to be able to rely on His energy to be able to sail to heights never known to us before.

• Accepting God’s Lordship will be one of the more difficult things we will do because it will require something of us, it will require us to relinquish control.

• Accepting God’s lordship means learning to say, “I know God knows what is best.”

• He is sovereign (or supreme ruler). He is good. He will be glorified.

• You’re in good hands with All-State. Possibly, but you are in good hands with our Father. He knows best. So trust His every move for you because He is working for you!

• Some of you remember the old shows on television that honored the father of the house as someone who was to be loved and respected.

• As a matter of fact there was an old show on that ran from 1954 to 1962 called “Father knows Best.”

• Over the years we television has made the position of father a joke.

• God is no joke, He is someone you can love, trust, and respect. He is no bumbling idiot who needs his children to tell him how to do things!

• I want to share three things we need to understand concerning the struggles we face in life and the part God plays. God is there with you, God does care for you.

• Are you thirsty this morning? Come to the WELL of God’s Lordship!

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

No Struggle will come your way apart from God’s…

I. PURPOSE

• SLIDE #4

• God has a purpose for everything that you encounter, even when we cannot understand what it might be.

• There are so many things in life that we do not understand why they happen. Why do good people die, while the criminal on death row dies of old age.

• We can fire questions out to God about things we do not understand for a lifetime.

• So many things seems so senseless, it would seem that at times, God is asleep at the wheel.

• Do we have to understand something for it to work? Do you know how a computer takes a keystroke and then stores a series of them into a document that can be stored on the computer? Whether I understand how it works has zero bearing on whether it works or not.

• I have seen things in life for which I have no good explanation, but the event still happened.

• No struggle will come your way apart from God’s purpose.

• Turn to John 11 with me. In this passage, Jesus finds out that His friend Lazarus was sick. Let us see what Jesus says about it.

• SLIDE #5

• John 11:1–6 (ESV) 1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.