God The Engineer

Perth

24/08/07

“God the engineer”

Intro: God is in the business of working in & through human lives.

Do you remember that God is the God of the supernatural? Not a mental knowledge but is this truth a part of your daily thinking?

Most of the time we aren’t even aware of it ….. have no comprehension God even knows what’s happening to us.

The Bible’s pict is that God is vigilant to engineer the circumstances of our lives to fulfil His purposes.

*** Dr. Helen Roseveare, missionary to Zaire, told the following story. "A mother at our mission station died after giving birth to a premature baby. We tried to improvise an incubator to keep the infant alive, but the only hot water bottle we had was beyond repair. So we asked the children to pray for the baby and for her sister. One of the girls responded by praying: “Dear God, please send a hot water bottle today. Tomorrow will be too late because by then the baby will be dead. And dear Lord, send a doll for the sister so she won't feel so lonely.” That afternoon a large package arrived from England. The children watched eagerly as we opened it. Much to their surprise, under some clothing was a hot water bottle! Immediately the girl who had prayed so earnestly started to dig deeper, saying, “If God sent that, I'm sure He also sent a doll!”

And she was right! The Lord knew in advance of that child's sincere requests, and 5 months earlier He had moved on the hearts of people in England to include both of those specific articles."

God is at work long b/4 we even know there is a need for him to be working!

The Hand of God has even been at work in your life …… moving things / people / circumstances for the explicit needs & issues of your life & to meet needs in the lives others.

After getting saved many of us can look back & see how God was at work in our lives years b/4 we were saved but ... the really encouraging truth is that He hasn’t stopped working in our lives!

God is engineering the details of human lives to work his by His miraculous power in those lives.

T/n we want to look at how God does his work & consider ‘God the engineer’.

Text: Isa 59:1 (NKJV) 1 Behold, the Lord’S hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear.

I want to make three very simple statements about God’s great power to engineer things in our lives.

# 1. God knows what’s going on.

A. There’s nothing about our lives / circ that God is ignorant of.

a. At times when nothing in life or the world makes sense it’s easy to think God doesn’t u/s what’s going on.

i. The big temptation as everything goes wrong is to think God doesn’t know or doesn’t care!

ii. But……God’s apparent silence doesn’t mean God isn’t doing anything or He isn’t involved.

iii. But … God knows everything b/4 it happens, not even the smallest details escape His attention.

*** Greg’s Van. Greg a pioneering pastor under all kinds of financial constraints & his vehicle is getting older & needs updating. He has 5 kids & needs something better than what he’s got. His mother, who is a Christian & really hears from God has been praying for Greg. She calls him one day & asks Greg what kind of a car he wants. Greg however doesn’t really take her too seriously so he begins to rattle off all the details of what he wants. A few days later his mother calls & says God has shown me the car your going to get you. It’s a white van w/ a blue stripe, it’s got seven seats & good paintwork & begins to relate all the details. Not only this but the vehicle is going to be a bargain buy! Then as she’s about to finish she says there’s one more thing too, God has shown me it has some red dust in it too ….. I think it has been up north somewhere.

Greg thanks his mother & laughs to himself & doesn’t think anything more about it. Greg knows that he doesn’t have the money to buy the kind of vehicle his mother has just described to him on the phone, it’s way out of his reach financially.

Not long after this Greg finds out about a Mitsubishi van for sale. He thinks …… this is going to be too much but he has a look anyway. When he sees it the van is white w/ a blue stripe & good paintwork, it has 7 seats, it’s everything his mother described to him a few days b/4. As he is looking around the van his mother’s words are ringing in his ears! But then he remembers the red dust & thinks to himself “Well you almost got it right mum but you missed it w/ the red dust! Then as he lifts up the spare tyre in the back he notices that right in bottom of the spare tyre well there is a handful of red dust!”