Does God “Do It My Way”?

Posted by on June 28, 1998 under Sermons

Every person here tonight is a child of someone. All of us have had a childhood experience. All of us have been in or are in a parent-child relationship as a child.

I want all of us to think as the child. Parents, I want you to think as an adult child, not as a parent. Grandparents, I want you to think as an adult child, not as a grandparent.

From a child’s perspective, does this sound familiar? “If you would just do things my way, everything would be fine. That is the problem. You won’t do things my way.”

Whether verbally or implied, every child received this message from his or her parents. The message: “My way is the way. Just do it my way.”

Now I want us adults to consider the transition that we made. When we reach our teen years, at some point in adolescence, we become determined not to do it “their way,” but to do it “my way.” The desire to do it “my way” increases in strength and determination as we grow older.

All of us as adults like “important” things to be done “my way.” Some of us as adults want everything done “my way.”

Important question: does God do things the way we would do them? Does God do things “our way”?

  1. Does God do things the way people would do them?
    1. The Bible declares that God produced two great acts of deliverance.
      1. In both situations, God Himself designed the deliverance.
      2. In both situations, the deliverance occurred to accomplish God’s purposes.
      3. In both situations, God set people free–God produced a seemingly impossible freedom.
    2. The first deliverance: freeing the Israelites enslaved in Egypt.
      1. God promised Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation (Genesis 12:1-4).
      2. God also promised that He would use that nation to bring a great blessing to all people of the world.
      3. Over 400 years later God kept that promise by delivering the Israelites, who were the descendants of Abraham, from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 12:29-42).
      4. God secured their release from captivity, but God knew that they did not trust Him.
        1. They did not have the kind of faith that would allow God to work through them to bring the blessing that He promised Abraham.
        2. Their becoming a people who trusted God was important to them and to God’s purposes.
      5. So how did God give them opportunity to grow in faith?
        1. God led them out into an unpopulated area away from Egypt’s towns and cities.
        2. God allowed them to be trapped between the Egyptian army and the waters of the Red Sea.
        3. Escape was impossible.
          1. As slaves, they were totally incapable of fighting the Egyptian army–they were not even armed.
          2. And there was no way to cross the sea.
        4. The people immediately went into total, complete despair.
          1. As far as they were concerned, they had escaped Egypt to be slaughtered helplessly out in the middle of nowhere.
          2. Pharaoh knew that he was in total control of the situation (Exodus 14:8).
          3. In terror, the Israelites began screaming to God for help (Exodus 14:10).
          4. Instantly Moses dropped from the status of great deliverer to the status of the villain who led them to death (Exodus 14:11,12).
            1. “Why did you bring us out here to die? Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt?”
            2. “Didn’t we tell you in Egypt to leave us alone and let us be the Egyptians’ slaves?”
        5. God’s rescue was 100% God and 0% them.
          1. He rescued them in the face of their greatest fear and deepest doubt.
          2. When they stood safe on the other side of the sea, they knew God did it, and they knew that they had every reason to trust God.
      6. What do you think about God’s method? Did God do that “your way?”
      7. Please note something very important.
        1. God’s primary objective in rescuing Israel and giving them a home was not about creating a good life for them.
        2. God’s primary objective was keeping a promise to bring the world a Savior.
        3. It was about creating a salvation that would benefit the whole world.
        4. God’s primary purpose was to advance His preparation for sending His Son Jesus to our world.
    3. The second great deliverance: giving all people the opportunity to be free from the slavery of evil by accepting the atonement of Jesus’ death.
      1. Sending Jesus into this world and making him God’s sacrifice for sin was the fulfillment of the second promise that God made to Abraham.
      2. God allowed His son to be born as a human being.
      3. His son taught the nation of Israel that God was ready to keep His second promise to Abraham–the kingdom of God, the rule of God, would become available to all people of the world.
      4. God created this deliverance, this freedom by allowing His son to be horribly, painfully executed by crucifixion.
      5. As that occurred, Jesus’ crucifixion looked like God and God’s purposes were in total defeat.
      6. What actually happened was total victory for God.
        1. He kept His promise to Abraham.
        2. He destroyed the power and control of Satan.
        3. He guaranteed Satan’s total, eternal fall.
        4. He created the opportunity for every person in every nation and every culture to be free and forgiven of all evil.
      7. To achieve this victory, God worked through betrayal, denial, fear, desertion, injustice, contempt, abuse, mockery, extreme pain, agony, public humiliation, public disgrace, and death as a public spectacle.
      8. What do you think about God’s method? Did God do it “your way?”
      9. Again, it is very evident that God’s deliverance is 100% God and 0% us.
        1. Just as Israel had to accept deliverance, we also must accept deliverance.
        2. But we only respond to deliverance, we do not create it.
      10. Again, please note something very important.
        1. God’s primary objective is freeing us from the slavery of evil–it is not primarily creating a good life for us on earth.
        2. The primary objective had two purposes.
          1. The first is our personal, eternal salvation with God after death.
          2. The second is promoting godliness in this world by making salvation available to all people.
        3. God’s success in our lives and in the world is not measured by our physical contentment.
  2. When you examine God’s work and the methods that God uses, He does not do things the way we would.
    1. Just consider a few examples.
      1. God delivered Jacob’s large family from starvation by working through Joseph’s betrayal and his slavery in Egypt.
      2. God prepared Moses to lead Israel by working through Moses’ exile in the wilderness.
      3. God prepared Israel to follow Him in capturing the land of Canaan by having them wander in a desert wilderness for forty years.
      4. God led Israel to repentance and redirection by using the Babylonian captivity of the nation.
      5. God created the possibility of salvation for all people through the crucifixion of His own son.
      6. God spread the church over the world of the Roman empire in a generation by working through suffering and persecution.
      7. Is that the way you would have attempted to accomplished those things?
    2. Knowing the way God has worked, how do you think God is going to work in this congregation? in your personal life?
      1. God would work in this congregation and each of our lives in the following manner if He did it our way.
        1. It would be systematic.
        2. It would follow neat, progressive steps.
        3. It would be calm and peaceful.
        4. It would use prosperity.
        5. It would involve no problems and no troubles.
        6. It would make sense to us, be logical to us, and let us see exactly where we are going and exactly what would happen.
        7. It would allow us to determine our own goals and to reach those goals in a very orderly fashion.
        8. It would be comfortable and physically enjoyable.
    3. May I ask you two questions.
      1. What do you personally know and understand about successfully building genuine, controlling trust in God?
        1. If God gave you the job of building people’s faith, how would you do it?
        2. Would you prove that you really understand how to build faith by using the level of faith that you have in your own life?
      2. What do you know and understand about successfully fighting evil in people’s lives?
        1. Again, if God gave you the job of teaching people how to fight evil in their lives, how would you do it?
        2. Would you prove that you really understand how to fight evil by using the success you have as you fight evil in your own life?

When you look at how God worked in Joseph’s life, worked in the exile of Moses, worked in the wilderness experience of the nation of Israel, worked in the Babylonian captivity, worked in the crucifixion, worked in the sufferings of Christians in the first century, how do you think God is going to work in this congregation?

When you look at how God worked in Joseph’s life, worked in the exile of Moses, worked in the wilderness experience of the nation of Israel, worked in the Babylonian captivity, worked in the crucifixion, worked in the sufferings of Christians in the first century, how do you think God is going to work in your life?

Does God do things our way? No. And it is very important that everyone of us remember that.