God is in Charge?

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“My hope is built on nothing less…” Would it surprise you if I said that the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was not sure if he could have said these words, at least, not at first? He did place his hope in many things for quite some time but it took some time for him to place his trust in God.

So, if he was not placing his trust in God, what was it in which he placed his trust? Well, he placed a lot of trust in his intellect. He was, after all, a very intelligent young man. Steeped in the enlightenment and educated at Oxford, Wesley was among the best prepared of his day. Besides the disciplines of biblical studies and theology, he dabbled in philosophy, science and medicine. Yet he found that his intelligence failed him.

He also had drive. Doubtless you have heard the term “Type A”. I think it was created for people like Wesley if not for Wesley himself. Wesley kept a schedule that few of us could match. He made demands of himself and his preachers to never be triflingly engaged or to stay too long in any one place. Wesley was well organized and armed with a razor sharp force of focus and purpose. Yet it failed him as well.

Granted, he might not have been able to place his hope in these things but surely he could rest assured in his piety. Wesley practiced great acts of piety. So much so that he made a name for himself. As a student at Oxford, Wesley formed a group which would come to be known as the Holy Club. They made a point of daily prayer, scripture reading, fasting, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry and clothing the poor. Wesley did many good things and yet this too failed him. Returning from his failed mission to the colony of Georgia, Wesley wrote in his journal, “I went to save the Indian but who will save me?”

We all sing the songs, whether it be the old hymn I sang at the beginning or a song like “God is in Control”. Do we mean it? Do we live it out?

Our text from Psalms deals with the human desire to put our trust in things other than God. For the author this brought to mind an image of conflict. Of course, in ancient Israel life was a constant conflict. Living at the crossroads of the known world, the kingdom of David was constantly under threat from the outside. This is why Psalm 33 refers to aspects of war and defense. Israel was constantly concerned with from where their help would arrive.

Would it come from the king’s army? No, even a great army will fail the one who places all hope in it. Would their help come from the strength of a mighty warrior? No. Not even the warrior’s strong arm could be trusted. Indeed, even the war horse, that great military marvel of its day, would fail the person vain enough to put his trust in it.

In the eyes of the psalmist there is but one in whom we can place our trust. There is only one who is sovereign. There is but one who is in control. For the psalmist God is in charge.

What does it mean for God to be in charge? Why is he in charge? What does that mean for us?

Well, to put it simply, God is in charge because he is! A really cool guy named Jacob Arminius put it this way. God is sovereign over all things – in charge – because everything has its origins in him. It is what the psalm says, “For he spoke and it came to be; he commanded and it stood firm.” God is first and because of God all things came into being. Therefore, God gets to be in charge.

You would think that would clinch it but it does not. Even those of us who are willing to say that God is in charge in word quite often fail to do so in deed. We trust in our strength, our armies, our intellect, our drive and our righteousness.

Is it not ironic that at this moment, as we watch our brothers and sister in Japan suffer under the triple threat of earthquake, tsunami and radiation, we still trust in all of our own abilities to see us through? It would be interesting to know how many people in the Chattanooga area ran out this week to buy a bottle of iodine tablets. We may say that God is in control but we sure do not do a good job of putting our trust in him.

But you see, the psalmist does not just say that God is in charge. He actually trusts God to boot! Even in the face of famine and death he places his trust in God. Why?
          It is not simply because he knows that God is sovereign. He trusts God because of the way God has been revealed to him. God has shown faithfulness to him and he has experienced God’s uprightness first hand. God has proven to be a lover of righteousness and justice. Even all of creation, says the psalmist, is full of his steadfast love.

It is not only that God is in charge, God has also been shown worthy of our trust. That is pretty amazing because, after all, a lot of people get to be in charge but not many show themselves to be trustworthy.  Here we have the unique situation of someone who really is in charge and yet they go out of their way to develop our trust.

For the psalmist – and blessed is he if this is true – the examples at hand seem to have been enough. For many, however, it was not. So, this God who is in charge, gave us control over him so that we might test him and see that his work is indeed done in faithfulness.

Oh and how we tested him! We turned upon him with all of the testing our strength, intellect and vanity could bear. This one, who fashions the hearts of all, observed our deeds , delivering our souls from death.

John Wesley asked who would save him when he realized failure to save himself let alone others. His biggest failing was not his ability to say that God was in charge. His failure was in trusting God to be in charge. He could not believe that this God could, or would, love him – forget dying for him.

One night, as Wesley listened to some dry pastor read something Martin Luther had said about Romans, Wesley felt something change. Feeling his heart strangely warmed, he began to believe that Christ had died for him and he did truly trust him to be in charge. This is not to say that a person like Wesley never struggled again, because he did. The difference came when he allowed God to be in control. It changed his life and gave meaning to all of his intellect, drive and piety.

Where is your hope? Is God in Charge? Do you trust him to be in charge?