14th February 2025

14th February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Acts 2:22-24 and Acts 4:27-31)


Message (Alan Burke)


Today I’m going to start by talking about knitting.


Honestly I’m no expert, most of my personal experience of knitting is as a wain in Bready primary school, most of you have no idea where that is, but as a punishment for being me I was made to knit with the girls which you couldn’t get away with these days and they don’t even teach knitting in schools anymore. My experience now of knitting is from when I call into the knitting group in Lissara. What stuck me when I was with in our knitting group is that some of the ladies were working from a pattern but even if they weren’t they had a plan of where they were going. For it’s not a matter of simply showing up for a couple of hours every now and again and hay presto you have the final product a beautiful blanket or jumper or hat or whatever it may be, no it takes time, working from a pattern or to a plan in order to get to the finished article. 


Even when our ladies are working from a pattern or plan there was every now and again a mistake made a stitch would be dropped and some of the stitches would need to be undone and then redone before you could continue. There are lots of things that we do that we can’t just simply come to without some kind of plan, our every day lives what ever it may be we plan out our days, we plan out our weeks, our years but you know as well as I do that it doesn’t matter how well we plan or how organised we think we are that there are times that to all just goes to pot, our plans are thrown into chaos and we just have to play it by ear and get on with it. 


As we think upon what The Lord God had decreed, resolved, decided, fixed, appointed his eternal purpose, his plan, it does not change, it has not changed, the Old Testament isn’t plan A and the New Testament plan B, one plan from beginning to end where we learn more of the greatness of God. For everything that happens in this world he has preordained, he has determined what ever will come to pass. There will never be a surprise for God, the unexpected thing that comes and throws his plans into chaos and there will never be an emergency for God to have to deal with for he knows it all he has planned it all and he’s never going to be in a tight spot because of the unforeseen that leaves him unable to act.


The bible teaches us that we have free will and it also teaches us that every decision we make, for each and every one of us, whether we are believers or not has already been planned out by God from all eternity but that we are ultimately free to make those choices, we are free to choose he allows us to do things that are contrary to his commandments, yet God already knows the choices that we ultimately make. We see this clearly in the book of Acts 2:23, it speaks of the evil deeds of those who killed the Lord Jesus our saviour. As it speaks of the reality of how those who were involved in one of the most horrifying, yet God-glorifying events in all of history were accountable for their actions. Although wicked men, both Jews and Gentiles conspired to put the Lord Jesus to death their actions were within the sovereign determination of God. God ordains the means as well as the ends of human events without violating human freedom and responsibility. 


Another example comes in Acts 4:27-31. Herod, Pontius Pilate, Gentiles, the peoples of Israel were all responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus yet all of it as verse 28 makes clear was according to the plan of God, this is a clear affirmation that nothing, not even the wrongful death of God's Son, happens apart from God's sovereign will and control. What he has purposed, he will do. Our holy and wise God is fully in control of our lives, our future, our church, his kingdom, and this world, that means good and pleasant things as well as hard and painful things we experience are all according to his sovereign purposes. Yet we know he is working all things together for the good of those who love him, we can trust him to do well. His children have nothing to fear in this life or the next. For it is all taking place according to God’s plan and his purposes, and in the midst of what you face, know that the Lord care about it all, that there is not one bit that he does not know about nor one bit of it he is not infinitely concerned about.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q7 What are the decrees of God?
The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. 
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