Living in God’s Sovereign, Sustaining Grace

Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, “It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence”: Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:36–41)

I’m turning to this text as the basis of the message this morning partly because, when Noël and I were away celebrating our 57th wedding anniversary two weeks ago, we reflected back on some difficult experiences of the year — a broken arm, a heart attack, some painful family strife — and we remembered how the reality of what I’m about to tell you has been one of the main anchors of our lives. I want to talk to you about God’s sovereign, sustaining grace.

And the lines that I hope you will remember from this message are the definition of God’s sovereign, sustaining grace. They go like this:

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
     Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

I know that the first line is tricky because it has two negatives in it. “Not grace to bar what is not bliss” — that is, God’s grace does not keep you from sorrow. Nor does it provide flight, or escape, from distress.

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
     Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

Our experience, and the Bible, teach us that grace does not prevent pain, but orders and arranges and measures out our pain, and then in the darkness is there to sustain.

Pain Ordained and Restrained

Let me give you a few examples, and you will see why this truth is such an anchor for 57 years of marriage and, I pray, for your life.

Bob Ricker, who thirty years ago was the president of the Baptist General Conference, told an amazing story about his daughter. She was in a terrible car accident, and she was hurt so seriously that her air passage was blocked so she could not breathe. But one of the cars behind her pulled over. The driver happened to be a doctor who happened to have a device in his pocket for doing emergency tracheostomies. By the time he got to her, she was already turning blue. He forced the tube into her throat and saved her life. At her wedding a few years later, Bob Ricker told her, “Those scars you have to live with — they are memorials of God’s sovereign, sustaining grace.”

“God’s grace does not keep you from sorrow. Nor does it provide flight, or escape, from distress.”

Now, Bob Ricker is not naive. He knows that if God can ordain that there be a doctor in the car behind, and that this doctor have a breathing apparatus in his pocket, and that he have the presence of mind and courage to use it savingly, then this God is fully able to prevent the accident in the first place. In fact, when he told that story, he had just quoted Ephesians 1:11: “[We have] been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” And he stressed, “All things means all things” — including, I assume, the paths of cars and airplanes and arrows and bullets.

That was the inspiration for my little poetic definition of sovereign, sustaining grace.

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
     Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

Here’s another example of such grace, one of our favorite family stories. Noël and Abraham and Barnabas and Talitha were traveling to Georgia in the car. Talitha is a baby, Abraham is sixteen, and Barnabas is twelve. The car broke down on a lonely stretch about an hour south of Indianapolis. The radiator was shot. It’s Saturday. A farmer in his mid-sixties pulls over and offers help. Noël says that she supposes they need a motel and hopes that Monday morning there may be a garage open somewhere to work on the car. The farmer says, “Would you like to stay with my wife and me?” Noël hesitates and does not want to put them out. He says, “The Lord said when we serve others, it’s like serving him.” She says, “Well, could we go to church with you in the morning?” He says, “If you can take a Baptist church.”

So, they stay with the farmer, who is also a retired aviation mechanic, and who diagnoses the problem, drives to town Monday morning, buys a new radiator, comes back, puts it in at no expense, and sends the family on their way. In the meantime, Barnabas has pulled his fishing rod out of the car and caught a nineteen-inch catfish — to make this the best interruption imaginable.

The God who can cause a farmer to stop and help Noël, and who sees to it that he is a Christian (even a Baptist!), and that he and his wife have room for the family to stay, and that he is a mechanic, and that he finds a radiator first thing Monday morning, and that he is willing to take the time, and that he has a pond with catfish — this God is perfectly able to keep a radiator from bursting in the middle of Indiana.

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
     Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

We Will Have Tribulation

A young man once said to me in his suffering, “It would be easier if Jesus hadn’t healed the sick, but instead had given grace to endure the absence of healing.” And I said to him, “That’s exactly what Jesus did do — and for that very reason — in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10.” God in his grace, by the hand of Satan, gave Paul a thorn in the flesh for the sake of his humility, and then when Paul prayed, God did not remove it but said, “My [sovereign, sustaining] grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

To which Paul responds,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
     Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

Paul magnifies the sustaining grace of God by his gladness in weakness.

I hope the point is clear. Virtually all of you, if you have walked a decade or eight with Christ, can look back and remember a calamity or a painful season in which you saw precious evidences of God’s sustaining grace that could make you say, “God, if you are so kind and so wise and so powerful as to show so many evidences of your grace in my trouble, you could’ve spared me the trouble.” Yes, he could have. And he didn’t. And he won’t.

• “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
• “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).
• “[We are] fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17).
• “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Sovereignty Sustains

Our text in Jeremiah 32 is about this kind of sovereign, sustaining grace, and it holds the key to why you can be confident that it will sustain you to the end. God’s chosen people are in darkness and distress as this text begins. And it is God himself who has ordered it so. Look at Jeremiah 32:36: “Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence.’” That’s what they say about it. And it is true. Grace has not spared them this calamity. Nor will the grace of God spare you your appointed calamity. It may come in purifying judgment because of your sin, or it may come in refining fire or painful pruning that you bear more fruit.

But what they say about God’s chosen ones is not the last word. God has the last word. And it is a word of grace. Verse 37: “Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety.” So, God declares that he has ordered the trouble and pain: “I have driven them” to these foreign lands. And he declares that he himself will deliver them and bring them back to himself and to their land. In other words, sovereign grace will eventually triumph over the calamity.

How can we be sure of this triumph of grace? If God is a God of justice (who can send Israel into devastating exile, where many are lost because of their sin), then how can we have confidence that this will not happen to God’s chosen people today — the church, the bride of Christ, the true Israel, you and me, who have been called into the fellowship of his Son? It is one question to ask, “Why has Third Avenue Baptist endured for over 130 years?” But an even more urgent question is this: “How can we be sure that grace will triumph for you personally in the future? How can you be sure that grace will sustain you to the end in the faith and holiness that alone inherit the kingdom?”

That’s what the rest of this text is about. The answer is that sustaining grace for God’s chosen people is sovereign grace. That is, sustaining grace is omnipotent grace. It achieves what it promises. It is grace that overcomes all obstacles and preserves the faith and holiness that bring us home to heaven. This is our only sure confidence for the future. You and I, in ourselves, are utterly fickle and unreliable. If we were left to our own powers to persevere, we would make shipwreck of our faith, it is sure. This is why the saints have prayed for centuries,

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it;
Seal it for thy courts above.

Is that the way saints should pray? Is that the way to pray for your future? Is that a biblical way to pray? “Make your goodness like a fetter — a chain — that binds my wandering heart to you. Seal my heart with an unbreakable bond for the courts of heaven.” In other words, “Keep me! Preserve me! Defeat every rising rebellion! Overcome every niggling doubt! Deliver from every destructive temptation! Nullify every fatal allurement! Expose every demonic deception! Tear down every arrogant argument! Shape me! Incline me! Hold me! Master me! Do whatever you must do to keep me trusting you and fearing you till Jesus comes or calls.” May we — should we — pray and sing like that?

The answer from this text is yes. That kind of singing and praying is rooted in the new-covenant promise of sovereign, sustaining grace. Let’s read it. Keep in mind: This is one of several Old Testament promises of the new covenant that Jesus said he sealed with his own blood for all who are in him. “This cup . . . is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). The covenant is not just for Jews but for those who are true Jews by virtue of union with the Messiah, Jesus, the seed of Abraham. “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7). To be in Christ is to be a fellow heir with the remnant of Israel, and all the promises of God are yes in him (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Four Promises for the Future

Jeremiah 32:38–41 says,

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

Notice four promises of sovereign, sustaining grace. This is your hope for the future.

1. God will be our God.

God promises to be our God. Verse 38: “They shall be my people, and I will be their God.” All the promises to his people are summed up in this: “I will be your God.” That is, “I will use all that I am as God — all my wisdom, all my power, and all my love — to see to it that you remain my people. All that I am as God, I exert for your good. They shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

2. God will cause us to fear him.

God promises to change our hearts and cause us to love and fear him. Verse 39: “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them.” In other words, God will not simply stand by to see if we, by our own powers, will fear him; he will sovereignly, supremely, mercifully give us the heart that we need, and give us the faith and the fear of God that will lead us home to heaven. This is sovereign, sustaining grace.

3. God will not let us turn away.

God promises that he will not turn away from us and we will not turn away from him. Verse 40: “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.” In other words, his heart-work is so powerful that he guarantees we will not turn from him. This is what’s new about the new covenant: God promises to fulfill by his power the conditions that we have to meet. We must fear him and love him and trust him. And he says, “I will see to that. ‘I will put the fear of me in their hearts’ — not to see what they will do with it, but in such a way that ‘they may not turn from me.’” This is sovereign, sustaining grace.

4. God will do this with infinite intensity.

Finally, God promises to do this with the greatest intensity imaginable. He expresses this in two ways, one at the beginning and one at the end of verse 41: “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.” First, he says that he will exert this sovereign, sustaining grace with joy: “I will rejoice in doing them good.” Then he says (at the end of verse 41) that he will exert this sovereign, sustaining grace “with all my heart and all my soul.”

He rejoices to sustain you, and he rejoices with all his heart and with all his soul. Now I ask you, not with any sermonic exaggeration, or rhetorical flourish, or with any sense of overstatement at all — I ask you, I challenge you, can you conceive of an intensity of desire that is greater than a desire empowered by “all [God’s] heart and all [God’s] soul”?

“Sustaining grace overcomes all obstacles and preserves the faith and holiness that bring us home to heaven.”

Suppose you took all the desire for food and sex and money and fame and power and meaning and friends and security in the hearts and souls of all the human beings on the earth — say about eight billion — and you put all that desire, multiplied by all those eight billion hearts and souls, into a container. How would it compare to the desire of God to do you good, implied in the words “with all my heart and all my soul”? It would compare like a thimble to the Pacific Ocean. Because the heart and soul of God are infinite. And the hearts and souls of men are finite. There is no intensity greater than the intensity of “all [God’s] heart and all [God’s] soul.”

God Will Bring You Safely Home

So, you have four promises God gives you so that you may be sure that God’s sustaining grace will bring you safely home and not let you fall.

1. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
2. “I will cause you to fear me, to love me, to trust me.”
3. “I will not let you turn away from me.”
4. “And I will do all of this with infinite intensity of joyful desire: with all my heart and with all my soul.”

This is God’s sovereign, sustaining grace:

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
     Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
     And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.