Flaming Potatoes and the Sovereignty of God

The previous two posts explored bits and pieces of the Ephesians 1:11-14 and how sovereign grace actually effects the way that we actually live and move and do life.

“11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

We have discussed "in him" and "obtained an inheritance", no we turn our sights to "having been predestined according to the purpose of who works all things according to the counsel if his will." We must not get hung up in theological debate regarding the issues surrounding the doctrine of predestination.  Those discussions are for another time and place.  The point of this series is to discuss the "so what" so as to send us on and expedition of faith.

I became a follower of Jesus in the summer of 1995, since then I have sought to follow him into the world where he would be. I have changed and grown.  My following has matured but it is no less passionate.  Early on I struggled to come to terms with the doctrine of predestination.  It bothered be to think that God may not have chosen some to be his people.  I struggled to see what the point of engaging a lost world was if God was sovereign over salvation and if God had to be the one to bring people back to life. I really wanted to believe in a synergistic faith and not a monergistic faith.

Then I read, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God

 and God Centered Evangelism

. These two books transformed my view on doing ministry under the sovereign grace of God.  I discovered that God's sovereign grace actually propelled one to a radical evangelism because there was a confidence in that God would act and make himself known.

This is the beauty of the phrase that we are looking at here in Ephesians 1:11.  There is a purpose for all things.  It is not simply an accident that some people trust Christ or don't. It all with purpose and in accordance with the God's good, pleasing, and perfect will. There is nothing that we experience that is without purpose.  With purpose comes meaning and with meaning comes hope.

The follower of Jesus runs on sovereign grace.

We find hope, meaning, and purpose in its midst.

In college my floormates had a potato gun.  One night we took the screens out (which was illegal) of our third floor dorm rooms and fired (illegal) potatoes across the quad at another dorm (stupid).  It was exhilarating to watch the small purple balls fly across the night sky and explode as they hit the wall of the other dorm. To fire the gun you needed Aqua Net hairspray, an airtight compartment, and a flint to create a spark.

The doctrine of predestination is the flint for the follower of Jesus.  When it rubs against our sensibilities it creates a spark that sets aflame the Spirit of God within us. We are propelled like a flaming potato into God's mission for his glory (even if we don't agree with the doctrine, it still works!).